Disclaimer: This fanfiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read, so all mistakes are mine.
# AFFINITIES
She sees them, of course she does. That first night, after they've kissed and confessed and whispered together in the dark. After they've loved and touched and tired one another out, happy to be finally, finally able to admit how they feel...
She sees the scars across his shoulders, ghostly and white in the light form the lamps outside.
They scratch and slide over one shoulder-blade, two ribs. He has a matching set, much smaller, on the other side of his back, a white-blue scrawl which hooks around the back of his neck and disappears under his hairline...
Before she stops to think her fingers find them, touch them, and he winces. Starts back.
Her first instinct is to apologize, to ask whether they still pain him, but of course common sense tells her that they do not.
They're far too old for that.
"Don't..." she hears, and "it's not what you think..." she hears and finally, "It was a long time ago, Molly."
She lets him turn away, knowing-trusting- that it's what he needs to do right now. As if to underline this, he reaches one hand out and grasps her wrist, neither pulling her closer nor pushing her away. Just squeezing her flesh, taking her pulse, she belatedly realizes.
When he finally looks at her, his eyes are wide and dark.
"You didn't have those before your fall," she says softly, and it's true. He didn't.
She would have had to catalogue them when she did his supposed autopsy.
He huffs in a breath; His shoulders tense, release, and then he's pulling her to him, pulling them both down into the bed. He presses a kiss to her crown.
"They came after," he says. "After my fall... After I took apart Moriarty's network..." Another kiss, pressed to her hair. "There was a man named Marpuissis," he says. "He... I became involved in his business. He didn't thank me for it." A puff of laughter, slightly hopeless. "The marks you see are the result," he tells her. "I nearly bled to death, before Mycroft found me. I- The man working on me had a crow-bar."
Molly can't help it: she draws in a sharp, horrified breath.
"I don't- it wasn't-" He stops and starts, unsure. Uncomfortable. "I shouldn't have told you," he says eventually, arms tightening around her. "It's not-"
"It is." Molly's not entirely sure what she's agreeing to, but she knows that she has to say that. She can't bear the thought of him feeling the need to keep such things to himself. She can't bear the thought of his shouldering such a burden alone.
"Whatever you want to tell me," she says quietly, "you tell me, Sherlock."
She feels him go very intent, there in her arms.
The air suddenly feels very still.
"Even if it hurts you?" He asks quietly, his voice muffled by her hair. (He's buried his nose in her neck, arms tightening around her waist.)
"Even if," she answers, her voice certain. "Whatever you want to tell me, tell me, Sherlock. Don't keep something bottled up inside in the name of protecting me." And she twists in his arms. Looks at him in the near dark.
She presses a kiss to his lips and they both breathe out in time.
"And if I'm not ready?" He asks, and this time his voice is so quiet, so uncertain.
Molly looks at him, and his expression seems... haunted, somehow.
"When you're ready, then you're ready," she says quietly. A small smile. A kiss pressed to his sternum. "And when you're not ready, well... I suppose I can wait." She smiles up at him, trying to lighten the mood, but as she does he pulls her closer. Holds her tighter.
"Oh but I do love you," he murmurs, and (as it had every time he's said it since he arrived back from Sherrinford, it makes Molly blush to hear it.)
"I love you too," she murmurs, kissing him again. Snuggling into him again.
She's never, ever going to get tired of being able to tell him that, she thinks.
In the days, and weeks, and months to come other things will come out, other secrets. Other scars. They've both of them lived a life, and they've both of them things they carry with them. They've both got their stories, hidden inside their skin.
But the simple act of speaking them aloud, of telling them to one another... That will prove truly healing.
I love you, Molly Hooper, he will tell her.
I love you too, Sherlock Holmes, she will murmur back...