Sherlock and Molly in S3 

(Sherlock meta by kathleenkellly, sherlollymouse and doctor-molly-hooper-holmes)

kathleenkellly:

Interesting you would say this, Sherlock, because you have just spent the day:

• hinting that Mycroft is lonely right before Molly is set to arrive 
• asking Molly to join you solving crimes, the thing you love the most 
• telling Molly not to be John, but to be herself 
• being extra harsh to a man that posed as the love of his step-daughter’s life in front of Molly 
• smiling at Molly and giving her flirty looks 
• asking Molly out to dinner 
• telling Molly she was “the one person that mattered the most”, that she “made it all possible”, and that the whole day was about thanking her for everything she did 
• congratulating Molly on her engagement and telling her she deserves to be happy 
• giving Molly a genuine smile with a hint of sadness
• kissing Molly tenderly on the cheek 

Not all the men Molly falls for turn out to be sociopaths, because Sherlock is NOT a sociopath.

[...] So Sherlock has just spend the day showing Molly how he is not a sociopath (whether intentionally or not) and thanking her for “everything” that she did for him (which I think indicates that Molly did a lot more for him than we’ll probably ever know, but that’s another story).

Then he brings up her engagement and says “but you can’t do this again can you”. It shows that Sherlock considers this a date. He seemed nervous when he was originally asking her and now he’s treating it as something more than just a day spent solving crimes. If he doesn’t consider it a date, then why do they have to end it? They would simply be two friends spending the day working on a case. There’s nothing inappropriate with that. Why is he suddenly feeling guilty about spending the day with an engaged woman? Because he has feelings for her. Feelings that are potentially growing stronger as they spend more time together. Feelings that scare him and that he can’t share with her now she’s with someone.

Molly then describes Tom making him seem the opposite of Sherlock: “he’s nice, he’s got a dog, we go to the pub on weekends”. Tom is “normal”. Sherlock makes the sociopaths comment. He mistakenly thinks that this is what Molly wants: a normal man with a normal life. The funny thing is during the rest of S3 we are shown that Sherlock shares some of these characteristics, just in his own unique way. He had a dog he once loved. He goes to the pub with John. He has loving parents and a group of friends.

Sherlock doesn’t hear Molly’s comment at the end “maybe it’s just my type.” He doesn’t know that she considers Sherlock to be her type. Molly just spent an enjoyable day with Sherlock and sees what life with him would be like. She now realizes that life with Tom pales in comparison. She doesn’t want normal. It may have seemed okay when Sherlock was gone, but he’s back now and so are her feelings.

Moffat said after S3 that Molly is “fascinated by (Sherlock), but she knows that’s not who she actually wants to end up with.” If this is really the case, then why does S3 end with Molly breaking her engagement? They had Molly get engaged to someone only to realize that Tom is not what she wants, Sherlock is what she wants. They showed how important Molly is to Sherlock as she appears in his mind palace. They showed us how developed their relationship has become when she slaps him for using drugs. And then S3 ends with a subtle “oh yeah by the way he’s slept in her bedroom” revelation. Moffat even said in that same interview that Sherlock loves Molly. Why spend so much time on their relationship if it’s not going anywhere?

sherlollymouse:

Precisely, it’s nice to see him nervous around her, too. He makes that excuse to see her in TSoT and she calls him out on it, even pokes fun and teases him. I’m convinced she was FLIRTING with him and it was adorable. I would like to know, though, how Moffat wants to explain S3 if Molly doesn’t want Sherlock anymore.

doctor-molly-hooper-holmes:

In response to Moffat’s comment about Molly: I always took that to mean that she doesn’t idealize him anymore. For a while, it seemed like she had a crush on her fantasy version of Sherlock, not the actual man. I believe that all changed during the Christmas party in ASiB, when Sherlock finally turned his cruel deductions on her (it’s my head canon that this was the first and last time he did so). She was forced to see all of Sherlock, flaws included. I think this is when she first really began to fall in love with him.

It’s been seen many times on the show that Sherlock is awful at hiding his emotions around Molly (TRF, TEH, etc.). The lab scene in TRF revealed that she sees through him anyway, so why put forth the effort to hide them? In my opinion, Moffat was just stating that Molly doesn’t want to end up with her idealized version of Sherlock, because she now knows and loves the real Sherlock.