#25 Step by Step

hello friends. I went on a bit of a three week hiatus, then I was writing something personal (The Doctor in Room 705 – check it out if you haven't yet) and then I got a laptop and all of the writing things have been slowly coming out. (Read: thrown all around until I finally was like "shits gotta get done"). Pretty much locked myself away just to work this one.

To clarify – this first section is sort of a preview of the future, the rest is a continuation of events that led up after end of #24. Hope you enjoy, be sure to let me know what you think (I'm dying to know, already :P)

He hated when she cried. It was even more uncomfortable for him when he knew what the reason for it was. He had let her go on her own down to the cemetery, and now that he stood beside her shielding her from the harsh winds and the blazing sun he was struck again by this feeling. The urge to reach out and coddle her in a way that wasn't supposed to be normal for him.

Four months, maybe even a year ago he probably was harboring a large resentment for the way she made him want to do things right. Like any normal bloke. He wasn't normal, he was just Sherlock. He had heard her use that phrase to defend him a few times recently. He had come to realize that it wasn't a derogatory phrase, it was meant to shield him from all of the things that might have slipped out instead.

She shielded him and now he was doing the same. This time in a closer proximity and there were no peering eyes to speculate much of anything.

He took a step closer to her and reached out for her shoulder. Where he usually would just leave it at that he felt he needed to take it a step further and as she turned towards him slightly he pulled Molly into his warm embrace.

Her reaction might have been delayed for a second or two. "We're in public."

He tried not laugh at her as he peered down at her with his arms wrapped around her still, "Yes."

Sherlock was standing by a window when his older brother found him for the third time in the past week. He had always liked windows for some reason. Mycroft liked to think that Sherlock liked to look out them to observe those around him. Odds are no one would pay much mind to him. Especially not in a place like this. A hospital of all places.

People were concerned about what was going on with their loved ones, no one would pay mind to a man who stayed rooted to a window in the middle of weeping family members who were afraid of losing someone close. He thought it was a bit ironic that anyone wouldn't realize the taller gentleman at the window was in the same exact predicament. Only he wasn't nearly as vocal as the lot of them.

Mycroft waited as he watched a young nurse begin walking towards the window and stood beside his brother. He knew was listening for the few minutes that the woman stood there updating him on the status of his loved one. Mycroft wasn't stupid enough to interrupt or to retract the idea that Miss Hooper wasn't someone who mattered to Sherlock Holmes.

He had seen enough to know that now.

The first sign of this was the day he made observations about the young woman upon her first appearance at his family's home back with Sherlock was still in school at the academy. The way he reacted was new. He hadn't ever reacted that way with anyone before. Then again, Mycroft hadn't went out of his way before to get a reaction out of him when he was accompanied by others.

Molly was the first and though he knew exactly why she was there he had been curious. All of them had been. She was something they had never anticipated before. She was Sherlock's equal, not that it had been exactly clear until after she decided to leave. It only become clearer to him after Sherlock had finished at the academy had left. He had called him up and asked if he'd put some people in play at the academy.

He didn't have to ask much more than that. It had been quite clear as to why he had inquired about this. He wanted to make sure nothing happened to Miss Hooper and it didn't end after she left the academy and went on to London. Then, he simply made his own way back into her life. It took six years but it wasn't as if she had become a memory. He was still there, hidden from her peering eyes until he felt he could come back and be there.

Now, he stood in the best hospital Zurich could offer waiting to be sure that she wasn't going to leave him. He didn't know what would happen to his dear brother if it did.

As the woman trailed off and away from him, Mycroft walked up beside his brother and looked at the reflection of the man who he was concerned about. His blue orbs shifted as he saw Mycroft there and he let out a breath. He needs to shave, he had the beginning of a five o'clock shadow starting. It wouldn't be so bad if he got a new pair of clothes either. He folded his hands behind him as to not take his phone out of his trousers' pocket and text Anthea and request she do him a favor.

She was back at the office making sure things went smoothly while he was here with Sherlock. Though, he would never admit it, Sherlock did someone besides his army doctor friend who was in Afghanistan and the pathologist who was being monitored in a room a few floors above them. He was his brother and he did care what happened to him. When all the others were unreachable, he would be there – always.

