Hello again internet. Something a little more dark from me this time, but heck the plot bunnies wished it to be, so who am I to disagree.
Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of Sherlock, including characters, scenes and possible plot lines. I only own my imagination and the plot lines that have derived from it.
Enjoy
Fed Up With the Living
London was pleasantly loud in the comfort of summer dusk. Commuters gave up their coffee in favour of lighter beverages as they left the eternal winter of the heated offices and traipsed through the orange washed streets on the way back to gardens or houses or flat-shares; or any other manner of blatantly normal recreational sites at which to spend the evening.
Molly Hooper was standing on a roof. Not just any roof: his roof. That was a silly thought, which she had often scolded herself for as she mentally referred to it; because of course it wasn't his. It never was and never would belong to that marvellous man.
Below her, the air enclosing the streets of London was still with only a feeble humid breeze, but up on the roof, a lingering wind billowed her hair around her and caused her white lab coat to flap and swirl out behind her. The air was probably cold - due to the height- but none of that mattered to Miss Hooper: she had more important things on her mind.
At any other moment, the irony of the situation would have occurred to her- she wasn't as clueless as she seemed- but her mind was currently otherwise occupied. She was replaying the day things had changed; the day the man had told her he needed her and the day he disappeared.
She had known something was different, and so had not been surprised-not really. She had done all that he had asked of her. So many requests, all obscure, some immediately impossible to achieve, and none committed to memory. He had thanked her- that was the worst part. The impolite, obnoxious, heroic, incredible man had thanked Molly, and as far as the pathologist was aware, he had been sincere when he had.
Naturally he never made promises. Promises of him staying or promises of him going back, but molly had been naïve enough to assume that he would. That he would always be there as her newly acquired shadow and companion. Now she realised how wishful that thinking was, but now it was too late.
When she had been buying him a new passport under a different name, she had thought it was just his pedantic way of securing a new identity. When he had asked for a suitcase, she presumed he had finally realised the impracticalities of keeping his clothes in the freezer.
She had remained oblivious right up until the day when she woke up to find that he wasn't sleeping on her sofa or defrosting a suit or pouring himself unhealthy amounts of coffee. Right up until the day that he disappeared. No letter, no text message, no phone call. He had just upped sticks and left. She had waited of course. Knowing him he could easily have popped out to stop a petty thief or alert the authorities- under a different name -to the whereabouts of a neighbourly drug circle. She wouldn't have put it past him. But he stayed gone.
And so now Molly Hooper was standing on the roof of St Bartholomew's' Hospital, not caring and not worrying and getting ready to jump.
The irony wasn't really affecting her quite yet, but as she dialled the number she knew, that in a muddled up way, it would be affecting someone soon.
John Watson picked up the phone without any enthusiasm, and stared into space as the line clicked. His eyes widened as he listened.
Molly Hooper sighed as she repeated herself yet again.
"He's alive John. I don't know where he is or why he left, but…" and she paused and tried to keep her voice steady as she stepped up onto the ledge, " …but he is alive John, and I think he wanted me to tell you eventually, so I have."
She disconnected the call before his torrent of questions could reach full flow, and looked at the ground below her. The streets were beginning to fill, and if she and glanced at her watch it would have confirmed with normal malice of a gift received from an overprotecting parent, that rush hour had just begun.
The roads around the ancient building were once again groaning under the pressure or thousands of feet, but Molly paid it no heed. Soon enough one unsuspecting commuter would glance upwards and see the woman on the wood- and they would alert others and soon there would be a crowd, all watching and waiting for her to jump. Molly hated attention, but she knew that just this once she would have to call attention to herself in order to create a gap in the traffic. She didn't want anyone to get hurt.
He would have laughed at that. Laughed at her stupidity at least; followed by calling her clueless in any number of obscure ways. She had hated it when he did that, because for once he was too blunt to see that she, Molly Hooper, was a very talented and well educated young woman. At least he wasn't here now to see her insult her own intelligence in the best and most drastic way possible.
