I glance at the clock on the wall. We've been here for two hours and it's extremely hard to believe it when I look at how little we've achieved but when I bring this up with Sherlock he calls me an idiot and restates everything that we've found since we arrived at the morgue today. We've actually figured out quite a lot and by 'we', I mean 'Sherlock'.
Sherlock stares intently into the microscope, occasionally swapping petri dishes while Molly and I wait in silence, not daring to utter a word or look over his shoulder. But as usual my body is not in the obedient mood and my stomach growls overly loud causing both Molly and I to jump.
"Shall we go grad a bite to eat," Molly says, it's less of an offer and more of a command.
"Uh, yeah. Do you want anything Sherlock?"
"Coffee, black.
"Food?" Molly chirps.
"Slows me down."
Molly and I venture upstairs to find the café barley open.
"Just shutting up," she keeper says, "but I'll do anything for our Molly." He's around Molly's age and quite handsome and his gaze is kind and loving, nothing like that time she accidentally dated Moriarty.
She blushes and giggles beside me like a school girl. I suppose it's Molly's innocence that gives us all such a reason to love her and today's events have shown that even Sherlock can't resist caring for her.
"One coffee with a dash of milk, no sugar. And one coffee with one sugar no milk."
"I know Molly's order," the keeper says before she can speak. "Coffee that is milky and as sweet as she is," he flirts. "Anything else?"
Sherlock won't eat but I'm hungry enough to eat his share so I order us both a burger and Molly orders a large slice of cake. We sit back and wait for the coffees and burgers, chatting calmly.
"So how are things with Sherlock and you?"
"You saw us earlier today," I glance up at the clock to check if it still is today.
"Yes but I didn't see you for a while."
"We just went down to the laundry to clean his muddy sheets from the other day."
"Nothing dramatic?"
A face shifts into my imagination. It's a young face but so similar to Sherlock's yet different. The eyes are darker and the hair is brown. It's a face that will make me shudder with guilt and disgust for years to come.
"Uhh.. Yeah, there was actually."
"Coffees!" the shop keeper shouts. I stride over to the counter and take the three take-away coffees into my hands. "The burgers will be out soon enough."
I nod in thanks and re-join Molly whose face has contorted with worry and curiosity.
"I told you about Chris," she nods, "We saw him at the laundrette," I start, reliving the story as I speak.
Molly looks up at me with shock as I finish off my tale. "Are you going to go?"
"I think I have to. We need trust between us and right now," I pause to construct a sentence, "right now, I'm not sure we have the trust we need. He seemed fine about it, I mean, he looked it but I know he wasn't and I know he's planning something. I want this to work Molly. It hasn't even been two days."
"Just go, you can control him."
"And if I can't?"
She shrugs and stands, collecting the burgers and cake on a tray and saying, "I'll drop this off in the kitchen when we're done." She shopkeeper smiles and we leave for the morgue.
"You and the shop keeper seem to get on well," I say, trying to start up a normal conversation.
"Yeah but after I dated Moriarty, I'm not sure I ever want to date again," she laughs light-heartedly.
I open the door for her and we slip into the morgue as silently as possible. Sherlock still sits facing the wall with his fingers pressed tightly to his temples with the laptop open before him. I approach him quietly with his coffee in my hand. As soon as I place it on the table he gasps. I jump back, almost bringing his coffee with my sharply convulsing hand. It teeters on its edge but falls back onto its base.
"Amanita Mushroom," He gasps again as he drags himself to his feet.
"What?" I follow him back to the young girl's body.
"It's a type of mushroom, quite common and poisonous. It affects the liver, kidney and heart and leaves to outer body relatively unscathed," His eyes widen with excitement and fascination, "It's a violent death and they are conscious through the entire thing but they can be paralysed with stomach cramps." He looks utterly trilled with the horrific death of the young girl, "Look at the scars though."
I force my eyes down to the familiar scars. At least they are neat and stitched carefully. Oh. "It's different. Still two scars but this one's carefully stitched."
"Precisely. Which means either the murderer of the first two women learned how to stitch properly, which I highly doubt, or this one was done be another person leading me to suspect there is a cult."
"But why women? Why these women? And why are they masking their causes of death?"
"Now you are asking the right questions," he ponders the body for a second, "The uterus replaces the lining once every month and there are only a few ways to stop it. There's the pill, hormonal implants, IUD and IUS. They are all contraceptive methods that can result in the loss of a period. But after observing their blood for foreign components I found no trace of the pill in any of their blood. The autopsy from the bodies would have revealed an IUD or an IUS, excluding the third as we have not investigated the wound yet."
I watch him in shock he has no knowledge of emotions or social behaviours or morals but this, science, he can retain in his mind even if it is not relevant to him. I know of all of these from my years as a doctor before the army but I'd never have thought of checking for any of this.
He pulls up the sleeves of the young girl, still clothed under the requests of Sherlock, as searches both arms for hormonal implants, no scars. I look to the other two women, neither of them have implants either.
He pulls out his trusty scalpel and picks at the stiches of the third girl and pins open the incision with staples. "Look."
