SHERLOCK:
AN EARLY PROMISE
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
(Note: Contains spoilers for 4X01, "The Six Thatchers". This story works off the basis that Mary prepared her DVD message to Sherlock before venturing on her trek around the world in the episode)
"Save John Watson...save him"
With those words, Mary Watson concluded the end of her vital video message.
As she sat at her laptop, thinking of a fitting conclusion to the video, she thought back to what she had just gone through and the mental notes she was making in her head to ensure not one footprint could match hers across any and all corners of the Earth.
She thought about the message she was about to send to perhaps the most vital man she had known, but realized all too quickly that wasn't in any way fair to the man in her life.
It wasn't fair to John.
The man who she had devoted the remaining days of her life to, and the man she vowed she would continue to live for, the father of her child, little Rosie.
That's why she had to write the letter, not just that, but also why she had to ensure the letter sent a different kind of message. An assurance of hope.
A perfect little lie.
Deception was an all too rational course of action, a secondary nature to her. There could be no other means with which to break his heart the way she had to. AJ was, like her, a professional.
Confident, smart, resourceful, and a dynamite shot. He could have his way with anyone; pick them off like a hunter would a swarm of geese. If Sherlock was right, and he seldom wasn't, AJ's perspective, a family member sold out by another, would be motivated to take apart the family of the one that betrayed him.
That meant protecting John and Rosie at all costs. To do that, she had to ensure as many days of her life were spent keeping their days free of stress, havoc, pain.
However, the only way that could be permitted would be to tell John that she would be coming home, that there were the best of days yet to come for all of them as a family. She knew John; he would not accept any other kind of reality.
So she had to offer him a continuation of that, before concentrating on the more logical one, the inevitable one.
The reality that her days were likely numbered.
Only one other person in her circle of friends could hope to understand the finite structure of the dangerous game being played. Only one person could hold John's reality together when she could no longer sustain it herself.
Marriage is heaven, but death parts all unions in the end. The ideal notion would be everyone going together, but so few are that selfish.
To lose family, from a friend, to a lover, to a wife, to a parent, is hell.
And if the day comes, when the day comes, where death comes over to deliver on an early promise, it is this grim reality that faced everyone she cared about.
It was a fitting challenge for Sherlock Holmes, a human being that aspired to be a God.
She considered bringing that up in the message, "You, a God, who art in heaven, shall cast out the fallen from hell"
It sounded a little too up its arse.
Something simple ought to suffice as her coda.
So be it.
"Go to Hell, Sherlock"