Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax (And Cabbages and Kings)
A Sign of Two
JOHN
Around him were the sounds of the hospital. The ebb and flow. Regularity interspersed with an undercurrent of watchfulness and the occasional spike of urgency. Mostly it was calm. The lights were low, and there was solace in the gloom. Peace in the relative quiet and distant noises.
His eyes, of course, were for the pale man lying prone on the bed.
The man with his ridiculous mop of dark hair and hairless chest (John was half-convinced he waxed – a dull, ordinary thing to do, but his vanity certainly wasn't in doubt). There was an IV drip. A lack of other equipment and procedures made their absence noted, however. This was a poor re-enforcement to the knowledge that it could've been a lot worse, but it helped all the same. The only blood was in the slight staining on the bandages swaddling his head. A little in the grazes on his face; his hands. No burns or broken bones. Even his ear drums hadn't been too badly damaged. Just a hell of a headache.
John breathed slowly in, then out through his nose. In and out. A cracked skull was nothing, in the end, to what he had expected to find. He swore then and there to never take for granted ever again that Sherlock always (always) danced the line between dangerous and deadly. Genius and madness. Living and dying. But it wasn't enough for the man to simply draw close to that line, no, he actually crossed it. Over and over. His hand shook, trembled, where it rested against his knee and he clenched it instead against his mouth. It wouldn't stop. He knew why. It didn't help. In the slightest.
Brrr. Brrr.
Mary.
It took far longer than it should've done to regain the muscles of his hand and reach for his phone. Operate the buttons. Read the message. Do you want me to come and meet you? He'd only sent the first one ten minutes before. He blearily realised he must have woken her up (it was going for quarter past four) and, though they'd only met six months previous, she was offering to up and come out to him at some ungodly hour of the morning because of the Work.
It should've been nothing to do with her – a separate world entirely – and she certainly shouldn't have been willing to put up with the Alfred Hitchcock circus that was Sherlock's day to day. Yet she did. And it was. She was always there at the end, taking him out; asking him how the adventure went. Even when that wasn't the case, when the last thing he wanted was to make more of an effort for her, somehow she knew. She came to Baker Street and made tea and brought food. Sometimes she brought a book, sometimes a kind sympathy for whatever discomfort they'd braved. Whatever injury John was patching up.
Just being there.
Even Sherlock had accepted her presence, and wasn't that just the most telling? He'd stopped sniping at every single tiny thing. Stopped trying to trick her. Stopped trying to scare her. Stopped even trying to suggest she wasn't good enough (because that's what was between the lines, let's be honest). There had been something different about Mary, undeniably, from the moment she walked into his life (their lives). Little things were different – her tolerance of Sherlock was the elephant in the room, but there were other things. She didn't do things like pity or simple. She accepted the Work, even helped when it came down to it. She was very clever. Not that his other girlfriends hadn't been clever per se, but he was liable to forget how devilishly intelligent Mary was. More to the point, she seemed just as much an addict as the two of them; she was just better at hiding it from the rest of the world.
Right pair they were in the end.
And then there were the one or two things that were different about Mary (things he couldn't quite put his finger on). Things that lingered just this side of disquieting when he allowed his mind to wonder about them.
He thought of Sherlock. From annoyed to angry to suspicious, at which point he was downright vicious. And she weathered every single one. Then suddenly it was All Fine. Like flipping a switch. John still caught Sherlock eyeing her occasionally when he thought his blogger wasn't looking – a strange look.
If it were anyone else he would've been angry. Pissed that his best mate was eyeballing his girlfriend, particularly like that, but this was Sherlock. Yes, he kept an eye on the looks, course he did. But, other than the finer point that he did, in fact (despite the gigantic prick's antics culminating in his crashing back into John's life only eight months before) trust him, trying to imagine that being a Sherlockian motivation just didn't work. He couldn't picture it. No, it was something else. He didn't know what, but it wasn't that. Sherlock was free to think what he would. The finest minds couldn't figure out what went on inside his head, and John didn't fancy his chances with this particular mystery.
It worried him for another reason sometimes. But then Mary was there and it all worked out fine. In the end. He was still standing with his phone clutched in his right hand.
Do you want me to come and meet you?
This wasn't her world. It wasn't.
Yet caught between the two now he was so alone.
Yes.
His hand dropped. He stared again at the body on the bed (not a body, not a body) and tried to suppress a second attack of spinning panic. It was just so wrong, bereft of even the far away thoughts that seemed to hum from him when he disappeared into his Mind Palace. Yes he needed her – he needed someone!
