4

It was 2am and Molly Hooper was unable to sleep. She had gotten into bed at ten hoping to have an early night but once again her stubborn mind had defied her.

She couldn't stop thinking about Sherlock and him coming back. What was that saying? Oh yes, "absence makes the heart grow fonder". Usually that saying was about a week's holiday or days when people were ill, but almost certainly not when you hadn't seen someone for a year. It had been tough on Molly, but she had managed to cope just as she did before he left.

The only thing that bothered her was that he hadn't even been considerate enough to check in on her or even just to text her and see how she was. He had to have thought about her a little while he was away; after all she was the only one that knew he was alive rather than dead during that year.

She reminded herself that Sherlock Holmes was not a considerate man. He was not the type to text people out of concern, nor our of sympathy or out of gratitude.

She had missed him, a lot. On the surface she remained unchanged, except for the first few days after he left during which she had mourned appropriately for a best friend, so as not to arouse suspicion among other friends, but since then she had been fine. She believed she had almost been on the edge of finally getting over the detective and possibly falling in love with someone new but his return had interfered with her plans to do that.

She guessed it would be the same as it used to be now, seeing him occasionally in the lab and helping him with analysis but nothing more.

The next morning, she awoke at eight am after a bad night's sleep and several dreams. She got dressed, stumbling around her apartment trying to do up the buttons on her lab coat in her fatigued state, pulling a cereal bar from the cupboard to eat on the tube on the way to the hospital. Molly would make coffee when she got there as she had a lot of work to do and was already later than she had wanted to be. She slipped on some black dolly shoes and walked to the tube station. When she got to work, the pathologist immediately went to pour herself a cup of caffeine to wake herself up, correctly assuming no-one else would be in the kitchen at that point. Taking it back to the lab she sat drinking, feeling the energy invade her body and gradually inspire her muscles for the day.

Examining the corpse in front of her, she noticed some strange marks on the victim's neck. They looked like... she didn't know. She would have to consult John and see what he thought. They could have been rope marks but the pattern was too frequent and neat to be rope, and the puncture marks at the nape suggested something which was definitively not a rope. As she stood there puzzling over the cause of death for the poor soul, she heard the door open strongly, sending a momentary gust of air her way, and without looking up she knew who the distinctive footsteps belonged to.

"Hello, Sherlock," she greeted the man she had not seen for a year without looking up from the body.

"Snake," he said. "Adder going by the pattern and punctures, less than seven hours ago I'd say."

"Wha- oh, yes, the body."
"Of course the body, what else could I have possibly been talking about?"
"I- I don't know, I'm sorry." The girl's nerves had overwhelmed her. "How have you been?" She attempted to start a conversation to no avail. He didn't reply, quite clearly too absorbed in the dead to answer her. I might as well be lying on that table as a dead body, she thought, at least then he'd pay more attention to me than he does now.

As quickly as he had entered the room, he left, leaving Molly speechless to finish the autopsy. He hadn't changed a single bit, and she realised that neither had she. Her heart was telling her that she was definitely still in love with the consulting detective, and that she wanted him more than anything.

Sorry for the wait! I've been so busy lately.

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Thank you :D