Fic: A Funny Thing Happened in the Morgue Today
Title: A Funny Thing Happened in the Morgue Today
By: special_schizo
Prompt: sherlockmas 'Sherlock's Summer Vacay': 96 - Molly, Sally; Bonding over mutual annoyance with Sherlock, especially his "freaky" ways.
Category: Gen
Characters / pairings: Sally Donovan, Molly Hooper; allusions to past Sally/Anderson and one-sided Molly/Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No warnings apply
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. Sometimes it's not the conversation you wanted to have, but it's the one you needed.
Author's notes: Got quite a long way away from the prompt, and I'm sorry about that.
Also on my AO3.
A Funny Thing Happened in the Morgue Today
Sally Donovan doesn't consider it much of a revelation to say that she hates visiting the morgue.
It's not even the fact that there are dead people. There are dead people at crime scenes; she wouldn't be much of a policewoman (police officer) if she found the mere prospect repelling. It's just...well, to be honest, it's just that they feel like hospitals but worse. The same antiseptic, the same white walls, the same bleak and hollow feeling, but without any hope of escape.
And yes, the dead people.
Then again, her orders are to go ‘review the details’ with the pathologist about the corpse they fished out of the river two days ago, and while it's not bloody likely there'll be anything the last guy missed, Sally is more than aware that she's lucky to still be assigned to anything at all, so she bites back any comments and does as she's told. Besides, her new DI doesn't like backchat, and he does so love dangling the possibility of demotion over her head. They let her stay a sergeant, a reward maybe, or a punishment, and they will never ever let her forget that. Like she should be grateful.
She stops, hand resting against the door. Fuck. She's trying to stay in the moment, but the resentment is never that far away.
Especially here. Bart’s.
I did the right thing.
I didn't.
Nobody cares either way.
It’s that last thought - the truth which she’s quickly come to realise - which forces her to straighten her back and summon up what her mates at uni always used to call her 'copper face', stoic and professional. Then she knocks and enters.
God, it's as bad as ever: everything scrubbed clean of anything living, good or bad. She wrinkles her nose and looks around; spots the lab coat before she registers the person wearing it.
“Excuse me? Police. I'm here about the body they fished out two days ago.”
The pathologist turns around, obviously startled. Sally's mildly surprised to notice that they’re female, swiftly followed by the usual annoyance at herself for reacting the same way as everybody else does when it comes to herself.
“Oh, sorry,” the woman murmurs - acts like she's early twenties, most likely older than that really, Sally thinks, never really able to stop profiling people - and hurries over to her, standing on the other side of a metal table as if instinctively keeping something between them. “Who are you here to see?”
It’s like checking into a hotel. It’s bloody unnerving.
“Philips. Daniel Philips. They fished him out of the river two nights ago.”
A faint line of confusion appears between her eyebrows. “The jumper? Didn’t somebody already ask about him? I mean,” she stumbles on, and Sally can't help but feel a pang at the sight, “I’m not saying that you can’t want to see him, you must have some new lead or - ”
“It's okay,” Sally assures her hastily. Anything to get her to stop. “They just sent me to look over the details again. That’s all.”
“Oh.” The woman looks slightly thrown. “I - Are you sure you don’t need to see the body again? Because I could have e-mailed you the forms or - ”
“They were very insistent that I should come down here and look at them myself.” Sally is very proud indeed that there is only the slightest trace of resentment in the words - although she may have gritted her teeth on the ‘very insistent’. To try to distract herself, she focuses on the nametag and adds, “So could you possibly find them, Ms Hooper?”
Hooper.
Molly Hooper.
Now why does that ring a bell?
“Oh, of course,” Hooper says, quickly bustling off and out of the room.
Sally could technically follow her, but instead she pauses, tapping a finger against the table, brow furrowed in thought. She knows she recognises that name. Apparently her brain just isn’t on her side at the moment though. Must be all the mind-numbing errands they’ve sent her on lately - all that fucking paperwork - always with their polite smiles and patronising reassurances. People seem so surprised when they hear about discrimination in the police force. Or police service.
Dammit. It’s probably nothing. Hooper’s a pathologist - or a lab assistant, now Sally’s had a closer look. Most likely Sally knows the name from autopsy reports. Possibly they’ve even met before, although Sally’s never usually on morgue duty, and especially not since Holmes turned up.
Fuck, just thinking the name makes her screw up her face, but not in distaste. She just…doesn’t like thinking about him.
“Here you go!”
Hooper’s voice cuts into her thoughts, bright and chirpy. Sally would believe it too - is ready to believe it, since Hooper is a complete stranger and Sally just wants to get out of here - except that now when she looks up and tries to be professional she can't help but notice the bags under Hooper's eyes. The woman hasn’t been sleeping lately.
Shut up, she tells herself. Stop trying to find clues without a case to go with them.
“Sorry,” Hooper says, handing the papers over, which means Sally is able to look at her quizzically instead because she isn’t aware that there had been anything to apologise for. “It's just, I didn't get your name.”
Sally thinks about holding out her hand. She doesn't. Instead, she looks down at the paperwork, and knows she's being rude, and doesn't care. “Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan.”
“Oh.”
It’s a soft little word; more an exhalation than anything else. However, the widened eyes; the hurried avoidance of eye contact; the quick and whispered apology are more than enough to attract any copper's attention, besides someone who’s been on the receiving end far too many times lately. Sally's eyes narrow. “Something wrong?”
“No, I - It's - It's fine,” Hooper stammers, and Sally has never heard anybody sound less fine who wasn't being questioned in a room with one-way glass.
“You've heard of me?”
“Well, we get a lot of police here. Maybe they mentioned you.” Hooper tries for a laugh; misses. Big mistake. Not just because the idea is more than enough to raise Sally’s hackles either.
“I doubt in a good way,” she mutters, at least appearing to focus on the papers in front of her. She's suspicious; of course she is. Being suspicious is what Sally does. Unfortunately.
Perhaps it's the memory teasing at the edge of that thought, or perhaps Sally's sluggish brain just finally did what it's supposed to do. Most likely though, it's the sight of the signature at the bottom of the top page: a swirl full of far more innocence or charm than you'd expect, which stands out just as much now as it did back then, when she was pulling up reports she shouldn't have been.
Sally's hand clenches around the clipboard, knuckles turning white, her mind narrowing down to a simple thought of not this.
She tries so hard not to think about it, every day, even though she knows that every day people look at her in the station and think of nothing else. Hell, it's not just the station. While her involvement isn't common knowledge, there are still a few people who know regardless, because there always are. Friends of friends, or every fucking person on Baker Street that night.
Sally looks up, and Hooper freezes like a scared animal. Looks like one too.
“You did the autopsy,” Sally says, her voice oddly dead. “On Holmes.”
Funny. His name always did sound impressive, even when alive. It's still true, but now it's different. The name rings out in the silence and hangs there, accusing.
Hooper bites her lip and swallows and generally does everything to make herself look as suspicious as possible. Except she isn't being questioned. She's just nervous. Sally takes a deep breath, and tries to school her face into something more appealing. The muscles are a bit out of use, seeing as they don't let her near the press even as proof that women really do work at the Met these days, and her average witness is a teenaged boy with more attitude than sense. Still, it's only her hand that flat-out refuses to respond. Her hand and her mind, screaming.
"Yes," Hooper says quietly. Then, "They say you’re the first one who said he was a fake."
Sally goes still.
Hooper looks surprised at herself, and a bit ashamed, and contrite, and guilty, and yet Sally can still see the accusing edge underneath it all, because she's so used to seeing it that it barely takes any effort for it to be looked for and recognised. More to the point, this time Hooper doesn't apologise. Five minutes in and Sally can already recognise that for the huge tell that it is.
There's a ringing in Sally's ears.
Accuse somebody of making a fool of the police and they make you a hero; same person kills themselves and the whole thing suddenly gets ‘awkward’.
Eventually, mechanically, she tries. "I came to a conclusion based on the facts." The words sound hollow and useless the moment they leave her lips.
Hooper is watching her now. Suddenly, Sally can see a flicker of steel there. "You sound like him."
It's impossible not to wince. Fortunately, Sally has always had enough anger at the ready to make up the difference.
"Anybody could have made the same call."
"Except it was you."
