I know you guys have been waiting forever for an update and I apologize for taking so long but I'm working on more than one story at the moment, so I'm getting chapters out as soon as possible. I hope you enjoy this chapter, it wasn't exactly the easiest thing for me to write because Sherlock is such a complicated character and evolving his relationship with Molly has been pretty difficult to do. Regardless, I did the best I could, so I hope you're all satisfied with the way it turned out.
As odd as it sounded, he wasn't sure how this all started. Sherlock couldn't pinpoint the exact moment he came to the conclusion that kissing Molly Hooper was a good idea. It was unexpected and a tad drastic move on his end, if he were to linger on it. He had no clear answers, no reason besides his taxing and encumbered flow of emotions, which as of right now, he couldn't even date back to when they started.
Perhaps he was reading into things too much, thought too much on particular events and vague sensations when really nothing was set in stone. But when it comes to Sherlock Holmes, few things are truly nothing. And if he had at some point actually learned to trust instinct over logic, his very base of reason, something must be amiss. There was just something about her, something different.
Whatever it was, intensified the need to know more about her, she had somewhere along the line intrigued him and caught hold of his attention in such a light and yet shrouded way. He knew with all her tendencies, it was never Molly's objective to say anything at all, never thought she could fascinate him to such a degree. To be honest, he was probably more surprised than she was.
And something, he wasn't quite sure what, told him while making a move like this wasn't entirely safe, it wasn't completely wrong either. Kissing the brunette wasn't setting danger to fall upon her or anyone else he considered close. But one could never be too sure, because he knew there was always someone out there smart enough to use those who matter against you.
There was nothing unusual about this day that could have foreseen this event. No case that had his blood racing, since one was just finished a short while ago, no life or death moment that he could use to blame his actions on. In fact, the day had been a rather boring one, a mundane string of events leaving him in too much thought and little sense of preservation.
Memories jumped from laying on the couch, attempting to simply force his affections away for a while, just a few seconds so he could spare himself some justification, to when he casted it all aside and pressed his lips to hers. It was different though, held a strange feeling but between intermingling breaths and clumsy hand movements, he couldn't find rationality in anything at all.
Molly didn't even pull away. He knew why though, she had secretly wanted this so long, too long probably, and couldn't snap herself out of the moment. His fingers stroked the smooth skin of her face with only slight hesitance in the initial contact. Warmth flooded his already feverish body, setting his nerves on fire. The light, almost airy way she ran her small digits through his hair entranced him, pushing him to keep going.
The taste of her lips was somewhat familiar to him, perhaps the way he imagined they'd be, so sweet it both burned his tongue and made his heartbeat quicken in pace. But he had to pull away eventually, right? Stop the wave of static charging through his system. Because despite himself, he wanted this, more than he believed he ever could. And he was driving himself into the ground trying to figure out why.
Eventually, he came to a realization that this could very well instigate more problems between them and he tugged away, causing her to lean forward a bit after his sudden movement. Sherlock eyes darted away, his breath steadying itself once air could be properly taken in. He unexpectedly found it harder to breathe, to hold an even rhythm.
He took a moment to glance at Molly. Her head was slightly lowered. Her fingers tightly clenched together, and her expression, although only partly seen, swirled with emotion, mostly confusion of what just happened, if he had to guess. The silence in the room, however, was more overwhelming than he anticipated. Sherlock took a step back, needing to gain some distance.
His shoulders slumped forward under the strain. He didn't deserve to be standing before the woman who'd done nothing but cared for him, loved him if he would be so bold to consider. And what did he give her in return after everything they've been though? Pain? Loneliness? Jealousy? All three of them perhaps. Quite honestly, he wasn't sure.
"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have…" His voice ended up trailing but that was about the only thing he could get himself to say. The utter despondency and guilt now looming over him took control. What was he supposed to do now? Hadn't she been through enough already without him adding this, whether it meant more or not, to her? It wasn't subtle either, it was too quick.
