AN- I've been flinging this story all over the planet, having it polished up and fine tuned in part thanks to two LOVELY individuals who were kind enough to take this monster on: pruplup4 and Ybs

A round of applause for these two! And maybe a few shots as well! Cheers!

**** Italics are past funnsies!

Mistakes, they are mine. Let them love you.

How Lucky You Are

By: Berouge

She actually fractured a bone in her hand, much to her long suffering joy. The metacarpal of her thumb had been jarred so violently it nicked a chunk off the trapezium, all because she didn't snug her thumb like Poindexter had said.

After the fact, mind you.

However, it had been Wade that had called her on there actually being some real damage- because as an orthopedic surgeon, Wade could see a bulging bone a hundred paces out in a windstorm- or he had just noticed the impressive swelling and deduced the obvious. Her wrist looked like a balloon stuck in the leg of a pair of hosiery and it hurt like the blazes, so she wrapped it and worked around her lameness as best she could- she was NOT taking time off for a battered hand that she was most proud of. Ice packs and pain relievers were only doing so much and Molly just had to bite the bullet and continue on because it was her fault that she was even in that predicament to begin with.

Nobody forced her to smash her fist into Joe's face as hard as she possibly could.

She would have forked over a monetary reward if that had been the case.

"Put you hand here." Wade said as he turned to flick a bunch of switches on the huge piece of technology about to blast her limb with x-rays. Grabbing a lead blanket, he situated it on her arm so as to not expose her unnecessarily to the rays of the machine- probably for the best…she was screwed up enough already without adding a genetic deformity incubated within her very flesh.

Molly was quiet, meekly going along with everything Wade was having her do. He didn't have to help her- actually, she was stone cold shocked that he had offered. She had socked his best friend in the face at a busy market, after all. The bro-code, as she understood it, specifically stated that 'bro's came before ho's'- not that she was a 'ho', but the spirit of the idea translated well enough. Wade shouldn't even be speaking politely with her, and yet here he was, gently arranging her swollen hand and wrist so as to not hurt her needlessly. "Ready?" He asked and she nodded emphatically at him.

He disappeared behind a lead screen and Molly continued to stand there as nothing happened. She sighed, feeling stressed because she didn't know what to say to him. She adored Wade- he was a wonderful man, who was fun and dependable. He was Tara's smitten boyfriend and there was no way she could avoid him, not that she really wanted that to be the case- she didn't want to let him go as a friend. Period.

This was why a person should never date within their own friendship circles! She couldn't afford to lose the friends she had! Fortunately, Tara was too bossy to allow Wade's preferences, if he were so inclined to drop her, to influence the receptionist unduly. If that were an issue, she would have been a raving Kevin Costner fan at this juncture in her relationship.

Alas, Tara thought Waterworld was a stupid movie and that alone gave Molly hope, not only for humanity, but her friendships as well.

"You're quiet today." Wade said as he lifted the lead blanket off her arm, startling her enough that she jerked her palm painfully.

"A-am I?" Her face tensed as she cradled her poor, abused hand to her like a worried parent.

Wade slanted a look at her and Molly dropped her eyes to his white coat, hoping to avoid the topic-

"I'm not mad at you Molly, so you can relax."

-of Joe.

"You aren't?" Her head snapped up, and she cringed at how hopeful she must have appeared, because Wade's mouth quirked upward in amusement.

"No. Not at you." He gestured, with a large envelope that must have contained her x-rays, for her to precede him out of the small scan room. "Joe is like my brother, and like with all siblings, we can really be huge tossers to each other without fear of lasting repercussions."

Molly felt a twinge of jealously. Girls weren't remotely like that. "I'm just…I would totally understand if you wouldn't want to talk to me because I hit him."

Wade snorted in laughter. "As sexist as this will sound, Joe was beaten up by a girl. You have handed me pure gold."

Molly gave him a flat look. "I'm glad my melodramas are so beneficial to you."

"Hey, he made the mistake, not you. Plus he showed up double dipping without ever telling you that it was indeed over. Even Raph wasn't impressed, and he could care less about what goes on behind the closed doors of other people's relationships."

Molly didn't really feel any better. "Well, honestly, Sherlock intercepted Joe for me and if Joe hadn't called him a Freak, I probably wouldn't have reacted so violently." Sherlock tended to bring out the extremes in her, because he was an antagonist that liked stirring up pandemonium. She also felt some deep rooted need to protect him despite knowing he could more than handle himself in any fight or altercation. Sherlock was like a man made of steel in that nothing seemed to penetrate his foot thick armor- an ego that big ought to supply some physical benefit- but she knew for a fact that Sherlock Holmes was not an island. That things did get to him- serious things…not how he wasted three minutes four days ago listening to Anderson explain powder burns to eyebrows or something.

Sherlock had let slip once, and only once, that he knew he was different, that he was, in essence, alone. Alluding, but never admitting, to how he suffered from the gift that made him so unique.

She would never forget it.

It was a conversation that locked a desire in her to see him happy soundly into place, and Heaven help anyone who tried to hurt him because of what made him so exceptional.

Wade flicked the lights of his office on and waved her toward one of the squishy chairs before his desk. "Joe's been a royal ass. Now he has the distinct pleasure of being known for having a girl punch him out. He made his bed; he can lie in it. Now, let's get a look at what you did to yourself." He hit another small switch and a frosted, square bank light popped into existence before being covered by the x-rayed photo of her hand that he proceeded to jam up into the holding clip. Wade tapped a finger against his lips for only a second before nodding to himself. "Yup, as I suspected, girlie. You chipped your trapezium here-" He swirled his finger around the wrist bit under her thumb "- and there looks to be a hairline fracture on your thumb's metacarpal. You didn't tuck your thumb did you?"

How did everyone know that? "How do you know that?"

"I see the resultant impact fracture of bone, the damage, and most importantly, I know you." He killed the light screen and turned back to her, curling one of his big hands into a fist and then pointed to his thumb. "If you punch someone again, remember to tuck your thumb against the pointer and middle fingers, and hit with the first two knuckles so the bones in your arm line up for added support. You'll escape internal injury, but be warned, it'll still suck." Coming from a possible illegal, underground, bare knuckle champion, that was advice not to be disregarded.

Even if Sherlock had told her first.

He crossed to a handsome oak cabinet and extracted a first aid kit that looked like serious business as Molly finally caved. She had to know. "You really aren't bothered by this whole thing?" Molly asked quietly as he dropped the giant case down on his desk and took a seat across from her in the other chair.

He made a noise in thought as he flipped the lid and started digging around for whatever it was he wanted. "I pride myself on not allowing people to influence my decisions based on popular opinion. When Will and Raph decided to start showering together, several 'close friends' walked away stating they weren't interested in the 'queer' thing. When Ben and Joe went to war over some girl back in Uni and they didn't speak for months, I maintained a close friendship with both on the basis of not giving two shits what they thought about the other." He extracted a special thumb brace that would immobilize the injured bit of her hand, and some bright blue wrappings as he continued with his explanation. "Most people don't like Ben because they think he is a weasel- and I can see where that perception comes from- but the guy is as loyal as a Labrador. He'd walk barefoot across fire and brimstone to help a buddy out. Raph, on several occasions, has bailed each of us out of trouble without ever accepting a pound in return- cops, poker debts, rent, you name it, he's shoveled out for it. He's got a heart of gold, and I'm loath to let people near him incase he's taken advantage of, because what guy is as nice as that? Which is why I sleep easier knowing he has Will. Because Will is that guy you want at your back in a fight, in your corner for an argument, and watching over you when you're too drunk to accurately count how many legs you have. He's tough and willing to take a hit for a friend in need. Which brings me to my little buddy, Joe. Joe is a good guy, he's my best mate. He's the Frodo to my Sam, or the Chewy to my Solo. He's not perfect, he has a strong touch of screw up about him, but damn it he'd give me the shirt off his back and the last few bucks in his wallet if he even felt I needed it more than he."

Molly was enraptured as she listened to him, touched for all these people that managed to put even a hint of genuine smile on his face- even if two of them were goons that she wouldn't mind seeing hit by a bus. "You'd make them blush if they heard you talking like this." She teased gently, still unsure.

Wade snickered. "Will would call me a faggot, because that's how PC he is, but it is what it is. I've never let people push me into abandoning someone I like just because they don't care for them. I probably wouldn't have many friends left if I caved to Tara every time one of them messed up. She's about as fearsomely protective as they come." Like a mama bear…on steroids and menstrual cramps.

Molly scrunched her face into a twisted cringe as she remembered how enraged the small receptionist had been when she had finally called her to let her know she had bailed on the market. "I'm sorry about that." She knew Wade probably copped it big time in some respect. "I tried to keep the damage manageable." She meant she tried to pretend seeing Joe fluttering around another twig of a woman didn't remotely faze her.

Sherlock had always said she was a terrible liar.

"Well, seeing Joe with a blackening eye while arguing with Madonna-" Ah, stick woman had a name..."-was equivalent to a misfired suicide attempt- he only injured himself."

She watched as he meticulously fit the finger and wrist cast over her hand, covering the scar that stretched from knuckle to palm. Now she'd only have her ugly acid fingers for people to gawk at for a change of pace. What a lovely thought. "I am sorry, Wade. I never meant for things to go this far…or have you stuck in the middle."

He reached forward and lightly tugged a lock of her hair- which she had left down and half combed because it was a lazy day and her hand was bothering her. "Life isn't fair, Molls. You're a sweet girl and it would reflect poorly on me if I let Joe's scumbagging ruin a friendship. I keep all sorts of friends around that Tara doesn't like, and she practically wears the pants in this relationship. It wouldn't be right if I started now with you."

She gave him a relieved smile that may or may not have wobbled around the edges. "You're a prince, Wade."

He dimpled at her and Molly internally sighed at how handsome he was- Tara had all the ruddy luck. "Yeah, well, articulate that to Tara for me, will you? I'm worried she might be plotting something. I saw her talking to Sherlock the other day."

"They were fighting over pens." Molly corrected him. "Something about Sherlock specifically using all of her pink pen ink to make bombs." She didn't realize ink was a substance used in explosive making…or that pink was a critical ingredient. She saw no explosion marks that looked like somebody shot Hello Kitty or Malibu Barbie at point blank range.

Sherlock was a doorway to another kind of time wasting experience.

Also, points to Wade for not even reacting to the news that a slightly off kilter, impromptu ballistics expert was only a few buildings over. "Oh, well, that's a relief."

Sensing another Sherlock peace keeping opportunity, Molly moved to play ambassador for the consulting boil- because she never knew when he'd do something reprehensible and the good buildup from months prior sometimes helped keep her fat out of the fryer. "You shouldn't have to worry about Sherlock getting his panties in a twist, Wade, unless you're sabotaging his cases or bothering him while he works. He normally isn't very attentive." He was very hands off unless she did one of the aforementioned.

Or watched reality telly within visual bearing of him, because according to him she abused that stupidity.

Jerk.

Wade gave her a look, pausing in draping the vibrant blue wrap around her hand. "Whatever gets you to sleep at night."

She blinked at him, uncertain what to make of that. "I'm serious. He's all for fighting people but only if it benefits him. Joe's gone, and my attention has been freed infinitely up to cater to his childish antics. By the parameters he made up at the age of three, he's won." This conversation was starting to make her nervous- anything with Sherlock involved made her uneasy now, unless she was complaining about him.

Ever since she acknowledged the possibility of the Potential…everything had been tinted with a slightly different shade of understanding.

She was still scared.

"Aw, he may not follow the basic formula the rest of us Homo sapiens do, but he's not that far off the mark." Wade expertly knotted her wrappings and had her wiggle her fingers. "There we go. All better!"

Well…it looked all better. Sort of...

She liked the blue.

It was a happy color that really offset how unhappy she was- which Cosmo assured her was normal, before telling her to construct a complicated box chart of the following weeks, tracking her progress in the post breakup period so she could get over it easier. Whoever wrote those articles obviously had many a messy breakup because the advice was all very scientific- full of reporting and writing down observations and whatnot.

Not to mention virulent in that a person was stuck languishing over an ex for an absurd amount of time.

Tara recommended mint chip ice cream and Hugh Jackman movies- and that jewel was free of charge!

Stupid boys.

She could recall so easily how hard she worked to appear fine- to pretend she was miraculously better despite having severed ties with the goon just a half a week prior. It made her angry that she kept circling, kept remembering. She wanted to be done with this- with him. UGH! It made her mad. Was it too much to ask to have a survival button that allowed her to shut off her emotions? To make it so she didn't feel for at least a few days? Or selective attention on painful bits so she could function normally in everyday life and not drive her friends bonkers with her pity parties?

Lestrade, who had been pretty much sidelined because of his lung injury, happened to be her saving grace, because her DI knew people and how they interacted and how best to sort and deal with the continuous garbage people managed to dig up.

Who knew?

The Steelers were playing some uber important game against the 49's and this required an emergency visit to the pub on one drizzly Monday. It was one of her randomly flexible days off and Lestrade was just plain sick of not doing anything at work, so he bailed with whatever excuse he had contrived to get out of pencil pushing- like they really needed to furnish a sound reason to being slumped at a bar before one P.M. on a work day. Molly was stuck in the disordered mindset of a battle hardened soldier back from the front lines after seeing the horrors of war, and Lestrade was just plain exhausted with being physically useless.

So they were drinking away their problems like responsible grownups.

"Do not tell anyone in Serious Crimes that I'm enjoying this." He wiggled his glass containing the remnants of a mint julep he'd all but inhaled. "I've already enough bad images to contend with."

"You're the one who ordered it. I don't see a problem." Molly told him as she swirled her straw around in her own glass, watching the mint leaves through the spinning bits of ice. "Besides, they're really good." Sweet, with a refreshing kick in the pants. Plus, she could barely taste the bourbon and that was always a bonus- if a dangerous one.

She was going to have to watch it with these.

"They're in a sub category of bitch beer." Her DI expounded unnecessarily, sadden about not finding more of the cocktail in amongst the ice bits.

Molly tilted her chin and raised her eyebrows at him. "Why does it have to always be labeled with a female derogatory word to mean wussy? I mean, I autopsy dead bodies, see all sorts of nasty stuff, and you and several male members of your team can barely enter the morgue when I'm working on them. Yet, getting a drink that's brightly colored and flavorful is considered 'girly'."

"Because what you do is just plain gross. It's not macho or girl power-ly, it's just…icky." He told her, raising his hand to get the bartender's attention, which was easy enough to do- they were the only ones in the bar portion of the pub as the lunch crowd was primarily thrumming around the restaurant side. "I mean, you pick apart the people we find expired in their cars, houses, or the side of the road- sometimes they've been there for days or weeks. You have to smell them. They are all maggoty and horrifying if they've been allowed to go off for too long."

What a tit. "You're a manly man, aren't you?"

"Also, you've got Sherlock, who is as twisted as you are floating around, nicking arms and heads and eyeballs- which come from your lab, ergo, you as well." He continued on, ignoring her as he gestured for another mint julep.

"It's not that bad. It's clinical after a while."

"There is nothing clinical about eyeballs in mason jars, Molly." Lestrade tapped his fingers off the glossy wood of the bar top, narrowing his gaze at the big screen above them where somebody just scored a touchdown. "You'd think the Steelers would be more prepared for this season as Super Bowl contenders and all."

Molly was just proud enough to say she knew that the black and gold guys were the Steelers to begin with. "Eyes are great for first time dissections in medical school, Greg. They're easy, small, and require only one lab as opposed to say, a full limb, or head. A cadaver can take up to two weeks." Not to mention they were fantastic Sherlock distractors. She was not planning on cluing the Detective Inspector in on that tidbit however because he'd get all moral on her, just because it was Sherlock.

"You're like a grave robber aren't you? People come through that morgue and you sticky finger their parts before gift wrapping them back up for the unassuming, grieving family." He pushed a five pound note forward as his drink was placed before him.

Molly rolled her eyes. "Please."

"How else do you get that many eyes?" The bartender gave them a freaked out look and she shook her head at him with an unassuming smile, hoping that he'd stick around long enough for her to place another order.

"May I have a B52? Make it huge." She told him as she shoved her own money at him. "Believe it or not, Greg, eyes are one of the few parts that don't need immediate embalming after death. For instance, if the body isn't taken care of appropriately and the blood pools, it's technically useless to science, but there are parts- like the eyes- that are just fine still. Cadavers and limbs are harder to replace- eyes…not so much."

Lestrade shuddered. "Frankenstien."

"Pansy." She retorted, accepting her coffee drink with a happy little grin at the quick turnaround. "Ooo, this looks delicious!"

"You aren't even finished with your julep. No desserts till you finish your meal." Her companion told her with a pointed tumbler in her direction.

"I'm going to drink them both. How else will I get rid of this ache?" She wiggled her retina burning blue encased fingers at him.

There was a swell of noise from the telly as another touchdown was scored and Greg raised a disbelieving hand to the announcers of ESPN, as if this gesture to a faceless individual would help clue them into the apparent injustice being committed onscreen. "Oh, c'mon! You can't penalize for that! He barely even plowed him! Bloody hell, what is this, their first time doing this- do you mean physically or emotionally?" Molly was staring at the big screen too, trying to figure out which beefcake in the tight pants he was talking about when Lestrade clicked his fingers in her face. At her lost expression he sighed, troubled with her lack of attention. "Is it your hand or your heart that aches?"

What the? Did she miss something? Because she could have sworn he was just heckling his football team. "Uh…" Lestrade must have entered the overly buzzed, philosophical stage of their happy hour- a state which she entered at the halfway point of her mint julep because she was a lightweight of the most tragic variety. "Slow down or we'll never find out if the Steelers win in this week's installment of football."

He just arched a brow or two at her. "Please, four shots of whiskey and a mint julep or two is nothing on my professional résumé. Answer my question." She would have that track record engraved on a plaque if it were her- Tipsy Two Beers Molly Hooper after all.

"Sorry..." She began. "What was the question?"

"How's the hand?" He asked, almost shoving the straw of his drink up a nostril as he absently searched it out with his lips while keeping a beady eye on the game.

Molly flexed her fingers before curling them in, thumb stuck jutting out in a permanent 'hitch hikers' gesture because of the brace. "It's not been terrible- well it wasn't until I banged it on the counter getting up into this stool when we arrived but it'll do." She was rambling, going on and on about how hard it was to open a bottle of soda or a packet of crisps without some serious mechanical feats of engineering.

"How's the heart?" Lestrade thrust in at some point, startling her yakking into silence. At least he didn't tell her she should have 'tucked her thumb'. "Sherlock says you've been mopey."

A small thrill zipped into her consciousness and Molly shuddered at the feeling. Then she frowned. "Mopey?" That was one word, she was unequivocally certain, that was emblazoned on Sherlock's 'useless' list of 'Potential Expressions' he did not stomach entertaining- for the sake of common knowledge, 'I'm sorry', 'thank you', and 'friends' were all able to be found on this incorporeal roster of rudeness.