"For fuck's sake!" Years of careful training and at least trying to keep her temper in check evaporate as she slams the clipboard down on the examination table, making the air ring with the sound of metal. "We'd all thought it at some point! You didn't know him, you don't know what he was like! He was - "
Finally she catches herself, sucking in a breath and looking away. Not good, Donovan. Outburst like that at Scotland Yard, they'd finally have the excuse they've been looking for.
Thank fuck she'd stopped herself before the f-word had slipped out.
"I did, actually." Confused, Sally looks back up at her. "He used to come in here a lot.”
Quite frankly, Sally does not have a good feeling about this little revelation at all. “Please say it was to look at evidence."
"It was, in a way." Hooper sighs. "More like data, really, but he used it. Sometimes. If he wasn't just, well, you know, bored."
'Bored'. Sally still twitches every time she hears the word. "So, what, he just popped by the morgue.”
"Sort of. And upstairs." Everything about Hooper's body language screams 'defensive', and it dawns on Sally that, just like Sherlock prowling around their crime scenes, his visits here weren't exactly official. Which raises the question of how he got in, because while Lestrade let him onto crime scenes after deciding it was better to have the man on their side and also developing some bizarre protective instinct over someone he’d found passed out in an alleyway, Sally can't really imagine the same thing happening here.
Only Sally's clever. Not that she'd use that exact word to describe herself - with or without Sherlock's ever-so-valued input - but she reckons she knows people. Well enough to make the guesses that catch people out.
So when it dawns on her, as unlikely as it seems, she still asks the question. "Christ, did you like him?"
Visibly Hooper flinches. Attempts a recovery. "What?"
"Oh God, you did." Sally's brain actually aches at the thought. "You had a thing for the freak."
"He wasn't a freak!" Crap. Sally hadn't meant to let the old name slip out. People would have had her head for that at the station, or anywhere else for that matter.
As ever, on realising she’s in the wrong, Sally comes out on the attack. "You let him experiment on dead bodies," she retorts, because God knows Sally isn't capable of responding to people nicely. She gives as good as she gets, and while it's helped her get this far in a career that often seems like it hates all women as the embodiment of the Devil, it doesn't exactly endear her to people. Case in point: Hooper visibly winces and pulls back, and yes, Sally Donovan feels like a bitch. The fact that she might be used to this after dealing with Holmes does not help the assessment at all.
Credit to the woman though: she only stays on the back foot for a moment, before retaliating, "He came here while he was on the run from you. He knew he could trust me."
That’s a revelation - was that why Holmes was here to chuck himself off? It doesn’t distract her though. Much as she might wish otherwise, that’s not in Sally’s nature. "Like coaxing an animal with carcasses."
"Why?" Hooper demands. "Why are you being like this?"
"Because he hid dead body parts around his flat? Because he was a manipulative sociopath? What did he do to the bodies, exactly?" Hooper avoids her gaze. "'Cause he had these things, in his flat. You'd do a fake drugs bust, because sometimes that was the only way of getting a fucking informant to, you know, inform, and you'd find all sorts of stuff: eyeballs and hands and more than once something nobody at the Yard is going to forget any time soon. You don't get normal blokes with fingers in the fridge and freezer to compare rates or anything like that!""
"I - " Hooper bites her lip. "I'm not saying that's not true."
"So why do you keep defending him?"
"Because he didn't have a lot of friends,” Hooper says quietly, firmly, despite the fact she looks like she might cry. “He came down here with acids and riding crops and one time some scented candles to test something about retaining scent, but he talked to me, and I try not to judge people for what makes them happy.”
Right.
For once, Sally doesn’t have a comeback. Not a clever one and not a horrible one either. Hooper’s words just seem to hang there, more accusing than anything Sally’s conjured up for herself so far.
Come to think of it, you'd have to really like Sherlock Holmes to let him in here. And this poor girl had done the autopsy too. And Sally had just stood here and exploded. It's not Hooper's fault. Worse, Sally realises she is essentially speaking ill of the dead. Oh, if her grandmother could see her now...
Sally sighs and looks back down at the papers. The fucking pointless papers. They probably just wanted to see what visiting Bart’s would do to her. For once, she forces herself to swallow her pride, because fuck if Hooper doesn’t deserve that much. "Sorry.” The word tastes unfamiliar. “I was out of line. If you liked the bastard, I bet you didn't want to hear that. That…stuff.” She holds the sheath out for Hooper to take.
“Especially not from me."
Hooper accepts them, not meeting her eyes. Sally isn’t expecting her to. The woman probably just wants her to leave her alone.
Only here’s the thing: while Sally knows she should just go, she wants to talk. For some reason - probably because this is the first person she's opened up to since Jonathan (Anderson, he's back to Anderson these days) - she wants to do this right. Whatever this is, and whatever right is.
Sally Donovan wants to confess. How about that?
"Look,” she starts, awkward and waiting for Hooper to just tell her to get out. “I'd been saying the whole time that something was off about him. You don't meet people like that. He kept letting Lestrade down, and he'd suck people into his orbit without doing anything to earn that. There was all this textbook serial killer stuff, right down to that stupid charm - he didn’t just know how to get around people, he’d fucking manipulate them - and I kept feeling as if I was the only one who could see it. I figured it might be alright, so long as he really was helping, and Lestrade always shot me down anyway - said I was out of order.”
Hooper is silent. Sally feels hollow.
“It was the kids,” she says, her voice much softer than anybody at the Yard would have expected. “He didn't fucking care, got excited, and then the girl was so scared and it just all added up and..." Sally sighs. Hearing it all out loud... "I know. It's not enough to kill someone over." Nodding to Hooper, she murmurs, "Thanks for your time," and moves to leave.
Never again, she tell herself. She is never coming back to this building again.
Her hand is on the door when a voice says, "It used to bother me too."
Sally frowns and turns her head towards the sound. Hooper is touching the examination table with the look of someone remembering a time long ago, oddly wistful. "I knew he didn't really like me, that he was just using me, only...only it was nice to dream. I know he played on that. Except it's nice to have company here, you know?"
Sally doesn't want to hear this. It doesn't sound like a life she would have wanted.
Then again, the whole affair with a married man wasn't exactly the model of stable, sane behaviour, and she supposes Holmes wasn't hard on the eyes - it was the pointed tongue that did the damage.
Anyway, regardless whatever Sally might think, Hooper goes on. "What you said, about the way he - he knew what to say - "
"I said he manipulated them."
Hooper stops as if she’s been punched.
"Sorry."
There’s no sign of acknowledgement, but after a pause Hooper goes on. "Sometimes I'd catch him at it. Especially - especially after the thing with Jim. Moriarty. Sorry. I guess I was just a bit more suspicious of people who were, you know, interested in me."
Fuck. That’s another reason Hooper’s name rings a bell. Sally can’t believe she didn’t remember that either. Then again, the whole ‘Jim from IT’ angle had been dismissed fairly early on as a dead end - or rather, there had been nothing left of him for them to go on. Now she recalls the pitying looks when it came to the girlfriend who had so obviously had no idea what was going on; who so obviously couldn’t help them. They’d all just written her off. Seeing Hooper like this, Sally can appreciate far more just what sort of damage the bastard might have done. "Did you mind?" Sally asks, genuinely curious. "That Holmes meant Moriarty was interested in you?"
To her surprise, Hooper seems to actually give it some thought. "I thought I did. I guess I still do. A bit. I mean, it sort of figured that the one time I try to make somebody jealous, it's with someone who could kill me, right?" Her laugh was high and nervous, with just a hint of gallows humour.
"I'm sorry. You wanted to make Holmes jealous?" Disbelief would have been an understatement.
Hooper laughs, again, much quieter now, not self-loathing but only a few steps up. "Silly, wasn't it? When, well, he didn't seem interested in that sort of thing at all."
"You wouldn't believe some of the theories we had about that," Sally agrees. When Hooper looks at her curiously, she swallows - when is she likely to be talking to this woman again - and elaborates. "It's one of the things you start discussing behind people's backs. We were all convinced he had some weird sexual fetish or other. I think John knew; felt a bit bad about that." Funny thing is, despite how it sounds, she really did. It was the fine line that Holmes never seemed all that aware of. "That's the thing Holmes never seemed to get: yes, I was sleeping with a married man, a bunch of people knew about it, but they never said anything. Not to my face."
“Sounds familiar,” Hooper agrees, surprisingly dry. For her. Then, “He'd say that's you deluding yourself."
