Fic for oxfordtweet: Lists and Love Plots
Title: Lists and Love Plots
Recipient: oxfordtweed
Author: [to be revealed]
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock, John/Sarah, Sherlock/Molly
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Bit of language, baaad relationships.
Summary: Molly has always had her little certainties, but she knows by now that when it comes to Sherlock, there is no such thing as being certain.
Beta'd by the very lovely and charming [redacted].
Lists and Love Plots
Sitting in a hotel room in a tiny village in Calais, Sherlock stared at the computer screen. “...He was the greatest, the best man I have ever known. All that remains of him is a violin and an urn that his brother took away with him...” The urn was a nice touch, if a bit over the top. But then, Mycroft had always had a dramatic streak about a mile wide. He pushed the netbook away from him, and flopped back on the bed. Beside him, his phone lit up briefly. “Do your job. Come back alive.” Mycroft letting him know everything went off without a hitch. And it had. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the final battle between Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes had ended with them both dead, spattered on the pavement. Only men, after all.
Sherlock rolled on his side, staring at John’s blog. ”The funeral was today. The Yarders were there, even Donovan looked sad. Lestrade said he was sorry for my loss... That was enough. He shut the browser and then the whole computer. Done.
“Oh, John.” Sherlock refused to acknowledge it as a whimper. He looked at the ceiling again, and closed his eyes tight. He wondered if John cried at his funeral, and hated himself a little. Lying in the narrow bed of a hotel room in a tiny village in Calais, Sherlock smothered himself into silence, drowning out the thin whine of his heart breaking.
---
That long, lonely night in Calais had been three years ago.
He was thinner now; black hair growing out of a businessman’s crop. He stepped off the plane at Heathrow wearing a waist-length leather jacket and scruffy t-shirt. Unsmiling as he shook hands with the man in the suit, although they gripped hands tightly. They left together, in a black car.
“I’ve kept Baker Street for you,” Mycroft said, after a decent pause, “just as you left it.”
“Thanks,” Sherlock said, a little grudgingly.
“A mess,” Mycroft raised an eyebrow.
“You’re too kind,” Sherlock folded his arms. He’d already decided he wasn’t going to mention the elephant in the room. The one who used to be the delicious contradiction of soldier and medic. The rest of the trip passed in the silence that comes between two men who, although once close, have not spoken in many years. The soft rustle of Mycroft re-crossing his legs only served to thicken the silence instead of breaking it, filling the car until they were drowning in things left unsaid. Every so often, one of them would take a breath as though to speak, only to clear their throat instead or turn to look pointedly out of the window. Sherlock wondered if opening a window would clear the congealed atmosphere. Upon experimentation, all it did was make his neck cold.
Although Mycroft had given him his key, Sherlock still knocked. It took a while for Mrs Hudson to get to the door- her hip had become worse over the past three years, it seemed.
“Hello, Mrs Hudson! How are you?” She stared at him, and dropped the tea-cup she was holding. It smashed on the floor between them, unnoticed.
“Sher-lo...” she limped forward, touching his chest as though afraid he would disappear.
“Didn’t Mycroft tell you?” Sherlock frowned down at her face, pale as the colour continued to drain from it. She was standing in a puddle of tea, but she didn’t seem to notice. He wondered what he would do if she actually had a heart attack.
“No, no one said anything...” She was touching his cheek now, as though she thought he might dissolve, or explode. “Oh, Sherlock...” And she threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back. She stepped away, smiled in a watery way, her hands on his shoulders. He returned her smile. Suddenly, Mrs Hudson shook him hard.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again young man!”
Sherlock hung limp in her grasp like a puppy.
“I had to! It was the only way!”
“What makes you think you can come swanning in here like nothing ever happened?” She dropped him and stepped back with her arms folded.
“I--”
“None of your excuses young man. Not even a postcard!” Sherlock wished that Mycroft had come in with him, he could have used his umbrella as a shield. She reached for him and Sherlock flinched. But this time she hugged him.
“Welcome home.” He hugged her back just as hard, and for the first time since he had touched down at Heathrow, seriously wondered how everyone else was going to react.
Upstairs, there was milk in the fridge, the cupboards were stocked with a couple of days of essentials and there was a manila folder on the table. Sherlock ate a custard cream and tuned his violin. He polished the skull and politely evicted a spider from its eye-socket, and decided to ignore the manila folder. He sorted some old paperwork. Some of it had an untidy scrawl on it, more organised scribbling than actual hand-writing. He screwed it up and tossed it away. The manila folder shone seductively in the kitchen light. He found a book he’d abandoned under the sofa four years ago, and flipped through it impatiently till he found a bookmark- Sherlock had never used bookmarks, he usually just remembered the page number (especially after the row about precisely what made an acceptable bookmark). John however, preferred them- he even used a proper marker from Waterstones or WHSmith, rather than a corner off the paper or a litmus indicator (or worse). He put the book back under the sofa. He flipped through a newspaper, and then a magazine. He switched on the telly, then switched it off. The manila folder lay, larger than life on the table. Sherlock blew out a breath, and picked it up, carefully, as though it might explode or bite. Inside was one sheet of paper. Right. That was fine then. Black and white. Sherlock put the folder square in the middle of the table. He was tired, he should lie down. Tomorrow. The contents of the folder could wait till tomorrow. He lay on the sofa, and played violin with his eyes closed all night.
The next morning, Sherlock showered, shaved, dressed. He donned his jacket; if looking closely, an outside observer might have detected a hint of a tremble in those long fingers as they brushed the lapels. If looking a little more closely, the observer might have seen his face was pale under its dusting of tan and freckles. Looking closer still, they would have said he was scared.
The building, when he reached it, was low to the ground, flat-roofed and modern, and in trying to make itself look like as little like a surgery as possible, managed to look more like a surgery than any other building on the street. To Sherlock, it thrummed with nausea and unease. He paused on the balls of his feet at the door, then shook his head at his own ridiculousness, and pushed inside. More modern decor, all beige and potted plants. Posters on the wall about coughs, sneezes, strokes... It was busy, the receptionist was talking to a mother with a squalling child (chicken pox, from the spots and running nose). She didn’t see Sherlock as he slipped past, practically holding his breath in the effort not to be noticed. A sign led him to a room at the end of a very long corridor. To Sherlock, it seemed like it stretched forever. He knocked, trying not to think of the name on the door, the only name in the whole world that mattered.
“Come in!” Someone called from inside. He opened the door. “Take a seat, I’ll be right with you.” John Watson, his John Watson, didn’t look up from where he was making notes on his computer. Sherlock sat, and for a moment he thought perhaps he had stopped remembering how to breathe. His throat swelled and his heart picked up the pace. Maybe he was dying. He had forgotten how to live, after all.
“Jo...” His voice died away. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. “It’s...” A twitch of smile. “It’s my heart.”
John Watson’s brow furrowed-- it always did when Sherlock interrupted him on the computer.
“What about it?” He looked up, abandoning whatever it was. His eyes widened and he flew out of his chair. “You--” He stood up in a hurry. “You!”
“John--” John’s eyes rolled up in his head and his knees gave way. Sherlock grabbed for him, helping his limp body awkwardly to the floor, carefully laying his head down, and trying to ignore the tingle in his fingers as he brushed through the greying (greying!) blond hair. Then he put John’s legs onto his office chair and loosened his collar, and sat back, on his heels impulsively biting his knuckle, staring at John as though re-memorising him. It didn’t take long for him to come round, letting his legs fall off the chair as he struggled to sit upright. Sherlock helped him, savouring the warmth of his back and the waft of cologne and the underlying smell that was uniquely John. It was exactly as he remembered, yet so different it made his eyes sting.
“John I--” This time he didn’t finish his sentence because John lamped him. Hard. Sherlock staggered back.
“I deserved that,” he worked his jaw experimentally.
“You bet you fucking deserved that!” John pulled himself upright. He wasn’t shouting, keeping his voice low, carefully controlled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I--”
“I can’t believe you! I thought you were dead, Sherlock! Actually dead. There was a funeral. I went to your damn funeral and you just stroll in here like you went to the shops!” His voice was getting louder and Sherlock grabbed him.
“I know, I know,” he said feverishly, pulling John towards him. “I’m sorry, I really am. I can’t tell you--” and then he kissed him and oh, he was kissing John Watson and it was better than he’d imagined in a hundred thousand crisp clean hotel rooms and dingy bedsits and mouldering boarding houses and-- He grabbed the back of John’s neck to pull him closer, but John pulled back.
“Sherlock, I--”
“I know, I really am sorry. But you see, I couldn’t tell you--” Sherlock tried to kiss him again but John turned his face away.
“I’m married.”
Sherlock stopped dead, with the feel of John still on his lips.
“How long?”
“Two years in a couple of months.” This said with a hint of pride.
Sherlock sank down into a chair.
“Is she-- Is she nice?” He asked hoarsely.
“Wonderful.” John was definitely glowing. And it wasn’t because Sherlock had just kissed him. Sherlock wondered if he was actually collapsing in on himself.
“Surely you knew this.” John sat down too, glow fading.
“No... No, I didn’t.” Sherlock wondered how John could be so dense. He wouldn’t have ever even bothered to come back if he’d known he was married.
“I blogged it. Even put up some photos.”
“I haven’t been reading your blog.” John looked hurt. “I-- I couldn’t. I tried, I did, but I couldn’t...” Sherlock slumped, waving a hand to show the emotions he couldn’t express.
“Oh. Well. I did.” John said simply. The intercom on his desk buzzed. He hit the reply button. “Yes?”
“I’d better-- I’d better go.” Sherlock stood up, and stumbled away. John might have said something, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t think of something that did matter right now.
