Once it was established that they were in a relationship of sorts, John and Mary were largely left alone by all but their landlady, who couldn't seem to stop twittering about in a cloud of self-affirmation. Obviously, it had all been part of her master plan to get John to return to Baker Street.
"After all, you never could resist a pretty face," cooed Mrs. Hudson to John's embarrassment and Mary's barely-contained mix of jealousy and amusement. A deep-buried part of her had the urge to find all of those pretty faces and warn them never to come back. She tamped it down in favor of continuing to scroll down the web page she was searching for John's Christmas gift. She wanted him to have something just as meaningful as the Wall, but couldn't think of something good enough. Very briefly she contemplated telling him how her scars and tattoos came to be, but quashed that down quickly, as the truth behind the mystery would only depress him.
In the end she ordered him a new computer memory board with twice as much RAM as his old one, so he would have plenty of space to write up his cases with Holmes. He wanted to write a book, had talked about it in a hypothetical sense, that was both a recalling of his and Holmes' days on Baker Street and an investigation of what had really occurred between the detective and Moriarty. Along with the memory board Mary ordered several instructional books on writing prose and research techniques; if he had any trouble beyond that she could help, at least with the research.
On Christmas Eve she and John crawled into his bed, made love - that's what she had started calling it instead of mindless fucking; Christ she was in trouble - and fell quickly asleep.
She dreamt that it was snowing in Hedestad, and that heavy iron chains were frozen looped around her wrists and ankles. Niedermann, Bjurman, and Teleborian were pulling her along, making sure she couldn't escape despite the fact that if they dropped the chains she would have been trapped in place. Into Martin Vanger's basement they went like some macabre parade, where Vanger and Zalachenko were waiting, or what had remained of them after the flames. Zala's bottom jaw was gone, leaving his tongue to hang grotesquely, and at the sight of Mary he stepped eagerly forward. There was still an axe in his leg, and it crumpled uselessly beneath him with a crunch and squelch of blood, but he just used his knee as a foot and took another step with his good leg before falling down onto his bad in another crawling step. They chained her to the floor like Blomkvist and tied a noose around her neck and pulled at her clothes no matter how hard she fought, and-
"Mary! Mary, stop! It's me, Mary, it's Jo-!"
John was writhing beneath her, trying to pry her hands from his neck while hoarsely begging for his life. Salander was straddling his waist, arms ramrod straight and hands trying their damnedest to crush his windpipe with teeth gritted tight. Just as he was turning blue Mary came back to herself with the gasp of a half-drowned woman, and she pulled so far back that she fell right off the end of the bed and continued to scramble away in horror of what she'd nearly done. Heart pounding, the sound of John choking and retching scraping against the inside of her head, Mary propelled herself all the way downstairs and out into the snowy street wearing only her underwear and one of John's jumpers. Waves of pain rolled through her head and left side, and she started to shake just as John stumbled out the front door after her.
"Mary, it's okay," he hoarsely assured her, close enough to touch but making a point of not touching her, instead huddling against the cold and holding her jacket out toward her. "It's all right, love, it's happened to me way more than I'd like to admit. Please, just come back inside before you catch your death or freeze your toes off."
Mary felt her arms drop like lead to her sides without really feeling it, almost like it had been described to her instead by someone who had only ever seen it done in a film. There was a buzzing in her head that wouldn't go away, and when she opened her mouth to speak her words were slurred. "John, I...think...having s-toke."
There was an instant of stunned silence broken only by the howling wind - perfectly healthy 28-year-olds did not just have strokes, after all - before John asked, "Seriously, or are you just really upset?"
She shook her head, turned and reached back for him, but felt only the drag of wool against her fingers as she collapsed.
They spent Christmas morning in the A&E while nurses took blood samples and did scans of her head. Mary had had a seizure, not a stroke; it hadn't even been that severe, but because of her past head trauma (which she called a terrible accident at a shooting club once she was able to speak coherently) the doctors wanted to make sure she didn't have permanent brain damage. Mary couldn't stop feeling horrible or apologizing for ruining a holiday that John obviously was very fond of. When she tried to make him leave while she waited for test results, to go spend time with the people he cared about, he closed his hand around hers and said, "That's what I'm doing right now." She'd been so overwhelmed she had to look away from him for several minutes before trying to speak again.
Her doctor wouldn't stop staring at her thoughtfully every time he came to her room to check her vitals or take more blood. At first Mary thought that he was a creep, but when he idly commented on her dragon tattoo she realized her mistake in allowing John to take her in. Hospitals all around had probably been sent a picture of Salander when she went missing with a description of her injuries and a reminder that she would probably seek medical attention wherever she had fled. Not every woman lived after being shot in the head, and her tattoo was practically unique. Along with the paper-thin excuse she had for her gunshot wound, it was no wonder the doctor was staring. Mary's pulse started to race.
"John, close the door," she said when the doctor left the room. Befuddled, he did as she told him just as the doctor picked up a telephone in the hall. Mary leaped out of bed despite John's protests and started pulling on the clothes Mrs. Hudson had brought by. "We have to leave. Now."
He looked incredulous. "Mary, you've had a seizure, we can't just-"
With a final flourish, Mary zipped her jeans and pulled on her jacket. "John, for reasons I can't explain now the doctor is calling Interpol to have me deported and probably institutionalized for life. Trust me. We need to go, and quickly."
John thought about her words for several moments longer than she liked before giving a curt nod and pulling out his mobile. "Mycroft, I need a favor," he sighed. "Can you black out security cameras inside and CCTV outside of Bart's for about twenty minutes? Cheers, mate. Merry Christmas." He hung up and took her hand. "Come on, let's get a move on." She couldn't believe he was going along with it, thought he would go mad and then watch her get arrested, but John Watson was endlessly full of surprises. She really must have had a good reason to love him after all.
