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Sherlock sways along time with the music, his violin tucked neatly between his chin and left shoulder. It rubs against his neck, leaving a faint red mark under his jaw.
Muscle memory moves his fingers automatically—he composed the piece himself. For his best friend (love of his life), now waltzing with his newlywed. He averts his eyes, staring into the middle distance above the music stand.
---
Molly’s not watching the happy couple. She's watching Sherlock, whose gaze is lost and unfocused. Nevertheless, she enjoys the music.
A chuckle and a high-pitch giggle catch her ear. She turns to see that John has swept Mary into a low dip at the end of their waltz. They look happy together, and Molly is glad that John found someone. But she can’t help but feel the smallest amount of negativity towards him.
The song ends with a long, low note. Sherlock’s eyes are closed, his second finger moving back and forth on the wooden neck, eliciting a wide vibrato pleasing to the ear.
Clapping assaults Molly's ears; one of the bridesmaid's enthusiastic yelling being particularly noticeable. Sherlock tosses his white rose corsage to her with a smile. Molly frowns.
Sherlock speaks into the microphone on the stage, his smooth yet scattered baritone filling the room.
He looks untroubled. Anyone who isn't paying attention (which is everyone) wouldn't think that anything is wrong. They're all focused on John and Mary and their good fortune, even when they’re staring unknowingly straight at a dying man.
Molly sees someone who is barely holding it together. She sees his emotions as fragile as glass. Today, Molly can see just how much he's hurting. His feelings aren't quite forthcoming, but if she turns her head this way or that way and looks behind the thin yet strong façade, she can see a shadow of what she convinces herself are his feelings.
Sherlock stumbles in his speech. Correcting himself, he encourages everyone to dance along to the modern music coming through the speakers and hops off the stage.
Molly's fiancé grabs her hand and gently pulls her across the room. "Come on, let's dance."
She lets herself be pulled onto the dance floor.
---
A handful of minutes pass before Molly thinks to look for Sherlock again. She doesn’t see him on the dance floor, but then looks up to find him on the stage, folding his sheet music into an envelope.
Molly’s dancing slows marginally as he leaves the envelope on the music stand and exits the room.
“Oh, where you goin’?” Tom reaches for her as she steps away from him.
“Just the loo, be right back.” Molly scampers off the dance floor, leaving behind her fiancé and all the other drunkenly happy dancers. She doesn’t look back to see if John has noticed what she has.
---
Sherlock’s not in the hallway, the restroom, or outside the building with a smoke. His Belstaff is gone when she checks the coat room.
Her kitten heels click on the floor impossibly loud when she makes her way back to the reception hall. The beat of the music eventually drowns them out.
She glances once more to the stage and spots a violin case.
“You were gone awhile, you okay?” Tom asks when she finds him.
“I’m– I think I might’ve eaten something bad, I think I’ll head home,” she lies.
“Want me to drive you?”
“No, it’s alright, I’ll take a taxi. You stay and have some fun.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Molly gives him a kiss in farewell before retrieving the violin case from the stage.
---
Sherlock’s proud of himself for heading straight home. The more indulgent part of him was begging him to buy something dubiously legal, but in the end it would have been too much effort.
He’s tired.
He lays on his couch, facing the back, coat still on, when the doorbell rings.
The sound doesn’t register at first until it rings a second time. Even then he doesn’t move to answer it.
Someone pounds on the door for a moment before it’s silent.
Sherlock thinks they’ve gone away until he hears the door open. Oh. He must not have locked it.
Shoes gently tap on their way up the stairs. The flat door creaks open.
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock turns around at the sound of Molly’s hesitant voice, but doesn’t answer.
“You, er, forgot your violin.”
Sherlock stays silent.
“Oh.” He hadn’t realised. “Thank you. Set it over there.” He gestures toward the music stand by the window, not really caring exactly where she puts it.
Molly wordlessly complies. The sound of her heels seem to echo more they should.
Sherlock sits up, feeling as if he should at least try to be hospitable. Must be John’s influence.
The thought crumples him.
“Are you alright?” Molly’s words come out rushed. She stands resolute in front of Sherlock, across the room, standing her ground.
“Why are you here?” Sherlock asks instead.
“I–,” Molly starts. She doesn’t really have an answer. “I asked first,” she settles on. Then she gives a small nod to herself, as if to say That’s that on that.
Sherlock just stares at her.
Molly sighs. She makes her way to the couch and sits, not as hesitantly as Sherlock would have expected. “Of course you’re not alright.”
Sherlock likes to imagine he has a tight lock on his emotions, but few other people actually believe it. So it comes as a surprise to him when he feels tears well up in his eyes and begin to spill over at her words.
He doesn’t try to stop them.
His sobs are great and loud, phlegmy and breathless. He finds himself leaning forward over his knees, screaming his grief into the hidden space created by his body.
He doesn’t even care that Molly is there. He almost wants her to see, to show this little part of the world that he hurts.
Molly lays a comforting hand on his back and rubs circles, just like her mother would do, but it doesn’t feel like enough under the weight of Sherlock’s pain. So she drapes herself over Sherlock’s form, arms around him, and holds the pieces of his shattering heart together with all her strength.