Chapter Text
She'd heard people say before that in life-altering times such as this, they'd see their life flash before their eyes, but Molly Hooper had never experienced this phenomenon herself... until this moment. She'd always wondered exactly how that worked, how that looked, how that felt, and how a person could see an entire lifetime in a moment. Now she wasn't so sure she wanted to find out. But on second thought, in this moment, it seemed appropriate. It seemed necessary. In fact, she didn't know what she would've done if she hadn't been able to think so clearly and so quickly. Without it, this moment might just have been devastating.
Her eyes drifted up towards a wall clock that hung at her eye level as she found herself retreating into her mind palace. Tick went the second hand of the clock as time seemed to slow, almost to a stop, as a single second of time passed by. She wasn't exactly surprised to find that her first thought was of something that, at this point in her life, she tried her hardest not to think of: Sherlock. It had been nearly two years since she'd seen him. She couldn't help but admit to herself that she would never forget him, no matter how many years of her life went by, and by this point she'd learned to be okay with that. In her mind palace she could see, almost more clearly than what her eyes were actually seeing, the day he "jumped" from the roof of St. Bart's and made the world believe he was dead. The memories, the thoughts, the emotions of that day immediately flooded her mind all over again.
She remembered the confusion she felt at the simultaneous occurrence of the adrenaline rush of her nerves as she knew Sherlock's life depended on her and the sinking feeling of sadness in her stomach as she knew that these would be the last moments she'd ever be able to see this man she'd fallen so deeply in love with. She remembered them both hitting her at once as she unzipped the body bag to let Sherlock out, still alive and well, unbeknownst to everyone but her, Mycroft, and a handful of Mycroft's minions. Where he would go from there, even he didn't know, but the only thing they both knew was that when this was over they'd never see each other again. Because he was believed by the world to be dead, a belief she had the biggest hand of all in creating, that evening, Mycroft would be taking him away to a destination unknown even to him. He wouldn’t technically be employed by MI-6, but MI-6 would be watching out for him as he went after known criminals in Moriarty’s network who’d been terrorizing many cities in multiple countries in Moriarty’s name. And the part of this plan that tore her heart to shreds was the part where he told her that no matter how much he wanted to, he wasn’t likely to ever return, not to England at all, let alone London or Baker Street, and so he set himself to accept that he would never be back, and never see anyone he loved ever again.
She had felt the heartbreak begin to set in as she traded him the keys to her flat, where he was to hide and asked for the clothing he'd been wearing, including his precious Belstaff coat, which she would return to Mycroft when he came to identify the "body." She forced back tears as she watched him scuttle away from the hospital wearing a scrubby hoodie with the hood up, dirty jeans, trainers and a stocking cap, all procured from someone in his homeless network, in hopes of not being recognized as he snuck out a side door. She'd have to bring the paperwork home with her so she could fill it out accurately with his proper information to make this seem as real as possible.
As she’d watched from a window as he disappeared down an alley, she’d completely run out of strength. Just then a co-worker had walked through the door to make sure she was okay after losing the man they had all known she’d loved, and the tears she'd been fighting back finally escaped her and she broke completely down. Knowing about her feelings for Sherlock, and seeing how broken she was in that moment, her co-worker offered to cover her shift for the rest of the day and allowed her to go home. She’d gladly accepted the offer, promising to return the next day because she wanted to be the one to take care of Sherlock's "body." She made sure it was known that she wanted to be the only one; she had to be the only one, lest his cover be blown.
Holding back the tears again as she sat across her table from him in her flat was the hardest thing she'd ever done, as she tried not to let on that her heart was slowly breaking into a million pieces. It was truly starting to hit her now that this was it. This was the end. Mycroft would be there shortly to take him away, and she would never see him again. She would never see his strangely beautiful face and dark, perfectly disheveled curls, or hear his intoxicatingly smooth baritone voice, or look into his beautiful, perfect glasz-coloured eyes... after today, he would only be a memory. She wanted to be sure she never forgot even the smallest detail about him, so she made sure to take every look she could, memorize every particular detail, and etch them permanently into the wall of her mind palace.
