Molly woke with a start, air rushing into her lungs as she gasped for lost breath. She would have screamed, but the familiar surroundings calmed her, the comfortable creak of the TARDIS's ever adjusting rooms. She managed to calm her breathing if only long enough enough that her mind wandered back to the dark place it had found in her unconscious state. That's when he woke up, sensing the rustling of sheets, sensing the nightmares.

"Molly, Molls." He jumped to his feet, still wearing his trainers, still in his wrinkled pinstripe suit.

The Doctor had been sitting, curled up in a large armchair that Molly had bought for next to nothing in a bazar planets away, it was floral and dusty and at first a little suspicious, I mean how had an 18th century earth antique ended up on Inntrotec? She had always used it to read, when they were travelling and she was homesick, pathological textbooks were still piled high either side. But the Doctor had not glanced over the grim science, his whole being focused upon watching Molly's breathing pattern as she had slept, until that steady rhythm had sent him into a light sleep of his own. The change in her breath's tempo, the sharp intakes had roused him.

"Shhh. You're okay, you're safe here." He was at her bedside, perched on the soft mattress and tentatively brushing his hands through her hair. She had started sobbing, tears softly running down her cheeks and seeping into the material of his shirt, adding dark splashes to the pale blue of his tie. The Doctor wasn't quite sure how to react, he always found this part difficult, but with Molly it was even more so. He couldn't stand to see anyone cry, but he loved Molly so dearly, and to see someone usually so strong, so held together even in the face of homicidal alien races, broken, broke him; and he couldn't protect her this time.

"What is it Molls? Hmm?" Of course the Doctor was curious for himself, the only times he had seen Molly in such a way was when she had first told him of her Father's struggles with terminal illness and he'd even caught a lost look in her eyes when he had talked of Rose, it was usually a love story that caught her.

"W-What if you weren't there to catch him? What if I'd never met you, my handsome man," She gently leaned up to him running her hand over his shoulder. Taking in a deep breath to stop the faltering, the shaking in her voice. "And changed my life forever, for… for the better? I could see him falling, his head hitting the pavement, his blood mixing with the rain, and it was all so real and I was like a ghost. I kept running to him, but the world stayed still. And then John was there, I had to watch him break all over again, but I was breaking with him."

"Oh, Molly Hooper. I would have found you no matter what, we were made to see the stars you and me, to meet the future and revisit the past, and you were made to give so many aliens, including myself, a strong talking to you. Sherlock's alive, he's here, okay. You saved him, and you'd have saved him with or without my silly time machine." She had sunk back into his embrace, her breathing had evened out by now and The Doctor placed a kiss just on her hairline, relishing in the fact that his Hooper was there in the flesh, and even in the darkest of circumstances he could travel with her again.

Sherlock chose that moment of them all to rush in. His breathing laboured, obviously having run through rooms and complicated corridors to find the common face of Molly Hooper, or so The Doctor believed. He had barrelled though the corridors and crashed abruptly into the room, but Sherlock was fully aware of how to get to Molly's room, he knew exactly how to return to the room he'd previously vacated, he had just been far away.

"Molly! Are you… Is she okay?" he asked between catching breaths, noticing immediately the dim light and the petite woman in question bundled into a TimeLord's arms. He may have been unaware of social cues, but he felt as if he was stepping on a moment between the two, something unfamiliar bubbled within his stomach at the thought.

"Just the man," The Doctor beamed at him, showing no signs that Sherlock was treading on eggshells. "Trouble sleeping too?" he gestured toward the woman who was loosening herself from his arms to look up at Sherlock. Ah, nightmares, that explains the close proximity. "I rarely sleep when I'm on a case."

"You should have at least tried to rest Sherlock, you've been through a lot in the past forty-eight hours, your body's been through a lot. It needs time to repair." Molly's voice was soft and quite, fitting comfortably with the close light of the room, a single lamp giving a dim glow from the corner.

"Of course. I shall endeavour to try, but my mind wont slow, it can't stop."

Molly smiled sympathetically at the man, she understood. Her own mind had been racing over the past days events, and she already knew about the 'wibbly wobbly timey wimey, spacey wacey stuff' this was a lot to dump on a great mind that was in constant need of organisation, of filing and saving, deleting and storing.

"Molls, if you're alright with 'Curls' over here, I've got some controls to fiddle with. Shout if you need me." And with a nod from Molly, The Doctor was swiftly on his feet, patting Sherlock on the shoulder and exiting the room, in hope of finding Donna and the control room, wondering why he never thought to put signs up. It was his ship, and it doesn't look good to be lost on one's own ship.

Molly was thankful The Doctor had known to leave form her look, she could feel something in the air that swept over her skin, clinging to the room, and Sherlock wasn't about to share with a slightly odd, almost stranger, lodged in the room between them.

"How are you holding up? And don't give me all that holier than thou crap, because it turns out I'm barely keeping it together, and you're also human." She patted the bed next to her covered legs, and as Sherlock walked closer to her he could see the streaks of two day old make up that had bled down her face with the tears, her cracks literally showing in the warm artificial light. She still looked strong though, ready to take on the world if need called for it, ready to comfort him if his cracks became visible.

"It's a lot to take in… A sentence I rarely utter." He sat and the bed's soft mattress dipped.