Lestrade shrugged. "I can't pronounce half of what he said…but judging from the context of the question I originally asked, that's what I deciphered from it. So…mopey. Answer the question." He bossed at her again. It was probably for the best the average person didn't lug dictionaries around every day just in case a rogue, unidentified word sprouted up during discussions of proper tea making or something, just to cause instant, mass confusion. Sherlock's version of a simple explanation was often rife with taxing, rarely used vocabulary- because he was a git and possibly thought it was hilarious to enrage and intellectually repress every soul within earshot. Just because he could.

And she thought there was Potential…how?

She was not going down that road.

"Oh…well not much to report, honestly." She offered lightly.

"Right, because breaking your fist into your ex's face is about as exciting as the yearly tax returns." Molly blinked, stunned. She hadn't told him about that. "Sherlock. Also, next time tuck the thumb so you don't break it." He answered for her, after catching her wide eyed countenance.

Of course.

Fantastic.

"You guys gossip too much. It's not natural." She mumbled into her drink, nose almost stinging from bright mint scent.

"Were you not going to tell me yourself? Of all the stories I should hear the second they occur, you brawling at my gran's favorite craft market is one of them-" Said the cop with a questionable disregard for his own rules. "-not what happened yesterday on Ellen." Excuse you, sir. That was an incredibly important story- stupid, but important. He must have seen the expression on her face because he shook his head sharply. "No! It was dumb! I am officially a fraction point more stupid than I was before you told me about Zachary Quinto and his magnificent eyebrows."

She had failed with him somewhere along the line. This rebelliousness troubled her soul.

"So, what's up? We have time. It's not like we have pressing shit to do being that it's not even one on a Monday, and we've been solidly drinking since before noon."

Point well made, Inspector. "Well…" She started awkwardly. "I didn't want to burden you-"

"Bollocks." Lestrade snapped, clearly irritated by this excuse. "I was stabbed, not diagnosed with cancer! I get poked with one little knife and suddenly I'm too fragile to even make it to the Xerox machine." The bartender was openly gawking at them now. He had her utmost, buzzed sympathies.

She hunched down over the last dredges of her julep and sucked hard, finally putting the drink completely down. "I wanted to ask about your thoughts concerning it, actually." She said after a bloated pause of careful consideration. Lestrade was removed- and inherently nice enough- to usually have fascinating insights that did not come with sleeper cells set to erupt at the worst moments when she finally figured out what they meant- hence why she hadn't discussed stuff in depth with Sherlock…because he was an ass and wouldn't care while being an ass. "I just…It's not been smooth sailing-"

"Clearly."

"Git." She snipped, before her face started to slacken as she thought about things. All things. Joe things…relationship things.

Things she did wrong.

"Molly?" He called to her, his voice losing most of its teasing humor.

"I wish I could just erase the whole thing." She told him, eyes locking into a middle distance he could not perceive. "I wish I could get that time back or…just not have wasted the time to begin with or something. I'm so angry at how it ended I can physically taste the bitterness."

The distant white noise of several thousand fans cheering alerted her to the football game being back on the telly, yet when she glanced up, it was to Lestrade's intense face focused completely on her. "Why would you want to wipe out your experience?"

Obvious. "Because it was all for naught. We didn't work out-"

He was shaking his head. "Experience, Molly, is never a waste. It's valuable. It's always valuable."

Oh, is that what they were calling familiarity with being ignored by one's boyfriend for days before having to assume the relationship null and void based on forfeit alone? "Says the guy who wasn't dropped like a sack of potatoes for a Madonna who was thin and pretty, and not a frumpy little pathologist." Oh, God. She was resentful because Barbie snagged her loser man. Dropping her head onto the bar top, she groaned. "Greg, kill me now! This is pathetic!" Heaven help her, she was sick of this, of wasting 'one more second' on that cheating bastard- yes, she was going to file his actions into the cheating category because the separation line had been an extremely fuzzy one.

"Can we get a shot over here? Something strong!" Lestrade called before randomly tapping his fingers gently on the top of her head as he calculated his response.

"What's wrong with me?" She was almost nauseated from languishing over this.

"You're still raw. It's been less than a week- this is normal." He told her. "Honestly, you're handling it rather well." He meant that he hadn't heard anything about her howling like a banshee in the bathroom- she didn't…she may have been a bit weepy the first two days at home but that was it…

…okay, so maybe once she had blubbered to herself in her thinking stall, but that was it. Nobody had been around- she was allowed to have a freak-out here and there!

Her slumping all over the bar that day had been the extent of her displays of emotional turmoil- because nobody wanted to see that and she was drunk. "Doesn't feel like it." She grumbled, face smashed inelegantly into the polished wood of the bar top.

"That's because your feelings were hurt." Lestrade said quietly. "Publically, I might add."

How humiliating. Thanks for freshly turning that up to breathe, Lestrade.

A thump near her temple had Molly pulling her head up. A shot class full of whiskey or bourbon or scotch…maybe even tequila- she couldn't tell- awaited her. "I find that rough life experiences are the best teachers. They're harsh, painful to touch, and usually anger inducing." Lestrade began, churning the ice in his julep in thought. "Finding yourself in the wake of such occurrences is even more daunting because there are strong moments where all you want to do, is give up." Here he looked at her, and Molly felt a shift in her gregarious drinking partner as his tougher, sturdier side moved to reinsert itself into his personality. "Dating Joe was never a mistake, Molly. You two were happy while it lasted."

She dropped her eyes, a pain near her heart slowly starting to bloom. "It wasn't enough, apparently." Joe had wanted her to cut other areas out of her life that made her happy. She'd soon as cleave her own leg off as sever ties with Sherlock and his mucking about in the lab with her. He was more than just some goofball genius; he was more than just a bratty man-child.

He was her friend.

He was her best friend- even if he didn't see her that way or completely understand the messy innards behind the title itself.

"And that's okay." Surprised, she snapped her brown eyes back to his handsome face, mind whirling but no thoughts sticking anymore. Okay? How was this situation 'okay'? With what reference was he inferring that the incineration of her dating life was remotely 'okay'? His brow suddenly contorted in worried thought as he scrutinized her miserable features. "Wait, you weren't- were you planning on marrying this guy? After less than six months?"

She scowled, insulted as he no doubt saw her as a silly heart- and a nitwit- in that moment. "No! I didn't even love him! But…there's always a chance that something stronger could have come from my investment." She was hanging around Sherlock too much, it seemed. Only he used business lingo in reference to human interactions because it separated the emotional side from the practical, or at least that was what she had managed to gather from his near continuous complaining about insufferable humans.

As if he was a cut above the rest of planet Earth's inhabitants…

Lestrade stared at her. "Don't go all sociopath on me, missy. Sherlock's brilliant but he's harsh on people in general." Ah…he recognized the word usage as well. They were all hanging out with Sherlock too much apparently, because being tough on people-

Wait…

Wait one cotton pickin' moment…

She felt her lip curl as she zeroed in on a troubling thought that kept pricking at her. "If you are thinking about protecting Joe-"

"Of course not! The guy's an assclown-" Assclown? "-but we're getting off subject, Molly. My point is that you and Joe didn't work out, but anguishing over what happened, wishing it all away is a bleak way of fielding the damage." Lestrade steamrolled her outburst right into nonexistence- which was good, because she might have clobbered him. "Experience. You've gained experience, which is the equal, but more ignored point to dating. You're test driving models until you find the right fit for you; feeling what works and what doesn't, and what to look for in future options. Kinda like car shopping." Yeah, well, cars didn't just wander off and never call to let you know where they misplaced themselves.

Thinking about what he said, she recognized the empty disappointment that followed his, most likely, wise words. She felt…cheated- but should she? She knew Lestrade to be oddly intuitive to the beating heart of most situations- that he was always good for his word when he saw how people and their interactions might play out and how to field the unexpected that came with working in a largely public field- see Sherlock Holmes, the world's ONLY Consulting Detective- because if anything gave credence to Lestrade's sixth sense on people, it was bringing in a difficult man that could and did make a world of difference in city as large as London. It was sound advice, it was good advice, but it didn't make the sting of hurt and humiliated memories go away, which is all that she truly wanted. "Yeah…"

"It's not meant to be a fix all solution. It's a tool, a skillset designed to help you endure the trials and move forward stronger for it." Lestrade said as he pushed the shot into her hands, before picking his own up and gesturing for her to do the same. "Besides, any girl that can survive the shit you have, and remain as caring and sweet as you are, can handle way worse than whatever that little sod can possibly throw at you. You owe it to yourself to not accept less."

Still feeling pretty beat, Molly slipped her fingers about the little glass with the power to make her forget and compound her problems. "If you say so…"

"I know so. Cheers!"

It took a few days but Molly gradually came to accept that Lestrade was right, in more ways than one, which really wasn't that surprising as he was a cop, a detective, and a man who had seen his share of nightmares- the very worst that people could do to each other, the stuff true horror stories were made of. He had the stress of the world on his shoulders, which came with horrible perks like being questioned by everyone and their mother's cabbie's sister on his competency, his ability to know right from wrong, his choices…

Sherlock.

Lestrade constantly took heat for involving the mouthy genius, and there were days that she could see a communal protest was well founded. She experienced the same thing but, while it was her lab and morgue when Bernard was out of house, she had no clout to push her wishes like Lestrade did. She didn't know why- outside of her stammering, apologizing, and basic begging that he wasn't doing anything really wrong, Sherlock was never officially, or successfully, banned. Oh, they had made halfhearted attempts, but rent-a-cops couldn't really give a toss about their contracts when the amount of rubbish they had to put up with outstripped their pay by leagues. There hadn't been a serious attempt to exorcize him for about a year now- which was how she liked it since she had invited the cerebral vampire in for a reason after all….and this all but confirmed that she seek out professional help as soon as possible.

So there was merit to be found with her lovely DI's skillset instructions. Still, it was just incredibly frustrating that her brain wouldn't let her obliterate the Joe memories and be done with it.

Even Sherlock had little to offer on his front and she seriously considered- like looked up and wrote down numbers to Doctors, serious- getting her brain scanned because why on Earth would she have assumed he'd be remotely helpful?

-"How do you deal with things you don't want to think about?"

"Exposure to your atrocious sentence structure, for example, I merely delete."

"…does deleting actually abolish all memory of the incident? Or you just makin' that up?"

"Not if you keep reintroducing your lack of education into my active awareness."

"…what about people?"

"I'm busy, Molly."

Sherlock was such a jerk. Why did this always surprise her?

Maybe she should have called him an assclown…then he would have had to pay attention to her if only to belittle her some more about her language skills- as if he hadn't done plenty of that already. For the sake of clarity alone, she was far from a signing ape in a cage on communication, okay. She just wasn't as rigid and refined in her delivery as Professor Screwball, who took advantage of his linguistic talents to depreciate any person that accidently drew his scalpel sharp attention. The vituperation must have been a Holmes family trait, lovingly cultivated in the two sons who were so alike it was frightening- not that they would ever, ever, ever agree on that comparison because they were also argumentative and stubborn to a fault.

So what if one was a master extortionist with an umbrella as opposed to a Belstaff Millford? She saw no discernible difference beyond their chosen fashion accessories- there, apparently, was a humongous difference and how dare she make such a moronic, not to mention, highly inaccurate, association in matters she was clearly illiterate in.

He sulked for three hours, and rained piss and vinegar on her the entire time with his illuminating commentary- Sherlock was so fragile when it came to outward fraternal appraisals. It really begged the question what their parents must have been like because there was no way Sherlock's abrupt offensiveness was bred into him by any sane human being. Maybe if his parents were Gomez and Morticia Addams, then she could possibly maybe understand it…

Feeling incredibly pathetic, and hating every minute of it, Molly became a bit more of a recluse in her lab- because she couldn't hide her poor attitude well enough and didn't want the stigma of Sad Single Sally and her thirty cats following her around St. Bart's, because, yes, while single, Molly didn't have a cat- they just seemed like sly, unfriendly little bastards and she already had a Sherlock, who embodied that description beautifully…outside the little bit because at six foot with a thirteen ton ego, the man was everything but little- and she had no inclination of getting one because…well…she already had a creature assuming the role of haughty freeloader with too many demands as it was.

Also, since Sherlock was so 'lovely' and 'understanding' most of the time, she didn't feel any particular compunction to pretend around him- he would just nag about her lying and how awful she was at it. Why he always felt the need to point out when she was fibbing, Molly didn't know, but if she tried harder, he only became harsher in his critic.

It was like he encouraged her, only to become surlier if she actually did 'put the effort in'.

-"You lied."

"Dang it, how did you know?"

"I observe. Why did you lie?"

"Because I didn't want you to be mad that I had to throw it out, Sherlock. That fungus reeked!"

"Don't do it again."

"I won't."

"You just did!"

In the lab, she didn't have to sham and parade around as anything but what she was, depressed and moody. Bernard buoyed her dignity by not allowing her to wallow completely, and Sherlock was just considerate enough- just barely mind you- to not pick on her- most of the time because he was busy testing flesh densities against needles. When she chirped falsehoods like 'I'm fine' or 'I'm doing very well' to other lab technicians, Mike, Tom, or heaven forbid Nicolas Hatcher- Sherlock's bad temper about collapsed and formed a singularity, a black hole, at the microbiologist fluttering about HIS lab chatting to a recently single Molly who, sadly, was enjoying the chance at an emotional rebound of her own.

Even if Nic was a dishy goon.

Sherlock didn't allow for that- she could be grumpy, awful, mopey, and sad, but if she falsified pleasantries with morons like Nic, he got all sorts of huffy- after some careful reflection and just years of experience dealing with him and his funky quirks, she was still completely in the dark on what this meant. It could be that he was just looking out for her, or that he plain hated decent people who utilized manners even to people they weren't thrilled about being polite too in the first place.

Plausible explanation.

She did know he had been doing his watcher thing of his- where he monitored her throughout the day and nagged her if she was not being 'Molly' enough for his sense of completion.

She would have been a big fat liar if she didn't think that his grouchy hovering was sweet- if rather annoying- as he was a bit of a HUGE git about it.

The only problem with her little hermit idea- Sherlock was all for it without ever having to express his big mouthed opinion- was Tara, bless her. Tara refused to allow Molly to hide and lick her wounds raw, and so spent the following days after the Incident dragging Molly out to eat at her favorite sandwich eatery- the same one that Tara had once assaulted an entire table of boorish men. It had been months…they were banking on nobody remembering- or down to the cafeteria with a supportive Wade in tow, armed with the newest issue of Vogue. Sometimes, if Molly was in a particularly black mood- that she was NEVER proud of admitting too- Tara would cut her losses and they'd watch reality TV over a pizza- it was the off season so everything was reruns, but they had the same effect on Sherlock as always.

"Why?" He needled while glaring at them as Tara kicked her stool back and plopped her royal blue wedges up on the counter that he was working at, munching shamelessly on a slice of pizza as the opening music to Keeping Up with the Kardashians rolled off the telly. It wasn't one of Molly's favorite shows, but there wasn't anything better- worse- on. She'd seen every episode this season, thrice.

The receptionist gave him a flat look. "You have yet to win ground in this fight, Sherlock. You might as well accept defeat."

"You've seen this! What purpose does reviewing this rubbish for a second time serve aside from rotting what precious little intellect you have to spare?" He asked steadily, but his eyes were flashing annoyance like blue road flares.

"Well, for kicks, it bothers you." She chirped brightly, giving him a smile so fake, Molly savored the cheap plastic of it. "Always a good thing."

Molly, feeling a building tirade, moved to help- to conquer, they had to divide his attention as that was one of the ONLY ways to wear Sherlock Bloody Holmes down to human levels- "You weren't doing anything of critical importance Sherlock, so we really aren't disturbing you." She could see him swelling like a bullfrog in his judgment that she was clearly and perpetually wrong. "Also, you like the Kardashians." She told him before taking a bite of her own pizza. In terms of her reality bingeing and his loud complaining concerning it, the Kardashians seemed to draw a lot less of his negativity than say Jerry Springer. Probably because she didn't watch it as much as other shows.

"Are you high?" He demanded of her and she choked on a mushroom. "The day I partake of this garbage willingly-"

"It'll be the closest we'll ever get to the second coming of Christ." Tara interrupted with a snicker. "Ease up, Sherly. It's not the end all be all of the day."

Sherly? Sherlock's eyes were mere slits as he glowered at her- what she didn't call him that- almost daring her to use that nickname- which she most certainly would be in the near future. "Want some pizza?" She offered instead, pushing the box to within his reach. "You haven't eaten today."

"Who could stomach anything with the way you two gormandize the senses?" Uh…what?

Tara was frowning at her pizza as well, trying to locate what that meant in the hidden depths of vegetables and sauce. "You LIKE pizza." Molly told him, latching onto the only bit of that conversation she could recognize.

Sherlock looked pained. "There must be help for people like you."

Gormandize…she had to look that word up- sneakily too, so he didn't lecture her anymore on being stupid. How he was able to still use those random, odd, and unfamiliar words in normal conversations irked her because he had to run out of them at some point, right? The English language had some half a million words recognized by Merriam-Webster and if he used like…forty every conversation, he had to run out in the next…twenty-five years…- she spent more time leafing through dictionaries then she cared to actively recall.

She was irritated with this vocabulary instruction she was receiving free of charge.

If there was a perceptible boon to come from her new status in society, it was that Sherlock was a lot more relaxed- because it was important to keep his Highness comfortable at all times- in that he knew she had nowhere else to be. A free agent.

Or a servant, depending on the vernacular a person wished to utilize to accurately describe what her role was to one Sherlock Bloody Holmes.

He kept breaking beakers and petri dishes with combustible substances- enough so that she had to put an order in to get a new shipment to stay off the questions that Bernard would inevitably yell at her- she was so forcing that string bean to help her unload that truck, because there was no way she'd be able to lift a fifty pound box all by her lonesome and Tara refused to do anything that might ruin her manicure.

He was a secret muscle man- he could do all the heavy lifting for once.

He had also taken to hitting bodies with things- which honestly freaked her out the first time because, even for him, that was flipping weird.

"Molly!" He called as he blew through her double gray doors like a noisy breeze. "I need a new body!"

She jumped, dragging her pen across the latest blood biopsy results for some recently minted cadaver in London General that her counterpart there had faxed her. Something about the T cell count being off but it wasn't cancer. "That's something you're going to have to take up with Big Guns upstairs, Sherlock." She sighed, heart thumping oddly loud from his explosive appearance, as she searched for her little whiteout bottle.

"What?" He said loudly, coming to a stop before her. "I said I need a body."

Slanting her eyes to look at him, Molly did a double take and stared. "Off to practice your swing?"
That or he was here to make Donovan's idiotic accusations into reality, because there were no bodies around except hers that he could use that golf club on. He caught her wide eyed look and snorted before raising the club off his shoulder and letting the bulbous end drop heavily onto her report, crinkling it.

"Don't be obtuse. I need to test impact factures on bone." He gave her a benign little smile and Molly immediately felt that she wasn't getting paid enough for this sort of event to be taking place in her 'office'.

