So. I promised a child sherlolly thingy - keep in mind that this thing could fit into the world and universe of Endless Forms Most Beautiful - I'm trying to make a seamless story of Sherlolly, but it's in bits and pieces right now. After this, there may be a prequel to EFMB. I'll try to update weekly, I promise, but I have preboards and everything coming up - it may become erratic. Anyway.
This time I'm going to request something of you guys - PLEASE TELL ME WHEN THEY START GOING OUT OF CHARACTER. I think that is essential.
I own nothing of Sherlock apart from maybe an unhealthy obsession.
The woman with brown hair and a plain face ran through the rain, trying to hide under the awnings, avoiding getting wet. Needless to say she wasn't very successful. She hadn't anticipated an evening rain in the middle of July – it hardly made sense.
However, she crossed the street, trying her best to remain dry. She made her way to her apartment – the guard was sleeping at the door. He jolted awake, and she said nothing to him, apart from giving a swift smile. He tried to look ashamed, to his credit. She ran past, climbing the stairs, eager for a bit of warmth and the company of her cat.
Her apartment was a mess of chaos – she opened the door to find the smell of familiarity which hadn't been touched since morning. Living alone did that to apartments – they acquired a nasty habit of looking dark and unused when their owners had gone for work.
There was a faded sofa, a television set with cable. It certainly looked like the television was used frequently – the remote's buttons were worn and the numbers fast disappearing. There was a giant bookshelf, with all sorts of books – she appeared to be a voracious reader. The kitchen had a smell of baking and cookies which hadn't yet left – she must have been baking.
On the counter of the kitchen's table tops was a very worn and battered copy of a book – it seemed to have a deep personal attachment to it – by virtue of the number of times it appeared to have been read. She looked at the book again, and for a second, she remembered when she had gotten it, who had given it to her, and why it meant so much to her.
To Kill a Mockingbird was one of her favourite books, and it always would be. But perhaps the person who had given it to her had a hand in making it so.
Molly would never know why Sherlock had done that.
He had been different then, though. The cynicism hadn't yet set. He used to still believe in pirates and mermaids and Peter Pan taking him away to Neverland.
But even then, he was the sharpest boy she had ever met. He was always the smartest. The most intelligent. She hadn't had a crush on him then – however, she did admit that puberty did a good job on him when she met him.
Molly didn't know however. Was it really him, all those years back? When they met again, Sherlock hadn't even mentioned it. Almost as if – he had deleted that phase. But to Molly, that made no sense. Those were some of her most cherished memories. Was it really him then, or just some other boy with Sherlock for a name and a brain that could be the making or breaking of the world?
"You're a mockingbird, Molly Hooper. You're going to give it your best and make everyone happy."
"Going by the text you are referencing, I'd also end up dead."
That was why when John asked her when she met Sherlock, she had looked at Sherlock searchingly, willing him to say something. Tell John what friends we were as children, Sherlock. Say what has been lying unsaid for so long.
But Sherlock peered into his microscope.
Molly cleared her throat and told John – three years back.
She thought she saw Sherlock twitch, make a sign of something forgotten, but she was sure she had imagined it. After that, she put her childhood behind. Sherlock wasn't that boy anymore, and he didn't seem keen on remembering. Who knows? Maybe it was someone else she had spent all those evenings with.
It was early Sunday when the girl had come. Sherlock had been watching the nightingales fly off early, tracing the patterns of flight in an effort to determine where they ate. He really wanted to catch a nightingale.
The attic was musty and dark and very unused, but it was his favourite spot. Mycroft didn't bother him there, his mother couldn't find him there and his father pretended he didn't know where Sherlock had gone off to. Sherlock was grateful for that – he didn't enjoy it at all when all of them came about fussing.
The truck arrived in the gathering light, filled with furniture and household trumpetry. Sherlock peered, briefly, through his binoculars to watch it come. A car drove up as well, a green one. He saw the little girl at the window – she looked just about his age. A year younger.
She jumped out of the car, and Sherlock saw in her hand a doll. Her brown hair was in ponytails, and she smiled nervously at her mother. "Molly, go inside," said her Mother. "Pick yourself a room." Molly nodded and walked off.
Sherlock snorted. People were so slow.
It was only when her mother disappeared from view that Sherlock saw something curious – she grinned brightly and tossed her doll in the air. "Honey honey, how he thrills me, aha! Honey honey!" she sang. For a very startled second Sherlock thought she had seen him.
She picked up her doll from the mud, and rushed into the field. "Mom!" she called. "I'm taking the room which is on the left of the landing! I'm going to the field."
"Alright!" said her mother back. "Don't be long, dear!"
