Hello all! I apologize for the wait - real life, and all that jazz. Hope you all enjoy! I love writing this... oh Molly. Oh Sherlock. :)


He doesn't remember meeting Molly Hooper.

There's no memory hidden away in his mind palace that relates to their first encounter; if there ever had been one, he must have deleted it years ago. There is only a clear delineated border in his recollections: a Time Before Molly and a Time After Molly. The Time After Molly recollections were the better of the two sets, as the previous pathologist at Bart's had been a stickler for the rules, and, as a sixty year-old heterosexual man, impervious to Sherlock's… manipulations.

He does, however, still have some of his initial deductions about the young pathologist. Namely, the fact that he'd been genuinely surprised to see a woman of her age in her position as Bart's – she was barely in her thirties, and yet she'd finished both medical school and her forensic pathology training, no mean feat. He also remembers thinking that she was both quite insecure and dreadfully dull, which had probably contributed to his decision to delete any extraneous information he had about her (including that first encounter).

Now, however, having been exposed to Molly for a significant period of time, he finds himself strangely curious about what the Sherlock Holmes of three years past had thought about the Molly Hooper from three years ago in the moments of their first meeting. He asks her about this as they walk down the high street from their hotel to the restaurant, Molly's red eyes hidden conveniently by a pair of over-sized sunglasses.

"When we first met?" she repeats, somewhat confused. "Oh! Well, we met at work: one night you came down to check on some lab results, and it was love at first-" she starts, trying to remember the exact words he'd used to describe it to her on the train.

"No, no," he interrupts, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. "I don't mean you and Edmund-" he explains exasperatedly, "I mean you and I."

She looks over at him. "You want to know we first met?" she asks slowly.

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, I do."

She pauses for a moment, unsure, but when he doesn't speak again, she begins to describe her recollection of the event. "You, uh, you were already in the lab when I came in for my shift – you were seated at one of the microscopes, working on a sample you'd taken from Lestrade."

"What was the sample?" he asks abruptly, flipping back through his memories like a catalogue, trying to identify the past case.

"Hair follicles found in a cargo container," she answers, smiling to herself. "That was the first thing you said to me."

Hmm, he thinks to himself, recalling this particular case quite clearly. It had been a human trafficking ring – the hairs had belonged to the daughter of a prominent Scottish physician; they'd tracked down the point of shipping origin for the container and had recovered the doctor's daughter, along with a number of other girls who had been kidnapped or sold into sexual slavery. An intriguing case, to say the least.

"And then?" he prompts, placing a hand on her upper arm to guide her into turning down another side street; he isn't convinced that she is entirely sober yet.

"You – uh, you asked me where the new pathologist could be found. I told you it was me, and then you just ignored me and kept working. You really don't remember this?"

"No," he replies, frowning. "What did you think?"

She shoots him an alarmed look. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"What did you think of me?"

She pauses for a moment before answering. "I thought – I thought you were imposing. A bit scary, really. And-" she starts, but doesn't finish her sentence, simply blushing furiously to herself.

"And-?"

"And – I quite liked your coat," she finishes somewhat lamely, and he narrows his eyes as he looks at her. She's lying, that much is clear. About what? The coat? No, can't be the coat – he's noticed her staring at the coat before, always quite interested. But what?

"Edmund! Molly! How lovely to see you," calls out Madelaine from the patio of the restaurant. "Come and join us!" she exclaims, gesturing to the group gathered around a large table.

He pushes away his thoughts on the matter for the time being, and takes Molly's hand earnestly, sending a brilliant smile Madelaine's way. "I quite like that coat too, Molly," he whispers to her pointedly, letting her know his awareness of her little white lie, before guiding her through the tables and pulling out a chair for her, sitting down with the rest of their party for some mid-morning brunch.


Molly knows if she even looks at another poached egg, she will vomit all over the table.

A disgusting admission, to be sure, but an honest one. She still feels like total rubbish, her body sore and her head just throbbing from her wine hangover. She'd had to remove her sunglasses at the table, but luckily no one had made any audible remarks about her current state. Surely her mother had elaborated on the subject before she and Sherlock had arrived ("Oh, don't mind Molly, she imbibed in a little too much wine last night, that's all!). How lovely.

The rest of the group had parted ways after the end of their long and arduous meal, each of them returning to their hotels, or cars, or… wherever. She hadn't really noticed – she'd been (and still remains) preoccupied with putting one foot in front of the other, keeping it all together as best she can.

Her mother is still with them, heading back to the hotel – she and Sherlock are caught up in a discussion about the dreadful state of the roadway infrastructure in this part of the country ("Can you believe they want to privatize the roadways?"). She doesn't join them – that type of focused effort is completely beyond her at this point. Her whole body just feels… awful, so weak and so frail, and that combined with the swimming of her head makes her –

The next thing she knows, she is lying on the ground, Sherlock leaning over her, his blue eyes boring down into hers.

