On the tenth day of Sherlockmas... "Starting Over," a gift fic for scandalbaby
Title: Starting Over
Author: [redacted]
Recipient: scandalbaby
Rating:R if you really reach for it, more like PG13/Teen
Warnings: Mentions of infidelity, crime scene descriptions in passing, mentions of sex and sexual situations but nothing overly explicit.
Pairing(s): Greg/Molly, The Ponds
Summary: A Doctor Who Crossover, of sorts. Amy sees a familiar face and can’t help but meddle. Greg and Molly are on the outs thanks to Sherlock’s return and her part in the grand lie, but neither wants to admit how much they miss the other.
The pert, laughing red-head at the end of the bar was far too young for him. She was pretty, he’d give her that much, and it was flattering to have her giving him second, third, and yes, even fourth looks, but his heart just wasn’t in it. The idea of even flirting with her made him shift uneasily on the barstool and keep his eyes on his drink as if it held the meaning of life in its depths.
“Girlfriend stood you up, then?”
Greg barely flinched when the lilting voice sounded close to his ear. He’d had a feeling this might happen and readied his best ‘now, now, I’m far too old for you’ smile and gentle send-off as he glanced up at the young woman. He paused, his mouth open, and heard the words coming before he could stop them. “No girlfriend. We’re just casual.” One auburn brown shot upwards and the young woman’s face underwent a rapid shift from sympathetic to amused to wary. Maybe I misread her interest, Greg thought, scrambling to recover before she screamed for a bouncer. “Sorry, what I meant was-“
“No, no, I get it, I get it. I just…Well, no offense, but I’m not hitting on you. I’m married.” She flashed her left hand with it’s plain gold band. “It’s just you remind me of a man I met a while back, someone who helped a friend of mine. My best friend, really. And I never really got the chance to tell him goodbye before my friend had to leave him back in his…in his own place. And I wondered what’d happened to him.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“He’s called the Doctor.”
“Doctor who? It’s not Doctor Watson, is it?” He racked his memories for any time John might have introduced him to the red-haired young woman sitting on the barstool next to him, but came up blank. “Are you even old enough to be in here?”
Her laugh was sharp and made several people around them turn and look, giving the odd pairing a twice or thrice over: the rumpled, half-tipsy, middle aged copper and the young, pretty, vivacious woman with the legs that went on forever and the bright eyes that laughed at everything around them. Her eyes made him think of Molly, of how she could look serious, gravely so, but her eyes would always give her amusement away. It had taken him a year to get up the nerve to ask her to coffee, a year in which his divorce was finalized and the furor around Sherlock had faded. Six coffee dates, two late suppers, and several phone calls that edged from late at night to oh-god-thirty in the morning, and they went back to hers for the first time. And then the second. By the third time, he was starting to think that this could be something more, something better than he’d hoped… But then Sherlock came back and all Hell broke loose.
“You must be pretty far gone,” the girl remarked. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said but you’ve been staring at me with this look like the one my friend the Doctor gets when he thinks about custard.”
Greg schooled his features into neutrality, feeling a faint flush rise up his throat. “What’d you say your name was again?”
She paused. “Amelia,” she finally replied. “Amelia Pond. But you can call me Amy. Come on.”
Greg found himself tugged from the barstool by her surprisingly strong grasp, stumbling to keep up as she led him through the thickening crowd. It was only nine o’clock but already the pub was packed in anticipation of the midnight hour. “Oi, where’re we going? I’m a copper, you know… I don’t take well to kidnapping, even by pretty girls.”
Amy laughed as they staggered into the cold night and the throng of people passing by on the pavement outside the Queen’s Cock. “So why isn’t she with you, your casual friend? Does she have another casual friend she’s seeing?” Amy didn’t let go of his wrist, leading him upstream through the crowd before ducking sideways into a narrow, gated garden hung with fairy lights and tiny mirror balls. The garden walls were high enough to muffle street sounds and the party going on inside the building was a dull roar. She dropped his wrist and folded her arms, leaning back against the closed gate with an expectant look on her face. “Well?”
