A Vicious Motivator - Chapter Three

[darnedchild]

Summary: Molly was happy with her life. She's got a job she loves, a nice flat, her cat, and she's even begun dating again (now that she's over her infatuation with Sherlock, mostly). Then Sherlock dragged her out for a few hours of dress up and undercover work, and everything started to go to hell in a hand-basket.

She agreed to accompany him to one more event, purely as a distraction; and in the process ended up with an unwanted house guest (Sherlock's ex Janine), the attentions of a vengeful stalker, and a return of those pesky feelings for Sherlock Holmes.

Rating: M (There will be smut in later chapters)
A/N - Written for the 2015 Sherlolly Big Bang. This mammoth fic is over 114k words and complete in seventeen chapters.

Chapter Three

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

"Hey, Molls! You're up!"

Molly groaned under her breath, and wiped the sweat off her forehead with a towel. She held up one finger to let Meena know she'd heard and gulped down several mouthfuls of cool water. Once her water bottle was capped, she joined her friend at the front of the small classroom.

"All right, ladies, everybody partner up, and we'll put what I taught you before the break to good use."

Meena waited until everyone had broken into pairs to turn and face Molly. "Okay, Molls. You ready?"

Molly nodded, even though she was anything but. She'd been regretting agreeing to fill in for Meena's usual teaching partner almost since the moment the self defence class had begun. Barely an hour into the two hour session and her body was already aching. Molly was no stranger to Meena's classes, she'd attended plenty over the years, but she'd only been called on to help demonstrate a small handful of times.

"Come get me." Meena grinned playfully and Molly couldn't help doing the same.

An hour later Attacker Molly had been disarmed numerous times, incapacitated with several simulated groin assaults, had her nose "broken" twice, and ended up flat on her back once when Meena managed to flip her (technically not part of the curriculum, but Meena always did like to show off and Molly had been game for it).

The students filed out of the room, excitedly chattering about what they'd learned and whether or not to stop for a frozen coffee and a biscuit on the way home.

Molly gingerly patted her bum and wondered if there would be a bruise there in the morning.

"Thanks again for filling in tonight." Meena continued to put the room to rights, wiping down the cushioned mats that had dotted the floor and looking for forgotten towels. "Sarah's mother-in-law came into the city unexpectedly, she had to cancel at the last minute."

"I told you it was no problem. You know me, always willing to help a friend in need," Molly joked.

Meena stacked the last of the mats into a tidy pile, and turned to study Molly with an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face. "Who's there to help you out when you need it, though? Well, me, obviously, because I'm a freakin' Mother Teresa in platform heels." She and Molly shared playful smiles. "But you never really ask me for anything, do you?"

Molly shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. "I don't really need anything."

She saw the pitying look Meena gave her and rolled her eyes. "It's true. I've got an interesting job, a nice flat, and friends I adore. One of whom is going to take me out to dinner tonight because she feels guilty for tossing me on the floor earlier. To a decent place, not just to the chips vendor up the block."

Meena laughed, and shooed Molly out of the room. "Fine. Let's get cleaned up, and I'll take you to a Greek place a few blocks from here. They have a moussaka to die for."

"See, what else could I possibly ask for?"

Meena laughed again, and Molly trailed after her toward the locker room.

What else indeed?

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

After sleeping in until nearly ten, Molly puttered about her flat until early afternoon. She'd enjoyed a leisurely soak in the tub after getting home from Meena's class the night before, but her body still ached and the extra time lounging about in bed had felt nice.

She wrote her shopping list, double checked Toby's food dish, then slipped on her jacket for a walk to the grocer.

It took her two blocks to realize she was being followed.

She'd stopped to look at a pair of gorgeous heels in a shop window--Far too expensive for her to afford, but she couldn't help wondering how they would look with an equally expensive dress floating around her ankles as Sherlock whirled her around a dance floor. Would there even be dancing at the party he'd talked her into attending?--and noticed the black Mercedes with its ominously tinted windows that had slowed to a near stop behind her.

When she moved on Molly kept an eye on the vehicle's reflection in the next few windows; not daring to look at the car directly because she didn't want to feel like an idiot if her suspicions were wrong.

Which they probably were, because why would a Mercedes be creeping down the street just to stalk her? That would be crazy.

