"Why Crowborough?" she asked, peeking out of the train window, and he merely shrugged.
"Why not?" he shot back, and they fell into a somewhat comfortable silence.
The truth was that he wanted to take her away from London, and this was as good a place as any; there was nothing to remind her of Moriarty here, nothing to disturb her recovering process.
He needed the old Molly back, needed it more than he'd ever thought was possible. Sentiment, he scoffed inwardly, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to care.
"You know, Lestrade was there to ask me out that day," she murmured in a small voice. "If he hadn't –"
"Don't," he warned, his fingers closing gently around her wrist. Molly relaxed into the touch, her eyes meeting his at last.
"He's a good man," she added almost as an afterthought. "And I like him, though not that way."
"I'm sorry," he said then, though he wasn't quite sure whether he was sorry about the whole Moriarty debacle, or that she was still pining for him after all those years.
"Don't be," she let out in a whisper, her eyes both serious and tender.
And he decided that whatever this was between them, he didn't mind it at all. Not even her fingers reverently touching the fabric of his Belstaff.