#I do not understand things APparnetly

[skyland2703]

📂 + Shelby Watkins

I'm so sorry for sending so many of these, I just love all your headcanons

- Anon 🦖

Sorry for the delay on this one anon!! Here’s Shelby!!

EXCEPTIONAL CLEANLINESS FREAK.

And that means fluffing ALL the pillows. Absolutely NO chance of coffee rings— you BETTER USE A COASTER, MISTER.

And so, she’s NEVER given cleaning— or managing the cleaners— duty by Kendall. Because anyone around her would lose sanity if they’re around Shelby AFTER she sees the mess people have made around the Dino bite cafe after the rush hour— it’s like standing a LIIITTLE too close to a supernova. You KNOW it’s not good for you, and yet, yet you wanna look.

And BONUS: Tyler is Messy af but tries REEEEEALLY really hard to get his act together. Chase is messy, but to irritate Shelby even further, does NOT get his act together, rather making things MESSIER to annoy her more. Riley.., helps in cleaning up. Koda says “Shelby scary” and does not engage— Kendall is happy that at least SOMEONE keeps the place together, Ivan appreciates greatly, and keeper tries to counsel her that “a little mess is worthy” or some shit like that— which she does not listen to absolutely.

Send “📂 + Character” for a random yet completely useless headcanon I have

[rjalker]

4 hours in it's fine. Some of the narration for the second reader is unintentionally hilarious because of the way it's being read. Making every word so intense even when it doesn't need to be and it's making scenes that are supposed to be serious unintentionally really funny.

lazily casually ableist though because the male protag lost his leg but then apparently instantaneously got it replaced with a prosthetic sooooo high tech and expensive that you literally can't tell he is missing a leg and he like. immediately started being a vigilante superhero and outrunning cops and doing parkour like. apparently instantly offscreen despite saying he had to relearn to walk.....like,,,,,,when? we just got told it's only been "A few months" since you lost your leg. And you've been a superhero this whole time. When did you have time to relearn how to walk. What was the point in the writers having your leg get bitten off if I can't even remember you're an amputee 90% of the time because your fancy rich person prosthetic magically does literally everything a regular leg does with zero problems at all????

he's literally doing parkour well enough to evade dozens if not hundreds of cops all at the same time. Just "a few months" after losing his leg. With no gap of time available for him to ~relearn how to walk~ despite the story telling us that's a thing he had to do....

Like come on people. The only time his amputation affects the story so far is to cause Relationship Drama™ because he has no prosthetic for his wolf form so his ~Soulmate~ saw that he's missing a leg and he's ashamed of it.

His missing leg also has absolutely no impact on his wolf form, either.

The fact that he also broke multiple ribs in the fight where he lost his leg has not affected a single thing, despite the fact that the authors have gone out of their way to tell us that healing magic is not really a thing, which is why they won't heal the female protag's chornic illness.

Like. Great. You're not gonna magically cure her chronic illness. That is genuinely good. But you kind of defeat the entire point by giving him a prosthetic so amazing that you can't tell he's am amputee at all. That may as well be a magical cure.

It's also another one of those worlds where women don't get to be shapeshifters, only men. I don't understand the appeal of writing worlds like this. Why don't you let the girls become epic giant wolves and dragons and griffons and alicorns? Why? You could have just made it so that whether you can shapeshift or not is random, and that our female protag just happens to not be able to do that, while still having female friends who can. Like come on. It's so easy.

apparnetly the entire series is on youtube, not just this book????

so uh yeah if you want a free audiobook to listen to, you can go listen to this whole entire series.

you can tell its modern because the protag is like ugghhh no why would I want to go to a magical school across the world???? and then is like Wait free healthcare?????????????? sign me up holy shit!!!!

I'm randomly listening to this now because it showed up when I looked for The Wolf Leader audiobooks and it's free from the actual author and I want to support other people, besides me, who are nice enough to do this.

it'll just be tagged "Rjalker reads The University of Sorcery" even though it's an audiobook because I don't feel like having to use multiple tags if they also offer free ebooks.

