Chapter Text
He looked in the mirror. Water was dripping from his cheeks, down his overgrown mustache and beard. His eyes were puffy, and he stared ahead with a blank expression on his face. It was four forty-five in the morning, he had been awoken by a nightmare, like so many nights before this one.
“John?” Mary called tiredly from the bedroom.
“John?” called another voice.
He blinked.
“Coming. Go back to sleep, dear,” he told her and took a towel from the hanger to rub his face dry. He sighed. He wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight, but for Mary’s sake he would try.
Mary wrapped her left arm around his chest and snuggled close. She did it every night when they went to bed, but by morning she always found John curled into a ball far away from her on his own side, wide awake and eager to go to make breakfast as if he was just lying there waiting for her permission to get up. He always seemed to wait. In the middle of the night he would get up sometimes and go to sit in the kitchen with his laptop, but in the morning she always found him there, in bed.
“Were you updating your blog?” she would ask over the morning paper, as casually as she could muster. She knew perfectly well that he hadn’t, at least publicly, as she checked that blog on every one of those mornings while John was in the loo. But she would ask anyway.
“No,” John would muffle and turn the page. And the conversation would be over. She didn’t really know how to approach the issue, how to ask him to either see a therapist or talk to her at least, so she let him be and took their dog Fergus to a walk before work. John would do the evening walk, and she half hoped this would be the day he would stop by at Baker Street to visit Mrs. Hudson, but apparently he never did. She saw her every now and again, and they would talk about their upcoming wedding and the dress and the rings and possible honeymoon destinations. Mrs. Hudson always asked her to send him her regards and her dearest wish to see him soon. She always told John whenever she saw his former landlady, but John never reacted the way a normal person would. He always muttered something, huffed “Oh” in a defeated tone, or did none of the above, furrowed his brow and made a tight line of his mouth. John had last seen her when they had gone to get John’s last things from Baker Streets a year after the… incident. To her dismay, Mrs. Hudson hadn’t heard a word of her by then, but luckily Mrs. Hudson recovered quickly from her astonishment and went on to treat her like she was Mrs. Hudson’s daughter. Mrs. Hudson was a real sweetheart, truly. She had gotten even a smile on John’s lips, even though John’s anxiety had been more than visible to any naked eye. Even back then Mary didn’t fail to notice that his eyes seemed to wander to familiar fixtures in the corridor and in Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen as if seeking traces of the apartment above or the memories in the rooms. After a while it had clearly been time to go, the tea had been poured and consumed and John's hands had become fiddly, and even though John had promised to keep in touch and visit more often, Mrs. Hudson and Mary had noticed soon that he wasn’t very keen on keeping that particular promise.
“It’s this place, you see,” Mrs. Hudson sighed dramatically one day when Mary visited her. “He never left these rooms, even though it’s been years. Sherlock, I mean. He still seems to linger, and I think such things can be rather unbearable for a… man of John’s loyal and tender nature.”
“Yes,” she agreed and looked around the corridor and the stairs that seemed to loom over the dark space. Even though she had never met Sherlock Holmes, she could easily picture the brilliant sleuth towering over the staircase with a commanding presence. “John is like that.”
That morning John waited for Mary as he always did. He could hear Fergus behind their door, eager to get his breakfast, but he stayed put until Mary’s breathing pattern changed and she yawned. He placed a quick kiss on her cheek and went to get the door for their young dachshund who greeted him with excited wags of his tail.
“Morning to you as well,” he sighed and leaned down to ruffle the short hairs on Fergus’ head. Fergus replied with two short barks before it dashed off to the kitchen.
Fergus had been Mary’s idea, naturally. As John poured Fergus’ kibble to his bowl and then freshened up his bowl of water, he remembered telling his then-girlfriend that he didn’t need a pet or a companion of any other kind than her. But Mary had insisted, and he had finally, after weeks and months of relentless persuasion, given in. And he had to admit that Fergus was just the kind of company he usually liked: quite quiet, sometimes funny, and such that kept him going and out and about often enough that he could call his outings regular and healthily beneficial. Mike Stamford had taken a keen interest on the puppy’s dealings as dachshunds were a breed his family had raised for generations (before him at least) for hunting and such. Fergus certainly looked quite handsome, John gave him that, but he wasn’t sure how well the fellow would do around hunting riffles with his fear of loud and sudden noises.
John watched his hairy little companion with a sudden burst of fondness, and made a mental note of bringing some treats with him later in the evening for their walk.
He didn’t care for loud noises, either, so he could sincerely relate. Sirens definitely drove him on edge these days.
He fixed him and Mary some toast for breakfast and went to get the morning paper. Fergus raised his head from the bowl and licked his lips in a clear inner debate over whether or not he should follow, but his hunger seemed to win the battle. When John got back, Fergus took his position at John’s feet in determined effort to catch any wayward crumb of bread or thread of ham. He continued his staring even when Mary entered the room, took her coffee and sat on her chair opposite to John’s.
“Did you sleep well?” Mary asked as usual and held her hand out to ask for a section of the paper. John handed one over, the lifestyle section, and told her what he did every single morning despite them both knowing the real answer. “I did.”
Once they had had their breakfast, Mary hurried to get dressed and took the always excited Fergus to their morning walk. John took his second cup of coffee and noticed from the paper that the Scotland Yard was looking for a man for a curious break-in where nothing but the victim’s cellphone had been stolen.
“Something important is obviously on that cellphone,” an annoyed voice huffed at the back of his mind. “They are bloody idiots. There’s nothing curious about this. Probably contained some compromising photos of an ex or something as dull and mundane as that. Tell them, John.”
“Shut up, Sherlock.”
He closed the paper angrily and left it on the kitchen table upside down. He marched into the bedroom and got dressed swiftly and with a consciously silenced mind. When he was doing his tie, though, he heard something from the front door. It was a quick, metallic clank. Mary did make her walks quick with Fergus in the mornings, but that was definitely not the sound of key turned in the lock.
He went to check the door. The hour was unusual for anything else than the paper, but something had clearly been pushed through their letterbox. And indeed, when he went to the door, he saw a creamy white square-shaped envelope lying on their welcome home mat. He picked it up and stared at it for a moment.
There was no stamp. No address. No return address. Only one word written on the front. His name.
He stared at the word, then opened the envelope. A single piece of paper sat inside it, folded in half. The message written on it was short and written in a rushed hand that spidered across the middle of the sheet. Six words, no signature below. He inhaled slowly, unsteadily.
Keep your eyes fixed on me.
He blinked.