Shine Bright, Shine Bright by CowMow
Oh, Molly…
I have seen the way you walk to work. You walk happy, bright, looking forward to the day. Filled with hopes, aren't you? Hope that today, wearing this particular dress or that special skirt, or those high-heeled shoes or neutral make-up will make him notice you. Hope, that today you won't act like the love-sick puppy he thinks you are. Hope that… Hope… How hopeless and helpless you must feel.
I have seen the way you enter Bart's, pushing the doors wide open, trying not to bump your bags and things against the door post, try to make a fluent entrance while smiling timidly at the spectators.
I have seen the way you shyly greet your colleagues as you climb the stairs to your lab. The way you put down your heavy bag and drop your coat and walk to the small canteen to get some coffee.
Oh, Molly…
I have seen the way you sigh as the first victim on the list is wheeled in. You will never get used to this, will you? Seeing a human, dead, lying on the cold aluminum table? Once, they were alive and breathing, living, laughing. But when you grab the scalpel and try to find the place to make the incision, your clumsiness disappears and makes place for a confident woman who knows exactly what she does. You are very good at what you do, Molly. Of course, you made it through University to get here. I read your files; you were the best of your class. Cum Laude. Chapeaux, Molly.
But all that makes me wonder about so many more things, Molly. So many questions remain unanswered. You are clever, and very pretty when you smile. You crack jokes, and honestly, they are not all bad! What right does he have to get to you the way he does?
Oh Molly…
I have seen the way you stretch your back after an hour of working, trying to find out how the girl or man or woman or kid on your table was murdered. Your fingers hurt from a combination of holding the scalpel and gripping it tightly, trying to make the cuts as clean and small as possible, and the cold. It would help the family, knowing you did your best to keep their loved ones in as much dignity as is within your power. You are so loving and caring and kind and you know what you are doing all this for. It what keeps you dragging yourself to work, you say. But dear, I told you, I have seen the way you walk. To the few friends you have you say you hate your job, you hate the morbidity of the whole morgue, and you hate the cold and the death that is tangible in the stale air with its strange smell and the weird lighting.
But there is no use lying to me, Molly Hooper. I know you love your work. It makes you useful, and how you love to be useful.
Oh, Molly…
But then he enters: one whirlwind of energy, deductions and insults. Why do you endure him? He is so rude, he is so handsome and yet unattainable. No use lying to me, Molly. I have seen the way you blush when he enters your morgue, demanding a body or body parts, followed by his friend and colleague John Watson. John is kind, so unlike him. John smiles at you and even apologises where he would never ever do that. Oh, Molly… he apologised only once, and you keep hanging on to that like it is your life-line, your air, your food.
Oh, Molly.
It is not that I don't understand you. He is handsome and he is so clever and he knows exactly what he is doing and what all the other humans are all doing, and why. You sometimes don't have a clue what or why you are doing things, but that's what we are humans for, Molly. We all do silly things, you said. And I know we all do. He enlivens your morgue, breaks the monotone of your average day. He makes you run for coffee and bodies and everything and I just do not understand!
Molls, would you care to explain to me?
Why do you still want him although it is perfectly clear he will never see you as anything more than just another tool to get what he want?
Is it that you just want to be his, no matter what? You do not even want to kiss him, but you just want to hold him, knowing he is yours? You want to meet his parents and his grandparents and his siblings and show them that you are his and he is yours?
You just want to go home to him after work, curl up on the sofa beside him, your cat on your lap, caressing the soft fur, his slender arms wrapped around you. You sighing in the knowledge it is only ever you? That it is you he will ever want?
Oh Molly…
You gave up your integrity by offering to help him. He was never kind to you, and yet you decided to help him out when he needed you. Don't you realise he is using you, doing everything he has to, only to survive?
Molly dear… How can you be so blind? You practically tell him how much you love him, every day, with the lipstick, the coffee, the Christmas gift, the offering of help… And yet... all he does is rushing out after he got what he wanted and ignoring you for the rest of the day until he needs you again.
It makes me so angry, Molly! Why don't you see for once!
He will jump to save his friends. Lestrade. Mrs. Hudson and John. Not you. Of course not. You said it yourself, you do not count. Oh Molly, Molly… You don't count, not for him.
He looked puzzled when you said it, and you like to believe you count for him. Ha, you do. Yes, Molls, you do, but not in that sense. He will never love you. He will never hold you close. You will never be able to burry your nose in his scarf, smelling the distinctive, very expensive cologne he always uses. You will never be able to touch the cheekbones or just cup his face with both hands. He will never focus his bright grey eyes, full of life and intellect, on you fully.
Oh, Molly.
How often must I tell you before you allow yourself to face the truth? Don't you see? I am telling you now, but you still don't see. I have seen the way you shuffled home after another invasion of consulting detective into your sanctuary, your morgue. Your heart, even. He barges in like he owns the place and you do not even stop him. I have seen the way you open your front door after another day of work without him showing up. I have seen the way you open your front door after a day when he does show up and is his usual self. There is no difference between the two situations, Molly. He never sees you. To him, you are not much more than a lab rat. A small, mousy thing, so much fun to toy with but it is boring so quickly.
He lives for the chase, the adrenaline. Can you offer him that?
Oh Molly...
