AN: The third, AND FINAL, installment in the Pillow Talk AU series requested by the lovely buttercup59 ! Whew, was this a biggun', y'all! I hope it's all you wanted and more! Though I'm not entirely happy with this and may return to fix it in the future, I am satisfied that it is a proper ending for now. :)

'Molly, don't you think you ought to listen to him? Give him a chance to explain.'

Almost a full week had passed since Sherlock's deception had been revealed, and thus Mary and John's hand in it, and Molly finally agreed to meet with Mary. The café was quiet that morning as the two friends sat across from each other, one angry and hurt, the other regretful and determined to fix the mess she'd helped create.

Molly shook her head firmly and tilted her chin up defiantly at the pleading Mary across from her. 'No. I look at Sherlock Holmes like any other disease. I've had him, I'm over him, and now I'm moving on.'

Mary's brow furrowed in worry. 'You don't mean that. I've never seen you as happy as you were with him-'

'I wasn't with him¸ though, was I?' Molly cut across her angrily.' And don't think for a moment that I'm not still absolutely furious with you and that husband of yours for your roles in this fiasco!' Pointing her finger accusingly, Molly momentarily relished the look of hurt of Mary's face before immediately feeling guilty. As hurt and humiliated as she'd been, she knew deep down that Mary and John hadn't intended to set her up to be played. Her anger dissipated and she sighed. 'Let's just forget the whole thing, okay?'

Although her brow was still furrowed in worry, Mary nodded in agreement and they settled into a stilted silence.

John huffed and placed his hands on his hips as he stared at the pouting detective, curled into a ball on the couch.

'You've got to move off that sofa, mate. The world still turns, crimes are still happening, and burying your head in the sand isn't going to make it stop.'

Sherlock glowered at him over his shoulder before burrowing deeper into the leather.

'Sherlock,' John snapped in his commanding officer tone. 'Get your lazy arse off that sofa and, for God's sake, take a shower!'

'Sod off!' Sherlock shouted into the sofa.

'No!' John shouted back. 'I can't stand to see you like this! Molly's just as miserable and if you wanted to, you could make this right. But you can't do that smelling like the inside of a bin!'

At the mention of Molly, Sherlock whipped his head around. His eyes were sunken and rimmed red. 'She's miserable?' He asked in a strained voice.

John sighed and dropped into his chair. 'Of course she is. She's miserable, mad, and missing you, though she won't say it. She won't say anything, actually. She's just as mad at us as she is at you.'

Sherlock swallowed thickly and looked up at his friend, hope in his eyes. 'Do you… do you think she'll forgive me?'

The doctor paused. He knew Molly only from her friendship with Mary, but the nurse was a sweet, kind soul. The idea of her holding a grudge against anyone seemed too unlike her. Shrugging one shoulder, he admitted, 'I don't know. But the real question for you is, is she worth winning back?'

It was Sherlock, now, who hesitated. But not in indecision. No, the moment John spoke the last word, Sherlock's eyes narrowed and his racing thoughts came to a full stop. Yes. Unequivocally, yes.

Now, how to go about it wooing his way back into her good graces, and her heart?

'Woo hoo!'

They turned to see Mrs Hudson, Sherlock's landlady standing in the door, a tray overflowing with tea and digestives in her hands.

'Hello, John dear,' she greeted him with a smile and bustled over to set the tray on the coffee table. 'How's Mary?'

'She's well, thanks for asking, Mrs H. And how are you?'

She patted her hip with a wry smile. 'Oh, just the usual pains.' With a cheeky wink, she pointed at Sherlock, who was now deep in his Mind Palace. 'This one more than the hip.'

John chuckled and kissed her cheek. 'Well, I'll just be off. I've done all I can.'

Mrs Hudson patted his cheek fondly and watched the good doctor leave before turning to her tenant with a sigh. The man slowly drifted out of his thoughts, his eyes focusing up on her. She smiled at the softness in his expression and the almost-childlike innocence that shone from his eyes.

'Mrs Hudson, you're a woman,' he stated.

'I believe so,' she chuckled and sat down across from him.

He sat up and leaned on his knees, staring intently at her. 'How would one go about courting a woman? Specifically, a woman who is… rather angry at one?'

She raised her eyebrows. 'Would this rather angry woman be that darling nurse Mary is friends with? The one whom you tricked?'

A shamed flush stained Sherlock's cheeks as he averted his eyes under her disapproving gaze. 'She might be.'

