Molly mocked his sour expression, pushing him back on the grass when he frowned even more in return.

The other three men were already seated at a round table in the back when Molly and Sherlock entered the hotel dining room. Molly was spotted first, weaving around a waiter that carried a loaded tray above his head.

Lestrade waved in her direction and flashed a quick smile. "Over here."

"Any new leads?" she asked them, pulling out an empty chair.

Her question was ignored, however, because three sets of eyes had landed on the man trailing behind her.

"Sherlock!" Lestrade tried to cover his astonishment. "Didn't realize you guys got back at the same time," he continued sheepishly.

Anderson sat his drink down on the table and grinned with a mischievous smile. "I'm pretty sure they came together," he said just loud enough for John and Greg to hear him.

The latter elbowed him in the side.

"John, Graham," Sherlock nodded to the two men beside him. He looked across to Anderson and merely nodded his head, a slight twitch in his eye.

Small talk with his associates wasn't on the top of Sherlock's todo list, but he sat through an uncomfortable meal with the others anyway. He was treading on thin ice with Molly, weary of any comments or actions that might come off as rude or mean.

He'd repeated the same day twenty six times now. Everyday he played through the same cab ride conversations, talked about the same points on the case, and ate the same salty food for lunch. He deemed it necessary to not alter his day in any way. It was all very monotonous.

There was a plus side though. A single reason he continued with the charade. A single person. A person, who at that moment, was holding his hand below the table. He'd been resting his own against his leg, tense and rigid, when she'd noticed. He was fairly sure he was thankful for that.

"So the mother informed us that she'd seen her son two days before his death," Lestrade informed him.

This caught Sherlock's attention. He raised his head up from where it'd been watching his spoon push the last piece of chicken around his soup. "When? Did he behave oddly?"

"Morning, before lunch. She didn't give us a definitive time. As for his behaviour-" Lestrade shrugged. "-the mother said he looked fine. He stopped by for about ten minutes before leaving for the train station."

"His delivery for London…" Sherlock trailed off in thought.

"Yeah, the delivery that the London lab received on time." Lestrade pushed his plate away and exhaled loudly. "These cases make me want to retire early."

"Highly impractical," Sherlock informed the detective.

Lestrade frowned, but said nothing further. He called over their waitress, a middle aged woman from Wales, and ordered the table a round of ales.

"None for me," Sherlock said.

"And make mine a screwdriver," Molly added in from beside him.

He raised a brow in surprise.

"Come on Sherlock, just a drink," Lestrade said. "We won't be doing any more crime solving till mornin' anyway."
Molly poked Sherlock's side and whispered close to his ear, "Come on, I've already got you eating during the case."

"So?" The waitress waited impatiently with her weight shifted to one side and a pen balanced on her order pad.

"Fine," Sherlock grumbled.

Lestrade smiled broadly. "Four of your ales on tap and a screwdriver for the doctor."

Sherlock wondered if the man hadn't already started drinking.

What had started as one round quickly became a second, third, and even fourth. Molly, caught up in their mildly tipsy banter, went through her own drink as well as another double.

Sherlock felt excited and nervous and warm, all at once. He found himself leaning over to Molly for both conversation and sheer proximity. At a quarter till 10:00, Lestrade excused himself for the night, and was quickly followed by Anderson, who proved to be quite the light weight. The forensic scientist couldn't help smiling wryly at Sherlock and Molly as he took the long way around their table, pausing behind their chairs to catch Molly's hand resting near Sherlock's on his knee.

Despite John having no recollection of their discussion on Sherlock's previous kiss with Molly many June 2nds before, he still smiled knowingly at the pair.

"I think I'm turning in too." He patted Sherlock on the shoulder, somehow as both encouragement and a warning.

"Do you…" Sherlock began as Molly turned to him and asked, "Are you finished?"

He nodded. They stood up simultaneously, wooden chairs scraping against the dark tile floor below, and paid their share of the bill.

"Thank you," Molly said politely to the waitress as she passed them on their way out.

After pocketing her wallet and crossing underneath an arch that separated the dining hall and foyer, she whirled around to face Sherlock. A few tendrils of hair had escaped her ponytail and she tucked them back behind her ears.

"Do you…" he began again. He shifted nervously.

"Do I what?"

God, how is this so hard, he scolded himself.

Their slow shuffling had carried them all the way over to the front elevators. Sherlock looked up and noticed that the lights in the panel above the double doors read the number 4.

"A walk. We could walk."

"Didn't we just hike before dinner?" she laughed.

She followed his line of sight to the elevators behind her. "Uh yeah. A walk sounds great."

"Harrow and Oxford? Aren't you just the walking epitome of the rich southern boy."

His expression was blank, unsure if that was a good thing or not. Instead he just hummed, acknowledging her statement.

