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The Shadow of Doubt
He thought he’d done the right thing in forgiving her, in giving her a clean start. A fresh slate, no history, no judgement. A wilfully blind eye. And she’d accepted it gratefully, more than willing to be Mary Watson and no one else, so help her God, for the rest of their days. And he’d been happy with that, or at least as happy as he could have possibly been. Satisfied, maybe.
He’d thought it could work. He really did. The problem is, it's such a big lie to sustain. Both of them, trying their damnedest to pretend they don’t know who she really is, pretending they can’t see it when the cracks appear. He’d told himself he would forget. He doesn’t know what she told herself, because asking would have given him more information than he’d wanted, more information than he could have possibly handled. He didn’t want to know and she didn’t want him to know. Good: they were on the same page, then. Only, lies are so much more complicated than truth, even when the truth is too complicated to bear. One has to check for continuity. Consistency. Make sure the lines don’t get tangled. Never, ever ask questions that start with When or How long ago, never ask for clarification when an unfamiliar name is referenced, a story told in front of friends that he’s never heard before. There’s just so much back there.
He wonders sometimes, if Sherlock knows. Somehow got hold of the memory stick and read it. He could have done. He had over two months of John staying at Baker Street again, the memory stick left beside his wallet every night before he went to sleep. But Sherlock never said and John never asked. It’s better this way, he tells himself.
He thinks he’s got it under control. He really thinks he does. But it comes out and lashes at him, taunting him and surprising him at unexpected times and in unexpected ways. It’s May again, a year after the wedding. The baby is four months now, just about. Mary had named her, as he’d known she would. Rose. She hadn’t said why and John hadn’t asked if there was a particular reason. Anything, any question could be the wrong question, could lead to a hesitation on Mary’s part, the silence where he’d forced her again to debate lying or telling him not to ask, addressing it directly. She never addresses it directly, and every time she lies again it gnaws off another piece of his shredded heart. He wants so badly not to know what little he does know, and there’s so much more that he’s wilfully ignored. But it’s always there, lurking just out of sight like a shadow.
He asks Mary over breakfast if she’d like to go away somewhere; he’s got holidays in June and there’s a seat sale on, according to the paper. She asks where he’d like to go and he asks if she’s ever been to Malta. She hesitates, and his cautiously good mood is destroyed instantly. “No,” she says, and he knows it’s a lie. What was Malta, then? Another hit? Government or private this time? How had she killed him? (Her? He supposes it could have been a woman.) Was it gruesome? Painful? Was it a crime scene that Sherlock would have investigated, had he been in Malta at the time? (Would he have solved it, traced the evidence back to Mary? Which of them would outwit the other, if push came to shove?) Sherlock is unfailingly friendly to Mary, uncannily so, and she must have to wit to recognise that she has no choice but to keep up the illusion with him, too. She knew the day that Sherlock appeared in that restaurant that they were a package deal. Best friends. You can’t ignore a man’s best friend, not when he’s the world’s only consulting detective and you have secrets the size of the Commonwealth to protect. Friendliness abounds, therefore.
He clears his throat and says, with an evenness that’s too forced, too obvious, “What about Spain, then?”
“Never been,” Mary says quickly, too relieved.
“Perhaps San Sebastian,” he says. “I hear they’ve got some nice beaches. Mike Stamford’s sister was there last month.”
“Sounds fantastic,” Mary says, smiling, but the small worried lines between her eyes are still there.
He wants to reach over and forcibly smooth them out, but even trying would only upset her. He hates that he accidentally tripped another part of the shadowy lie that fills their flat, their life, and put those lines on her face.
***
He can’t block it out. He wants so badly not to know what he knows, suspect what he can’t help thinking of, late at night when Mary’s asleep and his thoughts rampage through his head unchecked. Stop it! he finds himself silently screaming. Just stop thinking about it, for God’s sake! He knows it isn’t helping, that part of him will always wonder, always think about it, always, always, always hate it. What is he supposed to do? He has chosen the honourable path: he chose to stay with the wife he loves, even if he doesn’t know any more who it is that he thinks he loves. He gave her a fresh start. He forgave her the lie. He doesn’t trust her, but he loves her and he owes her that much, in the name of love, at least.
(He hates this.)
(He has no idea how long it can last. Not when he feels this way about it. It would be better if he could just prevent himself from thinking about it at all, ever. A computer program that could steer his brain clear of any glitches in the matrix, any cracks in the façade, any danger zones.)
***
He’s returned from a crime scene one day. It’s unfinished, unsolved as yet, but Sherlock has gone home to think and he’s come home to sleep. Unaware that he was followed from the chip shop with Sherlock (he ate; Sherlock didn’t), he steps through the door to his building to see Mary in the corridor outside their flat, revolver in hand. She’s aiming just over his shoulder. “John, get down!” she snaps.
He ducks, pivoting on his heel to look over his shoulder, only to see his assailant turn and run. Mary fires a shot but just misses the thug as he sprints from the doorway. Before he can move, Mary is rushing past him in a flash, is down the pavement in a heartbeat. He’s after her in a second, passing Mary just as she catches up with the balaclava-ed attacker. He slams the bloke up against a stone fence post and gets a confession out of him in seconds. It solves the crime; a call to Lestrade puts everything to rights and he needs to tell Sherlock, but there’s something larger that he needs to deal with first.
