Molly stoked the fire in her small cabin, smiling as the flurries started to come down past the windows outside. Stretching her sore muscles, she was eternally grateful she had sprung for a room with jets in the bathtub. For what looked on the surface to just involve standing on wooden planks and letting gravity do the work, skiing was exhausting. And dear god, no one had told her about the lifts.

Molly gripped the cold metal tightly and looked below, immediately wishing she hadn't.

"Oh my God," she muttered, scrunching her eyes up.

"Are you ok?" a voice asked next to her. For the first time she looked at the unfortunate soul who had been in line with her to get on the lift and gasped. It was a boy no more than eight.

"They let you on this thing alone?" she screeched, eyes wide. Though she couldn't be sure through the goggles and the scarves, he seemed to raise an eyebrow, "Uh... yea."

"And that's legal?"

The kid shrugged and pointed at the pair ahead of them who appeared to be even younger than he was.

"This is madness."

The kid had actually been quite nice and even helped show her the basics before heading down his own insanely difficult runs, leaving the greens to her. If there was only one good thing to come out of this trip, it was restoring her faith in humanity. For every psychopath out there, so far there seemed to be at least three of the decent sort. She grabbed a thick woolen blanket and wrapped it around her pajama-clad shoulders. Taking her mulled wine with her she moved to her balcony and dusted off the flurries on the lounge chair. The stars were easily visible despite the oncoming snow and she tilted her head up at the moonlight, deeply inhaling the crisp air. Flexing her fingers around her hot mug, she felt content; this was what she needed to feel centered and connected to the world again... away from ploys and intrigue, hurtful games and their creators.

She arrived in Zermatt yesterday and was lucky enough to find a small cabin on the outskirts of town but close enough to kip in for anything she needed. The view was breathtaking. She took a sip of her drink and rested her head back, burrowing deeper into the warmth of her blanket before closing her eyes. In truth, she actually rather enjoyed being alone. She had a rich internal life and was frequently exhausted by too much social interaction. She could do alone. Lonely was a bit trickier. But ever since she had been brought into their strange little dysfunctional family, the loneliness only happened in brief spurts anymore. Overall, she'd considered herself quite happy in her little life.

"Molly, you have seen what frostbite does to human appendages. I do not recommend you fall asleep outdoors in the middle of winter in Switzerland."

Her eyes snapped open but she didn't move, briefly wondering if she had just had a hypnagogic hallucination, but the sound of crushed ice shifting under boots had her turning around. Sherlock stood in the door open to her balcony, his dark belstaff wrapped around him and his skin looking otherworldly in the moonlight. His eyes watched her carefully.

"Hello Molly," he said gently.

She scrambled up from her lounge chair, tripping on her blanket in her haste. He moved forward, his hand outstretched to steady her but she held up a warning finger and he's stepped back.

"So how did you find me, Sherlock? Did you go to my flat and deduce it? Or figure out my email password to see which plane I boarded? Or did Mycroft look at my accounts?" she asked her voice cold with anger at the thought of him violating her privacy further. "I didn't even know I was coming here until I was at the airport, so how did you know where to find me?"

His head moved in the slightest of shakes, "When we couldn't find you, I did go to your flat but you had obviously grabbed items without much coordination in mind. It didn't help me determine your whereabouts. Your message to Mike Stanford lead me to believe you had left the country. But as to how I knew you were here, I didn't. It was a guess. A good one, but still a guess."

Molly rolled her eyes, "You don't guess-"

"You told me you wanted to come here one day," he interrupted and raised his hand, a beseeching look on his face that startled Molly into silence. "I had been on a case but John was occupied with Mary so I went to your place to work and you were watching that stupid movie that took place in the Swiss Alps and you told me you wanted to go. You specifically said you wanted to go to Zermatt because an old family friend had recommended it." He paused, his hand dropping to his side. "This is not a large town and it only took a few phone calls from there to find where you were."

"You said you delete all my prattle. You said that's why you didn't mind me going on and on, you were able to delete it."

His eyes had yet to leave hers. "I lied," he said simply.

Molly blinked rapidly in her confusion, "Why are you here, Sherlock?"

"I need to speak with you."

"About what?"

His face pinched in annoyance, "Don't be obtuse, you know about what."

"You could have just called."

His eyes narrowed, "Your phone is off."

"It could have waited til I got back."

"No."

He stepped aside and extended his hand back toward the living room. Molly breathed out heavily, debating on just continuing this right here on the balcony but her toes were freezing and Sherlock was right about frost bite.

Prat.

She marched passed him and dropped the blanket on the floor before throwing herself into the armchair by the fire. Sherlock followed and removed his coat, draping it carefully over a dining chair before sitting in the chair just opposite her. She looked him over and let out a soft laugh before looking back to the fire. Only Sherlock would wear a suit to a ski destination. She ran her hands self consciously through her long hair which was starting to wave as it dried.

Well, she thought, at least I'm wearing my new pajamas and not the ratty sweatshirt. Small victories, I suppose.

