"Wake up... hey, miss, wake up. You're here."
Molly stirred, half-opened her eyes and realised she was sitting in the back of a cab. It was the early hours of the morning, still dark, and she'd managed to fall asleep on the way home from the Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital. The cab driver had come around to her side of the cab and opened the door for her, then given her a gentle shake to rouse her.
"Oh." She stifled a yawn into her hand. "I'm so sorry. How much do I owe you?"
She handed over the requested amount and struggled out of the cab, her overnight bag slung awkwardly over one shoulder.
"Everything okay?" he asked her, frowning.
"Yes - yes, I'm fine. Do you know what time it is?" she asked as he got back into his seat.
He glanced at his watch. "Just gone ten past five."
"Thank you."
He stayed idly on the kerb, evidently watching to make sure she made it into the house. Molly fished her keys out of her handbag and went to the front door, being rapturously greeted by both hungry cats the second she was in hall.
Well, that had just been embarrassing. She was sure that she'd been having real contractions this time - sure enough that she'd gone to the hospital and waited an hour to be seen, only to be unceremoniously informed that she wasn't in labour and sent home with orders to call in and ask before she panicked and came in for another false alarm.
Well, thank God I didn't call John, she thought, cringing. As embarrassing as the hospital, and the condescending, are-you-stupid lecture she'd been given by one of the midwives on duty had been, it was surely a whole lot less embarrassing than calling John home, only to have to tell him when he arrived that she'd made a mistake after all.
She fed the cats, even though it was still a good two or three hours earlier than their usual breakfast, and went upstairs and back to bed. For what that was worth. For someone who was apparently not in labour she was very uncomfortable, and lay awake for some time trying to find a spot on the mattress where she could at least fall into a doze.
Maybe I should call John, just to let him know... not ask him to come home... oh, I can't! His father is being buried today. He doesn't need an excuse to run away from that. Or from Harry.
"This might be a little upsetting, Dr. Watson."
It was half-past ten, and John and Harry had just arrived at the funeral home. Time for this viewing business, which John was looking forward to as much as he looked forward to root canal therapy. He was standing near the doorway of the room, casting nervous glances at the glossy rosewood coffin at the far end.
Harry had refused to come in with him. She was blubbering outside already, in a way that was getting on John's nerves. After all, neither of them had spoken to their father in all this time, so it was hypocritical of Harry to start acting like she was grieving now. He brushed aside the obvious - her tears weren't grief. They were fear.
They'd talk about that on the way home. And for a good deal longer, John imagined, but now wasn't the time. Now he had to go over and take a look at his father's two-day-dead corpse.
The funeral attendant, a chubby, rosy young woman named Anna, was standing beside him in case she was needed; it was she who had warned him about it being upsetting. He glanced at her. "I've seen corpses before," he said. "Plenty."
"You haven't seen this one," she pointed out in hushed, gentle tones. "It can be very different when it's someone you know and love. Take all the time you need. And if you don't feel you can do it, there's no shame in that, either."
John dithered. "Give me a minute, please."
"Yes," she said. "Of course."
"My sister's outside... she's a little upset. She might need some water to calm her down."
"I'll see to it."
"Thank you."
Anna closed the door softly behind her. John could hear muffled voices as she was asking Harry if she wanted a glass of water, or perhaps a cup of tea. He half-expected Harry to ask for a fifth of vodka, since Lord knew that was what she really wanted. He tuned out Harry's whimpering and made himself walk over to the velvet-lined rosewood coffin at the window.
The initial shock was like plunging into cold water - one gasp, and then he went about getting used to it. After all, it was just a corpse. Death is not disgusting. It isn't frightening. It's natural. Everyone dies.
Dad had been much younger the last time they'd spoken, of course; John reflected that he'd only have been a few years older than he and Harry were now. And now he was dead, at sixty-eight years old. Too young for a natural death, and taken out of the world by acute pancreatic bleeding, occasioned by chronic alcoholism.
