A/N: My contribution to the 1 year anniversary celebration of the "I love you" scene from TFP.
"Make her say it, Sherlock." Eurus' taunting voice was like nails on a chalkboard to him. They were in the communications lab, where his sister had hacked into the school's CCTV network so they could see Molly Hooper down in the cafeteria, where she'd stopped to grab a cup of tea before heading home.
"Make her say it in, let's say three minutes…or that picture will end up on every mobile phone in the school. She'll be destroyed, ready to put herself in a casket and bury herself."
"Eurus…" John started to say, but she whipped her head around and glared at him.
"Not a word, Johnny boy, not a syllable," she sing-songed warningly. "You saw what I did to the Garrideb brothers. Don't think I won't make Molly's life just as miserable." Her thumb hovered over her phone; neither Sherlock nor John would be able to stop her before the damage was done.
"Go on, then," John urged lowly, giving Eurus a glower as he jerked his head at Sherlock. "Get it over with."
Sherlock gritted his teeth, but fumbled his mobile out of his pocket. His sister was just crazy enough to do something like that, ruin a sweet girl's reputation - and possibly her life - just because he refused to play her sick little game. He pressed the number from memory, then watched and waited.
Molly glanced down at her mobile, frowning at the screen before shoving it back into her jacket pocket and lifting the cardboard cup of tea to her lips. She didn't drink, just blew on it a bit, looking miserable and alone.
"Why isn't she answering her phone?" Sherlock snarled in frustration.
"You never pick up your phone," John felt constrained to point out.
"Yes, but it's me calling," Sherlock snapped back, never taking his eyes away from the latest potential victim of his sister's warped sense of humor, if you could call it that.
"Give it another try, Sherlock," Eurus said. Her eyes glittered with what John hoped was strictly excitement and not actual insanity.
Sherlock nodded, dialed the number again, waited with bated breath to see what Molly would do.
"Come on, Molly, pick up," John muttered under his breath. "Just bloody pick up."
She nipped at her lower lip, sighed, then pulled the mobile from her pocket. "Hello, Sherlock. Is it urgent, 'cause I'm not having a good day."
"Yeah, Molly, listen, I just need you to do something for me and not ask why, okay?" Sherlock said, trying desperately to sound cool and disinterested. Hard to do with Eurus just waiting for him to screw this up.
Molly sighed in exasperation. "Oh, God, is this one of your stupid games?"
"No, it's not a game. I…need you to help me."
"Look, I'm not in the chemistry lab…"
"No, it's not about that," Sherlock rushed to assure her.
"Well, quickly then." Molly was shifting from foot to foot, clearly itching to leave the campus and head home.
Sherlock blinked rapidly and bit his lips. God, what if he couldn't do this? No, he had to. Too much was at stake for him not to do it.
"Sherlock? What is it? What do you want?"
"Tick tock," Eurus hummed warningly.
"Molly, please, without asking why, just say these words," Sherlock finally managed.
Molly smiled a little, apparently intrigued. "What words?"
Sherlock spoke clearly, enunciating each word so there could be no mistake. "I love you."
Molly's face drained of color and she pulled the phone away from her lips, staring at it in disbelief. With a sniff, she reached as if to hang up.
"No, Molly, please, don't hang up!" Sherlock exclaimed. "Do not hang up!"
"Dial it down, big brother," Eurus advised. "Or I will finish her. Right now." Her thumb eased onto the screen of her mobile.
Threat duly noted, Sherlock took a calming breath and forced himself to focus.
Molly was speaking again. "Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making fun of me?" she asked, sounding lost and almost…broken.
His heart clenched in his chest. " Please, I swear, you just have to listen to me. "
"Softer, Sherlock," Eurus warned.
Sherlock tried smiling, even though Molly couldn't see him. Anything to make his tonve friendlier, more casual. "Molly, this is for a class. It's … it's a sort of experiment."
Molly frowned. "I'm not an experiment, Sherlock."
Eyes widening at the tactical error he'd just made, he tried to back-pedal. "No, I know you're not an experiment. You're my friend. We're friends. But … please. Just … say those words for me."
