Mary came out of the bathroom some time later with her face dry, and her hair done up in a tight braid. She walked over to her suitcase and began unpacking clothes for the day. She laid them out on John's bed.
"Do you want the first shower?"
Sherlock shook his head, so she took her clothes and her purse into the bathroom. Sherlock took out his laptop and sat at the table. Mary came out, fully dressed toweling her long blond hair. She walked over to the table and looked over his shoulder at the screen.
"Have you found something?" she asked.
"Harry's storage account. Her phone company keeps space on the server for storing images. She's been taking pictures with Jazz's phone and sending them to this account."
"Pictures? If we could see them, we might be able to tell where they are now."
"My thoughts exactly."
"So where are they."
"I just need to guess her password. It's proving more difficult than I supposed."
"Have you tried 'Clara'?"
"Of course."
"Backward?"
"Obviously, as well as all of the anagrams. Carla, Larac and so on. I've gone on to numerical ones. I may need to write a program to crack it."
"Try 'Wile E. Coyote'."
"What?"
"W. I. L. E. yes, like that."
"It worked. How on Earth did you guess that?"
"It's what John used to call her as a child."
"But coyotes are indigenous to the North American continent. Why?"
"She used to love thecartoon. When they were kids she'd write Acme on all of their toys." Sherlock only narrowed his eyes. "Didn't you ever watch Road Runner cartoons as a child? What kind of a deprived childhood did you have?"
"My parents preferred books."
"I prefer books as well, but I'd still let my children watch cartoons."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Let's get back to business shall we."
He opened a picture showing John in the very hotel room that they were in. "As if we needed any more evidence that John was here. Perhaps this will keep Lestrade from pestering us about the room. I still think that he believes there was another tea drinking, veteran doctor in this hotel who is going to barge in on us, and ask why we have stolen his room."
"I've never seen that grey suit before."
"It doesn't suit him." Sherlock said.
"I think that it looks nice."
"John would look better in blue."
"I can see that," she agreed. "It would bring out the color in his eyes."
"I've offered to buy him clothes, but he always refuses."
"Send them to me. I'll say that I bought it."
"He'd know that it was from me."
Mary sighed, "I suppose so. All he has to do is read the price tag."
"I don't buy from stores that have 'price tags'. " Sherlock said the last word as if it was extremely distasteful.
"I suppose you are right. Are there anymore pictures?"
"There's a video file here. Let's see what John has been doing."
The screen took a while to load, so Mary had time to sit down. This was good, because the image almost caused her to fall over in shock. John was sitting in a bar or a club. There was a woman in a bikini top and miniskirt on his lap, and he was kissing her. No, he was snogging her. Her long brown hair slid across her back as she turned her head from side to side. John's arms which had started in the middle of her back continued to drift downward until they rested on the her hips. The kiss went on for ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty. She pulled away revealing John's face, his eyes half-lidded in pleasure before the image cut off.
Neither of them moved for several minutes. The hum of the laptop fan was the only sound in the room. Mary sat with her hand over her mouth, and Sherlock was staring at the screen with an puzzled expression on his face, as if he had accidentally opened images from an alternate universe. The universe where John was actually considering leaving them both behind. Mary had proposed this back at Baker street, but Sherlock had not seriously considered this as a possibility before. Then again, why else would John be passionately kissing a stranger?
Mary rose and walked over to the bed to lie down. Sherlock turned to face her. "Ah!" he said.
Mary rolled back toward him. "What?" she asked. "Have you figured something out?"
"You suffer from depression. This is why you have been sleeping so much since John has left, but you have not appeared to be rested."
"Yes. I was diagnosed with depression."
"When?"
"About three years ago."
"You were married before. You still wear his ring below John's wedding ring. I noticed that they weren't the same color. An engagement ring would be, and they usually have a stone. Your first husband left you, but you still care for him."
"Yes, you could say he left me."
"So you married John on the rebound. You still love your first husband."
