The first week was tough.
Sherlock hardly saw Molly. She'd keep an eye on Rosie when Mrs. Hudson wasn't available, but otherwise, she was nowhere to be seen. She'd taken some time off work. Sherlock wasn't sure why.
The second week was even tougher.
She was back at work, but she hardly spoke to anybody – at least, that's what John told him. Sherlock couldn't even bring himself to go to St. Barts. He couldn't face the inevitable conversation. Maybe she'd just forget about it, he thought to himself. That's what he sort of hoped. Except he wasn't going to just forget it, so she definitely wasn't going to. But he continued to sort of hope.
A few more weeks passed.
Every time his piercing gaze settled upon her, she was timid – almost frightened by his presence, which was something he couldn't stand. But at least she wasn't talking to him. Maybe that was what was best for the both of them. It wasn't. But they both hoped it was.
It had been a couple of months. Sherlock and John were flying high with solving case after case. Molly had managed to exchange a few words with Sherlock. Only ever about cases. It was like years of friendship had vanished in the blink of an eye, and it hurt Sherlock. It hurt Molly, too, but she didn't have anybody to say that to.
Come to think of it, neither did Sherlock.
Maybe she was doing what she thought was best, Sherlock thought to himself. Maybe she was giving him and John some space, whilst they got back on their feet. After all, they'd both been through a lot in the past few months.
Maybe she thought that nobody would notice that she was hurting even more, for the very reason that she was giving them space. She was doing it because she cared. Not that anybody would notice.
But Sherlock noticed. He always noticed, even if he never said anything. He never stopped noticing. He sometimes wished he wasn't so observant. Sometimes it made him hurt. Because he cared, too. Not that anybody would notice.
As if somebody had flipped a switch, suddenly the people of London decided that interesting crimes were not their cup of day. Sherlock didn't have a case, and he was bored. Every client that visited 221B was drab and dull and he had zero interest. What he used to do – back before everything happened – was visit the morgue. Maybe he could work on an experiment or two. Maybe he could have a look at a few suspicious dead bodies and find a case interesting enough to garner his attention.
He used to know the rota of all the doctors in the morgue – something he learnt so he knew when he could get away with his experiments and observations – but it'd been so long, he had no idea who to expect when he walked into St. Barts.
As if it were some sort of sick twist of fate, Molly was there. Doing what she did best – doing her scientific research in the tranquillity of an empty lab.
She hardly moved an inch when Sherlock entered the room. It was as if she was trying to shut the whole world out. Not that it was doing her any good.
Her cheeks were red, and her eyes still puffy – it looked like she'd been crying. Sherlock noticed, because he always did.
Except this time, he didn't pretend like he hadn't.
With everything him and John had gone through in the past few months, he'd begun to learn to say those 3 words a little bit more: "are you alright?"
Most people used it almost as a greeting, and never expected an accurate answer, but Sherlock was different. He only asked it because he wanted a genuine answer.
And Molly wasn't expecting it. He'd never said those words to her, and for a moment she thought she was just imagining it.
She continued working on the experiments she was doing in the lab – nothing interesting enough to peak Sherlock's interest, but enough for her to stay distracted for a short period of time.
And then she suddenly felt him standing a little bit closer. Close enough that she could smell his aftershave – or whatever it was that always made him smell so good.
"Molly…"
It was the lingering that got to her the most. He wasn't one for lingering on particular words, was he? Not unless it was to do with a case, but she knew he definitely wasn't talking about a case.
She took half a step away from the lab bench, and glanced at him, her eyes still slightly glazed from where she'd been crying.
"Are you alright?" he asked once more.
Molly didn't know what to say. Of course she wasn't alright. She'd finally openly confessed her love to him, after getting him to say those 3 short words to her, and then it was like it had never happened. He'd gone back to his usual cold self, practically ignoring her unless he wanted something from her.
"No." She figured just about covered everything she was thinking. She didn't make the half step back to the bench, but she looked away – she couldn't stand looking at him for too long. It made her think too much, and feel even more.
"Right," he replied, not knowing what else to say. Talking about emotions beyond the chemical level had never been his strong suit. Even with John, who was his best friend. He could have hugged her, because that's what he did with John that one time, because sometimes all somebody needed was a hug to make them feel a little bit better.
But it was different with John. He knew where he stood with John. He knew what was between them. He knew that hugging John would comfort him and do its bit and then they could try to carry on with whatever they'd been doing and it wouldn't get mentioned again. Sherlock liked that – it meant everything was kept simple; he liked it when things were kept simple.
Sherlock never knew where he stood with Molly. Any time he thought that he did, things would suddenly change. What if she thought that he'd lied just to get the confession out of her? What if she thought that he hadn't been lying and that the hug was a declaration of affection? What if she yelled and screamed at him to leave her alone? What if he was just overthinking it a little too much?
