This chapter's a little short, but it came to a natural end, and also the next chapter will be longer :)

"You knew!" John was trembling; anger was coursing through his veins. "All this time you knew, and you didn't think to tell me?!" The grainy black and white footage, and the mumbled noises of his best friend and the lilt of a criminal mastermind faded to black on Molly's TV.

"I couldn't, he asked me to wait, he trusted me to wait. And Mycroft enforced that." Hot tears streaked her cheeks, forming clear lines from the mascara she'd had stupidly taken the care to wear, for the first time in a month.

A clear gunshot was heard from the crackling audio and a glimpse of the fallen criminal and the rich dark blood that pooled around his head. John knew the end to this story, he was living it, but that didn't stop the hope that shattered with the final chance's death. The final chance to save him, Greg, and Mrs Hudson, the final chance to save Sherlock from a deathly fall. The screen went black, the device shut off before he had stepped to the ledge. Little did John and Molly know, but it was to conceal the truth of his fate.

"He did it for you, to save you. And I should have saved him, I could have saved him. I failed him, I failed you. I'm so sorry." Her words weren't broken, still strong through her torment. They had to get through this blip, they were friends, and they still needed each other. She couldn't let John leave, couldn't let him go back to the silence of 221b.

It was one month and two weeks after the fall, and as promised to Sherlock as they had worked on his plans in the lab that night, Molly and Mycroft were releasing selected parts of the footage Sherlock had collected in his confrontation with Moriarty, upon the roof of St Bart's, to the police and selected members of the press, dragging the Sherlock Holmes name from the dirt and into the reputable place it once filled. Mycroft had allowed John to be shown the footage in full before the public knew, upon Molly's request, and of course she was the one to tell him, told him that she knew, told him of their failed plan, told him how he was saved and just how sorry was that she'd starved him of this information until now. John had shouted and for the first time in their acquaintance Molly was scared of the kindly army doctor. But his anger was in vain, he didn't mean it truly, not toward the sweet pathologist anyway, but she was there and this new world with reasons and lacking the questioning of a great man had struck him like a ton of well formed and roughly surfaced bricks. He needed to shout.

They had watched the video in silence and guilt had washed over him as he looked over at a vulnerable Molly. It wasn't her fault.

"Oh god Molls. No. You did what was right..." He took a deep breath restraining the ferocity that had filled his mind and could easily fill his words. "I'm sorry, for letting shock get the better of me. But don't ever blame yourself for that." And he meant it; no one was to be blamed for the other man's fall, especially not the woman he had tricked into thinking she could save him. No one could have saved him. And John was finally seeing that that included himself.

"Okay." Her voice retained a mousey quality that neither had heard in so long.

He turned to her, the distance between them on the sofa almost un-crossable and so much further than it had ever been before. He didn't want to see Molly so vulnerable, he didn't want her to look so small engulfed by comforters and pale green cushions, and he most certainly didn't want to see the return of abundant amounts of gingernuts. But he needed to know why.

"Molly, you could have told me. I thought you could trust me... I thought I could trust you."

"You can. And I trust you. I really do. But I couldn't tell you, at the start it was because I hardly knew you, and I didn't want to hurt you when you were there already. Then two weeks after - it - I decided to tell you, decided you deserved to know, I felt so foolish, so guilty and I wanted you to know why I came home with red rimed eyes and false smiles. But Mycroft stopped me, I could see it in his eyes when he told me, he was worried about you, said it was because without your grief without that small question niggling in the back of your mind, and without all of the snipers locked away, you wouldn't be safe. I believed him, and I'm sorry. I would have told you but I'd promised two Holmes men I wouldn't and breaking that could have hurt you... And I couldn't live with myself if I let that happen. I'm sorry." She faced the black screen as she talked, she daren't look him in the eye, that invisible contact would break her.

As Molly's words crossed the distance between them, as she spoke truthfully and honestly, words filled with sorrow and meaning, his hand bridged the expanse between them and gave hers a reassuring squeeze, he did understand, and although it hurt him that the truth was kept for so long, he realised he was never lied to, just protected.

"I'm sorry."

Their eyes finally met.

Thanks for the amazing support for this fic, it's so lovely to write for and have my work enjoyed by fellow john/molly shippers :D

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*I'll make sure to keep writing, I love writing this fic so much. and thank you :)