Trouville

Martin shrugged out of his jacket and threw it onto the backseat of the van before heaving the last box into his arms. It was unseasonably warm, and lifting, and running around he was doing exacerbated the heat. His mind was elsewhere as he set down the box among the others in the man’s flat, collected the money, and started down the stairs. So it’s not really surprising when he collided with a woman leaving her flat.

“Oh god. I’m so sorry,” he nearly shouted, meeting the bewildered eyes of the poor women he mowed down. She was below him, his body almost fully covering hers in a compromising position. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she squeaked, a bit uncomfortable.

That’s when Martin finally realized he hadn‘t moved. “Oh! Oh, god, I’m sorry. I am so sorry,” he stammered as scrambled off of her as gracefully as he could. His face burning. He extended his hand to help the woman up, and then collected her books and papers that she dropped when he knocked her down off of the floor.

“Thanks,” she murmured when he handed her her things, her own face a healthy shade of pink. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Fine. Perfectly fine.”

“Okay,” the woman said, even though she didn’t think that he looked all that fine. “You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I don’t- I don’t think so,” Martin said slowly, then added, “I think I would have remembered you if I had,” before he could stop himself.

“Oh. Okay,” the woman said. “My name’s Molly. What’s your’s?”

“Martin. My name’s Martin. I-I was helping your new neighbor move in upstairs. It was nice to meet you, Molly, but I’m afraid I have another job to get to and…

“Oh yes of course,” Molly interjected quickly, blushing harder. “Yes, I’m sorry. You must be busy. I don’t know why… Um it was nice meeting you too, Martin.”

Martin started to back away, and gave a little awkward wave before tuning towards the door. “Erm bye Molly,” he said.

“Bye, Martin, Molly said, then noticed something on the floor. “Wait, Martin, I think you dropped something,” she looked up, but he was already gone. It was a business card. It had the words “Icarus Removals” in large block letters, and a pair of wings under them. They looked hand drawn. Below the wings was contact information. Martin’s she assumed. She tucked the card into one of the books, and made her way out the door to head over to Bart’s for her shift at the hospital.
***

It wasn’t until many months later that she saw Martin again. She almost didn’t believe it when she saw the old dented van parked across the street. She wasn’t keen to admit it, but Molly had thought a lot about Martin the past few months. She wasn’t sure why. He just seemed to have a way of creeping into her thoughts every now and then, and she wasn’t sure that she liked it. Until then she had been very sure that she’d never see Martin again, and she wasn’t jumping up and the thought of developing any sort of feelings for a man who could not (or would not) be able to return them. She’s had enough of that already.

Molly hadn’t realized how long she’d been standing at her window, processing her feelings, until she realized that Martin was staring back at her. When he didn’t do anything, she gave a small tentative wave. Which he returned shyly.

“Friend of yours?” said a smooth, deep voice behind her, making her jump and tug the curtains hurriedly over the window.

“No, h-he’s not, and you should be more careful. He could have seen you,”

“I doubt it,” replied Sherlock easily. “And if he did I don’t think he’d do anything about it…at least I don’t think he would.”

Molly narrowed her eyes at the tall man in front of her. It wasn’t like him to be uncertain. “What do you mean?” she said.

“Nothing,” Sherlock said, brushing her off, and retreating to the sofa, muttering something about needing to phone Mycroft.

Molly sighed and decided not to try to get anymore information out of Sherlock. Her efforts would be useless anyway. She stole a peek though the curtains. Martin was still there and back to unloading boxes. She bit her lip and debated going over to chat with him a bit.

Would it be too weird? We’ve never really talked before. But we’ve met before…sort of. And people go up and talk to strangers all the time, right? And since we’ve sort of met before it won’t be weird it I go and talk to him. Right?

“Yes,” Sherlock suddenly said, his voice penetrating her thoughts sharply. “It would be awkward and odd if you were to talk to this man. But a bit of awkwardness hasn’t stopped you from attempting to make conversation before,” he said pointedly.

Molly blinked. Was this Sherlock’s (weird) way of tell her she should talk to Martin? Was she really going to take advice on this matter from Sherlock?

