Cheap Melodrama
Being single was not without benefit. Molly knew that. There was little she enjoyed more than briskly, purposefully, winding her way through the aisles at Tesco, dodging over-laden mothers with unwieldy trolleys and temperamental toddlers, carrying a single basket brimming with luxury items. Brown paper-wrapped bottle, premium scotch filet, exotic fruit (top cover for the cheeses and Terry's Chocolate Orange) and a rather pretentious looking loaf of grain bread all sat prettily in her basket and as long as she didn't remember that she'd be eating them alone, she'd be fine.
True, with all of her injuries she looked like a villainous extra from a Die Hard film. And, yes, she had a sneaking suspicion that heartache would set in at any moment (hence the chocolate). But starting the day off on the receiving end of a rather stellar bout of oral sex was not to be sniffed at.
Too bad everything after the fact had soured the event for her.
There had been something empowering, encouraging even, about watching his dark head dipped between her thighs, knowing that every ounce of his energy had been dedicated to her. He'd stayed the night and there he was, devoted and hers and... just lying. Even better, he was lying without ever saying a word.
Did he think she'd be placated by an orgasm (for longer than it took recover her breath, that is)?
Molly stuffed a bag of crisps into her basket.
It wasn't as if she'd asked him to start picking out china patterns. All she'd wanted was his active participation. Was it too much to ask?
Apparently.
A second bag of crisps went sailing into the basket.
"Prefer scampi flavour, myself." The voice came from next to Molly, loud enough, but obscured as the speaker was looking down at her mobile phone.
Mycroft's aide (Anthea?) was, as always, the very picture of professionalism. Molly had to applaud her ability to make the black slacks and matching kimono jacket (Topshop, if she wasn't mistaken) look far more expensive than they were. Obviously Mycroft hadn't managed to beat her electronic dependencies out of her, but she must have possessed some desirable skill for him to keep her on staff.
Molly glanced at her wristwatch. "I don't suppose it's too much to ask to be left alone for, oh, I don't know, 24 hours?"
Anthea gave an indelicate snort and briefly lifted her eyes from her phone. "With your taste in men? Not likely."
"Would it be too much to hope that our meeting here is a coincidence?"
Again, she looked up from her phone, this time she looked almost pitying.
Well, she wasn't going to go quietly. Molly fished her phone out of her pocket and offered Anthea an apologetic smile, "Just a sec, I've got a quick call to make. Then we can be on our way."
John answered on the second ring, "What have you done to him?"
"Since when are we assuming that things are my fault?"
"Statistically speaking, lately, they are," John sounded far from impressed. "Molly, he bought you groceries. He won't even feed himself, but he bought you food."
"That wasn't it. He wouldn't," Molly flicked her eyes to a mother and toddler then lowered her voice, "You know. He wouldn't. With me."
She could actually hear John rolling his eyes. "The man wouldn't shag you scant hours after you were drugged and escaped from a deadly criminal? Bastard."
"Oh, we're taking sides now?" Molly looked up and gave Anthea a somewhat insincere smile by way of apology.
"Between the two of you? There are no sides. You're as bad as each other. Except, right now, he's armed. So I suppose for safety's sake I'll side with Sherlock."
"What's he doing?"
"Shooting kittens." She turned a peculiar shade of green and nearly lost hold of her basket.
"Not actual kittens, don't be daft." John hastened to clarify matters, "Just a calendar. One of Mrs Hudson's."
Well, that would make sense, wouldn't it? Molly's lips twisted in a guilty little giggle. At the end of the day, all of Sherlock's problems came back to pussy.
Of course, it was hardly the time to let her indelicate sense of humour run rampant. She sobered up and clutched her phone a little more securely against her ear. "Funnily enough, Sherlock isn't actually the reason for this call."
"He'll be devastated."
Molly chose to ignore John, "Have you met Mycroft's Anthea?" Anthea looked up and gave a little wiggle of her fingers for John.
"Great chest, surgically attached to her mobile?"
"Sounds about right. She's here with me. I suspect she wants something. Let me check..." Molly lowered her phone and arched an eyebrow at Anthea.
