"Molly!" the drunken baritone of Sherlock's voice rang from her stairwell just as Molly Hooper heard a thud against her door.

Not again, she mumbled under her breath as she flipped off the telly and glanced at her watch. One in the morning, yet another one in the morning call from Sherlock Holmes.

She got to her feet, tightened her blue chenille bathrobe and made her way to the door before he yelled again and woke her neighbors.

She was just in time as he was just in the process of raising his hand to knock when she opened it and ushered him inside.

A glance told her he'd been out again. His suit was dark blue and rumbled, his deep purple shirt stained with some kind of alcohol, his hair was flying in all different directions and he smelled like a brewery.

"Oh, Molly," he slurred. "I'm so glad you're still up. I was afraid it was too late and I have questions."

"You were out again tonight?" she asked, taking the coat and jacket he was jabbing in her direction and giving them both a toss on the chair beside the couch.

"Yes, I went out again. Of course I went out again. I told you, this is an experiment."

"An experiment in drunkenness?" she jibed testily. It was the third night this week he'd shown up at her door, completely inebriated.

"No," he answered as if she'd said the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, a tone Molly was not unfamiliar with coming from him. "I know everything I need to know about being drunk."

"Clearly," she commented drily with a raised eyebrow.

He looked her up and down for a moment before stepping close to her and whispering in her ear, "You know, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for you to loosen up a little, Molly. You really are rather boring."

"And yet, here you are at my door at one in the morning," she huffed and walked to the couch where she plopped down and put her slipper covered feet up on the coffee table. "Okay, let's have it then. What questions do you have this time?"

"My first question," he began as he stumbled over to the spot beside her and flopped his long body down in a more or less seated position. "is why?"

"Why what?" she asked, shifting so her back was against the arm of the sofa. She rested her knees in front of her and settled in for a nice long session. She could tell by his tone he was gearing up for something.

"Why do men and women go through all they go through just to be together? What is the point of all this?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, are you asking me what the point of love is?" she asked incredulously.

"No, I'm asking what is the point of love. You ended your sentence with a prepo-prepo-preposition." he corrected.

"Oh for God's sake," she mumbled, "Wouldn't it be better if you just got some sleep? Can't we talk about this tomorrow?"

Sherlock squirmed, shifting around on his side of the couch like a two year old gearing up for a tantrum and it nearly made her laugh out loud. "I don't want to wait till tomorrow. I want to talk about it now!" he insisted.

"Okay," she held her hands out to ward off the fit. "We'll talk now. Let's see what's the point of love?" She sat quietly thinking for a moment, trying to find the right words to explain such an abstract concept. "I suppose the biggest point would be procreation."

"No, no, no," he immediately answered, shaking his head violently to the point of almost tumbling off the sofa. "There is no need for love in the act of procreation. It isn't needed and in fact, in most cases, if you ask me, it just makes it all more messy."

"You're saying that being in love makes having children more messy ?"

"Well, yes, how can you not see that?"

Molly sighed in frustration and decided that maybe changing the subject was the best option. "Maybe you can tell me what happened to make you question the point of love? Did you have a date tonight or were you just out observing the people, like you call it?"

Sherlock had begun this experiment not long after Alexis, John and Mary's baby, was born. He had gotten it into his head that at some point in the future Alexis would be coming to him for advice about life and he felt like his experience in a few areas might not be up to the task. Right now he'd tasked himself with learning everything there was to learn about dating and love. So far it had been a very confusing and frustrating lesson for the genius.

"I was just observing tonight," he answered. "I went to the pub right down from my flat. There was a man sitting at the bar, single, insurance salesman, watches a lot of telly, mostly sports, eats too much fried foods, owns a small brown dog, has a sister he rarely talks to and a brother he talks to more than he wants, parents are both dead." He paused to draw in some air as the last sentence was spoken quite quickly and all in one breath. "You get the idea."

"No, I'm not sure that I do, but go on, I'll catch up." She told him.

"I watched him as he ordered drinks for no less than four different women, paid for them, smiled and talked to them like he was actually interested in what they were saying. Then I watched that same man go home alone. Not one of the women stayed for longer than it took her to finish her free drink before she moved on to a more appealing man."

