Disclaimer – I do not own Sherlock, I am merely borrowing the characters.
AN/ I apologise for all spelling and grammar mistakes. Thank you's are at the bottom. Enjoy :)
Although Molly and Sherlock had been officially living together for a week they had already settled into a fairly familiar routine.
She wouldn't disturb him whilst he was deep in thought, and he would let her sleep for a peaceful eight hours most nights. He wouldn't terrorise her cat too much, and she would leave him her leftovers. She would bring home the occasional foot and he wouldn't leave said foot in the kitchen.
They came together like an old married couple, or at least that's what Mary was currently trying to convince Molly.
"So let me get this straight, you're telling me that this whole thing you've got going with Sherlock is purely platonic?" Mary asked clearly confused.
"Yes." Molly answered.
Since moving into Baker Street it became routine for Mary to visit almost every other day whilst john and Sherlock were running off to save London. Although she never asked, Molly assumed that a large part of these visits were to take Mary's mind off what was currently happening to her fiancé, and Molly would be lying if she said she didn't use them to distract herself too.
"Not even a hint of romance, or attraction, or dare I say it sexual tension?"
Molly rolled her eyes in mild annoyance. The same questions had come from Ms Hudson, her grandmother, and now Mary, the whole topic was starting to get a bit boring. It seemed every woman in her life was hell bent on her and Sherlock having this candid love affair.
"It's not like that."
"That what is it like? Two exes living together and having a baby?"
"We're hardly exes." Scoffed Molly.
"It's more like two friends having a baby." She knew it was a feeble answer, but it was the only one she could give. In her mind Sherlock was simply a friend and they just so happened to be having a baby together.
"Oh come on! Friends? You're having a baby together, you're living together. You even cook his dinners. You don't remotely see how you two are an old married couple?" Mary raised an eyebrow, daring Molly to defy her.
"I get the comparison, but we're not an old married couple. We are friends, just...friends." She felt like the more she was saying the word 'friends' the less accurate it was.
Even though she clearly disagreed with Molly, Mary thought that she shouldn't push the issue anymore as she smiled and leaned back in her chair.
Several minutes later Molly unexpectedly decided to bring it up again.
"Could you imagine how awkward it'd be if I actually did fancy Sherlock?"
Mary was surprised as they hadn't mentioned Sherlock for at least five minutes, instead of questioning why she was bringing it up again Mary decided to just Molly carry on talking.
"Like, 'Hey Sherlock, I know I spend 90% of my time with you and we live together and we're having baby, which is a lifelong commitment on its own, but I have a really big crush on you so let's see where that goes shall we?'. Could you imagine his face? He'd either blush like crazy or list every logical reason why we shouldn't even consider dating." Both Molly and Mary laughed at the thought of Molly confessing her undying love to Sherlock.
"I mean how stupid would I have to be I decided to fall head over heels for him?" She pronounced the word stupid with such intensity that it almost made Mary flinch.
"You can't always choose these things you know. If I could I'm not sure that an ex-army doctor with an unhealthy addiction to danger, and horribly cold feet, would be my first choice." Mary suggested light-heartedly.
"Except for the fact that you probably would still choose John. Admit it, you can choose who you fall for." Molly refused to budge on the subject as she truly believed that there was some degree of choice in who you love.
"All I'm saying is that sometimes when we don't expect, or even want someone in our lives, they pop up, and bang, you're doomed."
"Doomed?" Molly questioned such a negative choice of word.
"Yes, doomed! We can't help it, or control it, it just happens whether we want it too or not. Some people come into our lives that we are just doomed to fall for."
The next day Molly was in the lab alone when the second milestone of her pregnancy occurred.
Whilst they spent less time together then Molly had initially thought they would, they were together quite often. Which is why when the baby kicked for the first time, it was truly bad luck for Sherlock.
She guessed he was excited about it, as he had asked her about when she supposes the kick is going to happen quite a few times. Recently she would catch him staring at her every now and then, more specifically the bump.
To begin with she found it a bit odd, how those icy blue eyes would stare intently at her stomach, lately however, it made her feel positive that Sherlock cared about the baby. Sometimes though she was sure he was staring at her, and not the bump, she would often put this down to hormone tricking her.
It was somewhat fitting that she knowingly felt the first kick in the lab, it was in the child's DNA to like the place.
She had been sitting doing work when she had first felt the foreign sensation. The first time she ignored it, at lot of new things were happening inside her so she put it down to indigestion or stress, but after the third time she put two and two together and realised. Most books and websites had described it as a 'fluttering', but to Molly it felt like a twitch or a spasm.
