Sherlock came into the cafe and sat down at the table with John and Mary, who had already gotten their plates of food and coffee. They had gotten him a cup of coffee too, so Sherlock sat down and immediately took a couple sugar packets. He was not looking forward to sharing the plans he had made with Molly. He fully expected to hear a mouthful, at least from John.

"Sherlock, what's in the bag?" Mary asked, spotting the unusual item he was carrying right away.

"Oh just some...personal items."

Leave it to Mary, he thought, to pick up on the clues.

"Why you carrying them with you though?" she pushed further.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. He supposed he would have to jump right into it. "Alright, they are personal items of Molly's. Toiletries and things such as that. I will be keeping them at my flat."

Both John and Mary stopped mid mouthful of food and stared at him. John additionally dropped his fork on the plate before responding.

"Sorry what?" John forced out.

"Molly Hooper and I will be involved in a fake relationship for the next two weeks. Her family is visiting and they were being terribly rude to her about her devotion to me, so I offered to make her look like she wasn't the crazy one. I act the devoted boyfriend, and they come to appreciate her choices a little more. Then of course she terminates the invented relationship sometime after they have gone home. I've given her permission to make the whole thing entirely my fault. If she manages to humiliate me in the process, so be it. I'm willing to, what do people say? Take one for the team? This is all in the hopes that she comes to understand that I care enough about her as a friend to make such a gesture, and then she forgives me for my most recent offense." Sherlock calmly took a sip of his coffee.

John and Mary continued to stare at him, and then they very slowly turned and looked at each other. Mary then put her fork down also and looked back at Sherlock.

"Only you, Sherlock. Are you trying to help or make things worse?"

"Mary, please, Molly agreed to the plan and things are already going quite well. I'm going to her flat this evening to spend some time with her and her mother and sister. Believe me, her family desperately needed to be put in their place!"

"And who's going to put you in your place, you idiot?" John added. "I've seen you pretend to be a boyfriend and it's pretty frightening. Frighteningly strange...and convincing. You do realize that Molly will have a difficult time with this?"

"So far her difficulty seems to be putting up with me. She's still at least a bit angry at me and doesn't seem to appreciate the underlying sarcasm in some of my fake text messages."

"Text messages? You're sending her fake text messages? Ok, let me see." John reached his hand out and beckoned with his fingers for him to hand over his phone.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Then he opened his messages and scrolled to Molly's text feed before handing it to John.

John's eyes started to double in size as he began reading through. "Oh my God! Mary, look at this!" Mary leaned in to read along with him. She squealed in laughter while John continued to look horrified.

"Sherlock, you should really give John some pointers. Those texts are just lovely!" She shoved her husband teasingly.

"My real point in telling you both is to eliminate the chance that you would give us away if we end up all being at the same place during these two weeks," he said, getting the conversation back to business and reclaiming his phone. "Wouldn't look right if my best friend was having a conniption simply because I have a girlfriend. You could barely compose yourself and talk about anything else when you saw me with Jeanine!"

John shook his head. "I cannot promise anything, Sherlock. Even if you are giving me fair warning, it's all too bizarre. It's Molly! The woman you've never looked twice at for years! And suddenly you'll be acting all...lovey. It's almost harder to handle than Jeanine!"

"Not for me, John. At least I care a bit about Molly." After Sherlock took another sip of his coffee, he threw some money on the table and got up to go. "You two enjoy the rest of your breakfast. Talk to you soon, John."

He came to the other side of the table and gave Mary a little kiss on the cheek. "You'll let me know if the big day arrives?" he added with a smile.

"A few weeks yet, Sherlock. But yes, we'll let you know."

Sherlock picked up the bag of Molly's things and waved as he turned and left the cafe.

John turned to his wife and sighed. "What are the chances you'd be willing to shoot him again?"


Molly was trying to be relaxed. She was trying really hard. She hoped and prayed that she wasn't about to make an idiot out of herself. Or that Sherlock wasn't about to make an idiot out of them both. She couldn't calm herself down since she knew she would have to act normal despite the fact that Sherlock was going to kiss her.

