Foolish Consistencies

Rated: K+

Prompt: "Molly is always the one to break away from their kisses."

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

It's a defense mechanism, pure and simple. She knows this. But even if knowing is half the battle, that second half—the task of 'letting down her defenses'—is all the harder to surmount.

Molly Hooper didn't set out to be the distant one in their relationship. That is the point of it all. She fell in love with Sherlock Holmes long before he ever returned her feelings, and with that time spent in unrequited limbo came a rather thorough understanding of how his brain works.

He is irascible. He is abrupt. He can manipulate and finagle with the best of them. He champions the argument that the end almost always justifies the means.

And he gets bored easily. So easily. Too easily.

Molly Hooper, with her painfully earnest heart, doesn't want to care too much.

Even though she knows it's far too late.

It was far too late days, months, and years ago.

The rain patters against the window. It keeps a syncopated rhythm, holding steady since it began in the pre-dawn hours. The sky hardly lightened at daybreak, but she can't say the dim light filtering through his bedroom window is gloomy. It's hard to find anything to complain about when they've spent the morning lying in his bed, curled up in each other.

He whispers to her the intricacies of funeral practices in Kiribati. In some, convoluted way, it's how he became the custodial owner of the skull on his mantle.

She listens more to his voice than to his words, as she makes out constellations in the faint freckles on his skin. She doesn't bother to tell him he has a replica of Ursa Major on his belly. He'd probably tell her random groupings of melanocytes look nothing like a large bear.

She's not sure why he's deemed the dead language of Latin worthy of learning, but not the living science of astronomy.

They smile blearily at each other after he's finished his lesson, and he brings his mouth to hers in a kiss, made soft by his gentle lips, the warm blankets that block the room's chill on their naked skin, and the drum of the rain.

She lingers against his mouth only for a few seconds before she feels too exposed. She covers her diffidence by burying her face in the space between his neck and shoulder and sighs against him.

He sighs too, and wraps his arms tightly around her, the rasp of his fingers running up and down her bare back joining in with the rain's chorus.

She finishes scrubbing out after completing her third postmortem of the day. She turns to grab a paper towel for her hands, only to find him standing further down the bay of sinks, waiting for her.

She smiles wanly at him, feeling the weight of an already-ten hour day, knowing that she still has two hours to go.

He greets her brusquely, and asks if she has results from an earlier patient, brought in as a suspected homicide by New Scotland Yard. She nods, wearily running her fingers through her ponytail, having forgotten that she has yet to dry her hands.

Frowning at her now wet hair, she leads him over to her desk and pulls the relevant file from a pile of paperwork she managed to complete earlier that day.

He quickly scans her findings, nods at whatever confirmation he's received from the report, then closes it with a snap and replaces it on the pile. He offers her a tight smile, and then sweeps out of the morgue.

She rolls her eyes, thinking that she had a more romantic interlude with the prepackaged chocolate gateau in the hospital caf at lunch. But then, just as she settles back in at her desk, the double doors of the morgue entrance swing back in, and he's returned.

He comes back up to her desk, places his hands on her rolling chair's armrests and wheels her as close to him as possible, so her feet are bracketed by his, and her knees are bumping his calves. He leans down and swiftly kisses her.

She gives herself one stroke of his tongue against hers before she draws back and tells him that, while his method is appreciated and compelling, she considers his thanks tacit.

She thinks she sees a line appear between his eyebrows, but it's gone in a millisecond, and she immediately forgets that brief neuron firing in her brain.

She forgets her self-preservation tactics sometimes.

Like tonight.

That he and John escaped with their lives is astounding. Even Sherlock is flabbergasted that the night didn't ended with far more finality.

She weaves her way frantically through the emergency vehicles that are scattered throughout several levels of the car park, trying to spot his easily recognizable coat or hair. She flashes her Barts identification with impunity, hoping the officers who wave her on don't think too hard about the likelihood of a pathologist being called on-scene.

Finally, she finds him. He's sitting, slumped posture, on the boot of Lestrade's car, giving a detailed statement to the Detective Inspector. Molly sees John a few feet away, talking to Sally Donovan. John waves weakly at Molly before returning his attention to the Sergeant.

Sherlock stops midsentence and blinks when he sees Molly. As if he's trying to differentiate and reconcile the mortality he thought he was rushing toward him mere minutes ago with the woman who actually is rushing toward him, now.

She doesn't spare Lestrade a glance as she runs the final few steps to Sherlock, flinger her arms around him as she steps between his knees. He doesn't hesitate to pull her in, which is a surprise, as he's never relished public displays of any emotion, let alone affection.

Not that she's tried to push that button much, herself, since she has her own heart and dignity to look out for.

But now, his grip is almost painful. She can feel the chill of the evening ghosting off of him as she slips her arms under his coat to wrap them more closely around his waist.

He crushes his mouth to hers; as if he can taste the life he almost lost on her. She responds with equal fervor. She seeks all of the answers to her unvoiced questions in his strong-but-terrified grip and steadying heartbeat. His heavy breaths of fear and relief puff from his nose, cooling the tear tracks on her cheeks.