"I just bet he would." God, she really can imagine him saying it, all smug and imperious and insufferable. "He really liked judging people. Didn't matter if they were alive or dead."
"At least when they're dead they can't hear you."
Sally…really isn’t sure what to say to that. Hooper just sounds so sad. Fortunately - or possibly unfortunately - Hooper recovers before her. "You really didn’t think much of him, did you?"
“Wish I could have.” She surprises herself with that. But, well, hearing it aloud, it’s true. “He was brilliant, but he was a bloody bastard.”
“He…” Hooper bites her lip, and says, "At least at the start, he liked me because I fancied him and I could get him in here." Oh. Oh, there's a story there, Sally can tell. It's way too frank. She wonders how many months of coming to terms with reality she's missing out on. "And - And I'd let him do a few experiments. So long as it was for a case, you know." She hesitates, then adds, "Or…if he said the right thing. You’re right, he could be terrible for that.”
Suddenly looking worried, she looks up at Sally. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"Honestly? I'm just glad that stuff wasn't leftovers from his victims." Locking somebody up for being a lovesick idiot doesn’t seem fair, especially given what she’s heard.
"Oh." Hooper isn't smiling. "I forgot for a moment, sorry. You thought that he was..." She doesn't finish the sentence, but then, she doesn't have to. Already Sally can feel the weight of the accusation again; the weight of the past, she supposes.
“It was more that sort of thing that bothered me. The using me part. And maybe a bit of what he did down here, and what he took away, but…” Hooper sighs. "I know I can come off as a bit...because I work with corpses, I don't see them the same way as most people. So I don't have the same idea of respecting them, because, well, then I'd never cut them open, right?" She smiles, and then immediately it vanishes. "Oh God, I'm so sorry."
Open-mouthed, Sally just stares at her. She figures she’s justified.
After the moment lengthens, fading into awkward avoidance, she manages, "Bloody hell. I can actually imagine you two getting along, Hooper."
"Molly," Hooper insists, probably because that's the one bit in the sentence she can cling onto. "I - I don't really know anybody who calls me Hooper." While Sally's not entirely comfortable with the idea, she supposes Molly seems a lot more human than most people she meets, so why not?
Adding the extra layer of intimacy makes her feel as if she should offer something in return - quite frankly, Sally hasn’t had anything like this in a while, and she isn’t immune to the fact that this adds a pathology lab assistant after an adulterer on the list of her confidantes.
Except now she’s ‘Molly’, Sally actually feels even more uncomfortable about this. So she tries a different track, because yes, Sally has a nosy streak, and John hasn’t particularly liked her since they first met.
“So, if you knew Holmes… Any stories?”
Molly looks rather taken aback. “What do you mean? Like, um, horror stories?”
“Christ no. Got enough of those of our own. But, um… You know.” She doesn’t. But ‘you know’ is useful because of how much it covers.
“Gossip?” Molly practically squeaks. “Um, I…”
Possibly a step too far. Nice one, Sally. “It’s just that you could look on the positive side. Like how he looked when he was looking for clues. Running around like a lunatic. Messed up the fucking crime scene, but at least he looked ridiculous. This one time,” she continues, not even trying to win Molly over, but just suddenly caught by the memory, “we caught him actually hanging upside down like a bat over the bed. With the coat on as well. He looked like Dracula.”
Molly giggles, and then looks both shocked and guilty for doing so.
“And then the plaster came off and he fell down.”
They both crack up at that. To be fair, those were in the days before John, when Sherlock could be even more manic when it came to cases - Sally is still pretty convinced he’d been ‘experimenting’ that day - but at least it gave them some photos to laugh over when he was being a complete wanker. Especially when he tried to act better than everybody else.
Sally conjures up a few more memories - particularly enjoying the various times they’ve fished him out of the Thames - for no other reason than it feels nice to make somebody else laugh. For a few minutes, the morgue almost seems cosy.
Then, unexpectedly, Molly asks, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Sally’s genuinely curious about what Molly might want to ask of her of all people. Christ, she hopes it isn’t anything about…well, any of a very long list of things. She hopes it isn’t about Anderson.
“At your work…you know, the crime scenes. Sorry, I just want to know if this is just me, but did he… Did he ever act like he was… Like figuring it all out made him…” Bless her, Molly looks like she wants to die, like she’d rather the ground opened up and swallowed her than finish the sentence - any of them.
It’s the blush that saves her. And all Sally can feel is relief that it wasn’t just her.
“Yes!” she yells, grinning fully, before she hastily tries to dial it back to something approaching professionalism. “I mean, he might have done that. A few times.”
Molly is smiling, at least. That’s good.
“No bloody wonder we thought he was into…something. Especially when we started doing a bit of research using John’s blog…”
“Me too,” Molly admits, looking around as if somebody could actually be listening in. "He left his riding crop here a few times."
"You're kidding." Sally stops, makes a show of considering the matter. "No, you know what? I believe that."
"For an experiment."
"He used that as an excuse for everything. We could've found him in drag and chatting up the PM and he'd say it was for a case."
"Did that actually happen?"
Sally practically cackles at the thought. "Not the PM, although with the other part, there was this thing at the Notting Hill carnival..."
"Really?"
"I have pictures," Sally reassures her. "There was a Hall of Fame, but...well..."
Shit.
She coughs uncomfortably, watches Molly's face fall, and just like that, the moment breaks.
Silences always feel worse when they’re unexpected.
"Funny how everybody stopped calling him a freak after he..."
"Jumped off the building?"
Sally winces, but doesn’t have to tell Molly she’s right.
Hesitating, Molly moves next to her, and even seems a second away from reaching out to touch her. She doesn't, yet Sally still appreciates the thought of the gesture. "You didn't seem that sure, when you came in."
"Because I of all people can't say it. You don't know what it's like these days. Even if he was a fake, nobody wants anything to do with it, because it makes them look bad. Anderson's been transferred, I'm hanging by a thread because it suits them upstairs to have me around any time they need a scapegoat because right now it looks like admitting they made a mistake - “
"Do you think you did?"
And that's the real question, isn't it?
That's the question that's been keeping Sally up at night. That she asks her reflection. That she asked Anderson, until it was over and his last words were to tell her to get on with her life. Did she start this whole ball rolling, cause a chain of events that caused a man to end his life, by mistake?
"Maybe."
While she can't bring herself to look, she can hear Molly's soft exhale, and isn't entirely sure whether it's relief or sadness or something else altogether.
"Why aren't you sure?"
Well. Molly isn't police. She's a pathology lab assistant (according to her nametag), with enough social awkwardness to ensure that she doesn't talk freely to anybody who walks in here. Sally only got this far because of the topic, she reflects wryly. The topic and an unexpected sense of humour on both their parts. Maybe also a need to vent about the past. So really there's no shame in her little conspiracy theory.
"Can I tell you a secret?"
As she looks up, she's mildly surprised to see Molly's face twist into something deeply unhappy. It doesn't last, but what's left behind isn't exactly perky, for all that the woman tries - the way that she keeps trying. "You wouldn't be the first."
For a moment Sally thinks about pursuing that, except that would just be avoiding the matter even more than she already is. She has quite enough excuses as it is.
"I was certain when I went to Lestrade. Maybe not 100%, but pretty close. Like I said, there were all the signs, all the freaky behaviour, the girl, and the way that he just always knew."
"He didn't explain it?" Molly asks, before the inevitable blush. "Sorry, I do want to hear, it's just - I understand why he didn't like explaining it all to me - it annoyed me, but I’m just the girl with the bodies, you know, if he doesn’t feel like talking… But I thought it would be different with the police. You know, with an actual case. He seemed to like doing that."
"He liked an audience," Sally agrees, "but that didn't mean he'd talk us through it entirely, and some of the jumps were just - a few too many of them felt more like he had the answer and just had to work backwards. That's not police work. It just - It felt wrong. It always did. And not just because Lestrade would keep putting calls in like we were incompetent."
“Where's Lestrade now?"
Silence. Sally feels her hands clench against the table, enjoying the distraction of first cold steel and then the faint pain as she presses harder, wishing it hurt more.
For once, Molly doesn't prompt her. She just waits. Sally can see why people might treat her more as a depository for secrets than anything else, and finds that she feels bad for being another in a long line. Molly seems like somebody who deserves more than getting mixed up in this.
