Molly Hooper wasn't noticed very often. She was the kind of girl who would hide behind ordinary, unattractive clothing, and plain hair. She tried not to wear makeup, and she tried to keep silent. It worked, no one ever considered little Molly Hooper, the girl who was scared of the living. It was ironic; really, that the only one Molly tried to show herself to was the one who cared the least.
Sherlock Holmes was always noticed. Molly liked that, he was so different from her, so much more vocal with his thoughts. His observances made her laugh when she was alone; his inability to keep it all in his mind was so funny that she could barely keep up her mask of offence when he spoke to her.
He claimed to be so superior to everyone else, and Molly laughed at his ego and his self-control. Everything was so funny when he was around. The humiliation of the people who glanced at her with such contempt and pity every day brought her a lot of satisfaction, but his complete blindness to her true nature was just too hysterical.
No one else seemed to get the joke. She told it to her dead, but they never cracked a smile, and she was sure the living would be even less receptive. She thought that she would be the only one laughing for a long time, until she met Jim.
Jim came from I.T, or so he had in the beginning. He came in directly after Sherlock had just left, and as she turned to see him, she really saw him. She saw the tell-tale signs of a gay man, but he walked differently, as if he was uncomfortable in this role. And a role it was, because as soon as he spoke she saw he was flirting with her.
She couldn't hold back the laughter. She couldn't take the sudden realization that she was so invisible, and everyone else was so blind, that a man who was not who he seemed was pretending to flirt with someone she was not. It was all so convoluted, and combined with Sherlock's most recent comment about her lipstick; her most recent attempt to get him to actually look at her. All he had said was about the size of her mouth, not the fact that lipstick itself was the same color as the blood in the corpse, or that his coffee was not made exactly the way he wanted, or that she had left the makeup smeared napkin underneath the cup.
Nothing escaped his notice, nothing except the subtle jokes and changes Molly made in the morgue. And now, here was a man who was trying to do the same thing, but not to her, to Sherlock, while using her, and she couldn't hold back her mirth.
"What's so funny?" Jim from I.T was asking, a nervous smile on his face, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. Molly only laughed harder at that, she had long ago learned how to completely control how she was seen, and how she acted.
"You are! You all are! All of you, nobody gets the joke! I can't, I'm sorry. You're all so STUPID! It's just too funny! I wish I knew what it was like to be so blind, so ignorant." She couldn't continue as her giggles grew too much. Jim just stared, his hard, cold eyes staring at her with such an intensity that she had to try to contain herself.
"Are you, quite alright, Molly?" He asked nervously, though his demeanor portrayed the exact opposite emotion. He was intrigued, and maybe, just a little bit angry at her insults. She gripped the scalpel she hadn't realized she had grabbed, brought into the air.
"Oh, you know. Here among the dead, everyone goes a bit bonkers sometimes. Most just ignore me. I guess the fumes are going to my head a bit. I'll just, umm," She stuttered nervously, changing so quickly from her true self to the mousy little girl that some might get whip –lash. She blushed, noticing his small change in demeanor at her show of weakness, "What is it that you wanted?"
He smiled then, again not reaching his eyes, and said, "I'm from I.T I came to fix your computer."
"Doesn't need to be fixed." She said brightly, turning back to her corpse, slowly driving her scalpel across the cadaver's chest. She relished the slight shiver that Jim gave, knowing it was not one of fear, but of pleasure.
"You can leave now, not many people like to watch while I work." She had already determined what the cause of death was, but she continued to cut, to take apart, her lovely young man. Some called her morbid, others, just thorough. She preferred to think of it as art; perfection, reached only when things were completely taken apart, the final form. However, unlike how she accepted the actor to react, he came closer, risking his guise to breath in the smell of death.
"I'm alright. Not very squeamish. Molly, I was wondering," and the mask was back on, for both of them. She was shy and precise, not looking up, and he was nervous and flirty, and it was all so boring.
"Would you like to go out for coffee later?" He smiled as he said this, it reached his eyes, and she looked up in shock. He had gotten the joke. He had seen. Maybe not everything, but he saw something, and that was more than anyone had ever seen.
"I'd love to. What should I wear?" He whispered something about red, and she laughed, harder than she had ever laughed. Someone got the joke, someone had seen her, seen part of her, and it was wonderful. He smiled, his mask broken, and she gasped as he held out his hand, taking her blood-covered one, "No time like the present, dearie." And his nervous voice was gone, in its place was a tilting, Irish accent, his tone scary, and insane and horrible funny.