Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Sherlock.
This is a companion fic to a photoset I did on tumblr (serediel05) and inspiration was taken from the Blue October song Not Broken Anymore.
It had been three years since he last stepped foot into St. Bart's. Three long, tiring years of chasing after Moriarty's network only to discover that the final piece had never left London. No, Moran had proved to be more intelligent than Sherlock gave him credit for. He had, after all, figured out the one weakness that Moriarty never seemed to get. That's how Sherlock found him, in a flat that was in direct sight of Molly's own home with a rifle trained on her and Moran watching her undress through the scope.
Looking back he couldn't recall those moments where he dispatched his final enemy. It wasn't until Mycroft tapped him on the shoulder that he even realized he called his brother to clean up the situation.
He was still in a daze when Mycroft left him for the night, leaving the required papers he needed to return to the world with a warning to introduce himself to those he abandoned before causing a fuss.
He stared at those papers all night, thinking about his last days as Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock had just finished prepping the soil sample from the package Moriarty had left him. In that brief moment that it took for the sample to get prepared for analysis he finally let the events of the day sink in. Moriarty had a plan, a plan that Sherlock was slowly beginning to realize would end in one of their deaths. Logically it would be his, of course, because Moriarty was willing to go farther than Sherlock ever would. Any means to reach his end, he thought. He looked up over at John and hoped that his friend would forgive him for what was likely to come.
He would have to leave them, that alone was inevitable. He could handle being alone again, but what he didn't know how to do was let everyone go. How was he supposed to do that when some of them had come to mean so much to him? He knew that Lestrade, Mycroft, and Mrs. Hudson would end up being okay. They would persevere and move on after the appropriate amount of grieving time. No, it was John and Molly that he was most concerned about. The two people that were closest to his heart, but only one of them realized how close they were.
"Are you okay?" Molly said, breaking him out of his thoughts.
Not wanting to talk about his emotions he said the only thing he knew would stop this line of questioning, "Molly, I'm busy. I don't have time for your inane chatter." He said, not bothering to look at her and choosing to put his eye to the microscope instead.
"You look sad." Sherlock looked over at Molly, surprised that she was able to ascertain his emotions. That wasn't an easy feat to do.
Molly obviously misunderstood him and continued, "You know, when he isn't looking. You look sad." She paused and took a deep breath, obviously gathering the courage to say what she wanted. "I know what it means… looking sad when no one can see you. My dad used to do that… when he got closer to dying."
"You can see me." He said, hoping that she would deduce the meaning of his words.
"I don't count," she muttered, her voice so low that Sherlock had to strain to hear her, indicating the truth she felt in her words.
Her worthlessness.
She wasn't looking at him, thus missing his look of shock. How dare she think question her worth. After all, he let her help with experiments, touch evidence, assist him in the lab… Not even John was allowed to do that. No, he was delegated to the corner and scowled at if he touched anything.
Her worth to him was a plain and stark as the purple gloves she wore. And better yet, she deduced him! Which mean he trusted her enough to see the real him, vulnerable and bare… This did not indicate worthlessness.
He opened his mouth to tell her that but she interrupted him, feigning an excuse to leave. At the moment, he saw her how she saw herself in his eyes as she scampered off muttering about chips. She always knew how to let him go because he always forced her hand, never showing her except at Christmas how much she affected him. He wished she had stayed so that he could make her understand her worth, and he only hoped he would get the chance before Moriarty silenced him forever.
The next time he saw her, he knew it would be one of the last. He came to her because she was the only one he could turn to. He was going to die and he needed her help to make that happen. It was one of the few times in his life that he could remember being completely sincere and emotionally vulnerable. He told her how much she meant to him, although he knew she wouldn't perceive it that way. He told her how she has always counted to him, that he has always trusted her. And more importantly, he asked for her help. He had never asked for help from anyone before her. His voice cracked when he said he had to die… he didn't want to die… he didn't want to go. But it was the only way.
They worked intimately that night, side-by-side while Molly took his blood. He made the mixture of drugs that would make him appear dead, Molly looking over his shoulder the whole time to make sure he got it right. One small extra drop and he wouldn't just appear dead. After that they just talked. She seemed to know how to keep his mind off of the inevitable as he regaled her with childhood antics of piracy. He delighted every time he heard her tinkling laugh, or her booming laughter when he told her about the time he locked Mycroft in the 'dungeons' for making him stay indoors and do even more school work on top of the already extra his family had requested.
He also told her his darker moments, the moments where he wished with everything in him that he wasn't brilliant. He told her how the students teased him, calling him a freak and beating him up because the teacher doted on him. That was when he started honing in his deduction skills. He built up his defenses and learned that if you exposed someone for who they were they were more likely to focus on convincing people that it wasn't true.