“Who are you?” Greg asked wearily. “Bloody hell, why am I even telling you these things? We had a…well, a huge row, actually, and we decided that maybe casual was the best way to go. She kept something big from me, from a lot of people, and I just…” he trailed off, raked his fingers through his already disheveled hair. “I must be off my face, telling this shite to a total stranger.”
“I have that effect on people,” Amy replied, not unkindly. “Look, the thing is… I’m not even supposed to be here. Not in London, not at that pub, not in this garden… My friend would have kittens if he knew what I was doing. Life isn’t as long as we always think it is, though, and I couldn’t…well, you looked sad. I spent decades shoving away the person I loved most, looking for this…this idea, this raggedy doctor I’d built up in my mind. And then I found him, this ideal man, and…” She huffed a laugh and shook her head. “He’s my best friend. He’s more than that, beyond that, but he’s not Rory. Rory waited centuries for me. I would tear apart time and space for him. This lie your casual friend told… did it hurt anyone, other than their pride?”
Greg drew back at her sharp, demanding tone. “Now, see here, Amy…”
“Oh, for-Just answer me! I’m not going to go plaster all over London that you had actual feelings you needed to express!”
He hesitated a moment more, and felt his resistance crumble under her narrow-eyed glare. She really does remind me of Molly… “No. It actually helped someone very important to me. It…it protected several people, including myself.”
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm?”
Her lips quirked into a small smile. “You’re mad at her because she kept a secret, told a huge lie, that not only helped someone, it protected you as well?”
Greg wished he’d finished that last pint. “Sound a bit of a twat when you put it like that, don’t I?”
“Just a bit, yeah.” Amy pushed away from the gate and stepped into his personal space, laying her hands on his shoulders and squeezing gently. “Look, I can’t make you do anything. But there’s enough shit in this world, in the Universe, really, that you don’t need to make things worse on yourself and on her. Do you love her?”
He shook his head, he nodded. “I think…maybe. Maybe soon.”
“Does she love you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said that Rory waited centuries for me. He’s the most devoted, kind…wonderful man in the Universe. And I would lie to him in a heartbeat if it meant keeping him safe.” She dropped her hands to her side and her smile slipped away. “Where’s your casual friend tonight?”
“Some party for her work. Hotel in the city,” he added, shrugging. “Fancy dress.”
Amy raked a critical eye over his rumpled clothing, sixteen hours worn and looking every minute of it. “You can go as a stereotypical copper then,” she remarked decisively. “Come on, walk me to the cab rank.”
Greg opened the gate and ushered her out onto the pavement as if they hadn’t just had the strangest encounter of his life (and in a life that includes Sherlock, that’s a feat). They were quiet until they reached the cab rank. “Your friend, the one I remind you of… Maybe you should go find him tonight, yeah? Tell him you were worried.”
“I don’t think I can.” She looked up at the stars and smiled softly. “He died a long time ago. And the Doctor isn’t keen on going to Africa, not when we’re supposed to see the triple sunrise on Demoria Six.”
“Uh…”
A cab pulled up and she laughed. “Goodnight, copper, and Happy New Year. You have two hours to find your casual friend!”
Greg watched her disappear into the cab and frowned. I’ve done stranger things than take advice from a total stranger, he finally admitted to himself. He was hailing a cab before he knew for sure what he was doing, stepping out into the road and waving one arm as if his life depended upon it. If this works, I’m naming our first child Amy. If it doesn’t… The flippant voice in his head stopped cold. He didn’t even want to think about it not working.
