It had not been a pleasant few weeks for Molly, with Mary's death, John's grieving, Rosie, Sherlock's summons and subsequent drugs and near death. She had worn herself down, and was feeling the start of yet another cold. Her day had been particularly nasty, with two murdered children and their drug addled father to autopsy. The father was noted to have been an on and off addict, working for the police in his most recent stint of being clean, then the mother had died and he'd relapsed. Badly. He'd completely lost the plot, beset by grief, and shot both of his daughters entirely by accident, before shooting himself in the head after realising what he'd done. The universe was conspiring against her, making her live her nightmares. She knew that Sherlock had nearly overdosed last Christmas, she knew that he'd been taking a home brew of sorts and was going to allow a dangerous man to kill him just to make John talk to him again. As much as she appreciated being in the loop, sometimes it could be very testing indeed, and all she wanted was to drink her tea and sleep for a week.
She was staring out of her kitchen window when her phone rang, Sherlock, and went back to her original task of preparing a honey and lemon infusion. She could do without one of his obscure demands, and squeezed her lemon slice a little too viciously thinking about how cathartic it would be to throw her phone against the wall. She let it go to voicemail, if he wanted her he'd text, that was his preferred method of communication after all, so when her phone rang again, she answered tiredly, bored of his shit before it had begun.
His tone of voice raised her hackles immediately, and she hoped now, that it was in fact one of his idiotic games or a need for something banal. There was something off about the line, his request, and the desperate undertone replaced by a superficial calm. This was it then, either he was humiliating her for the last time or one of them was about to die – she'd spent enough time around Sherlock Holmes to know when the shit hit the fan. If she had to say those unretractable three words, then she'd damn well make sure that he did as well, as her insurance against humiliation. If he was simply being an arse, he'd never say it, at least not with any meaning, and if they were going to die, well, at least she'd said it once – he deserved to know that was loved.
The first voicing of the words was as sincere as she thought she'd ever get them, a small, sad smile flitting across her face. Then he repeated them, more softly, anguished, and then she knew. She knew she had to say it, and hope that it was enough to stop whatever he was so scared of. Her pause as she collected her thoughts, said a small prayer, was punctuated by his pleading. She whispered those three small words down the phone, reverently, and then the line went dead – and for all she knew, he was too.