I have absolutely no clue what this is about besides what's on the cover.

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs: Stump Day Review or The Why Are You Booing Tom He’s Right Holiday Special

Before we start a special credit to @jess-the-vampire​ who I discussed the episode with during the writing process and brought up a LOT of good points that ended up going into this review. She clearly hates it as much as I do and had even more good reasons for it.  Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everybody! And today we got a big, fat, grotesque lump of coal to smash to pieces. And after a long, draining, if worth the effort scrooge review, and with this being something I needed to cross off my to do list this holiday season, I put this one here as I could use the cathariss of giving this steaming bowl of elephant piss a good thrashing. As you can tell unlike my usual reviews, I do not like this episode. This isn’t the FIRST i’ve not liked i’ve covered, but it is the first rather infamous one to me i’ve covered and not just a dead possum of an episode I ran into while reguarly covering an otherwise good show like “Quaraller’s Pass” or “Strife of the Party”. This one’s had it coming, making my top 8 worst christmas specials list last year, and while not the series worst outing, that’s a toss up between the finale and marco jr, it’s easily one of them. So while usually I like diving deeply into something good and picking apart while it’s good, if not ignoring any bad aspects, here i’m just going to take a hammer to this thing to explain why it dosen’t work and why it sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms. I might be overstating it a bit but probably not.  Nothing really new has happened since the last episode so the only new thing to cover is why i’m doing the episode here instead of after Monster Bash. And the simple reason is that like the Ducktales Halloween and Christmas specials, this episode clearly does not take place in the same time frame of the episode before or after it, with the next episode, The Bog Beast of Bogabah, taking place the day after Monster Bash. It’s most likely they simply held this episode over till Christmas and it dosen’t really fit in AFTER the huge game changer that is monster bash, especailly since the next three episodes after this all take place in rapid sucession, two on the same day one the day after them. So yeah i’m doing this one first and putting it ahead of monster bash on my episode guide for clarity’s sake. 

Good, so with all that settled, let’s unwrap this complete works of pauly shore shall we? We open on the titular Stump Day, essentially mewni’s christmas complete with Cocoa, carols and a gay couple and their equally adorable child. And Star, unsuprisingly is giddy for it as the actual chlidren, and wearing an adorable santaesque dress complete with horns on her santa hat. Seriously you cannot tell me tom didn’t get that for her. Fucking precious. Marco is more just confused and has his hood up and one of Star’s cousins asks uncle river to tell him the origin of stump day. River’s response.. is easily the best joke of the episode. 

“(in a jolly tone) ha ha, you don’t tell me what to do”

He does so anyway though: Basically when settlers arrived on Mewni they found themselves cold and griping with each other, and soon found a blizzard had struck.. but by huddling together under a magic stump, they all learned to get along or something like that and now once a year everyone gathers in warmth and camraderie.. or else. Before Marco can understandably question what “or else” means in this context, Star butts in when one of her cousins chastises the younger one who asked river the question for beliviing and says he’s real. It’s a nice touch as it fits star perfectly to still belivie in mewni’s horrifying version of santa. I forgot just how adorable and likeable the character was before the final season shot that to hell. How her energy could be infectious and how Eden Sher really brought her all to the performance, which is still the performance of her career and hopefully like Rider Strong she’ll do more voice acting eventually.  So that night as Star tucks in after wonderful  night of sleep, and to avoid her dad’s usual drunken chorus of Tom Jones “Sex Bomb”, and gets woken up by Marco who leads her to the dining hall because a windows broken to fix it with magic. Star entirely buys this flimsy story.. but as Jess pointed out, and as I missed hence the credit up top... she dosen’t bring her wand. She.. dosen’t bring her wand.. to go fix something with magic. Now i’ll grant next season shows she CAN fully do magic without it, and while not as powerful like her mom still has plenty of punch behind it.. especially when she does the rainbow fist thing. But it’s still.. weird she dosen’t think to grab it and feels out of character. While Star’s learned by this point not to rely on it, and as we’ll see gives it up entirely, one of the few bits of her character development that actually sticks, it still seems resonable she’d take it with her wherever she goes.. and usually SHE DOES. And her jammies, which are also adorable, seem to have pockets so the animators had no reason to not just stuff it in one. It would’ve made their job harder yes.. but then don’t have marco use an excuse that directly requires it then and draws attention to the fact the wand is missing, and the fact you blatantly just hoped we’d forget about it as it’d ruin the climax. 

