Author's Note:
I've decided to make my own Alternate Universe. In this Alternate Universe, the following things are true:
1. Mary Watson doesn't die.
2. John Watson doesn't even consider cheating on his wife.
3. Mary and Natasha are both Red Room survivors who've chosen different paths to redemption, but have found healing in each other's friendship regardless.
4. There is no SHIELD. Natasha works for the British Government instead. Mycroft no longer employs freelancers.
5. Sherlock and Natasha are in a relationship built on mutual understanding, acceptance, intrigue, and love of adventure.
6. Mycroft isn't lonely either. He met his partner, Naomi, several years back when he'd been consulting for the CIA on a freelance basis.
7. He also has more than a ketchup packet in his fridge.
8. Molly Hooper is still her sweet, intelligent, awesome self. Sherlock and Natasha find someone worthy to set her up with.
Thanks for reading!
Sherlock Holmes exited his bedroom on the 6th of January the way he did most mornings. Naked, yawning, wrapped in nothing but a cotton sheet.
Mrs. Hudson had already cleared a space on his kitchen table to leave the customary tea tray, with an added cupcake for his birthday. He let the sheet fall to his hips and ruffled his curls on his way over, stopping short when a light sniff alerted him to a familiar presence in his flat.
He narrowed his eyes, sniffed again.
Presences, plural.
Clair de Lune and Clive Christian No. 1, Mary Watson and Natasha Romanoff, respectively. He'd recognize those two scents anywhere. The sound of their hushed voices in conversation confirmed his deductions only a second later.
"Wasn't expecting visitors today." Sherlock snatched his cupcake from the tea tray, and swept over to his chair. He spared a glance for the two women seated side by side on his couch. They were a study in contrast, they way they were dressed. Mary all light in her navy blue blazer, cream shirt, and blonde curls. Natasha all dark in her black leather jacket, blood red lips, creamy skin. Both of them armed. Most wouldn't think so to look at them, that they came from the same place. Survivors of the Red Room.
Sherlock knew better.
"Morning, birthday boy." Natasha flashed a slow smile in greeting.
"We have a case for you," Mary informed him, taking a black folder from Natasha's hands.
Sherlock turned his attention to peeling the paper off his cupcake. "And here I thought you were here for my birthday," he quipped.
"One and the same." Mary rose from the couch to hand him the file, sitting in John's chair once Sherlock had taken it from her hand. She flashed him a smile of her own, all blue eyes and lifted brows. "Have a look."
Natasha walked over to perch on the arm of his chair, leaning over to kiss his cheek when he opened the file. "Triple murder," she explained, peeking over his bare shoulder to look at the photographs tucked within. "Got it from Bobbi Morse. My contact in the CIA, I introduced you a while back."
Sherlock turned his head ever so slightly to breathe in Natasha's scent, the only thing he'd allow himself for now. "The bodies?"
"Victims haven't been identified, despite all efforts to that effect," Mary said. "Bodies were transferred to St. Bart's, Molly's waiting for us whenever you're ready."
"She'll join us for drinks when she gets off work, too." Natasha peeked up at Mary. "It's not every week our schedules line up so neatly."
"Agreed." Mary took her phone out to check for calls and messages. "John's joining us, too. After he's closed the clinic."
Sherlock tuned them out, zipping through his deductions with lightning speed. His blue eyes darted over the grisly pictures even as his lips curled in a smile. He didn't notice Natasha stealing his cupcake until it was too late.
"That's mine," he said absently.
"It was." Natasha took a delicate bite. "You have no time to eat it, you still have to get dressed. Can't go to Bart's in a sheet."
"In a second." Sherlock flipped through the photographs, read the reports with a quick sweep of his eyes. A triple murder, a pattern, victims with nothing to their name save a bullet to the back of their head in close enough range that their faces had been obliterated. "Oh, it's Christmas," he breathed.
"No, but it is your birthday," Mary quipped. "Come on, I took a day off my husband's clinic and saddled Martha with Rosie for this. Off you pop."
Sherlock closed the file with a snap, turning his head to take a bite off his cupcake straight from Natasha's hand. She laughed, said something in Russian about pirates, and he winked at her as he stood. "You two behave while I change," he warned.
