Note: This Chapter is going to be the shortest in the story because it is an introductory chapter. This is simply setting the stage for what is to come. I will try to update this story as frequently as my brain and hands will allow. If I could write all day I would, but I do not have the time for it always.

Chapter One : After the Fall

Molly Hooper wasn't supposed to have a particularly interesting life. Not at all. The pathologist had gone to school so that she could get a stable and quiet job, away from people and away from drama. Sure she spent almost all her time with dead people, but that didn't matter. She kind of liked the company of the dead anyway. They didn't complain, or judge, and she couldn't kill them if she made a mistake. That wasn't to say that she made a lot of mistakes in her line of work. It just meant that there was very little pressure on her when she was working. Molly Hooper didn't like pressure, not one bit. Pressure made her tense and irritable, which were feelings that she didn't want.

Naturally, her nice and quiet lifestyle was thrown off when she started dating Jim from IT. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Her life was derailed the moment she she got introduced to Sherlock Holmes, the world's first and only consulting detective. He just happened to be Molly's first and only true love, not that he knew that exactly. Sherlock Holmes was a force in her life that she could not resist and led her into many sleepless nights. He just waltzed in one morning and started demanding that she give him body parts 'for the sake of science'. She had wanted to deny him his strange request but he had shown that he a remarkable talent for being able to completely deconstruct a person and what they were, inside and out.

So she didn't resist him after that, especially not after she started to fancy him. Oh, Molly was not an idiot. She knew how she must look to the rest of the world, let alone Sherlock Holmes. He began to use her feelings against her to get what he wanted, flirting and saying whatever he could to sway her into giving him the things he wanted. And it worked, every single time. Molly knew she should have learned to say no, but her brain always told her it was fine. They were dead bodies anyway, it's not like she was hurting anyone by giving him the parts he needed for his experiments.

Jim from IT, he was completely different from Sherlock. Jim had shown an interest in her before she even noticed his existence. He was quirky, but upbeat, sweet, and funny. In fact, Jim possessed every quality that she knew that Sherlock lacked and logically she knew that Jim was a better choice than the consulting detective would ever be.

That is of course, until Jim turned out to be a crazed murderer who tried to steal the crown jewels and murder hundreds of people. Molly could have died from the sheer absurdity of the whole thing. When Sherlock had accused him of being gay it drove her mad until she had confronted him and when she did, he did a pretty great job of playing the innocent perfect boyfriend. Just because he was different, didn't mean he was what everyone else thought he was.

He had done such a brilliant job of debunking the detectives analysis that she felt obligated to stay with him and their relationship had only grown after that. It grew so much that she could have sworn that she loved him, she could have, if he had really been what he said he was. Instead she felt sick to her stomach and wanted to hide from the world for several months.

She didn't though, she moved on with her life. Instead of pining over an ex-boyfriend turned crazed murderer, she focused on her work. Poured everything she had into it. After all, no one had actually bothered to ask her how she felt after the situation with Jim (no, she would not call him Moriarty) so she didn't bother expressing her feelings. After all, there was Sherlock. There was always Sherlock.

Though sometimes she wondered if Sherlock was worse for her than Jim was. At least with Jim she found what kind of man he really was. Sherlock, she would never know. He would give her biting criticisms at Christmas parties and apologize as though she should forgive him and then continue begging for more favors. He would hurt her and confuse her and never see the harm in it. It wasn't until his death that Molly decided she couldn't take it anymore, because suddenly, he was becoming her life. And she had to live with his ghost until he found it suitable to reveal himself to the world.

How did Molly go from a mild mannered pathologist to the keeper of a dead detective? How did she manage to lose her perspective on everything?