Trigger Warning: Examination of Suicidal Tendencies, Depression, and Anxiety.

I do not own Sherlock or the Bell Jar (referenced only)

You wrote a note the first time...

It was a mistake born from seeing the plot device used so often in television and books. In actuality, a majority who manage to do it do not write a note at all. All it did was give her father a piece of paper to cling to as he sat, unable to talk or scream for fear of saying precisely the wrong thing. Even back then, laying in the hospital bed, staring at his disappointed and ultimately confused expression, Molly Hooper knew that she was next to worthless. Her little brother was at home, too distraught with his big sister's "Accident Involving A Rope." But her father did give Molly the poorly made get well card the ten year old made. She didn't say anything, couldn't say anything to justify the fact that she just felt so empty. So she sank back into the pillow, looking at the tiny blue dots on the fabric, stroking it even as she answered questions in a tiny voice that sounded nothing like her own.

"Yes."

"No."

"Thank you."

"A little, yeah."

"I'd give the pain a six."

"No thank you."

You still can't look your father in the eye.

The nice doctor sat on the edge of her bed, flashing a brilliant white smile as if hoping it made up for his receding hairline, "Hello Molly. Would you like to tell me why you tried to do it?"

"I don't know."

"Molly, dear, most teenagers get upset from time to time."

"I'm not upset." There was no specific reason except for the darkness that came over her, and that voice that was supposed to be her guiding conscience asking her why she should bother with life at all. This was the first time she succumbed to it, and the result was her father finding her half strangled in the closet. She wasn't upset, but what was wrong? Nothing. Everything was fine. She would smile again, in fact, she was already smiling as she left the ICU, and talking and laughing with others as if it never happened.

But it did happen...

For her Dad, she created an illusion of almost constant happiness, pretending to react to the therapy, but ultimately still having that constant sadness cling to her. She filled the empty with constantly striving for, and achieving, good grades, going through a string of perfectly acceptable boyfriends who couldn't excite her if they lives depended on it and one bad boy who was equally boring, friends, reading, and simply constantly trying to be distracted. She never cried. Her grades were perfect. She was a good sister. She was a good daughter. But none of it was ever enough. It will never be enough. That voice will always whisper, and she would push it out of her mind until she lay awake after a long and incredibly exhausting day. Then it would come and rear it's ugly head, causing sleep to evade her further.

Molly was eighteen when her father died, and glad that he clung to life long enough for her to be old enough to take care of Evan without social services becoming involved. Her life suddenly revolved around university, work, and trying to make the money Dad left stretch as far as possible, at least until Evan himself started university. It was difficult, and more than once Molly sat contemplating a knife's razor sharp edge, or overdosing, but couldn't leave Evan to care. That would be too cruel of her. So she kept going, going, going, until he himself had gotten in and she thought she could finally relax. She thought she could finally die.

It's not that easy, Molly Hooper...

Whoever said a handful of pills was like going to sleep is full of shit. It hurts and when she woke up, she was surrounded by those bright lights and bleeping monitors that alerted her that sweet oblivion was ripped from her once more. Hardened nurses and arrogant doctors milled about her, spouting words that she knew from the textbooks she read. She had researched the perfect combination this time, but hadn't counted on Evan coming home that night. He sat beside her, much like her father had before, staring at her blankly before snapping into anger.

"Why?!" He shouted this over and over again, until in his tearful anger he was dragged out of the room.

After that, they gave her a cocktail of pills to make her numb and happy. For the most part, they seemed to work, helping along the primary school teacher like persona while she continued to study and eventually began to work in pathology. Her therapist didn't seem to think that working around dead bodies in a high stress environment was a good idea, but she didn't understand. High stress meant little time to think about why she was still alive, and dead bodies never asked her how her day was going. She could never be blamed for taking a life, and she could see exactly where she would be the instant she took her own. Really, life was peaceful until Sherlock Holmes blew in like a hurricane on steroids.

He excited her, puzzled her, and intrigued her. How could someone so cold have such a thrilling lust for life? Stripping away most emotions seemed to have benefited him greatly. She wondered if he had crushing loneliness with his intelligence like she did. She wondered why he never called her out on her use of antidepressants and mood stabilizers if he could apparently see everything. Slowly she came to realize that she was just a constant in his life, a rug to wipe his feet on. She let him walk all over him, hoping that tiny bit of his effortless way of simply living life would rub off on her.

He was just so alive and he had no idea...

For a while, it did. God, she had never been so happy, even during his crushing deductions, his constant coldness, his preference of his new flatmate over her, his poor little doormat. She went out and visited Evan and his boyfriend more often, obtained a cat to make her flat less lonely, and even started pondering having a vacation—a real vacation, somewhere far away like Australia or Argentina somewhere that would be warm during London's horrible winters. She could go for Christmas. She could afford it, her tireless workaholic behavior paid off in that regard, but for some reason she could never simply bring herself to purchase the tickets, to take that two weeks off, to renew her passport. So maybe Sherlock in all his callousness made everything bearable, but hadn't fixed her.

