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It’s a Tuesday morning, eleven months afterward. John has begun counting days as though Sherlock has set time, has set a brand new calendar. And how morbidly amusing, that the man still dictates even the most mundane aspects of his life. He’s more than aware that it’s incredibly unhealthy that his brain works in this funny way but knowing isn’t going to stop him from continuing on in that manner, so... so...
Sod it. John bounces up on the balls of his feet as another customer places their order and steps out of line.
“I was right,” he hears from behind him, a crisp, light voice so sure of herself that he has to turn; that level of confidence, that tone of voice tugs at something within him. “You’re him.”
She’s brunette, she has the cartilage of her ear pierced, she’s perhaps a decade younger than he is and she’s smiling delightedly to herself. There’s a flare in her eyes - that’s the glee - and she’s smiling at him as though she’s got it all figured out. Her debit card gleams as she taps it against her lips, nodding along with the taps, so satisfied.
“Excuse me?” John says because honestly, he’s no idea who she’s speaking to but she seems to know who he is or, possibly is talking to someone else entirely; his eyes dart quickly to her ear to check again, but no, she’s not wearing a bluetooth. It’s been such a very, very long time since a woman has chatted him up that he’s not sure that it’s actually happening until she blushes.
Quick teeth peek out to bite at her bottom lip as the smile turns into a grin and she pulls her card away. “It’s entirely out of line and I know it is? But I was obsessed with your blog.”
John just blinks.
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, we’ll not say obsessed because I don’t want to seem crazy, we’ll say... I maybe read each entry twice... or three times.” She looks up and away, blushes again, a delightful shade of pink. “Maybe more.”
John blinks a bit more, trying to catch up.
Suddenly, the blush leaves her cheeks and her mouth falls back into a normal, resting line and she mutters, “Oh, yeah uhm, nevermind, sorry about... uh-” And just like that, the ghost of an old friend make an appearance around the eyes of a potential new friend.
He doesn’t stop her and doesn’t correct her but he finds himself saying, “I’m John.” And it’s not that he doesn’t think of Sherlock in that moment, because he thinks of him in every moment of every day, but he forgets it while he tries very, very hard to determine what the color of her eyes are.
She repeats carefully back, as she takes his offered hand and gives it a hearty, if slow, shake. “John. John... Watson?”
He tries it out, he tests it on his lips, just a quick little smile. It works; he wears it. “Yes John Watson and you... you are?”
---
Her name is Maribeth and she’s...she’s something.
“Growing up, I didn’t like Mary or Beth, so I went with Rib. The in-the- middle bit there. And alright, it’s a bit bonkers but it’s so much better than both... either, yeah?” She takes her latte with two extra shots and doesn’t shake with the force of the caffeine. “Or it was when I was twelve. You personally, as an adult, are allowed to choose. Beth or Mary or just the whole thing there. Go with Rib, too, if you’re feeling particularly batty.”
She can talk and he finds he rather enjoys listening.
They don’t sit at a table in the cafe and they don’t go for a walk; she finds a grassy little inlet by the tube station and parks herself on the grass, digging her heels in; it’s a gorgeously sunny day, unseasonably warm and John turns his face up to the sky and soaks in the rays. He manages to get down onto the grass without making too much of an arse of himself and spreads out with no regard for dirt or grass stains.
She drops fashionably oversized sunglasses over her eyes, effectively ending his attempt to finally, adequately decipher the shade. “Well you seem to know all about me, being such an avid follower” he says good-naturedly. “You go on.”
“You’ve got the name, uhmmm,” she looks back up to the sky and begins rattling things off. “Grew up in Bristol, two sisters, I’m the oldest, uh, went to Georgetown, in the States and then finished up with a Masters at LSE, I like to uh, uh, why is it so difficult to think of what I like to do?” She laughs at herself and glances back at John and just like that, a punch to the solar plexus.
Without even trying and with no defenses to deflect it, he’s smitten.
“Skydiving!” she exclaims and blushes, takes a long draw on her coffee though he knows that she knows that it’s too hot. Still, she swallows. “Not, you know, all the time but, have you been?” Her fingers pick nervously at the rim of her cup, at least a small indicator that she’s a bit smitten with him as well.
His smile is so easy and genuine that once he begins to do it, it doesn’t leave his face. It feels brilliant, when he languidly answers, “No, nope haven’t been.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. You should go! And, hmmm, also? I read,” she squints and then heaves in a breath. “Sometimes.”
John can’t help it, he laughs, long and hard and thoroughly. “I read sometimes too.”
Maribeth sucks in her lips, fights off a grin; John knows she’s doing it because he’s doing the same thing. “Oh,” she says. “We have so much in common, it’s kind of crazy.” And then she winks at him.
John chuckles and settles back on the heels of his hands, the din of London stifling around them though he would be content to relax here all day. “I think we’re off to a good start, yes.”
It doesn’t even occur to him until he’s just slipping into slumber that evening how very much Maribeth’s eyes resemble Sherlock’s. That revelation startles him to the core and fends off slumber for the duration of the night.
--
He takes her out for dinner for the first time nearly two weeks later. John meets her at the Tube station and she emerges looking windblown and a bit worse for the wear, toting behind her a wheeled suitcase. Anyone who can manage to maneuver a case of that size on the tube and at rush hour in four inch wedges is, well, impressive. He takes a moment to admire her lithe form walking to him; he’s not yet had the chance to admire her and so he looks his fill before walking forward to help her.
“I didn’t, oh, Mary, you should have- I didn’t know you were coming right from the airport!” He bats her hand away, takes the handle and wheels it to his side. “We didn’t have to do it tonight.”
She pushes her hair out of her face and smiles at him, “Oh yes, yes we did. Eleven days of your sweet emails? Asking me about my day? Telling me what you thought of the latest X Factor? I wasn’t going to wait another second.” She’s beautiful, even as she’s jostled by a barrage of commuters rushing into King’s Cross.
John can’t help it, he smiles back, that crooked thing that borders on a wild grin and he wants to reach out and touch her cheek, her hair, something. Because he realizes now, that there’s something blooming in his chest where it was previously violently hollow. There’s something welling up inside him that makes him want to laugh and smile and live, if only a little bit.
He just wants to dip his toes in, just have a taste.
