"How's your job over at the surgery going?" Molly asked, adjusting the view on her microscope. She was inspecting skin specimens of someone who had been infected by necrotizing fasciitis and subsequently died.
"Not bad, but not anything extraordinary. It's a bit awkward at times with Sarah, but we've managed to overcome most of it."
"That's good; I remember her being nice,"
"I don't think you met Sarah."
"Wasn't she at the Christmas party?"
"No, that was… Jeanette." John said, thinking about it. He hoped it had been Jeanette.
"Right," there was a lull in the conversation, and Molly felt no need to keep it going. She assumed John didn't either, and switched her slide out for another.
John had been visiting Molly at work when he wasn't working recently to keep himself busy. She didn't mind, since he was nice enough and didn't mess with samples like Sherlock did. Besides, she could tell John needed the companionship. It was getting to the point where he was almost ecstatic to talk to someone other than Mrs. Hudson.
"I'm going to go run by the cafeteria, care for anything?" John asked.
"Some crisps and a coffee would be lovely," Molly pulled off her gloves, walked over to her purse and rummaged through it, taking out some money and handing it to him.
"Be back soon," he said, leaving the lab. Grabbing new gloves and pulling them on, Molly watched him walk down the hall. She sighed and sat back down on her stool, tweaking the magnification again.
"You should be careful with those samples." Molly jumped, knocking over the microscope and cracking one of the slides. Looking to her right, she saw Moriarty leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets. Per usual, he was wearing a nice suit and tie.
"If it wasn't for somebody scaring me, I would be!" she said, picking the microscope up and turning it off, then putting the slides in a 'CONTAMINATED SPECIMENS' bag.
"Could I have those slides?"
"No, they're hospital property, and like you said, you have to be careful with them." Walking over to the cart with other bags of slides, Molly placed the bag on the top next to a bag that just so happened to have Sherlock's samples. She turned around to see Moriarty sitting on her stool, smiling at her.
"What do you want?" Molly asked, pulling her gloves off.
"You know."
"You think I do, but I don't! Sherlock is dead. He died, and the only person who knows anything is John, because he was who Sherlock made the suicide call to,"
"Somehow, I don't BELIEVE THAT!" he yelled. Molly froze, eyes wide, and stared at him. She had heard from Sherlock what Moriarty could be like, but hadn't seen it until now. And was she terrified. "You know what I can do, Molly. Why don't you just tell me?" Moriarty stood up and walked over to her, placing his hands on the table behind her, trapping Molly where she was standing.
"I don't know anything!" she said, trying not to show her fear.
He could smell it.
"Mycroft already told me Sherlock's alive and that he's staying with you. The jig is up, Miss Hooper," he whispered into her ear. Molly squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that when she opened them she would be in her bed at home. She wasn't.
"I can't tell you."
"I'm very sure you can," Moriarty grabbed her upper arm and squeezed it.
"I barely know anything; most of the plan was kept a secret, even from me. The only part I was really involved with was the aftermath and forging a death certificate, I swear!" cold brown eyes bore into sweet ones.
"Hm. I can believe that." He released his grip on Molly's arm, letting his hand slip back down to the table. "Spending time with Sherlock's human recently, I see,"
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, that's right- you're regular as well. I don't mean that as an insult, it's just what you are," Molly's brow furrowed and she moved to the desk, pulling the drawer open and looking for something sharp. "You're so cute, looking for something to stab me with. That didn't work the first time, Molly," Moriarty shook his head, a smug smile on his face.
"Look, I told you what you wanted to know. What the hell do you want?"
"Even you should be able to deduce this."
"I'm not a consulting detective, or consulting criminal, or consulting anything! I like math, and I like science. Problems with all but one, maybe two, variables given to me. A definite answer." He took a step closer to her, then another.
"Step out of the box, Molly Hooper," Moriarty leaned in and softly, gently, pressed his lips to hers. Molly froze, before pushing him away and stumbling backwards into a cabinet.
"Get… get out! Get out of here!" she pointed at the door, but he just smiled and slipped his hands into his pockets.
"You want me, though you don't realize it. When the time comes, you'll want me so bad you'll be begging on your knees. You're going to regret not taking me when you had the chance!" with that, Moriarty turned on his heel and left the lab, taking a right. Pressing her fingers to her lips, Molly watched him, and let out the breath she had been holding when he left her line of vision.
I will never want Jim Moriarty… and I will never admit to liking what just happened.
John entered the lab and set down Molly's bag of crisps and cup of coffee on the table.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, taking a bite of his pizza. She laughed nervously.
"Just a bug, had a bit of a fright!" Molly sat down on her stool and opened the bag of crisps, shoving two into her mouth.
"I would have killed it if you had waited,"
"It's alright, John, I think I can handle a bug if I work with corpses all the time," the two shared a smile and she took a sip of the scalding hot coffee. It burned on the way down, but Molly didn't notice. Her thoughts were with Moriarty. As she glanced at the cart, Molly noticed that one of the bags happened to be missing.
The bag containing Sherlock's samples.