"Tea?" Anthea mouthed.
"She wants to have tea."
"It's never just tea with Anthea," John warned. "One minute it's 'one lump or two?' and the next it's about an assassination in Turkmenistan."
Molly had suspected as much, "I doubt she's asking. I just felt it prudent to let you know my whereabouts. Might help you trace my steps when my corpse turns up." Anthea had the good grace not to look too offended. Molly lowered her phone again. "Where are we having tea?"
"Claridge's."
Oh, nice, Molly had always wanted to go there.
"Claridge's, Mayfair," she relayed the location to John.
"Can you get out of it? Are you in a public place?"
Molly narrowed her eyes at Anthea, "I suppose I could try and take her, but I am out of shape. Haven't been for a jog since the drive by at mine. Still, even if I could I doubt I'd be able to best whoever she's got waiting in the wings." Molly tuned her attention once more to Anthea, "You do have people waiting, don't you?"
This time Anthea didn't even bother to look up. "Three men, all very scary."
"Should I be worried?"
"It's tea, Doctor Hooper, nothing to be alarmed about," Anthea said as she took possession of Molly's basket and set it gently on the ground.
John must have heard, because Molly lifted her phone to catch him warning her in a hard voice, "Be alarmed, Molly, be very alarmed."
John pocketed his phone and moved swiftly downstairs. "Sherlock? Sher-" He ducked back out into the corridor until he heard all live fire cease.
"You still have excellent reflexes," Sherlock observed as he engaged the safety mechanism on the pistol.
"Need them living with you."
"Don't gripe. You thrive on excitement."
"Excitement, yes. But I've been shot before, I don't relish revisiting that level of pain and turmoil."
With the gun safely deposited on the coffee table, John ventured into the room.
"Speaking of pain and turmoil, I presume you have something for me? That is why you came screeching down the stairs like a fishwife... Yes?"
"Molly seems to be in a spot of trouble. Again."
Sherlock's eyes rolled heavenward as he bit his bottom lip. "What is it this time?"
"You needn't sound so put upon," John grabbed Sherlock's coat and tossed it to him, "Anthea's collected her. So, really, this all boils down to her association to you."
A long lazy sweep of his hand dismissed John's scalding. "It always boils down to me with Molly."
"And yet you persist with her. Why is that?"
Sherlock pinned him with a rather scathing look, "What would you have me do? Cut her away?"
"Might be the safest option. Yet here we are and you haven't considered it."
That earned John a bitterly indulgent smile. "I consider everything, John."
"But you won't leave her alone."
"Not much of a choice now, is there?" Sherlock shrugged into his coat and tossed the flat keys to John.
They made it a full fifteen minutes in the cab before John could no longer contain himself. "I just have one question, Sherlock."
"I cannot wait to hear it," His eyes remained fixed on the world beyond the taxi windows.
"Have you considered that you might love Molly?"
And that, Sherlock 'I consider everything' Holmes, is how you hoist a man by his own petard.
He might have felt smug had he not noticed how white Sherlock's face had turned, how positively ill he looked.
Suddenly, John just felt like a bit of a shit.
Sometimes a girl just felt underdressed for an occasion. Sometimes it had nothing to do with clothing. She could have been wearing full Kevlar for her first meeting with Moriarty (rather than a bed sheet) and still felt utterly unclothed. It was the same thing again as she nervously stepped into Claridge's and wished for a pretty sundress, or a chic pantsuit. Not that she truly felt it would make one damn bit of difference. If she continued to feel uncomfortable in her own skin, all the clothes in the world wouldn't change that.
What she wouldn't give to be that brazen girl who had wantonly and wickedly writhed naked under the attentions of one Sherlock Holmes. Until, of course, he'd sat back and declined to participate in his own bloody seduction. That had cured her of any notion that she was wanted.
Really, Molly, you'll have a lifetime of watching Dr Phil to try and sort this out. Perhaps now is not the time to agonise over the humiliating heap that is your sex life...
