As I said before I had two similar ideas and didn't know with which one to go.
Here is the second idea.
Thank you for all the wonderful reviews on the first story! I loved it :)
I don't own Sherlock.
Of when to remember and when to forget
"Sherlock I can't let you take it home" Molly insists and she's going to lose her last nerve if this man doesn't stop his ludicrous demands.
"But Molly," Sherlock whines. "It's vital for the case."
"There is no way I can let you take a whole body home!" Molly explains with a sigh.
"Molly!" Sherlock ruffles his hair in exasperation. Then he sniffs the air around her, "Are you wearing a new perfume?"
Her eyes narrow, "You can forget that right now! You can go flatter me all you want; I will not let you take the whole cadaver."
"Molly, be reasonable," now Sherlock is annoyed. "This is an official case from Scotland Yard! I'm sure they'd appreciate me solving the case as soon as possible."
"Well and I'd appreciate keeping my job, thank you very much. And we cannot fulfil both wishes at the same time now, can we?" Molly tells him. "The body stays."
John watches the argument with an expression one would have, when watching a tennis-match. He holds up both hands when Sherlock turns to him and asks him, to 'please tell Molly, she's being ridiculous'. "Hey I'm just standing here. Personally I think Molly is absolutely right. Mrs. Hudson would have a heart attack, if you dragged a body through her hallway."
Sherlock grumbles about traitors and absurd rules and leaves the room, letting the door slam shut behind him.
Molly cringes at the sound, "And the day started out so well."
John bids his goodbye, explaining he should go after the 'giant baby' and grumbles that it 'isn't that I don't already have one of those at home'. He barely left the morgue when Sherlock comes back in from the other door.
"I brought you coffee!" he exclaims proudly and offers it to Molly with hopeful eyes.
Molly shakes her head in a somewhat desperate exasperation, "Bribing me won't get you the body, Sherlock."
"Molly, you have to consider that you'll be there the whole time. The body will stay in our apartment after all. Theref…"
She groans deeply. He just won't leave it alone, "Sherlock, I love you, but there is no possible scenario in which you leave this morgue with Mr. Beck. However I may be able – if I use all my charm and call in all my favours– to get you a human heart."
Sherlock throws up his arms theatrically, "Fine! But you know, that this means I won't come home tonight. You won't give me the body, so I'll be busy solving this case the whole night shadowing our suspect."
She rolls her eyes, "You want the heart or not?"
He's still pouting, but the prospect of a heart did spark his interest. Molly pecks him on the lips and goes back to work.
…
Molly drags the cooler upstairs. When Sherlock gets home in the morning and after he sleeps like the dead, he'll be happy to experiment on the human heart and maybe she'll have a quiet afternoon at work. What he'll do with the heart? Molly really doesn't care all that much.
She puts it in the fridge labelled as 'his' (because it wasn't for food it was for Sherlock' body parts -well not HIS body part - and other experiments) – just like he had 'his' microwave and his 'cutlery'. She's utterly exhausted after her long shift and wants nothing more than to drop into bed. On the door she pauses, there's this bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Molly takes out her pepper spray from the purse and pushes the door open.
There's no one inside and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Still Molly didn't feel safe. She goes backin to the kitchen and her eyes take in the living room. She startles when she hears a sultry voice behind her.
"Sherlock, you've been letting me wait for very long. You should know better than to let a woman wait. I thought we may pick up where we left off in Karachi."
Molly twists around with her heart beating in her throat. She finds herself face to face with an unknown woman standing in the now open bathroom door. It takes Molly a whole minute to connect the dots between the beautiful woman standing in her bathroom door wearing nothing but Sherlock's robe combined with red lipstick and the body from the Christmas so long ago.
Irene Adler.
"Oh," the dominatrix takes the other woman in with surprise. Then a predatory smile spreads over her lips, "And who might you be?"
Molly opens her mouth, forces the words out, but nothing happens, she stays silent. What should she say? That Sherlock and her are together? This woman will laugh at her.
