Work Text:
Working in a morgue, Molly saw some gruesome things. She had become accustomed to cold, hard bodies being wheeled in front of her every day. She could ballpark the cause of death from the first glance, glean a pretty good story out from a corpse in under an hour.
She had had the squeamishness beat out of her at medical school. Not that she was all too squeamish in the first place. Human bodies were fascinating, not disgusting. They were entire sacks filled with nothing but meat and muscle and fat and bone, but arrange these in just the right way and you got a human being that had thoughts and emotions and unique capabilities.
She had bereaved family members coming in all the time, identifying the dead, crying their hearts out, saying their last goodbyes. She tried to not get in their way while still providing comfort wherever needed. A coffee from the canteen. A shoulder.
This, this was different, however. Children always got to her. When a corpse was wheeled in and it didn’t entirely fill out the metal slab, when the white sheet clearly outlined a smaller body, a body that had not yet reached its full potential, Molly had to try extra hard to keep the professional distance between herself and everything the corpse in front of her had been. There was always something unnatural about a child dying. She knew it was her primal instincts talking, the whole need to procreate for the betterment of the species and what not. But she was not a doctor that healed the living, she was the one that took care of the dead, and that is what she needed to do.
Still, her resolve always broke a little when parents begged for it not to be their baby. When strong guardians kept it together for as long as their loved ones were in the room, and then broke down when no one was watching.
No, children were never easy.
Molly held open her cloth bag with one hand as she rummaged within for her apartment keys. The elevator dinged and opened on her floor, the smell of burnt bacon wafting in immediately, as if desperate to escape the small corridor.
She would have to ask Andrew how he could possibly not know how to cook bacon next time she saw him. The recent graduate had moved in just a few months ago into the studio at the end of the hall, and since then the corridor had been prey to his culinary disasters. He was a sweet boy, coming round now and again to offer Molly the more edible parts of his dinner.
Molly unlocked her door and took in a lungful of the relatively fresh smell in her apartment. The rubber flap she had attached on the bottom of her front door seemed to do the trick when it came to sealing out the odors of the corridor.
She hung her coat, scarf and bag on the hooks nailed next to the door and walked into the kitchen. Toby pattered over to greet her, weaving in between her legs with his tail held high as she opened the fridge to remind herself what exactly she had left.
“I forgot to get food. Again,” she sighed, pulling out an apple and settling on that as dinner. The week had been tough. Sherlock had been in quite a few times to use her lab and her expertise, throwing her off schedule with her own work. She might have to have a word with Greg about the Yard providing Sherlock with some kind of work space that didn’t intrude into her own. But that was wishful thinking. Plus, who was she to get in the way of saving lives and solving crimes.
But children still died.
Molly shook her head and scooped Toby off the floor with one hand, holding him close. People died. She knew that better than anyone. She couldn’t afford to get depressed every time one of her cases was younger than usual.
A bath. She needed a bath. The late lunch she had had today would tide her over till the morning. She’ll wake up early, get a decent breakfast before work from the deli down the corner, and do the groceries during her lunch break.
With that plan in mind and the prospect of soaking into bubbles, Molly put Toby down on his kittyscape and pushed open the bedroom door.
She found Sherlock Holmes sitting cross-legged smack-dab in the middle of her bed, his shoes toed off and a laptop propped up on a pillow.
“Hello Molly,” he said, looking up to give her a brief smile before turning back to his furious typing.
Molly searched for an appropriate response to finding the man on her bed, but none came to her.
“Is that your dinner?” he asked, nodding toward the bitten apple in her hand without ever really taking his eyes off the screen. “No wonder you’ve been looking frailer these past few days. Did you go through another break up? You tend to lose weight when you lose a lover. I never understood that. You’d think not being dependent on another human being would make you more responsible for your own well-being. At least, that’s how you should—
“Sherlock?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re in my room.”
“Astute as always, Molly.”
“On my bed.”
“Molly if you’re just going to stand there and blurt out the obvious then I would rather you walked out and closed the door behind you. I need to work.”
Molly put down the apple on the nearest flat surface, walked over to the front of the bed, reached over and slammed the laptop shut.
“Molly!”
“How did you get into my house?” Molly asked, her voice rising to match Sherlock’s indignant yell.
He scoffed. “Like that was hard! You need better security than a standard key lock and a cat. Who is extremely irritating, by the way. I had to lock it in the bathroom.”
“You did what?!”
“Just for a few minutes, before I realized you would have this very reaction to finding him there, so I shut myself in your room.” He had opened the laptop lid once more and Molly slammed it shut again, before realizing it was hers and snatching it away from him.
“Sherlock, why are you in my house using my laptop?”
On any other occasion, Molly would have found the resulting arm-crossing and looking away rather adorable, but right now it was eating away at her already limited patience.
“Fine, I’ll just have to ask John then.”
Sherlock was off the bed and standing in front of her by the time she had pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket.
“Don’t do that!”
