The Pain of Saying Good-bye

Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed my first Sherlock fan fic "An Evening with Julia Watson." It was meant as a one-shot, but based on the feedback I received I'm planning on adding one or two more chapters to it.

This one-shot will be rather different in tone compared to "Julia Watson", I still hope you will enjoy reading it.

A note of caution: I'm a non-native speaker of English living in the United States, so please forgive me for any mistakes and for potentially mixing up British and American English words/expressions.

I don't own any of these characters. Thank you to my friend Jennifer who allowed for me to use the image of her cute cat Button for this story.

Sherlock walked toward the entrance of the small veterinary clinic with a sense of trepidation. It must have been decades since he has last been to a vet, and the painful memory of that last time has been buried in the deepest realm of his mind palace. As a 10-year-old boy, he had vowed to never ever go to a vet again, yet here he was.

Molly's cat Toby hasn't been eating properly lately, and the little he ate, he couldn't keep in. Sherlock's initial fascination of analyzing cat vomit wore off quickly as he typically ended up cleaning the mess with Molly still working full-time at St Bart's, despite being seven months pregnant. Sherlock's preoccupation to study Molly's changing body was unabatedly strong; measuring the circumference of her belly every Saturday morning; excitedly monitoring Molly's weight gain, to his wife's chagrin; and assuring for her to eat a well-balanced diet while still occasionally catering towards her constant cravings for pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches. Further, he was testing John's patience by calling and texting him day and night to ask parenting questions that ranged from the issue of keeping spare body parts for experiments around the house once the baby was born, to John's professional opinion on circumcision if he and Molly had a son. At this advanced stage of Molly's pregnancy, Sherlock would prefer for her to stay home at Baker Street and rest, but Molly would just smile and remind him he'll miss the easy access to the lab at Bart's and to sundry body parts soon enough once she was on maternity leave. Sherlock couldn't deny that, and Molly relished a little in the fact that she knew her husband so well.

While Molly actually enjoyed going to work still, she couldn't wait to meet their baby. Not just because moving around with a feisty kick-boxer growing inside of her was becoming increasingly cumbersome, but also because she couldn't wait to be a mum and see Sherlock interact with their baby. Lately, her anticipation to meet their baby was overshadowed by her concern for Toby though, as he had lost weight and seemed in pain, so she made an appointment to go to the vet with him on her next day off.

However, on the day of the appointment, Mike Stamford called her early in the morning, begging her to come to work as there had been a mass casualty on the M-4 the previous night and they needed to determine what caused the driver of a lorry to swerve into the opposing lanes killing him and several other drivers. Sherlock's eyes lit up as Molly filled him in. Just as he was starting to get dressed to come along to St. Bart's, Molly stopped his enthusiasm by placing her hand on his chest.

"Sherlock, would you please take Toby to the vet this morning?"

"Molly, let's look at this reasonably. You can change the appointment to any other day and go with Toby yourself. I'm certain he'd prefer to go with you anyways. Besides, you know my deductive skills may be of great help to you at St. Bart's today."

Molly looked at Sherlock with a serious expression in her eyes.

"Please," she said very quietly. Something in the tone of her voice resonated deeply within Sherlock, so he agreed to go to the vet, as much as he hated the idea.

So here he was, his jaw clenched, as he strode into the front room his coat flapping behind him dramatically. The people in the waiting room, an elderly woman with a white cat in her lap, a family consisting of mother and two children with a golden retriever, and an older man with a dachshund all looked up at the man who entered.

"Mum, that's Sherlock Holmes!" one of the children called out. Sherlock smirked at the kid as he approached the receptionist desk.

"Hello, I'm Sherlock Holmes. My wife made an appointment for the vet to see her cat."

"Holmes? I fear there's no appointment in our calendar."

Sherlock put on his feigned polite smile at the receptionist. "You may want to check your calendar once again. My wife's cat is called Toby."

"Oh, Toby Hooper, yes, we have his information here. Why don't you have a seat for a moment, Mr Hooper?"

"Holmes. My wife's maiden name is Hooper," Sherlock explained rather stiffly. This receptionist was clearly a moron, which didn't inspire any confidence in the skills of the vet who must have hired this woman.

The receptionist nodded: "Right. Please have a seat, Mr Holmes, we'll call you in a few minutes."

