"What do you think, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked earnestly. "Do we keep him busy all day? Or give him lots of time alone? Or something in between?"
The two men were in Mrs Hudson's kitchen, sipping tea and discussing the quickly up-coming anniversary of the day of Mary's death; a day they carefully alluded to only as "the eleventh of October."
"Why are you asking me? Since when am I an expert on anyone's emotional well-being?" Sherlock demanded peevishly.
"You're not, dear. No one's saying that," Mrs Hudson tried to soothe him. "But you ARE the expert on John's well-being. Anyway, what about the project you've been working on the past three months. Isn't that meant for the eleventh?"
"No. It's meant for the fifteenth," Sherlock told them. They looked at him blankly.
"The day before the funeral? Why that day?" Lestrade wondered.
Sherlock felt it was not his business to talk about John and Mary's special days, especially their first date. "Never mind. It has a significance that makes this project appropriate for that particular day. We'll have to do something else on the eleventh."
"I do have an idea," Lestrade continued. "I'd like to run it by you before putting it into the works." By the time John returned from the market, they had ironed out the details and knew just what each needed to do to get ready for the fateful day.
000
The morning of the eleventh was dreary and rainy, and John seemed reluctant to stir from his bed. This smote Sherlock to the heart—his friend had been doing so much better in the months after Mary's birthday. He rarely had a nightmare, and his PTSD symptoms were almost non-existent even when not on the job. Sherlock, too, had been sleeping without the dreams and feeling more himself since he had begun his secret project, which he planned to reveal to John on the fifteenth.
"Lestrade needs us in his office at 9:00 sharp," Sherlock stated firmly, pulling clothes out of John's wardrobe and throwing them at his head. "Get up if you want any time for breakfast before we leave."
John sighed and did as his friend demanded. They arrived at NSY only a few minutes past the hour, Sherlock looking eager and expectant, John looking weary. A nervous, middle-aged woman in a coat that had seen better days was sitting in Lestrade's office chatting with the D.I. and twisting a handkerchief in her hands. Beside her sat a young boy, perhaps nine years old, twining his feet around the legs of his chair.
"I'm glad you chaps could make it." Lestrade rose from his chair behind his desk and crossed to the doorway of his office to greet them sincerely. "Come on in; there's someone here who'd like to meet you." The woman and the boy also stood, looking at their feet in a state of nerves. "Mrs Olivia Smithson, this is Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson, the famous detectives."
Mrs Smithson offered her hand to each of them, shyly looking just past their eyes as she murmured, "So pleased to meet you. We've been great fans of yours for years."
"And this young lad is William Smithson," Lestrade continued, speaking cautiously. "He's the child Mary's assailants first chose to be their hostage in the robbery at the clinic."
Lestrade and Sherlock were watching John's reactions carefully, unsure of how he would feel about this meeting. His eyes blazed with the remembrance of that horrifying day one year earlier and his mouth set into a grim line. But he politely took the boy's offered hand and shook it gravely.
"I've been longing to meet you, sir," the boy said earnestly, with a polite air beyond his tender years. "And you, too, Mr Holmes. But I didn't know until a few days ago who it was that saved me. I was too shook up to understand what was going on at the time, see. I just knew she was a doctor, and that she was terribly brave. Then the Detective Inspector told us she was married to you, Dr Watson, and I thought it just made sense—a hero like her wouldn't be married to anyone less than another hero."
"We've been wanting to show our gratitude all this time, sir," Mrs Smithson gathered her courage to say. "Your wife gave me my boy back; she gave us both our lives. I was trying to get those men to take me instead of William, but she pushed me back. She said a boy needs his mother, and that she could take care of herself. She was braver than anything I've ever seen." These last words seemed to take all her energy to say; she dropped back into her chair and wiped her streaming eyes with her already damp handkerchief.
John looked from Sherlock to Lestrade wordlessly, frozen, unable to respond.
"Perhaps we ought to have prepared John a bit," a worried Lestrade stepped into the breach. "We're grateful you were able to come in to talk to us today," he encouraged gently.
