Part 2: The Joy of Redemption

The years changed William Holmes, as they were libel to do to anyone. His change was not like the change of others, however. Neither his body nor his mind grew old, but he did become jaded and cruel in the aftermath of everything that he had seen, done, and felt. Two world wars passed him by and he fought in both, in the first as Scott MacKnight and Jack Underwood, a pilot and a foot soldier for Britain, in the second as Jean Lefroy, a spy for the Free French in occupied France. He lost all sense of personal danger and took on so many identities that he even lost himself. By the end of the Twentieth Century, he could hardly remember who he really was anymore. He had been all over the world, running from something he could no longer quantify.

Everything about who he had been was just a series of facts and the feelings behind them had been lost, not that he cared to recover them. He was wise enough to know that that path led only to pain. Still, he was tired of wandering the Earth like some sort of ghost. He wanted to reclaim something of who he had been before James Moriarty had wrecked him. He would be Holmes the Detective once again. Sherlock, though, not William. William was dead and there were far too many Williams and Scotts in the world already anyway. He wanted to be different.

The first step to this new life was to return to England for the first time in decades. He acquired documents which would establish him as the man he had wanted to be before becoming a vampire. London was the place he chose to make his home. It was the only city in the world that truly enchanted him. He gave himself a new look, choosing his clothes based upon what he liked rather than with some new character in mind. His hair he allowed to return to its natural black before he cut it short and left it untamed, curling and feathering wildly in whatever way it pleased. He had never liked fussing with it and it was a relief not to have to anymore.

In terms of his personality, he reasoned that the best way to find himself again was to simply do whatever came naturally to him, which allowed him to quickly discover that he was not naturally likable. Deciding that he didn't care about that liberated him from feeling guilty and allowed him to focus on his work. He managed to find a few people who would mutually tolerate him, the first of them being DI Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Then there was Mrs. Hudson, who he had known before but had rediscovered by happy chance. She also knew what he was, since they had met as a result of her late husband's vampiric activity. Then there was John Watson, who was a mediocre flatmate and superb partner in crime solving who took some time to accept that his best friend was a vampire when he inevitably found out. Along with Lestrade came Molly Hooper, who was brilliant and completely competent as a pathologist.

Molly was a problem for Sherlock, not because of any deficiency, but because of how she reminded him of Violet. It wasn't in the way she looked. The only physical similarities they shared were brown eyes. Nor was it in her personality. She was cheerful and morbid where Violet had been serene and dry. Rather it was in the way that Molly treated him. To her, he wasn't a valuable tool or an impudent child. He was a person, a grown man, an equal. She respected him...even loved him, as he eventually discovered. She wasn't Violet; she was someone new and different, but she was equally fascinating. It was dangerous for him to be around someone like that, so he kept his distance from her for her safety and his sanity.

For five years, Sherlock lived in the relative comfort of his carefully built new world. For five years, he kept himself closed off to Molly Hooper, who had the ability to elicit shades of emotion he had long ago deliberately forgotten. Then he came, the one who had made Sherlock. The one who would not rest until he was beaten into submission. The plague of James Moriarty returned to decimate Sherlock's life. He arrived as "Jim from IT" and wasted no time in going straight for the jugular that was, in this case, Molly Ann Hooper.

"Poor girl doesn't know what you are, does she?" Jim greeted when Sherlock came home one night. Thankfully, John was not with him, having gone on a date. Sherlock didn't give a reply, but the other vampire grinned as if he had. "You're trying to so hard, aren't you? To not feel what you feel, to not be what you are? But you're weak. You've let yourself fall for another little mortal as you cower among them, pretending you're one of them, pretending you don't yearn to sink your teeth into them. I'm honestly disappointed in how boring you've turned out. I thought maybe after all this time, you'd've accepted that I'm the only company you can every really have."

"Molly Hooper's nothing to me," Sherlock responded coldly, doing his level best to act as if he was merely annoyed at Jim's assumptions.

"Oh, well then I guess you won't mind if I change her and take her as my pet. It would be so funny. I can see why you like being around her. She's so eager to please and has enough brains to actually be useful about it too," Jim mused and Sherlock swallowed the furious snarl that almost burst from him. His fangs extended suddenly in his closed mouth, but he remained stoic, knowing that Jim was testing him. "If you want to convince me that you don't want her for yourself, you should try looking a little less like you've got a stick up your arse."