"Do we ever?" Natasha flashed him a cheeky smile, popping the last of the cake into her mouth. "Go."
Sherlock made quick work of getting dressed within the next few minutes. Black suit, black shirt. He threw his coat and scarf over the outfit, picking up his phone on his way out. He had three theories already, and every one of them made for a promising case. The game was on.
He barely spared a glance for Natasha and Mary when he stepped back out, tapping away on his phone instead. "There's no mention in any of the reports about their index fingers," he told them as they made their way downstairs.
He didn't have to look behind to know they'd exchanged a glance. Mary was the one to ask. "You think there's something significant about their index fingers?"
"Not just significant," Sherlock said in a low, dramatic voice. He stopped and turned when they'd reached the front door, meeting Mary's eyes to deliver his answer. "Vital." His eyes flicked over her shoulder to meet Natasha's. "I'm surprised neither one of you has picked up on it already. You're getting slow."
"All right, that's enough of that." Mary nudged him forward with a tut and a smile. "We can take a cab to Bart's and you can tell us just how vital a piece of information it is."
Molly was waiting for them in the morgue when they arrived, looking particularly sunny in a cherry-printed cardigan beneath her lab coat. She broke out in a bright smile as soon as they stepped in.
"Happy birthday," she said to Sherlock first. "I've got that bag of eyes I promised you last week."
"Can't take them with me," Sherlock answered without looking up from his phone. "Bring them by after your shift."
"You're missing something," Molly said in that prim little voice that told him he'd done something wrong. Sherlock looked up with a furrowed brow to figure out what it was, but it didn't take him more than a second.
"Bring them by after your shift, please," he corrected.
Molly smiled. "It's my pleasure." She turned her attention to Mary. "You didn't bring Rosie with you?"
"Never on cases, never to a morgue," Mary recited.
"But morgues are so homey and welcoming," Natasha chimed in much the same deadpan humor Sherlock had employed before. He eyed her with a subtle smile, pocketing his phone.
"I suppose they aren't all that pleasant," Molly agreed, guiding the trio over to the three occupied slabs. She gestured for Sherlock to unzip the first, then stuffed her hands in her lab coat pockets. "I've just gotten used to them."
Natasha and Mary stood with Molly while Sherlock inspected each corpse, always leaning in close to eye their index fingers. Two males, one female. Names unknown. Faces unrecognizable.
The conclusion was inescapable. "I'll need access to the top level of the MI6, MI5, and CIA archives," he announced once he'd gathered the necessary data, straightening to pocket his miniature magnifying class. "It's as I suspected. They're agents, all of them. Female is American, I'm sure of it."
Molly darted her eyes between him and the motionless bodies. "What do you mean 'agents'?" She paused uncertainly. "Like spies?"
"Spies, yes, in its broadest definition. Wet work, if we're being specific." Sherlock pointed at the hand of the one closest to him, taking slow steps back to circle around the slab. "No names, no families, no friends. Nothing to indicate they'd ever existed, save the reality of their dead bodies. The index finger is a giveaway, but so is the method of execution."
Natasha and Mary both pulled out their phones to access the required archives to fill in the blanks, but it was Natasha who spoke. "Execution," she repeated. "Interesting choice, using that word."
Sherlock's gaze zeroed in on her. "It was deliberate," he said. "But you knew that already."
She peeked up, flashing him a faint smile. "I suspected."
"Hence the reason you brought it to me." Sherlock's smile was victorious. "You've seen this method of execution before."
Natasha's smile grew. "It was a common procedure in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia," she confirmed, handing over her phone for him to search through the CIA database.
Mary did the same with hers only a second later, but her eyes were on the corpse's hands. "What about their fingers?"
"Have a look," Sherlock said. "I'm sure you've seen similar calluses before."
Mary leaned in close to do as told, straightening not a moment later with an amused huff. She moved on to the next. "So what you're saying," she began, "is that we have a Russian intelligence agent executing British and American spies. Why?"
"Information," Sherlock answered, turning his attention back to his search of the archives. "The killer is following a trail."
Molly had been quietly listening all the while, eyeing each of the bodies in turn. She hadn't otherwise moved from her spot, but now she spoke. "How do you stop the killer, then? You don't know what he's looking for."
