This Meta will be very unpopular among my fellow Sherlollians, because I don't think that at the end of The Final Problem Sherlolly is canon, or going to be happy-ever-after-endgame-canon. And not only because I like it so much more when it hurts, but because Sherlocks line in the Lying Detective made me uneasy as hell: “Molly, you seem very stressed” and then this intense stare as if he was about to deduce something but couldn't because he was way too high at that moment.

So let's get started!

When Sherlock is analyzing the coffin he deduces so many details, a small woman, practical about death and not as close to her relatives as a family should be. I didn't get spoiled in any way beforehand and I knew this instant that the woman who the coffin was for could only be Molly. My friend, with whom I watched the episode was shaking her head and asked me incredulously why I would assume that, after the last two “cases” Sherlock, John and Mycroft had to go through were not personal. And I told her then: Molly's sick, she's going to die.

The bombs Eurus claimed were in Mollys flat took me off guard, that much I have to admit, but in the end she said: “Why would I be so clumsy.” Later on more.

As much as I love all the other metas and fiction about Sherlock realizing the instant he told Molly that he loved her the first time so that he indeed /knew/ that he really loved her so he repeated himself, I think he concluded also something else entirely: Molly's suffering.

He had tree minutes to see her, really see her, when she felt unwatched, because she didn't know that there were cameras around her house. His whole attention was focussed on her, and not when he was high, or when she was with Rosie, or grieving about Mary, this was Molly, alone. When no one was around her who could actually see her.

It reminded me so much of her words from TRF: her father was always cheerful when he was dying, he was lovely, when no one could see him, but once she saw him, when he thought no one could see him, and he looked sad.

She was sad. She had a bad day she told him, didn't want to talk to Sherlock in the first place and only after he told her that he needed help, she pulled herself together: If he needed her, than she would be strong – as always.

Or so she thought.

He asked her something so outrageous intimate which he knew would hurt her deeply and did it anyway for a case.

And I think Molly thought in that exact moment that nothing has changed after faking his death for him. That Sherlock would always see her as someone who he could always manipulate if he just made words like “So if it's true, say it anyway” sound so sincere; he would never, ever understand what he did to her or how she was feeling. The things she accomplished in their platonic relationship with him weren't as important for him, as for her, she thought.

If she knew she would die in the foreseeable future, and she meant so little to Sherlock that he had to manipulate her again, after all they've been trough, she could at least gain something as cruel from him, what she knew Sherlock had problems to articulate because he didn't /do/ sentimental things.

If he would say it, like he meant it, he would always remember Molly Hooper, the woman who made him say I Love You. If he wouldn't say it, he would always remember her as someone who stood up to him and didn't let herself get tossed around anymore.

So she got nothing to loose.

After she asked him to say it first Sherlock blinked multiple times and then he made a frown, as if he was deducing something and /then/ comprehending her words.

1. So when he actually said ILY the first time he was giving her what she wanted

2. then staring at the screen and finishing his deductions

3. realizing that she was going die eventually

4. knowing that she deserved a proper declaration of love for everything she did for him

5. saying actually I Love You

I don't know if point 4/5 is exclusively an acknowledgment of her services, and by god, I want it really be so much more than just that, but I am not sure – because Benedict as well as Louise played their roles so... ambivalently well*.

So, after Molly said her fragile (one evidence more for her being fatally ill) I love you, Sherlock presses his palms to his eyes to “unsee” what he had deduced by staring at Molly for full three minutes. As if he doesn't want to believe that she is going to die and has to distract himself by wanting to solve the case of the girl on the plane.

But of course Eurus doesn't play fair and humiliates Sherlock even more by telling him, that he hurt Molly and himself for nothing: “Do be sensible, there were no explosives in her little house. Why would I be so clumsy. […] All those complicated little emotions.”

Which is for me the biggest indicator, that Molly is going to die. Eurus wanted to break Sherlock, not kill him, but destroy him. So she knew there would be no point in planing Molly's death, because it is inevitable. She is so, so clever!

If this scene would only be Sherlock realizing that he is capable of loving someone, that he is loving Molly Hooper, then Eurus wouldn't have spoken from “ALL” and “LITTLE” Emotions. Love is one emotion, and everything but little.

Sherlock doesn't only feel love; he feels relief for saving Molly, feels shame for putting her through this ordeal, grief, anger, loss and most of all self-hatred. At this very Moment he feels everything; every “little emotion” is smashing down on him, because even when everything will be fine in the end, he will never have back the ability to not feel at all.

He will nevermore be capable of feeling nothing, and that is something so beautiful, raw and unique, I've never seen on any TV-show. That a character which we met in the first episode who feels nothing but euphoria when solving crimes feels at the end of the series everything. That is really something to be amazed by.

Which brings me back to Sherlock and the casket scene.

He wanted to be so calm and unapproachable when he closed the coffin. And of course it could be that he only couldn't bear the thought that it was a coffin for Molly and that's why he had to destroy it.

But I think it's also a metaphor for lost opportunities:

Closing the coffin first, is like trying to lock up all those emotions, he feels. Trying to be calm and reasonable, that whatever happens, life goes on. And then he sees the brass plate again I Love You. Simple words, that without emotion are meaningless. He knows he has this emotion, for his friend and his daughter, for his family, for Molly!

But only one person would be forever locked in this casket: Molly.

It wouldn't matter, if he would ever have the opportunity to say sorry to her, to say her what she means to him, to tell her that indeed John was the one who showed him emotions, but she was the one who set them free – because nothing would ever hurt him as much, as knowing, that he didn't /see/ her, when she was sad, because she was dying!

imho destroying the coffin was Sherlocks way of not believing what he knew was true: Molly was going to die, and everything he did wouldn't be enough to help her survive, not even his emotions (love?) for her.

He had to smash the coffin in silly hope of preventing Molly Hooper from death!

Sooo... and if you ask: What? But Molly was beaming, when she came to Baker Street at the end of the episode. I can only tell you this:

“When she was dying, she was always cheerful, she was lovely...”

This got longer then actually intended, but I hope my Meta is as value as all the other ones out there and you enjoyed at least the dark and angsty side of Sherlock finding and loosing love in the same instant.

*the friend, with whom I have watched the episode is a hardcore J0hnl0ck-shipper (but NOT in this whole TJ*LC community) but wanted to strangle me, after I told her, that I am not sure if his declaration was sincere. “Are you (ginger)nuts, of course he was sincere, didn't you /see/?” So if a J0hnl0cker thinks Sherlock is in love with Molly, I should believe in it too, eh? *pessimistic*

lg

manney