Rose
Toby was an old cat, practically ancient as far as feline lifespans went, but that did not make the decision any easier. He had gone weeks without walking, days without eating, hours without ceasing caterwauls of pain. Taking care of him at nearly all hours of the day was tearing Molly’s social and work life apart. The tabby was her oldest friend, and she considered him to be a member of her own family. He had been a gift from her grandmother right before her father died with the intention of providing solace amidst the grief. The poor animal’s suffering was nearly too much for them both to bear, and it was then that Sherlock found the courage to broach the sensitive subject of veterinary options with her. After nearly two days of continuous weeping and insisting that it was too cruel and unfair, Molly finally realized there was nothing else they could do.
Sherlock stayed with her the whole time. As horrible as it was to admit, the loss of a dearly beloved pet was one of the few human conditions with which he could empathize. She was devastated to say the least. She called into St. Bart’s and redeemed four of her vacation days, using the first to make the laborious and heartbreaking trip to the vet’s office. Sherlock wanted to be in the room with her, but she insisted that it had to be only her and Toby. They buried him in her garden with a small limestone angel statue as headstone. This perplexed Sherlock, as he knew most Christian and other angelic religions did not believe in any spiritual redemption for animals after death, but for once he didn’t need John to remind him to keep his mouth shut. The next three days, Molly refused to get out of bed, but very rarely slept. It took a solid 30 hours for Sherlock to get her to eat anything more than a piece of toast. Most of the time, though, all she wanted was to be wrapped in her blankets alone. Even after her four days were up and it was time to go back to the morgue, not much changed. Sherlock estimated that over the course of two weeks she lost fifteen pounds, and had not once left her flat to do anything more than go to work. Not to visit 221B, not to pick up books at the library, not even to grocery shop. He knew she wasn’t eating unless he was around to force her. When week three rolled around, that was when Sherlock finally had enough.
“This is a bad idea,” John warned. “You can’t just spring this on her and expect her to be okay with it.”
“Of course I can,” Sherlock replied with a snort of derision. “Obviously she needs animal companionship.”
“Sherlock, you can’t just drop by her flat with a puppy!”
He shook his head, removing his gloves and tucking them into his coat pockets as the two of them walked through the front doors of the pound. Absolutely absurd. A puppy would solve everything. Molly could nurture it and Sherlock could train it. They would have a stronger reason to spend time together, and possibly even act as a catalyst for her to move in. Despite John’s warning, Sherlock saw no way this could go wrong.
***
Molly was speechless. Absolutely speechless. Sherlock had pulled some mindboggling stunts in their time as a couple; like the time he took her undercover to a Parisian smuggling ring in hopes that the French backdrop would be romantic, or filling her flat with 13 dozen roses two days before Valentine’s Day. But this, this, was a new kind of insanity. There was her boyfriend, grinning like a bloody idiot, holding a baby spaniel in his arms as if it were a child. She knew he was good with kids and she knew he had an Irish setter as a kid, but the very last thing she expected was for him to actually come to her doorstep with a puppy.
“Did you… did you… did you adopt that?” she managed to spit out as he was already making his way into her kitchen to dig out a bowl for water.
“It’s a her, actually. Female canines are significantly more obedient than males, which seemed like a valuable feature considering city environments hold more risks for untrained dogs than rural areas.”
“You seriously adopted a puppy?! Sherlock, how are you going to take care of it?”
This was crazy, even by Holmes standards. He wasn’t home enough to properly raise a pet, and god knows Mrs. Hudson isn’t going to do it. Sherlock tossed her a look of obvious quizzicality, the same he used whenever she was particularly slow to catch up with a string of deductions.
“Between our schedules it should be fairly unchallenging.”
Molly felt her jaw go slack.
“Our? I can’t have a dog!”
Sherlock huffed and rolled his eyes, as if she was nothing but a child resisting the birth of a new sibling, and Molly would have slapped him if the little girl hadn’t still been asleep in his arms. She was cute, all things considered, with long, well brushed, fur and floppy ears the little thing probably stepped on constantly. Her tiny wet nose wriggled with every breath and her paws twitched with the high energy of dreaming. Sure, Molly had to admit, she was adorable, but that didn’t mean she wanted to raise it!
Without a single word, Sherlock suddenly thrust the spaniel into Molly’s hands, causing both of them to yelp in surprise. The now awake puppy was staring right up at the pathologist, large eyes shining and fluffy tail wagging. Before Molly could even try to give her back to Sherlock, the dog was lunging forward to plant slobbery licks all over her face. Molly had never been a dog person. She always thought they were so unintelligent and dirty compared to cats, but there was nothing stupid or disgusting in the wet kisses. For the first time since Toby had been put down, there was a familiar warmth in her chest she thought she never expected to feel again.
“Alright, alright, I’ll give her a chance!” she ceded, hugging the puppy to her torso. “As long as I get to name her.”
Sherlock smiled smugly, but lightly kissed Molly’s forehead.
“Anything.”
“Rose. I like Rose.”