A/N: Just a few things to note about this story before we begin. Molly had no part in Sherlock's death and the story follows no particular set of events - it is just a storyline that I have created with no real correlation to the episodes. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

It was fascinating to watch, she thought. Sort of morbid but nevertheless, completely fascinating.

She watched, entranced, as the small bug struggled in the large spider web in the corner of the ceiling. The eight-legged creature began slowly inching its way closer, a telltale sign that the poor thing was well and truly trapped and soon to be a goner.

So morbid.

She supposed that the word morbid described her life pretty well, anyway. Her job was considered to be quite morbid by people, what with the whole examining dead people day in and day out. Her love life – or lack thereof - could be considered morbid as well. God, she couldn't even remember the last time she had either gone on a date or even kissed a man. But she couldn't let her mind wander down that route – no, because then she would think of him. And she had really been trying not to think about that lately.

The spider finally reached its prisoner and the bug wiggled frantically one last time before it suddenly went still.

She had honestly never related to anything more.

"Molly, have you even been listening?"

She tore her eyes from the ceiling of the pub and looked at her friend.

"Maybe?" She answered meekly.

Meena rolled her eyes, taking a sip from her glass of wine.

"I swear to God, you better not have been thinking about Sher-"

"Please!" yelped Molly. "Don't say his…I wasn't…just shush, please."

Meena was her oldest and dearest friend, but Molly couldn't even let her say his name. The pain was just still too raw, too real. But Meena was almost finished her second glass of wine within the hour, so Meena obviously did not care anymore.

"Bloody hell, Molls," she sighed. "It's been six months – six months! And you're still letting that-"

"Please, Meena."

"- dickhead control your life!"

Molly looked around in slight mortification at the patrons of the pub, who had all simultaneously turned to look at their table.

"I really don't want to talk about this right now-" Molly hissed.

"But that's the thing!" Meena interrupted, this time more quietly. "Molly, you never want to talk about it. You say you are fine and moving on but I know this is still tearing you apart inside. You're always too busy to do anything besides work these days. It took me two weeks to even convince you to meet me here tonight. You're not thinking about other men, or dating or even really thinking about anything at all!"

"That isn't true," Molly insisted. "I really am fine."

"Bullshit," Meena said. "You saw the body being rolled into St Bart's mortuary. You saw the news reports. You went to the funeral, for Christ's sakes. But you still haven't accepted it. Sherlock Holmes-"

Oh god, the stabbing in her chest at the sound of his name.

"- is dead, Molly."

Her breath left her in one sweeping sensation, her heart dropping to her stomach at the same time tears sprang to her eyes. No one had said that to her in a very, very long time.

Her friends' eyes softened considerably. "I'm saying this because I'm worried about you. You cannot keep letting this man control your life, even from beyond the grave. You've turned into a shell of your former self."

Molly stared down at the table, unable to look her friend in the eyes. What she was saying was true – all of it was so true. She loved Sherlock with all of her heart, doing anything he wanted just to make him happy. But it was never enough for him. She didn't think he even counted her as a friend, just a conveniently placed pathologist who was so in love with him that she would steal body parts and drop everything in her life if he demanded her to do so.

He was handsome and intelligent and had rare moments of such beautiful humanity; and she was still desperately in love with him. But he had manipulated her, ignored her and was, at times, so unbelievably cruel to a woman who had never done anything but given him her heart.

He was all of these things, but most importantly, he was dead.

For the first time in six months, Molly really allowed herself to think this. Sherlock. Was. Dead.

There was such power in acceptance. Denial was so much easier, and much less painful to bear. It did not require too much strength to push a problem to the back of your mind, to deny its existence and pretend like everything was perfectly fine; 'That's a problem to deal with later, when I am ready', she would tell herself.

But finally acknowledging, finally accepting that he was dead lifted an unbelievably heavy weight from her chest, allowing her to be free from a dread that she thought she would have to live with forever.

Finally free.

She looked at Meena, a newfound strength in her eyes and reservedness in the line of her mouth.

"I'm going to try, Meena." She drained the rest of her wine in one gulp. "I am going to try so hard to move on from Sherlock bloody Holmes."

She began meeting with her friend at least once a week for either drinks or dinner, it didn't matter, just as long as it forced her to get out of her flat. She took time off work and visited her family; helping her Mum with gardening and her sister to look after her nephew. She cut her formerly mousy hair into a sophisticated lob (long bob, for anyone that questioned her), taking the effort to (usually) curl it every day. She treated herself to a new wardrobe and became a member of the small local book club that she had always been too scared to join, but the ladies were lovely and the gossip that accompanied each meeting made her week. She took walks in the park on the rare sunny London day, even standing outside in the pouring rain once, laughing, just to remember how it felt to lose complete control.

It was after a class of Bikram yoga - when she was all sweaty and disgusting, just her luck - enjoying a coffee in a quaint café she didn't know even existed near her flat, that she met him. It was there she said yes to the barista who asked her out, and she even genuinely smiled and laughed on their first date, his kind nature and sense of humour endearing him to her.

For the first time in a very long time, Molly Hooper lived.

Until he began living…

…again.