“And why not?”
“He doesn’t need to know I left the apartment.”
Molly sighed and unlocked her phone. This was going nowhere and she had had a long day—
“An experiment of mine went wrong, alright? John warned me not to do anything within the flat that would cause explosions or toxic odors and this one had a little bit of both and so he was furious and said he couldn’t stand the smell and I told him that he was being dramatic and the smell was barely noticeable but he stormed out to go stay the night at whichever boring teacher or nurse he’s currently dating and I had to leave because the smell was actually really horrible and I needed to record my findings and I would have gone to Mycroft’s if he was out of the country but he’s not and Lestrade’s probably smells worse than mine so I had to come here and if it’s any consolation the first thing your bloody cat did when I came in was scratch me.”
Sherlock raised the leg of his left trouser to display the four red lines that weren’t bleeding but would definitely sting when he took a shower. Molly tried not to smile.
“And you need my laptop?”
“I do, I need to update my site. Please.”
He was being nicer now; must have deduced her day. Molly handed over the laptop, but walked away to hold open the bedroom door.
“You’ll have to work outside.”
“But the WiFi signal is the strongest on your bed!”
“I know, but I need a bath and I need to change out of these clothes, so I need you to wait outside, please.”
Sherlock grudgingly took the laptop from her hands and walked over to the kitchen table, side-eyeing Toby, who was traipsing on the back of the sofa. Feeling bad for having been harsher than she normally would have been, Molly picked the cat up and took him with her inside her room to keep him from disturbing Sherlock.
She plugged up the bath and ran the water, taking off her clothes as she waited for it to fill up. Keeping the door between the bathroom and the bedroom open so she could keep an eye on Toby, she slipped into the steaming water and another long sigh escaped her. When was the last time she had sat down today?
As the knots in her muscles unwound slowly, she leaned her head against the back of the tub and closed her eyes. Her stomach growled, reminding her of her meagre dinner, which was currently sitting on top of her dresser and would no doubt be knocked down by Toby sooner rather than later, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her brain also tried to bring to the forefront that Sherlock Holmes was currently in her apartment and she was completely naked and had she locked the door? Molly decided there were enough bubbles to protect her decency should he decide to unceremoniously barge in and proceeded not to open a single eyelid.
When the water had turned tepid and she was at risk of shrinking into a prune, Molly finally got up and drained the tub. She hosed herself down and grabbed a towel, trying to decide which of her pajamas she wouldn’t mind Sherlock seeing her in. She allowed herself to imagine for a fleeting moment what his face would look like if she walked out in her favorite pair of lingerie that she saved for days she felt especially daring. Smiling to herself, she decided to spare him for tonight and picked out black tights and a long, baggy sweater instead.
Grabbing the bitten-into apple that Toby had miraculously left alone, she opened the door to find Sherlock exactly how she had left him, sitting at the kitchen table hunched over her laptop. The smell of burnt bacon had seeped quite a bit in the lounge, and she was about to light up some candles to combat it when she noticed that the source of smell was right on her table, next to Sherlock.
“You don’t have any food,” Sherlock said, nudging the foil wrapped plate towards her. Molly wordlessly picked up and unwrapped the plate to find a sandwich composed of cold slabs of turkey, sliced cheese, some lettuce that was browning at the edges and rather dark pieces of bacon.
“Did Andrew come over?” Molly asked. It wasn’t uncommon. She was more worried about what Sherlock might have said to him.
“Who?” came the reply, fingers tapping out a constant staccato on the keys.
“The kid who lives down the— Sherlock where did this sandwich come from?”
“I went out to see if any of your neighbors would provide you with dinner. The apartment down the hall had a lot of noise still coming out of it, so I asked him. He seemed pretty happy to help. He likes you.” Sherlock crinkled his nose as he said the last part.
Molly sat down across from him, picking out the lettuce and bacon before taking a bite out of the sandwich. She tried not to think too much into the fact that the man in front of her had gone out of his way, while working no less, to acquire her food. How out of character that seemed.
Toby jumped onto the table to distract her from her thoughts, and she fed him small pieces of bacon to keep him away from Sherlock.
“Is there any place this cat is not allowed?” Sherlock asked, pulling away from the table slightly and taking the laptop with him.
Molly wanted to tell him that technically he was the one trespassing, not her cat, but instead found herself saying, “thank you.”
“For what?” Sherlock frowned.
“For finding me dinner. You didn’t have to.”
“I could have made you something much better if you had anything in,” he replied, as nonchalantly as if it was common knowledge that he could do anything with stoves other than set things on fire.
Molly decided it was safer to just take another bite and chew in silence. This was not how she was expecting her night to go. Not in the slightest. She was going to come home, take a bath, get into bed and slip away from the long, tiring day. Instead, she had found the one man she had a ridiculously juvenile crush on on her bed, and then said man had basically made her dinner. Or, offered to. Perhaps at some later time—
No. This was Sherlock’s way of apologizing for breaking in. And that was all.