It’s far from the worst thing in this episode..trust me we’re almost there. But this does bring me to a point.. so far the episode is GOOD. The comedy’s good, the setup for what’s about to happen is good, the holdiay setting is warm and inviting but weird enough to perfectly fit mewni, and River, much like his VA and homosexual talking boat portrayer Alan Tudyuk, is a national treasure as always. Whelp it’s all down hill from here bitches! Giddyup. 

So Marco announces a SUPRISE PARTY! And everyone’s there: Tom, Kelly, Ponyhead, Starfan14... oh yeah this is the first ep i’ve coverd with Starfan14 isn’t it? Starfan14 is star’s insane fangirl, voiced by series creator Derfron Nercy herself, who star happily tolerates despite clearly wanting to wear her skin. We’ve all been there. Also Jackie is transparently missing, though at least it’s SOMEWHAT reasonable as she and marco broke up a few .. months ago? I mean it is winter on mewni for this episode but the end of season 4 and the series is set at the start of summer, yet months still pass..... 

Confusing timeline aside, Jackie has every reason not to attend a party thrown by her ex for the girl who confesed she had feelings for said ex and it’s probably the only good decision Marco makes this entire episode that he wisely decided to give Jackie some space. And it says something a decision made entirely off screen that was probably because the creators genuinely forgot Jackie once she was out of the way so they could shift the love triangle stuff to Tom, Star and Marco instead of you know.. not doing that because most love triangles are annoying at best and utterly insufferable at worst. Case in point this episode but I can give out more about this aspect of things in a bit with more context. 

And to his credit, and as Jess backed me up on, Marco’s gesture is genuinely throughtful.. at least to start with. He got her a choclate fountain, brought all of her friends, and geninely just thought Star never celebrated her birthday on her birthday because it was you know the same day as christmas. As someone whose birthday is a week before christmas, December 16th if you were curious, I understand the pain of having your birthday in the same month as christmas. Of having all your presents clustered at once and of having to manuver around a very stressful season, though it does sometimes have perks like getting to celebrate your birthday and christmas, it also means your birthday is secondary and always will be to most people due to proximity. And Star has hers ON mewman christmas, so it’s even worse. So from Marco’s perspective, TO START, his best friend constantly had to share her birthday with her faviorite holiday and just wanted to do something nice. SO FAR, he’s done nothing wrong and just means well. That’s... about to end.  Star.. instead of being greatful.. starts muttering no before going on an manic rampage and destroying everything including hte band’s insturments. And apparnetly star’s gotten some flack for her behavior.. but I understand it. To her the stump is VERY real, and will be very angry if someone else celebrates so to her all she’s doing is saving her best friend from the holiday equilvent of the trees from evil dead, and when Marco asks about it she GENUINELY is sorry, getting he meant well, that he was being sweet, and that he did a lot of nice stuff for her.. she just can’t celebrate not because she loves the holiday but because again, from her persepctive, the stump will kill them all if they don’t support it. She is genuinly affraid for her friends lives and given she could go grab her wand and fight it, clearly thinks she, with all her CONSIDERABLE powers, cannot win this, and neither can tom whose powers are almost entirely fire based. Star is just trying to protect her friends from being horribly murdered. And she turns out to be entirely right about it so no, star was not a jerk here. A bit over the top, but she was not insensitive, she was not mean, she just didn’t want a party for understandable reasons.

