Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta-read so all mistakes are mine. Thanks for their reviews go to likingthistoomuch, Soberdog, kraftykathy, Bekah1218 and applejacks0808. This is the last one so enjoy!

~ And The Dawn Run Riot In Her Smile ~

They make it back to Baker Street in near silence, Molly's little hand held tightly in his.

When they get out of the cab he pays the driver and then pulls her almost… shyly through the front door of 221B, head ducked, throat tight. He's a little embarrassed by how insistent he's feeling.

He's unused to showing his emotions so openly as this.

He needn't have worried though; Molly merely tightens her grip on his hand, steps inside the front door quietly. Once he closes it she leans into him, looking up at him through thick, dark lashes as if seeking his permission.

He nods, not really sure what he's agreeing to, knowing only that if Molly wants it then it can't be too bad.

She stands on her tiptoes, her hands braced against his chest as she nuzzles her nose into his throat. His cheek. Her lips find his and oh but her kiss is sweet. Her balance is so precarious that she nearly trips and instinctively his arm comes up to wrap around her waist. Keep her close to him. The heat of her body pressed against his is… intense. A delight unlike anything he's felt before. Her breasts, her arms, her breath… It's all so warm. So soothing.

He swallows hard and blinks down at her. Their breaths are mingling together, and he can see her pulse thrumming at her throat.

He has the inexplicable- mortifying- urge to lick it.

"It's- We should go upstairs," he mumbles, again embarrassed by how hoarse his voice sounds. How… wanting. How clumsy.

She nods though, her smile still soft.

"Lead the way," she says and somehow Sherlock doesn't think she's only talking about the route to his flat.

He finds the thought both touching and slightly alarming.

He nods anyway though, tightening his grip on her hand and pulling her towards the stairs. They ascend wordlessly, the only noise their breaths and the click-clack of Molly's small-heeled little shoes. Once inside she sheds her coat and bag, hanging both up while Sherlock drapes both Belstaff and suit jacket over the arm of John's old chair. He turns back to her, expecting her to speak but she doesn't. Instead she holds her hand out to him and when he takes it she steps in closer to him, again blinking up at him through those sooty, dark lashes.

"I'm… I'm not sure what to do," he stammers and her skin flushes red.

She smiles and oh but it is lovely.

"I'm not sure what to do either," she says honestly. "This is all a bit unexpected. I- I want you to be comfortable, I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do-"

"You too." He winces. He's normally not so clottish as that. "I mean," he corrects himself, "that I don't want you to feel that you- That there's anything you have to do. There isn't." His words trip over themselves, coming out too fast.

"I'm not going to push or try to make you-"

"I never thought you would."

And again he can hear it, that honesty. That trust. He's not sure what he's ever done to earn it. She's reached down and she's opening up his shirt-cuff now, pushing the sleeve up to roll over his bicep. He knows what she's looking for. He feels an odd, skittish thrill at the thought of her wanting to look at it. The tattoo. The reminder of her he painted onto his skin.

The reminder of how deeply she's embedded herself inside him.

When her fingers find it he can't help his sharp inhalation of breath and it makes her pupils dilate, her cheeks pink. It's an odd, heady feeling to know that he did that to her. Without his meaning to his fingers thread through her hair, massaging her nape as she lowers her lips to kiss the tattoo again. He really, really likes it when she does that.

He must make some noise for her head snaps up, eyes on his and he sees her trying to read his expression. There's no guile in her eyes though, no judgement, and again he feels that odd rush of comfort, of gratitude, that she can look at him like that. "Don't you want to know what it means?" he hears his own voice ask, quite without his having decided to speak.

She lowers her eyes. "Do you want to tell me?" she asks quietly. "You don't have to-"

"I think I do." And he takes a deep breath, tries to centre himself. He can't let this go any further without explaining- Without coming clean his little crush. Without coming clean about what it cost her. Without his musings those awful men would still have taken her, he's accepted that, but they wouldn't have tied her in white satin, they wouldn't have forced that tinsel halo on her head. They wouldn't have toyed with her, left her near-naked and vulnerable when they sent him that bloody message-

"What is it?" he hears her ask, and it's at this moment that he realises he's breathing rather heavily.

He looks up at her and instinctively her hand goes to his cheek.

He takes her other one and presses it against his heart.

"I have to- It was my fault," he says, and the words are halting. Stuttered. He can see she doesn't understand. "When they took you, it was my fault," he says more calmly. "When they put you in that awful costume, when they stripped you, it was because of me."

Now that he's started the words simply pour out of him, their first meeting, his images of her. His deletion of them- Or rather, his attempts at it. Molly Hooper, Clumsy Angel, a permanent resident inside his Mind Palace. Molly Hooper, Guardian Angel, recurring saviour when his mind is threatening to become overwhelmed.

She watches him as he speaks and he hates it, hates the understanding in her expression when he's the one who should be comforting her, he's the one who should be asking forgiveness-

He stumbles to a halt eventually, having run out of breath and words.

The silence surrounding him is so great it echoes. It aches.

He's afraid to look at Molly, to see her disappointment, her understanding of all he's cost her-

When he can't raise his eyes though, she bends down. Crouches her way into his line of vision.

There are tears on her lashes- of course there are- but she's... smiling?

Why on Earth would she be smiling? Sherlock thinks. He doesn't understand it.

For a moment all is silence, but then-

"So these are wings?" she says quietly, her fingers reaching out to trace the tattoo again. "These are my wings?"

"The wings you have inside my head," he mumbles. "The wings I always imagine you with. I know- I know you're not an angel. I know you're far more real and clever and complicated than that. But in my head… In my head that's what you mean to me.

"That's how I see you."

And he reaches out, presses a swift, harsh kiss against her lips in case it's the last time he gets to do so.

He hears her take in a sharp huff of breath at it and he winces, prepares himself for her deserved, cutting rebuke. But then he feels her lips press gently against his cheek. His chin. His throat. When he looks up at her she presses a kiss to his mouth and it feels… It feels wonderful.

It feels like daybreak after a long, lonely night.

"I'm not an angel," she's saying, "but if you want to think of me as one- if it helps you- then I'm happy to have you think that. I'm happy to be that for you."

Her smile turns shy.

"Of course, it will only work if you're that for me, too."

He shakes his head. "I am far from a celestial messenger, Molly," he points out and to his surprise she smiles.

"Then why do I always imagine you as my guardian angel, Sherlock?" she asks.

He has no answer to that but he soon realises that he doesn't need one- Not when she's kissing him like this.

Dawn rises, sunlight stealing in through the windows of 221B Baker Street and with it comes new realisations. New notions.

Daybreak, is, after all, rather good for that sort of thing.

Sherlock smiles and idly strokes his hand down Molly's bare back, marvelling at the softness of her skin. The beauty of it. Its tones shift and coalesce, warm and lovely as the dawn. There's the golden of her skin when painted with sunlight. The bright glints of copper which thread through her hair even in shadow. There's the rose of her lips and the darker, duskier pink of her bare nipples, the weight of one breast a welcome weight against his hand as he leans into her back and inhales the wet, warm scent of her skin as she lies slumbering. Her body is lovely as the dawn, no angel white to rob her off her beauty. Her aliveness.

She murmurs in her sleep and leans back into him and in that moment he is content.