It was all Watson's fault. Holmes was quite certain of that.

They were celebrating the (vaguely satisfactory) conclusion of a case with dinner and a superb '65 Lafite at Benekey's. Tucked away in one of the very private, leather-lined booths, Watson lit his pipe, cleared his throat and began, "So, old fellow, there's something I've been meaning to discuss with you."

At which point it became clear even to someone who wasn't a deductive genius that the doctor was about to embark on one of those paternal lectures to which he felt entitled based on the entire five years that he was Sherlock's senior.

"It's about your… relations with Miss Hooper."

"Doctor Hooper," Sherlock corrected him, eyes narrowing.

"In this case," Watson soldiered on like the Charge of the Light Brigade, "The 'Miss' is more relevant than the medical qualification. I'm… deeply pleased that you've found another companion and flatmate. And she's very lovely, once you get the mustache off her. But she is... a Miss, and it really doesn't do to…"

He hrumphed.

"To engage in that sort of behavior outside of matrimony. Certainly not with a young woman of decent upbringing."

Holmes rolled his eyes.

"My 'relations' with Doctor Hooper are entirely innocent and aboveboard. The arrangement we share is quite similar to the one which you and I had prior to your marriage, with the added benefit of providing her with a safe haven in which she can enjoy the economical advantages of having a flatmate with no need to conceal her true sex. Nothing I have ever done with her could not be done on the corner of a public street in full view of the newspapermen."

"Really? Why not?" Watson asked in tones of honest confusion.

Holmes glared at him until he raised his hands in submission and said, "Even so. Imagine if her secret were discovered. A young woman, unmarried, living with a famously bohemian bachelor and no older relative, no chaperone? Think of what it would do to her reputation."

"In this hypothetical scenario, Watson," Sherlock asked calmly, "What do you think would occasion more negative comment: the presumed loss of her moral purity, the fact that she's affected male costume for more than a decade, or the fact of her role as the second in command of a vengeful murder cult?"

"We're not talking about her behavior here, Holmes, we're talking about yours, and how it may someday affect her," the older man pronounced dryly.

And it was bloody unfortunate that Watson was, obnoxiously, right. If Molly's secrets ever were discovered,her actual crimes would pale in comparison to the scandal in the eyes of the world. Nobody would think twice about a man in his position taking a mistress… but said mistress? Would be immediately expelled from any society with the tedious desire to be respectable.

Damn Watson. Sherlock took another drink of wine and snapped defensively, "I am not an ordinary man, Watson. I have never claimed to be one, and while my living arrangements may not be ordinary either they are not subject to your criticism or judgement."

Watson shrugged.

"Always your way. Just… it's a bit rum, that's all. Ah, here's the dessert cart. I'm for a semolina pudding, you?"

Molly had taken off her mustache, and the unfashionably high collar which she was forced to wear to conceal the slenderness of her neck. Otherwise she was wearing her cranberry-red dressing gown, shirtsleeves and brown trousers, reclining on the sofa in front of the fire and reading the new Joseph Conrad.

Sherlock followed her example and exchanged his jacket for his dressing gown. Then he paced the room, buff silk fluttering behind him, until finally Molly marked her page and said mildly, "You're in a pet, aren't you? Case didn't go well?"

"Actually, yes," he said, stopping dead, "The butler did it. I hate when that happens… though it technically doesn't happen as often as you'd expect, considering the closeness of the relationship and the intense motivations it must provide for murder. But it's cliche and-"

"Therefore never makes it to the pages of The Strand?"

"The drivel that Watson publishes is of no concern to me, the offensive ignorant walrus-faced-"

"Oh, you've quarreled! I'm sorry," Molly said, "What happened?"

Holmes snorted and flung himself into his chair.

"He made objectionable assumptions about- well, about you and me, if you must know."

Molly set her book down and narrowed her eyes and asked, "What sort of assumptions?"

Holmes hesitated. Hooper didn't quite fit into any of the stock categories in which people were placed. You obviously couldn't treat her like an ordinary woman (by being chivalrous, helpful, and faintly patronizing) but yet conversations that he'd never hesitate to have with another man (or with Mary, who was also in a unique category) somehow seemed… coarse.

Finally he had to say, "He believed that we are lovers and said it was inappropriate for me to behave in such a fashion with a decent woman."

"Which, I mean, it's clearly false," Molly said, "Though I don't see quite how it's objectionable or offensive."

