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"You and me, we're bumper cars. The more I try to get to you, the more we crash apart."
-Bumper Cars, Alex & Sierra
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"WHERE IS HE, when I needed him the most?" The silhouette shifted its weight from the sofa.
"Where is he now, Toby? Where do you think?" She asked the feline as she took her own cuppa from the coffee table. Seeming to realize her fault, she retorted suppressing a small laugh, “Sorry Toby forgot that you can't talk."
The fact that her cat, the one whom she thought that could help her forget about the things that causes her stress, forget about being lonely, could no longer be a companionable friend, makes her burst into tears, forgetting about her brief laughter.
She'd be lonely.
Where is he?
She needed him now.
She just hoped she could send him a message or call via phone, e-mail, LinkedIn, or any social site that she knew, though the man is not a socializing humanoid, so that she could ask him how is he.
And that simple thought caused her to grab her phone from the table in exchange for her cuppa. She tried to type down letters at the on-screen keyboard lying above the white void.
I need you. - Molly
She tried to press down the send key at the screen, however— it seemed that on their current stage, saying that statement would worsen their state.
She quickly erased each word, letter by letter, leaving the first pronoun she had stated, and then pressing different letters, once again forming: I miss you. - Molly
That does sound good, yet again not enough to start a conversation without making an awkward atmosphere. Why not try, 'Where are you?' Or 'How are you?' Those still won't do any better!
She can't even get a glimpse of the man's problem. Not even a cent or a bit of it. She doesn't understand him, his sudden change of reactions. His words.
They were happy as a clam at high water; she could see it within him, within his eyes. The visible curves at the end of his lips, the straight line formed by his eyes when he was delighted, she knew that those were never been postiche.
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The first two months of the first year companionship was a pure bliss. Meet for a cup of Earl Gray on a tea shop near St. Bartholomew's Hospital, with her, being kidnapped by the black Jaguar XJ Saloon, within it a woman of black. When she once asked the woman named Anthea, to where were they going, the inscrutable woman offered her cryptic answer of a simple phrase: 'to a long way journey'. She'd better never asked.
Once been back to reality where she was standing inside a vacant tea shop, her senses would never fail her by noticing an auburn man sitting in a wooden yet foamed chair. A simple 'hi' escaped from her gritted teeth and a nod from the man were a good pleasantries they had exchanged, and an awkward silence started and upheld until Molly cracked her voice with a half laughing tone.
"Isn't it such a creep to find yourself alone in here?" Her words were seemed to be foolishly played by the man, noticing his creases in the forehead, she realized that she must withdraw it, otherwise added it with, "I mean... This is not a little coincidence, that this shop is vacated— with you alone inside." His face suddenly softened.
"Yes. It is not a coincidence; I had it booked for an important meeting." He straightened his back from the seat.
"Oh. Sorry. I'm sorry. I thought. Oh. But the woman outside just let me in. I didn't know that there'd be a business-class meeting to be held here. Believe me I didn't mean to. I'd better get going." Molly struck her cheeks with her palms, and then blushed as she realized a mistake; after which, she bowed down, apologizing then started to drag her feet out of the room.
"Doctor Molly Hooper. I booked it for you."
The whole break, they were both talking about how Sherlock had been as he seeks out and plucks Moriarty's henchmen one by one. No, it is Molly who’s talking, he wasn't even participating with the conversation they're having, just a simple nod, a thin-lined smile, and a one-liner answers were all she got from the man. She could never call this a friendly talk, or a heart-to-heart talk, but there was something about their exchanges that made her relished it, she could never pin point. Perhaps it wasn't the topic; rather she was quite developing a small fondness with the man's company. She didn't even ask his name, or know something that could stand as an identity except for a fact that Sherlock was both their mutual friend.
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They've been meeting at the same shop every Wednesdays and Fridays for three consecutive weeks, as if things had quite become a little more of a schedule, well at least, she had finally asked the man's name, Mycroft Holmes. And he wasn't just a friend of Sherlock, he is, well in fact, his brother.