Molly tried to laugh at herself, but couldn't manage more than a sickly chuckle (that sounded vaguely like a quiet sob to her ears) as the car pulled up to the kerb next to her and stopped.

The driver's door opened and a large gentleman in a suit stepped out. She was forced to admit she was probably in trouble when he called her name. "Miss Hooper."

Sherlock's voice echoed in her ears, telling her to pay attention to every detail she could register. She noted the gentleman's suit (Black? Navy blue? Obviously expensive. Fit too well to be off the rack.) and as many physical characteristics (Bald. Tan. Not traditionally handsome, but still striking. Big ears. Small nose.) as she could.

Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she could hear the rush of blood in her ears.

The burly gentleman pulled the back car door open and gestured for her to get in. The car interior was shrouded in shadows, and she couldn't see a thing from where she stood. She no intention of getting any closer. Jim Moriarty, or someone who was using his face, was still out there somewhere, and she wasn't an idiot.

"Get in, Miss Hooper."

Molly shook her head, and took a step farther away. "I don't think so."

She could see him tense as if he were preparing to chase her down if she decided to bolt. "Get in."

Somehow he was growing more menacing with every passing second, without doing anything overtly threatening. After a brief standoff--him still holding the door open, and her still shifting her weight to her toes in preparation to flee--he held a hand up to his ear, then hissed through clenched teeth, "Please."

The absurdity of the whole thing was starting to get to her. She snorted hard through her nose and shook her head again. "No. Thank you."

Something shifted in the darkness inside the car, then an extremely attractive dark-haired woman leaned into view. Her smile was probably meant to be reassuring, but it did nothing to put Molly at ease. "Hello, Miss Hooper. Mr Holmes would like a word, if you please."

Molly continued to hesitate. Strangely enough, the woman's smile seemed to grow warmer at that. She glanced down at the phone in her hand and softly laughed. "I'm to tell you that 'the rat bastard has been dealt with'."

In spite of the situation, Molly started to smile in return. The woman drew herself back into the car, and the cranky gentleman gestured toward the open door once more. This time Molly slipped past him and settled into the seat next to the attractive brunette. She managed not to flinch as the car door slammed shut. The car tilted and then settled as the driver got back behind the wheel.

It only took a minute or two for Molly to begin to feel uncomfortable. Her companion had been glued to her phone since Molly got in. Her thumbs danced across the screen in constant motion, and Molly was fairly positive she hadn't looked up since the car had begun to move.

Another few minutes passed, and Molly realized she had no clue where they were taking her. Not to Baker Street, that much she could rule out. That was when she realized the other woman had never mentioned which Mr Holmes wanted to speak to her.

She cleared her throat, and turned in the seat to get a better look at the woman. "We're not going to see Sherlock, are we?"

"No," the other woman replied. She continued to text on her phone, not even bothering to look up; but at least she didn't even try to lie about it.

"Mycroft, then?"

Her companion's lips tilted upward at the name, her entire face softening for just a moment. "Yes."

"And I don't suppose you're going to tell what this is about?"

"No." She finally looked up and offered that not-quite reassuring smile again. "Sorry."

"Right," Molly muttered under her breath. She turned her attention back to the view. Soon enough she no longer recognized any of the neighbourhoods they were passing through. Eventually, they pulled up in front of a nondescript building, and the driver quickly hopped out to open the car door.

She and the other woman climbed out, and Molly stopped to offer a slightly apologetic smile to the man who had frightened her earlier. He glared in return. Not that she'd been expecting anything else, really. Still, she'd tried.

"This way, please."

She clutched her bag against her chest as she followed the woman through several halls in an empty office building. Eventually her guide stopped in front of an unmarked door and knocked. Without waiting for a response, she opened the door and entered the room, gesturing for Molly to follow her.

Molly was not surprised to see Mycroft inside, standing behind an imposing desk. He gestured toward the chair in front of it. "Miss Hooper, sit. Please."

She did as he asked. Mycroft waited until she was settled to take his own seat. He nodded toward the other woman, and she quickly crossed the room toward a large cabinet. It was the only other piece of furniture in the room aside from the desk and the two chairs, and Molly got the feeling that all of it had been brought in specifically for this meeting.

