Rated K Victorian!lock fic from this holidaysat221b Prompt of the Day - 4/20/22: Doctor Who!Sherlock - Molly Hooper as a companion - The Silent Fangirl
She couldn't help looking at him, but always tried to do so unobtrusively. Through her eyelashes. Sidelong. And only when he was utterly engrossed in something, as he so often was - which made it easier for her to just…drink him in.
He'd chosen her, asked her to come with him when so many others were clamoring to do so - that cow Janine or the seductive and clever Irene Adler, even Doctor Watson and his wife had shown interest in tagging along on adventures, but who wouldn't? Phillip Anderson of the Met had come right out and asked, only to be turned down with a flat, "No, Anderson, you'd lower the IQ of the entire TARDIS" and a smirk in her direction that could only be met by a helpless smile of her own.
Then he'd extended his hand to her, a twinkle in his eye, and asked, "Hooper, on the other hand, would make a tolerable traveling companion. What do you say?"
What else could she say, but yes? It was shockingly brazen of her, a mere milliner's assistant, to take the hand of an unmarried stranger - a man from another world entirely different to her own - and follow him into the unknown, scandalously unchaperoned and woefully unprepared for some of the dangers she would find herself facing - but regretting not a single moment of those times.
Times, she feared, that were now coming to an end. She stole another glance at him and repressed the most recent of many, many sighs she'd sighed over him. He was handsome and clever, everything she'd ever found attractive in a man, despite his sometimes biting humor and flashes of temper, his cruel jibes when he was bored or frustrated. Yes, he was everything she'd ever wanted in a man - but in the end, he wasn't a man at all, was he? No, he was from another world, with two hearts beating beneath his chest, the ability to understand the intricacies of time and space in a way she could never hope to, and only saw her as an ephemeral, transitory visitor in his life.
A companion, yes, but hardly a companion for life. Her mayfly life was nothing compared to his hundreds of years of experience, of a life lived so far outside the norms of her own Victorian society as to be nearly incomprehensible.
And yet…
And yet, she loved him. She could admit that to herself now, after fighting it for so long. And in an unguarded moment, she'd allowed him to see that love she felt for him and thus, she knew, her moments with him were numbered.
"How about a trip back home?" he'd asked her, lightly, as if merely offering another adventure, but she'd known then that once back on Earth, in the London of her own time, where her own life awaited her return, she would never set foot in the TARDIS again.
She kept the pain of that knowledge to herself, quietly agreeing that yes, it would be nice to see her friends and what little family she had, and he was off in a flash, setting the coordinates and working the mysterious controls of the TARDIS, speaking in his usual rapid-fire manner of things he'd seen and done, battles he'd waged and, somewhat wistfully to her ears, of the silver trees and burnt orange night skies of his home world.
The TARDIS landed with its usual jarring thump, followed by his usual muttered, "I must see about fixing that" (although he never seemed to find the time to do so).
He spun round on his heel to grin at her, dark black coat flaring dramatically round him as he did so. "Here we are," he announced unnecessarily. "Got the time and place exactly right, as usual. Some of these older models," he patted the console affectionately, "can be a bit tricky, but not my Hudders." He'd named his traveling machine 'Mrs. Hudson' ("after my old nanny back on Gallifrey") and Molly smiled at the familiar pet name.
"Reliable as always," Molly murmured in agreement, trying with some difficulty to keep the keen disappointment she was feeling from her voice. She offered him a smile, trying to brave and carefree but then, she'd never quite managed the trick of it. Not with him, not when her pitiful human heart was breaking. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. "Shall we see what's changed since I've been gone?"
"Nothing at all, I should think, considering we've arrived exactly when I wanted us to," he said with a wink. Crooking his elbow, he offered it in silent invitation. She curled her hand around his arm, sternly reminding herself it was simply gallantry and nothing more, and allowed him to escort her through the door.
Blinking in the sunlight of a warm spring morning, she tutted and shook her head. "Sorry, my dear Consulting Time Traveler, but your reliable Mrs. Hudson appears to be a bit off the mark; it was definitely autumn when we left. Are you certain it's even the right year?"
"Oh, it's the right year, and the right place," he replied, urging her forward. She looked up and realized they were nearing the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral - and that, gathered on those steps, was an entire congregation of her friends, co-workers, and even her estranged mother, looking as regal as always in a very fine Worth gown suitable for some formal daytime occasion.
Molly turned to Sherlock, as she'd become accustomed to calling him ("It's fine to call me Detective or what have you if you're only seeing me the one time, but for day-to-day I'd prefer you use my name, Molly"), surprise writ large on her features. "What's all this? It's not my birthday, that's not until late summer!"
"This," he said, turning her gently and taking both her hands in his, "is a celebration." She stared up at him, utterly confused, as he pulled one hand away from hers.
Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a miniature TARDIS. With his thumb he flicked open a cleverly hinged top and upturned the contents into her hand.
Molly stared, dumbfounded, at the sapphire and diamond ring that nestled in her palm. Then she transferred her stare to his face.
He was smiling down at her, but not his careless, insouciant smile. Nor one of his mocking smirks, or cheeky grins. No, this smile was uncertain. Anxious, almost. "Molly Hooper, I've had many companions in my travels," he said softly. "But none have managed to captivate me as you have. You have faced danger with fear but never panic; you have encountered the strangest of beings with grace and acceptance where others would react with hatred or distress; you have managed to not only put up with my foibles and follies, but indeed, to accept them as few ever have."
"But you're so much older than I am!" Molly blurted, then blushed in mortification as his hopeful smile dimmed. "I, I mean, that is, I don't mean that you're too old for me, I mean - why would you want to marry someone as ordinary as me? Someone who won't live a third, a quarter, a tenth of your lifespan? Someone," she finished in a tiny voice, "who'll eventually bore you, or at the very least, grow old and die long before you even show a grey hair in those lovely curls?"
His dying smile rekindled at those final curls, and the longing look she gave them. Or was it the tiniest twitch of her fingers against his, which had so longed to run themselves through those curls?
"Molly Hooper, of all my many, many companions," he declared, "you are the one that matters most to me. The one I trust, completely, with not only my life - those exquisite millenary skills of yours, need I remind you, have stitched up several wounds with barely a scar left to show the location of the original injury! - but with…well, I'd say with my hearts, but that probably wouldn't sound right to your ears. So we'll say…with my love."
Molly's eyes widened further and her breath caught in her throat, choking her so she could barely speak. But speak she did, the wonder in her eyes just as visible in her words. "You…you love me?"
"I love you," he affirmed. "And if you'll have me, I'll marry you right here and right now, in the presence of these very patient friends of yours - and," he added when the sound of a disgruntled harrumph sounded from the crowd (Doctor Watson, she believed), "mine as well, for some inexplicable reason."
Unable to speak for fear of loosing the flood of joyful tears she felt gathering at the corners of her eyes, Molly nodded, then nodded again, letting a gasp of laughter as Sherlock whooped and pulled her into his arms, swinging her round and round until setting her back, somewhat unsteadily on her feet. "You hear that, you lot? She'll have me!" he called out.
Amidst the cheers and applause that erupted at his words, he pulled her closer, arms encircling her and eyes shining with an emotion she'd never have believed him capable of feeling - not for her, plain and simple little Molly Hooper from Earth. But as his lips claimed hers in the first of many kisses they were to share throughout a lifetime together, all she could think was, "Perhaps not so plain and simple after all."