What Does She Need?

Panic

     It was over.
     Not the game - no, that was never over - but the torture inflicted upon him had now ceased, yet he felt more in pain than ever.
     Over the past hour, the police cars and teams of various professionals had drained from the site, leaving only himself and a few others to contemplate the wreckage that his sister had wrought.
     Sherlock Holmes perched upon a raised mound of grass, a small distance away from where John, Greg and a few others stood talking and occasionally peering over at him.
     He sat there and considered all of the things he knew now, which he had not known before arriving at Sherrinford;
      He'd had a best friend, when he was younger. Actually, it came as a surprise to him that he'd had a friend at all when he had been a child. If he hadn't have rewritten that memory, if he had not have associated his childhood with solitude, would he have grown to be a different man? Would he have been a better man?
     Sherlock supposed it didn't matter now: Euros had killed him. He felt a lump form in his dry throat, choking him slightly. He didn't feel anger towards her - she wasn't a villain. She was his sister.
Euros was brilliant; her mind was complex and intricate, but she had shown that she would trade all that to have had her family's love and support all these years. It was because of this that the only emotion he could offer Euros at present was pity, he regretted the actions of others which had imprisoned his younger sister, the catalyst to the war within her mind.
      He thought of the lives his sister had stolen, realising that she had stolen their lives because she felt her life had been stolen from her: Victor Trevor, the three brothers, the governor, the governor's wife and God knows countless others.
     Yes, definitely pity.
     He considered John now; he had almost lost another best friend tonight, and if he had have done then he would truly never have forgiven Euros. Sherlock closed his eyes and extracted a consuming sigh of relief. John was part of the goodness that had bestowed itself upon Sherlock these past few years and to even contemplate a life without him sent tsunamis of fear to wash away the protections of his mind palace.
Only a few hours earlier, he had been prepared to end the life of his biological brother, Mycroft, in order to save John Watson, his brother by so many more factors than that of blood. Yet he hadn't been able to go through with it.
     Merely some years ago Sherlock would have incorrectly assumed himself weak, but he had seen too much loss to know that love is not a weakness ... and he supposed he had seen a lot of happiness in his recent years, too.
     However, the fondness the Sherlock was beginning to recognise he kept for Mycroft was far too much of a deterrent for him to succumb to the trigger.
     "Penny for your thoughts," the gentle but fatigued voice of John Watson sounded, as his friend sat down beside him on the cool grass. Sherlock subconsciously began to yank individual strands of emerald from the ground, only to drop them a second later.
     "If you were to give me a penny for each thought then you would be a very rich man indeed, John," Sherlock muttered, his voice expressionless as he continued to not look at his friend. He felt a heavy sigh leave John's being and could just imagine how his expression would be one of raised eyebrows and lines of woe traced upon his forehead.
     "I do ... well, I do have one question," John stammered as he had now taken to tweezing strands of grass himself.
     "Only one? You're way ahead of me."
     "Okay. Well, hm ... what, exactly, are you going to do about Molly?"
     Molly.
     He'd been shot before, yet the impact of a bullet was nothing by way of that name. Her name.
     Sherlock tried to form ideas about his experience of Euros' instructed phone call, or about how Molly would be coping, but his mind palace was locked and completely refusing him entry.
     She hadn't even been pleased when he had opened up to her, said those words which he had never before used with a degree of intent. If anything, she had seemed livid at first, as though he really had been attempting to ridicule her. Maybe he was a lot softer nowadays, but even before he had accepted emotion he would still never have humiliated her like that.
     Well, he thought, not intentionally - the memories of a Christmas party a few years ago made itself aware within his mind. He still felt immensely guilty.
     "What did you make of the situation?" Sherlock finally responded, and this time he turned to face his friend.
     John picked up on the glimmer of fear and angst in his friend's icicle irises; only a fool would deem Sherlock a man who did not care. Especially when it came to Molly Hooper.
     "Well, she loves you."
     Sherlock had a few witty responses lined up, each sardonic of the fact that John had stated the absolute obvious. Instead, Sherlock gulped and remained quiet.
     "But not for a second will she believe that you meant it. You've hurt her too much in the past, people begin to develop a resistance."
     "You assume I did not mean what I told her." Sherlock's voice was cool and unfeeling, comprehending John's perspective.
     "Sherlock, I don't blame you!" he briskly assured him. "You did what, at the time, you thought you had to do in order to save her ... any of us would have done the exact same thing. It's just ..."
     "What?"
     "Well, just that this ... situation, erm, well I think it could have broken her. Did you see her face on the screen?"
     Yes. Sherlock wanted nothing more than for it to disappear from his mind's canvas, but her large, glossed brown eyes which had brimmed with tears bore into his soul. They were pretty eyes - fascinating and lively, in fact - but incredibly accusing.
     It was hard to imagine a broken Molly Hooper; yes, her frame was petite and dainty and a little bit breakable, but Sherlock had come to appreciate that Molly's nerves were made of steel, and for her to be broken would be a heresy, as she was the one that mended other people.
He'd made his best efforts these past few months to show the people around him that he had changed and that he truly did care for their well being, Molly was included in these people.       Especially Molly. Sherlock cringed at how he had treated Molly in the past, she had been his friend all along and he hated to think that he had ever taken her friendship for granted. Now she would just think that he was back to his old ways, that he didn't actually value her ... and that was something Sherlock could not face.
With an exasperated sigh, Sherlock dropped his head into his cold hands.
"What am I going to do, John?" he grumbled into his palms, scrunching his face up as he did so.
"Talk to her, maybe?"
"No." Sherlock had responded so quickly that John averted his gaze from the ground and looked at Sherlock. He was perplexed but there was something deeper than that, some other emotion ... fear? "I can't face her."
"You can't just avoid her, either," John reasoned as he shook his head, wearing a plaintive expression. He felt bad for his best friend, bad for Molly - the whole situation was just bad.
     "No," Sherlock agreed, anxiously biting into his lower lip. "No I can't very well do that, you are right."
     In the near distance, two more cars were slowly approaching. Black, sleek and expensive - not police cars, much more official. Opaque windows, presumably intended for security procedures. Sherlock could only presume Mycroft's people had intervened and sent these vehicles.
     "Those will be for us," John observed, picking himself up from the ground and brushing the specks of dirt and gravel from his rumpled trousers. He outstretched his palm to Sherlock who remained hunched on the floor. After several seconds, John glanced down to see why his hand had not been met.
     Sherlock was still perched on the ground but his body was rigid and his eyes were wide and watery, larger than John had ever seen them before, almost as though they had built themselves up to hide his vulnerability. His visage now wore a pale mask and his lips were trembling.
     John had never seen him look like this.
     A single tear rolled down his chalky face and his mouth opened in confusion. He didn't reach his hand to his face to banish the tear, though, and now another one had formed and followed down the same pathway.
     "Can we just stay here a minute?" Sherlock pleaded, his hands shaking as he pulled his coat tighter around him. His voice turned to a mumble, "Wouldn't want Lestrade and co to get any wrong ideas about me ... can't have them thinking I actually feel things."
     Sherlock almost smiled at his devastated wit. He reached up and took John's hand, depending on the other man's strength to pull him up.
     As soon as Sherlock was steady on his feet, John pulled him into a comforting embrace and, if only momentarily, all Sherlock's fears subdued and he felt lighter than he had done.
     "You'll pull through this," said John matter-of-factly, his tone solemn. "You always do."