A/N: this will be a 2 part story. It's been rattling in my head all morning.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock or make any profit of any sort from this.
He knows it's her before the doorknob even begins to turn.
Who else would it be? No one else noticed him leave, all caught up in booze, dancing, and laughter. Celebrating their own lives right along with John and Mary. But she did. Because she always saw him.
When she steps into the room (doesn't knock, doesn't call out to him, and doesn't ask if she can come in, very cheeky) he's in his chair, fingers folded under his chin. He opens his eyes and looks straight into hers.
"Why aren't you with Tom?" he asks, hearing the harshness in his voice and detesting it. But he can't help it. Seeing her with him, smiling, kissing, dancing… had all been a bit much with her comment about them having a lot of sex still ringing in his ears.
"I told him I wanted to be alone tonight," she says.
He snorts. "The night of a wedding? You told your fiancé at what is considered one of the most romantic and sentimental of events that you wanted to be alone tonight? I'm sure that went over well."
"He wasn't happy about it, no," she admits. "But I didn't care."
"Why are you here?" he fires off next, hearing the tone still in his voice, making something inside him wince. But it's too difficult, being near her and knowing everything. Knowing there is a ring on her finger. Knowing that he'd had the chance with her but hadn't been ready, willing, or able. And now she is with someone else, his Molly, his pathologist. Lost to him.
"I was worried about you."
His bark of laughter is bitter and brief. "I'm fine. Go back to your fiancé, Molly, and stop worrying about me."
"You're not fine. You're lonely and sad."
"And you think that you can change that, do you?" he glares at her, sees her face twist and crumble, and he's being such an utter bastard but he has to do it, if he stops and lets himself stop thinking he'll…
"Go away, Molly," he says, looking down.
He feels rather than sees her lips press into a tight, thin line. "You want to be alone, then? Fine," she says, anger and a hint of tears mixed into her voice. A potent elixir, her tears; one that he mustn't drink. If he does (oh, god, he wants to); if he does, he'll be hers forever and he has no right, no right; he gave her up, gave her away, pushed her into someone else's arms and (idiot, idiot) now there's nothing for it.
All lives end, all hearts are broken…
He'd just never thought he'd be the one with the broken heart.
She turns away, walks toward the door; head down, body tight with hurt. One more step and then another, he can do this, he can let her leave and then go back to the ache in his chest, the Molly-shaped hole in his heart. It's what he deserves, after all; he certainly doesn't deserve her. She is the only thing that shines in his filthy, tainted soul (well, John, but that's a different sort of shine) and she is as untouchable as an angel.
But isn't he on the side of the angels?
Hasn't he become…not a good man (not yet, maybe not ever but he wants to try for the first time in his life) but a better man? Could he not, perhaps, try to let his reach extend further?
Her hand is on the doorknob, poised to turn it, when he realizes it is now or never. The chance he'd once assumed would always be there, that had been torn asunder from him, was here, now, if he has the courage to make a different kind of leap.
Yes, he is becoming a good man. But not so good that he's going to nobly stand by and watch her with a pale imitation of him that sustained her for some of the time he was gone. He isn't a ghost any longer. He wants to be solid, real, and in her arms.
"You're right. I am lonely. And I'm not OK."
She turns back to him, eyes wary, cheeks faintly streaked with tears. He will drink every one of those tears, if she'll let him; joyfully, remorsefully.
He stands up and takes a step. Trembling, dizzy, mind closed tight and heart wide open. Another, another, until he's directly in front of her.
"I don't want to be lonely anymore," he tells her, hoping she can see what he's really trying to tell her, the words he's still struggling with even though they're the truth: I don't want to be without you anymore.
She stares at him, confused, hopeful; he can see it beginning to bloom in her, despite her wariness and fear; sees it take shape into something so beautiful it hurts to look at her.
"What do you want, Sherlock?" she whispers.
"You."
