A/N: Well, it definitely took me a while to get the scene in the last chapter between Molly and Sherlock right, so I'm glad people are liking how it turned out! And now, the resolution to the mini-case (with some bonus Lestrade thrown in) and a glimpse into Sherlock's perspective on everything that's been happening.

Chapter 7: She's the Kind They'd Like to Flaunt

"I know that for some reason it's hard for you to remember this, Sherlock, but may I remind you that it's a two-step process that we have set up here," Lestrade said, running a hand frustratedly through his hair as he paced back and forth in his office. "First, you solve the case; and then, you tell us you've solved the case. It's the second one you always seem to be forgetting to do."

"And you always seem to be forgetting to do the first," Sherlock replied wryly, scanning over a recent case John had forwarded him on his phone while reclined in one of the chairs across from Lestrade's desk. "Seems the two of us make quite the auspicious pair, don't you think?"

"This isn't funny, Sherlock," Lestrade said angrily, stopping in front of him. "I'm already on a short enough leash with my super as it is, and now I have to go in to his office and say, 'By the way, Chief Superintendent Haddock, you know that thing you've been telling me not to do all week on the Musgrove-Bartlett case? To not go upsetting the Bradshaw family? Well, don't be too worried, but it looks like I'm going to have to arrest one of them.' We've been tiptoeing around them all week, Sherlock – all week! You could've come to me with this, given me time to prepare for it, but no…you just had to make a bloody panto of it, didn't you?"

Sherlock sighed in annoyance and clicked off of his phone – disappointing. The case John had sent was a four at best. At least he had the Emery Baines case to occupy him at the moment: a man dead of seemingly natural causes - an underlying heart condition – but who had been found with his tongue neatly cut out. Whereabouts of said appendage currently unknown. Intriguing.

Sherlock had been looking forward to working on it at St. Bart's – Molly hadn't been the one to do the autopsy, but he'd imagined she might take a second look at it for him, confirm his suspicions that it really was of natural causes. He'd had it quite neatly planned out in his head. First order of business would have been apologizing to her and getting himself back in her good graces; then, once that had been duly taken care of, he would explain the case to her, at which point her interest would be naturally piqued, and she would invariably offer to assist him in his investigation.

But his visit had been…not entirely satisfactory. He'd been able to tell, of course, as soon as Molly had burst into the lab from her lunch with Lestrade that she was in an anxious, harried temper, but he hadn't at all anticipated her commandeering his apology in order to revise the basic tenets of their friendship. He had to admit, that may very well have been the first time anyone had ever lectured him for being too considerate. What was it she had said again? 'No one can do what you do and still be a nice person.' Well, she was hardly wrong on that front; in fact, Sherlock was quite sure he had never made any pretense of being nice. But the way she'd said it – accusatory, almost, but also disappointed, and despondently resigned – the defeated air of someone who'd thrown in the towel on their painting halfway through because it had already been butchered too far beyond redemption. What she'd said was, you're not a nice person. But what she'd meant was, I've finally decided that you are humanly incapable of being a nice person.

Well, why on earth would Sherlock want to be? Being nice was dull; it was slow. Being nice was what people did when they needed to compensate for the fact that there was nothing remotely interesting about them. Then again, he supposed that that had been precisely Molly's point – she was doing him a favor with all this. She was giving him permission to carry on just as he was. Perhaps, in retrospect, he had taken to navigating his interactions with her with a touch more circumspection than he cared to admit – perhaps he did wince internally now whenever he snapped towards her, perhaps he did glance at her a bit too frequently in order to gauge her emotional state, to reassure himself that she wasn't displeased with him.

On the face of it, then, this new development should be quite satisfactory to him. It was freeing him from the efforts of restraining himself, freeing up his attentions to focus on other, more pressing matters. And yet…and yet it wasn't quite right, was it? There was something vaguely wrong about it all, something unsettling. And Sherlock couldn't quite shake the feeling that there had been an undercurrent of disappointment in her tone, a sort of bleak reluctance.