“So, that said, I hope you don’t think this is presumptuous and if you do... oh, sod it.” Mary kisses him, quickly but thoroughly, right there in front of God and half of London. One hand on his waist, the other on the back of his neck and she pulls back before he’s even had a moment to think about reciprocating.
Mary tilts her head and winks, reaches out and slots her fingers through John’s without a second thought. “There we are, now I don’t have to think about how awkward it’ll be at the end of the evening, yeah?”
She sighs and tugs him along and he finds himself saying, “When it does happen at the end of the evening, I’ll even attempt to be present.”
“Awww, no,” she squeezes his hand gently. “You’re doing just fine, John.”
Dinner is lovely and lasts a very, very long time. She takes an hour deciding what she wants but John doesn’t mind. She talks about her conference and the new action plans she intends to initiate and asks him about the clinic and about his patients and tucks into the basket of bread like she hasn’t eaten in years. “Besides, this bread is wonderful and if I fill up on all the free bread, you won’t have to pay for dessert.”
“Oh, I’m paying?”
She throws a bit of bread at him. “I did come straight from Heathrow...”
They laugh easily and often and she offers up her dinner to him for sampling and they end up splitting their meals fifty-fifty. He’s even glad that she talks him into getting the brussels sprouts. Maribeth - Mary - really is something. Something that he would like to find out more about; she’s got an edge about her, a way of seeming like a whirlwind even when she’s seated; it fills a void in him that he craves.
“What do you do for fun, real, actual fun, not going out to dinner with insane ladies that pick you up in cafes because their blood sugar is a little off?” she queries as she takes a bit of the bread and sops up the sauce in the bottom of the bowl. “Aside from the X Factor which isn’t so much fun but... an obsession, right?”
The guffaw that jumps out of his almost startles him. “Nail on the head!” John follows her lead, tears off a bit of the foccacia, too. “For fun, well... this might well be,” he ponders for a moment, whether he’s ready to admit this or not when it needles its way out of him. His mouth sets in a sad line and the comfortable, gentle intimacy they’ve managed to establish wavers, just slightly. “The first fun I’ve had since... about...”
“I know,” she says softly, understanding what he’s referring to, and looks down at her lap, wipes her hands on her napkin, reaches across with her left hand and squeezes his forearm. “And you don’t have to... say anything if you don’t...”
The silence holds for a few moment. John sighs, licks his lips. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she pats his knee beneath the table. “It’s all good. It’s all... fine.”
---
She sleeps in his bed that evening; the jet lag is too much and she can’t make it back to her flat. Rather, she might have been able to but John didn’t feel safe letting her do so after she wobbles one too many times on her feet. So she takes his bed and he takes the sofa and when he wakes in the morning it’s to the scent of coffee and eggs.
“Yeah, so, I used your shower? And your towels and shampoo since I forgot to bring mine in there and why don’t men ever have proper conditioner?” Mary is without makeup and is gesticulating with a spatula. “Anyhow, I think you should probably go brush your teeth so that when I kiss you it’s not entirely awful.”
John runs a hand through his hair as a thrill runs through his belly. “Oh yeah?”
“See,” she tosses what looks to be an expert omelette. “Ladies can get away with some floss and mouthwash but...”
“Okay, alright,” he’s up and off the couch, though he’s a bit wobbly. He hasn’t felt this content in some time - the couch had been quite comfortable, to his shock - and he lets it settle into his bones before padding off. “Reminding you I haven’t had my coffee and...”
Mary sticks out her tongue. “Alright, I’ve yet to learn of your coffee habits and I’d like to... but first I’d like to snog you properly so off with you!”
John does as told and returns for said proper snog. They eat cold eggs and fight over the paper and talk about just about everything. She swears that next time she wakes up in his apartment that she won’t be skipping her morning run and when she realizes what she’s implied, she blushes.
“Or,” she soldiers through the blush of rosy cheeks and clumsy tongue, “Even if you wake up at mine... it has to be a special occasion indeed for me to bag out of running.”
They snuggle on the couch and she smells like something faint and spicy under the scent of his toiletries. She smells like a woman, but has a wisp of danger about her. When she sidles up to him on the sofa and he nudges his nose into her hair, he inhales and feels deeply, surely at ease.
It’s lovely.
John’s more than a bit taken with her when she leaves at nine that evening.
---
Two days and she shows up at his flat with a very expensive bottle of Scotch. “Hope this isn’t presumptuous but also... not? We just got a crazy donation and, well, I wanted to celebrate.”
Mary works at a non-profit that she developed, helping inner city youth by teaching them teamwork through outdoor activities. She’s been working to fund a new expedition getaway but after the holidays, the charity had stopped funnelling in. ‘Rafting, climbing, parkour, that sort of thing. Stuff that kids actually like.’
John just stares, dressed in a vest and corduroys, having just come home from the clinic. This is a defining moment, he knows it. Now is that make or break, big decision time. Maribeth is so expectant, brows raised, shaking the bottle. And really, John doesn’t have a choice, does he? It’s a fantastic vintage and a lovely lady who shows up unexpectedly for him, not to steal him away.
He feels rather wanted in that moment and steps back from the doorway, ushers her in with a faux regal sweep of his arm. The bottle leads the way and she spins, arms wide. “Hey, just so you know, if I haven’t made it entirely obvious with the emails... and the texts and... I really like you.”
“I like you, too,” John says happily with a little laugh.
“But,” she spins back towards the flat, arms still wide, “As much as that is true, today? I am the best, no offense to you.” The cap of the bottle makes an audible crack. She makes the motion to hold it to her lips but pulls back. “Wait, I’m not twenty anymore, where are your glasses.”
John points and watches her skip off in her yoga pants and trainers and bites his bottom lip. What’s he getting himself into, honestly? He’s not considered whether he’s ready for this; he hasn’t been ready for this for years now, not completely. When he was with Sherlock-
No, he was never with Sherlock and yet, Sherlock was the closest thing to a real partner he’s ever had. He’s had girlfriends and he’s had lovers and he’d been very serious about some of them but nothing had felt quite so permanent as his mad life with the consulting detective had. John pads behind her into the kitchen and holds a hand out to her back as though to touch but he steals it back. She takes down of his two matching glasses and pours out two fingers each.
Mary holds one out to him and he takes it, hands moving through fog.
