Mary returns to their home, alone. John's touch reminds her of all of the things that she misses about him. She wants to see him, but there is no way that she's going to Baker Street again. At Baker Street, she had felt like a little child, accused, alone, hurt. No one offered comfort. No one offered sympathy. She had to be strong.
John knows where I live. If he wants to see me, he will have to make the first move.
She goes into the kitchen and eats a banana. It is so quiet.
She should talk to someone. She pulls out her phone and stares at it. Who can she call? The nurses from the surgery? They would surely ask about John. She leafs through the names in her address book and finds that most of her friends are actually John's friends. The rest are people that she certainly doesn't want to confide in.
She can go out. She needs new clothes as hers no longer fit well, but she'd rather go out with someone. Strange. She always used to be such a loner. Have the last five years changed her so much?
She sees Janine's number, and she dials. Janine won't ask about John, or if she does, she won't really care what Mary says. She's shallow and selfish, but those very qualities make her perfect company. Mary doesn't care how many pairs of shoes it costs her. She is tired of being alone.
The message goes to voice mail. "Hi, this is Janine. I've gone on vacation to the Greece, so I can't answer your calls, but if you are handsome, rich, and unmarried, leave a message and I will certainly return your call when I get back. BEEP!" Mary jabs the disconnect button with her thumb. Useless woman. I should have hit her harder.
She goes into the living room and sits down in the chair staring at the dark screen of the telly. John loved to watch telly, the stupider the show, the better he liked it. Mary never got the hang of it, but she enjoyed watching John watch telly. He would crack jokes about the shows or the people, snide little remarks that would set her off laughing. Sometimes he would talk about Sherlock and how he had once deduced someone's paternity by the turn ups on his jeans.
Sherlock! Why does John care so much about that man? He married me! The bastard! How dare he abandon me here. How long does he plan to stay away? So what if I shot Sherlock. I did it for our happiness! Doesn't he care about me any more? He swore that we'd be together forever. Liar! Does he ever plan to come home? Why pretend anymore? Why should I maintain this farce of a married life if he's already decided to leave?
Mary jumps to her feet thrusting her hands to her side so violently that she knocks the lamp off the table. The shade falls off and rolls across the floor. She covers her eyes with her hands, and takes a deep breath getting herself under control. Then she walks around to pick up the mess she's made of the lamp.
She picks up the lamp and places it back on the table, then she reaches for the lamp shade but stops when she sees a small black device on the carpet. She tilts her head to the side and stares at it. Then she picks it up and holds it between her fingers as she examines it. It is a listening device, a bug. Someone has bugged her flat. John wouldn't do such a thing, and although Sherlock would, he's in hospital. She smiles. I'd bet money that it's Mycroft Holmes who put this in, and he'd be a fool if he didn't have one in each room.
She reaches forward and turns the telly on loud. Then she walks around the house looking behind pictures and in drawers for more bugs. She finds them scattered throughout the house. Her smile gets wider as her guesses are right on the mark. She finds one in each room, including the bathroom and hall closet.
She goes to the kitchen and sets a pot of water on the stove. She drops each bug into the pot with relish, hoping to burst the eardrums of whoever is listening in. She boils them for half an hour then lets them cool, before crushing them carefully with the heel of her shoe, shattering each one against the hard kitchen tiles. She sweeps up the fragments and throws them in the trash. Then she sits down and makes a sandwich for dinner.
It becomes a ritual of sorts. She rises, showers, dresses and makes breakfast. Then she does the sweep for new bugs. They put them in when she goes shopping or any other time that errands lead her out of the house. At least it gives her something to do.
Which is good, because she's bored with living alone. She's no good at knitting, And although she enjoys baking, it's only fun when there is someone around to eat the things that she makes. Maybe she should leave some biscuits out for the people who put in the bugs each day. They are the closest she has these days to friends. Perhaps she could fill them with rat poison. Would it be considered murder if they ate them?
As the weeks go by, they become better and better at hiding the bugs, so she comes up with a trick to make them easier to find. Each day after breakfast, she sprays the carpet and all of the surfaces of the house with a thin mixture of club soda and laundry detergent. Then at night, after she's turned off all of the lights in the house and gone to bed. She rises. Puts on her slippers, and pulls out a portable UV lamp. She walks through the house as quietly as a mouse and shines it on each surface.
The fluorescent compounds that she has coated the house with let off a dim blue glow. It makes the foot prints and the hand swipes easy to see. Even gloved hands can smear the surface of a table. She follows the path of heeled footprints to a wall switch that has been replaced so neatly that she didn't notice it. A dim mark on a throw pillow leads her to find a suspicious lump in the lining. She makes note of their locations and then goes to sleep only to rip them out the following morning.
