Sherlock's thoughts were in complete disarray as he walked towards Joe's Fish Shop, after he had discovered Molly was engaged to another man. However he tried to deny it, he was hurt, and he felt used by, of all people, Molly Hooper.

He supposed it was his own fault. When he had kissed her again, wanting to spend more time with her, making up that ridiculous excuse of returning the hat, to prolong their day together, he hadn't meant for things to end in the bedroom. He was just planning to kiss her as a way of thanking her. Her lips, however, were so inviting and she seemed as willing to be with him as he was to be with her. She had initially resisted though, told him they shouldn't be doing it, but he had been too consumed by his own need to stop what he was doing, persuading her to give in to him.

He had been glad this time as well, that he actually had a response for the pregnancy issue and had mentally thanked Mycroft for his unintentionally useful gift.

Worst though, he thought now as he made his solitary walk, was his admission to Molly of how she affected him, what she did to him. He had enjoyed their lovemaking, more than enjoyed it, in fact. He had felt a sense of rightness, being with her. Their interaction during Lestrade' silly hoax case was fun, but it was when they were with Shilcott that Sherlock had felt the magnetic pull between Molly and himself. He kept looking over at her, she looked totally adorable in that funny striped jumper of hers. Molly didn't dress to please anyone but herself, and he appreciated that.

When they were going downstairs and she asked what the day had been about, he told her the truth, how much she mattered to him. He was ready to go have some chips with her and continue their day together into the evening, perhaps make love with her again at the end of it. But then he saw the ring, the ring she had not said anything about, the ring that pledged her to another man. Despite himself, he was crushed. But he was Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock Holmes did not exhibit undue sentiment, so he tried to keep his cool, wishing her well, although he felt anger and hurt and damn it all - jealousy. He wanted to kiss her once again on the lips, a punishing one, one last farewell kiss that he would have to remember her by, but he couldn't, not knowing she was engaged to another man, so a kiss on the cheek had to suffice. She was lost to him forever.

Hardest to deal with though, was this new revelation about Molly. For so long, he had considered her so far above him. He had placed her on a pedestal inside him, worshipped silently at the shrine of Molly Hooper. He had built up an ideal of her in his head while he had been off dismantling Moriarty's network. His cold, logical self said he could never be worthy of someone like her. She was sweet, perfect in every way. She could do no wrong. He, on the other hand, was rude, arrogant. He was also a former junkie. And yet, he had found himself drawn to her when he returned, unable to prevent himself from wanting to be worthy of her, when she spent the day with him.

Sherlock tried to process this new information about the woman who had been his, but was no longer. She had slept with him even while being engaged to someone else. For the first time, he realised Molly wasn't this saint, this paragon of virtue. She was human, just like he was. That thought made him feel at least a tiny bit better in light of what had happened. It was most illuminating. He added a file to the Molly Hooper room in his mind palace - Molly is a human who makes mistakes, just like I do.

Sherlock bought his chips and made his way home, determined to move on, to forget about Molly Hooper once and for all. He did, however, ask Mrs. Hudson when he got home, whether she knew Molly was engaged. She didn't. Thank God the landlady had not been privy to what had gone on a few hours earlier between his - no, not his anymore, pathologist and himself. He could only be glad that he had taken the steps necessary to prevent a pregnancy. What would happen if she were to fall pregnant and didn't know who the father was? That would most certainly be a dicey situation, especially if she and her fiancé were using protection during their sexual encounters. He couldn't help feeling used and dirty somehow.

When Mary turned up unexpectedly while he was still eating his chips, Sherlock was glad of the distraction. It turned out to have been a good thing he was not with Molly, or he most certainly would not have been in time to save his friend. That situation also led to the reconciliation of their friendship, which was a great relief. He asked John too, whether he knew Molly was engaged, unsure as to whether John had kept in touch with her during his absence. His friend had no idea, but damn the man for inviting her and the fiancé to the celebration over preventing the Palace of Westminster bombing.

The guy, - what was his name? Tim? Tom? - bore a superficial resemblance to himself, wearing his hair in a similar fashion and a cheap knock-off of Sherlock's beloved Belstaff. The guy even knotted his scarf in the same way, Sherlock thought, somewhat disparagingly. Why would she want an imitation Sherlock, when she could have the real thing? But he had no right to ask for that anyway.