"Molly?" he asks softly, uncharacteristically, but then she remembers that he's not her Sherlock right now, he's Edmund (and did she really just think of him as her Sherlock?).

"Wha-what happened?" she mumbles, completely disoriented.

"You fainted, darling," her mother replies, and she shifts her eyes to focus on the other figure above her, her mother looking down at her with concern. "Let's get you inside."

"Put your arm around my neck, Molly," Sherlock tells her, and she stares dumbly up at him for a moment. He sighs – and that is Sherlock, slipping through the veneer – before gently looping one arm around her neck and wrapping the other around her waist, lifting her upwards into his strong hold. Instinctively, she follows his command, clutching to his neck as she feels herself leaving the Earth.

He brings her into the hotel lobby, before gently dropping her down into one of the armchairs next to the fireplace. She closes her eyes for a moment, attempting to steady herself, her body still tingling from her sudden fall.

"I'll go get our things," he tells her softly, before leaning forward and pressing a kiss against her forehead. The skin burns hot where his lips touch her, and if she wasn't so ill to begin with, she's sure she would have blushed.

"Are you alright, Molly? Shall we take you to the hospital?" her mother asks, feeling her brow with the back of her hand.

Molly weakly brushes her mother's hand away. "I'm fine, Mum," she tells her. "Just – just feeling a bit under the weather, that's all."

Her mother scoffs at this. "Under the weather – is that what we are calling two bottles of wine in an evening, now?"

"Mum," Molly moans, dropping her head into her hands. "I know, okay?"

"You take care of her now," she hears her mother say, and Molly looks up again to see Sherlock beside her, her coat and dress draped neatly over one of his arms.

"Absolutely," he answers reassuringly, before reaching his free arm down to her. "Ready?" he asks, his eyes locked with hers.

"Absolutely," she answers half-mockingly, still dazed, before grabbing his hand and rising unsteadily to her feet, more than ready to get on their way home.


They'd bid her mother goodbye while at the hotel; apparently, one of her aunts had wanted to do some shopping in Brighton before they left, so Molly and Sherlock had made their way to the train station alone. The journey home had been a quiet one – she'd slept most of the way, her head leaning against the glass, her coat draped over her to ward off the strange chill that had settled in her bones. Sherlock had only stared out the window, lost in his own thoughts, and they'd stayed silent even in the cab between the station and her flat.

Stepping through the door now, she breathes a sigh of relief – she can finally take off these damn clothes, put on her gloriously mismatched pyjamas, and finally go to sleep.

Sherlock latches the door as he steps through, and rips off his wig in one swift motion, running his fingers quickly through his own hair. "Ah, freedom," he mutters to himself, before dropping the wig haphazardly on the coffee table.

"That was… amusing," he tells her, nodding once in her direction. "A suitable escape from the dreariness of this," he finishes, gesturing to the flat around him with disdain.

Molly doesn't say anything, simply taking off her shoes one at a time, feeling more tired now than ever before.

He sweeps through the sitting room past her, taking off his coat and hanging it on the coat rack, before seating himself in her lone armchair, his fingers steepled under his chin.

"Next time, Molly, we will have to ensure that you get nowhere near the wine. Clearly you are incapable of handling yourself around the substance; really, you should know better – it's not like you lack experience."

She bristles at this. "What do you mean?"

He looks over to her. "Molly, there were five empty wine bottles in your cupboard when you first brought me here. The wine opener stays almost exclusively on the countertop next to the sink, and you have a favourite wine glass that you keep impeccable, even though the frequent use has rendered it a little dull and worn. You are the typical thirty-something single woman – a glass of wine after work, a book as your source of escape, a cat as your lone companion. Elementary, really."

She drops her last shoe to the ground with a loud thud. "How do you always know exactly the wrong thing to say?" she whispers, anger and humiliation burning in her stomach.

"What's that, Molly? Do speak up."

She closes her eyes, and from the combination the anger and the fatigue and the general feeling of malaise, tears start to tug at the edges of her eyes. She brushes at them with the back of her hand, wiping them away furiously.

"There won't be a next time," she tells him, her voice shaking with emotion as she gets to her feet.

"What?" he replies, his head snapping around to look at her. "Molly, why are you – "

Her cheeks burn with embarrassment as she watches him take stock of her tears. "Ple-please just - just leave me alone," she rushes out, before turning on her heel and escaping into her bedroom.

She stays in there for the rest of the day and for the entirety of the night; when she wakes up in the morning, feeling somewhat more human again, she walks out into the sitting room and finds him gone.