perception of the mind (sh adaptation)

Nineteen • Flight Of The Stars

"For God's sake hold your tongue and let me love."

-John Donne, c.1571-1631

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Rain, rain, rain.

That was all London seemed to be doing for the past two weeks. In the beginning, it was a cooling blessing from the blaring sun of summer, but soon became a dread to bear.

He pushed open the lab door and walked in.

"Sherlock! I was wondering, should you use the microscopes again, if you could just..." Molly paused. "Sherlock?"

His eyes were fixed on the window on the door. "Won't be a moment," he walked back out of the lab.

▪︎

"No, no, I was just picking things up for the weekend," Ophelia nodded, turning off the lab lights and straightening the bag on her shoulder. "Do you need the lab?"

"The equipment inside it,"

She flicked the lights back on and gestured towards it with a smile. "Sure. I might as well finish the things I need to do while I'm here, then..."

Sherlock nodded, pivoted on his heels and walked towards the ventilated enclosures. He was looking at each different bottle as Ophelia pulled out a barstool and sat at the counter. "The acid chloroquine phosphate is gone." he said plainly.

"Yeah," she clicked her pen and wrote something down on her paper. "They removed the supplies for the week."

"Why?"

"A patient got hold of them and took it all thinking he'd be free from a virus and died because of all the abdominal cavities." she looked up with a smile. "He's there," she pointed to another door inside the lab.

Sherlock closed the enclosure lid and turned around slowly with narrowed eyes. He paused. "Do people do that?"

"It seems so."

"How strange."

"What is?"

"The way normal people think, it's terribly confounding,"

She laughed. "I'm afraid it's a struggle not being as smart as you,"

Sherlock turned around. "Well you're intelligent," he swallowed. "More than the chloroquine drunkard."

"Well thank you," she laughed again, this time more sarcastically.

It fell quiet again. The sound of her own scratching on the paper and she wrote, he could practically hear his own breath echo. Sherlock watched Ophelia write down a math equation and begin to solve it.

He watched her for a moment. Glanced at the idle calculator beside her. "Blaise Pascal."

She looked up. "Hm?"

He blinked. "Creator of the calculator..."

"Okay.. " She narrowed her eyes amusedly. "I don't get it, what's your point?"

His eyes fell to the solved equation on the piece of paper in front of her.

She put the pen down and looked up at him. "I have to sport the mind somehow."

He stared at her. "Yes, well," he straightened his jacket and cleared his throat. "If I don't have what I need I might as well leave."

"Okay,"

"Okay."

He didn't move. Ophelia looked up at him. "I'll see you on Monday."

"Am I that predictable?"