The Story of Molly Hooper
Chapter Two
A Very Poor Prank
Molly Hooper had been working on her specialist programme for two years now at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Taking three years off to help her dad after sitting her A levels meant Molly was a bit behind everyone else, but it had been worth it. There were just over three years left before she would be Dr. Molly Hooper MBBS, MRCP, FRCPath and she knew he would be proud of all her hard work.
Molly was thinking about that with a small smile tugging at her lips as she walked into the morgue that early morning in February. Then she nearly tripped over a dead body. She was more than a little startled. It wasn't like Molly hadn't seen dead bodies before, of course she had! But she didn't normally find them on the floor just inside the door. Molly bent lower, trying to examine the body and determine why and how this man had gotten there.
He was fairly young, but drugs had aged him. His thin but baggy clothing made him look positively skeletal. The marks down his arms indicated sustained drugs usage. Dark marks revealing newer use and shiny slightly paler scars showing he had been abusing his body long before he showed up in the morgue.
And then he sneezed.
Instinctively, Molly kicked out as she threw herself back.
After some yelling and arguing, she realized the man was high and barely functioning. Molly put him in a chair, gave him some water, and wrapped him in a sheet. When he was a bit more lucid she tried to take his vitals only to get a verbal thrashing about some very personal matters that he couldn't possibly have known. Molly then returned said thrashing about how it was a very poor prank to show someone in his condition to my morgue. Whether it was to get a rise out of her or because they assumed he didn't count enough for treatment didn't matter, it was unacceptable. Or perhaps someone from the homeless network had followed her on her Biscuit Adventures all the way to work?
Too upset to continue Molly left the morgue with the paperwork that she had come down for, intent on having security carry the man upstairs for treatment if necessary. It turned out that was not going to be necessary. The man was following Molly to the lab. She should probably have called security then, but Molly didn't want to discourage him if he was going to let her help him. They walked into the lab and she pulled out a chair for him to sit down. He had pulled the sheet around him like a toga. He had looked tall before, but now with the white sheet wrapped around the thin gray shirt and joggers he looked even taller. He also looked skinnier and that nearly did her in.
She went over to the corner of the table and discreetly ordered enough takeaway to feed three very hungry people. Molly was able to eat less than a serving, he was so fast and hungry, but she was glad to see that he ate. He didn't even appear to know that he was eating. Molly would just push food slightly closer to him as he went on about the science behind the reports she was reading through. When he left she was still unsure if someone had been pulling a very poor prank, perhaps on both of them. Molly could see that he was feeling much better and was probably going to sleep off the effects of the drugs and the food.
When Molly said to his vanishing form that she hoped he had somewhere safe to go, she swore she heard him say, "Maybe I do now." But she was so busy thinking about how she might have to change the route for her Biscuit Adventures that Molly wasn't so sure she had heard anything at all. This day had been so full of surprises.
