His surroundings were soaking wet, yet somehow still crisp and charred. The remains crunched under his feet as he delicately kicked aside pieces of what used to be his house. Sherlock carried a bucket over his arms, just as his companions did, to collect anything he could find that was still intact, salvageable. So far he had found nothing.

This was surreal. His home had once been a fortress, a sanctuary, and now it was a pile of ashes. His world reduced to nothingness. Maybe Molly had been right about the emotional response he should of had. Maybe this was a close as he was going to get.

Sherlock lifted a piece of charred wood to look beneath it, seeing nothing but more darkness. He sighed, this seemed like a waste of time, over-sentimental endeavour, but his mother had insisted upon it. Violet still held hope, it seemed, that something, anything would be recognisable.

He glanced across at Molly, who had chosen to work with Violet towards the front of the remains where the living room had once sat. His mother was crying, Molly was comforting her, and not for the first time Sherlock was happy to have her in his life. The Holmes men usually baulked at the sight of Violet crying, but Molly knew exactly what to do.

His mind wandered, returning to the night before when she had pulled him into her arms and plundered his mouth, attacking him with a furious lust that made him weak with want. Molly had turned her fear into passion yet again, sweeping him along for the journey, and it had been the most difficult decision of his life to stop her.

Sherlock knew when to trust his instincts and when to ignore them. The previous night as Molly had pinned him to the bed with the entirety of her body, his instincts had told him to stop. It hadn't felt right. It had felt like he was taking advantage of her vulnerability. She was uneasy, not only about the fire, but about a lot of things related to events in her love life, and she didn't want to turn into another regret.

Sherlock had tried to explain, but she had stopped him, agreeing that it probably hadn't been the best idea. Instead they had laid together, late into the night, talking and laughing tenderly, no more than a few inches away from each other at any time. They'd shared the occasional kiss, soft caress, but had kept their clothes on. They had fallen asleep in each others arms and woken the same way. Sherlock had to admit that he'd enjoyed their evening, more than he would of if he had made love to her that night.

Molly looked up at him them, smiling lovingly at him before going back to overturning pieces of the cottage. He positioned himself to the side, a section that would have been two storeys directly under his bedroom, and crouched down to begin his digging. As he did, his mother let out a triumphant sound, plucking a slightly melted photo frame from the rubble. Sherlock recognised the frame. It was his parents wedding photo from the living room.

He lifted a plank of wood from a small pile beside him, throwing it to the left. He ran his hand through the ashes there, willing his hand to come into contact with something, anything that he could take to his mother and add to the collection of artefacts of her old home. He had little hope, was sure he'd find nothing of value until...

His hand brushed against something solid, but not if the same texture if his surrounds. He closed his hands on it, tugging it from the safety of its resting place and brushing the soot off of it. It was a book. More precisely, a copy if the Mathematics of Combustion, by V. A Holmes. He laughed, ironically, a book about combustion survived the house fire.

There were a few copies of this book in the Holmes Cottage, but Sherlock found himself hoping that it was one in particular. He held his breath and closed his eyes, flipping open the front cover. When he opened them again, his mother's delicate handwriting greeted him. 'To my gorgeous son William..' He sighed in relief and gently picked up the other memory that had been trapped between the pages. The picture of Mycroft, Sherlock and Ford on Sherlock's tenth birthday.

"Mum!" He called, straightening himself up and crossing to where Molly and Violet were sifting through some debris.

"What have you got?" Violet smiled, then laughed when she saw it. "Oh, that old thing. Indestructible."

"Guess which copy it is." Sherlock added, flicking open the cover.

"Oh Sherlock" she sobbed, tears in her eyes. "Your birthday present. You begged me for months for a copy of my work. The look on your face when you unwrapped it."

"Ford called me a nerd for wanting it." He added to the reminiscence, flipping the picture over, revealing the photograph that had survived. Violet smiled though tears.

"My boys." She turned to Molly with an explanation. "We backed up all of our photographs electronically years ago but this... It physically survived."

Molly was just about to hug the crying older woman when Sherlock stepped between them, embracing her instead. Molly watched as they held each other, the emotion of the day overwhelming her until she had to look away.

Her gaze fell on Mycroft, who was rolling a few items around in his hands. Sure that Violet and Sherlock wouldn't miss her, she crossed to him. The oldest Holmes son held up the object to her as she approached, but lowered his voice as not to distract the others. "Incendiary device."

Molly gently pried the piece of machinery from the Mycroft's hand, looking it over. She knew little about incendiary devices, but often had to pull fragments from bodies that ended up on her table. "It looks like a trigger mechanism."

"I believe that's what it was." Mycroft added, holding out something that had been in his other hand. "This was the remote part. It allowed Thomas the opportunity to plant the device, walk away and trigger it from a distance."

Molly took the second piece holding the two together like two jigsaw puzzle sections. They tapped against each other with a loud clicking noise. "I don't know much about this sort of stuff Mycroft."

"Surprisingly, neither do I" Mycroft replied, looking over at his brother in an attempt to gain his attention.

