Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Red Roses

Molly opens the swinging door from the supply room into the laboratory with her hip, her arms being full of a clipboard, a bottle of xylene, and a clean lab coat for tomorrow, and there it is: the twinge. She closes her eyes for three or four seconds, then strides briskly into the lab anyway. It’s been years now. Surely she should be used to it by now.

Sherlock is still bent over a microscope, his long fingers deftly changing slides without looking up, and it’s the very sight of him there that brings it on: the brief flutter, the frisson of nerves, the urge to open her mouth and let inane chatter spill out.

“Getting anywhere?” she asks, her tone too bright. As always. She goes to the cupboard to put the xylene away and sets out the lab coat over the back of her desk chair.

He makes a vague sound of negation without looking up. “Still trying to narrow down the soil’s origin. The mixture on the bottom of the victim’s shoe was contaminated when he went into the Thames.”

He doesn’t always elaborate this way. Sometimes a sound is as much as she gets. Sometimes it’s nothing at all. He’s got better over the years, though. And Molly knows the reason for his improvement perfectly well, though they’ve never discussed it directly. She squares her shoulders and opens her mouth, about to speak, but he actually catches it and looks up before she can.

“Oh,” Sherlock says, blinking, his pupils still contracted from the bright light of the microscope. “You’re on your way. Sorry. I’ll just put this away.”

“It’s no rush,” Molly says quickly. “Only I’ve got to lock up…” She knows she shouldn’t still be apologising after all these years; it’s she who’s doing him the favour by letting him work here, after all. She does wonder why he’s here, though. He’s got a perfectly good 1000x biological microscope at Baker Street. She watches him hastily putting away his slides and petri dishes, dutifully stowing it all in the cupboard and mini fridge she’s allotted for his use. “I wondered what you were doing in here today,” she ventures. “I mean, if all you’re doing is testing soil samples… had a bit of a domestic with John or something?”

His back stiffens a little. “No,” he says after a moment, not facing her. “Nothing of the sort.”

“Has he kicked you out of the kitchen?” Molly tries, with a bit of a laugh. “No contaminated soil samples on the table, something along those lines?”

“Not at all,” Sherlock says, still occupying himself with not looking at her. He fidgets with the lock mechanism on the cupboard door, not going for his coat.

Molly doesn’t reach for hers, either. “Then what is it?” she asks, gently, as though trying not to scare off a wild animal. It’s such an odd mix, this: trying to coax confessions out of someone for whom she’s had feelings for literal years, about his own feelings for someone else entirely. She’s always been diffident about it, though. Sometimes he talks around the edges of it, always vague. Never coming out and saying what she already knows, possibly out of a belated sense of tact given her own feelings, or possibly because he’s not entirely aware of it, himself. He’ll complain about John being away for Christmas with his sister, or about John’s long hours at the clinic. That he wasn’t available for a midday crime Greg Lestrade called them to, or that he’s gone on a date. The last, at least, hasn’t happened in years. Sherlock used to complain vociferously about John’s dates or girlfriends, when they made it that far, reducing them to witless microbes with a few violent lashings of sarcasm. “Janice,” he would spit, as though the very name offended him. “I don’t know what John wants to date a sales clerk for; it’s hardly as though he’s in the market to buy women’s clothing himself, so what possible advantage could there be to dating someone like that?” Molly would tactfully point out that Janice might be pretty or nice or both and that this might prove to be of interest to John, which would only make Sherlock all the more scornful and dismissive.

She’d wondered even back then if he had any clue. The closest she’d ever got to calling him on it was the day she’d helped him plan his own feigned death. “You look sad when he’s not looking,” she’d said, and he hadn’t denied it. She thinks he’s almost said it a few times now, because somewhere in there, he must have realised. When he’d handed her his cut-out of the Vitruvian Man, John’s head glued incongruously to it, she’d had to bite her tongue to keep from commenting. She’d wondered if it was Mary specifically that made him realise. He’s never said, but on the second of January he’d come into the lab and sat down on one of the stools, not setting out samples or sending her off to fetch whatever he needed for this particular evidence, just sitting there, still wearing his coat, his shoulders slumped. He’d had the heel of one shoe hooked onto the rung of the stool, the other foot flat on the floor, hands in his pockets, staring unseeingly at the counter. She’d asked, hesitant, and he’d told her briefly about Magnussen, to her shock, then about the aborted trip to Serbia, the falsified Moriarty broadcast. And finally, John’s return to Mary’s flat.

She’d known John had been living at Baker Street again, looking after him as he recovered from his shot. She hadn’t known it was Mary who’d shot him until that day, which was a considerably greater shock, and so she’d reacted with indignation at the news that John had gone back to Mary. He’d absorbed it without speaking, letting her go on and on, and only then had she realised that he was as depressed as she’d ever seen him. It was as close as he’d ever come to telling her directly.

But the marriage is over, has been for – what, five months now? It turned out that Mary wasn’t pregnant at all, and when John found out, things had ended pretty sharp-ish and he’s been back at Baker Street since about the end of January. It’s May now, so what’s all this? Has John started dating someone again? Molly’s been privately dreading this on Sherlock’s behalf, but John’s never been one to stay single this long. She rather thought he’d take a little break to let the dust settle from his divorce, but it’s just about that time again, she thinks. She watches Sherlock carefully and waits, trying not to wince in advance.

But he doesn’t say anything about a girlfriend or a date. Instead, Sherlock just sighs. “I don’t know,” he says moodily, which doesn’t tell her anything.

Molly hesitates. “Are you in a rush to go?” she asks. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Sherlock glances over at her, then actually half-smiles. “You would make a rotten interrogator,” he says, but he says it nicely enough. “Trying to get me to talk, are you?”

Molly shrugs self-consciously. “Just wondered if you might like an ear,” she says. “No need, of course… but sometimes it helps?”

Sherlock pauses. “I don’t need a coffee, but thank you,” he says. He picks up his coat but doesn’t put it on. “I suppose I’m just…” He trails off, then tries, “a bit stuck, I suppose. Not with the evidence. I’ll solve that in the morning. I don’t know how to move forward with something.”

Molly swallows. She knows this very well, but somehow, hearing it said aloud at last will still feel like a bit of a dagger. “You mean with John,” she says, very evenly.

Their eyes meet across the lab. She waits for him to deny it, but he doesn’t. His directness is one of the things she’s always liked the best about him. “Yes,” Sherlock says, briefly but honestly.

Molly looks away and takes a deep breath. “Right,” she says, her heart beating too quickly.

“Molly – ” He sounds concerned, and she cuts him off.

“I’ve always known, you know,” she says quickly, her heart still in her throat, not looking at him. “I’ve known since before you went away. It’s not a surprise.”

“No,” Sherlock agrees. “I rather assumed you did know. But – I imagine it isn’t… easy, nonetheless.”

This is more astute of him than she’d realised he could be. “No,” Molly admits. “But I’m rooting for you with – with all that, anyway, you know. I want you to be happy.”

She manages to look at him as she says this and he holds her gaze. “Molly, I’m gay,” Sherlock says, quietly but firmly. “I could never be – any of what you would need. And furthermore, I’m not what you really want.”

Molly allows herself a tight smile. “I think the jury’s pretty sure about that one, actually,” she says, trying to keep it light.

“No, I mean that,” Sherlock insists. “What you want is right in front of you, under your very nose. It has been for ages. If you decided you wanted it, you’d only need to reach out and take it.”

Molly frowns at him. “What on earth are you talking about? Who are you talking about?”

Sherlock frowns back in some perplexity. “It’s completely obvious,” he says, as though she’s just dropped twenty points in his estimation of her intelligence quotient. “What you’re looking for is someone strong – far stronger than I am. Someone steady, reliable, loyal. Someone with a sense of justice, hence your interest in finding someone who solves crimes for a living. Someone with a strong moral principle, which you would be the first person to say is lacking in me. I can’t think why you haven’t pursued this, given… what you’ve already deduced about what it is that I want.”

Molly is still frowning. “And there are – dozens of this ideal man just floating around out there, are there?”

Sherlock sighs. “You’d only need the one, I should think. Never mind. Some things just have to be realised in their own time, I suppose.”

“Which brings us back to you and John,” Molly says, shifting the subject back to where they started. “Can’t you just – talk to him?”

“And say what?” Sherlock asks pointedly. “It’s not as though he’s ever given any indication that such an inquiry would be welcome. You know how he always tells everyone he’s not gay.”

“Right,” Molly concedes. “But he went back to you…”

“Where else was he going to go?” Sherlock shakes his head, still visibly agitated. “Besides, he’s my best friend. Of course he came back to Baker Street. That was always – understood.”

Molly blinks and absorbs this. She knows that Sherlock and John are close – close enough that she was always jealous of it, and never understood it. If they’re not, then – how was John always so much closer than she could ever get? How could he have got that close and not see what it could be, if he chose it? Sherlock has more or less let on that he’s never been in that sort of relationship. She doesn’t know how he functions, that way, but this seems to be a rather particular enigma. Why wouldn’t John go for it, if he’s always been so enviably close to Sherlock in the first place? In her meaner, pettier moments, she’s had cause to think that John’s wanted to keep Sherlock permanently on the hook for him, doesn’t want anyone else to date him or be with him that way, yet still goes off and has his own relationships. She’s wondered why Sherlock didn’t resent it more. After Mary, he’d let slip a few viciously jubilant jabs on the subject of Mary that put her more in the picture about how much he had resented her, but still… “And you’re sure he’s not – not interested?” Molly asks. “He hasn’t given any sort of indication at all?”