***
Molly’s cat ears itched. Apparently, ‘fancy dress’ meant “everyone wear a lab coat and pretend you’re a different kind of doctor” and not “wear an actual bloody costume.” She sank lower in her seat and prayed for midnight. All around her, co-workers and acquaintances oozed confidence and happiness, chattered and drank and danced. All she wanted to do was go home, throw out the damned cat ears and pinned-on tail, watch telly and pray that the new year was better than this one. Sherlock was back in full force, probably hunkered in her lab even now, appropriating equipment, John ruining another potential relationship by spending time with him instead of on his new year’s eve date. Molly frowned and drained the last of her pink champagne. Never mind that the date was with her and any potential relationship was strictly theoretical. She had known it had been a pity-ask, that John had suggested they go together because he knew she was heartbroken over Greg (she lied, lied again when she said she was fine keeping things casual, that she understood he couldn’t trust her now, that…she sighed and grabbed another drink as the tray passed by ) and she knew that, in a few short months, if not weeks, she’d be back to being mousey Molly, gray and taupe and dun, tucked away in the morgue, quiet and forgotten. Greg wouldn’t look at her twice, she was certain. He had barely looked at her earlier when he had come by the lab with Sherlock. She smiled, she giggled nervously… Even John looked pained. Probably why he chose examining brain spatter patterns with Sherlock over spending a few hours with you, Molly-girl. He could smell the pathetic desperation wafting from you like rot. Molly barely had time to get a deep sigh out before someone plopped down on the narrow sofa next to her and grinned.
“I’m Rory.”
Molly stared, blinked, and stared some more. “Er…”
“I know, big nose, weird ears, but there ya go.” He laughed a bit nervously and took her champagne flute. “Do you mind? No? Thanks. Look, the thing is, and feel free to think I’m mad because I certainly am starting to, my wife just texted me that I needed to come here, find you and make sure you stayed put.”
“Okay,” Molly drawled, leaning as far back as she could. The man-Rory-looked a bit familiar and she thought she might recognize him from Bart’s, perhaps one of the students who did a rotation through the path lab, or maybe the caff? “Why does your wife want me to stay put, then?” She mentally mapped the exits, in case she needed to make a quick escape and wondered what the protocol was for calling your not-ex not-boyfriend for help when you were cornered by a drunk at a work party.
“Knowing Amy, it’s for something the Doctor’s going to go spare over but find amusing and charming after the fact,” Rory sighed. “I’m supposed to stay with you until I ‘see someone familiar’ and she and the Doctor will pick me up.”
“I’m sorry,” Molly said, leaning a bit closer, key words finally pinging her radar. “You keep mentioning the doctor…which one? You’re in a room full of them and you look like someone I’ve seen at Bart’s. Are you, er…is your wife…I mean…”
Rory looked confused for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Oh, no! Neither of us are under care, mental or otherwise! The Doctor is our friend. We just…we call him that.”
“What’s his real name? I’m not sure it’s quite on to call yourself Doctor unless you actually are one!”
Rory shrugged. “No idea. My daughter probably knows…” He smiled tightly, a bit abstractedly, before his face cleared and he snagged a passing tray of nibbles. “My wife-Amy, that is-probably has done something horribly risky and accessed TARDIS info-banks to find your name. Or you’re important to some major planetary war or something.”
Molly felt her champagne-fuzzed brain grind to a halt. “I-pardon me? TARDIS? What…war?” She shook her head and set the tray down on the side table. “Look, Rory, I’m sure you’re a lovely person, but you may have had too much to drink. Or possibly too much to smoke. So I’m going to go make a phone call on the balcony and you’re going to sit right here till I get back, then I’m going to get you home. Your home,” she added at his rather started expression. “Do you know where you live, Rory?”
He rolled his eyes, rubbed his hands on his jeans and looked around almost desperately before finally replying. “Look, I know it sounds daft but just…just trust me for a few, yeah? It’s almost midnight, the Doctor is probably dressing down Amy even as we speak, and whatever or whoever we’re waiting for is on their way and it won’t be long now. And I’d rather deal with you thinking I’m insane than Amy’s disappointed pout when I get back to the TARDIS.”
“You keep saying that word,” Molly muttered, trying to subtly rummage in her pocket for her mobile. “Rory, how much have you had to drink tonight?”
