Chapter 1 - A pub.

"I will burn the heart out of you".

When he first heard those words, he'd scoffed at him: "I am sorry to disappoint, but I do not possess a heart for you to burn. Or so I've been told by countless people, dear Jim from IT". His smirk was wide.

Jim form IT, a lanky and frankly very obviously psychotic man that frequented the morgue of St. Barts was, in fact, not very much into IT or cute shortened versions of his name. James Moriarty, the consulting criminal, was fonder of entropy and macabre laughs. Hearing his name mutilated like that accompanied by what he knew to be a blatant lie made James most definitely want to laugh.

The events that followed that conversation: the infamous laugh, the declive of Sherlock Holmes' reputation, Moriarty's exemplary entropic suicide and subsequent fall off the roof of St. Barts hospital of the former character could only mean one thing: there was a promise lingering in the air. I O U, Moriarty's signature phrase, would be his last goodbye.

Sherlock often repeated those words during his death. To be more precise, he pondered on the meaning of those words during his self-imposed solitude period, when almost everyone thought him to be death. When he finally dismantled Moriarty's criminal network, he came to the realization that, in fact, he had burned his heart. In the lapse of three years he felt the caress of the flames that resulted from the aftermath of the fall; the constant yearning for familiarity and closeness that he once mistook for a defect became the fuel that fed the flames and - to his dislike- his motivation to work just the same.

When he returned to London and discovered that his friends had continued with their lives after his death - oh, how disposable he could be -, he thought once more of those words: burn the heart. He understood then that, more than burnt, his heart had been, for lack of a better word, humanized. And on his book, that was a trait he had to hide.


Molly Hooper damned the day Sherlock Holmes came back from the death. She was relieved to find out that he was well, and that those who loved him would be released from the lie that had caused them so much pain. But still, having Sherlock Holmes back waltzing around the morgue with his brilliant deductions and cold interactions and his general deliciousness just made her life the more complicated. She ended her engagement to Tom. Sweet, tender Tom who liked cats and cuddles and could not, for the life of him, challenge her mind or surprise her with a brilliant -albeit cold- deduction about her life. So yes, damn Sherlock Holmes for coming back and damn him for being such an attractive arse.

She soon realized that his attitude towards her wouldn't change. He was still demanding and tactless when he addressed her. Besides that one day where he took her on cases and thanked her with a chaste kiss on the cheek, their relationship remained as if that moment of emotional nakedness when he'd asked for her help had never happened.

"You do count. You've always counted and I've always trusted you".

She'd recall those words whenever he was being especially cruel in his deductions about her, to console herself.


Sherlock could have softened. He could sense the discomfort some of his deductions caused in others more than before. He could really have behaved more human. But he did not want to. It was Moriarty's knowledge of his humanity that ultimately sent him on a 3 year hunt-run marathon. He made exceptions, of course, like John's wedding; but generally he just went about life as if he had never discovered he actually cared for the few people that called him a friend.

The only problem? His emotional epiphany had unbalanced his Mind Palace. He was now so much more aware of his mind and body's needs, and it was becoming increasingly harder to ignore them. Like that time he'd spat out a horrible deduction about Molly Hooper at the morgue:

"A change of attire will not make you more appealing, Doctor Hooper. If the male nurse on the second floor has not yet tried to initiate something with you, it is not because he dislikes your sense of fashion, but because he is blatantly uninterested. Do try to put your energy and concentration on more important, fruitful matters, like this murder, for example".

What he really had wanted to say was, Molly, that low-cut skirt you're wearing - for the sake of someone else, no less - is straining the fabric of my trousers. It would be lovely if you could refrain from causing such distractions while I'm working on a case. Not that that would have been a nicer comment. But it would have definitely been an improvement and would have hurt the pathologist's ego a lot less.

He felt deeply bothered by the fact that such basic impulses and urges that he was once able to suppress so easily could cloud his mind now to a point where he depended on the cause - Doctor Molly Hooper - to stop it. Indeed, John's words about the strength of having friends 'friends protect you, Sherlock. We're not a weakness, we're your network' had changed his mind about what it meant to depend on people. After all, he depended on his homeless network for information. He depended on John and Mary, on Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. But this particular dependency was something else, and he felt almost deranged.


Molly was determined to move on. She was making progress, even. She'd been engaged - and sucked at it, but it was a start. She'd also stopped the stuttering around the consulting detective. She's started to go out more with friends. She'd even started looking forward to the glances she'd steal from cute guys at the bar, the subtle flirt, the possibility of going home with a stranger, possibly a future acquaintance.

