Some days, he could barely stand to look at her. Molly Hooper knew what Sherlock didn't know, she was the only person at Saint Bart's who did. Most of the doctors and nurses only saw him as he arrived or as he left, so for weeks at a time, Molly might be the only person he saw. To many, he could easily just be a rumor. They might whisper, "Sherlock Holmes was here last night," but Molly Hooper would know that he'd been there and what he'd done. They could work together all night, and then avoid each other for a week.
"That's not right," she told him after he'd spent hours testing pubic-hair samples for chemical residue. "You'll have to do it again."
The worst part was that she stood there in front of him eating BBQ flavored crisps. "I'm not sure it's going your way, even if you do the whole thing over. Has Anderson at the Yard told you anything?"
"He says that the evidence suggests that the deaced had recently had sex with the subject. Recently as in last night, I mean."
Molly licked two of her fingers and put her whole hand into the crisps bag. Digging around for the last sweet, salty red crumbs? Really Molly!
"Is that what you found?"
"That's what I found, but I wasn't looking for it."
"Well, what were you looking for?"
She still had the bag in her hand as she told him how to find what he needed. Like she was still thinking about salty-crispies. Molly loved the salty-crispies.
That night, he did what she told him, but he didn't always. This time, he got what he wanted, but that didn't always happen. There were nights in the morgue when he just couldn't make it work. Nobody but Molly would know about those nights, but she would.
"You were right. You did what you could with what you had," she told him after the long night of pubic hair. "It's Scotland Yard's loss if they don't want to use it."
Was this the kind of moment where two exhausted co-workers hugged or something? They'd never done anything like that; they hadn't touched since that one time. He suspected that Molly was a hugger, and that wouldn't be so bad. Right then, he wouldn't, he would not be consoled.
She looked at him, all puppy-dog eyes, like she wanted him to see that she felt bad for him.
"It's aggravating, that's what it is." Well, it was. Five hours of work, and he could prove that the hair had been cut off, but he couldn't link it to the nail scissors that cut it. And what would that prove? He couldn't make it prove anything, although he felt sure it would.
"Sorry," she said again.
Damn sorry, and big brown eyes, and Molly Hooper! Sherlock worked in silence for then until he left. He refused her offers of coffee or crisps.
He kept out of the hospital until the next week. Once he did come back, he avoided her. He had to practically swerve right into her before he said anything.
"Sherlock!" Her voice was high and excited. "Hey there! How are you?"
"Hey Molly," he said over his shoulder and kept right on walking.
She fancied him, he knew it. Or she could. Hadn't she practically said that one night? She said she found him attractive, but she didn't want to start anything right then.
She behaved exactly the way that a young women who fancied somebody is supposed to behave. Listened to everything he said, laughed at what she seemed to imagine were his jokes. Sent long, meaning-loaded looks his way. Seemed always waiting for him to say something.
In the morgue, things were different. That was her world. She belonged there, ran the place, knew what she was doing. That was where he'd first seen her, been impressed by her. On that night, she had been a mystery woman in a white lab-coat. She'd brought it all back to him, the way that he'd felt about labs since he was in school.
The whole thing about labs had started when Sherlock was fifteen. It started a seventeen year old girl with wild red hair and fabulous breasts, a girl who wore lipstick every day, tasted like rasberries and chocolate, and was almost nothing like Molly Hooper.
"I've paid rent for the last time!" Molly was announcing as Sherlock entered the morgue that morning. "At least, I hope I have."
The door had barely closed behind him, so Sherlock guessed she was talking to someone eles. He scanned the room, and found Dr. Mike Stanford.
Sherlock knew that Dr. Mike Stanford wasn't older than he was, not more than a few years anyway, but he didn't feel that way. Mike Stanford lived on Notting Hill with his lovely wife and their twins, aged three. He taught at the medical school and ran the morgue. Molly was a better pathologist, but she hadn't been there long enough to run the place.
"Is that right? The end of rent?"
"I hope it is. I just put in an offer on a condo last night." Molly turned around, "hello Sherlock."
"Hello Molly."
"So, you'll soon be a homeowner." Mike sounded like the welcoming committee. "Cheers, Molly."
"Maybe that's just what I want; to own a home. I've been renting or living in dorms for ten years. I've never lived anywhere for more than two years. Never had a wall to paint, never hung curtains. I'm sick of it. I need my own place."
"Sounds like me." Sherlock knew that he'd said it, did anyone hear it? Did he want them to? "I've been going from one flat to another since Oxford. I've lived all over this city for a year at a time. I've had eleven flatmates."
