Doctor Molly Hooper has a very simple ordinary life.
Well, save except for that one psycho genius ex-boyfriend who loves blowing up people (really, with the way things are going in the world, everyone had at least dated a crazy person once), and that she had "killed" someone before (at least he came back alive, even if two years had already passed). As well as the fact that she's still in love with a living-dead man who became a dead-living man (please refer to the previous statement) and had returned to become a living-living man.
Really, Molly Hooper has a very uncomplicated life if all these things were just simply overlooked.
This plebeian existence of hers, or at least her belief that she has a plebeian existence, is the reason why she found herself sitting in one of the stools by the bar as Meena and her other friends enjoy the happy combination of booze, carefree attitude and an open dance floor.
After all, going to bars and drinking with friends is what single women do during Friday nights.
It is not like she has anything better to do, like say, assist a certain consulting detective in his experiments on finding out the elasticity of ligaments post-mortem or start the autopsy of a curiously green-skinned man found in a sewer.
No, inhaling the rich combination of smoke, alcohol vapour and sweat is the best thing that she could be doing during her Friday night.
Besides he was rude to her that morning.
She was merely asking him to move out of her doorway so she can get out of her office. She asked nicely with a complete set of "please" and "excuse me" and a soft spoken "would you mind". It wasn't like she wanted to topple the thick walls of his mind palace as he so coldly claimed. She can barely make him focus on her when they are talking, how can she possibly even dare to dream of breaching the thick buttresses of his mind.
Also, between the two of them – or rather, between a woman trying to make someone move out of her doorway and a man standing in the said doorway while spaced out and staring blankly at the woman – she thinks she has a greater reason to be concerned. As handsome and as singular his looks are, Sherlock staring at her without moving and only sparsely blinking can still come off as quite creepy.
She still has no idea why he was standing there and staring at her while she finish off her work. All she knows is that she was apparently too absorbed in finishing her paperwork that she failed to notice the living statue by her office door, until it was too late and she had already screamed and jumped back with a racing heart. Despite all the noise, he remained rooted to the spot and continued to stare blankly at her. Now that she's reflecting on it, him being a statue in her doorway was a very peculiar act, even for Sherlock, because her little jump scare produced more noise than her latter gentle request which had woken him from his stupor and had apparently came off as a scream in his mind palace (if his account of the story was to be believed).
Nevertheless after his unjustified accusation, he went away silently with his billowing coat, leaving a mystified Molly who was still trying to make sense of what just happened but was still none the wiser with why it happened in the first place. Even hours after the event and miles away from Sherlock, she is still puzzling over it.
Her shoulders sagged as a sigh escaped from her. She's definitely adopting a pose that no happy single woman does during an ordinary Friday night. She can't help it as soon as she realized that she had one, allowed Sherlock to influence her life choices (again) and two, been sitting in front of the bar thinking of a certain someone when she should have been mimicking her dear friends and dancing out there without a moments care about a certain consulting detective and his quirks.
Damn, she did it again. It always goes back to him.
As the DJ's music grew louder, Molly's head dipped lower with the epiphany that she's yet to enjoy a typical Friday night all because of a man who isn't even there. She is surrounded by dozens of single and available men with very normal lives and yet the one who has managed to wield her attention is back at his flat a few miles away, possibly not even thinking about her.
Most likely not even thinking about her.
Definitely not thinking about her.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Contrary to popular belief, Sherlock Holmes hates chaos.
Yes, books and papers are strewn all over his desk, his experiments are spilled from the kitchen counter to the dinner table and John, bless him for his mental faculties, still hadn't figured out the order with which his files are arranged despite knowing and living with him for years already. There is chaos in his flat but all of these had a system – yes a system that no one except him understands, but still there is a system.
It is true that chaos and confusion are great motivators for crimes. They add spice to the boring fives and sixes that occasionally comes his way. The most chaotic cases also seem to attract the most attention, based on the comments he had read from John's blog. A lot of those people claimed that those kinds of cases are the most exciting ones. Unfortunately they still fall within the margins of the boring ones for him, albeit closer to the edge.
What they fail to realize is that the more chaotic and confusing something appears to be, the simpler they are in reality. All those panache and bravado are just cover ups for the complexity that they don't have. There is no true chaos within those fives and sixes.
