Well, this just sort of…happened.
Most of the time, John is glad he threw that memory stick into the fire, happy that he got to see Mary's dangerous past curling and blackening beyond all recognition. As though it were a ritual sacrifice necessary to dispel a curse, since he did it, she seems happier, calmer. And he, too, is happier; he can look at his beautiful, caring, witty, perfect wife without thoughts of murder, secrets and lies contaminating his thoughts, forcing his eyes away, turning his back on her. Mary Watson, the woman he fell in love with unconditionally, without a thought towards her past, everything focused on their future.
But some nights, something awakens him. His eyes automatically dart down to Mary's sleeping face, and a revulsion he's usually so careful to keep under wraps surfaces, filling his head with those black, traitorous thoughts he thought had died with her previous identity. He wants the truth, despite the fact that the truth is nothing but smoke and ashes now, irretrievable and formless. What's past is past.
It's the not knowing that kills him. He hates surprises, always has. He recalls sneaking downstairs at dawn on Christmas Day as a child to thoroughly poke and prod and examine each prettily-wrapped gift, hating to not know what was concealed beneath the paper, not wanting a disappointment, or even an unexpected rush of joy, he had to be prepared for either. Mary is like that, although she hides something far more dangerous than just a dull pair of pajamas. Beneath her beautiful, concealing exterior is an identity. He is sleeping beside a stranger.
Sitting beside her in the silence of their room, he looks at her hand, loosely and peaceably curled on the pillow, and imagines those gentle fingers wrapped around a pistol. That light, dreaming smile on her face, he imagines it twisted into something dark, trained on a dying man. He hears her voice, stripped of warmth and care, hears it screaming terrible, terrible things and, like a child afraid of the monster beneath his bed, he runs from her, to sit in the living room until daybreak.
What starts as an isolated incident soon spirals into a pattern, repeated unfalteringly almost every night. It begins to show in his face; every sleepless night tallied as another shadow beneath his eyes, or another pained line on his brow. Mary asks, loving and concerned as always, but he can't help but picture her with a gun held to his head, and he refrains from telling her the truth. A bad dream, he tells her each time, his tone light to dispel her fear. But he cannot bring himself to kiss her, the stranger in front of him.
What starts as an incoherent, blindly terrified feeling becomes a mantra, the question forever repeating, dogging his every waking hour, every time he glances at her face, every time she speaks, every word a lie. As he lays awake at night, the question is there in her every shift and breath and murmur and sigh.
Mary, who were you?
Not entirely sure how I feel about this, but the plotbunny has been gnawing away at me since I last rewatched Series 3 - a good few weeks ago, and believe me, that's a long time for a plotbunny to be gnawing. Please review!