Sherlock’s shoulders twitch. “How am I supposed to know?” he demands. “He’s – the same as he ever was. With me, I mean.”

“Right,” Molly says, fully able to sympathise with this; she finds John impossible to read, too. He’s so proprietary with Sherlock, yet doesn’t seem to want to lay full claim to him. She feels a surge of resentment toward John, who could so easily reach out and take what she’s wanted for so long, no matter what Sherlock says. She knows what she feels, impossible though it may be. Typical, that she’d fall for someone so completely unattainable. She’s known for ages that it was never going to happen. But if John feels as strongly as he seems to, then she doesn’t understand. Sherlock is far too attractive for his own good. The way he moves is full of leonine grace that she almost envies. She always seems to feel shorter around him, a dull little mouse compared to the glory of his blazing mind and rather beautiful form, all swirling coat and sharply-cut suits, expensive shoes making their impatient way down the tiled corridors of the hospital. Why wouldn’t John take that if he wanted it in any way at all? She clears her throat. “Are you in love with him?” she asks, and it comes out less hesitantly than she thought it might. It’s quiet, but the room is very still.

Sherlock purses his lips and looks down at his hands where they’re resting on the counter, long fingers interlocked. “Yes,” he says, just as quietly.

Molly nods. Swallows, nods again, and says, very steadily, “Then you should find a way to tell him.”

“And risk losing his friendship?” Sherlock lifts his eyes to meet hers, and they’re very blue and somehow rather young. “You know what a risk that would be. And I would do anything to keep that from happening. Anything to keep him from leaving again.”

Molly feels trapped. She sees the truth of this perfectly. “I see,” she says helplessly. “Then I don’t know, Sherlock, I’m sorry.”

“That’s just it,” Sherlock says gloomily. “Neither do I.”

“Would it be so bad?” she asks, glancing across at him. “Just being friends for the rest of your lives?” It slips out before she’s thought it through and she winces internally, hoping it didn’t sound too much as though this would be her own, preferred option.

Sherlock is silent for a long moment, his eyes on his hands again. When he speaks, his eyes remain lowered. “If he marries again… but that’s not even the point. No. Even now, just having it the way it is – sometimes I feel as though I’m dying of thirst. I tell myself to be content, to just be glad that he came home again, but that’s the truth, Molly. I feel as though I’ll die without it. But what can be done without the risk?”

“I don’t know,” Molly says, feeling all the more hopeless, and wishing she had something better to say.

Sherlock shakes his head. “Neither do I,” he says again. He picks up his coat and puts it on now. “Sorry to keep you.”

“I asked,” she reminds him, and puts her own coat on. “Perhaps something will shift. One never knows.” He makes no response to this, and she picks up her purse. “Come on, I’ll walk out with you,” she says.

***

At home, she putters about her small kitchen and sets about making something to eat. It’s an old standard: vegetable soup from a can, with a bit of cheddar grated into it to make it more interesting, toast on the side. She can cook, but what’s the point when it’s just for yourself? Sometimes people throw dinner parties and invite her to bring something nice and she can manage that just fine. It just doesn’t seem worth going to all the bother, when she’s rarely at home and not all that fussed about what she eats. It would be nice, she thinks. Having someone to share meals with. It can get lonely, eating alone. No matter how fanciful her imagination, though, she could never picture sitting down across the table from Sherlock, the two of them cosily chatting about their respective days. Him complimenting her cooking, maybe. Or doing the cooking? Them cooking together? Molly shakes her head inwardly; honestly it’s impossible to imagine Sherlock in any sort of domestic situation like that. And yet, he’s in one. It must happen. Somehow it makes more sense to imagine it at Baker Street, with John being his usual competent self and getting dinner together, or even the two of them each doing their bit. That fits, somehow. But – Molly looks around at her own kitchen, the walls a sunny yellow, Toby purring from his basket in the corner, the potted plants trailing bits of green here and there. Sherlock would feel like an alien in here. A discordant note. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with him; he just wouldn’t fit here. She knows that. And she wouldn’t fit at Baker Street, either.

It would be nice to have someone to look after, she thinks privately. She loves coming home to Toby’s ecstatic purring around her ankles, giving him his dinner. How much nicer would it be, modern woman though she is, to have an actual person to take care of and being taken care of by, to come home and find someone waiting, or have him come home just after her, tired from his day but glad to see her, grateful to be told to sit down and take the weight off while she gets him a drink. They could cook together, or go out now and then. Sharing all of it, the daily chat about how their days went, noting that they’re out of this or that, making plans to go round to the shops on the weekend. Watching the telly in easy, comfortable familiarity on the sofa, this mysterious him on one side, Toby curled up on her right. Getting ready for bed together, him handsome in his dressing gown, shaving in the mirror while she brushes her teeth. And the rest of it, too. Lying in the crook of his arm and knowing that she belongs to him and he to her. She could never imagine any of this with Sherlock. Not one bit of it. He’s got so much better, doesn’t treat her like furniture anymore, has a genuine appreciation for her mind and talents, and her friendship, too. He does value her. But he’s right: he said gay, but his different-ness extends far beyond a simple question of orientation. Sherlock is unique, and he simply wouldn’t fit into her cookie-cutter dream of sharing a life with someone.

The problem is that she’s known this for ages, yet it doesn’t stop the twinge from happening every time she sees him. It’s a small comfort that if a genius like him can’t control his own heart with his mind, then how could she ever be expected to? It would be nice to move on, though. Really move on, for real this time. For good. She’s not sure what she ever even hoped for, before she wised up a little. She can’t even imagine him getting passionate about someone, yet he’s clearly moping about John. He admitted being in love with him. Molly stops eating her soup for a moment, remembering this, her spoon resting on the side of the bowl in her listless hand. He must want – some part of that, then. She actually can imagine it if she tries: him kissing John. It’s not that hard, actually; they’re always together, faces angling instinctively toward the other’s, communicating silently, then coming out with a joint response to this or that. Their height difference is perfect for forming a romantic silhouette, in fact. They fit: Sherlock, tall and lean, with short, sturdy John, who radiates power in his compact way, power and competence and all-around reliability. She can see what Sherlock sees in him, though Sherlock himself is far more her type.

She sighs and puts some more cheese in her soup. It feels like a small heaviness, knowing for certain that he’s in love with John. But it isn’t crushing her the way it might have done even a year ago. That’s something, at least.

***

Sherlock solves the case early the next morning and sets off for the Yard, his entire manner slightly distant and aloof. He smiles at her a bit peremptorily on his way out, though, so Molly doesn’t think he’s necessarily regretting having spilled his secret the night before. Not that it was ever a secret per se; she knows she probably barely registers as a threat to him in terms of his confidences. After all, he trusted her with the secret of his very life already. He probably also trusts in the strength of her feelings for him to not give him away to John, and he would be right there. She would never betray him like that.

A couple of weeks go by. Molly moves through the routine of her days in quiet solitude for the most part, not that she’s always alone or anything like that. She meets a friend (Julie, from uni days) for lunch one day, has coffee with a former colleague another day. She helps Aunt Maeve with her shopping one day. Maeve is getting old but won’t admit that she should probably move into an assisted-living residence or something, but will let Molly help her lug her groceries home from the shops, at least. She spends the afternoon, a Sunday, and makes tea and surreptitiously tidies up the kitchen and throws away the spoiled food. Maeve’s kids are around but very busy, and Molly makes a mental note to call them and set up a family meeting to discuss all this. She’ll chip in, of course, if money is an issue. That’s what you do for family.

Mum is still fine, thanks be. She visits about once a month, though Mum calls for a chat more often than that. She’s finally stopped asking about Sherlock, at least. She’s disappointed that it didn’t work out with Tom, but that’s hardly Molly’s fault. She couldn’t have married a man who has to be right even when he’s wrong and hangs the toilet roll the wrong way on top of it. Plus, Toby never really warmed to him. It was the final nail in the coffin.

She’s out running errands after work on a Friday afternoon in the rain, head down against the wind when she quite literally runs into someone – and not just anyone, but John Watson, of all people. She’s left her umbrella at home, so there’s nothing to shield her from running into him full tilt. “Oh!” Molly exclaims, as the person who turns out to be John grasps her by the arms to keep her from falling headway into a puddle. Then they recognise one another and alternate between apologies and the entire ritual of bumping unexpectedly into someone you know on the street.

“Look,” John says practically, when all this dies down, “you’re soaked. Do you want to get a cup of tea or something?” He nods toward a café two doors down. “Warm up a bit?”

“Yes, all right,” Molly agrees, and lets herself be steered toward the café. They go in and John asks what she’d like and suggests (though it’s really more of a directive) that she go and hold onto a table while he gets their teas. She agrees again and goes to claim a small table in the window, taking off her sodden coat with relief. She pulls out a compact and a comb and attempts to do something about her hair, though it’s not much use. No matter, it’s only John anyway. She’s never actually been on her own with him before and feels a little nervous. He’s more authoritative than she realised; she always sees him in contrast to Sherlock, whose personality is so strong that perhaps it makes John’s seem milder in comparison. Or maybe John just holds back when they’re in groups of people, lets Sherlock do his thing. It’s oddly charismatic, a side of him she hasn’t seen before. Her understanding for Sherlock’s interest in him (though it’s much more than that, of course) deepens a little.

John comes back with their teas a few minutes later. “There you are,” he says briskly, sitting down across from her. “Your hair is dripping wet. Haven’t you got an umbrella?”

He’s being brisk and doctor-ish and Molly feels rather foolish. “Of course, but I forgot it at home. I didn’t check the weather. Silly of me. I didn’t know it was supposed to rain.”