John, with his doctor's knowledge, hadn't told Harry - would never tell her - that the end had probably been frightening and painful.
There was no fear or pain on the dead man's face now. Death had touched it and purified it; he looked at peace. At peace, for possibly the first time in twenty-five years. Ultimate peace, but it had been gained at the ultimate cost.
John glanced down from the pinched, aquiline face and to where his father's stiff grey hands were crossed. Gold wedding ring on. It was a ring he'd never worn in life, even when Mum had been alive. He'd never liked jewelry. The solicitor had asked John if he wanted his father buried in a replica wedding ring, so that he could keep the original. Harry had kept Mum's wedding ring when she'd died.
I have my own, and don't need his.
"So," John murmured, looking back up at the still, soapy face, partially obscured with an iron-grey beard that had been groomed and washed after death. "So. You're actually dead, then..."
"I'm so sorry, Sherlock," Molly exclaimed as soon as she saw the disgruntled consulting detective. The third-floor east-side pathology lab was locked, and the keys were in her hand; he'd been forced to wait outside in the corridor for her.
He glanced at his watch. "Ten thirty-two."
"I know. I'm so sorry. I - I overslept..."
As she unlocked the lab and opened the door, she felt Sherlock's keen eyes on her. She wondered if he was reading what had happened in the early hours, and how much of it he could grasp from just looking at her. Could he tell that she'd only slept for an hour, and she'd been half-waking every few minutes with those infuriating Braxton-Hicks contractions since then?
He said nothing about it to her face, at least. Despite huffing about the delay he was more approachable than he'd been the day before, even making her a cup of tea, unasked, as she scrubbed up and found her lab coat and gloves.
"Need to speed it up today," he said, handing her the tea.
"Yes." She sipped. "Sherlock, I had a thought about this last night. What if it isn't poison?"
He blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Well.. I mean, we looked for poison all day yesterday and couldn't find any, and the Street pathologist couldn't find any either. So I was thinking, maybe it's not a poison?"
"Well what is it, then?"
"Don't know," she backtracked, reluctant to confess to Sherlock the exact circumstances of her idea... sitting in Labour and Delivery at half past three that morning and overhearing a nurse asking someone if she was allergic to anything. "Perhaps it was an allergy? I mean, something that may not be a poison, but was poisonous to him."
Sherlock paused.
"The pasty," he blurted out. "It was the only thing he'd eaten recently. If there was something in it, an additive or ingredient that he was allergic to..."
"The report says he'd been ill with mono," she said. "And he had an enlarged spleen. If he was that ill, the slightest thing could have set him off. I once did an autopsy on someone who died of heart failure after eating food that was too spicy for him."
"Molly Watson, sometimes you are a genius," Sherlock exclaimed, rushing over to the cupboard for a clean beaker and quite missing the look on Molly's face as another contraction washed over her like a wave.
Ouch. That one hurt.
John and Harry arrived at the church nearly an hour early. John, being the one who was ostensibly in charge of this circus, wanted to oversee everything that was going on.
"Hold up, Harry," he muttered to her as they came in the central nave door and waited to greet the minister. "Don't start crying before the service even starts." He looked around for the holy water font out of habit, remembering after one confused second that he was in a Church of England church. Dad had never converted to Catholicism, and John was sort of glad of it. The last thing he wanted was to have to sit through a formal Requiem Mass. Mum's had been bad enough.
"I'm not going to start crying. Not yet, anyway. But people should cry at funerals. It shows you cared."
"You didn't care."
"That isn't the point..." Harry spoke vaguely. John followed her gaze to the back of the church, where a well-dressed woman, with dark hair cut into a sleek bob, was hesitantly standing near the door. He recognised her with a pang.
Clara.
Harry glanced at John.
"Don't look at me like that," he muttered to her. "I certainly didn't tell her this was happening. Couldn't have contacted her if I'd tried. Do you want me to tell her to go -?"
