Part VI
Too Loud a Solitude
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
It worked beautifully for a while—like Marigold has said, stable.
They would occasionally spend the night together, at her place (there was never any question; he didn't even want to even think about Marigold and Sherlock clashing and the side that he would inevitable end up on). This happened with an alarmingly low frequency for normal couples, but that was what made it so great. He could live his life in 221B Baker Street. Marigold's busy work schedules prevented her from wanting any more, and she in turn was grateful that Sherlock kept him busy most of the time, so he wouldn't complain of her lack of attention.
Even more rarely, Marigold would have an early night and John would have a late one. That was when Marigold joined, much to Sherlock's disapproval. But one time she arrived just in time to throw her dry clothes on the hypothermic duo: Sherlock had tackled a suspect into the Thames and John of course followed headlong to assist him in the struggle. She berated neither Sherlock's risky behavior nor John's recklessness, and instead admired both with silent, bright eyes as they awaited Lestrade's team. After that, Sherlock allowed her to come when she pleased, although his words did not grow any less derisive.
Marigold held it up unreasonably well, especially given her own pride. But something must be said about having undeniable proof that the man was the more intelligent, that allowed her to take in his callousness with exasperation and concession.
Life was perfect for John.
Until the Fall.
-.-.-
He moved into her flat because he could not bear to walk through those doors.
There was much to be done, despite how people thought of death as the final end, a hard stop, but that wasn't the case at all. So much was left behind, and Marigold had to go around picking things up and putting things away, both the chemical sets and the emotional damage.
There were nights when he couldn't sleep. Those were worse than the nightmares; those nights, his thoughts took control and led him places where she couldn't follow.
He grew a beard because he always nicked himself if he tried to shave.
He was lucky that Sarah didn't fire him, although it was as if she did, the amount of work that he got through.
He couldn't talk to Marigold's roommates, because he could see the curiosity in their eyes, inquiring why a friend dying could have such a lasting and damaging impact.
Eventually, they moved out on their own and he moved on, but it was called 'eventually' for a reason.
-.-.-
People looked at John with such looks, even though Sherlock was the one who died, and Mycroft was the one who lost a brother. Marigold hated it, but it was more important that John hated it.
Sherlock might not have had a great opinion of her—or anybody really, except perhaps a grudging respect for his brother's capacities, and John's unwavering humanity—but he sure as hell expected all of them to carry on. Marigold tried to remind them of this as gently and insistently as she could.
She arranged a funeral. John wouldn't like it, but they couldn't live with so much grief and misplaced, delusional hope hanging over their heads like Damocles' sword. It was a small affair, with only Greg, Mrs. Hudson, and them. Well, if 'them' was still a term, but Marigold seemed determined to keep it as one. Sherlock's elusive brother did not show up, but Marigold had no doubt that Mycroft knew of the procession. John had leaned heavily on her the entire day, but his was a warm weight, and Marigold didn't mind bearing it.
In the end, the strongest of them all was Mrs. Hudson.
-.-.-
It was the end to another year. Signs in big, bold letters of 'SALE' started to spawn into the windows of the department stores, and blinking, tiny Christmas lights invaded every solid surface. People rang bells at street corners and judged passersby hurrying pass, pretending to look at absolutely urgent messages on their phones or otherwise staring at the pavement as if fortunes could be read there. Bright, empty boxes were being bought, as well as too many Santa hats. The transformation of the city was so predictable that it had stopped being festive and instead people found it annoying. There wasn't much to do, despite an overwhelming feeling of having too much to do and not enough time, and the dichotomy made people feel at once antsy and snappish. There was too much color on people in stark contrast to the barren, wintry trees and the grey, frozen concrete. Pubs opened earlier and closed later. Everybody knew a few couples who got back together for the holidays, and another few who fought over who should keep the dog.
Harry was one such person—of both the former and the latter, actually. The one true love of her life came back into town to get together with family, and couldn't resist Harry's pathetic, babbling pleas. The moment Claire caved in, Harry broke up with Ella via text, like a true bastard. They didn't have a dog (Harry scoffed at the implication of domestication that a dog suggested), but they did fight over a grossly elaborate Victorian sofa that had been bought at the height of their mutual affections.
