I have finally woken up from my Fanfiction hibernation because I have been reading so many great Sherlock stories that I couldn't resist trying one myself! This occurs sometime after 3x02 but there's really only spoilers for 3x01. This is a one-shot so far as I wanted to post it before tonight's EPIC episode airs but if it still works afterwards, I might do some more chapters. :) Hope you like!

The early hours of the morning had arrived and the room was as dark as when Molly had first fallen asleep. The sound of snoring had woken her, causing her eyes to flutter open reluctantly. She scrunched them closed tightly again whilst moaning and rolling over. She grabbed the covers and threw them over her head, desperate to block out the annoying sound but it only seemed to get louder. Molly huffed in annoyance and sat up to look at her fiancée, Tom, who was quite blissfully unaware that his sleeping habits were keeping her awake. After a moment, she hit the bed hard and he stopped at the sudden sound. Molly sighed in relief as silence filled the room again but as she went to settle down, Tom turned over and the snoring continued. Rolling her eyes, Molly reached over to grab her phone. 2:16am. Great. She knew now that sleep was a distant fantasy that night and couldn't bear the thought of lying in the dark for hours on end, waiting for him to wake up so she got off her bed and quickly dressed herself before pulling her hair into a loose ponytail. As she reached the bedroom door, she turned to look at Tom, wanting and willing herself to feel some sort of affection for him before she left but all she felt was annoyance. She was going to have to spend the rest of her life with that snore.

Molly's feet carried her down the road without any direction from her mind which was focused entirely on the situation that she now found herself in. How had she got like this? How had she let herself fall into an engagement that she wasn't entirely sure she wanted? As she asked these questions to herself, she answered them almost instantly. Molly did not like to be alone and in the two years that had led her to met Tom, she had never felt more alone in her life. He filled a hole that had been left by a certain someone but that certain someone still never left her thoughts. But she felt okay with it at the time. Sherlock was never going to be around her again, he was never going to make her totally insane and obsessed again, he was never going to want to kiss and punch him at the same time again so it was okay to move on, to let someone fill that hole because it needed filling. But then he came back and it was like the hole that Tom had been gradually filling healed instantly but brought with it confusion and regret. Sherlock's return meant that she was happy again but for the wrong reasons. Tom was her fiancée now but Molly had always known deep inside her that he was a stand-in, a man that could just about make her happy enough to carry on. Sherlock's return had healed her instantly and she knew she was in trouble. She knew it especially when he had called her out of the blue and she had run over to see him. She had cancelled all her plans for the day just to be with him, to be Sherlock's stand-in for John. But she didn't care about that, she was just happy to be with him and she knew that if the invitation had indeed been for dinner like she had hoped, she would have accepted, fiancée or not.

Her feet stopped suddenly and she looked up to see that she had arrived at St Bart's. Work. At 2:45am. That's what her brain needed now though, a distraction. She walked as silently as she could through the corridors to her lab, not wanting to make too much noise as the echoes of her footsteps off the walls made her feel uneasy at night. She turned a corner to face the doors that she needed and paused as she saw a glow of yellow light flooding through the crack at the bottom of them. Someone had beaten her in there and the only person who would be mad enough to work at this time of the morning, other than herself, was the one person she was trying to distract herself from. Molly inhaled slowly and tensed her hands and arms before turning quietly on the spot to go back the way she came but before she could even take one step, the door behind her swung open.

"Ah, Molly. I thought I heard your mouse-like steps outside." Sherlock said loudly, his deep voice bouncing off the walls and the floor. Molly turned to face him and felt everything in her melt as her eyes took in the curls of his hair that he had obviously been messing with in concentration and his slender frame that always looked so good in the suits he wore. When she looked at his face, she noticed a frown lining his forehead. "You're not leaving are you? You haven't even arrived." He asked and Molly realised that her feet wouldn't move in the opposite direction to him even if she had tried to force them to. She quickly shook her head and cleared her throat before speaking.

"No, no. I just didn't want to disturb you if you were working." She squeaked.

"No, it's good you're here, I need your opinion on something." He replied quickly before spinning on his heel and disappearing into the lab, leaving the door open for her to walk through. She shook her head at herself, knowing that she should turn around and go back to bed with Tom but her feet led her through the door anyway and she shut it behind her, watching Sherlock hovering over a microscope and feeling her heart quicken as she looked at him. The last time they were in this position, he had told her he needed her. Not in the way that she had hoped but he had finally opened up to her and let her see a glimpse of the Sherlock behind the cold detective. She had felt closer to him in that moment than any other and being in the same place and the same time of the morning made her nervous.

"Are you going to stand there until daylight?" Sherlock asked, his eyes not straying from the microscope and Molly stammered something inaudible before walking over to him, making sure that she maintained a good distance between them both.

"What do you need my opinion on?" She asked eventually and Sherlock huffed before pulling away from what he was looking at.

