Sherlock bent his head down over his knees. He fought against the rising nausea. Lifting his eyes to watch Molly at work, he tried to control his reaction; she chattered softly over the body, making notes, inspecting finger nails, lifting hands and feet. Everything in Mollyland looked utterly normal, nothing to worry about, perfectly comfortable in her familiar workspace at St Bart's. Her hair was tied back, she was wearing a denim skirt with a lab coat over the top, just casually dressed in one of the items he had brought over from her flat to 221B. He had only brought skirts, despite the weather. She had complained and bought thick cotton tights at a branch of M&S on the way to St Bart's. But now watching her meticulously record the injuries and cause of death of Angie Banks, 24, who was four months pregnant with her boyfriend's child at the time of her death, now Sherlock wanted to vomit.

Molly did not observe what he did.

Molly saw a stranger, a young female whom she did not know personally and to whom she had no connection. This stranger had been murdered, clearly, about 36 hours before. Molly was waiting for the tox report to find out precisely what drugs had been in her system. Sherlock, who had been at the crime scene, had already deduced that she had been drugged before her death. The cuts, Molly assured him, mainly took place after her death. They appeared ritualistic in nature: a pentagram, a carefully-carved, 8-sided star and a series of initials that Molly was currently cataloguing. Only the star had been cut into Angie Banks while she lived, but it was deep, and it would have hurt, unless she had been rendered unconscious by the drugs.

Sherlock did not need a tox report to tell him about the cocktail of drugs – rohypnol chief among them – that had killed Banks and caused her to miscarry her baby just before her death (he had suspected this at the crime scene, and Molly had confirmed it minutes ago). He was entirely certain that he had a copy of the exact contents in his coat pocket, handed to him by a cowed lab assistant at Bart's while Molly was still lying asleep on a hospital bed and hooked up to a heartrate monitor. Molly had been slipped the same drugs, and only the fact that she had drunk only part of it, while standing next to him rather than wandering off into the party in search of the missing suspect, only that detail meant it wasn't Molly laid out on the slab.

So Molly saw a stranger's body before her, but Sherlock saw Molly's body. Clear as day. He could feel what he would feel if it were her, if the killer or killers had managed to carry her out of that party instead of him and his brother, if they had murdered his child along with Molly (where had that come from? Molly was not pregnant). He tried to tamp down the panic and revulsion; he did not want to worry her. She had not seen her own tox report. Sherlock had managed to distract her so successfully that she had not thought to ask.

Sherlock's mind spun. How could he protect her? She needed to be nothing like the victims; she needed to lack whatever essential element those women had in common. Girlfriends, Irene Adler had told him. That's it, he thought, the nausea clearing instantly. And having had the thought, he could not keep it to himself.

"Molly, you must marry me. Will you marry me?" he blurted out.

Molly dropped the scalpel she'd been holding. It landed with a thud on the table next to Banks' body, then skittered off and hit the floor, narrowly missing Molly's foot. She paid it no attention. She made no answer, simply staring at him. He repeated the question.

"Molly, I love you. Will you marry me?"

Molly closed her eyes. She dropped her head as though ducking an oncoming punch, letting her biceps take her weight as her body dipped slightly. She gripped tightly onto the stainless steel table in front of her.

"Marry you." She looked over at him. "What a strange 48 hours it has been, Sherlock. First, you have us moving in together, which I have not agreed to. And now we're getting married."

"So will you marry me?"

Molly stared at him. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, then opened it again to answer: "No, Sherlock, I will not marry you."

"Is it because I've asked in a morgue? No ring? Lack of properly romantic setting?"

Molly picked the scalpel back up off the floor and rolled her shoulders to relieve the tension. "Sherlock, you could have proposed in the rose garden in Regent's Park, with a full orchestra behind you, on bended knee with your grandmother's ring, and I would still have said no."

"You would have, wouldn't you?" he said, gazing at her, deducing her. "I could arrange all of that and test your prediction."

