It Is What It Is

Dawn comes earlier in these parts, or so he thinks. He finally sits up. He hasn't even bothered to change into the pyjamas that he had stuffed in his overnight bag. He rarely uses them so they have the appearance of just bought, with the creases that being on a shop shelf for too long would have left. He opens his phone and check how far to go before he could get an Uber to Edinburgh without waking up the Hoopers. He gets up and walks to the window. The ceilings in the second floor of the farm house are lower than normal, at least in London so he has to be careful not to hit the ceiling. It is not raining. It is safe to go. The numbers on the right-hand upper corner of his phone says 5:40. He hopes no one will hear and no one will wake up. He does not want to impose on them anymore. He doesn't exactly feel like it was his fault but his presence did not help the breach between Molly and her brother. John would have called him out. He can hear his voice in his head saying is that a spot of guilt I see in your frown? Maybe. Simon's words had definitely struck a chord. He was definitely guilty of many of the charges that Molly's brother had thrown his way across the table the previous night. Was it the best way to do it? Probably not, but Sherlock was not a man to deny his shortcomings. He walks out as quietly as possible, not an easy feat on a house full of old wooden floorboards, but he has memorized where they are from the previous evening and manages to avoid most of them and pray that they are all deep sleepers. He gets his coat and walks out. It is a cold damp morning, but at least it is not raining. He lifts the collar of his coat and walks down the dirt path to the road. In 10 minutes he will arrive to a regional road and from there, he can text an Uber with his exact location. His mind refuses to acknowledge that he's running away. He will not confront Molly's brother, not only because he may think he's right on many counts, but also because he does not want a fight, not like this. Experiment concluded. He doesn't do dates. The cab arrives faster than he thought it would but the taxi driver is local. He gets to the station and manages to get a ticket on the earlier train to London where he will try with all his might to sleep. Blessed sleep.

* * *
Molly wakes up late. She wasn't able to sleep for a while after she came back into the house when most of the lights were off. She watched the alarm clock in her old room slowly tick into the early hours and finally she fell asleep around 4 a.m. That is why he missed the movement, the muffled noises of Sherlock leaving. She stretched in the bed, the memory of last night's events lingered like a bad hangover. She got up to try and see if she could mend anything that may have shattered. Had anything shattered? Sherlock was not easy to read sometimes. Even though she could see him, most of the time. He was particularly cryptic when people were looking and last night, he was on the spot light. She winced at that thought. Why did she think that bringing him to her brother's house was a good idea? Because that's what she does. She hopes. She tells herself that everything can be all right and then everything fails massively. She yawns and gets a cardigan to go downstairs. Sherlock is probably already up and it would be better to face the music than to let it brood any longer. She opens the door and notices the door of the guest room slightly ajar. She knocks. There is no answer. She pushes it a bit until it opens fully silently until it thuds against the wardrobe. He's gone. Why didn't she think of it? Of course, he's gone. Why would he stay? She walks downstairs and calmly makes coffee. She will need it for the drive. As the water boils in the kettle, she checks her phone. There are no messages either. She doesn't know how she feels. It is a mixture between annoyed and understanding. After hesitating for a few minutes, she texts him:
- Are you on the train? MH.
The message does not delay.
- Yes. SH.
It feels stupid to send the message she sends next but she can't help it.
- Did you sleep? MH
- No. You? SH
- Not much.
- You should sleep.
- You too.
The kettle boils and she pours the water into the French press. She looks at her screen. That may be the end of the conversation. It probably is. She locks her phone to avoid continuing looking at it waiting for a response. She gets milk from the fridge and looks outside enjoying the silence and the solitude for a minute. At least it is better than the bickering they were subjected to yesterday. Unexpectedly her phone lights up.
- Are you coming back to London? SH
She almost smiles, but she needs to control these stupid hopes.
- Yes.
- Today?
- Don't know yet.
- Ok.