Harry swallowed, then shook her head. "No," she murmured. "No, it's okay. I think I should go talk to her."
John watched her go out to Clara with serious misgivings. The last thing Harry needed just then was... well, the last thing Harry needed just then was a drink. The second-last thing she needed was Clara.
~~o0o~~
"How did you know?"
Harry had stepped out to where Clara had sat down on low stone wall outside. She was sucking on a cigarette, heavily-lipsticked mouth curled around it almost desperately.
Still smoking. Still wears that blood-coloured lipstick.
Clara Watson, née West, had changed little over the last five years. There were slight creases around her eyes and mouth - she was now thirty-eight - and a sort of tired resolution about her that Harry couldn't remember seeing before.
"I heard," she said.
Harry decided not to question how Clara had heard. She wasn't local; the last Harry had heard, she'd lived in Basingstoke.
"I'm sorry, Harry." Clara ashed her cigarette.
"Don't be," Harry said, lifting her chin. "John and I aren't exactly sorry. You know we haven't spoken to him in years."
"All the same..." Clara lifted her heavy lashes and looked at her ex-wife in silence for a few seconds; a silence that was heavy with a sort of wistful affection. "How have you been, Harry?"
Harry kicked at the concrete she was standing on. "Oh, you know me. Still a tacky lush. You?"
"Still a neurotic bitch."
They smiled at each other. Clara ashed her cigarette again. Harry had never seen her smoke so fast in her life.
"Do you want me to leave?" she asked next.
"No."
"Does John want me to leave?"
"Probably."
Clara chuckled. "How is the poor, dear man?"
"He's doing well," Harry found herself saying. "Very well. You needn't worry about him staring at your boobs during the service. He's reformed."
Clara laughed, then have Harry a doubtful look.
"Well, he's still got eyes. He's also got a wife who's the sweetest thing, and a kid on the way. But then, we both knew he was the one who was going to make something of himself one day. It certainly was never going to be me." She paused, glancing up to the horizon for a few seconds. "Anyway, I don't care what he wants. Stay if you want to."
Clara glanced toward the open church door. Organ music had begun to trickle out on the warm afternoon breeze. "Thank you," she said. "I think I will."
"I appreciate that."
After a brief lunch that neither of them really ate, it started to occur to Sherlock that Molly was not looking very well.
She never complained, but that was no surprise. Sherlock thought it likely that Molly wouldn't make any noticeable protest if she was being stripped limb from limb. But she was pale and became even more quiet than usual, and he'd noticed her grimace once or twice.
The difficult thing, Sherlock reflected to himself in rising nervousness, was deciding whether to say something. Because Molly wasn't saying anything, and that was... awkward. The idea of bringing up the current state of Molly's reproductive organs filled Sherlock with a kind of fluttery aversion that he'd never felt before and didn't understand.
He said nothing. Instead, he worked alongside her in silence for a time, observing. Certainly the quality and consistency of Molly's work wasn't being much affected; she hadn't looked up from it in half an hour when she suddenly broke the silence.
"Sulphur Dioxide."
This snapped him back to the case at hand. "Definitely?"
"Almost definitely." There was a quiet little triumph in her voice, that of a correct guesser. "It's... sometimes used as a preservative in pastry, you know."
"The government surely regulates it."
"Yes, I suppose they do, but not everyone cares what the government thinks. It's present in the sample in quite concentrated levels... levels above what I'd imagine is normal for edible pastry."
"Dangerous levels?" His eyes narrowed. But she shook her head.
"I don't think so," she said, biting her lip. "Not for a healthy person... but if he'd... recently been ill... he..."
She trailed off, putting her beaker down and reaching out to grab hold of the counter. Taking a sharp breath, she shut her eyes for a few seconds.
"Molly -"
"I'm fine," she said, sucking in another sharp, deep breath.
