Ghost of Christmas Past
She didn't want to come.
Sherlock could tell from the way her easy smile tightened and turned brittle.
"We were going to do it at our place; but Mrs H insisted on handling most of the food. She still thinks it's too soon for Mary to be out of hospital. It seemed easier to do the whole thing over there rather than trying to argue with her," John continued to prattle on.
It was a valid reason to have the small holiday gathering at Baker Street, Sherlock didn't understand why Molly might find it objectionable. She'd been enthused about the party idea, even offering to help Mary figure out decorations, up until the moment John mentioned that they would be using Sherlock's rooms.
His mind raced as he tried to deduce what could have possibly changed her mind in a span of seconds.
Oh.
The memory of the last Christmas 'party' John had hosted at Baker Street, and the cruel things he had said to her, reared its ugly head.
Surely, they had put that uncomfortable moment behind them in the intervening years. She must know that he didn't . . . That he wouldn't . . . Not again.
Never again.
Especially after Sherrinford.
Didn't she?
They'd never discussed the repercussions of the phone call. He'd simply followed Lestrade into the morgue at Barts several weeks later, and it had been as if nothing had happened. Outwardly at least.
He might have had the odd moment or two where he had thought of her and wished that things might have been different. That he was different. But Molly never indicated that she wanted to discuss it. And he certainly didn't want to bring it up. The very thought made his skin grow cold and clammy, his heart race, and his brain scramble for an immediate diversion.
Whatever Molly's thoughts on the matter, she hid them well.
Molly turned away to finish cleaning her workstation, undoubtedly trying to find an excuse that wouldn't ring false enough to attract Sherlock's attention and trigger an awkward deduction. She must not have realized that he was already very aware of her reluctance.
John continued, as unobservant as always. "Mary's excited. It's been ages since we've had a grown-up evening with a group of friends. Before Rosie was born, I think?"
"Mmmhmm," Molly hummed as she carried glassware to the sink.
"So, should I put you down as a yes, then?"
"I-" She carefully set her equipment down and finally turned to look at John. Something in his expression must have tugged at her soft-heart because she nodded her head. "Sure. Tell Mary I'll be there." Her eyes briefly met Sherlock's, then flitted away. "Unless I have to work. You know how it is." She shrugged and Sherlock frowned.
இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—
"Please, sit down," Mary tutted at Mrs Hudson. "You've done more than enough making all the food. Let John or Sherlock bring up the rest."
"It's no trouble, dear. There's only a few more plates." Mrs Hudson edged toward the stairs.
Mary moved to intercept her. "I insist. You're our guest."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Both women were forces of nature and he wouldn't want to lay odds as to which would come out on top if they were allowed to continue.
"Both of you, sit!" Everyone in the room turned to look at him and he realized his tone might have been sharper than he'd intended. "Please. Your hip, Mrs Hudson. And Mary, shouldn't you be off your feet as much as possible? I'm sure John is more than capable of dealing with a few plates of Christmas biscuits and hors d'oeuvres. Correct, John?"
"I-Yes. Of course." His friend nodded eagerly, then turned to shoot him a glare from behind his wife. "Aren't you going to help?"
"Nope." Sherlock ducked down the hall to his bedroom and firmly closed the door behind him. He found something to distract himself with for a solid quarter of an hour before re-joining the others in the brightly decorated sitting room.
Unlike the other festive holiday trappings that had been haphazardly strewn across the majority of his flat (including a rather inappropriate, in his opinion, string of fairy lights in the bathroom) that he tolerated with only an initial bah humbug grumble, the mistletoe hanging in the kitchen doorway made him grimace every time he caught sight of it.
John and Mary kept making a point of 'getting caught under the mistletoe' in a display Sherlock found just this side of nauseating. Even Graham had received a giggling kiss on the cheek from Mary, and an even gigglier one from Mrs Hudson. Sherlock, however, had gone out of his way to avoid the area entirely. At one point he'd deliberately gone out into the hall and into the kitchen through the second door, only to hear Mary laughingly tell him to stop being a Grinch.
