"After the Hiatus" fic. A sweet rendering of that moment when Sherlock returns to this world... returns to consciousness at least.

Shocking how red blood looked against the starch white of the gurney's sheets. She supposed maybe it was because she was used to patients whose blood stopped pumping hours before she saw them. In any case, Molly Hooper's stomach knotted and lurched when she looked down at his blood-smeared head. At the way his already raven locks stuck together in murky blood-sludge. Darker and stringier than she would ever have liked to see.

Even the way the red stained the thin crest of his high cheekbone, the way his pale skin shone almost transparent. Almost as bleached as the standardized hospital sheet Sherlock Holmes sprawled across. In every appearance, he was dead.

She knew his lie, his dramatic deception, and even still she stood gazing down on his unmoving body covered in blood and believed him.

Trembling, her hand reached into the pocket of her lab coat, pulling out a small vial, its crystal liquid contents sloshing from side to side as she stabbed the hypodermic needle carefully through the top. The epinephrine drew slowly into its chamber, and still Molly breathed a quick prayer that he would wake up. She forced herself to take a deep breath, pressing the needle into his vein's blue shadow in the hollow of his bare arm.

In a second, the chamber emptied, and Molly quickly set her instruments back down on the medical stand beside her. She held her breath, waiting for the slightest movement.

There, she exhaled finally, his eyelids twitched. His fingers spasmed separately. His gaunt, hawkish face convulsed and writhed as the drug coursed through his blood. At last, his eyes shuddered open, and the cold focus of his eyes searched about him for a moment. They rested on her, and again, Molly felt her breath stop unwillingly and immediately in her lungs. The slightest ghost of a smirk tweaked at his bloodless lips. "Hello," he whispered, his deep voice scratching and weak.

Molly laughed awkwardly in surprise. His voice always put her off guard. "Hello," she replied quietly, but the tremor that cracked her word betrayed her. Her own nearly-tear streaked voice instantly sent a shudder of regret through her heart; why had she spoken at all?

Sherlock slowly and systematically began stretching part of his body, the drug racing through his shaking extremities. But he tried not to show that bodily weakness. Instead, he forced himself to sit up on the gurney. The room spun, wobbly and fuzzy from the still-lasting effects of his jump, from his subsequent unconscious reaction. And he deliriously noticed as a pair of hands caught him gently about the shoulders. "Did it work, Molly?" he mumbled, clearing his dry throat to remove the garbling, desensitizing lethargy he felt still coating his senses. "Did John believe it? Is John safe?"

Molly steadied him again, feeling him begin to slump backwards against nothing. "Easy, Sherlock, easy," she soothed, though her own steadiness grew all the more uneasy instead.

"Is John safe?" Sherlock repeated again, his eyes wide, his voice steadying. "Is he alright?"

"Yes, he is. Safe, I mean." Molly dropped one hand from his shoulder. The other, she just couldn't seem to remove. Not yet. "And if he believed it, I don't know how 'alright' he is, Sherlock."

He looked away. Looked down at his hands, spattered with blood—not his own— from the fall. "John is strong, he'll get over it eventually. Above all, it had to look real. He had to believe it," he explained, the pedantic tone slowly returning to his voice.

Molly felt the smallest of sighs move through Sherlock's wiry frame, and again, the tears itched at her own eyes. "You're so confident he'll get over it, Sherlock," she murmured, scared of the weight of her own words in the quite hospital room. She shook her head as he looked up to her again. "You've never had to grieve for anyone, have you?"

"I have," he replied, too coldly for even his own taste.

"Well, it's a shame that all people can't detach themselves as completely as you can, then." And then, that long-swallowed sob broke from her mouth. Embarrassed, she began to slip her hand from his shoulder.

In an instant, his long fingers stopped her. Sherlock pressed her hand tighter against his shoulder, bringing it lower to rest over his heart. His pulse raced still from the epinephrine, pounding through his ribs into the palm of her hand. "Molly," he spoke softly, "I've upset you..." he paused, smirking faintly... "At least I think I have."

Molly shook her head, laughing once despite her fast-coming tears. "In a way, yeah, I guess."

His pale eyes pleaded up at her, that unmistakable shine of sadness and feeling to them. It seemed so out of place, so unfamiliar, especially when she was used to his callous smirks and condescending glares. Sherlock sighed again, his chest rising and falling under her hand. "I'm sorry I..."

"Stop it," she forced a quavering smile down at him. "There is nothing you should apologize for," she gave another tearful laugh. "I'm upset, Sherlock, because even I would have thought you dead. I'm upset, Sherlock, because you could have died." Something warm wiped away a tear from her cheek, but she continued on, her tears coming steadily down her face. "I'm upset, Sherlock, because I would have been left to grieve you, and you would have not one thought about it. You would be dead."

Again, the warmth of his fingers wiped away the tears that ran from her brown eyes, eyes that slowly and surely were turning redder and glassier with each tear. But, she wouldn't look at him. She couldn't bear to look at the blood still across his face and streaked through his hair.

"I'm not dead," he murmured. "I'm not dead, and you know I'm alive. So, you don't have to grieve."

"Thank Christ for that," Molly faked a laugh. But her pretend happiness vanished the moment she realized just how close she had draw to him. When she realized just how saddened he still looked, barely smiling at her. How she could see his pity for her, his emotions actually behind the glass of his gaze. And his heart still pounded out of control where he still pressed her hand against him. "Sherlock," she began, anxiously, "are you alright? You're heart is racing. I mean, it could be a reaction to the meds..."

"Don't think so," he replied, his tone serious and low.

"Then what, Sherlock?" Molly examined him, troubled by his cryptic severity. By his ever closing nearness. "I-Is there something more you need?" Her concern knit her brow, and her voice trembled, but not from worry. Suddenly, she allowed herself to hope for something, a feeling, she thought would never see the light of day. She felt his heart speed up quicker, felt his breath brush damply across her cheek as he leaned slowly in towards her.

"You."