This is an idea that got stuck into my head after I re watched Scandal in Belgravia. I think Molly's hair looks amazing in the morgue scene, and in this one-shot Sherlock agrees. What happens when Sherlock makes it his task to get his pathologist to wear her hair down at all times? :)

This is not betaed and all mistakes are my own

Obviously, I own nothing and anything you recognise doesn't belong to me.

Hair Down.

The first time he sees her like that, he scans his memory palace to determine whether he has seen it before. He comes up empty and yet is certain that he hadn't deleted it; even the heartless sociopath in him would know to remember such beauty. Because even if he denies it to avoid being mocked by his brother, Sherlock Holmes knows genuine beauty when he sees it.

She is standing there, on the other side of the slab that has a sheet covered body on it, looking at him with those dark caramel eyes that he has never considered warm before. In the cold light of the morgue her hair seems to be the only true source of light, cascading over her shoulder in a wave of warm honey, and he has to squeeze his hands into fists inside his coat pockets, fighting the urge to reach over and feel if her hair is indeed as silky as it looks.

She starts speaking and he is reminded why he is here, thankful for his mind's ability to process information faster than ordinary people, otherwise she would have caught him staring. Mycroft has probably noticed, but thankfully says nothing.

He looks down at what is left of Irene Adler, confirms that it's her and storms out of the room, trying to push the image of her face, brightened by the thick curtain of light brown honey, beaming up at him like a beacon, into a dark corner of his mind. But even the hideous pattern on the jumper she's wearing doesn't help him forget, the sight of her having caught him completely off guard and making his brain rebel against him, refusing to delete it.

Sherlock winces when he remembers what he'd said to her earlier this evening, but a part of him is convinced she deserved that for keeping the beauty of her honey-locks from him, hiding it tied into ordinary ponytails. The same part of his brain has already decided that he would put an end to that.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Molly notices nothing at first. She has always had a talent for losing hair accessories, be it hairbands or hair pins; she is used to having to buy a new pack every other month. Living with a cat who has particular fondness for stealing her hair ties and chasing them around the flat doesn't help either. When she finds herself with only one hairband left, she vaguely remembers buying a pack that contained a dozen of them just last week and wonders at her own ability to lose them so quickly. Molly blames that on the extra hours she has been forced to spend at work, first because of a sick colleague, then to help Sherlock.

She ties her hair in a ponytail and makes a mental note to stop putting the hairbands in odd places when she takes them out of her hair, because most of these places turn out to be mysterious botomless black holes that swallow Molly Hooper's hair accessories, never to return them back to her. She also figures she'd better buy two packs, take one home and leave the other in her locker at work. Better safe than sorry, she thinks, not wanting to end up holding her hair together with a piece of thread as she has had to do once already, not wanting to bathe her locks in a corpse a few years back. That time she'd accidentally drowned her last hairband in the toilet.

One day Molly Hooper finds herself covered in blood and other bodily fluids after poking at a dead man's spleen with more force and less carefulness than necessary. She fumes and mutters to herself as she walks to the showers, blaming Sherlock bloody Holmes for deciding to assist her. His assistance, of course, was nothing other than pestering her and telling her what to do, which had resulted in an annoyed pathologist and the sudden explosion of some poor dead man's spleen.

On an afterthought, Molly also blames her PMS. But at least the memory of Sherlock jumping backwards like a man possessed to avoid the blood gets a laugh out of her. She sighs to herself as she removes her dirty lab coat, wincing at the sight of her clothes beneath it - the lab coat hadn't saved them from also being soaked. She takes her hair out of the ponytail and throws the hairband out, knowing full well that she has a new pack in her locker. Molly can't afford to throw out clothes after an accident like this, and wishes that she could. Washing the smell of death out of them is not a task for weak spirited.

She steps out of the shower, dries herself off and puts on fresh clothes that she always keeps in her locker - when working with corpses you never know when you'll need them. In her early years of autopsies she had been extra clumsy and had to keep two sets of fresh things to wear. Drying her hair as best as she can with a towel, Molly rummages through her locker and finds a previously lost pair of socks, a forgotten book and some mints, with no trace of the pack of hairbands she remembers clearly putting there a few days earlier. She wonders if any of her colleagues could have taken them , but quickly dismisses the idea because the door is locked and she is the only one who has a key. The more probable scenario is the one where Molly would have to ask Stamford to not give her any more extra shifts, because she is going crazy as it is.

