A/N: This is a partner story (missing scene) to my previous tale, 'Because it's true', I was aware that the crux of the story (for many) and of the coffin scene in TFP was how Molly and Sherlock managed to build their relationship back together before the cheery greeting depicted at the end of that episode. In my story, the premise is that Sherlock Holmes has always loved Molly Hooper from the moment they met in the lab, seven years previous to this, and that he has disguised his true heart to preserve a childhood dread of showing attraction, emotion and love for another, for fear the object of his affections would be snatched away (like Victor had been).

Thus, not only does Sherlock have to explain to Molly what happened at Sherrinford, he also has to explain how he has always felt about her.

If he is strong enough.

Did I say 'missing scene'? There may be (are) FIVE chapters here, but I think he has a lot of explaining to do...


It wasn't love at first sight - not exactly. It was a certain familiarity; a knowledge or an understanding. Like… hello there! It's you. It's you...

It's going to be you. (Anon)


I.

He's back from the Old Bailey around six (earlier than anticipated, therefore I'm caught on the hop - no tea in the pot, no heating on, no food in the fridge… all the domestic crap I used to do in Baker Street with him, and here… with Mary) and he hesitates in my tiny entrance hall. I hate that.

"Sherlock, just chuck your coat under the stairs. I've told you, treat the place like your own." I am busy in the kitchen, spooning sugars and stirring; sweetening things for him, mollycoddling (thanks Mary, I know).

After a second, he searches out a chair (deducing the one I'd been sitting in first - still the guest then) and falls heavily into it, coat still fastened - and only then do I note how tired he looks.

"Your cleaning lady is from Kentish Town?"

"No, Elephant and Castle."

He sighs, knuckles white as he closes his shadowed eyes and leans back in the chair.

"Then she's not going to pay the loan back."

"Wha- how did you know I'd lent her-"

"The road is up by the pawnbrokers on Brunswick Street. She hadn't enough to get back her brother's tools. She won't be paying you back John, since you are significantly lower down the list than he."

I don't bother asking for clarification, reaching instead for the takeaway menus.

"Indian or Pad Thai?" I ask. "Which one is it?"

And it's like nothing is different, but everything has changed.

~x~

"He was acquitted then?" Sherlock appears not to be listening, but absently poking small pockets of rice around his dish. The sudden vacuum of my words does actually then prompt his attention.

"Neville St. Clair," I add, for further clarity, throwing him a lifeline. The flicker of the telly casts a cold blueness across his features, highlighting an emptiness I was reluctantly becoming used to.

"The trial… today?"

Sherlock engages himself, but I know he has been miles away from me, my little flat and our shared supper time.

"Indeed. Certainly by law at least." He pauses, making to provide me with an interaction, a quid pro quo for him staying here while his home is being rebuilt. "He had, beyond flouting the begging laws of the land, committed no serious crime." Pausing again. "An acquittal from his misused wife, however, may not be as forthcoming. His real trial is yet to come."

Sherlock stands then, and then nods goodnight, making his way to my spare room where he will toss and turn and attempt to protect the entropy of his damaged heart until morning, when he will attempt to go about his day like a person who is truly living.

But he's not.

(And I should know.)

But, "Goodnight Sherlock," is all I say.

For now.

~x~

II.

Hilary Hope.

Her picture is everywhere, including the front page of the paper I am reading before the very eyes of my friend, and the flickering screen we keep on to make things … less awkward.

Green, sparking; lashes curled and beauteous, framing eyes that are cold, vulpine, empty.

"She's hiding something." I care little, but I know it's a case he has been engaged for. A glance across the Frosted Shreddies convinces me he cares all the less.

"Don't you think?"

Sherlock Holmes, great thinker, logicist, card-carrying member of the `solve the puzzle, hate the people` society blinks over his (untouched) cereal and I simultaneously want to punch him and hold him, and smash everything in the room around us both.

"Most definitely," replies he, glacial eyes suddenly illuminating me with everything that has been missing; everything that was gone.

"I know the scene was compromised, as does she." He pauses, glancing across his phone (millionth time) and smiling hopelessly at my daughter, who laughs and laughs (she adores him. Of course she does). "I need to speak to the Sergeant on duty… Wilkins? Willis?"

Rosie rolls across her blanket and Sherlock stands, reaching for her unicorn toy.

How could he forget? How could he not know?

"She prefers the bee," I say, decisively, before adding, "and it was Wilson."

~x~

What if I said I never got over you. What if I said my mind is aching with every sheer thought of you. (bfreefierce)

III.

Five weeks since Sherrinford and there are four significant cases, layered over, beneath and around each other; interwoven between the convoluted, complex and multifarious layers of the brain of Sherlock Holmes.

He keeps endlessly varied hours and I have given up being the sympathetic host in favour of leaving leftovers in the fridge and tea in the caddy. He sweeps through, like a draft of air, ruffling my newspaper or Rosie's mobile, juxtaposing frenetic energy within the steady, sonorous repetition of our washing, dressing, feeding, sleeping: it's almost like we are standing still in the eye of a hurricane.

Texting, reading, speaking via phone and Skype,(and possibly carrier pigeon) to the agencies he is dealing with; a mercurial conduit between client, barrister, police and witness - never slowing or ceasing until the inevitable collapse into a chair and coverage with a blanket.

It was Thursday morning when Mycroft called me at the surgery.

"You're concerned." No preamble, no cursory greeting, just that.

"Hello, Mycroft," I counter, shaking my head at the receptionist hovering at the door, which she closes discreetly. "How are the nightmares?"

I feel the sardonic quirk that doubles for a smile with Mycroft Holmes across the wires, but I have a deal more empathy with him these days, so I concede.

"Yes, yes I am concerned about your brother. He's a bloody walking automaton: a deducing robot who thinks if he solves one more, he can stop being eaten up by his pain."

It came out more harshly than I intended, since I no longer feel the need to punish Mycroft for imagined wrongings of his baby brother, because nothing needs to be imagined anymore, and I now know what sacrifice can look like.

"I see." His tone is calm, but I know him well enough now not to take it as an insult. "You haven't spoken to him." He tells rather than asks, and I pause, heart hammering in the manner of a tortured soul being given the chance to unload his anxieties to another.

"Not yet," I say.

Another pause.

Doctor Hooper is away, currently visiting her mother. She is taking an extended absence from work and is … unreachable."

Well done Molly I muse; going off-grid from the British Government is quite an achievement. Then he surprises me.

"I can't say I blame her," murmurs Mycroft Holmes, and I smile. No, nor I.

"John," he continues, his tone more focused, more coming-to-the-crux-of-the-matter, "you are more than aware of the mistakes that have been made, of the poor judgements and appalling miscalculations that have moulded Sherlock ...made him what he is today."

I nod pointlessly, since I don't trust myself to speak.

"It is of the greatest importance to me that something of use must come from our diabolically managed childhood and the resultant events you had the misfortune to witness at Sherrinford."

The receptionist reappears at my door but turns away swiftly after a glance at my face through its glass panel.

"Something," he continues, "that has been laid bare and exposed by my sister simply cannot be allowed to be disregarded and become subject to further concealment by my brother."

"Molly Hooper."

"Just so."

Our words hang there, suspended, fizzling with potential energy. It is as if he and I are standing over the operating table, paddles in hand, awaiting the signal to shock a heart back into life.

"Talk to him, John," he says simply, and I know it is not a demand but a request, and respect him for that.

~x~