A/N: I've had this sitting on my computer for awhile and since Benedict Cumberbatch and Loo Brealey did that letter reading at the Hay Festival, I've felt a responsibility to get this chapter done an published. By the way, a massive thank you to the lovely ladies who encouraged me to do this AU idea all those months ago in the Sherlolly Chat. I hope this meets your expectations.

WARNING: This chapter contains a warfare sequence.

Chapter 1: Call to Arms

He knew it was coming the moment Germany took the Sudetenland. He couldn't resist giving people that 'I told you so' look on September 3rd, 1939 (a date that would be burned in his memory forever). He'd been planning to go off to London and start a career as a consulting detective when it happened. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard had already agreed to let him in on cases. That was dashed when Lestrade joined the Royal Air Force.

Even with everyone he knew getting involved in the fight, Sherlock Holmes was determined to stay out of it. His brother, Mycroft, a member of the British government, wanted desperately for him to enlist.

"Britain doesn't need detectives right now, Sherlock. It needs soldiers, pilots, and seamen," he'd said condescendingly to his nineteen year old little brother that Christmas. The boy rolled his eyes and crossed his outstretched legs in irritation.

"I'm not a warrior, brother. I don't want to fight. I don't want honor or glory or any of that nonsense."

"Do you want people to think you're a coward?"

"I don't care what people think!" Sherlock snapped, his temper rattled. "People can think me a coward all they like, but it doesn't make them right."

"If you won't think of yourself, think of our parents. Think of what a disgrace it would be for them to have a coward for a son," Mycroft replied coolly. The younger Holmes glared furiously back, his body suddenly going very still.

"This isn't about them. They don't want me to go if I don't have to. No, this is about you and how you look to your superiors." His voice was perfectly calm, but it somehow seemed to convey an anger even greater than shouting ever could. Abruptly, he stood up from his chair. "If you want me enlisted so badly, why don't you go have my draft number called?" As he stormed out of the room, he didn't think Mycroft would actually do it, but he did.

Two days before his twentieth birthday, Sherlock was called to fight. He shipped off to London and they put him in the RAF as a group captain under Air Commodore Lestrade (there came certain advantages to being a brilliant posh kid with a brother in the government). At first, they had extreme difficulty getting him to be disciplined, but eventually they did persuade him to salute and address superiors as 'sir' (except for Lestrade, but the man let it slide). Even then, he did it with an underlying layer of sarcasm. Many under his command grew fond of him, but nearly everyone else came to dislike him. They hated his cheekiness, his seeming ability to know everything about someone just by looking at them, and how he managed to turn the head of almost every woman he passed while in his formal uniform.

"Lookin' sharp, sir!" a warrant officer called to him on his way off base. He smirked, but didn't look around as he answered.

"Carry on, Wiggins."

He was off to meet his mother at a restaurant for what could potentially be his last proper dinner. In her letter, she'd promised that Mycroft wouldn't be there, which was her way of begging him to come see her before they told him to fly somewhere and get shot at. She looked rather stunned when she first laid eyes on Sherlock in his uniform. She seemed quite affronted that they'd forced him to cut and tame his black curls. Instead of the unruly mop he'd sported since he was small, they'd fixed him with a prim and proper side part and now he looked unrecognizable from the back.

"For goodness sake, mother. Will you stop going on about the hair? It'll go back the way it was when the war is over," Sherlock grumbled after swallowing a bit of potato. His mother stared at him for a moment and seemed to grow quite sad. He could tell she was thinking about the 'if'. He didn't like thinking about the if. "I know how to fly a plane and shoot things, mother. I'll be fine." This did very little to console the woman and the rest of their meal was given a gloomy atmosphere. When it was time to say goodbye, she kissed him on the cheek and gave him a tight hug right there in the posh restaurant for everyone to see. He hadn't expected it. This wasn't his mother's typical behaviour. Perhaps the idea that her dear Sherlock, who was really still only a boy, was going off to fight and might be killed was affecting her more deeply than she was letting on.

"Promise you'll write," she ordered when he held open the door to her cab for her.

"Of course. Goodbye, mother." He wasn't usually a sentimental person, but closing that door felt like the end of something significant. He watched her cab go, still with that odd feeling inside him, and stepped back from the curb...to bump right into a young woman carrying her shopping. She was so small and her center of gravity was so altered by the things she carried that she fell right over. Immediately, he helped her to her feet and began picking up the things that had spilled from her bags. He paused when his hand closed around a pair of books. One was on chemistry and the other on anatomy. His keen gaze turned to look at the young woman more closely as he stood to hand her her books.

"Sorry! I should've- you don't need to- oh!" she babbled and then gasped as she caught sight of Sherlock's face.