“Better hurry. He’ll be leaving soon.”
Couldn’t hurt, Molly decided as she stepped out the front door.

“Um…hi,” Molly said as she approached him. “I know this is kind of strange, but, um, do you want to go get a coffee? Maybe? I-I know this little place just around the corner…and um…”

Martin looked at her strangely. “Do I know you?” he asked quite suddenly and a little too loudly. He cringed internally when he saw her start. Now she really won’t want to talk to you. “I saw you at the window and you looked familiar. I-I see a lot of faces. It’s kind of hard to keep them all straight.”

“Um yeah…you sort of know me…I guess. Um, I’m Molly. You were moving someone into the flat next to me and…knocked me down. And I saw your van just now and thought you’d like to get a coffee…with me.” Molly winced a little at how stupid she sounded.

“Oh, rr-right Molly. Yes. I remember now,” Martin said, blushing from the memory. “Why, i-if I may ask, do you want to have coffee with me?”

“Oh,” it was Molly’s turn to blush. “I thought you looked…nice,” she said.

“Sure. Okay. I’d love to have coffee with you Molly. I’m all done here. L-lead the way,” Martin said with a small nervous smile.

It had been five minutes since they had bought their coffee and sat down at a small table in the back of the café. Five painfully long awkward minutes, where neither one of them said a word. Molly couldn’t take it anymore and opened her mouth to say something, anything, when Martin cut her off.

“This isn’t a joke right?” he said. “I-I mean you weren’t put up to this or paid, were you? Have you met anyone named Douglas Richardson?”

“Ah, no sorry to disappoint, but it’s not a joke. Came here on my own free will,” Molly said.

“No! No, I didn’t mean… Oh God,” Martin groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I’m messing this all up. I’m sorry. It’s just, for me, that it would be my luck that this would be a joke or something. “But I’m glad it’s not because…because what, Martin? How are you going to finish this sentence without completely scaring her off, if you didn’t already? Because I want to see you again? Because I like you? You haven’t even finished your first…whatever this is. “I’m just going to go. I’m sorry,” Martin sighed after finishing his internal monologue. He started to stand when Molly grabbed his sleeve.

“Please don’t. It’s okay. I understand. I probably wouldn’t have believed it myself if you were the one to ask me out.”

“R-really?”

Molly giggled a little at the complete look of surprise on Martin’s face. “Yes. Now that’s settled let’s get back to our date, shall we?”

Martin smiled, a genuinely happy smile, without a hint of anxiety. “Yes,” he said, “let’s”

***
“Morning, Skip!” Arthur greeted Martin the next day. He and the other crew members of GERTI were all inside the plane, preparing for a flight to Turkey. “Boy, you sure are smiley today. Did you get an extra good nights sleep last night?”

“Yes, Martin. You are acting dreadfully cheerful this morning. Quite unlike you, in fact. It’s a bit disconcerting,” interjected Douglas.

“Well if you must know…I had a…date…last night.”

“A date!?” repeated Arthur.

“A date?” echoed Douglas.

“A date?” asked Carolyn, coming into the flight deck. “Who went on a date?”

“Me!” cried Martin. “I did! Me! She gave me her number, a-and we are going to see each other again after I get back. Thank you very much.”

“Well good for you Martin, finally putting that uniform to good use I see,” Douglas said, patting him, quite roughly, on the back.

“W-well. Not- not really. See, she doesn’t know. That I fly planes in addition to my van job. I didn’t want to try and explain…”

“But, Skip, what did you talk about? Flying is the only thing you really talk about.”

“We talked about plenty of things, Arthur, thank you. Mostly about her job, she works in a morgue, for your information.”

“Sounds lovely,” Douglas said loftily.

“It is…well she is.”

“Well…” Douglas started, but then seemed to think twice about what he was going to say. “Nevermind.”

“What, Douglas?” Martin said, panic starting to creep into his voice.

“Nothing. It’s nothing,”

“No tell me, please. Just tell me, what.”

“Well I was going to say that it will probably all work out fine for the both of you,” Douglas said. “But then again this is you we’re talking about here, Martin.”