In the End

Chapter Seven


Soon your touch will disappear, something that I recognize, something that I should have come to fear. Trace the lines upon your face. They tell a tale you can't erase.

No one's ever looked at me that way.

-Matthew and the Atlas, "Counting Paths", Daytrotter Sessions


Alfred, Lord Tennyson called music the 'source of all gladness.' On Earth, it was an art form and a measured skill. It told stories and soothed cries of distress. Most importantly, it served as an outlet of expression. Not just keys stroked on a piano or bows running against the strings of violins. Not just notes sung by the sweetest sopranos or the strongest of basses.

Music was everywhere; in the wind playing through sun-dappled leaves, in the constant hum of activity in cities, in the quiet beat of nightfall, in the sizzle of snow falling on snow, and in rain pattering against darkened windows.

Music was in laughter and sobs and yells and whispers.

Music was in the soft sighs shared between lovers.

And the silence that took music's place was a melody of its own kind.


The plain, white candles Molly had dug out of some cabinet in Mrs. Hudson's flat were probably intended for more utilitarian purposes that romantic. Scattered across various surfaces of Sherlock's furniture, however, he had to admit that they changed to room somehow. The flickering flames made everything softer and warmer. Their glow caught on Molly's skin, making its usually pale alabaster look almost gold.

She lay on her back in his bed, her head at the footboard, her long hair fanned out around her. She had one bare leg bent, the other crossed over it at the knee so that her right foot was free to sway in time to the music filtering from her mobile's small speaker.

He watched her from his seated position against the wooden headboard, his own legs stretched out alongside her. Everything about her was still, beyond that one, dancing foot, as if she was so immersed in the strumming music that her body only needed that one outlet of movement.

They'd spent the last twenty hours wrapped up in each other, dragging themselves out of bed only for the basic necessities before they went under yet again. Now, they'd surfaced for the longest period yet; but, still, they stayed in his bed. They conversed little, though he couldn't call it awkward.

Normally, Sherlock avoided musical distraction if he wasn't the one making it. Not that he necessarily disliked other people's music; it just didn't help him think quite the same way. Still, he'd remained quiet when Molly began flicking through her phone's music library and selecting some strumming piece, before she fell back to the mattress beneath her with little grace, the phone landing beside her.

In fact, watching that small foot of Molly's swaying to the beat of the music was vaguely hypnotic, and Sherlock couldn't tear his eyes away from it. She'd painted her toenails a cheerful, sunshine yellow at least two weeks ago, he noticed. The lacquer looked to be of the cheaper variety, but was applied carefully with few smudges, only just starting to show a small line of new growth.

It suited her, he decided. Even now. Perhaps especially now.

He'd always seen sex and most other physical forms of intimacy as needless urges; things he was above. Prior to the night before, he'd had moments where he'd felt his blood rush. Moments where he'd felt a clutching low in his belly and a pounding in his chest, but he'd taught himself at an early age to ignore those base impulses.

Sherlock allowed himself to remember several occasions where he had looked at Molly and felt just such bursts of awareness. Molly in her Christmas dress. Molly brushing her hair over her shoulder as she worked on some tedious paperwork. Molly wrapped in a towel, trying to skirt around him in her hallway when he was hiding at her flat two years ago.

Yes, there had been other women who'd briefly piqued his interest, but Molly was a frequency sounding in his brain. One he could tune out on occasion, but never turn off.

Now, after that rushing of blood, that pounding in his chest, that arousal had come to a forefront—been realized—he couldn't say he was easy with it. Not that he regretted it. No, he wouldn't insult Molly or himself by saying that. But he had also never felt less sure of his own footing. How, after making so crucial a decision, should he proceed?

He wasn't some lovestruck teen, mapping out his forever. He'd never loved anyone romantically, wasn't even sure he'd be able to identify it if he felt it, and they most certainly didn't have forever. So where did that leave him? What did Molly expect of him? What did it mean that he was reacting this way to her?

She saw good in everyone. She mourned for each of her deceased patients without once losing her resolve to do her job. She worked hard to comfort and heal little boys who would be dying in a matter of days, as if they had their whole lives ahead of them.