Or had he imagined it entirely? So often, there was really no rhyme or reason to it, Sherlock thought scornfully – human emotion. Which of course made it nearly impossible to decipher at times – how could he determine what a person was feeling when they hadn't made their own bloody mind up about it yet?

And of course, Lestrade was getting on his nerves again as well. What word had he just used – panto, was it?

"Ever heard of the expression of looking a gift witness in the mouth, Inspector?" Sherlock asked, standing up so abruptly that Lestrade had to take a sharp step back from him. "Because if anything, I would have rather thought you'd be at the nearest shop trying to find me something to properly express your gratitude, seeing as I very generously, on your behalf, contacted Anna Musgrove and explained to her the imminent necessity of returning early from her little holiday to Latin America."

"And what I'm saying is," Lestrade said, speaking slowly in an evident attempt to rein in his anger, "why didn't you bother telling me any of this until right now?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes skyward for a moment – it really was like speaking to a child sometimes. "Oh, use your head, Lestrade - you couldn't have done anything with the case until Anna Musgrove returned. Without her evidence, there was hardly any chance to arrest any of the Bradshaws, now, is there, so why on earth would it matter?"

"I just told you why it would– !" Lestrade began furiously, but cut himself off, breathing in sharply. He stared down Sherlock for a few more seconds, seemingly deliberating something, and finally relented with a harsh, fatigued sigh, turning away from him and towards his desk.

"You're the bloody reason I can't quit smoking, you know," he said gruffly, plopping down in his chair and leaning back in it wearily.

"Yes, constantly having cases solved for you – I imagine it must be exhausting," Sherlock said, glancing down at his phone where a new message had just popped up. It was from John. Look interesting to you? it read.

Hardly. Obviously the neighbor's son, Sherlock fired back to him. A series of question marks swiftly came back as John's response, followed by: Mary says you're explaining it to us over dinner tonight.

Sherlock swiped the message off his screen only to look up and see Lestrade staring at him with an impatient, bemused expression. "Sorry, Sherlock, am I boring you?"

"The vast majority of the time, yes," Sherlock replied, pocketing his phone. "But you shouldn't take it personally. So do most people."

Lestrade rolled his eyes, and then turned his palms upwards in an expectant gesture. "Well?" he asked.

"Well, what?" Sherlock said, frowning.

"Well, are you going to actually explain the case to me?" Lestrade demanded. "All I know so far is that Anna Musgrove has magically reappeared and is sitting white as a sheet in our interrogation room."

Oh, how tedious. Sherlock wanted to get back to the Baines case – so far he'd confirmed (by way of swiping the file from one of the techs) that it was definitely natural causes, but there was something off about the victim's sister, something promising. Why did everyone's brain have to work so slowly? Wasn't it obvious – a fleeing nanny, an unhappy family, a dead doppelganger – wasn't it all beautifully translucent, wonderfully luminous, the clever way in which all the pieces connected?

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the Inspector for a moment in close scrutiny. One thing Sherlock had been unable to fathom so far was what on earth had prompted Molly's sudden, so-called epiphany that afternoon. Could it have been her new relationship with Lestrade? Was their brief love affair already in such a poor state that she was taking out her dissatisfaction on anyone in her proximity?

But no – by Sherlock's judgment, all of the Inspector's current irritability stemmed from the stress of his current cases rather than any romantic woes; if their relationship had really been on the rocks, Lestrade would be buying her flowers, taking her to dinner, or whatever other banal, unimaginative things people like him usually did to woo their partners.

Then maybe it was something else. Maybe it was this new dynamic, this re-equilibration that had been happening ever since Molly and Lestrade had gotten together. Maybe they sat at home in the evening, the Inspector over a pint, her nursing a glass of wine, trading scornful war stories about Sherlock and laughing over them, faces growing red with mirth, wiping away tears from their eyes. Oh God, and then there was this one time… Molly, seeing him through Lestrade's eyes; Molly, laughing at him behind his back – Molly, who'd, as long as Sherlock had known her, always been on his side over everyone else's. Did this mean she was on Lestrade's side, now? Was this her way of drawing a neat line in the sand – her on one shore, Sherlock on the other?

