Chapter Text
-
“Hell of a wedding, this,” Lestrade said as he stood in the corridor of John’s new house. John held the cold lager to keep his hands busy while Lestrade seemed intent on finishing the case.
“It’s not much of a wedding,” Mrs. Hudson confided to Lestrade. “He didn’t even let me buy them cake.”
“Well, it’s not exactly – we just wanted to keep it small,” John fumbled for an explanation. “Civil marriage and some close friends.”
“Yes, well, this whole marriage business -- you could’ve given us a warning,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Told me ahead of time so I could buy you something nice.”
“No, no,” John shook his head with a smile. He hesitated before touching Mrs. Hudson’s arm, affectionate from guilt. “No gifts. We just wanted friends here. A small gathering.”
Mrs. Hudson peered into the sitting room. “Is that her in there? The skinny little wisp of a thing?”
“Yes. And, er, Harry’s in there with her,” John said.
“Really, John, I expected her to have darker hair,” Mrs. Hudson said. “She is quite young though…”
Now John was searching for a window to crawl out of. “Drinks, Mrs. Hudson?”
“In a minute. I haven’t heard from you in ages, love. I wanted to catch up a bit first.”
Lestrade offered to bail John out with a look. John shook his head. “Mary’s my patient—was my patient,” he said. “We met a little over a month ago and, er, started dating a few weeks ago.”
“Well, how about you? Seeing someone?” Lestrade asked Mrs. Hudson, doing John the favor of controlling the conversation.
“Yes, in fact,” she said, flourishing with pride. “Though we’re keeping it a secret. Nothing like the thrill of excitement. The house was getting so lonely.” John’s face shifted through several stages of discomfort before he looked away.
Lestrade took this as a sign to abruptly end that topic. “So my department got an interesting case yesterday,” he said. John raised his eyebrows. “Man alone in his room, shot through an open window – sound familiar?”
“Oh, dear, not a murder,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Don’t talk about that here; it’s too gruesome. This is a wedding, boys.”
“Nah, John loves this stuff,” Lestrade said. “He’s twisted like he was.”
The three of them fell silent. John’s face faded into blank safety as Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade struggled to revive the conversation.
Finally, Mrs. Hudson said, “Well, I think I’ll go introduce myself to your wife. Mary’s her name?”
“Yes,” John said abruptly. “And Harry’s in there with her.”
“Glad your sister could come.” Mrs. Hudson made her way to the sitting room.
-
There was something about the harsh lighting and white walls that made people open up to their doctors. John was the farthest thing from a psychologist, but he could probably recite the marriage problems and emotional states of his every current patient.
That’s why he found it so odd that his therapist kept such a dark room with such wide windows. The concept of “privacy” was entirely eliminated with a feeling much like he’d crawled into the enemy’s barracks.
Still, he’d been seeing Dr. Thompson regularly for two years and he’d known her for nearly four. He could take a deep breath and tell himself to open up, and it worked.
“Have you looked at your blog like I asked?” Dr. Thompson asked.
“No, no,” John said with a nervous chuckle. “I mean yes. I attempted to, but I didn’t actually – couldn’t actually look right at it.”
“John, it’s been two years.”
“I’d like to think my past is behind me.” He attempted to rest his head on his hand, but couldn’t quite figure out how to angle his wrist properly. He fidgeted with his other hand, tugging at a loose string on the chair’s arm.
“John, it’s important for you to stay connected to your past,” she said.
“I… think I’ve done better by staying away from it, thanks.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you here?”
John regarded her with silence.
Dr. Thompson closed her eyes as well as her notebook. “I want you to start another blog.”
He groaned. “No, I can’t.”
She wasn’t hearing any of that. “Write about your current life,” she said. “It should ease you into the habit of checking your blog again. I think that’s the first step towards confronting your past.”
“But nothing – and I mean seriously nothing – happens to me. And if there’s anything interesting, it’s patient confidentiality.”
“You did just get married. Write about that.”
-
Setting up the new blog offered more road blocks than results. There was the matter of a domain name and then his password was rejected eight times. Finally, when John couldn’t stand the frustration any longer, he completed his registration, but he had no idea what to write.
