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Sherlock appeared on Molly’s doorstep two hours after she had killed him. The only sign of what had just transpired were in the way his shoulders slumped, in the way even his signature Belstaff swooped along mournfully. But his eyes remained defiant and focused on the task ahead.
Molly let him in wordlessly. Sherlock’s lips quirked up minutely in acknowledgement, and he brushed past her to her bedroom. His fingers steepled against his lips as he assumed a prone position to organize his mind palace. He looked so still, and unwittingly, Molly thought of the corpse in the morgue that bore the burden of proof that the man in front of her was legally dead. Instead of Sherlock on her bed, he was on her table, unmoving because something had gone wrong--
Molly shook her head. It would do no good to dwell on what could have gone wrong. Sherlock was here now. Lazarus had worked. She padded to the kitchen and put on the kettle.
When she returned to her bedroom with two cups of tea, Sherlock was staring at the ceiling in contemplation, his dark curls spilling around him like a halo. She watched his chest rise and fall to remind herself that this was real, that he had survived.
Perhaps it was the stress of the day that loosened her lips. Perhaps it was because she knew that he would not return to her this time. “I think that you’re beautiful,” Molly blurted.
Startled, Sherlock huffed out a laugh, and Molly frowned. “What’s so funny?”
“I’ve never been called beautiful before.” He smiled shyly, his pale ocean eyes sharp and searching. She could almost hear the whoosh of data in his mind trying to assimilate this new information.
Molly blushed and sat next to him. “Well, you are. Maybe it’s the way the moonlight casts shadows on your face, or the way your face lights up with you laugh, or how you talk with your hands when you get excited about something.” She cocked her head at him, smiling in that warm, sad way that she always smiles when she wants him to stay. “I just think that you’re beautiful, in that perfectly ordinary, untouchable way.”
At this, Sherlock beamed. He turned to her, gaze soft and worshipful. “You are… really something.”
She snorted self-deprecatingly. “I know.”
“I mean it.” His eyes pierced Molly’s soul. “Listen to me. I know that I’ve been unkind to you in the past, but hear me now. You’re honest and real, and you carry yourself with a quiet sort of dignity that makes even your awkwardness charming. And on top of that, you’re beautiful.” He looked away abruptly. “I’m sure everyone tells you that,” he mumbled.
Molly blushed. “I’ve… I’ve never been called beautiful. ‘Pretty’, yes, ‘cute’, also yes, ‘adorable’, but I’ve never been beautiful to someone. It was always in an infantilizing tone from boys and a conciliatory tone from girls.” She shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t mind, mostly. Beautiful is… heart-stopping, breath-taking, almost holy in the way that it seems incorruptible. Not perfect -- but it haunts you, unchanging in your mind, and you would do almost anything to have their eyes fixed on you, to have them smile at you.”
Molly flopped down next to him on the blanket and gazed at the ceiling, refusing to meet his eyes. “At least, that’s what I mean when I say ‘beautiful’.”
Sherlock tilted his head thoughtfully, studying her. “And you think that I’m beautiful,” he said quietly, the question more of a statement, because of course he knew that she loved him.
Her lips quirked up dreamily. “Yes,” Molly sighed, finally meeting his eyes. “You’ll break my heart, won’t you?”
Expecting another rebuff, Molly started in surprise when he said, “You already have mine. You’d make do.”
She almost scoffed. Trust Sherlock to tell her that her feelings were reciprocated in such a roundabout way. Instead of calling him out, she asked, “Are you saying that you’re heartless?”
His mouth twisted wryly. “As they come. Love is a chemical defect found on the losing side. I find that logic is much more reliable in the long run.” He paused to take her hand, intertwining their fingers. “Moriarty said that he’d burn the heart out of me. I need you to keep it safe.”
Say you’ll come back. Say you’ll stay. Say you’ll be safe and not run headlong into danger. She couldn’t ask any of that of him, so she simply said, “I will. I promise.”
Tomorrow, Sherlock will be gone. Tomorrow, Molly will be alone, as she has always been. But for now, in this finite infinity, they have each other.