Hey all! I am really sorry for the ridiculously long wait between updates. I just wanted to get the whole story finished, and what was originally supposed to be a fairly short fic ended up taking over my life, during finals week, no less. Anyway, I hope that you like it because i have really enjoyed writing it.
Disclaimer: I so obviously don't own Sherlock. And you should all be thankful that I don't, because if I did, all we would see was Sherlolly fluff and Mrs. Hudson being amazing. Oh, and John yelling "Damn my leg!" at random intervals. So it is definitely for the best that I have absolutely no say in what happens.
Chapter 3
Molly came home early, hoping that the man would still be there on her couch. But of course he wasn't. He never stayed put for long, and always left a mess in his wake. She picked up blood stained clothes from outside the shower and sighed. It looked like she was going to have to switch laundromats again. A person can only clean so many blood soaked clothes at a place before people started asking questions.
There was a blue scarf lying on the floor of her bedroom, and nicotine patches strewn all over the table. Honestly, for someone on the run, he really could be more careful. If Lestrade ever decided to search her flat, it would be obvious who occasionally spent the night. Of course, that would never happen, and Sherlock knew that. She was Molly Hooper, the girl who no one saw, and he was Sherlock Holmes, the dead sociopath. What a pair they made.
She got to the couch and folded up the blanket that she had wrapped around him the night before. Underneath it, she found a golden pocket watch. She picked it up and stared at it.
It was old, to be sure, but perfectly on time. It had some sort of engraving on the side, but it was hard to make out. It must've been some sort of heirloom, she decided, although it probably wasn't from anyone he knew. Sherlock did, after all have a bad habit of pick pocketing people he found annoying—Baker Street was filled with badges of Lestrade's to prove it. The watch could have belonged to anybody, but it reminded her of the mad detective and all of his eccentricities. And it made her smile.
She took the watch into her bedroom and pulled out a shoebox that she kept under her bed. Inside was an assortment of different items that Sherlock had left behind whenever he stayed at her flat. It seemed he was always forgetting something. There was a yo-yo, a Statue of Liberty keychain, a Russian Nesting doll, a miniature plastic skull, and now a golden pocket watch.
She laughed at the total randomness of the items, none of which seemed much like Sherlock at all. Well, the skull maybe, but it was bright pink so she still had her doubts. Once (she tried not to think if) he returned to his regular life again, she would give him the box back. But for now, she let herself imagine that they were more than just random items and what the items meant, and tried to understand the man behind the Russian nesting doll.