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The first time Molly had seen Sherlock cry was after he saved John from a Chinese smuggling ring. He came into the morgue at some ungodly hour with puffy red eyes and wild hair, talking about some wild theory he wanted to test out in the lab. Molly was the only other person there – one of her dates had gone badly again and she hadn’t felt like taking a taxi back home. She had left for a minute to make coffee... and returned to what seemed like an empty room. After some searching, she found Sherlock curled up in the corner of a closet, a cigarette dangling from his shaking fingers. His face was pale and his jaw was clenched as he tried to hold back tears. Molly abandoned the coffee and approached him timidly, unsure of how he would take her seeing him in such a state. When she touched his back, he stood up abruptly, muttering under his breath about how he was just tired from the last case he had worked. As he had tried to get through the small doorway she was blocking, their shoulders brushed and he crumpled to the floor again.
Molly had spent the next hour holding him, stroking his hair, and wondering how the hell did I manage to get here in my life? Sherlock was the last person she expected to be able to comfort.
After that, everything returned to normal. The only thank-you she ever received was a small, sad smile the next day and a cup of coffee. And even though it was too strong and too sweet, she didn’t care.
In her mind, it was good enough.
~
The second time Molly saw Sherlock break down was after, well, she didn’t exactly know what. Sherlock had knocked on her apartment door in the middle of the night and she answered, only half-aware that she was wearing fluffy pink slippers and pajamas adorned with pictures of cats. This time, Sherlock was shivering on the step, soaked through in his thin button-down shirt. Molly had gasped at his stammered apology and ushered him into her sitting room where she procured a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate. She didn’t know how long he sat there before speaking, but when he did open his mouth, it was long after the hot chocolate was finished and his hair was dry from the pounding rain that hammered the windows from outside.
“They all hate me,” was what he said.
Molly didn’t know how to reply to that. They sat in silence until she answered, “I’m sure you did your best-”
“No! I... it wasn’t enough, I couldn’t-” he sucked in a harsh breath before continuing. “Mycroft hates me, I don’t believe John can stand me,” a broken sob cut off the rest of his words. Molly slid closer to him and wrapped an arm around his shaking back as he dropped his head into his hands.
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s fine.”
“I killed her, didn’t I?” he whispered. “I killed her.”
She let him sleep on her couch that night. After his crying subsided and his breath fell even, Molly tossed and turned in her bed and eventually realized that trying to sleep was useless. A voice inside of her whispered that it probably had to do with that woman – the one whom he recognized from not-her-face. Pushing down her own feelings of worry and fear, she padded over to Sherlock and sat in a chair beside him, memorizing the way his breath made his chest rise and fall.
It wasn’t strange to her, or creepy. She knew she didn’t like him in that way anymore, but watching him was just... peaceful. She wasn’t looking for a relationship anymore – she just worried about the quiet detective who hid his feelings from the world. She was almost certain that she was the only person who knew about his breakdowns and tears; John, bless him, was far too naïve, and Greg and Mycroft were both just as closed up as Sherlock.
He was gone the next morning. The blanket was folded, the mug washed and dried, and a thank-you was scrawled onto a piece of scrap paper taped to her door.
~
In the end, Molly didn’t expect Sherlock to ask a favor of her. She also didn’t expect for Mycroft to contact her – in fact, she hadn’t realized that Mycroft even knew her. Her role was simple: produce a body and a place to stay for the great detective after he faked his death.
Why? She wanted to sit down and cry – she was exhausted, mentally and emotionally. She knew it was petty and idiotic, but nobody had asked her how she felt after Jim – no, Moriarty – revealed himself. The man she thought was cute because he smiled at her, the man she introduced to John and Sherlock, the man who was definitely a terrorist and probably a psychopath and it was all just becoming too much.
But Molly knew she wouldn’t be able to sit down and cry for a long while – the insistent buzzing of her phone reminded her of that much.
