Disclaimer: Sadly I don't own any of it. Just my own personal copy of the books and DVDs :(

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Look who's come for tea.

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Molly Hooper hated the number seven.

She knew it was irrational. Sure she knew that a number couldn't be evil, but there was just something about the number seven that spelled disaster to her. If questioned she probably could have narrowed down her hatred of it to being seven years old. Because Molly Hooper's seventh year on Earth had been horrible. In the course of that year she had lost her mother, her home, her school, her friends and her pet rabbit. She had been miserable. Even later in life the number seven continued to taunt her. Her father had passed away on July 7th. And in 2007 she had met the man she would grow to love, only to have her heart broken.

Molly also knew that it only took seven letters to turn everything upside down; mistake, goodbye even Mycroft he had muttered, kissing her forehead as she had drifted off to sleep. But worst was the simple "I'm sorry" scrawled on the back of a bills envelope, lying on her kitchen table she had found the next morning. Seven letters which had led to her feeling hollow for months.

Looking back Molly should have known that today was going to be bad. It was October 7th and her 7am alarm had failed to go off. In her manic morning rush she had missed the headline story of the morning news and left her phone on her bedside table. She was so late she neglected taking the tube, meaning she missed what was blasted across the front page of every newspapers and what had strangers on the underground communicating. She would have been made aware of what had London and indeed the rest of the UK gossiping had she got into any other cab. But she had grabbed the first one she came across, the one with the oblivious driver, who quite frankly was too hungover to have registered anything other than how even driving at 10mph made him feel nauseous. Had she not immediately silenced her class and set them a quiz to find out what information they had actually retained over the summer she might have hear what had them all buzzing with excitement. If she had done her usual of mixing with her colleagues at lunch instead of spending the time in her pathology lab she would have been questioned on her opinion of the story. But it seemed fate was against Molly, because as she finished packing up her things and headed out the labs she was still none the wiser.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse and Molly had again jumped into the first cab she could grab in order to get home quickly and just pass out. She had been in a bad mood when she woke and it had just got steadily worse during the day, so when the taxi driver tried to engage her in conversation she had just told him she was in no mood to talk and went about sighing and softly banging her head against the taxi head rest.

It was 7pm when she unlocked her door and pushed herself through the doorway into the flat she called out, "Mrs Hudson I'm back. I'm sorry for not calling you during the day but I left my phone behind and it's just been super busy."

Unusually the older lady did not reply, but she heard the TV and voices in the lounge so went searching in that direction. Only it wasn't Martha Hudson she saw sitting on her sofa watching her usual soaps. The person didn't even look remotely like her. They were the wrong height, wrong age had the wrong hair colour and most importantly he was the wrong gender.

"You're not meant to be here." She said, before she could stop herself. She stood in the doorway looking over at him on shock. "You're not meant to be anywhere near here. You left."

"And now I have returned, do keep up Molly. It has been all over the news." He replied without standing up or even turning around to acknowledge her.

"I haven't seen the news. I've had more important things to do. I had to give my students a test and I have papers due, autopsies to perform... I've been non-stop all day."

"Ah yes Doctor Molly Hooper pathologist, teacher, con artist, mo-"

"Con artist?" she interrupted feeling offended. "I'm not a con artist!"

"Of course you are Molly." He answered, "Did you not partake in a particular spectacular con nearly three and a half years ago?"

"I did it to help."

"Yes well that doesn't change the facts now does it?"

Molly glared at the back of his head.

"Why are you here? Where is Mrs Hudson?"

"I came around earlier and relieved her of her duties. She was of the same mind as myself that we need to talk." Finally he looked over his shoulder in her direction revealing a black eye.

He had seen John then.

"Do come in and make yourself at home. Coffee black two sugars please Molly."

Was he trying to get himself a matching set of bruises?

"I think you can get your own coffee and I'll have a tea. Milk no sugar." She replied from her position in the doorway.

"My hands are full." he nodded his head to his arms and finally Molly moved forward to see for herself. "Hope. You called her Hope Holmes." He stated rather than asked.

"Hooper. It's Hope Hooper." She corrected, reaching down and brushing the hair out of the face of her sleeping daughter protectively.

"Names can always be changed."

"Why would you bother?" she questioned.

Sherlock just gave her his 'are you a complete moron?' face.

"Well it's not like you're known to be fond of children." she countered.

"That's because they are normally in no way as interesting or intelligent as Hope."

Molly found herself trying not to laugh.

"You've been here what two hours?"

"Three and a quarter."

And already he sounded just like one of those boastful parents who always went on about their child's achievements.

There was silence between them as they both looked at their two and a half year old daughter who unbeknownst to her was in the presence of both her parents for the first time in her life.

"Why are you here Sherlock?" Molly asked.

He didn't respond.

"What point are you trying to make in coming back here?

"I wanted to see, to observe."

"Why?" Did he still think she counted? After all this time?

Silence.

"Maybe you should just leave." Molly whispered. "If you don't know why your here or what you want then you should go. It's not good to confuse her like this." The confuse me like this was left unsaid, but not unnoticed.

Silence.

She leant forward and retrieved her daughter from his arms.

"Sherlock please leave."

Without a backwards glance he stood and left her flat.

Molly settled Hope down in her bed before making her way to her own room and collapsing on her bed.

Summing up the energy she picked up her phone from the bedside and she saw amongst the various texts and calls she had missed was one from Mycroft. He had sent it late last night and it was just seven letters. Had she read it that morning would have at least prepared her.

He's back.

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AN: So my little sister was bugging me into writing a chapter with Sherlock and Molly and I finally caved. I know my Molly might seem slight OOC, but she's been a single mum for a few years and has grown. And lets be honest if the man who got you pregnant then left turned up you wouldn't be a push over! Obviously Sherlock was aware there was a child, because well it's Sherlock and he knows everything.

Again thank you so much for reading! And this really is the last chapter of this. Although if my sister has her way I'll end up doing a follow up story...

- anotherlife x