Cold air rushed up the side of the red brick flat, covering Sherlock's bare chest and arms in bumps. He pulled at the cigarette and leaned back against the frigid wall.

Molly had told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to smoke in her home, so he had contented himself with merely pulling on trousers as the fog rolled in. Chilly as it was outside, he felt heat pooling inside of him. This second night with Molly had been remarkable, a new terrifyingly intimate experience. The morning light had revealed her eyes, her expressions, her body, the glimmer of dawn on her skin and in her hair. He had seen exactly what they had done together, and he knew that she had seen all of him.

Any question of vulnerability had been answered in the worst way possible. He had returned to her uninvited. He had initiated their second encounter, despite her warning. It was Sherlock, not Molly, displaying an alarming beginning of sentiment.

"Let's not make this a habit," he heard from the door. "You'll make me terribly late for work." Molly was dressed for the lab, her hair neatly brushed and braided up, bag over shoulder. He moved to go in to her and she raised a hand to stop him. "No, no, finish your cigarette, I need to get going." He flicked it aside and stood in front of her, not touching.

"I-" Sherlock was at a loss for words. He wanted to say something friendly but non-committal. Molly chastely pecked him on the cheek, and toyed with his hair a moment. It felt good.

"So absurdly handsome." she said fondly. "Come visit me when you're finished chasing down the bad guys, and be safe." With a cheery smile she turned away. Sherlock surprised himself by catching her hand. She watched him slowly raise it to his lips.

It tickled and made her feel terribly awkward.

"Thank you, Molly." His eyes were intense, and she had the feeling that if she didn't go now she would be missing work entirely.

"Must dash," she exclaimed, pretending not to notice his mood. She slid her hand away and made a hasty exit. She called back over her shoulder, "Go inside before you freeze!"

Sherlock felt a little wounded. That was hardly an appropriate farewell for what he had told her would likely be a year.

There was no point staying in the flat without her. He dressed hastily, locating where his clothes had landed in the flurry of activity hours earlier. One broken button left a small gap in his shirt, but he tied his scarf to conceal it, and shrugged on his jacket and shooed the cat off of his new overcoat. A quick check in the mirror revealed the marks on his neck appeared to have grown only more vibrant, and he adjusted the scarf again.

Standing at the door, hand extended towards the knob, Sherlock made a split second decision. He tried not to think about what he was doing as he strode purposefully towards the bookshelf, pulled down Molly's tiny, framed graduation photo, and shoved it in his pocket. The cat watching him with knowing eyes, and he left, locking the door with the spare key Molly had given him before the incident of the roof of St Barts.

Downstairs he was met by the usual sleek black car, complete with the usual silent woman in black texting away. He ignored Mycroft's assistant, leaning back against the seat.

"It makes sense that you feel disconnected," Molly had told him, half-asleep on his chest. "You've lost your identity, your friends, some of your self-respect to Moriarty, and more recently, your innocence." This last part she had said wryly, stroking him lightly down his hip. He had inhaled sharply and wrapped his arms around her more tightly. "So much of what made you who you are is gone, however temporarily."

Voicing a concern that had been eating at him, he tried to avoid her eyes.

"You said that you would be willing to help me even if I wasn't everything you or I thought that I was. With everything I've lost how can you still respect me?"

She laughed sleepily, pressing a kiss to his throat.

"You sound like a chamber maid who has been dallying with the footman. I haven't ruined you, Sherlock. Putting your anatomy in mine doesn't change things unless you let it. It's all chemicals, hormones, muscular and nervous reactions. We both like science, just enjoy being part of the experiment."

She made it sound so callous, so impersonal. He couldn't deny that the way he was feeling was highly unscientific. Molly pulled back to read his face. She realized that she had misunderstood and tried to make amends.

"You're still a raving genius and annoyingly brilliant in addition to now being a fabulous shag, you know. I'm sure when this is all over, terribly boring, average people will be knocking down your door with fascinating cases, begging for the world's only consulting detect-"

Sherlock flipped them over, bracing his hands on either side of his head.

"Do be quiet, Molly." He kissed her grin away, guiding her legs back up around him.

It was several months later that Molly found Sherlock lurking in the darkness of the staff locker room. She caught sight of him in the tiny mirror and stifled a surprised gasp.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered to the reflection. "There are cameras everywhere."

"Calculated risk," he said. "I need to see a body."

She raised an eyebrow. That had better not be a pick up line.

"Mr Chillingworth."

"He came in this morning, but you can't go into the lab, it's too closely monitored."

"Mycroft has given me one hour. The hospital will go on an emergency lock down, the cameras will malfunction along with all non-essential services."

"Starting when?"

Sherlock was texting on his mobile, she wasn't sure if he had heard her.

"Now."

Alarms began sounding all over the building. He grabbed her hand, pulling her back into the lab while the doors swung automatically shut. They clicked menacingly behind her, shutting out the noise. The lights of the corridor that overlooked the morgue went out, and she watched the red indicator lights of the cameras blink out one by one.

"There isn't much time," she said, checking her list for the correct cooler number while she pulled on gloves. Sherlock threw his coat and jacket onto the counter top near his favourite workstation and helped her transfer Mr Chillingworth onto the autopsy table. "What are you looking for?"

"I don't know yet," he murmured, beginning to examine the corpse of the middle-aged man. "What was the cause of death?"

"Pneumonia, officially, but he showed signs of dehydration, malnutrition, and his liver and kidneys were beginning to fail."

"Teeth?"

"Advanced decay."

"Prisoner?"

She thought a moment, staring at the bones showing on what was once likely a plump, comfortable frame, and followed Sherlock's connections.

"Could fit the profile of a captive."

"Any strange markings?"

