Did you miss me? Here is the first chapter of your Sherlolly sequel to A-Z. A big thank you to those of you who responded so kindly to the first installment of 'Offcuts', I've got quite a few chapters that didn't quite fit here, so that's where they'll be going. Here's to hoping you enjoy this new venture!

Z is for Zigazig-ah, zero

Molly was enjoying the single life. Tom had left, all his bags packed over a week ago now, and the freedom she felt told her she'd made the right decision. They'd agreed to stay in contact as friends, but Molly wasn't sure this would go much beyond the odd trip to the pub with other friends, and maybe a Christmas card, which was plenty in her eyes. Her good mood, however, was somewhat tempered by Sherlock's sudden disappearance from the face of the Earth. Lestrade hadn't seen him for three weeks, John and Mary had been back from their honeymoon over a week now, and neither had seen or heard a peep from the detective. It was disconcerting to say the least, as he rarely kept her out of the loop unless he was going to do something monumentally stupid, and even then, Mycroft usually kept her updated. This time, however, both brothers were shutting her out, which was getting increasingly more worrying as time went on.

The most suspicious thing of all, was that somehow all contact between herself and the Holmes parents had been stopped, without an explicit reason as to why. When she'd asked Mycroft why she couldn't get hold of his mother to book in their monthly lunch date, she had received a strange visit from the elder brother at Bart's, where he had put on his best politician's voice, and informed her that matters were above her pay grade (meaning her security clearance, which had never been an issue previously), and he was not at liberty to let a civilian get themselves involved in something they couldn't possibly understand.

Whatever secrets, shenanigans, and schemes the Holmes brothers were involved in, they could keep. She would be ready for whenever they inevitably needed her, and willing to inflict serious damage to Mycroft's bank account in recompense. It was how they worked, she'd seen it done to countless others time and time again, and she wasn't going to let something she couldn't control stop her from having fun.

It was approaching the summer solstice, and to celebrate the longest day of the year, Molly was going to have a few friends over, eat a lot of food, and maybe have a glass of wine or two -it was as good an excuse as any. In the end, it was just Molly, Meena, and Mary dancing away to the spice girls in her living room. A loud, mildly slurred chorus of Wannabe echoed around her flat, the lyrics periodically broken by cackling.

"I really really really wanna zigazig, ah!" They sang, dancing like the 90s had never ended.

"They had it right, you know. You wanna be my lover, you got to get with my friends," Meena declared, "Tom was never my favourite. Jim was more fun."

"He was a murderous psychopath!" Molly protested, sitting down on the sofa, regretting telling her friend the sordid details of that particular failed relationship.

"Perfect for you." Meena replied, dead-panned. "You just need to follow the rules as set by the spice girls. Or someone does at least – get your act together, we could be just fine," she sang the line with a pointed look.

Molly sank further into her seat, braced for Meena's obligatory 'Sherlock Speech', she supposed it hadn't featured for all of about three days, so it was due another airing. The problem with the speech was, that every other line was contradictory, and depending on how much wine Meena had imbibed, it could last up to half an hour. There were occasions were Molly had been able to mouth it word for word to other friends that were present, to amuse herself. This evening, however, the rant never came, and the disillusioned scouser threw herself down onto the sofa next to Molly, sighing heavily.

"What even is a zigazig, ah?" Molly asked rhetorically, after a moments silence. Mary waggled her eyebrows,

"Come on, you think everything's a bleedin' euphemism," Meena drawled, her Liverpudlian lilt getting stronger as her alcohol intake increased.

"It's a rare crystal formation, only found under the extreme conditions of the Atacama Desert," Mary replied, doing an uncanny impression of one consulting detective; the three fell about laughing.

"He wouldn't have a clue," Molly giggled, "Is that some sort of vegetable?" she mimicked, her impression not quite as good as Mary's, but close enough to send them all back into a fit of giggles.

"Where has all tall, dark, and cockblocky been lately anyway? He didn't terrorise my students at all last week. I might even start to miss him if he's not careful," Meena asked, hoping that it wasn't going to be like the last time he disappeared. She didn't need another Tom to deal with.

"His nibs is sulking," Mary said with a roll of her eyes.

"You know Mrs H kept telling him the story about how when her best friend got married she never saw her again?" Molly said despairingly, she loved the older lady to pieces, but it was not a story Sherlock had needed to hear. He would almost certainly be pre-emptively hiding, (while sulking), to avoid any form of emotional response to the situation. He wasn't good with change, and this was one of the largest upheavals in his life, and given he'd died and been brought back to life within the last few years, that was saying something.

"He'll come crawling back, he always does," Meena said confidently, no matter what happened he always seemed to gravitate towards the pathologist. She'd seen the ebb and flow of the pair over the years, and the only people that seemed to be convinced they weren't in a relationship, were Sherlock and Molly themselves. Much like the sweepstake that had been run about Molly and Tom's wedding day, there was a permanent betting circle on her ward, which gave odds on when they'd get together, if they were secretly together, and other things like how many murders this month, and how much overtime Molly would work. It was fairly tame, for the most part, but that was because Meena would not let Anderson anywhere near it.

The three spent the rest of the evening making up wild theories as to where Sherlock had gone to sulk, and what he could be doing. Meena was convinced that his alien overlords had returned, and beamed him back up to the mothership, whereas Mary had a super-secret-case theory, that almost matched Molly's concerns exactly. To try and move away from Mary's slightly too realistic theory, Molly gave her most fanciful embellishments to Mary's story, wondering if Moriarty might have had a twin or secret lover who Sherlock was now facing off against. They eventually came to the conclusion that the microchip Mycroft had implanted in Sherlock's brain had malfunctioned, and he was awaiting a reboot at a secret government facility somewhere.

John arrived bang on time to pick Mary up, and was decidedly uninterested in joining in the conversation about Sherlock's whereabouts. None of the ladies were impressed by John's attitude towards his friend, and it was lucky for him that Meena's wife, Ruth, showed up shortly after him, as Meena did not appreciate John's lack of care, or his scathing tone. Meena had known Sherlock almost as long as Molly, and was acutely aware of the man's failings, but that did not mean he deserved to be side-lined, or outright ignored by the person who claimed to be his best friend. He may not be the most affable of humans, and she did want to punch him more often than hug him, but he did not warrant John's overly harsh assessment of the situation. Tolerance was not the bedrock of a good friendship. Before she could voice her opinion, however, Ruth whisked her out of the door, and Mary made a point to shuffle John out of the door, and towards the car as quickly as possible.

Molly sighed in relief as she shut the front door, and walked into her kitchen to re-fill Toby's food. The cat was missing Sherlock as much as she was, she kept finding him curled up in Sherlock's spare dressing gown that usually hung in her wardrobe. She'd made sure to keep the windows shut, and check he hadn't followed her out of the door, or her cat would be at Baker Street, and unlikely to return of his own accord. Normally, that wouldn't be a issue, and she supposed she could always ask Mrs Hudson to bring him back to her, but if he wasn't going to deign to text her back once in a while, he certainly wasn't allowed any Toby-time.