Just Because - Part 12
Sort of fill for 
sherlockbbc_fic prompt Molly/Sherlock, One More Night
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
Molly gets told.
Also, Adele - One and Only
Fluff and feelings and John drinking tea. And Mycroft.
___
So don't you ask me to give it back
“What’s going on, Sherlock?” Molly demanded.
She was at his flat, like he instructed her to be. John was sitting in his chair, drinking tea. Of course he’d be drinking tea. Toby was exploring a corner of the room.
“Jim’s back,” he simply stated. Her face went pale and he noted how John’s hand tightened briefly around his mug.
“Has he threatened you?” she asked, then looked at her cat. “Has he threatened us?”
He didn’t know what to say. There had been too many revelations in the past hour and his brain was having a bit of trouble catching up with things. Probably because the biggest revelation didn’t involve his brain at all.
He took her hand and led her to the couch. He made her sit down.
“I need you to go away for a while,” he said, taking a seat next to her.
Her brows furrowed, “I don’t understand.”
“There’s going to be a car to pick you up...”
“I don’t understand...” she repeated.
“They’re taking you away to somewhere safe.”
“What? Where?”
“I don’t know the location...for security reasons...”
“Sherlock, please tell me what’s going on. Everything.”
“You’re not safe here, Molly. He will find a way to get you and I can’t let that happen.”
“You mean Jim...Moriarty.” He nodded, wishing it weren’t true.
“But why would he want me? He wants you...”
“Tell her, Sherlock,” John said from the corner. He looked over at his friend and it was plain to see that John knew what he’d only realized earlier this evening.
“I thought he was done with me...why would he want to hurt me?”
“To hurt Sherlock,” John said and Sherlock glared at him.
“But that’s stupid...” she argued.
“Do you really think so little of yourself?” Sherlock exploded.
She jumped in her seat, clearly startled by his outburst, “What?”
“I don’t even know why I...” he couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Why you what?”
The thought, the possibility that he could...that she couldn’t even imagine...he looked at John, feeling lost.
“Have you ever asked yourself why he seduced you?” John asked her. Sherlock’s stomach lurched at the word seduced.
“You mean Jim? He’s a psychopathic murderer and that’s what they do?” she answered too glibly.
Really, Sherlock wanted to kiss some sense into her.
“He might be a psychopath, but he’s very methodical about his ways. There are reasons for the things he does,” John said.
“The only reason I can think of Jim being my boyfriend is to get to Sherlock. And that doesn’t even make sense. Sherlock never cared for me in that way...and surely, if it was about getting to Sherlock, it would’ve been easier to befriend you,” she said, gesturing towards John.
“Exactly. So why did he bother with you?” John countered.
“Because he was bored?”
“It’s never occurred to you, has it?” Sherlock asked, feeling something between disappointment and annoyed.
“Occurred to me what?”
Had he been so callous, so cold in the past that she couldn’t even entertain the idea?
“Just tell her, Sherlock,” John said from the corner.
He could. He should. But the words...he didn’t know the right words.
“He will use you to get to me.”
“But why? I don’t matter...I’m just a morgue technician...I never...I don’t matter,” she cried.
And then he found the words.
“You do. You do matter. You matter to me.”
She scoffed, disdainfully, “But not enough to get killed over.”
“You know what he told me that night at the pool? That he was going to burn the heart right out of me. And I told him that I didn’t have one. My mistake has been that I’ve been underestimating him for far too long. He’s always been a step ahead of me...”
He took her hand, looked her in the eyes, “He will try to hurt you. And if he succeeds, he will hurt me. Do you understand?”
He didn’t understand how or when or even why, but what he felt for her, it was there inside of him. It was real.
He didn’t want it, didn’t need the complications, but now that he knew it was there, he could not deny it any longer.
He looked over at John. It was his fault. His fault for making him care. His fault for making him human.
John gave him an encouraging smile.
“I never asked for this,” Molly said, and Sherlock turned back to look at her. She looked completely shell-shocked by the revelation, which he thought wasn’t entirely flattering for his bruised ego.
“I know. And I never meant for this to happen to anyone. To you....”
“You can’t...you don’t...you’re...” she obviously struggled with the situation. Not helping his ego at all.
