London provided the perfect weather for heartbreak, Molly sniffled to herself. This could not even accurately be described as drizzle; it was damp air. An umbrella, had she thought to bring one, would have been useless anyway. The wetness crept in around fibre, slowly soaking through the wool scarf and coat. Molly felt like a wet, fashionable sheep. Thank you, Anthea, she thought to herself. Her trusty old, baggy waterproof jacket had no doubt been donated to a charity shop, and Molly was in the mood to see it as a symptom of her life spinning out of her control.

Not another soul wandered through the secret garden in Regent's Park today, not in this weather. It was never crowded anyway, and it had the distinct advantage that she had never told another living soul that this was her favourite spot. Her father had brought her here as a little girl, and she loved the fact that so few people ever bothered to wander down the almost-hidden entranceway and spend time here. She usually came with a book, whenever there was a bit of sunshine, and she often stopped by on the way to Baker Street or on the way back, when she had the time.

She found her blue-grey bench – it had an arched cover and provided a bit of shelter from the almost-rain. She tucked her legs up underneath her, closed her eyes and for the first time in the six weeks since Sebastian Moran had turned her life upside down, Molly thought. She had wanted Sherlock for so long that she had never bothered to question whether finally having him was a good thing or bad. He controlled and manipulated her; the 'marriage' was just the latest example of his deception. Maybe her life hadn't been perfect before, but it had very much been hers. Her apartment, paid for by her job and partially by her father; her friends, most of whom Sherlock had never met; her fucking clothes, which suited her just fine. She could feel her whole self being slowly replaced by Sherlock and his friends and his associates and his enemies; they were shaping her into someone new and unrecognisable. Someone married.

Molly knew she could rationalise this: he had loved her even then, even at the time of his fall, and he had wanted to show her somehow, even if she would only find out in the event of his actual death. She got that.

She missed her Dad, if only because he had only ever wanted what would make her happy. He had been on her team and only hers. Everyone else in her life, Sherlock included, had competing motivations.

Molly leaned back in the bench, hers as much as anyone's, and pulled her wet wool coat more tightly around her. She breathed in and out and gave in to a bit of self-pity. It spiralled for a while, and she cried. She thought about what might make her feel better. She could visit Meena. She could seek out the café and a hot chocolate. With cream. She could disappear from Sherlock for a little while, perhaps. Secret garden or no, he'd probably find her here sooner or later. Footprints in the grass, Mycroft's agents, a GPS tracking device embedded in her arse while she slept, who the hell knew, but there was no way he'd just do as she wished and leave her alone.

Right on cue, she heard squishy footsteps approaching on the marble steps and sodden grass. They stopped in front of her. Molly let out a shuddering breath, unstable from all the crying, but she kept her eyes closed.

"Please go away, Sherlock, there is something deeply unpleasant about always being hunted down. Deduced."

He didn't say anything for a while. If only he would leave, then she could find a bookshop in Marylebone, buy a silly novel, get that hot chocolate… She could hop on a train in Paddington, go all the way to Bristol, book herself into some anonymous hotel room, order room service. She sighed. He'd find her; he'd track her.

"It is cold and wet and you are only 2 days out of hospital," he said. "Please come home. And don't tell me it's my home. It is yours as well."

"No, it's your home, and I need to choose whether to fit myself in around it. Or not."

"Technically, that's not true. When I was dead, it all transferred to you, and it has never transferred back. Mycroft bought 221b after my death and gave it over to my estate. It belongs to you, along with the contents of all my trusts and the rest of my share of the Holmes family properties." Sherlock sank to his knees in the wet grass beneath the bench. "I quite literally belong to you, Molly."

"Then divorce me. I'll give it all back. I don't want 50% or any percent."

Sherlock rubbed his fingers into her coat. "Don't ask that of me," he whispered.

Molly ran her fingers through her hair. She was completely soaked through now. The temperature was cold, but far from freezing, maybe 10C, and Molly doubted her health was being put at serious risk if she stayed another 15 minutes. She imagined that mythical hotel room in Bristol. Or perhaps Bath. She could read Jane Austen and soak in a tub.

"Please come home, Molly," he repeated.

Molly opened her eyes. He was looking at her with complete sincerity, overcome with worry.

"I am sorry, Molly. I am so sorry." He put his head in her lap. She kept her hands firmly in her pockets, away from his hair and face.

"Sorry for what, Sherlock?"

"The marriage. The lies. Every bit of the danger."

Molly let herself look him in the eyes. "If you're sorry about the marriage, then end it. Tell Mycroft to divorce us."

Sherlock gripped more tightly to her coat. "Will you come back to me if I divorce you?"

Molly did not answer the question. "I can't think around you. You want all sorts of answers and concessions and you want all of it while I'm pulled up tight against you, where I can't breathe or think." She felt about her coat pocket and found her debit card. She ran her fingers along the edges; it felt like freedom. "Go home, Sherlock. You'll just have to trust me, that I'll come back when I'm ready."

"Molly, I love you. Please don't leave me."

Molly looked at him. He had her undivided attention. She searched his eyes. "I love you, too, Sherlock. So let me go. Really let me go. Don't come after me. Send me a text when the divorce is finalised, but not before."

Sherlock nodded. He stood up from the grass and sat next to her on the bench. He sunk one hand into the hair at the base of her neck and pulled her towards him. He kissed her and she responded; that was a good sign, he thought.

"I'll do as you've asked," he conceded. "But please don't make me wait too long. You know I'm terrible at it."

