Disclaimer: I own nothing, which you know, saddens me greatly, but I get by. Sometimes. Okay, fine, maybe never. Sheesh, can you blame me?

Summary: It's taken a decade, untold amounts of heartbreak, three boyfriends on her part, quite a bit of possessiveness on his, a Consulting Criminal, a dominatrix, a fake death, a web of spiders and a resurrection for him to finally get it right.

A/N: Sherlock's POV again. Again terrifying beyond words. Because you know Molly wasn't cooperating with me and Sherlock stumped me sometimes and I apologize in advance for what is probably my worst story yet. Never write under the influence of heartbreak kids. On the other hand, I love you guys. Reviews are always appreciated and any and all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Some triggers: sex under the influence, drug reference and use, references to masturbation, mentions of violence, stuff like that. Not much and nothing too bad but I just thought I'd let you guys know in case there are any triggers. There is also a longer A/N at the bottom, describing in detail (probably a little too much detail) on how this story came to be. Hope you all enjoy and I love you ALL!

Also: title is taken from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.

A hundred visions and revisions

One-shot

Her hands are small and fragile as they clutch his shoulders tightly. Her thighs are shapely and quivering with unrestrained pleasure as she wraps them around his waist, locking them at the small of his back. Her hair is brown and in his haze of drug induced everything, it looks auburn and it's fascinating. He doesn't waste any time, burying one of his hands in her hair and pulling at her scalp; he's rewarded with a sharp gasp and muted scream and God, he doesn't think he's seen someone so expressive as her. (Detachedly and realistically, he knows that he doesn't even know her. Doesn't know her name. Doesn't know who she is. He doesn't know anything about her, but it doesn't matter, he doesn't care, because for some reason, all he needs to know, all he ever needs to know about her is in her eyes. Her very expressive, very brown eyes.)

(He's high, he's oh-so high and he's getting sentimental. He hates sentiment.)

He thrusts into her harder, quicker and she gasps, arching her body and pressing back with strength that surprises even him.

She leans forward, her mouth catching his and she kisses him, desperately, drunkenly and he swallows her scream of pure pleasure. Two artless thrusts later, he follows suit, lips kissing her with the intent of bruising.

She's inhaling deep breaths as she turns her face away, hands still on his shoulders, thighs still quivering. Her body is trembling with aftershocks and she's tiny (she's oh-so tiny, underneath him.) She uncrosses her legs and lets them fall to his sides, cradling him. He's still inside of her, unable to move (unwilling to move from her warmth) and he puts his head on her collarbone, collecting his breath. (The idea of sex never interested him. He learned to push away his body's baser needs in favor for intellect, until tonight.)

He realizes that he's grown soft, limp and the woman beneath him is running her hands through his hair, apparently fascinated with his curls. It's this intimate act that spurs him into action. He pulls out from her, ignores the pain that radiates through his body and more than likely hers (sex is not enjoyable. Liar, his mind taunts him) and he collects his clothing. He's pulling up his pants and trousers when he sees her looking at him. Eyes questioning and blinking rapidly (she's holding back tears), she looks at him for a few moments and his hands pause on his zipper, staring back at her and then she nods and sinks back into the bed belonging to an unknown person.

She's staring blearily at the ceiling, hiding her body under the sheets and he pulls on his sweater and slips on his shoes before exiting the room.

When he's outside, he can still hear the music reverberating from inside the house. He can see people mingling inside and outside. He can see the beginnings of a fight (two men fighting over one woman who is, unbeknownst to them, with a third man). He sucks in the air greedily and he uncharacteristically fumbles with his phone, dialing a familiar number and agreeing to meet at a familiar place for the exchanging of a familiar substance.

His high is wearing off and he would gladly burn a thousand little deaths to be high again.

He doesn't look back at the house and he resolves to delete the nameless girl who trembled, gasped, moaned and screamed beneath him.

He's not ever going to see her again. She's not important to him, even if she was his first. She doesn't count. She won't ever count.

(He's wrong. He's oh-so wrong.)

The first time he has sex with Molly Hooper (with anyone) he's twenty-three and spectacularly high.

She's twenty-two with a sad smile (she's just lost someone and celebrating an achievement) and incredibly drunk.

Then he leaves her alone, without saying anything, without even offering his name or bothering to learn hers, because it's better that way.