"Hooper," Sherlock began, "Not having been brought up a gentleman you may not be aware of the fact that one of those would never take advantage of an unwilling lady."

"Ideally, though in practice I think there may be some slippage, but-"

"And you are a Sapphist, so obviously-"

"I am a what?" Molly interrupted him.

"It's… it's the polite term for a woman who prefers the intimate company-"

"I know what a bloody lesbian is, Holmes. But why would you think I'm one?"

Sherlock hesitated, and said, "The fact you dress in men's clothing? And the fact that you joined a society dedicated to killing us?"

"Founded," Molly frowned, "I founded that society, with Louisa and Emilia. I wear male clothes because doing that enables me to practice my chosen profession. And we wouldn't have had any reason to kill any of you if we were inclined to avoid your company entirely. And as I recall your old friend not-her-face dressed famously well and entirely a la feminine mode."

"Ah," Sherlock sighed, "Always something I miss."

"I mean if we're slanging around allegations of homosexuality there's always been speculation about you and Doctor Watson."

"Certainly not," Sherlock snorted, "He's very short and smells of iodoform."

"I'm shorter than he is, and smell, mostly, of formaldehyde."

"Well," Sherlock hesitated, "On you it's… different."

"I see."

Molly considered for a moment, and asked, "So the reason we aren't lovers is that you believed I wouldn't care for it, due to my alleged preference for other women?"

"Um…" Sherlock could feel a blush covering his face.

"Because that's interesting," Molly said. Rising to her feet, she slipped off her dressing gown, shrugged her braces off her shoulders. She stepped over towards Sherlock, undoing the top button on her shirt as she came.

"Whatever are you doing, Hooper?" he asked leerily.

"My dear fellow, what does it look like?"

The Watsons were actually acting like normal people for once and were spending the Sunday morning taking an inventory of John's surgery. Mary was counting bandages, John was noting (pleasedly) that he would need to buy far less laudanum than he used to which meant that Sherlock probably was actually abstaining. Then the detective himself walked in, unannounced, as was his custom.

He was really very ruffled, and Mary cocked her head and said, "Oooh, I never knew it, but your hair is quite curly, isn't it, Sherlock? You look like Lord Byron."

"He looks like he's been dragged backwards through a hedgerow," Watson snorted, "What's happened, Holmes?"

Sherlock gazed at nothing and uttered solemnly, "I… I have compromised Doctor Hooper."

"Oh, how lovely," Mary exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

"Mary!" Watson hrumphed.

"Oh, what, John, they're so well suited. And Molly's so nice. Obviously she can't openly support the cause given her… particular situation, but did you know she gave me five pounds for the campaign last month?"

"How," Watson asked, "Exactly is that relevant, Mary?"

"I suppose it's not, really, but she can't make very much money working for Scotland Yard and it goes to show how generous she is."

"Well now that she's gone into keeping she should have even more cash to spare for women's suffrage," Watson replied snidely.

"I haven't taken her into keeping," Sherlock said, although he sounded rather uncertain.

Mary blinked up at Sherlock from her kneeling position on the floor in front of the supply cupboard, and glanced over at John.

"Well, I mean, Sherlock-" she said slowly, "You live with her, you heavily subsidize her rent, and now you two are… mmhmphg."

This last noise was startlingly indelicate but got the point across quite well.

"She's your mistress, mate," Watson said bluntly, "Unless you do the right thing."

Sherlock stood stock-still, as he did occasionally when there was a critical calculation to perform.

"You… you are correct."

Straightening his lapels, Sherlock ran a hand through his ruffled hair to get it out of his face.

"You are entirely correct. I suppose there is nothing for it. I had never intended to embroil myself in domesticity, but there's no other honorable course available to me."

"Um, Sherlock, I don't know quite what you're planning on-" Mary began, rising to her feet and brushing dust off her skirts.

"I must get married," Sherlock said simply, "Thank you, both. I'll see you later. After."

With that, he left. Mary scowled at John, and said, "You realize that what happens when he goes to her with that will be your fault, right?"

"What?"

"You know, Holmes, generally in a shotgun wedding you aren't expected to point the shotgun at your own head," Molly said, scowling.

