Light Within Darkness { John & Molly }

It had been a month since Molly Hooper attended the funeral of Sherlock Holmes.

The fake, everyone called him. However, Molly knew he wasn't a fake. Molly knew lots of things - things she wished she could share, but she had promised never to speak of them. It didn't make life hard for her; not really, no. It was depressing though and always, she found herself sitting in front of her laptop with an unfinished document that held most of the secrets she dare not share with anyone. It would be so easy to finish the document and post it on her blog - maybe even send the post to John in an email, but it would still be considered breaking a promise. A promise she had made to both Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes.

I won't tell anyone, she had told them. Not at the same time, mind you. I promise.

"Speaking of John..." She spoke aloud, almost as if she were talking to the dead body resting neatly upon a metal table in the center of the room. Honestly, Molly would find herself mumbling a thing or two to the dead, but she couldn't help it. The dead didn't bother her and she didn't talk much to other people - people who were alive, of course.

Even without Sherlock, John worked for D.I. Lestrade and on occasion, he would come by the morgue to investigate a murder victim. It probably wasn't the same for him, without Sherlock by his side, but he continued to do it nonetheless. Molly had no idea why, as he seemed lonely while he worked. Anyway, she had remembered he was scheduled to come in today - to check out the body of one Alex Miller.

Alex wasn't in the room yet. The body currently in the room belonged to Josephine Williams and Molly had just finished working on her before she allowed herself to space and think about Sherlock, Jim, and John. Oh, she hated when she did that - allow herself to think about them. Thinking about Sherlock made her think of John (and all the guilt she felt). And Jim...

Well, she always thought about Jim.

And every time she did, her thoughts were accompanied by a cold shiver.

She turned promptly on her heel and headed to the front of the metal table, where she proceeded to wheel Josephine out of the room.

John would be here any moment, she presumed. So, she would need to get Alex.

When she returned with Alex, she parked the table in the same spot Josephine had been resting in, but left to finish paperwork at her desk. She would wait until John arrived.

Two whole weeks ATF (after The Funeral) of Sherlock Holmes Greg still had to post a uniformed officer outside the flat to get rid of journalists wanting to know how John felt about having been fooled by the fake detective. 'Have a look at a crime scene, please', Lestrade had asked. 'You know what..he.. did'. Greg Lestrade couldn't even say Sherlock's name. Despite his protests that it wasn't /that/ simple John went to have a look. Anything was better than the dreadful silence at home.

Going back to Bart's to examine a body had been unsettling and made John think about the last time he had been there. What that was all about, Sherlock lying to him. But lie he had. Full on. Everybody had read about his lies. The man was persona non grata now and nobody wanted to speak his name. John felt angry and bereft and lonely. Nothing was so lonely as having nobody he could talk to, nobody who understood. The ex-army doctor had put his professional head on and went over the body for Lestrade, noting every detail, carefully writing it all down. He went home satisfied that the girl's parents would get justice and closure for knowing what had happened to their daughter and John felt he had been useful.

Now a month had gone by ATF and John had another body to examine in the Morgue. He checked his watch as he got out of his taxi and paid the driver and walked briskly down the corridor. Turning right through the door he could see Molly had a body on a wheeled trolley out already and was busy with her head down in paperwork.

“Hi.” John greeted Molly simply and quietly. “Alex Miller?” He felt almost apologetic for being there knowing that it must remind her Sherlock was gone every time he turned up.

It was easy to spook Molly. The sound of John's voice, even as quiet as it had been, was still a sudden noise within the silence of the room. It caused the attendant to jump. It wasn't exaggerated, of course, just a small jump. She tried smiling - giggling, even - to cover it up, but after everything she and John had gone through, it was hard to do such things. In the end, she managed a harmless grin that was both awkward and small.

"Sorry," She apologized for jumping maybe a little too quickly (as if that was going to make up for keeping secrets). "You startled me."

She got to her feet, assuming John would follow her towards the body. She hadn't examined Alex yet - not fully, as it was supposedly John's job to recover the truth about how Alex was murdered. People believed he had been strangled, but the second 'poisoned' was thrown into the mixture, everyone began doubting the first report. Which is why John was here, Molly supposed. To straighten everything out.

As she moved closer to the trolley, she grew a bit nervous. This whole situation was incredibly different than the situations she used to find herself in when Sherlock was around. There was nothing wrong with John being here, no, but she felt so bad for him and it would be terribly ill-timed of her to voice her concern for how he was doing these days. Also, she didn't exactly know how he wanted to go about this.

