A/N: So, I'm just going out of my mind waiting for HLV tomorrow, so I thought I'd churn out another chapter. It's short and it's a filler, but I AM going somewhere with this. Several years ago, I thought it would be interesting if Molly was in fact a sleeper MI6 agent (similar to Dana Scully in that she also has a medical degree)… I don't know, I just feel like there's more to her, given we don't know anything about her past, where she lives, and we know she can stab Meat Dagger Man without even looking, and according to John's blog she disappeared for several months one time without even contacting them, so it's possible she has a whole other plethora of "certain" skills we don't know about, and that a lot of her quietness is just a ruse. I'm tempted to write something like this after this story's completed. Anyhoo, thank you kindly for subscribing! I hope you're all enjoying this. On to the story. Can't wait for tomorrow.

"Ew! Is that cigarette smoke on your brea-"

"Sorry-"

"D-you… have you been smoking?"

Sherlock gently enclosed his hands over hers and pulled them off his chest, running his thumbs over her fingers as he kissed just below her knuckles and gazed into her eyes.

"My apologies, I should warned you. I'll have fresh breath next time."

"No, it's-it's fine," Molly laughed nervously, touching the back of her neck as a light scarlet glow flushed her face and neck. "Sorry to just fly at you like that."

He said nothing, merely watching her. He himself had been too lost in the moment, but he didn't regret her flying at him at all. He nodded his head towards his soil samples, smiling at her. "I've a case."

"Yes, of course," she said, snapping to action and getting busy beside him.

Sherlock carefully slid a gravelly-type residual substance from a sandwich bag into a vial, pouring formalin fluid into it to shake it into fragments. "But once I'm free I'd like to take you to that fish and chips shop I was on about," he muttered, not looking at her. He felt Molly's eyes on him.

"I'd like that," she said softly, and they worked in silence for a while. "Hmm. This looks slightly like it might have traces of blood. We may need to put it through a hemoglobin test. So, what is it we're looking for, exactly? Where did these sampled come from?" she asked while they waited for a soil fragment to liquefy.

He turned to her. "From someone's shoe. I'm looking to see where he-they have been," Idiot, he chided himself. "They, they. I said they, I meant they. Of course I meant they."

Molly scrunched up her petite nose. "They, who? Who's 'they'?"

Well, it was actually Tom; Sherlock had been following the man's movements as much as he could for the last few months. He knew the exact day when Molly'd broken it off, as he had read the letter while drinking some of Tom's God-awful tea after breaking into Tom's flat, which was now mysteriously emptied and vacated, but she didn't seem to know any of that, and he wasn't about to tell her about Tom's disappearance, nor what he planned to do when he caught up with the bastard.

Instead, he evaded. "That," he said brightly, shaking the liquefied vial and holding it up to the light, "Is an excellent question."

"Dr. Hooper?" Molly and Sherlock looked up, and the young ginger intern was standing timidly by the lab entrance, twisting her hands together, obviously smitten and nervous around him.

Molly had her hands full of samples, and she blew a wisp of stray hair out of her eyes. "Just Molly again. Can I help you, Anna?"

"Yeah, sorry. We're having a problem with the skin fragment you want sent to the W.H.O. labs in Cornwall. The fixative doesn't appear to be strong enough. Could you come help?"

"Of course."

Sherlock took one of the petri dishes from her hands and nodded to her as she peeled and binned her gloves and excused herself as she followed Anna, and he continued to search through the evidence to find what 'Tom' of the Meat Dagger theorem had been up to, meanwhile thinking of Molly.

She was something of an anomaly to him. Whereas most female physicians expected, even demanded to be addressed by the title they'd so arduously worked for, Molly underplayed everything, not having a giant ego or lecturing her intern condescendingly. She was simply interested in knowledge and science, minus the prestige, and that absolutely fascinated him about her. It always had. She didn't need to wave her M.D. in everyone's face or constantly try to prove that she was intellectually superior; she just was, but the infuriating thing was that she was nice about it. That's what made her genuine, and also better than him in so many ways. He cared deeply for her, but was also irrationally jealous.

Sherlock had long ago accepted the fact that he was unreservedly selfish and had a possessive streak that came with the whole high-functioning sociopath package. So he had no qualms at John's wedding in targeting Tom, and showing Molly who the Best Man really was. And what did it take, only ten twenty seconds for Molly to see what a clown Tom was? The hand movements were an especially great touch. He couldn't have made Tom look more like an idiot if he'd been puppeteering the man's actions himself. Forgetting for just a moment his sneaking suspicion that Tom was, in fact, Sebastian Moran, the real mystery was in this fierce little woman who seemed to accept him unreservedly.

Molly was a brilliant woman; she needed an equally brilliant companion who could engage her not only in physical sex, but in everything else on the same intellectual level. If the annoyed and irritated looks she gave during Tom's deductions were anything to go on, meat dagger conversations over Sunday roast were not in Molly's future, even if the louse hadn't 'been more physically aggressive than necessary', as she'd written in the goodbye note. Sherlock gripped the vial a little harder, willing himself to calm down. He would have his revenge and make the man pay.

It used to annoy him that Molly was so timorous around him, but having had a lot of time to think of her during his captivity and torture, he now found it endearing and flattering that she was initially daunted by him. He didn't deserve her affections, and he knew it.

Pathologically speaking, Molly could probably deduce more from the state of a body than he could, and that was something John could attempt to do, but never quite achieve, despite all his cleverness.

It mildly surprised Sherlock that John had not yet realized there was something going on between him and Molly, however indiscernible. The man seemed to have no clue of Sherlock's jealousy and hatred towards Tom, either; seemingly indifferent to the private war ensuing. For one so soldierly seasoned and medically accomplished, John could be remarkably thick about some things, especially considering he was romantically-inclined.

John and Mary were still on their Sex Holiday, and in his loneliness he had become obsessed with revealing Tom's true identity. Because really, who dressed up, practically in cosplay as a very well-known detective, when his fiancé (ex-fiance, he happily reminded himself) was very good friends with him? There was something there, and Tom had a very intense stare each time they locked eyes.

He needed to talk to Molly and be honest in letting her know he could never have a normal relationship with anybody… but he suspected in a foreboding but gradually accepting way that she would take what she could get, in whatever capacity they could achieve together.

It was enough for him.