Note: Sorry for being late once more. Real life and stuff, you know? Thanks for being patient. :-)
I wake up in the morning, tangled up in my sheets, my skin sticky with cold sweat and come. Cuddling my pillow. A strange feeling in my stomach, a mixture of satisfaction and loneliness and happiness and guilt. Makes me hurry to get under the shower, for in this state of mine I do not feel like facing Team Sherlock naked again.
When the hot water is raining down on me, I try to sort it all out. What happened is that I had fantastic sex. But not with John. But only in my mind. Should I feel guilty? But it was too good to regret it. Should I feel happy? But it was too kinky. And not with John. I cannot make up my mind. Is there something like too kinky anyway?
I spend an extra amount of time with dressing and styling, feeling the need to be in perfect armour today. Use the after shave John loves the most. Make sure every single curl is where I want it to be. Especially the ones that looks like errants. White shirt, black jacket. Perfection (on the outside). Ready to face the world.
In the living room, Mycroft is already busy making changes on my evidence wall. (Same ones I made mentally last night. Telling him that will make me sound like a petulant child.) I stretch my back (involuntarily) which makes him smile (damn) and I open my mouth to discuss the markers with him. "Oh, how kinky was it?" he asks instead, throws that pesky little half-grin at me and watches me simmer when the door opens and the Watson's entrance makes it impossible for me to answer.
All I can do is glare at my brother. It's incredible how much you can hate someone you love.
Mary is in a crappy mood (perfectly normal for a woman in her situation), John is irritated by her crappy behaviour (perfectly normal for the husband of a woman in her situation) and I am holding myself so upright that my back starts hurting after two hours.
Finally, Mycroft takes pity in me. He makes a few calls from my bedroom and comes out, smiling even more pesky than before. "I need you to do some legwork for me, little brother," he tells me. (Pretending that I am doing him a favour while he is doing me a favour).
"Why would I do that?" I challenge him, pretending not to notice that he is doing me a favour. He offers me the chance to get away from the flat by seeing Elisabeth J. Farnsworth, one of the suspects Janine had mentioned. We banter for a while until Mary (who, unlike John, understands that it is just make-believe) explodes.
"Christ, Sherlock, just leave", she spits. Her face does a funny thing immediately afterwards. A wild mixture of false calamity and true anger. Mary, always trying to maintain control, but in the end as much at the mercy of her hormones as every other pregnant woman. She hates it, I can see that clearly, and she is fighting hard to remain in control of her mood.
I cannot help thinking how much we have in common, and wonder how our relationship would have developed had she not turned out to be what she is.
Then I realize how to exploit her current state. "All right, I will do the leg work for you," I (pretend to) growl at Mycroft, "but I need John with me." Mary, caught between being angry about everything and trying to appear at ease with the world, has no choice but let him go with me without comment. We are out of the door and inside a cab faster than ever before.
I sit down, and John subconsciously reaches for my hand. A gesture so small and circumstantial it breaks my heart and fills my soul. I don't move, don't breath, just watch him caressing the back of my hand with his thumb. Then he looks at me, a little smile on his lips. Little, but reaching his (wonderful) eyes, lightening them. Watch his tongue darting over his (wonderful) lips (unconsciously). He will kiss me in less than ten seconds. And I want it, so badly and desperately. Lean towards him, watch him close his eyes, stretch his neck, and hear him whisper, "I love your lips."
A perfect moment. Absolutely perfect.
Until I open my mouth and blurt out, "I think I cheated on you, but I'm not sure."
Incredible how fast you can destroy a perfect moment.
John stares at me in bewilderment. I can see the wheels inside his brain turning, before he asks, "When?"
Really, that is what concerns him most? Well, at least the answer to that is easy, "Yesterday night."
Confusion on his face. The wheels turning some more. "What do you mean, you're not sure?" he wants to know then. That is a better question, but I refrain from telling him so. He is always a bit huffy when I give him advice during a quarrel.
"It was inside my mind palace," I explain. Funny how my pulse speeds up. Will he be angry? If I only knew if I did something wrong. Usually I consult John to find it out. Well, if it was indeed wrong, he will surely tell me so soon. Probably not with a quiet voice. I squirm within.
He is still trying to comprehend. "So, you had a … what? A sex fantasy about someone else?"
"Not with someone else," I clarify. "With you. Well, inner you, that is." He is a bit slow at getting it, I cannot help but think.
He nods (slowly). "Okay," he says, "all right." He nods again.
"Is that all right?" I have to ask, because I fail to read his expression. (Hate when that happens.)
He smirks a bit. "Yes, sure, it is all right." A pause, then, "Was it better than sex with real me?"
Oh, sometimes he can be so dense. "Of course it was better than with you," I explain patiently. And watch his expression shift from amusement to bewilderment to disbelief within a micro second. Oh, maybe I should have approached that a bit less clumsy. Need to elaborate to appease him.
"Don't be insulted," I go on. "It was only better because it was ..." How do I put it? Ah, yes, "...because it was not with you."
