I've had this floating about since TAB, thought I ought to put it up!
"This room is full of brides,"
"Tending to our homes, our children,"
"The women, I, we, have lied to, betrayed, and we have ignored and disparaged"
-The Abominable Bride
1895 was a fairly quiet year in England. A few plays, births and deaths that would be remembered, but nothing overly significant to the layman. Dig a little deeper and one would find wars were being planned, parts of empires threatening to think for themselves, and an underground movement that would soon change the lives of millions of people. Behind every successful man is a woman making sure he turns up in the right place on the right day; whether it be his wife, or his housekeeper. Making sure he looks suitable, and has everything he needs. She works silently and diligently, knowing that her male charge takes all this for granted. When your only two options in life are subjugation or alienation, it would not be remiss to think that a little unfair.
She looked so beautiful in the candlelight of the church, he saw her so often as another persona he'd almost forgotten just how stunning she was in her own right: thin lipped and indomitable, every bit the warrior her cause needed. Yet again John had missed the point, it wasn't that he hadn't noticed Hooper was a woman, but that he didn't want to draw attention to it. Not only was she the best pathologist he'd ever worked with, but he didn't trust his mouth not to run away with itself. She was a force to be reckoned with when she chose to be, and he did not doubt she would put him in his place for any ill-comment, meant deliberately or otherwise.
Sherlock woke up in hospital with just Mycroft for company. There was something he couldn't quite grasp, it was on the tip of his tongue, but the information he sought was not forthcoming. He could sense it, but not reach it, maybe he needed to take a little more. He replayed the scene, a roomful of brides, they were all brides, why couldn't he reconcile with this? His train of thought was broken by his brother's strange question:
"Was one of these brides yours?" There was an almost hopeful tone to Mycroft's enquiry, no mocking or displeasure in his voice.
"I'm not married" Sherlock replied, confused. Mycroft blinked twice, sent a text and sighed heavily.
"Are you sure about that?" He asked, with the air of a man who had asked the same question many times but always wanting a different answer to the one he knew he'd receive.
"You're not supposed to take married to my job literally Mycroft." Sherlock drawled before drifting back out of consciousness. Mycroft shook his head, took one last look at his brother's peaceful face and departed the room, off to update the only other person who knew of his condition.
"Seriously? That's it. There's nothing else that can be done. We're going to have to tell him," Molly shouted, exasperated, gesticulating wildly to try and dispel some of her pent up frustration.
"You are aware that telling him could kill him?" Mycroft reminded flatly, trying his best not to flinch as the diminutive pathologist turned around to face him, eyes ablaze.
"I am a doctor, Mycroft, I know, but I think he needs to know now, this has gone on long enough. The question, is who do we tell first?" She paced, her words coming quickly and not quite as coherently as she would have liked. After half an hour of ranting, Molly had calmed down, and been talked into giving the situation 24 hours to develop before taking any drastic action. The pair exited her office and made their way up to the private room Sherlock was being housed in until he stabilised and could be moved to another secure facility.
Sherlock was awake when they entered his room, a little groggy and unsure, but that wasn't unusual for him after an overdose. She asked him a series of questions that were designed for this situation, and was pleasantly surprised by the answers he gave. She had more luck then Mycroft at extracting some usable information, and for some of the questions he was not entirely off the mark, leaving them was curious as to where it may lead. They'd been through this enough times to know the patterns of behaviour usually exhibited, and this wasn't it.
John and Mary were waiting outside as no one was being granted admission to the room without Mycroft's express permission. The eldest Holmes gave the Watson's a brief summation of what had happened in their absence, told the agent on the door to let the pair in any time, and promptly left.
Molly, Mary and John returned the next day around lunchtime to check on Sherlock, hoping that there would be improvement in his physical and mental states.
"Peggy! Why am I here? And who are they?" Sherlock asked as soon as they'd entered the room, his tone of voice betraying some level of distress. If Molly was surprised by the use of another name, she didn't show it, simply picking up his notes and asking him a very basic question:
"Do you know what year we're in?" She tried to keep for voice as steady as possible,
"2008" He replied, looking at her like she'd just grown another head. Molly's expression softened a little, there was some hope after all.
"You OD'd again," She said quietly, answering his earlier question, and choosing not to correct his wrong year.
