2006 - Molly Hooper

Sherlock POV

I cannot say that the detective business got onto its feet at a speed that I would have enjoyed, the website didn't get very many views and my reputation was non-existent so it was very slow at the beginning. To be fair, I had spent the past thirteen years avoiding having any sort of reputation, since I had been thrown out of the university and gone on the run from the start of Mycroft's poking around. But whatever the reason, I was pretty much non-existent when I found my calling and had no reputation to my name, and my poor cases reflected that. Mostly it was ghastly, overweight middle-aged woman on my doorstep - or rather Lestrade's door since I was still living with him - trying to find out if their husbands were having affairs. Nine out of ten occurrences gave the same result; yes the husbands were definitely having an affair with their more attractive/younger/less-irritating-in-general secretary/colleague/personal-assistant/friend/sister-in-law deleted as applicable. Sometimes it was more than one selection.

There was the occasional interesting case but mostly? It was tedious. My boredom was clearly bothering Lestrade as well. Apart from the cold cases that he brought me, and the mildly interesting cases that came every couple of months, I was practically bouncing off the walls. He couldn't stand the experiments in his kitchen, he confiscated his gun when he found me shooting the wall and he practically hit the roof when I used up the last of the milk. And since I didn't have a 'real job' as he called it, I wasn't contributing to rent so that only angered him more. In fact, he had told me categorically that I was to find my own place by the end of the month.

The bed-sit I eventually ended up in was only down the road from where Lestrade lived, since it had to be close enough that he was able to regularly check in on me and make sure I hadn't fallen back into old habits. That and so he could keep Mycroft updated on my progress, since I still refused to even meet with my so called brother. Today was one of those days when he was checking up on me, carefully excusing himself to go to the bathroom and trying, at least in his mind, to subtly check around my room for signs that I was using again. It almost made me laugh - his attempts to not arouse my suspicions were pitiful, I was just too observant of what he was up to – and I also knew that if I had indeed fallen back into cocaine use it would hardly have been difficult for me to keep it hidden from him. When he returned, wiping his hands on his jeans as I had neglected to buy any of the essentials for the room, I just kept forgetting, he asked casually, knowing the answer,

"So, have you been to see Mycroft yet?"

"Not since you saw him yesterday, no."

"How did you know I saw him yesterday?"

"The lingering cologne." He cleared his throat uncomfortably,

"That was for my date."

"Oh is that what you're calling your meetings with Mycroft, now?" He just gave me a look of "you're dancing on a very tender spot there Sherlock, don't push it?" And I sighed,

"I'm sure she was very pleased you went to the trouble."

"Yes, well, I think Mycroft would be just as pleased, in fact considerably more so, if you would go to the trouble of going to see him."

"I'm sure he would be."

"Will you ever go see him?"

"Perhaps."

"Am I going to get more than a one word answer on the subject?"

"It's unlikely."

"Fine, whatever you decide is fine, I'm not here to pester."

"Oh really? Because I was in the middle of some work when you came in and this whole inconvenient interlude seems like pestering."

"Fine, I'll be quick then. How's the detective work at the moment? Picking up yet?" I sighed, letting my frustrations be known,

"Not even slightly, they are just as slow and uninteresting at present as they were when I started."

"Well, I think I might have the answer for that, I have a case for you-"

"Hopefully it's more interesting than the last one you brought to my attention; the brother killing him over money squabbles? It was hardly a mystery, it's quite textbook in fact, and I would have thought that even Anderson could solve that one but apparently not."

"Yes, yes, you're amazing and we're all idiots, can you just help me? It'll be less boring than sitting round here, won't it?"

"Marginally, but fine. Where?"

"The body's been given to a forensic pathologist-"

"What have I told you Lestrade? If you want my assistance, then you need to call me to the crime scene or you're interfering with my process and slowing it down considerably… admittedly that's still about ten times faster than leaving it up to your team but-"

"Okay, now I remember why I never asked you to work for the police in an official capacity-"

"I wouldn't have come anyway, it makes for a much too high concentration of idiocy and far too regular hours, I have worked regular hours for years before now and it did not suit me."

"Right fine, but just so you know… the morgue where the body is being held? That is in fact the crime scene. I was on my way there when I thought I'd come in and get you, since you're so bored at the moment and I've had your neighbours ringing me to complain at all hours. Are you coming?"

"It almost sounds interesting, I'll be there. Which morgue?"

"St Bart's Pathology department, I'll get my car."

