This chapter was getting very long - over 4k words and still growing - so I decided to split it. And here's Part One!
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Sherlock did not utter a single word on the short journey from Knightsbridge to Baker Street and when the cab pulled up outside 221, he hauled himself out of his seat by the grab bars, letting his coat fall to the floor, staggered across the pavement and disappeared inside, leaving Molly to pay the cabbie, gather up their things and follow him in.
When she got upstairs, she discovered he had gone straight to his room. She found him curled up in his bed, having paused only to remove his shoes and jacket. Molly tucked the duvet around him to keep out any stray draughts from the notoriously leaky single glazed sash windows, then retreated to the kitchen to make herself a much-needed cup of tea.
On opening the fridge, she found the milk was out of date and curdled. Hardly surprising, really, since Sherlock had hardly been home for the best part of a week. She debated whether to leave him alone long enough to nip to the corner shop for milk but came down against. Instead, she went downstairs to trouble Mrs Hudson for enough milk for a cuppa.
'Hello, dear,' Mrs H greeted Molly when she opened her door. 'Everything alright?'
It was only intended as a casual remark but little did Mrs Hudson realise what a reservoir of angst was about to be released when she pulled that little plug.
'No, no really,' Molly hiccupped as a torrent of tears erupted and trickled down her cheeks.
'Oh, dear!' exclaimed Mrs H, wrapping an arm round Molly's shoulders and drawing her inside the little flat, shepherding her through the sitting room, straight into her cosy kitchen. 'Sit down, sit down,' she insisted. 'Let me make a nice pot of tea and you can tell me all about it.' As she spoke, she picked up a roll of paper towels from the kitchen counter, tore off a sheet and pressed it into Molly's hands, as a substitute hankie. She bustled about, filling the kettle, putting it on to boil, scooping loose tea into the tea pot, lining up two clean mugs on the kitchen table and placing a milk jug and sugar bowl alongside. Having done all that, she took the chair opposite Molly and placed her hands flat on the table.
'Right,' she said. 'What has that foolish young man done to upset you?'
'Oh, no, Mrs H,' Molly exclaimed, her voice steady now, having released some of the pent-up emotion generated by the afternoon's dramatic events. 'Sherlock hasn't done anything to upset me. It's Sherlock who's upset – really upset – over something his brother has done.'
'Ah, my dear, those two are always arguing about something,' Mrs Hudson declared, pressing her lips together in a sympathetic smile. 'They can't be in the same room for more than five minutes but they're at each other's throats about one ridiculous thing or another.'
Just then, the kettle boiled and she got up to make the tea.
'It's not something ridiculous this time, Mrs Hudson,' Molly insisted. 'Mycroft has done something truly awful…I can't even tell you what it is because the thing he used to do the terrible thing is a top Government secret.' Stating this simple fact only served to trigger another bout of sobbing from Molly but she took advantage of the paper towel, to wipe her eyes and blow her nose, and regained a little composure.
Mrs Hudson returned to the kitchen table with the full teapot and placed it on a cork pad placed there for that specific purpose. When she sat down again, her expression was more sober.
'Has Mycroft been spying on Sherlock, again? He really hates it when he does that. He's constantly checking his flat, looking for bugs. When he finds them, he blows a whistle into them then flushed them down the toilet. If we ever had our drains checked, they would probably find a bloomin' scrap yard's worth of electronic equipment down there!'
That image did raise a weak smile from Molly and the steaming mug of tea that Mrs H placed in front of her provided further solace for her troubled soul.
'No, he didn't spy on Sherlock this time. It's much worse. He spied on Sherlock's sister and her partner, Charlotte. As if poor Eurus hasn't been spied on enough in her lifetime!' Molly hiccupped another sob and Mrs Hudson frowned in sympathy.
'Where is he now?' she asked. Molly assumed she was referring to Sherlock.
'He's upstairs, in his bed. When he found out what Mycroft did, he got so upset he threw up the lunch that Alicia cooked for us, so beautifully. I don't want to leave him for too long in case he starts vomiting again, although I doubt there's anything left inside him, now.'
