A/N: This was really hard for me to write. Anyone who knows how hard it is for me to deal with the issue of substance abuse knows why and the reason I cried over this for so long. So. There we go. A billion thanks to MizJoely, who holds my hand and keeps my writing in line. Thank you, doll!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
I
It's eleven o'clock at night, and as Molly is jarred from wakefulness she's reaching out for Sherlock. She touches cold sheets and empty air, fingers aching from the lack of warm skin, lungs collapsing as they take in the scent of clean laundry and the faint brush of her perfume and lemon scented shampoo, but nowhere is there a trace of Sherlock. Her dream is already fading, and with it the illusion that she has any right to expect him to be at her side.
Someone is buzzing her doorbell while simultaneously banging on the door.
Something's wrong, Molly realizes. The thought is instinctive and urgent, making her stomach plummet before it races back up to lodge in her throat. Struggling from the tangle of sheets and blanket, bolting out of bed and slapping one hand along her nightstand before she chances upon her glasses and shoves them on, Molly practically runs. On the way past the little chair by the door she catches the trailing sleeve of her dressing gown, pulling it with her.
It's flung on but left untied when she hurls the door open.
"What's happened?" she demands before even seeing who's woken her.
It's Greg Lestrade. He looks like hell, dark circles around his eyes and his mouth a sorrowful line. It looks as though he's aged overnight, lived twenty years in the space of a few hours. "Molly, it's Sherlock –" he begins, and the world drops out.
Over the buzz in her head, she hears Greg's words once more. "– they've taken him into surgery, John's at the hospital with him. He sent me to find you, said he's been calling. Sherlock was... he was asking for you, in the ambulance. John thinks you need to be there... in case... if he..."
The sound that crawls out of Molly's throat is inhuman. She crumples at the waist, bending in on herself. Her heart has been torn from her ribs, ripped from her body and left abandoned on the street. Everything is cold, so very cold.
"Oh God," she gasps, before gagging. She's going to be sick. This can't be real. It can't be real. "Is it – was it drugs –"
"Molls, honey, calm down. Come on. Lets sit, okay? No, he didn't overdose. Come on, now, sit. There we go. All right, Molly, look at me. Focus on my voice, all right? I need you to listen to me." Greg is crouched down in front of her, serious and calm. He's every inch the Detective Inspector Lestrade that Molly sometimes forgets he is, because usually he's just Greg with the smart mouth and constant air of life-inspired exasperation.
As a planet may be pulled into the gravitational pull of a sun, Molly sucks her emotions and hysteria into herself. Now is not the time to fall apart. She's a medical professional, trained to handle stressful situations. She's faked Sherlock's death, lied to the police and her employers and tabloid newspapers; she's falsified evidence and flown halfway around the world to patch up a supposedly dead man no less than four times on the orders of Mycroft Holmes; if she can't be strong now, when Sherlock once again needs her, she might as well hang up her lab coat up.
She takes several deep breaths, each one bringing layers of calm and control. They're rice paper thin and may be easily shredded, but she can build more and more on, until they mold together into a thick, protective shell. "What happened?" she asks. There's a razor edge of hysteria on her words, but they're slow and level. She can do this – she has to do this.
A pause. Greg visibly wavers, and Molly can see the grief and fear in his eyes. "Sherlock was shot," he finally admits.
And that is how Molly's world collapses.
II
The hospital is too bright. Molly aches for dark corners and dimly lit nooks to hide in, the scent of aging stone and the feeling of eternity that Bart's carries within. It takes too long to find John in a waiting room that is a sickening mix of pastels and neutrals, with a flat screen bolted high up on the wall and the sound turned off. It's a late night Jeremy Kyle marathon, and absurdly it makes a lump clog Molly's throat.
She thinks of tossing popcorn at Sherlock as he shouted at her television, and how it felt to fall asleep after a long night with the telly nattering on in the background, her head on his shoulder. Her stomach twists, and Molly swallows down bile.
"Thank God you're here," says John, and he's got her hands in between his. There are tears and a wild look in his eyes, as though he's a breath away from falling apart. Molly imagines she must look just the same. "He kept asking for you when he was semi-conscious, and I thought you needed to know..."
