Deducing Tragedy Part Two: Speak No Lies

"So… you'll come?" the question was posed by Molly Hooper as she fiddled with the tea cup in her hand. She was still in her work clothes, apparently having thought this conversation was not only vital enough to be had in person, rather than over the phone or through a text message, but to be discussed immediately after her shift ended. Signs of stress, whether caused by how important she perceived this to be or something beyond Sherlock's observations, had taken their toll on her small body. She'd lost weight, two or three pounds if he had to guess. Her mousy brown hair seemed dull and frail in her trademarked ponytail, which was pulled just a little too tight he noted as he watched her subconsciously rub the crown of her head for the third time this visit. Light brown eyes that once regarded Sherlock with interest and awe now flinched away at the mere thought of the Consulting Detective.

Even now, he noted as he stood in the window to watch the street below them, Molly wouldn't actually look at him. She looked in his direction but she didn't see him, her gaze fixed over his shoulder or just to the side of his face. He pretended it didn't bother him but that was a lie; one he'd gotten very good a telling over the last few year.

"Of course we'll come," John said sitting down across from the shaky girl. "We wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Says you," Sherlock scoffed.

"Sherlock," John hissed in a warning tone.

"What?"

"She was our friend-"

"You're friend," he corrected the blonde man. "I don't remember the woman."

"You still don't?" Molly asked, her eyes locked firmly on the floor boards below her feet. "Didn't you promise her you would try to remember?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "I was under the impression that her death voided the contract." She flinched and Sherlock knew he would get berated for that one latter. John was already glaring daggers at him from his chair but Sherlock ignored it.

"When is it?" John asked, returning his soft gaze to the girl across from him, "I have to tell Mary soon so she doesn't make plans."

"Friday," she said. "Starts at six, should be over by eight."

"And it's for Hanna-" she flinched again as the name was spoken for the first time this evening. Hanna Hooper, Sherlock thought as the silence in the room dragged on, Molly's younger sister died in a plane crash while on her way to America. While her death was, in his opinion, rather dull, the circumstances and irony of it all was that of a private fascination to the detective.

As it was revealed to him, Hanna had suffered immensely in her short life having been the target of a psychopath's torment for nearly eleven years. Tomas Mathers was a monster with friends in high places and he used those friends to put the youngest Hooper through every form of hell he could think of before he died in a fire only a few short weeks before Hanna herself passed away.

Molly did not appreciate the irony like Sherlock did.

"It's not right!" He remembered Molly saying to John shortly after receiving news of the crash. "She was finally free of him! She was free and able to live without that fear hanging over her... But before she can truly experience any of that she dies because of a mechanical failure? How does that happen?" Sherlock could see her point. If there was a god, it seemed he bore a special hate for the youngest Hooper.

"Y-yes," Molly's voice shook now, her fleeting gaze catching John's. "For Hanna and I invited the families of Tomas's other victims as well." Tomas Mathers was a mind the likes of which Sherlock had never seen. He raped and killed twelve women that looked like Hooper just to get her attention. He created a network of spies just to watch her and then plotted to destroy them all as well as himself and Miss Hooper. He was sadistic and psychotic and enjoyed destroying any happiness that Hanna dared procure.

"How… nice… of you," Sherlock sighed in boredom. "Bringing all the people hurt by one man together to –talk- about it and the departed Miss Hooper when I imagine most of these individuals just want to forget any of it happened. But no, Molly must hold a vigil to reopen three year old wounds all because she's hasn't grieved enough."

That was low, even for him. He knew he was out of line, he knew how hurtful his words were and he did, on some level, feel bad about it. Molly didn't deserve that, she wasn't trying to hurt these people. He honestly didn't think she had it in her to hurt a fly but he said it anyway because he had too. He had to demonize Molly's pain and the event, paint it black in the hopes that John wouldn't make him go.

"Sherlock-" John began but was cut off by Molly.

"I've got this," she whispered softly. The Detective frowned, watching her as she rose slowly from the chair and turned to step in front of him. Molly's dark eyes, filled with sorrow and pain beyond Sherlock's comprehension, met his silver-blue ones before she slapped him hard across the face.

"No! I have not grieved enough," she shouted at him now. "She's my sister, Sherlock! I love her- I miss her. She was taken from me eleven years ago by a monster. And then, just when I was starting to get her back, she died. I'll never get to say goodbye to her- never get to bury her, because she's fish food at the bottom of the fucking ocean!"

"Mol-"

"Don't tell me you're sorry when we both know you're not!" She stopped him with a fierce glare. "Maybe you would have been if this was before- before you hit your head and forgot her. When you had emotions and loved my sister more than anyone has ever loved something-" Now it was Sherlock's turn to flinch. The fire that killed Mathers had also knocked Sherlock off his feet; he hit his head on the stone ground and was unconscious for a few minutes before Hanna woke him. For reasons unknown, due to lack of understand of the human brain, Sherlock forgot Hanna and the months they spent together. As it was told to him, he and the only blonde Hooper became quite close as they began to live together after he reveal he did not die jumping off the roof of Saint Bart's Hospitable.

People told him he loved her but how can that be true if she was so easily forgotten? Did he even have the capacity to really love someone? As he was now, without his memory, he couldn't imagine it. He couldn't imagine the fear John described when the girl was taken by Mathers. He couldn't imagine the depression he was said to have when she faked her death. He couldn't comprehend the affection he saw on his own face when he looked at the surveillance photos of his time overseas with the girl. None of it made sense, no matter how much everyone around him tried to explain.

Hanna was the only one who didn't try to remind him. She actually preferred to keep her distance from the detective. "I must act like his memories will never come back," she said once to John. "We cannot go on when I'm at the finish line and he's not even started. And placing all my memories on him could push him father away. No, it's better to step back, remove myself for the time being before deciding if we can try again."

Now, as Sherlock stood in front of an angry Molly with tears streaming from her red puffy eyes, he missed how Hanna; if only because of how she tried to keep the other's from annoying him. "You don't want to remember, do you?"

Sherlock blinked, "Mo-"

"JUST ANSWER MY QUESTION!" She bellowed at the man. "Do you want to remember her, like you promised you would try, or are you just going to let her fade away?" Sherlock blinked, he should have never told them that. In the few weeks between the fire and her death Sherlock and Hanna did not speak directly with each other. It was only in the last hours before her departure that he allowed them to be alone for a few moments. She was intriguing and brilliant. He was surprised as how easily they understood one another, how easily she understood him, and for a moment, one fleeting moment, he wanted nothing more than to remember how he felt about the woman before him. So he promised her he would try and after she left he made the fatal mistake of telling John and Molly about it.

And then she was dead, and Sherlock was left with a choice.

"No," He answered Molly after a moment's pause. "I don't want to remember her. I've worked very hard not to remember. She is, as you said, fish food at the bottom of the ocean and when the news of her fate arrived I made my choice. I will never remember Hanna Hooper, because if I try to… only pain waits for me."

"You're right," she nodded slowly, her eyes still locked with his, "You always are- but answer me this, Sherlock; is it better to have loved and to have lost than to never have loved at all?" She didn't wait for his answer as she turned and marched out of 221B Baker Street.

John stood up; he gave Sherlock a pointed look before taking the dirty mugs out to the kitchen and leaving the detective alone in the living room.