Hello my lovely readers! This is the fifth and final chapter of Firelight! I want to thank each and everyone of you who have read, reviewed, favorited, and followed this fic! You all have made my little writing heart so happy with all of your kind words!
As always, a hugh shoutout to forthegenuine for her amazing beta skills, without you girl, I would be lost. And to mollyhooperish for her never ending support. I dedicated this fic to the two of you xoxo.
Any mistakes that may appear are my own, and in no way relfect the skills of my beta.
Firelight
Chapter 5
Sherlock stood in front of the rattling door in his mind palace again. Delving into his mind palace always seemed to result in him ending up in front of the same plain redwood door. He stood there for ages, long enough that the occupant of the room had finally stopped trying to get out. Sherlock could smell the faint traces of formaldehyde and just a hint of rosemary and mint that seemed to always linger around this particular door.
"Are you going to stand there forever, or are you going to face the music?" came Mary's voice from behind him.
Sherlock turned. Mary was looking at him, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth. She looked just as she did the day she had died.
"What am I supposed to say?" Sherlock asked the ghost of his friend, his voice sounding hopeless and lost.
"Now, no reason to sound so utterly defeated, Sherlock," Mary teased.
"John says I'm running away from it," He told her.
"John is smarter than he looks," Mary smiled.
"Yes, he is," Sherlock agreed, grinning back at her. "I have to keep her safe." He said more seriously.
"What better way to do that than to be close to her?" Mary asked him, raising an eyebrow.
"I can't lose her, Mary," Sherlock said, his voice in his mind palace betraying the hurt he felt in his heart.
"We both know what kind of life this is, Sherlock. John knew it when he found out about my past but he stayed anyway. He knew the risks. And so does Molly." Mind-palace-Mary told him, offering a comforting smile. "So why deny yourself the happiness you know she could bring?"
Sherlock turned back to the door in front of him. He knew what he had to do. What he must do.
Reaching a hand out, Sherlock grasped the handle of the heavy redwood door, and turned the handle.
Sherlock was pacing a hole right into the floor of 221B. What he wouldn't give for a cigarette!
No! He thought. She would be able to smell it.
He paced back and forth, muttering to himself. His hair was standing up in all directions where he had been raking his hands through it in frustration. With every turn, his dressing gown would flutter behind him, the edges coming precariously close to the flames roaring in the fireplace.
Mrs. Hudson walked in the door, carrying a tray holding Sherlock's morning tea.
"She would smell it!" Sherlock muttered out loud, making Mrs. Hudson jump.
"Are you okay Sherlock?" she asked, pouring his tea.
Sherlock continued to pace and mutter, giving no indication that he neither saw nor heard his landlady come into the room.
"Need to know…her schedule…Bart's….off…" He continued.
Mrs. Hudson took a closer look at her tenant. She noticed how wild his eyes looked, his hair mussed from his shaking fingers repeatedly combing through and yanking at it. He was perspiring slightly, but Mrs. Hudson wondered if it was from his relentless pacing so close to the fire, or from something worse.
"Sherlock Holmes, are you high again?!" Mrs. Hudson asked, placing her hands on her hips.
Without pausing in his pacing, Sherlock lifted an arm and pointed to the door.
"OUT," he barked.
"Oh, you will answer for this, young man!" she said, hurrying out of the room and down the stairs.
Once safely inside 221A, Mrs. Hudson picked up her phone and dialed John's number.
"Hello?" came John's voice down the line.
"Oh, John! You have to get over here, I think Sherlock is using again! He won't stop pacing and he looks mad!" Mrs. Hudson cried desperately over the phone.
Sherlock opened the redwood door, and walked into the one room in his mind palace he had been avoiding lately.
Looking around the brightly colored room, he realized just how much it reflected it's occupant. Bright splashes of color adorned the walls, a colorful striped duvet was folded on the back of a bright yellow sofa, a wooden desk littered with files stood in one corner, and a bench full of lab equipment took up one whole side. He noticed the mantle on the back wall, flames dancing merrily in the grate, the firelight causing warm shadows to dance on the wall behind the only other piece of furniture in the room. His eyes came to rest on the small woman who was seated comfortably on a cherry pattered armchair in the center of the room.