A steadying breath. Molly's chest aches. Pressure throbs behind her eyes, threatening a stress migraine that is about to make itself known. "What was he saying?" Does she really want to know?
Yes. It may kill her as surely as the bullet may kill Sherlock, but she needs to know.
John is army straight and rigid, but his left hand and upper lip quiver. "'Thank you, Molly,'" John hoarsely repeats. "And 'Perfect.' He kept saying, 'My Molly is perfect.' It was the last thing he said before losing consciousness that last time."
The world narrows down to a pain Molly could never hope to explain. She thinks of Sherlock's mindless praise in the heat of passion – perfect, I knew you would be – and the way he seemed mad with need. It brings up images of Sherlock bloody and dying, blood pressure and heart rate plummeting while memories of a happier past flicker through his mind.
Deep breath. Remain calm. Now is not the time; later, Molly can fall apart. But not now. Not yet. "And his injuries?"
She and John speak in the language of medicine, falling back into old, practiced rhythms. It is unaccountably soothing, despite the knowledge that Sherlock's injuries are more than life threatening. The chances of his surviving the surgery are marginal, at best, and even if he does... well, there's no promise that he'll wake up. Not at this stage.
John goes for coffee, and returns with three cups and Mycroft. The elder Holmes is tense and snappish, though he shoots regular, searching looks at Molly. She ignores them. An hour later Mr. and Mrs. Holmes arrive, far more ragged than Molly is used to seeing them.
"Oh, Mikey!" cries Mrs. Holmes, wrapping her elder son in a desperate hug. Mycroft looks incredibly close to bursting out in nervous hives. "Have you heard anything? Is the surgery over?"
"Nothing as of yet," Mycroft answers, patting his mother gingerly on the back before edging away.
After a short while, Mr. Holmes comes to sit with Molly. "You never come see us now that Sherlock's home," he notes, fingers tapping and twitching nervously. Sherlock's do the very same, and even in the same pattern; the sight makes her heart strain.
"I'm sorry," she answers after a too long pause. "He keeps me busy."
"See you're not wearing that ring, any longer. Things not work out with Tom, then?"
Molly's chin wobbles. Do not cry, she sternly orders before promptly bursting into tears. They're quiet things, no great sobs or heavy weeping; it's just tears, streaming down her face as though the heavens have split open and sent down a great rainfall.
"No," she chokes out. "Couldn't last, really. Not when I'm in love with someone else." Biting her cheek, Molly bows her head. Mr. Holmes's arm around her shoulders is warm and comforting. He leans his cheek on top of Molly's head, tucking her into his side as best the arm rest between them will allow.
"He'll be all right, our Sherlock," he comforts her, though his rich voice is strangled and raw. "He's a stubborn boy. Won't let something as simple as a bullet stop him."
Mr. Holmes and Molly sit this way for a long, long time. He strokes her hair and whispers sweet platitudes; Molly squeezes his fingers and tells him all the mad, brilliant, wonderful things his son has done in her lab and to her life. They both shed tears, but neither comment on it.
"Stop that silly weeping," Mrs. Holmes finally orders, thrusting two disposable cups of tea at them. Her eyes are red and ringed with eyeliner. "Sherlock will be just fine, I don't know what this terrible fuss is all about!"
Doors swish open, and as they have for hours now, several heads turn. The air is heavy with tension as they wait, hoping, hoping... "Holmes?" asks a surgeon in full scrubs. He looks exhausted, lines heavy beside his eyes and mouth. "Sherlock Holmes's family?"
"Yes!" Everyone seems to shout at once, lunging upright and nearly bowling the poor man over.
Mrs. Holmes has taken a grip on Molly's hand so tight that small bones grind together and the blood flow is cut off. On her other side is Mr. Holmes, who keeps a steadying arm about his wife and seems to be bracing himself for the worst. John is on Molly's left, hands folded behind his back and desperation in his eyes. Mycroft stands a bit apart, as always, and looks close to abusing the surgeon with his brolly if news isn't provided and quickly.
