There was one thing Molly couldn't stand, and that was mess.
Clutter, yes, of course. She didn't believe in having a completely clean home, as she hadn't grown up in one and consequently linked a little mess to the feeling of being home. But the moment she stepped into the bathroom for the next day's war with the toilet, she made a decision that morning to call a cleaning service, Sherlock's precious balance be damned.
She almost felt guilty dialing the number, as she remembered how she had woken up that morning with a blanket draped over her. She never realized how comfortable the couch was until she had drifted off in the night to a melody that was half-familiar. It was a much better sleep than she had gotten the night before, and the natural day light of the windows had woken her up at a reasonable hour.
Sherlock had left of course, which left her free to invite three elderly Swiss women into Baker Street without any of his refusals or sarcastic comments to contend with. She thought she was being rather fair, though; she had told the maids in broken French that while the kitchen was to be cleaned, all objects, no matter how unsavory, were to be moved to the bathroom in the master bedroom. She had peered in that morning when she was looking for Gandalf, and figured that there was ample space for the chemical components of his experiments. She allowed them to leave the Bunsen burner on the counter, along with the body parts in the refrigerator. She showed them her badge for Bart's as explanation for their presence, rather than fall into a diatribe about the unsavory, and probably illegal, reasons her flat mate had a human arm in his freezer.
Mrs. Hudson loved it, of course. So much so that she agreed to clean out Gandalf's litter box until Sherlock returned. Molly thanked her profusely, and paid the maids a little extra to clean the dishes in her kitchen as a show of her gratitude. Gandalf followed the maids around for the most of the morning, before growing bored with their aggressive shooing and settled back onto Sherlock's bed, the exact place Molly had found him that morning. No matter, she thought. Maybe having the adoration of a kitten would warm him up a bit.
The Swiss women would not abide with leaving the bathroom in it's condition, experiment or not. Molly agreed to their angry bickering, and promised herself she would replace anything they women threw out. It was Sherlock's fault, she reasoned, that he hadn't cleaned it out previously. A pregnant woman needed a bathroom, and she wasn't going to jeopardize the health of her child by leaving whatever was growing in the bathtub to cultivate.
As soon as the women left, Molly finally felt she could breathe. While she could no longer make tea for herself, there was a sense of relief now knowing that if a guest popped by, she could be a good hostess. She lit a candle to rid the flat of it's chemical smell, and moved towards the mantle, sighting her picture next to Billy the skull.
She reached out instinctively, thinking she must have left it there the night before, but remembered that she had fallen asleep with it.
He must have put it up there.
Dropping her hand, she placed the candle on the opposite end of the mantle.
Maybe there was a part of him that did want to be involved in her little family, and even if there wasn't, she left it up there to remind him that it existed.
::::::
Three days in the Ukraine and nothing to show for it. He didn't know what he had expected. Sure, the atmosphere of the political revolution had given him a rush, and had for a moment thought about taking Mycroft up on his offer to be relocated to Eastern Europe if only so he could live in the middle of such delicious chaos, but then remembered the unfortunate conditions of his release, and reluctantly returned to England.
It had to be about 2 am when he unlocked the door to 221 B, and suddenly he was aware that something was different.
The smell.
It smelled…like wintergreens.
He vaulted up the stairs, long legs carrying him up three at a time, and burst into the living room.
Wrong, wrong, all wrong.
For one, the dirt samples he had left behind his chair had been vacuumed. The windows had been cleaned, absolutely ruining his study in dust accumulation and sunshine. He swiveled his head and with a sinking feeling of dread, he entered the kitchen.
No. No.
Where had it all gone?
"MOLLY!" he cried out. He ran towards the sink. Where was his arsenic pile? His precious algae? His fetal pig?
He began tearing at his hair. He looked on the top of his refrigerator and almost wept when she saw his treys had been removed.
"Good lord, Sherlock. It's 2 in the morning, what are you shouting about?!" Molly moaned as she walked into the kitchen. With an almost predatory intention, he ran up to her.
"Where is it? Where is it all?"
"What?"