"I can't quite tell if this piece of carpet matches the sample that I took from Mr Orden's house yesterday." He said, confusion etched on his face and Molly frowned as she looked at him, sure that he could easily figure out something as trivial as that. When she didn't move, he looked up at her, his eyes meeting her's and causing her to exhale faster than usual. Before she gave anymore signs away for Sherlock to read, she stumbled towards the microscope, wishing that he would move a little further away so she didn't have to lean over him quite as much. "Well?" Sherlock asked after a moment and Molly could feel his breath on her neck. She quickly moved away from him and the desk and shook her head.

"No, not a match." She replied, her voice higher than before. Sherlock nodded once and placed his finger on his lips in a thinking pose. "Bad news?" She asked after he didn't say anything and almost jumped when he suddenly stood up and walked away from the table. She never could get used to how quickly he did everything.

"No, good. It proves my suspicions." He responded loudly before turning to face her. "False alibi." He added before falling silent again, his eyes on her and Molly knew that they were studying her, noticing things that other people wouldn't see. Probably realising that her lack of make-up meant that she was in a rush to leave or the little bit of sleep that still sat in the corner of her eye, telling him that she had been woken up recently or the black lines under her eyes that showed that this was not a one-time occurence.

"So Tom snores does he?" He asked after a moment and Molly smiled in spite of herself. She always felt a little exposed after he deducted something about her without so much as a word but it did always manage to impress her. Well, most of the time. She nodded in response and he shrugged, looking to his left away from her, his eyes obviously not looking at anything in the room as his mind focused elsewhere. "You should probably tell him to quit smoking, it might help a bit." He said and Molly frowned, feeling her stomach drop even as she tried to object. "Tom doesn't smoke." She squeaked even though she knew it was futile to argue with Sherlock Holmes. "He likes you to think that." His eyes snapped back to her and she realised she was about to have a reel of information that she would have to compute thrown at her.

"Haven't you noticed the strong smell of cologne that lies on his coat and scarf? It's because he only smokes outside so he covers himself in the stuff before meeting you. When he greets you, his breath probably always smells of mints and as much as you like that, as it makes you think he looks after himself, it is in fact only because he knows you'll kiss him and he doesn't want you to smell it on his breath." Molly opened her mouth to speak but quickly closed it again as he continued. "I don't know if you've noticed his incessant tapping on tables or his lap, I certainly have, it gives me a dreadful headache. It keeps his fingers busy, like a nervous twitch. It's the same when he plays with your hair. It may seem like a lovely gesture but actually it's merely a coping mechanism. He also-."

"Okay, enough Sherlock." Molly interrupted, her voice louder than usual and he stopped abruptly.

"Sorry. Too far?" He asked, and she saw a genuine apology in his eyes which meant that any thought of being angry at him disappeared as quickly as it came.

"A little. You know, all you have to say sometimes is 'the reason I know is because I'm Sherlock.' That would probably suffice. I believed you as soon as you told me." She smiled and he returned it sheepishly.

"But where's the fun in that? I don't get to show off then." He replied with a wink that took Molly's breath away momentarily. He looked at her with what seemed like amusement until she managed to find her voice again.

"Anyway, you smoke." She said feebly but it seemed to have an effect on him as he frowned again, the smile that she rarely saw on his face disappearing. "Yes." He replied shortly before turning around and walking away from her.

"But only occasionally. I manage to avoid it most of the time. I don't lie about it either." He finished facing her again, a table seperating them and she suddenly felt as if he were teasing her, hoping that she would argue or even just agree with him.

"Sherlock, why did you ask for my help?" She asked, wanting to avoid what he seemed to be trying to do.

"I told you, I needed your opinion on something." He replied cooly and Molly rolled her eyes at him.

"Oh come on. You knew the second that you looked at that sample that it wasn't a match." She responded, arguing with him for a different reason but she could see that this wasn't the direction he had wanted the conversation to go. This intrigued her.

"Well, sometimes it's nice to have a second opinion." He replied, walking slowly now next to the table, his hands in his pockets and his gaze at his feet.

"You never need a second opinion." Molly said, her eyebrow raised in confusion as she tried to register what was making Sherlock lie. He didn't like lies.

"Oh alright." He said finally, following the table round to her and not speaking again until he was in front of her. "I knew that you had turned to leave and I wanted a reason to make you stay." He said, his voice low and Molly swallowed, knowing that the effect of him standing so close to her was easily readable on her face.

"Well it worked." She whispered and he sighed and dropped his head.

"It was selfish of me I know. You didn't want to see me but I wanted to see you." He continued, speaking matter-of-factly and Molly shook her head, too quickly she thought afterwards.

"No, I did want to see you. I always want to see you." She let out a little gasp as she realised what she had said and chanced looking up at him. There was no reaction on his face as he looked at her, instead he seemed to be waiting for her to continue. "But I'm engaged to Tom now Sherlock and I don't think it's appropriate to spend the early hours of the morning alone with another man who I -." She stopped, looking down again as she felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment.

