Pigeons - A Sherlolly PromptFic
Pigeons on the grass, alas. – Gertrude Stein
Molly stared at the note that had mysteriously appeared on her desk when she’d been in the loo; hadn’t she locked the door behind her? She was usually careful to do so, it being one of the hospital rules that she happened to agree with. Otherwise patient information could be compromised, or someone could nick her coffee cup again.
Still, she must have forgotten this time, or else this puzzling missive – which had most emphatically not been there before she left the room five minutes earlier – wouldn’t be here now.
She picked it up gingerly by one corner, studying it as if it were a vital clue at a crime scene. Which, technically, it was, since someone entering her office when she wasn’t there could be construed as breaking and entering. Except of course she must have left the door unlocked which made it just ‘entering’ with no breaking. Unless…? A quick glance at the door showed no signs of forced entry, which she’d become rather expert at recognizing now that Sherlock Holmes was a regular part of her life.
Sherlock. The penny dropped and she grinned. It had to be him; who else would leave something like that on her desk? A simple yellow post-it note with a famous quote and no other hints as to what it referred to? Of course it was Sherlock who’d left it!
“All right, you can come out!” she called, glancing round the crowded space. He emerged from between two tall filing cabinets, their tops practically groaning from the weight of the files piled so precariously on top of them. If she’d had the overhead light on she’d have seen him right away – and of course if she’d bothered to look further than the top of her desk.
He was grinning right back at her as he slouched out of the dark space into which he’d wedged his lanky form, hands in his pockets as soon as his elbows had cleared the metal sides of his self-imposed confinement. “So you figured out the messenger,” he said approvingly. “But have you decoded the actual message?”
Molly’s brow furrowed. “You mean it wasn’t just some random quote?”
Sherlock shook his head and settled himself on the corner of her desk. “Nope,” he said, making sure to pop the ‘p’ in as obnoxious a manner as he could manage. “Really, Molly, when do I ever do anything at random?”
She raised an eyebrow as she perched on the opposite corner of her desk, accidentally dislodging a small stack of files and muttering blackly as she stooped to pick them up. She thumped them down on her chair in disgruntlement; there were just as many bloody files on the corner Sherlock had selected, but of course he managed to make it all look so graceful and effortless, just like almost everything else he did.
Even, she noted with an internal giggle, ogling her bum, as he was currently doing; she could practically feel his eyes on her backside, and made sure to take her time before straightening up and turning back around. “I don’t know why you do that,” she remarked as she once again – more carefully this time! – settled on the corner of the desk. “I mean, you can hardly see much through my lab coat!”
He huffed in silent laughter, then reached his long arms across the short length and tugged at her hands. She resisted at first, then gave in like she always did, and allowed him to draw her onto his lap. “This is extremely unprofessional,” she chastised him lightly, but allowed her head to come to rest on his shoulder.
“Ah, but you’ve remembered to lock the door behind you this time,” he shot back, his tone just as light and teasing as her own. “Now. What does the note tell you?”
Molly lifted it up and examined it. “Well,” she said in her best imitation of Mycroft Holmes at his most pompous and condescending, “it’s written in ball point pen – blue ink, slightly blotchy, time to chuck that particular writing instrument and get a new one, I’d say – on a yellow sticky-note. The author is clearly right handed, the note was written in a hurry as the handwriting is slightly more scribbly than usual…”
“I do not have ‘scribbly’ handwriting,” Sherlock interrupted testily.
“Well, you don’t have award-winning penmanship, either,” Molly shot back with a cheeky grin. “Anyway, as I was saying – scribbly handwriting, written in a hurry with the first pen to come to hand, obviously before the writer wedged himself between two filing cabinets in a silly attempt to hide from his girlfriend and escape her wrath at his having obviously stolen her spare key and let himself in while she was in the loo!”
“Well done,” Sherlock said approvingly. He leaned down and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “Very well done, Molly, your deductive reasoning is flawless. Pointless, but flawless.”
She pouted. “Fine, then. So what did I miss?”
