Author's Note: I've recently become obsessed with the concept of Swap!lock. This is my take on the first meeting scene from A Study in Pink, with Molly as the consulting detective and Mary as her soon-to-be blogger. Also written for The Ladies of Sherlock Challenge Five, where the challenge was either Swaplock or racebending (so clearly this challenge was a boon for me).
Obviously, I own nothing. Not even a breadcrumb.
The shadows of the consulting detective, vast and terrifying against the light, slashed against the walls of the morgue, over and over again and utterly relentless in their intensity.
The door quietly swung open as the last few thwacks of the riding crop bounced off the concrete walls.
"Bad day then?" the pathologist asked tentatively, watching as the consulting detective settled the crop onto a nearby table and turned away, scribbling in the notepad held in her hands.
"I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes," Molly said simply, continuing to write in her notebook, the pen flowing over easily over the paper. "A man's alibi depends on it." Sherlock nodded and nervously ruffled at his curls, glancing quickly to the corpse lain between them. This would be the day, he reminded himself. It would, it would.
"Look, I was wondering, if maybe—after you've finished—"
"Sorry, but have you done something with your hair?" The question caught him by surprise, and he blinked.
"I… combed it?" He had, hurriedly, before she'd arrived at St. Bart's just an hour before. For the first time, he had been thankful she was so persistent in her habit of texting people her imminent locations. If she seemed to be affected by his change in appearance, she didn't show it. Instead, she turned her attention back to her writing.
"So, you were saying?" He took a breath. "I thought you might like some coffee."
At this, Molly Hooper stilled. For a brief moment, he thought he might've broken her. That moment was soon gone however, and she snapped her notebook shut, directing a wide and polite smile in his direction. "Milk, one sugar. I'll be upstairs."
"No, wait, I didn't mean…"
It was too late. The door to the morgue had already swung shut behind her. Sherlock heaved a sigh.
"Damn."
If one was a retired ex-soldier recently returned from Afghanistan who got by on an army pension, there was really quite little to do in London. Mary Morstan knew this to her cost. The only prominent things she did were to stare at a blank blog post entry for much of the morning and take a walk around the nearby park in the afternoons. This monotony was only broken by the further monotony of her appointments with her therapist. "Nothing happens to me," she'd said with a falsely accepting smile, only to leave a few moments later, citing family. Elle knew she had been lying, but didn't question it.
Mary supposed that was how she had come to be here, sitting on a bench with a cup of coffee in her hands and her old school friend, Janine sitting beside her.
She had been taking her daily walk, superficially admiring the view when she'd heard the familiar Irish brogue calling her name. After exchanging pleasantries and small talk, they'd bought some coffee and settled onto the bench.
"You're teaching now then?" Mary asked, trying not to sound as if she was struggling for conversation. Janine nodded and took a sip of coffee.
"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "All bright young things—think they know everything. Oh well. It's better than nothing. What about you? Are you staying in town, or…?"
Mary shook her head. "I'm on army pension; I'd need to sell my right arm before I could afford to live here."
Janine shrugged. "You thought about getting a share? It'd be cheaper."
"Yeah, but c'mon. Who the hell would want me for a flatmate?" Mary asked, letting out a dry chuckle. She expected Janine to merely nod and agree, but that expectation was denied by a mere raise of the eyebrows and a knowing smile.
"You're the second person who's said that to me today."
"Really? Who was the first?"
Janine grinned and took one last sip of her coffee before she threw it into a nearby bin. "C'mon," she stood, ruffling at her hair absentmindedly, "I'll introduce you."
The taxi ride to St. Bart's was short and as Mary followed Janine out of the taxi and into the building, she tried to prise a little more information about the mysterious person she was to be introduced to.
"Is he nice?" she said, jogging on after Janine's practical sprint of a walk. Janine laughed and glanced at her over her shoulder.
"She is very nice and extremely lovely… when she wants to be," she said as she led Mary up a long flight of stairs.
"Are you going to tell me anything else about her?"
Janine grinned. "Nope!"
"You're not even going to tell me what she looks like?" Mary said with a raised eyebrow as the two of them headed down a corridor. Janine pushed open a pair of double doors and waved Mary through.
"You'll know her when you see her, trust me."
They continued down the corridor until they came to a door, which Mary instantly recognised to be the door to one of the old labs. Thought they'd have gone out of use by now, she thought as she stepped through, only to see the reason why the labs had remained. In contrast to the days where if you made one wrong move with the equipment, there would a minor explosion, everything was clean and nice and well-maintained.
"Well," Mary muttered, not hiding the envy in her voice, "bit different from when I was here."
"I know. Almost makes me want to—" Janine never got to complete her sentence, for she was interrupted by the voice of a female, blunt in tone.
"Janine, could I borrow your phone?"
Mary immediately turned her head. Sat at the workbench was a woman, petite in stature with long brown hair, wide brown eyes and hollow cheekbones. Dressed elegantly in clearly expensive clothing, she wore a look of concentration. Janine sighed and stepped away, towards the woman, searching in the pockets of her jeans.