Claridge's was the sort of place frequented by only the well-heeled or cashed up tourists. The Foyer boasted some of London's loveliest Art Deco furnishings and Molly felt bolstered by the gentle noise of china and forks clinking softly as the largely female clientele gossiped and confided in polished tones (okay, so there was an abrasive Texan accent somewhere in the far corner of the room, but it was easy enough to ignore).
It was an oddly public meeting place for Mycroft to select. Molly slowed and turned to question Anthea, but it seemed even the tea rooms of Claridge's weren't safe from her electronic sacrilege. Not for the first time, Molly wondered if Anthea wasn't simply addicted to Candy Crush Saga. Surely nobody was so utterly in demand that they couldn't be parted from their phone for just a few minutes?
They arrived at a neatly tucked away table. It had two cream and blue eggshell chairs, Edwarian maybe, and was set with a stunning and expensive array of Wedgewood. Molly wished that she'd worn something a little more feminine than jeans and her favourite cream twinset.
"Will Mycroft be long?" Molly asked as she sank into the plush upholstery of her seat. Anthea looked up from her phone, puzzled. "Mycroft? Your employer."
"Well, technically speaking, I'm employed by Grimsthorpe Estate, family seat of the Homles'. It just so happened that Mycroft has most use for my talents."
"Just not today?" Molly asked, growing nervous.
Anthea's smiled generously as she offered a wink and began to back away, "Not today."
It took Molly a full five minutes to talk herself out of hurling Wedgewood around the room and given how attentively she was attended by staff, she suspected they could see how close to violence she was. Molly hated, hated, feeling as though she were about to become the punch line of some grand joke. When, exactly, would the Holmes family just leave her alone?!
"Don't look so upset, Doctor Hooper, I spent the first three years of my marriage to the late Mr Holmes feeling all adrift. It'll pass."
Molly was assailed by the rich notes of Jo Malone's Pomegranate Noir scent moments before her eyes and feeble mind caught up. Jacqueline Moriarty sat smartly across the table from her, a picture in tailored black slacks and a red silk blouse. A simple, tasteful and gob-smackingly expensive row of diamonds glittered at her throat.
It was just as well that Moriarty had the good sense to snatch Molly's wrist before she could hurl a teacup at the her. It wasn't the sort of place where one should make a scene.
"Isn't this nice?" she smiled warmly as she prised Molly's fingers from the fine china and set the teacup down, "Just us girls."
"Mrs Holmes." Molly stated rather sulkily.
How had she not noticed those damned cheekbones the first time around? Not to mention the thick dark hair pulled so severely back from her sharp features.
"Don't look so upset, even Sherlock hasn't figured it out yet. He'll take exception to me interfering with you. He should be along shortly. A terrible reason for a son to contact his mother, but I'll take what I can get these days."
"I hate your family," Molly muttered as she slouched back into her seat.
Jacqueline seemed genuinely delighted by the childish statement. "Yes, well, then you should fit right in."
It appeared that the staff of Claridge's were quite adept at tactfully diffusing social disasters, a young waitress swept in to take their tea orders. As it turns out, 'black' is not how one should order tea. Mrs Holmes covered for Molly neatly by snapping her menu shut and announcing that they would both have the Darjeeling.
"You know," Molly snagged a freshly delivered cucumber sandwich, "You being who you are goes a long way to explaining why Sherlock is who he is."
"If only it were that simple," Jacqueline looked Molly over slowly, then nodded once as though pleased by what she saw. "Sherlock's evolution is what made me who I am today, I'm afraid."
Molly finished her food and leaned forward, her silence prompting the older woman to continue.
"Imagine having a son who won't talk, then will, but not to you. A husband who encourages coldness. A house more silent than a tomb... Then the husband dies and it may as well be a tomb. I'm not asking for pity, Molly. I have done unforgivable things, but things that I hope will, in time, be understandable. When Sherlock was young he was so affectionate. Keen to love and learn everything the world had. By then Mycroft had grown to be his father's son. I allowed it, I had little choice. But Sherlock was mine."
