Hello my dear readers! My most sincere apologies for the long wait! Real life happens sometimes, and tends to get in the way. BUT! Here is the newest chapter of "Firelight"!

As always, massive shoutouts and thanks to the lovely forthegenuine for her amazing beta skills and encouragement. Without her, this fic would not be readable to anyone. And another massive thank you to the fantastic mollyhooperish for her unfailing encouragement and praise. You both are lifesavers.

Firelight

Chapter 4

Sherlock Holmes sat in his favorite chair in the partially reconstructed 221B Baker Street, hands placed palm to palm and fingertips resting on his lips. His mobile lay on the small table beside the chair, silent, the battery long since dead. A cup of cold tea sat to the right of the phone, forgotten hours earlier.

Sherlock sat mostly in the dark, not bothering to move from his position to turn on the lamps as the sun set, the glow from the fire in the grate the only illumination in the room. The flames threw dark shadows across the consulting detectives Victorian-esque face, causing the circles under his eyes to deepen, giving him a haunted, archaic look. He stared, unseeing, into the dusky kitchen, lost in his mind palace.

He stood outside the same rattling door as before, staring at the expanse of deep red wood in front of him. He knew logically that what was behind the door was just a construct of his mind- a ghost of the real person- a reflection. Yet she felt real. He could "feel" her anger and sorrow emanating through the smooth wood, soaking into his skin and branding his heart. A heart he was still desperately trying to ignore. Placing his hand on the brass handle, he was surprised when it stopped rattling, as if the handle along with the petite woman on the other side held their breath.

"You know you must talk to her, little brother," came Mycroft's voice from behind him.

Sherlock turned, brow furrowing. "Get out of my head, brother mine," he half growled, turning back to the door in front of him.

"Mycroft's right, you know," said another voice.

Sherlock glanced over his shoulder, sighed, and turned back to the door, his head now hanging.

"Not you, too, John," he said quietly.

"Well, maybe then you'll listen to someone smart," came a cheeky reply.

Sherlock's head snapped up and he spun on his heels to face the owner of the one voice that had been silent for far too long in his mind.

The hallway was now empty save for the small blonde woman before him. She was wearing the same purple dress she had worn to the restaurant where Sherlock had sprung his surprise return on John, interrupting his proposal. She smiled widely at him, her eyes twinkling with the same mischief he had grown so used to seeing while she was alive.

"Mary," he breathed.

Sherlock forced himself out of his mind palace and landed harshly back in reality, sweating slightly. He leaned his head on the back of the chair for a moment, dragging his hands over his face before leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, palms placed on either side of his head, fingers tugging at his hair.

Even his brain wouldn't give him a break today. The offensive grey matter insisted on conjuring up all manner of things he neither needed nor wanted to deal with at the moment.

Sherlock had walked around the dark streets of London for hours when he had left Molly's, stopping every so often at newsstands to buy yet another pack of cigarettes. Guilt clawed at his stomach with every purchase, Molly's disapproving face appearing in blinding clarity in his mind every time he lit one. He supposed nicotine was a better indulgence than to give into the itch beneath the flesh of his arm at the moment.

He made it to Baker Street just as dawn approached, and let himself into the flat, treading carefully so he wouldn't wake Mrs. Hudson. With any luck, she would think he was still out god-knows-where, doing god-knows-what, and he would get some much needed time to think things through.

Especially since holing up in Molly's bedroom was out of the question now.

Throwing his Belstaff and suit jacket onto John's old chair, Sherlock sank into his own chair, running a hand through his hair. He pulled his mobile out of his trouser pocket and placed it on the table before he went to make himself a cup of tea.

Just as he was stirring in the milk, he heard his mobile buzz with an incoming text. Sherlock knew exactly who it was.

As he sat down in his chair, sipping his tea and studiously ignoring his buzzing mobile, Sherlock envisioned the scene that had played out at Molly's flat after he had snuck out.

He knew she would wake around dawn, her internal clock so used to early shifts at the morgue. She would roll over to find the other side of the bed empty, and notice his jacket and shoes gone from the vanity. Molly would then make her way through her flat, looking for him, and she would find the note he had scribbled hastily on his way out the door.

I am sorry, Molly Hooper. Thank you for everything. –SH

She would then scramble back to her bedroom and pick her mobile up from her nightstand, and start texting him. Sherlock looked at his watch. Molly was texting him fourteen minutes sooner than he had anticipated.

Setting his half full teacup down next to his phone, Sherlock delved back into his mind palace, oblivious to the passage of time around him. That was where John found him as dusk was settling, sitting in his chair, a cup of cold tea and a dead phone next to him.

John wondered how he wasn't freezing, glancing at the fireplace that now held nothing but embers.

"What do you want, John?" Sherlock asked, not moving his eyes from the shadowy kitchen.