If Sherlock was the one examining the body, she'd probably stand-off to the side, careful to not disrupt his work in anyway. She usually wouldn't even open the body-bag for him, as he seemed to enjoy doing that part himself (not always, but usually). So, was she supposed to do the same for John? Should she completely leave the room? Goodness, she probably looked ridiculous while thinking this over. Again, to cover up how silly she was, she gestured to the bag and mumbled, "I'll just-...well, I'll get it for you?" It wasn't supposed to be a question, but she tried to imagine what Sherlock would want. Not that she was comparing John to Sherlock. No, no. She was only uncertain; who would know if John worked differently than Sherlock?

When she finished unzipping the bag, she took a couple steps back and offered another small smile - finally looking him in the eyes, too. Now that she had, she became stiff. There was so much she wanted to say to John, but none of it was work-related. She shouldn't - couldn't - say it here. So, she would wait until he was finished, promptly tearing her gaze from his to look elsewhere.

(( Sorry it's such a long semi-deduction post ))


John realised he had startled Molly as she twitched up from her paperwork. She seemed...jumpy. How bad had it been for her when it had gone round Bart's that she had dated Jim Moriarty, from I.T. “Ah. Sor..” John replied to her apology stopping himself from saying 'sorry' he didn't want her to think he was feeling sorry for her. “No need to apologise.” he smiled a little faintly.

John stood by the table and took his notebook and thin, little silver pen from his pocket. What was he supposed to do? Get to work, not keep everyone waiting and be brisk about it like Sherlock or let Molly unzip the bag in her domain? Strangulation or Self-administered Poisoning. Suicide, Accident or Murder. A family needed him to get this right. He could hear Sherlock's voice telling him that he saw but didn't notice. Yeah, no pressure then.

John pursed his lips and got his professional head on still feeling the shadow of Sherlock over him and Molly as she hovered, looking on edge.

Neither COD made for an attractive corpse, he thought as Molly dithered, like himself, but went to unzip the bag and stepped back. Age of deceased early thirties. John looked from the body across to Molly and saw her go rigid and tense. “Thanks.” he mumbled and, getting out Sherlock's magnifying lens, decided to just get on with this so she could escape.

The ex-army doctor shrugged his black jacket off swiftly and slung it on a chair then he gave Mr Alex Miller a look over for a general impression and started a new page in his notebook copying down details from the police notes. Mr Alex Miller, age 33, discovered in a vehicle in the crusher at a breaker's yard by the crane operator. Body of the deceased and personal effects including ID recovered from the driver's seat..etc etc.

John began examining the wrists, hands and fingers under the lens with narrowed grey-blue eyes. Tiny, thin scar lines on left hand. Traces of brightly coloured paint, under the fingernails. Green, blue, red. Left hand. He stopped to write this down and moved to the other side of the table. Smudge of blue paint, paint like plastic on right thumb. Under nails, Black greasy dirt, Motor oil? Contaminant? Wax, candle wax. Right hand. He moved quickly round the table absent-mindedly murmuring a word now and then, thinking out loud. He sighed resignedly at having to stop to make notes again. “Right handed.” Arms next then he'd go to the head and throat.

{ No apology is necessary. I enjoyed reading it! }

To his thanks, Molly had nodded. Afterward, she grew quiet. So quiet she was that she didn't even seem to be there at all.

In a way, she wasn't there. Her body maybe. However, she had gotten distracted by her thoughts again and spaced, leaving John to his work. If he needed help, or if he had already asked for help, she hadn't heard. She wouldn't expect him to need help anyway. Sherlock never needed help. So, it was like her to assume John had learned to do this part himself, too.

Nevertheless, she was allowing herself to think again. She really, really did not like thinking - not ever.

Think, Sherlock might have hissed beneath his breath at one point in her life, but she didn't want to! She was tired of remembering everything that had happened and she was tired of all the guilt and pain that accompanied the memories. She closed her eyes, in case she decided to cry. Crying is weakness, someone else had told her, but even after she had trained herself to appear strong...she no longer put forth effort of doing so. Thankfully, John had said something; louder and much clearer than the other mumbled words.

"Right handed."

Her eyes opened and quickly found him, her posture having relaxed in the process. "Sorry?" She asked, at first, but when she realized he had been talking to himself and not to her, she felt silly. Again.

