Work Text:
"Oh, Sherlock, you're still here," Molly Hooper remarked suprised to find the man standing in the corridor off the morgue. Her eyes flicked to the smouldering cigarette in his hand. "And your smoking," she added with a nervous smile. "I thought you'd given up."
"I have," Sherlock replied, then took a long pull from the fag.
"Oh," Molly meekly remarked. "You're really not supposed to do that here, you know. It's a hospital after all." Sherlock's head snapped toward her, his eyes narrowed. Molly was stuck like the proverbial rabbit in the headlamps under that cool citrine gaze of his. She cleared her throat and let out a nervous titter. "Though I suppose your not really bothering anyone," she said lightly.
Sherlock gave her a slight nod and turned his head back to face ahead at the wall.
After a painful – for Molly at least – beat of silence ticked by, Molly ventured to speak again, "I'm sorry about your... friend?" Molly's voice lilted upward at the end turning her statement of condolence into a question. She didn't know who Irene Adler was to Sherlock, but being as he made a positive identification of her based on her, well, unclothed body, she had to be something to him.
Dear god, Molly! What on earth is the matter with you? She admonished herself. Listen to yourself, fishing for information on Sherlock's relationship status while he mourns for someone. You're jealous of a woman lying dead on a slab! How pathetic can you get?
Apparently, quite.
"I hardly knew her," Sherlock replied matter-of-factly. Did he ever speak in any other way? "I only met her once."
"Oh," Molly remarked. What else was she to say? She wondered what could have transpired at this sole meeting which led to him knowing her naked body in detail enough to decipher it from all others.
Sherlock pivoted on his heels toward her. "Good night, Molly," he said tersely, dropping his cigarette to the floor and stomping it out.
The sound of his abrupt voice pulled her out of her illicit musings about him and the late Irene. "Oh, right," she returned, clearing her throat. "Night Sherlock."
He gave her a stiff nod, before stocking off purposefully down the corridor. Molly gazed after him wistfully, her eyes slipping downward, as they always did, to that magnificent posterior of his.
She sighed.
Molly Hooper, she thought, most pathetic person on the planet.
Once Sherlock and his bum were no longer in her view, Molly shook her head at herself and turned to go back into the morgue.
END