(Because he's Sherlock Holmes and ask anyone who knows him, he breaks things and shatters people, belittling them until they can't stand their own reflection and God help him, he likes it.)

He hasn't deleted her. At least not really. She's not in the forefront of his mind, but when his body betrays him and reminds him that despite his protests to the contrary, he is indeed, just a man, he grips his cock in hand and pictures her.

(He grimaces as his ejaculate covers his hand, stomach and thighs and wonders where she is. Sometimes, he even wonders who she is. That's only sometimes, though.)

He gets his answer when he walks into Bart's morgue one afternoon. Doctor Saunier is retiring (finally, it only took Sherlock a year to wear the old man down to the edge of his barely there sanity) and a new pathologist is taking his place. ("Scooped her right up we did," Mike Stamford tells him, "top of her class and bloody brilliant." Even Mycroft, through Anthea, which is always through message, tells him that he'll be pleased.)

Except he's not pleased. And he vows to never forgive Mycroft and Mike Stamford for this.

He vowed to forget about her and barring those few (alarmingly increasing few) instances, he did.

Until he sees her again. In the morgue. His morgue.

She looks up at him and nearly rears back when she sees him. Stuttering madly and blushing wildly. Then she takes a deep breath. "Molly Hooper." She introduces herself, her voice quiet but strong.

"Sherlock Holmes."

Then he settles onto his favorite stool, in front of his favorite microscope and promptly ignores her.

(It's for the best. It's always for the best.)

"Do you…I mean…it's just…have you…"

"Molly." He warns, her name escaping from his lips without hesitation.

"Doyourememberthatnight? At all?" She blurts out, her face flaming red.

"What night are you talking about?"

There is a pause and without even looking behind him, he can practically see her shoulders sag, her body deflate and he can almost imagine tears of humiliation pooling in her eyes. One of his hands grip the knob on his microscope tightly while the other grips the edge of the bench, both hands gripping so hard, his knuckles turn white.

She takes in a shaky deep breath. "Nothing. Nothing. Never mind. It's all just…nothing."

She walks out of the lab, feet carrying her away from him.

(In the lab, Sherlock Holmes exhales deeply.)

He takes to cutting her down, insulting her, manipulating her, partly because he can and partly because she just takes it.

But mostly because he just wants her to hate him.

It would make everything easier.

(He never understands why she doesn't end up hating him.)

He's done it this time. He's vaguely aware that maybe, just maybe, he's gone too far and all he sees is her face fall and the tears pool in her eyes. Her voice croaks as she tries to speak but can't find the words. She wipes aimlessly at her eyes and cheeks with the heel of her hand.

There is a pain in his chest that threatens to consume him. He doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't know how to handle this situation. If he were anyone else, he'd apologize, he'd empathize and if he were any better of a man, he'd promise to never say or do anything that could break her again, but he doesn't empathize and he's not a better man and instead of making false promises, he makes no promises.

(Somehow, he doesn't think she'd appreciate his insincerity.)

Without saying a word to him, she goes over to the intern who is watching them with wide eyes, a twisted look of sympathy and pain etched across his face, and gestures to the door. She doesn't say anything and he knows that if she does, all that would come out are sobs, so instead, she resorts to universal hand gestures. The intern understands, nods and looks down at the ground. Anywhere but at his mentor who has fallen apart by the words of the world's only Consulting Detective.

When the doors slam shut, the intern looks up, "why do you always make her cry?"

(For the record, this is the first time Sherlock Holmes sees Molly Hooper cry over him, but he's not at all surprised it's not the first time she's cried over him, about him.) "Because I can." Sherlock answers him, even though, realistically, he doesn't have to answer to anyone.

(Because it's better for her and for me.)

The last time he got this high; he lost his virginity to Molly.

Somehow, he's not surprised that he finds his way to her flat. (He's had the address memorized the first time he laid eyes on her at the morgue when she came stumbling into his life once more.)

She opens the door before he can even manage a knock. She's wearing a baggy shirt and he vaguely thinks that her legs are still as shapely as he remembers them being. Her toes are painted a shocking blue and she has a confused, resigned and somewhat hesitant look upon her face. Mycroft's called then, he thinks.

She takes one look at him; he knows that she's assessing him, assessing his dilated pupils, his increased heart rate, his more-than-usual pale body and she wraps an arm around him, carrying the majority of his weight against her tiny body (one day, in the near future, he's going to realize that she has always carried the weight of his body when he finds himself unable to) and ushers him inside her flat.