It was a good thing his life got busy with John and Mary's wedding preparations. They served to distract him from too many thoughts of Molly. When he was forced to see her thanks to those murder cases for which she had done the post-mortem, he maintained a professional demeanour with her, never indicating that their previous sexual encounters had meant anything more than fulfilling his carnal desires. Heaven forbid she should think he cared about her as more than a friend.

He couldn't prevent himself on one occasion though, approaching her for help in determining the correct amount of alcohol to consume during John's stag night, to avoid the effects of inebriation.

He casually asked about her fiancé, wondering why there had been no mention from her of an upcoming wedding date. What surprised him though, was her response to him, telling him that she and Tom were having quite a lot of sex. The way she told him that, without provocation, made him certain the opposite was true. She was baiting him, trying to gauge his reaction, but he was not going to fall into her trap. He'd fallen once too often into the arms of Molly Hooper, so he had casually dismissed her comment and continued the premise of needing her help.

When Sherlock helped Mary with the guest seat placement for the wedding, seeing Molly's name and Tom's had felt like a knife to his heart. They were still together, even months after that night. He had to admit, he had secretly been hoping she would break her engagement, but he was careful to stay out of her way, not wanting to influence any decision she might make. He was not a home-wrecker.

During the wedding, distracted though he was about doing the best man speech, and solving a case in the middle of it, Sherlock noticed that Molly did not seem particularly happy. Oh, she pretended, of course, in front of the camera belonging to the would-be murderer, but he saw the way she treated her young man - and young was right - Molly was definitely a cougar in that relationship. He heard the way she hissed at her fiancé to sit down, after his woefully embarrassing "meat dagger" theory. Even Lestrade's inane dwarf idea had more merit.

The signs of three were there for John and Mary, but the signs of two, soon-to-be-one were there for Molly.

A few days after the wedding, while John was still on his sex holiday - pardon - honeymoon, Sherlock headed over to Molly's flat for the first time since he had returned to London. He told himself he was just coming over to apologise for acting so tense with her in the lab, and to explain it had been because he was nervous about the best man speech. It was at least partially true.

The first thing he noticed when she opened the door was that her ring finger was bare, and his heart skipped a beat.

"Why are you here, Sherlock?" she asked, looking at him cautiously. Her eyes were slightly rimmed with red. It looked as if she had been crying.

Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own, entering her flat without invitation. She made no move to stop him, she seemed defeated somehow. "Why have you been crying?"

"What do you care, Sherlock?" was her terse response, as she automatically closed the door behind him. "I haven't spoken to you outside of the hospital since...that day."

Suddenly, he felt angry. Why was she putting this on him, when she was the one who had slept with him while she had been engaged to someone else?

"What the hell else did you expect me to do, Molly?" he grated, lips tightening. "Did you think I was going to pretend you weren't engaged to someone else? You should have told me before things got out of hand. I never-" he paused and swallowed, feeling the traitorous burn of tears trying to rise to the surface, "-would never have made love to you that day if I had known you weren't free."

Molly's own eyes filled with tears, and she twisted her fingers together in agitation. "I know. I'm sorry, Sherlock. You were gone for two years. You left without saying goodbye, and you never contacted me. Next thing I know, you turn up again as if you'd never been away."

He curled his lip and narrowed his eyes at her. "As I recall, you were the one who initiated that welcome home kiss, not me," he ground out. Then he realised something. "You were not wearing a ring that day," he accused.

She flushed, and looked down at the floor as she responded. "I didn't wear it at work. It got in the way when I'd put gloves on."

He reached to tilt her chin upward so she could not avoid his gaze. "Were you wearing it that day or did you take it off when I was making love to you?"

Her eyes widened and her lips trembled as she answered. "I was wearing it, but I forgot about it. I...you were doing things to me that made me forget I was engaged."

He raised a mocking eyebrow, even as his hand continued to keep her chin tilted towards him "So it's my fault then for not observing what I normally would have? For allowing you to get me into such a state that all I could think of was you, and being with you?"

Finally he dropped his hand and she did cry then, the tears coming fast down her face and he longed to wipe them away, despite himself. "N..no, of course not. I know it was wrong, very wrong. I allowed myself to be carried away by my emotions."

He snorted derisively, trying to act as if her tears had no effect on him. "Well, at least you showed me one thing that day. You made me realise you're no better than I am. You're not perfect, Molly. Before that day I thought you were. So at least one good thing came out of it. I learned a valuable lesson - not to place anyone on a pedestal above myself. I might be cold and arrogant at times, but I would never dream of two-timing someone if I was in a relationship." He continued, with a self-deprecating twist to his lips, "not that I have a clue about relationships anyway."

