So this is just a fun little holiday sequel to Emotional Context, Sherlock. If you haven't read that fiction, please start there. I'm planning on this just a few chapters, but we'll see where it goes. The title is borrowed from Dickens. Thank you for reading. : )

Chapter 1

Molly hung the last ornament on Sherlock's Christmas tree and tried not to think about the dead body in her apartment.

She stepped back to admire her work, pressing a hand to her stomach. It gurgled in response. The eggnog and mincemeat pies Mrs. Hudson had sent up earlier weren't sitting well. Molly couldn't tell if it was due to the corpse in her living room or that Sherlock would be home soon.

She hadn't seen him in over three months. The case in the Ukraine had led them into Poland and then who knows where—he didn't tell her anything. As requested, she received a single text from him once a week, always curt and Sherlock-like. John had been back to London several times to see Rosie, tightlipped and exhausted. He wouldn't tell her anything either. For her safety, he had said. Bastard.

Molly worried the loose skin around her fingernail. At least she knew Sherlock was alive. She pulled her cardigan tighter. They had slept together, and he had immediately left the country. She was trying not to read too much into that.

She studied the small Christmas tree sitting on John's desk. It twinkled cheerfully, looking alarmingly out of place in Sherlock's flat. She had decorated it with test tubes filled with silver tinsel and tiny magnifying glass ornaments that she had special ordered on the internet months ago. She'd even found a small deerstalker ornament in a small holiday shop in Cotswold when she was out visiting her mother a last week.

It was problem too much. She adjusted the crooked star on top. Yes, definitely too much.

"Oh, Molly. It looks just lovely," Mrs. Hudson said as she bustled into the room.

Molly turned, "He'll hate it."

Mrs. Hudson waved her away. "Oh posh, he's an old softy—we both know that." She winked as she picked up the dirty tray of biscuits. "Besides, he'll be so happy to see you, it won't matter."

Molly twisted the edge of her sleeve, "I don't know about that."

Mrs. Hudson stopped piling empty teacups and Rosie's bottles on her tray. She put her hand on her hip. "Molly Hooper, don't be ridiculous—that man is crazy about you."

Molly scrunched her nose at the woman and flopped into her grandmothers chair. She picked sullenly at the tuft of cotton poking out from the arm.

She was acting like a stupid school girl. She knew it. But she was torn between wanting to see him again—wanting to pull him into a dark room and do unspeakable things until he was warm and shaking above her—and being terrified to see that the coldness had stolen back across his beautiful face. Terrified that the distance and space between them couldn't be traversed again.

Molly kicked at Sherlock's chair, satisfied when it screeched a couple inches closer to the fireplace. Rosie's cries drifted up from the stairs. The little girl was up from her afternoon nap. Mrs. Hudson tutted at Molly and headed to the door. "Try not to fret dear."

Molly scowled and examined her hangnail. It had started bleeding. She put her finger in her mouth. Mrs Hudson paused at the door. "He always comes back, you know." Molly looked up. Mrs. Hudson smiled. "Our Sherlock's a bit like an alley cat—he always wanders home—a bit disheveled from his adventures but back just the same. And when he does…well, then you'll see love."

Molly sighed. "See what?" she asked sourly, her stomach rumbling again.

Mrs Hudson winked again and then headed down the stairs without answering. Molly swallowed dryly. She needed a tonic water—perhaps with gin in it. Sherlock would be back soon. The thought made her skin hot. Yes, definitely gin.

Molly frowned down at her phone. The last text from him had arrived last night at 2 am. She had only read it a dozen times since then:

Case solved. Arriving at Baker Street by the end of the week. Inform Mrs. Hudson of our eminent arrival. We'll require something to eat. Chocolate biscuits would be best.

Molly shook her head. Not exactly a confession of his undying love. But it made her heart flutter to think of him, dark head bent over his phone somewhere in a back alley in the Ukraine and thinking of her. Or at least, thinking of home.

Maybe that was enough.

Molly let her head fall back, hitting the arm of the chair with a thunk. She stared up at the water stain on the ceiling and tried to talk herself out of loving Sherlock for the millionth time.