"Why did you come here?" Sherlock questioned, maintaining his cold manner.

"Ooh, so I am right. The bitch has turned you all squishy inside." Jim let out a dramatic sigh. "Here's the game, Sherlock. The clock is ticking down to the moment the world finds out you're a monster. You can stop the clock by either drinking an innocent human's blood or by joining me." His tone ended on a disturbingly gleeful note as he gave a little excited shrug. Sherlock stood staring at him for a long moment, mind racing with ideas of how to get out of this.

"There's no way for me to win. That's not very sporting." Sherlock put his hands in his trouser pockets and stepped forward casually.

"Oh honey, why on Earth would I give you the chance to win if I don't want you to win?"

"Where's the fun in being sure you'll win?"

"I like to watch you dance. And besides, I'm frightfully curious about what you'll do," Jim replied with a devilish grin. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with your girl and I don't think she'd like it if I told her you were the reason I was late." Sherlock's jaw clenched at this and he stood aside to let his maker past.

"If I do what you want, will you promise never to touch her?" he requested as Jim reached the door. "Will you promise to leave her alone forever?"

"Certainly, brother dearest." With that, Jim was gone and Sherlock was left to contemplate his predicament. He had a choice of three equally terrible fates, one almost certainly leading to his ruination, another turning him into a true monster, and the third enslaving him. All of them were death sentences as far as he was concerned. The only consolation was that two of them would set Molly free.

"Molly, do you trust me?" Sherlock asked seemingly out of the blue one afternoon in the lab at St. Bart's. The young pathologist looked up from the test she was doing to stare at him with wide eyes. Clearly she was alarmed at the question, which was certainly an intelligent reaction by his estimation.

"Yes." Now that surprised him. He had thought that he'd get a no and a list of all the reasons she had to not trust him. Then again, perhaps he was too much expecting her to behave like him.

"Would you trust me with your life?" he pressed.

"Yes." This too surprised him, but he didn't let it show. What he had to say was too important for him to allow for any wasted time.

"Then I need you to listen to me when I tell you that you must stay away from Jim at all costs and ask no questions about why. I've known him for a very long time and he will hurt you." Sherlock stepped into Molly's personal space as he spoke, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders in uncharacteristic physical contact.

"Jim? What's wrong with Jim? What's going on?" Molly certainly did not seem entirely convinced of Sherlock's condemnation of her boyfriend, though he could hear her sudden anxiety in the quickened thrum of her heartbeat.

"Don't ask! It's much safer for you if you don't know!" Sherlock snapped, though not in anger. Molly's heartbeat sped even faster at this.

"Sherlock, this isn't like you. You're scaring me," she replied in almost a whisper. She tried to step back from him, but his hands effortlessly held her fast. "Please tell me what's wrong." Her own hands came up to cover his own, but she gasped and drew them away again. It took him a moment to realize that she must have felt how cold he was next to her hearth-like flesh and he immediately let her go, stepping back.

"I'm sorry." Abruptly, Sherlock hurried from the lab, ignoring the sound of Molly calling his name, begging him to come back. He texted John, telling him that he was needed at home, which was code for "I need someone to watch me and make sure I don't smoke". As he was getting in a cab, he got a text back that informed him that John was on his way.

The doctor arrived only a few minutes after Sherlock did to find him in his chair with his violin, plucking away at some melodramatic tune.

"What's happened?" John asked, frowning in worry.

"I tried to warn Molly about Jim," Sherlock replied without looking up. John took off his coat and came to sit down across from him.

"And you got cold feet?"

"No, I told her, but I'm afraid I did more harm than good. I left too many of her questions unanswered and she's not a fool. If I don't give her answers, she'll look for them on her own." Sherlock spoke his thoughts aloud and John's expression morphed from worry to sympathy.

"Maybe it's time for her to know what you are, what Jim is," the blond suggested gently, leaning in a bit. "She can be trusted. You know that better than I do."

"I can't! I won't endanger her like that!"

"You've never explained that to me, you know. Why is it dangerous for her to know? I'm starting to think you're just scared that she'll stop loving you, because there's no other possible reason why I can know but she can't." John narrowed his eyes in suspicion and Sherlock shifted uncomfortably.

