*Note: Minor changes have been made to try to match this to the apparent pacing plans they've got for John's wedding next season, and to fine-tune some points I didn't get quite "right" the first time. Otherwise, this is largely unchanged since a few days ago.

"There you go, Molly. Five sealed envelopes for the med schools…and I've given you an open copy for your own. I know how hard it is to worry about what kind of recommendation you've been given. Do you have any preference for where you end up?"

Molly accepted the folder Dr Kemper, the head of the pathology department, handed her. She could feel the nervous energy run through her as though she'd drunk down a quart of strong coffee. She made herself stop worrying her lower lip and meet Kemper's eye without ducking or wincing. "I'd like it best if I could stay here, sir…at St. Barts. I'd at least like to stay in London, if I can."

"Then it's a good thing London has so many med schools," he said, amused. "Look, I think you've got a good chance to get in here. Your school record's not that impressive, but your UKCATS were fantasitic, and your work record here is solid. But don't set your heart on it. The schools like to see a bit of cross-pollination."

"I won't, sir. I'm not even counting on getting in anywhere."

"You'll get in somewhere, given time, Miss Hooper," Kemper said, already absently checking his pockets for his smart phone, without which he was helpless. "If not this year, another, so long as you keep at it. Your scores are good, you work hard, you're taking classes through our continuing ed program, and people like you. That's a valuable commodity in this world."

People didn't like her, though, she thought. They usually didn't even notice her, unless she'd made a mistake, or made a fool of herself somehow.

Still, Dr. Kemper had recommended her, and John Watson, and the professor in the master's level research methodologies class she'd audited. And she really had tested well on the UKCATs.

She'd been feeling so confident, lately. Why was she so frightened, all of a sudden?

She really didn't need to answer that question. Just asking it made her hand drift to the pocket of her lab coat and brush the case of her mobile. While he'd been gone she'd felt like Molly-the-Hero. Now he was back, and she was remembering what it was really like to be around him—to be one of his supporting cast of fools, idiots, morons, and dupes. What was it they called it in theater? Oh, right: his spear carrier. Or a straight-man. Straight-woman?

Whatever.

She'd been so happy to get his text. And it had been a good conversation. But…it was still so Sherlock-ish. She'd forgotten a bit what it was like to have him tell her to try not to be stupid…

She pulled the mobile out, pulled up the saved conversation, smiled, rolled her eyes, and sighed. She knew exactly what he'd have looked like as he typed each line, and exactly what he'd looked like as he read each of hers. She'd been watching that face for years, and she knew what he was really like—or she did when she made herself give up the daydreams and fantasies. By the end of that text conversation he'd have been half crawling out of his skin from the overload even the wary, reserved emotions they'd each expressed would have triggered. He'd have waited at the end, because he was Sherlock and he had to get the last word in, even in conversations that made him uncomfortable. But he'd have been ready for it to end, so he could wrap it up and move back a bit. The miracle was he'd said as much as he had, and let her say as much as she had. She wouldn't have put it past him to have faked a dropped signal just to avoid most of that discussion.

What, though, was she supposed to do with one miracle? Especially one that could only make her wish for another, and another, until Sherlock wasn't Sherlock any more. God help her, but he wasn't made to be a "leading man." The very idea would terrify and infuriate him…not that he'd ever admit to either, unless he admitted them to John Watson, and she doubted he'd even tell John all the things her observations had suggested were true about him.

She shook her head, and smiled ruefully at the mobile. "Of all the morgues in all the towns in all the world, why did you have to walk into mine, schweetheart?" she said.

"I can walk out again," said a familiar voice.

She spun, gasping, then snapped, "Dr. Watson, you scared me half to death. I didn't hear you come in."

He looked a little taken aback, and glanced around the otherwise empty room. "Ah…oh? I thought you were talking to me."

"Talking to myself. The brain's the first thing to go," she said, tucking the mobile back in her pocket. "I got the packet with your recommendations, and Dr. Kemper dropped his off just now. That means I can send my applications in tomorrow. I don't know how to thank you."

He stood and studied her, his hands shoved in his pockets. She had always thought he had a very nice face, with all the good and bad that went with the word "nice." It was a very ordinary face, and in spite of being barely on the edge of his forties, it was already well broken-in. Today he looked….shocky. More battered than he'd been since the weeks after….

Ah.

She could see him realize that she'd realized. One corner of his mouth flicked up for a fraction of a second, in a bitter, mocking grin; one shoulder hunched a rueful shrug. "Yes. Well. He's alive. But you knew that." There was an accusation in his voice.

She nodded, not knowing what to say. She dropped the file with Kemper's recommendation into her in-tray, then dragged a stool up to the lab table and began sorting a box of slides the student techs had been working with earlier.

"If you really want to thank me for my recommendation," Watson growled, "tell me what really happened that day."

"Didn't Sherlock tell you?"

"He told me. But he told me his way. His way he's always the hero. I thought maybe this time, though, you were."

She shook her head. "No. Just another sidekick. The usual." She met John Watson's eyes, then went back to her sorting, piling the slides by letter and then by number. "He really was the hero. He worked it out. He found a way out. He dealt with Moriarty. He saved your lives. He jumped, and he wasn't entirely sure his plan was going to work—but he jumped anyway, because it was the only way he could work out to protect you, in the time he had. He tried to make it work out another way…but Moriarty ended that by putting a bullet through his own head."

"You're sure?" Watson growled. "Or was he as clever as Sherlock?"

