Sherlock ruins Molly's date and after a hundred and twenty years of living in a cat's body, he finally becomes a man again.

When Sherlock heard the knock at the door, the cat hopped off the sofa. The man of the hour has finally arrived, he thought to himself with menacing glee. Molly called "Coming!" and went to answer it, opening the door and greeting her date. Upon seeing the man's face, Sherlock scowled.

Molly had gotten a date with his own lookalike! And not even an attractive lookalike either - although, in Sherlock's opinion, there was no one who could accurately resemble him unless they used a plaster mold of his own face and he wasn't in a human body at present, so that would be impossible. The black cat bristled with indignation, but he wasn't angry with Molly. She didn't know any better. The poor woman had never seen Sherlock's human face and it's not like she did this on purpose to spite him, so she wasn't to blame.

But this Tom bastard. He was the problem that needed to be taken care of. If Sherlock were being fair, he would have felt bad for what he was about to do, but the fact of the matter was, Tom had just come into Sherlock's territory with the intent of wining, dining and perhaps even sleeping with Molly. That was unacceptable, so fairness was out the window.

When Molly went to fetch get her coat and purse from the sofa, Sherlock extended his claws and promptly scratched the bottom of Tom's pants. He did a pretty good job of it and enjoyed the sound of torn cloth before the man started yelping and jumping away from him like red hot coals had been heaped on his feet.

"What the hell?!" Cried the awful clone.

"What's wrong?" Molly hurried over and she narrowed her eyes at Sherlock when she saw the marks of cat claws trailing down Tom's neatly pressed trousers. "Sherlock! What did you do?!" She reached down to snatch him up, but he dodged her hands and dug his claws into Tom's now-exposed ankles.

"Ow! Damn! Is your cat crazy?!" Tom yelled and with a painful moan, he hobbled towards the front door.

Molly stopped chasing Sherlock when she realised that her date was about to depart. "No, Tom. Wait, please. This is just a big misunderstanding." Her voice came out in a shaky, embarrassed laugh as she wrung her hands. "Sh-Sherlock was just frightened of you, that's all."

"Frightened? Are you kidding? Frightened pets don't dig their claws into strangers because they're scared! And if you ask me, any woman whose cat is defensive to the point of violence is probably marking his territory! You two deserve each other!"

The implication of Tom's words made any further pleas die on Molly's lips. She stood silent as Tom sent one last glare at her cat and left the flat, slamming the door shut.

Sherlock was angry hearing Tom's parting words and sorely wished that he'd bit the man's calf, too, but that didn't matter now. His mission was accomplished. Molly's date was successfully stopped before it even began. The cat turned to look at his owner, beaming with pride, but she was not amused.

Tears rolled down Molly's cheeks as she shouted at him, "Are you happy?! You drove him away!"

Sherlock took a few steps backward, confused by her outburst.

"Do you want me to be alone for the rest of my life?! Do you think I want to be a crazy lady who has a cat as her only company because she's too strange for anyone to be with? Why would you do something like that, Sherlock? Why?!"

"Because I love you!"

Molly gasped. Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hand. No. She just imagined that, right? There was no possible way that Sherlock actually spoke. Animals couldn't speak. Everyone knew that.

Her cat stepped forward, looking just as shocked as she was, but those blue-green eyes of his were more dazzling and more familiar than ever before. Unbelievably, his lips moved again, exactly like a human's.

"Yes. You did hear me, Molly, and this isn't a dream or a hallucination. I love you and I'm not going to share you with a poor replica of myself."

That voice. That baritone voice. It was the same one from the man in her dreams, the man from a life long forgotten. Molly's legs trembled and she stared down at her cat in shock. Sherlock and Holmes. Sherlock Holmes. A man in her dreams and a cat in her life now, but they were the one and the same. They always had been.

At the same time, Sherlock realised that Dr. Mortimer Hooper, the infuriating pathologist from Barts that he'd never got along with all those years ago had been Molly, but she was disguised as a man. And he never found out the truth. As her memory resurfaced, so did his and they both saw the past together.

It was a cold night in London and she was riding in a hansom cab in her male disguise as Dr. Mortimer Hooper. Molly and Sherlock could sense the intent Molly's past self had to confront the consulting detective and tell him of her feelings for him. Yet, in an instant, those feelings became muddled and Molly found herself confused and disoriented. She'd forgotten why she had been in the cab.

The strange, tingling sensation that she felt in her body back then, but hadn't understood, she also felt it now. Somehow, she knew it was magic. As much as she used to believe that magic only existed in fairy tales, this was real. Sherlock was a cat, her cat and he just professed his love for her. And she realised...

"I love you."

The words came out breathlessly and Sherlock's heart slammed against his chest at this revelation. He trembled, "Do you mean it, Molly?"

She looked down at her cat with pure love shining in her eyes. "Yes. I've always loved you, Sherlock. And I always will."

Once those words left her mouth, a startling bright light enveloped Sherlock's cat form and lifted him into the air. He meowed in surprise and Molly gasped, unable to turn her eyes away from what was happening in front of her.

Sherlock's body began to move round by some unseen force and his tiny paws stretched and stretched until they became hands and feet, his tail shrank until it disappeared and a backside grew in place of it. His torso expanded, the fur on his body turning into smooth, pale skin and the collar around his neck popped free, shooting off across the room. The triangle cat ears on top of his head shifted and turned into human ones, the whiskers receded and his pink nose changed colour and shape. Sherlock's entire face morphed into a man's and those brilliant eyes opened, revealing the cerulean and emerald orbs Molly had been fascinated by from the moment she saw him.

The transformation was now complete and the light that shone in the entire flat dimmed away until Sherlock stood on his own two feet in front of her. He was not wearing clothes, of course, but Molly was too amazed to notice right away.

She dared to step closer and touched his shoulder tentatively. "Sherlock..." she replied as tears rolled down her skin. "I-it's you."

"Yes, Molly. It's me."

That beautiful baritone voice rolled over her again like a spring rain. Sherlock smoothed his palm over her cheek and she closed her eyes, leaning into the touch.

They both stood in place without moving as they slowly moved their arms around each other. After so many years, they'd come full circle. Sherlock and Molly finally declared their love and now, the curse was over.