He saw the flush in Molly's cheeks as she said in a low voice filled with pain, "You're right, Sherlock. I'm not perfect. When I think of what I did, it tears me up inside. I should never have betrayed Tom that way with you. You both deserved better than what I did."

"So why did you do it then? Were you just trying to compare me to your new lover, to remember what it was like with us before he came along?" he demanded in a harsh tone, feeling that twisting sensation in his stomach. It still hurt like hell that she had used him that way.

Molly stared at him with a look of horror on her face as the colour left it, and she was suddenly pale, although her tears continued to flow. "Of course it wasn't like that. What kind of person do you think I am?"

Sherlock folded his arms. "Apparently the kind who would sleep with one man while engaged to another," he said cuttingly, wanting to wound her as he himself had been wounded. He couldn't take it anymore. Why had he come here anyway?

He had always been so good at suppressing emotions, but this woman seemed to bring them out in a dangerous manner. He turned to leave.

The touch on his arm stopped him. "Please, Sherlock, don't go. I...I have to tell you, I called off my engagement right after John's wedding."

Despite himself, even though he had seen the absence of a ring on her finger, he was curious, so he turned back to her. "Why?"

She shrugged helplessly. "Because I wasn't being fair to him. I couldn't give him what he wanted."

"What - fidelity?" inquired Sherlock, the mocking note back in his voice.

"No," whispered Molly brokenly. "I couldn't sleep with him."

Sherlock blinked, trying to process this information, feeling himself going into buffering mode as he tried to make sense of it.

She touched his arm again. "Sherlock, did you hear what I said? I couldn't sleep with him."

Sherlock forced himself to focus and said slowly, "So, after we made love, you couldn't sleep with him anymore out of guilt?" That fit with his premise that she had lied to him about having a lot of sex with Tom when he had asked about the guy.

She bit her lip, then confessed, "No, you don't understand. I never slept with him, before or after that day with you."

Did I hear her correctly? She has never slept with Tom?

"Molly," he said slowly, carefully, "Were you with anyone else while I was gone?"

"Of course not!" she burst out. "There's only ever been...you."

He was back in buffering mode. Molly isn't perfect. Molly is a cheater. Molly slept with me, not Tom, even though she had been engaged to him. Molly has broken off her engagement.

That same surge of inexplicable gladness swept through his body again, the way it had two years earlier, when she had told him he was the only man she'd been with. It seemed unbelievable that she could have been engaged to another man and not have slept with him, let alone anyone else she might have been seeing.

He suddenly realised she was truly free now, available, and apparently still his. Desire shot through him even as he realised it. Molly was still looking at him beseechingly, and without really thinking about it, he put his arms around her waist to pull her close, then reached with one hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks with the pad of his thumb, before bending his head to touch her lips with his own, feeling her mouth open automatically in invitation. He deepened the kiss, wanting her to know things were okay between them. But then she pulled away.

"Sherlock, I don't understand why this is happening. I don't deserve your kisses. You can't possibly consider forgiving me after the way I betrayed you."

He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "You're not perfect. Neither am I. Am I still hurt about what you did? - Yes. Am I still angry? - No. This puts us on a more even playing field." His lips twitched upwards.

Her lips trembled as she pulled back from him and asked, "But do you forgive me, Sherlock? Really, truly forgive me?"

He huffed out an exasperated breath. "Oh for God's sake, Molly, would I be kissing you like this if I didn't? What's done cannot be undone. I told you how I felt about what you did. You didn't try to justify it in any way. As far as I'm concerned it's a closed chapter. Now come back here and kiss me like you mean it."

She responded by flinging her arms around his neck and raining kisses all over his face, murmuring, "Thank you, thank you," in between each one.

Then he began to kiss her, fiercely, demandingly. Her response was exhilarating, eager and passionate as she pressed her body against his, inviting his touch.

His body responded as usual. He took the opportunity to lift her, feeling her wrap her legs tightly around his waist, carrying her to the familiar bedroom they had used two years earlier.

He needed her, to show her he didn't still harbour any resentment about the past and he wanted her, God, how he wanted her.

