Molly Hooper is just unloading the autoclave for the last time that day when she gets the text. She has been expecting it for a couple of days, actually. A small, but growing, smile finds her mouth and eyes. She is, actually, beyond happy. The world goes from black and white into Technicolor. 3D - High Definition. With surround sound.
Twenty minutes later, she closes her locker door and her heart nearly stops. Again. Sherlock Holmes is back in the room and back in the world. She turns to face him, heart still palpitating from the shock.
"We never did get you that bell, did we?" He looks momentarily puzzled, then breaks into a smile that almost wipes out the sadness of the past two years.
"Hello Molly. I`ve been away. Anything happened?"
She smiles and her heart is singing out loud.
"Not much. Anywhere nice?"
"Nah. Food was terrible."
X0x0x0x0x0x
The very next day, in Baker Street:
Sherlock is standing at the window as Molly enters 221B; surveying his beloved London. She smiles, indulgently. She has done little but smile for the past 24 hours.
"You wanted to see me?"
"Yes." Sherlock turns and starts to walk towards her. The air seems pregnant with – promise?
"Molly…" He seems strangely tongue-tied.
"Yes?" Breathless Hooper.
"Would you ..." Oh, Lordy…
Halting again, he is clasping his hands behind his back…is he nervous? Could he be - ?
Sherlock walks closer. Still smells – the same. God.
Blue eyes – aquamarine…"Would you like to ..." This is it, this is it - !
Molly: "have dinner?
Sherlock (simultaneously): "... solve crimes?"
"Ooh." Awkward.
Sherlock`s eyes widen – startled. He has been working hard on his empathy skills since his Fall. He feels that Molly might deserve the effort.
Then, their eyes lock and Molly snorts – with laughter – and Sherlock finds he has permission to join in.
They both have to sit on the floor eventually. The laughter has dissolved any tension – unresolved or otherwise – in the room. They both feel weak and relieved.
"I`m sorry, Molly," Sherlock wipes away an errant tear. "I will always be just a little bit shit at this."
And that`s ok. It really is.
xoxoxoxoxoxox
The solving of the crimes involves Molly Hooper using her day off to hold a notebook and become a piss-poor facsimile of John Watson. She certainly gets to witness the seedy underbelly of London – the utterly conniving and hideous dishonesty of other people. Clearly, working with dead ones has its advantages. Stealing, cheating husbands and step-fathers – then that ridiculous Jack the Ripper set-up.
"Anderson," was Sherlock`s only comment as they strode along the street (usually at his break-neck pace, with her running to keep up). She knew Sherlock missed John and that she wasn't the answer.
"Sherlock?"
Molly stands at the top of the stairs after visiting Howard and checking his train tapes. She has made many, many notes but is quite sure that Sherlock will not be reading any of them.
"Hmm?" Sherlock stops at the bottom of the stairs and turns back to her.
"What was today about?" Being with him was – just – lovely; but she really couldn`t do this again.
"Saying thank you." He really has – evolved – since he jumped off that roof. Drastic, but, whatever works…
"For what?"
"Everything you did for me."
Lying; falsifying documents; hiding a corpse; lying; squash ball providing; clothes getting; stealing; disguising; key-copying; sheltering; counselling; (and did I mention LYING…?)
"It's okay. It was my pleasure." Molly shifts her bag to the other shoulder. Laughing Sherlock seems a distant memory at the moment. He is looking like he wants to say something else -
"No, I mean it."
God, he looks so serious…I think I may have chosen inappropriate words again. Crap…"I don't mean "pleasure". I mean, I didn't mind. I wanted to." I thought we were passed this waffling stage. Really, Molly.
But Sherlock is looking at her seriously; intensely. She knows he doesn't find it easy, but there is serious danger of some emoting in the offing…
"Moriarty slipped up. He made a mistake. Because the one person he thought didn't matter at all to me was the one person that mattered the most. You made it all possible."
Lying; falsifying documents; hiding a corpse; lying; squash ball providing; clothes getting; stealing; disguising; key-copying; sheltering; counselling; (and did I mention LYING…?)
He draws in a breath and his eyes look, properly, into hers.
It was worth it. Every, single soul-searching, heart-lurching; long, sleepless-nighting, second.
"But you can't do this again, can you?" Oh. He knows. He knows. He must be able to see…me.
"I had a lovely day. I'd love to – I just ... um ... "
But Sherlock isn`t listening; he`s fumbling in his pocket; then the other pocket. There`s some deep pockets right there –
Then, Sherlock Holmes pulls out a box. A small box. A small box that looks just about the right size to hold –
He flips open the lid.
A diamond ring.
"Molly. I need you to wear this for me."
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
"Oh, congratulations, by the way." John Watson picks up Molly`s left hand and admires the ring. "Where did you meet?"
She knows Sherlock is just across the lab, checking the growth of his lichen cultures and totally within earshot. God, it`s that craniofacial erythema rearing its ugly head again. Luckily, John took the mega-blush for newly-engaged bashfulness.