"It was touch and go," the surgeon announces, "and we thought we'd lost him. He flat lined for three minutes. But he came back all on his own, it's a miracle. You should realize how lucky you are. He's going to have a long recovery time, and he's not out of the woods yet, but he's out of surgery."
Mrs. Holmes gives a moaning sob, rolling her face into her husband's shoulder. "Oh, I told you he would be fine!" she cries, knees obviously threatening to give out.
John and Molly take on the job of holding each other up. The world has fractured into shards and angles due to the tears in her eyes. Under her breath she mutters prayers of thanksgiving and joy and mercy, dizzy with gratefulness.
He's alive. Thank you, God, thank you... he's alive...
III
"Why haven't you been in to see him?" Mrs. Holmes makes her presence known in such a way that a tornado might; with a great calm, and then a burst of earth-changing energy.
"Um," says Molly, scrubbing exhaustion and sleep from her eyes. "I don't... I didn't want to get in the way. Of everyone else. You're his family, you know, and I thought –"
"He asked if you'd been told," interrupts Mrs. Holmes, eyebrows lifting. Her clear blue eyes, as magnificent and piercing as her son's, look through Molly in a way she's far too familiar with. "Seems positively irate that you not only knew, but that you were here. If we hadn't turned up his morphine, he may have well strangled poor Dr. Watson for having sent that lovely Detective Inspector to fetch you."
Molly's heart shutters. "I can go," she whispers, doing her best to keep it together. She sits up from the uncomfortable love seat she's been napping in, looking for her bag. She needs to get out of here, and now, before she does something horribly embarrassing. "I knew he wouldn't want to see me, but I just wanted to make sure he's okay. But now I have, so, no point in me –"
"In primary, he fancied this lovely little girl named Helena. He made her cry at least once a day, and regularly informed her how stupid and boring she was." Mrs. Holmes is smiling in that soft, fond way all mothers have. "Oh, I gave him quite the talking to, but he's only just now starting to grow out of it. Well, with certain people at least. He didn't want you to be worried, that's all. He's a bit out of his head, but he's been asking for you. Go on, now."
Taking a moment to gather herself, Molly tries to scrub the exhaustion and worry from her face with curled fingers before she stands. Mrs. Holmes pats her leg as she walks past, looking for all the world like a cat that got the cream.
Mr. Holmes is just leaving Sherlock's room. He holds the door open for Molly, offering her a soft wink. "He's a bit loopy from the drugs," he warns, before going on his way.
So many wires and machines, a drainage tube in his surgery site and several bags plugged into his IV line. Molly slowly moves to the end of the bed, taking up his chart and reading. Each notation and sentence leaves her sicker than the last, as she realizes that Sherlock did not simply come close to dying – he did. And the fact that he is still here is more of a miracle than she will ever be able to fully comprehend.
"Incredibly dull reading," slurs Sherlock, eyes only half open. He gestures vaguely at Molly. "Here. Come here."
Attempting to swallow down a show of emotion (Sherlock needs her to be calm and in control right now), Molly replaces the chart at the foot of his bed before moving around. She allows Sherlock to take her hand, presses her fingers a bit too tightly against his palm. When he clumsily threads their fingers together she assists the motions, clinging to him with all the stalwartness of a woman that has nearly lost her soulmate.
"I never wanted to hurt you, Molly Hooper," he breathes, voice harsh from prolonged sedation and the breathing tube that kept him alive during surgery. Those marvelous eyes Molly loves so well, they keep falling shut. Each time Sherlock jerks them open again with more and more force, as though determined to keep his hazy gaze on her. "Never. I always do though. I'm so sorry, Molly. You always save my life and I always hurt you..."
"Hush, Sherlock." Gently Molly runs her free hand through his hair, attempting to tame the wild curls. "None of it matters right now, all right? You just need to rest."
"But you always matter..." he protests, head lolling to the side. Just when Molly thinks he's fallen asleep, he whispers, "Don't leave." Two small words, and how much they mean. How very much.