John found the entire spectacle disgraceful. It also happened every year like clockwork, and as with the festival lights, it had gone from being worrisome to simply tiresome. At least he could count on a Christmas gift from Claire, which was certainly better than the stocking-stuffer-junk that Harry always got him.
There was going to be a holiday party for the hospital, one that Sarah didn't particularly enjoy but approved of its spirit of tradition and camaraderie. Ruby approved of the occasion for free drinks and a chance for the male members of the team to openly ogle at her legs, so she was left in charge of the logistics (nobody seemed to remember that event organization was part of her job description). There were the usual timidly lewd jokes passed around in the men's room, and a few dares that nobody expected to follow up on.
What was different this year from all the previous years was that Marigold was here. (As replacement? Thoughts were not his friends.)
She had her own work holiday party, of course, the no-expenses-spared type, but John hadn't gone. She had asked lightly, out of some sort of social contract, if he wanted to come with, one night as she was removing her makeup. He had said no, and thought that he could see her shoulders relax. She came home at seven in the morning, waking him up from a hazy morning dream as she stumbled in, swearing and hair reeking of alcohol and barbeque smoke. A couple of people were behind her, and one man looked visibly disappointed when John walked out into the living room. John vaguely felt that he should toughen up and show his soldier face, but it was so early and it honestly seemed to require so much effort. The man left peacefully anyway—or as peacefully as a drunkard could, ramming into the wall at some point, rattling the wall painting frames with the impact of his thick, rugby body.
It took a full day for Marigold to recover, and it wasn't until the next morning that John could turn on the lights or open the curtains. She was wordlessly apologetic, and either as atonement or punishment, she said she would come to the hospital party.
John had said that she didn't have to, that he didn't even want to go himself, but Marigold insisted.
He shrugged and said okay, much like the way that Sarah had persuaded him into going in the first place.
Marigold spent half an hour trying to decide on what to wear—the Oscar de la Renta gown was far too ceremonial, the Hervé Leger bandage dress too tight, the Tibi not tight enough. In the end, she went with a lacy Valentino frock, sparkly Manolo heels, and an even more sparkly Judith Leiber clutch. John told her that nobody at the party would know these names that she just hurled at him, but she kissed his cheek and said don't worry, she'll work it into the conversation.
John wasn't worried—he was just faintly apprehensive that Marigold would be disappointed by his associated persons. He mulled over this fermenting apprehension, his fingers stroking the edge of the phone nestled deep in his pocket, until he finally pulled it out and texted Greg—because Marigold seemed to get along with Greg. She should have at least one person she could talk to.
Sarah opened the door when Marigold rang the doorbell. The party was held at Sarah's house, for both convenience and budget. John briefly wondered if there was still a key under the third loose stone in the flowerbed, filled with—what was it again? Some flower that Marigold also liked, a homely sort, which was why he remembered because it was so unlike Marigold to be so understated. Sarah was dressed in a bright red dress that looked familiar to John. Or maybe all dresses felt familiar—he knew that whenever Marigold bought a new one, he felt like she already had something similar in her large closet. Marigold hugged Sarah—with the added advantage of four inched heels, Marigold was actually about Sarah's height (and very close to John's own, his mind squeamishly added). They exchanged pleasantries—how was Sarah's family, was Marigold going back to America, was the hospital business carrying along, general things that neither cared about, standing in the doorway, where the thick, heated air from inside swirled with the cold outdoors, a dancing struggle surrounding the two women.
John waited patiently until it was his turn to be civil to the hostess. When Sarah turned her face towards him, he complimented her on the decoration and the aroma of food, although he could neither see nor smell the inside of the house. She good-naturedly jested that it was nice to see him out of a jumper and in a proper suit. John nodded to be amicable, and attributed the good taste to Marigold.
After this ritual was completed, Sarah glided back into the hallway and beckoned them in.