“Oi, Molly!” A jovial Mike Stamford leaned against the back of the sofa, red-faced and grinning. “Looks like we got too wild! Someone’s called the rozzers on us!”
“I…what?” An irrational hope leaped in her breast but she squashed it down ruthlessly-unless there was a murder, an office New Year’s party was most definitely not Greg’s division. Mike careened off in search of his wife and Rory got to his feet, holding out a hand to help Molly to hers. “Why would someone call the police on a bunch of doctors?”
Rory grinned suddenly, his eyes not on her but on someone near the door. “Oh, yeah,” he crooned, “I can see the resemblance!”
“Pardon?”
His attention returned to her with laser focus. “Molly, listen to me… I’m not the smartest man in the world but I know what it’s like to love someone so much, you’re sick with it. You’d rather live for ten minutes in their attention than a lifetime without having known it once.” Molly found herself nodding, her heart squeezing oddly and stomach fluttering. “But I know what it’s like when that fades off, and you love someone enough to wait centuries, even if they don’t look at you like they look at him, or even when that bright flame is just a dull glow.” He squeezed her wrists gently and smiled. “I know why Amy wanted me to wait with you, to make sure you stayed. The two of us, Amy and me? We waited for centuries. We doubted and wondered and wandered about, and it took centuries to find one another again. Don’t push him away, Molly. Not everyone gets the chance to wait forever.”
She stared, open-mouthed, and felt as if the floor were heaving beneath her feet. “What-“
“My ride’ll be here soon,” Rory said, cutting her off. “Ta for the champers. Happy New Year!” He lunged into the crowd and Molly lost sight of him in just a breath.
“Good Lord,” she muttered. “Tonight’s over!”
“I really hope not.”
She froze, the soft, low voice behind her sending a shiver down her spine. “Greg.”
“I, um… I wanted to find you, to end the year on a good note.”
She nodded once, curt. “I take it Sherlock’s done in the lab?”
“Molly, that’s not why I’m here. Turn around. Please.”
Molly hesitated, closed her eyes and took a breath, then turned to face Greg. He looked…terrible, she realized. Tired, scruffy in a not-sexy way, a bit tipsy, but intent. Intent on u can’t trust me,” she blurted. her. “You can’t trust me,” she blurted. “Your ex lied to you and it destroyed your marriage.”
He winced. “You don’t have to repeat it back to me, Molls. I know…I know what I said, and I’m a prat for making it seem like what Jenny did and what you did are the same.”
“I can’t take it back, Greg. I can’t. And I don’t think I would, if I could. It kept you, and John, and Mrs. Hudson alive. It saved Sherlock’s life.” She felt tears prickling the back of her eyes as, around her, the crowd grew louder, midnight fast approaching. “I can’t keep this casual, Greg. I’m miserable!”
He nodded. “Me, too.” He reached for her, hands going to the sides of her face, thumbs tracing her jaw. “Molly, I’m sorry for being a prat. I can’t help being hurt but I could have at least tried to understand.”
“I’m sorry you were a prat, too,” she said, and flushed darkly. “Oh, I didin’t mean-“
Greg’s laugh was loud and heart-felt. “Yeah, you did. Molly,” the crowd had started counting, so he had to almost shout to be heard. “Molly, listen… I can’t fix what I fucked up with you, but can we try again? Please?”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes, please.”
He smiled, looking less tense, less pained. “Happy New Year, Molly,” he shouted over the roar of the party, closing the distance between them as he pulled her into a kiss. Molly tangled her fingers into his hair, gripped his jacket, and felt herself melt against him, familiar and new at the same time. It wasn’t new, but at the same time it was as if the clock had reset for them, a first kiss to start a new relationship. Beneath the cheer and the music, a wheezing groan tugged at their hearing, drawing them both apart. “What the Hell is that?” Greg asked in her ear. “Sounds like the heating’s fucked.”