Finally, Lestrade clears his throat. Clearly, he is unsure of how he should proceed, but then Sherlock picks up almost exactly where he left off. All without relinquishing his hold on Molly as he does so.

Later, he might be embarrassed to have had so many witnesses to such a weakness as Molly Hooper.

But she can't bring herself to worry about that right now.

"Why do you always do that?"

They're sitting on the sofa in Molly's sitting room. She'd thought herself rather smooth, giving him a friendly peck on the lips and then reaching for the telly remote. But he noticed. He notices everything, of course.

They have just finished eating dinner (well, she has just finished eating her dinner and then half of his) in the quiet of her flat, and she suggested they settle on the sofa for a bit before retiring to bed. Really, she just wants to digest some of the food that's crammed in her stomach before she even attempts being an active participant in their oftentimes-athletic lovemaking.

He'd shrugged his agreement and settled in. But soon, he started kissing his way around her face; something he does not when he's trying to get her into bed, but rather when he's just being unbearably sweet.

It's more than her poor heart can take in any large dosage, so she tried her best to deflect it this time.

But this time was apparently one time too many.

As soon as she breaks her mouth from his and leans across to her coffee table to grab the remote control, he asks her that damning question.

She tries to dissemble and look confused, but his expression tells her exactly what he thinks of her acting abilities.

So he asks her, point blank, "Have I done something that you're finding particularly hard to forgive, Molly?"

At least she can answer that question honestly.

"No! Of course not. You know me, Sherlock. Heart on my sleeve, and all that. You'd know if I was upset. And I don't hold grudges well, anyway."

He's silent for a few moments before speaking again.

"But you seem… like you aren't wanting to spend much time with me. "

She tries for a blithe reply.

"I see you almost every day, Sherlock. We hardly spend the night apart anymore."

Now, he only looks frustrated. He stands up and begins pacing in front of her.

"I'm not good at this, Molly. I need you to help me understand. You act fine when I keep some physical distance. But when we kiss, it's like you can hardly bear it for very long."

She feels an enormous stab of guilt at this, but she reminds herself that maybe that stab of guilt is preferable to the stab of heartbreak when he tires of her and leaves.

But how can she tell him that?

"Sherlock, I love being with you. Please don't think that."

"What am I supposed to think? I'm actually asking that honestly. I know I don't have much basis for comparison, but it seems like every time I want to show affection to you, you initially respond, but then change your mind midway through." He pulls at his hair in frustration as her implores, "Please, just tell me what I'm doing to alienate you?"

She doesn't mean to blurt it out, but she can't bear it any more. She feels cruel, seeing his distress and confusion.

"You're not alienating me, Sherlock! I just know you! One day you're going to grow bored of me. Or worse, one day I'll say or do something that makes you feel too tied down, and then it'll be over.

"And I don't want to feel that heartbreak. I'd survive it, but I'm already so in love with you. The mere thought of you leaving me is so painful that my brain shies away from it. And that's why I pull away. I have never liked being in pain."

She clutches a throw pillow in front of her like a shield.

He'd frozen at her outburst, but comes back to himself when it's clear she's finished. Slowly, he comes back to the sofa and reclaims his seat by her, though there might as well be an ocean of distance separating them.

Sherlock twiddles a pen, something to do with his hands, as he thinks of how to respond. Finally, he half-turns to Molly.

"The way I see it," he begins quietly, "a grudge is nothing more than a lack of trust. And I realize that, up until this last year, I did very little win your trust on a regular basis. But I had hoped that maybe I had made some inroads since then."

Molly wants to reach out to him, but she knows it would be unwelcome right now. Instead, she angles her body toward his, her head resting tiredly against the backrest of the sofa, as she replies.

"You have made inroads. So many. And that's what terrifies me. What if I give you that last bit of trust, and that's when the other shoe drops?"

He laughs a bit mirthlessly and then turns fully in his seat so that he mirrors her position.

"But, Molly… isn't that what being in a relationship with someone you love is about? The risk that it might not work out, but trusting that it will?"

She considers that as she sniffles indelicately.

"I'm an idiot, aren't I?"

Sherlock scoots a little closer to her; she can see the gold flecks in his irises.

"You're not an idiot. Well, not any more than anyone in this world who isn't me."

She whacks him with her throw pillow, but he continues on.

"I think that the only thing you're guilty of, Molly, is having known me too long. Every fear you've described is one that would have come to fruition even a year ago. But then, a year ago, I wasn't with you. I wasn't in love with you. So maybe you could give me a chance to reshape your opinion of me?"

She nods, reaches out and grips his hand, and asks him, "May I kiss you?"

He smiles at her.

The End

Note: This is for Adi, who was having a bit of a rotten day yesterday, so she put this prompt up on Tumblr. I hope this finds you less stressed, m'dear!

Thanks for reading, everyone else!