Chapter 29
Worrying about Sherlock Holmes was a never-ending and emotionally exhausting proposition.
In some ways Molly missed the days when she only heard the gory details about Sherlock's cases through John's blog entries. She had still been horrified by the dangerous situations they had gotten themselves caught up in, but at least by the time she read about them, everything was over and done. They were safe. Now, she was a spectator with front-row seats to each and every case, watching each all play out in real time. Worrying was becoming as automatic to her as breathing.
Sherlock and John had been out of the country for more than a week. An eyewitness had come forward who had seen Mohammad Mahmoud being dragged out of his home in the middle of the night. Local authorities were dispatched to get the man's sworn statement, but the departmental back and forth had taken far too long for Sherlock's liking. He couldn't stand pacing the halls at the Yard waiting for more information to trickle in, so he had booked a direct flight to Mahmoud's home town and dragged John to the airport without a backwards glance.
There had been a handful of tersely-worded texts from Sherlock while they were away, which was more than she had been anticipating, really. She imagined she had John's prodding to thank for even that minor courtesy. Sherlock just wouldn't see the point of keeping her up to date. It wasn't his way.
She tried not to dwell on the lack of information. She tried not to worry. She went about her regular routine as well as she was able. She slept at her own flat, curling up on her sofa each evening with Toby, a cup of tea and a book that she couldn't concentrate on. And she tried not to worry.
But there was an unknown danger out there, and it was personal. She couldn't help but envision a dark shadow that tracked Sherlock across the world even as he sought it out. He wouldn't appreciate her concern, of course. It wasn't useful. It wasn't helpful. It was sentimentality of the basest kind and it would annoy him more than anything else. And so she kept it to herself, but the wash of relief that she felt when she received his brief text Wednesday morning was entirely heartfelt:
En route. Arr Baker ST 8PM.
She wasn't sure whether this was intended for strictly informational purposes or if she was expected to be there when they arrived, but she had missed him. She decided to interpret it as an invitation.
In the end, John and Sherlock blew through the door at a quarter to nine looking as if they'd been drug backwards through a prickly hedge. John collapsed immediately into a disheveled heap on the sofa. Sherlock stalked through the door muttering imprecations about their cabbie's personal life, crossed the room, seized Molly by her arms and snogged her thoroughly.
"Productive trip, was it?" she asked breathlessly once Sherlock had released her.
"No," he said, and dropped into his chair like a stone. He was scowling, had several days worth of beard growth and was in dire need of a haircut. He looked rather menacing.
John made an incoherent sound that Molly took as agreement.
"Oh," she made a face. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Sherlock said. "It wasn't your fault."
She blinked. "I know, I just meant - "
"Is there tea?" he interrupted, looking at her expectantly.
Molly pursed her lips and carefully considered several possible responses before she opened her mouth to reply. Then she noticed how red-rimmed and blood-shot his eyes were. He was dirty and had dark smudges underlining his eyes. Frustration and exhaustion were pouring off of him. She wondered when he had last slept or eaten.
"I'll put the kettle on," she said, and turned toward the kitchen before the ache in her chest showed on her face.
John was gone by the time she came back. Sherlock still sat in his chair with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. The long line of his neck was exposed, startlingly pale against the dark growth of beard that covered the underside of his chin.
He looked so tired she half hoped he had fallen asleep, but when she sat the tray down, his eyes snapped open at once.
"The Aden police force makes Scotland Yard look like a well-run, efficient machine," he said as he sat up to take the steaming mug from Molly's hands.
"They couldn't tell you anything?" She slid a plate onto his lap.
Sherlock looked down at the sandwiches and then flicked his gaze back up to her. "It's really no use telling you not to do this, is it?"
"None whatsoever," she agreed.
He rolled his eyes and sighed, but obligingly picked up half of one of the sandwiches. "They were able to tell me quite a lot, actually," he said. "Just absolutely nothing of any value to the investigation." He stopped and took a bite of his sandwich.
"Were you able to speak to the witness?"
Sherlock gave a humourless laugh. "Oh yes, I was able to speak with him. At length in fact. Quite easy to do since the idiots had him in custody."
"In custody?"
"They think he's at least the abductor if not the the murderer."
"But he came forward on his own, didn't he?" Molly asked with a puzzled frown.
"A classic sign of a guilty conscious, their chief assures me." Sherlock's lip curled up into a sneer. "The fool." He finished his sandwich in a couple of quick bites.
"You don't think he was involved?"
"Of course he wasn't involved." Sherlock gave her an aggrieved look and then seemed to notice that his plate was empty. He frowned down at it. "I don't suppose you made any of these for John, did you? He's gone to bed. He won't be needing them."