"But...but I've been clean for years, I… I don't understand?" Sherlock stuttered somewhat uncharacteristically, clearly unable to understand why he'd be anywhere near drugs at this point in his life. Molly tried to steer the conversation away from the drugs, to calm him a little, and re-introduced the Watsons.
"This is John and Mary Watson, they found you and rang for an ambulance, your brother intercepted," She explained, realising milliseconds after saying it that mentioning Mycroft wasn't her smartest move.
"You can't let Myke take me away again, not like last time. Peggy!" He panicked, the heart monitor beeping more quickly than any of them would have liked.
"Shhhh, I won't. He's not told your parents yet," She soothed, her own heartbeat slowing a little as his shoulders sagged in relief. "We'll be back to check on you tomorrow," She continued, putting the notes away, and shuffling a very confused John and a thoughtful Mary outside. As planned, John and Mary were intercepted by Mycroft allowing her to escape to the sanctuary of her office, and allow herself to decompress without them asking questions she couldn't answer but Mycroft could deflect.
That evening Mary and John made the trek back to Bart's after the surgery had closed, intrigued as to whether this afternoon's episode would be repeated, and if they could get any more information about this alternate persona he seemed to exhibit. It turned out, however, that this visit was far less eventful, with no mention of anything peculiar having happened earlier. Not pleased with Sherlock's flippant attitude to his overdose, John took the opportunity to rant at his friend for nearly twenty minutes before Molly came in, rolled her eyes and fussed over the IV and his notes for a while, letting John get his concerned rage out of his system.
"Were you attempting to kill yourself this time?" She asked bluntly, after John had finished.
Sherlock merely furrowed his eyebrows and looked across to Mary, sat quietly in the corner, a calculating look on her face.
"What makes you ask that?" He replied, trying to deduce her reasoning.
"I've read your notes genius, these are not unique circumstances," Molly patronised, a knowing smile on her face. Sherlock, however, was not buying it, Molly's behaviour, John's initial tentativeness and Mary's face, coupled with Mycroft's odd questioning yesterday, meant something was afoot.
"What are you not telling me? OUT. ALL OF YOU." He barked, shutting his eyes and delving into his mind palace.
A week passed and there was no repeat of the Peggy incident. John and Mary visited regularly, but only ever with Molly or Mycroft, the two would not be in the same room in public. They made no pains to hide that they met in Molly's office daily, but never invited the other two, and always came out looking a little off. John caught Mycroft comforting Molly at one point, and nearly sent himself to be tested for hallucinogenic substances. Sherlock spent most of his recovery asleep or brooding over this supposed withheld knowledge that neither Mycroft nor Molly would breathe a word about. Once he was back at Baker Street, he would be visited daily by Molly, Mary and John, one in the morning, another in the afternoon and the last in the evening. The order didn't have any regularity to it, as it depended on their jobs, but it made sure that he was eating and taking the appropriate medications to help his body recover.
Two weeks in and he was almost off the methadone, as per his previous detoxes. Molly was the first to visit that morning, after Mycroft had visited the night before and indicated that something was off with his brother. She arrived around 10 am, fully prepared to make breakfast for them both and eat her own while she was ignored, however, all thoughts of any food went out of her head as soon as she entered the flat and heard the frantic movement coming from upstairs. Cautiously she climbed the stairs, trying to glean as much information before she went in as possible. The doctor that she had been seeing with Mycroft agreed that if he was to make a full recovery then now was likely, and she needed to be there for that moment. She pushed the door ajar and peered around the corner, where she saw Sherlock dressed in pyjamas and a dressing gown (thankfully not just a sheet) and searching for something as if his life depended on it.
"What are you looking for?" She asked
"That's the problem, I'm not sure." He replied, causing alarm bells to ring in Molly's head. "My mind palace is in total disarray, there's something missing and I can't quite work out what it is. No doubt you know my brother visited last night, which is why you're here this morning. What do you know that I don't? Why won't you tell me? I know you're both hiding something from me? Oh good God Molly, don't tell me you've shacked up with him of all people?"
"I know a lot that you don't, like how the solar system works,"
"Now is not the time to deflect Hooper," He blinked, and fell down onto the sofa clutching his head, "Hooper, you were there, but dressed as a man, and then in the room full of brides, making you a bride… You married Mycroft?!"
