A/N: Betaread by the lovely and encouraging Nocturnias (whose own stories you should check out if you have not so far). Any remaining mistakes are mine.

Thanks to all those who favourited this so far, and especially to those who reviewed – celeryy, I will be taking your concrit onboard, tried extra hard on that in this chapter. I seem to be doing angry!Molly a fair bit in the fic and it is hard to figure out with sparse examples in canon.

For everyone on story alert, I hope you are enjoying and that this chapter doesn't disappoint. There should be a new chapter every few days roughly, with 9 planned total. And possibly an epilogue, undecided yet.

Chapter 2: It's The Thought That Counts

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A day and a half later, notably no longer in any danger of April Fool's impinging, Molly heard a rap-a-tap-tap on the door to the mortuary. Sherlock knocking was very unlike him, an attempt to be nice. She didn't bother looking up as he entered but she found she could smell him far before she saw him anyway, curiosity kicking in and forcing a glance upwards – a sickly perfume accompanied the bouquet held up directly in front of him so there was no mistake she'd see his gift before she saw his face.

"You're giving me flowers?"

"A traditional I'm sorry present."

"Hmm. Lilies."

She bit her lip, wondered what to say exactly, and then tried to smile gratefully despite her misgivings. A tactic that obviously failed judging from his reaction, as with that he dropped the offending item on her desk nearby and quirked an eyebrow, wordlessly and patiently (for him anyway) waiting for an explanation.

Even in silence his undivided attention was unnerving and there was no mistaking the expectation he had that she spit it out, whatever it was that bothered her; he was polite about it with a lack of words - and thereby lack of his special kind of terse factual insults - but in no other way as his eyes bore into her in an intimidating manner, fingers flexed fidgeting with removing his gloves at his side and she could sense too the edge of exasperation to his breathing.

"It's just that, lilies... I don't like the smell really," she said with a glance at them that was as much to avoid his own gaze, "and it's not a usual choice to give a girl, I mean, uh, a woman. Like me. Not to mention, traditionally they're meant for...well, for a funeral."

"You work in a morgue."

She looked back at him squarely at that and raised an eyebrow, faulting his train of thought there, and he narrowed his eyes back at her. Not exactly touché as he would have liked, she imagined. It was a nice gesture overall but the implication she should be happy to get anything, no matter how ill thought out irked her. He should've been able to apply those myriad investigative skills of figuring out a more appropriate floral tribute – he was being something she hadn't ever expected of him, lazy.

"Doesn't make me dead or grieving. And...I don't like them. Apology not accepted."

All of sudden he leaned in and her heart raced. What is he doing? Soon enough she sensed the familiar trajectory, aiming for a kiss to the cheek. Molly swerved last minute, ending up stumbling against the slab to her side. The result was the same; his attempt blocked, no matter how clumsy she came to it.

"Whoa, no, Sherlock! You don' just get to do that. A peck on the cheek doesn't make it all better."

"More, then? I could go a full on pash on the lips if you prefer?" he said devilishly, causing her to blush, though she was angry enough to only be put off momentarily.

"That's even less funny than the other night's hilarious affair," she said, moving away to clean up her instruments. Fortunately he took the combined signs to back off and repositioned himself on the other side of the table at least.

"Oh, if only it had been an affair. I seem to recall you turned me down. And it was decidedly not a joke."

"Then why were you apologising?"

"Because I didn't realise the significance of the date. John corrected me on my bad timing. I now understand your reaction, as woefully wrong a conclusion as it was."

There was a series of clangs from metal hitting metal as she roughly shoved scalpels into the sterilisation tray much less carefully than normal.

"I would've thought John had taught you better than to insult people during an apology. It's not so good."

"More than a bit not good I'm sure, but you were wrong."

His tone was accusatory and he rested his hands against the edge, towering in across the space. What does he expect, for her to apologise in return? The behaviour felt part intimidation, part temptation, a plan to draw her in, which simply fuelled her dissatisfaction with him further.

"It didn't seem an absurd conclusion at the time. Even now that you've explained I'm not sure I can believe it. It wasn't very...you."

"Surely by definition anything I do is very me."

"Only if you want to do it," she quipped, fixing him with a cold look before taking the tray over to the side, a convenient excuse to get further away. She wouldn't let him win this one.

"You suspect I am being insincere in my intentions."

