A/N: Hey, um, so this is a one-shot. It sort of just...happened (?) one night while I rewatched some episodes and paid close attention to Molly. I suppose there is some spoilers to The Empty Hearse. And it's probably AU. But whatever. If you guys like it, leave a comment, and maybe something will happen. *shrugs*
Do you think it possible that some people are born to give more love than they will ever get back in return? –Tyler Knott Gregson
Listen with: Inara's Suite from Firefly by Greg Edmonson
Ever since she was a young girl, Molly Hooper had worn her heart on her sleeve.
It's not like she could have hidden it anyway, since this heart of hers was a rather large one. Her parents knew since she was a young child that she was capable of an enormous amount of love. She always cared about others before thinking of herself. It was bittersweet to watch.
But Molly Anna Hooper was also a strange child (not at all graced with social tact and always left fumbling for a way to translate her thoughts into coherent sentences), choosing to attach her large affections on strange, lonely objects that most people shied away from. Things such as half-bald, strayed cats found on her way home from primary school and books containing grim horror stories were right up her avenue. Death, disease, and even evil were a mystery to solved than a thing to be shunned.
This odd combination had left a socially awkward, preteen girl in it's wake. A girl who was shunned by classmates, teachers, and even other adults. She never felt quite at home unless she was with her parents who both had the misfortune of dying before she was eleven. Mistaken and misunderstood, young Molly was shunned by her aunt and uncle and sent to boarding school where she knew no one.
The next five years of her life were the worst. She struggled while growing up without a father's guidance or mother's love. Birthdays and Christmases were spent alone, as was the anniversary of her parent's deaths. Classmates shunned her or made fun of her queer ways. Sometimes (often) they went out of their way to hurt her, calling her ugly and pain, or teasing her about her lack of family. Somehow, Molly saw past their jokes, and realised that they must be hurting themselves, since they were so insistent on causing pain in others. She let them think that the harsh words rolled off of her like rain rolls of a tin roof.
But even roofs have holes sometimes.
(Her deep, inward thoughts were constantly changed by these words, forming a thin, quiet girl who hid from the world under baggy layers of clothes.)
Instead of choosing to resort to a more depressed state, she instead threw herself into her studies and achieved the best marks in class. Molly graduated at sixteen with such high marks that her university practically begged her to come. Her uni years were spent dodging the popular kids and handing out money to the homeless that sat along the dark alleyways to her flat. Once, she even brought a druggie home who had been stumbling through the streets, almost causing an accident. Manged cats were adopted throughout these years. She did had one date, but it turned out that he had only asked her out because he felt bad for her.
After studying for nearly twelve years, she came to St. Bart's hospital. Some may not think forensic pathology to be a nice field to work in, but Molly enjoyed it. It was a time-consuming, well-paying job that keep her occupied since she had no family or friends to speak of. Slowly, Mike Stamford and Greg Lestrade had become sort of father and older brother figures for her. She loved them and would do anything for them, although she didn't know if they thought her as family. Many of those in the hospital smiled with disdain in the canteen when she joked morbidly. (She eventually learned to eat by herself, or at midnight when no one was there.)
The most curious thing about her new job was a man by the name of Sherlock Holmes.
Yes, the first she had seen him, he had come in with Greg Lestrade, barely past detox stage and yelling for the former pathologist, who had retired. He had called her unspeakable names in his madness and had almost once turned violent. With a tight smile, she had followed his requests (demands). She was not scared of him. (Heck, once she had helped drunk (recently widowed) back to his house and awaiting, worried family.)
She liked him though.
No, it was not the tall, commanding form with black, curly hair and high cheekbones that she liked (Though Molly will admit he is quite handsome.)
She likes him because he's like her.
She likes him because he's not like her.
She likes him because he's hurting.
No, she's not morbid. It's because she seems him hurting because he's different. It's how she is, shunned because she likes things that people don't consider normal. Because she loves and cares for people who are supposed to be evil and thought less of. Molly Hooper knows that Sherlock Holmes feels different, and hurts because of it. (Because they both live in this world that thinks that they should coincide to societal norms.) The thing that she likes is (the thing that she cannot do) that he can control his emotions, hid them behind a mask so that people can't press buttons and hurt him further.
But he does feel, contrary to what a lot of people think.
(Sherlock Holmes may deduce facts, but Molly Hooper can deduce emotions.)
The thing is, Molly doesn't know when to stop. She's outwardly honest (painfully so). She cannot simply stop caring about a person, no matter what they've done. It's a gift and a curse. A gift that makes her care more for Sherlock Holmes than she has for anyone else in her entire life.
Of course, the world makes it harder. Sherlock Holmes does not love her. She's the coffee girl and supplier of cadaver parts. She doesn't count, and probably never will. Yet, for some reason (some may say stupidity), she doesn't mind too much.
Molly often wonders if he remembers the time that she dragged him back to Baker Street when he had barged into her morgue, obviously high and uncontrollable. How she put him to bed and made him eat. How she stayed all night, smoothing his furrowed brow and singing nonsense lullabies in attempt to quiet him down. How she held a bowl as he vomited his stomach dry from a bad trip. How she sat next to him on his bed until Mrs. Hudson arrived.
She doubts he did, when the harsh words about her weight and looks (a sensitive subject, she thought he'd at least deduce that) or her boyfriends (another sensitive item, but all the facts are wholly honest, she knows) are thrown around. Molly simply rolls with the punches given her, even if they hurt more than the giver intended.
Molly notices a little change when John comes along. He's a tad nicer, and even offers pleasantries (which soon are found to be manipulations, but what can she expect?). She accepts her fate as the right hand man, and works her way through life, giving up her conquest of finding true love.
Some people are meant to give love, not receive it, she thinks.
Molly's world goes slightly off-kilter when he admits that she does count. Of course, she helps him. She always does. She evens patches him up at her flat once Mycroft helps sneak them away from the suicidal scene. Holds him as he cries for having to leave John and Mrs. Hudson and his whole he knew behind. (More than ever does she love him, Molly realises.)
Sherlock even says thank you and goodbye without prompting.
Molly wonders if she's closer to him than she thought.
(But then there's silence for over two years, and she realises that she's been manipulated once again.)
So, Miss Hooper, who wanted nothing to do with a regular life and had decided on being a crazy cat lady when she grew up, accepts the possibility of a normal life with a normal man planning on normal number of 3.5 kids in a normal two-story house with a normal white picket fence and a normal dog and cat. It's boring, but it's what's in the future for her apparently, and Molly silently accepts it like everything else she has in life. It's only when Sherlock comes back, of course, that she realises that she will never be normal and that poor Tom is a man who only resembles the man that she loves. Molly knows that she is a horrible person, taking advantage on this man that truly believed in her love.
So, in another way of loving him (the hardest way), she lets him go. (Tom is upset, but, somehow, is understanding about the whole thing, and tells her to keep the ring, in case she ever wants to return.)
(She's never, ever, ever deserved the man in the first place.)
Molly's heart breaks later as she watches Sherlock Holmes walk away for good as she stands on the bottom floor of the flat building where they had just been investigating. She hasn't told him up the breakup, mainly because she doesn't want him to believe that it's because of his return. He's wished her a happy life, after all.
As he nears the corner, he adjusts his scarf and looks back. Molly stares at him. He stares at her.
She's alone again.
With a lump in her throat, she twists off the thin, silver band and slips it into her back pocket while he hails a cab. The cab drives off, presumably to Baker Street, with Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper starts walking home, adding up all her work holidays from the past five years in her head.
As she enters the cab, she decides that a few months and Christmas in Paris would be lovely.