For other perspectives of the events of this chapter, see "John and Mary Have a Tiff" and "The Empty Room". Many thanks to my beta Wynsom and my Brit picker mrspencil for their invaluable help.
000
The door slammed shut after John, who had flown through it at a desperate run into the night without so much as a goodbye. Harry sat on Clara's couch, staring after him in a stunned silence, barely able to breathe from the shock of the swift turn of events.
"What's happened?" Clara appeared, stumbling down the stairs and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She'd gone to bed hours earlier, leaving Harry and John to chat alone until the wee hours. "Such a bloody great din, I heard." She opened the front door and looked into the dark, quiet, wintry streets of Dublin as if to find the answers out there.
"He's gone," Harry told her bleakly. "Mary's in hospital and he's rushed back to London in a panic. He didn't even pack or anything. A car came to take him to the airport."
"Mary's in hospital? Oh, dear Lord, is it the baby, then?" Clara gasped in sudden anguish and sat down hard on the sofa.
Harry couldn't say the words, but she gave short nod and looked down. "Nothing good lasts in this life for a Watson," she muttered bitterly.
"Twelve weeks along, John said she was. Ah, the poor child." Tears spilled over Clara's cheeks and she covered her eyes with her hands. "Oh, our dear, lovely John."
"He was so angry," Harry said miserably. "So angry that he wasn't with her. So angry." Her face crumpled into grief and she began to sob. "He'll never forgive me for taking him away from her side. He'll never forgive me this time."
"Aw, Ree," Clara said gently, and slid over closer to Harry, slipping an arm around her and squeezing her tightly. "You're feeling sad, as you should, but that isn't the reason, is it?"
Harry frowned. She always assumed that any emotion she felt had to do with herself. But Clara persisted in believing otherwise.
"Our John may have lost his child," Clara continued in her soothing voice, rocking a bit. "We may have lost a wee niece or nephew. It's a hard thing to face. But we'll deal with it together, so."
But Harry was unable to think about it. Each time she tried, her thoughts sprang away like the opposite poles of a magnet. Instead her mind turned to the reason she was at Clara's house in the first place, and why John had been apart from his wife at this crucial moment.
000
It had taken Harry six months to even begin to consider Clara's proposal. For the longest time, she could not think about it without her brain freezing up entirely. Then, as the idea slowly trickled through the permafrost, she would suffer violent panic attacks. Leaving Old Alresford, her little yellow cottage, her beloved willow trees, her familiar life, was unthinkable to her.
Clara texted Harry every day. "A few years of treatment, and then we'll move back to Old Alresford together, if you like. Just think about it, so," she encouraged again and again.
"Don't worry about the cottage, dear," placid Annie would often say, obviously in on the plot to get Harry to go to Dublin. "Joe and I will look after it for you. When you come home, it will be waiting for you, same as always."
"Think of all the new things you could put onto canvas!" Charlotte would exclaim exuberantly. "Oh, imagine the lovely paintings you could work on!"
And during all that time, John never called her.
No one had told him about Clara's idea, at Harry's request. She didn't need him urging her along. She was afraid he would insist on sending her away, relieved to wash his hands of her. He was waiting for her to call him, she knew, to tell him she could accept his new wife as a part of his life now. But she could not bring herself to do it. Watson stubbornness was working both ways throughout those six long months.
By the end of November, Harry could stand it no longer. Her birthday was a week away, and Christmas was coming. She needed her brother. She needed him to help her think. She needed him to care about her again. And so she swallowed her pride and she phoned Mary.
Mary had been calling her periodically all along. Unlike John, whose calls had been as predictable as the calendar, she was completely random in the times she picked up the phone. Whenever something interesting happened, Mary would call and tell Harry about it. Sometimes Harry remained cold and distant during the conversations, and sometimes she attacked her sister-in-law with venom. But Mary remained unperturbed and just kept calling. "You'd be proud of your brother today," she might say. "He and Sherlock just broke up a huge drug cartel." Or, "You ought to have seen John last night. He got cut in a knife fight and sutured himself up, as if he thought I wouldn't notice!"
