A/N: It's been a long time since I've written fan faction, but I watched "The Empty Hearse" a few days ago, and yeah… enough said. This is just to tide me over till Sunday. This takes place after "The Empty Hearse," but before John and Mary's wedding. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: This is obviously fan faction. I own only my own works, imagination, a British bloke, and two darling kids. And a crush on Sherlock.

Navigating through the security doors was so easy it was laughable, really. For such an established and well-known hospital, Bart's could do with a tighter security protocol. Still, Sherlock wasn't about to bring the lapse in security up anytime soon, as it played to his advantage. He quietly approached the double doors to the pathology lab that Molly would undoubtedly be behind, though his usual swagger was slightly misplaced, and he took more time than necessary getting there. He had felt off-foot with her, since seeing her fiancé.

Fiancé, he snarled to himself, his mouth silently forming the words as one might say evil or reprehensible. He would never admit his true feelings, because he knew that love burnedyou, for he had felt the scorn in his youth, losing himself entirely to a girl, and then losing his faith in love entirely when she had been brutally ripped away from him and this life, murdered in cold blood. He had sworn at her grave that never again would he be vulnerable, never again would he love anyone else. Ever. But it had been in vain, because he did love Molly. Painfully. So much so, that he often found himself turning away whenever she entered a party he was at or a friendly gathering, afraid one smidgeon of his repressed affections would show, and what a disaster that would turn out to be.

Seizing the moment to give her the most impassioned kiss he could in Bart's before he disappeared, had helped him to survive being tortured in Russia. The image of her honest, pretty face, small and bright and pure, caged between his palms and bursting with hunger for him – for she had been hungry; he could taste it on her lips, held him together when he would have fallen apart after the beatings, the whippings, the pseudo drowning they had put him through. He had held onto the thought of her, the possibility of something with her while he lay curled in the cold, damp dark. No one had managed to cotton onto the fact that he was, albeit a genius and crude in his methods, very fragile to the world right now. If Mycroft gleaned his emotional predicament, the bastard was at least tactful enough to not have brought it up during their talks.

When he'd asked Molly to help him solve crimes, she didn't realize it was him asking her on a date. As he'd counseled John years ago when he told John to take Sarah to the Chinese circus, Sherlock had always felt that a gentleman should step out of the world and do something significant for his intended; Molly was a pathologist; like a sheltered rose, her petals had to be stripped from the delicate, meek exterior to see the beautiful, strong bud inside. She was vastly intelligent, but somewhere along the way had learned to secrete that beneath an unassuming facade, as people were intimidated by those smarter than they were, as he very well knew. Him taking her along was his attempt at showing her he cared, that they had a special, unique shared interest and that he wanted more of that with her … but he was deluding himself; he'd seen the ring the moment he walked into the locker room.

Sherlock knew in the deep, dangerous cave of his heart that he could never be the lover he had been in his youth, unguarded and unreserved, but he'd hoped that perhaps seeing Molly again, being near her, she could… help him, somehow. Molly had a gift for seeing the man he truly was inside and drawing him out of himself; she'd always had. He used to be wary of it, but he was damaged and searching and damnit, he needed her. But then, there was this fiancé, Tom, who might as well be his doppelganger.

What made it worse was that he saw that flicker of happy settlement in her eyes when he'd visited her in the locker room for the first time in two years; the light that shone upon her diamond ring bespoke of a man who was very invested in her. She may be immune to the fact that Tom resembled him from the tips of his shiny Italian loafers, to the annoyingly (and slightly taller) point of his curly bloody hair, but she seemed unaware of this fact, and truly happy.

Sherlock wanted to hit something.

Instead, he drew a deep breath, schooled his face impassively, and pushed the door to the lab open. The lab was empty; an empty teacup was placed on a coaster by her computer, which she'd locked. Good girl. He heard the swing music of a big brass band coming from the staff break room kitchenette that eventually led to the morgue around the corner, and Frank Sinatra's voice began crooning, "That's life… that what all the people say…" He stayed close to the wall and walked carefully towards the niche with the kitchenette.

"You're ridin' high in April, shot down in May…" He heard movement, and very carefully he peered around the corner.

Molly's hair was flowing down her back, her lab coat hung on a nearby wooden wall peg. She was cutting a slice of chocolate cake, and swaying to the music, humming along beneath her breath. He kept himself hidden for a minute as he watched her, the corners of his mouth twitching as she got into the song, dancing and licking chocolate off her fingers and spinning out at one point until she realized he was leaning against the doorjamb with his hands crossed, looking smugly at her. He had long ago perfected the science of elegant slouching. Dolefully mundane, but a helpful necessity.

"Sherlock! Oh-oh God!" Luckily her slice of cake was secure on the counter, but she self-consciously whirled around, turning the CD player off, her back to him as she palmed her red face.

"Don't stop on my account," he laughed. "The old boy would be offended. This was one of his best works. Or so father used to allude to."

Molly glanced at him, mortified. "Y-you couldn't have said you were there? Really? I mean I-I-"

Sherlock smirked, prowling towards her slowly, lowering his voice. "I'll make you a deal, Molly. For a slice of that chocolate cake, I'll take your secret to the grave."

