Molly Hooper rode along the bumpy cab ride and tried her best to wipe off some of the makeup she'd had on with tissues, while peering into her compact. The dark made it almost impossible to see what she was doing, but she was determined to get at least some of it off before arriving at St. Bart's.
It had been about 6 months since Sherlock's return to London, and things had fallen firmly back into the pattern of how things had been the more than 2 years since his faked suicide. He strode into Bart's whenever he felt like it, and demanded of her whatever he felt like, and then left her hanging whenever he felt like it. She had missed him so much, so a part of her didn't really care what he was doing...so long as he was back here.
WHERE ARE YOU? -SH
Molly rolled her eyes and set her mobile back in her jacket pocket. She decided to ignore the text and instead take the time to climb out of the cab, since she had just arrived to the hospital. She rushed in and took the back staff elevator down to the basement level. She quickly scanned her card to enter the main hallway, then again to enter the lab.
And there he was of course. Looking at something under the microscope. He barely looked up from whatever was inspecting.
"I texted you," he said.
"I saw. I decided not to take the time to answer since my cab had just arrived. What do you need?"
Molly almost winced when she spoke those words because the memory was so real and intense. And for a second, she was back in time standing exactly where she stood right now, looking up at Sherlock, who had never appeared so desperate or afraid in all the time she'd known him. And what he needed had been her. And there'd been nothing else she had wanted to do but to be there for him. It was by now a bittersweet memory, considering what had happened in the 2 long years after.
"Would you be kind enough to take Miss Carlson out and allow me to examine her left ring finger?" he said, again without looking up.
She stood there staring, processing this request and began stammering a little. So he spoke again after momentarily raising his piercing eyes from the lenses of the microscope.
"You could've mentioned you were on a date, Molly hopper."
Molly sighed quietly and pressed her lips together. She figured he would have noticed, but had only hoped he wouldn't make any mention of the fact.
"I didn't really think it would make any difference to you. Besides, you said it was urgent. I took that to mean, like, an emergency."
"Well, Molly, a woman was killed as you may recall."
"Yes, Sherlock, two days ago. And she's actually still going to be dead in the morning, at which time I'll actually have a work shift. Not that I need to tell you that. You know when I'm working." Her voice dropped a little. In the rare instances when she wasn't totally compliant with Sherlock's requests, she spoke quieter than usual...and then he'd usually talk her around anyway.
"Yes, but I thought of this now...There's been little or no evidence against the boyfriend in this case. But I couldn't help feeling that he must have been involved. Not only due to statistics, but also due to the fact that he failed to mention that they had been engaged. We only found that out from speaking to her mother. While grieving the loss of a significant other, it's only natural that he would have spoken of the fact that they were to be married. I remembered seeing some strange bruising around her left ring finger. I believe they had a row, probably about some sort of infidelity, and he violently ripped the ring from her finger before shooting her. If that's the case, he could be questioned and perhaps made to crack under the pressure and confess. It's usually rather easy to pull out confessions in the case of crimes of passion. Most likely he will be the one to lead us to the gun. But we have to find a reason for questioning. The bruising and missing ring would give us that...Shouldn't you be opening up the morgue and getting miss Carlson?" he said actually raising his head and looking at her with some confusion as to why she wouldn't be at this moment rushing to he morgue door.
"Sherlock, I was...on a date."
"I thought I'd already stated that fact," he said flatly.
"I could have stayed longer. The night wasn't over. If I'd known it wasn't an emergency, I wouldn't have rushed over."
He looked back to the microscope, then responded. "You didn't ask did you? In fact, given the circumstance that you were involved in a date with a man, you got here in record time...Seems to me the evening wasn't going terribly well anyway."
"That's not really...I liked him. He seemed really nice," she said, trying to sound convincing.
"Did he ask to see you again?"
Molly fidgeted with the sash that tied around her floral dress. She looked down at her feet, then back up before responding slowly. "He said he might call me later."