"Of course." Kissing a cheek that's rough with stubble, Molly pulls a chair to his bedside before sitting down. Sherlock sleeps and, like a guardian angel, Molly keeps watch.
IV
Four days after Sherlock's shooting, Molly re-enters the hospital with a stack of tabloid trash stuffed into her bag and a burning sense of dread that has her stomach twisted into knots. She's seen Sherlock do things under the influence of drugs that he would never normally do: it is not only his cruelty that soars into shocking levels when he is high. There was once, a very long time ago when Molly was a new pathologist and Sherlock was half dead from heroin, a night where lines blurred and Molly nearly lost herself in need.
"Beautiful,"she recalls Sherlock whispering, his mouth ghosting over her breasts. She'd been pressed against the cold storage lockers, a handle digging into her back, but Molly hadn't cared. No, not when his tongue was curling around her nipple and his hand was sliding down her trousers. His pupils had been blown so very, very wide, but not just from lust. "I've seen you watch me, Doctor Hooper, and I know what you want. This, yes? For me to fuck you? I've barely touched you and you're soaking through your panties; for shame, doctor, this isn't very professional of you..."
He'd groaned – God, that sound, it had haunted Molly for years – and she'd watched the shiver wrack his too-thin frame. Slowly, so slowly he'd pressed one long finger inside her, and all Molly could do was sob in pleasure as she clung to his shoulders. It was wrong, yes, she'd known how fucking wrong it was; but he was clearly aroused and yes, yes she'd wanted him from the first moment she saw him. Wanted his brilliant mind and skinny little body, his messy curls and rare smiles.
God, how furious Sherlock had been when she'd managed to clamp a hand around his wrist, bringing his motions to a halt. He'd looked up at her, those hazy eyes questioning as her nipple popped, wet and rosy, from his mouth. Molly was hanging on the edge of an orgasm, so close she could taste it, feel the beginning quivers in her thighs and stomach and cunt. But she'd said, "Sherlock, wait. Not like this. Not when you're –"
Sherlock had left the morgue, and didn't return for three months. In the end he didn't come back until he was clean, fresh out of rehab and once again working with Greg and Scotland Yard. They never brought that night up again, not once; not how desperately he'd pinned her against the storage unit, not how he'd kissed her until they were both gasping for air, not even the way he'd cupped her cunt in one large hand and begged her to reconsider. It was as though it never happened, and Molly is sure it's because he doesn't remember. Either he was too high or he deleted the memory from his mind palace; either way, the result is the same.
The tabloid papers featuring Janine's stories don't seem at all ridiculous when held up against Molly's knowledge of the things Sherlock can do when under the influence. His inhibitions are removed, one by one, until Sherlock seeks out the primal and basic pleasures. If Janine was practically living with him, staying over more often than not and sleeping in his bed, what's to say that they weren't shagging?
Which makes what happened between Molly and Sherlock about as meaningless as a two-cent fuck bought off a street corner. A transaction, moments of pleasure, a dismissal. What a clever little ploy: I can't be with you right now, Molly, I've got to pretend to be with someone else for a case. And she'd bought it, swallowed the hook and waited for him like a good little woman. The whole time he was playing with her, using her feelings for his gain once again.
Molly truly believed she meant more to him than that. And perhaps she does, in some strange way. But right now she thinks that Sherlock Holmes is incapable of loving someone else – not because of a defect, no, but because he's simply too selfish.
"Oh – Molly, right?" A whip of dark hair, the flash of white teeth, a hand leaping out to take Molly's arm.
Out of everyone Molly could possibly meet today, this is the very last she'd hoped for. Speaking is a bit out of her abilities, so she answers with a simple nod and a grimace-like smile.
"On your way to see Sherlock, then? Bet you are. You know, I felt bad for you, I really did. Anyone who's around you for more than a few minutes, yeah, it's obvious how you feel about Sherlock Holmes. It's a good thing you're not wearing that ring anymore; at Mary and John's wedding it was clear enough who you really wanted. I had a few talks with Sherlock, you know that? About being kind to you. You seemed like a really nice woman, I'd hoped we could be friends. So I need to know – did you know?"
