CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Better Man

If only...

Sherlock Holmes was not a man given to fanciful whimsy. However, with Molly Hooper nestled beside him for warmth in her bed, in her room, in their own little world away from reality, he daydreamed.

In his daydream they were not confined to the restrictions and laws made by a man who didn't even follow them.

No, in his daydream they had a little house on the beach, he tended to his bees, Redbeard at his side. And she toiled in a garden or collecting seashells that were swept up onto the shore.

Together, in this dream, they walked barefoot in the sand and Sherlock would breathe in the salty, ocean air.

But Sherlock Holmes had never seen the ocean before, had never felt sand beneath his feet, had never held a seashell in his palm and marveled at it.

And yet with Molly he could picture it all so clearly as if they had already lived it in another life.

Said it was a wakeup...

The junkie he had killed, her words came back to him, slapping him back to the cold reality he had so easily slipped away from.

Who needed waking up? Sherlock couldn't help but think.

And something strange inside him told him he already knew the answer to that.

What was so important that required the murder of five senior Watchers?

Molly shifted closer to him and he let himself return to her mentally. He cupped her cheek and kissed her forehead.

"It's morning, isn't it?" She said with her eyes still closed, her voice husky from sleep. Sherlock leaned in closer and kissed down her cheeks until his lips landed over her heart. She slid her fingers into his hair and sighed, cradling him closer.

"No, it's still night. Let's go back to bed." He said and she laughed quietly. He liked hearing her laugh, it didn't happen often that he was the cause of it.

Don't think about her tears, you're with her now, that's what matters, he told himself.

With a heavy sigh that felt like he was inhaling a burden rather than exhaling one, he kissed her cheek one last time before sitting up. The sun was indeed rising. He had time to get to his bedroom without the other servants noticing him.

Molly sat up, the sheet falling down to her waist, no shame was upon her face.

"When will I see you again?" She asked him bravely. Sherlock buttoned his bloodied shirt, most likely some blood from the junkie's mixed with his own.

"As soon as I can." He promised and he finished dressing, Molly watching him the whole time. He felt free when he was with her but it was a feeling he was still getting used to.

No one had ever watched him dress before. But he found that he liked her watching him and wanted to always wake up like this.

For a moment, Sherlock tried to remind himself that he must be cold. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

To hell with it, she's worth more than that, he thought.

Kissing her one last time he departed begrudgingly from her room.

Only to come face to face with Mrs-Fucking-Hudson.

Arms crossed, one finger lightly tapping the crook of her elbow, she gazed at him in the only way he should be. His heart didn't exactly speed up, but it nearly shot out of his chest, going from twenty to a hundred in a matter of seconds.

Naturally, his first thought was to kill her quickly and quietly but of course Sherlock Holmes couldn't kill a woman who had practically raised him. Well, raised him while he was still an adult.

"Sherlock Holmes," Mrs. Hudson began in a voice that made Sherlock shrink to the age of ten. "I am very, very, very disappointed in you."

Yes, there it was! He knew that was coming.

Hanging his head, unable to make eye contact, he tried to think of an excuse.

However none came because there was no excuse this woman with the eyes of an owl would believe.

The woman was many things but stupid and ignorant she certainly was not.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" She demanded, remaining as still as a statue but ready to come alive with her frail fists of fury.

"I...I'm sorry." Was all he could come up with.

Yes, back to the scared little boy he had been when he had been caught doing something he shouldn't. Or even just caught being a little boy.

Before the Watcher Institute beat it out of him on Mars.

Looking down at the floor, he heard Mrs. Hudson move coming to stand directly in front of him. He felt her hands take his shoulders and he finally met her penetrating gaze.

The lines on her face were like a map, like the pages of an old book, telling a striking story and leading him to a place that only be described as home.

"Sherlock Holmes," she began again, "I have always been loyal and faithful to you for what you did for me. This secret, like others, I shall carry to my grave. But you must make a choice: endanger that girl and yourself or risk losing all you hold most dear."

With that she leaned up and kissed his cheek before slowly and silently disappearing down the corridor, leaving Sherlock to ponder not just his future but Molly's as well.