"Sherlock…" She started as patiently as she could. "I have three bodies- two that are destined for FAMILY to bury and one that goes to Oxford for a lecture-"

"The family of the burned victim will do nicely." He informed her and she blinked stupidly at him. What the hell, this wasn't a McDonald's. He couldn't just order a body like that.

"Are you completely bonkers?"

"Closed casket- it'll be a must." He shrugged, unrepentant at her scandalized censure. "He has no skin on his head."

"I'm aware of his current physical status, Sherlock! I'm not letting you beat that man with a club to test broken bones!" She said, actually standing up and trying to tug the golf club from him- where did he even get such a thing? He most certainly did not play golf- he said it was for 'yuppy pencil pushing yeoman' because one time Bernard told her he was off for his tee time and Sherlock sensed an opportunity to be a git. As a stout member of the English, tea sipping public, this was confusing in that he just took his tea at his desk normally; he never had to leave before. Then Sherlock grunted something derogatory about the older pathologist's amusements and Bernard threatened to shove a driver up the detective's left nostril if he didn't start respecting his seniors.

A worrying thought occurred to her and Molly hurriedly danced her eyes over the metal club before her. "Oh, my, this isn't Bernard's, is it?" She asked in dread. It looked expensive- where would he have gotten ahold of this?

"Of course not. It's Mycroft's." He flippantly stated as he hefted the thing up and banged the swollen head of the club off the linoleum floors in careless abandon. She winced at the ring the poor metal stick was singing in its abuse. "These things are expensive too." He grinned wickedly and Molly felt the need for reform had long since passed for this particular man. They were all victims along for a ride on his crazy train. He must have seen her almost permanent grimace because he pointed a finger at it. "What? He hate's golfing."

As if this made the stealing of a sibling's dreadfully expensive golf clubs, A-okay! "And where does that make if alright for you take one and beat a dead body with it?"

"Dunno." He told her absently as he practiced a slow swing, as if hitting a sluggishly moving curve ball. "Back to task! I need a body."

"No." She said. "No, not happening. No." Sherlock suddenly looked so dejected- she about passed out from the lack of affect his 'sad face' was having on her. "No, you git! I will not lose my job over you bashing at my dead cadavers."

"Molly," He sighed. "You must be reasonable here-"

"You want to beat a dead person with a driver! How am I being unreasonable?"

"-a case could be solved over the findings I reap from this study." He finished without acknowledging her logic at all, idly twirling the metal bar of the club about in his deft fingers. "Really, it's work for the good of the public."

He was such a goofball. She considered him for a second before- "No." And not a moment too soon, because as Sherlock was setting up to bang his new toy off the walls in objection, Donny Mathews came strolling into the lab. It was such an unexpected event- Donny showing up out of the blue- that Molly only had time to freeze in horror, a wheezing whine slipping past her lips as she watched Sherlock swing hard, only to let go of the iron altogether- OH MY GOD- letting it spin like a top before him, and catching it again in one smooth motion.

…what…

What kind of sodding sorcery was this? Was he trying to make her stroke out?

"Ah, Molly! Sherlock!" Donny called as he maneuvered around the random stools scattered about, making his way to her desk before coming to a halt. Oh, Sweet Christ, here it comes. She can already hear the reprimand about Sherlock swinging that thing around as if he were a Louisville slugger- "Oh, my, is that a Taylor, Sherlock?"

…What…?

"Latest model." Sherlock's answering grin was indulgent- and a horrible lie- as he brought the club up before him like a sword. "Supposed to achieve the precise combination of launch angle and spin-rate that encourages maximum carry and roll. Improved aerodynamics reduce drag over the head to promote faster clubhead speed." He rattled off with such enthusiasm, she felt like maybe she was experiencing some sort of hallucination.

"A clear step up from the R1, yes? I've heard good things, but haven't had a chance to clock my draws yet." Donny tipped his head. "What do you recon that the angle improves or negates the weights?"

"Oh, indeed." Sherlock tilted the game piece about as if carefully considering its role in a pastime he loathed with a burning passion. "I'd say with the proper adjusting, it's well worth the added counterbalance to help the eight percent swing. Of course, that depends on the caliber of the player." He added with an important tip in his voice, really leaning on the hoity toity side of his word enunciation.

Posh…liar.

"Agreed, agreed." Donny nodded eyes bright with all the golf talk. "Might have to get you out on the green soon, Sherlock. See those puppies in action."

That would not be happening unless somebody ruthlessly slew the entirety of the Staffordshire Golf Club in cold blooded secret. For the sake of the English monied class, Molly prayed that Sherlock's interests in the boring diversion stay well clear of the actual activity itself.

It started that day, and she was proud to say she had not caved. Even though he didn't get to slap a corpse about with his brother's hideously pricey clubs, Molly could see a problem in the making, which was just, fudging, fantastic of him because it wasn't as if she didn't have enough personal rubbish to wade through and sort, but she now had to field his random bouts of high octane schadenfreude that he swore was 'case based'.

Uh huh, yeah. No.

How new did he think she was?

That she couldn't spot a Sherlockian ploy to experiment in the 'out of bounds' zone when it came to the mores of society? Flagellation of corpses was definitely a major 'no no'. A right catastrophe, not to mention at least a huge law suit, if the family ever found out.

Positively flirting with prison time was what it meant to be friends with this one enormous brain with legs.

Which is why she about melted the skin off her chest and collar when she came waltzing into the lab one day to see Bernard watching Sherlock taking a cane to the body of a convict down from county through the glass windows that displayed the morgue wonderfully for potentially every family member or Board director walking through. In her stunned disbelief, she spilled the entire contents of her hot cup of coffee down her front and the burn was just enough to roughen her voice as she all but kicked the morgue doors into bouncing off the walls.

-"Bernard! NO!"

"He's dead, Molly, he isn't hurting him."

"That's NOT the POINT! What are you allowing- do you not SEE how- WHY?"

"He's gathering data on a practical facet to postmortem examinations and where-"

"He's beating that dead man with a- with a, Oh, my GOD- SHERLOCK! Stop that!"

Nobody ever listened to her. The one person in charge of Sherlock wrangling and NOBODY ever listened to her when it came to letting the man-child do things within HER lab. And he had finally managed to corrupt Bernard- it had only taken him some three years but sweet Jesus, they were all bloody nuts! A whole body was not a foot or a liver or a chunk of thigh! It was a person as opposed to a fragment and she had to put a fence up somewhere to keep her favored consulting doofus in line.

Now, forever more, she would be fighting an uphill battle to keep him from mutilating the dead even more so than she did- and hers was for the good of the dead, living, and the public at large! For real, as opposed to Sherlock's self-serving divergences from normal into the grotesque theatre of the absurd that he created to keep the brain from stagnating. The person was already dead! What good would postmortem bruising patterns do for anybody?

Apparently, according to Dr. Smartypants, this was crucial in determining whether a death was a set up or not. Specific bruising patterns would denote possible weapons of choice leading to the killer, instigator, neighbor, family member, coworker-

Did she look like she cared about the specific bruising patterns? She was clearly able to determine if a bruise was inflicted before a person died, sir, as it was huge part of her JOB! Was it necessary to take every…thing…he could physically pick up and wield and slap it ruthlessly into dead flesh?

She highly doubted people were being bumped off with whippet thin sticks, thank you.

One would have thought she wiped her runny nose on him the way he reeled back and stared at her in disgusted silence, before launching into one of his rants on how she slacked on the important details and that she should be ashamed of herself. He said the same exact thing about her admitting to watching Ghost Hunters, so she used the same bored expression she had every time he blathered his thoughts on the fun things in life to allow him to see and understand the depth of her disinterest in his opinions on the matter.

The thing was, she couldn't tell if Sherlock's over the top weirdness was just him growing more bold- alarming thought- in his position as St. Bart's personal parasite, or if he was just trying to distract her from slumping about the lab in a lackluster effort to appear peachy keen. She had distantly- after Bernard pointed it out- noticed that if she were having a particularly troubling day, or if she was sinking into a black mood, Sherlock would start acting up like a tetchy motor. Smooth sailing was possible, but he might malfunction, catch fire, and affectively disfigure all on board.

This…was annoying.

It did not take Dr. Sodding Phil to see that adding an emotionally constipated wanker to the mix of unstable, emotionally compromised girl would not produce a healthy biosphere for the denizens of the morgue and lab.

Time would allow her to eventually peak into the heart of maybe what Sherlock had been trying to accomplish, but that was years down the road. As for the moment when he'd be his cantankerous self, bossing at her to 'desist from dawdling in one attitude' when all she wanted to do was wallow in pity, Molly truly felt that he could not be trying harder to make her lose her marbles.

"Is this mindset a permanent fixture? Because if it is, I will melt your stereo and hurl the whole thing into the Thames. This music is hideous, and I cannot work much longer with its intolerable existence tormenting my thought process." He started some ten days after the Incident as she typed tiredly at her desk, trying for all she was worth to imagine a world where Sherlock had a mute button.

"Be nice." She said without hope, clicking through her tabs to return to the email she was replying to from DI Ryder about a case she handled some four months prior.

"Stop weltering in pathetic dejection because it is rather unbecoming on a woman. Even you should be above such…enthusiastic displays of desperation." He nattered off, scowling at everything, but mostly her and her stereo, which was playing the soundtrack from Titanic- she found the CD in a drawer in the employee lounge, and decided to listen to it. There was something innately comforting about the music to a movie where a sturdy ship hits a chunk of ice and sinks, killing hundreds of people including the protagonist's love interest. "Turn this junk off." He commanded and she grit her teeth as she stared hard at her computer screen, starting to count down from ten.

He was a blob of poor manners when he got into one of his loggerheaded grooves and started to just…dig.

How she hadn't offed him or herself yet this far into the game, would remain one the mysteries of the world.

"I'm listening to it." She returned mildly, begging silently for patience.

"It's excruciating, not mention beyond unpalatable with this orchestral composition. Judging by this sampling alone, it is not a wonder how you acquired such questionable suitors like Joe." Sherlock kept picking, jabbing at wounds she did not like to even look at- Joe.

She started down again from thirty this time.

"Monstrously unappealing is a woman with deplorable taste in men-"

That's it.

Snatching at the first thing she could get her hand around- her phone…damn it- Molly chucked it as hard as she could at his head, and watched in a darkening red haze of infuriated madness, as he caught the sodding thing easily out of the air- probably saving it from a messy death because her aim was terrible. "Oh, I needed this." He said absently as he set to immediately texting Satan to give a live update on all the Hell he was wreaking on Earth. She would never admit to being impressed at his no look evasion of the tape dispenser that zipped through the physical space that his head had been previously occupying before splattering into the wall behind him. "Temper, Temper, old girl." He said, fingers flying over his message.

She hissed. "Would. You. Leave. Me. Alone." She was going to kill him.

"Your Neanderthal like emoting is not remotely impressive."

"Sherlock!" She barked, trembling from her anger. "Just. Stop." So going to kill him- the only saving grace she would offer him would be that he would know who bludgeoned him to death, and that would save his ghost from the mystery. He'd be at peace…in pieces.

Such a jerk.

Steel blue eyes skipped from the device in his hands and held her glare. "If it bothers you so much, than change."

Of course he misinterpreted her. Of course. "You are such a jerk. I am trying! It's been ten days! I really liked him!" Her voice strained with the tension of trying to keep her shit together. "I am trying."

He narrowed his gaze into a sharp glare of his own which she matched with interest. "No. You are not."

She refused to admit how much that hurt. Instead, she sucked in a breath, dropped her eyes and hurriedly started to gather some folders to drop off in reception. Forget this, she was not buckling under his heat seeking tosser torpedoes! She refused! So she was going to step out and take a breather- and not cry in her favorite stall- doing anything that would put some space between them so she could calm down, so she wouldn't burst into tears- she was proud to say she hadn't cried since the second day after breaking her hand, but having the equivalent of a robot stabbing at her most vulnerable moments with his impromptu 'man up' put downs was a bit much to take. Sherlock was abrasive naturally, but he was never this awful- or maybe he was, and she just didn't have the padding built up anymore to take his crap and fling it back into his face gift wrapped with a smile.

Despite Celine Dion crooning in the background, the silence between her and him was oppressive- which it so rarely ever was anymore. He had made his point, and she, for the first time in…years, couldn't take it. She couldn't handle him right now and as THAT thought started to burrow in, she could feel the sting high up in her nose.

Yes indeed, that there was her best friend alright.

She was so stupid.

The only victory she could take away from the conversation was a confirmation on her adamancy that she would not like him, that the Potential was unfounded in that he acted like this, that he said these things to her.

That he hurt her, purposely this time, to drive his point home.

Snapping her paperwork to her chest, Molly tilted her chin down and made to move past him. She was bailing on this discussion until she had a strong enough grip on her feelings to not dissemble before him like a headless ninny. That would be embarrassing and she was tougher than that.

She still believed it at least.

She was going to slink off to Tara, and she was going to not cry as she coerced the receptionist into getting coffee with her.

Then she was going to proceed to make him miserable as God intended. The horse's arse.

"Excuse me." She mumbled at him, letting him know she was done with this. Molly prayed for the composure to just get beyond the double gray doors. She'd be okay on the other side.

When his six foot frame blocked her escape as he 'casually' shifted to the side, still texting away on her phone, Molly could not decide whether he was being a dick on purpose, or if she were overly sensitive and just seeing things. Attempting to duck around him again, she altered her course to just go completely around him and the work island altogether and he dashed her efforts into nothing, again, endorsing the idea that he was doing this intentionally. When a large hand slunk around her bicep and held her in place, she jumped, startled, but kept her eyes glued to his light blue button down in a preservationist instinct she had cultivated from being friends with him over the years.

A person needed at least some defense from his overbearing inclinations toward the blunter side of rude.

"Try harder." The rich timbre of his voice was naturally warm, but even she could hear the gentled dip in it this time. He pulled his hand away and she sighed shakily, before flinching as those warm fingers hooked under her chin to tug her face up to meet his heated regard. Pale eyes contemplated her for only a moment, before he hummed in thought. "You aren't putting in the effort here."

It sounded so pompous and she could literally feel the clouded expression that overcame her as she watched him watch her…

He was something else…

Until the skin around his eyes softened just a little bit and he let his hand slide away with a smooth sweep of his thumb over her cheek. "It's not a pleasure to experience this alongside you." His baritone had returned to his standard of discourteous condescension, but she could still feel the uncharacteristic warmth left by his equally atypical touch.

Sherlock was remarkably tolerant of touch- she forgot herself a lot and touched him, even hugged him periodically, which he instinctively whined about on some weird principle he paid some serious homage to- but he very rarely initiated contact…unless he was nicking her things or flapping her hands away from his microscope, stuff, experiments, stuff, favored stool, and other stuff that fell under his convoluted understanding of 'his'. If he could physically keep Londoners from using the cab system when he wanted to use the cab system, he would.

Very much like a lording toddler.

So she had to take pause the second he let her go and she was safely barricaded on the other side of the double gray doors, and dissect what just happened- okay she was positively pawing at the idea he touched her. Willingly.

Crud, crap, snippity snap, she was so not looking any further in that direction.

No.

Be gone, Potential!

Not happening.

She was fine. She was cute enough- just because Joe dropped her like a plate of rotten fish heads when things didn't go his way, didn't mean another man wouldn't find her desirable and would want to stick it out with her through good and bad times- this wasn't her fault! Joe was a weakling like Sherlock and Tara and Bernard and her sister and mother all said because he couldn't hack a little heat.

If only Sherlock hadn't chased Nic off so effectively. She could have used the rebound- not that she was one to toy with someone just to make herself feel better, but the thought of having that little weasel make an attempt made her feel just a bit better. She was lucky if a man took the time to even notice her.

She wasn't desperate! She swore she wasn't desperate!

Maybe a tiny bit…

She had looked it up in Cosmo, Vogue, and even Elle- last ditch effort that last one-to no avail, which was either extremely comforting…or a complete waste of time being that there weren't exactly documented cases like hers. The second she thought of her marginally dramatic breakup as a specific 'case' she knew for a fact she was obsessing- and idiotically so- and OF COURSE there were other instances of bad breakups like hers floating around. Plenty of them, but for the sake of all that was holy, she liked to pretend she was better than the average dumpee- ha ha ha, nooo, she was not.

Thank the Lord nobody but the big coccydynia in the lab had called her on it- but he didn't count because his everlasting abscess of impoliteness in the brain was inoperable, thus never endorsing him to shut up when things did not need or warrant his jarringly rude input.

Git.

She didn't have enough to think about as work was mildly agitating with Sherlock blowing fuses and melting slides- how the heck he managed that last bit was insane- Bernard was handling most of the autopsies and leaving her with the stupid paperwork, and just a general lack of mentally engaging things to keep her occupied. Sherlock was only so much of a menace and even he wasn't that bad to begin with- she just liked to bellyache about him to him because he made the most fascinating faces when she got on a tangent that even he had trouble ignoring.

He liked the subject of himself, the ham.

London wasn't roiling under the covers and the criminal element was, for once, silent- according to every cop and superhero movie or documentary she had ever seen, this wasn't necessarily a good sign, but oh well. The collective scumbag population was Lestrade's problem and Sherlock's hobby, and she could care less when it stacked up against her miserable little existence all because some yahoo really kicked her in the heart.

Thank God Almighty for girls, she remembered strongly thinking as she took solace and comfort from Tara, who had about a dozen different messy romance stories that ended poorly for either her or somebody she personally knew. It was a comfort hearing- even though she wasn't remotely delusional about it- that other people had gone through this previously. Tara, herself, had several tales to regale and Molly spent many a lunch and break with the receptionist, hashing through insecurities and wounded feelings, which if she were completely honest, that's all she had really wanted to do to begin with. To talk about it and this effectively eliminated every Y chromosome of her acquaintance. Men, aside from the possible gay man on occasion, had no interest discussing the same topic so thoroughly.

She had to cover all sides, all colors, all the words spoken and the context behind those words by the person speaking them. Tara had a impressive take on relationships and the first words- repeated words- out of her mouth every time she saw Molly start to sink was 'you couldn't save this if he had already given up.'

She was glad he was gone, but her mind was a damn traitor and had to keep bringing up hidden insecurities that cracked and oozed misery.

That Joe had callously hurled the towel out the window on their being together and there would never have been a thing she would have been able to do to recall his forfeit. He didn't want all of Molly; he didn't want to parse out her attention to other people in her life- breathtakingly rude of him. Joe had hated Sherlock and since she hadn't caved to his pressuring, his 'I will leave if you keep him'- complete and utter horse shit, for anyone curious to know- he turned that jealous blade on her and cut deeply.

Tara had another soul soothing bit to add to that portion, before burying it under a rather familiar morsel of advice.

"It is a rather brilliant measuring stick, Molls." Tara told her as they ambled slowly down the street toward a corner coffee shop just a bit up the way from St. Bart's. It was a slow, cold, dizzily day and thank goodness Tara had an umbrella because Molly had yet to replace hers as the two hunted for lattes to take the edge off. "Anyone who can't stand our Sherlock should take a hike off the pier with a brick tied to their feet." Wow…

Molly snorted. "Our?" This was unprecedented.

