A/N:

Warning for minor character death, a lot (and I'm actually being serious here) of angst and mentions of violence.

A year after Sebastian's call and almost two months after Aleister returned John, Molly was sitting at the small desk in the Morans' study when she heard the phone ring. As she still wasn't comfortable answering the phone, despite Thomas and Marianne urging her to treat their home as theirs, she pretended not to hear it. Marianne answered it after only another two anyway, which was faster than Molly would have been able to leave the study, let alone cross the next room.

Shaking her head, Molly returned to her contemplation of the stable's expenses. John's return, though welcome, could potentially wreak havoc with the Moran's finances, particularly with Sherlock unable to compete. Molly had a few ideas, though, including using Lestrade- her personal favorite- and John, the least finicky horses, to teach people about racing and maybe, if she pitched it right, to get kids interested in horse racing. For all its connections to posh people, Molly wanted to show that any people with an interest could take part in it... provided they didn't name their horses Maximilian or Gustav.

Writing a quick reminder to run her ideas past Thomas and Marianne- and Sebastian, too, she thought with a blush. It had been a long time since she's spoken to him, and Molly couldn't help but wonder if what he'd said was still true or if he'd done what every other man she'd dated had done during time apart: found someone wonderful and moved on.

The door to the study was suddenly thrown open, and in strode Marianne, tears running down her face and the cordless house phone, one of the few concessions to modern life, in her hands. She quickly pressed the phone into Molly's hand, then nearly ran from the room, her husband appearing just outside the doorway in time to follow after her (and, though Molly wouldn't see it, catch her when Marianne fell over).

Blinking from surprise at the abruptness of Sebastian's mother's appearance- as Molly had only ever seen her composed, no matter the circumstance- it was only when she heard a voice leave the phone that she remembered there was someone else on the line.

"Ah, hello?" she asked.

"Is this Molly Hooper?" came a man's tired voice.

"Yes, it is. Can I help you?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I'm calling to inform you, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Moran, that we've lost track of Sebastian Moran."

Molly blinked again.

"You've... lost him?"

"Ah, yes, ma'am."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we can't find him. It means that the tracking device- a newly established standard procedure- he had was either shut off or broken. It means that, as of this moment, we have no way to know if Sebastian Moran is alive or dead or where the hell on David Cameron and Nick Clegg's green earth he and the rest of his squad have gone, excepting one man we found dead... ma'am," said the voice, and though the man's words may have held bite, his tone didn't. Molly could hear the difference between lofty sarcasm and frustration, and the man on the phone was definitely frustrated.

That didn't stop her from dropping the phone, though, nor putting her head in her hands and crying.

In the next room, Sebastian's mother was crying as well, her hand in her husband's as he quickly pressed the numbers on his phone, making call after call, calling upon every contact he had and every favor owed him. For all he and Sebastian hadn't seen eye to eye, Thomas Moran loved his son and would not hesitate do everything in his power, and the power of everyone he could find, to get him home safe.

Four weeks passed with no word from the military, and the inhabitants of the Morans' stable could feel the tension in the air- animals and people, too. Stan had his hands full with a fidgeting Anderson and a snappish Sally. Sherlock started to develop a habit of kicking his stall door, but John stepped in before it became necessary for Stan to interfere. Then John started pawing at the stall floor, but by then Stan's hands were too full of Mycroft's newly acquired habit of crib biting* and Lestrade's unhappy wickering* to stop him.

Six weeks came and went without news, and with the additional two weeks was an extra two weeks of horses acting up, Mrs. Moran crying, Mr. Moran demanding and Molly quietly considering.

There was Jim Moriarty, who lay across his bed and smiled, and his mother who began taking extra shifts and coming home late.

Finally, there was Sebastian Moran who, though missing, was making a choice of his own.

Twenty seven weeks after No News became all they heard, Molly's cell phone rang.

"Hello?" she asked, having answered it after two rings.

"Molly, is that you?"

"Seb? Seb! Yes, it's me. Oh, Christ, you're okay. You are okay, right? Hold on. I have to get your Mum-"

"No!"

Molly stopped halfway out of bed.

"No?"

"...No."

"Seb, why-"

"I just... I'm in trouble, Moll."

"What kind of trouble? What can I do to help? Just tell me and I'll do it."

She heard him sigh.

"It's the kind of trouble where I'm not supposed to contact you because if I do we're all dead."

"...Yet you did."

"Yeah, I did."

"Why?"

"Because... because I need you to do me a favor."

Molly's mind, previously still sleepy, jumped into action.