'Oh, Sherlock.' She shook her head and helped herself to a spot of tea. As she stirred the milky liquid, she said, 'You've bollocksed it up quite nicely, if you'll pardon my language.' She winked at him and he smiled. 'It'll take more than a bit of wooing to fix this mess.'

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. 'You've been eavesdropping on my phone calls, haven't you?'

'I most certainly have not!' She declared indignantly. 'If I happen to bring you a spot of tea in the evenings and you're occupied on the telephone, I hardly think it would be considerate to interrupt. And if I happen to hear snippets of a conversation while walking back downstairs, I can hardly be called an eavesdropper.'

Shaking his head, Sherlock rubbed his face and admitted defeat. 'Fine. So you know what's happened. Now, help me fix it.'

'Well, in my experience, a heartfelt gift doesn't often go amiss. What does she like?'

'Cats.'

Mrs Hudson pursed her lips. 'Hardly sensible. What else? A gold locket, perhaps.'

'She's intelligent and practical, so any frippery womanly trinkets will be discarded,' he mused. 'She'd have more use out of… oh! Oh!'

His eyes lit up in inspiration and he leapt to his feet. 'Oh, it's perfect!' Kissing her cheek with a resounding smack, Sherlock fled Baker Street in a bevy of triumphant shouts. Mrs Hudson stared after him in amused surprise. Standing, she picked up the tray and made to leave, only to find her tenant bounding up the stairs once more, shrugging off his dressing gown with a growl and stomping into the washroom.

Fifteen minutes later, as she was washing up the dishes in her own flat, she heard him hurtling down the stairs once more. She peeked out the door in time to catch sight of him flinging open the door and rushing out, his damp curls flicking droplets of water behind him, some of them darkening the collar of his wool coat. She smiled to herself and returned to her chore. That deep purple shirt with the tight black waistcoat was going to make it very difficult for Molly to not forgive him.

Monday morning, ten minutes after arriving at work, Molly shouldered her way into the lab, her arms filled with files and paperwork from various doctors. She dropped them unceremoniously onto the table and pulled a stool over, intent on making a dent in the pile before lunch. While studiously not thinking about the man that had been in her thoughts for nigh on three weeks. Nope. Not thinking about him, or the way his curls fell into his eyes, or the way he smiled and made her go weak at the knees, or the way he listened and laughed at her uncomfortably morbid jokes.

Nope. Not thinking about him at all.

She dropped her head atop the papers and groaned. Who was she kidding? He was all she had been able to think about. But did she know him? Or the person he was pretending to be?

Picking up her pen, she shook her head and commanded herself to focus. She was a capable woman who didn't need to dwell on romantic daydreams when she had duties to complete. She straightened and opened the first file to begin.

But before she had even uncapped the pen, a flash of yellow in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She glanced over to see a wrapped box sitting on the far bench, a large white bow decorating the top. Curious, she walked over to it and was surprised to see her name written on heavy paper in a neat, though somewhat scratchy, hand.

Knowing she should probably wait for whomever had left it for her, curiosity got the better of her, and Molly unwrapped the yellow package and lifted the top from the plain box underneath. Her blood ran cold as she pulled out a white lab coat. The fabric was heavy, but not restrictive, clearly the same material as the coats of the best doctors in Bart's. Her heart stuttered when her gaze fell on the elegant, professionally-done stitching across the left side, just above the pocket.

Dr M. Hooper

'Molly.'

She jumped at the voice and looked up to see Sherlock standing in the doorway. His face was hidden in shadow, but for a small sliver of light that illuminated the sharp edge of his cheekbone. It had been almost three weeks since she'd seen him, and her heart was still torn between running toward him or turning away.

'What is this?' She whispered harshly.

'A gift. Or at the very least, an offering of peace.'

He took a hopeful step closer, but froze as he read her body language. Her eyes were wide and bright, but not with happy tears as he'd hoped. Instead, anger and hurt flared from the brown eyes he adored. Her hands fisted the coat and he could see the rising flush in her cheeks.

'Another joke, Mr Holmes? One would think you'd have learned your lesson by now.'

Sherlock gaped at her, his brow furrowed in disbelief. 'It wasn't anything of the sort, I merely wished to-'

'To remind me that I'm fighting a losing battle against society's standards, to rub it in that as a woman I'll never be more than a lackey for the 'real' doctors?' She bit out bitterly. How dare he mock her! After all he had put her through; the callous phone conversations, the lies and manipulation of her feelings, and now the mockery of her low social status as a woman!