The shorter girl rolled her eyes. "He is such a wart, but he's grown on me in the most annoying and unhealthy ways. I dislike him so much; I've actually turned a corner somewhere and started liking him. A little." She said this with a contorted and confused look about her, as if worried she had contracted some rare disease that nobody ever recovered from.

Yup, Tara was almost ready to join the Sherlock Bloody Holmes Self Help Group with her and Lestrade.

It was scary how easily it was for her to understand where the receptionist was coming from because Sherlock had that affect. If a person could get past his spikey wanker walls- a herculean accomplishment by far- the guy was hard to let go of, in that he took root and thrived. It sounded simple, but speaking from long experience, it really wasn't and Molly knew just how much tenacity was required to truly see him past his coarse exterior. It wasn't that Sherlock didn't want people around- on the contrary, he seemed a bit lost without humanoid activity happening at least near him- but he wasn't a cuddly, warm, individual that encouraged attachment. His standoffishness was probably a self-defense mechanism to keep him safe, to keep him removed from the messy upheavals of social interaction that would, as he put it, 'distract him from what was truly important'. What she translated that as, he sucked at everyday dealings that didn't involve sleuthing out secrets, and the stress of continuous backlash at his verbal beatings- probably unconsciously at first, now purposeful- just wasn't worth it for him anymore.

He was tough, but Molly hated thinking about how long it took for him to reach that point of impenetrable thickness. How many times he took a crippling hit before he was able to completely shrug off the sting of rejection to what just came naturally to him.

She made it a point to hug him once a month now- the poor bastard. He acted like she was trying mug him for his wallet.

Molly offered her a consolatory shrug. "Don't let him hear you saying that. He might panic and explode at the threat of more 'female sentimentality'. He already grumbles that I'm bad enough." She was too, but he needed a little girlie interference in the form of senseless chatter by someone he could not scare off with a nasty scowl or bark, and since she was mostly immune, she willing took up that mantel of martyr.

Tara hummed in thought as she hopped a puddle in a pair of shiny black boots. "Note to self, kiss Sherlock as a last resort if I need to get rid of him for good."

Molly felt herself start to lean toward a frown, before realizing what she was doing and groaned. No.

Stop it, Hooper.

"Don't make him cry, Tara. That's just mean." She said instead, wagging a finger at her friend and watched in delight as Tara started giggling uncontrollably.

"But seriously, it is a fantastic indicator." Tara said breathlessly, dancing around another large body of brown water the likes of which shoe horror stories were made of. "If a man can't stand Sherlock, then you will know he isn't right for you!"

How did that make any sense at all?

Blue eyes flickered to her face and Molly blinked at the complete…coyness of it all. "…what?"

"It is rather brilliant." Tara's grin was positively leering at this point and Molly felt like she missed something huge.

"What is brilliant?"

"Sherlock." She said, eyebrows raised as if Molly were supposed to suddenly just get it, which of course she didn't. What about Sherlock? That if a man couldn't like Sherlock, then she shouldn't date him? That was putting an absurd amount of power in the hands of a guy who had no trouble twisting the innocent into knots to get what he wanted and absolutely didn't understand what the phrase 'with great power, comes great responsibility' even meant- granted he had never seen Spiderman…and would as soon set fire to the television then watch it. Furthermore, if basing this…brilliancy… off past experience alone, that left Molly with like, two people who passed this 'test'.

Lestrade- no.

Or Wade- no.

The first because…well…Lestrade was never interested like that. He didn't treat her like a guy intending to ask her out. He treated her like one of the boys: they drank beer, watched football and American football, and ranked the women that passed their seats on a scale of one to ten. Hey, she and Tara had a status system and fairly ogled the stud muffins that worked down in Orthopedics with Wade- much to Wade's 'thrill' she imagined- so fair was beyond fair and she was not remotely offended if Lestrade thought some girl was appropriately 'stacked' or not because chances were she agreed. And second, Wade was dating Tara.

Pure and simple and end of story.

Those were the only two men that didn't mind- in the loosest form possible, mind you- Sherlock's presence. So what was so brilliant about Sherlock being the measuring stick for her to-

…Oh…she saw it.

…dang it, Tara…

"Ha ha, not funny." Molly told her. If a man couldn't stand Sherlock, which only a fraction point of the collective population could, that left her with basically the six foot goober himself, being as she had already eliminated the only other two known options.

Oh, God, the Potential was a problem when Tara tagged in to play. "Oh, but it is." Tara cooed, breath puffing into clouds before them in the frigid December air. "Any man that can't accept that huge part of your life isn't worth having, but that huge part of your life is already a man! You're set for everything but your wedding to Sherlock Holmes!"

What!? What. in. bleeding. Tarnation!? "Tara!" Molly flapped her hands urgently at her. "Shhh!" London had ears and Sherlock had a direct uplink to said ears. He could be the town chinwagger and make a hell of a living at it if he wanted too. Shame he thought juicy gossip got in the way of the 'things that truly mattered', like erosion rates on skin tissue and how long an eyeball can be heated before it popped.

He was pushing even her gross out buttons.

"I can't 'shhh' about this! This ship practically sails itself!" Tara kept on excitedly as they reached the coffee shop doors. Honestly, Molly could see where the younger girl was coming from after all; she had been a fan long before Sherlock was even tame enough to entertain as a best friend. "Now if only we could catch a glimpse of a hormone in him. God, that'll be like catching a leprechaun, won't it?"

Molly wasn't so sure about that- Molly wasn't thinking about it. "Tara, please! I'm getting over Joe right now. I'm not looking at Sherlock for anything but a headache."

"Best way to get over one man is to find another." What kind of penny advice was that? Talk about compounding problems into nightmares. They were talking about people! Not puppies!

"That was the dumbest thing I've heard all day…and I got to listen to an argument about Hannah Montana's hair color this morning on the tube."

"Is it?" Tara asked her suddenly, twisting around and staring at her, blocking the doors to the small establishment without care for circulating patrons. "Is it so stupid to look beyond your recent heartache for your next love?"

Love? What- "Tara, think about what you are saying and who you are talking about." Molly told her seriously, desperate to get this very crucial point across. "He is my best friend and I'm barely over the two week mark of 'single for sure'."

"I'm not saying to ask him out. I'm saying…let yourself move on."

Isn't that what she was doing? "I'm trying." She told her, embarrassingly close to sounding worried, as if she were completely unsure about the validity of that statement.

Tara just shook her head. "There's no downside to trying a bit more, is there?"

Hmm…what did it say that Sherlock and Tara had said the same exact thing? Aside from a paradox forming in the group and creating mass anarchy? While the context had been completely different, the idea behind them had the same lineage.

Move on, Molly.

She was not kidding around when she had said she had been trying to do just that. Nobody in their right sodding mind would believe she enjoyed slumping about her days, mediocre in response and barely caring if she had tangles in her hair because her mind was wrestling with other demons. Two weeks was still fresh- granted, every magazine had instructed that she set a limit of precisely one week to pity party before strictly building a bridge and getting over it. Except Molly wasn't that tough and Joe had denied both closure and peace of mind with his silence and avoidance- stupid, sodding, assclown that he was. It had been an unhealthy separation- yet she highly doubted there was such a thing as a fine fettle breakup. They were, by nature, murky, hurtful, and just a minefield of wrong steps and bad arguments it seemed like, and hers had been no different, which did assist in her getting on the road to OVER IT with a bit more spring in her step. Thinking about Joe's negative attacks on Sherlock, and by association herself helped also…actually that was a lie.

They helped a lot.

Molly wasn't happy about people dumping on her, her choices, her character, or even her outfit, but she much preferred that over someone going after her friends, and Sherlock- and Lestrade too, but he seemed a little more robust in her mind against defamations upon his person then Sherlock and Molly did not know why- was one area she had never been able to make room for such slander.

Joe had targeted Sherlock- this was unforgiveable and completely intolerable.

Hate it as she did, his little foray into the Freak name calling portion of his evolution before her eyes certainly kept her from missing him.

She hated that she had turned to that ugly, horrible word to help her.

It made her angry.

So angry, in fact, that she put a ban on Anderson and Donovan- preemptive strike- when a case finally rolled in that Lestrade had needed Sherlock's help with.

Because she could not guarantee her composure if Donovan hissed Freak and her hand was still on the mend. A real break was not worth wasting on Donovan and that idiot Anderson.

"You banned…half my team. Why did you ban half my team?" Lestrade asked in a carefully calm voice as he stood in reception, tapping an agitated finger on the counter as she emerged from the hall.

Molly completely ignored the group behind her favored DI. "You called in an expert."

Handsome face tight in agitation, Lestrade huffed. "You know I did. He said he'd meet us here." Which was true- Sherlock was currently flapping gleefully around the morgue with an exasperated babysitter in Bernard at the moment. "Molly my team. I need my team." He brought her back to focus on the real problem here.

She let her eyes finally move past his shoulder to a scowling Donovan. "Yes, well the complete lack of professionalism on that half begs to differ."

Lestrade stiffened and she bristled in return, waiting for him to deny-

"Lacking professionalism?" Anderson squawked.

Donovan sneered. "Excuse me?"

Molly didn't rise to them; she stared hard at Lestrade, waiting to see what he would do. It was rare that she made herself such an obstacle, such a nuisance, but for whatever reason that day, she was not allowing Tweedle Dee nor Tweedle Dumb to even breathe in her lab or morgue.

Not today. Not while Sherlock was down there.

Lestrade caved, told his crew to head back to Scotland Yard and that he'd not be far behind, before turning and stalking down the hallway without a second glance at her.

If Sherlock had noticed- hard to tell- he had not bothered to comment and spent some fifteen minutes practically swooning over the beauty of an electrocuted corpse- or that's how she thought the guy was killed. Bernard had been handling that case, not her. However, she could tell that just having Lestrade to deal with and not his posse of prats, Sherlock was in a fine mood.

Or that could have been from the fascinating way the body had looked. He was weird. It was really disturbing that it was so hard to tell with him.

What the goofball did pick up on, was how she and the lovely Inspector coolly parted ways after Sherlock forked over the keys to solving the case, which was barely a three but had a 'delicious little twist with the actual death' that could only be ranked as a high nine, and completely explained Sherlock's willingness to be involved.

So weird.

Only her counter inquisition about him eating got her off scot-free with that line of questioning- because she was not comfortable detailing her mission to keep the rats from infesting his happy moments with their crap as he would just be a huge wanker himself and make the situation humiliating on top of highly frustrating. She would rather see him content, and in the zone of intellectual nirvana, than have people trying to say that his methods were beyond despicable or repugnant. That he was a Freak for being slightly off center and way on the mark for solving wicked cases.

He would not be punished for being different. Not now, not ever, if she had it her way.

It was such a crime that Tara all but high jacked these excuses and used them against her, fueling problems…

Fluffing the possibility of the Potential.

Molly refused to allow this 'ship to sail', as Tara put it, since she KNEW for a FACT what would happen. She wasn't stupid, or ignorant, or delusional about the man she called her best friend. If he couldn't even- no.

No.

She was not doing this.

No.

Bad, bad, bad idea. She wouldn't risk it. She couldn't risk it. Sherlock was too important to-

He wasn't a rebound! He wasn't anything!

Years down the line, when she allowed herself to look back, Molly would always ask herself at what point had she started to permit herself to even start looking at her surly six foot companion as possible dating material. At what moment did she look to him and see a prospective partner outside of autopsies and odd science-y stuff? The man who made grown adults throw primary school temper tantrums, who could 'see' everything nobody wanted to share within a few minutes of meeting them- and then proceeding to let them, and all in attendance, know he knew. Yeah, that guy, the one that nicked body parts and drugged animals to cure boredom. The other half to a friendship that she adored, the friendship she cherished for how preciously rare it was. He was so smart and strong and unafraid to do things because somebody might disapprove. He was flawed and grouchy and cared so deeply for that which mattered most to him- of that last part she was absolutely convinced, because Sherlock valued companionship, valued the people in his life to a point most would not believe him capable of. He was rough with her and Lestrade, but she understood it to be from a widespread lack of practice with having friends- not that he referred to either her or the DI as such, but that was old news and nobody cared what he wanted in that respect anyway. He kept her company during long work nights and had maintained stiff tabs on Lestrade when he had eventually returned to work after his stabbing- it was adorable watching her favored copper flounder under such dotting attention cleverly disguised as needy boredom jam-packed with Holmesian superciliousness.

Sherlock couldn't fool her sentimental x-ray vision. He wasn't that slick with his robot act.

All this compounded into a very real, very serious problem concerning her egocentric genius of a best friend.

It had been terrifying.

Absolutely terrifying realizing how easy it would be to simply fall and allow herself to start thinking about him other than platonically. Stupidly easy…

And he wasn't helping her with his fetching suits and tussled hair-

God, she didn't want to deal with this, she didn't want to do this. Not now, not after just breaking up with someone else. It was wrong, it felt horribly wrong.

She wasn't doing it and he was a git that just had to make everything difficult because nothing was ever easy with him.

He was far from unattractive…if he kept his trap shut that is, as the view was rather arresting- tall, dark, and cranky apparently had some universal appeal because Sherlock showed up to the lab in a new shirt, and Queen Bee Tara spent arduous amounts of time creeping on him when not arguing with him. Kudos had to be given to…anyone, because Sherlock somehow managed to miss the appreciative audience altogether, the blind old goat.

Dark blue was so his color…and Molly about ran from the lab when she spotted Tara lurking. She could handle her…issues…but the second she saw another all but encouraging the fanfare, it became too much. A hasty excuse for crappy coffee- black with two sugars, sir, yessir!- was enough and she was booking it down to the lounge with a cackling Tara at her heals the entire way snickering about popping buttons.

She needed a distraction, something to separate the normal from the insanity in her life. Christmas was mere weeks away and for whatever reason, even that wasn't enough to keep her mind from wandering into the lethal territory of 'what if' land.

No. No. Aaannnd no.

She could like him and it would be so easy and she was more than determined to fight this, to rage against this…Potential, as hard as she could until she would never feel anything for him outside the love one feels for a dear friend.

She would lose him if she started to look at him as anything else. She would get hurt- way worse than anything Joe could possibly do because he was a tool and Sherlock had been hers for years as opposed to barely six months- she would fall from heights so great, she would bleed, and break and she would be driven to hate him, and Molly Hooper didn't hate anyone or anything as her mother had taught her at a very young age. However, she had seen the Lifetime movies, she knew all the outcomes and not one of them favored victory in this situation.

More importantly- most importantly- she knew the man. She'd have to be viciously murdered in blatant obfuscation for him to turn that level of interest on her person- which she would rather not happen as that would be most self-defeating.

And it had been pointless speculation as she did not dwell on such matters to begin with.

In a desperate bid to either distract herself, or punish herself, Molly had called her sister to get a removed opinion. She seriously didn't have enough to think about- no wonder Sherlock spun himself into bratty hysterics when this happened to him and that massive brain of his. It was awful.

The call was short, and Molly's confusion was rapidly replaced with antsy anticipation. Big sis had arrived in London for a few nights as the delegation she worked for stopped over for a visit on their way back to the States, and as soon as she tidied up some last minute business, she was coming for Molly.

-"We're going out."

"Aren't you tired?"

"Jet lag will be worse if I crash now. My internal clock is some seven hours behind me in Asia somewhere. I don't have a lot of free time so we are doing this."

"I'd be happy to come out to the offices-"

"God, no! They won't leave us alone here! Peter is down with a case of food poisoning and I'm footing a portion of his work load. I told him to avoid the iffy sushi."

"Well…where would you like to go?"

"I have tickets to the Nutcracker- shut up! Ambassador Rupert didn't want them. The man has exquisite taste in music, but would rather eat suspicious fish rolls himself then spend hours at a play. No patience for them. He's like mum, who also bowed out by the way."

"Ouch. What time?"

"Let's get dinner first. I'll be out of here in about forty five minutes."

'Let's get dinner first' was code for drinking copious amounts of wine. A little libation would be heavily appreciated and needed if the Hooper sisters were off to the theee-athah for the Nutcracker. Plays really weren't her, or her sister's, cup of tea but time was preciously short spent together and Molly would happily mosey about the rubbish dump on a hot day if it meant spending some time with big sis.

A text about a half hour later let her know exactly where they were going and that Molly would need the big guns in the closet if she were going to pass muster. The Ritz was…It was not what she would have picked, but hey, to each their own and all that- it was already a planned outing for Ambassador Rupert so she wasn't horribly surprised she would have to dust off her evening best for a simple dinner and a show with her soon to be buzzed sister.

If only this hadn't been a 'working' get together, Molly would have been much happier about that- but her sister was always on the clock, even during social hour.

She could remember how hopeful she had been; something different, something new, and her sister too.

It should have been perfect or at least not horribly horrible as big sis and she had perfected the art of having fun in all situations.

Molly was getting real sick of Life's shit throwing.

Gathering wits and courage from every area she could spare, Molly eventually had to accept that her smart black cocktail dress would have to do- because this dress would reveal a lot of leg.

A lot of scarred leg.

She needed hosiery- hell no was she strutting into the Ritz dining room with a pink roadmap of London zig sagging up the back of her calves, thighs, and the part of her back where her dress dipped. For an opportunity to have a night with her sister, she would tolerate any embarrassment, but there were some things she just didn't like having people stare at- the scars on her legs, her back, her fingers and the jagged thing on the spine of her hand. For the first time since fracturing her thumb, she wished she didn't have her obnoxiously blue cast as it rather didn't go with anything in her wardrobe.

God…this is was already awkward and she hadn't even put her shoes on…

She was like a parts car- barely held together by luck and the rust separating the dented bits from each other.

Deep breath, Hooper.

A ping from her phone while she was selecting bright blue earrings to go with her cast- hey, she couldn't hide it, might as well accessorize with it- let her know that her ride was waiting for her outside and Molly exhaled slowly before slipping into a pair of borrowed black heels- thanks to Tara. This evening would have been brilliant without the stress of a Michelin three star restaurant where formal attire was a must. Her sister was a big fan of Burger King so this was like…an out of body experience where the poor fool was dropped into the fire-y pit of snobbish Hell.

Or so big sis said.

Oh, Lord have mercy on her soul.

Plucking her black clutch- another Tara loan- up off her chest of drawers, Molly slipped her phone and altered wallet into its shallow depths and obsessively checked her image once more in her floor length mirror, making sure her pea coat didn't clash anywhere too horrendously, before treading out into the hallway- and nearly panicking as she forgot her keys.

She was NOT locking herself out as Sherlock had yet to deign giving her lock picking lessons, the turd. He kept saying he was too busy as he stared off into space last week for two hours. She had come to terms with him just being flat out lazy.

The second she stepped out of her building and saw a black sedan crouching at the curb, Molly had to take pause and re-evaluate the situation on a personal level. It was like a fudging Pavlovian response to seeing these cars now and synonymously linking them to a Holmes brother, but the face that greeted her when the door was kicked open was pure Hooper and Molly couldn't swallow the squeal of delight as she hopped off the stoop upon seeing a beloved sibling after so long.

