Post"The Empty Hearse"
Sherlolly babble
Rated: Clean, but a wee bit sad.
Do not own the characters, places events, blah blah blah. BBC owns everything (including my life).
All she came by for was to return the magnifying eye piece that he had left in the morgue. She never expected to find the great detective like this when she turned the handle to his flat that morning.
Sherlock was hunched over in his leather chair wearing only his blue pajama bottoms and his silk robe. His head hung low between his drooping shoulders.
"Sherlock?" Molly said with hesitation.
There was no reply. She could have sworn that he wasn't even breathing.
She moved carefully towards him, hoping he'd at least recognize her presence. But again there was no response.
As she approached, Molly could see that he was not visiting his mind palace, but instead somewhere darker; somewhere more frightening. His eyes were icy and his brow knitted.
Softly, Molly placed a hand on Sherlock's back. Through the silky fabric she could feel the raised skin. Curious, she pulled back the robe's collar to peer inside.
Scars.
Worried now, Molly delicately slid the material off of his shoulder, revealing several wounds scattered randomly across his back. It didn't take a genius to understand that they were caused by a whip.
All he had ever told her was that he disabled Moriarty's network in those two years. Molly grazed a finger over one of the scars. Sherlock tensed, pulling his shoulder away from her with a wince. She'd never known that it had been this severe.
Molly moved in front of him, squatting down before his chair. Sherlock refused to lift his head to face her. Tenderly, Molly raised his chin. Her brown eyes gazed sincerely into his. Sherlock swallowed hard as he now consciously stared back at her.
She leaned, reaching for a foot stool and slid it beneath her bum. Molly then took a hold of one of his lanky hands in the both of hers. Gently, she fidgeted with his fingers. "Sherlock, tell me."
And in that moment he knew that the Molly Hooper he trusted, also cared. Not just about his physical pain but his emotional trauma as well. And so he spoke, elaborating for hours, telling her of the captors and the terrorists; horrors that no human should ever have to endure. Molly Hooper listened and by the afternoon, all that remained from those two years were the markings on his back.