"I love you" …. the words slid so naturally out of her mouth. And she shook at the sound of them. 3 words, 3 simple words uttered hundreds of times but never once out loud. 3 words that hurt her soul and broke her heart. But most importantly the three words she had hoped and prayed Sherlock Holmes would never hear leave her lips.
They say that once you tell someone you love them your life changes for ever. This much Molly knew to be true. Those three words were out there and she could never take them back. At this moment she knew she would spend the rest of her life truly and deeply loving a man that was not capable of loving her back.
It had been winter the first time she had said those words, in her head at least. The wind was blowing an icy frost over London as she stood with Sherlock. The cold body of a murder victim lay motionless on the frozen ground as Sherlock paced back and fourth. His hands on his temples, muttering incoherent sentences and phrases as he walked. Suddenly he stopped dead in his track, turning to Molly and grabbing her abruptly by the shoulders… "SHE DIDN'T FALL HERE…. LOOK AT THE SLIGHT CRACKS IN THE ICE… FOOTSTEPS…. SOMEONE BROUGHT HER HERE… OH YES BRILLIANT". She looked deep into his face as he spoke, his face bright with child-like excitement, eyes shining in the cold air, hair as messy as ever and lips speaking to her in more ways than one. As he turned away from her practically bouncing with each step she said it for the first time… with a deafening silence… only for her to hear… "I love you".
Slowly she placed her phone back down on the counter as her whole body shook violently. Hanging tightly on to Sherlock's every word she crouched down in the small corner of her kitchen, head buried in her hands and cheeks growing damper and damper as the tears fell rapidly from her eyes.
…
"I love you" He said the words as simply as ever, no depth, no meaning just plain and simple words to save a friend's life.
His head reeled and the room around him spun as he was transported to Molly's lab in the Mortuary. Her words circled hastily around his head. "What do you need" she repeated on an endless loop, with every word she was thinking more about him than herself. With every breath she cared for him and with every silent look he saw her pain. The pain he had put her through for so long. The pain she had felt from the first moment but would never disclose. He took a sharp breath the room spinning around him, feeling every fragment of emotion that he had eluded for so long. His thoughts came in to focus with the room as he opened his eyes and was confronted with the broken face of the woman he loved.
He looked hard at the television screen and deep into Molly's tearful eyes, the pain engrained in her soft face sent an ache all the way through his body. With the biggest burst of true emotion he had ever really felt he spoke clearly, and with a passion that almost hurt him… "I love you"…
His head dropped into his hands, tears rolling from his eyes as he saw a very broken Molly Hooper collapsing into the smallest corner of her kitchen. His head slowly began to real once more and he uttered the only words he could still stomach… "Oh Molly, I'm so sorry".