Her flat, is both everything and nothing like he expected it to be (the walls are a light peach, the furniture vintage, the kitchen table and accompanying chairs handcrafted; the lopsided bookshelves nailed proudly, she made them, when she was younger. There are pictures of her and an older man, with wrinkles around his eyes and a wide smile. He has her eyes, her father. There is another photo of her as a child wrapped tightly in a woman's embrace, she has Molly's smile, her mother. But the one picture that he can't help but look at is Molly as a teenager, she's fifteen in the photo and looks exactly the same as she does now, she's on a swing, legs dangling and smiling shyly at the camera, hair hanging loosely around her shoulders. She looks carefree, she looks innocent, she looks unbroken. She looks how he always imagined her looking before he came barreling through her life and tearing it apart bit-by-bit.)

She puts him on the sofa and goes to get up. His hand reaches out and latches onto her wrist, fingers going to her pulse point. It's racing in tandem to the beat of his own. "Molly." He croaks, unable to form any other words.

If she were anyone else, she would take vindictive pleasure in seeing him fall. In watching him tear himself apart. If she were anyone else, she wouldn't have answered the door and she wouldn't have laid him on the sofa. If she were anyone else, she would have left him to fend and die for himself. But Molly isn't like anyone else. She's Molly.

"I'm here, Sherlock." She says softly, she sits on the empty space next to him and brushes a stray curl away from his face. Her hands are trembling and he wonders if it's from nerves or from something else entirely. "I'm going to grab some stuff that will help you. I'm going to help you. I'm not going anywhere."

(He could have gone anywhere else. He should have gone anywhere else. Oddly though, the only place he wants to be is here.)

She holds his body as he starts shaking, his high coming down drastically.

He's delirious, he knows he is and usually he's only ever talked to his four walls in 221b (oh, if only walls could talk, the stories they'd tell), but he knows he's talking now. Words spewing from his mouth at a rapid speed. He talks about chemistry and physics and work.

Her fingers are running through his hair and she's murmuring encouragements in his ear, body pressed against his and every fiber in his body is coming alive.

"Don't go." He mumbles into her neck. His mouth ghosting over her skin (she tastes of lemon and cinnamon and bit of death and Sherlock doesn't think he's ever tasted something so enticing.) "Don't go." (Later, he'll pretend that he doesn't remember, he'll pretend to delete repeating those two words over and over again until he falls asleep in her arms.)

"I won't." She promises. "I won't."

(Sherlock believes her.)

When he wakes up, he feels as if his body has been hit by a freight train. His bones feel weary, his mouth is dry and his entire body hurts. He looks to his side and sees Molly sleeping peacefully, her body bent towards his. He struggles to get up and somehow manages to do so without waking Molly up. He slips his shoes on and with tired and weak hands, he shrugs on his jacket.

He takes one last look at Molly, sleeping peacefully, body bents towards where his used to be and he walks out of her room and out of her flat.

(He always walks out on her and he always wonders why she doesn't hate him as much as he sometimes hates himself.)

He's not at all surprised to see a black car waiting for him. He opens the door and gets in.

His brother is opposite him, Anthea next to him, glancing disinterestedly out the window.

"Molly Hooper." Mycroft says quietly, his voice sounds bored, but Sherlock (unfortunately) knows his brother better than that. There is interest lacing his voice.

"Leave it." Sherlock warns. "Leave her."

"What does she mean to you, Sherlock?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." (His words taste like ash and the pain in his chest returns with fervor.)

His brother (and Anthea, he can see her expression through the window) look like they don't believe him.

(That's fair, he concedes, he doesn't believe himself either.)

Mycroft puts him in rehab (it's his third time.)

Sherlock spends his time deep inside his mind palace and somehow he's not surprised to find the room Molly Hooper occupies, grow.

When Sherlock comes back from rehab, Lestrade threatens him with if you ever do something so stupid, I'll kill you myself.

When he makes his way to Bart's, he sees Molly bent over a dead body, cutting into the corpse effectively, yet still with care that only she can seem to manage. She's deep in the autopsy and Sherlock has too much respect for science to disrupt, so he stands in the shadows and watches as she talks into the recorder.

