"Candle, please, Angelo," Sherlock added to the end of their order, much to her embarrassment.

"Sherlock-"

"Hmm?"

"It's only breakfast-"

"Yes?"

"And I'm dressed like someone's frumpy great-aunt." Molly picked at the jumper that Sherlock had dug up for her to wear on their trudge out for proper food. He claimed that a client had left it behind at Baker Street ("A female client," he'd clarified after she had cast him a doubting look), and of course he'd washed it, ("I'm not a caveman, Molly."). It was rather shapeless, and worn with her skirt from yesterday, it made her feel like a member of the homeless network Sherlock discreetly worked with to get information for some of his cases.

"Too young for a great aunt. Perhaps a frumpy estranged cousin that people don't mention." Sherlock's mouth barely twitched, but something in his eyes was dancing at her.

Jokes, since when does he make jokes?

The past few days might as well have taken place at the bottom of the rabbit hole, as different as they were from Molly's ordinary life. Sherlock Holmes could do that to you, she supposed. He could just take your life in his hands and make it both terribly bizarre and worth all the trouble of living. Maybe that was why he was so endearing and infuriating all at once, and why the time without him seemed so very dreary.

Their coffee arrived, and with it the candle and a brisk wink from the sturdy bearded man who had greeted Sherlock so heartily. Angelo had been his name, Molly thought, and he had beamed so widely at her that she'd ducked a little in her seat. He definitely had the wrong implications of their outing-she only hoped that he didn't have a fondness for contacting the media. Molly could see the headline now; Sherlock Holmes Courts Homeless Cretin.

"Angelo keeps a very tight lip, I can assure you," Sherlock tipped a sugar packet into the black depths of his coffee, and she was reminded of the exasperating aspects of his personality. More than once she'd wondered if he was, more than anything, a mind-reader. Was it even possible to see the world as he did, or was there something supernatural to the way he could guess at you? If Sherlock Holmes could read her mind, then she was in far more trouble than could be afforded in his presence.

Molly shrugged and gave him an I hope so sort of expression, and for a moment, only the sounds of the cafe surrounded them. Here in the bright, unfiltered morning, she felt almost painfully exposed. 221B had held its usual mystery-there in the quiet, dusty darkness had been a sort of refuge. Waking up in the bed of Sherlock Holmes had been a surprise, surely, a shock, but in the solitude of the flat, eventually she had been able to relax. Here, Molly could feel herself stiffening more and more by the second as the silence stretched on. She had tried to maintain her voice on the walk down, but it was a struggle; all the while her mind was churning with questions and insecurities.

Mainly, though, what reverberated in her miserable mind had to be: What the hell am I doing here? Sherlock didn't fancy her, and everyone knew it. Far from stinging-well, okay, it still stung a little-it had long been known to the world, a fact, a statement. Then the cruelty a month ago, and his apology...and worst of all, her believing every word of it. But if she believed it, then of course that had to mean-

The air was so tightly packed with tension that one wrong breath, one move made incorrectly would be enough to shatter her to pieces. Sherlock was on the other line and he wasn't well, not at all; drugs or fear or probably both but in her mind's eye she could see him now, unshaven and small with malnourishment, sweat dripping off of him as the coke raced through his body faster than any organ system could hope to keep up.

Anger, sadness, and panic were competing inside of her, and as he said it, actually phrased the words that a younger version of herself would have died to hear, Molly felt her face crumple as the answering words tore themselves from her lips in response. It was almost, she thought, a reflex.

She had hung up and bawled with her face in her hands, heart torn open raw, in that very spot for a length of time that could not be determined.

-and that portion simply couldn't hold truth. Molly could see now that Sherlock cared enough to not want to see her killed (a charming way to put it), and counted her among his friends, but anything more was a fantasy. A charming act. Sherlock Holmes was known for those.

The question stood; what was all of this for? The snatched kisses, the month of texts, and here now-him sitting across from her. Sherlock Holmes, scrolling on his mobile phone in a blitz of concentration and looking completely put together. That against... well, her. It was a lot of competition, the most beautiful man in the world. Molly could only sip her coffee and observe him discreetly, hoping somehow that all of this wouldn't end in disaster.