She trusted Sherlock, even when there had been no reason why she should.

She loved Sherlock, though he'd tried his hardest to convince her not to.

So how could hedo anything but respond to her touch?

Shaking himself from his reverie, Sherlock's eyes wandered over her prone form. It was a rare thing for Molly not to be hyper-aware of him. He'd once written it off as a facet of her schoolgirl crush; but then he'd realized that Molly both saw and observed, and she used that skill in a form of deduction that he'd never managed. Her use of that skill was what made her such an effective pathologist and her use of that skill was what made her so fascinating to him.

He'd known he appreciated her for quite some time, but it had been a strange revelation, just how much he admired her, too.

Her foot was still keeping time to the music and he could hear her humming slightly under her breath. And suddenly watching her wasn't enough.

He reached forward, taking a hold of her foot in his large hand, his thumb tickling the arch. She immediately stopped humming, but she didn't look startled or upset by his interruption. Instead, she smiled shyly at him, her eyes even darker in the candlelight.

Sherlock decided to do what he'd wanted since he started watching her. He leaned his body forward so he could press a kiss to the arch of that foot, and then the bone of her ankle, the softness of her calf, and the front of her knee. Finally, he crawled the rest of the way up her body, stopping only when he'd settled over her, her legs twined with his, her breasts warm under the knit fabric of her oversized shirt, pressed against his own, bare chest.

This type of intimacy, not just sex, but the quiet proximity they were sharing, was so very new to him. The ability to touch her and somehow telegraph his intent and have her understand it—not trying to start anything at this moment, just wanting to be close—was not something he'd ever wanted, let alone thought about having someday. And, yet, there he was.

Sherlock tentatively brought his hand up to brush some strands of hair away from Molly's face. He couldn't help but feel that this one tender touch was just as intimate as everything they'd done in the quiet shadows of his room throughout the night and well into the day. In fact, he felt even more foolish now than any other way he'd touched her so far.

Molly just looked back at him steadily, feeling the need neither to talk nor look away.

He felt her fingers idly stroking his back as they inspected each other's faces, the only sound in the room their quiet breathing and the occasional snap of a candle flame.

Finally, though, Molly's lips curved into a small smile, and against his will and better judgment, he felt the corner of his mouth quirking up in return.

She lifted her head up ever so slightly and brushed the tip of her nose across his before relaxing again into the mattress.

"Eskimo kiss," she whispered to him, though he was too distracted by her to ask for an explanation. "It's only loosely based on the actual Inuit endearment, but it's a nice thing anyway, I think."

Hesitantly, because for all their closeness, he was still so unsure of himself in so many ways, he lowered his head brushed his own nose across the round slope of her cheek, up to her temple, where he pressed his lips in a small kiss.

Far from laughing at him or making him feel in any way ridiculous, Molly simply sighed happily, pressing herself in closer to his lips.

They lay there quietly, not moving or speaking, when Molly's stomach broke the spell with a plaintive rumble. She laughed, causing the muscles of her belly to ripple against his. He lifted his head to smirk at her, once again combing his fingers through her hair as he watched her giggling.

"We haven't eaten anything since John and Mary's," he realized. He'd gone longer without food, but Molly was more accustomed to eating at regular intervals. She was still laughing as she shook her head.

"I suppose I could drag myself to the kitchen and get us something," he considered. But as he started to pull away from her, the cool air hit his chest, and he frowned at the sudden absence of her warmth. Casually, he added, "What would you like?"

She shook her head. "Whatever will be fine."

He would need to try a different tack, apparently. "You could keep me company, if you wanted."

Molly's smile widened. "So long as your kitchen doesn't have a strict dress code, then I would be glad to join you," she replied.

Sherlock frowned, about to ask her why his own kitchen would have a dress code, when he realized she was playing. He'd never had much of a sense of the ridiculous, but he found he didn't want to turn the mood to a more sober note. Instead, he ran his hand up one of her bare thighs, affecting a thoughtful expression as his fingers reached the elastic band of her knickers at her hip.

