Author's Note: Merry Christmas Eve (well it still is here at least). Welcome back to the 7th installment of Testimonies of Broken Hearts. Warning: A bit angsty. Enjoy.

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Testimonies of Broken Hearts

A Sherlolly Fan Fiction

Chapter Seven (7)

Cough Syrup

Life's too short to even care at all, oh/ I'm losing my mind losing my mind losing control, oh oh/ These fishes in the sea they're staring at me oh oh/ Oh oh oh oh/ A wet world aches for a beat of a drum/ Oh/ If I could find a way to see this straight/ I'd run away/ To some fortune that I, I should have found by now/ I'm waiting for this cough syrup to come down, come down./ Life's too short to even care at all, oh, oh/ I'm coming up now, coming up now out of the blue, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh/ These zombies in the park they're looking for my heart, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh/ A dark world aches for a splash of the sun, oh, oh

Sherlock opened his eyes in the morgue of St. Bart's Hospital, finding Molly standing just a few feet from him, holding a new pair of clothing for him. "I've brought you some new clothes, so as not to spark suspicion. Mycroft had the body delivered today for you. It'll be cremated and I'll...make sure no one suspects a thing." She handed the clothes to the detective.

Sherlock had a headache as he had hit his head during the fall. He didn't want it to come to that, to faking his death. He tried to reason in a way with Moriarty, but he had committed suicide just before Sherlock could get the word from him.

He had jumped in front of John, saying a goodbye for his 'note' as he had called it. He heard John yell his name and he fell from the building and landed on a large mattress, rolling off and onto the sidewalk, quickly taking a pint of blood and making him appear as if he had hit his head on the pavement below. He did but not nearly hard enough to allow much blood to actually escape through his skin.

He had used the homeless and a couple of nurses to keep John away, to make it all appear as real. The story would be in the paper and he would be pronounced dead.

Sherlock changed into the jeans and awfully scratchy sweater, covering his head with a hat that would hide most of his dark curly hair. He was grateful that the hat was not a deerstalker.

He and Molly arrived at Molly's flat just two hours later, pretending as if he was her new boyfriend and as if Sherlock had truly died.

"So what comes after this, Sherlock?"

He cleared his throat. "I must leave and destroy Moriarty's criminal web. I've got much of the information from his phone stored in my mind palace. He might not be around, but his criminal allies are."

She sighed. "Oh why can nothing be so simple anymore?"

"Because we aren't back in high school, when everything was just grades and textbooks and coffee." He was right. It wasn't just grades and textbooks and coffee anymore. Molly could lose her job and medical license if someone found out. Sherlock was already deemed a liar and a fake by Kitty Riley and Jim Moriarty, or Richard Brooke. John was suffering the loss of his best friend. And now all Sherlock could rely on was a girl he hid the truth from for so long. Could he do anything but lie to the people he was closest to now?

Guess not, he thought.

"You're right, we aren't in high school. Stay as long as you like. I'm going to have to pretend you're dead, whether you are here or not. With or without you, I have to lie to our friends."

He shook his head. "Molly, I'm not sure if I should stay long."

"Just a couple of days, Sherlock. Let the headlines roll for a bit, let things settle down. If you immediately begin taking out criminals Jim was associated with they will get suspicious."

Sherlock nodded. "Perhaps you're right."

So he stayed for the next two weeks, reading the papers, watching the news, and playing a violin in the flat. He had Molly ask for it from Mrs. Hudson, saying her niece was learning to play and they didn't have the money for a new one. Mrs. Hudson gave it to her with tears in her eyes as she had loved Sherlock like a son.

"He wasn't the nicest, but he was the most sincere of anyone I ever met. He beat up an American because he held me hostage and had hurt me. Sherlock was always an eccentric, but he was just as amazing."

Molly remembered the day of his funeral, just four days after the fall. When she got back, she found her flat empty. Sherlock returned an hour later, claiming he had been at the cemetery.

"They care so much," he said, referring to the few who attended. It had been just Molly, John, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade, Mycroft claiming he couldn't make it and Sherlock's mother unwilling to see her son's fake gravestone. She and Mycroft knew, but only them.

"You were…different. You never lied to anyone if you could and you formed strange relationships with all of them. Even if it was just us four, you aren't alone. We all care about you, Sherlock."

"Sometimes I wish you didn't."

That was fact, seeing as how he had willed her for so many years to deem him as unfit and to move on with her life.

Sherlock looked at her with a determined look on his face. "Why?"

"Why do I care about you?"

"Yes."

Molly bit her lip. "I think it has to do with knowing you for so long. We were friends in high school and in uni together. And then you just…dropped off the face of the Earth. I worried."

"I hoped that you had forgotten me. I've nothing for you."

"That may be true, but friends stick together. You did drugs, you didn't care, and you had to quit drugs and all. I just…want you to be happy, Sherlock."

"Life isn't a fairytale."

"It doesn't have to be when you're happy."

"I don't deserve happiness."

"I disagree."

The two stopped and looked at each other, both sighing with frustration. They didn't continue the conversation, choosing to turn on the news and watch idiotic reporters miss all of the key evidence before switching to daytime crap television.

