Meeting in Prison AU
Senor((it)a)) Grey Face requested: meeting in prison au Sherlolly.
So here is my attempt.
“So, what is a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
In almost any other place in the world, the question would be among one of the worst pick up lines.
At Her Majesty’s Prison Foster Hall, it was a common question. Every time a new inmate came in, the masses would try to ferret out what their crime was. A person’s crime did not define them, but it gave the current inmates a good starting point in figuring out where she would end up in the hierarchy.
Molly Hooper was not new.
The guard posing the question, however, was.
“Committed a crime,” Molly answered, being deliberately obtuse as she turned the page of the god awful Cosmopolitan her ‘pen pal’ sent. Molly had no use for pen pals, really, but it was nice to be reminded of the outside world and talk to someone who was not currently incarcerated for the foreseeable future.
Even if it did mean she was some adolescent’s charity project.
The guard leaned against the door frame, his lips pressed together so tightly his rather disconcertingly plush lips were almost invisible.
He’d only been at Foster’s for a week but already he had all the inmates buzzing about him. Scott Holm was the topic in the mess, and the common area, and the yard, and pretty much anywhere in the prison.
“I never would have figured that out,” Scott drily responded.
“Look at my file.” Molly peeled back the folded over page to smell the new Chanel fragrance. She immediately snorted as the strong fruity yet somehow musky scent hit her nose. Well, that won't be put on her list of things to buy once she finally gets out of here.
“Boring. Much prefer figuring it out myself. Nice way to entertain myself.”
Molly rolled onto her side, giving him her full attention. “Let’s see how good you are. Think you could do it in five guesses?”
“Oh I assure you, I can do it in three.”
Molly sat up on her bed, her legs crossed in front of her. “Go ahead, then.”
Scott crouched down to sit on his heels, his fingers folded beneath his chin. Not a very smart position to be in at a prison, regardless of its security status.
“Most women like you, white, raised comfortably middle class, good family, well educated tend to be in here on drug charges. Usually because of their own addiction, sometimes taking the fall for a boyfriend or husband. Idiotic, really. If their partner is stupid enough to get caught, they’re not worth staying around.”
Molly did her best to make her face as still as possible. This was the most entertainment she had all day and she didn’t want to spoil it. Few people will tell you just how boring prison can be.
“A white collar crime. Embezzlement of funds, not for yourself but for someone else. Someone in trouble. You came in here because of someone you love. You aren’t allowed necklaces but your hand will touch your neck occasionally as if searching for a weight.”
The brown haired inmate tucked her cherry patterned cardigan around her tighter. He was wrong but not entirely. “I’m not in for embezzlement.”
Holms’ head dipped to the side in acknowledgement. “Not too surprised, needed to get the lay of the land with you, so to speak. Your clothes are three years out of date, not that you were the most fashionable women before your incarceration-“
“Hey!” Molly objected.
“-which suggests some seriousness to the nature of your crime. You’re not stupid and rather straight laced, which means you probably avoided all of the more common crimes. I don’t suppose it was unlawfully protesting? Living in a tree or pieing media tycoons or the like. You do seem to be rather idealistic.”
Molly crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall by her bed as she pointedly shook her head.
Scott didn’t speak for several minutes, his eyes searching for information that he could glean from her.
“Are you asleep?” Molly asked once his eyes started to become glassy.
Scott startled at her voice. “No, of course not. I was thinking. You were a scientist. Scalpel scar on your finger and your cardigan, your favorite cardigan, has had acid and bleach splashed on it. Oh, I see. Well.” Scott stood up jerkily.
“You can say it, I’m not ashamed.” Molly lifted her chin proudly. She didn’t for one second regret her actions and she would do it again, knowing the consequences.
“You, I believe the phrase is, assisted in ending someone you love’s suffering.”
“My aunt didn’t see it that way. Neither did the courts. Murder is the term they preferred.”
“Father?”
Molly nodded.
“Going by the odds, I assume cancer.”
“Liver,” Molly confirmed. “Couldn’t get him to Switzerland, especially with my uber religious aunt in the way. So I took matters into my own hands. Would have gotten away with it if my Aunt Anne didn’t demand an autopsy. Witch.”
“Interesting,” the guard muttered as he walked away without so much as a good-bye.
Molly rolled back on her stomach. She was used to it by now.
----
Three Months later.
“…and here is your office. I’ll let you get settled in. Come and see me if you have any questions.”
Molly Hooper nodded at her supervisor before numbly sitting down in her her office. Three months ago she was looking forward to spending the next ten years of her life in prison.
Then the prison warden was arrested for embezzlement of government funds and human trafficking.
Then she received notice that her crime was retroactively changed from second degree murder to manslaughter and that her parole was approved, without her or her solicitors ever applying as it was still years before she was eligible.
Then she was offered a position as a pathology specialist registrar at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London along with a healthy salary advance to ‘help her rebuild her life.’
Molly rolled up her lab coat and pinched her skin. She had to be dreaming.
The door to the lab flew open, bouncing off the wall with a bang. Molly scurried out of her office to see what the commotion was, half expecting to see some of London’s finest coming to arrest her, as there had been some mistake.
Instead she saw…Scott?
“Holms?” She asked dumbly.
“Ah, Molly. First day on the job, is it? Excellent, I’m sure you’ll be much less stupid than the last pathologist.”
“W-why are you here?”
Scott grinned as he bounced on his toes. “I require access to Bart’s occasionally for my work. Not a prison guard, obviously. I’m a consulting detective.”
“That’s not a thing.” Molly stated dumbly.
Instead of being annoyed as she expected, Scott’s smile widened. “Only one in the world. Name’s Sherlock, by the way, Sherlock Holmes. I’m sure we’ll get on fabulously.”
Something about the manic glint in Sherlock’s eye lead her to think that she may have been better off at Foster Hall.