Chapter Text
“Morning, Ms. Molly!”
Molly looked up and smiled at the teenage girl in front of her. “Good morning, Lilith. On your way to school?”
Lilith Adler-Holmes rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Dad is busy on another case and I fed him before I left, but that means I have to catch the Tube.”
“Well, I’ll try and remember to bring him something for lunch, make sure he takes some time away from the case to eat. Don’t worry about your father; between you and me, he’ll get his three meals.”
Lilith smiled at her. Molly Hooper ran the cafe next to 221 Baker Street and she was such a nice woman. Lilith adored her, and she’d love to think her father adored her too. But after her mum died when she was little, her father shut himself off from dating to focus on his cases and his daughter. But she was fourteen now! She could deal with things on her own, but he needed someone to watch over him.
Someone like Ms. Molly.
“You want a drink to go?” Molly asked, breaking Lilith out of her thoughts.
“No, I have a bottle of water,” she said. “I have to go. Bye!”
“Goodbye, Lilith.”
Lilith turned away and made her way to the nearest Underground entrance. She needed to get her dad to see he wasn’t doing well on his own. He needed someone more than her. What was she going to do when it came time to go to uni, live at home? No way! She had three years before her gap year, and her dad had promised she could spend it backpacking across the continent. She’d been planning her trip since she was a little girl. She didn’t want him to renege now, because he needed care, or felt she needed him to look over her every move.
She didn’t really remember her mum, just that she was lovely and fiercely independent before she’d married her dad. She had dark, wavy hair and a lovely smile, and a lovely voice. Dad didn’t talk about her, and he’d given her all the photos he had of her mum when she turned ten. There were letters, too; her mum had died of cancer so there had been time to write letters for the big moments once she knew she was terminal. But her dad seemed so sad when he would give her a new one.
They’d had a passionate love affair that had ended so badly, and Dad was suffering because of it. He deserved to be happy with someone like Ms. Molly. They were already friends...couldn’t they be more?
She was going to try her best to play matchmaker, but she might need help.