“I can and I do and would you please just accept the fact that I have feelings for you?”
“But...”
“Do you know how difficult this is for me? To reveal this to you? Or even to realize that I have feelings for you?”
John cleared his throat, in what Sherlock had come to know as “That’s a bit not good, mate” manner.
Molly got up from the couch, visibly angry, “Do you know how difficult it is to have a crush on you, knowing that you know that I have a crush on you and you ignoring it? No, not ignoring it. No, you using it to get what you want...and me just...giving it to you...like...a...Sherlock, whatever feelings you think you may have...they’re not...they can’t be real. You and Jim...you’re both wrong...”
“Do you really think that little of you? Seriously, Molly? Do you?”
“Sherlock, despite my...I am realist, Sherlock. And if there’s one thing that I have accepted to be true, it’s that the possibility of you ever...”
“Good god, woman, why can’t you just accept that I’m in love with you?”
“You’re not in love with me Sherlock.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes. I. Am.”
“Please stop. Please. Just stop. Why would you be in love with me? Me? Mousy Molly? Silly, stupid Molly?”
“If it’s any consolation, I never intended to fall in love. Never expected to. Never really thought it was possible, to be honest. But I have. With you. And I don’t know why. I’d love to know why, but it won’t change the fact that I am.”
“You’re in love with me but you don’t want to be in love with me?”
“If it meant that it would keep you safe.”
She looked over at John, who looked very much like he didn't want to be here.
“Moriarty would’ve never bothered with you, Molly, if he didn’t think that Sherlock had any feelings for you,” he said.
She shook her head, walked about the room, “This is not happening.”
“That’s what I thought when I got kidnapped and had a bomb strapped to me,” John replied, getting up to walk over to her.
“But I’m just Molly Hooper,” she said to him, disbelief and distress in her eyes.
“And I’m just John Watson,” he said, taking her hands in his.
Sherlock understood the feeling he felt as jealousy. John would always be better at this than him.
“By that logic, he cares about you, too, “ said Molly, giving John a wan smile.
“Yeah, but thankfully not in the same way as he cares about you. I mean, he’s brilliant and all but the sex would have been...weird. Not that there’s anything wrong with men having sex. With each other. With men. It’s fine...but I’m not...you know....”
And then Molly laughed and Sherlock wanted to hit John for making Molly laugh like that. Jealousy. He had to keep a check on that.
That’s when Mycroft appeared.
“Am I interrupting anything interesting?” he said from the doorway.
They all turned to look at him.
“No, just chit-chat amongst friends,” Sherlock replied. He could tell by the look on Mycroft’s face that his brother knew exactly what had been going on. He didn’t like it. It made him feel exposed Had always made him feel exposed and vulnerable. Mycroft was one of the few people he couldn’t hide from.
“Doctor Hooper,” Mycroft walked into the room, extending his hand towards Molly, “I believe we haven’t been formally introduced.”
A little bewildered, Molly took his hand, “Call me Molly, please.”
Sherlock thought that the handshake lasted a second too long.
“I’m Mycroft, Sherlock’s older brother. I am very pleased to finally meet you in person.”
John shot him an “Of course he had” look. Sherlock thought it safe to assume that is brother had been keeping track of Molly since the very beginning of their acquaintance. Well, it was hardly an acquaintance now. Unless one had a very intimate - physical and emotional - acquaintance.
“So you’re big brother, then,” Molly replied and John actually snorted a laugh. She looked at him confused.
Mycroft smiled and for once, Sherlock thought, the smile didn’t look so much feral as genuine, “In a manner of speaking, yes, yes I am.”
He pointed at Sherlock, “Has Sherlock explained the situation to you?”
“He has...but I...am not sure if I can believe it,” replied Molly, giving Sherlock a brief look.
Mycroft sighed, “Despite my brother’s many, many faults, Molly...I assure you, he is very much capable of...feelings.”
“So I’ve been told...by him...today,” she said, glancing back at Sherlock.
Sherlock had had enough.
It was bad enough that he had to come to terms with feelings that he didn’t think he had while the person he had feelings for was being threatened by his archenemy - his other archenemy - and then to have those feelings thrown back at him because apparently, he wasn’t feeling the things he was feeling, well it was just too much.
