At first she was numb.
Staring at the Doctor as she told her the news, she couldn't take it in.
Impossible.
My baby.
She stood there, abandoned in the pristine, glaringly white corridor, unfeeling. Inside the room behind her, her precious little girl, so like her, fought for her last breaths.
The faint rise and fall of each fragile, desperate breath that lifted the crisp white sheets just above her daughters' tiny chest made no impact.
She felt dead inside.
And then anger raised its ugly head, rage against the injustice of it all filling her with putrid fury, boiling over as she lashed out viciously, kicking at the chairs nearby.
It wasn't fair that her baby, after all they had gone through, would survive so much to be taken by something so very trivial.
So very... preventable.
It was her fault.
The fight left her, leaving her collapsed on the floor.
It's my fault. It is, oh God it's my fault, it's all my fault, no! No, this can't... Why now. Fuck, no, my baby... Her chest constricted, though she still made no sound.
The nurses down the hall were giving her sympathetic looks.
She wanted to snarl a them.
She probably did.
She didn't want their pity, or their concern.
She wanted her daughter to live.
Her phone beeped, an annoying, high pitched whine that she kept meaning to change, since it upset Evie.
She figured it wouldn't matter now.
It kept whining, until she wanted to just throw the confounded contraption away from her. She didn't want to see anyone.
She didn't want anyone to see her like this.
Sherlock
Molly I require your assistance at Barts immedi-
The message cut off there, too long for the phone screen to show her.
She didn't care.
She couldn't care. Not about him, not about herself, she could hardly muster the energy to care for her dying daughter.
She was tired. For the first time ever, she understood Jim.
Staying alive is tedious.
Staying.
She threw her phone. She barely registered the tinkling of shards of the glass screen hitting the floor as it shattered against the far wall.
Pressure built inside her slowly.
She knew she should want to scream, and sob, and curse, but she couldn't.
She was numb.
The pain would come, she knew that.
How often had she seen it, felt a ghost of its presence hovering over her when performing an autopsy, on a parent, a sister, a father. A child.
Molly Hooper was no stranger to grief.
She had catalogued, over the years, the stages.
Denial. Numb, blissful denial.
Blame, anger. The pain starts.
And then the crushing acceptance that your loved one is gone, that pain hitting at inopportune moments, the feeling that nothing will be the same, not ever, and it kills a part of them too.
She was waiting for the pain.
At least pain was something, something keeping her tethered to this horrid world.
She pressed her hand softly against the window to her daughters' room. Her little Evie looked so peaceful, so beautiful.
She took after her father.
Wherever he was.
Old irritation flared up against Tom, for leaving her with a premature baby. Being premature, Evie had an appalling immune system, which was what made her guilt so much greater.
Molly knew to take precautions: From the minute she was allowed to take her too-small baby girl home, after being incarcerated in an incubator for five weeks, she had gone above and beyond her motherly duty to protect her child.
"Molly. I assume you received my text? I thought you would meet me there..?"
Something within her snapped at the sound of Sherlock's dispassionate voice.
"No. I am done with this, Sherlock. You cannot keep expecting me to drop everything at a word from you. You are not my life. She is, and she is lying in there, and she is dyingand I am not allowed to hold her in my amrs as she dies and it's my fault, Sherlock, it's all my fault..."
The dam broke, her tears flooded forth as she imploded, crumpling in upon herself, hands pressed desperately against the glass.
"Evie, I love you, my precious baby girl. I love you, I swear, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.."
She trailed off, her shoulders shaking with the strength of her sobs.
His large hands encompassed her shoulders, pulling her against his chest.
"What's killing her?" His voice, usually so cold, was gentle, caring.
Sociopath, her arse.
She hiccoughed.
"Flu. Of all the things to go and get, she had to get flu. Her body, it's not fighting it. They can't do anything, except lessen her pain-"
A series of wet coughs could be heard from inside the room, Evie's little body rising off the bed as her lungs strove for oxygen, forcibly lifting her chest and shoulders up.
She showed no signs of stopping.
Molly watched, horrified, tears still streaming down her cheeks as a thick bubble of blood popped on a particularly violent cough, lightly covering everything in a fine spray of blood.
"Someone, help!" She dragged herself up, calling for someone, anyone to help her child.
The faint periodically interrupted beep ceased to be interrupted.
The steady whine sliced into her conciousness where she stood, one thought repeating itself like a litany in her mind.
She hates this noise.
She had to stop it. She didn't know what she was doing, wrenching herself out of Sherlock's hold and throwing herself at the doors, determined to get to her daughter. She had reached her baby, pressing wet, tearful kissed across her face, murmuring her love for her child brokenly.
She wasn't even aware of him pulling her away from Evie-Mae Hooper, utterly consumed by the pain.
It was blinding.
It was debilitating.
It made her want to die.
It seemed to burst furiously from her heart, spreading evenly throughout her body until every cell thrummed with exquisite torture, each pump of her heart pushing the pain further into her, until she thought she could not bear it.
Now she understood why some mothers wept openly and brokenly when they saw their child laid out on her slab.
She wanted to tear and maim and destroy everything in her path.
How was she supposed to get over this.
How was she supposed to move on?
Each passing second seemed to intensify the pain.
She almost wished for the apathy to return.
"Molly... There's nothing else we can do here." His hands were everywhere, or so it seemed.
Had they always been so large?
Or was she just so very small?
She wanted to scream, and she wanted t kiss him, make him take the pain away.
She knew that only one was a viable option.
She also knew that she could not leave her daughter here.
She'd only been out of the hospital six weeks.
Her baby would be dead at only eleven weeks old.
She would be be expected back at work on Monday.
She couldn't.
She pushed his hands away from her, collapsing in on herself as the pain beat mercilessly against her, dragging away and slamming back into her ruthlessly.
She felt lost.
He couldn't help.
His presence, above her, shielding her from the curious and pitying onlookers, was of small comfort.
The injustice, and the irony, was horrifying.
She hadn't wanted her child, not at first.
Now, she'd give anything to have her for a little longer.
They pulled the white sheet - speckled with red, now - up, covering her little girl's face.
She wished she could switch places with Evie, her precious, innocent baby.
But dying would be of no help to anyone.
She still wanted to, though.
Never would she see her little girl learn to walk, or talk, or go to school.
The thought stabbed her through her already shredded heart.
Inhuman noises forced their way through her conciousness. Coming from her.
Sat in foetal ball against the wall, with Sherlock's tall dark form glaring down the corridor at anyone who looked irritated by the woman's despair, she let her anguish pour from her lungs, ripping animalistically from her throat as she gasped frantically for breath against the vice that seemed to be closing around her chest.
Her baby was gone.
Life could not be the same.
Molly Hooper wanted to die.
She accepted it.
Sherlock didn't.
Okay so I read The Fault in our stars last night and was filled with horrible feelings and had to get it off my chest. I'm so sorry.