"It's not bad," she added when he hadn't said anything for a few seconds. "Chemistry major?"

"Math at first, actually."

She looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. She wanted to hear his story. It was odd and comforting. People always found interest in his deductions, but rarely his upbringing. It was as if they expected his childhood to be as much of a mystery as the consulting detective himself, and never bothered to ask.

"My mum was disappointed when Mycroft chose international relations, so she was ever so keen on me following in her footsteps. Turns out, I wasn't much of a mathematician."

Molly laughed. He didn't understand what she found so funny, but went on.

"The maths bored me, so after nearly flunking out after my first year, she and my father agreed I could switch to chemistry."

"Huh."

"What?" he peered down at her defensively.

"I just never pictured the Sherlock Holmes being bad at anything."

"You should see me draw." He nudged her arm.

"I bet it's not that bad."

They stepped off the pavement together and crossed by an alley. Sherlock pulled Molly closer, resting his hand gently above her waist. The streetlights around them were just turning on with the last glow of sunset fading below the horizon to their west. Tiny orange and red bursts peeked out from between buildings. It felt like driving slowly through a lit tunnel —the passing beams of light flitting past periodically.

"What about you?" he felt obliged to ask. His eyes darkened, a sudden seriousness to them. "Specialist registrar… not exactly your average diploma."

Molly blushed, but didn't shy away. "Is that a compliment?"

Sherlock shrugged. "If you want it to be."

She nodded with a smile. "Four years of undergrad. Four years med school. Two years for FY1 and 2." She shook her head. "It's not very exciting."

He took a moment, working out the details in his mind. "But-"

"Yeah. I was off for two years before med school."

At first Sherlock's mind drifted to travel or perhaps work abroad, but then tiny details, ones he hadn't realized he'd been collecting of Molly, shone through.

"Your father."
She nodded. They stopped at a crossroads, waiting, as cars passed by illuminating her shrunken figure in glimpses among the encapsulating moonlight.

"We should go back," he decided for them.

She didn't nod, didn't reply, just slipped an arm through his like an anchor and let him lead the way.

For all the times Sherlock had made an idiot of himself, he thanked every deity, every heaven he doubted the existence of, that tonight had not been one of them. They were a block from the hotel. It was almost 11:00. One final hour in the day he could never escape. Where had he been on past June 2nds? Home at Baker St, curled into the cushions of his couch. On a train destined for a London he would never see. Dead. Asleep on the sofa in John's hotel room —an open packet of sleeping pills on the coffee table. Out of all he cared to remember, this had been the best.

"I'm amazed at how much one day can change things," Molly admitted, walking alongside him.

They turned the corner to see a thin stream of light making its way down the entrance steps of the hotel.

"Change for the better?" he pondered, both to himself and the small woman curled into his side.

She caught a brief glimpse of doubt flash over his face and tightened her grip on his arm. "I'd say so, yes." She stepped away from him to open the front door, cradling the handle in her grasp. "You can't plan days like these."

She swung the door open all the way and made her way inside.

"Well you can try," Sherlock murmured.

Whether the elevator panel reading floor 4 was a coincidence or not, Sherlock had no time to decide what his next step with Molly was. Her attention was elsewhere, looking towards the lounge. All he could focus on were those shiny metal doors, yet here she was, looking out into a deserted section of the lobby.

"Sherlock." She whipped her head around to face him. "When does your train leave?"

He stared blankly back. My train?

"Oh, my train."

She cast a wary look his way.

His eyes roamed the lounge and found the clock she'd been watching earlier. "It's actually already left," he replied without a hint of disappointment or frustration.

"Oh." She stared up at him, around the empty lobby, and finally to the elevators.

"Did you want to call John?" She stepped away to give him space.

"Mobile's dead." His eyes flickered up to met hers briefly. "How about yours?"

She didn't even reach down to feel the mobile's outline in her trousers, just shook her head. "Dead as well."

He couldn't help the pull of his lips, sliding into a crooked smile.

"The landline in your room; it's not dead is it?"

She bit her bottom lip, shaking her head no.

The call was, of course, a pretense and both parties standing inside the door to Molly's room knew so without a doubt. But there was a difference between knowing so and knowing what to do.

"The phone's just over there," Molly said, resigned.

"I -I don't know if he'll answer," Sherlock replied, obtuse.

"You could try anyway." She let out a faint laugh. "That's usually how it works."

"Mmm." He made his way over to the side table beside Molly and picked up the receiver, finger hovering over the 4, but made no attempt to push down on it. "I-"

"Yeah?" she egged him on.

"I have no intention of calling John right now."

He looked up from the dialpad to see Molly grinning. Little creases had formed in the corners of her eyes from squinting so much.

"What are your intentions?"

"I was going to kiss you," he replied, scratching at his wrist from under his shirt sleeve.