A few minutes later Sherlock did join them, and Molly handed him the pieces of the device wordlessly. The detective turned them over in his hand a few times. "Basic incineration device. Basic strike flint, but with a remote so that distance could be between the house and the attacker. Made with common supplies that could be found at any hardware store, but the electronic remote device would need some expertise. What did Thomas do for a living Molly?"

"Accountant." Molly filled in quickly, ignoring the smirk from Sherlock. Everything the detective learnt about Molly's ex made him laugh. How could someone honestly be that boring, no wonder he wanted to be a criminal. "But..."

"But what Molly?"

She looked at her feet and quickly said "He made hobby aircraft. Remote controlled ones."

Sherlock covered his laugh with a cough. "How did you date someone so stale."

"'Stale' had been a comfort at the time, considering the only other man I had been interested in, you, by the way," she stabbed her finger into his chest. "Was a consulting detective off on a suicide mission to bring down a criminal underworld."

Sherlock grinned to himself, then turned back to Mycroft. "Definitely Thomas then."

"I'd say so." Mycroft agreed, quickly doing something on his phone.

"I should probably head back to London." Sherlock suggested, wrapping his hand around Molly's carefully but avoiding her gaze. "Clean up this mess."

"Should hope so." Mycroft returned his phone to his pocket. "I've contacted Anthea. The chopper will be here within an hour."

0o0

Thomas stood from his chair, paused pensively, then pushed against it. Moving the angle of the chair slightly, he nodded, proud of himself, and sat again, in front of the roaring fireplace.

"That was not a practical purchase." A voice from behind him startled him only slightly. Thomas regained his composure, trying to see intimidating.

"When is a chair not a practical purchase?" He asked into the darkness behind him.

"When it is god awfully ugly." Came the reply. "Brown leather wingback, Tommy, I am disappointed."

"My name is Thomas." He snapped, standing to come face to face with Jim Moriarty.

"Buying a ridiculous chair won't make you evil, champ." Jim smiled as he pushed Thomas out if the way, collapsing into it. He jumped a few times, wriggling in an attempt to get comfortable. "Not practical at all."

"I like it." Thomas defended, but even he could hear the whiny tone in his voice. "What do you want? You obviously didn't come here to insult my furniture."

"Maybe I did." Jim shrugged, standing with one last look of distaste at the armchair. "More productive than what you've done lately. Burning down the Holmes' house? Really?"

"I prefer the term 'blowing up'" Thomas gloated.

"No explosions, so you didn't blow up shit." Jim filled him, making Thomas's face fall. Obviously, he thought he was more talented than evidence suggested. "Destruction of personal property. Such a badass." Sarcasm dripped from the statement.

There was a standoff between the two men.

"It taught Sherlock a lesson though." Thomas began.

"Are you really that stupid?" Jim questioned. "What lesson did it teach Sherlock?"

"That if he laughs at me, he'll pay the price." Thomas smiled. Jim rolled his eyes.

"Not often I agree with the loser in the hat." Jim began. "But I would have laughed at you too. In fact, I did have a good old laugh at your expense when I first heard of your 'evil scheme'"

Thomas tried, and failed miserably, to ignore the other men's taunts.

"You know what else makes me laugh?" Moriarty asked. "The fact that you offered to help him stop me."

For the first time in the confrontation, Thomas looked scared. Something had come over Jim, a darkness into his eyes which made Thomas realise that it wasn't such a good idea to mess with Moriarty.

"All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't stop me." Jim boasted, pushing his hands into his pockets. Thomas recoiled, thinking he was about to reveal a weapon. "Sit down in your uncomfortable chair, kid. I need to teach you a lesson."

Thomas did what he was told, all the time trying to deduce the mastermind in front of him. Nothing was coming to him.

"Sherlock and I have something special." Jim began, looking down at Thomas. "You probably think that you are throwing you hat in the ring, but you're not. You're a annoying, yappy, little puppy, and if you don't watch yourself, someone is going to smack you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper."

"What are you telling me?"

"Walk away" Jim said firmly as he moved to leave the living room. "Because if you don't, I'll break your legs."

"You won't get rid of me that easily." Thomas dug deep within himself for his last ounce if bravado, standing resolute as Jim was parallel to him.

"I don't know." Jim replied, turning in a quick, fluid motion to stab a knife into Thomas' stomach. Tom make an unusual gargling sound, bringing his hands to the wound that produced an impressive spurt if blood when the knife was removed. "That was pretty easy, don't you think?"

0o0

Sherlock exited the safe house, hand wrapped around Molly's, and made his way down the driveway to where one of Mycroft's cars was waiting. They would drive to where she had ordered the helicopter to settle, then he would leave back to London.

Molly released his hand, allowing Sherlock to hug his mother and share a an awkward hug with his father. It was sweet, seeing Sherlock interact with his parents like this. It was another unseen side of him that he was opening up to her.

As he swooped back to his mother for a second hug (Violet looked like she needed it). Molly's phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She tried to ignore it, not wanting to interrupt the moment, but the buzzing continued, driving her to distraction.

Taking a few steps back from the scene, Molly removed her phone, shocked by what she saw on the caller I.D.

"Sherlock!" Molly called, and hearing the mild panic in his voice, he released his mother and crossed to her. "Thomas Franklin is calling me!"