"When Molly Hooper has trouble with a particularly damaged set of remains, she calls for backup in the form of an old friend; Temperance Brennan."
A / N: Alright, I've been unbelievably busy with real life issues, so just to make said existence that much more complicated, I'm starting another story. If you are someone who has been following Best Leading Actress, fear not as I do intend to update on it soon. Seeing as I seem to be wholly incapable of writing canonically correct fics for Bones, this, like BLA, is set mid- Han**h season 6. In Sherlock-verse, on the other hand, this is set somewhere after His Last Vow / The Abominable Bride. I'm sure you've had enough of my blathering on, if anyone actually bothers to read long Author's Notes. Also, any Britpicking services anybody might be able to provide would be wonderful; I'm American, and have never been across 'the pond' to visit, so I'm woefully ignorant of British-isms… Okay, okay, I'm done now. Seriously.
Disclaimer: If I owned either Sherlock or Bones, my ride would most certainly not be from before 2000. Alas, I'm stuck with a 1998 Toyota Tacoma with no real shock absorbers to speak of. So disappointing.
Molly Hooper wasn't unnerved easily - really, in her line of work,she couldn't afford to be. Apart from the obvious, her association with the Holmes clan had stiffened her backbone; no longer did she wilt when glared at / shouted at (Sherlock's doing), nor was she surprised when she was stolen away in the middle of the night by a bunch of brawny men in tweed (Mycroft's doing), nor was she worried when she was kidnapped to "go find some clothes befitting such a lovely young woman, rather that a seven year old," as she was told the first time it happened (this was usually a joint effort between Violet 'Mummy' Holmes, Mary Watson, and Mycroft's personal assistant, Anthea 'Everyone-knows-that's-not-your-actual-name-but-you're-the-only-person-on-the-planet-that-has-Mycroft-bloody-Holmes-wrapped-around-their-pinky-finger-so-we'll-let-it-go-for-now' Davies*).
As it was, however, St Bartholomew's specialist registrar had felt decidedly off kilter for pretty much the entire month following Jim - Moriarty's apparent return. It was for this reason that she had been logging double- and often triple-shifts, to the point that Mike had threatened to ban her from the mortuary for at least a week (though it was a slight consolation that Jim's true self had, in fact, confirmed her long-standing suspicion that many people from I.T. were criminal masterminds hell-bent on murder and mayhem).
It was because of this throw-yourself-into-your-work-to-the-point-of-exhaustion coping mechanism that Molly was the one on duty when DI Lestrade called the morgue at half one in the morning on account of a rather badly decomposed set of remains. The Detective Inspector's description of the body, regardless of how vague it was because as dedicated to his job he was, Greg was absolutely not going to get anywhere near the corpse, no matter how much Molly pleaded. When it became clear that she was on her own on this one, she called in Jonathan to come take her place, apologizing profusely all the while.
In the forty-five minutes it took her replacement to arrive, Molly set about preparing the lab for its next 'visitor', even though said visitor would be in no state to complain about a pair of forceps here or a petri dish there. At the the mental image of one of the bodies that frequented her autopsy table ordering her to wipe down the countertops, Molly burst into rather raucous laughter, especially for her location at the time. It was then that her coworker finally deigned to make his grand entrance, to find her doubled over, streams of amused tears careening down the sides of her face, and laughing like an absolute lunatic. Oh well. At least she still had that video of his ill-fated attempt at dancing on the lab table the night he'd gotten pissed and decided, in all his intoxicated wisdom, that he'd try and seduce his peer with his not-so-very-stellar moves. Thank goodness for her foresight; she'd had an inkling that she might need blackmailing material at some point in the future. The memory brought even more tears to her eyes, and hearty laughter loud enough to - ha - wake the dead. Barely able to remain upright, Molly leaned on the ledge of the metal table to catch her breath before fairly skipping out the swinging doors with a jaunty wave thrown over her shoulder.
The scene that met Molly's eyes when she disembarked from her cab was most certainly not for one with a tender stomach - indeed, Greg was looking a bit green around the gills, probably due to l'odeur de decomp that hung thick and heavy in the air, and Anderson's retching into a nearby storm drain certainly was not helping matters. Luckily, Molly's iron stomach didn't let her down, even when she crouched beside the remains in a way that reminded the man watching her strongly of her 'sister' to perform her cursory examination.
After a few minutes of poking and prodding in and about the body, Molly raised herself to her feet. In a purposefully well-projected voice, the body was declared to belong to a Caucasian male, around thirty-five to forty years old, which Lestrade took down on his notepad, though keeping his sleeved wrist firmly pressed against his nose and mouth hindered the process significantly. For more information, she'd have to get the remains to St Bartholomew's, and Molly said as much to the nauseated silver-haired sleuth.
In true Brennan-esque fashion, Molly dictated what evidence to collect and how, which caused the observer's mouth to twitch infinitesimally upwards in what might be considered a smirk on someone else's face. Yes, he could see what made Sherlock so willing to place his very life firmly in the palm of her hand, and it wasn't just sentiment. He had been sure there had been a better, more valid reason than emotions, and he had proved himself correct in that conclusion. He had been played for a fool that day at the hospital, the only time he'd witnessed to two interacting face to face, in person, and if there was one thing he hated, it was a fool. Yes, Molly Hooper, the paradox; the invisible girl, and the one that mattered most all along.
His evidence secured, the man melted farther into the shadows he was obscured by, leaving nothing but a slight flattened patch of grass where he'd been, and a slight depression in the soil from the tip of a sleek black umbrella.
(* I wasn't able to find a canon last name for Anthea, so 'Davies' is my substitute for the time being. If we ever get a canon surname, I'll change it, but for now, Anthea Davies it is.)
A / N 2: Just like BLA, this is unbetaed, so any mistakes are completely and totally my fault, so please point them out in you review (hint, hint :)), not to mention constructive criticism (please!).