John accepts this with a nod and stirs a bit of milk into his tea. No sugar, Molly notices, and thinks of the military and how very disciplined John must be. “How are you?” he asks, still a bit brisk.

They really only have one thing in common, Molly thinks, and wonders privately why John wanted to have tea with her. Perhaps he just felt sorry for her, idiot that she is, wandering around in the rain with no umbrella or even a hat. Perhaps he always feels sorry for her, idiot that she is, wanting something that she’ll never have. A small surge of the old resentment makes itself known. “I’m fine,” she says, trying not to let it come out sounding prickly or defensive. “I’m doing well.” She puts sugar and milk into her tea and decides she doesn’t care if John thinks her a morally degenerate human being for taking sugar. Then she remembers how Sherlock takes his tea and coffee and thinks dryly that John would have no business judging her on her one measly packet of sugar, in that case! She picks up her cup and sips, though it’s still very hot, and asks, “What about you? Shouldn’t you be getting home?” She asks the question innocently, but watches John’s face from beneath her eyelashes.

He shifts immediately, his eyebrows frowning together. “I don’t have a curfew,” he says shortly.

“No, of course, but – ” Molly flounders momentarily. “I just thought – you know, maybe Sherlock was expecting you.”

John looks down at the table and sighs, and this is not encouraging. “He might be,” he acknowledges. “I don’t know.”

Molly decides to push a little. “Don’t you two – I don’t know, text each other?” She hears her laugh, awkward and unsteady, and grimaces internally. “I mean, I haven’t had a flatmate since uni, but I don’t know how the two of you work…” She trails off, and takes another sip of tea to cover her sudden nervousness.

John doesn’t, turning his paper cup in his hands instead, brow still furrowed. “I don’t think I know how the two of us work, either,” he says, not looking at her. He sighs again.

It’s Molly’s turn to frown. John’s obvious discomfort with the topic makes her feel less uneasy in turn. “John…” She leans forward over the small table a bit. “Can I ask…? Is everything all right between the two of you?” When he doesn’t answer, she persists. “Are you fighting or something?”

“No,” John says at once. “Nothing like that.” He picks up his cup now and sips, touches the corner of his mouth, and sets the cup down again. “I don’t even know how to put it into words, now that you’re asking.”

Molly’s gut twists a little at this. “But there is something wrong,” she says, to confirm.

“I don’t even know how to put it,” John says again. He looks out the window at the people passing by in the rain, umbrellas being turned inside-out in the wind. It’s a nasty evening for May. “Communication problems, I guess you could say. I mean, that’s not even half of it, but I don’t know what else to say.”

“Communication – about what?” Molly asks. She’s curious and she’s never had a chance to talk about any of this with John before.

“Well… us,” John says, speaking to his tea. “Sherlock and I. We’ve never really had a real conversation about… certain things… since we first met. And now it’s just too late and there’s so much that’s never been said and other things that have happened that never got talked about and now it’s all been left too long and I wouldn’t even know how to start unravelling it all.” He drags his eyes up to Molly’s. “That probably doesn’t even make any sense,” he says.

His very terseness and the set of his mouth tell her a great deal about how unhappy he is about this, if nothing else. Molly bites her lip, then says, “I think it makes more sense than you’re realising, actually. Is this about… the nature of your friendship?”

She puts it delicately, wanting to be clear but not to pry, and John sighs again, and nods but doesn’t say anything.

“Were you wanting it to be something more?” Molly probes, nearly holding her breath.

John links his fingers together around his still-full cup of tea and nods again. “I always have, if you want to know,” he says, not looking her in the eye. “I just never knew how to… talk about it with him. How to even bring it up. He would never talk about his feelings about anything else, so why would this have been any different? And like I said, I think that there have been things that should have been talked about, or talked about in a deeper way, and it just never happened and now I think it’s too late. There might have been windows here and there, if I’d known what to say, and if he’d been receptive to it. But I can’t even be certain that there were windows, that there ever was a chance for it.”

Molly takes another sip of her tea. “I don’t understand,” she says, and goes for directness. “You’re so good with women, with flirting and all that. Couldn’t you have just – ?”

John demurs, shaking his head. “Women were always different. It was – easy, almost. I even had a particular dating routine I followed. What happened on each date, et cetera. For the first date, I always asked them out for dinner and gave them a single red rose. Call me what you like, but I’ve always thought that red roses are the most romantic flowers. It seemed like a classic gesture. The second date was usually an activity of some sort, the third maybe a weekend out of the city. Think what you like of it, but it worked for me. But Sherlock – ” John sits back and runs the fingers of his left hand through his hair, blowing out his breath. “God even knows if he feels things that way. I don’t think there’s ever been anyone in his life like that. I don’t think he’s ever wanted that. And the fact that he’s a bloke aside, it’s Sherlock. You know as well as I do that he’s – unique.”

“You could say that,” Molly says, sympathetic in spite of the resentment. Her feelings are in a whirlwind, mixed and unpredictable. Is John actually saying that he’s in love with Sherlock? She decides to just ask. “Are you in love with him?”

John looks up, directly into her eyes. “I feel like a bit of a heel, saying it to you of all people,” he says, uncharacteristically blunt, “but – I am, yeah. I have been almost since the beginning. And now, with Mary out of my life again, it seems like it should have just – happened, if it was going to happen, but it didn’t, and I’m too much of a coward to risk our friendship by bringing it up now, out of the blue. I feel like that particular window has passed us by, too. There are times when I almost really do think it could have happened, but the fact is that it never did, and now I think it never will. It’s just hard to accept, I guess. So I suppose I’ve been avoiding him a bit lately.”

Molly’s first feeling is one of compassion for Sherlock, who must be agonising over John’s very avoidance. She understands, though. That fear of saying the wrong thing and damaging something irrevocably. And ever since John thought Sherlock died… it must have been like a miracle for him, finding out that Sherlock was still alive. Of course he was angry; anyone would have been. She’d tried to warn Sherlock, who had clearly already known and accepted the fact, though he hadn’t looked happy about it. (What else can I do? he’d asked rhetorically). But then John had gone ahead and married Mary. She picks up her tea and reminds herself that her loyalties are firmly aligned with Sherlock here. “Why did you marry Mary, then?” she asks, a bit coolly. John looks up at her, startled, and she gives the knife a quarter-turn. “I mean, it must have been such a joy for you, getting him back after you thought he’d died. If you felt so strongly about him, why did you marry Mary, anyway?”

John swallows hard, his gaze dropping back to his tea. “I suppose you have every right to ask me that,” he says under his breath, though the words are quite clear. “You in particular…” He swallows again, then says, just as quietly, “I didn’t know what else to do, all right? I didn’t think Sherlock would ever – and I had just proposed to Mary. She was there for me when I was lost and broken and hopeless. I felt she deserved better. I thought she did. I didn’t know who she was then, that she was – ”

“The woman who tried to kill Sherlock a month after you married her,” Molly says, a little surprised by how frosty is comes out. John opens his mouth but she goes on before he can protest. “I know that wasn’t your fault,” she says firmly. “I know you didn’t know. I don’t hold you personally responsible for anything Mary did.”

John’s shoulders are rigid with tension, but sag forward a little now. “That’s good of you,” he says, a bit thickly. “If I could only make myself believe that, too... It was a mistake. Don’t think I don’t know that. Don’t think I don’t ask myself how things might have been different if I’d only had the balls to say something sooner. Instead I just let every opportunity to slip through my fingers – if they ever even existed in the first place. I don’t know. I just can’t tell.”

Molly looks at him and feels compassion. She knows, but she cannot possibly tell him. “Well,” she says slowly, “love tends to breed hope, I’ve found. Justified or otherwise. Maybe you won’t think much of my opinion on the subject, given… but I wouldn’t say that it’s hopeless, or too late. That’s all I have to say that would be of any use to you, but I mean it.”

John shakes his head, though. “It is too late. Now it’s as though we’ve both just accepted that this is how things are, and even if I seem a bit down in the mouth right now, I have to tell you frankly that this friendship is the single most important thing in my life. There is nothing I would do to risk losing it. Not when I’ve already come so close to losing him before – once because I thought he was dead, another time because I couldn’t find it in myself to forgive him, yet again because I married the wrong person, and then again when said person all but killed him. I won’t risk putting my unwanted feelings out there and unbalancing everything on top of that. Do you get what I’m saying? There is nothing I would do to risk hurting him or losing that. Nothing in the world.”

Molly feels helpless in the face of this staunch immovability. “I see,” she says, rather uselessly, and the finish their teas in silence.

John waits until she’s set her cup down, at least, before getting to his feet and reaching for his own, dripping coat. “Here,” he says, pushing his wet black umbrella across the table to her. “We’ve got a bit of a collection at Baker Street, and it’s a straight shot home on the 17 for me. Take it.”

Molly thinks of protesting, but perhaps he would be offended if she refused his chivalrous gesture. “That’s kind of you,” she says awkwardly, and pulls on her sodden coat. “I’ll bring it back next time I’m there or something.”

“Keep it,” John says dismissively. He musters a smile. “Sorry for all the whinging. Won’t happen again.”

“John…” Molly tries, but he’s already shaking his head, so she retracts it. “Thanks for the tea,” she says instead, and John gives her a brief smile and makes for the door.

Molly follows a few minutes later, shouldering her way through the door with John’s wet umbrella in hand. She pushes her way through the crowd on the pavement and puts the umbrella up without putting anyone’s eye out, heading in the direction of home at a brisk pace. Eventually the crowds thin out as she gets off the main road, her whirling thoughts finally settling enough for one clear conclusion to emerge: Sherlock and John love each other.