"What kind of favor? You know you can rely on me, Seb, right? 'Cause I'll-"

"I know I can, which is why I'm calling you."

Molly's face fell. Here was the moment, the one where he'd tell her he'd found a better woman where he was now and that he hoped she wouldn't think badly of him but they'd fallen in love...

"Oh, I see..."

"Stop it," came a stern response.

"What?"

"I told you to stop it. I know that voice, Molly Hooper, and I'm telling you to stop jumping to conclusions."

"Oh."

"Will you listen to me, then?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Of course."

"Good, because I honestly don't have much time left."

Ten minutes later, Molly was done repeating Seb's instructions for the sixth time.

"Perfect," Sebastian said, voice raw.

"Thanks," she replied, voice just as raw. "Is this really going to work, though?"

Sebastian's line was quiet for a time, and Molly didn't rush him.

"It depends, really, and mostly on you. Don't glare like that," he said before Molly could interrupt. "I'm not doubting your ability to do this, Molly. I just... God, I don't like putting you in this position."

"You aren't putting me in any-"

"I am, and don't you think otherwise."

"Seb, it's not your fault."

He snorted.

"Except it is, which is why I'm going to make things right."

"You couldn't have known about him, Seb."

"Couldn't I, though? Who's known Jim longer than I- his mother? I love Alicia, I really do, but she's never been fit to be a mother, and Jim's father..." Molly heard the scrape of facial hair against Sebastian's mouthpiece. "I should've known this would happen. Jim doesn't let go, not of something he's had."

"Something?"

"Yeah, something."

They fell silent, Molly digesting what she'd just been told and Sebastian preparing himself for what was coming next.

"Hey, Moll?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"I, uh, I don't have much time left."

"Right..."

"Promise me something?"

Molly waited, knowing what he was about to ask.

"Don't wait for me. Don't... don't spend your life waiting for a dead man. I'm not Lazarus."

"Seb," she began, already prepared for this, "you know I can't-"

"Promise me or I'm scrapping the plan."

"You wouldn't."

"I will if you don't promise. Don't underestimate me, Molly. You know I'll do it."

"... Yeah, I do, but you know I won't make that promise."

"Molly..."

"Don't ask me, Seb," Molly plead softly. "Of all the things you could ask me, I can't promise you that."

"...Then make me a different one. Promise me... Promise me that you won't lock yourself away."

"I'm not Rapunzel, Seb."

"No, but you are incredibly stubborn, if very good at hiding it."

A small laugh escaped before Molly could stop it.

There was an answering dark chuckle from the other end.

"Farewell, Molly."

"Fare thee well, my knight," she responded, earning herself another chuckle.

"Oh, and, Moll?"

"Yes?"

"I love you.

The line fell dead before she could answer it.

Years passed.

Sebastian Moran was declared legally dead. There was a small ceremony with enough angry military personnel to ensure no one from the media was allowed inside. Molly, Marianne and Thomas met the rest of Sebastian's squad, all of whom had been found in a small underground bunker blindfolded, half starved and dying of thirst but otherwise in good health. None had known anything about their comrade beyond hearing him be taken against his will. As the ceremony closed, however, a short man with dark hair came up to Molly and after getting her attention, leaned close and whispered, "I'm to give you two messages. The first is from our captor. 'I don't share.' The second is from Sebastian, the last thing he said before he disappeared. 'I am neither good nor bad but a man.'"*

Molly didn't cry that night for the soldier-shaped hole in her life but for the endless silence that had once been filled with a familiar voice reading familiar lines of her favorite poems.

Still more years passed.

Molly's fortieth birthday came and went, as did two relationships that never went beyond a second date.

Thomas Moran's heart gave out as he walked down the stairs. That night as he lay on what would become his deathbed, he looked at the ceiling and whispered into his wife's waiting ear, "He isn't there." Thirty three minutes later, his heart pumped one final time.

Marianne checked herself into one of the many homes for the elderly but not two weeks went by before she, despite climbing into bed for the night, was found on the home's front steps the next morning with no memories of who she was or where she was. All she told them was a single sentence.

"He's coming home."

Molly took charge once more, Stan by her side.

Sherlock reclaimed his spot in the racing world in a blur of black.

John waited for him after every race.

Lestrade and Mycroft wound up being the ones to take part in Molly's idea to get people interested in racing and the Morans' stable, as she still called it. Their monetary worries were gone within the first month.

Then Mrs. Hudson died, and it was Molly who found her.

She had just finished replacing the dirt over the tiny body, shovel still in hand, when a truck came up.

"Molly!"

"I'm sorry, Stan, but I can't-"

"Molly, I'm not Stan."