The house was much as he remembered—Sarah was not the home improvement type. The hallway was still too dark to properly hang one's coat, the light from upstairs still spilled down the stairs in splattered spots, and the kitchen vent still whirred in the background. It looked quite different though, with some of the furniture squashed to the edges of the living room, and there was a lot of glossy, bright confetti that looked like it belonged at some fourteen-year-old's birthday party that her parents set up. Sarah had removed the one replica painting she brought from the Tate Modern museum's gift store (some ugly piece of Pollock)—she didn't even like it, but the frame had been expensive.
"What had been there?" Marigold asked him quietly. There was a telling white space where the painting used to be.
John shrugged, "Pollock."
Marigold wrinkled her nose, "Ugh. People need to buy art and not what they think other people will think is art."
John chuckled when he once would have laughed.
Marigold looked around the room and nodded to some of his coworkers that she had met before. She had started to occasionally show up at the clinic, for half an hour or a whole one if she could afford it, when she wasn't busy during the day. The first time, Ruby had taken her for a patient and was halfway through starting a file for her when John came out. During the brief five minutes, somehow they rubbed each other the wrong way, and have been subtly hostile ever since. Ruby was actually not a hard woman to get along with—it usually only took a still tongue, but that was not one of Marigold's strength's. Indeed, when Marigold nodded to Ruby, her nose slightly higher than it perhaps should have been, Ruby immediately took it as a challenge. Or perhaps Ruby saw Marigold's appearance as a challenge. Marigold did put some of his coworkers at ill ease: she had a certain bearing, always wore heels, and carried herself over London puddles with great dignity and distain, and most people saw that as—well, for a lack of a more positive term, snobby.
Which, if John was being honest, Marigold certainly was. Marigold saw parties as an occasion to assert herself—not in a bad way, she was just more socially benign at the start, and more abrasive but honest at the end. John, of course, liked parties, even though Sh—
"Do you want a drink?" he asked Marigold.
She looked at him knowingly and said, "Sure," a seemingly offhand consent while her hand squeezed his gently.
He didn't know where the makeshift bar was, but walked towards the densest part of the crowd. (His treacherous mind finished, —Sherlock had always sulkily and derisively called it 'fraternizing') When he passed by Grace, she was saying, "That hurricane in Miami sure is something." As he poured a drink, he could hear Sarah as her companion the exact same question. It felt like he was stuck in a loop.
He poured two glasses of the sauvignon (which would taste like boxed wine), nearly to the brim. Carrying these precarious weapons of mass bleeding in his hands, he wove through the crowd, bumping into nearly everybody in his path. Each time, he bobbed the stem of the glass a little to maintain balance, and the other person gave a little squeamish squeal.
Marigold was engaged in dynamic conversation with Oliver, Sarah's new boyfriend. Well, they've been together for a couple of months, but it felt new because it felt like the past few months didn't happen. They were talking about some sort of a 'buy-in', and John didn't like the way Oliver's eyes crinkled up and laugh lines wrinkled his mouth every time Marigold said something.
John looked around. Despite being coworkers with these people, he didn't want to talk to any of them. Marigold was by far the more sociable one, greeting people, touching their shoulders or batting their arms playfully, laughing and sharing witty repartee, swirling her wine when she wasn't sipping. John tried to take comfort in the fact that probably only he knew the wine was spiked (so crass, but the wine itself was crassly bad to begin with).
John couldn't think of anything to say to anybody beyond a general complaint about the weather. He took his glass and leaned against the wall—it might be his military training, but he felt a lot better with his back covered by the impenetrable wall. He took out his phone but he didn't really have anybody to text, and the blue, garish light of his phone screen probably made his face alien.
"Did you hear about Hurricane Mary in Miami?" Henry snuck upon John, gulping down a mouthful of beer and grinning widely. Henry had that sort of face that looked perpetually chipper and awed, with round eyes under arching eyebrows, and a face that stretched too widely when he smiled. His whole cheerful demeanor offended John right now, so John nodded and glumly stared back at his phone. He had an old version of Angry Birds, didn't he?
Seeing that John was disinclined to answer, Henry took another sip and commented, "I have an aunt in Miami, actually." It had never occurred to Henry, in his thirty-odd years of life, that anybody did not want to talk to him. Whenever a silence fell, he just casually called the other person a taciturn old chap.
