Sherlock Holmes was stitching together his fractured pieces.

For years, he had carefully built the impenetrable walls around what he perceived to be his biggest flaws; his biggest weaknesses, and reinforced them with his callous wit and all the devices he turned to in order to push people away. Decades of harbouring a sense of self-imposed estrangement from humanity had left the detective utterly incapable of deducing one very simple thing; that he was in fact cared about. But standing in Molly Hooper's flat, with her soft arms squeezed around his waist and her head held gingerly against his chest as though frightened he was going to push her away at any moment, Sherlock felt a rush of validation so bewildering it belittled him. But he held Molly tightly, and the more he felt her body relax in his arms as she realised he was not letting go, the more Sherlock felt himself drawing comfort from the beautifully exquisite, constant, and unexpendable woman he could tangibly hold between his fingers.

He would never deserve her affection for him. He would never be able to be the things she wanted him to be, so pushing her away had always come naturally to him.

It wasn't that Sherlock didn't care for her, perhaps it was that he cared too much. And he would rather she believed he was incapable of loving her, than have her realise he was ashamed he didn't know how to love her. And he was robustly determined never to let her down, the way men so often did. He could not be counted on to keep in constant contact; he would not know how often he was supposed to take her out to dinner. He wouldn't know what words to say, or how to express what she meant to him in a way that came naturally to his tongue.

In a way, Sherlock knew he loved her. Loved her more than he had ever loved another woman. But he could never let her know, because he didn't know what love would look like on his face, or what it would do to his mind. Or what it would do to hers.

He felt Molly's arms slacken from his waist, and felt her head lift up from his chest. She looked up at him with wide eyes still rimmed with tears, and smiled her pure Molly Hooper smile, the one that showed him there was no one in the world whose company delighted her more than his. And for a brief moment, Sherlock let himself imagine what their future would look like, if he allowed himself to truly love her in the way he knew she deserved.

They would live in 221B Baker Street, naturally. He would not want his life to change into the mundane monotony Johns did after he let himself become tied to a woman. He would not buy a van or settle down in suburbia in a house with a garden and low fence that noisy neighbours peered over in the evenings to ask him with exhausting over eagerness how his garden was fairing. The thought made him roll his eyes in exacerbation. But 221B Baker Street, with his furnishings and items of comfort, would be completely adequate. He imagined a child, with shaggy black hair and light buttery eyes, with an upturned nose and defined cheeks. A child that would cling to their mother's lab coat as she fussed and doted over them, reassuring them that Daddy would be home soon. But hours would pass and he still wouldn't have emerged from the night, and she would be frantically messaging and calling, worried sick that he was hurt or in danger or holed up in a drug house somewhere. Eventually he would come home with blood on his clothes and a spring in his step that would disappear the moment he saw her tired eyes, aged prematurely by stress and fear, and the child's devotion to grow up and be just like him would leave him anxious and perturbed.

He immediately let go of Molly's body and took a step back. It didn't matter that she was the one who mattered most. That he knew she would stay by his side through it all. He knew he would never change. He would never evolve into a man worth her love.

"I am sorry about Tom." Sherlock uttered softly, his words cavernous in the hushed room.

Molly lowered her head gently, one arm holding onto the other tightly across her chest.

"Thank you" She murmured with reverence. It was all she could say under the weight of the reminder of him. She immediately clenched her left hand and clasped it in her other, her thumb massaging her empty ring finger lightly.

It was the perfect moment for him to tell her that he loved her. But he let the moment slide away from him, still haunted by the vision of how he might ruin her if he tried to claim her, how her fragile bones would be buried under his crushing self-loathing.

Molly did make him a cup of tea, the pair sat in her couch in a comfortable, if somewhat consciously aware state of silence. Sherlock found himself fascinated with the little movements Molly would make, the way she traced the rim of her teacup with her forefinger slowly when she sat in contemplation, or the way her head sat perched on her thin neck at an angle like some kind of exotic bird.

"Do you remember the day we first met?" Molly broke the silence after some time, taking a sip from her teacup and deliberately avoiding all eye contact with the detective. Sherlock said nothing.

"I remember feeling like a, a mouse" Molly giggled to herself out of embarrassment, remembering the blog she used to keep and the beautiful man she used to describe on it. Sherlock took another sip of his tea, baffled as to how Molly expected him to respond.

"I felt as though you saw right through me" Molly stood up and took her tea cup into the kitchen, and busied herself with tackling he pile of teacups in the sink that needed washing. Sherlock brought his teacup into the kitchen which Molly accepted with a smile, and continued to hum as she cleaned. Sherlock took it as a cue to leave, and started towards the door, before stopping abruptly and spinning on his heel.

"You were wearing a blue shirt" He looked her deep in the eyes, and she smiled back at him, only slightly at first, but became a beam when he began to do the same. Sherlock quickly turned out the door, grabbing his coat as his left.

Molly Hooper's breathless laugh echoing in his ears.