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Mary Watson, for all her hopelessness, suffered a fate she could not predict. When Sherlock Holmes had appeared that night, blood and flesh and life exponential, her world had ended. Almost a shame, then, that no one had thought to tell her so she could get her affairs in order.
Sin upon sin had she committed, with unfeeling eyes and smoking guns, and the universe was finally taking note. It showed her the path to a better life; it neglected to mention that she couldn't walk it.
Stumbling blindly almost, lost in a world made of domesticity and love, blundering ever onwards to her final destination, a place she would reach alone.
How much simpler would it be if she had been sent to kill John Watson, and not to love him instead?
Sent by whom was a question for the ages, but crack upon crack made it hard for her to care. A yawning chasm stretched out between she and her husband, with no bridge to build, only one to burn.
Sherlock Holmes, in all his innocence, and all his stupid, stupid love, was a catalyst. A nuclear blast which left no survivors, save the man whose name she had traded for the one she had already stolen.
And solace was where she found it, at the bottom of a bottle, in the arms of another who understood what it meant to live on the edge of a love affair not yet begun.
She twined her fingers in shining brown locks, sweat cooling in the space between her breasts, upon sheets sodden with the proof of her infidelity.
Of John's own betrayal there was no sign, except for the aching of her heart. He was yet to stray.
"It will be years," she sighed to her lover, as small hands ran down the chilled flesh of her arm. "Too many years."
"But not forever," Molly replied, pressing a gentle, bitter kiss to her throat.
"No," Mary agreed, collapsing ever inward. "No."
"We should be happy," Molly said meekly, already stretching taut once more despite the late hour, and both women's exhausted state. "For them, I mean."
"Of course, but then my love, it is easier for you."
Molly pulled sharply away, tears stinging her eyes, and Mary was too aware by the sudden coldness left behind by the absence of her form.
"Come closer," she ordered, and Molly acquiesced, just as she always did.
While Mary fixed her eyes to the ceiling, Molly tasting her intimately, they both pretended not to hear the whispered name of her husband escape her lips.
When Molly screwed her eyes up tightly, Mary's professional digits assaulting her most sacred part, Mary tried to drown out her cries of 'Sherlock!' with her own base and wanton moans.
But it became tedious, as they lay together, pretending the other was someone else.
"Molly," Mary whispered into the darkness. "I can never be your man."
"My mind can twist you in ways you have no idea," Molly retorted, emboldened by the strange new love she had experienced.
"So kiss me, and tell me if you taste him," Mary said scornfully.
Molly pressed her lips to Mary's, eyes closed once more against reality. The kiss was deep, passionate and wrong all at once.
"Cigarettes and tea," Molly replied with a lazy smile once they had drawn apart.
"I don't smoke."
"Neither does he, not really," Molly replied with a small shrug.
"You taste of lemons," Mary said, amused.
"Like John?"
"No, not at all."
Mary returned home to her marital bed, surprised that so much space could exist on so small a piece of furniture. It seemed to go on forever, out into the darkened night and all the way to Baker Street.
And yet, she was damned if she was going to let that blasted Holmes fill it.
She kissed John on the shoulder as he slept, her lips still heavy with Molly's taste as they brushed against a sun-shaped scar.
John muttered and shifted away from her, ever further, and closer to him.
She lay on her back in the darkness, her head suffocated by the smell of the pathologist's sex, and she didn't sleep.
She lay awake all night, until the sun came up, creeping ever closer to the day when it would turn her world to ash.