I don't but then I feel his glare in my chest and I have to look down. There is nothing there. Nothing out of the ordinary just a young girl who died a painful death.
"Pregnancy?" I ask, feeling slightly proud of myself.
"What?"
"They weren't supposed to get pregnant after they had damaged the uterus, they took the baby out," I realise that I'm wrong with a stern glare from Sherlock
"Obviously not, the uterus was sliced into with a rough cut, the damage would have halted the menstruation cycle altogether. Then it was cut open again. Tell me John, why would they have cut into the women twice and only killed them on the second occasion."
I groan at this, "Why did you go through all the forms of contraception then?"
"I needed to be absolutely sure that we were correct about the storage of items. There is no other reason, when all the facts are considered, that the uterus should be cut into twice. While the second woman's first incision is relatively recent and not yet fully healed, the other two are older and could have been present for years. I would say transport but that's obviously wrong, considering the age of the healed scars, so evidently they were cut open to mark their place in the cult."
"But why take it out?"
"Stupid question," he snaps, "I've made it blindingly self-explanatory! Molly," he looks to her, hopeful that he is not surrounded my complete idiots; a look I know all too well.
She clenches her jaw as she intently puts together information, apparently taking far too long to answer because Sherlock interrupts her train of thought.
"So that we can't trace it back to the source!" He's holding out his hands, palm up with a look on his face that screams, "Praise me, I'm brilliant."
I nod at him; it all seems too simple now. I glance at the clock, one in the morning; a late night again. I skull my coffee and hand Sherlock the hamburger. He looks at me sourly but I thrust it towards him again and he takes it into his hands.
Not too long and we've eaten and packed away the bodies and stored the samples and backed up the new evidence on the data base. I guess I'll have a fair bit of work to do on the data base today.
We catch a cab with Molly and plan on dropping her off at her flat before continuing to ours. I sit on one side of the cab while Sherlock sits on the other, Molly between us. Whereas the last trip at least Sherlock and I held hands while he thought, now all three of us sit in total silence while he ignores the world and Molly and I struggle to think of anything to say.
Finally the cab pulls up at the curb and we watch her until she's safely inside her flat before giving the cabbie the next set of instructions.
I don't dare move closer to Sherlock while he's in his mind palace and simply rest my hand on the seat between us. He sighs a low annoyed sigh.
"What?" I question with slight annoyance.
"Must it always be me to make the first move?" He laughs to himself a little.
I punch his arm playfully, "Quit your whining and come here," I order.
"I'm taller," he argues.
I giggle at his pout and refuse to budge. For the rest of the ride home we tease each other with immature giggles and playful pinching and punching. I almost forget to pay for the cab when we arrive at our flat. We stumble into the flat, still giggling like toddlers and head past the entrance to Mrs Hudson's flat. We hear her yell, "Quite boys, it's late," as we collapse onto Sherlock's poorly made bed.
He pushes me onto my back and places a hand either side of my head. I watch his ringlets as they playfully bounce with his movements. I gaze into his eyes and bite at my lip softly. I feel him lower himself down onto me, our chests collide almost gracefully and his long nose meets mine in an Eskimo kiss. I giggle again and curl my arms around his skinny waist, pulling him further down and he lets himself go. He lowers his head so slowly I can't bear it but his lips shiver close to mine and their moist softness touches mine. I search for words in my mind, words to describe my feelings but I can only think of one thing. Finally. It feels like finally.
Everything freezes; we stop breathing, we stop moving, the clock stops its ticking, the traffic outside ceases its constant noise and the universe shrinks down to us just like every other time we've touched. But this time, this time it's so much more intense. My bones shake and instead of feeling comfortable and close to sleep, I feel energised and I want to kiss him more. Faster, harder, more sloppily than the careful brush of lips.
He draws his lips away from mine and presses his forehead to mine, our noses clashing messily. He takes a shaking breath, "John," he stammers, "John, I think I love you."
I can't answer him for far too long, long enough for him to start doubting his deductions about me. He raises his head from mine and straightens his arms again so that he can read my blank face.
"John… I'm sorry."
He rolls onto his back beside me and I stare at the ceiling, keeping my eyes fixed on where his head once was. Finally my eyes focus on something on the roof, "Sherlock, why is there a sticky note on your roof?"
I stand on the bed and reach my hand up towards it. My fingers have just grasped the folded edge when his arm swoops up and snatches it from my grasp. I swing my arms up to capture it once again but my height impedes my efforts and find myself hopelessly leaping and grasping at air. Sherlock holds the note just out of my reach and I can think of nothing but to tackle him as if we were playing rugby. I grab him at the waist and push him down so that I land on top of him, effectively pinning him to the bed with my knees. I drag myself towards his long arms and, at long last, take hold of the little yellow note.
I unfold in in my hands to find a heart with two names scrawled in curved writing written inside it. "Sherlock Holmes, John Watson," I laugh. We used to make these as kids when we had crushes.
"I know, I know, it's not good," Sherlock panics. I look down as his rosy red face that was once the palest face I'd ever seen.
"No, it's not," he frowns and his face turns redder, "it's not good, it is perfect." I Eskimo kiss him as I say, "and, just for the record, I love you too."
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