allthebellsinvenice said: Oh Captain my Captain! May we please see the moment when Mary realizes that having Sherlock as best man for the wedding is going to be more terrible and wonderful than she ever could have imagined? :) I adore Marylock brotp!
"Well, I've asked him." Mary tilted her head and gave her fiancé a puzzled look. He'd just entered the flat; she was sitting at the desk balancing their shared checkbook and had been lost in number-land for the past ten minutes or so. "Sherlock," John clarified, walking over to her and kissing her upturned lips. "I've asked him to be my best man. He said yes."
"Oh, John, that's wonderful!" Mary exclaimed. And it was, it truly was; Sherlock and John had been so strained with one another of the detective's miraculous return from the dead, that she'd feared for their friendship. Not for very long, of course, and certainly not once she'd decided to do what she could to push them back together again, but still, the fear had been very real.
Of course, she'd almost changed her mind about Sherlock when he pulled that stunt with the bomb on the railway car; luckily for him John's PTSD wasn't triggered by violence, but more by the lack thereof. Something Mary could certainly sympathize with, although she'd still found no good way to try and explain her deadly secrets to the man she loved with all her heart.
The man who would, very likely, grow to hate her if he knew what she'd been before she'd met him. Before she'd taken on the identity of a stillborn baby girl whose grave she still visited occasionally. Mary Morstan had never had a chance at a life of her own, poor little thing, but her name had given AGRA a chance at a life she'd never thought she'd wanted. A life of quiet happiness and small joys, of doing something good for a change. Yes, she'd done good when she'd taken out murderers and dictators, blackmailers and spies, but being a nurse, working in the clinic where she'd met John…that was a better life. A good life, with a good man.
A good man and his not-so-dead genius best friend. Mary felt a small chill go over her at the thought of what Sherlock might say in his best man's speech, what deductions he might make. He was already such an integral part of their lives, hers and John's; what if he chose that moment to make one of those deductive leaps and reveal her secret past to the world? He was such a drama queen, it wouldn't surprise her in the least if he chose exactly that moment, when all attention was on him, to tear her life to shreds.
No, she told herself firmly as John headed off for his shower, mumbling something about tea and eyeballs that she wasn't sure she wanted him to explain. Sherlock wouldn't do that to them. Not after the way he'd seen how poorly John had taken his own return from the dead. He would quietly have her taken away by MI6 and then break the news to John as gently as he was capable of doing.
Maybe she should just bite the bullet – apt metaphor, that – and tell John herself? Get it over with, and spare herself the potential pain and humiliation of having him learn it from Sherlock or, God forbid, some other third party?
But when she pictured herself speaking to him, explaining things, even giving him the files she'd filched when she'd left the CIA…no. She couldn't. She wasn't that woman any more and would never be that woman again. There was nothing of AGRA for Sherlock to deduce from 'Mary Morstan', and he would have even less impetus to do so once she became Mary Watson.
She smiled at the thought of marrying John. She loved him, so much; even if 'Mary Morstan' was only a five-year-old lie, the love she felt for this man was very, very real. She'd been reluctant to get close to him, but helpless to stop once he turned on the charm. And seeing him at his most vulnerable, his most hurt and lost, knowing that she'd helped him to turn his life around…no, she would never do anything to jeopardize his good opinion of her. And she'd never give Sherlock reason to do so, either.
Having reassured herself that Sherlock acting as John's best man wouldn't be nearly the disaster she'd panicked herself into believing it could be, she closed her laptop and stood up. The damned checkbook could wait; John was in their bedroom, shucking his clothes and about to run the water and the only place she wanted to be right now – and for the rest of her life – was with him.
Smiling, she shed her own clothing and opened the bedroom door. "Hello, darling, fancy some company?"
John's happy, eager smile and open arms were all the answer she needed.