"I do believe this is exactly the right apparel for this particular kitchen." He slid a finger into her waistband and snapped it gently to reiterate his point.

"If only I'd brought my diamond-encrusted pair to add a classier touch," she said with a mock sigh, giving his backside a friendly pat. "Shall we?"

He rolled himself off of her and up off of the bed, holding out a hand to pull Molly to her feet. They walked into the kitchen together, both of them hobbling a little after so little time spent on their feet in recent hours.

As they moved about the room, Sherlock kept glancing at Molly, watching as she filled a glass at the kitchen sink, drinking deeply from it before refilling it and stretching across the table to hand it to him.

He drank his fill, set the glass on the table, and turned to the cupboard, pulling its doors open and pondering its contents. As he stared at the shelves, he felt rather than saw Molly sidle up behind him. She wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed kiss to his shoulder blade.

"Sorry," she said, sounding anything but with her mouth muffled against his skin. "Bit of a novelty, touching you like this. I'm sure it'll wear off any second now… hmm, nope, still there."

The fact that he wasn't the least bit uncomfortable with Molly's proximity and touch—in fact, he was relishing it—sent little fissures of panic racing through him, but he couldn't pull away. He stopped his hands from straying down to cover hers. Instead, he changed the subject to safer territory.

"We have crisps, bread, sardines, a vast array of tinned soups, Wheatabix, and that horrendous treacle pudding that you insist is so delicious. Though, how any dessert that comes from a tin could be described as 'delicious' is beyond me. What's your pleasure?"

"You haven't given tinned pudding a chance," she said, pinching his side, making him jump (she'd made the mortifying discovery that it was a ticklish spot for him the third time they'd had sex; he remembered now that they'd laughed throughout the entire encounter). "But there's still time for me to show you the error of your ways. Is the cheese in the fridge? We could have toasties."

He made a noise in the affirmative, and turned to the refrigerator. As he pulled a block of Gouda from a drawer, he pondered the other items in the fridge. It was the most devoid of biohazardous materials it had ever been. He frowned at this realization; he just hadn't spent any time with his experiments in weeks now.

It bothered him that he might be changing inherently without giving himself express permission to do so. Granted, his brain certainly hadn't gone stagnant as a result of this lack of experimentation. He'd had plenty of puzzles with which he'd occupied his mind, but it was the principle of the matter that caused him unease.

If he had neglected one of his main passions, what did that say about how the oncoming apocalypse was affecting his other priorities? What did the past week mean? The past day? Was he somehow using Molly? Or, more to the point, was he torturing himself with something that, not only was he not emotionally equipped to experience, but would soon relinquish in the onslaught of humanity's end?

And what it all circled back to, what rankled and caused an itch between his shoulder blades, was just how unbothered he was by this shift in his relationship with her. With his damnable inexperience and inability to figure out what it meant or what came next, he found himself in the hellish position of being the ill-informed, naïve one.

He felt like an idiot, and that was something he was not at all equipped to feel.

Sherlock glanced over his shoulder to find Molly looking back at him questioningly, so he cleared his throat and sought some levity while he began assembling their meal.

"It's a good thing you insisted on hauling all of this food over here. Otherwise, we might have had to make do with the frozen spinach in my freezer. There's not much else to be had."

"Sounds delicious," she said facetiously. "And healthy, which is just what I'm worrying about these days."

He smiled slightly, letting his pensive mood slip a little. "Yes, think of the green, slimy concoctions we could have made. And you're right. We need all the vitamins and minerals we can get. We'd hate to develop a deficiency in the next four days."

"I feel like such a hedonist when I dig into a bowl of leafy gree—" She cut off abruptly, her face suddenly devoid of any expression beyond the widening of her eyes and her lips moving soundlessly.

"Molly?" Sherlock asked worriedly.

"Vitamin K," Molly muttered, sitting down with a stunned realization of some sort.

"What about it?"

She shook her head, her eyes clearing a little in order to focus on him. "Sherlock, when we were at Michael and Anne Browns' house, what did you find in their refrigerator?"