So let’s get to actually insensitive shall we?! Marco’s reaction to this is at first confusion as he didn’t realize the stump was real, though Tom, Kelly and Pony are convinced it’s not. Also this episode implies Kelly is from mewni, but she turns out not to be so why she knows about the stump I genuinely don’t know. They think it’s just a baby thing.. though in Tom’s defense he dosen’t phrase it that way, thinks star still beliving is cute, which for a teenage boy finding out his girlfriend belivies in santa is very sweet and mature of him, and is trying to be nice about it even if he doesn’t believe.  But Marco.. his response to his friend having a good reason for not wanting to have the party.. is to complain about how much effort he put into it and try to guilt and bribe her into having it by mentoining he got her faviorite cake flavor, rainbow. Just.. WOW. I’ve seen some bad turns from characters, but WOWWWWWW. Holy shit.. I mean at least other jerkass marco episodes before this had SOME reasoning to them. Sophmore Slump had him clearly sublimating his feelings for star combined with the usual obnoxiousness of someone having gone abroard for the first time, which as Letterkenny recently went into, the only thing worse is Stillborn Puppies. Nothing else. 

And with Lint Catcher while he was presumptive and not blameless.. river still outright lied to him. Here? It’s clear star dosen’t want this, cake can be refigirated, he only takes a loss on the choclate fountain and he could still just let everyone have some and say it’s for stump day to appease her. He dosen’t have to take a loss on this finacially or morally and there would be no harm done. But that’s.. not what HE wanted, not waht HE set up and he wants what HE wanted, which was to impress star with a thoughtful gesture. But that’s the thing bud: Gestures aren’t about you or what you get. Their about doint something nice for another fucking person. It’s the whole point of christmas and birthdays: To just give someone something to be ncie and to celebrate the day and them respectively. If she dosen’t WANT your gift for understandable reasons and isn’t being rude about it you don’t have any leg to stand on you seflish twatwaffle. 

So already Marco is not coming off well.. and if you know this episode you know it gets worse. Oh god it gets worse. So first PONYHEAD of all people calls out Marco.. and for once, PONYHEAD, the most selfish, most unresonable and a character whose tolerablity varies on the episode, tells him he’s being selfish and is only pressing on because of his need to control things. So not only is Ponyhead right but the episode LIKELY wants you to feel she’s wrong because she’s pony which is not how this work as she knows star well and thus, while unaware she still belivied in the stump, which tracks as while it’s obvious she does Pony is so up her own whatever she has that functions as an ass, it’s understandable she’d miss some details. So no Pony’s right, and the fact PONY is one of the more resonable people in this episode is both a sign of the apocalypse, which is thankfully starting to recede, and a clear marker of just how bad Marco’s being if someone who torments him and disagrees with him out of principal is entirely right. 

