A/N: This was such a difficult chapter to write - trying to get the tone and planning the next few chapters after. I don't know how many times I've watched that scene now... but it gets me every single time without fail. I hope I do it justice.

Shout out again to the amazing Arienne DeVere for her fantastic transcript of TFP (available on LiveJournal), and all those writers who have inspired me with their versions of the aftermath of "The Scene".

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch the Musgrave Hall scenes, and plan out the next few chapters.

I own nothing put my plot bunnies...


Molly watched the scene unfold in stunned disbelief: She thought she knew what was going to happen when Eurus dangled those three brothers outside the window. She could tell Sherlock thought so too when he condemned the killer. None of them expected her to drop the two innocent brothers, and then without any remorse, the third.

It was at this point that Molly realised just how psychotic this third Holmes sibling was, and as they headed to the next test like "soldiers" she began to feel afraid for them. Of course, she reminded herself, that this had all already came to pass, but she had already seen in Mycroft a profound change. And she waited for the scene to change with trepidation.

The room showed an empty coffin: open, with its lid leaning against the wall. Molly got a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. She listened to Sherlock being clinical in his observations until Mycroft turned the coffin lid around.

I love you.

Suddenly, she felt sick. She could see Sherlock's death grip on the edge of the coffin and the look on his face as he immediately understood who the coffin was for. She saw his facade shatter with his back to John and Mycroft as he figured out what was about to happen, and her blood turned to ice at Eurus' cheerful assurances, that "she's perfectly safe. For the moment". From the look on both Sherlock and John's faces, they must have been viewing her in her kitchen.

She listened to Eurus continue and watched Sherlock's face as he walked slowly towards the camera. It must be set above the screen because she can see his every expression.

"Her flat is rigged to explode in approximately three minutes… unless I hear the release code from her lips. I'm calling her on your phone, Sherlock. Make her say it."

Molly felt hazy as she watched John's grasp what Sherlock clearly knew. She could see he was uncomfortable with this, but was trying to figure a way out. Eurus' voice cut through her haze as she was trying to decide whether she really wanted to relive the moment. It was clear to her now what Sherlock had been up to. "Oh, one important restriction: you're not allow to mention in any way at all that her life is in danger. You may not, at any point, suggest that there is any form of crisis. If you do I will end this session and her life. Are we clear?"

Molly paused the video and squeezed her eyes shut. She had been on the other side of this conversation. Like Mycroft, she didn't want to relive it again, she decided she was just going to skip it. She opened her eyes, and something in the frozen expression of Sherlock on the screen stilled her hand on the remote.

She had wished to see his face when he was breaking her. She had wanted to understand why. She wanted a piece of him if he was going to devastate her as he had. And now she could. The camera was so clear, she could see his every unconscious facial reaction. Mycroft wanted her to see this. This was her context. Was it really going to make a difference? The coffin already said enough. It was a cruel joke. But the joke wasn't on her. She was a pawn. It was twisted, and in her strength, she had twisted it around Sherlock a little more by demanding he said it first. This time, she could see his face when he said it. She didn't know if she wanted to see his eyes when he said those words, but she needed to. Molly still felt sick, but she took a breath and pressed play.

She could her the ringing of the phone as she watched Sherlock standing, holding the pistol with his forehead resting on top of it. She could see how tense he was in the way he held his shoulders, and how his head sprang up when she had finally answered the phone. His tone of voice had been too false, too light, when he had spoken to her. His usual wheedling tone which she hadn't been in the mood for.

It was clear that he was struggling to frame his request without her hanging up. He had been so terrified when he had asked her to say "I love you." He was blundering through in what Molly could see was absolute terror as he realised he was being manoeuvred into a no-win situation. The smile on his face when he promised her that is was important was forced and brittle. And he truly was puzzled when she told him she couldn't say those words to him. That surprised her somewhat. For a man who sees everything, he really could be blind sometimes.

The red flashing lights and Jim's voice hissing "tick-tick-tick" in the background was almost overwhelming as she watched Sherlock's emotions flit across his face. His eyes widened when she had admitted it was true. She wanted to stretch out her hand and touch his face. She saw the moment that he acknowledged it in his mind, and made the calculation to sacrifice their friendship to save her life. And then, she saw how he really had not expected her to demand he say it first. She saw how he had to rapidly compute what she was asking, and how much he thought it was going to cost him.

