THE ADVENTURES OF A CONSULTING TIME LORD
by Soledad
Disclaimer: Both Dr. Who and Sherlock belong to the BBC. I'm just borrowing them to have some fun.
Author's note: In this AU Harry Watson is "played" by Emilia Fox. Her ex, Clara, has been tentatively cast as Kathie McGraw, just because the two actresses worked well together in "Merlin".
Also, John Watson is married in many of the ACD stories. Since I wanted him unattached for most of this story, I gave him a (failed) pre-series marriage. And since we're in multi-cultural London, I gave him an Indian ex-wife. One inspired by the main character from "The Mistress of Spices".
Part 21 – A Woman Called Harry
Harriet Watson stared at the official letter from the Royal Army in shocked disbelief. Granted, it wasn't the letter – the one she'd feared in recent years, the one that would tell her as John's next of kin that her brother had been killed in Afghanistan – but it was bad enough.
No, John hadn't been killed, but he'd been wounded severely enough to get an honourable discharge and to be sent home, invalided and with a serious case of PTSD.
Home to England where he had nothing to live for. Home to London where he didn't even have a home anymore. Not since the divorce had gone through and Mary, that stupid bitch, had sold their house and returned to her sodding family and her sodding spices.
As if driving John into the clutches of the Army with her constant whining about too long hours spent in hospital wards hadn't been enough. No, she had to make him homeless as well.
And he'll be arriving in four days – to find what? A sister whom he'd left clean, happily married and with a good job… and who was now back to drinking, getting a divorce and probably soon unemployed as well. He'd be so disappointed with her! He used to be glad that at least one of them had managed to get a grip on their life, even though they never got on well.
How could her perfect life have gotten shattered to a myriad pieces in just a few years?
Deep within she knew the answer of course, she was just loath to admit it. It was the sodding bottle that had ruined every single one of her relationships: that with her brother, that with Clara, and it was just about to cost her the job, too, by alienating colleagues and clients alike. Again.
Just as it had done with her mother. In the Watson family, the drinking habit seemed to hit the women, almost exclusively. The men had their fair share of addictions, too, but different ones.
Their father had spent all his spare time at the horse races, betting, winning and losing. Actually, mostly losing, which had only made him more obsessed with the idea of winning back his losses. After a while, his small private practice could no longer cover the expenses, and he chose the coward's way out and shot himself in the head.
Thy never saw their mother in a sober state afterwards, and the excessive drinking took her to an early grave only three years later. At least she got to see John graduate before she died. And Harry fell into the familiar pattern of Watson women all too soon, whenever the stress became too much.
John was different; perhaps the most disciplined in their entire family. He was an adrenalin junkie, true; one who thrived on danger and split-second decisions and the stress only working at A&E could offer a doctor… well, save the war, of course. But he always knew his limits and rarely went beyond them, unless there was no other way. He never sought danger for danger's sake alone, but he never backed off in the face of danger, either.
He should never have married Mary. Mary had always been a dead weight on his back; pulling him down like a millstone bound to his ankles. Mary, in her quaint little spice bazaar in the East End, surrounded by a colourful herd of siblings, first-, second- and third grade cousins, uncles and aunts and grandparents from both her mother's and her father's side, who still spoke Tulu among themselves, could never understand a man like John.
Despite the English name she bore – courtesy of some distant British ancestor somewhere up the family tree, the same one from whom she inherited her striking blue eyes – Mary Morstan was still spiritually trapped by her Bunt roots. Descending from erstwhile Keralan gentry, the family led a very traditional and much internalised life. Harry never understood how John could have made a mistake of marrying a woman of such a background.
Oh, sure, Mary was stunningly beautiful, like some Hindu goddess on those ancient paintings. But she was a good ten years younger than John and she knew nothing about the world aside her family traditions and her spices. Her family had been outraged when she married a stranger, as they put it, and after a few years of half-hearted struggle to fit in to John's world, she simply fled back to them.
By the time the family had handed in the divorce papers John was already on his way to Afghanistan. That was his way to deal with stress, his addiction. Perhaps less obvious than Harry's drinking, but every bit as destructive.
And now he was coming back, with a bullet wound in his shoulder bad enough to make him unfit for the armed duty and needing a cane to walk, and boy, wasn't that gonna be the worst case of withdrawal since Harry's last – failed! – therapy? How long was he going to last, collecting his miserable army pension, with no excitement, no danger and nothing useful to do?
Would he shoot himself in the head like their father had done?
Oh God, how was she supposed to help him? Harry wrung her hands in despair She needed a stiff drink the worst possible way; hadn't had one for two days in a row, the longest time she'd managed since Clara and she had split up three months ago, but right now she couldn't manage without one any longer.
How was she supposed to support a broken man, returning invalided from the war, when she couldn't even manage her own affairs? John would spot at first sight that she was drinking again; he could always tell when she was having a relapse. Perhaps it was a doctor thing, or perhaps he just knew her too well, and there would be a big fight again, and God, she was so tired of fighting, she just couldn't do this anymore…
She ran to the bathroom to splash cold water into her face, in the hope to regain her balance. She hadn't counted with the effect of seeing her own image in the mirror, though – and that was a shock.
She looked terrible, simply terrible. She'd lost a lot of weight since Clara had left and looked thin as a boy, almost wraith-like. There were dark rings around her eyes, and the pale skin was stretched too tight over sharp cheekbones above her hollow cheeks. Her dishwater-blonde hair was brittle and lifeless like old straw and generously streaked with grey, and her eyes were bloodshot. She shuddered from the sight.
She'd let herself go spectacularly since Clara's departure. That wouldn't do. She was barely beyond forty; she couldn't run around like some negligent old hag. First order of the business was to go to the hairdresser's and got her hair dyed a homogenous blonde again. Then, perhaps, to a beauty salon to have something done about her face, too. Cosmetics could cover a great deal of damage.
John would see through her mask of false beauty, of course. He always did. But she owed her brother – and probably herself, too – at least that much that there would be a still attractive woman waiting for him at the airport instead of an unkempt, elderly addict.
Cause she would be there to welcome him home. Somebody had to – and his ex-wife certainly wouldn't.
What was she just about to do? Right, call the hairdresser and make an appointment. God, but her brain was sluggish today! She couldn't possibly go out and deal with things in this foggy state of mind.
She reached into the cosmetics cupboard for her hidden stack of bourbon.
"Just one, to help me focus," she muttered the old excuse.
The amber liquid sloshed over the rand of the glass as she poured the drink with trembling hands.
~TBC~