Finally, she forces herself to spit it out, gritting her teeth, tasting the bitterness of every word. "'Temporary leave of absence'." It's all she can do not to spit in a less metaphorical sense. "That's what they're calling it. What it means is he's on leave until they can figure out just what to do with him."
"Oh." Another hesitation, but this time Sally does feel Molly brush against her arm, obviously not sure what to do but trying anyway. "I'm sorry."
"Not as sorry as those sods will be when they realise what a bloody mistake they've made." Her words come out fierce, and that's good. "Whatever I thought of Holmes, when it comes to Lestrade, I won't hear a bloody word against him."
After a pause, Molly responds, "I met him a few times in here. And this one time at Sherlock’s.” Okay, seriously, who is this woman? “He seemed nice. Wasn't sure what to make of Sherlock but was willing to go with it. To save people."
"That was Lestrade for you. Holmes treated it as a fucking game, that's what always got to me."
"I guess for him it was."
Sally scowled at her. "Don't act like that's okay. From what I've heard, Moriarty thought the same way. Did you like being collateral?"
In the same moment that Sally regrets her words, Molly stills, and her hand drops away. Sally's shoulder feels cold. It had been nice, having somebody actually care, just for a moment. The apology feels dull and repetitive and useless, but she still offers it, not expecting much in return. In that respect, though, she is surprised.
"It's okay. Like you said, he sucked people in. I don’t think he realised he was doing it most of the time. Or cared, most of the time." Molly looks like she's remembering something in particular; something that brings out a sad smile. Fighting back her instincts, Sally doesn't pry. She doesn't get anything else, and she insists to herself that that's okay. She needs to stop poking around into other people's lives when they're not actually relevant to her work, because her work is the only damned thing that should matter to her right now. Sherlock Holmes is in the past, for all that he's still managing to ruin her life by making her feel - well, by making her feel so fucking guilty, to be honest.
However, her silence is rewarded by Molly softly pointing out, "You think Moriarty was real."
It's not an accusation, but Sally still protests weakly, "I didn't say that."
"You might as well have done." Biting her lip, Molly adds, "Is that it? Part of your secret?"
Damn, she's perceptive. Maybe it comes from watching freaks poke around your morgue. Or maybe not everything is connected to Holmes and Sally just has to accept that. "Quite a big bit, actually. The murder charges, I'm sorry, those were fine. I had a hunch, we followed it up, the whole thing stank. It was - The bit that didn't feel right was when the papers started going on about this 'Richard Brook'." She looks up at Molly, eyebrows raised. "Guy was a freak, I'm sorry, it's true. I'll say a lot of things about him, and I pretty much already have. The only thing I regretted that morning was that I hadn't said anything sooner.
"But as soon as that woman came into it, the very fucking day after it all kicked off, I..." Sally shakes her head. “The press. Worse than that, redtops. No copper worth their salt believes anything in them.” And Sally most definitely doesn’t resent them. After all, she got more than a few laughs from them at Holmes’ expense. Which only makes everything worse.
Molly is watching her closely. Somehow, she knows exactly what Sally needs her to say.
"Do you think he was a fake?"
"No."
"Good." She smiles. "Me neither."
And oh God, that feels like such a relief. Sally can't help but smile back, because it's not just her. "You have no idea how fucking good that feels."
"I have some idea. But it's also hearing that somebody else didn't fall for it."
Pretty odd words. But they echo somewhere at the back of Sally's mind. The rest of her little theory. "That's what's really been getting to me. Why reading that stupid article made me start questioning myself - and I don’t do that easily.” Molly smiles warmly, and it might not be entirely for Sally but she can still enjoy it. “It felt like a step too far. The more I think about it, the more something smells really bad. Because once I thought the Brook thing was a load of crap, I got to thinking about what Moriarty - if he was real - was getting out of all this. And I realised - I realised it was just possible that the whole thing was some ridiculous set-up. Including me, because if there was one thing everybody could count on, it's that I thought Holmes was always one step away from murder. Bastard must have figured I'd jump at the chance to have a shred of proof, and I proved him right."
That’s what gets to her. That’s what really buries itself in her head and doesn’t let go.
"If it helps," Molly says softly, "you wouldn't be the first."
"Only yours didn't end with Holmes chucking himself off the roof." She can’t help sighing. "Something smells funny about that too, but I guess I'm just paranoid."
"Oh?" It comes out more of a squeak than anything else. Apparently the idea of even that being a lie is a bit much, and to be fair, it really is, and no doubt especially so when you had feelings for the person in question.
"Don't worry about it," she reassures her, "it's nothing. I was just, well, surprised when I heard he did it right in front of John. Still, just goes to show, he always did have that cruel streak."
Molly lowers her head, once again looking so awfully, deeply sad. Then she whispers, almost too quiet for Sally to hear, "You're right about that."
Obviously Molly's thinking of something specific. That's...That's not all that surprising. Sally's starting to realise Holmes may well have put this girl through Hell. If there's one thing she can do in the comforting department, it's commiseration. Sally Donovan has never been known for her impeccable taste in men, so she knows the drill. Although of course there's a bit more hanging in the air over this one.
"Really quite a bastard, really," she offers, and is delighted when she surprises a laugh out of Molly. It's more of a gasp, high and incredulous, but it's there.
Looking somewhere between smiling painfully and close to crying, Molly agrees, "You're not wrong."
"Of course I'm not. Holmes being a bastard was my specialist subject." The thought makes her feel...odd. She's not sure what to call it: slightly hollow, a bit rueful, nostalgic but not the same as when she graduated.
Molly truly is amazing, because not only does she realise it, she understands, and she knows exactly how to phrase it.
“All those things. The way he acted. I mean, you’re right, about some of them, at least. But in the end…” Molly sighed. “You do miss him, don’t you?”
It’s probably meant rhetorically. Maybe the fact that Sally is hearing it at all is purely coincidental, if not accidental. But, to the surprise of both of them, she finds herself replying. “Yeah, I do.”
They stare at each other. For a moment, that’s all that needs saying. Sally might say she almost feels at peace.
Of course, then it develops into one of those awkward silences that Sally seems to spend most of her life trying to avoid - there’s a reason she developed her charming sense of humour. Unfortunately a joke or observation would feel horribly out of place, so all she has left is a hasty retreat.
“Well, best be on my way. Nice chatting with you.”
“Same,” Molly says eagerly, still smiling brightly, even if a touch of awkwardness finds its way in there. Then she frowns. “Wait, what about your jumper?”
Sally rolls her eyes. “Come on, we both know that was just make-work. Nobody at the station knows what to do with me, and they love sending me off on these errands just to try to get me to do something so that they have an excuse to demote me. I’m not moving and they don’t want to attract attention.”
“That sounds awful.”
She shrugs. “I’m guessing there isn’t a cut-throat world of morgue politics.” Actually, something’s just occurred to her. “What do you think?”
Molly looks startled. “About what?”
“I was supposed to go over the details with you. You hung around with Holmes. Any theories?”
“I - ” Swallowing, Molly seems to give it some thought, then says, “The one who came before… I told him there were all these cat scratches, where a cat wouldn’t normally be able to get to. Like a cat had been able to get at his whole body. And he didn’t own one, because they were all made at the same time. No marks from before. I think he just thought I was a mad cat lady.”
“Sometimes we need those.” Sally nods. “I’ll look into it.”
“It’s probably nothing,” Molly says hurriedly. “Sherlock - you start thinking like him.”
“Don’t worry. You’re much nicer.”
Sally isn’t sure what causes to say her next words - although it might be that this really is the first chance she’s had to really talk about this on her own terms. That and how good it feels to laugh. “Listen, do you want to get a drink some time? Nothing funny, just drinks and a chat. Somewhere that isn’t a morgue.”
Molly looks a little startled, and Sally automatically tenses for the rejection, but then she realises that perhaps people who work with corpses don’t get many requests like this. “I’d love to. It’s… I’ve liked talking. To you, obviously, not just talking, I have my cats for that. I mean - ”
Sally cuts her off with a chuckle. “Don’t worry about it. What’s your number?”
So they exchange numbers, some slightly relieved laughs, and then Sally really does leave.
She still has to go back to the Yard knowing they sent her there on a wild goose chase. She still has to try not to say a thing. She still has to walk through that building with the eyes of everybody on her.
That won’t change. Her versus her superiors, with all to play for.
But now, Sally finds that she doesn’t mind quite as much.