She was dressed as he usually saw her, beige slacks, colorful blouse and a loose fitting jumper with a child-like pattern across it. Her dark auburn hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, and a small smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"Molly," Sherlock breathed.
"What is he doing?" John asked Mrs. Hudson when he arrived at Baker Street.
"He's been pacing and muttering for two hours!" the older woman exclaimed, her voice just above a whisper, as they made their way upstairs. "He had the nerve to order me out of the flat, and I was just bringing him his morning tea! I am so worried about him, John."
John hummed in agreement. "I have no idea where he would've gotten anything. He's been under constant supervision in some form or another between Mycroft and all of us," he whispered.
John and Mrs. Hudson were standing shoulder to shoulder, peaking through a crack in the door that lead into 221B. John could hear Sherlock muttering as he gestured wildly with his hands and raked them through his hair every so often. John caught words like "Bart's" "Understand" "You" and-
"Did he just say 'Molly'?" John asked, shocked.
"Molly," Sherlock breathed, drinking in the sight of the small pathologist.
"Sherlock," she replied.
His mind palace had captured her voice perfectly, he thought.
"I don't know what to do," he admitted to her, dropping to his knees in front of his mind's reflection of the woman who mattered most. "I don't know what to say to you, how to explain myself." Sherlock dropped his head into his hands. "I can't lose you, Molly Hooper. You matter most, surely you must know that?"
He felt her small fingers in his hair, smoothing the curls back into place. "Oh Sherlock, how am I supposed to know how you feel when you keep yourself so closed off from everyone?" She replied in her soft voice.
Sherlock leaned into her touch, his forehead coming to rest on her knees. "Alone is what I have, alone is what protects me."
He had repeated that same line countless times, but wasn't sure if he even believed it anymore, wondering exactly who he was trying to convince.
"And what about me, Sherlock?" Mind-palace-Molly asked him, her fingers still softly carding through his hair.
"Alone is what protects you." He told her.
"You know that isn't true." She moved her hand to his jaw, guiding his face so he was looking at her now. There was a knowing smile on her face, and a glint in her warm eyes.
Sherlock opened the door to the landing so suddenly that Mrs. Hudson and John Watson almost fell through it.
"Oh, hello," Sherlock said, winding his scarf around his neck. "I have to go out. It's very important, and I won't be back until late."
He brushed past them, his long wool coat billowing behind him as he flew down the stairs.
"Where do you think he's going?" Mrs. Hudson asked, her hand at her throat.
"I think he might be going to finally get his head out of his arse," John chuckled, smiling at his former landlady.
Sherlock knelt on the floor in his mind palace. He was surrounded by a riot of colors and patterns, all reflecting the sunny personality of the woman who sat in front of him, cradling his face in her tiny hands.
"You know that isn't true." She had told him.
Sherlock moved his hands to cover Molly's, marveling at how even in his mind he could feel how soft they were.
"You always see straight through me, Molly Hooper."
"I only see the man you truly are, Sherlock," She said with a warm smile.
"I can't lose you," he repeated, closing his eyes.
"Then don't." Mind-palace-Molly said simply.
"I sent her home, Sherlock." Mike Stamford informed the detective.
Sherlock had burst into the morgue doors, fully expecting to see Molly standing there, and instead found Mike.
"Home?" Sherlock repeated.
"Yeah, she seemed stressed. I told her to take some time off." Mike said, tossing his gloves into the bin and looking at Sherlock.
"Is there anything I can he-" Mike started, but Sherlock was already out the door.
"I don't know how to be what you want me to be." Sherlock said, a frown marring his features.
"Just say it, Sherlock. Say it like you mean it." She told him softly.
"Taxi!" Sherlock yelled once he was back on the pavement in front of Bart's.
Climbing in, Sherlock barked Molly's address to the cabbie and promised a large tip if he could make it there in less than ten minutes.