"How astute of you. Let me ask you this - why the sudden change of heart? Why the sudden addition of a heart?"

No sooner than the words were out of her mouth she regretted them, just a bit, having been harsher than she intended. After all it's not true he has no heart. She knows that. However calculating he was, Sherlock was still human, not a psychopath or a sociopath like some say. She knows from what he had done to save his friends that he does care in his own manner, for Ms Hudson, for John, for Lestrade even and for her some small amount.

"I explained before. You were listening weren't you?"

"Yes, I was, but to be honest it seemed very arbitrary, convoluted. Sherlock playing at being normal, trying to do what everyone else with their little minds does. I can't see why you want to, unless it's research or like suddenly you don't believe it would be a worthless distraction to bother being nice to actual people. I don't get it."

"Oh, it would be a distraction," he turned, paced back quickly and she could feel him hovering behind her, close enough to sense the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in deeply several times, "For once I'd like to welcome such a thing."

Then he was gone, weight near her lifted and footsteps indicating his pacing equally as fast away from her in that blink of an eye. Molly had to remind herself to take a decent breath in suddenly.

"Besides, I've had other, less healthy, distractions in the past. The key is management of time, one thing at a time. Case, date, case, date but never a case and a date! And do not kid yourself that me dallying in romance would be in any way normal and little and…dull."

She flipped around on the spot, having mostly regained her courage, though bracing her arms against the metal trolley behind her for support regardless, "You know you're not exactly winning me over with words like dallying and the implication you'd drop me like a...a...hot rock, at the slightest hint of a mystery."

She watched him slide about the room, noting his brief inspection of each end of the third body bag, the same she assumed as he had been doing to the others as she stood facing away, unsuccessfully disengaged from his conversation that she found herself drawn back to.

He'd been fiddling with her corpses, not inspecting them – though no doubt in the brief intervals he has deduced more than half the pathologist's in the building would have found out from a full examination – just looking, something to occupy his eyes, his brain, make it at least appear his attention is not fully on her. Either this conversation was boring him or he didn't want her to realise it was of any real importance. There was also the possibility it was both. There was a thoughtful delay before he answered her as he walked back up to her, like he wasn't prepared for her protestation.

"You could always join in on the cases from time to time if you felt deprived of me. It's evident you like analysis."

"It's not a matter of presence, much as I like yours," she said. At that he smiled, closing in, invading her personal space in a not exactly unpleasant way and she struggled to keep her composure, "It's - it's attention. Yours...strays too easily."

His reply came rapidly, spoken confidently. "I would never be unfaithful"

She laughed, leaning to one side, breaking his spell on her, "Not with a live person anyway."

He sighed at her retort and stood up as straight as possible, peering down at her. "I am who I am. I live for my work. Take it or leave it."

She stood up straighter herself, trying to ignore how he towered over her and maintain confidence despite her lack of stature. All she needed to do is keep her willpower intact a little longer.

"I thought we already established that I was leaving it."

That is the end of that, she thinks, extracting herself quickly from between him and the trolley and praying he would leave her be as she got on with her job.

Sherlock was more than a bit perplexed at the reconfirmation that she wouldn't go out with him. Her body language said as ever that she should want to; it appeared, unluckily, for him she was exhibiting ruling of reason and faulty logic over her emotions regarding him for once.

"Nothing in this discussion serves to sway your opinion? Despite your knowledge I was in fact not playing a prank?"

She hesitated, as if she might concede a point to him, but kept quiet in the end, slipping to the opposite side of the room to get new gloves and pretending to focus on the next body on her schedule. He could tell she was controlling her breathing, trying to stay calm, keep up appearance of being collected when actually she was nervous, uncertain, the ground she was defending crumbling away from her.

The irony was not lost on him that now he considered it correct that they pursue a relationship, at least experimentally, she did not any longer; didn't jump at the chance as he had envisaged. Dare he admit, as he'd hoped. This set back put him off slightly from the whole idea, except that he now, as ever, was unable to dismiss a challenge that captured his imagination.

He stopped his tirade there, disliking the hollow victory it would mean if he wore her down, abandoning his usual method of taking advantage with proximity. What he wanted this time was to impress, to wow her with the genius of his suggestion such that she complies due to reason alone. Molly will understand sooner or later; he merely required the right words and/or the right actions to make her see sense again.