All these thoughts raced through his mind in a matter of seconds, without him managing to think of anything else to say. Maybe he ought to go. He'd just make everything worse if he stayed.
He turned to walk away.
And then he didn't walk away.
Instead he turned on his heel again, to face Molly.
"If you… if you need anything, Molly. I'm here. I owe you that much." Just like he felt forever in debt to Mary for sacrificing her life for his own, he felt forever in debt for Molly for doing everything in her power to keep him safe. He still hadn't quite figured out how to spend this immeasurable currency.
And with that, he opened the door, and went to leave.
"Wait…" Molly finally managed to say, just before the door clicked shut.
As if he didn't need to wait for her to say any more, he turned around again, and stepped back into the room. "Yeah?" he asked, furrowing his brow at her. His 'yeah' was her 'what do you need'. It was like the clock had turned back all those years, before the rooftop happened. He probably would've done just about anything, although he knew that she wouldn't ask any more of him than she needed.
"Why did you say it?" she asked. She couldn't even lift her gaze up to glare at him until he responded. She just… couldn't. All she could think about was trying to hold her tears back, because she'd already spent enough of her day crying over him.
Sherlock stood there, looking down at her. Surely she must have been told by somebody why he'd said what he'd said that day. She wasn't an idiot. She could've even figured it out for herself, after hearing about Eurus. He couldn't figure out how to explain it in as simplest terms as possible. He had proved himself to be an utter cock on so many occasions, but this was one occasion where he didn't want to live up to it.
But before he even had a chance to formulate an answer, Molly opened her mouth to speak again. "Twice," she breathed, shutting her eyes and biting down on her lower lip, as if reliving that moment one more time, as if she hadn't relived it in her mind enough already. "Twice, Sherlock. You said it twice. If you were…" She trailed off. She wasn't even sure where she was going with that unfinished sentence, but she was sure it was an assumption that had no truth to it.
Sherlock wasn't so sure. Ever since that day, he'd suddenly found himself unsure of just about everything in his life. His little sister had emotionally tortured him – something that he didn't even think was possible, or at least, not something he'd allow himself to become so affected by. But Eurus knew his pressure points – his endless list of pressure points. And the one that had weakened him more than he had ever expected was Molly. He still couldn't figure out why. It kept nagging him in the back of his mind. She kept nagging him in the back of his mind. Even if he went weeks without seeing her, she'd still be his voice of reason, like she had been so many times before. In his mind, she was the one telling him to pull himself together, and to focus, and to survive, and sometimes even to just stop.
"Oh. Right. Yeah…" was all he managed to say in response. What else could he say? He was still trying to figure all this out, even though it had been weeks since it had all happened. Clearly Molly had spoken to others about what happened on that island. Probably John. No doubt he'd asked her if she was alright, when he dropped Rosie off at her flat and had noticed she'd been crying, too. John could tell her what he saw, but he didn't have a clue what had gone through Sherlock's mind – he could only imagine; it was all conjecture. Sherlock pondered upon whether John had mentioned what had happened to the coffin – it being destroyed in a fit of rage. Was it rage? Partially. There were plenty of other emotions thrown into the mix, some that Sherlock couldn't even label, or even recall.
"Well?" Molly asked, trying to push Sherlock a little more into talking. Usually he had everything to say about everything. This wasn't like him. Even if it was to do with matters of the heart. Usually he'd brush it all off, or walk away and forget it ever happened. This time, he wasn't doing any of that. A small tear began to make its way down her cheek. She tried to brush it away, but to no avail.
Sherlock pouted as he noticed the lone tear make a mark on her face. He had to try so hard to resist lifting a hand up to wipe it away. It's what he wanted to do, but he just couldn't do it.
There seemed to be an ever-growing list of things that he couldn't do, especially not around Molly. And, as had been evident in the past few months, he was beginning to get sick and tired of holding back on everything he was thinking, feeling, and wanting to do, because it never made anything better; it just made the thoughts, feelings, and wants take over his whole mind, to the point where he could no longer focus on anything else.
"It's…" he began, despite not knowing what he wanted to say – he just wanted to break the silence before Molly decided she was simply wasting her time. "I don't know, Molly," he sighed, feeling as hurt by his own words as she was probably feeling by them. "I just don't know. A lot happened that day. I was… I went through a lot, and…"
"I know," she interrupted. She knew where he was going. Something about him being unsure of things, and how whatever this was between them, it wasn't what she wanted it to be, nor would it ever be. She was always getting her hopes up, and they were always getting shattered into millions of tiny pieces. Maybe she shouldn't have told him to wait, and to come back into the room so she could ask him that question. Maybe all of this was her fault. If she hadn't been so obvious in her feelings towards him, she never would have been a target on that day, and then none of this would've ever happened to either of them.