Her head snapped up at the apology, her ponytail left swaying for a few seconds. His words caused a pain to weld up in her chest and she almost wanted be angry at him. But she couldn't be. "Then why?" she exhaled, her tone almost too light to hear. "Why did you kiss me like that?" She always wanted him to, but right now, when he was being so completely distant lately, she couldn't make sense of it.
"I didn't know what to say or do for that matter," he expressed, hands falling to his sides. Once he started the words just continued to come out. "I was caught off guard by the whole thing and it was staring at me straight in the face the entire time. John was right. I just, I can't stop thinking about it. Even if Moriarty never came into the picture and forced me to fake my death, I would still have developed these feelings at one point. In retrospect, it was only a matter of time. I tried to deny them. I thought… maybe all I was doing was confusing our friendship with something more. But as it turns out, I was so intent on denying the fact that I could actually care for someone in that way, I let everything build up."
How could he admit all of this to her now? Molly was almost ready to give up, still clinging onto whatever string of hope she could possibly grab onto. As long as they maintained the level of trust they formed over the years, she would have been okay with that, for the most part because her dreams of being with him, they never faded no matter how much time passed.
And now here he was claiming he had feelings for her, she never thought she'd ever hear such a statement from him. It rendered her speechless for a moment, making her bite down on her lip. "That's not funny, Sherlock," Molly expressed, disbelief taking over and it came out before she could stop herself. Her immediate response to his admission, if had come just a bit sooner, would have been something more accepting.
An automatic sense of happiness should have been there. Perhaps it was his tone of voice, or the way he said it, the way he no longer had that bold look on his face, the one she was used to seeing every day. It was calmer, more careful than she was accustomed to. And that should have been enough to dash away all her worries, her fears that he could be, for some reason, lying to her.
"I wasn't trying to be," he gently insisted. Sherlock could detect a lot from her response, her actions too but he couldn't bring himself to start nit-picking every little detail. He could see the apprehension coming back through her features as her lips came together and her brown orbs darted around, looking at anything that wasn't him. "You know who I am. You know I don't say things like that, to you especially, without meaning them."
Her breath was caught in her throat for a moment. While she has been avoiding his gaze before, she now wanted to meet it, wanted him to give her answers to the never ending wave of questions running through her mind. "You've known this whole time, haven't you? You knew how I've felt about you for all these years and you never said anything about it. Why?" Besides his small remark he made about the types of people she always fell for, nothing was ever said.
His mouth opened, trying to verbalize a coherent denial against her statement, to somehow say she was wrong, but he couldn't. Words would only got them so far though, particularly when the topic of conversation was this, but his eyes often spoke of things he would never say out loud, which could very well be a undoing. "Did you really expect me to? You clearly weren't going to admit anything either."
"You wouldn't have taken me seriously," she argued back. The brunette knew that from experience, from just being around him so often. Molly didn't want to go back and forth like this, but it hurt more than she thought it would. "Believe it or not, I tried to get you to notice me, tried even something as small as asking you out for coffee. But of course, you disregarded me."
He remembered, obviously he would. It was the same day he met John, just a few minutes previous to their first encounter. He did ignore her offer, not really grasping what she meant when he was so absorbed in his work. Even the whole lipstick thing passed over him. But he could look back now and see them. "I never meant to."
"But you did. And it's just hard to hear all of this now because I wanted you to feel the same way, it just doesn't seem real at all," she admitted, collapsing onto the couch. Her eyes were glossed with water but she blinked the tears away before they escaped, not wanting them to slide down her cheek and in turn make him feel worse and it was funny how she still thought about him so much when she was upset herself.
"It would have been simpler if you just stayed with Tom." That way she would have been off limits, still engaged to someone who she could be with without worrying about getting hurt or anything dangerous he came upon during cases. A hand rubbed over his eyes, vexation noticeably seeping through them. "This isn't exactly easy for me."
"Easy for you?" she repeated in question, her voice drawn out. "Do you this has been easy for me? I've felt this way about you for so long. I never said anything because I didn't want to burden you with my feelings." When she finally felt safe enough, she looked up at him, swallowing dryly. "I don't know what you were expecting to happen after telling me."