Long, deep breathes. Control, Molly. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Did you know he was using me? That none of it was real? Did you know?" Janine is showing too many teeth, one hand locked around Molly's arm and a suspicious glint in her eyes.
And just like that, Molly feels like the lowest scum on earth. One hand lifts to her mouth in an attempt to smother a heaving sigh, her shoulders sagging under the weight. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I didn't know everything, but I... I knew enough. I should have told you."
"Yeah, you should have." A pause, in which Janine is clearly trying to regain control of her emotions. "So, were you fucking him?"
A tear slides down Molly's cheek. A weak nod. She wants the floor to crack open and swallow her, to be sucked down to the pits of hell where she belongs. Never in her life has she ever, ever, felt like such a monster. "Just – just one night. Three weeks after you began... after he started..." Gesturing helplessly to the space between them, a wordless indication of the deception Sherlock played with Janine, Molly struggles to find words. "I'm sorry," she breathes, a broken plea for forgiveness Molly knows she doesn't deserve. "I was selfish and cruel, and I – I shouldn't have –"
"He talks in his sleep, especially when he's high. I knew, you know? Didn't want to admit it, but I knew. My Molly, he'd say, and so I should have seen it. That I was getting fucked in every way but the one I wanted." Janine's smile is bitter and dark. "At least he was faithful to one of us, in his own way. Have a good life, Dr. Hooper. You and Sherlock Holmes really do deserve each other."
When Molly enters the room, Sherlock takes only one look at her before putting on a dark frown. "You and Janine ran into each other and now you're upset," he announces, as though Molly may have forgotten. "You're crying." He's struggling further upright, grimacing and groaning with each movement. His eyes are clear, which means the morphine hasn't overtaken his system for the moment.
On one hand, Molly is positively overwhelmed at how he is visibly angered and upset at the sight of her tears. The second palm, however, holds a stark reminder of everything Sherlock has done: a willful relapse, using a Janine, using Molly.
"Was it because you were high?" she demands, and there's a part of her saying, can't this wait? He's not well, I can't do this to him right now.
Sherlock's expression because a study in polite confusion. "I'm sorry, Molly? Was what because I was high? If you mean getting shot, well, I suppose it may have slowed my reflexes, but at the indicated distance –"
"You know what I mean." And he does, she knows he does. One deep, ragged breath in which Molly fights hard to keep herself from tears. "The sex, was it just because you were high?"
The muscles in his jaw and cheek tick. Sherlock's eyes grow cold, but behind the layer of ice Molly can see hurt. But is it real? Is it a lie, an act, a manipulation? How the hell is she supposed to tell, anymore? Or has she ever been able to?
"I can't believe you would even ask me that." Sharp, clipped words. Nostrils flaring, hands clenching... oh, he's angry and close to shouting. If they weren't in a hospital, if he was in better health, Molly knows he'd be stomping around the room and throwing things in a fit.
"I can't believe you don't see why I have to." Into the bag her hand delves, and up comes the tabloids. Molly tosses them across the foot of his bed, where they join other copies. "A fiancée, Sherlock? You asked her to marry you?"
"I was much less indignant when I learned of your engagement," sniffs Sherlock, obviously trying to tip the scales in his favor. "And that one was real."
"I never lied to Tom."
"Didn't you? I rather think that not sharing that you're in love with another man is a lie, especially when you truly intended on marrying the man."
Calm down, Molly urges herself. She turns away, counting to ten several dozen times before her heart rate lowers and her mind is clearing. Deep in her bones and soul, Molly knows what she means to Sherlock Holmes. Maybe it's not apparent to everyone, but it is to her: he trusts her, and that is not something he gives out easily. More than that, he feels for her. Is it love? This Molly cannot be sure of. She doesn't doubt his capacity to love, of course not (he's a human like any other, despite what he'd like the world to believe); perhaps it all simply boils down to the fact that she cannot believe that Sherlock Holmes – a liar, a genius, a cruel, brilliant, terrifically kind man to those who are close to him; a man that cannot possibly be defined so easily – could ever love Molly Hooper.