Maybe it’s like a beginning. But really, it’s starting to feel more like an ending. And that’s all she wants.
By: special_schizo
Prompt: sherlockmas 'Sherlock's Summer Vacay': 96 - Molly, Sally; Bonding over mutual annoyance with Sherlock, especially his "freaky" ways.
Category: Gen
Characters / pairings: Sally Donovan, Molly Hooper; allusions to past Sally/Anderson and one-sided Molly/Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No warnings apply
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. Sometimes it's not the conversation you wanted to have, but it's the one you needed.
Author's notes: Got quite a long way away from the prompt, and I'm sorry about that.
Also on my AO3.
A Funny Thing Happened in the Morgue Today
Sally Donovan doesn't consider it much of a revelation to say that she hates visiting the morgue.
It's not even the fact that there are dead people. There are dead people at crime scenes; she wouldn't be much of a policewoman (police officer) if she found the mere prospect repelling. It's just...well, to be honest, it's just that they feel like hospitals but worse. The same antiseptic, the same white walls, the same bleak and hollow feeling, but without any hope of escape.
And yes, the dead people.
Then again, her orders are to go ‘review the details’ with the pathologist about the corpse they fished out of the river two days ago, and while it's not bloody likely there'll be anything the last guy missed, Sally is more than aware that she's lucky to still be assigned to anything at all, so she bites back any comments and does as she's told. Besides, her new DI doesn't like backchat, and he does so love dangling the possibility of demotion over her head. They let her stay a sergeant, a reward maybe, or a punishment, and they will never ever let her forget that. Like she should be grateful.
She stops, hand resting against the door. Fuck. She's trying to stay in the moment, but the resentment is never that far away.
Especially here. Bart’s.
I did the right thing.
I didn't.
Nobody cares either way.
It’s that last thought - the truth which she’s quickly come to realise - which forces her to straighten her back and summon up what her mates at uni always used to call her 'copper face', stoic and professional. Then she knocks and enters.
God, it's as bad as ever: everything scrubbed clean of anything living, good or bad. She wrinkles her nose and looks around; spots the lab coat before she registers the person wearing it.
“Excuse me? Police. I'm here about the body they fished out two days ago.”
The pathologist turns around, obviously startled. Sally's mildly surprised to notice that they’re female, swiftly followed by the usual annoyance at herself for reacting the same way as everybody else does when it comes to herself.
“Oh, sorry,” the woman murmurs - acts like she's early twenties, most likely older than that really, Sally thinks, never really able to stop profiling people - and hurries over to her, standing on the other side of a metal table as if instinctively keeping something between them. “Who are you here to see?”
It’s like checking into a hotel. It’s bloody unnerving.
“Philips. Daniel Philips. They fished him out of the river two nights ago.”
A faint line of confusion appears between her eyebrows. “The jumper? Didn’t somebody already ask about him? I mean,” she stumbles on, and Sally can't help but feel a pang at the sight, “I’m not saying that you can’t want to see him, you must have some new lead or - ”
“It's okay,” Sally assures her hastily. Anything to get her to stop. “They just sent me to look over the details again. That’s all.”
“Oh.” The woman looks slightly thrown. “I - Are you sure you don’t need to see the body again? Because I could have e-mailed you the forms or - ”
“They were very insistent that I should come down here and look at them myself.” Sally is very proud indeed that there is only the slightest trace of resentment in the words - although she may have gritted her teeth on the ‘very insistent’. To try to distract herself, she focuses on the nametag and adds, “So could you possibly find them, Ms Hooper?”
Hooper.
Molly Hooper.
Now why does that ring a bell?
“Oh, of course,” Hooper says, quickly bustling off and out of the room.
Sally could technically follow her, but instead she pauses, tapping a finger against the table, brow furrowed in thought. She knows she recognises that name. Apparently her brain just isn’t on her side at the moment though. Must be all the mind-numbing errands they’ve sent her on lately - all that fucking paperwork - always with their polite smiles and patronising reassurances. People seem so surprised when they hear about discrimination in the police force. Or police service.
Dammit. It’s probably nothing. Hooper’s a pathologist - or a lab assistant, now Sally’s had a closer look. Most likely Sally knows the name from autopsy reports. Possibly they’ve even met before, although Sally’s never usually on morgue duty, and especially not since Holmes turned up.
Fuck, just thinking the name makes her screw up her face, but not in distaste. She just…doesn’t like thinking about him.
“Here you go!”
Hooper’s voice cuts into her thoughts, bright and chirpy. Sally would believe it too - is ready to believe it, since Hooper is a complete stranger and Sally just wants to get out of here - except that now when she looks up and tries to be professional she can't help but notice the bags under Hooper's eyes. The woman hasn’t been sleeping lately.
Shut up, she tells herself. Stop trying to find clues without a case to go with them.
“Sorry,” Hooper says, handing the papers over, which means Sally is able to look at her quizzically instead because she isn’t aware that there had been anything to apologise for. “It's just, I didn't get your name.”
Sally thinks about holding out her hand. She doesn't. Instead, she looks down at the paperwork, and knows she's being rude, and doesn't care. “Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan.”
“Oh.”
It’s a soft little word; more an exhalation than anything else. However, the widened eyes; the hurried avoidance of eye contact; the quick and whispered apology are more than enough to attract any copper's attention, besides someone who’s been on the receiving end far too many times lately. Sally's eyes narrow. “Something wrong?”
“No, I - It's - It's fine,” Hooper stammers, and Sally has never heard anybody sound less fine who wasn't being questioned in a room with one-way glass.
“You've heard of me?”
“Well, we get a lot of police here. Maybe they mentioned you.” Hooper tries for a laugh; misses. Big mistake. Not just because the idea is more than enough to raise Sally’s hackles either.
“I doubt in a good way,” she mutters, at least appearing to focus on the papers in front of her. She's suspicious; of course she is. Being suspicious is what Sally does. Unfortunately.
Perhaps it's the memory teasing at the edge of that thought, or perhaps Sally's sluggish brain just finally did what it's supposed to do. Most likely though, it's the sight of the signature at the bottom of the top page: a swirl full of far more innocence or charm than you'd expect, which stands out just as much now as it did back then, when she was pulling up reports she shouldn't have been.
Sally's hand clenches around the clipboard, knuckles turning white, her mind narrowing down to a simple thought of not this.
She tries so hard not to think about it, every day, even though she knows that every day people look at her in the station and think of nothing else. Hell, it's not just the station. While her involvement isn't common knowledge, there are still a few people who know regardless, because there always are. Friends of friends, or every fucking person on Baker Street that night.
Sally looks up, and Hooper freezes like a scared animal. Looks like one too.
“You did the autopsy,” Sally says, her voice oddly dead. “On Holmes.”
Funny. His name always did sound impressive, even when alive. It's still true, but now it's different. The name rings out in the silence and hangs there, accusing.
Hooper bites her lip and swallows and generally does everything to make herself look as suspicious as possible. Except she isn't being questioned. She's just nervous. Sally takes a deep breath, and tries to school her face into something more appealing. The muscles are a bit out of use, seeing as they don't let her near the press even as proof that women really do work at the Met these days, and her average witness is a teenaged boy with more attitude than sense. Still, it's only her hand that flat-out refuses to respond. Her hand and her mind, screaming.
"Yes," Hooper says quietly. Then, "They say you’re the first one who said he was a fake."
Sally goes still.
Hooper looks surprised at herself, and a bit ashamed, and contrite, and guilty, and yet Sally can still see the accusing edge underneath it all, because she's so used to seeing it that it barely takes any effort for it to be looked for and recognised. More to the point, this time Hooper doesn't apologise. Five minutes in and Sally can already recognise that for the huge tell that it is.
There's a ringing in Sally's ears.
Accuse somebody of making a fool of the police and they make you a hero; same person kills themselves and the whole thing suddenly gets ‘awkward’.
Eventually, mechanically, she tries. "I came to a conclusion based on the facts." The words sound hollow and useless the moment they leave her lips.
Hooper is watching her now. Suddenly, Sally can see a flicker of steel there. "You sound like him."
It's impossible not to wince. Fortunately, Sally has always had enough anger at the ready to make up the difference.
"Anybody could have made the same call."
"Except it was you."
