So, this little story began life as the tail-end of some ridiculous dream where there was some undercover thing going on and a stake-out (I don't know why Sherlock was running a stake-out from under a bed, I really don't), and I woke from that dream with his line about terrible things happening in the dark running through my head, so I started it from there (after the frustrating five minutes spent waiting for the computer to boot up and finding my glasses), then filled in the beginning.

I hadn't ever really planned to post a post-Sherrinford/I Love You scene fic, because so many writers have already done so (and done it justice). I've hacked out bits and pieces over the last couple of months, but nothing I'd publish. Until this.

Artless Words Spoken in the Quiet Dark

Finding Sherlock under the bed in his flat, even with all of the lights off, wasn't terribly difficult all things considered. Not the sort of place she'd expect him to be, with his comfortable chair and couch being his normal locations when he's having a sulk or a snit.

Not that she thought that was what this was.

It had been a decent, Sherlock, amount of time since the phone call which shattered him. He'd been careful around her, pretending it never happened, or that she was the one it broke. And while it did, in its own way, Molly had already been aware of her own feelings upon the matter. He was the one who hadn't realized until it was far too late to take them back.

And while she loathed how it had happened, she knew they couldn't go back to how they'd been. Not without eventually becoming something ugly.

So she had given him some time to come to terms with it, or at least reason it out in his own head. She hadn't pushed him, hadn't demanded more. She wasn't entirely certain she could demand more of him. That wasn't what he was good at, after all. Feelings.

But John had given her a ring, said something about him being increasingly daft.

It hadn't been a difficult decision to come to his flat. It had been long enough. Time enough to have figured things out in his head. Time enough for them to have an actual, adult conversation that wasn't over a phone while they were being threatened with extinction.

He wasn't in the sitting area, or the kitchen. Bath was empty, and she doubted he'd be hiding in John's old room.

Bedroom it was, then.

Kneeling down to look under the hanging duvet at him, Molly couldn't actually see him, but there was a general shift in the darkness that indicated his possible location. "Hiding from something?"

"Mm. Thinking."

"In the dark." Making a decision, Molly lowered herself down flat and began wriggling under the bed in order to join him. The movement raised a cloud of dust, and she coughed. "With dust and cobwebs-when's the last time you cleaned under here?"

A random sock, coated in a sort of organic matrix of debris answered that question, and she shook her head as she grasped it and put it out from under the bed.

He'd probably make Mrs. Hudson do his laundry again. Grown man that he was, he avoided doing it as often as possible. Thinking about her own disinclination to do that normal chore, Molly had to admit that if she had a Mrs. Hudson of her own, she'd take shameless advantage, too.

"I can see why you chose this bed," she said, staring up at the dark above. Her eyes were adjusting a little, but there wasn't a lot of help to them with the lights out and most of the curtains closed. There was just enough moon and lamplight spilling in through a crack in his drapes to have made out the bed in the first place. She wasn't going to expect miracles from reality without some mirrors to aid the effect.

There was room under the bed, enough for at least two people to lie side by side and not feel too crushed by the box springs above them. Molly reached up and poked it, feeling the slightly plastic-y silky texture of the underside against her fingers.

When Sherlock didn't respond, she couldn't resist the obvious joke. "Come here often, do you?"

It wasn't that she wanted him to respond in a certain way. But they were in a holding pattern, stuck between something and nothing, and she knew that it needed to change. To either shift into something that worked for them, or move into something that didn't. And it had been long enough for him to process everything-she'd given him the time to work his own mind around to whatever he wanted.

He hadn't avoided her in that time, but he'd been careful. Oh, so careful and stilted. Not the irascible, irritating, annoying man she'd known for years. She was tired of it. As much as she might want something more from him, she wasn't going to ask for it-she had, once, possibly twice in the past.

Not something he could give her back then. She doubted it was now, either.

But it had to change, to break into a new configuration, or they'd both go mad with how unable they were to treat each other normally.

She wanted the man who'd been her friend back. Molly Hooper loved Sherlock Holmes, but friendship had (almost) always been enough. It had been comfortable, stable, mercurial in its own way. But it had been there.

Now it was as though they were loose puzzle pieces play-acting as darts. It wasn't sustainable.