Of course not, Molly, the pieces have always been too small to gather...

Really, Molly though her unrequited love for him was a lifeline, not something to shatter her. He turned being too empty and sad to even cry to quiet nights murmuring to the cat sitting on her lap while watching Doctor Who or something equally fun. She even tried to date again, for once not turning down someone, and deciding she could at least try a bit with Jim from IT. Too bad he turned out to be a homosexual psychopath intent upon blowing up Sherlock and company. She, of course, wasn't included in said company.

Although he did show up at her door just when she was about to resume her routine of cat and Doctor who, soaking wet. Molly let him in and watched him as he paced back and forth, his mouth twitching the way it did when he wanted to say something but couldn't formulate words fast enough for his racing brain. She simply retreated, taking a towel from the closet and holding it out to him. Eyes slightly widened, he took it as she sat down on the sofa.

"The man that you had been interacting with outside of work turned out to be James Moriarty, Molly."

It was funny how she wasn't too surprised, in fact she simply felt cold. "Oh. Okay." She turned the volume on her telly up a bit. "Night Sherlock."

Moriarty knew you wanted to die, Molly. He knew, but wouldn't let you...

She knew he was puzzled, but left all the same. Life resumed after that confirmation that love was never in the cards for Molly Hooper. Unexpectantly, that brought her some semblance of relief. Evan was worried, rushing in to talk to her, but she just threw her arms around him with a smile and a laugh in the morgue, disrupting Sherlock during his experiment. He said nothing and even as Evan and Molly chattered as they left, she could still feel his eyes burning the back of her skull. It was very much clear that he was still confused by her behavior, her lack of reaction, but she didn't care. She found that she wasn't much caring about anything anymore.

Evan fidgeted with his shirt collar uncomfortably, "So…how are you Molly?"

There was an unspoken comment shared between them. It was the anniversary of her last suicide attempt, and she sat before him smiling like she always has. Molly knew it unnerved him how she could smile even when she was completely miserable. She knew that if she responded with "fine" he would know that he gained nothing out of the conversation, so instead, she decided to voice her cautious hope, "I'm…I don't know. I think I'm—happier now. Well no, that's not quite the way to put it…I suppose it's the best word I've got though."

"I'm so glad." He puts a hand over hers, "Just…take it easy okay?"

"Always, Evan." She looked down at her coffee, "So…yeah. Insane psychopaths manipulating me aside, things have been…fine."

"Actually, I've been meaning to ask something, Molly." She perked up at that, gesturing for him to continue, "Have you ever thought of—I dunno, doing something else? You'd be able to just be a family doctor and help people—"

And leave Sherlock? The reason for this light feeling in her chest? "No." Her voice was flat.

"But you're surrounded by the dead all day, and that Sherlock Holmes fellow seems to be getting you into trouble—"

"He keeps me busy." That was almost the whole of it. He kept her busy with his constant and intense energy. That wasn't to mention the small pleasant ache in her chest or the sexual attraction, or just how energizing it could be just to be in his presence, "Besides…I like my job. I help people there, believe it or not. Busy is nice. Busy is what I need."

"You always say that."

"I've been fine, Evan, fine right where I am."

"Fine…"

Molly and Sherlock sitting in a tree,

Definitely not Kissing,

He holds the knife and the rope,

Doesn't know how to fix what's broke...

More time passed, and Molly found herself staring at the dead woman Sherlock was able to identify without a face. The Christmas party had been awful, taking her down from the few fantasies she could cling to. Sherlock wasn't her savior; he was just a man, a man oblivious to her pain. He knocked himself off the pedestal she placed him on for so long. He was just a man. A stupidly brilliant man, but just a man all the same. She didn't blame him, not really, and the way he apologized practically snapped the few strings left holding her heart together. Yet still, she stuck around. The cuts and burns up her legs, however, told her that she was hurtling straight towards a dead end.

"I don't count."

I wholeheartedly agree, Molly.

He denied it later, when he needed her help, help that she so willingly gave. It was easy, to help the one man that somehow made life worth living, however the two weeks he spent recovering in her flat were less so. Why he didn't simply use a safe house that his brother would no doubt provide, she didn't know. Molly hid her prescriptions in her purse, for some reason still not wanting Sherlock to know anything other than the cheerful girl in the morgue with the shitty blog and the cat. Watching him interact with her cat was oddly pleasing, another reminder that he was simply human. Another notable conversation was about a well-read book constantly resting on her nightstand.