"You're far too happy with having a police car at last. I'll meet you there; I prefer to travel by cab-"

"How do you have the money for a cab but not your rent?"

"I have one or the other, my landlord is lenient on rent since I saved his daughter from a sociopath who intended to kill her, which is ironic because he then gave his reward to a different sociopath-" He sighed, looking more and more exasperated by the second,

"How many times do I have to tell you Sherlock? You're not a sociopath-"

"I display every characteristic. Now finish your tea, I'm going to find a cab and I'll meet you there." I had pulled on my coat and left before he could object again or offer to ride with me; I needed quiet to think about the case – the details of which I had snagged from the folder in his briefcase when he was in the bathroom - since I had decided long before he had brought it up that I would be there.

The cab ride over was extremely quiet, the cabbie attempted to make conversation but quickly gave up when he realised I had my face buried in my mobile phone, an expensive gift sent to me by Mycroft along with my new clothes and even the deed to my old home. I accepted the gifts... but that didn't mean I had forgiven him, I was merely keeping them should the need ever arise to sell the designers labels for enough money to live on.

Lestrade hadn't arrived by the time I got there - not that I had expected him to - so I was left with the usual brainless group, consisting of Anderson and Donovan and a few other nameless background officers. I dodged around them and onto the crime scene, with very little difficulty, and headed down the corridor and into the morgue. I'd been here a few times, to use the equipment which Mycroft had managed to get me access to for my work; I had always felt an unfathomable pull to the place. It was as if there was something deep down which knew there was something there, waiting, but I'd just missed it or I had just gotten there a little bit early. Something – or rather someone, I later realised - was coming, I just had to be patient.

There were two employees in the lab at the moment, who I had not met in my other visits because I tried to avoid the staff as much as possible, too many questions. Now that I was actually seeing them I found the occupants of my laboratory to be a small mousy haired woman and a slightly taller - and considerably wider in diameter due to recent rapid weight gain judging by the fact his shirt was three sizes too small - man with glasses. If the shaking was anything to go by, I think it was safe to say that the woman had been the one to find the body,

"Oh hello, are you one of the policemen?" Her voice was about the same volume as a mouse with laryngitis, and she seemed to have jumped a foot in the air when she'd seen me appear over the interviewing officer's shoulder,

"No, I'm a consulting detective. I see the murder was of one of the other second year junior doctors-"

"How did you know I'm a junior doctor?"

"You're too young to be a fully trained consultant, you were either a junior doctor or a first year specialist but judging by the application and the CV on your desk, it's the former."

"Yes, yes it is," she squeaked, "but call me Molly," she smiled in a way that suggested that in better circumstances she might have asked to get coffee with me, since she was obviously attracted to me. Not that she had the confidence to pull off an attempt to get my attention, she was pretty but it was a mild and ordinary way that didn't quite get my attention, and most likely never world. I did however make an effort to smile, knowing she was my best road of interrogation for the moment and flattery would work better on her than intimidation, which could easily give her a heart attack and end that line of enquiry,

"Of course, my name is Sherlock Holmes; I gather that the victim was also a medical student."

"Um, yes, he was?" I frowned, she didn't seem very confident,

"And I also gather that you were having a sexual relationship with him, if the matching lipstick on his neck and your lips is anything to go by." I hadn't thought it possible but the shade of red filling her mortified face intensified,

"I- I don't- I'm not," she stuttered, "I don't have to answer that." Even that statement didn't have the force or authority that she clearly intended it to,

"You do if you want to stay out of prison." Her jaw fell open and the stuttering increased to the point where she just sounded like an engine on the verge of stalling, "Miss Hooper, the police clearly suspect you of murdering your competition for the position here. Your colleague also applied for the single position of forensic pathology training here… and judging by the equal timetable of hours allotted to you both, you're equally talented and likely to get the position. Disregarding the fact you are clearly incapable of killing someone; the police think the competition may have bubbled over with fatal consequences." She looked up at me, the hope widening already huge teary eyes to a frankly sickly sweet diameter that would rival the eyes of a baby animal straight out a Disney film,

"And you think otherwise?"

"I'm leaning towards it, although I have many different theories at the moment," I smiled slightly, turning up the charm and persuasion, usually intimidation or cunning would work on a case like this but I got the feeling she might faint if I took a more aggressive route, "so, perhaps you could shed some light on the situation? What happened this evening?"