"Oh, my GOD! Molly!" Big sis cried, tugging her into a tight hug as she leaned out of the door of the car with her knees still on the seat. "You look fantastic!"

Molly squeezed her extra tight, laughing. "So do you! The States have been good to you!"

"I've gained fifteen pounds."

A bubbly giggle had her admitting her own woes. "I've gained ten and lost one tosser. I think I win."

Her sister rolled her eyes as she pulled Molly further into the car. "Puh-leeze, that is a gift horse we will not be looking in the mouth. Joe is gone- good riddance. Let's go get smashed and watch a nut cracker."

"The Nutcracker." Molly corrected and snickered at her sisters exasperated eye roll.

"Whatever it's called, I do not care. We could be seeing a hobo circus and I'd be fine with that…actually I'd prefer that. I'm not really in the zone for fine cuisine and cultured entertainment." Said the woman whose very life revolved around high circles and powerful people. Molly's sister was the ultimate chameleon when it came to work and her job as she pulled polished, sophistication off without a hitch and had professional dexterity down to a fine tuned machine. She could speak some seven or nine different languages fluently and could limp rather convincingly in another two- that Molly knew of as her sister picked new languages up as easily as she did books- but in the comfort of family, she morphed into a right slob that wouldn't even change out of her pajama bottoms unless absolutely necessary, ate frozen pizzas and watched just as much crap telly as Molly did.

As was Hooper tradition.

Molly could speak the Queen's English…and knew precisely enough French to be looked down on as a hick, while showcasing all the other closed door qualities her sister had beautifully to anyone who met her. Her talent had aligned more with awkward and science, while her sister had a silver tongue and the ability to mingle without problem.

Polar opposites in almost every way professionally, they came together in support of repulsive Hallmark Holiday movies, junk food, and eighties and nineties pop music among many other things.

"When was the last time you had to eat with more than one fork at a setting?" Big sis asked as she sprawled out unladylike beside her as she reluctantly checked the small super computer in her hands.

This question would have been comical if Molly wasn't about to come face to face with several of them, all demanding proper usage over the course of their meal. "Uh...never…" Did the movie Titanic count?- Hey, Sherlock may have bitched about the soundtrack, but she could hardly suppress the weepy sappage long enough to get home and unearth her DVD and slap it into the player.

"No worries. It'll just be us anyway. Ambassador Rupert isn't one for large group meals." She told her as she tapped out a response to something. "Also, I'm sorry about being on this thing." She wiggled the black device that looked like it meant some serious business. "I'm on call as Peter is still out of commission." She sighed dramatically. "Fish is not meant to be consumed raw. That's why fire was invented."

"Well, food poisoning isn't an hour fix, you know. It takes a good day or two to pass through the system." Molly told her, feeling strongly like she was talking to a shade of Sherlock's infamous impatience.

What a disturbing thought.

"Such an inconvenience." The elder Hooper grumbled before galloping off, asking questions and teasing her about mum and work, and doing a bloody fantastic job not discussing everything Molly wanted to talk about with her older sister. She needed direction, advice, or a cure all for packing up her baggage and leaving it behind her, but despite this, Molly really couldn't complain.

She had missed having the unconditional loyalty and support of a fellow sibling; she had missed the boundless love and the rough encouragement.

She had missed her sister.

Appreciating that the night was very young, and that a little wine might go a long way in loosening the tongue, Molly rolled with the topics, giggling at the 'compliments' to her cast and jewelry and outright laughing at stories about the linguist's last trip to North Korea and how the countries diminutive potbellied pig of a dictator had taken a 'shine' to her. The poor bastard. He was mightily lucky that the elder Hooper sibling was merely a conduit of communicative politics and not a real player herself because men were stupid for a pretty face. Put a brain behind said pretty face, and regimes would crumble.

Why couldn't Molly have been born with the pretty face? Her sister had the full lips and the cute figure. It was like looking at the bull's eye some hair's width away and knowing that it could have so easily been her.

But nooo, she had gobbled up all the 'near miss' genes in the womb super early and left the desirable traits with her egg brethren.

What a weird position on things…

The car ride had been the calm before the storm, Molly knew this, and because of where they were going- in Ambassador Rupert's stead- she was not going to be comfortable in her own skin let alone a lavish dining room. The Ritz London was the very emption of high-class- at least in her mind. When a person is told that formal attire is the only standard upon which one will be allowed to enter, let alone dine, it sends huge, red flags skyrocketing into the atmosphere so even socially inactive folks know 'here be salted fish eggs on a platter that people don't really enjoy but consume anyway because that's what rich people do'.

"Try and relax," Her sister told her, immediately noticing her distress. "It'll be different but nobody is grading you so don't worry."

Says the woman who looks at this sort of thing as just another day at the office. Impromptu pizza parties in a lab affixed to a busy morgue with Sherlock and Tara was practically a polar opposite to the Ritz. Molly bet she would be banned completely if the patrons and managers knew she sometimes put her feet up to eat. "Do I look okay?" She fussed, feeling the plaster weight of her cast all too keenly and the smooth texturing to her acid marred fingers gripping at her clutch as the car turned onto Piccadilly.

"Molly," she called to her, "You look wonderful. This is supposed to be different and fun- not to mention free. I want you to have a good time and if this is just not going to work, we'll go and hit up the McDonalds on Victoria…unless there has been an opening closer to where we are now." Her sister told her, looking up from her phone and watching her without expectation. "It's so your call."

The car started to slow, and Molly's breath hitched as she peaked out the window and saw the façade to the hotel. The Ritz…how many opportunities would she get to have like this? Inhaling, Molly steeled her resolve and nodded. "Let's do this."

"Thatta girl!"

That resolve lasted maybe all of five seconds after stepping into the grand foyer, and Molly became suddenly aware of how much she did not belong in these marbled and gilded halls. She was used to subway tiled walls with drains in the floor, and overhead lighting that was brightened beyond reason to catch even the most subtle of off colored peculiarities. The only thing in her life that might have been at home here was Sherlock and that was just image alone. He'd probably trample the delicate floral arrangement in the grand foyer just to watch the upper crust of society burn in their over starched collard indignation.

Her sister, dressed in something very similar to her own black cocktail dress, glided toward a man in a sharp tux just as he noticed he had been zeroed in on. Big sis was anything but timid in trying situations- that was Molly's specialty- so she kept to her heels and tried to not feel so out of place. Even when the woman wearing enough diamonds to blind a small congregation floated past her in shimmery Valentino dress she just managed to recognize from the latest issue of Vogue or Elle. She couldn't remember which specifically…

It wasn't important beyond that the poundage forked out for such a lovely gown could have funded the local homeless shelter for a good few years.

Molly didn't begrudge people for earning a lot or being rich, after all, many had worked themselves into the ground to be successful and they deserved to spoil themselves when they chose too- hell, she would. She'd buy all sorts of useless junk just to have it, like shoes for all occasions, so she knew she would be no better about it…but watching someone dress to impress…just for the sake of doing so…it seemed like such a waste when it was cold outside and Molly had noticed the uptick in homeless around St. Bart's- she had bought some two dozen taco's from the roving taco wagon that Sherlock had gotten them both banned from what seemed like forever ago using a homeless accomplice. The owner glared at her immediately, his memory unadulterated from months ago, and wouldn't accept her patronage till she shyly asked a man, hanging out near the mouth of an alley that was blatantly homeless, to help her. So she had purchased enough to get back on the vendor's good graces, as well as dinner for the man and a few of his cardboard compatriots.

They weren't pets; she had to remind herself continuously. They had feelings too and she would not demoralize them with her misplaced charity, but having that guy help her get her lunch took some of the poison out of the gesture.

Her sister was motioning for her, and she blinked at her evident gaping of the glitzy woman. She was hanging around that rude Sherlock a bit too much, as staring was never polite- something he did ALL the time, mind you. Pacing closer, Molly watched as the linguist slash political aide slipped from her dark blue coat with the help of another tuxedoed helper. Aware of someone behind her, Molly checked once to make sure it was her own dashing assistant and not the Prime Minster before shucking as gracefully as her cast would allow her from her own coat. A hysterical giggle worked its way up her throat at the impressive splendor of it all and Molly quickly swallowed it, staring hard at her sister who also seemed highly amused.

Together, they were led into the heart of the dining hall, and my, did she feel like a scruffy peasant. Soft textured creams, reds and accenting gold made the place feel warm and welcoming despite the low din of graciously spaced tables, allotting for privacy in this very public place. The chandeliers glinted and winked off the mirrors and the tinkling of cutlery off bone china just added to the lavish surroundings that many a fine lady and gentleman partook without hesitation.

Their table was situated near the center, and Molly felt like she were a player on stage as the feeling of eyes followed her- granted, anywhere she went where people were predominantly sitting gave her this nagging hunch…whether it was actually true or not.

She just hated it a lot more since her foray into the public circles on the supermarket rags.

"Ambassador Rupert prefers quiet dinners. This was a gift from a colleague in Parliament, but he had to cancel as his wife took ill. Rupert suggested I take the reservations seeing as they were already bought and paid for." Her sister uttered to her, taking a seat that was also pushed in by a set of waiter people. "Don't worry, Rupert has a very universal palate and there will not be anything on the preselected menu that should turn you off."

Molly bobbed her head, infinitely more at ease now that they were seated. "This is…the ambience here is extraordinary."

"Very much so." Her sister said, before sighing and tugging out her phone. "I am sorry about this stupid thing. The only upside is that I can drink because these sorts of places are conveniently left off the rule book." She explained, pulling up her phone and doing a double take.

"Problem?" Molly asked, taking a sip from her water glass.

Her sister lifted her head and looked around. "Er…not for me."

Before she could question this, the linguist settled her dark eyes on something over Molly's shoulder with an unimpressed frown- or as close to one as she could get entombed in this palace of opulence and still remain well-mannered. Molly, was turning to follow her look, but froze a second before completing it as a voice she knew a bit too well greeted them both.

"Ah, how fortuitous this evening is turning out to be with not one, but two Hooper sisters poised to dine."

Molly barely managed stomp out her curse of surprise. Eyes zipping around to take in one Mycroft Holmes, dressed in a three piece suit so sharp he could cut steak. On his arm was a stately, older woman swathed in a deep puce evening gown with only a simple opal necklace and matching earrings as her trimmings. Both were standing bold as day at the side of their table, obviously halting in their progression to their own reservation for a chance to chat. Chat being used loosely here, as in her limited but impressed experience, Mycroft Holmes didn't so much as chat but lecture when he chose to speak with commoners. Very much like his brother in that regard and Molly very nearly lost an ear to decay when she had pointed that out to Sherlock.

It was her very own Holmes War of Attrition getting these two to see their similarities. One she was determined to triumph at because it so, ridiculously, obvious.

Sherlock had a cow when she told him that he saw, but he did not observe this matter very well.

She had thought herself rather clever, and really, it wasn't her fault he was so easy to tease. Sherlock sulked and was testy for two days.

Git.

Molly's eyes fluttered as she realized she had been staring, and then flushed at how poor her manners were in that moment. Luckily, her sister was never left wanting in these situations- not that Molly had ever experienced one like this before- as she flawlessly returned his greeting. "Why, Mr. Holmes, what a pleasure and a surprise it is to see you this evening." A surprise, yes. A pleasure…not remotely.

How the hell did her sister know Mycroft Holmes anyway? "Yes, My- Mr. Holmes. I had no idea we would have the luck of your presence tonight as well." Her slip hopefully wasn't too obvious. Man, she sucked at this polite conversing stuff…

Judging by the crinkling of not one, but two sets of sharp eyes, Molly's hopes were dashed in vain upon the rocks of social faux pas.

Bugger.

"Mycroft." The older woman finally spoke, turning her head toward the man, but never removing her eyes from Molly. "You must introduce us."

A slight rippling of his features was enough, but just barely, for Molly to catch his spasm of discomfort because it was the exact same flavor as his brother's when things took him by surprise, as rarely as such events occurred. "My apologies. This is Katherine Hooper, a top linguist and translator for several U.S. ambassadors and oft times the Secretary of State and Vice President, and her younger sister, Molly Hooper, the assistant Head to the City's Pathologist at St. Bartholomew's, not to mention favored Forensic Pathologist to New Scotland Yard and the MET….as well as Sherlock."

As impressive and…wordy…as that introduction was- and she had noted easily how he made her humble little occupation seem a lot more substantial to go along with her sister's heftier job description- it was that last bit about Sherlock that seemed to tip the scales, making Molly herself the vastly more interesting of the two for the older woman before her. This was a first…

And terribly concerning.

Mycroft wasn't finished speaking, however. "Ladies, my I introduce you to mother, Violet Holmes."

Oh…my…God…

No way…

Mother! Holy shit- "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ma'am." She heard her sister say distantly, and Molly parroted something similar as well, mind too fogged with shock to do more than yank her eyes up to Mycroft and put her smile on autopilot.

Mycroft's mother! SHERLOCK's mother!

No freaking way!

Oh, my God, she was looking at ground zero! The event horizon of all that made Sherlock and Mycroft who they were! The woman- or mini dynamo- that brought these two infuriatingly brilliant men into the world! The person who raised them! Oh, hell, what must she be like? Sherlock was an acid trip of a man and Mycroft not far behind!

Did she have the Gift too?

What was she supposed to say?!

Oh, Lord, she could already hear a half hysterical version of herself saying 'So… the mother to the man that belts the dead cadavers in my lab with golf clubs, eh? Nice to meet you!'.

"So you're the girl that has taken a shine to my Sherlock? Mycroft, dear, we need a larger table. I insist these two join our party." The small woman that truly looked nothing like either man turned and ordered up at her towering son. "I may never get this chance again, seeing as how secretive Sherlock is about such things."

What was happening? Molly, still rocked from this unexpected turn of events, twisted her head back to look at her sister, who had a baffled expression etched onto her own face. What the heck?

Dinner with Sherlock's mommy…

Strange how she couldn't tell if she was being punished for something.

Mycroft seemed a little off kilter tonight as well as he turned his attention to her. "Would this be an imposition for you ladies? I would hate to break whatever dinner plans you might-"

"Oh, nonsense, it is dinner. Their dates are welcome too." Violet stepped easily around his attempt at giving his mother's victims an out, and this had to be the first time Molly had ever seen anyone outside of his squirrely brother interrupt Mycroft. His family was casually unconcerned about insulting this man…as it should be.

Molly surprised herself when she spoke up, just managing to catch a mere flicker of resignation before it was paved over in social indifference in Mycroft that she had also seen magnified on his baby brother in the past during equally trying situations where being a huge git just simply wouldn't do. Rare as that was…

What were the odds she was going to severely regret this? "Actually, ma'am, we are just here by ourselves. We were planning on attending a play this evening after dinner, but I do not see how that could possibly be imposed upon by a variance in dinner arrangements, isn't that right?" She twisted to look back at her sister, who dipped her head in agreement. Molly hoped she wasn't stepping on her toes…or Mycroft's, but this woman was pushy- like Sherlock- and there wasn't room to make a scene over the simple location of a meal. A true Holmes, even if by marriage.

Heaven help them all.

"It would be a delight, ma'am." The linguist smile amiably. "But you must excuse me my unavoidable usage of the phone. I'm terribly sorry, but I am on call and time is short between Molly and myself. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to come out tonight."

"Oh, that is quite alright, dear. Yes, quite alright. I understand the unforgiving nuances expected of political assistances." Mummy Holmes consented at once. Molly was fairly certain she would have agreed to just about anything short of group streaking to get her and her sister to dine with them as the older woman had that look about her. It was startling to see how much of Sherlock she was able to glean from such a short time in her flaring presence. Mycroft, the unfortunate sod, dutifully turned to the shadowing man in yet another tuxedo to arrange the new seating expectations while Violet ushered for Molly and her sister to climb to their feet, with the help of yet more wait staff. Those guys were like culinary service ninjas with the way they disappeared and reappeared on her radar, granted her radar was pretty shoddy and even large things tended to become obscure if she weren't focusing properly.

Like cadaver limbs or the occasional head.

Molly smiled, unsure, as Violet Holmes quickly took her arm, never once losing the air of the lady in charge, despite Mycroft doing all the negotiating. It was strange watching this powerful man bend for the will of another. She speculated on the likelihood of Sherlock being susceptible to the same demands and came up inconclusive. Sherlock never made anything easy, but his mother made for the unknown variable this time around. She could see him going either way, and she wasn't delusional in thinking location meant anything to him. The Ritz, in all its tradition and rules and expectations would not stop Sherlock from throwing a spectacular fit if someone tried to force him into doing something he would rather not do, ever.

Giant baby.

Soon, and upon a mother's adamant insistence, Mycroft was escorting her older sister toward another room where the tables were much larger and the hall, just a bit more of a show stopper. The luxuriousness was not enough to distract her, however, as Molly was very conscious of the person at her elbow, and tried to keep from wobbling in her heels- they were barely two and a half inch heels, conservative for Tara, but Molly just wasn't used to them and now was not the time or place to test gravity's self-assured hold on her poise.

Their new table easily held twelve people and Molly worked to keep from asking if it was truly necessary as there were only four of them. "We are meeting some family friends, ladies. I do hope you do not mind." Mycroft told them as he held out her sister's chair for her.

"The more the merrier." Big sis said smoothly, brown eyes snapping in annoyance at discovering how far away Molly was as she took her seat. Promptly, and noiselessly, she sank her verbal fangs into poor Mycroft the second he took his own chair in what Molly could only assume was retaliation for separating them without her express written consent. Molly would have watched longer- how often did miracles like this happen?- if Mother Holmes wasn't turning her head to see what had enraptured her attention so completely, so she scrambled to hold the older woman's focus, somehow feeling that any discord would not be well received.

"If you would, ma'am-" Molly started mind racing for a suitable topic, still hesitant to speak in case she miss-stepped and offended Sherlock's mother. The risk was great, and she did not want to jinx herself resulting in Detective Dickhead putting in extra hours in an attempt to get her cranium to detonate all over the lab walls.

"Call me Violet, love. Ma'am is far too distancing for the woman who smiles upon my difficult, youngest son." She simpered demurely and Molly shivered as if someone stepped over her grave. She sounded warm and affectionate, but the way she held herself was…almost reptilian, as if waiting for Molly to stumble so she could make her move.

Whatever move that may be.

Things…were starting to form a picture here. "…Violet," She corrected slowly, "What exactly does Mr. Holmes…er…Mycroft do?" She cringed at her pitiable wording. She so wasn't used to the ultra-polite dance of social concord. She dealt with Sherlock after all, and he was convinced such prattle would be the death of intelligent discussion- he also turned grammar Nazi in a heartbeat so there was still no winning to be had with him. He got his panties in such a tangle over her using pleasantries with him, as if 'Hello, Sherlock, nice day so far?' would confound the gray matter to near detrimental levels, causing him to sink to Anderson like planes of fatuity.

He sabotaged her for these moments! She knew this. Years of rewiring her programming so she could stumble into the deadlier of the Holmes gender unaware and unprepared.

That wanker!