They ran as far as they could go before Mary's hip started giving her trouble, then hailed a cab back to Baker Street. "Care to explain now?" asked John once they were inside the cab. Mary shook her head, casting a wary look at the driver. She continued her silence even as John kept up his curious litany. "Are you at least feeling better? I don't want you collapsing again."
Across the back seat she compulsively sought his hand with hers. "I'm fine."
Once they were back in 221 Baker Street Mary knew her vacation was over. She made at least one last try at diverting John's attention with their unopened Christmas gifts, but beyond the time it took to make two mugs of tea he could not be distracted. They held their tea close and sat across from one another in the armchairs in John's sitting room.
Mary hugged the Union Jack cushion to her chest and explained, in as brief terms possible, that she had been framed for a crime she didn't commit. John tried to ask why she didn't stand trial if she was certain of her innocence, but Mary was so enraged by the original circumstances that she could only touch on how the media had used what little details they could get on her to turn her into a psychopathic lesbian Satanist. She had to stick her foot in John's groin to stop him laughing at the thought.
When she finished talking her throat was sore and she was exhausted. John looked grimly contemplative. "You really didn't do anything then?" he asked.
"Anything I did was asked for," she replied, allowing her natural accent to show through. "I axed Zala after he shot me three times, and countless years of selling and abusing women. I wish I could know if he were alive only to finish him off if he is. Does that frighten you?" Her stare was daring him to challenge her, to try to fix her, but he quietly accepted her severity with a nod and got up to crawl the length of the sofa, pulling her down with him.
"I would want that too," he rumbled in her ear, and she buried her eyes in the soft wool of his jumper. How he could take the chaos of her past and soften it in such a way as mere understanding was unfathomable. "Nap then presents? It's been a long day."
"It's only two."
"I know."
She smiled crookedly and closed her eyes.
They woke at five-thirty, and for probably the first in a long time Mary felt excited that it was Christmas. Not only had she not had anyone in her life who cared enough to put thought into a gift, but beyond that she had never been so eager to give a gift since the winter after Hedestad. At John's suggestion they took their parcels down to Mrs. Hudson's flat, where they had dinner before exchanging gifts. John was predictably touched and thrilled by the addition for his computer and the books, Mrs. Hudson gladly declared at her new bracelet, and then it was Mary's turn.
From Mrs. Hudson she was given a pair of hand-knitted arm warmers that matched the color of her hair. John got her a thick wool coat of mustard yellow. Did she really look so cold so often, or was there some problem with her flat the landlady hadn't told her about yet?
"I'm sorry it isn't very extravagant," John apologized later in his room. "Especially not compared to the memory space. I just saw it in a window and knew you had to have it, knew how lovely it would look with your hair. Will you try it on so I know it fits?"
She eagerly slipped it on to try, silk lining running smooth against her skin, and felt something small bump against her hip when she closed the front. Suddenly John was fascinated by the bedspread. Mary reached into the pocket and pulled out a small box clenched in white-knuckled fingers. Her heart immediately began to pound; if John was asking her to marry him she would not be able to say yes no matter how she loved him. Despite the leaps and bounds she'd made in learning to trust these new people in her new world, marriage was still something she couldn't find herself interested in.
When her hesitation became obvious, John turned bright red and finally looked up. "Oh, god, it's not - I mean if that's what you - I - Christ."
She finally opened the box and found a shining new key for flat 221B sitting at the bottom. It took all of her strength not to sigh in relief. As John explained that he knew it was a big step for them to take so soon after getting together but they practically lived together anyway, she unbuckled his belt.
After John had gone to sleep Mary checked the BBC website; it took a bit of searching but did find a mention of a possible Lisbeth Salander sighting in St. Bartholomew's hospital. She bit her lip and sat up until dawn thinking before going to sleep. She just had to keep her head down, and soon the press would doubt themselves and forget all about her.
She went with John to the cemetery on January sixth. Never before had she been so helpless as watching him weep for his lost friend, and knowing that anything she tried to say would be useless. She hadn't known Holmes, and she didn't know if he was in a better place. Maybe London was purgatory, and wherever they went next was Hell. Maybe there was nothing, more likely in Mary's opinion even if Salander hoped there was a Hell made especially for pigs like Bjurmann and Martin Vanger.
John slept in her bed for the first time.
A beautiful thing about being a fugitive while being in love with John Watson was that he respected her and the things she had had to do to protect herself. That, and he was not afraid to box with her when she wanted to work on her coordination, which had been poor since her head injury. He'd taken a rudimentary course in upper school but had never pursued the sport, instead favoring rugby, but still remembered most of the steps. They went to a sporting goods store and bought gloves together on a rainy Tuesday night in March three weeks before Salander's twenty-eighth birthday. She hadn't mentioned the upcoming date, only because she hated making people pay attention to her. Instead, she asked John to help her get back into boxing.
He didn't hold back like Paolo Ronaldo had at first when they trained together. John knew how strong she was, knew more of her secrets than she had ever revealed to anyone, and therefore knew that he didn't stand a chance as soon as they started sparring. The muscle memories came back just like riding her Kawasaki, and soon after pushing the furniture in her flat out of the way she and John were circling one another like birds, each of them just as clumsy and out of practice as the other.
They both got a few good jabs in, but Mary was obviously on better footing and faked exhaustion so John wouldn't be embarrassed by losing. That was another thing that had changed about her; were she sixteen and in the boxing club she would have done everything in her power to humiliate each one of those cocky assholes until they cried for their mothers. She licked the blood off of John's lip before letting him look at the cut above her right eyebrow. It was the most fun she'd had in ages.