Chapter 14
Then - 8 Years Earlier
The weeks without her by his side felt like the longest of his life to date. His drug use, abandoned when Molly's presence in his life was distraction enough from the boredom to not need narcotics, threatened to return. The familiar itch beneath his skin grew stronger with each passing day, his fingers sometimes trembling with want as he recalled the sweet relief of cocaine flooding his veins.
But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Stopping him was the inevitable disappointment on her face if she were to find him incapacitated. Disappointment, anger, fury, but worst of all, sadness. The thought of her was enough for him to stay clean and sober.
He even went so far as to pay off all of his local suppliers so that he didn't have access to his favoured seven-percent solution. The weight of the coins in his purse diminished rapidly as he visited each shadowy figure, pressing money into reluctant palms with stern instructions not to sell to him, no matter how desperate he appeared.
So without the drugs he would clench his fists shut and close his eyes tight and seek another distraction. Sometimes that meant walking the streets of London at odd hours, searching for a case. Other times, it meant performing increasingly dangerous experiments with volatile chemicals in his cramped Montague Street quarters until Mrs Turner would come bounding up the stairs, desperate for him to stop so the air could clear.
Lestrade, for his part, appeared to be unphased by Sherlock's distress. The detective inspector continued about his duties with the same determined efficiency, presenting cases with his usual brusque manner. Sherlock's moods and inability to concentrate didn't escape the attention of the other officers, though. All watching him warily at every crime scene he attended. They were on guard around him, treating like a tiger about to pounce. They exchanged knowing glances behind his back, no doubt speculating on the reason for his altered demeanor.
At the scene of the third garrotting in Camden in a week, Sherlock stared blankly at the corpse on the ground, he could deduce nothing in the scene to help him. The victim, a middle-aged clerk with ink-stained fingers and worn boots, lay sprawled on the cobblestones, face frozen in a final expression of terror. The thin wire that had ended his life had cut so deeply it nearly disappeared into the flesh of his neck.
He overheard Crane, a portly bespeckled detective Sherlock detested, whispering behind his back. Crane had never approved of Sherlock's presence at crime scenes, viewing him as an interloper and a threat to the established order of Scotland Yard.
"Lestrade, you know Mr. Holmes better than anyone else in the Yard," Crane said, wiping his hands on a clean handkerchief. "Is he even capable of working this case?"
Crane motioned to Sherlock with a tilt of his head. "He's just standing there. He's got nothing."
This prompted Lestrade into action - weighing in. He strode over to the still and statuesque detective, taking him by the shoulder firmly. Sherlock could smell the familiar scents of tobacco and cheap pomade that always accompanied the inspector.
"Holmes, you need to pull yourself together. We can't have you brooding around like this all the time," Lestrade said. "There's a case to solve - a garrotter to catch – that is, if you're able to help us without Vic."
Sherlock turned his face to Lestrade, slowly, with the threatening gaze of a predator. His pale eyes narrowed dangerously, and Lestrade's hand fell away from his shoulder.
"I mean, you were getting along just fine before you met him." Lestrade continued. "You've only been working with him for a month or so."
Sherlock could feel his jaw clenching tight as he tried to keep his desperation in check. He knew Lestrade meant well but the detective inspector did not understand just how much Molly (or Vic, as Lestrade knew him) had changed everything for him. How her presence had brought clarity and purpose to his chaotic mind, how her gentle observations often illuminated the darkest corners of his cases.
So he snapped.
"I am, indeed, perfectly capable of working without any assistance, Inspector," he said curtly, leaving the scene without another word. His coat billowed behind him as he strode away, ignoring the curious stares of constables and onlookers gathered at the edges of the crime scene.
He returned to his flat on Montague Street where he spent the remaining nighttime hours and into the morning mulling over every detail of the case – but no answers came. The cluttered room grew increasingly disordered as he paced, the floorboards creaking beneath his relentless movement. Half-drunk cups of tea, long grown cold, littered every surface alongside scattered papers and forgotten experiments.
He missed her insight, her ability to see things in a way that he could not. She had been the key to unlocking so many cases that he had thought unsolvable before. But now, without her, he was lost. Her medical knowledge had proved invaluable, her quick mind and steady hands a perfect complement to his frenetic energy and leaps of deduction.
