So this is the final chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who has stuck with it, and left either kudos or lovely comments (or both). Honestly, this was supposed to be a (long-ish) one-shot, but as with most things I write, it soon got out of hand!

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It was in the days and weeks that followed that Sherlock started to understand what having Molly in his life, by his side, really meant. The circumstances for embarking on his first committed relationship were not ideal; part of him wanted to tell the outside world to go to hell and just sequester himself with Molly while he worked out how to be a passably good boyfriend, but the events of Sherrinford – and the subsequent fallout - weren't going to go away overnight. So instead, most of his time was divided between the practical and emotional needs of his sister and parents. It seemed that his visits were the only thing preventing Eurus from disappearing into herself completely, and when Sherlock wasn't visiting her, he was trying to mediate between Mycroft and their mother and father. Despite his mother's surprising view that he was the grownup of the family, Sherlock had rarely felt so ill-equipped to deal with something, or so under pressure not to screw it up.

And this was where Molly had continually amazed him. She encouraged him to talk to her, never acting as though it was an imposition and always instinctively understanding what he was struggling with. She talked things out with him and acted as a sounding-board, but she also gave him space without him needing to ask – or just brought a book into the room and sat with him, if he didn't need anything more than her presence. But she could also make him smile when the days were mounting up on him, and flat-out told him to stop when she could see - always before he could - that he was going to do damage to himself.

Sherlock couldn't help but feel like a burden in those first few days, constantly reminded that once again, he seemed to just be taking and taking. He was technically homeless, too, so was now a material burden as well as an emotional one. He'd offered to stay with John, but Molly suggested they take things one day at a time at her place, and see how they got on.

For the first couple of weeks, sleeping together had meant exactly that. Most days Sherlock was completely drained by the day's events, often arriving back at Molly's late at night and more or less collapsing beside her on the bed. He knew she was tired too, trying to get her head back into work, as well as looking after Rosie and helping him; she was even making lots of phone-calls for Mrs Hudson, helping her to organise the building works at 221B.

Sherlock was often gone by the time she woke up, catching early flights to Sherrinford, and hoping that his well-meant texts were enough to provide reassurance that Molly was in his thoughts. Because she was – constantly. But now at least those thoughts now carried hope, and the promise of a future that he was impatient to explore when circumstances finally allowed them to do it.

A few days after returning from Sherrinford, he bought an engagement ring. In all of the frenzied activity and with his frequent absences, he had started to panic that Molly would think that he wasn't genuine, that it had all been some kind of febrile reaction to the trauma. With all of the uncertainty and upheaval in his life at that moment, this was one thing where he wanted no room for doubt.

"I…I didn't want you to think that I didn't mean it," he'd said, fumbling through an explanation in her living room, velvet box in his outstretched palm. He had a momentary flash of panic when it occurred to him for the first time that Molly could equally have changed her mind.

"I know you meant it, Sherlock," she had smiled softly in response. "That you mean it."

He'd watched nervously as she opened the box, her smile growing as she gently levered the ring from its plush cushioning. Hard not to think about his 'proposal' to Janine, how easy it had been to go through the motions. Again, emotional context was everything.

He'd cleared his throat, the short silence hard to take.

"But I, ah, I understand if you don't wish to wear it straight away, if you'd rather wait-"

"Of course I'm going to wear it!" Molly had replied, and she'd thrown her free arm around his shoulder, pulling him into a hug.

"I should probably upgrade my 'not a no' to something more definite, shouldn't I?" she'd smiled into his neck.

"I concede it might ease my anxiety a little, yes," he'd replied. "And I believe that a very wise person once said 'if you like it, you should put a ring on it', or something of that ilk."

Molly had snorted with laughter, her shoulders shaking as she leaned her forehead against his chest; Sherlock felt a swell of warmth in response – it was quite a thing to know that he could make Molly Hooper smile. And her smile was something he would never grow tired of trying to earn.

She'd held out her hand to allow him to do the honours, and then took his hand in hers.

"Um, I think a good snog is pretty long overdue," she grinned, arching onto her tiptoes.

Sherlock met her halfway, discovering exactly what people (idiotic people, he'd thought) meant when they talked about experiencing sparks of electricity. It was the first time they had kissed – properly kissed – since the morning he'd walked out on her. Since his return there had been quick, fond kisses in greeting or departure, but with this kiss it now felt as though perhaps they were moving forward once more – that Molly was allowing a little piece of her heart to be vulnerable again.

Neither of them had made any great declaration to friends and family. If Sherlock ever had the inclination to shout something from the rooftops, he knew it should be this, but it was all still so new, and he couldn't stand the idea of being observed like a lab animal while people waited for him to fail. Molly, he knew, could live without that scrutiny as well.

The person who eventually set the ball rolling was actually Rosie, whose sharp eyes and little fingers were drawn to the new sparkly thing on Molly's hand. John was halfway through telling Rosie to be careful with Aunty Molly's jewellery before he realised. It had been quite fun to watch the progression of his friend's expression from 'slack-jawed', through to 'confusion', 'incredulity' and, eventually, 'apparently-not-imagining-this'.

For the next couple of weeks, he and Molly were still finding their way together. Despite everything that had happened between them over the past weeks and months, Sherlock had never really given a lot of thought to actually living with Molly. Living with John was relatively easy – buy milk, clean the toilet once in a while, and try not to piss each other off too much. But he was actually living with Molly, even if it was only short-term. He would fret over whether he was in her way, or whether she would be upset with him if he went out without telling her where. But he never felt like an unwelcome presence, and when they were splitting cartons of takeaway in front of Friday night TV, bickering good-naturedly over the choice of viewing or the fact that she wouldn't use chopsticks, he would be reminded why it had always felt easy with Molly.