"Could use the landline. Or your own phone," she said quietly, but the woman apparently still caught the remark, for she smiled and gave a shrug.
"My phone's got no signal, and you know that I prefer to text," she said, her eyes flicking momentarily towards Mary. It was strange, her gaze. It wasn't a gaze of appraisal or a quick glance to register her; it was as if she were scanning her.
"Well, you'll have to use the landline. Can't find my phone—must have left it in my coat outside."
"You can use mine." Mary found herself reaching into her cardigan pocket and pulling out her phone, offering it to the lady who grinned wider and stood.
"Thank you very much," she said lightly, making her way over and she took the phone without a word, scanning Mary once again before she switched her attention to the phone. She must have caught the what-the-hell-is-this? glance she had made towards Janine, for the woman spoke.
"Afghanistan or Iraq?"
Mary whirled her head around to look at the woman, who merrily continued to tap away at the keyboard. When she looked to Janine for any more information, she was only given a smirk and another quirk of an eyebrow. She looked back to the woman, who had continued to text.
"Af—Afghanistan. How did you know that?"
"Janine didn't tell me, if that's what you're thinking. Oh!" the woman cried suddenly, looking over Mary's shoulder. "Sherlock, hi."
A man—lanky, with black curls and wearing a lab coat over a shirt and trousers—slipped inside the lab, a coffee cup in his hands. He smiled at the woman as he handed her the coffee. "Black, three sugars."
"Ah, thank you," she sipped at the coffee and moved back over to her work station. She paused to glance back at Sherlock. "Your hair still looks lovely by the way. You should comb it more often." The way in which the woman spoke was genial, but definitely not flirtatious. It was, if anything, an honest to God compliment. A hidden smile twitched at the sides of Sherlock's lips.
"Thanks, urm… I have to go—work… stuff to do…" He hurried from the room. Mary's gaze followed him and she bit back a laugh. Poor guy was so in love, it was almost painful to see how oblivious the object of his affections really was.
"How do you feel about the violin?" The question came almost as soon as the lab door closed. Mary looked back to the strange woman, who had now moved back to her work station.
"Pardon?"
"I play the violin when I'm thinking; sometimes I don't talk for days—would any of that bother you?"
"Not particularly…" Mary's brow furrowed. "Why are you asking?"
The woman shrugged. "Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."
She didn't know why, but Mary had the nagging feeling that simply playing the violin and having extended periods of silence were not this woman's only bad traits. Perhaps it was the quick way in which she spoke or the blunt way in which she directed her questions; everything about her seemed to scream odd.
"By the way, I didn't breathe a word to her about you," Janine piped up, grinning widely once more as she watched the scene unfold. Mary cleared her throat tightly.
"Who said anything about flatmates?"
"I did," the woman said cheerily as she picked up her coat and put it on. "This morning, when I told Janine I'd clearly be a difficult woman to find a flatmate for, yet she turns up just after lunch with an old friend—I'm guessing you both attended St. Bart's—who used to be in the military with service in Afghanistan. Not that difficult a leap, if you think about it."
Mary gave a slight one-shoulder shrug in agreement, and she watched as the woman pulled her scarf around her neck and picked up her phone.
"I know a place in Central London, and the landlady's willing to offer me a deal, so together we can afford it, I'm sure. We can meet there tomorrow evening at seven, if that's okay with you?"
"Um… Yeah, okay. Can't hurt, I suppose."
"Great!" the woman said her smile brightening before she glanced at her watch.
"Oops, sorry—I have to go; I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary. Always doing that." She swept past Mary to leave, only stopping to turn when Mary spoke.
"So that's it?" she asked. "We've just met, and we're going to go look at a flat?"
The woman gave a simple nod. "Yeah."
"Okay. But we don't know anything about each other. I don't know where we're meeting, and I don't even know your name either." The woman stared at her for a long moment, not scanning, but seeing. Mary got the impression that no secrets could be hidden from her; she would find them all out anyway. Finally, the woman spoke, her words streaming from her seamlessly.
"I know you're an army doctor and you've recently been delivered home from Afghanistan after obtaining a war injury. You have a sister who wants to help but you won't let her—either because you don't get on or because you disapprove of her. Considering that said sister is an alcoholic and has recently left her husband, I'd say it was the latter. I also know that your therapist correctly believes your limp to be psychosomatic." The woman took a breath, glancing at both Janine and Mary who watched her, open-mouthed. She tilted her head a little. "I think that's enough to go on with. Don't you?"
Mary's mouth dropped wider and she tried to speak, but the severity of the woman's searing observations of her stopped any forms of intelligible speech. The woman turned and once again made to leave. This time however, she stopped as she opened the door and looked back to Mary.
"The name's Molly Hooper and the address is 221b Baker Street." She winked quickly and looked over to Janine. "Afternoon!"
With that, she was gone. The door shut behind her with a loud thunk. After a moment and on seeing her friend so paralyzed with surprise, Janine spurted out a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Don't worry," she said between giggles. "You'll get used to her."