Sherlock sat back and rubbed his thighs with his sweaty palms, his fingers trembling slightly. He couldn't remember the last time his hands had felt so clammy. He did not know how this encounter was going to end, did not know if Molly would even accept his apology. Or his explanation for that matter.
The only thing Sherlock Holmes knew for sure was that he was nervous.
Sherlock's eyes narrowed a bit. Logically, he knew how his mind palace worked; it was a memory tool, a place to allow him to access and go over information from all sides in the form of "tangible" objects. The people who populated his mind were mere reflections of their real life counterparts. He knew they only responded the way he wanted them to. They only knew however much he knew. So when mind-palace-Molly told him to say those three words, he knew it was his own subconscious instructing him to do so.
But as he looked at Molly Hooper, sitting in a cherry patterned arm chair in her very own room of his mind palace, Sherlock wasn't sure if it was his subconscious telling him what to do, or the pathologist herself.
"Go on," Molly urged, rubbing the pads of her thumbs over his cheekbones.
Sherlock stared at her, taking in her gently smiling mouth, her sparkling brown eyes, small upturned nose. His hands rested on the armchair, on either side of her thighs, and her small hands were still running smoothly across his high cheekbones. He could feel the warmth of the fire making its way under the armchair to swirl around his knees, and the warmth of her hands on his face, and suddenly it didn't matter if this was all in his head or if it was real. It didn't matter if he prepared a speech detailing exactly what happened on that cold, rain-swept island that day, or if a large metaphorical target was now painted on this woman's back, he knew what he must do.
He lifted his hands from where they rested beside her legs and placed them on either side of her face, his long fingers almost touching behind her head and looked into the eyes of this reflection of the real person.
He opened his mouth, a slight grin tugging up one corner of his lips, and said…
Sherlock stood in front of a redwood door, and raised his hand to knock, thinking how his mind had recreated this same door exactly in his head, right down to the scratches on the handle from numerous keys being shoved into the lock, and the dents near the bottom from various pieces of furniture being moved in and out of the flat over the years.
Sherlock could hear the flat's occupant moving about, could sense their movement behind the door as they peered through the peephole to see who was on the other side, and as he heard the lock slide back, he took a deep breath.
She opened the door, wearing a pair of old flannel pajamas with pictures of cats all over them, and a t-shirt that was far too large for her frame. Sherlock noticed her bare feet and mussed hair, her eyes red from crying and the tearstains on the neck of her shirt. His heart shuddered in his chest, the knowledge that he was the cause of those tears made guilt and shame claw their way up his throat. But behind all of this information, another thought, from the far recesses of his mind palace slowly sauntered it's way to the front: She still looked beautiful.
"What do you want, Sherlock?" Molly asked, her tone sounding defeated, her eyes not quite meeting his.
Sherlock's heart gave that strange shudder again, and the guilt and shame that was swirling through his tall frame caused his throat to constrict.
"Ahem," he tried clearing his throat.
Molly just glanced at him, puzzled.
"Sherlock?" she prompted. "If you are just going to stand there than you can just turn around and make yo-"
"It's all true." He cut her off.
She finally made eye contact at that, her mouth still open from her unfinished sentence. Sherlock saw confusion, realization, and then anger all flicker across her face before hurt settled in her eyes. She clenched her jaw and her brows furrowed over her tear filled eyes.
"Please don't try to lie to me, Sherlock," she whispered.
"You know I can't, Molly Hooper," He said softly. "You always see right through me."
"That's why I asked you not to insult me by trying to lie," Molly pointed out, her face hardening slightly.
Sherlock's eyebrows rose slightly in surprise, then drew together in sorrow. His mind raced, going back over the conversation he had had with mind-palace-Molly and did the only thing he could think of doing that would make her listen, and blurted out what she had instructed him to say in his mind.
"I love you."
Thank you all again for reading! I will be back soon with the conclusion to the light-verse series with Sunlight! Be on the lookout!
I can be found on tumblr and AO3 as ladycumberbunny