If you think about it, hospitals are peculiar places. Besides all the antiseptics, white gloves and ugly scrubs a hospital contains a very uncommon group of people. In these usually big white buildings one can find dying grandfathers and newborn babies, hard-working nurses and relapsing alcoholics. Yet, there is one sensation all hospital-goers share; not-knowing. They all come in with hundreds of questions about what is going on with them or their loved one, but instead of having them answered they are ordered to wait. To wait while they wonder why their brother won’t stop coughing blood, if their father will make it through the night and if their new child will have his mother’s eyes. As an intelligent species not-knowing can be seen as the root of all insecurity, fear and anger. So, it takes an even more peculiar person to feel like they belong there.
Luckily for Meena, Molly turned out to be very peculiar. While she started to let out hysteric sobs when they entered the brick building, Molly walked towards the reception desk with her head held high.
After nervously waiting in line for 15 minutes, Molly asked the large woman behind the desk; “Could you tell us if Philip Bates has checked in?”
“Let me check. Give me a second, dear.” The woman answered. Beside Molly, Meena started to have another breakdown. Her mascara was smeared all over her face, her eyes bloodshot from all the tears. Molly did so not want to give this reception lady another second.
“Philip Bates, he checked in early this morning. He’s in room 1.64. You girls can go see him, but he’s probably still asleep.” The answer brought great relief to both of the girls, but only Meena expressed it in a loud sigh. However, the certainty that Phil was in the hospital brought the possibility of all kinds of doom scenarios with it.
As soon as Molly and Meena opened the door to room 1.64, the reception lady was proven wrong. Molly could see Phil’s head turn towards them as they entered the small room. He was definitely awake.
When Phil’s partly opened eyes recognized Meena, his familiar goofy smile spread across his face. His face, that contained multiple stitched-up wounds
“Meena?” He asked in a barely audible voice. It was clear he was probably in a lot more pain, than he let on.
“Oh my god, Philip!” Meena’s voice cracked and tears started falling from her eyes for the 20th time that day. “I was so worried. What happened? Are you injured?”
Meena sat down on the chair beside his electronically-operated bed, leaving Molly without a place to sit.
“I’m really glad you’re here, Meen.” He slowly moved his weakened arm to take her hand in his. Meena took a deep breath, as she started to smile through her tears.
“I was so scared something terrible had happened and I – we would lose you,” she told him as she squeezed his hand.
“You should have a little bit more fate in me, then. I’m going nowhere,” Philip reassured Meena, trying to form a lazy smile on his lips. Before she could answer, he brought her hand – that was still planted in his – to his lips and planted a soft kiss on it. Immediately, Meena’s check turned bright red.
Molly tried very hard to find something else in the room to focus on. Although she was glad both of her friends were apparently feeling better, she could not help but wanting to leave. She felt as if in that moment the world was focusing on the young pair near the bed, while she was just a blurry face in the background. Once again, she was cast in the role of secondary character in someone else’s story.
Hoping to also become part of the scene in front of her, Molly stepped closer and began; “So.. Phil, what exactly did happ-“
“Yes, excellent question. What did happen, Philip? Had they tampered with the brakes or the engine?” Before she could finish, an all too familiar voice coming from behind interrupted her. What the hell?!
“Sherl-“ Molly could feel her heart start to beat wildly. Philip and Meena, who only seconds ago had only had eyes for each other, looked up in surprise.
Sherlock held up one finger to silence Molly, expecting an answer form Philip. He seemed completely unfazed by the emotion on both Philip and Meena’s face or the fact that Philip just had an almost fatal accident.
“Wha- what is he doing is he doing here?” Phil had to put all his effort behind getting the words out. He looked extremely confused by this unfamiliar boy appearing in his hospital room. As he should be, this was madness.
“Just trying to not get you killed. Now, please explain what happened to get you in here.” Molly knew she had to stop this. She was certain Meena, who surely could not handle Sherlock showing up on top of everything else that happened that day, was about to faint.
“Sherlock, you really sho-“ Molly tried, using the most authoritative voice she could muster, but was interrupted again. This time not by the arrogant boy standing closely behind her, but by Phil’s soft voice as he tried to make himself heard.
