A/N: Next chapter! And better news – chapter 14 nearly ready as well (and by nearly ready I mean I plan to write it tonight and have it up next week). As always, I own nothing. Thank you to everyone who has been sticking with me through this. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Depending on how 14 goes, there will be 15-16 chapters total so we are super close! Enjoy!

Someone I Used to Know

Chapter 13

"New details are coming to light today in the shooting that happened in a North London apartment block last week. The shooting gained worldwide attention when it was revealed that the intended target was Sherlock Holmes, the self titled Consulting Detective thought to have committed suicide over a year ago."

BBC news was on the break room television as I walked in for a fresh cup of coffee. I paused to listen to the rest of the report.

"Mr. Holmes has declined to comment on how he escaped death when jumping from the roof of St. Batholomew's Hospital and has also refused to speak about how he spent his time after being pronounced dead.

"What is known, is that a man, identified as Sebastian Moran, was taken into custody and charged with the shooting. Mr. Moran has also been charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. His lawyer has denied all charges.

"Later in the program, we will look at the article, key details now proven to be false, about Mr. Holmes that led to him faking his own death."

As the female anchor began to discuss other top stories, I moved towards the waiting coffee pot before leaving the room.

After the shooting, Mycroft had quickly briefed us on what the official report would say about the incident. I was also informed that the apartment we had been living in was not in either my or Sherlock's names as I had thought. Rather, the flat I had signed for was two stories down and on the opposite side of the building. The flat we had been in was instead in the name of a various alias of Sherlock's he had used while tracking down Moran. It was this name that eventually led Moran to Sherlock's 'hiding' position.

My things, and some of Sherlock's (or at least Paul's) where then quickly moved into the flat actually in my name. The small mystery of where my old furniture had gone was also solved as I entered the only bedroom to find my bed from my old flat sitting in the corner of the room.

One of the key points Mycroft had made clear was that my involvement in everything would be carefully concealed and the press would never hear a peep about it. In the meantime, I was expected to avoid our former flat in favor of the smaller one and interaction with Sherlock had been limited to two texts in the past few days. As far as my co-workers were concerned, it was yet another weird coincidence that I live in the same building as the shooting, but nothing more. Instead I had more important things happening in my life – like my break up with Paul who had officially taken a job abroad and didn't think a long distance relationship would be wise.

I supposed this was to ease the transition from my dating incognito Sherlock to dating the real one publically but I had my doubts since I hadn't actually seen the man in the past week. He hadn't even stopped by the hospital for the case I knew he was working on. If he had, it wasn't during any of my shifts.

The texts I received where simple and straightforward. Information about things being moved around in the flat and from the larger shared flat two stories up. But there was no word on the discussed move to Baker Street although I knew that was where Sherlock was staying if the press photos of him entering and exiting the residence were anything to go by.

I had also gathered that he a John where speaking, but not very much. A photo had run in the Mail yesterday of Sherlock looking around south London and John, as the caption was all too happy to point out, was noticeably missing. He had been photographed entering and exiting Baker Street, but didn't look very happy at the time.

These thoughts where paused as I recognized a familiar head bent over a high powered microscope in the room I had been in before my quick coffee run.

"Ah, Molly. Good coffee," he said looking up at me as I entered the room.

"It's mine," I replied still setting it beside him as I came to a stop beside him.

"Hmm," he mumbled before taking a quick gulp of the contents before looking back into the microscope. He wrote something on the paper on the other side before turning his full attention to me. "There is milk in that."

"I know. It's my coffee," I replied trying to keep the small smile off my face. I was annoyed with him. I had barely seen him in ages and the last time we had been in the same room we had both nearly been shot.

And now he was drinking my coffee and acting like it was any other day in the lab before the fall.

"These results will be ready in fifteen minutes. Text them to me," he said standing up and grabbing his scarf and coat from beside him before finishing the coffee.

"Sherlock!" I said as I watched him cross the room and leave.

Then he was gone without a word. I tried my best to explain his behavior to myself as just an obsession with a very good case. But was the case really that exciting he couldn't spare just a moment for me?

The following day I met with Mary for lunch. The place was halfway between the hospital and the uni that Mary taught at. It was a cycle themed coffee shop and while neither of us where cycle enthusiast, they had a pie I absolutely loved to get. We had met there multiple times and we were regulars, trying to meet about once a week when classes where in session for her.

When I arrived, Mary was already sitting at a table in the middle of the room.

I greeted her as my normal cheerful self, but my run in with Sherlock from the day before was still weighing heavily on my mind and I soon learned she too was worried about recent actions of the newly returned consulting detective.

"Have you seen him since the shooting?" Mary asked once we had I had placed my order and taken my seat. Obviously John had filled his wife in on what had happened that day.