And that is the last text of their conversation that morning because she doesn't dare to ask if he wants a rematch of the disastrous second date. He probably does not. And why would he? It is not that it went well. They were just doing what they do: work together, be colleagues, and walk. Yes, maybe they got to know each other a little bit. Yes, the music was nice, but beyond that, it was not much of a date. She has never been great at dates to be honest. Why did she agree to a date then? When will she give up on her stupid crush for this man? It's gone beyond platonic. Maybe Simon is right. Maybe what she needs is to cut ties, to go away, and yet she can't. She knows nothing can happen, nothing will, romantically or otherwise. She does not even know what she wants with him, because on the one hand when she closes her and lets her imagination run free, she sees this romantic story unfolding in her brain that would be worth of a novel by the Brontes. But then she thinks again, she takes into account who he really is, and who she really is, and what they do and how they do it, and their relationships over the years, colleagues, trusting friends, and that is it. Nothing more, nothing else. It should be enough, so why the hell it isn't?
Simon walks into the kitchen while she's holding her mug with two hands and standing near the big window towards the tall hills at the back of the house.
- Morning – he says. His voice is hoarse and apologetic.
She turns her head and nods at him.
- You are still mad at me – he says.
She shakes her head.
- He's gone, isn't he? – Simon tries to say without a tone.
She nods.
- Look, I'm sorry... I should have kept my big mouth shut, but ...
- I don't want to talk about it.
Simon finds it hard not to apologise because the guilt is eating at him.
- I was out of line.
- I presume Liam has made sure you feel bad about it – Molly says taking a sip – So my job is done.
Simon pours a cup of coffee for himself too and joins her looking out.
- What are you going to do about it?
Molly snorts.
- That's the question, isn't it?
- Have you talked to him? – Simon asks.
- I texted. He's on the train.
- But have you talked to him really?
- No.
- Are you going to?
- Probably not. – she says – but I'm gonna come back today.
- Why not stay till tomorrow? We can do something nice, go to the farmer's market – Simon is trying to provide a peace offering, calling all the nice stuff that they used to do together.
- I want to get back to my house and get ready for the week.
- So you are gonna go back to work on Monday?
She nods. Simon watches her.
- It is who I am.
- Your job? No way.
She smiles.
- Maybe not, but I do enjoy it.
Simon rolls his eyes dramatically.
- Someone would have referred you to a psychiatrist for that statement a few years ago.
- Well, thank goodness, we are not living in the middle ages, where they would have burnt me at the stake – Molly responds.
Simon puts his hand over her shoulder.
- Are you sure you are not mad at me?
- I wish I was but I can't. You're my stupid idiot brother.
He smiles and squeezes her shoulder.
- He probably is though.
- Who? Sherlock?
- Yes!
- I doubt it. No offence, but you are not that important for him to be mad at you.
- I'm going to take it as a compliment not to be a person of interest for the famous consulting detective.
She laughs and finishes her coffee.
- I better go and pack my stuff.
Simon nods and lets her go. She sends an email from her laptop so that Bart's receives the news of her return on Monday and gets ready to go. By the time, she comes back down to the kitchen after a shower and finishing packing, Liam is already there.
- So you are leaving us? – Liam says dramatically.
- People will start talking if I linger – she winks as Liam hugs her.
- Don't be mad at him – he whispers.
- I'm not, honestly. It is what it is.
