Greg Lestrade strolled into his flat, shared now with Molly Hooper in the wake of Sherlock's death, and tossed his keys onto the small table in the doorway. Smiling to himself for who and what he knew awaited him, as they did most days, he hung his coat in the closet and kicked off his shoes.

As he made his way into the sitting room, however, his smile slowly faded, morphing into an expression of deep concern.

"Molly? Sweetheart, what's wrong?" he asked, knowing immediately that something wasn't right with her.

For a few moments, Molly seemed not to hear him. Suddenly, she seemed to stir from her own thoughts, and turned to look up at him.

"You know we've no secrets, Darling," Molly said quietly, almost meekly. Greg sensed something ominious from her tone and her words. Swallowing hard, he averted his gaze a moment, before sitting down next to her.

Molly, sitting in the corner of the sofa, had her knees drawn up, as if she had been thinking about something deeply shameful and needing an incredible amount of understanding and forgiveness.

"Of course we've no secrets... so then just tell me Molly," he urged her, gently, shifting himself close to her. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, as if bracing herself for disastrous action and the heartbreaking consequences, Molly looked at him briefly, making eye contact. Quickly, she broke it as she unfolded herself.

"Ever since we got together, Greg," she started softly, "I've known this would come. It had to. We can't be US if we have secrets. It could never work and I want so badly for us to work. Oh Greg," she said, her voice beginning to crack, "I love you more than I ever thought it possible to love ANYONE. Including Sherlock."

Greg nodded slowly, trying to keep up. He knew Molly loved him, she'd never made it a secret, just as he'd never made the fact that he loved her equally a secret.

"Molly love," Greg said gently, "we all miss him. I miss him too, he was the worst pain in the ass I've ever encountered, but he was a special pain in the ass. Like the son I never wanted but ended up with anyway," he chuckled sadly. "We all loved him, in our own ways," he reflected, reaching out to pull Molly into his arms.

Molly collapsed briefly, allowing Greg's embrace and the soft, lingering kiss he placed on her hair, to steel her for the inevitable. She savoured those moments, wondering if they might be the last of their kind. Finally, she decided, she had to just get the hell on with it.

"Sherlock… the fall… off St. Bart's," Molly said, her voice quivering. "It wasn't real. None of it was real. He's alive, Greg. It was all an elaborate hoax."

Greg paused, thinking while his hand continued to absently stroke her back comfortingly. The words had hit him in the chest like a battering ram, and for a moment, he found it hard to breathe as his mind began to struggle through shock to grasp what she was telling him. "Molly, sweetheart what are you saying?" he said slowly and deliberately, willing himself to remain calm and collected enough to properly hear what she had to say.

Molly pulled back from him, staring at his lap, studying the seams of his trousers, utterly unable to look the man she loved more than anything in the world in the eyes.

"Sherlock's suicide was faked. I have no idea where he is now, darling, please you MUST believe me when I say that. But I was drawn into the whole thing when I offered to help before any of it even began. Nobody else knows," she continued, anticipating what Greg would next ask. "Only myself and Mycroft and a handful of Sherlock's homeless network."

"Right, then," Greg said, still confused, but his the shock beginning to wear off, replaced by his heart aching for Molly's fear. Pulling her closer to him still, he tightened his arms around her, hoping that she would understand he wasn't going anywhere, no matter what else she had to confess to.

"Why? Molly love, Sherlock wouldn't go to this extent for no reason. Even HE isn't this much of an adrenaline junkie to go to this sort of trouble. There's a lot more to it, isn't there? Tell me, PLEASE," he said, pulling back slightly and placing a hand on her face.

Finally bringing her gaze up to look Greg in the eyes, she finished her confession.

"Moriarty blackmailed him. He told him that if he didn't kill himself, his closest friends would die that very moment. Apparently Moriarty had snipers in place. They were under orders…" Molly's voice broke momentarily, before she regained composure. "They were under orders to kill the only three people Moriarty believed meant anything in the world to him. John, Mrs. Hudson, and you."

Greg's heart nearly skipped a beat. "Me?" he asked.

"Yes. Three gunmen, three bullets, three crosshairs, and Sherlock's only three friends in the world. The only three who meant anything to him at all. And if he didn't throw himself off the roof of St. Bart's, and be seen to be doing so, you, John, and Mrs. Hudson would all die within minutes."

Greg brought a free hand up, running it through his silvering hair. At this point, he wasn't sure which had thown him for a loop more – the revelation that Sherlock was still alive, or the revelation that he had come within mere moments of being murdered for kicks simply because he had meant that much to Sherlock.

He sat for several minutes, absorbing what he'd just been told, as he continued to hold Molly closely.

"Sherlock's friends… there were more than three, love. There was you as well. I mean… there IS you. Oh bollocks. That bastard, what the hell has he done…?" Greg muttered to himself.

"Well, that was key to the plan. In order for me to assist in faking his death, to forge the post mortem documentation, Moriarty had to completely disregard me as Sherlock's friend. He had to look at me as irrelevant and unimportant."

"I see," Greg finally said, pulling Molly fully back into his arms. "So Sherlock is still alive, somewhere, and you've just told me everything you know about it to this point," he summarized softly, as he rested his face against her hair, his mouth next to her ear. "There's one other thing I really need to know though, Molly love," he said, turning his face to press a firm kiss to her temple.

Molly's breath caught. She HAD just told him everything, now she worried he no longer trusted her, and her potential inability to answer what he needed to know next might spell the end of the best thing to ever happen to her.

"What's for dinner, because I'm bloody FAMISHED," he asked lightly, as Molly held her breath, suddenly letting it out in a rush.

"Shepherd's pie, actually," Molly said softly. "Greg… I've just told you that…"

"Yes," Greg stopped her. "You've just told me something that was never meant to be revealed to anyone else, because you love me and you know that I love you, and you needed to be open and honest." Greg smiled at her reassuringly. "It's a job requirement of Scotland Yard coppers to keep their pie holes shut when it comes to cases. Need to know, you know? And you felt I needed to know, so now I do. I can't guarantee I'll not call him dirty filthy names when he comes back someday, but I CAN guarantee that nobody else will ever know about this."

"Not even John?" Molly asked, meekly. "Because he's shattered. Oh my God, Greg, watching John breaks me. He's so lost," she said, her voice breaking as the tears began to flow in earnest. "I could fix all of that grief, I could erase the pain with three little words, but… I can't. I promised. And every time I look at John I hate myself for making that promise. John has lost the only true best friend he has ever really known, the man he has loved as a brother with all of his heart. And I can't tell him that Sherlock isn't really dead."

"One day," Greg said, bringing his hand up to run through her hair, cradling her head, "John will know as well that Sherlock is alive. But in the meantime, we help him to cope as best we can. Grief only needs a spark of hope to survive through. You've been my spark of hope all this time, so now, we'll be John's. He won't know why, but we will be. I promise, my beautiful girl."

Molly took a deep breath again, letting it out in a rush of relief. After her confession, the knots in her belly had let themselves loose, and suddenly she found herself to be ravenously hungry.

"I love you, Greg Lestrade," she finally said, gazing up at him. Greg noticed immediately the relief in her brown eyes. "I think dinner is nearly ready, if you are."

"More than ready, Love, it smells bloody fantastic," he said, rising to his feet and offering his hand to help her up. Smiling down at her, he only hoped she understood that he understood. He brought his hand up to stroke her face, and leaned down, drawing her into a kiss of the utmost tender passion, meant purely to convey to her that nothing between them had changed for her confession, nor would it at any time.

A spark of hope was all she really needed, after all.