She had let him take a shower so he could wash off all the fake blood and dirt he’d accumulated in the process of faking his suicide. She’d never seen him look like that before. He wore a grey t-shirt and jeans that had been left the last time he’d used her flat as a bolt hole. His hair was still wet, and he’d simply raked a comb through it, leaving one errant curl falling on his forehead. She was so used to seeing him in his perfectly tailored suits and tight button-down shirts, paired with his signature scarf and Belstaff coat, and with such a rigid and determined demeanor that it was markedly noticeable how soft and innocent he looked when he was this way. This was a side of him she’d never seen before. It was almost like she was looking at someone else entirely, someone unbearably beautiful. It seemed so inexplicable to think that this vulnerable, visibly heartbroken human being sitting in front of her who knew in his heart that even though he wasn’t actually dying he was still losing his life was the same person.
She set his death certificate down in front of her and took a pen in her hand. First she filled in the date, 28th October, 2011, and then the place of death, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. It was actually becoming real now. Then she paused as she filled in his surname first. "So, have you got a middle name?"
"You already know it," he replied quietly, almost in a whisper.
Confused, she stopped writing and looked up at him. She tried to think. When did he tell her his middle name? She couldn't seem to recall ever having heard it. "I do?" she asked.
"You've always known it," he said, and she seemed to sense a hint of embarrassment in his voice. She had no idea how to respond to him because she truly didn't remember ever hearing his middle name. But he seemed to sense her bafflement so he went on to explain. "William Sherlock Scott Holmes. That's the whole of it. So you see? You already know it."
"William Sherlock Scott Holmes?" She couldn't help repeating it out loud. William? His name was William? That was quite a surprise to hear. She struggled to think of how to ask, or whether she should even ask at all, why he went by one of his middle names instead of by his first. Why go by a name as unusual as Sherlock when he had a name like William? But then she thought that it was actually rather fitting of him to be unusual, to be different from everyone else, to be unique and distinctive. That was one of the things she loved about him.
She saw his eyes drift away, looking off into the distance as if remembering the past, as he explained. "William is my father's second middle name. His full name is Siger Mycroft William Holmes. Sherlock was my maternal grandfather's name, and Scott was his father's name. It's a family tradition, to name the sons that way." As he looked back at her, she could see him redden slightly, but before he spoke again he looked down, almost as if in shame. "No one outside my family knows about that, not even John. Well…no one but you, now." She looked at him in surprise. Not even John? He hadn’t even told his best friend, the man he lived with and was so close to for years, but he was telling her? The thought blew her mind just a little, that he was trusting her more than John Watson. It seemed rather strange to her, hearing Sherlock — or William, she had thought as she smiled to herself — telling her that sort of a personal detail.
She’d always suspected he'd been embarrassed to let people know the truth about himself; she knew it was part of the reason he'd worn that façade of a high-functioning sociopath for all those years, so she felt honoured that he trusted her enough to allow her to know something so personal that he felt the need to hide it from the rest of the world, even from his best friend. His words from earlier in the day echoed through her mind once again: “You do count. You've always counted, and I've always trusted you.” She stumbled over her words slightly as she attempted to gently ask, "Wh... why, um... why Sherlock, then?"
Still looking down and still seeming to be embarrassed by the conversation he expounded, "When I was a child, I was always very close to my Grandpa Sherlock. I was always the different one, the weird one, the one who didn't fit in because nobody understood me. My parents didn’t at all, and my brother just slightly. But Grandpa Sherlock did. He never looked down on me, never chastised me or shamed me for being so different because he was different, too. He was the same kind of different as I was. Of course, we wouldn't know until much later in life that this 'different' was Asperger's. So he knew better than anyone how I needed people to be with me. He was the only one who allowed me to just be myself, to be who and how I am without shame, without feeling the need to hide it, or to fake being what everyone else expected from me that I just couldn't be, no matter how hard I tried. So he was always my favourite person to be around.” He smiled slightly as a memory came to him. “My brother would sometimes refer to us as Big Sherlock and Little Sherlock. He meant it as a jab, but to me, it was a compliment. It was an honour to be likened to someone who meant so much to me. Everyone else decided it was 'cute,' so by the time I was about 5 years old, it stuck. They all began to call me Sherlock. And I was proud to be called Sherlock, after the only one in this sea of humanity that made me feel like a real, whole person deserving to be loved instead of some damaged creature deserving only to be tolerated. So Sherlock is in honour of him."
