Home is where the heart is.
― Attributed to Pliny the Elder
Molly looked around her flat, somewhat astonished at how clean and tidy it was. She'd left it, frankly, looking a bit like a tip when she'd last closed the front door behind her. Taking care of Rosie, spending so much of her time at 221B, had left her precious few hours to dedicate to housework.
Someone, apparently, had taken it upon themselves to tidy it for her. She tilted her head up to look at who she suspected that 'someone' to be. "Thank you."
Sherlock gave a dismissive wave of the hand. "Mycroft found some people to take care of things." He nodded toward the kitchen. "Including that annoying moggie of yours."
As if on cue, Toby came darting into the sitting room, stopping abruptly a few feet away from Molly. He sat up, tail curled around his front paws, and regarded her out of stolid green eyes. Then, without warning, he sprung up into her arms. Molly sniffled and buried her face in his fur as he purred, front paws on her shoulder and now looking up at Sherlock with what he privately saw as approval. Approval for bringing home his long-missing mistress - laced, of course, with a certain amount of accusation at keeping her away for so long.
Sherlock watches Molly as she coos nonsense into Toby's ears, watches as she wanders down the hall toward her bedroom - well, the spare bedroom, since he knows what she's doing. Sure enough, when she reappears she's wearing an oversized hoodie from her uni days, a pair of garish kitten-patterned pyjama bottoms, and a clashing pair of bright orange-and-blue fuzzy socks.
She looks, in a word, wonderful.
He's removed his own coat and shoes and started the kettle for tea, and feels a warm glow when she smiles at him. Toby remains close on her heels, disdaining to even look at Sherlock when he places the ungrateful rat's bowl of food on the floor by the sink.
He joins Molly on the sofa after they've made their tea, without a single word to mar this perfect moment in time. The moment Molly Hooper, fully recovered from both her injury and the subsequent infection it had caused, has been allowed to come home.
She takes a slow, appreciative sip of her tea, closing her eyes as she does so. Then she sets it on the low table sat in front of the sofa, turns carefully (there's still some residual achiness in her shoulder and upper chest) and faces him. Regards him out of warm brown eyes that have taken on a serious cast.
He preempts her. "No."
Molly lays a gentle hand on his knee, and he capitulates, just a little. "I can't, Molly. Not…not yet."
She gives him her sweetest, saddest smile, then nods. "All right."
That's all she says. "All right." No further cajoling, nagging, harassing, threatening, insisting or otherwise attempting to make him change his mind. Just 'all right'.
Like always, Molly Hooper knows exactly what to say. How far they've come, he marvels, since she used to stutter and try too hard to impress him.
She's the strongest person he knows, and on impulse he tells her exactly that.
Her soft, understanding kiss makes his lips tingle, cause a suspicious itching at the corners of his eyes and force him to clear his throat uncomfortably.
He stands up. "Biscuits," he announces, and hurries back to the kitchen.
Molly watched as he left, knowing why he felt the sudden need for something sweet. She sighed and shook her head. She'd been hoping that her coming home might help Sherlock finally move past what had happened to her, what John had done, and finally start to try to forgive his friend. No, not forgive - to understand what had driven John to such extremes. The man had lost his wife and still blamed himself for her death and hadn't been dealing with that loss, those horrible emotions. No, instead he'd buried himself in taking care of Rosie and in work, both at the clinic and while chasing around London with Sherlock.
He hadn't been coping, he'd been repressing everything, stamping it all down so tight that it was bound to explode at the worst possible time, catching everyone he knew in the fallout.
It had taken multiple sessions with her own therapist for Molly to come even this far in her own journey of forgiveness. Yes, she'd told Greg that she wasn't going to press charges, that John needed treatment and not incarceration - but that hadn't meant she'd forgiven the man for what he'd done to her.
She might always carry some resentment towards him now, but she would be honest about it. Not bury it, hide it and let it fester. She refused to do so, not just for Rosie's sake, but for her own - and for Sherlock.
Ah, Sherlock. She sighed again and rested her chin on her arm where it lay across the back of her sofa. He was usually a man quick to forgive those he loved, even when they couldn't forgive each other, but now, with his newly-unearthed childhood traumas still haunting him, it seemed to be harder for him to do so.
She wanted to remind him that he'd been able to forgive his sister, who had willfully murdered his best friend when all three were still children, but perhaps that forgiveness had strained his current resources, leaving nothing for him to spare for John.
She'd leave him be for a bit longer, she decided as he made his way back to her side, a plate of iced biscuits in his hand. Let him try to find his own path forward.
And if he couldn't manage it? Well, she decided as she accepted the plate with a smile, she would just have to remind him that it wasn't a path he need travel alone.
End note: Hope you enjoyed this, the penultimate chapter (which, incidentally, I thought I'd uploaded a week ago but apparently not!). One more to go - or is it just one? Stay tuned! It's already written so it won't be long before it's posted. Love to everyone who's been reading, reviewing and (hopefully) enjoying this angstfest of mine.