Ah! I'm so happy you're interested in this premise! Thanks for the response! Enjoy!
MHMHMH
TWO
Molly sat in the chair, glancing across the monitors for the hundredth time. Everything looked normal. Well, as normal as it could look when someone had just overdosed himself on heroin. She sighed, leaning back, letting her head fall to the side so she could stare out the window. She couldn't see much—just the edges of a rose garden.
In a few minutes, the sky darkened and it started to rain, heavily. The drops pattered against the glass. Molly watched the few branches she could see out there weave and dip in the storm.
"Who are you?"
Her head came around.
He was looking at her.
He had very pale eyes—almost grey—and they flashed like lightning through the dimness. He frowned fiercely, that heavy brow darkening. His voice—hoarse, deep and rumbling.
"I'm…" Molly stammered. "I'm Molly Hooper."
"Molly Hooper," he repeated, narrowing his eyes. Then he squeezed them shut and sniffed sharply, shaking his head. "Are you sure you're actually here, Molly Hooper? I've been hallucinating all kinds of people lately, I might just reach out and swat you—make sure you're not a piece of the air…"
"Yes, I'm here," she answered. He canted his head and glared at her.
"How would you know?" he countered, low and deadly. "Isn't that just what a hallucination would say?"
Molly snorted.
"You're right, I wouldn't know."
"Oh, you don't have hallucinations," Sherlock Holmes rolled his eyes. "Nice for you, lucky for you. They're quite bothersome—very distracting. Though I doubt a new pathologist performing post mortems at St. Bart's would have enough of an imagination to conjure up any sort of interesting phantasm, even with stimulating drugs—probably just rows and rows of shiny tools, or skeletons trotting about clattering their teeth—maybe you could summon something mildly interesting involving bone saws or buckets of formaldehyde…"
"Wait—how did you…" Molly stammered, her face heating up again. He looked at her, obviously trying to focus.
"Know you were a new pathologist at St. Bart's? Well, you could hardly be an old pathologist, could you—look at how young you are," he stated. "With your hair style and sweater, you look even younger, almost fifteen or sixteen. But your eyes have it, your eyes give you away—you've seen dead people laid out on slabs, lots of them, and they don't frighten you. You understand them as what they are, you work to understand them as they were. Which brings me to your hands."
"My hands?" she murmured.
"Yes, specifically your right hand," he said, holding out his own. Molly hesitated, then lowered her fingers down to touch his long hand.
He caught hers up—firmly, but not roughly—and expertly found the muscles at the base of her thumb.
"See, these muscles here, and here," he said, squeezing them slightly.
She winced.
"They're sore. And this one as well." He moved his grip, and pressed his finger and thumb together on either side, pinching the center of her hand. He turned her hand over and then frankly threaded his fingers through hers and tightened. "You have strong but delicate hands, used to strong and delicate work." He heaved a sigh. "You probably should have been a surgeon, but when your father died of cancer you lost all confidence in yourself and frankly in the healing power of medicine. You had already made it into the medical program, however, so you shifted your course of study to post mortems, believing that if you couldn't help the living, you could at least help the dead and their families receive answers and closure—closure you'd been denied and shan't ever find, regardless of how long you search for it. In spite of this, however, you keep searching, ignoring all advances from serious men who attempt to flirt with you, which ensures that you'll remain unmarried for at least five to ten years if not for the rest of your life; and the solitary and grim nature of your work—though you have a healthy and practical view of death—will continue to isolate you from family and most friends so that, into your thirties and beyond, you will most likely be persistently alone."
Molly stared at him, her face burning—and her eyes stinging.
She would have torn herself away and bolted out of the room, straight out of the house…
But he still held onto her hand. As if he'd forgotten about it.
His was warm, and soft—and she could feel his pulse against her fingertips.
A somewhat unsteady pulse. And at the feel of it, she remembered her promise to Mycroft Holmes.
"How did you know about my dad?" she gasped, forcing her voice to stay low so it wouldn't shake. "How did you know that…?"
He looked directly back at her.
"The eyes have it, Molly Hooper…" he replied quietly. He frowned again. "…my incredibly-realistic pathology hallucination."
The edge of her mouth twitched up, in spite of herself.
"I'm not a hallucination," she muttered.
"You can't prove that," he answered flatly.
"What, so…Everything has to be proven?" Molly wondered.
"Of course it does," he countered. "If it can't be proven, it doesn't exist."