Mary made her way downstairs, her hair mussed from a nap. She checked the pile of mail in the basket by the door and made a pleased sound.
“They sent the new identification,” she called over to him. “’Mary Watson:’ it makes me sound like an intellectual. Good thing too, because their spelling is awful. You’d be impressed with how they spell Morstan: ‘Morston,’ ‘Morsten,’ ‘Morstone’ – it’s like they never bothered looking.”
“Mm,” he mumbled, still focused entirely on the task his therapist gave him. He started typing with two fingers about how he was a doctor in Afghanistan, but immediately deleted it.
She approached the sitting room and stopped short. “John?” she tried.
He looked up, guilty like he’d been caught in the middle of an argument with himself.
She stiffened with embarrassment as well. “I don’t know what that face you’re making means, but you guys fix everything with tea, right? I’ll go start the kettle.”
“Yeah, alright,” he said, trying to mask his shame with blandness.
She disappeared into the kitchen for maybe thirty seconds before she came back out, looking sheepish. “I actually don’t know how to use an electric kettle,” she admitted.
John’s throat caught on a chuckle and put his laptop aside. “Americans,” he shook his head as he stood to help.
-
“My name is John Watson. I’m a doctor. Nothing terribly exciting happens to me, so I don’t expect anyone to actually read this blog.
“I recently married a woman named Mary.”
-
“You wrote in your blog,” Dr. Thompson said.
“Yes.” John raised his head, feigning pride.
Dr. Thompson didn’t regard him and instead kept her eyes on her notes. “Very good,” she finally said and John felt like a dog who received a pat when expecting a treat. “Tell me about your wife.”
“Mary,” John said as if reminding himself. “She’s, well, she’s great.”
“You’ve told me she’s American.”
“Yes.” He realised he was meant to say more. “Which is great. It’s really… it’s a relief, almost.”
Dr. Thompson went silent, though she watched John intently.
John forced himself to keep going. “I just mean, she missed the whole craze. The whole… Sherlock Holmes craze. She doesn’t know my past. She barely knows I was in the military.”
“You said it’s a relief,” Dr. Thompson pressed.
“It is a relief.”
Dr. Thompson’s silent question hung in the air. Finally, when it seemed that John was going to skirt the issue, she asked it aloud: “Why is it a relief?”
“I don’t know,” was John’s immediate reply. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked out the enormous set of windows. “It’s just… I know she won’t be asking questions. Questions that I don’t want to answer.”
-
“How’s married life treating you?” Lestrade asked John. It was lunch at the pub and their table was pressed up against the window, so they took turns staring outside at the people walking past.
“Hm? Fine,” John said. He took a forkful of salad that was too large to fit in his mouth while Lestrade alternated between his chicken tikka masala and chips.
“You get her pregnant?” Lestrade asked and John choked on his water.
“What?”
“Don’t act like – listen, you’ve known her a month.”
“Almost two—two months,” John insisted.
“You don’t marry a girl that quick,” Lestrade said. “Well, maybe some people do. But you wouldn’t.”
The salad tasted like nervous bile so John stopped eating.
“When’s she due?” Lestrade asked, his tone casual, but forced.
“She’s not pregnant,” John insisted. “I haven’t – isn’t it possible to know you love someone very early on?”
“Love at first sight?”
John felt relief bubble through his stomach. “Yes.”
“That’s bullshit.”
John stabbed his salad and left the fork there. His hands tightened as he forced himself to breathe evenly. “Well… you’ll just have to trust me.”
“I trust you,” Lestrade said and shoved three chips in his mouth. “I don’t always trust your judgment. I’ve been married and divorced, which is probably the worst experience I’ve ever had.”
“I’m not going to get a divorce,” John muttered. Even his coffee had a sour taste.
“You say that now…”
“Yes, well, you’re not me,” John said, blinking furiously as he sat stock-still.
They fell into silence. Lestrade kept chewing while John’s salad faded into table decor.
Two bicyclists passed and three people caught cabs before Lestrade spoke again.
“So the case… guy who’s been shot in his room through an open window – it wasn’t a regular gun that shot him,” Lestrade said. John looked right at him, so Lestrade went on. “Sniper rifle.”
