Special note: Thanks as usual for my cover image goes to Elizabeth Robello.

Molly was sitting on the sofa with Tom at his parents house. Everyone, including his younger sisters, was watching the football game on the telly, but Molly couldn't be less interested. She tried to summon up enthusiasm for this sport, but she really didn't understand the allure of kicking a ball around a field and trying to get it into a net.

Instead she was lost in reflection as she stared at the engagement ring from Tom on her finger which she had been given two weeks earlier.

Tom's family was all gathered around the table, along with Molly, singing happy birthday to Tom. There was a chocolate cake in front of him with three lit candles, each one representing ten years of his life.

At the conclusion of the singing, Tom's mother said, "Make a wish, Tom."

To Molly's utter astonishment, instead of closing his eyes to make a wish to himself before blowing out the candles, he looked directly at her and said, "I wish…that Molly Hooper would marry me." Then he bent down, blew out the candles and smiled.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring as his parents and sisters looked at her expectantly. This was apparently no surprise to them, and Molly realised that Tom had obviously bought the ring from his family's jewellery store where he worked. Therefore it made sense that they would have known about it.

She hadn't been expecting a proposal from him at all. Yes, they had been going out for about five months, but most of the time she only saw him on weekends when they usually went to the pub. He would have his beers with his friends and she would sometimes have one drink, then switch to non-alcoholic ones. In fact, sometimes she felt a little like an appendage to Tom, someone he liked having around him so he could sling his arm around her casually and introduce her as his girlfriend. Yes, a few weeks earlier he had told her he loved her and she had hesitantly said the words back to him. But she didn't feel any real passion for him. He obviously felt it for her, in the way he kept hinting that he would like to sleep with her, but she flatly refused to allow him to stay overnight at her flat. In fact, she usually insisted that they go back to his place because she knew he wouldn't try anything with his parents around.

She blinked, feeling rather overwhelmed and put on the spot. Taking a deep breath, she uttered the fateful words, "Yes, I'll marry you, Tom."

Tom walked to her, placed the slightly too large ring on her finger and spun her around, kissing her as his family gathered around to offer their congratulations.

Later that night, he offered to drive her home and she accepted. Of course, she invited him in for the obligatory cup of tea.

"You know, Molly," Tom said, walking to stand behind her as she placed their finished cups in the sink, "I'm not working tomorrow." He placed his arms around her from behind. "I could, you know, stay over tonight. We are engaged now."

Molly twisted in his embrace to look at him. "Tom, why do you think being engaged is going to make me change my views on abstinence before marriage?"

He frowned. "I know you've told me about your religious beliefs, but surely you understand that I'm serious about you? Why do we have to wait until the wedding night?" He moved his hands up and down her back as he said the words.

Molly felt her colour heighten and her heartbeat accelerate a little, not from passion, but from dread. She hated confrontation. She didn't like it when Tom acted this way. She should have just taken a taxi home. "If I'm worth marrying, I'm worth waiting for." She put her hands against his chest to push him away.

He released his grip on her and pouted. "Come on, Molls. It's my birthday. Don't I deserve something special from you?" How she hated being called Molls.

She glared at him. "Not that special, Tom. My virginity is a gift I can only give once, and I'm afraid that your birthday is not the day on which it is going to be given. It isn't as if you can give me the same gift now, is it?" she challenged, raising an eyebrow.

This time it was Tom's turn to flush. "Molls, guys typically sleep with their girlfriends. That's real life. Sex feels great and I know once you've tried it, you'll want to keep going with it. I've asked you to marry me, what more do you want?"

Her lips tightened and she folded her arms defensively. "Respect, Tom. You may not have the same beliefs as me, but if we are to be married, you're going to have to respect them." She almost wished he would tell her the engagement was off right then, but he didn't.

Instead, he backed down. "Sorry, Molls. It's just, well, you drive me crazy. I want you so much. I'll try to respect your beliefs, okay?"

She blew out a deep breath. "Alright. You should probably get going now, anyway."

She allowed him one last kiss before he left, a man obviously disappointed that his birthday had not turned out quite the way he'd hoped. He'd gained a fiancée, but not a lover.

Molly's head snapped up and she was called out of her reverie by the sound of a name being spoken on the telly - a name she had not heard spoken in almost two years.

"...Sherlock Holmes was vindicated and cleared of all suspicion..." a reporter was saying in a special breaking news report.

Oh, thank God, at last people now know the truth, that he wasn't a fraud at all, she thought, suddenly wondering to herself if he was still even alive. When he had stayed with her briefly in secret while his "funeral" was being arranged, he had told her Mycroft was sending him on a mission to dismantle the insidious tentacles of Moriarty's network. Her mind drifted again, this time to one of their final conversations.