"Don't be ridiculous!" the detective spat. "I don't care what she thinks of me."

"Is that so? Well, you still haven't answered my question." Sherlock said nothing to this and kept his gaze firmly away from John, whose mouth had fallen open. "You're in love with her, aren't you? That's why you're so scared," he mused.

"I am not in love with Molly Hooper! I am categorically incapable of that emotion! What is it with you mortals and your belief that not wanting to see someone harmed must mean you love them!?" Sherlock jumped up from his chair, all full of energy in his rage. "If you're going to be so unhelpful, kindly shut up or leave. If you could do both, that would be marvelous."

"Alright, alright! Don't get your knickers in a twist," John grumbled. "I didn't realize being immortal made loving someone impossible." He got up again and ambled off up the stairs to his room, leaving his flatmate in peace.

Sherlock sat back down and remained for some time there in his armchair, plinking a dark variation of Violet's song on his long suffering violin. Inside, he was boiling with conflict. He was being pulled in so many different directions that it was a wonder that he hadn't already been torn to pieces from the inside out.

He didn't want to accept what everyone seemed to be telling him, that he was in love with Molly. It felt wrong, not only for the fact that he didn't think he had any business feeling that way about anyone, but also for the fact that it felt like he was betraying Violet somehow. He knew it was ridiculous for him to feel that way, because his fiancée was long dead, but he got a clenching sensation in his gut when he thought of Molly that he was quite sure was fear, fear that it would be a dishonor to Violet's memory if he acted on his unbidden affection for this new woman.

Then there was the matter of Jim's "game". He had to do something, but there was not a single scenario he could think of where he would come out of it on top. It overwhelmed him, the sense that no matter what he did, his impending death was unavoidable and the only choice he had was how he would die. Was this what it felt like to be mortal? It had been so long now that he had forgotten.

Sherlock's dark thoughts were interrupted quite suddenly by the sound of his phone buzzing. He had been so engrossed that it was the sound and not the vibrating sensation against his chest that had broken him from his existential crisis. It was Molly. What was she doing calling him? She knew he much preferred to text. A sinking feeling took hold in his stomach then as he pressed the answer button and held the device to his ear.

"What is it Molly?" he asked, a hint of concern coming through in his voice.

"We need to talk." There was no mistaking the note of fear in her tone and his heart skipped a beat.

"About what?"

"It's...it's better if we do this in person. Al-alright?"

"Where are you?"

"Home."

"Is anyone there with you? Are you under threat?"

"No, no. I'm fine. I promise. I just need to talk to you as privately as possible."

"Okay. I'll be right there." He surprised himself with the gentleness of his own tone. Jim was right. Molly had turned him soft. He didn't dwell on it. There were far more important matters at hand. He pulled on his coat and scarf and dashed from the flat and into the night.

Sherlock's long legs carried him almost as quickly as any cab could be expected to, though he wasn't confined to the streets and could take a much more direct route across town to Molly's flat. He could slip through narrow alleys and scale buildings with little effort. Nothing the cityscape offered could stand in his way and so he arrived at the petite pathologist's residence in half the time it would have taken almost anyone else. Silent as the night, he climbed in through her bedroom window. He heard the jingle of a cat bell and Toby slinked into the room, apparently quite aware that his mistress had a visitor. Toby had always liked Sherlock, but the detective hadn't the faintest why. Perhaps he sensed that Sherlock was a much more powerful nocturnal predator and was showing loyalty to avoid being eaten or perhaps he simply liked the way Sherlock smelled.

"Toby! What on Earth are you up to?" Molly's voice called and a second later, the bedroom light flicked on, revealing to her the tall, dark figure standing by the window. She gasped loudly and stumbled backwards, but in a flash, Sherlock was there to catch her before she could fall. "Christ, Sherlock! I have a front door, you know," she scolded through her furious blushing and slid hastily out of his arms.

"I know, but it's safer if no one sees me come up here. There's no need to be frightened," he replied calmly after noting that Molly's heart was pounding extremely quickly.

"What if...I...you could have been someone who did want to hurt me. You should have warned me before coming in."

"I'm sorry," Sherlock responded with a hint of shame. He knew she was right, although he didn't understand why her feelings mattered so much to him.

