I feel terrible for putting poor Mary through this. I've seen lots of comments about Mary's smiles in S4 promotions being "fake" and it made me think about reasons that might be the case. Please note that the story is about postpartum depression and includes a brief mention of suicidal thoughts. (Title from Alanis Morissette.)
Mary never expected to be anyone's mother. In fact, precautions had been taken years ago to ensure that she never became anyone's mother, but apparently things could occur, and she had just been rather lucky.
Lucky was a nasty little word.
About two weeks after Rosie was born, she was holding the baby (always the baby, never her baby) and wondered why she didn't love her as much as she had expected. She'd been happy in the early moments, when Rosie was laid on her chest and she looked at them, tiny eyes not quite able to focus on these people that welcomed her. She'd thought it adorable when John smiled at her, how the baby turned her head turned towards Sherlock when he spoke. There was some hard going when they returned home, but she thought they had it handled. Then that morning, half-asleep, she looked down at the baby and burst into tears.
Baby blues, she told herself. Just the hormones, shifting and changing and it was probably even more brutal at 40 than it would have been at 25. (She couldn't have been anyone's mother at 25.)
The next day, while John went out to the shops for a few things, Rosie started to cry, and Mary went into action mode – she tried to feed her, burped her, changed her, rocked her and put on the lullaby mobile that she usually liked. Rosie wailed through it all. Finally she realized the problem when she thought Rosie might be too hot – a tiny pin that had held together the folded garment in the store, caught up in the weave of the fabric, and it probably poked Rosie over and over. The onesie and the horrid pin removed, Rosie quickly calmed, and fell asleep curled on Mary's chest in a matter of minutes.
She wanted to burn down the baby store. And then she thought, what kind of mother couldn't figure that out?
She can look around the park and see the good mothers, who are nothing like her. They're smiling and laughing, joyful at holding their babies. They talk about hand-grinding baby food and the delight of bath time. They have never wanted to escape and chase monsters in the streets. You're the monster, she thinks, and when she considers what she's done in her life, she has to agree. She thinks it all the time now, that only a monster wouldn't love Rosie.
She can't let everyone see, can't let them realize that she's an unnatural, awful mother. John would hate her again, he'd leave, and everything they had been through over the last year would have been for nothing. She might as well have pitched herself into the Thames, hemorrhaged out in her hospital bed. (Those aren't good thoughts, she knows they're not.) So she keeps smiling, even though the effort hurts, even though the smile falls whenever John's back is turned. He fell in love with the Mary who smiled, and that's the one he'll stay with, she reminds herself.
Of course, there are other smiles to make, as the weeks go on and Rosie incrementally grows. She smiles for Molly Hooper, who sensibly brings them takeaways (and hates her a little, because Molly would probably be a good mother, all smiles and cheer and hand-knit blankets). She smiles for Mrs. Hudson and she almost means it, because she seems to know that what Mary needs at the moment is respite – a bath, a nap, a cuppa while someone else holds the baby.
She smiles for Sherlock, because he could figure it out, and would probably tell John everything because it proves she isn't really good, because if she was good she would be happy. (There's a bit of a trick to it, she has to make sure the smile crinkles her eyes; Sherlock does the bare minimum with emotions.) It seems like less work when Sherlock is there though, she is more than Rosie's mum for a bit when she helps with a case, some of the fog in her mind clears and she feels a brightness pass through her. She's not worthless when she helps solve a mystery, and it's such a contrast from every other hour.
Maybe she really ought to be terrible, she muses. John could leave and take the baby with him. She wouldn't have to worry about ruining Rosie's life and she could just disappear. No one would care, they would all slot in where she used to be, and take better care of the baby than she ever could.
She knows what this is, she realizes one night, when she is beyond exhausted and can't sleep, when she realizes that she has barely tasted food in the past week, she's only eating it so that Rosie doesn't go hungry. She's a nurse, she's not an idiot. She knows the weight sitting on her chest and the reason she (sometimes) wishes the baby didn't exist but she can't stop lying awake listening to the monitor in case something goes wrong. The nurse at the obstetrician's office handed her a questionnaire, asking about her mood and her sleep and her appetite, and Mary knows what the results should look like. She lied on the questionnaire though, doesn't trust a thing to go into the NHS computers, not with Sherlock's brother out there. She also loathes the idea of admitting that this has broken her, that she spent years being clever and vicious (then she became Mary, clever and kind) and one seven pound, six ounce baby has rendered her useless.
