First of all, you guys are all awesome. I love hearing from each and every one of you. That includes my guest posters and those that have their private messaging turned off so that I can't reply to your reviews, but I want to let you know that you, too, are appreciated!

Secondly, I thought I'd be a little bit awesome and release this chapter a bit early. It's been a heck of a week and I think we could all use some extra goodness to make it a bit better.

As always, I hope you love and enjoy it and please leave me reviews if you want, they totally make my day~

~J.

Molly stared in horror at the building that loomed before them. She turned to stare at Jayne. "Are you serious, Jayne?"

Jayne grinned and nodded, grabbing her friend's hand and beginning to pull her towards the building. "Absolutely. Self-defense is important, and after the last few months, you and I both need to know more. I certainly need a refresher course and you need training as well. I'm not letting my best friend get hurt when she could have protected herself."

Molly blushed. "Am I really your best friend, Jayne?" she asked softly.

Jayne grinned even wider. "You better believe it, doll-face. You and I are like this," she said, twining her fingers, not knowing what that did to Molly's heart, making her smile and feel IMPORTANT for the first time in her life. "Now come on, we're going to go learn some karate moves and take out our frustrations on some idiot in padding." Silently, and a bit apprehensively, Molly trudged behind Jayne.

Twenty minutes later, both Jayne and Molly were clothed in odd-looking clothes, a mix somewhere between a martial arts ghi and a tracksuit. Jayne wondered who in the hell designed this damn outfit. "Probably someone with more money than brains," she decided. The rest of the class, she and Molly included, stood in a semi-circle around the instructor. The man looked like a wall of muscles and Jayne was a little afraid. Poor Molly looked terrified. "I want you to come at me and try and take me down," He instructed and stepped back in what looked like a comfortable, nonchalant stance.

Nobody seemed to want to be the first to go, so Jayne sighed, shrugged and attacked. And learned very quickly that while the man looked to be not paying attention, he damn well was. She was flat on her back, her ass aching, in thirty seconds. He looked down at her. "Good try. But your approach was a little too direct and easy to see. Next time, try coming in from the side or a surprise attack." He smiled and gave her a hand to help her up.

Jayne nodded, bowing slightly to the man, somewhat afraid of an attack of his own. But he made no move towards her, just the simple, respectful bow. He turned to Molly. "You're a tiny little thing. But that gives you an advantage. Come here, little one." He said, motioning Molly forward. Molly looked extremely uncomfortable as she walked to the instructor. He raised his hand and wrapped it around Molly's wrist. Molly's eyes widened and she began to panic, twisting and turning trying to get away. "Calm down, Miss. I want you to breathe and think. I have your wrist. I don't have your legs or your other hand. Use those. Think about the sensitive parts of the body. Nose, instep, Think of the movie Miss Congeniality. S-I-N-G. Solar Plexus. Instep. Nose. Groin," he said, pointing to each area with his other hand.

Molly nodded and breathed deeply. She kicked him hard in the shin then stomped her foot down on his instep. She punched him hard in the gut and then rammed him with her elbow into his nose. With a look of indecision, Molly grimaced and kneed him in the groin. He gasped sharply and dropped to his knees. He hadn't thought she'd have the balls to kick him in the genitals. He sucked in a deep breath. "Well done, little one. Well done. Class dismissed," he gasped out and Jayne and Molly hurried over to make sure he was alright.

He finally convinced them that he would be fine but that he looked forward to seeing them at the next class. Jayne and Molly both assured him that they would be there. They returned to the locker room to change into their own clothing and left the building that housed the self-defense classes.

"What should we do now?" Jayne asked Molly. Molly smiled, it was so refreshing to have someone ask her opinion on something and then not immediately ignore it. Her rumbling stomach decided for her.

"How about a rather late lunch? I know this really great Italian place!" Molly said.

"Sounds good!" agreed Jayne. She was just glad to have gotten some frustration with the whole Sherlock/Irene Adler situation. Now she was rather hungry too. Much to Jayne's mirth, Molly took them to Angelo's, the restaurant where Sherlock and John had eaten (Well, John had eaten) when they were trying to catch the killer from the first episode of season one of Sherlock.

