This is an angsty one-shot with a bit of Sherlolly, my OTP. I hope you enjoy and leave a review if you liked it!

Hold her. Hold her closer. She is the Necromancer; she is the medium through which he speaks. She is his one outlet to the outside world while he is shut beneath the ground. Deep within a chamber, he is seemingly trapped; he is dead to the world, and yet if he had wanted to speak, he knew she would not only just hear his words, but also listen to their meaning. She raised him from the ground like Lazarus, but they both know that he had once been Icarus. After all she had done for him in the past, all she will continue to do for him in the future, Molly Hooper, at the very least, deserved a thank you. A thank you she never even asked for.

She'd admired him as he stalked through her flat on those nights he'd returned for sanctuary and rest. He almost always remained silent during his brief stays at her place. Never whispered a thank you, or offered an explanation, nor did he attempt to ask her how she was coping. He would simply barge through her door, drop down into her plush, light pink love seat and look at her with begging, pleading eyes.

Admittedly, she had been downright frightened upon his entries the first few times and nearly bashed his face in with a cricket bat or a frying pan, but soon got used to it. In fact, she spent most of her nights anticipating his arrival, even though his visits were far and few between. Almost every night, she sat up rim-rod straight to every sound that echoed through her small flat, only resting when she did not hear his footsteps approaching her bedroom door. She also came to realize that if she was asleep when he arrived, he would sneak into her room and gently shake her shoulders until she was roused before turning his back and stalking out. No matter what hour it was, she was eager to aid him in any way he needed her to.

His silence never bothered her.

Not until one night.

It was a year after "The Fall", as she had come to call it, and Sherlock came bursting through her door in the middle of the night, looking haggard and worse for wear. She had looked up at him from her loveseat and offered a sad smile as she rose to her feet and went to get her first aid kit.

As she returned, she'd crouched on the floor beside him and examined him for injuries; upon seeing nothing visible, she looked up to the dark haired man before her and furrowed her brows at what she saw. It was not physical pain she noted, but absolute emotional torment in his universal eyes. Quickly, she leapt off the floor and perched beside him on the loveseat, about a good six inches between them, she was sure.

"Sherlock," she'd whispered, "what happened?"

He looked at her through the corner of his eye and sighed, remaining silent. Molly returned his sigh with one of her own and slackened her posture in disappointment. She knew he would not speak, but that did not keep her from hoping he would. With her eyes focused on her twiddling hands in her lap, she flinched away from him as she felt his nimble fingers graze her hair.

Eyes shifting towards his, Molly cocked her head. Suddenly realizing what he'd done, Sherlock had dropped his hand to his thigh and looked away.

Without even thinking, Molly reached out and grabbed his hand in both of hers and forced him to look at her. "I'm always here for you, Sherlock. You must know that. Always," she had whispered to him, her eyes bleeding her devotion and her words carved with honesty and loyalty.

What happened next, she could have never predicted. Before she could react, Sherlock had pulled his hand from her grasp and pulled her to him, his mouth finding hers in a flash of colors before her eyes. Molly gasped and placed her hands on his chest, not reacting at first. But as his lips moved and massaged against hers, Molly contently sighed and wrapped her small arms around his neck and gave in to the kiss.

He was finally going to open up to her, after all this time.

Mouths open and tongues dancing frantically around each other, Sherlock laid Molly down on the loveseat and hovered over her, pressing his hips into hers, which elicited moans from both parties involved.

Just as Molly felt a spark, she felt sudden coldness overcome her. Sherlock had pulled away and leapt from the loveseat and stared down at her in silence. Molly, lying wantonly on her back, looked up at him with her brows pulled together. "Sherlock?"

He shifted his eyes from her.

Molly sat up, her jaw setting. "Sherlock?" she repeated a bit louder.

Suddenly he was moving away, swinging on his coat, which was unlike his Belstaff in every way. Realizing what Sherlock was planning to do, Molly leapt up from her seat with her jaw clenched and her eyes beginning to water. "Sherlock Holmes!" she near shouted as she strode towards the lanky man and grabbed onto his arm in an act that surprised both of them. He looked to her with a stoic expression that reminded her of a stone sculpture.

"What the hell was that about, Sherlock?"

He merely swallowed and diverted his cool gaze.

Molly released her hold on him and crossed her arms over her chest, feeling the pounding of her breaking heart in every inch of her body. "Is this a game to you? This silence? Are you testing me, or something? Some stupid experiment?" she interrogated, and he a look of hurt flashed over his features, but he did not refuted the claims. Her lower lip quivered and she hated herself for being so weak. "How could you do that to me, Sherlock? When you know how I feel about you. I thought that maybe you were beginning to feel something, but you don't even speak to me," she said in a whisper.

He looked at her, but kept his vow of silence.

