We're back! It was about time. A new fandom is joining this insanity of a verse, though I cannot put it on the list here, sorry about that. We're talking, of course, about BBC Sherlock. Yay! (I would warn about slash, but I'm sure if you can handle Cherik, you can handle Johnlock, yes?)
I'm not sure if before I mentioned that Loki and Nightingale would be gone nineteen years... it's actually twenty. Just to clarify.
Dreamcast: Right now I picture Rosamund Pike as Harriet 'Harry' Watson. Now, I know she's in fact younger than Martin Freeman, when her character is supposed to be older, but several things influenced here: First, I imagine John looking as he did on some pictures of the time when he was filming the Hobbit (younger, obviously). In this verse Sherlock and John meet when they're about 30-31 and 32-33 respectively (Harry is 36). Also, Rosamund could pass as a relative of Emily VanCamp, the actress who plays Sharon Carter, and who's supposed to be related to the Watsons... so, yeah. If you find someone you think fits better let me know. I suppose it's not extremely important, but it's the actress I'll use if I ever need her for some fanarts, and some readers actually find it helpful, to deal with OCs (or characters that never appeared in a particular show or movie) when I give them people to picture... I find it easier as well.
The melody in this chapter is "Celestial Transversing Melody" as performed by Jee Sfiu of Tin Yat Dragon. It's a dizi solo in alto D Key, part of the Magical Sleeping Music (you can find the melody in youtube, in case you're interested.
Celestial Transversing Melody
More than just a return, it was the pieces of two lives slowly coming together.
We had a wonderful time in Vanaheim, twenty years of peace. We'd truly never had such easy, almost normal lives; not when I was human, and certainly not when I was an elven princess... and yet, as easy and nice as it was, there was something missing; or more precisely, a number of 'some-ones'. Our family and friends, all the people we loved. As beautiful as Vanaheim might be, as nice as it might be to be able to live in peace, not expecting a conflict to pop up any day... it just wasn't the life we'd chosen. The life full of dangers, of risks, and occasional battles and death-defying events, that was the kind of life we'd chosen, the lives of Warriors...
We were quite happy when the time of our 'self-imposed exile' finally came to an end. We waited a bit more than was perhaps entirely necessary, to make sure we wouldn't be found, and then we were ready to go. We had made a few friends in our time in Vanaheim, but no specially strong connections, no people we found it specially hard to leave behind when twenty years had passed. It was better that way.
We used Rose Alfdis as our anchor, since we couldn't exactly return to the point we'd departed from, or any of the places we'd once called home, we ran the risk of being discovered, and it wasn't time for that, not yet. It was still quite surprising when I took in our surroundings.
"We're in China." I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"Near the border with Nepal, to be precise." My love agreed, also looking around him.
We were still wearing tunics, the traditional clothing for the particular sector of Vanaheim where we'd been living (not that we'd spent much time in the company of other people, but still).
The oddity of the location wasn't what was making me feel strange, though... but an elusive memory in the corner of my memory banks, just out of reach.
"You think we were here when we jumped back in time." Maverick said what I was thinking.
"Maybe not exactly here." I conceded. "But I think I remember the general area... and yet even when we lived in this country, it was nowhere near here..."
"It's an interesting idea." He decided. "I can sense power to the west, great yet muted somehow."
"Blocked?" I asked, curious.
"Warded." He corrected. "Whoever is in that direction, they have power, know it, and how to use it. This is interesting..."
I knew what that meant, he'd want to investigate the matter sooner or later; though first we'd be spending some time with our daughter.
She was nearby, almost waiting for us as we approached her. She was wearing a maroon chupa dress, floor-length, with a long-sleeved off-white tunic underneath and tanned leather sandals. Her hair was a darker auburn than it had been when we'd left, though still shining an almost golden-scarlet under the sun.
"Mama! Papa!" She exclaimed, and I could sense the delight in her, before her tone turned questioning. "Is it safe for you to be here?"
I knew why she asked. It had been a concern of ours too. We had wondered if perhaps we should wait longer, perhaps even until the date where we'd time-traveled, and yet in the end we couldn't do that. We missed our family and friends too much.
"It is." I nodded.
"By now my younger self is confined to the Pit, and the younger Nightingale is at Salani manor, in Maine." My love elaborated. "They'll stay there until near the end of the year, then they'll be in New York for several months..." He shrugged. "This was really the best time for us to return."
"What's happened?" I wasn't sure what it was, but I could sense something in the air. "I can almost feel the... anticipation in the very air that surrounds us all..."
"Hydra." Our daughter answered grimly, then went into the story.
It was a terrible tale indeed, much worse than anything either my match or I could have ever imagined happening; especially because neither of us had seen it coming. Even when Howard had died, even when I couldn't believe it that he'd really fallen so far as to driving drunk and causing the accident that killed him and Maria... it didn't matter if Rose said they had no proof that it had been assassination, it fit in my head and my heart, and that was enough. Still, it didn't make the rest of it any less awful.
