A/N: Dear Pat! Happy Birthday! This is as close as I will ever get to Sherlolly. Just for you:)

It's patemalah21's birthday. I asked for 3 words. She gave me 3 with the option of using a fourth. The fourth gave me the idea. The words were inundate, corporeal, stimulating. The bonus word was macerated. Now macerate is an interesting word. It is a bone preparation technique used to clean skeletons by decomposition in a closed box, it can mean to make soft by soaking or steeping in a liquid, but it also means to cause to waste away by or as if by excessive fasting. So my twitchy little brain started thinking What if you wasted away because of neglect? What if you wasted away because no one paid attention to you? And then came What if you wasted away because you felt guilty about something? So here is the story. Enjoy!

Don't own. Yada, yada:P

Waiting To Be Seen

It was two years to the day after Sherlock had jumped when Molly disappeared in full view of another pathologist, a grieving family and a custodian. To be honest the family was in the other room, but still. It was not unlike any other day, except no one could see her. It really wasn't so terribly surprising to her. With her quiet ways and her gentle manner, she was often ignored, her beauty rejected, her kind nature dismissed, her sharp intelligence overlooked so it was really just a natural progression to go from a state of being corporeal to a state of being insubstantial.

It had actually started out rather gradually, a slow wasting away of her personality, as she became macerated and void, a negative space. Once flesh and blood next, worse than a ghost, the skeletal remains of her subsistence scattered and left to dry. A ghost would have at least had the possibility of being seen and a poltergeist could have moved objects to let people know she was around, but she didn't even have that.

She first noticed this odd state when she asked McGuffin, the other pathologist, to pass her the chart on the Smyth killing. She wondered, as she often did since Sherlock's disappearance, what he might have made of the unnatural position Mr. Smyth had found himself in on becoming deceased. McGuffin ignored her so she walked over to the desk where it lay, muttering about the rudeness of some people and reached for the forms. It came as a bit of a shock when her hand passed through the paper and the clipboard on which they lay. She looked at her hand, a hand she could see perfectly and she looked at the paper. Molly was not one to give up, so she tried again. She was unable to grasp the clipboard or the report.

"Well Molly Hooper, this is a fine mess you have made for yourself! Now what?"

McGuffin of course continued to ignore her, not even noticing if she were there, not remembering if she had ever been there, not even a blip in his thought process.

She looked around the room. There was no reaction from the custodian mopping up the remains of the last autopsy; there was definitely no reaction from Mr. Smyth, for which she was oddly grateful. She popped her head into the waiting area and there was no reaction from Mr. Smyth's grieving family, which in itself may not have meant anything, as they were deep in the process of comforting one another.

If Sherlock had still been around with his sarcasm and biting wit, she may have been able to retain a hold on reality, his stimulating presence and his instance on needing her, even of it was for his own ends, would have tethered her. John too would have kept her anchored even though she often ignored him in the hopes of attracting his flatmate's attention, his natural need to wrap everyone in his sunny disposition would have ensured her continuing existence. Sherlock wasn't around and John, believing him to be dead, never came to Bart's, too much pain & tragedy associated with the building. He had come close, in his own way, to joining her in insubstantial existence, but friends and relatives, realizing that he was in a fragile state, had grounded him. She had avoided his presence due to guilt by omission. If she had at any point reached out to him perhaps his personality would have shored up hers.

Now she was just annoyed. Not many realized what a strong individual she actually was and she was more than a little put out by the thought that her continued state of existence was dependent on being noticed by people.

She sighed and then gave herself a shake. It was no good to sit about and mope. She left the room and ventured out into the corridors of Bart's, passing by one person after another, none the wiser. She wandered down to the cafeteria and not seeing anyone she knew well enough to miss her, went out on to the street. She realized she would need to pay special attention to the traffic and to fellow pedestrians because no one could see her and would run her down or walk into her. Of course they could simply go through her. She was insubstantial. Trying to hold the chart had shown her that, but she wasn't about to take a chance. If she happened to be hit by a bus or a lorry no one would even know.

She wandered down to the nearest Tube station and managed to get through the stalls and on to the next train. She really had no destination in mind; she just wanted to find someone, anyone who would or could acknowledge her existence.

Before she knew what she was doing she had made her way to stand in front of 221B Baker Street. She hadn't been there since the ill-fated Christmas party, where she had stood up to Sherlock for his horrible treatment of her and she remembered his surprising apology. It still made her blush to think that the others at the party may have misconstrued the sounds that had emitted from the mobile he had held in his hand. She had not come here since, not even after Sherlock had left, not to comfort John or pay her respects to Mrs. Hudson. She would do it again in a heartbeat, she would have done it a million times over, but it didn't mean to say she didn't regret the consequence of those actions to John and Mrs. Hudson and even to Greg Lestrade.

