A/N: As always, I am very grateful for your comments and views, and if I could I would hug you all!
Hope you enjoy :)
"What?! Sherlock, if this some kind of sick joke, I swear I'll-", John angrily sputtered, but was cut off by Sherlock.
"I'm so sorry John, I really am, but I'm telling you the truth"
"So you're telling me that you-", John realized with horror.
"What? No!"
"Stop cutting me off Sherlock! Are you telling me that you had sex with my wife? I thought you were my friend!"
"No, I did not have sex with Mary", Sherlock explained calmly.
"So this is just your plan to get me to dislike Mary then?", John asked, dubiously watching Sherlock.
"Why would I do that?", Sherlock asked, looking puzzled.
"Because you lo...", John suddenly fell silent. Sherlock looked at him, suddenly understanding.
"John, no matter how I feel about you, I would never try to trick you into disliking Mary. Believe it or not, but I want you to be happy even if that means you will stay with Mary" Sherlock said, looking truly honest. John didn't say anything in along while. Abruptly, he turned around, walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water, not caring about the stinking mess on the sink. When he came back to the living room a while later, he held a steaming cup of strong tea.
"Continue", he said in a strained voice, sipping the tea gently. Sherlock had to hold back a smile at the familiar sight.
"You know already that Mycroft has control of every single CCTV-camera in London. One day he saw Mary with some guy who wasn't you. And it's been going on for a while now"
"Are you monitoring me and Mary?", John snarled.
"I'm not monitoring you, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mycroft is. So I took the liberty of collecting some DNA-samples from you and the baby, and it shows that you aren't her father. Sorry".
"Wait, you took DNA-samples?! How did you do that without me knowing? No, actually I don't want to know", John pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. "Continue", he muttered.
"That's all there is to tell", Sherlock said but his eyebrow made an almost unnoticeable twitch, which, John knew, meant that he was lying.
"There's more. Tell me", John said warningly.
"I know who the father is. You know him too", Sherlock all but whispered. John urged for him to tell him, but Sherlock stayed silent.
"Oh God, it's bad, isn't it? Don't tell me it's Greg!", John already felt betrayed, whoever it would turn out to be.
"It's not Greg, it's Mike Stamford", Sherlock looked at John compassionately. John just stared back.
"Do you want a cigarette?", Sherlock asked as they walked out of the bar John and Lestrade had visited the night before.
"I thought you had quit", John mumbled and pushed the offered cigarette away.
"Just because I usually use nicotine patches doesn't mean that I don't smoke anymore", Sherlock said and lit the cigarette.
"I have to talk to Mary", John said while trying to not get smoke in his face.
"I said so before, but you insisted on going out drinking instead", Sherlock remarked. John pulled out his phone. The display showed that he had three missed calls from his wife.
"I told her I would be home at seven and now it's ten. Will you be going back to Baker Street?", John sighed.
"I could go with you and prevent you from throwing things if it gets bad", Sherlock said, not entirely able to keep his serious facade.
"Haha", John said sarcastically. "You can come with me but, with all due respect, keep your mouth shut. You'll probably just make it worse".
"I wasn't going to say anything", Sherlock mumbled and followed John into the taxi he had hailed.
John took a deep breath and opened the door. Mary immediately came rushing, looking worried.
"Where have you been? You said you would be home at seven! I thought something had happened to you!"
"Mary, we need to talk", John said, quietly. He intended to handle it as calm as possible, it would be better for both of them. Mary looked from John to Sherlock, and then to John again. Suddenly her breath hitched and she realized.
"John...", she whispered. John only gave her a stern look and showed her to the living room. He asked her to sit down in the armchair as Sherlock and himself took the sofa.
"I guess you already know what I want to talk to you about", John started. "So apparently you have been cheating on me", he continued, feeling a lump starting to form in his throat - more from anger than from sadness, but still a bit of both.
"Yes, and I am so sorry John. I really am". She looked apologetic but after all the lies she had told John, he felt that he couldn't trust her anymore.
"I want to know why", he said.
"It was before you got to know about my past. I knew I would have to tell you and I was certain that you would divorce me when I did, so I sort of gave up on our relationship. And then Mike came along, and suddenly I was pregnant. I swear that if I had known that I was pregnant with Mike's child I would never have married you, I didn't want to cause you any pain", she looked down, not wanting to meet John's eyes.
"Well, I hope you understand that I don't want to be married to you anymore", John said coolly. "I really trusted you Mary, I think I proved that to you when I didn't feel the need to read about your past. You broke that trust and hurt me. I will file for divorce and send you the papers. Goodbye". With those words, John stood up and walked out of his old home. He turned to Sherlock.
"I guess we'll be working more on the case tomorrow. See you then", he said.
"What? But where are you going?", Sherlock looked as if he wanted to reach out for John, but he restrained himself.
"To a bed and breakfast or something", John mumbled, checking his wallet and wondered how much the cheapest b&b would be.
"If you want to, you could come back to Baker Street. Your old room still contains your old bed. I don't think there's much to in the fridge though, so we would have to order take-away", Sherlock said and pretended to look at his phone at the same time. John always knew when he was pretending.
"Sure, I guess I could do that. But I don't want to be a bother, are you sure it's okay?", he knew that when Sherlock had adjusted to his own habits he weren't likely to get rid of them, and John thought that the detective might as well have created a life of his own while he himself was living with Mary.
"I'm confident that I will be able to adjust", he smiled.
"John, what are you doing here this early?", Mrs Hudson asked. She had gone up to make Sherlock his morning tea, only to find that John had already put the kettle on. John didn't want to upset her, but he knew he had to tell her about his and Mary's 'row'.
"I...I'm not living with Mary anymore", he said, trying to conceal as much detail as possible.
"Oh dear, I'm so sorry!", Mrs Hudson exclaimed sympathetically. "If it's of any consolation, I'm very happy to see you here again, even though the circumstances are woefully", she patted him on his good shoulder and smiled.
"Thanks, Mrs Hudson", he said and smiled back. Suddenly Sherlock stepped into the kitchen, wearing one of his usual suits.
"Good morning", he said. "Is that my morning tea?", he pointed at the cup John was absentmindedly holding.
"It might as well be", John said and handed the cup to the detective. He took a sip and burned his tongue, judging by his pained cry. Mrs Hudson sighed with happiness and scuttled down the stairs again.
Both investigated the case files as they drank their tea. Sherlock got a text from Lestrade.
"He says he wants us to come down to the Yard today or tomorrow to summarize what we have concluded so far".
"That meeting will be over quickly", John snorted and looked at the notes he had made so far;
Moriarty uses decoys to hide his true goal.
"We will have to work considerably faster than we are doing now if we are to show Lestrade that we've actually made some kind of progress", Sherlock said and chuckled.
"You don't seem worried"
"I don't get worried easily. It's not good to worry and try to deduce at the same time".
"You don't seem to get hungry easily either. Are you sure that you don't want any toast?", John asked and reached for the bread bin.
"I'm not hungry", Sherlock muttered. John frowned, but let it go.
"Take a look at this", Sherlock said and handed his phone to John. Mycroft had sent Sherlock a picture from a CCTV-camera. It looked like any busy London street.
"What's so special about this?", he asked and tried to hand the phone back to Sherlock, but he wouldn't let him.
"Are you more daft than usual? There, in the corner, on the wall of that restaurant", Sherlock pointed. John squinted and saw that someone had sprayed light blue words on the wall;
Need a hint? -M