“I…I was driving my bike to school and then…” Phil squinted his eyes a little, as if it would help him see what exactly had happened that morning. “Then...I got to the crossing and I tried to stop…but…but then I just…I just couldn’t.” Once he finished, he started coughing violently. His entire body shook and Meena’s face became even whiter.
“So, it was probably the brak –“ Sherlock began to analyze Phil’s answer, the radars turning inside his head almost visible.
“Sherlock. You had your answer. Phil needs his rest, so leave.” This time Molly was the one to interrupt. She turned herself around fully, so she faced Sherlock directly. When he did not make any attempt to move, she told him; “Go.” She looked at him with all the anger and frustration she had ever felt because of him in her eyes. Somehow, this had an effect on him. Slowly, He turned and began to walk across the white tiles towards the door. Just before he left he turned and gave Molly a defeated look.
Only seconds after Sherlock left, he was replaced by a man and woman in their forties. The blonde woman, who was the embodiment of motherhood, was holding a stack of folded clothes in her arms.
“We’re back, Phil. I got you your pajamas and some fresh under-“ The blonde began.
“Mo-om,” Phil groaned and tried to gesture towards Meena. In spite of his blood loss, his cheeks had turned bright red.
His mother, noticing Meena, exclaimed excitedly: “Oh, Meena! You’re here! How kind of you to come.”
While the man standing beside Phil’s mother grinned widely, Phil’s mom bent down to give Meena a tight hug. It seemed she did not just have motherly feelings for Phil.
It became clear to Molly, that while she was just as present as anyone else in the room, no one was going to act like she was. Again, she might as well have been watching the whole scene in front of her from a television screen hundreds miles away. It suddenly dawned upon her, that staying in the room or even speaking up would not suddenly make her visible to those that weren’t looking. Staying, accepting the role of observer, would only add to the nauseous feeling that was building in her stomach. Without any further hesitation, she turned on her heels and quietly slipped out of the room.
She started to walk down the long white corridor. Hoping that with every step she put between herself and room 1.64, her disappointment and annoyance would lessen. Doors of several rooms were opened and Molly could caught glimpses of the patients inside. A young girl with pigtails, cried out in pain as the nurse injected a needle in her forearm. The next room revealed a girl around Molly’s age, dressed in a band shirt and spikes, wiping her tears away while the doctor listed possible treatments in a monotone voice. Eventually, Molly reached the end of the hallway and decided to take the elevator to the ground floor. When the doors opened, she just walked straight into another icy corridor. This time she did not see, but hear.
“Can’t we try something else, please?” A hoarse voice came from a room with the door slightly ajar. As Molly moved her feet further, she was surrounded by a symphony created by machines. Machines made for testing the patients. Beep. Whhizzz. Beep. Prrrt. Beep. Whhizzz.
It was in that moment, that the bizarreness her surroundings dawned upon her. An endless amount of people, with an endless amount of stories entered this stately building. Usually, because of long-term suffering or sudden accidents, those were stories filled with emotion. However, once they sat down in one of the tiny rooms, all these people – with their heartaches, worries and fears – were reduced to one simple thing; a puzzle. A riddle to be solved. To those who had a job to solve these medical mysteries, their bodies were a landscape to collect clues form. Their history became a list of events to put inside a brown folder. Once the puzzle had been solved, the outcome was delivered in hard facts and the doctor moved on to his next brain-teaser. In a placed that thrived on not-knowing, to survive one had to become a simple question.
The walls on both sides of the hallway suddenly seemed to be a lot closer to Molly and the beeping of the machines sounded out of control. Molly started taking big steps towards the reception. She needed some fresh air. Behind the hospital building was a big parking lot and Molly decided it was the perfect spot to catch her breath. Through the window of the door that lead to it, she could see a tall shadow already standing outside. Still, she did not turn around.
As soon as the door slammed close behind her, the cool winter air hit her lungs. While she had been inside, the weather sunshine had disappeared and it had started to drizzle. The dark clouds above and the fact that it was 4 o’clock on a winter day, made it almost seem like it was nighttime.
