Sherlock acted like he didn't care that Molly left without saying goodbye. He came back out with Brooklyn and sat right down and started playing Patty-Cake with her. The party ended and people left and Sherlock didn't leave Brooklyn the rest of the day.
As it got closer to nighttime, he gave her a bath and put her in her crib with Molly's gift: a new pink stuffed bunny. Kissing her goodnight, he stepped out into his kitchen.
His parents had left with everybody else that afternoon. Mary and John were celebrating their first anniversary with a trip to America. They were taking Mikey with him. Sherlock never would have admitted it, but he was lonely. He watched telly for a bit, and decided there was nothing good on. He would have started on a case, but the last time Brooklyn had come with him to a crime scene Sherlock had to give her three baths to wash all the blood out of her hair. Without John and Molly's help, he couldn't get out.
Sherlock fell back against the couch, rubbing his temples. He couldn't get the image of Molly out of his head. The way she had sat so simply on his couch, as though she hadn't run off with his son and left him with her daughter a year before. "In fairness," Sherlock told himself, "It did turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you."
Right at this moment, Brooklyn burst into tears. Sherlock grumbled as he rose from the couch. "Maybe not the best thing," he said to his daughter as he rocked her. Brooklyn calmed almost immediately when he picked her up, and a moment later she was fast asleep again, breathing quietly in his arms.
Sherlock smiled down at her in the dark. Molly might have left much too soon, but she had seen her daughter take her first steps, and to Molly, that was probably all that mattered. He sighed. Brooklyn would go another year without seeing her mother. At this rate, Brooklyn wouldn't understand that she had family aside from Sherlock and the Watsons. Ever.
Molly had almost cried when Brooklyn had stumbled over to Sherlock's mother and started babbling to her. Sherlock had sheepishly explained that Brooklyn had been speaking short words for a while now, so, for her, this wasn't all that unusual.
Sherlock frowned again. Molly had seemed so sad through the whole thing. She hadn't even said goodbye to Brooklyn when she left, and Sherlock was sure that she had only come for Brooklyn. He sat in the dark, wondering at how mothers could so easily leave their children behind for their own convenience.
Suddenly, Molly was standing next to him. She seemed to be glowing. Sherlock looked around and realised that, no, Molly wasn't glowing, he was just standing in a much more well lit place. "Where am I?" he started to ask, but stopped almost immediately after asking it, for, at that very second, he heard a similar voice asking the same question. Spinning around, Sherlock jumped back at the sight of a younger him, sitting on Molly's sofa.
"You're safe," Molly said, going and sitting next to him. "But… what happened?" asked younger Sherlock. Molly took a deep breath. Sherlock smiled; he remembered how often she had used this as a calming method around him. Then the smile disappeared. "You've started the drugs again," Molly was saying. Sherlock felt his heart clench. Molly was always so honest with him, even when he had been such a bad person.
Young Sherlock seemed not to think so. "Oh," was all he said. Then: "I'll see you in class." He stood up and walked right out the door. Sherlock wanted to follow him, to remember where he was going, but he found that he couldn't move. Molly sat on the sofa alone. She had a smile fixed on her face, but Sherlock realised with a shock that tears were streaming down her cheeks. He went and sat next to her. She turned to face him. "Oh, Sherlock," she sighed as though she were remembering something brilliant. "You were so magnificent. So wonderful. So perfect. You were so very powerful. And you crushed me."
She slowly leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Merry Christmas, Sherlock," she whispered, handing him a mysteriously wrapped package with a lipstick-smudged bow. Sherlock tore it open, inside was Brooklyn. His eyebrows creased.
He looked up at Molly, who was smiling at him expectantly. He glanced back down at Brooklyn, now giggling in his lap. "This is new," he said to her. She smiled. "Merry Christmas and a happy new year."
Sherlock woke with a start. All around him, people were shouting "Happy new year!" Sherlock groaned and rubbed his eyes. The same dream. He'd had the same dream every night since his childrens' first birthday, and every night it was the same. Until tonight. He'd never unwrapped a gift from Molly before.
Sherlock thought back to several Christmases before, when he'd embarrassed her so much in front of everybody. He had never opened that gift. He looked down at Brooklyn sleeping in his lap.
She had had quite a growth spurt in the last few months. Her hair had lightened considerably; it was now a warm shade of brown. It was still incredibly curly, which was a struggle for an almost two-year old. Sherlock often just pinned it back to keep it out of her way. Her eyes were exactly the same: a deep, clear blue that went straight into your heart. Her smile was a little bigger now, but it was set in the exact same place on her creamy skin.
Sherlock stroked her cheek softly. She reminded him more and more of Molly with each day. Molly. The mention of the woman who had meant so much to him brought back his memory from the dream. He looked around the social gathering, half-expecting her to be making her way through the crowd to sit with him.
Sherlock closed his eyes and imagined how different everything would be if he and Molly had actually been together.
For starters, Mary wouldn't have had to explain to Brooklyn why she didn't have a mum like the other girls. Brooklyn would have a constant female role model in her life. Sherlock wouldn't be raising her alone. Sherlock wouldn't be alone. He didn't even want to imagine how different Molly would be. "She wouldn't have moved however far away from everything she knew and loved so that I would be a good parent," he told himself.
Sherlock closed his eyes and thought of Molly, her crooked smile, her messy hair, her big brown eyes… And, just like every night after he woke up from this dream, Sherlock smiled.
