As she reached the door with the number 221 not bolted to the front of the door with big block letters like the other door rooms but instead scrawled across the top left corner of the door in very messy handwriting, Molly hesitated.
She looked down at the book in her hands - well, she used the term "book" loosely - the binder in her hands filled with pages upon pages of well-undecipherable scrawls "not fit for the trash, let alone human attention," as Meena so eloquently put it. But she'd opened it...and was somehow able to read the fascinating deductions on all her classmates...including herself.
They weren't all very nice, but they were objective. And as Ms. Molly Hooper hoped to be a doctor in the future, objectivity was something she could definitely appreciate. And, she thought with a tiny flutter of excitement to herself, Sherlock Holmes, the author of the manual in her hands, judged that she was "rather intelligent - lab partner material."
Coming from someone who had been able to deduce Meena's parent's divorce from the way she buttoned her coat and Tom's insecurities about his "area" from the way he stood, she was rather inclined to believe him.
But of course she wasn't supposed to read it, much less pore over the pages for days on end, reveling in the gossip, which was why it was a little more than difficult for her to knock on his door.
And, then, of course, was the material her binder held that was currently in his possession.
She took a deep breath and knocked three times. She heard nothing but silence from the other side, but after a moment, the door swung open.
"Come in, Molly," a voice calmly said from the back of the room, just beyond where the dim light from the flickering lights in the hallway reached. Molly stepped inside, careful not to trip over the empty battery carton as she glanced around the room. Even with everything covered with shadows, she could make out a mess of wires and beakers - she squinted - filled with liquids.
She stopped in her tracks. The entire place was literally a nuclear hazard. As if sensing her hesitation, the voice chuckled. She heard the small tap of a key on a keyboard, and the lights switched on.
A dark-haired male stared at her as she blinked at him, his crystalline eyes assessing her every movement. She'd known he would, of course. And it was all a moot point, after all. She already knew all his observations: shy, unassuming, intelligent, loves cats. Whether he'd chosen not to write down his deductions of her parents' deaths or that he hadn't been able to find out was a mystery to her.
"I believe you have something of mine." He extended his hand toward her, his eyes never leaving hers. She gingerly stepped over multiple wires, careful not to trip, and handed it to him. He pulled a similar red binder out from behind his chair, handing it over to her.
She opened it up, flipping through the first few pages. It seemed he hadn't read it. She didn't know whether to be overjoyed or disappointed.
"Interesting take on humanity, I'll grant you that. And the bit with the dragon was especially interesting, for fiction at least," he drawled as she turned to leave.
She could begin to feel her cheeks warming up past normal temperatures. Not trusting herself to speak, she merely nodded. And then blurted out, "Your deductions were amazing," before she could stop herself.
She quickly covered her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The damage had been done. His eyes narrowed.
Then he shrugged. "You could only have gotten my address from the middle. Obviously you read it." He flipped to the page she'd forgotten she'd dog-eared. "Ah, you like my deductions on Tom. Thought they were amusing, perhaps."
A little smile appeared at the corner of her lips, and something tugged at Molly's heartstrings. She'd managed to make it through the first three years of college just fine, without developing a single crush and without losing sight of her end goal of becoming a pathologist.
Her heart beat faster. She could feel herself slowly bending, the norms she'd built up for herself straining to remain strong under the pressure of the amusement and heat she swore she could feel radiating off of him. She snapped.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?"
His eyes scanned hers, but there was no surprise registered in his that mirrored her own. She'd never thought in a million years that she'd -
"Black, two sugars," came the reply and a hand gesturing to the kitchen to the side. She was breathing hard (she had no idea why), and she swore his eyes flicked downwards for a fraction of a second before meeting hers again.
She made the coffee according to his specifications and came back. His fingers brushed hers as he took the cup from her, and she nearly jerked from the electric shock she felt at the small contact. She stepped back, one hand covering the other.
"I like playing the violin when I think. Coffee in the morning before I talk."
What?
He glanced at her. "I imagine we'll be spending quite a bit of time together in the future. Future lab partners ought to know the worst about each other, shouldn't they?"