Molly smiled. “Heating at mine is working just fine…”
Greg paused, then grinned. “Prove it.”
Author: [redacted]
Recipient: scandalbaby
Rating:R if you really reach for it, more like PG13/Teen
Warnings: Mentions of infidelity, crime scene descriptions in passing, mentions of sex and sexual situations but nothing overly explicit.
Pairing(s): Greg/Molly, The Ponds
Summary: A Doctor Who Crossover, of sorts. Amy sees a familiar face and can’t help but meddle. Greg and Molly are on the outs thanks to Sherlock’s return and her part in the grand lie, but neither wants to admit how much they miss the other.
The pert, laughing red-head at the end of the bar was far too young for him. She was pretty, he’d give her that much, and it was flattering to have her giving him second, third, and yes, even fourth looks, but his heart just wasn’t in it. The idea of even flirting with her made him shift uneasily on the barstool and keep his eyes on his drink as if it held the meaning of life in its depths.
“Girlfriend stood you up, then?”
Greg barely flinched when the lilting voice sounded close to his ear. He’d had a feeling this might happen and readied his best ‘now, now, I’m far too old for you’ smile and gentle send-off as he glanced up at the young woman. He paused, his mouth open, and heard the words coming before he could stop them. “No girlfriend. We’re just casual.” One auburn brown shot upwards and the young woman’s face underwent a rapid shift from sympathetic to amused to wary. Maybe I misread her interest, Greg thought, scrambling to recover before she screamed for a bouncer. “Sorry, what I meant was-“
“No, no, I get it, I get it. I just…Well, no offense, but I’m not hitting on you. I’m married.” She flashed her left hand with it’s plain gold band. “It’s just you remind me of a man I met a while back, someone who helped a friend of mine. My best friend, really. And I never really got the chance to tell him goodbye before my friend had to leave him back in his…in his own place. And I wondered what’d happened to him.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“He’s called the Doctor.”
“Doctor who? It’s not Doctor Watson, is it?” He racked his memories for any time John might have introduced him to the red-haired young woman sitting on the barstool next to him, but came up blank. “Are you even old enough to be in here?”
Her laugh was sharp and made several people around them turn and look, giving the odd pairing a twice or thrice over: the rumpled, half-tipsy, middle aged copper and the young, pretty, vivacious woman with the legs that went on forever and the bright eyes that laughed at everything around them. Her eyes made him think of Molly, of how she could look serious, gravely so, but her eyes would always give her amusement away. It had taken him a year to get up the nerve to ask her to coffee, a year in which his divorce was finalized and the furor around Sherlock had faded. Six coffee dates, two late suppers, and several phone calls that edged from late at night to oh-god-thirty in the morning, and they went back to hers for the first time. And then the second. By the third time, he was starting to think that this could be something more, something better than he’d hoped… But then Sherlock came back and all Hell broke loose.
“You must be pretty far gone,” the girl remarked. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said but you’ve been staring at me with this look like the one my friend the Doctor gets when he thinks about custard.”
Greg schooled his features into neutrality, feeling a faint flush rise up his throat. “What’d you say your name was again?”
She paused. “Amelia,” she finally replied. “Amelia Pond. But you can call me Amy. Come on.”
Greg found himself tugged from the barstool by her surprisingly strong grasp, stumbling to keep up as she led him through the thickening crowd. It was only nine o’clock but already the pub was packed in anticipation of the midnight hour. “Oi, where’re we going? I’m a copper, you know… I don’t take well to kidnapping, even by pretty girls.”
Amy laughed as they staggered into the cold night and the throng of people passing by on the pavement outside the Queen’s Cock. “So why isn’t she with you, your casual friend? Does she have another casual friend she’s seeing?” Amy didn’t let go of his wrist, leading him upstream through the crowd before ducking sideways into a narrow, gated garden hung with fairy lights and tiny mirror balls. The garden walls were high enough to muffle street sounds and the party going on inside the building was a dull roar. She dropped his wrist and folded her arms, leaning back against the closed gate with an expectant look on her face. “Well?”