She wanted a lot of things, one of them being Sherlock Holmes. It was impossible to think he could ever have such an attachment to her. But what did he want from all of this? To forget it and move on? Or was it something entirely different, the one thing Molly found herself dreaming about more than she should have been, definitely more than she wanted to say.
He stared into her eyes and without meaning to, his voice dropped lower and softer. "I don't know." And he honestly didn't. Having a girlfriend wasn't who he was. He defined himself as a sociopath, meaning no empathy, no true romantic attachments. "Like I told you earlier, you deserve someone better than me." In all honesty, he couldn't understand how she could be so devoted.
Before she wouldn't have thought twice about accepting his confession but now, after everything they went through, her self-preservation was a bit stronger. And so was the need to guard her heart. "Let me be the one who decides what's best for me," Molly told him, standing from the sofa. "Yes, you're not exactly the 'I love you' type, but you proved people wrong before. So maybe I should let you decide what you want because you already know how I feel."
He looked at odds with himself, and suddenly, she wanted to, no needed to ask him if he's alright despite having only exchanged maybe a handful of words about what happened. Molly wasn't sure what always prompted herself to be the one who gave in first, but she can't quite quell it. This time, however, she remained silent, waiting for him to say something.
This was the first time she saw him like this, she was sure of it because even when he was stuck on a case he wasn't this confused, never in this much disarray. But he kept eluding her all day, every step of the way. Every stride she took, it was as if he'd take another two to get away. And she was tired of playing catch up with him and then he turned it all around on her.
It was apparent that even if he never said anything at all, never made such a bold move, nothing would have changed. She was still hopelessly falling for him, despite it all, despite everything he told her. Even now she wanted something she would never be so lucky to have. What were the chances of him actually wanting to be a couple? Just because he admitted he had feeling for her didn't automatically mean things would change between them.
It seemed that most things in her life, if not all of them, couldn't be explained, at least not easily. Love, pain, guilt, confusion, all of them were just a jumble of emotions. He said everything he wanted to and yet she still felt like he was holding something back. She was never one for falsities and lies. The truth hurts, yes, but she had grown up believing in it. And wasn't not knowing just as painful? Because Molly could attest for a fact that ignorance was most certainly not bliss.
Sherlock had the feeling that he should have said something sooner but the initial need was suppressed, even right now when he was given a chance, he still wanted to keep it all locked up. He ducked his head slightly. What she told him, making the decision on his own, it was a lot more difficult than he thought it would be. But she heard practically everything and he somewhat predicated something like this to happen.
It was like she asked him a difficult question to answer. Why he tried so hard to stay away, only to come back. In the end it was his decision. And maybe he just had to accept the fact that this was indeed something he couldn't rightfully explain. Wasn't that how affection, love even, worked though? You get pulled into it so quickly; one can hardly understand how it all started. Common sense could say it was wrong, but one simply couldn't control who their heart wanted and his was pulling in her direction.
His voice had come out a bit winded every time he spoke, because really there was no way to explain his actions. Before all of this he had been aloof when speaking to her, trying to hide the fact that he was growing fond of her, trying to prevent any sort of pain or upset to befall the brunette. It was a lot harder to do than he ever expected. He had no idea how much of a hold she had on him until she was pushed out, until he pushed her away.
In the end her happiness meant more to him than his own because perhaps down the line he never really thought he deserved something like that. His life was too complicated, too much in the darkness. "Molly," he finally said, gaining back her attention. He took a breath and waited a moment. "I know I shouldn't have disregarded your feelings the way I did, but you have to understand that I never wanted to hurt you."
"I do understand, Sherlock. More than you seem to realize," she told him. A small smile formed on her face, though it's more out of habit than anything. She became good at smiling despite the circumstances, good at pretending everything is alright, even when it wasn't. "You're always so busy, so focused on your work you never let anyone in. And once John entered your life, I think you started to see that having connections with people wasn't entirely a bad thing. Love was just never in the picture because you never let it be."
