A/N: For Day 3 of SAW 2022, rated K+, with this additional AU prompt used: when i wake up and look out the window, there's a message for me in the snow in my front yard


"What I'm trying to say is that, if there's anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me." - Molly Hooper, "The Reichenbach Fall"

It had snowed the night before, a proper snowfall like London rarely saw. That was climate change for you, Molly thought as she yawned over her morning coffee. At least it had happened on her day off: she had nowhere to be, no errands to run, nothing to do but whatever she pleased. And she very much pleased to sit on her arse and catch up on Casualty after clearing off her front steps and yes, all right, her back steps as well.

Stuffing her feet into her boots and zipping up her puffy winter coat, she dug out the broom she kept sweeping the steps and opened the door. Once the steps and bit of pavement outside her door were cleared, she knocked the snow off her boots and broom, wiped her feet vigorously on the mat inside, and headed for the back to do the same thing all over again.

Toby - who'd stuck his head out of the door while she worked, gave a suspicious sniff of the white stuff and promptly run back inside - meowed at her. "I've already fed you, you great glutton!" Molly grumbled to him as she continued down the narrow hall leading to her back door. He meowed again, mincing along behind her and shaking his paws in the exaggerated way he had when he'd stepped in something wet - usually his own spilt water, sometimes in the bathroom - to let her know just how displeased he was with her bringing the cold, wet white stuff into his territory.

"You're as much of a drama queen as Sher-" she started to say with a laugh, but the words died in her throat as she opened the back door and saw the steps were already neatly brushed.

Well, that wasn't exactly what caught her attention, at least, not for long. It was the words someone had - tramped out? - in the snow. Words she couldn't quite make out, but realized would be perfectly legible from her bedroom window.

She shut the door, kicked off her boots, dropped her broom and scrambled up the stairs without bothering to remove her coat. Panting a bit at her mad dash, she flung open the bedroom curtains, raised the shade, and even lifted the sash so she could thrust her head outside.

Her breath caught as she squinted down - the glare was really something awful - and recognized the words. The lyrics to a song that had been one of her father's favorites, and thus become hers as well.

Her heart beating strong in her chest, she read aloud, "'If there's anything that you want, if there's anything I can do, just call me and I'll send it along,with love, from me, to you'."

She felt his presence behind her before she heard him. "Do you mean it?" she asked, pulling her head back in, hands gripping the sill as if her life depended on it.

(Granted, if it wasn't actually Sherlock behind her in her bedroom, then that could actually be the case. But it was him, she knew it was him, just as she knew he'd been the one to carefully create that message for her.)

"I mean it as much as you meant it when you said I could have you," he replied, coming directly up behind her, close but not touching. He rested his hands on either side of hers, his breath warm on her neck. "As much as I meant it when I said I loved you, even if it was under duress."

"I, I did tell you to say it like you meant it," Molly whispered, blinking away unexpected tears, feeling them clog her throat and knowing if she spoke any louder they'd come pouring out. She'd never cried in front of Sherlock and she certainly wasn't going to start now.

"That's not the duress I meant," he murmured. She felt his - nose? - nudging her cheek. "I meant my mad sister, not my devoted…would you like me to call you my girlfriend? Or is that too juvenile?"

"Girlfriend is fine," Molly answered, her voice and tear ducts back under control. She eased her grip on the sill, allowed her head to fall back to rest against his shoulder. His hands moved to cover hers; at the last second she flipped them over, palms up, and laced his fingers through hers. "But no grumbling if I call you my boyfriend, right?"

"Right," he agreed, shifting a bit so he could press a kiss to her temple. "But I draw the line at John referring to me that way in his blog. In fact, if you don't mind, I'm going to ask him not to blog about our relationship. Not to keep it a secret," he hastened to assure her, but she stopped him, squeezing his hands to let him know she understood.

"To keep us out of the public eye, at least for a while," she said. "To keep it between us and our friends, at least until the tabloids run out of top tier celebrities to gossip about and go sniffing around you again."

"I'll have you know I am very close to being a top tier celebrity," Sherlock said in mock indignation. "At least, I'm in the top tier of the lowest tier of celebrities!"

Molly turned then, sliding her arms around his shoulders and looking up at him. His eyes were crinkled and his lips curved in a smile, a smile she couldn't help but return. "There'll be loads of things we'll both have to negotiate," she cautioned him, even as his hands settled on her waist. "You'll get bored or you'll forget my birthday and I'll get angry and expect you to deduce the reasons why no matter how unfair that is even to a deductive genius, and you and Toby will have to call a truce -"

"Already started that," he assured her with another smile, this one more smug than warm. "Slipped him some sardines before I came up here, to keep him from interrupting us."

"Not really a truce," Molly objected, but weakly. Very weakly. And then his lips met hers and neither of them gave Toby even a passing thought for a very long, satisfying time.