Remembering that she put a hair tie on a desk in her lab yesterday, she calms down and goes to get it. On her way she meets her overly enthusiastic intern, who seems more than happy to finish the autopsy for her and Molly agrees, thanking him and the heavens for the chance to finally catch up on her paperwork in the lab.

When she steps into the room, she sees Sherlock at his favourite microscope, but says nothing, still feeling a tad cross with the man. She rushes to her desk, and finds nothing but her disappointment with her own memory. Where did she put it then?

Molly sighs, but since she doesn't have to deal with dead bodies today, she can have the luxury of keeping her hair down, it would get dry faster this way. She sits down at her desk and sets to fill out the paperwork, keeping her hair draped across her left shoulder and throwing a glance in Sherlock's direction every once in a while.

Molly never notices him glancing back at her, and if she thinks she sees the corner of Sherlock's mouth twitch as if trying to hold back a smile, she blames it on her imagination.

She squeals in delight when she finds a beautiful set of earrings, hairbands and a ring at a fair, the whole set decorated with little metallic cats. Molly buys it without a second thought and wears the hair ties to work the next day, deciding to change her look a bit and sporting two pigtails instead of a ponytail. Nobody at work seems to notice, nobody comments on her choice of accessories; her colleagues having made peace long ago that Molly Hooper is a notorious cat lady and choosing to ignore that. She can't say that she minds being left alone.

Lestrade comes in later during the day, Sherlock and John close behind him. Both Greg and John compliment her on her cheery and youthful look today, and she doesn't even allow herself to be sad because Sherlock doesn't notice. He would make fun of her, no doubt, and she doesn't want the day spoiled.

Greg leaves after seeing the body and John rushes away on a date, while Sherlock informs her he'll be upstairs and asks her for a cup of coffee. Molly brings it to him, along with her paperwork and a cup for herself, as she sits down at her desk in the lab to work. After a while she feels her head starting to hurt where the pigtails are, the new hairbands being too tight and pulling at her hair too much. She takes them out and runs a hand through her hair, massaging her scalp with a groan of relief, which keeps her from hearing the hiss coming from the only other person in the room.

"Um, Molly?" His voice seems deeper than it usually is, and Molly makes a mental note to ask John to check if Sherlock hasn't gotten sick. She turns around to face the man, combing through her hair with her fingers, revelling in how smooth and silky it is. The new expensive shampoo seems to be worth the price she'd paid for it, Molly thinks absently and doesn't notice the change on the detective's face.

"Yes, Sherlock?" She asks calmly and prepares herself todeny him whatever body part he would ask her to get him.

"Your hair looks lovely today."

She almost falls off her chair and feels completely gobsmacked. It's not like she isn't used to his compliments, but they usually sound less sincere. Molly figures he really needs the body part bad. Or perhaps he is about to ask her for a whole corpse.

"Look, Sherlock, I really.."

"Could I possibly bother you for another cup of coffee?" He asks her with a smile that has the potential to give her a coronary, her heart is beating so wildly.

"Yes, of course, be right back." Molly stands up on shaky legs and walks away, forbidding herself to read into it. She can't seem to find a legitimate reason for him to be this nice to her without wanting something. The only reason that comes to mind as she puts sugar to his coffee is that he wanted to distract her, and had managed that quite successfully. She curses herself for being so stupid and rushes back to the lab, praying to every god she can name that Sherlock hadn't gone to the morgue to help himself to a body part he desired.

When she returns to the lab, she finds it empty, slams the coffee down on the table with a curse and dashes to the morgue. There she finds only her intern, dissecting a body while humming what seems to be Like a virgin to himself. Molly slips out quietly before he sees her and starts asking his endless questions.

Slowly she is walking back to her paperwork and keeps herself busy trying to find an explanation for Sherlock's odd behaviour. She knows in her bones that he had meant to distract her, but from what and why - she couldn't say. Only when she gets back to her desk and notices the twin hairbands missing, it all becomes clear, at least partly. Molly now knows what he had distracted her from, but why he would do that like this? Apparently he hated the hair ties, but instead of being his Sherlocky self and telling her straight away about her awful taste, he had gone the extra mile and stolen them quietly.