When she's done and she's sewn up the body, washed her hands and disposed of her protective gear, she looks up and catches him watching her. She jumps a little and huffs. "You scared me!" She explains. She dries her hands and looks sideways at him. She gnaws at her lip in concentration. "You…you look better. You look…healthier."

He nods his head slowly. That, was admittedly, not what he imagined her saying. "I am."

She takes in a deep breath and looks at her hands. "I kept track of your experiments. As much as I could." She reaches into a drawer and pulls out a notepad. "I…took notes. Kept them going as long as I could…I'm sorry if it's not-"

She stops in the middle of her sentence when he enters her personal space and presses a light kiss to her cheek. She blushes, mouth gaping and there is something happening in the pit of his stomach, and he feels like he's going to vomit. "Thank you." He says, holding the notepad in his hands carefully, as if it holds the secrets to ever-lasting life.

She says, "You're welcome," when they both know she means, I think I'd do anything for you.

Molly dates a man named Steve.

Sherlock tells her that he likes pornography of the homosexual variety.

"There's nothing wrong with that." She replies defensively.

("It was an amicable split," she tells him.)

Sherlock smirks.

Molly dates a man named Elijah.

Sherlock tells her that he's married.

(She calls and after a series of mindless questions, she asks, "how's your wife?" to which, Elijah replies, "fantastic." and then fumbles his way through an apology. Molly tells him to work things out with his wife.)

Sherlock smirks.

Molly dates a man named Matthew.

Sherlock loathes him on sight. Partly, because he can't find anything substantially wrong with him, mainly, because Molly seems to genuinely care for this man.

("He's had his teeth fixed." Sherlock tells her.

"Personal hygiene is an advantage, Sherlock."

"He has high blood pressure, easily prone to anxiety, as well."

"How do you?...No. I don't care. Besides, everyone has anxiety."

"He-"

"Stop." She snaps, her voice hard, vicious and tired, she's been dating Matthew for six months and nothing Sherlock says dissuades her. "Just stop. Please."

He leaves.)

Sherlock doesn't smirk.

He hasn't stepped foot in Bart's for a week and a half. He hasn't seen Molly in a week and a half.

When he does finally manage to get there, another pathologist is on duty. Doctor Andrew Finkle hates Sherlock. He groans when he sees Sherlock enter. "Get the bloody hell out. I've not the time nor patience to deal with your pretentious and shitty attitude." He pauses and then rolls his eyes. "If you're looking for your girlfriend, she's not here. Said she's feeling ill. Go see her. Go jump off a bridge, if you want to make me happy, just get out of my face."

(He leaves the morgue with Doctor Finkle fuming at the realization that the baby his wife is carrying isn't his but rather his cousin's.)

He knocks on her door and she doesn't answer.

He knocks twice, thrice, and still no answer.

He crinkles his nose and clenches his jaw, pushes down the feeling of something unnamable in his chest and picks her lock. He doesn't get far when the door is suddenly wrenched open and she's standing in front of him, eyes puffy, cheeks red and wrapped up in her dressing gown.

"What?" She asks, her voice weary and shaky. "What could you possibly want? Come to gloat?" At his confused glance, she huffs and crosses her hands under her chest, "he broke up with me because he said he could never have me because you always did, you always will and he's right and God, Sherlock, I hate you. I hate-"

He cuts her off with the slamming of her flat door shut, the clicking of her lock in place and him pressing her into the wall, covering her body with his and leaning down to capture her lips.

(He feels something drop in the pit of his stomach at her words. Those three little words that manage to rend him speechless with unknown and muted agony. Don't hate me, he thinks madly, lips devouring hers and swallowing her moans, I couldn't take it if you did.)

She wraps her arms around his neck and presses herself against him with strength he always knew she possessed.

(Molly Hooper is stronger than anyone he knows.)

He's almost forgotten how expressive she is, as his mouth sucks at her right nipple, his nose pressing against the wet nub. He kisses his way down her body and buries his head between her legs, mouth lapping at her as she keens underneath him. She comes apart against his mouth, body heaving as he covers her and kisses her, thrusting his tongue in her mouth, urging her to taste herself and him. She does so eagerly.

When she pushes him onto his back and reciprocates, he feels as if the world has fallen from beneath him. All he can concentrate on is the heat of her mouth, the dance of her tongue against him and her eyes, peering up at him through heavy eyelids. It takes all he has to lift her up and settle her on his lap.

