Hello! Thanks for all the fun ideas guys. And I did use one of them in this chapter. Good stuff!... Just a minor side note, I'm trying to be different in this story. So I'm not sticking to the family scenario that I had for Molly in my other stories. I'm being purposefully inconsistent haha! I think it's better that way because this is just totally different from other plots I've come up with. Also, I hope that everyone deems Sherlock still in character for this whole chapter... That's all I'll say for now actually. See you at the bottom of the page! ;)


"Oh God, I hate this one! How did they even get these?" Molly groaned.

Molly sat next to Mary on the couch of the Watson's flat a few days after Kitty Riley's article had been published. There were some more tabloid papers in front of the two of them, and Molly was less than pleased with the scrutiny.

"I'm sorry, Molly, but nobody looks bad to me right now. Not when I have to look in the mirror at my massive self every day. I actually think you look adorable!" Mary insisted, peering over and examining the pictures of Molly from years ago.

"Why do they care anyway? Why did they have to dig up uni pictures and even pictures of my dad?" Her voice dropped a little in sadness.

"The title of the article is 'Just Who is Doctor Molly Hooper?' so I think people just want to know more about the woman Sherlock snogged in a pub. They can't get enough now!...So was it just you and your dad?" Mary asked gently.

"Yes. My mother died when I was small. I barely remember her. For most of my memories, it was me and my dad. He died about six years ago now...he wouldn't have liked all this too much," she said sadly, touching the pages of the article.

"None of this is your fault Molly." Mary gestured to the papers.

Molly looked at her and started to speak after a second of hesitating. "Well, I certainly could have stopped it if I'd wanted to," she said with a rueful smile.

Mary smiled slowly back at her. "Yes...if you'd wanted to," she said softly.

The two women looked at each other for a moment, but Molly didn't have time to make any reply.

"All right, show me what you have here," Sherlock said as he took a seat on the couch beside Mary.

"It's really not much. Just a couple things stood out to me based on what you gave me to look for. Not a whole lot to go on." Mary began navigating on her laptop as Molly tossed some of the papers onto the table with obvious irritation.

Sherlock looked at her with a questioning frown.

"What?" she responded to his look. "Doesn't it bother you that they found old pictures of us? Oh well, I suppose it wouldn't bother you. Why would it? You look practically the same!"

"I look younger!" Sherlock offered.

"Yes, well that's not exactly humiliating. I had bad fringe and glasses! The difference is that I look worse, not younger."

Sherlock leaned over to examine the pictures again that he had seen before. "Mm, yes that's not your best look."

Molly felt her cheeks heat up as he clearly picked the picture apart with his eyes. Not only did everyone else get to see this, but Sherlock himself was now acknowledging she didn't look good...

"Yes, the fringe and glasses do nothing positive. They minimize your best feature," he said matter-of-factly.

Molly frowned at him, suddenly taken aback. "My what?"

Neither of them noticed how Mary began smiling to herself as she continued looking at the screen of her laptop.

Sherlock looked at her straight faced, seeming confused by her shock. "Your eyes, of course. It's best not to have the shadow of the fringe or the distraction of the glasses. Makes your eyes less noticeable."

"M- my eyes?" she questioned, then feeling her cheeks flush for a completely different reason.

"Yes, your eyes," he repeated. "What? Do you not consider them your best feature?"

"Um, well, no. I mean, I don't know, maybe they are. I just didn't think, that you would consider...uh, never mind! Actually I just mean, thanks." She smiled, reminding herself not to make such a big thing out of nothing. Just say thanks, and move swiftly along!

Thankfully Mary then got where she needed to be. "Ok, so in the lookout for apples, I did find a couple things. There's a short fiction here where Molly makes you lunch on a case and there's an apple included."

"Not that he would eat lunch if he's on a case," Molly commented as an aside. She missed the brief pleased look that Sherlock gave her.

"Yes, well there's nothing unusual about an apple being included in a lunch. What else is there?" he questioned.

"There's also this sketch," Mary said and clicked on the saved file.

It was actually beautifully done. It seemed like a pencil sketch. It was an artist's depiction of Sherlock kissing Molly in the pub. There was little else in the picture. The background was mostly made to fade out and be vague. But the bar was visible in the back. And despite the fact that it was a pencil sketch and was without color, there was a red apple sitting on the bar. It was small, but it did stand out.

Sherlock leaned into the screen and examined the sketch. "Enlarge it and focus on the apple."