Tilting her head back down over Banks' torso, she continued dictating: "No wounds that would have caused death or even significant bleeding. Victim miscarried, but this looks to have been chemically induced as the blood flow was in line with the use of mifepristone as a medical abortifacient. There is no obvious trauma that would have caused miscarriage…"

She stopped dictating when she felt Sherlock standing over her, crowding her, forcing her to take a stop away from the body. Without looking up at him, she warned, "I'm holding a sharp knife, Sherlock. Stop trying to intimidate me."

He stepped closer, his chin against her forehead. "Why won't you marry me? You love me."

She carefully leaned forward to set the scalpel down again. She snapped off the latex gloves and set them next to the scalpel. Brushing her hands against her lab coat, she squared up to him as best she could given the height differential. "I'd ask if we absolutely have to do this right now, but clearly we do." She lightly pushed him away from her half a step. "There's no need to crowd me. I won't marry you for the same reason that I will not move in with you. I may love you, but this relationship is very new. You first kissed me only a month ago. That is not enough time to make such a life-altering decision. You run hot and cold with many things, Sherlock. I need to know a lot more about you, but most importantly I need to know you won't drop me the minute I bore you." She took a deep breath. It actually felt good to say that out loud. "And I will bore you eventually."

"No, you won't, and you don't understand. I don't need any more time. My mind is made up and I will not change it. I love you and I want you with me always and I will never feel differently. I waited until I was prepared to marry you before I kissed you. I was ready to have you move in with me from long before I actually kissed you. I haven't rushed anything, quite the opposite." Sherlock moved his hands across her cheeks and dipped them into the hair at the back of her head, turning her face up to him. "We've been in a relationship for ages. What does it matter what the catalyst is for the actual moment that we marry? It's a foregone conclusion that we will."

Molly both melted at Sherlock expressing this depth of emotion and raged that he had her moved in and married without once asking for her opinion on any of it.

"Communication, Sherlock. For one thing, you need to learn how to communicate. And the catalyst, that you're afraid I will be a target of this killer, does matter to me. I don't want to move in with you or get married under duress."

Sherlock huffed in frustration, then pulled her into a tight hug against his chest. Her feet left the floor in his enthusiasm. He was still clutching her to him, breathing in the calming, floral scent of her hair, when they heard an embarrassed cough by the door to the morgue.

"Umm, Dr Hooper, I have the tox report you asked for." The intern set the papers down on the nearest table and backed quickly towards the door as Sherlock glared at him. Molly kicked lightly until he set her down, and she picked up the lab results.

"Mifepristone, misoprostol… well, that explains the miscarriage, as we suspected," Molly read. "Flunitrazepam…"

Sherlock held up a hand to stop her. "Here, look at this." He unfolded a paper in his coat pocket and pushed it across the table to her.

"My god, it's almost the same drugs," she said. "Oh my god, this is my blood test…"

Sherlock nodded. "It's only missing the misoprostol, as that is supposed to be administered two days after the mifepristone to induce abortion. Maybe they planned to give that to you later…"

"I'm not pregnant…"

"No, but whoever took these women, and tried to take you, wanted to make sure that you weren't, so they took precautions." He held Molly close again. "Do you understand why I'm worried?"

Molly understood. It didn't change her response – she was not moving in with him – but it did make her more sympathetic to his distress and frustration and fear. "I'll stay with you for now," she nodded against his chest. "Thank you."

Sherlock smiled and grinned at her, then pulled her lips against his for a deep, passionate kiss. She felt so safe in his arms, like he would do anything at all to keep her from harm.

Sherlock's phone began buzzing and vibrating. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. Lestrade.

We have another body. Female, no obvious trauma. Hyde Park Corner tube. Coming?

On my way, he typed.

"It's Lestrade, there's been another one. Come with me?" he asked Molly.

She squeezed his hand and nodded.

...

Back at Baker Street, Molly sat curled into herself in Sherlock's chair. She felt better there, calmer, while he made her a cup of tea to warm up. Seeing dead bodies in the morgue, cleaned and laid out and clinical, was completely different to seeing them stretched out in a tiny graveyard, dressed all in white and in the position they had died in. Sherlock had determined that the woman died there, amongst tiny tombstones of a secret pet cemetery. The same markings and similar initials were carved into her body. Molly had walked to the gates of the small, Victorian graveyard and put her head against the cool iron railings while Sherlock scoured the crime scene for evidence. Donovan had eventually noticed her and given her a supportive squeeze around the shoulders, handed her a tissue.

