The (sort of) calm before the storm...Lots of foreshadowing here...I own nothing, obviously.
Sherlock had waited two months before even thinking about Appledore. He had honestly just wanted to see whether or not Magnussen would do something, anything in the meantime.
And nothing had happened.
On May 14, one day before Mycroft's birthday, Sherlock and Emily lay in bed, having put Benjamin in bed promptly at 20:00.
"Tomorrow afternoon?" Emily asked him, her head resting gingerly on his chest.
"Yes," Sherlock answered.
"I'm going, too," she told him.
"Alright." He figured there was no use in arguing. "Everything is already arranged."
She nodded, laying there while absentmindedly playing with the sparse little tuffs of hair on his chest.
"Do you remember…" she began, "our first time?"
"That was probably terrible, I am so sorry," he laughed.
"It was wonderful," she said genuinely.
"What do you remember?" he questioned. "That is not my memory of it, at all."
She hit him playfully. "Oh, so it wasn't good for you?"
He paused, thinking. "I didn't say that…I just automatically assumed it was awful for you. Fantastic for me…" He stopped talking to grin, the memories all rushing back into his head.
"I remember…the purple shirt. The best purple shirt in the history of purple shirts. Do you know what I call that shirt?" she asked him.
"'The Purple Shirt of Sex.' I've heard you talk to Mary."
"That shirt…that was what sealed the deal."
"So, if I had been wearing a different shirt, we may not be married right now?" he wondered aloud.
"Chaos theory at its finest, dear," she responded with a casual nod of her head.
"Hmmm….what else do you remember?"
"I remember the condom…." She chortled with laughter.
"I had some…technical difficulties. There were no instructions," he whispered lowly, almost embarrassed even after six years.
"The smartest man I've ever met can't figure how to put a condom on…" she teased. "You could've Googled it or something."
"Oh, yes, I'm about to have sex for the first time with the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and I just whip my phone out to Google something. Brilliant plan," he said sarcastically, with a hint of a loving tease.
She leaned up and kissed his cheek delicately. "But, you know, you were the one who had brought the condom. You had been thinking about me," she accused.
"Yes, I had. And better safe than sorry," he reasoned.
"When did you know?" she asked.
"I knew I had feelings for you after we solved our first case together and spent the night in my bed."
"As I recall," she interrupted, "someone would not let me leave that bed the next morning. You held onto me with a death grip," she remembered, smiling.
He smiled back at for a moment, then continued. "I knew I loved you when we were getting ready to catch that jewel thief, and we were pretending to be married. I still had that gash on my cheek, and you helped me shave around it, and then you removed the stitches and bandaged it up. You were really a great nurse," he complimented. "Excellent bedside manner." He paused. "When did you know?"
"I always thought you were handsome, and interesting, too. Much more so than any other guy I'd ever worked with. Sleeping next to you after our first case was close, but I think I really knew I loved you that same night you knew. When we were pretending to be newlyweds at dinner with that jewel thief, you kept acting like you were whispering naughty things into my ear, but really, you were saying things like 'You remind me of my dead ex-girlfriend,' or 'Would you mind riding in the boot of my car on the way back home?' and you did it on purpose to make me laugh but I had to act like it was the sexiest thing I'd ever heard. That was what got me," she laughed. "I really did love John Benjamin." She paused thinking, wondering if he would love her previous selves as she loved his.
"Do you want to see something?" she asked, getting up and looking underneath their bed. She produced her strongbox, which had always had a code on it that not even Sherlock knew. He had always respected her privacy when it came to her things, a courtesy he did not afford for anyone else. He had just assumed that the small green box in question probably just contained her gun, and he never wanted to open it for fear that Benjamin would somehow get the gun as well.
She slowly opened it, the password being 564766. He was right about the gun, but underneath was a whole pile of pictures, birth certificates, passports, social security cards, driver's licenses.
She pulled out one picture, hesitantly sitting next to him, the box in her lap.
"This is me, 2000," she said, laughing nervously.
"You were blonde. I knew you dyed your hair, but…" He stopped speaking, instead just looking at the photo.
He then looked at the box as if he were asking for permission. She handed it to him, letting him trifle through her old belongings.
"You played guitar?" He cocked an eyebrow.
