All right guys, first Sherlock fanfic. Definitely not my first fanfic. Just me dropping my emotions off temporarily so I don't have to deal with them. I'll try to think of a chapter two and post it when I can or whenever I get the number of reviews that satisfies me. Well, here goes nothing.
Chapter 1
Today was definitely not her day. Molly had been having a bad week to begin with, so it didn't surprise her much when today just melded in with the stream of horribleness that ended up being her week. It didn't faze her much, to be completely honest; she was used to times like this. It did bug her though. She had been well for a while, so when this terrible streak hit her she was irritated. This only made it worse though. All these emotions for her had started to blend into one. One emotion she knew all too well. Numbness. Is that even an emotion? Can she call it that?
She looked at the corpse on the table and felt a sick and twisted jealousy towards it. She didn't exactly know why; she couldn't fathom a reason that was logical. All she knew was that part of her wanted to be the human lying on the examination table lifeless. She looked at the sheer lack of any color on the body. It was a Jane Doe. No name. No family to claim her. No identification. No anything. A neighbor found her lying dead on the floor of her kitchen when they noticed the door to her flat was ajar. Nobody really knew who she was. None of the neighbors had ever spoken to her; the owner of the building had a name on record for the flat but that lead ended up being a dead end.
The death appeared to be one of natural causes, though she was quite young for any of the normal deaths like a stroke or a heart attack. Molly had sent for a toxicology report not too long ago to see if the mystery woman had anything in her system that was out of the ordinary. She didn't expect to get that back for some time as this wasn't exactly a high priority case. Having nothing else to do with her, Molly moved the Jane Doe to a container and slid her in peacefully. Molly had nothing left to do until Jane Doe's toxicology report would come back, so she just sat down at the table putting her head in her hands.
She couldn't have been like that for more than ten minutes before she heard someone walk into her lab. She sighed heavily and hesitantly looked up at who had entered. As soon as she saw the curly black mess of curls sitting upon the intruders head she immediately put her head back in her hands, running her fingers through her mousy brown hair.
"Perfect, just what today needed," she said so quietly not even he heard her.
"I beg your pardon?" asked Sherlock, his eyebrows scrunching together a bit, cocking his head to the right ever so slightly.
"Nothing. What do you want?"
The twinge of annoyance and anger in her voice was enough to make Sherlock weary of approaching her. He took a careful, analytical look at her. Her hair was messier than it usually was and she had dark circles under her eyes, both clear indicators that she wasn't sleeping well if she was at all. Her sweater underneath her lab coat had some cat hairs on it, which was not unusual for her. However, her clothes looked a little sloppier than typical. He could account for this by her apparent tiredness, but he sensed there was something more than that. No, there was something about her that was completely off and so unlike Molly. He just couldn't put his finger on it yet.
"I need to look at the body that was brought here this morning. May I see it?" he asked.
"Fine."
Molly walked to the back of the room to wheel out the body from the cooler. She reached in and pulled out the infamous Jane Doe for Sherlock Holmes. She carefully removed the sheet from the body in order to let him inspect her – or whatever it is he actually does. She watched as it did his analysis, sending all the information into his Mind Palace. He then stood there for several moments looking befuddled. He was just as confused as the police, however, he was not as stupid or ignorant.
"Where's the toxicology report? What did you run it for?" he asked Molly.
"It hasn't come back yet. I ran it for the usual stuff until there was any clear reason to run it for more specific, abstract things."
"Well, it's going to come back with nothing."
"What makes you say that?"
"Think about it, Molly," Sherlock started in an almost furious tone. "This woman is no more than forty-five years old. A death of natural causes? Please! She had no identification, no nothing. This whole case is full of mysterious circumstances."
"That still doesn't tell me what I should be looking for!" she yelled out, beginning to get angry for some reason.
"Any chemical, any poison that would be out of the ordinary. You won't find arsenic or any of the typical poisons in her. If I were you I would try looking for bleach in her bloodstream."
"Bleach? Why on Earth-."
"Come on, Molly! Anyone with a sense of smell could tell that this woman had ingested it recently just by smelling her mouth. Jesus! I thought you were better than this."
"I have had it up to here with you," she gestured far above her head with her hand, her sleeve lifting slightly as she did so. "You do not get to come into my lab, examine my bodies, and then talk to me and treat me as such."
She looked at him with a fierceness in her eyes that Sherlock had never seen before. But that's what was strange to him. While her eyes were full of this fiery rage, they were also empty. Her heart rate was accelerated, and not because of her infatuation with him. No, it was something else entirely. However, despite his superb intelligence and observation skills, he still could not figure out what was wrong with Molly. He then thought back to just a second ago when her sleeve lifted not even an inch. There was something wrong with her arm, but he needed a final and definitive look in order to draw a proper conclusion. An idea sparked in his head that was just crazy enough to be believable and believable enough that it just might work.
"Sorry," he apologized.
Molly shook her head in response, not accepting the apology but dropping the subject, too tired to carry on the fight. She put the sheet back over the victim and pushed her back into the cooling containment system, her sleeve yet again moving up a fraction of an inch up her arm. This was enough for Sherlock to begin to worry somewhat for his colleague. As she closed Jane Doe's box, Sherlock grabbed her arm and pushed up the sleeve all the way.
"What's this?" he questioned, eying the red marks on her wrist and forearm.
"I do have a cat Sherlock. They aren't exactly gentle creatures."
"Liar," he said flatly, clearly not surprised that she had lied to him.
"Pardon?"
"You're lying. You're heart rate is faster than usual, you're desperately trying to look anywhere but at me or your arm, you're even beginning to sweat just a little bit. Your cat didn't do this to you," he said putting everything together. "You did."
"So what? I don't see what that matters."
"It does to me," he stated, taking her a tad bit by surprise.
"Why? It's not as if we're actually friends. We're colleagues."
He looked at her the same way he did when she told him that she didn't count. It's almost like that was happening again, except her words – and her actions, evidently – were far worse.
"You know, it's a terrible thing to do to yourself."
"Oh, that's rich coming from you! You're a fucking druggie."
"Was," he corrected. "I was a druggie. I haven't touched them in a while. The Magnussen case was the last time I did and that wasn't for recreation."
"Oh, you can't tell me you don't feel the need to have more."
"Well, yeah, but I don't give into them. I don't give into the craving of my vices, you shouldn't give into yours. And besides, yours put you a little closer to death, don't you think?"
"Well isn't that the point of mine!" she yelled angrily.
"Molly, I-."
"Get. Out."
"Molly-," he started, but never got to finish.
"GET OUT OF MY LAB!" she screamed in distress.
Sherlock left unnerved. This was not the Molly he knew. Why was Molly doing this to herself? He had no answers. No answers that he liked anyway. She was so on edge. He had never seen her like this before and for some reason didn't like it. He was worried far more than he usually would have been. He felt stupid for this as he had no answers and felt ridiculous for these feelings. He needed to get to the bottom of this. He needed the correct answers. Those were answers he could not deduce from the facts he had. All he knew now was that Molly Hooper was a cutter and wanted to kill herself.