Sherlock blinked at her, surprised by the sudden turn in conversation. "I don't know. I would hardly keep something like that floating around in my head."

"Please, try to remember?" she implored.

He sighed, but he dredged up his memory of their visit to the late airline captain's widow and the house they'd shared. "I believe it was full of standard perishable goods. Milk, eggs, butter."

Molly nodded for him to continue.

"I don't know, Molly. There were some rotting vegetables, I remember."

"Such as spinach?" she suggested.

"Yes. In fact, there was something moldy that looked vaguely like saag in a plastic container, too. But why do you ask—ah. Spinach is heavy in Vitamin K."

She nodded. "Which significantly increases your blood clotting factor if you don't have a steady state already built up."

Sherlock turned away from the food he'd been preparing, crossing his arms as he leaned against the counter. "Wouldn't it still stand to reason that Michael Brown was the one buying all of that spinach? His last meal was a spinach salad, purchased at a Belfast airport canteen, wasn't it?"

Molly was still out of sorts. "But… what if he didn't know? What if someone replaced his medication with placebos and, what if that someone also encouraged him to eat spinach in the days preceding his death? If he did kill himself, he wasn't particularly organized about it. That's what's bothered me. From everything we've heard about Michael Brown, was he really the type to endanger all of his passengers and crew?"

"I don't presume to know a dead man's mind," Sherlock dissembled.

Molly scoffed. "Oh, come on. You love to make presumptions. That's the entire basis of your deductions. Making inferences from common behaviors and results. What do you think?"

He sighed. "I suppose that is the main thing that would make the suicide answer problematic. He doesn't fit the description of a person suffering from any kind of mania or self-harming mentality.

Molly suddenly stood from the table, her chair's wooden legs scraping on the linoleum as she pushed back. She hurried from the kitchen without a backward glance. Sherlock trailed behind her back down to his bedroom, where he found her already yanking off her sleep shirt and gathering street clothes from the suitcase she'd left open on the floor.

"Am I to take it that we're going out?" He asked from the doorway, watching as she somehow managed to fasten a bra while simultaneously pulling a jumper over her head.

"I need to be sure, Sherlock," she insisted.

He nodded as he straightened from the doorframe and made his way over to his closet to pull out an outfit for himself. "All right. I'll see if Mycroft can get us a car. It's a good thing the world is ending; otherwise he would be keeping tally of all of these requests I've made of him lately and would probably expect me to do some free work for him in return."


Sherlock was only mildly surprised when Molly gave their driver an address in Barking that was most certainly not the Browns' own, Eustace Road residence. He remained silent as they wove through the eerily quiet streets of London, letting thoughts about the Brown case distract him from his earlier, worrisome inner monologue.

The car finally came to a stop in front of a terraced house not much different to the Browns', though perhaps of a higher quality. Like everywhere else, general upkeep had fallen by the wayside, but that did nothing to disguise the slightly elevated wealth of the street's occupants.

Molly took a deep breath as she faced the house's front door before she reached forward and knocked firmly on the shiny wood. Sherlock stood a few steps back, watching as she flicked some switch that fully separated the focused pathologist from the sleepy, smiling Molly who'd so recently occupied his bed.

The woman who eventually opened the door frowned at them in confusion at the unfamiliar visitors.

"Yes?" She asked them by way of greeting.

"Hello, my name is Molly Hooper. I'm with St. Bartholomew's Hospital. This is Sherlock Holmes," Molly said, pointing vaguely behind her as she introduced him. "I was wondering if I might speak with Dr. Bakshi. Is this his residence?"

The woman's frown deepened. Sherlock was certain she was going to turn them away when a man stepped into sight behind her. "It's all right, Madhuri. Go back to the sitting room. The children are waiting. I'll be along shortly."

Madhuri Bakshi took the time to send one more glowering look at Molly and Sherlock before she stepped out of the doorway so her husband could take her place. The man who moved further into view was in his late fifties, his jet-black hair shot with strands of silver. His skin was still a smooth, but his eyes showed lines of age and worry.

