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"Did you get it?" Mary asked urgently, looking up from her baby names book when she heard the front door open. Sherlock shut the door behind him and held up the shopping bag. She sighed in the greatest relief. "Ugh, thank you so much, Sherlock. You have no idea."

"Have you been craving pineapples throughout the whole pregnancy?"

"No, this is a new one." She winced a bit as she rose to her feet, truly feeling the weight of her stomach on her ankles. "The first few months it was ice cream. Loads and loads of ice cream. Then stir-fry, with just about anything I could stir and fry into it."

"And now it's fruit?"

She finally made it to the kitchen counter where Sherlock had placed the groceries. "For the time being," she said, grabbing a knife out the rack. "Two nights ago I was desperate for tacos, so who knows how long this will last."

"Craving fruit can mean dehydration or lack of Vitamin C," Sherlock calculated, taking some of the other items out of the grocery bag. "You should drink more orange juice."

"I'm fine," she assured him, grabbing a bottle of honey mustard out of the fridge and squirting it into a bowl. Sherlock grimaced as she dipped the first piece of pineapple into the sauce which didn't go unnoticed by Mary. "I'm pregnant, leave me alone."

He put his hands up in a humble gesture of surrender, and Mary went on eating. "So, have you and John decided what you're doing for Christmas yet?"

Mary's masticating jaw slowly stopped chewing. "Sherlock," she emitted, taken slightly aback.

"What?"

"Why on earth would you assume we would have made Christmas plans together? We aren't exactly…well, you know."

Sherlock discreetly rolled his eyes and huffed out an annoyed breath. "Well do you plan on being made up by Christmas?"

"That's not up to me, is it." She smothered another pineapple cube into the honey mustard and devoured it.

The detective traced a triangle into the kitchen counter, knowing he shouldn't say what he was about to, but he mumbled it anyway. "You haven't exactly been active in getting John to come to his senses."

Mary froze. "What did you say?"

"Hm? Nothing, never mind."

She loudly set the bowl down and brought both hands to her hips. "You know, for someone who notices everything you have a terrible habit of missing what's right in front of you."

"I don't miss things, I ignore them by choice. There is a useful difference."

"And it's not like I haven't got any reason to be angry myself either!"

"Oh, do get your hormones under control. I just brought you food! And now you're yelling at me."

Mary's face softened and her arms fell to her sides. "I'm sorry…" she apologized, melting into a chair at the kitchen counter and reclaiming her disgusting fruit-sauce combination. "I'm not angry with you."

"I know," he replied, wrinkling his nose as she brought yet another mustard-covered pineapple cube to her lips.

"I just want John back." Just saying it, she felt a pang in her chest and a pull in her throat. It was the sincere truth. She missed the man she loved.

Sherlock's eyes scanned her deflated expression. "Mary, I want you to come to Christmas dinner at my parents' house."

"What?" She never took the Holmes' for the family-function type.

"They are insisting we get together this year because of my…near-death incident." She shamefully looked down into her lap, biting her cheek. "They think I've just returned home from hospital."

"Sherlock, I don't belong there…I'm the reason for that incident."

"Yes, more or less…"

"More," she corrected.

"Regardless, I want you to come. John will come also."

She released a sad chuckle. "Will he? Not if I go."

Sherlock briefly looked over at the bedroom door, which was just open a crack. "Just out of curiosity, is he still staying up nights, guarding the window?"

Mary nodded. "Every night, but I'm usually asleep by the time he gets back. I try to stay up, but I'm always so exhausted."

Sherlock smirked to himself, unbeknownst to Mary. "Interesting." She gave him an odd look, but soon shook it off. "John will be ready by then. I promise."

"Don't promise, Sherlock."

He didn't respond to the request. He just flipped up his coat collar. "I should be off…I'm sure somewhere someone's baffled about something or another."

"Uh, wait a minute…" Mary said with a slight frown now playing at her lips, preventing him from leaving. "Do you have to go?" Some embarrassment came over her. "I just mean, well…ugh, sod it. I don't want to be alone today." Sherlock studied her, trying to pinpoint why before she provided him with the answer. "Maybe it's the hormones making me lonely, but I just would like someone to interact with. I haven't had a real conversation with anyone in days… not counting clinic patients." She placed one hand into the other. "You don't have to..."

Ironically, on this particular day, it just so happened that John had forgotten to bring something to eat for lunch. He could have bought something sufficient from the cafeteria, but he didn't. Besides, with Mary being in her seventh month, he didn't hate the idea of paying her a visit just to make sure things were okay. So, he snuck away from the clinic for a bit and headed home. When he came through the door, he certainly did not expect the sight that welcomed him.