Molly peered over the edge and found her head swimming before coming into focus with the gap on the pavement below her. Although she would never admit it, especially with him in the room, she was scared of heights. Usually she could deal with it, not going up to tall buildings just to admire the view, that sort of thing, But standing on a roof of a building with the wind buffeting her and a four story drop beckoning, certainly had good reason to be giving the young woman vertigo.
She got a grip of her thoughts, shook them by the shoulders and turned her mind back to the topic in hand. If she didn't do it soon, someone would alert the hospital and she would be taken back down and the probably into the nearest support group. And Molly couldn't wait any longer.
She was fed up. Fed up with her social life, her job, her thoughts, Molly Hooper was fed up with death and she was fed up with living. Most people would talk to a friend or family member, but not her, because Molly Hooper saw death every day. She had dealt with grieving families and expectant bosses. She had filled in the forms of the dormant and sent them to heaven, hell or whatever was in-between. It had never affected her; after all, it was just a job.
That had all changed when he had died. Not that he even had in the end-that was the stupidity of it all. He had pretended to die; she had forged the papers and everything was fine, right up until after he left. Then Molly Hooper's world fell apart.
Whenever she went to work she would check to see whether he was there behind her, scrutinising her every move or waiting expectantly for coffee or praise or perhaps something new to dissect and experiment on; only to remember that he wasn't there and that chances are he never would be.
Whenever she stood in the morgue- her office –examining another of the recently deceased, all she would see was his broken and bloodied body on slab, waiting for a revival from a patient pathologist. Except she wouldn't see the way of concealing his breathing or of stopping his pulse; she would only see bruised face and blood splattered forehead; his unmoving form lying pale against the bleached white of the morgue. And that unnerved molly-because a part of her, not the logical part by any stretch- had started to believe that all that she saw was real, and that he was really and truly gone.
When it had first started, when the visions and hallucinations first began, she had considered calling her mother for guidance, but one reminder of the frantic call from such person once the news of his death had been broadcast, in which Molly had first thought was sympathy and concern, but instead turned out to be the ant of gossip to be confirmed; made the young woman scrap that idea almost as soon as it came into her head. Molly wasn't good with family or relationships. In some ways, she was more similar to him than they both thought.
Molly thoughts raced back to the present as the first spectators of her soon to be decline started shouting reconciliations and exclamations as to why she should stay, why life was worth living ,how people could help her through it. It fell on deaf ears.
The young woman sighed through gritted teeth as she gathered her wits about her. And them she paused again, as a seemingly trivial thought crossed hr mind; eyes open or shut. Not that it really mattered; it would hardly make a difference in terms or identification as she had made sure her ID was on her. It would save someone else the trouble at the other end- or at least that was her logic. She contemplated the matter, before deciding eyes shut would be more pleasant.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Molly rocked back on her heels, imaging the headlines of 'Yet another suicide jumper!' and prepared to plummet towards the pavement.
"MOLLY!"
Molly paused, and opened first one eye and then the other, and ever so slowly, looked down.
Commuters and passers-by were still standing, faces white and aghast at what they were witnessing -, but the pathologist was not looking at them. She was looking behind them at a man in a big black coat, with a blue scarf, curly hair, and a desperate expression on his face.
She stared, and blinked, and stared again. He was standing. On the street. Shouting up at her with concern in his tone. He was standing there.
Molly's phone beeped, and she subconsciously reached for it, never once letting her gaze drift from the man on the pavement. With the phone now securely in her hand as she still leant over the deadly drop, she looked back to the man, who waved his phone at her and gestured wildly, almost frantically in fact. The young woman checked her texts, and quickly read the new message.
"Don't be stupid Molly. Don't Jump – SH"
And Molly smiled at the stereotypical way in which he had stopped her. And she laughed. Ad he laughed to. And then they both were- Sherlock Holmes the dead detective and Molly Hooper, the pathologist who was fed up with life. And in a moment of giddy delirium, Molly waved, and lost her footing, and fell.
The streets gasped in unison with the yells of anguish of the man in the black coat and blue scarf.
So what did you all think? Should I continue or should I be mean enough to end it there. Please review or PM me with your suggestion, because you really do have complete control of what I will do.