It had been a quiet three years for Molly Hooper, on all counts. Not that she minded so much. Over the years, she had created little certainties in her life, quiet as it was. The sky was blue, corpses were cold, Toby would eat tuna till he was sick if you let him... And Sherlock Holmes was dead. Molly was certain of this, and what with spending most of her days elbow deep in well, dead people, she felt like she had the right to be certain. Which is why it felt a little unfair when he strode through the doors of the morgue as though he’d never been gone. In films, upon the object of the girl’s affection striding through the door, she has to faint or cry or shout. Something loud and unnecessary. But because of the way she spent her days (finding the quickest way to a man’s heart is actually up and under the ribcage) she just gripped the gurney she was standing next to and found him the body he was looking for. John Watson lent against the counter and smiled at her as Sherlock pored over the body.
“So, he’s back then,” she said.
“It seems so.”
“How’s Sarah? And small fry?” She used John’s blogging name for his kid, mainly because she couldn’t remember the real one.
“Fine, both fine. Confused, a little. But who isn’t?”
“John, come here?” Sherlock waved him over. He’d lost the coat that Molly remembered- it had been replaced by a well-cut leather jacket. It showed off all the right curves... Molly shook her head. Apparently three years didn’t change that much. She looked over at John. John was watching Sherlock just as avidly as he ever had (proving that even if Sherlock Holmes’ death was not certain, other things were). It had been widely suspected that Sherlock and John had probably been more than flatmates before the whole ‘Jim Moriarty’ thing (Molly flinched at the the twinge of hurt that came along with his name), but now... John had a kid and a wife. Molly had gone to the wedding, and the baby shower (mainly out of politeness, John seemed to think that she needed looking after). She had seen for herself that John, despite whatever he had felt for Sherlock, was happy with Sarah, a sort of proud and fierce joy that comes when a man has found someone he truly loves, and won them. It suited him.
Sherlock suddenly gave a shout, and rushed out of the morgue. Molly raised her eyebrows at John, and he shrugged.
“Just like old times.”
“Not quite.” John sounded... flat.
“John...” Molly touched his shoulder. John shifted away.
“I know. Thanks, Molly.” He smiled at her.
---
They had solved the case, caught the murderer. Sherlock, high on his own cleverness and the thrill of the chase, fobbed Lestrade off with a wave of his hand and “Later, I’ll come by in the morning, don’t worry.” He caught up with John Watson, and grinned at him.
“The old team.”
` “We’ve still got it.” John led the way down the street.
“Never doubted it.” They walked in silence for a moment. They paused under a street-lamp, as in sync as they ever were.
“John--” Sherlock stepped forward, the lapels of his jacket brushing against John’s chest. He dipped his head (marvelling at how his body remembered just the right angle needed) and kissed him, a brush of lips. He tasted of aftershave and Chinese food and excitement, and he let out a small noise of impatience, trying to deepen the kiss. John stepped back.
“I have to go home,” he said, almost apologetically. He was breathing a bit hard.
“We are going home.” Sherlock said, deliberately dense with need.
“To Sarah, Sherlock. And my- our child.” John took another step back, hands tucked deep in his pockets. He wanted to, Sherlock could tell, he’d always been able to read John Watson like a book, and right now his whole body was screaming out with need. “Sorry, Sherlock.” John ducked his head. “Goodnight.”
And he turned on his heel, in the opposite direction. Sherlock stayed under the streetlamp, knowing he looked a lovestruck fool and hating it. John Watson walked away.
---
Molly stayed late that night. She found she that happening more and more these days. Toby didn’t seem to mind, and she could tell her mother with absolute truth that she was too busy to date or meet with her friend Bunty’s nephew Geordie, or Geordie’s nephew Bunty. Who knew? Who cared? She had once heard of a tradition where someone stayed up all night with the deceased before the funeral. She had liked the idea, because she had always thought that there was something ever so lonely about those deep metal drawers, the ones where everyone ended up. Tonight, as far as her boss, her mother and the new intern was concerned, Molly was doing paperwork, but really she was drinking tea with an elderly lady who had died alone in the hospital.
The door swished open. She looked up to see Sherlock Holmes, proving that it is indeed possible to sweep in a short leather coat.
“Sherlock? Why- What are you doing here? How did you get in?” Molly stood up. Sherlock didn’t say anything, just stood there breathing shallowly.
“We solved the case,” he said abruptly. “We solved the case and caught the murderer and John said I was extraordinary.”
Molly watched him warily.
“And then,” he seemed to be reaching some sort of mental destination, Molly could almost see his train of thought zipping down the tracks. “And then John went home and I went home but my home isn’t there any more. It’s just empty and full of silence.” He was pacing up and down. Finally he slowed and stopped. “And I couldn’t...”
He looked at Molly and she felt for a moment like several Mollies. One was caught up in his emotion, swirled away in sympathy- Molly could understand being in love with someone who was unavailable. Another part of her was whispering ‘why is he here?’ over and over, and yet another part was... Anticipating? She had a feeling those two parts of her were in cahoots. Maybe she could work out why? Sherlock sagged, suddenly. “I couldn’t.”
Molly wasn’t made of stone. She knew how much a broken heart could hurt, after all. She wondered how many friends Sherlock Holmes actually had (not for the first time). When you make a living from your brain, when that’s all anyone seems to know you for, what do you do, where do you go when your heart breaks? So she did what any caring person would do, and reached out and up (because good lord he went up forever) onto the tip toes of her sensible flat shoes, and hugged the world’s only consulting detective. He stiffened at first, and then relaxed into it, drawing her in and politely bending into the hug. Molly allowed herself to breathe him in; he smelt of soap, cologne and leather. She sighed, despite herself, and he moved back, looking down at her in an oddly detached manner.
“Sherlock, I--” But whatever she was going to say was smothered as he kissed her, hard, forcing his way into her mouth. Kissing Sherlock was everything and nothing like she’d fantasised about whilst on the bus or... Other, more private places. She responded enthusiastically, burying her hands in his thick hair. Her last coherent thought, as he pushed her back onto an empty gurney? ‘At least we taped the corpse’s eyelids down...’
Afterwards, he buttoned his trousers and left, with Molly sitting on the gurney staring after him, skin still tingling and skirt rucked up round her waist. Not even a goodbye. Molly put her shoes back on and retired to the bathroom, where she fixed her make-up and tidied her hair. She was aware that something monumental had happened. Something that she had never dared really hope would actually happen to her in real life. And it had been everything and nothing like she hoped. It was the biggest anticlimax, really. Whilst Molly had a lot of romantic notions, she knew that life rarely, if ever, worked like that. The several Mollies were fighting it out- it seemed to mainly be a fight between ‘Finally a decent shag’ and ‘I don’t believe he just bloody left, the tosser!’, although ‘Oh my god I did it on a gurney (and it was fantastic)’ and ‘Mum’s never allowed to know about this’ were also giving it their level best.
“Well?” She asked her reflection. The reflection had nothing to say.
The second time, she hadn’t seen him in weeks (he hadn’t called, of course he hadn’t). Molly had very carefully not waited by the phone. She had maybe been a bit more attentive to her mobile than usual, but if you’d asked her, she’d have denied it. So she just trudged on, in best Molly Hooper style. She distracted herself with a steadfast single-mindedness; talking to her elderly neighbour about cats and the nice girl from Accounts about Glee, keeping her mind busy, thinking about other things, anything else.
The second time, Molly had been on her own in the morgue (again), although this time it was around five pm. Sherlock put his hands on her waist, his nose and mouth exploring her hair then down her neck, all want and hot breath. They hid from the windows and doors by sliding between the space between the drawers and the filing cabinet. He left just as abruptly as the first time, leaving her lent against the wall, absently re-pinning her hair with a faint smile. There was a lot to be said for the loving and leaving, if done with the correct angle and pressure. The feeling of something monumental happening was there again, even if the Mollies were still duking it out. Today ‘He’s got rather lovely hair’ and ‘oh my those eyes’ had teamed up, to win over ‘But he’s not thinking about you, is he?’ Molly took her hair out- she always thought better when she was doing something with her hair. What did you do when something like this happened? It wasn’t something they prepared you for. There were no seminars on what to do if a long time crush not only rises from the dead but also starts doing the most blissful things to you after everyone else has gone home. Ignoring the ridiculous and obvious Jesus analogy dying to be made, Molly re-pinned her hair again, thinking about her list of certainties.
Molly’s mother had once told her (much to her eighteen year-old embarrassment) that if you let a man sleep with you three times, you are either a) engaged, or b) no better than you should be. When Sherlock turned up in her office at eight am and shut the door behind him before straddling her in her chair, she decided she was no better than she should be. However, remembering the words of her mother did lead her to think. What was this? Was this anything worth analysing? Sherlock seemed to require little speech from her- often she didn’t even manage a hello before he grabbed at her. It was an unusual feeling, simultaneously closer and further away from him than she’d ever been just bringing him coffee, or fudging paperwork so he could take bits and pieces away with him. Even in the heat of the moment, as it were, he felt very far away somehow. For a while, Molly had been sure that she was a sort of replacement for John Watson, but the sex--
The sex (and she blushed, despite being a grown woman and alone in her office, since there are some things a Catholic upbringing leaves imprinted on your DNA) was well, good. Sherlock seemed to know her as well as her last semi-permanent boyfriend, where to press, where to run his hands. She knew that logically, she was a poor replacement for John Watson. it was just a certainty. But then, if he was just looking for a replacement, there were any number of men who would probably start drooling at the very thought of Sherlock doing any number of things. So it wasn’t purely physical. It couldn’t be. But then... He never spoke. Just breathing, in her ear. Then he would leave. Molly knew she should have felt used, and she did, a bit, but it was Sherlock. Everyone seemed to do that, a sort of mental ‘except Sherlock’ clause onto every rule. You can’t do that, it’s wrong. Except Sherlock. You can’t do that, it’s illegal. Except Sherlock. The police did it, the government did it, John had always done it. Molly herself had let him use the morgue like his own private playground, and now... She was his private playground. And God only knew that men had loved her and left her before. Sometimes several times. But what if it wasn’t just the sex--
“Molly?” It was the intern, poking her head round the door. “I need the files for Mister Collins, he has to go to the undertaker today.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Molly said, train of thought completely derailed by the literal dead-weight of Mr Collins.