She can't help but fear that it's all going to fall apart, and that she's going to be Janine. That she, too, will walk away with a broken heart, the poor woman that was used and tossed by Sherlock like so much rubbish.
"Molly." It's so gentle, the way he says her name. As she turns to face him, she sees that Sherlock has lifted up a hand. His fingers waggle insistently at her. He's biting back a grimace, and Molly can see the motion hurts him; she hurries to his bedside, taking his hand and pushing it down so he doesn't strain himself.
"Stop that," she fusses, rubbing her palm up his forearm. His skin is cool, and not for the first she wonders why they haven't put him in a hospital gown, or at least given him a robe.
"Never doubt that you will always be the one that matters the most to me; the one that is closest to my heart."
The hospital room blurs as, despite his pain, Sherlock lifts her hand. The kiss he lays on her palm is sweet and wet, lingering too long to be chaste. His heart monitor spikes as he trails down her wrist, tracing the soft rise of a blue vein with the seam of his mouth, shoulders lifting as he deeply inhales her scent.
With this Molly knows that it doesn't matter how cruel or unkind he can be, that he is an addict and will always be one, or even that he can pick up people and cast them aside as though they are no more than used bits of tissue: all the matters, in the end, is that Sherlock Holmes is her heart.
And she may very well be his.
V
"I need to know all his boltholes, now." John Watson storms into the autopsy room of St. Bart's morgue, belting out his questions in the sharp way that an army general has. Which, Molly has to admit, really does make sense.
"What?" she asks, completely baffled. A rib cracker is lodged in the chest of Robert Gregory Kent, and she's still gripping the handles. Behind her protective face shield, Molly imagines she must look absolutely gobsmacked. "What's wrong, John?"
"Sherlock," growls the good doctor, looking close to pulling his hair out. "His bolt-holes, I need their addresses. All of them. Immediately."
Twenty minutes later, Molly is in the cafeteria, sucking down strong tea with too much sugar (she's got to do something to try and cover up the burnt taste, hasn't she?), while John sits across from her. She's rattling off a list of Sherlock's boltholes from memory, scrunching her face up as she forces herself to recall all the address. "And there's my spare bedroom. Well, my bedroom; we agreed he needed the space." She pauses to take a drink, fighting against a smile.
"Right, thanks. I'll – I'll just – sorry, but he really uses your place as a bolt-hole?" John pauses in the act of tucking his notebook away, pen trembling in his fingers as he surveys Molly. His expression is somewhere between disbelief and pity. "He kicks you out of your own bed?"
Molly's laugh is small and nervous. "Um, well, not exactly? We um – I've got a large bed, see – and it only seemed logic that we, you know, share."
It's obvious that John is having trouble processing this information. "Sherlock – our Sherlock – he sleeps with you? Really?"
"If you tell him I'll deny admitting it," Molly warns, before leaning forward with a crooked little grin. "But he cuddles in his sleep."
"Blimey," he whispers, shoving his fingers through his hair. "He's full of surprises, isn't he?"
Molly shrugs, though there's amusement tickling the back of her throat. "What's this about, then? He sent you off on some wild goose chase or something?"
"He's disappeared," John deadpans, mouth twitching as he fights to contain the anger flashing in his eyes. "Window was open, and he's just... gone."
Molly's heart comes close to stopping. She thinks of his injury and surgery site, the frailty of his nicked aorta and how painful it had been to bury him the first time around and knowing it was fake. A second time, a last time, would see Molly in a grave before she recovered. Her own heart couldn't take losing him, not now. Not like this.
Finally she chokes out, "I'll help you look."
"Sherlock may come see you. We need you to be here if he does."
Agreeing with this, accepting to simply sit by and wait, is one of the hardest things Molly has ever had to do.
VI
Molly never learns what really happened, why Sherlock escaped from the hospital like a fugitive on the run, or how John and Mary were involved – though it's clear, after the fact, that they are. All she knows for certain is that Sherlock had to endure three more hours of surgery, and something occurred that was terrible enough to rip John and Mary Watson's marriage apart.