Molly could see it too. A tiny whirl of activity and endless curiosity. Rosy cheeks and inky curls. All that she could see, but a child who would crawl into his mother's arms? No, she couldn't see that.
"Oh, I know, you wouldn't guess it now, I suppose I'm to blame for that. You've no idea what my marriage was like. Stifling, cold. I had been bred and their father had no use for me. He had his heir and his spare and both were of an age to be sent to school. We agreed that I could return to the city to teach, but only if I resigned myself to sending Sherlock to boarding school. I hardly knew any better. I thought that maybe they could handle him, his mind outgrew mine more and more every day. He knew so much and I had so little to offer him. Before I knew it a decade had passed, their father was gone and the cold young man that returned to me regarded me as little more than a stranger. You can't imagine how it hurts to watch something you love eschew your touch."
Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that. "This paints a very pretty picture, but tells me nothing of how we came to be here today."
"Richard was 18 when I met him. He approached me after a lecture on Digital Ethics, of all things, the Internet was a growing beast at that stage, cell phones were hardly common. It was such an exciting and burgeoning field. Call it a mother's wilful ignorance, but here was a boy who still needed guidance. A brilliant boy so like my Sherlock, but with one difference: he still needed me."
In that moment Jacqueline looked almost fragile, aged hands playing over the diamonds at her neck, her expression flickering nervously to Molly as though awaiting her judgement.
Molly remained silent.
"Years I worked with him, I suppose I was blind the whole time. I never realised-"
"What a murderous shit he was?"
Jacqueline looked away, "I forget that you knew him. Intimately."
It was so difficult not to snort. "I never knew him. I just saw one of his many masks. It's Sherlock that saw him for who he was. It's Sherlock that's suffering, even now, at the hands of a dead madman."
"I can help him!" She leaned in and grasped Molly's hand. "I just need time. There's still so much at risk. It's still so dangerous. We still have to find-"
"Sebastian Moran." Sherlock's voice shot right into Molly's stomach. She had to stop herself from sighing.
Oh good, another name that she simply did not know.
"That's right, isn't it, Mother?" Sherlock casually passed off his coat and gloves to John, who in turn juggled them briefly before adding his own coat and handing them over to a waiting attendant. "Moran was another of your protégés. Not as smart as Brook, not really. But he was wily, had the sort of practical smarts that take a man far in the world. He might have been fine too, if Richard Brook hadn't found out about him. Gotten his claws into him."
Only in Sherlock's world would this conversation be carried out in such a casual tone. Molly tried to imagine having a similar exchange with her father, but came up blank. For one, the man couldn't get the plot from an episode of The Bill straight, so the high level machinations of the Holmes family would most likely be beyond him. For another matter, Molly couldn't see herself participating in such a conversation without doing some serious wailing and maybe just the smallest amount of flailing.
"Could you bring some chairs?" This from John who spoke quietly to a passing waiter.
"Actually, no need." Molly jumped up from her seat and grandly indicated that Sherlock should take it. "It's about time I leave and oh!."
Sherlock slipped into the chair, neatly snagging Molly about the waist as he did so. Molly struggled against his arm for a few moments before she realised that Sherlock had no intention of letting her up.
"This is unseemly, Sherlock!"
But nobody seemed to mind Sherlock's indecorous behaviour. He simply settled her more comfortably onto his lap and smiled as tea was delivered. "Forgive us," he slipped into a good-natured persona as he winked at their waitress and spanned his hand out across her abdomen, "We're sharing some good news!"
You irredeemable shit.
Molly eyed the steeping pot of tea, pondering the likelihood of incurring any burns herself should she happen to drop it on his arm. John didn't miss her wistful glance and offered her an apologetic smile as he slipped the tea out of her reach.
John Watson, you traitor.
