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OH NOT FOR THEE THE GLOW, THE BLOOM

Waking up the next morning is… disconcerting.

Sherlock opens his eyes to find Molly's feet still in his lap, one of his hands covering them. Warming them. This in itself surprises him: That he should be so concerned, even in sleep, is not something he would have expected of himself. Her body is turned on its side on the sofa; Her arms are crossed defensively over her chest, one hand lying looser than the other, splayed almost against the sofa cushions. As he shakes off the grogginess of waking he realises that his other hand has found its way atop Molly's loosened one, the heat of her skin warm and teasing against his palm. This too is unusual, almost as if… Almost as if he did not wish to break their contact, even in sleep.

Well, he thinks. That's… odd.

Not bad, just… odd.

He frowns at the thought, stretching slightly he takes in the rest of her. The weight of her legs are… reassuring against him, the bones of her feet as fragile as a bird's beneath his fingers. The easy rhythm of her breath is soothing to his ears; Though his neck hurts- he fell asleep sitting up- the warmth of her presence takes the edge of his stiffness, the feeling of having another human being beside him far less… cumbersome, than he would have otherwise imagined. Far less stifling than he might have guessed. Sherlock turns his head this way and that, working out the kinks, pressing down his shoulders. His movement must disturb her because Molly gives a little moue of distress, her brows drawing together, frowning. Eyes moving rapidly beneath her eyelids, her arms curling more tightly in on herself, as if readying herself for a blow. She gives out another little call, a shudder, her body shaking in the midst of some nightmare and for a moment Sherlock has absolutely no idea what to do, no notion of how to help her-

And then, frowning, hesitating, he reaches out and very slowly, very awkwardly, touches her hair. Strokes it. It feels very, very soft to him.

He has no idea if this will work, knows only that it used to work on him, all those years ago when he was just a small boy in a big house with nothing but Mummy and his experiments for company-

She calms, her breathing evening out. The frown marring her brow dissipating.

For a moment Sherlock stares down at her, nonplussed, unsure what he is doing.

He does not, however, take his hand away.

And he does not, however, wake her up.

He must fall back asleep after that because the second time he opens his eyes, it's to see John and Mary staring at him, still in their coats. Mrs. Hudson must have let them in, Sherlock thinks groggily, because he certainly didn't do it and John no longer has a key. As the couple exchange looks he becomes acutely aware of how… improper this must appear. Molly, asleep, Sherlock with his hands all over her. It's not like he was doing anything untoward, but he knows this must look a little… incriminating all the same.

As soon as he opens his mouth to explain this however, Molly jerks awake, his movement probably rousing her. For a moment he sees that same distress he saw last night, the siren call of her fight-or-flight response written across her form. But again when she sees him she stills. Calms herself. She smiles at him hesitantly and Sherlock smiles back. She opens her mouth to say something and then closes it, as if thinking the better of words. Instead she shakes her head to herself, going to sit up, and that's when she registers how they fell asleep.

It's also, Sherlock can see, when she registers his hands against the bare skin of her feet, her fingers.

As he might have expected, she turns bright red at the realisation.

Molly used to blush all the time when he first knew her. Her ineffectual attempts at flirting had been nothing on her blushing, in terms of tells. He'd known she found him physically attractive the moment she'd set eyes on him. But this blush seems different from those earlier ones, more intimate somehow. More… inviting, maybe. Or maybe just more… his. It's like a code-word, some symbol between them. A secret. As if, though she turns red, it's somehow tied to his insides too. Like it's somehow part of him. Sherlock want to scowl at that thought, knows it for the ridiculous romanticism it is. Human beings are alone in their flesh, he does not doubt this. No nuance, no connection is truly possible, save that tenuous moment when we might truly see another's darkness, another's cruelty. When we see Darwin's ape howling inside the flesh of Adam's breed.

But though he thinks this, somehow Sherlock cannot bring himself to believe it with her.

And when he looks at her, sees the way she's staring at him, Sherlock cannot shake his absolute certainty that she… That she feels something of this too.

He is brought back from his musings by John's snort of laughter though. His friend is looking at him in amusement. "Look, Geppetto," John murmurs to his wife. "He's a real, live boy now…"

Molly winces slightly in embarrassment, averting her eyes so Sherlock answers that in the only way possible, considering.

"Get bent, short-arse," he says crisply.

He inclines his head to Mary, to show it's not just his usual morning crankiness. John chortles.

"And good morning, Mary. Lovely to see you. I trust you slept well?"

"I did. As did you, I'll warrant." Mary's eyes are amused, but Sherlock doubts she'd be so insensitive as to make her friend uncomfortable the way her husband just did. Really, he muses, women just have so much more delicacy about these sorts of things. And as if to prove his point she turns her back on him, not mentioning how he and Molly fell asleep. Not even grinning at Molly as she disentangles her feet from his lap, much to Sherlock's disappointment. Instead she holds out her hand to the other woman, pretending not to notice as Hooper's blush deepens.

"Come on," she says, "I told the locksmith we'd be at your place for eleven and it's nearly ten now: We'd best get moving. Those locks won't change themselves, you know." She throws a glance at her husband.

"Besides, if you want to get a bag packed for Dartmoor and make the train, it'd be best to give ourselves as much time as possible: Henry says he can't possibly get up into London before one and we don't want to keep the poor man waiting-"

Molly clambers to her feet. She's still wearing Sherlock's coat, and it's become a mass of creases and wrinkles in the night.

She does not, however, he is pleased to note, attempt to take it off.

"Oh, of course," she says, making for Sherlock's bedroom. "Henry's the friend of Sherlock and John's, isn't he? The one who was involved with the Baskerville case?"