Molly saw what he saw. She saw herself. It was all the simpler because the body has been laid out across the grave of a pet cat, and the woman in question had mid-brown hair, tied back in a ponytail. Now Molly wanted to vomit.

Sherlock came back into the sitting room with her tea, set it down on a low table and then lifted Molly up out of the chair with ease. He sat down himself and pulled Molly into his lap. He secured his arms around her and settled her head against his shoulder.

"It's not that I just need to have you move in," he explained slowly. "I'll need to have you physically connected to me now until this case is solved. Sorry, but I must insist. If you go to the refrigerator, I go with you. If you…"

Molly cut him off with a kiss, threading her fingers into his hair. "Okay," she said softly. "Whatever you say. For now." She thought for a moment. "Is the body at Bart's?"

"Yes, we can head over in an hour and take a look. The toxicology report will be ready when we get there," Sherlock informed her. He kissed her back, licking against her bottom lip and biting gently. When Molly responded by stroking her tongue deeper into his mouth, Sherlock slipped his hand beneath her wool jumper. He moved his fingers up her abdomen, tracing slow circles into her skin, until he found her breast. He eased aside the silky fabric of her bra and massaged his fingers over her nipple. He leaned Molly back across the arm of the chair and pulled the jumper over her head. His lips sought out a nipple while his hands reached around to unclasp her bra. Before she knew it, he had the objectionable tights off as well, and his fingers were brushing aside her knickers and exploring between her legs. Molly sighed and let her legs fall open for him. He stroked gently across her clit and let a finger push in to gather some of her wetness. He slid it back across her clit, rubbing endless circles against her while his tongue did the same to her hardened nipple.

From her position on his lap, Molly could feel Sherlock hardening himself against the small of her back. She quickly stood up and unbuttoned the denim skirt, letting it fall at his feet. With a smile, she dropped to her knees in front of him and began to unbutton his trousers. She slid them down over his hips and leaned her face against his lap, lapping small, teasing licks against his length. Sherlock felt his breath hitch, and her tongue felt soft and warm and wet against him, stimulating every nerve ending. He watched her lick away a droplet of pre-cum and slide her pink lips around the tip of his cock. He sighed in deep satisfaction as she began sucking, soft and insistent, taking more and more of him into her mouth and throat. She reached one hand beneath his cock, cradling his balls in her hand. But suddenly, the image of Angie Banks on her knees before Ramon Siddes flared in his brain. He inhaled in shock, sitting up slightly taller in his chair. He pulled a confused Molly off his cock and into his lap.

"I want to fuck you," he murmured to her, to cover his distraction. Molly gave him a wide grin. She brought her legs around his hips as he lined himself up. He lifted his hips and breached her easily. Molly closed her eyes and moaned, sinking herself all the way down on top of him. She moved a bit faster, fucking him deep into her cunt. He slid against her walls, the friction delicious. They shifted until they found the angle that had Sherlock's cockhead crashing into her g-spot again and again. He watched himself fucking her, his cock slick with her arousal, thrusting upwards into her harder and faster. Molly's fingers circled her clit as he gripped both her hips in his hands, forcing her down onto length. She began chanting his name; he bucked faster, dragging inside of her, sucking a nipple into his mouth and pulling hard on it with his lips and teeth. Molly cried out her orgasm and he drove her through it, finally pumping himself into her with a shout and spilling deep into her centre.

Molly curled against his chest with a smile, placing kisses across his shoulders and neck, her breasts heaving against his chest as they both panted from the exertion.

Sherlock wound his arms completely around her, pulling her so close that he hoped that she would never move again from that spot on his lap. He hoped that she wouldn't sense his fear and desperation as he kissed her hair and held her tight. She seemed happy and sated and calm. He didn't want her to sense that his heartrate wasn't just elevated from the sex, but from terror.