Molly finds herself mourning the loss of hairbands just a little, she still has the earrings and the ring, plus her hair still hurts from the pigtails. But the thought of them being thrown in the garbage seems sad to her, and she makes a note to herself to discreetly check the trash cans on her way out in the evening.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Sherlock walks away from 's, toying with the ridiculous hairbands he had taken from her. He brings them to his eye level, and struggles to find what she likes about them. Sure, there are cats, her animal of choice, but they are made from metal and most likely make her head hurt. He remembers with an odd feeling in his stomach how she had freed her hair from that hideous hairdo, the way her hand had slid effortlessly through the warm waves of caramel that seemed lighter in the bright light of the lab. Sherlock remembers well how he had to repress an impulse to get up, walk over to her and replace her hands with his own, instead the only thing he had allowed himself was a low hiss that he was sure she didn't notice. His compliment had been sincere, though it still felt like not enough, she deserved sweeter words that he didn't have. But it had done it's job and distracted her, allowing him to grab the offending accessories and slip away before he had done something stupid like grabbing a fistful of her hair, pulling her close and kissing her.

Sherlock Holmes stops in his tracks. He isn't the one for kissing, he doesn't want to. Except that you do. Her. Says a voice in his head that sounds annoyingly like his room mate. Sherlock brushes the thought away from his mind and focuses on the hairbands in his hand and the face of his pathologist, framed by the waterfall of sweet honey. He curses himself for his thoughts, but decides to get to the bottom of this. He would analyse his thoughts and feelings and see what comes out of that.

In the meanwhile he would keep freeing Molly Hooper's hair from the endless ponytails and hairbands that his pathologist seems to be insisting on. But perhaps he should move on to less subtle ways of doing that, instead of just stealing her things.

~.~.~.~.~.~

It is another two weeks before she sees him again. Molly has spent a lot of her time thinking about how to approach the question she wanted to ask Sherlock. She knows it's silly, and he has probably deleted it from his memory already, but it bothers her that he hadn't simply told her what he didn't like. That would be a Sherlock thing to do, not going about his business quietly without making her cry. But she has caught onto some shift in his attitude towards her since that dreadful Christmas, and she wants to know what's that about. She realises that she probably just needs a reminder from him that there is never going to be anything between the other than the weird friendship that they have, otherwise her fantasy goes wild, and day dreaming about him is never good. Getting her hopes up would be a bad idea.

So when Molly sees Sherlock walk into her morgue, followed by John who greets her loudly, she is full of resolve to be blunt and ask what is on her mind straight away, but the second his steely blue gaze catches hers, she is left speechless and blushing, struggling to mumble something about coffee. She rushes out of the room, goes to prepare coffee for Sherlock, having completely forgotten about his blogger. Molly hisses at herself to calm down and ignore the intense look in his eyes that had never been there before. Or is she just going crazy?

She goes to the lab, figuring that that's the likely place he would be at, and she isn't wrong. Putting the coffee in front of him, she isn't surprised when she doesn't get a thank you. Molly sits down at another microscope quietly and gets to work. It sets her brain straight and calms her nerves. When she is peaceful again, her previous thoughts return. Not allowing herself to hesitate, she asks.

"Um, Sherlock?"

He looks up from his microscope and she is surprised to have his attention on the first try. She had counted on at least a couple more times.

"Molly?" He asks impatiently when she fails to follow up her question.

It is now or never. "Why did you take my hairbands?"

Out of all possible reactions, she hadn't expected a smile. It seems almost approving.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Molly." He says with the smile still in place and Molly is left to blink dumbly as she processes the information.

"But.. I mean, you.. You asked me to get you coffee, and when I came back, you were gone and so were the cats!"

Sherlock raises an amused eyebrow at her and she feels dumber than ever. Has she hallucinated the whole thing?

"I suggest you keep a better look after your things." Sherlock says and winks at her before returning to look at his samples.

A wink?

Yes, she had been hallucinating then and is clearly hallucinating again now. Sherlock Holmes doesn't wink. At her. Molly shakes her head and gets back to searching for cancerous cells through the microscope.

About an hour later when she hears Sherlock get up and prepare to leave, she doesn't react. And when she feels him stop next to her, she doesn't move. When his fingers grab a hold of the hairband that is keeping her hair in a ponytail, she doesn't even dare to breath. Molly feels her hair fall softly down to her shoulders as she squeezes her eyes shut and doesn't open them until she hears him leave.