"I remembered your name from our phone conversation, Dr. Holmes," Jwala Bakshi addressed him. Molly sent an arch look Sherlock's way upon hearing Bakshi address him with a doctor's title, but he chose to ignore her. "I'm not sure if I can give you any other information beyond what we discussed then."

Sherlock was about to reply when Molly beat him to it.

"Michael Brown didn't kill himself. I am sure of it," she said.

"What makes you say that, Ma'am?" Bakshi inquired.

"It just doesn't fit with what Anne Brown said, along with his copilot's description of him. He wouldn't have been reckless enough to endanger other people. He was murdered. It's the only explanation."

Bakshi looked angry. "If you're suggesting that Anne killed Michael—"

"I'm not," Molly interrupted. "I don't think she did it."

Sherlock turned to face her in surprise.

The doctor scoffed. "Then who did?"

"Did you recently have dinner at the Brown's house, Dr. Bakshi?" Molly asked instead of answering directly.

Sherlock wasn't sure where this was leading, but he could tell the doctor did not care for it.

"How is that relevant?"

"I'm just trying to piece together Captain Brown's final days, as I am sure Doctor Holmes explained when you spoke over the phone."

Sherlock only hoped Bakshi didn't notice her facetious inflection of the word doctor.

Bakshi sighed. "We had supper together at least every two weeks. It so happens that Madhuri—my wife—and I ate over at Anne and Michael's the Saturday before his death."

"And that was the last time you saw him?" she pressed.

Dr. Bakshi nodded

"And when did you tell Captain Brown that he should supplement his diet with spinach? Was it the same night that you sneaked off and replaced his medicine with aspirin, or was that during another dinner party?"

Jwala Bakshi went ever so still. He blinked several times before he finally cleared his throat. "That is ridiculous."

"You and your wife brought a dish to share with the Brown's when you joined them for dinner that last Saturday of Michael's life. Surely a licensed physician would know the contraindications of a Protein S-deficient patient eating saag, a dish whose main ingredient is spinach," Molly replied.

"Indian cuisine is hugely prevalent in the diets of a lot of people in the United Kingdom. Just because I'm Indian myself doesn't mean—"

"No, it doesn't, but the fact that your name was on the saag's storage container certainly does," Sherlock interrupted.

Molly and Bakshi both looked sharply at him. He waved them languidly away, "Just a stupid detail I happened to forget until now. It wasn't very legible, so I didn't pay it much mind."

At this, Molly returned her accusing gaze to the doctor, who stared at them wildly for a moment before slumping. He sank down onto the front step, forcing Molly to step back so that she now stood beside Sherlock in the small front garden.

"Michael Brown was not the paragon that everyone is now remembering him to have been," Bakshi insisted tiredly, scratching his brow. "He was selfish and frivolous. He was no better than a spoiled teenager, frittering away money on stupid ventures and even stupider gadgets. When he refused to admit to the CAA that I'd diagnosed him with the protein deficiency, it was the final straw."

"Why didn't you just withhold a diagnosis? Wouldn't that have been easier?" Molly asked.

"He could have gone to another doctor. And I didn't want him to die."

"Didn't want him to die?" Now Molly was angry. Her face flushed red and her hands clenched in fists at her side. "You sabotaged his medication and fed him food that would increase blood coagulation why? Just to teach him a lesson?"

"Yes! I did!" Bakshi exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "He couldn't be bothered to consider the implications of his continuing to work as a pilot when he had a diagnosed clotting disorder."

"So you decided to take it into your hands and endanger hundreds of lives that much more?" Molly sneered. "And I still fail to see how this isn't murder."

"He was only supposed to fall ill. Pulmonary emboli only result in fatalities five percent of the time," he insisted.

"Enlighten us, Doctor, what did you intend for Brown to take way from your oh-so-helpful lesson?" Sherlock asked quietly.

Bakshi looked up at him with pleading eyes, but Sherlock only looked impassively back, offering no absolution.