"Are you here to gloat? Tell me that I should have been more careful, that I should have been paying attention. Maybe I should have left her alone all those years ago when I could have ended it. Made her hate me instead." Each word that spilled out sounded like an accusation. Mycroft stood there and let him simmer in his anger. He needed to get it out.

Sherlock had half a mind to at least keep his mutterings down to a volume that could be seen as courteous to any onlookers. He hadn't stopped speaking either. "What do you want, really Mycroft?"

"It may seem very unlikely seeing as I haven't exactly spoken to you properly about your acquaintanceship with Miss Hooper but I do wish for her safe recovery after her surgery. Added onto that you are my brother, this does concern me. You've chosen to embark into a place that neither of us have dared go ever – sentiment."

Sherlock opened his mouth to deny such anything only to see the way his older brother was looking at him. "She's a friend. A really good friend, Mycroft. Of course I may have my moments where I slip into that area unconsciously." He finished tiredly as rubbed at his eyes. They were redden from the lack of sleep, he imagined among other things.

"Coffee, brother?" He muttered as a woman in scrubs and a hand knitted cardigan came over to them with a small tray of cups. Sherlock looked down at it and accepted the small boost of energy from the woman before looking back at his brother. He fought back the need to sniff the contents of the cardboard cup and took a slow sip.

Mycroft watched him with his own cradled in his hands.

Two others had entered the room as couple exited to go see a doctor about the status of their injured son. Mycroft watched all of this out of the side of his eyes. His phone beeped in his pocket but he paid it no mind as he watched his brother consume the nearly piping hot drink as if it was water. To him, it might as well been.

A few minutes of silence later, an empty cup and Sherlock had nearly staggered into an empty sofa chair aided completely by the two men who had entered the room previously. Their id badges gave notice to Mycroft that they were indeed members of the staff.

"Rest, Sherlock." He muttered as he came and took a seat near him on an open space on the sofa. "You'll be able to think clearly in a day or two."

He wasted no time in taking out his cellular and checking the text had arrived just a few moment ago.

All done, sir. – Anthea

A rare smile flitted on his face as he looked over to see the slumped form of his brother – his chest moving rhythmically in time as he breathed in his albeit drugged induced slumber. It wasn't anything harmful, just a quick dissolving sleeping pill (organically produced melatonin and little diphenhydramine). He would be out for a solid five to ten hours, if he was lucky.

It had been a whim of a decision as Mycroft couldn't have been entirely sure if Sherlock had ever tried to use a sleeping pill before to get rest. He had usually crashed after cases or the odd weeks when his body screamed in protest of his longevity of stay constantly aware of everything. He needed to be knocked out for a little while.

x

Sherlock eyes open and it takes him a millisecond to react and the images of the last moments before he was "sleeping", he is seething but it comes to a quick halt as his eyes roam around the new space he is inhabiting. He's still sitting in the chair he had been shoved into before but he isn't nowhere near the small waiting room.

To prove this to himself even though he knows it is a fact, he makes his way of the window on the far side of the room – completely out of the way of the bed where the woman he's been concerned about is laying. He blocks that part of it out as she moves the curtain that is halfway pushed back as to allow a little light into the otherwise dimly lit room. He knows this room well. He's been here before. They've been here before. Though the roles were opposite, then.

Zurich is a special place. It holds a great part of their previously unclear relationship. Before the break. It would be the place that they mend it, he scoffed at the irony at that.

He pushed the curtain back as he slipped through it and peered out the window which had previously been cleaned if the scent of Windex cleaner was anything to go by. He ignored that after a few seconds and focused on how high they were up, the same as the last time. The fifteenth floor. It was one of the few floors that was used for recovery with post-opt patients.

Sherlock was reluctant to turn back around and face the woman who until yesterday been unconscious and unresponsive for the past four days. They had been here for a week with nothing to really consider hopeful in form of news. It was one of the reasons he had opted out of coming up here. Mycroft had obviously thought he just didn't want to see Molly Hooper.

