"If your friend would be good enough to stop, he might be of inestimable service to me." Miss Mary Morstan held up a gloved hand to detain Dr. John Watson.
She wasn't quite sure what had moved her to insist upon the doctor's presence, even when she reflected upon it years later. Was it merely that her mysterious benefactor had advised that she bring two friends and she was seeking safety in numbers? Or had she, as she sometimes fancied, already had misgivings about the wild-eyed detective? Or perhaps she had glimpsed some of the doctor's kind nature and already knew deep down that she wanted him by her side.
She never knew how their hands found each other in the dark, later that evening, as they waited for an answer at an unfamiliar door. She could feel his heart racing as hers was; with nerves and anticipation, but somehow she knew that she could rely on him and that he could rely on her. It was in that moment that she knew that the great fortune into which she had so suddenly come was no fortune at all.
"The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan calmly, and in her head she bid it "Good riddance."
"Thank God!" Dr. Watson exclaimed as soon as the words left her mouth. He spoke not malevolently, but honestly, out of relief she fancied identical to her own.
"Why do you say that?" she asked with a quick, questioning smile - she hopped she already knew the answer.
"Because you are within my reach again," he replied, taking her hand. "Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches sealed my lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is why I said, 'Thank God.'"
She could not help but smile as he pulled her to his side, and why shouldn't she?
"Then I say 'Thank God,' too," she whispered.
That evening, he had to depart all too soon to help Mr. Holmes with the case, leaving her in the chair by the window with a foolish grin across her face as she stared off into the waning light. She was to be married! To a wonderful man, who she loved more than anything! Her life as it was supposed to be would finally begin...
It was a bright, warm day. A gentle breeze wafted through the window, into the cab. Mary was on her way to Baker street for the first time since the resolution of the case that had brought her and Dr. John Watson together some months ago. Always a gentleman, John preferred to meet her at Mrs. Forrester's home and escort her from there, but they had arranged to go to a park that was much closer to Baker street than Camberwell, so it only made sense for her to come to meet him for a change.
The landlady met her at the door to 221 Baker street. "Miss Morstan, is it?" she asked with a hint of apprehension.
Mary answered with a curtsy.
"I take it you're here to see Dr. Watson?" the landlady said as she led the way up the stairs.
"Yes," Mary said. "John mentioned me?"
Mrs. Hudson shook her head. "A landlady can't help but overhear things. Mr. Holmes and he have been arguing about it for days now, heated arguments at that. You ought to know what it is you're getting into," she explained sourly.
Mary frowned - what was that supposed to mean? Didn't the famed consulting detective have more pressing matters to deal with than his flatmate's fiancée?
She didn't have time to ponder it, as the door swung open and she was greeted by an even more dismal image than the first time she had been to the cluttered apartment - John would no doubt benefit from a woman's touch, as far as housekeeping went. The sitting room was filled with stacks of boxes as tall as she was, obscured by heavy, dark smoke.
"Mr. Holmes, how can you breathe with so much smoke in the air?" the landlady chided, her admonishment interrupted by hacking coughs.
Mary covered her mouth and nose with a gloved hand in an attempt to ease her breathing, but she could not help but cough as well.
There was no reply as the landlady scurried inside and hauled open a window. The detective finally made his presence known amid the haze, unfolding himself from one of the chairs in front of the fireplace to help her. Then they set about fanning out the room with papers that had been thrown across the table. Mary stepped inside to help them.
After much waving about, the air finally cleared, and the landlady returned downstairs to tend her business, leaving Mary alone with Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
The detective stared down at her with piercing grey eyes, an expression of disdain etched across his face. She met his eyes defiantly and for a moment neither of them said a word. The tension mounted and the silence began to wear on her until she couldn't help but break it. He was looking at her as if she had committed some crime in coming to visit her fiancé. What problem did he have with it?
"If I may ask, what are all these boxes for?" she asked, a very picture of politeness.
For an instant the detective's lips twitched into a grimace, replaced as soon as it had come by an expression of disdainful disinterest. "Dr. Watson is moving into the room on the main floor." He gestured towards a door in the far wall.
"What? Why?" What would necessitate a change in rooms? John would be moving out soon anyway.
He gave her a twisted, unkind smile, that sent a shiver of fear and repulsion down her spine. "Queer, isn't it," he said sardonically.
Mary didn't know how to reply to that. She cast around the room for something to say and avoided the detective's unblinking stare. How John managed to live with the man...
Suddenly, the detective continued, his disinterested demeanor returned as though it had never gone. "I assume you are here to see my dear Dr. Watson?" he asked, a barely perceptible emphasis on the word "my."
She nodded. "Yes, John and I had plans to go-"
"Of course," Mr. Holmes cut her off and called up the stairs, "Watson, you have a visitor!"
"Oh! My apologies," she heard her dear John's familiar voice call down from the upper level, easing her nerves, "I lost track of time, I will be down in a moment, my dear!"
.
They set up their little picnic in the middle of a grassy field, between neat little groves of trees and brightly colored flower beds, in one of the many parks that interrupted the grey and brown of the city. They nibbled on tea sandwiches as they talked and enjoyed the scenery and each other's company.
"If I may ask," Mary said, interrupting a comfortable pause in the conversation. "I don't mean to-
"Ask away," John said with an easy smile, taking her hand in his.
"What are all those boxes in your living room for?"
His eyes widened and narrowed in surprise, and for an instant he seemed taken aback. She was about to retract the question when he chuckled and explained, "I am merely preparing to move out, I have my eye on a lovely house that would be perfect for the two of us."
Mary couldn't help but smile. "That makes much more sense than what Mr. Holmes said."
She was about to continue, but he interrupted, "What did Holmes say?" There was a peculiar intensity to his expression.
"That you were moving into a room on the main floor," she said.
He gave her a look of confusion that almost seemed to border on hurt.
"I didn't understand it either," Mary said. "I wonder what he would say that for."
John shook his head and looked off into the distance. "I don't know," he said with a sigh.
She squeezed his hand in an attempt to comfort him. "The landlady said you'd been arguing."
"We have." He turned to face her. "But don't worry about it, Holmes is... Holmes. He'll live, I hope…" He glanced down.
There was a long pause before she spoke, "How can such a kind, normal man like you be friends with…"
"Holmes," he finished her sentence with a wry smile. "I know, it seems mad. I think I'm mad for living with him sometimes." He chuckled, though his eyes did not leave the ground. "But sometimes he's extraordinary. He solves cases like the one that brought us together," - he squeezed her hand and glanced up at her - "as though it were more natural than breathing. He's not the nicest person, but he is a great man, and a good one. I don't know how it happened, but with everything Holmes and I have done together, perhaps it would be difficult not to become close."
Note: This story was edited in November 2018 for cross-posting on Archive of Our Own.