Disclaimer: If I owned these amazing characters, Sherlolly would've been married by now and Nick Cave would sit with me every day and talk about poetry with me.
Author's Note: Every time you review, a Mav writes a new chapter...More reviews = faster updates (I'm being manipulative).
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Enjoy! -Mav.
John watched Sherlock pacing up and down the room, deep in thought. John had his laptop open in front of him, his phone next to him as he reviewed the notes he and Sherlock had compiled over their investigation into the cannibal.
Well, the notes that Watson had made of Sherlock's investigation. As it was, he felt stumped while Sherlock walked around the flat with The Look. So, John waited patiently for his friend to spring into action, and entertained himself by alternating between open tabs on his laptop and checking the blog.
The Cannibal case had turned out to be more complicated than even Sherlock had anticipated. But the newest body that had turned up had been the turning point…why, John wasn't exactly sure but Sherlock had changed after that. His attitude towards the case, the one-track mentality had spurred him onwards. He was acting like a bloodhound having caught a scent. The fact that the newest victim's heart had been removed so precisely had convinced Sherlock that the cannibal had made a mistake, that the trail leading to Dr. Leonardo was becoming clearer. What the mistake was, again John wasn't quite sure but he trusted his best friend to figure it out, and eventually tell him and Lestrade.
"You know where she went off to," Sherlock said rather abruptly, stopping in front of John, looking down at him with such intensity that John had to squint.
"Who?" John asked with a lifted brow.
"My…" Sherlock cleared his throat, "Molly Hooper. You know where she went on her sudden holiday."
"Yes I do," John smiled, going back to flittering between tabs on his laptop, "so?"
"You have to tell me."
"Oh but aren't you the brilliant Sherlock Holmes? Can't you just figure it out yourself?" John knew he was angering his best friend but he found himself rather enjoying the torture session on behalf of Molly.
"I'm sure Lestrade knows too," there was bitterness in his tone as he dropped his rather tall frame into the leather seat, "she's told the whole bloody world." John had noticed that he'd started putting on weight when he'd been with Molly, because she'd actually forced him to eat like a normal person. But he'd been losing it again, his face was looking gaunt.
"I do wonder why that is," John muttered, "you're the world's greatest detective. You can distinguish between 456 different types of ash at last count, you can identify an airline pilot by his right thumb, and a narcoleptic by his shoes. Like I said, figure it out. Why do you think she hasn't told you? Come on then. Deduce!"
"Oh you're insufferable," the bitterness in Sherlock's tone was poisonous now as he looked at the fireplace, frowning at it like it contained all the answers to the universe.
"Why does it matter where she went?" John put his laptop away, hoping he could get Sherlock to see reason when it came to Molly.
"She's…she's the best at Bart's, I need her here to deal with this cannibal," he answered, trying hard to sound casual about it but he was anything but. Not being with Molly was killing him but he was too stupid to realize it.
"Right," John rubbed his face with his hands, "and being away from her isn't killing you slowly, and you didn't rip your own heart out when you walked away from her because you're a walking, talking advertisement for idiocy. Right. Got it."
But Sherlock just stared into the fireplace with an intensity that bordered on terrifying. If looks could kill or inflict injury, the fireplace would have exploded a while ago.
"You bloody idiot," John shook his head, "you have a woman who loves you, who puts up with you, who adores you because you're an annoying, arrogant pisspot but you walked away from her. You walked away from her. You ripped both your hearts out because you couldn't handle the fact that you were finally happy. I don't understand you, at all. I would give anything to have Mary back. And you're…you're wasting your life Sherlock."
"She ripped my heart out…." Sherlock muttered, "ripped it out…Ripped. My. Bloody. Heart. Out." Sherlock kept repeating it through gritted teeth, running his hair through his hair and gripping it tightly. For a moment John was worried that Sherlock had finally come to grips with what happened between him and Molly, that he was about to have an emotional break through.
"That's it!" Sherlock jumped up from the chair, punching the air in enthusiasm, "that's it! She was his girlfriend! He removed her heart from her chest because she was breaking up with him. They were romantically involved! If we can connect her to Leonardo, we can prove that he killed her. Don't you see! We weren't able to connect the other victims because he was so careful in picking them but he got sentimental. He loved her, and she broke up with him. Or," Sherlock gasped, "he asked her to marry him and she refused him. She broke his heart so he took hers. That's why he was so careful with her! But not careful enough. Sentiment! Kills you every time."