Sherlock took a breath before making a reply. She always seemed to know so much about him. Was it because Molly always cared for him? Paid attention whenever they were in the same room? "People tend to be more in tune with someone else when there's an attachment," he found himself saying instead of getting out any of the questions plaguing his mind.
"Is that a bad thing?" It was, wasn't it? In some aspects, she already knew what he was going to say. He was the same man she knew for years. It was when she looked up that and saw his expression; his normal in thought look changed the slightest bit in detail. And it was funny how time made no difference, not to her. He was still Sherlock Holmes no matter what.
"Depends on who you're asking," he remarked prior to taking a step closer to her, finally lessening the distance. He glanced down, her gaze reaching his. "It's not in your best interest to be in love with me, Molly Hooper. Danger follows me every passing day, I seek it out, it's a never ending game." A game he couldn't live without, being a detective was his life.
"I never cared about the danger," the brunette replied, shaking her head. After all, she was willing to do so much for him and if some risk was involved it wouldn't scare her away. She pulled at the end of her sleeves, her nerves starting to get the better of her, they always did when he was standing as close as he was. "What I care about is you."
"Which is why you never turned me down when I needed help, regardless of how I treated you. Again, I feel as if I must apologize," the detective mentioned. He had asked for her forgiveness before about all of that and she, of course, accepted it right away. But it was never really enough, he basically ignored her all along, looking over the fact that she had feelings for him. They came to light even more so during Christmas a few years back.
At that time he was overly bothered by Irene Adler, so he took the opportunity to deduce the top present in the bag she brought over, not knowing it was for him. Perhaps that was the moment he realized just how much she cared for him, that it went beyond a small crush. So, he asked for a pardon because the hurt look in her eyes, the sound of her voice even, made the guilt for embarrassing her increase.
"You didn't mean to come off as rude as you did." Molly was sure it never was intentional. She pressed her lips together for a moment. They somewhat diverged from the original topic and it was a bit difficult, however, she had to bring them back to it. "But now we're here, not knowing what to say to one another. And like I said, I don't know what you want."
She cared about him too much to ask for a direct answer, knowing he was having a difficult time on the matter. Normally, he could make up his mind rather quickly and had to on many occasions, when on a case, or during certain situations that came about. It was just different now, for more than one reason. What he wanted? That should be such a simple thing to answer.
But he disliked change, at least something that drastic. Sherlock pushed past his nagging feelings for so long that eventually he couldn't anymore and just kissed her out of nowhere. And the sensations following it held his interest, since it was unlike anything he felt before, yet he was still wavering. Though he already knew his affections weren't going anywhere.
"I'm not good when it comes to all this relationship stuff and quite frankly was never fond of the idea. It's a distraction, somewhat ridiculous and irritable in a sense. I was never with anyone… romantically, I guess you'd say for obvious reasons. And honestly, the practicality of people falling in and out of love with various people is simply a temperamental state of mind. It's the need to form a bond with a significant other that causes people to stumble into the norm of pairing off but really, it tends to blind people from the truth, since so they are so 'in love' they can't see past anything else. Trust me, I've had enough cases to prove my point," he told her, crossing his arms over his chest, though he did realize the ramble that flowed from his mouth. He took a small breath and faced her again. "All I know is that I don't want things to go back to the way they were."
Molly tilted her head. She wasn't expecting him to say that at all. He once again proved that he could very well be full of surprises. She thought about moments like this one for far too long. But she also tried to move on, thought about giving up, never once bothering to look back at the man who always seemed too far away, thinking she could cast away so many memories. Because it seemed easier to just let go rather than hold onto them forever. "What exactly are you saying?"
"It's a conundrum, really. I can hardly make sense of it myself and that's unusual all on its own." An easy array of laughter escaped his lips, but it was only for a moment and more held back than it should have been. "I guess what I'm trying to say or to be more precise; attempting to ask is can we give it a try? No more lies, no more hidden truths… just you and me."
Her cheeks tinged a pink color at what he proclaimed. Molly didn't want to say yes right away, it would make her seem too eager. "We can take it slow if that will help," she offered in its place. That pace was fine with her because she could wait forever for him and really, it felt like she had. Her lips pulled upward, as she was unable to hold back her happiness.