Sherlock was going to kiss her...

"Molly! Watch the wine glasses!" Becky yelled suddenly as Molly almost leaned her back into a few on the counter.

"Oh! Sorry, Beck." Molly ran a hand through her hair.

"Hey, it's ok. Don't be so nervous." Becky squeezed her sister's hand. "It'll be fine. If you're happy with him, we're happy with him too. Ok? And I did tell mum to take it easy."

Molly managed a relieved smile. And then her pulse rate shot up again as she heard a knock at her door. She stayed frozen, and heard her mother open the door and let Sherlock in. Her sister automatically went through the doorway to say hello as well. Molly couldn't bring herself to leave the kitchen though, and went to unnecessarily stir the soup.

She gave a little yelp a moment later though as she felt two hands slide around her middle. Then she scrunched her shoulders a little as she felt a tickle of curls brush her neck.

"Relax, Molly," he murmured in a low whisper by her ear. "They can probably see us."

Then he pressed a soft kiss on her neck right below her ear. Molly shivered a bit and she hoped he couldn't feel it. She was then alerted that speaking for the audience had begun when Sherlock said at a normal volume, "You look lovely in that dress, darling. I've never seen it before."

Not surprising. You never see me outside the hospital, she thought. But she said, "I haven't had it too long." She continued moving the spoon around in the pot as she stood by the stove.

Sherlock watched her, as she kept her eyes fixed on the steaming liquid, and realized how nervous she was. And he knew this was never going to work if she didn't feel completely comfortable. So he needed to make her comfortable. He couldn't kiss her or say unusual things to make that happen either. That would do the opposite right now.

Sherlock let go of her waist and took hold of her hand, then he spoke to the women in the living room.

"Forgive me, I must steal Molly for just a moment! We will be right back!" He pulled her out of the out the other door from the kitchen and into the bathroom. Then he closed the door behind them.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Do you want to do this?" he asked seriously, staring at her face.

"Y-yes."

"If you aren't comfortable, I will make my apologies and blame this facade all on me and I will leave. But you need to tell me now for sure."

"No. No, it's ok. I'm ok." She tried to sound convincing.

"Molly, if you can't relax with me, this will never work anyway. I didn't think I made you nervous anymore. So I didn't think that would cause a problem."

She sighed. "Well maybe talking to you doesn't make me nervous anymore, but kissing my neck is just a little different than talking! It's hard to jump into something like that with no history of anything else close to it."

Sherlock nodded slowly. "I understand...but just, look at me Molly. Look at me!" He took her hands in his. "We are friends. And I do care about you. So I'm not faking that, if that's what bothers you."

"You don't always show it, Sherlock. So it's hard to remember sometimes." She kept her eyes connected to his, trying to make him understand.

"Look, Molly, if you find yourself feeling nervous just...hold my hand. Just like this." He squeezed her hands gently. "Do you think that would help?"

Her first thought was, how ridiculous! Sherlock is offering his hand in support?! But then she realized that standing here feeling his strong hands surrounding her own, her breathing had slowed and she was more relaxed. It wasn't his presence alone that made her nervous. It was more about the anticipation of what he could do or say next. But if she had that reminder of emotional support, instead of just the more blatant physical affection, that may actually help. She felt like she could do this now, and do it happily.

"Ok. You're right, it would help. But I may end up holding your hand a lot more than you'd like."

"You think I'm scared of holding your hand, Molly? Remember, I did just kiss your neck." He smiled slyly as he opened the bathroom door again. But before they walked out he turned the tap on and applied some water to a small area of his shirt.

"Sorry!" he announced when they came back into the kitchen again. "Had a spot on my shirt."

"Oh sure he did," Becky teased and nudged her sister.

The four of them ate the soup that Mrs. Hooper had made. Even Sherlock ate a bit. Mostly the three women talked through the meal and during the tea they had afterward. Molly felt that Sherlock was doing a good job of being himself. He didn't really chat. Only when Becky or Mrs. Hooper asked him a question about his life or work did he open up much. Molly could see him out of the corner of her eye, occasionally watching her intently as she spoke. And it was enough. Enough to give the impression of affection without going overboard.