X

Saturday, the evening John would spend with Sherlock and his wife, Janine.

In an odd way John was nervous. He and Sherlock had spent the remainder of the week with Irene going over cases, solving the bulk and leaving Irene to do the rest of the dangerous leg work. Sherlock didn't seem as interested in throwing himself into danger as he had the first time they met.

Perhaps the whole NLD incident had taught the Watcher a thing or two. But while Sherlock was onto new cases, John hadn't been idle. He had been making his own deductions, his own subtle inquiries. He had updated Mycroft who seemed quite placid in his relief that Sherlock was okay.

But of course if Mycroft Holmes had jumped up and down squealing and crying John would have been sure he was in some sort of dream.

Saturday. Dinner, food, chairs and sitting with Sherlock and his wife. Sherlock being married was still such a queer and foreign concept for John to wrap his head around. He wondered if she was as murderous as Mrs. Harrison and the others.

What John pictured and who he actually met were two very different people.

Janine Holmes was very warm and very welcoming. She smiled pleasantly at him and kissed his cheek, showing him around the house and giving him a history lesson. The tour was spectacular.

Holmes Manor was four stories tall with a great hall and staircase that seemed to go and on.

"It's been kept almost exactly as Sherlock's parents left it." She said politely and rather proudly as she showed John their portrait, an empty space hanging near it.

When John asked what the empty space was for she told him it was for when they had a family, until then the space remained empty. John couldn't help but feel pity for Janine.

Five years of a childless marriage was abnormal, even John knew that.

Eventually Sherlock joined them, looking healthy and sober and late as usual. The two men exchanged a knowing look; one that said "I've seen you at your worst and it's okay".

"Are you married, John?" Janine asked during dinner. John cleared his throat which Sherlock immediately took notice of and the Captain kicked himself for showing his tell.

"Uh, no, no. Trying to get the retirement and transfer."

"How do you do that?"

John was about to answer when Sherlock raised his hand.

"Please, Janine, Captain Watson doesn't need to bore you with those details."

Anyone else would have been offended, in a way John was, but Janine simply nodded her head and smiled and went on cutting her steak. However, John noticed the small amount of pressure change in the way she cut into the red meat, as if all her tension was in the knife...

John felt, more than a little, uncomfortable by the whole affair.

It was bizarre seeing Sherlock interact with his wife; first of all, they didn't act married at all. Not in the way John's parents had. John remembers fondly his parents being quite fond of each other, touching and holding hands.

Affection...

There was no devotion with Sherlock and Janine, no closeness. As if sentiment was completely off the table. They hardly looked at one another.

During John's stay he got an up close and personal look at what life must have been like for those women who had conspired to have their husbands murdered. He could picture Janine in the red mourning garb now... Sherlock's grave nothing more than a relief rather than a loss.

"Do you have hobbies, John?" Janine asked, and she picked her glass of water up and drank daintily from it. Her actions seemed almost as practiced as Irene's, albeit more human.

"I'm a bit of a bore, honestly." John replied with a smile.

"But he comes in quite handy." Sherlock assured Janine.

John glanced around the dining room. The china was old but hadn't been used much, they weren't normally hosts then. The room was filled with tapestries and heirlooms, portraits adorned the walls and a family tree had been painted into the wall paper.

"You've lived here your whole life?" John asked Sherlock. The servants came and cleared the table for dessert.

John immediately took notice of the sweet looking strawberry blonde maid as she entered and exited the room, looking only briefly with his eyes as he made conversation.

"No," Sherlock replied, a little emphasis put on the word than seemed unnecessary which caught John's attention, and after a moment the other man began speaking again. "I lived in Sector 20 as a young boy."

Janine didn't pay it any mind but John... John stopped mid drink.

Sherlock had lived during the Fall. He had lived during the Fall of Sectors 15-20 and he had lived there. He had lived in what was now a living hell. The hell that John himself had pulled him out of.

That's more than a little telling, John thought to himself.

"Where are you from, John?" Sherlock asked.

John felt he didn't need to answer since the Watcher already knew everything about him. But John found that this was more for Janine's benefit than anything else.