"I don't really know what people do when they're together, besides the apparent," Sherlock admitted, rubbing his forehead with a hand. He wanted to shake his head, make another remark, but strangely enough, he didn't feel the need to nor did he feel a heavy weight on his shoulders anymore. His stomach was still turning though; getting himself into something new was probably the cause.
Sherlock Holmes actually having a girlfriend; who would have thought it was possible? It certainly threw him off, so anyone else would be just as shocked or more. And he most certainly didn't want to deal with Mycroft, because some way or another he would find out. And that was one issue and conversation he'd prefer to skip, if only it was possible.
He doubted his brother would do the same thing he did to John, bringing him someplace so they could talk, adding in the whole I'll pay you to watch over my brother thing, just because he was going to be his new flatmate. Maybe he should warn her not to get into a limo with Anthea, Mycroft's personal assistant, although her real name was classified.
She merely gave Sherlock a nod, though she never expected her day to turn out this way. And Molly had the feeling the reason why he was acting so off lately probably had a lot to do with what he admitted. But she wouldn't say anything about it. There was no point, really. They made it this far after all and asking him anything more on the matter could very much cause him to close off some.
Getting him to open up was hard enough in the first place, yet she never had to be pushy. It was more like just being there was enough to gain his trust and in a sense she needed it because he already had all of hers. Molly never doubted him before, believed him to be impolite at times, but never so completely offensive that she couldn't stand to be near him.
The brunette thought about it for a moment, attempting to figure out some way that the sudden jump from friends to more wasn't too drastic of a change for him. "We can start with a simple date," she said. A smile played on her lips and rather than it disappearing, it solely became more pronounced at her next words, already knowing what he was going to say before he could open his mouth. "And as much as I love working cases with you, those don't count."
"I suppose they only work out as a thank you," the youngest Holmes remarked. "I must say, the normal form of a date is exceedingly boring, nothing more than a meal and mild chatter when sitting across from one another. Where's the excitement in that?" Not that he was refusing or anything; he just preferred outings with some risk, although it was probably best to not get her involved in such things.
"We could always double date with John and Mary if that's easier," Molly suggested. He might feel less pressured that way, being surrounded by friends instead of it being just the two of them. She was sure she's told him more than once how much his company was more welcomed than he thought, but convincing him of anything, especially concerning matters such as those, was far from an easy task.
"No, that's the last thing I want. Besides, if John knew, I'd never hear the end of it." Especially after everything they went through after Sherlock told him in the first place. "I think it would be best to keep it between us for now. Once the reporters get news of this, we'd have more of a problem, not to mention the fact that you could be placed in danger because of it."
And in all probability she would be. Moriarty was smart, always was, and he used Mrs. Hudson, Greg, and John against him, putting their safety in the balance. Most people he went after were too wrapped up in their own crimes they never did anything to him personally before. But he couldn't afford to take the chance, not with Molly or anyone else for that matter.
Her gaze was directed away for a few seconds. She understood why but hiding things didn't feel right. However, she supposed it wouldn't be that bad of it was for a short while. "Fine, but John and Mary have the right to know eventually. I really don't think you want them finding out on their own." He wouldn't admit it but she already knew how he felt, how much his friendship with the army doctor meant.
"And since we are supposed to compromise or whatever," he mentioned with a slight sigh and roll of a hand. "I'm sure I can suffer through a dinner as long as it isn't too crowded and we don't stay long." He didn't exactly have a frown on his face, it was more of a neutral expression, nevertheless her smile after his proposal changed his countenance to one that matched her own. "I guess we have an agreement then." And although he wouldn't say it, he had a feeling this, them being together, wouldn't be that bad at all.
Progress because they're finally together and it only took eleven chapters! I feel like this story is going to be pretty long since I still have so many ideas, hopefully I don't drag it out to the point where people get tired of it. As for how in character they were, I had a really hard time and I'm not sure if they were close at all, I guess that's something for you guys to decide. So, please review and let me know what you thought.