Oh but it gets worse as next up, Tom steps in and tries to get Marco to back out, admitting he told him this was a bad idea. Now granted Tom did mess up by not stepping in to stop this a bit.. but he A) didn’t know how much his girlfriend genuinely belivied in the stump and B) Probably assumed Marco meant well, as would I before he whined about not getting his way, and decided it was worth a try. So he’s not that bad, and while it is a bit ehhh to try and take back credit for this when he participated, it’s still minor and Marco is still being a huge dick who refuses to help shut things down when it’s clear the party is only causing star to have a panic attack and assault some humble marachi players. He sees nothing good is coming from this and just wants what star wants. Also it paints Marco in a worse light as he was warned about this, and was so obssed with making it a suprise party because that’s how his plan went, he refused to just.. talk to her about it. Hell he could’ve just casually asked “Why do you never celebrate your birthday on your birthday”. It’s an easy question, dosen’t give the game away and allows him to gage if this is a good idea or not BEFORE baking a cake , hiring a band and getting a chocolate fountain. Instead he just went ahead with it.  And he did so.. because this ISN’T about making Star happy. This is abotu HIM making star happy. Him showing her how thoughtful, and considerate and sweet he is and how he’s always been there for her and how maybe she should be with him instead of Tom. I mean it just comes off that way.. he made it a suprise party because in his head that’s how it worked and she was super impresed and left tom that day to be with him in some elaborate fantasy. Granted the episode dosen’t say this.. but it sure as hell acccidently implies hte hell out of it by having marco act like a selfish ass who refuses to take what STAR wants into consideration, and just wants to get his fantasy back on track. What supports this to me is how he treats tom, you know one of his best friends: He, again, accuses him of forgetting.. then calls him a bad boyfriend.. a bad boyfriend for NOT wanting to force a celebration on his girlfriend she does not want, and for not forcing it on her. For you know GROWING AS A PERSON.  Beacuse here’s the pickle pumpernickle: This thing Marco’s doing? Is exactly the kind of thing a pre-character development TOM did, that was rightfully framed as bad. Being controlling, wanting things to go JUST a certain way instead of letting them flow naturally, not getting the hint star isn’t intrested, and not caring about what she wants and only what you want. Marco is doing the same thing Tom used to do. And for starters i’ts already bad because you know MARCO WAS THE ONE WHO FINALLY GOT IT THROUGH TO TOM THAT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR WAS TOXIC AND SELFISH. But apparently when it’s Marco himself doing it it’s fine. If there was ever any clear evidence Marco regressed as a character, there it is.  Him actively unelarning a lesson he taught someone else and then getting combative when that person rightly tries to call him out. Marco is just insufferable in this episode: He’s being selfish, creepy and posseive and he’s apparenlty supposed to, at least on some level BE RIGHT.  But.. we will get to that. Consider a pin put in this rant. 

So Tom overreacts, and throws some fire at marco, which is genuinely wrong and Kelly’s right to call him out, and then headlocks him asking marco to say he’s a good boyfriend. Marco screams out ‘NEVVVEEEERRRR”

I just made this, by hapinstance, while watching the video I put up there. I.. I did not think i’d get to use this so soon but my god. Just my god that’s a terrible thing to say.  So the party soon breaks down elsewhere as Kelly is mad at tom for.. understandable reasons again the guy she has a crush on was just nearly set on fire, even if i’m still on Tom’s side overall here, it’s still not right. Janna points out it’s probably because she has a crush on marco, which while acurate dosen’t mean she was wrong and Tad pops out to be upset about that. Even though you know you two are broken up and as Kelly points out he needs to move out. Pony is mad she’s not getting any attention and Starfan is mad because star’s mad. Star results to desperate measures, opening the windows to try and repeate the act of the settlers.  She didn’t however count on the Janna factor as she throws the stump in the fire, which is in chracter. What’s not, and again I give Jess full credit for this one, is that everyone just starts.. warming around the stump and not caring like a bunch of jackasses not caring about their close friend, and in tom’s case, girlfriend’s feelings. Also tom and marco apparently stopped fighting just to be this stupid. 

But naturally burning the symbolic stump is a bad idea and the real one attacks. Protip: If you live in a world of magical nonsense, maybe don’t discount the magic stump. Everyone’s captured, including moon and river, with River also being suprised and replying to Star’s annoyance at him not beliving with “Sweetie it’s a stump!”. Alan Tudyk is a god and I feel you all should acknowleddge that. But yeah everything seemsm to be bad but everyone apologizes, if not for the right things in Marco’s case, and Tom says “I’m sorry i’m a bad boyfriend!”. You .. you aren’t. You did nothing wrong. I feel like this is tom for the last agrivating 6 minutes of the episode

He did SOME THINGS wrong but he is NOT a bad boyfriend. He is throughtful, kind and while he has flaws, SO DOES STAR. He is not a bad boyfriend for not wanting to repeat past abusive actions! GAH. Let’s just get on with it. They all hold hands, they thiunk this is what made the stump go away but Star is sure it was just going to kill them, Moon and River have a thousand yard stare as they realize they both have to get repairs for this room now and do an extra big stump day next year to make sure it dosen’t come back. And Marco apologizes to star.. for not beliving her. Not for forcing this on her, not for causing all of this, not at all to tom, but for not beliving her while star FUCKING APOLOGIZES TO HIM.  Pin removed, bullshit falling to the floor... Trunks if you would. 