"Sector 1." John replied.

Janine gasped.

"My god." Janine couldn't help but say. John smiled kindly and shook his head.

"It wasn't so bad-"

"You poor man." Janine said pityingly and that's exactly what John had hoped to avoid.

"No. Really, it was... fine. Most of my neighbors got out, eventually in one way or another. Some even went to the colonies on Mars." He said trying to assure he wasn't some charity case.

The rest of dinner passed by rather uneventfully. John kept hoping that cute blonde maid might wisp by. He eventually had to relieve himself. Janine told him where the bathroom was and he thanked her and left the room.

John was grateful for the break. Sherlock at work was one thing, Sherlock at home with his wife and his house and food and plates and all the other things that went with it was simply too damn much.

He couldn't ever picture Janine giving her husband the love bites Sherlock so frequently had. Or maybe they had no personal chemistry and it was all sexual...

STOP right there! He berated himself, trying to wipe the image of Sherlock and Janine having ordinary, conventional passionless sex. It unnerved him even more.

As he washed his hands he splashed a little cool water on his face, drying quickly. He opened the door and someone walked into him. He caught them around the shoulders, finding them to be shorter than he.

And sure enough it was the blonde maid. Her blue dress complimented her pale skin. She almost seemed to glow in the evening light.

"I'm-I'm terribly, sorry, Sir, please forgive me." She said quickly, bowing her head, curtsying, doing all the courtesies she was conditioned to perform.

John removed one hand from her shoulder but the other remained.

"Don't apologize," he said kindly and offered her a gentle smile. Her cheeks turned red and he felt a little proud of himself.

Conflict of interest, she's the maid and you're the guest, he reminded himself before removing his other hand.

"What's your name?" John asked her and she seemed taken aback by it at first before finding her voice again.

"Molly Hooper, Sir." She said politely.

"Molly," he repeated. "That's a lovely name."

Why does that sound so familiar? He thought.

The blush returned. John couldn't help himself, she certainly was cute.

A little flirting couldn't hurt, could it?

"How do you like working here?" He asked.

"Why?" She questioned as if she were being tested.

John shrugged.

"Just curious." He answered.

"I like it. It's a place to live."

John sensed an almost defensiveness in her tone.

"There's nothing wrong with that." He said, trying to get her to relax. "Have you worked here long?"

"Five years, since my father died."

"I'm sorry." He said sincerely.

Molly's eyes watered for a moment before nodding, offering her thanks.

"You, uh," John put his hands in his pockets trying to ask in the right way. "Get any free time?"

Molly must not have understood what he was getting at.

"From time to time so I can read." She said, smiling brightly. He chuckled.

"No I mean. Well, have you got a boyfriend?"

Never stopped you before, he reminded himself.

Molly's mouth dropped open and then quickly closed, she shook her head and began fidgeting.

"I-I don't, um, I don't date. I'm not really encouraged to." Molly replied nervously.

"Why's that?" He asked curiously.

"Don't you know?"

He shook his head.

"I'm an Infertile. There's not point, is there?" She said matter of factly.

John sighed.

"Well, if it's all the same to you, if you have any free time look me up." He said. He reached into his breast pocket and handed her his card. She gaped at him.

"Emergencies only though," he said with a wink.

"John." They both turned at the sound of Sherlock's voice. Molly, still gaping, scuttled away somewhere else. John was disappointed at her absence.

Sherlock approached the other man, hiding his anger and not clenching his fists.

Instead he bottled it up and tried not to blame John. He didn't know, how could he?

"Drink?" Sherlock suggested. "Janine's gone to bed and offers her goodbyes."

The two men moved to Sherlock's study where they drank scotch and sat by a fire.

Molly came in to tend to the fire before Sherlock dismissed her.

Sherlock noted her eyes flashing to John and then to himself. He felt it then... the green eyed monster. The sonofabitch who wormed it's parasitic way into Sherlock's soul. He imagined himself throwing Molly onto the ground and mounting her, making John watch, so that the Captain would know who Molly belonged to.

