Chapter One

Janine left Sherlock reeling in a cloud of expensive perfume his mind already cataloging the myriad steps that needed to be taken to ensure John's safety. Regrettably, first and foremost, he reached to turn his morphine down until it was scarcely enough to drip. Janine's vindictiveness had actually worked in his favor as he was much more clear headed than he might have been under the opioid. He was thankful not to be wooly headed at the moment even if his body seemed less than thrilled.

Closing his eyes and breathing through his teeth Sherlock grasped the ragged edges of his pain and dragged it down to the padded room Moriarty inhabited in his mind palace. Stuffing it down was easier when he was standing firmly on this side of death's door. Admittedly, he had willingly crossed death's threshold in the minutes after he was shot to escape from the pain. Locking himself where all his other human frailties resided had not been a particularly brilliant idea, but then he had been shot.

It was no surprise seeing Mary in his mind palace she was a puzzle that needed to be solved and he would solve it or die trying. Putting the pain inside the round room Sherlock quickly climbed the stairs to a familiar room, in which, he never loitered. He was surrounded by her, his Molly, as soon as he stepped through the door into a room very like the Bart's laboratory. Sherlock sighed a little at the comfort this place gave him because of her.

"Are you mad," she demanded as she left her office to meet him at the door. "What you are thinking is insane and I refuse to be a party to this foolish scheme! I would say ask your girlfriend but we both know that won't happen!" This was not the mousy Molly he first met here in this room, but the confident and forceful Molly he had discovered upon his return from the dead. It had been a blow returning to London to discover that everyone he held most dear had moved on without him.

"Evidently, the world doesn't revolve around me and time doesn't stop because I go away," he murmured as he smiled sadly at the woman before him. "No matter what I might have thought, then."

"No shit, Sherlock!" The mockery behind the comment made his lip curl reflexively. Turning to the intruder in his laboratory sanctuary Sherlock narrowed his eyes on the Young American wearing a lab coat over a uni fleece.

"You've been made redundant," Sherlock replied, "I no longer need your brash American criticism to keep me humble I have Molly for that!" Looking to Molly for a second and seeing her smile at his internal compliment Sherlock made a sweeping motion with his hand he added, "I think it is time we had more space in here." With a pop the loud-mouthed American disappeared. "I never really liked him at University."Dusting his hands together as if ridding them of that bit of chalk dust he looked again to Molly. She was wearing a disappointed look on her elfin features. "I need you, Molly."

"It isn't that easy. You are ignoring the facts again, Sherlock," Molly sighed.

"No," he denied, "if I were I would not be here with you."

"What you've done," his Molly shook her head as she looked up at him with the sheen of tears in her eyes. "It hurt people, Sherlock, not just Janine. The drugs and the ruse with her it was meant to hurt. You knew when you set all this in motion that it would."

"No!"

"Yes," she looked at him sadly. "You could have asked for her help, Sherlock."

"It was necessary," he denied, "The case…"

"You can't lie to yourself," she told him with as fierce a look as he had ever seen in her brown eyes but she softened as she continued, "We both know you would have acted differently if you hadn't felt isolated after John's wedding."

"Why would I do that," he asked slowly through gritted teeth. This new Molly never ceased to annoy and disconcert him.

"Because," she answered simply turning back to her microscope.

"Because," he demanded, "because isn't an answer."

"You figure it out," she told him tartly not looking up from her work. "It started at the Evening Do."

Sherlock stared at his Molly through narrowed eyes, "I can always replace you with someone more helpful."

That seemed to startle her away from her work but then she shook her head and told him sadly, "No you can't. Now, you will need my help; the real me. So what do you need to understand in order to fix what you've done?"

Sherlock let the night of John and Mary's wedding play through his mind's eye. "You looked…nice," he murmured, "you were trying to appear happy."

"But I wasn't," she said, "why?"

"Me," he said, "I made you unhappy."

"Yes." She nodded, "What made you leave the party?"

"I was tired."

"No"

"The music was too loud."

"No," she replied with the force of a verbal slap. "Why did you leave?"

"I…I w-wasn't," he shook his head as he stumbled over the words before finally meeting her knowing brown eyes, "I didn't belong. I…John and Mary were happy starting a life with a child on the way. You were trying to be happy with Meat Dagger and I was only bolloxing it up for you." He muttered, "So, I left. I had spent the last two years alone with only this place to interact with you all and then I returned to find that I did not fit back into the world the way I thought I would. You tried…John tried…Even Lestrade tried but I had been gone too long. Done too many things to simple slip back into my old skin."

"Yes," she agreed, "and what happened when you returned to Baker Street that night?

"Lady Smallwood," Sherlock answered. "She came to me with her problem."

"And you saw it as your opportunity," his Molly encouraged.

"Yes," he agreed. "I was trying to…With Janine I had a chance to advance a case and see if I could be…Ordinary, as well."

"But you couldn't," she prodded.

"No," he acknowledged. "I found I couldn't she was't…" Sherlock faltered in his explanation and looked into the understanding eyes of his Molly.

"I know," she nodded, "I will help you anyway; you know I will but you have to ask and it won't be easy."

Sherlock inhaled deeply as he exited his mind palace and the pain flooded his consciousness. There was very little time and too many things to be done. Turning to the bedside table Sherlock found the phone and quickly dialed Molly's number in the lab. She picked up on the second ring, "Pathology," she answered. Her voice strong and confident it was animated and warm, a direct contrast to the tinniness of his Molly. That comforted him.

"Molly," he sighed.

"Sherlock?" She sounded shocked that he had called. She shouldn't have been he always came to her when he was in the darkest places needing the most help. It was good to hear her and not some version he had used to occupy himself. "Molly, I know I have no right to ask this of you but I…"

"What to you need," she asked and it was a sad parody of the way she'd said those words before because her normally compassionate voice sounded bitter.

"I have to leave the hospital," he told her.

"Are you mad," she demanded and it startled a laugh from him because it was exactly as he had imagined her reaction to be.

"It is probably best not to answer that one," he rejoined, amused.

"I- I have work to do," she told him and he knew she was about to hang up.

"No, Molly, please don't hang up." His reflexive movement as if to stop her hanging up wrung a pained groan from his chest. "Please," he gasped, "I know I don't deserve your help. I never deserved your friendship I have never done anything to be able to warrant the regard you have for me. You are on the side of the Angels, Molly Hooper." He could hear her breathing hitch and he knew he had made her cry. "And that is why I know that as undeserving as I am you will help me."

Sherlock's statement was met by a watery silence and then a raggedly sighed, "What do you need?"

AN: I fixed the glaring error which my iPad seems to continually torment me with...auto-correct you are not my friend.

Also, I know it is obvious but I own nothing and make nothing from the use of these fine characters.