A part of me wondered if we'd have been able to do something, if we had stayed... but perhaps even then we wouldn't have done anything. I... we had been so careful to limit our influence in historical events after the end of the war. And there was no way of knowing for sure if our intervention would have made things better, or only worse.
Perhaps the only good part was knowing that our children knew, and they were taking steps to try and deal with things, when the right time came.
"So, let me see if I got this right," Papa began summarizing: "Steve's been found, Peggy is awake and doing something with Hakon's help, Hydra has managed to infiltrate every single intelligence agency in the world, or thereabout, and you are traveling around the world recruiting allies?"
"In general terms, yes." I nodded. "We all agree that while Hydra may want to keep their actions a secret for now, things won't stay that way forever. Sooner or later they will come out, and that's when our new allies will take them down."
"How are you so sure this people will reveal themselves when the time comes?" Papa wanted to know. "Especially those who've spent their whole lives hanging, or those who might have had bad experiences with the past?"
"I know, I believe in them." I assured them vehemently.
There was such belief in her voice, such faith... I realized then that our daughter had finished growing up while we were gone, a knowledge that mirrored in my husband's mind as he realized it too. Rose hadn't been a child for a very long time, but that moment was beyond that, it was the understanding that before me stood a grown woman, a warrior lady... a goddess in her own right.
We had a good night. Rose was renting a room in what probably passed for a hostel in that town, and it was easy enough for us to get another room. While I didn't speak the particular dialect of the region, I was fluent enough in Chinese to get by, Rose was too. We had dinner together and at our daughter's insistence I played the dizi for a while while she hummed an accompaniment. It drew some attention, but we didn't mind.
Loki and I enjoyed so much being with our daughter again. We couldn't visit our son, had to be content with a phone call, but as Rose had explained (and Hakon insisted) the situation was quite delicate, and none of us could risk Hydra discovering the truth about us, or that we were onto them. It was especially difficult because aside from Peggy, and possibly the Avengers, there was no way of knowing who would be on our side, and we couldn't get in touch with anyone else among them, not even Steve, seeing how he was under watch almost 24/7.
Three days later we were woken, in the middle of the night, by a sudden rush of heat, a sense that wasn't quite physical; accompanied by a psychic scream. It was the second part that made me react instantly, because even I wasn't hearing the voice with my ears, but with my magical senses, I still recognized who it belonged to... I'd barely thrown a robe on (since I'd been wearing nothing at all) and my feet were still bare, when my match touched my arm. I realized what he was about to do and had the sense to jump in place right as he teleported both of us straight from our room and onto our daughter's.
We found Rose sitting up in bed, panting, one of her hands holding tightly onto the silver pendant hanging from her neck.
"Little Rose...?" I called ever so softly, as I sat beside her on the bed.
"Mama..." She murmured quietly, eyes boring into mine. "You need to go..."
"What...?" I wasn't expecting that, neither of us were.
"You and Papa." She began practically babbling. "You need to go, and you need to go now. To Kandahar... he needs you. He'll need you, soon. He's about to get shot..."
"Who's he?" My husband inquired, already beginning to consider possibilities.
"How can we save him?" I asked instead. "How do we keep him from getting shot?"
"That cannot be stopped... it must not be stopped." She murmured.
A part of me wondered, vaguely, if Rose realized those were two different things, and which one it actually was; still, I decided that wasn't really the important part.
"What do we do then?" I inquired.
"You make sure he survives." She answered, her expression cleared, mostly, though her eyes were still shining in that mix of red-orange-black. "He's family, even though he doesn't know it yet." She turned to her father. "And his name is John." Then back to me. "You need to go, you need to go now. Now!"
The urgency in her voice... I didn't doubt her. In a matter of seconds Loki had called all our possessions to us. We were dressed in Earth-clothes again, a bit old-fashioned, but not too bad.
"Take care of yourself, sweetheart..." I whispered softly, kissing her hair.
"I will Mama." She assured me. "Don't worry, we'll meet again. But you need to go now. John needs you more than I do."
I wondered what she wasn't saying, what else she might have seen, but I didn't ask. If I were supposed to know she'd have told me, told us. Her Papa returned then, he said his own goodbyes, and then we were dropping into a shadow and straight to Afghanistan.
xXx
We arrived right in the middle of an absolute mess (and even that was probably putting it kindly). From what we learned listening to a few conversations, a group of Americans, among which was their best sniper, had been on a mission, only to find themselves ambushed. Another team was dispatched to help them and it had turned into a fight in the middle of one of the worst regions of Afghanistan, where extremists were known to dwell.