If there was one thing she'd learnt after all those years of working at a morgue, collaborating with Scotland Yard's best detectives and, there was no use in denying it, breaking the rules to provide Sherlock Holmes with a few body parts or dangerous chemicals, was that all the thrill in the world that came from solving crimes or committing them could never compare to the thrill of having someone's fingers run through her body. So yes, she was more than willing to move on from her silly crush with Sherlock, and not for the sake of law and order - she'd smiled at herself for twisting his words so smartly-, but for the sake of a healthy sexual life. It was complementary even. A satisfied pathologist could most definitely be a productive pathologist.

So, of course, after Sherlock had called her out on her attempt at seducing the new male nurse on the second floor, she'd felt battered. Not because his words had insulted her appearance, or her lack of seductive skills - she was used to that from him - , but mostly because she had really hoped to finally release some of the sexual stress that had accumulated after several late nights at the morgue with the consulting detective. The realization that he was right - because he seldom made a mistake -, that she was most definitely not going home with the male nurse that night, left her feeling utterly frustrated.


John Watson was a happy man. He'd married a former assassin who could keep him very, very entertained. But mostly, he was happy to have married the woman he loved and had given him a baby daughter, and glad he did not have to worry about the dangers associated with being Sherlock Holmes' friend. He was happy he could keep solving crimes with his friend without worrying about his family's safety because, well, his wife could handle a gun better than most policemen he knew.

But at that precise moment, John Watson was more intrigued than anything else. He was happy, yes, but intrigued nonetheless. He was at Baker Street visiting his aforementioned friend discussing a series of murders that seemed to have the whole of Scotland Yard baffled, but something just didn't feel quite right.

"Are you alright Sherlock? You seem a bit distracted" he'd chimed in.

Startled from having been interrupted from his soliloquy, Sherlock made a point of using his annoyed face at him.

"Yes, very. This case is almost an 8, so I'm thriiiiilled" he'd dragged the i in the last word as if to emphasize on the feeling.

"You don't look quite into the case, though. Just now you compared the intromission of the papers in the case to Molly Hooper's skirt. Seems rather odd to me. Not your usual comment, that's all" replied the army doctor, shrugging.

"Yes, well, they're both terribly annoying things when one is trying to find the culprit of a string of murders" Sherlock snapped.

John was intrigued. And very much so. It wasn't the murders that had spiked his curiosity, but rather the way his friend was behaving. It wasn't like Sherlock to fidget with things, which he seemed to be doing a lot of in the last hour. It wasn't like him either to comment on anything that was not part of the immediate deduction he was making, and the papers and Molly Hooper were just that. Not part of the immediate anything, really.

John's lips curved up, a smug smile appearing on his lips. Ever since his return, John had noticed some interesting changes in his friend's personality. For one, he seemed to be more sincerely interested in keeping up with his friends. He'd even gone as far as to ask for Greg Lestrade's marriage status, instead of blurting out the new affair of his wife, as was his custom. He was also more easily stimulated, but not by cases, but by regular things. He'd seek out Mrs. Hudson's hugs more and more, he'd noticed. Or he'd hold his baby close and smile at her. While the rest of the world seemed to think he was the same cold detective, John was his best friend, and he could tell he was not.

"Why are you smiling like that John. Stop it. It is very unbecoming, really, you look like a content hobbit".

"Did you really just call me a hobbit? I'm not even going to bother asking you how you know what that is" John kept smiling.

"You're still smiling. Why?"

"Because I know something you don't"

"About the murders? Pray tell, John, what have your brilliant deductive skills gathered".

"Not the murders, no. About you, Sherlock. About why you're so distracted and threatening to eat a biscuit, or smash it, really, when you usually restrain yourself from any sort of food or sleep while on a case".

Sherlock tensed. He knew John was right. He was distracted. But he'd hoped that he had been hiding it well enough. The one thing about friendship, he realized, was that a good friend would always be able to tell if something was at odds. Like Molly Hooper, when she'd noticed I was sad, he added, as an afterthought. Damn friends, damn sentiment and damn all the chemical defects a body could produce!

"You just need a night off, you know. I'll ring Greg and Molllllly and we can grab a pint at the bar. It'll help release all that stress that's keeping you from properly solving this case, I'm sure".

Sherlock noticed how the army doctor had taken longer than necessary pronouncing Molly's name. He didn't need John to tell him what he had found out, because that phrase let him know he wa d. He'd had impure thoughts about his pathologist and John knew.


Sherlock was not at ease. He hated that John had dragged him to the pub and he hated the people that were at his table. He might have come to terms with the feelings he had for John and Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade even... but Anderson? Philip Anderson's IQ was still a definite outlier skewing downward the street's average. Yes, since his "death" Anderson had become more respectful and fond of the consulting detective, but that did not mean that Sherlock had to like him or his inability to form coherent theories of the murders. If there was one thing Sherlock abhorred, was people's incompetence and Anderson was the epitome of just that.