So Sherlock took a seat and placed the carrier that contained Toby next to him. He looked around at the other patients, none of them in a cage, so he wondered if he should take Toby out of his confinement.

He and Toby weren't close by any means. Ever since Molly and Toby had moved in with Sherlock, it had been a battle for dominance between Sherlock and Molly's cat. The biggest power struggle began right on the day Molly moved in as Toby claimed Sherlock's chair for himself, and even though Sherlock sort of won the reoccuring daily fight by picking up Toby and placing him on the floor, final victory was typically Toby's as not a day passed that Sherlock didn't find cat hair on his clothes, causing repetitive teasing by John and Lestrade, and worst of all snide comments by Mycroft about the apparent side effects of domesticity on his younger brother.

At Baker Street, Toby would usually put up a good fight when Sherlock tried to grab him, yet this morning, when he was putting him into the carrier, Toby didn't struggle one bit. Sherlock figured that given the feline's current sluggishness, he was ok to come out at this time. So Sherlock opened the door and took Toby out. He gently ran his fingers through Toby's fur as he's often seen Molly do it, and the cat seemed to really enjoy this rare treat at the hands of Sherlock. Sherlock made a mental note to do this more often, it would probably greatly improve his relationship with the feline.

After a while, a nurse came, file in her hand, and called out "Toby Hooper?"

Sherlock, walking erect with Toby in his arm and cat carrier in his free hand, followed the nurse to the examination room.

"Dr Calahan will be with you in a moment, Mr Hooper" she said.

"It's Holmes," Sherlock retorted tersely, but the nurse had already left the room.

When he turned around to take in the room, he froze at the sight of the examination table in the middle of room, having a flashback of Redbeard lying on a shiny table just like this. Instinctively, he stepped back and held Toby close to his chest.

The vet walked in a moment later, an energetic blond woman probably ten years his senior, who kindly smiled at Sherlock.

"Hello, I'm Dr Calahan. You must be Molly's husband. How is she doing? I haven't seen her in a while. A lot of work at St. Bart's?"

Sherlock, feeling increasingly unnerved in this room that triggered his most traumatic childhood memories, wasn't even attempting to do small talk. Instead, he held out Toby towards the vet. "Molly's very concerned about Toby. He hasn't eaten much and the little he has, he hasn't been able to keep down," Sherlock said very quickly.

Dr Calahan took the cat from Sherlock.

"It indeed looks like he lost some weight," she said kindly. She put Toby on the examination table. The vet had known Molly for years since she has been bringing in Toby for check ups, and she had come to like the kind pathologist with the quirky sense of humor. For a moment, she wondered what an odd match this man was for Molly, as he was walking up and down the room, rapidly firing off theories that may possibly explain Toby's weight loss from food allergies to pancreatitis. The vet patiently tuned out Sherlock's string of speculations while taking a closer look at Toby. Her brow furrowed when she felt a knot in the cat's abdomen, not going unnoticed by the pacing consulting detective who immediately asked: "Have you detected anything abnormal?"

The vet sighed and looked at Sherlock pointedly. "I have not yet finished my examination, Mr Holmes. I'd like to draw some blood and get a urine sample, and then I would like to take an x-ray."

"What do you suspect?"

"There could be several reasons, Mr Holmes," the vet said calmly.

"You must have a suspicion, as you frowned very clearly just now during the physical examination of my wife's cat," Sherlock responded.

The vet sighed: "Mr Holmes, right now, I would like to exclude the possibility that Toby may have leiomyosarcoma, a painful tumor of the intestines."

Sherlock felt as if this woman had delivered a punch to his gut. He blinked: "Toby – cancer? What treatment options do we have if it's cancer?"

"We'll see. Once we've run the routine tests and know we're looking at leimyosarcoma, we'll have to see if it has metastasized yet. Would you mind holding on to Toby for a moment so I can draw his blood?"

Sherlock placed his hands gently on Toby's fur and swallowed hard. Dr Calahan, observant with both animals and people, noticed that while Molly's husband's facial expression was as unreadable as before, the fact that he has suddenly become very quiet showed to her that there must be more to this man than she had thought.

