Chapter 3: Lipstick?
"It's been two months." Molly says to the person inside the mirror. "Two whole months and you can't pluck up some courage and ask him out for coffee?"
She feels ridiculous. Sherlock has been borrowing her lab ever since their first meeting. His world was fascinating. His magnificent intellect couldn't be compared with anything. For two months, Sherlock had worked difficult and absurd cases and Molly would keep watching. She feels like it is time to speak up and ask him out on a date, it won't hurt to try.
With a loud, but reassuring sigh, Molly closes her pocket mirror and places it in her desk. The pile of files of the dead was leaning on her desk. One by one she started to review them, as boring as that is she had to do it. It was for comfort, families who have experienced recent loss should have closure and that is what Molly needed to do.
After working for an hour Molly feels her mobile vibrate loudly on her desk. Picking up the phone, she gasped, "Oh no." It was Sherlock. Five unread messages from Sherlock and she hasn't replied yet. Hoping everything was fine, she warily opens up the first message.
NEED TO USE MORGUE. KEEP A FRESH DEAD BODY READY. – SH
Dread escapes Molly's mind. Sherlock had scared her for a second. With no hesitation, Molly opens up her other messages.
MOLLY. I NEED TO USE YOUR LAB, TOO. – SH
WHY AREN'T YOU REPLYING? – SH
MOLLY, REPLY. I HAVE TWO CASES TO SOLVE. – SH
I AM OUTSIDE THE MORGUE. IF THIS IS AN INCONVIENT TIME, COME ANYWAY – SH
Molly stands up hastily, grabs her lab coat and sprints out of her office while texting a reply back to Sherlock. When she reaches the morgue, Sherlock is typing away on his mobile phone.
"Do you have a body?" He questions without looking up from his mobile.
Thinking quickly on her feet, Molly remembered that a co-worker had just died and his body was still in the morgue. "Yes. Let me get out for you." She stated. "Is it another experiment?"
"Yes." He replies with dryness in his voice. It was best to leave him alone when he was in deep thought.
Molly wheels out the corpse from the freezer and sets it up in the middle of the room. Sherlock places his mobile on a cart and slightly zips open the body bag, just enough to see the face of the deceased.
He sniffs the air and asks in a gruff voice, "How fresh?" His eyes never leave the body as he examines it. Molly wonders if Sherlock can identify who and what the stiff was like when they are lying naked on a slab.
"Just in. 67, Natural causes." Molly answers. While walking to the other side Sherlock, she remembers how that man was alive a day ago talking to her. "Used to work here. I knew him. He was nice."
Not giving much attention to what Molly had said, Sherlock zipped the bag back up and hastily turned around towards me, "Fine. We'll start with the riding crop." He declared with a witty smirk on his face.
"Wha-"Molly stops herself from saying anything further. It was best not to question Sherlock. Sherlock motions her over to help him take the body bag off of her former co-worker.
"Heavy, isn't he?" Molly jokes. "He ate the entire cake during the last facility party."
"Molly, don't try to make conversation." Sherlock coldly says. "You aren't very good at it."
Molly's heart drops. She would try to get Sherlock's attention everyday but end up in vain. Her lips quiver but she reminds herself that she needs to hold herself together.
"Okay. Do you want me to step outside?" She utters, attempting to keep a steady voice. Sherlock looks up at Molly as he hears the tone of her voice change. The look on her face was took him back. He saw disappointment but with something else. Something he could not deduce. He fixes his eyes on Molly, trying to study her. It was obvious that she lusted for him but there was something he can't seem to know.
"Sherlock?" Molly questions with a hint concern shaking Sherlock out of his trance.
"Yes, go." Sherlock says while hiding his confusion.
Molly walks out the mortuary and looks through the window. She stares at his cheek bones, his facial structure. It was perfect. He was like the male model of a perfect human who she had studied on textbooks. Her anatomy professor would have fainted at the sight of him. And his intelligence, it was out of this world. He always left her with question marks. The sense of curiosity Sherlock had was in no one else Molly had met. Her daydream is startled when the cracking sound of a whip is heard from inside the morgue. The crop whooshes through and crackles when it meets the skin of the dead man. Sherlock repeatedly strikes the deceased faster and harder at every strike; she almost started to feel bad for him.
Though this was an awkward moment, Molly needed to ask Sherlock out for coffee. She takes out her favorite peach pink colored lipstick and smoothly applies it on her lips. While she was walking into the morgue, she takes a deep breath and walks toward Sherlock who was using all his strength to beat up her former co-worker. After a few more satisfying lashes, he stops beating the body. He starts to regain his breath and looks curiously at his handiwork.
"So… bad day, was it?" Molly asked with a light laugh escaping her lips.
As usual, Sherlock ignores Molly's attempt to make friendly conversation. "I need to know what bruises from in the next twenty minutes. The man's alibi depends on it. Text me." He orders. He takes out his pocket book and starts to write in it furiously.
Plucking up some courage, Molly finally decides to ask him out. "Listen, I was wondering. Maybe later, when you're finished…"
Sherlock looks up from his notepad and cuts Molly's speech, "You're wearing lipstick. You weren't wearing lipstick before."
"I… uh… I refreshed it a bit." Molly responded smiling.
Shaking his head, Sherlock started to wonder why she wore lipstick. He knew that he never understood emotions but he especially couldn't understand Molly's emotions. It had taken him a while to deduce her when he saw her for the first time. He knew her friends, her wardrobe, her living quarters, but he didn't understand her emotions. Sentiment, Sherlock would always say that sentiment makes you weak. But for Molly, sentiment made her stronger.
Breaking out of his abstraction he apologized, "Sorry, you were saying." He's attentions goes back to his notepad.
"I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee." Molly quickly says.
Sherlock closes his pocket book and answers abruptly, "Black, two sugars, please. I'll be upstairs."
Molly watches him walk out of the mortuary with his phone and coat. Her self-esteem deflates and with a squeaky voice responds, "Okay."
She looks down at the dead body and thinks if he would have had better luck than her. She sets a twenty minute timer on her mobile phone and runs off to the washroom to wipe off her lipstick. There was no point of wearing it if Sherlock's reaction was going to so negative. Looking back at the washroom mirror, she pitifully smiled at herself.
Molly made coffee as fast as she could. Walking towards her lab, she prepared her feelings. She needed to look unshaken; she didn't want Sherlock to notice anything. He always notices something. When she walks into her lab with the hot coffee, she sees short broad man leaning on a walking stick and a professor who teaches at this very Hospital. Sherlock was the first to notice her presence.
"Ah, Molly…coffee. Thank you." He acknowledges. He gives something back to the man with the walking stick and turns towards her. While taking the coffee from her hands, he notices that something was missing. "What happened to the lipstick?" He questions.
Her eyes shifted across each person in the room while replying, "It wasn't working for me." She started to feel heat spread across her cheeks.
Sherlock astoundingly said, "Really? I thought it was a big improvement." He strode towards his coat. "Your mouth is too small now." He stated whilst showing the smallness of her lips with his fingers.
Molly suddenly felt a huge lump in her throat and willed herself not to cry. She swallows and just says, "Okay."
As Sherlock asks the other man, "How do you feel about the violin?" Molly quickly moves out of the room with tears threatening to fall.
