We are in the woods, the forest. The smell of pine and a note of birdsong in the summer sky, and the sharp prickle of the forest floor scratches at my back with the callous grasp of nature. I open an eye, then two. Late afternoon sun slants through the spiky branches overhead. Pine trees are so high, so straight, so hard and strong against the sky; dark fingers are my canopy, spread across the deepening blueness.

I feel a weight across me and I squint at her, so tightly that tiny corollas form across my lashes and hexagons of light dance into and across her brow. The sun melds to her beautifully freckled shoulder, skimmed by a heavy shank of silken hair. As she leans towards me, I sense the whiteness of her smile and the flash of her eyes as her lashes lower then open, and they lock with mine, and her pupils are big, black and – infinite.

Rocking forward, she shifts and I feel a heavy pulse from within; its solid insistence tells me that it will grow and it will grow, and it will bend me to its will. It throbs and thrums like a heartbeat – like my heartbeat. She is moving above me and the birds soften their chorus, like a cloud has passed over the sun, and she leans into me again … and again …

Warm breeze, bird song, pine needles, hot panting, heart beating … her soft fingers leave the pulse in my neck and lift to her hair, my eyes following, as if invited, and the sun glints across the gold in her hair and the five uncut diamonds set into that gold. Fingers caress the brooch and a fire-like glow begins to emanate from each stone as it is touched, and as they pulse and glow, I feel that pulse within myself, building, growing stronger and pouring outwards; skywards.

Her hand touches my shoulder and brushes across … touches and pushes away, and where her fingers brush, a trail of golden light follows. A deep and unequivocal knowledge suddenly enters my brain and I grasp her hand, halting its golden journey across my chest.

"You!" (dear lord, I am gasping) " – you are a witch! You have bewitched me."

Brown eyes and dark lashes, red mouth, white teeth smiling; she is still moving against me. The pulse is much stronger, building, almost unbearable.

Soft mouth, hot breath against my ear, whispering.

"You were so lost, Sherlock, so lost until I found you."

And the golden brooch glows brighter, so bright, with a vivid, brilliant, blazing intensity that the trees, sky, birds and even the sun are swallowed up into its searing glare –

I have found you.

As I open my eyes against the coolness of the encroaching dawn through half drawn curtains, I am unable to even untangle my legs from the twisted sheets or raise my head from the sweat-soaked pillow case. All I can do is close my eyes against the world I now inhabit and acknowledge that it has never looked so grey.

~x~

I feel numb most of the time
The lower I get the higher I'll climb
And I will wonder why
I got dark only to shine
Looking for the golden light
Oh, it's a reasonable sacrifice
Burn, burn, burn bright.

"How many boxes?"

Joanne, my APT is approaching my work bench with a clipboard and an apparent non sequitur. It says a lot, however, about the love of idle gossip in the lab that I know instantly what she is talking about.

"Ten. He says he meant to write `two` on the requisition form, but was distracted."

"Hmm. More likely he was knackered due to overtime. Sanderson`s on the sick – again."

Our boss, Mike Stamford is the most thoughtful, unassuming and thoroughly pleasant man to work alongside, so even when taken advantage of by work shy colleagues, he would always choose to give them the benefit of the doubt and apportion no blame. The rest of us regularly did that on his behalf, of course.

"So we now have eight extra boxes of yellow labels? Where the heck are we going to store them?"

I sigh, running a gloved hand over my back, which was aching from all the standing. Hmm, let the record show that my bottom did feel (I twist round to see) and possibly look, quite a bit smaller than when I last checked. Well, something good has to come from no appetite; there has to be some kind of payback. Trips to Tesco and meals out have become more of a chore over the past few weeks, and I have fallen completely out of love with the vending machine in the corridor. We are so over, they are going to have to find a new word for `over`.

"When you`ve finished checking yourself out, Molly – any ideas? Labels? Where shall I put `em?"

I look back towards my slide and decide it`s now too dried out to be of any use. Depressing.

"Do you really want me to answer that, Jo-Jo? Here," I hold out my hand. "Give me a few packets. Maybe I`ll get round to making that batch of jam I was thinking of making."

Yeah. Molly Hooper, cat-owner, jam-maker and dried up husk of a lonely spinster … maybe a new hobby is the answer.

~x~

Fun fact – Mary Watson bakes her own bread. She can also make a kill shot from five hundred metres away (whilst moving) but she`s also one hell of a baker. Therefore, it comes as little surprise to see her entering my lab that lunch time with a basket across her arm simply oozing baked goods aroma (yes, even cutting through the pretty pungent olfactory offerings the Morgue was sharing with us all).