She could feel her ducts producing more tears. She'd been crying so much, she was surprised that she still had some tears left in her. And, in all honestly, Sherlock was surprised, too. He'd never seen somebody cry so much. Not that she cried much – if at all – when he was actually there, but he wasn't an idiot. He still noticed. He always noticed. He almost wished that he'd stop noticing, and then he realised that he never wanted to stop noticing, because to stop noticing would be to stop caring, and he wasn't going to start not caring any time soon, least of all about the one that mattered most.
"It's not what you think," Sherlock almost blurted out, not wanting to give Molly the wrong impression at all. Although, he feared that he would give her the wrong impression regardless of what he said, because that's what he always did.
"Oh?" Molly just about managed to stutter. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? She was already thinking it was a bad thing. So maybe the truth was even worse. Maybe he really was just playing a game with her. She wouldn't put it past him. He'd done worse to her. Well, he hadn't, but she kept telling herself he had, just to make the whole thing easier to deal with. It wasn't working.
All she could do was stand there awkwardly, a hand trying to shield her freshly dampened cheeks from the man that caused them to be that way; unable to say anything, let alone question him on what he meant.
"The first time…" Sherlock began to say, before realising how daunting what he was about to say really was. He let out a long sigh before he spoke again. "The first time, I had to say it. I had to, because you asked me to. And if I didn't, then you wouldn't… you wouldn't have said it, too. And if you hadn't said it, too, then you might've… The first time I said it, was because I was trying to protect you." He rested a hand on her shoulder, not knowing how else to comfort her without being too uncharacteristically forward with her.
"The second time…" he trailed off. He thought trying to explain it out loud would make things clearer for him – it usually worked when he was working on a case; half the reason he liked John being around was so he could think aloud and things would suddenly become a whole lot clearer for him. But it wasn't working this time. Not yet, at least. "The second time was different. I mean it when I say that I don't know why I said it again. But, whatever the reason was, I meant to say it again. It wasn't an accident. That's all I know." He paused, allowing Molly a little bit of time to take all of it in. "I'm sorry. I wish I knew more. Sometimes I just do things, and it takes a while for me to catch up with myself. It's just that it's taking a lot longer than usual, this time."
He lifted his hand off of Molly's shoulder, figuring that maybe now would be a good time to give her some space and some time. But his hand had only managed to move an inch or two before he felt her wrap her arms around him. He hadn't expected her to do that at all. Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction for her, he wasn't sure; he'd never really had this sort of conversation with her, or, really, anybody.
"It's okay," she mumbled into his shirt. They both knew that was a total lie.
After a few seconds of silence, he decided that the best thing would be to somewhat reciprocate the hug. Not so much that she couldn't break it off the moment that she wanted to, but enough that she knew he was hugging her back. "No, it's not," he whispered close to her ear.
Before Molly even realised what was actually happening, she let out a long sigh – she liked this. Whatever it was that this was, she liked it. If only it could happen again. But she knew it couldn't. It was Sherlock, this would never happen again. Then the penny dropped. It was Sherlock. She'd almost forgotten. The closest he'd ever been to affectionate towards her was a peck on the cheek – this was something else. It was just a hug, but it was a hug from Sherlock, so it was worlds away from anything else she'd ever experienced. It took her a while to realise that he'd even replied to what she said. She didn't want to pull away, but she felt like she had to. She didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable, or obliged to make her feel better, even if he was the reason why she needed her mood improved in the first place.
She took a step away from him, her eyes fixated on his shirt for a moment, seeing the tear-stain she'd left, and not quite believing that she'd left it. And then she looked up at him, finally a small smile on her lips. Perhaps the first genuine smile of hers in months. "No, but it will be," she said, sounding determined to make sure that things would be okay again. Because they were Sherlock and Molly, and they could accomplish anything, if they put their two brilliant minds to it.
Sherlock stood there silently – unexpectedly dumbfounded by the whole situation. He felt a little better when he saw her smile, but it didn't make him feel like he could say anything else to her. At least not yet.
And as if his best friend had known exactly what Sherlock was thinking, his phone buzzed. It was John. A client that sounded promising. There wouldn't be any other reason he'd text when he knew that Sherlock was bound to be bumping into Molly at the hospital.
Sherlock looked at his phone – sometimes he hated how right he was. "I.. I'm sorry, Molly. I've got to go," he tried to explain, but before he even needed to, Molly simply nodded at him.
"It's okay, Sherlock," she responded. "Go. I have some… things to be working on."
He couldn't help a small smile in her direction – one of his few genuine smiles in recent weeks. "Okay," he nodded back. He took a breath, and turned to leave – this time for good.
Except he couldn't quite yet.
Before the door shut behind him, he stopped it with his foot, and leant in to glance at Molly once last time. "And just so you know, the offer still stands. If you need anything, you just tell me." And with that, he slipped out of the room and off home to meet his new client.