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It's unsettling, talking to a corpse.
It isn't the first time Molly's done it. Her job is not without its difficulties, and she's found comfort in idle chatter, even if the other party isn't exactly capable of responding. "Now, Mrs. Turner, over you get while I examine your back." "George, I'm going to go over your papers for a spell. You sit tight, alright?"
It's a coping mechanism, and one that she has perfected. But Sherlock has to scramble across the gurney and slap his hand across her lips in record time to muffle the scream.
He passes a finger over his own mouth and shakes his head. Molly's chest heaves. "Molly," he whispers frantically. "Calm down. Breathe and calm down."
"You're dead!" she tries to shout, but her voice is lost in the clammy skin of Sherlock's palm. He's probably managed to get his blood all over her, but she can't bring herself to care.
"If I move my hand, are you going to scream?" Molly swallows thickly and shakes her head. Hesitantly, Sherlock peels his fingers away, one at a time.
The second she's free of him, she throws her arms around his neck and presses her nose into his hair. He's a statue beneath her, every muscle taut, every movement stiff. But Molly doesn't care. Sherlock is here, and he's alive, and -
She recoils. She doesn't know which of them is more surprised when she smacks him across the face, but her handprint on his cheek is angry and pink. "How dare you?" she scarcely recognizes the dark tone her voice has taken. "Do you have any idea what you've -"
"Molly, you have to relax, and I'll -"
"You'll what?" she's surprised when he actually allows her to continue her thought without interruption. "You'll explain how you - how you jumped off the roof and you aren't dead? Or how you could just sit there, you just sat there and listened to us mourn you!"
"I had no choice."
"No choice?" the words tumble out with a breath, and the laugh that follows isn't because she's found any of this funny. "So what, you just wanted to get everybody riled up? You let John watch, Sherlock! You made him watch you kill yourself!"
Sherlock raises a blood-spattered eyebrow. "Do I look dead to you?"
Molly's head shakes of its own accord. "You bastard."
Sherlock ignores the comment and shimmies out of his Belstaff. The coat falls to the floor in an inglorious heap, and Sherlock pushes himself out of the gurney on unsteady legs. Despite her anger, Molly still reacts to help when he sways and has to lean against the counter. "I'm fine."
"No you're not." He turns back to her, surprised, and she insists, "Tell me what you did."
He pauses, clearly considering his words carefully. "I killed myself."
It isn't what Molly is expecting him to say. For a moment, she wonders if she's actually gone mad. But she dismisses the thought and pushes back. "You just said you weren't dead."
"But I am," he says, rolling up his shirt sleeves and cracking his spine. The bones pop one at a time as they fall back into place. "You're the only one who can know otherwise."
Realization crashes over Molly like a wave. "You need me to fake the papers."
Despite the weary exhaustion that has colored his face, Sherlock offers her a quirk of his lips. "And a confidant never hurt anyone, I'm told."
"So you're using me."
Sherlock winces. He actually looks offended. "Not using you, no," he corrects her. "I need you, Molly."
***
"Don't go expecting this pampering all the time," Molly grumbles as she hands Sherlock a fresh cuppa. "If you weren't hurt, you'd be making your own tea."
"Of course."
"And don't think this means I'm not angry," she goes on with a huff. "Because I am."
"Wouldn't presume otherwise."
"And despite what you think, I do have people over sometimes, so if anyone calls you'll have to -"
"Make myself scarce?"
Molly spins around on her heel and quite literally throws the duvet at him. "Would you stop that?"
"Stop what?"
Molly's bare feet slap against the tile floor in her kitchen and she slams the fridge after grabbing the closest bottle of alcohol. "Hasn't even been an hour, and you're already driving me to drink."
Sherlock doesn't answer, and Molly steals a glance in his direction. He's propped up on her couch, one of his ankles elevated on the armrest and his head bandaged with fresh gauze. It would appear that attempting to fake one's own suicide is not without its risks. Sherlock must feels his eyes on her because he tosses his head back and shouts, "What?"