"Never," she said with a brighter grin. She was reveling in the sunlight. And then, before he knew it – she ran, like a flash of lightning, through the grass.
Sherlock crossed the attic and squinted through the sunlight – the girl was running, faster and faster and faster – through the field, at the speed which seemed to be defiant of her small and fragile form. She ran into the woods, and he saw distinctly – she was climbing the trees.
He wondered what had overcome her – she had been nervous and scared one second, and then, almost like it was a physical change, she had turned and become an agile and fast moving dog – alert to the world and everything in it. Sherlock made a split second decision to find out who this odd child was – the idiots in school didn't account for this.
He climbed out of the attic window, scaling the walls down until he was lowered onto the ground.
He tramped through the field, spotting her red sweater among the tops of the trees. How did she get there?
"What are you doing there?" he asked her loudly.
And again – like a physical change – she went back to being nervous.
"I was – um. I was only… climbing."
"I guessed as much," he said with asperity. "Why?"
She went red to the roots of her hair. "It's fun."
"Climbing trees?"
She nodded juttingly, still red.
"How?"
"It makes you feel – very free."
Was she another one of those idiots then? Sherlock was yet to understand the concept of free, even if he was made to learn the definition – how would this chit know what it meant?"
"That's absurd," he scoffed. "Freedom is something like being free to make your own choices. Like voting."
The girl squinted from the top at him. "How old are you?" she asked childishly. She seemed shy.
"Seven," he said.
"Then how do you know what voting is?" she asked even more shyly. She jumped down from the tree, facing him, her feet nervously making circles in the dirt.
"I'm smart," he said dismissively.
"I suppose…" she said. She turned to the sun. "I dunno what voting or any of that means. I know what it means to go about running long distances, though. It makes you feel like no one can stop you."
What a strange concept! Sherlock had never felt that before. "By running?" he asked.
She nodded. "I'm only six, you know," she said shyly. "I wouldn't know the bigger things – like voting."
"There's not much to know," he said. "And besides, most seven year olds aren't that fast."
"Then how are you?" she asked curiously.
"I always was," he shrugged. "I also know the meaning of metamorphosis."
Her eyes went wide as saucers. Sherlock felt smug.
"Are you my neighbor?" she asked.
Sherlock nodded. "I saw your car drive up."
"Would you – would you like to run?" she asked.
Sherlock searched her face.
She seemed so much smarter than the other children in school – she had a presence of mind, seemed to be aware of things outside toys and playing. She seemed to have understanding which others certainly didn't. And then – there were those bright, luminescent, brown eyes. They seemed to laugh intelligently at everything, and Sherlock found himself saying yes.
Before he knew it, they were running – through the field, and on. She was surprisingly agile and very good at running and jumping over obstacles. At one point, she screamed loudly and Sherlock found himself grinning. This was fun.
Molly was right, it did feel freeing – incredibly so. It felt as is no one could stop him, and that, in turn felt like he could do whatever was wished.
"That was fun, right?" she asked, her cheeks flushed red.
Sherlock nodded, surprised. He was red too, and he was smiling.
"What's your name?" asked Molly.
"William Sherlock Scott Holmes," recited Sherlock at once. "I go by Sherlock."
She wrinkled her nose. "It's long, but it suits you," she said with a grin. "I'm Molly Elizabeth Hooper. I go by Molly."
Sherlock's face cracked into another grin. "Do you want to catch nightingales?" he asked.
"Why?" she asked, frowning.
"I wanted a good model of their wings," said Sherlock, explaining fast. "But I don't draw very well."
"You're interested in birds?" asked Molly.
"I'm interested in everything," said Sherlock.
"Okay," said Molly. "We can catch nightingales – I think. I'll draw it for you."
Sherlock's eyes sparkled. "We can make a collection of bird wing spans and leaves and everything!" he said excitedly.
"That would be fun!" said Molly enthusiastically. "We should get notebooks and pens from the local stationary store. We can get started right away."
Sherlock smiled at her again. "I know the store nearby," he said at once. "We should go now."
"Molly!" her mother was calling. "You need to begin setting your room up!"
"Oh no," said Molly. "I have to go," she said.
"Do you want me to help you?" he asked.
"Would you?" asked Molly, going red.
"I'd really like to go to the store today, so we can both get your work done faster," explained Sherlock quickly.
"Alright…" said Molly.
They worked together on getting Molly's room together. There was something personal about it, being able to help Molly in fixing her room. However, what Sherlock found among Molly's things was oddly compelling.
She had quite a few books, for some reason – and not just picture books, but Children's Comics. He had progressed to reading Asterixes and Tintins – he should lend some to her. However, Molly was only six, and while smart, she wasn't like him. There was an impressive collection of Enid Blyton's – with colourful covers and fronts with her trade mark signature on top.