"MY. EXPERIMENTS." He turned around, ripping off his scarf and examining the room.
"I-"
"You had it cleaned!" he exclaimed with an undeniable sense of pain.
"Yes-"
"By three immigrants over the age of fifty, two with families to support and one with a son who's doing very well for himself, it would seem,"
Molly didn't indulge him.
"Yes, I had it cleaned, it was a war zone-"
"Did you not think that it was a violation of your rights as a guest? That this may cross the line?"
Molly's mouth fell open.
"Guest? If you forgot it's your sworn bloody enemy who broke into my house and tried to have me murdered!"
"Well I don't recall you signing a lease!" Sherlock snapped. He checked the cabinet for his decomposing lizard carcass. Gone.
"I'm not saying that these living conditions are optimal," Molly huffed, walking up to him. "but we're stuck this way until we figure out how to deal with Moriarty,"
"We? I'm sorry, were you in the Ukraine with me? I thought you were here, playing house and growing a bastard,"
Molly reached out and slapped him. When he seemed to bounce back, she slapped him again, and then backed him into a corner.
"Listen right fucking here, Sherlock," she jabbed a finger to his face. "If you recall, I never asked you to help me grow my 'bastard', you offered it up. Secondly, three days ago you were reluctant to have me go back to work, I had to hound your brother not to hold me captive in a flat that revivals Chernobyl in terms of chemical spills. Third, I'm bloody pregnant, you prat, with your child. I don't care that you want nothing to do with it, but at least show both it and me the respect we deserve and don't jeopardize our health by having us live in your mess!" She backed off, and breathed heavily, with Sherlock gazing down at her with what looked like both confusion and admiration.
"Your experiments are in your bathroom. Even the half eaten lizard. I had the women move my mini fridge from my flat into your room so you can store everything. Unlike some people in this house, I'm not completely inconsiderate. Now if you'll excuse me, my bastard needs me to get at least 8 hours of sleep so it can form correctly," with one less icy gaze, Molly Hooper turned with a swish of her long hair and trudged up the stairs. From his position in the kitchen, Sherlock could see Gandalf run from his room and up the stairs, clearly having chosen his side.
:::::::::
"Who thought it was a good idea to teach these things to shit in a box?" Sherlock thought as her sifted Gandalf's excrement out of the blue crystals. He quickly dumped the load into the trashcan, making a disgusted face in the process. As he stood up, he heard her make her way down the stairs.
He turned around to see her dressed for work, and with a look of awe on her face.
"Ah, you're up," he said, clapping his hands together. He kicked the litter box into the hallway.
"What is all of this?" Molly asked, gesturing towards the food on the counter.
"Pregnant women require a balanced diet to keep healthy. So for breakfast I have some bananas on top of cereal for a mix of protein and potassium, which will keep you energized and fight of pregnancy fatigue," he picked up a pitcher "Low fat milk, as your body absorbs twice as much calcium now that you're eating for two," he gestured to the stove "I've made eggs, for protein, as pregnant women sometimes acquire aversions to meat for the smell and knowledge that they're eating the cute little animals they will in 9 months be showing off to their children in picture books-"
"Sherlock," Molly interrupted.
Sherlock paused, before dropping his hands into his pocket.
"I was out of line, last night," he looked down at his feet. "Crude, cruel-forgive me," he looked back up. "I do care about your health, and I shouldn't have been selfish enough to put you in peril, more than I have, that is."
Molly considered him for a moment. In truth, she liked this power she had over him. For some reason, she could always make him apologize, and she had grown to love it.
"Pour me a glass of milk," she said, sitting down at the stool. With a slight smirk, he obliged.
"I forgot to tell you," Sherlock said. "You remember Bill Wiggins?"
Molly almost choked on her milk.
"Bill Wiggins? The heroin addict?"
"Turned sort-of student, yes," Sherlock scraped an egg onto the plate and placed it in front of her. "He'll be sleeping on the couch for the next week,"
"Why?"
He looked up at her, and gave a smile she didn't know how to interpret. Gandalf weaved between his legs.
"Case,"