"I'm so sor-"
"No, don't start that again, Sherlock," Molly snapped, refusing to look at him.
They had left the village near Stornaway hours ago, and she had focused on looking out the passenger side window ever since. It had taken as far as the causeway for Sherlock to realize she was angry with him. The only sounds they had heard for the past few hours was the patter of the rain on the windscreen, the engine of the vehicle, and Toby mewing unhappily from his carrier on the back seat.
Sherlock was sweating. He swallowed and tried again, carefully changing lanes around a stalled tour bus with the four ways flashing. Warning danger, they said.
"I didn't think Mycroft was serious. I was wrong. I apologize."
"What part of Mycroft Holmes did you believe was joking?" she hissed, fogging the window near her mouth.
"He's always been rather comical to me. Unintentionally, of course."
"Shut up, Sherlock."
"I also didn't expect him to have surveillance equipment in-"
"Shut UP, Sherlock. I just spent four months in exile, I don't want to hear it,"
"Exile is a strong word, I'm told there's a certain rugged charm to-"
"I will exit this car right now and roll down the road if you don't stop talking right now."
"The door locks are automatic, the won't open while the engine is engaged."
Molly began softly banging her head against the window. Sherlock switched on the turn signal and pulled off the main road. Within a few moments they were on a country lane, and under the shelter of an ancient oak tree, he shut off the engine.
"I missed you too much to stay away. I'm sorry the price of my last visit was so high for you. You are absolutely entitled to be angry with me. Mycroft assures me that your life, your job, your flat, your friends, all were seen to and will be waiting for you."
Molly sighed, and slumped back into her seat. It smelled of leather and coffee, and faintly of gunpowder, though that could have been from Sherlock's wool greatcoat.
When Sherlock had returned from his completed mission to find her missing entirely, Mycroft had grudgingly albeit promptly supplied him with a government car and had read him the address from his breast pocket moleskin.
"Oh, and Sherlock," he had said, while the younger man plugged the address into his phone's gps. "Don't disappoint Mummy by screwing this up."
Now, in the rain, on the shoulder of the road to who knew where, Sherlock knew that he was very close to losing the one person he needed most.
"I love you. I'd like you to move into Baker Street with me. You can bring the cat."
Molly picked a few stray cat hairs off of her cardigan, avoiding his eyes. She knew that they would be earnest, intelligent and beautiful. He reached over and took her hand. Her long ponytail lay across his arm, reflecting the broken light through the rain drops.
"Sherlock, how do you know I even want to stay your partner?"
"Please look at me," he said quietly. Her expression was neutral, her eyes calm as they joined his.
"I should have told you about Mycroft's threat so you could have made your own informed decision, and for that, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I put you in danger by visiting you while I was on my mission. I'm sorry that the problems of my life spilled over to yours, and took you away from everything and everyone you know and love for months. I missed you, and seeing you made the risk worth it for me, but I didn't think of how it would impact you."
Toby's sad meow broke the long silence that followed.
Molly's phone made a soft ding in her pocket, and she broke the awkward pause by checking her text message.
"New mobile?"
"Yes, Mycroft's confiscated mine," Molly answered, biting her lip, and tapping away on the glass screen. "This one has all sorts of security on it that limits my use and contacts." Almost immediately there was another ding.
"Who is messaging you now, then? Mycroft?"
"No," said Molly, slyly sliding her eyes to watch Sherlock's expression from her peripheral vision, "it's your parents."
"My what!?"
"More specifically, your mother."
"My mother doesn't know how to text. My parents can barely use a rotary phone."
"I taught them last time they were up for a visit."
Sherlock rested his head on the steering wheel between his white-knuckled hands and closed his eyes.
"Oh god. You've met them. No wonder you're not certain about maintaining a relationship."
"Mycroft felt they had a right to meet your girlfriend, and pass judgement."
His voice was strained.
"And now you're texting, I assume they approved. Of course they approved, you're lovely, while they're... May I just apologize for anything any member of my family said or did-"
"Sherlock," Molly interrupted before he could pick up momentum, "they're lovely. They are. When they found out Mycroft had placed me under such isolating circumstances to keep me away from you they visited regularly."
"If Mycroft was so bent on keeping you out of my reach, why would he have let our own parents make a great big trail to you that I could pick up?"
"From what I understand, your insistence in avoiding your parents made it a perfect plan. And it worked."
Sherlock was silent from his position on the steering wheel. Molly could see his many mental gears running at lightning speed through the possibilities of what they had said to her, told her.
"Your father took me fishing. Your mother taught me to knit. I made the most ghastly scarf for Mycroft for Christmas. I can't wait to see his face when he opens it and realizes he'll have to put it on for at least a photo's worth of time."
For the first time since Sherlock had banged on her cottage's front door early that morning, Molly cracked a smile. Sherlock raised his head and evaluated the sinister little smirk, the cunning plan to bruise his brothers dignity, the effort that had gone into learning a handicraft just for this one devious purpose.
"Molly Hooper, I'd like to marry you." He wanted the words back the moment after they had escaped. No, maybe he didn't.
"Let's start with cohabitation, shall we?" She said lightly, frowning. "I suppose this means I've forgiven you."
Sherlock's face brightened. "You'll come to Baker Street?"
"We'll start slow. I'm not just going to throw a blanket over John's old chair and call it home, I reserve the right to make my own expression on our space. And we'll get a second fridge for body parts. I'm not working with corpses all day just to come home to fingers next to my greens."
Sherlock took her small cool hands in his and looked deeply into her eyes.
"Second fridge for the body parts it is. May I kiss you now?"
Molly leaned over and kissed the smart, secretly sweet mouth she had missed all those months. Only Toby's increasingly discontented mrowrs brought them back to reality, some time later.
"We should get this kitty home," Molly said, reaching back and poking her fingers through the wire cat carrier door to stroke her cat's head. She didn't realize her blouse buttons were misaligned, or that her some of her long hair was tangled into her bra strap.
Swollen lipped and with a tingling spot forming on his jaw, Sherlock popped his coat collar up, and then started the engine. It took a few minutes running for the fog on the windows to clear. He rejoined the main road, putting on speed and passing cars. They were quiet a moment before he remembered his mother's text.
"So what did dear old mater want with you?"
Molly laughed, the sound rippling reassurance down Sherlock's spine.
"She wanted to know what we wanted for a house warming gift."
"I hadn't asked you to stay at Baker Street yet, though."
"I know, she just assumed."
"What did you tell her we wanted?"
"Ten minutes with Mycroft's phone on Christmas Day. I'm going to text everyone he knows that photo."
Sherlock immediately flipped the turn signal and exited the main road, zooming past a sign advertising for a nearby Roman heritage site and interpretive centre.
"Where are we going?" Molly asked, confused.
"We're going to go see if that Roman site has a gift shop, because I'm buying you the first ring we see and proposing on the spot, and then regularly thereafter until you say yes."