Molly smiled to herself and reached for the second plate of sandwiches. "Here." She traded him for the empty plate in his lap and stacked it on the tray while Sherlock tucked into his third sandwich. "So what did the witness tell you?"
"More than he meant to," Sherlock said around his bite of sandwich. "This has brown sauce on it."
"John likes brown sauce. What do you mean 'more than he meant to'?"
"He came forward with information about the abduction on his own, but when the police chief got it into his head to hold him on suspicion, he got panicky. He had nothing to do with the abduction, but it was clear that he was guilty of something. I looked into his report and did some checking into the time frame. Turns out that Mahmoud was in the habit of skivving off his shift in order to visit the local gambling dens. He witnessed the abduction on his way back to work, not on his way home, as he had originally reported. We'd been looking at chartered flights, private train cars - any way a person could be transported out of the country against their will. We know the deaths aren't occurring until they reach London. So how else could they be getting them here? The time difference opened up another possibility - a fully-loaded container ship bound for London sailed out of Aden two hours after the abduction. The ship arrived on December 5th and Mahmoud's body was found two days later. The timing fits." Sherlock took the last bite and made a face. "Maybe wait to put the brown sauce on it next time."
"Noted," Molly said, taking the second empty plate and stacking it on top of the first. "So you think they're transporting them across the ocean on container ships?"
"Maybe," Sherlock said. "Maybe some, maybe all, maybe none. It is merely a possibility in a long string of possibilities." He lapsed into frowning silence and drummed a rhythm on the arm of his chair
Molly stood to take the dishes back into the kitchen, but Sherlock stopped her with a hand hooked around her hip.
"So…um, how was your week?" he asked in a halting voice.
"My week?" Molly blinked down at him. This was very likely the first time in their nearly six-year acquaintance that he had asked her that question. "It was fine," she said slowly. "You know, the usual things."
Sherlock nodded. "Right. Well, that's…good."
"Yes, it was…good."
"And you were well - you felt…good?" His brow was furrowed in concentration. Coupled with his unkempt appearance, it made him look positively feral.
"Yes, I felt fine," she said. "Um, thank you." She regarded him with a puzzled frown, wondering what he was getting at. And then it dawned on her and she had to smother her grin - Sherlock was trying to make small talk.
With her lips pressed together, Molly set the plates back down and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He glanced up at her in surprise, but allowed her to draw him against her so that his cheek rested against her stomach. "I missed you," she said to the top of his head.
He hesitated, but then gradually relaxed into her embrace and draped his arms loosely around her hips. "I missed you, too."
It was a strange sort of normal between them, Molly thought as she brushed her fingers through Sherlock's unruly hair. He smelled strongly of dust and sweat and unwashed male, but underneath it she could still make out his own pleasingly musky scent and the faint whiff of chemistry that no amount of showering seemed to completely eradicate. His breath warmed her belly through the fabric of her shirt, and she smiled down at him, oddly content.
She knew how peculiar they must seem to anyone outside of their own sphere. The pathologist and the consulting detective - morbid Molly and the freak. They each, in their own way, eschewed social expectations, and neither could be bothered to observe conventional niceties. They were never going to be popular at dinner parties, but then neither of them had ever cared for that sort of thing, anyway. They were unconventional people and they had an unconventional relationship. Molly wasn't sure that even she could put a label on it.
Normal was relative, of course, but normal for Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes was anyone else's chaos. They tread in the shadowy grey area that separated the world of the living from the reality of death. Danger and violence and bloodshed were not merely commonplace for them, but expected - anticipated, even. All in a days work.
Perhaps it was their chosen occupations that gave them such a unique perspective on life. They were aware that regardless of the way in which the body lost the final battle - be it violence or the simple degradation of organ function resulting from advanced age - the end result was the same for everyone. They romanticized neither living nor dying, and were acutely aware of the tenuous distinction between the two.
It could also be her job that was responsible for making her worry so keenly about Sherlock's safety while he was away. But, it was also responsible for making her more appreciative of the quiet moments like this. The steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the heat of his body, the steady flicker of his pulse in the hollow of his throat - proof of life, and reason enough for the profound gratitude that she felt just to be able to hold him. Maybe it wouldn't last forever, but for now, it was enough.
Molly looked down at Sherlock's lined and tired face and felt her chest tighten. He was taking far too much on himself and working far too hard on this case. She knew there was no sense in trying to slow him down. All she could do was feed him and encourage him to sleep from time to time. He needed to pour himself into the investigation. He needed to feel like he was doing all that could be done to find and stop this ghostly adversary. When it was over - when Sherlock Holmes had solved the case and saved the day once again - she was going to make him go away on holiday. Drugged and tied up in the boot if need be.