It was winter, and what with all the little human weaknesses that come along with that- flu, pneumonia, forgetting how prone your road is to black ice and all that, Molly didn’t actually have a huge amount of time to think about the problem of Sherlock Holmes. Well, she sort of did. If she was completely honest with herself (and who is, really?) she did spend an awful lot of time staring into space, flipping a mental coin over and over again, weighing up the pros and cons, and thinking about her list of certainties. Sherlock certainly wasn’t on there. He never had been. But now... He was almost there, in wobbly, thinking about something-else-whilst-writing script. Once every couple of weeks, he would show up. If he showed up with John first, he would come back later. Molly, haunted by the spectre of her mother, had tried to bring it up:
“Sherlock... D’you like me?”
His hands lingered on her shoulders, smoothing the fabric of her shirt, then there was a movement of air, and the door softly shutting. When she turned round, he was gone. She hadn’t asked again. After all, men loved and left, and it wasn’t as though her dance card was so full she could afford to tell him where to get off. It was at times like that Molly wished she had the sort of girlfriends one sees in the movies, the sort that would give her sage, sassy advice about shoes and men over ice-cream at a pyjama party. As it was, all she had was Toby, who sniffed at the ice-cream and then curled up and went to sleep. She pondered calling John Watson, and asking him, but somehow it didn’t seem like the done thing to call a person’s ex for dating advice. Instead, she switched on Will and Grace and scratched Toby behind the ears.
---
Sitting in the ladies’ three floors up from the morgue, with her sensible knickers around her ankles, staring at a little blue cross that really, really wasn’t that little, Molly enjoyed a moment of serene numbness. For a moment, all the little troubles, like who was forgetting to refill the coffee machine when they finished the pot (and why Mr Golightly didn’t), faded away in the face of the little blue cross, as if suddenly realising how very insignificant they were. Molly looked at the test. And then, since she didn’t have to be anywhere for a bit, she regarded it. It seemed a little unfair really. Whilst she wasn’t on the pill (and with a record like hers, why would she be?), Sherlock had used a condom every time... Except he hadn’t, had he? That first time, when he had turned up with wild hair and eyes, all need and loss. She hadn’t thought of it either, and she could blame shock and perhaps picking up on Sherlock’s own anguish, and of course, work was busy this time of year- people didn’t stop dying just because Molly Hooper had a one-night stand- but she knew it really came down to plain old denial. Molly was good at denial, and she was reminded bitterly of this now. She had convinced herself that Jim (and what felt like countless others) had been actually interested in her, rather than just out for a quickie, or trying to get at someone else, or in the closet (occasionally all three), and now she had convinced herself that perhaps Sherlock came to her for more than a bed-warmer (except she wasn’t even that, since he had never taken her to bed as such)- little touches in the lab (which were definitely accidental), a smile at her as he explained something to John (and who wouldn’t smile, explaining something to someone like John?) She smiled bitterly. Silly Molly Hooper, always making up her stories. Like the one where she had convinced herself that there was practically no chance one quick shag might result in a baby, because it was quite natural for women to skip a period every now and again, hell, it could be be stress, or poor diet- the food in the cafeteria hadn’t got any better recently, after all. The test in her hand was a cold hard kick back to reality. She was practically bruised. Her phone buzzed- she was late for a meeting.
After the meeting (which was about... Something. The intern would know, she could ask her later), Molly went up to the maternity ward, where she spoke very nicely to Kaito, whom she had bought lunch for a couple of times (he had a cat too, and they both enjoyed Miyazaki films) and after a short conversation, Molly walked out with a huge pile of paperwork and leaflets and a good deal of thinking to do. In fact, in the end, she came to the conclusion that she had so much thinking to do that she couldn’t stay in the morgue, so she went home. The cat was annoyed at this intrusion into his daily routine, especially when Molly almost dropped the sheaf of paper on his head. She made a cup of tea and sat at her kitchen table, thinking about not much, which seemed unfair, considering the reason she’d come home was because she’d forgotten whether it was Mrs Thompson or Mrs Thomsett who needed to be checked for ovarian cancer, and had spent twenty minutes working it out (although she’d managed to find the liver cyst they were looking for in Mrs Thomsett). So what now? Kaito had given her a few different options. There was the obvious, although her Catholic-bred mind balked at it (despite the fact she had gone to a few pro-choice rallies in her youth). Adoption... It wasn’t as though she couldn’t afford to keep it. Almost twenty years of modest living and a useful inheritance from her grandmother meant she was in a comfortable, practically home-owning position. She lay in the bath, listening to the water muffling her ears and staring at her belly-button. Well, the space just beneath it, to be more exact. It was pretty much flat, not too toned (she had been blessed with a pretty good metabolism and the walk to work and back everyday, not to mention hauling around fifteen-stone bags of flesh all day), and showed no signs of the thing beneath. She giggled a little. What had she been expecting? It wasn’t as though it was going to bust out of her uterus like a special effects nightmare. She put her hands on her belly and mimed something bursting out, making little ‘eeek oh no’ noises and splashing water about in a mockery of blood and guts. After a few moments she realised that she wasn’t laughing, but crying. She lay in the bath, and for the first time in over three years, had a bloody good cry.
The next day, Sherlock showed up to take a fruitless look at Ms Harvey, who had been a pretty woman before the strychinine. John wasn’t with him, probably at work.
“Sherlock...” Molly stood on the other side of the corpse. She had been annoyed to wake up to find that the rest of her body had finally caught up with her uterus, and she had been thoroughly ill that morning at the smell of Weetabix, which was interesting, because up until that moment, she hadn’t even known Weetabix had a smell. Now it was more noxious than that Mr Smith, with his infected ulcers.
“Hmm?” Sherlock wasn’t really listening, he was concentrating on what could be a needle mark or equally, a scratch on the skin of the deceased..
“I... I’m pregnant.” And there it was. The first time she’d said it out loud or even admitted it properly to herself, and Sherlock merely peered closer at the corpse, without any indication he had even heard. She narrowed her eyes. “Did you hear me? I said, I’m pregnant. And it’s yours.” She resisted the urge to add a charming epithet to this, losing her temper would get her nowhere.
“I very much doubt it,” Sherlock said, smoothly, still not looking up, though his hands stopped moving, as if frozen in place. “It’s not my fault if you can’t keep up with your casual interests.”
Molly slapped him, as hard as she could. His head snapped round, satisfyingly.
“Don’t you dare,” she growled. “Don’t you dare even presume, Sherlock Holmes. If I say this baby is yours then I am certain it is yours, do you hear me?”
Sherlock stared at her, putting his fingers to a pink stain on his cheek where she’d slapped him. He folded his pocket magnifier, and Molly thought maybe his fingers were shaking, though she wouldn’t swear to it. And then he left. The door shut softly behind him, and for the second time in as many days, Molly burst into tears.
---
In the corridor, Sherlock slumped against the wall muttering to himself. An observer might have noticed his breathing came quickly, like he had been running, in between little noises like “Stupid” “Charming” and “What”. After a moment, he drew a deep breath, and started to walk away. Then he stopped. He shook his head, and went to take another step. An observer would also note this as unusual. Even if he was just about to put something vile in the butter-dish, Sherlock always moved with a certain amount of purpose. He turned around, and started to retrace his steps back to the morgue. His eyes were far away, and he appeared to be thinking very hard, so hard in fact that he stopped where he was standing. An intern bumped into him.
“I’m ever so sorry,” she gabbled. “Hey, are you alright? You look terrible.”
“Hmm? Oh... I’m... Fine...” Sherlock turned around again, and drifted away from the morgue.
---
What had she been expecting? She was sitting in the toilets, scrubbing her eyes with a piece of cheap loo roll. Sherlock Holmes was not known for his empathy or sympathy, nor was he known for his tact. What had she been thinking, even? That the orchestra would swell and that Sherlock Holmes would suddenly realise that he actually loved her, despite the fact that the most conversation they’d had since he got back from where ever it was that he’d spent the last three years was “Would you like a cup of tea?” “Yes, four sugars.”? That all of a sudden, he would decide to marry her, as it was only the right thing to do and they could and would raise as many fat babies as she liked? She giggled weakly at her own frivolity. Molly knew her life was not a film. It didn’t seem to be a list of certainties either, any more. It was like a tiny (the size of a lentil, apparently) but massively dense ball in the middle of the rubber sheet of her life, warping everything else and, in some cases, losing objects entirely. It was ridiculous to expect Sherlock Holmes to do the same. Sherlock Holmes, who swept through life, the exception to everybody’s rule. She sighed, and sniffed, and went back to work. Clearly, she was alone in this.
The next day, Sherlock came in.
“What do you want?” Maybe that was a bit rude. Molly didn’t really care. She’d spent most of last night tearing up over nappy adverts, and felt like this meant she was allowed to be a bit rude.
“Actually, I came to talk to you.” Sherlock was scowling, like a schoolboy apologising for a broken window. Molly stopped being pointedly busy and Sherlock fidgeted with the lapel of his jacket. Was he nervous? Or scared maybe? Molly never could tell with him. He could just be smoothing the cloth.
“I-- It has been pointed out to me that perhaps I have not been behaving appropriately,” he said it stiffly, not looking at her. Molly thought recognised the shamed tilt of his head from a thousand rows with John. “Pending a paternity test, I will be only too glad to support you financially.”
Molly blinked. “But I--”
He was already gone. Molly stared after him.
----
“Paternity test?” John folded his arms. “Are you completely out of your mind?”