And if so, why did it matter to him? Sherlock had always known she wasn't going to blindly follow him around forever…that she would awake one morning and understand him for what he truly was, that the stars would finally fall away from her eyes. So why did it hurt his pride so much now that it had actually happened? Why did he feel keenly as if he'd lost something of value, something he hadn't even known he was holding onto in the first place?

But this wasn't at all like him, Sherlock thought impatiently – he'd been preoccupied with this ever since he'd left St. Bart's. It wasn't like him, wasting so much of his headspace, of his time, in trying to understand irrelevant emotions, to untangle someone else's irrational feelings.

Well, we all do silly things.

Well, I don't, he snapped back at her, and forcefully pushed her from his mind.

At the moment, Lestrade was still staring at Sherlock expectantly, eyebrows raised, waiting for the case to be hand-fed to him in digestible, easy-to-swallow portions. Like a cow waiting for its cud.

"Oh, I truly envy your ability to switch off your brain, Lestrade," Sherlock said harshly. "It must be very rejuvenating. Fine, very well, but let's be quick about it. I visited the Bradshaw family the day you first called me in on the case – you know what John and I found there?"

"A printed and signed murder confession?" Lestrade said with a wry, unaffected smile.

Sherlock pursed his lips, unamused. "We found a family who'd been packing to go to their country estate for a holiday, but who'd abruptly decided to remain in London upon hearing of the death of their nanny. Only it wasn't her death that had alarmed them – it was what she'd stolen from them."

"Stolen from them?"

"Yes, she'd emptied the contents of their safe. All their family jewels and miscellaneous valuables. At a rough estimate, probably on the order of a million quid, I would say."

"That's a neat sum to have lying around," Lestrade said, clicking his pen impatiently.

"Well, Anna Musgrove certainly thought so, seeing as she'd been planning the theft ever since she'd entered the Bradshaws' employ. Anna Musgrove is a very clever woman, and, more importantly, a very clever con-woman. I've been following her work quite some time, though I've never had the pleasure of putting a face to the identity. She's done much smaller-scale things in the past, the occasional theft or forgery, all very elegant – but this – this would have been her biggest con, her piece de resistance. She chose a time when they were leaving for the country to give herself a few weeks' head start – she knew her last window of opportunity to steal from them would be the last day before they left. If you were in her position, and if you were clever like her, what would you have done to ensure your successful escape out of the country?"

Lestrade sighed, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair again. "Fake documents?" he offered.

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "Could've done, but it would have been traceable, risky – she might have been caught before she could use them. And then, suddenly, she had an epiphany – one day, visiting her boyfriend on campus, she saw her."

Lestrade lifted his chin in understanding. "Lisa Bartlett."

"A girl who bore a striking resemblance to her. Chance encounter, but once she'd had the idea, it couldn't leave her head," Sherlock said, beginning to pace the confines of the office. "A walking, talking identity she could claim at a moment's notice. She became an acquaintance of hers, making sure it seemed natural, and then began to set her plans in motion. She told Lisa that she would be leaving for holiday with her employers soon and would need a flat-sitter. Really, she only needed to swipe her passport, but having Lisa stay in her flat would buy her more time. In the years that Anna had been working for the Bradshaws, they'd begun to let down their guard, and it was inevitable that she would find some way to discover the combination to the safe – even something as simple as a hidden camera."

"So, Lisa Bartlett's dead because the theft went wrong?"

"No, she's dead because the theft went right," said Sherlock impatiently. "Anna stole everything that was in the safe, but she didn't realize there was much more in that safe than she'd bargained for. The Bradshaws didn't just keep valuables in there, they also kept certain compromising materials – treason, espionage, bribery – all in that vein, can't say the exact details particularly interest me." He waved a dismissive hand. "So - when Anna absconded with the contents of their safe, she was taking much more than just their golden goose – she was taking their security with them, albeit unintentionally. She panicked once she realized but carried on with her plan, departed the country with Lisa's identity, knowing the Bradshaws were going to send someone after her any moment, and in the meantime poor Lisa…"

"Wrong place, wrong time. She was in Anna's flat, and they thought it was her," Lestrade finished.