And now, in her desperation, Harry picked up her phone and called Mary. She had meant to strong-arm her sister-in-law into making John come to visit. But instead, Harry had horrified herself by being utterly pathetic. She was sure she said nothing coherent at all—she just blubbered. And all the time, Mary was saying soothing, sympathetic things that Harry could not take in.
And then she heard Mary say, "Don't worry. I'll bring him 'round."
"You will?" Harry sobbed, incredulous.
"Oh, yeah," said Mary confidently. "Or, at least, I'll do my best. He's the very definition of stubborn, you know."
And sure enough, the next week, John had come to Old Alresford to celebrate Harry's birthday. She had explained to him about the rehab centre in Dublin, and before she knew it, plans were being made. Just as he had always done, he rescued her and helped her find her way.
She had gone to visit Clara at Christmas and stayed a week, to get a feel for the place. A month later, John had come to help her pack her things and ship them off to Ireland. Together, they had flown to Dublin and he had spent the day (was it only yesterday?) calming her down and getting her settled. Tomorrow, the first of February, she would enter the rehab centre and start working towards a new life. But today. . . .
Yesterday, at tea time, John had revealed to Harry and Clara his incredible news about the baby. He was absolutely glowing with joy as he explained what a miracle it was—Mary had been considered infertile, but somehow this blessed surprise had come to them. Clara had been over the moon with excitement, already making plans to knit piles of wee socks and hats and fully intending to spoil the child completely rotten.
Harry had been stunned. She had never wavered from the certainty that Mary would eventually leave John and be out of their lives completely, forever. But if Mary and John had a baby together, even if Mary left, she would never truly be out of John's life. John would take his responsibilities as a father very seriously. Mary might leave him, but he would always strive to be a part of his child's life.
But would that really be so bad? She pictured a soft, tiny baby, with blonde curls and blue, blue eyes; her own tiny, John-like niece or nephew. What would it be like to hold it and cuddle it and love it? Would it love her in return? A warmth had spread through her which eventually burst into a tentative happiness. A baby to love. This was something she'd never even dreamed of.
000
Now Harry allowed herself to understand what Clara had meant about why she was sad. The sense of loss grew slowly until it overwhelmed her. The two women held each other and grieved together while the sun of a new day rose slowly over Dublin.
000
"Go on, now. You can do this, Lovely," Clara encouraged Harry to get out of the cab. Harry looked out at the ordinary-looking block of flats hesitantly. Her brother lived here now. Her brother and the woman he had married almost nine months ago. The sister-in-law Harry had never yet met in person. She had never even called the girl by her proper name aloud before today.
"Come in with me," Harry begged, feeling panicked. "What if she throws me out? Then I'll be out here in the cold, all alone."
"She'll be pleased to see you, I promise you," Clara assured her. "A lovely girl, she is. When you meet her, you'll see why our John has pledged his life to her."
A week had passed since John had rushed home to his Mary's side. Harry had delayed her entry in to rehab, but it had taken this long to work up the courage to fly to London and do what needed to be done.
"I'll come back in an hour," Clara promised. "But you need time to talk to her alone. We agreed, didn't we? It's important to both of you."
Harry sighed and exited the cab. Slowly, she dragged herself up the stairs to her brother's flat. And she knocked on the door.
"Harry?" There stood John's Mary, pale and sombre, blonde hair mussy, still in a dressing gown and slippers. "This is a surprise! Come in, dear." And she ushered Harry into the sitting room to a chair before a crackling fire. There they sat in silence for a moment, staring at each other.
"John isn't home," Mary ventured at last.
"I know," Harry replied. "I . . . I came to see you. To tell you . . . to tell you I'm sorry."
Mary smiled sadly. "Thank you. It's been a great blow." She ran her hand over her stomach briefly, looking down. "I think I might have made a good mother. And I know John would have been a perfect father, don't you think?"
Harry nodded. "Yes, he would. And. . . and what a beautiful child it would have been." She had actually been trying to apologize for her behaviour, but felt this turn of conversation was just as well.
