Sherlolly WWII AU
"Hold on to your horses Toby, I am coming!" Molly called out as she hurried down the stairs to address the pounding on the front door. She didn't fancy facing Mrs Rathbone and her questions at this hour of the night. Tightening the sash of her dressing gown around her waist, she removed the bolts and opened the front door.
"Toby, for the love-" her admonishments were swallowed.
It was not Toby.
"Were you expecting someone else at this late hour Miss Hooper?" The quiet yet mocking tone of her employer, Sherlock Holmes, made Molly flush.
"No sir," she stuttered, stunned that Mr Holmes had come to see her at her lodgings. She was worried about the possible gossip, simultaneously trying to find the reason behind his five mile drive from Butterfield Mansion. She hesitated to invite him in, imagining the displeasure her landlady would show.
The decision was taken out of her hands when said woman entered the foyer, her irritation with having a visitor at the late hour being replaced with surprise and then smugness at hosting the said gentleman.
"Ah, Mr Holmes, please do step in. Molly, where are your manners girl? Did you send them away with the Germans? Invite him in, ask him for tea…"
"That won't be necessary Mrs Rathbone. Though I would prefer the use of your sitting room, I have some urgent private business to discuss with Miss Hooper," he said in clipped toes, the frown on his face conveying that he wouldn't have made the trip if the matter was anything but.
Once the landlady had ushered them in her sitting room and shut the door on her way out, Mr Holmes got up from his seat and immediately started pacing the room. The low bulb threw his features into sharp contrast, yet it did little to assuage the unease Molly felt. She was after all in her dressing gown, with her hair thrown in a casual low bun; a lady needed her armour of a proper dress while hosting her employer.
"Am I intruding on your planned meet with this…Toby?" He asked, a frown on his face.
"Oh no…though he does have a tendency to arrive unannounced. He is my oldest sister's child, and as such the only family I have left…the war took the rest."
If she had been watching him, she would have noticed the slight sagging of his shoulders which tensed up again. He made to speak but instead chose to scan the room. Standing up, his grey suit looking black in the light the yellow bulb threw, he paced to the window and back, before addressing her again.
"I am sorry, forgive me. Miss Adler spoke out of turn…allow me to apologise in her stead…I should've intervened."
Shaking her head slightly, her eyes on her lap, Molly replied, "It's ok, Mr Holmes. no apologies needed. And Miss Adler did speak the truth…I guess I was out of line, insisting Archie go to bed. It was not my place to decide."
"Of course it is, that's your job!" He paused after this, shaking his head slightly.
After a moment he resumed, "That's not why I am here. It is decided. We are moving back to London. The Baker Street quarters have been repaired, the city is finding its feet again…the countryside no longer holds any allure."
She looked up at this. There were rumours floating around that the family would move to London again, a city they had left under attack from the Luftwaffe bombers. But she had assumed they would wait till summer ended.
"Oh," the only response she could make.
"Baker Street is no Butterfield Mansion, and finding decent lodgings in the city is extremely difficult. I am afraid I have to rescind your job offer."
Even though she had been prepared for this subconsciously, she felt as if the earth shifted under her very feet. It had been but six months that she had worked with Mr Holmes; with job offers so rare, where would she go? She refused to even address the emotional turmoil she felt at the imminent separation from them all.
She slid so quickly into her melancholic thoughts that she almost missed his next words.
"But I didn't come at this hour to tell you this. I still want you to come to London with us." He was now standing in front of her, an unreadable expression on his face. She frowned as she stood up; did he not just tell her she no longer had a job?
"I want you to come to London…with me." He stood there looking at her with his regular fierce expression. But his eyes, oh his eyes…they were soft, the softest she had ever seen them.
"With you?" she murmured, still trying to process his words. There had been a few glances, ambiguous conversations…but nothing prepared her for this.
"Yes," as he stepped even closer, "with me. I am no longer engaged to Irene…I cannot deceive myself any further when it's so clear what I want…what I need."
Looking up at him, the warmth of his proximity distracting as always, she asked, "What do you need?"
His response was the answer to all her doubts, a salve for the beating her heart had taken the last couple of months. He moved even closer, his hands now on her shoulders, his breath fanning her hair as he whispered, "You!"