Sherlock looked coolly at his Science teacher. "That's it. If you disagree with my teaching you can leave, there's no point in you being in this classroom." She pointed towards the door and put the other hand on her hip, glaring at him.

"Gladly. You're right for once," Sherlock replied, shoving his chair out of the way. The class had gone silent. Molly raised her eyebrows and sighed. 'Not again…' she thought as she shifted her gaze to her desk, 'at this rate he'll be expelled.'

Sherlock walked out into the Science corridor, slamming the door behind him. He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white and breathed heavily. Angry tears welled up in his eyes. He pressed his head against the wall, screwing his eyes tight shut and squeezed the drops of frustration so they ran out of his eyes and down the wall. He slammed his fist against the peeling paintwork - again and again. He winced as his knuckles drew blood.

Sherlock turned around and slid down the wall, bringing his knees up to his chin and cradling his bleeding fist. They didn't understand - none of them. They didn't understand what it was like at home. The teachers always thought that he was just being defiant when he didn't do his homework. Well, he was, in a way. It was all very trivial and insultingly easy. But it wasn't just that.

He had to look after mother alone - administering her injections, helping her to eat, dress and wash. He barely got a few moments to himself. It was no use trying to get Mycroft to help; as soon as he got home he bundled as much food as he could carry into his arms and went upstairs, locking his bedroom door.

Who knows what Mycroft did up there, but you could always hear Metallica blaring from his speakers. He must've been studying for some of the time though, his grades only got better. He even got special letters from teachers, all of them praising his extraordinary work, insisting that Mycroft was meant for 'great things.'

Sherlock got letters from school too, though they weren't so positive.

"Sherlock is an exceedingly bright student, but is consistently insolent, and lacks concentration and absorption in his given tasks. If he made more of an effort and worked on his attitude, he could easily be at the top of the class. But unless he chooses to do so we will be forced to proceed into higher sanctions. He also does not have an especially good relationship with any of his classmates and cannot co-operate with them…"

They all said the same sort of thing. Thankfully, the warnings of "higher sanctions" were just empty threats, so Sherlock took the liberty of throwing these letters away as soon as he read them. He had to open the mail, because his mother's hands were too shaky at that point. But one day, he forgot to throw away one of the school letters and his mother had got hold of it while Sherlock was at school.

Later that day, when Sherlock had been relaxing in silence next to his mother on the sofa after he had cooked both of them dinner, he saw the dreaded letter in his mother's lap.

'You're…' his mother struggled to get the words out, '…failing.'

'It doesn't matter,' Sherlock replied.

'It does. I don't want…' she winced at the effort of stringing sentences together, 'you to throw your life away for me.'

'Well I want to, and you want me to be happy, and making sure you're happy makes me happy so…' Sherlock smiled as warmly as he could at his dying mother.

'You're not happy.'

'I am,' he insisted.

'You shouldn't be looking after your sick mother. I should be looking af- af- ter you. You should be out havi- ving fun with your friends – people your age. Y- you're fifteen.' Sherlock's mother smirked when Sherlock scoffed when she talked about his 'friends'.

'When you put it like that, it makes me want to be here looking after you even more,' Sherlock put his hand around his mother's and squeezed it.

'You're too clever, too… kind. I do- don't deserve a son like you,' she feebly squeezed back.

'You're clever too and I'm not kind. You just deserve all that I can give you. You deserve more than me.'

But she just shook her head and left it at that. Talking too much made her exhausted.

Sherlock's mother was diagnosed with MS a few months before his father's crash. The symptoms hadn't been too bad up until then. She just had a bit of trouble running for the bus and got tired easily. She stopped going to work exactly six days before his father's fatal car crash on his way home from an extra shift. It was a side-on collision that killed both drivers. Sherlock's father died instantly, but the other driver died in hospital three days later.

As soon as Sherlock's mother got the call it seemed like the condition had accelerated alarmingly fast. She said nothing, ate nothing, didn't move for days until Sherlock's weeping and begging got her to eat a small portion of food; and after that she could barely walk.

It wasn't just grief - Sherlock's mother told him - she blamed herself for her husband's death. If she hadn't had to resign, he wouldn't have had to do an extra shift and therefore it wouldn't have happened. Sherlock insisted it wasn't her fault at all, she couldn't help her condition. It would've killed his father anyway to see her suffering on at work. She smiled a reply, convincing Sherlock a little that she believed him. However his comforting just made her feel worse in a way. In her prime, the mother of Sherlock Holmes was a clever, powerful woman; and knowing that killing husband was out of her hands yet almost completely down to her was more excruciating than any physical pain she could ever feel.

Sherlock had been sitting there until the bell rang and hundreds of children flooded into the corridor. Most of them just ignored the silently crying figure and loudly chatted and laughed, excited about the end of the day. Some of them glared and sneered at him, kicking him and sniggering as they walked past. Molly walked out and immediately knelt down in front of him, her eyes filled with concern.

'Are you coming Molly?' her boyfriend, Greg, called back at her. She looked at him, and then back at Sherlock. Sherlock looked up enough to scowl at her.

'Go away, Molly. I think Greg wants you.' Molly stood up, shocked at Sherlock's coldness. She didn't know why she was shocked, it was nowhere near the first time Sherlock had been mean to her when she was trying to be friendly. There wasn't any point trying to be nice, she realised.

'I wasn't talking to you anyway,' she marched off and put her arm around Greg, keeping her head high when she just felt like crying.

Ms Robertson put her head around the corner of the door and saw Sherlock still sitting there. She sighed and sat next to him. Sherlock made no complaints when he heard Ms Robertson plonk herself on the floor. He liked her, for a teacher. She understood him a little better than the others and didn't snap as often as the other teachers did. After all, everyone lost it sooner or later if they had Sherlock in their class.

'I'm sorry Sherlock. I didn't mean to make you cry. I was just at my wit's end and I was having a hard day and... Anyway, I'm sure it wasn't me that made you cry. You're too strong to let a teacher get to you. Is everything okay at home?'

'Yes,' said Sherlock immediately. He didn't want to talk about his family life with anyone. He didn't want anyone to know about his mother's condition.

'Okay… is it girl troubles?' Ms Robertson giggled. Sherlock just looked at her.

'No, no, I suppose not… is it boy troubles?'

'What-'said Sherlock, a little stunned.

'No! I mean, do you have any friends? Are the other boys nice to you?'

'I wouldn't care either way.'

'You've got to at least try to get along with them.'

'They hate me, and I hate them, so why should I?' Sherlock asked simply. Ms Robertson sighed again. She seemed to sigh an awful lot whenever she talked to Sherlock.

'I heard there's a new boy coming into your class tomorrow, and he won't immediately hate you, so maybe you should try and make friends with him.' Sherlock said nothing. 'At least think about it?' She patted him on the shoulder and went back inside the classroom to get her things together.

'The new boy will hate me immediately', thought Sherlock,' they all hated me as soon as I opened my mouth so why shouldn't he?' He stood up and walked towards the gate where Mycroft was waiting for him.

'Where have you been, you little idiot?' Mycroft grumbled at Sherlock from under his greasy fringe.

'I was just talking to Ms Robertson.'

'Ooh! There was I thinking you'd never get a girlfriend!' sniggered Mycroft.

'Just shut up, Mycroft .' Sherlock's glare was so terrifying that Mycroft said nothing for the whole journey home.