Thank you. Star DID NOTHING WRONG. Tom DID LESS WRONG THAN MARCO. WHY ARE THEY APOLOGIZING. Why is this little shithead getting everything he wants as the party happens after all, if a day later, and he gets to dance with star, while everyone else is painted as being in the wrong? That’s what makes this special so putrid: that MARCO is apparently in the right for doing the same , if on a smaller scale, manipulative shit tom used to do before he grew as a person, yet the episode sides with him, props him up and teases Starco. If it’s Starco it’s okay apparently and that’s.. not okay. You can’t .. build a ship on a character acting like a jackass. That’s not how this works. Marco was wrong, he was bad and he should FEEL bad. Instead he’s just a creepy jerk this entire episode, being entitled, manipulating star, screaming at tom.. and gets REWARDED FOR IT. Fuck this episode. 

FINAL THOUGHTS: I believe I said Fuck this episode.  This is easily one of star vs’ worst episode and much like the season after this episode it gets worse the more you think about it. I put it on my worst holiday episodes list for a reason.. and frankly even with the decent first 4 mintues it should be higher. It’s an unplesant mess that throughly ruins Marco’s character and takes him from a kind, upstanding, polite and bright young man to a creepy manpiulative jackasss. Fuck this episode and have a happy holidays. 

[lightspren]

for like. weeks now lol. i keep finding myself chanting in my head “i am OKAY, i am doing my best to be OKAY, i am not losing it, i am doing my best to keep it TOGETHER” et cetera, and rather than what i think my subconscious is attempting to do - to comfort myself and convince myself that i can Handle This - i think it much rather is driving me further up the fucking wall

kit is Not Okay y’all lmao

and kit feels stupid bitching about it cause like, who *IS* okay right now? really and truly??? but i’ve been doing my job plus like, 2/3 of another person’s job for multiple days now, which means I’m very, very behind on my own work, which drives me fucking insane because a lot of the stuff i’m behind on is scanning so like, there’s a physical manifestation of how far behind i am in the form of a 7 inch tall stack of shit to be scanned. but faxes need done! and people still break shit and thus need it fixed! and doctors are often whiny pissbabies if a thing doesn’t work Just Exactly As Expected! and apparnetly I’m supposed to be some magic wifi fairy that can fix their video visit app saying there’s a poor connection! even when IT’s response to my plea was basically “lol idk sorry bro”! and i’m still run down from the cold I got late last week! and having had to be out a day for that is part of why i’m so behind! and i can’t! keep! doing! this! it isn’t sustainable and i’m exhausted but there’s literally no alternative rn because the department i’m having to help fill in for has like, 13 of 30 staff members out either due to COVID or FMLA. so there’s legit just. nothign to be done. except let shit get behind. except i’m terrified of doing that bc i’m just waiting for like the important doctor to come looking for a document he sent back to scan three days ago that isn’t in the chart yet when it should be, and promptly losing his shit. and like my direct supervisor knows why i’ve been so busy, and she’s just apologetic about it but i’m just! so stressed!

my ex-supervisor, who’s now the manager of the central dept that has so many people out and has been enlisting my help, tried to get my office manager and supervisor to approve for me to be getting overtime this week to further help her coverage. and like i understand she needs the help but also i am going insane. and my office manager denied it, but she is not someone who takes no so i’d almost bet money she’ll get my office manager ot change her mind. and like. honestly i DO need to be able to do the overtime, if i ever have hope of catching up. but i’m so goddamn tired, mentally and physically and like fucking existentially. i’m so tire.d

and this is a long rambly rant that i’m not going to bother to proofread bc i don’t need a real reply to it or advice or whatever, there’s just. no digging out of this right now. there’s really not. my area is being gutted by COVID and until that stops being the case we get to continue in crisis management mode. like we’ve been for the last 9 fucking months, aka ever since i got this fucking promotion. oh and i need to not take vacation time either rn bc 1. there’s no coverage and 2. i need to save my vacation time for the (incredibly likely) possibility that i get COVID myself and am out for 3-4 weeks. because it’s increasing to Almost Certain I’ll get it, precautions be damned LMAO. and i will *not* be one to recover quickly from it jesus.