"Look, Sherlock. I know you don't want to admit it, but we do need to talk about this."

He snorted. "And do what, Molly? Admit our undying love for each other? Plan a wedding with a thousand people? Make babies? Or should we decide never to speak to each other again? I am, after all, the man who can't stop saying horrible things to you."

"We're under your bed, in the dark. You don't have to keep pretending."

"Terrible things happen to women in the dark. You should leave, before you get hurt."

"Are you trying to make me hate you, Sherlock?" Molly peered at him in the dark, only able to see him in shades of grey. No expressions visible, though she imagined he was blank-faced. It was enough to give her a general location for his face, though. "I've never been very good at pretending."

Finding his mouth was simpler than she'd thought-she caught him by surprise, the press of lips causing an instant, quickly stifled response from him.

It was more than enough for her purposes, and she drew back, smiling a little. "And neither, it seems, are you."

"Molly-"

"You don't get to take it back. This isn't a game." She reached out, her hand finding his, wrapping her fingers around it, she drew it up to her face. Kissing the palm made him shift beside her. "Reality is never as neat and clean as a game, Sherlock."

"I'm not- This isn't-" The struggle in his voice, as he tried to push her away, articulate all the reasons they couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't be together, made her smile a little.

It should be hard for him. Years it had been hard for her, after all.

His hand wriggled in her grasp, but she didn't release it.

"I don't want this."

Molly stilled, then settled their hands against her stomach, lacing their fingers together. The angle was probably horrible for him, but she didn't care. She drew in a breath and let it out, "I know you don't. It's ok, though. I don't want it, either. I never have."

The words echoed in the space under the bed, bumping against them, sharp edges nicking both their skin.

It was as though the air was gone, suddenly. Sherlock wasn't breathing, all autonomic function stopped as his brain tried to process what she'd said, tried to unpick all the meanings from the words.

"Never is a long time." He'd shifted, to his side, not quite up onto his elbow-he was too large for that, in the space they had.

Molly could breathe again, turning her head, she looked at him. There was no meeting of eyes in the dark, no quietly understood anythings. "Yes it is."

He was kissing her, suddenly, the hand in hers moving, pulling hers to his chest. She could feel his heartbeat against the back of her hand. It was quick, steady-a metronome of life that pulsed against her skin. Her own was just as swift, dangerously so.

With his mouth on hers, his body a line of heat against her side, she didn't particularly care.

The sweet surety of his mouth left hers, brushing lips against lips, then cheek as he lay his forehead against hers.

An awkward angle, but he didn't seem to mind. "This was what you wanted."

"Maybe. Yes. Sherlock-"

"It won't change me."

A laugh escaped her, and she moved, pushing up on her side, pressing him back a little. The different angle was a little more comfortable as she tucked her cheek against his, breathing in the scent of him. Dust made her want to sneeze, but she stifled it by sticking her nose against his temple. "You've already changed for me, why would I want more?"

He stilled again, processing her words.

It wouldn't be easy, it never had been, she knew. He had changed, and not just for her. John Watson. Mary Morstan. Mrs. Hudson. All of them had forced a change in him (she didn't like to think about the changes Jim Moriarty had wrought in both of them). Constantly changing, that was Sherlock Holmes, as much as he denied it. The fear, though, the terror that had once clawed at her, the uncertainty that she wouldn't ever be good enough for him, was gone. She had changed, too. And not just for him-never just for him.

Change was something that happened in any life, and she could adjust.

She wasn't entirely certain he could.

But she had loved him before he changed, and she rather thought she could love him after.

"I love you." The words brushed against the side of her face on an exhalation of breath she doubted Sherlock had noticed.

Relaxing her hand against his chest, Molly nodded, rubbing her cheek against his. "I know."

Momentous words on such an occasion. After her own died down, he huffed out a breath. "You're supposed to say them back."

Smiling a little, she lifted her head. As though she could meet his annoyed gaze with her amused one. "Have you earned them?"

A sound escaped him, part-frustration, part-huff, part-something else even he probably couldn't name. The hand in hers had clenched down upon it, tightening the fingers as though suddenly afraid she'd get away.

Finding the right angle, Molly kissed him gently.

"You don't earn love, Sherlock. It just is." Bumping her nose against his, she murmured, "I love you, too."

-f-