"I um... I went to dinner with Oliver... about, um seven I think? We… uh, we went back to the flat for, well-" The pink flush was starting to look uncomfortable, she looked as if she would spontaneously combust at any second, "you can guess. Then he, well he went home, or so I thought. Mike phoned to tell me that we- we'd had an arrival and could I possibly deal with it, since he was having dinner with his wife and Oliver wasn't reporting back, since agreeing to sort out the paperwork. I got here and well-" The tears were building now and the police officer who had been interrogating her before my entrance offered her a tissue, which she took with a watery smile, "thank you. I found him lying on the floor, with a blow to the head, I tried to revive him but, well."

"I see. Well, I'm confident that you're not the killer." It was the officer's turn to speak now,

"What? Why? There's no CCTV and she was the only one here, so there were no other witnesses, plus there's motive! We need to at least take her in for further questioning-"

"She is clearly incapable of killing him. For one thing, she hardly fits the profile of a cold-blooded killer and for another thing the blow to the head - which I saw pictures of when Lestrade got round to sending them to me - were moving in a downwards direction. He was bludgeoned with a blunt object by someone considerably taller than him. The killer was at least my height and you can see that Miss Hooper is considerably shorter than me, I would have thought that you would have been trained to spot this sort of thing." The officer was going a shade to match the suspect in question, although it was mostly anger rather than being attracted to me… although I do say mostly, and not entirely, she clearly had a bit of a lusty soft spot.

"He could have been sat down-"

"The position he fell in leaves me with no doubt he was standing at the time of death. There was another killer, not Miss Hooper, who stood in the range of six foot two and six foot seven I would estimate, the forensics team should be able to pinpoint it more accurately. The body brought for him to look at… it's that one over there, isn't it Miss Hooper?" I didn't wait for an answer, although I saw Molly nodding in agreement, as I crossed to examine it, "killed by a similar weapon and an almost identical blow to the back of the head. Clearly the murderer left some form of evidence on the body, panicked, and rushed here to get rid of it. When he was discovered, he killed the other man and ran. Check CCTV of anyone in the hospital fitting the description, with blood on their clothes, and you'll have the actual murderer."

I nodded at Molly, who was looking grateful… and slightly too adoring, and pushed open the door to head down the corridor towards Lestrade, only to be stopped by her light footsteps and voice calling timidly,

"Mr Holmes?"

"Call me Sherlock," I mimicked her earlier stament, making her blush again but smile slightly,

"Okay, Sherlock. I just wanted to say thank you for saving me, from the murder charges."

"It's my job and the idiots would have seen eventually that you weren't the murderer."

"Yes, I suppose so," she stuttered, "but not without news getting round and me getting into a lot of trouble. Mike told me I have the job now, and I doubt the hospital would have let me stay to train as a forensic pathologist if there was even a tiny question that I could be a murderer myself."

"Well, good luck to you-" I went to leave again but I was stopped once more, by a very light hand on my arm,

"Just, if there's anything I can do to repay you-" I froze, an idea coming to me, although clearly not what she was hoping for me to say,

"There is something actually." Her face lit up, "I've been meaning to get more access to this lab actually, for my work and my experiments, if you would be willing. At the moment I get access to the other lab rooms but I would much prefer to use yours, to perhaps utilise some of the donated body parts-" She deflated slightly, clearly disappointed, but - not one to disappoint others - she smiled meekly,

"Yes, of course. Come by anytime."

She smiled in one last ditch attempt to convince me that I should be attracted to her but, whilst she was a nice enough girl, I just nodded and went on my way, crossing paths with Lestrade on the way and informing him of the recent developments on my way to view CCTV.

From that day on, I could always count on Molly being putty in my hands. She might have only been training at the time but she was remarkably good at helping me to get my way, even if Stamford had authority over her. Not that he ever chose to exercise it, he was too fond of the sweet young girl – as he called her when he tried to convince me not to take advantage – and usually he didn't have a problem with letting me have free reign over the lab. Possibly because he saw it as doing good, all of the bodies were donated for science and my science was saving lives, but more likely because he was just too lazy to do the work to get me to stop.

Molly did whatever I needed her to; if I needed a body, the paperwork was provided and one would be laid out as soon as someone died - since I never quite convinced her to do a Burke and Hare for me, and I had to wait for them to actually die. Usually, she would bring me coffee as I worked and bumble on in the background about her normal life, it was quite nice to have the white noise in the background, soothing even... it helped me to concentrate.

And of course Bart's was where my life truly began, when my association with Mike and Molly suddenly became worthwhile. But more on that later.