When Lestrade arrived, Mary disappeared back into the flat. She’s there now, and he can feel the tension between them from where he is, half a block away. Lestrade asks if he’s all right and he says something vague. He doesn’t even know if Lestrade knows, or what he knows. And he can’t ask: wilful ignorance has its price. He goes back inside and pushes open the door of the flat. Mary is there on the sofa, holding a book open but not reading it. There is no sign of the gun; the lie is firmly back in place, the edges of the façade tucked in and smoothed over. He feels heavy, the words he needs to say weighing half a tonne on his tongue.
She doesn’t look at him, as though hoping he won’t see her, or comment on any of that. But he has to. This can’t go on. It’s not working. “Mary,” he says, her name already full of pain, his voice rasping over it.
“You were followed,” she says to the book, before he can fill in the trail he’s left. Her voice is quiet but strong.
“How did you know that?”
Her eyes cut to him quickly, sharp. “Isn’t that the sort of question we’re not allowed to ask?”
It cuts him to the bone, that she’s said it out loud. “Just answer it,” he says, his voice as sharp as her eyes.
She turns back to the book. “Surveillance. What did you think?”
It takes him a minute to swallow this down. “So you’re… you’re still…” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. (The accusation? Clarification?)
She turns a page and he knows it’s a lie; she’s not reading a word. “Clearly. Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“Well – yeah, I did,” he says, and his voice is louder than it should be. Rose is sleeping – and that’s another thing; she left Rose behind, the door unlocked. Had she forgotten they had a sleeping baby in the flat? He’s upset. “You – I thought you had left all that behind!”
Now Mary pauses. She lowers the book to her lap, marking her place with a finger. Her eyes are very direct. “So watching out for you is out of the question?”
“It’s part of your old life,” he says, angry that he has to explain this. It should have been clear. Unquestionably so.
“So you don’t want me to be any of it. Of what I was. Even though it just saved your life.” Mary is very even, but her eyes are boring into his uncomfortably.
He rubs his eyes. “I just – I wanted you to be the person I thought you were when I married you,” he says, and hears how defeated it sounds.
Mary’s mouth tightens a little. “And that’s why we should have talked about it,” she says, not giving, not backing down. “I’m not that person. I’m sorry. I said I was sorry. I still love you. But I’m not sure I can keep pretending, if you don’t want me to be the person I really am at all.”
He feels lost, hopelessly unsure of what to say to this. What he wants to say. “If you’d just been honest from the start – ” he tries, but she cuts him off.
“Oh right, because ‘my hobbies include killing for hire and baking bread’ would have got your attention,” Mary says, with a look that says John, please. Before he can go on, she adds, “I don’t know, John. I love you, too, but… I can see it in your eyes, every time I say the wrong thing. Every time we get to the edge of something you don’t want to hear, don’t want to know about, and I just don’t know. How much longer can we actually go on like this?”
“We’ve been doing all right so far,” he mutters, but he knows she’s right. It’s the same thing he’s been thinking all along, all those long nights lying awake.
“Now you’re the one lying,” Mary says gently. She looks down at the book in her lap. “I think we should take some time apart,” she says, still quiet. “You need to really think about this. Figure out if it’s what you really want, and if so, how much of me – the real me – you want, if you do still want that.”
He blinks, feeling stunned. “Are you kicking me out?” He sounds disbelieving.
“Maybe it will only be temporary.” Mary looks at him again, her eyes very blue. “But this isn’t working and I think you know that. So: pack a bag. Go and stay with Sherlock. Then at least part of you will be where you really want to be, anyway.”
He’s still reeling, slightly. He’d thought privately that if they ever had this conversation, he’d be the one inviting her to leave, not vice-versa. “What about Rose?” he asks.
Mary shrugs. “What about her? You can see her any time you like. Just call first.” Then she’s opening the book again and ignoring him.
After half a minute of standing there stupidly, just watching her, he turns and goes into the bedroom to pack.
***
When he arrives at 221B Baker Street, Sherlock is still awake despite it being after midnight. No surprise there. The strains of a rather melancholy violin piece drift down the stairs to him. Something Romantic, he thinks. German or maybe Russian: Sherlock’s introspective music. Post-case: for thinking he normally turns to the Baroque composers. Lestrade must have phoned and told him, then.
The violin stops when he gets to the top of the stairs and Sherlock is there at the door when John gets to it. His eyes go to the bag in John’s hand and then travel rapidly over his face, reading it intently, and when they land on John’s, they’re a little too understanding. “I see,” Sherlock says, though John hasn’t spoken. “Come in, then.”
He does, closing the door behind him. His chair is still there, angled toward Sherlock’s as though only temporarily empty, as though Sherlock has always been waiting for him to come back. (He’s read the memory stick, then. Somehow he’s sure of this.) He puts his bag down and looks around. “Hi,” he says. “I’ve come home.”