Quarantine
One track mind, one track heart
If I fail, I'll fall apart
Maybe it is all a test
Cause I feel like I'm the worst
So I always act like I'm the best.
(Marina and the Diamonds, `Oh, no!")
Killing a man does something to you.
It changes you.
You can never shrug back on the mantle of the man you were before you took the life of another.
I contemplate this notion as I shrug on my coat, dark and heavy – a burden of care upon my shoulders. If I could chose to, I would explain away my current melancholy by referencing the killing of Charles Augustus Magnussen. I shot an unarmed man in cold blood and there can be no excusing of such a desperate and God-like act of execution, and no excuses do I want, or need. Deep down, however, I am not sorry enough for it to explain the deadness that now haunts my days and nights; the emptiness when I awake that a garbled request for help from Lestrade or Gregson do little to assuage.
A baby has been born; rejoicing (naturally) has taken place. Crimes have been solved and hordes of grateful ex-blackmailees have poured forth on a fairly (if irritatingly) regular basis to both thank and reward me. Mycroft (dear Mycroft) himself almost shed a tear as I listlessly (if remarkably skilfully) exposed the highly organised prankster using the image of Moriarty to strike all shades of fear into the establishment …
But all for nought.
Inside I am hollow and inexorably joyless and I do not know why.
I hate not knowing.
~x~
I knew it was going to be a shit day when the Hazmat suits arrived.
Sanderson was gleeful, naturally. He is such a poor excuse for a pathologist; he relishes the chance of something like a deadly potential epidemic allowing him to neglect more paperwork.
Oh God, he`s holding one up to himself and I can actually visualise a little thought bubble above his head as he pictures himself in the Dustin Hoffman role in `Outbreak`. He`s grinning and nodding at Sarah (my favourite morgue assistant) and I know I`m right.
He`s nodding at me, still smiling and I am reminded of my granny singing a childhood song: `Never smile at a crocodile…`
"Try not to look so glum, Dr Hooper – the virus is highly unlikely to have reached our shores from Patagonia. There are highly effective strategies in place at the borders – this is just Mike being a touch dramatic!"
Don't be taken in by his welcome grin …
"Oh, I`m not worried about that; just this mountain of paperwork which tells me I won`t be making it back in time for X Factor tonight."
Really, could I BE more obvious? Seemingly I could, since he`s now merrily chatting away to Sarah (Joanne has also been roped in when she was on the way to the coffee machine for me) and demonstrating, rather creepily, how to put on a filter mask. Idiot.
I put down my lab notes with a clatter onto the counter, uncaring if such a dramatic gesture is acknowledged or not, and take myself into the tiny lab storeroom, where the smell of powdered latex gloves and anti-bacterial hand wash has an instant and holistic calming effect.
Molly Hooper, you are officially one miserable little cow. Sanderson is a nightmare; workload is a nightmare; potential outbreak of disabling and potentially fatal new disease – nightmare, but … but. You have had these issues (or similar ones) in your life with depressing regularity over the years; you are known for your ability to face off problems and difficult situations with a tight (yet sincere) smile and a jaunty swish of your silken pony tail. You are a calming influence; a go-to girl when trauma strikes; you can often make a silk purse out of a very nasty sow`s ear, so what the hell, Molly Hooper? What the devil is wrong with you these days?
I close my eyes against the fluorescent strip of the over-packed cupboard and press my face against the stacked piles of rolled up hand towels – soothing; calming. The wrapping crinkles and the softness gives way as it nestles and caresses my aching head. I feel my cheeks are hot and possibly bright with colour and know, despite the Hazmat suits, that I am not ill – but I am a little bit sick.
Miseria. Dolour. Luctus. Latin is a dead language, so I enjoy using it to describe my sorry, deaded little soul.
I slapped his slack-jawed, heavy-eyed face. I slapped it several times, and each time my anger had increased until it bubbled into my throat and I had to stop slapping him, because I was going to cry. He ruminatively and sluggishly (drug-addled!) felt his jaw and threw a barb (I probably deserved) referencing my failed attempt at a normal romance. His beautiful eyes rolled over me, cold and disdainful (drug addled?) My hand lay, limp and stinging at my side; a smarting resonance firing unwelcome information upwards, via my synapses, into my consciousness:
The rough scrape of stubble, hard planes of cheekbone beneath my hand (moulding it, curving its progression), warm (hot) skin – feverish? (drug-addled.) burning the pads of my fingertips and searing that touch into my memory, skin so soft and warm and rough and smooth and burning …
I open my eyes to see a blur of blue hand towel, clouding my vision and crinkling its packaging against my own fevered brow.
Molly Hooper, you are so fucked.
~x~
"So, how would you normally `narrow it down`? Sixteen samples and one murderer, Sherlock."
John Watson appears irked. I attribute his short temper and inability to logically parse my options to sleep deprivation and sexual frustration (newborn baby and all that accompanies it) therefore I am patient with him.
"My distillations are inadequate, John, since a centrifuge and homogeniser of a more industrial standard will be required to fully render down the samples. Mr Talisker remains free until we have suitable cause."
An almost comedic expulsion of air escapes my former flat-mate as he casts himself across his old chair, seemingly losing patience with my (more than adequate) explanation barely had it left my lips.
"Sherlock, Bart`s has been your second home for all the years I have known you – I met you there for God`s sake. Get down to the lab and sweet talk Molly Hooper and – "
"No!"
Unbidden and without warning, the word swells forth and stops him in his tracks. Tiredness forgotten, John looks keenly across at me and I see unspoken questions in his eyes. I do not welcome these questions.
"I cannot afford the time to traipse across London on the merest of missions. I will find a way."
"Sherlock – "
My face burns and I feel a ridiculous ache from within, but I manage to face him down.
"John, I will find a way."
And he lets it go.
~x~