It's a Thursday evening when she helps Mary move out of the flat. "John wanted you to keep it," Molly keeps insisting.
"I can't stay here," Mary answers each time. "Not without him. I can't."
"But he'll be back," Molly swears, because in her soul she knows it's true. But Mary looks at her as though she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders, as though she's an adult keeping some terrible truth from a child too young to understand, and simply walks away.
VII
Weaning Sherlock off the morphine is a nightmare. As his dosage lowers his withdrawal symptoms begin: while the doctors seemed oblivious to Sherlock's history of addiction, seeming to plug their ears even after Molly and John and Mr. Holmes all but begged them to give him something else (and Molly suspects Mycroft, who kept saying things like he's been shot, it's not as though a plaster and an aspirin will help him now, to have indulged his little brother too far once again), now there is no denying what their patient is going through. The line they walk is a tight one, as keeping him dependent on the morphine is impossible, but stressing his now fragile body too much could be deadly.
She convinces his parents to have him moved to St. Bart's, into a private room on the second floor. The doctors and nursers are, by and large, wary of his angry outbursts and scathing deductions but still incredibly protective over the famous detective: he's a fixture at Bart's, one of their own. Tabloid reporters are run off time after time, and Nurse Herringer – who is build like a soccer linebacker and often wears scrubs patterned with kittens – is seen carrying a photojournalist out in a fireman's lift.
Molly runs tests without Sherlock's permission and without putting them on record. It's an ethical breach, but certainly not her first, assuredly not her last. When she and Sherlock both come back clean for disease and STDs, which she feared may have been transmitted from his needle usage, she puts her face in her hands and weeps. It's like a stone wall has been lifted off her shoulders, blown away by a strong wind.
The anger remains, a low simmer. He never should have put them in such risk... he never should have put Molly at risk. Not after all she's done for him, all she's given up.
"Bring it back." Sherlock sounds like an entirely different man – his voice is raspy and threatening, and there's a mad look in his eyes. Sweaty tendrils of hair dangle into his eyes, and he's wrapped in several blankets brought from the heating cupboard. His t-shirt is sweat stained and his sweatpants sag at his narrow hips.
Sighing, Molly places her bag on the chair by his door. "Hello," she greets. A headache is beginning at her temples and behind her eyes, a throbbing pressure that is from both the weight of her (admittedly beautiful) hair and stress. "My day was fine, thanks. Oh, you're welcome for coming to see you after a twelve hour shift, I know how much you appreciate it."
"Bring. It. Back." He's shivering from head to toe, quaking like a leaf in a strong wind.
It hurts Molly to see him like this. But she knows this is his only option, and so she hardens her heart. "I'm not your physician, Sherlock, I've no control over your morphine."
"You've dictated every step of this, don't think I don't know –"
"I brought you some new books. This one's a history, looks quite good. War of the Roses, has an interesting take on –"
"You've no right!" His shout echoes around the little room, and his heart monitor is rising too quickly for Molly's liking. She sets the books aside and moves to his bed, checking his vitals and pupils despite how he tries to jerk away. Strong-arming him feels cruel, but what other choice does she have? Molly holds his chin in one hand and shines a light in his eyes.
There are tears there, and it breaks her heart.
"Please," he whispers, taking a light grip on her arm. A tear tumbles down his cheek, followed by another and another. "Please, Molly, I need help. I need your help."
She gently answers, "I know." One hand smooths his hair back, and she hopes he doesn't notice how her fingers tremble. "That's why I'm not getting morphine for you."
He flings her away with such force that Molly stumbles. "Then what bloody use are you!?" The abuse he continues to shout is so violent, so cruel, that she leaves the books on his bedside table and leaves. He shrieks after her as she goes ("Come back! Molly – Molly, I'm sorry, forgive me, don't leave me like this! I need you!"), and though she barely makes it halfway down his corridor before bursting into tears and collapsing against the wall, leave him she does. Nurse Herringer crouches down at her side, wraps an arm around Molly and lets her cry.