"More appealing? You mean the man wasn't very attractive?" Molly asked, trying to get a feel for the situation.

"Well, he wasn't horribly disfigured or anything. He was just average, wearing an average looking beige suit with average brown hair and eyes."

"So he was boring, like me?" she interjected with an edge to her voice that she was certain he would ignore.

He did, just as she knew he would. "Yes, exactly. The thing is, two of those women who this perfectly nice chap bought a drink for, came to sit in the booth right beside mine and spent half the night trying to get my attention while I ignored them." He sat up a little straighter though it looked difficult as his bones appeared to have melted from the alcohol. "I just don't understand." He ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it further still. "Why wouldn't they have just stayed with the man who showed them some interest? They could have spent a perfectly nice evening with a man who wanted to be with them. Instead they both left frustrated and alone."

"I'm still not sure what it is that you're asking?" she answered confused. "I don't know why they didn't like the man at the bar. I haven't met him. Maybe he's boring like you said. Or maybe he's secretly a creep. Who knows?"

"I need to know. What made me more attractive than him to these women?"

Molly got to her feet and started off towards the part of the flat set aside for the kitchen. "Well, honestly, Sherlock." She burst out without thinking as she put a pot on for tea. She could feel the redness rising in her cheeks as Sherlock turned and looked at her with raised eyebrows. "I just mean, if this other guy wasn't as attractive as you are, of course those women would rather go home with you."

"But I never gave them any indication that that was an option. Why wouldn't they have chosen the man who did give them that option instead?"

She came back to the sofa and rested her hip on the arm while waiting for the water to boil. "It's natural selection. Clearly they didn't find the other man as desirable a mate as they found you." She tried again. Sherlock would never get this without her spelling it out, but spelling it out would be admitting that she found him very attractive and she wasn't willing to do that. "Or maybe they met the other man and they just didn't click with him."

"Click?" he asked like the word was foreign and he'd never heard it before.

"Yeah, you know, they didn't hit it off, didn't get on."

"So now you're saying the key is to click with someone?"

The pot began to whistle and she made herself busy with making them both a cup of tea. "Yeah, I guess, really that's the point of love. You just try to find someone you click with."

"Someone with whom you click, Molly. Really, I know you have a better grasp of language than this." he tsked.

Slobbering, staggering drunk and here he was lecturing her on her grammar. But then of course he was. He was Sherlock.

"Alright, fine." She huffed. "The point is to find someone with whom you click."

Sherlock took the cup she offered him and brought it to his lips. Then he made a face and sat it on the coffee table, forgotten. "How exactly does one know when they click with someone? What does that mean?"

"It means finding someone you can talk to, someone who likes the same things you like or does the same things you do. Someone who gets you." she answered as she went back to the kitchen and grabbed the sugar container. Then she came to the table, scooped two spoonfuls into Sherlock's cup, then put it back in the kitchen.

Sherlock glanced at the cup for a moment before picking it up, taking a tentative sip and finally a large gulp.

"Oh," she said as she resumed her position on the opposite end of the couch. "A homeless man came into the morgue today. I saved him for you like you asked."

He brightened immediately. "Oh, that's great news! Do you want to help me with him tomorrow?"

"Of course. You know I'm always up for an experiment."

Sherlock was suddenly silent as he sat and stared at her for long enough that she started to squirm uncomfortably.

"You know," he said, finally. "Your hair is rather beautiful in this light."

Her hand went there automatically and busied itself with smoothing any wayward strands. "Thank you," she mumbled into her cup of tea. "That's very nice of you to say."

"I wasn't trying to be nice. I was just stating a fact. Actually, now that I really look at you, you are a very attractive woman, Molly."

Molly nearly spilled her tea in her sudden nervousness and decided it would be best to put it away. When she did, she dropped her feet from the sofa and sat forward, causing her to brush against Sherlock's long leg in the process. She jumped at the sudden contact and ended up with a lap full of tea anyway.