And indeed, a little later, when they knew that indeed Toby had cancer that has metastasized through his intestines, Dr Calahan noticed the eyes of the man resembling those of a sad boy's as she told him: "This must be devastating news for you and Molly. While I can provide you with medicine against the pain, I would advise against prolonging Toby's suffering for an extended period."

Sherlock's turned away from the vet, his mind racing, bringing forth a flood of memories of Molly and Toby. Molly holding Toby in her arms to cuddle as she came home from work, pressing playful kisses on his head, brushing his fur while singing to him off-key, Toby sleeping at the foot of the bed, Toby cuddling up to her protruding baby belly… Sherlock couldn't bring himself to turn back to the vet, knowing his face would betray him. He took a steadying breath before he started to speak, slowly and quietly, still not looking at the vet: "I can't – I don't know how– we, we are expecting a baby, Molly's 30 weeks pregnant, she'll be distraught at the news."

Dr Calahan nodded, gently running her hands along Toby: "Would you want me to call her?"

Sherlock's mind was quickly going through different scenarios, and while it seemed so much easier for the vet to bear the bad news, Sherlock knew that Molly would need support upon hearing them, and as her husband and father of her baby, he knew that he should lend that support, even though he didn't have the slightest idea on how to do that.

"It's alright, Dr Calahan. I will tell her."

When Molly walked up the steps to their flat that night, she didn't know what to expect. Sherlock had not responded to any of her texts and phone calls inquiring about Toby, yet when she called the vet's office, the receptionist confirmed that Sherlock and Toby had been to the office, and that Dr Calahan wasn't available to speak to Molly when she called.

Molly was surprised to find Sherlock sitting on the sofa, with Toby on his lap and speaking to him soothingly, while running his hands though his fur, while Toby purred in obvious contentment.

"Sherlock, why didn't you respond to any of my messages? I finally gave up assuming you were on a case," Molly asked reproachfully. "How's Toby?"

She sat down next to her husband.

"I'm not good with this, Molly," Sherlock admitted, as he took her hands into his and revealed Dr. Calahan's diagnosis.

Upon taking in Sherlock's words, Molly started to cry bitterly, prompting a curious glance by the feline, while Sherlock looked on helplessly. He has never seen Molly so distraught, and he was getting scared for her and for their baby.

"Molly, please stop crying. It's not good for the baby when you're so sad," he said after a while.

Molly sobbed: "Toby was my father's cat, he's been with me though e-e-everything; d-d-daddy's passing, you - you being gone for two years without me knowing - knowing if you were dead or alive, the end of my engagement with T-T- Tom," she took a deep breath before she continued, "Toby was always there for me, and if it was only to keep me - keep me company at times when I felt lonely. I cannot help but feel des- despair about losing him."

"You're not alone anymore. You have me, and our baby, the Watsons, Mrs Hudson, Graham. You may even count my parents, who love you more than they love Mycroft and me."

At that, Molly chuckled a bit, but the tears continued to flow.

"Sherlock, can you just hold me please?" she asked. Sherlock obliged by carefully wrapping his arms around his wife, who leaned in for comfort as the flow of tears hasn't entirely stopped yet. Feeling his shirt get wet where Molly rested her head, Sherlock frantically searched his mind palace for something to make Molly feel better, but he couldn't find anything. Instead, the sadness his wife felt kept bringing up the most painful memory of his life, of having to say goodbye to his first best friend. He knew he has never told Molly about Redbeard, but he was now wondering if sharing his own pain may be of help to his wife.

So Sherlock began: "When I was a child, I didn't have any friends. After all my parents' attempts of setting me up with playdates failed dismally, one Christmas, I was six, my parents gave me a dog. An Irish setter puppy, with beautiful dark red fur. I named him Redbeard. He was my best friend, my only friend. I – I loved him." Molly looked up at Sherlock, and a little tender smile spread on her face. She had seen images of small Sherlock at his parents home, a slim, pale boy with unruly curls, images that made her heart melt. She never knew he had a dog though, but she could certainly see why he had been attached to one, as his own heart was as loyal as that of a canine.

"A few years later, I noticed Redbeard would get tired easily, so Mummy and I went to the vet, and it turned out he had cancer. It had spread, so my parents had him put down."