"He holds a minor position in the Government. Or, at least that is what he'll tell anyone who asks. In actuality, he is just as important as an elected official, but without the people's say on whether he retains his job. Almost more…covert like, as opposed to nominated figurehead." Violet explained smoothly, indicating for a fresh pot of tea from one of the many waiters rotating their table, straightening and adjusting for their newest assignment.

A truly horrifying insight. A Holmes brother was partially at the wheel of a machine as huge as the U.K.!

Sweet Merciful Jesus! The more she dwelt on this new bit of information, the worse it got. "O-oh. I h-had no idea." She cleared her throat, trying to mask her disconcerted shudder. She needed a drink.

Violet must have seen it, because her cold eyes crinkled around the edges and she grinned. "Now, now. He isn't nearly as rambunctious as my baby boy."

Baby boy…God, Molly was laboring to pin this woman down in her mind so she could attempt to see what she was dealing with. Molly barely had a sound description down of the older woman. If someone asked, she'd probably just whimper pitifully. "No, no. I didn't mean- when I've asked Sherlock, he usually gives…forgive me." Molly gave up, eyes skittering to her sister, who was locked in a rather heated debate, whispering furiously to an unruffled Mycroft. No help there. Sucking in a quick breath, Molly decided to come as clean as she could. "You will have to forgive my rough manners, Mrs. Holmes. I am not used to this sort of thing at all. In fact…I'm more apt to bickering and arguing then polite word play, I'm sad to tell you."

"Do not fret, love." Violet stunned her as she reached out and patted her acid eaten hand. "I don't expect Windsor quality politeness from anyone who rubs shoulders so familiarly with Sherlock. He has rather fought that subtle social art his entire life."

Oh, thank God. She knows it too, so Molly was more than willing to overlook the jab at her manners. Hey, the truth hurt and this woman was a Holmes. It came with the territory at this point, sans explanations. "He does get rather opinionated about it."

"Yes, you will have to make allowances for him." Violet told her, meeting her brown eyes with a hauntingly familiar pair that calculated her every move, every infliction. A pair she had seen watch, stare, and glare at her for the last three years in various degrees of intensity.

"He has your eyes." Molly blurted, and then felt her face and neck flood with heat. Smooth, Molly…

Violet, however, seemed to preen at this news, but before a response could be had, their numbers increased with the arrival of the rest of their impromptu dinner party.

Molly was really wishing she had just said yes to McDonalds at this point.

"Well, now, what do we have here?" A young, rather handsome looking bloke said, coming to a stop beside Mycroft, who had to break from the abuse her sister was hurling at him and stood to shake hands with him.

"Mr. Wilkes, what a pleasure." He said, and Molly couldn't tell if he meant it or not because he certainly didn't act like it was such a pleasing prospect to be sharing a meal with the new arrival. Apparently nobody was pleased as punch about the night's sequence of unfolding events. This Mr. Wilkes then proceeded to bump his cheek against Momma Holmes and nod his head at her sister and herself. Their chattering soon devolved into more greetings from the five other people with this man; each paying homage to Mycroft and ritually engaging in faire la bise with Mrs. Holmes. Molly counted three men and three women, all in sharp suits or stately gowns that she bet were designer just by the cut of the shoulders and the drape of fabric alone. Her Lipsy bargain brand cocktail dress was probably horribly offensive at this point, as her favorite consulting detective so genteelly pointed out once when she wore another dress from the same shop to work for a Board meeting. Sherlock had impeccable taste in clothes, and had taught her thing or two about, not only clothes in general, but a man and his suit and what message they were trying to convey. All because she thought Chris Hemsworth cut a fine line in his dapper attire and she had the audacity to say so out loud. Sherlock just couldn't hold his tongue- genetically impossible- as he pointed out the flaws. Her refusal to accept this logic resulted into a rant about men's formal wear that somehow managed to stick- the tosser, he kept touching his damn chest and arms as he explained, stretching the fabric of his button down until buttons pulled and she was an idiot. If he had been wearing red that day, she might have burst a vessel. She now could identify three different styles of suits alone and where they came from. This did not include the tuxedo.

Mycroft, ever the efficient man, waited until everyone was prepared to claim, or reclaim, their seats to do introductions. He blathered some nonsense- that she didn't believe for a second- about being pleased to see everyone and Molly deliberated on if she had ever been more uncomfortable in her entire life while the new arrivals kept giving her and her sister looks, as if questioning the validity of their being seated amongst them. Big sis just gazed back, a small benign smile gracing her full lips, but Molly could tell her shields were up.

Molly couldn't even tell if she, herself, had armor strong enough for this sort of thing. The delicate dance of propriety was a world away from the loud, colorful arguments and debates that she partook in with Lestrade, Sherlock, Tara, and Wade. She could navigate just fine in average waters. She knew the rules of engagement there.

Here…it was a whole new ball game.

Who were these people to her anyway, and why was she suddenly agonizing over what they even thought about her as a person?

"- Katherine Hooper, and her younger sister, Molly Hooper who is the top Forensic Pathologist for St. Bartholomew's Hospital and Research Center." Mycroft's even toned voice- nowhere near as deep and dark as Sherlock's lovely baritone- intruded on her thoughts, giving Molly just enough time to smile and cant her head simultaneously with her sister. "Ladies, these are friends and close associates to the family, Sebastian Wilkes, an investment banker from-"

Molly just offered polite dips to each new person, not even trying to remember who they were, as that was definitely not one of her talents. She would spend the rest of her meal deliberately trying to avoid using their names if she could help it- she never planned on seeing these people again being that any patron of the Ritz restaurant was in a league she would most likely never run in, and she was completely okay with that.

The harsh looking woman seated directly across from her was barely withholding the sneer as she eyeballed Molly's near fluorescent blue wrist cast. Excuse you, lady! It was a cast, not a thrift store bracelet…even if she harmonized her jewelry pieces with it. Thank God Cruella over there couldn't see the scar on her hand. That would probably have drawn an even bigger gape and warrant to comment, which would lead to-

"- and last, but not least, Colin Dunn, a respected attorney from Hauptman, Wolfe, and Dunn at Law."

Molly felt the blood drain from her face as the name struck a chord with her. It couldn't be…

She darted wide eyes over to the last man, the one closest to her seated position, to see him the moment he noticed she realized who exactly he was. His devastatingly good looking face split into a knowing smile of perfect white teeth, glinting brown eyes raking her as he downloaded everything he could from her demeanor and reaction.

No…

Please, no…

She retained just enough mental coherency to offer a stiff, acknowledging grimace before he chose to break the ice, so to speak. "Molly Hooper, why isn't this quite the surprise? I was not expecting to see you here tonight." His voice was as smooth as she remembered it all those months ago, raised to be heard amongst the jury as he argued for his client, Boris Little's, life.

Her voice sounded foreign, even to her own ears. "Likewise, Mr. Dunn."

He seemed charmed by her rejoinder and that grated with something deep in her gut. "Aw, come now. No hard feelings, Molly. I was merely representing a client in the court of law. Hardly grounds for condemning a man hired to do a job."

Molly was at a loss. On one hand, she wanted to tell him to piss right off and be done with him, on the other, this guy had nearly argued her attacker to liberty and could she really just ignore that?

She wasn't sure how 'forgiving' a soul she was, but playing 'nice' with the lawyer that nearly bought Boris Little his freedom was not something she felt like doing.

Ever.

"Well Mr. Dunn," She enunciated his name, letting him know his familiarity was not remotely appreciated. "I am well acquainted with the justice system, so you will just have to live with any acrimonious feelings on the subject of our last encounter, as it was far from a picnic." She told him bluntly, ignoring the captured audience surrounding them. Yup, first conversation out of the starting block was her and the blood sucking lawyer.

What a lovely way to introduce herself.

"I second that, Mr. Dunn. Your ghoulish duty has been taken very much into account in this particular instance." Her sister's voice was like bell from across the table and Molly felt something her chest unclench as she saw nothing but support from that sector; a pure showing of solidarity in this increasingly hostile environment. Molly, as hard as it was to ignore, did not relish causing a scene here as good manners had been bred into her by a mother- her mum wasn't at fault for where those manners had buggered off to recently, so no blame could be heaped upon her shoulders- who frowned upon outbursts in public, but seeing her sister's near aggressive bearing gave her the courage to hold her ground, even if this meal turned out to be the most uncomfortable ever to be had by a distinctly English group of people, all of whom were watching this volley with dignified distaste.

Mycroft was busy taking a nip from a brandy glass, but the eyes that flashed toward her were unreadable and Molly carefully did not look to her side to see what his mother might be feeling. She just scrunched her own at the political pest, meeting his heavy regard pound for pound. Sherlock wouldn't care and it was his opinion, out of all the Holmes family, that truly mattered to her.

Sherlock would probably be making the situation worse about now. Where was he when she needed him?

Probably having a bloody good time doing…whatever it was he did with his free time.

Lucky jerk…

"I was wondering why he was so dogged in his agglomerating of all potential evidence." Dunn smirked, clearly enjoying this argumentative atmosphere like the fudging lawyer that he was. "The reputation that precedes you down at the Yard denoted an obscenely loyal associate. Detective Inspector Lestrade was most unpleasant during the entire affair as he scarcely kept him within the confines of barely inimical."

She didn't need to ask to which 'he' or 'him' Dunn was referring and a warm rush of affection for her boys had Molly offering up the first real smile to this meddlesome man. "The feeling…is deeply mutual, I assure you." Was all she said into the bloating silence that swelled amongst the group, uncomfortable and thick. If these people did not need an introduction to each other, then they knew what sort of cases Dunn had taken…and if they were smart enough, they could connect the dots and draw a conclusion as to how she fit into this whole shebang.

It was like a never ending problem and she was tossed back several months to a time where dodging questions had become her second fulltime occupation.

This time, however, she was determined not to care. She was fighting with herself to apologize to the group at large for such an antagonistic outward display of belligerence as such things were not appropriate, but she wouldn't mean it. She would never mean one word of it, and she was constantly reminded about how awful she was at lying. So she stiffened her lip and held her head high, just like her mother had told her.

This group- aside from Violet Holmes because she was Sherlock's mommy- could take a collective hike off a short cliff. Mycroft too, that turd. He was too smart for her to assume he had no prior knowledge of Dunn and the likelihood of bruised feelings- not bruised, destroyed. Molly would not bother trying to like the man that used her defense of acid to save her own skin as a ploy to make Little the victim in his own crime. She usually gave folks the benefit of the doubt, but holy cow, so not happening tonight.

No.

There was a huff of laughter from her elbow and Molly's eyes snapped to the side of their own volition to see Violet Holmes chortling, a pair of steely blues, just a shade darker than her son's, fairly sparkle in her amusement as she leaned in. "I can see why he has kept you now." Was all she said, and once again, Molly was left feeling like there was more of an insult in that statement than anything else.

And because she was on a roll, Molly bent toward the older woman and lowered her voice. "Again, ma'am, the feeling is mutual." She told her, desperate to ignore the zing of panic at basically forcing her opinion on the mother of her irritatingly prickish best friend.

Cold, pale, eyes warmed and Molly's eyebrows started to climb, the ire in her seeping out as the expression on the woman before her melted. "Good." Was all she said, effectively throwing Molly, as the wait staff descended on the table, taking orders for drinks and courses like a swarm of busy bees.

All an all, the night was turning into one big pain in the arse. She was isolated from her sister, who kept staring at her as if the force of her regard would teleport her to Molly or vice versa. Mycroft was being particularly useless in fending off the prying bastards surrounding her- Dunn the Wanker- and Mummy Holmes was gearing up for her own take on the Spanish Inquisition into the life of her youngest, and most antisocial son's self-anointed best friend. All this was on top of a worried inexperience ordering from a menu with no prices and terrible inkling that she was being judged for whatever she planned to select.

This was ridiculous.

Picking the easiest to solve of her collection of problems, she listened close to what Mycroft ordered- ballotine of ham hock and langoustine with quail egg beignet and fennel pollen- and about fell over. What was a ballotine and why would she want fennel pollen on it?

"Might I make a suggestion?" Dunn asked, voice overly slimly as he invaded her personal bubble to look over her shoulder.

Ha ha ha! No. "No, you may not." Molly returned mildly as she skimmed the lists on the heavily embossed and leather wrapped menu in her good hand.

"Rather closed minded from a girlfriend of Sherlock Holmes." He stated and Molly could literally feel Mother Holmes focus all of her peripheral attention on this soft spoken discussion as her turn came to order.

If it could be described as such.

She tried not to swear.

"You bet your tacky Vanquish suit, I am." She snipped, taking the plunge and not clarifying which part he was referring too. She did not like how he overly caressed the word 'girlfriend', as if surprised Sherlock could procure one. Idiot man. Sherlock had enough brooding allure to pull hundreds of girls just by his appearance alone. He wasn't a traditional looker, but the man had tall, dark, and dangerous down to an art- probably unconsciously to boot because if he knew…he'd probably barricade himself in his flat to die. It was just the 'getting to know you' bit that he flubbed…either purposely or not, she couldn't tell. He was awkward and rude at the same time but if he could ever just plug his hole for twenty minutes, her goofball detective could be rolling in girls. She should be counting her blessings he could only, by his own admittance, handle one 'friable female prone to excessive bouts of speciousness and demonstrative neediness' at a time.

She would not be renting out her spot anytime soon, thank you.

Dunn was just plain amused. "So you are his girlfriend." Molly sighed pointedly, shifting her cast encased fingers about till her middle finger was surreptitiously displayed along her menu so only he could see. "Well that's not very nice."

"It's not supposed to be. And how do you even know Sherlock?" She hissed, hoping and praying Violet Holmes was as engrossed in her ordering as she appeared to be- God, they haven't even ordered dinner and Molly was ready for the check.

"We attended university together. Wilkes, Holmes, and myself." He explained and Molly found herself intrigued despite her resistance to this little puke of a man. Sherlock never spoke of his days before Bart's. He never hinted at, nor mentioned a childhood, his family- outside of his brown nosing brother- his education, nothing. She had never asked either, never pried because she could recognize his desire to not share them. The only hints she ever got of pre-Bart's were a few despairing comments from Lestrade- she hated them because Sherlock had been a shattered wreck- so naturally she would be curious, but she bit her lip, refusing to allow herself to cave and ask. If Dunn had resulted in anything good for Sherlock, he'd still be on the consulting detective's list of people to annoy…

Like Lestrade.

Molly's personal experience with Dunn was remote, removed, and largely based on the text in the electronic ledgers of cops and lawyers who pulled case files. That is…until Little went to trial.

So she wouldn't trust him. She would ignore him.

And then ask Sherlock about him later.

Dunn must have gotten the hint she was chucking at him like a brick to the face, and didn't say anymore. In all actuality, it could have been because Sherlock's mummy sat not more than a person away and would not welcome condescending, douchebag remarks on her condescending tosser of a son- and Molly said that with all the love in the world directed at the six foot brat who, by all accounts, seemed inclined to believe he popped into existence without the mess of adolescence ever making an appearance.

The night was tanking.

Dinner had been most excruciating.

This, she remember with acute clarity.

She had refused to discuss Sherlock in any capacity that would actually do the man justice- a crime itself- because praising Sherlock meant mentioning all the amazing things he did, and simple people were repulsed by his enjoyment of solving grisly murders and mysteries. Of him sticking gloved fingers into maggot infested stomachs and grinning in glee at finding partially digested poisons. She couldn't talk about him freely, so she wouldn't talk about him at all.

Not even to his mother, who asked the most innocent of questions that made her feel like complete crap because it was his mother for Christ's sake. The woman probably didn't see him all that much, or that's what Molly figured. He was kind of a hermit when he wasn't hogging her lab or harassing the cops- this made her nervous because of his past history, but he was grown man and was fully aware that she would not hesitate to cripple him if he so much as looked at drug dealer twice and she found out. So while his mother asked in vain about her son- what does Sherlock like to do? How many cases is he getting? How has he been? Is he well?- Molly struggled, before caving in and responding, endeavoring to keep her responses polite, omitting the juicer bits in exchange for more PC, more pro-Sherlock propaganda, extremely aware of the unfriendly ears ringing the table.

She didn't miss Mycroft's inscrutable looks either. Hey, he could be answering these questions; she knew he talked to Sherlock several times a week, much to the detective's consternation and flamboyant complaining. Alas, he kept his trap firmly shut on the subject of his brother, leaving her to tread carefully in this predator infested atmosphere. So she took great pleasure in watching her sister torture him in the midst of his conversations with that Wilkes guy, Cruella, and whoever the three other people were- politics was a shockingly small clique of popular kids considering how much influence and affect these people had, and Molly was enjoying watching Mycroft delicately dodge and parry her sister's verbal throat shots. Big sis had been pissed beyond comprehension that she had to spend her evening dinning with this group, when she could have been wolfing down a quarter-pounder with cheese at a sticky plastic table with just Molly- they both had seriously regretted going first class. But noooo, Molly had fallen head first into a sodding Holmes trap employed by the matriarch of the family, and Mycroft did nothing to assist her in assuaging the inquisitiveness of his mother and fellow supper goers. She hoped the linguist was giving him the mother of all headaches.

Serves him right, that wanker. He should be the one explaining to his mum that his little brother was doing very well, that he was clean, and that he was as healthy as Molly had ever seen him. They should not be dancing around the worry of past drug use at crowded table of pompous nobodies who were not friendlies to Sherlock, and this was ALL Mycroft's fault! He should have been updating his mother. Not Molly.

Not some remote pathologist that happened to keep tabs on the man-child for the greater good of London and its outliers.

Mrs. Holmes, despite Molly grappling to fit her into a box, a frame of sorts so she could understand what she dealing with- because this older woman seemed both aloof and terribly interested at the same time, as weird as that sounded- expressed herself as genuinely wanting to know about her son and it hurt that Molly felt such hesitancy to share. She felt awful about it actually, but seeing Dunn pause to listen when she clarified that yes, Sherlock had been doing great, that he was always great, steeled her resolve all that much more. Her intuition, her gut, had been nagging her to keep the distance between Dunn's awareness about Sherlock as expansive as possible. He seemed like such a weasel, like an Anderson with a brain and a record for inflicting damage- this last bit she had intimate knowledge on since she couldn't forget how he made such a sound argument against her using acid in a last ditch effort to save herself. She wasn't terribly crazy about the idea of spending time near this lawyer, anyhow. The man was the enemy- she was not being overdramatic- his job description not holding near enough water for her to consider gracing him with the benefit of the doubt. Little had ripped her world apart, and this man had defended him with all the passion of a person who believed that monster innocent.

When her food had arrived, Molly had merely picked at it. She didn't touch the wine the sommelier had suggested go with her funky stuffed ravioli- because she knew how much of a pathetic light weight she was and keeping her wits about her had become almost as imperative as breathing for the duration of that meal from Hell.

A few days after this excruciating night, Lestrade had asked her what it was like 'putting on the Ritz' and Molly could barely withhold her full body shudder before admitting that she had been praying for a mini genocide that would have called her away.