They were seated quickly, and Jayne couldn't help laughing to herself as she remembered the rather awkward conversation between Sherlock and John about boyfriends, girlfriends and Sherlock being married to his work. A waiter finally came to take their order. Molly ordered lasagna that, from the picture in the menu, looked cheesy, gooey and wonderful. Jayne chose the build your own pasta, with fettuccine alfredo, mushrooms, chicken, asparagus and spinach. They both order a crisp white wine to drink. The waiter bowed slightly, winking at Jayne, which had her blushing and made Molly giggle.

They shared a small basket of freshly baked rolls-though they both thought that Jayne's were better-and chatted about Molly's work. She overlooked Molly's occasional slip into the grotesquerie that was a pathologist's life. Jayne told Molly that as a child Jayne had considered being a pediatric nurse. "Up until I was in high school and one of the boys in my class had a severe seizure in the middle of our class playing flag football. I froze so badly that I couldn't move. I knew then that there was no way I'd be able to handle the kind of stress that an emergency situation like that would create."

Molly looked at Jayne with an odd grimace. "What?" Jayne asked, surprised at her friend's look.

"Jayne, you threw yourself in front of a gun for me. If that's not an emergency situation, I don't know what is. And you'd be a wonderful nurse. Look at how you take care of John and Sherlock, and I can't imagine two bigger man-child type people than those two," Molly huffed. Jayne just grinned at her, but then sobered quickly.

"Molly, I honestly have no idea how I did that, and besides you saw me fall apart afterwards. And you saw how I was the day I arrived here. I was a wreck. The only thing I knew the day we were robbed was that I wasn't going to let anything happen to you. That was the only thing that got me through it. If it had been just me, I'd probably have begged and pleaded and screamed and cried," Jayne protested.

Molly honestly didn't believe her, but didn't say anything. Finally their food arrived. As predicted, Molly's lasagna was wonderfully smothered in cheese and sauce and she moaned softly on the first bite. Jayne's pasta dish was divine, the creamy sauce melted on the tongue, the chicken was moist and delicious and the vegetables were perfectly tender-crisp.

They continued talking about non-essential nonsense until Jayne suddenly felt eyes on her. She looked up and was unsurprised to see Sherlock staring at her from a table in the corner, the shadows darkening his face, only his eyes brightly visible in the pale glow of candlelight. He noticed her noticing him and smiled slightly. Suddenly Molly looked down at her watch. "Oh no! I'm going to be late!" she cried. She looked imploringly at Jayne.

Jayne just smiled, "Go, woman! I won't have you late on my account." Molly tried to pull money from her wallet to pay half. "Don't even think about it. Mycroft's paying tonight," Jayne giggled conspiratorially at Molly and waved her goodbye. When Molly had gone, Jayne grabbed her glass of wine and her bowl of fettuccine and walked over to where Sherlock was sitting, surprising him a little.

She put her bowl of food down and her glass and sat down beside him. "Fancy meeting you here, stranger," she said softly, a smile tugging the corners of her lips up softly. She began to twirl a forkful of fettuccine on her fork and held it to Sherlock's lips. He glared at her and she smiled wider. "Take a bite, Sherlock, it's not poisoned, I promise."

He sighed and opened his mouth and she put the pasta in his mouth, nearly blushing at the way his mouth looked as it pulled the pasta from the fork. She quickly looked down at her bowl and grabbed the glass of wine, taking a fortifying swig of it. "Not bad. Bit heavy on the white pepper," he said, taking her glass and sipping from it.

"I thought you didn't know how to cook!" Jayne demanded.

He grinned. "Never said I didn't know how, just that I don't usually care to. John's atrocious at it, I don't want to employ a cook. Tinned stuff's fine by me. Or if I really feel up to a good meal, I mooch off you." he said, taking her fork and swirling another bite onto it, this time holding it to her lips. She clenched her lips closed.

And gasped when she felt his lips at her ear, "Eat your food, Jayne." he said silkily. She blushed bright red but opened her mouth obediently and took the bite from the fork. "Good girl," he whispered into her ear, and she felt her ears and face burning as the blush covered her face. She turned her face to tell him off when the unexpected happened. His lips were closer than she'd expected and when she turned her face, their lips met in a completely unplanned kiss.