Sherlock blinked a little, remembering the day he was supposed to say goodbye. He hadn't slept all night, holding his best friend in his arms, Redbeard licking the tears from his face. When his mother came to his room to wake him the next morning, she didn't scold him as she would have usually done for letting the dog sleep in his bed, and she said he didn't have to go to school that day. She put his hands through his curls and asked: "Would you like to come with me to the vet?"

Sherlock, reluctant to let go of his dog, sobbed: "Mummy can't we keep Redbeard for just one more day? Please Mummy, please?" Sherlock kept begging, until Mycroft walked into the room, saying:

"Redbeard is in great pain. It is very selfish of you to prolong his suffering."

So Sherlock agreed to go with his mother and Mycroft to the vet, but when the time came for him to say good-bye to his best friend, placed on a shiny examination table, Sherlock couldn't get himself to do it and instead ran out. He escaped to the forest near his house, hiding in a bolt hole he had built for himself and Redbeard. He wouldn't come out until Mycroft found him hours later, looking upset for having to search his brother. "Sherlock, you're being such a stupid little boy." He took the sobbing boy's hand and walked home with him, where his parents showed him the grave they had prepared for Redbeard and asked if he wanted to place the box that contained Redbeard's body inside the grave. Sherlock pulled himself from his mother's arms and ran to his room where he locked himself in, and cried as the pain inside of him simply wouldn't go away. Furtively blinking at the memory, he noticed Molly's eyes look at him with compassion and love, and Sherlock drew her closer.

"It was – painful, I've never experienced pain like that before. I – I felt like I wanted to die too, the pain was just too much to bear."

"I'm sorry you had to go through this when you were so young and felt so alone." Molly responded, her voice thick from crying.

Sherlock pressed a kiss onto her forehead: "Mycroft returned home from school for the holidays just a few weeks later. He called me weak and stupid for having my heart broken by a mere dog. My brother was the smartest person I knew, so I asked him how I could make the pain stop, and he told me to steel myself from getting too close to anyone, from sentiment of any kind, saying that caring wasn't an advantage." He clearly heard his brother's words in his mind, and saw Mycroft's stern face as he imparted this important life lesson to Sherlock again and again throughout their lives. Molly in the meantime tightened her arms around Sherlock. He had never told her any of this before, and she felt very sad for her husband and even more so her brother-in-law. Sherlock's story was eye-opening in many respects.

"How come I've never seen a picture of you and Redbeard?"

"I got rid of them," Sherlock said, now feeling a tinge of regret about it, as he would have liked to share them with his wife.

"What I realized in these past few years, it was a cowardly thing to not allow yourself to care for others, to deny yourself from having friends, from loving someone, all because I was afraid to feel the pain I felt when Redbeard died. You, Molly Hooper, you love so deeply and unconditionally, you are the bravest woman I know. Please don't feel sad. Toby has had a beautiful life with you, because of you."

Molly was silent for while. The crying had stopped, and she thought over what Sherlock had said: "I'm not brave, Sherlock," Molly said with a small shake of her head.

"Yes, you are. You don't shy away from making yourself vulnerable by loving others, and even though you have experienced great loss in your own life by losing both of your parents, you still keep your heart open, falling in love to probably the greatest git that walks this earth." He looked down at Molly tenderly and started to wipe away the tear stains from her face.

"I love you," Molly whispered.

"I know," Sherlock responded, pressing a gentle kiss on her mouth. "You're not alone anymore, Mrs Holmes. Our baby and I will make sure you'll never ever feel lonely again."

The next day, Mycroft's car came to pick them up and give them the ride to the vet. When they walked into her clinic, the nurse immediately ushered Molly and Sherlock to the examination room where Dr Calahan was meeting them, asking if they wanted a few more minutes of alone time to say good-bye.

Molly nodded. "A brief moment would be really nice."

Dr Calahan nodded and left the room.

Molly cradled Toby in her arms and the feline snuggled against her. "Thank you Toby, you were the best companion I could have ever asked for. I love you."

Sherlock, standing behind Molly, felt a giant wave of sadness come over him and had to fight the urge to run away, like he did the day Redbeard was put down. He blinked rapidly as his wife kissed Toby on the head one last time: "I will miss you so much. " Her voice broke as she said: "I'll go and get Dr Calahan then."

