For three weeks, Sherlock barely thought of Molly Hooper. The night after he saw her last, a client arrived on his doorstep with an intriguing case. At first glance, it sounded like nothing more than the overwrought imaginings of a successful Cornish watercolor artist, who had retired to a creaky old house in the south of France after the death of her longtime companion. As the woman divulged the strange happenings that had plagued her for months (a portion of a newly repaired roof caving in, knocking sounds in her walls every night, food growing moldy incredibly fast in her refrigerator), Sherlock developed five theories and felt the excitement of a new case growing. This one was interesting.
The disappearance of the artist's Welsh Corgi had been the last straw that brought her to 221B Baker Street, and the world's only consulting detective.
"Brandon was the only one left who really cared about me after we lost Deirdre. Breast cancer, in the spring," his client explained, wiping away tears. "I tried to spend more time with my family since then, but not everyone understood about Deirdre. So I moved to France. We'd always talked about it. Is my home…haunted? I know that sounds silly. Can you find my pup for me? Do you think he is still alive?"
"Unlikely, but I'll take the case."
John shot Sherlock a scolding look for his insensitivity, and offered the client a tissue and a cup of tea. The trio made plans for the detective and his doctor to travel to the small estate immediately.
Nineteen days later, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson stumbled back into 221B Baker Street, exhausted from a difficult but exciting two and a half weeks of investigation and adventure.
Sherlock dropped his traveling case by the door and then collapsed on the sofa. He hadn't slept or eaten more than a handful of biscuits in four days.
John went into the kitchen to throw together a quick meal before going to bed. It was amazing he hadn't been sacked from the clinic, as the case in France dragged on far longer than Sherlock's initial estimate. Doctors willing to deal with the rougher patients that frequented the clinic were hard to find, and so far, Sarah hadn't found anyone else.
Sitting down at the kitchen table, his mind drifting, a thought occurred to John. He turned around in his chair and called to the man on the sofa.
"Sherlock, I know you said it was "obvious" and you didn't see why we needed to discuss it, but fuck it, I'm tired and I don't care. What is the deal with you and Molly Hooper?"
Sherlock threw a hand over his eyes and twisted his mouth in annoyance.
"Why do you care? Go away, I'm sleeping."
"You're not sleeping, you're talking."
"Irrelevant in a minute. I'm sleeping."
"Don't be a dick. Are you…dating her? I thought that women weren't your area."
"They weren't for a long time. But one can return to an area, can't they."
"Right. Have you spoken to her lately?" John asked as he tore into his second jam sandwich.
"We were on a case."
"And it was just a one-time shag, anyway, yeah? So no obligations."
Sherlock didn't respond.
"Sherlock? It was just a one-off, wasn't it?" He didn't respond again. John walked over to the sofa, still eating, and leaned over to look at his flatmate's face. Sherlock snored unconvincingly.
"SHERLOCK. How long have you been seeing her?"
The detective gave up the pretense.
"Two weeks before we left. I came to the conclusion that I would be able to continue detecting without sexual or sadomasochistic activities interfering with my case work. I took Dr. Hooper up on her longstanding offer."
"You mean you took advantage of her crush on you because you decided it was time to have a shag? Why choose the woman who, oddly enough, actually likes you and works with us. Despite you treating her like a maid instead of a pathologist."
"But she likes that," Sherlock mumbled sleepily from his place on the sofa.
"What?"
"She likes it. She likes me. And I don't treat her like a maid instead of a pathologist. She is my pathologist. She does all sorts of things for me. It's quite simple. Go away, I really do need to sleep."
"Then go to your bedroom. Or quit being an arse and call your girlfriend. I didn't see you make a phone call the entire trip. I may not be Sherlock Holmes but I can observe the fucking obvious. Do you care about this woman? Never mind, she's too bloody good for you."
Sherlock sat upright, narrowed his eyes at his friend, and stormed into his bedroom, with a loud door-slamming.