Mary did, and Sherlock continued to stare at it. Finally he pulled his face back, looking a bit deflated. "Nothing on it. Just a red apple. Still though, rather out of place considering the setting. Why would an apple on the bar be the only other thing discernible in the sketch besides myself and Molly?"

"That does seem strange," Molly agreed, especially after earlier hearing the reason that Sherlock felt an apple could be a red flag online.

"Follow that person, whoever made it," Sherlock instructed Mary.

"Already done." Mary smiled.

"Anything else? Anything perhaps related to my faked suicide?"

"Well there's lots of that. I'm not sure you can really consider that a red flag in itself anymore. Once Molly's involvement became more public because of Kitty Riley's article, there's been plenty of people making things related to that event. There's heaps of fan art and fiction. You asking her for help, her disguising a fake corpse, you hiding out at her flat, you thanking her for her help." Mary shot them both a wide eyed look.

"Thank you, Mary, I think we get the idea." Sherlock sighed.

Mary was almost sure she saw Sherlock's face turn a little pink.

"All right, well I'll just keep looking out for anything unusual though. Apples, IOU, fairy tales, and anything including Molly being harmed or in danger. Anything else?"

"That should do it for now," Sherlock said, leaning back against the couch.

"Molly, have you seen some of the memes?" Mary then asked, happily moving right on to a lighter topic.

"I've tried not to look, to be honest. I'm a bit afraid of what I might see."

"There's some adorable stuff though! Like, 'Keep Calm and Snog Sherlock.' There's one with a little deer stalker cap and a lab coat on it. I'm thinking of getting myself a tea mug! Perhaps a onesie for the baby!" Mary said with a giggle, and she winked at Molly when Sherlock rolled his eyes.

Sherlock got up and went to the adjoining kitchen to grab a bottle of water, more for the purpose of excusing himself than for actual thirst.

Mary then leaned over to show Molly a little animated gif with the words 'scarf toss pub kiss' in the center, and a little blue scarf flying past in the background. Molly couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Ok, I suppose I'd like you to send that to me," Molly admitted.

John finally came back from picking up the food. "I hope you're all done with the Sherlolly safety check stuff. I'd really like to be able to keep my dinner down tonight," he said as he set the bag down in the kitchen.

"We're done with the safety, and we've apparently moved on to the trivial." Sherlock groaned to his friend.

"Oh look at that! Some of these are beautiful. Really talented artists. Sherlock, look at this!" Molly got up to meet him halfway and show him Mary's phone. "I mean, it looks just like you. It's almost like a photograph."

Sherlock examined the drawing of himself and Molly. He was cradling her head and looking down at her, and it seemed that this was the moment before the kiss. He had to admit, it was impressive. The detail was almost flawless. He was grumbling inwardly that people should use their talents for something more worthy, but another observation entirely was what actually came out of his mouth.

"They didn't get everything completely correct though. That's not where you hands were."

"Oh..." Molly said, peering at the picture again. In the drawing, her hands were wrapped around Sherlock's wrists as he held her face.

"You weren't holding my wrists, you grabbed the collar of my coat. Not a difficult detail to remember...it was rather forceful as I recall." He couldn't help giving her a small teasing smile.

"Not that forceful, Sherlock," she countered weakly, and tried not to blush.

"Forceful enough." He took a few steps back into the kitchen. "That is, until you moved your hands onto my neck."

No stopping the blush now, Molly realized. And the look he gave her after he said it, that sideways smile and glance, it was almost...If he was any other man in the world, after a comment like that, she would have sworn that look was flirty.

"We don't really need to continue detailing exactly what Molly did with her hands when you kissed her, do we?" John then asked, with a pained expression. "Because I was serious, I do really want to keep my dinner down."

"Don't listen to him," Mary said as she came over to the kitchen with some difficulty. "He's just jealous because I'm so big I can barely even reach to put my arms around his neck when I stand in front of him!" She patted the accused belly.

The four of them ate dinner and it wasn't long after that Molly announced that she would be needing to head home. It was getting late, and she had to work in the morning. Not surprisingly, Sherlock offered to leave as well. He said he may as well take the same cab. Sherlock and Molly left soon after, and the Watsons made their way into the kitchen to clean up a bit.

"All right, see this is why I wanted to invite her tonight as well! Please, John, please tell me you are seeing the same thing that I'm seeing with the two of them! I do not want to have to defend myself forever. Honestly, I can't believe you're his best friend and it's taken you even this long to see what's in front of your face! I mean, there was so much sexual tension in this room, I could barely move around properly!" Mary ranted as she threw out take away containers.