Sherlock sat stiff and upright on the couch, looking fairly uncomfortable with his position, but decidedly staying put. And from where he stood, John could see a blonde head resting against his friend's shoulder. "Is Mary asleep?" he asked quietly, setting his keys down on the counter and coming into the living room.

"For the past hour; she dozed off watching a film about penguins. Understandably."

John just nodded, doing his best to mask the surprise at Sherlock Holmes willingly serving as a human pillow. "Have you been here all day?"

"Just since noon. Mary had a craving for pineapple so I brought some over." John nodded again and gave his friend an appreciative nod, even though he felt a bit guilty that it hadn't been him bringing Mary the pineapple. "She dunked it in honey mustard."

John let out a soft chuckle and lowered himself into the armchair across from the couch. "Yeah, she's been eating some pretty crazy things lately. Last night it was olives in peanut butter; night before that, oatmeal tacos."

Sherlock wrinkled his nose at the last one which Mary had apparently only partially admitted to him before. "Well that sounds delightful." John gave a small shrug and leaned his head onto his fist, staring at Mary as she slept. Sherlock took note, and changed the subject away from the woman still soundly sleeping on his shoulder. "Have you decided to come to Christmas yet? Or will you need more time before you inevitably say yes?"

"Sherlock…"

"You realize I will have to spend the day with my brother and parents. It'd be nice to have someone slightly more tolerable around."

"Slightly?"

"And Mary's coming, so—"

"What?" John's ears perked up at that, though he still kept the volume down. "Mary's going to Christmas dinner…at your parents'?"

"Yes, of course," Sherlock fibbed.

He sat back and studied his best friend, trying to determine whether or not he was being played. "Let me ask you, why do you think that Mary coming would make me want to go as well? In case you haven't noticed, we aren't in a great place right now."

"Is that why you still haven't told her the truth about the window? For two people not in a great place you spend a lot of time in bed together."

John lowered his eyes. "Knock it off."

"To be fair, that's probably the only one-on-one time you get with the baby. And you've had a lot of it apparently, evidenced by the fact that when Mrs. Hudson asked, you said it was 'kicking up a storm'…I take it you don't often feel many kicks when your wife's awake."

"You should talk," John shot back in an exaggerated whisper, still mindful to his snoozing wife. "You're the one who lied about the window in the first place."

"Yes, but you're lying to your wife. I only lied to you."

"Mary lied to me," John replied blandly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "She had to."

"Nope."

"She lied about her former life to protect you from it. When she found out she was pregnant, she realized she had to ensure that her past could never come back to bite her. She was protecting your child."

John leaned back in the chair dejectedly. "We are going to stop talking about this now."

"You brought it up," Sherlock immaturely finished.

John closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. With a subtle, self-defeated shake of his head, he finally uttered "fine."

"What?"

"I'll go," he elaborated. "To Christmas at your parents', I'll go."

"Splendid." Sherlock was genuinely pleased, of course this was masked by an 'I told you so' expression pulling at his cheeks.

"But only because it's Christmas and the last few months have been shit and Mary will be close to her due date by then so I don't want her to be out in the middle of the country with no doctor around."

"Whatever your reason."

"That is my reason."

"Never said it wasn't." Sherlock smiled triumphantly and then glanced down at Mary who was still, miraculously, asleep on his shoulder. He knew John would say yes, but she would be much harder to convince. "Has she always been such a heavy sleeper?"

"Mmhm," John responded with a nod. "Plus the baby moving around kept her up last night." Sherlock gave him a knowing smirk. "Shut up."

OOOOO

"And I'm getting suspicious now… 'specially after finding all those cigarette butts in the garden the other day. So when I come home from work today I go and check it out. Just do a loop around the house. And what do you know, there's footprints!"

Sherlock dully stared back at the portly man who sat across from John and him, not at all trying to conceal his profound boredom listening to the client. "Is there more?" he obligatorily asked, hoping to remove the soporific from his flat as soon as possible.

"Well, yeah…there were two sets of prints. They lead up to the house, and then they just stopped!" the client continued with wide eyes from mentally reliving the experience. He could see his enthusiasm was not transferring to the men with whom he was sharing the ordeal. "But, and this is where things get strange, there were two sets of footprints leading to the house, but none walking away from it. Not one!"

Sherlock internally groaned at anticlimactic and seemingly interminable narrative. "And what did you make of this?"

"Isn't obvious?" the man burst. "It's a ghost sneaking through my walls and taking the money off the counter!"

John and Sherlock glanced at each other to exchange cringing faces before turning back to the client. "You think there's a ghost leaving cigarette butts in the garden and taking money off the counter?" John uttered, just to be sure he was hearing the theory correctly.

The client bewilderedly stared on. "Yeah!"