"Hm," John hummed discouragingly, opening the app store to find Angry Birds.
"I'd probably get what, a fifth of her inheritance if, you know, the hurricane took her." Henry bit down on the cusp of his empty beer cup. Henry wasn't a bad person—just unsatisfied with life. He liked two complaints before his morning coffee, and looked forward to the ten-fifteen smoke breaks with more longing than he should, having three lung cancers in the family. He had little sympathy for tragic news, but made annual donations to various small-fund charities. He tried to pick off the peperoni pieces on pizzas when others weren't looking. He wore jeans a size too large and a shirt a size too small. The sort of people that one expected to know in middle-age. John knew Henry well, which was why he knew to keep humming.
Indeed, after a few half-hearted comments, Henry retreated when he couldn't find the normally easily-agreeable John.
John had been working with the same people for a long time now—or at least a long time by his standards. Before this, uni was the last time he had spent any substantial time with the same group of people. In the war, he was the surgeon and everybody came and went. After that, he flitted from job to job for a while, before he settled on this. He supposed that it was the point of these grown-up jobs though, that everybody grew to know everybody else, from their preferred color of underwear to their eating habits, but there was no more than that. Everybody was woefully the same, replicable and replaceable down to their last quirks. He hated this feeling that'd haunted him for a while now. He wasn't sure what was worse, the flailing in his nightmares or waking up from it to see the world again.
He walked over to the bar and took a long pull straight from the tequila bottle, despite there being a pair of perfectly good lowball tumblers on the table.
"Jesus, I'm not going to ask how your night's been," Greg surprised him when he put the handle down.
John shrugged. "It's been fine."
Greg snorted, "Like hell." He looked good in a spiffy suit, John thought. Greg rarely took this much care in his appearance.
"Where's your date?" John asked.
"Looking for one here—what do you think," he gestured to his metallic grey suit and slim-cut shirt, "this is all for?"
"Your wife?"
Greg grimaced, "As they say in the oldies, I've been served."
"Oh," John grimaced in response, "sorry."
Greg patted him on the shoulder, "Nothing to it, it's been coming."
"Doesn't help either way," John said sadly.
They looked at each other for a while.
"So, uh," Greg started, "how was your day?"
"You've asked it already."
"Oh," he scratched his head, "uh, nice party, I guess. I like the rug." He kicked the recently cleaned carpeting.
John nodded. Then he felt obliged to say something, and so he cleared his throat. "I hear there was a hurricane in Miami," he repeated.
Greg winced, "Mate, aren't we past that? I've been talking about nothing but bloody Miami and the bloody weather for the last half hour."
"Sorry," John apologized.
"I didn't mean it like that," Greg awkwardly scratched his head. "How's Marigold?"
John tilted his glass to the left, "She's right there."
"John you oaf, I'm just trying to get you warmed up into an actual conversation, of course I know she's—holy shite, who's that?"
John followed Greg's whispered and not too subtle movements, and could see Ruby flipping her wispy blonde hair. "Our receptionist, at the clinic," John answered.
Greg wolf whistled. "How do you do work with her around?"
It wasn't a serious question, so John didn't give an answer.
"It's a shame for a woman like that to not be acquainted with a gentlemanly officer," Greg wiggled his brows.
"… Do you want me to introduce you?" John asked with a sinking stomach—god, he had to talk to people now?
"Why, if you insist, it would be rude of me to refuse."
"Not sure if I'd be the best to do that," John said frankly.
Greg tapped his nose, "Better than nobody else."
"Maybe," John admitted, and allowed himself to be escorted to Ruby.
"Hi there," Ruby greeted them with a happy, tipsy smile, her thin face half concealed beneath a veil of blonde hair. She looked very pretty tonight, and it was just the sort of bubbly, WASP-y prettiness that Greg liked.
"Ruby, this is Greg, a friend of mine in the Scotland Yard. Greg, Ruby, our receptionist."
"Administrative assistant," Ruby corrected, "John just likes teasing me so."
"Part of my job is administrative too," Greg nodded, swirling his drink and downing it in one manly gulp. "Would you like another drink?"