It comes time for another doctor's appointment. She texts John and waits in the uncomfortable plastic chair for him to arrive. She watches, but she doesn't see him until they call her name. He walks in then, as if he had been waiting outside the door. He stands beside her all through the examination, but he never talks to her directly, and he avoids eye contact. She slows her step as they leave, and he reaches out and touches her waist again, but this time he pushes her quickly through the lobby and out of the door. Once outside, he turns without a word and leaves, having never talked to her once.
She goes home again, alone. She enters the flat with heavy steps and sits in John's chair staring at the darkened telly. She is exhausted. She is tired of this entire situation, so she skips dinner and goes directly to bed. She wakes the next morning at three and takes her customary walk around the flat finding the new bugs that they've installed before going back to her bed.
She lies there, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of distant traffic coming in through the window.
What am I to John now? Am I still his wife? Am I only, like Mycroft Holmes implies, a baby factory here to pump out a child for them to control? What will they do to me after she's born? If it was me, I'd do it immediately after. A routine vitamin shot taken post-partum. 'How were we to know she'd have an allergic reaction?' they'll say. 'Oh how tragic, a mother dying like that. The poor child.'
Maybe I should leave the country now, but how? It's hard to be invisible when you're pregnant. And where can I go that CAM's money and influence won't reach?
She sighs turning on her side to look out of the window only to notice the first rays of the sun streaming in. She climbs out of bed, showers and dresses. Then she goes to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. After breakfast, she puts on an apron and gloves, and sets about removing all of the bugs that she found the night before.
While spraying a new coat of dye on the curtains, she receives a text. It's from David, her old boyfriend. He wants to invite her out for lunch. David is boring and a bit creepy. When she broke it off with him, he hounded her begging for a second chance so often that she broke down and gave him one more try. It was a mistake, and she had avoided him ever since, but now… it would be good to sit and talk with someone again. To have a conversation and just forget her current situation for a while. She returns his text saying 'Yes, she would love to meet him for lunch today.' Then she puts away her cleaning things and starts a load of dishes.
She's in the bedroom trying to find a set of clothes that still fit when the bell rings. She opens the door to find David standing there with a large takeaway bag.
"David! I thought that we were meeting in town."
"I thought it might save time if I brought lunch to you."
"Well, that's nice, but I'm not even dressed yet."
"You look fine. You look great actually. Can I come in? I have sushi."
"Sushi!" Mary cries taking the bag out of his hands a rushing into the kitchen. David follows her watching as she opens the bags and unpacks the deluxe platter. "Oh my God! You don't know how much I've been craving sushi lately. John won't let me eat it. Something about the mercury levels in tuna, but at this point, I'm willing to throw caution to the wind. David, you are a life saver!"
Mary sits down and pulls out a piece with fatty tuna. She takes a bite and then sighs with contentment. David watches her eat his eyes greedy for more than food.
"I'm so glad you agreed to see me," he says. "I've been meaning to talk to you for ages but every time I tried to get in touch with you, that psychopath would send me another intimidating message. But he can't do that anymore, can he now?"
Mary listens with half an ear as she starts in on the salmon.
"I don't think that marriage has been good for you. You aren't being treated with the respect that you deserve."
"Isn't that the definition of a housewife, someone who isn't treated with the respect that they deserve?" Mary says with a smirk before starting in on the octopus.
David moves his chair a bit closer to her. "Your so called husband. Where is he?"
So called? "He's out visiting a sick friend," Mary said.
"Isn't a month a long time for a visit or has it been two months now?"
Mary turns toward him licking her fingers. She wipes them on a napkin and frowns. "David, I appreciate your concern, and the food is very much appreciated, but I really don't know where you're getting this information."
"Your husband has abandoned you!" he says. "He's left you for his best man. I was at the wedding. I could see what was going on. You took John from Sherlock, but now that he's hurt, John's gone back to him. He's left you."
"No he hasn't!" Mary says with a bit more force than she feels.
"Then where is he?"
"David!"
"He doesn't respect you. He doesn't deserve you, Ana full of grace!"
Mary freezes. Ana full of grace? That's what father used to call me!
"How do you know that name?" Mary asks unable to keep the shock out of her voice.
"I've always known it, ever since I was a boy."
"A boy? Do you mean that you..."
"Yes, Ana. I know who you really are. I'm, David Luca. You and I...we're family."
They found her! Oh God! She hasn't escaped her family after all.