Maribeth goes to sip and then remembers to clink their glasses together in a toast. And the lip of the glass is against both of their mouths when she tears away, pressing a wave of falling hair from her face. “Before we drink, I just want to say that I want to take you to bed tonight.”
John swallows hard and looks at his feet, trying not to look too thrown. “Oh, after, what, technically two dates?”
“Eh,” she says, the glass still to her mouth, coy, “Let’s break it down by time, that’s at least five, if my time sleeping counts for anything.”
“It doesn’t,” John says.
“Well,” she drinks the entirety of her glass. “I’m just throwing caution to the wind on our second date, then.”
When her fingers twine around his wrist, against the sheets, it all John can do to sink into a memory that sneaks up and envelops him. Dashing through the streets of London, cuffed at the wrist, hand in hand. When he comes, he bites his lip so hard to keep from saying Sherlock’s name that he draws blood.
---
She makes good on her threat and begins taking him running with her. Miles and miles of running. He gets back into the hang of it rather quickly and is stunned to find that he likes it, actually enjoys running without a destination, without Sherlock to lead him.
There are some similarities between the two of them. If she’s occupied with work, she often forgets to eat and her blackest moods are very black. While she enjoys shouting, she also enjoys a good sulk and never asks for him to comfort her, though he always does. At times she’s manic, wild and presses him down onto the bed with such force that sometimes he has to wonder if she’s a shade sadistic. But she’s sweet and caring and brilliant, too. Impossibly brilliant, really, though she’s not ostentatious about it. She’s comfortable in her eccentricities and her pastimes.
John thinks he might allow himself to fall in love with her, just maybe.
When he demurs one Friday evening when she asks him to go dancing, she doesn’t nag at him until he gives in. When she emerges from her bedroom however, in leather pants and halter top, he changes his mind immediately. “I suddenly feel the need to express myself through the art of dance,” he says, voice void of all emotion.
“Do you now?” Mary does a little spin, hands above her head. And that too, he finds he very much enjoys. This is nothing like the blinding heat and rush of Sherlock, this is slipping into a warm bath. Mary wraps herself about him sneakily but easily, charming him slowly.
Once they’ve been dating for three months she decides, “I hate celebrating anniversaries but I’m taking you somewhere special on Saturday.”
“That so?”
“It is! Just wear something comfortable and some trainers and... that’s all I’m saying. Don’t want to ruin the surprise!” And that’s what she is, constantly, a surprise in so many ways. She wakes him up in the morning by pouncing on him and saying, “I’ve just stolen your mobile and your wallet, catch me!” and then dashes out of the flat, leaving John to startle awake, throw on his trainers and dash out after her.
She takes him down sooty alleys and vaults over stone walls, all the while, making sure he does. And John Watson follows doggedly, sprints until his lungs scream and then runs some more. Adrenaline blinds him and it feels so brilliant that afterwards they end up in a sweaty mess on his sofa, bodies pressing up and in and closer. It’s sheer madness and he adores it.
And when she takes him out to Wanborough on Saturday, surprises him with a tandem skydive, he thinks he might be going the slightest bit insane. How he hasn’t really stopped to think about any of this before now, about how she balms all of the jagged, broken parts of him, how she makes his breath quicken and his heart race.
And her eyes, how they’re nearly the same...
It hits him when he’s twelve thousand feet in the air, strapped with her front to his back that he realizes that she’s a substitute and that she’s second best and that he doesn’t particularly care which is rather awful of him, really. And when they make it to the ground, windblown and wild, he thinks of Sherlock and of landing that punch to his jaw and how he’d been so exhilarated he’d almost whited out.
Mary speaks to him and he doesn’t hear.
---
Mary is in his bed, castoff from the dim bedside lamp causing her hair to glow. She’s turning a bottle of lube over and over in her hand, just staring down at it when he walks in.
“Oh, love, I don’t know if I’m up for it tonight, you-”
“No,” she cuts him off softly with a gentle smile that wavers just so and sets the lube back down on the bedside table. “I’ve got something... I know, I said... we wouldn’t talk about it if you didn’t bring it up but...”
John passes a hand over his face, preparing himself. Yeah, he wants to say, And I didn’t bring it up so let’s not, but he doesn’t because she deserves to know. Mary deserves to know some of it, she deserves to know why his gaze sometimes looks beyond her. She deserves to know why he hurts and how deeply and that it’s likely never to go away. Most of all, she deserves better than this, but he’s selfish and he wants her, plain and simple.
She looks from John to her hands and back; he’s never seen her so uneasy. “Were you and he... I mean, I know you always said you weren’t but-”
“No,” John breathes and sinks down onto the bed, head in his hands. “No, we definitely were not.”
Mary shimmies up behind him, palms lightly on his shoulders, strokes over his back and neck. “But you loved him,” she says quietly. She’s a smart woman, she knows it’s not a question.
John sighs again, deeper this time, buckles into himself. “Yes.” He says it, the words leaden on his tongue. “I loved him.” But then he gives her a little more; there’s a crack within him and it all forces its way out until he bursts. “I was in love with him.”
It’s cold water; it’s damp, dark, and so lonely. He is lost and found in those words. John wants to cry.
“Oh,” she says and stills, noting his choice of words. “Oh... fuck.”
John turns and she pushes him back into the bed, swings her leg over and straddles him. “Jesus, fuck John.”
And then she’s tearing at his shirt and pressing her lips to his neck and he doesn’t have the words, can’t form them. He just lies there and lets her undress him. He doesn’t even watch as she works herself out of her own clothes and drapes her body over his.
He doesn’t apologize; there’s nothing to be sorry for.
When he presses inside she kisses him, hard, deeper than she’s ever kissed him before and she holds him there for long minutes, just kissing him, her breath heaving, her hands shaking as though she’s trying to find something she’s suddenly lost.
“Fuck,” she mutters against his mouth. “You’re going to break my heart,” but she sinks back down onto him and bares her throat.
John smears his cheek there, “No love, no.”
“You will,” she manages as she shatters gently around him, “You can’t help it. You already are.”
---
Mary doesn’t move in, but she has a drawer and she does insist on putting art on the walls and curtains on the windows. She leaves her earthy sandalwood body wash in his shower and uses his razor to shave. They never argue about milk and Mary cooks for him whenever she stays over.
He loses a quarter stone, what with all of the kale and lentils.