Molly did her best not to giggle or wince, her two go to options when it came to the elder Holmes, and remain as blank as possible. He may be on the wrong track, but he was headed in the right direction. Thankfully, he was too caught up in his train of thought to take full deductive notice of her.
"No, he'd never marry, besides, he's too much of a fatty for you. What is it? How can you have been engaged to Tom if you were already married? You never had any intention of going through with it- he was gay? Why do so many of your dates end up gay? You need to keep up the appearance of being single despite being married, but why? What does your husband say? Does he encourage it? Did he leave? Did you actually marry Mycroft?"
Molly was almost in tears by the end of his little logic rant, she knew he was trying to make sense of muddled information, but that didn't mean it hurt any less. As if summoned, the man in question appeared through the door, he surveyed the room briefly, before sighing and moving towards the kitchen.
"Ah. I think we should sit down, I'll make tea. Molly, best you make some breakfast, this could take some time." Mycroft said, his gentle tone putting Sherlock on edge. He studied the two as they went about their domestic duties in a surprisingly synchronous fashion. They'd spent far more time together than he'd deduced in the past, he knew Molly was the main enabler of his brother's cake habit, but didn't realise the connection between the pathologist and the ice man was quite so… friendly. It made his head hurt to try and reconcile this image ahead of him with what he usually associated with the two. A strong, bittersweet smelling beverage was placed next to him, an herbal tea associated with helping with headaches and shock in some cultures.
"I believe you have been making progress," The eldest Holmes remarked,
"A little. He's come to the conclusion that we're married," Molly smiled weakly, trying to see the humour in her words. Mycroft's eyebrows rose marginally, not quite there, but an interesting notion nonetheless. They sat and drank their tea in silence, Sherlock watching the pair on his sofa, Mycroft doing his best impression of staring into space, and Molly staring at the floor in apparent fascination. The silence was neither awkward nor comfortable, simply existing as mutually beneficial to all parties at this time. Once the tea was finished, and a small breakfast eaten, Molly took three small objects from a box in her handbag.
"You kept your husband's ring?" Sherlock asked quietly, his brow furrowed in confusion,
Molly nodded, putting on both her engagement ring and wedding ring with palpable relief. It had been a long time since she was able to wear them anywhere but the safety of her bedroom. She put the third ring on the chain she had around her neck, hiding it under her hideous jumper of the day.
"He died?" Sherlock asked shortly, his inability to deduce what had happened irritating him.
"He… left." She replied, hesitant, trying to make sure her choice of wording was apt.
"He left but you never divorced." Sherlock stated, staring at her left hand as if it were the most peculiar thing in the universe, and may catch fire at any second. Molly sighed,
"He said he'd come back." She said softly, fresh tears falling down her face. In a move that made Sherlock nearly fall out of his chair, Mycroft put his arm around her to comfort her. The whole scene made him extremely uncomfortable, and not only because Mycroft was being a human, which perturbed him further. After a few minutes Molly excused herself from the brothers to splash her face and calm down a little.
"Tell me more about the brides," Mycroft stated, curious about the drug addled hallucination, and what Sherlock's subconscious was trying to tell him.
"They were suffragettes, still underground. One of them shot herself in the head and was thought to have survived, I wanted to know whether she could have. There were many of them, a room full of brides, not wives or mothers. Trophies to be paraded, or dowries to be squandered, living as property and not people. They would tend to our homes, our children. They were the women I, we, have lied to, betrayed, ignored and disparaged" Sherlock spoke as if in a trance, regurgitating his words from the drug induced hallucination.
"Our children?" Prompted Mycroft, he needed to cover the delicate ground while Molly was out of the room.
"I've never had children Mycroft; I doubt I ever will. It is most likely a metaphor," Sherlock scoffed, the words feeling strange in his mouth, the whole situation not adding up.
"But for what brother-mine?"
"I wish I knew. My mind palace is disjointed; parts are entirely inaccessible. There is something not quite right about this, and I can't put my finger on it," Sherlock vented, exasperated by the whole situation.