And she is the only one who knows.

***

At first, she refuses to think about it all.

She goes home and feeds Toby, who is meowing vociferously even as he presses himself to her ankles and trying to trip her as she opens a can of cat food. She hangs up her wet coat properly and leaves John’s umbrella in the entryway to dry off. Next she goes into the loo to brush out her hair, leaving it down so that it, too, can dry. The fridge offers nothing in the way of inspiration, so she looks in the pantry instead. In the end, she makes spaghetti with sauce from a jar and eats it while reading her email on her laptop, still staunchly not thinking about it.

After supper, Molly answers a couple of the more pressing emails, then goes to find her book and curls up in the window seat in the corner of the sitting room. The window pane is cool through her jumper but she doesn’t mind, a blanket draped over her lap. Toby jumps up and curls up at her feet, and she lets the book fall to her knees.

They love each other.

They love each other and neither one knows that the other does. She is the only person who knows. The only person who could help them.

It’s not my responsibility, Molly thinks rebelliously. If they can’t work it out for themselves, that’s their affair. Why should she be held responsible for their love life? Isn’t it enough that she already bears the fact that Sherlock will never feel that way about her, that it will never happen for her? They just need to learn to talk to each other, for Pete’s sake. It’s not her fault they can’t communicate. They live together – have done for more than two years now. How have they managed to avoid realising that they both want that? That they both feel that way? She thinks of John’s pity and feels the same stirring of resentment and rebelliousness. He would certainly value her romantic advice – which he rather ignored at the café, she recalls. She’s just Molly with the hopeless crush, bit of a loser, cat-lady-in-training. Or that’s how she imagines they must think of her. Oh sure, Sherlock values her training and her ability to help and keep her mouth shut about it, but he’s hardly going to think of her as a relationship guru. She knows what he thought of Tom. And Jim, though he was quite right about that. Her track record is weak and she knows it, and knows that they know it. So why should she help?

Only… Molly presses her cheek to the window and watches the rain falling outside. The front garden outside her small block of flats is dripping, the flowers beaten down and drooping, petals all over the earth. The wind is still fierce, lashing the branches of the trees lining the street. It looks far more like November than May. She thinks of Sherlock’s slumped shoulders, his air of dejection, and her heart gives a pang for him, regardless of the fact that it’s because he loves someone other than her.

She turns away from the window and picks up her book again, her thoughts still a tumult. Never mind. She doesn’t want to think about it.

***

Three days pass. The rain continues, though it subsides from its moody storminess and settles into a steady, frowning drizzle instead. Molly comes down to the lab one afternoon to find Sherlock there, her heart lifting and brightening within her chest despite herself when she sees him. As ever. She chastens herself and goes to her computer, hitching her chair in close and doing her best to look efficient and unmoved by his presence.

“Hello,” Sherlock says, without looking up from the microscope.

This is unusual. He usually ignores her comings and goings, and Molly’s heart starts to beat faster, which is stupid but she can’t help it. “Hello,” she says, letting the surprise colour her voice. “What are you working on over there?”

He does look up now, and before he even speaks she sees lines of fatigue under his eyes. He looks haggard. “Nothing much,” he says, shrugging. He’s wearing his coat and Molly wonders how long he’s been here. (Is he cold?) “Nothing that’s going anywhere, that is,” Sherlock clarifies, and removes the slide from the microscope.

“Is it for a case?” Molly asks.

Sherlock looks down and away, fiddling with the slide, not answering.

“Or… are you still avoiding John?” Molly asks, half-afraid that he’ll lash out at her for mentioning the subject at all. She finds herself holding her breath.

Sherlock puts the slide in a petri dish and leans forward on the counter, his head in his hands, fingers shunting into his hair and wreaking havoc on his curls. “It’s hopeless,” he says tonelessly, staring into the empty space in front of him. “He’s avoiding me. Half the time he doesn’t even come straight home from work and I don’t know where he is, what he’s doing. He doesn’t tell me where he’s been, and if he doesn’t volunteer it, I can’t ask without looking as though I’m being possessive or controlling or whatever he would think of that. I don’t know what to do.”

He sounds desolate and Molly’s fickle heart gives a pang for him. “What are you worried about?” she asks, sidestepping the real issue. “Do you think he’s seeing someone and keeping it from you?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock says blankly. “I don’t know if he would do that. I just – don’t know.” He puts his face in his hands. “God,” he says, his voice muffled. “I’m losing him, Molly.”

Guilt swims up and consumes Molly for a moment, but her heart is writhing between what it wants and her compassion for Sherlock. “You look awful,” she offers, not meaning to sound tactless, though it definitely comes out that way, on hearing it said aloud. She winces a little. “I just mean – have you been sleeping? You look a bit – tired.” (Ugh. He’s right; conversation is not her best point.)

Sherlock doesn’t comment on her feeble social skills (feeble around him, at least). Instead he shakes his head. In the fluorescent lighting in the lab, the fine lines around his eyes and mouth look more pronounced than ever. “No,” he says, the single syllable eloquent. “I can’t.”

The guilt wars with a stubborn inward cry of protest, and Molly is torn. “You should go home and get some sleep,” she says, not offering anything better in the way of advice. “I don’t think that avoiding him will help. Perhaps he’s avoiding you because he thinks you’re avoiding him.”

Sherlock considers this, visibly turning it over in his head and examining it from all angles. “Perhaps,” he says, obviously not having thought of it before. He gets off the stool and adjusts his scarf. “Yes. Perhaps I will go home.” He stashes his things in the small fridge labelled with his name, then strides to the door and stops. “Thank you,” he says, not looking back at her. “You’re a true friend, Molly.”

Molly’s heart beat picks up again, almost audibly. “I haven’t done anything,” she says, too fast, her voice uneven.

He turns his head and meets her eyes. “You care,” he says briefly. “That counts.” With that, he pushes open the double doors and leaves her alone in the lab, her thoughts and emotions in a tsunami of upheaval, heart thumping unhappily.

***

What kind of friend doesn’t bother telling her friend that the reason for his misery doesn’t need to exist? Never mind friendship: if she claims to love him, what kind of love would deliberately keep someone in the dark about what she knows? Sherlock is breaking his heart over John, when she knows very well that John is doing the same, that they’re both too stupid or too stubborn to risk their friendship and actually tell the other what he feels. She could spare them both that.

Molly is angry with herself, alternately arguing with one side of her head and then with the other, her own, unrequited feelings protesting with justifiable indignation over the very thought of her willingly giving Sherlock the key to what he actually wants and closing off any chance to winning that for herself forever. But you never had a chance, her inner voice argues. He’s gay, and moreover, he’s been in love with John since Day One. You never had a chance, so what’s the point? It hurts to look at it directly in the face this way, though, no matter how many years it’s been, how many times she’s been through this. Of course she knows that she’s never had a chance! That’s never been up for debate, not since the first six, giddy months of her initial crush, at least. She’s known for ages how he feels about John. What kind of person would keep what she knows from him?

She’s in the window seat with the blanket around her shoulders, knees drawn up to her chest, leaning miserably against the cold windowpane. Toby wants to come up, so she rearranges her legs and lets him into her lap, picking him up and burying her face in his soft fur. Hot tears overflow from her eyes and wet his fur but he doesn’t seem to care, his purr rumbling through his sleek grey frame. Maybe it’s time to give up this idiotic fantasy once and for all, and do what’s right. Maybe she can do this for him, as a final act of love on her part, and when it’s done, walk away. Not from their friendship, but perhaps it’s time to truly take herself in hand and leave this thing behind, like an unwanted parcel on a long journey. She’s carried it for long enough. And if she truly loves Sherlock, then perhaps that love is strong enough to let him go. And to give him what he wants so badly. If she loves him, surely she should be able to do this for him.

Molly feels Toby’s purr resonate into her bones. It’s therapeutic. After what feels like a very long time, her thoughts and feelings settle at last, leaving a space of calm behind. Yes, she thinks at last. I can do this for him.

She uncurls herself from the window seat and takes herself to bed, exhausted.

***

“Molly,” Sherlock says into the phone. It’s not a question.

She clears her throat. “Yes, hello,” she says. (Be firm.) She decides to get straight to the point, not that she’s afraid of changing her mind. “I wondered if you might have a moment to come by today or tomorrow. Not the lab. My flat.”

“Your flat.” Sherlock sounds a bit taken aback. “I suppose I could, yes. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, perfectly fine,” Molly assures him. “I just wanted a bit of a chat. If you don’t mind.”

He still sounds dubious but doesn’t refuse. “What time would you like me to come?”

Molly checks the kitchen clock, though she knows perfectly well what time it is. “Any time you like,” she says. “Now, if you’re not busy. I’ll put the kettle on?”

She didn’t meant the last to sound like a question, but it would seem presumptuous to assume that he’ll just jump up and come. But Sherlock agrees. “All right. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He hangs up and Molly slowly puts her phone down, her heart pounding.

She gets up and fills the kettle and plugs it in, as promised. She knows he won’t eat anything if she offers it (probably thinks she can’t cook, though she can when she puts any enthusiasm into it) and rinses out the teapot. The kitchen is already clean enough, everything tidied away. She did that in the morning, putting off the phone call. It’s Saturday, so she had all day. Tomorrow evening she and Mum are visiting Aunt Maeve and taking her dinner, but otherwise she has no other plans for the weekend.

Sherlock arrives exactly when he said, buzzing at the door downstairs. Molly lets him up to her second-storey flat, which he’s only set foot in once before despite her claims. He stayed here that awful night that he staged his own death, Molly in two minds about having helped him do it the entire time. She goes to open the door and it’s awkward on both sides. Sherlock surrenders his coat and glances around, his eyes betraying a similar level of awkwardness at being here, inside her flat.