And as they started to figure out what a life together might look like, physical affection began to intensify again. Warm, languorous kisses in the morning before Molly left for work would turn into the kind of semi-naked wrestling sessions that would leave Sherlock breathless with anticipation for her return (and drinking his morning tea with an ice-pack in his lap, usually with Toby eyeing him in judgement). Evenings when he quite forgot whatever crap telly they were supposed to be watching, because suddenly Molly was more 'on' him than next to him, and mouths were exploring and hands starting to roam underneath clothing.

But despite the fact that the build-up was killing him, Sherlock was determined to cherish every incremental step, because this time he could truly lose himself in it, in Molly – it had been the one piece missing from their first night together. And with each day that passed, he knew that Molly's confidence in him was being restored, and that made it all the more sweet.

The deadlock was broken in a way that was somehow completely typical.

"So…" Molly had begun, breathless between kisses. "This…this is, um, lovely and everything, and I know that with all that's happened, slow is probably sensible - but I swear, Sherlock, if you don't take me to that bedroom right now so we can have sex, there's a real possibility that I might actually explode."

The next sound out of her mouth was a whoop of surprise, followed by a stream of giggles, as Sherlock's lightning-fast reactions took over, scooping Molly up from the sofa and slinging her over his shoulder. One thing he had learned in the preceding weeks and months was that Molly tended to know best – so who was he to question her over this one?

It was now almost exactly a year since the revelations with his sister, and while Sherlock hadn't expected life to let up, it had veered off in some unexpected directions. He was still waking up in Molly's bed most mornings, but these days they had company.

Their son had been conceived – most likely in that very bed – just a couple of months after the events at Sherrinford. It had been a decision taken together, and in Sherlock's mind, an easy one – he had wasted too much time already, and he didn't want them to miss out on this. He knew John thought they were rushing into it, but John was making the naïve assumption that this had all begun on the night of the phone call.

As Sherlock sat in bed, checking through his emails one more time, his thumbs took him back to the photo gallery on his phone. For years it had contained only the most interesting (and/or incriminating) photographs from cases, but fatherhood had – by his own admittance – turned him into a gigantic cliché. Even now, though, he only kept a select few photos on his phone, and one of them wasn't even of a person – it was a familiar white plastic stick, showing two pink lines, texted to him by Molly from her office at Bart's. He'd kept the texts too because, apparently, he was a romantic sap as well as a clichéd parent.

The first one – photo attached - had read:

Latest lab results for you. Thoughts? – Mxxx

It was quickly followed up by a second image of five identical sticks lined up on her desk.

Hmmm. Probably not a false positive… – Mxxx

He would never forget the moment she arrived at Baker Street later that afternoon, how it was clear that she could barely contain her happiness, no trace of doubt or worry in her expression.

Well, the pink lines were now a small human (also fairly pink – although puce was often more accurate), five weeks old and already prince of all he surveyed. At this moment, he was sleeping beside Molly at the far side of the bed, under a small blanket that used to belong to Rosie – co-sleeping had never been part of the plan, but Sherlock couldn't blame his son for rejecting his crib when the warmth and comfort of Molly Hooper was the alternative. After all, he'd been guilty of something similar himself for a long time now.

Everything was still fairly chaotic, and neither had still quite moved in with the other – although Sherlock had spent every night at Molly's house since their son's birth. There was a vague sort of plan to eventually all move in to Baker Street – and he'd have to start making it less vague now that the baby was more than just a concept – but Molly seemed happy enough to take things as they came, to enjoy their son as much as possible and deal with practicalities once they settled into yet another new routine. Sherlock didn't care particularly either – home was wherever Molly and their little boy was (and yes, his life was now just one, big, saccharine, greetings-card epithet).

At some point, a wedding would happen, too, something that had been temporarily derailed by the surprising swiftness of conception. It was all worth it, though, if only for the reaction Sherlock had been able to provoke in his parents, when, on a return journey from Sherrinford, they asked him where he was living.

"With Molly, of course," he had replied, before returning to his phone.

"Molly who?" his mother had asked, suspiciously.

"My fiancée," he told her, without looking up. "We're expecting."

There was a pause until his father leaned forward in the taxi.

"Sorry, expecting what?"

"Oh, for goodness sake, Timothy, the boy's talking about a baby!" his mother replied. "Or at least I hope he is - if it's one thing my sons have taught me, it's never to take anything at face value. Didn't you always say, darling, that Sherlock probably had a wife and three children hidden away from us somewhere?"

His father had given a short hum of laughter.

"Not quite, Mother," Sherlock had replied, pulling his face into an approximation of a smile. "Although the 'hidden away' part is sounding rather appealing. Can we pretend this conversation never happened?"

"NO!" his parents had replied in unison.

They got their way, of course. Even he couldn't deprive his parents of some measure of happiness after everything they'd been through.

He switched his phone to silent and slid down under the covers, shifting along the bed until he was able to wrap his arm around Molly, moving her hair aside so he could place a kiss on her jaw. He pushed himself up on his elbow so he could see his son, too, lying flat out on his back, his chest rapidly rising and falling in his sleep. With his chest flush with Molly's back, Sherlock could stretch out his hand and allow his fingers to ghost over the soft lines of their baby's tiny body – the whole world within his arms.

His mother's assessment was now accurate, at least – he was the grownup, and it felt good, and there was no going back.

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I have to confess that Sherlock's quoting of Beyoncé was inspired by a fan video I caught on YouTube, with footage of Sherlock and Molly set to 'Single Ladies' – credit to the person who created that!

And in case it wasn't obvious, when Sherlock recalls Molly coming to see him after learning of her pregnancy, I was imagining the scene of Molly arriving at 221B in the end montage from TFP. Because, you know, wish-fulfilment.