221B BAKER STREET
When he returned to his flat, she was there, waiting.
"I'm not an addict, I'm a user. I alleviate boredom and occasionally heighten my thought processes… Controlled usage is not usually fatal and abstinence is not immortality."
That's how he'd explained it to John.
He'd even told himself the same thing over and over again until he'd actually begun to believe it.
But would she?
Her disappointment and anger he could accept. But when he saw her tears, he wanted to turn and run far, far away.
"You could have died."
"Yes," he agreed. There was little point denying it. "But at least it would have been on my terms."
Molly frowned. "What do you mean?"
Sherlock gave a bitter laugh. "Mycroft had arranged for me to be sent on a suicide mission for MI6. They'd calculated I'd survive about six months."
The colour in her cheeks drained away.
"I don't like uncertainty," he continued. "When I was away for those two years taking down Moriarty's network I had a purpose, a reason to keep fighting, to live at any cost. But this… this assignment, it was a punishment. There was no honour in what I was being asked to do. I was simply a means to an end, a tool. My usefulness appreciated only as long as I survived. The only guarantee I was given was that should I get myself into an impossible situation, there would be no one coming to my rescue. With that as my only assurance, I decided it was better to take the cowards way out."
Molly noted the toll the near overdose was taking on him, mentally and physically, despite his best efforts to conceal them from her. It broke her heart to think of him determining that this was the only course of action left to him. His last comment had her storming up to him to grab hold of the lapels of his Belstaff.
He made no attempt to resist as she pulled him down until he was at eye level with her.
"You listen to me Sherlock Holmes, you are brilliant, frustrating, annoying and on occasion a drug user. But the one thing you most definitely are not is a coward. Do you hear me?"
The conviction in her voice and the determined look on her face reminded Sherlock why Molly Hooper would always have a special place not only in his Mind Palace, but in the part of him he always maintained he didn't possess, his heart. She was the one who mattered the most, and not just because of what she had been prepared to do for him. From the moment he'd lowered his defences to let her in, she'd acquired an uncanny knack for seeing him for who he truly was, and even with that knowledge her faith in him never wavered.
Sherlock rested his forehead against hers, looking deep into her eyes. Almost instantly all the chaos inside him calmed, and he felt an immense peace settle over him. "I hear you Molly Hooper," he murmured softly.
Molly noted the change in him, her breath hitching at the warmth in his gaze that was directed squarely at her.
"So what happens now?"
"Now," he replied with confidence, his faculties returning. "We have work to do."
As he led her out the door and down the stairs he surprised her by adding. "Later, when this situation has been dealt with, I'd like to discuss with you the possibilities for our future together, professionally and privately." he paused, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. "If you're amenable to the idea of course."
Molly took his face in her hands. "I am," she assured him.
The world's only consulting detective and his pathologist headed out the front door hand in hand. Headed towards their new future, and whatever that may hold.