After hearing that, she couldn’t help but see him with different eyes. She’d always been able to see what was behind that mask he wore in front of everyone, and she had always known that there was a real human being with a big, beautiful heart hiding behind that gruff, sardonic exterior. But seeing him willfully take the mask down and allow her to see it had touched her heart in a way that nothing ever had before. She’d noticed a bit of a tear welling up in his eyes before he quickly looked down, leaning his elbows on the table and combing his fingers through the front of his hair, stopping as his forehead was against his palms, like he was trying to hide his face so that she didn’t see it. But as always, to her, he was completely see-through, just like glass, and he could shatter just as fast.
She couldn’t help but reach out and touch one of his hands as some attempt to express that she understood what he was feeling right then. It had startled him a bit, so she had quickly pulled her hand back and picked the pen up again, trying and failing to cover up the awkward moment she’d just caused. But he’d looked back at her and said, “I know you think that’s ridiculously trite, but…”
“No,” she said, interrupting him. “No, I don’t think it’s trite at all. I think it’s beautiful, William.” She smiled sweetly and sincerely at him, but as he lowered his hands and looked up at her, he didn’t seem to know what to say to that. But without him even having to tell her, she knew by his inability to react to her kindness that he’d gone an entire lifetime being mocked and lampooned for showing his heart. It was clear by his instinctual reaction of embarrassment and then believing he needed to deal out an insult to himself before she could was an attempt to soften the blow of whatever slight he might get from her, though she would never slight him, ever.
She could see him thinking as he looked down, searching desperately for words and for the strength to speak them. She waited, listening intently for those words as he visibly struggled to get them out. “Really, that’s why I…” He stopped and took a breath. “That’s how I knew, right from the start, that I could trust you. Because you did for me the same thing my grandfather did.” She could almost feel the tension and trepidation radiating from him, and she could easily sense that he was scared to death to say whatever it was he was trying to say next. “And I need to tell you…that…” She could hear just a slight waver in his voice as he awkwardly continued. “I appreciate that more than you can ever know. More than I can ever even explain. I always have. So…uh…thank you, for that.”
That had literally stunned her into silence. She suddenly found two very conflicting things happening in her heart: a warmth and contentment to hear that beneath that brusque and caustic exterior, she really did have an effect on his heart, but at the same time, a bit of annoyance and maybe frustration as she thought, You stupid, stupid, genius. You told me yourself earlier today that I’m never going to see you again after tonight, so why in the world of all things sane and rational did you have to go and make me fall even deeper in love with you right now!?
The heavy silence was broken when he quickly breathed in and exhaled audibly. He drew his hand across his mouth, almost as if symbolically wiping away the words to try to alleviate the embarrassment he was clearly feeling for having let out his true thoughts and emotions for the first time in ages, or even possibly in his entire life, before he spoke. “Anyway, the uh…” He motioned with his hand vaguely towards the death certificate. “The uh…the thing.”
“Yes,” she agreed with a nod. “The thing,” She picked up the pen and they returned to filling in his proper information, most of which, she already knew anyway. Sex, male. Date and place of birth, 6th January, 1976. Address, 221B Baker St, London, W1. Occupation, consulting detective. Cause of death, suicide. Date of registry, 29th October, 2011. Then she signed her name as the registrar. She then looked up at him. “So,” she began, “tomorrow morning, I’m going to do the autopsy myself. I’ve already told them that I don’t want anyone’s help, and they’ve said that’s fine, you know, for sentimental reasons.”
He nodded slightly as he listened. “That’s probably the best lie to go with.”
“Since there was blood on the ground under your head, I’m going to file the cause of death as a fractured skull and severed spine by suicide.” She looked back at the death certificate. The signature of informant was all that was needed to make it official…well, technically official. “Well,” she sighed, “there it is. Since your brother identified the body, I just need his signature here as the informant, and then you’ll be officially deceased.” Her voice cracked slightly at the end of that sentence as another tear tried to escape her eyes. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t actually dead, this was no different to her than if he was.
“He should be here any minute now,” he replied. Any minute now. That particular minute was one she wished with all her heart would never come as she filled in on the line, Mycroft Holmes, brother.
