I won´t let you fall
You never gonna be alone
From this moment on
If you ever feel like letting it go
I won´t let you fall
Never gonna be alone-Nickelback
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How can a person who is so clever just not notice what is going on around him? How can such a person not be aware of the thrilling tension I feel in every room that we´re in together? But…well…maybe it is better the way it is now. I just don´t know how he would react if I just tell him that he is everything I need, everything it is worth to live for and everything I long for every day and every night. I love him and I don´t know why. But sometimes even I must ask myself if he is really able to fell such things as love. If he is really human.
Molly looked confused at the few lines she had written. She had never been the writing-diary-entries-type of girl but these words had just slipped out of the pen in her hand without her really realizing. She had not even known that she could be able to have such…kitschy thoughts.
There was not much time left for any complaining about what was going on in her mind due to the fact that Sherlock Homes just came rushing in the morgue with a kind of surprised expression on his face..
“I thought you would be at home yet”, said the man with this gorgeous black, curled hair instead of a greeting.
“Um…yes…I just wanted to finish the paperwork for the last body that came in a few hours ago” The pathologist did not waste any time and rumpled the paper right in front of her on the lab-table. She did not look at Sherlock but through the window of the morgue under which the table she had been working on stood.
“I am really happy that you are here right now. Otherwise I would have taken this little journey for nothing. Listen, I need your help”, he said having a short look on the crunched paper she was throwing in the bin immediately. She did not want him to notice it but this was Sherlock Holmes and he noticed everything that happened around him. Molly swallowed as she tried to clear her throat. She was not sure if she would be able to speak, her voice highly affected by his words and the way he seemed to be staring right through her.
“Wait, Sherlock. If you thought, I won´t be here why would you come here to ask me for help?” she whispered not knowing how she should deal with this completely new situation. It just was too confusing, being alone with Sherlock in the middle of the night not having any clue what was going on right now.
A little smile spread over the lips of the consulting detective as her question ran through his mind. However, she could not read his face, she could not tell what was going on behind these cruel beautiful blue-grey eyes that looked down on her.
“I´ve been asking me this question since I entered the door of this hospital. I actually could have thought about that earlier, right? That is what you´re thinking right now. I can see it in your eyes. But I guess I was just too caught in my”, he hesitated obviously not willing to reveal what was going on in his mind and Molly started to wonder what is was, what he had wanted to say. Feelings? Sentiment? Everything she could think of were not even little parts of what formed Sherlock Holmes´ character.
“In my thoughts”, he then finished his sentence. He had come closer to her while she was holding her breath. She could not handle with his appearance when she was able to see every wrinkle in his face, every change in his mimic. She could not even answer, totally caught in his eyes, her breath trembling with fear about what he might say next.
Molly could see the doubt in his eyes. She could see that he was not sure if it was right to tell her about what was going on in his mind.
“I feel lonely, Molly, and I do not know what to do against it. Can you imagine that? The great Sherlock Holmes feels lonely. The man who has always been treated as a machine without feelings”
“What do you want?” interrupted Molly the stream of words that came out of Sherlock´s mouth. Somehow it frightened her to see the man of her dreams in this condition. But this would not avoid her from helping him, no matter what he would ask from her.
“Company. Your company.”
Her heart stood still. She felt his warm breath in her face, on her cheekbones and on her lips. He was close enough for her to just grip his scarf, pull him down to her and kiss him. But she did neither of the things. Everything she could do seemed unsuitable to the situation and after all she had never been extroverted enough to take initiative.
“I…I don´t understand” she stammered.
“Oh, I think you understand very well. Come on, Molly. You are smart. You´ve always been and when I tell you that I need your company it should be obvious that I…” He paused. Molly just stood there, waiting for him to continue talking and breathing in the smell of his skin. She had never experienced Sherlock in a condition in which he got loss of words and she was not sure if this should frighten her or give her a feeling of being sort of special. Then he seemed to catch himself and this unreadable type of smile appeared on his face. If it had ever been possible for her to look in his mind in some way, now it was not.
“That I am trying to invite myself into your flat so we can spend some time together and won´t feel so lonely anymore.”
That he had continued his sentence ripped her out of her thoughts and she needed some time to get back into reality. Therefore it took her some seconds to realize what he had actually said. She blushed immediately. Even if he certainly did not mean what most people would have read in his expression she could not help imagining how he pushes her against the wall of her flat and kisses her impulsively. She shook her head to get rid of this picture in her head that should definitely not be there at the time.
“Is this a `No`?”, Sherlock asked sounding kind of surprised. Molly looked up to him, into these unbelievable grey-blue eyes that were able to force her to do everything- no matter if she had wanted to do it or not.