There’s a pregnancy scare that turns out to be nothing in March that causes them to fight for two weeks. John’s heart is in the pit of his stomach the entire time. They feel like they’re walking on eggshells around one another, waiting for one or the other to just fix it. It’s all settled when John mentions offhand that he’ll support her no matter what, but they never discuss children again.
They go on vacation together - Italy - and they come back tan and lazy and don’t want to go back to work and they’re a normal couple. It’s all going rather fine, very glass-half-full until the other shoe drops rather spectacularly.
She’s running late because she stayed in bed too long, snogging John awake and has half of a bagel between her teeth, is pulling the right arm of her jacket on and blasts through the downstairs, front door to John’s building and runs smack dab into someone standing there.
It’s her fault, she isn’t paying attention and goes to say so.
Mary looks up, right into the gaze of Sherlock Holmes. Her jaw opens, the bagel falling to bounce off her shoe, cream cheese smearing the tip. “Oh. Jesus. Christ,” she says as loud as shock will allow, which is very, very quietly.
Sherlock says nothing but meets her gaze with a knowing look of his own. Of course he knows who she is, he must have been watching John, watching them, for some time. Mary knows it, knows how careful he must have been in coming here, a dead man alive. She can’t wrap her brain around it, not as she feels the ground crumble beneath her feet, not as her body sags, her back resting against the glass entryway door. “Jesus fucking... I-”
She rubs a hand down her face hard, the skin pulling with the force of it. “Does he-” she begins but John doesn’t know. There’s no way John knows. She can feel the pain he still wears about him like a shield, it radiates off him; he’s a good man and an easy read to her now, there’s no possibility that he could have hidden this from her. Mary’s head drops, chin resting against her chest as she breathes in hard. “I can’t... I don’t...”
Mary glances up at him again and then spins around, shoves her key into the door and pulls it shut behind her. Once inside the vestibule she turns around once more, and they stare at one another. She hasn’t the faintest on how to handle this, not a sliver of any idea, but still she turns and lets herself through the inner door and pulls herself heavily up the steps to his flat.
When she lets herself in John is in the kitchen, running a hand through his hair and yawning, spreading the paper out on the kitchen table. “What did you forget this time?” he says good-naturedly and turns to face her.
The smile on his face drops immediately. “What? What happened? Are you alright?”
She shakes her head and thinks better of it and nods, just standing as his hands clasp her biceps. “John,” she finds her voice though it registers foreign. “John... you need to, I need you to sit.”
“What are you-”
“Fucking sit,” she says quietly, voice wavering and she’s crying, just like that, hot tears rolling down her cheeks. John’s eyes widen and he shuffles backward blindly, waiting for his calves to hit the sofa and then he flops down, flabbergasted though she hasn’t even explained herself yet.
There’s a split second where she runs through all of the words in the English language in her head, searching for the words. She doesn’t even feel it coming when she blurts. “He’s outside.”
John blinks because he doesn’t understand, his face screws up in confusion. “Who’s outside?” John presses his hands to his knees as though to stand but she holds out a hand to stop him.
“John... John,” she can’t say it. She doesn’t know how. “Sherlock,” she breathes it as though in pain. “Sherlock is outside. In the courtyard.”
John just keeps blinking, face devoid of any sort of emotion. He blinks and blinks, wets his lips. “Mary...”
“It... I’m not crazy, I don’t... I don’t know, I don’t know what’s going on,” she sinks down and sits on the floor, head drooping into her open palms as she covers her eyes. “But Sherlock bloody Holmes... is outside on the porch.”
---
John stands behind the vestibule door, looking through two layers of glass at what is left of Sherlock Holmes. He’s gaunt, but not so much as to be unrecognizable. His hair is much the same, though shorter, closer cropped as though he had it cut recently. He looks posh, the cut of his suit severe which means that he’d likely purchased new clothing to fit his new frame.
John takes him in, piece by piece - the bags under his eyes, the scar on the back of his left hand - and feels like he’s being ripped apart, like his cartilage is tearing from his muscle. It’s the most pain he’s surely ever felt and before he can say anything, before he can manage to cry or lash out or open two doors and punch the man in his face, he turns slowly and walks right back up the steps to his flat.
---
It’s a wonder that no one reports him for loitering, truly. It’s an even larger wonder that the media hasn’t been alerted to his presence because he’s been waiting outside of John’s building for two days. He perches on the stone wall that brackets the walkway and kicks his feet against the stone, he sinks down into the corner and is shadowed by a large bush. He moves around in front of the building but as far as John and Mary know, he does not leave.
They take the back stairwell when necessary but they don’t bother going to Mary’s flat. Sherlock would likely follow them there anyway.
“What... is happening?” she’d asked him on the first night and John had been at a loss. Fighting the urge to ring Mycroft, he’d retreated to the bathroom and sat on the toilet for two hours, allowing his head to spin out of control. When he’d emerged, he’d just shaken his head, got a glass of water and crawled into bed behind her, curling her into his body tightly.
Too tightly.
“It’s not as though I didn’t know,” he swears he hears her say just before he falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.
---
When he wakes on the third day, it’s pouring and Mary is sitting up in bed, arms crossed against her chest. “It’s pissing buckets and... I’m going to work and... you should invite him in today.”
John rubs a hand over his eyes and then tugs the heap of blankets up over his head. “He’s probably not even there any longer, that would show too much sentiment.” He spits the word as though it’s vile.
“I checked; he’s standing there in the rain.” Her voice is low and sad and the bed dips when she gets up and goes about getting ready for her day. She’s allowing him the time and the privacy to sort things out; she’s allowing him the time to figure out how to speak to the man he loves.
That’s just so entirely, brilliantly fucked up. John listens as she hums in the shower, as she blows her hair dry. He can make out the faint spritz of perfume and the sound of her searching for her pumps. When she’s finished, she slings a messenger bag across her chest and tugs the covers from his face. “Stop it, you’ve never hidden from a thing in your life.”
John swallows and stares at the ceiling. This is all too much. He’s no idea what to say to her or how to make any of this right. Damn Sherlock Holmes, damn him for cocking up his life so monumentally once again. “Are we ending? Is this it? It feels like we’re ending.”
She sighs, “We’re not having that conversation now. I have a meeting in an hour and I just... I don’t have the headspace for this right now. Maybe that’s saying something, I don’t... I don’t know. Maybe that’s saying something but, you have to invite him in, even if you’re going to tell him to fuck off. I can’t just look at him waiting for you.”
