She finally opened her eyes, and smiled faintly to realize he noticed she wasn't asleep the whole time. She raised her head, noticed it was a couch she has been sleeping on and went on to the kitchen.
The door of the St. Barts' Hospital morgue opened slowly. She looked up from above the body, waiting to see Mr Stamford enter or a few men dressed in forensics' typical uniforms carry in a new 'patient' for her. After all, not much company could be expected in a morgue, could there?
She sighed. That was one of the things that made her refuse DI Lestrade's offer to join the police forensics team. She used the silence and loneliness quite well; and although the circumstances now were quite different from when she was actually taking the job, she discovered herself to be perfectly fine with her only work company being dead people. Sides, she never liked Anderson. He studied at the medicine uni with her, but two years older. Averagely gifted; massively 'egoed'. And convinced about his Hollywood star appearance. She always claimed that the only star he could be said to resemble was all the cosmetic jobs done.
Frankly, lately she minded even Stamford coming; as much as she liked his lovable and trusting character, he was loud, nosy and a bit brick-headed when it went for delicate matters. Well, she concluded, that must be all teachers' thing, after too much contact with adolescents... She would way better like to be left to examine the body of a young woman they brought in yesterday. Emily her name was, said the notes, 25. Same age as herself.
She was quite pretty, with a heart-shaped face, now deformed with rigor mortis and long dark hair, now bundled and greasy, a little sweated. The direct cause of death stated at the crime scene was blood loss, which Molly only confirmed now. Carefully watching the slimmed body, she noticed a few things which determined it: suicide. She was wasted, probably for a long time before she 'finally' took the final step. She must have had lost weight terribly, the skin showed signs of dehydration; she probably hasn't taken a proper shower in few days before killing herself, that explained the greasy hair and the smell of sweat on the body. Uncovering her torso, she noticed a thin scar running along a curved line in her abdomen. And that was when the door opened to let two men in.
One of them was, as predicted, Stamford, a long-staged worker of the hospital (first as a doctor and then as some administration figure as he started to teach). The other, as she looked up, she certainly knew not. Had she, she wouldn't believe it's possible for a man like this to just walk into her life.
Standing still behind Stamford's back, he gave the surrounding a look of apparent indifference, with a sparkle of excitement brought out every few seconds as he saw the bodies.
'Molly, dear,' Stamford uttered, as always, too loudly for her, accustomed to the usual silence of the morgue. 'This is a detective, who helps the police. Could you please show him to the body of' he took a quick look at a paper he was holding - 'Arthur Goodman, dead four days ago...? His case is investigated by Mr...'
'Sherlock Holmes.' The stranger took a long step to advance before Stamford and reached out his hand. A while it only took Molly to notice how extraordinary his eyes were bright, grayish, with a shade of cold blue and spots of almost black; a perfect one-word description for them would be storm-colored. The look he gave her, just as the ones given all he watched in the morgue, was intense. She could see no emotions in it, simply power. An overwhelming power that intimidated the expecting-all-BUT-such-a-man Molly. 'Consulting detective.' After a while of silence, he reached out his hand. Feeling quite imbalanced by his appearance in her safety zone, Molly shook it gently only after a few seconds.
'Sorry, what detective...?' Instead of presenting herself back, which was probably not quite desired, in fact, she thought, she asked a question that, as she also thought afterward, was not much better.
'Consulting detective.' Holmes repeated, never taking his intimidating gaze off her face, which made her want to run and hide. Attention oh, that's a new thing. Attention of a man watch out. Attention of an attractive and intriguing man run before you make him pity and laugh at you. This very one gave her a mocking smirk after only five minutes.
'When the morons that police always turn out to be in the end fail to solve a case more demanding than a brutally dull massive homicide committed by an idiot, and with a purpose, for crying out loud, they have to seek help. And this world seems to be merciful for them by giving them me to consult, who would, for a change think and solve their problems for them.'
That answer quite successfully put Molly off asking any further questions. She looked at Stamford, which saved her from embarrassment she would surely feel to be closely watched by the storm-eyed detective wearing a velvet navy blue suit.
'Marvelous. You've made an acquaintance, fantastic. I believe you two can handle the rest. Bye, then.' Stamford, either scared away or bored by the morgue's atmosphere fled as soon as he could. Molly didn't even make it to send him an 'I-will-kill-you-one-day' look.
Holmes cleared his throat, still looking at her.