John visibly shook himself, pulling himself together. "Yes, I'm sorry, yes," he said quietly, in a daze. "I . . . yes, thank you for coming to see us. I'm . . . happy to meet you." His smile was warm and genuine.
William stood straight and tall, but tears stood in his eyes. His words tumbled out in a torrent of heartfelt sincerity. "I want you to know, sir, I don't take it lightly. Dr Watson gave her life for me, and I promise I won't let it be for nothing. I won't waste it, sir, I swear I won't. I want to be a doctor when I grow up, like her, and help people. And I want to always be as fearless as she was."
Greatly moved, John dropped heavily to one knee to be closer to eye-level with the boy, and put his hands on his shoulders. "She would be proud, William. And very pleased to know that," he said, simply but wholeheartedly in a voice rough with emotion.
William smiled, and after a moment's nervous hesitation, threw his arms around John's neck. "I'm sorry, Dr Watson. I know you must miss her a lot," he cried. John patted the child's back gently, seeming to be gathering strength from the encounter.
"I do, William. But it helps to know that she died for a good reason. I'm pleased to know what a fine young man you are." John stood again and solemnly shook the child's hand. "Please keep in touch and let me know how you're doing. Mary and I were never able to have children. Perhaps you'll let me help you towards your career, as I would have liked to have done for a son of my own. It will help me to look towards the future, instead of wallowing in the past, and she would certainly be glad of that."
"Thank you, sir," William said soberly, and his mother stood and offered her gratitude as well.
After the meeting was all over, John and Sherlock by wordless agreement took a cab to the cemetery where Mary was buried. Sherlock hung back as John approached her gravestone and watched as his friend began to speak to his beloved wife. He couldn't be absolutely certain, but he felt sure he could just hear John quoting "Invictus" to her just before he turned to leave the graveside.
As John left, Sherlock stepped up to Mary's gravestone and touched it with a gentle hand. He had no words to say, except, "Mary, we're doing the best we can. I hope we're making you proud."
000
"Will you be going to Angelo's tonight?" Sherlock asked John on the afternoon of the fifteenth.
"Um, yes. I suppose you'll be joining me?" John replied with a wry smile. "After giving me a decent head-start."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Of course. It's been working for us so far. Why change the formula now? But I have something to show you before you go out. Sit here and I'll bring it to you."
John sat in his old armchair and waited uncertainly. A surprise from Sherlock Holmes could be marvellous or it could be terrifying. Soon his friend re-entered the room with a heavy box in his hands.
"What's this?" John asked with a bit of trepidation.
"Open it," Sherlock urged him impatiently, eager to see the culmination of his three-months-long project.
John lifted the lid. Inside were baby shoes, old photo albums, a white christening dress. "Oh, my god," he whispered. "Is this . . . . is this what I think it is? Sherlock, where did these come from? How did you get them?" He lifted the tiny dress out reverently in trembling hands.
"From an old army storage facility in India," Sherlock explained. "For so many years, everyone assumed Mary's father disappeared on his way here from the Middle East. But we now know that he never left India. I realized that his things might still have been there, stashed away. It took a bit of doing, and Mycroft pulling some strings, but we found it at last. I was also able to get pictures and paperwork from many of her old schools here in England. It isn't a complete record of her life, but it's a goodly start."
John began to look through the first photo album. "These must be of Mary's mother. Oh, what she wouldn't have given to have seen these! And this . . . this must be Mary, as a new-born. Have you looked at these? Look at her, she was an angel with all those blond curls! Sherlock, I . . . ." His voice broke. "This is . . . ." He couldn't go on.
"I know," Sherlock assured him.
John sat back in his chair, overwhelmed. "Sherlock, you've . . . . you've given me her past. I don't know what to say."
"You've already said it, at Mary's grave. 'Invictus'. Undefeated. We'll be as fearless as Mary and continue to do the work she believed in. She would expect nothing less of us," Sherlock said.
"Right," John agreed soberly, but lost himself in his gift for a while.