AN: The odd thing about writing this story is that I started it before episode 3 of season 3 had aired, so I have to keep writing it as though the events of that episode never happened even though they're all sitting at the back of my mind, coloring my mental versions of all these characters. The point is, if I've accidentally said anything in the story that could only be true if episode 3 had happened, sorry.

o.o.o

She's wearing lipstick.

It's such an unexpected sight that Sherlock pauses as he walks into the morgue, looking closer to make sure he saw right. Yes, she is absolutely wearing lipstick, and the shirt she has on under her lab coat—real silk, low neckline—is a far cry from the jumpers she usually wears to work. He hasn't seen her wear lipstick for months, not since she broke up with Tom.

Memories flash through his head like pictures in a slide show, compiling a list of the times he's seen her like this before, until he's certain: until her engagement, the only times he saw her wear lipstick, she was wearing it an attempt to impress him. So is this it, then? Are Molly's attempts to get over him, the months of her showing no romantic interest in any man, finally ending?

Back when he first knew her, any realization that she'd dressed up for him always filled him with irritation and dread—yet another clumsy pass for him to deflect. And yet today, he finds the fact that she's about to try to flirt with him, even ask him on a date, somewhat . . . intriguing. What will she say this time, how will she look, what made her suddenly end her self-imposed isolation? He'll have to say no, obviously; she should have known that before she even considered asking. After all this time, she should know better than anyone that he's married to his work. And yet the thought weighs on him a little; the prospect of watching the bright sparkle of her eyes dim when he turns her down is surprisingly unpleasant. He wishes she hadn't decided to ask so he didn't have to answer (although he's also quite pleased to know he's been returned to his pedestal in Molly's heart, which was empty for so long and before that occupied by that moron wearing cheap imitations of his clothes).

All this has passed through his mind in an instant, and now Molly is lifting her eyes from her paperwork and those red lips are lifting into a smile (the color does something very nice to the general aesthetic of her mouth). Intriguing indeed.

"Molly," John says pleasantly behind him, "you look quite nice."

And now Molly looks a bit embarrassed. "I feel a bit overdressed for all these corpses," she admits. "But I'm leaving in a few minutes for a nice restaurant."

"Friends?" asks John.

"Date," says Molly.

And Sherlock frowns. He's not sure he likes it when she wears lipstick.

o.o.o

Mid-November marks the anniversary of his return to London and finds Sherlock in a pensive mood. Year marks are when people assess their lives, after all, and he finds himself doing the same. What he finds is that the man he is today is different from the man he was one year ago, and the man he was one year ago is rather different from the man who jumped off the roof of St. Bart's, and that man who died was vastly different from the man who first moved in with John Watson. The change, he feels, can be directly measured by looking at the growing number of people he calls friends.

The Sherlock Holmes who met John Watson had no friends and had convinced himself he didn't care. The Sherlock Holmes who traveled abroad as a ghost had no friends and had finally admitted to himself that he did care (that he'd always cared, if he was being honest, only now the caring was more painful). The current Sherlock Holmes has friends and, though he struggles to admit it, cares about them deeply.

So when John and Mary plan a celebratory dinner to commemorate the great return, he goes without complaint. Mrs. Hudson comes, as well as Lestrade, who shakes his hand and tells him with mock seriousness that his gift for the occasion is that he didn't invite Donovan. And Molly's there when he arrives, in a tasteful, understated dress, which surprises him because he's only ever seen her fashion sense careen wildly between frumpy and overdone. She's alone—apparently her date last week didn't go well enough for her to decide to invite him to meet her friends—which Sherlock is glad about. This is something no outsider can understand. No one who didn't suffer through those two years can understand how much his friends missed him; no one but him can understand how much he missed them.

John makes a toast because he's like that. "Three years ago my best friend died and I asked for a miracle. One year ago that miracle occurred . . . and I responded by beating up that best friend." Everyone laughs and John points a finger at Sherlock. "Which I'm still not sorry about, by the way."

