AN: So I originally had these published to my tumblr, convivialcompanions, but my theme is not very good for reading long paragraphs of text, so I'm redirecting my stories here. Enjoy!

Molly Hooper has become the lookout aboard the Deduction, a ship captained by the infamous Sherlock Holmes. However, looking down at the deck below she gets a little, distracted, and the memories of her journey to the ship resurface.

Molly looked down from her post as look-out aboard the Deduction towards the deck below. Or, more specifically, towards Captain Sherlock. She knew she was supposed to be watching for Moriarty, the leader of the British Navy and the only man capable of finding the famed pirate's ship on such a night, but she couldn't help herself. There was just something about the Captain that held her attention and refused to let it go.

As a small girl, Molly had never been the type to sit around, always darting off looking for a new adventure. Her interest in dead animals made her an oddity in her small seaside village, and she grew up alone except for the friends in her imagination. When she was older and the pirates started coming, she learned how to figure out what weapon a man had been killed with by the shape and depth of his wound, how long he'd been dead, how much he had bled, if he had suffered any pain. Despite the constant raids, there wasn't much adventure to be had in St. Bartholomew, and so when the infamous pirate Captain Sherlock came to pillage her small sea-side village, intent on discovering a coded clue in the mayor's vault that would lead him to a famed treasure chest, she saw a golden opportunity.

She knew it was going to be difficult to gain access to Sherlock's ship. The fact that she was a girl would not be the issue. Captain Sherlock cared not about the gender of his crew. His cook was a woman by the name of Hudson, and there were a fair share of cut-throat lasses among his fighters. No, it was the fact that the pirate had standards that each crew member mad to meet, standards of intellect, and Molly knew that even though she was considered one of the brightest in her town, her knowledge would pale in comparison.

Stowing away wasn't an option; the captain's eyes were sharp as a hawk and noticed any disturbance aboard his ship within seconds of it occurring, and there were many stories about stowaways on theDeduction being left on an island in the middle of the sea to perish when time allowed. There was only one stowaway that Sherlock had ever kept alive, and that was John Watson, who was made the Captain's first mate on account of his history as a Naval Officer; his knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of their ships.

Molly had hidden during the initial fighting in the streets, the fighting that was over for the people of the village before it had really begun. Captain Sherlock was like that. The moment you glimpsed his ship in your harbour, it was too late for you to do anything but accept your fate.

The battle was loud and violent but short-lived. Sherlock was nothing if not efficient. Molly watched from behind a barrel in an alleyway as he drove his weapon through a man, Tom the baker by the look of the silhouette, and then dashed around the corner. When the clap of his boots on the cobblestones could no longer be heard, she came out from behind the barrel to study the corpse in the street. She knelt on the ground and felt blood soak through her dress and wet her knee. She studied the wound in Tom's stomach, very deep, not that wide and muttered to herself "I didn't know he used a rapier."

"What did you say?"

Molly whipped her head around to stare wide eyed at the shadow behind her, a shadow that struck fear into the hearts of every peasant in this part of the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's just… the stories… the survivors say that you prefer a cutlass, but you… you killed To- this man, with a rapier."

Sherlock's eyes never left her face as he took three slow steps toward her.

"Yes, I did kill him with a rapier, very good. But how did you know? It was dark, you were behind the barrel where the shadows were thickest so you could be hidden the best however that also meant that the moon was at my back meaning that you couldn't see my face or my sword because it was in front of body in a shadow so how did you know it was a rapier?"

"The… the wound… the slash is too narrow to be a cutlass, but just the right circumference for a rapier."

"Hm." Sherlock drew level with her, studying her face. Then he smiled grimly. "You'll do."

Suddenly Molly found herself upside down over the shoulder of one John Watson, being carried off to the ship that had been her home now for the past seven months. Seven months of boredom, that was what Captain Sherlock had saved her from, seven months of staying at home and pining for adventure. He took her away from that and had given her the seven most horrifying, dangerous,exciting months of her entire life. How could she not fall in love?

Molly shook her head. That was enough reminiscing. Looking back on her past did nothing to help her current situation, which was that she was Molly the lookout, the girl who never in a million years stood a chance with a man like Captain Sherlock. She sent one last fleeting glance down below at the captain studying his maps out on deck by lantern light, and then raised her head and slowly turned in a circle.

And then she froze.

Because that silhouette had not been on the horizon fifteen minutes ago.

And that silhouette was flying a Union Jack.

Reviews are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!