The more he tried to focus on the case, the more his mind kept wandering back to Molly. Had she returned to her old life? Was she following the boring safe path into the role of housewife for Thomas Jones? The thought of her brilliant mind and skillful hands being wasted on domestic duties made him clench his teeth in frustration.
But there was another option. Perhaps she had found another way to pursue her medical ambitions. Maybe she had found a college who would take a woman on for study and she was busy at work, learning.
Though this wasn’t likely, he chided himself. He longed for a day when a woman like Molly could be seen not only as an equal to a man, but, as Sherlock had well experienced, better.
But the question that truly plagued him, the one he was desperate for an answer to was - would she ever be able to forgive him for kissing her? The kiss had been both deliberate and involuntary, like a chemical reaction he could neither predict nor control. Her lips had tasted of fear and stress and something sweeter—perhaps the honey from her afternoon tea. In that moment, his carefully constructed walls had crumbled like ancient mortar. His only true regret was not the kiss itself—which his mind returned to with alarming frequency, cataloging every sensation, every quickened heartbeat. No, his regret was that it had caused her to leave him, that it had driven her away for that interminable month. Thirty-four days, to be precise. He had counted each one, marking their passing with increasing agitation.
Several times he found himself halfway to her door before forcing himself to turn back, remembering the hurt in her eyes after he had broken her trust. He knew he had done the wrong thing by kissing her, he had broken her one rule. Molly had made it clear - she only wanted a business arrangement, or a working partnership, perhaps they were even friends.
He had also taken advantage of her trust, and perhaps that was his greatest sin. He had forgotten the danger she placed herself in night after night. Not just the danger that revealed itself in the form of Adelaide Bartlett's knife. No, the danger of being a woman in a man's world, and all that she could lose if she was discovered. Her reputation would be shattered beyond repair, her chances at either marriage or a medical career destroyed in an instant.
Or worse, what man might take advantage of her if the wrong one did discover her. The thought of Molly at the mercy of someone like that idiot Detective Crane made his blood run cold.
The line had been drawn between them for her safety. A line he had impulsively, selfishly crossed.
And as a result, Sherlock Holmes was lost. Lost in the case, and lost in the world without Molly.
One night, desperate for a lead and desperate to think of something other than Molly, he tried a different approach to the case, scouring the streets of Camden Town late into the night, peering into dark corners and hidden alleyways, searching for even the slightest hint or clue. His mind raced as he pieced together the few shreds of evidence he had been able to unearth. The fog rolled in, thick and yellow, casting an eerie glow around the gas lamps and obscuring the faces of the few people still awake at such an hour.
He could see no connecting thread between the victims – they varied in social status, age, gender, vocation. They were all murdered in different streets and laneways around Camden Town. They were all garrotted – that much was clear – but unfortunately the cause of death wasn't enough to give a picture of the one who wielded the weapon. Without Molly's expert eye examining the bodies, he felt blind to crucial details that might have pointed to the killer's identity or method.
As the days passed Sherlock grew more and more frustrated with the case. He couldn't quite put his finger on what was missing, what clue he was overlooking. Each morning's newspaper brought reports of the public's growing fear, and harsh criticism of Scotland Yard's failure to apprehend the "Camden Garrotter" as the press had dubbed the killer.
He painstakingly assembled all of the evidence into a large map which covered most of the wall in his small flat, but even after laying out all the clues, there was nothing to show him the way forward. Red pins marked murder locations, scraps of newspaper were affixed with notes in his cramped handwriting, and lengths of string attempted to connect elements that might be related – but the pattern remained elusive.
But no matter how hard he found the case, he didn't seek her out. His pride, and more importantly, his concern for her wellbeing, prevented him from disturbing the life she had chosen to return to.
As days passed, Sherlock’s belief that he would never see Molly again grew and grew.
That was until the night he was roused from his sleep by the figure of the small woman, joining him in his bed.
_______
Now: Eight Years Later
As Molly closed the door to her son's new bedroom, mere hours after being forcibly evicted from their home, and less than a day after the death of her husband, Archie's ability to sleep soundly revealed the truth: losing Thomas was of little impact to her son. He never had a father to begin with. The weight of this realization pressed heavily upon her shoulders as she leaned against the doorframe, her fingers lingering on the unfamiliar wood.