"Let on it out, girl," she urges, stroking the hair from Molly's face. "You can't do the recovery for him, Dr. Hooper, as much as you want to. He's got to want to do it himself. So you cry for both of you, honey, just let it out: ain't no shame in being strong enough to grieve for what that idiot has thrown away."
And grieve Molly does.
VIII
On the day he's released, Sherlock very gingerly touches Molly's elbow.
"I'm so sorry," he mutters while looking to the side. Everything about him stiff and uncomfortable, and not just from lingering pain and weakness.
"I know," she agrees after a moment. They're both silent as she loads him into the car Mycroft sent, tucking him into the backseat before sliding in with his bag. Once the driver has set off and they are into traffic, Molly draws in a deep breath. "If you ever put me through this again, I'm done."
Is it selfish? Is it cruel? It doesn't matter, not in this situation. There is only so much Molly has to give, and he has drained her. She loves him, God knows she does, but her aunt once told her, "You can love someone and not be able to be with them." Even though it was meant to help a fourteen year old Molly through the loss of her first "serious" boyfriend, she thinks the advice fits now. Loving Sherlock is quite possibly the most traumatic thing she will ever do, and while it will never stop, there may come a day where she will have to walk away.
His mouth is hanging open, as though he wants to speak or perhaps doesn't know what to say. Molly meets Sherlock's gaze, allows him to search her and pull from her shoulders and hair and sad, exhausted, determined eyes that she means it. "Would you truly?" he finally inquires in a soft, little boy voice.
"Don't ever put yourself in the position to find out."
Sherlock nods, just once. He looks out the window, and then complains about the route the driver takes, which leads them into traffic so thick they're at a stand-still for fifteen minutes. But he's reached out and has a grip on Molly's hand, fingers slid between her own and holding on tight. Molly clings to him as much as he does her, terrified that one day he may put her to the test.
Walking away would kill her, but watching Sherlock kill himself would be a torture she couldn't bear.
IX
Slowly but surely, Sherlock regains strength.
Between Molly, Sherlock, and John is a terrible tension, a thickness that none can breach. They walk on egg shells and glass shards around each other, tip-toeing around Baker Street and avoiding eye contact. Sherlock always seems on the edge of saying something when he and Molly are alone; sometimes he keeps furniture and large spaces between them, while other times he cannot seem to bear to have her away from his side.
Something weighs heavily on his mind, or perhaps several somethings. He doesn't share his burden with Molly, and it provokes mixed feelings. Hasn't she proven herself? But hasn't she also done enough? Where is the line, where does it stop, where does Molly step away and allow Sherlock to be his own person? What are they, what is between them, what is her role? It's all too nebulous and as fragile as dragon fly wings, and so she asks no questions.
Maybe she's a coward, but she's still recovering from the last hurts he dealt her.
X
When John isn't there, Mary visits. Sherlock takes a profound interest in the progression of her pregnancy, keeping a notebook of observations and regularly demanding to listen to the heartbeat and palpitating Mary's uterus to see how the fetus is positioned. Mary puts up with it much better than Molly would have, and though she's drawn and sad, Sherlock's worry and obsession and unspoken love brighten her up.
"He's going to be a wonderful godfather," Mary confides over tea and biscuits.
"A terrible godfather, you mean," Molly corrects, mouth quirked into a grin. "He's going to teach Wee Watson all sorts of mad, brilliant things. Do you know he's already researching child's chemistry sets?"
When Sherlock comes out of the bathroom in a wave of steam that smells of his soap and aftershave, Molly and Mary are whooping with laughter on his sofa. He stares at them for a very long moment before drawing his dressing gown around him like armor.
"I don't think you ought to be having caffeine, Mary. Do think of the baby."
"Do think of the baby," mimics Mary. Both women convulse in laughter, falling all over each other.
Sherlock sniffs, a picture of wounded dignity before he turns on his heel and marches to his bedroom. The slamming of his door provokes another round of laughter, and Molly revels in it. Lightheaded and weak, mouth and stomach aching, she soaks in this silly, wonderful moment and prays for more.