"For fuck's sake!" Years of careful training and at least trying to keep her temper in check evaporate as she slams the clipboard down on the examination table, making the air ring with the sound of metal. "We'd all thought it at some point! You didn't know him, you don't know what he was like! He was - "
Finally she catches herself, sucking in a breath and looking away. Not good, Donovan. Outburst like that at Scotland Yard, they'd finally have the excuse they've been looking for.
Thank fuck she'd stopped herself before the f-word had slipped out.
"I did, actually." Confused, Sally looks back up at her. "He used to come in here a lot.”
Quite frankly, Sally does not have a good feeling about this little revelation at all. “Please say it was to look at evidence."
"It was, in a way." Hooper sighs. "More like data, really, but he used it. Sometimes. If he wasn't just, well, you know, bored."
'Bored'. Sally still twitches every time she hears the word. "So, what, he just popped by the morgue.”
"Sort of. And upstairs." Everything about Hooper's body language screams 'defensive', and it dawns on Sally that, just like Sherlock prowling around their crime scenes, his visits here weren't exactly official. Which raises the question of how he got in, because while Lestrade let him onto crime scenes after deciding it was better to have the man on their side and also developing some bizarre protective instinct over someone he’d found passed out in an alleyway, Sally can't really imagine the same thing happening here.
Only Sally's clever. Not that she'd use that exact word to describe herself - with or without Sherlock's ever-so-valued input - but she reckons she knows people. Well enough to make the guesses that catch people out.
So when it dawns on her, as unlikely as it seems, she still asks the question. "Christ, did you like him?"
Visibly Hooper flinches. Attempts a recovery. "What?"
"Oh God, you did." Sally's brain actually aches at the thought. "You had a thing for the freak."
"He wasn't a freak!" Crap. Sally hadn't meant to let the old name slip out. People would have had her head for that at the station, or anywhere else for that matter.
As ever, on realising she’s in the wrong, Sally comes out on the attack. "You let him experiment on dead bodies," she retorts, because God knows Sally isn't capable of responding to people nicely. She gives as good as she gets, and while it's helped her get this far in a career that often seems like it hates all women as the embodiment of the Devil, it doesn't exactly endear her to people. Case in point: Hooper visibly winces and pulls back, and yes, Sally Donovan feels like a bitch. The fact that she might be used to this after dealing with Holmes does not help the assessment at all.
Credit to the woman though: she only stays on the back foot for a moment, before retaliating, "He came here while he was on the run from you. He knew he could trust me."
That’s a revelation - was that why Holmes was here to chuck himself off? It doesn’t distract her though. Much as she might wish otherwise, that’s not in Sally’s nature. "Like coaxing an animal with carcasses."
"Why?" Hooper demands. "Why are you being like this?"
"Because he hid dead body parts around his flat? Because he was a manipulative sociopath? What did he do to the bodies, exactly?" Hooper avoids her gaze. "'Cause he had these things, in his flat. You'd do a fake drugs bust, because sometimes that was the only way of getting a fucking informant to, you know, inform, and you'd find all sorts of stuff: eyeballs and hands and more than once something nobody at the Yard is going to forget any time soon. You don't get normal blokes with fingers in the fridge and freezer to compare rates or anything like that!""
"I - " Hooper bites her lip. "I'm not saying that's not true."
"So why do you keep defending him?"
"Because he didn't have a lot of friends,” Hooper says quietly, firmly, despite the fact she looks like she might cry. “He came down here with acids and riding crops and one time some scented candles to test something about retaining scent, but he talked to me, and I try not to judge people for what makes them happy.”
Right.
For once, Sally doesn’t have a comeback. Not a clever one and not a horrible one either. Hooper’s words just seem to hang there, more accusing than anything Sally’s conjured up for herself so far.
Come to think of it, you'd have to really like Sherlock Holmes to let him in here. And this poor girl had done the autopsy too. And Sally had just stood here and exploded. It's not Hooper's fault. Worse, Sally realises she is essentially speaking ill of the dead. Oh, if her grandmother could see her now...
Sally sighs and looks back down at the papers. The fucking pointless papers. They probably just wanted to see what visiting Bart’s would do to her. For once, she forces herself to swallow her pride, because fuck if Hooper doesn’t deserve that much. "Sorry.” The word tastes unfamiliar. “I was out of line. If you liked the bastard, I bet you didn't want to hear that. That…stuff.” She holds the sheath out for Hooper to take.
“Especially not from me."
Hooper accepts them, not meeting her eyes. Sally isn’t expecting her to. The woman probably just wants her to leave her alone.
Only here’s the thing: while Sally knows she should just go, she wants to talk. For some reason - probably because this is the first person she's opened up to since Jonathan (Anderson, he's back to Anderson these days) - she wants to do this right. Whatever this is, and whatever right is.
Sally Donovan wants to confess. How about that?
"Look,” she starts, awkward and waiting for Hooper to just tell her to get out. “I'd been saying the whole time that something was off about him. You don't meet people like that. He kept letting Lestrade down, and he'd suck people into his orbit without doing anything to earn that. There was all this textbook serial killer stuff, right down to that stupid charm - he didn’t just know how to get around people, he’d fucking manipulate them - and I kept feeling as if I was the only one who could see it. I figured it might be alright, so long as he really was helping, and Lestrade always shot me down anyway - said I was out of order.”
Hooper is silent. Sally feels hollow.
“It was the kids,” she says, her voice much softer than anybody at the Yard would have expected. “He didn't fucking care, got excited, and then the girl was so scared and it just all added up and..." Sally sighs. Hearing it all out loud... "I know. It's not enough to kill someone over." Nodding to Hooper, she murmurs, "Thanks for your time," and moves to leave.
Never again, she tell herself. She is never coming back to this building again.
Her hand is on the door when a voice says, "It used to bother me too."
Sally frowns and turns her head towards the sound. Hooper is touching the examination table with the look of someone remembering a time long ago, oddly wistful. "I knew he didn't really like me, that he was just using me, only...only it was nice to dream. I know he played on that. Except it's nice to have company here, you know?"
Sally doesn't want to hear this. It doesn't sound like a life she would have wanted.
Then again, the whole affair with a married man wasn't exactly the model of stable, sane behaviour, and she supposes Holmes wasn't hard on the eyes - it was the pointed tongue that did the damage.
Anyway, regardless whatever Sally might think, Hooper goes on. "What you said, about the way he - he knew what to say - "
"I said he manipulated them."
Hooper stops as if she’s been punched.
"Sorry."
There’s no sign of acknowledgement, but after a pause Hooper goes on. "Sometimes I'd catch him at it. Especially - especially after the thing with Jim. Moriarty. Sorry. I guess I was just a bit more suspicious of people who were, you know, interested in me."
Fuck. That’s another reason Hooper’s name rings a bell. Sally can’t believe she didn’t remember that either. Then again, the whole ‘Jim from IT’ angle had been dismissed fairly early on as a dead end - or rather, there had been nothing left of him for them to go on. Now she recalls the pitying looks when it came to the girlfriend who had so obviously had no idea what was going on; who so obviously couldn’t help them. They’d all just written her off. Seeing Hooper like this, Sally can appreciate far more just what sort of damage the bastard might have done. "Did you mind?" Sally asks, genuinely curious. "That Holmes meant Moriarty was interested in you?"
To her surprise, Hooper seems to actually give it some thought. "I thought I did. I guess I still do. A bit. I mean, it sort of figured that the one time I try to make somebody jealous, it's with someone who could kill me, right?" Her laugh was high and nervous, with just a hint of gallows humour.
"I'm sorry. You wanted to make Holmes jealous?" Disbelief would have been an understatement.
Hooper laughs, again, much quieter now, not self-loathing but only a few steps up. "Silly, wasn't it? When, well, he didn't seem interested in that sort of thing at all."
"You wouldn't believe some of the theories we had about that," Sally agrees. When Hooper looks at her curiously, she swallows - when is she likely to be talking to this woman again - and elaborates. "It's one of the things you start discussing behind people's backs. We were all convinced he had some weird sexual fetish or other. I think John knew; felt a bit bad about that." Funny thing is, despite how it sounds, she really did. It was the fine line that Holmes never seemed all that aware of. "That's the thing Holmes never seemed to get: yes, I was sleeping with a married man, a bunch of people knew about it, but they never said anything. Not to my face."
“Sounds familiar,” Hooper agrees, surprisingly dry. For her. Then, “He'd say that's you deluding yourself."
"I just bet he would." God, she really can imagine him saying it, all smug and imperious and insufferable. "He really liked judging people. Didn't matter if they were alive or dead."