Since her son was born, it had pained Molly to see what little interest her husband had shown in Archie. He could go months without even sharing a room with the boy, and even on the rare occasions when they did, Thomas would seek any excuse to leave it as quickly as possible. "Business matters," he would mutter, barely glancing at the child who so desperately sought his approval.
On Archie’s second birthday, Thomas demanded that Archie stop calling him “Dada”.
“It’s time he showed me some respect,” he’d explained. “The child is to call me Mr Jones.”
Molly had stopped making excuses for Thomas on that day. Resigned to the fact that her son lived with a man who was his father in name only.
Molly made up for Thomas' absence by ensuring that she dedicated herself wholly to the development of her son. A woman of her station would have been afforded a nanny should she have asked, but Molly instead decided to spend every minute of the day with her child. She did, however, spare no expense in arranging as many tutors as possible to feed his insatiable hunger for knowledge. The expense had occasionally led to uncomfortable conversations with Thomas about household finances, but on this matter, she would not yield. She knew whose intelligence Archie had inherited, after all.
But no matter how highly recommended his tutors were, Archie soon outstripped them all. And Molly found herself regularly seeking more and more advanced teachers. His thirst for knowledge, his ability to observe minute details, and his quick, logical mind were unlike anything she’d ever seen on someone so young. Sometimes, when Archie was engrossed in his experiments or puzzles, she would catch herself holding her breath at the familiar expression of concentration on his small face.
For a boy of such young years, her son was indeed familiar with adults coming and going in his life. So much, it seemed, had prepared him for this day – if such a thing as murder could ever be prepared for. The quiet strength he displayed throughout the chaotic morning had made her heart both proud and heavy with the knowledge that he had already learned to hide his emotions so well.
In terms of completely uprooting her son from his home, moving across London, and away from everything he'd ever known, there was very little that had fazed the boy. When she had explained they would be staying with Mr. Holmes his eyes had lit up with an excitement she hadn't seen since he received his chemistry set for Christmas.
There was only one thing that Archie had asked for before bedtime.
"Can I please say good night to him?" he asked as he drank his bedtime cup of milk, his small fingers wrapped around the porcelain. A smudge of white lingered on his upper lip, and Molly resisted the urge to wipe it away as she had when he was younger.
Molly worried her bottom lip, a nervous habit she had never quite outgrown. On the one hand, Sherlock had been more than accommodating of his smallest fan, and definitely showed hospitality by moving them both into Baker Street. The speed with which he had arranged everything—from the fresh linens on the beds to the small collection of books that appeared mysteriously on Archie's nightstand—suggested he had been preparing for this possibility. But on the other hand, she didn't dare overstep. Years of marriage to Thomas had taught her caution in asking for anything, even something as simple as a moment of someone's time.
And they hadn't had a chance to talk about where the lines were between them, what had changed since she last saw him. Eight years was a lifetime—they were different people now. She was no longer the young woman disguising herself as a man to satisfy her intellectual curiosity, and he... well, she didn’t know. All she had learned about Sherlock in the intervening years had come through Dr Watson’s chronicles in the Strand. But that was the myth. What of the man?
Archie only knew of the myth, too. What if the man wasn’t the hero her son had assumed him to be?
"I'm sure Mister Holmes is busy, Archie. Let's leave him be." Her voice sounded strained even to her own ears.
Archie's eyes looked past his mother to the man stood behind her, his face breaking into a beaming smile that transformed his features. The same smile that had once quickened Molly's heart in a dimly lit laboratory.
Molly turned to see Sherlock standing in the doorway with so much more caution than his previous entrance, mere hours earlier, when asking about Mrs Fitz seemed to be such a break in the case. His tall frame nearly filled the modest doorway, but he seemed somehow smaller.
"Forgive the intrusion, Molly. I was just going through some files when I noticed a story that John never got around to publishing." His voice was soft, almost hesitant—so unlike his usual confident declarations. She noticed he had removed his coat and suit jacket, standing now in his shirtsleeves with the cuffs rolled back.
