Author's Note: In honor of my 50th follower and 10,000th view (!), I thought I would post a new chapter today.

Thanks so much for reading and for those who reviewed. I love hearing what you guys think.

Disclaimer: Please know that I don't own these characters. The world of Sherlock Holmes belongs to Moffat, Gatiss, BBC, and, of course, Sir A. C. Doyle.

The next day, Lestrade stopped by at Molly's request. All three residents of 221B heard Mrs. Hudson answer the door and Lestrade greet her. She directed him upstairs. With each step, John could see Molly grow more rigid, her eyes widening, and, by the final two steps, he was across the room sitting next to her for support.

'Don't worry. It will all be over soon. It's all going to be okay.' he said as he rubbed circles into her back.

She leaned forward on her elbows worrying her hands together and looked up at Greg as he entered the room. In his arms was the purple potted plant.

'Hey' John said to the DI

'Hey, John. Sherlock. Molly – here.' He said holding out the plant.

Molly got up and took the plant and set it on the coffee table. She smiled as she looked at it … looking it over with a loving but critical eye. She fluttered her fingers over the leaves and noted a new one that had sprouted since her… since she had been gone. She checked the soil for moisture and it seemed freshly watered. John cleared his throat and Molly looked around and saw all three men were watching her very carefully as she inspected the plant.

'You took care of it for me.' She said glancing up at Lestrade. He shrugged and nodded. 'It may just be a plant but it's still alive. Serve and protect…that's me.' He said with a little humor in his eye.

'You know, Molly, when we went to your flat the other night and captured the man you saw yesterday, the one thing he was trying to steal was this.' Sherlock said as he rose from his chair. With his hands clasped behind his back, he leaned over the plant examining it with his eyes, 'Why do you think that would be?'

Molly sat down on the couch with the plant in front of her and sighed. She looked to each man trying to find the strength to tell her story and started.

'As you know, Jim and I dated in the past…' She cleared her throat trying to find the words… 'I know you all wondered how I could have gone out with him but he was sweet to me and paid attention to me unlike some people I knew.'

Both John and Lestrade cocked their eyebrows at Sherlock, who didn't acknowledge that he knew who she had meant.

'During that time, which was really, despite only being three real dates, over about a month, we talked about many things…my job at St. Bart's, Sherlock and my other passion, roses. Apparently, Jim is quite the gardener.'

Sherlock grunted in disbelief and went back to his chair, picking up his violin to pluck at its strings. Lestrade gave him a glare and nodded for Molly to continue.

'Sherlock – just as you have your violin… Jim has … well … hobbies too. Despite everything that runs through his head and all the horrible things he does, one of the things he loves and can truly appreciate is a thing of beauty. Roses are that even to him and we connected over it.' She smiled thinking back of the nights talking with him about them, 'We each had our favorite that we grew. Both were very rare. In my lab, I was able to force a rare gene out from hiding with my Applause rose bush, which is rare in itself, and now have one of the few known specimens of a truly blue rose. Jim had been working on a similar project with one of his favorites, Sterling Silver roses.'

'They are they silver pink ones without the thorns, right?' John said 'like in the movie.'

'Right. But what most people don't know is that one in several thousand Sterling Silver rose blooms creates a true black rose. They are extremely rare and quite expensive. Jim loved them and was trying to cultivate a plant that just bloomed these black roses by breeding only the recessive gene of the plant. He also felt that the deep red of the rose actually turns wasn't black enough. He thought if he could introduce some other pigments he might be able to find true black and really wanted to try blue. That's where I came in… my blue roses. He wanted to take a sample from her… my rose bush. I gave it to him freely. He was so pleased and suggested an experiment, which was this.' She gestured toward the plant.

Sherlock was intrigued. Anything he had known about horticulture had been pretty preliminary and he had deleted it long ago but the idea of using genetic engineering to experiment with and come up with just the right color of rose was fascinating. He got up and walked to the plant again, leaning to examine it. 'How is this an experiment?'