"Exactly," Sherlock said, wheeling back to face Lestrade.

"So… now, with Anna's testimony… we can get the Bradshaws for murder!" the Inspector concluded triumphantly.

Sherlock smiled humorlessly. "Oh, of course not, don't be ridiculous, Lestrade. They're far too careful to be traced to that."

Lestrade frowned, confusion instantly returning to his face. "But – but then…"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, already turning to the door. "The documents, Lestrade! The documents are what will put them away. Any moment, some close associates of my brother will be coming to collect Anna and take her into protective custody, and they'll make certain that the documents in her care don't get…'lost' along the way, so to speak. You'll never see her again."

"Hold on! Then what the hell am I supposed to say about Lisa Bartlett's murder?"

Sherlock pulled his scarf from the file cabinet where he'd tossed it earlier, tucking it around his neck. "Well, you can't solve all of them now, can you, Inspector?" Sherlock said drily. "Even with someone as clever as you on the case." And with a flash of an insincere smile, he strode out of the office, leaving Lestrade to stew in his thoughts.

No, Sherlock reflected, he supposed he wasn't a very nice person. Not a very nice person at all.

Ah, well. He would live.

One of the disadvantages – or advantages, depending on how one looked at it – of having a brain that worked and processed things with an unnatural, practiced quickness was that there were times were Sherlock knew something before he knew how he knew it.

For example, as he stepped into his flat that evening, half-way through carelessly shedding his coat, he knew suddenly that there was someone already in it.

But it was only a few seconds later that he was able to pull and straighten out the threads of logic which had in fact told him this: a chemistry book he'd left open haphazardly on his kitchen table, now neatly closed; a crumpled tissue in his wastepaper basket, a smudge of red on its corners; and a faint whiff of perfume – expensive perfume, he noted – hovering in the air before him.

Hanging his coat on its hook and flicking on the lights, he shut the door carefully behind him. He took a single, deliberate step into his sitting room and then stopped, eyes scanning across the flat and finally landing on the staircase which led up to John's old room – a small spot of disturbed dust on the first step, vaguely the shape of a shoeprint.

He stared at it for a second, and then turned abruptly towards the kitchen, heading over to fill the kettle with water and setting it to boil. He pulled out his usual teapot, along with two fine china cups and saucers from one of the cupboards – part of a set his mother had sent him ages ago – where they'd been tucked behind precarious stacks of Tupperware and bound sheafs of loose paper.

Not waiting for the water to boil, he came back into his sitting room, clearing the couch of the newspaper stacks that were currently covering it by tossing them unceremoniously onto the floor beside it. Then he fired off a quick text to John. Won't be joining you for dinner tonight. New case.

Finally, he settled into his own chair, fingers drumming lightly against its arm. "You know," he said, calling loudly enough that it would reach upstairs, "I was beginning to wonder when you'd finally come back to London."

It took a moment, but at last the door to the upstairs bedroom opened, and measured, unhurried footsteps, accompanied with the click of a heel, marked someone's descent down the stairs.

Finally, she came into his view, looking precisely as he remembered her – though, admittedly, in a greater degree of clothed modesty than when he'd first seen her.

He tilted his head in greeting, a corner of his mouth quirking up in a half-smile. "Hello, Irene."

"Hello, Sherlock," the Woman said, eyes glittering mischievously as she leaned herself elegantly against the wall, her hands crossed in front of her where they held her purse. "Did you miss me?"

A/N: Yes, I did it. I brought her back (though it's not too surprising if you saw my character list for this story lol). I'm very excited for her storyline, and the ACD case I've picked out to adapt for her (more revealed on that next chapter).

As always, thanks so much to everyone who is reading! Your follows, faves, and reviews all mean so much! :D