"I…"
"Adorable," Irene Adler steps over every personal boundary, gets in her face and Molly takes a step back involuntarily. "Don't worry little mouse. I won't eat you… I only bite."
Irene Adler musters her from top to bottom(she wears comfortable shoes, not made for looks) and Molly cannot help but feel lacking compared to this beautiful woman. Every single snide comment Sherlock every made about her (she thought she was over it) washes over Molly.
"Sherlock isn't here." Drawls Irene Adler matter of factly. "And maybe it would be better, you'd be gone by the time he arrives. We'll be rather… busy."
Molly feels it like a punch. This is her apartment as much as it is Sherlock's, but it's her that feels like an intruder. She wishes she had the confidence to tell Irene Adler off, that she'd be brass and bold but she isn't. At least not right now. Her mouth is dry and her head is empty.
…
It's early morning already when Sherlock steps in 221b Baker Street. Despite Molly's uncooperativeness he solved the case and is in high spirits (an eight after all), therefore Sherlock graciously decides he may forgive her and can crawl in bed with her. At least for a few more hours until she absolutely must leave for work (or – if it's up to him - and he can be very persuasive - she'll call in sick today).
A look in the fridge confirms that Molly kept her promise (as indicated by the cooler) – it's a perfect human heart and Sherlock is very much looking forward to experimenting with it.
And suddenly it grips him – the realisation that something is wrong. The blood pumps in his ears and he finds his hands are shaking. Someone is in their apartment and this someone is not Molly (he needs to focus – he can't focus, because it's Molly, but he needs to - worry and fear for her well-being will not help her – he cannot let himself think of 'what if's'). His thoughts race and it doesn't take him long to connect the dots (really, he should have realise the second he stepped into 221b, but thinking of Molly in his bed has repeatedly proven to be too much of a distraction).
"Woman!" Sherlock snatches the mobile from his pocket and rips open the door leading to the bedroom. He snarls when he indeed finds Irene Adler sprawled out in his and Molly's bed.
"Sherlock! It's not nice to leave a lady waiting so long. I think I may have to punish you, until you beg for mercy," Irene Adler sits up and shrugs the (his!) robe off her shoulders before she walked over lasciviously.
"I've told you before Miss Adler. I do not beg!" Sherlock replies sharply.
"Why so formal, Sherlock? Here I though we're past that – after Karachi."
"Miss Adler, I'd advise you to leave this apartment and to never contact me again. I'd also recommend you do so very fast, my brother most likely already sent several agents on the way. He does have some questions– and he does not like not knowing the answers. Believe me when I say he's even worse than me in said regard."
Her eyes widen and she takes a step back. He wouldn't have – couldn't have…
Without wasting another moment or another word, Sherlock turns around and leaves. He needs to find Molly.
…
He finds her where he very much thought her to be – the morgue. Her eyes are bloodshot and red from crying and Sherlock feels cold anger and a certain sense of satisfaction at the message from his brother, informing him of the successful capture of Irene Adler.
"Molly?"
Her answer is a quiet sniffle and Sherlock kneels down in front of the chair she's sitting in. She didn't sleep and her gaze glares a hole in the floor, she's refusing to even look at him.
"Molly I promise you, I did not know Irene Adler was waiting in our apartment. Mycroft took care of her, she won't bother us ever again. Whatever she told you, was not the truth."
"You didn't sleep with her then?"
Sherlock blinks in surprise, "Of course not. Don't be ridiculous, Molly."
Well – now she feels silly. Her insecurity overpowered her and she overreacted. Molly keeps her eyes on the floor (more of shame now, than of fear of seeing Sherlock telling her, he did indeed fall for Irene Adler once) and her fingers are clutched between her thighs. So tightly that her nails leave marks on her pale skin. Sherlock pries her fingers apart and takes them in between his large ones.
"Molly, I assure you, that there is nothing between Irene Adler and me."
She nods and allows him to pull her up and into his arms.
