This is my first attempt at a fanfic, so please please review for me, even if you want to tell me never to write again. I will love you forever! Molly and John became the focus completely by accident, because stories apparently don't do what I ask.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock BBC or any of the characters mentioned (pity), but credit to those who do.
Unspoken Harmonies
John awakes, shouting blindly. His pillow and duvet are long gone, thrown onto the floor. A single person lies next to him and presses their bodies closer, comforting and warm. John turns to the figure beside him, sobs unashamedly into their arms, the one person for whom John opens up, who sees him like this, unable to cope, trapped in the darkness that his own mind creates.
She whispers into his hair, soothing, as a gentle hand brushes away images from the night. "It's okay, John. I know. I understand."
And she does. Molly. Wonderful Molly Hooper. She understands. Molly and John, pushed together, quite forcefully and unannounced, as the beautiful genius that once captured both their hearts proceeded to destroy them, in the most painful, irreparable way possible. A bond formed; an inseparable, unchangeable bond of hurt, loss and heartbreak.
Molly, there from the start.
Every time he cannot take it any more, every night that he wakes, sweating and kicking, trapped in his sheets, she's already there, pyjama-clad and sleepy-eyed, concern showing through the darkness. Her tiny body finds his bed and his heart, and curls into it, unasked.
The first night after Sherlock's death, John did not sleep. Molly had decided to let him stay in her flat after he refused to return home, and he left the spare bedroom in the early hours of the morning to find her curled, wide awake, on the sofa. He went to her without a word and she leant into him, eyes closing. There they stayed together until they both awoke, mid-afternoon, sunlight glaring in at them from between open blinds. Molly gave him a lopsided half-smile and stretched out her limbs from his, heading towards the shower, and John nodded to himself, settling the events into a category he was okay with. He stood, turned towards the kitchen, decided to make some tea. He fully expected to have to explain himself to Molly, to tell her he didn't want her help or her hugs, and most certainly not a relationship, but when she arrived out from her bedroom with wet tousled hair and accepted her tea, he looked into her eyes and realised he didn't have to. Molly took a breath, snapped her mouth shut and turned away.
"It's okay." She said, back turned.
"I know." John replied. And that's how they carried on.
They lived together, ate together, and loved each other unconditionally, but each had a separate bed, a separate room, separate lives. To say they never ventured out from the strict lines that held them in place, and into each other's beds, would be a lie, because they often awoke to find themselves in each others arms, but they had an unspoken rule, and didn't ask for or expect any more from each other than the comfort that two intimate siblings might show for each other, in the dark of night, when nightmares and ghosts are to be chased away.
John studies Molly in the early morning light. She has a certain tilt to her chin when she does not want to cry, he realises. This simple observation makes affection swell up inside him, and he marvels at her strength, her ability to cope, when he can barely go about his daily life. She never lets on about how much it hurts, but John can see it all in that tilt. She misses Sherlock too. She loved him, still does. She hates John for all the time that he was allowed to spend with Sherlock, time John now treasures more than any other memories, but she still finds it in herself to comfort and care for John. John finds this absolutely astounding. Molly smiles at John. She tilts her chin and asks if he wants some tea, while twirling a loose strand of hair away from her cheek. She stands up, and one leg of her pyjama bottoms un-scrunches and falls to her heel. She does not break, she never cries. She walks lightly from his room, with no sign of sadness except for the minute angle of her head. John lets her go, in awe of her ability to hold herself together, when she looked like she should be so weak.
There are many things that can bring two people together, but losing someone they both love, with every fibre of each of their fragile beings, is a thing to ruin a relationship, not to make it. It took a very special man indeed to pull Molly and John together, and their friendship worked as a memorial to that man.
Sherlock Holmes.