The situation was so bad, and they were so limited in medical personal that hardly any questions were asked when I presented myself as Arianna Kinross-Hvedrungr, nurse and part of Doctors Without Borders. I actually had the paperwork for the identity of Arianna Kinross, part of it had been ready since before I left, the rest was easy enough to arrange (at least for us, who had more than enough experience creating new identities). My love only had to use a little magic to make sure I'd be on the DWB rooster, if anyone were to look.
Maverick (under the name of Serrure Hvedrungr) helped carry the injured, which were a lot, and handle first aid with those who weren't too badly off (which were dangerously few); while I took to moving around, helping everyone I could, as much as possible. I'd almost completely forgotten what Rose had told us right before we'd left Tibet when a man entered. He was big, muscled, tanned, with sun-bleached hair and pale-green eyes... and half of his torso seemed to be covered in blood, blood that was still falling...
"Oh God..." The nurse beside me (an actual DWB volunteer) gasped, then paled so abruptly she looked like she might pass out at any moment.
She wasn't the only one. Most of the medical personnel present were young, probably relatively new to the profession, and even more so to working in a war front; a part of me wondered how many had never seen actual war wounds before... For my part, I pushed the sudden flashbacks from WWII to the back of my mind, allowing the learned calm to fill me as I rushed forward.
"This way." I instructed the newcomer, leading him to one of the few empty and clean beds. "We need to get him off you so I can see to you..."
"I'm not the one injured." He informed me. "Nothing more than scrapes and bruises in any case. He's got a bullet in his shoulder. It's bad... really bad."
He laid the man on the bed, he had sun-bleached blonde hair, was small yet obviously well-muscled; he also had a shoulder so badly mangled I was actually surprise he hadn't lost it already. (Yet again I was reminded of WWII).
"Fool insisted on treating that boy from the American contingent, even when bullets began flying..." There was a mix of tired annoyance and rueful admiration in his voice as he said. "He managed it, of course. I thought his devil's luck would hold, until the bloody bullet got him. How is the boy by the way?"
"If you mean the American sniper," I stated half-absently, as I focused on fixing an IV, called for blood, and set everything for emergency surgery. "He's on the far end of the tent, took a bullet to the leg, but aside from that, he should be alright."
"Unlike this berk." Murray shook his head.
"Indeed." I nodded. "We need to get the pieces of the bullet out, or he won't make it... Even then his chances aren't great right now."
He was right, of course he was. The bullet that had hit the blonde was high-caliber, it had gone straight into his shoulder, shattered the clavicle, shredded through muscle and articulations; there was also the chance that either the bullet or the broken pieces of bone might have done further damage to the lung... I wouldn't know until he was opened up.
"It gets worse." I admitted grimly. "All doctors are currently busy, and it's not like we had that many surgeons on hand."
"He was the best." He admitted.
"Still is." I retorted. "He's not dead yet."
"No, he's not." He agreed. "So you'll be opening him up then?"
"If I had other options I wouldn't, but I think I have to." I admitted. "I'll need your help."
"Bill Murray." He finally introduced himself. "Though I warn you I'm only a nurse."
"So am I." I quipped with dark humor. "Though worry not, I have experience doing work on the field, and assisting in surgery."
The part that I wasn't saying was that I had no experience being the one to lead a surgery, but we really had no time. And so we began.
There was a lot of blood, the smell of it so thick I felt like I might be sick, the heat beneath my fingers only made it worse. And yet neither of us stopped. The bullet had broken into pieces and we needed to make sure to get everything out. Then we set the bone as best we could. At least the pieces weren't so small that it was an impossible task. The worse part, however, was that I was right, there had been damage to a lung, it had taken all our effort for it not to collapse, and I could tell that our patient was fast reaching its limit. A minute or so more and his body would give out. I wasn't sure why, but I just couldn't allow it...
"Bill," I called, as an idea suddenly came to mind. "Tell me something, can you keep a secret?"
"I can." He answered immediately, though I could tell he did not understand what I meant.
"I hope so." I replied, and then I put down my instruments, took a deep breath, and pressed both my hands to the sides of our patient's grievous wounds.
I could vaguely hear Bill begin to say something, only for his mouth to snap shut a few seconds later. I could sense muscle and bone beginning to knit together under my touch. Articulations slowly repairing themselves and then, finally, the skin. I couldn't fix everything, it took a lot out of me, and there was still a limit to what the man's body could handle without going into shock. He was left with a really bad scar both on his chest and his back, and I had no idea of how long he'd be feeling the internal damage the bullet had done. But at least his lung had been completely repaired, his bone was healing nicely (as if it had had a clean break, rather than been totally shattered), his muscles would be tender for a good while, but that too would recover.
I swayed, as I finally pulled off.
"How did you do that...?" Bill breathed out, absolutely shocked, and still quietly enough so that we wouldn't be overheard.
"It's a gift I have." I answered honestly. "It has limits, and I'd rather not be found..."
"You just saved my friend's life." Bill cut me off. "Thank you..."