"Sherlock, Molly told us a while ago that you'd been shot. Are you fully recovered? No complications I hope," Mrs. Hooper said as she poured herself more tea.

"I seem to be back to my normal self, Mrs. Hooper, I'm happy to say."

"That must have been an awful experience for you. Even though you're surely used to danger in your line of work. Do you remember it at all? Getting shot I mean. I've heard that many people don't. It all becomes a blank in that moment. They wake up later wondering what had happened."

"Maybe Sherlock would rather not talk about it mum," Molly interjected.

"No, it's alright, Molly." he said touching her arm. "I don't mind."

And as Sherlock was about to relate some of what he remembered, he realized that it would prove extremely useful given the circumstances.

"I wasn't awake for very long. It was really only a few seconds. But it was enough time for me to use information in my mind palace. Information to make my chances of survival more likely. I needed information. And I needed to focus. I was able to do that...with Molly's help." Sherlock covered her hand with his own on the table.

"Molly's help? How was she there?" Becky questioned.

"She wasn't. Not really, of course. But she's up here." He touched his head. "I needed someone to tell me what to do. How to improve my chances. And she did that. It was mostly her. She helped me figure things out. She was calm and firm, but also comforting. And that was what I needed. I can still hear her voice asking me the right questions, and telling me what was happening. I remembered that after it was all over. I'll certainly be forever grateful for that. For her being the voice that I needed."

"Well, it wasn't really me," Molly added modestly. "It was information already stored in your mind palace."

"Yes it was. But I wanted to hear it from you. I needed you to tell me." Sherlock locked their fingers together and squeezed. He looked at her rather seriously, but then smiled a little.

Molly was impressed. She had to admit he was coming up with some pretty good stuff. She couldn't have thought of something like that even if she tried. Naturally, she blushed at hearing such an expression come from Sherlock. And when she glanced at her mother, she actually saw a happy smile. Her mother was being won over. And that was no small thing.

Just then, Sherlock took his phone from his pocket to open a message. Molly saw his eyes widen as he read it.

"Oh...finally!" he exclaimed and jumped up from the chair.

"What? What is it?" Molly asked, standing up as well.

"There's a lead. A lead on Moriarty's message." Sherlock began walking into the living room and taking his coat from the hook beside the door. "They may have gotten an IP address we can track. I'll be needed with Lestrade immediately."

"Do you need anything? Is there anything I can do?" Molly asked, feeling a little uneasy about the prospect of Sherlock delving into this mystery. She didn't have to fake her reluctance to let him go.

"No, no. Stay here. I'll text you later," he answered quickly, not looking at her...then he remembered himself. He remembered how his exit was supposed to go. He saw that Mrs. Hooper and Becky were standing in the kitchen doorway, observing the two of them. Once he'd gotten his coat on, he focused back on Molly. He knew he couldn't rush off the way he normally would. Sherlock reached up and placed a hand on each side of Molly's face. First he kissed her forehead, and she responded by grasping his wrists.

"You'd better be careful," she whispered.

"Nothing's going to happen to me. I'm not done with you yet," he whispered back. He did seem to hesitate just a tiny bit, but he leaned down and touched his lips to hers. A gentle touch at first, but then the warmth and pressure increased and Molly began to feel a little lightheaded. Sherlock pulled away and he smiled at her, in a way that seemed to say, not so bad right? She smiled back and then had to let go of his hands as they slid away from her face.

Sherlock looked toward the silent observers. "Mrs. Hooper, Becky, forgive me for my quick exit. I'm sure we will be seeing each other again soon. And thank you for the dinner."

The two of them waved and told him they looked forward to next time. Sherlock smiled at Molly one more time, and then slid quickly out the door. Molly walked away from the door feeling a little dazed.

"Look at you, Molls! You still turn that red when he kisses you? That's adorable!" Becky said squeezing her sister's shoulder.

"Oh well, you know," Molly said with a nervous laugh. "Every time is like the first time."