Molly had thought about it from the moment the phone had hung up on her. She'd flown between him showing up at her door and pulling her into kisses and those long overdue holds which convey all he couldn't say to him sat back in his flat with John laughing hysterically over her desperation and stupidity.

She didn't think she'd had a single moment dedicated to restful thought, to useful thought, or to herself; they continued to hop hopelessly between the fanciful and the self-deprecating, romantic and gut-wrenching.

News had got to her by that evening through Lestrade; he always made sure she was kept up-to-date. She supposed he didn't know about the earlier call just yet; she should be grateful nobody was making it about her, pulling her back into that moment, making her relay it, asking questions about his legitimacy.

Once the phone went down she was left once again to her thoughts. It changed after that, no flitting between the two most painful and painfully hopeful thoughts.

It was just the one: That he said I love you – he said it and he had meant it.

That he hadn't expected to, but he did; it had sat uncomfortably on his chest since his mind had been free enough to think back on it. That now he was stood outside her modest little home at fast approaching 1am, watching all those messy emotions cascading across her face from the porch light, and it was chewing him up from the inside out.

That he'd let her down already, but there was a relief which was much more overbearing. They all knew he could fake this and she, through her disappointment, was comforted a little by the fact that he hadn't even tried.

"Molly, I-"

"Don't." She would say, voice cracking damply "I've been told everything."

No she hadn't, he would want to say but she would quickly add:

"You saved my life, but you did it because I'm useful. Don't disappoint me by trying to make something more of it than that."

The breath would catch in Sherlock's throat like it always did when she spoke like that. Not important. Doesn't count. "I saved your life because you're important."

She would rock forwards on her heels and then back again, desperate to move; run away from the inevitable heartbreak, run into the arms of a man who didn't exist. She would repeat it over and over, small and slight, like the momentum would catch up with her and propel her away from this… whatever this was.

"Important and useful have always been synonymous for you, Sherlock." She would allow her eyes to flicker back to his face before they flick off to the side. Her mouth would crease with the effort to keep herself together, as did her eyes.

"Not this time."

"Yes, this time." Only then would the tears which had been threatening to fall do so, but even as they did her face would remain painfully calm. It would hurt him more, she liked to think… give him a small taste of what he'd been doing to her all these years. "Always, Sherlock. Always."

"I meant it."

Molly couldn't bear to think on more than that. The steam of thoughts cut off so suddenly she started a little at the sight of her own living room and grimaced at the damp hotness of her cheeks. Uncomfortable, like it always was after a prolonged time crying.

Of course, it occurred in the number of far-fetched illusions of her evening that he had been lying for some reason or another. Why wouldn't he? 'For a case' he had said, 'an experiment'… how exactly like him it would be, and how stupid of her to entertain the thought that it wasn't.

The only thing more painful than him not showing up to confirm it was him showing up at all, but however much it put her though to acknowledge it she still couldn't help but hope.

It hurt, but this was always going to hurt no matter how it ended.

A knock at the door brought her out of her new trail of thought.

Heart pounding hard despite its already heavy ache, breath thick with tears, head suddenly so full with her daydreams and yet so feather light with that small amount of hope… she found herself frozen, willing herself to move as much as she warned herself against it. Urging and scolding, propelling and pulling back.

Slowly, laboured and yet with light limbs, she walked to the door and pulled it open.

"Molly."

She broke, stood on her porch with one hand on the door and the other on the wall to keep herself upright, with tears that matched in quantity what the sobs gave in volume. And for no reason but being unwilling, unable even, to see her hurting Sherlock lunged forward those few steps and wrapped his arms around her.

"Molly..." this time it was harsher with concern, as close to concern as she had heard him get. Whatever he wanted to say, he swallowed it back.

Molly didn't protest; he didn't giver her a reason or chance too. She allowed him to guide her head into his chest and dissolved almost completely into the coolness of his jacket against her face. After a while, she could have begun to believe it wasn't had she not been gently disturbed by Sherlock's efforts to shift them further into the room and shut the door against the chilled air.

It mattered little to Molly, who still overcome by her eruption of all she had built up throughout the evening, had only just allowed her sobs to slow. Shallow rasps had taken place of the vocal breaks, and the tears had started to dry, coming so less frequently that they had the chance to gather in her lashes before they fell.

"I'm sorry." He sniffed and held her head tight to him still even as his hand relaxed to accommodate her moving back had she needed too. She didn't. "I'm so sorry."

"Shut up." Was all she could manage.

And all he wanted to say froze on his tongue; how he had known it was about her the moment he had seen the coffin, and how the thought had made him feel so sick… as sick when she didn't pick up the phone, as sick as watching her pull the phone from her ear.

How the first time he said 'I love you', the sheer honesty of it punched him in the chest. How the second and third times gave blows equally as hard and fearful. How it wasn't until he'd sat down in the aftermath, thoughts to himself and nobody else, that he realised how much he actually meant it.

Instead he closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, hoping that it would convey everything…

It did.

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