THE ADVENTURES OF A CONSULTING TIME LORD

by Soledad

Disclaimer: Both Dr. Who and Sherlock belong to the BBC. I'm just borrowing them to have some fun.

Author's note: Again, there's some creative use of Classic!Who characters – not all of it canon. I use them as they fit this particular AU, all right? ;))

Part 13 – Encounter at Bart's

As usual, forensic pathologist Molly Hooper arrived to work early. She liked the silent calm of the morgue before anyone else would arrive. Others might find her preferences morbid, but Molly was a shy and introspective soul. She felt overwhelmed and even a little intimidated by the fast pace and general loudness of modern life.

The morgue was her perfect place to hide from that. Even her colleagues at Bart's avoided going there if they could. Sometimes she thought her late birth had been a temporal glitch; that she should have been born at least a century earlier.

Due to her solitary nature, she didn't socialise much with her colleagues, Mike Stamford being the only exception. Good old Mike, with his eternal struggle to secure enough research time for himself between juggling teaching with research and with his tiny little private praxis at 403 Brook Street that he'd only started a year or so ago.

Dear old Mike with that child-like crush on her.

Sometimes she felt just a little guilty for not being able to return Mike's feelings. He was such a nice bloke, really: always willing to help whatever might have come up, always ready with a compliment to boost her low self-confidence. But she couldn't help herself. Mike just wasn't the kind of man that would quicken her pulse.

She liked her men tall, dark and mysterious.

She readily admitted being a hopeless romantic. It was all Gran Victoria's fault, really. Maman, as she'd been called by her numerous children and grandchildren, used to read fantastic tales to her little ones from an old, hand-written book with ink-drawn illustrations that had looked very much like a diary. Tales about a strange, Chaplinesque man travelling in a blue police box through space and time, accompanied by a young Scottish warrior from the eighteenth century and a Victorian girl who tended to scream a lot.

Tales about their encounters with awesome creatures, both on Earth and on other planets, most of them not even human and some oft hem downright frightening.

The tales had all been written in first person. Just like a diary, really, and they had a certain Victorian flair in style. Molly often wondered who the author might have been and what had become of the book after Maman's death some six or seven years ago. Had it been discharged with the rest of her stuff or had someone taken it as a reminder of a happy childhood?

She shook her head in melancholy. She missed Maman more than anyone else. More even than her father who'd perished at Canary Wharf, although the two of them had always had a very close, loving relationship. Her father had been the one to wake her interest in forensics, and here she was, still doing it – and at Bart's, no less! Dad would be pleased.

Well, it was time to stop remembering and start working. She put on a fresh lab coat and switched on her computer to see which new cases would call for her attention. If there was any urgent murder case or if she could finally start on those mysterious suicides that had been waiting for their torn for a fortnight or for a week, respectively.

Her eyes widened as she was reading the data of a new suicide the victim of which had been brought in last night. Another one? Caucasian male, approximately thirty to thirty-five years, six feet two tall, weight approximately a hundred or ninety pounds, dark hair, dark eyes, pale complexion, high muscle density – this bloke had to be a Hercules while still alive!

She scrolled down for the personal facts and couldn't believe her eyes. Supposed name… Illya Kuryakin? Was this somebody's idea of a stupid joke?

"Apparently so," a deep baritone voice said from the open door, making her realise that she'd been talking loudly to herself. Again. How embarrassing.

"That, or a spectacularly idiotic attempt of making people believe he was a Russian while, in truth, he was obviously not," the beautiful voice continued, speaking faster and faster with practically every new word. "No surprise here; most people are idiots. Now, can you tell me something about the manner of this man's death?"

Molly blinked, trying to follow the rapid-fire speech of he unknown man who now strode into her autopsy room confidently, as if he owned the place, with Mike Stamford hovering behind him, wearing a white lab coat and an amused expression.

The man was very tall, whipcord thin, probably in his mid-thirties, with a pale, patrician face of angular features, an unruly mass of ginger curls covering his sleek head and the most amazing eyes she'd ever seen. They were large, slightly slanted under the wide arch of dark eyebrows, and of a strangely luminous grey-green.

Molly was hypnotised by them, like a little bird by the unblinking glare of a snake. She could feel her cheeks warming in embarrassment, and she knew she was probably beet red by now. She was also getting a little angry.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my morgue?" she demanded when she found her voice again.

The man rolled those incredible eyes. "Oh, c'mon on, how would it be your morgue? Unless you own the hospital, which I'm sure you don't – based on your clothes, all simple mass production, purchased in one of the common warehouses, most likely Marks & Spencer if I'm not mistaken, which I rarely am – this is still the morgue of Bart's and you're merely an employee, so you've got no claim on this place."

"Sherlock!" Mike interrupted while Molly just stood there, completely flabbergasted, not quite sure whether she should be amazed or insulted. "Breathe! Don't take it personally, love," he added for molly. "He's like that to everyone. Which probably explains his extreme lack of popularity with the police… well, actually with almost everyone."

"I don't aspire to win popularity points with idiots," the man scoffed. "Now, would you get over the formalities so that we could finally get on with the Work?"

For some reason Molly had the weird feeling that "work" had been really meant with a capital W.

"Oh, all right," Mike replied with a long-suffering sigh; then he made a vague gesture in the man's direction. "Molly, love, this is Sherlock Holmes. He works with the police on the suicide case as a consultant and has been given permission to use the labs here for his experiments. Sherlock, meet Molly Harper; she's our best forensic pathologists here."

"Charmed," the man – Sherlock – said impatiently, his tone making painfully clear that he was not the least charmed by a little grey mouse like Molly, and why should he? With his devastating good looks he was probably highly sought after by the ladies of high society and his tailored suit spoke of wealth; a lot of it. Hadn't the Homes estate provided the great majority of the funds that had been necessary to save Bart's, back in 2006?

"Now, if we could perhaps drop the social niceties and do what's important, we might even achieve some results," Sherlock continued. As Molly was still more than a little stunned, he sighed impatiently. "When has competence become such a rare thing in this country?"

"Sherlock, you wouldn't even recognise social niceties if they hit you upside the head," Mike said tolerantly; for some reason he appeared to like this odd, arrogant man. "Well, I've got students to torture, so I'll leave you to your competent work. Play nice, kids."

And with that he left indeed, and Molly found herself alone with the man that would profoundly change her life. She just had no way to know yet how profoundly.

~TBC~