Chapter 25

Ten minutes later, Molly cracked open the door, hopeful that Sherlock was still outside talking to John, but he was sitting on the floor, his head back against the tile, his eyes closed. He looked like he was asleep. The two towels that were previously within her reach were sitting on Sherlock's lap, covered by his hands.

He barely moved when he spoke. "Towel?"

"Yes, but first I need shampoo from my locker and a change of clothes," Molly said matter-of -factly. The freezing cold water helped.

"John!" Sherlock yelled, not bothering to move or even open his eyes.

John threw the door open, worried something had happened to Molly, then he took in the scene before him. "Sherlock, just give her a towel, for God's sake"

"Molly requires shampoo, conditioner, a hairbrush, and the spare set of clothes from her locker, the third one from the left. The combination is 21-35-3."

"Yeah, alright." John headed out, shaking his head.

Molly closed the door and waited, letting the water pour into the deep wound on her arm. It would save her the trouble of irrigating before suturing. Arterial blood continued to drip from the wound and she watched it splatter into the water near with the drain. She heard John and Sherlock talking softly outside, but she couldn't make out the words, then she realized it didn't matter anyway. Sherlock was back, Moriarty was dead, and her work here was done.

Lestrade would no doubt be arriving in a few hours to collect her, with his apologetic eyes and gentle touch. She'd have to admit to helping Sherlock fake his death because there was no other explanation. He knew she was not incompetent. She could claim self-defense for killing Moriarty and his lackey, but she would have to explain the rape, and face Greg's disappointment that she didn't trust him enough to tell him about it three years ago. John would be disappointed as well, because she lied to him back then as well as for the last six months. He'd question their time together and feel betrayed and hurt on so many different levels. Sherlock was sitting not eight feet away, rooting around in his mind palace, reinforcing his iron control. At least he wouldn't care one way or another, and she took a strange comfort in that predictability. Moriarty was one more puzzle he could claim victory over and he would move on to the next case without hesitation or regret. She envied him for that.

"Molly?" John's hand rested on her shoulder, those kind eyes full of concern for her. He'd set her shampoo and conditioner on the floor next to her. How had she ended up sitting on the floor? She'd only been watching the drops of blood disappear down the drain. She didn't even hear him open the door. He turned the water to warm but it burned her skin. She needed the cold. It numbed the pain. She turned it back again. "Come on, Molly. You're freezing, and the shock has finally set in. Let's get you out of there." He offered her his hand and she realized she was naked. "It's nothing I haven't seen before, Molly. Come on. Sherlock was going to come in here to get you, so I had to threaten to tell Mycroft that he showered with a naked woman to get him to back off."

The mention of Mycroft's name snapped her back to reality. She avoided John's hand and stood on her own, holding onto the wall for support. She noticed how careful he was to not look anywhere other than her face. She shook her head 'no'. "I'm happy for you and Mary, John. You'll be a good husband."

He smiled that boyish grin and looked quite pleased with himself. "Thank you. I'm sure, someday, you'll find…"

The anger at what he was going to say, the utter dishonesty of it, snapped her control back in place. It felt glorious to lock the pain away behind the anger. "Get out," she said, letting him see her cold eyes. He backed away and shut the door gently. She reached for the shampoo and lathered her hair twice in rapid succession, then pulled the conditioner through her hair with her fingers, not caring about the tangles.

John had left her bag outside, complete with her hairbrush and clothes. Sherlock was gone with his coat, having left the towels on top of her bag, and she was grateful for the privacy. She didn't want to face him at all, but certainly not without adequate clothing. She was still shivering as she pulled on her yoga pants, but elected for a scrub top since she had no other short-sleeved shirts and she needed to be able to get to her to suture it, but for now, she packed the wound with some gauze John had left. After tightly applying the martial arts hand wraps, knowing they would stabilize her hands well enough for her to work, Molly headed for the lab.

John had arranged an entire table with sterile medical supplies but the lab was thankfully empty otherwise. She could hear John and Sherlock arguing in hushed tones by the refrigerated drawers. Molly quietly gathered the medications, thankful that John was thorough enough to bring antiretrovirals and antibiotics. God knew she'd had enough of Moriarty's blood in her wounds to contract a blood-borne infection. She took four packages of suture, the suture kit, and three boxes of gauze pads, tucking them into her bag as quietly as she could before heading for the door. There was no time to look back.

"I told you she'd run, John." Sherlock's voice carried from the far side of the lab, obviously not caring that she heard.

"And I told you that she might just need some space to clear her head," John said as Molly paused at the door, not daring to look back at them.

It was John who approached her. "No one will blame you if you leave. But I ask that you let me examine you, run some blood tests, and close the laceration on your arm. Sherlock is convinced you were going to try to fix that yourself."

"She's done it before. Six times," Sherlock said.

"Eight," Molly corrected.

John looked at her, incredulous. "Eight? Why didn't you come to me, Molly? I do have some relevant skills, you know. I would have helped you."

Molly didn't turn around. She couldn't bear to see their faces. "You would have asked too many questions that I didn't want to answer, and I didn't want to cause you any more worry."

