Sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up! A good friend of mine had some family issues and I needed to help out. I hope you enjoy, and let me know if you do!

Stuttering Molly Hooper, clumsy, star-struck, and pining was a long-evolved creature, and she and Sherlock had fallen into a comfortable friendship. So, after dreaming of babies with a man she had thoroughly tried to repress her feelings for, she found herself sitting uncomfortably in the waiting room of a fertility clinic. Molly attempted to focus on the clipboard of forms that she was balancing on her knee, but her racing heart and sweating palms distracted her. You're not making any decisions yet. She told herself. No need to be anxious! Just relax.

Her eyes wandered around the room, landing on a couple about 10 years younger than she. The woman had rested one hand on her prominent baby bump, the other was laced with her husband's. She looked up to him and gave him a toothy smile and he smiled back, laughing at something she had said. Molly felt a tang of bitter jealousy in the pit of her stomach.

"Ms. Hooper?" A young blonde in butterfly-printed scrubs popped her head around a door. Molly got up and followed her. The woman took her to a traditional doctor's office, complete with a wheeling stool, various medical supplies, and a paper-covered cot. After waiting about fifteen minutes she was met by another woman, much older, hair hanging in grey ropes. She wore a lab coat- a familiar and comforting sight for Molly.

"So, what brings you here today?" The doctor asked, sitting on the stool and pulling up Molly's file on her computer. She clicked quickly at a few keys on an old keyboard, read something from a manila folder, then looked up at Molly.

Molly hesitated, fiddling with the thin, waxy paper underneath her. "I want to have a baby." She bit her lip and took a deep breath.

"So you and your partner want to do basic fertility tests? Maybe fertility treatments? They are perfectly common at your age." She was clearly trying to sound reassuring.

Molly was now biting her lip so hard that she was afraid she would draw blood. "No, I want to try artificial insemination with a donor." She felt almost ashamed to admit she was doing this alone.

The doctor quickly noticed her mistake, scrambling to correct herself. "Oh! Well we can give you a list of our donors and you can pick one, then you'll come back and we can go through the insemination process."

"That would be lovely, thank you."

"Due to your age," the doctor said delicately. "I would consider doing a few cycles of fertility treatments. The insemination process is a bit of a… financial strain, and the success rate per cycle is only about ten to twenty percent. In a healthy woman, it tends to be about six months or so before pregnancy occurs."

Molly stared at the woman in front of her. She was a doctor herself, but she hadn't fully considered all the details of this process. Her mind was swimming when the doctor returned with a binder. Pages of men she had never- and would never meet.

"No! He didn't even go to university!" Molly and Meena were sitting in the cafe at Bart's, flipping through "The Binder of Boys" as Meena called it.

"Yeah, but look at that jawline! I mean I would love to have his babies." The pair giggled for a bit. "You're so picky though! Do you think it really matters that much? I mean as long as he's healthy…" Meena trailed off when a certain consulting detective sauntered up to their table.

"Molly! I require at least two human arms immediately." Sherlock interjected. Both women rolled their eyes at him.

"Hello to you too, Sherlock. I'm a little busy right now." Molly watched Sherlock's eyes fall to the binder and she quickly slammed it shut. Sadly, it was not fast enough for his flitting eyes.

"Sperm donors Molly? Interesting…" Molly felt her cheeks flush and her stomach begin to rise to her throat.

"I… uh…"

"Molly, those men aren't the only ones that are willing and capable of providing a superior Y chromosome." With that, he slid away from the women and right out the doors, leaving Molly very confused.

Though Meena was convinced that Sherlock was just trying to mess with her head (not a surprise by any means), Molly continued to think about what he had said to her in the café. Though she really should have been completing the autopsy report for Mrs. Norbert, a middle-aged woman who had come in for a serious case of the hiccups, and mysteriously died after spending about twenty-five minutes in the ER, Molly instead read and re-read the profile of the only donor that even remotely interested her.

He was a young man, only twenty-three, six foot two, with black coffee-colored curls. He was completing a doctorate in physics and had graduated from Yale. He's an American then! Molly thought, but she wasn't going to lie to herself- he did look a little like her favorite detective. She sighed and shut the binder just as Mike Stamford knocked on her open door.