"It's been my pleasure." I assured him. "Now..."
I swayed again, stumbling slightly. Apparently the man had been worse off than even I had thought, judging by how much it'd taken out of me.
"You need to rest." Bill told me. "You're dead on your feet."
"I'll make sure she eats something and takes a nap." My husband was suddenly at my side (and pretty much holding me up).
"Thank you again." Bill called one more time as I was lead away, I only vaguely heard the next part he said, to the man I'd just saved. "It would seem you still have the devil's luck John..."
John! His name was John! He was the man Rose had mentioned... the one who'd been shot, whom I was supposed to save... I wasn't exactly egocentric, but I knew enough medicine to make out the likelihood of him having survived that wound without me. If nothing else, that made our abrupt trip more than worth it.
xXx
I kept helping at the field hospital for the rest of the week, though I used my healing gift very little, only to make sure soldiers wouldn't die on me, and only when I was completely sure no one would realize it. Murray hadn't tattled on me, and when someone had begun saying something about miracles he'd been quick to say that Melanie (the nurse making the claims) had probably misjudged the gravity of the wound, shocked as she'd been at the sight of the blood.
When I finally got access to John's file, I was floored.
"He's not just any John." I told my love after supper that evening. "He's John Watson!"
"John Watson?" He didn't seem to pick up on things right away.
"He's Stephanie's son!" I explained.
That name he did know instantly. Stephanie Marge Watson, nee Sholto, youngest child of Jacob Sholto and Marge Sholto, nee Carter. The last time we'd seen any member of that family was in 1980, when Peggy woke up. Stephanie was the youngest of Marge's children, and the only girl, however, her older brother James was in the army, so she was the one tasked with periodically checking over the sleeping Peggy. Back in 1980 she'd been a retired SSR agent (had retired when choosing to marry), married to Henry Watson with a four-year-old daughter: Harriet, and heavily pregnant with her second child and first son: John...
"Rose did say he was family." My Maverick pointed out.
"She did." I agreed.
Truth was, I'd thought that she meant family like Willow, someone who'd be joining our family for some reason... I didn't imagine to get back in touch with Marge's descendants in such a way. I had once promised to her to do my best to look after them, all along knowing that might not be possible, not when we couldn't stay in the same place for long.
"I wondered what happened to Steph..." My love admitted.
"She's dead." I told him grimly. "Breast cancer three years ago. Henry is also dead, of alcohol poisoning, over a decade ago, apparently he was an alcoholic."
My husband shook his head; he apparently was wondering, just like I was, how someone as bright as Stephanie had ended with a man who preferred the bottom of a bottle to the company of his own family, his own wife. Still, there was nothing we could do about that, not about the loss of either of them, or Jacob's death in a car accident; Marge herself might not be dead, but she was in an institution, diagnosed with senility and possible Alzheimer's disease.
I almost felt like crying. We'd been gone for less than twenty years and things had changed so much, and while things had apparently gone well enough with our children, the same couldn't be said for our old friends' families (I hadn't forgotten what Tony would have gone through by that point: part of it also in Afghanistan... and the part we'd never known). The worst part was having to accept that, even if we'd known, and if we'd been there, chances were we wouldn't have been able to change a thing.
"The past is the past." My love told me serenely. "Nothing we can do to change it. I doubt even we would be so lucky as to travel back twice..."
I didn't think so either, and I didn't want to. Once had been crazy enough.
xXx
John woke up a week after being shot. As had become usual by then, I was spending my break sitting on a chair beside him, reading an European paper one of the British doctors let me borrow. I put it down even before I heard the grown coming from him, as I sensed the shift in his presence the moment he touched awareness.
"W'r am ah?" He mumbled through parched lips.
I'd made a point of dripping water through his lips several times a day, and giving him ice-chips to help keep him hydrated (for the most part they weren't easy to come by; but then again, it was easy enough for me to freeze the water).
"The field hospital in Kandahar." I told him honestly. "A nurse called Bill Murray got you here badly wounded after an ambush."
"Ah..." He muttered in half understanding.
The way he winced and tried to curl upon himself at the same time he reached for his injured shoulder with the opposite hand told me he was remembering... either that or the pain helped make at least some things quite obvious.
"How did I even survive that?" He asked after what seemed like forever.
I guessed he at least remembered enough to realize it had been bad.
"Murray says you have the devil's luck." I shrugged. "I rather think the spirits were watching over you a week ago."
"A week...?" He repeated, a mix of shock and wonder in his voice. "So that's how long it's been... What about the rest of my unit? And the Americans?"
I told him the truth. A total of two men had died, neither of them had ever made it back to the base, so there was nothing anyone (not even I) could have done for them. Of those remaining, half had some pretty serious injuries, while others weren't so badly off. One would never fully recover and was being sent home, and there was at least one other who might choose to do the same (the American sniper, to be precise).
