WARNING: POSSIBLE TRIGGER ALERT

After a long, hard day, Molly decided that the best way to relax would be to take a hot bath. She had spent the entire afternoon ignoring accusatory texts from her co-workers, saying that she had left them to deal with all the work while she got a break. She also ignored the two texts from John, apologizing for Sherlock and asking if she was okay.

She got into the bath and almost immediately slipped into a trance-like state. She allowed her mind to blissfully wander, skirting over memories of times she had lost. She made cookies with her mother. She played Cluedo with Sherlock. She went to the zoo with her parents and her little magnifying glass to study snakes. She went to prom-by herself. She went into a drug den and dragged out Sherlock. The last memory made her tense up considerably, so she climbed out of the bathtub and wrapped a towel around herself.

She had pushed the memory out of her mind for years, and she could still remember every tiny detail. Sherlock's rumpled shirt. His uneven breathing. His glassy eyes. She remembered talking to him the whole way home, prattling about unimportant things. Most of all, she remembered the kiss.

It had happened so fast. She had dragged him out of the old building and driven him back to the college, and, when they got there, he'd said quite happily, "You're too good to me, Molly Hooper." She'd ignored it and tried to get him cleaned up when he leaned over and kissed her full on the mouth. It tasted like cigarettes and pot and who knows what other kinds of drugs, and he wasn't in his right mind, but still… Her first kiss. "I love you, Little Molly," he had giggled. That was the turning point for her.

She'd as good as fallen in love with him, but he had no memories of the night whatsoever, and she would never bring it up again. The next day he had called her up to talk about her mum and dad, and that was the last time he had initiated a conversation with her in college. Here she was, by herself, all because she was too scared to talk about that day. Too scared to remind him how close he was to death. Too scared to tell him about their not-so-passionate moment. Too scared that he would laugh it off and tell her it had never been real.

Molly didn't realize she was crying until she looked up and found herself on the floor. The towel was still wrapped around her, very tightly. Too tightly. She tore it off and cried even harder, looking at her hips. At the scars buried so very deeply in them. Scars that had been there for decades, that had never faded. Thick and white against her skin. She traced them lovingly, but at the same time with so much hatred. She traced the words 'IM SORRY' that had been etched into her skin. She remembered so many occasions that had resulted in a contribution to these words. Her mum's funeral. She had cried so hard, not because of her loss, but because she was so preoccupied with Sherlock that she hadn't even noticed her mother's absence. And her dad's. He had died so suddenly. A suicide. She hated herself then for not recognizing it, and she still hated herself today. And Sherlock. So much Sherlock.

Being rejected. Being left in the dust. A friendless orphan. The saviour's saviour who was hated by the saviour. Alone. Alone forever and alone for always. Nobody would ever recognize her as the girl who had once been beautiful, who had once been loved. She didn't have a story that mattered, her person didn't matter. If she disappeared today, who would notice? Nobody important. The police would search for a week, a few people would be invited to a get-together, her cat would be sent to a shelter somewhere, her few possessions would be donated somewhere or other, and her flat would be rented out to someone new. John would go to a funeral for her. Greg Lestrade might go. Denise, her partner, would. Anderson might. Sherlock? No. He would think it below him, he would say that she wasn't going to care. Molly smiled a little as she almost heard him whining, "She's dead anyway, what does it matter if I was invited to go to her funeral?"

Molly paused for a moment, and removed the thick wooden bracelet from her wrist, revealing the deepest scars of all. She traced their familiar pattern, the thick marks. She remembered the night they had appeared.

It was the week after Sherlock had kissed her. She had just realized he was downright ignoring her, so she started sending him little notes. Nothing deep, mind you, just little things so he knew she was still thinking about him. He had finally responded to her last one, telling him that she would always be there for him. She remembered the deeply wounding words his response had contained.

Molly,

You need to stop trying to contact me. I don't care what you have to say about anything. I don't know why you went and got me, I don't know why you had to save me. You did, and that's all fine and dandy for you, I bet you're feeling like a real hero, aren't you? I wish you would just leave me alone. You're nothing but a sycophant, a friendless girl who latched onto whoever accepted her. I should have seen it sooner, but I suppose that's the blindness of love. Leave me alone, selfish, silly girl. Don't try to contact me again.

-S. H.

It had broken her heart. Molly had no idea what to say, what she had done to deserve this. She read it over and over and over again, and, although she didn't know his reasoning, she knew one thing: Sherlock Holmes would never lie to her. The logic was that she was all of the things he had said. So she obeyed him and didn't try to contact him again. But she never stopped thinking about him.

She ended up deeply cutting into her skin with a pocket-knife he had once given her, 'self-defense,' he called it. 'Not that you need it,' he had said. 'Not with me here.'

Molly once again traced the scars, and remembered the terror her roommates had conveyed as they drove her to the hospital. 'Keep her head up,' they said. 'Hold her arm up.' And the hushed whispers that they tried to keep from her. 'Did they break up?' 'I don't think they were together.' 'Molly probably thought that they were, and he made it clear that they weren't.' Molly ignored it all. The doctors had done a good job stitching her up, but the scars were permanent. Molly was fine with it. She didn't see anything wrong with having Sherlock's name etched into her skin for the rest of her eternity.

If Sherlock had heard about the whole thing, he never said a word. He just continued to ignore Molly, once she was out of the hospital. She was fine with it. She eventually graduated and moved on with her life, reliving the scars every night. Sherlock had never said anything to her about it. She assumed he had moved on. And he never said otherwise.