"He'd have to have had a spare body and a way to move into it," she said. "I helped do the autopsy, since I was already…what did Sherlock's brother call me? Oh, right. 'Compromised.' I already knew too much. So I helped with the autopsy. The only way he's alive is if there's been a zombie apocalypse…and even then, he's going to need some extra brains. Most of his got spread across the roof." Her eyes flicked automatically to the imagined location of that death, on a rooftop high above them.

"Mycroft knew, too?"

"He had to. I couldn't have helped Sherlock much, beyond what I did."

"What did you do?"

"Arranged for some of the swap…the parts Sherlock didn't arrange himself. Or his brother didn't sort out afterward. There were plenty of people who owed Sherlock favors." She flicked him an apologetic glance. "I'm the one who called in the report about Mrs. Hudson, and told them to contact you. Sherlock wanted to keep you safe. I'm sorry."

He grunted, frowned, started to say something, then sighed. "Hell. Forgiven. I'd have done the same for him, if it had been the other way around. What else did you do?"

"I helped make sure no one got a really good look at him. I arranged for the blood. Helped get him on the gurney and into the hospital. Mycroft and I worked together to bugger the records. Other than that, I'm sure you know more than I do, now. Most of what I did was make sure he didn't die. It wasn't entirely safe and he…the blood wasn't all a trick."

"Why you? Why not me? I'm a doctor. I could have helped."

Molly could hear the unresolved hurt, the anger, the feelings of being used and then discarded. She struggled between wanting to slap Sherlock for his friend's sake, and being unsure how to explain...especially when the truth of it still her hurt.

"Because I didn't count," she said, softly. "Jim…Moriarty. He never realized Sherlock cared about me…or that he trusted me. I wasn't one of his targets. He used me to study Sherlock, because he knew I cared about Sherlock and worked with him sometimes. Then he dumped me, because he didn't think I was useful anymore. But he never found out Sherlock cared about me."

She could see the understanding lighten his eyes—understanding touched with a compassion that made her squirm. "He didn't know, because you didn't."

"And because Sherlock was such a bastard to me when Jim was there. Well…he was a bastard most of the time, really. So Jim - Moriarty wasn't watching me. He hadn't set assassins on me. He didn't know Sherlock could trust me to help if he had to. You couldn't have done that. Everyone knew you were…"

"Everyone knew I was his hostage to fortune."

She shrugged. "Yes. You, and Mrs. Hudson, and DI Lestrade. No one else knew about me, either. You didn't write about me. Sherlock didn't….I'm not… I'm just Molly. I don't count. No one looked. No newspaper reporters interviewed me—not before, not after. It never entered Greg Lestrade's mind to bring me in for questioning. If it helps, I don't think even Sherlock looked at me, until he had to. He only realized when I said I didn't count. I'm invisible, most of the time. But that night…" She ducked, hoping he wouldn't catch the emotions that churned as she thought about that night. "That night, he said I counted…that I'd always counted. And then he explained why that mattered. Why I could do things for him no one else could do. Because I was invisible."

"Not as invisible as you thought. Not invisible at all, now. He's not going to forget after this."

She cocked her head and sighed. "He won't remember any more than he's comfortable with, I suspect." She slipped off the stool and returned the box of slides to their proper place on the other side of the room.

"You knew he was back."

"Yes."

"He called you."

"Texted."

He gave a sudden bark of laughter—a happier laugh than she'd expected. "Of course. He texted. I should have known."

She risked a grin. "Well, he is still Sherlock. Are you…are you going to forgive him?"

"What choice do I have?" he asked, sounding a bit hollow-indeed, Molly thought he sounded as though he'd been poured out and left half empty. "If it wasn't for him, I'd probably be dead, now, instead of trying to decide whether to propose to Mary." He sighed, but he did seem a bit less shaken than when he'd arrived. "I don't like it. The arse really does get on my tits, sometimes. But…" he chuckled. "But I nutted him hard when he first walked in. He's got a lump the size of a baby's fist right in the middle of his forehead…and a bloody nose to go with it from where I landed a good one. And then when I told him I wasn't going to go back to Baker Street, and that I was thinking of getting married, he turned green, then went and tossed his lunch up in the lav before he came back out and pretended to be happy for me. So I think we're probably even."

"I'm impressed," she said, looking him over. "You got out without a mark."

"He didn't fight back. I think it was penance."

Her brows went up in true surprise. "Maybe he is growing up!"

"Either that or Peter Pan's panicking because the Lost Boys managed to get on with life while he was gone. Look, I'm on my way back to my place. I think your apartment's on the way. Want to share a cab?"

She nodded, and collected her coat.

"So you're still applying for med school? Have you told Sherlock?"

"No."

"Surprise him with it. And if he upchucks in the lav again, I want to hear about it." He helped her on with her coat, then held the door for her, pausing to let her lock up behind them. He cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed, and asked, "What did he say to you? When he called…texted. You know. What did he say?"

Her hand slipped into her pocket again. She stroked the mobile phone. For a moment she considered showing John. It would be nice to have the advice of one of the few "consulting Sherlockologists" in existence. But it was, on the whole, private. "He said he was back. And…and he said I still counted."

She almost failed to notice he wasn't following her until she was halfway down the hall. When she turned, he was studying her in mixed surprise and mischief.

"Doctor? ...John?"

"Sorry….so sorry. Um…" He loped to catch up, and offered her his arm, then smiled down at her, looking as though he might just start giggling. He wasn't anywhere near as tall as Sherlock—almost her own height—but there was a solid warmth to him that more than made up for height.

She smiled at his grin. "What's so funny?"

He snorted. "Nothing. Nothing… Just…The game's afoot, Molly! I think Sherlock's life has just gotten a bit more interesting than even he'll know how to handle."

All the way to the curb he whistled "Dueling Banjos," with his eyes on fire with laughter.