Mrs. Hudson pats Sherlock's hand in a motherly way. "You had it coming, dear."

"But my point is, as angry as I was, I got over it quickly, because the fact is we needed him." He fixes his eyes on Sherlock's. "England needed her consulting detective back, and I needed my best friend back. Because as ridiculous and frustrating as you are, you're a great man, and you're a good man. And I'm proud to call you my friend."

Everyone raises their glasses, and then Mary fixes him with a warm smile. "We all are, Sherlock," she says, and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson murmur their assent.

Sherlock, for his part, is feeling strange. His chest feels warm, and also like it's filling up with air, and for once he doesn't force himself to fight the feeling away. There's no threat, there's no case, there's no reason not to admit to himself that he would die for every single person around this table. And though he's never felt like he has genuinely loved anyone except his parents (and even that is hard to admit), he suspects that the way he feels about these people is the same way people feel when they say they love their friends. So he doesn't fight the smile that tugs at his lips.

But he still feels uncomfortable when Lestrade starts calling out for a speech; sentiment, and especially the expression of sentiment, are still foreign enough to him that to spontaneously create a speech that expresses his regard for these people feels utterly impossible. But then his eyes fall on Molly, sitting on the other side of the table and smiling quiet support across to him, and suddenly he knows exactly what to say. After all, Molly has always been the only person who can get him to apologize.

"I'm sorry," he says, hesitates, then starts again more strongly. "I'm sorry that it took two years away and on my own for me to realize how important you all are to me."

It's not much of a speech, but from John's smile and Mrs. Hudson's shining eyes, it's enough. He sits back in his chair, ready to be done with emotions for the night, but then he catches Molly's eye again. She's smiling broadly at him, and he smiles back.

o.o.o

Sherlock Holmes will never fall in love. He knows this because he knows that there are two elements involved in romantic love, neither of which he allows into his life: one, physical attraction, and two, the sort of sentimental affection that makes John and Mary occasionally unbearable to be around.

He doesn't do sentimental affection because sentiment, as he is fond of saying, is a chemical defect found in the losing side. It dulls the mind and the instincts and it makes people unable to do things they know they need to and all too willing to do things they know they shouldn't. He won't allow himself to become so sloppy—except, of course, about his very small circle of friends. And about the Watson child, which surprises him when he thinks about because she isn't even born yet, and his parents. And if he's honest he'd admit he even feels affection for Mycroft. But other than that, no. He has faults, he knows this, but he prides himself that a tendency to indulge in the sappy and sentimental is not one of them.

And physical attraction is quite out of the picture. The body is transport, always less important than the mind. He believes this genuinely and deeply, and it is a point of great pride to him that he can, when necessary, suppress his body's most basic animal needs and urges, to keep them from interfering with the workings of his mind. He has gone days without food before, and even longer without sleep, and every time he does so he always reflects with satisfaction on the foolishness of the people around him, toiling away like so many ants in a hill, no thoughts in their heads except food and shelter and reproduction.

So it is with some surprise and great reluctance that he admits to himself one day that he is physically attracted to Molly Hooper. It's worse, somehow, than when he was attracted to the Woman. Adler had attraction down to an art, seduction down to a science. It was her job, and he can hardly blame himself for being taken in by a professional. But Molly? Molly is a tiny mouse of a woman, nothing like as skilled as the Woman in how to use her body and his body against him. Instead of bare skin and sultry tones, with Molly it's something about the quirk of her lips and the softness of her features and the sheen of her hair. She's not a seductress and that makes this whole thing more irritating to him because he can't explain away the attraction.