'Ah, right, the body.' She muttered, quickly proceeding to an aisle where the still unsolved cases' victims were grouped. She pulled out a great drawer-like table where a mid-aged, bald man lied, all swollen and lurid. 'Arthur Goodman, here he is.' She unzipped the non-permeable sack that the bodies were preserved in. 'But, the autopsy has already been conducted, if I may...'
'Conducted by idiots.' He cut in, shaking his head as he bowed to take a very close look at the man's nostrils. 'Stupid enough not to see the obvious murder we have here.'
'Oh. Obvious, is it...' Molly opened wide her eyes, for two reasons. One, how come he knew the man was murdered after a minute's observation; and second 'It was you, wasn't it? Who conducted the autopsy?' He asked, not looking up. Instead, he reached a flask out of his pocket and gathered a few tiny little crystals from around Goodman's nostrils. 'Don't take me personal, please. I always say I'm surrounded by idiots and none turns out to be one in the end.' He smiled faintly, self-pleased as he looked at the flask's content. 'And now would you excuse me, I'd like to make sure on my predictions and use some of the equipment back upstairs. Thank you for your assistance, Molly. May I call you Molly? It'd make it way more comfortable as I'd be coming over more often now, that's quite probable. Molly sounds homely, don't you think? Anyway, thank you and get back to Emily's suicide you've been working on.'
Molly was left speechless, by all that Sherlock Holmes said. Still, again, what she was only able to utter was:
'How do you know...?'
'Obvious. The veins were opened with desperate determination, not across, but along. She was depressed for quite a long time before. I don't know why, though. Still, I'm off now. The game is on again.'
The only thing she was able to think of just after Mr Holmes left wasn't himself; well, not at least his appearance, for sure. What she thought after he went away was that she knew, why that Emily, 25, killed herself.
After that day, Sherlock Holmes would come to the morgue at least every week, regardless whether it was weekend, holidays or the middle of the night. Throughout the next eighteen months of her life, she accepted him as an addition to the routine, an integral part of the morgue's entity, sometimes bringing in some outrageously odd equipment. When a case needed solving, he would simply come and figure everything out with investigating the chewing gum that a victim had before being killed (as it was in the case of notorious diamonds and jades smugglers from Swansea). Molly was all astonishment to, as she thought, secretly watch him work and brainstorm over the bodies. They never talked much, basically only he did, to himself. Molly rather provided him with equipment,brief explanations of the elementary knowledge pieces he shocked her to lack, or coffee, which he devoured like crazy when thinking hard; she decided not to interrupt him, to just wait and see what he's like.
One day or two, DI Lestrade accompanied Sherlock to the morgue, when he overlooked as she conducted the autopsy, completed the report and then he tried to talk her back into joining the cases' forensic team, to which her answer was each time the same.
'I'm not cut out for the rush of the investigation, Inspector, you know quite well about my reasons. Sides, either me or Anderson; we simply won't work together.'
Still, Lestrade kept trying anytime he came with Holmes, who got carried away anytime there was a body to look at.
But, one day, he came and the circumstances made her find herself quite confused with her own feelings she never expected to turn out that way.
She met the man everyone believed to be Sherlock Holmes' first and only friend, Dr John H. Watson.
He walked slowly behind Sherlock, supporting himself with a cane; a few inches taller than her, with light blond hair that contrasted with his warm, sun-touched complexion. His deep blue eyes looked shyly around, contrary to Sherlock, whose fierce enthusiasm was clear to read form his storm-eyes look.
'Molly, hello.' He nodded, shoving his knee-long navy coat off his arms and put on rubber gloves.
'I need to see all bodies brought in within the last ten days. Quick.'
Molly investigated the tension growing in his face, as he looked back at the man who came with him. She gasped quietly, slowly forgetting more and more of everything around, just looking at the usual excitement sparkling in his cold eyes, the shade of a faint smile ready to appear in his lips' corners, the wilderness of his raven-black curls left to themselves, brushed only by the blows of late November typical English wind. When he eventually cleared his throat, after what seemed an hour and in fact was barely two minutes, as she knew, perfectly aware of her growing interest, she had to rush to the 'drawers' and recalled the whole of three lately dead people to show them to Sherlock. He rubbed his hand and the smile finally appeared, bowing his lips into a gentle arc.
'This one is not connected.' He stated, as soon as he saw the elderly woman with skin seeming to be too thin to stretch over her sharply drawn cheekbones. 'It was cancer, wasn't it? Liver.'