"Oh. Sorry. I keep saying sorry..." Her voice trailed. She was looking at her feet, as if she had suddenly found something interesting about the shoes she had chosen to wear that day. Actually, there was nothing fancy about them - they were dull and boring, as was most her wardrobe. Judged by someone she'd rather not think about it at a time like this. She needed to distract herself and not let her mind wander.

"So!" She was looking at the body, but taking a step or two closer to John. "Finding what you need?" Her tone was cheerful, both forced and very ill-timed. How could someone be cheerful around the dead? Rather, it was just her trying to ease her way into a conversation with John. And it was Molly Hooper. The dead did not bother Molly Hooper.

“Oh, no. It's me.” John apologised. “I think out loud. I don't know I'm doing it half the time.” his lips flickered into an almost self-deprecating smile. Sherlock got stressed, had wobblers and, during the last three months especially, sometimes John had hardly dared to think or speak in case he said something that set Sherlock off on one. John had then felt stressed out from controlling himself so tightly all the time.

“Um, it's ok.” John replied placidly to Molly apologising for apologising. She looked downcast he noticed.

“Ah, yes, finding what I need. On the body. Yes, he's right handed and interesting.” John smiled.
Finding what he needed, no, but Molly wasn't asking that.

“Have a look.” he invited. “You know what the site of a badly carried out injection looks like. Big bruise. Even from here you can see he's clean, he's never been shooting up, yet there's this one injection mark. Look at his left arm, the crook of his elbow.” John pointed to the single needle mark on Alex Miller's left arm “That's a whopping big bruise on the injection site for a man who's right handed?”

There was a slight waft of air. Someone smelled nice, John noticed, and it wasn't him and it definitely wasn't Mr Miller.

Molly felt guilty again, because he apologized, but she managed to go a little easy on herself. She understood what he had meant by it.

When he smiled, she smiled; almost as if it was instinct. She felt better knowing he could still smile about something, even after what had happened to him. John truly was a soldier and she respected him for that.

Upon receiving the invitation to do so, Molly stepped up to the body. She had to admit, she was feeling a little giddy. Sherlock would sometimes work with her, yes, but it was rare whenever they got to work side-by-side on a body. Here, she stood next to John and he wasn't protesting it. Or judging her in any way, but she supposed she had that coming with Sherlock - based on the fact she always fought for his attention.

She leaned to the left, unaware of how close she had gotten to John while she inspected the arm. John was right. There was an injection mark, as well as a nasty bruise that could not have been earned during a struggle or brawl. It was poison, but no one had bothered to look close enough for the injection mark like John had. She smiled again and turned herself toward him.

"Well do--oh!" She gasped, promptly cutting herself off when she nearly bumped into him. She managed to brush his arm with her own, but that was the only damage. Which wasn't any real damage at all, of course. She laughed, taking a step back. "Didn't realize how close I had gotten. Must have thought I was sneeking up on you, didn't you?" She attempted to joke with him, to see where it would go.

Sherlock would have probably told her to give up.

Molly had smiled. That was a good sign. All this must have been much harder on her than most. She had a lot more inner strength than people credited her with. And he had been one of them. He could admit to that, privately at least.

Well, he had thought she would be interested in the little puncture mark. She was bright, had to be to be in her profession, she was competent, she would understand the significance.

He didn't think she was, as she put it, sneaking up on him. She wasn't interested in him. If Molly had been interested in him she'd have made it clear to him. “No, no I didn't.” he smiled good-naturedly to show that he hadn't jumped to a wrong conclusion.

God, the Christmas party, Molly looked stunning, and the socially deprived... idiot... had jumped to the conclusion that she was trying to get off with him. Of course she had wrapped his present with extra care it'd have been the first thing he'd have criticised if it wasn't bloody perfect. Of course she was dressed up to go to a party. Yeah, she had looked gorgeous. Unlike his girlfriend. Who had dumped him.

“Mm, well obviously there's a lot of post-mortem bruising, but...” John went to the throat of the body on the table and showed Molly the other interesting thing. “this is a long, straight, well defined bruise, more like what you'd see from a seat belt throttling him. There aren't finger marks from strangulation if someone had strangled him there'd be finger marks round his throat. D'ya see.” he looked for her reaction.

“The seat belt mark is before death so yeah he did die of oxygen starvation but the actual cause of death was a drug overdose. And he didn't do drugs.” John's eyes were alight with excitement and he was willing Molly to come up with the answer. Go on you know the answer, forget that Sherlock made everyone feel stupid compared to him, you are bright Molly Hooper.