Disclaimer: This is fanfiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read, all mistakes are mine. Thanks for their reviews go to .

And since this is the last time I shall be coming to this universe, thank you to everyone who read, favourited, given kudos or asked about this story. It's been a blast lads, I hope you enjoy it.

~ CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: KNIGHT FEVER AND OTHER AILMENTS ~

Mycroft Holmes' Townhouse,

Mayfair

"Sally?"

And Henry Knight blinks.

Looks around.

Makes his way towards the door to the breakfast room.

He follows the sound of clomping boots and swearing, unaware, apparently, that a large swathe of the British Secret Service is trailing along after him-

Molly rather suspects that, even if he were aware, he simply wouldn't care.

And she is proved correct: As he makes his way to the main hallway he finds the source of the swearing. Sally Donovan is hobbling down the house's main staircase, a heavy cotton peignoir draped over her, the sight somewhat incongruous considering she's wearing men's boots and is carrying her firearm.

Anna, the young girl she and Molly were hiding from her husband, is trailing behind her, a tall, skinny young groomsman at her heels. She's begging Sally to go back to bed in a mixture of Yiddish, Polish and broken English. "Please," Anna keeps saying. "You will be hurt, Miss Sally…"

At hearing these words Henry hurries forward, coming right up the stairs and getting in Sally's path. Halting her trajectory.

She glares up at him. "You're in my way, Knight," she snaps. "I have a clinic to check on, since apparently I can't be away for even one night-"

Henry- to everyone's surprise- merely crosses his arms over his chest and refuses to move.

Though Sally glowers up at him he doesn't back down.

"You should be in bed," he says evenly. "Not even the great Sally Donovan can simply walk off a bullet-wound, and you're of no use to the clinic if you're bleeding to death. "

Though his blocking her way should seem boorish, there is no bravado in his voice.

He is merely stating a fact and Sally knows it, something which seems to irritate her no end.

"I'm not bleeding," she points out tartly, putting her hands on her hips. "I'm clearly on the mend. But I've been in bed for nearly two bloody days and if i don't get some' exercise then I fancy I'll end up shooting something-"

"That can be arranged," Knight says in that same calm, quiet tone. "Just not now, and certainly not in your current condition- I cannot in good conscience allow you to endanger yourself."

Sally blinks warily up at him, perhaps surprised by his implacability, and the ghost of a smile tugs at his lip.

He leans into her, whispers gently into her ear and the suspicious look on her face gets worse.

"When you're able to travel," he says, "I'll gladly take you to my nearest home and let you shoot things to your heart's content. I'll even buy you a new rifle, set up some targets, all for you.- And believe me, the sort of targets I create will give you some excellent sport. But until that time, you should go back to bed- I- I don't want to see you... hurt again."

He looks away, pain moving through his expression. Sally frowns, her eyes softening to see it. "Witnessing that awfulness once was more than enough for me," Henry says. "Please.

Don't make me go through it once more, Miss Donovan."

And he uncrosses his arms, gestures with one hand back towards the staircase.

Sally looks torn, equal parts obstinacy and contrition written across her face. But at least she's willing to listen, something which has not always, Molly knows, been the case.

Silence spreads out, the situation apparently having reached an impasse. So-

"Sal," Molly says, walking to the bottom of the staircase and looking up at her. "Sir Henry and everyone here has your best interests at heart: Please let us take care of you until you can resume your normal duties and start taking care of everyone else. Again."

Sally narrows her eyes at Molly, knowing, as she does, that her friend has often teased big, tough, no-nonsense Sally Donovan for essentially insisting on taking care of everyone except herself. It is an old, old argument between them, one which Molly suspects will never truly be solved. Bringing it up must work though, for Sally turns her attention back to Henry. She raises her chin to him in challenge and, much to Molly's delight, the young engineer visibly gulps.

"You got a strong back, sunshi- I mean, Sir Henry?" Sally, asks archly.

If her cheeks are slightly red and her voice is slightly nervous then nobody in the room is so patently suicidal as to call attention to it.

The young engineer nods, a small touch of pink beginning to stain his ears too. "That I most certainly do, Miss Donovan," he says courteously. "What, um, use do you wish to put it to?"

Sally's eyes light up at the flirtation in his tone; Henry must realise it too for the back of his neck is now turning a rather rosy shade of puce.

"You're going to carry me back up those stairs, young man," she says stoutly, pointing with her pistol. "I need to test how strong that back of yours it- Not that I can't manage it myself, mind. I just need to know."