'Oh, don't you worry about him,' Mrs H assured her. 'His bedroom is right above us.' she added, pointing up at the ceiling. 'If he so much as sneezes, we'll hear it down here.'
At that revelation, Molly's eyes grew large and round as images of what she and Sherlock had been up to in that room recently flooded her memory banks and her cheeks began to colour up again.
'Oh!' exclaimed Mrs H, cottoning on. 'Oh, don't you worry about all that malarkey! I was young myself, once, you know. The minute I hear the bed springs creaking, I just pop my ear buds in and put Iron Maiden on my iPod. That'll drown out any noise the two of you could ever make.'
Molly had to laugh at that, in spite of herself.
'Thank you, Mrs H. You're an absolute godsend, you know,' she declared.
'Oh, my dear,' Mrs Hudson replied, smiling wickedly, 'the Good Lord didn't have much of a hand in my making. The other fella can take all the credit for that. Here,' she added, offering Molly her open biscuit tin, 'have a chocolate bourbon.' Molly took one, gratefully.
ooOoo
Later that evening, Molly was seated in the corner of the sofa, in Sherlock's sitting room, watching the TV dancing competition results show when she heard the door between his bedroom and the bathroom open and close, followed by the sound of the basin tap running. A minute or two later, the door from the bathroom to the corridor opened and closed and, a few seconds after that, the man himself appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
He looked rather dishevelled, with his hair sticking out in all directions, but he had changed into his PJs and thrown his best dressing gown, the camel coloured one, over the top. He scrubbed his scalp with his fingertips, making his hair stick out even more, then crossed the floor and climbed onto the sofa. Crawling into Molly's lap, he rested his head against her chest and encircled her waist with his arms, tucking up his legs on the seat beside her. Molly was immediately reminded of Rosie when she was feeling under the weather, needing just to be held. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against top of his head, hugging him close. They stayed like that, without speaking, for quite a while as the drama of the dancing show played out - the judging panel pronounced the winners of the 'dance off' and the losers stepped up to say their goodbyes and have their Last Dance.
'See, I said they would go home,' Sherlock muttered, the first words he had spoken since begging her to bring him home, after his confrontation with Mycroft and his treachery.
'Yes, you did,' Molly smiled, dropping a congratulatory kiss on top of his head. 'You're so clever.'
'No, it was obvious. They were the worst dancers – well, he was. Not her, of course. She's brilliant. I expect she's relieved not to have to lug him around the dance floor any more. Must be like pushing a loaded wheelbarrow up-hill, with a flat tyre. Sorry I abandoned you.'
The final comment came so hard on the heels of his cutting remarks about the celebrity dancer that it took a few seconds for it to register in Molly's consciousness but when it did, she exclaimed,
'You didn't abandon me. When did you?'
'I did,' he insisted. 'In the cab. I even dropped my coat on the floor so you had to pick it up. I'm sorry about that, too.'
'Don't be,' she insisted. 'I understand. You needed to get inside, into your sanctuary.'
Sherlock titled his head back so that he could look into her eyes.
'Yes, I did,' he confessed. 'And, yes, you always do.' Then he brought a hand up to cup the back of her head and draw her in for a grateful kiss. He tasted of spearmint. He'd obviously just brushed his teeth. 'Yes, I had to,' he confirmed, correctly deducing her train of thought. 'My mouth tasted like the inside of an abattoir on a Friday afternoon.'
'Really? I wouldn't know. I don't think I've ever tasted the inside of an abattoir…on any day of the week, to be honest.'
'Well, take it from me. They taste foul. And worst of all on a Friday. All that dead meat.' He shuddered, theatrically. 'Molly,' he said, his tone serious, now, 'do you think we'll ever be a normal family?'
Molly could hear a deep and desperate longing in those words which prompted her to hold him even closer.