"Aren't you confusing sexual tension with your stomach? You can barely move around properly, period."

That earned John a harsh warning look from his wife.

John put his hands up in half defense, half resignation. "Ok ok, I will admit that I see...something. There's something there, yes. But I don't know if Sherlock would ever even recognize it. He's practically a child emotionally, and it's largely by his own choice! Even if he thought he felt something, he'd probably destroy it internally and make sure it never came to anything."

"He's not a robot, John. He can feel and he can love just like you and me. You know that! Look at all the sacrifices he's made for you, and even for me. I think the truth is, that man loves in the same way he does many other things. Much more brilliantly than most other people around him. It just doesn't happen very often."

"I suppose, I just...I don't know. I don't know if he'd ever let it happen. There's a level of selflessness and sacrifice that is particular to a romantic relationship. I'm not sure if he'd ever be willing to make that work. And if he does care about her, it's also certainly possible that he believes she'd be better off without him."

Mary shook her head. "Now that, I know is not true. Molly Hooper will never be better off without Sherlock Holmes. It's pretty much impossible. It doesn't even matter if her life would actually be easier without him. She still wouldn't be better off. Because she loves him. She loves him, John."

John sighed. "Yeah I know. I know...I just wish I could believe he really knows what to do about it."


Molly sat there in the cab, a couple feet away from Sherlock, wondering if this was the best time. But she figured there wouldn't be a better one. Why not ask now? She knew enough at least to be sure he wouldn't be upset at her or refuse her an answer.

"Sherlock?"

"Mm?" he hummed, turning his gaze from the window to her.

"I just wanted to know something. Doesn't change anything, I realize. It's just more like curiosity-"

"Out with it Molly," he prodded, but not unkindly.

"Why exactly did you kiss me?" she blurted, and then pressed her lips together, having finally gotten the words out.

Sherlock had wondered if she was ever going to actually ask that question. He'd assumed she had wanted to know. He wasn't sure if he wanted to answer. For the most part, he firmly believed what he had expressed to Lestrade. Molly Hooper was in no way confused about the state of their relationship. But there was the small nagging bit of doubt in his mind. He had, after all, never had the 'I consider myself married to my work' talk with her.

"I confess," he began slowly. "I was, in the moment, mostly motivated by a remark that Sally had made upon my exit."

"Yes, I thought you heard that," Molly said a little sadly.

"But, what you don't know is that I had already been found lacking in the area of...passion before your arrival. Apparently, one of Anderson's many ridiculous theories about my survival three years ago involved me thanking you in the form of a rather dramatic kiss."

Molly's eyes widened. "Anderson? Why would that be part of his theory?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Apparently he was becoming exceedingly bored. Understandable. What else did he have to occupy his time? Anyway, the reaction of the entire table was unanimous, in that they believed that I would never have been able to pull of such a display of affection."

"And you didn't like that?" Molly questioned, a smile creeping onto her lips. "I thought you didn't care what people think of you."

"I don't," he answered instantly, but tilted his head in thought as he answered again. "But I'd been drinking, and I took the comments a bit more personally than I'd normally allow myself to. And for some reason I very badly wanted to prove them all wrong."

"Well I'd say you did," Molly offered with a small smile.

Sherlock looked at her more seriously though. "I shouldn't have done it."

Molly's smile fell away and she nodded slowly. "Oh...right. Well, I understand. Caused quite a bit of trouble hasn't it? And besides I know you're not- that you'd never really want to..." Her words fell away.

"I mean that it was unfair of me to use you like that, in the moment. It was childish. I should have just walked away. I don't know why I cared whether they thought I could do something like that or not. I shouldn't have cared. And I should have considered how it could...make you feel," he said pointedly.

Her eyes met his, and there was an understanding that passed through them. He definitely knew what damage could have been done by kissing her. And she saw that it wasn't his intent to confuse her. Molly couldn't decide if she was relieved or not. On the one hand, he had expressed his genuine concern for her feelings. He didn't want to hurt her. But on the other hand, he'd as much as admitted that he didn't want her to get the wrong impression. This was the 'don't take that kiss the wrong way' talk. But she couldn't say she hadn't seen it coming.

"I'm ok Sherlock," she said softly. "I am."

Sherlock continued examining her face in the half light of the cab's back seat. He didn't say anything and waited for her to continue talking, because he could see that she wanted to.

"You're my friend. And we've been through a lot together, haven't we? There's autopsies, experiments, solving crimes, faking your suicide, hiding out at my flat, scattered insults and deductions, lots of dead body parts." She added a smile, then she shrugged. "So, I dunno, I guess I figure...why not add a magnificent kiss to the list as well?"

