Stop This

A Taste of the Sea

Molly ran a hand through her hair, sighing as she shrugged off her lab coat and walked towards the lockers where her things were kept.

She rubbed her tired eyes with one hand as the other pushed the door to the room open again.

Molly had worked a fifteen hour day, cutting open bodies from the moment day broke until the sun had dipped back under the horizon; she had gotten through about seven of them.

Opening her assigned locker Molly sleepily folded her lab coat and stuffed it in, her hands closing around the keys to her flat and shutting the metal door back with a clang.

Trudging out the front door she was plunged into the inky black of the London skies, the darkness punctuated by lights from windows twinkling warmly like stars. She hailed a cab, almost falling asleep in the backseat and pressing a little too much money into the palm of the driver when she had reached her small complex.

Molly fumbled with the keys in her hand for a moment before realizing that the door was cracked open, a small sliver of dim light and the sound of Beethoven's 67th opus spilling out into the space outside.

Fear settled in her stomach like a lump of ice, slowly pushing the door open as she crushed the cold metal into the skin of her hand. The room was lit by city lights that drowned it in a steely shade of illumination, though dark, murky shadows peppered the corners.

Molly found her way to the light switch, the bright, somewhat sudden blast causing her to squint.

What she saw when her eyes adjusted made her breath catch in her throat, a scream puncturing the inflated silence in the room before she clapped her hand over her mouth, her keys clanging loudly as they collided with the ground.

"Hello, Molly Hooper."

The baritone voice that said her name belonged to none other than Sherlock Holmes. The man who should've been dead. She would know it anywhere. His raven colored hair was still unruly, his back erect as he sat in the chair, his suit perfect to the last detail. Sherlock's face was still youthful, his cerulean eyes bright, but there was something different, something new that she could detect right away; she knew this man inside and out. It was longing. She couldn't focus on that right now though; not when she had been to his funeral.

She ran to Sherlock, standing angrily in front of him. Molly brought her hand back, slapping him hard across the face, the sound of skin on skin echoing around her flat.

He didn't even flinch.

"How dare you, Sherlock Holmes!" She shouted, tears beginning to put down her paper white face.

"I was there when you jumped!

You were bloody on the ground!" Molly screamed, Sherlock's white teeth worrying his lower lip; it seemed that her yelling was more painful than any form of physical punishment.

"do you have any idea what it's like to - to watch the person you -

I buried you, Sherlock!"

Her face was drowning in her tears, her shoulders beginning to shake as she hugged herself, cupping her elbows with her palms and turning in on herself.

A single tear escaped Sherlock, running down his face, tearing through any facade that he had ever put up.

"you don't think it was hard for me too?" Sherlock roared, his normally strong voice shaking. "I had to watch you like this, I had to watch you grieve! I had to watch you fall from your pedestal, knowing that I caused all of this!"

"I am sorry, Molly. Molly, please. Please forgive me." He whispered.

When he reached across and pulled Molly against his chest, it was the loudest thing that had been said all night. Sherlock's spindly arms came around her, holding her as close as he could to himself.

"I loved you Molly. I still love you. Please, Molly." Sherlock whispered desperately, tears now pouring down his own face when he had seen the consequences of his actions for the first time, pulling her back so he could look her in the eyes.

"Please." He breathed, before crashing his lips onto hers. It tasted of the sea and Molly, of love and loss and joy and sorrow.

When it ended Molly's eyes were lighter, hope marbling through the hazel pools as she tangled her fingers through his wild curls. His nimble fingers were tracing patterns into her back.

"I love you, Sherlock Holmes. I never stopped." She whispered, and, marveling that she could do it, she kissed him.

For the first time in three years, both of them felt truly alive again.