Molly watched Sherlock close his eyes and take a deep breath before hesitantly, and mechanically speaking.

"I – I… I love you."

She gasped softly as he opened his eyes and looked at the screen – towards what he was seeing of her on the screen. And the expression on his face was almost one of surprise, and the look in his eyes was one of realisation and awe as he softly repeated himself again.

"I love you."

Molly found herself crying again. In joy, anguish and heartbreak. She had wanted to believe that he had meant it the second time and wasn't just acting, and it was clear that he did love her. There just wasn't time for wonder. She knew that Sherlock – Eurus – had hung up immediately after her words. And she wiped her tears as she watched the aftermath.

Sherlock looked as though he would have collapsed as the phone cut out, bending over double with his face in his hands. Mycroft and John heaved huge sighs and relaxed in the background. Molly watched Sherlock straighten, looking utterly exhausted, and Mycroft start to approach him. She saw Sherlock's mask flick into place as he told Eurus he has won and demanded to talk to the girl on the plane.

"Saved her? From what? Oh do be sensible. There were no explosives in her little house. Why would I be so clumsy? You didn't win. You lost. Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself."

Molly watched something crack in Sherlock before he turned his back to the camera.

"All those complicated little emotions… I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock. It destroys you every time."

Molly watched as Mycroft and John shuffle uneasily to one side as Sherlock walk past the coffin, setting the pistol down next to it, and continuing to the lid on the back wall. She felt… she didn't know what she felt about the look she had seen in his eye when Eurus had told him he had lost. A door opened to the side and both John and Mycroft edge towards it. They stopped and turned to Sherlock when they heard him pick up the lid and gently lay it on the coffin.

Molly found herself leaning forward, tears streaming down her face again as she watched Sherlock gently rest a hand on the brass plaque and trail it along the wood towards himself, head bowed and shaking slightly. The rage and anguish that Sherlock displayed as he tears her coffin apart with his bare hands was more than Molly ever thought she would see from him. Deep down, she knew he felt, that he struggled with the emotions so he labelled them inconvenient. But to watch him act out his grief with such violence was beyond her. The expression on Mycroft's face as he stood to one side and watched his brother caught her attention too. He knew. He knew, just as Eurus apparently had, just what would break Sherlock. It was her. Molly Hooper. And she thought she didn't count.

Sherlock had told her that she counted the most, but she hadn't believed him. He tended to balance sincerity with manipulation – so why would she believe him. But this put past all doubt how Sherlock truly felt about her. And he felt he had lost her forever. He had saved her, but damaged their fragile relationship in the process. And it looked like that had ruined him.

He sat amongst the devastation of wood splinters and ripped fabric. A wretched figure staring at the ground. It is an image of Sherlock Molly felt would be imprinted in her brain for the rest of her life. She watched as John picked his way through the room to pick up the pistol from where it lay on the floor, and moved to stand in front of the man leaning against the wall. She noted the strength in John's gait. He was standing straighter, and even in his tone as he spoke to Sherlock, she could hear the military man. The soldier. The soldier trying to save the life of the man she loves.

Molly leaned back in her chair and cried. She could never have thought it possible. But Sherlock was right. It was vivisection. Of both of them. No wonder she hadn't seen or heard from him since. He was a broken man. He felt he had lost her completely. And for a while there he had. Truly.

The cameras shifted to a new room – empty from the looks of things, but for three other screens, and the one she assumes the camera is attached to. If she thought Eurus had hit low with the previous room, Molly's jaw dropped in disbelief as Eurus told Sherlock to pick which one to kill: Mycroft or John. She went numb when Sherlock placed the gun under his chin and started counting down. The revelation about Jim – Moriarty – just 5 minutes and the impact it had had on all their lives. How long had Eurus been watching them – her – and their group? The numbness started to have a fuzzy edge to it and a ringing sound in her ears. As she watched John and Sherlock dragged unconscious from the room on the screen and Mycroft glaring balefully at what must have been his sister, the events of what she'd seen and the toll of the last few weeks hit Molly at once, and she felt her body give out as the remote fell from her hand, and the last thing she heard was the door opening and somebody calling her name.


A/N The next chapters will come soon.