"Go on before you fall asleep sitting up," she said, nudging him with her hip. She laid a gentle kiss on top of his head and was pleased to see the corners of his lips curl up in a tired smile.
"Shower first," he insisted on the heels of a jaw-cracking yawn. He sat up, blinking hard, gearing up to push himself just a little bit farther. He rubbed his hand across the dark bristles on his chin and made a face. "I'll have this thing off too. It itches like a fiend."
"If you think you can manage without cutting your throat."
He gave her a quelling look, but instead of replying, merely unfolded himself from his chair and headed off in the direction of his bedroom.
Molly smiled after him. She wouldn't tell him how happy she was that he was home, or how much she'd missed him, or that she'd been worried about him, or that it had been hard for her to sleep without his warm presence taking up two-thirds of the bed next to her at night. He didn't need to know any of that. He wouldn't understand her concern or her apparent dependence. Brilliant as he was, he was baffled by expressions of sentimentality.
She loved him. She had loved him for years, of course but, in a way it was harder to come to terms with her feelings for him now than it ever had been before. It had been easy to tamp down her affections when she knew they would not - could not - be reciprocated. But now they were actually together. They had at least both openly admitted to enjoying each other's company. They spent days and nights together, found each other's conversation stimulating and were shockingly compatible in bed. And Molly found that the love bubbled to the surface now like it never had before. It welled up behind her teeth so that she had to clench them hard to keep the words from spilling off of her tongue. Somehow she knew without it ever being said aloud that if she told him that she loved him, it would over.
He probably knew how she felt. He was too observant to have missed the signs even if he didn't particularly understand the emotion itself. But knowing was different than hearing it declared outright. Her desire to tell him was for purely selfish reasons when it came right down to it. And so she would keep clenching her teeth. Because saying the words didn't make the fact of her love any more or less potent. She loved him, and because she loved him, she would keep it to herself.
With a wistful sigh, she turned back to the mess in the kitchen.
Molly had just finished washing the last of the dishes when she heard the distant humming of the ancient pipes ceased with a high-pitched whine signifying that Sherlock had finished his shower. She was just reaching for a towel to dry her hands when someone suddenly pounded on the door to the flat.
"Hello!" a voice cried from the stairwell. "Hello, please! Are you home?" It was a feminine voice, loud and shrill with panic.
Alarmed, Molly rushed to the door calling over her shoulder, "Sherlock! Someone's here!"
"Tell them to go away," she heard him reply, raising his voice to be heard. "I'm not taking cases now."
The pounding resumed just as Molly reached for the doorknob.
"Please. Hello! I need help!"
Molly yanked open the door and gasped.
It was a young woman. She had dark hair and a fair complexion, but anything else about her appearance was too hard to discern through the matted hair and filthy attire, and, more alarmingly still, the dried blood that caked a vicious-looking wound on her forehead.
The woman fell forward, nearly collapsing into Molly's arms. "Please," she sobbed, clutching at Molly's jumper with desperate, dirty fingers. "Please, you must help me. I need - I need to find Sherlock Holmes!"
"Sherlock!" Molly shouted over her shoulder. She tried to pull away, anxious to check the severity of her wounds, but the woman clung to her even harder.
"No, please! Do not send me away. I am in danger! If you do not help me, I will most certainly be killed. Please!"
The woman's bright blue eyes were startlingly clear and wide with fear.
Distantly, as if she were two people watching the same event, Molly noted the slight softening of the woman's vowels. Her English was flawless, but she was speaking with a French accent. Molly sank to her knees, dragged down by the woman's slight weight.
The woman wept noisily, pressing her forehead hard into Molly's shoulder.
"Molly!" she heard Sherlock exclaim from behind her. "What the hell's going on? Who is - "
The woman's head lifted at the sound of his voice, and Molly felt the fingers grasping her arms tighten painfully.
"Sherlock!" the woman cried, and an expression of relieved joy washed over her pale face. With an ungainly lurch, she released Molly using her shoulder to lever herself upright. She staggered forward, reaching out to Sherlock with a trembling smile. "I've found you! Thank God!" She flung herself forward, throwing her arms around his waist, and burying her face against his chest.
Reflexively, Sherlock caught her when she sagged heavily against him. He was looking down at the young woman with his eyes wide, his face white with shock.
"Aline?"
A/N: Such thanks to all of you who are hanging in there with me on this story. I swear I am still writing when time permits. Probably I will be locking my children in their rooms with bread and water for an hour or two a day this summer so that I'll have time to devote to my favorite couple. I'm hoping to have it finished entirely before its one year anniversary rolls around. Note to self - write hella faster.
Katie F and allofmyheart - your patience, tolerance and encouragement is much appreciated - even if that encouragement comes in the form of excessive nagging and constant badgering.
