Dust is so plentiful in a newly-plastered and carpentered room, and always so eloquent. The skull has been placed here in the past four...five hours and the envelope placed beneath it at roughly the same time. I lift it, holding it to the light, My name is printed in block capitals in green biro on the front. Pressed hard in, attempting to disguise their normal penmanship, but still obviously a man's hand. Written upwards, towards the top left hand corner, indicating a right-handed man who holds the pen low down but is used to writing in biro, and also in this colour, since several, more usually inked pens are scattered (workmen again) across my new floorboards and have been rejected. This is his pen. Whose job requires him to fill in forms with this colour each day, so that he has it in his pocket?

I rip open the envelope (sniffing: antiseptic soap. Obvious) and pull out a sheet of paper ripped hastily from a spiral bound notepad:

Sherlock -

Remember what I said -

It's gone before you know it.

Do it.

J.

PS Check your room.

As I throw open the door to see the lit candles, cushions and throws populating my newly-refurbished bedroom, I sense the movement behind and Molly Hooper is at my back, ignoring any threat of potential intruders and hoping for a better look.

I turn then, facing her for the first time in my life with a fully-open heart.

"Molly," I say, seeing the candlelight play across her exquisite little face and feeling the weight of thirty years crumble away, leaving me light as air…

"I have a sister."

~x~

IX.

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides

~David Viscott

They don't have curtains (they've scarcely managed windows) so dawn filters through with its inevitable optimism before she's even had time to take his latest story around the orbit of her understanding a few more times. But, she's quick, she's bright; she's used to accepting the insanity that orbits around the gravity that is Sherlock Holmes. She gets it.

Molly takes his head across her lap and strokes it gently, assenting her belief, her trust, her forgiveness, her understanding. Candles have long since flickered out in their waxy ennui and the pale dawn casts shadows across them; blue in his dark, springy hair, pale apricot across the bow of his mouth and little dapples of promised sunlight to come across her fingers as they move.

"Eurus...Eurus." She tries the foreign feel of the name in her mouth, tasting it, familiarising. She touches his forehead gently. "She's found her way back in, after so much time being lost… forgotten."

Sherlock shifts, reluctant to lose the soothing perfection that is her touch, but needing to see her eyes in the shifting morning light. "Yes," he says, watching her. "Nothing is hidden forever. Secrets rise to the surface like bloated corpses."

She looks wistful, lost in the familiarity of such an image, and nods.

"Like your recent cases."

"Like all of my cases. Something hidden is exposed and returns to the surface. I have spent my whole life exposing what others have squirrelled away, through shame, fear, hatred… love."

He raises his left hand, splaying wide the fingers in invitation and she obliges, weaving her own small hand in between the gaps, closing and holding as his long fingers curl around.

"Tell me," she murmurs, holding Sherlock's hand and unable to imagine not holding it. "Tell me about Hilda Hope and the second stain. I hate loose endings."

He grins up at her, happily twisting and sitting up, never losing her hand nor her gaze.

"Thank God, so do I."

~x~

"Police Sergeant Harris, when imaginatively questioned, did actually recall a middle-aged and attractive lady appearing at the scene and feeling faint at the sight, precipitating his chivalrous beetling off to find her water. When he returned with said water, she was no longer there, but had ample time to rearrange the rug. Why? Because the blackmailer's strongbox was hidden away in a cubby hole beneath it. She replaced rug, but in her haste, placed it badly so that the stain on the rug was no longer in its original place."

"Imaginatively questioned?"

He has the grace to smirk as they both lean against the headboard (So many cushions. Where had they come from?)

"You know my methods. His password was shockingly simplistic and his locker an insult to its name."

"I know your methods sound shady."

And he smiles, as if a great compliment had been bestowed.

"So, she took the memory stick and replaced it in her husband's strongbox. I can't imagine he's unaware of these shenanigans."

"Ah, Molly, marriages are like strongboxes which few outsiders really get to open. Undoubtedly he realises deceptions, old and new, have been perpetrated but as a politician he must know - "

He pauses, turns his head so that she feels the huff of his breath across her mouth just moments before he kisses her. Then, as birds begin their strident morning arpeggio of chirruping, he takes his warm hands to the sides of her face and kisses her again, then again, and when they break, both breathe a little harder.

" - he must know," murmurs Sherlock Holmes, looking into the eyes of the love of his life, "that we all have our diplomatic secrets."

"Not me," she says, tilting her head. "You know everything now. You know exactly how I feel. About you."

"In Sherrinford, speaking to you Molly Hooper, I meant what I said."

"That I wasn't an experiment."

"Yes."

"That we were friends."