You DO NOT own her, Sherlock told himself, attempting to calm down and not give himself away. John was more perceptive than he might know.

"Did you enjoy dinner?" Sherlock asked as Molly left.

"It was... enlightening." John replied.

"You didn't like it."

"The food or the dinner?"

Sherlock chuckled and so did John.

"I apologize. Janine and I aren't used to visitors. She has her hobbies and things to keep her occupied but, well, she doesn't know anything beyond what they taught her."

"And you keep her in the dark." John pointed out.

"I keep her safe. The less the wife of a Watcher knows the better. Trust me."

There was silence before John finally asked,

"Why are you looking back into the murdered Watchers case? It's closed.

"Officially."

"And unofficially?"

Sherlock took another drink from his glass.

"Unofficially it torments me." Sherlock admitted. "Something, John, something isn't right. I can feel it in my marrow."

"Like what?"

"What the junkie said confirmed my theory."

John leaned forward, wishing Sherlock would just spit it out. He didn't like suspense as a rule.

"And that would be...?"

"That they weren't murdered simply because they were terrible husbands. They weren't guilty at all, Mrs. Harrison threw that in for color. To conceal the truth even more. Don't you see?"

John shrugged, Sherlock rolled his eyes, the Watcher opened his mouth but John stopped him.

"If you say I 'see but do not observe' I'll fucking knock you out'," John warned. Sherlock snapped his mouth closed and seemed to be looking for something else to say.

"The junkie said it was planned, a wake up for someone. But who? They were targeting Watchers for a reason. They chose specific Watchers to lead us away from the real reason they were murdered." Sherlock said obviously.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I don't like not knowing. But one thing I can tell you is they were murdered to send a message to someone."

"And I suppose you don't know that either." John said with a smile.

"I can't know everything, John."

The Captain laughed, nearly choking on his scotch.

"Can I record you saying that?"

Sherlock laughed as well forgetting his jealousy and forgetting Molly and the incident yesterday morning with Mrs. Hudson.

John made things so easy. He helped him feel normal. He made him feel like he could say anything and that was the dangerous part. The Captain had proven that he could be trusted and yet Sherlock couldn't bring himself to fully rely on him.

Never trust a Watcher, never trust someone sent to watch a Watcher, his instructors had grilled into his head.

Sherlock did business in a big world but inhabited an even smaller one. He had no friends, no companions. Even his own wife was a visitor in a way. Once she conceived they would go their separate ways; cohabitating together but living alone.

"I guess we'll have to investigate quietly," John said finishing his glass.

Sherlock nodded.

"Can't let anyone else in." Sherlock said thoughtfully.

"What about Irene?"

"She's programmed never to lie but that doesn't mean she tells the whole story. She can... omit certain truths."

"Do you trust her?" John asked as if he had been reading Sherlock's mind.

"Yes and no. She kills so easily."

"You don't?"

Sherlock didn't answer so John decided to change the subject.

"What's Molly's story?" John asked, assuming that talking about women was harmless enough.

Sherlock felt his jealously returning but had to remind himself that it wasn't John's fault that he was unaware of the secrets that Sherlock held. He wasn't aware of the relationship he had with Molly.

And yet the beast inside began pacing, under threat, under siege... ready to go to war.

"I can't say that I know. Infertile as far as I know. Quite honestly I don't pay attention to the staff." Sherlock said simply. John nodded.

"Would you mind if-"

"If what?" Sherlock shot out, a little more brusquely than he meant to. It gave the other man pause before continuing.

"If I asked her out. I understand I need to ask permission."

"If you like." Sherlock said coldly.

"If it's a problem-"

"Problem? Why would there be a problem? I don't know what good you think would come of it. She's a little thing after all. Quite frail. No physical attractiveness to speak of-"

"-Sherlock-"

"-small mouth, virtually no breasts. You might as well be going out with a child..."

"Sherlock-" John tried again and failed.

"-really, John, you could do much better than that little waif."

"Sir?"

Sherlock clenched his jaw when he heard Molly's little voice. He didn't turn his head and didn't give any other reaction. John cleared his throat awkwardly, looking away, looking at anything else but the glassy eyes of Molly Hooper.