"Utter ass," John shook his head, following Sherlock out of the flat, so disappointed in his friend that he could barely keep himself from headbutting him or pushing him down the stairs.
Molly's flight was delayed. She sat in the airport terminal with her luggage at her feet and a frightful London sky outside. She had relented and brought her laptop with her, having carefully examined it for any tracking devices, and had been watching her favorite miniseries, waiting for the weather to clear up so she could get on with this holiday. But she tried to keep up her spirits by watching Parade's End, marveling at the brilliance of the actor that played Christopher Tiejens, wishing she'd fallen in love with someone like him.
She'd lost count of how many times she had watched the fog scene… "Damn Mountby!" was a line written into her very soul. She wondered if Sherlock would ever be so intense in his love for her.
The airport was mostly deserted at this time of night. It was her and a few other passengers who were supposed to be on the flight to Singapore, mostly men in business suits who were more frustrated than her. She'd chosen a seat at the gate facing the airport runway, with a row of seats all to herself, watching the airplanes and ground crew when she could tear her eyes away from the movie. She had a tepid cup of tea beside her, and she started to feel just the smallest bit content with her situation. There was something about airports that had always appealed to her, the coming and going of people, the different purposes that filled every individual's trip. Always a people watcher, the airport seemed to be the perfect place to do so.
Her thoughts were interrupted when a gentleman sat down a few seats away from her. His long overcoat startled for her a second, her heart fluttering as she thought it was Sherlock dropping in next to her. But it wasn't. The man who sat down was obviously a business man, wearing a perfectly tailored suit beneath the overcoat, complete with a waistcoat. He had brown hair, short at the bottom, longer on the top and parted to the side with piercing brown eyes. He was dressed exquisitely, and caught her staring at him…
Damn it Molly.
"Waiting on the flight to Singapore too?" he leaned over to ask.
The poor man must have been terrified of being stared at by a strange woman. "Erm, yah," she managed to answer, not sounding completely foolish, "you?"
He smiled just as she realized what he had asked her, "yes. I have business in New Zealand, and this was the only flight I could get."
Molly wondered whether she should mention that New Zealand was her next stop after Singapore on her way to Samoa, but she decided against it. After years of having worked with the police, paranoia was bound to set in. "Are you going for business?" she asked him, having always found small talk to be the bane of her existence. And suddenly Sherlock's voice drifted into her mind, telling her to never try to make small talk.
"Yes. I am attending a conference for international criminal profilers," he told her, with an accent that she couldn't quite place. It was rather musical and interesting to listen to, almost hypnotic.
"Oh that sounds…interesting?" she chuckled, "have to imagine there will be lots of fascinating conversations in that room!"
The stranger chuckled, "I imagine so," he leaned across the empty seat with an extended hand, "I'm Dr. Jonathan Leonardo."
"Molly Hooper," she shook his hand, "doctor too. Dr. Molly Hooper."
"Doctor of medicine?" he asked with a lifted brow, sounding impressed.
His name had stirred something in her memory, and she knew she had heard it recently. But going by the fact that he was a criminal profiler, she convinced herself that it had been mentioned in some article she'd read. The world of criminal investigations and investigators was rather small, and the number of profilers were limited. "Pathologist actually," she told him, turning in her seat so that she could talk to him more comfortably.
"Ah, do you work with the authorities?" he asked, leaning forward. There was something in his eyes, a frankness, a brutal honesty that she found herself trying to appreciate. His eyes scanned her from the top of her head to her shoes, not missing anything, as if x-raying her and snatching her secrets from her. When Sherlock did it, it was disarming and terrifying to behold, like the ocean. But the way this man's eye traveled…she felt as if she needed a bath.
But that was probably because she was suddenly overloaded with memories of Sherlock's eyes the first time he had seen her naked, the way he had dropped to his knees before her and kissed her so intimately until her legs had buckled and she had collapsed on the floor in front of him.
"Yes, sometimes," she told him with a smile, sipping her tea.
"Please allow me to buy you a fresh cup of tea," he stood up gallantly, taking her cup from her, "the least I can do to make you comfortable is give you some warmth."
"Oh, uhm, yes, thank you," she smiled up at him, telling herself that whatever apprehension she felt was because her heart was currently living outside her chest, in possession of a certain consulting detective.
The same consulting detective who always stated that gut instincts have to be trusted, because they are just bits of information that our brain can't process quickly enough.
Author's Note: I wrote this while totally obsessed over Mr. Christopher Tiejens, the last chapter too if you read it closely enough. Review, recommend and comment!
