A/N: This is less of a mashup and more of a reimagining of the ILY scene with elements from the hallway scene from TEH. Rated T.

The video switched from its view of Eurus in the Governor's office to that of a narrow stairwell, looking down toward what appeared to be the foyer to a building - yes, there was a set of double doors with pebbled glass panes through which weak sunlight shone, brightening the dimness of the entryway.

"Where's this?" John asked. It was nowhere he recognized, but he couldn't help but notice how Sherlock had stiffened, how intently he was studying the screen. As if he'd seen that staircase before.

"Eurus," Sherlock said, ignoring him completely. "What's the point of rehashing old business? What does any of this -" he gestured toward the screen "- have to do with this?" His arm swept backwards, toward the plain wooden coffin resting on an even plainer set of wooden trestles.

The image vanished, replaced once again by the eerily expressionless face of Sherlock's mad sister. "The point, brother dear, will be made once you have viewed the entire video. Context will be applied at that time."

"I understand the context," Sherlock bit out, mouth tightening as he met his sister's gaze. "It's unnecessary. Just tell me what -"

"Not context for you, silly," she replied, her lips lifting in a chilling little smile. She sounded almost girlish, and John fancied her choice of words hearkened back to the child she'd been, once upon a time. "For them." Her eyes met his, flitted to Mycroft standing on Sherlock's opposite side, then returned to Sherlock.

He made an abortive sound of protest, then fell silent as the screen changed back to the empty hallway - only this time, it wasn't empty. Sherlock stood at the bottom of the stairs, the camera showing the back of a female figure walking down toward him. It took only a second for John to recognize her, by the long ponytail and the brightly colored pink-and-black scarf wound round her neck.

He'd seen Molly wearing it countless times during the winter, and her identity was further confirmed when the audio suddenly came on. "Sherlock?"

"Hmm?" He looked up at her.

"What was today about?" Molly asked.

"Saying thank you."

John's brow furrowed in a frown. Thank you for what? When was this video taken, how long ago, and why?

"Everything you did for me," Sherlock replied.

"It's okay. It was my pleasure," Molly said. She reached the bottom of the stairs and started towards the door, but turned back as Sherlock spoke again.

"No, I mean it."

Molly, a bit awkwardly, responded with "I don't mean 'pleasure.' I mean, I didn't mind. I wanted to."

Sherlock - the real, here-and-now Sherlock - seemed to stiffen as the video played on. John took his eyes off the screen just long enough to note the increasing tension in his face, matched certainly by his own now that it was clear who the coffin was meant for.

Was Molly Hooper a prisoner too, somewhere in this godforsaken prison? Was their next puzzle to find her before she died, before she needed to be placed in that terrible wooden box Eurus had set up?

Back on screen, Sherlock had stepped closer to Molly and was speaking softly but intensely, his words making it abundantly clear when this scene had originally taken place. "-riarty slipped up. He made a mistake. Because the one person he thought didn't matter at all to me was the one person that mattered the most. You made it all possible." He drew in a breath. "But you can't do this again, can you?"

She smiled, and when she spoke her voice was a little choked. "I had a lovely day. I'd love to – I just ... um …" She looked down.

Sherlock followed her gaze, focusing on her left hand and the engagement ring she was wearing. "Oh, congratulations, by the way."

The scene cut off abruptly, before John could do more than note the change in camera angle, as if more than one had been employed in recording this scene.

One camera could just be security for the building being hacked; two seemed more disturbingly like...intent. As if Eurus had known Sherlock and Molly would be there and had wanted very much to record their interactions together.

It sent a chill down his spine, and his feeling of unease wasn't helped a single whit by Eurus' soft comment. "Goodness, Sherlock, it seems as if the doctor is working things out for himself. Your influence, I presume?"

"Where is she?" John demanded, cutting in before Sherlock could say anything in response. "Where is Molly Hooper?" He gestured angrily toward the coffin. "You have her here, somewhere, you want us to save her, yeah? Prevent her from ending up in...that? So just get to the bloody point, let Sherlock make his deductions and let us save her!"

She ignored this outburst, focusing instead on Mycroft. "Well, big brother, haven't you anything to say about this revealing little tête-à-tête?" She cocked her head to one side. "Oh, wait, you already know all about it, don't you?"