Not that it was uncomfortable being in Sherlock's lap... and wasn't that just the problem? Sherlock's sheer physical presence was, now and always, so large and warm, so very comforting that no matter what Molly's mind screamed, no matter what transgression he had (or would) commit, there were few places she'd rather be than in the spaces of his body that seemed so perfectly carved to accommodate her. She could bemoan his coldness all she wanted, but how many men could melt her with nothing more than a kiss on the cheek, a proffered packet of crisps, a talented tongue or just a warm lap to curl up on? It was so utterly unfair that she wanted to scream. Even a good man like John had left her cold (and, okay, a little sticky) during their one abortive attempt at intimacy. Not to mention how disastrously it had ended. Even dead, Sherlock was capable of destroying her sex life. How desperately she wished he'd feel even a fraction of what she felt for him. Even if it wasn't love, it was compelling enough to turn her into the most heinous sort of masochist. Always willing and ready to face his inevitable and humiliating rejection.
She knew, more clearly than she knew anything else, how very wrong, how utterly vile it was that she wanted to hurt him (Oh, look, a sadist too!) but it was all she had. Twice now she'd turned him away from her bed. Twice now she'd seen the sweet glaze of confusion in his eyes. Twice now she'd felt power for the first time ever. It was sort of like kicking a puppy and it made her ill to know that even now she craved that small measure of sway over Sherlock.
It was a counterfeit sort of power, she knew that too. Gained only by cornering him in the only field where he lacked knowledge. How neatly she played him, the confused virgin. Eager to please. Terrified of pleasure.
She wasn't sure that Sherlock even realised that his fingers were playing gently beneath the hem of her shirt, tracking across the waistband of her jeans. Molly shifted unhappily and looked to Jacqueline, whatever else she had missed in her time she hadn't missed her son's attachment to Molly. Again that little nod, as though something about the whole scenario pleased her.
"So Moran...?" Molly tried to bring the conversation back on task.
"Until recently we didn't regard him to be a real threat," Jacqueline explained, "He was Brook's dogsbody. Only now it seems that either Richard left a detailed plan in the event of his death, or Moran is starting to make plans of his own."
Molly's cheeks burned at the thought... "He's the one who tried to torch my flat, isn't he?"
Was it her imagination, or did Sherlock's arm tighten around her?
"Yes, but I do have to own some responsibility for that. We'd been watching you for some time, waiting for Sherlock to show. We hadn't anticipated that Sebastian would... He was spotted outside your flat. That was when I enlisted Mycroft. He had the assets to afford you the appropriate level of surveillance, but we were stretched so thin, between watching you and 221b. It only made sense to leave men on the job as long as you were actually home."
Realisation dawned. "I wasn't supposed to be home."
"Your leave form had been processed by hand, we had no way of knowing you weren't at work. Your detail always left just before you went to Barts, it was identified as a safe place for you to be." Jacqueline nursed her tea as she continued, "John, however, was being followed around the clock. His detail followed him to your home the night before the attack, that's how we knew something was amiss with your schedule." Beneath her, Molly felt Sherlock's loose limbs snap to attention. What she wouldn't give for him to be an idiot, to be the sort of man who could so easily dismiss a throw-away statement, so innocently given. Jacqueline continued heedless of the shift in mood. "It simply took us too long to muster the appropriate personnel to cover your house. When your flat was attacked the next day your security was barely half an hour away."
Molly scarcely knew where to look. Turning to look at Sherlock would damn her more than anything else could. Looking toward John would be tantamount to a confession... and there was no longer a need for confession. Sherlock now knew exactly who had coaxed her out of her knickers on the eve of his resurrection.
Any normal man might have been moved to violence. It would have been nice to see that Sherlock was capable of jealousy. Capable of a normal response, no matter how hurtful. Instead Molly felt only the low, intimate rumble of his voice as he spoke just beneath her ear, his lips glancing across the delicate skin of her neck as he ducked his head low. "I always miss something, don't I?"
From there, things went downhill quickly. His arm had tightened about her waist briefly as he stood, then deposited her back into the seat. "John?" His voice was stiff, painfully cordial. "Outside. Now, please." Jacqueline watched the two men leave with keen interest. When they we finally alone she turned back to Molly, who was busying herself with a small opera cake.
If you cry now, Molly warned herself, I shall never forgive you.
"Have I done something wrong?" Jacqueline asked.
"No. I have."
A/N: Comments, as always, are massively encouraging and very welcome.