She leans over and with trembling hands; she grabs a condom from her bedside drawer and slides it on him.

She gnaws at her bottom lip and kisses him softly and deeply as she sinks down and envelops him in her warmth and he realizes that he almost forgot the feeling of this. Of her. He lets out a groan, thrusting upwards and she gasps, hands gripping his shoulders as she raises and then lowers herself onto him.

She detaches her lips from his, but not far, resting her forehead against his, she breathes his same air. She's whimpering, body sinking onto him deeper than before. She's breathing heavily; breath hitching as she lets out tiny gasps. "Sherlock. Sherlock." She moans against his mouth, she's not kissing him, just pressing her lips against him. "I can't…I didn't…I don't…" she cries out, sobbing with pleasure as he watches her come apart. "I love you." She says, as her body stops shaking and she's back to her original position, forehead against his. "I love you."

He twists her around until she's underneath him and moaning again as he thrusts wildly against her, desperate for some sort of release. "Say it again." He demands. He bows his head in the crook her neck. "Molly, say it again."

"I love you. I love you. God, Sherlock, always. Always."

He's only a little bit ashamed at the animalistic groan that rips from his throat.

(He feels something drop in the pit of his stomach at her words. Those three little words that manage to render him speechless with pleasure and unknown fear. Don't love me, he thinks madly, as he keeps his head in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent, I'll break you. I always do.)

He spends ten seconds memorizing her face and her soft smile and the way she crinkles her forehead when she sleeps. Her body is bent towards his and he gets out of bed, softly, so to not wake her. He collects his clothes, pulls them on hastily and spares one last glance at Molly sleeping peacefully, her body bent towards where his used to be.

(As he walks out of her flat, he knows everything will change.)

"I do hope you know what you've done." Mycroft says.

"It's for the best." Sherlock answers.

It's a surprise to both Holmes brothers when Anthea says in a soft but bored voice, "for such a genius, you're incredibly daft."

(It's only because he and Mycroft have known Anthea since birth that he doesn't snap and lash out at her. Let it never be said, that Sherlock Holmes has no mercy towards his family.)

Sherlock takes a case that has him packing his bags for France.

He doesn't see Molly for a month.

(He thinks of her sometimes, when there's nothing to distract him and the people surrounding him say stupid things, he thinks about the way she comes apart and the way she told him that she loves him. I love you. I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou. Always.

(It haunts him as much as it releases him.)

When he gets back from France, he hovers against the morgue doors before he collects and admonishes himself and then enters.

She looks up from her place and stares at him, mouth agape. Her eyes flash with hurt, humiliation and shame, before she bows her head and avoids his gaze.

She opens a drawer and digs around before she slides a notepad towards him. "I kept track of your experiments."

(They're back to normal and he's never hated it as much as he does now.)

It takes a few months but Molly starts to blush in his presence again and she starts to stammer when he walks in wearing his (her) favorite purple shirt.

She asks him out for coffee.

He's not stupid, he knows what she means, but he's resolute in his resolve, so instead, he acts like he's always acted and says, "black. Three sugars."

(They never talk about that night and she doesn't say anything about those three little words that manage to still his breathing every time he remembers them falling from her lips.)

John Watson comes into his life.

Jim from I.T. comes into Molly's.

Irene Adler comes into his life.

Jim from I.T. (Moriarty) comes into all of their lives.

(Unsurprisingly, Molly Hooper continues to stay in his.)

He's never liked Christmas.

He hates this one even more.

Molly gulps her wine with speed, trying desperately to ignore the pain that is coursing through her body.

How does he know this? Because he's resolved to ignore the feeling in the pit of his stomach and hollow space in his chest. (It's not his heart. He doesn't have one.)

(Molly has it.)

He thinks he's finally done it this time.

He thinks he's finally broken her by identifying Irene Adler by not-her-face.

He doesn't let her know that he'd be able to identify Molly by just her smell.

Mycroft tells him caring is not an advantage.

Anthea calls him an idiot.

John calls him heartbroken.

Moriarty calls him a virgin (he's not, not by any means and it takes everything in Sherlock's body to not break every bone in Moriarty's for daring to put his hands on his Molly. But Sherlock's always enjoyed a game and Moriarty offers a most spectacular one.)

The newly resurrected Irene Adler calls him a moron for letting her get away ("I thought you wanted to have dinner," Sherlock drawls. Irene rolls her eyes, "you're fit, I'll give you that, but darling, you're really not my type.")