We were sent to Kabul, and then to France (Technically John was the one being sent, along with the soldier that had been discharged for his injury; Loki and I were tagging along to assist them). We stayed in Kabul for a few weeks, and then in France for almost two months as John was seen to by a number of doctors. I had to stay through it all, as it'd gone on record that I was the one to lead the 'field surgery' that saved his life.
Not everyone liked that I'd done it, even if I was a nurse (we'd managed to make it legal and all), I wasn't a doctor and wasn't trained for such a thing. In the end it took John practically shouting at the board how he'd be dead if I hadn't acted to get them off my back. I was still taken off the DWBs rooster (not that much of a loss, if I was honest). Also, after a number of long sessions of PT, and even longer studies, it was determined that John simply wasn't fit for duty anymore.
Apparently, I messed up his nervous connections. While his muscles and articulations had healed just fine, and the bone was healing amazingly well (callosity was forming already, and that might cause him some pain in the future, but it was still much better than it could have been). His nerves, on the other hand... some of the connections had become messed up. Enough to cause his hand to tremble at times, as well as excruciating pain when he moved his shoulder a certain way. They weren't life-threatening things, but certainly enough to make it impossible for him to go back to active duty, or to being a surgeon.
We were still with John as we got to London, and drove him to his sister's house; but it was when my husband actually parked the car and we got out that he realized there was more going on that he knew up to then.
"You don't have to stay, you know?" He said.
"Yes, we do." I told him simply.
I suspected that he didn't know anything about what his family had been doing for us for decades, generations technically. But if Stephanie was dead, that meant Harriett would know; which meant she was the one we had to talk to.
The door was opened by a woman in her mid-thirties, with shoulder-length blonde hair with dark roots and curly at the tips; she had beautiful blue-gray eyes and was dressed in casual clothes.
"John!" She exclaimed, wide-eyed. "This is a surprise." Then she turned towards us. "Who are you two? Did you come to bring my brother?"
"We did bring your brother, but he's not the only reason we're here." My love pointed out, as I tried to find the best way to explain things.
"Excuse my forwardness," I said eventually. "But are you Harriet, the daughter of Stephanie Sholto-Watson."
"I am..." She answered slowly. "Though no one has called mum that in a long time. Who are you two exactly?"
"My name is Arianna, and this is my husband, Serrure." I introduced us. "We knew your mother."
"What?!" John turned abruptly to look at us. "You said nothing about that."
"If you do, where were you when she died?" Harriett demanded, angrily.
"I'm afraid we were unreachable." My love admitted, very quietly. "We left years ago and only returned last June..."
I knew there was no way John would be able to miss the fact that it had been still June when we met in Kandahar, and it was barely mid September.
Harriet was still looking at us with distrust, and then something else occurred to me.
"The house on the outskirts of London, it belongs to us." I told her.
Harriett's eyes widened considerably at that, while John simply looked at each of us in turn, evidently confused.
"Why don't we step inside?" The blonde woman said, finally. "It would appear we have much to talk about, all of us."
We did, indeed.
We talked for a long time. Harriett was the first member of the family to have had nothing to do with the government. She was a lawyer, and that was that. James, Marge's oldest was a career military man, who'd been discharged after a quite delicate situation (we still did not know all that had happened, only that it wasn't good). Stephanie had worked for the SSR, choosing to retire after marrying Henry, a policeman who was pushed off active duty and onto a desk when an injury left him with a permanent limp as well as chronic pain, which was why he'd turned to drinking, eventually becoming an alcoholic.
"I am not alcoholic." Harry pointed out when John made a comment to that effect. "I know that's what Clara's been saying, but it's not true. After what happened with Dad I promised myself I'd never fall that far, would never put that kind of stain on our family name... and I don't mean the Watson one..."
John didn't understand, not yet, but he would.
"I got drunk, really drunk, one time." Harry went on. "When she gave me an ultimatum... I knew what I was going to have to do..."
"What kind of ultimatum?" John inquired, curious.
"She wanted to know the 'family secret'." Harry shrugged.
"What family secret?" John insisted. "I didn't even know there was a family secret."
"We couldn't tell you." Harry tried to explain. "It was too dangerous, with you in the army... it was safer for you not to know. Though the plan was always for you to learn all about it once you left active duty..."
"You know, you could have told her." I told her quietly. "Even though secrecy is necessary, we never intended for it to get in the way of family, of love..."
"I know." Harry nodded. "But mum made me promise, after what happened with dad..." She shook her head. "He knew. Had promised to keep the secret, to help mum; and then one day he got pissed and began babbling about spies and heroes of the war... he put her in danger! He put us all in danger! All because he couldn't keep his mouth shut." She shook her head, angrily. "It was after that that mum made me promise never to reveal the secret to anyone except John."
"Will you finally tell me what this secret is?" John practically demanded.
