Spoilers: Up to end of S2.

A/N: Written for Sherlock_remix 2013 challenge, remixing the excellent fic "Dream On" by dioscureantwins (you can find it at archiveofourown, /works/385489). Betaread by exbex.

When is a goodbye not a goodbye? When Molly Hooper says so. This admission is made only in her head, and, ultimately, that's rather fortunate. She can't let who she imagines herself to be bleed over into the very sombre situation facing her and so, as usual, she is the milder yet surprisingly still subtly daring Molly Hooper who has within the past few days risked an awful lot, without question.

Sherlock Holmes, world's first and only consulting detective, is dead.

Or, from the enlightened perspective of a scant few he is globetrotting and plotting his comeback, all while existing in a self-imposed exile, which is as good as dead for both him and regrettably John too. It's a mercy Molly even gets to see him one last time and she's fortunate to have it be without the facade he put on for others. But neither that nor the amaretto sloshing in her stomach make it easier. Because it could well be the very last time she sets eyes on him.

But her Sherlock – the Sherlock she sees whenever she closes her eyes at night – always comes back to her.

There are no farewells; he's forever in her bed, tied to her explicably and at her whim, unlike the other. Her Sherlock is alive, can only move on if she lets him, no matter what happens to the real mirror of her man. This is what keeps her going, what makes it easier to pretend at a truth because when she is forced to recognise the wrongness of uttering anything like 'He's dead, John. We have to move on.' she has the small comfort that she doesn't have to, ever. No matter what, she has herself, if not her sanity sometimes, and therein she has him.

His tongue curls in her entrance, tip flicking at her clit and the broad edges of his flesh teasing at her inner labia.

But it isn't he who makes her writhe and squirm with need beneath her sheets. This is merely her fantasy and it's as good as her tongue in the night, like her fingers actually splaying her folds and stroking feather light in a V-shape, teasing over and over until she aches for her own touch.

She opens her mouth, to match her open heart, and invites him in. Her taste is delicious to find on him and delivered direct to her palette as he drags his tongue over hers exactly as he had with her cunt, a repeated promise for the third act. It never gets old.

Molly Hooper is a pragmatic woman. She's in love with someone she can never have, so she fictionalises Sherlock for her pleasure, a choice she feels not one bit guilty over; she makes him more than he will ever be, forgives him anything if she can just have this.

He's fascinated by undressing her; working his fingertips lightly along her limbs, coaxing shirts off her shoulders with grace and sliding her garments effortlessly down her legs to free her body. He's fascinated by the colour of her skin against his, her hair tickling at him when it hangs around her face and her scent in every place upon her, every variation recorded meticulously. He's fascinated by her, full stop, and she has absolutely no complaints.

Permission isn't needed, though she suspects Sherlock would be amused if he knew, intrigued maybe too, but not interested – not like that and certainly not in living up to it. She doesn't think he ever could anyway, which makes her Sherlock so much more brilliant than the imperfect person she has grown to know disturbingly little about over the years.

She, however, knows everything she wants from him.

Slow and shallow to start, stroke upon stroke of his cock against her nerves to push her over into another level of desire that is far past the first want and second craving, into the need for him. Then he'll go hard and deep, bringing her closer to home and to heaven with every grind of his pubic bone to her mound.

He knows too in her dream, the diversity of action that is her favourite and he performs exquisitely. His ministrations are not even masked as desires whispered in his ear; instead they are because he can read her like a book, as eager for knowledge of her body as he is for any other puzzle. The disparity between her Sherlock and the real Sherlock – who is ignorant, wilfully or not – should be disheartening, yet it's not. Not when he is such a mystery in parts still, her imagination filling in the gaps, twisting the negative space into a tiny section of the picture she chooses to draw.

Her hands glide over the smooth unmarred plane of his pale chest as he rises up above her. His stamina never falters and those muscles used to hold him expertly in any position she wants never twitch with a hint of difficulty. He can do anything he wants and here he chooses to do so with her.

And besides, her Sherlock is enthralled by her, ironically mirroring how she feels about the real thing. In the times she indulges the addiction, she has all the control, even under him, and the giddy grin springing to her lips afterwards is about more than simple endorphins.

Looking to her, his eyes feasting on the combined sight of her slim body beneath him and her broad infectious smile, he grins back at her, truly. His face takes on an expression containing every delight she could wish for, pure joy for both of them. He is never wrong, but neither is she.

The way it plays out in her mind is purposefully the exact opposite of who she is around him physically – she does this to him and it matches, balances, the effect she cannot give up or push away that sends her blushing and stammering around Sherlock, made a fool in front of a genius if she gets too close. Too close is in the same room, the same city, the same universe, though only the first incidence transforms her into someone she isn't and doesn't want to be. Either way, he might be gone, dead for real, but he's never left her in either version. Or she hasn't let his memory, and so his effect, diminish with his distance. His hold has a long reach across continents and into the future, taking her over by simply being who he is.

Of course, her Sherlock produces a more pleasant set of involuntary behaviours that she won't fight. He makes her sigh and moan and arch to his touch, and he begs for more with his enterprises, enticing her to comply again, and again, a relentless rhythm they share. With him it is no chore, not like endless hours in the lab waiting for a single word or any meaningful acceptance of what she does. Those things don't come in the days she suffers with Sherlock Holmes, but in the night, with the Sherlock of her dreams, it's a different story altogether.