Ruby hesitated for longer than it was polite, but eventually she conceded.
Greg grinned and mumbled a quick 'Be right back', and disappeared into the crowd.
"So," Ruby drawled, "what does he do, exactly?"
"Uh, Greg, you mean?" John gestured to where Greg disappeared.
"Well I didn't get his name, proper, but yeah, your friend."
He did give her his name, but no matter. "He's a detective inspector."
"Ohh, that sounds fancy. So what does he do?"
John shrugged. "A lot of paperwork, occasional drug busts, a couple of high profile cases a while back, but mostly a lot of paperwork that he fails to do."
Ruby twirled her head and had a thoughtful expression. "Cops are always dangerous and fun—well, the ones without a pot belly, that is. Bit rare. Is he married? He's probably married. I never date an unmarried older man, you know: if they can't even get married, then you know there's something wrong with the bloke."
John couldn't take it anymore. He had to leave, now now NOW. None of these people was deeper than a finger's width. He pushed past a pensive Ruby, rushed through the thinning crowd, and ran outside.
Marigold saw him dash and ran after him, not bothering to apologize to her companion. He had been boring anyway.
"John," she called out after him, voice kept low and with warning, "get a hold of yourself."
"I—it's not—I can't—" he began.
"I know," she said impatiently, "but you can't. C'mon, you've always been good at thinking about other people—just be painfully self-aware of everybody staring out the window right now."
He blinked. "They're staring out the window? At us?"
She sighed, "No, they're too busy boozing. It's a thought experiment."
"Oh."
"John, it's still early. We can get properly smashed still."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"Well," Marigold looped her arm around his, "what do you want to do then? A movie? Take-out? I'm not eating fake Chinese food in greasy cardboard boxes again, mind you. How about we go to Great Queen Street? I'm craving their rabbit pie, and the theater is showing a new superhero movie."
"I don't particularly feel like watching some dumb actor in a costume pretending they're saving the world."
Marigold shrugged, evidently used to this, "We can just re-watch some Doctor Who at home or something, how's that?"
John was silent for a moment, before grumbling sulkily, "I don't know why you stay with me."
"I thought that is well explained to death," Marigold said saucily, her left hand going to her hip.
"Well yes," John said, "Except it's different now."
"Right," Marigold agreed, "It's now winter instead of summer."
John looked at her pointedly.
She gave a sound halfway between a sigh and a scoff, "Fine. Well what do you mean then?"
"I just—well—it's that, now that all the adventures are gone with, with…"
"John, my own sweet idiot," she said with a fond exasperation, "so what?"
"So that what you had liked about me—you know, his part—is gone, so there's really nothing much left."
"Look, if I had been after Sherlock, I would have gone after Sherlock. I'm not one to settle for seconds, you should know that by now."
"I'm not saying that you'd like him, it's just that," he cleared his throat, "I have enough self-awareness to know that I'm fundamentally changed now. Don't you feel like it's not what you signed up for?"
"John Watson. Know that whatever Sherlock was—is—to you, you are the same to me."
"That's exactly my point!" John said exasperatedly, "I'm not much of myself anymore."
"Have I ever told you," she interrupted forcefully, "that I got a pot of Kurinji shrub once, when I was young? I thought the flowers were pretty and of course had to own it, so I goaded my mom into letting me take care of it. After two weeks, the flowers wilted. I got angry, but I thought it would bloom again next year, so I kept it. Of course, Kurinji is a plietesial, one that blooms every twelve years, but I didn't know that. Come next year, it was still flowerless, but I still had the incredible youthful capacity for hope, and continued caring for it. It never bloomed, but I stopped caring after a while."
"Are you trying to say that you've grown used to me or that you've spent too long caring for me to back out?"
"Neither, or both, maybe. I don't know. It's just what I did. Does it matter?"
John looked at her for a long while, and felt, for the first time in what seemed like forever, to slowly rise out of a sticky film of apathy and hold a spark of human understanding. "I guess not," he said eventually.
-.-.-
It was not until months later that he got her a ring, but nobody was surprised.
What did surprise people was that she said yes.