Tuesday 11th April
6 a.m.
St. Bart`s Mortuary
I shift for what seems like the millionth time on the poor excuse for a sofa, longing for a medical student bunk room (which seemed so hellish at the time) where at least a bed was bed shaped, regardless of the amount of time you spent in it. I am wearing my underwear – I would not relinquish my bra and pants, regardless of biohazardous outbreaks (potential or otherwise), but I suspect I will soon have to commit them to the furnace with the remainder of my clothes and don the dreaded Hazmat Couture (so on-trend in Paris this season, darling) like Sherlock already has.
Sherlock.
Oh good God, he shed his clothes to the furnace without a second`s contemplation, allowing me no time to turn away and shield my eyes from that carved alabaster musculature that will haunt my consciousness for the rest of my days. The burning of several hundred pounds worth of designer wardrobe would have given me more than a few seconds heartache, despite the unfortunate and recently acquired knowledge that one of our corpses is suspected of carrying the Coridolium Virus, fresh from the disease ridden plains of sunny Patagonia. I should have suspected something after removing the coin-filled condom from that John Doe. Diego Paulo, a smuggler of rare coins and unfortunately for both him and us, a very likely candidate to be Patient Zero for the virus. Congratulations Diego! You managed to smuggle in much more than a few dubloons. Fantastic.
Mike (lovely Mike) has assured me that it is only a suspected case of CoriVirus (short version – catchy, no?) but until further (and time consuming) observations and samplings have been performed on Mr Paulo, we will not be sure. How fortunate for everyone who isn't me (or Sherlock) that I am on hand to undertake these tests myself – a captive pathologist if you will – and my own results will decide my fate. Poetic. Prosaic. Bloody typical, Molly Hooper.
Sherlock took it quite well, I think. Mycroft has been battering him with texts and tried to bully Mike into releasing him, but even a man who considers himself to be the British Government has been slapped with a firm no. It seems that a potential plague trumps just about everything else in the seats of power; who knew?
I shift again and realise that the sooner I start, the sooner we will know (one way or another). My rhomboideus and latissiumus dorsi protest grimly as I rise from the sofa of doom and reach for a blue paper suit and wellies.
Let`s get to work.
~x~
Molly Hooper looms over me, staring intently into my eyes and shines a light into my mouth. Her rosebud lips are pursed into a moue of concentration, a crinkle appearing between her birds wing brows, corroborating her focus, and her dark, blackcurrant eyes look, look, look.
"Keep still, Sherlock please, these observations are important. If either of us present any symptoms …" she probes inside my cheek with a gloved finger; she is uncommonly gentle for a doctor who deals with patients who are unlikely to complain of rough treatment. She is highly professional and adept, and yet I can feel elevation in her pulse and dilation of her pupils and I wonder if she is still secretly angry with me.
It disturbs me slightly (greatly?) that I consider this a problem – that I consider it at all. I have, after all, cut a swathe through the resentment, anger and downright hostility of others without so much as a second thought. John Watson has, many times, drawn my attention to an outraged client or offended Yarder, as if knowledge of my rudeness could influence my behaviour. Why is it then, I care whether Molly Hooper (as gentle and brown-eyed and skilful as she is) thinks kindly of me? Further investigation is needed, and care must be taken. It will not do to test our friendship again, and I am at a loss to know how I would function well without it.
"No swelling in your tongue or mouth. Any numbness?"
I shake my head, since her swab is still in my mouth. She removes it.
"Your eyes don`t look yellow at all – any blurred vision?"
"Nope – well maybe now …"
"Wha - ?"
I smile.
"You are extremely close."
She springs back, as if scalded and I survey the pinkness spreading across her cheeks.
I really do hope she isn't angry with me.