“The reason your significant other went to all this trouble,” he pointed out, settling her more comfortably on his lap and wrapping his arms around her. He clasped his hands over hers where they rested on her thighs. “Lurking about, waiting for you to head to the loo, realizing he had no pen of his own and grabbing the first one he found on your desk, almost jamming himself into the knee space of your desk but deciding at the last minute that it might not be the most comfortable spot to await your return…”
“Yes, yes, you’ve gone to a great deal of unnecessary trouble, Sherlock,” Molly replied. “What I still don’t understand is why! I mean, yes, I love Gertrude Stein, although why you remembered that is beyond me; and yes, I love when you visit me and my shift is nearly over so I presume part of the reason you’re here is to take me home…Oh!” Her hands flew up to her cheeks and she turned to stare at him, eyes shining. “The Gertrude Stein Exhibition at the museum! It opens tonight!”
“Yup,” he replied, once again popping the ‘p’. This time, however, Molly didn’t mind; she twisted in his embrace and threw her arms around him, unfortunately toppling them both onto the floor at the same time.
Sherlock, ever the gentleman, made sure to land on the floor beneath her, cushioning her fall but knocking the breath out of himself. Molly pulled herself off of him, apologizing profusely, red-faced with embarrassment as she waited anxiously for him to catch his breath again.
Once he stopped wheezing he sat up, but instead of standing reached once more for her hand, tugging her down to join him on the floor. “Yes,” he said, delving into his jacket pocket and procuring two small cardboard stubs, brandishing them in the air triumphantly. “Two tickets to the opening gala. We’ll just have time to pop back to the flat so you can change and do that twisty thing you do with your hair, throw on a dash of lipstick, and wait for Mycroft’s car to arrive at our doorstep and whisk us away to a night of unbelievable boredom – er, that is to say, a night of edifying education. Or whatever it is one is supposed to do at these things.”
Molly didn’t bother getting upset with him; she was too busy being touched that he’d bothered to remember that Ms. Stein was one of her favorite writers – and that he was willing to endure the night of boredom he anticipated just because he knew she would want to attend.
“So what brought this on?” she asked in sudden suspicion. “You’re not about to head to the Continent for six weeks on a case, are you?”
He shook his head, looking highly affronted. “Really, Molly, you know I would never do anything so crass as to try to bribe you into forgiving me in advance for temporarily abandoning you…again. Actually, I think I’m a bit offended that you don’t remember the significance of this date!”
“This date?” Molly repeated blankly. It wasn’t the anniversary of their first date, or of when they’d moved in together, or even of when he’d first observed her performing an autopsy (that was June 2nd). “Sorry?” she said with a weak smile. “Can you give me a hint?”
“Pigeons,” he replied succinctly, then helped her back to her feet. Placing both hands on her shoulders, he steered her toward her desk. “Your shift has officially ended, Molly. Do finish up whatever you need to so we can get out of here. I’ll be in the lobby, I have a few texts to send to John about that last case Lestrade flung our way.” Without giving her a chance to protest, he pressed a quick kiss to her forehead and strode out of the room, mobile already in hand as the door clicked shut behind him.
When Molly joined him ten minutes later, she had the answer and a brilliant smile for him. “Kensington Garden!” she announced triumphantly as she tucked her arm through his.
“Correct!” he sang out. “Where you so brilliantly solved the murder of that pigeon-feeding woman who was absolutely NOT shot by a mugger but by her grandson.”
“Who brought her body to her favorite bench in hopes of the police thinking she’d been killed there,” Molly concluded. She leaned her head against Sherlock’s arm as he escorted her outside to the taxi that – of course – immediately pulled up in front of them. “How silly of me to forget, it was one month ago today!”
Pigeons. She sighed contentedly as she once again rested her head on his shoulder – one of her favorite places for her head to be – as he directed the cabbie to Baker Street. Sherlock remembered the silliest things sometimes, but she certainly couldn’t fault him for it!
And after the exhibition was over, she would be sure to show him exactly how much she appreciated him and everything he did for her.
After all, she was no bird brain!
