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Two days later, Sherlock was asleep with his head on Molly's stomach, right beneath the incision. He'd asked John Watson if he would be hurting her if he put his head on her stomach, afraid that he would be pressing down against her broken ribs, but he'd been assured that she would be fine. Sherlock pretended that the expression of astonishment on John's face hadn't been there.
And so he slept on her, his mouth lax, half of his brain consciously monitoring the beeping of the machines and the rise and fall of her chest. John had done the math and figured that Sherlock hadn't slept in about five days, essentially living off fumes.
They'd taken out her breathing tube yesterday, the doctors finally confident that she could breathe by herself, but still unsure when and if she would ever wake up.
But early that morning, Molly's brain finally started firing away, her synapses connecting, surging, enticing her back to the surface, back to consciousness. She opened her eyes, sure that she would see nothing but blinding darkness again and found herself confused when she was staring at a ceiling. She stared for a while, frowning and wondering what she was looking at, what that strange beeping was, and what the mass of black curls on her stomach could be.
But as her synapses began to fire with more assertiveness and clarity, she figured that she was in some hospital somewhere, hooked up to an EKG machine and the lump of black curls on her stomach…
Molly lifted her heavy, limp arm, the one free of the needles, and sunk her fingers into his hair, "Sherlock," she sighed, her lips and the corners of her mouth hurt as if they'd been stretched, her throat so dry it felt as if she'd been breathing sand for ages.
He jerked up, nearly falling out of his chair, having her heard her hoarse whisper somehow. "Molly," he said wordlessly, blinking rapidly as if questioning whether she was really awake or if he was hallucinating her, "Molly," he breathed again, lifting himself to sit on the edge of the bed, those pale eyes rimmed with red, become lakes of glass as tears welled up in his eyes.
"You found me," she whispered, "knew you'd find me," she swallowed painfully, wincing.
"Here," he brought a glass of water to her lips, "sip," he told her gently, using one hand to lift up her head gently, holding the glass so that she could take a sip.
"Thank you," she sighed as he let her sink back into the bed, "what happened?"
"I'll tell you later," he promised, leaning down to press his forehead against hers, "all that matters is that you're here, you're with me," he breathed with her for a few moments, enjoying the contact, relishing the knowledge that she was alive, that she was alright, "I want to kiss you but I'm afraid of hurting you."
She chuckled at that, lifting her hand heavily to cup his cheek, rubbing his bearded jaw with her thumb, "I don't think I would mind," she told him, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears.
Sherlock lifted his head, a single curl dropped on his forehead, the shadow of his beard defining the sharpness of his cheekbones even more. He had lost weight, there was a tremor in his hands as he stroked her back, her shoulders, soothing her hair away from her face. There were black bags under his eyes, a dullness to them that she hadn't seen since that night he stole into her room. He cupped her face in his palms now, "I'll be gentle," he promised, leaning down and brushing his lips so gently against hers, a sigh away. "Molly," he said on a breath before kissing her completely, stealing her breath into his lungs, filling her.
She kept her eyes open, afraid of closing them and descending into that terrible darkness. She opened her mouth to Sherlock, feeling his tongue sweep in and tasting her so thoroughly, the intimacy of the kiss somehow compounded by the fact that her eyes were open. With each stroke of his tongue, she felt herself return to her body, felt her soul fill every nook and cranny that she had fled from within herself. Only the taste of him kept her memories at bay, kept her from remembering…remembering…
"Just relax Dr. Hooper, it'll all be over soon. Just close your eyes and think of Sherlock Holmes when he sees you like this. If they ever find you of course."
Too quickly he pulled back, breathing heavily against her lips, "I nearly went mad thinking I'd lost you," he told her, "I don't...I don't know what I would do without you in this world."
She smiled at his words, the sincerity in his eyes pinning her to the hospital bed. She curled her fingers into his hair, letting him settle in next to her though he was careful not to put any of his weight on her. But something in her expression changed as she processed his words, as she considered what he had just told her, the declaration of love, the value he had conferred onto her life… "Then why did you leave me?" she asked him gently, without any hint of accusation in her tone.
He sat back, his expression one of disbelief that she had asked him that instead of letting him kiss her and hold her, welcome her back to life. But this was Molly, and she was extraordinary. "What do you mean?"
"If you care so much about me Sherlock, why did you leave me?" she repeated, a single tear escaping her eyes, trailing down her cheek, "why did you leave me?" her voice was a hoarse whisper now, her voice cracking not just from the abuse her throat had endured but from the emotions that had began to bubble up to the surface.
"Mr. Holmes you pressed the call button?" the nurse crashed through door without ceremony, "Dr, Hooper! Oh dear you're awake!" the nurse immediately rushed towards Molly and began checking various drips and IVs, "we'll get Dr. Gloucester in here immediately to check you over," the nurse clucked around Molly.
Sherlock sank away from the bed under the pretense of giving the nurse and the doctor more room to work with as they checked Molly for any signs of anything that they hadn't caught in her unconscious state. She didn't glance at Sherlock, didn't want to even acknowledge him in the room. She would've shut her eyes had she not been afraid of the encompassing darkness…
He had pressed the button for the nurse to not talk to her. He called her his love, told her she meant the world to him, and yet he'd pressed that damned button instead of talking to her.
As the doctor exposed Molly's stomach, lifting the bandages, she stared straight up at the ceiling and pressed her lips together so tightly that they began to hurt, the marks around her mouth stretching. She wanted to scream, to cry out for him to take her hand, to kiss her and comfort her while the doctor and nurses crowded her, trapping her. She wanted him to be able to see, to understand that she was panicking, that she was going mad from it all.
"I've always been fascinated by hearts. We store all our emotions, all our feelings, all our attachments in the deepest recesses of our minds, and yet we have chosen the heart to symbolize it all. Is it because hearts are so essential to our physical existence? So then that means without our love, we wither and die."
But her love had pressed the call button, and he remained a specter in the corner, watching the scene unfold with a bowed head as Molly finally let the tears stream down her face, "please! Please can I just…can you open the window? I can't….I can't breathe. This is too much. Too much," her voice was hoarse and she felt deep humiliation at the frailty she heard in herself, her weakness somehow more humiliating because Sherlock was still in the room.
"But continuing our discussion about the differences in our brains and hearts, I've always wondered why a patient who is having surgery on his brain must be kept conscious and yet a patient receiving surgery on their most vital organ is put to sleep? I, for one, would be so interested in staying conscious while a surgeon cut open my chest and looked at my heart. So please, tell me what you are feeling as I proceed."
After all, she had to be strong for Sherlock, she had to be the rock of Gibraltar in their relationship, his rock and touchstone, his champion…
"You may feel a slight twinge as I crack your ribs Dr. Hooper, but it cannot be avoided unfortunately."
Molly wanted to weep.
The nurses immediately followed her instructions, the doctor halting his examination to give her room to recover. But one of the nurses knew better, an older. woman with the kindest smile Molly had ever seen. She held Molly's hand gently in her own, the same hand Sherlock had held for so many endless hours, "take a deep breath child and count to four, hold for a count of three, and let it out for another four," she instructed Molly, "it will help you catch your breath," after a few moments, the nurse patted Molly's hand, "there now dear, all better."
Molly looked around the room, her need to hold his hand overwhelming her, overcoming her pride, her need for self-preservation… but he was gone.
