Disclaimer: This fanfiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read, posted from tumblr. Written because I can't seem to sleep…

FINE ALABASTER

He hears it in her voice, every now and then.

It's a hesitancy. A quietness. An… uncertainty, as if she is momentarily uncomfortable within her own skin. As if she is momentarily uncomfortable in her, well, in her Mollyness, with the very thing which he loves about her more than anything else.

It discomfits Sherlock in a way he can't quite describe.

Whenever he asks her if everything's alright she always smiles. Nods, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Before he can probe further however she will kiss him, pull him to her. Whisper that she wants him now, she wants him so badly, and to his embarrassment he always acquiesces. He pushes her beneath him. Pushes himself into her. She fills his arms with her presence and his mouth with her kisses and soon he's too helpless and gasping with his own passion to remember his misgivings-

And then, some days or hours later, it will happen again: He'll pull her to him and for a moment she'll stiffen. He'll kiss her hard, in the way she swears she likes, and just for a moment he's alone in that kiss. He's left behind, and he finds he doesn't like it.

Sentiment's of no use, it seems, if he's in it on his own.

Not being used to intimacy- and being even worse at talking about it- he finds himself unable to speak of his feelings, unable even to explain them.

He might ask John or Mary but he hasn't the words and he hasn't the bravery and besides, he's not even certain anything's really wrong.

And then one night he sees her with Anderson and a couple of the Scotland Yard techs. He sees the dark-haired man corner her, make joking pass upon joking pass. The look he sees in her eyes as she laughs along and smiles is exactly the look he sees when he lies her down beneath him, and the realisation makes him feel a little sick to his stomach. He has to leave.

He is not subtle about it, but then he never is.

He pushes past John, safe in the knowledge that Mary and Donovan are both still in the Morgue and neither will permit the situation to get out of hand. Knowing too that Molly can handle herself with an idiot like Anderson; she's been handling such imbeciles for years.

Neither this belief nor his exit help him though; he ends up sitting on the fire escape near the roof, sneaking a cigarette and trying to work out what on Earth's the matter with him (or with Molly. Please God, he finds himself thinking, don't let anything be wrong with Molly). He sits there, puzzling through, trying to understand, and as he does so he hears footsteps on the gravel. Looks up to see Mary walking over to him, a look of stomach-churning understanding on her face.

"She's ok," she begins, settling down beside him without bothering to ask. "Molly can handle them- But that's not why you're up here, is it?"

And she smiles in that carefree way she has, tilts her face up to the sun as if they're not talking about much of anything. Sherlock frowns, trying to work out what he should do; He suspects that his speaking of this to Mary rather than Molly might be a Bit Not Good. And yet, what use is he to her if he can't help? He's a detective, it's what he does: He sees mysteries and solves them. He eliminates threats. But the woman he's sleeping with- the woman he's slowly coming to accept he's in love with- she's a riddle he can't solve, and he suspects it's hurting her. In fact, it's hurting the both of them.

That, he realises with a start, is not something he finds acceptable and when he finds something unacceptable he deals with it. Decisively.

So he clears his throat. Grinds out the cigarette on the metal strut beside him. He stares at the smoking stub, concentrates on it so that he can say what he's about to. (It will be easier if he doesn't have to look Mary in the face).

"She's… She's unhappy, Mary," he says quietly. "At least, I think she's unhappy. Not always, with me- Which I know wouldn't be possible, nobody's always happy and certainly not in my presence, but I want Molly to be happy and she's not and-"

"Examples, Sherlock."

Mary speaks over him, her voice is calm. Soothing in its matter-of-factness.

He risks a look at her from the corner of his eye and she's looking out over the skyline, her eyes far away.

He finds this immensely helpful.

"I can't- I can't explain it," he answers haltingly. "It's like… It's like she goes away for a minute, sometimes. Sometimes when we're together, it's like she has to go off on her own though she's still right in front of me." He sighs, rakes an impatient hand through his hair.

His hard-drive is running appallingly slow, he can't help but think.

"It's not that I don't- I wouldn't mind her going," he says eventually. "She's free to do as she likes. It's just that I think, I think maybe I'm causing it, maybe I'm making her go away and I don't want to or know how to stop it-"

"Have you asked her?" Mary asks and he nods.

"She says it's fine," he answers morosely. "She always says it's fine." He grimaces, glowers down at his spent cigarette and to his surprise he hears Mary give a small snort. Anger sparks, and with it a suspicion that somehow his Molly's being insulted; He half-rises, about to demand Mary explain herself, but when he looks at her he finds eyes that are level. Understanding, rather than hard. It takes the anger out of him and he's not sure why.

A beat as they sit together in the sunshine.

For some reason he finds himself clenching his free hand ever more tightly beside his hip.

"It's not fair," Mary says eventually, her voice quiet. "That's the trouble with it: It's not fair on you blokes, we know that. You ask can you help and we don't let you. But sometimes "fine," is all us girls are allowed, y'know?"

Sherlock does not know, but again he hears that snort.

A cynical smile twists her lip and it occurs to him how well Mary knows him.

"She should tell you," she says, "but it sounds like she doesn't know how to. She loves you, maybe, and she's afraid of how you'll take it. Maybe she's afraid it'll change the way you see her, make you think she's a bitch and run for the hills…"

Now it's Sherlock's turn to snort. "I would never think that Molly is a bitch," he says. "I'm far too clever to entertain so ludicrous a thought as that-"

"You know that and I know that, but maybe Molly doesn't." Mary's smile is wry. "Maybe she doesn't know that you've noticed, or maybe she doesn't know that you care. Maybe she's been hearing that she has to keep her mouth shut about some things as long as she's been alive and she's too afraid of losing you to push it and test the theory- It could be a million things."

Sherlock does not find that answer reassuring.

Unfortunately, one look at Mary's face tells him it's the only answer he's going to get.

"So what do I do then?" he asks once the silence has stretched out longer than even he's comfortable with. "Just continue as we are and say nothing?" He frowns, stares at his hands. "I don't - I don't think I can do that."

Mary's expression is kind though. Knowing. When she looks at him like this he understands exactly why John fell for her so hard. "Good God no," she says. "You start doing that and who knows where it'll end: Moriarty would be running the country if you went about solving your problems like that."

And despite himself, Sherlock smiles. She matches him.

For a moment they're just two friends, sitting in the sunshine and having a chat about nothing at all.

"No," she says, "No, you go to Molly, and you tell her that you want to know what's bothering her. You tell her that you'll wait until she's ready to tell you, but you know something is." She shrugs. "And then you wait."

Sherlock's smile dims. "You wait? For what?"

Again that wry smile. "You wait for her to be ready to tell you, genius."

Though he doesn't like this answer, he knows it's the right one. The wise one. The only one.

He also knows, just by reading Mary's expression, that he doesn't need to say any of that out loud.

So he gets to his feet and helps Mary stand. He follows her back to the Morgue and when he gets there he leans in close to Molly, whispers an apology to her at his disappearance. He also elbows Anderson out of her personal space and offers to get her a coffee. Takes her hand in his, just for a moment, before he goes. That night he'll take her to Baker Street and ask her where she goes when she slips away from him, what's wrong…

He'll also tell her he'll wait until she's ready to explain it.

She'll curl herself up in his arms and smile, and eventually she'll tell him. Eventually… Eventually…

Eventually she'll trust him enough and that's worth waiting for, of that he has no doubt.