"I saw him yesterday," I replied. "He was on a case yesterday and he came in to test a few samples, ask for me to text him the results."

"But have you actually seen him?" Mary asked. "John mentioned that the two of you seemed like a couple even when he saw you that day. But he, and I, are worried. John, especially, knows what Sherlock can be like. John is worried that Sherlock was just keeping up the guise because of whatever your involvement in everything was."

"Mary, he wasn't dating me because he owed me something," I replied even though in recent days I had begun to wonder just that.

"John knows you helped with the fall in some way, but Sherlock refuses to comment on it. He won't even tell John how he did it and expects things to just return to normal," she paused as my coffee was placed in front of me. "John is furious to be honest, but not really at you. I think he understands that this was a secret that needed to be just that. Or, at least, that's what he has said to me."

"Is that why he wasn't with Sherlock yesterday?" I asked. "I suppose I assumed that if Sherlock was back to taking casing, John would be with him."

"John understands why Sherlock lied to him, but he isn't ready to forgive him just yet and has refused to be at Sherlock's beck and call," Mary said with a slight look of pride on her face.

"I'm sure he is just busy with things," I said looking out the window over Mary's shoulder. "We've gone days, weeks even, without much communication. He most likely has a good reason. Sherlock never does anything without a purpose and he certainly never does anything he doesn't want to."

"But that is the thing, I know you Molly and while I love you as a sister, you can be a complete push over and a bit of an idiot at times," Mary said.

"Excuse me?" I asked, now with my full and complete attention focused on the woman in front of me.

"I'm just worried Sherlock continued the relationship with you because it was a convenient link to keep tabs on his old life. Now that he is back to being himself, he may not see a point in continuing things. I'm worried you are going to let yourself get hurt and worse, just wait around for him to call." Mary explained.

"Mary, I know you are married and think everyone should be happy and what not, but I went into a relationship with Sherlock knowing things weren't always going to be simple. But I trust him. He made promises to me," I said looking down at my newly arrived food. "I can't say that I haven't been worried in the past few days and seconded guessed things, but I have to trust him. I appreciate your and John's concern, honestly."

"But for the time being you are going to ignore us and keep waiting for Sherlock to turn up at your door and beckon you to him," Mary said.

"I suppose I am," I replied. I paused before saying anything else. "I love him. He loves me."

"And you are certain?" She asked.

"There was a night a few months ago, he had been gone for a few days doing whatever it was he needed to do when he disappeared for days at time. It was midday and I was at the flat, sitting on the couch and reading a medical journal. He walked in and looked completely knackered. He always came home in various states, and this time was no difference. While he was dressed nicer than most times, the clothes he had on where dirty and had a few rips in them. I could tell he hadn't shaved in days.

"He paused beside me, kissed the top of my head and then kept walking towards the bedroom. I followed him in and pushed his smelly body away from the bed when he tried to collapse there, I had just changed the sheets earlier that day.

"'Go shower first,' I said pushing lightly towards the bathroom. He winced but moved in that direction. I've said that to him so many times when he comes back. It's almost my own code for hello.

"I pulled fresh clothes out for him and put them in the bathroom for him and then went back to the living room to grab the journal I had been reading. I sat in the middle of the bed and a few minutes later he came back into the room, this time clean and smelling like his normal self.

"He laid down beside me and pulled the book out of my hand before pulling me closer to him. He fell asleep quickly, but it was the two words he mumbled before drifting off that made the moment stand out.

"'Love you' he said. At that point, he'd never said the words and a part of me wondered if he realized what he was saying. Before that, he had always just said 'I mattered' or 'I was important' and up until that point it was enough. I knew my feelings, I knew I was in love with him before any of this even began but I also knew he wasn't like most other men and speaking about feelings to him was a foreign and unneeded concept in his life.

"But as I lay there, him sound asleep beside me, I knew I couldn't expect to hear him say it over and over and often. It was a rare moment of weakness and while he more than likely meant it, questioning him or expecting him to say it often would nullify its meaning.

"Mary, our relationship isn't about words. Sherlock is the smartest man I've ever met, but he doesn't see the point in wasting time discussing things he finds to be obvious. For him, his feeling for me, at least between us, is an obvious thing. He doesn't need to vocalize it because its just a given. I'm not saying it isn't nice to hear from time to time, but at the very least, I wont make him justify himself to others."

The rest of out lunch was tense. We had reached an impasse and I could only imagine how Mary thought this conversation would go. But no matter my doubts, I needed to have confidence in my relationship. I needed to remember that the moments we had shared in the past year were real and that none of it, at least not the moments between just us, especially after our trip to Spain, were fake. Sherlock had a plan, he always has a plan, and there was a reason for this radio silence.

There had to be a reason.

And that reason had better be a damn good one.