She glanced up at the man, worried that he had caught her slacking off work, or even more embarrassingly caught a glance of her "Binder of Boys". He looked at her questioningly though and asked,

"What's that Molls?" He didn't sound angry at her, but rather curious instead.

"Nothing," Molly answered quickly as she threw it in her desk drawer and picked up her pen to start her report. Mike didn't seem to get the hint though and instead sat down in one of the chairs on the other side of her desk, looking concerned.

Molly bit her lip, waiting for the impending questions. "Mike, I'm really sorry. I'll get back to work."

"What was that Molly?" Mike asked again. Molly sighed and begrudgingly placed her shame in front of him. He looked up at her expectantly and she nodded for him to open it. Molly closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, not wanting to see the expression on his face when he understood the shortcomings in her love life. She waited as he flipped through the pages, but when she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see a toothy grin.

"Congratulations, Molls!" He leaned over the desk to embrace her. She stiffened in his arms, but his kindness softened her and she let herself give in, hot tears beginning to roll down her face. Mike pulled away, scanning her with concern. "What's wrong?" He seemed genuinely confused.

"I just never really thought…" She sniffled. "thought that I would be doing this alone." She buried her head in her hands.

Mike reached out and touched her shoulder. "You are not alone Molly." She was now fully crying, heaving out sobs and gasping for air. Mike reached over her and grabbed her a tissue to wipe her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mike. This is so unprofessional," she blubbered. It now fully dawned on her that she was talking in depth about her personal life to her boss.

"It's quite alright, really I-" He was cut off by the slamming of the lab door. Mike got up to shut the door to her office before the stranger could intrude, but a dexterous hand caught the door just in time.

Sherlock pushed himself passed Mike, who quickly escaped the office, to stand in front of Molly. "You're upset." He said it as a statement rather than a question. Her head was once again buried in her hands, an attempt to embarrass herself a little less, and he used two long fingers to gently tilt her head towards him. He immediately took in her puffy eyes and wet cheeks. "And you've been crying." He kneeled beside her.

She took a deep breath, attempting to comfort herself before she met his gaze. "It's nothing, really." She tried to sound convincing, but her voice quivered and she knew that her eyes betrayed her. She watched as his eyes scanned her office until they landed on the open binder.

"What happened?" He scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, a rare form for him to take. He stared at her patiently with those sea-glass-eyes and she melted. Molly caved into his chest, feeling the warmth of him surrounding her. He stayed frigid for a moment, still under her touch and Molly began to feel as though she had made a mistake, but right as she was about to pull away in embarrassment, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him. She continued to cry silently against his chest, as he rubbed slow circles on her upper back until her breathing evened out. She felt so safe in his arms, pushed up against the firm muscle of his body, the subtle scent of his cologne and tobacco. When she had calmed, Sherlock pushed her away slowly and pulled a chair around to sit in front of her. "What happened?" he asked again.

Molly sighed. "I… I just don't think I can pick a complete stranger to be the father of my baby. Or raise a child all by myself." She mumbled.

Sherlock knew what he wanted to offer her, but he wasn't oblivious to Molly's attraction to him. He understood what John would say- offering her his genes was a bit not good. "You're leading her on, Sherlock." And yet he could not really give her what she wanted- a family, a husband, domesticity, love. Love that he knew he couldn't provide. Though he wasn't able to give her everything she wanted, when he looked into those big, brown eyes, he couldn't resist.

"Simple Molly! I am a more than satisfactory male specimen, and you do know me. I, of course, would not be truly involved in the child's life, but I am sure that I am much smarter and likely much more attractive than your other options there." He waved dismissively in the direction of her binder.

Molly cocked an eyebrow at him in confusion. "What are you talking about?" She choked out.

"Obviously, Molly, I'll be your sperm donor!" With a flourishing twirl of his coat, he sprung up and went to the door. Just as he was about to leave he spun back on his heel and said, "Text me the details. You know where to find me." And with that he left, leaving Molly's mind racing. She plopped her head into her hands and fell back into her chair with a sigh.