“What about me? Waiting, without even knowing it? What about that?” His voice is harsh, unbidden and it lashes out of him, directed at the wrong person.
She sighs again and twines her fingers around the strap of her bag. “I don’t know, John. That’s not... none of this is up to me and... look, I’ve got to go or I’m going to be late. Should I let him up or do you want to?” Mary’s eyes are clouded and he can’t read her. If he’s being completely honest with himself, he doesn’t try very hard at the moment.
John heaves out a heavy, broken breath, shoves himself up onto his elbows, “I’ll... I’ll deal with it.”
Her nod is slow and sad and she leans forward to kiss him on the forehead; she lingers there, soft, warm, reassuring. John hates it - it feels like a punishment. Mary pads out of the flat, shutting the door behind her to leave John in the quiet, rain pelting against the windows, his only companion the thoughts screaming down his hesitancy.
John’s head settles back against the headboard and he closes his eyes, willing the conflicting thoughts to just settle, to go away, he doesn’t want to have to deal with them. Eighteen months gone, eighteen months dead and John had just begun to heal. He’s just begun to move on, to think of time as his again and now this.
It’s so complex and heavy that his mind doesn’t even know where to begin, doesn’t even know how to sort through the myriad of emotions. His heart gives a giant push towards the pit of his stomach as the reminder comes, unbidden, that he’s admitted to Mary his feelings for Sherlock.
But he’d been dead surely that had to have had some effect on the way he felt about the man. His heart gives another sickening shove, indicating that no, no perhaps it had been a catalyst for realization but the fact that the man is alive changes nothing.
John wants to rail against him, beat him to a bloody pulp. He wants to kiss him, tug at his hair, pinch his skin, feel that he’s real. John wants everything, wants nothing, wants to rip in half and float away so he no longer has to think or feel about any of this.
Before he has time to think about it, rationalize staying in his flat all day long, he’s up out of bed, pulling on trousers and socks and shoes, zipping up a tattered cardigan and tearing to the door, pressing the button that will cause the entrance door to buzz open. John holds it for what feels like ages, his finger burning with the pressure of his push.
His forehead rests against the door and he needs only wait a few moments before he hears someone shuffle around on the other side of the wood.
---
When he steps into the flat, Sherlock Holmes is a sodden mess and smells rather badly. He has been standing out against the elements for the three days; it strikes John too that he’s probably in need of food, though he’ll likely say nothing of the sort.
Sherlock tips his head in an attempt at greeting but John rolls his eyes, slams the door shut behind him and walks through to the kitchen. Sherlock stays put, waiting to be instructed on what he’s to do.
“Come along, then,” John shouts, turning on the tap to fill the kettle. “You can drip all over the lino in here.”
The detective does as instructed, though moves slowly, like he’s forgotten how to control his limbs; he’s stiff and worn and has aged eons since John last saw him. The past few nights out in the elements haven’t done him any favors. The bags beneath his eyes are mottled purple bruises.
John thinks he could land a punch there and no one would notice, at this point. He says nothing as he makes the tea, but does make a nod towards one of the chairs at the table and Sherlock sits, his relieved sigh audible in the silence of the room.
When the mugs are full and steaming, he places one in front of Sherlock and takes his between his palms, letting it scald him through the porcelain. They remain in silence for some time, Sherlock not making a move towards his tea, John sipping away at his as though he hasn’t a care in the world.
“I’m rather surprised,” Sherlock begins, startling John though he’s staring right at his mouth. “That you didn’t throttle me on sight.”
“Still time for that,” John warns.
Silence falls once more.
Sherlock begins tapping his wet shoe on the floor, a squeak followed by a tap. Squeak-tap, squeak-tap and all of a sudden he’s standing, his hands in his hair. “I’ve thought of how to explain myself an untold number of times and in every scenario, I cannot fathom you...”
“Start at the beginning,” John urges, not unhelpfully but he can’t mask the raw nature of his voice or the cruel words that threaten to claw their way from him.
“Moriarty had everything planned, everything orchestrated down to the letter; he knew how to come at me from every angle,” Sherlock begins, glancing up at John once from under unruly fringe. “I was to appear to fail, to... to die, so that the three snipers trained on Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade and yourself wouldn’t... either way, clearly it worked.”
John blinks, and places his tea carefully down on the counter. “Our lives for yours.”
“Precisely. Afterward I-”
“I am so angry at you Sherlock,” John cuts him off in a low, dangerous voice. “I am seething right now, I fucking... you died,” he shouts, hands curled into fists as he shakes with his rage. “You died, you left me here and you... you’re bloody lucky, you are, that Mary found you first because I can’t... I would have squeezed the breath out of you, I would have...”
Sherlock has the nerve to straighten his spine, bring himself to proper height. “How can you not see-”
“It’s not a matter of seeing or not!” John’s voice pitches even higher. “It’s fucking sentiment, you wanker, you absolute, shitting...” His fingers weave into his hair and tug. “Of course you don’t understand this, you can’t possibly understand why I would hate you right now.” The laugh that startles from him is bitter and causes Sherlock’s eyes to widen.
The detective reels back, slumps into his chair, all but defeated.
It’s a long, heaving silence, John catching his breath, willing his shaking under control before Sherlock mutters, “I do.”
“You what?” John says, like the words are nothing but an annoyance.
“I understand... what I put you through.” Sherlock says with a bit more volume and glances up at John. “As it mirrors what I myself was forced to undergo.”
Startled, John bites his tongue, releases a quick breath through his nose. “Oh, that’s rich, ‘sentiment’. You abhor sentiment, but you’re telling me that... and that, that sentiment. That’s what brought you back?”
“I- It gave me...” Sherlock is frustrated at the lack of words, at the inability to simply make John understand. “Determination. Determined every day to return to London, to...” Sherlock reaches for his mug, thinks better of it, allow his hands to fall lax in his lap.
“And what if I don’t believe you; what if I never believe another word that comes out of your mouth?”
Sherlock lifts his head and meets John’s gaze head on. His eyes are clear, an icy fire and he sees Mary and he sees himself and he sees all of the anguish that Sherlock has put himself through, these past months. He understands the reason why even if he can’t accept it yet.
Sherlock sets his jaw, says only two words, “You’re alive.”