She nodded. "I was in a band in college, believe it or not."
"There you are at high school graduation…valedictorian?"
"Salutatorian," she replied. She saw him pick up a driver's license. "Oh, not that one…anything but that one," she said, giggling. "That was awful."
"There you are in a school play, in middle school?" he asked.
"Yes. I was the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. I had to stuff my dress with pillows," she laughed.
He found a few CDs old boyfriends had given her, noting that she still liked the same music as before. He then saw several more photos of Emily throughout her education: her high school prom, her choir recitals, her elementary school track meets. He noticed her parents had not been at any of these events, nor were they in any photos at all.
As he got deeper into the pile, he found photos of Emily when she had been in that convent in Northern Ireland.
He looked at the first photo of her in her nun's habit. "Hot," he jokingly complimented.
He continued looking, finding several pictures of her attending to the sick and with children, either in a classroom or out on a playground.
"You led the children's choir," he noted.
"That's why Mother Superior let me stay," she replied. "It was one of the only things I was good at there."
He also found several drawings, all to 'Sister Maria', and all from different children.
"They adored you," he stated.
She smiled at him. "They made it all worth it. I honestly only think they really liked me because I refused to hit them with the ruler," she joked, noting how much more comfortable she had become with Sherlock seeing her past.
She then saw what pictures he was getting to and she immediately grimaced.
"And there you are with Magnussen," Sherlock noted, still somewhat bitter.
She looked at the photo, then back at his face. She saw clear jealously plastered all over his usual blasé facial expression.
"And then there you are in his lap. And then kissing him. At the beach with him, topless, no less," Sherlock mumbled through gritted teeth.
"Oh, Sherlock, don't do this," she pleaded. "That is all ancient history. I honestly didn't even remember I had those photos. Do you think I would show them to you if I had?"
"I spent so much time picturing it and now here it is. If I dig deeper, will there be any photos of you two having sex?" he fumed.
"Please, let's not argue," she said calmly.
He put the pictures down, rubbing his forehead, trying to hold his temper in. "We have photographs of us doing all the same things. I mean just as much to you as Magnussen," he admitted to himself.
"Never!" she exclaimed, furious at what he was implying. "Did I marry him? Did I have his child? Do I wear his ring? You saw how I looked at him a couple months ago! I loathe that man. For someone who prides himself on being so clever and rational, you're acting like a complete and utter jackass."
"Name-calling, very mature," he noted. "If you need me," he said, grabbing his pillow and a spare blanket off their bed, "I will be sleeping on the couch."
"Fine," she said, exasperated. "We should have spent tonight of all nights enjoying each other's company, but look at us."
"What does that mean?" he questioned.
"Nothing," she replied, almost too quickly. "Just go sleep on the couch. Please try not to wake Ben up."
He eyed her suspiciously. "Whatever you say, dear," he finally said, making sure to end on a mocking note. "I'll try not to make too much noise."
"Oh, you're just too good to me, sweetheart," she replied, mimicking his sarcastic tone. She wasn't the only one in the Holmes family who was extraordinary adept at being passive-aggressive.
He stomped out of their room, only growing quieter when he got to their living room. He settled in rather quickly, hoping to fall asleep fast, but his mind kept flickering back and forth between his wife and what he was planning to do tomorrow at Appledore, his thoughts playing like a movie projector.
After about an hour, he calmly gathered his things off the couch and made his way back to their bedroom, an apology already being formulated in his mind.
He quietly opened their bedroom door, tip-toeing in and immediately settling in next to her. She was already asleep, quietly snoring like he always had loved. A tiny sliver of moonlight was coming in through the window, highlighting her face like a spotlight. He could tell she had been crying.
He gently brushed the tear stains off her cheeks, kissing her eyelids as a sort of unspoken apology for upsetting her so.
He silently put his arms around her, noting that she felt much warmer than usual.
He felt two small arms wrap themselves around his waist, gripping him tightly to her.
"I'm sorry," he began to say, but she held a finger to his lips, shushing him.
"You never have to say you're sorry," she whispered after a minute. "This mess is all my fault, and I'm going to get you out of it," she promised, looking at him in the dark to see his reaction, then sighing heavily. He was already fast asleep.