'Have you ever heard of grafting?' she asked as she looked up. All three shook their heads. She fingered the bandaged part of the plant. 'It's pretty common with horticulturalists. You take a part of your original plant by cutting the end of a branch into a V. You place that trimming into a living plant and the cutting essentially becomes a clone of the plant it came from. It draws nutrients from the plant it was inserted but keeps its natural state. But the experiment was that occasionally the cutting will take traits of the new plant. Jim wanted to see if we could get the roses to bloom blue bases with black tips, similar to what you might see on a tulip. That's what this is or what this 'lil bit will be when it grows up.'

'But why would he try to steal it?'

'I don't know. I do know that if it does what we think it will do, it will become one of the rarest flowers on the planet. A rose bush like that could be worth millions to certain collectors. Plus, I think he wanted to see how it turns out… to continue his experiment. I mean the experiment isn't finished… it hasn't bloomed. I don't think you would ever leave an experiment half finished, would you, Sherlock?'

'Only if John makes me throw it out.' He frowned thinking of one last month that smelled so bad, John made him carry it down to the bins outside to throw it away. He continued to ghost the leaves of the plant.

'But why send those goons after you?'

'Lestrade – don't be an idiot' Sherlock said 'It's obvious.'

'Not to the rest of us.' John said exasperatedly 'Explain.'

'A diversion that went too far. Moriarty must still have feelings for our dear Molly and sent his men to keep her distracted or away so he could come and get what was his without having to deal with her. He must have been called away on some business before retrieving the plant that night and his men… well, they merely took advantage of the situation and took it too far.'

Molly cringed and cradled her head into her hands at Sherlock's frank appraisal of what happened. John took her into his arms as she started to shake. 'They called me pretty. They said… He said Jim didn't tell them how pretty I was while he held a gun to my back and sniffed my hair.' A shiver ran down her spine at the memory.

'Molly…' Lestrade said moving the plant a little so he could sit across from her on the coffee table before taking her hand 'I know you don't want to talk about it but we need to know the story… the whole story of what happened that night. Do you think you can tell us?

And so she told them everything that she could… about the cat and the men sneaking up on her… about how the large one, 'Mick', held a gun to her head and made her do things she just wanted to forget … about his massive hand that was at her throat choking her and pinning her down… about how she lost consciousness ... about how when she came to she was in a pile of garbage like they had used her up and threw her away… about how she called John and got Sherlock instead and how she just knew he would find her. She could feel John's hands clench into fists at ever word and his heart take off.

'…and you know everything from there. You… you were there.' She said as she felt tears rolling down her cheeks 'Everyone knows what happened from there…' She shook her head wondering how this happened to her.

John started to gently rub her back again. 'It's okay. It's over now.' He looked to the DI, 'Do you need anything else, Greg?'

Lestrade, pale faced after hearing the horrific tale, shook his head and said 'No…No… that's all for now. Molly – we will put this through as your official statement. There will be more to come later but right now we are in a holding pattern at the court level. We are still searching for Moriarty and this other man, Joe. But, Molly.' He tugged her hand bringing up her gaze 'We are going to catch them. I promise you that. You are family. We take care of family.' He patted the back of her hand with his other and said 'Okay… is there anything you need? Anything at all?'

'Yes – I…' Molly bit her lip and looked at Sherlock and John hoping they wouldn't take this badly 'I just want to go home. Is it safe?'

'Molly' John said incredulously...not believing that she would want to leave the safety of Baker St. after only a few days 'It won't be safe until Moriarty is caught.'

'But I can't just sit here and wallow anymore, John. I just want to go home and sleep in my bed and watch my TV and pet my cat. I love you both… I really do... but I need normal again.'

'I know, Molly… I know…' John sighed.

Just so you know, I did some research on roses, horticulture, etc. for this chapter. I myself am not a horticulturalist and know nothing of that science but it seemed like a cool idea. Some of what I talked about can happen but some sadly can't, like truly blue roses and breeding the streak virus into a rose. Please forgive me for writing about the stuff that can't but remember it is all fiction anyway so c'est la vie. Hope you enjoyed. More will be coming soon. :)