She began to stammer again. “No, that is not what I wanted to say…I just…Um, forget it, Sherlock. Of Course you can sleep with me…Um, I mean…in my flat. We can both sleep in my flat, yes.” Her cheekbones had the colour of fresh tomatoes by now. She was not even able to look into Sherlock´s face anymore. This was so embarrassing that she just wanted to hide underneath one of the morgue-table
“Just breath, Molly” was everything Sherlock had as comment to her slip of the tongue. Then he turned away from her, so suddenly that she did not even really notice it until he began to talk again. “So you´ve finished here, haven´t you? Then I guess it is no problem for you to leave the morgue now and lead me to your flat.”
The pathologist managed to catch her breath again.
“Yes…yes. We can go now.” She tidied up the lab-table, put different papers together and took them into a casing. “I am ready to go”
She gripped her jacket from the seat and not more than five minutes later they both walked out of the main-entrance of St. Bartholomew´s Hospital.
About half an hour later Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper stood in front of her flat-door while the pathologist caught the keys out of her pocket and unlocked the door. She needed some time to do it because her hands were shaking with excitement so much. Why had she invited Sherlock to stay overnight with her? She had known that this was no good idea but she had not been able to resist the desire of being near to the man who now entered the room right after her so that he nearly bumped into her back as she stopped to take off her shoes. Fortunately he did not. Otherwise he possibly would have pushed her to the floor and what have followed than would have been more than embarrassing.
“Careful, Sherlock”, Molly said while she took her shoes away and told the detective to do the same. She felt nervous and exited and tried to deal with this completely new situation. Of course she had had boyfriends and was used to have male persons in her flat but none of them would ever be able to compete with the great Sherlock Holmes and his mysterious, attracting appearance. Nothing had ever stopped her from loving this man and nothing could ever do so.
She had always adored him and now it was like an eternal dream that had come true. Her heart beat twice it´s normal speed and all she could think of was pretending that everything was alright.
Sherlock did not seem to notice anything. He took off his coat and his scarf and stood now in front of her in his suit with the trousers that suited him so well and underlined the sexiness of his body. Molly started to wonder if brain work could keep someone that fit. Or how on earth did he work out if he spent so much time in labs and solving crimes?
Well, actually he did, even if she could not judge this because he still wore his clothes and she had never seen him even half-naked. Even if she really would like to, apparently.
“You can sleep in my bed if you want to. I´ll take the sofa then”, Molly offered to Sherlock
“Yes, thank you very much, Molly”, he replied.
She would have left him the bed anyway, according to the fact that the sofa would have been too small for him. However, she had expected him to deny her offer, to insist on her sleeping in her own bed just to be polite. While he had been almost scarily different from normally he now was Sherlock Holmes all over again. She exhaled and looked up to the black-haired. Her cheekbones flushed with a rose colour. She saw how he looked around in her small flat or actually in the kitchen which also functioned as living room with a sofa, an eating-table, three chairs and a kitchenette. It was cozy but only made for one person living there.
“Nice flat, Molly. Just as I expected it to be”
“Pardon?”
“I said…”
“I understood what you said. But how do you mean it? As you expected it?
“Well, you´re a 33-year-old woman, obviously single at the moment, working as pathologist. Your flat is small. You love it because it is cozy and you have lived here for a very long time. You´re romantic, Molly Hooper and so is your choice of your living-place.
Nevertheless you are a stuck-to-the-ground-person with an enormous sense of style, even if yours might not be liked by anyone. You are open-hearted and caring. You are well educated and eager for knowledge.
I could go on with this list but I think it´s enough and I don´t want to bring you into an embarrassing situation, I have apparently did this too many times before. Anyway, this flat mirrors nearly everything that is part of your character. Even your admiration for me.”
Silence. Both of them were quiet, Molly once again deeply impressed by Sherlock´s brainwork, Sherlock looking directly into Molly´s face waiting for some kind of reaction. She could see so much in his eyes: The desperation to show off, the need of appreciation and applause and his lusting for understanding and acceptation. She did him the favor.
“Come on, Sherlock. I know, you want to. So, how did you figure out all these things?”
A smile spread over the detective´s face that warmed her hearth and touched her deeply. When he opened his mouth she managed to listen to both, his words and the soft, dark tone of his voice.
“As I said, your flat is small. Kitchen and living-room together. A bath and a sleeping-room which is very likely to be small, too. There is no floor. Knowing what you are working as I can tell that you could afford better. You don´t want to live somewhere else, but why? Obviously it has sentimental reasons. I just need to look on your bookshelf. I can see some folders with the emblem of the university you went to on it. Nobody would keep such things if he is changing a flat, especially when they look as used as yours. Again, you could afford new ones if you would like to. So you haven´t moved since you ended your studies.
