What if Mary never sent DVDs? A (very) dark look at S4 post TST. Rated a hard T for Bad Language and mentions of sex and drugs. Also infidelity.
"John asked me to marry him."
Deep in the throes of his latest cocaine high, combined with post-coital comedown, Sherlock pauses in the act of reaching for a cigarette, not sure he's hearing her correctly. "What?"
Molly, lying next to him, naked and sweaty, her hair a tangled mess from their lovemaking, says, "You heard me. John asked me to marry him today. Gimme a drag."
Dumbly he hands her the cig and the lighter, watching as she flicks on the flame and takes a slow puff before handing both items back to him. "John. John Watson?"
She nods, still not looking at him. "I said yes, of course. For Rosie's sake. Someone of the three of us needs to act like a fucking adult."
Well, yes, that's true but it's Sherlock's opinion that John's the one who should be making that choice, not Molly. Molly, who's now picking idly at her thumbnail...and still not looking at him. "This didn't just come out of nowhere," he says slowly, reasoning it out as best he can considering his altered state of consciousness. Plus, of course, the sex. Shouldn't Molly not be having sex with him if she's marrying John? If she's dating John? Why didn't he know she's dating John?
He realizes he's asked these questions aloud only when Molly answers him, her voice hard-edged and aiming for uncaring...but he knows better. The problem isn't that she doesn't care, it's that she cares too damn much for her own good. Else she'd have pitched him - and John - to the curb years ago.
"Because you've been too wrapped up in your own misery, too busy fast-tracking toward death with all the shit you've been taking, to notice what's going on around you." As if he needs a reminder, she jerks a thumb toward his bedside table where the razor blade and other paraphernalia of his drugs habit still sit. "You and John are both drowning in guilt and self-pity and Rosie's the one who's suffering for it."
"You haven't minded my self-pity," he snarks back, doing his best to ignore the sting of guilt that clenches his stomach at the mention of Rosie. Some godfather she ended up with. "Not since it means I'm willing to fuck you."
She looks at him finally, a flat, unfriendly look as she tugs the sheets up to cover her breasts. "Tell us another one," she scoffs. "You've wanted to get a leg over since the day we met, but you were too fucking scared to admit it. Too scared I'd want more, that I'd distract you from 'The Work'."
She doesn't make air quotes but he gets the point. "True." There's no point in lying to her, not when she's proven over and over again how well she can see him. "But I still don't understand why you're sleeping with me if you're marrying John. How long have you two been dating, anyway?" Jealousy stings and burns, making him itch for another high, maybe the heroin this time. It's this and the tiniest kernel of hurt and betrayal that he doesn't want to admit to that causes him to add in his nastiest tones, "So this is , what, a last-time, pity-fuck before you marry my best friend?"
"Former best friend," she corrects him with what can only be deliberate cruelty, reaching out and snagging the cigarette from his lips and placing it between her own. "We've been dating, if you can call it that, for about a month now, and no, this is not a pity-fuck and no, it's not a last-time thing. I told you, I'm marrying him for Rosie, not because I'm in love with him. I'm in love with you," she adds, once again tilting his world on its axis.
Oh, he's always known she was keen on him, but love? It doesn't seem possible, especially now. But she said 'I'm in love' not 'I was in love' or 'I used to be in love' and so, even now with all his faults and his downward spiral after Mary's death...she still loves him.
It doesn't seem possible, but Molly Hooper is no liar. Not unless lives are at stake, as they had been when he'd taken her into his confidence before his fake suicide. Then again, lives are at stake now, aren't they? His definitely, John's probably and Rosie's if no one steps in and puts her first, which is something at which Molly excels.
His head aches just trying to deduce her and again he longs for the blissful blankness of heroin singing and stinging through his veins but he needs to be as clear-headed as he can manage right now.
So he studies her as she continues to puff away on his cigarette, her eyes closed, the top sheet of his bed loosely draped over her bare breasts. He can see the faint mark of a love-bite just above her nipple and the streaks of drying sweat along her brow, the tangled mass of her hair...Molly Hooper never looked better to him, and he fights the urge to wrestle her back under the blankets and fuck her senseless again.