John rolled his eyes. Drama queen. Wait, did he say, 'sadomasochistic activities?'
Molly Hooper waited for three weeks.
She performed autopsies and filled out paperwork as she always had. She had never been a social butterfly, but she had friends. She went to a hen party and she played with Toby and she watched Misfits.
She started taking a belly dancing class. She'd always wanted to, but hadn't felt brave enough before. She felt like she could do anything now. She went to class twice a week and wished it were more frequent.
Sherlock would probably think it was silly and pointless, but she fell in love with the smooth rhythms of the dance, the natural flow of her hips and stomach and thighs. She wanted to show him what she'd learned.
The first few days were nothing. Molly was overloaded at work, and she was too tired to think of Sherlock most of the time. The full moon always brought in a mad amount of violent death, and that meant overtime for her, in the morgue.
Sherlock didn't like chatty texts without purpose, and so she didn't send any, though she began to miss him.
A week after she'd last seen Sherlock, D.I. Lestrade came into the morgue to get a quick overview of a murder victim's injuries. It was potentially connected to another murder that had happened that morning, and he didn't want to wait for the fully typed report to make its way to his desk.
After she'd gone over the cause of death and lengthy list of associated trauma, Molly said lightly, "What a mess. Bet you wish you had Sherlock here to help with this one."
Lestrade responded absentmindedly, eyes on the corpse, "No, he's still in France on that case, but we can handle the job without him, Dr. Hooper." He winked at her, aware of her crush on the consulting detective.
Molly stuttered out, "Oh of course, I didn't mean you couldn't!" and busied herself with another body as Lestrade left.
France, she thought. He's in bloody France. That's why.
Lestrade says you're working in France. I understand.
See you when you get back?
MH
There was no response.
And so she waited. He would be back soon enough. This was his job, she understood that. She missed his voice purring commands in her ears, though. It would have been lovely to have some contact while he was away. I've never even tried phone sex, Molly thought. I wonder if he would….
After two weeks, Molly was squirming in bed at night and sleeping poorly. When it was just a crush, she had enjoyed the brief high that seeing him would bring, and then she'd carry on with her life. But now that she was in love with him (yes dammit I do really love this prat I am completely fucked), she needed more of him.
Going weeks without feeling his hands buried in her hair, massaging her scalp, without feeling his hands smacking her bum, without his teeth leaving trails of red marks across her neck and breasts. Without his eyes skimming over her, warm green and dilated when he was happy and aroused, and cool grey when she had disobeyed or when he was being analytical, him typing furiously on the laptop while she made him tea. (And she had made him a lot of that; he liked it only in a certain way, and if she steeped the leaves thirty seconds too long, he would have her start over again.)
She missed watching his bow moving like controlled lightning over his violin, his hands stroking the vibrant wood and strings in a way that made her jealous. The day after she lightheartedly admitted to that feeling, Sherlock summoned her to his flat at lunchtime, when John was at the clinic, and ordered her to lie on his bed naked. He placed her hand against her own wetness, pushing the tips of her fingers into the folds. Then he jumped up, still fully clothed and grabbed the violin, unleashing a slow, stirring song that she vaguely recognized as Chopin. It made her chest and belly feel tight with the subtle sorrow of it, and then as though she was flying with the high notes, with the twists and turns of his bow.
"Touch," he commanded her. "Move." And so she did, arching into her hand and rubbing the bundle of nerves that made her groan. She pled with her expressive eyes for his help, his hands, his tongue, but he ignored her, his attention focused on his instrument. His arms moved gracefully, smooth and then sharply as needed and her hips lifted and fell and lifted again. She followed his rhythms and sped up, working herself into a frenzy as Sherlock's hands flew quickly and the song peaked. He withheld giving her permission to come until she thought she would scream with frustration. Her eyes were bright with need. Drawing out a long high note, he smiled over his instrument and nodded. And then her hips rose and fell and she crested and she cried out. Her racing heart slowed as his arms gradually relaxed, the last notes fading into silence.