"Hey, Umm, Mr. Holmes." Molly suddenly audibly said.
"Mycroft, it is. And yes? Care to share your thoughts?" The man looked at the woman sitting next to him as he leaned backwards resting his occipital by the air.
"Oh Mycroft, Why do you need to book this place?" Molly asked as she surprisingly leaned forward and placed her head above her folded limbs. "I mean, I know it's for privacy, regarding Sherlock's fall, but."
"Do carry on."
"But why can't we just stay at Bart's? At the morgue?" She questioningly looked at the man who was now laughing at his seat. "What?"
"A good place to talk, indeed, about dead people." Once said, he straightened out his back in the chair, and added, "I would rather suggest that this congress of two shall be assembled at your flat. I believe you're always available at exactly 5?"
"How did you know?"
"I just know."
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Starting from that day, every morning, Mondays to Sundays, the three piece suited man comes up and knocks at her door, either to inform her about her brother's well-being in a day-to-day basis or to seek company. As usual, they were pairs drinking a paired cup of tea in paired coverings of the sofa.
A month after and four next charts of her calendar, Mycroft had stopped visiting her every mornings yet commenced to pay her unexpected visits at the Bart's either in her office or at the morgue laboratory, then take her out for a lunch or dinner. She had asked what it was for; he replied with a smile, "I'm trying to be a businessman here, trying out shops."
She had no idea what did that mean, perhaps he's planning to invest on a business, neither did she know that it was her whom he was investing for.
Next days started to get a bit busy for her, number of morgue patients started to blow up, needing a multiple labor force. Her usual one hour break started to deplete into thirty, twenty until it exceeded to the limit of fifteen minutes, a point which she could no longer eat properly—she can't even get out of the hospital to get to a sanitary restaurant, and ended up munching the canteen's inedible food that is full of additives. But there was Mycroft again, calling for her simple help, to eat with him— willing to wait for her during his vacancies, when his presence wasn't needed in the government, he even made an effort of bringing her packed lunches from the outside world with a stem of white camellia, just so she could eat with him, in the office and not in that overly crowded canteen.
When everything started to be fine, and placed accordingly, Mycroft continued to pay her visits early mornings for a breakfasts and late evenings for dinners, which she always accommodates and accepts. For mornings, he usually brought bluebells and their evenings would suggest white carnations. Molly didn't even bother to ask or search for these flowers' meanings, her mind simply says those were just thank you gifts for keeping company as well as for his brother, until a day comes when it was Anthea who had woken her up from her slumber, with a dictionary and a bouquet of arbutus and said, "Mr. Holmes said you are in need of this, enough to keep you company." Then her traces were gone.
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Three weeks without his presence almost killed her. She got no one, all and pure alone, without Toby perhaps she had flew away from the others and forever keep Sherlock's secret, but she can't, everyone would notice her, it would bother her— she might not last a day without spilling them the coffee beans.
Four weeks gone and on its fifth, she cried all in her sleep, each night that passed, never did she forget to do it. Even the television shows won't do any better, each time she tried to view channels, she always seems to fall back to the thought of how is the man doing, does he still remember her? A small creak from her old undusted sofa crashed her back into reality. She swallowed the big lump on her throat at the thought of another burglar had crashed himself within her flat and then gathered her big duvet to distract whoever that burglar is. When she got out of her room, she tried to look at the darkness floating around the living; she held her courage and walked silently towards the light switch. As she clicked it, a man in a suit, who was sitting down and was relaxing in her seat, suddenly said, "It appears to me that you are planning to do one of the two from the four F's."
The four F's, the set of four biological instincts. He's sure she won't be doing any Feeding, Fornicating... No, not really, reports say that she never had any sexual encounter with any lover or even a partner while he's gone, Fleeing? Yes possible, in case that he was indeed a burglar— and with that duvet, perhaps to cover and to distract the man, can either suggest that she would be fleeing or fighting.