“Who are you?” Greg asked wearily. “Bloody hell, why am I even telling you these things? We had a…well, a huge row, actually, and we decided that maybe casual was the best way to go. She kept something big from me, from a lot of people, and I just…” he trailed off, raked his fingers through his already disheveled hair. “I must be off my face, telling this shite to a total stranger.”
“I have that effect on people,” Amy replied, not unkindly. “Look, the thing is… I’m not even supposed to be here. Not in London, not at that pub, not in this garden… My friend would have kittens if he knew what I was doing. Life isn’t as long as we always think it is, though, and I couldn’t…well, you looked sad. I spent decades shoving away the person I loved most, looking for this…this idea, this raggedy doctor I’d built up in my mind. And then I found him, this ideal man, and…” She huffed a laugh and shook her head. “He’s my best friend. He’s more than that, beyond that, but he’s not Rory. Rory waited centuries for me. I would tear apart time and space for him. This lie your casual friend told… did it hurt anyone, other than their pride?”
Greg drew back at her sharp, demanding tone. “Now, see here, Amy…”
“Oh, for-Just answer me! I’m not going to go plaster all over London that you had actual feelings you needed to express!”
He hesitated a moment more, and felt his resistance crumble under her narrow-eyed glare. She really does remind me of Molly… “No. It actually helped someone very important to me. It…it protected several people, including myself.”
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm?”
Her lips quirked into a small smile. “You’re mad at her because she kept a secret, told a huge lie, that not only helped someone, it protected you as well?”
Greg wished he’d finished that last pint. “Sound a bit of a twat when you put it like that, don’t I?”
“Just a bit, yeah.” Amy pushed away from the gate and stepped into his personal space, laying her hands on his shoulders and squeezing gently. “Look, I can’t make you do anything. But there’s enough shit in this world, in the Universe, really, that you don’t need to make things worse on yourself and on her. Do you love her?”
He shook his head, he nodded. “I think…maybe. Maybe soon.”
“Does she love you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said that Rory waited centuries for me. He’s the most devoted, kind…wonderful man in the Universe. And I would lie to him in a heartbeat if it meant keeping him safe.” She dropped her hands to her side and her smile slipped away. “Where’s your casual friend tonight?”
“Some party for her work. Hotel in the city,” he added, shrugging. “Fancy dress.”
Amy raked a critical eye over his rumpled clothing, sixteen hours worn and looking every minute of it. “You can go as a stereotypical copper then,” she remarked decisively. “Come on, walk me to the cab rank.”
Greg opened the gate and ushered her out onto the pavement as if they hadn’t just had the strangest encounter of his life (and in a life that includes Sherlock, that’s a feat). They were quiet until they reached the cab rank. “Your friend, the one I remind you of… Maybe you should go find him tonight, yeah? Tell him you were worried.”
“I don’t think I can.” She looked up at the stars and smiled softly. “He died a long time ago. And the Doctor isn’t keen on going to Africa, not when we’re supposed to see the triple sunrise on Demoria Six.”
“Uh…”
A cab pulled up and she laughed. “Goodnight, copper, and Happy New Year. You have two hours to find your casual friend!”
Greg watched her disappear into the cab and frowned. I’ve done stranger things than take advice from a total stranger, he finally admitted to himself. He was hailing a cab before he knew for sure what he was doing, stepping out into the road and waving one arm as if his life depended upon it. If this works, I’m naming our first child Amy. If it doesn’t… The flippant voice in his head stopped cold. He didn’t even want to think about it not working.