"What do you know of WWII, of Captain America, Agent Peggy Carter, and the Howling Commandos?" I asked as a way to start.
He gave a generic answer, the kind of basic information that could be found in any book.
"That is all correct, for the most part." I nodded. "However, there are a few things that were never made public. Now, what do you know of your grandmother?"
"Nana?" John obviously wasn't expecting that question. "She's in an institution, they say she's old and sometimes makes up things. I always liked her stories though... stories about the war..."
I could almost hear the moment it clicked for him.
"Your Nana's name is Marge Carter-Sholto, what does that tell you?" My love asked with a half-smirk, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"I've seen the medals." John nodded. "I heard her stories, both the ones she said in later years, and before she was ever institutionalized. I always thought the books exaggerated things, of what had been between her and Captain Rogers I mean. She never gave the impression of there having been anything special between them..."
"That's where things get interesting." I told him. "You see, your family has been tasked, for the last three generations, to look after one person. A woman who spent most of the last seventy years or so sleeping in a house in the outskirts of London..."
"A house that belonged to you." John nodded, beginning to get it. "Who is this woman?"
"Less than a dozen people ever knew it." I tried to explain. "But Peggy Carter had a bond with Steve Rogers, the kind that few people could ever comprehend. When he was lost in the Arctic, near the end of the war, it affected her. It took a while for it to become obvious, but eventually it couldn't be helped. She fell asleep, and didn't wake up."
"But Nana..." John was having a hard time grasping things.
"The world wasn't ready for such things to be revealed." My love explained the next part. "We all knew Peggy Carter couldn't just disappear, and we couldn't reveal what was really going on. So decisions were made, plans put into motion. Peggy fell asleep and we hid her away, where she'd be safe, and someone else took her place."
"Nana." John understood. "Her name isn't really Marge Carter-Sholto..."
"It is." I nodded, legally and everything. "But she wasn't born with that name, though. It was necessary, and she accepted it. Since we couldn't really stay around, she was the one who made sure Peggy stayed safe, and later on that tasked passed on to Stephanie, and finally to Harry..."
"And you couldn't tell Clara this..." John half-asked.
"No, I promised mum I wouldn't." Harry explained. "I didn't think it would be a problem. Peggy woke up last year. I thought that would make things easier, I would no longer need to disappear every week to check on her, and the house... but it took a while for her to truly recover, and while I got help eventually, I still needed to be there. And I couldn't tell Clara where I was going... She kept picking up fights with me about it, accusing me of cheating on her, of having gambling problems, and then of being an alcoholic... eventually she gave me an ultimatum; either I told her the truth, or she filed for divorce. I couldn't tell her the truth, she probably wouldn't have believed me anyway, she was so willing to think the worst of me..."
"So you left her." John finished for her, and there was such compassion in his voice, a complete opposite from how he'd been at the beginning.
We knew why that was. Clara had been his friend first, he was the one who'd introduced her to Harry. John hadn't been very close to his sister since she'd come out as a lesbian, and after what had happened with their father it really hadn't been hard for John to believe that he could become an alcoholic (I believed a part of him probably feared going down that same path himself). It wasn't good, distrusting his own blood that much, but to a certain point it was understandable.
"Why didn't you contradict her, when she spoke bad about you?" John wanted to know. "It cannot be helping you, for people to believe you're an alcoholic..."
"It hasn't helped, no." Harry agreed. "But it's easier than having people wonder what was really going on then. I will survive, and so will my career."
I could tell it was hard for John, to rearrange what he thought he knew about a number of people, mainly his old friend and former-sister-in-law, and his own big sister.
"Why didn't you tell me Harry?" John asked in the end, looking more hurt than anything else. "I... I would have helped you. Clara might have been my friend, but you're my sister, you will always be my sister."
"I know Johnny..." Harry smiled softly at him. "I think... I think I needed to get through this on my own. To know I could, you know?"
He did understand, something told me he was just the same.
We changed the topic of conversation then. Harry wanted to know what had happened to John exactly, all of it. She got particularly worried when learning that John had an appointment with a doctor who was to examine him the next week, decide if he'd need another surgery.
"It's the nerve damage." John explained. "It's causing me chronic pain..."
"That's kind of my fault." I admitted. "I may be a nurse, but I am no doctor. The kind of thing I did back in Kandahar... I shouldn't have done it, not really, and I wouldn't have, if your life hadn't depended on it. Also, if I hadn't had something of an unfair advantage."
I revealed my healing gift to them, its reaches, and its limitations.
"So you managed to heal enough to save his life, but not to prevent this problem." Harry concluded a bit succinctly.
"That would be correct." I admitted. "Bones, muscles, skin... even articulations for the most part, are relatively easy. And even then I crossed the limit of what should be healed, I think the only reason John didn't go into shock due to my actions was because he was already past that point. And the only reason I dared do as much as I did was because... well..."