His thoughts slid. He felt it. Sliding into the dark, colourless maw that was Sherlock's absence. It took all his will not to smash his fist into the wall just to let the screaming out of his head. He couldn't lose him again. He couldn't. Couldn't happen. He survived the last time by bitterness and the skin of his teeth (a bitterness that took a long time to let go of) and then the bastard had flounced back into his life…
He felt naked. Stripped of anger. Barely holding out against the fear.
"Hey." She touched a gentle hand to his shoulder. He'd been stood at the foot of the bed, unmoving as Sherlock, for nearly an hour. He turned and allowed himself the luxury of wrapping his arms around her. She was warm.
"What happened?"
"There was –" he cleared his throat with some force. "There was a bomb. It was all hooked up to stuff in the walls. Sherlock deduced it was the lab assistant, so we went looking for her and then we found it and we were trying to…trying to switch it off."
She rubbed his back as his throat closed on its own
"It was all chemical – amateur – so in the end we were just disconnecting everything as carefully as we could before she could get back; there was no time to call anyone else."
"Didn't you call the police?"
"God – I mean we didn't know she was going to try and blow the place sky high!"
Mary looked dolefully back as he shut down the need to keep shouting.
"Course we called them when we found it, but no one was going to get there in time. Then when I was running round having a shooting match with the woman, Sherlock went back to finish the thing. Self-sacrificing wanker."
Mary shut her eyes and leant into his chest.
"It went off?"
"No…no he stopped it taking out half the building. Primary stuff still went off though; gutted her office."
She winced.
"God."
"I thought…" he couldn't stop the words climbing out of his throat. Yes, he'd thought. He'd felt the explosion shudder through the floor and he'd thought.
MARY
"You know, you look remarkably good for someone who literally had something blow up in their face."
The detective stirred, wincing as his head was pulled from its numb stillness.
"Still, it was worth it I suppose." She sniffed dispassionately. "Suspect caught. Mystery solved. Another day's thrills."
The opalescent eyes fluttered shut.
"Helps that you saved about three hundred people."
"Yes."
"And John."
"Indeed."
"Do you mind that you nearly died?"
One eye cracked open.
"My injuries were superficial."
"Yeah. But you nearly died."
"Where's John?"
"Finally convinced him to go and get a coffee." Mary sighed, looking away, and found her eyes drawn back to the arresting combination of razor cheekbones and moon pale skin. He was staring shrewdly, giving away nothing, but she knew better.
"It would've killed him."
He sat up so casually; so arrogantly.
"Don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes you do."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm really not."
He stopped moving, face still stone cold.
"What are you doing here?" He asked disdainfully.
"He asked me."
Not quite true, but there it was: the flicker. A number of things chased themselves over Sherlock's face, most of which most people would've been unable to see. She would've missed them if she'd blinked. Never breaking the gaze, she relaxed into the uncomfortable plastic chair and regarded the detective. After a long while, he opened his mouth and inhaled to speak – only to stop at the last second and frown. Good god, that beautiful brain took quite the knock, didn't it? she thought as her eyes drifted over the bandages.
"God, I –" She shook her head, façade crumbled completely. Sherlock quirked an eyebrow.
"Oh, is it so hard to believe I care?"
"Why?"
"Because I do."
"Why?"
"Because I want to, you berk." She looked at him again, but this time there was no front, no armour. And wouldn't you know, it was getting easier. More comfortable. Better.
"People don't change." He murmured, soft as silk and sharp as the edge of a knife, yet she had to laugh. She giggled even as Sherlock looked back with a combination of fury, indignation, disbelief and incomprehension (a lot for one person to show, but he managed it).
John came back with the coffee, eyes softening as he spotted Sherlock awake. And she'd have to have been blind to miss the minute smile he got in return, Sherlock's entire posture both relaxing and shoring as he entered the room. He absently put an arm around her shoulders, but his gaze never moved.
An ache reopened, getting that bit deeper.
It was quite a bit later that they were sitting together in the cafeteria, looking at each other over their mugs (or rather, her watching him try not to fall asleep at the table). She laughed under her breath; gently prized his hands off the china before he tipped it over. He held onto hers, and for a second the ache numbed. He was smiling at her and she felt so safe. She always did with him. Which was a double-edged privilege in the end; something that came with the knowledge that, while the rest of the world fell like water on rock, she was one of the few that had the power to really hurt him. To break him. Enough to bring her to tears the first night she stayed at Baker Street (she never slept away from home).
She'd let him so close to her heart. And he'd let her in.
First bad move.
No. No it was alright. It was good, him and her.
Him and her and Sherlock.
The ache returned with a vengeance. How the hell had she found John Watson? Handsome and brave and loyal Watson who, by the way, raced after criminals every other night, took care of the walking death-wish that was the world's only Consulting Detective, and took on the world's battlefield like it was the same drug that tugged her bones even now. She'd found an addict; like her.
