Pretty Clever

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock or any of it's characters and am not making any profit off of them.

Hi guys, so this is going to be a group of one shots that string together. All of whom staring as the main character the wonderful Miss Molly Hooper. Probably stay at T but if it becomes M i'll give a warning before it does. Probably not the most original thing in the world but there we go.

Mr. Hewitts Kidney – Or how Molly met Sherlock.

When I was a little girl my father used to tell me that being smart was better than being pretty. It wasn't that he was pointing out that I was plain or anything, he was trying to comfort me. The girls at school would tease me a lot. I always seemed to grow in a gangly way, I had bug eyes and for a long time braces and whatever I wore it never seemed to fit right. I spent the majority of my teenager years trying not to be seen. I would hide in the library throughout lunchtimes. Not even my teachers knew who I was as I would keep my head down in class, It was a real surprise for them when I got full marks on most of my exams, they hadn't even known I existed. University was easier, being clever was respected there. I even had a few girls who tried to take me under wing and showed me how to straighten my hair and told me how lucky I was that I was petite but I never felt entirely comfortable when they dressed me up and took me out on parade.

I was with my first boyfriend for eight months. He was nice, sweet, loud at times, he also cheated with me on a girl called Fudge. That was her actual name. I was heartbroken. I had a few boyfriends here and there, I was never popular but I was never unpopular and I started to feel secure in myself. I no longer felt I was ugly, I was perhaps what some people would class as plain but some people would say cute and I could be interesting. Working with dead people can sometimes put people off but not always.

My second serious relationship started in the middle of my fifth year at Uni. I was in the autopsy lab when I managed to drop a kidney. I hate it when I do that, they always make the wettest thudding sound. But before I could pick it up and try to place it back into the body without anybody noticing when a figure came into view and bent down before me. He's name was Andrea, I'd noticed him before. He was difficult not to notice, he was tall and dark skinned, from Jordan. He was always impeccably dressed under his plastic apron. He never spoke much but he always had a kind smile for anybody. He had the thickest eyelashes I had ever seen over the top of eyes that were black but not hard. I felt my heart flutter as our eyes met and his fingers brushed mine as he passed me Mr. Hewitt's diseased flesh. As I left to go scrub myself off in the women decontamination showers I heard feet rushing up behind me.

"Molly?"

I turned around and saw Andrea running after me.

"Did I forget something?"

"No, I, uh..." He gave a nervous laugh. "There's a nice café down James Street."

"The farmyard kitchen?"

"Yes. You know it?"

"Yes."

"Ah good."

"Right, why is it good?"

"Oh, um.. yes I didn't actually ask you did I? Would you like to go and eat there, after you clean up?"

"Oh, yes, okay then."

"I'll meet you at the entrance of the library then?"

"Yes, alight."

I had a date, and I had managed to get it whilst dressed in a t-shirt and plastic apron and some brain remnants.

It was that type of relationship that's slow and warm and the person becomes your friend and then you realize that you're in love with them. We moved in together, we lived together. He held me all through my Fathers funeral. He comforted me for months until the pain started to wan a little. I thought that he would propose to me. Most of my friends from university had got engaged shortly after graduating but my father had been ill at my graduation and the timing wouldn't have been right. One morning as we got up he looked over at me. He gave me a nervous kiss and a small smile.

"We'll talk tonight." He said seriously.

"Okay. " I replied hopefully.

That night I came home expecting something romantic, a candle lit dinner perhaps. But instead the lights were on and the TV off and Andrea sat there with his head in his hands. I stood looking at him.

"What's going on?"

"I can't do this any more. I waited, whilst your father was ill, I didn't want to hurt you."

It slowly started to sink in. I couldn't accept it though.

"What are you saying?"

He looked up at me.

"I'm going home. I've booked the tickets."

For the first time I saw the suitcases poking out from behind the sofa.

"Why?" Is the only thing that I could say.

"Because I don't love you any more."

What could I do about that? I was the only thing he could have said that I couldn't argue with. I still loved him but he didn't love me. I was too shocked to do much as he called a taxi and waited to leave. I didn't know what to do. I had a moment of weakness as he opened the door to leave.

"Don't. I just, I didn't know."

"How didn't you know?"

Again, it was the only think I couldn't answer. I don't know how I didn't know. I thought everything was fine. I had thought he was going to propose. We had been comfortable.

