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“Hello, Molly.”
Molly’s head popped up and she smiled at Sherlock. “Hello! Welcome home.”
“Thank you,” he said with a slight smile.
“How was New York?” she asked, turning in her chair in her office to look at him better.
“It was good, I suppose. My relationship with my cousin has been mended, and he found an old paramour he thought he had lost for good.” He came into her office more. “I ended up helping him solve two cases while we were there, and we found out that his assistant is John’s cousin.”
“John must have been pleased by that,” she said with a slight chuckle. “Did I have a body of yours for a case?”
Sherlock shook his head. “No. I was in the building and thought I would say hello.”
A slight look of confusion crossed her face. “You never come down here unless I have one of your bodies.”
He looked down slightly. “I have decided that, perhaps, I should extend my circle of friends to more than just John. You and Lestrade have tolerated me for a long while. Perhaps I can try and be your friends, if that would be all right.”
“I already considered you a friend, Sherlock,” she said, standing up. “I mean, I helped you fake your death, and I know I was the only one other than your brother you kept in contact with. I figured we were friends whether you acknowledged us as such or not.”
“Oh,” he said with a slight nod as she got closer, and after a moment he watched her approach him. “I see.”
“You know, I get off work in ten minutes. I had the graveyard shift last night. If you want, maybe we can go get breakfast and talk?” she asked as she got in front of him. “I’d like to hear more about your time in New York.”
“Really?” he asked, looking at her intently. “You don’t think I will bore you to tears?”
“I doubt it,” she said with a smile. “We’ve had some interesting conversations before, when you were gone. None of those bored me to tears.” She lifted her hand up and hesitantly placed it on his arm. “You intrigue me, I suppose.”
“I’m glad to know that,” he said, looking down at her hand.
“Let me finish the report for the next shift and then we can go. Do you think you’ll be bored waiting down here?” she asked. He shook his head, eyes still fixated on her hand. She squeezed his arm once and then let go. “Then give me a few moments. I can leave as soon as my replacement gets here.”
“Very well,” he replied. He looked around her office. He had been there before a few times, mostly when he’d left her a note while she was out of the room. Some of the things he had done she had not wanted to see, and if he had needed results and she wasn’t around he would have to find a way to tell her, and the simplest way had been to write a note. He’d usually done no more than rifle through the things on her desk for a pen and some paper, so he’d never really studied the room. “You have no photos here.”
“I share the office, and Dr. Lewis has an overabundance of pictures on his side,” she said wryly. “They spill into my area. I honestly don’t think there’s room for any of mine.”
“Would you bring one in, if you felt you could have space for it?’ he asked, moving around the room more.
“I have a few I would like to bring,” she said. “Ones of my family, and maybe my friends.”
“No boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “The last boyfriend I had was Jim,” she said quietly. “Three dates and then it was over.” He could see her tense up as she spoke. Once she found out the truth she must have realized how much his game could have cost her, how close she could have been to being another casualty in Moriarty’s war to prove he was the best.
“He’s dead and gone. He will never hurt you again,” he replied quietly as he got closer to her. Hesitantly, he put a hand on her shoulder. He was not used to displaying physical signs of comfort, but she looked as though she could use it, and as a friend he supposed he should offer comfort if he could. He could feel her shaking beneath him.
“I know,” she said with a nod. “It’s still hard to think about, though. He could have retaliated when I ended things. He could have killed me.”
“I am sorry you were ever put in that position in the first place. You did not deserve to be used like that.”
She reached up and placed her hand over his, squeezing gently. “Thank you, Sherlock.”
“You’re welcome.” She let go and he removed his hand from her shoulder. He moved away from her then to let her finish her task.
As the office door opened again she looked up. “I’m almost done, Martin,” she said to Dr. Lewis with a smile.
“It’s all right,” he replied back with an answering grin of his own. Then he saw Sherlock and the smile on his face dropped. “Mr. Holmes.”
“Dr. Lewis,” Sherlock said with a nod.
“Desecrating another corpse today?” he asked.
“Martin,” Molly said sharply. “He’s here to take me to breakfast as soon as I finish this.”
He blinked. “As in a date?” he asked, confused.
Sherlock shook his head. “I recently returned from a trip to visit family in the United States. I came by to say hello to Molly and she suggested we talk over breakfast.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding slightly. “So…not a date.”
‘No, Martin, not a date,” Molly said with an exasperated sigh. “We’re just friends.” She set down her pen and handed him the papers. “Here are the results on Mrs. Grayson. Could you type them up for me and file them?”
Dr. Lewis nodded. “Yes. Of course.” He took the papers. "Have a good breakfast, Molly. Mr. Holmes.”
“Have a good day at work,” Molly said, standing up and taking her lab coat off. She went to the coat rack in the corner and grabbed her coat, putting it on. “Let’s get going, Sherlock.” Sherlock nodded once to Dr. Lewis and then followed Molly out the door and then out of the morgue. “Of all the nerve,” she said under her breath.
“Pardon?” Sherlock asked.
“Martin. The desecrating corpses remark was uncalled for.” She turned to look at him. ‘My fellow pathologists don’t agree with my letting you run your experiments. But I’m in charge and if I want to allow it they bloody well have to accept it.”
Sherlock smiled slightly. “It’s all right. I’m thankful you allow it.”
“Yes, well, you put the knowledge to good use. It’s not as though you’re doing it for kicks.” She shook her head. “Still, I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”
“As I said before, it’s all right,” he replied. “Where would you like to go for breakfast?”
“Probably the café I usually go to when I have the graveyard shift,” she said with a smile. “I’ll even treat.”
He shook his head. “Let me cover the meal.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“I insist.” They got to the elevator. “Maybe it will be a start to making up for all the horrible things I have said and done towards you.”
“You really don’t have to, Sherlock,” she said as she shook her head. “The past is the past. I like this new and improved you better, and I just assumed we’ve started fresh, you know? You don’t have anything to make up to me.”
“Still, I would like to pay,” he said.
“All right,” she said with a smile. “But next time it’s on me, all right?”
He nodded. “Very well.”
She pushed the button for the elevator. “So tell me about your cousin and his assistant,” she said as they waited a moment for the doors to open. When they did they stepped inside and she pushed the button for the first floor. “I’d like to hear about the other Sherlock Holmes in the world, and the cousin John didn’t know he had.”
“Well,” Sherlock began, “I suppose I should start by explaining a bit about my cousin,” he said as the doors shut behind them. “He’s a lot like me, in some ways, but also wildly different.” And with that he began to talk to her, open up to her, and by the time they were done for the day he truly felt as though they were on the road to having a lasting friendship on par with his friendship to John. He hoped it would be this easy with the others as well.