Chapter Text
I wake up, like countless nights before, in John’s bed. Like the first time, nearly four months ago, he’s not there. His absents alarms me for a moment, but I can feel his pillow is still warm. He was here mere moments ago.
Not again.
I haul myself out of the bed, throw on the nearest pair of jeans and a shirt, and set out into the night. He’s done this nearly every week, always going to the same place: Southwark Bridge.
The wind blows against my back as I near the edge of the bridge where he stands. “John, are you alright?” I ask. He lets me put my arms around him from behind in an attempt to protect him from the cold wind.
“I’m fine.” he says, rubbing the sides of my hands with his thumbs, “I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get used to the feeling of a stopped heart. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with it, it’s just…odd.”
“It takes a while, but it will come.” I lay a kiss on his temple, he smiles just slightly.
“Do you know why I keep coming here?” he inquires after a beat of comfortable silence.
“I assume it’s because it’s the place we met. Thanks for that, by the way.”
He laughs to himself, “That’s partly right. But what really brings me here is just thinking of what could have been. What could have happened to you if I didn’t step in.” he turns around to face me, and pulls a small slip of paper out of his jacket pocket. “Do you know what this is?”
I take the paper, try to read the smudged, messy writing. “It’s my note.”
He nods, “I read it over practically every day while you were…taken captive. Every day when I came back from Scotland Yard discouraged because they had no leads on where you were, every night I went out into the streets looking for you myself. This small piece of paper gave me hope that I’d bring you home again.”He sighs and takes my hands in his own, “Every day I’m thankful I stopped you from jumping. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have met the man I’ve chosen to love. And who I get to spend the rest of my very long life with.”
He leans in closer to kiss me. I’ll never tire of the feeling of his lips against mine, his tongue intertwined with mine, and especially his body so close to mine.
“I can’t wait to spend it with you.” I whisper, “Now shall we go home?”
“Sure.” Hand in hand we walk back to his, wait our flat. I’ve come so far since the first time we both came to this bridge, I’ve conquered so much. And I am blessed to spend the rest of my life with the man who saved me, twice.
“So what was all this talk of vampire wars about anyway?” John asks.
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know.” I confess, “It could very well just have been Moriarty being an ovedramatic psychopath. God knows he was one.” I shiver from the thought of him, “I mean, just look at the way he treated his clan; demanding to be called ‘Master’, making everyone kneel in his presence. I’m sure there are a plethora of other vampires out there who would thank us for killing him.”
John cringes beside me, “You’re not going to get all power mad, are you? Because, you are technically my Master. And I can tell you right now, I won’t be kneeling in front of you. At least, not for the purposes Moriarty had people kneel for him.”
“Down boy.” I joke.
He smiles at me, a mischievous smile that I’ve seen him wear only a handful of times. “I’m not the one who’s going down tonight.”
By time we get back to the flat, it’s too early in the morning to go back to bed. John has made his intentions for the early morning very clear. Needless to say, I’m eager to make it back to the flat.
However, plans are cut short. There is a familiar face sitting at the kitchen table. Not a welcome face, only a familiar one.
Short blonde hair, and blue eyes. The vampire who nearly killed me when I paid a visit to the Morstan nest.
“How the hell did you get here?” I demand, slamming the door behind us as we enter.
“Oh Sherlock, you act as if you’re the only person who knows how to pick a lock.” she drawls back.
John alternates between giving me and her confused glances, “Sherlock, who is this?”
For once I am caught off guard. I never actually asked her name.
She rises from her seat at the table and extends her hand to John, “Mary Morstan, pleasure to meet you, John.”
“Likewise.” he greets, “Now what are you doing in our flat?”
“House hunting.” She says with nearly tangible sarcasm, “What do you think I’m doing, looking for you two.”
Her hand lingers with John’s for too long. “What do you want with us?” I interrupt.
“You took down Moriarty and therefore his entire clan, I want to know what you plan to do next?”
“John and I plan on living a quiet life, and forget about the absolute nightmare we lived in for four months. Needless to say, we won’t be spending much time with the likes of you.” I walk back to the door and hold it open for her, hoping that she’ll take the hint and leave.
She gives me a dead eyed stare instead. “It won’t be that easy, Sherlock. Now that Moriarty’s gone all eyes are on you to lead the war.”
“Oh god not this again.” John pipes in. “Why does everyone keep talking about this elusive war?”
“And why do I have to lead it, apparently?” I add, reluctantly shutting the door and walking back to the table.
“You killed the king, so now you inherit the crown. And I hope for your sake it fits, and you won’t crack under the pressure.” she smirks.
“I still don’t understand why you’re telling us this.” John asks, slightly more irritated by her aversion to answering our questions. “Isn’t the war between your house and Moriarty’s?”
She stares at us with a dumbfounded expression, “You two still don’t get it do you? Moriarty wasn’t building up an army to fight my house. He was starting a war against the humans. Now are you ready or not?”
John and I are taken aback.
What does she mean against the humans? Humans don’t even know vampires exist.
John is the first to voice his confusion, “What do you mean it’s against the humans?”
“I mean Moriarty had plans to fight back against the few humans who know about our existence. The ones who are doing everything in their power to detain and experiment on, as you would say, Sherlock, the likes of us.” She explains.
“If this was all his plan,” I begin, “what role do either of us play in it? You didn’t seem overly involved last time we spoke.”
“It didn’t affect me then, but things have changed.” She takes a seat again and continues to explain to us, “Moriarty’s plans, like many of his ideas, involved violence and nothing short of genocide. He proposed his clan and mine form an alliance, for the time being, and eradicate the humans. I declined, of course, and he got angry and killed one of my girls. After that, I suppose he went out to look for you to help him.”
“You don’t seem prone to unnecessary violence, Mary,” John observes, “so why join now? What made you so interested in this war?”
She looks down at her hands, fiddling with a ring on her right hand, “They stole them. They took my entire clan away from me.” She returns her gaze to us, fighting back tears, “I know you don’t understand, but that was my family. I loved them like my own children. And they were taken away from me in the dead of night.”
John looks at me with a pleading expression, and I know just what he’s pleading for. But I can’t bring myself to agree to help. His experience with the monsters that we are is much different than mine. He doesn’t understand. She may look like a weeping mother before us, but underneath could be a monster sent from hell. He can’t see that we can’t trust her in this moment, not until we know who she is, what her motives are.
I can’t bring myself to help her, but moreover I can’t bring myself to see John eye to eye.
“Mary,” I say with as soft a voice as I can manage, “please leave our flat now, or I will get the police involved.”
THE END