~x~
If, in my wildest, earliest dreams of becoming close (and going out with) Sherlock Holmes, had I ever contemplated the cosy domesticity of going shopping together, today`s little food foray has completely stomped all over those flights of fancy, grinding them into the floor tiles. Both he and I unload our arms onto the office desk and contemplate our loot. It comprises thus:
Half a packet of ginger nuts (top three are stale – someone didn't close the packet properly); three packets of quavers; a pot noodle (chicken and mushroom); a yoghurt of indeterminate age; half a lemon (wizened); four satsumas (Sarah`s – if only she had stuck to them instead of the Nutella); half a stale(ish) ham sandwich and half a bottle of vodka(!).
"Where the hell did you find vodka in a pathology lab?"
"Sanderson`s desk." Sherlock looked smug. "Also, a box of thirty two condoms. Un-opened."
"Oh, God!"
"Very near to their use by date. I suspect he will not be getting his money`s worth."
We look at each other and start to laugh. We laugh long and hard (releasing lots of tension, I suspect) and I realise I have never heard him laugh properly, and I find I absolutely love it.
"We`d better conserve our energy if these are the rations we have," I suggest, wiping away tears and unnameable feelings. Sherlock nods, crinkling his paper suit as he leans across me and reaches for a satsuma.
"Have some vitamin C, Molly. If you acquire scurvy in addition to a deadly virus, I shall never forgive myself."
~x~
Wednesday 12th April
6.42 am
St. Bart`s Mortuary
Communications to the outside world are being kept to a minimum, since any leaked information would be beyond disastrous. I speak only to Mike and Sherlock has abandoned Mycroft in favour of John Watson. He does not ring them, since he prefers to text (so very like him). Mike is pleased with our progress, but the cultures need time to grow. Via the small window of the morgue, I see a sea of blue Hazmat and breathing apparatus (they really are thorough – how comforting, but rather too late to be of use to us) and yellow and black tape, like we are some kind of crime scene. All morgue traffic has been transferred to The University College Hospital until further notice and no-one knows what kind of germ warfare is going down here, right under their noses in the centre of London town. And in the midst of all this madness, in the eye of the storm, sits myself and Sherlock Holmes, looking for something we hope we will never find.
I look up from the microscope and suddenly wonder what else it is I cannot find.
Where is the lanky, socially awkward and verbally incontinent pseudo lab assistant, who is my only real companion in this crazy new world? I have totally failed to ask him where he sleeps at night, since I just didn`t; it … it just never came up. There would be no way he`d have fitted on the concrete sofa, so I never offered it, but I had to admit I was curious.
"Sherlock?" My voice echoes around the room of hard surfaces and closed up cupboards containing people who can never answer back.
"Sherlock? Where are you? We need some more pipettes from the store – oh, I`m sorry, were you going into the shower?"
If the answer was to be no, I would be wondering why my lab-mate was emerging from the tiny bathroom area with yards of liberated fabric hand towel wrapped around (what can only be described as) his loins.
God.
Sherlock Holmes has loins and I am looking (nay, staring) at them. The blue towel is stretched across a taught, pale expanse of groin (why are these words all so very sexual?!) and flat stomach. He has some body hair; not too much; just the absolute correct amount, in fact.
Gah! Get a ruddy grip, Hooper. You see bodies every single day. You are a doctor. You have had sex. You have seen living, breathing men, and seen them naked. Come ON!
He seems oblivious (hard to believe, I know) to my condition of stunned and lascivious observation, and rolls his left shoulder (pale and rounded, like a beautiful curve of white marble) and clicks his dark, tousled head from side to side, as if testing its motility.
"I was about to shower, yes (excellent deduction, Dr Hooper) – another hellishly uncomfortable night, sadly. I detect yours was no better by the way you are standing."
Yes, his night was as uncomfortable as my own, so –
"Where, Sherlock, are you sleeping? I can`t see your bed anywhere."
He widens his eyes.
"Really? Well, it seemed like your facilities weren't completely occupied, after all."
And as he gestures his head towards them, I feel a cold chill, an awful shudder, not a million miles away from claustrophobic horror.
"You don't mean – ?"
"Definitely designed to favour space saving properties, rather than comfort. Not a lot of room to turn around, as it happens."
Oh God, Sherlock Holmes – when will you ever tire of playing dead?
~x~