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I jumped on a Monday.
Stepped up on the ledge, phone pressed to my ear, staring down at you staring up at me.
Please, John. Will you do this for me?
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, heard you shout--your voice echoing in my ears as I fell…
NO!
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The funeral was on a Thursday.
I wasn’t supposed to be there, of course. The plans had been made, resources gathered, the first small cracks in the network I vowed to destroy spreading before me like a map I had no choice but to follow.
But first…
Crouched behind the mausoleum I could see everything.
The raindrops caught in your hair (more gold than grey then) that ran down your forehead and cheeks and chin and slipped beneath your collar (too tight, you kept pulling at it) that beaded on your shoulders then slid down to drip from the hem of your coat (new, and quite fine) into the sodden grass below.
There were other people in attendance as well, I’m told.
Mycroft found me eventually, appearing beside me with a level of stealth impressive for someone of his considerable size, muttering to me about duty and honor and planes waiting on runways. I waved him away, said I would go when you did, and not before. He assured me you would be well looked after, but I couldn’t leave you there alone.
Not yet.
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I was captured on a Tuesday.
It was hardly the first time I’d found myself in a cell, flayed and bruised and at the mercy of people with far more brawn than brains—a less than pleasant position to be in but not an unfamiliar one. No time to dwell on the pain:
Observe. Assess. Escape.
As the heavy door slammed shut and the cold stone rose to meet my face the crack of my cheek against it sent a shower of sparks across my eyes, pushed the air from my lungs with a strangled cry as the darkness closed in and I knew I should fight it, but…
Hush, they’ll hear you. There are four of them, Sherlock. You can take three if you’re clever about it, but the last one you’ll need your wits about you to defeat.
Warm fingers and a confident touch and a gentle pressure at my chin to raise my gaze to meet pools of deep blue beneath eyebrows drawn in tight with concentration.
Three cracked ribs, a dislocated elbow, a nasty cut to your scalp that needs stitching and enough bruising to your kidneys that you’ll piss blood for a week. You’ve got to be more careful, Sherlock. You’ll never make it home if you keep this up.
I knew it wasn’t real, that you weren’t really there.
Except that, to me, you were.
Always.
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I came home on a Friday.
In retrospect I concede that the timing of our reunion may have been less than opportune, but in my defense I had been away for two years and the thought of waiting even one more day to show you I’d returned and tell you where I’d been and to see that you were safe and to know that it had all been worth it in the end—surely whomever this latest in a very long string of women was could hardly be so important as to merit any consideration from me…
Well.
Perhaps I should have thought that through a bit more.
Later that night before the mirror in the bathroom, I waited for you—for the ghost of your imaginary touch on my broken skin, for the echo of your voice admonishing me in my head as I tended to the newest of my wounds.
There was only silence.
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You married her on a Saturday.
Months of planning, endless hours of negotiation and decisions and coordination and colors and flowers and menus and vendors and lists and charts and invitations and schedules and meticulously planned seating arrangements—it was clear from the beginning that someone had to step up and coordinate the blessed event. Besides, she’d asked for my help, after all. Was I supposed to say, no?
I didn’t want to like her, you know.
But she was different from the other women you’d brought round the flat; Clever. Interesting. Enigmatic, even. And she didn’t hate me immediately, which was a significant mark in her favor, I’ll admit. She made you happy, that much was clear. You once told me that she brought you back to life, that she was the second person to do that.
You loved her. So I did too.
There were vows and rice and photos and greetings and handshakes and speeches and toasts and an attempted murder right there in the middle of it all! It was the least tedious wedding I’d ever attended: A case to solve, a life to save, a murderer to reveal and an arrest to be made—and then dancing.
You took her hand and melted into the crowd already swaying with the music. I watched you lean in, cock your head to catch something she said over the noise, then throw your head back and laugh. I’d never seen you so happy.
I couldn’t bear the thought of anything spoiling that for you.
So I left.
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I died on a Wednesday.
It was a brief case, as deaths go, but it did happen:
While the surgical team worked to repair the damage wrought by a bullet deliberately fired into my chest, I’m told that my heart stopped beating, the line on the monitor went flat, and I died. I wish I could recall that moment, it would make a much better story than “My best friend’s wife shot me and everything went black.”
But that is the story.
Mary looked at me, said she was sorry, and then…nothing.
The next sound I heard was a whisper, a rasping susurrus of breath around a steady stream of words in a very familiar voice, a quiet murmur set to the same tempo as the soft stroke of fingers over my own—a repeating plea that I couldn’t ignore:
Please don’t leave me again.
Please, Sherlock.
Please…
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It happened on a Sunday.
Months after that terrible Christmas, after my briefest of exiles, after the revelation about Mary and the baby, after the divorce was final, after you’d finally moved back in.
I’d eaten enough to stop you nagging me about it, and while you were watching something terrible on the television, I was watching you: Full and comfortable and warm and pressed up close to my side on the sofa, a position we seemed to find ourselves in with some regularity in those days—and if either of us found it odd, it seems neither of us felt it was worth mentioning. Or changing.
It was a simple thing, really. A matter of a yawn, a stretch, an arm sliding casually from the cushion behind you to rest down across your shoulders. You looked a question, I smiled the answer, and you let me kiss you.
Then you let me do it again.
There were soft words and sweet sighs and fingers carding through curls, there was warm breath and scraping teeth and the hot press of lips to skin. There were cries and moans and the safety of gentle arms in the aftermath.
There was the slow rhythm of a snore ghosting across my collarbone long into the night.
We’d both been back at Baker Street for months by then, you and I.
But that night, we were finally home.
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I fell on a Monday.
Down onto one knee, ring clutched in my hand, staring up at you staring down at me.
Please John. Will you marry me?
You took a deep breath, looked into my eyes, and whispered—your voice echoing in my ears as I smiled…
Yes.