This is for my dear Nicole, aka TheEmptyHolmes, who had a very important science exam today. One that I'm confident she did swimmingly well on! :D Anyway, cute and fluffy fic is her reward for going to school and being awesome! Hope you like it, dearest!
Oh, and I do not own Molly, Sherlock, or Science. lol. I wish.
Mitosis: A Splitting of Seams...I mean Cells:
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How she managed to get stuck with him as her lab partner, she'd never know. However, now Molly Hooper found herself stuck with the enigmatic and impossible Sherlock Holmes for this final lab. She sat next to the tall boy, who was currently typing away on his phone, his long legs propped up on the edge of their shared desk. The professor walked around, handing each student a procedural sheet that explained what they would need to do. Molly looked over theirs, finding her worst fears along the header of the page.
Mitosis: Discuss and Illustrate using a different type of example than the actual method.
"I hate this one. I can never understand it." She said with a long, frustrated sigh. Sherlock barely looked up from his phone, but nodded his head a bit.
"Mitosis, I presume. It's alright, there are several examples of how to demonstrate the process. It's really just up to you on which one we pick. I'm a bit busy." He replied offhandedly, his thumbs pressing the buttons of his phone quickly. Molly glared at him, and let out an annoyed scoff.
"Didn't you hear me? I said I don't get it. How am I supposed to choose one way, if I don't even know how many different ways there are?" She snipped at him, growing more irate when he again ignored her. She groaned out as she watched all the other lab partners leaving the class, heading out to study their individually assigned lab, leaving her alone, with the odd man. She looked over and watched him text relentlessly. Eventually, her eyes followed up his thin wrists, to the equally thin but fit arms on his young body. Molly took the time to note how his hair was thick and lush, even if it was a bit unkempt. She would be lying if she didn't say that the guy wasn't absolutely gorgeous, high cheekbones and deep eyes driving the stake through her heart a bit more as she stared at him longer. She knew he was a year older than her, and that he had probably taken the class as a blow-off study for his final year at the university. After all, he was intelligent enough, he probably could have finished school early, hell, he probably did finish early, and came back out of boredom. However, she also knew it didn't give him the right to sacrifice her perfect marks because he was uncommitted.
"Sherlock...can we please work now? Who are you texting, anyway?" Molly asked again, trying to peer over his shoulder. The young man snapped his head around to meet her gaze, his dark eyes blazing with shock.
"I'm texting my brother, though I don't see how it's your concern. Perhaps you should spend more time focusing on our lab, instead of who I am spending my time communicating with." He quipped, before turning his attention back to his phone. Molly's hand, however, stopped him, as she reached out and snagged the phone from his grip.
"You don't listen at all, do you? I keep telling you! I can't do the lab, I don't understand the concept in the first place!" She yelled now, holding his phone behind her back, and glaring at him. Sherlock glared back, before sighing out in frustration, and ushering for her to sit beside him. Once she had, he began.
"Mitosis, a type of cell division that results in two daughter cells each the same as the parent nucleus, typical of ordinary tissue growth. We have to show the rest of the class that process, using something else other than cell division itself. So, for instance," He stood, walking around to her back pack, and reaching down to grab her sweater. Molly looked at him in confusion.
"Take this sweater. You obviously love it, judging by the worn discoloration in the elbows and cuffs, also based on the fact that I see you in it all the time. Anyway, that's beside the point. Now, the shape of this sweater looks like this." Sherlock took a pen from his pocket, and drew the outline of Molly's sweater on the piece of paper. He looked up at her, making sure she was following.
"Now, what Mitosis does, is it takes the original design of the cell, in this case, that silhouetted shape of your sweater, and it copies it. What we have is two copies of that sweater," He illustrated the two copies as he flipped her sweater around, displaying the front and then the back, "but in order for the process to complete, the copies have to split apart." Molly quirked her brow, trying to understand what he meant. The meaning became all to clear and understandable, as Sherlock gripped around the collar of the material, and tugged on it hard. The snugly tacked seams ripped almost effortlessly, and Sherlock followed the seam lines all the way down, until finally, he held the two parts of her beloved garment in either hand. Molly's face flared bright red with anger, her mouth gaping wide with shock.
"Do you understand now?" He asked, a curious expression on his face. Molly stood, and began to pace back and forth, her words gathering quickly and getting stuck at the base of her throat.
"Why would you...What was...Why? I could...Ugh!" She couldn't catch onto which phrase or obscenity she wanted to say first, so she finally clenched her hands into fists, and looked up at him.
"Yes, yes Sherlock. I think I definitely understand now." She said with a spiteful tone, before yanking the pen off of the desk, and drawing a simple, rounded rectangular shape on the other side of the paper. Sherlock tilted his head, considering the shape. His eyes flew wide open, as he realized what the shape represented.
"Molly, wait..."
"So we have the mother cell, or in this instance, your mobile. And We have the two copies..." Molly flipped his phone out from her back pocket, stepping away from him as he followed after her. She tossed the phone back and forth between her hands, teasing him as he attempted to rush after her. However, she was quick, getting to the other side of one of the lab stations.
"But they have to split apart for it to be full Mitosis. I understand now. Thank you, Sherlock." She said with a positively evil grin on her face.
"Molly!" Sherlock yelled, just as she flipped his phone open, and smashed slide on the edge of the metal table, breaking the phone into its two equal parts. It was Sherlock's turn to turn red, his own mouth contorting into a sneer of absolute rage.
"What the hell is the matter with you , you crazy woman!?" He hollered. This began the bickering war between the two of them.
"Me? You're the one who ripped my sweater apart for no reason! It's only fair!" She yelled back.
"I did you and that hideous garment a favor, Molly Hooper! You destroyed my sole means of speaking with my brother about the affairs of home!" Came the angered reply.
"Well, I'm sorry! Maybe you'll just have to actually go home now, instead of running away and hiding at uni! And what on God's green earth kind of favor do you call shredding someone's favorite jumper into two?" She stared pointedly at him, as he suddenly became very quiet. He mumbled something, something she didn't quite hear, and so she approached him.
"What? I'm sorry, cat's got your tongue? What did you say? It's okay, Sherlock. If you want to make fun of me, I can take it. I've taken it all year with being your lab partner, if you had forgotten." She bit out, crossing her arms and waiting for his answer. He growled, actually growled out, before speaking again.
"The favor was so you would no longer hide yourself behind that lumpy atrocity of a thing. You're far too attractive to be wearing something so foul in color and shape." He stated, looking up at her. Molly's face, which had gone from red with anger, to pink with embarrassment, looked away.
"Is...is that your way of saying you think I'm..."
"Attractive? Pretty? Beautiful? Yes, Molly. That's what I'm saying." She felt his hand cup her cheek then, bringing her round to face him. His expression was soft, a hint of a grin at the corner of his lips. Lips that were soon on hers, in a small and sweet kiss. Molly closed her eyes for a bit, sighing as she finally gave up all her reservations and denials about her feelings for her odd lab partner. When they pulled apart, she smiled a bit.
"Can we count that as Mitosis?" She asked with a giggle. Sherlock chuckled too, shaking his head a bit.
"I don't think so, but I wouldn't mind another trial run." He said with a smirk. They kissed again, this time, lingering a bit longer. Molly sighed as he pulled away a second time.
"You're right. Not Mitosis. Besides, I don't think the professor would appreciate us demonstrating that in class, do you?" She smiled a bit.
"Too late." Came a voice from the doorway. Molly and Sherlock both looked over, to see the many shocked and giddy expressions of the other students, as well as their professor, who was grinning wider than the rest.
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Ta-da! Hope this makes science a bit more bearable for you, my dear!