"So why aren't you?" She reached out and took hold of his hands, pulling them towards her. She placed them over her hips and let go. "Hmm?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Because you wanted me to phone John," he replied confused. He tightened his grip at her sides anyway and pulled her closer.

Molly shook her head, face tilted upwards. "I never said I wanted you to," she whispered. With her hands braced against his chest, she pushed up onto her tippy toes, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Sherlock gulped.

"And I promise you," she practically breathed into his mouth, "that I certainly never meant it."

Over the course of five minutes, the two made their way from the bedside table, across the room to the door, and back to the bed, without breaking apart. Their kisses were a game of tug-of-war. While one leaned back for air, the other dived forward, catching the other's lips. They were two wind-up toys on different frequencies. Breathing patterns clashed and on multiple occasions, chests collided in unelegant fashions.

But it didn't matter. There was no hurdle too insurmountable to stop them. Neither a trip over the other's foot nor a stumble from the shedding of his suit jacket stalled the two. That was, however, until Sherlock rolled off of Molly, past the flowery bedspread, and onto the floor below. It sounded painful -a heavy thump- but the detective gave no sign of pain. Instead, he smiled up at Molly, with a goofy grin on his face, as she leaned over the corner.

"I love you," he admitted in his hazy state.

"What!" Rolling back, Molly pushed herself up from the bed and stood up. "When did you decide this?"

"Today… Well not today today," he rambled, coming to his feet as well.

She withdrew her hands from her pockets and crossed them in front of her. Her face was rigid —tense lines drawn into the slopes by her mouth and eyes. "How can you decide that today?" She pulled one arm up to her face, attempting to hide her emotions.

Sherlock shrugged with one shoulder, obviously not understanding the impact of his words, and tried to recall his reasoning from days before. "With an infinite timeline, I questioned the possibility of a future I never thought I could ever persue."

She blinked back at him. "What?" her voice cracked.

"I wanted to see what it'd be like. Us."

"Oh." She sank down onto the bed they'd collapsed upon earlier. Though she appeared no less confused or frustrated, her voice got softer. "Why?"

"Why not?" he replied without much thought.

"Why not? Why not!" Her feet hit the floor with a thump and she stalked over to him with a pointed finger. "Maybe because your whole idea of love is an alternative to boredom."

"Logically, everything is an alternative."

"Mmm. Like drugs?"

His eyes widened like a drop of fluid on one of her cell slides.

"How'd you know?" Despite her I will not hesitate to hit you mood, Sherlock encroached upon her with an unwavering stare. "How do you know about that?" he whispered. "Do you know?"

"Know that you have a history with drugs?" She laughed outloud —one of those fake ones that catches in the throat. "Yes I know!" She smacked him across the shoulder.

"Oh, I just thought..." he grumbled to himself. Of course she doesn't know about this, you idiot!

"I'm gullible, not an idiot, Sherlock."

"This isn't like drugs though."

"Because drugs couldn't get you lab access and free body parts to experiment on?"

"No."

"Or what, is this also for a case?"

"No!" he said, finding himself growing more upset by the minute. Why wasn't she listening? Why wasn't she understanding?

"Because!" He pulled against his shirt tails, scrunching them up into a little ball. "Because."

In one stride he was hovering over her, gazing down at her piercing glare that had locked onto his. She didn't blink, daring him, provoking him to continue, so he did. Slowly, he reached his hands underneath her arms and tilted her head back. She fought back with little resistance, almost like she'd put too much energy into her glare to expend it on anything else. When his lips were mere centimeters away, he dove in, capturing hers in haste.

They steadied themselves, taking a few steps back, placing one foot after another in sync. When both bodies returned fully upright, Sherlock pulled away with a smile. Molly however, was not so impressed. After a curt shake of her head and downcast glance, she jerked her head back up and slapped him across the face.

The impact was shocking, more than anything. He didn't understand. Despite his best efforts, he'd faced the same results as the first time he'd kissed her.

But the déjà vu, he reminded himself. If she could remember a fish shop, surely she would remember a bloody kiss!

No.

"I'm guessing your phone isn't actually dead," she assumed, breaking his train of thought.

"It is." He flashed her the black screen after clicking it a few times.

His truthfulness didn't seem to curb her anger, though.

"I suppose I can just go find him." He pointed to the door.

She nodded, looking over his shoulder with a grimace so tight, it appeared her lips had caved in on each other.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said. One way or another.

Turning his back on the room, he walked out. When he'd made it into the hall, he hesitated on the door handle, and took a final glance back. She had this weary look in her eye and when she didn't realize he could still see her, she reached up and touched a hand to her lips one last time.

"Order 89!"

Sherlock pushed back his chair in a scramble and hopped up to get their food. Day twenty seven, he thought. Don't mess it up.