But not like her.
He was the sane one. The one that really, truly, cared. She'd learnt so much even in the short time they'd been together about seeing the good in life. Perhaps because he was a doctor. More likely because he was John.
It would be so easy to love him. So fucking easy. Too easy. She could empathise with Sherlock completely there.
"Look – go home. Get some sleep, John, you're dead on your feet."
"No way. Mary…I can't. I just can't."
"How about I stay with him?" He frowned, looked intensely at her, smiled, then looked down, sighing as his expression twisted.
"No, you don't have to do that. Seriously, I –"
"Please." She reached further forward and slipped her hands under his chin, feeling the two-day stubble starting to show. His skin was warm over his throat, and her mind wandered naturally at that (his did as well if the sleepy intake of breath was anything to go by). Wrong place…wrong time. She fought from sighing. She could sigh forlornly like a fem fatale on her own time. John smiled and shut his eyes, sagging onto the table.
"Fine. Just…make sure he doesn't escape, okay?"
"I will."
They kissed at the front doors, his hand in hers, and in that scene she could pretend so many things. She could pretend this was who she always was. She could pretend time didn't exist. She could pretend John was hers.
He could've been…he really could have…
Then she thought of the strange man still within the walls.
The doctors had come by earlier; John had concurred with their diagnosis that it was probably a hairline fracture in the skull, if that. Lack of other symptoms and an uncomplicated recovery from the initial concussion, including the scalp healing, pointed away from a depressed fracture or further damage to the brain and skull. No surgery necessary. They did, however, want to keep him another night for observation just in case. Also it kept him leaping back into action and bashing it round whilst it was still healing.
She smiled absently as she entered the room. God help her, she was fond of him. She'd liked him from the start, of course: dazzlingly clever, sharp as a tack; complete drama queen. He reminded her of the nostalgia of a world long left behind (the good bits of course). He sat up, picking her out in the harsh lights.
"Looks like it's just you and me."
"Oh the joy."
SHERLOCK
He hadn't thought, in the end. A rare thing indeed (though perhaps not so in days recent). Had it changed him so? Of course it hadn't; that was as preposterous as the thought of John breaking. He hadn't changed.
Talented liar, AREN'T you SHERLOCK?
Get. Out. Get out. Get out get out get out…
Well, he hadn't had the ghost of a criminal psychopath up there before. He wondered what John would say if he ever revealed how he heard Moriarty speak as if he were in the room. Not that he was ever deceived that it was real, but did it have to be? He heard it at least half as much as he heard John himself (though John's voice was less likely to fuel his nightmares).
Ooh, and WHAT would Johnny say to those, HMM?
He slammed the door to His prison shut (sometimes that worked).
What would John say?
Mild paranoid schizophrenia brought on by PTSD; therapist. Oh, and…eh…it's always about me? Really? You're…having me on, right? You dream about losing me every night? That can't be healthy; you should really see a therapist for that, Sherlock, I can't be that. You know I can't. I'm not –
"Gay, yes I know."
"How often do you do that? When you're alone?"
Mary's soft voice startled him slightly, and he found her staring at him again from the chair. Slight tea stain under her nail; curling into her warm coat with intensions of trying to settle (not expecting John back) and a flexing tic in her feet; waiting to say something?
"What?"
Oi! Behave!
"Look," she leant forward expression strained. "I know you don't like me, never have –"
Was that the impression she got?
"Don't like you?" He murmured.
"No. I…I get it, I mean –"
Apologise. Now.
"Mary, I have a great deal of respect for what you do. And for you." Close enough. Mary looked up in genuine surprise, and he realised he might have to revise his analysis of how she responded to him. The woman herself seemed to have lost what she was going to say and merely stared back. After a long time, he looked away to the ceiling and tried not to surrender to the boredom threatening now that the drowsiness was wearing off.
Not that he felt very bored these days either. Years ago, he might have counted it a mercy, but it wasn't pleasant. And not being bored was among other things: the ability to sit still here, the concession to merely have a cup of tea there (he accepted the necessity of mostly making his own now, of course). As said, he should've considered it a mercy. But it wasn't. It was…something else. His mind felt full, but not the screaming kaleidoscope of sensory information that otherwise fuelled the boredom. It was…
Numb was the only word that fit. Memory. Physical memory. Aches and fears and sour adrenaline.
After the nightmares, the effect was even worse.
"Sherlock?"
He'd been staring. Absently.
"Your concern is gratifying."
"What were you thinking about?" He shot her a pained look. "Was it John?"