Mary nods, hustling her into Sherlock's bedroom. Which is apparently now her dressing room, he thinks. Not that he really minds.

"The very one," she says. "And I happen to have it on good authority that he's a little bit chewy, as my old mum would say-"

Molly stops and links, halfway to the door. "A little bit chewy?" she asks. "What on Earth does that mean?"

Mary shoots her a conspiratorial smile and though the words are not said in Sherlock's direction, they are clearly aimed at him.

"It means that he's the sort of lovely young man you wouldn't kick out of bed for eating crisps," Mary tells her. "Big house in the country, nice healthy trust fund, and did I mention he works with children who've been through trauma now? Wants to give something back after the whole Baskerville thing, he says." Mary's gaze turns positively devilish. "So we'd best get you looking your best, because they do say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone, Molls-"

"Mary!" Molly sounds absolutely mortified, and Sherlock will never admit it in a thousand years but he's pleased to hear it. Molly end up with someone like Henry Knight? It's absurd. He wouldn't have the first clue how to take care of her: He has the whole broken bird thing going on himself, he'd expect a woman to handle him like fine China, not the other way around. And what would they talk about? Lovely young man and all that (if you liked that sort of thing, Sherlock grudgingly admits) but he'd never be able to entertain a woman like Molly. Molly likes autopsies and figuring out how murders were committed. Molly likes people who ask for her help and treat her like she's useful, not idiotic posh boys with hang-dog expressions and disgustingly large puppy dog eyes and-

"Sherlock?" he hears John's voice intrude on his thoughts. "Sherlock, are you ok, mate?"

Holmes snaps his attention back to his best friend. It belatedly occurs to him that Molly and Mary have disappeared inside his room. "Of course I'm alright, Pinocchio," he says tartly. "Why do you ask?"

John steps closer. "Because you're squeezing that cup so tightly I'm in fear for its life, that's why."

They both look down and Sherlock realises that yes, he is indeed holding onto one of the teacups from last night unconscionably hard. A saucer too. He suspects he was originally planning on putting them in the dishwasher but things went... awry.

Well, Sherlock thinks, how about that?

Before he can answer though, John leans in closer. Puts a friendly hand on Holmes' back. "Look, Mary's just teasing, mate," he says softly. "She's just trying to get a rise out of you. I've told her that you'll talk to Molly in your own time and space but she wants you to get a move on. Thinks if you do it'll get Molly over The Bastard a bit quicker-"

Sherlock's not feeling very charitable about her methods and he blames that for what he says next.

"Well, if she'd never introduced them they we wouldn't be in this mess, would we?" he bites out.

He is well aware that it is not exactly his finest moment.

Instantly John's face goes hard. "I am going to put that statement down to worry about Molly," he says stiffly. "And since it's a product of worry about Molly, and Molly is being taken care of now, then it will not be necessary to repeat it again. Ever. Is that entirely clear Sherlock?"

And he rocks back in his heels, arms crossed. Sherlock knows that look.

Mary apparently calls it the Gandalf Special: It roughly translates as you shall not pass. Works on dragons, orcs, balrogs and monsters of all descriptions.

Works on Consulting Detectives too, apparently, because, with a great deal more grace than he's feeling, Sherlock nods.

Truth be told, he has no doubt that Mary feels guilty about bringing Hough into Molly's life. He has enough regrets of his own, to recognise their presence in another. And he knows that his own quicksilver emotions are probably at the root of all this: Let him see Molly put on the train to Dartmoor and he'll feel better. He'll know she's safe. Ollie's not back from his conference in Cardiff for another few days and once he is Sherlock will have the pleasure of torturing him to distract him from this topsy-turvy, whatever-the-Hell-is-going-on with-Ms.-Hooper-and-the-strange- mysterious-heart-pangs-she-causes… thing.

So with as much grace as he can muster, he stands up and heads for the shower. Takes a quick one, giving Molly time to get changed before he comes out and is compelled to kick her out of their- ahem, his- room. By the time he's finished she's ready to go, forcing Sherlock to get a move on if he wants to go with her. He chooses a grey charcoal suit and a matching purple shirt for no particular reason- and certainly not because he has noticed Molly has a certain fondness for them- and all but bounds out the door as the Watsons and Molly leave.

They share a cab and he makes an effort to be polite to Mary, just to show John that he can stop glaring at him.

Molly insists on sitting beside him, her hand splayed next to, but not quite touching, his during the entire ride.

The first stop is Molly's Whitechapel flat, where they pick up a bag of clothes and leave John to supervise the locksmith. The second is St. Bart's, where Mary and Sherlock flank Molly protectively as she haltingly explains to Stamford about her having to leave for a couple of weeks, and how Ollie shouldn't be let into the hospital. Stamford halts her halfway through that. "Molly," he says. "It's fine. You look after yourself: Don't worry about us, love." And he nods to Sherlock the way he nods to John when he's talking about what a wonderful doctor his wife is, setting something dark and warm and satisfied crooning in Holmes' chest.

The joy of that lasts as long as it takes them to get to Paddington Station and meet up with John again.

It lasts for as long as it takes John to hand Molly the new keys to her flat and to tell her that Henry Knight is waiting for them with Mrs. Hudson, that he's bought their tickets for the 1.32 train and is ready to go.

The warm feeling doesn't survive the wide-eyed, appreciative, slightly smitten look Henry shoots Molly when he sees her. It doesn't survive his offering to carry her bag for her.

Molly kisses Sherlock goodbye, her lips soft and dry against his cheek, her arms around his neck for a moment, and all the way back to Baker Street Sherlock wonders why it never occurred to him to offer his services as escort in Dartmoor.