She pulled one of the drawers open and extracted a thick folder, which she brought to Mycroft. They made eye contact for a few seconds--clearly communicating without words, Molly noted, which indicated they were used to working together--then she tipped her head to Molly and left the room. If it weren't for the fact that Mycroft Holmes had even less use for sentiment and emotional attachments than Sherlock, Molly might have assumed there was something going on between him and the as-yet-unnamed woman.

"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here. Unless . . . Has Sherlock already explained?"

"Let's just assume that he hasn't." Molly was proud that she'd managed to keep her voice steady, masking any obvious verbal sign of how uneasy she was. She really hadn't the first clue what Mycroft was talking about, but she felt uncomfortable admitting that to him.

He sighed, clearly annoyed with someone. Sherlock, most likely. "Very well."

Mycroft cleared his throat, and opened the file. He took a moment to familiarize himself with the text on the first page; then began to speak, "Can you confirm that you are Margaret Erin Hooper, born on August-"

With a frown, Molly interrupted him. "You know who I am, Mycroft. You've met me before, several times."

Mycroft glared at her in response. "There is a proper way to do this, Miss Hooper."

Molly rarely bothered to correct anyone when they got her title wrong, it was almost impossible to do so without sounding pretentious or worse; but now she was annoyed, and Mycroft was insisting on behaving like a cryptic twit. "It's Doctor Hooper. And do what?"

"Oh, sod it." He flipped the file closed and pushed it away in disgust, before leaning back in his chair and crossing his hands over his stomach. "You're almost as bad as John Watson. What is it about Sherlock that attracts you people?"

She's not sure if he'd just insulted her or if it had been meant as a sort of back-handed compliment; there were worse things in the world than being compared to John. Molly decided it would be best to keep quiet, and just let him get on with whatever he was attempting to do without any more impertinent comments.

"At Sherlock's request, you have been authorized a minimal degree of clearance in matters of national security, solely in regards to my brother and certain activities he may or may not be involved with at some point in the future."

Molly blinked. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Don't play slow, Doctor Hooper. It doesn't suit you."

Another back-handed compliment and the grudging use of her title. It must have practically killed Mycroft.

"It should go without saying that any information you receive in confidence shall not be passed on to any of Sherlock's other associates, baring myself, of course. This includes John Watson." He mumbled in an aside that Molly barely heard, "That man couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it, much less my brother's."

"I-uh-I wasn't really expecting something like this? And why now, all of the sudden? I don't really know what I should be saying in response."

Mycroft sighed. Molly suspected he would have rolled his eyes if that were the sort of thing Mycroft Holmes deigned to do. "Sherlock failed to make it known how vital he found your involvement in certain aspects of his work. We've since discussed it and he's made his thoughts on the matter quite clear. He insisted I expedite things to secure your clearance as quickly as possible to remedy the oversight, but surely this didn't come as a complete surprise to you?"

Before she could reply to that, Mycroft grimaced and pulled his mobile out of an inner pocket of his suit jacket. He looked at it briefly, then pasted the most unconvincing expression of contrition that Molly had ever seen onto his face. "And I've just been reminded that I owe you an apology, Miss--pardon me, Doctor--Hooper, for failing to inform you of my brother's status during his years abroad. I deeply regret that my actions caused you undue worry and stress. As part of my apology it would be my honour to offer the services of my associate in picking out a suitable gown for your upcoming soiree. At my expense, of course."

He plucked a thick stack of papers from the folder, all bound together with a large clip, and slid them across the desk toward her. "Here's a pen, if you could just sign and initial all the paperwork. Then you can inform Sherlock that I've done my part, now he needs to make sure he fulfils his end of the bargain."

Almost as if she'd been listening at the door, Mycroft's associate entered the room. As soon as the paperwork was signed and initialled in a dozen or more places, she scooped up the file and put it back in the cabinet. With a final nod toward her employer, she gestured toward the door. "If you'll follow me?"

The Mercedes was waiting outside, complete with tall, dark, and surly waiting to open the door for them. Molly thought about attempting to say something witty as she slipped past him into the car; but she suspected anything she could come up with wouldn't be half as amusing to anyone else as it would be to her.

Mycroft's associate--Surely she had a name?--was already engrossed in her phone, and Molly resigned herself to another long, boring ride back to . . . where, exactly?

"I, erm, don't mean to cause a problem, but where are you taking me now? I mean, are you taking me back to my flat? Because I was on my way to do the shopping, and . . ."