"You're a nurse," he commented. For a moment she just gazed back at him in astonishment and awe. Slowly, she took the books he held out to her and tucked a loose brown lock behind her ear.

"I-I am. And y-you're a pilot. A...a group captain. B-but that's...that's obvious. How do you know I'm a nurse?" the young woman stuttered and Sherlock couldn't help but smirk.

"I can tell by your books and your hair and the way you hold yourself." The young woman gaped back at him, thoroughly impressed and enraptured. That wasn't the reaction he was expecting. He was expecting a slap hard across the face and a few angry words before she went off in a huff, but that wasn't what happened.

"That's...amazing." Sherlock froze. This was definitely not what he was anticipating.

"You think so?"

"Why wouldn't I?" The question produced an entirely unfamiliar sensation in Sherlock's stomach and caused his response to be impulsive.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes," he told her with a curt bow of the head (he couldn't shake her had as hers were both full).

"Molly Hooper. Pleased to meet you."

"Aren't you going to ask how your books, hair, and posture tell me that you're a nurse?"

"Do most people ask when know who they are just by looking?"

"Yes and then they leave angrily."

"I'm afraid I must disappoint you there, Group Captain Holmes. I can see how you figured me out," Molly replied with a soft giggle. "I guess I'm not most people. I've...I've always been strange." She was clearly embarrassed by this and Sherlock surmised that she had been bullied as a child.

"Not strange. Just different." He gave her a proper smile now and it made Molly's knees go wobbly. He was quite possibly the most charming man she'd ever had the pleasure of meeting. "It's late and you're carrying things. I'll walk you home."

"Oh no, it's fine, really. You don't have to."

"My mother would be very cross indeed if she learnt that I let a young woman walk home alone, especially at night, especially a nurse. I insist." He wasn't just doing what he'd been taught to do. He wanted to learn more about this unusual person. She clearly wasn't just a nurse. The chemistry book she had was one he also owned, one that wasn't necessarily geared towards pharmaceutical applications. Obviously she had greater scientific aspirations than those of a typical nurse. The idea that he'd found a kindred spirit excited him and made him eager to help her.

"Oh...alright then." Molly responded nervously. He continued to smile as the began walking in what Sherlock assumed was the direction of her home.

"You are a scientific woman, are you not, Ms. Hooper?"

"I-I suppose so...I mean, yes, yes, I am."

"What is your area of interest?"

"Er, pathology, mostly. Forensic pathology." Sherlock's blue eyes lit up at this. How wonderful that he should by chance meet someone whose personality and interests aligned so complimentarily to his own. How cruel that he should have so little time to speak with her.

"Death interests you?" he asked, being sure to sound pleasant enough not to give her impression that she'd put him off. She gave him a shy nod in reply. "Then perhaps it would please you to hear that before the war, I was going to become a detective."

"Oh, that's lovely! I'd bet everything I have that you'd be brilliant at it." There it was, that fluttering feeling in his stomach again. He couldn't decide whether it was pleasant or horrid, all he knew was that Molly Hooper thought he was brilliant. Not a wanker. Not a freak. And they'd only just met. Perhaps he was fooling himself. Perhaps she'd learn to hate him if she got to know him better. For those reasons, it was probably best that their meeting was to be so short.

He brought her to the door of her flat and she handed him one of her bags so she could unlock the door.

"Wait here a moment," she requested as she went inside. He looked in curiously, trying to learn more about her. This wasn't her flat. She wouldn't be able afford it on her own. She wasn't married; there was no ring on her finger. All signs pointed to father. Before he could deduce anything else, Molly reappeared and took her other bag off his hands. "Thank you, sir. You've been very kind to me."

"It was no trouble. It's not often I encounter a like minded individual," Sherlock replied casually. Molly stood on her tiptoes to press a tender kiss to his cheek.

"Good luck, Group Captain Holmes. I hope we meet again someday," Molly told the young man and he understood that the subtext of her words was 'I hope with all my heart that you aren't killed'. That struck him on a deep level that no one had been able to even touch for a very long time. It excited and terrified him simultaneously.

"Goodbye, Ms. Hooper. I will remember you." With a last tip of his hat, he dashed out of the building as quickly as possible so as not to give himself a moment to change his mind, because a part of him wanted to go inside that young woman's home and sit close to her all through the night, discussing everything from crime to music while he examined her small hands. He supposed that was near his equivalent to wanting to sleep with someone. He couldn't do it. They were both better off as they were, so he left with nothing but the memory of her locked away in a corner of his vast mind.