"It didn't work. I worried about you constantly," John said.

"You would have done more to stop me if you knew everything," Molly said, letting the determination she'd embraced for six months steady her. She was grateful she was still so cold from the shower.

Even Sherlock said nothing for a solid minute. John's voice quieted and he walked over to the table of supplies. "You're right. I thought you were just having trouble dealing with Sherlock's 'death', or I guess, his absence, as the case may be, and that you would eventually get over it. But that was never your plan, getting over him. Was it." He shot Sherlock a disappointed look, which Sherlock ignored.

"Molly, John will feel better about this if you let him be a doctor. The emotional distance of the physician/patient relationship will help decrease his personal discomfort with your situation, and he will be reassured that he was able to make a positive contribution to your recovery," said Sherlock.

"Sherlock, we've talked about this before," John warned, but Molly just sat down on the morgue's table, the same one where she worked on Sherlock after his fall, and waited. John pulled on gloves and examined the wound with gentle fingers.

"There's a small arterial bleed, easy enough to tie off, but this is down to the bone. The severed muscle fibers have retracted. You're lucky it wasn't near any of the major nerves or arteries, but you've still lost a fair amount of blood." He continued to probe the wound expertly. "Let me know if I'm hurting you." Molly said nothing, so he continued. "You have two partially lacerated tendons. Molly, this needs to go to surgery." He ran his fingers across some of the other scars on her forearms.

"Just sew it up. You're a trauma surgeon. I'm certain this is all within your skill set."

"Pain control will be easier with general anesthesia and you know it."

"I'll be fine, just do it here."

Until then, Sherlock had been quietly leaning against the doorway, watching them. "Now just where did you learn that little trick, Molly? I'm impressed."

John looked back and forth between them as they stared each other down, before finally giving up and wiping her entire arm down with betadine. Molly looked away first and focused her gaze on the cabinet straight in front of her, but John knew her mind was elsewhere. He stood in front of her with a large syringe of lidocaine to numb the wound and tried to get her attention. "Molly? Why don't you lie down on your side so I can get to the wound, and…this is going to hurt quite a bit."

"Let him do it," Sherlock said as he came to stand beside her, warning her with his eyes. "Let him numb it first."

There was no point in arguing. It was too hard to say no to Sherlock, and she needed some time to plan her next move. She had given only a small amount of thought to what would happen if she made it out alive, and she always expected that she'd have hours to days before Sherlock re-emerged.

"Lift your head," said Sherlock, his tone commanding but not harsh. As she complied, he slid his folded-up coat underneath her head before he pulled up a chair to sit in front of her. "Look at me," he said to her as John laid the sterile drapes under and around her arm. "Look at me," he said again.

Molly was irritated at his presumption, ordering her around. Granted, that is what he had always done, but she finally had the tools to resist… maybe.

John began injecting lidocaine, which burned like fire, but Molly kept her eyes closed, forcing her mind away from the physical discomfort. She pulled her memories of the cold around her like a blanket, especially the bone-deep cold of winter, when she would sit for hours on the roof in the middle of the night, flirting with the border of consciousness.

"Molly," Sherlock said more gently, caressing the side of her face, making her flinch. His fingers were too warm against her skin.

"Sherlock, give it a rest and stop messing with her mind." John warned. "I don't want her punching you while I'm working on her arm."

Sherlock looked offended, but he got up and shuffled off to Molly's office, slamming the door behind him. Once the local anesthetic took effect, John set about repairing her tendons and closing the muscle layer.

"He cares about you, you know," said John.

"No, he doesn't. He's afraid. He's afraid I will leave and he won't be able to find a new pathologist here who is so compliant and accommodating to his every whim. He always exploits my affection for him so he can win his mental game. Nothing is more important to him than solving the puzzles his cases bring."

"No, that's not it."

"Don't worry, John. I made my peace with it. Sherlock uses us because that is who he is. I finally understand him now."

"Molly, he cares about you. He might not admit it, well, because he's Sherlock, but he does. You should have seen him when you went missing. He was frantic."

"I doubt that."

"I've never seen him like that and I've been with him on a lot of cases." John continued suturing. "When he thought Moriarty was going to… to…"

"Rape me," Molly said, emotionless.

"Yeah," John continued. "He was terrified. Whenever he figures out a case and rescues someone, he doesn't console the victims or act concerned about their wellbeing after the fact. Not even me, when Moriarty strapped a bomb to my chest and threatened to blow me to hell. Sherlock was cool and collected, perfectly in control of himself. And I've never seen him be concerned about anyone's comfort before," John said, indicating the coat under Molly's head. "He touches you. He doesn't like to touch people."

"It will pass once he thinks I'm not leaving."

John lowered his voice as he reached for the scissors. "But you are leaving, aren't you." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yes."

"Why?" John opened another package of suture and resumed his work.

"You know why."

John nodded as their eyes met briefly. "But he doesn't. He won't understand."

"He never will."

"I suppose not," said John, glancing towards Molly's office, where Sherlock typed furiously on her computer.