Part One – For Coffee?
"Listen, I was wondering... maybe later, when you're finished—"
" You're wearing lipstick. You weren't wearing lipstick before."
"I uh, I refreshed it a bit."
"Sorry, you were saying?"
"I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee."
" Black. Two sugars please. I'll be upstairs."
"Okay."
Molly Hooper watches him swan out of her morgue like he had every right to be there. To use her space; beat up her corpses; drink her coffee…
Sarah, the lab tech, calls him `Mr Darcy` - "rude, aloof, unrepentant and savagely hot, Molly – ticks all my boxes, girl!"
Joanne, the morgue assistant, calls him `Sheldon Cooper` - "brilliantly clever; on the spectrum, babe, but strangely attractive!"
As it turned out, Mike Stamford calls him `Sherlock Holmes`, which was his actual name; and although Mike didn't actually reference the physical beauty of her occasional interloper, Molly often chastened herself for allowing him more leeway than she would have allowed a less perfect specimen.
Molly carefully packed away her brand new verification equipment (`Eliminate specimen misidentification and ensure result integrity in anatomical pathology labs with the Thermo Scientific™ CheckMate™ Verification System!`)and considered her current situation.
She was a strong woman. She knew what she wanted. She wasn't just some modern day crypt-keeper with a crush on a rude stranger. Nah, Molly Hooper is a rubber ball…she bounces back.
Plonking down a steaming mug of black, sweetened liquid, Molly gives Sherlock Holmes the benefit of her most dazzling of smiles.
He barely looks at her; saving his Icelandic glare for the microscope lens.
"Mmm…"
Molly folds her arms across her chest; feeling the small bottle in her breast pocket nudge against her forearm. I`ll give you two sugars, Sheldon Darcy…
As she didn't appear to be moving away, he eventually looks up – at her – for the first time; then at the coffee; then back at her.
"Coffee for you. Black, two sugars, just like you…requested." She looks, pointedly at the cup. They both give it a good stare, then look back at each other. Gawd…those cheekbones…but she wasn't going to waver. He was going to drink it, damn it.
Then, an extraordinary thing happened. Sherlock Holmes smiled.
Lord have mercy – she had maybe been a little hasty….Molly`s cheeks burn as she realises how ridiculous she was being. However cool and aloof he was, she couldn't …god, how was she going to get out of…?
As her panic rose, Sherlock Holmes reached out a deliberate hand and the cup was knocked across the table (mercifully away from his microscope) and hot, black coffee spread across the desk, floor; dripping onto the seat next to him and pooling around their shoes (YSL? She wasn't sure. Hers were from Next. In the sale). They both leap up. Sherlock is already mopping the mess with paper towels.
"Unforgivably clumsy … my apologies – Miss Hooper."
(He only knows my name – god, now I feel even worse)
And as they clean up, Molly couldn't be more pleased that he didn't drink the coffee she had liberally laced with bisacodyl – a potent laxative – she was truly ashamed at such immaturity. She is better than that.
And as they clean up, Sherlock smiles internally. After noticing the tell-tale bottle through her pocket and recognising the incriminating scum on the surface of his potential beverage; he felt he definitely owed Molly Hooper a get-out clause by knocking it over – no questions asked. Usually terminally bored with the intricacies of humanity and their confusing decision-making processes – there turned out to be something…slightly intriguing about Miss Hooper.
He`d maybe have to keep one eye open around her…
xoxoxoxoxoxox