Ficlet: We'll See (Sherlock, Gen, 1700 words, Teen)

[rsadelle]

Summary: Molly stops smiling politely at her. She turns her back and sits down on the coffee table in front of Sherlock. "What do you need?" After a moment of looking at his face, she amends the question. "What do you need that I can give you?"

Disclaimer: Not mine, no money being made.

Notes: Spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall."

Story on AO3


"I need your help."

Irene Adler is too practiced at maintaining her demeanor to let Sherlock Holmes' voice in a dark hotel room startle her.

"Do you?" Irene turns on the light. "And why should I help you?"

"I jumped off a roof," Sherlock says. "I let John believe I was dead." He takes a deep breath. "I need your help."

Irene sits in the other chair. "And you did help me to do something very similar. Very well, what am I helping you to do? Is this about our mutual friend?"

"He's dead."

Irene raises an eyebrow. "So are we."

"I watched his brain matter bleed out onto a roof."

"Then what are we doing?"

"He had an entire network. It will need to be dismantled."

"Dismantled? Not taken over?"

Sherlock shoots her a look. "No."

"Pity," Irene says. Then, at his look, "Very well." Irene takes out her phone. "What do we do first?"

*

Molly comes out of the kitchen and stops with her hand to her chest. "Oh, you scared me."

Sherlock's coat flares out around him as he sits on her couch.

There's a knock at the door, and Sherlock sighs. "You should get that. She'll only keep knocking if you don't."

There is, indeed, a woman at the door, better dressed than nearly anyone Molly has ever met. Toby rubs up against her ankles when she comes in.

The woman looks down. "A cat."

"You were dead," Molly says after a moment. "You were on my table. Irene Adler."

"And you must be Molly Hooper," Ms. Adler says. "Mr. Holmes has told me nothing about you."

Molly stops smiling politely at her. She turns her back and sits down on the coffee table in front of Sherlock. "What do you need?" After a moment of looking at his face, she amends the question. "What do you need that I can give you?"

"Data," he says. "I need data."

Molly nods and starts talking. "John's working at the hospital. Full time. We have lunch sometimes, in the canteen." Molly presses her lips together for a second. "He doesn't have anyone to not look sad for. Mrs. Hudson says he won't come to Baker Street. They meet in a cafe around the corner. She's keeping your flat, until he's ready to come back. She said she's let the basement flat, to a nice girl who teaches primary school. I only see Sergeant Lestrade when he has to come to the morgue." She pauses. "I think," she hesitates, "I think he tries to come in when I'm not there. They suspended him for a while, and then demoted him. His ex-wife got married two weeks ago." Molly falls silent for a moment.

"You're quite the conversationalist," Ms. Adler says from behind her. "Any other tragedies you'd like to relate?"

"He misses you," Molly tells Sherlock. "He misses you desperately."

"I can't imagine," Ms. Adler says, and this time Molly looks at her, "why he hasn't mentioned you more often."

"Irene," Sherlock snaps.

From the look on the other woman's face, she's as surprised by it as Molly is.

Molly turns to Sherlock again. "Have you slept? Or eaten? John says you don't sleep or eat much when you're on a case, and you've been on this one for a while. There's plenty of space." She glances over her shoulder at Irene. "There's my bed, and I have a lilo and the couch. I can make you something to eat first, if you want."

"Something light," Sherlock says. "Digestion slows me down."

"Makes him sick," Ms. Adler says. "You so much as think about giving him a cream sauce and he'll throw up all over your shoes."

Sherlock gets a look on his face that Molly knows him well enough to know means that's something he actually did.

"I'll make you some toast," Molly says, "and some tea. Herbal. It won't keep you up."

"You keep your bed. I'll take the couch. Miss Adler can sleep on the lilo. Less likely to have cat hair," he says over her shoulder.

"Okay," Molly says. "Let me make your tea. I'll get them set up while you eat."

Sherlock follows her into the kitchen. Ms. Adler comes along a moment later. Like Toby, Molly thinks, pretending it's her own idea.

Molly makes three cups.

"Chamomile," Ms. Adler says.

"It's very calming. I drank a lot of it-" Molly doesn't finish her sentence.

Sherlock looks at her sharply, but says only, "With honey."

"It's not very good without anything in it," Molly admits. "Besides, it's good for you, and it'll give you a little more food that-" She stops. "It won't get in the way of your thinking." She leaves the honey on the table. "If you want more, or you want it on your toast." She also gets the butter and three kinds of jam out of the fridge.

Sherlock eats his toast dry. Ms. Adler slathers hers with butter and two different kinds of jam.

Molly leaves them to it and sets up the lilo and extra blankets on the couch.