Sherlock dyed his hair a brownish color and bought contacts that changed his eye color from the cold grey to a fake, murky brown color. In a means of disguise, it worked rather well. Nobody questioned him and very few would even make a connection with him and Sherlock Holmes. Only the very observant would say, "You look like Sherlock Holmes, that one detective that committed suicide." It worked very well for him as very few were observant at all.

He left after two weeks, leaving only a note saying, Thank you, Molly Hooper.

Molly would occasionally get postcards with aliases from Sherlock, showing her where he was and addressing himself as her cousin Cedric. He sometimes sent her a simple souvenir, possibly reminded of her by it in some way. She had gotten bracelets from the Caribbean, coins from Brazil, wool from Ireland, and many other things that would only remind her of him.

She attempted dating again, but found it almost impossible. Molly felt that she was cheating, but she had no strings attached to Sherlock in that way. They were strictly friends, not anything more. Eventually, she gave up the thought of dating, rather shaking her head and saying she wasn't interested if someone asked.

Occasionally, Sherlock would return to London at her flat. He would open the door with the spare key, either on the trail of a criminal and just popping in to stay the night or say hello, or sporting a battle wound from a recent fight, asking Molly to patch him up a bit as he didn't carry a first aid kit while in London.

"This one isn't so bad," she commented on a small gash in his arm, sewing it back with stitches. "I mean, it's not as bad as the last but still requires stitches."

"Well it's not my fault that they pull knives on me constantly. Try to play fair and you just get cut in the end. But he's in the police's custody right now and my trail is clear." He cringed at the pain in his arm a bit. "Thank you, Molly."

"How much longer?"

He shook his head. "Could be quite a bit."

"It's been a year and a half, Sherlock. They've been trying to move on."

"As should you."

"I have. But it's not like I think Sherlock Holmes is dead because here he is, sitting in my flat with a bleeding arm. Here I am, stitching him up after knowing he would be back eventually. His web can't be that big, Sherlock. You must be nearing the end." Molly looked straight into his grey eyes. "It can't go on like this for much longer. I'm sick of lying about it."

"I'm sorry, Molly."

"John and I have lunch sometimes. You get brought up every once in a while. Mrs. Hudson and I go out for tea. Lestrade and I chat a bit when he comes to the morgue. They all miss you, Sherlock. And I have to sit there and say nothing. They are trying to get on.

"John has a girlfriend but still can't get the day of the fall out of his mind. Mrs. Hudson hasn't rented out 221B since you left. Lestrade has been trying to get guys in that can do half as good a job as you. They are trying, Sherlock, but it isn't working."

Sherlock shook his head. "Just…I can't come back yet. Not yet, Molly. I will soon, I promise."

"I've learned not to listen to those promises of yours, Mr. Holmes."

And she was right to.

Sherlock sat in his hotel room in Rome, three nicotine patches on his arm as he thought of what to do next. It was late November and he was hot on the trail of one of the last of Moriarty's web. They had started to become smart, but not soon enough as Sherlock could now predict their every move.

But they weren't on his mind, rather pushed to the side by another thought.

Molly Hooper.

Sherlock had grown softer since his fall, forming a closer relationship to her than they had since before their graduation. Of course he was always cautious with everything he said, but he wasn't awful to her. He still wished that he could be more to her.

Sherlock, that isn't possible. You aren't about to defeat the villain, win the girl, and live happily ever after. This is not a fairy tale, his inner Mycroft told him.

It hurt, but it was true. He didn't deserve kind, sweet Molly, and he never had. Sherlock Holmes had been young and foolish when they were together, being selfish and knowing that he would eventually lose her anyways. He took the risk and lost her and knew it would be best to just leave her be.

She doesn't need me. She can't save me from myself. Maybe once I thought I could have a somewhat normal life, but that isn't possible. Her forgetting proved it.

But he wanted it to be possible, with the exception of his job. His job would always be abnormal as he was a strange man. She was normal in a way, other than working in a morgue. Maybe their jobs were both a bit morbid in ways, but she was almost normal and he was so different. But she stood out to him, glowing like a star on a dark night that would lead him to freedom. He thought once that she was his salvation, finding that even if she could've been, he wouldn't allow her to be. Why would she want to be anyways?

He sighed, staring at the watch on his wrist. He would push her aside in his mind for now. He would sort everything out when he wasn't tracking down the last few criminals of Moriarty's web. Sherlock had waited this long to sort out his feelings; another month wasn't going to kill them.

Author's Note: I've changed my mind three times on the song and finally settled for this. It fits it better, I think. Merry Christmas Eve (since it is where I am).

Anyways, I had an early Christmas today at my dad's. Yep, opening gifts on Christmas Eve. I got PJ bottoms with the TARDIS all over them. I also got a WHOVIAN necklace and The Nightmare Before Christmas feetie pajamas! I'm warm. I also got a Sherlock shirt, 3 Johnny Depp movies and I am awaiting a Doctor Who messenger bag in the mail. I hope you all have a very merry Christmas. Please don't cry too much tomorrow if you watch Doctor Who. Matt will be missed.

Pease leave a review.

Thank you for reading.

Song: Cough Syrup

Artist: Young the Giant

A Good Cover: Darren Criss on Glee (it was surprisingly good and you'd have to listen to decide for yourself)

I do not own anything.