A/N: The Final Problem continues to do things to my heart and my emotions. I'm still working out how I feel about that scene with the 'release code'. But one thing I do know is that the coffin scene absolutely broke my heart. Obliterated it. So as I sought a balm for my wounds, I wrote my own balm. x
Wounds
The contrast was so stark it quite literally rang in his ears.
The police lights that swirled in the pitch black outside their old and rotted Musgrave home, the jarring collision of police radios, the ringing of mobile phones and the whirring blades of government helicopters all formed the cacophony that had been Sherlock's environment just an hour ago.
Now that he was home and the silence of his now-destroyed flat enveloped him, the silence deafened him. He sat amongst the rubble that used to be his sitting room, and although his eyes opened wide, they stared into nothing.
Sherlock cursed his memory, how it so vividly replayed everything back to him. Every step of his vivisection at the hands of his sister's unconfined madness raced through his charging brain as he fought to keep it economised, compartmentalised and ultimately, functional.
Whilst he slowly re-calibrated himself, sorting first his mind then assessing the state of his body, the physical traumas began to manifest themselves. There was the splitting headache from having been on edge all those hours. Every bone in his body ached from all the tension he had been carrying. The heaviness from when Eurus' had had him tranquillised still remained in some parts of his joints.
Then, Sherlock noticed his hands.
Tiny brown and red marks, invisible only until one looked close enough, speckled his knuckles and the backs of his hands. The red scratches stung ever so slightly and they frustrated him. They reminded him of an explosion - not unlike the one his flat had experienced - except it had been one inside his ribcage. Clumsily, Sherlock tried picking at one of the brown specks, a splinter of wood in his skin, hoping to get it out, but to no avail.
He sighed angrily as he stood up, walking over to his shattered wall that had become his new enlarged window to the street below. To his surprise, a patch of mixed colours appeared on the darkly lit pavement. He blinked once to see if his eyes were deceiving him, then twice, to see if he was going mad. Neither of it was the case.
The mixed colours were a familiar sight and when the face that wore them turned to look up at him from the street, he was glad that neither his eyes nor his mind were playing tricks on him. Sherlock turned away from the street to face what was left of his door and waited for the sound of Molly Hooper's footsteps.
"You wanted to see me?" she whispered, emerging in his charred doorway,
"I'm not sure who called you…" Sherlock answered quietly.
He remained rooted where he was, not once lifting his gaze to look at her.
"But yes," he confessed, his voice soft, "I wanted to see you."
His hands began to fidget as he contemplated between slipping them into his pockets or balling them into fists. Needless to say, this swiftly caught Molly's eye. With a small sigh, she walked steadily towards him and reached for his hands.
"What happened?" she asked quietly, examining the mess of tiny cuts and splinters.
There was no answer as Sherlock followed Molly to what remained of his kitchen. She picked up a fallen chair and he followed suit, positioning another chair so he could sit right in front of her. She put her bag on an overturned shelf and opened it to retrieve her small case of medical equipment. She paused to adjust her ponytail, then expertly snapped on a pair of white surgical gloves. This was not an unfamiliar ritual and Sherlock almost smiled at the nostalgia.
"This shouldn't hurt too much," said Molly, "God knows I've seen worse on you."
Carefully, with a pair of sharp tweezers and, occasionally, a suture needle, Molly extracted the frustratingly minute fragments of woods lodged into the skin of the detective's hands.
"There," she whispered, almost smiling to herself, "Good as new."
Now that the splinters had been removed, Molly turned her attention to cleaning and dressing all the micro-cuts and scratches on his hands.
"They didn't tell me how you got hurt," she said, dabbing at his wounds gently, "I don't suppose you want to talk about it…"
Sherlock could only stare at Molly in wide-eyed wonder. How was it possible that she displayed none of her wounds? And chose instead to focus on his?
"I wanted to see you," began Sherlock, "But not for this…"
Gently, he removed his hands from hers, leaving her fingers and the piece of antiseptic-soaked cotton they grasped suspended above his palms.
"Molly."
"Yes, Sherlock?"
He paused, a little unsure of how to continue.
"Just now— Today, when we spoke— You said you were having a bad day. Why were you having a bad day?" he asked, looking earnestly at her.
At first, Molly raised a puzzled eyebrow at his unexpected question. Then, she laughed quietly to herself as she shook her head in amusement.
"Did you hurt your head as well?" she asked in return.
"No—"
"Why would you care, Sherlock," she continued, "that I had a bad day?"
Her question stunned him, and for some reason, his sister's face swam into view.
So many days not lived, so many words unsaid.
"There was a coffin I saw today," he said, "And it had been built for you. Just for you."
Molly remained quiet, allowing him to continue.
"And I realised today that I never want to see you in it," he whispered fiercely, "Not on my watch."
His fingers reached gingerly for hers, unsure of what he was doing and even more unsure of what her response would be. When her fingertips met his and did not reel from the contact, he exhaled gratefully, not realising he had been holding his breath.
"You asked how I'd hurt myself," he continued, watching as her fingers slowly crept closer to his.
"Yes," said Molly, speaking again at last, "I did."
"I broke it, Molly. The coffin. Smashed it to pieces with my bare hands." said Sherlock, remembering the sight of the obliterated coffin and the torrent of emotion that had caused it.
With a gentle smile, Molly reached to take the detective's hands fully in hers, running her fingers across his skin, feeling every scratch and every scab that had held a splinter. When she looked back up at him, she found him staring, as though in wonder, at their hands firmly held in each other.
"You broke an entire coffin?" she asked, trying to catch his gaze.
"Into smithereens," he said, a little embarrassed at having confessed his overreaction.
Molly laughed and held firmly onto his hands, smiling affectionately as she took a good look at the beautiful, broken man sitting before her.
"Well then, you're a fool, Sherlock Holmes," she remarked with soft chuckle as she re-opened her bag.
Molly reassembled her medical paraphernalia and prepared to resume dressing the detective's wounds.
"Why would you do something like that?" she asked.
Now was the time to say it, and this was the way he had always meant to say it.
"Because, Molly…" he began, finally allowing himself to smile as he watched her gentle hands tend to his injured ones.
"I love you."
END