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Author's Note: Review, comment, recommend! I'm so glad you guys are enjoying Sherlock and Molly's journey!


"Molly?" Sherlock walked into the living room after 20 minutes, clearly having deduced that she shouldn't be taking that long in the loo, "you ok? Are you in pain?" he looked instantly alarmed, and she realized he'd seen the tears streaming down her face. He took the room in three large steps, faltering slightly as if he'd wanted to sit next to her but stopped himself, choosing instead to stand in front of her with the coffee table serving as a barrier between them.

"I'm fine," she swiped at the tears on her face, "just wish Mary was here."

"Me too," he said in a quiet voice. Guilt reared its ugly head as she realized she'd basically said she'd wished he had died instead of Mary, the very same idea that had driven him to near madness and suicide. She wanted to apologize, to tell him that she hadn't meant it that way, she wanted to take any pain that her words might have caused, even if he didn't take the wrong implication.

But she stayed quiet, "what do you want?" she finally asked, exasperated.

"To talk. Just talk," he repeated, laughing slightly, "I feel like we just had this conversation."

"Bored already?" she rolled her eyes at him, putting the frame back on the table. "It took what, two days? What are you gonna do now, run off? Find your friend Higgins or Wiggins or whatever the hell his name is and push needles full of poison into yourself because you tried to talk to me for two whole days?"

He swallowed, pressing his mouth into a tight line, "no," he answered in a small voice, "I'm not giving up on us so easily."

"Oooh, right," she nodded thoughtfully, sinking herself deeper into the couch, crossing her legs and arms, closing her body off completely from him as rage and hurt built and built, "that's right. I'm so sorry. I forgot I was the one that walked away that first time. Remember, when we were making love? And I was in front of you, on my knees? All this time, I thought I'd been the one scuttle away. Sorry."

"I…I was the one that walked away Molly," his jaw ticked as he clenched it, "I've changed since then."

She nodded thoughtfully, pursing her lips in a thoughtful gesture, "right. You're right there too. You promised me…" she swallowed against the tears that welled up again, "you promised me you'd never leave me, that you'd stay with me no matter what, you'd protect me from the dark. I must've sustained some brain damage during my operation because I actually trusted you. You swore up and down that you'd changed. So that was my fault too. Should've known better."

"Molly," he rubbed his face, dropping into the armchair, "what can I do? What can I say to prove…to prove to you that I'm not who I was."

She laughed, her voice was shrill, with just a hint of hysteria, "there's nothing you can do Sherlock. I've been a fool, I should've walked away from you a long time ago."

"Then I would've died a long time ago," his voice was soft.

"I would still have my soul," she told him quietly. They sat in a silence for a few minutes before Molly started chuckling, "you know what's truly insane about us? About this? I still love you Sherlock, even after everything you've done, I still love you. And I always will, that's not a secret. But what kind of love is it that I have to be on the brink of death and destruction in order for you to remember that you love me? I keep imagining what it'll be like, every time we quarrel, or I feel like you're not giving me enough attention, I'll start jumping in front of buses or pestering serial killers, risking my life to remind you that you love me. Like that daft girl from those horrid vampire movies, trying to kill herself so her boyfriend would talk to her," she met his gaze, "I may not be normal but I still want some normalcy in my life, some self-respect. And my lover needing me to be on the brink of death is abnormal even by our standards."

He ran his fingers through his hair, gripping it and pulling in that familiar gesture of frustration, as if he was trying to get his brain to work, "it's not like that anymore Molly. I've been working on it, I've been…talking to people about how to love without…without going to pieces over it. It's hard," he cleared his throat, "it's…I have no control over myself, Molly. It's like the moment I realized I've been in love with you all these years, you were handed this…this remote that is linked to my every thought, every emotion, ever whim. Everything I've ever been lives outside myself now. You control everything. And it's terrifying."

Molly listened to his words, his tone, the sincerity in his declaration that threatened to overwhelm her. She raised her eyebrow instead, "who've you been talking to? Oprah?"

Sherlock laughed weakly, "my Molly," he sighed, "mostly my parents, actually, and John, and a uhm," he cleared his throat, "a therapist that my brother found. It's not working of course, all we do is talk in circles about feelings and Freud and abandonment issues. But…" he shrugged, "she specializes in people struggling with substance abuse who have experienced some sort of childhood trauma."

"You told her about…about Redbeard?" she asked.

He nodded silently, "she's also given me ways to distract myself when I get the urge to…to use," he rubbed the back of his neck, "I drink coffee by the pot now, but I've gotten down to only two nicotine patches a day, and caffeine isn't as dangerous, just makes me hyper, and the world's best babysitter."

