Two weeks later

"It's almost Saturday," Molly groaned in relief, trudging along the hallway towards her flat. She'd had so much on her shoulders over the past few weeks, but the past week had truly been the bane of her existence. Or perhaps her career.

She always thought about that outburst she'd had in the coffee shop and what the consequences had been. An apologetic, ashamed Sherlock Holmes? It confused her and twisted her mind this way and that.

Sighing, she stopped in front of her door, fumbling in her pockets for her keys. Finally, she found the brass key that would remove the last hurdle before the weekend and relief. The key turned in the lock and Molly, out of old habit, pulled it out of the strangely shinier-than-usual lock and stashed the key back in her pocket before electing to throw the door open.

However, just as her hand reached for the handle to give it a quick twist, the door flew open for her.

"What in the actual-!" she yelped in surprise, coming face-to-face with a nicely wrapped black box held out in front of an extremely familiar aubergine-clad person.

If Molly was being filmed, she would have sworn that the camera would slowly follow her head as her gaze crept upwards.

"For the love of all that is good, Sherlock bloody Holmes," she muttered in annoyance. "How did you get in this room if the door is locked from the outside?"

"I had someone replace it while you were out," he replied haltingly, sounding a lot like Toby had gotten his tongue, just like the proverb of the cat getting one's tongue. "It's about time anyway, it was getting quite hard to pick. Age, probably. I just pretended I lived here. The person who fixed the lock gave me a rather stupefied look when I asked him to lock me in the room, but he did it anyway. Don't worry about the cost, I'll foot the bill."

"It's not that," Molly said quickly. "I agree, it has been getting a little bit hard to turn the key in recent times." She quickly placed a placating grin on her face. "Thanks. It's just that…" she trailed off nervously, as she remembered her words to him a few weeks earlier. "Give me time to think," she had told him. He must be looking for an answer now, she realized.

"It's just that what?" Sherlock asked her, the both of them still standing awkwardly on either side of Molly's door.

"Let me in," she commanded. Sherlock stood aside and let her stalk inside, closing the door when she'd gotten all the way through. She quickly dumped her things on a chair and scooped up Toby, clutching him in her arms and flopping into the couch. Sherlock folded himself into one of her chairs, looking a lot like a chagrined five-year-old sitting in timeout. Molly quirked the smallest of smiles at this analogy.

"It's just that what?" Sherlock asked Molly softly.

"Just that...why did you come here in the first place when you could have approached me in the morgue? The element of surprise?" She shrugged. "Just...why? Did you want to make a statement?"

"Um. Kind of," Sherlock cleared his throat.

"All right, we're getting somewhere," Molly nodded. She was surprised that her heart beat wasn't going supersonic as she was staring across her coffee table at the Consulting Detective.

"And also...because...erm...this," Sherlock awkwardly thrust out the beautifully-wrapped black box at her.

Molly gently set Toby on the couch and reached her hands out for the box. "Do I open this now?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That would be fantastic," Sherlock replied with a hint of sarcasm clouding his tone. She smiled and carefully opened the box.

Whatever was inside was wrapped in layers of tissue paper, and Molly carefully unwrapped the object in her lap, laying the box to the side. As she parted the folds of tissue paper, a black-covered object greeted her, covered by a rather large flower made of folded paper with a florist-wire stem bent and shaped in places to suggest leaves. She picked up the flower first. "Origami?" she asked Sherlock, slightly impressed. The most of his skill in handicrafting that she was aware of was the slightly obscure skill of napkin-folding for John's wedding.

"It took me five tries and about a kilometer of florist wire," Sherlock said gruffly, albeit containing a hint of pride. He didn't seem to be joking about the florist wire, but Molly grinned and tucked the flower behind her ear.

She turned next to the surprisingly hefty black object, turning it over. The black part of the object, she observed, was nothing more than a cover. Gently, she eased it off and gasped in delight.

A scientific graphing calculator greeted her.

"Where did you get this?" she asked Sherlock, giving him an elated smile. He seemed to be basking in the glow of her delight.

"The murderer was an American exchange student studying algebra. I nicked his calculator when the Yard was done combing through his things," Sherlock explained.

"The murderer? Oh, the coffee shop," she realized.

"He obviously wasn't much good with it," Sherlock continued. "The charging port was never used, signaling a lack of use. The charger itself is in the box, by the way. And yet, if you turn it on…"

Molly's index finger found the "ON" button and pressed it lightly. The screen blazed to life, showing a blank screen and a full battery.