"Shit," she muttered, as she tried to brush the liquid off. Then without giving it much thought, she undid the tie to her robe and shrugged it off before giving it a toss on the floor. A glance down made her suddenly even more uncomfortable as she realized she was now sitting beside Sherlock in an old, ratty t-shirt that barely came to the middle of her thighs and hugged her upper body a little more closely than she liked. The v-shaped neck added some cleavage to the mix and made her feel even more naked.

The ugly, yet comfortable, loose gym shorts didn't even come past her t-shirt making it appear as if she was wearing nothing at all under it and giving Sherlock a bird's eye view of her entirely bare leg.

Sherlock shifted and cleared his throat in an unmistakably nervous way. Then he sat his cup beside her empty one on the table and got to his feet much more steadily than she would have thought him capable of doing.

"Maybe I should be going." He said as he wiped his palms on the front of his trousers. "I didn't realize how late it was and I'm keeping you up."

Molly squeezed past him quickly and jolted into her room where she retrieved a fresh robe.

"It's okay." Molly answered when she returned. "I don't really sleep."

"You don't sleep?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

"No, I sleep, just not often and never for very long."

"Molly, you know that isn't healthy. You really should sleep."

Molly shrugged. "Like I said, I do sleep-"

Sherlock cut her off. "Just not often or for very long." He sat back down. "You are a doctor, Molly. You know you must sleep more than that."

She shrugged again. "I can't make myself sleep. It's not like I don't try."

"You know," he began and she could have sworn he moved a little closer to her when he did. "I'm not completely unfamiliar with the concept of insomnia. I myself have had many nights when I simply could not get my mind to shut up long enough for me to get to sleep. What makes you not be able to sleep?"

"Same thing, I guess. Plus," she started to say something, then stopped and pursed her lips together in total embarrassment over what she was about to admit.

"What?" he pushed. "You can tell me."

She shifted and the movement caused her shirt to ride up even higher on her thigh and she immediately yanked it back down as far as she could. "It's just that I've never really gotten used to being alone here. I've always had someone around. I moved in here right after university where I lived with my roommate. Before that I was at home with my parents and brothers."

"But you've been on your own for a few years now. Surely you've had time to adjust to being alone," he commented.

"Not really. I've had people here with me for the most part. I haven't been here alone too often." She said as tactfully as possible.

"You've had flatmates?" he asked.

"I did for a while when I first moved in. Then there was Tom." She answered.

"Yes, Tom." He replied with a bit more aplomb than was necessary, making it obvious that he had an opinion about Tom he was reluctant to share. "So, Tom lived here with you for a time, did he?"

"Yeah, well, it wasn't official or anything, but you know, when we were together, we were together most nights."

"You know," he chuckled but it sounded forced and didn't reach his eyes. "When you brought him to John's wedding, someone mentioned that he bore a striking resemblance to me."

Molly leaned forward and rubbed her hand along her calf nervously. "Really? I never noticed," she lied. "I never noticed that at all." She added for good measure.

Of course she'd noticed. When she was being truly honest with herself, which wasn't often, she could admit that the only reason she'd started seeing Tom in the first place was because he looked so much like the man beside her. Well, that and the fact that Sherlock was supposedly dead and she didn't think she'd ever see him again. Not that had matter to her much. She'd known all along that he wasn't really dead and never gave up hope for his return. But she'd been in one of her, 'I'm giving up on this guy and moving on with my life', phases. She'd been through several of those phases with regards to Sherlock Holmes. For Molly Hooper it had been love at first sight when he stepped into her morgue and proceeded to take it over. She'd been so obviously and utterly head over heels in love with him for so long. Every time she felt they might be making a little progress, something always came crashing down on them and put her right back at square one in his eyes. It wasn't until very recently that she'd given up on him for the last time. She'd promised herself that no matter what, she was not about to fall down that rabbit hole again.

When Alexis came around and John found himself with no time to play with Sherlock, her relationship with the detective had changed. She'd found herself getting calls in the middle of the day to meet him some place or other to look for clues, and calls in the middle of the night so he could have a sounding board while he thought things out. She liked to think she contributed a little to his process now. She wanted to feel as if she were a part of the brilliant work he did.