The other woman sent one last text and looked up. "Mr Holmes has asked me to assist you in finding a gown, and any other necessities you may need, for this weekend. Do you have a favoured designer we can use as a starting point?"

Contrary to what Sherlock (and Mycroft, from the sounds of it) seemed to think, she wasn't a complete stranger to shopping for nice things. There just wasn't much call for a closetful of formal dresses in her line of work. She couldn't even imagine attempting a post-mortem draped in organza and tulle.

Molly floundered for a moment; her mind coming up blank for the name of any designer, much less one who produced dresses she liked that would flatter her body type. After a few moments she realized she was out of her depth. "Haven't a clue. Who would you recommend?"

The woman smiled, clearly pleased. "I know just the shop, Miss Hooper."

"Wonderful. Uh, I was wondering if you could just call me Molly? The Miss Hooper thing is really . . . unless you have to? Is that a requirement? For all this?"

The other woman seemed to study her for a moment. "As you wish, Molly."

"Thank you." Molly bit her lip, debating whether or not she should ask the question that was sitting on the tip of her tongue. "And you are?"

"You can call me Anthea." The brunette leaned forward to give the driver their new destination.

"Oh, that's unusual."

Anthea hummed in agreement, and turned back to her phone.

"Greek, isn't it? Flower, right? Or, umm, maybe blossom?" Suddenly, Molly had the other woman's attention again.

"Either way it's fitting," Molly continued. "Which it should be, since it was chosen for you specifically, I would think. Lovely compliment. Unless, did you get to pick it yourself?"

Anthea looked as if she were reassessing what she thought she knew about Molly. "You know Greek?"

Molly shrugged. "I knew a lot about the Greek pantheon. Fascinated by it when I was little. I only recognized the word because of its association with Hera."

Anthea tucked her phone into her lap. "Why did you assume it wasn't my real name?"

"Mostly, it was a hunch; but all this cloak and dagger nonsense seemed to back my theory up. If you wanted to give me your real name, you would have offered it when you first picked me up. And you didn't say 'My name is Anthea', you said that's what I could call you. Careful wording, that." Molly winced. She felt as if last bit could have come straight from Sherlock.

"Interesting. You're nothing at all like I expected you'd be."

"Is that good or bad?" And more importantly, why would Anthea have any expectations about her in the first place?

"It's merely interesting, that's all." Anthea leaned back in the seat and gracefully crossed her legs. Molly envied her, she always felt like an awkward teenager who barely had control of her limbs. "Tell me, Molly, this dress; would you prefer to blend in to the background like the wallpaper, or be the envy of every woman in the room?"

Her first instinct was to blend in. She'd never been terribly comfortable as the centre of attention. Still, when would she have a chance to go to a posh event such as this again? Especially on someone else's tab.

"What would you do?"

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

Molly was taking advantage of the fact that there was nothing pressing to be done in the morgue to catch up on some work in the lab, when the door swung open with far more force than necessary. Even without looking up from her microscope, she knew who her visitor was.

John was right, Sherlock really was a drama queen.

She changed the magnification on the scope, and scribbled a note regarding the bacteria movement in the sample on the slide.

Molly could almost feel Sherlock growing increasingly restless the longer she ignored him. Politeness dictated that she should acknowledge him and find out what he wanted, since it was obvious that he was there for something; otherwise, he would already be at his favoured microscope, ignoring her as she was ignoring him. However, she'd spent five exhausting hours the day before, being dragged from shop to shop by Anthea (an expert marathon shopper who clearly had no qualms about spending Mycroft's money) with the threat/promise of a salon visit before the event on Saturday. Therefore, politeness could go hang.

Her feet still ached.

Just the thought of wearing the four inch heels Anthea had insisted on purchasing made her toes curl in anticipated discomfort. She was going to have to spend the rest of the week practicing walking if there was to be any hope of not falling flat on her face at the party.

She heard him clear his throat as she removed the current slide and tucked it into the proper container.

"Molly."

She briefly looked up as she reached for the next sample. "Sherlock."

He was once again standing very straight and tall, hands behind his back in that way that usually signalled he was uncomfortable about something. This did not bode well for her. Not at all.

Molly frowned and placed the slide into the scope, leaning closer to the eye piece. "Two visits in the same week. Don't I feel special."

"Pardon?"