"Mycroft." She murmured, and then tried to look at the man, studying his features. "Mycroft," she added as she bit her lower lip then gritted her incisors and her canines from each of the four quadrants. "Mycroft." She realized that she was crying, pulling down the duvet, and then running towards the man who had his arms opened widely, wry and waiting for her softness.
"Is it all me that you happen to notice?" He asked as he tucked his chin above her head, his arms around her carefully gripping her tightly, wanting her warmth.
Molly just hummed savoring the moment that they're having as she realized that her room before isn't the same anyway before. She loosened and looked at her side, while the man's chest blocked her anterior, finding red tulips in different heights with different pots gathered around the room. "Wondered why I never had slipped?" She mocked laughing against his chest smelling a familiar scent, as the man started playing some classical music from his phone. "Hey Mycroft. What is it you're using now?" She started swaying with him, imagining that they were in a ball.
"Aside from the fact that the piece was from Sir Edward Elgar, popularly known as Salut D' Amour, and I stopped smoking, though I still do, during few occasions, however, I refused to refrain from scotches and spirits. Same still, nothing new with them." He answered her, eyes closed.
"Not what I meant. What you are wearing?" She paused looking up at the man. "You smelled..."
"Oh yes. I decided to change my fragrance with a little yet enamoring gift of yours. Aventus by Olivier and Erwin Creed, though I would personally advise and suggest the House's Pure White Cologne," he said.
"I thought the Tabarome Millesime would suit you better, you know, with all the brandy and cigars?" She uttered, looking at him, waiting for an answer.
"Oh no, not Winston Churchill. Anyways, you noted that you liked its smell, so..." He said, looking down with a grin on his face.
"You tried it?"
"Yes. The problem?" His smile fading, replaced by the creases on his forehead.
"Nothing. Just wondering." She admittedly answered him then returned her face back to his chest.
"As you were wondering why you never slipped, is that I have carefully calculated each precipitous step you'd be making, thus avoiding the possible and probable places you might laid your feet on to. Also, you are not meant to slip, not the way I wanted you to fall, of course, rather this." He said as he exhaled abruptly, making Molly pulled back from his chest. He took the small bump from his inside pockets, revealing a box. Opening it, she could see a lace and a pendant of a four-leaf clover embedded with emeralds, shining through it, producing rich green shade, and a diamond lying in the middle where all the emeralds have gathered. "I believe you have studied your assignment?"
With a simple nod, Molly reached up and kissed him passionately, unwilling to let go, completing the F's with a simple wave of instinct.
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One could say that they are the perfect couple, as Meena would put it into her words, endearing. With just an interaction, Meena could see everything with her imagination vividly, those brief lip locks they had exchanged while saying goodbyes, the bouquets of red roses, moss rosebuds, red camellias and dandelions being delivered every Wednesdays and Fridays, the long searing kisses inside her laboratory with several cadavers acting as audiences, and their torrid make-out sessions inside her office behind the big locked doors, then she could see now that Molly's affections were being reciprocated not like the curly Sherlock bloke that Molly had first fallen for. Infatuated, hopelessly.
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Molly took all her power to throw her cup towards her wall, making Toby screeched and run towards her bedroom, leaving her all alone.
Maybe the problem was with her.
She can't even make all the man she had been with stay, none of them stayed.
Perhaps she spooked them all. She wasn't appealing, in fact appalling, and the reason why men left her. Who could ever find a woman working in a morgue interesting? Her job is disgusting and so as she. What else do they want? Her body? Nah, never mind, she's not the typical woman you would find showing up in the telly, those tanned skin and skinny limbs being shown after playing skittles in a sports channel, she never even possessed any long reach.
She's not anyone's type.
Anyone would dismiss her.
And she could still freshly recall it.
But it seemed that she needs to go to someplace else where someone would never fail to listen to her queries, will never dismiss her.