"Easy." Sherlock didn't immediately follow his answer with an explanation, instead narrowing down his search until he found what he he needed. When he looked back up, Molly looked about ready to burst from the added suspense. Mary and Natasha stared at him in quiet amusement. He returned their phones with a bit more flourish than necessary. "We make sure the trail the killer is following leads him to us, of course," he said. "Could be dangerous."
"Lovely," Molly said brightly. "You can tell me all about how it went when I see you for drinks later." She shooed them out of her morgue. "Go on, then. Don't get shot."
Sherlock walked up to Molly, coat billowing behind him with the length and speed of his stride. He stooped to kiss her cheek. "Thank you, Molly Hooper." She was blushing when he pulled away, but his mind was already on other things. He led the way out of the morgue. "Come along, you two. We've got a killer to catch and only a few hours to do so, if we want to keep to the birthday schedule you've laid out for me."
Natasha fell in step next to Mary, eyeing Sherlock's search results on her phone. "He wants to use one of us as bait," she told Mary.
"We can flip for it," Mary replied, digging a coin out of her pocket. "Loser gets to be bait."
Sherlock laid out his plan on the cab ride back to 221B, and it was put into effect later that same evening. Natasha served as bait, meeting with the killer under the pretense of possessing the information he so desired. Once they confirmed his identity, as well as the information he was searching for, Natasha incapacitated him and signaled for Sherlock and Mary to join her. Mycroft and his men weren't far behind. They took him into custody shortly thereafter.
"Right, then," Mary said as she put her gun away. "Drinks?"
"If we must." Sherlock was still buzzing with adrenaline, the thrill of the chase.
Natasha caught his eyes and winked, reaching for his hand. "We promised Mary and John," she explained. "It won't take too long." Then she added, in Russian, "we'll do something fun later."
Sherlock's gaze turned predatory and teasing all at once. He leaned in close to steal a kiss. "What could possibly be more fun than a case?"
"Linguist," Mary interrupted before they had a chance to say anything else. She was smiling, though. "Remember? I can hear you loud and clear over here. Can see you, too."
"Right." Sherlock and Natasha pulled away from each other, keeping hold of each other's hands. Natasha tipped her head to rest on his shoulder. "Later."
Within an hour, Mary, Natasha, John, Molly, and Sherlock all sat round a table with beers in hand, discussing the details of the case. Sherlock didn't think of it as a birthday celebration. Celebrating his birthday wasn't a thing he did, and yet there was something about sitting with his best friends after a solved case that felt distinctly like coming home.
Mary and Molly each stole him for a dance. John declined with a laugh, which was just as well. He was a rubbish dancer. Natasha was the last to steal him away, and on the dance floor, with the lights dimmed low, they stole another kiss.
Later that night, after everyone else had gone their separate ways, Natasha took his hands and guided him into his bedroom. She pushed his suit coat off his shoulders, closed the door with the heel of her boot. He was home here too. He was home in her green eyes, her pink cheeks. In those gentle hands sliding his shirt off his shoulders, pushing him down on the bed. Sherlock smoothed shaking hands over her bare thighs when she straddled his hips, staring up at a smile he knew only he ever got to see.
"Beautiful," he breathed out.
She ran her fingertips down his chest, leaning in to claim his lips as they settled over the scar on his abdomen. A scar he'd gotten from Mary, but had since healed. A fitting reminder that she was as much in his heart as Natasha, Molly, and Mrs. Hudson, all in unique ways. John Watson had taught him many things about friendship, love, and being human, but it was only the women in his life that made it all like strength.
Their love was as different as it was irreplaceable. Martha's nurturing, heart on her sleeve, sort of caring. Molly's endless, unconditional affection. Mary's sneaky, in the details love. Natasha's fierce, no holds barred, East Wind brand of passion that could be just as gentle.
He felt her lips drift from his mouth to his jaw, and he rolled to pin her underneath. Her eyes were thin rings of green around dilated pupils, skin flushed a light red across her cheeks, neck and chest. Her full lips parted in the tenderest of smiles. "Mine," she said in that low voice he loved so much. He was on fire. Her lips, his skin, every inch where their bodies came into contact, he wanted more of it.
She raked her fingers through his hair, dragged him back to her lips as if she'd read his mind. "Happy birthday," she whispered between kisses, "Sherlock Holmes."