Despite my lack of appetite, she did make me smile a wee bit.

"Little Red Riding Hood," I say, pushing a cup of coffee towards her, and she smiles back. "What big eyes you have."

"All the better to see right through you, Molly Hooper," counters she, clearly going for another kill shot before I can prepare myself. Ooh, I am not ready or able to talk about this right now. Or ever.

But, Mary puts down her basket and accepts the coffee without further comment, although I get the feeling she is cocking the rifle for the next assault. Attempting a distracting move, I ask her what tasty treats populate her basket as I nonchalantly place (too many) test tubes in the centrifuge.

"Gingerbread. It was my made up grandmother`s recipe. It`s not actually for you, Molly, I baked it for Mrs Hudson`s birthday tomorrow, seeing as gingerbread is her favourite."

"She told me chocolate krispie cakes were her favourites."

"Well, she did tell John she was more than partial to Battenburg, but I guess she`s just hedging her bets. I`m going to drop it round to Baker Street when I get Sholto from Baby Yoga."

"Oh, God."

"I know. I`m desperately hoping that by finding his inner Chi, he`ll decide not to snap people`s necks as a career choice. It`s nice to have aspirations for your children, don`t you think?"

"Mary, this is a bit of transference, isn`t it?"

"Hmm." Mary puts down her cup and looks at me thoughtfully, and I`m suddenly a little fidgety. "John went to see Sherlock yesterday. He`s even more bat shit crazy than usual, it would seem."

Just his name – oh dear God, I only need to hear his name and the palpitations begin. When, oh when is this going to end? It was just a few days of cabin fever… transference … getting close to someone in a life-threatening situation. It`s a classic – Stockholm Syndrome, or some such thing. And I could live with it, I truly could live with this longing if I hadn`t, just for one moment in that laboratory, wearing those ridiculous Hazmat suits, seen a look pass across his face. A look. THE look. I would like to say I imagined it, with the stress and all, but an (erratically beating) heart tells me otherwise. But it`s no good, you see. I can never say anything, and he never will, because he simply isn`t that kind of man. So beautifully brilliant, so splendid and triumphant, but Sherlock Holmes can never be my happy ever after, and we both know it.

Suddenly, Mary Watson is at my side, looking into my face and I don't see the bread making sniper, I see a concerned friend, since her eyes are kind and querulous.

"Oh, Molly, I`m sorry. I didn`t realise how much this had affected you." She pauses, looking.

"You`re in love with him, aren`t you?"

"Ha!" I brush away her concerns, but turn away my face, since my treacherous eyes are prickling with tears. "Trust me to seek out the least dateable man in London (if not the world) to fall for. Why do I never make it easy on myself?" I gather my emotions, for enough tears have been shed over Sherlock, and if I cry any more, I will be that dried out old spinster.

Mary pats my shoulder ineffectually, searching for something comforting to say, until:

"Second most undateable man in London … whole lot worse if you`d fallen for Mycroft."

~x~

Mr Readshaw told me absolutely nothing. I had gone to an indecent amount of trouble to find a reason for his untimely death, but his corpse offered zero in the way of knowledge of its cause. Internal organs? Utterly fine. No skin lesions, no unusual spikes in the blood work, no cause for concern, bar utter absence of life.

Ah, isn`t that sometimes the way of it, though? A million reasons why something might be so (or not so) and yet that something remains elusively un-so and unsolved. Gah! Where is a detective when you need one?

I pull off my gloves and throw them into the bin. The day has been long and the pining has been mighty, but I remain hopeful of a bearable evening, since I have a Marks & Spencer`s ready meal (king prawns – perfect) and Season Five of Breaking Bad to crack open (am hoping for a happy ending for Walter and his lovely family). Lab coat hung, handbag found (no messages), lab clear – oh shit …

Lab not clear.

Little Red Riding Hood`s basket of gingerbread lies on the bench, across from the centrifuge, like an invitation. Or a warning.

If you go down to the woods today …

Mary, I`m not doing it.

I`m really and truly not doing it. Mrs Hudson clearly has a very eclectic taste for cakes and pastries, and one, missing gingerbread will not trouble her very much.

Yep. Am ignoring the basket and stepping out into the early summer`s evening to partake of conveniently prepared seafood and a morality tale about meth labs (I could easily knock up a batch, but I have some jam to take care of first) – just watch me.

I`m on the tube. I`m on the Bakerloo line. I`m holding a basket of gingerbread. Do not judge me, for you have not walked a mile in my shoes.

~x~