---
John forces Sherlock to shower against the man’s low protests. He smells like moss and soot and grime and John just simply can’t stand to look at him at the moment. He can’t seem to allow him to leave, either, and thus the shower seems the best place for him at the moment. John doesn’t tell him where the towels are or bring him clothing; he hasn’t the foresight or the energy for that. Sherlock will manage, as he always does.
There are no lights on in the flat other than the kitchen and John switches that one off as well, pressing his open palms down into the counter and staring out at the rain; he wills the hard surface to swallow him up to no avail.
John can hear the shower warring with the raindrops against the windows and thinks of nothing, nothing at all. He sips from his tea and stares out the window and when it all feels like a bit too much he releases a sob and bursts into tears.
---
“You’ve been crying,” is the first thing Sherlock says when he emerges from the bathroom some time later. He has a large towel slung around his hips and one over his shoulders and one balled up in his hands, as though he’s doing all that he can to cover himself.
John swallows and looks at the floor, “Let me find you something to... let me find you something.” He finds his longest pair of pajama trousers and a large sweatshirt, stained and threadbare from months of living in it in uni. When he tosses them to Sherlock, the man drops the towel he’s holding in front of his chest and there are the scars.
Large, pink-purple diamonds where a knife must have found purchase, tiny, fading white lines over his pectorals looking very much like razor slashes. There’s a burn, twisting around the left side of his body. It’s horrific; John doesn’t quite know what to say and so, “So, it was all fun and games, was it?”
Sherlock has the audacity to nearly smile.
“What the fuck, Sherlock?” he doesn’t want to know at the very same time that he needs to know.
His eyes flit up and then he settles his hand over the stab wound, just below his left shoulder. “Minsk, terrible place. Underestimated a female assassin, as was her intent.” His hand moves next to the scars over his chest. “Suceava and Smolensk, same man, managed to take off his left hand before he could do any real damage in the end.”
When he touches the beginning of the train of the burn scar, John sucks in a breath and bites his bottom lip. “Ottawa, of all places,” the pads of his fingers trail over the flesh for a moment before he pulls away and looks at John. “My knee has a story from the Dominican Republic and my back, well...”
John takes a step closer, mouth helplessly agape. “There was of course the matter of the broken arm and the fractured ankle along the way. I can tell when it’s about to rain now,” there’s a wry smile. “Which is always.”
John perches his closed eyes against thumb and forefinger and hangs his head; he was unaware until now that so much could be at war in his chest. Sadness, rage, shock, affection, animosity, love. “Christ.”
“Hmmm,” Sherlock has finished pulling the sweatshirt over his head by the time John looks up. The man looks absolutely ridiculous, ankles poking out of John’s too-short trousers, sweatshirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows. And when John steps forward and wraps the man in his arms (he can feel the bones, too skinny, too skinny) he can smell Sherlock underneath his fabric softener.
Faint and spicy.
---
“Kip on the sofa,” John tosses lightly over his shoulder. “You’re-” He is honestly about to say ‘dead on your feet’ before he stops himself. “About to topple over.”
Sherlock opens his mouth to protest and John waits for it, but after a moment he snaps his mouth shut. John retrieves a pillow from his bed and pulls the quilt from the back of the sofa and tips them into Sherlock’s lap. When the man looks up at him it stops John’s breath, stops his heart.
He looks endlessly terrified.
“I’ll,” it all collides in that moment, every fractured bit of understanding that he’s scraped together concerning all of this, everything he’s been thinking about these past three days. “Jesus, Sherlock, I’ll be here when you wake up.” He adds for good measure, “I promise.”
Sherlock blinks, looks ashamed for a moment and then stretches out on John’s couch without saying another word.
John watches him throughout the afternoon. He watches him shift and breathe as John’s heart creaks and expands and renovates itself.
Sherlock sleeps and sleeps, sleeps right through Mary’s arrival and right through Mary’s departure. He sleeps for thirty-three hours and dreams of nothing.
---
“There’s nothing to discuss,” she says. “There really isn’t, I can’t... stay with you John and you can’t stay with me. We don’t have to make this anything harder than it is.” Mary is pressing her socks into a duffle and won’t look at him.
John struggles for words. “Six months, I’d say there’s something to discuss Maribeth.”
She smiles and glances over at him, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Ooh, using my full name, getting serious now?” She fits a bra in amongst the chaos of her bag. “John, it’s not... I’m not angry. I’m upset and I’m sad... that his has to end because... I think we were good for each other.”
He wants to tell her that she can’t make this decision on her own, that they’re both in this together. But he can’t bring himself to, not when she’s making this so easy, not when it’s all happening so fluidly. “We are,” he pleads because he thinks he’s supposed to but it’s only half-hearted. “It doesn’t have to...”
“It does. And really John, how fucking stupid can you be?” It’s got no venom in it, in fact, she smiles around the words. “There aren’t any... contingency plans, there’s no rational happy end to dating someone who is in love with someone else who is dead, who then comes back to life. There’s nothing for that John. I enjoy insanity, I crave it but this... is too much for me to rationalize.”
She finds her shoes beneath his dresser. “And you think I’d want that? For you to stay with me after finding out he was alive? I’m not a heartless bitch, John. ...well, maybe a little but not for that reason.”
John sits down on the bed and finds himself smiling at the floor, “Well, when you put it like that...” They both chuckle.
“Just... give me time? I hate the ‘we can still be friends’ thing but contrary to what you must think of me I don’t just chat up men in coffee shops, I like you, very much.” She drops a kiss on his cheek. “I will miss the shagging mightily though, you’re particularly brilliant at that but uhm, give me a week, two and I’ll get you back your things from my flat, yeah?”
“Take care of yourself, yeah?”
She opens the front door and then looks to Sherlock on the sofa, back to John. “Oh, I wasn’t kidding about the two weeks, I’ll get you back your things and you’ll take me out to an extraordinarily expensive meal to make up for all of this batshit ‘coming back from the dead’ drama.” She leaves him with a wink which only seems a little forced.
He will never be able to remember the color of her eyes but he will remember that they were rimmed red then.
---
John doesn’t sleep that evening, not really, just dozes in his bed until a snuffle from Sherlock has him walking back into the living room, just to check. He’s tucked himself with his back to the room, curled his head very nearly into the crevice between the seat of the sofa and back.