He talked until his phone beeped, signally the text message he knew would come. He stood up and looked at Molly, wanting desperately to seek some sort of human comfort from her. He resisted and all he could do was nod before stalking out the door to meet his fate.
The next time he saw her he was bruised and battered, but alive. Dead to everyone else, but alive to her. She helped bandage him up and in the dead of night he slipped out of her apartment to begin the mission that would fracture him further. He knew that she would be upset and taking him leaving in the dead of night the wrong way, thinking that he didn't care for her, that he lied when he said she counted. In reality, goodbye would be too hard. If he had to look into her sweet, brown eyes he knew he would never leave.
And so he left.
Sherlock sighed as he thought about those moments in the morgue, how she was the only thing that made sense in a sea of brokenness. He didn't realize how important those moments were to him at the time, how much she grounded him against the storm he had weathered these past three years. He had seen so much, done so much, that at the end of the day she was what kept him afloat despite him being so broken that he should sink.
He carefully thought out how to reveal himself to those he left behind while avoiding thinking about one in particular, even though she had predominately filled his thoughts all night. He never expected to miss her as much as he did, or even more than John. It was a fact that made it impossible for him to think of the perfect reveal because he knew that it would all boil down to the insatiable need to see her. He would cave and end up going to her first, and it was only logical to assume that at least one person would notice him since very few went to the morgue that wasn't an employee.
And thus, the smart thing to do would be to plan knowing the evitable uncertainty instead of trying to plan the ideal scenario based on impartialness. So he retreated into his mind palace to determine the most probable time she would be at Bart's. He wanted to go at night to avoid minimal detection, but from past experiences he knew she generally had a rush of things to do the first third of her shift, paperwork the second, and the third was generally up in the air. She would most likely leave around eight at night. The imbecile that would be clocking in after her would most likely clock in early, the graveyard shift on a Sunday was generally given to a lab monkey and they would want to garner favor. Molly would then go to the locker room to shower and change, which would be the ideal time and place. It was discreet, off in a separate corner of the hospital and had an easily picked side door nearby.
Once that was decided he thought about the others. Mrs. Hudson would, of course, be at Baker Street. Lestrade would be leaving The Yard, walking through the parking garage to his car, a perfect opportunity. Mycroft he had already dealt with, no reason to revisit that again, and he had already had enough of his brother. He was the only contact Sherlock had with his former life and that was more than enough contact to last for the rest of his life. The only person left was John. He honestly had no idea where John would be at that time of night. Mycroft had, on occasion, given him updates on everyone but Sherlock told him he didn't want to know about John. He didn't want to know how much he hurt his friend. He also knew that he would need Molly's help finding him, her kind and nurturing nature wouldn't let her just abandon John to his own self destructive behavior. Once that was done, he then surrendered himself to his mind palace, cataloguing and filing all the events that happened during the past three years to lock them up tight.
By the time he was done night had fallen.
It was time.
He slipped inside Bart's, easily making it through their childish security measures. Most secure hospital in London, the thought made him want to scoff. He slipped inside the women's locker room, thankful that Molly's back was to the door. He just stood and drank in the sight of her, feeling his broken insides stitch themselves back together by just being in her presence.
Molly opened the locker door; her head bent low avoiding the small mirror. Sherlock could see himself in the reflection and knew it was only a matter of time before she noticed him.
She slipped off her lab coat and ID before looking at the mirror to make sure she didn't mess up her hair. Sherlock stood still as he gazed into the mirror, meeting her eyes through the reflection for the first time in three years. Molly's mouth dropped open, her hand covering it in shock.
She whirled around, tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
"Hello, Molly." His deep, timbre resounded, just barely keeping his own emotions in check.
With his words the tears broke and began sliding down, slowly, silently down her face.
"Sherlock?" Her voice was muffled by her hand, but he could still hear the crack in her voice.
It was that crack that broke his resolve. He was across the room quickly and took her in his arms, cocooning her within his body and sobs wracked her body.
"It's been so long… so long since that day. I didn't know anything… Mycroft refused to tell me anything, if he would even see me at all."
He moved his hand and began stroking her hair, comforting her, while he burrowed his head into her long, brown hair.
"There were some days were all I could do was assumed the worst… But I remained hopeful. Until a year ago, Mycroft told me I needed to move on, to let you go… I thought you were dead." She kept repeating the last sentence over and over, like a broken record while clutching his suit jacket as if were the only thing proving to her he wasn't an illusion.
He breathed in faint scents of formaldehyde, hexanes, and ethyl acetate and felt complete again, "I'm here, Molly. It's me. It's really me. I'm back. I won't leave you again."
He leaned his head back, kissing her forehead before cupping her face in his hands. "I'm home."