She continued to cling to him as he deposited her on the bed, kissing her as he did so. She brought out so much passion in him. He could not understand why Molly and Molly alone had this hold on him. He wanted to be closer with her again. His hand cupped her breast through her blouse and she moaned. She wanted him too, he knew it, and it pleased him. Mine, he thought dimly, she's mine alone.

Suddenly he realised that he'd done it again. He wasn't prepared. He released her and sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Molly," he told her. "Perhaps I need to start carrying around one of those foil packets in my pocket. It seems I can't control myself when I'm around you this way." He was disappointed and his hands curled into fists as he tried to regain control of himself. The desire he felt for her was all consuming, but the logical side of his brain told him he could not just throw caution to the wind when it came to something as important as pregnancy. It would be one thing if they took measures against it and she fell pregnant anyway, quite another to take a gamble on it. Breathing hard, Sherlock concentrated on slowing it, trying to forget that ache he was feeling.

He was surprised therefore when Molly turned her back on him and reached for her bedside drawer, then took a foil packet from within and handed it to him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Do I want to know where this came from?"

Her lips quirked at that. "Just as you have a brother who likes to give you gag gifts, I have a friend, Kaitlyn, who likes to do it too - she gave me a box of those when I got engaged."

He looked at it skeptically. "Don't these things come in different sizes?"

Molly rolled her eyes. "I have no clue. It isn't like I've been shopping for them. Besides," she pointed out reasonably, "the one you got from Mycroft apparently did the job."

Sherlock pursed his lips and looked at the square packet, then back at Molly. "I suppose I shall just hope for the best. But, I'm not quite ready for that yet. I want to kiss you, Molly, kiss you a lot. I have a lot of catching up to do, and a lot of places to explore." He set the foil packet down on the pillow and resumed kissing Molly, his pathologist once again.

He kissed her sweet lips, then moved down to kiss her throat, delighting in that throbbing pulse.

Slowly he undressed her, as she did the same for him. The process served to inflame the pair of them further and he crushed her naked body to his, glorying in her warmth, lavishing his Molly with kisses, moving his hands down to touch and caress her sweet, perfect small breasts, just the right size for his hands, cupping them, caressing them, before putting his mouth to them.

He was very satisfied when Molly moaned. She was so incredibly responsive to his every touch with both hands and mouth.

"Oh, sweetheart," he murmured, exploring her sensitive flesh until she whimpered and he captured her mouth once again with his own, silencing her soft cries.

He removed his mouth from hers to ask huskily, "Do you want to do the honours?" indicating the packet on the pillow.

She blushed, but complied, with trembling, unpracticed fingers.

It was only later, when she was in his arms and they were both recovering from their shared passion, that he had the distinct feeling that he loved her.

He couldn't tell her though, it was far too soon. They were only just getting to know each other again, but he planned to tell her at some point, if he could determine that she felt the same. She hadn't told him she loved him either, after all.

He left Molly that night, after giving her several more kisses and showing her without words how he felt. He had every intention of working at this new aspect of their relationship.

And then things shifted once again, including Sherlock's focus. He was given a very important case, via Lady Smallwood. In the heady feeling of being handed a solid nine on his crime solving scale, Sherlock forgot everything except the fact that he needed to defeat Magnussen. His ticket to that was to woo Janine, and his sweet Molly was thrust into a corner of his mind palace. Everything had to be put on hold until he could get justice for not only Lady Smallwood, but also for the countless others who had been damaged by the evil newspaperman.

Author's note: In this chapter, from Sherlock's perspective, I tried to highlight his hurt and betrayal, but also show that he truly cared about Molly, despite himself. I also tried to show the way his mind shifted from one perception of her, to another, in understanding she too had flaws. I've always felt Sherlock would have a great capacity to love, in light of the lengths he has gone to in order to protect his friends.

Do you think I wrote his reactions in a believable manner? It is always difficult to put yourself into the shoes of someone from another gender. I hope I delivered it satisfactorily.

Thanks to very thought provoking reviews (much appreciated), I actually added to this chapter a lot from what it had originally been when I first wrote it. I added in a lot more of Sherlock's thoughts and his realization that Molly was not perfect. I also had her address her own guilty feelings as well in what she said to him. In the end, I feel this chapter will be better as a result, at least I hope so! I'm actually rather proud of it.

Feedback welcome.

Updated with corrections 6/26/18

Updated with italics 10/12/18

Revised 11/1/18 (Italics removed, visual imagery and characterization improvement made) This chapter still remains one of my favourites in terms of Sherlock's inner monologue.