"To know why the hell you have been ignoring Molly all day," John said gruffly, moving Sherlock's Belstaff and suit jacket to sit down in his own chair.

Sherlock tore his eyes away from his study of the dark kitchen at the mention of Molly's name. Contacting John was something he had not anticipated Molly would do. Damned emotions, slowing down his brain and making him overlook simple things like this.

Sherlock sighed, folding his hands in his lap. Guilt swirled in his chest. He knew Molly would want answers, and he knew he had to give them to her.

"Molly said you came over last night," John started, narrowing his eyes at Sherlock.

"Yes," Sherlock replied, looking into the glowing embers that were left in the fireplace.

"Did you talk to her?" John asked, moving to sit in his old armchair.

"We…spoke," Sherlock said evasively, scratching at the crook of his arm.

"About?" John prompted, starting to get annoyed at his friend's attempt to evade the conversation.

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably in his chair, looking everywhere but at John. What he wouldn't have given at that moment to lose himself in the sweet relief of a hit, to drown his memories of the last couple of months in a liquid solution coursing its way through his veins.

"My god," John said softly, realization dawning on his face. "You're running away from this, aren't you?"

"What do I have to run away from?" Sherlock asked incredulously, scrunching his shoulders and letting them drop as he said it, as if he didn't really care for the answer.

"From Molly," said John with a short huff of laughter. "You are running away from happiness."

John stared at Sherlock for few moments, his mouth slightly open. Sherlock dared a glance at him, and then let his eyes shift back to studying John's shoes.

"Did nothing I said to you sink in?" John suddenly burst out, jumping to his feet and pointing an accusing finger in Sherlock's face. "You have found the one woman on this planet that loves you for you, not because you are a clever famous detective, or because she's bored or wants something from you. You know full well that Molly Hooper can put up with all of your ridiculous idiosyncrasies; she has been doing it for years, and she accepts them! You know that she would never try to change you, hell, she encourages your more insane habits, like body parts in the fridge and experiments all over the kitchen table! And you are running away from it."

Sherlock sat staring at the floor, letting John's words sink in. He knew John was right, and that made the whole thing all the more uncomfortable. He remembered with perfect clarity John's speech to him in this very room, just a few weeks ago, when Irene had sent him the birthday greeting and John had told him to go and get a piece of his own happiness before he lost it. But the dominatrix was not the first person to come waltzing through his mind palace at that statement.

"You are making a mistake, Sherlock, and you are going to regret it. Love like Molly Hooper has for you is incredibly strong, but even the greatest love can turn bitter when it keeps getting shot down," John said, shaking his head and running a hand over his face.

"No, John," Sherlock said quietly, still staring at the carpet. "The only mistake to be made lies within me telling Molly how I truly feel." Sherlock raised his face.

John raised his eyebrows, disbelief written all over his face. He dropped back into his chair with a dejected sigh.

"Sherlock-,"

"No, John!" Sherlock cut him off. "Don't you see? Molly has been used against me since the beginning! Before I even had the slightest thought of mere friendship with her, let alone feelings! My brother tried to get her to spy on me, and she refused. Moriarty saw that we worked together, and pretended to like her just to get close to me, but she was clever and broke it off with him. Insignificant Molly Hooper broke up with the greatest criminal mastermind of the era! And Eurus! Look what she did! Two of my own siblings and a criminal mastermind, using an unassuming, quiet pathologist just to destroy me! And Molly wouldn't have any of it. She has already done so much to keep me safe, to help me whenever I have needed it. She would insist on the relationship, and it would work because of all of the things you said, but it would also make her an even bigger target." Sherlock was breathing heavy, his anger causing his voice to raise to near shouting. He was leaning forward in his chair, glaring at the retired army doctor sitting across from him.

After a moment of labored breathing, Sherlock hung his head, resting his elbows on his knees and bringing his hands up to grip his hair.

"Telling Molly Hooper the truth is the same thing as signing her death certificate." Sherlock said in a hollow voice, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I can't allow that to happen to her, John. I will not allow my own selfishness to destroy her."

John sat staring at his best friend, dumbfounded. Sherlock leaned back in his chair, resting his head on the back of it and glared at the ceiling.

He refused to be the reason Molly's life was snuffed out. He had already been the cause of one death of someone he cared about due to his own selfish desire to do what he wanted. He wouldn't let it happen again, especially not to the one person who mattered most to him.

Sherlock would jump off a thousand rooftops, suffer a thousand lifetimes at the hands of Serbian thugs, being tortured for weeks on end without respite, before he allowed any harm to come to Molly Hooper.

"You had better figure out something, Sherlock," John said. "Before you sign your own death certificate."

I promise to update the next chapter much sooner. I can be found on tumblr and AO3 as ladycumberbunny as well.