When she opened the envelope and read the name John Hamish Watson on the wedding invitation, her first thought was of Sherlock. How was he taking it? John had not exactly been cold after his return, but neither had things returned to the way they had been. When Sherlock came to work in the lab, he came alone. There was no John leaning up against the counter to ask him what he was doing, or to frown disapprovingly at him when he said disparaging comments to her. John had his own life apparently, and Sherlock was fine with that. Except he wasn't.

She saw his sorrow in the way he muttered comments under his breath, the kind of comments that he would have told John had he been there. In the way he called her John when she handed him a cup of coffee. She saw it in the way that his sly smile of victory when he'd just discovered something fell from his face when he realized that no one was there to tell about it.

The last few weeks before the wedding, he hardly came to Bart's at all, preferring to spend as much time as possible with John, and presumably Mary as well. They were apparently very close. And then there was the Stag Do. Sherlock giving her his file on John and asking her to calculate John's alcohol tolerance when he could easily do such calculations in his head. Nothing else had so clearly conveyed to her the sheer level of panic that must be going on behind those eyes of his.

She looked through the file that Sherlock gave her, and marveled at the trust he conveyed by letting her see it. This was a secret file that he had compiled on John. As well as the obvious implication from his little collage that he considered John the perfect man, the file included minute details about him that revealed a level of obsession that would be frankly alarming in anyone other than Sherlock. He had the man's nostril sizes for goodness sake!

But there were other facts that were a bit sadder. The number of nights that he had audible nightmares, and the effectiveness of different kinds of music to calm them. The frequency that John wore particular shirts and jumpers correlated to his moods, with a particular addendum speculating on his favorite pants. The ring size of the fourth finger of his left hand. The last one gave her pause because although it was logical to take such a measurement in the months before John's wedding, this measurement was dated over two years ago.

Was Sherlock trying in his own so coded way to tell her something? Was he trying to tell her what she had known virtually from the moment that she had met John, that Sherlock had always considered him much more important than she? Or did he, perhaps, have a file on her somewhere? What would be in it, she wondered? Most likely which compliments would be most effective to get her to do what he asked. No, best not to speculate on such things.

She asked everyone that knew Sherlock about the wedding. How was he taking his best man duties? Would he be capable of standing in front of an audience and saying something decent about another person? They all told her not to worry, but when Sherlock came by with desperation and fear barely concealed behind his eyelids, she added an extra dose to the alcohol level that she had calculated. Maybe it would be best for everyone if Sherlock got a little bit pissed.

The wedding day was fair and clear. She had bought a new yellow dress and a matching bow for her hair. Tom loved it. He said that she looked like an anime heroine, whatever that meant. And when she told him that due to a laundry error the only underthings she had to wear were the exotic French ones that her friends had given her as a gag gift at her engagement party, he hadn't been able to keep his hands off her.

Not that she minded his kisses. A part of her thrilled to show Sherlock and the world that someone found her desirable. But it was all lost on Sherlock who stood up in the church like a statue, at least those times that he could tear his eyes away from John. He was beyond handsome in his wedding suit. He was even wearing a tie, and he never wore ties.

It wasn't until the third time Tom asked her where her mind was that she realized that she had been staring at him for most of the day. His speech was an emotional rollercoaster. She went from mortification when he called Mary's bridesmaids ugly, to awe when his sincere compliments to John caused Mrs Hudson to cry. Then he dropped his glass, and she could see that he had come to a revelation. She had seen him do it often enough, his manic stage. She was riveted, wondering what he would come up with only to be interrupted by Tom's comment that he was pissed.

Tom was absolutely horrid at the wedding. Besides putting his hand up her skirt at inappropriate moments, he made that ridiculous comment about the meat dagger, and in public too! She had never been so embarrassed. But his conduct was almost a welcome distraction from the Greek tragedy that she was witnessing. How did John not notice how many of Sherlock's smiles were fake? The melancholy sadness of the wedding waltz. The way his eyes never left John as he played. This is what his months of torture and sacrifice had gained him, John going away.

She had resolved to take him aside after he was done with his best man duties and give him a shoulder to cry on, a voice to listen to, that is if that harpy of a bridesmaid ever let go of his arm long enough for her to get him alone, but when she looked up from her dancing, Sherlock was already gone.

They were silent on the ride back but her reverie was disturbed by Tom's uncharacteristically biting words.

"So, you've finally noticed that I'm here. Nice to know that I rank some small portion of your attention when Sherlock Holmes is not in the room."

"What?"

"I would think that being your fiancé might grant me a bit of your consideration, but I suppose that my careful theories aren't up to the standard of a drunken detective who admitted to not knowing the answer to a case. It wasn't as if anyone else had a better idea."

"Are you...upset?"

"Only for the last three hours. You might have noticed if you'd looked at me in all that time."

"But Tom I...sorry let me make it up to you. We can have a late supper, put the candles on the table and just..."

"If you don't mind, Molly, I'd like to drop you off at your flat. I have a headache."

Tom dropped her off and drove away. She climbed the stairs and went to her room where she carefully hung up her dress before looking at herself in the mirror. She had forgotten she was wearing the lingerie. She peeled it off, and threw it in the hamper pulling on pajamas before climbing alone into bed.