True chaos comes from pristine simplicity.
Like Molly Hooper.
Doctor Molly Hooper exempli gratia – a pathologist. His pathologist.
There, chaos.
Again, Doctor Molly Hooper exempli gratia – a woman. His woman.
Again, chaos.
It wasn't like he woke up with the troublesome chaos sitting on his chest. He had already surmised that something like this would be happening to them, more specifically, to him. He had even projected that it would happen, even before the arrival of Meat dagger or Lazarus or even Moriarty. In fact he already knew the probabilities even before the involvement of others from his XY kind. That is, except John. John is just…John, even if he had heard of the "three-continents" alias. Besides, John has Mary now.
Anyway, he just never thought that it would hit him like this.
Or that it would hit him full force in the face just when she is obviously making the effort of getting out from the…chaos.
How ironic.
Such an inopportune time to be in chaos.
Jim from IT didn't raise his hackles because his exposed underpants immediately gave him away. However when he became Moriarty, his alarms went haywire. The actions of the consulting criminal further solidified his belief in his decision to not to do anything about the chaos that had come to his mind palace. But as the usual case (or so people always tell him), his mouth got ahead of his brain.
"For the sake of law and order I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship, Molly."
'Cockblock, mate'
Sometimes he really hates John's voice.
Of course he never had the opportunity to observe the effect of his little advice, with him being supposedly dead from the fall instigated by Jim from IT. The occasional surveillance update of Mycroft proved to be both insufficient and inefficient, because when he returned, lo and behold his pathologist isn't as single as the black and white photos suggested. It was a wonder how the angles on all her photos had effectively hidden the huge and frankly ill-fitting engagement ring. All those high-tech cameras are really wasted on Mycroft's men.
Nevertheless, he was disappointed with Molly Hooper. He thought the message was carried across the space, but apparently telling someone how much they count and how much they are needed weren't enough to make them stay.
He was merely going on a hunt against the evil that had shadowed their lives. It wasn't like he's never coming back.
How could John and Molly, both fairly intelligent humans, move on in that short span of time?
Molly especially, because she knew he was still there.
But above all, he was disappointed with himself. Sentiment was a defect he had been trying to get rid of but there he was, expecting so much more from them. Why did he even think that he could just pop in and expect them to still be waiting for him?
No one ever waited for him, they never needed to.
He's always been the one who has to wait.
Apparently, trying to catch up sucks more than stopping to wait. No wonder John is always so cranky.
In the end, there he was, sporting a bruise from a man who refuses to talk to him and looking at the eyes of the woman who he thought will always be constantly there, all the while listening to her describing the normal life and relationship she had while he wasn't there. The worst part is he can't find fault with any of it.
Tom is exactly the grey area he never thought existed.
Sure "meat dagger" did not last long, but the man's existence perturbed his previously pristine projection of his future. Just like in the case of John, Molly is part of that populace who yearns for a committed lifetime partnership. What's more, was that she came so close to doing so. Even more so, is how much bothered he is with the idea of Molly Hooper no longer being Molly Hooper. One day he'd have to call her using another name (if she opted to) and she won't be able to assist him any time because she'd have to go home to whatever-his-name-is and their little miniatures.
The tragic part of it is - and yes, he is finally admitting it, Mycroft be damned! – it won't be him and their little miniatures.
This is the chaos that he is confronting now.
Earlier that morning, the sight of Molly's desk name plate sent his mind into a very disorienting but very engaging trip to the future. Come to think of it, she wouldn't even have to change her initials anymore. If she wants, all she had to do is add another H.
He was in the middle of a great breakfast while they were discussing blood coagulation during hypothermia, when he felt and heard Molly trying to wake him from his stupor.
He wasn't prepared for the sight of Molly teasing her lips as she stared at him with her pair of hazelnut eyes filled with worry.
It is definitely her fault why he became so defensive and left abruptly.
On second thought, he probably could have responded gentler upon being confronted by her… Mollyness
'Goodness, what have you become brother mine?'
'Shut up, Mycroft!'
Now there he is, spending his Friday night mulling over another one of his spectacular screw-up, instead of continuing his discarded experiments.
How did his life become so chaotic?
Simple answer: Molly Hooper