"That's the second time you've apologized to me today," Molly observed. "What's going on with you?"

"Tell me why you wanted to see me first." Two could play at this game. She sighed and obliged him, beckoning for him to follow her into the kitchen. On the table, there was an old shoebox. From the within it, she took a number of clippings from newspapers. One seemed particularly old and yellow. She picked it up and handed it to him. It was an engagement announcement, his engagement announcement. It read:

"Announcement is made of the engagement of Mr. William Sherlock Scott Holmes of London and Miss Violet Jane Hunter of Shere, Surrey. Mr. Holmes is a private detective distinguished for his service to communities throughout Hampshire. Miss Hunter is a former governess. They are to be married December 10, 1895 at the courthouse in Fordingbridge."

Sherlock stared at the clipping in a mix of shock and horror. How had she found this? The question stuck in his throat. He couldn't speak. The words simply wouldn't come. He could only stare and hope for the best.

"I found this among my clippings. I know I didn't cut it out. I looked it up and William Sherlock Scott Holmes and Violet Jane Hunter both died in a fire in 1895, one month before they could be married. His only living family was his brother, Mycroft, who never married and was murderer for political reasons a few years later. I didn't say anything to you and just brushed it off as something that could be easily explained, but when I came home today, I found this in the mail," Molly began before retrieving a very old photo and showing it to him. It was a portrait of himself and Violet. The one he had salvaged from the ruins of their house. It was supposed to be carefully hidden away at Baker Street and yet here it was in Molly's hand. "He looks exactly like you, Sherlock. Why is there a Victorian detective who looks just like you?"

"Funny thing, genetics," was all Sherlock could manage to say. It did nothing to deter the pathologist.

"Someone is sending these things to me for a reason. Obviously they want me to know something about you, something you're not telling me," she continued, thinking aloud. "You told me you're from Shere. Is that true?"

"No," Sherlock answered after a long pause. He could see that there was no way out now. Molly was on the fast track to finding him out and lying to her would only make things worse. "No, I'm not from Shere. My given name isn't Sherlock and I wasn't born in 1981. I'm not an orphan and I do not have a completed masters in chemistry." Molly looked absolutely stunned at these words, but managed to produce six of her own in return.

"Who are you? Please don't lie."

"My name is William Sherlock Scott Holmes. I was born in 1854 to Siger and Morwenna Holmes in London. I attended Oxford University, where I met James Moriarty, who attacked me one night in a dark lab and gave me this." He pulled aside his collar to reveal the puncture scars left by Jim's teeth and Molly's expression morphed into one of horror. "Some time after passing out from blood loss, I awoke neither dead nor totally alive, reborn as a vampire. That's the truth." Sherlock showed her his fangs as proof and waited a long time in silence for Molly to react. He couldn't blame her for having difficulty with it. He wouldn't have believed it either if he were in her position.

"Jim is..."

"Moriarty, yes. Now you know why I couldn't tell you anything more about why you should stay away from him. He's the one who made me." Molly clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Why is he here? What does he want from you?"

"Jim made me to be his brother and he won't stop ruining my life until he has forced me to give in and become like him. He's presented me with an ultimatum on the matter. I don't have much time left."

"What does he want you to do?"

"Join him or drink the blood of an innocent human."

"If you don't?"

"He'll destroy this life I've built in the cruelest way possible."

"How many times has he done this to you?" The question came with a very sympathetic tone and Sherlock could hardly bear the way it drew him to her.

"Only once before. For most of my life, I haven't given him the chance."

"Is he...is he the reason you aren't with Violet anymore? I don't mean to pry, but what happened to her?" For some reason, the mere sound of Violet's name falling from the lips of someone else managed to hit a nerve in him and everything he'd had bottle up inside for the past century burst forth.

"James Moriarty tracked me down like an animal when I thought I'd left him and my mortal life behind! He wanted to take away everything that I cared about, but he didn't just murder Violet! No! He played on the prejudice so many already held against her because she was black! He made them believe we were monsters and murderers and they came with their torches and their pitchforks and I was forced to watch them burn down my home with my fiancée trapped inside! The last time I touched her, she crumbled to ash in my hand!" Sherlock snarled, his fangs extending in his anger. Only when he realized that Molly was trembling did he even begin to calm down and back away from her, for he had been looming over her rather threateningly.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, her large brown eyes glistening with the prospect of tears. It sapped what was left of his anger away and prompted him to reassure her with physical contact. He placed a hand briefly on her shoulder as he gave her a nod of thanks and she too seemed to calm down. "You can have me," she told him, boldly looking him straight in the eyes.