Nope, that would have been too much of a convenience, a blessing. Instead she had been forced to suffer! She was being punished, she knew it. For laughing at Sherlock's poorly timed character analysis of the gang member brought in to identify the body of his mate. Apparently, inquiring if the position of another man's sagging pants had any correlation with the mourning of an assassinated rapper and how that translated roughly into 'half-mast' grieving was not something to laugh about in the morgue.

Molly had actually hid in the lab the rest of the day, worried a complaint was going to be filed against her. It wasn't her fault Sherlock was funny at the most inappropriate times.

It didn't help that he just stood there, politely curious expression smoothing over his face as she hacked out a poorly disguised giggle while holding the modesty sheet up for the man to view the body.

She was either going to Hell, or she was going to be picked off by a group of thugs and then delivered to Hell.

Surprise, surprise, it had been the latter in a world class restaurant and not a scummy back alley.

Molly was counting down the minutes. Dinner was almost over- she based this off the amount of fine china to be had where once there was food- well…food art, which was frustratingly lacking in satisfaction because of the stupid chintzy artistry- and she could perceptibly feel Mrs. Holmes dissatisfaction for her as a person.

It…it actually bothered her.

A great deal.

Seeing the mother of her best friend become further detached as each question was rebuffed or sidestepped made her ache just that much more. Boxed in and weary, Molly swallowed dryly as she shimmied around one more request for information on Sherlock. Cold eyes held hers and she gulped as they x-rayed her soul.

When she got out of there, she was going to beat Sherlock with a stick for not talking to his mother more often.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's been a real pleasure this evening, but if Molly and I wish to make it to our show, we'll need to take our leave." Her sister announced over the table and Molly could have fainted from relief.

Sweet, merciful- oh thank you! She was getting to leave-

"Yes, I need to be off as well. I would be most happy to escort you out." Dunn schmoozed and she internally started swearing like a boatload of sailors denied shore leave after months at sea.

"How kind of you." She managed between stiff lips- scumbag lawyer.

"Ladies, Mr. Dunn. As always." Mycroft stood with the rest of the men as she and her sister made to stand, immediately having their chairs pulled back by the wait staff. Their goodbyes were tersely given and tersely reciprocated, and Molly withheld her wince as Mother Holmes withering look settled on her person.

Talk about a bungled opportunity. She just wanted to go home.

Dunn was all smiles- the phony - as they weaved their way back out into the main dining area. "Well that was a fantastically painful meal." He opened the second they hit the foyer. "I've never seen so much…tension…outside a courtroom."

Her sister was livid, Molly could tell as she observed her older sister oh, so carefully check her mobile. "You've obviously forgotten how you managed to think your way through putting on pants this morning."

Molly was too wound up to laugh.

"As if it were my fault I had a client with whom you heartily disagree with. I can't please everybody." Dunn offered, slipping swiftly into his coat and extracting Molly's purple pea coat from the hands of a tux wearing assistant. Molly gnashed her teeth as he held it up for her to slip into.

Stupid…presumptuous…

"You keep making light of an incident that nearly cost me my life, Mr. Dunn." Molly snarled softly at him as she snatched her coat from his hands and slid into it herself. "I do not find this conversation at all appropriate, so if you would mind taking yourself out, that would be great."

"Oh, but I couldn't possibly! Not now when I'm getting to see the full spectrum of Molly Hooper." He grinned, flashing his irritatingly perfect white teeth at her. "It's fascinating to see how you tick, how you react, because it just adds more to the understanding."

Her sister paused in her texting, but remained silent, and Molly lifted her chin, hiding her confusion. What the frick was he babbling about?

Dunn sensed it too, could feel the enthralled audience he had in her and her sister. When he stepped into her personal space, Molly ruthlessly stomped down on the urge to back up, to back down. But when he leaned in and fairly whispered in her ear- too close, too close, too sodding close- she struggled to not knee him in the stones. "Do not think for one second that I'm fooled by the hit and run cover story. I know what role Sherlock played, and I know his brother had a clever hand in burying it beneath the horror of your battered appearance."

She narrowed her eyes as her brow wrinkled into a frown. "What are you talking about?"

Dunn seemed both delighted, and agitated by this news. "Oh, dear, he didn't tell you did he? No surprise. Sherlock was always bit dubious in his methods. A bit short on fuse, a bit high on anger."

Molly felt her temper, which had been gurgling under the skin since she realized who this man was, start to override her better senses. "You know nothing." She hissed moving to press past him.

"Wrong." He breathed, eyes alight as he turned to follow her toward the doors, brushing against her side and making her want to writhe in disgust. "I'm not the foolish little girl that loves a monster."

Ooooooo….oh, she could- "You're a bit old to be name calling. Sod off will you?" She said mildly, looking around for her sister, who was right behind her. "Should we call a cab?"

Her sister was glaring at Dunn, though, and Molly felt a cold spike of dread at the inquiring glint in her eyes. "A…monster?" She asked lowly.

Shit.

Dunn was a master at manipulation, very much like Sherlock actually, but his charade was an utter lie, whereas Sherlock's wasn't unless he chose otherwise, and Molly was scolding herself for letting this conversation drag on in the first place. There were some things, some incredibly important things, which she had not bothered to share with her family about the man that infiltrated her lab and her life. She never talked about his body part experimenting, his nipping of level five bio-hazards. She never breathed a word about the drugs…or how she dove in right beside him to keep his head above water. It was dangerous to expound on these habits of Sherlock to other people, and her sister would not tolerate seeing Molly doing this again, taking care of a drug addict- he was clean! He was clean! But this would mean jack to big sis. Once had been more than enough and there were no strenuous ties to family this time. "He isn't a fan of Sherlock, Kate. Don't listen to his bitter wind bagging. He lost the case-"

"For now." Dunn interjected smoothly and Molly snapped her jaw shut. "His day is coming."

What?

For now?

"What?" She finally bit, souring even more. This man…

"This has been a long time in the making, Molly." He…cooed at her. Who coos like that? "Sherlock has been breaking laws and having big brother back there covering for him for years. This last stunt has just been the initiative that's tipped the scales." Dramatic goon.

"You're full of it. And still a sore loser." Molly shrugged him off- tried too. He didn't need to know she was mentally running around in panicked circles at his knowing too much. Funny, she dealt with bigger ghouls than this sharp dressed lawyer weekly- Sherlock…and his brother on occasion- but this guy had her more skittish than the Holmes boys had managed in a long time while trying.

She did not thank him for it.

"What do you mean breaking laws?" Her sister asked and Molly felt the hairs on her arms and neck start to rise. God, she loathed the fact that she wasn't inherently quick enough to stop this completely.

That didn't stop her from trying however. "Ignore him. He's been digging at me all night." She stated with feeling and hoped big sis's natural proclivity to protect would override her curiosity on Sherlock for now.

"What other kind of meaning could you possibly construe from 'breaking laws'?" He smirked, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he shimmied around Molly's protest. "The gent is a crook, a conman, a liar and a drug addict that only survived his last binge because you happened to show up. He's been hauled in on charges ranging from holding to assault with a deadly weapon- that last one isn't official by the way. And most recently, he has managed to outmaneuver this particular charge once more-"

Molly sighed loudly and pointedly, playing it cool. "You are trying a bit too hard, Mr. Dunn."

"I could say the same to someone as blindingly loyal as you are, Molly."

She didn't rise to him as she met his gleaming eyes with a hard look of her own. "Like I said…a bit too hard."

His focus started to cut into her, and Molly only jutted her chin. "He is as dangerous as he is unpredictable, and that unpredictability strolls hand in hand with carelessness. He will ruin you."

Molly desperately ignored her sister's sharp intake of breath, realizing that any concession in her now would be seen as weakness to this…snake. So she plucked a leaf out of Sherlock's handbook and offered up a leer of her own, shamming for all she was worth despite how piercingly her heart was banging in her ears. "Unlikely, Mr. Dunn."

At her refusal to bend, to give, Dunn just met her with his own stalwart barring, refusing to allow her to maneuver them into safer waters, but not attempting to engage her further. Their check would have gone on had it not been for the arrival of his ride. She watched as a white town car slipped up alongside the walk outside, and Dunn woofed a laugh as he tipped an imaginary hat at her. "Until next time, ladies." With that, he was out the door and disappearing into the depths of the sleek vehicle.

Molly didn't watch the car pull away, she had bigger problems in the form of one steaming sister.

Oh, lord…

"I can explain." She offered up quickly as she met the thunderous expression battering into her soul.

"A drug addict? Sherlock is a drug addict?" She spat in a trembling voice, face darkening into a splotchy mess as she repressed her fury out of the sheer force of her will and a deep rooted respect for the establishment bred into her by her job. "Were you never going to tell me?"

Molly cast a look about them, hating the fact that they were standing in the grandest entryway she'd ever seen in her life and about to tumble headlong into a battle royal with quite possibly the meanest fighter on the planet. "Kate, please! Let me explain-"

"I wish you would!" The linguist cracked across her babbling, cutting her right off. "Are you completely stupid? Are you out of your damn mind?" It was harrowing and vexing that big sis had managed to perfect the whisper yell that their mother excelled in.

It sucked.

"Not here." Molly quickly said, bringing her hands up before her as if she could physically push the animosity between them back. "I'll explain!"

It was like she had turned on a switch, because before she knew it, a clawing grip around her cast encased wrist was jerking her through the glass doors out onto the walk and down the street and into the nearest alleyway. Molly's whimper of pain at the rough treatment of her hand paled in comparison to the fight she knew was coming.

That sucked even more.

"Explain. Everything. Now." Her older sister whirled on her after pulling her a sufficient way down the empty passage.

She rubbed ruefully at her hand, mind fizzing out on useless excuses while producing nothing substantial to quell the raging she-beast before her. "Dunn is an idiot." She began and watched the all-consuming frenzy in her sister's eyes ignite into cold fury at her attempted divergence.

"Is Sherlock a drug user?"

"Kate-"

"Is he?!" She demanded viciously.

Oh, boy. "He has a history…" She started, wincing as she spoke.

"A recent history?"

Molly just looked at her, too afraid to admit to this because she knew the reaction that she would get. Yes…he had a recent history… "He's been clean for almost a year now." She offered instead, messaging her throbbing hand and the itchy flesh just beneath the hard edge of her cast.

This news did not soothe the ire in big sis, as she had hoped in vain that it would. "You…you- you stupid- are you out of your damn mind? He's a user! You can't save everyone Molly, and I'll be damned if I let this man do to you what Mark-"

"Sherlock isn't like that!"

"I don't give a rat's ASS what Sherlock isn't like, Molly! That want for the high NEVER goes away!" She snarled ferociously back at her. Shocking how quickly the tables turned from biggest supporter, to biggest threat in less than twenty minutes. It just made matters worse that she was well within her rights to vent her concerns and demand compliance.

Very much like a hostage situation.

Or a Mexican standoff…

Molly clenched her teeth. "Sherlock is stronger than Mark. He'd never-"

"Stop defending him!" She snapped, teeth clicking hard as she pushed herself into Molly's space. "You said the same exact thing about Mark!"

"It's true this time! Sherlock gave them up! He's clean! I see him all the time and he. Is. Clean!"

"A zebra can't change its stripes, Molly."

"You don't know even know him!" Molly snapped back. "He's my best friend! He has been at my side for years and never once have you heard any denouncement about him until tonight! And from the lips of a slime ball lawyer! Why are you so hung up on his words and yet mine mean nothing to you?"

"A conman? A thief? A liar and a drug addict! What am I supposed to think? You told me that he was brilliant." Her sister's strangled yell bespoke old wounds and bad memories. "Who the fricking hell does that sound like!? Hmm!? Who? Because last I checked, Mark used to launder money and steal to support his habits, and from you no less!"

"Sherlock isn't Mark." Molly stated softly, not allowing that cruel comment to burrow beneath her skin and nest. "He would never do that."

The silence pressed into her ears and down on her shoulders as she squared off with the only person who knew the intimate horror of watching someone die of habitual use of narcotics. Her sister, her biggest champion and number one defender was almost genetically programmed to fight for her, but this time, the enemy was a misconception that Molly herself stood before in defense of the truth. They were on opposing sides for the first time in some ten years.

She felt sickened by this, because the last time had been over their brother, who Kate had been forced to give up on.

And Molly too stupid to walk away from.

"You have got to trust that I know what I'm doing, Kate." She told her.

She watched the slow fall of proud shoulders and the shuttered expression overtake her older sister's normally jovial face. "No."

"Kate, please-"

"No." She shook her head. "I can't. If our brother could screw you over…"

"I was eighteen. It doesn't matter anymore."

Her sister hissed. "It will always matter. He took advantage of you! How do you know Sherlock won't do the same thing? If not for drugs, then what else? You're too nice, Molly, and we both know what sort of personality's addicts are. Is he using you for something else? Something only you can provide? Something he wants or needs?"

God, did that comment ever hurt.

Talk about unearthing major dormant fears in one go…

"You don't know do you?" Her sister straightened, face contorting in pain and consternation as she eyeballed her.

Molly groaned. "What do I have to tell you to get you to believe me? Sherlock is cranky! He's a mad genius with a soft spot for the macabre! He craves puzzles, and the more challenging the better. He routinely helps the cops solve cases; he's tight with Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade of New Scotland Yard and frequently works alongside most of the other DI's in the city. He goofs about in my lab and morgue testing theories and helping me accurately sleuth out the details of my work. He's mean, and tough, and cares beyond what everyone seems to think him capable of. He stayed with me every late night I had to work after I returned to work from being savaged in my own 'office'. He pushes me to do better, he tests me. He is a brat, a toddler, and my best friend!" Her rant had steadily built until she was all but yelling down the alleyway at her silent sister, funneling all the irritation at continuously being second guessed into her heated dialogue. "I'm not dropping him. He isn't perfect and he has screwed up more than I'm aware of, but I will not be dropping him! I wouldn't when he first showed up. I wouldn't when my coworkers threatened me. I wouldn't when Joe demanded me, and I won't because you are telling me."

"Molly-" Her sister tried.

"Kate." She interrupted. "I am not a baby; I'm twenty-eight years old. I will make mistakes and I will deal with the fallout from them. If you are going to allow the vilifying thoughts of a lawyer, who defended Boris Little and condemned me in a court of law, to alter your view points on someone close to me, despite my objections and protests, then we have a problem." Molly was shaking as she drew the line before her very sister, feeling like a traitor for siding with Sherlock- who, as always, wasn't even here.

This was not how it was supposed to be, this was not how this evening was supposed to pan out.

"I will not pick people over each other. You are my sister, and I love you. But I will not toss another life away because you think I'm too silly to see that real life has a dark side."

"Molly, that's not why I'm upset." Her sister huffed at her, visibly trying to swallow her temper. If they hadn't been in the middle of their most explosive row this year, Molly would have been amused at the political linguist struggling to curtail her emotions. There really was credence to the whole idea that no matter how much training, poise, and professionalism, a sibling will always be able to slither under another sibling's skin and irritate the ever loving crap out of them. "I'm terrified that you have taken the wrong man into your heart and that you'll be broken by him."

…oh…

…what?

Molly could only stare, brain having startled and taken flight, the flaky useless organ, leaving her to man the ship.

Her sister snorted after the silence stretched on into the constipated stage. "I talked to mum, and I can read between the lines, you know."

Mum knew? "Mum...?"

Shit.

Her sister gave her such a tired look. "Mum is good for a blow by blow play. You talk to her enough about your days, and those days usually include Sherlock. I would have to be blind and dumb not to see your crush blooming months ago."

"I was dating Joe months ago." Molly's clarification came out with a snap and crackle in her voice. "I don't like Sherlock."

"Lie to someone else, Molly. You can't fool me."

She was not lying.

She swore she wasn't.

She wasn't.

How come everyone could see this? Everyone just looked at her and took note of him- usually they just noticed him because he was mad as a hatter- did a little mental math and arrived at the same conclusion. Everyone did!

Tara and by association Wade. Nic, Mike, and Tim. Bernard would rather she join a covenant- he told her this yesterday when Tara had made a few too many suggestive comments about warming hands on the chesticular fires of a certain consulting detective.

Molly, despite how embarrassing the whole thing was, broke down into uncontrollable laughter over the idea of 'chesticular fires' because it made instant sense.

She wasn't laughing now, however. Her sister was practically accusing her of fraternizing with the enemy- big sis's words- and she was just going to have to assume her mother was on board too because it was her mum and she knew everything.

Hell! Even Joe had foamed about this- he was wrong at the time, but she was chucking his opinion into the whole lot now because…

Because…she had a huge problem.

Oh, dear God no…

Please, please, please no…

Suddenly the alleyway was very cold, and Molly remembered it was December. It was supposed to be cold, but this chill was different as it froze the tissue of her lungs and seized the muscles around her heart, making it painful to expand her chest to breath. "I'm not lying." She labored to push out, clinging to this excuse like it was the last shred of hope she would ever manage to conjure again, in her life.

Period.

Maybe if she said it enough…

Her sister growled as she flung her hands up over her head. "Yes! You are! We've spent the better part of one whole evening discussing this man! His family at dinner is one thing, but afterwards- right now?! You are prepared to go to war for this guy, ready to fight your own sister to defend him! Molly, look at yourself!"

No! That wasn't it. She was just doing what she always did! She always protected him! Always! Silly infatuations or like liking him had nothing to do with it. "It's not what you think. He's my best friend. He's different and that spurs people into saying the cruelest of things about him!" She began, trying to build the steam to make her sister sodding SEE. "We are just friends!"

The look she received was disheartening. "If that were true, I wouldn't be standing here infuriated that you're crushing on a…on a…wacko! A drug dinged lunatic!"

Molly's hackles started to rise. "Please, don't."

"There!" Kate barked, jabbing a finger at her. "Right there! I say one thing against him and you're up in arms! Open your eyes! If I'm able to notice this, Molly, you have no excuse to lie, so knock it off!"

And imagine that, she did see, she could see.

Molly didn't thank her for it.

Her sister was brilliant with languages, silver tongued, and intuitive. She used her talents to snag a cushy job, and made herself invaluable by translating those skills throughout her career, not only in oral languages, but in body language. Katherine Hooper could read people as if they were open books, and Molly had been told repeatedly that she was as open and exposed as a dull kids picture book.

Sherlock was a jerk.

And the horrifying reality of it was that he was a jerk that she apparently...

No…

"No…" Molly said, shaking her head. "I can't like him, Kate." As if that would make it true.

"Well, that would be smart of you. A drug addict is not a stable companion to choose for one's self." Her sister grumbled; face stonily taking in the existential crisis before her in a black bargain cocktail dress. "But seeing as I had to convince you of this, I'm starting to question how sharp you really are."

Molly didn't hear her. Her mind was already a swirling mass of that blooming panic she had been feeling for weeks, the realization that everybody had been, in essence, effing right, and perhaps the sickening acceptance that she was going to get creamed and it was going to hurt.

She…liked him.

She liked Sherlock Bloody Holmes.

Shit.

The ride home, Molly couldn't remember it. They had scrapped going to the play- unofficially, halfway through dinner with the Holmeses and company- as neither sister really wanted to deal with the other.

Ah, sibling unpredictability at its absolute finest.