Molly gave him a hum of confirmation,which he awaited not anyway. The blond man approached her to watch Sherlock from closer. Before Molly turned away to carry on with documentation she has been arranging, he looked at her and then Holmes.
'Um, Sherlock... Why don't you introduce us...?' He clearly noticed him and Molly knew each other before. He even noticed the detective's scarf he claimed to have lost three days before hanged across a rack which was holding .
'Ah, right.' Holmes mumbled, not even looking up from a microscope he was observing something with. 'John, this is Molly, she works here. Molly, this is former army doctor John Watson, my friend.'
'A colleague, share flat.' Watson smiled warmly at her when they shook hands. His grip was firm, stable. His gaze was peaceful, tiny wrinkles around his eyes' and lips' corners, which added to his typical attractiveness of a mature, manly guy. He was at least a few years older than her, she guessed, something near 35. Lovely person, he seemed.
'John! I need you here!' Sherlock called, way too loud for the distance of not even ten feet between them. The doctor apologized quietly and approached. Molly went on to write down the death circumstances of a fellow named Andrew Brown, still not willingly eavesdropping she and the two men were a dozen steps apart and they talked openly.
' These two are murders of course, but not serial.' Holmes spoke, finally separating his eyes from the microscope's lens. Watson seemed stunned, judging by the intonation.
'How come you know?'
The detective frowned before answering.
'Isn't it obvious...? It was definitely two random people who killed them, one of which could only be... Interesting. See, the girls were both seventeen, murdered with a knife, in Cheapside, at night, considerably pretty. They only got what they asked for.'
'I beg you a pardon, what?'
'Oh, John, observe, for God's sake...! Look, this one was cut with a sharp knife, possibly one that could be used by a professional hunter, the moves were well-forced, determined but no thought over whatsoever. She was probably raped and killed after trying to fight and get away. Two cuts only, but deep enough to bleed to death. And the other one was killed by accident, probably by a boy her of a bit below her age, some fifteen. She was found in the slums, so it's quite clear she was just robbed by him, desperate for food or anything. She much showed her wealth off, see the hair, professionally cared, the signs left by jewelery around the neck and wrists. Sides, she wore perfect manicure, certainly not to be seen in Cheapside. Obvious she seemed an easy target. And he needed money, probably for his mother's or younger siblings' medication his mother was either sick or drunk too much to stand up and stop him. Took a kitchen knife and went out to the streets. Saw her, ran up and demanded money. She denied, obviously, then he stabbed her, as high as he could reach, so you see he was younger, shorter than her. About five feet five inches, so as I said, aged near fifteen. That's why the stabs straight below her ribs and not near the neck, as in the first case. He panicked, had no idea where to hit. Shocked, he stabbed her at least ten times, shallowly before she eventually fell to bleed out. Then, he took her purse, phone and jewelery and ran away.'
'Unbelievable.' Sighed John Watson. The whole analysis lasted no more than two minutes, with Sherlock's eyes quite certainly set on the bodies.
The detective hummed, quite surprised by his enthusiastic reflection. Molly quite shared the doctor's opinion on his genius, yet was a bit afraid to be taken too seriously if she ever voiced her admiration out. So, she just listened and smiled faintly as long as the two men moved towards her.
'Thank you, Molly.' Sherlock muttered, reaching for the 'seemingly-lost' scarf and wrapping it around his neck. 'The case of that girl, Emily, from almost a year ago, do you remember...? I still can't figure out, why a girl like her, young, attractive and engaged, would commit a suicide.'
Molly took her gaze off him and looked away, down on the tips of her two-inch high heels. So she was engaged...
'She lost the child she was pregnant with.' She spoke in broke voice, quietly. 'Not mentioned in the documentation.' Whispered to herself. Sherlock seemed struck.
'Obviously...' He covered his face with his hands and shoved them to run his fingers through the raven black curls, on the verge of shock. 'How did you know that..?'
Molly shook her head, her back hunched. She turned away. Sherlock winked twice, his face always perfectly indifferent. He cleared his throat, John looked at him, a little angered.
'Well, anyway. Solved. Not a serious issue. No psychopath. Unfortunately.' Sherlock stated with his deep, low voice, putting his coat on. She turned over her arm to see him send a text, probably to Lestrade. 'Come on, John, I just got a text from Mycroft saying he is yet again unable to deal with some unbelievably dull affair.' He walked on to the door, his eyes glued to the phone's screen, his fingers tapping the keyboard like crazy. John sent her an apologetic smile.
'Sorry for him, Molly. See you again, take care.'