Author's note: Once again, many thanks to englishtutor for her stellar beta-ing skills.

Saving Grace

By Navigatio

Chapter 2: Denial

As soon as they walked into 221 Baker Street, Mrs Hudson emerged from her flat, with a flour-dusted apron wrapped around her waist. The smell of chocolate biscuits floated out behind her.

"Oh, John," she breathed, wrapping John and Gracie in a hug that he returned absently. "I'm so sorry, love."

John just gave her a distracted sort of nod, shifted the baby to his hip, and headed up the stairs without a word, leaving Sherlock to struggle along with all of their things. Mrs Hudson was saying something more, but he ignored her, because what more was there to say? Mary was dead. Neither of them needed to be reminded of that fact.

By the time he was halfway up the steps he was winded. Stupid backpack. Should have loosened the straps. He dropped all the bags just inside the door, and found that John had sat down in "his" chair with Mary's coat still over his shoulder and Gracie on his knee. She had moved into full cry now, but he scarcely seemed to notice.

Suddenly Sherlock realized she must be hungry. It was past lunchtime already, and that neighbor (whose name he had deleted) hadn't mentioned feeding her. She should have a bottle. He had no idea how to prepare a bottle, but he remembered there were supplies in with their things. Maybe he could figure it out.

He picked up the carrier bag containing the feeding supplies, scooped Gracie up off John's lap and carried her with him into the kitchen, where he read the side of the can of formula with his brow furrowed. It seemed unnecessarily complicated, but he followed the directions as well as he could, one-handed, pausing after every step to re-read the label to make sure he was doing it right.

When the bottle was finished, he offered it to Gracie, but she pushed it away with a cry of indignation.

"Come on, love, I know you're hungry," he wheedled, offering it to her again. She took a few sucks, then turned her head away and wailed. "What's wrong? Does it need to be warmed up?"

"She doesn't like the bottle," John called from the sitting room. "She wants Mary."

"Well, she'll have to take it," Sherlock said in frustration. "What else are we to do?"

"I don't know. She always fights me on it."

Sherlock hoped perhaps John would come in and take over, but he didn't appear, so he tucked Gracie under his arm like a rugby ball, pried the nipple off the bottle, and jammed the bottle into the microwave to warm the milk. It was probably wrong to use the microwave, but he was in a hurry because her cries were becoming more insistent now.

This time Gracie took the bottle, although still reluctantly, pausing every few seconds to remind him what a travesty this was, and leaving him nearly tearing his hair out in frustration.

While she was drinking/not-drinking the bottle, he walked back into the sitting room to find John still ensconced in his chair, twisting Mary's coat in his hands, with a lost look on his face. He didn't appear to have moved in the past half hour.

"You can stay here tonight," Sherlock said firmly, expecting a fight.

"Ok," John replied without looking at him.

"And the next night too, if you like. Stay as long as you want."

"Ok."

"You and Gracie should take my room. I'll take the upstairs room." Sherlock expected a comment about that, something about it being a generous gesture, but unnecessary, but John just nodded and carried on staring into space.

Watching him, Sherlock felt his chest tighten again. He had no idea what to do in this situation, no idea how to drain the sea of pain that John appeared to be swimming in. Hell, he didn't even know how to lessen his own pain, other than the obvious, which would be ill-advised given the circumstances. It would be difficult to care for John and the baby if he were high.

Gracie had fallen asleep in his arms with the bottle only half-finished, a line of milky drool running from the corner of her mouth. He carefully extracted the bottle and looked around for a place to lay her down. Should have brought her portable cot.

John was still staring at nothing and didn't react when Sherlock set the baby back in his arms, other than to tighten his grasp around her frail body. Sherlock could see the muscle jumping in his temple from grinding his teeth.

Suddenly Sherlock was struck by the injustice, the wrongness of it all. How could Mary be dead? John didn't deserve to be a widower. Gracie didn't deserve to grow up without a mother. It was too much to process. The air was too thick to breathe.

He had to get out of there, for a little while, before he lost his composure. John was dealing with enough right now; he didn't need to have Sherlock fall apart on him as well. He needed to go to the morgue, see Mary's body, and get the facts from Molly. Facts, not emotion, would allow him to process this logically. He could better support and protect John and Gracie if he were in control of his emotions.

"I need to—" He broke off. He couldn't tell John he was going to the morgue. "I need to run an errand. I'll pick us up some take-away."

John didn't respond to that.

"Will you be all right for an hour or so?"

Still no response.

Sherlock raised his voice a bit. "John? Is it all right if I go run an errand?"

John turned his direction, although his eyes still seemed to look through him rather than at him. "Yes. We'll be all right. Thanks, Sherlock."