"You're fine?" Sherlock's voice hit an upper register of alarm. His eyes flickered over Molly in one hurried scan, and he leaned over to put two fingers against her wrist. "Pallor. Sweat. Dilated pupils. Elevated pulse rate. Shaking hands. Inability to stand unassisted, talk or maintain eye contact with me during the peak of the pain. Shall I go on, or should I skip that part and just call an ambulance?"
"I don't need an ambulance," she got out.
Sherlock went to his coat, draped on a hook near the door. Through the thudding of blood in her ears, Molly could hear the bleeps of his phone buttons being dialled. "Which hospital?" he asked her.
"No," she protested weakly. "No..."
"I'm calling a taxi," he said, phone to his ear. "Be grateful it isn't an ambulance - yes, I need to order a cab, please, to take us from Barts to... Molly, which hospital?"
"Queen Charlotte and Chelsea..." Molly gripped the countertop, white-fingered, as Sherlock paced around with the phone. She heard him use the word "emergency"; but before she could protest that it wasn't one, he'd hung up the phone. He practically threw it onto the counter, where it clattered to rest near her left hand.
"Fifteen minutes," he said. "I don't suppose you've bothered to let John know the happy news?"
"He's at a funeral, Sherlock." She glanced at the clock. "Even if he's got his phone on... he won't..."
She looked nervously across at him. Sherlock said nothing, but the look on his face as the situation unfurled was eloquent enough to express a single word.
Shit.
John had more or less agreed to every hymn that the minister, a man he didn't know named Andrew Grose, had suggested to him. What did it matter? His father hadn't cared about music in life, and even if he had, he was dead. The congregation struggled through lacklustre versions of Abide with Me and Eternal Father, Strong to Save; then Grose announced the eulogy.
Clutching some folded papers, John went up to the lectern. He shuffled them nervously in some semblance of order and cleared his throat, looking out at those who had come to see his father buried.
There weren't many, of course. Old school friends. Old girlfriends. Acquaintances. Old neighbours... but Veronica Cartwright, at least, hadn't darkened the door.
"I, um." John twitched the microphone. "I'm sure most of you know me, or remember me. I, uh, I want to apologise in advance for this eulogy, I... didn't have a lot of time to prepare for it... well. Of course I didn't. And, uh, those of you who know me will also know how badly I do at things like this..."
He trailed off. His gaze had come to rest on a spot in the far left corner, near the end of the row. Greg Lestrade was sitting there, in what he'd once referred to as his monkey-suit; the one reserved for funerals and weddings and theatre. Melissa was beside him, hands folded on her lap.
He'd had no idea Lestrade even knew his father was dead. How had he...
For the rest of his life, John assumed that Molly had asked Lestrade to go to the funeral. No one ever mentioned the phone call Sherlock had made to the Lestrade household the night before.
Melissa was wearing a black dress and a fascinator. She's wearing a bloody fascinator. Is she doing this to me on purpose? John stifled a nervous giggle into his hand, turning it into a cough. He glanced back at Lestrade, who nodded slightly in encouragement.
"Okay," he said, not game to glance over to where he just knew Harry had started to sniffle. "So I'd like to thank you all for coming... and give apologies for my wife, Molly, who's not able to be here with us today but who's been such a help to my sister and me during this... difficult time. So." He took a deep breath. "What can I tell you about my father? I can tell you the facts. I can tell you that he was born in Chelmsford on May 13th, 1945. I can tell you he married Charlotte Grace Hennessy on September 9th, 1971, and that my sister Harriet and I were born one year and twelve days later... I can tell you he was a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy and served in the Falklands.
I can tell you what I can remember of him when I was younger. I can tell you all about when he was stationed at Devonport and we lived in Plymouth for four years... I can tell you lots of things... that people shouldn't say at funerals... and you all know it."
Dead silence, broken by a sniffle from Harry. John looked across and met Lestrade's gaze again.
"But I think I'm going to tell you all something different, actually. I wasn't aware of it before yesterday," he said, "but it turns out that my father kept diaries. I had the privilege of being able to read some of them last night..." He faltered for a few seconds. "And, um. There was one entry in particular... I thought that it might help to let my father speak for himself.