***
Molly’s cat ears itched. Apparently, ‘fancy dress’ meant “everyone wear a lab coat and pretend you’re a different kind of doctor” and not “wear an actual bloody costume.” She sank lower in her seat and prayed for midnight. All around her, co-workers and acquaintances oozed confidence and happiness, chattered and drank and danced. All she wanted to do was go home, throw out the damned cat ears and pinned-on tail, watch telly and pray that the new year was better than this one. Sherlock was back in full force, probably hunkered in her lab even now, appropriating equipment, John ruining another potential relationship by spending time with him instead of on his new year’s eve date. Molly frowned and drained the last of her pink champagne. Never mind that the date was with her and any potential relationship was strictly theoretical. She had known it had been a pity-ask, that John had suggested they go together because he knew she was heartbroken over Greg (she lied, lied again when she said she was fine keeping things casual, that she understood he couldn’t trust her now, that…she sighed and grabbed another drink as the tray passed by ) and she knew that, in a few short months, if not weeks, she’d be back to being mousey Molly, gray and taupe and dun, tucked away in the morgue, quiet and forgotten. Greg wouldn’t look at her twice, she was certain. He had barely looked at her earlier when he had come by the lab with Sherlock. She smiled, she giggled nervously… Even John looked pained. Probably why he chose examining brain spatter patterns with Sherlock over spending a few hours with you, Molly-girl. He could smell the pathetic desperation wafting from you like rot. Molly barely had time to get a deep sigh out before someone plopped down on the narrow sofa next to her and grinned.
“I’m Rory.”
Molly stared, blinked, and stared some more. “Er…”
“I know, big nose, weird ears, but there ya go.” He laughed a bit nervously and took her champagne flute. “Do you mind? No? Thanks. Look, the thing is, and feel free to think I’m mad because I certainly am starting to, my wife just texted me that I needed to come here, find you and make sure you stayed put.”
“Okay,” Molly drawled, leaning as far back as she could. The man-Rory-looked a bit familiar and she thought she might recognize him from Bart’s, perhaps one of the students who did a rotation through the path lab, or maybe the caff? “Why does your wife want me to stay put, then?” She mentally mapped the exits, in case she needed to make a quick escape and wondered what the protocol was for calling your not-ex not-boyfriend for help when you were cornered by a drunk at a work party.
“Knowing Amy, it’s for something the Doctor’s going to go spare over but find amusing and charming after the fact,” Rory sighed. “I’m supposed to stay with you until I ‘see someone familiar’ and she and the Doctor will pick me up.”
“I’m sorry,” Molly said, leaning a bit closer, key words finally pinging her radar. “You keep mentioning the doctor…which one? You’re in a room full of them and you look like someone I’ve seen at Bart’s. Are you, er…is your wife…I mean…”
Rory looked confused for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Oh, no! Neither of us are under care, mental or otherwise! The Doctor is our friend. We just…we call him that.”
“What’s his real name? I’m not sure it’s quite on to call yourself Doctor unless you actually are one!”
Rory shrugged. “No idea. My daughter probably knows…” He smiled tightly, a bit abstractedly, before his face cleared and he snagged a passing tray of nibbles. “My wife-Amy, that is-probably has done something horribly risky and accessed TARDIS info-banks to find your name. Or you’re important to some major planetary war or something.”
Molly felt her champagne-fuzzed brain grind to a halt. “I-pardon me? TARDIS? What…war?” She shook her head and set the tray down on the side table. “Look, Rory, I’m sure you’re a lovely person, but you may have had too much to drink. Or possibly too much to smoke. So I’m going to go make a phone call on the balcony and you’re going to sit right here till I get back, then I’m going to get you home. Your home,” she added at his rather started expression. “Do you know where you live, Rory?”
He rolled his eyes, rubbed his hands on his jeans and looked around almost desperately before finally replying. “Look, I know it sounds daft but just…just trust me for a few, yeah? It’s almost midnight, the Doctor is probably dressing down Amy even as we speak, and whatever or whoever we’re waiting for is on their way and it won’t be long now. And I’d rather deal with you thinking I’m insane than Amy’s disappointed pout when I get back to the TARDIS.”
“You keep saying that word,” Molly muttered, trying to subtly rummage in her pocket for her mobile. “Rory, how much have you had to drink tonight?”
