Author's note: This chapter makes extensive use of dialogue from "His Last Vow" written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffatt and property of the BBC. Thanks as always to arianedevere at livejournal for transcriptions.
There was one Watson with an unhealthy attraction to danger, and one sensible one who avoided it wherever possible. Being the sensible one, Mary was therefore somewhat surprised to find herself actually getting into Mycroft Holmes' car. She'd given John endless amounts of shit for this sort of behavior, back in happier days.
In her defense, it was really a choice between "car ride with ominous intelligence boss" or "freeze to death on Christmas Eve at rural Yorkshire bus stop." Mycroft had materialized out of the mist as she disembarked. With the exquisite old-fashioned manners Sherlock also had on the rare occasions he could be bothered to deploy them, he'd extended a black umbrella over her head to keep the sleet off and picked up Mary's overnight bag. At that point it seemed impossible to object. Also it turned out that it was hard to be frightened of anyone driving an elderly pumpkin-orange Renault Twingo. Mycroft had pressed his thin lips together and explained, "My father had planned to pick you up tonight, but I try to discourage my parents from driving, as best as I can."
Mycroft Holmes drove with the cautious precision of a man who was generally taken places by chauffeurs. He inquired politely about her journey, which had been as pleasant as anything was nowadays. Mary could recall, vaguely, a time when she'd enjoyed being pregnant, but that time was definitely done. She felt like she'd been ready to pop for years and she still had a month to go and she was hating every second of it. She responded with commonplaces, and they chatted about the shortcomings of the modern railway system.
And then, just quite casually, he came out with, "Incidentally, my parents are not aware of the precise circumstances surrounding Sherlock's shooting, and I would encourage you to allow them to continue in that state of ignorance. No clearing of the conscience is necessary or desirable."
Mary sat perfectly still as her heart tried to overclock, and eventually replied, "And… you. Are not. Ignorant of the circumstances."
"It hardly takes a deductive genius to notice the coincidental timing of the shooting and the breakdown of his best friend's marriage to a CIA hitwoman and put the pieces together correctly."
"Ah," Mary said. She knew how this sort of conversation went, so she matched the older Holmes brother's casual tone and inquired, "Ex-CIA, if there was any question about that. How long have you known?"
"Doctor Watson in and of himself isn't the subject of particularly intensive surveillance, so I don't believe we found out about you until your relationship became serious in April of last year."
"May."
"April. You may like to know that ghosting is a terribly insecure method of creating a false identity."
"Mmm," Mary replied, thinking she could really do without the Holmes boys criticizing her skills all the time, "And you were fine with that? Never felt the need to mention it?"
"If Sherlock couldn't figure it out on his own I saw no need to trouble him with it. The Russians and Americans have obscenely overbloated intelligence communities with extremely high rates of burnout. There's half a dozen expat former spies in this country at the moment. And they are, mostly, harmless. Until they are not."
Mycroft glanced over at her, and continued, "Don't look so alarmed. When he entered Magnussen's office that night he was doing so in violation of a direct instruction of mine."
"And his disobeying orders gives you sufficient reason not to… respond to my actions."
"Sufficient. But also solitary," the elder Holmes replied icily, "Do keep in mind that unlike my brother I do not view all of this as an amusing game to keep myself from being bored."
They drove silently through the mist until they arrived at a nice red-plastered house with tiny windows. Mycroft parked and killed the ignition. Mary said quietly, "I imagine someone like me could be very useful to someone like you."
"I imagine you will be," Mycroft replied. With that, he got out of the car... and opened her door for her.
Marian and Siger Holmes were nothing like Mary might have expected, though when she thought about it she really couldn't quite picture what sort of parents she'd expect Sherlock and Mycroft to have had. But Siger Holmes, former spymaster, was a kindly old duffer who essentially forced Mary into the best chair with a hot water bottle for her feet and then wouldn't let her lift a finger to do anything. And Marian, former Wykeham professor of physics, winner of the Wolf Prize, stuffed Mary with such exquisite food that it seemed impossible all the men in that woman's life were so slim.
Marian also made a valiant entry in the "most terrifying unsolicited obstetrical history" contest that Mary had been unwittingly hosting for the past few months. Sadly, the story of 11 pound undetected breech Sherlock and the eldritch unspeakable horror that was Mycroft's birth were unable to overcome the all-time champion, random elderly lady in the waiting room at the tyre repair shop.
Then Siger escorted Mary upstairs, saying, "We've put you two in Sherlock's old room. Once him and Doctor Watson get up here both our boys can share Mike's."
And with the prospect of getting to share a bed with her estranged husband to delight her evening hours, he bade her goodnight. Mary sat on the bed and looked around her curiously. Nothing tonight made sense. It seemed impossible that Sherlock and 'Mike' had grown up in this lovely normal home in this tiny northern village, with their BBC-standard accents and… unusual personality quirks.
The room had been decorated in bland, pleasant, guest-room style, unsurprisingly given that "our boys" were in their thirties and forties. The only hint of its former occupant was a series of carved lines and dates on the doorframe. Sherlock evidently had shot up more than six inches in 1989, which was the last year featured. Then when Mary turned out the lights, faint greenish-white spots began slowly to glow on the ceiling.