“I thought it was reasonable--”
“You thought it was reasonable to ask Molly Hooper-- our Molly Hooper, a girl who routinely draws flowers on the paperwork for post-mortems-- to take a paternity test?” Sherlock shrank a little.
“Well, yes--”
“I can’t believe you. You really just don’t know when to quit, do you?” John flung himself in his chair (and Sherlock still thought of it as John’s chair, despite the fact that John sat in it very rarely these days).
“If I’d known you were going to be like this about it--”
“You know it’s yours.” John had, over the years, learnt to read Sherlock almost as well as Sherlock could read him. His voice was cold, and Sherlock had to hide a wince. “You know, and you still asked her to take the test. That’s, that’s something alright. In fact, I’d say that’s more than something. That’s downright cruel.”
Sullen silence, in which Sherlock picked up his bow and tightened it up, ready to play.
“I had you down as many things Sherlock, but a coward was never one of them. Or do you only take responsibility when it’s a game, when you can run off and play your little game of hide-and-seek all over Europe?” John was bitter now, he had clearly already marked Molly up as another person Sherlock Holmes let down.
Sherlock didn’t look at him. He just rosined the bow of his violin, over and over again.
John left without another word. Sherlock stared at the skull.
“Well?”
It didn’t answer. But then, it never did.
---
The next day Molly went back to Kaito, who hooked her up to a machine and showed her the baby’s (and now that she had said that word to Sherlock, saying it in her head wasn’t even a problem) heartbeat, a little flickering thing in the middle of a a screen of white snow. Molly decided, looking at her baby’s heartbeat, that it didn’t need Sherlock. She didn’t need Sherlock.
“That’s looking very healthy, about six weeks and five days, I’d say,” Kaito smiled down. “Here, let me play the heartbeat to you...”
Molly started to smile as a little ‘wusb-wusb’ noise started up. The door burst open.
“Oh, er.” It wasn’t often one saw Sherlock Holmes stop dead in his tracks. “I didn’t realise, er, your calendar said...”
“What do you want?” Molly decided right then that she wasn’t ever going to be polite to Sherlock Holmes ever again.
“To er-- Is that the baby?” On the screen next to Kaito, there were still two little blobs, one of which flickered with life.
“Yes. What’s it to you?” Molly concentrated really hard on keeping her face calm. She’d never spoken to anyone like this. It felt pretty good that her first go would be Sherlock Holmes.
“That’s a heart-beat?” Sherlock strode into the room, jacket swinging around him.
“Yes-- sorry, this is a private--” Kaito started.
“I’m the father.” Sherlock was staring at the ultrasound. “So that’s the yolk sac and the heart... About six weeks or so, yes? Fascinating, fascinating...”
Kaito was staring at Sherlock, and back at Molly, who was lying on the examination table looking murderous.
“I wonder if...” Sherlock snatched the wand out of Kaito’s hand and at that point Molly had quite enough.
“Sherlock! Don’t you dare come near me with that thing!” Molly snapped, and swung herself off the table, pulling her t-shirt over the goo on her stomach. “Kaito, I’ll come back later.” And for the first time in her life, Molly swept out of a room.
Once she’d got down to her office, she sunk into her chair, and sat there till she thought she might be able to pick up a pen without her shaking fingers flinging it across the room. Someone knocked at the door.
“Er,” Molly cleared her throat. “Come in.”
It was Sherlock.
“Sherlock, I am in no mood--” Being impolite was actually quite exhausting.
“Look, I just wanted to say you don’t need to do the test. I’ll support the child.”
“Well, that’s nice of you.”
“Will you let me look at the ultrasounds? I’ve never had a chance to study a pregnancy before...” Sherlock trailed off in the face of Molly’s stare. “It won’t work like that, will it.”
“No.”
Sherlock sat down, tugging and smoothing the lapels on his jacket. “I think you should know I don’t want to be with you. At all. I’ll support the child, but...” That hurt. It wasn’t like it was something Molly didn’t already know, but hearing someone say it out loud still made her wince.
“Fine, then you don’t get to see ultrasounds.” Molly was tired now, being tough was not as easy as Sue Sylvester made it out to be. “Please go away.” And she started to leaf through some paperwork. Sherlock stayed where he was, tugging on his lapels.
“Sherlock. I said get out.” Molly didn’t look up. She was rather worried that if she did she would cry.
“Molly, I...” Sherlock tailed off, and plucked at his trousers. He was nervous, Molly realised. Why would he be nervous?
“Do you want to be with me? Do you want anything to do with this?” Molly asked, still staring at the paperwork for Mr Fredriksen.
“Well, no, but I--”
“Then go away. I’m very busy.”
Sherlock blew out a breath. “I-- I’m sorry.”
Had she dreamt that? She looked up, but he was already gone.
---
“What was it like?” John was not at Baker Street. He was dandling a small child on his lap in a comfortable living room.
“What do you mean, what was it like?” Sherlock watched the baby. It seemed like he saw more and more of them around recently.
“Seeing the ultrasound.” John poked the child in the face, and Billy giggled and flailed for his father’s hand.
“It was fascinating, I’ve never looked at an ultrasound before.”
“Sherlock...” John let his son catch his hand.
“You could see the yolk sac and everything.” Sherlock saw John’s face, and added defensively.“It’s not as though I want to be in its life. I don’t even like Molly that much.”
“You took advantage of her.” John sounded cold again. “You knew how she felt about you and took advantage--”
“What do you care, anyway? Your life is perfect now, isn’t it? You’ve got the baby and Sarah and everything. It would just be the cherry on top if I would stop being so problematically unattached!” Sherlock stood up and paced. The baby looked up at him with big eyes. John carefully placed him on the floor, out of harm’s way.
“Sherlock--”
“You just can’t stand that I can do this...” And Sherlock stepped close to John, bringing him up short. John looked up at him and licked his lips, instantly hypnotised. The air thickened. “Just... by... touching...” Sherlock let his fingers brush John’s face. John’s eyes shut and his breath hitched and then blew out.
“Sherlock...” John sighed, and then grabbed his hand. “No.”
“John--”
“This is unacceptable. On all levels. You took advantage--”
“But I didn’t, you see.”
John stepped back from Sherlock and squinted up at him, disbelieving.
“Well, maybe at first but... It changed.” Sherlock paced in the small space not taken up by child’s toys. “It all changed, everything, and I thought that... And now there’s the baby and I can’t, I just, I can’t.” His hair was on end, and his eyes were wild. John grabbed him, and hugged him. Sherlock stiffened but John held on regardless.
“It’s fine, it’s all fine.” John said soothingly. “And I’m sorry, I’m sorry we changed.” They sank down, onto their knees.
“I wish I had told you,” Sherlock mumbled. “About Jim and the Fall.”
“So do I, sometimes.” John buried his head into Sherlock’s shoulder.
Billy babbled to himself and played with his toes. The two men knelt together.
“Did you honestly think that you could come back and just slot back in-- like you never left?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Sherlock’s shoulders hitched in something that could have been a laugh, or a sob.
“I don’t know what I thought.” It seemed to come from a great depth, and John appreciated that it must take great effort for a man as proud as Sherlock to admit his mistakes.
“Sherlock, we’re never going to be like we were. Things change.”
“I know that.” Sherlock drew away from him, sitting back on his heels.
“I’ve got Billy, and Sarah. And they’ve got me.”
Sherlock’s hands hung limply in his lap. “That’s just it though. You’ve got them, who have I got?” That stopped John in the act of picking up his son.
“You’re an idiot.” John sat on the floor with Billy on his lap, looking up at his father with large blue eyes. Sherlock looked up, sharply.
“You’ve always had me-- you will always have me. Just because I have a family now doesn’t change that. Bloody hell, Sherlock. Is that what this has been about? All that rushing off after a case and things?” John would have laughed, if Sherlock hadn’t been sitting there looking like someone had abandoned him at the fairground. He put down the rattle he was holding in Billy’s lap, and Billy frowned and clutched at it.
“No, it wasn--”
“Don’t give me that. Must you be so melodramatic? Your insistence of playing so close to your chest will be the death of me.” John did smile then, even though all this elicited from Sherlock was a huff. “So... Tell me. How was it, seeing the ultrasound?”
Sherlock looked up at John, and it occurred to John that even when he and Sherlock had been at their most intertwined he had never seen him so defenceless- anything John said now would have an effect.
“It was... Good.” John almost started laughing again. There was something about Sherlock that evoked that in him-- emotions had always seemed to startle him, like if you made a sudden noise next to a house-cat. ‘Good’ was just the Sherlock equivalent of licking a paw like he’d always meant to do that.
“Good,” he said, finally. “Well, it’s a start. I suggest you go and tell Molly that. No, don’t give me that face. Go and talk to the mother of your baby.” He finally picked up his son, who was starting to fuss. “And Sherlock? Don’t try and be clever. Just be honest.”
“Oh thanks very much.” Sherlock rolled his eyes.
----
Sherlock stood outside Molly’s office. He took a deep breath, ran his hands through his hair and straightened his lapels. He raised his hand to knock, and then changed his mind. He turned round as if to leave, and then turned back. He took another deep breath, and wondered just when a door had become so ominous. If he didn’t knock, it would burst open with all the tension.
---
Molly was supposed to be doing the paperwork for Mr Smith (who had an ordinary name but an extraordinary stomach thing), but actually she was staring at an ultrasound. Well, the ultrasound. What other ultrasound would there be? She let out a long breath and tapped the picture with her pen, turning her list of certainties over and and over. The sky was blue, Toby ate tuna, she was going to be a mother, Sherlock Holmes--. There was a knock on the door.
---
“Come in?” Molly sounded tired, like she hadn’t been getting much sleep. Honesty, John had said. Right. Sherlock opened the door, and the future spilled out.
---
The door opened, and Molly realised that if Sherlock was in your life, a list of little certainties was completely ridiculous.
