Finishing work for the night, Molly felt exhausted. All she wanted to do was get home, drink a bottle of wine and crawl into bed. Today had been a bad day, and not for the usual reasons.

Usually a bad day consisted of seeing a child's body on her slab, or innocent victims in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tonight, the only thing she could be grateful for was that it had been relatively quiet on the body front. Except for her's.

Irene Adler. Today, Molly had finally accepted that she would never be what Sherlock wanted. He hadn't even recognised the body by her face. Instead it had been by…well, not her face. But Molly could tell she had been beautiful, and from what she had overheard from Mycroft, nearly as smart as Sherlock.

The thought that this woman was the kind that might tempt Sherlock Holmes wrenched at Molly's stomach as she got on the tube. She had pined over Sherlock for years, always hoping that some day he would turn and sweep her up into his arms before kissing her. She had often asked herself, was it just a crush, or did she really love him. Surely she couldn't. To love someone, you had to know all of them. Sherlock was the most enigmatic man on the planet.

But love him she did, she worried when he didn't eat for days, or when he got into fights. She got annoyed when he was rude to people, just holding her tongue from telling him of. But she still wanted to spend every minute with him. Thinking about it her stomach clenched again.

Getting off the train, Molly exited onto the street and called into her local Tesco Metro, buying a chilled bottle of Black Tower Rose. Normally, she drank only at parties or dinner with friends. Tonight was different. She wanted to drink to forget, to fall into a comatose sleep, and have a headache in the morning that would give her something else to think about.

Because he would never be her's and she would never be his.