"Who you what?" He asked, his voice quieter than usual.

"Nothing." She said and resisted the urge to sigh in relief when he seemed to let it go.

"But you were coming here for a distraction were you not?" Sherlock asked and she nodded wordlessly. "From your fiancée's apparently very loud snoring?" She nodded again. "Why is my being here any more inappropriate that that?" Molly blinked, unsure of where he was going but she could tell that wherever it was, she wouldn't like it.

"Sorry, what?" She asked and he inhaled deeply before answering.

"Well, you obviously don't want to be with your fiancée right now so you have sneaked away from him in the middle of the night. Why would you do that if you were happy? You could have quite easily have slept on the sofa or made him sleep there and it isn't because you are afraid of hurting his feelings as right now you don't care if he wakes up and you're still not there. Not once have you shown any sign of guilt or worry." He began, his words coming out fast like a train that had lost control down a steep hill. Molly felt her chest tighten with every syllable he spoke but she knew that all she could do was listen and wait until it was over. "However, you used the excuse of not being able to sleep to get away from him, to have some time alone and only because of my presence did you realise what you were doing and so you turned away, not wanting to be faced with what you really feel. You don't love him Molly, you love the idea of him, the idea of being someone's wife but if you can't stand to be in the same room as him how are you going to be happy?"

Sherlock stopped just as Molly's hand collided with his left cheek. The sound echoed around the room, silencing everything else, even Molly's breathing. Sherlock raised his hand to his face which was was now turned to the right and his eyes were closed. The tension that filled the small gap between them built with every second that passed but Molly would not break it. She couldn't. She couldn't give in to him this time. After a moment, she stormed past him, her long hair flicking past his shoulder and tears filling her eyes which spilt over just as she felt a hand grab her arm. "Molly wait." Sherlock almost pleaded and she stopped.

"I'm sorry. That was out of line."

"You can't leave it can you Sherlock? You have to say it how it is all the time. You just can't let me move on and be happy." She said, her voice trembling as the tears that she couldn't control ran down her face. Sherlock moved to take her other arm with his hand and pulled her around so that he was almost holding her. Quickly, she lowered her head to look at her feet, not wanting to face him.

"I'm sorry. I am sorry that what I said hurt you, but I don't take it back because you aren't happy Molly." He replied and she looked up at him. "And I meant what I said before. You deserve to be happy Molly Hooper." His voice was now low and quiet and Molly felt herself be taken over by him again, the way his hands felt on her arms, the way his piercing eyes looked at her and the way he said her name. She would never be free from him. She had known this for quite some time but she had always thought she could live with it but now she wasn't so sure. It was too painful.

"Well the one man that can make me happy, I can't have." She whispered, her voice still shaking as she reluctantly stepped away from his grasp. "Goodbye Sherlock." She turned to walk away again but heard his footsteps behind her.

"Molly, stop. I -." He said as he ran in front of her, their eyes meeting again.

"You what Sherlock? What can you possibly say now to make this any better?" She asked, her tears now audible in her voice.

"I-." He stammered again, a frown on his forehead making him seem distressed. Molly couldn't figure out what he was trying to communicate to her, all she wanted to do was get away from him before he made her feel any worse but then she saw him move and she was frozen to the spot. He lowered his head slowly and carefully as she felt his hand rest on her neck. She felt herself be pulled towards him and before she could register what was about to happen, his lips had met hers. Molly could tell that he was hesitant at first, as if his thoughts hadn't quite caught up with what he was doing but soon, she felt his other arm wrap around her waist and the hand that was on her neck move up into her hair. Molly responded with an ease that she knew was wrong but she couldn't help but let her own hands clutch at his jacket tightly as if letting go would make him disappear. Her brain wouldn't even let her think about Tom, all she could feel or compute was how it felt to kiss Sherlock. Finally. His lips moved with hers with a passion that she never thought could be within him and she realised that it was even better than she had ever imagined.

All too soon though, she felt his hold loosen and he stepped away, his eyes wide as he looked at her, breathless and shocked at what had just occurred. They stood at looked at each other for what could have been hours before Sherlock turned away from her and strode down the corridor, his head down and his steps quick. Molly stared after him with her mouth open as she tried to compute what had just happened. She wanted to call him, to make him turn around but he was gone before she had tried and it was too late. Suddenly the lab seemed very quiet and cold and she realised that she no longer wanted to be there. She turned around, not sure what she was looking for before her gaze fell on his coat, lying on the back of a chair. She went over slowly to pick it up, his scent swarming her brain and making her think of him holding her like he just had and she couldn't help but let a small smile creep onto her face as she turned off the light and went through the doors. All that she had to decide now was whether she could face going back to Tom.

Hope you liked it! Please review and I'll know whether to stop being silly and post a bit more!