What.

The.

Hell?!

She starts to suspect something. Molly puts little stashes of hairbands here and there in her lab, the morgue or her locker, only to find all of the places empty in a few days. She is convinced that it is either that she's losing her marbles for good or someone is in fact stealing her stuff. And she has a good idea who that might be.

Molly never catches him in the act though. Once when particularly bored she even tries spying on him, stashing a pack of hair ties in her lab in a place that has been emptied once already and keeping an eye on him while pretending to be asleep at her desk. If he makes a move, she will see it and bust him.

She falls asleep and wakes up to find the lab empty and the pack gone.

He also keeps randomly removing hairbands from her head. She suspects it is some sort of experiment, but she doesn't mention it and neither does he. He would deny everything, she was sure; even if she asked him while he was pulling her ponytail free.

One time is especially frustrating. She is in the middle of a post mortem and Sherlock strides in, walks directly to her, pulls the hairband out of her hair and leaves without a word. Molly is left dumbstruck, with her arms elbow-deep in blood and guts, her hair falling down to her shoulders. After composing herself a few minutes later, she removes her gloves, washes her hands and goes to get another hairband.

She looks through all of her stashes, searches her locker and in the end is forced to go and borrow one from an ICU nurse. She decides to keep another pair of hairbands on her person from now on.

It turns out that Sherlock doesn't mind pick pocketing. He even somehow manages to steal the one that Molly has put in the back pocket of her trousers without her noticing. She blushes upon realising that.

At some point, she doesn't know when, it turns into a game. She does her best to hide her stuff, but he always wins. Once, when feeling particularly daring, she hides one in her bra. Even Sherlock cannot be that good of a pickpocket. Turns out he doesn't have to be, there is a sudden fire alarm howling in the morgue, water is pouring down from the ceiling as Molly rushes to wheel the corpse she has just sewn back together into the cooler. She is soaking wet when the water stops and when she goes to change, the hairband in her bra is forgotten, she only remembers about it when she has dried off her hair a bit. She almost runs to the nasty pile of wet clothes and doesn't find what she's looking for. At this point she doesn't know whether feel admiration for the man or be extremely pissed off.

It starts bothering her after a while. By that point she had managed to get her hair in the cadavers a couple of times and at one point almost burnt it down while having her hair down in the lab. She is used to have her hair away from her face, and in her line of work that is the only sensible thing to do.

Molly gathers up courage and waits.

She is standing in her lab, waiting for the centrifuge to be done with the samples. When she feels his presence behind her, she turns around swiftly and grabs his hand that has been sneaking up to her hair.

"Look, Sherlock, don't you think it's enough now?"

"What are you talking about?" He pretends to be genuinely surprised, a small smile playing on his lips.

Molly sighs and bites the insides of her cheeks to keep herself from smiling back.

"I mean this experiment of yours. Or whatever it is."

This time his surprise is real. "Experiment?" He asks incredulously.

"Yes. Isn't that what's this all about?" Molly gestures between them.

"Certainly not." Sherlock answers plainly and she has to gesture for him to continue.

"I'm simply proving a point."

"What?" It's her turn to be surprised. What point could he possibly be proving by getting her hair into nasty places.

"Your hair looks much better when down." He says as if that is supposed to be the answer that explains everything.

"What?" She doesn't seem to able to come up with anything better.

He sighs softly, takes her by the shoulders and leads her to stand in front of the mirror that is hanging by the door. Sherlock stands behind her and Molly feels goose bumps creeping up her back. They intensify when he reaches up and pulls her hair free, slowly, and he's looking at her in the mirror the way he has never looked at her before.

"See?" His voice is hoarse and she is reminded of the day he took her cat hair ties.

Sherlock doesn't look away from the mirror, he reaches up as if to touch her hair, but hesitates.

"May I?"

Molly can't find her voice, so she nods. She keeps her eyes locked on his face when he puts a hand in her hair and combs through it. There is a shiver somewhere, but she can't tell if it's him or her. He repeats the action and Molly hears her own heartbeat, it's deafening.

"It looks like warm honey." Sherlock whispers, not stopping his movements and not looking away. "It looks like it produces light from within itself. Especially in the morgue."

He swallows thickly as if his throat has gone dry. "That's why you should stop being silly and keep it like this at all times, Molly Hooper."

