In his thirty-five years of existence, Sherlock had never before been so baffled. Sure, he had been perplexed by cases before, but those were cases-and he always worked those out. But this time is what something entirely new. Something he had never experienced before.

Molly Hooper kissed me.

And I…liked it.

It was absolutely preposterous to think that he had any sort of feelings for Molly Hooper. He had long-ago relegated sentiment as useless and vowed to never let pointless emotions stand in the way of knowledge and the pursuit of logic.

But he couldn't explain away the feeling he had when she kissed him. Usually, Sherlock Holmes' mind was constantly abuzz with thousands of ideas, grinding away like the cogs of an enormous machine. Even when he slept he thought, often solving cases and deciphering codes via dreaming, as he had done with the case of the traveler killed by his own boomerang. But last night when Molly Hooper pressed her lips against his-he thought of nothing. Everything seemed to stop. His mind was blank. His absolute only thought was the feeling of her lips-their heat and softness-and how much he enjoyed the feeling. The emptiness of his mind continued after she broke away, the first thoughts returning being to realize how hard his heart was beating in his chest and how shallow his breathing had become.

Not since adolescence had Sherlock allowed himself to think of a female in a sexual way-due to the fact that during adolescence was when he had his revelations having to do with sentiment. Throughout his teenaged and adult years he had ignored the jabs of society-and in the most part, his elder brother-dealing with his sexuality, and decided that relationships were simply of no use to him.

During his thoughts he had subconsciously become aware of stirrings coming from Molly's bedroom, and shortly thereafter the shower turning on. Looking out the window he saw the first few lights of dawn coming through.

He decided that he simply did not have enough data to come to a valid conclusion on the matter. These…

Ugh-emotions

-he had experienced could have been a fluke. Perhaps brought on by his heightened state of stress from the previous days' events. There was only one solution to an experiment that did not yield enough data-he would need another trial.

"Sherlock, have you seen my mobile?" Molly entered the living room dressed in a pink dressing gown and actively drying her hair with a towel. "I don't remember seeing it last ni-have you been up all night?"

Not moving from his perch on the couch, Sherlock closed his eyes. "Is it morning?"

"Yeah."

His eyes opened. "Then yes."

"Is something the matter?"

Sherlock saw out of the corner of his eye Molly run through several emotions. First was, of course, general concern for his insomnia, but second-a kind of triumph. Sherlock assumed she was rather proud of herself for giving him a reason to stay up and think all night.

"Just thinking," he decided not to let her take all the credit. "About Moriarty."

"Sherlock, he's dead. You don't have to worry about him anymore. There's no way you can fake shooting yourself in the head."

"There's also no way you can jump off a ten-story building and live, is there?"

They shared a concerned look, and Molly walked back to her bedroom to prepare for Sherlock's funeral. When she came back out, she wore a modest black dress, casual makeup and just the slightest touch of red lipstick.

The same as Christmas. STOP IT, SHERLOCK.

"Well, I'm off. Thought I'd pop by the market on the way back, anything you want?"

Sherlock hummed a response that she took to be a no. She grabbed her purse and left.

It wasn't five minutes later that Sherlock's mobile phone pinged a text alert. Slightly shocked that it still worked after falling off the roof of Bart's with him, he went to retrieve it from his bag.

Guess Molly's found her phone.

Sure enough, his phone read "New Message: Molly Hooper."

Probably giving me a play-by-play of my own funeral.

He smiled inwardly of the idea of Molly trying to cheer him up and pushed the button. He almost dropped the phone.

On the display was a photo of what could only be the roof of Bart's. On the ground, precisely where the body of Jim Moriarty had been only two days before was a hand-written sign that read "GOTCHA" in large, swoopy letters. The message attached to the photo read,

"Can little Sherlock come out to play?-M"