He was only here late that night, sleeping on the sofa and gone before dawn, before she was awake. He’d thanked her again the night before and said goodbye then, warning her that he would be off early. She’d hoped to see him in the morning, setting her alarm for half past six, but by that time he was already gone. Now, he pulls out a chair at the kitchen table at her bidding and sits down. Molly pours two cups of tea at the counter and privately thinks that she was right: he doesn’t fit here. It feels strange, having him here in her private space. The lab is fine, but not in her flat. Somehow, oddly, this gives her a feeling of renewed strength about what she is about to do. She turns from the counter and sets down his tea in front of him, her own cup at the place across from Sherlock, then brings the teapot and milk over, the sugar already on the table.

She watches him put an inordinate amount of the latter into his tea, then accepts the sugar bowl from him and puts half a teaspoon in her own, adding the milk after. Sherlock stirs milk into his, then looks across at her, waiting for her to explain herself but seemingly not wanting to push. Molly clears her throat. “Thank you for coming,” she says. Her heart finds its way into her throat and tries to block the words. She swallows it down with an effort. “The reason I asked you here was to talk about John.”

Sherlock puts the spoon down, an alertness coming into his bearing like prey becoming aware of a predator. “What about John?” he asks, his voice strained.

She meant to come around to it naturally, to the best of her ability to do so, but he looks so – his face is pulling at her heartstrings, open in mute misery. Is he afraid she’s about to tell him that she’s just started dating John or something? “Sherlock – he loves you,” she blurts out. His mouth opens, wary, about to override this, but she presses on before he can. “No, he does,” she insists. “He told me. The other day. It was raining, and I bumped into him on the street and we had a tea and he told me.”

Sherlock looks stunned, as though she’s just dealt him a swift blow to the skull. Then the crease appears at the bridge of his nose. “What?”

“He told me,” Molly repeats. “He was looking a bit down in the mouth, so I asked, and after talking about it a bit, he told me. Just the way you did. I straight out asked if he’s in love with you and he said yes. He said a lot of other things, too, but – ”

“Like what?” Sherlock interrupts, roughly enough for it to be rude. He’s staring at her, his tea forgotten.

Molly flounders a bit. “Like – that he thinks it’s too late,” she says, not wanting to discourage Sherlock, but perhaps he should know all of it. “He thinks that it would have happened by now if it were going to happen. I didn’t tell him any of what you told me, but I thought you should know. Sherlock, he still isn’t sure if you even do love the way other people do, much less for him, and he’s every bit as afraid of losing your friendship as you are.”

Sherlock blinks and finally looks away, breaking the intense gaze. He lets his breath out in a gust, then says, “But we are losing it nonetheless. We’ve been avoiding each other. He’s deliberately stayed away from the house when he didn’t have to. How am I meant to interpret that as anything but not wanting to be there with me?”

“I know,” Molly says sympathetically. “I thought the same thing. I suppose he was just trying to come to terms with the notion of it never happening and having a bit of trouble with it. Because he does love you, Sherlock. I’m very sure of it, and he said it himself. He wants exactly what you want. So I think you should make a move.”

Sherlock fixes his eyes on her again, then picks up his tea at last and takes a sip. He puts the cup down again, then says, quietly, “I appreciate this, Molly. What you’re doing. This… can’t be easy.”

His tact is surprising. Molly looks down at her hands, curled around her own cup, and swallows. “It isn’t,” she says, hardly audible. She makes herself meet his eyes. “But it’s what you do.”

For a moment, the silence in the kitchen hangs between them, heavy and poignant. Sherlock nods after a moment, accepting it. “Thank you,” he says, his own voice low. He takes another sip of tea, then says, “As for a move… you know that I have no idea where to start, on that front. I feel that, after all this time, I can hardly just bring it up after supper. ‘Yes, yes, I’ll do the washing up like I said. Oh, and by the way, I’m desperately in love with you, so if you’d care to mull that over, that would be splendid, thanks!’”

Molly laughs, and the tension eases considerably. “Maybe not that,” she agrees. “It must be difficult, thinking of a way to just – bring this up with someone you’ve already lived with for some time.”

Sherlock nods, thinking. “It would need to be a grand gesture of some sort. Something that would take him by surprise. Something terribly romantic, so that he knows without doubt that I definitely do ‘feel things that way’, as he once said to my brother. I’ve never forgotten that and sometimes wondered if that was the only reason why he hadn’t… but what’s romantic? What do I even know about romance?” He shakes his head, frustrated, that crease still there at the bridge of his nose.

Something occurs to Molly. “Actually, I might have something,” she says. “He was telling me how easy it used to be for him to go through the whole ritual of starting a new relationship with a woman, and – ” She stops, seeing Sherlock roll his eyes. “No, listen, this is good,” she insists. “He was saying that he basically did the same thing with every woman, but that he had no idea what to do to start things with you. He’s in the same boat. But one of the things he said was that he would always give them a single red rose, because he thinks that red roses are the most romantic flowers. So – maybe some roses?”

“Yes, that’s a good start, but giving someone flowers is hardly the huge, sweeping gesture I was looking for,” Sherlock points out. “It would have to be a lot of roses.” He stops, drifting off into thought. After a moment he says, in a different tone, “Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’ll fill Baker Street with roses and then someone could bring him there… and then I’d say – God knows what, but – something. Something good. I’ll have to think about it.”

“I’ll help, if you want,” Molly offers, her voice coming out steady. “I’ll – keep John out of the way, or something. Or Mrs Hudson, she’d love to be in on all that. Do you want to make it a dinner thing, or something like that? We could help with the cooking, if you wanted…?”

Sherlock looks over and smiles, a real smile. “Thank you. That’s a good idea. I think I would rather do the cooking myself if I do that, though. Just so that it’s all me, if that makes sense.”

“Of course it does,” Molly assures him quickly. “Or the roses, then? We could help arrange things, but only if you want.”

Sherlock nods, accepting this. “Let me think about it,” he says. He drinks the rest of his tea and lets her give him a refill, changing the subject to talk about the asparagus fern hanging in the corner of the kitchen and complimenting its lushness. Molly eyes him from across the table and thinks that Sherlock may have truly learned how to be friend at last, understanding that the entire previous subject was as difficult for her as it was. Not rushing away and throwing her hospitality – and the self-sacrifice that came with it – back in her face. She stirs milk into her second cup of tea and answers his questions about the plant.

***

Molly surreptitiously checks the time on her phone, listening to John give his thoughts on the body on her table, frowning intelligently. He probably knows that she knows everything he’s saying, and wondering why she’s asked him here for this, but it doesn’t matter. Molly keeps up a stream of regular responses. Then there’s a buzzing in the pocket of her lab coat. The text from Sherlock says only: Ok. Now. She springs into action. “Well, that’s great!” she exclaims, cutting him off mid-sentence. “I think I’ve got enough to go on. Thanks!” She zips the corpse away and stows him back in his freezer drawer, locking everything up.

John looks a little confused, the frown lines still there, but all he says is, “All right…” He reaches for his coat. “Molly – the other week, in the café…”

“Hmm?” Molly is pulling on her own coat.

“I shouldn’t have said all that,” John begins, awkward, but she cuts him off again.

“Don’t even think about it. It was the rain,” she says. “Look, er, I actually need to pop by Baker Street. I told Sherlock I’d come by and let him know something for the case. I’m in a bit of a rush, though, so I’ll take a taxi. You might as well come with me.”

John looks at her, gently perplexed. “I can just give Sherlock the message,” he says, not comprehending.

“No – I’d rather tell him in person,” Molly says, feeling foolish. Let him think it’s her crush making up excuses. It doesn’t matter. Not any more. The bridge has been crossed and she’s about to set fire to it. “And there’s no point in you taking the bus when I’m going right there, so – shall we?”

She’s already propelling him toward the door, John going along with it, unresisting, and she thinks to herself that perhaps this is how he got fooled by Mary. He let her propel him along, just went with the current. Maybe it’s his way of being kind: not using all of that authority that’s lurking just below the surface. Letting other people have their way. Yes, that makes sense. Never mind. She chats lightly and inconsequentially and thinks that perhaps she does have a gift for smalltalk, after all. John doesn’t say much, following her into the taxi. It’s a short ride to Baker Street, and when the cab stops, John insists on paying. Molly tries to protest, but he’s extremely firm. If he knew why she was bringing him here, he’d be even more insistent, she thinks to herself, and gives in.

He doesn’t notice her letting him go up the stairs before her. She follows, hanging back a few steps. Downstairs, Mrs Hudson comes out of 221A, looking up at Molly. Their eyes meet and Molly nods. Mrs Hudson’s hands come up to clasp one another in silent agony of hope and partial dread, and Molly shares the feeling with her in wordless rapport. Then she looks away and follows John up from the landing. She stops at the top of the stairs and he notices.

“Aren’t you coming in?” he asks, looking confused again. The door is open only a crack, not enough for him to see inside.

Molly shakes her head. He must think her completely backwards, unable to make up her mind. “I just came to bring you,” she says. John doesn’t understand. She’s nods at the door. “Go on, then,” she says softly. “He’s waiting for you.”

