Back To The Start (Sherlock fanfiction #Wattys2016)

Chapter Nineteen: Abigail and Molly

A week had passed. Abigail's injuries were nearly healed and her horrible date was long forgotten.

Abigail was plucking at Sherlock's violin. She had been staying over to his flat a lot in the past week. Sherlock had even taught her to play violin. While she wasn't the best yet, she was learning.

"Careful with the strings," Sherlock told Abigail, not lifting his eyes from whatever he was looking at on his laptop. "They're old."

"You should change them then," Abigail replied. Sherlock waved away her comment, causing the young lady to roll her eyes at her boyfriend.

It felt weird to call him that now. Boyfriend. They had decided to make it official the past week that they were dating. The only people who really knew were Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Donovan and Anderson. You can imagine Lestrade, Donovan and Anderson's reaction when they found out.

Donovan had said, "How does a freak like you get a girlfriend?"

You can also imagine how Abigail reacted to that.

"What are you looking at anyways?" Abigail asked, placing Sherlock's violin to the side and walking to his side to look at his laptop.

"My website."

"You have a website."

Sherlock nodded. "The Science of Deduction. I get cases on here sometimes."

"Got any today?"

"No."

Sherlock's phone chimed. Abigail knew this was a text from Molly. Her thoughts were confirmed as Sherlock got up and grabbed his coat and scarf.

"What did you ask Molly to get you now?" Abigail asked as she followed him down the stairs.

"A jar of eyeballs," Sherlock replied. Abigail didn't question him. Not because she didn't want to know, but because she didn't care.

The two of them hailed a taxi and headed to St. Bart's hospital.

Abigail let her hand fall limp on the seat between herself and Sherlock. Sherlock, being the genius he was, wasted no time to reach over and take her hand in his. Abigail couldn't help but smile. She always imagined what it would feel like to hold Sherlock's hand. She never thought she actually would be.

The taxi pulled up to St. Bart's. Sherlock let go of Abigail's hand to pay the fair and got out to hold the door open. Abigail smiled at him.

"Do I wanna know what this eyeball experiment is?" she asked as they walked into St. Bart's.

"You've stayed through worst," Sherlock pointed out. Abigail couldn't argue with that.

Molly was working away in the morgue when the two entered. She gave Sherlock her usual smile and a fake one. Molly's feelings towards Abigail hadn't changed in the past year and Abigail knew they would take a drastic turn if Molly found out that Abigail and Sherlock were together.

Molly gave Sherlock the jar of eyes.

"Thank you, Molly," he said. "If you don't mind, I have to go upstairs for a moment. Coming Abigail?"

"I'll be up in a second."

Sherlock nodded and left the room. Molly was already ignoring Abigail once again.

"Molly," Abigail said. "Can I talk to you?"

"Make it quick, I have to get back to work," Molly replied, not once looking at Abigail over her shoulder.

Abigail took a deep breath and marched over to Molly. She stood on the opposite side of the table that Molly was working at. Molly peaked up at her for a brief moment before looking back to her work. Abigail tried not to get angry. Molly really was starting to annoy her.

"Listen, I feel like we've gotten off on the wrong foot. I wanna start over," she began. "I think you and I would be good friends."

"I don't," Molly replied. Abigail huffed.

"Well, let's try this. Take Sherlock out of the equation. Pretend neither of us knew him. Pretend we're meeting over some sort of...weird...thing where I had to visit the morgue for some reason," she tried. "Hi, my name is Abigail Watson."

Abigail extended her hand to Molly. Molly looked at her hand for a moment before looking back up at her face. She decided to go along with what Abigail was good. She took Abigail's smaller hand in her cold one and shook it.

"Molly Hooper," she said.

"Nice to meet you, Molly Hooper. You've got a fascinating job you know."

This grasped Molly's attention. "You think?"

"Yeah! I mean, you get to work with people who won't talk back or make smart remarks. You don't know how much I'd love to have a job like that."

Molly and Abigail laughed at the joke.

"So, what you do for Sherlock. Could you get in trouble for it?" Abigail asked, following Molly as she moved from one table to another.

"Possibly. But only if anyone found out," Molly replied. "But it's not like anyone needs them anyways." Abigail chuckled. "His experiments don't disgust you?"

"It's hard to disgust me," Abigail shrugged. "But you should see his land lady's face when she sees some of the stuff he brings home. She's threatened to kick him out more than once if he kept bringing those 'disgusting experiments into my house!'"

Molly laughed. "Why hasn't she then?"

"Owes Sherlock a favor. But then again, who doesn't."

Molly and Abigail continued to talk. They made jokes and told stories. Abigail even helped Molly with what she was doing at one point. Just like Abigail planned, she and Molly became great friends.

Abigail was glad. She absolutely hated going to St. Bart's when she knew all Molly was going to do was flirt with Sherlock (who was so naïve he didn't notice she was doing so) and glare at her whenever she spoke. This would make visits more fun.

Both girls lost track of time and soon enough, an hour had passed. Sherlock returned to the morgue just as the girls were laughing over another joke Abigail had told. He gave them a confused look.

"You two are awful friendly," he pointed out.

"Who says we weren't before?" Molly asked. Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"Remember who we're talking to, Molly," Abigail said. "The great Sherlock Holmes. Master deducer. Can tell your whole life story just by the outfit you're wearing."

Molly bit her lip to keep back a chuckle, but Abigail let her's ring out through the room. This caused Sherlock to smile.

"I'm heading home. You coming?" he asked.

"Uh-"

Abigail's phone chimed. She took it out of her pocket. A text from Harry. It had been months since she heard from her sister. She hoped everything was okay.

The message read: 'john was shot. has been discharged. won't answer my calls. he's staying here. see if he's okay.'

Abigail quickly replied: 'on my way -A.W'

"No," she replied to Sherlock's question. "I have to go. Family business. Nice seeing you again, Molly."

"You too, Abigail," Molly said with a genuine, friendly smile. Abigail smiled back before racing out of the hospital. Sherlock was quick on her heels.

"It's your brother, isn't it?" he asked as Abigail hailed a taxi.

"It is," she replied. "Listen, you don't have to come. It's something I need to do on my own. Alright?"

Sherlock nodded. "Alright."

He quickly gave Abigail a peak on the lips, causing the younger lady to turn pink before she climbed into the taxi. He gave the cabbie the address Harry had sent her and was off