They had parted ways with a grunt and uttered threat from big sis about 'we aren't finished with this' as Molly had stepped from the car. As far as Molly was concerned, any chance at redemption had absconded right to Hell with all her dignity, sanity, and intelligence with the onset of her little back alley revelation. One does cherish the moments of clarity while standing next to a bulging kip full of rotting Ritz patron table scraps the likes of which hobos approached suspiciously.

She was a moron.

A right, stupid, foolish, silly heart with no brains between the ears, moron. A proper idiot.

The abuse didn't sooth her soul, didn't take the edge off her panic. She could remember trying everything to get her mind to just. move. on. To not dwell over the grim acceptance that she just signed her heart up for disappointment.

That she had broken her own vow to never look at Sherlock Bloody Holmes as anything but a precious friend.

It certainly didn't help that he was so emotionally polarizing that her feelings were going to get a work out from being slapped to utter shit in his 'care'. Years of experience made it clear why she had slogged so hard after Joe with Sherlock whirling about like a giant bat in that coat of his, and it was because her defenses were starting to falter in the face of his brutal handling of her.

He wasn't kind- he was never nice, but it had never mattered before because she could just sigh, snort, or tell him to sod off with a smile and be done with it.

BUT NOOO! Now, her feelings were suddenly tender and fragile and his sneering hurt just a bit too much.

And this was before her private acknowledgement that she liked him.

She was so stupid.

She picked the Humpty Dumpty of emotive klutzes to pine for, and the fear, the worry of what she was going to do had kept her up late into the night she couldn't recall how many times.

She had been anxious over him deducing it from just her face the second she stepped into the lab- why, she had no idea. Sherlock was a bit of a blind dunce when it came to feelings if he wasn't anticipating them for a proper reaction. Had she been thinking with all boilers fired, she could have slept secure in the knowledge that he would probably never know unless she spilled the beans like many blonde twits in her Lifetime programs.

Her avoidance would only draw his attention because he loathed it when she did that, but how could she face him with this baggage dangling over her head?

It was so uncomfortable and awkward and wrong.

It was Sherlock, for Christ's sake. Her buddy, her pal. The guy that threw temper tantrums because she watched goofy shows and ate candy. The man that sulked when denied his way and fairly pranced with the discovery of new data. The person that blew her mind with his incredible intelligence that seemed limitless and ever growing. He helped roll the bodies when she couldn't manage. He non-apologized by being accommodating before stealing something in the most convoluted charade she had ever witnessed for something so compassionate and simple. She had seen him twist himself into incensed knots over the smallest of transgressions, and fairly wallow in laziness in the next moment.

They had been through so much. She had stayed by his side when the drugs overcame him. She had pulled him back up when his great mind did terrible things to him. She had cuddled close when the world hit too hard and had smiled in the face of adversity for a man too radically groundbreaking to be considered 'normal'. She sought him out for advice and camaraderie on matters of business, work, and life. She valued his opinions- rude as they were most of the time the prat- and listened when his bratty antics made a lick of sense.

She cared about him, cared for him, because how he had not died of starvation or dehydration this far into the game would remain one of life's great mysteries. She seriously doubted it was his sheer force of will- he could be stubborn to the point of outliving God if need be, just to have the last word, but try and hug him and he crumbled into a stroppy mess worthy of only the biggest of babies.

How she adored him.

He made her laugh, he made her think, and he accepted her as she was- quirked humor and odd conversations barely making him blink, instead, he chose to pick on her about some tidbit nobody would have cared to notice about something else entirely.

He was her confidant, her security blanket, and her friend.

So why the bloody hell would she want to gamble with that friendship? Why would she allow herself to wander, dazed and confused, down that path of no return?

She could see him getting a sex change operation easier than she could see him accepting her unwanted affections- for the record, it would be strictly for data purposes, as Sherlock had the libido of R2-D2.

Her fear was justifiable and completely understandable.

She would lose him if he found out. He would pull away, unsure and uncomfortable if she turned a doe eyed look of want on him.

Sherlock wouldn't tolerate this very well.

And that scared her even more.

So much so, that she had returned to work from her dinner date in the ninth circle of Hell, strained and quiet.

Sherlock hadn't reacted well, but for obvious reasons.

Molly rubbed ruefully at her eye as she checked the transfer slip with her body packet. Just her luck, Oxford shipped her back the wrong body. The family was going to be pissed, since they were supposedly coming to claim him today.

Maybe if Bernard returned early from his lectures, she could have him handle the fallout- people were more likely to accept his excuses than hers she had found out, as he was old and seasoned and didn't look like a brain dead teeny bopper with an ugly jumper.

She was mean to herself. It was uncalled for.

Groaning, Molly reached out and plucked the phone up from its cradle and tapped in the number scribbled near illegibly at the bottom of the slip. Family contact information 'must be meticulously recorded', her rear.

She was staring off into space, listening to the ringing, when the double gray doors bumped open and Sherlock came trudging in, a dark look angling his features into quite the brooding picture. Steel blues flickered, locked onto her and hardened and Molly promptly couldn't hear the answering machine click on and start to ramble.

Oh, crud…

She slowly dropped the receiver back into its cradle, very aware of how she would squeak if she spoke.

Sherlock was angry.

Everything from the way he carried himself, the angle of his shoulders, the set of his jaw, to the glitter in his eyes personalized his fury, something she dreaded weathering. Especially today.

She was compromised for the day, week, month, year… or three it didn't matter because she was forever compromised with him. Nothing was ever easy with her consulting ulcer. "Hey Sherlock…" She greeted softly, sinking her gaze to her hands, pretending to go back to work where in actuality, she retraced the already written letters with her pen as she fought not to fidget nervously.

He didn't grunt at her- he didn't say anything- as he pulled his arms from that coat of his in such a controlled move that she could almost feel the coiling energy around him as he dumped it on the stool closest to his microscope. She was preparing to accept that it was going to be one of THOSE days where he would simmer and glare at the world from behind his favorite post and that she could start to ease off the hesitancy around him. This wasn't anything new with him, and she had taken to ignoring his strops in the past with passing efficiency and complete disregard for his drama.

She could fake it today, probably. He'd be too focused on what has set him afoul to care what had her shrinking around him on eggshells-

"You offended my mother." His deep baritone surprised her- he usually never opened his mouth unless to nag or be a huge prick when he was like this and today seemed to be leaning toward the latter- but it was what he said that had her crashing through her surprise into instant remorse. "She was-"

"I am so sorry, Sherlock. I-I didn't know what to say, and she kept asking about you but that huge dickmouth Dunn would suddenly become the most attentive listener and- and I'm just really sorry." She burst out, eyes glued securely to the papers right under her nose. If she timed her breathing just right, she could keep the slow blurring of the words to a minimum, buying her time until she could bolt for the ladies with excuses he wouldn't believe anyway.

Oh, she was such a mess of a girl, and completely off her rocker.

"Molly," Sherlock called, sounding a whole hell of a lot closer, but she was too chicken to look up. "Do shut up."

Her jaw clicked audibly, and she closed her eyes in resignation.

She hated this. She hated this meek, wrecked thing she has become all in the span of a few weeks. She needed to get a therapist; she needed to figure out where she had been damaged so badly that it was starting to affect her ability to withstand trying situations and Sherlock at his most surly. She straightened when she realized her shoulders were curled in, and heard Sherlock sigh.

A crinkling followed by a thud on her desk and Molly's eyes snapped right open- knowing Sherlock like she did, finding a sack of cockroaches spilling out across her files was on this side of completely possible- and immediately zeroed in on an orange bag with a very familiar logo.

Her breath caught in her throat for a second as she took in what she was really seeing before she snapped her head up to look at him.

His face was still clouded with his temper shifting about just under the surface- like an overdue volcano really- but the area around his eyes, from the pucker between his eyebrows to the slight scrunching just beneath those steel blues, gave him a more…worried wasn't the right word…

Then his mouth pulled down, just a bit, around the edges and for that fleeting moment, Sherlock Holmes looked upset and her heart ached before he pulled himself back behind his neutral mask of restless indifference.

"Do not misunderstand me, even though I know I'm asking for miracles here, these will always be appalling being that they are contrived from utter garbage." He said, voice low and even as he stuck his hands into his pockets. "But you, unfortunately, lack any sort of cultured taste and like them."

Alright…

She let her gaze sink to the huge bag of Kitkats, heart starting to slowly pound louder and louder between her ribs.

"Th-thank…you?" She was tremendously baffled by this odd boon that outstripped his douche bagging on her partialities, as Sherlock had never once-

"Shut up." He snapped glaring right at her, pointedly enunciating each word and Molly couldn't help the familiar scowl that pulled at her lips.

What a big- "I was thanking you, you butthead."

"I'm not finished, Molly, and you won't stop thinking." He rammed her complaint right into the ground as he flared to be heard and she sat back in her chair to make room for him and his mini outbursts. "The sweets are disgusting, and I am averse to the fact that I actually purchased them myself, but seeing as what you were forced to endure last night, they seemed like the most straightforward method to conveying…sympathies."

She felt her mouth move for a second, at a loss. Sympathies? "Sympathies? I had an unexpected meal with your family and friends." She felt she deserved a Nobel prize for her foray into the affluent spheres of society because they didn't turn her into gravlax when she skipped the caviar. Granted, she offended his mother and that had to be some serious marks against her.

Was Sherlock mad because of that? He opened with telling her that she had offended his mum.

Oh, that made her feel bad…

"No, no! Not my 'friends'." He immediately corrected, his mouth twisting into a sneer over the word he detested so much, but in this instance, she couldn't summon the feelings to be offended. She would not want anyone associating her and the people from last night in such casually familiar terms either. Especially Dunn…

That horrible little puke of a man …

This was something she had to address with her consulting detective however, among other things…

"You went to school with Colin Dunn." She watched him still before her and Molly felt like if Sherlock had it his way- his ideal status- she would have never found out otherwise. This motionlessness in him did not last for very long- it never did- because he exploded into movement by pacing, pacing, pacing. Molly's head followed him as he plodded the width of the lab before her desk, back and forth, twirling on a dime just before running out of room, all the while not saying anything. This was a new Sherlockism that she had yet to encounter, leaving her treading in unfamiliar waters with him, and not for the first time, uncertain whether to speak- if she weren't crazy, and this was a month or two prior, she'd just poke at him until he imploded and let rip what was eating him. Now, she just waited on him, observing how his normally mobile face was as smooth as glass, and how she could physically see and feel the roiling agitation in his shoulders, his back, and the way his hands pulsed into slow fists from time to time before he caught them in the small of his back in a controlled effort. She would have just let him go, let him work his energy off, allowing him to arrive at whatever conclusion his gigantic brain was considering if not for the brief flash of emotion before he turned back toward her after another pass. The bulging muscles of his jaw and the eerie gleam in his eye unnerved her, and she couldn't help but call to him if only to break whatever spell he was under. "Sherlock?"

"Precisely why I brought you those things. Haven't you been listening?" He barked at her so suddenly, she stuttered for a second.

Oh dear, what was this? "I- I guess not."

He was muttering, never breaking his repetitive trekking and Molly caught words here and there. 'Mycroft' and 'moron' and 'damage' were his favorites.

This had to stop. He was starting to freak her out a bit. He stalked past her again and Molly shifted in her seat for a few moments, second guessing herself the entire time.

She was so sick of this fear of hers.

It was just Sherlock. Her prickly, grumpy Sherlock.

He bought her Kitkats.

"Sherlock-"

"What did he say to you?" He cut across her, stopping just past the edge of her desk, not facing her. So she stared at his back and worried.

"Dunn? Just…a bunch of rubbish." She hedged, unwilling to shed light on the negative comments that stupid lawyer had spewed about her best friend. "It's was mostly bloated silences after your mother would ask a question about you. Call your mother, Sherlock. She seemed desperate for news on you." Molly slipped in.

"Mycroft's job." He growled while turning and pinning her down with cold steel blues. "Rubbish isn't a sufficient answer." He wasn't letting her off.

He was so unfair…

"Rubbish is what it was." She quipped back, hearing a faint echo of 'crook, conman, liar, drug addict, monster' in the back of her mind and hating it. "He said nothing worth repeating."

"Stop lying!" He bit out savagely. "You're a pathetic liar so don't even attempt it with me."

"I'm not lying! He said stupid stuff, made light of my near dying and then babbled on about your talents in a less than flattering light. He was digging at me and it wasn't working-"

Sherlock just seemed to keep getting angrier. "Molly-"

"What does it matter what he said, Sherlock?" She talked over him, drowning out his wind bagging. "He's a right bastard and I am happy to report I flipped him off for fifteen minutes straight during a particularly dry lecture from some banker guy on investment portfolios."

Sherlock was coiled so tightly he was ready to pop from the strain. She could see that, but she was at a loss for what to do about it. Sherlock wasn't exactly an open book, but she could normally judge a lot by the cover he was wearing- the real one…not the fake storyteller he slapped on to get what he wanted out of any given transaction. He was upset, beyond stressed and he had actually bought her candy he habitually laced with poisons to feed to Mike Stamford's lab animals. Molly slowly inhaled, grappling with her own haywire feelings and trying to calm herself down to properly deal with him. If she didn't cool her jets, it would just feed him more, and they would end having a horrible fight that could easily be avoided if one of them just managed to be the adult they were supposed to be.

Sherlock still thought bugs, rocks, and boogers were cool, so the responsibility of maturity landed squarely on her shoulders.

Oh, boy. "Sherlock, just tell me what's wrong." She opened, keeping her tone as soothing as possible lest she rile him even more. "You're upset-"

"I'm not upset." He spat, whipping back around to continue his pacing. "Why would I be upset?"

Well, genius, you look to be three seconds from a total melt down. "Because I had dinner with your mother and offended her." She opted instead.

He sighed so hard, he was lucky he didn't expel his own soul. "That was a guaranteed outcome and Mycroft should have perceived that coming from the very beginning seeing as you have this ridiculous compunction to defend me against Dunn's rather truthful recitation of my 'talent's as you so aptly put it."

He was talking so fast, it took her some time to catch up. "Oh, yes that's right. I do so enjoy it when the lawyer to my attacker shits all over my friend right in front of my overprotective sister and if you gag like that again when I say 'friend', I'm going to choke you." She hissed at him, ticked that he would do his little cringe thing at her.

God, they were so childish, he and she.

And she liked him, the stupid weirdo.

And this conversation slash argument really was going no-where. She bit her lip as she thought about what it was he was asking for and decided to bring this to a head.

Now.

Looking down at her paperwork, and the bag of Kitkats, Molly went straight for the kill. "Sherlock, tell you what. I will be happy to inform you of my little chat with Dunn, if you do me a favor and tell me what it was exactly that you did during the trial that had you avoiding the cops and the media." She had specifically chosen not to look at him, but that didn't stop her skin from pricking into goose flesh under the intensity of his steel blues.

His shoes creaked as he moved, but she kept her eyes on the bag of candy, waiting on him. The ball was in his court and she would not be helping him along in this case.

A soft sigh reached her ears. "Did he say?"

His voice, his deep, wonderful baritone had the power to warp and befuddle and entrance. The richness of it could sooth and caress, fuel dreams and enthrall listeners. He had a voice that was born to be heard, to be listened too, to be obeyed. It could thunder and reverberate so far down in her bones that her very tissue hummed and she scrambled to keep from melting into a pool of hormones all because he sounded like confidence and self-assurance.

Tara once slipped and described his golden voice as liquid sex.

Molly had only agreed.

So having the velvet timbre that made him unforgettable sound so…lost…so unsure.

It was wrong.

It made her feel cold.

The raw, anxious glint his eyes made it even worse.

So much so that she was on her feet and latched onto his arm before she could even think about it.

"No." She rushed, sinking her hand into the material of his suit jacket. "No, Sherlock. He just…he said something about a hit and run and threatened you a whole bunch because you're a brat that likes to push the MET's buttons but that is it. He just basically said a bunch of cliché bad guy things meant to make you look bad."

Sherlock just looked queasy.

"Honestly, he's a little late to the party." She tried, flashing a smile when those pretty steel blue eyes of his refocused on her. "You've had a questionable rep since Lestrade brought you to the lab and you asked me for bits. Plus…we have a deal about all this. Remember?" She hadn't forgotten it.

Even if Hell was to freeze over before he'd ever spill the beans and enlighten her on this subject- she wasn't about to trust that toe rag Dunn to wipe his own rear, let alone tell her the truth in regards to Sherlock, who he obviously did not like.

Loser. His loss.

He snorted, but didn't say anything, choosing to simply let his gaze turn retrospective as his face slackened in thought. His arm was still held captive in her hands and Molly wondered at how he could flap and whine over her breathing near him, yet not care one bit that she was fondling his forearm. Maybe it was too much extra energy to fire up the complaints- not that he ever seemed to be lacking in this area before. Whatever the reason, Sherlock was pulling inward on himself, his temper all but used up as he relaxed within her hold. Emboldened, she started to slowly slide her grip down his arm- ruthlessly ignoring the flutter in her chest from touching him...damn it- and snaked her hand around his fingers before squeezing them. "Your hands are cold." She told him, feeling the roughness of dry skin around his knuckles and joints.

"Your hands are too warm." He responded absently, making her snuff a laugh.

"I'm sorry I upset your mum." She tried again, relaxing in relief when he rolled his eyes and huffed.

"You would have to be a dullard to keep her happy." He told her before quirking the corner of his lip, apparently not remotely bothered by her less than sterling introduction to Mummy Holmes. "Mycroft does a splendid job of it." Molly was almost positive that this was a compliment to her.

Almost.

She sighed, reluctantly letting him go and spinning back to her desk, trying to hide the stupid blush that was starting to burn her neck and cheeks.

Oh, she could see the problems already with him being so insanely observant.

Distraction time.

"Want a Kitkat?" She asked brightly snatching at the bag- that HE BOUGHT!- and making a ton of racket.

"No."

"You bought them. You must have wanted one." She kept on him, ripping the wrapper open nosily and dipping a hand down into the bag- that HE BOUGHT HER!

"No!" He ducked away from her as held one up in his face- from the bag that HE BOUGHT FOR HER!- twisting to face her a safe distance away by his microscope. She could see him building up a rant on the subject of her candy choice and Molly let the happy grin tug at her face as he let loose the nagging floodgates, conveniently ignoring how he BOUGHT HER KITKATS!

It was a desperately needed reminder for her, that first conversation the night after her earth shaking realization that she liked him.

She liked him and that was terrifying.

She liked Sherlock Bloody Holmes.

So much could go wrong. She could potentially lose everything if she told him.

And with doomsday scenarios running rampant in her mind, scaring her, intimidating her, making her question if she could be a bigger idiot.

She had needed that reminder that Sherlock was still her friend; that he hadn't changed in the course of a few days absence- she had, but he was still wonderfully constipated and rude.

Sherlock had still been normal, and for the time being, that was good enough for her.

He was still her bratty consulting detecting.

He was still her best friend.

Our darling detective...he bought Molls Kitkats. So cute. What do ya'll think?

pruplup4 and Ybs- THANK YOU!