He was impossible. A mystery that seemed to get more complicated with each layer she managed to peel away. But then she thought of the soft exhalation he made just after they kissed—a little sigh of relief that only she could hear—as if he was laying down some of the weight he carried into her arms.

Molly groaned and pushed herself out of the chair. That was quite enough. She was a grown ass woman. She didn't pine. Not even for Sherlock. She padded down the stairs in her reindeer socks.

Sherlock's extra scarf hung next to her own on the hook by the door. It was the navy one, old and worn out. The one he had been wearing the day they met. Molly rubbed the tattered ends between her fingers. She knew he kept it around because it was secretly his favorite. Molly couldn't help but smile. For a man who claimed emotion was a critical disadvantage, Sherlock Holmes was strangely sentimental.

She sighed and pulled down her own fuzzy purple scarf. Who was she kidding? She was definitely pining.

It was only Tuesday. Sherlock had said they would be home by the end of the week but that could be any time at all. She wasn't going to just wait around in her silk nightie until he appeared.

Molly paused with one arm in her coat, and imagined Sherlock seeing her in the black nightie she had bought last week. It had been a stupid impulse buy. She'd been Christmas shopping and the tiny slip had been on display in a window at Harrods, surrounded by fake white snow and glitter. It was sophisticated and sexy with delicate straps and a daring neckline. It was everything she wasn't.

She had bought it anyway. Now it just hung in the back of her closet and reminded her that her bed was empty.

She shoved her arm in her other coat sleeve and wished she had a mind palace to escape her own wild thoughts. It was exhausting. Besides, she had more important things to think about then Sherlock.

The ice around the corpse in her living room would be melting by now. And it would not do to have the downstairs neighbors call about a leak.

She had discovered the dead man this morning, leaning against her front door with an envelope pined to his lapel. His head had made a thumping sound on her boot when she had opened the door, and it had taken all of her self control not to scream. After a three deep breathes, she'd dragged it into the flat, thankful that widow Stonesworth down the hall was never up before noon.

There were three things in the envelope. A note with two short sentences written on it, 3,000 quid, and a picture of her mother taken with a long range camera.

If it had been the first time a body had shown up at her doorstep, Molly might have been worried about that last item. But it wasn't.

So she had wrapped the corpse securely in a heavy duty trash bag filled with all the ice and went to work as usual. The dead man wasn't going anywhere. And as for who had dropped it at her flat, well, he could damn well wait. That picture was playing dirty.

Molly patted the small leather wrap of autopsy tools in her coat pocket. She had retrieved it from her work locker this morning. The bone saw she had "borrowed" was tucked inside her purse. She was sure no one would miss it.

She tugged on her Wellies and stepped out onto Baker Street. Cold rain stung her face. Molly tightened her scarf. The weather in London had been even more dreadful than usual lately. Dull clouds hung low over the city, a constant gloom that spit sleet and ice.

It had snowed a few inches, but it wasn't a pretty white snow like in the country. It was city snow—a dirty wash of slush that seemed cover everything in a blanket of gray.

A cab turned the corner. She raised a hand, but it picked up speed, spraying her boots with dirty water as it passed. Molly sighed.

The street was empty. She looked up at the boy's window as she waited for the next cab. The little Christmas tree sparkling cheerfully despite the mud on her pants and the tightness in her heart.

Molly pulled the flaps of her wool hat over her ears as a black town car slid smoothly up to the curb in front of her. It gleamed in the street light as if it hadn't just been driving through mud covered streets. The engine purred silently.

The back passenger door opened.

Molly bent her head. A beautiful dark haired woman sat in the backseat fixing her lipstick in a small golden hand mirror. The woman didn't look up. Molly shook her head. Mycroft certainly had a flare for the dramatic.

She glanced back at 221B. Sherlock was going kill her.

Molly frowned. Sherlock. Being shot at somewhere in Eastern Europe. Her own beating heart out there risking his life, and she knew nothing-just had to grit her teeth and wait for him to come back to her.

Well. Mr. Dark and Mysterious wasn't the only one who could live a life of danger, with his cheekbones and ridiculously handsome coat. She might be just a mousey pathologist, but everyone had their secrets. Even her.

The dark haired woman snapped her compact closed and raised a well manicured eyebrow in Molly's direction.

Molly didn't look back at the flat again. She got into the car and closed the door.