Note: This is for my sweet friend, Sundance201/Navy Babe. Happy (one-day-belated) Birthday! I hope it was a positively magical day. Sorry this is a bit late!

One

It was rare for Molly Hooper to see Sherlock Holmes on any sort of set schedule. As a result, they'd known each other for over two years before he happened to be in the lab on her birthday. Even then, she knew it wasn't his reason for visiting. Though she was wildly attracted to him, she recognized that he probably wouldn't retain her date of birth if she ever told him, though her romantic's heart liked to daydream of balloon deliveries and possibly even a deep, velvety voice singing "Happy Birthday" to her.

So when he burst into the morgue just as she was about to go off of the clock on her twenty-ninth birthday, barking orders at Detective Inspector Cordelia Sims, Molly merely greeted them politely and asked they needed, hoping, whatever it was, it would be quick.

The D.I. muscled Sherlock out of the way before he could speak. "Hello, Dr. Hooper. I heard that the toxicology results for David Greengrass were ready." She jerked her head toward the man watching them impatiently. "This one insisted on coming, too, because he, quote, 'wants to see my face when he's proven right.'"

Molly sighed with relief, glad that was all they required. "Do you want me to tell you which one of you wins this bet, or would you rather read it yourselves?" she asked as she moved into her office to fetch the report that she'd only just signed off on.

"Not everything is a competition, Molly," Sherlock called after her.

"Except in all matters where people dare to disagree with you," she said, smiling slightly as she stepped back into the main morgue.

He glared and yanked the report from her hands, quickly scanning the sheets before passing them off to Sims with a triumphant smirk. "I told you. Pesticide."

Sims made a small hmming sound as she, too, read the lab results. "Oh, Great Mr. Holmes," she said robotically, not sounding remotely chagrinned, "you were right and I was wrong. Woe is me."

Sherlock scowled.

"If you want to be exacting," Molly said helpfully, "he did say he it was an organocarbamate. It was actually an organophosphate."

Looking a bit betrayed as D.I. Sims cackled, Sherlock swept his gaze over Molly. "You're going to be under-dressed for the place your friends are taking you for your birthday dinner. Shouldn't you be leaving to change? And Sims, shouldn't you be trying to get a warrant for Greengrass' brother's arrest?"

On that, he strode away without a backward glance.

As he swept out, D.I. Sims offered a parting wave and a hurried, "Happy birthday," to Molly as she quickly hurried after Sherlock.

Molly stood there for another moment, nonplussed. But then she remembered that Sherlock had a tendency to eavesdrop when he was bored. He'd likely heard her discussing her plans when he'd visited the week before.

With a shrug, she began shutting down various pieces of medical equipment and turning off lights, her thoughts moving to the enjoyable evening ahead of her.

Two

"Any plans for your birthday?" John asked Molly as they both waited for Sherlock to finish his study of a particularly interesting slide. "It's tomorrow, yeah?"

Molly started to explain that Greg and Margot Lestrade had invited her over for drinks, but Sherlock interrupted her. "Why are you asking her? You said Lestrade is hosting a surprise party for her."

Both Molly and John stared at Sherlock as he continued his merry specimen observation.

"You're an idiot," John said conversationally, before sending an apologetic smile Molly's way. "How's your 'shocked' face?"

She graciously waved him away, grinning at the notion that her friends would even do something like that for her.

Sherlock remained oblivious. "I will be unable to attend, regrettably. I have other obligations. But there's a card in my left, breast pocket, Molly. Would you mind retrieving it?"

Rolling her eyes good-naturedly at John, Molly turned toward his Belstaff hanging by the lab door.

"Not there," Sherlock corrected impatiently. "It's in my jacket."

Fighting a rather childish blush, Molly moved back over to his side, trying not to be too nervous as she started fishing through the pocket, her wrist brushing against the warm silk of his shirt. Fortunately, her fingers closed around the envelope without too much fussing, and she swiftly pulled it out, lest Sherlock think she was lingering needlessly.

The front of the card was a picture of a winter bird holding a sprig of holly in its mouth. Inside, the printed words read, Season's Greetings. It would have been very fitting, were it December rather than late March.

Below that, Sherlock had messily scrawled, Felicitations. –S.H

"I'll repeat: you're an idiot." John had come up alongside Molly to read the card over her shoulder. Molly nudged him to stop him from saying anything else.

"Thank you, Sherlock," she beamed.

Sherlock nodded distractedly, studiously peering through the microscope's eyepiece.