"Because I'd have died otherwise." John finished for me. "I'd been wondering, you know? I could tell, the moment the bullet hit me, that the injury was bad, the odds of me surviving it were extremely small, especially considering that we were miles into 'enemy territory', and I was the only doctor in the team."
"Nurse Murray did what he could." I pointed out.
"And you saved my life." He insisted.
"I did my best." I replied. "Nerves... they are tricky. I will also admit to have been more worried about the damage that was threatening your life at the time..."
"Couldn't you finish healing him now?" Harry wanted to know.
I wasn't sure if she was really taking the whole thing of my gift that easy, or she didn't believe me at all and was testing me.
"I don't know nearly enough about the nervous system." I shook my head. "Chances are, I might end up making things worse. After the tests are done, if they give us enough information I might be able to give it a try... but I cannot make any promises."
"You saved my life, that's good enough in my book." John assured me. "We'll deal with the rest of it as it comes."
Harry insisted that we all stay for dinner, and afterwards a cup of tea. I wasn't exactly expecting it when John asked one question:
"Can you tell us about Nana?" He inquired. "The real her, I mean."
It was obvious, just by his tone of voice, how much he loved his grandmother; I imagined it could not be easy, to know she was in an institution, to see her growing old, becoming fragile... I hadn't actually gone to see her yet, but it was something I honestly feared: aging... not myself, I knew I wouldn't truly begin aging for a long time yet, millennia (if something didn't kill me beforehand), but knowing I would have to watch the people around me, my friends and family, age and eventually die... it was one of the things that terrified me the most. Even the loss of Howard and Willow hadn't lessened that, if anything it had only made things worse, knowing that they were all so fragile, that they could be lost at any moment... it was perhaps the hardest consequence of the choice I'd made, of remaining by my match's side, of living as long as he would... and even with all that, he, his love, made it all worth it.
"Let me see..." I pulled myself back to the present forcefully.
We'd pretty much buried Marge's real past decades earlier, and while Peggy was awake, and making yet a new life for herself, we still couldn't reveal the truth, not yet, not until the threat of Hydra had been dealt with. Didn't mean Marge's family didn't deserve to know at least a little of how extraordinary she was...
"Her name was Marguerite Cartier." I told them. "And we met her in 1944."
We'd already covered that part, in general terms at least. The fact that Serrure and I (and Hakon, whom Harry remembered as the man who'd arrived to help with Peggy and had eventually left with her) didn't age like normal people did, and that we'd been around (publicly at least) since the forties (which obviously meant we'd been born before that).
"She was French, and a singer." I went on. "She accidentally overheard a conversation between a group of Germans once, and instead of ignoring it, of playing it safe, she chose to take the risk and passed on the information to the allies. After that she became a contact. She even played the part of 'courtesan' a number of times, to get information. Until she was found by the Germans. They captured her, had every intention of torturing her to find out how much she knew and whom she'd told, but the Commandos found her in time, rescued her along with a number of other prisoners. She was sent into hiding then."
"Why is none of this known?" Harry wanted to know. "She was a hero."
"And she was not the only one." My husband couldn't help but point out. "It was the theory of a few people, like Peggy, Marge, my sister and a few others, that the government, all governments, tried to bury the women who served in the war. It was one thing to accept them when it was necessary, but afterwards..."
"They weren't ready to admit that the 'great men' needed help." Harry snorted.
"Something like that, or so we assume, at least." Serrure nodded calmly. "They couldn't really bury Peggy, of course, she was too well-known. Sia... she passed into legend for the most part, the fact that she pretty much disappeared after '62 didn't help matters any."
"And Nana?" John's focus was, of course, his grandmother.
"She petitioned for political asylum, both here and in America, was refused on both." I told them honestly. "The worst part, is that her contribution to the allies had been made public record, for whatever the reason, which put her in grave danger, and also pretty much ruined her reputation." I shook my head at the memory. "When we realized what was going on with Peggy we offered her to take on that life and she accepted. Then it was simply a matter of changing the records, of filings papers stating that Marguerite Cartier had died in the refuge, victim of an infection and a terrible fever..." I sighed. "It probably isn't right. She did so much for us, and people don't know."
"But at least she had a life, she still does..." John murmured. "What life it might be..."
"Nana's not senile, John." Harry revealed quite unexpectedly.
"What?!" He obviously hadn't seen that coming.
"She's not senile." Harry repeated.
"Then why is she in a bloody institution?!" The former Captain demanded.
"Because what she does have is a degree of Alzheimer." His sister informed him. "It makes her forget recent things... she sometimes forgets the life she has now. Once... once she began asking for Peggy, and for Howard Stark and... she came back from it, but she knew it was dangerous. What if she ended saying the wrong thing, with the wrong people around? It was her own choice, she told me to institutionalize her, to make sure her files said she's senile, so people wouldn't take her seriously if she began saying such things, so she wouldn't endanger our family, or Peggy..."
