The water was fragrant, rich with the scent of lavender bath salts and rose petals which floated on the surface red as garnets. On the counter atop a folded pink bath towel sat her gun. The doors were locked, and the traps were set, in case someone tried to surprise her. The room glowed with candlelight. In the rest of the house, the lights were out. Mary lowered herself into bath water almost hot enough to burn, and covered her eyes with a wash cloth. She listened to the quiet, soaking it all in.

She was relatively safe at the moment. It usually took a few weeks after a contract was announced for someone to take it. It had to be Magnussen who had issued it. She was a threat to him, and he certainly had enough money to do it. But what really convinced her, is how publicly he must have announced it if even Davy's mother had heard of it. He could have made a private contract, done it in secret, but he'd made it public so that she'd know it was coming, petty man. She needed to calm herself, to give herself time to work through her threats. Mycroft's people would be watching tonight. She'd trust in them, and in luck. She had decisions to make. She put the rest of the world out of her mind, and let the warmth seep into her skin.

Mary had been barely a child when she had started her career, and she had expected every year to be her last. She had spent her life running from job to job. Living in hotel rooms. Hiding out in basements. Sometimes she lived as high as a queen, and other times as poor as a pauper, but she had survived when others hadn't. Mary stroked her neck, and felt a fold of skin there. She was getting old. In none of her plans had she ever expected that. Well, she'd imagined striking it rich and living in the Cayman islands with a host of handsome boy toys until she was old and grey, but she had never imagined herself as she was now: Married, pregnant, and living in a suburban flat.

Once she'd reveled in her ability to pull any man she wanted. She had been young, and sexy, and she strode in through the front door, getting close to her targets with her looks and her personality before carrying out her job and disappearing into the night. But as she aged, it was harder to catch men's eyes. She'd changed then, going in through the back door and making herself look inconspicuous. She became one of those people who was always there, but you never noticed: The maid, the waitress, the nurse, and she'd been more successful because of it. But she'd missed the affirmation of a man's lusty gaze, until John, that is. John had always found her attractive. He loved her body. He even loved her scars! She'd had to lie, saying that she'd taken fencing in college when he recognized the cuts as being from a blade, but he had kissed them, open-mouthed, pleased to find her skin so interesting.

He had been shy and reticent at first, but once he had her, he'd been relentless, especially after Sherlock had returned. He would come back from a case as worked up as a stallion. That was how she had become pregnant. All those times he'd cornered her on the couch, or in the hall, or one memorable time in his office, when the fact that they had no condom available was less of an issue than their absolute need for him to be inside her right this minute! She hadn't worried then, not at her age. She remembered her mother going through menopause, and she'd been younger than Mary was now, so one or two incidents were unlikely to get her pregnant. She'd thought so then, but she had been wrong.

When she lowered her ears into the water, she could hear the gentle thump, thump of her heart beat. She ran her hand along the bulge in her abdomen. It was still small. If she pushed her hips under, she could make it almost unnoticable, as if it wasn't there, but it had already changed her. It had changed the width of her hips, the size of her breasts, her center of balance. Most of all, it had changed her mind, because now she thought that perhaps she wouldn't be the end of the line. Perhaps something of her could survive even after her death.

Mary had always loved her mother, but she had never respected her. She had never understood why her mother had married her father. Was this how her mother had felt? Had she slept with a man to do her job only to find herself accidentally with child? Had she found herself wondering, like Mary was now, if there was any way out of her situation? She must have.

What would her life have been like if her mother had run? Would she have escaped and led a normal life, or was she doomed to watch her mother die, blond hair covered in blood. Was she doomed to become her mother? Would her daughter steal into the room, as she had, to touch her Mother's hand only to find that she'd gone cold and stiff.

She needn't worry about that. Most contracts were not like the one that she had been given. Most jobs were fulfilled and paid within a month of being contracted. And now there was a contract out on her life. That meant that it was most likely her daughter would never be born. She was too early in her pregnancy for the child to survive, even prematurely. Mary rubbed her hand across her belly. She wanted to protect the child inside her. She wanted it so much sometimes that she could hardly breathe.

And then there was John. He hadn't forgiven her, but he hadn't fully spurned her either. That was because of their child. John wanted a child so much that he considered forgiving her for everything that she had done to him, everything that she had done to Sherlock, to have one. He was made to be a father. He was kind and fierce and loyal. Everything that she was not. She was not the wife that he had wanted. He was not the husband she deserved, for she had sowed betrayal, and all that she could expect to reap was bitterness.

She took the cloth off of her face and dropped it on the floor. She'd made her decision. If she wanted to live, she had to leave. But if she went back home, would the family accept her? Just as likely they'd flay her alive the moment she returned. Mary lay back inhaling the pleasant scents and trying to think pleasant thoughts, but the rose petals looked too much like blood, and the herbs tasted bitter in her mouth.

She took a moment to dream of the life she might have had. She could imagine a baby with golden hair and pink skin strapped to her father's front. Or an older child in a red dress going to a Christmas play. Presents in front of a tree, and John's face as he looked at her, so proud of his daughter who'd been picked to play the lead. Mary tasted salt on her lips. She was crying, crying for a life that would never be. Normally, she wouldn't tolerate such weakness, but she decided to let herself cry this one time, because she knew that she would never be pregnant again, and John would never let her leave, not as long as she was carrying his child.