Author's Note:
This is my second update in a week! I had the inklings of this in the back of my mind when I posted 'Courage Isn't A Man With A Gun' but it wasn't quite enough to start writing it. Then we celebrated Women's Day at college and I kind of thought 'let's write something about Mary' because I love Mary. I still wasn't entirely sure what to do though. Then I remembered today (in the UK at least) is Mother's Day and this one shot was born. I suppose it would fit into 'The Baker Street Boys' but I wanted Mary to have her own story so it's going up as its own one shot and you can fight me on that! The title is from a wonderful poem by Maya Angelou called Phenomenal Woman.
Thank you so much for all your comments and favourites/follows. I love you all for it.
If you were curious, my tumblr username (url, is that what it's called?) is stormleviosa.
Phenomenal Woman, That's Me
Mary Morstan never meant to fall in love. She was strong, independent, the very definition of 'don't need no man' and, generally, didn't have time for commitment anyway. Then AGRA, the brotherhood she had been a part of since she was little more than a child, collapsed around her. It was only through sheer luck that she got out of the disaster their mission had become. Sometimes she wished she hadn't. Her only remaining family was gone.
She moved to London because she could hide. London was such a melting pot of every possible culture and profession and personality imaginable it would be easy to lose herself in the mass of people there. It wasn't a tiny village where everyone knew everyone's business (although she missed the open sky she knew that it would only end badly). Instead of chattering without a care, commuters stared at their shoes as if the meaning of life was hidden on that tiny strip of plastic between their feet. It was impersonal. She could be alone surrounded by people and grieve in peace.
The local hospital was hiring a nurse and the repetitive, endless work appealed to her. She had had far too much excitement in her short life. The receptionist, Sarah, was a cheerful gossip and was happy to tell her all the stories about the hospital. It turned out she used to date one of the locum doctors but it hadn't worked out: "nice guy, just too dedicated to his flatmate," she explained. He hadn't been in for a few months. "I've got him down for Monday next week, Dr Hart has got a medical convention or something; you can meet him. Now come on, I'm on lunch for the next half an hour."
Sarah had been right, Dr Watson was a 'nice man.' He wasn't the light-hearted, humorous fellow Sarah had described. There was something grief-stricken in his face, a hardness to his eyes, and she wondered who he had lost. She didn't see him often. He was only on locum so he worked when there was someone else missing and he tended to lock himself away in his office, avoiding everyone else. She always offered him a smile when she saw him. It took over a month before he smiled back.
They started dating because they both needed a distraction. She didn't love him as such but she considered him a friend and if this was what it took to get close to him, to play pretend and flirt with normalcy, she was more than willing to endure it. When he was with her, out on the town, at museums and restaurants, she could see the man he had once been. She didn't pry. They both had their secrets and she didn't want him to even come close to hers. Her secrets were poison and she couldn't let such toxicity into another relationship just coming to bloom. In John, she had found a kindred spirit. Neither of them were good people - she was an assassin for God's sake and she was certain John had killed people for Queen and Country - but with each other perhaps they could masquerade as heroes, the doctor and his helper.
She met John's friends not long before their engagement. His old army friends, Lestrade at Scotland Yard, his landlady, Alex. All of them were just a little bit broken, a part of them a little bit monstrous, and all of them were oblivious. To them she was just the pretty little woman from the surgery who had helped John come back to himself, except for Alex. He was just a bit more broken than the others, a bit more monstrous, a bit more wary. He knew, she was certain, because he was the same as she was. His eyes were those of someone who had seen too much and done more. She wanted to take him in her arms and hold him close; she wanted to put a gun to MI6's head; she wanted to burn what remained of Scorpia to the ground. He didn't trust her but that was of little consequence. They were too similar to trust anyone, let alone each other.
When she met Sherlock, the man John raved about on his blog, for the first time she knew the end was coming. Was there any way she could keep her secrets, well, secret with him around? She didn't think so. Mary watched them, watched as John punched the man who had caused him so much pain, and smiled. Theirs was a strange relationship and she knew she couldn't hope to compete with Sherlock Holmes even if the love the two men shared was so different from the love between her and John. If she didn't know better, and she did, she would have said Sherlock was John's annoying little brother (Lord knows they argued enough); some said there was some kind of homoerotic something or another going on between them because why else would anyone stick around with Sherlock Holmes? They were certainly more than friends. But she thought that Sherlock had little time for relationships unless it was for a case and the dynamic wasn't quite right. She was an outsider when she was with them and she was sure that before she had inserted herself into John's life they had lived in their own little world where whatever their relationship was went unjudged and unobserved. What she did know was that they needed each other and despite him undoubtedly knowing everything about her, she liked him. She had always been a good judge of character.
When Rosie was born and she held her in her arms, she felt more terror than she had in Georgia when they all almost died. She was not ready to be a mother, was not fit for such a role, wasn't good enough, kind enough, selfless enough. She wasn't enough. But then her daughter, John's daughter, opened her eyes and gazed at her with such innocent, enraptured wonder and a fire was kindled in her chest. This is my child, my legacy. I will live for her. And she lived the life she had always wanted, a life of love, of normalcy. Her life was no longer a lie.
She lived for Rosie, the accumulation of everything she could have been.
She died for Sherlock, the accumulation of everything she used to be.