"What exactly happened then? Between you and her, I mean. She talked about Karachi and I… I thought she was dead, actually," her self-consciousness does not disappear as fast as she would like.
Sherlock sighs, "Molly…"
"No, Sherlock! I want to know what it was that happened between the two of you."
So Sherlock gives in, he pulls up a chair and gestures for Molly to take a seat as well. And so he starts telling her about "A scandal in Belgravia" and Irene Adler, every detail including his fascination – and it was only fascination, he assures Molly – of Irene Adler. Finally it comes to Karachi.
"You want to tell me, that you flew over half the world, to save her and that there was nothing going on between you?" Molly looks at him with a look of utter disbelief on her face. "You didn't shag her?"
His head snaps to her and his mouth falls open in confusion, "Oh – well, no. We did have intercourse."
Cold anger grips her and she shoots up from the chair, "You just told me you didn't sleep with her!"
She knows it was before their time, long before they got together. Sherlock had every right to do whatever he wanted, he could do whatever he wanted to do, because it was years ago. It was just that Irene Adler, the woman she met in 221b Baker Street was beautiful, intelligent and elegant and sophisticated and Molly… Molly didn't think she was any of those things. How could she compete to that? Why was Sherlock with her, if he could be with Irene Adler?
"I did not sleep with her," interjects Sherlock in protest.
"You just admitted that you and her shagged!" Molly argues back.
"But I did not sleep with her!" Sherlock insists. "I do not trust Irene Adler. I would never let my guard down for a second with her in the same room; much less close my eyes and sleep!"
The logic is so bogus that for a second Molly is too stunned to form words, but her anger is still very much present.
"How was it?" she asked with gritted teeth.
"What?"
"How was it? How was sex with Irene Adler? Was it better than with me?" she challenges him (she doesn't want to hear the answer to that question, is terrified of it actually, but it slipped past her lips).
Sherlock looks at her contemplating and honestly thoughtful, "I don't know."
Anger boils under her skin, "Do you think this is a joke?"
"Of course not! I cannot answer either of those questions because I don't know," he repeats.
"What do you mean, you don't know?" her voice is shaking, cracking with anger.
"I've deleted it! The information was irrelevant, therefore I deleted it!" he says it, like it was obvious, like everyone would go around deleting sex with Irene Adler because it was taking up space in their mind.
"You deleted sex with Irene Adler?" Molly asks and all the fight is gone from her voice, she's just so tired now.
Sherlock simply nods, "I kept little information, but considering Mycroft took care of Adler I think I can delete those as well. But most I've deleted immediately on the flight back to London."
Molly falls back on her chair emotionally spent. She can hardly comprehend it, Sherlock deleted sex with Irene Adler. That is sex with a world renowned dominatrix with more clients than Molly's post-mortem-list. If he deleted sex that was probably the best he ever had (considering Irene Adler's profession) what did that mean for their sex life? Had he deleted sex with her as well?
She mumbles the question quietly in her beard.
"Molly, please do speak up," Sherlock scolds annoyed.
"D-did you delete – delete our sex life?" her voice is small and insecure. Sherlock does not like it one bit.
He huffs, "Please Molly, don't be daft. Why ever would I do that? Information regarding you are in no way irrelevant. Quite the opposite I daresay, not only are they relevant but they are also very remarkable."
Molly doesn't quite manage to keep the tiny satisfied smirk of her face and it comes out as something of a quick quirk of her lips.
"Can we go home now, please? I haven't slept a wink in days," Sherlock asks impatiently and offers her his hand.
Molly takes it and pulls him softly over to her, "I'm sorry, I reacted the way I did. I should have let you explain. Irene Adler and you happened in your past, I had no right to judge you for that."
She gets on her tip-toes and presses a peck on his lips.
He stops her from moving away and crowds her against the desk. "You know, suddenly I'm not so tired anymore," he growls against her mouth.
So? Which one did you like better?
Tell me what you think!