'Yes,' she assured him, carding her fingers through the thick curls at the nape of his neck. 'You'll find a way. It'll probably take a while. Your mum isn't the only one who needs a thorough debriefing. It's going to take a shed load of deprogramming to sort Mycroft out but he'll get there. Alicia is on his team. She won't allow him not to.'
They lapsed into silence again as the characters in a drama, now airing on the TV, lived out their lives in their own little world. Judging from the costumes the actors were wearing, it was a historical drama set on a Mediterranean island in the 1930s. One character – a young boy – seemed to be building a collection of captive wild animals. Sherlock frowned at the entirely inappropriate way in which the child was housing his trophies.
'That shouldn't be allowed,' he muttered morosely.
'What?' Molly asked, not sure what aspect of the plot he was objecting to.
'Those cages. They're far too small for the animals in them and there's no shelter from the elements. Mind you, they're so badly constructed, those animals will be back in the wild before you know it. Look at that! A gust of wind would blow it away.'
Molly had to smile at how seriously Sherlock was taking this aspect of the plot. Suspension of disbelief clearly didn't figure in his TV watching repertoire.
'And look at that! A pelican wandering around the house where there are kittens. Those things will eat just about anything, you know.'
'Really?'
'Yes. I saw one eat a live pigeon once, on The Serpentine, in Hyde Park.'
'Really?'
'Yes, really,' he reiterated, acknowledging her mild teasing with a crooked grin.
'I'm glad you're feeling better,' said Molly.
'Couldn't feel much worse, could I?' he sighed.
'I was afraid you might, though,' she admitted. 'After all our hard work, destressing, I really thought you were back to square one. I was very worried for you.'
'I wouldn't call it hard,' he mused, 'or even work, to be fair. And I'm sorry for worrying you. I'm afraid I rather over-reacted.'
'What do you mean, you over-reacted?' Molly exclaimed. 'I think your reaction was entirely proportionate, under the circumstances. What Mycroft did was…well, almost unforgiveable.'
'Oh, I agree. And I don't forgive him. I can't forgive him.'
Molly frowned. She could see Alicia's point of view. Mycroft's world had been turned upside down and inside out by all the recent revelations. And he was only human, after all. So, to never be forgiven? She thought that would be a little harsh. But Sherlock was still talking…
'Not until he accepts that what he did was wrong,' he continued, 'which I don't think he does, yet. No, I had every right to be angry but the panic attack? And the vomiting? They were over-reactions. I knew I was over-reacting at the time but I just couldn't stop myself. In that moment, I was suddenly in the same mindset as when I made that tape recording. Being confronted with how powerful Mycroft is and what he could do with that power - I mean, I've always known he's powerful but I'd let myself believe he'd become a benign entity and then…I was just terrified. And that's the scary thing. I couldn't control my own emotions.'
Molly stroked a sympathetic hand over his crown and followed it up with a kiss to his temple.
'But I don't want you to be worried,' he insisted. 'I'm not back to square one…square three, maybe…' He gave a wry grin and rested his head back on her chest.
'We're going to get through this,' she assured him, dropping another kiss on the top of his head.
'Do you fancy a cup of tea?' he asked, looking up to meet her gaze.
She did but she was really enjoying this intimate little interlude, here on the sofa, just cuddling.
'We don't have any milk,' she replied.
'I'll go and get some,' he exclaimed, disentangling himself and rolling off the sofa, landing on the rug in front of her, on his knees, grinning like a naughty school boy.
'I'll go,' she insisted, making to rise. 'You're in your pyjamas!'
'I'm always going to the corner shop in my pyjamas,' he exclaimed. 'Nobody bats an eyelid.' And with that, he leant forward and plonked a smacker on her lips then jumped up and headed for the door to the landing, flinging it open and diving for the stair case.
'Don't you need something on your feet?' Molly called after him.
'I've got something on my feet. Socks!' he called back as he disappeared down the stairs, his dressing gown billowing out behind him.
'It's bloody freezing out there,' Molly sighed - to herself, of course, since he was long gone.
ooOoo
I hope that puts all your minds at rest. He's going to be OK but it might take a while...