"Of course, John's rather made for that sort of thing- looking after people. It's what he's best at. His mission in life," Mary continued. "That's where he is now, in fact, watching Sherlock's back, making sure he's okay."
"Sherlock hates me!" Harry burst out, quite without meaning to.
Mary's wise eyes looked at her shrewdly, and suddenly Harry was aware that John's wife knew all about the life-support incident.
"He probably does," Mary agreed frankly. "He's very protective of John. He would have my head on a platter without a moment's thought if he believed I was going to hurt John in any way." Blue eyes glinted mischievously. "He could, too. He has a scimitar he keeps in the closet. Says he won it in a fight."
Harry's own blue eyes grew wide with alarm before she realized that Mary was gently teasing her.
Mary chuckled. "I'm joking, dear. Sherlock would be infuriated if anyone tried to harm either of us. We both belong to John, you see, and Sherlock has John's back as much as John has Sherlock's."
Harry let that 'us' and 'we' sink in slowly. It implied camaraderie, a familial relationship, which Mary apparently already took for granted. Did she dare to believe in that?
"Does . . . John hate me?" she whispered after a long pause. "He was so angry when he left last week."
Gasping, Mary impulsively rose from her seat and threw her arms around Harry's shoulders. "Oh, my dear, no!" she cried, hugging her tightly. "He was angry, yes, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with you." She sank down onto the arm of Harry's chair and gave a little, strangled sob, shaking a bit with silent weeping. Then, getting control of herself, she continued, "He was angry with himself, for being away. And I think . . . ." She stopped for moment, holding her breath. "I think he was angry with the man who assaulted me years ago and made such a mess of my insides. That's why I lost the baby—something that happened a decade ago."
Harry had always thought of Mary as a bubble-headed bimbo—or else completely self-aggrandizing and opportunistic. It had never occurred to her that Mary might have had to rise above a difficult, even tragic, past. In fact, if she were honest, she'd never really thought of Mary as being a real person at all. Certainly not a person Harry could understand and appreciate. Someone who could be a friend.
Mary rose and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dressing gown. "Let's go into the kitchen and have a cuppa, shall we? I'm so happy to meet you in person at last. We have a great deal to talk about, don't we?"
But Harry did very little of the talking. Mary had any number of amusing anecdotes about life with Sherlock and John, and she soon had Harry in convulsions of laughter. An hour later, she felt utterly at home with her warm-hearted sister-in-law.
"And when I came back upstairs," Mary was saying, "a good half of the cake icing was missing from the bowl. Sherlock swore he hadn't touched it, was absolutely indignant that I would suggest such a thing! But, Lord! The smell of buttercream coming from that man's mouth! It's no wonder he felt ill all next day! But didn't it make it all the easier for me to steal the picklocks from his pocket?"
"Why on earth did you need picklocks?" Harry asked in astonishment.
"Well, to break into a house with, of course," Mary replied impishly. "Sherlock and John aren't the only crime fighters in the family. Solved a murder next day, my friend Molly and I did. Unfortunately, we had to commit a few little crimes along the way to do it."
"Harry?" John's voice cut through the girls' chortling. "I didn't know you were here until I ran into Clara downstairs." He looked entirely stupefied at the sight of his wife and his sister giggling together like old school chums.
"Oh, John," Harry flew to him and flung her arms around her brother. Her laughter turned instantly to tears. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
He held her as he always had held her—her little brother, so strong and so good, always looking after her. "It's all right," he murmured. "It's all going to be all right."
000
Five years later, Harry looked through tear-filled eyes at her brother across a newly-dug grave. He was so stoic and silent, his stature so straight and so strong, but his soldier's mask was unable to completely disguise the devastation in his eyes. She clutched Clara's hand and bit back the sobs, her throat aching with grief.
And she knew the bitterness of having been right after all.
000
The stories Mary mentions to Harry come from "Suture Self" and chapters 3 and 4 of "Making Friends and Forming Alliances." For the circumstances of Mary's death, see "Invictus" and "Family Dynamics Part Two."