Chapter 13
Now: Eight Years Later
“It was such a surprising day today, my love,” John said as he kissed his dear wife on the cheek.
She was sitting in the parlor in the one chair that John knew eased her discomfort at this late stage of her pregnancy.
“Please do tell, husband." She rubbed her hands together with glee," It is altogether unpleasant to be in my time of confinement. What news of the outside world? Of Sherlock?”
“Well, we have taken on a case, a peculiar one really, as Lestrade had assumed it was a common suicide.”
“And was it?” John loved when his wife hung on his every word. She was, he noted, his first and foremost audience for the tales he wrote of Sherlock Holmes for the Strand.
“Apparently not. You see, it was posed so the wound was administered by the man’s right hand – but the victim, despite being trained to stop writing in the sinister form, still performs most other tasks with his left hand.”
“Extraordinary!” Mary exclaimed.
John shook his head. “But of note isn’t the case, but the widow of the deceased.”
“Is she handsome?” Mary teased with the ease of a woman who knew her husband was not the wandering kind.
John shrugged. “Rather middling, to be honest, but the strangest thing is it was she who demanded Lestrade call on Holmes. It certainly wasn’t the kind of case that Lestrade would seek his help on if left to his own devices.”
“Is she a fan of your stories?” Mary teased, knowing that her husband did indeed have his share of fans.
“Well, her son is – but there’s more." John walked over to pour himself a brandy before returning. "Holmes confided in me that she is no mere housewife, but rather the elusive ML Hooper.”
John and Mary, both having worked in medicine were indeed aware of Hooper's work. Anyone who worked with people – alive or dead – used the insight from his work.
“But he died,” Mary added as fact.
“And yet, Holmes claims that this widow - Molly - as she asked me to call her - is Hooper's daughter. More than that - he believes that it is she, this widowed housewife and mother - who wrote Hooper’s best work.”
“How on earth did Sherlock deduce all of that that in a single morning?” Mary had seen Sherlock perform deductive feats so impressive that they could be mistaken for the ability to read the secret thoughts of one’s mind, but even this was too much to believe.
“That’s the thing – he didn’t! Several events have of the morning have made me consider that Holmes has met this woman before – in another life.”
“Such as?”
“Well, chiefly, the fact that Holmes invited her and her son to live with him – “ Mary was about to exclaim, appalled, until John explained, “Well - not in his flat of course, but at 221c.”
“How queer!”
“Do you think I’m right? Is it possible Sherlock knows this woman from before he met me?”
“The man wasn’t created by you when you first published your notes of The Study in Scarlett Case, my dear husband.”
“I am aware of this, wife. But the thing is, he has never spoken of his life before I met him. I had wondered if there was something of deep pain or regret. I had at times heard him calling out the name Victor Trevor in his sleep. I had wanted to enquire of it, but had never wanted to damage our friendship by stepping out of place to ask.”
“Do you think this woman has something to do with Trevor?”
“If I didn’t know better, I would think that she- oh, but the thought is ludicrous.” John couldn't bring himself to put into words the possibility of such a connection with the widow. And even if he could, what on earth would it have to do with Victor Trevor?
John shook his head, returning to the reality of the Sherlock of which he was closely acquainted, not the mysterious figure from the last few hours.
“We both know our friend Holmes is a –“ John searched for the polite term, “a novice in the ways of women.”
“No he’s not.” Mary said, as if it were a self-evident fact.
John nearly spat out his drink. “Whatever do you mean?”
Mary raised an eyebrow and replied, “Whatever Sherlock Holmes is, he is certainly not a man who has never run his goods.”
“My dear wife!” John was shocked. Not only was he shocked at his wife's vulgarity, but of the very thought of his friend as a sexual being - something that he had never showed any signs of, not even when the alluring Mrs Irene Adler tried her very best to tempt him. Already married, was how he’d explained his abstinence to John. Married to his work is what John had assumed.
But now?
“Oh John," she laughed, "In my condition there's no point in being coy."
John nodded towards his wife's belly, an acknowledgment of all the enjoyable recreational activities they had undertaken in order to conceive their child – the baby due to make his or her entrance into the world any day now.
"Whatever you've thought, John. Sherlock Holmes certainly is not the virgin you believe him to be.”
Then - Eight Years Earlier: May 1878
He didn’t mean to kiss her. He had planned on honouring her wishes of theirs strictly being a business partnership.
But one night adrenaline and exhaustion eroded his resolve so swiftly he didn’t realise it until it was too late.
Sherlock, Molly and Lestrade had discovered their suspect – in Bart’s of all places. Adelaide Bartlett was a kitchen hand, preparing food for patients. She was also a serial killer – grinding arsenic-soaked fly-papers into the meals of men she found disagreeable.