"He's not from work." She can actually see Sherlock Holmes smiling from across the lab.
Molly goes to babble-mode setting: "We met through friends, the old-fashioned way. He's nice. We ... he's got a dog ... we-we go to the pub on weekends and he ... I've met his mum and dad and his friends and all his family and I've no idea why I'm telling you this."
Oh, you`re gooood.
John looks slightly taken aback, but his eyes crinkle sweetly and she knows he`s really pleased for her, despite the fact she is lying her head off, right in his face.
Sherlock is still slightly smirking. Dead man walking, Holmes.
"I hope you'll be very happy, Molly Hooper. You deserve it." John lowers his voice, slightly. " After all, not all the men you fall for can turn out to be sociopaths." Godddd….excruciating, but –
"Necessary." Sherlock had taken her to a silent, locked, secure room in the Diogenes Club. The beautiful gold-leaf stuccoed ceilings and red velvet chairs bely the dark secrets he is telling her.
Sources from a cut-out in Tibet have uncovered, thanks to Sherlock`s covert playback, proof of a co-conspirator. A co-conspirator of the late Jim Moriarty. MI6 have their best intelligence (most of them anyway) on the hunt, but there is danger. Danger for all those linked to Sherlock Holmes. By Molly becoming fictitiously `engaged` to `Tom Langdale-Pike` - a tall, young, curly haired agent; who will protect Molly – it should ensure that friends of Jim Moriarty do not look too closely at the connection between Miss Molly Hooper and Mr Sherlock Holmes.
"This – craziness, then – is to keep me safe?"
Tall windows are allowing dappled sunlight to shaft into the room; lighting up dancing dust motes on the air. The place is dusty and silent – like a tomb. Sherlock nods, gravely.
"And…" She knows how ridiculous her next comment will sound, but, heck! She could be a marked woman. "… and so – "
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "Molly…"
"you…and me …we – have – a – connection?"
He tilts his head and assesses her perfect golden ratio.
"Yes. Of course we do." And he smiles.
xoxoxoxoxoxox
TLP is tall, blue eyed and handsome. A hint of a cheekbone too, to be sure. There could be worse people to be faux-engaged to. She had quite liked the ring too, until Sherlock had told her he`d found it in the throat of a skunk which had been washed up on the banks of the Thames and used in a vicious divorce/disappearance case. She`d had it in the autoclave about five times, even though he`d insisted it was clean.
After the almost-bombing of the Houses of Parliament, John Watson has invited her and `Tom` to Baker Street for celebratory drinks.
Apparently, getting engaged was the `new black`. Everyone was doing it.
Molly couldn't help but notice how focused, alert and dominant Tom is as they parry through the throng of photographers gathered on the pavement outside 221B. His eyes were scoping all around – faces; buildings; passing cars. It was just a little bit Whitney Houston in `The Bodyguard`. As they climb the stoop, she gets a text. From Sherlock? Isn`t he just ten seconds away from meeting with them?
`You are loving this. SH`
And she snorts, which she has to turn into a cough as she and Tom go up the stairs. Everyone is sat around with champagne glasses. Greg is here – how lovely! Sherlock is at the window, looking out, phone in hand.
"Hello, everyone."
"Hey, Molly."
Molly has decided she and Tom should hold hands. For authenticity. She isn't quite sure exactly why Sherlock hasn't told John about the co-conspirator, but maybe she will ask him. Soon.
"This is Tom."
A wide-eyed John Watson almost does a double take. Sherlock has thought it hilarious to dress Tom in one of his old coats and scarves. Tom has even got a similar pair of YSL brogues. She knew what they were all thinking but, truth be told, it was more than a little bit funny. Even if the joke was pretty much on her.
"Tom, this is everyone."
"Hi."
John looks over to Sherlock who is still looking at the press. Molly imagines he is composing his face before he turns around. Molly accepts a glass of champagne from Greg who nearly pushes it into her bosom, so entranced is he by her fiancé`s appearance.
"Hi."
Tom is very professional, however, and gives the wide-eyed happy greeting of a newly affianced man meeting her friends.
"It's really nice to meet you all." He looks at John. "Hi."
John has suddenly pulled himself together enough to shake his hand. "Wow. Yeah, hi. I'm John. Good to meet you. Hey, Sherlock, have you met Molly`s fiancé, Tom?" He has so much the air of innocence. "We need to go down soon."
Sherlock turns and takes them in. He gives Molly the very ghost of a wink as he shakes Tom`s hand and passes on down the stairs.
"Nice coat." Is his only comment to Tom.
"Sit down, love." Mrs Hudson gestures to the sofa as Greg Lestrade sidles alongside Molly. Uh-oh. Here it comes…
"So, um, is it serious, you two?" Greg`s slight awkwardness indicates he has still to forget the diamante`d Hooper Bosom of a few years ago. Molly likes him. And she is – as Sherlock says – quite enjoying herself.
"Yeah! I've moved on!" she smiles.
xoxoxoxoxoxox