He told her to get dressed and head back to work since her lunch break was almost over.
"Nicely played, Molly," he said wryly, as he clasped her arms, and kissed her on the forehead. He then picked up his violin and walked away playing a speedy solo. He nodded a farewell and Molly let herself out of 221B.
She could barely hold a scalpel steady when the memory of that afternoon rose in her mind. She pushed it away ruthlessly to focus on her tasks.
Molly could go months- actually years- without sex, but now that Sherlock had shaken awake that need in her to be guided and directed and thoroughly dominated, she could not turn it off as easily. They'd only been playing together a couple weeks, and the scenes they had shared were still fairly mild, she understood. It was only the first stage of her training. She could only imagine how twitchy she'd feel once they- if they- progressed into more intense play, as she fantasized about almost every night.
Right now she would even welcome him coming into the lab and making a mess for her to clean up. Tidying up after him like in the old days before he touched her would make her feel peaceful again with the ritual feel of it.
She wanted to hear about the cases he was working on. She'd grown addicted to those fascinating little deductions that never made it to John's blog. Sherlock really was incredibly brilliant. She hadn't understood the half of it until the last few weeks. He pretended not to care when Molly would express awe of his skill, but she was learning to read the slight upturns of his mouth when he was pleased.
Molly wanted things from Sherlock. The trick was always finding a way to seek them out while not actively disobeying him. She hadn't quite worked out that part yet. Molly sat on her two-seater with Toby in her lap that evening, making a list of possible approaches. Books hadn't been of much help with this conundrum. They all said different things.
So she waited for him to come home and come back to her.
Twenty-one days after he left for France and two days after his return, Sherlock Holmes woke up. His body has been completely drained by the case, which involved far more running around than he had anticipated, and he had barely eaten in that time. He had briefly woken up the day before, crammed three sandwiches into his gullet and chugged a litre of water before going back to sleep.
The culprit behind the "haunting" had been rather clever. He couldn't wait to tell Molly about it, after he'd had a shower and something more to eat. She would enjoy the details and he suspected she would be interested in the client herself. There was something about the elderly watercolor artist and her gentle, humorous remembrances of her late lover that reminded him of Molly.
Sherlock staggered out of his bed to forage for food. Hopefully his flatmate had picked up groceries while Sherlock slept and recovered. A note from John lay on the counter:
Bought milk, crisps and take-away for you last night. EAT.
Then go see your girlfriend. Honestly what other woman can stand you for more
than ten minutes at a time? BUY FLOWERS and maybe she won't punch you.
You can't go wrong with roses.
JW
PS Did you say sadomasochistic activities or am I losing my mind? Never mind, don't answer that.
Everything was clear to Molly twenty-one days after she had last seen Sherlock. She wanted him to be her dom, and she loved having sex with him but she also very much wanted him to be her boyfriend. She really enjoyed talking with him, and he was quite funny in his dark, sardonic way. She didn't need promises of forever. Years in the morgue had taught that her that "happily ever after" could last a day, courtesy of a stray bullet or an aneurysm or a drunk driver.
Molly had analyzed her feelings as coolly as she could and realized that she didn't require that much time from Sherlock. Her life was quite busy and in the two weeks of their playing together, her day to day life was mostly the same as before- reading, examining current research, playing with her cat, hanging out with her girlfriends, going to the cinema by herself, and dreaming, yes she still loved to daydream. Having Sherlock in her life made her even more a dreamer, not less, which she found rather funny.
She didn't need extravagant promises of forever, but she did want someone- oh hell, let's be honest, she thought, she wanted Sherlock to be a regular part of her life. The two of them fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces, easily interlocking.
Molly also had to admit she wasn't angry at him for being away for three weeks. She knew she was supposed to be, but mostly she was just worried and missing him. A text from him would put her over the moon with happiness. Molly thought to herself, Oh quit being stupid and just call him. Text, or do something, you ninny. Be brave.