Not for lack of trying, though; for weeks now, maybe months, the evidence has been piling up that he is not unaware of Miss Hooper's physical attributes. And for weeks, maybe months, he's done something unheard of for Sherlock Holmes: he has ignored the facts. He has ignored the clear picture being painted, the story being told, because if that conclusion turned out to be true it would complicate his life more than he wants. But the facts have piled up until they cannot be ignored. The fact is that her presence, if she's standing closer than roughly five feet from him, causes his heart rate to accelerate in an irritating fashion and his palms to get itchy. The fact is that sometimes when she accidentally brushes up against him, he temporarily experiences increased sensitivity in that area. The fact is that not only is she one of the few people he's allowed to touch him recently, he actually asked her to touch him, which he's never done before. And yes, he was worried about Mrs. Hudson, but he knows perfectly well that he wouldn't have asked John or Mary for the same thing if they'd been there instead. The fact is that once—only once!—he found himself looking at her lips and wondering what it would be like to touch them.

So he admits, reluctantly, that he's attracted to her. But he stops castigating himself for it before long, because you can't fight the physical body forever. Eventually you eat; eventually you sleep; eventually the smile of the girl in the morgue starts temporarily altering your breathing patterns. He'll simply have to ignore it, the way he ignored his attraction to the Woman. Perfectly easy.

Although it'd be easier if she stopped smiling like that.

o.o.o

Something's on her mind; he can see it in the way her hands idly tap the worktable and the way she's biting her lower lip. And while he knows the infected flesh samples under her microscope are interesting, he's sure they're not worth this much thought. And the curiosity grows until finally he sets down the stack of test reports he's perusing. "Out with it," he says. "Clearly something is bothering you."

She looks up from her microscope, a little surprised at being caught, and then smiles at him. "You know," she says, "most people would just ask how I was doing."

"These 'most people' sound boring," he says. "Are you going to tell me or do I have to figure it out? It's work-related, I know; you're more than usually aware of the lab today. You keep looking around the room and sighing and touching the equipment for longer than necessary."

She makes a face at him and the corner of his mouth turns up in a smile; he likes this version of her that isn't afraid to sass him. She looks around the lab a moment, then sighs and lays her hands on the table. "I got a job offer."

He blinks. "What job?"

"Research," she says. "I'd have my own lab."

"You wouldn't be down here in the morgue anymore?"

"I wouldn't be in London anymore," she corrects. "It's with a teaching hospital in Edinburgh."

He grows still. "I see. It's a move up, then?"

She nods. "In a lot of ways, yes."

It's unacceptable. That's all he can think, is that it's unacceptable for her to leave. This lab, this hospital, is his second home, more comfortable and familiar and dear than nearly any other place in the world (only Baker Street and John and Mary's flat exceed it). He's even noticed that over the last year, the room in his mind palace where he goes to sift through medical facts has come to resemble this little lab. If she left, he would lose that.

Don't be ridiculous, says Mycroft's voice in his mind, sounding as reasonable and as condescending as ever. You'll still be able to access the facilities with her gone. Or you should be able to, anyway—aren't you supposed to be clever?

Of course you can access it, says his mind version of Molly. But you'll be in here without me.

And with that he's pulled forcibly out of his own thoughts to peer even more closely at Molly, who's pulling a letter out of her lab coat pocket—the job offer, he assumes—and in that moment he finally understands, after all these years, that it's not just the equipment and the space that make this lab important to him. It's the reliable help and the quiet camaraderie of Dr. Molly Hooper, and it's that loss that feels so unacceptable. And the lab aside, what about them having dinners with the Watsons, and what about when she finds him interesting old case files to keep his mind occupied, and what about solving crimes together, and what about when the crimes are solved and they sit in 221B sipping tea and talking of nothing or sitting in comfortable silence? What about his realization, right at this moment, that she matters to him as much as anyone else in his life, maybe more? What about how much he needs her?

What about, says the Molly in his head, what I want? What I need? I'm a doctor, Sherlock, not your assistant, and if this is a good move for my career, why shouldn't I take it?

A million reasons, he tells her. The weather in Edinburgh, to begin with—

Not a good reason, she says. Give me a real reason, one that doesn't involve you being afraid to lose me.