Suddenly she found herself standing, hand pressed against the bump, waiting for another movement. A few minutes later she was rewarded by three more twitches in quick succession. It filled her with far more joy then she had ever expected it to.
She desperately wanted to show someone, anyone, but she was alone for a change. Instead she sat back down practically buzzing from excitement, waiting for an inevitable visitor. It just so happened that Dr John Watson needed the opinion of Dr Molly Hooper on a potential birthday gift idea for Miss Mary Morstan, and thought that a quick visit to the lab would take no time at all.
"Hey Moll-" He was interrupted by the very person he had come to talk to.
Out of the all new people in her life she seemed to be the least close to John. As she would often be with Sherlock when John wasn't around or with Mary when both John and Sherlock were not around, they had never really spent time alone. At this very moment Molly didn't care as she ran up to a chipper John and forced him to touch her abdomen. Which understandably confused John to no end.
"Urm, Mol-" He was once again interrupted.
"Shhhh." Molly was concentrating all of her energy on willing the child inside her to move again.
"Ok, bu-" John was now thoroughly lost about what was going on.
"Shh."She held up her left hand in front of him in hope of emphasising that he should stop talking.
They waited in silence for a few moments when Molly humphed in defeat John took this to mean he could now speak.
"Do you want me to-" John stopped and stared at the now twitching bump, wide eyed, whilst Molly smiled brightly.
"Was that the baby?"
Molly nodded as John looked back at the bump amazed.
"First time?" he shifted his hand down slightly, aiming to follow the movement.
"I think so, I've felt a couple things before that were similar, it's hard to tell what's what nowadays, but there's no mistaking that."
The baby kicked as if to prove the point further.
"Sometimes I can't believe Sherlock's actually having a kid." John still faced the bump in genuine interest as he spoke honestly.
Molly hadn't told anyone about Mycroft's visit although she suspected Sherlock knew. She hadn't brought it up with anyone as she hadn't felt the need, she still was slightly rocked by what Mycroft had said and thought that it would be best to ignore it for a little while. That was until John had joined her five minutes ago. She found herself suddenly compelled to hear what he thought about the prospect of Sherlock being a father. She summarised that if Mycroft was Sherlock's devil, unveiling all of his weakness to the world, then John would be his angel by displaying and encouraging his strengths.
"John, do you think Sherlock's going to be a good father?"
John looked back at Molly sharply, clearly taken off guard by the question. He realised he was still touching her and decided it would be best to move away.
"I honestly have no idea."
Whilst she admired his frankness, she was slightly worried by John's response.
"If you'd have asked me that question before he met you I'd have probably said no, heck you reaction my first reaction when he told me."
Of course Molly remembered those first few weeks that she knew the pair, Mary still refers to them as the dark ages.
John sighed not sure how to end his point.
"But right now he's trying, and that's all he can do, I suppose." John wished he could have answered her with an undeniable statement that 'of course Sherlock will be a smashing father', on the other hand he knew that to say such a thing wouldn't be fair to Molly.
Molly nodded weakly with an expression on her face that was somewhere in between a smile and a grimace.
"Why'd you ask?" It was fairly obvious that Molly's question hadn't come from nowhere.
"He just reminds me of someone that I used to know sometimes." Molly became quiet by the end of the sentence. She cleared her throat and got back on topic.
"And just a couple things uncle Mycroft has said." She smiled
"Ah, the delightful Mycroft Holmes." John practically sang his name it was so dipped in sarcasm.
"Mycroft's a very smart man and I'm sure all of his words were chosen carefully, and anything he's warned you about is probably completely valid-"
"But?" she was seriously hoping that there was a 'but' in this little rant of Johns.
"But, he sees the worst in Sherlock. I mean get it, in Mycroft's head Sherlock is still this spoilt little kid who needs to be disciplined, and that was very true, once upon a time."
Molly decided to stay quiet, praying that John would elaborate his point.
"Sherlock's changed so much since he met you. Fundamentally I suppose he's the same person, still a whiny git sometimes, but over the past few weeks, since you've been living together, he sleeps more, and he's eating more and he's even got a better hold on his temper."
John was reminded of how gobsmacked Lestrade was when Sherlock only insulted Anderson twice in the space on an hour.
"They're only small things I know but- in the 3 years it's been that I've known him, he hadn't changed a single thing, until he met you. I honestly don't know if he's going to be a good father but I'd like to think he might be." It was the best he could say whilst being completely truthful.
John smiled gently and Molly was struck with the thought that above all else John Watson was and remains to be a good man.