Molly kissed him again. "Try harder," she murmured against his lips. The she pulled back, and watched until he left. Molly forced herself to wait for 15 minutes before she left the garden and walked out the park. She arrived at Paddington 20 minutes later, still fiddling with her debit card.

…

Sherlock shut the door to the flat, utterly spent. Everyone had left, except John. Mycroft had offered Mary a ride home with Lizzie, who had had quite enough of her exciting morning out.

"Well, those look like grovelling knees," John said, pointing out the wet grass stains where Sherlock had knelt in the grass next to Molly. "But no wife that I can see. Has she resisted your charms?" John stopped his verbal assault when Sherlock looked at him, and he could see all of his friend's pain and confusion writ large across his face. "Where's Molly?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I'm not sure she's coming back," he confessed.

John sat back in his chair, a cup of coffee perched on his knee, and considered his friend. He motioned towards Sherlock's chair, and Sherlock obligingly walked over to it and sat facing John.

"I have a case for you," John said lightly. "This friend of mine is so hopelessly in love with a woman that he keeps clinging to her like a piece of driftwood in a flood, like he's going to drown if she goes out to buy biscuits by herself."

"Maybe it's not safe for her to buy biscuits by herself," Sherlock spat. "Maybe she's nearly died three times in the course of their short relationship."

John leaned over his knees and stared down his friend. "It's been a rough start. But their relationship goes back far longer than a few weeks, and he's been the world's most unrelenting arse…"

Sherlock waved his hand at John to cut him off. "Ancient history…"

"…always after something, manipulating her, making her do things for him, playing with her emotions…"

"I'm playing with her emotions? She's leaving me!"

"And now this woman needs a bit of space, because my friend can be an overwhelming force, so this friend, he's going to need to make a decision. Does he follow the leads and track her down? Does he enlist his brother's agents to drag her back to him? Send out the homeless network to follow her? Or does he just let her go and wait for her to come back to him in her own time?"

John stood up and set his coffee cup in the kitchen sink.

"What if she's in danger?" Sherlock asked angrily.

"She'll call you, or she'll call me, or she'll call Greg. If it's really bad, she'll call Mycroft. By the way, I couldn't figure out why Mycroft had gone all strange and murderous and protective, but at least that's cleared up now."

"Is it?" Sherlock demanded.

"He sees himself as her brother-in-law, you idiot. I take it that Mycroft is responsible for the marriage. Well, seems he takes the whole thing a bit seriously. I wonder why that is. I wonder who could have told Mycroft that the sham marriage to Molly maybe meant something a little bit more."

John pulled on his jacket and walked out the door. "Hope you take the case, Sherlock," he called up the stairs as he left.

Sherlock locked his fingers together underneath his chin, and he started to replay the scene. He's slumped petulantly in a chair in Mycroft's office, staring down that godawful portrait of the queen, and he's been dead for less than 24 hours. He's leaving in another 48 to track down Moriarty's network. And he's asking his brother to take care of Molly. To arrange the marriage certificate, complete with signatures filed with the registrar, and Mycroft shifted his mobile phone towards his brother. "Call her, ask her, I think that's how it's done traditionally."

Sherlock refused, claimed it would only make it worse for Molly, that their relationship, whatever it was, needed to wait until his return. And Sherlock had waited, just as he said he would, until John plugged that bullet into Moran's brain and ended the last shred of Moriarty left on the planet. Molly had thought that kiss, the one that started all of this, was about his fear that she had almost died. Perhaps it was, to an extent, but once the danger was over Sherlock didn't dwell on it; he wasn't wired like that. He didn't play 'what if' when the danger had passed. Rather, Sherlock had told himself not to touch her, not to acknowledge her, until the network was gone, and now the network was gone. And he'd wanted her so badly.

Oh, fuck, he thought now. How could he bollocks it up so completely between Bonfire Night and New Year?

…

The same almost-rain hung over Bath as London. Molly was thoroughly sick of feeling damp by the time she stepped off the train. She had bought a change of clothes, some comfy pj's, a toothbrush and hair brush and a phone charger in London. Now she just needed to get to the hotel she'd booked while on the train. She'd stay for a couple of nights. She just needed a bit of perspective and distance. Then she'd be ready for Sherlock again. Maybe being in a fulltime relationship (marriage!) with him was simply going to require frequent mini-breaks. Maybe that's how it needed to work.

Right now, Molly was feeling good. Confident. Independent. She took a taxi to the hotel and checked in. She carried her small bag full of belongings up the stairs of the pretty Georgian B&B, drew herself a hot bath and unscrewed the cap from the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon she'd picked up at a branch of Waitrose in Paddington. She tuned her phone to Radio 6 and danced around the bathroom. She soaked, she sang, she drank and before long all of the self-pity and anger seemed to dissipate. This had been an incredibly good idea. Sherlock hadn't so much as texted. She started, just a tiny little bit, to miss him. This made her smile to herself with the secret knowledge that she loved him and would be telling him that. In two days. After she'd decompressed.

That's when she heard the knock on the hotel door. Oh no, he wouldn't, she thought. Who the hell was she kidding, of course he would. Her good mood popped like a balloon. She stomped to the door, anger snapping like static electricity, and yanked it open.

Molly didn't even have time to draw breath before two strong arms had pulled her against a hard chest. She put up her fists and tried to beat him back. She tried to twist her body and knee him in the balls. But he had her fast.

"Molly, it's so good to see you again. I saw you check in. I can't believe you're here."

Molly manages to push back just a fraction of an inch. She's not buying it. He knew exactly where she was and he's come to find her. It's all still a shock, and as much as she wants to yell at him, to scream for help, all she can think to do is stammer out his name: "Tom."