AN: I don't own the original Characters that are in this fic. They belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Steven Moffat (and the other Sherlock cast and crew)

Chapter 1: Alone

The skinny boy with the curly hair scowled as he pushed his way through the crowds of students that were heading towards their next lessons.

Sherlock had never been one to say "excuse me" and today was no exception. He barged his way roughly through the groups of children, muttering under his breath about how unfair his life was. He was missing English, a really boring lesson, he'll admit, to have a "talk" with his head of year. He knew perfectly well what she wanted to talk to him about but he didn't want to talk to her at all and felt it was all a waste of time.

He approached the door to Mrs Wilkins' room slowly, trying to waste as much time as possible. He reached up and knocked on the door and waited to be called in as he glanced at the lock, working out the exact method he would use to pick it if he ever had to.

He pushed open the door and walked in, dropping his bag on the floor and taking the seat Mrs Wilkins indicated. He gave her one look and then avoided eye contact,

"Good morning, Sherlock" she said in a friendly voice. Sherlock didn't reply. He hated it when teachers tried to be nice, they clearly weren't and there was no point pretending that they were.

Mrs Wilkins continued, "I've asked you here because I've heard from other teachers that you are not mixing in with your classmates and you don't seem to have made any friends and I want to help you". She gave him a pitying look and Sherlock glared at her.

"All the other children are stupid" he replied, simply, "I don't want to be friends with idiots"

"Sherlock!" she exclaimed, shocked, "they are your peers and you need to respect them!"

"Why should I? They don't respect me"

"What? Sherlock, are you being bullied?"

"What kind of a stupid assumption is that?" Sherlock said, "If you teachers would just observe things better you would know that I am perfectly fine and I don't want any friends!"

Mrs Wilkins frowned at him and Sherlock could tell this was going to be a long talk. Why was she so worried about him when it was clear that her marriage was going downhill and soon she'd break up with her husband? Scowling, Sherlock folded his arms and prepared himself for a lot of pity that he didn't need.

The bell rang for second period just as Sherlock left Mrs Wilkins' room. "What a tedious hour!" he thought to himself as he walked to chemistry. People moved out of his way as he walked near them. He heard whispered voices say "freak" and "weirdo", but he didn't care. Didn't people understand that he didn't care what people thought about him?

Walking up the stairs to chemistry he secretly hoped they were going to be doing an experiment (which was much more interesting that writing notes or answering questions) but as he entered the classroom he knew that wouldn't be the case. Mr Cutter looked tired and annoyed and there were no particles of ash on his fingertips, showing that he hadn't had a cigarette yet today and was going to be bad tempered until he got one.

Sighing, Sherlock walked over to his table in the back corner of the room and took out his things. Once Mr Cutter had gone around checking the homework he pulled a book on forensics out if his bag and slipped it under his exercise book so he could read it during the lesson. As Mr Cutter started a long talk about particles, Sherlock put his head down and started reading about crime scenes and forensics. "Why did they never do anything interesting in school?" he wondered, "why didn't they learn the side effects of poisons or how to not only see but to observe, which everyone at this school was terrible at?" Sherlock didn't understand how people missed obvious details when looking at things and knew that, in the end, he could deduce things which meant he was cleverer than everyone.

The clock took a long time to reach break time. When the bell finally rang Sherlock jumped up and hurried from the classroom.

He made his way down to his tree, where he spent every break time, and sat down in the grass with his back resting against the trunk. He looked with interest at two girls who were shouting at each other for doing something wrong.

Why did people want him to make friends when friendships clearly always ended badly? Mummy, Mycroft, the teachers, they all kept going on about having friends. Sherlock was alone and he was fine.

Alone protected him.