"All this, it's just the world you've been living in, with a little extra light shed on it. You know that." And she knew that it was the fall, not the 'bigger on the inside' or the 'two hearts', it was the three broken hearts he had left behind, that jarred him. "It's okay, Sherlock, to feel sad. But you saved them, and that will be worth everything. It's only me. No judgement here."

"It's never only you, Molly Hooper. I still marvel at how you can do that, look right through my façade." His face dropped as he let go of the mask, the stern, cold features replaced with ones far softer, cracks beginning to show and flooding with untold fear and sacrifice. But also gratitude, something Molly had only seen once before aimed towards her, so she smiled as much as the still prevalent dream would let her.

"I just couldn't sleep, thinking about it. The look on his face as I fell, he still believed in me Molly, and now he's got the whole world to compete with."

Molly dragged Sherlock into her embrace then, uncaring if Sherlock would protest, her words weren't necessarily up to the job, but The Doctor had once told her that her hugs could halt wars. And she needed the comfort of human contact as much as Sherlock needed to remember that he was alive.

"I know. But you're alive and here, and it may take time, and I know full well it's not going to be easy, but we have all of the time in the universe. And once we've stopped every one of Moriarty's allegiances you can be back with John, with Mrs Hudson and Lestrade in no time. Although, I can't promise it will be so soon after the event, you're a fixed point in time now, and for a TimeLord, The Doctor is atrocious at time keeping." Molly giggled to alleviate her need to cry as Sherlock chuckled for much the same reason, he held onto her tightly, something neither of them had expected when Molly's arms had encircled his frame. But the warmth that emanated from her was quelling his alert mind, the racing was slowing and thoughts of the TARDIS, of other worlds and diverse species washing calm over his storming emotions.

"Molly, what were you dreaming about? I came here for a reason, like I sensed your distress, but why?"

"That's the TARDIS, well mostly. The translation matrix reaches beyond the linguistics, it also translates emotional resonance frequencies, it can draw you to trouble, to distress. Very clever, but means so many adventures are fraught with a little more than you asked for. I suppose my nightmare triggered it, because in my dream you really had died… I couldn't help you, I –I -didn't have The Doctor. Oh God, you – you were so pale." Molly realised she had probably shared too much, this burden was her own, she had already shed some of her pain onto The Doctor, Sherlock did not need it too. "Sorry." She dropped her arms from the embrace they had still been in, but Sherlock was reluctant to let go.

"No, I'm sorry. I put you in this position, but as you said. I'm alive, and we're going to get through this. I – ah – think you may need sleep as much as I do."

"Oh yes, of course." Molly wasn't sure what she had been expecting, for Sherlock to meander out of the room to the dark victorian-esque room he could call his own? Probably. She certainly wasn't expecting for the strong arms that were wrapped around her to stay, turning her in his hold, until his palms lay flat on her stomach, fingers spread. His breathing evened out, becoming shallow and restful as his heartbeat slowed, their heads sharing the same pillow even though there was one just two inches away. She wasn't expecting that at all, but she didn't question it as her body followed suit and fell into a pleasantly dreamless sleep, engulfed by the consulting detective, protected by her world of wonder.

The Doctor wandered back down the corridors, he had set the controls to a clear, slow flight path, and the persistent whir of the steady controlled flight of his ship filled the corridors, it was unusual but relaxing. He spotted Donna outside the fractionally open door of Molly's room, he'd been on his way back to check on her, but stopped dead at the sly smile on Donna's face.

"Doctor. Doctor, you have to see this!" Donna stage whispered, gesturing to the cracked open door, smile still firmly in place.

He ran to her but slowed as he reached where she stood, Donna was obscuring his vision, but his curiosity peaked when he saw movement from Molly's bed. It wasn't Molly. No, there was someone else with her, and his pale skin glowed from the faint light of the lamp still switched on in the corner of the room.

"What?" he whispered, voice echoing his shock.

"I bet you twenty quid they're madly in love by the end of our second trip."

"Donna, I don't have money. You know that."

"Just sonic it from a cash machine, because soon enough you'll owe me." As she walked away Donna began laughing, "Thank goodness, 'moody mop top' isn't my type. I'd be no competition for Molly Hooper.

As she turned the corner The Doctor's expression fell imperceptibly, "And I'm no competition for Sherlock Holmes."

I feel I should explain that last line, because it sounded a little shippy. I wrote it, not as The Doctor wanting Molly to fall in love with him romantically, but because he doesn't want her to fall out of love with the idea of him, as the person to protect her, as her closest friend, he doesn't want her to stop calling him 'my handsome man' and he doesn't want to not be able to call her 'beautiful' just because Sherlock wouldn't see that as only platonic. He comes from a different world, The Doctor loves Molly Hooper, but he's still in love with Rose, he doesn't want Molly to fall in love with Sherlock and push out her love for him, because he can tell that when Molly loves she loves wholeheartedly. Sherlock has been his 'competition' from day one, and having him on board is just going to tip the scales. His love for Molly is purely platonic, but that doesn't mean he can't get jealous, or scared.

I'm really sorry this took so long to write, it's been sitting open on word over half written for weeks, but the end just never flowed. I still think it's a little stiff, but I want to upload it so, ta da.

:)