She sighed. "I've already got a dress. Everything's taken care of, all of it's been vetted and given the official Office of Mycroft Holmes approval. No need to worry that I'll be an embarrassment or anything." She refused to mention her fear of tripping in the too-tall-for-her heels.

"That's . . . reassuring?"

Rather than wander off as she'd secretly hoped he would, Sherlock continued to stand there. Looming. Far too close for her comfort. Molly began to fidget. She hated when he made her do that.

It didn't take long for her to break. "What? What is it? What do you want?" Whatever it was couldn't be good.

"Is that a new jumper? The colour goes very well with your . . . eyes?"

"Oh, come on!" Molly pushed herself away from the table, twisting on her stool to glare up at him. "Seriously, Sherlock? It goes well with my eyes? You couldn't even see my jumper, I'm wearing a lab coat and was bent over a microscope. I'm not an idiot. Stop, just stop with the fake compliments. If you can't say something sincere, then don't bother saying anything at all."

She paused to take a deep breath and calm herself before continuing. "You already know I would do anything for you-"

I already have. And it nearly broke me.

"Anything truly important," she quickly qualified. Her expression was soft and imploring, silently willing him to understand how much it bothered her when he used her unrequited feelings against her.

Former feelings. Oh fuck it. I'm not even fooling myself anymore, am I?

Sherlock was still except for the way his gaze darted around the room, as if he were searching for something--anything--that might salvage the moment. After a few seconds he swallowed hard, then determinedly lifted his chin. He cautiously moved a few steps closer, and Molly braced herself for whatever was about to come pouring out of his mouth.

"I read your monograph on identifying abnormalities in kidney function. It was extremely informative, and I've retained a copy for my research database."

Molly blinked several times. That . . . was not the sort of thing she was expecting him to say. His praise seemed sincere this time, and she couldn't help but find it a little flattering. Her head tilted slightly to the side, her lips twitching into the beginning of a sweet smile. "Thank-thank you."

Sherlock's lips mirrored her own.

Their eyes met. Molly's breath caught, and her face felt uncomfortably warm. Something in her expression must have made him uneasy because his smile melted away, and he took a small step back. Just far enough to make it clear to Molly that he wasn't comfortable with their silent exchange.

"I need a favour."

"Never doubted it for a second." It was a testament to how long she'd known Sherlock that she wasn't offended. The inner warmth produced from his earlier words was still there, and Molly wasn't going to let him dampen it just because he was being . . . well, Sherlock. She returned to her work at the microscope, then wrote a notation on the papers next to her station. "What is it this time?"

"First, I would like to point out that I can see the cuff of your jumper sticking out of the sleeve of your lab coat quite clearly. From there it was extremely easy to deduce that the colour-"

"Sherlock," Molly growled.

"Right. Moving along, then. Janine needs a place to stay."

"Janine has a place to stay. She's got several, from what I've read. She's still got a place in London, yeah? And the cottage you cursed with a bee infestation. Then there's your flat-"

Sherlock impatiently interrupted her, "She can't stay there anymore."

That drew Molly's full attention. She looked up again, resigned to abandoning her work until Sherlock left, and swivelled on her stool so that she could face him entirely. "I thought you two worked things out. Unless . . . Do you think she's really that desperate that she's going to chase you around Baker Street, trying to seduce you?"

She covered up the spike of unease born of that unsettling idea with a feigned look of amusement.

"What do you mean 'that desperate'? I'm a very good catch, according to the gossip rags. A 'sex god'." Sherlock bit off the last two words with obvious disgust.

"For some poor unfortunate soul who hasn't spent more than thirty minutes in your company, perhaps."

Sherlock glared, and Molly grinned in response.

"You're starting to sound an awful lot like John, you know."

"Thank you."

The glare faltered as Sherlock's expression morphed into one of mild confusion. "That wasn't meant as a compliment."

"I didn't think it was." Molly began to swing her feet back and forth. Thanks to her short legs and the tall stool, they didn't quite reach the ground. She was starting to enjoy herself now, and couldn't keep still. "You were going to tell me why she can't stay at your place?"

"Was I?"

She shrugged as if she didn't care one way or another. "Probably."

Rather stiffly, Sherlock focused his gaze somewhere in the vicinity of her forehead; nearly, but not quite, making eye contact. "It has recently come to my attention that Mrs Hudson does not like her."