Faster than a rabbit on speed, Molly whipped the plate in front of him. "Done," she laughed, walking around him to slice another piece of cake for herself. "Oh God, Sherlock. Is there any other way I could possibly embarrass myself in front of you? I think I've done pretty much everything, short of running around the morgue naked, screaming like a mental patient."

He ate a forkful of the cake, which was really rich and flavorful. "If it helps at all, they used to call me Shirley Shirley Whirley in school," he winked at her, brushing her cheek with the back of his knuckles. "Oh, Molly. You needn't ever worry about how you act around me. I quite enjoy you. Very much, in fact."

Molly's huge doe eyes gazed up at him, and he felt himself stir at the warmth in them. Rein in those emotions, man. He sought refuge in the cake, looking down at it as he took another bite. "This is delicious, incidentally. Why didn't you ever mention you were a gifted cook before?" The quality of the homemade cake was indeed amazing.

Molly placed a curved tupperware lid over the rest of the cake, putting it in the fridge. He could tell by the less tense set of her slim shoulders that she was pleased. "Uh, I don't know, really. I just am not really one to toot my own horn, I suppose."

Sherlock continued to devour the cake, watching her carefully. Silence, he'd found, was the best way to get Molly Hooper to talk openly as far as he was concerned. Molly nervously leaned against the counter, putting her palms against the edges as she looked up at him, biting her lip. "Yeah, I cook when I'm mulling over things. It helps me think."

"And what have you been thinking about?"

"You," she said automatically, then put a hand over her eyes. "I-I didn't mean… I just meant that you know, it's a bit of a shock, going about my life and then s-seeing you suddenly again."

"I can leave, if you want," he half-joked, raising his eyebrow. He had no intention of leaving. He simply needed to be near her.

Molly shook her head. She smiled nervously and reached for a discarded hairband on the counter, gathering her mane of shiny hair over her shoulder. "No, it's lovely having you here again, Sherlock. Really. Is- is there something I can help you with? A case?" she began carding her fingers through hair, fixing it into an elegant but simple side braid, feeling her way by touch alone.

Sherlock realized he was staring at her lithe, slim fingers as they wove the braid, and realized he was glaring daggers at the ring on her left finger. He quickly stood straight up and set his empty plate on the counter. Why had he come again?

For the life of him, he couldn't remember. He had no cases at the moment, just yesterday he had wrapped one up for Lestrade.

"I came to…"

Molly was fixing her lab coat back on, looking at him expectantly, her eyes kind and curious.

He was saved by his own impulses by a loud voice humming the choral bridge of The Phantom of the Opera behind him. He turned, and there stood Tom, wearing an open-throated dark purple dress shirt and pressed trousers, holding a fresh bouquet of pink roses, a goofy smile on his face.

"Tom!" Molly said nervously.

"Buuuuh, dun dun dun dun duuun," Tom sang, only sparing a nod Sherlock's way as he strolled in, holding up two West End tickets fan-like in front of his face. "Christiiine!"

Molly laughed, and looked at the tickets. "Oh my God, these are right in the front row!"

"Mhm, and they're for tonight. You get off in fifteen minutes, right?"

Tom laughed throatily, and Sherlock really wanted to punch him. He hated Tom's little fringe he had in front that was similar but so far removed from Sherlock's own thick mop of curls, he hated that the man was even an inch higher than himself and had a winning, easy smile. And he hated Tom's seeming possessiveness of Molly.

Irene Adler had always taunted Sherlock that he was a virgin and sexually awkward, as though she'd love to dominate him someday, but she had it the other way around, and she never knew it. He was the dominant one. Molly was his.

When Sherlock Holmes kissed a woman, she would feel engulfed by him. He wanted to invade her every sense, to fill her with every molecule and breath and essence of his being. That was at least what he had tried to do in the brief moment he'd had to kiss her that day through the window, at Bart's. It had worked, but it was only a morsel compared to the feast he could actually partake of with this sod gone.

Sherlock saw a flicker of sadness and longing as Molly looked his way, and Tom turned around, as if suddenly realizing he were there. Sherlock realized with mild detachment that his fists were clenched, and that his nails were digging painfully into his palms. He had to get out of there. If he stood there another second, he would call Tom out and fly at him.

"Molly," he bowed to her, not bothering to look at the man with the roses. "Tony."

"It's Tom actua-"

"Thank you for the dance," Sherlock said, fixing his gaze on Molly. "Do save me one at the wedding, won't you?"

"O-of course." Molly's eyes shone, and he realized tears were welling up in them. He felt the pull of her drawing him in, and before he could do something stupid, like move purposefully forward and snog her till she couldn't stand, he gave her one single unguarded look of love, willing her to get the hint, and whirled around, coat billowing out behind him as he left.

Sherlock heard Tom asking her what dance he had been on about, and he stored the memory of her, hair flowing and dancing carefree, in his mind palace.

He didn't know what lay in store for him and Molly, nor if she could ever accept that fact that he would never have what was considered a conventional relationship, but he knew one thing; he was going to get rid of Tom.