Recipient: oxfordtweed
Author: [to be revealed]
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock, John/Sarah, Sherlock/Molly
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Bit of language, baaad relationships.
Summary: Molly has always had her little certainties, but she knows by now that when it comes to Sherlock, there is no such thing as being certain.
Beta'd by the very lovely and charming [redacted].
Lists and Love Plots
Sitting in a hotel room in a tiny village in Calais, Sherlock stared at the computer screen. “...He was the greatest, the best man I have ever known. All that remains of him is a violin and an urn that his brother took away with him...” The urn was a nice touch, if a bit over the top. But then, Mycroft had always had a dramatic streak about a mile wide. He pushed the netbook away from him, and flopped back on the bed. Beside him, his phone lit up briefly. “Do your job. Come back alive.” Mycroft letting him know everything went off without a hitch. And it had. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the final battle between Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes had ended with them both dead, spattered on the pavement. Only men, after all.
Sherlock rolled on his side, staring at John’s blog. ”The funeral was today. The Yarders were there, even Donovan looked sad. Lestrade said he was sorry for my loss... That was enough. He shut the browser and then the whole computer. Done.
“Oh, John.” Sherlock refused to acknowledge it as a whimper. He looked at the ceiling again, and closed his eyes tight. He wondered if John cried at his funeral, and hated himself a little. Lying in the narrow bed of a hotel room in a tiny village in Calais, Sherlock smothered himself into silence, drowning out the thin whine of his heart breaking.
---
That long, lonely night in Calais had been three years ago.
He was thinner now; black hair growing out of a businessman’s crop. He stepped off the plane at Heathrow wearing a waist-length leather jacket and scruffy t-shirt. Unsmiling as he shook hands with the man in the suit, although they gripped hands tightly. They left together, in a black car.
“I’ve kept Baker Street for you,” Mycroft said, after a decent pause, “just as you left it.”
“Thanks,” Sherlock said, a little grudgingly.
“A mess,” Mycroft raised an eyebrow.
“You’re too kind,” Sherlock folded his arms. He’d already decided he wasn’t going to mention the elephant in the room. The one who used to be the delicious contradiction of soldier and medic. The rest of the trip passed in the silence that comes between two men who, although once close, have not spoken in many years. The soft rustle of Mycroft re-crossing his legs only served to thicken the silence instead of breaking it, filling the car until they were drowning in things left unsaid. Every so often, one of them would take a breath as though to speak, only to clear their throat instead or turn to look pointedly out of the window. Sherlock wondered if opening a window would clear the congealed atmosphere. Upon experimentation, all it did was make his neck cold.
Although Mycroft had given him his key, Sherlock still knocked. It took a while for Mrs Hudson to get to the door- her hip had become worse over the past three years, it seemed.
“Hello, Mrs Hudson! How are you?” She stared at him, and dropped the tea-cup she was holding. It smashed on the floor between them, unnoticed.
“Sher-lo...” she limped forward, touching his chest as though afraid he would disappear.
“Didn’t Mycroft tell you?” Sherlock frowned down at her face, pale as the colour continued to drain from it. She was standing in a puddle of tea, but she didn’t seem to notice. He wondered what he would do if she actually had a heart attack.
“No, no one said anything...” She was touching his cheek now, as though she thought he might dissolve, or explode. “Oh, Sherlock...” And she threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back. She stepped away, smiled in a watery way, her hands on his shoulders. He returned her smile. Suddenly, Mrs Hudson shook him hard.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again young man!”
Sherlock hung limp in her grasp like a puppy.
“I had to! It was the only way!”
“What makes you think you can come swanning in here like nothing ever happened?” She dropped him and stepped back with her arms folded.
“I--”
“None of your excuses young man. Not even a postcard!” Sherlock wished that Mycroft had come in with him, he could have used his umbrella as a shield. She reached for him and Sherlock flinched. But this time she hugged him.
“Welcome home.” He hugged her back just as hard, and for the first time since he had touched down at Heathrow, seriously wondered how everyone else was going to react.
Upstairs, there was milk in the fridge, the cupboards were stocked with a couple of days of essentials and there was a manila folder on the table. Sherlock ate a custard cream and tuned his violin. He polished the skull and politely evicted a spider from its eye-socket, and decided to ignore the manila folder. He sorted some old paperwork. Some of it had an untidy scrawl on it, more organised scribbling than actual hand-writing. He screwed it up and tossed it away. The manila folder shone seductively in the kitchen light. He found a book he’d abandoned under the sofa four years ago, and flipped through it impatiently till he found a bookmark- Sherlock had never used bookmarks, he usually just remembered the page number (especially after the row about precisely what made an acceptable bookmark). John however, preferred them- he even used a proper marker from Waterstones or WHSmith, rather than a corner off the paper or a litmus indicator (or worse). He put the book back under the sofa. He flipped through a newspaper, and then a magazine. He switched on the telly, then switched it off. The manila folder lay, larger than life on the table. Sherlock blew out a breath, and picked it up, carefully, as though it might explode or bite. Inside was one sheet of paper. Right. That was fine then. Black and white. Sherlock put the folder square in the middle of the table. He was tired, he should lie down. Tomorrow. The contents of the folder could wait till tomorrow. He lay on the sofa, and played violin with his eyes closed all night.
The next morning, Sherlock showered, shaved, dressed. He donned his jacket; if looking closely, an outside observer might have detected a hint of a tremble in those long fingers as they brushed the lapels. If looking a little more closely, the observer might have seen his face was pale under its dusting of tan and freckles. Looking closer still, they would have said he was scared.
The building, when he reached it, was low to the ground, flat-roofed and modern, and in trying to make itself look like as little like a surgery as possible, managed to look more like a surgery than any other building on the street. To Sherlock, it thrummed with nausea and unease. He paused on the balls of his feet at the door, then shook his head at his own ridiculousness, and pushed inside. More modern decor, all beige and potted plants. Posters on the wall about coughs, sneezes, strokes... It was busy, the receptionist was talking to a mother with a squalling child (chicken pox, from the spots and running nose). She didn’t see Sherlock as he slipped past, practically holding his breath in the effort not to be noticed. A sign led him to a room at the end of a very long corridor. To Sherlock, it seemed like it stretched forever. He knocked, trying not to think of the name on the door, the only name in the whole world that mattered.
“Come in!” Someone called from inside. He opened the door. “Take a seat, I’ll be right with you.” John Watson, his John Watson, didn’t look up from where he was making notes on his computer. Sherlock sat, and for a moment he thought perhaps he had stopped remembering how to breathe. His throat swelled and his heart picked up the pace. Maybe he was dying. He had forgotten how to live, after all.
“Jo...” His voice died away. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. “It’s...” A twitch of smile. “It’s my heart.”
John Watson’s brow furrowed-- it always did when Sherlock interrupted him on the computer.
“What about it?” He looked up, abandoning whatever it was. His eyes widened and he flew out of his chair. “You--” He stood up in a hurry. “You!”
“John--” John’s eyes rolled up in his head and his knees gave way. Sherlock grabbed for him, helping his limp body awkwardly to the floor, carefully laying his head down, and trying to ignore the tingle in his fingers as he brushed through the greying (greying!) blond hair. Then he put John’s legs onto his office chair and loosened his collar, and sat back, on his heels impulsively biting his knuckle, staring at John as though re-memorising him. It didn’t take long for him to come round, letting his legs fall off the chair as he struggled to sit upright. Sherlock helped him, savouring the warmth of his back and the waft of cologne and the underlying smell that was uniquely John. It was exactly as he remembered, yet so different it made his eyes sting.
“John I--” This time he didn’t finish his sentence because John lamped him. Hard. Sherlock staggered back.
“I deserved that,” he worked his jaw experimentally.
“You bet you fucking deserved that!” John pulled himself upright. He wasn’t shouting, keeping his voice low, carefully controlled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I--”
“I can’t believe you! I thought you were dead, Sherlock! Actually dead. There was a funeral. I went to your damn funeral and you just stroll in here like you went to the shops!” His voice was getting louder and Sherlock grabbed him.
“I know, I know,” he said feverishly, pulling John towards him. “I’m sorry, I really am. I can’t tell you--” and then he kissed him and oh, he was kissing John Watson and it was better than he’d imagined in a hundred thousand crisp clean hotel rooms and dingy bedsits and mouldering boarding houses and-- He grabbed the back of John’s neck to pull him closer, but John pulled back.
“Sherlock, I--”
“I know, I really am sorry. But you see, I couldn’t tell you--” Sherlock tried to kiss him again but John turned his face away.
“I’m married.”
Sherlock stopped dead, with the feel of John still on his lips.
“How long?”
“Two years in a couple of months.” This said with a hint of pride.
Sherlock sank down into a chair.
“Is she-- Is she nice?” He asked hoarsely.
“Wonderful.” John was definitely glowing. And it wasn’t because Sherlock had just kissed him. Sherlock wondered if he was actually collapsing in on himself.
“Surely you knew this.” John sat down too, glow fading.
“No... No, I didn’t.” Sherlock wondered how John could be so dense. He wouldn’t have ever even bothered to come back if he’d known he was married.
“I blogged it. Even put up some photos.”
“I haven’t been reading your blog.” John looked hurt. “I-- I couldn’t. I tried, I did, but I couldn’t...” Sherlock slumped, waving a hand to show the emotions he couldn’t express.
“Oh. Well. I did.” John said simply. The intercom on his desk buzzed. He hit the reply button. “Yes?”
“I’d better-- I’d better go.” Sherlock stood up, and stumbled away. John might have said something, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t think of something that did matter right now.