"Scars on the feet, they appear to be rat bites. I measured them against the dental pattern and average jaw size of a common rat and… what?" She trailed off, realizing that Sherlock was staring at her with a strange expression.

"I missed you," he said suddenly, then looked alarmed, like the words hadn't left his own mouth.

"I, um, it's been awhile, hasn't it, Sherlock." Molly answered slowly, pulling the sheet back up over Mr Chillingworth's body.

"You're not like the rest of them, you know," he said quietly, from the other side of the corpse. They put him back on his shelf and slide in the drawer.

"You're not the first to think so," she said coolly, peeling off her gloves, feeling exposed with nothing now between their bodies.

"You understand." He touched her face gently, eyes wide.

"You're on something of a timeline, remember?"

"Why are you always hurrying me along?" His fingers brushed her lips.

She pulled away and started filing Mr Chillingworth's reports back in the cabinet.

"Because when your time lapses you will be stranded in potentially the most dangerous place in the world for you to be."

"I can find my way out of here easily, Mycroft or no," he countered with confidence bordering on arrogance. He came up behind her, and she saw over her shoulder that his eyes were dark, his mouth set stubbornly. "What happened to the Molly Hooper who was happy to see me?"

Molly spun and faced him, her eyes blazing.

"We've complicated things, Sherlock. You have complicated things."

"I believe you were a somewhat eager participant in those complications," he said defensively.

"Goodness knows my consent was enthusiastic, but you need to respect that I, unlike you, embrace sentiment. It's easy to say once or even twice didn't mean anything, we were caught up in the moment or just expressing pent up frustrations or some such nonsense, but if you're going to keep coming back here and connecting with me on an emotional level, the result is going to be emotional whether intended or not!"

Molly watched Sherlock process this information, her brow furrowed. She shoved her hands in her pocket so she wouldn't be tempted to touch him now that he was so close. The button she had torn from his white shirt had been inexpertly repaired in a slightly different colour thread.

Sherlock took her right hand back out of her pocket and slowly brought it up. For a moment she thought that he was going to kiss it like he had that morning on the balcony, but he placed it carefully under his jaw and pressed his overtop. Blood pounded under his skin, his pulse elevated.

"Physical reaction," she disqualified. "Not emotional."

Looking pained, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out a photo worn at the edges, a photo of a young woman with long brown-red hair and a mortarboard cap.

"Sentiment," he said softly.

"Theft," she returned crisply, watching him tuck the photo away into the plastic wallet sleeve before she could ask for it back.

He drew a deep breath.

"Would it help if I explained that I also seem to be trying to repress an emotional reaction to the intimacy we've shared?"

Part of her wanted to believe him, but she didn't want to go back to being the unrequited lovesick version of herself she had despised.

"I've seen you turn on the charm to get what you want before, Mr Holmes."

"And what is it you believe I am trying to get, Dr Hooper," he snapped, looming over her.

"I think you've got a taste for sex now, and you don't kn-"

Sherlock stole the words out of her mouth, and replaced them with his tongue. Frustrated that he was using this tactic again, she nipped his lip hard. He wrapped his arms around her and carefully lifted her onto the lab table so their faces were at equal height.

"Do you think if sex was all I was after I couldn't find it in the great city of London?" He was offended now. "Do you think there's another Molly Hooper out there? You're not interchangeable with other women. There's only one of you and as long as you're willing, I refuse to consider a lesser specimen."

Molly looked at him with suspicion. He had the most beautiful flush creeping down his neck as his anger drained to discomfort, but she didn't want this to go any further unless they were on the same page.

"To be clear, was that the Sherlock Holmes way of saying that I'm the only girl for you?"

A muscle near his eye twitched. He nodded slowly, face hard.

"And what you're thinking is that you would like our arrangement to be exclusive?"

Another twitch, another nod. He pulled her to the counter's edge so she was flush against his body.

"And I could expect an appropriate amount of sentiment from you?"

"Within reason," he answered quickly, burying his nose in her hair.

"Within reason," she repeated, satisfied. Molly toyed with his trouser button. "How much time is left of your hour?"

"Twenty-seven minutes," he said crisply, pushing aside the lab glass and sample dishes behind her while he went in for a kiss.

"Careful, those contain cholera," she murmured sexily. Sherlock made a noise of interest, intending to pocket one later. It was only a matter of seconds before all of the relevant buttons and fastening had been opened on their clothing, and after a long lingering kiss, Sherlock intended to try his hand at an acceptable level of sentiment.

He mentally reviewed several clichéd options, and rejected them quickly. He assumed she would be as little interested in receiving a lame pseudo-romantic line as he would be in delivering it. Scrapping the idea of words, he focused on the physical, trying to memorize her body and how she responded. He wouldn't say she was beautiful, it would be redundant, she must already know. Afraid of what foolish things he might say in the heat of the moment, he closed his eyes.

Molly pulled back to see his face as they joined. He shuddered, and then his eyes flew wide open, finding hers. He didn't know what she saw there, but she raised a hand to his cheek, her eyes warm.

"Ah, there's the sentiment."

She could see his whole being in his eyes, and knew, just for the moment, he entirely belonged to her.

Twenty-six and a half minutes later Sherlock slid into the open door of the usual black car, slightly out of breath.

"Mr Chillingworth?" Mycroft asked from behind a newspaper.

"Confirmed. It was rats."

"And how did you leave Dr Hooper," he asked wryly.

"Radiant."

"Is she still harbouring a school girl crush on you?"

"Hardly, Mycroft," Sherlock said to the window with a smirk, settling into the leather seats.

It took only one glance for Mycroft to deduce the entire situation.

"Leave her alone until all this is through, Sherlock, or I will pack her off to the Outer Hebrides." Mycroft's tone was icy. His ears, however, were slightly pink.