This was a prompt on tumblr, and I cannot for the life of me remember by who. The idea being every time you fall in love, a tally appears on your arm. More will be revealed inside.

And yes, I will finish my ghost AU. I promise, promise, promise.

Some thought of it as a blessing. People like that were generally idiots. Sherlock was neutral: he didn't care as long as more tallies didn't appear on his arms.

There had been very little to love in his life. His first tally mark appeared sometime around fifth grade, when his mother comforted him after being bullied. Twelve year old Sherlock was not as perturbed by the lack of tallies appearing for his parents as eight year old Sherlock had been. Eight year old Sherlock had wondered whether he loved his parents, whether he was supposed to, and why he did not. Twelve year old Sherlock had accepted, through Darwin and through other philosophers: family units were arbitrary. They existed through sociological complexities, and their existence or lack was not a source of alarm or worry.

But when Redbeard comforted him (some children had written 'FREAK' on his forehead. Childish. Unoriginal. Devastating) Sherlock's first tally appeared. And it went, almost immediately black. It was nice to know that his mother loved him, that she had a tally that corresponded his own.

He never showed it to her. He didn't feel like it was necessary, and even lesser that it should be said out loud.

He never got a tally for his father, and never one for Mycroft. He suspected that Mycroft's hand was blank – it seemed very plausible. His father demanded affection, but Sherlock would never be able to foster up love. It would not happen.

He had one unexplained tally which had occurred when both his father and Mycroft were in the room, reacting to stimulus in a way that certainly did not bring out a surge of affection and care. He was confused, because the tally turned black almost instantly, and all he had been doing was petting Redbeard. It confused him for a while, until he realised that Redbeard, after all, loved very easily.

The theory was confirmed when Redbeard had to be "put down." His parents didn't bother fooling him about the farm that he went to and played in until the end of his days. The tally for Redbeard turned into a scar.

And Sherlock made his decisions where love was concerned.

Sherlock Holmes being capable of love was enough to make him raise his eyebrow; consider the fact that he might be making himself a veritable target for the more intelligent minded. But that the one he loved was someone like his mother was of great comfort: his mother was not an obvious option when dealing with a James Bond-esque villain, they always aimed for something as insipid as romantic attachments.

In University, his only friend was Victor Trevor. The slew of lovers counted for less than nothing, and Trevor didn't come close to leaving him with a mark on his arm.

That was what had happened in the first year of his higher education, anyway.

Sherlock scoffed at the idea that someone could have more than four or five tally marks. He didn't believe in that anymore than he believed in God. You couldn't love twenty people at the same time, and you couldn't do it equally – eventually, some of the marks had to fade.

And then she happened.

When Molly Hooper walked into his life, she wore full sleeves. She wore full sleeves, a nervous smile, and a tendency to bite her lip.

It was a coffee shop – he rarely took the time to deduce his servers, but she was smiling nervously at him, and it wasn't because of him alone. She seemed uncomfortable in the setting, uncomfortable in her apron, and more uncomfortable in her name tag.

Molly Hooper

How may I serve you?

"Black," he said.

"Right-o," she said cheerfully. She promptly dropped her pad, and went to collect it. As soon as she picked it up, she dropped her pen.

"Need any help?" he asked sardonically.

"No thanks – um, I'm quite – erm, used to it," she said. She didn't seem to be joking.

Sherlock hummed to himself, considering whether or not he should head to the lab. He wanted to test out an experiment before he tested out the new drug Trevor was bringing him.

"Aren't you in my chemistry class?' she asked.

"Can't be. My chemistry class is for second years. You're not a second year."

"Uh – Does my speech give it away?" she asked with a small laugh.

"No, it's actually your attire. But never mind that."

"Well – um. You're the one who sits – well, - at the back and never – erm, answers, but knows everything, right?" she asked.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows.

"I – well, um – I'm in an advanced class – for – for a first year, I know," she said. "Professor Dunlop didn't mind. She said my grades – well, my grades – were decent enough for it."

"Professor Dunlop was probably as much an idiot as you are," he said.

Her eyes widened. He noted that she wasn't hurt as he had expected her to be – she was surprised. "Um," she said. "That was… unexpected."

"No need to be shocked, most people are idiotic," said Sherlock, taking his cup as she handed it to him. "Cheers."

He turned around from the campus coffee house, and went to the labs.

"Cheers," he heard her say.

Sherlock didn't attend most classes, but he found himself often attending Chemistry. Primarily because it was his major, secondarily because Professor Dunlop was the only teacher he could tolerate.

She was sitting there, but not, as he had expected, at the first row. She sat at the edge. Near the window. She smiled at him briefly, a smile he did not return. Her sleeve was a little pulled up – he noted at least two tally marks.

