It's Not Unusual (Mona, casual) (FIN)

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

Lestrade forcefully pushed the glass doors of the library open. It was large, and quite fittingly, filled with books. It was very busy, but because of its size, people were spread in a way that made it feel deceivingly vacant. The air was warmer in here, than the cold drizzle outside. His hair was moist, not exactly wet, but the damp made him look paler. He was panting slightly from running quickly into the library without much thought as the slow rain had started. He hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella – didn’t own one. He’d always used his brother's before, in California (when it was rarely needed).

He looked around, scanning the room for the unlikely familiar face. His eyes ended up towards the young woman, the librarian, behind the reception desk. ‘Library card,’ he thought suddenly. ‘I should get a library card here.’ His lips twitched in a smile for a moment; all the things that came with being new; library cards, introductions, they all seemed so familiar and yet so odd.

He walked to the desk and smiled at the young woman. “Er, hello, I’m wondering if I might be able to get a library card?” He asked. She smiled back at him and nodded.

“Yes of course, I’ll need your name and some form of I.D., please.”

Lestrade fumbled in his pocket for his wallet, drawing his new I.D. for the police out. “Lestrade, ah, Gregory Lestrade,” he said while handing the plastic slip over the counter. He waited while the woman entered his information into the system and answered the habitual questions of phone, address, etcetera. When she was done, he nodded firmly to her, still smiling, before turning with his new card in hand towards the rest of the library. He might as well look around while he was here.

He walked through rows of books and shelves filled with movies and compact discs before he found a small area in the back. The wall was rounded there, and there were a few chairs placed evenly around a small glass table. He sat in the leftmost chair and looked at his new library card. He wasn’t sure why, but his gaze was drawn towards his own name; the bolded letters on a quickly printed sticker, capitalized fully and above his messily written signature. He sat there, leaning back in the comfortable chair and holding the card above his head towards the ceiling lights, staring at the plastic. Soon he wasn’t really looking at the card so much as zoning out, half asleep. What a sight he probably was, a soggy, slouching man with his hand above his head and his eyes collapsing at the lids.

[MONA LISA DRAGOTI]

Mona couldn't see.

She was carrying a stack of books that blocked her view of anything in front of her. It felt nice to be back in the Library after such a long time away. But she wasn't here for a casual visit like she would for a normal time. She was here to try and self diagnose herself, she had know something was wrong with her for a very long time now, but this was the first time she had ever try to find out if her suspicions were true.

She walked quickly hoping that years of wondering around would come in handy with memorizing where everything was. She tried to focus her attention on finding her way, but her once sharp mind was now dulling, she could hardly get out of bed in the mornings, now she had to walk without her sight.

Mona kept forward in a straight line until she felt someone slip past her and push her forward slightly. She felt her whole body shift and start to fall. She reached out to grab something to catch her, but held on to a bookshelf. She held on tightly as a spread of books fell before her. an array of self help books were on the library floor for everyone to see.

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

"He's not alive anymore, Gregory. Leave him be." I shake my head. "Gregory."

"He's not dead," I say harshly. And he's not. I can feel him breathing underneath me. The steady rise and fall of his chest, the sounds he's making that dead people can't make. "Don't say things like that."

"I'm sorry Gregory," he says from beneath me.

"See, he's alive," I insist.

"No," he shakes his head sadly. "I'm sorry Gregory," he says again. And then he shoots me.


Lestrade hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep until he was awoken by a loud crash, followed by a cry of alarm and several smaller thuds. He was confused as to where he was for a moment, before looking around quickly and remembering that he was in the library. He was slouched in a chair, and his library card lay on the ground next to it, dropped when he'd fallen asleep. Breathing heavily at the strange yet rapidly escaping dream he'd awoken from, Gregory leaned over, still slightly dazed, to pick up his library card.

It took Lestrade another few seconds to remember what had woken him up. Slowly, he stood from the chair and glanced around. Bookshelves surrounded him, impeding his view. He cautiously walked forward, glancing through shelves of books for the source of the noise. Finally, he saw a young woman on the ground with books piled around her; probably the source of the noise.

Lestrade quickly walked closer. "Hey, are you alright?" He asked worriedly, his voice lowered due to their environment, but still loud enough for her to hear. He knelt and began to gather some of the books in his arms while looking worriedly over at the woman.

[MONA LISA DRAGOTI]

Mona looked at the books in a daze at the books that laid on the floor. She reached out and started picking them up, she looked at the man who was helping her and watched him carefully. He looked at her worriedly and Mona felt as if she knew him from somewhere. She looked at him with more concentration and realized she'd seen him at the police station. She was often called down there to help with psych evaluations of criminals. She quickly pulled the books from his hands and shoved them behind her back, she scooted back till the books and her back were pressed against one of the shelves. If the police station found out that she was seriously depressed they wouldn't pay her anymore, and that was the only paying job she had.

Mona realized that she was breathing heavily and most likely looked wild. Her eyes darted over him in a rapid pace. She tried to even out her breathing as quickly as possible. She checked to make sure that he couldn't see any of the books behind her, and let out a sigh of relief when she saw that he couldn't see what she was reading.

"Oh... I...I'm sorry, I...tripped" She said, she had to think about the words she was saying. Most of the time now a days she told the truth and just told everyone to leave her alone and never speak to her again. But she had to pretend with him that she was fine and sociable.

