A/N: Here be past Mary/David for your reading pleasure.

I can still recall our last summer/I still see it all

Walks along the Seine/Laughing in the rain

Our last summer/Memories that remain

- Abba, Our Last Summer


David stands before her, shifting nervously from foot to foot; with an internal sigh Mary invites him to join her. "I'd offer you a drink but I'm afraid it's gone," she apologizes, indicating the empty bottle. "But we could go inside and get something else, if you'd like?"

"No, it's okay," David rushes to assure her. "Unless you want to, of course. Whatever you want, Mary, is fine with me."

She quells a groan; same old David, always so willing to please, to do what she wants rather than voice his own needs. It's one of the many reasons they would never have worked out, and she wishes he'd got over her as easily as certain others from her past seem to have done.

"He always has loads of girlfr...uh, he goes on dates. With women."

She tries to ignore Molly's voice in her mind; she tries even hard to ignore Sherlock's and the flutter of hope it brings. "You'd think a man getting a leg over would be happier in his conquests but apparently none of them seem to quite come up to his standards."

Right now John Watson isn't the man she needs to be thinking about, it's David. Sweet, easy-going David, wearing his heart on his sleeve and his hopes in his eyes.

Hopes she needs to find a diplomatic way to quash, once and for all. She has absolutely no interest in rekindling that particular flame and needs to be very firm with him about that truth.

While she searches for the best way to tell David she's just not that into him, he asks an unexpected question, one she should have considered before now. "Am I - still invited to the wedding?"

"You are," she assures him, because he really is a nice man and it's possible he's Rosie's father. "You all are," she rushes to add, before he can read anything into her words. "It's Rosie's wedding, after all, she can invite who she likes."

"What about you, Mary?" he asks, his voice wistful. "You said it was good to see m- us," he corrects himself quickly. "Did you mean it?"

"I did." And she did mean it, still does; all three men meant a great deal to her at one time. "But the invitation allowed for a plus one; surely some lucky woman's snapped you up by now?"

"Oh, she did, and then dumped me when she got bored," David says with an attempt at casualness that Mary can see through like a pane of glass. "Divorced five years now, no kids...well." He grins, an awkward thing that just makes her feel even more sorry for him. "Maybe no kids. Only time and a DNA test will tell, eh?"

"Sherlock's got a brother in the government; he's going to get my friend Molly permission to run the tests at the local hospital," Mary tells him. With a wry grin she adds, "Trust me, he's the efficient type; even if we don't get the results back before the wedding, we'll still get them quicker than if we went through a private lab."

David's smile dims, and she can tell it's because she's talking about Sherlock. With a sigh she says, "Look, David, I know what we had was special, but you also knew even then I was nursing a broken heart and could never really give you mine. And I'm afraid it's still not mine to give away."

She surprises herself with that quiet admission, but it seems to do the trick; David's expression turns resigned, and he manages a sad smile as he says, "But we did have fun, that week in Paris, didn't we?"

She returns his smile. "Yeah, we really did."

1997 - Paris, France

The summer air was soft and warm

The feeling right, the Paris night

Did it's best to please us

And strolling down the Elysee

We had a drink in each cafe

She doesn't quite know how she ended up here, in the so-called City of Love, but after leaving William - Sherlock, the name really does suit him - she'd headed once again for the train station. At the window she'd bought a Eurail pass instead of a ticket home and now here she was. She'd bought a new mobile and contacted her aunt, letting her know she was doing some additional travelling before heading off to Greece.

Her only comment had been "Have a lovely time dear and let me know if you need any additional funds."

She's contemplating a suitable thank you gift when she meets David, in an upscale gift shop. No more wild rides on the backs of motorbikes through the murky parts of town for her; she's doing the proper Tourist thing this time - the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe, booksellers and flower shops and sidewalk cafes. She has La Vie En Rose playing on her Discman, not entirely unironically, and has spent some of her earnings from working at the hotel on new clothes and even a chic Dior hat.

She's heard the term 'shopping therapy' but frankly it's not doing much for her. She picks up a foot-tall model of the Eiffel Tower, compares it to a delicately painted plate bearing the famed landmark's image, when both are nearly knocked out of her hands by someone bumping into her from behind.

She turns with a scowl only to see a mortified young man - English, definitely, by his stumbling attempts at apologizing in French - with his arms full of parcels trying desperately not to knock into anyone else while at the same time trying not to crowd into her personal space.

She's wearing one of her new purchases, a flirty purple and white striped sundress; she's colored matching purple streaks in her short blonde tresses and is wearing an enormous pair of designer knockoff sunglasses. He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt advertising a band she's only vaguely aware of. His short blond hair reminds her of a certain person she's resolved never to think of again but his smile is sweet and so are his continued apologies.

She takes pity on both him and his rather limited French vocabulary and tells him in English that it's fine. His eyes light up at her British accent, and she finds herself accepting both his apology and his offer of a cup of coffee to make up for his clumsiness. In another man she would suspect him of ulterior motives, but David's as transparent as sellotape. Yes, he certainly finds her attractive but no, he's not the type to deliberately set up a 'meet cute' with a girl he fancies.