His eyes narrowed, but she didn't back down. Unfortunately, at her words, his mind produced John as if he'd been there all the time. The Sentiment before, the Ache during, the –
Stop naming them.
"If John is on your mind, feel free to go and join him."
"And leave you alone here? No chance."
"If you must feel obligated to stay –"
"We need to talk."
He blinked blankly.
"We need to talk because..." she seemed to steel herself. "Because if – if I –"
"You're going to leave?" The realisation hit him like a blow to the stomach. But not nearly as much as her next move.
"Should I?"
Should Mary Morstan leave John Watson? Ex-intelligence operative (at the very least) attempting rehabilitation with a stolen name, yet an honest desire? Intelligent, diligent, protective, encouraging, unassuming, tolerant Mary. Danger and domestic all wrapped up in one attractive, appropriately aged female who accepted Him.
Answer: NO.
The word came up and out of his throat. Why was it so impossible to be selfish where John was involved? He'd literally thrown himself off a bloody building for that man, and that was before the true knowledge (an eventual acceptance) of Why.
"He's happy with you, why should you leave him?"
She fixed him a surprised look through the welling tears.
"Because if we go through with this, Sherlock – if we fall in love and get married and have kids in a little house in the suburbs – if we do, it would be what I want. The life I want."
"The life John wants. I don't –"
"John doesn't want what he needs!" She exclaimed incredulously. "Surely you see that? You see everything; you know him. What would happen if I let him fall in love with me?"
Sherlock thought. He cringed automatically.
"Boring. Dull. People."
"Exactly."
"You don't want that either."
She rolled her eyes. Sighed. Stood up.
"But I do. I do because…because I left that world. Willingly, and that's important, Sherlock, I left on my own choice. I loved it; craved it." She shuddered. "I can't even pretend I don't still a bit, but it was wrong. It was…"
She was tense, frustrated, absent (genuinely distraught). She was pacing. Sherlock tried to understand how this was for her. It didn't make much sense at all, though she was truly remorseful over what she'd been and what she'd done.
"I need it about as much as you need cocaine."
Ah.
"And I'm happy with normal. Normal's good. Normal's growing old without the fear."
And that was something he understood. Thirteen months in the shadows of Moriarty's web had taught him more about fear and exhaustion than anything previous had ever come close to. The dull acid that slowly ate away at excitement, care, passion – things he had learned to value only in their absence as even boredom was consumed, leaving nothing.
"I gave up that world willingly because I wanted out. Not because I felt obligated or because I felt like I should want something else; I really did."
"You don't want John to be cornered into giving up –"
He pulled up short. He might joke about it. He might boast about it to Mycroft. He might say it defensively to ward of an unwanted girlfriend. But he was being honest. Here and Now. And in that honesty was tangled many things, all of which he was abruptly forced to realise were (distressingly) true.
Mary didn't break the gaze.
"You." She said, voice low and firm. "I don't want him to give up you."
"You definitely shouldn't leave him."
"I…can't, Sherlock. It's been good. It really has. But…"
"I don't want you to leave him."
He didn't deserve John. He wanted John to be happy. Alive first; happy second. He didn't know why or how on earth it had happened, but in eight months this was the conclusion he had been forced to come to terms with. And he didn't deserve to keep him; not a pathetic, ignorant, uncomprehending, sub-lethal arsehole. Mary laughed, a sound laced a broken little noise betraying the tears, though she smiled.
A sad, longing smile.
"But you need me to."
He couldn't say anything to that. Didn't know how to deal with it. Someone as good as Mary (it didn't matter that she wasn't naturally; that she tried and worked hard was the same in the end) sacrificing that future for him. For John, but also for him. He let her cry out her tears until they both began dozing off again (lack of sleep and a head trauma apparently did that to a person).
"I wasn't joking before, Sherlock. You pull something for real…"
"Don't be a fool." It was unknown waters; he was as close to pleading as he had ever been in his life. Don't. Don't do this. I can't do this. "John's stronger than either of us."
"Alright then. If you break him, I'll come back and break you."
He shrugged, still trying to conceive arguments to compel her to stay. An absent thought followed her (completely serious) threat. If he did break John, after all, he'd probably end up doing the same to himself. Because in John's absence, it was inevitability.
A.N: Well, a fix it that sits well in my head with the characters being who they are. I've wanted to play out this little scenareo since watching series 3 and, I have to say, I love Mary as a character (my own wierd headcannon - not in this, this is something else - notwithstanding). Anyway, as you might have gathered, Ahoy Mateys! but I am trying to take to heart the elements of stories I've really liked of this sort of vein. Took effort to avoid it being too domestic. We'll see how it goes.
Reviews, preciouses?