Sherlock gently took Toby from her arms and held the cat up to look him in the eye. He looked around to see that Molly had indeed left the room before he addressed the feline: "Toby, we may not have been good friends, but there's one thing we both have in common, our love for Molly. So, before you go, I want to assure you that you won't need to worry about her, I will always take good care of Molly, I promise you that. Of Molly and the baby, our family."

The feline stared at him, and when he blinked, Sherlock took that as a mutual understanding, and then pulled him into his arms to pat him.

Shortly after, Molly and the vet came back inside. He looked down at Molly, who gave him a little nod, so he placed Toby on the table. Molly put her hands on her pet, but they were trembling, so Sherlock put his on top of hers. Dr Calahan approached and carefully injected Toby with the barbiturate drug. Toby fell asleep almost instantly, so Sherlock removed his hands and wrapped them around his silently crying wife. Once Molly stopped feeling the heart-beat, she removed her hands as well. A quick check of his vitals confirmed to the vet that Toby was gone, and she looked at the grieving pet parents.

"Would you like to take the body home with you?"

Sherlock nodded, and carefully lifted the lifeless body into the box he had brought along.

He signed a couple of forms the vet needed to have signed, and then he guided Molly to the car while carrying the box containing Toby.

The driver had been instructed to drive them to Sherlock's parents house, where Molly's father-in-law had dug out a grave in the family garden, in close proximity to a weathered stone that red "Redbeard". Mummy and Daddy Holmes didn't hesitate one second when Sherlock called them the previous night to ask if Toby could be buried in their garden next to Sherlock's beloved dog.

Upon arrival to his parents house, Sherlock's parents came out to greet them at the car, his mother wordlessly wrapping her daughter in law in her arms. This warm maternal gesture made Molly tear up again, so she started wiping away her tears when Mummy Holmes released her with a kind smile.

"Come on in, my dears, I made some tea, and a batch of cranberry oatmeal cookies since you probably haven't eaten anything all day" she said, gently patting Molly's cheek.

"Thank you, but could we, could we possibly –" Molly started.

"Bury Toby first?" Sherlock's father finished the question for her.

"Yes, if you don't mind." Molly looked back and forth between her in-laws.

"Of course we don't mind," Mummy Holmes said, and she led the way to the small grave her husband had dug out. Sherlock bent down and gently put the box into the grave. Then he walked to stand next to his wife, holding her hand in his.

After a moment of silence, she said "Good-bye Toby, thank you for everything."

She turned to Sherlock, looking a bit helpless as to what to do next.

"Molly, why don't you and Mummy go in for the tea, I will be with you shortly," he suggested.

His mother led Molly inside, and Sherlock followed his father's example, grabbing a shovel to fill up Toby's grave up with the soil his father had dug out the day before. His father then gave him a stone engraved with Toby's name, it was quite similar to the one for Redbeard. Sherlock bent down and put it on the grave, thinking of the promise he made to Toby.

When he got up, he glanced at his father from the corner of his eyes.

"Thank you for doing all of this for Molly," Sherlock said, pointing at the grave and stone in front of them.

"It was nothing. Today must have been hard for you both, son," he said, "your mother and I were worried."

Sherlock scoffed: "May I remind you that I'm not a 10-year-old anymore? I have my own family now."

His father nodded, thinking to himself that indeed, his youngest son has made leaps in maturity since Molly's pregnancy.

"Do you think Mummy may have been hiding images of Redbeard somewhere? I think those would cheer up Molly immensely."

Walking back to the house together, his father smiled. "I'm sure she has some stowed away in one of the few the hiding places she's proud that neither you nor Mycroft have found to this day. She's waiting to see if her first grandchild will figure them out."

Sherlock couldn't resist to smile. There was no doubt in his mind, given its genes, his and Molly's child would find Mummy's remaining secret hiding places at an early age. As the two men walked into the kitchen, they noticed the stash of pictures of Sherlock's childhood friend spread out in front of Molly, who was sipping on her tea, nibbling on her cookie, and smiling at the image of a happy little curly-haired boy with his arms wrapped around his dog. Sherlock took a seat next to Molly and felt his heart fill with warmth as they looked at the old photos. It had been painful to say good-bye to Redbeard all these years ago and in response to the pain he had felt, he had gone through great lengths of not caring for anyone for a large part of his adult life. Looking now at his wife who was carrying their child, he thanked his lucky stars for John Watson to have come into his life to make him see that caring actually was an advantage.