Sorry to bother. When are you coming home? You never did tell me what you thought of my list of suggestions from the book.
Your Molly
She shot off the text before she lost her courage and decided to work on the body that had been delivered that morning to the morgue. Molly got down on one knee to retrieve a hose from beneath a rolling table. As she drew out the long piece of hose, she heard music begin to play, piano and violin softly blending into a familiar tune.
She looked up to see Sherlock Holmes standing three feet away and looking down at her. His hair was damp and curling, and his face was as narrow and lovely as ever. He was holding his phone and a bouquet of roses, and looking uncharacteristically awkward.
Molly felt a dozen things at once, but went with her first instinct which was to drop the hose and quickly crawl the three feet to grab onto Sherlock's thighs and beam up at him, with happy tears sparkling in her eyes.
Sherlock slowly smiled. Tossing the bouquet onto a metal table, and dropping the phone into his pocket, Sherlock pulled Molly to standing and yanked her into a rough, wet kiss that went on and on for minutes, and might've kept going if one of Molly's coworkers hadn't walked in.
Dr. Davison, somewhat unprofessionally, uttered, "What the FUCK?" after nearly walking into the obnoxious detective Sherlock Holmes forcefully snogging the hell out of Dr. Hooper three feet away from a bagged body.
Molly pulled her mouth away from Sherlock's, and said to the interrupting doctor, "I'm taking the afternoon off. I'm overdue for it. You'll cover, I know."
Davison nodded dumbly, still surprised. He wouldn't give Molly hell for taking a day off and she knew it; she'd caught him shagging a lab technician a month ago in a cleaning closet and had politely ignored it then. She was owed.
Sherlock picked the bouquet off the table, saluted Dr. Davison sarcastically and then grabbed his girl's hand. He led Molly out of St. Bart's and into a cab. Telling the driver to bring them home to 221B, he sat back, pulled her tight against his side and kissed her soundly.
"I missed you." He managed between kisses.
"You didn't respond to my first text, weeks ago."
"You knew I was in France. You said you understood." Sherlock looked puzzled. He had taken her word for it. Not good?
Molly saw then that he truly didn't understand the subtleties of dating interaction. Her frustration over his non-contact lessened. Well, hell, she thought. I should've realized. I don't know if he can learn, but I guess I'm going to have to try and teach him. He might be a shit boyfriend, but I can't not try.
She held his hand, kissed his palm tenderly, and he traced her soft lips. She had such a responsive mouth. He had missed her, when he'd allowed himself to think about her. Which wasn't that often. As stimulating as Molly Hooper was, he still needed to work, and he needed to remain completely focused during that time. He was quite proud of himself actually, how he hadn't let his affection and need for his submissive affect his performance at all in France. He'd proven to himself once and for all that being involved with her was not a mistake. She wasn't a distraction, but a warm room in his icy and orderly mind palace.
"Sherlock, what's it called? That song? On your phone." Molly asked, snuggling into him as he tightly held her with one arm in the backseat of the cab.
"Chopin. Nocturne. It's meant to be played with piano and violin, but I never play with pianists, too annoying to deal with other people."
"That's what you played for me that day…in your room. One of your favorites?"
"Not particularly. Good piece, though."
"Why is it your ringtone then," Molly wondered.
He raised his eyebrows as though the answer was painfully obvious. "Your performance of the piece was…memorable."
"Oh." Her cheeks turned dark pink. Molly behaved very un-submissively and dragged Sherlock down to kiss him silly and play with his hair for the rest of the cab ride. He indulged her, since she had waited so long, but he made sure to give her hair a strong pulling while they were at it.
Tomorrow: the last chapter- wherein we find out what happened in France, a better use for roses, and what sort of gift Sherlock buys Molly.
Thanks again to everyone for the reviews, favoriting and story alerting. I never expected it when I started the story, and I just appreciate it so much!