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He's the fastest on his feet, but it isn't his endurance that keeps him going. It's not even the thoughts in his head, putting the conversation on an endless repeat, Molly's gone, she left the wedding about an hour ago. It's his heart snarling at his lungs, trying to claw its way out. His mind is fast, yes, already telling him she won't go to the hospital, too informal, she won't go to her father's grave, too far, she won't go to him, he's too much. But his heart tugs him in the right direction, pulling him down this street instead of that street, she's not ever going to go to him-
She's on the stoop by a closed cafe, not too far from the venue. Her face buried in her knees. Her dress soaked close to her skin. She sobbing hard enough that the noise carries from down the street. It quakes from her, like she's a planet quivering under the force of everything inside her shifting. She's already so hurt, she's already so vulnerable, it's best to treat her like a museum rather than a home.
He can't touch her. He can't, he's not allowed to, she's so far away and he's trapped in this slow, mundane, stupid cage that was his world.
"You left him," he says.
She left Tom the same way she left Jim, and the same way she'll leave anyone who tries to treat her -- the way he did.
She coughs, and he flinches from it. This is his fault. She breaks, and then he breaks, and they'll never stop hurting each other this way. But they can't, they can't. They've played this game for years now.
"I'm... sorry," he says, feeling so distant from the awkward, indifferent tone that somehow escapes him.
His heart is still reaching.
Her hair shifts, and it's the only warning before he's struck.
"Just leave me alone."
It's like lightning, rasping in her throat and striking him in the chest. It hurts. It physically hurts, enough that he reaches up to rub the heel of his palm over his sternum.
What a show of child's play they were making. All this want and need, as if they're a limb to each other. As if he's the air she breathes. As if he can remember every single tunnel with a light at the end of it and she's the one that stands at his side telling him to return. Every single time.
Because she's a pathologist and she gets the skull on the mantle and the sharp ice in his eyes doesn't hurt so much when she smiles at him and he tries he tries to put away his claws and his fangs and the unnecessary violence his words have to offer because he doesn't need them. But trying is not as good as succeeding. Because if he succeeded he would sit beside her and hold her and promise her their years of hurt are over. That he is a better man, he's the best Sherlock Holmes of all the universes out there.
He ought to be so much more than the fear, all these pointless feelings, but... he's... ugh... frightened. Frightened, alright? He knew what it meant, to be that man. To be the man that she deserves.
"Molly-"
"Go!"
He steps back, because she's on her feet and she's swinging an open hand blindly at him.
"Please don't do this-"
"What? Lash out? Say mean things? You-you can't just say I'm important, that I matter- that I matter the most, and you can't tell me that you want me to be happy because that isn't fair! You can't just say all those things and then prance around with her!"
He closes his eyes in defeat. The Magnussen case. Janine.
"She's-"
Molly's face is crumpling as she spits at him, "The next me, Sherlock. She's the next girl like me you'll smile at for-for a case, I don't know, for sex, whatever it is you like-"
"You're not-"
"I don't want to do this anymore Sherlock, I really don't, please just leave me alone-"
"I'm so sorry, Molly."
His voice shakes with it, and that makes Molly's snarl dissipate. She watches, baffled, as he tries and he tries and he tries to speak, but he looks like a fool no doubt, his mouth bobbing like a bloody fish.
"There's no one. Else. After you. It's just you. Of course there will be other cases and there will be other things to wheedle out of people but there is no one else after... after you." Sherlock hides his face in the collar of his coat, before straightening up and hastily adding, "And I'm sorry about Tom."
Thunder rumbles in the distance and it's the most comforting thing Sherlock's had to hear all night. Molly'll have to say something or not say something but either way lightning will come and they will have to go inside. He tucks his hands into his pockets, then decides against it, flexing his hands in the nighttime air.
"I left him because he knew I didn't love him. And I knew what that felt like. I couldn't do it to him, or anyone else."
"I know," Sherlock murmurs, feeling so small in the pressure those words make around him, "You don't hurt people."
"I don't?" her words join with his, surrounding him with the ceaseless pressure pounding at his head, begging to break inside that skull and just overwhelm him until he can't take any more of the sound.
It's this moment, because she doubts his statement, she thinks she's hurt someone, and she's looking at him with so many things left unsaid that it's impossible to stop her from knowing anymore. His heart feels like it's slipping through his ribs.
He meets her gaze, and replies, unbearably honest, "You don't try to."
You didn't know is what he means.
Stop the years of hurt. Please.
The words burn at his throat, stopping him from saying them out loud, but he opens his mouth, all fear and honesty and done with the hurt, and begs, "Please."
Molly stands in front of him, head tilted up to see his face. Her eyes flicker against the rain that's coming down, but she holds her gaze nonetheless.
"I can't live with this... mystery, Sherlock. Will you, won't you? I can't live with that anymore. I have to live my life, I can't wait for..."
"I don't want to wait," Sherlock found himself admitting to her.
"Then why? Why wait until Tom shows up? Or the next?"
"There's no next. There is no one else."
Molly breathes, in and out. Sherlock hesitates, but his lungs follow hers. In and out.
"Then kiss me, Sherlock. Please."
He does. He holds her face in both of his hands and kisses her. He kisses her as if this one kiss could make up for all the other times he should have.
It doesn't make the years of hurt go away forever. But those years are the past, and they're not fighting it. There was fear to be had. Anger, sadness, too. But it melted away in the quiet that bliss gave them. Finally. Finally.