"Yes, I do still love him. I know now that I always will."
"This doesn't quite fit with your altruistic image, does it Mary, for you to be in love with someone else, but to insist that John stay with you anyway. Why did your husband leave you? Was it for someone like the woman that John was kissing?"
Mary rolled on her back and stared up at the ceiling.
"This has something to do with the coffee doesn't it?" Sherlock said. "Your husband, did he used to make you coffee?"
Mary smiled. "You're amazing, Mr Holmes, to deduce that. Yes, my former husband used to make me coffee every morning. He was passionate about it, but nowhere near as passionate as I was about him. I was very young when I married him. Straight out of school. He was so unlike John, tall and strong. He was also a clever man. Nowhere near as clever as you or course, or as learned as John, but he loved knowledge. He would tell me facts about neutron stars, or the mating habits of fish, or what the phases of the moon meant to medieval peasants. It was all interesting to him.
"Most people thought that he must have carried me off, a young girl fresh out of school with a such a big man, but it was the other way around. I knew that I wanted him from the first moment that I saw him standing outside the construction site. The other girls were rushing past to avoid being whistled at, but I turned and stared. I just stared at him. They tried to pull me away, but I wouldn't go. He looked so amazing, and his face. He was...well in school we would say, 'He was an Adonis'. I couldn't take my eyes off of him.
"And then I married him. My father was so angry at first, but I changed his mind in the end. We moved to England. Brad had found a job that paid almost twice what we had been making back in Australia. We got a flat, and I was very, very happy. He made me coffee on the last morning that I saw him. Then he left, and never came back.
"The next morning, I tried to make coffee, but ... his fingerprints were still on the coffee maker. If I used it, I would wipe them off. I was afraid that I would wipe off all evidence that he had ever lived there, that he had ever wanted me. I wouldn't touch the coffee maker. Soon I was afraid to touch the refrigerator, or the water faucet. I was severely dehydrated when they found me lying on the floor of my flat. After some time in hospital, they sent me to a psychiatric ward to recover. It took a long time.
I was at a group recovery meeting when I met John. Some bright idea his therapist had that maybe John would do better in a group. He sat in that chair looking so uncomfortable, then he said 'I stare at the chair where my friend used to sit, and then I realize that he will never sit there again, and I wonder how I can last another day.' At that moment, I knew that I had found someone who understood my pain. Our first date together was over coffee." Mary smiled.
"I see." Sherlock said, "So you and John, both victims of loss, came together because of a shared pain. You helped each other out. He made you coffee, and you sat in his chair. But then I returned, and John didn't need you anymore, but he wouldn't just abandon you. John is too compassionate for that." Sherlock rose to his feet then and smirked, "But this is rich. You criticized me for being 'selfish' but isn't that what you're doing. Taking advantage of John's compassion? Making him promise 'to take care of you for the rest of your days.' You don't really love John. You're just using him to fight your depression while you wait for this Brad to come back to you."
Mary sat up in bed then, her long golden hair trailing unbound down her back. Her face was a mask of sadness with a hint of anger. "In this case, as in many things Mr Holmes, you are the exception. For the rest of the world, there is no coming back from death."
There was a knock at the door, and then Lestrade walked in. "Wake up you sleepy heads, I found a lead. John came late to the conference, and didn't stay for most of the activities. He did, however, go to the local medical school to participate in a talk with the students. If we hurry we can catch them before they leave class and ask them some questions."
"Good morning, Greg. I thought that you had left to spend Christmas with your children."
"Nah, They aren't expecting me for another two days. I didn't actually believe that I'd get out of Scotland Yard on time. I have you two to thank for that. I figure its the least that I can do to help you find John before Christmas. But you two are remarkably unexcited. What have you been doing all night?"
Sherlock and Mary looked at each other. "Nothing. Just as I thought," said Lestrade. "Come on, or we'll lose our lead."
Mary sat up then, and began to braid her long hair.
