MINE & YOURS

1/3.

His lanky form comes to a halt as he almost tumbles over a small toy car as he maneuvers around the quietly still foyer of Molly Hooper's flat. It has been three years and he still isn't sure why he decided to come here first. She had been the last to see him, he knows. It still hadn't mean she had to be the first.

There had been something nagging at the back of his mind when the driver asked him, "Where would you like to go?" The address tumbled from his lips before his mind could catch up to what he was saying. He almost changed his mind. Now, he wished he had.

What he's thinking now isn't something he can recall ever feeling. He doesn't have to think much as the tired looking petite form of the pathologist comes walking in with a frying pan in hand. He quirks his eye brow at that. Her kitchen is off to the far right but she's come from the hallway.

Where did she get that from? Why was it in her bedroom of all places?

She lowers the weapon and blinks at him as she wraps the shawl that is around her closer trying to hide the fact that she is a completely bare underneath her night gown. He hides a smirk at that as he bends down to retrieve the near cause of his fall. He raises it up so that she can see it as she makes her way towards him slowly.

"He's not mine." That's the first thing that leaves her mouth which she begins to gnaw at it. She reaches out to take the blue truck and his hand wraps around her smaller one.

"I don't care." He tells her. It's not the truth but he wants to see her reaction.

Molly yanks her hand away from his and turns, she walks about the room picking up some items that were spread across the floor. More toys and a blanket and piece of clothing fit for a little boy. "You should." She tells him quietly once she tosses the tows into a little plastic bin on a table in the corner near the bookshelf which he knows holds most of her medical journals and a few leisure readings.

"What gives you that idea, Doctor Hooper?"

Doctor, she smiles a little but the weariness of another secret she's been keeping for another bites back into her as she turns and looks at him. "He's yours." She pauses briefly and looks towards the hallway as a set of little legs comes towards the entryway, Molly continues as she scoops the little boy in her arms. "Miss Adler sends her love."

That's how Sherlock Holmes finds himself sitting on the small couch with Molly Hooper sitting close by but not too close. She's watching him he knows that already. The heat from her eyes watching him cautiously as he had the opposite reaction to what was expected of him when it came to handling startling matters. He rarely ever showed any kind of emotion besides the ones he deemed fine for a man of his stature.

"Do you need me to get you anything?" Molly asked him after a few minutes of silence. She had just sat there once she had guided him to the couch when he falter after she told him what she had been told a little over two years ago.

"Where's the boy?" He noticed she wasn't carrying the small boy with the little teddy bear he had been dragging along with him.

"He got him back to sleep. He's in his room." She told him.

"How do you know he's mine?" He turned to her slowly and peered down at her. Her hand had reached out to touch his arm, she drew back and folded her hands in her lap.

"She came to me after the first year that you were away. I don't really ask many questions after she told me that she thought I'd be the one that she could trust more than anyone. I seem to have that effect on people. Being able to get people to trust me with secrets that they don't want to get out to people." She paused and let out a breath before standing up and crossing the room to a small box that was sitting just above the second tier of the bookshelf and picked it up.

Sherlock watched Molly as she opened it and begun to fiddle with whatever was in there. He stayed there waiting for her to continue. "She didn't beg though I suppose I'd probably have some satisfaction in that. It's not every day that someone you thought were dead – actually dead comes carrying a babe that apparently belonged to a man who you had killed barely a year prior to that. I don't ask questions. I don't need to know all the details. When a child is involved it's better not to ask." Molly shrugged as she shut the box and passed an envelope over to him.

He took it but didn't open it. "It's for you. She told me to give it you when you came back. I didn't read it. I figured it was between the two of you."

"Thank you." Molly looked at him after he uttered that. She looked him over and gave him a smile. She asked because she needed to be sure that he wouldn't just go off running off when he had a responsibility now. "Are you back, then?"

Sherlock placed the envelope in his jacket as he stood and walked over to where Molly was standing, towering over her in the process. It didn't seem to Molly that he was trying to be menacing the slightest. He was just really tall. That's what it was.

"If I say no?" He asked her as his flickered across her face trying to figure out what was going through her mind. She had just told him that she had been taking care of a child that she hadn't given birth to and seemed to think was his. He wouldn't know for sure until he saw the boy really. He had seen him for a nanosecond. It was dark in here and as quickly as Molly had picked him up and couldn't see much.