"If the killer was a lover gone mad, Anderson, don't you think he would have stopped at his wife and the lover?" Really, how someone who worked at the Yard could be so oblivious of the facts of a crime was beyond him.

"Not if there were many, Sherlock. Really, think about it! She was having several affairs, and he's vowed to kill each and every single one of them. That would definitely explain why there's only been one woman and three men murdered" Anderson concluded, satisfied with his own explanation.

"Really, Philip, this sounds just as far off as your explanation of how Sherlock faked his suicide!" Greg said, with a small laugh.

"Really mate, get your mind out of the gutter! Not everything has to be about sex, you know?" John added, winking at Sherlock as he did so.

"And more so when there is an evident link between the victims. Political affiliation may not seem that important to you, but when the victims all belong to a particular pro-migration movement..." Sherlock stopped mid-track.

"How did I pull it off, Anderson? How did I fake my suicide?" he'd changed his line of thought. John, again, smirked.

"Well, first of, how do you know they belong to a political assembly at all? We checked their credentials and nothing like that popped up. Second, you told me yourself, you jumped and fell on a giant air-mattress, there's nothing more to discuss" Anderson defended himself.

"Why you still question Sherlock's method of acquiring information I will never understand, aren't you a believer now? Also, according to you, he bounced back into Barts and snogged Molly Hooper silly" Greg informed the entire table.

Anderson gave Sherlock an apologetic look, and both John and Greg laughed heartedly. Sherlock just stood there, furrowing his brows at the people he was sharing a table.

"How very quaint, Anderson" sherlock drawled, irony dripping from every word. The whole table laughed again. John louder than the rest, that was indeed a very Sherlock comment to make.

"Well, to be fair, I always wondered about you two" Greg added. "Molly was always too eager to help you, Sherlock, we all just assumed you must have given her something".

So, this was John's plan all along then? Get him to open up about his feeling, urges, he corrected himself, about Barts own specialist registrar?

"If you're going to make a nasty comment about Molly, I would recommend you abstain from it, Sherlock" John interrupted Sherlock's thought, and nodded towards the entrance of the bar, where a tired-looking pathologist stood.

Molly was slowly making her way towards the table. By the look of her face, she wasn't particularly excited about the evening.

"Hello Molls, we're playing a game, wanna join? I'll get you a beer!" John said. Everyone looked at him in confusion. Molly smiled politely and accepted John's proposal.

"It's called the what is the weirdest think Sherlock's ever said to you? game!" Lestrade's sudden smile reassured John that they'd caught up. Molly's change of expression told him that she was more than willing to share a laugh at the expense of the detective. The only person in the table who looked less than thrilled about the idea was, of course, Sherlock. He'd luckily decided to not comment on this, for some unknown reason.

After having handed Molly her beer, John began: "My personal favorite is Of course she would not think of her dead child in her dying-bed, John, don't be obtuse" he mimicked Sherlock's baritone as best he could.

The table erupted in laughter.

"I remember that, A study in pink I think you called it on your blog, John?" it was Greg's turn, it seemed. "What about why would you go to dinner with your wife when you could come to Barts' morgue and take a look at the body, untampered? as if dead bodies excite us all just as much as him".

Again, the whole table laughed. Molly's mood was improving a lot. "Along the same lines for the sake of law and order I recommend you abstain from any attempt at a relationship" she added. They laughed again.

Sherlock caught on the common topic: sentiment. Or lack thereof. He scorned.

"Oh lighten up Sherlock, we're just having a laugh. Since tonight is about helping you relax so that you can solve all of Scotland Yard's problems fast, how about you choose a game?" John's smile was definitely not nice.

"How about we play the let Sherlock leave so that he can spend his time in a more productive manner game" he finalized.

Everyone was smiling, they were clearly enjoying making him uncomfortable.

"I have an idea!" Molly interrupted. Everyone stared expectantly at her and she smiled viciously. This ought to be good, John thought. "How about truth or dare? I know it's a bit childish, but it's a game where Sherlock has no clear advantage and could turn into something fund" she concluded.

"Oh, I loved this game back in high-school" Anderson spoke out loud for the first time in a while.

"Well clearly this is an indication of what a terrible idea it is to play this game" Sherlock added. He gulped down the last of his beer. He cringed, the damn thing tasted so bitter. Much like this night.

"Truth or dare, Sherlock" Greg spoke.

"Dull" he replied.

"That's not an option, genius" Greg pressed.

"Fine. If you lot are so reluctant about continuing my torment, I'll oblige: truth. Let's see how far that gets you".