"He would be dismissed from EasyJet and the Civil Aviation Authority. I would not tell them he had a prior diagnosis, so it wouldn't be in disgrace. But then he could draw from his pension and learn a little humility. His wife wouldn't have to work her fingers to the bone so that they could survive once Michael's income was halved."

Molly exhaled a sudden, loud puff of air. Sherlock turned to her quizzically.

"I see now," she said disgustedly. "You're in love with Anne Brown."

Sherlock turned quickly to gauge the doctor's reaction. He was rewarded for his speed, as he caught the tail end of a guilty flinch on the other man's face.

"I… I just wanted better for her," Bakshi confessed.

"And you thought the way to accomplish that for her was to kill her husband prematurely?" Sherlock asked exasperatedly. Truly, the average person's stupidity was astonishing.

"I told you! I only meant for him to fall ill, and not while he was flying a plane," the doctor insisted.

"And what was Anne supposed to do once her husband was dismissed before his compulsory retirement? How was that helping her?"

"Perhaps she would have realized that her husband was not everything she thought him to be."

"What difference would that have made? You're married, too. Though I suspect your wife is well aware that you're not everything you think yourself to be," Molly rejoined, still very angry.

"Dr. Bakshi, was Anne aware of what your plans for her husband? Did she help you accomplish any of this?" Sherlock asked.

"No!" Bakshi said forcefully, his hands waving frantically, as if he might physically stop any suspicion from reaching Anne Brown. "She never would…. She wouldn't…. She's not capable of something like this. I was the only one who did this. I'm the only one at fault." He hung his head as if the weight of his transgressions were exponentially increasing with each confession from his lips.

"We're going to have to contact the police, if there are still any on duty," Molly said. "Do you want to go explain to your family what has happened while we do so?"

"I have already confessed my sins to them. Are you religious?" the doctor asked them. Molly and Sherlock both shook their heads. "Well, I have recently been reexamining my faith. I was raised a Hindu. While some don't believe that there is such a thing as a punishing hell, a great many of us do believe there is such a place, and it is called Naraka. For people such as I, Yama, the Lord of Justice, will serve us an all-encompassing punishment to expiate for our sins, and it is painful and torturous."

"And you're finding your faith now that you've done the crime. Save it for someone who cares, Dr. Bakshi," Sherlock interjected as he pulled out his mobile, ready to call Scotland Yard.

Bakshi gave a humorless laugh. "No, you misunderstand me, Dr. Holmes. I didn't find my faith after I killed Michael Brown. The day after his death we learned that this planet is doomed. And that was when I lost my faith. Because I do not believe I could be in a greater hell than the one I've so recently entered."

"I believe that hell is called guilt, Doctor," Molly said quietly.

"Quite so," Bakshi said with a weak shrug.


They couldn't reach the police. London was now well and truly on its own, it appeared. Sherlock had suspected as much; there were no workers to operate the jails and prisons, so he was unsure if an officer really could have taken Bakshi into custody in good conscience.

So, instead, they called Anne Brown and asked her to make her way over the ten blocks from her house to the Bakshi's.

Sherlock and Molly stood to the side and watched as Jwala Bakshi made his damning confession to the captain's widow. They watched as she first laughed in hysterical denial before she sank onto the front garden's small patch of grass. Bakshi tried to go to her, but she kicked away from him before curling in on herself once more.

All the while, Madhuri Bakshi watched from the front window, clutching the curtain with a white-knuckled grip.

Sherlock would have left, but Molly insisted that they wait until Anne regained some of her composure. Jwala Bakshi finally whispered a last "I'm sorry. Forgive me," to her before he slowly went back to his house, closing the door on the devastation he'd wrought.

Some time later, after Molly had helped Anne back to her feet, the three of them climbed into the car Mycroft had provided and they rode the short distance to Eustace Road and the Brown's house.

"I'm sorry," Molly said softly, breaking the silence in the vehicle.

Anne, who had been staring at some middle distance, shook herself out of her gaze to turn and face the other woman, but still, she did not speak.