I couldn't help but smile, even as a part of me wanted to cry, that was just like Marge... even back in the forties, when the offer of a new life had been made to her, she'd never stopped to consider the risks, or what she might be giving up; instead she was always more worried about not making a mistake, not disappointing us... And more than fifty years later, she kept on doing exactly the same thing, always thinking of others before herself.
"Could I go visit her?" John asked quietly.
"Of course." Harry said immediately. "I'm sure she'd like that. And now you'll have stories of your own to tell her."
There was such an expression in John Watson's face in that moment, I didn't know what he might be thinking exactly, but I had a feeling that he had a lot more stories than either his sister, or us could ever begin to imagine...
xXx
John's visit to the doctor didn't go well. His nerves were more of a mess than anyone could have expected (it was probably a miracle that no one was even suggesting he sue the one who'd performed surgery on him). I did try to heal him further, but there was nothing I could do, like I'd said more than once before, nerves were too delicate. At least I tried, I really didn't want to some day have a repeat of my experience with Willow, spend the rest of my life wondering if I could have done more, had I just thought to try... It was the worst kind of sensation, really, even if no one blamed me, it was something I'd never be able to forget.
John underwent surgery at the end of the month and then had to go through three more months of PT. Meanwhile Harry had quit her old law firm, when the situation there became untenable, and ended opening her own. She got a hell of a good start when a number of families unexpectedly changed from their old lawyers and chose her; she thought it was a change of luck, John might have suspected something was afoot, neither of them ever looked deep enough to realize what all those people had in common, the fact that they were all related, in one way or another, to veterans of WWII... to people who'd known and respected Peggy Carter (and Marguerite Cartier).
John moved in with us after his surgery, at our insistence. We had purchased a townhouse in central London, in Lisson Grove. It had four bedrooms, quite big if it had been just my Maverick and myself; but we had hope, that one day our whole family might spend at least a while there. We took the master bedroom, which, along with the bathroom for two people and wide balcony took the whole top-floor. There were two other bedrooms in the second floor, which shared a bathroom, and then there were the common areas in the ground-floor; finally there was a basement level, which was divided between the laundry-room, boiler, central heat and such; with the other half being the last bedroom and an en-suite bathroom. It was that last one which John took for himself during the following months.
The surgery did help, to a degree at least. They took away the chronic, debilitating pain, though certain motions, and excess of activity could still make half his chest and most of his arm hurt. There was nothing they could do about his leg though, mostly because there was nothing that needed to be done, he hadn't been hurt in the leg, not even a graze, though someone else had been, that day, someone under John's care; which told me that he had PTSD and the memories of that day had left him with a psychosomatic limp.
There was nothing any of us could do about that. Psychiatry wasn't my thing (or psychology for that matter...). It also isn't like I wasn't familiar with PTSD, I knew I suffered it to some degree myself, something only natural after being in war. WWII... it didn't matter if I'd technically been in battle before, as an elf, as a human, and as whatever I'd become after my human death; nothing in my life had ever been so traumatic as the things I'd seen in that war, both as a nurse, and the one time I was actually in the front lines, in the battle in Red Skull's base. Nothing had ever been worse, not even the battle that claimed my human life (or the attack that claimed my elven one... the closest was perhaps the first attempt on my life as Tinúviel, when Sif almost died protecting me... then again, the memories of my previous life were usually distant enough not to traumatize me too much). In the end all I could do help John was be there for him, and sometimes play the flute, or the piano, hoping it might help sooth him.
We established ourselves soon enough. Serrure found a job teaching a few classes at the City of Westminster College, not too far from where we lived; while I gave private classes in languages (I knew enough), a few of them even my husband's own students. John had even agreed to teach some first aid during the weekends, mostly to keep busy. Though I knew the arrangement would not last, not with him.
It was really no surprise when he informed us, near the end of January, that he was moving out. He already had a place, a flatshare. We were quite sure he hadn't been looking, not yet (we'd offered to help him, if he ever chose to move), and yet we didn't ask any questions. It was his life after all... We did wonder though, who exactly Sherlock Holmes might be... We had no idea...
And thus we've just dived into yet another fandom... Sorry, I'm not sorry. I'm just crazy like that (again, you must know that already!). I just love BBC Sherlock, and while Benedict certainly looks awesome as Dr. Strange (and he will be making an appearance in this verse too... eventually -no, he will be in no way related to Sherlock), I just had to have Sherlock and John here.
There will be a few connections to events from Nightingale, Nexus, Necklace of Songs and even Bouquet of Roses in the following chapters; to be expected considering that they're all connected.
Next chapter will go more into Sherlock, a theme that will continue until we jump straight into what I'm sure more than a few have been waiting for: CA2! (Yes, it's coming). See ya next week!