tldr i’m tired, i’m burnt out, there’s nothing i or anyone else can do about it, get to continue running myself into a wall until i drop dead the end 👉🏻😎👉🏻 

[darnedchild]

Molly Hooper Appreciation Week Part Deux - Day 3

A/N:  I’m going to be honest.  Today was a mentally exhausting day and this fic probably suffered for it.  I’m too tired to even give it a second read through, sorry.

On FFdotNet and Ao3

Molly Hooper Appreciation Week Part Deux - Day 3 - Valentine’s Day/Galentine’s Day/Single’s Awareness Day (Fanworks focusing on one of the holidays celebrated February 14th)

Please Believe Me When I Say I Love You

Molly stared down at the single pink rose that had been left on the computer keyboard. The office door had been locked, as was her habit when she left for lunch, and there was no other sign that anything else had been touched.  There were two other pathologists who shared the office and computer with her, depending on who was on shift at any given moment, and they also had keys to the room. The department head had a fourth, and then maintenance probably had one.  It was possible anyone of them had come by, but why leave a rose?

An annoyed (and obnoxiously hopeful) voice at the back of her head reminded her that there was at least one other person who wouldn’t have let a locked door stop him if he’d wanted access to her office, but Molly told that voice to bugger off. He wouldn’t have left a rose, either.

Things were better between her and Sherlock after the Phone Call, it had been nearly a year after all.  (She always thought of it that way, capitalized like that, as if she’d ever confuse it with any other call.)  They were so close to the way things had been before that she almost forgot their friendship had nearly crumbled into dust.

(That was a lie.  She had never forgotten.  Would never forget the moment, the exact moment, when she had laid her heart out bare to the one man who held the power to destroy it and then held herself still as she waited for the devastating blow that never came.  Instead she’d heard a quiet click of the call disconnecting. Somehow, that had hurt even worse.)

To his credit, Sherlock had insisted on explaining all of it to her in person rather than passing the responsibility on to John or Greg (or even Mycroft, since he had witnessed the entire thing apparnetly).  He had come to her home the day after the Phone Call and waited on her doorstep until she agreed to let him in.  She’d made him tea, both of them hiding behind a polite façade that would crumble at the first stiff breeze.  

He’d told her about his secret sister.  About the way she’d infiltrated his and John’s life, pretending to be a client and John’s therapist; there was something else in there that he did not say but she let it go.  About his childhood friend.  (Molly had felt the need to dump out her cold tea and fill her cup with a hefty amount of red wine at that point.)  And finally, finally, he began to tell her of the twisted funhouse of horrors Eurus had set up for the three men.  How she drove a man to suicide to save his wife, how she killed the woman anyway. The three brothers that were dropped into the sea.  Pushing Sherlock to choose between his best friend or his only brother.

Molly listened through it all, and silently waited.  It didn’t take a Holmes sibling to understand that the call and her confession of love must have been another of Eurus’ tests, but she wanted to hear it from Sherlock.  Wanted him to tell her what the point of the exercise was, why had Eurus needed to hurt her so badly.  Why her?

“Because you matter.”

Molly’s heart had sped up, and she silently cursed the treacherous organ.  She’d heard it all before, pushed through the hope and disappointment before.  She’d do it again.  Somehow. “You said she knew Moriarty?  Did he . . . tell her about me?  But he didn’t know about my help when you jumped. I mean, he was dead, so how did she know?  Was this meant to be some kind of revenge?”