"I have never seen this footage before today," Mycroft replied icily, but Eurus' only response was a knowing grin.

"Of course you haven't, you weren't the one spying on our brother this time! But you do know all about their visit that day, all about Molly playing John Watson when the good doctor was too angry at Sherlock to go on cases with him after his return from the dead! You know all about every single minute Sherlock's ever spent with her, especially with all that CCTV footage from his, how did you put it, home from home at St. Barts?"

John turned to stare at Mycroft, although he shouldn't have been surprised; the man was a diabolical genius when it came to manipulating the London CCTV system. But spying on Sherlock at Barts? Why? His blood ran a bit cold as he thought about the Magnussen case and how he'd dragged Sherlock to the lab so he could pee in a cup - and be slapped by an angry, disappointed Molly Hooper.

"John's right," Sherlock said, interrupting his train of thought. "This isn't about Mycroft's obsessive need to keep me under surveillance, it's about Molly Hooper and that coffin." He leaned forward slightly, fists clenched at his side. "Where. Is. She?"

"Why do you care?"

Sherlock rocked back on his heels at his sister's question, a hiss of indrawn breath his only sound as he stared at her. After a moment he said, "You know why, Eurus. You just showed everyone in this room how I - how I feel about her."

"And how is that, exactly?" Eurus leaned forward, her chin on her hand. "Because I'm not entirely convinced that everyone here really understands all those complicated little emotions. Shall I show them the rest of that scene? The part that makes it a bit clearer?"

"No, that's not nece-"

Sherlock fell silent as the video switched back to the hallway.

"-met through friends, the old-fashioned way," Molly was saying. "He's nice. We ... he's got a dog ... we-we go to the pub on weekends and he ... I've met his mum and dad and his friends and all his family. I've no idea why I'm telling you this."

"I hope you'll be very happy, Molly Hooper. You deserve it. After all, not all the men you fall for can turn out to be sociopaths."

"No?"

He shook his head. "No." Stepping closer to her, he gave her a beautiful smile, then leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. She closed her eyes and kept them closed as he turned and walked out of the front door.

After a moment she turned and looked at his disappearing back. "Maybe it's just my type."

Then she, too, walked out the front door, and the camera went dark.

Eurus' face reappeared, studying that of her brother. "Didn't hear her say that, did you, Sherlock? So what do you think? Any opinions to offer?" As he remained silent she shrugged her shoulders. "What about you, John? Mycroft? That was quite interesting, don't you think?"

Before John could speak (not that he had any idea of what to say to that remarkable conversation), Eurus went on. "Oh, but I forgot; Mycroft already knew all about this ridiculous dance Sherlock's been performing with Doctor Hooper all these years. But not you, John Watson." Her attention was directly on him, laser-focused and utterly terrifying. "You like to think of yourself as Sherlock's best friend, his brother in all but blood, but you never saw it, did you? Until now. You thought he was enamored of Irene Adler, you thought the coffin was for her. Or do you still think of him as a machine incapable of human emotion? Completely dismissive of softer emotions like, say, love?"

There. She'd said it, the word John had been avoiding thinking throughout this entire encounter. Love. He turned, walked to the coffin lid leaning against the wall, some instinct telling him what he'd see there. A brass plaque, with three simple words.

"I love you," he read aloud.

"We already know how Miss Hooper feels about Sherlock, it was simple enough to deduce the words without you reading them aloud," Mycroft said, but John turned to glare at him, stopping his words before he could finish.

"It's not about someone who loves Sherlock," he snapped, shaking the lid. "The person inside the coffin doesn't pick the inscription." He looked over at his friend. "It's the one saying goodbye. Molly doesn't have a lot of family or friends, you already said all that when you said alone and practical about death, with no close family." Mycroft, he recalled, had been about to reach for the lid when Eurus had interrupted them with the video feed. Not that it mattered, but it stuck in his mind for whatever reason. "It's you, you're the one who would take care of things like this." He nodded at the coffin.

"Yes," Sherlock confirmed softly. Painfully. His face contorted a bit, then settled back into quiet passivity. "I'm Molly's emergency contact, I'm the one who would make certain her last wishes were carried out as specified in her will." He took a slow, shuddering breath. "I'm the one who loves her, although I've never been able to tell her how I feel."