The next morning she is sitting in the park, Rosie in her pram. There are other parents there, she's even met one or two of them before, but she can't bring herself to talk to them, to actually chat about babies and how cute and sweet and how she can barely drag herself out of bed and she's sure that her husband doesn't love her anymore and never should have in the first place -
"Well, look who it is." Mary blinks, squinting in the sunlight at the silhouette before her. Greg Lestrade is standing over her, white teeth and silver hair gleaming at her. She is so tired and her responses are so slow that it takes her a moment to realize that her smile isn't up, and when she finally remembers, her cheeks hurt and the sinking feeling that she is caught is almost overwhelming.
Greg settles himself beside her on the bench, making small talk about why he's in the area (she misses the reason why while she's chiding herself for not having a smile for him, some kind of appointment) and he notes that Sherlock and John had just helped him with a case.
"My sister, she had some trouble when my nephew was born," He says warmly, leaning over to fuss a bit with Rosamund's blanket, who eyes Lestrade and makes a little noise at him. "Happens a fair amount, I think. She needed to talk to someone, saw a doctor too."
"Did she?" Mary says softly. She can't imagine admitting this, letting the numbers in the computers and files admit that she can't be a good mother, that she's failed the baby before she can even sit up properly.
"She did. Nephew's eleven years old now. Just delightful. Everything's a fart joke."
Mary actually laughs at that, the sound is short and sharp and foreign, but there's something familiar in it, just at the edge of her memory of who she is supposed to be.
"Maybe," she says, the words that might let anyone see how awful she is burning her throat. "I do have to take her to the pediatrician tomorrow. They always ask."
Lestrade nods. "I'm sure John would go with you, if you asked. Or anyone else you might want."
The thought makes her shudder, that anyone would see she is a terrible mother, that she doesn't deserve to have a daughter. John has forgiven so much and she doesn't know if she can ask for one more sin to be wiped away, but if she has to say the words herself, she's not sure what will happen.
"He would," Mary says softly, a little more conviction in her voice. John will protect Rosamund at any cost, Mary deserves nothing but he will help her if it will help Rosamund.
Lestrade walks her the rest of the way home, and she promises that she'll be fine for now. She feeds and changes Rosie, the actions nearly automatic at this point. Rosie coos and grunts softly, and Mary tries to answer, even as she thinks that she's probably telling Rosie the wrong thing. She settles into the rocking chair and lulls Rosie to sleep, and everything is peaceful for a moment. The baby's weight in her arms is always a surprising thing, she's grown so much and yet is still so vulnerable. Mary doesn't know how she could ever have thought she could keep her safe.
Run, she thinks. Rosie will sleep till John gets home, she can pack a bag in five minutes, just like old times. She never has to be seen again. The idea cycles over and over, that they don't need her, that they'll be better off if she and her past are out of their lives. Even if she wasn't feeling so wretched that might still be true.
However, John returns sooner than she expects, or maybe she's been sitting longer than she thinks. Maybe Greg called him, she realizes, and wonders why she didn't realize that he would. He's a copper and no fool, regardless of what Sherlock might say.
"So tomorrow," he says softly, his voice gentle in the dim room to avoid waking Rosie. "We'll see Doctor Singh together, yeah?"
"Yes." Mary thinks she should be crying, but she can't find it. There's no relief in John seeing her like this. "I – I wouldn't do anything to hurt her, John, I wouldn't, but I'm so...I'm so..." She can't complete the thought, and she starts trembling so badly that John takes the baby, lays her gently in the crib.
"You're her mum," John says firmly. "You're my Mary. We'll work it out, you and I."
(It's a lie, her thoughts whisper, as she crumples into his arms, but she tries to listen to his voice instead.)