Molly glanced at Sherlock, who was riding in the front passenger seat, before she addressed the widow again. "I am sorry to give you distressing news. But it was necessary. I couldn't ethically or morally pass your husband's death off as natural causes or an accident when it was at best, manslaughter. Isn't that important to you at all?"

Anne sighed. "What do ethics or morals have to do with anything anymore? You, yourself, pointed out that Jwala won't face any legal ramifications. So what was the point of it all?"

It was such a foreign concept to Sherlock: the idea that some people actually believed ignorance to be bliss. He'd felt a small bit of impotent anger at the fact that Bakshi would never have his day in court for what he'd done. That Michael Brown's own, grieving widow might beg to differ was unfathomable.

"The point of it all was that Jwala Bakshi, a man you trusted, killed your husband. Perhaps not in cold blood, Mrs. Brown, but he certainly didn't kill the good captain with kindness," Sherlock reminded her. "Some might argue that that demands, if not justice, at least acknowledgment for the one who claims she loved him best."

He glanced over his shoulder at Anne. She was weeping again quietly, wringing her hands in her lap. "Jwala was my friend. Why would he do that? How do I face losing my husband and my friend in so short a time?"

"As Dr. Bakshi explained to you, though you were a bit overwrought at the time, he thought he was doing you a service. I daresay he thought it the ultimate display of friendship and love," he said matter-of-factly.

Molly sent him a look of warning, but he had no plans to continue. He liked to think he'd matured beyond some of his pithier habits of speaking.

She turned back to Anne and spoke gently. "Do you think, now that we're only a few days away, that you really would want to die not knowing what happened to your husband? You've said he was careful and responsible. While his illness should have dictated his early retirement, doesn't it make you feel a little better knowing his death on duty wasn't inevitable? Because that's a rather heavy weight on your shoulders, too. He took a lot of risks by choosing to conceal his disorder. The plane nearly crashed when he lost consciousness. So many lives were in his hands. At least that wouldn't have been blood on his hands."

Anne continued to stare at her hands as Molly spoke. She didn't reply until the car pulled up in front of her tired, lonely house. "You're right. And I thank you for telling me. It's not an easy thing, and I don't know if it will help me or hurt be in the time I have left. But you are right; I know my husband was still a good, careful man until the last." She nodded to Sherlock, and then she was out of the car, walking slowly up to her door without looking back.

Sherlock noticed Molly shiver slightly, but then she schooled her features and offered him a small smile. "Back to your flat?" she asked. He nodded to her, and the driver turned the car toward home.


They didn't talk about the case. There wasn't anything to say, really. Perhaps Molly had wanted a closure of some sort, and she'd certainly gotten it, but he doubted she felt any satisfaction in her triumph. He knew he certainly didn't.

Sherlock played the violin late into the night, watching her silhouetted form against the flicker of the fire. She sat on the floor with her cat sprawled in between her legs. She idly stroked his fur, but mostly she stared at the curtained window.

As Sherlock drew his bow along his violin's strings, playing the last shimmering note on a nocturne, he frowned, thinking about the event of the past day. He felt weary and was astounded at how quickly it had transferred from a sort of delirious contentment to a palpably tense sort of exhaustion. Most of it could be attributed to the unlikely resolution of Michael Brown's death, but he also knew that he had to figure out how he could save himself and Molly from the damnation of broken hearts.

He set his instrument down on the music stand, not caring if it was rather precariously perched there. Turning to face the woman who'd so recently become his lover, trying to figure out if she shared any of his trepidation.

Molly must have noticed that his full attention was now focused on her, for she nudged the cat out of her way and pulled herself to her feet. She awkwardly stuffed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, remaining silent as she waited for him to struggle with whatever was bothering him.

He had no idea. He knew he would love to take her back to his bed, bury their naked bodies under the blankets, and move in her and around her. But if Sherlock Holmes had always been good at self-preservation. Perhaps he hadn't previously spent so much time in introspection, but now he was wondering if he was going to somehow manage to hurt them both irreparably in the few short hours they had left.

And how did he reconcile the fact that, in five days' time, she would be dust? So would he. He knew he'd be beyond caring when it happened, but for the first time in his damned life, he felt terrified. He felt dread as he dwelt on the idea that the Molly Hooper who had once lived and breathed and lay in his bed would soon be an ephemeral echo.