"Sorry?" Sherlock scowled, not understanding what she meant.

"If you need to drink human blood to be rid of this horrible man, then I'm willing to give you mine."

"No. No. No. Absolutely not. Human blood has never touched my lips and it never will. I've seen what it does to people like me. They're true monsters and if I feed like them, then I'm one of them. Besides, I couldn't just sip a few drops from a glass. Jim would want proof and that means biting you. Not only is there the chance that I wouldn't be able to stop once I started, but it would leave a scar. I couldn't do that to you," Sherlock refused adamantly.

"Sherlock, your life is worth more than a little scar. I'm consenting to this. That's what would separate you from other vampires. You wouldn't be taking anything from me that I wasn't giving willingly." Tentatively, Molly's hand reached for his and he didn't shy away, despite himself. His mind churned with what she had said. She was offering herself to him in the name of setting him free, but it still didn't sit right with him. It felt like something would be irreversibly sullied if he did this.

"Why would you do that for me?" Molly turned red at the question.

"I'd say it's obvious, but it wouldn't be for you, would it?" She paused to take a deep breath before answering. "It's because...it's because I love you." Hearing her say it so directly had a profound effect on Sherlock. It wrenched his heartstrings hard and caught his breath in his throat for a moment.

"Oh."

"I know you probably don't feel the same way. You obviously loved Violet very much and still do, but I just need you to know that I love you and I'm here for you, no matter what," Molly babbled until Sherlock responded properly.

"Alright."

"What?"

"I said alright. Provided that we take precautions, I accept your offer."

"Oh. Okay." Molly appeared to be slightly stunned by his sudden acceptance, but quickly recovered, giving his cold hand a squeeze. "What sort of precautions?"

"Do you have anything silver?"

"I've got a couple knives and-"

"Perfect. Get one." Reaching into one of the drawers behind herself, Molly retrieve a silver butterknife. "If something goes wrong, you have to use that, understood?" Molly nodded firmly and Sherlock almost smiled at how quickly she was adapting to her new reality. "Now go put on something you wouldn't mind getting bloody and I'll get your first aid kit." With purpose in her step, she obeyed, and he found her sitting on her bed in an old t-shirt a few minutes later when he came in with a white box in his large hand. "I have to warn you that this will be painful, but you can withdraw at any time. Are you ready?"

"Yes." At this, Sherlock set the first aid kit aside and got on his knees before Molly, tall enough that she barely had to lean over for him. She pulled aside the collar of her shirt, exposing the skin where her neck met her shoulder. Gently, he pulled her into his arms and poised his mouth over her, bracing himself for what he was about to do.

"Tell me again why you're doing this," he requested. He needed to hear it.

"I love you," she whispered in his ear and he sank his fangs into her warm, soft flesh. She gasped and his grip tightened.

From the moment Sherlock swallowed the first mouthful of Molly's blood, a change came over him. He felt energized like he never had before and it compelled him to greedily gulp down as much as he could. She was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted and the sweetness was enough to have his eyes rolling back before he closed them. In that moment, his whole world was the rush of crimson life over his tongue and the delicate moans and whimpers of his victim. It consumed him.

After a few moments that seemed an eternity to him, Sherlock could vaguely hear Molly begging him to stop and feel her resisting him, but the dark instincts that had been awoken inside him made him topple her back onto the bed and pin her down by her shoulders as he continued to drink. She was utterly powerless in a battle of strength when his own was so many times greater than hers.

Then came a searing, white hot pain in his back as Molly plunged the silver knife into his shoulder. A roar of agony ripped from him as he released her. He collapsed onto the floor and shook with seething, shuddering breaths. His mind cleared and the sheer horror of what he had done began to sink in.

"Oh god! Oh god! I'm so sorry!" Molly fretted. Holding one hand to her wound, she knelt down and removed the blade from Sherlock's back with the other.