What the hell was wrong with him, that it had taken him so long to see her as clearly as she's always seen him? He should have realized it was no mere schoolgirl crush, her feelings for him, long before Moriarty. Certainly before his return from the dead, when she was so keen on proving she'd moved on with her life. Only she hadn't really moved on, and he'd been a blind fool not to recognize that. And he hadn't had the drugs as an excuse then, just self-pity. Poor Sherlock, finally got his head out of his arse only the girl's gone and got herself a fiance with a dog and parents and pub nights and he's left behind. It felt exactly like it had with John and Mary, only he hadn't ever wanted to shag John.
But he has always wanted to shag Molly; she's right about that, just like she's right about so many things. But this...no. She can't be right about this, the bombshell she's just dropped on him. Two bombshells, actually. "If you love me, why are you marrying John?" he asks, knowing how stupid the question is. She's already answered it, after all.
"For Rosie," she says patiently (he doesn't deserve her patience, never has, never will). "And for John, a little bit. Someone needs to do something or he's going to completely self-destruct, and since his sister is a bigger mess than he is, and he won't let you help him…" She shrugs. "Guess it has to be me. Short straw. Plus he's never been too hard on the eyes and he's amazing at oral."
There's that malicious streak again, the one she never used to have. Sherlock's head is spinning and he lies back with a thump as he reaches up and massages his temples. "So you're sleeping with him? And with me?"
"I make him wear a condom, told him it's because I'm not interested in giving Rosie a brother or sister just yet. Not that it matters," she adds musingly. "Since I'm already pregnant."
Three bombshells. Sherlock's head isn't just spinning, it's threatening to implode. "Mine?"
She nods. "Yup. I'm about six weeks gone. John and I just started having sex two weeks ago, so I'll give it a few more weeks before I tell him."
"What, and then pass the baby off as his?" Sherlock can't hide the resentment in his voice, no matter how unjustified it is. After all, he's a bigger mess than John, wallowing in his addictions and not sure if he'll ever dig his way free - or if he actually wants to, Molly's confession of love notwithstanding. He's lost his best friend to grief and guilt and he's lost Mary to his own arrogance. At least John is in therapy again, trying to work through his depression and anger issues. Or so Molly had told him before their latest round of mattress tag.
"Don't be an idiot," she snaps. "I'll tell him the truth, of course. Tell him we worked out a shared custody agreement, sweet-talk him into letting me bring Rosie to visit when I bring the new baby round, maybe even eventually get him to be willing to forgive you. Or at least talk to you. It's not just because he blames you," she adds, reaching out and resting her hand on his. Her first gesture since this conversation began that offers some kind of hope. "He feels guilty, too. Apparently he was texting some young bint he met on the bus. Flirting with her. Said he broke it off before anything actually happened, was going to tell Mary but then it was too late." She shakes her head, a bitter smile twisting her lips. "He wanted to make sure I didn't think he was some perfect man, the way Mary apparently did. He wanted me to know he was human but that he wouldn't cock things up this time - his words, not mine."
"Molly, if you drop one more bombshell on me I'm gonna need something stronger than coke," he manages to say.
She glances at his bruised forearm, nearly pulls away, but instead moves closer. She rests her head on his chest and after a moment he puts his arm around her. "And that's another reason why I'm marrying John and not you," she says softly as she reaches up to intertwine their fingers. "You're always going to be looking for the next high, the next fix, whether it's drugs or a dangerous case, and as much as I would love to just say fuck it and dive right into that world with you, I can't."
All the malice and cruelty is gone, leaving nothing but the stark truth behind both emotions: she's afraid. She loves him and she's afraid of losing him and so she has to toughen herself up, put him at an emotional distance, but not for herself.
"Because of Rosie - and our baby," he says, and she nods.
"Because of Rosie and our baby," she agrees. "John is falling apart - I've heard him talking to Mary as if she's in the room with him, when he thought I was asleep. If this new therapist doesn't help him, God knows what'll happen. He needs me to be there to help pick up the pieces."