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

When he was a four, Gregory Lestrade’s older sister told him that he was a freak. Gregory, being at that young age, wasn’t quite sure what she meant. But he knew that it – the word ‘freak’ – had a negative connotation, and so he started to cry. His mother had comforted him and shushed him gently, petting his short hair as he sat whimpering on her lap. “Don’t worry my love,” he half-remembered her saying. “You’re sister’s just jealous that you’re so smart.”

And he was smart. He was so smart that he skipped over two years in schooling and ended up in the same class as his older sister, which she absolutely hated him for. He was called freak so many times that year that after a while, it lost all meaning. ‘My freak of a brother’ just came to meant ‘My little brother.’ Gregory didn’t mind being called a freak, and that was that. And besides, by the time he was in secondary school, he was absolutely overjoyed at his talents, because it meant that he got to leave his self-acclaimed hell hole of a home faster than anybody else. But all that time in that 'hell hole' had left him with a lot of free time; time in which he read. And so he read, and remembered everything. He knew how to beat anybody at any game, based on their gender, age, and personality, how to act perfectly to get exactly what he wanted, and knew a depressed person when he saw one. Not that he’d ever comment on it.

But seeing the girl across from him panic, snatch the books quickly out of his hands and back up against the walls told him enough all on its own. “It’s fine,” he said, and smiled gently at her after she stuttered out her excuse at falling. “Everyone trips once and a while, eh?” His smile lowered at the edges a bit as he looked at her more in a way that didn’t mean he was unhappy, just simply done smiling and thinking. “Do I… know you?” Lestrade was a genius, yes, but he only remembered what he read. As far as verbal and visual communications went, he fell rather short on memory. “Not to sound creepy, I just… you look farmiliar.”

[MONA LISA DRAGOTI]

Mona searched his face for some trace of him knowing what was wrong with her, but let herself relax as she saw no trace on his . Mona let out a sigh before looking at him. "I should be familiar, I often help police with psych references on cases." She pushed the books out from behind her and down an empty row as she stood up and offered her hand to him. She was putting a good show, something that lately was not easy for her to do.

"My name is Monica, Lisa Dragoti, Therapist." She quickly started cleaning up the mess that she made while trying to to look to emotionless.

" I specialize in case files dealing with criminals that plead insanity. and also when Cops go through traumatic events I help them through it."

She looked at him "And who are you? I know you work at the police station, I have seen you. But I'm afraid I don't know your name."

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

“Oh!” Lestrade said, recognizing her a bit more at her explanation of being the police’s personal shrink. “I’m Gregory Lestrade, ah, I’m one of the D.I.s.” He smiled and stuck his hand out to shake politely.

He remained sitting on his heels, contemplating what she’d just said for a moment longer before standing up, grunting slightly. He held his right hand out again, this time to help her up. “Monica Lisa Dragoti…” he mused as he stood in an inviting position. “That’s beautiful name, it really is,” he said softly. Lestrade wasn’t usually one for shameless complements, but a name like that, he thought, really deserved one. And she was very pretty.

Getting a better look at her now that the whole shock of finding a girl among a pile of fallen books, Lestrade could see her better; She was relatively short, but thin. He eyes were a pretty sort of hazel brown that Lestrade felt like might be the sort that, after a while, one could get lost in their dazzling simplicity.

[MONA LISA DRAGOTI]

Mona put on a soft smile though on the inside his compliment hit like a punch. He was wrong about her name, it wasn't a pretty one. It was one that held years of pain and bullying. She hated her name, but that wasn't a stretch considering she hated everything about herself. But with a smile that she had gotten perfect through the years, she took his hand. The white bandage that wrapped around her knuckles standing out against her tan skin.

"Thank you " She said as she stood up and took her hand back.

She looked at him trying to find a trace of books, but found nothing. That confused her slightly, why would anyone be here with out getting any books. She put her hands in her hodie's pockets and looked up at him.

"So Detective...why are you here ?"

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

Lestrade saw something odd flicker in Monica's eyes as he spoke her name. It was fleeting, but unmistakable. His own eyes were drawn to the woman's hand as she took his, letting Lestrade help her to stand. The crisp white bandage was careful and clean, and all too noticeable against her skin. He avoided seeing too much into it.

"Thank you," Monica said, and Lestrade smiled and nodded to her. He could feel her scanning her, deducing, judging, cataloguing him. The phrases had a negative connotation; the process of assuming things about people. And though yes, Lestrade thought immediate bad assumptions were, well, bad, judging was human nature. It wasn't to be unkind or haughty, it was simply as natural as breathing. "So, detective, why are you here?" Monica asked Lestrade as she placed her hands in her pockets.

For some reason, the question threw him off guard. It was simple, obviously meant towards the direction of 'Why are you in the library,' but in the seemingly long five point oh-three seconds it took Lestrade to answer, all sorts of the wrong things came to mind. Why was he in the library, the city, the country, this Earth?

He licked him his lips and blinked a half-second longer than was strictly natural before answering with what he managed to sound like a confident tone, "Oh, just…popping in to take cover from the rain. Decided to get myself a library card and look around while I was at it and I suppose, well, I got a bit…distracted." He conveniently left out the next bit of his story, which would've been 'and fell asleep like an idiot old man.'

He smiled, though a sharp, jabbing sort of pain was forming between his eyebrows now. Perhaps the blow to the head he'd taken from that criminal today had been harder than he'd thought. He absently rubbed his forehead with the side of his left index finger. "Well, Miss Monica, are you just… doing some research yourself, then?" Lestrade already knew the answer, knew it perfectly well, but had asked the question before he could stop himself.