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Fragile Bird

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That was it, she'd had it. At the end of an eighteen hour shift no less. The lights were off and Molly was nearly out the door. That was until Sherlock came in like an unwelcome gale and flicked on the lights again, nearly blinding her. As usual, they quarrelled after she explained that he would have to wait until morning (which was only five hours away and precisely when her next shift began).

"This won't do, I need to see it now."
"Sherlock, it's two in the bloody morning and I've been here for 18 hours."

He wasn't leaving. The insufferable man just stood there, staring, his entitlement and arrogance gluing him to the floor of her morgue.

The body was out in minutes and she tossed John the keys to the lab. It was safer that way, if she had thrown them at Sherlock she would've put out his eye.

"Molly wait..." John said empathetically but it was just an echo in her ears.

The door swung behind her as she made a swift exit from her domain. A convenient laundry trolley waiting to haul the clean scrubs up to their proper floor was in the hallway so she grabbed a set of them and headed to the nearest on-call room. Nobody ever used the room on that floor except for Molly herself, so she was glad to be guaranteed a small place to rest seeing as how she wasn't going home. She would have a quick shower before her next shift, until then though she whipped off her work clothes angrily and chucked them onto the chair in the corner. The reek of death, formaldehyde and disinfectant were on her clothes and she wanted rid of it. The scrubs were cool against her skin and it was only a matter of moments before she literally fell onto the small, creaky bed and the tears came. They weren't out of emotion, just exhaustion, and she let them trail down her face as sleep had begun to take her.

An instant before she would have been happily asleep, there was a soft knock on the door and it creaked open and shot blinding light onto her face. She audibly groaned and covered her face, choking out a small frustrated sob.

"What? What is it now?" Her voice was raspy from crying.
"I'm sorry ... Sherlock needs your passcode for the lab computer."
"If he fancies himself clever as fuck, then he'll figure it out for himself."
"He probably will." John said ruefully and not without sympathy for her. God knows Sherlock deserved her scorn most of the time, having chased off any other pathologist she tried to hire. There were only two now. Molly and an older, more traditionally trained man.

John stepped into the dark room, closing and locking the door so she wouldn't be disturbed any further. Sherlock had managed on his own years before either Molly or John were in his life, he could manage now. He took off his shooting jacket and toed off his shoes.

Molly rolled to look at him briefly but turned away again, covering the side of her face and digging her knuckles into her temple to relieve the remnants of a headache. The bed dipped under John's weight as he settled in next to her. He freed her hair of the elastic keeping her ponytail in place and was answered by another choked gasp, though out of relief this time. His care-worn hand forcibly moved hers away from her face. "You're only going to make it worse doing that." It was a quiet whisper in her ear moments before his fingers moved in small gentle circles on her temple.

"I'm so tired John."
"I know."

Eventually, his hand stopped when she began to twitch, signifying she was finally succumbing to sleep. John's arm moved to wrap around her waist and they fit together snugly. Knees over knees, Molly's back to John's chest and her head tucked just below his chin. If anyone were to walk in and see them like that, it would appear they were lovers. But they weren't. Molly trusted him and John was trying to put her back together, she deserved so much more.

He covered her like a shield, after everything that had happened to her, she needed someone to just be there. John was that someone.

"Just sleep Molly, I'm here."