She fell asleep beneath the strange constellations of the boy who had become the man she knew. And then... it was Christmas.
Mary splashed water on her face in the tiny half-bathroom, and stared dully into the mirror. Forty, the real forty, had finally come over the summer, and she looked every hard-earned day of it this morning.
For all Sherlock's optimism, she knew John. Probably better than he knew himself. He was a soldier at heart, and he only retreated when he felt unsure of how to proceed. If he came, today, it would be because he had finally made a decision.
Mary knew what that decision would be.
As things went, this did count as a happy ending… certainly more of one than she deserved. Peace and safety would happen. Always overrated commodities for her, but important for children. And if the whole process involved more loneliness and custody negotiations than she'd ever hoped? Well, as the Irishman said in the old joke, you can get used to anything, even being hanged.
Women did this all the time. Her mother had done this, twice. So Mary lifted her head, put on a cheery seasonal jumper and probably too much makeup, and went downstairs to face her destiny.
First, though, she had to be forced back into the best chair, tucked under a blanket, stuffed with more excellent food and generally coddled into oblivion. It would have been irritating but she was frankly exhausted all the time now and so it was actually rather nice. The Holmes parents were incredibly cute, and clearly besotted with one another even after decades together.
Eventually, Sherlock (and Bill Wiggins, for some reason) let themselves in at the back door. Sherlock kissed her cheek in greeting, which startled Mary and seemed to amaze Siger. He wasn't particularly fond of being touched by other people. But only Mary knew that he'd taken the opportunity to whisper in her ear, "He's out pouting in the car."
Nervily she started leafing through a book that had a picture of a young Marian on the dust jacket and whose text left Mary, with her two semesters of calculus, completely in the cold. She could do this, she told herself again. The only way out was through, and then she could get on with it. Hell, she could even be really nice to his next wife, and faintly smug. Just to freak her out, the radiant twenty-five year old skank.
But John came in and when that happened Mary sincerely wished she was dead. He looked so… just dapper and handsome, and she really regretted that they were going to do this while she looked and felt like a beached whale. Within a few minutes, everyone cleared out in an embarrassing display of "avoid that couple."
John cleared his throat and asked, "So, are you okay?"
"Oh! Are we doing conversation today? It really is Christmas," Mary purred before she could stop herself. Possibly she would have to work harder than she'd thought at being really nice about this.
John reached into his pocket, took out the little grey pen drive with her initials, and showed it to her. Mary rolled her eyes at him and asked, "Now? Seriously? Months of silence and we're gonna do this ... now? So, have you read it?"
"Would you come here a moment?"
John was trying to stage-manage this scene, Mary realized, and part of her, right then, hated him. She hated all the melodrama and the theatrics that he never could really resist.
"No," she said firmly, "Tell me. Have you?"
He sighed exasperatedly and spat, "Just - come here."
Mary pushed off her blanket and got to her feet. She winced a bit from the round ligament pain triggered by the motion, and John took a step forward to help her, but she flinched back with a "No, I'm fine." She couldn't do this without crying if he touched her.
John turned the pen drive in his hands.
"I've thought long and hard about what I want to say to you. These are prepared words, Mary. I've chosen these words with care."
"Okay," Mary replied.
John took a deep breath, and said, "The problems of your past are your business. The problems of your future ... are my privilege. That's all I have to say. It's all I need to know."
Without any further ado, he tossed the drive onto the embers of the fire. And how was this even possibly happening?
"No, I didn't read it," he continued quietly.
She could feel tears pricking at her eyes and Mary didn't know what to do about that so she let them come. This didn't happen. Women like her didn't deserve extraordinary, wonderful men like him.
"You don't even know my name," she said. Wailed, almost.
"Is 'Mary Watson' good enough for you?"
"Yes!" Mary managed through her sobs, "Oh my God, yes."
"Then it's good enough for me, too."
With that Mary surrendered to joy of the most unlikely sort. They were still talking and she couldn't have repeated what they were saying five seconds after it had passed. All that mattered was John teasing her, and imposing minor household chores upon her, and all she could do was go along with the tide of happiness.
But even apart from the tears, something seemed wrong with her eyes. And her brain suddenly seemed swaddled in cotton-wool. Mary ran through some of the options… stroke seizure aneurysm Mycroft Holmes tea and came swiftly to a conclusion.
"John," she said, "I've been poisoned."
John wasn't listening. Her vision was tunneling down so she couldn't see him, but she could hear him saying, "Oi. Oi. Mary? Jesus Christ! Mary? Sit down."
There was no feeling in her body anymore, and John sounded so frightened. Poor John, she thought. Poor baby. But there were things they could do, nowadays… surgeries, and medicines, and if the… if it didn't cross the placenta… she couldn't remember quite what just now, but John was a doctor, he would know what to do. And she'd never truly believed she would get to have that life anyway.
From a distance, she could hear John calling, "Mary, can you hear me?"
"Don't worry," she reassured him, "It doesn't hurt. And dying was never what I was frightened of." But he still didn't listen to her.
Just faintly, she could hear another voice.
"Don't drink Mary's tea."
With her last thought, Mary wondered, "Oh, Sherlock, what have you done?"
After that everything was gone.
Author's note:
With that, Mary's story ends.
Her next story will begin in the epilogue, whose secret title is "Boxing Day."