Knowing that her time was so limited, she had begun to silently debate with herself as to whether or not she should just take this last chance to tell him once and for all how she really felt about him. But would that be fair? Knowing that the assumption that they were going to be living by from this moment on that he was never going to come back, was it fair to open that door when it could never be properly closed? Was it fair to either of them to start something, knowing that it could never be finished? As much as she wanted to, and as much as her heart was screaming to, she had thought it best not to. He probably already knew anyway. It was quite obvious to everyone, and it had been made perfectly clear to him nearly a year ago at that fateful Christmas party by her unfortunate choice of gift wrapping paper. And it was even more so now that she was doing any of this for him. She was risking her career and entire professional life to do this for him, so if he didn’t know by now, he never would, and so she figured that she didn’t need to say it. He knew.
“Brother mine,” a voice said from the doorway, startling them both. They swirled around towards the door to see the imposing figure of Mycroft Holmes in the doorway. How did he get in? she thought to herself.
“How did you get in?” Sherlock queried out loud, giving voice to her exact thoughts.
“Covertly,” Mycroft replied smugly as he closed the door behind him, stepping towards them as they stood up from the table. “We must leave immediately. A jet is waiting in a private hanger at the airfield, and we haven’t got much time.”
She looked over at Sherlock, and she saw a look of despondency slowly come over his face as his head and shoulders lowered a bit. “Let me just get my bag,” he said as he turned and shuffled slowly towards her bedroom to retrieve the duffel bag he’d shown up with after he fled St. Barts.
“Um, Mr. Holmes…” Molly said timidly. Mycroft quirked an eyebrow as he looked at her, barely turning his head in her direction. “I just need your signature here on the death certificate as the informant.” Without a word, Mycroft stepped over to the table, picked up the pen, and scribbled a signature on the line. “Thank you,” she said. And there it was. Sherlock Holmes was officially dead. But her heart was screaming louder than it ever had before for this not to be true. It was screaming for there to be some way, some day, somehow, that it didn’t have to be that she’d never see him again. So as Mycroft began to move slowly towards the door again, she decided to speak up. “Mr. Holmes?” she asked. Mycroft stopped and turned back to face her. “Sherlock told me that he’s never coming back. He said we’ll never see him again. Is that true? Do you think he’ll get to come back someday?”
In a disturbingly unimpassioned way, Mycroft simply replied, “I wouldn’t hedge any bets on it, Miss Hooper.”
She just couldn’t bring herself to believe it. She didn’t want to believe it. She had suddenly found her heart completely refusing to accept that this would be the end. In a desperate search for some tiny shred of hope, she had decided to make a request of Mycroft. “Then would you do me one favor, please?” He looked at her inquisitively as she spoke. “If…um…if that’s the case, then should he ever…” She couldn’t manage to get the words out of her mouth. “If he ever…you know…if something were to ever happen…”
“Yes, Miss Hooper?” he asked.
She’d been doing so well all this time keeping the tears at bay, but just the thought of what she was asking broke her heart beyond repair, and a tear finally escaped down her face as she asked him, “Would you tell me? Please? Would you tell me so I don’t have to wonder forever?”
She’d seen Mycroft in various locations occasionally over the seven years she’d known Sherlock, and he’d always had such an imperturbably icy expression on his face. She’d never seen him show an emotion, at least until now. His face softened with compassion as she could see that despite what he wanted people to believe, he understood exactly how she was feeling right now. He stepped towards her, looked down at her with empathy, and said, “I understand, Miss Hooper. You have my word. You will be the first to know.”
“Thank you, Mr. Holmes,” she said as her voice cracked under the weight of her shattered heart, and she quickly wiped the tears away as Sherlock came shuffling out of her bedroom with the packed duffel bag, and wearing a dark grey fleece hooded jacket over his t-shirt. He stood in front of her with such a look of heartbreak and devastation on his face. He was leaving his entire life and everyone he ever loved behind. He was losing his friends, his family, his home, his life’s work, and even his name, that beautiful name that no one outside his family knew, no one except her. He would never again be able to be called Sherlock, the name he chose to honour his beloved grandfather, because William Sherlock Scott Holmes was dead.