But he was feeling them. And what he was feeling right now was hurt and angry and...and if he’d been alone with her, he could’ve maybe just have kissed her and then she would’ve understood.
He couldn’t be in this room anymore. He’d already said too much, in the wrong way .
So he got up, walked over to Molly, kissed her - he could see John’s grin and Mycroft’s smirk - and then left the room.
He wondered when he would see her again.
§
It turned out that it would be fifteen minutes later. He supposed just walking over to Speedy’s wasn’t really the best way to hide.
He could see the car waiting outside.
As she walked towards him, it struck him how fragile she was. How small and delicate and precious. And how it had never been fair to her to be caught up in this deadly game he was playing.
“How did you know I’d be here?” he asked, when she sat down across him.
“It’s seemed the most unlikely place for you to be,” she answered. Then grinned, “Mycroft.”
He couldn’t help himself, he grinned back, “Yeah, he’s good at that.”
“So, I’m going away...to...I don’t know. I hope it’s nice,” she said, playing with the condiments.
“You’ll be safe there. My brother’s good with these things.”
“What’s going to keep you safe?”
“I have John. He’s a really good shot.”
“You’re going to get him killed.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Que sera, sera.”
She’d lined up all the condiments, from tallest bottle to smallest container in the middle of the table, like a wall between them.
“Did you mean what you said?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“This is not a game you’re playing with me?”
“No.”
“You are going to break my heart, you know.”
“You said you wouldn’t let me.”
“Well, I lied. It’s you, it was inevitable, really.”
“If it’s any consolation, you could break mine first.”
“Is it bad that it is?”
“Not if it means you’ve finally accepted that I do have feelings for you.”
“You keep insisting that you do.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Thank you? Is that all you’re going to say about this?”
“I have to go now.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, if you stay alive, we can continue this discussion.”
“You’re bribing me into staying alive?”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“You know me, I never back down from a challenge.”
And then she leaned across the table, knocking down the ketchup, and kissed him.
“See you soon?” she whispered.
He could only nod in response.
He watched her walk out, get into the car and then the car drive off into the night.
And with uncanny timing, he received a text from John.
Christmas had come earlier than Moriarty had promised.
-tbc-
sherlockbbc_fic prompt Molly/Sherlock, One More Night
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
Molly gets told.
Also, Adele - One and Only
Fluff and feelings and John drinking tea. And Mycroft.
___
So don't you ask me to give it back
“What’s going on, Sherlock?” Molly demanded.
She was at his flat, like he instructed her to be. John was sitting in his chair, drinking tea. Of course he’d be drinking tea. Toby was exploring a corner of the room.
“Jim’s back,” he simply stated. Her face went pale and he noted how John’s hand tightened briefly around his mug.
“Has he threatened you?” she asked, then looked at her cat. “Has he threatened us?”
He didn’t know what to say. There had been too many revelations in the past hour and his brain was having a bit of trouble catching up with things. Probably because the biggest revelation didn’t involve his brain at all.
He took her hand and led her to the couch. He made her sit down.
“I need you to go away for a while,” he said, taking a seat next to her.
Her brows furrowed, “I don’t understand.”
“There’s going to be a car to pick you up...”
“I don’t understand...” she repeated.
“They’re taking you away to somewhere safe.”
“What? Where?”
“I don’t know the location...for security reasons...”
“Sherlock, please tell me what’s going on. Everything.”
“You’re not safe here, Molly. He will find a way to get you and I can’t let that happen.”
“You mean Jim...Moriarty.” He nodded, wishing it weren’t true.
“But why would he want me? He wants you...”
“Tell her, Sherlock,” John said from the corner. He looked over at his friend and it was plain to see that John knew what he’d only realized earlier this evening.
“I thought he was done with me...why would he want to hurt me?”
“To hurt Sherlock,” John said and Sherlock glared at him.
“But that’s stupid...” she argued.
“Do you really think so little of yourself?” Sherlock exploded.
She jumped in her seat, clearly startled by his outburst, “What?”
“I don’t even know why I...” he couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Why you what?”
The thought, the possibility that he could...that she couldn’t even imagine...he looked at John, feeling lost.
“Have you ever asked yourself why he seduced you?” John asked her. Sherlock’s stomach lurched at the word seduced.