Henry's own lip curls slightly as he fights the small smile threatening to break over his face. The notion of having his Sally in his arms again seems perfectly delightfully to him. "Of course, Miss Donovan," he says politely. "I should be delighted- And I'm well aware that, were it necessary, you could carry me up those stairs as easily as I might carry you..."

Sally nods her head sharply. "Too bloody right."

Without waiting for her permission Henry steps in close to her. Takes her arms and placed them around his neck. (He wisely makes no mention of giving up her firearm).

"I shall try to be gentle," he murmurs to her, "but you must tell me if I hurt you…" he looks her in the eyes. "I shall never willingly hurt you, I promise you."

Sally looks at him in surprise; it's likely, Molly knows, that that is the most tender or kindly a man has ever been with her. For women of Sally's class, kindness and respect are seldom-spotted beasts. Donovan bobs her head, acquiesces. Gulps, and then glares at the room in general, as if daring them to say a word to her about it.

Nobody takes her up on the offer, but as previously mentioned, nobody feels like doing themselves in.

"I'll tell you if anything's wrong… Henry," she says quietly, and with that Sir Henry picks her up and begins to quickly ascend the stairs, Anna running after them. Mrs. Hudson looks to M for permission before darting after them too, signalling to the groomsman following Anna- "Quickly, young Jarvis!"- to fetch her medicine kit.

The room seems oddly empty with Sally and her entourage gone.

"Something you left out of your report, dearest?" M asks Mycroft as she watches the older woman leave, her lips pursed in amusement, but the elder Holmes shakes his head.

"You of all people know that one should never act on incomplete intelligence, Mummy," he says, and the older woman gives a short bark of laughter. Anthea joins her and this makes Sherlock and John grin.

Molly rather suspects that she's going to like Sherlock and Mycroft's mother.

"Your intelligence won't be "incomplete," for long," M says. "Not judging by what I just saw, darling boy." And the older woman grins at Anthea. "About time someone took young Knight in hand, isn't it, Thea?"

The young spy smiles and inclines her head curtly. "Whatever you say, Ma'am."

Again the older woman lets out that bark of laughter, before turning to look at Molly, holding her arm out to the young doctor in invitation.

"Now, darling," she says. "Let's go and see your practice, eh? And see if there's anything to be salvaged." she clucks her tongue. "Whoever is responsible, you may depend upon them paying for it…"

Arm in arm the two walk out of Mycroft's house, Mummy's boys trailing at the rear.

Molly Hooper's Clinic

Whitechapel

One Hour Later

"Sally's going to be annoyed we didn't tell her about this," Molly says under her breath, poking through the still-smoking remains of her clinic with her parasol.

Everything she owned, she thinks, everything she'd worked for, all has been sent up in smoke, leaving nothing but a ruined shell of the place she once called home.

She feels a great swell of sorrow at the thought.

Though she had tried to keep her voice even, she still feels Sherlock's arms lock around her from behind, the unseemliness of so public a show of affection offset by the comfort his nearness gives her.

Mycroft, Anthea and Mummy Holmes are all looking rather pointedly away, the latter speaking quietly to any of the small crowd gathered to see their doctor's reaction, mother and son consulting quietly amongst themselves.

"I'm sorry, imp," Sherlock is saying softly in Molly's ear, his arms tightening on her. "I know what this place meant to you…"

The young doctor nods, leaning back against him. It's slowly becoming familiar, the sense of support in having him near. "It's not the expense," she says hesitantly. "Thanks to my inheritance finding a new building will be of little consequence. But…" She sighs, shakes her head. Surveys the scene before her. "My books," she whispers. "My instruments. My clothes and all the clinic records… Everything I had built in the last five years, they're all gone. Gone..."

And she turns in Sherlock's arms, lays her cheek against his chest.

Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, she feels like crying- And for the first time in a long time, there's someone to comfort her through it.

The thought is oddly… shocking.

She hadn't let herself realise how much being alone had weighed on her, she thinks disjointedly, until now, when she's aware that she no longer is.

"Was this the last home you shared with your father?" Sherlock asks and she nods mutely. Squeezes her eyes shut. The tears come then and she finds not even her husband's comforting embrace can ease them.

"I know I should be relieved that nobody was hurt," she croaks out. "I know I should be thankful that it didn't spread- If the wind had been strong last night then who knows what might have happened? But still… Still…"

And at that, at the thought of how much worse it could have been she begins to… Well, the only term for it is bawl.

