Hello! Sorry for all the delay, I was busy working on Episkey for a while. I know I've not been the most reliable for an update, but that is seriously because I'm juggling a few other unpublished stories.

ANYWAY I'D LIKE TO THANK Nirvs (nirvanad) FOR HER BETAING WHICH WAS BEAUTIFUL.

He peered into the microscope.

On his left, a thin test tube with red liquid was placed carefully on a stand. Molly elbowed Sherlock gently, and without looking up, he extended his hand. Two rubber gloves were placed on it immediately.

"Sister?" she asked cheerfully.

"Sister," he confirmed.

"Meena owes me twenty," said Molly gaily.

She was in an oddly good mood, and Sherlock knew why. Sherlock wasn't supposed to know why – but Molly had a tendency to write on her arm.

Her Mum had called today. And she had probably sounded nice. The muscle in Sherlock's jaw had jumped, unable to comprehend why Molly would still care about her mother – since her mother was clearly using her for some cash. Most likely – Molly's mother had not saved enough, in their slightly over the top suburban lifestyle.

And Molly was the idiotic sentimental type to care about people like her mother. Sherlock didn't know why it irked him so much – most people were sentimental about the people who raised them. Personally, he didn't understand why it should matter if someone is adopted, since research has proven that the environment has as clearly an effect on character as genetics – if not more.

But every dramatic show Molly watched told him that people cared about that sort of thing. An inefficient waste of emotion.

Molly watched a lot of TV. She read a lot of books. She enjoyed weird, popular kind of music. He had spotted a piano covered in dust in her apartment, however, it was well tuned. Unplayed, but well tuned.

It had been nearly a year and a half of this. A year and a half of knowing Molly. Of hearing her, her words heading into an abyss which only he had access to.

"What would you like for dinner?" she asked.

Sherlock didn't respond.

"I was going to order Chinese," she continued.

"Not now, Molly," he said, carefully taking a swab from the inside of a shoe.

She didn't say anything, but she chewed her lip a little.

"What is it?" asked Sherlock.

"Did I say something wrong that night, when you left abruptly?" she blurted out.

Sherlock didn't look up.

"No," he said. "You gave me an epiphany."

"Oh," said Molly, sounding pleased. "I'm your muse."

"There's no such thing as a muse," said Sherlock. "The idea is romantic nonsense to elevate poets to pedestals they could not get to on merit alone."

Molly blushed. "I know," she said. "But I like it."

And Sherlock found himself at a loss for words. He found himself doing that frequently around Molly – there was a tendency for Molly to be a little like music, she ran away with you, and you didn't quite know where you ended up until everything was a crescendo. Molly reminded him of music – theoretically, there was science behind her, there was logic, there were words. And then, she stopped making sense. Because music tended to make people's heartache, it made tears, it stopped making sense because you started hearing it everywhere.

And Sherlock knew – in theory, that music managed to make you feel because of endorphins, because of sensible things such as biological reactions.

And yet, when his heart twinged, he couldn't quite remember what was supposed to have caused it.

Molly had left to meet her mother a while back. He had not said goodbye, pretending to be engrossed. In reality he was worried by how conscious he was of her presence and absence, how clearly in his head he knew where she was going and who she was going to speak to.

And then he had left for home. The looming halls of Baker Street engulfed him, with little comforts which he paid no attention to. He knew he had to wait for Molly to respond, and he had nothing to distract himself with.

Distractions are funny things – thin veils, curtains, which cover up realities which are much smaller than you expect them to be.

And it so happened that on this day, distractions didn't work – because Molly never responded.

Sherlock paced his halls, a ghost haunting a space that was unused to monsters. He covered every part of the apartment before he allowed himself to think that he was mildly worried. Molly didn't normally not respond – she wrote daily on her arm, unanswered letters which should have been addressed to him.

They always found him, however.

And so, he made up his mind.

He stood at her door, noting the beautiful little pot of what looked like daisies that she had hung from her door. It was particularly Molly.

"Sherlock?" said a soft voice.

She had been crying.

"Who else?" he asked, feigning impatience.

"This isn't a good time," she said gently.

"I need the blood panel, Molly," he said.

The click of the lock was distinct. Molly emerged, and sure enough, there were tear tracks on her eyes. Sherlock felt a surge of unnecessary anger, one that was misplaced.

"I haven't got it," she said.

"Wonderful," said Sherlock. "Then, I'm coming in for tea."

She stepped aside to let him in.

He pottered over to the kitchen, when Molly did something surprising. She took out a cigarette, an ashtray from one of her drawers, and lit the thing.

"Those things kill," Sherlock said, putting on a pot of water.

"That's the aim," said Molly, with a macabre smile.

Sherlock's hand emerged from his pocket, demanding the cigarette. Molly placed a fresh one on his palm.