It had been a quiet three years for Molly Hooper, on all counts. Not that she minded so much. Over the years, she had created little certainties in her life, quiet as it was. The sky was blue, corpses were cold, Toby would eat tuna till he was sick if you let him... And Sherlock Holmes was dead. Molly was certain of this, and what with spending most of her days elbow deep in well, dead people, she felt like she had the right to be certain. Which is why it felt a little unfair when he strode through the doors of the morgue as though he’d never been gone. In films, upon the object of the girl’s affection striding through the door, she has to faint or cry or shout. Something loud and unnecessary. But because of the way she spent her days (finding the quickest way to a man’s heart is actually up and under the ribcage) she just gripped the gurney she was standing next to and found him the body he was looking for. John Watson lent against the counter and smiled at her as Sherlock pored over the body.
“So, he’s back then,” she said.
“It seems so.”
“How’s Sarah? And small fry?” She used John’s blogging name for his kid, mainly because she couldn’t remember the real one.
“Fine, both fine. Confused, a little. But who isn’t?”
“John, come here?” Sherlock waved him over. He’d lost the coat that Molly remembered- it had been replaced by a well-cut leather jacket. It showed off all the right curves... Molly shook her head. Apparently three years didn’t change that much. She looked over at John. John was watching Sherlock just as avidly as he ever had (proving that even if Sherlock Holmes’ death was not certain, other things were). It had been widely suspected that Sherlock and John had probably been more than flatmates before the whole ‘Jim Moriarty’ thing (Molly flinched at the the twinge of hurt that came along with his name), but now... John had a kid and a wife. Molly had gone to the wedding, and the baby shower (mainly out of politeness, John seemed to think that she needed looking after). She had seen for herself that John, despite whatever he had felt for Sherlock, was happy with Sarah, a sort of proud and fierce joy that comes when a man has found someone he truly loves, and won them. It suited him.
Sherlock suddenly gave a shout, and rushed out of the morgue. Molly raised her eyebrows at John, and he shrugged.
“Just like old times.”
“Not quite.” John sounded... flat.
“John...” Molly touched his shoulder. John shifted away.
“I know. Thanks, Molly.” He smiled at her.
---
They had solved the case, caught the murderer. Sherlock, high on his own cleverness and the thrill of the chase, fobbed Lestrade off with a wave of his hand and “Later, I’ll come by in the morning, don’t worry.” He caught up with John Watson, and grinned at him.
“The old team.”
` “We’ve still got it.” John led the way down the street.
“Never doubted it.” They walked in silence for a moment. They paused under a street-lamp, as in sync as they ever were.
“John--” Sherlock stepped forward, the lapels of his jacket brushing against John’s chest. He dipped his head (marvelling at how his body remembered just the right angle needed) and kissed him, a brush of lips. He tasted of aftershave and Chinese food and excitement, and he let out a small noise of impatience, trying to deepen the kiss. John stepped back.
“I have to go home,” he said, almost apologetically. He was breathing a bit hard.
“We are going home.” Sherlock said, deliberately dense with need.
“To Sarah, Sherlock. And my- our child.” John took another step back, hands tucked deep in his pockets. He wanted to, Sherlock could tell, he’d always been able to read John Watson like a book, and right now his whole body was screaming out with need. “Sorry, Sherlock.” John ducked his head. “Goodnight.”
And he turned on his heel, in the opposite direction. Sherlock stayed under the streetlamp, knowing he looked a lovestruck fool and hating it. John Watson walked away.
---
Molly stayed late that night. She found she that happening more and more these days. Toby didn’t seem to mind, and she could tell her mother with absolute truth that she was too busy to date or meet with her friend Bunty’s nephew Geordie, or Geordie’s nephew Bunty. Who knew? Who cared? She had once heard of a tradition where someone stayed up all night with the deceased before the funeral. She had liked the idea, because she had always thought that there was something ever so lonely about those deep metal drawers, the ones where everyone ended up. Tonight, as far as her boss, her mother and the new intern was concerned, Molly was doing paperwork, but really she was drinking tea with an elderly lady who had died alone in the hospital.
The door swished open. She looked up to see Sherlock Holmes, proving that it is indeed possible to sweep in a short leather coat.
“Sherlock? Why- What are you doing here? How did you get in?” Molly stood up. Sherlock didn’t say anything, just stood there breathing shallowly.
“We solved the case,” he said abruptly. “We solved the case and caught the murderer and John said I was extraordinary.”
Molly watched him warily.
“And then,” he seemed to be reaching some sort of mental destination, Molly could almost see his train of thought zipping down the tracks. “And then John went home and I went home but my home isn’t there any more. It’s just empty and full of silence.” He was pacing up and down. Finally he slowed and stopped. “And I couldn’t...”
He looked at Molly and she felt for a moment like several Mollies. One was caught up in his emotion, swirled away in sympathy- Molly could understand being in love with someone who was unavailable. Another part of her was whispering ‘why is he here?’ over and over, and yet another part was... Anticipating? She had a feeling those two parts of her were in cahoots. Maybe she could work out why? Sherlock sagged, suddenly. “I couldn’t.”
Molly wasn’t made of stone. She knew how much a broken heart could hurt, after all. She wondered how many friends Sherlock Holmes actually had (not for the first time). When you make a living from your brain, when that’s all anyone seems to know you for, what do you do, where do you go when your heart breaks? So she did what any caring person would do, and reached out and up (because good lord he went up forever) onto the tip toes of her sensible flat shoes, and hugged the world’s only consulting detective. He stiffened at first, and then relaxed into it, drawing her in and politely bending into the hug. Molly allowed herself to breathe him in; he smelt of soap, cologne and leather. She sighed, despite herself, and he moved back, looking down at her in an oddly detached manner.
“Sherlock, I--” But whatever she was going to say was smothered as he kissed her, hard, forcing his way into her mouth. Kissing Sherlock was everything and nothing like she’d fantasised about whilst on the bus or... Other, more private places. She responded enthusiastically, burying her hands in his thick hair. Her last coherent thought, as he pushed her back onto an empty gurney? ‘At least we taped the corpse’s eyelids down...’
Afterwards, he buttoned his trousers and left, with Molly sitting on the gurney staring after him, skin still tingling and skirt rucked up round her waist. Not even a goodbye. Molly put her shoes back on and retired to the bathroom, where she fixed her make-up and tidied her hair. She was aware that something monumental had happened. Something that she had never dared really hope would actually happen to her in real life. And it had been everything and nothing like she hoped. It was the biggest anticlimax, really. Whilst Molly had a lot of romantic notions, she knew that life rarely, if ever, worked like that. The several Mollies were fighting it out- it seemed to mainly be a fight between ‘Finally a decent shag’ and ‘I don’t believe he just bloody left, the tosser!’, although ‘Oh my god I did it on a gurney (and it was fantastic)’ and ‘Mum’s never allowed to know about this’ were also giving it their level best.
“Well?” She asked her reflection. The reflection had nothing to say.
The second time, she hadn’t seen him in weeks (he hadn’t called, of course he hadn’t). Molly had very carefully not waited by the phone. She had maybe been a bit more attentive to her mobile than usual, but if you’d asked her, she’d have denied it. So she just trudged on, in best Molly Hooper style. She distracted herself with a steadfast single-mindedness; talking to her elderly neighbour about cats and the nice girl from Accounts about Glee, keeping her mind busy, thinking about other things, anything else.
The second time, Molly had been on her own in the morgue (again), although this time it was around five pm. Sherlock put his hands on her waist, his nose and mouth exploring her hair then down her neck, all want and hot breath. They hid from the windows and doors by sliding between the space between the drawers and the filing cabinet. He left just as abruptly as the first time, leaving her lent against the wall, absently re-pinning her hair with a faint smile. There was a lot to be said for the loving and leaving, if done with the correct angle and pressure. The feeling of something monumental happening was there again, even if the Mollies were still duking it out. Today ‘He’s got rather lovely hair’ and ‘oh my those eyes’ had teamed up, to win over ‘But he’s not thinking about you, is he?’ Molly took her hair out- she always thought better when she was doing something with her hair. What did you do when something like this happened? It wasn’t something they prepared you for. There were no seminars on what to do if a long time crush not only rises from the dead but also starts doing the most blissful things to you after everyone else has gone home. Ignoring the ridiculous and obvious Jesus analogy dying to be made, Molly re-pinned her hair again, thinking about her list of certainties.
Molly’s mother had once told her (much to her eighteen year-old embarrassment) that if you let a man sleep with you three times, you are either a) engaged, or b) no better than you should be. When Sherlock turned up in her office at eight am and shut the door behind him before straddling her in her chair, she decided she was no better than she should be. However, remembering the words of her mother did lead her to think. What was this? Was this anything worth analysing? Sherlock seemed to require little speech from her- often she didn’t even manage a hello before he grabbed at her. It was an unusual feeling, simultaneously closer and further away from him than she’d ever been just bringing him coffee, or fudging paperwork so he could take bits and pieces away with him. Even in the heat of the moment, as it were, he felt very far away somehow. For a while, Molly had been sure that she was a sort of replacement for John Watson, but the sex--
The sex (and she blushed, despite being a grown woman and alone in her office, since there are some things a Catholic upbringing leaves imprinted on your DNA) was well, good. Sherlock seemed to know her as well as her last semi-permanent boyfriend, where to press, where to run his hands. She knew that logically, she was a poor replacement for John Watson. it was just a certainty. But then, if he was just looking for a replacement, there were any number of men who would probably start drooling at the very thought of Sherlock doing any number of things. So it wasn’t purely physical. It couldn’t be. But then... He never spoke. Just breathing, in her ear. Then he would leave. Molly knew she should have felt used, and she did, a bit, but it was Sherlock. Everyone seemed to do that, a sort of mental ‘except Sherlock’ clause onto every rule. You can’t do that, it’s wrong. Except Sherlock. You can’t do that, it’s illegal. Except Sherlock. The police did it, the government did it, John had always done it. Molly herself had let him use the morgue like his own private playground, and now... She was his private playground. And God only knew that men had loved her and left her before. Sometimes several times. But what if it wasn’t just the sex--
“Molly?” It was the intern, poking her head round the door. “I need the files for Mister Collins, he has to go to the undertaker today.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Molly said, train of thought completely derailed by the literal dead-weight of Mr Collins.