He was partially correct in his assumption. He didn't want to see her that way. It frightened him just as much as it had when he found her on the floor of the bedroom back in the cobblestoned area of Heidelberg, Germany.

He looked at the door which he presumed was locked for a second before his gaze went back to the center of the room where Molly lay. He almost went back to sitting the chair but instead decided he might as well do his brother's bidding just this once and walked over to the end of Molly's bed. His eyes stared down at the large quilt that was covering her legs and then down to the clipboard that was in the little container that was attacked to the railing at the end.

He picked it up and read over what it said. A few things popped out and stayed in his head even after he placed the clipboard back into the slot it had been in. Phrases like comatose, swelling, excessive fluid, blood and neurology.

A brief sigh escaped his mouth as he slowly gazed up towards the rounds of gauze that was wrapped around her head. It would need changing soon, he noted as his irises focused on the dark red patches that had come through the whiteness of the gauze. That phrase came back to him excessive blood. He could see it almost a clear as if he was the one who had performed the first surgery.

He had been updated periodically during the first one and then again when they did it again the second time. He wondered if there would have to be one more time where they finally would be able to target the area that had been ruptured or bruised during the incident. A part of him hoped that wouldn't be the case. There was a more rational part of him that knew that it could come to that. Especially if the red he was seeing was gave any indication of what was to follow.

He knew they were waiting to see if she would become more responsive or ultimately wake up for more than a few seconds of time. She had done that a few times already but she would almost immediately return to her unconscious state. That wasn't beneficial in the slightest.

It made him frown.

The doctors had told him before on one of the first days when he had been considering visiting her that sometimes it helped the more intensive patients if someone they were close to talked to them. He had backed out of it, then and there. He didn't know what he would say. The same things reign true here as he stood there in front of her.

What could he say to her that would matter? Anything that could resonate enough to make her want to come back for even a single minute. He needed her to activate herself again and tell him how idiotic he was being over something that should have been normal to anyone else. He wasn't good at these things.

She and John were good at guiding him into the right paths when it came to normalcy. Only one of them was here right now and couldn't even do that for him. He was on his own; alone.

He shut his eyes and started to count back from one thousand. Most would probably start at one hundred, he needed something that would challenge him to stay focused long enough to complete the task at hand. As he begun he heard the door open and he opened one eye and spied over and saw a man who he swore he wouldn't be getting to see until the next Christmas.

John Hamish Watson.

John was still dressed in his uniform sans the cap that usually covered his dirty blonde hair. That was tucked under his left arm as he marched right on over to the bed and took hold of Molly's hand. "Christ, Sherlock. When I was practically dragged away from the medical tent and rushed onto a waiting chopper I didn't really know what I was in for. Coming back but not really because we're in fucking Switzerland in a hospital no less. Molly has blood seeping out of her head and unconscious. What the hell happened, mate? Don't tell me it's complicated or that it's between the two of you because it ain't. Mycroft bloody Holmes doesn't get a soldier extracted from duty overseas for any little things. Especially if said soldier knows the woman in peril unknowingly."

Sherlock slumped down into the chair, his mind and body for once on the same page on this matter. He folded his hands in the prayer position that John had seen before several times over the years. "She shouldn't have been with me. You were right when you said that I had never wanted her to be involved with my life – with my work. Without you there I needed another pair of eyes to collect anything that I may have missed. The more human side of it all. Molly was all that was left. Well…no, that's not exactly true. I hadn't even asked. Lestrade had called her in because Anderson was gone with the flu or something shit like that. She had been called in to be a part of the forensics team and I had lashed out at her in front all of them.

She hadn't even reacted to me at all. She had just did her job perfectly as always. Then when I came to her later on in the week with enough desperation for her assistance she forgave me in that way she does when she knows that help is needed and any plight she may have is to be disregarded at the moment.