Molly leaves the bottle forgotten on the counter. "You're really not going to tell me?"
Sherlock is suddenly very interested in the carpet. "Tell you what?"
"How you did it?"
He hardly waits for her to finish. "No."
Molly sighs and crosses her arms over her chest. "Right," she says. "Well, when should I call John? He'll need some sort of explanation before you just go prancing back to your flat -"
"No!" Sherlock reaches for Molly's mobile even though she's nowhere near it. It's tucked safely against his chest before she can blink.
"What's that all about?" If she didn't know better, she'd say Sherlock looked almost...afraid.
"I told you. No one can know."
Molly chuckles, because that's the most hilarious thing she's heard all day. "But that doesn't include John. You're not just going to go about letting him think you're..." she trails off. Sherlock's face is all the answer she needs. "Oh God," she breathes. "God, that's exactly what you were going to do, isn't it?"
Sherlock swallows hard. She watches his Adam's apple bobble nervously in his throat. He blinks at her too fast. "It's for his own good."
Molly's jaw drops. "His own good?" she repeats. Sherlock nods. "Bloody hell, Sherlock, you really don't have a clue, do you?"
"About?"
Molly takes a steadying breath and drops to the floor beside the couch. She clasps Sherlock's hands in hers and forces him to meet her eyes. Before, this might have sent her heart sputtering, might have made her cheeks flush and her eyes glaze over, but this isn't the time. This is too important. "John," she explains. "John's your person. Everyone gets one. Some people get two, but that's not the point. Didn't you see him, back at the morgue?"
"Glassy eyes and rigor mortis make it difficult to see."
Molly resists the urge to correct him and call him a petulant six year-old. It's extremely difficult. "But you could hear him."
"Tell me, what is the point of going through this again?"
Molly doesn't comply with his attempts to pry her away. "Sherlock," she murmurs gently, her voice suddenly sad. "I know you're not good with...well, with anyone, but even you must know...that man's whole world fell apart."
Sherlock snorts derisively. "You either underestimate John Watson's world or you overestimate my part in it."
Molly pushes away from him. "You're really not going to tell him?"
"No."
"Or your brother?"
"If that is at all possible to avoid."
Molly rakes her hands through her hair and goes back for the wine. "So what, do you expect me to keep this a secret from them? When I see them crying or - or, you know?"
"You have to make it convincing. Grieve with them. You can do that, Molly, there's plenty you can think of to be sad about."
"That's cruel."
Sherlock's features soften. He reaches for Molly's hand almost tenderly. "And yet, you're still here."
"My flat, smart-arse."
"Oh come on, you'd only have to say the word and I'd be gone. You could forget this whole thing ever happened."
She hates him just a little bit, because he knows she couldn't do those things even if she tried. "You ask too much of me."
"There's more."
"Isn't there always?"
"I'm leaving."
Not what Molly expected. "What do you mean you're leaving? Where are you going?"
Sherlock tries to re-situate his aching limbs. He groans under his breath. "Moriarty," he says. "He wasn't the only one. There are others out there, and as long as they are, John isn't safe."
"How do you mean?"
"He wasn't lying," Sherlock continued, more to himself than Molly. "He said he would burn the heart out of me, and he knew exactly where to find it. They know that John is my...pressure point. And if they know I'm alive, he'll be dead within the fortnight."
Molly's face is blank. Sherlock's forehead wrinkles, confused. "What?"
"It's just," she stammers. "I didn't know you...felt things. That way."
"What 'way', what are you talking about?"
Despite it all, Molly tries to hide her smile. "Nothing," she muses. "Nothing at all."
Sherlock's lids are heavy, and they droop over his eyes a moment later. "Just...you don't have to like it. And you don't have to forgive me. But please," and it's one of the few times in Molly's acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes that she's ever heard him use that word. "Please look after him."
"What, so you can go and get yourself killed?"
Sherlock, eyes still shut, shakes his head. "No," he corrects her. "So I can come back to him."