"Get away from me! Go! Now! You're not safe!" he snapped at her. "GO!" he repeated when she hesitated and she then scuttled from the room. He burned with the desire to chase after her and sink his teeth into her once again. It was overwhelming and it took everything he had to fight it. He had been afraid of this, but he had not been prepared for the intoxicating way human blood made him feel stronger, more powerful, like he was the king of the night. This had to be what Jim had wanted him to experience. He wanted him to be tempted by it. Well, he refused.

Footsteps approached and the sound of a steady heartbeat told him that Molly had returned. She knelt down next to him and dabbed at his wound with a cloth, cleaning away the dark red, almost black blood that had oozed from it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he snapped, though he otherwise remained completely still. "You should be trying to put miles between us right now, because I still thirst for you and I might lose control again at any moment. Your mere scent is taunting me like a cape to a bull."

"I know you think I'm foolish, but I trust you."

"Haven't we just proven that you can't trust me?!"

"That wasn't your fault. You weren't prepared. But you're doing just fine right now and all you have to do is will yourself to keep it up for a few more seconds and then a few more and then a few more, until your thirst goes away, and I firmly believe that you can do that," Molly soothed as she prepared to sew up Sherlock's stab wound.

"Just bandage it. It'll heal in a hour or so," he told her and to his relief, she quickly accepted this and reached for gauze and medical tape. Once he got up the courage to sit up, he could see that she'd bandaged her own wound as well. "Thank you. For everything," he murmured and just to prove to himself that she was right, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Just when I thought my day couldn't get any weirder," she laughed, blushing and breaking the tension between them. Sherlock couldn't help but laugh too. He supposed there was a certain element of the ridiculous in all of this. He'd turned Molly Hooper's whole world upside down in a matter of hours. He'd been a vampire for so long that he often forgot how fantastical the notion was to others. "So, what now?"

"We wait for you to develop a scar and I put myself on a leash until I forget what you taste like." To be honest, he wasn't sure he'd ever stop feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of what he'd done, even though Molly had willingly participated knowing the risks. He was haunted by the fact that he could have killed her, that he could have become everything he hated, but she was better off not knowing that. She obviously already felt unnecessarily guilty about stabbing him in self defense.

"I-I'm not going to become a vampire, am I? Now that you've bitten me, I mean."

"No, the contagion is blood born. You'd have to ingest a vampire's blood to become infected." Sherlock enjoyed the way Molly had suddenly become interested in the science of his condition. Her big brown eyes had lit up with excitement the moment he described vampirism like a disease.

"So you're not an unholy walking corpse?" she asked with a teasing smirk.

"Nope. No devil spawn here. Nothing supernatural at all. I'm afraid I'm very much alive. So sorry to disappoint," Sherlock replied casually, matching Molly's humor.

"It's a relief, to be honest. A scientific explanation is much easier to understand and accept, even if it's different from the idea of vampire's we get from books and movies." Molly shrugged and some of the tension between them faded. The conversation was mercifully distracting Sherlock from his thirst. "So what's true and what's not?"

"Almost everything is just a myth with a few exceptions. I'm allergic to silver and garlic. Direct sunlight is irritating, but not deadly. My skin is cold because my body doesn't work in a way that produces much heat. The virus causes all manner of mutations, from my fangs to my near instantaneous regenerative abilities. I've had a couple men try to kill me with wooden stakes through the heart before, but as you can see, it didn't take."

"That must have hurt," Molly commented, her nose scrunching up in the way Sherlock had always found a little endearing.

"Oh yes. But when you've been shot as many times as I have, pain sort of loses its drama," Sherlock responded blithely and Molly's mouth fell open.

"How many times have you been shot?"

"I've lost count. I did fight in both world wars, you know, and I've certainly been shot at more than my fair share as a detective. I honestly don't notice if I've been shot half the time anyway." Molly didn't seem to know what to say in the face of such a blasé statement and Sherlock chuckled heartily. "No need to look so shocked, Molly. You'd be just the same if you were immortal."

"Maybe I should ask you to change me so we can find out," Molly joked and Sherlock's smile instantly fell.

"No," he told her quite firmly, suddenly all seriousness. "Don't ever ask that of me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean- I should have-" Molly struggled to express herself, clearly very embarrassed. "I would never ask you to do that," she managed, staring intently at her knees. Sherlock put his hand gently under her chin and tilted her head up so that their gazes met. He didn't understand why, but her heart quickened at the gesture.