A loud beeping from Molly's handbag brought them all back down to Earth as she ran out of the bathroom, tripped over her own feet and landed in a heap by the sofa. She groaned and in the process of grabbing her phone, knocked her bag over, tipping some of the contents onto the floor, and before she could scrape them into her bag, Sherlock had picked up one of the photos she carried around with her. It was battered from having been carried around for so long, despite having been re-laminated numerous times. The picture was of a couple on their wedding day, a young woman in a 1950s style dress, next to a man much taller than herself, with curly dark hair and a broad smile on his face in a full morning suit complete with top hat. They made quite a handsome couple, evidently very in love, unaware of the photo being taken. It had been a gift, written underneath in faded marker was the words: Peggy and Liam, with love, G. Sherlock stared at the photo for some time, he recognised it but couldn't say from where, or who the people in the photo were. He made the deductive leap that something this sentimental could only be Molly's own wedding photo, but it clashed with the use of the name Peggy.
"You stopped being called Peggy the day your husband left, but he wasn't the only one who called you by that. You re-invented yourself with a new contraction of your hated given name." He muttered, the deduction slow and difficult, like walking through knee-high mud in slippers.
"Anyway, it's time you took this and I went to work," Molly announced with forced cheerfulness, handing Sherlock two tablets and snatching the photo away, before running out the door.
Mycroft left shortly after, having supervised the pill taking, and after John had been to give him the next dose, Sherlock promptly fell asleep in his chair. He awoke several hours later with a splitting headache and confusion at the state of his surroundings, he must live here, although he didn't remember it to be his house, and there was no trace of his wife, or any of her things. He rang his brother to try and ascertain as to whether this was some sort of punishment for his recent overdose, although he wasn't sure why that had happened. He'd been clean for a long time, taking pride in his sobriety and looking forward to starting a family, why would he overdose when his wife was heavily pregnant? Maybe he'd been set up. It was then that he noticed he was not wearing his wedding ring. Twenty minutes and two anguished phone calls later, Mycroft walked up the stairs to 221B, intrigued as to which point in time they were today.
"Myke, where's Peggy? Where's my ring? Why am I here? Oh God she's left me, she's finally left me." He asked frantically, automatically reaching for one of the worst case scenarios his addled mind could find.
"She's done nothing of the sort," Mycroft replied irritably, "She'll be here soon," He continued a little softer, trying to keep in mind who his brother thought he was at this moment. The two had a cup of tea, another bittersweet brew for Sherlock and an English Breakfast for Mycroft, while they waited for Peggy to arrive. Surely enough, as they finished the last of their drinks there was a thud indicating the front door had been shut. A flustered and out of breath Molly burst in through the door, breathing a heavy sigh of relief at the calm sight in front of her.
"What's the problem?" She asked, hoping beyond hope that it was one they could deal with.
"I seem to have misplaced my wedding ring, and I have no idea why I'm here." Sherlock stated,
"We live here, and I have your ring," She answered with a smile, taking the band she'd secured on the chain yesterday and handing it to him.
"We don't live here, none of your things are here. I'm pretty sure I live here, why don't you?" He replied, words spewing out quickly as he tried to make sense of his life.
"You took on this place as somewhere you could meet clients, and stay when you were on a particularly difficult case. Eventually you moved yourself in here subconsciously. I sold our house and have a small flat of my own closer to work." She explained, or rather, used the explanation agreed upon should this ever happen. Sherlock looked at his brother for confirmation, but Mycroft simply shrugged, they hadn't planned too far into each eventuality, and without knowing how long this phase would last, there was no need to overcomplicate things. Unluckily for all of them, however John was on first watch this morning, and chose that moment to walk in the door.
"Liam, Dr Watson is overseeing your aftercare. Don't look at me like that, I can't take 6 weeks off work to look after you. He pops in most days." Molly hurried out another explanation, hoping that this wouldn't throw a spanner in the works.
"Thank you, have I met you before?" Sherlock asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion,
"We, err my wife and I, we found you after you overdosed." John answered, harking back to what was said in the hospital that strange morning, one that still had no explanations from Molly or Mycroft. Sherlock looked the man up and down, something about wasn't right, something about this whole scene wasn't right. There was a sharp pain in his head before he passed out, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the fireplace.
"Bloody marvellous. Help me put him to bed Mycroft." Molly sighed heavily, this was not what they needed.