"Molly." Across the small expanse of the tabletop that separated them, Sherlock's deep voice startled her out of dazedness.

"O-oh, sorry, what?" God above. Now was she not only stiff with how uncomfortable this situation was, now the stammering had begun. And did he honestly need to look at her? That made it all about three times as awful.

"This carotid artery," He had an image pulled up on his phone, one not exactly suited for public dining. "What do you make of it?"

"Trauma with some sort of sharp weapon," Molly started in immediately, almost despite herself. Sherlock offered her the phone for a better view, and at once, she was zooming in on the picture, her mind hungry for some work after a few days of starvation. "Not a clean cut-nasty, really. My guess is that the murder weapon was some sort of shiv. Because this is a murder victim you're showing me, if I'm correct?"

Sherlock had opened his mouth to reply, but his backlit eyes were looking over her head, behind her. A woman cleared her throat, and Molly realized with a swoop in her stomach that their breakfast must have arrived. In her haste to place the mobile phone screen side down, Molly almost upended her water glass, and definitely kicked Sherlock under the table-hell-

"Rashers and eggs?" the waitress asked weakly, not looking either of them in the eye.

"Mine," Sherlock said eagerly, not looking the least bit bothered by the poor woman's queasy expression. He took the plate and stabbed a rasher without hesitation. "Ravenous."

Molly took her plate and thanked the woman, trying to apologize for what had been seen and explain that they worked together as a consulting team for Scotland Yard and were not, in fact, psychopaths, but she was already gone. "That was a disaster." Molly stared down at her breakfast, feeling a lapse in appetite.

Apparently, Sherlock felt no such moral obligation, because already his plate was halfway cleared. "If she's not seen death up until now, then she's lived an overly privileged life, Molly. Besides, she turned a very fascinating shade of green."

Well, that was one way of putting it. And there was no use letting her breakfast get cold feeling sorry for a stranger, anyway. She began to eat, realizing abruptly as she chewed just how long it had been since she'd had anything real to put in her stomach. Was it Molly's imagination, or was Sherlock grinning at her?

"Back to the victim, if you don't mind," Sherlock prodded gently once she'd paused for breath.

"Okay…" Flipping the phone right side up again, Molly saw not the image of the poor chap lying nearly headless, but a portion of a text from Sherlock's older brother Mycroft.

You know I don't approve of- Was all she could read before it was cut off by the privacy lock.

"Er, text from your brother," she told him, trying to hand it over. Sherlock only shook his head, taking the phone briefly to swipe the text away and bring the image up again. "Not important. Continue."

Trying to regain the same focus she had once had before the food and the fiasco with the waitress and now this vague and somewhat ominous text (What didn't he approve of? Mycroft doesn't approve of most of Sherlock's life, but could he be watching...us? Right now?), Molly told him what she could about the corpse. Still, it wasn't quite the same as before-at least, not in her opinion.

Yet Sherlock sat there, drinking in her halting observations, as if every word that poured from her was precious and vital. Occasionally, he would jut in with something like, "And the bruising under the left eye? Just as I thought?" and she would nod, because it was most likely the result of a physical fight from the way the bruise was angled, as he'd suggested. His almost unrestrained look of glee was somewhere between amusing and heart-melting, when their opinions on this particular cadaver were the same.

When she'd exhausted everything there was to say about the corpse, Molly raised a question. "Sherlock, who is this man? I've never seen him in person." Which was a quiet way of saying please tell me you don't have this body holed away somewhere for your own private deductions, because it'd be hard to get to know you better if you were in prison.

"You haven't seen him," Sherlock began, suddenly keen on fidgeting with a spare bit of egg still clinging to the edge of his plate, "because he's been dead for some twenty years."

"Oh."

