Sherlock walked into Molly's flat, gesturing to her hands.

"What's that?"

She took her eyes off the yarn, glancing at the man who had (once again) barged into her flat without permission.

"I'm knitting," she replied simply, returning her attention to the task at hand.

"Is it fun?"

"Yes."

He sat down on the couch, using his foot to push at her chair until it was facing him. She shot him a look but didn't say anything. She was used to his antics, after all. His eyes followed her movements as she made several new stitches, then switched needles.

"May I?" He pointed at the needles in her hands. Her eyes narrowed.

"Okay..." She slowly handed over the needles, carefully unrolling a bit of yarn from the ball before handing it to him. "Okay, put the needle in your right hand in the first stitch..."

"I know how to do this, Molly. I've watched you for a minute already." His hands worked rapidly, his brow furrowed in concentration.

She rolled her eyes, got up and grabbed a book from her table, and plopped herself back down in her chair, leaving him to his own devices.

A minute later, she noticed the disconcerting silence in the room. Taking her eyes off the book, she glanced up at the man still sitting there, staring at the needles in his hands, then back down.

After a moment, her head whipped back up again as she finally comprehended the scene in front of her. Her eyes widened.

Her would-have-become cat sweater had turned into an exploding ball of knots.

Cursing under her breath, she grabbed the stuff back from the consulting detective still intent on creating more knots and desperately tried to untangle it. Her efforts were in vain.

Sighing heavily, she grabbed a pair of scissors, ignoring Sherlock's gasp of indignation, and snipped off the entire mess.

"I thought it looked fine." His voice floated out, slightly hurt.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Okay, fine. But I did a lot better than other beginners would have."

Her expression didn't change.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, shaking his head in exaggerated movements to show his annoyance at being wrong for once.

"Fine," he finally gritted out. He grabbed the needles and yarn back from her. "Teach me."

"So you can destroy my entire yarn ball?" She tried prying the yarn from his fingers, the needles slipping to the ground from their wrestling. "Go buy yarn yourself." There were two things she was protective of, and those were Sherlock and her yarn. The irony.

"You go buy yarn for me."

"No."

"Then let me use your yarn."

"You don't even like knitting! You don't even know how!" she protested.

"I've discovered there might be beneficial value to learning to use knitting needles. Murder weapon, self defense weapon..."

"Don't be so morbid."

"I'm simply stating facts."

He gave an extra hard tug. Molly flew forward out of her chair, her fingers caught in the ball of yarn now tightly held in front of his chest.

She had closed her eyes tightly, anticipating a painful fall. When she only heard a soft "oomph" and didn't feel any pain, she slowly opened her eyes. Only to suck in a hard breath, her eyes wide.

Sherlock's arms encased her, his head tilted slightly to the side to avoid bumping heads. As it was, her lips barely grazed his cheeks.

She scrambled off of him, her cheeks a furious red, giving her hands a furious shake to disentangle any remaining yarn threads.

Sherlock jumped up as well, dropping the yarn ball onto her couch. He grabbed his Belstaff from the table he had put it on earlier, draping it over his arm. His own cheeks were a slightly pink.

Seeing Molly's hands wringing together, her head lowered, he opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. Instead, he tilted her chin up, pecking her lightly on the lips. The red of her cheeks became even more pronounced.

"Just returning the favor," he softly muttered.

Her head nodded jerkily.

He immediately scrambled for the door. But just as he opened it, he suddenly paused and looked back at the woman who still had her head down, a little smile now on her face.

"Dinner tomorrow at seven still?"

She nodded slightly.

His head bobbed a little in her direction, not quite a nod, and he was gone.

On the other side of a security camera, Mycroft rolled his eyes, his umbrella twirling in his hands. All that effort he had spent on his brother was in vain. He couldn't even manage a peck on the cheek without losing composure. Really.

But he supposed it could be worse. After all, his girlfriend wasn't squeamish, and she was quite shy as well. They did make quite a decent pair. Their dates might be quite bland...at least in terms of risque behavior, but if anything, it kept him off drugs.

Which meant, in his book, Molly Hooper was quite alright indeed.