Sherlock watched her intensely as she simultaneously acknowledged her feelings and then humbly minimized their importance all in the space of one breath. And she did it in the most gracious and endearing way he could imagine. She was making the whole situation easier and more comfortable, in the brave way that was so typical of her. She wasn't asking anything of him or hoping for anything...and yet ironically, in that moment, Sherlock had never felt more inclined to give...though all he could manage were words.

"Yes," he echoed his agreement in a low rumble. "Why not?"

Molly held his stare for another moment, because it was so beautiful. But then she offered another smile, and lightened the conversation just a bit.

"So...Anderson. He really thought you would have kissed me like that?" she asked with a laugh.

"After crashing through a window, no less."

"What?! That's insane!" She laughed even harder.

"Well, he assumed that's how grateful I was. Perhaps I don't know the best way to say thank you," he said sarcastically. "Maybe you would have preferred a dramatic kiss before my departure, instead of a day of crime solving upon my arrival home."

Molly pursed her lips, playing along with the joke. "You're right. If you could have flown through a window and snogged me silly, broken glass and all, I wouldn't have cared if you'd never spoken to me again. All the thanks I would have ever needed!"

Sherlock laughed at that. "Well, apparently there wouldn't have been broken glass. Anderson imagined that I would have shaken any off my coat and then ruffled my hair before getting to you."

"Ruffled your hair?" she asked, stifling a grin.

"Yes, why?"

Molly shrugged and was glad he couldn't see how pink her cheeks were in the dark. "Oh it's just...Anderson might be smarter than you think," she said shyly.

"Please don't tell me that's in the same category as pulling my scarf off," he complained playfully.

Molly could only look at him sheepishly. Sherlock looked back at her with mock disapproval which made her laugh.

Just then they pulled up to Molly's flat. Molly paid for her share, then turned back to the detective.

"Well, thanks for sharing the cab. I'm glad we're...ok. Especially after the article a few days ago," Molly added with some embarrassment.

"No problem," Sherlock answered simply. He was feeling rather forgiving considering the fact that she had set such a good example. And of course he kept reminding himself that he had absolutely no valid reason to expect that such a past conversation would remain private between the two of them. He had no rights to any moments they shared together. They didn't have that sort of connection, never had. And that meant that any man she shared her life with, would always come first in one way or another...That's how it should be. She deserves it.

"Tom sent me a text yesterday, finally."

"Oh?"

"He said I have no right to be angry at him. I chose to snog a celebrity in public, and so I gave up my rights to privacy. And that If I wanted a nice quiet life, perhaps I should have married him. And that was it," she said solemnly as she opened the cab door.

Sherlock clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. "Did you express my...displeasure?" he asked in as controlled a voice as he could manage.

"I did. He said...good." Molly grimaced.

Sherlock shook his head. "I do hope you don't harbor any sort of soft feelings for the man and would feel badly if I did something like incapacitate him," he said through gritted teeth.

"You have my blessing actually. I'm well aware now that he was never worthy of the things that I shared with him." Molly smiled, and her eyes shone in the bit of street light that now came through the open door of the cab.

Definitely her best feature...

"Good night, Sherlock."

"Yes...goodnight Molly," he said softly, more softly than he'd meant to actually.

She got out and Sherlock instructed the cabbie to wait there till she got inside. Once she had, he gave his address and they began moving. Sherlock rested his fingers lightly on his lips as he watched the city fly by out the window.

For some reason, all he could think about was the possibility that Moriarty would now see Molly Hooper as easy leverage. And he was fiercely aware that there was nothing else he wanted to do at that moment but to ensure that her life was never endangered, or even negatively altered. He thought about being faced with the same sort of difficult decision as he had been years ago, on that windy rooftop of Bart's hospital. And yet, as he sat in the dark and quiet cab, the decision didn't seem all that difficult to him. It just wasn't so very complex as he imagined the idea of Molly's life hanging in the balance. In that moment, he knew one thing for certain. Survival plan or not...

He'd jump.


Ok, so I just always cringe a bit when I get sentimental with Sherlock. I know he has to have his moments, but I feel like it's hard to make it work in character. I'm trying to show the shift happening in his head of course. But it's the warm fuzzy stuff that just never feels 100% in character to me... Oh well! It's fan fiction after all! Moffat and Gatiss will not be breaking down my door any time soon lol! So I hope you guys enjoyed some Sherlock fluff! ;D