Her throat clogs up, her chest tightens. All the tension and all the fear and all the emotion of the last few days seems to ball together until they simply pour out of her in big, fat, embarrassingly sloppy tears. Suddenly heiress Mrs. Molly Hooper- Holmes is gone and plain old, heartbroken old Molly Hooper is in her place. Any semblance of calmness she had been holding onto since leaving Mycroft's house has entirely disintegrated, and the sheer enormity of what has befallen her is now setting in-

She closes her eyes and gives in, momentarily, to her distress. Wraps her arms around her husband and squeezes him so tightly, she worries she may end up cracking his ribs.

"Hush," he's saying softly as he rocks her. "Hush, imp, we'll set things to rights... I know the things which were lost can't be replaced, but we can at least rebuild the clinic-"

As he says the words Molly nods and tries to calm herself.

At least, she reminds herself again, she isn't entirely alone in this.

And she might have succeeded in bringing herself back under control, had a certain party not chosen that moment to make his presence felt, laughing and clapping and strolling through the wreckage of her clinic as if he bloody owned it.

Unfortunately however, this certain party did make his presence felt.

Molly would recognise the blighter anywhere.

For she looks up from Sherlock's chest to find that, that bastard Oskar strolling towards her, his gang of boys at his heels, his chest puffed out in pride at her distress. At the ruin he has made of her life's work, and the destruction he has caused his own community.

Suddenly, and for the second time in as many days, Molly finds herself viscerally, completely willing to inflict harm on another human being.

"You like my handiwork, Little Daughter?" he asks smugly in Polish, gesturing to the smoking ruin which had once been Molly's clinic. "You'll think twice, next, won't you, about stealing from me."

At her back, she feels Sherlock physically tense; without even needing to look, she knows that Anthea and Mycroft are doing the same. Even Mummy Holmes' attention seems… focussed.

All of a sudden, the air is vibrating with tension.

"You did this?" Sherlock asks in Polish and his voice is tight. Hard. Rather like the way he sounded when he dealt with Magnusson, Molly can't help but think.

It sends an odd shiver of pride down her back to hear it.

Oskar, of course, doesn't understand the danger and nods proudly. Sidles over until he's close enough to touch, his rather greater bulk giving him the erroneous impression that he's at an advantage where her husband's concerned.

Realising how mistaken he is in that, Molly can't help giving him a slow, hard smile.

The confidence in Oskar's expression dims somewhat, unsure, suddenly, about why the mousey little lady doctor he's been tormenting for months might be grinning at him. His eyes flicker from her and Sherlock to the ruins of the clinic and back again, though when he speaks he tries to keep the same confident, careless boom as before.

"I told your woman there would be consequences," Oskar says sharply. "She took from me, I take from her- That's the way these things work, is it not?"

And he turns to his lads, eyebrows raised in question- And command. Thus prompted they let out a cheer of agreement, laughing and clapping him on the back. Congratulating him like the toadies they are. Instantly his confidence returns and he leans in close to Sherlock, makes a show of reaching out and grabbing Molly's wrist roughly-

The parasol comes out of nowhere, darting between the two of them before even Sherlock can say anything.

It pokes Oskar in the chest- hard- and when he turns to look at the person wielding it his expression turns almost comically confused.

Tall, regal and utterly unruffled, Mummy Holmes cocks an eyebrow at him, pressing him away from her son and his wife with the point of her parasol. To Molly's- and, evidently, Oskar's- surprise, bloody starts to pool brightly against his shirt where the umbrella's point pokes into it.

The scarlet blossoms across his chest as Oskar stares dumbly down at it, before looking over at Mummy.

"You'll pay for that, you bitch," he hisses, raising one beefy fist back as if to strike the older woman. Sherlock, Molly and Mycroft all move, about to intervene, but before they can Oskar drops his fist, his face grimacing with pain.

Mummy Holmes gives a slight jab of her parasol and he steps back, away from Sherlock and Molly.

His face is turning oddly… ashen.

"Now, now," Mummy tells him, "there's no need for that- Not if you want me to stop the venom."

"What are you doing to me?" he hisses in English, the effort of speaking in something other than his mother tongue obvious.

Mummy's smile is gentility personified.