John knew that was Sherlock's way of saying let's see if you're smart enough to get me to say something interesting. Also, his way of saying, you're not smart enough to get me to say anything worth knowing about me.

"Did you really cry over your dog?" Molly asked.

Everyone seemed interested. Why would they be interested in such a boring fact about his youth?

"Yes" he drawled.

"It's your turn to ask now, Sherlock" John helped, after a few moments of silence.

"Fine. Truth or dare, John?"

"Dare, obviously" he replied, mimicking Sherlock's tone once more. This was John's way of asking Sherlock to come up with something smart, if he could.

"I dare you to pay the table's tab" Sherlock replied uninterestedly.

"Well, that will teach me not to force Sherlock out!" John was a bit disappointed at the turn of events. Trying to get Sherlock out of his comfort zone had seemed like a great idea to... to what? He wasn't entirely sure what he had intended with this in the first place.

"Greg, truth or dare" John continued.

"I'll go with truth mate, my finances aren't that well what with the divorce and all"

"Who's the most pleasant person at this table?"

"Why Molly, of course. She's prettier than you lot together!" they all laughed - Sherlock excluded, still brooding on his stool. At least things were relaxing a bit.

"Well I guess it's your turn to answer Molly, truth or dare?"

"Dare. I'm feeling adventurous tonight" she replied.

"Right, I'd like to see you work your charm on that guy over at the bar and score a free pint. For me, of course" Greg winked.

"You've got Britain's most talented pathologist and you'll have her reduced to a flirtatious woman? What a waste" Sherlock's face was unreadable. Everyone at the table looked at him, then at Molly.

Now this was more likely, thought John.

"Thank you, Sherlock. But really, pathology is not my only field of expertise. I may not be Irene Adler, but I can surely manage to get Greg a beer".

Oh, things were definitely getting interesting. John was tempted to yell Oh snap! to Sherlock. He didn't, of course, because he was not a badly written character from an American sitcom. But tempted he was.

Everyone stared at Molly as she made her way to the bar and at approached the lonely looking fellow Greg had pointed at before. It took her no longer than 5 minutes to come back to the table, pint in one hand and a piece of paper with a telephone number in the other.

"Bravo, Molly, you've managed to get the number of a lonely retail worker who share's a flat with a university student" Sherlock snarled.

"No, I've managed to get the number of your serial killer" she spat back, throwing the piece of paper on the table.

Well, that was unexpected. Everyone at the table looked confused. Had Molly Hooper just implied that she had beaten Sherlock Holmes at solving a crime? And that the culprit of the violent crimes was sitting just a few meters away from them?

Sherlock looked grave. He glanced at the lonely man again, narrowing his eyes. He was deducing him, Lestrade thought. He was feeling the adrenaline that came with the job of detective inspector.

"His fingers have not stopped moving since we've spotted him. Fast, coordinated movements, as if directing an orchestra" Sherlock commented out loud. No one replied, though, they knew he was speaking to himself, trying to find the murders that Molly had clearly seen in this person's skin.

"Lestrade, I'm walking Molly home. I suggest you call for back-up and arrest the man".

Had that just really happened? Leave it to them to choose the same pub that the serial killer that had disrupted the tranquility of his city. But really, this must be a joke?

"How do you know it's him?" Greg was dumbfounded.

"Because he just directed Chopin's Mournful Funeral March with his fingers"

"And he's got predatory eyes"

"He's clearly got strong political views, his tweed jacket is in accordance to a conservative's attire"

"And he just asked about Sherlock"

Everyone turned to Molly.

It seemed like in their rush to analyze the suspect they had all but forgotten that it was Molly who had first accused him.

"So, that's it? You assumed that because he was interested in the semi-celebrity here that he's there murderer we're looking for?" Anderson asked, a bit more curious than he led on.

"His eyes are not predatory, not really. He's nervous, yes, but I wouldn't bet he knows who Chopin is let alone how to direct one of his pieces... He was just interested in Sherlock. And in my experience, that can only mean one thing..." Molly replied.

"What about you, Sherlock? I need something more than a hunch to arrest the man" Lestrade pleaded.

"You had us all" Greg laughed wholeheartedly.

"Well, someone needed to do something about the tension in the room" Molly offered.

"And you're all so easily manipulated" Sherlock added.

"Well I'm more impressed by the fact that you almost left with Molly, had Greg not demanded more information" Anderson's face showed that he wanted to comment more on that particular matter.

"More like you were willing to let an innocent person get arrested so that you could go back to Baker Street and brood"

"Excuse me, John? I do not brood" Sherlock spat.

"Yea, you do mate. And you were definitely doing that. You were not getting anywhere with the case. I think you made more progress on figuring out the actual length of Molly's skirt"

OH, the myriad of facial expressions at the table!


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