The fall (immediately after sherrinford)
It is a good thing John is standing next to him because one moment his best friend is standing next to him and the next he’s trying to keep Sherlock from crashing to the ground. He manages to keep his torso up as much as possible but Sherlock is as limp as a rag doll.
John curses, presses his fingers to the pulse in Sherlock’s neck and feels the quick, erratic pulse beneath his fingers.
“Sherlock!” John says, “Sherlock!” His friend doesn’t respond but luckily they aren’t exactly short of ambulances and a moment later a couple of EMT’s begin to bring Sherlock around.
The diagnosis is exhaustion, his body struggling under the duress inflicted on it by his sister. Too much too soon for such an extended period of time. Even Holmes’ have limits.
There’s little to be discussed, John clambers into the back of the ambulance and takes Sherlock’s limp unresponsive hand in his. He knows it’s shock, he knows Sherlock’s shrugged off worse but they had been so close to the end, he’d thought they’d won. He closes his eyes and feels every jolt and rattle of the ambulance in his aching bones.
He texts Molly, more out of reflex then anything else, it’s only when the whooshing sound of the text being sent does he remember.
But he can’t take it back now. Molly will come or she won’t. Looking at Sherlock’s sparse, exhausted body he hopes that whatever well of compassion molly has hasn’t been drained away.
Molly does come, its almost three in the morning and Sherlock is tucked up in bed in a private room; no one tells her she can’t see him even though visiting hours are long over. There was always different rules for the Holmes’
John hugs her for a long time when he sees her; doesn’t explain why just hugs and hugs well past the point of politeness. Molly lets him, he’s obviously been through an ordeal and she doesn’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with whatever horror show has gone on. She’s not even sure she can deal with whatever the phone call was. But Sherlock needs her so here she is.
She sits stiffly in the chair feeling like a disapproving great aunt to a Victorian heroine. She feels as if her bones were made of starch.
Sherlock’s only hooked up to one machine, which molly thinks must be a personal best. He’s in no danger then.
“This isn’t fair,” molly tells the unconscious man in the bed. Even her voice sounds starched. God.
“How am I supposed to be mad at you when you look like this?” She gestures to his sheet covered body. His suit is hanging over the back of the other chair, knowing how he hates crumpled suits she gets up and folds it neatly, mostly because she can’t look at that gaunt, haunted face and still be mad. And she wants to keep her anger, at least a little longer.
“How many times is this now?” Molly asks. She can’t quite make herself take his hand. She’s not there yet. “Should get you your own private wing, I could get bedside season tickets”
She falls into the chair, so tired suddenly, she almost misses the seat so she has to grab Sherlock’s hand if she wants to keep upright
“I can’t keep doing this Sherlock,” she says the corners of her mouth pulling down in misery. She scrubs her face in abject sorrow.
“You weasled your way out of an explanation again,” she says, half impressed, half annoyed. “You never explain, you just…move on and expect everyone else to as well and I do, Sherlock I have, that crack about my engagement, your total radio silence after…Mary…this Culverton Smith mess,”she gestured again to his body, “whatever the hell this is, it just comes out and you don’t ever say sorry or try to make it better,”
“If I always told you what was going on I wouldn’t need you to trust me,”
Molly gasps, a loud, heaving sigh as she reads back in shock. Sherlock is staring at her, eyes almost black in their too white face.
“Sherlock…” she has no idea how that sentence is supposed to end. Or start.
“You’re right, i owe you a thousand apologies and that’s just from tonight. I never…I couldn’t apologize because I was ashamed, Molly, so ashamed,” he looked bitter, “and because I knew you’d forgive me.”
“I’m that predictable huh?” Molly says. And she sounds bitter too.
“No!,” Sherlock corrects, his voice his hoarse as if he’d been screaming all night. Maybe he had. Molly tries and fails not to be moved.
“You’re that kind and generous”
“I’m not feeling very generous right now,” molly warns and Sherlock nods,
“I know. I know. I want…” his breath is snatched away by a wracking cough so violent it seems to pummel his body. He gets himself under control after a moment.
“What have you done to yourself?” Molly wonders aloud.
“Nothing that I didn’t bring on myself,” Sherlock says. “Molly I…”
She can’t do it, she realizes, she can’t do this right now, it’s too big or she’s too small but all she knows is that she can’t.
She can’t and this time she won’t let him make her.
“You should get some rest,” she says, the skin benath his eyes looks ominously purple and red, like he hadn’t slept in ten years.
He protests but he’s weak and she easily evades him. By the time she pulls the sheet back over his body his arms are limp and his eyes are closed.
She should go, go and not look back, but it was true then and it’s true now and always. She loves him. She can’t leave however much she wants to. So she sighs and sits back down.
Molly…I’m sorry…I…” she glances at his face but he’s asleep, every nerve she has feels rubbed raw. “Molly..” he jerks in his sleep, leg kicking out as if kicking something and molly takes his hand out of reflex, frowning at the abrasions across his knuckles. Had he hit someone? Or something?
“Molly..I love you…I’m sorry!”
Everything in molly feels like it’s holding its breath, every function of her living being held in statis even though she knows biologically it’s not possible. Biologically Sherlock should have died years ago.
Tears prick at the back of her eyes, and she hastily rubs until it hurts. Hadn’t she cried enough already? Or was there even an ‘enough’ when Sherlock Holmes was concerned.
And because it’s true, because it’s always been true molly sits and waits for the dawn and whatever that brings
gummygunk
gracieabrams
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
stormborns
yousharknotpass
