221B Recs

Title: Black. Two Sugars
Author: solrosan
Pairing: Gen
Length: 5760 words
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC

Author's summary: Everyone seemed to assume that Molly was in love with Sherlock Holmes, and it was so much easier to go along with it than to correct people.

Reccer's comments: I thought after my last rec, this time I would mention an oft-overlooked gem. I just found it the other day and was instantly smitten with this author's characterisation of Molly. It's one I'd never come across before, and it was done beautifully while still keeping her in character.

It turns out that Molly and Sherlock have something in common; it's this 'something' that allows their acquaintanceship to eventually blossom into true friendship. This view of both Sherlock and Molly fits neatly into canon events; I know I'll never watch the episodes in quite the same way again.

To say much more here would be spoiling, so I went ahead and put a bit of a teaser behind the cut. It's not spoilery, but might intrigue you enough to give this underrated fic a read:


I’m sorry, Molly. I should have known.

The card lay on top of a small, carefully wrapped box. Molly recognised his handwriting. It was elegant and neat, it actually looked a lot like Sherlock Holmes himself.

She didn’t understand the note and it didn’t make any more sense when she turned it around.

You’re not alone.

Curious to what he was getting at she put away the note and opened the present instead. It was a small jewellery box, it was a… a ring box. She stared at it, was… was Sherlock proposing? She looked at the note again before she dared opening the box. It was a smooth, black ring inside. Clearly not an engagement ring. It was still a very odd gift, but every gift from Sherlock could probably be considered odd.

She looked at the note for a third time just to be sure she hadn’t missed anything, but there was nothing else on it. Just that he should have known and that she wasn’t alone. Known what? Alone with what? She took out the ring and tried it on, half expecting to become invisible. Obviously, nothing happened.

It was too big for her ring fingers, but fitted very well on her right, middle finger. It felt like an odd finger to have a ring, but the possibility that Sherlock had got her ring size wrong seemed unlikely. Which was disturbing enough.

She took off the ring and examined it carefully without finding any more clues as to what had made Sherlock give it to her. Perhaps she should put it under a microscope. Or throw it into a fire and see if elfish letters would appear. Molly looked at her computer, she was no consulting detective but maybe she would be able to google a solution. It wasn’t like she was terribly busy with work at the moment anyway….