His Sherlock-supplied bupropion now dwindling, John requests and receives a new prescription from a relieved Naz on his return. After two weeks on the medication, he begins to notice how the constant churn of anxiety and despair that had consumed so many of his waking hours since Mary died has receded. Not diminished, but distanced enough for him to begin to escape its pull. On Annie's suggestion, and recalling what he'd told James so many years ago, John acquires a therapist to facilitate the process, acquiescing to her gentle instruction on how to live with the darkness without letting it devour him.
He talks about Mary and finds that in the talking she once again becomes a living presence in his life. In the same way he'd trained himself to dispose of anything that might expose his deepest vulnerabilities, John had tried for months to box up his memories of her - put them away where they could no longer hurt him. But he discovers that, in so doing, he'd managed to divorce himself from some of the best, most important moments of his life, excising the good along with the bad with such blunt-edged ineptitude that the memories had festered where they might have healed. His therapist now teaches him how to take them out, one by one, and slowly reweave them into the variegated tapestry of his unfinished life.
Over the course of this exercise, John comes across dustier boxes, ragged with age, and these he opens alone in the privacy of his mind. Here are his memories of life with Sherlock - both the painful and the pleasurable; and beneath those other memories - hidden treasures softly glittering in the light - that, released, flood his awareness. Sherlock's eyes, his hair and hands; his infectious enthusiasm and the glee that had always roused John's own playfulness. The way he'd looked when, drowsy and warm, they'd locked eyes in bed, and the feel of his body, long and solid, against John's as they danced. Deeper still are the things his possessive subconscious has hoarded - the missed beats of John's heart at a wayward glance, hints of Sherlock's own vulnerability and John's primal need to protect. The beginnings of something that can only be love, wrapped in gossamer affection and buried where once he would have been least likely to find it.
A month after his return to London, John is working late at the clinic under the cold light of a single fluorescent lamp, when impulse spurs him to pick up his phone.
To: Sherlock
From: John
I've begun ranking my patients in the same way you used to do with your cases. Mine seem to need negative numbers to truly capture just how awful some of them really are.
John hits send, imagining Sherlock reading quietly in the light of his fire when the message arrives; and, sure enough, his response is almost instantaneous.
To: John
From: Sherlock
Diarrheoa? - SH
He laughs, voice echoing in his empty office. A small ember of affection flares bright as he types out his response.
To: Sherlock
From: John
Impetigo. A -3 at least.
A pause in which John imagines a kind of perverse delight suffusing Sherlock's face; then
To: John
From: Sherlock
At least. And you persist in this why? - SH
It's a question John's been asking himself lately, and he replies with rare honesty.
To: Sherlock
From: John
I'm not really sure anymore.
Their texting eventually becomes something of a nightly ritual, at first always initiated by John, but eventually by Sherlock as well. Sherlock's ironclad grip on his softer emotions seems to weaken under the gentle force of their healing friendship, until the night John receives a message that sounds for all the world like a plea in disguise.
To: John
From: Sherlock
It's cold and clear tonight, John. There are more stars in the sky than one could ever count. I wish you were here to see it.
John is in bed watching the news when Sherlock's text arrives and, reading it, he suddenly wants it too - to be sitting on the steps of Sherlock's weathered cottage, leaning against him in the cold winter calm as they look up at the stars together. To grab a little more life while he still can, instead of shutting himself up in a sepulchre. He drags his eyes from the words to glance around the bedroom; traces of Mary remain in the remaining jewellery she had worn, in scraps of shopping lists he's never been able to bin, but mostly he finds only things where once there had been a life. Mary is gone, and the realisation makes John wonder why he remains.
To: Sherlock
From: John
I wish I was, too.
December, 2038
It takes longer than it used to for John to climb to his feet from the floor of Annie's loo. He knows he needs more exercise, though he has a sneaking suspicion his weakened knees are here to stay.
"That should do it," he says to Annie, who's leaning, fretful, against the door jamb.
"Thanks, Dad," she says. "I'm useless with the plumbing."
John goes into the bathroom to wash his hands, making sure to give his daughter a pointed glance over his glasses on the way.