"A color calculator!" she gasped in astonishment. "Good Lord, Sherlock, do you know how much these cost?"

"A lot, probably," he shrugged off. "It can graph functions, too."

"Where?" Molly asked.

Sherlock shifted over to her right. The close proximity between the two of them made Molly's heart pound a little bit faster. "Right here," he said, pressing a few buttons on the calculator.

The familiar coordinate plane showed up on the screen, except it wasn't plain white like Molly thought it would be. Instead, a picture of her from a few months before, laughing happily at the camera, holding John's baby girl with a slightly grumpy Sherlock behind her-he always wanted to be the only person other than her parents to hold Baby Watson, Molly giggled mentally-blazed across the screen. The graph had been customized in a way that there would be no gridding covering the image.

"Oh," she breathed.

"I found the manual online, went through the steps, and eventually downloaded the image onto the calculator," Sherlock said proudly. "John was a bit confused as to why I asked for that specific picture, but he texted it to me anyway."

Although Sherlock had finished off his thought, Molly had a feeling that he had something more to say. She kept her mouth shut, and sure enough, Sherlock took a deep, deep breath and continued.

"So." It was one word, yes, but it held so much more meaning than a whole speech could deliver. Within that word, she heard that he was ready to tear down some more of his emotional walls.

Molly saw a true person behind the high-functioning-sociopath façade that Sherlock hid behind. She saw a man who was real.

It was beautiful.

Dear God, this is so much better than anything I could have dreamed of.

"So. I trust…" He took another deep breath, as if his lungs yearned to contain more air than they had already taken in. "I trust that you have had...enough...time to think about my plea for...forgiveness."

"Yes, I have," Molly replied calmly, setting the calculator onto her lap and folding her hands to keep them from shaking. Her heart rate increased a tad more as Sherlock shifted himself next to her so that he was looking at her. Molly looked into his sharp eyes and subconsciously knew what he was going to ask next.

"Molly." Breath in, breath out. "Molly, will you...please...forgive me? For what...for what I did to...cause you any pain? I never... " Another swallow. "Never realized how much I was hurting you until you told me outright." He paused again and ran his hands through his mess of curls. "Please…I am truly…sorry?"

He frowned.

"Is that how people say it?"

Molly smiled a little, in spite of the seriousness of the moment.

"Yes, Sherlock. That's what people do these days," she replied, emphasizing people.

"Well…I…I never meant to…"

Sherlock stopped and composed himself.

"I am so, so, sorry, Molly Hooper."

Molly could tell that these words had been mulled over, rehearsed even, for the past two weeks. And she knew, in her heart, that they were genuine. But she couldn't open her mouth just yet. It felt like there was a clamp around her mouth, preventing her from simply saying, "Yes, Sherlock. I forgive you." Her heart had been kicked around so many times that she'd placed a wall around it, and she found it slightly hard to dissolve it now, even though Sherlock had apologized right to her face.

Molly pursed her lips and looked down at her clasped hands, her eyes starting to feel a burning sensation. Don't cry, her mind commanded authoritatively, as it did whenever Molly was in the presence of the consulting detective. It makes you look weaker. Don't give in! Molly clenched her jaw tightly as her vision began to blur, hot and angry tears threatening to spill over.

In the end, she couldn't hold it in.

As she slowly turned her gaze upwards to Sherlock, a solitary drop of sorrow slid down her cheek.

"So...will you give me a chance?" He asked her, obviously bracing himself for a refusal.

I can only delay this for some time.

Now or never.

Now!

NOW!

And then Molly threw her lot in with the consulting detective.

"Yes. I forgive you, Sherlock, and I'm willing to give you a chance." She was breathing out every word in a rush. "More than willing, actually. It's been you, Sherlock, all this time, for all these years."

Slow DOWN, Molly!

Oh, just shut up for once! she told the little voice in her head and continued. "I didn't know you never wanted to hurt me, Sherlock. I just thought you were being just some mindless jerk, I...just didn't know you were - and still kind of are, so don't contradict me - socially unaware of yourself. Your apology...It showed me that you weren't that kind of person, the kind that hurts others for enjoyment. So yes. I forgive you. I've thrown in my lot with you, and I can't take it back."

Relief washed over the consulting detective's face.

And Molly knew she was about to embark on one hell of a journey.

Only, she wasn't going to be doing it alone, now that she'd accepted the apology of the only consulting detective in the world.

A/N: Wooooo! It's done! By the way, the calculator described actually exists. I based the description off of my own calculator. If you want to look it up, it's a Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition calculator. Please review! Always, Rielle