Now it just seemed like routine, sliding into the cockpit of his Spitfire. He didn't really think about the fact that he might be going to his death at this point. It was just another day, just another mission. Today it was Operation Dynamo. They were sending him off to Dunkirk to defend the sea and ground forces there. When it got right down to it, it didn't matter to him what they were ordering him to attack or defend. He just did his duty knowing that it brought the war one step closer to an end. Fear stopped registering with him once he'd flown a few missions. There was nothing but the thrill of the dogfight, airplanes performing a deadly dance through the sky. He'd locked everything else out in his mind. He didn't need anything else. Wouldn't Mycroft be so proud? This Sherlock was his creation, after all. His creation which now flew to the shores of France, to Dunkirk, to be the ultra efficient killing machine they'd made of him.

They didn't tell Sherlock that it was going to be hell. Everything was fire and smoke and death. He didn't let it get to him. He flew on and trained his guns on every Bf 109 that dared challenge him. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins as he pulled up in time to score his fifth hit. The Luftwaffe plane caught fire and dived through a cloud of billowing black smoke to plant itself rather destructively in the ground below. The men would start calling him an ace after this, but it didn't matter to him. He didn't even think about it. He only searched for another enemy to engage. Before he could target another unfortunate Bf 109 pilot to dance with, he suddenly found himself hit. He'd taken fire from an unforeseen direction. There was scarcely any time for him to react before he'd lost control of his Spitfire and was hurling in a dizzying spiral towards the beach.

The next thing Sherlock knew, he was barely conscious and he could feel himself being lifted and dragged. There came a sudden jerking motion and a cry of anguish, but Sherlock was carried on. Vaguely, he registered the sounds of men shouting, various explosions, and gunfire. Shapes and colors swam before his eyes before he completely passed out.

At first, when they brought him in, she thought she was going to be horribly sick, but she calmed herself and did her job. He wasn't dying on her watch.

They cleaned him up and treated his wounds and broken limbs. He had been extremely lucky and hadn't sustained any permanent injuries.

When her shift was over, she stayed and sat at his bedside, gazing at his haunted features.

"You know him?" one of her fellow nurses, Mary Morstan, asked.

"I met him once a few months ago. I've been thinking about him every day since," she answered, reaching out to brush an errant curl from his eyes. He didn't look like the boy she'd remembered. There were dark circles around his eyes and a pale clamminess to his skin. It was as if he'd become a ghost.

"I'm not shocked. I wouldn't forget a face like that in a hurry either." Mary smiled cheekily.

"He was very sweet to me."

"I'll bet he was," Mary responded with a wink and Molly blushed furiously.

"I-It wasn't like that!" she blurted out, although there was no denying that part of her wished it had been like that. Sherlock Holmes was the first man to ever take notice of her for her brain instead of her body and as a result, she was even more attracted to him than she otherwise would be. "I'd have married him on the spot if he'd asked me, though," she confessed quietly. Mary gaped at her.

"Molly Hooper, I'm surprised at you. You've always been such a sensible girl. I'd have thought you'd never let yourself get swept off your feet like that. What makes Group Captain Sherlock Holmes so special?" Mary was being a lot more serious now. She was rather sensitive to the changes in behaviour in other people. When Molly had pointed this out, Mary had told her that one needed to pay attention to those sorts of things, especially as a nurse in war time. It could save a patient's life, she said.

"He didn't think I was strange for studying pathology," Molly answered sheepishly. Mary continued to stare at her for a long moment, making the brunette nurse uneasy.

"He's one in a million, Molly. Ask him to marry you the moment he wakes up."

"Mary."

"I'm serious. You can't let this one just pass you by."

"He barely even knows me, Mary. Even if I asked him, he'd say no." Molly might be sweet on Sherlock Holmes, but she was a realist. "Besides, it's hardly fair to spring a proposal on him when he's just woken up in hospital after a terrible battle." She scanned her eyes over his body again, feeling her heart ache at all the bandages and casts. None of it was permanent. She knew that, but seeing him like this was still heartbreaking.

"Let him get to know you then. I can make sure they don't take him off your list or anything." Mary was dead serious. Molly could see it in her blue eyes and started to get a little bit teary at the knowledge that she had such a great friend.

"Thanks, Mary."

"You're welcome, dear. I just want you to be happy and any bloke who likes women who love science is well worth the effort." This brought a grin to Molly's face and she watched silently as her friend finished her shift by checking up on the man in the next bed over, who had apparently been the one to drag Group Captain Holmes from the wreck of his plane. He'd taken a bullet to the shoulder and lost a lot of blood. "This one's a looker, isn't he? Captain John Watson's his name. He's a medic. Risked life and limb to save your beau." The look Mary got from her colleague at this comment made her laugh again. "I'm allowed to set my sights on someone, aren't I? Goodnight, Molly."

"Night, Mary." Molly watch her friend go before turning her attention to the pilot in the bed beside her. She couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't foolish to hope for anything between them. Maybe it was destiny that had brought him back to her.

A/N: There you are. I'll try to get another chapter up as soon as possible. I hope you like it.