"Eleven, I can beat that! I've had thirteen flatmates, but then there have been two times when I'd lived with two other girls at once."
"In my first year of Medical School, there were four of us in one flat." Mike sounded eager not to be forgotten. "I had to sleep on the couch in the front room. A hellish year of course, but I'm still chums with those chaps. Two of them were in my wedding."
"I've been two flatmates weddings," Molly said. "
Sherlock had never been in anyone's wedding party, and it took him a moment to figure out what Mike and Molly were talking about. He had attended the wedding of one former roommate; Matthew, the only one who stayed for more than a year. He stayed two and a half very good years. Of all the flatmates Sherlock Holmes had ever had Matt from the School of Ecconomics was the most ordinary; he kept 9-5 hours, worked toward a nice secure job, and married his cute girlfriend Isabel. He watched the World Cup, cheering loudly for England, and consumed lots of pizza and beer. He was the only flatmate Sherlock ever missed.
When Molly said she'd never been in a flat where she painted a wall or hung curtains, Sherlock thought he knew what she meant. The places he'd lived all felt like places you weren't meant to stay very long; like places you stopped on the way to some other place. All this was just fine with him, until he'd seen that Mrs. Hudson's flat in Baker Street was up for rent.
He'd always liked the neighborhood, nice and centeral. People really lived in that neighborhood, people stayed. Sherlock often walked there, and he often slowed down near 221. Maybe he hoped that his old friend would see him as he past and insist he come in for tea, maybe it just felt like a respectful thing to do.
"FURNISHED FLAT FOR RENT," read the sign. Below this, was a phone number and the words, "SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY".
Sherlock had seen that furnished flat with its crazy wallpaper and experienced leather chairs, and he wanted that apartment. He loved the idea of living there; that was a place he would want to stay. He could easily get out of the flat where he was living, just pick up his things and go.
He imagined that Martha Hudson would be glad to have him move in. He wasn't just flattering himself; hadn't she told him the place was his for the asking more than once?
"Either of you know anyone looking for a flatmate?" He was a little surprised to hear his words ringing out in the morgue.
"A flatmate?" Stanford soundly frankly amused. "Students are always looking for flatmates, but other than that, no. Would you consider living with a student?"
"No!" Sherlock announced. "When you say 'student' you're talking about a grubby, careless kid who somehow gets boot-prints on the walls, sloshs bong-water on the floor and messes with the thermostats. There is no way I'm sharing 221B Baker Street with a student. I need someone reliable and civilized. I need someone who isn't bound by the school-year and can be counted upon for his half of the rent."
"I hate to tell you this Sherlock, but students are about the only people who are looking to share a flat these days. I know two families who are interested in sharing a nanny, but not with each other; please don't ask."
"Trust me, I wouldn't dream of asking."
"But wait," Sherlock couldn't miss it, Stanford bounced on the balls of his feet as he spoke. "Molly, you know someone. Aren't you moving out on someone, or hoping to?"
Sherlock wondered if she shouldn't be offended by the certenty in Molly's voice. "I'm about to have an ex-flatmate, but I wouldn't do that. She wouldn't take him."
Big silence. Molly started talking again, fast.
"She doesn't live with men; she's said as much. No matter what I told her about him. She wouldn't. . . . "
"I can't imagine you'd be able to recommend me," Sherlock spoke quickly too. He wanted to get away, far away from this idea.
The closest he'd ever been to having a woman as a flatmate was when Matt's girlfriend Isabel all but moved into their apartment. She wasn't actually so bad, not really anyway. She didn't clutter up the bathroom with hair-care products any more than had any flatmate Sherlock had ever had. She made better-than-decent coffee every morning and never moved any of his experiments. The only things he really didn't like about having Isabel around the place was not being able to avoid hearing her and Matt having crazy-loud sex most nights and Sunday mornings and then acting like he hadn't heard a thing when he saw Isabel at breakfast.
"You've always told me that you keep very weird hours, and my flatmate wouldn't want that, she complains about me banging around the place when I come in late."
"You're an Attending doctor in an urban hospital. What did she expect?" Sherlock had long ago given up being shocked at the obsurvations people failed to make, but this seemed extreme.
It was; Molly and Mike Stanford were both nodding. "I know! I told her on the first day that I often work nights, so I don't know what she was expecting. And there'f the stuff you bring home, there's no way Cassie would put up with that."
"Shut up Molly!"
It had come out while the other two were giggling; it came out deep and loud.
Mike Stanford stared, and Molly seemed to shrink a little.
Finally, Stanford asked, "The stuff he brings home?"