"Did he actually use the word, might?" Sherlock put emphasis on the last offending word.
Molly began pulling on the sash till she ended up having to re-tie it completely. She couldn't bring herself to actually say yes. But he of course deduced that yes was the actual answer.
Sherlock sighed slightly, seeming exasperated by having to explain this.
"Well I'd say there's no more than a five percent chance of him calling you in the future anyway. I'd say you did yourself a favor by leaving early."
"He seemed nice," she said again, almost to herself.
"He's clearly not interested...and no wonder. You're presenting yourself as extremely desperate."
Molly's eyes shot up in horror and she kept her wounded gaze on the dark curly head that hadn't looked back up at her. "Well I...I don't see how I'm..."
His eyes seemed to reluctantly come back to land on her, and he took a few steps away from the table and toward her.
"Molly, you've spent at least an hour on your hair. Anyone could tell it doesn't have that much natural curl or body. Your dress is, although figure faltering, much tighter than you would normally wear. And the neckline is plunging to the extreme. I've never seen you wearing heels more than half that height. And anyone who sees you walk would be able to tell you're not used to it. Your makeup is also overdone, especially considering you were five minutes ago wearing even more than I see right now."
She stared back at him and felt the pressure rising and threatening in her throat. She hoped that the lighting was low enough that he wouldn't see her face reddening. He continued.
"There's really no reason to get desperate as of yet Molly. It's been a grand total of a few weeks since your relationship with Tom ended. And you're 31, not 45. Perhaps you should worry a bit less about your relationship status and throw yourself into your work...which right now involves retrieving the body of Miss Carlson. Shall we?" He gestured toward the door that led from the lab to the morgue.
Molly had rarely felt so angry at Sherlock. She was afraid she'd start to cry in front of him, which was something she had been able to avoid thus far in the years she had known him. But the things he had just said to her were hurtful in the extreme. There were few aspects of her appearance and actions that he had missed insulting. And for the first time since he had come back from the dead...she wanted nothing more than for him to be out of her sight.
"Come with me Sherlock," she said in a slightly shaky voice, and opened the door back into the hallway.
He frowned a little as he followed her lead through the door and stepped into the hallway. "I'm not sure why we would go this way when there's a perfectly direct route through the lab."
Molly let the door to the lab swing shut and she began marching down the hallway silently, but took her shoes off systematically as she moved. In a minute, she passed the door that would lead from the hallway to the morgue and kept walking.
"Molly, where are you going?" Sherlock demanded as he stopped in his tracks by the morgue.
She turned and faced him a few feet away and tried to set her mouth in a stern expression.
"I'll see you out, Sherlock."
"You can't leave, Molly Hooper. I can't get back in here without you."
"I'm aware of that, Sherlock, and you should be glad I had let you stay here after I'd clocked out 4 hours ago. I'm happy to tell you that I'll be right back here in 8 hours. My shift starts at 7, but you already know that. So I'm sure I'll be seeing you first thing."
She turned back around and swiped her card to open the door leading back into the hallway with the elevators. She held it open as she went through and waited for him to follow.
Sherlock gave her a icy stare, then finally walked forward and out the door.
"It would seem you are attempting to somehow punish me for my honest, and I assume accurate, description of your evenings activities," he said in an irritated tone as Molly abused the elevator button multiple times trying to force it to move faster.
The elevator finally arrived at the basement and the doors opened. Molly took Sherlock by the arm and guided him through the doors, then stepped back into the hallway. He stared back at her in shock as the doors began to close.
"Best deduction I've ever heard. Good night, Sherlock."
The elevator disappeared and Molly stood there in the silent white expanse of the hospital hall. That's when the tears began to fall. She sunk to the floor and rested her back against the wall. She yanked the pins out of her hair that had been holding it half up and let the curls fall loosely around her face. What a fool she felt like now, having wondered earlier if Sherlock would somehow take a second glance seeing her all dressed up like that. She reminded herself that she should know better by now.
But she wondered if she would ever really know better.