A month later I was sat in my pajamas eating cold pizza and watching Judge Judy when the phone rang. I checked the ID, it was Helen. She had been my best friend throughout university, I used to go on double dates with Andrea Helen and her boyfriend Pete. I didn't want to talk to her, she had got married last year, she was also pregnant. Her life was going where she wanted it to, mine was falling apart. I sighed and pressed the green button.

"Hi."

"Hi Molly. So me and Pete have been talking and there's a position in Bart's that we think you would be perfect for."

"Bart's, London? I'm in Manchester."

"Okay, let's go back and take it a step slower. You are only in Manchester because Andrea got a job there."

"I have a job here."

"You're a pathologist and all you're doing there is running DNA samples. This is an actual assistant pathologist job. And the head pathologist has a really bad heart so, you know, promotion possibilities."

Molly sighed.

"I'm happy where I am."

"You're stuck where you are. Pete has already recommended you for the job, the interview is next week. So come down, we've made up the nursery for you. At least it's a holiday for you."

"I can't book time off work on short notice."

"Think about it sweets, we're worried about you."

At first I didn't think that I would go to the interview. But as I woke up on the sofa the next morning with a huge neck crick and a slightly hung over feeling. As I showered and looked at the bottles of men's shampoo that were still on the shelf some kind of resolve hardened inside me. My life wasn't where I wanted it to be. Something needed to change.

I had always done the sensible thing in life. But at that moment in time it seemed like doing the sensible thing wasn't working. So I did something reckless instead. I handed in my notice. I packed a bag. I headed to London.

Three weeks later it was my first day at Bart's. I had tied my hair back in a pony tail, I had forgone make up, I had shrugged into my white coat and looked at myself in the mirror. The girl staring back at me was ready for anything that the day would bring.

"Miss Hooper?"

I saw an over weight sweating man running towards me. I gave him a nervous smile.

" Sorry i'm late, I'm Richard. I'm head of HR. I've been asked to show you around."

"Oh, thank you."

I followed him around the building being shown the labs and lunch rooms. He was nice. He tried to make little jokes that weren't actually funny but I appreciated that he was trying to make me feel welcome and less anxious on my first day.

We stopped in the locker room and he gave me time to put my bags away. He handed me spare coats and goggles and a box of gloves.

"So, ready to get on with the job?"

"Yes. Where do I start?"

"Well, we are backed up. There was a big pile up on the M25 that Dr. Morrison is going to be working on all day. He's got to fill out paper work and such before starting and it's best not to disturb him for a while. So, I was wondering if because we are so backed up in our cultures if you would be happy spending the morning working on them. Start you off slowly as it were. Then on to the accident victims after lunch."

"I love a good accident victim after lunch. I have no idea why I said that."

"It's okay, nerves. Now the cultures are just your average checks, making sure there's no big epidemic about to destroy London and answering the usual which drug did you overdose on questions."

"Usually all of them."

"That's the way. So, if you want to follow me I'll take you to your work station."

I followed him down long hallways that I felt I would get lost in. After a few staircases and corridors he stopped at a single door. I wondered why he was hesitating.

"Ah, he's here."

There was a note of disapproval in his voice.

"Who?"

"Holmes, he sometimes works here. No idea why though he does have a something or other in some sort of chemistry. He runs tests for the police. Bit quick on the whip if you know what I mean."

"Um, no I don't."

"Don't worry, don't get involved an you won't end up throwing any bodies off of roofs or meeting any criminal masterminds."

I smiled nervously at the joke.

"Get many of those in London do you?"

"Ah, you'll find it quiet different to Manchester I'm sure."

"Good, I need a change."

"Right, well, I'll leave you to it and check on you later. Good luck Miss Hooper."

"Thanks Richard." I shook his hand again and turned to face the laboratory taking a deep breaht. I looked around, the lab was laid out in very much the way I would expect a teaching hospital to be laid out. I had been given a small pile of files to work through. I flicked through them and saw that they were all pretty standard tests, my biggest problem would be in finding the various dyes, I guessed I could ask the man.

He was bent over the microscope. He was tall and lean and well dressed, he had the most wonderful dark curls that made me a little jealous but the microscope was blocking a large part of his face. I looked at him for a long moment waiting for him to speak. He didn't. It wasn't unusual for somebody to get so caught up in their work that they didn't notice what was going on around them. I took off my coat and hung it up on the peg and I went to my work station to check through some cultures and slides from an autopsy of a homeless man who had died a week before.