In the end, she did what he asked. Didn’t she always? She produced the body and dyed the hair and poured blood – Sherlock’s blood, which was stored in the morgue for goodness knows what reason – onto the face. She hit the head until it looked how it would have after falling from a building, and she didn’t ask questions when a man in a light blue doctor’s uniform collected the mangled corpse.
She sat in the morgue for hours, wringing her hands. What if the body didn’t look similar enough to his? What if it didn’t work? What if John, or Mrs. Hudson, or Lestrade ended up dying because of her? It was only when a coworker asked what was wrong that she realized her eyes had become red and her face pale.
Home, then. Everything was a blur... everything looked unreal. What if Sherlock had actually fallen? What if the plan didn’t work? A world without him was like a world without color. She didn’t recognize her own voice when she answered the taxi driver’s “where to?” with the name of her street. Later, she wouldn’t understand how she managed to unlock her apartment door with her shaking hands. She wouldn’t remember how she managed to take off her work clothes and put on a pair of blue pajamas.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat on her couch, staring at the warm brown wood of her door. He was fine, she assured herself. Mycroft would tell me if it didn’t work.
Ha. Even her fear-addled brain wouldn’t believe that. The only person Mycroft cared for was Sherlock.
A knock, abrupt and hesitant, at the door. Molly started, unsure if she should answer it. But then, a voice came, deep and distant and wretched. “Molly? Please, I – I didn’t know where else to go.” Before she could comprehend it, her feet were moving to the door, her hand was pulling on the handle.
Sherlock. Standing there, shaken but unharmed, red-eyed and crying but not dead. She wrapped him into a hug and held him tightly, burying her face into his neck. His shaking hands rubbed her back awkwardly before he pulled away.
“Can I...?” he gestured loosely to the inside of her apartment, the interior warm and cheerful and contrasting against the cold exterior of the dark night outside and the events that had taken place.
In time, Molly learned that Sherlock – cold, calculating, Sherlock – had gone to Baker Street and nearly knocked on the door, before realizing what he had been about to do. She learned that he had stumbled back, mouth agape, at the thought that John would be grieving him. He had called Mycroft, who told him to pull himself together and find a plane that would leave the next morning. So now he was here, back to where he had cried months ago.
And Molly didn’t mind.
When she returned from her small kitchen armed with two cups of tea and a box of biscuits, she saw Sherlock on the couch, his hands shaking and his whole body shivering.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, putting the cups down on the coffee table and grabbing a blanket. Noticing his eyes, she said, “You – oh Sherlock, how much?”
He looked at her blankly before recognition passed before his face. “I couldn’t think without it,” he said, looking mortified as he accepted the proffered blanket. “My, my mind kept bringing me back to John. The drugs, they... numb the sorrow, I suppose.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out three empty, unlabeled syringes. “Molly, I need to see him,” he said, looking at her, his eyes suddenly fearful. “Please, I need to talk to him, he needs to understand, I miss him, please, please let me, please –”
Molly’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t,” she said, feeling torn. “Mycroft said... oh, Sherlock, please don’t ask me, he told me to keep you here until he comes. Sherlock, he said it would cost me your life if I didn’t.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head wildly. Molly was suddenly reminded of how young he was – of how young they all were. “No, I love him, please, Molly, I love him, he needs to see me, please...” His voice broke as the tears began falling more rapidly from his eyes. He muttered something, burying his face in his hands.
Molly was suddenly cautious. “What was that, Sherlock?”
He looked at her again, his tearstained face tortured. “I wanted to die. I wasn’t sure if they would catch me before I hit the pavement. I wanted to, at that moment – if... if I was going to hurt John, I didn’t want to see him in pain.”
He reached out to get his cup of tea and turned towards her. His mask had fallen; she could see that now. He looked like a scared boy, letting go of the last thread of hope he had left. In a whisper that she could hardly hear, he said, “It isn’t going to be okay, is it?”
Molly’s heart broke. “No,” she said, brushing a curl of hair from his forehead. “I don’t think so."