He snapped, 'Of course not! Why ever would I do that? This is a gift for you to use when you finish your medical training!'

'My… what?' Molly froze, sure she heard wrong.

Shrugging in an attempt to appear nonchalant, Sherlock said, 'My brother holds a… somewhat minor position within the government. I spoke to him about your desire and qualifications to pursue a career as a doctor. It cost me quite a number of future favors, but he agreed to speak with the board here at Bart's.'

Molly held the coat against her chest, feeling the thundering of her heart.

'Once you've completed your training and residency, and passed within reasonable expectation, the board has unanimously voted to offer you a position in the pathology department here at Bart's.'

Was there air in the room? Molly tried very hard to concentrate on the exercise of breathing, but found it to be quite difficult. 'You… you did that? For me? I'm going to be a doctor?'

'If you so choose,' he replied with a brief smile. 'Consider it an apology for my mistreatment of you.'

Her brow furrowed. 'An… apology?'

He shifted slightly and cleared his throat. 'I understand you were rather hurt by my deception.'

She felt her heart fall into the vicinity of her stomach. Pity and regret. That's all this was; a way to soothe his guilt for lying to her. Blinded by the ache in her heart, she took a step back and hardened her expression.

'I don't want your pity gifts,' she spat. The rational part of her mind screamed at her for letting pride win and losing out on her dream career as a pathologist. But unfortunately, the rational part of her mind was not as loud as the prideful, and she dutifully obeyed the irrational desire to throw the coat at him. 'I don't want to ease your pathetic excuse for a conscience. And I don't want to see you again!'

He caught the coat against his chest, his mouth wide open in disbelief. Suddenly, his brow furrowed in anger and he pointed his finger at her accusingly. 'You are completely irrational! I begged, begged, my brother for this, going so far as to promise to take our parents to the theatre,' the way his face screwed up in horror at the very mention of the term was almost enough to make her laugh, 'and you think I did this out of pity?! I'm condemned to a lifetime of Sundays attending The Mousetrap with my parents!'

She blinked in surprise at the forceful way he spoke, taking a step back as he grew more agitated and raked his hand through his curls after he chucked the coat to the ground.

'It figures this wouldn't work. I'm not educated in the ways of courting, I don't know how to apologize or be gentlemanly and woo you. You're not a simpering, romantic fool, and I knew you wouldn't accept the generic groveling. But clearly your pride is so great, you will not accept any form of apology,' he growled, his frustration rising.

'Now wait just a min-' Molly tried to interrupt indignantly, but Sherlock plowed on.

'Forgive me for thinking the woman I love would appreciate the gift of learning and enlightenment rather than the cliché bouquet of flowers,' he bellowed, throwing his hands out to the sides.

'The woman you…' She breathed, trailing off in astonishment. He can't possibly mean what I think he said.

Too enraged in frustration and defeat, Sherlock missed the widening of her eyes as she gaped at him. 'Well, you will be pleased to learn, Miss Hooper, that you have succeeded in your endeavor and I shall leave you be from now on.'

He whipped around in a fury, the tails of his coat billowing behind him.

The woman he loves?! Unable to comprehend the full meaning at the moment, Molly knew she couldn't let him leave, not like this. Her heart racing, but her mouth not cooperating, she lunged across the table and pressed the emergency deadlock on the lab doors just as Sherlock pulled on the handle. He frowned at the resistance and turned around to glare at her.

Molly met his angry frown with a timid smile. Please, please, please.

Slowly, an answering grin spread across his face as realization dawned on him.

He let go of the handle and stepped toward her, uncertainly hopeful. A bubble rose in her chest and burst out her mouth in a giggle. His answering laugh shook her to her core and he rushed over to her and swept her into his arms, pressing his face into her neck and swinging her around. Squealing a bit in surprise, Molly found herself laughing into the collar of his thick coat, the thrill of being in his strong arms overloading her senses, making her feel a bit lightheaded.

Setting her down, Sherlock brushed a piece of hair that had escaped her bun behind her ear. 'Hello.'

'Hi,' she replied, biting her lip to hold back her smile. They wouldn't have a normal relationship, not with her love of morbidity and his disdain for average humans. Not to mention, they'd already been on several dates; only this time, with no lies between them, maybe they wouldn't stop at 3.

And from the way his beautiful eyes softened as his gaze flitted over her face and the stutter of her heart at the warm press of his lips against hers, she knew no amount of dates would be sufficient.