John’s eyes are locked on hers. “He’s – ” He seems to get it then, and swallows, his jaw clamping shut. She nods again, confirming whatever he’s thinking, and then John puts his hand to the door and pushes it open. He takes two steps and then his breath draws in, sharply. “Sherlock…”

Molly follows him to the doorframe now, glancing around the sitting room. Sherlock timed it so that John would arrive just as it was growing dark, the sky somewhere between cobalt and midnight. The sitting room is dark, too, lit only by candles, lamplight, and the fire glowing in the grate. The smell of roses is overwhelming. Sherlock has put them everywhere, hundreds of red roses in glowing profusion, petals uncurling to release their heady, beautiful scent. And Sherlock himself is standing in the middle of the room, a single, long-stemmed red rose in his long fingers. His eyes meet hers over John’s head. “Thank you, Molly,” he says, his voice grave and low.

John turns to look back at her, and now he understands. He smiles, uncertainty still on his face, but this, he understands: what she has done for them. He nods, and Molly smiles quickly and pulls the door closed again, leaving them alone.

She goes quietly down the stairs to where Mrs Hudson is hovering anxiously. “Well?” She’s twisting the rings on her gnarled fingers. “How did it go, then?”

“I don’t know,” Molly says honestly. “But I think it will be all right. I think they’ll find their way from here.”

“Oh, good! Wonderful!” Mrs Hudson exhales deeply, then catches Molly’s gaze. “Now, then: would you like to come in for a cuppa? I’ve just put the kettle on…”

There’s a little too much understanding in those wise, kind brown eyes. Molly thinks of how everyone knows, of how her role in this group of people has always been the one with the seriously misguided crush. How hard it is for people to take her seriously because of it, as though anyone can help who they love, when everything is said and done. Molly smiles, though. Mrs Hudson means well and the offer was kindly meant. She understands what Molly has done for her beloved boys, and understands what it must have cost her to do so. “No, but thank you,” she says. “I’m all right.”

They say their goodbyes and Molly makes her way back out onto the pavement. She notices only then that the rain has finally stopped. And it’s true, she realises, putting her hands into her pockets and starting to walk. She’s quite all right.

***

It’s three days before Molly hears anything, and she admits to herself that she’s been waiting anxiously. On the third day, she’s typing up a toxicology report when the lab doors swing open and Sherlock strides in, coat swirling around him. She looks up in surprise. “Sherlock!”

She gets to her feet and comes out from behind her desk and Sherlock engulfs her in a hug. It’s a long, firm, proper hug, but she’s so startled that she hasn’t even begun to hug back before it’s over. “Thank you,” Sherlock says tightly. He releases her and steps back.

Molly is still a bit stunned, but he’s smiling, so she smiles back. “So?” she prompts. “It went well, then?”

“‘Well’!” Sherlock repeats, as though the word is woefully inadequate for his needs. “It was perfect. You were right. He did want it, as much as I did. We were a pair of idiots, circling around it and neither one daring to go any closer.”

Molly feels her smile grow. “I knew it,” she says triumphantly. “Go on, then – tell me about it!”

Sherlock gives her a curious once-over. “You don’t – mind?” he asks obliquely.

“No – I want to hear all about it,” Molly tells him firmly. “Come on, give us the details, then! I’ll put on my little kettle here.”

Sherlock doesn’t bother asking if she’s in the middle of something or really able take a break right now, but accepts this proposition without argument. He goes and sits down on one of the stools, waiting for her to get the makings of tea organised and then come sit across from him. He folds his hands together on the counter and looks down at them, seemingly gathering his thoughts.

“Go on,” Molly prompts. “What did you say? What did he say? What happened?”

Sherlock smiles at his hands. “I almost didn’t have to say anything, in the end,” he says. “He knew as soon as he saw the roses and the rest. After you went, I tried to say what I’d planned. I fumbled a good bit, but it didn’t matter. I said that I hadn’t known how to bring it up but had always wanted to, but that circumstances kept making it difficult or impossible. I said he was my best friend and the person who matters the most to me, and then I think he interrupted to agree. I told him that I’d been in love with him for longer than I could remember and he said he had been, too, and that’s when he kissed me the first time.”

Molly is pleased by this. “He kissed you?” she repeats, clarifying.

Sherlock smiles. “He did,” he confirms, and almost manages not to look too smug about it.

Molly tries not to bite her lip and doesn’t quite succeed. “Can I ask… was that – ?”

Sherlock looks down, though the smile hasn’t faded entirely. “The first, for me?” He glances up, and Molly is embarrassed to have asked. “It was the first one that meant anything to me, yes,” Sherlock tells her, before she can apologise or try to take it back. “It’s all right,” he goes on, obviously noticing her discomfort. “You can ask.”

Molly shakes her fringe out of her eyes. “And – how was it?” she asks, emboldened by his invitation.

Sherlock’s entire face smiles then, lines and crinkles that she’s never seen before coming out and marking his features with unfiltered joy. “Breathtaking – literally,” he says, his head tilting back to gaze up at the ceiling, his eyes dreamy and contemplative. “I’d never felt anything like it before. I’d had a vague notion that kissing John would not be like kissing other people, but nothing could have prepared me for how different it could be. He’s magnetic, Molly. It’s as though I fall into his field of power every time he comes close.”

“That’s not John,” Molly points out, still smiling. “That’s love.”

“There’s no reason it can’t be both,” Sherlock says stubbornly. “And the way he can be – it’s hard to put it into words, to be honest.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, not following. The kettle is boiling, so she gets up and goes to fill the teapot. “Go on talking.” She fits the lid on and brings the teapot over.

Sherlock puts both hands around his empty mug. A stray curl falls across his forehead. “Well…” He takes a breath, then says, “So – we kissed and talked for a long time, and then… well. You might have guessed that I didn’t – that I’d never…”

Is he actually flushing? Molly is amazed; she didn’t know that Sherlock was capable of embarrassment. She cottons on, though. “Ah,” she says succinctly. “I, erm, I don’t know that I’d given it that much thought – exactly.” This is slightly treacherous ground here.

Sherlock doesn’t seem to notice, preoccupied with his own awkwardness. He clears his throat. “Well – I hadn’t, obviously, and I had to tell him. I mean – one can’t just go blundering into that, for the first time, and pretend to know what’s happening, how to do – anything.” He shakes his head. “He was – I’ve underestimated him over and over and over again, Molly. And never has it been clearer to me than it was that night. He didn’t mind about any of that. Instead, he actually seemed pleased. He was gentle. And so patient.”

Molly thinks of her own first time, back in uni days, and feels a strong curl of empathy for Sherlock, getting this far in life, so precocious with that big brain of his, and yet a total novice in this one area that, as he rightly said, one simply cannot fake having experience in. “Were you nervous?” she asks gently.

Sherlock laughs, just a short huff of air. “Ridiculously,” he says honestly. He nods at the teapot. “That should be about ready, don’t you think?”

His cheekbones are still stained with the traces of his flush. Molly takes the strong hint and pours them both a cup. “I’ve got milk in my fridge. I won’t be a tic.” She slips off her stool and goes to get the milk and a handful of sugar packets. She brings these and a couple of wooden stir sticks back and puts them down on the counter between them. “Go on,” she says. “So you were nervous. This was that first night?”

Sherlock nods. “Maybe you think that’s too – but we’d already been waiting for so long, and in some ways it was as though all the rest had already happened. We’d already lived together for a long time, got to know each other’s habits and routines intimately. This was the last piece of the puzzle. And besides, once it started, it was fairly unstoppable.”

“But you were nervous,” Molly persists. “That didn’t – I don’t know, slow things down at all?”

“Only a little. I just mean in terms of waiting any longer,” Sherlock clarifies. “He was – phenomenal.” He falls silent, then picks up two packets of sugar and rips them open jointly, tipping them into his tea and absently adding in a splash of milk.

Molly feels her eyebrows rise nearly to her hairline. “Was he.” She takes a sip of her tea, her own cheeks pinking a little.

“No, I don’t mean – ” Sherlock snaps back into focus and hastens to clarify, a bit flustered. “I mean that he was exactly right. He was patient, but completely in control, in a way that made me feel less – out of control, I guess you could say. He made me feel exactly as though I could trust him to show me what to do, how to do it, and that there was no reason to be nervous in front of him just because I didn’t know what I was doing.” He shakes his head, still tapping his stir stick against the side of his cup. He puts it down now and takes a sip at last. “Because of him, it was okay. With anyone else, I don’t know if I could have… crossed that bridge. When it’s taken this long… it seemed like an insurmountable chasm between us. I didn’t say before, but it was one of the reasons I was hesitating. I thought that I had so little to offer him, on that front. I mean, you’ve met John. You know what he’s like.”

Sherlock finds Molly’s gaze as he says this, and she has to nod, understanding what he means. John is obviously – well, a typical man. He’s had girlfriends. He’s been married. Obviously he’s had sex, possibly lots of it. Probably, she amends, thinking of that flash of authority she saw in him at the café that time. She thinks of John combining this same authority with all of the gentleness Sherlock is describing and thinks that indeed, that must have been the only way Sherlock could have trusted enough to finally cross that bridge. “That must have been quite the experience,” she says softly. “I’m glad he made you feel like that. That it was going to be all right.”

“He did more than that,” Sherlock tells her, looking slightly off to the side, remembering. “He made me feel like – like a god. Like there was nothing I could do that wasn’t incredible. And John – he was phenomenal, Molly. I didn’t… I didn’t know that it could be like that.”

“What was it like, exactly?” Molly asks, curious.

Sherlock searches his vocabulary for a long moment, then says, “I’d always thought of all that as – scratching an itch, more or less. I wasn’t prepared for the intimacy of it. The way it… how close it made me feel to him. The sensation of being one with someone. I’d never – and as far as the other part is concerned, I’d also had no idea of the intensity of how good it could be.”

