Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock or any of the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to write this, just a fan so this fanfiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended.

Say something

Chapter 1

"Ladies, are you ready?", a man in a captain's uniform appeared from the cockpit. Molly and her travel companion nodded at the same time, "Well, then please fasten your seat belts. Five minutes to take off" he added closing the door behind him. Molly sat in her seat while the other woman took care of tightening the belt around the waist of the child sitting on the right side of the private jet plane.

She glanced out the window captivated by the airport lights which, against the dark cold winter night, reminded her of the enigmatic games of when she was a child where she had to connect the dots together to give shape to a figure. Molly leaned her against her seat's backrest, trying to relax and giving a loving smile to the little boy who tried to persuade his mother to let him see two entire episodes of his favourite cartoon.

"You don't seem happy to go home, auntie Molly" said the little one, diverting his attention from the laptop's screen and looking at her curiously with his big and very blue eyes, "Are you worried your fiancé is upset because you didn't go home three months ago but stayed here longer?" he asked her with his little serious face.

Molly blushed visibly as the other woman hid a chuckle behind a fake throat clearing, "I don't have a fiancé, Sean" she answered in the most neutral tone of voice she was capable of, and turning a look of silent reproach to the woman who, after sitting in front of her, continued to give her roguish little smiles.

"Of course you have one, auntie!" the boy insisted. She was not his aunt, but the bond developed between them over the past few months was such, that neither Molly nor his mother displeased the affectionate nickname with which he addressed her.

"Isn't your fiancé the man with dark curly hair who video calls you on Facetime?", if possible Molly blushed even more and the little boy's mother nearly chocked on her own saliva, "No, Sean. He's not my fiancé. Sherlock is my best friend" she was quick to answer as the jet began to roll on the tarmac, "Just my best friend, nothing more" she repeated firmly.

Sean fell silent and reached out to grab his mother's hand, frightened by the jet taking-off and Molly sighed deeply as she turned her gaze out the window again, watching the lights of Baltimore's city grow dimmer as the jet gained altitude.

Finally she was on her way home. Yes, finally. But going home meant getting out of the limbo in which she had lived for the past six months. That's why she was torn apart by conflicting feelings. One part of her was happy to go back to her life, to Bart's, to her friends and to her goddaughter. She couldn't wait to hug her little Rosie again. But there was another part of her, more intimate and deeper, that felt anxious to see Sherlock in flesh and blood after all that time.

She had left four months after Sherrrinford's events, and although their friendship had had enough time to heal and rebuild itself, there was still something important pending between them. In all their post Sherrinford's talks, the real and deep meaning of the three words Sherlock's sister, Eurus, had forced them to say had never been openly faced.

Molly knew that sooner or later they would have to deal with the subject. How much longer was it possible to pretend that nothing had been said? She shifted uncomfortably in her seat trying to keep her mind in line, but inevitably it flew back to the night those words were spoken.

Molly was picked up in the middle of the night from her flat by Mycroft himself, "You can't stay here, Miss Hooper. Everything will be explained to you, but now we have to go". She was not given time to change from pyjamas to trousers and sweater, just to put on her green jacket and sneakers. Then she was taken, despite her vibrant complain, to a small flat in the south of London.

Once there Mycroft told her she would spend the night there for her own safety. To her confused and questioning look, he replied pointing to the table in the small kitchen and placing a laptop on it, "I know you are mad at Sherlock…but things have happened today you are not aware of" he told her in a very serious tone.

"I don't want to justify my brother, but he did what he did to save your life. Someone" he cleared his throat, "Our sister, she put video cameras in your flat and threatened to blow you up" she gaped at him, "Sister? Sherlock has never mentioned a sister…" he took a deep breath, "My fault for that. I made sure he doesn't remember her…soon you will understand why".

Mycroft pointed his finger at the laptop's screen, "There is a video uploaded there which clarifies Sherlock's behaviour" he looked Molly straight in the eye, "I warn you… there are very strong images, but they will help you understand and, I hope, to forgive my little brother", he went to the door "It's up to you, Miss Hooper…I've to go. There are two guards out here. Sherlock will be here shortly".

After Mycroft left she stood for a few minutes undecided what to do. She told herself it was not Mycroft's habit to clear his little brother so something serious must have really happened. Something that could explain that devastating phone call Sherlock had made her a few hours earlier in which he had insistently asked her to say the words 'I love you' and which, although she had managed to get him to say them first, left Molly saddened, humiliated and angry at him.

So she sat down and with her heart in her throat and trembling hands, she pressed the play button. Despite the horror of the images flowing in front of her, Molly couldn't take her eyes off the screen. She watched with growing grief and despair the experiments, the emotional torture or rather the vivisection, as Sherlock himself had defined it, to which Eurus Holmes had involved her two brothers and John Watson in. In the end she, who was no hysterical crying woman, could not stop the tears flowing from her eyes as if a dam had broken.

Molly had put the tea kettle on the stove like an automaton unable stopping to play again and again in her head what she had just seen. The governor's suicide and his wife's murder, the Garrideb brothers dangling on the cliff and then murdered, the coffin arranged to her, Eurus' last test…'Holmes killing Holmes', Jim Moriarty's face flashed up every now and then. They kept to follow one another as in fast forward motion.

In particular Sherlock's face. It was as if she had it there in front of her eyes. It was as if she could catch all the expressions that had crossed his face, especially during that forced call. His awareness the moment he had said the second 'I love you' that she knew, in the depths of her soul, to be true and sincere as proved by the way he had destroyed her coffin with his bare hands.

But what Molly just couldn't erase from her mind was the sight of Sherlock pressing the pistol muzzle's end under his chin and started the countdown to kill himself, thus refusing to submit to the will of his sister who required him to choose who between Mycroft, his brother by blood bond, or John, his brother by bond of affection and friendship, leave alive.

She leaned against the cabinet and grabbed its edge catching hold of it so tightly that her knuckles turned white. The very idea of him dead, that she might never see him again, lose him permanently even as a friend, without having been able to speak to him one last time, made her feel bad emotionally and physically.