"I might have to tie you down to a chair."

"Are you sure you're capable of that?"

"You and I both now that I'm capable of much more that that. Don't test me, Sherlock." Molly sighed.

She looked tired.

"Go." He inclined his head towards the side gesturing for her to go ahead towards her room. "You look tired. I'll be here sitting when you get up."

Molly looked at him as she relaxed a bit and nodded. "Okay, if you're not I'll do something rash. You might not forgive me for that."

"I thought I was the one who's supposed to be asking for forgiveness?"

"You should already know that I'll always accept you for who you are. I may be upset for a while but that's what you do to everyone. I'll see you a little while." She mumbled as she walked around him and begun walking towards the hall where her room was located. "Welcome back." She told him as she turned the corner and headed back to her bedroom.

Sherlock sat there with his hands over his eyes, eyes closed. He wasn't tired, his mind was whirling with all of the things that had transpired and the things that had not. He had expected a lot of things out of Molly Hooper. Taking such a burden alone was something he should have seen but had not thought of even once.

He jumped up as if he remembered something and reached into his jacket's pocket for the small envelope. It was thin, there wasn't anything too big in it. A slip of paper if anything. He inspected the envelope for a brief second before tearing it open with his hands, glancing at what was written there. A few lines and then went to the kitchen, turned on one of burners and set a flame to the paper.

He didn't need it. He didn't want it.

A deep frown set on his face as he turned the burner off and watched the pieces of disintegrated ash burn until it was nothing but mere black – nothing. It was nothing ultimately.

He knew what it said. It was now ingrained in his mind but he wasn't sure if he could trust it. He had never been able to trust The Woman. He most certainly wouldn't start now.

He took his place back on the couch and looked about the room. It had changed since the last time he was there. There was more space and a bit more of an organization to it. It had been rather messy before. The bins to the side had done a bit good in that retrospect. She never really had much to begin with but it was nice to see that this new venture had done something for her.

She had looked tired but she didn't look that upset. She didn't seem much of anything. She seemed to just be rolling with what had been given to her. He would have to see what else had changed in the morning.

Hours went by in an agonizing fashion. The only thing that Sherlock could think of was the little boy with the teddy bear and the young woman who had done more than enough for him over the years. He didn't know if he wanted her to have to add all of this to her load. Not that she had much going for her. From what he noticed she was still as single as could be. Having a child around couldn't have helped her that much.

He had told her that she shouldn't try to date anyone. He hadn't been trying to be unkind. He had been observing her choices and while a few of them hadn't be too bad there were more on the list that had been morons, the worst of all being Jim Moriarty. He thought it was plausible for him to at least look out of her. She had seemed to be looking out for him that day in the lab.

He would have to pay her back some day. Today was not that day.

This was something much more than a debt. It was almost a life sentence if he thought about it. A child. He had never thought much of having family for himself.

It wasn't hard for him to think of how Molly had dealt with that on her own. Had she dealt with it on her own? Did anyone else know? God, he hoped not.

He peered over as he heard the small footsteps from before come around the sofa and huff as he tried to do something. The little body with the mop of curls tried to climb up onto the sofa next to him with a bit of a struggle. The stuff animal might have something to do with that. Sherlock watched him for a moment before realizing that he should probably just help him. The boy hadn't realized that he should put the animal down before climbing up on his own. The stuff animal was just hindering from doing what he so desperately wanted to.

Sherlock reached down and plucked the bear from his tiny hands, causing the little boy to look up him. It made the detective able to see the set of blue eyes staring back at his own. They were almost a mirror image back if not a little darker. "Hullo." He said in a bit of a quiet voice. The boy looked up at him as if trying to think of something. He looked around half way and spotted something and went over to it.

A picture, Sherlock noted.

He watched as the boy made his way back over to him and pointed to the photo. Sherlock wanted to groan at Molly for the photo that she had framed. It was the deerstalker one with him and John. "Lock." The boy repeated, Sherlock hadn't heard him the first time. He was trying to call his name. That was what he called him, "Lock."

Sherlock merely nodded. "Yes and what's your name?"

Before the boy could answer, he heard Molly answer for him. "Ezra. His name is Ezra Hooper. He's going to start school soon and he needed a last name. Irene hadn't told me otherwise. She just called him Ezra." She was slipping on one of her shoes as she made her way over to them.

