Mike Stamford was waving a hand for John Watson to join him. John was at the St. Bart's Holiday party at Mike's invitation, figuring it was about time he started to socialize again. John grabbed a beer from the bar and crossed the dimly lit pub to where Mike was standing. He noted that Mike started waving somebody else over while watching John approach.
Ah, so it begins, thought John. By the time he reached Mike, a petite woman with a friendly smile was already chatting with him.
"John! Glad you showed up tonight."
"Thanks for inviting me, Mike."
Mike gestured to the woman next to him. "Mary, this is who I told you about earlier. Doctor John Watson, allow me to introduce you to Doctor Mary Morstan."
John smiled politely and held out his right hand. "Good to meet you."
Mary gripped his hand firmly with hers. "Pleased to meet you, too."
John heard the accent. "American?"
Mike said, "Yes, Mary is here with us on loan from the U.S. Veteran's Administration, teaching at Bart's for the upcoming year."
Mary nodded and added, "I'm here to teach courses on traumatic brain injuries." Her enthusiasm was quite engaging. "I'm integrating what we've learned from our returning vets, as well as what we're seeing in the brains of football players…" Mary paused and laughed as the men groaned. "Sorry, American football players. Give me a break, I've only been here a few months."
"Sounds like interesting and important work," said John.
"Well, I'll leave you two to talk." Mike wandered off and greeted other people.
John looked down at his beer, feeling awkward. When he looked up, Mary was smiling conspiratorially at him.
"Not very subtle, is he?"
John relaxed. "No."
Mary looked up and down at John. "Come on, let's find a table. You seem to be favoring one leg."
To his surprise, John was enjoying the conversation. Mary was easy to talk to, and her research and his past as an army doctor gave them a foundation for discussion. She spoke of her father, a military man himself, who started showing signs of dementia when she was still in her teens. After a day helping him to look for a non-existent set of pearls in their home, the teenaged Mary investigated the connection between proximity to exploding munitions and brain trauma. A passion for neurology developed and set her on her career. Wanting to prevent her father's struggle led her into teaching, as well as research. John filled her in on his past, his love of surgery and how it brought him to the army, the injury that sent him home, the need to help people that kept him in medicine. Sipping his beer, John could not recall the last time he felt so comfortable.
John noticed Mike giving a thumbs-up from across the room. He glanced around and saw Greg Lestrade smiling at him, raising his glass to John from a distance. John tipped his glass in return. Molly Hooper was next to Lestrade, but looked concerned instead of happy when she met John's eyes. John filed that away to think about later, then turned his attention back to Mary.
Mary leaned towards him. "I should let you know, Mike is definitely setting us up. He told me all about you."
"Did he?"
"Yes. We're a good fit because you're getting over a traumatic loss and probably aren't looking for anything serious. I'm just here on a temporary basis, two years at the most, and my background means I wouldn't be surprised or frightened by your inevitable nightmares." She grinned at him. "I'm game, if you are."
John paused with his second beer halfway to his lips. His mouth quirked. "Like the straightforward approach, do you?"
"Honesty is best."
John laughed, and Mary joined in. John placed his pint back on the table. "Good, yeah. Honesty is good."
"I've read your blog. The cabbie, Study in Pink, that was you, right?"
"Alright, maybe honesty isn't all that good."
"I'm assuming it was a different gun than the one you're currently carrying."
John lifted his chin defiantly.
"Oh, don't worry, I'm an American," Mary said with an exaggerated drawl. "I'm not judging you."
"I'll have you know that this gun was given to me by a minor member of the British government," John responded.
Mary hesitated, then said, "After the past year or so you've had, is such easy access to a firearm wise?"
John looked directly at Mary. "I'm not thinking of offing myself, if that's what you're asking." He clasped his hands together on the table before continuing, but kept his eyes focused on Mary's. "I've been there before… I was in a bad way when I was invalided home from Afghanistan. He healed me. Giving in to such an urge now would be like he never existed. Like he wasn't real."
"Working at Bart's, I've heard a lot about Sherlock Holmes. People there believe in him."
John smiled nostalgically. "Of course, they do. He was a right pain in the arse to most of them."
Mary laughed. "Yes, that's what I've heard. Nobody believes he could have put up an act for so long."
"It wasn't an act."
After taking a sip of her beer, Mary asked, "I'd like to hear about him, if you're okay with that."
John tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling. "Arrogant, yet insecure. Aloof, but in desperate need of approval from the few of us he deemed worthy. Deceptively slender… pure muscle. Good in a fight, only fair at making tea. And the violin, you would not believe how beautifully he could play when he wanted." He sat up and looked at the woman in front of him, a hint of a smile in eyes. "Sometimes he would play for me, just for me, after a bad day."
"Sounds like he was more than a roommate?"
"Of course, he was." John realized that Mary, with her background, would understand. He sought to articulate feelings that he had never spoken aloud. "In the army, you make close friends, you know? Band of brothers cliché, and all that. But you always hold something back, because you know each minute could bring the end."
Mary nodded her head, encouraging him to continue.
"I let him get closer than I've ever let anyone. Maybe it's because he'd be able to deduce whatever he needed about me, but I instinctively trusted him. With my friendship, with my life." John let out a weak chuckle. "Most people thought I was mad for that."
"Do you agree?"
"Sometimes, I do. Let's just say I never have to make up any of the more bizarre details on the blog."
Mary laughed, then paused before asking her next question. "Will you be updating it again, the blog?"
"Eventually." John frowned. "Full disclosure?"
"I'll keep your secret, " said Mary, teasingly.
"Every time I try to write up one of our cases, I don't know what tense to use."
Sympathy tinged her voice when Mary responded, "How can you write in the past tense when Sherlock is still so much in your present?"
John sighed with gratitude. "Yes, that's it, exactly. He's been gone for so long, but he still dominates my life. I honestly expected him to return." As he lifted his pint, his hand shook a bit. "It's so hard to believe, even now. He was the most alive person I've ever known." He took a sip. "And I feel like I need to defend his memory."
Mary waved a hand towards the other people in the room. "This crowd respects him for the cases solved, the lives saved."
John looked down at the table. "I never thanked him for saving mine."
"Oh, John, he must have known."
John exhaled. He thought Sherlock must have known, too, but it felt good to hear somebody else say it. "You're better than my therapist."
"That's because most therapy sessions don't happen in a pub with free beer flowing."
John and Mary spent a quiet moment looking around the room. People were chatting and laughing, the darkness of the pub alleviated by fairy lights draped over the bar and rafters. John once again noticed concern on Molly's face when she looked at him, so he smiled at her to show everything was fine. She gave him a sad smile in return.
"It must have been hard for him, being so open to emotions all of the time."
John looked at Mary with surprise. "Most people didn't see him that way. They thought he was heartless."
Mary shook her head. "No, that couldn't have been true. He wouldn't have been able to pick up on the non-verbal clues or understand people's motivations without some reception." She grinned. "He also bought you beer after a breakup. That takes a heart." She winked at him. "See, I told you I've been reading your blog."
John smiled back at her. "He definitely felt emotions. Maybe not the appropriate one at the time, but he did have feelings."
"He was just more in control of them than anyone you've ever known." Mary finished his thought for him.
"I once called him Spock," said John, in a reminiscent tone.
Her eyes lit up, and Mary said, "Oh, good one. Most people think that Vulcans don't experience emotions…"
"But in reality they have such strong emotions that they learned to control them."
"Did he get the reference?"
"Doubtful." John thought back to that night in Dartmoor, sitting by the fire at the inn. Sherlock had been frightened by the seeming betrayal of his mind and body, more emotional than John had ever seen him. The next day, Sherlock had called John his one friend. A wave of sadness rushed over John, crushing him with the regret that he couldn't save Sherlock in return for the life he'd given John.
His emotions must have been written all over his face. "You still miss him very much." Mary stated simply.
"Yes, yes, I do. I keep thinking it'll get easier." John shook his head. "It's been over a year now. I truly believed I'd see him again, that somehow he'd managed to fake his death. But if he hasn't contacted me by now, he must be gone."
John took another drink, the slight tremor of his hand increasing.
"It is time to move on. It just seems like it should be easier already."
"John, you know as well as I do that there isn't any time table for getting over the death of someone you love so deeply."
John found himself sputtering a response he hadn't uttered in several months. "We were never a couple."
Mary smiled gently and responded, "I'm sorry."
John looked at the woman across from him and saw nothing but compassion in her eyes. No mocking, no pity, no judgment, just a sincere sorrow for something that had never been. He felt his carefully constructed barriers drop, and for a moment, John Watson allowed himself to feel sorry, too.