Romantic, well. Your bookshelf, again. I can see some detective-stories but also some love-stories. Actually good ones as I assume by the authors´ names but nothing you could read if you weren´t romantic. Same thing to prove that you´re eager of knowledge. There are many medical books, of course, you´re a doctor yourself. Well educated, too. As I said. However, I can see some books that are not concerning your special profession so it´s just out of interest and curiosity. Hmm, what else do I see? Shakespeare anthology, Stephen Hawking- a short history of time, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe- biography- interesting, Molly, I didn´t know you speak German. Of course there is more but I guess you know your books better than I do so I don´t have to continue this list.”
He paused to take a deep breath. Molly intended to say something but he cut her off before she opened her mouth.
“So, let´s go on. This is rather fun, Molly, I love you for asking me to explain my deductions to you.” She turned red all over, he was hardly noticing.
“You´re stuck-to-the-ground. I just know that because I know you, Molly Hooper. Then your style. Even if it is some kind of mix-and-match-style all your clothes do apparently fit together and just because comfortable is more important to you than sexy doesn´t mean you´re not dressed beautiful. I know, many men would say so. I. do. not.”
Did he just make her a compliment? Yes, he said, she was dressed beautiful. Her heart was near to skipping a beat. She could not help but smiled at him.
“Furthermore, the prospects at the kitchen-table. British Heart Foundation, cats rescue center, development assistance in South Africa. You do care for the people and the world around you. You believe in making the world a better place, don´t you? Where else should you work as a forensic pathologist for?! Obviously not because you get off on more or less badly injured bodies. ”
“Sherlock, you are embarrassing me”, Molly interrupted. It was hard for her to speak, really hard. She wanted to turn away from this man who could deduce all her feelings, all her heart from one shivering of her body or one changing of her facial expression but she felt like caught at the spot she was standing at, unable to move or to say anything that would have made even Sherlock Holmes shut up. She enjoyed hearing his voice -and seeing his lips moving- too much.
“Shht, Molly, I am not done by now. There is one thing left. Even if I didn´t know them before, I would have been able to read your feelings for me in this room. First you yourself. You are wearing your hair parted on the side since I told you I like it more this way. Then there is the lipstick lying on the kitchen table. I guess you put it on before you went to work but that doesn´t really matter. What matters is the fact that it is the same colour you wore the day I first met John. This was a really long time ago so you must have re-bought it. I have no doubt why. At least there is the fact that you kept one of the papers with a picture of me on the front page. I can see it on your bookshelf, too. Half-covered by a book but date of publishing and the partly noticeable headline are very suggestive. So, God, this was a pleasure. It felt like my brain was rusting.”
He turned to her and it seemed as he had just stepped back to reality. The woman in front of him was crying now, silent tears falling from her eyes over her red-coloured cheekbones as she tried not to sniffle.
“Molly, is everything alright?”
She did not answer. How on earth could this man make her go through so many emotions in less than 10 minutes? She felt naked, her soul unclothed by a person who never meant to do so and now, that she was at home, she did not even have the strength to hold back her tears. Bravo, Molly, she thought. Could she not just act normally when he was around?
“Sherlock” She found back her voice. “It´s no secret that you know everything about me just by having a short glance at my face but, please, stop making fun about me loving you.” Molly was about to turn around, to go straight into her sleeping-room and leave the consulting detective alone. She did not. She could not even be angry about him for longer than a few seconds, knowing that this was just the way he was, that she should not expect him to be different just because she had lent him a hand to get out of a really problematic situation. Yet, being dead- only figuratively of course- could really change a man´s character and sometimes it seemed to her as she could sense a soft note of this change even in Sherlock´s behaviour. The behaviour of a self-appointed sociopath.
“I didn´t mean to make fun about your feelings, Molly. You saved my life, you helped me to outplay Moriarty. I owe you so much.” His voice had turned very quiet as he leaned forward to her. She could feel the vibrato of his deep breath on her cheekbones. “You have always been nice to me, no matter how I treated you. You have never given me up. I need to thank you, Molly, even if I don´t know how to do this.” A soft kiss on her cheekbone was what followed. This had somehow become a ritual to apologize for hurting her and even if she had had enough time to get used to that she shivered every time she felt his lips on her skin.
“So” She cleared her throat. “I guess you aren´t in the mood to sleep now, are you?”
“I´m definitely not. You now that the night has become my day since my jump from the hospital-roof.” Of course it had. There was no other way he could ever go out to catch some fresh air. He was living in a flat bought in the name of Mr Mycroft Holmes- fortunately Moll had not been the only person Moriarty had forgotten when going through the list of persons that could help Sherlock when he had problems. Maybe this was because Jim Moriarty never had siblings and just did not understand their relationships. Even if they seem to hate each other there always was a connection between Sherlock and his older brother. She lightly shook her head. It was useless to think about this. Moriarty was apparently dead-even if nobody could be definitely sure- and Sherlock alive. That was what matters.
Molly wiped away her tears and managed to look up to Sherlock. “What about playing some chess, Sherlock?”
“How could I resist this offer?”