Molly tells him she doesn't count.

(It's the last one that renders him speechless and strikes a chord with him.)

He needs help and there's only one person he knows that will help him unquestionably and unconditionally.

(He's not wrong in believing that.)

She's carrying the majority of his weight against her tiny body and she pushes her flat door open and settles him on the sofa.

She moves to get up and he grabs her wrist. "Don't go." He mumbles. "Molly, don't go."

She brushes a stray lock of his hair away (it's déjà vu all over again). "Never."

(She varies off their script but that's okay, she's always managed to surprise him.)

Before he leaves, off to dismantle and destroy Moriarty's network, Molly places her hands on his chest. "Please be safe." She tells him.

He nods and implores her with his mind to get her hands off of him because it's taking all his self-control to not throw her on the sofa and bury himself so deeply into her. (He's already fucked up her life enough.)

She lets her hands fall to her sides and she watches him climb out the window, to the car waiting below. "Sherlock?" She calls out softly.

He has one leg out the window and one leg still in Molly's flat. (It seems he's forever straddling that line of leaving and never leaving her.)

"I…" she trails off, takes a deep breath and then she deflates, all her strength gone, the moment she locks eyes with him. "Come back."

(Doesn't she realize yet? He always comes back.)

It takes him three years to track and kill every single one of Moriarty's spiders.

Some are too easy.

Some are more difficult.

Sebastian Moran proves to be the hardest of them all.

Not because he's stronger than all of them (he is) and not because he's sneakier than all of them (he is) but because he's the most evasive of them all. As soon as Sherlock thinks he's getting close, Moran disappears, leaving behind a trail of smoke and empty clues.

And then, one day, it all changes.

He finds himself holding a gun to Sebastian Moran's face on the roof of Bart's hospital. (It ends where it all begins.)

"Do you know why I chose this spot?" Sebastian asks him. His voice is rough, like gravel.

"It's where your beloved Moriarty shot himself. It's where I won." Sherlock answers.

Moran's eyes flare and then he smirks. "I'll admit, Jimmy threw me for a loop when he decided to off himself but that's not the only reason." He traces the ground with his foot. "Jimmy, he always thought I was just hired muscle, oh, he loved me, I know he did, but he was blinded by you. All he could see was you. All he could see was the obvious."

There is a strange lump forming in the back of Sherlock's throat.

Moran continues, "I saw everything else." He takes a step backward, so that his back is facing the ledge, where three years ago, Sherlock jumped and changed the course of every life that came in contact with his. "Tell me, how soft is Molly Hooper's skin? I always wanted to taste her. Claim her the way you have. Will you let me have that, Sherlock? Will you let me share your heart before I burn you all?" He smiles at him, a twisted smile, a sad and resigned smile and Sherlock thinks that Sebastian Moran is the saddest man in the world. "I didn't think so."

Before Sherlock can do anything, before he can pull his own trigger, Moran has his gun out, turns it towards himself and proceeds to blow his brains out.

(He falls on the way down.)

Sherlock can hear the screams of people in the busy London evening as he wraps his coat around him and proceeds down the stairs, away from the roof he swears he will never see again.

John punches him.

Lestrade curses him.

Mrs. Hudson pulls him into a hug and proceeds to sob into his shirt.

And Molly, Molly is hovering by the door, eyes taking in everything around her, hands clenched tightly.

He's in the middle of explaining why he had to do what he did (even though he thinks it's pointless to explain. He's alive. They're alive. The rest of them are dead. Shouldn't that be enough?) when he sees Molly creep out of 221b Baker Street. (She thinks she's being sneaky. She thinks they don't notice.)

And well, to be honest, John, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson, don't.

(But Sherlock does. Sherlock always notices Molly.)

Sherlock goes to leave the flat when John stops him.

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere." Sherlock responds.

John snickers. "Tell Molly hello for me."

(Sherlock ignores him.)

He picks her locks in under a minute (he really needs to tell her to invest in better locks) and lets himself into her flat. It's still the same as it always has been, light peach covered walls with pictures (his eyes are still drawn to the picture of her on the swing, there's something so innocent, so carefree so utterly and completely Molly about that picture.) He's been in and out of this flat numerous of times over the past three years, partly to recuperate, partly for shelter but mostly for some semblance of human contact that he will never admit to wanting.