About half an hour in the man across from me started to mutter. I looked up.

"Problem?"

He flinched slightly as if he hadn't realized there was anybody else in the room.

"How long have you been here?"

"About half an hour."

"Hmm." He muttered and glanced back down through his microscope.

"Heavy metal poisonings."

"Pardon?"

"She's been putting gold salts in his food."

"You're investigating a murder?"

"A murder suicide, she put the salts in her own food as well. Why would she do that?"

He looked at me fully and for a moment my breath caught in my throat. He had such an intense stare, blue eyes and high cheek bones, it was a unique face that was only beautiful because of it's proportions, a nose a millimeter longer, a slightly less curved lip, eyes a darker blue and it would all be ruined but as it was it was undeniably beautiful. The thought shocked me. I had not thought that way about any man other than Andrea in the last two years, I hadn't expected that part of my brain to wake back up so suddenly.

"It was a mistake?"

"No. It was on purpose. She wanted to kill him but she wanted to kill herself to."

"Well, why did she want to kill him?"

"He was cheating on her."

"Well then she knew she had lost him. She was angry enough to want to kill him but she also didn't want to live without him."

He squinted at me, his eyebrows furrowing. His lips pursed slightly.

"That's stupid."

"People are when they're in love."

" True. I didn't think of that."

"No."

"Humans are strange."

"You are human."

"Maybe."

He made me nervous, but he also made me interested. I didn't want him to stop talking, I wanted to know more about him, I ended up saying something stupid.

"I could do an autopsy for you to prove it."

"Then I'd have to be dead."

"Well, yes that might be an issue."

"Think I'll have to pass."

"Yes, well if you ever change your mind."

"You'd be happy to murder me and cut me up."

"Yes."

" It usually takes people a few days of knowing me before they get to the point where they want to kill me. So you're the new pathologist?"

"Yes."

"Sherlock, pleased to meet you." He said holding his hand out.

My skin tingled as I shook it.

"Molly Hooper."

"Nice to meet you Molly Hooper. I read your files."

"My files."

"Yes."

"Are you involved in the recruitment process?"

"No, just interested."

"Right."

"You're very proficient. If I do ever want an autopsy I shall ask you."

"Thank you."

"You're going to be useful Miss Hooper. Got to go. Got to save a murders life so they can spend the rest of it in prison."

He walked out the door leaving me feeling a little dazed. It took a while to get focused back on the cultures after that. There had been something so strange about the encounter, I'd never had anything like it in my life. I had the strangest feeling that my life was taking a turn to the more exciting, that a life that had previously been safe and well planned was about to have an element of adventure and it was all to do with that strange man Sherlock Holmes. It was exciting but a little frightening but wasn't that why I had come to London? To shake things up, to start again. It looked like I might get my wish.

At midday Richard came back in. He gave me a smile as he looked over the files.

"I'll show these to Doctor Morrison but I'm guessing you've got it right. Shall we go to lunch?"

"Yes. I had a question."

"Ask me anything."

"That man, Sherlock. Who is he?"

"He calls himself a consulting detective. He's hired to find out who rich women's husbands are sleeping with but somehow Detective Lestrade, a proper policeman, found him and thinks he has a useful perspective. He's autistic or something, sees the things other people don't. But he's arrogant and rude and I think that one day he's just going to get himself into big trouble. That's why it's probably best not to get too involved, you don't want to be dragged down with him."

"No, I mean, I've only just arrived. Troubles the last thing I want."

The thing was, I think I did want trouble.

When I got back to Helen's she was sat at her kitchen table looking at a baby magazine.

"You're home late, how did it go?"

"Good, it's been a long time since I did a proper autopsy. I got my own bodies and everything Dr... just looked over my shoulder every now and then. I mean, this is what I was trained to do. I don't know why I let myself stay in that little D.N.A. Lab for so long."

"You were wasting your talents. How were the people?"

"I met some people at lunch and they were nice."

She gave me a little sideways smile. Any men?"

"Mostly men?"

"Any single and cute?"

"Helen!"

"It's been two months."

"Exactly, it's only been two months."

I thought of the man with the curls and the strange name.

"So there isn't anybody?" Helen pushed.

"There may be somebody. But it's only the first day. You don't expect me to fall in love at first sight do you?"

The end.

Reviews always appreciated.