"Whereas I can pick up my own fucking pieces, apparently."
He can't help the stab of jealousy, twisting his guts and increasing the pounding in his head. He's been telling himself ever since this thing with Molly began that it was just sex, willfully ignoring both her emotional attachment and his, knowing it was going to end badly and that it would be entirely his own fault...but he never could have anticipated this. None of it.
"You're in no fit state to be a dad, Sherlock."
Her words hurt, but truth often does.
But instead of lashing out, trying to hurt her just as badly (and he can, he knows he can, he's done it before), he says softly, "I could go to rehab."
She gives him a skeptical look, and he brushes her hair from her face. "No, I mean it," he insists. "I could be completely clean by the time the baby's born."
"You can't do this just for the baby, Sherlock," Molly says, but she's still holding his hand, still resting her head on his chest, and that means something. He feels a cautious tendril of hope. "You have to do this for yourself, because you want to get clean, not because you think it's what you have to do to keep me - us - in your life. I won't keep your child from you no matter how far down the rabbit-hole you tumble, I promise."
He feels a warmth that has nothing to do with the drugs and everything to do with the small kernel of hope she's just offered him. "Don't marry John," he urges her, sitting up, pulling her up with him so he can peer into her eyes. "Tell him about the baby, tell him you changed your mind, that you'll still be there for Rosie, but for God's sake don't marry him."
There are tears in her eyes, and the hard veneer she's been wearing since that horrible day when John made her deliver his devastating message finally cracks. "Sherlock, I have to, I have to marry him," she cries, trying to pull out of his embrace, but he won't let her go. Won't let her leave it like this. "I said yes; if I change my mind he might, he might stop letting me see Rosie and I can't let that happen."
"He won't," Sherlock says confidently, his mind buzzing but not from the coke, no, it's the new puzzle he's been given. Not that his friends' lives are puzzles, more like a case. Yes, that's it; John is a case for him to solve. He has to save him, save him from making a bigger mess of his life than it already is in the name of grief and guilt.
He has to save them all, and if the price he has to pay is rehab, he's more than willing to pay it. "Don't marry John," he says again. "I promise he won't keep you away from Rosie. If this new therapist is any good at all he - she?" Molly nods. "...she'll help John figure out this just a rebound relationship, that he's just looking to replace Mary and give Rosie a new mum."
Images of Mary flash through his mind, and suddenly he's the one blinking away tears. Molly,, perceptive as always, holds him closer but says nothing. How, he berates himself silently, could he have ever dismissed her as ordinary? How could he have made the same mistake Moriarty had made, and not realize just how important Molly Hooper is?
"Please," he whispers, and feels her capitulation in the soft sigh of her breath as she exhales against his chest, in the way her body relaxes against his even as her fingers tighten their grip on his shoulders.
"Okay," she says quietly, and his own tension sweeps out of him with the force of a rip-tide, leaving him boneless and shaking in the aftermath of relief. "But…"
"Yes," he agrees instantly, not needing to hear anything beyond that warning 'but'. "I agree. And if I do fuck this up…" When I fuck it up, he thinks but refrains from saying. "If I do, then it'll be on me and you do what you have to do to survive-no, not just survive," he interrupts himself, pulling himself up and peering into her eyes. "You do what you have to do to thrive, Molly Hooper. I'm a selfish bastard but I'm not so selfish I'd pull you down into my own personal hell any further than we've already traveled together."
"Fair enough," she replies, her voice thick as if with repressed tears. Tears she'll never let fall, at least not within his sight. Or John's, for that matter; Molly Hooper is too busy being the strong one for both of the fucked-up men in her life to allow them any sign of weakness. "We'll try to sort this mess out together, as soon as you're out of rehab." She huffs out another sigh. "Maybe by then John will have forgiven himself enough to forgive you as well."
He can hang a lifetime's worth of hope on that 'maybe'.
For now, all he can do is hold Molly tightly in his arms, breathe in her scent, and marvel at how quickly a world turned upside-down can reverse itself.