The first time Molly sees Sherlock after the Eurus ordeal, she comes home to a familiar silhouette against the window, even more heart-stopping than usual.

"It's you," she blurts inanely.

"It's me."

"You never turn on the lights. Why do you never turn on the lights?"

"I didn't want to startle you."

She tries to laugh, but it comes out rather strangled. "So instead you appear in my flat in the dark?"

"My mistake."

He starts to reach past her toward the switch, but she grabs his hand to forestall him.

"No need to apologize," she says. She isn't ready to see him in full light yet. "Um...why are you here, anyway?"

"Baker Street is not in prime occupancy repair at the moment. And I keep the keys to all of my bolt holes."

"John's house is fine."

"Mrs. Hudson is lodging there at present."

"You could kip on his couch."

He sighs, and it is then, as he twists his hand in hers so their palms meet, that she realizes she hadn't released him.

"I suppose I don't deserve you making this easy for me."

She licks her lips, but her tongue seems to have gone dry, too.

"It's okay, Sherlock," she says, a hitch in her voice. "I don't need you to apologize, or to explain—it was a hostage situation, Greg already told me..."

He drops her hand and grabs her face. "Molly Hooper, I swear to you, if you don't stop talking, I can't be held responsible."

All the pent-up frustration and sorrow and confusion and (yes) joy of her ridiculous history with this man surge like floodwaters against a dam. The wall has been strong enough for years, but she has told him she loves him, and she has heard him say it, and there is a breach.

Molly Hooper throws her arms around the neck of Sherlock Holmes and kisses him like it's the first and last time she ever can.

He goes rigid at first, but then his hands move to her back, and he begins to relax, and then...

She pulls away in astonishment.

He shrugs. "It would seem it wasn't just a hostage negotiation." Despite his casual gesture and tone, he looks as surprised as she does.

And then, Sherlock Holmes leans forward and kisses Molly Hooper, gently and slowly, like the first time of all the times in the world.

Quite the experiment.

Soon, she finds herself with her arms wrapped around his waist, beneath his suit coat. His breathing is deep and calm, his heart rate steady, but Molly wonders if he could possibly be that calm on the inside. Her own thoughts are running in a thousand different directions, from elated to terrified and back again.

Sherlock (Sherlock!) is still holding her. She should be happy with this insane turn of events her life has taken. Is happy. But...what happens next? Is there a next? Could she stand to be in a relationship with Sherlock? Could she stand not to?

Tears tickle the corners of her eyes as her emotions swirl and collide, but she holds them back. The poor man must be stretching himself to the limits this week as it is.

She craves his words.

"I was wrong," she ventures, and he pushes back slightly to make eye contact, brows pulling together in curiosity. It's ridiculous, really, how much he has to crane his neck. "I'd like that explanation, after all."

He nods, and her stomach growls.

"Sorry," she says. "Long day. I don't suppose you're..."

"Quite starving, actually."

She doesn't have an organized palace, but without meaning to or always wanting to, her mind has been filled to overflowing with glances and offhand comments. Worn around the edges from being taken out and examined so many times, they are now taking on the sheen of revision as the present begins to color the past.

"Fancy some chips?" she asks, or rather, quotes. "Takeaway," she adds quickly. "Or from the freezer, I could pop those in the oven, but then there's nothing much else in the place."

"Takeaway will be fine. Burgers over fish today, I think. You go. I have a few things to take care of."

"What sort of things?"

"Bug and camera location and removal, mostly."

"Sorry, what?"

He takes her by the shoulders and steers her toward the door. "I'll explain over the chips."

He does, and she surreptitiously pinches herself more than once, because it is all far too bizarre and contrived to be real. John's therapist was actually the third Holmes sibling? John, Sherlock, and Moriarty went through a mad day of one horror-filled scenario after another? Eurus knew who Molly was, and knew in a way that Sherlock himself hadn't realized until that blasted and blessed phone call?

Though she fears her arm will be black-and-blue by morning, pinching is otherwise without effect, and everything stays where it was—Molly curled up in her puffy club chair with a half-empty basket of chips, Sherlock near her elbow on the sofa, Toby winding around the detective's ankles and receiving the odd scratch on the head.

Sherlock's voice has become strained, having concluded the factual narrative and moved into the post-mortem of their telephone conversation. Except post-mortem isn't the right word, is it? Post-mortem is death and failure, and this, this is something else entirely outside of Molly's realm of expertise.

"I'm not good at..." Sherlock focuses all of his attention on the spot his fingers are stroking just behind Toby's right ear. She can't imagine he's started many sentences that way, or many ways other than the first one that leaps to mind that such a sentence could end.

"Feeling things?" she finishes.

"Molly Hooper," he says, and she is beginning to suspect that when he runs out of words, he uses her name to grasp at what he can't express. She expects she'll be hearing her name quite a lot, and the thought makes the corners of her mouth twitch upward.

"Elizabeth," she offers, as solemnly as possible.

"Pardon?"

"Molly Elizabeth Hooper," she elaborates. "In case you need it in future. And I know you're not. Good at feeling things. I have both seen and observed."

His brows furrow uncertainly. She grants him a smile full of teasing affection, and he matches it with a wry grin of acquiescence.

"Molly Elizabeth Hooper," he draws out deliberately. "I am forced to concede you are more than a match for me."

She tilts her head in acknowledgment, then watches, bemused, as he opens and shuts his mouth repeatedly for a few moments. Finally, she takes pity on him.

"You don't have to be," she says. "Wait, no, not the match part, I like being any kind of a match for you. Well, other than a bad one..."

"Molly."

"Good at feelings," she says. "You don't have to be. You don't have to be good at everything. You can be...improving at feelings. Trying at them."

"You deserve somebody good at them."

"Sherlock, you even having that thought puts you miles beyond where you were when we first met."

He raises his eyebrows, but doesn't protest.

"Do you honestly think I need you to be anything you're not? When I told you..." She trails off. It is too much to say in a fully lit flat with him staring at her.

"...that it had always been me you loved..." he prompts, as unconcernedly as if they were discussing a case.

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, that. It's not like it was when you first came round to the lab. Back when I used to dream up all kinds of ways for you to sweep me off my feet. You're a bit of a prat, you know. Or maybe you don't. You can be inconsiderate and pompous and completely aggravating, and 'always' takes in all of those times, too, do you get that?"

"That's why I love you," he says, as though he has just solved something. "Thank you, Molly."

"For what, exactly?"

"For taking my call. For always taking my calls."

"Take a few of mine now and then and we'll call it even."

"Why do you all put up with me?"

"We must think you're worth it." He opens his mouth to speak, but she holds up a hand. "Don't try to contradict me. We outnumber you."

"May I ask one favor?"

"Anything at all."

"Do tell me when I'm being a prat."

She bursts out laughing. "My dear Sherlock Holmes," she chokes out after she composes herself, and she passes him the chip basket. "That's one part of this new world order I'm not worried about in the slightest."