Molly heard the phone ring and pattered into the living room to answer it. She was wearing her favorite cat patterned pajamas, and had a towel wrapped around her head. She draped the towel around her neck and answered it, smiling as she recognized the voice.

"Hello Molly"

"Tom! Are you back already?"

"Yes."

"How did it go?"

"My brother's team slaughtered 'em."

"Wonderful!"

"I want to see you. Come over."

"I can't."

"Then I'll come to you."

"Please don't."

"Why not, Molly? I miss you."

"I miss you too, Tom, but I'm exhausted. You can't know what a nightmare work was today. The server crashed erasing a good chunk of the Research department's data. They were going crazy trying to find backups that were never made. Some of the data was unrecoverable. No one could figure out what had happened, and they were asking me for autopsy records to try to recreate their findings. It was a disaster!"

"I could rub your back."

"No, Tom. Honestly, I need to sleep tonight, especially if we are going to be moving tomorrow. Do you have everything?"

"Yes. My brother is letting me use his van."

"Good."

"I can't wait. After tomorrow you'll be coming home to me. Won't that be wonderful?"

"Oh, uh, yes! I can't wait."

"Neither can I. I love you."

"Yeah, goodnight."

"Goodnight, Molly."

Molly set the phone down on the table and had turned toward the bathroom to hang up the towel when she heard a rapping on the door.

She put on the chain, and opened it cautiously to see a tall shaggy youth in a dirty grey hoodie clutching his side. She was about to shut the door in his face, when she heard his deep voice say, "Let me in Molly. I'm bleeding."

She closed the door, undid the chain, and then opened it wide as Sherlock barged into her flat. He headed straight for the kitchen sink, taking her tea towel and wetting it before pressing it against the left side of his chest.

"Sherlock, are you hurt?"

"Obviously."

"You should go to the hospital!"

"No. It's just a scratch. Bring your med kit, Molly. I need to bandage this."

Molly rushed to the closet and found her first aid kit, returning just as Sherlock was pulling the shirt and hoodie over his head. Molly's heartbeat raced as she realized that she was soon to have a half-naked Sherlock in her flat, but the titillation turned to pity the moment she looked at him.

His back was crisscrossed with scars, horrible scars. He had been severely beaten, and not just once, but many times. Molly placed the kit on the counter and reached out to trace a particularly deep scar in his upper back.

"This was made with a pipe," she said, "and this with a chain. My God, Sherlock! What happened to you?"

Sherlock had stopped moving at her touch. He glanced over his shoulder at her, the tea towel still pressed against his side as she examined him.

"And these were from cigarette burns. They should have healed by now. They must have been incredibly deep, as if someone burned the same spot over and over. Who did this?"

Sherlock turned his head away and began digging through the kit. Molly bent down then, and examined the wound on his side. "Horizontal abrasion of the skin in the left hypochondriac region. Not deep enough to pierce the abdominal cavity."

"As I said, it was just a scratch."

"The edge of this wound looks bad. Sherlock, you should get this seen to."

"That's why I came to you."

"I work on corpses! You need someone with experience on living patients. If you won't go to a hospital, at least let me call John."

"No!" Sherlock cried stopping her as she moved toward her phone. "Don't tell John."

"Why not? John always patches you up when you're hurt."

"Not anymore. Don't call him. If John knew I was hurt, then he would insist on examining me, and then... he'd see."

Molly glanced into his eyes. Sherlock's nervous expression made him look so young. She examined the marks on his back again. They were old. Unlike the wound on his side, they weren't from some recent street fight. Sherlock had been tortured repeatedly. One scar appeared to be a stab wound. Another scar might have been from a gun that had grazed the outside of his arm.

"It's from when you were away isn't it?" she asked. "I didn't know what you'd done while you were gone, I didn't ask. You were hunting them down, weren't you? The assassins, the ones they had sent to kill John. You destroyed Moriarty's organization personally, didn't you. That's why you left, why you had to leave. To stop them."

Sherlock placed his fists on the counter and lowered his head.

"You need to get John to look at these. There must be something he can do to..."

"He mustn't know. If he even suspects, then he won't stop until he gets the full story out of me, and there are things. Things that I've done. I never want him to feel...he shouldn't have to... Just let him think that I'm frivolous and irresponsible. It's better for everyone if he never finds out what I had to do to save him."

Molly imagined the pain of being tortured to save a friend only to have the friend yell at you for going away. He could have told him what he'd done, what he'd sacrificed. John was a soldier. He could imagine it better than she could. He would have forgiven Sherlock. He would have felt indebted to him, and perhaps that was why he never told him. Despite his arrogance he was so shy when it came to emotions. He wanted John to come back to him because he liked him, not out of a feeling of obligation. Sherlock had the best excuse for his actions, but he hid that fact because he wanted John to love him for his own sake. In his heart, Sherlock was such a lonely child. Molly found tears welling up in her eyes. She reached out her arms and hugged him.

"Oh Sherlock...you poor boy."

She bandaged him up, and put him to sleep in her own bed. He saw the stack of boxes in the corner and grabbed her arm. Molly was reminded of another man's grip. Sherlock noticed where she was looking and removed his hand.

"Sorry," he said, "Are you planning on moving?"

"Yes," Molly said with a smile. "I'm moving in with Tom tomorrow."

"Don't," Sherlock said earnestly. "Your flat is the only safe house that I have in this area. I rely on it. I need you here."

"But Sherlock, I have a life!"

"I need you," he said, and then fell back into her bed exhausted, and it was a testament to their friendship that he left it at that knowing that if he truly need her, that she would be there for him.

She woke up the next morning at the sound of a key in the door. She was sprawled out across the couch. Her blanket having fallen off in the night to be replaced by a sleeping cat. She rubbed her eyes and sat up just as Tom entered.

"Morning Molly," he said rushing forward to give her a kiss.

"Oh Tom, at least give me a moment to brush my teeth first," she said smiling as he gave her a hug and another kiss on the cheek.

Molly stood up and went to the lavatory. She was half finished with brushing her teeth, mumbling encouragingly at Tom as he gave a running commentary of what he'd done the previous day, when she remembered that Sherlock was sleeping in her bed. She dropped her toothbrush into the sink and ran into the bedroom to find Tom was already there moving out the boxes.

The bed was empty. In fact it had been made much more neatly than she'd ever done.

"I guess you really were tired to have fallen asleep before you could even make it to the bed. Come on and get dressed. I only have the van for a day, and it looks as if your things have multiplied since I was last here."

Molly glanced at the bed and remembered Sherlock's plea, "I need you." Then she turned to face Tom.

"Tom, actually, about me moving..."