Thoughts of John made her wince. She really should have stopped by and checked in on him. As she thought these heavy, guilt ridden thoughts, she felt less her. She held up her hand again and noticed there was a definite leaking of colour and material. She was just beginning to be able to make out figments of the pavement through her hand and she was becoming seriously worried.

She stood outside and stared at the building, wondering if she would be able to simply pass through the door or if she would need to wait for someone to leave or enter the building. It was just midday, so chances were good that John was at work, but maybe Mrs. Hudson was out and about. She really was surprised at herself for ending up here of all places, but maybe, perhaps, Sherlock's absence was a connection to her lack of substance. Or was it possible that the guilt she felt over not telling John what had happened was causing her to disappear? Perhaps it really wasn't because people didn't notice her, but because she had failed to notice the aftermath of a terrible but necessary lie.

She needed to get in and talk to John.

As she stood there, she became aware of a presence settled across the street, the one perpendicular to Baker Street, joining it in a T.

A shadowy figure stood in the lee of the building, head titled, looking up at the first floor. There was something in the manner of the figure which made her grasp in an instant it was Sherlock. When she became conscious of this fact, she took in his posture and could see there was a certain longing emanating from his slouch against the building. She had not heard from him in 2 years. Sherlock who returned on the day she became invisible.

She looked carefully before crossing the road and stood in front of the man she had lied and forged legal paperwork for. His gaze seemed too intent upon the building across the street to notice her. She sighed again, her hopes at being noticed dashed once more.

A rumble of a familiar, deep, sensuous voice whispered upon her ears.

"Well, Miss Hooper, it seems that you have created a bit of a situation for yourself."

"You can see me?" she asked, surprised evident in her voice.

"No, but there is a disturbance in the air near me and I am aware of the odour of your perfume, Tresor by Lancome. A suitably charming and floral scent for one such as yourself."

"Oh," she said, for really there was nothing else to say.

"So no one can see you or is aware of your existence? That seems to be a sad statement. Why on earth would you allow this to happen, Miss Hooper?"

"Molly."

"What?"

"My name is Molly."

"I know your name is Molly."

"Then why don't you use it?"

Sherlock, who had been looking in the approximate location of where her eyes should be, merely shrugged, although his gaze seemed shadowed.

"There did not seem to be any particular reason why I should."

She nodded thoughtful, forgetting momentarily that he could not see her.

"What are you going to do about it?" he asked softly.

"What am I going to do about being invisible? How on earth should I know? I don't even know how I got into this state." She huffed, angry with him, the situation and the feelings that inundated her when setting eyes once more upon the object of her unrequited love.

"Well obviously your need to stay hidden and not to be noticed, remorse for lying to those close to me, having to see John go through the trauma of his friend committing what he assumed was suicide in front of him, has caused your guilt to manifest itself in a most peculiar fashion."

"Oh what the hell do you know?"

"Because I too am suffering from a similar predicament. I have the need to go and see John and explain the whys and the wherefores of the past 2 years but I am afraid that he won't be able to see me or to see the reasons for why I did what I did and therefore will refuse to see me."

"That makes a twisted sense I guess," she said quietly, turning her head to look up at the window above Speedy's, wondering whether anyone there would welcome either of them into the flat.

She turned back to Sherlock. "Well?" she asked.

He glanced in her general direction. "Well what?" seemingly unable to deduce her intent or perhaps allowing her to tell him in her own fashion. Possibly he had changed in his absence.

"Shall we venture forth, good sir, to see if John's forgiveness will break the spell?"

Sherlock smiled a soft smile, "If you are brave enough dear lady, then aye, let us do so."

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and crossed the street. Molly followed behind, as they walked up to the door of 221B.

He glanced in her direction once more before raising his hand to the knocker.

"Molly," he said, his voice warmer than she remembered. "You don't need anyone to see you to be who you are. You don't need John to see you to be forgiven. You did what you had to in order to help me. I will always be grateful." He bent close in a guess as to where her cheek might be and he once more bestowed a chaste kiss on her cheek. She flushed and then she smiled at him, even though he could not see it.

The two waited quietly, listening intently for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Waiting for the man who needed to absolve them both.

Waiting together.

Waiting to be seen and forgiven.