Dust in the Air
by Flaignhan
At least it's over.
He's survived to fight another day.
Cake is a welcome idea, after everything. A little hint of happiness breaking through the clouds. He's just about managed to scrape his way through to another year, which is something to celebrate.
She smiles on the tube, as she heads south. He's going to hate his present. And she couldn't be happier about that fact.
When she arrives, Sherlock and John are already sitting at a round table in the far corner, away from chirpy tourists towards the front of the cafe. She walks past the glass counter, trying to ignore the enormous slices of cake, and joins them at the table.
Sherlock narrows his eyes.
"Really?"
She looks up at the balloon, bobbing by the side of her head, the words 'Happy Birthday Sherlock' written on the front of it in silver glitter. This particular addition has made her a few minutes late, but it's totally worth it, just to see his grimace.
"I thought it was nice," she says, and she jabs at the balloon with her finger, sending it towards Sherlock's face. He recoils, but not fast enough, because a few dozen grains of glitter land on the sleeves of his coat.
"Are you punishing me?" he asks, and John sniggers, then takes a sip of his tea.
It's the first time she's heard anything like a laugh from him in months.
"Here's your present," Molly says, ignoring Sherlock's question. She places the gift bag on the table and shrugs off her coat, hanging it on the back of her chair before she sits down. There's an empty cup waiting for her, and John pours some tea into it while Molly plucks a menu from the stand to peruse the options.
Sherlock takes his present and card from the bag and sets them down on the table, then places the bag at his feet. He eyes the present suspiciously, then slowly tears at the paper.
Molly's having trouble deciding between carrot cake and chocolate cake. It's a tough call.
The wrapping paper is screwed up and dumped into the bottom of the gift bag, and she can feel Sherlock's eyes on her. A loud laugh escapes John, and this is followed by a heavy sigh from Sherlock, which manages to reach her side of the table. She's relieved to note that he has picked up a toothbrush since their ambulance ride.
"That should keep you occupied for a bit," she says, glancing over to the box.
She thinks the chocolate cake might be best. Warm, with a scoop of ice cream on the side.
"Two and a half thousand pieces," John says, leaning across to have a good look at the jigsaw puzzle. "Every single one of them black." He sniggers. "That's a great present. Where on Earth did you pick that up?"
"The internet," Molly tells him with a beaming smile.
"So you knew, did you?" John asks, curiosity piquing in his expression.
"Knew what?" Molly asks.
"His birthday. You knew it was his birthday," John explains.
"No John," Sherlock says as he picks up his birthday card. "She's known me for over twenty years, has access to all my medical records, and is my registered next of kin, but no, she has no idea when my birthday is." He tugs at the flap of the envelope, tearing it as he shakes his head with impatience.
He doesn't like talking about his birthday.
Molly frowns, his words clicking in her head. "Since when have I been your next of kin?"
He lowers the birthday card, his index finger and thumb tucked inside the envelope, ready to pull it out.
"Since..." he looks down at his hands. "Since you know," he takes his hand away from the envelope and scratches the back of his head. Molly knows what he's getting at. "I had to fill in some forms when I..." he lets out a heavy breath. "When I went away for a bit."
"What forms d'you fill out when you fake your own death?" John asks, a ghost of a smile at his lips. "I had no idea there was an administrative process in place for that."
Molly shakes her head minutely, and John frowns, but lets the subject drop. He takes a long drink of his tea, then tops up Sherlock's cup, followed by his own.
Molly reaches into her bag and finds her phone. She sends a quick text, and John's phone buzzes in his pocket.
Rehab. X
He slips his phone back into his pocket, his eyes meeting hers. He gives the faintest of nods, unnoticed by Sherlock, who has decided to finally tug his birthday card out of its envelope. He opens it, and foil confetti slides out of it and onto the table.
"I'm sorry," he says through gritted teeth, his eyes on hers. "I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for the drugs, I'm sorry for not telling you, and I'm sorry for letting you down again."
"I know," Molly says, and she reaches across the table, covering his hand with hers, confetti pressing into the underside of her wrist. "But we never get to do anything on your birthday, so I thought I'd better squeeze a whole party in."
Before he can argue any further, or throw a filthy look in the direction of John's smirk, the waitress comes over to take their order. John goes for the lemon and poppyseed, Sherlock for two slices of red velvet, and Molly changes her mind at the last moment and goes for the carrot cake.
"Lovely," the waitress says. "And can I get you another pot of tea?"
"Yeah, that'd be great, thanks," John says.
"Would we like a candle in the cake for the birthday boy?" she asks, a bright smile on her face.
"Yes," John says. "Yes we would."
"No we wouldn't," Sherlock argues, and he looks up at the waitress, shaking his head.
"No he would," John says, and he gives the waitress a thumbs up and a nod. "Thank you very much."
The waitress disappears with their empty teapot before the argument can continue any further, and it soon becomes apparent that she has a devious streak about her.
The cake comes, Molly's and John's first, brought out by a teenager, maybe one young enough to just be on work experience. Then she turns around and heads back to the counter, and returns with Sherlock's double helping of red velvet cake, her hand cupping the flame of a solitary candle sticking out the top.
"Happy birthday," she says shyly as she sets it down in front of him.
She's so young, and so timid, that even Sherlock can't bring himself to complain.
"Thank you," he says, and the girl smiles and trots back towards the counter. Sherlock extinguishes the candle with his finger and thumb, then pulls it out of the cake and flings it towards John.