The silence had entreated upon them once more, though this time not through any fault of Molly's. A pang went through her chest as she chanced a look across the table; he must be truly bored out of his mind to be riffling through cases two decades old. He wouldn't meet her eyes, not exactly, as he added "Incredibly fascinating man, Mr. Donati. Authorities believed him to have been behind the theft of over five hundred million U.S dollars' worth of art a year before his death-but look at the state of his fingernails. Never would've been up to it." Sherlock grimaced, almost as if he was disappointed.

"Is that why we're here?" Molly dared ask, courage sticking like a clump in the back of her throat. "For the murder victim, I mean."

Glancing up at her finally, Sherlock looked properly startled by what had come out of her mouth. "Of course not, Molly. I thought he would merely provide some interesting conversation. Why would you-?" Several more hard beats of silence followed, after which he reached out for his phone once more. Fingers flying across the screen in a frenzy that Molly could barely follow, the end of Sherlock's search was punctuated by an angry sigh.

"Is something...is something wrong?" Molly tried to ask, growing alarmed at the expression on Sherlock's face.

"Completely backwards," he was muttering, running one hand through his already wild curls. "Going about it entirely wrong, wasn't even aware-"

"Sherlock, what are you talking about?" Worry was uncoiling from somewhere high in Molly's chest; what was all of this? He was positively distraught in mere moments. One second they had been discussing the level of decomposition of poor Mr. Donati, and now, he was beside himself for reasons unknown. For a fleeting second, it occurred to Molly to wonder if this flightiness could be a result of him using again. But no-she had seen that wickedness, and the man in front of her, while not exactly composed, was nothing like what he had once been. In truth, Sherlock would probably always be like this, to some extent, as a result of his drug use.

"Definitely not supposed to turn out like this-"

"Sherlock, would you just-"

"And here I am, moaning on about a man rotting somewhere in an American graveyard-"

"Sherlock-"

"Is this a good time for the bill, Mr. Sherlock? Your waitress, er, she said she was taken ill earlier."

Molly and Sherlock both paused mid-sentence, caught off-guard by the waiter and his slip of white paper. They must think us lovely, Molly thought. First the dead man and now this.

"As good a time as ever," Sherlock answered somewhat stiffly.

The waiter, clearly knowing a dismissal when he saw one, gave a brisk nod and left them.

Once they were alone again, the atmosphere had calmed slightly.

"Would you tell me what's the matter with you?" Molly said quietly as she began to reach down for her purse-and abruptly realized that it was probably sitting at home, in her bedroom. She sat back up again, but it was too late; of course Sherlock had noticed.

"I've got it." Effectively dodging her question, Sherlock pulled some notes from his wallet, despite her nervous protests, and got to his feet. Molly followed, still keen to get out of him what his earlier episode had been about. Who knows why Sherlock does anything? Was a joke often made in their circle of friends, and yes, he had ways that could drive anyone mad trying to solve them for too long. But just now, that had been different…

Sherlock held the door for her, and as Molly looked over her shoulder into the small cafe one last time, she saw the candle on their table still burning, sitting cozily in a puddle of its own wax.

The sun was far higher than it had been when they had gotten here, and she squinted a little in the unexpected light. A damp heat was coming up from the sidewalks, in waves of near-choking humidity. Still, it was better than a few minutes more in that cafe. As her anxiety got worse, the walls got tighter, and the place wasn't exactly a palace to start with.

It took her a few seconds to realize that Sherlock had set off down the street-in the opposite direction from which they'd come. In the heat of noon, the man striding away from her wavered slightly, almost as if he were a mirage.

Frustration reached its peak in Molly. Sherlock Holmes had taken her on roller coaster rides for the last time-all she had wanted was to know what was wrong, to be a comfort, even! God, the same story rewriting itself all over! Silly little Molly bowing to the whims of Sherlock once again. Standing on the sidewalk, sweating in the frayed jumper, Molly's jaw clenched as she jogged after him.

It didn't take long to catch up. Powered by rage, Molly's short legs quickly overcame their usual boundaries. "Usually," She started in, her voice trembling, "when you abandon someone without explanation, it's polite to at least say goodbye."