“I’m going back to the bed.”
Well, those were words she never would have expected Sherlock to be saying in her apartment, let alone in regards to her bed. She stuffed the last of the sandwich into her mouth and turned around to watch him reposition himself exactly as he was before, in the middle of the double bed and scrunched over the laptop. Molly was very tempted to pull out her phone and take a picture. Toby meowed disapprovingly.
To give her hands something else to do, she picked up the plate and threw out the lettuce and bacon before placing it in the sink. She’d have to thank Andrew the next time she saw him.
Now would be about the time that she tried to sleep…
“Don’t let me stop you from sleeping.”
“I, um… How do you mean?” Molly asked, walking over to the door of the bedroom.
“Unless the sounds of my typing render you incapable of sleep, I don’t see why we both can’t occupy the bed. It’s definitely big enough.”
Molly struggled to find a reason as to why that could not happen, but got distracted by the abrupt silence in the room. He had stopped typing. She suddenly had the feeling that she had his full attention, even though he wasn’t looking at her.
“The wifi really is atrocious outside of this room,” he added in a small voice.
Molly stood at the door for a bit longer, noticing how his eyes were straining to remain on the screen in front of him, how his fingers were poised on top of the keyboard. Then she turned around and walked back out into the lounge. She reveled in how she could feel him watching her as she made sure the front door was locked and Toby’s water bowl was filled, before turning off the lights and returning to the bedroom. She tried hard not to smile as she noticed him visibly relax as he realized that she was taking up on his offer. She heard his typing resume as she went to brush her teeth.
Keeping the bathroom door slightly ajar to let some light out, she got under the covers. Sherlock had moved slightly to the other side so she had plenty of space, but the slight tilt of the bed where he was sitting gave her an elicit thrill.
She wanted to tell him to at least lean against the headboard, his current position couldn’t be comfortable for so long, but the feeling that they were in a fragile balance of proximity stopped her.
She turned on her side slowly, as if she was sharing the bed with a jumpy kitten rather than a grown man, and faced him. His outline was lit up by the soft glow of the laptop screen. He was typing more carefully now, as if trying to reduce the noise of the keys. Her eyes drifted close, and open again, to find that he had slightly moved back on the bed, so that he could stretch his legs in front of him. The last thing she remembered was realizing that she could feel his warmth through the covers, and how that felt really nice.
Molly woke up the next morning with a great start, wondering what that infernal racket was before realizing it was her alarm. She shut it off and huffed into her pillow. She looked up suddenly. She hadn’t been alone last night. Sherlock.
She lifted herself up on her hands to look around her room but found no trace of him. Her bedroom door was closed, which was unusual as she knew Toby hated being locked out of either side of the apartment. She brought herself to get out of bed and check the rest of her place. Her laptop was waiting for her on the kitchen table. So was a brown paper bag. Toby had been shut into her room with her, perhaps precisely for this reason.
She reached in and pulled out a take out container that was filled to the brim with scrambled eggs and toast. There was also a cup of coffee next to it, with a post it note on which was one word.
“Breakfast.”
Molly wasn’t sure if Sherlock felt the need to add the note because he thought she wouldn’t understand the purpose of the food or because he thought he had to say something and a ‘thank you for letting me use your laptop, wifi, and bed last night’ was not Sherlockian enough.
“Well, what do you know Toby. That’s twice that Sherlock Holmes has fed me,” she said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I don’t know about you, but I think I’m growing on him.” She pulled open her laptop and clicked on his precious website to see exactly what it was that had led to all this.
The next time Sherlock showed up in her apartment, John was away at a medical conference, criminals were taking a holiday from their duties, and a certain consulting detective was beside himself with boredom. So Molly laid out everything she had in her fridge and cupboards, and challenged him to prove to her that he could indeed cook. He managed to whip up a three-course meal, and she managed to get him to eat some of it with her.
The time after that, a case was proving to be immensely elusive, and Molly had to push Sherlock out of her lab to stop him from destroying all the equipment that was giving him inconclusive results. He followed her home without a word, and then proceeded to print out all the evidence and lay it out on her bed and growl at Toby every time he so much as passed by the bedroom. (He ended up solving the case when Molly pointed out that he was looking at an x-ray upside down.)
Molly once came home from a groceries run to find Sherlock curled up in a ball in the middle of her bed. Toby was sprawled next to him, which made her stomach knot tightly, because if those two were not snapping at each other, something was wrong. He wouldn’t answer any of her questions, but when he leaned into her hand on his shoulder, she sat down next to him and proceeded to slowly run her fingers through his hair. They ended up spending the night with her propped up against the headboard, hand still over his head, which was now firmly in her lap, his face buried in her shirt. They woke up the next morning and had tea on the sofa with the news on as if nothing had happened.
She didn’t realize it at the time, but Molly’s bedroom, specifically her bed, became Sherlock’s favorite bolthole. And Molly became his favorite anchor.