"There's no reason you should be. MI-6? I think you can handle a faulty flapper."
Annie laughs and heads downstairs.
"Why should I, when I have you?"
When John joins her in the kitchen, sitting down to a steaming cup of tea coloured perfectly by just the right dollop of milk, he risks a self-conscious look at her, clears his throat and says, "What if I weren't around anymore?"
Annie freezes in her tracks, a look of horror filling her eyes until, seeing it, John backtracks hurriedly, insisting, "No! No, I'm fine - I'm fine, Annie."
She falls into the chair across from him, more relieved than upset.
"If you're sure you're all right," she says, and John nods. "Then why wouldn't you be around anymore?"
John tilts his head, feels his face warm with a slight rush of blood. He fixes his eyes on his mug; his fingers trace the handle, the rim, idly sliding around and over until he finds the words to explain.
"Only, with your mother gone… it's too much house for me alone, yeah? And I've been thinking of moving."
"But you'd still be in London, right?"
He screws up his mouth, trying to hide the embarrassed smile that's struggling to make itself seen.
"Maybe not?" John sighs, takes a sip of his tea and returns the cup to the table with a soft thud. "I don't know. I don't even know what I'm thinking."
He looks up at Annie, observes for the millionth time all the ways she resembles Mary, and his nascent resolve falters.
"I loved your mother," he quietly insists.
"I know you did," Annie says, covering his hand resting on the table with her own. "Dad, what is all this about?"
John removes his glasses and rubs his eyes with a sigh. He's never been good at this sort of thing, least of all with his own child, but there's been no one to confide in save his therapist, and he wants…
"Oh!"
He glances up as Annie pulls her hand away to hurry into the other room, eyes lit with some unspoken understanding. When she returns, she's carrying a white envelope that she holds out to him. John takes it and finds his name written there - in Mary's handwriting. An electric wave of unreality sweeps over him at the sight.
"What is this?"
Annie, still standing, ducks her head as she explains, "Mum gave it me to give you."
John glowers at his daughter.
"Then why didn't you?"
"Well, that's the thing," she replies. "She wasn't very clear about it, but she said to give it you if you ever started talking about things… leaving."
"Leaving," John repeats, and Annie blushes.
"Or - Sherlock."
The last word is almost whispered.
"I'll just… " she says, gesturing towards the front room. "Be in there."
John's hands haven't trembled in an age - even the intermittent tremor left over from the war had all but disappeared by the time Annie was born. But they tremble now as he turns the envelope over in his hands, slips a finger under the flap and tears it open. He tilts his head back a bit in order to see through the bottom half of his progressives, and Mary's words come into focus.
Dearest Husband,
If you're reading this, it means you've finally got your head out of your arse and have somehow had the foresight to confide in Annie.
I have loved you so much. The choice you made that Christmas gave me back my life and allowed me to stop living a lie. For that alone, I will always be in your debt. That it came at the expense of someone else's happiness has been the one shadow over my own, and if I can give some of it back in any small measure…
If I know you, and you've gone so far as to talk to Annie, you're probably feeling guilty and you want absolution - or more likely, permission. I give you neither. Not because I disapprove of your feelings - far from it. I want nothing more than your happiness, John - I always have. But when you came to me that Christmas day, you'd made a decision - a choice, John - to be with me. You'd weighed all the pros and cons, and you had decided I was worth it, despite all the pain I had caused. That was what meant so very much to me, and if I can give that to Sherlock - because it is Sherlock, isn't it? He deserves it as much as I ever did - maybe even more, for having waited so long and so patiently. To be your choice, no matter what anyone else might think, including me.
If you love him, John, choose him and be happy.
All my love, forever and ever,
Mary
When Annie returns, John wordlessly hands her the letter. He stands, gathers up his canvas tool bag, and puts on his winter coat while her eyes flit over the words, and when she joins him at the door, he says, simply, "I may not be around as much anymore."
Annie nods, her tearful smile echoing the bittersweet joy in his heart.
"I know."
John clears his throat, his fatherly facade crumbling a bit as he says in his gruff way, "Learn to fix the toilet."
He leans over and kisses Annie softly on the cheek, then opens the door and heads out into the late December cold.