"When we were kids, Harry and I had a dog named Penny." He glanced down at Harry, who was smiling through tears at the memory. "She was older than us, and we sort of... took it for granted that she was always going to be there. I suppose kids do that. When we were about eleven or twelve - and she must have been an old dog by then - Dad had her taken to be put down."
He faltered. The room was still silent. Clearing his throat, he continued.
"I remember him telling us one morning over breakfast. He said we had ten minutes to say goodbye to Penny before he was taking her to the vet. I don't mind telling you that I cried. I'm sure Harry doesn't mind me telling you that she cried. She... didn't want to let Penny go. Dad had to... um. Make her."
Harry stifled a sob in her hand.
"The way I remember it, he literally said, 'Penny's just a dog. Dogs die all the time'. I thought... perhaps that was a good show of who he was. But then last night, I found this in his diary..." John unfolded the piece of paper, a little clumsily. "And I, uh, I wanted to share what he wrote about it...
March 10th, 1984
Talked with Lottie last night about Penny again. We decided it would be cruel to let her carry on when she can't even get up or sit down without pain, poor old thing. Bit cut up. I've had her since before we were married. Didn't tell the kids until the last minute, no sense in drawing things out. John was trying to be brave about it but he's just a kid, and he loved that dog. Harry lost it. Had to pull Penny out of her hands. She hit me and told me she hated me. Couldn't wallop her for that. She didn't understand.
Took Penny to the vet and stayed with her on my lap for the needle. Seen men die before but never a dog. They asked me if I wanted to take her home but couldn't do that to the kids. Drove home and had to pull over four times because I couldn't see the road for the tears in my eyes. Wish I'd brought her home now.
"Um." John cleared his throat twice. "That's... yep. That's it."
There was no sound but a cough from the back of the room and the squeak of the lectern as John left it. He was dry-eyed and seemed vindicated; Harry stood up for a second and took his hands in hers as he got back to the pew. The minister, clearly not expecting the extreme brevity of John's eulogy, looked hesitant for a few moments and then ordered the next hymn.
"I'll give you fifty pounds in cash if you can get to the Charlotte inside of fifteen minutes," Sherlock told the taxi driver as he slid into his side of the cab and slammed the door.
"Sherlock," Molly protested.
"You're right, Molly. Make that a hundred."
"Sherlock, please..." Molly leaned forward, addressing the driver. "There's no emergency," she said. "It's okay. Just drive normally."
"'You sure?"
"Yes. Please."
All the same, the cab took off at quite an alarming pace, reaching the corner in seconds. Sherlock, sitting opposite Molly, hit speed-dial on his phone and held it to his ear for several seconds, then growled in helpless fury and threw the phone into his lap.
"Voicemail?" she offered meekly.
"Yes," he snapped. "Just how long does a funeral go for, anyhow?"
"I don't know," she said. "Um, maybe an hour? What time is it now?"
Sherlock glanced at his watch, completely failed to register the time, and glanced again. "Just gone half past."
"It won't be long, then, Sherlock."
"'Long' is a relative term."
For the next few minutes, Sherlock was silent; he picked up his phone again and appeared to be texting at lightning speed. Molly looked out the window, not speaking either. The pain started to rise again and she stiffened, bunching hands into white-knuckled fists. No. She could handle this. She really could...
... Maybe not. The pain smashed its previous barrier, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle up in protest.
It was then that Sherlock leaned across the space between them and caught her hand in his, giving it a warm squeeze. It almost shocked her out of the pain she was in.
"Molly," he said. "Uh... um. If... if John doesn't arrive in time..."
"He will," she got out as the pain started to fall again and the blood rushed from her head.
"Yes," he agreed uncomfortably. "But if he doesn't... do you, er... want me to...?"
She nodded, taking a deep breath. "Thank you."