It was Molly who had found the trace amounts of paper in the stomach contents of the five, seemingly recovering men, who had died in Bart’s over the last month. Sherlock sent a local tramp he paid to run errands off to fetch Lestrade.
“Let’s take a look at the kitchen” Molly suggested.
Sherlock smiled, “my thoughts exactly!”.
It was late, the halls of Bart’s were empty – although Sherlock and Molly were used to that by now. Their “office hours” tended towards the night time, when no one would doubt that the young man who worked with Sherlock was instead a young woman.
Who in their right might would take a woman with them to a hospital in the middle of night?
Sherlock Holmes would. And Molly Hooper would gladly follow him.
The kitchen was empty when they arrived. They both carried hand-lamps to illuminate the gloom. After nearly fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, they were about to give up, when she arrived.
Sherlock would have laughed at the fact that Adelaide Bartlett was caught literally and figuratively red-handed – both holding the flypapers which were the murder weapons and with the red tinge of the pages leaving their crimson coloured stains as evidence on her hands.
He would have laughed, if it didn’t all fall apart so spectacularly fast.
Adelaide identified the detective at once. Throwing the papers to the ground, she retrieved a large knife from the nearby block and held it to Molly’s neck before Sherlock could even warn Molly to look out.
Molly, for her part, raised a hand to intercept the woman, only to receive a deep gash to her palm before settling in position as captive, afraid to move another muscle lest organs more vital to her survival were pierced.
“I know about you two,” Adelaide Bartlett said while she held what she assumed was Sherlock’s young male protegee in her arms. “You solve impossible crimes.”
“We do,” Sherlock agreed, attempting to stay calm while his heart raced. He refused to look at the growing bloom of red pulsing from Molly’s left hand.
“And now you’ve solved mine,” Adelaide added.
“So it seems.” Sherlock said, slowly, ever so slowly, trying to cross what was only a five-foot gap between them, but to Sherlock felt as large as an impassable chasm.
Adelaide addressed Molly. “You happy you threw your lot in with this one?”
Molly didn’t drop her act, even in the midst of a life-or-death altercation. She looked deep into Sherlock’s eyes and spoke the truth. “Working with Sherlock has been the best time of my life.”
Adelaide smirked, “It’s a shame it’s about to en-“
She didn’t finish the sentence before Lestrade broke down the door. Molly took the opportunity to pull herself from Adelaide’s grasp in the confusion, but not without receiving a gash to the neck for her troubles.
Sherlock advanced on the woman, grabbing a nearby chopping board to smack her in the face. Over and over and over. The brutality was so extreme that Lestrade had to pull the detective away.
“Go deal with Vic,” Lestrade said, sternly. “I’ve got this.”
Sherlock turned. Molly was deathly pale.
“You’re bleeding, M-“ Molly quickly put her good hand over his mouth to stop him from revealing their secret.
“Get me to my medical kit,” she demanded.
They sat in the corner of the morgue that was the most brightly lit.
The cut to her neck was a mere graze and had already clotted soundly. The gash to her hand was much more serious, the loss of blood evident in the dampness of her trousers which she had been grabbing in an attempt to apply pressure to the wound.
Still a doctor, even when in peril.
Sherlock stitched her left palm with great care, under her direction of course.
Neither of them were willing to admit that she could have died. The fact lay unspoken, shouting in the silence between them.
It was the final stitch that had him undone, when he let it dawn on him what a world without Molly by his side would be like.
He bent down, placing his lips next to the wound.
Her breath hitched, but she said nothing.
And so with fingers trembling, he reached for the graze on her neck.
“If it had been deeper-“
She closed her eyes, “It is at the carotid artery, I know.”
He ran his hand up and through the hair that was once long, lady-like locks but had now been shorn short to ensure their ruse.
To anyone watching, they would have been seen to be two men at a time when such acts between men were punishable by hanging mere years earlier – but now was only life in gaol.
But he was a man, and she was a woman, and even if they weren’t at that point, Sherlock didn’t care.
He kissed her then.
He held her close, his fingers grasping her waist as if he would never let go. Their hearts pounded in unison and electricity seemed to course through them both. His kiss was desperate, a plea for her not to be taken away from him - ever. The heat of their embrace melted away any doubts and fears that lingered beneath the surface. Sherlock Holmes did not want to be in a world without Molly Hooper by his side.
She yielded to his kiss, holding onto him tightly, relishing in the feeling of his strong embrace, a balm to sooth the pain of what they had just experienced.
But then she stopped.
She pulled away, looking at him with a mixture of desire and caution.
He frowned. "What's wrong?"
She hesitated, unsure how to say what was on her mind.
Instead she walked away, and into the night.
Sherlock didn’t see Molly again for almost a month.