"At least when they're dead they can't hear you."
Sally…really isn’t sure what to say to that. Hooper just sounds so sad. Fortunately - or possibly unfortunately - Hooper recovers before her. "You really didn’t think much of him, did you?"
“Wish I could have.” She surprises herself with that. But, well, hearing it aloud, it’s true. “He was brilliant, but he was a bloody bastard.”
“He…” Hooper bites her lip, and says, "At least at the start, he liked me because I fancied him and I could get him in here." Oh. Oh, there's a story there, Sally can tell. It's way too frank. She wonders how many months of coming to terms with reality she's missing out on. "And - And I'd let him do a few experiments. So long as it was for a case, you know." She hesitates, then adds, "Or…if he said the right thing. You’re right, he could be terrible for that.”
Suddenly looking worried, she looks up at Sally. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"Honestly? I'm just glad that stuff wasn't leftovers from his victims." Locking somebody up for being a lovesick idiot doesn’t seem fair, especially given what she’s heard.
"Oh." Hooper isn't smiling. "I forgot for a moment, sorry. You thought that he was..." She doesn't finish the sentence, but then, she doesn't have to. Already Sally can feel the weight of the accusation again; the weight of the past, she supposes.
“It was more that sort of thing that bothered me. The using me part. And maybe a bit of what he did down here, and what he took away, but…” Hooper sighs. "I know I can come off as a bit...because I work with corpses, I don't see them the same way as most people. So I don't have the same idea of respecting them, because, well, then I'd never cut them open, right?" She smiles, and then immediately it vanishes. "Oh God, I'm so sorry."
Open-mouthed, Sally just stares at her. She figures she’s justified.
After the moment lengthens, fading into awkward avoidance, she manages, "Bloody hell. I can actually imagine you two getting along, Hooper."
"Molly," Hooper insists, probably because that's the one bit in the sentence she can cling onto. "I - I don't really know anybody who calls me Hooper." While Sally's not entirely comfortable with the idea, she supposes Molly seems a lot more human than most people she meets, so why not?
Adding the extra layer of intimacy makes her feel as if she should offer something in return - quite frankly, Sally hasn’t had anything like this in a while, and she isn’t immune to the fact that this adds a pathology lab assistant after an adulterer on the list of her confidantes.
Except now she’s ‘Molly’, Sally actually feels even more uncomfortable about this. So she tries a different track, because yes, Sally has a nosy streak, and John hasn’t particularly liked her since they first met.
“So, if you knew Holmes… Any stories?”
Molly looks rather taken aback. “What do you mean? Like, um, horror stories?”
“Christ no. Got enough of those of our own. But, um… You know.” She doesn’t. But ‘you know’ is useful because of how much it covers.
“Gossip?” Molly practically squeaks. “Um, I…”
Possibly a step too far. Nice one, Sally. “It’s just that you could look on the positive side. Like how he looked when he was looking for clues. Running around like a lunatic. Messed up the fucking crime scene, but at least he looked ridiculous. This one time,” she continues, not even trying to win Molly over, but just suddenly caught by the memory, “we caught him actually hanging upside down like a bat over the bed. With the coat on as well. He looked like Dracula.”
Molly giggles, and then looks both shocked and guilty for doing so.
“And then the plaster came off and he fell down.”
They both crack up at that. To be fair, those were in the days before John, when Sherlock could be even more manic when it came to cases - Sally is still pretty convinced he’d been ‘experimenting’ that day - but at least it gave them some photos to laugh over when he was being a complete wanker. Especially when he tried to act better than everybody else.
Sally conjures up a few more memories - particularly enjoying the various times they’ve fished him out of the Thames - for no other reason than it feels nice to make somebody else laugh. For a few minutes, the morgue almost seems cosy.
Then, unexpectedly, Molly asks, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Sally’s genuinely curious about what Molly might want to ask of her of all people. Christ, she hopes it isn’t anything about…well, any of a very long list of things. She hopes it isn’t about Anderson.
“At your work…you know, the crime scenes. Sorry, I just want to know if this is just me, but did he… Did he ever act like he was… Like figuring it all out made him…” Bless her, Molly looks like she wants to die, like she’d rather the ground opened up and swallowed her than finish the sentence - any of them.
It’s the blush that saves her. And all Sally can feel is relief that it wasn’t just her.
“Yes!” she yells, grinning fully, before she hastily tries to dial it back to something approaching professionalism. “I mean, he might have done that. A few times.”
Molly is smiling, at least. That’s good.
“No bloody wonder we thought he was into…something. Especially when we started doing a bit of research using John’s blog…”
“Me too,” Molly admits, looking around as if somebody could actually be listening in. "He left his riding crop here a few times."
"You're kidding." Sally stops, makes a show of considering the matter. "No, you know what? I believe that."
"For an experiment."
"He used that as an excuse for everything. We could've found him in drag and chatting up the PM and he'd say it was for a case."
"Did that actually happen?"
Sally practically cackles at the thought. "Not the PM, although with the other part, there was this thing at the Notting Hill carnival..."
"Really?"
"I have pictures," Sally reassures her. "There was a Hall of Fame, but...well..."
Shit.
She coughs uncomfortably, watches Molly's face fall, and just like that, the moment breaks.
Silences always feel worse when they’re unexpected.
"Funny how everybody stopped calling him a freak after he..."
"Jumped off the building?"
Sally winces, but doesn’t have to tell Molly she’s right.
Hesitating, Molly moves next to her, and even seems a second away from reaching out to touch her. She doesn't, yet Sally still appreciates the thought of the gesture. "You didn't seem that sure, when you came in."
"Because I of all people can't say it. You don't know what it's like these days. Even if he was a fake, nobody wants anything to do with it, because it makes them look bad. Anderson's been transferred, I'm hanging by a thread because it suits them upstairs to have me around any time they need a scapegoat because right now it looks like admitting they made a mistake - “
"Do you think you did?"
And that's the real question, isn't it?
That's the question that's been keeping Sally up at night. That she asks her reflection. That she asked Anderson, until it was over and his last words were to tell her to get on with her life. Did she start this whole ball rolling, cause a chain of events that caused a man to end his life, by mistake?
"Maybe."
While she can't bring herself to look, she can hear Molly's soft exhale, and isn't entirely sure whether it's relief or sadness or something else altogether.
"Why aren't you sure?"
Well. Molly isn't police. She's a pathology lab assistant (according to her nametag), with enough social awkwardness to ensure that she doesn't talk freely to anybody who walks in here. Sally only got this far because of the topic, she reflects wryly. The topic and an unexpected sense of humour on both their parts. Maybe also a need to vent about the past. So really there's no shame in her little conspiracy theory.
"Can I tell you a secret?"
As she looks up, she's mildly surprised to see Molly's face twist into something deeply unhappy. It doesn't last, but what's left behind isn't exactly perky, for all that the woman tries - the way that she keeps trying. "You wouldn't be the first."
For a moment Sally thinks about pursuing that, except that would just be avoiding the matter even more than she already is. She has quite enough excuses as it is.
"I was certain when I went to Lestrade. Maybe not 100%, but pretty close. Like I said, there were all the signs, all the freaky behaviour, the girl, and the way that he just always knew."
"He didn't explain it?" Molly asks, before the inevitable blush. "Sorry, I do want to hear, it's just - I understand why he didn't like explaining it all to me - it annoyed me, but I’m just the girl with the bodies, you know, if he doesn’t feel like talking… But I thought it would be different with the police. You know, with an actual case. He seemed to like doing that."
"He liked an audience," Sally agrees, "but that didn't mean he'd talk us through it entirely, and some of the jumps were just - a few too many of them felt more like he had the answer and just had to work backwards. That's not police work. It just - It felt wrong. It always did. And not just because Lestrade would keep putting calls in like we were incompetent."
“Where's Lestrade now?"
Silence. Sally feels her hands clench against the table, enjoying the distraction of first cold steel and then the faint pain as she presses harder, wishing it hurt more.
For once, Molly doesn't prompt her. She just waits. Sally can see why people might treat her more as a depository for secrets than anything else, and finds that she feels bad for being another in a long line. Molly seems like somebody who deserves more than getting mixed up in this.
Finally, she forces herself to spit it out, gritting her teeth, tasting the bitterness of every word. "'Temporary leave of absence'." It's all she can do not to spit in a less metaphorical sense. "That's what they're calling it. What it means is he's on leave until they can figure out just what to do with him."
