Chapter 1

Molly blinked. Something was off. Her steps stuttered as she made her way across the lab and she came to a halt. The contents of the tray in her hand shifted. One of the vials drunkenly teetered before it leaped from the edge and smashed itself on the floor.

"You should avoid trying to walk and think at the same time, Molly," a deep voice resonated to her right. "Multi-tasking is not your strong suit."

Flames crept up her neck and heated her face as her eyes slid sideways to look at Sherlock. As ever, her heart stumbled when her gaze fell on him. He'd trimmed his hair recently. It was still rakish and overly-long but his curls were more pronounced. Not to mention, the contracted length better exposed his ridiculous cheekbones. He had the kind of beauty that literally stole her breath. She choked on a nervous laugh.

"Every time. Always."

He didn't look up from the microscope. He was intently focused on a slide on its stage. She carefully put her tray down on the counter. She was certain now that something wasn't quite right. There was a play going on here. Sherlock had been staring at that same slide for ten minutes.

"I-Is there something particularly . . . interesting about that specimen?" She asked.

Gawd! She wished she could sound more authoritative but looking at Sherlock was like trying to stare directly at the sun.

His brows twitched but his eyes never lifted. "Don't you have a mess to clean up?"

Molly curled her fingers into her palms so tightly that her stubby nails bit into her flesh. Doubt crawled through her mind. She wasn't going to win this one, not if she presented the argument that she felt as if something were wrong, not to a man like Sherlock. She needed something else, a more substantial observation than her unsettled feelings.

She turned and headed towards the broom closet at the far end of the lab. Her cheeks were no longer warm, they were on fire. She supposed she should get used to being dismissed by him but it went against every fiber of her being. A person doesn't become a doctor, stare death in the face every day and regularly deal with socio-, psycho- and other various mental-paths if he or she is a pushover.

However, Sherlock was her Achilles' heel. Somehow, he could completely neutralize her staunchly feminist, independent and socially rebellious self when her inclination would otherwise be to bubble over and scald everything within a two-mile radius. She reached the closet and threw open the door with a huff. She waved her hand above her head impatiently until her fingers intertwined with the light pull. She gave it a yank and was blinded by the flare of the overhead bulb.

"Jesus, that's bright," she mumbled.

Another bulb figuratively lit in her brain. She swung around. No, the closet fixture was the same as ever. It was the lab that was darker than usual. Her eyes flew to the ceiling. Every other florescent tube in the dual-lamp assemblies looked burnt out but the criss-crossed pattern was too deliberate to be coincidental. The light from the closet emphasized the incongruity by casting long shadows across the room. How could she have missed this?

Her eyes narrowed at Sherlock. This was his doing, no question, or he would have been stumbling over himself to show off his deduction skills. He had already been seated at his station when she arrived and not uttered a word about the lighting. John was nowhere to be found, a pattern that was on its third day of repetition. She, for her part, had just been too thrilled by his presence and the prospect of being alone with him again to give any of this much thought. He must have counted on that, the affect he had on her, to get away with . . . whatever he was trying to get away with.

Other details jumped out. Sherlock usually sat in the middle of the main lab bench like a king conducting council but instead, he sat nearer the door and made due with an older microscope stationed there. His body was tense, not unlike a Buckingham palace guard and from this angle he was back lit by a lamp shining brightly through the glass of the lab entry door. This caused his hair to look like a shining halo on his head. She gritted her teeth. Some Angel!

She turned back to the closet and rummaged around to bide some time. What was he up to? Was he on drugs? Perhaps he was in withdrawal and the lights hurt his eyes. Her palm twitched as she remembered how much it had stung when she'd slapped him months ago. Then, her eyes fell on the shop vacuum and a smile tugged at her lips. If he were suffering a drug-hangover, his reaction to the apocalyptic sound of the lab's high powered vac would confirm her suspicion.

She made a show of wrangling the vac from the closet and wheeled it across the floor, making sure to hit every uneven tile on her way to the broken vial. She unwrapped an excessive length of power cord and draped it across his station before plugging it into the socket behind him. His head finally snapped up.

"Sorry, Sherlock," she said sweetly, "just be a tick."

His eyes contracted as he looked at her and she could see him working things out. He couldn't prevent the tics that emerged on his face when he was deducing. His nose and lips twitched. His forehead crinkled in such a quick flash that it was like trying to discern an image on a tunnel wall outside a moving subway car. She flitted off just as his lips parted to speak. His words were swallowed up by the roar of the vac as she flicked it on.

She threw a glance back at him and gave a faux apologetic smile as she cleaned. He only glared in return without cringing or wincing. She turned back to her task and the smile dropped off her face. So, it wasn't drugs. Besides annoyance, he was otherwise unaffected. Her mind drifted while she retrieved the remainder of the broken vial and bit of liquid it had held. What else could it be? She shoved a nearby metal table to clean a trail of liquid that had found its way underneath. It made an unholy screech above the cacophony of the shop vac. She glanced back again to see his reaction but he was gone.

Next thing she knew, the shop vac was whining like a collapsing balloon as it lost power. She looked up to see Sherlock hovering over her with one finger pressed down on the power toggle.

"You were finished thirty seconds ago."

Molly stood up as if a rope was pulled taut in her back. "I was just being thorough, that's all."

His eyes looked past her and scanned the lab with a look of boredom. "Indeed."

She sighed and brushed by him to retrieve the vac's cord from its socket. He was decidedly not under the influence of any barbiturates. Perhaps deduction wasn't really her thing. As she looped the cord around her elbow, she gathered the courage to confront him.

"Why are you here, Sherlock?"

Her eyes followed her words and she met his gaze square on.

"Research," he said simply.

"Research? On the liver biopsies of a long time alcoholic? What have you discovered then? A new form of cirrhosis?"

A muscle flecked in his jaw. His eyes widened slightly and scanned back and forth as if searching for a misplaced cellphone. She almost laughed. There he was, Mr. Grinch, trying to think up a lie and think it up quick! She let out a long breath and started wheeling the vac back to its home.

"Come on, Sherlock. I may not be as bright as you, but give me a bit more credit."

She didn't quite make it back to the closet when his voice, low and menacing, rumbled across the lab.

"Why aren't you afraid?"