"What is this?"

"The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. It says it right there in the title, Sherlock." She smiled at him, taking the book from him fondly, "I love this book."

"Obviously, but why?"

"Are you that bored?"

"Yes."

Molly sighed, taking a deep shaky breath before beginning, thumbing through the pages of the hardback, "It's about this girl. She's brilliant, talented, beautiful and successful, but she has this darkness about her. It clings to her wherever she goes. Her life feels empty, and she starts having this breakdown. Everything becomes meaningless and without color, and she tries to die eventually. It's based on Plath's personal experiences."

"Why is it called the Bell Jar?"

"Because Ester compares her madness and her sadness to a bell jar. No matter where she is, it distorts her life, and she can only breath the sour air inside of it." Molly sighed, "In the last chapter she states 'To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.' And also 'How did I know that someday—at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere—the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?'"

"So does it?"

"Huh?"

"You said this was based on the author's experiences, does she turn out fine?"

"Well she's fine for a while. She eventually marries a British writer and they have a family."

"So she got a nice boring life in the end? What you would call a 'happily ever after?'"

"No. I said for a while. The bell jar came down again and she stuck her head in the oven. Death by carbon monoxide poisoning. The bad dream came back."

Sherlock was oddly quiet for the rest of the night, watching her as she read.

Sherlock planned to leave without saying goodbye. He just planned to up and leave without another word. Of course he did, he didn't do sentiment, and he certainly wasn't sentimental about her. Yet she couldn't help but launch herself at his retreating figure, wrapping her arms around him, "Don't you dare leave without saying goodbye. I-I know that you have to go, but please, say goodbye."

"Molly. Stop being ridiculous."

"Sherlock, stop being you for a moment and just indulge me. You can't tell me where you're going, or what you're doing, or how long you'll be gone, but you can tell me goodbye. It doesn't hurt. It's just two syllables. Good-bye."

"It does." He turned around, his hands placed on her shoulders to separate them, and she found herself staring into his eye—those eyes that tormented her, forcing her to keep going each day, as she always had. Stupid as it was, she would most likely break down the moment he left. She would race around the flat in a frenzy, looking for something—even though she had removed all sharp objects, separated the pills and placed them in different parts of the flat. Then the feeling would subside, and she would simply make herself go to sleep, and wake up in the morning groggy and tearful.

Weak little Molly wants a goodbye from her lifeline. Planning anything big then?

So lost in her own thoughts she barely heard him speak "What?"

"It does. Hurt that is." Sherlock's face was much like when he was in the lab, and thought John wasn't looking, "Saying goodbye is too final for my tastes. I'm coming back. There's no need to—"

Molly hoisted herself up on her toes and kissed his cheek, "Goodbye, Sherlock. Be safe. Just—be safe."

He nodded, and jumped as if just realizing that his hands were on her shoulders, retracting them, "Thank you, Molly."

And then he was gone.

He was gone two years, and in those two years only came back four times. In between those times it felt as if a great haze was veiled over her world. Molly caught a glimpse of what it would look like if she was gone. There would be mourning, grieving, and eventually, moving on. People looked at her sympathetically for her unabashed crush on the (not) fraudulent and very much (not) dead consulting detective. She didn't need it. She didn't need them. She only needed to get through the day. Bird by bird, day by day, her life slowly inched by. Her medicine was adjusted twice. Evan came in, sure she would snap with the death of Sherlock Holmes.

But you didn't Molly...

She always had a tiny bit of hope that she would see him in her flat. It was that tiny bit of hope that was flaying her alive. Molly hoped for a better tomorrow, which is why she clung so hard to the present. She clung to this idea that everything would go back to normal the instant Sherlock came back. She would live for his brilliance until she was finally stretched so thin she might indulge in a more violent form of ending. Except, John was getting married to a young nurse, Mike was transferring to another hospital, and Lestrade had actually permanently divorced his wife. Yet she still clung to that hope. This was her task, to get by, even if it was only barely. The downward spiral wasn't prompted by something he said or his absence, or any other outside force. It was her letting go of that hope.

It's about time Molly; you were pretty pathetic with a crush and a routine being the only thing you live for.

But then he was there, in his excitement his eyes skipping over her shaking hands, and pulling her into a crushing embrace.

"It's done." Sherlock clung to her tightly, almost painfully from behind, a strange reversed rendition of her goodbye years previously.

"I'm glad." Molly whispered back. "How did John react?"

"I haven't told him. No one else knows I'm alive yet."

"Oh." She felt him bury his head into her neck, and his next few words felt like a kiss as his lips moved against her skin, "I came to retract that goodbye of yours. It's no longer necessary I'd say." He forced her to turn around in his strange, awkward embrace. "Let's never say goodbye again."