Wouldn't it just be easier if he spared them both a little pain before then?

Molly must have read something in his expression. Without his ever uttering a word, she closed her eyes, only briefly, as if she were trying to ward off some of the pain that he could already see tightening her muscles and closing her off to him.

"Of course," she whispered. "Stupid Molly." She reopened her eyes, and their fathomless depths made him recoil.

"No. Not that. Never that," he pleaded with her. He couldn't source the desperation arcing through him, but he knew, somehow, inexplicably, she was the only absolution.

"What else am I, Sherlock? I don't blame you. I made a decision knowing full well that the consequences, no matter what the outcome, would be difficult. I'm only sorry if I made you uncomfortable," she said, refusing to meet his eyes. He watched as tears started to stream from her eyes.

"Please don't think that. Please." Sherlock Holmes was begging. And never before had he so quickly realized just how wrong he could possibly be. But now Molly was moving away from him, walking to the kitchen table.

She still refused to meet his eyes as she picked up his mobile. She quickly located the number she needed and connected the call, bringing it up to her ear. Staring into the fire, it seemed to Sherlock that her tears were flames.

"Molly—" he began, feeling a twin burning in his lungs.

"Hello Mycroft, it's Molly Hooper," she interrupted him, speaking into the mobile. She listened to his brother, who was likely making awkward pleasantries. She didn't bother to answer or reciprocate. Instead, as soon as there was a break, she said, "I was just calling to let you know that Sherlock is ready to come to you and your mother."

Sherlock felt somehow breathless and adrift; unmoored with no buoy in sight.

"Yes, he'll be ready…. No, but thank you for the thought." She frowned as she listened into the earpiece, squeezing her eyes shut tightly at whatever she was hearing. "Yes. Take care, Mycroft. Thank you."

And then she disconnected the phone and turned back to Sherlock. "Your brother is arranging for a private jet to take you to Lille. He'll pick you up at the airfield you're flying into. He asks that you be ready for a car to pick you up in a half hour."

"You're coming with me," he began, but Molly was already shaking her head.

"No. Mycroft invited me as well. But I—I can't. I'll go to John and Mary's, or maybe I'll go see my mum's cousin in Cambridge. I won't be alone. You need this time with your family."

She started down the hall, though Sherlock knew she'd veer off at the stairs and go back to her room that wasn't. He rushed forward, stopping her with a hand on her arm.

"I don't know how to do this. I don't want you to die," he whispered.

She didn't turn to face him as she replied, "Proving once and for all that caring is not an advantage."

Sherlock drew back. "You heard Mycroft say that?"

Molly shrugged. "Well, he was right, wasn't he? Goodbye, Sherlock. Thank you for making this time a happy one for me. It means more than I could ever say."

And with that, she slowly made her way up the stairs. Sherlock watched Molly Hooper until she disappeared out of sight.



Note: You all may be about to tar and feather me. Especially when I reveal that there is only one chapter to go. It will probably be up sometime next week, as I would like to have you all finish hating me before the end of June.

Adi did a lot of hand-holding while I was writing this chapter. She was so supportive and had some fantastically helpful suggestions. When I was at my lowest, she talked me down from the ledge. The ledge, in this case, being me writing, "And then Sherlock woke up and it had all been a bad dream. THE END," (Okay, not really, but I nearly rewrote the whole chapter in a fit of pique). Thank you so much, sweetie, for the help and the green highlights!

Thank you so much to everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed the last chapter. It has been such a wonderful source of encouragement to read your kind words; I truly appreciate each one of them.
Again, I received some absolutely kind reviews from guests, to whom I couldn't send personal thanks. Laura, kArA123, and Guest: Thank you to each of you. I truly appreciate your kind words!

Finally, to all who nominated this story for the 2013 SAMFAs (as well as A Hands-On Approach and The Winds are Wild), thank you so much. I truly did not expect it, so thank you all for such a lovely, wonderful surprise.