"I run experiments at night Stanford, I guess any flat-mate would have to get used to that about me. I've got equiptment that I set up and, . . . . "
Stanford was clearly a few steps behind, and catching up at his own pace. "You bring things home? Like what?"
Sherlock looked at Molly and smiled. She smiled back too, and he was relieved. She'd recently sent him home with fresh bag of. . . . "eyes."
"Eyes," Molly said it too, half a second after Sherlock did.
Stanford looked from one to the other, "eyes?"
"Stanford, when did you learn how eyes can be made to dilate? Did you learn about dilation and water? And chemicals? Where did you get your eyes Stanford?" Sherlock knew that he could talk fast and that this sometimes unbalanced people.
"What I know about eyes I learned using cadaver eyes in Medical School." Stanford was almost whispering.
"Well, I never went to Medical School, and I recently had to know about what makes eyes dilate. So..."
So, it hung there, it just hung until. . . .
Molly rescued him. "He came in here for a pickle-bottle full of eyes in saline."
"Four eyes, two pairs," Sherlock laughed, and so did she, "all blue."
This was a reason that he liked the morgue; the whole place, anything that happened there could be just between the two of them. When it was just them, it was a relief to come in; no need for pretending or small talk, it's just Molly. Molly who just let him work, laughed at corpse humor, saved her body-parts all for him and forgave him pretty quickly when he had to tell her to shut up. It was their place, their secret. It was as intimate a space as Sherlock Holmes had ever shared.
"Well, look at the pair of you, laughing! It seems like you take him as he is Molly." Mike Stanford was laughing on his own. He really seemed to want to be part of something. "Maybe she should be your flat-mate. Have you asked her?"
Ask her? Ask Molly? Ask her to share the Baker Street flat?
Sherlock looked at Molly, and somebody had already asked the question. More giggling from both of them.
"Umm," might as well give it a go. "I need a flat mate for a lovely old place in central London. If the offer on this condominium falls through. . . . ."
"Lovely old placea are lovely, but I want somewhere with totally new up-to-date everything. Just me and my cat, Toby in our new place with all new heat and hot water."
"New heat and hot water? That's fine. Landlady lives on the first floor, and the dear old thing is a creature of comforts. I'd bet it has the best and newest heat and hot."
"Oh well then. . . ."
"There's a fireplace for reading by; do you enjoy reading by the fireplace?" Sherlock could see Molly reading by the fire in the Baker Street apartment. All cozy, with a comforter and a cuppa. He'd be there too.
"I think I would." Did she see the same thing?
"I thought that you might. It has two big windows in the front for watching the street."
"Do you watch the street much?" asked Stanford.
"Yes," Sherlock replied. "That's one of the quieter things I like to do when I get bored. I also play the violin late at night, and wander around London at night. I'm not an easy flat-mate, but I am looking for someone who'll tolerate me. "
"I hope I can see this place on Baker Street," Molly told him, "even if I don't move in."
Sherlock smiled, "I've called the landlady, and she and I are having tea today. I expect some sort of good result. She's told me more than once that it's mine for a fair price. I may go into debt to live in Baker Street, but the place seems to be my fate."
"Well, who knows Holmes?; I may find you a flat-mate today."
"You may indeed. Thank you."
Stanford gave a little wave and was gone.
"Sherlock, why are you here?" Molly asked. "Are you just bored?"
Sherlock was taken aback. He gave the little hair-flip and smile that Molly always seemed to like. It didn't do much.
"Yes Molly, I'm bored! Scotland Yard isn't calling me in about the linked suicides, even after I tried to get their attention at that press-conference. I've got to do something! Have you got anything for me? Anybody dedicate their remains to science?"
"Maybe", Molly started moving around the morgue, busying herself with the remains stretched on tables. "I'll check, I promise."
Sherlock didn't have to fake gratitude to Molly; he hid it sometimes, but he never bothered faking it. "Thank you Molly! We have a little time. I think the day has come for that test for post-mortem bruising I've been wanting to do."
"Testing post-mortem bruising, that sounds like a fine way to fill a slow afternoon." Molly interested, just what he wanted. "As if there were slow afternoons around here."
It wasn't every day that Sherlock brought his riding-crop with him to St. Bart's, but he carried it today in the inside pocket of his overcoat. For something so thin and light, it had many uses. It was a weapon no-one expected, and he carried it everywhere when he suspected he might be being followed. He'd already used it to show that injuries to a dead body were not the same as injuries to a dying body. He'd hoped today would be the day for the bruises experiment, so he'd brought it.
This was going to be fun!