But more importantly than anything, she found herself more able to just be herself around him now. Since letting her childish fantasies about him go, she'd seen him in a new light, a different light. Oh, she still knew he was completely brilliant. But now there was a humanness in him that she'd never noticed before and somehow knowing that had given her the courage to be who she really was around him. It was a refreshing change and a much needed one. It was exhausting, loving him the way she had in the beginning. Now she wasn't quite sure what her feelings for him really were.

He was her friend. Even he would call them that much. And that alone made her feel as if he'd bestowed a great gift upon her. So she'd made up her mind when they started working together so closely, being his friend was enough. It was more than enough. It was an honor.

"Did you ever get a chance to look at the shoe scrapings in the Doyle case?" he asked, out of the blue and clearly changing the subject.

"I did. Come by in the morning and I'll have the results for you."

"Anything standout?"

"Not really, nothing out of the ordinary that I saw, but I'm sure you'll see something I didn't," she answered.

"Why do you always do that?" he asked, turning towards her and completely giving up any notion he had about going home.

"Why do I do what?" she replied, confused.

"If you didn't see anything important in the sample, there probably wasn't anything to see. You know a reasonable amount about these sorts of things. You are a pathologist, after all. That does come with a special skill set, yet you always assume that have the wrong answer, not that the answer just isn't there," he explained.

Molly sat back, falling back into her original position with her back against the sofa's arm but this time she left her feet on the floor. "I don't know. I guess I'm just used to having the wrong answer."

He shook his head immediately. "But you don't. You are a talented pathologist. Do you really think I would work with you if you weren't?"

"I suppose you're right. I was top of my class in medical school."

"And there was the time you called me when one of your cases didn't feel right to you. You had no evidence really but you called me because you thought there was something off when the police wanted to declare the death an accident. If it hadn't been for your keen eyes and good judgment, that woman's murderer would have never been brought to justice."

She couldn't help but smile. "Okay, okay, I'm kinda brilliant."

"You help me, too, you know." He said after joining her in a chuckle.

"No, I don't, not really. I get you coffee and make sure you eat, but other than that-"

"You help me see things I didn't see, things I may have overlooked." He finished before she had a chance.

"Now you're just putting on." She blushed.

"When have you ever known me to pay someone a compliment I didn't feel they deserved?" He said in all seriousness.

She shut up immediately and shifted in her seat. "Well, I'm glad to know I help."

His hand suddenly fell to her bare knee and she almost jerked away when the warmth of his palm touched her skin. "You help, Molly and I appreciate you."

Her eyes fell to his hand and stayed there for a moment while she processed what was happening, then a thought suddenly occurred to her. "Did Mary tell you to tell me that?"

He snatched his hand back and began to fiddle with the buttons on his shirt. "She might have mentioned that it would be nice if I told you that I realize how much you do for me. Apparently, I take you for granted sometimes. I don't mean to. It just sort of happens."

"Oh," Molly mumbled, a little flattened now that she knew this whole conversation had been prompted. She knew her friend meant well, but really she wished everyone would just leave them be. She was used to the way Sherlock normally treated her. This new and improved Sherlock was unnerving. Or maybe it was just that she wished she'd been brave enough herself to tell him he took her for granted.

"But the compliments were all mine. I meant every word of them."He added quickly.

"It's okay. I understand that this is hard for you." She said, trying to let him off the hook.

"I don't want you to understand. I don't want you to have to be understanding in order to put up with me." He suddenly burst out. "I don't want you to feel as though you are putting up with me at all."

"Put up with you? You think that's what I do? Put up with you?" she asked, getting to her feet. "I don't put up with you, you dolt. I like being with you."

"Oh, come on now, no one actually likes being with me. I'm rude. I'm callous. I'm self-centered."

"Stop it!" She said a little louder than she meant to. "What you are is brilliant. You are the most brilliant man I've ever known and the fact that you use that brilliance to help people, that makes you even more brilliant."

"Okay, so we're both brilliant," he nodded. "Now tell me more about this whole process of clicking with someone."

Molly sighed and resigned herself to the all night discussion she knew was about to commence.