Molly had many encyclopedias for some very odd reason – they didn't look very read. Sherlock shrugged it off as one of the qualities of her children to buy stuff which they didn't use.
What did look used, for some reason – were a whole pile of notebooks and notebooks. Molly seemed an avid doodler – there were doodles all over the notebooks. Sherlock squinted at them, looking at the crude pictures and small drawings. There were no revealing things in it – a lot of birds, a lot of girls in pretty homes.
Sherlock snorted.
There was an odd lack of dolls. There was a tea-set which did look extremely used. But there was only one doll. There were a couple of stuff toys and a few sheets, but Molly didn't seem to have anything she deeply connected to.
Sherlock put it out of his mind.
Sherlock found a very able helper in his experiments.
That summer, Molly and Sherlock captured scores of birds, and made a crude encyclopedia of bird wing spans. They conducted experiments on the different birds and they ransacked libraries in an effort to find good books on the subject.
Molly was a born hero.
School hadn't started yet, so Sherlock and Molly spent days on end together, in the fields and the woods. Sherlock had never seen anyone stranger than Molly – she seemed to possess a precocious belief in goodness and innate morality. He had never seen that in other children – other children went by moral compasses which followed the rules set by the adult world.
"But why can't you come with me this evening?" he asked, whining.
"My parents want me to come with them," said Molly apologetically.
"You can put them off, can't you?" asked Sherlock demandingly.
Molly blushed red. "I don't think so, Sherlock. They said I haven't spent time with them for a long time. I'd like to go."
Molly followed a compass of her own – she didn't even realize she was using it. It was in-built. Birds weren't to be hurt. People weren't supposed to be told they were rude. She didn't argue with her parents because she'd get punished, but because she loved them. She didn't realize half the time that she was doing this – just like she didn't understand how profound her theory was that running felt like freedom.
Sherlock often felt stupider than her.
A feeling he was only accustomed to around Mycroft.
"What do you mean we can't kill the bug?" asked Sherlock.
"It's only a bug, Sherlock," she said exasperated. "It's not hurting you!"
"So?"
"Well –" Molly blushed red again. She hated conflict. "Look at it this way – if he was human, you wouldn't kill him, right?"
"I suppose," sighed Sherlock.
Sherlock, on the other hand, used her for his studies – she had a superhuman ability to absorb knowledge, and a unique characteristic of not being bothered by the issues of touching dead bodies and icky things. Sherlock was studying the concepts of child development of Piaget and Kohlberg when he realized that Molly was a lot more mature than him, even if he was smarter.
Their summer was spent like that, playing games. Molly's favourite game was pretending she was a knight fighting an army.
"But why?" asked Sherlock curiously, when they had a particularly invigorating game and were relaxing at sunset.
"Because knights got to do such adventurous things!" said Molly, her face shining earnestly.
"So did Pirates," said Sherlock dismissively.
Her face brightened even further. "Ohh, let's play that tomorrow!"
"Molly," said Sherlock, rolling his eyes. "Pirates will be boring! We don't have a sea!"
"We can pretend the field is the sea," said Molly pleadingly. "Oh please, Sherlock. Pirates are the best! – they are like the thing – thing between the goodies and baddies!"
Sherlock frowned. "What?"
"Pirates! They are like those – things! They aren't good or bad!"
"Molly, pirates are most definitely bad. History says so," said Sherlock patiently. He hadn't revealed his own misgivings about the way adults classified good and bad. He didn't think he was good, but he didn't think he was very bad either. It really didn't make sense.
Molly shook her head obstinately. "No, no! They are just – you know, doing their own thing. They don't have a good or bad. It's middle."
"That's impossible," said Sherlock.
"No, it's not!" Molly's face was completely red. "Please, Sherlock?"
"Okay," sighed Sherlock. "We'll play pirates…"
They played pirates.
Molly was Morbid Molly, and her weapon was a cutlass – she wore an eyepatch on her brown hair. Except Molly got very impatient with her eyepatch, eventually removing it from time to time, off her brown hair – blowing her hair out of her eyes.
The first time Sherlock saw her do that, he had the most curious feeling in his stomach – he felt like pulling her cheeks, for a minute. Dismissing it immediately, he went on.
Sherlock was a born pirate.
It's funny how a game of the past came to define him so completely. Sherlock reflected on it once or twice – it was those games of pirates with Molly that had finally settled all his dilemmas with the rights and wrongs everyone spoke about. Molly, only six years old, had managed to make him understand so completely the world of grey.
There's that. I really require reviews on this, you guys. It could go out of character as soon as possible, so please keep me on track!