She was shaking terribly, huddled tight against the far end of the tub, hiding her head, when the curtain was pulled back.
"Molly!" she heard a voice croak, a voice that was semi-familiar. "Molly, it's me! You're safe, it's alright!"
She looked up and saw Sherlock kneeling beside the tub, a pistol held in one hand, pointed at the floor. She launched herself at him the best she could, given their positions. He caught her, dropping the gun, and held her to him in a tight hug, knowing that she needed the comfort as much as he did.
"Its okay, Molly, I have you," Sherlock croaked softly, rubbing her back as she cried into his chest.
A moment later, Lestrade's frame filled the doorway. "She alright?" he asked, worried about his friend.
Sherlock looked at him. "She has some bruising on her cheek, and she is understandably shaken," he said, straining his voice to make sure the other man heard him.
Lestrade leaned back, and looked back down the hallway. "John, she's in here! You should perhaps take a look at her!" he called. He stepped back long enough for John to enter the room.
"Greg, get a couple of glasses of cold water for these two," John said as he entered, after looking over the pair in front of him.
"I am fine!" Sherlock, once again, croaked.
"Sherlock, you have bruises forming on your neck, he must have damned near choked you out! You are taking the time to have a drink of water!" John said as he knelt beside his friends.
"Molly? Look at me, Molly. I want to make sure that you are okay, alright? Just let me have a look-see."
It took her a few seconds, but Molly pulled away from Sherlock and lifted her face to look at the doctor. She saw him cringe slightly, but it was only a fleeting expression that he quickly covered with a mask of professionalism.
After a quick exam, John proclaimed Molly unharmed, aside from the bruise forming on the side of her face, and a split lip, both from the hit to the face she took.
Lestrade entered the bathroom again with the two glasses of water and some ice wrapped in a tea towel, and handed the ice and one of the glasses to Sherlock, and the other glass to Molly.
Once Molly drank the water, Sherlock gently held the ice pack to her face, to help stop anymore swelling from forming. She looked up into his face. "What happened to Wallace?"
"Dead," Sherlock said, his throat still sounding sore.
"About that," Lestrade said, and then cleared his throat, "I am going to have to take statements from both of you about what happened, and call in a team to verify." At the look he got from Sherlock, he added, "I have to do this by the books Sherlock. We all know that his death was self defense, especially given the marks on your neck and her face. But unless there is documentation, it could easily turn into a murder charge, for either or both of you. I already called in a forensics team, Anderson is on his way with his people."
"Before you complain, Sherlock, Anderson was happy to come even knowing that you were involved. He was concerned for Molly."
Sherlock looked at Molly questioningly. She blushed slightly and said, "We've known each other since college. His wife was my roommate in the dorm my last to years. While we were never overly close, we have always been friends."
This information was new to Sherlock. He realized though that he had never witnessed Molly and Anderson together in any kind of situation to be able to see how they acted together. He filed the information with all the other tidbits of information he had about Molly in his mind Palace. Alarmed at how much he refused to 'delete' about her.
Molly told them about happened first. The men all listened silently, Lestrade making notes in his notebook. Listening to Molly's tale, Sherlock felt an emotion well up inside of him. This one he recognized. It was rage. He felt a need for further revenge. If he had the ability, he would have brought Wallace Williams back to life, just so he could kill him again. Slower, and more painfully instead of the instant death he got because of the fatal gunshot the man received when they had been fighting for the gun.
Once Molly was finished, Lestrade asked a couple of questions to clear up a few points that were still foggy to him.
"Why didn't you just go out of the window?" was the first question.
"She can't jump high enough to be able to," Sherlock said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"He knew Sherlock knew about his having multiple girlfriends?" Lestrade asked. "How?"
"Sherlock and I heard him talking on his mobile, saying along those lines the other day as he was leaving Bart's and we were entering," John said, answering the question.
"And?" Lestrade said, knowing that there was more to it than just that, with this pair involved.
"John went into the hospital, and I confronted Mr. Williams," Sherlock stated.
"What happened?"
Sherlock told Lestrade about the confrontation with the dead man.
"That's it? It didn't come to blows? You two just had words?"
"Yup. That's it."
"When did you see him next after that?"
"Today, here, not too long before you entered the flat."
"What happened from the time you left us?"
"Once you answered your mobile and I heard Molly say that Wallace had attacked her, I cam straight here."
"Using your profound knowledge of London's streets, you got here first because there are areas that even a police car cannot access," John said, so Molly and Lestrade would understand.
"Precisely! When I arrived at the door, it was unlocked. I entered and found Mr. Williams trying to breakdown the door to the bathroom. He saw me, and came towards me, drawing his pistol as he came down the hallway, aiming it at me. I rushed him before he could aim properly. We fought for control of the gun. It went off while in both our hands. I then, after examining the bathroom door, broke it down. Once inside, I looked around and, correctly, deduced that Molly was hiding in the bathtub, and revealed my presence to her. A few minutes later, you entered the flat."
Lestrade finished making his notes, reminding them both that they would have to go down to Scotland Yard the next day to officially give their statements.
They nodded their understanding.
Before anything else could be said by anybody, there came the voice of Molly's friend, John's girlfriend, Mary. "Molly? What's with the police car outside? Do you know…OH MY GOD! Molly? MOLLY! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!"
John left the bathroom and went to comfort the woman and assure her that their friend was safe and relatively unharmed.
Mary's voice seemed to affect Sherlock like a slap to the face of a hysterical person. Gone was the man that was overtly concerned about Molly and he was back to his closed off unsentimental-self. Then without a word to anyone, he left the flat.
The sudden change in the consulting detective surprised Molly. She thought that maybe Sherlock was starting to see her in the same light as he saw John. While only being his friend would slowly kill her because of her true feelings for him, she would take what she could get, and look elsewhere for everything else.