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Sherlock had hovered around the edges of Molly, Kelly and Annabelle’s conversations at the Christmas party, trying not to appear too interested but still rather interested. He wondered exactly how Molly, his Molly, could have ended up a pupil at that school. He’d had his run-in with the type of girls at the institution, he knew its reputation, and he knew Kelly and Annabelle well enough. He wondered how a school like that could have turned out a person like Molly Hooper.
Molly had gotten done delivering autopsy results to him, John and Lestrade a few moments ago, and since they were helpful but of no immediate help he lingered. She stowed away the body and then looked at him in surprise. “Not gone off to catch the killer?” she asked.
He shook his head. “They help, but they’re only a small piece of the puzzle that don’t complete the picture yet,” he said.
“Ah,” she said with a nod, moving towards her office. He followed her. “Was there something else you wanted to talk about, Sherlock?”
“St. Trinian’s,” he said quietly.
She smiled at that. “I wondered when that would come up. Kelly told me about the reception you got. You should have known better to go charging in like you owned the place.”
He gave her a mild glare. “I was in the right.”
“You were, yes, but the school has its own rules. It’s best to just accept that.” She sat down at her desk and then gestured for him to take his usual spot at the edge. When he did, she got comfortable. “Well then, what do you want to know?”
“Why were you sent there?” he asked a bit cautiously. She was being open in talking to him, but he didn’t want to overstep any boundaries.
“My father died when I was eleven, and I went through a very dark period in my life,” she said, picking up a piece of paper on her desk and fiddling with it. “I did some very rebellious things. Stole things, did some vandalism, hung out with the wrong people. My mother, bless her, didn’t know what to do. And then a woman came to the door when Mum was about to pack me off to the States for a boarding school there and said there was a school for girls known as St. Trinian’s. She said yes, it had a reputation, but I could do well there. She made promises to my mum.”
“Camilla Fritton,” Sherlock murmured.
Molly nodded. “One of the constables in my village police force was an alumni, and she reached out to Camilla. Camilla thought I showed promise, someone who could be one of the...'special'…students that St. Trinian's has every once in a while. There are girls there that the system is going to give up on because they’re too much of a handful but they have real promise. Camilla found brave souls who would give them a real education in the subjects they were passionate about, as well as the basics, made sure they passed all their exams, got them into the best universities...” She gave him a small smile. “She did that for me, I helped do that for Kelly, Kelly, in turn, did that for Annabelle, and now they want me to come in and help in part with a student named Katarina. She’s a science buff, but so widely versed. Biology, chemistry, computers...anything you can think of that might be related to science or technology, she’s interested in it. They worry the others will grind it out of her, and she’s only a first year.”
He nodded. “And you want to help,” he said.
“I do,” she replied. “I owe so much to Camilla. You think the school is full of a bunch of hooligans, but there is a lot that goes on in that school that’s also good. There’s an unorthodox education that goes on there, it’s true, but they do learn. And I know Annabelle is trying to make changes. It will take time, but they’ll be good changes, ones that will be beneficial for the school. I think she was a good choice to take over the school.”
He was quiet for a few moments. “Were you really a hellion as a child?” he asked.
She gave him a small smirk. “Oh, Sherlock, you have no idea,” she said. “Stealing the car and the other stories I told at the party only scratched the surface of things I did. I was such a bad influence on some of the girls there, though I got much more mature by the time I was Head Girl.”
“And look at you now,” he said.
“I’ll let you know I still have a wild streak,” she said. “Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.” He raised an eyebrow and she shook her head, rolling her eyes slightly. “You’ve been content to see me as mousy and timid because you were content to simply not see me for so long, Sherlock, and that’s your own fault. John knows there’s a saucier side to me, and Mary does too. Perhaps one day you’ll decide you want to learn, too, and maybe I’ll let you see it.”
For some reason, an amused smile settled on his face. “I suppose I’m seeing part of it now,” he said.
“This, Sherlock, is just barely scratching the surface,” she replied.
“Well, if you have more time tonight, I would like to hear more stories of your time at the school,” he said. “Perhaps over Thai?”
She studied him for a moment. “Your treat?” she asked.
“If you insist,” he said.
“I do,” she said with a nod.
“Very well,” he said, getting off the edge of her desk. “Are you free to leave now?”
She turned to glance at the clock on her wall and bit her lip. “I have a half hour of my shift, but I suppose I could say I felt ill and needed to leave early. Live dangerously again.”
“I’ll stay mum about the true circumstances of the situation,” he said with a small smile. “Baker Street?”
“That works,” she said with a nod, standing up and beginning to shrug out of her lab coat. He watched feeling a sort of pleasured sensation wash over him. He rather liked this feistier side of Molly, he decided, much more that the version he was primarily used to dealing with. It would be quite interested to see if he had more dealings with her in the future.