One More Miracle

"John," Mary smiled as she sat up in bed and looked over at her finance, who was starring sadly out of the bedroom window and down at the deserted city streets below. He looked at her but didn't respond and so she slipped her legs out from beneath the sheets and her bare feet into her slippers at the edge of the bed, and made her way over to the man whom she loved.

"It's been two weeks," She sighed as she wrapped her pale arms around John's warm shoulders and rested her head gently against his neck, "why don't you go and see him?"

John looked at her with burning contempt and tears glistening within his eyes. His nightly vigil had been the same for the past couple of weeks, since Sherlock Holmes had returned – seemingly from the dead. Mary and John had known each other for nearly two years now and had been engaged for a little over six months. She had met him at a time when the man had been at his lowest ebb. He had just lost his best friend, and she'd seen him through many a difficult night plagued by nightmares in which he had been forced to relive his friend's fall from the roof of St Bart's Hospital over and over again.

She had been there for him then, had offered him a shoulder to cry on, a sofa for him to crash on after one of many drunken nights out, and an ear to listen when he'd needed to talk. She'd taken on the role of friend, carer, therapist, and finally lover. She'd gently coaxed him back to a state of quiet contentment, and she was there for him again now, as she always would be from now on.

"Because Sherlock Holmes is dead!" John spat, but seeing the look on his soon-to-be wife's face he guiltily revised his tone. "I'm sorry," He apologised, "but the Sherlock Holmes I knew died the day he decided to jump off the roof of Bart's Hospital. He's let me believe that he was dead all this time. I doubt he even thought about me once the whole time he's been away! Sherlock Holmes was my best friend, his death all but broke me, but I have come to terms with it. I have made my peace and I have said goodbye to Sherlock bloody Holmes! He was my past Mary, you are my future!"

"But that's just the point John," Mary said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible under the circumstances as she nestled her head deeper into the nape of his neck and kissed his cheek tenderly. "Sherlock Holmes isn't dead is he? He's very much alive, and I've heard you pray over and over again these past two years for a miracle such as this. I've heard you pleading with a God that I know you're not even sure you believe in for Sherlock Holmes not to be dead. This is your miracle John."

"Whose side are you on?" John turned to look at her and asked, he didn't appear angry anymore though, only wondering, his sad eyes pleading with hers. She could see that in his heart he knew that she was right, be he was afraid to confront Sherlock - secretly scared of the answers he might find.

"Yours," She smiled, "always, which is why I am telling you this. Face it John, you miss him, and he misses you. What he did was wrong, but he's obviously had his reasons for wanting people to believe that he's been dead all this time. He owes you an explanation, and you at least owe it to him to give him the chance to explain."

"I don't owe him anything." John shook his head. "Sherlock Holmes was an arrogant, self-riotous prick when I met him. He believed that he was better than everybody else – and yes, maybe he was greater than any man I'd ever met, nor was ever likely to – but he treated people as though they didn't matter, as though they were surplus to requirement. He turned my life around, gave me something to live for, gave me a home, someone to care about when I had no one, and then he took it all away from me with one click of his little finger. Just like that."

Mary sighed sadly. She looked up into John's liquid eyes and slowly disentangled herself from her lover's slack hold. "I know you're angry with him John," She conceded, "and so you have a right to be but don't be too hasty in how you judge him. I know I don't know him, but I'd be prepared to speculate that things haven't been as easy for him as you seem to think. He's had a strange faraway look in his eyes since he got back, and London now seems so foreign to him. It's as though he's forgotten what his life was once like before he went away. There's a pain in his eyes which speaks of untold horrors, and a strange sadness about him – it's the same type of sadness I recognised in you when I first met you."

"Hang on a moment, you've spoken to him?" John asked.

"He called round asking for you about a week ago." Mary explained. "I told him you were at work and he hasn't been back since. I don't think he's coping at all... he seemed so lost."

John looked at her, incredulous as to what she was saying. Sherlock - the old Sherlock - would never have given up so easily. He'd have hunted John down, forced him to listen, and not given up until he'd brought him around to his way of thinking - or at least berated him into reluctant submission.

"He needs you John," she smiled, "and you sure as hell need him. Go and see him tomorrow. You've been given what most people would give anything for, a second chance. Don't throw it all away."

John looked at her, and nodded - slowly.

She was right of course. Part of him was relieved and rejoicing to have his best friend back, but Doctor John Watson was a man conflicted. He also hated him for what he'd put him through, and that part of him would be happy if he never saw Sherlock Holmes ever again.

But in the end John knew that it wouldn't be fair on Sherlock to turn his back on everything they had been through together - and what had once been a close and life affirming friendship - without first giving him the chance to explain, and John for his part certainly needed answers.

He would go and see Sherlock, first thing in the morning, even if he was not entirely sure that he would like what he might find.

"I know you're right." He forced a smile as he wrapped both his arms around Mary and pulled her closer to him, feeling her slender body shiver against his.

"I know." She smiled, as his lips met hers.