"Are you hungry, sweetie?" She asked Ezra as he latched onto her leg. Molly just patted at his head and smiled. He nodded and rushed off to the table that was near the kitchen.

"Are you hungry, too?" She looked up at Sherlock when you notice he had been staring at her.

He shook his head. "I'd like coffee," he held back the full order as she had turned to go to the kitchen. "If you have any."

"Of course." She called all over her shoulder as she made her way into the kitchen. Sherlock stood up to his full height and ventured over to the table where Ezra was sitting with a sippy cup in his hands as sat on a little cushion that helped him see over the table. He was still rather short.

Sherlock was just observing all of this. There was a routine, he rather not mess it up. He felt a bit out of his element here, suddenly.

"You can sit. There's plenty of room." Molly told him when she turned for a second to check on Ezra. Sherlock sat hesitantly and watched Ezra who was coloring in a little book. Sherlock peered over and saw it was just one of those books that he often saw children coloring in. The page he was furiously coloring in red was a train. He liked motor vehicles then, he concluded.

Molly placed a cup in front of him soon enough and Sherlock was grateful to have something to do with his hands. He had begun to grow a bit fidgety. She returned to the kitchen for a few minutes. Untensils clattering together as she moved around. It wasn't really all that loud but as Sherlock had never had to be around people much lately this sounded about as loud as gunfire.

He let out a sigh when Molly came back with two bowls. One with cereal for Ezra and the other with fruit. She kept the fruit one to herself as she shifted from side to side and plopped the small cut up pieces in her mouth. "What are you going to do?" She asked after a few moments a silence. No noise besides her and Ezra eating.

"What are you referring to?"

"Whichever you feel like sharing. I have to take Ezra to Dr. Sullivan's office for a few hours. You're free to come along or you can go do the other thing."

"Do I have much of a choice?"

Molly placed the bowl down. Sherlock peered over into to see that there was little left. He did reach over and take a small cube of mango and plopped in his mouth as she began to talk. "Sherlock, I can't help you with everything. I don't know if that will help much. My responsibility is to Ezra and to the morgue."

"No, it's not." He argued firmly as he stared at her, stilling her.

"What?"

"You don't have to do this. You never had to do this."

"What did you expect me to do? Let him just rot somewhere in an orphanage? Or worse let Mycroft take him? Not that I think Mycroft is a bad person. He would take care of him, of course but I doubt that he would have liked it very much. We have a bit of a life here. I like it."

"I'm saying that you don't know what will happen tomorrow or the next day."

"I try not to dwell on things that much anymore."

"When there are power players looking out to hurt people closest to you, you do." He told her.

"Is that what this is about? Irene Adler. I told you that I don't need to know."

"What does he know?"

"He knows you. He knows you're Sherlock Holmes and he knows I'm Molly. I take care of him. That's all. He doesn't ask about anything else. I have told him about you. The good parts." She tells him as she grabs his cup which he has emptied, and stacks it in the bowl that had the fruit in it and takes the cereal bowl that has only milk left and walks towards the kitchen. "He's still working on his vocabulary though so he doesn't really know how to ask some things but that's fine. I do work with him, we read most nights a story. He seems to like detective stories." A smile slips onto her face as she grabs Ezra by the hand and heads back into the hall to get Ezra ready for their appointment.

When she comes back out with Ezra in tow. A bag over her shoulder, and looks around to make sure she has everything that she needs Sherlock is there waiting at the door. Sherlock turns to her before she can open her mouth to say anything else. "I'll meet you at Angelo's at six thirty. That'll be more than enough time for everything, right?"

"Sure." Molly gave him a reassuring smile before he opens the door and holds it for the two of them to shuffle out before she closes the door and locks it. She stops the thought from crossing her mind before it finishes. She wants to ignore it but it comes back quickly.

They almost look like a family, an actual family. Almost.

They walk down the steps and head out in two separate directions. They'll meet up again later. That's the promise that'll keep her moving for the rest of the day. She has to keep moving for both of their sakes. Ezra more importantly.

Welcome to my little three – parter. I think this little idea blossomed from watching A Scandal In Belgravia for about the hundredth time. I honestly don't know how you guys are going to feel about it but think of it this way there are only two other parts you may have to tussle through. Two more parts, I as the writer have to get through. I do hope you enjoy it a little bit. I did hide two references in this first chapter. If you can spot them I'll shout you out whenever I post part two! Have a wonderful day.

much love,

day