"What about your parents?" she asked him quietly, "what have they been telling you?"

Sherlock stood up, walking around the living room with his hands stuffed into his pockets "mostly telling me about what I was like as a child, before…everything happened," he let out a breath, forcing himself to say the words, "before Victor was…killed. Apparently, I was as emotional as Mycroft has always claimed. With an affinity for causing trouble," he smiled ruefully, walking to the mantel, fidgeting with the framed photo of John, Mary, and Rosie the day they'd brought their baby home from the hospital. "I was also a cuddler," he laughed, and suddenly Molly imagined him as a chubby little boy with those bright, mischievous eyes and a mop of curly black hair, "I remember that bit now, just crawling into one of their laps, reading a book or just listening to them talk," he chuckled again, "I remember I would sit next to Mycroft on those rare occasions we watched telly, and he'd be so annoyed because I would always lay my head on his shoulder. Even with Eurus…I always tried to hug her but," he shrugged, "she never responded well to that."

Molly waited until he was facing away from her to quickly swipe away at the tears that had started leaking down her cheeks again, "what else do you remember?" she prodded gently, unable to keep herself quiet.

"There was this one incident that…that Eurus told me about, at Sherrinford. I'd forced myself to forget," he walked back to sit on the sofa again, "it was Christmas. We were in the nursery, at Musgrave. Mum and dad were downstairs, Mycroft was reading or something in the next room, so the two of us were alone. She was drawing and I was just minding myself, playing with my new toys. It was pretty late at night, we kids were allowed to stay up later than usual as a treat," he paused then, looking up straight into her eyes, "I swear to you Molly, I have spent these past few months trying to remember what she did, but I can't. I just remember screaming, and screaming so loudly that my throat was torn up for weeks afterwards, I remember that part well. Mostly because I tasted blood in the back of my throat," he shook his head.

"What happened?"

"I just remember Mycroft and our parents rushing into the room. I remember Mycroft grabbing me and lifting me away from her, my father running into the room and subduing Eurus, my mother caught somewhere in the middle," he rubbed his forehead, "I remember her asking my sister what she'd been doing to me, why she'd been making me scream. And Eurus said that she thought she'd been making me laugh," he shrugged, "I still can't remember what she was doing."

Sherlock had never talked about his sister with her. The conversations they had had were woefully lacking in detail. She never dared press him about it, and always hoped that if he needed to talk about something to do with his sister, he knew to just mention it to her. She had relied on blind faith in his love for her, and she'd lost more times than she could count. But the fact that he was making the effort to tell her such horrendous stories, giving her even more power over his heart…she was astonished.

"Were you high, that night you came to my flat? When I was released from the hospital?" the question had been haunting her, tormenting her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw how tender he'd been, how sweetly he'd loved her that night. Thinking that he'd been high…it eviscerated her.

"Yes," his voice was a soft whisper, and he refused to meet her gaze.

"I'm not in control of myself either you know," she told him softly after absorbing the information, "you've been holding my remote longer than you're even aware," he looked stricken at her soft words, leaning forwards as if trying to absorb them, "my every happiness depends on you Sherlock. But that's what love is isn't it? That's what a relationship is. Your heart living outside your body, and you walk around day after day with the knowledge that you can be destroyed with a single word by a single person. You walk around knowing that you're having the shittiest day possible, but with one text, one single person can make all of that disappear. Your heart's safe Sherlock, it was always safe with me. I've been more careful of your emotions and sensibilities than I have been with my own. And look what it's gotten me," she sighed.

"Look what it's gotten me," he said ruefully, "pushing away the only worthwhile thing in my life like a bloody coward."

She chuckled, "I don't think I have the patience to try anymore," she told him frankly, "I'm just so tired of trying, and trying, and trying, with you just…sitting there, not lifting a finger. When you came to me that night, you were such a comfort Sherlock, I don't think I can ever put into words how much I needed that. But I also needed you to stay with me the next day, I needed you to hold my hand when Lestrade told me they'd caught…him. Christ," she breathed, "you think it's hard for you to feel vulnerable with me? Imagine what it's been like for me, to put myself on the line knowing what you're like. And be proven right, every. Single. Time."

"Christ," he echoed her, burying his face in his hands, pressing his palms into his eyeballs, "what have I done," he murmured so softly that she convinced herself that she had imagined it.