The shadow Molly had seen from inside, turned out to be no-one other than the boy she had just ordered away. Could she go nowhere without running into him?
To keep the tiny raindrops from hitting his face, he had put a slightly fraying grey deerstalker hat on top of his black curls. The collar of his black leather jacket was turned up and from the corner of his mouth hung cigarette, that created white clouds in the shadowy afternoon.
Molly, who was still too shaken, did not have the will to start another fight. So, while leaning her back against the door, she simply said to him; “Even though you behave like an asshole, I still don’t want you to get lung cancer.”
Without looking at her, he answered; “Well, maybe I do.”
Molly, who did not know how to respond to this, walked towards railing around the steps that lead up to the hospital door and stood beside Sherlock.
“Why did you come and question Philip?” She asked him. The accusation that was so often in her voice when she spoke to him, was replaced by sincere interest.
Before he answered, he inhaled and blew the white smoke into the dark. “To test a theory,” he spoke slowly, still not meeting Molly’s eyes.
“What kind of theory?” Molly put her annoyance with his overly mysterious behavior aside to feed her curiosity.
Sherlock stayed silent for a while. Molly looked at his pale face that was slightly obscured by shadows and saw him squinting his eyes, as if there was something to see in the woods behind the parking lot.
“Everything is connected.” When he eventually spoke it was almost a whisper. Molly couldn’t be sure if he was addressing her, or himself.
They both stayed quiet for a while. Molly could feel a strange serenity surrounding them. It was like they had stepped out on a desert island and it was just him and her. This somehow made her comfortable enough to ask the question that had been on her mind since he had entered the hospital room.
“You said you were trying to…to prevent Phil from getting… murdered. Why…Why do you care?” As soon as she heard herself say it, she felt her cheeks get warm. This was not the kind of question you asked someone. Then again, she was talking to Sherlock.
He finally looked at her, a cold look in his eyes. “I don’t,” he said defensively. “It’s just very…interesting, it keeps me occupied. Mycroft and I, we used to play this ga-“ He stopped midsentence, realizing he had said too much. His expression had gone from intimidating to a face that contained more sadness than she had ever seen. Quickly he looked away.
‘Mycroft?’ Molly wondered. ‘A friend? No. Family? Could be.” She debated whether she should ask him, seeing how hurt he had looked. Looking hurt was very un-Sherlock.
Molly sighed and looked down at her shoes. She smiled a little when she realized Sherlock and she were wearing the same ones. Converse. His black. Hers bright pink.
“You know… about what I said earlier today-“
“Don’t. You were right,” He interrupted her, the defensiveness back in his voice.
Her gaze swept over his body, towards his face. In that moment, in some strange way, standing in the rain behind a slowly deteriorating hospital, she saw him for the first time. It started to dawn upon her that she and those doctors, who always looked at puzzles and never at the people, were not very different. All this time, she had either wanted to know more about him or had longed for a confirmation of the theories she had about his being. She had decided on a diagnosis the day she laid eyes on him and had constantly been trying to fit the symptoms he showed into it.
Her mouth started to move without her realizing it and before she could think, the words were out in the open. “No, I wasn’t. You just wish I was. Being that asshole would be whole lot easier for you. Because when you care, people can hurt you. They can leave and stop playing games with you. So you act - even make yourself believe - you are that asshole, to make sure they can never get too close. “
Sherlock’s hand, carrying the cigarette, stopped mid-air. He stood frozen in his place a few seconds before he slowly, almost mechanically, turned towards Molly. His gaze went over her entire body, as if he had to confirm it was really her. When his eyes met hers, it was as if they were filled with stormy oceans. Anger, fear and surprise rolling on the violent waves.
“You- you’re wrong,” he told her in a deep voice that held all the intent of frightening her. Yet, it in her ears it sounded like he was the one that was frightened the most.
Molly sighed. Giving him a look that seemed to say “Oh, Sherlock…”
Standing in front of her in his worn converse, fraying hat, trying to stand tall, Molly could see she had been right about him this time. Sherlock was not a mystery to solve or a romantic hero to fall in love with. Sherlock was a boy who was very lost.