A few days after the first kick and the dynamic in the group was growing stronger and stronger.
Molly and John now felt close enough to call each other a friend and despite the initial anger that he was the second person behind John to feel the baby kicking, he found he no longer cared after he experienced it himself .
Mary and Molly decided that evening was the perfect night to start working on the wedding in 221b and it wasn't long before they were joined by John and Sherlock.
Their case had turned out to be far simpler than Sherlock had thought which frustrated him to no end. John was faced with the decision to join Mary and Molly and 'help' with the wedding (knowing that his input didn't really matter) or to sit in silence with the grumpy Sherlock.
After a quick deliberation he decided to join the wedding table and leave the sulking detective in the corner.
Standing around John saw that Mary had printed out hundreds of available venues for the wedding and with Molly's help was ordering them according to preference. It became clear that love hearts were in favour and crosses were not.
John decided to look through the ones that had already been marked. Shuffling through he found one that had pink love hearts scribbled all over and a green cross in the corner.
"Difference of opinion?" John smiled as he held up the piece of paper.
Mary groaned at the picture, as Molly sighed a quiet 'but it's so pretty'.
Glancing down John noted that Molly was marking them with a pink pen whilst Mary was marking with a green one.
Molly was right, it was a very pretty manor house coated in flowers, it was just a shame that Mary and John weren't looking for pretty. Which Mary had to remind Molly multiple times.
"Well then well save for your wedding Mary smiled, providing Sherlock likes the place too."
Molly loudly moaned which made Mary snigger.
This had been happening all evening, they would disagree on something and Mary would suggest that she should save it for her non-existent wedding to Sherlock. Molly had hoped that when Sherlock had joined them the teasing would stop but Mary thought that Molly was just to fun to embarrass.
John decided that a change of topic would be wise.
"I forgot to ask, are you going to invite my cousin Phil? Because if you are you really can't invite his brother Ben, some family feud that has never been settled."
"I wasn't going to invite either of them, that way we're not taking sides." Just when John and Molly thought they we're in the clear, Mary muttered a quick 'I wonder if Sherlock has cousins".
"You know, you should really stop this before it gets awkward". He knew what was happening, he knew that Mary thought that Molly and Sherlock were made for each other. It wasn't that he disagreed, if anything, the more he got to know Molly the more he agreed, it was just he didn't see this ending well.
"It's just a thought." Mary said defensively as though she had done nothing wrong.
"Besides, I'm sure Molly can cope with all the Holmes family feuds when the time comes." She laughed harder as Molly put her head in her hands.
"Mary." John said with a slight warning to his tone.
"What? It's not like he's listening." She gestured towards Sherlock who was staring off in to space showing no signs that he was paying attention.
"Then maybe we should stop whilst he's still not listening."
"Fine, scaredy-cat." Mary smiled
"We can just plan his inevitable wedding to Molly another time." John laughed as Molly looked up at him in anger.
"Betrayer!" She mock cried.
"What can I say, she's a bad influence." John walked over to Mary's side of the table and picked up another pile of potential venues. They sat in silence looking at the pages in front of them before Molly noticed a certain someone had gone missing.
"When did Sherlock leave?"
Despite the fact that he may not have been listening to the conversation in the corner, it was a habit of Sherlock to notice every time his name was said. To begin with he wasn't entirely listening but knew based on Molly's discomfort that she was being teased about her relationship with him. He paid no mind to Mary's jokes, after all they were jokes. It was about the point when John had chipped in about the 'inevitable-ness' of a marriage between Sherlock and Molly, that Sherlock began to feel the air in the room thin and thought it would be best if he excused himself from the room.
John and Mary looked over to where he was sitting to find that Molly was right, at some point Sherlock had decided to leave with no warning to anyone.
"You don't think that he was listening, do you?" Molly spoke slowly as dread was dawning on her.
"No, he wouldn't care what we were talking about enough to listen." Mary answered, although it sounded like another question.
"John?" Mary asked her future husband as he would know out of all of them.
"No." He sounded sure of himself.
"No." He sounded less sure of himself.
"Maybe?" he began to question himself, as Mary could feel her guilt doubling.
Whilst Sherlock had wondered off around the streets of London, Molly resigned herself to a very uncomfortable conversation coming her way.
After many apologies from both John and Mary, the pair had concluded it would be best to leave Molly to get some rest.
Molly wasn't mad with either of them, it was simply a joke. She equally wasn't mad with Sherlock for randomly leaving. It was understandable really, he was panicked, and she got that. All of a sudden everyone's planning your wedding to someone you aren't even dating, anyone would be panicked.
