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Last note: I was lucky enough to see the finale on the big screen and loved it. I know plenty of people didn't and that's fine. But I thought it was out of this world. There was just one small last thing needed to tie up the loose ends, and that's what this short fic is meant to be. Not a correction, but an addition. Enjoy :)

As told to John Watson after much emotional blackmail.

You were there. I told her I loved her. After all the years of slights and emotional snubs, I finally put Molly Hooper at the end of my emotional gunpoint and pulled the trigger. Somehow though, we both wound up being shot in the end, exactly as Euros planned. Two weeks later I was still feeling both the recoil and the impact of the bullet wound.

I had to talk to her. I'd meant to, ever since returning from reinstalling my sister in Sherrinford, but things had gotten in the way. Our destroyed flat, for one. Mycroft's revelations to our parents, for another. Both of those, along with looking out for you and Rosie and making sure Mrs. Hudson was comfortably settled into a new place temporarily and dealing with all manner of MI6 inquiries.

So, as I said, things. Things of importance, but still just things. Culverton told me he liked to turn people into things. It occurred to me, as I walked up the steps to Molly's flat, that I'd been a serial killer of my own in that respect. How many people had I metaphorically killed or maimed with my insistence on being emotionally obtuse? I myself had been a victim of my weaponry.

It wasn't a surprise that she didn't open the door to my repeated knocks. I knew she was home, even though her car wasn't on the street.

Oh, for once you want to know how I knew? Perhaps some other day. Our next case is due at half past three.

She didn't answer my calls or texts; no surprise there, but I had to at least try. Otherwise, explaining my next actions might have involved Scotland Yard. I'd already seen more than enough of them in recent weeks.

"Get out!"

Molly was standing in the kitchen when I walked in, her back turned to me. She knew I'd know how to get in. And yet she hadn't escaped out the back door. That gave me hope.

"I'll leave as soon as you've heard me out."

Her arms were braced on the sink and her head was lowered, the same position she was in when we watched her on Euros' hidden camera. My scientific mind was incapable of being shut out completely and insisted on deducing her likely heartrate, based on the calculated stiffness of her muscles. Then I segued into precise calculations about how long it would take before her forearms began to cramp, based on their position and contraction.

Yes, I know. Euros and I are truly not so different. Nor is Mycroft an outlier in our family.

"I said, get out!" she shouted at me.

"Molly, I'm sorry." Had there ever been more useless words? But I had to say them. Only, she misinterpreted my meaning.

"Don't you dare."

Molly's tone was as hard and angry as yours was when you said those same words to me. And I am still sorry, John. I always will be.

"Don't you dare apologize to me, Sherlock. I know everything. How could I not? It's been all over the bloody telly. Don't. Don't tell me that the media've been fed a story. I know that. I may not be as whip smart as you are, but I'm no fool. Not in that respect, anyway." Her self-deprecating laugh, followed by her shoulders' slight shake, would have fooled anyone else into believing she was crying. But Molly is stronger than that. She always has been.

She lifted her head and turned it toward me, revealing dry cheeks with a little too much blush and dry eyes with mascara inexpertly applied.

"Mycroft visited me. I know about Euros. I know about the house and the plane and the impenetrable fortress that required a Holmes brain to create and a Holmes brain to dismantle. I know why you made that phone call and I know you saved my life." She straightened, jamming her hands into the pockets of her ugly, cozy sweater. "So don't you dare apologize and tell me it was all meaningless. It did mean something. Admittedly not the something I wanted, but that's the foolish part of me that half believed that maybe … maybe …" her voice cracked slightly and she scowled, visibly angry at herself for seeming to break.

"It did mean something," I agreed when she stopped talking. I'd interrupted her for years. I didn't want to continue the pattern that day. "You're right, Molly. It did."

She stared at me silently for a long, measured moment before finally speaking. "You're a better man than you were years ago, Sherlock. Still an arse, but a well-meaning arse now, at least. You could do better than The Woman. She doesn't love you. She enjoys playing with you. Seeing how high you'll leap in response to her games. She'll eventually twist your heart and your brain. Don't let her, Sherlock."

I didn't know why she brought up Irene Adler, and in trying to understand that emotional twist, I missed my chance to respond because Molly started speaking again.

For the last time. I was not in love with Irene! Now will you stop interrupting? I'm baring my blackened heart!

"Thank you for saving my life," she said to me. "I know you've come here out of a misguided sense that you have to somehow make up for making me believe things."

It always seemed to come back to things.

"You don't have to explain. I believed for one second. Maybe two. But I understand now. Really. I'm not even angry anymore. Not at you, anyway. So please leave now, Sherlock." The hard quality of her voice shifted and now she just sounded weary. "Please."

"I will. But not until I've explained." It was my turn then. Context had been introduced and I only hoped I could run with it.

I cleared my throat and took a step closer to her. "Molly, I know what I've done to you all these years."

She looked away.

"I've pretended that I'm oblivious, but my science is observation. Obviously, I know exactly what each expression on your face and in your eyes means. I may not understand some of the reasons for why the emotion is generated, but I can detect the expression as well as I can the traces of any poison."

Slowly she turned her gaze back to me. The irony of the thing was that I actually couldn't read much on her face at that moment. The blank look she'd cultivated over the years was firmly in place, shielding her from what she undoubtedly believed was going to be yet another emotional salvo. Based on previous data, I deduced that her lack of emotion meant that there was, in fact, a torrent of emotions rushing just beneath the surface.

She didn't speak, so I pressed on. "I hurt you, Molly. Deliberately, sometimes. Many times."

She couldn't hide the flash of pain in her eyes at that.

"I hurt you deliberately because … of things."

