A/N: Day one, head canon prompt: first meeting
Molly Hooper looked up when the doors opened and smiled as her favorite detective inspector, Gregory Lestrade, entered the morgue.
"Hello, Molly."
"Good morning, Greg. Here about the Lancaster case?"
He nodded. "Brought in a consultant for this one–I hope that's okay?"
Molly shrugged as she moved towards the coolers. "Mrs. Lancaster isn't going to know the difference."
"Right."
She heard the doors swish open and turned to greet what she assumed would be a middle-aged, nondescript professional … only to find exactly her type: tall, dark, and gorgeous. She gaped.
"Molly, this is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, meet Dr. Molly Hooper, the world's sweetest pathologist."
"Um, uh, he-hello," Molly said, sticking out her hand to shake.
Sherlock Holmes didn't take it, instead looking her up and down with sea-blue (green?) eyes. "Youngest pathologist in St. Barts' history, graduated top of your class, skipped … two years, one in primary school and one in secondary. You live alone with one recently acquired American shorthair cat, maintain a juvenile wardrobe and hairstyle to counteract the darkness of your chosen profession–" His eyes narrowed. "Chosen because someone died, someone close to you … your father?– and have an aversion to gherkins."
Belatedly, Molly realized her hand still extended over Mrs. Lancaster's bloated corpse and tucked it behind her back.
"Um, y-yes, but–"
But he wasn't listening. Bent over the body at an alarming distance without PPE, he seemed absorbed by the woman's right ear.
Molly turned to Greg. What?
"Just give him a chance," Greg said in an undertone. "He notices things no one else does. I've never seen anything like it."
I've never seen anyone like him, Molly thought. Tall and lean–too lean, her doctor's eyes noticed, taking in the sharp cheekbones, the prominent sternal notch visible in his open collar, the gap between cuff and wrist, the way his shirt bunched with extra fabric at the waist. He had long legs (those were great jeans), dark curly hair that made her palms actually itch to touch it, large hands graceful despite their size, and a blasé attitude about dead bodies she immediately found refreshing.
Even though Mrs. Lancaster distinctly wasn't.
Molly chuckled quietly at her own joke, watching him move around the body with quick, jerky movements. The small magnifying glass trembled slightly as he held it over the dead woman's umbilicus. She frowned, putting the details together. Was he high? Surely Greg wouldn't be working with a junkie. She stepped protectively towards Mrs. Lancaster, moving around the slab to get a better look at Sherlock's face … especially his pupils.
"Swab, please," he said without looking up, extending one long-fingered hand.
Molly scrambled to comply, nearly knocking over the jar and making quite a racket as she replaced its metal lid.
"Slide."
Who did he think she was, his personal lab assistant?
She fetched a slide.
"Prep this," he ordered, handing her the now-soiled swab.
"Sherlock," Greg said in a reproving voice.
He looked up with a blank expression.
"This is Dr. Hooper's morgue," Greg said.
"You have a lab too, don't you?" Sherlock asked.
"Y-yes, up–" She swallowed, disconcerted by those–cerulean? malachite?–eyes. "Upstairs."
"Well then, what's the problem?" He turned back to the body without waiting for an answer.
Greg sighed. "Molly, do you mind?"
"No, not at all, but I already–"
Sherlock's razor-sharp gaze focused on her, giving her a clear look at his pupils. Not high; but not long ago, either.
"What did you find?" he said.
"The normal skin flora, denim-blue cotton fibers most likely from a pair of Levi's, and algae consistent with a marshy ecosystem but not the Thames estuary. She has the same microorganisms in her ears and nose, but no water in her lungs. The body was disposed of in the water, but she wasn't drowned."
Sherlock merely hummed, but Molly had the feeling he was impressed nonetheless and felt a flicker of pride.
Wait, why did she care about this junkie upstart's ordinary opinion? She was on the Royal College of Pathologists' specialist register, thank you very much!
Although those cheekbones really were spectacular….
"Molly? Molly?"
"Hmm? Oh!" She jumped when she realized the detective inspector had caught her staring and flushed. "Yes, what? What do you need?"
"You've done quite enough. I'll take it from here."
Greg watched Sherlock leave with an exasperated expression. "Well, I'm glad I told him to be nice. Who knows what he would have said otherwise? Thanks, Molly. See you later."
"Bye," Molly said, feeling somewhat like she'd just played half-a-dozen rounds of Ring Around the Rosie. On a ship.
She hoped Sherlock Holmes would solve the case … and that Greg would take him to lunch as payment. That boy needed feeding up.