Her face full of pain, Molly half-whispered, "Please don't do this. Just … just … don't do it."
" It's very important. I can't say why, but I promise you it is."
"I can't say that. I can't … I can't say that to you," Molly said, seeming to shrink in on herself.
"Of course you can. Why can't you?" Sherlock asked, still smiling to make his voice sound friendly. Calm. Casual. Everything he currently was not.
"You know why," came the reply.
Sherlock's smile dropped in puzzlement. "No, I don't know why."
Molly sighed heavily, sniffed and wiped her hand across her nose. "Of course you do."
"Tick tock," Eurus murmured again, practically breathing down his neck. When John made a move as if to grab for her mobile, she turned to give him a mocking smile and clenched the phone more firmly. He backed off, hands held up in surrender.
"Please, just say it." Oh, Irene would have a field day if she were here, listening to him beg and plead in a way he'd so arrogantly claimed he never would. Not for a girl.
He wished he could go back in time and punch his scornful, one-year-younger self right in the nose. Maybe he could get John to do it for him after this was all over with.
"I can't." Molly sounded…broken. And he'd done this to her. His stomach was in knots. "Not to you."
"Why?"
"Because..it's true. It's always been true."
It was? She was? But that wasn't…no. Not time. Get her to say it now, figure out how he felt about that confession later. "Well, if it's true, just say it anyway," he half-demanded, anxious to get this bloody well over with.
Molly stared at her phone in disbelief. "You bastard," she said, lips curling in contempt.
"Say it anyway," Sherlock said firmly. He wouldn't - couldn't - back down now. Too much was at stake.
Molly's next words were completely unexpected. "You say it then. Go on, you say it first." She paused, then added bitterly, "Say it like you mean it."
"Thirty seconds left," Eurus said. Sherlock could hear the grin in her voice; she was really enjoying this.
Slowly hesitantly, Sherlock spoke. "I..I love you."
As the words left his lips, it was if his entire world tilted sideways; realization flooded through him, an utterly dazzling, utterly unexpected epiphany. "I love you," he said again…and meant it.
Molly closed her eyes briefly, bringing the phone around so she could look at the screen. As if she could see him as well as he could see her. And wouldn't that be the ultimate irony, since she was the one who always could see him, when it had taken his sister's Machiavellian scheming before he could truly see Molly?
"Molly?" he said anxiously as she remained silent. "Molly, please!"
Holding the phone in both hands, she gazed down at the screen before lifting it to her lips. "I love you," she whispered. Then deliberately hung up the phone, thrust it into her jacket pocket, and left the cafeteria, dropping the full cup of tea into rubbish bin on her way out.
"I won," Sherlock said as he swung around to face his sister. "Delete the photo."
"What, this photo?" Eurus held her phone so he could see the screen. He averted his eyes hastily. "You should get a better look before I delete it, might be…well, never before you get to see her naked again, after that conversation."
She'd taken a photo of Molly coming out of her shower, a towel round her hair but otherwise entirely naked. Sherlock had no idea when his sister had broken into the Hooper home to plant the camera, but the first thing he intended to do after she deleted the photo was go to Molly's and rip the damned thing out of the wall.
"Eurus, I won, I saved Molly Hooper," Sherlock said as she smirked at him.
"Saved her? From what?" Eurus asked with mock innocence. "Oh do be sensible, I was never going to send this to any phone but yours, Sherlock. Why would I be so clumsy?"
He forced himself to look as she held up the phone again, and cursed roundly when he saw that there was only one name in the "recipient" field.
His own.
"There, it's gone," she said smugly as the photo vanished, unsent. "You didn't win, Sherlock. You lost. Look what you did to her, what you did to yourself. You didn't win." She dropped her phone into her handbag. "You lost."
She strolled out of the room, pausing in the door to leave him with one last taunt. "All those complicated little emotions. I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock. It destroys you every time."
Then she was gone, leaving the two friends to wonder, each in their own way, how they were going to face Molly Hooper when next they saw her.