"Yes. Oh, yes."

"That you … loved me?"

"Yes. That I love you. That has been my secret for a very long time."

She looks, really looks and she knows the manner in which he just kissed her, and what kisses of that nature really mean.

"You're not lying, are you?"

Realisation.

"My strongbox is empty, Molly. I love you. I have always loved you."

She places two hands on his shoulders, cups his face and feels the brightness of the day fill up the room.

"I thought love was a construct -"

"I was the construct. I lied forever, for nothing."

With her thumb, Molly touches the tear that has welled up in his left eye and wipes it away, like it would not be tolerated.

"How long?"

"Thirteenth of July, 2010. Four fifteen, in lab number two. We met for approximately four minutes, you thought I was a prick, I fell in love with you. Since then."

"Shit."

Thus, Molly Hooper recalibrates her battered brain (she is a scientist, after all), sets her small shoulders, lifting her chin and looking him right in the eyes, and decides what shall happen next.

"Then we'd better not waste another moment, had we?"

Kneeling on his own bed amidst a conglomeration of ridiculous soft furnishings, Sherlock stares at her.

"Get out of your clothes immediately," she says, shucking off her blouse, her socks, her everything with lightening grace.

"This is not a drill."

~x~

X.

He's typing furiously at the laptop as I enter. The clinic has been ridiculous and I'm exhausted, missing my daughter and heartily sick of sickness. Throwing my coat under the stairs, I almost weep with gratitude to see a steaming cup of tea, as freshly poured as it is possible to be without him actually having the pot in his hand, awaiting me on the hall stand.

"Rough day," Sherlock Holmes informs me. He is not asking.

"The shittest," I return, throwing myself onto the sofa. "Made worse by Donaldson being off."

"That son of his."

"You don't have to always be the biggest smartarse in the room."

"And yet, I usually am."

He doesn't look up but I see the quirk of his smile, the gleam in his eye and I sip my tea, gingerly. I watch him a second longer, then:

"You look-"

"Stop it, John."

"What?"

"I hate it when you try to deduce me."

"Yeah, well… maybe cut down on that yourself? Just an idea"

The typing continues, emails pinging off to various parties left right and centre and I quietly drink my tea, listening out for Rosie, who is due to wake up soon. Eventually, he slows a little but still doesn't look at me, simply saying:

"Too many cushions, John."

"Oh?"

"And blankets. I am neither a Bedouin Tribesman nor a boy scout."

A pause.

"I'm just glad I didn't have to lock you up together in a secure facility."

He stops typing.

"Too soon?" I am apologetic. I have become so much tougher these days.

"A bit."

"Sorry. Mary used to soften me more than I realised."

Sherlock turns and looks at me, and I can't catch his eye.

"So." I say.

"So." he replies.

"How did your plan go?"

"My plan?"

"Yes. The one where you make it all OK with Molly. Remember? The time you told me to forget 'all connotations of a happy ever after'."

He has the good grace to colour a little at that.

"In a world where dishonesty curls its way into every aspect of our daily lives and the desire to preserve our own needs often colours and misguides the judgements we make, I imagined I was wise enough to subjugate my feelings, my emotions, my heart, into a conveniently placed strongbox, where they could not influence me, seduce me or distract me from my eternal, exhausting quest for uncovering the truth. Unfortunately, John, I lost the key and I lost sight of what actually matters in this tattered, beleaguered, world of ours."

I smile.

"You've been a magnificent arsehole many times, Sherlock, but your strong box was pretty poorly locked and it was never big enough to contain a heart as big as yours. You have always cared - look at me, Mary, Mrs Hudson, Rosie… even Irene and that lunatic brother of yours. How did you imagine you'd keep the lid closed on your love for Molly?"

I dunno how, exactly, but I am suddenly holding him, embracing him and I see Mary, so proud of what we are now, on the periphery of it all.

"Love," says Sherlock Holmes, as we sit side by side, Rosie stomping around my little house with the determination of a well-fed and well-rested child, "is stronger than it appears."

I nod in assent. Truthfully, we certainly needed a beer, and I clink bottles with him, to seal such wisdom.

"She's forgiven you."

"Yes."

"She still loves you, doesn't she?"

"Yes."

"Jesus, you're smug when you've had sex."

He actually laughs and I have to smile too.

"Welcome to the human race, Sherlock Holmes. You're gonna love it here."

And we clink, a toast to all of it.

THE END

A/N: Thank you to everyone who read and followed (especially those who were kind enough to let me know what they thought :))

The story of Lady Hilda Hope comes from The Adventure of The Second Stain, by ACD (one of Sir Arthur's top ten, I'm lead to believe!)

:)