She chided herself for noticing such physical details in another man mere hours after her husband had died. Even if the world wasn’t aware that her marriage to Thomas never was a love match. It was still unseemly.
Sherlock turned his attention to Archie, bending down to his level, looking in his eyes with a care and warmth that Thomas never had. The gentleness in his gaze made Molly's throat tighten unexpectedly. It was the same look she had imagined countless times over the years when watching Archie master a new skill or solve a difficult puzzle.
"Perhaps you would like your mother to read it to you before bed?" His deep voice had shifted, becoming warmer, softer when addressing the boy.
He handed the boy a pile of papers in John's handwriting with the title "The Red-Headed League". Molly recognized it as one of the cases they had worked on together, though carefully edited, she was sure, to remove any mention of "Victor Trevor."
Archie flung himself at Sherlock with a hug, his small arms barely reaching around the detective's torso. "Thank you Mister Holmes!" His excitement was palpable, vibrating through his small frame.
Sherlock stilled for a minute. Molly feared that her son might face another rejection, but he hugged him back. His long arms encircled the boy with surprising tenderness, and for a moment, Molly saw something in his eyes she couldn't quite name—pain, longing, regret, joy—all mingled together in a flash before his usual composure returned.
"Please call me Sherlock." The words seemed to catch in his throat slightly.
"Thank you Sherlock!" Archie jumped out of the detective's arms and ran off to his room, his footsteps echoing on the unfamiliar floorboards. Molly watched as Sherlock's eyes followed the boy, noting the subtle softening around his mouth, the slight forward incline of his body, as if drawn by an invisible string.
"Mummy – are you coming?" he bellowed from the bedroom, impatience colouring his voice.
"One moment Archie." She called back, her eyes still fixed on Sherlock's face, trying to read what lay beneath his carefully composed expression.
Molly wanted to say so much to Sherlock, wanted to share so much, wanted to explain. The years of guilt, of questions, of decisions made and unmade. But all that she could muster were two simple words: "Thank you." They felt wholly inadequate for everything she meant to convey.
"It's my pleasure," he replied, a quick, automatic response.
"No. I mean it," she added, trying to wordlessly communicate the myriad emotions she had been feeling all day in a simple sentence. For taking them in, for being kind to Archie, for not asking the questions she knew must be burning in his mind.
"I mean, not pleasure," Sherlock had a look of chiding himself. A reminder that a man did die today. "I don't mind." His awkwardness was oddly endearing, a glimpse of the man beneath the detective.
Molly placed a kiss on his cheek. The gesture was impulsive, born of gratitude and exhaustion and a flood of memories she had kept carefully locked away. His skin was warm beneath her lips, the faint scent of his cologne achingly familiar.
In that moment she felt all tension melt from Sherlock's body. It was as if some invisible thread had been cut, releasing him from a burden he had carried too long.
He exhaled slowly, "Molly, I-" he started, his voice low and uncertain. In his eyes, she saw questions he dared not ask, words he couldn't form.
"Mummy!" Archie yelled, his impatience growing, the moment between them shattered.
With one word they were separated, again. Sherlock taking himself back upstairs to his apartment.
With the story now read and Archie now soundly asleep, his dark curls splayed against the pillow, Molly knew that she could go to Sherlock, she could take the chance to explain, she could share with him how her life had been since she last saw him. The truths she had kept hidden for eight years pressed against her lips, demanding release.
But first, she needed to take a seat and prepare herself. The words needed to be right, the explanation clear. She owed him that much.
As she sat, Molly was overcome by a wave of exhaustion – so much had happened in just a few hours. The adrenaline that had carried her through the discovery of Thomas's body, the police questioning, the eviction, and finally arriving at Baker Street with all their belongings in two small trunks, had finally ebbed away. It was no wonder that within a minute of sitting on the small settee in her modest sitting room, Molly fell asleep.
What she didn't know was that Sherlock had come back to her flat. When he saw her asleep, he gently placed a tartan throw over her, and left. His fingers had lingered briefly near a dark curl that had fallen across her cheek, but he withdrew without touching her, his footsteps silent as he retreated to his own rooms upstairs, where he would spend the night pacing, piecing together the evidence of not just one mystery, but two.