She bit her lower lip, slightly smearing the garish shade of lipstick across her front teeth. "Things?"

"You know about my childhood now. I don't need to explain that I retreated into myself after Trevor's murder." To my surprise, my voice caught as I thought of my long ago best friend and of how I almost lost another recently, once because of my arrogance, another because of Mycroft's.

Yes, the Holmes family rather excels at near-murders by proxy, it seems. It could be our new family business.

I steadied myself and went on. "I retreated all the way into adulthood. Viewing people as lesser objects was safer than acknowledging that I was terrified that I might lose someone again. Someone I cared about deeply."

There was no pity in her eyes, just like I knew there would be none.

"You were on that plane with Euros." She smiled sadly. "Little Sherlock, adrift above the clouds beyond the reach of his Mummy and Daddy. Except you chose to drift, Sherlock. You had a loving family that would have seen you through the pain. Euros was forced away. You decided to board that flight of the dead and then, when you decided to deplane however many years later …"

"It was too late," I finished for her, when it was clear she was giving me an opening. "I didn't know how to rejoin the human race or how to relate to people as people and not as objects."

Molly wandered over to the kitchen table and searched for something to rearrange. Her flat was pristine, and when she found no object to fidget with, she toyed instead with the hem of her hideous sweater. "John Watson helped you with that."

"He did. I owe him more than I can express."

Cautiously, I took a second step in her direction, then a third.

There was a wary, warning look in her eyes, but as we all know, I'm rather good at ignoring warnings, so I kept walking until I was just a meter away.

"I owe John. And I owe you, Molly. You helped me just as much, in your own way. And I returned the favor by making you a background object. A thing that I could toy with at my sadistic pleasure, offering you the occasional treat if you jumped through hoops and then laughing at your foolish need for fickle human affection."

"You did," she whispered, closing her eyes in obvious pain.

I was desperate to say the right words for once, to make her understand what I'd only just understood myself. "I toyed with you because I knew I could. I became Sherlock Holmes to avoid ever being hurt by a person I loved again. And I was cruelest to the people whom my heart still dared to love, because they were the ones who put me in constant danger. But I knew you wouldn't leave, Molly. I trusted you. You've never betrayed my trust though I have yours, over and over again."

"Please stop, Sherlock." Her voice was shaking and her fists were clenched.

"Molly." I closed the final distance between us and rested my hands on her shoulders. This was my true final problem and I had to see it through to the end, even if my childhood fears were finally realized. "Please look at me."

You know that the only time Molly ever says no to me is when I'm high. I wasn't that time and she followed her usual pattern of behavior, doing exactly as I asked, albeit slowly. Her eyes opened and she stared up into mine. I could clearly read her fear and it twisted the knife of guilt that much more.

Will you stop interrupting? Knife. Gun. This is why I don't use metaphors. Who can keep them straight?!

I pressed her shoulders and leaned down to look more directly into her beautiful eyes. "I'm not sorry I told you I loved you, Molly."

She instinctively tried to pull away. I kept hold of her arms and of her gaze.

"What I am is sorry that I told you under those horrific circumstances." My own eyes closed for a second, remembering.

Feeling small hands on mine, I opened my eyes and realized that Molly had rallied, as ever Molly will do, and had covered my hands with her own, offering wordless comfort even when her heart was on the line.

"I'm not sorry I told you I loved you. What I am is so sorry—so very, very sorry—that I never told you before. Please, Molly." I touched her cheek with my gloved hand and she leaned into it in a gesture so automatic that I was humbled. "Forgive me for never saying it before. I was a coward. But John and I have vowed to be soldiers, so a coward I will no longer be."

The look on your face! Shall I pause here to let you make a deduction? Oh, very well. There's no need to throw things. And here I thought you had a sense of humor.

I took a breath and released her shoulders, peeling my gloves off and tossing them aside. Reaching out, I took her face in my naked hands and rested my forehead against hers.

"I love you, Molly Hooper. I have for a very long time. I don't know the first thing about love and I'll likely continue to hurt you over and over again, but I promise you that from here on out it won't be deliberate. If you'll give me a chance … I would like to try and win the heart you offered me that day in the lab when you first invited me out to coffee."

Molly's eyes gleamed and she laughed a little. "I knew you knew, you bastard."

I laughed too, but I was still afraid. And then, like she did the day I stepped off a building, Molly caught me as I fell.

"You don't need to win my heart, Sherlock. It's been yours since the first day. And that has never changed, no matter how hard you've tried to push me."

Because I was afraid, and because I was an arse, I had to joke.

Yes, I'm an idiot. Does that admission bring you satisfaction?

"Well, in that case, I guess I don't need to offer to make up that coffee inv—" The look in her eyes stopped me. And instead of firing that bullet—or making that knife cut or whatever—I kissed her.

Yes. I kissed Molly Hooper fully and deeply.

By all means, continue cheering. I'll wait. Mrs. Hudson, don't think I don't know you're standing behind that door with both hands clamped over your mouth to keep from squealing!

Her lips were as soft and warm as I had ever imagined.

Yes, I did imagine them, okay? Often. As you so enjoy reminding me, I'm nothing if not human.

Molly wrapped her arms around me and leaned up into my kiss so wholly forgiving and accepting of my faults that I was fairly certain that the tears in her eyes were suddenly mirrored in mine. But it was okay.

Because she and I had finally moved beyond things.

Look, Rosie. Your daddy is making absurd faces. Do you think he's happy? I agree. Can you keep a secret? I am too. So very, very happy, at long last.

Yes, Mrs. Hudson, I got lipstick all over my own teeth. Oh, I have some on me now? No, no tissue needed, thanks. I've rather come to like it.