"Do you think you'll ever come back to London, Sherlock?" she asked, biting her lip. The thought of never seeing him again was agony, even though he had no idea of how strongly she felt about him. The only small memories that she had to treasure of him were a kiss on the cheek at Christmas the previous year, and a fleeting brush of his lips against hers after he had requested her help. Both had seared her soul and left her wanting more.

"I don't know, Molly." His eyes looked bleak, haunted. "Dismantling Moriarty's network could take years, and it will certainly be dangerous. I have escaped death once, but I may not be able to elude it again." Her heart sank at his words. After all their efforts, he could still die. He continued. "Even if I am successful, I would not be able to return while people still consider me to be a fraud."

"I don't suppose there's any way we will be able to keep in contact?" she asked, even knowing what his answer would be.

He touched her arm lightly. "I wish that were possible, but Mycroft would never allow it. I must remain isolated from everyone I have ever known here in order to keep my mission top secret. I'm only even telling you this because you helped me." His lips twisted slightly. "If my brother knew I'd revealed even this much to you, he'd be very angry."

Tears trembled on her lashes, and he looked at her kindly, fondly even. "Perhaps one day I'll come back and surprise you." He gently wiped away a tear that escaped.

"I hope so, Sherlock."

Again, Molly's musings were interrupted by her fiancé saying in an exultant voice, "Told you he wasn't a fraud, Mum."

Molly stared at Tom in surprise, even as his mother said, "Next thing you'll be insisting again that he isn't dead. That silly Empty Coffin club has filled your head with nonsense."

Tom folded his arms and looked over at his mother crossly. "It's not nonsense, Mum, and it's the Empty Hearse club, not the Empty Coffin club! He definitely faked his death somehow. No way would he have been the type to commit suicide."

"I know you admired him, son, but faking his death is a rather preposterous notion. Perhaps he suffered from depression and those news reports drove him to it," suggested Tom's father.

Molly listened silently to the conversations swirling about her. She was still trying to process the fact that Tom was some sort of fan of Sherlock's, let alone the fact that the detective had been exonerated after so long.

Tom's sister, Melissa, giggled. "I still can't get over the fact that you went out and bought a coat and scarf like his and started styling your hair the same way after he died. You're such a fanboy," she teased.

Tom flushed. "Shut up, Melissa. Just because I admired the man, doesn't mean I'm some stupid fanboy," he defended himself hotly. "I happen to like his sense of style, that's all."

Oh my gosh, thought Molly to herself, the only reason Tom and I even met is because I was staring at him from behind, thinking he was Sherlock because of the curly hair and coat.

Molly felt Tom's arm slide around her shoulder and he squeezed. "Anyway," he continued to his sister, "If I really wanted to be like Sherlock Holmes, I wouldn't have a girlfriend, I mean fiancée now, would I? I might have admired him, still admire him, but that man was a loner, for sure. Either that, or that flatmate of his was his secret boyfriend."

Molly felt like snapping at Tom that Sherlock was not gay, or at least she didn't think he was. She could have sworn he felt something too when their lips had met that one time in the lab, brief though it had been. John certainly wasn't gay - she'd met a couple of his girlfriends after all, but she remained silent. Revealing that information would also have meant revealing her connection to them which might bring up awkward questions, so she just gave her fiancé a tight-lipped smile.

Fortunately the breaking news broadcast finished and the football resumed, so conversation on that topic ceased.

Molly didn't think much more of it until a week or so later.

She had just opened the door of her locker to put away her lab coat after a busy shift had ended, when she caught sight in the mirror of the last person she had expected to see.

Sherlock was back.

She whirled around and stared at him for a few seconds, drinking in the sight of that familiar figure she had desperately missed for so long - the curls, similar to Tom's, but much softer looking, the aristocratic features and high cheekbones with the less square jaw than Tom's, the full sensual lips with a split across it which showed he had been in a recent altercation. He was such a sight for sore eyes, absolutely beautiful. Her mouth ran dry and she was unable to speak, but fortunately he spoke first.

"I told you I might come back one day and surprise you. It appears I succeeded," he told her, smiling slightly.

Finally she found her voice and ran to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Sherlock!" She rested her face against his chest, feeling the way his heart was beating, proving he was alive and not some kind of mirage conjured up by her fertile imagination. He was so real, and she felt his own arms come around her. He felt so good and he smelled the way she remembered. Her senses reeled and sharpened acutely as she breathed in the unique scent of Sherlock Holmes.

"I missed you too," he finally said as his hold on her relaxed and she realised she had probably been hugging him for much longer than was necessary.

