He was tiny. A tiny, mole-like little old man who had been recently bereaved, so what was he doing with a gun?

"Family," he said, in a voice like dry leaves.

"Yes," whispered Molly Hooper. "Yes."

She didn't think quickly around firearms, even if they were brandished by little, myopic old men.

Photographs lined the walls of the tiny, cramped and dingy flat. The Violet Rucastle she knew from the slab bore so little resemblance to the girl in the pictures that she quickly realised that although Mr Rucastle might be unbalanced, he was not entirely wrong - she did share colouring with his daughter, and they had eyes of a similar shape and depth.

"Violet and Edward, such a lovely couple of kids, but they fell out you see. They hadn't spoken for years before she … before she disappeared. It wasn't right." Molly pictured this conversation without the gun waving around to emphasise points he was making and found she much preferred that scenario.

"Families can be … difficult," she managed to say, looking longingly at her phone on his side table.

She was lucky he hadn't realised she'd texted the first person on her ICE list (her mother) when the phone was still in her pocket, but she was starting to wonder if her mother had taken her seriously… maybe 'git hlep gun' was too cryptic for Mrs Hooper. Maybe all those episodes of Columbo hadn't paid off after all. When he'd found her phone she'd thought the gig was up, but he'd just looked … disappointed, and placed it reverently on his table like an alien artefact. Perhaps, to him, it was.

But then she'd heard the vans. Two vans pulling up with what sounded like police tyres in the street below with slamming doors, but no sirens and no protocol.

"Get the cones out the back!" Came a loud but casual voice, accompanied by more slamming as road working tools and barriers were lifted out.

Her spirits fell. No-one knew she was in danger. Everyone who did know of her whereabouts thought she was comforting some little old man and then toddling off home to watch Fleabag with her cat. Molly felt the prickle of panic in her armpits as the adrenaline coursed through her central nervous system, flooding her with fight or flight.

"I'd do anything to get you two back talkin' again," said Mr Rucastle, looking into her dark brown eyes and seeing someone else. "Anything."

A rise in distress seemed to facilitate a more precarious handling of the gun and Molly gripped the arms of the old, battered chair she sat in, watching him scour the walls, trying to mend what couldn't be mended. A mealy-looking fair haired adolescent she assumed to be Edward stared out from several of the pictures above the fireplace. Siblings, she thought. Siblings and their issues. Thank God she'd been an only child.

And then it came to her, like a sudden inspiration, a miraculous gift, and she held out her hand, without even the barest hint of tremble.

"Let me phone him," she said, forcing a light smile, her throat dry and parched like crackling paper. "It isn't too late ... Dad."

She faltered. Had she gone to far? But he was smiling, picking up her phone and handing it to her.

"Yes," he said, grateful, almost putting the gun down (but not quite). "Speak to him. Tell him it was a silly mistake and that you still care ... Tell him!" Agitated again.

Molly grasped the solidity of her phone like a lifeline and then hesitated, but for only a second.

"I'm ringing him now Dad, " she said.

~x~

"Hello." He is breathless, heart hammering, sweat breaking out across his chest, his back, his face. The van is dark and airless; why doesn't someone open a window?

"Hello Molly, are you alright?"

"Hello Edward, it's Violet. I don't want you to hang up. Don't hang up... I need to speak to you. Please."

Instantly, he knows.

"Yes, yes, Violet."

John and Lestrade are wide-eyed, but Mike has briefed them too.

"Violet," continues Sherlock, entirely unsure how many sides of the conversation could be heard (never underestimate little old men who ask for help and you palm them off to your flatmate because you can't be bothered), "Violet, I can't tell you how wonderful it is to hear your voice." He smiles into the phone as if to convince.

Molly cups her phone, as if holding the words to herself.

"Yours too. It - it's been too long. Far too long."

Mr Rucastle is very still, holding his gun across his chest with two hands, rapt, listening to his children.

Sherlock swallows, awaiting her words, choking down every kind of panic, batting away emotions before they have a chance to take hold. Control. It was all about the control (so why couldn't they open a window?).

"Violet," he continues, all around him frozen in time and space. "Violet, I'm so very sorry we lost touch. I never, ever meant to … to hurt you."

"I know," Molly whispers, no longer seeing anything but the phone. "I know you are, my darling."

Sherlock chokes a little, his face as white as chalk, and it is all John can do not to touch him.

"I need you to - to forgive me," he continues, blinking. "You have to forgive me, because nothing else can matter anymore."

Molly holds a breath. Eyes closed, she hears the shuffle of carpet slippers, the distant, hopeless sound of a siren across the river. A clock ticks on the mantle and she lets it seep out of her.

"Edward - " tears brim and fall, but she cannot care. "Eddie, of course I forgive you, of course I do." Her throat aches, a pulse hammers from within.

"I'm not myself anymore ... I miss you... I think about you every day."

The line crackles with a dull silence and Molly bites her lip, closing her eyes again until his voice breaks through the quiet, through the wire, through all the barriers ever made.

"I fear your loss more than I fear anything." His voice is little more than a whisper, cracked, broken, honest.

Her throat aches, her eyes swim, she gasps for air, but she knows he is telling the absolute truth.

"Please, can we start again? Can we?" Molly whispers into the darkness, hearing the clock, feeling the shift of air as Mr Rucastle moves closer, his hand hovering over her shoulder. She opens her eyes; the gun is nowhere to be seen.

"Violet, I - I have made so many, many bad decisions ..."

"Yes."

"I have neglected those who needed and lacked respect for those who cared."

"Yes."

"I have ignored the voices of my own heart and pushed away good counsel..."

A beat of time, an airless space, a certain knowledge of what could be lost and what could be won.

"I am not a good man, Violet. I have let you down."

"You are a good man." Her eyes are wide open, her mind is clear and bright. "My darling, you have always been the very best of men."

He hangs his head, holding the phone to his chest, fighting with himself and losing.

"I'm only as good," whispers Sherlock Holmes, enlightened, fearful, accepting, " - as the person who sees who I really am. I love you."

She breathes, she smiles, she knows he tells the absolute truth.

"I love you too," says Molly Hooper, no longer ashamed, no longer uncertain. "I have always loved you, always. Always."

~x~