“We need to leave quickly,” Mycroft said to Sherlock as he returned to the door.
“Would you give me a moment, for God’s sake?” Sherlock snapped at his brother.
“A brief one,” Mycroft conceded as he lingered by the door.
Sherlock turned back to her as he said, “Thank you, Molly. Thank you for everything. I don’t even know what words can express just how grateful I am to you for everything you’ve ever done for me…” She suddenly saw a tear escape from his eyes as well as he continued. “Please don’t ever forget that you do count. You’ve always counted, I’ve always trusted you, and I always will. So much so that you’re the only one who knows who I really am. You saved my life, and you saved the lives of John, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, and for that I owe you my life. I promise you, however long I end up living, I will never forget what you did for me. And I will never stop being grateful to you for it.”
That tiny little shred of hope in her heart just refused to die as it lead her to say, “If there’s anything you ever need, it doesn’t matter where you are, you can call me. If there’s anything ever, anything at all that I can do for you, just tell me.”
“There is something,” he said as he wiped another tear from his face. “There’s one thing you can do.” She looked up at him hopefully. “Live.” She didn’t think her heart could break any more, but it did as he said, “Live the amazing, wonderful, successful life you deserve to live. Love. Be happy. You deserve it more than anyone I’ve ever known, so…just live.” She had involuntarily stopped breathing, just for a moment. She couldn’t even move. She couldn’t even think. He reached over and gently touched her cheek as he said with a wobble in his voice, “Goodbye, Molly Hooper.”
She still couldn’t move or breathe, but in her mind, she was hoping against hope that before he left forever, that he would kiss her. It was something she’d daydreamed about since she met him, and this was the last chance for that daydream to come true, She found herself thinking at him, Do it, Sherlock. Please, just do it. Please. But he lowered his hand, began to walk backwards as towards the door that Mycroft had opened, and as he stepped backwards out into the corridor, he kept looking directly into her eyes until Mycroft closed the door.
And then it was over. She had only forced herself to breathe voluntarily when her brain began to register a lack of oxygen. She had just stood there, in that same spot, frozen. She still couldn’t move. It had felt like reality had gone away, and she was in some sort of horrible dream that she wished she could wake up from. She wished harder than she ever had before to suddenly hear an alarm clock ring, telling her that this all wasn’t real, but it never came. She’d gotten to the point where she couldn’t even feel anymore. She was just numb, standing there with tears running down her face one after another, just completely numb. She had no idea how long she stood there; it could have been a minute, an hour, a day…she didn’t even know. But she just stood there, remembering his face, remembering his voice, remembering the way he touched her face, but didn’t kiss her.
But as she stood there, she thought that it was probably for the best that he didn’t kiss her. If she was expected to get over him and move on, a kiss would have ensured that she never would. She would always think of it, always feel it, always remember it, and always compare every kiss from that moment on to the one from Sherlock. She would never be able to move on from that, despite the fact that he had asked her to. So it was better this way, even though it hurt that much more. It was better not to know what she was missing. It was better to never know what she could have had. She couldn’t bear the thought of it right now, but she knew that in the future, she would be glad for it.
And now, two years later, in this moment that had virtually stopped time, she was glad for it. However, she remembered that she had never heard from Mycroft again. She never got that message that she dreaded with all her heart. Mycroft had given her his word that he would tell her, and he never told her. That meant Sherlock was still out there, somewhere on this planet, alive… and hopefully well. And if he was alive, and still knew that he would never be coming back, the possibility existed that he might have moved on. He might’ve found someone else who would love him for exactly who he is, just like she did, and started a new life somewhere else. Even still, two years later, the thought was painful. But the world is a big, big place, and there are a lot of different kinds of people in it, so it was a possibility that she hadn’t wanted to think about before, but she couldn’t deny it existed. Especially not right now.
She thought that maybe this was just her trying to convince herself it was okay to move on now. But then she thought that if she was trying to convince herself to move on, then maybe she should stop fighting herself about it. Maybe this was her way of allowing herself to move on. She knew she would always love Sherlock, and she knew there would always be a place in her heart for him, but if he was truly never coming back, and he had possibly moved on from her, then maybe now…maybe now it was all right to move on from him?
“Yes,” she said.
But wait...