Her words (his own words, really, because he knows this is all in his head) hit him like a slap across the face. It's true, he's afraid to lose her. He's only got five friends; he can't afford to lose one.

And now here's mind John coming to chime in. But as her friend, he says reasonably, you should want what's best for her. That's what love is, Sherlock; it's letting the other person's happiness be as important to you as your own.

The crinkling of paper brings him back to the present and he sees he's thought all of this in the moments it took her to pull the job offer out of its envelope. "Here it is," she says, smoothing out the letter. "'Head of Pathological Research,' is the exact title. They saw a paper I published. It's rather flattering, isn't it?"

And her smile is so warm and sincere, her expression so pleased, that he acquiesces to the John in his mind—I will be a good friend, I will be supportive, I will not try to talk her out of it—even though the thought makes his chest feel leaden and hollow. "So you're leaving London?" he says evenly.

A funny look crosses her face, like she's still wrestling with this idea in her head. "No, I don't think so," she says hesitantly, and the world is still for a moment, and then Sherlock starts breathing properly again. "It's tempting, but I'd be sorry not to do as much morgue work. I like the academic side of what I do, but that's not why I got into it. I do this because I like giving people closure." She makes that face again. "I think. I think this is the right choice." She sighs. "It would be a great job, but I love it here—the people and the facilities. And they do give me time to pursue my research interests here, just not as much as Edinburgh would." She is quiet a moment, trailing her fingers up and down the side of the microscope, and then a smile crosses her face. "Besides, everyone I care about is in London." She nods decisively. "I'm sure of it now. This is the right choice. I'm staying here."

He's shocked at how relieved he feels. "Well," he says when he finally trusts his voice not to give away that rush of emotion he just felt, "for what it's worth, I'd have been sorry to see you go."

She smiles at him. "It's worth a lot, Sherlock. Thank you."

He goes back to his test reports, but it takes a few long moments before he can focus on them, and even longer before the strange fluttery feeling in his stomach goes away.

o.o.o

Mary has decided to have Christmas at her and John's this year, despite all the protestations that she'll be only a week from her due date at that point, and plans to invite Sherlock and Molly and Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade will be with family, but the rest of their little group has nowhere to go for Christmas; Mrs. Hudson and Molly and Mary have no relatives in the country, and John's still not on speaking terms with Harry, and Sherlock has parents who will be on a cruise and a brother who has made it perfectly clear how he feels about Christmas. "We'll be each other's family," Mary says decisively. "And isn't that a nice idea, that sometimes families are biological and sometimes they're the people you choose to have around you."

"It is a nice idea," John smiles as he watches Mary begin scribbling down menu ideas at the kitchen table. "You did that, you know, Sherlock? I found Mary on my own, but everyone else who's close to me, I met through you."

"You've never had problems making friends," Sherlock says reasonably. "You'd have met people."

"Maybe," says John. "Or maybe I'd still be a nervous wreck of an ex-soldier, trying to scrape by in some dingy flat and picking fights in pubs for a bit of excitement." He pauses. "No, you're right, I'm far too sensible for that. But I wouldn't be solving crimes or rubbing elbows with shadowy government figures or spending time at Buckingham Palace." He laughs, and Sherlock, remembering their adventures, smiles too. "I guess I'm trying to say thank you." He pauses. "And I'm saying that as you're the nearest thing to family that Mary has, besides me, you'd better show up on Christmas or you'll break her heart."

"I wouldn't dream of disappointing Mary," Sherlock says sincerely.

John smiles, then hesitates. "You still doing all right at Baker Street?"

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

John puts his hands up in a placating gesture. "Just wondering. You know, with you living alone."

"John, I've lived alone most of my adult life. Why would I suddenly struggle with it now?"

