Something wasn't quite right, Greg sensed.
Molly – his Molly – was too calm and collected.
He never claimed to know everything there was to know about human nature, but experience and a keen eye for clues born of body language had taught him that there was nearly always more than met the eye. And in this case, Greg knew exactly what was going on, and what was going to closely follow on its heels.
When they had arrived back at Molly's flat, Toby winding his way around their feet in his subtle way of saying "feed me damnit", Greg had taken Molly's coat to hang up while she carried their takeaway into the kitchen to set on the counter.
She had set the kettle to boil, and calmly made tea. She had fed Toby, replaced the water in his dish, and then handed a cup to Greg, motioning him to sit down.
Greg waited patiently. She needed to talk, to get things out, but he didn't know when, exactly. He only knew that he would be there when it happened.
When they had had enough of the casual chit-chat, but not enough of cuddling and closeness, Molly had invited him to her bed. He accepted, on the condition that they do no more than simply hold each other this first night. Too much had happened, and he wanted their first time to be unsullied by tragedy and trauma.
Molly had agreed that this was probably the wise way to go about it, and had once again privately marvelled at how blessed she was to have a man who was this incredibly unselfish.
They lay together in the near-dark, the silence broken only by the soothing sound of Toby purring under Greg's hand from his newly claimed spot between Greg and the edge of his side of the bed. On Greg's other side, Molly had cuddled up tightly to him, her arm draped over his waist, her head resting on his chest. Beneath her ear, she took comfort in the steady, strong rhythm of his heart beat.
"Tell me about him," Greg said, suddenly. "Tell me about Terry."
Molly remained silent for a minute or so. Greg felt her breathing catch for a second, and then quicken briefly.
"What do you want to know?" Molly asked, when she'd regained her senses.
"Anything, whatever you want to say about him," Greg said, bringing his hand away from the now slumbering Toby and over to Molly.
Molly paused, then took a deep breath. Greg noted the nearly imperceptible shudder as she exhaled. She was close, he thought.
"He's… he was… 30 years old. He'd been on staff for oh, maybe eight months."
"What else?" Greg pressed her.
"He specialized in ballistics and blood spatter." Molly wasn't sure what Greg wanted to know, or why, but she trusted him.
"You've told me about your colleague. Now tell me about your friend, Lass. Tell me about Terry."
"He liked to sing stupid Irish drinking songs in the lab," Molly laughed sadly. "He had a dark sense of humour like a lot of us do in this job, but he had the kindest heart. He always treated our cases with the victim in mind. He never gave them a number, he always referred to them by their name. He said that death shouldn't be allowed to take away the person they had been in life."
Greg closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Turning his head, he pressed his lips to Molly's head, lingering there before turning to rest his chin against her hair.
"He had a girlfriend but they'd only been together for a few months," Molly continued, her voice beginning to quiver slightly. "He liked to wear a lot of green. He said it was Meg's favourite colour on him."
"Meg? His girlfriend?" Greg asked.
Molly unconsciously tightened her grip on him, not uncomfortably so for Greg, but enough for him to know that she was closer still.
"Yeah. Oh darling you should have seen them together, I've never seen a more perfect couple since…" she trailed off, her voice beginning to break.
"Since us as of 12 hours ago?" Greg gently prodded.
"Yeah," Molly only managed, before she came apart in Greg's arms.
He held her, gently stroking her arm, wondering how he would react if he had lost a friend that way.
Would he keep his composure intact, or would he lay himself out bare and raw for Molly to hold together, the way he was doing for her right now?
He certainly trusted her enough with his heart to do so.
When the storm had begun to pass, Greg knew it by the rhythm of Molly's breathing, slowly becoming steadier with the passing minutes. Finally, she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Greg smiled sadly in the dark.
"Why did it take all day for that to happen, love?" she asked him, her voice still thick from her cathartic cry.
"Shock, I would guess. It's a coping mechanism. One of the stages of grief, actually. Eventually that wears off and… this," Greg said. "Oh Lass," he suddenly said, "please don't feel guilty for this. We experienced something deeply traumatic today, your reactions and your behaviour are perfectly normal. Your shock wore off and the dam finally broke, that's all."
"You know the really stupid thing, Greg? I know all of that. I know it. I've seen it so bloody often on the job. Then it happens to me and I forget all of it." Molly shifted her head to face him better as she propped herself up on one elbow.
Under different circumstances, Greg thought casually that he would find her to be an utterly impossible temptation to resist. Silently, he reflected on the irony that here he was, in Molly's bed, for the very first time, and neither of them had any interest in any physical intimacy. At least, not this night.
He raised his hand to stroke her face, and she just managed to catch his smile in the dim lighting that came in through her window. "Theory and practice, Lass. They are rarely bedfellows."
Molly nodded, averting her eyes, pausing for a moment to think and to reflect. Finally, she raised her gaze back to Greg's.
"What about you, darling Gregory? How are you doing right now?"
Greg smiled sadly. "I'm okay," he said, amazed but not the least bit surprised that Molly, in her own grief, would think about him and how he was feeling about all this. "I didn't know Terry really, only by association. My trauma today came from what might have happened to you. But it's over, we're safe, and we're okay. I'm okay." His eyes shone in the muted light of the bedroom as Molly brought her hand up to stroke his face, seeming to concentrate on the stubble of his long-past-five-o'clock shadow.
"Really, I am, I promise," he said, laughing softly. He closed his eyes as Molly brought her face down to kiss him, chastely at first, but the intensity growing steadily. Finally, her point made, she pulled away and opened her eyes to see an expression of pure serenity on Greg's face.
"Tonight we cope," Molly said. "Tomorrow, it will be about us. I won't wait another minute past it," she vowed, sliding her hand up to run through his silver hair. "We've already wasted too much time."
"We really need to remember to pack Toby's bed then," Greg said with a quiet chuckle. "I'll share you with him tonight, but tomorrow night, that bloody cat is on his own."