"Why, my good man," she drawls (in Polish), "I am merely showing you the consequences of your actions." She gestures to Sherlock and Molly. "This is my son," she says. "That is his wife. I'm rather fond of her, as you may have guessed, not least because she's the first person who's managed to bring my youngest under some semblance of control.

And yet you, apparently, have destroyed everything she holds dear for the sake of, what? Manful pride?"

She raises her eyebrows in question, her tone as conversational as if she were discussing some knitting with a vicar's wife.

Of course, she also digs her parasol more sharply into Oskar's chest.

He lets loose a string of Polish curses, dropping to his knees and flinching. His face has started to turn a most peculiar shade of green and his hands have started shaking.

"She stole from me," he snaps, gesturing towards Molly. "That whoreson Jakob, he gave me his girl to pay for his gambling debts. She was going to be my wife, she was going to give me children-"

"She was a child herself." For the first time Molly finds her voice and when she speaks Mummy nods to her. Smiles sharply.

"Is that true?" she asks Oskar and he nods. He does not look pleased, but nevertheless he answers.

"You must get the young," he says. "At least that way you have enough time for fun before you wear them out and you have to start again." He looks at Sherlock, Mycroft. "If you have the choice, you take then young," he repeats stubbornly. "That's what you English gentlemen do, isn't it?"

Mycroft cocks an eyebrow. "Child-brides aren't really my forte," he drawls. "Though I do understand that some men aren't as discerning as I."

Sherlock nods. "One really can't beat finding a woman who knows herself well enough to bloody know you," he says brightly, bringing Molly's hand up to his mouth to kiss. "Give me an imp over an angel any day."

Oskar rolls his eyes, unconvinced, and tries to stand, but as he does Mummy steps closer and presses the point of her parasol into his chest once more.

Instantly he hisses with the pain of it.

"I'm pouring and alcohol and saline solution into your wound," she says conversationally. Oskar glares at her and with a sharp flick of her wrist she pulls the parasol off him. Steps briskly away. She hooks the parasol tidily over her arm and smiles at her victim.

"The other solution I gave you should pass within a few hours," she says. "Of course, those few hours will be unspeakably unpleasant, but then that's what one gets for threatening my family and causing property damage to those the hold dear."

And as if to confirm her words, Oskar turns entirely white and then doubles over, vomiting forth what looks like the entirety of his stomach contents.

Molly and Mummy Holmes look at them with mild interest and Sherlock beams in pride at it.

Mycroft and Anthea merely look slightly bored).

Two of Oskar's boys come forward and help him into standing; they're rewarded for their efforts by his getting sick again, the remains of his breakfast spewing down his shirt to the disgust of all. They start to carry him away and as they do, Mummy Holmes catches the biggest one by the wrist, leans into him.

"Should anything else happen to this clinic," she says softly, "then a little poison in his system will be the least of his worries- Is that clear, my good fellow?"

The man narrows his eyes in annoyance but nods. Steps away and, keeping his eye on the older woman and backing away slowly, breaking into a quick jog once he's at a safe distance.

As soon as he's gone the tension pops like a bubble.

Immediately those in the vicinity disperse, making sure to throw Molly timid, friendly smiles as they do.

Within seconds Molly and her family are alone in the ruins of her clinic, nobody here to bother them. Only the sounds of the traffic breaking the quiet. Molly looks at her mother-in-law, holds out her hand. The older woman shakes it.

"Thank you," she says quietly and M nods. Reaches out and touches her cheek, her smile surprisingly maternal.

"I take threats against my family terribly badly, my dear," she says. "Ask this one-"

And she grins brightly at Sherlock before gathering her skirts and heading back to her carriage. Mycroft and Anthea fall into step with her, something Molly can't help but suspect is indicative of how that relationship has always worked. They all climb in, Thea leaning out and waving goodbye-

"Oy!" Sherlock snaps. "We might want a ride!"

The young spy smiles slyly.

"Do you?" she asks. "Or would you newlyweds get to enjoy an unalloyed hour in one another's company?"

Before Molly can answer Sherlock squeezes her hand, and shakes his head. Tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow and begins walking her away. "Good call, Thea," he throws over his shoulder. "Trot along now and leave the imp and I to our adventures..."

They walk out onto the Whitechapel Road, still arm in arm, and though Molly knows that the next few weeks- nay, the rest of her life- will be eventful, she can't help beaming at her husband.

"You really are the rudest man in London," she says.

The wink he throws her is devilish.

"But that, imp, is why you love me," he points out, and Molly laughs because she knows it's true.