The dance continued.
Sherlock started to show up at her work again.
He'd ask for coffee.
She'd give him coffee.
He'd make snide remarks.
She'd return them and both would almost look angry.
John would just stand between them amused.
She'd go on dates again, start being silly again, and her bed was once again in frequent use (for sleep of course).
He'd make comments on her attire.
She'd just smile at him.
He'd pretend not to care.
They'd argue about the mortuary.
She'd reclaim things he'd taken without her permission.
He'd take more things just to irritate her, and she'd report him (though much good that did).
She was on a date one evening. Her date, a handsome man called Darren stepped off to the men's-room for a quick moment.
She got a text as soon as he left. She looked at her phone in surprise.
He's compensating – SH
Molly looked around the restaurant, but saw no one fitting his description.
What?
A reply immediately followed.
He doesn't have much to boast about. – SH
How would you know?
I followed him – SH
You're stalking my date?
No – SH
She laughed, her date returned. She tried to spot Sherlock, but she couldn't find his fine brown curls anywhere. Darren quickly distracted her, except when another text popped up.
He's married – SH
Of course he was right, one could see it on her date right away, especially by the fact that he kept eyeing the exits like he was guilty.
He had the most fidgety behaviour, and seemed to be constantly perspiring despite the heavily air-conditioned room.
"Darren, do you love your wife?" she asks, breaking the conversation, which he was primarily having with himself.
Darren spits out some of the wine he just drank.
"It's OK, but don't you love your wife? You keep checking the exits like a mad-man, so this must be your first time, isn't it?"
For a second he looks like he's going to run away, except he just puts down his wineglass.
"She's been cheating to be honest, and well-,"
"Revenge?"
"Yeah,"
"Go home Darren, go talk with your wife, I'll pay up and we'll pretend this never happened," she says, and he looks at her bewildered for a few moments, mutters his thanks, and wanders off. Molly sits there quietly for a while, before paying up, and leaving. She wonders for a while where Sherlock is, but reasons with herself that it is better not to ask.
"Are you texting?"
"Yes."
"To whom are you texting?"
Sherlock just looks at John.
"Sherlock!"
"Fine," he says, before pausing a while and uttering the name slowly "Molly,"
John laughs, Sherlock looks at him angrily, and he puts on a serious expression, before bursting out in more laughter.
"What is so funny?"
"You're texting."
"I always text."
"I know, but you're texting Molly. You didn't even answer Irene Adler, and here you are texting Molly."
Sherlock just looked grim, before putting his phone in his pocket, and looking through his microscope.
"No," he says.
"What?" says John laughing behind his newspaper.
"I know what you are going to say-,"
"Well, it is only natural for me to be curious of what the two of you are texting about."
"It's about a case," he says, before being attentive to the blood samples.
"I didn't know you needed to send 12 texts for that?" says John, eyebrow raised. Sherlock eyes snap into his direction.
"It's an important case," says Sherlock.
"You're probably right, but I thought Molly was on a date tonight-," says John, who hides himself behind the newspaper. In a matter of seconds he finds the newspaper grabbed away from his front.
"Another date?"
"Well, Greg asked her out again," said John smiling.
Sherlock looked distraught, before he got dressed.
"Where are you going?" John asked, getting no reply as the door already slammed shut. He was left alone laughing.
Molly was sitting in her apartment. She'd been receiving texts from Sherlock for the last couple of days. They'd still meet at the morgue, but they'd never talk about the texting. It was fairly odd, how he'd absolutely brushed her off when he appeared at her work, stealing her samples, using her dead bodies, but didn't talk about the fact that he had seen her date the night before. She'd question it, except she couldn't downright understand it. The moment he'd brushed past her, and left - her phone vibrated.
I'm sorry –SH
She used a moment to gape over the text, before recovering.
Sorry for what?
She didn't get a reply to that at first, and she didn't entirely know why she'd gotten it in the first place. The whole scenario was odd. Everything they'd ever sent to each other had been demands on his part and answers on hers.
I'm not good at this sort of thing.
Texting?
Yes.
No one ever gets good at texting, without practising.
What does one talk about?
Is there anything you want to talk about?
At this point she didn't hear from him in a while, a small part of her could feel him thinking somewhere, and it was quite odd. She wasn't accustomed to him being human, yet when they met he seemed quite the opposite.
"What do you need today?"
"Just the lab, thank you."
Usually she'd just tiptoe around him, fetching things, having occasional small talk with John, except John wasn't with him, and there was no use of her. She was about to walk off.
"Where are you going?" he asks, not looking up from his microscope, his face still stuck looking through the lens.
She's a bit surprised, as she wheels around.
"I'm going to work, actually," she says with a cheery red-lipped grin.
"Aren't you going to try to have a conversation with me – we should manage to do that – we have after all lived in the same premises for a while," he says haphazardly, glancing at her briefly.
"That was then, this is now," she says, almost on her way out of the door.
"We've texted," he says looking up from his microscope, taking slow steps into her direction.
"I'd call it texting if there was any continuity in it, as I remember you haven't actually answered my question," she says, holding on the door, and looking up at him expectantly.
"Shall I gush?" he says, standing inches from her now.
"What?"
"Shall I flatter you?" he says raising a brow at her.
"Flatter me?" she says almost bursting out in laughter.
"Yes, tell you that you look well. That I want you, that I admire you, that I need you?" he says staring at her, he's so close now she can feel his breath upon her skin.
"No," she says, almost surprised at her own abrupt hurried answer, but she means it.
He brushes her lightly on the shoulder, his gaze still on her face.
"Molly," he whispers. "What do you want from me?"
"I don't want anything,"
"I'll never flatter you, you know," he says.
"I wasn't actually expecting that, to be honest,"
"What were you expecting?" he asks, voice hoarse, breath close, as his hand seems to slip around her wrist. They were inches away from each other, staring into each other's eyes.
"A text," and she pulls away her wrist and herself smiling out of the room.
Sherlock stood there a bit bewildered, for she seemed to be reacting to his advances, except she wasn't. The signs were there, her pulse was alarmingly high, and her pupils were dilated; yet she walked away. There was no interruption, no hindrance between the pair, and yet still she walked away.
He wasn't entirely sure if he knew how to play this game. He doubted that asking John would help him entirely, the man had never successfully kept a relationship, but then again neither had he. Wait, relationship? The word struck him as odd; he almost made a grimace over the fact that the thought had occurred to him even, that it was in his vocabulary. A relationship. No. Of course this had always been a relationship of sorts. She'd bring coffee. He'd make a comment to get something. He'd get it. She'd fawn. Now, it was different. Now she wore lipstick and didn't fawn. Not openly. Instead she smiled to different men, and looked at him intently. It wasn't the same open gaze. Not the same open smile. It was mild curiosity that brought her in his mind, he'd repeat that to himself often, but then again – he could have stopped with the text. Instead here he was asking for her to reveal her inner thoughts. He brought out his phone, stared at it for a while, before deliberating what he should write.