Molly watches him for a long moment. He looks younger to her than he usually does, and she experiences a swift flash of insight: it could never have been her to do this for him. With her, all of the stereotypes would have been expected, that he would have been expected to lead, to make her feel feminine and beautiful and desired, and perhaps these wouldn’t be the words Sherlock would choose for whatever it was he needed to feel with John, but she imagines it’s something along those lines. And what she needs is just that: a John-type person (though certainly not John himself; he’s not her type at all) to be the confident one, not that she’s entirely lacking in confidence in the bedroom, but someone to lead, someone to be the big spoon, someone to reassure, be the principle mover. Someone to hold her after and tell her how amazing she is, how loved. She knows how incredibly different she is from Sherlock, but it seems they’re more similar than she realised in terms of what they crave from another person. “I’m so glad for you,” she says now, warmly. “I mean that, Sherlock. I’m so glad you’ve found that.”

Now Sherlock turns his head and meets her eyes, smiling. “Because of you,” he says. “Because of what you did for me, for us, I have the only thing I’ve ever wanted or needed in my life. It could only ever have been him. I don’t mean in that in any sort of – your friendship is very special to me, Molly. I hope you know that.”

Molly ducks her chin. “Of course,” she says quickly. “And I didn’t – take any offence at that. I know you’ve loved him for ages.”

“It feels like since before I even knew him,” Sherlock says. He pauses, searching for the right words. “In a way, I feel as though I’ve finally begun to fulfill my one true purpose in life: to love John, to be his lover. I feel – whole. Complete in a way I’ve never felt, didn’t know I could feel. And it’s you I have to thank for that.”

Molly smiles and takes another sip of tea, treasuring this for a moment. Then a question occurs, one she’s meant to ask him to clarify for weeks now. “The day you told me, how you felt about him, I mean, you said something about how what I really wanted was right under my nose. You wouldn’t tell me who or what that is, though. Would you tell me now?”

Sherlock looks at her in surprise. “I thought it was completely obvious,” he says. “I thought you would get it within a few minutes!”

Molly compresses her lips and shakes her head. “Nope. Afraid not. So – ? Who is it, then? Who am I so dense to have missed so completely?”

“You’re not dense at all,” Sherlock says, waving this off dismissively. “You should have told me that you hadn’t caught it. I would have clarified. It’s Lestrade, of course.”

Molly gapes at him. “Greg?”

“Yes, him,” Sherlock says, just a touch of impatience colouring his tone. “I said: someone steady, reliable, loyal, with a sense of justice, a moral principle. I thought you were just slightly off the mark with me. He’s clearly on the side of the angels and – John and I both rather think – rather head over heels with you, so I suppose that if you made some sort of move, he’d come in a heartbeat.”

Molly still hasn’t quite recovered from the shock. “You think so?” she demands, not believing it for a second. “If he’s so head over heels, as you say, then why hasn’t he said anything?”

“Well, he probably thinks you’re not interested,” Sherlock points out. “As I have some cause to know, people can be remarkably stupid about these things. I don’t know whether the notion holds any interest for you, but do consider it. He’s a good man. A very good man, in fact.”

“The thought honestly never even occurred to me,” Molly says blankly. “Greg Lestrade. What, er, what an interesting idea.”

“He’d be good for you, and you for him, I think,” Sherlock says.

Molly smirks at him. “Oh right, now that you’re in love, you’re turning into a matchmaker,” she chides. “Don’t start that.”

“I do feel as though I owe you a rather large debt,” Sherlock says, completely serious now. His long fingers are locked around his mug, his eyes fixed on her. “You could have chosen to keep that information to yourself. Let John and I bumble around in our own cluelessness for decades more. Most people would have, given… I know what a large thing it was for you to have done, and to merely say thank you is rather insufficient. I’m aware of that. If I could do anything to return the favour, I would.”

Molly nods, and swallows, accepting this in silence. She doesn’t entirely trust herself to speak, truth be told. After a moment, she picks up her cup and drinks the rest of her tea. “Well, I’ll keep your suggestion in mind,” she says, keeping her voice light with an effort.

Sherlock studies her but doesn’t say anything. Perhaps he knows that it would be too soon, even if she’s all right – which, strangely, she still is. “All right,” Sherlock says, and lets it go. He pushes his mug over to her with smile, and lets her fill it again.

Molly fills her own, too. “All right,” she says, settling back onto her stool and getting comfortable. Oddly, her realisation about what Sherlock would need in a romantic partner seems to put everything at ease. It changes the dynamic between them entirely, in a way that feels much better than it ever did before. “Now give me some of the juicy details” she orders, fixing her tea. “What else has happened? Tell me everything, at least everything you feel like sharing. I’m all ears.”

***

From that day on, things are different. Molly tells herself that people don’t fall into or out of love instantly. Life isn’t a fairy tale. But it feels as though that day in the lab did change things permanently, at least as far as she’s concerned. She still smiles when she comes down to the lab and finds Sherlock there, but the twinge disappears, and the nerves along with it.

John comes with him more often now, and they’re so obviously, so completely in love that it makes her heart ache in the best of ways to see them together. They still snark and snipe at each other sometimes, but more often than not, it will dissolve into laughter at some point. She once went into her office while they were bickering and came out to find them kissing, John leaning Sherlock up against the little fridge where he stores his samples and specimen. Sherlock is gripping his arms and kissing back hungrily, as though he thinks John will disappear on him at any second, and John has a faintly triumphant air about him, as though he’s finally won something he thought would be impossible to catch. Molly clears her throat and they break apart, but she’s smiling. “Don’t let me interrupt,” she says, and they both apologise. Whatever they were arguing about has evaporated, seemingly, and Sherlock solves the case within minutes after that.

It’s June now, flowers blooming in London’s first flush of heat. She’s only seen Greg once or twice since Sherlock came out with his pronouncement about their apparent compatibility. He’s as friendly as ever, though as preoccupied with whatever case he’s on as he always is. He does glance at her now and then, she notices. One day it occurs to her that he probably, along with everyone else, still thinks that she’s in love with Sherlock. They all knew. Strangely, she finds it embarrassing now to think that Greg still thinks that.

She doesn’t notice when she stopped calling him Lestrade in her head.

Sherlock drops in without John sometimes, too, primarily to talk about him. Molly gets a surprising glimpse of exactly how romantic John Watson can be. His idea about red roses was just the tip of the iceberg, it seems. One day Sherlock tells her he was being irritable and John seemed to lose his patience and went for a walk in the rain, alone. He’d despaired, wondering if he’d ruined everything, but then John came back half an hour later with a bouquet of yellow gerbera daisies and announced gruffly that he’d made dinner reservations in hope of cheering Sherlock up.

Molly covers her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God, that’s so – wow. That’s so romantic! What did you say?”

Sherlock shoots her a smirk. “After I finished stumbling through a badly-worded apology, and after he finished kissing me, I picked him up and threw him over my shoulder and carried him off to bed.”

Molly gapes at him and starts to laugh. “My, you’ve gained some confidence, then,” she observes. “I’m surprised he let you!”

Sherlock waves this off. “Once I’d picked him up, there wasn’t much he could do about it, though I will say that he retaliated. He likes it when I get like that, though. He brings it out in me, you know. It keeps things balanced.”

“Did you make it to your dinner reservation on time?” Molly wants to know.

The smirk deepens. “Just. But John has the worst way of murmuring outrageous things in public, about what he wants to do later.” Sherlock spins himself off his stool. “Speaking of which, I should be getting home…” He grins unrepentantly and Molly shakes her head.

“I’m not even going to ask,” she says, but she’s smiling in spite of herself. “I think I might be appalled.”

“Probably,” Sherlock tells her breezily. “I’ll come back for those test results tomorrow, if you’re about.”

“If you can still walk tomorrow,” Molly fires back, and Sherlock gives a shout of laughter on his way out the door, not denying this possibility in the least.

His happiness is almost contagious. It’s good to see it. He was never happy before. There was always something missing in his eyes, something she once hoped she could fulfil, provide for him, but she couldn’t and even then, she knew it. She was never the one for him. It’s good to know that he was never the one for her, either. There’s still a vague shape in her mind’s eye, of the man who would be on the sofa next to her, across the supper table from her, his face above hers in bed. She gives herself over to wistful imaginings in the evenings sometimes, curled up in the window seat with Toby. It’s all romantic nonsense, of course. Lying back in his arms in the bath. Going out for brunch together after a long night of making love and sleeping in each other’s arms, comfortable and intimate and secure. Brushing their teeth together in the loo, both of them in their dressing gowns and completely at ease around each other, the scent of his aftershave manly and comforting.

She finds herself yearning for something like what Sherlock did for John, like a sudden move, a romantic gesture of some sort. People are so prosaic about relationships these days. Coffee with someone – short and easily escapable should it prove to be awkward, no commitment needed. No risk. She wouldn’t need something as big as a houseful of roses to get the message. Just – something. Something that says undeniably that he, whoever he is, is very much interested in romance. In love with her, even. She yearns to be wanted, sought after, desired.

June slips into July. She finds herself watching Greg surreptitiously, wondering if Sherlock could be right about his supposed feelings for her, wondering if she could possibly feel the same way.

It’s a possibility, she thinks, privately watching him debate with Sherlock over some bit of evidence. Sherlock tells him with irritation that he’s an idiot and Greg doesn’t even blink, not caring. Other people spike and get their feathers in a ruffle when Sherlock does this sort of thing, but Greg never bats an eyelash. He’s secure in himself, not flustered by what’s an extremely routine insult from Sherlock. John puts a hand on Sherlock’s arm and says his name quietly, and Sherlock subsides a little. Greg patiently explains his idea and Sherlock actually listens, then reluctantly admits that it has merit. Molly clears her throat and cuts in to let them all know that the toxicology report just came back negative.

