She could kick herself for having such rubbish taste in men, except that kicking herself would be redundant after encounters with Sherlock.

"You always say such horrible things," she blurts. "Every time. Always. Always…."

If there is one thing she has learned about him, it's that, for the truly human things, subtlety has absolutely no chance at making it through. And she wouldn't have said something like that a few years back, when this odd duck with a penchant for dark clothing and abusing corpses weaseled his way into her lab, her morgue, and unintentionally, her heart. Back then, she was too in awe of him to speak her mind to his face, although perhaps some of the abused corpses heard a bit more of Sherlock than they would have wanted.

So she's grown because of him, really, and that isn't bad.

He begins to turn away, but turns back. "I am sorry," he says, staring at the floor. "Forgive me." He moves in slowly. "Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper." He kisses her cheek.

So maybe he is growing, too.

He is clever, and he could have used that cleverness to become one of the Moriartys of the world, but he uses it to stop them, instead. No matter what Donovan thinks, Molly is sure he would never cross that line. She's talked to John, who likes to share his "look, he's human" anecdotes about the great detective, but that isn't how she knows. Unlike Sherlock, she can't rattle off how she knows things.

There's something to be said about knowing, deep down, that your taste in men isn't so rubbish after all; something about choosing to accept what is given to you and not to yearn for what isn't. She walks taller than she did before she met him.

This is one of the things she knows, without knowing how: he could never love her, and she could never love anyone else.

It feels almost like having something in common.