Molly rolled her eyes, shaking her head.
"Tell me, do you help people shop for coffins?" Sherlock asked. She gave him a half-hearted glare.
"I'm not a mortician."
"But you could," he pressed, flashing his eyebrows.
"Why, are you in the market?" she wondered.
"Oh, I'm sure my brother's already picked one out for me," he said darkly. "I'd rather have you do it, though—you seem well-informed, practical."
Molly took a breath, trying to re-gather herself.
"I'm not particularly fond of coffin shopping."
"Not your favorite pastime."
"No."
"Hm. Well, there goes that idea for an evening out tonight."
Molly tried not to chuckle.
"Well, what are you, then?" she asked. "Besides…a smackhead."
He swallowed, and endeavored to focus on her again.
"I'm a detective."
"What?" Molly laughed, caught off guard.
"It's true, I'm a consulting detective," he insisted.
"What's that?"
"When people have been failed by Scotland Yard, they come to me, and I take up their cases," he said swiftly. "I investigate, I hunt, I experiment until I find the solution and or the culprit, and return to my clients with my conclusions, providing them with—"
"Answers and closure?" Molly finished quietly. Sherlock blinked, then blinked again. The skin around his eyes tightened.
"Something like that." He glanced off, then let out a groan and pressed his head back into his pillow. "Ugh, what I wouldn't give for a cigarette."
Molly snorted again.
"Yah, that's what you need right now," she said under her breath.
"I'm quite serious," he said, closing his eyes.
"Me too," she answered.
He suddenly shifted, grimacing, his hand tightening around hers. Molly sat up.
"Are you in pain?"
"No, I'm…I just…" He closed his eyes. "I just feel like there's…There's something crawling all over my skin." He took deep, short breaths, searching the blank ceiling. "I need…I need something to…" He swallowed.
"Here, let me get you more sedative," Molly offered, starting to get up.
He clamped down on her hand.
"No! No, no, don't," he almost shouted. "It fills my whole head with fog, I feel like I'm…Like I'm dragging my whole body through the mud, or drowning. No," He forced in deeper, longer breaths, his voice hoarse. "I'd rather hallucinate you than the hundreds of other awful and pointless things that come up at me out of that stupefying haze."
"Okay…" Molly slowly sat back down. Sherlock's breathing shivered, his jaw tightening. She started to say something, thought better of it, her mind flying…
"Tell me…" she ventured. "Tell me about some of your cases."
"Why?" he demanded tensely.
"To distract you," she said.
He frowned sharply at her, blinked again. Cleared his throat.
"All right, erm…" His mouth tightened. He shifted again. "Recently, erm…Inspector Lestrade, at Scotland Yard, came to me with a case that completely baffled him—which isn't entirely surprising, considering the complete ineptitude of almost everyone working in the investigative department, but I digress. It seems he'd found a woman dead in a sauna with no marks upon her body, and no indication of suffocation."
"What did she die from?" Molly asked.
"Hypothermia."
"What?"
"Indeed, yes, fascinating," Sherlock said impatiently. "Upon further investigation, I discovered that the coagulation of her blood didn't match that of a heat-stroke victim, so I immediately suspected foul play…"
Molly listened.
Case after case, he rattled off to her, almost as if reciting memorized speeches. Each one more incredible and baffling than the next—each problem penetrated by his decisive and scalpel-like mind; seeing things that no one else glimpsed, elevating details that others overlooked, leaping to conclusions that, once explained, seemed perfectly obvious.
She had never met anyone like him. And she knew she never would again.
A priceless, vibrant, gloriously-unique gem of a mind. Like a flashing star in the black of night. By his own offhanded admittance, Sherlock Holmes clearly didn't believe in a God…
But hearing him, watching his every movement as he spoke…
Molly realized, with a quiet, growing assurance, that there had to be one. This incredible, beautiful gift could not have been formed and given by accident.
Hours clicked by as tale after tale rolled over her. She listened with silent awe to his deep, precise voice, never looking away from him. Feeling his pulse beat against her fingertips.
Finally, his voice weakened, and when he blinked, he blinked slowly.
"I'm…I'm tired now," he finally concluded. "I think I'll nod off. Goodnight, Hallucination Molly Hooper."
Molly smiled crookedly.
"I'm not a hallucination," she whispered. But his eyes had drifted shut, and she knew he'd fallen asleep.
To be continued…
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