He turned slowly, looking almost as if she'd hit him. Even though Molly was the one who had to look up at him and not vice versa, he seemed small and sorry-looking. "I thought staying would make it worse," He peered at her in an acquiescent sort of way. "Not that I didn't ensure that it was disastrous to start with."

"You wouldn't even tell me what was bothering you! And now you're just stomping off and expecting me to be okay with it?" Two women passed them, glancing over and giggling quietly, but Molly was a little too far gone to care.

"Perhaps I left because I'd ruined things for you and made a fool of myself, did that ever occur to you?" Sherlock snapped, glaring at another passerby who was ogling.

"What exactly did you ruin for me? Because you didn't even tell me why you wanted to take me out in the first place! I tried to ask and you just shut down! Isn't that your forte? Oh, I'm Sherlock Holmes, I solve mysteries, but I have to be the most mysterious man in the world!"

Sherlock's nostrils flared and his eyes were full of an emotion (fury?) that had never before been turned on her, but Molly didn't care.

"You-are the most-"

"What am I, Sherlock? Say it."

"The most unequivocally, irrevocably bull-headed woman I have ever met. And," he added, as Molly's mouth opened angrily, "I brought you here for that reason. You are endlessly attractive to me, Molly Hooper. No matter how you deny it in your head, you must know that."

Well...there was no smart remark she had for that particular confession.

He brought her closer, until they were a close-knit huddle, a moment of privacy in the middle of everything once more. "No matter how I...mistreated you over the years, you never once let me control you. All that time I was off being a git... You are the strongest women I know. And despite me being-well, like that-you've stayed. Many wouldn't."

"Being handsome helps," Molly whispered, despite herself.

The corners of his eyes crinkled into a smile, something they never would have done on the day they'd met; Molly's breath left her all the same. "I am so sorry for what you had to endure because of me. There may be things you have to endure in the future, as well. I won't lie."

He was so close. Definitely close enough to kiss, if the impulse struck, but Molly wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say.

"I lost patience because I wanted our outing to be perfect, and...I ruined its chances of being so. If it had gone more smoothly, it would've been an opportunity to ask if you would like to-"

"To what?" He'd been rambling, talking too fast, and Molly didn't want to miss him saying the words.

"To date. Me. Exclusively. Monogamously." One of his thumbs was stroking Molly's cheek, in a way that was so casual that she could have cried at how easy and good it felt. "Instead we're standing on the pavement in the middle of everything, having a row."

"Forget the row." Molly let herself be pulled closer to his chest, aware of what a mess she looked like, and that people had to be staring-to hell with it, they had been staring for ages anyway. "Do you really mean that? This isn't just for some…" She couldn't bring herself to say the word.

"Molly. Not everything I do is for a case. Not this-" The thumb that had nestled on her cheek now moved down to brush across her lip- "nor this-" The digit moved down, down the curve of her face to the side of her throat, resting in the exposed nook of her collarbone. "And not even this."

Finally, Molly's weak brain managed as he broke the tiny amount of space left between them. The delicate press of his lips was as sweet and unsure as her first kiss, but with none of the awkward feelings that had followed afterward. It was so much softer than anything life had given her for a long, long time. Someone was shouting, Oi! Get a room! And it only made her want to kiss him harder.

"You're crying," Sherlock pulled away, eyes gone wide. "What's the matter? What part of it was wrong?"

"None of it," She assured him, impatiently wiping her eyes with the floppy jumper sleeve. "I'm just...happy. And excited. And...ready."

Relieved, Sherlock reached down and twisted up one of Molly's hands with his own. His large hand engulfed her dainty one, but Molly loved the feeling of their threaded fingers too much to care. "So am I."

"Now can we please get off this bloody street? I'm dying in this parka you put on me."

"It was that or the pyjamas."


Here it is, at last! Chapter eight in its entirety. I'm so sorry for the long wait (my life has been crazy with college graduation, some family issues, etc), but I hope it was worth it. I really put my heart into this one. And you can plan on seeing the next chapter sooner, haha! Let me know what you thought. :)

Stay wicked. :)

~WickedScribbles