Spaghetti

The next time? Sherlock was away fifteen hours before he was standing on Molly's front step once more.

"He hasn't come by." she said by way of greeting as she opened the door, and Sherlock didn't need to look to see the worry taking root on her face.

"He will."

"Sherlock…" Molly stopped herself, looking at him instead with those doe eyes.

What if he doesn't?

"He will, Molly. I know he will."

How can you know? How can you possibly know? What if he doesn't?

"Is she awake?" Sherlock asked instead, looking at her expectantly.

He had spent the sleeping hours working over a problem in a case he'd told Lestrade three days ago he wouldn't take, wearing his own patience down and sitting on the front steps of the Watson Wing with Rosie's rattle in his hands, turning it over and over the hear the gentle clicking sound, the beads inside striking each other.

So he was not, perhaps, in the politest of moods.

Molly's shoulders slumped and she looked down at her feet. This was becoming a habit, one Sherlock was not sure he would put up with for the whole duration of John's… absence.

"You know he-"

"In the sitting room again?" he asked, smiling cheerfully and tipping his head drastically to one side as he clapped his hands together. "Excellent."

"She's in the front." Molly called after him as he brushed past her, "In her high chair. It's lunch time."

"Wonderful!" he called back, veering to the right through the open door and out of sight, "Just tea for me."

Molly bit back her sigh, unable to stop herself from glancing up and down the street as though to check for John, to check for anyone who knew what she was doing. What she was allowing to happen despite John's strict instruction.

She took her time making his tea, turning the radio on down low as she went through the familiar movements, listening to the sound of his voice rumble through from the front room.

Molly Hooper was no fool. And nor was she blind.

Self-proclaimed sociopath or not, Sherlock Holmes had a soft spot for that child. A soft spot that even rivalled that which she'd seen in others. For the man who built his life on being a brain, he sure had some heart on him. Quite a lot, in fact, when it came to the Watsons. They'd gotten under his skin, one way and another, and Molly saw it plain as day. Whether Sherlock saw it or not was another matter, but it was there.

As she stirred Rosie's hooped spaghetti in its pot she listened to him. To them; Sherlock's lovely low baritone and Rosie's sweet laughter, her enthusiastic babbled language as she answered him, as she queried him and told stories of her own. She was beginning to grasp at language, at the younger age of the average of course. Not surprising when one considered her lineage, and her godfather.

If the child wasn't solving murders by seven, Molly would eat her coat.

She spooned the spaghetti into a small bowl and sat it aside to cool, standing by the doorframe to listen.

"How many times?" he said, his voice going soft and fond around the edges without him meaning to, "If you want to keep the rattle, you do not throw the rattle."

In response there was nothing but a gurgled laugh and then, unless Molly's ears were deceiving her, a soft exhalation from Sherlock himself that sounded an awful lot like amusement. Molly smiled to herself, setting milk back in the door of the fridge and placing both cups and Rosie's bowl, and a plate of digestives - should she manage to trick Sherlock into eating - on a tray she owned quite frankly only because it was useful to bring tea and biscuits to John and Sherlock when they visited. A sorrowful feeling curled around her arms, causing the tray to rumble and the china to tinkle.

And Mary. Mary had been there with her the day it had been purchased. She and Molly had shared a fondness for the kittens painted on the polished metal in pastel brushstrokes. Molly paused in the hall outside the living room doorway to collect herself, focusing on the comfortable murmurs she could hear to cover up the welling grief.

Despite what she may think, she could understand John's anger with the way his world was structured right now. He was in pain. And whether or not he truly believed it was Sherlock he was angry at, Molly knew it wasn't really true. Sherlock was just… too close. He was so far from emotionally available that it circled around again. John was afraid of the closeness they shared. She knew he just wasn't ready to face the man who'd been an arguably larger part of his life than Mary, and for longer too.

But as much as she could understand, Molly also felt a residual sort of anger at him. Because he wasn't the only one who'd lost her. Of course his loss was greater, and Molly would never dare to think otherwise. But they had all lost her. Rosie'd lost her mother. Molly'd lost her friend. And Sherlock… Sherlock had lost someone dear to him, someone who helped him keep John safe and well and happy, someone who matched him in wit even only marginally. For a normal person that may not have been such a deep wound, but for Sherlock?

Sherlock liked to let them think he allowed no-one in. That was his way of life. But he'd let Mary in. And now she was dead.

Molly took a bracing breath and tried to force a smile onto her face. She focused on the sound of Rosie's laugh, allowing it to buoy her. Sherlock read her like a book, of course, always had done. He'd know as soon as she walked through that door what she was thinking, what she was feeling drag at her heart. She looked at the tray in her hands and stilled the tremble by sheer will.

She could do this. Of course she could do this. She was Molly bloody Hooper, she could do anything. Mary had said it to her once, and she had liked the sound of it. It made her smile.

Molly bloody Hooper indeed.

"Okay, Rosie." she announced brightly as she stepped into the sitting room, "Time for lunch!"

When she looked up Rosie wasn't in her highchair, instead occupying the crook of Sherlock's arm, her hands reaching for the velour rabbit held inches from her by his free hand. She was smiling as she made those babbled talking sounds, her eyes bright and dashing in the sunshine streaming through the window. Her hair, what modest amount she currently had, was blonde and wispy like her mother's, curling angelically around her ears and her brow and lending her face further sweetness.

Sherlock looked up when Molly came in, and he gave her a smile.

"I must apologise for my atttude earlier, Molly." he said by way of greeting, "I was a little… wound up."

"Oh." Molly replied, moving to set the tray down by the armchairs, "Uhm, that's okay, Sherlock really."

When she met his eyes again, she knew he saw the rest.

We're all under a lot of pressure. It's to be expected.

His smile was warming and gentle, his eyes drawn back to the child.

"Lunch time, Rosie." he said softly, and Molly couldn't miss the way the little girl gave up on the rabbit when he spoke, as though already trained to follow his every instruction.

Which she supposed Rosie really was.

"Time to make a mess of Auntie Molly's carpets with spaghetti now, hm?"

Molly smiled as she watched him place Rosie so very carefully into her chair once more. Something fragile clutched desperately inside of Molly, almost making her sad. Sherlock was so wonderful with the baby. It had taken so many people by surprise and yet it shouldn't have at all, because if Sherlock Holmes was one thing, that one thing was exceptional.

In response, Rosie only giggled.