Three Weddings and an Explosion Part 1

Chapter 1

RETURN TO THE "CUDDLE'VERSE"!

A/N: I've decided this would be as good a time as any to start publishing this, given all the walk about weddings on the wires at the moment. And frankly, I'm sick to death of the bloody thing, of tinkering with it, so I thought, why the hell not? I'm going to publish this in two parts because it's so huge, but you will be getting daily chapters of Part 1 for as long as it takes. I'm hoping your comments will help motivate me to get Part 2 finished. And then you can get on with your life and I can finish my bloody Victorian novel, which is what I should be doing instead of wallowing about in the mud with Sherlock. (now there's an idea…)

If you haven't read The Case of the Cuddle', this won't make any sense to you at all. Go read it, there's a dear.

Warning: Angst. Mountains of it. For the foreseeable future. You were warned. (But I promise smut later on. Lots of it.)

He didn't know why he had said yes. Probably because Molly had persuaded him it would be a good idea to get out. And because Sarah had begged him.

'After all, he was the one that got me into this,' she said over coffee at Speedy's one afternoon. 'I owe it to him really. And you. It wouldn't be the same to do it without you there.'

John stared into his half empty mug. That was what his life felt like now, half empty, missing the thing that made him whole.

'He hated things like that,' he said. 'Social functions of any kind. Brought him out in a rash. You know what he was like. He didn't like people.'

'He did like people. He just thought it was a sign of weakness to admit it,' she smiled, and closed her fingers over his hand. 'And he would want you to relax and enjoy yourself occasionally.'

John thought, how can I relax and enjoy myself if he isn't here?

'It would feel wrong. Like I was betraying him somehow,' was what he said.

'You're not in purdah, you know. It's been eight months. You've barely been out of the house.'

'There doesn't seem any point if he's not there to go with.'

She looked sadly at him and shrugged. 'I can't make you come, John. But I want you to know that it would mean so much to me if you did. And to Andrew.'

Molly was more direct. 'I'll be your date,' she said. 'I don't mind. I don't get to go to many weddings, and you won't have to make excuses to me if you want to go into a dark corner because I'll understand.'

'It's not that I don't think you'd make a lovely date, Moll,' he told her.

'I know. It's that you didn't get to marry him, and you know you should have done.'

As usual, Molly had uncanny insight.

'Can you actually see inside my head?'

She laughed. 'It's how I would feel, if I were you.'

John wondered whether that was how she felt anyway. After all, her crush on Sherlock had been painfully obvious from the first moment. He wondered about all the times she must have fantasised about being dressed in white, and walking down the aisle to meet a dapper Sherlock in a bower of white roses.

And of course, what she said was true. They had been through so much together, survived so much pain. He sometimes felt like Sherlock had owed him a wedding, just for that alone. But by the time they had sorted out their feelings for one another, life had got too busy. There was always a new case, another crime. There had never been time.

'At least I told him I loved him,' John said, only vaguely aware of Molly's presence.

'Yes. You did. And I know how much that meant to him.'

'If it meant so much to him, why did he do it? Why did he leave me? Why did he say all those dreadful things on the phone? Didn't he know I knew the truth?'

'Of course he did. Maybe he had his reasons.'

If he had been less grief-stricken, he might have wondered about the way she looked away from him when she said those words, but he didn't. He was too tired, too drained to care. That night he typed out a brief letter to Sarah, accepting her invitation to the wedding, and explaining that he had to bring Molly as his date, for moral support.

Tomorrow, John and Molly arrive at Andrew and Sarah's wedding…