A/N: This chapter is dedicated to 4May for the wonderful feedback; it has been very helpful.
It was a good job Molly had gone to bed when she had with the fashion demands of Mary, it seemed that being pregnant was a perfect excuse for her to have a massive shopping spree and drag her indulgent friend along. It had taken twenty minutes for Molly to convince Mary to consider looking at the new maternity range in Primark, promising to buy her a blueberry muffin if she failed to find anything to her taste. Fortunately Mary quickly fell in love with the entire maternity collection and picked up the lot including dresses and jeans. Mary was obviously in a very good mood since she practically shoved Molly in to the changing rooms with a pile of brightly coloured dresses calling through the changing room wall: "Let me treat you for once! You deserve it!"
The pair both ended up with a large pile of clothes each, very happy with their new purchases and how little they cost. In the end Molly did pay for muffins and iced lemonades from Costa as they stopped to recharge their energy levels a bit so they could continue shopping.
"I'm still not sure about this green dress Mary, is it really me?" Molly picked a piece of muffin from the rapper and chewed I thoughtfully.
"Don't be stupid it looked lovely on you, you'll need all those dresses anyway every girl should have something fancy to wear even if it's just for a bit of a confidence boost on a normal day. Plus the orange one will be perfect for summer, the blue one too. Great for when I shove Zuri on you so I can have a day in the sun to myself and you can go to a zoo and educate my angel." Mary wasn't eating quite as ladylike, shoving great hunks of cake in her mouth at a time.
"The way you're eating that, Zuri will be a baby Mycroft." Molly laughed as Mary tried to chew the large bit of muffin that she had just put in her mouth. Swallowing quickly Mary leant forward secretively.
"That's right I've been meaning to ask you about him, what the heck is going on? Tea parties? It's like the world has flipped upside down. And what do you mean a baby Mycroft?" Mary whispered, Molly blushed, a little embarrassed.
"I mean Mycroft baby the that his mother had a really strong sweet tooth when she was pregnant with him and now he has that sweet tooth, just like you have. But I don't know what is going on exactly, we're friendly I suppose but I don't know what else to say to you about it. We only had tea once anyway and the first time we met was Sherlock's fault for pretending to be a corpse and sending him to the path lab to order me about in his so-called 'absence'. I think he keeps a closer eye on Sherlock than he knows and that includes all of us. He just cares is all despite it being a disadvantage." Molly shrugged and finished her muffin and picking up her plastic cup of lemonade to finish that off as well.
"If you say so Molls but I don't know, John said he isn't usually that… genial with strangers. Just be careful, I want you to be happy and if being friends with him makes you happy then you should go for it no matter what anyone says." Mary smiled at Molly as she too finished her drink and went to grab her bags "So where to next? I've been wanting to look at the baby clothes in Next."
Four hours later and a good two hundred pounds poorer Molly returned home to flop on her couch, feet throbbing from walking around all day. She didn't know how Mary did it with a baby on board too, it must be harder or at least heavier but she kept going far longer than Molly had expected (and hoped for) when she had put on some small heels that morning. Kicking off her shoes and rubbing her throbbing arches Molly let her body sink into her sofa as Toby looked at her hungrily.
"Just give me a minute Toby, I'll feed you when I'm no longer limping." Molly sighed and closed her eyes, 'Just five minutes' she told herself.
Waking up to see the streets darkening outside her window three hours later was a shock to Molly who hadn't realised that she was as tired as she was. Glancing at the clock she saw that it was almost eight o'clock and went to feed Toby who was by now glaring at her for forgetting him. Placing the dish of food on the floor for Toby she then turned to get her notebook of recipes from the shelf next to the oven and flick to find the chocolate cupcake recipe. Smiling to herself Molly gathered the eggs, flour, cocoa powder, sugar and butter she would need and had soon made the mix in a glass bowl ready to go into the oven in cases to bake. Turning the oven on to warm up Molly went on the search for the paper cases and cupcake tray in her baking cupboard, quickly setting the cases in their segments she used an ice cream scoop to get decent amounts of cake mix into the cases and put the tray in the oven. The kitchen soon smelled like warm chocolate as Molly washed up the utensils she had used while she waited for the cupcakes to bake.
Within twenty minutes the cupcakes were ready to cool and so they were carefully placed on the wire cooling rack while Molly read some more of her book. They would be ready to ice in the morning when they had settled and properly cooled in their cases, ready for whenever Mycroft called for tea again. The rest of Molly's evening was split between her book and her new box set of 'Miranda' DVDs she had just got through the post.
As it happened, she didn't have long to wait until seeing Mycroft again since he called her as she was icing the cupcakes with the cream cheese frosting the very next morning. She picked up the phone quickly and held it between her head and her shoulder as she answered.
"Hello?"