"Yes, you are. Don't be cruel."

A hand landed on her shoulder.

^"'And because love battles
not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant,'" came a voice Molly knew didn't belong to Stan.

"'About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you," Molly whispered.

"'I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was
laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.'"

"'What more can they tell you?'"

"'I am neither good nor bad but a man,'"^ came the answer. "Molly..."

"You can't be here."

"I can't?"

"No," Molly shook her head.

"Why?"

"Your father's dead-"

"I know."

"Your mother's- You know?"

Molly finally looked from Mrs. Hudson's tiny grave to the hand on her shoulder. It was darker than it had been years ago, and there were more scars than she cared to count. Beneath the new ones, though, were ones she could remember. There was a burn from the time he'd tried to free her toast from her old toaster and the four dots across the back of his hand from when she'd accidentally stabbed it with a fork. Even the tiny one from accidentally hammering a nail into the front of his index finger was in tact.

"Of course I know. Just because I was hiding doesn't mean I wasn't watching over you guys. Jim... wasn't content just to have me at his side. I had to... make sure nobody could touch you."

"Yet your father's dead."

"My father was dead long before then," came the toneless reply

"How can you say that?" Molly asked, feeling a rush of loyalty to the man she'd come to think of as her father.

"I can say it because saying it was the only way to keep myself from coming back here and making a mess of everything."

"So you don't... You don't believe it? It's just something you had to say?"

The hand on her shoulder squeezed slightly harder- not enough to bruise, but enough to get her attention.

"I don't believe much of anything anymore, Molly. I used to think there was a limit to the things people could do to each other, that there were lines no one could bend. Then I saw those lines broken and forgotten. I'm... not who I used to be. Come to think of it... I'm not sure I can remember him at all."

Molly shook her head.

"No, you haven't changed."

"I haven't- What?"

"You don't think I didn't read the papers, do you?"

"I-"

"The Sebastian Moran I've always known hated violence, despite his temper."

"Molly, please, I'm-"

"Exactly the same. You haven't changed at all, you stupid prat." Molly looked back at Mrs. Hudson's fresh grave. The sight of it, despite her peaceful death, and all the symbolism Molly didn't want to consider made her tear up again.

"Give the shovel here."

Suddenly bereft of anything to hold, Molly wrapped her arms around herself and ignored the clunk of the metal blade against the soft earth.

"If I look up, will you still be here?" she asked the ground.

"Of course I will."

"If you're lying-"

"You know I'm not."

"That's what you said last time."

Instead of answering, another hand came to rest on Molly's other shoulder. She was then gently turned around and looking, after the longest years of her life, at a face she recognized despite its owner's extra wrinkles, grey hair and age-bleached eyes. The smile beneath them, as tentative as the first time she'd seen it, though, was exactly the same.

Molly was immediately wrapped up in a tight embrace.

"Never again," she whispered into a shoulder.

Seb shook his head.

"Never."

A few weeks later, every paper in the country ran with the cover story of the soldier who spent nearly ten years infiltrating a terrorist organization and breaking it apart on his own so he could keep the people he loved, and multiple countries, safe. The papers went on to say that despite his father's death and mother's consequential loss of touch with reality, the soldier had finished what he'd started and killed the head of the organization himself.

Neither Molly nor Seb bothered with reading the paper that day. He did what he'd been doing since he'd arrived: sleeping next to her. For her part, Molly was too busy alternating between staring at the man slumbering on the sofa and marveling at the small band on her finger to read about death and sacrifice. Both had had their fill of loss and needed no reminder of their lost years.

It was time to build their home.

A/N:

*Crib biting (Cribbing if you're an American): a compulsive behavior seen in some horses and considered a stable vice involves the horse grabbing a solid object such as the stall door or fence rail with its incisors, then arching its neck, pulling against the object, and sucking in air (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

*Whicker: a soft, breathy whinny*

*Whinny, in case I didn't define this in the past (Also, yay! Another noteception. No, no. Definception): a gentle, high-pitched neigh

*"I am neither good nor bad but a man," is the second line from the fourth stanza of the English translation of Spanish poet Pablo Neruda's "And because love battles."

^...^ Situational irony of the accidental smiley aside, this passage is the beginning of Neruda's poem.

...It seems we've reached the end, dear readers. Thank you all for your comments, reviews, alerts, favorites, bookmarks and time reading this silly, maybe not so silly fic. It was a joy to write for you, and I can only hope that I'll ever have as much luck with feedback and kindness again. Again, thank you; you made this more fun than I'd thought it would be.