"Sherlock," John said, passing his friend the metaphorical baton.

Sherlock stayed sitting for a moment, undoubtedly calculating all the ways he could mock the man without him even realizing it. All of a sudden, he sprang up and went to the door. "Please leave now. You're an idiot." He pulled the door open for the visitor and waited for him to exit.

"What? I'm not making this up! There's something freaky going on at my house!"

Sherlock smirked to himself. "Yes, perfect choice of words."

The man scurried up from the chair. "What you mean by that?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes once more at the thickness of the man. "Your daughter's boyfriend sneaks into her bedroom at night to…well, that part's obvious. And then when they're done, he goes to the kitchen and takes the money. Don't leave money out in the open, you won't have this problem."

"My daughter doesn't have a boyfriend…"

"Yes she does, and considering he's the type to take money from you, I can't imagine why she wouldn't have told you," the detective sarcastically retorted.

"Where are getting this?"

He hung his head, actually getting exhausted now. "He comes to the house at night, by the side or the back clearly since he'd be seen coming in at the front. You took away her phone and laptop last time you caught her hiding a boyfriend so he smokes a cigarette outside and the smell alerts her that he's there. She opens the window. He climbs up to your daughter's bedroom window which I assume is directly above the spot you found the prints. And that's that."

"But," John piped up, to Sherlock's surprise. "There's no footprints leading away from the window. How's he get out?"

"I thought that part was apparent… No?" He guessed not judging by the two expectant faces awaiting an answer. "I swear, the fatuity of your brains will never stop amazing me. He walks backwards on his way out. Makes him untraceable from the prints."

The client grew visibly agitated as he began to realize the truth of the situation. He directed himself toward Sherlock. "You are a cocky son of a bitch, aren't you." Sherlock didn't say anything back, although John eagerly nodded in agreement. The man shook his head and shoved his fists into his jacket pockets. "I'll kill that kid."

Sherlock nonchalantly shut the door behind him and soon the aggressive stomps down the stairs grew faint. As usual, the two men waited for the slamming of the door downstairs to confirm that their visitor had actually gone before reclaiming their lounge positions. "Expecting anyone else today?" John asked, checking his watch discreetly.

"Hm?" Sherlock looked up toward John, and then gave a shake of his head. "No, no one else today. However I am meeting Molly at three."

"What for?"

"She's got a morbidly obese person in the morgue. Need to run some tests. Oddly enough, she doesn't get many of those." John just shook his head at Sherlock's impressive insensitivity. "Here's a thought, why don't you go home to your wife."

"She's not home. She's meeting Janine for tea."

"Well go do something, I'm very busy."

The shorter man cocked his head at his friend's hurried attitude, he seemed especially short today. He didn't dwell on it though, it wasn't worth it. "Alright, fine. I'll go into the clinic early then. Unless there's any reason you might want me to stay….is there?"

Sherlock gave him a confused look. "No, why would there be?"

"No reason at all." And with one final glance at his dismissive pal, he left, briefly poking his head into Mrs. Hudson's flat to say goodbye.

Right on schedule, Sherlock went undisturbed for approximately twenty minutes before his phone buzzed against the coffee table. He effortlessly hopped over the furniture and snatched it. It read: I'm here…please don't make me walk up to the second floor.

He smiled to himself and moseyed down the stairwell to meet his guest.

"Can I make you some tea, dear?" Mrs. Hudson asked Mary, already taking the cups out of the cabinet.

"Tea would be lovely, thank you," the blonde replied as she sat down at the kitchen table where Sherlock was already seated. She still wasn't a hundred percent sure why she was here, although she had a couple guesses.

"So," Sherlock begin enthusiastically, "let's talk."

"Alright," she allowed, apprehensively.

"Two weeks ago I asked you to come to Christmas dinner at my parents' house, you recall?" It was a rhetorical question, but Mary nodded anyway. "Have you made a decision?"

She shyly nodded again, already becoming apologetic. "Yes, I have. I won't be going. I'm sorry." She waited for Sherlock's expression to change, but it didn't. "But, you'll have John with you. That should make it more manageable."

"Here you are," Mrs. Hudson cut in, placing the tea cup in front of Mary. She still had a bit of a reach though, seeing that her eight month pregnant belly did not allow her to pull her chair all the way into the table.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson."

"What's the reason then?" Sherlock went on, before the landlady could start in with a story or gushy comments about the baby.

"Isn't it obvious?" she scoffed, bringing the tea to her lips and sipping. "It's Christmas…it's supposed to be a happy day. I don't want to ruin anyone else's holiday. And that's what will happen."

"My parents don't know anything about it," he offered.

"It doesn't matter. It's been months of silence between John and I, we can't just put on a happy face and pretend everything's fine."