"I have a sister."

Molly's hand froze in her hair and she straightened, her eyes going back to Sherlock.

"Her name is Eurus and she is a genius beyond even my comprehension. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I had no recollection of her existence. She had been removed from our home when she was very young after a display of increasingly disturbing behavior and my brother thought it best to allow me to continue my delusion. Of course this became a moot point when Eurus sought me out. She devised a plan to entrap myself, John, and Mycroft into a series of..." -his fingers gripped the armrest of his chair- "trials."

"One of which was me."

Sherlock nodded, "The first was to test philosophical good against actual good, active evil verses passive evil. I don't draw much of a distinction between the two and Eurus knew it so I wasn't allowed to participate. So it was either John or Mycroft that had to kill a man to save his wife or they would both die."

Molly swallowed thickly against the horror rising in her chest, "And?"

A look of regret washed over Sherlock and his eyes cast downward. "They both died."

He sighed, "The second was to confront me with the consequences of my actions. How many times had I declared guilty parties without any thought or care as to what became of them. Eurus presented us with three brothers, only one of which was guilty with murder. She made us deduce the killer and condemn him to death by dropping him on the rocks below. Though we deduced correctly, Eurus killed all three of them anyway."

"But... why?"

"She felt the determination of one person's guilt or innocence pointless in the vast scheme of things and far beneath her concern."

Sherlock leaned forward in his chair. "I am telling you this Molly because I need you to know that based on everything that had happened up to that point, I had every reason to believe Eurus would kill you too, even if I played the game fairly." He waited for her acknowledgement before continuing, his eyes staying on the floor this time.

"The third room had your coffin in it. She said I had to make you say the words 'I love you' or she would have destroyed your flat and you along with it. I'm sorry I had to do that to you. I don't..." he paused, "I am unworthy of your friendship, let alone your love. I have been cruel, on many occasions, to you so I am not surprised you thought me capable of cruelty that day. I should have been better. You deserve better than that and better than me."

Molly bit her lip, willing the tears welling in her eyes to go back down. She hated that crying was always at the forefront of her emotional responses. Happy... cry. Stressed... cry... angry...cry.

"It's alright Sherlock. You did it to save my life. I can hardly fault you for that. Of course you would save me, you're a good man."

Sherlock straightened in his chair, his face becoming stormy as his head shook angrily. "Molly, there are things you don't know about me, things that if you knew, you would despise me for-"

She frowned and raised an eyebrow sarcastically, "Worse than the drugs or the complete lack of self preservation?"

He narrowed his eyes, "I've committed murde-"

"I already know about Magnussen."

Sherlock's face went slack and he blinked.

"Mary told me when she asked me to be Rosie's Godmother," continued Molly, her voice soft. "She said I should know what I'm committing to, the people I'm committing to before I said yes."

Sherlock cleared his throat and looked at his feet, "I'm sure whatever version Mary told you paints me in a good light but I assure you-"

"She said he was unarmed and you blew his head off."

The air seemed to leave Sherlock, his chest deflating as he just looked back at her, his face the picture of astonishment. Molly smiled to herself, almost in wonderment.

"And that was when I knew I could tell Mary that I would be there for Rosie no matter what... I knew because the first thought I had when she told me what you did wasn't, 'My god, how awful' or 'How could he?'... It was 'How sweet. He did it to protect them'. "

She stopped and looked back her her fingers where they pulled at the beading on the pillow in her lap. "I know what you did but...I've also seen you rock Rosie to sleep, how you care for Ms. Hudson and John. I saw what Mary's death did to you." She swallowed. "You only exist in the extremes: violence and kindness, cold indifference and pure devotion, reason and intuition." She flicked her eyes up to meet his. "I know who you are, Sherlock, and you don't frighten me."

There was silence for the space of a few heartbeats when Sherlock let out a shaky sigh and Molly chanced a look up to see him run his fingers through his curls. His eyes seemed a bit wild, and his body was tense with some unnamed energy.

"You make me question my sanity sometimes," he stated, his voice so low she barely heard it over the crackling embers. He steepled his fingers under his chin. "If I was so wrong the first time deduced you, what else have I been wrong about?" He paused, taking a deep breath. "I mistook your eagerness for subservience, your cheerfulness for a lack of wits, your open acceptance of my false praise for gullibility, your interest in me to indicate a shallow nature, and your overall comportment as a complete lack of self awareness." He winced at the words as if they pained him. "And even after I learned that instead of those things you were kind, clever, determined, and without artifice, I excused away the affection I felt for you as immense gratitude for your loyalty." He rubbed his face in an agitated manner. "You've always been my blind spot. I've always gotten everything wrong about you... who you are, your grasp of the situation, the depths of your feelings, the nature of mine... Always, always..." his words trailed off.

Molly took in a sharp breath, not sure of what was happening or what he was trying to say. "All you feel for me is gratitude?"

Sherlock's eyes snapped back up to hers from over his fingertips.

"I lied."