She puts her bags at the back of her mini and gets ready to go for the long drive home. She'll stop in Manchester for a long walk and a bite, but she's looking forward to being home. She puts on music for a bit of the way, soundtracks, she has been listening to soundtracks lately as if to make her life more interesting. It makes her feel like she's the protagonist of some dull British or Scottish movie about this sad lonely pathologist... no, maybe about this independent strong woman... no, about this girl who decided to be a pathologist and... She shakes her head as she leaves Edinburgh. She feels pathetic fictioning her own life to find some kind of comfort on the reality she lives. And the reality is this: She's a 30+ woman with a secure job, not bad looking, intelligent and incapable of holding a relationship for long enough because she's in love with someone who can never love her back. She's incapable of moving on as well, like she's stuck in this limbo she can't seem to get out of. She's tried. Her mind starts listing the series of unsuccessful relationships she's gotten into, one after the other. She goes backwards and of course, Tom was a big mistake, the biggest one? Maybe. It was a different kind of mistake to the ones she normally had done before. Tom was a kind person, a normal guy, who could have worked, if she wasn't... Molly Hooper. She lied to herself, more than to him really. She let the relationship grow further than she had any of the others. She remembers how well she played the part when he proposed. She remembers that she drunk a lot and was so happy, but little by little, the thread holding the seams grew thinner and her heart started to show. He wasn't stupid, Tom, despite what Sherlock would have made everybody at John and Mary's wedding believe. He wasn't and he was fun, in a traditional sense of the word, and he knew how to look after people. But turns out that's not what Molly is looking for. Someone who loves you and adores you and is willing to go the extra mile to take care of you, someone who wants to be by your side as much as possible, someone who will cherish your company above any others, someone who shows you off to his family and friends. Who'd want that? She laughs letting these thoughts do the thinking for her.
‘I'm so stupid', she says out loud to no one at all.
Before Tom was a series of Tinder unsuccessful endeavours. What was she looking for there? The love of her life? The spark? The sex had been good at times, but nothing too remarkable, the connection wasn't there and let's be honest, most of the guys found her job too weird and her humour awkward, or her mind intimidating. And then there was Jim. Thinking about him unnerved her as much as thinking about Eurus even though she hadn't met her, or she wasn't aware of having met her. He had used her to get close to Sherlock but he hadn't foreseen that she was going to play a role, a useful role, he didn't recognize she counted. After Jim Moriarty's death, things have changed radically between Sherlock and her. She had let her mind run wild with ideas. Did Sherlock treat her badly because he actually cared? Did Sherlock make sure that no one knew how important she was to him? Because he had said it himself. ‘You do count, you've always counted and I've always trusted you'. Those words, playing in her mind, still made her shiver. That's what she's looking for. That level of connection that he has with him, and with him only. It doesn't matter what shape it takes. A tear slides down, a rogue tear, a damn tear down her cheek till it meets the corner of her mouth. It doesn't matter at all.
It starts raining so she turns the windscreen wipers on. How fitting.
She's going around in circles, like a dog that won't go to sleep. She puts on her podcast ‘Jackie The Ripper' before she drives herself mad thinking about him, trying to give a solution to the unsolvable equation that they are. She stops talking before she lowers the IQ of the whole country she's driving through. At least, she will laugh and enjoy herself all the way to Manchester.
Before she arrives, a text flashes on her phone, which is connected to the USB cable and lying on the passenger seat.
- How did the date go? – John asks.
She checks the map, she's near Manchester, so she pulls in a petrol station and texts back.
- Not great. He left this morning on the train. I'm driving back. I guess you haven't talked to him. Thanks for asking though.
- What did he do this time? – John asks – Do you want to talk? I can call you.
- No, it's fine. He actually didn't do anything wrong. Simon launched a big brother attack on him.
- Ah, and he retreated.
- Yes.
- ...
- I'm fine, honest. Don't worry about it.
- ...
- I'm gonna have a bite and keep on driving. I just wanna go home.
- I will give him a piece of my mind.
- Don't, please.
- He needs to hear it.
- I think what we both need now is a bit of peace and for things to go back to normal.
- Don't we all? But what's that going to achieve?
- I don't know. I don't care at this stage. I just want to put all this episode behind us, please, John.
John takes a while to reply to that. He's on the couch with Rosie watching Sunday morning cartoons while they finish their Weetabix.
- I'll respect your decision.
Molly cannot believe that the doctor is backing down so easily.
- I believe it when I see it.
- :)
- ... said the blind man.
- :) safe drive, Molly.