There's an awkward moment, after Molly puts the plates in the sink and everything else away. "Good night," she finally says.

*

Molly wakes up to a voice saying her name. Sherlock's voice. He's looming over her. The light in the living room is on, and she can barely see his face in the light it lets into the room. Ms. Adler is silhouetted in the doorway.

"Sherlock?"

"We're leaving."

"Oh," Molly says. "All right." She blinks at him. "I'll keep having lunch with John. You can come back if you want. If you need anything."

Sherlock rests his hand on her hair for a moment. "Thank you."

Molly's still asleep enough to touch him back, put her hand on his arm. "Of course."

*

"No." John stops just inside the conference room, leaving Molly, Mrs. Hudson, Sergeant Lestrade, and Sergeant Donovan to spill into the room around him. "No. You died. I watched you die."

"John," Sherlock says.

"You died," John says.

"Oh, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson says. She hugs him, but he keeps watching John over her shoulder.

"Sherlock Holmes." Sergeant Lestrade's voice is faint, and he gropes for a chair to sit in.

"Trust him not to stay dead." Even Sergeant Donovan is quiet about it.

"I appeared to be dead. I wasn't."

"Miss Hooper," Mycroft says from the other side of the room. Being noticed by him is quite frightening. "You don't seem surprised."

All attention turns to her.

"Molly," John says tightly. "Molly knew."

"I needed her help."

"I would have helped you!"

"He was going to kill you!" Sherlock's shout stops everyone. "You, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade. If I didn't jump. They would have killed you."

*

Sherlock stops by the morgue.

"Shouldn't you be with John?" Molly asks.

"He's angry," Sherlock says. "He won't be back to the flat for another hour or two."

They stand in the middle of Molly's morgue and stare at each other.

"What do you need?" Sherlock asks. "What do you need that I can give you?"

Molly steps toward him and carefully puts her arms around him. "I'm glad you're back."

He hugs back as if he doesn't quite know how.

Molly steps away when the door to the morgue opens.

"Is this a bad time?" Jeremiah pokes his head through the door.

"No, no, come in." Molly waves him over.

"I have the results you wanted."

"Thank you." Molly takes the folder from him and hugs it to her chest. "This is Jeremiah. He works here now. Jeremiah, this is Sherlock Holmes."

Jeremiah holds out his hand, but takes it back when Sherlock doesn't take it. "The detective, right."

"Consulting detective."

Jeremiah says, "I didn't know you knew him," to Molly.

"Yes," Molly says. "Yes. I do." She finds herself clutching at the file folder and loosens her grip so she doesn't crumple it.

"Well," Jeremiah says. "It was nice to meet you."

"Not going to say anything?" Molly asks when Jeremiah leaves and Sherlock doesn't comment on him.

"Do you want me to?"

Molly considers that for a moment and then asks, "Is he gay, married, or a criminal mastermind?"

"No," Sherlock says, "but he has had previous relationships that didn't end well. He won't initiate a relationship."

Molly nods and smiles at him. "Then I'll have to."

Sherlock puts one hand on her face and kisses her other cheek. "For an ordinary woman, Molly Hooper," he says, "you are extraordinary."

Molly puts her hand over his. "I love you too."

*

Molly pokes her head into the lab. "Fancy a drink after work?"

Jeremiah looks up from the microscope and smiles at her, nothing like Sherlock, nothing like Jim. "I'd love to."

*

"You let me believe you were dead," John says. "You let me believe you were dead." He changes the pauses between words the second time.

"It was the only way."

"It wasn't the only way!" John shouts. "We could have done something. I could have helped you."

"He would have killed you!" Sherlock shouts back. "Do you understand that? He would have killed you. His whole web of connections, they all knew that all they have to do to get to me is threaten you."

"So you get to choose to die instead? What makes you think that was what I wanted?"

Sherlock actually takes a step back. Then he steps forward again and grips John's arms. "No," he says fiercely. "If anything ever happens to me, you have to go on."

"What makes you think I want to live in a world without you? Do you have any idea, any idea-" John doesn't finish the question, but then he doesn't need to, not for Sherlock.

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Sherlock's eyes cut toward the door. "Molly said Mrs. Hudson rented out the basement. To a teacher. It's summer."

They stare at each other for another moment before they both start laughing.

"Well," John says when he can speak again, "now they know what sort of madness they're in for." He steps around Sherlock to the kitchen. "We're going to have tea, and you're going to tell me about it."

Sherlock follows him. "For the blog?"

"I don't know. Tell me and we'll see." John puts the kettle on, and Sherlock starts to talk.

Comments

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

I liked this, especially the Irene-Molly interaction.

[rsadelle]

Thanks!