As ever, thank you all so much for the lovely reviews and comments. You guys are the best. :)

EDIT: AgentRhiannon, thank you so much for the heads up in regards to verbs tenses! I've always had a problem with staying in tenses; English is not my first language, so it's tough for me to recognize it when I slip up. Many thanks. :) (And I'll edit the past chapters... someday!)


He was fifteen years old the first time he'd gotten drunk.

It had been an experiment, a practical exploration of the effects of alcohol on the physiological actions and psychological behaviours of the human body and mind. He'd begun to notice the effects of the substance on the adults in his life years ago, when he'd still been just a boy and his father would pour himself one-two-three brandies when he would come home in the evenings, the amount of brandy consumed in an inverse relationship with the strength of his parents' marriage.

Mycroft, however, had begun to drink openly with his friends, having been away to uni and developing a somewhat false sense of familiarity with the effects and repercussions of alcohol in its many forms. That was, in fact, how he'd obtained the supplies for his experiment – he'd nicked a bottle of gin from his brother's room one afternoon while the sibling in question was out at the pub with his friends.

It had been a horrible experience. He'd holed himself up in his room (Mummy was away in London, and the housekeepers knew to never bother him when his door was closed), and proceeded to drink straight out of the bottle (he'd assumed most alcohol was consumed in this manner – he had yet to discover the advantages of the addition of tonic). At first, he'd felt nothing – and then, giddy – and then, quite simply, he'd felt out of control. His last memory of that first foray into the world of substance intoxication was the fuzzy recollection of lying on the floor of his room, watching the ceiling spin, trying his best to will his roiling stomach into submission.

The next morning, he'd woken up curled up on his side, his mouth dry and stale, with what suspiciously looked like vomit on the baseboards next to him.

While he'd never achieved that level of alcohol intoxication again, he had found something in the sensation of altering his state of mind, being able to transcend the confines of normal thought process and leaping outwards into the greater unknown. At university, he'd started to exchange tutoring sessions for access to drugs – marijuana at first, then onto morphine, and finally cocaine – and eventually he'd found himself living in a world tipped sideways, spending most of his time in a reality mediated by drugs, altering his perceptions and letting him feel – for the first time in his life – the closest to "normal" as he'd ever felt before. He'd felt, in a nutshell, free.

Maybe that's why Molly had gone and gotten herself so completely and utterly drunk. She's passed out in his lap now, her head resting on the edge of his thigh, and he can't help but sigh as he looks down at her prone form. "Good lord, Molly," he mutters down to her, before closing his eyes and taking a moment to center himself.

He opens them again a few moments later, and moves his arms to lift her up from his lap - he wasn't so clueless to normal human behaviours to know what an observer might assume, seeing a woman's face buried in his lap, out here in the dark in the garden. He pulls her back to a (mostly) upright position, turning her head to lean it again her shoulder. She moans slightly as he moves her, but she doesn't awaken.

"Right," he utters to himself as he considers his options, and then slides an arm under the crook of her legs and the other beneath her arms, lifting her up in one smooth motion into his grasp.

Even as a dead weight, she still didn't weigh much; that said, the last person he'd picked up was the recently deceased body of a rather rotund older man, so the comparison between the two was not quite equitable. He pulled her hanging and limp arm up and into his hold, the junction between his arm and shoulder serving as a cradle for her head (she would not easily forgive him for any head injuries obtained during this type of transport, even in her current state).

He makes his way back inside the hall, ignoring the stares of the other guests, only stopping to smile apologetically and utter contrived platitudes ("She's just had a bit too much to drink, poor girl,") whenever stopped and questioned. He spots Madelaine Hooper from across the hall and motions her over, explaining to her the situation and his plan for their departure.

"You can't go all the way back to London tonight!" she tells him, her eyes flashing with concern. "No, no – you'll stay at the hotel with us," she continues, fishing out a card from her purse. "Tell the manager you're with the wedding party – there are three extra suites booked for the evening for these type of... situations," she finishes, gesturing down towards her daughter's unmoving body, giving her unconscious offspring a reproachful look with her eyes.

Normally, he would protest gently, reassuring her that he could manage the situation on his own, but even as he opens his mouth to tell her this, he can feel his arms starting to ache, just a little, the fatigue setting in.

"That would be lovely, Madelaine," he tells her, accepting the proffered card with the limited reach of his right hand.

He bids her goodnight, and steps out into the cool night air once more, heading over to one of the waiting cabs down by the road. The cabbie steps out to help him with the door, and he slides inside, settling Molly into place between the door and himself.

She surprises him by nestling herself up against him, some sort of automatic response brought on by her current state. His first instinct is to push her away, but he can see the cabbie steal a glance back at them in the mirror, so instead he pulls her even tighter against him, his arm wrapping around her shoulder as her head falls against his chest.

As they drive on towards their destination, he is surprised yet again by how... pleasant it feels to have her body pressed up against his. He can feel her breath even through his jacket and shirt, her small frame snug up against his larger one. He can't remember the last time he'd had someone this close to him for this long... It is a strange feeling, a hybrid between pleasure and discomfort, his carefully constructed borders being trespassed so suddenly and yet, so enjoyably. He's not quite certain how to process these conflicting sensations... But then cab pulls up at the hotel, and he doesn't have to think about it anymore.