He makes every attempt to work out what he wants to do and say, but his thoughts are jumbled and incoherent. The only thing he can make sense of is the way Sherlock’s back shifts as he breathes. John does work from his laptop while he’s seated in the living room, catching up on charts, reading through a backlog of journals. He makes cups and cups or tea, always two at a time in case Sherlock wakes up..
John ends up drinking Sherlock’s as the man slumbers on, well through the morning and afternoon. It’s telling, Sherlock sleeping; what he had gone through must have been trying indeed to have him in such an exhausted state now. He actually contemplates waking him to check his vitals but the low, content sounds Sherlock makes in his throat when he stretches or twists convince John otherwise.
Around dinnertime, when John is going for another cup of tea that an idea filters through his mind and clasps desperately at his chest. That Sherlock is actually back. It’s a reality now, very, very stark and tangible. Must have been in a bit of shock before, John finds the brain cells to reason as he leans a hand against the edge of the door and tries to regain his breath.
No one gets this chance because no one comes back to life. And here John has been, ruminating, torturing himself with every last scrap of What I Should Have Said. To say it all now, the prospect of spilling his guts seems both terrifying and relieving, but even as he begins to hyperventilate, he knows he must. Once Sherlock has finished telling of his travels, once the tender sapling of forgiveness grows and thrives in him, he’ll tell Sherlock all of the things he wished he’d said.
He’s absolutely terrified to quantify the tight feeling that is shivering through him.
It takes John some time to come back to his senses, to straighten and compose himself but when he does, there’s a distinct stirring from the sofa and a loopy groan. He watches as Sherlock unfurls, watches as the man gets his bearings, reminds himself of where he is and turns slowly onto his back.
Bones pop and crack in joints as he stretches out to full height beneath John’s quilt, stares up at the ceiling. “It’s evening.”
“Yes. On Tuesday.”
Sherlock blinks as though it’s no surprise to him that he’s slept more than a day. “I’ve stopped counting the days,” he says and his voice is rough from sleep, sounds as though he’s speaking through cobwebs.
And John becomes overwhelmingly sad at the tone, steps into the living room and settles himself on the coffee table. With a gentle hand he takes Sherlock’s wrist, checks his pulse, just because he can. Just because he wants to. “Hmm, perhaps it’s time to begin again.”
Sherlock closes his eyes, dark lashes against cheeks and when he opens them, he looks directly at John. “Mary’s gone, then.” It’s a simple enough statement but John can hear the note of compassion in his voice and it nearly floors him.
“Mmm, yeah,” John says and moves to place Sherlock’s hand back on the sofa.
It’s all they say on the matter, John doesn’t ask him how he knows Mary’s name and doesn’t offer Sherlock any further information. It’s strange, how easily the matter is brought up and then laid aside.
They just look at one another for long, quiet minutes until John says, “I’m very angry with you but it’s absolutely brilliant to have you back, have you here, have you...”
“Yes,” Sherlock agrees and some of the tensions that had been about him since he’d arrived melted away.
John smiles at him, at the floor. “I’ll order some delivery, yeah? What are you in the mood for?”
Sherlock sits up and pushes the quilt from his legs. “Anything. Everything.”
Thus John goes about ordering a massive amount of Thai; he knows he doesn’t need three different kinds of fried rice but he orders them anyway along with drunken noodle and chicken satay, dumplings and adds a few dishes that he’s no idea of, just for good measure.
Then he excuses himself to the bathroom for a shower, slipping under the hot spray before he’s acclimated. It burns his skin, shakes him to his core, roots him to the spot. Palms press against the tiled wall, against the sliding glass door and John attempts to hold himself upright.
He’s too tired for this, he thinks. All of the effort he put into grieving, the months of attempting to shuffle Sherlock from his mind, trying to forget and yet not let a shred of the man go. John is exhausted, the weight of the past few days finally settling on his shoulders and he’s not entirely certain he’ll be able to work his words to manage proper sentences. He isn’t sure if he’ll be able to speak any of this at all.
But then not speaking it, the way the admission rests in his throat and constricts, sits on his heart and stomach and spleen, so heavy. If he doesn’t utter the words he’s afraid he’ll drown. He knows it now, too much, this is too much for the human soul to handle.
Fingers manage to work shampoo to a lather and he passes a bar of soap beneath his arms and around his legs but it’s all he can manage before he slumps into the tile. The breath he sucks in chokes back out in a sob.
John towels off and pads into his bedroom in search of clothing, Sherlock’s eyes a present warmth at his back. He slips on jeans and a jumper, leaves his feet bare and paces back into the living room, his hands in his pockets because suddenly they’re shaking.
There’s more silence, more heavy than before and eventually John rounds the sofa and the table to stand before Sherlock. “What are... what’re you going to do?”
Sherlock sniffs, shakes his head a bit, “I suppose I’ll begin back at Baker Street, retrieve what’s left of my belongings from storage...”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Sherlock blinks up at him. “I know.” And then he’s speaking, “It was most difficult for me, knowing what time it was here, in London, being able to picture exactly what you would be doing. The programs you would be watching, when and how you’d be making your tea. And seven-thirty on the dot, walking from the shower, your hair a disaster...” His hands are flicking this way and that, as though he’s maneuvering through his mind palace. “Do you know what that’s like, a constant ghost, haunting me down, reminding me...”
John sighs, “You-”
“There was no middle ground, you see. I remain here with you as it’s meant to be and you die due to that choice or I see to it that the last vestiges of Moriarty’s criminal enterprise were wiped from the Earth and know that you may very well never want to see me again.” Sherlock settles his hands, splays them against his knees. “I would make the choice again, John. If you think I’d choose otherwise you’re a fool.”
John swallows and swallows and swallows.
Sherlock sets his jaw, glares at the floor. “I could picture you in my head, getting the paper, opening the door, cleaning the bloody dishes...”
“You keep saying you thought of me, you keep saying... part of me knows... I don’t, the way it feels right now, the way you made me feel, it doesn’t seem like you thought of me at all.” It’s the truest thing he’s ever said; John can’t believe he put it into words.
“Of course I did, John,” he rolls his eyes. “It is what one does when one has affection for a person.”
There’s no more saliva left in John’s mouth, he can’t swallow against the knot that’s formed in his throat. He can’t breathe past it. “You have affection for me, then.”