(Some nights, he would pick his way through her lock and into her darkened flat and walk the familiar path to her bedroom where he knew she would be sleeping. He'd shed his coat and shoes and strip out of his dirty clothes and crawl into bed with her. It always amazes him how her body automatically bends towards his, as if she knows he's there without even waking.)

She is sitting on the sofa, her eyes trained on him, a mug of tea cradled in her hands.

"Why did you leave?" He asks her, as he makes his way over to her and takes the seat next to her.

"I didn't think you'd notice." She tells him honestly.

(Sherlock Holmes always notices Molly.)

"You once asked me if I remembered that night." He brings it up after a decade of not mentioning it.

She sucks in a deep breath. They're in her bed, she's curled underneath her covers and he has a hand under his head, the other (the one closest to Molly), lays by his side, fingers twitching with the need to touch something (to touch her.) She saw that he was exhausted, the past three years finally taking their toll on him and his body, and pulled him along the familiar path to her bedroom, where he shed his dirty coat and clothes and they both lifted the covers, her body automatically bending towards his. "You deleted it. You were high and I was drunk."

"I was high and you were drunk." He concedes, "but I never deleted it." He hesitates, his voice unsure as he says, "There is a room for you in my mind palace. I go there sometimes." (Most of the times.)

When he turns his head to stare at her, her brown eyes are filling with unshed tears and her bottom lip is trembling. He brings his hand and slowly wipes a stray tear away from her cheek. She lets out a small laugh. "Oh. Oh. Sherlock…I love you too."

She leans in closer until her body is pressed against his and her lips cover his.

(Molly always knows what he says even when he doesn't say it.)

Her hands are still small and fragile (he can see the unspoken strength in them) as they clutch his shoulders tightly. Her thighs are still shapely and quivering with unrestrained pleasure as she wraps them around his waist, locking them at the small of his back. Her hair is still brown, with a tint of auburn and he buries one hand in it while the other one brings one of her hands away from his shoulders and grips it tightly.

She's still so very expressive.

He leans his forehead against hers and she presses her lips against his, not kissing, but sharing the same breath, as she whispers over and over again, "I love you. I love you. God, Sherlock, I love you."

The tightening of his grip in her hair and her hand and the stuttering of his hips, the guttural groan that rips through his throat as he explodes inside of her, tells her everything he cannot say.

(She doesn't hold it against him. Molly has never held anything against him.)

He's still somewhat surprised that she doesn't hate him as much as he thinks she should.

"Don't go." She murmurs sleepily. "You're always gone when I wake up. Don't go."

He shifts into a comfortable position, their bodies slick with their dried sweat and other fluids. Her body bends towards his and he pulls her closer, until she's pressed against his side, head tucked into the crook of his neck. He lets out a deep breath. "Never." He responds.

(Somehow, he is not surprised by how much he means it.)

It's taken a decade, untold amounts of heartbreak, three boyfriends on her part, quite a bit of possessiveness on his, a Consulting Criminal, a dominatrix, a fake death, a web of spiders and a resurrection for him to finally get it right.

It's the end results that count and the end result is Molly.

(It's always been Molly.)

So, here's the deal with this monstrosity of a story: I got my heart broken and instead of gorging my weight in Ben and Jerry's Half Baked ice-cream (let me tell you the fucking restraint on that one) I decided to write a Sherlolly story.

It was supposed to be angsty. It was supposed to be painful and heartbreaking but then I couldn't…because damn it, okay, I didn't get my happy ending (I'm a romantic buried very deep down) but that doesn't mean that I want Sherlolly to be unhappy, because you know, I torture them enough. Not that this story is without its fair share of heartbreak and angst because I mean really, I obviously can't write fluff to save my damn life, apparently, but happy endings happen sometimes. Right?

So yes, this is the result of a guy completing breaking me. Thank you, dude, for making me miserable but also for making me strong. I didn't eat my weight in ice cream and instead wrote a one-shot about my OTP overcoming the fucking odds of a fake death and Consulting Criminal (not to mention other things too) so suck on that.

On the upside, I love you guys. Seriously. Your support and unfailing nice words both here, AO3 and Tumblr are the reason why I keep writing and why when I break into sobs, I keep plowing through. So, here is my heartfelt thanks to every single person who supports me. I've got so much LOVE AND RESPECT for all you amazing people.

Much love,

BB