“Oi, Molly!” A jovial Mike Stamford leaned against the back of the sofa, red-faced and grinning. “Looks like we got too wild! Someone’s called the rozzers on us!”
“I…what?” An irrational hope leaped in her breast but she squashed it down ruthlessly-unless there was a murder, an office New Year’s party was most definitely not Greg’s division. Mike careened off in search of his wife and Rory got to his feet, holding out a hand to help Molly to hers. “Why would someone call the police on a bunch of doctors?”
Rory grinned suddenly, his eyes not on her but on someone near the door. “Oh, yeah,” he crooned, “I can see the resemblance!”
“Pardon?”
His attention returned to her with laser focus. “Molly, listen to me… I’m not the smartest man in the world but I know what it’s like to love someone so much, you’re sick with it. You’d rather live for ten minutes in their attention than a lifetime without having known it once.” Molly found herself nodding, her heart squeezing oddly and stomach fluttering. “But I know what it’s like when that fades off, and you love someone enough to wait centuries, even if they don’t look at you like they look at him, or even when that bright flame is just a dull glow.” He squeezed her wrists gently and smiled. “I know why Amy wanted me to wait with you, to make sure you stayed. The two of us, Amy and me? We waited for centuries. We doubted and wondered and wandered about, and it took centuries to find one another again. Don’t push him away, Molly. Not everyone gets the chance to wait forever.”
She stared, open-mouthed, and felt as if the floor were heaving beneath her feet. “What-“
“My ride’ll be here soon,” Rory said, cutting her off. “Ta for the champers. Happy New Year!” He lunged into the crowd and Molly lost sight of him in just a breath.
“Good Lord,” she muttered. “Tonight’s over!”
“I really hope not.”
She froze, the soft, low voice behind her sending a shiver down her spine. “Greg.”
“I, um… I wanted to find you, to end the year on a good note.”
She nodded once, curt. “I take it Sherlock’s done in the lab?”
“Molly, that’s not why I’m here. Turn around. Please.”
Molly hesitated, closed her eyes and took a breath, then turned to face Greg. He looked…terrible, she realized. Tired, scruffy in a not-sexy way, a bit tipsy, but intent. Intent on u can’t trust me,” she blurted. her. “You can’t trust me,” she blurted. “Your ex lied to you and it destroyed your marriage.”
He winced. “You don’t have to repeat it back to me, Molls. I know…I know what I said, and I’m a prat for making it seem like what Jenny did and what you did are the same.”
“I can’t take it back, Greg. I can’t. And I don’t think I would, if I could. It kept you, and John, and Mrs. Hudson alive. It saved Sherlock’s life.” She felt tears prickling the back of her eyes as, around her, the crowd grew louder, midnight fast approaching. “I can’t keep this casual, Greg. I’m miserable!”
He nodded. “Me, too.” He reached for her, hands going to the sides of her face, thumbs tracing her jaw. “Molly, I’m sorry for being a prat. I can’t help being hurt but I could have at least tried to understand.”
“I’m sorry you were a prat, too,” she said, and flushed darkly. “Oh, I didin’t mean-“
Greg’s laugh was loud and heart-felt. “Yeah, you did. Molly,” the crowd had started counting, so he had to almost shout to be heard. “Molly, listen… I can’t fix what I fucked up with you, but can we try again? Please?”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes, please.”
He smiled, looking less tense, less pained. “Happy New Year, Molly,” he shouted over the roar of the party, closing the distance between them as he pulled her into a kiss. Molly tangled her fingers into his hair, gripped his jacket, and felt herself melt against him, familiar and new at the same time. It wasn’t new, but at the same time it was as if the clock had reset for them, a first kiss to start a new relationship. Beneath the cheer and the music, a wheezing groan tugged at their hearing, drawing them both apart. “What the Hell is that?” Greg asked in her ear. “Sounds like the heating’s fucked.”
Molly smiled. “Heating at mine is working just fine…”
Greg paused, then grinned. “Prove it.”