Of Course You Count!
"I don't count..." Sherlock didn't understand why but Molly's words struck him like a slap to the face, making him turn round and take notice of her properly for what was quite possibly the very first time. She'd always been there for him, and he'd always trusted her.
Of course she counted, how could she feel as though she didn't? Perhaps not in the way she might have liked – Sherlock had always preferred to distance himself from those around him, personal relationships were messy, they always complicated matters, and he couldn't allow anyone to interfere with his work.
The work had always been what had mattered most to Sherlock, those first few euphoric moments when all the answers clicked into place for the first time, and the thrill of the chase – but that didn't mean that the people in his life didn't, or that he didn't care. John mattered, Mrs Hudson mattered, Lestrade too in his own small way, and Molly, she mattered too.
He was so used to taking the people in his life for granted, the people who made themselves available to him because they cared – they were all just tools to be used as far as Sherlock had been concerned, he'd never understood the concept of emotion and so had never seen need to pretend to understand – what had he to gain by feigning empathy with people? They only got in the way, their simple minds muddled and bogged down with ideal and sentiment – slowing him down.
But John had changed all that.
In John Sherlock had not only found a colleague but a friend, and a best one at that – and if John could care and Sherlock grow to reciprocate some glimmer of compassion in return (he actually cared very deeply for John, not that he would admit it, and their friendship meant the world to him in a strange and unique sort of way), then perhaps it wasn't quite beyond the realms of possibility that others might have come to care too – but for the right reasons.
He'd always dismissed Molly because he'd sensed that she'd wanted so much more from him – something Sherlock couldn't give. That sentiment Sherlock thought had made her weak, a slave to her own body's physiological chemical responses, nothing more, nothing meaningful – but that didn't mean that he'd wanted anything to happen to her, and he'd have defended her with his life if it had ever come down to it.
If that was love then Sherlock supposed that Molly did matter – and John, and Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade, and Mycroft, and, as much as it pained him to admit it, even Anderson and Donovan... because human life was precious.
Perhaps the thought of dying was making him sentimental, or perhaps the thought of losing everything was forcing him to take stock of what he'd got, and what he was about to lose - what it was he'd do anything now to hold onto.
Sherlock didn't want to lose, he didn't want to die – he didn't want to have to say goodbye to everything he'd ever worked for, and to everyone he loved.
But what Molly had just said about him, about her father, was true – and it made him wonder whether perhaps he'd underestimated her. She'd figured out what was going on long before anyone else had – even John, his best friend, his flatmate, the only other individual vaguely familiar with Sherlock's own methods.
Yet he'd been unable to utilise them.
Oh yes, Molly counted, more than she'd ever know, and Sherlock considered that perhaps it was time that he started to show the young woman just some of the respect that he now figured she probably deserved – for putting up with him, for sticking with him, and for continuing to care – but then again it would probably not be wise to show too much.
Despite everything he'd put her through she'd never let him down – only time would tell now, he thought sadly to himself, just how important Molly would prove to be... just how much she counted.