"Oh." Another hesitation, but this time Sally does feel Molly brush against her arm, obviously not sure what to do but trying anyway. "I'm sorry."
"Not as sorry as those sods will be when they realise what a bloody mistake they've made." Her words come out fierce, and that's good. "Whatever I thought of Holmes, when it comes to Lestrade, I won't hear a bloody word against him."
After a pause, Molly responds, "I met him a few times in here. And this one time at Sherlock’s.” Okay, seriously, who is this woman? “He seemed nice. Wasn't sure what to make of Sherlock but was willing to go with it. To save people."
"That was Lestrade for you. Holmes treated it as a fucking game, that's what always got to me."
"I guess for him it was."
Sally scowled at her. "Don't act like that's okay. From what I've heard, Moriarty thought the same way. Did you like being collateral?"
In the same moment that Sally regrets her words, Molly stills, and her hand drops away. Sally's shoulder feels cold. It had been nice, having somebody actually care, just for a moment. The apology feels dull and repetitive and useless, but she still offers it, not expecting much in return. In that respect, though, she is surprised.
"It's okay. Like you said, he sucked people in. I don’t think he realised he was doing it most of the time. Or cared, most of the time." Molly looks like she's remembering something in particular; something that brings out a sad smile. Fighting back her instincts, Sally doesn't pry. She doesn't get anything else, and she insists to herself that that's okay. She needs to stop poking around into other people's lives when they're not actually relevant to her work, because her work is the only damned thing that should matter to her right now. Sherlock Holmes is in the past, for all that he's still managing to ruin her life by making her feel - well, by making her feel so fucking guilty, to be honest.
However, her silence is rewarded by Molly softly pointing out, "You think Moriarty was real."
It's not an accusation, but Sally still protests weakly, "I didn't say that."
"You might as well have done." Biting her lip, Molly adds, "Is that it? Part of your secret?"
Damn, she's perceptive. Maybe it comes from watching freaks poke around your morgue. Or maybe not everything is connected to Holmes and Sally just has to accept that. "Quite a big bit, actually. The murder charges, I'm sorry, those were fine. I had a hunch, we followed it up, the whole thing stank. It was - The bit that didn't feel right was when the papers started going on about this 'Richard Brook'." She looks up at Molly, eyebrows raised. "Guy was a freak, I'm sorry, it's true. I'll say a lot of things about him, and I pretty much already have. The only thing I regretted that morning was that I hadn't said anything sooner.
"But as soon as that woman came into it, the very fucking day after it all kicked off, I..." Sally shakes her head. “The press. Worse than that, redtops. No copper worth their salt believes anything in them.” And Sally most definitely doesn’t resent them. After all, she got more than a few laughs from them at Holmes’ expense. Which only makes everything worse.
Molly is watching her closely. Somehow, she knows exactly what Sally needs her to say.
"Do you think he was a fake?"
"No."
"Good." She smiles. "Me neither."
And oh God, that feels like such a relief. Sally can't help but smile back, because it's not just her. "You have no idea how fucking good that feels."
"I have some idea. But it's also hearing that somebody else didn't fall for it."
Pretty odd words. But they echo somewhere at the back of Sally's mind. The rest of her little theory. "That's what's really been getting to me. Why reading that stupid article made me start questioning myself - and I don’t do that easily.” Molly smiles warmly, and it might not be entirely for Sally but she can still enjoy it. “It felt like a step too far. The more I think about it, the more something smells really bad. Because once I thought the Brook thing was a load of crap, I got to thinking about what Moriarty - if he was real - was getting out of all this. And I realised - I realised it was just possible that the whole thing was some ridiculous set-up. Including me, because if there was one thing everybody could count on, it's that I thought Holmes was always one step away from murder. Bastard must have figured I'd jump at the chance to have a shred of proof, and I proved him right."
That’s what gets to her. That’s what really buries itself in her head and doesn’t let go.
"If it helps," Molly says softly, "you wouldn't be the first."
"Only yours didn't end with Holmes chucking himself off the roof." She can’t help sighing. "Something smells funny about that too, but I guess I'm just paranoid."
"Oh?" It comes out more of a squeak than anything else. Apparently the idea of even that being a lie is a bit much, and to be fair, it really is, and no doubt especially so when you had feelings for the person in question.
"Don't worry about it," she reassures her, "it's nothing. I was just, well, surprised when I heard he did it right in front of John. Still, just goes to show, he always did have that cruel streak."
Molly lowers her head, once again looking so awfully, deeply sad. Then she whispers, almost too quiet for Sally to hear, "You're right about that."
Obviously Molly's thinking of something specific. That's...That's not all that surprising. Sally's starting to realise Holmes may well have put this girl through Hell. If there's one thing she can do in the comforting department, it's commiseration. Sally Donovan has never been known for her impeccable taste in men, so she knows the drill. Although of course there's a bit more hanging in the air over this one.
"Really quite a bastard, really," she offers, and is delighted when she surprises a laugh out of Molly. It's more of a gasp, high and incredulous, but it's there.
Looking somewhere between smiling painfully and close to crying, Molly agrees, "You're not wrong."
"Of course I'm not. Holmes being a bastard was my specialist subject." The thought makes her feel...odd. She's not sure what to call it: slightly hollow, a bit rueful, nostalgic but not the same as when she graduated.
Molly truly is amazing, because not only does she realise it, she understands, and she knows exactly how to phrase it.
“All those things. The way he acted. I mean, you’re right, about some of them, at least. But in the end…” Molly sighed. “You do miss him, don’t you?”
It’s probably meant rhetorically. Maybe the fact that Sally is hearing it at all is purely coincidental, if not accidental. But, to the surprise of both of them, she finds herself replying. “Yeah, I do.”
They stare at each other. For a moment, that’s all that needs saying. Sally might say she almost feels at peace.
Of course, then it develops into one of those awkward silences that Sally seems to spend most of her life trying to avoid - there’s a reason she developed her charming sense of humour. Unfortunately a joke or observation would feel horribly out of place, so all she has left is a hasty retreat.
“Well, best be on my way. Nice chatting with you.”
“Same,” Molly says eagerly, still smiling brightly, even if a touch of awkwardness finds its way in there. Then she frowns. “Wait, what about your jumper?”
Sally rolls her eyes. “Come on, we both know that was just make-work. Nobody at the station knows what to do with me, and they love sending me off on these errands just to try to get me to do something so that they have an excuse to demote me. I’m not moving and they don’t want to attract attention.”
“That sounds awful.”
She shrugs. “I’m guessing there isn’t a cut-throat world of morgue politics.” Actually, something’s just occurred to her. “What do you think?”
Molly looks startled. “About what?”
“I was supposed to go over the details with you. You hung around with Holmes. Any theories?”
“I - ” Swallowing, Molly seems to give it some thought, then says, “The one who came before… I told him there were all these cat scratches, where a cat wouldn’t normally be able to get to. Like a cat had been able to get at his whole body. And he didn’t own one, because they were all made at the same time. No marks from before. I think he just thought I was a mad cat lady.”
“Sometimes we need those.” Sally nods. “I’ll look into it.”
“It’s probably nothing,” Molly says hurriedly. “Sherlock - you start thinking like him.”
“Don’t worry. You’re much nicer.”
Sally isn’t sure what causes to say her next words - although it might be that this really is the first chance she’s had to really talk about this on her own terms. That and how good it feels to laugh. “Listen, do you want to get a drink some time? Nothing funny, just drinks and a chat. Somewhere that isn’t a morgue.”
Molly looks a little startled, and Sally automatically tenses for the rejection, but then she realises that perhaps people who work with corpses don’t get many requests like this. “I’d love to. It’s… I’ve liked talking. To you, obviously, not just talking, I have my cats for that. I mean - ”
Sally cuts her off with a chuckle. “Don’t worry about it. What’s your number?”
So they exchange numbers, some slightly relieved laughs, and then Sally really does leave.
She still has to go back to the Yard knowing they sent her there on a wild goose chase. She still has to try not to say a thing. She still has to walk through that building with the eyes of everybody on her.
That won’t change. Her versus her superiors, with all to play for.
But now, Sally finds that she doesn’t mind quite as much.
Maybe it’s like a beginning. But really, it’s starting to feel more like an ending. And that’s all she wants.