Honestly, he's just not clever enough to come up with something like that. But he's nice, and he's actually pretty funny and eager to please and she gives him her mobile number and agrees to meet him for dinner later that evening.

She's tempted to find the nearest cybercafé to do a little research on him, but acknowledges that her paranoia is entirely due to he-who-shall-not-be-named. Instead, over their cups of overpriced cappuccinos she just...asks him. "Anyone special back home?"

He blushes and stammers out a "God, no!" and she believes him; he doesn't seem like he could come up with a convincing lie if his life depended on it.

They talk some more; he spends a great deal of time enthusing about his studies at the University of London - accounting, sounds boring to her but he seems keen enough - but is even more eager to hear about her.

As they get to know one another she finds herself recalling Sherlock's last words to her, as clearly as if he were standing beside her and saying them again. "You already know the tells for a cheater. Obviously you can also spot a reckless arse with no direction in life except getting high and having fun. Find someone the exact opposite of both and you'll avoid some of the mistakes you've made this summer."

David is certainly the opposite of both Sherlock and...him.

So she meets him for dinner and they go dancing afterwards and he's so blessedly ordinary, so sweet and eager to please that she impulsively goes back to his hotel with him at the end of the night. He's eager in bed, too, although not as challenging (or athletic) as Sherlock or as passionate and attentive as…as someone else. He's happy to go along with whatever Mary wants to do, both in bed and while taking in the sights of the city, and there's a niggling little inner voice that she tries to ignore even as it whispers to her that she's going to eat him alive if this ever turns into something more than just a holiday fling.

Three days later he tells her he's falling in love with her and she immediately returns to her hotel, packs up her things and makes her way to Greece and her cousins without a single word.

Less than a month after that she discovers that she's pregnant.

The Present

I was so happy we had met

It was the age of no regret…

But underneath we had a fear of flying

Of getting old, a fear of slowly dying

We took the chance

Like we were dancing our last dance

"I shouldn't have just left you that way," Mary says, able to admit to a truth she'd dodged most of her adult life. "I do regret not saying good-bye. But I panicked; I wasn't ready to hear those words, not so soon after John and I had broken up."

In fact, she realizes, Sherlock is the only one she'd actually left in a manner that didn't involve panicky running away. Mostly, she's self-aware enough to admit, because their leavetaking was taken out of both their hands by his brother.

"It's all right," David says, as expected. Mary bites back an annoyed huff; does the man not have an original thought in his head, does he have so little self-esteem that he can't conceive of being angry at her for having left him that way? For not telling him he might be a father?

He surprises her by seeming to read her thoughts in a very Sherlockian manner. "I suppose you must think I'm just a lovesick fool," he says with a sad smile. "But then, I suppose it takes one to know one."

She rears back a bit, but he reaches out and takes her hand in his, giving her a knowing smile. "You said your heart wasn't yours to give, but you've never mentioned a boyfriend or husband - or girlfriend or wife," he adds in a conscious attempt at appearing Modern and Open-Minded that Mary appreciates. "So unless I'm mistaken you're still pining after him, aren't you?

She nods - and then David, dear, sweet David, spoils his moment of Sherlockian deduction by adding, "Well, he's a good-looking man and a famous detective to boot; I can see why you never forgot about him."

She manages to turn her startled laugh into a cough, waving away his offer to bring her a glass of water. "No, it's all right," she gasps out. She manages a reassuring smile, easing his worried expression. "Thank you, David," she says, gently removing her hand from beneath his. "I'm glad we cleared things up between us. Now," she adds briskly, scanning the main part of the terrace, "is there anyone you'd like me to introduce you to? I know who came with a plus one and who hasn't," she explains with a twinkle in her eye.

David blushes. "Well, I had a feeling you weren't interested in getting back together with me," he confesses. "I did notice two women at the bar, a striking redhead who seemed to be chatting up the bartender, and a pretty little brunette in a red sundress...are either of them available?"

Mary briefly considers and then discards the idea of setting David up with Molly in order to light a fire under the (still scrummy) arse of a certain 'good-looking, famous detective'. David doesn't deserve to find himself yet again romancing a woman hung up on someone else. Not to mention that Molly, kind-hearted as she is, would definitely read her the riot act for doing so.

Instead, she tucks her arm through David's and says with a smile, "Janine has her eyes on the father of the groom and Molly is otherwise engaged, sorry. Let me introduce you to my cousin Meena, I know she's around here somewhere, how does that sound?"

"Sounds wonderful," David replies with a grin of his own.

Mary's smile widens; the more she thinks about it, the more the idea of introducing her recently divorced cousin to someone like David - a genuinely nice guy, unlike her arse of an ex - appeals to her. She squeezes his arm as they stroll toward the building. "Who knows, a holiday romance may be just what the doctor ordered!"


End note: Many thanks to everyone for all the love the last chapter received.