Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective for Scotland Yard, was married. When approached by his father two years prior and told of the marriage arrangement, the raven-haired man had sneered at the idea of 'settling down and starting a family,' of being domesticated.
In his youth, several decades prior, a young woman had managed to ensnare his fancy; beautiful, cunning, and a mind to rival his own. But Irene Adler had chosen a more prominent and gainful match. There was no heartbreak, for The Woman, as he called her, did not hold his heart. Sherlock boasted his lack of heart oft enough that many believed it to be true, himself included.
When he met his betrothed, he could not have felt more disgusted. A small, wisp of a woman stood before him in an atrocious gown of pink and white frills. Her plain brown hair was braided across the crown of her head in an attempt to mimic the latest fashion from abroad. On her, it merely made her already child-like features blatantly obvious. Her lips were thin and chapped, as though she often chewed them (a terrible habit for a young woman in society, she clearly was characteristically anxious).
Indeed, there was nothing remarkable about Molly Hooper. But the arrangement was set in legal stone. So Sherlock set forth to distance himself from his wife (oh, how he detested the word). For almost two years, he avoided the woman in their home and masked his scorn with a small smile in polite company.
He didn't notice the smiles she once bestowed upon him fade or that the light in her eyes was replaced by a steel glint, a shield to protect her heart. He only saw a societal necessity that often distracted him from his cases and experiments. As she became more ingrained in his home and in his life, he stepped up his efforts to drive her emotionally away in the hopes that she would be angered and avoid him as he attempted to avoid her.
It would take something tragic for him to realize his mistake, to discover that he indeed had a heart. And to realize what lengths he would go to in order to win it back.