“Are you serious?” John eased into this new topic.
“And no known enemies,” Lestrade went on. “The victim was something like a saint. Not married, helped the homeless, worked not-for-profit.”
John’s mind was already circling through possibilities: illegitimate children, bad connections, past lovers. However, all of this was just guesswork. He didn’t have the ability to look at a man’s fingernails and tell where he’d been in the last 48 hours, so John pushed aside those thoughts. “It’s like the world’s gone mad,” he said.
“It’s always been mad. It’s just harder to figure things out now.” Lestrade grit his teeth and scratch his head.
It took John a while to summon something akin to sympathy. “Stop blaming yourself,” he said as if reminding a forgetful classmate about his homework assignment.
“I know, but…” Lestrade trailed off.
John thought back two years to earlier sessions with Dr. Thompson where every other sentence caused his voice to crack and his throat to tighten. During those quiet, emotional meetings, he wanted to throw fault around. Instead, Dr. Thompson worked on having him let go.
“I still forgive you,” John said. The feeling that followed wasn’t relief. John felt more like he’d helped another day pass.
-
It was Saturday morning and John awoke too early to do anything but amuse himself on the Internet. After ten minutes that turned into a life-sucking hour, John decided to do something a bit more productive: he checked his blog.
He didn’t know what he was going to write. And he hadn’t added a hit counter this time because what was the point? His friends and Harry didn’t know about this blog. The only person who knew was Dr. Thompson.
He went to read back on his only entry to get an idea of what to write next, when he noticed that his post had received a comment. John tensed. He steeled himself, reminding himself that this was an unnecessary reaction and it was probably some person asking if the site cost money or how to retrieve a password.
John clicked the comment from a person who chose to remain anonymous. It read: You should check your e-mail.
Now he still wasn’t allowed to sweat because this was probably someone from work. He’d used his work e-mail to create this blog. It wasn’t even a secret – the e-mail address was displayed prominently on his profile page.
Still, this whole thing made him uneasy and he decided to put it off until he could think rationally.
-
A few hours later, John squinted at his computer screen as he opened his e-mail. More crap from that medical magazine, messages forwarded half a dozen times from Harry and a penis enlargement spam were all sent straight to the delete bin. Two messages from work sat, waiting to be read.
But there was also a message from an unfamiliar sender with no subject. John was about to delete it, but when he clicked to drag it, his eyes caught on the words.
John, meet me here at noon.
SH
There was an attachment.
It was obviously a scam. Some virus was attached to that e-mail. John knew better than to click it. He went to delete it.
But the thought snagged in his head: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“No, no, this is definitely impossible,” John muttered.
“Did you call?” Mary asked from the kitchen.
“Er, no. Just… doing work.” He dragged the message into the delete folder.
There. He could wash his hands of that ridiculous notion and answer the important e-mails from work. He just needed to get back on track.
It wasn’t like he’d been private about the mysteries he solved with Sherlock. His old blog became famous, even for such a short time. Despite Sherlock’s defamation, people still craved that wit and mystery. Fictional detective stories were on the rise now after sparkling vampires.
So of course someone connected John’s old blog with his new one. Of course a hacker wrote a message to John and signed it as Sherlock. There was no doubt this was all a sick prank.
So why was he dragging that message back out of the delete folder?
With a sigh, he double-clicked the attachment. Fine. He was getting a virus. Fantastic.
Up popped a tab that linked to coordinates on Quest Maps*. John switched to the street view and zoomed in. The address was to a bookstore mere blocks from John’s new house.
John snapped his laptop closed and Mary poked her head into the sitting room as she tugged her handbag over her shoulder.
“I’m going out to pick up groceries,” she said. “I’ve got your credit card. Do you need anything?”
John scratched the side of his head and tried to look innocent. He glanced to the clock: 11:50.
“No, no, I just remembered I… have to be somewhere.” He leapt from his chair, leaving his laptop in the seat. As he tugged on his jacket, he fished for his wallet and keys, shoving them in his pocket.
“Should I bring us lunch?” she asked, watching him as though he were a particularly unusual breed of fish that suddenly swam into her house.
“No, I— that’s alright,” he said and rushed out the door.