Molly's eyes widened, and she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing. She tried very hard to force her face to go completely expressionless. Realizing that was a lost cause, she turned to pull the slide out of the microscope and put it back in its storage container in a futile attempt to keep Sherlock from deducing just how amused she was.

"But you already knew that, didn't you?" He bent forward, leaning into her space, putting his hand on the table next to her scope. "Don't bother trying to deny it, your body language gave you away. Why didn't you tell me?"

The urge to shift the last few inches closer to him, to see if his scent was still the same as the one that had lingered on his pillows the night she'd slept in his bed, was strong. Molly slid off the stool, taking the box of bacteria slides to a nearby cupboard to be dealt with later. Once she was safely out temptation's reach, she turned to lean against the cupboard and smirked.

"Why would I? And when could I have possibly brought it up? By the time I found out, you two had broken up and were already doing whatever it is that you're doing now. Should I have said, 'Oh, by the way, Sherlock, your landlady can't stand your not-quite-ex-girlfriend, so maybe don't invite her over for dinner?' I'm sure that would have gone over fabulously."

He had straightened and watched her retreat with a calculating eye. Once she'd stopped moving, he eased his way around the recently vacated stool and stalked toward her like some sort of predatory cat. Molly shifted, felt the bite of the cupboard handle digging into her lower back, and began to realize she might have made a tactical error.

"Well, you may have already been aware, but no one bothered to inform me until Mrs Hudson brought up my tea this morning and adamantly refused to bring up a second cup for Janine. There was a bit of a row, the tea pot got dumped, Janine stormed off in a huff, Mrs Hudson disappeared into her flat with a slammed door, and--most importantly--I didn't. Get. My. Tea." Sherlock looked like a sullen little boy who had lost his favourite toy.

Molly wasn't terribly moved by his plight. "Oh, you poor baby. You have your own kitchen and a kettle. You can make your own cuppa."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. Clearly he was not amused by her teasing. He continued to close the distance between them, his steps measured and unhurried.

She thought about making a break for it, perhaps attempting to dart past him toward the door; but then she'd look like a fool, making a big deal out of something silly. It wasn't as if Sherlock were going to pounce on her.

At the very worst, he would get close enough to turn the full effect of his devastatingly gorgeous eyes upon her.

He stopped almost directly in front of her, close enough that his Belstaff brushed against her lab coat. "That is not the point, Molly."

She swallowed and forced herself to meet his gaze, as if his nearness weren't making her itch to reach out and see if his shirt was as soft as it looked. "So why isn't she staying at her cottage?"

He smirked, and she had the horrible suspicion that he knew exactly what she'd been thinking. "She's broken up with her boyfriend-"

"Mr Jealous Two-Carats?"

"Stop interrupting. And it was two-and-a-half. I underestimated the monetary value he put on potential intimate relations with her."

"I wouldn't let Janine hear you say that."

Sherlock frowned. "Why?"

"Because you just made her sound like a prostitute," Molly explained, speaking slowly as if she were talking to a particularly dim individual. For a second she pictured Anderson's newest replacement at NSY. That man was an imbecile, and she only hoped she'd be around to witness the first time Sherlock had to work with him.

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "No, I meant why would I say that to her?"

She mentally awarded a point to Sherlock for unexpectedly demonstrating some tact.

"I don't know. I still don't understand why you do half the things you do." Molly shrugged. "So she's broken up with the rich boyfriend, and that means she can't stay at her own home because . . .?"

"Apparently, he's having difficulty accepting it. She said he's showed up at her door every night since she broke things off, demanding she come back."

That did seem a little weird and clingy. Molly wasn't sure it was enough to warrant moving into someone else's home, but then again she hadn't a clue how obnoxious Janine's ex was acting. For all she knew, the man was insisting on standing outside Janine's bedroom window with an eighties' era boombox, playing Peter Gabriel songs loud enough to annoy the neighbours.
Still, she didn't see what any of that had to do with her.

"She was Mary's maid of honour. Send her over to stay with Mary and John."

"I did consider it, but Mary isn't too keen on having her around right now. A bit of a guilty conscience, I suspect."

"What for? Introducing her to you?" Molly grinned, rather pleased with herself for coming up with that.

