Prompt from thestormweaver: how about a fic where Molly is flat out tired of the dance between herself and Sherlock and proposes to him.

Well, here it is, and it was written in about ten seconds after I came up with the idea and I hope you like it anyway! Rated K+

"Molly, if you'll just hand me that slide, I think I can…"

"No."

Sherlock looked up in real shock, at both Molly's flat refusal to assist him – he'd told her it was for a case, hadn't he? – and the intensity of emotion that single word held. Was she angry at him again? He'd stayed well away from drugs after the Magnussen incident, and had given her his solemn word that he would never again fake an engagement – or any kind of romantic attachment – for a case. In fact, ever since he'd been shot and her own engagement had ended (funny how happy he was about that, the second incident of course, not the first), he'd considered himself to have been on his best behavior as far as Molly was concerned.

So why, then, was she refusing to assist him now? Was it the Moriarty thing, his temporary exile, or was she perhaps simply having a bad day? He considered asking if she was on her period, but recalled from painful past experience exactly how bad an idea that would be.

Besides, he had her schedule memorized; she was still at least two weeks away from 'that time of the month', as Mrs. Hudson and his mother both called it.

"Ask me why not, Sherlock," Molly said while he blinked at her. Only a second had passed while his thoughts had flitted through his mind, but clearly she understood that he wasn't simply staring at her unthinkingly.

"Why not?" he repeated obediently, eyes narrowing as he took in her defensive posture; the arms crossed over her chest, the tightness of her lips, the rapid blinking of her eyes and the way her left hip was jutted out all signaled that she was about to tell him something she was nervous about.

"Because you're not running tests for a case, or even for a real experiment," she replied. "You're just running tests as an excuse to be here, in the lab with me. Aren't you."

He blinked, his mind actually going blank as he tried to process how very well Molly Hooper had, yet again, deduced him. John would never have figured it out, but then, he'd never needed to come up with excuses to be in John's company; they were best friends, and best friends needed no excuse. Whereas he and Molly were…whatever they were. Something he'd yet to define, shying away at every attempt to do so.

Molly, it would appear, had seen through him and was no longer willing to put up with his indecisiveness. She sighed and closed her eyes before snapping them open and zeroing in on his. "Sherlock, this has to end. One way or another, it has to end. I can't do this anymore. Either we have something between us or we don't. If we don't – if we're nothing but friends and never will be – I need you to be honest about it and just tell me."

"And if there's the possibility that we…might be more than just friends?" Sherlock found himself asking, shocked as the words made their hesitant way out of his mouth. He'd intended on saying nothing, on letting Molly speak until she was finished, but apparently his brain wasn't listening to him today. Interesting, and just the tiniest bit frightening.

Very much like Molly Hooper, come to think of it. Who had stepped forward, uncrossing her arms and resting her hands on his shoulders as she came to a stop between his legs, which he'd automatically widened to accommodate her. "Then if that possibility exists," she said softly, reaching up to run the fingers of one hand through his disordered curls, brushing them from his forehead in a motion he very much enjoyed, "you need to marry me."

He raised an eyebrow at that bald statement, eliciting a tiny giggle from her. "Yes, you heard me right. If there's something more between us, Sherlock, and it isn't just one-sided…"

"You told Lestrade you'd moved on, and you told me you were happy and I can assure you, Molly Hooper," Sherlock said as he finally moved, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer, "that if I'd known your feelings toward me had altered yet again…"

"They never altered in the first place, you git," she said with a sigh. "I was lying to you and I was lying to myself, but most of all I was lying to Tom and that's why I broke it off with him. And I was raised to let the man make the first move, but clearly that was never going to happen, so even though my mother would be mortified…" She moved her face closer to his, close enough that he felt her breath on his cheek as she continued to speak. "…I love you, Sherlock Holmes. I have almost since the first moment we met and I doubt if I'll ever stop. And if you feel the same way, then marry me."

"Name the time and the place, and I shall be there waiting for you," he murmured in response. Then, simply to make sure that her mother wouldn't be further mortified with her daughter's forward behavior, he drew Molly in for a sweet, lingering kiss to affirm his feelings for her.