“You mean Jim? He’s a psychopathic murderer and that’s what they do?” she answered too glibly.
Really, Sherlock wanted to kiss some sense into her.
“He might be a psychopath, but he’s very methodical about his ways. There are reasons for the things he does,” John said.
“The only reason I can think of Jim being my boyfriend is to get to Sherlock. And that doesn’t even make sense. Sherlock never cared for me in that way...and surely, if it was about getting to Sherlock, it would’ve been easier to befriend you,” she said, gesturing towards John.
“Exactly. So why did he bother with you?” John countered.
“Because he was bored?”
“It’s never occurred to you, has it?” Sherlock asked, feeling something between disappointment and annoyed.
“Occurred to me what?”
Had he been so callous, so cold in the past that she couldn’t even entertain the idea?
“Just tell her, Sherlock,” John said from the corner.
He could. He should. But the words...he didn’t know the right words.
“He will use you to get to me.”
“But why? I don’t matter...I’m just a morgue technician...I never...I don’t matter,” she cried.
And then he found the words.
“You do. You do matter. You matter to me.”
She scoffed, disdainfully, “But not enough to get killed over.”
“You know what he told me that night at the pool? That he was going to burn the heart right out of me. And I told him that I didn’t have one. My mistake has been that I’ve been underestimating him for far too long. He’s always been a step ahead of me...”
He took her hand, looked her in the eyes, “He will try to hurt you. And if he succeeds, he will hurt me. Do you understand?”
He didn’t understand how or when or even why, but what he felt for her, it was there inside of him. It was real.
He didn’t want it, didn’t need the complications, but now that he knew it was there, he could not deny it any longer.
He looked over at John. It was his fault. His fault for making him care. His fault for making him human.
John gave him an encouraging smile.
“I never asked for this,” Molly said, and Sherlock turned back to look at her. She looked completely shell-shocked by the revelation, which he thought wasn’t entirely flattering for his bruised ego.
“I know. And I never meant for this to happen to anyone. To you....”
“You can’t...you don’t...you’re...” she obviously struggled with the situation. Not helping his ego at all.
“I can and I do and would you please just accept the fact that I have feelings for you?”
“But...”
“Do you know how difficult this is for me? To reveal this to you? Or even to realize that I have feelings for you?”
John cleared his throat, in what Sherlock had come to know as “That’s a bit not good, mate” manner.
Molly got up from the couch, visibly angry, “Do you know how difficult it is to have a crush on you, knowing that you know that I have a crush on you and you ignoring it? No, not ignoring it. No, you using it to get what you want...and me just...giving it to you...like...a...Sherlock, whatever feelings you think you may have...they’re not...they can’t be real. You and Jim...you’re both wrong...”
“Do you really think that little of you? Seriously, Molly? Do you?”
“Sherlock, despite my...I am realist, Sherlock. And if there’s one thing that I have accepted to be true, it’s that the possibility of you ever...”
“Good god, woman, why can’t you just accept that I’m in love with you?”
“You’re not in love with me Sherlock.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes. I. Am.”
“Please stop. Please. Just stop. Why would you be in love with me? Me? Mousy Molly? Silly, stupid Molly?”
“If it’s any consolation, I never intended to fall in love. Never expected to. Never really thought it was possible, to be honest. But I have. With you. And I don’t know why. I’d love to know why, but it won’t change the fact that I am.”
“You’re in love with me but you don’t want to be in love with me?”
“If it meant that it would keep you safe.”
She looked over at John, who looked very much like he didn't want to be here.
“Moriarty would’ve never bothered with you, Molly, if he didn’t think that Sherlock had any feelings for you,” he said.
She shook her head, walked about the room, “This is not happening.”
“That’s what I thought when I got kidnapped and had a bomb strapped to me,” John replied, getting up to walk over to her.
“But I’m just Molly Hooper,” she said to him, disbelief and distress in her eyes.
“And I’m just John Watson,” he said, taking her hands in his.
Sherlock understood the feeling he felt as jealousy. John would always be better at this than him.
“By that logic, he cares about you, too, “ said Molly, giving John a wan smile.
“Yeah, but thankfully not in the same way as he cares about you. I mean, he’s brilliant and all but the sex would have been...weird. Not that there’s anything wrong with men having sex. With each other. With men. It’s fine...but I’m not...you know....”