Molly Hooper, that name... John thought, trying to think of anything else. The tension filled the room and he feared he might choke on it.

"Yes, Hooper?" Sherlock said calmly, still not looking at her.

"The Lady wants to know if you'll be up soon." Molly said quietly. John finally looked at her again, her eyes facing the wall, still glassy as she tried not to cry.

You asshole, John thought setting his gaze back on Sherlock.

"Tell her in a little while." Sherlock ordered and the maid quickly left the room, the door practically slamming shut behind her. John assumed there would be hell to pay for her later.

"You dick." John said and he rubbed his face.

"How was I supposed to know she was there?"

"You should apologize."

Sherlock gaped at him but didn't fight it.

The two men finished another drink before John decided he should leave and let Sherlock and Janine do... whatever it was they did. Personally, John didn't want to think about it.

They said goodnight and Sherlock ascended the staircase slowly, heavily, like it was the last thing he wanted to do.

Molly Hooper helped John with his coat.

"I'm sorry for what he said." John said kindly and the little maid only shrugged and sniffled. She had certainly had a cry when she left the study.

"I'm used to it." She replied.

John knew she didn't have to but the girl began buttoning his coat for him and he frowned before taking her little hand in his. She stilled and yet she trembled as he held her hand in his. John watched her swallow nervously before she met his gaze.

"I'd like to see you." He told her and she shook her head slowly.

"I can't."

"Please?"

Molly smiled shyly, blushing and looking away.

"It wouldn't be appropriate." She told him and he shrugged.

"Who cares?"

"I do. Others do."

"To hell with others."

Molly bit her lip and John wanted to kiss it.

"I'm sorry, Captain Watson, but I'm not free to."

"I thought you didn't have a boyfriend."

"That's not what I meant." She said sadly before sliding her hand from his.

John nodded and sighed, defeated and feeling mildly rejected but respecting her wishes all the same.

"Well, goodnight Molly Hooper." John said and he departed from the cold manor.

On his way home, John thought about Molly Hooper. He thought about her alone in that terrible house. He thought about the look on her face when she heard what Sherlock had said about her. He wanted to hold her until she didn't feel sad anymore. He wanted to kiss her and tell her how beautiful she was.

John wondered if anyone had told her she was beautiful.

Molly Hooper... I know I've heard that name before, John thought. Maybe Sherlock mentioned her. No, he's barely looked at her twice. Why do I know that name?

X

The sex with Janine went better this time than Sherlock had expected. He wasn't all that interested but with a little prompting it eventually culminated in a climax. Not for Janine however. No, the one time he did bring her to orgasm she had been terrified.

Afterwards, she would stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom or sit at her vanity, rubbing her belly in small circles as if she could coax a baby to life.

Sherlock felt dejected. He felt disgusted with himself because he knew his wife needed him and he only wanted Molly. He would have to make it up to her. He was only trying to disinterest John and it had, of course, blown up in his face.

In a queer way, and Sherlock was loath to admit it, he knew John would be better for Molly. He was gentler, kinder and all the things Sherlock could never be. Perhaps John would be open to Molly, allow her into his mind as well as his heart. He would be good for her, sweet, warm, devoted.

Sherlock didn't feel devoted to Molly in the ways he wanted to. He still slept with his wife, he deceived his wife, he felt he still used Molly.

His whole relationship with Molly had begun with lust and lies. An affair that could hurt them both. Was it the danger that attracted him to her? Was it love?

Sherlock had never been in love before and yet it was the only way he could describe his feelings for Molly. But he feared telling her, worrying that the moment he did there would be no coming back. Even now, after everything, if he needed to break it off with Molly he knew that it would easier. If he told her he loved her now it would be harder in the end.

Mrs. Hudson was right. Damn the old shrew, she was right.

You know one day you will have to break her, his mind told him.

But not now, not this night or the next.

AN: Sorry for the delay in updates! Life has been crazy, I'm in the process of moving and working full-time and yada-yada-yada, you get the gist! I want to thank you guys for being so patient. Sorry for the "filler" but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! 3