"Just wondering," John repeats. "Because, you know, before we met, you were . . . but now you're a lot more . . . I thought maybe you'd gotten more accustomed to having people around, so you wouldn't like living alone as much anymore." He pauses. "I'm sorry I can't go on as many cases with you as I used to."

"It's all right, I have Molly," Sherlock says automatically, and is surprised when John looks amused.

"Right," smiles John, and there's something in his tone that immediately annoys Sherlock. "You have Molly, do you? How are you enjoying that, having Molly?"

"You know I meant simply that Molly is now helping me out on cases."

"I know," says John. "But maybe you should consider . . . having Molly."

And Sherlock stares at his friend, surprised, as John grins and saunters away.

o.o.o

It's a ridiculous store, as far as Sherlock is concerned—handmade soaps and lotions displayed in rough-hewn wooden crates filled with straw, with a mural of rolling wheat fields painted on the wall, as though that's going to convince anyone that these toiletries are so organic and down-to-earth that they were actually made on a farm and not in a lab somewhere. And even more grating is that they've gone all out for the Christmas season: the display of seasonal soaps with twee names like "Jingle All the Whey" and "Peppermint Pick-me-up," a wreath on the door, a garland behind the register. And on the ceiling above where his little group stands, can that really be—

"Mistletoe," says Detective Inspector Lane, pointing upwards, and Sherlock wonders if the man steered them this way on purpose (likely, given the way he's been flirting with Molly all day). He raises his eyebrows at Molly, clearly not remotely concerned that Sherlock is standing right next to them observing this little shenanigan. "What do you think, Dr. Hooper?"

Sherlock knows what Molly thinks even before he sees the slight grimace cross her face; she's made it perfectly clear all day with her reactions to Lane that she's not at all interested. And a year ago he would have ignored the conversation, feeling not remotely interested in other people's romantic entanglements and figuring that Molly is a grown woman who is more than capable of deciding whether she wants to kiss someone and then acting accordingly. But this year he can't, somehow. This year it irritates him, strangely, that this detective is being so unprofessional as to try to use an antiquated tradition to force an investigator working his crime scene to kiss him. It's ridiculous that Molly has to deal with this and it's ridiculous of Lane not to see that she doesn't want to kiss him. But maybe on some level he's as bad as Lane is because when an idea pops into his head, one to put Lane in his place, he acts on it without thinking.

"He's right, it's tradition," Sherlock says, and leans down (way down) (he's never really realized until this moment how big the height difference is here) and kisses Molly.

The only other kisses that he has to compare this to are a handful given to women as part of covers for cases—all fake and all designed to deceive—and one kiss from Irene as a thank you for saving her in Karachi; that one, he admits, was entirely real and entirely affecting, but even at the time he recognized it as a goodbye. This kiss is different from all of those. It's simple and it's quick and it doesn't even mean anything, it's just a ridiculous tradition, and yet the moment they pull away from each other he's sorry it's over. Maybe it's that he's never before kissed someone who actually knows him and still genuinely cares. Or maybe it's just that she smells quite good (a citrus hand cream that he can smell even over the nearby bars of Jingle All the Whey).

There's an odd look in Molly's eyes, surprise and a bit of confusion, until Detective Inspector Lane clears his throat and suddenly her expression fills with understanding and she flashes Sherlock a smile. The detective clears his throat again and Sherlock, looking over at him, sees that he looks disappointed. "I should go call the lab," he says, pulling out his cellphone and trudging outside.

Once he's out of earshot Molly giggles. "I guess that's one way to discourage him," she smiles. "Come on, we should finish checking these crates."

But it takes Sherlock a moment to follow her; he feels like the entire world has just shifted two steps to the left and he can't find his bearings for the moment. And Molly's not as unaffected as she pretends, either, because when she thinks he's not looking she lifts one hand to her lips, almost absentmindedly. There's a strange tension in the air and he doesn't know how to break it but he knows it needs to be done.

"Molly," he says.

"Yes?" she replies when he doesn't go on.

"Nothing."

o.o.o