"Oh. Um—my pleasure," Sherlock said awkwardly, because what does one say in a situation like that? He grabbed his coat and escaped the stifling flat. Outside, the air was cooler, but the band of pressure around his chest didn't ease. Mary is dead, Mary is dead, Mary is dead. . .

He found Molly in her office, half of a sandwich on a styrofoam plate abandoned next to her, and a cup of coffee on the corner of her desk; no steam, so the coffee had gone cold. A lock of hair had escaped her pony tail and fallen across her cheek. When she looked up at him, she tucked the hair behind her ear and cleared her throat.

"Sherlock. . ."

"I need to see Mary's body."

"She was only brought in this morning. I've barely even looked at her yet. I'm so sorry, Sherlock. . ."

He dismissed her expression of sympathy with a wave of his hand. "Irrelevant. I need to see her."

"I really don't think that's a good idea."

"Molly," he said intensely. She finally met his eye, her lips pressed hard together. He could see that she was trying not to cry, and for some reason he found that irritating. Facts, not emotion, were what he wanted from her. "I need to. Please."

She relented with a sigh, as he knew she would. "Yes, all right." She led the way back into the morgue, past the empty autopsy tables, and opened one of the coolers, rolled out the tray that held a white plastic body bag, through which he could make out the outline of the corpse. Mary's corpse. Mary is dead.

Sherlock waited, staring unmoving at the outline of the body under the plastic, but Molly didn't open the zipper. Finally he looked up to find her biting her lip. "Are you sure you want to. . ."

"Yes," he said impatiently. "Do it already."

"I should warn you. . ."

"What?"

"Her face is. . . very cut up, and she was at least three days under the water, so decomposition. . ."

Sherlock blinked. Three days? How had he not been aware that Mary was missing for three days? He swallowed and forced himself to speak. "Yes, I'm aware." (even though he hadn't been) "Go ahead."

Molly opened the zipper and pushed back the sides of the bag, slowly, with exaggerated care. Sherlock tried not to react to the sight in front of him, but it was several seconds before he realized that he was not breathing. He made his lungs draw in a breath through a throat that seemed to have narrowed to the size of a drinking straw. The air was so thick, almost like a fluid surrounding him.

He became aware that Molly was speaking. "It doesn't appear she was wearing her seatbelt. There is no bruising on her shoulder or ribcage from it. She went through the windscreen. . ." Molly paused. Sherlock saw out of the corner of her eye that she had the back of her wrist pressed against her mouth. "I'm so sorry. I should. . ."

"Are you certain this is Mary?"

"Well, the inspector wasn't able to find any dental records—"

"Does she have an appendectomy scar?"

"Let me check. . ." Molly opened the bag further and Sherlock got a glimpse of her pale, soft flesh, mottled with bruising and decomposition and laced with gaping cuts from the windscreen. He spotted the scar before Molly did—a faint horizontal line just above her right hipbone. "It's her, Sherlock. I'm so sorry. Poor John. . ."

Sherlock blinked at the scar. Mary is dead, she's dead and she's not coming back. He felt his stomach turning over, even though he had never been squeamish at the sight of a dead body. But never before had he been confronted with the body of someone he loved. He had seen his grandmother, but of course by the time she was in the casket she looked almost like she was sleeping. And he couldn't say that he loved her anyway. She was a bitter, cruel old woman who pinched him and pulled his curls to keep him in line.

He could tell that Molly was watching him, but he didn't look at her. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Mary's body on the slab. His gorge was rising, and he felt cool droplets of sweat on his forehead.

Molly quickly closed the bag and zipped it shut, and pushed the drawer back into the cooler. "I—I have her wedding band," she said. "I'm sorry, but I have to turn it over to the police."

"Of course." Sherlock didn't ask what she had to do to remove the band. It couldn't have been easy, given the condition of Mary's body, and he didn't feel he could stomach those details.

"Tell John I'm sorry. They'll give it back to him after the investigation is complete."

"Any sign of foul play?" he asked quickly, to change the subject.

"I couldn't say. With this level of decomposition, it would be difficult to determine the origin of the injuries. . ."

"You'll notify me when the autopsy is complete."

"Well, I'll see what I can do. Inspector Lestrade will talk to John about that. I'll have to have him come in to identify the body."

Sherlock's stomach rebelled at the thought of John having to see his wife in that condition, not with the fragile state that he was in at the moment. "I've identified her," he responded immediately. "John shouldn't see her like this."

"I'm sorry, but I need a family member if possible."

"I'm close enough."

"Sherlock. . ."

The prickly tightness had returned to his throat and eyes. Sherlock closed his eyes tightly and swallowed hard to push his emotions back down where they couldn't hurt anyone. "You can't make John go through that," he said finally.