(Later, once he'd had a bit more practice at this sort of thing, Sherlock acknowledged that beginning a proposal of matrimony with, "Well, Hooper, it's unfortunate, but given that it has happened I suppose now we're really obligated to marry. Would you prefer a special licence or would you rather wait out the traditional reading of the banns and so forth?" was probably not the best way to go about it.)

Sherlock blinked at her.

"I have never in my life tried to trap or trick a man into any sort of intimacy against his will, especially not marriage," she continued, "There is no obligation here. You are a free agent, as always."

Odd. He hadn't previously thought that Molly was covered in invisible spikes and yet they were quite perceptible now.

"I've… offended you."

"Quite a lot, actually, yes."

"Why?"

"Because apparently it took one incident where we enjoyed one another to make you immediately throw me back into in the pile of 'women,' to be protected and patronized. I would never marry any man who didn't… who didn't love me."

She straightened her slight shoulders.

"No harm will come of it. Nobody knows about it."

"Ah-"

"And therefore you need do nothing."

Sherlock hesitated, and asked softly, "And the moral aspect of it?"

Molly snorted.

"You and I have never felt subject to conventional morality, Holmes. You weren't my first and I'm damn sure I wasn't yours… why worry about 'morals' now?"

Sherlock considered, "I suppose because you're… different."

"In what way?"

Silence.

Molly smiled cynically.

"If you ever figure out precisely how then we can deal with the morality then. But if you do sincerely feel it's wrong then… we need never repeat it."

"I suppose not."

Though two weeks later when she came and sat in his lap one evening and said, "Though talking of morality there is something to be said for being hanged as a sheep rather than a lamb," it became quite difficult to remember exactly what his objections had been.

"It happened again," Sherlock said, stalking into John and Mary's dining room as they were taking their breakfast.

"Rum," Watson pronounced smugly.

"John Watson, you horrid old hypocrite," Mary scolded him.

"I beg your pardon?" Watson said, twitching his mustaches in irritation.

"It's not as though you were some… bastion of moral rectitude when you were a bachelor," she replied, "Remember the sofa, at Mrs. Forrester's? When someone rang the doorbell and we thought we were going to get caught?"

"Well… well that was entirely different," Watson spluttered, "I had made, and you had accepted, a proposal of honorable marriage. We were actually married less than a week later. It was simply a bit of an… anticipation of the ceremony."

Mary frowned at him, and in the same tones a professional gambler might say, "Full house, kings over nines," said, "And then of course there was that cab ride you and I took back from that steamboat chase on the Thames. Which you fictionalized in "The Sign of Four" by leaving out my presence entirely but during which you were apparently nobly planning to never see me again afterwards, since as a poor man you couldn't offer yourself to an heiress."

"Ah," Watson said quietly, clearly remembering.

"Ah indeed," Mary purred. The Watsons' maid came in just then, and Mary said, smiling, "You're too late for us to feed you, Sherlock, but would you care for a cup of tea, or coffee?"

"Coffee would be very kind, thank you, Mary," Sherlock said, taking a seat at the table.

"A fresh cup for Mr. Holmes,please, Susan?" Mary asked.

The housemaid took her cue and left the dining room. Sherlock commented, "You lot were married barely two months after you first met, and for three weeks of that he wasn't even speaking to you because he was upset that you were concealing the fact that you work for my brother."

Mary cocked her head and asked, "And?"

"And nothing, I'm just impressed you managed to squeeze in all these encounters."

"In my defense," John said, a faint smile on his face, "I was quite desperately in love."

"Were you?" Mary said, and the joyful shine on her face made Sherlock look away, feeling that he was seeing something that was too close to the heart to be shared.

"Oh, rather. And desperation can make a man act the cad, you know."

"Which is, sometimes... appreciated. By the lady in question," Mary laughed.

"Very well, I know when I'm bested. Holmes, bugger off, and do present my fondest regards to Doctor Hooper when next you see her," Watson said, flinging his napkin onto the table and rising to his feet.

"I- my coffee hasn't arrived yet!" Sherlock protested.

"Try the Turk's Head, in Pembroke Square. Excellent cuppa. Or, in fact, intercept Susan and tell her you'll take your coffee with her in the kitchen. I need to kiss my wife now and I'd prefer not to have an audience."

Notes: This fic was inspired by an amazing sketch by artbylexie at tumblr. And after trying every possible way to scramble the URL so this site would let me post it, I've given up. If you'd like to see it, there's a link in the archive of our own equivalent of this story. Same username, same title.