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"Mycroft?" She asked longingly at the man who had been absent for a week to manage some classified information from Siberia. He had arranged and booked a meeting for two that Wednesday at the tea shop they had first made a conversation, sitting at the same seat with a flower vase full of white Cyclamens.
"Take a seat, Doctor Hooper." There was coldness in his voice; the previous warmth he spoke of is now distant.
She took the seat he had offered, opposing his, looked at his eyes, deeply and said, "What's this all about? You're teasing."
His jaw clenched and his eyes closed for a bit, she could read his body language, when he do that, he's irritated with the other involved party, such as someone's not taking him seriously. "Doctor Hooper, I'm afraid we can't continue this tryst. Not tomorrow, not anymore." He then folded his arms around his chest.
"Where's Mycroft? You're not Mycroft. Tell me you're joking, aren't you?"
"Please stop being silly, Doctor. I'm not in the mood of this. We have gone too far from the agendum, the meetings are to merely impart you the knowledge of my dear brother's well-being. And in conformity with that, I'd be gladly informing you that our mutual friend will soon be brought back from the death. Thank you for your help, Doctor Hooper. I'm sure your help will be paid off. Anthea would be more than willing to deposit the amount to your account..." She stood and slapped the man who seemed to be unfazed by her action. "Just text her when."
"How could you just throw everything in the bin? I thought you'd be with me when I needed you?" She asked as she sat back and started crying, grabbing a hold of the pendant.
"I was there when you needed me. You needed company, I provided you company. However, now that my brother would be back, there's no need for a proxy." He stood and walked away, far from her dumbfounded face.
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Neither did the woman know that the man was gathering all his might to speak coldly with her.
"Mycroft, you have made a bêtise. You have turned into a sentimental imbecilic human being, purely sentiments. Be rational, we are meant to think more than to will more. I assumed you knew better." His words crashed in as he cleaned under his finger nails, "but as it seems to be, you have failed me, and so will be Mummy."
You are opted for one.
He could still hear his brother's words as he sat down on his Victorian seat, with a bottle of Absinthe on his right and a goblet on his left hand, encircling its neck. To have a big look at his place, he had fully finished up to its last drop the two bottles of his favorite Scotch and now the first of his Absinthe, all bottles were thrown in the chimney's fire, though he is well considered to be responsible if something happened, yet of course, nothing will happen, the bottles were made up of tempered glass, stronger than the typical annealed ones, and he’s aware of that.
"It is you who have created a bloody rule: Caring is not an advantage, loving is a dangerous disadvantage. Why not apply it?" Sherlock's voice hummed within him.
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"Happy second year death anniversary Dad. It seems like I haven't been able to keep the man I brought here last year. I'm not good at keeping people, you know? I didn't even try to keep you, nor Mycroft, the man I thought who had loved me, gone with the wind." Molly said as she lamented in front of her father's cross.
She sat down beside her father's epitaph with a book in her hand, "Dad, this was a gift from Myc, a flower dictionary. He used this to convey his words through flowers. He showered me with different flowers; he once gave me bluebells that does mean gratitude perhaps for Sherlock. Another one is my favorite flower, the red tulip; he'd been giving that every Wednesdays and Fridays." She stuttered as tears started to form down her ducts. "Isn't he sweet? Wasn't he?" She began to flip the pages of the book, "I missed him, a lot, and all those little things. How I wish Sherlock had never been brought back that soon, two more years would be fine, so that I could still have him, perhaps if that did happen, he might still be standing here with me." Halting at the C, she added, "The last one he had given me were those Cyclamens, and based here, those meant Goodbye."
"You still love him don't you?" A voice asked her.
"Yes. I'll be forever doing that." She answered it, having the thought that she was indeed hallucinating.
"So do I Molly." Mycroft stood there with a bouquet of red tulips resting on his arms. For you.
Not because it's Friday.
She's just a mere exemption to that rule.
But he can't restart time.
Yet they could start again, hoping that this would lead them home, and not in the same pile of broken parts.