Sherlock twitched. She wasn't sure if it was a reaction to her juvenile (but humorous) wit, or something else. He leaned closer, resting one of his hands against the cupboard near her head. "Let's just not talk about that, shall we? Especially to Janine. I'm given to understand that some women with her type of temperament tend to overreact to certain things. Considering this morning's tea fiasco, I believe it would be best to never mention the idea again."

He was using his proximity to try to distract her, she knew him well enough to recognize that much. Unfortunately for her, it was working. He was close enough for his scent to surround her, and it was the same as the one that haunted her dreams.

God, he smelled good.

Molly swallowed, wet her suddenly dry lips, and forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand. "Why are you telling me any of this?"

His earlier frown reappeared. Sherlock blinked several times in rapid succession before pushing himself away from the cupboard.

Suddenly, Molly could breathe freely again.

"I thought I'd made that clear. Janine needs a place to stay for a few days."

Molly crossed her arms and kept her mouth shut, silently prompting him to get to the point.

"Your place."

"Nope." She shook her head, and tried to scoot past him.

Both of his hands shot up to press against the cupboard on either side of her shoulders, effectively cutting off her escape. "Why not?"

Trapped, Molly went on the defensive. "Because I said no. Because I barely know her; you're the only thing we've even got in common as far as I'm aware. Because even though I tell everyone that when you stay at my place you sleep in the spare room-"

"That's not what you tell everyone," he cut in, giving her a look that made it clear he knew she'd spilled the beans at least once. It wasn't as if Mary hadn't already suspected anyway.

"Nearly everyone. I may tell people you sleep in the spare room so that I don't have to admit I'm such a pushover that I let you con me out of my own bed, but we both know that I don't actually have a spare room. And finally, because I said no." She lifted her arms to plant her palms against his chest and pushed.

He didn't budge.

"You already said that."

"It bears repeating."

She stared at her hands, the nails dragging against the super soft material of his shirt as she curled her fingers. Molly could feel the firmness of his chest, the slight flex of his pectorals under her touch. What she wouldn't give to pop open some of those buttons.

"You're not going to help me?"

Somehow she dragged her attention back to the conversation. "I'm not going to help Janine. There's a difference."

"But, Molly-"

She pushed again, digging her nails in a bit this time, and he took a step back. "You can't just dump your unwanted girlfriends at my door, Sherlock. It doesn't work that way."

"I'll owe you."

Molly took her chance and skirted past him. "You already owe me. And I haven't heard word one in regards to paying me back. Or did you forget?" Once she was safely in the middle of the room she turned to look at him.

He was rubbing his chest with a puzzled expression on his face. As soon as he realized she was watching him he dropped his hand. Sherlock approached her, cautiously this time, keeping some distance between them. He looked almost as unsettled as she felt. "She may be in danger, Molly."

"What do you mean?"

"By the time I got a chance to meet him, they were already dating and I was too distracted by a case to pick up on some things that are glaringly obvious in hindsight. He was too sweet, too solicitous, too . . . perfect." He bit off that last word with a sneer. "I'm positive there's something he's hiding, something in his past. I've sent feelers out, looking for information regarding his last few girlfriends, but they're coming up with nothing. You don't get silence like that without paying for it, one way or another."

She gasped. "Do you think he killed some of them?"

"I doubt it's anything that extreme. But I'm certain he's done something to them. Why else would he pay them off to remain silent. There are no stories, no torrid gossip, no bragging. Women in his circles don't just fade away without a bitter scene and a spiteful last word. No, something's going on. I just haven't deduced what, yet, and until I do . . ." He trailed off and gave her a pleading look that rarely failed to tug at her heart. Not to mention her growing concern for a woman she'd never really met.

She knew she was being played as if she was Sherlock's violin, but she still sighed and gave in. "Fine. But she's on the sofa, I'm not giving up my bed for her."

Sherlock smiled; although it wasn't his usual 'I go what I wanted' grin, thankfully. She might have changed her mind if he'd done that.

He slowly leaned forward, giving her time to step back if she wanted, and pressed his lips against her cheek in a soft, barely-there kiss. "Thank you."

Molly swallowed hard and nodded, unable to force words past the sudden tightness in her throat.

She stood there until the lab door closed behind his retreating form, then slumped against the nearest work surface. "What have you got yourself into this time, Molly Hooper?"



Part 1 / Part 4