A.N. Or Four Times Molly Hooper was There for Sherlock Holmes and One Time he was There for Her. Eventual two sided Sherlolly. Please let me know what you think.

Molly's day had been very unsettling so it was with some relief that she switched the lights out in the supply cupboard of the lab and made her way out of there. She had no idea what time it was. She only knew that she needed to get home and sleep. Thank God she wasn't on shift tomorrow.

Suddenly, all thought of what she had in the fridge for dinner (or very early breakfast depending on traffic) was banished by a soft baritone voice that made her flinch in surprise. "You're wrong, you know. You do count." Sherlock stood with his back to her, staring at the wall, indulging in his normal habit of making his presence known suddenly. Molly had once asked him if Scotty had beamed him there. A poor attempt at a joke, she realised, and he hadn't picked up on the reference anyway. "You've always counted and I've always trusted you. But you were right." He turned to face her. He would have looked and sounded quite calm to the casual, indifferent observer. But it was well known that Molly was anything but indifferent to this man. Well, by anyone but him, at any rate. "I'm not okay." She could hear the strain in his voice, more sincere than any time she could remember and her instinct was to help, to take whatever the problem was away.

"Tell me what's wrong"

"Molly, I think I'm going to die." She felt her chest tighten and her eyes prickle.

"What do you need?" She asked a little frantically.

"If I wasn't everything you think I am, everything *i* think I am. Would you still want to help me?"

This time her voice was stronger "what do you need?"

His blue-green eyes focused like laser sights on her and his voice dropped to a low murmur that shot directly to her heart "You".

'Then that's what you'll have' she found herself thinking.

A few short hours had brought a grey morning light and thrown Molly's mind into turmoil. She supposed she should have seen something like this coming one day. His requests had always been outlandish. And ever since she had met him while they were both in the process of studying for PhDs she had answered them to the best of her ability. Once upon a time, he had been largely anonymous, eschewing public credit for his extraordinary contributions to justice. A solved puzzle was its own reward. Between John's blog and a growing pool of increasingly high profile clients and associates, not to mention the British press, Sherlock's reputation had spread. It was only a matter of time before he attracted his equal and opposite and things came to a head between them.

Jim Moriarty. It made Molly shudder to think that that twisted individual had pretended to date her for months. A man who had strapped bombs to human beings and thought it fun. There she'd been, cuddling on her sofa with him, watching crap TV and all the time it had been nothing more than a chore carried out as part of a sick game with Sherlock. She should have seen the signs that he had something to hide. He had always been too quick to smile and appease her in conversation and whenever they had a night in, it had always been at her place. He never even told her where he lived. She was certainly no Sherlock, that was for sure.

Now she stood by a second story window, holding a dead body on the bench next to the sill, a body chosen to superficially resemble Sherlock. She was waiting for the signal she hoped wouldn't come. If she received the words 'goodbye Molly. I'm sorry', then she was to hurl the body of one Freddie Harris out of the window. Quite how he had managed to arrange to fake his death she didn't know or care. She just didn't want it to happen. Because then he'd have to disappear from all their lives. Perhaps for good.

Yet here she was, willing to do whatever was necessary to keep everyone safe. 'The things we do for love' she mused.

Suddenly her phone buzzed, the screen illuminating on the bench next to her. Under the name Sherlock, the words she had dreaded for the past hour were visible. A few moments later, she saw the flash of dark fabric and dark hair as Sherlock fell past the window to his 'death'. She took a deep breath, committing to her part in this deception, and hurled the body she held down to the street below.

It had been a week and Sherlock's 'suicide' was still all the domestic news could talk about. Wherever she happened to be, Molly couldn't get away from it. It wasn't real, she knew that, but it hurt like it had been. Still, she could manage to deal with it when she was away from those who knew him. If she avoided certain TV channels and didn't engage in conversation about current affairs she could forget the subject for a while. Of course it hadn't been easy. For one thing, Sherlock's older brother, who had lurked at the corners of her awareness before, had contacted her the day after the younger Holmes had apparently hurled himself from a hospital roof to remind her of his 'confidence in your complete discretion in this matter'. Mycroft had accompanied this with some dark inferences about his position that Molly knew should have frightened her. All she could do, however, was snort. Apparently theatrics ran in the family. Of course Sherlock could rely on her!

What Molly couldn't handle were the lies. The idea that Sherlock was a disturbed attention seeker who had built a career out of fabricating cases to solve was so absurd that the press had eagerly swallowed it. It fit their normal pattern. Find a star or hero to raise to fame, only to pull the rug from under them and watch them fall. Sometimes there would be a redemption story to make a nice circular narrative.

The lies had particularly hurt Molly when she sat in the break room reading a copy of a magazine that was guaranteed not to feature anything of importance and had overheard her coworkers discussing their belief in the 'Sherlock was a Fraud' theory.

"Bloody coward. Commits all those crimes and can't face the music." Sean was saying.

"No one said he committed actual crimes. He just staged them and lied to the police about it." Answered Briony, looking up from her salad to join in the conversation.

"Last time I checked, Bri, that in itself was a crime." Danny chipped in.

"Yeah I guess." She shrugged.

"Well I think we all agree that we're glad to see the back of the smug git, don't we?". Sean had a habit of doing that. Speaking for everyone in the room like his usually false opinion was gospel. Finally Molly spoke. She hadn't meant to but she wouldn't let this one slide.

"I don't" she said shortly, her lips thinning in anger.

"Don't worry, Mols. No one blames you for being taken in too. Especially when you were so...taken *with* him. I know how it is. He had that aloof, Mr. Darcy thing going on. You wouldn't be the first girl who's fallen for something like that."

'You bastard'. Molly glared at him, then at the other two occupants of the room. "You're all wrong about him. He really was as brilliant as everyone said. None of you know a thing about it. You didn't know him. You didn't work with him. I...I just hope that when the truth finally comes out you feel ashamed of yourselves. Saying such horrible things. Sherlock Holmes was many things but never a fraud." She felt herself perilously close to tears so she picked up her mug and deposited it with a rattling clunk in the dishwasher, leaving the room with barely a backward glance.

She did just have time to hear Briony say "not cool, Sean!" and him reply "Come on, you were thinking it too. She's delusional. Its sad, really..."

Molly felt her face flush and her eyes stinging hotly as she stalked back to the morgue and set about an autopsy of one Arnold Smith with slightly more vigour than was strictly necessary. The truth would out in the end. It always did.