To Yield With A Grace To Reason
Author's Note: This is inspired by a specific post on Tumblr, a post-Reichenbach fic but it's not necessarily a reunion fic. There's a lot of angst, just to forewarn xD
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
-Robert Frost
For three years, nothing remotely joyous had happened to John Watson. A dark shadow seemed to have blanketed his world. It was an unnerving, sickening darkness that only brought nightmares and fears of waking.
Such was life after Sherlock. But this was also life before Mary.
Mary was not, John could not help but admit, Sherlock, in any sense. The grace and beauty she possessed was incomparable to Sherlock's. Mary was extraordinarily ordinary, where Sherlock was just extraordinary. But John needed Mary. She shed a fraction of light onto his dismal world. She became the only one who could make him forget.
For the first time in those years, John truly felt happy. Alive. Purposed. And he knew, grimly, he didn't have Sherlock to thank for any of that. Only Mary had brought that to him. For him.
John was the one who proposed to her, desperate to cement the happiness before it rushed away as so many of his good feelings had. Mary had been beyond herself with glee, positively glowing, her face a radiant sun. It was that moment that John knew she was his radiant sun. His light in a darkened room. His.
Just as Sherlock had once been his.
It would've hurt less if a sword plunged into his stomach when John thought of Sherlock. Especially now. He had to forcibly tell himself Sherlock was dead. That he did not love him. That Sherlock had not once dazzled John with light as Mary did now.
The thoughts were always lies.
But he continued to relay them in his mind. He couldn't tread places his path had already crossed. What had happened, had happened. Sherlock had been gone for years, and had done nothing for John.
John, with help from Mary, could manage for at least brief moments without thinking of his dead best friend (or was he more than just a 'best friend? Another sword plunged his stomach when John thought of it). But in the days leading up to the celebration of their engagement, it was difficult to stop the nightmares of Sherlock falling. Always falling, with John forced to watch and unable to stop him.
John would wake up from this nightmares in a cold sweat, shaking violently and breathing heavily. Mary was beside him in each instance, and when John woke, she would gently take his hand, and kiss each of his cheeks with soft, perfect lips.
"Everything's fine, John. It was just a dream," she murmured soothingly.
Oh, how John wanted to believe the lies Mary told each night. How he wished everything was fine and the nightmares were just nightmares. But again he forced himself to accept the lies. Because the truths were unbearable.
The day of the engagement party started as roughly as any other day. Another vicious nightmare of Sherlock falling. Mary's soft kisses. And when the flat suddenly became alive with the few guests John had been comfortable enough to allow, he tried to smile. But the tension made his cheeks burn, the strain on his skin like heated glass ready to break.
Mary gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and it was only then that John could start to relax. He could finally speak to those who, aside from Mary, attempted to give him solstice after Sherlock's death. Lestrade, whose tired eyes spoke volumes of what he had been through, gave John a gentle clap on the back as a congratulations. John's sister Harry gave him as confident a smile as she seemed able. Mrs. Hudson and Molly gave him comforting hugs, without a mention of them being happy about the engagement.
John wondered if any of them were really happy about it.
It would be better, once they were married. Once they were married, it would all go away. John would have Mary. He would have permanent light because of her. He would finally fully remove the dark blanket. Everything would be as it was supposed to be.
But of course, those were lies, too.
John was just finishing a short, rather pathetic speech on Mary's behalf as the night dwindled down to its last hours, saying things he knew Mary already knew – that she had changed his life, and brought the light back to him (and though it was cliché, Mary still beamed her radiant-as-the-sun smile at him and kissed him right on the lips), when the door of the flat creaked open. At once every pair of eyes in the room trained their attention on the door, which slowly swung all the way open.
John only saw the dusty, slightly torn coat before his knees buckled. At once Mary grabbed John's arm tightly to keep him standing. If it weren't for her, John felt confident he would be on the floor.
With good reason, of course. More people in the room started to recognize the figure in the doorway, letting out small gasps of disbelief. Mrs. Hudson even let out a small, quiet yelp.
Gray eyes. Chocolate curls that hung over them. A thin, tall body.
"John." And there was the voice that was so low, it traveled across the silence.
John was convinced this was another nightmare. He knew that Mary would gently bring him back at any moment. He would blink open his eyes, sweating and shaking, and find himself in his bed. Any moment.
Because Sherlock could not be standing in front of him.
John groped for Mary's arm, and she held him steady. Her deep brown eyes were round with shock and horror, but she did not release John or even sway. She wasn't going to let him fall. Mary was John's lifeline, his stability, the only thing that held him firmly to the floor.
Why wasn't he awake yet? Why was Mary letting him continue to dream? Maybe she isn't in bed. Maybe she can't wake me. Maybe –
"John, I am so sorry." Sherlock's broken voice sent a stabbing pain down John's spine, a pain so real John had to accept he wasn't asleep.
But it was like he was in a dream trance, because words continued to fail him. Sherlock would obviously not expect him to speak. He was smart enough, John knew, to realize how much shock John would be in when he returned.
So instead Sherlock used John's silence to survey the people in the room, his eyes coming to rest on Mary. He narrowed his eyes at the hands that held onto John's arm.
A terrible look crossed Sherlock's face. One of three plus years of hidden strain. Pain. Concern. And probably, most prominently, though John could only guess, love.
"You're marrying her." It was not a question. "The ring on her finger. You're marrying her."
Still John could say nothing, his tongue a swollen weight in his mouth, refusing to form words.
"I-I died for you," Sherlock stuttered. John had never heard Sherlock stutter. Or sound so broken. "I died for you. Took that fall. To protect you. All for you. But….but you're marrying her. None of that – those things we did together – they didn't matter. It hadn't mattered. It never mattered, did it?"
Icy talons took hold of John's chest, and he swayed slightly on the spot. He wanted to speak, to tell three years of stolen words to the man he perceived to be dead. But no words came.
"You're marrying her," Sherlock said again, his words riddled with choking pain.
"Yes," John finally forced out of his mouth. "Because you were dead."
Sherlock flinched at the last four words, but kept his gaze trained on John. John was horrified to see the tears in the consulting detective's eyes. Actual tears, threatening to spill over at any moment. But they stayed pooling around his eyelids – Sherlock had fine control over them.
"If you're marrying her, John….just answer me one thing. Just one thing, and….and we can forget," Sherlock murmured, his body rippling with pain, and he clenched his fists. "Did….Did you ever love me?"
Another sword, only this time aimed straight at his chest. John felt as though he was bleeding, dying from the inside out, every follicle and pore opening and releasing the life from him. All at one question. Such a simple question.
Mary's hand maintained a vice-like grip on John's hand, and, absently, his fingers traced her fingers, lingering at her engagement ring. A diamond on a jewel.
This was who he had. All he had. Mary. His light, his sun, his stability. Sherlock could not take her away. Could not barge into his life after three years and take her away with one question. No matter what John had ever felt towards Sherlock, it had to go. John could not let Mary leave as Sherlock had. No amount of love he may have had could tear Mary away from him.
John held Sherlock's gaze, still gripping Mary's hand tightly. With this gaze, Sherlock's face seemed to drop, as if deducing John's answer.
It was not an answer Sherlock was going to like.
But John responded still, with one word. A word that tore at his throat as he pressed it out. The biggest lie of his life.
"No."
And with the one, crushing word, Sherlock forgot to control his tears.