A Good Man (A Molly Hooper Fiction)

Alone In The Morgue

A/N: This is a story I published on another site in 2013. I've always had a soft spot for it, and thought I'd share. PS- the whole idea was to take Molly's blog entries (which, by the way, can be found for real at http://www.mollyhooper.co.uk/) and make up a story that we hadn't gotten a chance to see. So, here goes!

Saint Bart's was not where she thought she'd end up. Not that there was anything wrong with it, it just...wasn't what she had expected. Weak lights, long hours, lonely shifts, nothing all that interesting, as far as deaths go. Occasionally, she would get really lucky and a tourist would come home with some tropical disease to liven things up. Mostly it was the usual old age, motor vehicle accidents, the occasional suicide. There was Sherlock, of course, and he made things interesting, if not terribly exciting, and sometimes a little confusing. She would help as best she could, but she never got much of an explanation from him, so mostly she stood back and let the man work. He seemed to regard her as an assistant, ignoring her schooling and intelligence. But he seemed to spend less and less time at work lately, and even when he was there, it was like he looked through her unless he needed something. He flustered her as well. Something about him she couldn't quite put her finger on. It was probably the way he could tell you your whole life story without so much as having an entire conversation. He must know how she felt, but he was completely absorbed in work, and had made no mention of it, let alone given any sign that he was even remotely interested, so perhaps it was best he stayed away until she could sort THAT out.

She'd always imagined herself doing important research, working in a high-tech lab with a tightly knit group of coworkers. And this is what she was daydreaming about the day her computer screeched at her and quit working. She couldn't even tell IT what had happened or what might have caused it to crash. She simply hadn't been paying any attention. They promised somebody would be down "just as quick as possible", but she knew what that meant, and brought herself back to reality with the stack of charts on her cold Formica desk. Coronary artery disease, liver failure; a man found floating in the Thames was about the only thing of interest, but it was starting to look more and more like he was drunk and fell in. Nothing pointing to foul play, but she might as well have another look at it while she waited for the toxicology to turn up what she expected to be high levels of alcohol and/or recreational drugs.

She got up to look busy in case somebody from IT actually got over their silly feelings about the morgue and finally heard somebody come in just as she was taking another swab from the cheek of the "river man". "I don't know what happened, if you're wondering. It was just sitting there and it made an awful noise...hello?"

"I'm here. I'll just take a look, no need to stop what you're doing on my account." This sounded reasonable enough and she went back to pretending to be busy. As she was covering the body and making some inconsequential notes in the file she felt eyes on her back. The hair on her neck stood up, and she spun on her heel to come face to face with the tech from upstairs. "This is the morgue, huh? Spooky. All fixed up!"

The man hardly stayed still long enough to make an impression. Wiping his hands on the back of his trousers, he flashed a smile and was gone. And that was the end of her human interaction for the day. Well, her interaction with a LIVING human for the day. She walked back to computer, it's screen now a bright, glowing eye, coldly looking back at her. "Well. Hello. Welcome back, then. No more trying to ditch me. It's just you and me down here, and I don't know what I would do without your lovely face to see me through my shift." Molly looked over her shoulder, and logged on to her blog. Nothing too exciting to write about today, but she had promised herself she would keep a diary of sorts this year, and she was aready 27 days late starting.

Hi. My name is Molly Hooper. I work at Barts Hospital...