"That was the closest you've ever come," John realized. "That day when you took her on cases. You must have already deduced she was engaged by then, especially after spending so much time with her! There's no way you hadn't noticed her engagement ring before that!"

"I think we all know I'm very good at ignoring things I'd rather not remember," Sherlock replied, somewhat sharply, glancing up at his sister's image. "Besides," he added in a murmur, "I think we can all agree that Molly Hooper deserves better."

"See? That wasn't so difficult!" Eurus said brightly. She nodded her head to someone off screen. "Bring her in, let them see she's safe!"

John gasped as Molly Hooper was shoved on-screen from somewhere to Eurus' left. Her hair had fallen loose from its usual ponytail, hanging disheveled over her shoulders. She was wearing a cheerful striped jumper; the shoulder was torn, and there was bruise on her forehead, but otherwise she appeared to be fine. Well, as fine as someone whose wrists were bound with zip-ties and who had obviously been taken by force could be.

Her expression was a mixture of emotions: anger, fright, and something a bit harder to pinpoint until John saw her lock eyes with Sherlock. Hope, he thought in a burst of recognition. Hope that Sherlock meant what he said, forced though that confession of love had been.

"I'm all right," she said, in response to Eurus' urging. "Just a bit of a bump, but I'm fine. She said…" Her voice faltered a bit. "She said as long as Sherlock wasn't afraid to admit how he felt that I would be all right."

John nodded; that much was obvious, at least now it was. Molly confirmed his next supposition - that she'd been threatened into keeping quiet until Eurus permitted her to speak - and his heart squeezed in sympathy for her obvious pain. Sherlock might love her, but how painful and degrading it must have felt to have - for both of them! - to have it forced out of him in front of witnesses.

"But if he, um, if Sherlock denied it," Molly went on, her face white and body rigid, "E-urus said she was going to shoot me, like she did the Governor's wife. Right in front of you all, and then put me in that coffin and send my, my body to St. Barts for Mike Stamford or one of my other colleagues to find."

"How lucky for you my brother decided to be self-aware for a change," Eurus said. She gave her brother a mocking smile. "Do you have anything else to say before I return Molly to her cell, Sherlock?"

He straightened himself, ignoring her and looking only at Molly, who returned his gaze with an attempt at a brave smile. "When Eurus has finished putting us through our paces, Molly, we'll come for you. I'll come for you," he corrected himself. "Never doubt that. After all," he added with a crooked little smile, "we've established that you're my type as well."

She let out a choked laugh, nodding at him as Eurus gestured for her to be taken away. A hand grasped her by the arm and she was pulled roughly away, keeping her eyes locked on Sherlock's until she vanished from the screen.

John started to protest, but Eurus held up a hand. "She's fine. Sherlock passed this test. If he manages to pass the next one - which, by the way, won't be so easy - then she'll continue to be fine." She nodded, and the door to their room opened. "In your own time."

The screen reverted to the sheets of falling water. Mycroft, moving stiffly, headed for the door. He paused, turning to Sherlock to say, "However difficult that was-"

"This isn't difficult," Sherlock snapped. "It's vivisection."

He moved to the coffin, running his fingers across it almost caressingly. Then, without a single word, he made a fist and began smashing it, destroying it, the gun dropped to the floor and both hands pounding the coffin until it was nothing but a pile of splinters and torn fabric. Panting, trembling, he dropped to the floor, sitting with his back against the wall and gazing down at his injured hands.

John picked up the gun, still trying to take it all in - his friends' unexpected confession, Molly's presence on the island - the fact that Eurus had apparently been watching them since shortly after Sherlock's return from 'death' - and simply stood in front of Sherlock for a moment.

He needed to process this - they all did - but now was not the time. Not with another test looming ominously over them all. Not with Molly Hooper's life - not to mention their own! - still under threat. Sherlock glanced up at him, his eyes haunted. "Soldiers?" he said.

John nodded, reaching out one hand to grasp Sherlock's and help pull him to his feet. "Soldiers," he agreed, and the two of them followed Mycroft through the door.

End note: The dialog from TEH was transcribed by Ariane DeVere on livejournal, full credit and kudos for all that hard work! Many thanks to vermofftiss on the sherlolly discord for reading it over and helping me smooth out some bumps. All remaining Not Good things are mine.