"Loads of people do it every day," he muttered under his breath.

"Not to mention, that's just weeks before I'm due. It's already getting hard to move around. If something happens, I don't want to not be able to get to a hospital." Now she was just fishing for reasons.

"John's a doctor, he'll be right there."

She took in a deep breath, genuinely feeling bad about how hard Sherlock was trying. And what made it worse was that he was trying to come across as if he wasn't…that's how she knew it was real. "Sherlock…I wish I could go. I really do. I wish we could all be one big happy family." Mrs. Hudson, who was still puttering around the kitchen, was getting downtrodden just listening to the pain in Mary's voice. Mary looked down abashedly. "I shot you."

"Old news."

She looked up at him sadly. "I can't go to your parents' house and smile at them and have them welcome me into their house knowing that I shot their son."

Sherlock's brows furrowed in genuine surprise. "Is that was this is about?" One thing he would never excel at deducing was human emotion. Human error, sure. Human emotion…that one was tough.

"I'm going to be a mother." She unconsciously moved her hand to her stomach. "I guess I already am…in a way. And knowing what I know now about all that, I just can't face your mother. I was willing to kill Magnusson because he was a threat to my child. I know how it feels now. How am I supposed to go into another mother's house, on Christmas, when a few months before I almost killed her son. Her child."

Sherlock stared for a long time. He was at a complete loss for what to say. He just stared across the table at her. Mrs. Hudson had turned her attention to them a while ago, so the thick silence—so impenetrable—could not even be assuaged by clinking dishes or faucet water. Finally, Sherlock spoke. "You could have killed me. Easily. But you didn't. You saved me."

"From a wound I inflicted!"

Sherlock could see this was not going to be the easy persuasion he thought it would be. So, he had to dig deep. He flew through his mind palace…surely there was something in there pertaining to human nature. Some childhood memory that could help him understand this enough to get Mary to reconsider.

"Sherlock?" Mary called to him, when he became absent a bit too long.

He emerged from the trance nearly a full minute later. And a satisfied smile painted his lips which visibly confounded the two women in the room. "Mary, I think the amount of time it's taken John to get over this whole thing has given you a false impression of the severity of your crime. What I'm saying is: what you did is not as terrible as you may think." Mary didn't seem to believe him, but the look on her face showed she was willing to listen. "You were willing to kill a very powerful man to protect your child. As far as good reasons to kill other human beings go—I don't think you'll find many mothers who wouldn't do the same. Mine included." She listened on, really letting his words sink in. "When I was eleven, we lived in the city for a year. Our parents thought the move would help us learn to fraternize with other children. The plan failed, I mean really went down in flames. The other children were so stupid. But one boy in particular, Edwin Byrne, especially hated me. Bullied me constantly." A surprised sadness came over Mary's face. She never imagined Sherlock being bullied, but hearing the idea now could see how it would make sense. "One afternoon, Edwin took it too far. He and his friends grabbed me at my locker, dragged me all the way upstairs to the roof. They hung me over the side, pretending they were going to drop me. Truly one of the scariest things to ever happen to me, until I discovered nine separate ways to land without a scratch. It actually turned out to be a useful experience later on in life…as you know. My mum was outside the building waiting to pick me up, saw the whole thing and sprinted into the school and up to the roof. She pulled me up from the ledge and put all three boys in a chokehold."

"You're kidding?!"

"I remember you telling me that story," Mrs. Hudson recalled from her place at the sink. "Little punks deserved it if you ask me."

"Needless to say, their parents pressed charges, one of which being attempted murder," Sherlock finished complacently. "We moved out of the city, switched schools, never saw the boy again. Of course, the charges were expunged thanks to a relative who occupied a minor position in the county judicial system." Mary raised a brow. "And we almost never spoke of it again."

"You aren't lying to me, are you?" Mary asked, just to be absolutely sure, though she didn't think he was.

And he genuinely wasn't. "No," was all he said, a bit solemnly. "So, you're tormented at the idea of coming face to face with my mother when, in fact, she did nearly the same thing you did. The only exception being that she didn't kill the boys because the teachers intervened. You didn't kill me because your marksmanship is near perfect and you had no intention of doing so."

"What if she sees me as another Edwin Byrne?"

"Edwin Byrne was acting as a ruthless bully," Sherlock replied. "You were acting as a protective mother."

Mary could hardly wrap her head around what she heard just heard, and from whom she had heard it. She thought for a long time, breaking up her thoughts with intermittent sips of tea. When finally, she came to her decision. "I'll go."

Sherlock was thrilled, but didn't dare show it. "Excellent choice," he said, knowing this whole mess would soon be over—along with the case John had been badgering him about.