I have read your pink diary, almost filled from cover to cover in that spidery handwriting you have when you are not at work. In the side margins you draw these little hearts and smiley faces. The pen you write with is chewed and broken because you always stuck the one end in your mouth, trying to come up with a way of describing the way his eyes looked, what shirt he wore or what he smelled like. You write down what case he was on, what he said and how he looked while saying it. Don't you see, Molly dear? I keep telling you.
Oh Molly…
Now you look happy. You walk home, a lively step and a smile brightening your lovely face. Your shoulders are square; you have done something good today.
I saw it, you see.
"You were wrong, you know," he said. It is not the first time he ever said anything like this. He constantly says it with the way he steals your bodies and how he knows everything better. You always see his disapproval in the way he reads your notes with a scowl, never giving you a compliment.
"You do count," he said. Do you believe it?
"You've always counted and I have always trusted you," he said. Molly, Molly, do not believe his lies. He never trusted you, he never told you anything. Not about his past, not about his brother, or that woman. Nothing. You, counted?
"But you were right, I am not okay," he said. Well, that is hardly a new one, isn't it? You observe, because no one is watching. Just you, but you do not count. And it hurts so much, does it not, Molls? How does it feel? After all, it is a first here, you see? He tells you that you are right. Does it feel good? Satisfying?
"Tell me what's wrong," you said. You, always there to help, always there to listen to another one's crappy life, always willing to fix it, no matter how bad you feel yourself. Who is there to comfort you after a rough day? Only three days ago, when that butchered boy lay on your table. Raped and killed in cold blood. It was a bad day, and no one was there to wrap an arm around you.
"Molly, I think I am going to die," he said. We all die. There is nothing that will stop that from happening. 'Oh, wait; there is still Molly, good old Molly who is there when you need her.' I can hear him thinking this, can you?
"What do you need?" you asked. That is such a good question, Molly! Can't you see? He just needs something from you again. I thought for a moment you saw it, right there, but no… You were just as blind and obvious as anyone else. Just as you always are when you are around him. Why can't you be the chatty, humorous woman I know you can be? It is in there, somewhere. Sometimes I wonder how you made it through med school. Bribed the head master? Peeked? Cheated? But Molls, you are so clever!
"If I wasn't everything that you think I am, everything I think I am, would you still want to help me?" he asked. Good question, sir. Problem is, Molly will always help, I don't think there is another answer to that question. Molly will never disappoint. Ever. She just can't do that.
"What do you need?" you ask. Molly… All you see are his tear-filled eyes, his red-rimmed eyes, possibly from crying, you think. All you see is his pale complexion, paler than usual in this unflattering light. The morgue is quiet except for the soft humming of the lights you wanted to turn off, but all you hear is that delightful voice, filled with kindness just for you. You want to believe all he says to you, so desperately, don't you, Molly? You want to please him, help him, soothe him, love him, hold him, comfort him, caress him, trust him, kiss him, hug him.
He steps closer, right in your personal space. You love the proximity, the way his eyes flicker over your face, looking for clues. You open your mouth a small bit, perhaps you are even nervous.
He steps closer, stoops a little. "You," he says. You. He needs you. He never needed you until today. This is the day you lived for, isn't it? The man you love needs you. He could have asked anyone: his important brother, his best friend, his lovely landlady… perhaps even that kind detective you sometimes meet at the morgue could help. But he came to you. You. Why you, of all people?
You know you will never be able to call him yours. You will never have pillow talk about how your day was, or just giggle over something obviously stupid on the telly. You will never share take away Chinese, eating from each other's chopsticks. You will never be able to sit on the couch and watch him perform those crazy and intelligent experiments of his, his fingers adjusting the microscope with minuscule precision. You will never feel those lush lips to your skin, you will never be able to lay your head in the hollow between his ear and his shoulder, feeling his curls tickle your cheek. You will never see those eyes turn on you with the tiniest glint in them that hints at humour, laughter and love, a shared joke only the two of you understand.
Oh, Molly.
You know it will never be, but yet you love him so much it hurts. You think about him at night, at your work, when you watch a film or read a book. You think about his eyes and the way he flashes one of his dazzling smiles at you.
Oh, Molly.
I have so much respect for you. I have always thought it was impossible to love man so much, so unconditionally, even when the single condition was that he loved you back. All you ever wanted was a smile at you when you needed one. A kind word when you brought him coffee. And yet, you love him. You love him so much it hurts you, and it makes you sob at night. It makes your arms feel empty, a cavity even your lovely cat can't fill.
Oh, Molls.
I have so much respect for you. I have always had so much respect for you, but never more than that night. That night, when he visited you in the morgue and asked you to help him. You looked into his eyes and saw the tears. He had shed tears before, but these were genuine. His grey eyes shone in the artificial light, his coat looked warm and snug and you wanted to curl up to him, wrapped in his scent and warmth.
You looked up into his eyes, Molly, and you saw.
Oh, Molly, I am so proud of you! You got it, finally, didn't you?
Today, I see you leaving the morgue, walking home. There is a happy bouncing in your step, a cheery and light look in your eyes. You have done something to be very proud of, Molly. You finally, at last, when I had given up hope already, stood up for yourself. And what did it take? Just one word. One, simple, ordinary word, that sometimes looks so enormously big, but consists of only two letters.
I am proud, Molly. And you are proud of yourself, and you rightfully should be. All you said was 'no', but a bigger difference you could not make.
I am proud,
Molly.