Typical.

She probably loved indiscriminately and had at least ten tallies. He severely disliked people like Molly Hooper. They weren't intelligent, cared far too much. They didn't seem to have any interest in being better – life was a series of stagnancies which ultimately ended up in offspring with Iqs in double digits.

What Sherlock didn't notice was that the tallies were not black.

"Well, ideally," the girl was saying in class, "Hydrochloric acid should –"

Sherlock frowned at her. It wasn't that Molly Hooper was particularly irksome, it was just that he had been noticing her presence a lot more. She wrote in a small notebook, on her desk, on her hands, on whatever scraps of paper she could find. This wasn't very noticeable – she slipped by most of the class.

Sherlock spotted it because she seemed to give a lot of right answers in class.

She was certainly smarter than a majority of the class, he decided.

Today, she was wearing a white jumper with cats on it. Her taste was hideous.

But she didn't seem to care. He often spotted flour on the sides of her clothes as he went out to smoke – maybe from the Coffee House, more likely they came from her own baking habits.

He frowned at her again. She didn't often raise her hand in class – she answered questions very quietly. Childhood anxiety over drawing attention to herself. Perhaps crippling social awkwardness as well – her language was very schooled and careful, tip toeing on what she had to say, what she didn't have to say.

Sherlock turned away arbitrarily. Just because she was the only interesting person in the class didn't mean he should waste his time on her.

"Black, two sugars, I know," she said when she saw him again.

He nodded without looking at her.

"Oh, hi Melly," she said to a girl behind him. Sherlock texted Trevor without paying her much mind – until he heard:

"Milk and one sugar, I know."

Odd.

"You been watching that girl a lot?" asked Trevor.

"Yes. And that girl. That boy. All of them – all the time –"

"Yes, I know – your never stopping brain and all that. Give it a rest, Holmes. You like this one particularly. God only knows why, I'd have thought she was as boring as an apple."

"Oh – um, hey Sherlock," she said.

He nodded.

"What do you need?" she asked.

They were in the middle of a hallway, not in class, not in a coffee house.

"I was wondering if you would run these tests for me, actually," he said.

"Um – Sherlock – this is, well, it's well beyond my level –"

"No, it's not," he said.

"Professor Dunlop –"

"Students are allowed to run whatever experiments they choose, as long as they don't go haywire," he said, speaking over her.

"And cause a zombie apocalypse?" she asked with a small grin.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"The dead do not rise, Molly," he told her.

"Well – um. I had no idea," she said.

He wanted to snap at her, tell her that sarcasm should be left for the professionals – but he allowed it in the face of the fact that she barely fell over her sentences in this conversation.

He frowned. It shouldn't be his job to make this girl comfortable.

She hummed to herself as she kept the paper back. "I'll handle it, Sherlock," she said.

She smiled to herself a lot.

Sherlock didn't why. No amount of deduction managed to bring him a concrete answer. He could piece apart her family, her story, her anxieties, her insecurities, everything.

He could never tell why she smiled.

"Molly Hooper," he said.

She looked up at him, surprised.

"Yeah?" she asked, nervous.

"Don't get too excited," he snapped. "What was the assignment Dunlop wanted?"

"Um – " she shuffled in her bag, and took out a sheet of paper.

"How disgustingly selfless of you," he said. "To give me your copy of the assignment question."

She went red. "I have a soft copy," she said with a small, nervous chuckle.

"I suppose you printed it because you have a penchant for keeping lots of things to write on?" he asked.

She nodded. "How did you know?" she asked, a bit surprised.

His eyes flicked to her arms, where stuff was scribbled all over.

"Call it intuition," he said dryly.

Her sleeve slipped again. He counted three tallies on her arm.

Boring as an apple.

Molly Hooper wasn't interesting.

She was a mess of intelligence and emotions, hiding her tally marks very, very carefully – what he suspected depression during teenage years, a tendency to be very careful around people and what she said, ridiculous jumpers and stupid smiles.

He hadn't had a single conversation with her about what she liked – baking, telly, books, ice cream – but he felt like he knew it all already.

"Dangerous," a mental voice warned him. It sounded disgustingly like Mycroft.

She wasn't interesting – she was ordinary. She was uncomfortable around her friends, even more around her peers. She stuttered, probably – all those 'um's and 'erm's did indicate that. She was perfectly normal in her unbelonging, even more so in her keen awareness of it.

It was the slinking suspicion that when she was by herself – she was happy – that made him watch her so continuously.

"Anything interesting today?" he asked her.

"No zombie apocalypses," she said.

"I'm laughing," he said dryly.

Her eyes twinkled. "I'm sure," she said. "Here are the results," she added.

"Excellent." He left without so much as looking at her twice.

They became friends.