Molly decided it was probably best that she not mention the fact that she planned to take the card home and keep it forever in her hope chest.

Three

She'd not spoken to Sherlock Holmes in nearly ten months.

Fear for his safety nagged at her every day as she fought an ever-pressing hope that he'd contact her somehow to let her know that he was okay. But her phone remained silent of text messages from him, and his brother had yet to visit her morgue. She doubted Mycroft would even consider it or her.

Sometimes, in the dark of her bedroom, she would lay awake, fearing that Sherlock would never come back; that this was their new reality. She didn't think she was ready to face a world without Sherlock Holmes, for all of his faults and foibles.

Her thirty-second birthday was a quiet affair. She reluctantly agreed to a lunch date with some friends, and accepted birthday greetings from her coworkers with feigned cheer.

She did not hear from John.

As she let herself into the front vestibule of her building and unlocked her mailbox, Molly rocked her head back and forth, trying to work out stiffness from a day spent slouching over various and sundry bodies.

Her post was uninspired. Bills, ads, and more bills, for the most part. And then she came across the white, battered envelope with no return address. Though her fingers itched to slide across the sealant and solve her curiosity, Molly forced herself to wait until she was locked away in her flat.

With shaky hands, she tore open the envelope. A watery laugh escaped when she finally saw its contents.

It was a small card, the kind usually found on floral arrangements. On its front was a snowman with birds perched all over its head as it smiled on, uncaring.

Breathing carefully through her nose, she opened the tiny bit of cardstock.

There was no pre-printed platitude in this card. Just stark white, and two, handwritten words: Season's Greetings

That night, Molly lay in bed staring at the ceiling and did nothing to stop the hot tears falling back along her temples and into her hairline.

Four

When she and Tom walked into Mary and John's house, accepting hugs and cheek busses from her dear friends, Molly couldn't stop her eyes from straying to the tall figure lurking in the far corner of the room.

As John hurried off to fetch drinks for them, Sherlock finally made his way over to her.

"Molly," he greeted soberly, and then he nodded at Tom, who waved back cheerfully.

He probably can't remember Tom's name, she thought, trying not to laugh. Out loud, she returned his greeting, and couldn't help but blurt, "I didn't think I'd see you here. Why are you here? You hate parties."

"It's your birthday," Sherlock said, is if was the most obvious thing in the world.

Molly could only smile back at him, and for once, it was something he returned.

That evening, Molly drank a little too much wine and laughed at things that probably wouldn't have been nearly so funny were she sober. But fortunately, everyone else, save Sherlock, seemed to be of a like mind. They all guffawed at a story Mrs. Hudson recounted about her old biddy of a neighbor, Mrs. Turner, and then snorted as Sherlock gave a rather cutting impression of his older brother.

Tom then began regaling them with a tale of how he'd once entered the ladies lavatory accidentally at a supermarket. Everyone chuckled politely as he petered out, and Molly patted his arm with forced sympathy. Shortly after the awkward silence, Mary loudly declared that they should all have seconds of birthday cake. Molly jumped up to fetch it and some plates, shushing all of the people who insisted that the birthday girl should do no such thing.

As she bustled around the kitchen, trying to locate the serving utensil for the cake, she heard footfalls behind her. "Where is the cake spatula, Mary? Is it in the dishwasher?"

"That's not something I'm called often," came a much deeper reply than Molly had expected.

Turning, she smiled in apology to Sherlock. "You would make a lovely 'Mary'. I should actually look before I address a person, eh?"

He shrugged noncommittally, leaning back against the counter with his hands in his trouser pockets.

"Did you need something?" she asked him as she went back to shuffling through detritus in the kitchen drawers.

Sherlock was silent for a moment. Loud laughter filtered in from the other room and Molly thought that perhaps he'd not heard her question. But just as she was about to repeat herself, he spoke. "Are you happy?"

"What, right now? Very. That is some good wine," she snickered, swaying a little as she regarded him.

Looking a bit uncomfortable, Sherlock shook his head. "I mean in general. Things are going well with your fiancé?"

Though she spared a moment to feel a little flummoxed that Sherlock Holmes, of all people, was inquiring after her contentedness, Molly nodded without thinking on her answer. "So far so good."

He nodded. "Good. That's… good."

Molly watched him, unsure of why he'd even felt the need to ask. But he gave no indication that he had anything further to say, until he straightened from the counter edge and moved over to her.

"I am glad to hear it. Happy birthday, Molly Hooper."

