Fic: Playing the Part
Title: Playing the Part
Author: spaciireth
Fandom: BBC's Sherlock
Rating: G
Genre: Angst/Friendship-(or-something-bordering-on-it-because-it’s-Sherlock)
Words: 879
Characters/Pairing: Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes. I guess it could be Molly/Sherlock if you squint, but I wasn’t really aiming for that.
Prompt: 100_women 094: "Lost"
Summary: A safe-house, somewhere in London, the evening of the Fall.
Warnings: SPOILERS for “Reichenbach Fall”.
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me.
Notes: So, since this and the fic I posted yesterday were my first forays into this fandom, I was kind of terrified of writing Sherlock, the character. I have a feeling I’ve maybe made him a bit too sentimental and, well, nice, in this. Please let me know what you think.
“Well done, Miss Hooper. You played your part beautifully.”
Molly didn’t know whether to thank the elder Holmes brother for his compliment, or just stay silent. She decided on the latter. Mycroft handed her a glass of water, which she accepted gratefully and drained in one gulp, before setting the glass down on a coffee table in the room they were occupying. The last few hours were a blur and Molly’s heart still hadn’t quite settled down. Now they were in a flat in a part of London Molly wasn’t very familiar with; the flat was nice enough but apart from a few chairs and the coffee table, rather empty. Molly wondered whose it was and what it was kept for. Mycroft worked for the Government, maybe it was a safe house his department kept for exactly this sort of situation.
“So,” she said, “what happens now?”
“You will have to return to work and give the impression that you are carrying on as normal and didn’t just help us smuggle out a living Sherlock Holmes,” Mycroft explained. “I will help instigate the next part of our plan. You, of course, will be vital to convincing the public that my brother is dead.”
“Right,” Molly replied. So she’d be faking post mortem results, then, or something similar. Not something she’d ever envisaged herself doing, even for Sherlock Holmes. And yet, despite her reservations, she knew she’d do it anyway; this plan couldn’t fail, even she felt that strongly enough.
“And what about Sherlock?” she asked quietly, not entirely sure she wanted to know, but compelled to ask anyway.
“I’ll be getting out of London, lying low for a while,” Sherlock replied himself, walking into the room and lazily sitting down in the unoccupied chair and crossing his legs as though nothing the slightest bit out of the ordinary had happened this afternoon, let alone him faking his own death in order to best a criminal mastermind. He had washed the blood off his face and out of his hair and changed his clothes now, and once again resembled a human being rather than a corpse, something for which Molly was grateful.
“Will I-” Molly began, and then rephrased, “will we ever see you again?”
The tips of Sherlock’s mouth quirked upwards slightly as he regarded her silently, but it wasn’t the mocking smile she was more used to seeing him wear. In fact, if Molly wasn’t mistaken, in amongst the coolness of his gaze, there was even a trace of fondness. Turned out helping him fake his death and disappear was all she had to do to earn his respect. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
“I’m sure I’ll turn up again someday,” was his response to her question. He was still smiling. It was getting a little unnerving now.
It was Mycroft who broke the silence. “Well, Miss Hooper, you should probably be getting home. I’ll send for a car.” He stood up and pulled his phone out of his trouser pocket, wandering into the next room and leaving Molly and Sherlock alone. Molly was never particularly good at being alone with Sherlock, and found herself looking all around the room, anything to not have to meet the eyes that were once again watching her intently.
Finally she bit her lip and broke the silence. “You know, it’s rude to stare.”
“So give me something else to do.”
Molly looked away again; his response didn’t surprise her in the least, but she never knew how to respond to him. She picked up the bag she had brought with her and slung it over her shoulder, standing up. Mycroft would have preferred she not bring anything with her, until she pointed out it would look rather odd for her to return to Bart’s to retrieve her wallet and keys several hours after her shift supposedly ended.
She moved towards the door, thinking that the car Mycroft was calling for her probably wasn’t too far away now. She was surprised when Sherlock stood up behind her and spoke her name. Like that smile before, the tone of his voice didn’t quite match the Sherlock she knew, and when she turned back to him, he looked as though he was having some sort of inner argument with himself.
“If John were here, I expect he’d be telling me that now is one of those times when I should be saying thank you.”
“I’d probably agree with him,” Molly replied, and Sherlock smirked for a moment, before becoming serious again.
“I am... grateful for your help, Molly.” The way he spoke made it sound like the words were almost foreign to him.
Molly gave a small nod. “Any time,” she said quietly.
Mycroft reappeared just then, and beckoned Molly towards the stairs. She nodded and then turned back to Sherlock.
“Goodbye, then, Sherlock.”
He nodded and turned away, saying nothing. Molly followed Mycroft downstairs and out into the black car that was waiting for her. As it pulled away from the curb, she looked out the window and saw Sherlock’s face in the window. A moment later, the curtain was tugged across and he was gone, and Molly was being taken home home to carry on as though everything was normal.