“No,” he breathes and for a moment John’s heart is in freefall. “No, it’s far... greater than that. Something larger, I dare say.”
To his credit, John doesn’t stumble back and does not ask for an immediate explanation; he splays his hands out across the back of one of his armchairs and hangs his head low. It’s perhaps what he hasn’t realized he’s been hoping for; it does take some of the burden off of him, though not entirely. There are still things that need to be said, dozens of things, eons of words strung together into sentences that mean everything but for the moment, John can think and he can breathe and he can feel Sherlock seeping right back in.
Sherlock mumbles, angrily, “Something about absence making one more aware of one’s feelings or some such.”
“Utter bollocks, that,” John agrees and somehow they’re both chuckling, truly laughing, the sound ringing in John’s ears, a delightful pitch. It’s brilliant, it feels astonishing to hear Sherlock again, let alone laugh.
It wells up in him then, the fear. It’s been nearly eighty-three hours since Sherlock has been back but John doesn’t know where he fits. Where Sherlock fits in his life or he in Sherlock’s. It’s all rather confusing but it doesn’t alter John’s feelings in the slightest. They’ll work their way back around one another, he can’t fathom thinking that they might not, now. It’s what comes after, after John speaks the words. It’s about how they will fit together then.
And John’s mind races out of control, to eons down the road. Will they be together - beds, hearts, minds, home - in the end?
“Listen, I-” John begins around a smile but is cut off by the buzzing of the door. A faint blush rises to his cheeks and John bites his lip. “Just a tick.”
He returns with two bags heavy with food and Sherlock is silent as he helps unload the dishes across the living room table.
“Tell me about Suceava,” John asks, stuffing his mouth full of rice.
Sherlock primly wipes at his mouth. “It’s difficult. To tell you one bit of it would mean having to tell it all.” He manages another forkful of chicken and twirls a skewer of satay between his fingers. “Eighteen months. I’ll tell it to you down to the minute if you’d like.”
“I’m not even sure where it is,” John says around a mouthful.
“Romania,” Sherlock answers and they finish out their meal in silence.
John cleans the debris and Sherlock doesn’t offer to help and the flat grows dark, the quiet seeming to magnify with the shadows. “You’re tired,” John says, because Sherlock is, because it’s very obvious that Sherlock wants nothing more than to be awake in John’s presence right now. “You should sleep, actually sleep. Eight hours.”
“Always on about my well-being,” Sherlock says with a small smile.
John returns it, “If not me then who?”
They stare at each other, small smiles curving their mouths and they’re miles and miles away from anything being resolved but it’s still brilliant. It still feels fantastic just being in the room together. “Christ, I thought you were dead,” John says in wonder.
“Well,” Sherlock sits up a bit straights, curves his smile a bit wider, “I’m not.”
“Hmmm,” he hums as he nods and steps forward to run his fingers through Sherlock’s hair. The man’s eyes slip closed, briefly before he sits back against the sofa. John grins, chuckles to himself and then excuses himself to the loo.
When he returns, Sherlock is out again, slumped halfway down on the sofa, mouth open. John tucks him in the best he can and shuts the light, retires to his bedroom with his laptop.
Baby steps; he knows that’s how to approach this. Baby steps.
---
There’s a leap made, late in the evening, long after John has turned in. His bed dips and Sherlock climbs in next to him, doesn’t bother to ask or hesitate. He lies flat on his back in the dim and stares up at the ceiling.
“Sofa not to your liking?” John mumbles, fighting off the sleep that threatens to pull him back under.
Sherlock turns his head just so, “I prefer it here.”
John nods and turns onto his side, eyes slipping closed. It’s as easy as anything he’s ever done. “I think I’m in love with you,” John says, matter of fact, into the darkness.
Sherlock shuffles a little against his pillow, “Yes. You’re mad.”
“I am,” John agrees and Sherlock’s hand finds his own, works his fingers in between and around. “I quite like it.”
---
John wakes to lips against his throat, warm and wet and just pressing there, just resting against his skin. John simply remains still and basks in the feeling. The rain still beats against the windows and the room is dusty with pre-dawn and John is warm and content and just breathes.
“You smell like home,” Sherlock says after a time, smearing it against his neck.
John smiles and huffs out a laugh. “I, come here.” And he gathers Sherlock up lightly in his arms and presses his mouth to Sherlock’s shoulder, breathes humid breath into the cloth there and falls back to sleep.
---
Sherlock formally meets Maribeth for the first time sixteen days later. She shows up at John’s flat and lets herself in, drops a duffle bag full of clothing onto the floor and makes herself a cup of tea. Sherlock watches all of this from the armchair, thumbs poised over his iPhone, just watching.
“You two shagging then?” she asks once she’s put sugar into her mug and stirred. Sherlock’s brow creases in confusion. “No, no, don’t answer that, that’s me being... well... because he counted the days in terms of you, you know. The hours and the minutes... never-nevermind that.”
She steps back into the living room, right up to his chair and holds out a hand, grinning. “I’m Maribeth, or Mary... or Beth, but not Rib, you can’t call me Rib.”
Sherlock stands and looks her over cautiously before taking her hand, refrains from asking why anybody at all would call her Rib. “Sherlock Holmes.”
That causes a reaction, she laughs brilliantly, nearly tipping her tea in her glee. “I know, I know, uhm, wow, this is crazy... I know who you are.”
“And you are, Mary?” His raises an eyebrow, still wary of her presence, still not understanding why she’s here at all.
After a careful sip of English Breakfast, she perches a hand on her hip. “Well, you already know that.”
“Oh?”
Just then John emerges, pushing a hand haphazardly through his hair, wiping the sleep from his eyes with the other. “Tell me you put the kettle on-”
John stops entirely when he sees the two of them standing so close to one another. He glances from Sherlock to Mary and back, eyes wide for a brief moment. As soon as the look comes it’s gone and John shakes his head, yawns.
“Nope,” he says and pads back into the bedroom, throws himself into bed.
She tamps down on her grin and dips her head for a moment. When she glances back up she blows out a breath and pushes the hair from her face. “Well I’m Mary Morstan and I think... I’ve decided that I’m going to continue on as John Watson’s friend.” Making her way back into the kitchen, she refills the kettle, puts it back on to boil. “I’ll make him a cuppa. Do you want one too?”