Molly relented with another sigh. "Yes, all right. How is John?"

"How do you think he is?" Sherlock snapped. He turned, stiff-armed the door and left without looking back, although he could practically hear Molly's open-mouthed blinking goldfish impression behind him.

Sherlock returned to Baker Street to find John still sitting in the chair, with a cold cup of tea in one of Mrs Hudson's floral cups next to him. Gracie was asleep on his shoulder, and he was patting her back rhythmically. Even though it was nearly dusk, he had not turned any of the lights on.

With a grunt, Sherlock set down the portable cot he had fetched from John's flat, which caused John to start and look around blearily. "Oh. Didn't hear you come in."

"I've brought take-away from Ying's," Sherlock said. "I'll set up the cot for Gracie, then we can eat it."

John's adam's apple bobbed up and down, and he shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he said tonelessly, and returned to the rhythmic patting, even though Gracie was clearly asleep and didn't care.

Sherlock didn't respond to that. To be honest, the smell of the grease was turning his stomach as well, but he felt it was important for John to eat. He carried the take-away to the kitchen, set up the cot (well, at least he thought it was right), took Gracie from John's arms and carefully laid her in it. She didn't stir.

"Come on to the kitchen," he said to John. "Time to eat."

"I said I wasn't hungry."

"Come in anyway and try," Sherlock urged. He held out his hand and helped John from the chair, led him into the kitchen, and sat him at the table. While he pulled the food out of the bags, John just sat with his hands limp in his lap, so Sherlock dished up two portions and set one in front of John, who didn't even look at it.

"Eat," Sherlock ordered, pushing a fork into John's hand. He expected another protest, but John just scooped up a small bite and began to eat, silently and expressionlessly. After only a few bites he set the fork down and pushed the plate away. His hands dropped back into his lap. Sherlock knew it wasn't enough. John needed to eat more, but he didn't know how to get him to do it. The helpless feeling was terrifying. Was this what John felt, all those times when the situation was reversed and John was trying to get Sherlock to eat?

"John, please, just a few more—" He was interrupted by a wail from the sitting room. John turned his head toward the doorway but didn't get up, so Sherlock went and fetched Gracie, who was sitting up, screeching in the cot, red-cheeked, with sleep wrinkles on her face and drool down her front.

"What does she want, John? Is she hungry?"

"I don't know," John said dully.

Sherlock tried, and failed, to get her to take another bottle. He tried mashed peaches, green beans, and even a fingerful of sweet and sour sauce, but she rejected it all. John just sat and watched while Sherlock got more and more frustrated, and Gracie's wails became louder and louder.

Finally Sherlock said, "I'm taking her for a walk. You could eat more, you know."

"I'm not—"

"Yes, I know, you're not hungry. Do whatever you like, then. I've got this." He knew his tone showed his frustration, but he couldn't quite control it. He could barely take care of himself, much less a cranky infant and catatonic flatmate.

As soon as he got outside, he regretted that he had hurried out without putting the little purple jacket on Gracie, as it was now cold and nearly dark. He tucked the baby inside his coat and started off down the block, bouncing her a little as he had seen Mary do many times. She snuggled in against his chest with her ginger curls tickling his chin and almost immediately stopped squirming. By the time he reached the corner, her cries had died down to whimpers around her thumb in her mouth.

Walking in the cool air calmed Gracie down enough that she finally deigned to take the bottle Sherlock had brought with him, and almost immediately afterward fell asleep in his arms.

When he came back to the flat, it was quiet. The leftovers had been put away, dishes were piled up next to the sink, and his bedroom door was closed, meaning John was in bed and didn't want to be disturbed. It was probably not good that John was withdrawing, but Sherlock had absolutely no idea how to fix that.

Gracie began to fuss again, rubbing at her face and half-closed eyes, and making sounds like a baby bird. Sherlock put her in her bouncer seat and turned on the vibration, but she arched her back and gave a thin wail.

Not knowing what else to do, he did what he always did when under emotional distress: took out his violin and began to play: a waltz, soft and slow. After the first few notes, her cries quieted. By the time he reached the second stanza, she had relaxed and was watching him with bright, calm eyes that seemed too old for her round face.

He lowered the violin and gazed back at her. What was she thinking? Did she know what was happening?

Gracie held out her arms toward him and he picked her up, pulled her in close enough to smell her sweet hair. Exhausted, he lay down on the sofa with her on his chest, even though he knew he ought to put her in the portable cot. Her warm weight was comforting, and the even rise and fall of her back under his palm was soothing. For a moment, he could almost forget, could almost believe that things would be all right. It was only a few minutes before her rhythmic breathing lulled him to sleep as well, with his coat and shoes still on.