She left him a couple of weeks ago. As soon as this final decision had been made, things were cleared out rather fast. He moved into his own little flat. Divorce. Goodbye. Hello new old life.

Gregory Lestrade felt hurt… wounded but he knew that too much had happened between him and his now ex-wife and the injuries were too deep to ever heal again.

He was surprised how easy it was for him to get used to his "new" life as single. Probably it didn't make a huge impact, because the daily routine hardly changed.

On the contrary he was able to stay longer in his office without the knowledge, that a fight would wait for him at home and he would have been forced again to spend another night on the sofa, or even worse, in the bathtub.

And all this should change in this one night somewhere around the end of December.

Lestrade saw her before. Many times. He often needed to visit the morgue and most of the time it was her, Molly Hooper, who accompanied his colleagues and him. And like everyone else was he only able to notice but hardly ever able to really see her. Maybe, to his defence, one could blame his complicated marriage and his work for the lack of attention. Later he often wondered what may have happened if he had decided against the pint in St. Stephen's Tavern this one evening.

But he went there and sat down at a table in the corner. It had been a rough day and a short night and he could feel the exhaustion in his limbs. He watched the other guests: happy couples, buddies having a fun night out, some students and so on. The usual suspects.

Actually he was quite content to be on his own and not being made to ship in small talk or dull conversations about work or children.

Lestrade thought some recent events over, involving a certain Consulting Detective and his flatmate. He knew Sherlock Holmes for quite a while now. He had seen him in some of his darker moments. He came up with countless drugs busts and they almost always found something.

He rubbed his face when he thought about the fights and insults on both sides. None of them gave in easily and maybe that made their connection unique. But no matter how often Lestrade had to deal with an aggressive and rather moody Sherlock, he never lost his respect for this man and he never lost his faith.

Of course there were doubts, but Lestrade had always been sure, that Sherlock Holmes was more than a drug addict who read two books too much.

Over his musings he forgot his beer. He blinked and took a small sip when he heard his phone buzzing. A message. From Molly.

Lestrade frowned and replied. Short time later she joined him.

He felt strange. They talked before, of course, even about her latest boyfriend, but nevertheless was the impression that he actually didn't really know her at all very present.

She looked sad and tired and Lestrade felt his heart clench. Molly Hooper was unhappy.

Even he had noticed that she liked Sherlock a lot and he noticed as well, that this interest was more than one sided.

But he never made efforts to intervene. It was something Molly and Sherlock had to sort out. And then she got to know "Jim-from-IT". At first she had been over the moon and could call herself the luckiest girl in the world. Lestrade listened to her patiently. He tends to lose his temper sometimes but he had always been good at "listening". Molly told him how Jim changed and slowly started to show is "real face".

They finished two drinks each while they were talking, or better to say while Molly was talking and Lestrade listened.

He wasn't sure what he should think about it. The pattern was nothing unfamiliar. In his job he had to deal with the sad and most brutal finals of such relationships, once they escalated.

He did the only thing that seemed logic to him. He suggested that she should leave Jim, careful and charming to hide his worries.

She smiled but showed no further interest in following his advice.

They had their third or fourth round of drinks when she got a message from Jim. Lestrade felt uneasy. A feeling in his guts told him that Jim and the two or three pints he already consumed could possibly turn out as a fatal mixture.

Molly was rather tipsy as well and he couldn't help it but finding it incredibly cute.

Jim joined them an hour later and the atmosphere was immediately poisoned. Lestrade tried to stay calm, polite and neutral but it was quite a challenge. He needed to get sober again.