“See?” Sherlock says. “I told you she wasn’t poisoned. The pattern of the blood vessels in her irises was completely off.”

“Only slightly off,” John says, with a slice of apology directed at Greg.

Greg sticks his hands into his coat pockets. “Then what do you think it was?” he asks. “If you’re so certain it wasn’t poison, then – ”

“She was asphyxiated,” Sherlock interrupts. “Which I said this morning, but you were so certain that it was poison that you weren’t listening to me.”

“Asphyxiated by who?” Greg demands.

“Whom,” Sherlock corrects, and John snorts with laughter. “I don’t know yet, but since it’s not poison, the more time we waste discussing how Molly’s report just proved me right – again – the more time the killer has to get away.” He turns away. “Come on, John!” He’s got John by the wrist and they’re moving off jointly.

Greg lingers just long enough to roll his eyes at Molly and she gives him a sympathetic smile in return. “Good luck,” she offers.

His smile is tired, but he does smile back. “Looks like I’ll be needing it. Thanks for that report.”

“Sorry it proved you wrong,” Molly says, trying to hide her smile. “You were right that a lot of the symptoms made it look like a poisoning.”

“Thank you,” Greg says. He nods in the direction Sherlock and John have gone. “I’d better, erm.”

She nods, too quickly. “Right. Off you go, then.”

He opens his mouth, as though about to say something, then closes it and heads out instead.

***

The day Sherlock tells her that they’re getting married, he nearly bursts in doing so. He’s so palpably excited that Molly genuinely feels over the moon for him. She privately searches her heart for a moment, examining it for pain, and finds nothing. Sherlock is leaping around the lab in a whirl of energy, answering her questions in shouts. “I didn’t tell anyone I was going to ask, not even Mrs Hudson! Or you! I planned it all out and asked last night and he said yes! And what’s more, he was going to ask me! I mean, it was obvious. We’ve got to. It’s the only thing that makes any sense!” He finally stops to catch his breath, collapsing into her desk chair and nailing her down with his eyes. “You’ve got to be in the wedding party, of course. You’re the entire reason we’re getting married.”

He pronounces these last words as though they’re magical, repeating it just for the sake of saying it again. Molly beams at him. “Don’t be silly,” she scoffs. “You’re getting married because you love each other. I just – helped it along a little. And I’d love to be in the party! When is it?”

“The sixteenth of September,” Sherlock tells her. “We’d do it now but it takes a bit of time to plan. It won’t be complicated or huge, though. We just want the really important people there, not a bunch of boring semi-strangers. I’ll have to invite my brother, I suppose, but no cousins, nothing like that. Just our friends.”

“Where are you going to have it?” Molly asks, feeling excited. She loves weddings, and she’s never been anyone’s – bridesmaid? groomsmaid? attendant? – before.

“We don’t know yet, but we’re looking,” Sherlock says. “We spent all morning looking at venues. Well, mostly,” he amends, and Molly swats his shoulder.

“You’re incorrigible,” she scolds, though she doesn’t really mean it. Who can blame them?

“I think ‘insatiable’ is the word you’re looking for,” Sherlock says, the corner of his lip tugging into his trademark smirk. “As for the venue, we’ll find somewhere.”

“Who else is in the party?” Molly asks, curious. “I suppose I’m an attendant of some sort, then?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says. “We’re not bothering about sides or any of that nonsense, dividing our friends into one side or the other. It’ll be you and Lestrade and Mrs Hudson. Problem?”

Molly feels her cheeks heat a little. “No,” she says defensively. “Why should there be a problem?”

Sherlock gives her a knowing look but doesn’t say whatever he’s thinking. Instead he says, “I don’t care if three is an odd number of people, either. I’m not choosing a fourth person just for the sake of symmetry. We’re planning the menu tonight, too. And finalising the guest list and colours and the rest. Once we’ve chosen colours, I’ll give you a swatch and you can go find a dress you like. Whatever you want, as long as it’s the right colour. And you should get the official invitation by next week sometime. As soon as we’ve secured a place, we’ll get the invitations printed. We’re going to do the whole thing in the same place, keep it simple.”

He stays a little longer, answering her questions, then gathers himself and bounds off to meet John for lunch and then go shopping for his ring. He already gave John one the night before and John is insisting on buying one for him now, and Sherlock is so puffed up with pride over this that Molly can’t help but feel terribly pleased for him. It will be so nice, she thinks. And she’ll get to be a part of it: given a place of honour, in recognition of what she did for them. That’s a rather lovely concept, in fact. She’ll be legitimately shown as a good, worthwhile friend of Sherlock’s, someone respected and wanted in her own right. No longer the shy little mouse with the hopeless crush. This thought carries her through the rest of the day, her spine even straighter than usual, head held high. She is worthy of respect, damn it. She knows it, has never doubted it, but now she’ll be publicly recognised this way. Her sacrifice was more than worth it for this aspect alone. She’s tired of the pity, the assumptions that she’s too stupid to realise when a man isn’t into women. The sneers that come with that. Not from some people – never Mrs Hudson, never Greg. But she remembers the mockery in Mary’s eyes, the overdone sympathy in her voice. Mary certainly wasn’t the only one. People do that, when a woman has unrequited feelings, she’s noticed. It’s as though it becomes an indignity, something to scorn. She doesn’t regret having loved Sherlock. Maybe it even helped his sense of self-worth, which she noticed only in retrospect had been rather low in the early years of knowing him. It was John who really validated him, though. Filled him out and made him feel that there was nothing wrong with being exactly who he was. She could never have done that for him, and that’s all right. There’s someone else out there who would be able to use what she has to offer, and fill out her empty spaces and self-doubts in return. Somewhere.

***

It’s the sixth of August when Molly receives her invitation to the wedding, ten days after Sherlock told her of their engagement. It’s a warm summer day, the whole city seeming to revel in the heat gratefully, flowers spreading their leaves and petals open wantonly, drinking it in. Even the trees seem to be gathering the sunlight in through leaves like open hands. Molly feels the pull in herself. She’s young, she thinks. Young and unclaimed still, feeling the sun on her bare arms and ankles and in her hair as she walks slowly home, enjoying the walk. She stops at the same café where she had that tea with John in the rain and marvels at how different today is from that day. She buys herself an iced coffee and keeps walking, sipping the cool drink as the dappled shadows of the trees in her neighbourhood slide over her and temporarily block the sun.

The invitation is waiting in the box with a handful of bills and circulars, plus a postcard from her friend Meg, sent from Madrid. She takes it all inside and leaves the boring stuff in a basket on the table to deal with later. She skims over Meg’s postcard, then pins it to the fridge with a magnet and opens the invitation. She already knows what it is. The paper is thick and expensive; of course Sherlock knows all about quality paper. She’s surprised they were actually able to get the invitations printed and sent so quickly. She notes the venue and looks at their names together, linked with a swirly ampersand and thinks that they look satisfyingly right together. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. No middle names; they both hate their full names, she knows. Just who they are, in all of that simplicity and complexity rolled into one. She smiles at it, and puts it on the fridge next to the postcard.

She thinks of supper, of making something to eat, but just then the buzzer rings. Molly frowns. She’s not expecting anyone. She goes to the door, wondering if she’s forgotten something, or if someone’s looking for a missing cat or something. She glances behind her to check that Toby hasn’t followed her to the door, but he’s probably on his favourite windowsill, basking in the sun. She opens the door.

Greg Lestrade is standing there, wearing his typical trench coat (though it’s open in this warm weather) and a slightly sheepish expression.

Molly knows she must look surprised, but she can’t help it. “Greg,” she says, with a startled laugh. “I – didn’t know you were in my neighbourhood!”

It’s a bit weak but it’s the best she can do. He smiles, clearly feeling a bit awkward, himself. “Er, well, I wanted to drop by,” he says, clearing his throat. “I’ve, er, been meaning to give this a try for a long time now, actually, and – well, this came in the post today. Don’t know if you’ve got yours yet.”

He’s holding up the invitation to the wedding. “I did, actually,” Molly says. “It just came today. I only just got home, in fact…” She trails off. He hasn’t exactly said yet why he’s come, so she waits, puzzled and expectant.

Greg clears his throat again. “It seems like I’ve been barking up the wrong tree for awhile now,” he says, looking her directly in the eyes. “I always thought it was Sherlock, for you. But I had a drink or two with John last week and he put me on the right track at last, and – well, I just wondered if… I know we’re both in the party and all that, but I wondered if you’d like to go to the wedding with me. As my date.” He produces from behind his back a long-stemmed single red rose and goes on. “Fact is, I’ve been trying to work up to this for a long time now. I just couldn’t quite get there on my own. I don’t know – what do you think?”

Molly looks at the rose and thinks of Sherlock and John and Baker Street filled with roses. The most romantic flower, John said. She thinks of longing for a simple but clear romantic gesture, and of the vague image of the man she’s been imagining all this time. And it is Greg – Greg sitting beside her watching movies and throwing popcorn at the screen when the characters make stupid decisions, her giggling beside him and rebuking him, Greg shaving in the mirror beside her as she plucks her eyebrows and concentrates on getting her mascara on just so. Greg laughing with her in familiarity and comfort. It’s like the penny has finally dropped, the last piece of the puzzle finally falling into place. She hears Sherlock’s voice chiding in her head: As ever, you see but you do not observe. It was Greg all along.

She looks into his handsome face, waiting with obvious hope and just a touch of anxiety, and smiles. “Yes,” she says firmly. “I would love to.”

*