"Being in love just isn't enough Sherlock," she told him softly, "you can't just pick and choose if you want the bad bits or the good bits of it all. You have to take everything as it is, as it comes to you. And if that love is strong enough," she shrugged, "it can overcome it all."

"Help me become strong enough then," when he looked up at her, his eyes were luminous, a neon shade of turquoise that burned through her, "I think I'm ready now. I think I can be strong enough now."

She shook her head, curling into herself even more, "I can't take that chance, not again," Molly sniffed, "I don't think there's enough of me left to try."

"Molly…" his mouth moved without sound, and he ended up with his head bent, covering his face with his hands.

They stayed in silence for endless heartbeats, each lost in their thoughts, in the hurt that they had inflicted on each other. Molly watched him, waiting for the old Sherlock to emerge, and run out of the room, too assaulted and uncomfortable with everything that was being said in the room, that had been discussed. But he didn't, he surprised her by remaining there in the room with her, unmoving but there.

The stupidest thing she could do in her life, in that moment, was give Sherlock another chance, to give him the power to hurt her again, the same way he'd done. She honestly didn't have anything left in her to give, didn't think she could survive being abandoned by him again.

But wasn't she being a hypocrite, telling him that it was ok for love to hurt, for it to be hard and imperfect, that you couldn't take the good without bad…and abandon their love just because she was scared and broken?

She looked at the man sitting across from her, his body language resolute. She took note of the fact that he looked healthier than she'd ever seen him before, more receptive, and aware of the world around him. He wasn't exactly a social butterfly, having spent most of the party with the children and avoiding the adults, but when he did interact with the adults, he was less…selfish. Kinder, willing to listen, engaging even. Quicker to flash a genuine smile that lit up his entire face.

Molly felt dizzy, and felt as if she stood on some sort of precipice, precariously poised between taking a step back into safety where she would never know what her future with Sherlock held. Or take the plunge, and find pleasure in the freefall. Or land with a splatter on the pavement.

The analogy disturbed her slightly, recalling the fall she'd helped him orchestrate, faking his death. That had been the first time she'd seen Sherlock vulnerable, as helpless as he'd ever gotten up to that point. But he had improved even from then...she remembered the multiple occasions before that where he'd hurt her feelings, where he'd acted with arrogant cruelty born of his ignorance. She recalled the millions of times before that fateful Christmas where he'd said nasty things to her that her left her bleeding and cut. But that Christmas, when he'd apologized to her…the journey of the man before her had started out with that apology, all those years ago.

He was a man broken by the world around him, shattered at an early age, forced to contain himself in a cocoon that sheltered the child inside him that had been hurt so badly. He was a man capable of great love, unselfish love but didn't possess the tools that would help him give that love without destroying himself.

She was a woman from an ordinary world, an ordinary life, thrust into an extraordinary situation, with an extraordinary man. The extraordinary situations tested her beyond her capabilities but she somehow walked away with a few bumps and bruises, proving to herself that she was stronger than she knew.

She was Atlas reincarnated as a pathologist, in love with a sociopath.

Molly Hooper took a deep breath, saying a quick prayer before standing up, wincing slightly as her skin pulled in her chest. She walked over to him, and stepped off the ledge.

She ran her hand silently through his hair and he shuttered, "if you do anything stupid, if you leave me again Sherlock Holmes, I swear to God you will wake up from a deep sleep to find yourself dissolving in a vat of lye."

Sherlock looked up at her with a shocked expression, gripping her wrist in his hand as his breath exploded in a chuckle he couldn't contain, not bothering to hide the tears that suddenly flooded his eyes. He kissed the inside of her wrist, "understood."


Author's Note: Just a few replies-

Special shout out to the Tumblr homies that have been putting up with my random posts on my blog, basically chronicling this monstrosity that has taken over my life.

Kag09: I read your review and my first thought was "well, if Sherlock rubbed my ankles...I'd just boom, take off my clothes" but that's just me. Molly's stronger.

ISolemnlySwear2: I swear your comments make my life SO much better...I think I've written certain portions of this just looking for your reaction, thank you times a million billion for sticking with this little piece of Sherlolly. As for Janine, I really really like her for some reason! I had no plans on bringing her into Her Midnight Man but she kinda snuck up on me.

ohgodbenny: Your reviews/comments are some of the ones that I really always look forward to! I literally wrote the first few paragraphs of "More News From Nowhere" thinking that you would be the one to start sputtering...I love your reactions, and I love love love your honesty, and thank you sincerely for sticking with this fic.

I have a few lovely guest(s) that always review and I want to thank you as well for your comments!