Molly scoffed and threw out her arms in exasperation. "You have nothing to say for yourself, do you?" As she had expected, he didn't. She sighed. "I love you, Sherlock. I really do, more than anything or anyone. I've been waiting so long for you to kiss me, to touch me, but if you're just going to play with my emotions, I'd rather you didn't do either."

"I….I-"

Molly looked at him surprised as his mouth stuttered to find the words. "You what, Sherlock?"

He snapped his mouth shut and moved to the door, pulling it open. Looking over his shoulder at her, he said to her in a low voice, "I'm sorry, Molly Hooper."

She did not see Sherlock for almost a year after the incident, but she had never regretted what she had said.

When Sherlock returned, Molly was not the first person to know. Or the second. Or the third. Or the seven millionth, either. In fact, she found out from coworkers as she passed the staff lounge on her way to the canteen.

"Did you hear that weird bloke is back from the dead?"

"Yea, last night on the news! He was always around and about by the morgue!"

"Wasn't that mortician desperately in love with him, what's her name?"

Molly had her back to the wall next to the door as she listened in, her heart tightening painfully in her chest.

"Molly Hooper, and she's a pathologist, actually."

"Poor girl. A bit pathetic, though. The way she mooned after him."

That was all she heard before she dropped her files and made a beeline for the morgue, tears beginning to stream down her face. She was beginning to think she rather was as pathetic as everyone said. She wondered if maybe Sherlock though she was rather pitiful. She wondered how much she counted now.

It had been a week since she found out about his return and yet there was no sight of Sherlock to be seen. He had not reached out to her, or even sent John to visit her. She was slowly accepting her role in his life.

Sitting by her microscope, switching slides in and out from beneath the lens, she heard the door to the lab swing open and shut. She didn't bother to look up. "Just put the samples in the blue bin, Mike. I'll have a look at them later."

"Actually, I was wondering if I could take a few samples. Maybe borrow the microscope for a bit. Rather important case, you see."

His deep timbre was instantly recognizable. Molly felt her heart drop as she looked up to the once dead man that stood before her in all his old glory: Belstaff coat and all. Molly remained speechless as he smiled down at her with his hands in his pockets.

Pursing her lips, Molly swallowed deeply and braced her hands against the cold steel counter.

"Well? I was not expecting this to be a one way conversation. Especially with you, Molly Hooper," he said with a slight chuckle.

She looked up to him with wetness in her eyes, pain evident in every fiber of her being. Sherlock was visibly surprised. He had not been expecting this of her. "Molly….?"

"You didn't even tell me….," she said shakily as she sucked in a breath and attempted to compose herself.

"Wha- oh, didn't tell you I was back. Yes, about that. I was caught up with the press, as you can probably tell, and then of course there were the legal issues to be taken care of…."

Molly stood quickly from her seat, knocking the stool to the ground. "And what of John? Mrs. Hudson? Lestrade? I'm sure you let all three of them know you were back before the new did."

Sherlock furrowed his brows, in much the same way that she used to. "Well, yes. It was vital that they knew. They'd have died of shock had I not told them."

Molly let out a bitter laugh. "You want to know how I found out, Sherlock? From my coworkers. Who learned it from the news."

Sherlock looked as though he did not understand. "So, there shouldn't be much an issue. You already knew I was alive. It couldn't have been much of a sho-"

Before he could finish, Molly had leapt towards Sherlock and hit him across the face, then proceeded to pound on his chest with her fists. Tears of anger and pain streaming down her face.

Sherlock finally grabbed her wrists and subdued her attacks. He looked positively mortified by what had just happened.

Molly slowed her movements and looked up to him with a red, tear stained face. "Do you know what it feels like to know you don't matter, Sherlock? After all I've done for you, and you still treat me like you're better than I am; like I am not worth your time! And you know what's worse, Sherlock? I'd do it all again for you, even if it meant the same consequences."

Sherlock, still holding her wrists in his hands, had slackened his expression. "You don't matter? Molly, you were more than essential in this whole operation! Without you I could have never pulled this off."

Ripping her hands out of his grasp, Molly turned away from him with a bitter laugh. "I matter as a tool to you. Not as a person."

Sherlock stuttered awkwardly before clamping his mouth shut. Fixing the stool to its upright position, Molly retook her seat and adjusted the microscope. "You can take your samples, Sherlock. And use the microscope when I'm done. I'm still going to let you use the lab. Just please don't manipulate me ever again." She looked up to him with pained eyes. "I don't think I can handle much more of it."

As she lowered her head, she heard Sherlock sigh deeply. "I'm sorry for all I've done, Molly Hooper," she heard him say before he promptly turned on his heel and exited the morgue without a single sample in hand.

Moly wiped the tears from her cheeks and shook her head. She didn't want to hear him apologize for all he'd done. All she wanted, all she ever wanted, was a simple thank you for all she'd done for him, all she will do for him. She knew she'd never get one.

I know this is VERY different than how The Empty Hearse played out, but I wanted some angst up in here! Let me know how you felt!