Sherlock had stared down at his cold cup of tea.  “Revenge, yes.  But not against you.  I doubt Eurus viewed Moriarty’s death as anything more than a mild inconvenience. I told you, Molly, you matter.” He’d looked up then, his pale eyes meeting hers for the first time since she’d opened the door.  “To me.”

“So you’ve said.”  She’d jumped to her feet and hurried around the kitchen counter to rinse her cup in the sink, she didn’t want the wine to leave a stain inside the yellow mug.  She had watched the water flow down the drain and gathered her thoughts.  “I can’t do this right now.  Thank you, for telling me all this, but I can’t-can’t hear you say that you care about me when we both know it isn’t the same as what I feel for you.”

“Molly-“

She had turned then, leaning back against the counter, her hands gripping the edge so hard her fingers turned white.  “I’m not an idiot, Sherlock.  I’ve always know I’d never be the one for you, and I learned to live with that long ago. We both knew.  No, don’t shake your head at me, you knew.  You knew and you just didn’t want to acknowledge it, and I was happy to let you pretend because it meant I didn’t have to cut you out of my life.  And then your sister happened and now the charade is over, and I need time to figure out what that means for me.”

His expression had gone blank, like a mask had dropped over his face.  “You need time.”

“If you want us to remain friends, then I need time.  In my head I know that nothing has really changed just because the words are out there in the open now; but my heart tells me to run and hide and protect myself, and I can’t do that with you nearby.”

The mask had remained in place, but Molly thought she’d seen a flash of sorrow in his eyes.  “You need to-to protect yourself . . . from me.”

He’d done as she asked.  He waited nearly six weeks before sending a text to ask if it would be all right for him to come to the morgue while she was working, adding that it could wait until the shift change if she’d prefer.

They had taken it slow from there.  It was another month before he asked if she’d take a look at one of his experiments in the lab and offer her opinion.  Two more weeks after that when she’d brought an extra cup of coffee (black, two sugars) back from her lunch and silently left it on the corner of his work table.

Sometimes she thought she could feel him watching her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention, but he was always doing something else whenever she looked up. Wishful thinking on her part, obviously.

But here they were now.  Able to work together in the lab.  Sherlock popping into the morgue as if he owned the place again, and Molly indulgently letting him.  Take-away at Baker Street or her house once a week if there wasn’t a case to call him away or a late night shift at Barts to fill.  Sherlock insisted on coming over while she was watching Rosie and then laughing when she’d invariably catch him rolling around on floor with the little girl.

It was almost the exactly the way the way they’d been before everything went to hell . . . and yet, somehow better.  

So close to everything she’d ever wanted, which made it all the more bittersweet.

She reached out and brushed her finger against one of the velvet soft rose petals, allowing herself to believe it was from him for just a moment.  She waited for the ache of what would never be to settle into her heart, but there was only a small flicker of contentment.    

Her lips curled into a tiny smile.  She loved Sherlock and he did care about her.  He’d made that very clear over the last eleven months, even though they’d never talked about the Phone Call again.

It finally occurred to her that in his own unique way, he might even . . .

“Love me,” she whispered to herself.

“I do, you know.”

Molly shrieked and spun around to see Sherlock standing in the office doorway.

“Among several other things, a pink rose is supposed to mean ‘please believe me’, according to the internet search I did.  Red seemed too clichéd, and yellow didn’t quite seem to match the message I wanted to convey.”  He had his hands clasped behind his back.  As she watched, he rocked back on his heels and she realized he was nervous.  

She took a deep breath.  “What do you want me to believe?”

“When I said, when I told you that I . . . loved you that second time, I meant it. I tried to tell you when we talked that day, I wanted to make you understand how much you mattered to me; but it was too soon, too raw.  You needed space, and I understood that.”  His eyes pleaded with her, silently asking her to believe him.  “I know you probably aren’t ready to hear it again, but please believe me when I say I love you.”

Molly held out her hand and he quickly closed the distance between them.  “I do.”