Beyond Trevor, Molly Hooper became his only other regular human contact. He didn't even need to order at the Coffee House anymore, his coffee was always ready for him when he entered. She smiled and took his money, returned the change, and asked him whether she would be seeing him for class.

He turned up for most of Professor Dunlop's classes: she allowed him a free reign on the lab, which gave him an amount of respect for her and her teaching which could not go unaccounted for. Molly didn't sit next to him during class –but she was always nice enough to run experiments, chat with him a little, and offer him baked goods.

She liked him.

Her pupils dilated. Her pulse was elevated. Her face turned red. Her stammer returned intermittently. It was all very – obvious.

He didn't mind her company – she was intelligent, she seemed to know what to say to him. Their conversations were interesting – when she wasn't blushing and nervous – she could speak about a variety of subjects, including forensics, chemistry, the piano. She told him she played, he had no idea how good she was.

Meanwhile, Sherlock's experimentation with drugs was becoming something to rival Trevor. He dabbled in whatever he got, his dealers began to evolve.

She knew he smoked. She didn't approve, he could tell. She didn't like it. But she never said anything.

His smoking had already become something uncontrollable anyway. He didn't bother pointing that out to her.

"No, my social anxiety isn't that bad," she said.

He scoffed, taking a deep drag.

"Must be because of a dead parent. Father, I'm presuming."

"Yes," she said neutrally.

"What happened?" he asked, despite himself.

She paused.

"Lung cancer."

The cigarette glowed in the middle of the night, like a firefly.

In his third year of Uni, he OD'd the first time.

It wasn't Trevor who brought him back – it was her.

She brought him back, in tears, calling his name (Sherlocksherlocksherlock SHERLOCK - - - - please). He woke up to her brown eyes, the way they smiled when no one was looking –

Only this time, they weren't smiling secretly.

In some corner of his extremely hazed mind – he had the sense of having destroyed something profoundly important.

He didn't notice – his mind was too addled – but she was gripping her wrist.

The second time he OD'd, Trevor called for her. She came, rushing, her face a wild collection of tears and prayers. Trevor didn't know what to do (I didn't bring it for him this time, Molly. I promise – I've not been bringing him anything for a while now). Molly knew exactly what to do – but Sherlock had a very distinct sense of having killed her in the process.

Around his fourth time, she put her foot down.

"No more, Sherlock," she said quietly.

"Who's commanding?" he sneered.

"No more," she repeated. "Or I leave."

"Idiocy doesn't suit you, Molly," he told her.

"It's not idiotic to have a sense of self preservation," she said.

"Who are you preserving yourself from?" he asked.

"Your drugs," she said. "You're going to kill yourself, and I am going to die everyday to bring you back. And I refuse to die for someone who doesn't have the decency to find a good toxin and a good way out to die."

He noticed the hard light in her eye. He lit a cigarette.

She left the room.

He waited for the savage satisfaction that would come with her return.

She never came back.

He was a little careful with his highs, after that – Molly would no longer be there to save him. He indulged – he indulged and indulged and indulged. One mouth to another, one kiss to another. The tongues changed, the faces remained the same: blank.

He didn't care.

She did. He knew she did. And eventually, though the faces remained blank – he could no longer respond to them. He could no longer find the tongues, the right pressure, the right anything.

He kissed a ginger – a complete opposite of Molly, tall, bright eyed, uncaring – rude. And he could not get erect.

In the middle of the girl trying to coax him – it was a back alley in campus, behind the Coffee House somewhere. If he had been half in his senses, he wouldn't have picked such a spot –

That was when he heard her voice. Immediately, his mind conjured her face – her eyes, her voice, her everything – and he could not help it. He was erect. He whispered her name – thank God ginger was as high as him, or she would have noticed.

And in between his haze – Molly Hooper stumbled on them while taking out the trash.

Before, something profound had been lost. Now, he knew that he had broken something into tiny bits.

Molly of tears, Molly of pain, Molly of happiness – they all swam before him. He left ginger, he couldn't bear the sight of her anymore. He desperately went back to his apartment, shot himself one last time, and waited, patiently for Molly to come to him.

He didn't love her. He was an addict. Addicts don't love their torturers – but God would have saved him if he had loved Molly Hooper enough – just enough.

It was Mycroft who came this time. The deal was simple: rehabilitation, degree completion, and then cases from Scotland Yard. Inspector Lestrade was Mycroft's colleague, it could be easily handled.

Sherlock agreed.

He agreed because of the cases. Because he hated the control drugs had on him.

Because Molly Hooper couldn't afford to cry more.

And she hadn't come.

She didn't come to him, she didn't save him, and he was savagely angry at himself for depending on her for something like that.

It's a three shot. More to come.

Reviews are wonderful.