"Bother you for a light?" asked Sherlock.

Molly's face reached close to his, the cigarette between her lips, carefully held by her two fingers. His own cigarette, clutched between two teeth, puffing gently from hers, lit like a small firefly.

"I know I shouldn't," said Molly. "I don't, normally. I sometimes feel very stressed and miserable, and I do it. The last time it happened was three years back."

"Reassuring," said Sherlock, blowing smoke from his nostrils, busying himself with the pot.

"I know I shouldn't," she repeated. "But I had a bad day. Should have known, meeting my Mum is always painful."

"You'd be surprised at how many people feel the same."

Molly snorted.

"I'd like to have a kid," she said softly. "Just to do it right. So that I get to have a say in how someone else gets fucked up."

"Interesting theory," said Sherlock, adding tea leaves.

"Yeah."

He put a little bit of milk, and poured out the tea in two mugs.

"Thanks," she muttered. She took a deep drag of the cigarette and Sherlock fought the urge to slap it out of her hand.

She had her eyes shut, the firefly glow in her hands – her shapeless pyjamas making some sort of statement about how little she cared. His lips were tingling.

Sentimental twaddle claimed that skin tingled lightly at the touch of soulmates. Sherlock had never believed in that, because Sherlock had never believed in soulmates. He had hardly ever believed in Molly.

Molly Hooper, on the other hand was irrevocably real. Unbelievably real.

"Sherlock?" she murmured.

"Yes?"

"I usually play the piano after a bad day. You won't mind, would you?"

He might have nodded an invisible assent of some kind, because Molly put her cigarette out almost immediately. She sidled down to the piano, and lovingly opened it.

Molly's fingers ghosted over the keys, touching in the softest way possible. Music burst into colour, normally – with Molly, it spread into the water, curling like was everything in Molly's fingers – Sherlock recognised one of Chopin's compositions. He didn't know what Chopin had been thinking, but it seemed he had written it for Molly and for her alone.

By the time he left, Molly was smiling just a little.

And as he started heading home, his arm tingled.

He waited for the words to appear.

I think I might be falling in love.

This was nonsensical.

Falling in love.

Why would someone fall in love? How accidental was it? How intentional was it? How much of a mess did it make? How much did you fall? How much did it hurt?

And when he thought of Molly, quietly in her little apartment, crying over her mother, it occurred to him that it must hurt quite a bit.

On the twentieth of December, Molly was alone.

Sherlock had wondered, and wondered again. He knew Meena had called her briefly – since Molly had written it on her arm absentmindedly, as she tended to. And she'd made plans for tomorrow with Meena. But no one else had called. Sherlock would have known – Molly had reached the morgue, and received no calls. In fact, she'd kept her phone far away from her work station, which puzzled Sherlock.

He looked at her again. She seemed unconcerned.

Molly incited emotions in him. Odd ones – things out of place. In that minute, he felt a misplaced sense of anger towards Molly's family.

He shut his eyes meditatively. What was it about her, that caused him to feel so incessantly? Was it the constancy of her thoughts, the regularity of her whispers? Was it the way she looked, was it her special intelligence? Sherlock didn't know.

Who was Molly Hooper to do this? Why did she have such a power over him?

The windows of 221 Baker Street were humming.

The violin in Sherlock's hands was contributing to the entire atmosphere. Baker Street seemed to flicker in and out of existence through the violin – the lights dimming and glowing at the will of Sherlock's music.

Abruptly, the music stopped.

Sherlock was looking onto London. The orange glow of the city mixed into the black of sky, stars flickering out of the night thanks to the light pollution.

That was when he picked up a pen – his desk was nearby. His arm was tingling a little, and not because any words had appeared.

Molly was cooking when it happened.

She ignored the mac and cheese she had decided to make for the sake of comfort, her fingers fumbling as she pulled her sleeve aside.

Happy birthday.

The handwriting was slightly familiar. Sloping, but messy.

Her heart stopped.

He looked out at the stars, at London.

"Goodnight, Molly Hooper," he murmured.

No reply came back.

"I was wondering if you'd like coffee."

Molly looked nervous, as if she had been thinking about this for a while. She had a little lipstick on her lips, her eyes were wide, she looked intensely pretty – which was a strange observation for Sherlock to make, since he tried to think little of what someone looked like.

No, was what he thought.

Didn't she know?

Every work shifts, eventually, from work to text.

An author's work is a singular piece of writing – lonely, in a way – but a part of them. It exists without all the complications of a text – of different interpretations, of being part of a larger style of writing. People remain works for most of their lives, every part of them – from morning coffee to evening beers, a small work in their overall story.

Molly Hooper had never replied – and he had understood. After years of silence, it had to be a little difficult, especially when she thought she was in love with someone else.

"Black, two sugars," he said quickly.

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