Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. (Desmond Tutu)

Molly sucked in a breath as she saw Sherlock's eyes, flooded with red and showing no signs of awareness, none of his usual sharp intelligence. "Sherlock," she said, reaching tentatively for him, only to suddenly find herself hurled to the floor with him atop her, seemingly reverted to the savage, feral creature Moriarty had brought back to life with her blood.

However, with his fangs only centimeters away from her throat, he retreated as rapidly as he'd assaulted her, backing away until he hit the wall, panic replacing the savagery in his expression. "Christ!" he exploded, fingers scrabbling at the wall as if he would rip his way through it. "Molly, I don't - I'm not - Christ!" he swore again as she slowly sat up, then stood, leaning heavily against the gurney he'd so precipitously launched himself from. "You should leave," he said lowly, maintaining his defensive posture against the wall.

She shook her head. "No." She took a step forward, and he snarled a warning, snapping a hand out as if to physically stop her from approaching.

"Molly, I nearly tore your throat out," he said, self-loathing clear in his voice. "I can't be trusted."

"But I've always trusted you," she countered, maintaining eye contact as she took another slow step forward, then another. They were only a few feet apart now. "You've always counted and I've always trusted you," she added, repeating his own words back to him. "Yes, you attacked me but you stopped yourself. And Moriarty is dead; we're safe, it was probably just the residual effects of -"

"He's not dead."

Molly froze in mid step, staring at him wide eyed. "Yes he is," she insisted, fighting very hard not to give in to the hysterics she felt rising at that flat declaration. "The, um, the whole building blew up -"

"He survived. I can feel it, here." He jabbed a finger into the side of his head. "And here." The spread fingers of his other hand hovered above his abdomen. "I can feel him, hear his voice in the back of my mind, very faintly, but still there. He. Isn't. Dead."

Molly shivered, feeling the color drain from her face. "He has to be dead," she whispered, swaying a little on her feet.

That small movement was all it took for Sherlock to pull her into his arms, abandoning his defensive posture and own fears in order to comfort her. "He's not dead, but he will be as soon as… I can feel him," he repeated, whispering his words against the top of her head, "but I'm not fighting him, do you understand?"

He shifted his hold in order to gaze into her upturned eyes. She shook her head. "He's not controlling me," he explained, with a savage satisfaction that had nothing to do with self-loathing. "He's not controlling me, and I can feel his fury and frustration."

"Are you sure? I mean, are you absolutely positive?" Molly demanded, clutching his arms. "Because it sounds to me like you think you can, can actually defeat him. Kill him," she added in a near whisper.

"The only thing I'm absolutely positive about is that he needs to be erased from existence before he does any more damage than he already has," Sherlock said grimly. "Oh, and that I love you. I am absolutely positive about that, Molly Hooper."

He kissed her, a passionate kiss that Molly felt to the very depths of her soul.

When he lowered his lips to her throat, when she gave the tiniest of nods, he held her close as his fangs pierced the delicate skin, taking only a bare mouthful before pulling regretfully away. He kissed her again, and then, without another word, raised his hands to her throat and did something - Molly was never sure what - that sent her tumbling into unconsciousness.

oOo

"Molly, are you all right!"

John Watson's words - and the touch of his hand on her wrist, on her forehead - brought her back to awareness of the outer world. Slowly she sat up - had John placed her on Sherlock's gurney? - conscious now of the blaring alarms, the flashing red lights, all indicative of some emergency. She blinked up at him, frowning as she realized he'd said something else. "Sorry, what?"

"How much blood did he take?" John repeated, the hand on her forehead now brushing against the twin pinpricks on her throat. "Your color's good," he muttered, peering intently into her eyes. "Pupils look good…"

"He barely took a sip," Molly interrupted, levering herself up on her elbows. " I'm fine. Where is he?"

"Gone."

It took a moment for the word to register, but when it did Molly abruptly surged to a sitting position, shoving John's arm aside as she made to slide off the gurney. "Gone where?" she demanded as her feet hit the floor. She wobbled a bit, but shook her head when John tried to guide her to the room's single chair. "Gone where, John?" she demanded.

"We were really hoping you could tell us that," John admitted, running agitated fingers through his short crop of hair. "He broke out of here," he indicated the door, halfway off its hinges, "Stole an unbelievable amount of blood from the blood storage, then incapacitated two guards and a couple of interns who tried stopping him. To top it off, he smashed through the glass doors like they were made of bloody balsa wood, then vanished. Mycroft has soldiers out searching for him now."

"He's looking for Moriarty."

Molly's quiet words stopped John in his tracks. He'd been pacing, muttering imprecations under his breath, but turned to face her in astonishment. "Moriarty's dead, Mycroft dropped a bomb - and an entire bloody country house! - on him."

Molly shook her head tiredly. "He's not. Sherlock says he can still feel him." She mimed the same gestures Sherlock had, indicating head and gut. "He's alive, and Sherlock's gone to, to kill him. For real this time."

Or possibly to be killed himself, but she kept that thought to herself. Just as she kept the memory of his - possibly last - words to herself. While John spoke urgently with Mycroft and feet pounded in the corridor outside the small room, she slowly sank into the chair John had pulled closer to the gurney, hearing Sherlock's voice over and over again, words she prayed she'd hear him speak in person again.

I love you. I am absolutely positive about that, Molly Hooper.

And if he had the gall to go and get himself killed?

Well, she told herself fiercely, he'd just better not. Or she might have to crawl into the depths of hell herself to pull him back to world, to return to the light of day that seemed in such short supply at the moment.


End note: Did you miss me? Sorry for the long delay, but here is (possibly) the penultimate chapter. There might be 2 more but it's nearing the end for sure. Hope you enjoy it, and thank you as always for your encouragement. It means a lot!