"Molly, its Mycroft Holmes, how are you?" Mycroft's voice hit her ears as an amazement, she had been sure it would be Mary and was sure that he would be far too busy to speak to her any time soon since he had already seen her twice that week.
"Oh Mycroft this is a surprise, I'm great thank you and yourself? Busy much?" the smile was apparent in Molly's voice as she iced another cupcake with the piping bag in her right hand.
"Fairly well thank you, I'm always busy unfortunately but I was wondering if I could be so rude as to invite myself to your home for tea this evening? I have found myself free as a previous engagement was cancelled and cannot think of a better way to spend the night that testing how good those chocolate cupcakes that you mentioned really are." Mycroft sounded confident but there was a slight edge of uncertainty as he asked to come to her house that night, knowing how bad mannered it must seem.
"No of course you can come around, whenever you want, I'll be in all day and night anyway. I bet you knew I'd baked last night didn't you?" Molly let a giggle release from her chest where she had been trying to contain it, amused at how close an eye he kept on people, even knowing what they cooked and when.
"I must admit I may have seen footage of you baking last night and it sparked a craving in me for those cupcakes. I haven't had home cooking of any sort since last Christmas when I went to my parents for the holidays." confessed Mycroft guiltily
"That can't be much fun, you can come for dinner if you like? I promise I'll cook something from scratch and we can have the cakes for dessert. Just bring some wine with you if you do come, I'm rather lacking in anything apart from water and fruit juice." Molly finished icing the cakes with a flourish and put the piping bag down carefully reaching to sprinkle the sugared silver ball decorations on top of it.
"Are you quite sure, I don't want to impose myself onto your evening?" Mycroft seemed to sound hopeful as he questioned half-heartedly whether he was welcome or not.
"Don't be silly it would be nice to not just cook for one person, I so rarely entertain that I don't get to make large portions. Will you be okay with toad-in-the-hole? You aren't vegetarian are you?" Molly waved off his concerns as she placed the cupcakes on her stand to keep them out of the way for when she was cooking.
"That would be most satisfactory, any food that isn't frozen, microwaved or complicated would be a change from the norm. I'll be by at about six then if that is alright." agreed Mycroft
"Yes that's wonderful, I'll see you tonight." Molly hung up the phone and went to clean up after her cake decorating before dialing Mary's home number and putting it on speakerphone as she got together her ingredients for dinner that night to prepare them. Within three rings John picked up the phone.
"Hello, John Watson here." John's cheerful voice flooded Molly's ears.
"Hi John its Molly how are you?" Molly got some carrots, cabbage and peas out of the fridge as she spoke.
"Oh Molly hello, I'm great thank you, did you want to speak to Mary?" the smile could be heard in his voice, he was clearly just as excited about the baby as Mary was.
"Yes please, sorry we haven't spoken in ages but I've got baby-brain whenever I see Mary and completely forget anything else." Molly laughed as she peeled the carrots and shelled the peas from their pods.
"It's alright Molly, I heard about the scalpel incident the other night with Sherlock so it's almost like we've had a catch up ourselves, I'll just give you to Mary." Molly could hear John walking through his house to find Mary.
"Thanks John!" Molly called before she was passed on to speak to Mary "Good morning Mary."
"Hello Molly, I can't tell you how glad I am to have today off after yesterday, I think I over-exerted myself, I'm so tired." Mary sounded chirpy and Molly could hear a cooking show on in the background.
"I'm not surprised, my feet killed when I got home! So I wanted to ask you something and its probably really pathetic but Mycroft is coming to my house for dinner tonight and I was wondering what I should wear. I'm cooking." Molly sliced the carrots into rounds and placed them in a pan before covering them with water and balancing it on the hob
"I'm not going to comment at all, wear that leopard print blouse with your jeans, its casual enough." Mary advised, yawning in the middle of speaking.
"Isn't that a bit… busty though? I don't want to lean over and have my boobs fall out." Molly bit her lip as she threw the peas in with the carrots and move on to chop up the cabbage
"Does it really matter? You need to prove that you're a woman Molly, Sherlock is horrible in his comments about your body so you should show it off to his brother to prove him otherwise. I promise you won't make a tit of yourself, every guy looks at boobs when they are placed in front of him, even a man so above all of that stuff like a Holmes." Mary's voice was firm as she tried to boost Molly's confidence.
"Alright then, thanks Mary you're a great friend. I'll see you tomorrow, do you want to go to the canteen together?" Molly smiled to herself, glad her outfit had been sorted out now.
"Yeah I'll meet you there, bye Molls, have fun tonight. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Mary hung up quickly, her cackling laughter ringing in Molly's ears at her crude intentioned comment.
The rest of Molly's afternoon was spent preparing the dinner and finally putting the actual toad-in-the-hole in the oven as she took a quick bath and changed into the outfit she had agreed on with Mary. She was just brushing her hair when the doorbell rang.