She pulled back to look up at him. How she had missed those intense changeable eyes of his. "Did you come back because your name was cleared?"

His lips quirked. "That was merely a case of good timing. My mission has been successfully completed, and I have a new one in London for which Mycroft has requested my help. However, I have not yet publicly revealed that I am alive." He smiled again, then winced a little as it strained his split lip. "Although the one other person to whom I revealed myself was not too happy about me playing dead for two years."

"John?" She stepped back a pace from Sherlock to view that poor lip of his properly. Even with that split lip, he still looked incredibly hot, she thought, then berated herself for thinking such a thing. Should she tell him she was engaged? She wasn't wearing her ring because it needed to be resized and it would also catch on her latex gloves. But she didn't get the chance to say anything about it.

He nodded. "Look, Molly, I need to go now and let Lestrade know I'm available for consultation once again and after that I need to see if I can reclaim my flat."

"I hope Greg doesn't give you a black eye to go along with that split lip," remarked Molly with a grin.

"Greg who?" asked Sherlock and Molly rolled her eyes. Same old Sherlock.

"You really need to learn it is Greg Lestrade, not Geoff or Graham or whatever other nonsense you come up with."

Sherlock looked chastened. "At least I never forget your name, Molly Hooper," he said, and she couldn't help the giggle that escaped her lips.

It was so good to have him back, no, not good, it was wonderful. She smiled as he put on a beanie and dark sunglasses so he could remain incognito for now. "I'll see you soon," he promised, squeezing her hand in farewell.

She watched him leave and tried to tell her heartbeat to slow down as she observed his confident stride along the corridor towards the lift. He'd be more incognito without his trademark coat, she thought idly, nonetheless enjoying the familiar sight once again. How she'd missed seeing him swooping into the lab or mortuary, coat flapping about him as he did so.

Over the next couple of days, Molly turned on the telly as soon as she got home for work to make sure she did not miss the news. Two days later Molly watched London blow up with headlines in the newspapers, on the telly and all over social media. Sherlock Holmes was alive and well. There was plenty of intense speculation about how he had managed to fake his death, but nobody was getting any answers. Molly knew it wouldn't be long before people got bored with trying to figure it out and moved onto the next thing. She was bemused though to hear that everyone seemed to have always believed in him and his innocence, and they were all relieved he was alive after all. That had certainly not been the case at the time. Amazing how selective the memory could be when someone didn't wish to confront the fact they had erred in their assumption of his guilt.

The following day, Molly was eating a quiet lunch at her flat when she received a text out of the blue from Sherlock.

I have a proposal for you. Would you come and see me at Baker Street as soon as possible? I know it's your day off. I checked.

If only it were a proposal of the romantic kind, she thought dreamily, then caught herself. What the hell are you thinking, Molly Hooper? she told herself sternly. For one thing, you know Sherlock isn't a sentimental man, and for another, you're an engaged woman!

She almost told him she wasn't available, that she had plans with her fiancé, so that Sherlock would know she had moved on from him, but her curiosity about why what he wanted to see her won out.

I'll tell him about Tom once I get there, she reasoned to herself then sent off a text.

I can be there in about forty-five minutes.

Outer door will be unlocked for you. Come right up, was his response.

Molly felt a tingle of nervous anticipation, and ten minutes later she was on her way to 221B Baker Street for the first time in over two years.

Author's note: I kind of feel like a lot of this dream of Molly's reflects some of her true history with Tom, at least in my personal canon - like the birthday proposal and Tom's actions at her flat afterwards, and her memory of talking with Sherlock before he left London. The only thing that wouldn't be a true memory is her discovering that Tom was part of Anderson's The Empty Hearse club as this only came out in another of my real stories - The Case of the Pen Pilferer.

What do you think about the idea of Tom being a fan of Sherlock Holmes and wanting to be like him? Personally, I think it makes sense.

Some of my regular readers will know I portray Molly as a Christian who believes in abstinence before marriage. I know it's not a particularly popular idea, and that definitely means I have far fewer readers than the majority of Sherlolly writers, but I feel I must say to anyone reading this, whether they have religious convictions or not - you should never feel pressured into having sex if you are not ready for it. Please think carefully before you jump into that next step, it's a big one. I've heard of too many instances where young women especially end up sleeping with their boyfriends just because he wants it. Respect your body, respect yourself. If your partner respects you, he will not pressure you into something you are not ready for. If he does not respect that, perhaps you need to seriously consider whether he's the right person for you.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into Molly's past history with Tom. I don't suppose it is a topic that comes up in a lot of stories.

Your response always appreciated.