forewarning; i'm dying of tonsillitis, okay not technically, but it feels like it, and so i wrote this while ill, and don't think it's my best to be honest. Oh well.

He didn't want to call it an epiphany. The word epiphany suggests a sudden realisation, and Sherlock wasn't so sure this was so sudden. Now that he really examined his actions, something he rarely did, Sherlock was sure he had known for quite sometime, on some kind of subconscious level. What else could possibly explain why he had been so keen to converse with her, why he had been so willing to kiss Molly just to make her stay, knowing once would not be enough to sate her, and why she had been the forefront of his mind more than he liked? He realised now that he hadn't been trying to keep things the same; he had been trying to change them. Because he liked Molly. What had once been so mundane about her, now fascinated him. It wasn't that she wasn't unreadable, it was more that he liked reading her now. He liked her reactions, and the dependability of them, though not so dependable that he got bored.

He knew that if things hadn't ended with Moriarty on the note they had, that his feelings wouldn't have changed as they had now. She still would have been Molly, who counted, but only at a distance. The three years he had spent hiding had changed him in the slightest way, a way that wasn't put into effect until the wedding. The catalyst.

He didn't love her. Nor would he ever. Love was just a word used to describe a flurry of varying emotions, used as an excuse. While he had feelings for her, and it would be stupid at this point to deny it, it wasn't love. Nor would Sherlock ever call it that. For he wouldn't use his feelings as an excuse any longer. It had been his own stupidity that had affected his actions towards Molly recently, actions and words he regretted.

Sherlock had to apologise unfortunately.

By this point it was just on the cusp of evening, Molly would have been out of work a couple of hours by now, and would most likely be at home. He jumped into the nearest taxi, and began immediately speeding to Molly's. Or at least he was shouting at the cabbie to speed up amidst the traffic. By the time they arrived at her flat at eight o'clock, Sherlock knew the chances of her still being there had decreased ever so slightly. But then again Molly was reliable and wasn't exactly a party animal.

Or not.

Knocking on her door, it took him all of two seconds to realise she wasn't there. How inconvenient. Pulling a spare bobby pin from his pocket (saved for occasions not unlike this), he picked the lock, and let himself in, wiping his feet on the 'welcome' mat. If she didn't know she wouldn't be mad, he reasoned. The place was a mess, at least by Molly's standards. Dishes were unclean in the sink, clothes strewn on the floor, and the contents of Molly's bag were scattered around the room. She'd clearly had some kind of a break down. What other reason could there be for the state of her living room? Curiosity far from sated, Sherlock made his way to Molly's bedroom. It was much of the same; clothes strewn, bed unmade, though the lingering smell of a scented candle, most likely rose scented, hung in the air. How odd. He scanned the room again, with a slight sense of foreboding. And then he finally understood it.

Molly was out on a date.

It was first date, obviously. Molly wasn't one to initiate sex on a first date, a moral she inherited from her mother. Also if she'd left the flat in this kind of state, bed unmade, then she clearly had no intention of inviting anyone back. She was far too proud.

Sherlock pointedly ignored the logical side of his mind suggesting that maybe she'd been planning to go to the male in question.

She obviously had high hopes for the date, deliberating and redoing her make up numerous times judging from the make up clad wet wipes, and from the fact her make up was scattered around the entire flat, indicating indecisiveness and sudden change. The clothes stated the obvious. All in all she clearly cared about how she would be perceived.

Sherlock felt the sudden urge to find a firearm. And shoot it. Repeatedly.

So much for a mental breakdown.

He had to find her now. He wasn't going to allow some sub-average male to help her to repress her feelings. Luckily deducing where she had gone was easy enough. The imprint of the details were still visible on a nearby pad of paper, where Molly had written it, while on the phone. Al Dente, eight o'clock. A twenty minute cab journey from here. It was eight twenty. They would have wanted to arrive slightly before their booking. He must have missed her by five minutes. Oh for goodness sakes. He needed to nip this in the bud. He made for the door, when a small, non-threatening photo frame on the side table caught his gaze. It was turned down. Interesting. He picked it up, only to see his own face. It was a cut out from a paper, of him during a press conference. He was wearing that damned deer stalker, he noted to his annoyance. But more than that he felt... happy that she had this. They'd argued three weeks ago and the most she had done was turn it down. She still cared.

The odds seemed to turn back in to his favour, just ever so slightly.

Now he just needed to get there.

He was lovely. There was no other word for it. No Nick wasn't Sherlock-Holmes-spectacular, but he was nice. Molly doubted he had a manipulative bone in his body. But then again she'd thought that about Jim. Shaking her head slightly, she tried to focus back on him, as they sat, slowly nursing glasses of wine, waiting for their food.

The last thing she expected to see was a disheveled and bleeding Sherlock Holmes barrelling towards them.