Coping with the heartache of His Last Vow. This will be a three-parter, I think, delving into the relationship between Sherlock, John, and Mary in the most emotional moments of the final episode of Season 3. It won't be pretty, but there's so much emotional baggage between all three of them in this episode that I can't just let it go unexplored. And what better way than through a piece of writing, right?
This is your last warning: This piece contains major spoilers for Sherlock Season 3. Proceed with caution.
The Leaving
His shirts were already creased.
The suitcase was tucked under the lip of the big bed. He swept it out with one hand and set it carefully on the bedspread, and then he began to fold his shirts carefully into its depths. He was finding it difficult to think, difficult to reason—part of him was watching his own hands fold a green button-down and tuck the sleeves in and place it on top of a solid blue jumper and wondering why his hands were working so quickly and efficiently without his consent. The rest of him was blank, numb, and did not care what his hands were doing.
When he turned to the dresser, he heard footsteps behind him and closed his eyes, inhaled through his nose, and began to pull neatly folded jeans from the bottom drawer.
When he turned to face the door he did not look at Mary—she stood in the frame, leaning against it with her hands clasped in front of her. He could feel her eyes on him, but his left hand was starting to shake and he clenched it tightly and went to the closet.
"John," she whispered. "John..."
He cocked his head sharply at the sound of her voice, and though it had been involuntary she fell silent as if struck. It was extraordinarily difficult to keep his eyes from finding her face as he tucked a pair of slacks and two jumpers into his suitcase; he could see her wiping surreptitiously at her cheeks as he bent to grab a pair of dress shoes from the closet floor.
His heart began to hurt.
But his head was still blank, and he was grateful for once that he was not extraordinarily clever, that he did not have the mental prowess to push through barriers that had flung themselves high and strong around him. He did not know who he would be if he were extraordinarily clever, but he knew that he would do and say things he might regret, and he did not want to regret anything else tonight.
He packed silently, methodically, and she stayed in the doorway, watching him. When he had gone to the washroom and grabbed his toothbrush and a razor and a few other odds and ends he thought he might need, he looked at his reflection in the mirror and did not recognize himself. The man staring back at him looked old and distant, and the eyes were dark and dead. He touched his cheek lightly with one hand and was surprised to find that the corpse in the mirror did the same.
John Watson, he thought. John Hamish Watson.
It was an unfamiliar name, and he left it hanging in the air and went back out to the bedroom. Mary was still at the door. Mary Elizabeth Watson. Mary. Or Alice. Amanda. Abigail. A.G.R.A. He did not know, and he did not care. There was a hard, rectangular bulge in his right pocket, and one edge of the thumb drive dug into his hip as he zipped up the suitcase and swung it off the bed. He ignored it—it was far too important to think of now.
The suitcase was far too light and small for an extended time away, but he could come back for the rest when she was away at the office.
He didn't know how long he would be gone. Or if he was ever coming back.
He looked around for his coat, and she cleared her throat softly. She held it in her hands, and his eyes flicked involuntarily to her face and then away—she was looking at him as she had in Baker Street, with that cool, clear detachment that could not quite hide her terror and grief. He hated that look. Hated that she was trying to be strong, hated that she was not sobbing and begging his forgiveness, hated that she was not trying to stop him from leaving.
He realized that she was waiting for him to take the jacket, and so he cleared his throat too and approached her, his heart pulsing bitterly in his chest. He could still smell traces of her perfume, and it disgusted him.
Sherlock had smelled like that when he'd been lying there with a bullet hole in his chest. He didn't think he'd ever be able to smell it again without remembering the acrid stench of blood on his hands. On her hands.
He took the jacket without looking at her. He could not bear to see that cold deadness in her eyes, because he knew it reflected his own and he never wanted to look at his own face again. She followed him out to the front room and waited in the short hallway as he rummaged in the kitchen for an apple. He was not hungry—indeed, he didn't think he'd ever be hungry again—but he wanted to maintain some semblance of normalcy, and food was normal.
He tucked the apple into his pocket. The car keys hung on a peg next to the stovetop, and he glanced at them but did not take them. He would take a taxi; he did not trust himself to drive.
And besides, Mary would need the car.
He set the suitcase down on the kitchen floor and shrugged his Haversack on with his back to her. He had left his black coat slung over the sofa, and he left it there now. The Haversack was a comfortable weight on his shoulders, and it felt a bit like stepping back into a previous life.
Any previous life was better than the one he was living now.
He lifted the suitcase again and went to the door. He did not let his footsteps falter, but his heart stuttered as he reached for the doorknob, and his hand wavered. Sentiment. Human error.
"Shut up," he said, and Mary shifted behind him.
"Sorry?"
"Not…not you." His voice was stiff and cracked, and he cleared his throat. "Not you."
But he could not think of Sherlock now, wrapped up in hospital sheets with tubes and IVs and morphine, any easier than he could think of his wife standing behind him in the dark hallway. He could not think of anyone, not even himself. He was standing outside himself, and he was no one at all.
His gloves were on the side-table, and he took them and pulled them on slowly, unsure why he was stalling, not sure he was stalling. Then he picked up the suitcase again and took the handle. It turned slowly under his touch, and he pulled it open and let the cold night air leak onto his face and neck.
"Scarf," he said, and turned to find it, but Mary was picking it up off one of the bar stools and holding it out to him, her cheeks wet with tears but her clear blue eyes cool and set. He took it and slung it around his neck with his free hand, wishing it did not remind him of Sherlock, wishing he had left without it. He looked down at it hanging awkwardly against the sleek black fabric of the Haversack and thought poetically that his clothes were just as confused about his identity as he was.
He did not know if she would call him back, and he did not know if he wanted her to or not. But the door was open and he was leaving, and he did not hear her voice as he stepped out onto the front stoop and the chill leaked into his body and ruffled his hair.
The old Mary might have called him back. The old Mary of reading on the couch and bare feet and laughter and warmth and wedded bloody domestic bliss would have called him back, and he would have gone. The new Mary, the cold, unfamiliar, murdering Mary, would not try to hold him back again.
What did it say about him that if she had, he might have turned and walked back into the house and taken her in his arms without a second thought?
But she did not speak, and he reached behind him and grasped the doorknob. He did not want to look at her again, but he could not help himself; his eyes sought hers even as he closed the door behind him. Her mouth opened, then, and the cold detachment in the lines of her face and eyes cracked and broke, but before she could do more than take a heaving breath and open her mouth he closed the door.
He could not bear it if she said his name.
Because even though he hated her strength and he hated her coldness, though he hated that she had never apologized, hated that he hadn't needed her to, hated that was letting him walk away, hated her breaking down and her weakness there, there at the very end; though he hated that she was carrying his child and had shot Sherlock and confined him to the suburbs and had lied, lied, lied..
The thing he hated most was how much he loved her.
John never caught a break in this episode...it was just one heartache after another. He has so many emotional barriers up in this episode, and I just wanted to delve into his psyche a little bit. I hope I did all right.
But you can let me know whether I did or not by leaving a review! The other two parts (one from Sherlock's POV, the other from Mary's), will be up shortly.