She had planned to wait up for him, explain it was just a joke, that it meant nothing and get it all sorted out as quickly as she could. But after waiting a couple hours she found her eyes were closing against her own accord and decided that maybe explaining in the morning would be better.
Four much needed hours of blissful sleep later she was woken up by someone calling her name. She vaguely recognised it as Sherlock's voice but thought by keeping her eyes closed, she may just be able to sleep through it.
Just as she was drifting off again she felt a light tapping on her shoulder. Giving up on her foolish hope of more sleep she opened her eyes to reveal a surprisingly close Sherlock Holmes looking down on her. She couldn't stop the yelp of surprise as he made her jump.
"Sorry," he leaned back, now only slightly tilted over her.
"Sherlock?" was what she aimed to say but she as fairly sure that all that came out of her mouth was a slur along the sound of 'shhr'.
She moved herself up to her elbows in an attempt to wake up more.
"I tried to stay awake" she yawned out the sentence.
"I know." He looked away. He waited for a couple moments in silence before he stated to walk away.
Eventually she could only make out the shadow of him
"Mary and John were only joking about the whole wedding thing." She could feel herself waking up little by little.
"I know." He was now on the other side of the room.
"I was worried." She wasn't sure why she told him this, is was a pointless piece of information and yet she couldn't stop it from falling out of her mouth.
"I know." It was as though those two words were on repeat.
He sighed in exhaustion before sitting on her bed.
"Why did you leave?" she asked as she felt the side of the bed dip from his weight.
In one swift movement he twisted his body, and lifting his legs he laid down next to Molly.
"We can just plan his inevitable wedding to Molly another time." He repeated John's words from earlier in hope it would explain enough.
He felt ice cold next to her as they stayed still, staring at the ceiling in silence, covered by darkness.
"I didn't mean to offend you." It was hard for him to understand what she was feeling most of the time, let alone when he couldn't even see her.
"You didn't." It was true.
"It's not that I'm against marriage, or against you. It's that I'm against marrying you. No not, I don't mean against marrying you, I mean, I don't want to, but I don't not want to." He sighed in frustration and hoped that his inability to speak was entirely down to his lack of sleep.
"Sherlock its fine, honestly."
But Sherlock didn't feel fine. Sometimes he felt that his brain was moving too quickly for other people to understand but sometimes he felt as if Molly was understating, but he didn't feel that right now. He wasn't sure why, but he really needed her to understand.
"I find it hard to be good sometimes, I find it hard to listen, and hold hands, and be good. I don't actively plan the demise of the entirety of the human race, but I'm not good. People think I'm rude, and arrogant, and cruel, and I tend to agree. I don't have relationships, didn't have relationships. I have always been bad at being good and I didn't used to care."
Molly felt that there was something soothingly heart-breaking about all the things he was rambling on about.
"I'm trying to be good."
Such a simple sentence felt monumental to Molly and she really didn't know why.
"Do you understand Molly?"
"No." She breathed.
They laid in deafening silence until Sherlock pushed out his coat covered arm and found her. He stretched out his hand until his ice cold fingertips graced her wrist, all the while he remained looking at the ceiling.
"I'm not very good at being a person, but you're make me better."
Molly understood.
"You should sleep."
She twisted her wrist and raised her arm slightly, so his hand fell into hers.
"I should sleep." He agreed.
"Night Sherlock."
"Goodnight Molly."
She listened as his breathing deepened signalling his descent into sleep.
She kept her gaze ahead unready to face him and began to replay the conversation in her head. She couldn't help but analyse every single word he had said trying to determine at which point her fate had been sealed. She wasn't sure how much time had passed before she too felt herself drift off to sleep. The final conscious thought she had that night was the same thought she had ringing in her ears the following day, she was doomed.
Molly Hooper was well and truly doomed to love Sherlock Holmes.
AN/ So far this has been my favorite chapter to write, I hope it was just as fun to read. I absolutely loved how many of you reviewed saying how much you hate Mycroft in this story, it made me smile like crazy. I also noticed a lot of you loved the ending of the last one, fingers crossed this one is equally as popular.
On to the good bit, a gigantic thank you to every single reviewer for the last chapter, you are all magnificent in your own unique ways.
AJP910 / Allytsuki / TheHolmesSister / Deductions-of-Sherlolly / Bubbly Girl13 / MizJoely / CQCRASH / Bucky5 / InMollysWildestDreams / Renaissancebooklover108 / emedealer / k22-89 / NiceNips / Jime221 and a Guest :D
As always, all reviews are loved and cherished.
See you next friday for chapter 9.