CHAPTER 2: Hair

(Sherlock)

The Black Lotus case, and it was feet I needed, in addition to a conduit to those feet - who also happened to be Dr. Molly Hooper.

Business-like, yet with a tinge of cheer and friendliness I enter Bart's, since I have been informed this demeanor to be the most effective way to earn favours. (When John caught me practising what I imagined to be the appropriate amount of bonhomie in the mirror, his reaction was a mixture of hysteria and chastening, and although I sometimes filter his opinions, I did suspect this was an area of his...expertise rather than my own). In the thirty-seven days since our last meeting, I have endeavoured to gain clarity regarding my inexplicable and unpredictable reactions towards her, and feel the separation has done much to give a desirous sense of proportion to something I can only describe as ridiculous. What must I, who have loved so little and so sporadically, know of its intricacies and machinations? Notoriously difficult to analyse and catalogue, this human condition is a bafflement both to those in its thrall and scientific researchers attempting to quantify the unquantifiable. It is a state of mind, and I determine to apply mind over matter, a path proved more than profitable to me in the past.

Thus, first locate the conduit, then procure access to two bodies I have absolutely no rights to access and subsequently examine the feet for a particular example of body art, all the time preserving a pleasant yet official demeanor. Love is a construct, perpetuated by starry-eyed theorists and the greetings card industry. Love is an overused word, seldom demonstrated in any useful or discernable manner in the modern world. Love is... redundant. I stride purposefully into the canteen; confident, strong, aloof, and see her ruminating on choice of main course (all deplorable), still holding her clipboard.

She turns.

Soft lights across the heated counter diffuse shadow and depth to the planes of her face, and bounce across the copper of her hair, bringing out small glints of gold. She sees me, smiling as I parrot the words I had rehearsed, but I am not listening to myself, just staring at her hair. It parts at the side, twisting in intricate braiding to one side of her neck, leaving the other exposed, pale, vulnerable, beautiful. I see the swallow in her throat as she consults her clipboard and prepares to refuse my request, and fancy I can discern a pulse therein and I am shocked to find I want to touch it. A faint blush has crept across her cheeks as she clearly finds no joy in the bureaucracy of the morgue and never wants to disappoint. I swallow, unconsciously mimicking her own nervousness and realise I must speak, since I am beginning to give the impression of being mesmerised, and I say the first words I can think of:

"You changed your hair (molten copper, moulded into a caress)," I pause. I know I am pointing. Classic liar - wanting to turn the attention away from himself. "The style - it's usually parted in the middle…" I am completely out of my depth. "It suits you better this way." (white throat, slender, beautiful, turning away from me, leading me to my prize).

Sweat prickles beneath my shirt, my heavy coat, as I follow, garnering my wits and cursing my weakness. I have my access, I have my corpses, I have my armour back down as my face is set-

But all I want to do is touch her hair and pull it loose.

(Molly)

I turn from the sad array of grisly meats on the canteen hot plate (like I don't see enough of those in my lab), slap bang into the Icelandic (green? blue?) eyes of Sherlock Holmes. He looms, somewhat quizzically over me, even attempting some kind of banter regarding the general state of the menu and, bizarrely, my hair.

"...it suits you better this way."

I'm not sure he knows his French plaits from his fishtails, but I can't resist a tiny smirk as I lead him back upstairs to fulfil his request regarding the Van Coon bodies. Buttering up is clearly not his strong point, but it is enjoyable to know Sherlock Holmes isn't good at everything he attempts and that, in fact, he's quite right: it does suit me and I am looking pretty hot for a girl who's usually elbow deep in someone's chest cavity rather than at the salon, and had about thirty seconds to do her hair this morning.

Too right, my arrogant adonis, I do look good, and I'm letting you see those bodies because, despite all the flannel, I like you. Beyond the Byronic curls and cheekbones, I know there's something there.

He even holds the door for me.