She should have expected it. It seemed like every time he moved in to kiss her, he prefaced it with her full name. But she hadn't thought she'd get a kiss on her cheek for an occasion so mundane as her birthday. So when he leaned down to her, she turned her head, expecting to see him inspecting something on her shoulder (she'd had rather a lot of wine). His lips pressed to her, only they didn't meet her cheek as he'd intended.

The kiss landed squarely on her mouth. They stayed there, frozen, her startled eyes meeting his for three beats before she squeaked and jumped back, breaking the ephemeral contact.

"Sorry!" she yelped. "Sorry!"

Sherlock shook his head, a little color staining his pale cheeks. "It's nothing. Shall we take the cake in?"

Nodding furiously, Molly gathered up the items she'd set aside when Sherlock had arrived. She cursed and blindly grabbed a the first thing she could reach in the closest drawer, deciding whatever it was would have to do for serving the dessert. She scurried back into the Watson's lounge and was soon distracted from her mortification as she tried to come up with an excuse for why she'd thought a spaghetti ladle would be a good idea for serving the cake.

After saying their goodbyes to everyone later that night, Molly stood back on the pavement as she watched Tom try unsuccessfully to hail a taxi. She thought back on the lovely evening.

She thought back on her time in the kitchen with Sherlock. She wasn't so sure she'd been entirely honest. She wasn't sure things were 'so far, so good'. As for what followed, well… she really wasn't sure she was sorry.

Five

Though Molly was generally even-tempered and rarely got ruffled, the hurt and anger she felt over Sherlock's drug use and the related lies he told during that awful case were pervasive. She had told herself it was the drugs enabling him to send such cutting barbs her way and she had set to convincing herself to let it go as she watched him rush away from the lab, a reluctant John trailing after him.

It was made easier to find some forgiveness when he got shot later that same day. When she went to see him in hospital, hanging back from the rest of his visitors, he'd actually requested a private audience with her, where he'd carefully explained why he'd done any of it.

It wasn't an apology, but she doubted she'd ever receive anything so blatant in the matter.

But they weren't necessarily on even footing, either. She'd felt uneasy with him for the next, several months, both aware that he could very much hurt her, but with the uncomfortable knowledge that she could hurt him just as much. She knew which buttons to push. It was an uncomfortable feeling to realize she had such intimate knowledge of Sherlock Holmes without any of the remuneration.

And then everything happened with the Moriarty scare, and all of that palpable tension had been swept under the rug. Not resolved. Nothing so neat as that, but ignored for the sake of the Sherlock's desire to keep Molly safe and solve the mystery as efficiently as possible.

When Sherlock knocked on her door early on the morning of her thirty-fourth birthday, she was almost surprised by just how unsurprised she actually was to see him there.

Letting him into her flat she fought the impulse to apologize for her appearance. He was the one who'd woken her at half six on a Saturday morning.

Yawning, she shuffled back to her kitchen to brew some coffee, trusting that he would follow. As she carelessly shoveled grounds into a filter, Molly eyed Sherlock. He'd slumped into a chair at her table, and was watching her with a single-minded intensity that would have made her uncomfortable were it not so damn early.

The scent of brewing coffee soon filled the small galley kitchen, and she felt it perk her up slightly. When it finished dripping into the carafe, she lurched back over to it, fighting another yawn.

"So what brings you here, Sherlock?" she asked, moving over to her cupboard to fetch down two mugs.

Turning, she nearly yelped and sent porcelain flying when she found Sherlock suddenly right there. Right in her personal space, his eyes darting over her in silent assessment, and Molly could do nothing but wait for him to explain himself.

"I've been thinking," he murmured.

"About what?"

"That I never fully apologized for what happened last year. "

"And you're going to now?" That he was even considering it stunned her. She'd just assumed that their silence on the subject was tacit; that they'd never mention it again.

Not that she was complaining, that was his true purpose for being there.

Sherlock nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry, Molly. For everything. I was reckless and uncaring of it." He paused, still watching her with unsettling intensity. Likely looking for absolution in the microexpressions of her face. "And doing so, I hurt you."

"You hurt a lot of people," she reminded him, eager to divert his attention from solely her.

"Yes, and I've apologized to each of them."

"Ah." She looked down at this. Was he admitting that she was an afterthought?

His hands clasping her shoulders redirected her gaze. "But the hurt I caused you goes beyond my deception during that time."

If he expected her to talk frankly about something that would make her so vulnerable, he was doomed for disappointment, and she started to tell him that, but he continued on.