Molly wasn't so sure. Goodbyes were always necessary, but why was he doing this? Why was he saying this? Why was he looking at her like that? It head was splitting, she thought it might explode. She felt light and dizzy, reacting to his touch, her world swaying before the pain in her abdomen took over. Crying out, she clutched his shoulders, her knees failing her. Oh it hurt, it hurt so badly, and what upset her more was the fact that he came home. Distantly, Molly heard him calling out her name, felt panicked shaking hands helping her to the floor before they found the empty prescription bottles and the phone to dial 999. She vomited once before falling into the sweet clutches of darkness.

I'm not dead.

It was her own thoughts, not the little train of thought that always referred to herself in the second person. This was her first thought upon waking up, blinking at the ceiling. It was such a heartbreakingly familiar situation. She would wake up with someone who loved her ready to berate her. Why couldn't she ever get it right? If only she had the heart to rip open her own veins, if only she could throw herself off a building, or somehow obtain a gun. But she didn't want a mess. Honestly she was a doctor! She had the combination just right! But she hadn't counted on Sherlock to be there, just a few minutes after she had consumed the mixture pill by pill, just to ensure her body wouldn't immediately purge it. She thought the third time would be the trick.

Evidently not. You're a doctor and you're still really shitty at this...

A firm hand clutched her own, so tightly she thought it might break. She blinked, letting her head roll off to the side to see Sherlock. He sat there, sitting, that expression he had when he was deducing plain on his face. Molly snorted slightly, despite the pain upon looking at him, "What do you find amusing, Molly? Nothing about this is amusing, Molly!" he spoke through his teeth then.

Her voice was dry and hoarse, one of the smaller side effects of the pills and of sleeping for no doubt a long period of time, "Before, there was always someone stupid enough to love me sitting there. Now it's just you." Her quiet laughter seemed to have broken something, his expression twitched and suddenly his grip on her hand became painful before loosening. "How's John?"

"Your idiotic decision to end your own life has forced me to put it off."

"Sherlock I-"

"What did I do?" He asked quietly, drawing his hands in his lap, looking akin to a child in trouble.

Molly found herself smiling a sad little smile in return, "Nothing, Sherlock."

"No, there's always something. There's always something that I've done. You—this—" he gestured around wildly, before sliding his hand across her leg to feel the ridges and bumps of scars and burns, "these—they're my fault. All my fault. "I would do anything for you never to do this again." If it weren't for his voice cracking on the last word, he sounded just as he always did. "Why? Tell me why, I'll fix it, this is my fault this—"

"No…Sherlock this has never been about you." Molly slumped back into her pillows, silently wishing he would leave, but of course he didn't, taking her hand in his again, this time gentle, as if she might shatter at the touch.

"I broke you."

"You can't break something that was already broken, Sherlock. Y-you've read my medical history." He scowled, "Don't look at me like th-that Sherlock, I know you and I know your brother."

"They changed your antidepressants and dosage, and you reacted badly."

"That's what happens when you mess with chemicals in an already messed up head. It's all chemicals, and mine are just screwed up." Molly turned, curling up on her side away from him, the loss of his hand oddly satisfying. It was his fault she was still there, it was always his fault. She wasn't thinking properly—oh but she never did—and couldn't say another word to him She felt small and disgusting lying there. She wanted her mum; no she wanted her dad, or Evan or anyone other than Sherlock. Why did it have to be him?

There was a shift, and the mattress dipped slightly beneath Sherlock's weight as he settled down on the edge of the bed, and placed a tentative hand on her waist, "Molly Hooper…you frightened me. I thought you were going to die. I don't want you to die."

She never thought she would have this conversation with Sherlock, sighing, she rolled over and faced him, touching his hand with her own, "I'm alive now."

Please understand that this is all I can promise for now.

"Molly please." He laid down on the bed beside her, pressing a kiss to her tear streaked cheek, "You know how much I hate goodbyes."

So I decided to write this because of a story idea I have for National Novel Writing Month, and I wanted to see if I was capable of doing something so dark and so close to home. The answer is yes and I found that it was an almost cathartic experience for me. I wanted to write this using Molly because while I adore her, I have trouble believing her world is all puppies and unicorns and acting like a misplaced kindergarten teacher. I also wanted to give a realistic portrayal of depression and suicidal tendencies. I wanted to show how there are not quick fixes. The pills don't always magically make you happy. Love, while it can lighten your heart considerably, does not always chase away the darkness that clings to you day in and day out. I draw on many of my own experiences and that of others to show that for people like this Molly (and Sylvia Plath's Ester, as well as myself) fear that the sour air will come back no matter where they are or what they're doing.

Thank you for reading, and thank you even more if you read the explanation and even more so if you reviewed.