"Thank you, Molly Hooper," he whispered and without another word, he got up and slipped out of the window as swiftly and silently as he had come.

It didn't take too long for Molly's bite to heal, and in the meantime, she and Sherlock grew much closer than they had been before, particularly after he shook off his thirst for her blood. Even he noticed, as did his other friends. Lestrade was teasing, while John and Mrs. Hudson were just pleased, though they were unaware of the fact that the pathologist's confrontation of Sherlock's identity had ended with him burying his fangs in her. He didn't want them to know anything about Moriarty's game and he was determined that Molly should be his only confidant in the matter. It was better that way.

In the privacy of Molly's flat one afternoon, Sherlock took a photo of her scar with his phone and sent it to Jim. The reply he sent back some minutes later turned Sherlock's already cold body to ice.

"I'll admit you've surprised me, but I'm not satisfied. Drink her dry or I will. The game is still on," said Jim's text. To Sherlock's further frustration, the look of utter terror in Molly's eyes gave him an almost uncontrollable urge to envelope her in his arms and protect her at any cost. Even after he looked away from her, he couldn't get the sensation to go away, and that was the moment he realized that she was the thing most precious to him in the whole world. He despised himself for it. How pathetic was it that he had allowed himself to become attached to something so fleeting as a mortal life? Why was he so weak that he had succumb to this twice? Nothing was going to be different this time if he kept on this path. Molly's life was in danger because of him and there was nothing he could do at this point to change that.

"Tell me what you're thinking," Molly requested and Sherlock swallowed hard. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do? He had known he was trapped before, but this? This was so much worse. Molly Hooper's fate and his were now chained together. If he went down, he would take her with him and if Jim took her...well, Sherlock wasn't going to be able to come back from that.

The terrible internal conflict he was having must have been in some way apparent to Molly, because she took a tentative step toward him and spoke in a soft, determined voice.

"We will find a way. Just tell me what you need." For several long minutes, neither of them spoke nor moved. Sherlock was scrambling for something resembling a plan of action and Molly was simply waiting patiently to listen.

As if the last puzzle piece of some grand order had fallen into place, there came a moment then when everything clicked into perfect clarity in Sherlock's mind. It was an almost zen state of being in the face of the threat of his ruination.

"I need you," he told her, his voice low and heavy with the weight of everything he meant by it. Taking Molly's face carefully in his large hands, he closed the gap between them and pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes, only to have them fly open again and the feeling of the pathologist's lips melding against his. Even more shocking than the fact that it was happening was perhaps the fact that it didn't feel wrong. He fully expected to feel guilty and disgusted with himself, but instead, he was quite enjoying the whole thing. It was only a matter of seconds before his fingers were in Molly's hair and he was snogging her wildly.

"You can have me," she said breathlessly at their parting and Sherlock felt hope for the first time in many, many years.

Dear John,

Let me begin by saying that I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry that I made you watch helplessly as I jumped from the roof of Bart's. Someone had to see. Someone I could trust had to bear witness to the tragic end of Sherlock Holmes and tell the world about the real me, the one who wasn't everything Moriarty made the world believe him to be.

I'm sorry that I gave you this burden without asking. I'm sorry that our time together has been cut short. I'm sorry that I have to leave you behind without any idea of if and when I'll return. Moriarty is still out there and it falls to me to bring him down in whatever way I can.

Don't worry yourself too much. I won't be alone. Molly Hooper will be with me and I think you'd agree that she's more than capable of taking care of me. I know now that you were right about my regard for her. She has a habit making me break the rules I've given myself, so I suppose it's only natural that she should have my vow against creating new vampires as well. I've decided she'll have the choice to stay at my side forever.

You and I may never meet again, so I'll take the time to wish you a happy and fulfilling life. It's your due after everything you've done for me. Don't mourn me long. It'll impede my wish.

Yours,

Sherlock Holmes

P.S. Burn this.

A/N: So, what do you think? I know this isn't the best quality. I had so many ideas that I couldn't find a way to fit them all in here, long as it already was. I do hope that you still enjoyed it. Thank you so much for reading.