"I used the dissolution of your relationship with Tom as a means to hit back at you. And that is unpardonable. When we first discussed your engagement, I told you that I wanted you to be happy. The end of that engagement must have made you very unhappy, yet I chose it as a weak point to jab at."

"You were high," she said, shifting nervously, the weight of his hands burning through her t-shirt.

"Which makes it even less excusable. But I need to confess something to you."

"Go ahead."

He sucked in a careful breath. "Beyond the drugs, I was glad you were unhappy."

Her brow furrowed. Obviously, he'd wanted to bite at her when he commented on her lack of ring, but that he felt genuinely pleased her emotion was available to him…. "Oh," she said weakly. "Okay." She tried to duck out from under his hands, but he moved one to her waist to stay her.

"I was glad because,"—he licked his lips nervously—"because…."

"Because?" she prompted, bewildered.

He stared at her, his breath puffing out of his nose. And then, with a bitten-off curse, he stepped up against her in a rush, stopping only when she was flush to him. And then he was kissing her.

The heat of his mouth against hers, the small moan he emitted at the press and fervor of their lips: they were enough undo her. Molly was so confused, but she'd lost the coherence to examine what was confusing her most.

All she could recognize was that Sherlock Holmes was kissing her ardently in her kitchen. She could feel everything: the silk of his trousers brushing her bare legs, the tab button at their waist digging into her belly. The hand at her waist held tightly to her, clinging and pulling her in equal measure. His other hand, the one on her shoulder, moved to her neck, large enough that his palm spanned its length, and Molly knew her pulse was beating a fluttering tattoo in the dead center of it.

The noise of impassioned approval he made when her own arms found their way around him urged a reciprocal sound from her, and they clung to each other tightly.

When he finally broke away from her lips, it was only to press a grateful parade of kisses along her jaw, coming to a stop by her ear. His cheek pressing to hers turned their embrace into more of a hug, and Molly was struck with the notion that that could somehow be more vulnerable than the meeting of their mouths.

"I'm sorry, Molly," he whispered harshly. "For being so weak where you are nothing but strong. For causing you pain when all I want is to make you happy. Will you forgive me?"

She turned her head, pressing her lips first to the proud, sharp point of his cheekbone, the second to his temple. "Yes, Sherlock," she murmured. "I forgive you."

The tension drained from his body, though his hold on her only tightened. He tilted his head back, returning his lips to hers. Before they kissed again, he said, "Thank you."

Six

"All in all," Sherlock ruminated, "I'd say the party was a success."

"Mmhmm," Molly agreed blearily.

"The restaurant didn't mess up too horribly, and the bakery that made your cake understands that there's a crucial ratio between cake and icing." When she didn't reply, Sherlock prompted her, "Would you agree with that assessment?"

Though her eyes were trying to roll back in her head, she managed to pant out a response. "Yes. Totally."

Pleased that they were in accord, he renewed his efforts, groaning a little as Molly raked her nails down his back. "What was the purpose of the gift John and Mary gave you?" He hooked an arm underneath her, tugging her hips up closer to his.

The move surprised a loud moan from her, and she barely managed a reply. "It's… it's a mandolin—oh Jesus—a mandolin slicer."

"Yes," he wheezed, "but what does it slice?" Pausing, he looked down at her hopefully. "It would be brilliant for taking cross-sections of flesh—"

"No," Molly interrupted firmly, giving his bottom a light smack. Which only made him moan and push into her harder. "No flesh in our new cooking utensil."

"You're far too picky," Sherlock said, his head dropping to her shoulder as his body undulated above hers with increasing tempo.

"Said the cat to the… the…."

"The what?" he asked, pressing a wet kiss to the center of her sternum.

Molly shook her head, gasping for breath. "I can't think right now. It was going to be devastatingly clever, though."

His lips returned to hers for an artless kiss. "Of course it was," he agreed.

Conversation ceased after that. Their panting breaths, and groaning of the bed springs, and the sounds of their bodies moving together were all that filled the room. Molly cried out first, clutching around Sherlock tightly, and he responded in kind not long after.

Collapsing on her, he rolled over to her side, and they lay there gasping for breath for several minutes as their flesh cooled.

Rolling his head bonelessly to smile at her, Sherlock reached down and grabbed her weakened hand, tugging it up so he could press a light kiss to the backs of her fingers. "Happy birthday, Molly Hooper."

Woozily, she grinned back at him. "Season's greetings," she agreed.