"You coward," Molly accused as Sherlock walked away from her. "What are you so afraid of?!"

Sherlock stopped in his tracks. "I'm not perfect, Molly. Far from it."

"Nobody knows that more than I do!" Molly countered. "You're selfish, inconsiderate, and a thousand other negative things! Just because I am in love with you doesn't mean I have forgotten about all of those things!"

"Then why do you still bother?" Sherlock asked softly. He'd fallen on his knees in the sand, his head bowed and his hands tightly gripping his folded knees.

Molly walked the few paces it took to get to Sherlock and sat down beside him. "I became a pathologist because nobody could explain how my mother just dropped dead one morning. She was making breakfast for me and my dad when it happened. She fell down and died. That was it. It was a brain aneurism, according to the doctors. My mother had a ticking time bomb in her brain. I'm lucky her death was simple as things go. The doctors were able to give my dad and I the answers we needed to make peace with her passing. You," she smiled as she touched his arm, "You go out of your way and you use your brilliance to give peace to people whose families have lost loved ones to murderers. You return kidnap victims to the people who love them. You keep history right by finding artifacts people have given up on as lost for good." She looked up again. "No matter what you think of yourself, I will always think of you as a good man."

Sherlock gathered his knees up and hugged his legs to himself. "Things have changed. I've become a mass murderer, Molly. I've killed all the men and women in Moriarty's Web."

"Criminals." Molly dismissed. "I hate to say this, but it was either you, or them. I will always pick you."

Sherlock turned his eyes away from her, as if his gaze alone could sully her. "I've also killed a man in cold blood,"

Molly sighed. "Charles Augustus Magnussen." She said the name like it tasted bitter in her mouth, which of course it did. If she didn't fix this now, Charles Augustus Magnussen would have cost her more in death than he ever could have in life as one of Sherlock's "pressure points". Honestly, what was with intelligent men and all the drama?

Molly rolled her eyes when she saw that Sherlock was now curled up on the sand like a little stink bug, as if the beach were his couch and they were in 221B, herself playing the role of summoned house guest-slash-body-parts-purveyor. "You read those notecards during the wedding. John and Mary's, I mean. When you read that note from Cam, I saw Mary's face pale. I remember what the note said. — I Wish Your Family Could Have Been There To See You, Love CAM — and I figured he got her in trouble or killed her entire family." it wasn't a difficult leap." She met his shocked gaze with an amused one. "Now, Sherlock — do you plan to murder innocent people?" She asked him.

Sherlock shook his head vehemently.

"Then what are you still doing there?" she challenged, a sweet smile on her lips.

Sherlock looked at her, his head tilted to one side like a confused puppy.

Molly rolled her eyes, and then jumped the obstinate man. Right there on the beach, in the absolute dark.

o-o-o

Mycroft finished the last bit of sans rival on his saucer. His parents had long since gone home, jubilant about Molly and Sherlock's new romance and the possibility of grandchildren. Didn't even stay for dessert. RUDE. As for himself, he'd shut off the monitors when his younger brother and the good doctor started kissing. There was really only so much a government needed to know.

That didn't mean though that he was so tactful as to wait a whole day to send reconnaissance. After all, what's a little blackmail between brothers?