Fare Thee Well, Love
Genre: Angst, FUTURE FIC
Pairings: Scott and posthumous Megan
Main characters: Scott, introducing Millie, the current Baker Street Beagle, in a cameo, and Elizabeth Megan Ciana McTavish, in mentioning
"My Darling Meg," Scott wrote, as he steeled himself at the small desk, in the office of 221C – once Greer's bedroom, in earlier times, but now converted into a small personal space, for whomever might require it. It was a well-loved room, a sanctuary of sorts now. Since Greer's occupation, with her help (in nesting mode no less), it had been outfitted with a small electric fireplace housed within a book shelf, a small love seat, and a desk fully kitted out with stationery of varying styles, envelopes, and writing tools. Here, private moments had been kept private, yet still purged onto paper.
On this day, as it happened, it was six months to the day when they had all had lost Megan... but Scott, most of all.
"I know it hasn't been long since you've left us, or perhaps it has been but I've not felt it to be… but I wanted to say again how very much I love you. It was always my intention to remain absolutely faithful to you," he wrote, pausing only to take a sip from the cup of tea his Mum had prepared for him. "And of course, it still is. But I find myself becoming… so very lonely for companionship these days."
He closed his eyes, unsure what to do about the sudden memories that were bombarding him. He felt tears brimming to the surface, and refused them as best he could.
Finally, he composed himself. "John and Josie seem to feel almost… GUILTY in my presence of late, as though they wish they weren't so HAPPY in front of me. They seem remorseful when I spend time with Aiden, as though my nephew were reminding me of something I nearly had with you, but can never have now. Of course I can never resent them, or especially that beautiful boy. I assure you Meg, he is absolutely the apple of his Uncle's eye... or one of two at least." Scott paused at this to rise momentarily to open the door, letting in Millie, 221 Baker Street's current resident pocket beagle.
"Being ignored, were you, flop-eared lassie?" Scott said softly. Millie simply sniffed around the room, her nose to the floor and her tail in motion, then settled solidly on top of his feet, a chew toy between her front paws. Shaking his head with a small smile at the extreme focus of a hound, even as her tail casually wagged in adoration of his presence, he returned to his task.
"The truth is Meggie," Scott wrote, pausing. He closed his eyes, swallowing hard. "I don't resent them at all. I know there are people in our lives who are our life partners. You weren't meant to be mine… but my darling, beautiful Meg… I was apparently meant to be yours." At this, his breath caught, and he allowed himself to fall apart for a short, needed time.
"Greer, oh our Greer. She seems to understand somehow. She tells me all the time that I shouldn't feel GUILTY for being lonely, for longing to have once again what we had. She says it's only natural. She says so with sadness, though," he wrote. "She reminds me again and again that this is not what you would have wanted for me. Where she gets the wisdom from I'll never know. But you know Greer. She never did call a spade a spade, even since she was a very little girl. She's always called it a bloody shovel." Scott paused here, smiling with a small burst of chuckle. "Actually, that's not QUITE what she calls it… but you get the general idea, Meg. Even in front of her daughter," he reflected, with the pride only possible from an uncle of one of Greer's offspring. "Oh she's so tiny and perfectly Lestrade, you'd adore her. Sam doesn't even seem to care that their baby doesn't seem to take after him much. In fact, the silly git seems DELIGHTED that she favours Greer. They named her after you, you know, in a way. Elizabeth Megan Ciana. They'll apparently call her Beth. But to me, she'll always be Meggie."
Here, he paused several minutes, thinking, and reflecting. He allowed a few tears to form, and fall, before shaking his head and regaining composure.
"I think now, knowing what you would have wanted, and knowing how I feel… that perhaps one day, should such a thing happen, I MIGHT actually be able to love someone else. I've no idea what the future holds, of course, nobody does. But Mum put it quite reasonably when she explained to me how she once felt for Uncle Sherlock, and how he persuaded her to look instead to Dad… how she managed, in time, to reconcile the love she felt for both of them, into what it became, and what it remains to this day."
Scott paused, rising from the small desk. He glanced down apologetically at Millie, only to find she was completely absorbed in destroying her toy. Walking over to the window, he looked out, watching the gentle rainfall hit the ground from the street level viewpoint that the basement flat afforded. He allowed himself, for a few minutes, to become mesmerized, letting his mind and heart settle into what he had to say next. It took several minutes for Scott to realize that Millie had abandoned her toy to sit next to him, with curiosity. He glanced down, finding himself face to face with the adoring look of a hound. "You must be a Holmes at heart," he muttered softly. "Can't show you love, unless you think you're not being watched," he concluded. Millie simply wagged her tail again, with a small whine of ackowlegement. Finally, Scott turned back to his task, Millie quietly following to settle once again at his feet.
"Mum told me," Scott wrote, settling back down at the desk, "that she realized that she didn't have to stop loving Uncle Sherlock in order to start loving Dad. For her, she explained, it was simply a matter of moving Uncle Sherlock into another part of her heart, and leaving the space he once occupied open for Dad. In that way, she said, she didn't have to give him up to love Dad. It was simply a difference between loving someone, and being IN love with someone."
"I have nobody I'm in love with, Meg. Still, only you. But now at least I know, now I've learned, and understand, and have accepted, that someday, should she come along, another may take your place in that part of my heart which is reserved for the woman I am in love with. I will always love you, always always my beautiful Meg. I'd ask your forgiveness, but I now think… I KNOW, I don't really need it."
Scott took a deep breath, allowing his focus to wander around the room.
"I remain forever yours, and you remain forever mine, in whatever part of my heart you should be in" he concluded…
"Fare Thee Well, Love... Scott."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: To one, now gone these nearly 7 years, who was not to be my life partner, but I was to be his. Fare thee well, Love.