Whatever that meant.
Eventually, nearly forty-five minutes after the first eager guest had arrived, he heard the front door open and the light tread footsteps slowly ascending the stairs. Sherlock hopped up from where he'd been sitting in front of his laptop (he'd given up on being an active participant in the party not long after it had begun in earnest) and rushed to take up his violin, intent on playing the Christmas song Mrs Hudson had requested earlier. If the move kept him from being in the same location he'd been in when Molly had first appeared all those Christmases ago, it was purely a coincidence. He was simply trying to please his landlady. Nothing whatsoever to do with not wanting to remind Molly of a time that clearly still upset her.
She reached the top step as the melody began. He swallowed as Graham noticed her arrival and hurried to take help her remove her coat. Molly hadn't bothered with a repeat of the tight dress, glittery stones, and bright red lipstick. And why would she have? There was no one at Baker Street she was trying to impress this year.
Sherlock ignored the faint taunt of John's voice in the back of his head, "And whose fault is that?"
Her coat slipped off her shoulders into Graham's eager hands and revealed a plain pair of jeans and a dark green blouse that was only slightly more fitted than the ones she usually wore beneath her lab coat. Sherlock noted that her hair had been twisted to the side in a loose braid, but the harsh winter wind had pulled several strands free. Her lips were untinted, with just a hint of gloss, nothing like the bright red that had seemed so out of place on her mouth.
She was plain and comfortable and familiar.
She was pretty.
Beautiful.
He briefly closed his eyes, telling himself he was concentrating on the music and not running away from his thoughts.
Molly greeted everyone, including Sherlock, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary; but he could see flash of unease in her expression as she began to set her decorative bag of presents on the table near John's chair. He suspected he was the only one who noticed when she pulled up short and put it on the floor near the door instead.
Sherlock's eyes were drawn to the bag against his will. The package at the top was large and carefully wrapped in shiny gold paper with a pretty silver ribbon.
I see you've got a new boyfriend, Molly, and you're serious about him.
His fingers tightened around the violin bow and it pulled at one of the strings a fraction too hard. The song ended several measures early with an improvised flourish. He ignored Dimmock's demand for another as the violin was tucked back into its case.
The police detective had already had two full glasses of spiked eggnog and was feeling a tad too comfortable for Sherlock's liking. At least Hopkins had the decency to limit herself to a single glass of red wine and a modicum of professionalism so far. Although, judging from the way she continued to exchange shy glances with Mary's friend from the clinic, the two women were likely to end up huddled in a corner of the sitting room sharing anecdotes and phone numbers before the night was through.
"Thanks for coming." Mary held out her arms to pull Molly into a hug. "I wasn't sure you'd make it, John said you'd told him you might have to work."
"Ah, yes, well . . . I wasn't sure myself. The snow is coming down harder than I thought, and traffic was barely crawling along, which is why I'm so late." Molly glanced around the room. She took in the decorations with a soft smile and nodded at Mrs Hudson. Her eyes lit on him for a moment, then skittered away as she turned back to Mary. "Actually, I may not be able to stay very long. I'm on call tonight, so, if something important comes up at the morgue, I might have to leave."
She's lying.
He knows she's lying. Even without the suspicious way that she wouldn't look directly at him, he would know she was lying.
He had gone to visit Mike Stamford shortly after John had invited Molly to the party. After discussing some of the new equipment that the hospital labs were slated to receive after the New Year, Sherlock had brought up how Molly had been scheduled to cover the majority of the winter holidays over the last several years.
"Wasn't it time," he had suggested, "to get someone else to do it? After all, it isn't very fair, is it?"
Mike had given him a strange look, but he had agreed that the newest member of the staff—Sawyer? Sanderson? Something that started with an 'S', at any rate. —should take a turn; which is what used to happen before Molly had starting volunteering so others could spend Christmas Eve and day with their families.
Sherlock considered confronting her about it—privately, of course—but something made him hold his tongue.