It was winter, and what with all the little human weaknesses that come along with that- flu, pneumonia, forgetting how prone your road is to black ice and all that, Molly didn’t actually have a huge amount of time to think about the problem of Sherlock Holmes. Well, she sort of did. If she was completely honest with herself (and who is, really?) she did spend an awful lot of time staring into space, flipping a mental coin over and over again, weighing up the pros and cons, and thinking about her list of certainties. Sherlock certainly wasn’t on there. He never had been. But now... He was almost there, in wobbly, thinking about something-else-whilst-writing script. Once every couple of weeks, he would show up. If he showed up with John first, he would come back later. Molly, haunted by the spectre of her mother, had tried to bring it up:
“Sherlock... D’you like me?”
His hands lingered on her shoulders, smoothing the fabric of her shirt, then there was a movement of air, and the door softly shutting. When she turned round, he was gone. She hadn’t asked again. After all, men loved and left, and it wasn’t as though her dance card was so full she could afford to tell him where to get off. It was at times like that Molly wished she had the sort of girlfriends one sees in the movies, the sort that would give her sage, sassy advice about shoes and men over ice-cream at a pyjama party. As it was, all she had was Toby, who sniffed at the ice-cream and then curled up and went to sleep. She pondered calling John Watson, and asking him, but somehow it didn’t seem like the done thing to call a person’s ex for dating advice. Instead, she switched on Will and Grace and scratched Toby behind the ears.
---
Sitting in the ladies’ three floors up from the morgue, with her sensible knickers around her ankles, staring at a little blue cross that really, really wasn’t that little, Molly enjoyed a moment of serene numbness. For a moment, all the little troubles, like who was forgetting to refill the coffee machine when they finished the pot (and why Mr Golightly didn’t), faded away in the face of the little blue cross, as if suddenly realising how very insignificant they were. Molly looked at the test. And then, since she didn’t have to be anywhere for a bit, she regarded it. It seemed a little unfair really. Whilst she wasn’t on the pill (and with a record like hers, why would she be?), Sherlock had used a condom every time... Except he hadn’t, had he? That first time, when he had turned up with wild hair and eyes, all need and loss. She hadn’t thought of it either, and she could blame shock and perhaps picking up on Sherlock’s own anguish, and of course, work was busy this time of year- people didn’t stop dying just because Molly Hooper had a one-night stand- but she knew it really came down to plain old denial. Molly was good at denial, and she was reminded bitterly of this now. She had convinced herself that Jim (and what felt like countless others) had been actually interested in her, rather than just out for a quickie, or trying to get at someone else, or in the closet (occasionally all three), and now she had convinced herself that perhaps Sherlock came to her for more than a bed-warmer (except she wasn’t even that, since he had never taken her to bed as such)- little touches in the lab (which were definitely accidental), a smile at her as he explained something to John (and who wouldn’t smile, explaining something to someone like John?) She smiled bitterly. Silly Molly Hooper, always making up her stories. Like the one where she had convinced herself that there was practically no chance one quick shag might result in a baby, because it was quite natural for women to skip a period every now and again, hell, it could be be stress, or poor diet- the food in the cafeteria hadn’t got any better recently, after all. The test in her hand was a cold hard kick back to reality. She was practically bruised. Her phone buzzed- she was late for a meeting.
After the meeting (which was about... Something. The intern would know, she could ask her later), Molly went up to the maternity ward, where she spoke very nicely to Kaito, whom she had bought lunch for a couple of times (he had a cat too, and they both enjoyed Miyazaki films) and after a short conversation, Molly walked out with a huge pile of paperwork and leaflets and a good deal of thinking to do. In fact, in the end, she came to the conclusion that she had so much thinking to do that she couldn’t stay in the morgue, so she went home. The cat was annoyed at this intrusion into his daily routine, especially when Molly almost dropped the sheaf of paper on his head. She made a cup of tea and sat at her kitchen table, thinking about not much, which seemed unfair, considering the reason she’d come home was because she’d forgotten whether it was Mrs Thompson or Mrs Thomsett who needed to be checked for ovarian cancer, and had spent twenty minutes working it out (although she’d managed to find the liver cyst they were looking for in Mrs Thomsett). So what now? Kaito had given her a few different options. There was the obvious, although her Catholic-bred mind balked at it (despite the fact she had gone to a few pro-choice rallies in her youth). Adoption... It wasn’t as though she couldn’t afford to keep it. Almost twenty years of modest living and a useful inheritance from her grandmother meant she was in a comfortable, practically home-owning position. She lay in the bath, listening to the water muffling her ears and staring at her belly-button. Well, the space just beneath it, to be more exact. It was pretty much flat, not too toned (she had been blessed with a pretty good metabolism and the walk to work and back everyday, not to mention hauling around fifteen-stone bags of flesh all day), and showed no signs of the thing beneath. She giggled a little. What had she been expecting? It wasn’t as though it was going to bust out of her uterus like a special effects nightmare. She put her hands on her belly and mimed something bursting out, making little ‘eeek oh no’ noises and splashing water about in a mockery of blood and guts. After a few moments she realised that she wasn’t laughing, but crying. She lay in the bath, and for the first time in over three years, had a bloody good cry.
The next day, Sherlock showed up to take a fruitless look at Ms Harvey, who had been a pretty woman before the strychinine. John wasn’t with him, probably at work.
“Sherlock...” Molly stood on the other side of the corpse. She had been annoyed to wake up to find that the rest of her body had finally caught up with her uterus, and she had been thoroughly ill that morning at the smell of Weetabix, which was interesting, because up until that moment, she hadn’t even known Weetabix had a smell. Now it was more noxious than that Mr Smith, with his infected ulcers.
“Hmm?” Sherlock wasn’t really listening, he was concentrating on what could be a needle mark or equally, a scratch on the skin of the deceased..
“I... I’m pregnant.” And there it was. The first time she’d said it out loud or even admitted it properly to herself, and Sherlock merely peered closer at the corpse, without any indication he had even heard. She narrowed her eyes. “Did you hear me? I said, I’m pregnant. And it’s yours.” She resisted the urge to add a charming epithet to this, losing her temper would get her nowhere.
“I very much doubt it,” Sherlock said, smoothly, still not looking up, though his hands stopped moving, as if frozen in place. “It’s not my fault if you can’t keep up with your casual interests.”
Molly slapped him, as hard as she could. His head snapped round, satisfyingly.
“Don’t you dare,” she growled. “Don’t you dare even presume, Sherlock Holmes. If I say this baby is yours then I am certain it is yours, do you hear me?”
Sherlock stared at her, putting his fingers to a pink stain on his cheek where she’d slapped him. He folded his pocket magnifier, and Molly thought maybe his fingers were shaking, though she wouldn’t swear to it. And then he left. The door shut softly behind him, and for the second time in as many days, Molly burst into tears.
---
In the corridor, Sherlock slumped against the wall muttering to himself. An observer might have noticed his breathing came quickly, like he had been running, in between little noises like “Stupid” “Charming” and “What”. After a moment, he drew a deep breath, and started to walk away. Then he stopped. He shook his head, and went to take another step. An observer would also note this as unusual. Even if he was just about to put something vile in the butter-dish, Sherlock always moved with a certain amount of purpose. He turned around, and started to retrace his steps back to the morgue. His eyes were far away, and he appeared to be thinking very hard, so hard in fact that he stopped where he was standing. An intern bumped into him.
“I’m ever so sorry,” she gabbled. “Hey, are you alright? You look terrible.”
“Hmm? Oh... I’m... Fine...” Sherlock turned around again, and drifted away from the morgue.
---
What had she been expecting? She was sitting in the toilets, scrubbing her eyes with a piece of cheap loo roll. Sherlock Holmes was not known for his empathy or sympathy, nor was he known for his tact. What had she been thinking, even? That the orchestra would swell and that Sherlock Holmes would suddenly realise that he actually loved her, despite the fact that the most conversation they’d had since he got back from where ever it was that he’d spent the last three years was “Would you like a cup of tea?” “Yes, four sugars.”? That all of a sudden, he would decide to marry her, as it was only the right thing to do and they could and would raise as many fat babies as she liked? She giggled weakly at her own frivolity. Molly knew her life was not a film. It didn’t seem to be a list of certainties either, any more. It was like a tiny (the size of a lentil, apparently) but massively dense ball in the middle of the rubber sheet of her life, warping everything else and, in some cases, losing objects entirely. It was ridiculous to expect Sherlock Holmes to do the same. Sherlock Holmes, who swept through life, the exception to everybody’s rule. She sighed, and sniffed, and went back to work. Clearly, she was alone in this.
The next day, Sherlock came in.
“What do you want?” Maybe that was a bit rude. Molly didn’t really care. She’d spent most of last night tearing up over nappy adverts, and felt like this meant she was allowed to be a bit rude.
“Actually, I came to talk to you.” Sherlock was scowling, like a schoolboy apologising for a broken window. Molly stopped being pointedly busy and Sherlock fidgeted with the lapel of his jacket. Was he nervous? Or scared maybe? Molly never could tell with him. He could just be smoothing the cloth.
“I-- It has been pointed out to me that perhaps I have not been behaving appropriately,” he said it stiffly, not looking at her. Molly thought recognised the shamed tilt of his head from a thousand rows with John. “Pending a paternity test, I will be only too glad to support you financially.”
Molly blinked. “But I--”
He was already gone. Molly stared after him.
----
“Paternity test?” John folded his arms. “Are you completely out of your mind?”