"Happy birthday mate," John says, before he tucks into his cake, scooping a large forkful into his mouth.
It's nice, a little piece of slightly surreal normality, and maybe it's what they need in order to reset.
He has a shower when they get back to Baker Street. His body is constantly sweating out his sins, and when he reappears, clad in his pyjamas, his hair roughly towel dried, Molly settles herself down on the rug, and opens the box containing his puzzle.
"You're not serious, are you?"
"Well I'm not going to just sit here and watch you sweat all night," she tells him, and she tears open the plastic bag containing the pieces, and pours them into the bottom of the box.
"I can think of at least twenty-five other things we could do."
"Such as?"
For someone with twenty-five options, he spends a little too long looking stumped by the question.
"We could...watch rubbish TV." He shrugs, then when she doesn't reply, sits down next to her, and starts helping to sort the pieces.
"You can put the telly on in the background if you like," she says, and he twists around, reaching up to his desk and grasping around for the remote.
After much flicking through the channels, he settles on a marathon of Homes Under the Hammer, and they spend the next hour and a half sorting through the puzzle pieces, and making wild guesses at property prices in various parts of the country from 2007.
She's slightly better at it than he is. It's one of the few guessing games where she comes out on top.
The work on the border of the jigsaw isn't too bad, and Sherlock squints at each piece, analysing the texture of the print to work out which side it ought to be on. It does, admittedly, speed up the process, even if it does take the fun out of it a bit.
She doesn't know how they're actually supposed to tackle the inside pieces, and now she's here, living it herself, she realises that it's a terrible idea. They're just relying on pot luck, that they might pick two pieces out and they might fit together.
It's not a puzzle to be solved, it's a never ending game of chance.
Sherlock goes to make some tea, apparently needing a break before he can contemplate the pointless drudgery of the rest of the puzzle. He clatters about in the kitchen, opening and closing the fridge several times, looking for food that isn't there.
"D'you want me to order something?" Molly asks.
He shakes his head, and ends up rooting out a packet of digestives from the back of the cupboard.
His phone blips, a text alert, and he looks over.
"Who is it?" he asks, before cramming a biscuit into his mouth.
Molly leans forward and picks his phone up, looking at the notification on his screen.
"It's Greg," she says. "Wants to know if you're okay."
He pulls a face. "Tell him I'm fine," he says with a wave of his hand, and he leans against the counter, waiting for the kettle to boil.
Molly presses her thumb against the home button and waits for it to recognise her print, then she opens up his messages.
At first she's confused - it's not Greg's text, but then she realises it's the last text he's looked at.
Her stomach plummets as the words burn into her eyes.
Happy birthday. Let's have dinner.
The kettle clicks off the boil, and she looks up at him. For him there is a moment of realisation, and the little colour in his face drains.
"She texts me sometimes," he says, glancing down at the floor and then back up again. "Special occasions, that sort of thing."
"It's your business," she says, and she presses the back button, then clicks onto Greg's message trail.
"Molly - "
"It's your business," she repeats, and she types the message to Greg with thumbs that are a little more shaky than she'd like.
He's fine. He's had cake, he's making tea, he'll be ok. M x
She locks his phone and places it back on the rug, her insides squirming. She'd had no idea they still spoke to one another. Even though the bulk of the texts had come from her, she had glimpsed the tail end of one blue speech bubble, signed off with a - SH.
She concentrates on the puzzle, and whether by dumb luck or perseverance, she doesn't know, but she manages to fit a few pieces together, as does Sherlock.
They stop guessing the prices on Homes Under the Hammer and eventually the episodes end, and old editions of Jamie's Kitchen start playing instead.
When the clock ticks around to half past eleven, Molly can stifle her yawns no longer.
"Go to bed," he says, his hand raking through puzzle pieces. "I'll come in in a bit."
Molly hesitates. She shouldn't really leave him on his own.
Not really.
"I will," he says, "I promise, I'm just going to find a few more pieces."
Molly gets up, and looks at the scattered groups of jigsaw pieces, clicked together and placed at random within the confines of the jigsaw border.
"All right," she says. "Don't stay up too late though, you need rest."
He nods, and as Molly walks past him, he catches her hand in his. She looks down, expecting him to say something, but apparently he doesn't have any words, and after a moment he releases her.
She heads into his bedroom, changes into her pyjamas, and switches out the light. She curls up under the duvet, pulling it up and over her shoulders, burrowing her face into the pillow.
She tries not to think about the text, tries not to think about what he might text her back, or how often. She wonders if he's seen her since, or if this is a purely textual affair. Possibilities race around and around in her head, pangs of jealousy stabbing at her heart.
But it's not her business.
If she could stop thinking about it, she would.
It's only a quarter of an hour before she hears the door swing open. There is the soft sound of silk against cotton as he shrugs off his dressing gown and hangs it on the back of the door. He climbs into bed, and Molly knows there is no point in pretending to be asleep.
"I only text her back when I'm bored," he says, his words soft in the darkness, directed towards the ceiling. "She texts, and when I'm bored, I text her back. I've not texted her for...well, for a while. Not with everything..."
"It's not my business," she mumbles, her voice muffled by the pillow. "You can text who you want."
A quiet sigh escapes him, and the bed shifts as he rolls onto his side and moves closer to her. His hand grazes against the top of her arm and she closes her eyes.
She has to get up for work in the morning.
He moves closer still, his arm hooking around her, and he lifts his head so he can press a single kiss to her jaw.
It doesn't make the squirming go away, but she does find it easier to fall asleep.
She always does, with him.