And then Molly laughed and Sherlock wanted to hit John for making Molly laugh like that. Jealousy. He had to keep a check on that.
That’s when Mycroft appeared.
“Am I interrupting anything interesting?” he said from the doorway.
They all turned to look at him.
“No, just chit-chat amongst friends,” Sherlock replied. He could tell by the look on Mycroft’s face that his brother knew exactly what had been going on. He didn’t like it. It made him feel exposed Had always made him feel exposed and vulnerable. Mycroft was one of the few people he couldn’t hide from.
“Doctor Hooper,” Mycroft walked into the room, extending his hand towards Molly, “I believe we haven’t been formally introduced.”
A little bewildered, Molly took his hand, “Call me Molly, please.”
Sherlock thought that the handshake lasted a second too long.
“I’m Mycroft, Sherlock’s older brother. I am very pleased to finally meet you in person.”
John shot him an “Of course he had” look. Sherlock thought it safe to assume that is brother had been keeping track of Molly since the very beginning of their acquaintance. Well, it was hardly an acquaintance now. Unless one had a very intimate - physical and emotional - acquaintance.
“So you’re big brother, then,” Molly replied and John actually snorted a laugh. She looked at him confused.
Mycroft smiled and for once, Sherlock thought, the smile didn’t look so much feral as genuine, “In a manner of speaking, yes, yes I am.”
He pointed at Sherlock, “Has Sherlock explained the situation to you?”
“He has...but I...am not sure if I can believe it,” replied Molly, giving Sherlock a brief look.
Mycroft sighed, “Despite my brother’s many, many faults, Molly...I assure you, he is very much capable of...feelings.”
“So I’ve been told...by him...today,” she said, glancing back at Sherlock.
Sherlock had had enough.
It was bad enough that he had to come to terms with feelings that he didn’t think he had while the person he had feelings for was being threatened by his archenemy - his other archenemy - and then to have those feelings thrown back at him because apparently, he wasn’t feeling the things he was feeling, well it was just too much.
But he was feeling them. And what he was feeling right now was hurt and angry and...and if he’d been alone with her, he could’ve maybe just have kissed her and then she would’ve understood.
He couldn’t be in this room anymore. He’d already said too much, in the wrong way .
So he got up, walked over to Molly, kissed her - he could see John’s grin and Mycroft’s smirk - and then left the room.
He wondered when he would see her again.
§
It turned out that it would be fifteen minutes later. He supposed just walking over to Speedy’s wasn’t really the best way to hide.
He could see the car waiting outside.
As she walked towards him, it struck him how fragile she was. How small and delicate and precious. And how it had never been fair to her to be caught up in this deadly game he was playing.
“How did you know I’d be here?” he asked, when she sat down across him.
“It’s seemed the most unlikely place for you to be,” she answered. Then grinned, “Mycroft.”
He couldn’t help himself, he grinned back, “Yeah, he’s good at that.”
“So, I’m going away...to...I don’t know. I hope it’s nice,” she said, playing with the condiments.
“You’ll be safe there. My brother’s good with these things.”
“What’s going to keep you safe?”
“I have John. He’s a really good shot.”
“You’re going to get him killed.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Que sera, sera.”
She’d lined up all the condiments, from tallest bottle to smallest container in the middle of the table, like a wall between them.
“Did you mean what you said?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“This is not a game you’re playing with me?”
“No.”
“You are going to break my heart, you know.”
“You said you wouldn’t let me.”
“Well, I lied. It’s you, it was inevitable, really.”
“If it’s any consolation, you could break mine first.”
“Is it bad that it is?”
“Not if it means you’ve finally accepted that I do have feelings for you.”
“You keep insisting that you do.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Thank you? Is that all you’re going to say about this?”
“I have to go now.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, if you stay alive, we can continue this discussion.”
“You’re bribing me into staying alive?”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“You know me, I never back down from a challenge.”
And then she leaned across the table, knocking down the ketchup, and kissed him.
“See you soon?” she whispered.
He could only nod in response.
He watched her walk out, get into the car and then the car drive off into the night.
And with uncanny timing, he received a text from John.
Christmas had come earlier than Moriarty had promised.
-tbc-