He hands the cabbie a few notes and utters his thanks, before reaching back into the cab and scooping Molly up into his arms once more. She twists within his grasp to nuzzle her face into his chest, burying her nose into the fabric, and against his will his breath catches in his throat at the sensation. Angrily, he sends those physiological sensations away, burying them deep down, down and away where he didn't have to think about them anymore.

Inside the lobby, he hands the night manager the card, and is swiftly given a key to a suite down the hall. He manoeuvres himself to enable his hand to reach the door, sliding the electronic key through the reader and slipping through into the room beyond. He sighs in frustration when he notices the single bed, but he is too tired and irritated to bring himself to care. Leaning forward, he slips Molly out of his arms and onto the bed, standing upright to stretch his aching muscles out.

He stares down at her prone form, limbs all splayed out haphazardly, her hair now dishevelled from his transport of her, an unconscious mess. Ordinary people... he thinks to himself as he leans forward, making quick work of her shoes and preparing her for bed.


Molly wakes up to an earthquake.

Well, not an actual earthquake – this earthquake is a much more localized event. As is localized in her head. Her brain seems to be acting like an angry caged animal, surging against the bony cage that contains it. She groans in pain and agitation, feeling the worst she's felt since Marie's 29th birthday party several years ago, when she'd drank herself into a stupor and ended up snogging some random male she'd met in the late-night crowd line at a chip shop.

"Good. You're awake," remarks a very deep, very familiar voice, and her eyes snap opened as it all comes back to her in a flash.

She groans again, this time in sheer embarrassment.

"Wh-where-" she starts, but the dryness in her mouth makes her cough, and she starts gagging on her own breath.

"For goddsakes," she can hear him say (the eye-rolling implicit in his tones), but he's there in an instant, passing her a glass of water, water that she's never been so thankful to have in her life.

She gulps it down and wipes at her mouth, feeling a tiny bit more human again. "Thank you," she says sincerely, bravely looking up to meet his eyes. Don't think about passing out in his lap, Molly, don't think about how he got out of there, or how you got here, or where exactly here is...

She looks around the room, suddenly aware that the setting is not a familiar place. "Where are we?" she asks him, unable to pinpoint where they'd ended up.

"A suite at the Pine Cross Hotel," he tells her, and she notices that he is still perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed – like he'd simply sprung up ready for the day. She hates him for it.

"Your mother... offered us a room when she became aware of your state," he continues, his arm gesturing towards her in the bed. She blushes, even more embarrassed than before, but he ignores her reaction and continues. "I had no desire to carry you on and off trains all the way back to London, so I accepted and brought you here to... sleep it off."

She closes her eyes in abject horror. "I'm so, so sorry," she tells him, her eyes still closed. "I never meant to get that drunk, Sherlock, I swear." She leaves out the part where she'd drank to avoid dealing with her feelings for him; if things weren't already awkward enough, that might bring it up to the next level.

His response, however, surprises her. "You helped me to fake my own death, and allow me to stay in your home – my assistance in getting you home is nothing compared to that," he tells her, his voice quiet.

She opens her eyes. Was that... gratitude? From Sherlock Holmes? "W-well, thank you, Sherlock, I really do appreciate-" her words are cut short as she becomes aware of what she is wearing beneath the blankets. Or, more precisely, what she is not wearing.

"Sh-Sherlock? Did you take my dress off?"

He blinks at her. "Yes. I assumed you wouldn't want to ruin your new item of clothing; comparatively, it is one of the nicest items in your current wardrobe, not to mention one of the most expensive. I hung it up in the closet; it would do nothing to wrinkle the fabric."

She blushes what she knows must be a bright, bright red. "Oh dear," she squeaks out.

He rolls his eyes at her reaction. "Molly, please. I am a grown man. Though I do not frequently partake in the indulgences of the flesh, I am quite familiar with the anatomy of the female form. Besides, I only removed your dress – your dignity remains intact," he informs her, and she swears she can see the corners of his lips turn up in a barely contained grin.

"Now," he says, changing tracks abruptly, "your mother requested our presence at brunch this morning," almost spitting out the word. "She's brought by a change of clothes for you to wear – I suggest you attempt to ready yourself as best you can," he finishes, and now he really is grinning – grinning at her and her current state.

"I will await you in the lobby – be ready in twenty minutes," he tells her, before sweeping out the door, the lock clicking shut once more.

She places her head in her hands and sighs. Drunken antics that lead to embarrassment? Check. Passing out in the lap of the man of her dreams? Check. Needing to be carried home by said man? Check. Being unceremoniously undressed and put to bed by the very same man? Check, check, check...

And now onto a tedious brunch with her mother and her mother's friends, all while nursing a raging hangover and attempting to forget a certain series of embarrassing events. Today is certainly starting off right, she remarks to herself morosely, before dragging herself over to the shower in her half-hearted attempt to somehow look human once again.