Spoilers: None specific I don't think but written with S2 or post-S2 in mind.

A/N: I've had this hanging around on my hdd for ages, as it's an odd piece, sort of dark and twisted in its own special way. Finally posting it and hoping someone around might appreciate those qualities to it.

"I love you" has never felt so untrue. She could say the words, lifeless and limp in her mouth, as cold and unfeeling in expression as the reception they would get.

They only mean something when she imagines another eight letter phrase. The thing she finds herself wanting to text in the middle of the night. She selfishly wants to wake him up to find out the truth. The truth is she wouldn't wake him up – he'd be busy or bored but definitely awake she feels - and he likely wouldn't be surprised at all. Still, she day dreams about it, fingers often itching, yearning to fill in the blankness of that field with meaning and to definitively press 'Send' with a surge of spite.

You see, "I hate you" is bursting with passion, filled with vehemence that is palpable around her lips, spitting it out in a rush to fit understanding into the world. Molly Hooper hates Sherlock Holmes.

She hates how he makes her feel.

She hates stumbling for air. She hates the slippery grasp on logic she has in front of him, of all people. She hates her hammering heart. She hates the low burn in her loins. She hates that she can want for all the world and never have him. She hates this vision of life that he encompasses everything that had made her her.

She hates his demanding presence

She hates his unappreciated good looks forced in her face. She hates the flashes of fantasies in front of her eyes, the layers on top of reality she scorns and yet they remain burnt in, ever present around him. She hates his testing her responses, passing too close or brushing skin 'accidentally' when reaching (he's reaching for her, not the equipment). She hates how he is eager to be proved he has power over her as ever. She hates the knowing smirk as she blushes because of him.

She hates that he picks her.

She hates that he needs her. She hates that she can't say no. She hates that she can't leave. She hates that he makes her lab his and her morgue his and her his, without out claiming it properly.

She hates the satisfied flippant observations that reduce her to a clenching heart and threaten tears.

She hates how he wouldn't care if she did cry; maybe confused, maybe put out but not sorry. She hates how he makes her an emotional mess and it's her who has to straighten up and apologise. She hates how a man stuffed brim full of logic makes her devoid of it.

And one night when she cannot sleep she gives in, crafting her response to years of subtle torture. Molly writes that simple message, hits send and smiles grimly, an odd sense of satisfaction overcoming her for a moment.

I am aware. After all, doesn't everyone. SH

She hates how he makes it about him.

She hates how he generalises it like her hate is the same as bloody Anderson and random strangers he pisses off. She hates how he doesn't recognise that she takes it all from him. She hates that she isn't allowed that one specialty. He'll never love her, doesn't want to let her love him, but he should let her hate him properly.

I'm not everyone, I'm not anyone. Molly.

No xxx or xoxo, kisses or cuddles, like she would usually do for her family or friends. Sherlock would find it abhorrent even if it were true. What symbols could you do for someone who you wanted to slap? '/. (Your face)'? She can tell this form of communication wasn't made for angry people. She could SHOUT but she's not loud, she doesn't want noise, she wants tone, inflection of words like daggers into where his heart should be.

Drop the philosophy, state the obvious if you will. Anything less is a waste of my time SH

I can never love you. You won't let anyone. You might think everyone hates you, maybe most people do. But there's still this passion trapped inside me. It has to be hate, a special kind of hate purely for you. Don't call it ordinary because it's not, even if I am, and it never could be anyway, not when it's for you. Molly

Hate me by all means. I will only protest if it interferes with my work. SH

It's my prerogative to hate you Sherlock. If you hated me back I probably couldn't anymore though, so don't worry. Molly

I am not worried. You should be. Your hate may not interfere with my work, though I suspect it interferes with yours already. SH

My work, your work. My lab, your lab. Where's the distinction anymore? It's all yours, everything is yours especially all the things you don't want. Molly.

It would be easier if you hated me back. Indifference is more painful. Molly

You know what I want? No. You think me indifferent. You are usually more observant, Molly Hooper. SH

How am I wrong? What am I missing? Molly

Her breath catches in her throat, she feel a rising panic out of nowhere. What has she said. It's worse, isn't it? To proclaim your hate to your long-time-not-friend and person you blatantly have a crush on.

Almost anyone could say I love you and mean it. SH

Almost anyone could say I hate you and I would fail to recognise its significance. SH

You can't always get what you want. SH

Song lyrics, Sherlock? Run out of origi-

And she stops mid button click, a zen-like pinpointed thought speeding through her sleep deprived synapses. Oh. Oh! He doesn't mean her, does he? So caught up in what she wants and can't have, she has never stopped to think of any other possibility – not simply testing her.

She hates the way she doesn't really hate him at all.

Do you hate me too? Molly

She stares at her phone, willing him to reply, and well-aware there are few unhealthier scenarios for what may be the start to a relationship. A very twisted start after lots of stalling and several misguided detours. Of course, if it's about the journey instead of the destination then she is probably well and truly screwed, in for bumps and bruises metaphorically and probably plenty of being shot at in real life for added misery. But she recognises that much like you can't hate without passion, you can't fully appreciate life - or it's constituent joys - adequately without the knowledge one day it will be over, that it all matters.

It's sort of the same as how she smiles at every body on her slab, sad for them - and let's get you settled and find out what the problem was for you - yet happy it isn't her there. Their downside, her upside and a balance to her day. Grateful to be doing talking, air passing her lips, rushing out as her body keeps going and fatefully rushing back in, a steady rhythm.

People have always warned her Sherlock isn't right; an oddity, a misfit, a freak, too interested in death and murder and mayhem. What they say, kindly is, Sherlock is not normal, implication of not what you want, really, nice girl like you. What they tend to forget is - seeing not through her, but past her - is that neither is she.

There's a knock on the door. At 4.42am on a Sunday morning, less than three hours before she must be up.

An incessant wrapping on the wood that sounds melodic where it shouldn't, as she rustles a dressing gown and socks on, hoping it hurts his knuckles. Molly doesn't quite rush as fast as she can and Molly doesn't quite slide the latch across when she ought to be doing so. She listens to the discordant noise that isn't sounding out anything, isn't apologetic, simply an urgent rattling that could be anything. In her heart she takes it as a wordless expression of an eight letter phrase she knows he will never say and she honestly couldn't care less which one it is. Either admission of passion is more than she had ever dreamt of from him and for either theoretical utterance, the silent Sherlock on the outside will steal her breath away when she opens the door.

Because he isn't indifferent, because he is here.