There, that should do it. I smile at him, glad the whole thing is settled, and am taken completely by surprise by the befuddled glare he gives me. "What?" I have to ask when he just stares at me for seconds. My pulse speeds up again. He is angry. Is he angry? He looks angry, open mouth, rigid back, cheeks flushed. Need an apology, fast. Think!
That is exactly when his mobile rings. You have to admire Mary's timing. She tells him something I cannot hear, and John pales. "Oh my God," he says, "how often? - What? You need to – Yes, yes, good. Which one? - I'll be there." He hangs up. Stops the cab and is already halfway out of the door when he (unnecessarily) explains, "The contractions started. She's at the hospital, I need to go there."
With that he jumps out of our cab, catches another one and is gone.
Without telling me which hospital she's at. Or asking me to join him.
I guess he really is angry then.
###
Congress member Farnsworth is an elderly woman that was hot once and is stylishly attractive now. Short grey hair dyed brown, jewellery a lot more expensive than it looks. Sleeps with at least three of the men that are bowing and scraping around her, and with two of the women. Is in love with the one she does not have sex with. Likes me. The feeling is mutual. Too bad we are basically standing on different sides. But that cannot be helped.
Concentrating on Farnsworth is difficult. Especially after I deduced that she is innocent. Took me eight minutes. But she keeps on talking. Tells me something about honour among thieves and really believes in it. When she asks me if she is boring me, I say yes.
Funny enough she only laughs at it. Pats my hand and continues to bore me. It takes an eternity to politely finish my investigation in her home. Once outside I check my mobile for messages from John. Nothing.
It takes me twelve minutes to admit to myself that I am hurt. Because John is so angry with me that he left without another word. And because I am excluded. And I am nervous, because GraceNotEmilia might be born right now. And because I still don't know if John is angry.
Back home I tell Mycroft to arrange a meeting with the next suspect as soon as possible and then I hush Team Sherlock out of 221b. Then I wait for news from the hospital.
And wait.
And wait.
Incredible how much you can worry in only two hours.
Then, finally, when it is already dark outside, a text. "False alarm," it says, "Back home now and completely exhausted."
I am not sure what to make of it. There is way too much unused adrenalin in my blood and too many dark thoughts on my mind. Realize how I often felt this way before John. Used to take drugs, or work myself into exhaustion or worse. That is no longer an option, so I do the only thing that really helps me in a state like that. I turn to John.
Text him that I hope the baby is all right anyway. Then write another text to add that I also hope he is all right, too. Then I remember that Mary checks his texts. So I write another text to add that I hope she is all right too. Then I text him again, telling him cryptographically secured that I miss him. Then things get a little out of hands.
Ten minutes and thirty-eight sent texts later, my mobile rings. John. Can hear soft breeze and his footsteps that echo on a wet pavement that is still slightly covered with sand (from a construction side). "Why are you walking down Bedford Gardens?" I ask, not really the most pressing question on my mind. But it is John I am talking to. No matter how angry he might be, he will know that what I am really saying is, "I miss you", "I am sorry." and "Are we all right?"
He laughs, gentle and soft. (The laugh reserved for brilliant deductions.) "Mary knows that I go for a walk when I am too excited to sleep. Perfect cover to give you a call without her listening." There is no anger in his voice, but he is tired.
"Are you angry with be because I had fantastic sex with inner you?" I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
He laughs again, "Of course not. Why would I?" Relief floods my body, and I will never admit that the loss of tensions makes my knees give in. I sit down on (sink down on / crash onto) my chair. "But," he goes on, "I really want to know what inner John did to leave you so satisfied." The idea of talking about it sends a strange feeling right to my balls.
"All right," I say (gasp), half-hard already.
Then I hear his footsteps come to a halt. "We need to talk about how to go on with Mary and the baby," he says then, voice serious, yet loving. "It can happen any time now, and today I thought ..."
His voice trails off, leaving much space for interpretation. I wonder if I should tell him how I felt today, left out and cut off of information. Before I can make up my mind, he goes on, "I … missed you at the hospital. I know it is not fair, and Mary has no idea what's going on, and she is the mother, and it will break her heart, but … she can't have my girl, Sherlock. She is evil and she has killed … she is … she will never … I am scared and … you know."
Yes, I know.
"I have already talked to Mycroft, " John went on. Oh. "Back at the hospital, when the midwife sent me away to get Mary something to eat." Then he explains me what will happen. That my brother has already prepared the papers John will need to annul the marriage. (Easy, let's be grateful Mary didn't use her real name.) That there will always be some of his minions who will follow the Watsons to hospital, standing by to arrest Mary the minute the baby is out. (Enough charges to press, attempted murder on Sherlock Holmes only one of them.)
And that he wants me to be at the hospital the next time. Says I need to be there to hold Emilia (whom we will call Grace because unlike me he likes the name more than Emilia) immediately after she is born so we can bond. This leaves a warm feeling somewhere in my chest (probably inside my heart), all insecurity and apprehension forgotten.
"John, I ..." I start, not sure how to vent all these little butterflies inside my stomach, "I … concur."
John laughs, remembering my first clumsy attempt at romantic talking back in autumn. "I concur you too, you romantic idiot," he says, and then ends the call to go (to his fake) home.
But it's perfectly all right this time. It won't be long now anyway.