“I thought it was reasonable--”
“You thought it was reasonable to ask Molly Hooper-- our Molly Hooper, a girl who routinely draws flowers on the paperwork for post-mortems-- to take a paternity test?” Sherlock shrank a little.
“Well, yes--”
“I can’t believe you. You really just don’t know when to quit, do you?” John flung himself in his chair (and Sherlock still thought of it as John’s chair, despite the fact that John sat in it very rarely these days).
“If I’d known you were going to be like this about it--”
“You know it’s yours.” John had, over the years, learnt to read Sherlock almost as well as Sherlock could read him. His voice was cold, and Sherlock had to hide a wince. “You know, and you still asked her to take the test. That’s, that’s something alright. In fact, I’d say that’s more than something. That’s downright cruel.”
Sullen silence, in which Sherlock picked up his bow and tightened it up, ready to play.
“I had you down as many things Sherlock, but a coward was never one of them. Or do you only take responsibility when it’s a game, when you can run off and play your little game of hide-and-seek all over Europe?” John was bitter now, he had clearly already marked Molly up as another person Sherlock Holmes let down.
Sherlock didn’t look at him. He just rosined the bow of his violin, over and over again.
John left without another word. Sherlock stared at the skull.
“Well?”
It didn’t answer. But then, it never did.
---
The next day Molly went back to Kaito, who hooked her up to a machine and showed her the baby’s (and now that she had said that word to Sherlock, saying it in her head wasn’t even a problem) heartbeat, a little flickering thing in the middle of a a screen of white snow. Molly decided, looking at her baby’s heartbeat, that it didn’t need Sherlock. She didn’t need Sherlock.
“That’s looking very healthy, about six weeks and five days, I’d say,” Kaito smiled down. “Here, let me play the heartbeat to you...”
Molly started to smile as a little ‘wusb-wusb’ noise started up. The door burst open.
“Oh, er.” It wasn’t often one saw Sherlock Holmes stop dead in his tracks. “I didn’t realise, er, your calendar said...”
“What do you want?” Molly decided right then that she wasn’t ever going to be polite to Sherlock Holmes ever again.
“To er-- Is that the baby?” On the screen next to Kaito, there were still two little blobs, one of which flickered with life.
“Yes. What’s it to you?” Molly concentrated really hard on keeping her face calm. She’d never spoken to anyone like this. It felt pretty good that her first go would be Sherlock Holmes.
“That’s a heart-beat?” Sherlock strode into the room, jacket swinging around him.
“Yes-- sorry, this is a private--” Kaito started.
“I’m the father.” Sherlock was staring at the ultrasound. “So that’s the yolk sac and the heart... About six weeks or so, yes? Fascinating, fascinating...”
Kaito was staring at Sherlock, and back at Molly, who was lying on the examination table looking murderous.
“I wonder if...” Sherlock snatched the wand out of Kaito’s hand and at that point Molly had quite enough.
“Sherlock! Don’t you dare come near me with that thing!” Molly snapped, and swung herself off the table, pulling her t-shirt over the goo on her stomach. “Kaito, I’ll come back later.” And for the first time in her life, Molly swept out of a room.
Once she’d got down to her office, she sunk into her chair, and sat there till she thought she might be able to pick up a pen without her shaking fingers flinging it across the room. Someone knocked at the door.
“Er,” Molly cleared her throat. “Come in.”
It was Sherlock.
“Sherlock, I am in no mood--” Being impolite was actually quite exhausting.
“Look, I just wanted to say you don’t need to do the test. I’ll support the child.”
“Well, that’s nice of you.”
“Will you let me look at the ultrasounds? I’ve never had a chance to study a pregnancy before...” Sherlock trailed off in the face of Molly’s stare. “It won’t work like that, will it.”
“No.”
Sherlock sat down, tugging and smoothing the lapels on his jacket. “I think you should know I don’t want to be with you. At all. I’ll support the child, but...” That hurt. It wasn’t like it was something Molly didn’t already know, but hearing someone say it out loud still made her wince.
“Fine, then you don’t get to see ultrasounds.” Molly was tired now, being tough was not as easy as Sue Sylvester made it out to be. “Please go away.” And she started to leaf through some paperwork. Sherlock stayed where he was, tugging on his lapels.
“Sherlock. I said get out.” Molly didn’t look up. She was rather worried that if she did she would cry.
“Molly, I...” Sherlock tailed off, and plucked at his trousers. He was nervous, Molly realised. Why would he be nervous?
“Do you want to be with me? Do you want anything to do with this?” Molly asked, still staring at the paperwork for Mr Fredriksen.
“Well, no, but I--”
“Then go away. I’m very busy.”
Sherlock blew out a breath. “I-- I’m sorry.”
Had she dreamt that? She looked up, but he was already gone.
---
“What was it like?” John was not at Baker Street. He was dandling a small child on his lap in a comfortable living room.
“What do you mean, what was it like?” Sherlock watched the baby. It seemed like he saw more and more of them around recently.
“Seeing the ultrasound.” John poked the child in the face, and Billy giggled and flailed for his father’s hand.
“It was fascinating, I’ve never looked at an ultrasound before.”
“Sherlock...” John let his son catch his hand.
“You could see the yolk sac and everything.” Sherlock saw John’s face, and added defensively.“It’s not as though I want to be in its life. I don’t even like Molly that much.”
“You took advantage of her.” John sounded cold again. “You knew how she felt about you and took advantage--”
“What do you care, anyway? Your life is perfect now, isn’t it? You’ve got the baby and Sarah and everything. It would just be the cherry on top if I would stop being so problematically unattached!” Sherlock stood up and paced. The baby looked up at him with big eyes. John carefully placed him on the floor, out of harm’s way.
“Sherlock--”
“You just can’t stand that I can do this...” And Sherlock stepped close to John, bringing him up short. John looked up at him and licked his lips, instantly hypnotised. The air thickened. “Just... by... touching...” Sherlock let his fingers brush John’s face. John’s eyes shut and his breath hitched and then blew out.
“Sherlock...” John sighed, and then grabbed his hand. “No.”
“John--”
“This is unacceptable. On all levels. You took advantage--”
“But I didn’t, you see.”
John stepped back from Sherlock and squinted up at him, disbelieving.
“Well, maybe at first but... It changed.” Sherlock paced in the small space not taken up by child’s toys. “It all changed, everything, and I thought that... And now there’s the baby and I can’t, I just, I can’t.” His hair was on end, and his eyes were wild. John grabbed him, and hugged him. Sherlock stiffened but John held on regardless.
“It’s fine, it’s all fine.” John said soothingly. “And I’m sorry, I’m sorry we changed.” They sank down, onto their knees.
“I wish I had told you,” Sherlock mumbled. “About Jim and the Fall.”
“So do I, sometimes.” John buried his head into Sherlock’s shoulder.
Billy babbled to himself and played with his toes. The two men knelt together.
“Did you honestly think that you could come back and just slot back in-- like you never left?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Sherlock’s shoulders hitched in something that could have been a laugh, or a sob.
“I don’t know what I thought.” It seemed to come from a great depth, and John appreciated that it must take great effort for a man as proud as Sherlock to admit his mistakes.
“Sherlock, we’re never going to be like we were. Things change.”
“I know that.” Sherlock drew away from him, sitting back on his heels.
“I’ve got Billy, and Sarah. And they’ve got me.”
Sherlock’s hands hung limply in his lap. “That’s just it though. You’ve got them, who have I got?” That stopped John in the act of picking up his son.
“You’re an idiot.” John sat on the floor with Billy on his lap, looking up at his father with large blue eyes. Sherlock looked up, sharply.
“You’ve always had me-- you will always have me. Just because I have a family now doesn’t change that. Bloody hell, Sherlock. Is that what this has been about? All that rushing off after a case and things?” John would have laughed, if Sherlock hadn’t been sitting there looking like someone had abandoned him at the fairground. He put down the rattle he was holding in Billy’s lap, and Billy frowned and clutched at it.
“No, it wasn--”
“Don’t give me that. Must you be so melodramatic? Your insistence of playing so close to your chest will be the death of me.” John did smile then, even though all this elicited from Sherlock was a huff. “So... Tell me. How was it, seeing the ultrasound?”
Sherlock looked up at John, and it occurred to John that even when he and Sherlock had been at their most intertwined he had never seen him so defenceless- anything John said now would have an effect.
“It was... Good.” John almost started laughing again. There was something about Sherlock that evoked that in him-- emotions had always seemed to startle him, like if you made a sudden noise next to a house-cat. ‘Good’ was just the Sherlock equivalent of licking a paw like he’d always meant to do that.
“Good,” he said, finally. “Well, it’s a start. I suggest you go and tell Molly that. No, don’t give me that face. Go and talk to the mother of your baby.” He finally picked up his son, who was starting to fuss. “And Sherlock? Don’t try and be clever. Just be honest.”
“Oh thanks very much.” Sherlock rolled his eyes.
----
Sherlock stood outside Molly’s office. He took a deep breath, ran his hands through his hair and straightened his lapels. He raised his hand to knock, and then changed his mind. He turned round as if to leave, and then turned back. He took another deep breath, and wondered just when a door had become so ominous. If he didn’t knock, it would burst open with all the tension.
---
Molly was supposed to be doing the paperwork for Mr Smith (who had an ordinary name but an extraordinary stomach thing), but actually she was staring at an ultrasound. Well, the ultrasound. What other ultrasound would there be? She let out a long breath and tapped the picture with her pen, turning her list of certainties over and and over. The sky was blue, Toby ate tuna, she was going to be a mother, Sherlock Holmes--. There was a knock on the door.
---
“Come in?” Molly sounded tired, like she hadn’t been getting much sleep. Honesty, John had said. Right. Sherlock opened the door, and the future spilled out.
---
The door opened, and Molly realised that if Sherlock was in your life, a list of little certainties was completely ridiculous.