Everything had been going well for the case and then it got to that level of physicality that only you and I know of. We were surrounded and though I knew that she had self-defense training and I had taught how to use a gun ages ago before London was even thought of, her head had been slammed into this piece of hard wood that was in the room and instead of stilling and crying about it, she had shoot the man point blank. It was as if it was a reflex. I had disposed of the one who had me practically in a choke hold and then I went over to her. I tried to check her over to make sure she was okay. I even suggested we get her to A&E but she declined, insisting it was just a bump. There was no blood, there was knot but other than that she was unharmed.

I just nodded and we went home. It was good for a while then she started complaining about these headaches and once when we were snogging, I had her up against the wall – yes, I know this makes you uncomfortable, Hamish! It's valuable information. She had flinched and when I asked if she was hurt. She just smiled and told me she was. I kept a close eye on her though even when there were cases. There were always several of those. Then Irene happened again. That's entirely different story but yes, it does have something to do with our fallout. I came home one day and she was just sitting there in the sitting room with a bag at her feet and she shoved a letter at me and told me she had to go. That it wasn't good enough for her anymore. That she didn't know where she'd be going. That that'd had been taken care of by an interested party and then she was just gone.

She was gone." Sherlock stopped talking for a moment. It wasn't necessarily a pause. He had just stopped as if there was something keeping him from going on with the rest of it. John brushed his hand against Molly's cheek and patted her hand as if reassuring her that it would be fine soon enough and then he walked over to his best friend and placed his hand on his shoulder.

"Let's get out of here for a little while. It might do some good to get a little fresh air. We can get some grub and then finish up this little discussion, yeah?"

Sherlock looked up at John who seemed to be a bit more sure of all of this than he had. He was the Doctor out of the two of them, he had to know more hadn't he? "Yeah." He muttered as he let the man pull him up out of the trenches of his own murkiness and dwelling of the much depressing thoughts of what had transpired before they landed themselves in this shit.

He had half a thought to hug the man for pulling him out of the bad parts again but decided that could wait.

They found a small café that wasn't but a few blocks away from the hospital and order an entire pot of coffee – it wasn't possible but the newly arrived army doctor swung his charm to make it happen, as well as couple scones and biscuits for fuel.

The two of them sat there enjoying the breeze on the out patio where a few others sat enjoying similar joys. John listened intently as Sherlock finished telling him about how he had tracked down Molly with little help from his brother and not soon enough because the woman had seemed to not be able to lift her head without wincing or turning away from any kind of light. There he told him of his own letter which he speed on right through without telling much about what it entailed and that he had Molly back for what it was worth. He hadn't planned to leave her alone until he was sure she would be back on her feet then she had hit her head again and fell off the bed as they were sleeping. Ultimately it led them to come to Zurich where he knew they would take care of Molly. These were great people and doctors who had stitched him up before.

It had been clear to John Watson there was much more to be told but he had given him much more than Sherlock was used to be telling anyone. John liked to believe that the man knew would drag him to another place that was much further in distance than the hospital and get him to spill more of it.

A ringing sound from under the table had Sherlock giving his companion an odd look. "What's that?" He asked with an arched brow.

"My phone, I was given one when I got off the chopper." John told him before he slid it out of his pocket. "Hello, yes. We're on our way back now." The look that John gave him made it clear that something was amiss now.

"What is it, John?" He asked as the man gestured for him to get up even before he hung up the phone no doubt in his mind that he was listening to whatever else they were trying to tell him before he hung up the phone.

"Molly, she woke up."

A short smile graced the taller gentleman's face before his friend shake of the head. "Not good?"

"That's brilliant actually. They stepped away to call neurology so that the neuro who had been over her case could come and check her out and now she's gone missing. I'm sure she wouldn't leave the hospital, would she?"

"No." Sherlock, shook his head vehemently as they rushed down the next block to get back to the large building.

"Do you know where she would go? You said you've been here before. Maybe there was a place she liked to go to in the hospital." Sherlock stopped once they got back inside the hospital.

"There is one place. John, tell them not to worry. I'll get her back to the fifteenth floor. Just stall them from panicking. It's going to be fine."

"Are you sure, Sherlock?" John called to him as he began to run towards the stairs.

"Yes, now go." He told him before he began running up the stairs. The adrenaline will help him process whatever he would find upon making it to the twenty second floor, room B.

TBC.