Her name on his lips and his hand in her hair is too much. She steps away from him, and turns around to face him.

"What are you doing?" Molly asks, unwanted tears collecting in her eyes. "Why?" She refuses to believe he is willingly torturing her, but what if..

Sherlock takes a moment to compose himself, his hand still hovering in the air. "I, um.. I like your hair?"

"Are you asking me?" She squeaks, trying desperately to remember if she had ever felt so confused in her life.

"I don't know?" Comes another question and he looks so comically lost that Molly starts laughing and a moment later confusion clears off his face and he joins her. She revels in the sound of his laughter and the fact that he is sharing it with her.

"So.. You.." She clutches her sides to stop herself from doubling over."You stole my.. My hairbands, so I would wear my hair like this?" She flicks her hair with both her hands and can't stop laughing.

"Yea." He is wiping at his eyes, still chucking. "Seemed like the logical thing to do. Thought you'd get the hint."

She ought to be offended, but only laughs louder.

"And I thought I was going crazy, you see." She manages in-between laughs. "Thought some nasty little leprechauns were stealing them or something. Even thought that my cat was building himself a nest from them somewhere in my flat." He laughs louder at that and for a moment there is no talking.

After a while they both calm down, wiping at their eyes. Molly stands up straight and puts a strand of hair behind her ear. Sherlock catches that and there is a look in his eyes that makes her blush.

"You should always keep it like this, Molly." He almost whispers as he steps closer to her. She wants to bolt, but makes herself stand still.

"Why?" Her own voice is just as quiet.

He takes a deep breath before he answers. "Because then I can do this." Sherlock says as he puts his hands in her hair, cups her face and leans down.

This is everything she had ever expected, and more; she knows instantly that this one time would not be enough for her to remember. His lips are soft, firm and confident and Molly can't help but let out a squeak that gets lost somewhere in her throat. She gets a deep chuckle in response, but neither moves away.

She fits perfectly against him, her arms snaking around his waist to keep him close. One of his hands remains in her hair, the other travels to rest on the small of her back. The taste of him overwhelms her, and at this moment she wouldn't notice if her own clothes were on fire.

They break apart for air few moments later, and she looks in his eyes, his pupils blown so wide that only a narrow ring of blue remains around them. He looks dishevelled, his pouty lips pinker than usual and a little swollen. Molly suspects she looks the same.

"Not in the morgue though." Her voice is so raw she startles herself with it.

There is a moment of confusion in his eyes, then they sparkle with understanding.

"Deal." He gives her a smile that turns her insides into mush and pulls her back to him.

Molly wants nothing else and from then on considers all the money and energy she has spent on extra hairbands well spent.

~.~.~.~.~.~

John Watson was rummaging through his flatmates bedroom, feeling his face get redder and the remnants of his patience slipping away.

"Sherlock, you bloody git!" He yelled in the direction of the living room where the detective was splayed out on the sofa, visiting his mind palace and staying oblivious of his doctor's fury. "What have I told you about using my stuff for your stupid experiments?!"

Not finding anything in his dresser, John dropped down on all four to look under Sherlock's bed.

"At least could've left me with one pair of shoelaces, you arsehole!" John yelled at the innocent floorboards when he noticed a shoebox under the bed. He reached out to get it, hoping that his shoelaces had survived the storm that was his room mate, or maybe this was where Sherlock kept his own.

"I've got a date in an hour, and I can't exactly turn up there wearing.." He lost his voice upon opening the box. Of all possible things he had expected to see there, starting from a skeleton and ending with something as mundane as actual shoes, what he saw in reality surprised him more.

The box was full of hairbands of different colours and forms. Some of them seemed completely new, some definitely used and some still had a hair tangled around them. John tried finding a reason for Sherlock to have a box full of hair accessories under his bed, when a metallic shine caught his eye. He pulled the object out, for it to turn out to be a hairband with decorative metal cats on it. He was sure he'd seen it before, and even if he hadn't, the cats on it were information enough. What on Earth had his flatmate done to poor Molly Hooper?

"SHEEERLOOOCK!"

So, what do you think? Originally I had intended it to play out a bit differently, but when I started writing it sort of wrote itself and I had little control whatsoever :D

Hope you like it and feedback is greatly appreciated.

Cheers! :)