She entered the restaurant, panting and spattered with the beginnings of the deluge that had been promised. She'd caught the 5.36 by the skin of, and had rushed through dark, lowering clouds and ominously rumbling skies to get there.
Mary shook out her brolly, thankfully handing all of her travel/weatherproofing detritus to a friendly server, who smilingly began to lead her to her table.
And to her 'guest'.
She paused, momentarily gathering herself and checking on her current mental state.
She'd been on plenty of dates, most of them less than memorable (and some of them downright depressing), but none had inspired the fluttering knot that inhabited her thoracic cavity right now.
Mary smoothed her pale hair, blown wild by gusts of wind, as she followed the waiter's straight back, through pot plants, flickering candles and clinks of glass and tableware.
Her eyes were quick, and focused well in new surroundings. She saw him before he spotted her, tawny head bent down studying the drinks list with intent, his hair military-short and hands tanned from a foreign sun. No ring marks, but then she had not been even slightly suspicious of that (unusually). He lowered the menu slightly and she saw hooded blue-green eyes that betrayed slight nerves but held a breadth of kindness she couldn't really account for.
He stood up, soldier straight, as she approached and she felt the warmth of his smile immediately. Mary took a breath, adjusted her new jacket and held out her hand.
"Sorry I'm a tad late. The weather." His hand was warm and dry and his shirt beautifully pressed.
"Mary," she added. "Mary Morstan. Just in case my picture was overly flattering."
He smiled again. Goodness.
"John Watson," he replied, nodding, "and no, your picture was pretty damn accurate, actually."
She sat down, smiling back and letting her chair be tucked in.
"In a good way, of course!" He added, blushing slightly and fumbling with the menu again.
"We'd like some wine," she turned to the waiter. "Probably lots of it too."
Then John Watson laughed and she knew everything was going to be OK.
~x~
"In his chest cavity?"
"No word of a lie."
"His actual jawbone?"
Mary sat back in her chair. Time had passed, but it could easily have been hours. Or minutes.
"Well it was a jawbone," she put down her glass, noting John Watson's hands and thinking them capable. "But it wasn't his."
She enjoyed the look on his face.
"Unusual," he replied, considering, "but not unheard of."
"Really? Sherlock said it wasn't very run of the mill."
"I was an army doctor," countered John, swirling the remains of his chablis. "I've seen some things I'd rather not remember, to be honest."
There wasn't an ounce of self-pity in his words, but she wondered if she dared reach across and touch his hand.
"Ah, it's fine. There have been a few near misses before I was invalided out but I was lucky, I guess. Intuition got me out of some bad situations on more than one occasion."
"Sherlock says intuitions shouldn't be ignored. He says that they represent data that's processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend. You probably just sensed that something was dangerous without realising you were doing it."
He looked at her closely, nodding, contemplating.
"Yeah, actually that kind of makes sense, in a weird, sciencey-pompous way. But who the hell," he added, lifting the bottle and topping up her glass, "is Sherlock?"
~x~
They'd walked along the Embankment for at least forty-five minutes, with no thought or destination in mind but their conversation.
Whether it was the Chablis, or the bizarre, almost visceral trust she seemed to have developed for this virtual stranger, Mary found that once she had started talking, she could not stop.
But she needed to. It was too much.
She stopped suddenly beside the gardens of the Royal Horseguards Hotel and faced Dr John Watson. The gloom was gradually brightening, with indigo clouds punctured by golden shafts indicating the storm, for now, had passed.
"I'm so sorry, but I think I've waffled on about another man a lot longer than is required on a first date. Things have just been so awful and I've kept it in for so long, trying to be 'normal' when he's at Bart's, that this has just been a bit of a tsunami of worries about someone you don't even know."
His eyes were still kind and he reached out a hand to cup her elbow, indicating acknowledgement; empathy; something.
"It's all fine Mary. You know, It's been bloody well fantastic meeting you."
She shook her head, looking down.
"No. No, it has been, Mary, and the fact that you are so concerned and so protective of this Sherlock guy tells me so very much about the kind of person you are."
She shook again, stupidly embarrassed.
"You don't know these people at all."
"I know the tragedy of finding love and then losing it before you've even had the chance to hold it close. Your friend Molly sounds like a special person."
A path sample mislabelled, an accidental spillage, a case of sepsis so swift and so silent in its contagion that nothing could be done. Forty hours and she was gone, leaving so much shock and wreckage that Mary had felt the breath had been knocked out of her for weeks. Sometimes she still did.
She suddenly felt tired, slumping down onto a park bench, sandwiched by beds of roses with raindrops glittering amongst their petals in this golden evening. John Watson sat down wordlessly and picked up her hand which lay limp across her lap.
"You're worried about him, about Sherlock."
"He won't talk about her at all. He works, he goes home, he does research." She looked at him, the evening sun bouncing off his hair and making it blaze. "Which is what he did before, but it's worse, because now he knows what it is to be loved, to just love someone. It just feels like they both died."
She sighed. "John, it's just a little bit shit."
He said nothing, but the warmth of his hand was like a glowing ember, and she held onto that.
~x~
Sherlock realised he was in a foul humour as even Mrs Hudson and Mycroft were avoiding him, but he hadn't seen or spoken to Molly for days and her growing insistence on 'moving on' had shaken him to the core. This was where the absence of logic was both inconvenient and confusing; he didn't want to question how it had happened but neither could he attempt to ensure that it didn't just stop. He had no barriers to erect or even spells to cast. If this, indeed, was his last scraps of sanity attempting to find a foothold and rid him of such delusions, he wanted no part of sanity. Why couldn't the status quo just carry on? This new world order was bizarre, delusional and seemingly unpredictable, but the alternative was unthinkable.
He'd sat around Baker Street for five days in a row, hoping to see her, but then became fearful of appearing too obdurate (not unheard of) and so had holed up in Lab 7, as it was rarely in use on Mondays and Tuesdays for reasons he could only link to one of Mike's budgeting strategies. Sherlock curled up atop of the least uncomfortable of the lab stools, balancing his laptop across his knee and his current disposition on a knife edge, sighing internally as he considered his current case.
It seemed, annoyingly, to be governed by too many unanswered questions and unknown realities. Sherlock shifted on his cramped perch, feeling he deserved the discomfort, whilst also appreciating the distraction it brought.
Victor Hatherley had promised discretion to his new employer whilst they travelled alone to his new appointment, but said employer, Lisa Stark, had stared at him in a most peculiar and unwarranted way.
Additionally, Victor's hesitation had cost him dearly when escape had been offered through an open window. Sherlock couldn't fathom why that hesitation had occurred.
Finally, having a giant press for fuller's earth inside of the house was extremely odd, especially as no one used presses for the process anymore.
Sighing again, Sherlock considered the idiocy of the case to be less useful in distracting him from things than first considered. How could he think clearly when tendrils coiled around his mind palace like vines, dragging open useless doors and barricading others?
Think, for heaven's sake, think!
He almost didn't register the footsteps until the vacuum of the door displaced the air around his feet, and in walked a man.
Unexpected.
"Er, oh hi."
Five foot seven (possibly eight as he favoured one leg. Limp, possibly psychosomatic from… ah yes. Afghanistan, or possibly Iraq. Fair, sandy hair. Probably a few shades lighter thanks to an unforgiving sun (tanned wrists; recently deployed). Smart, well-pressed and a stiff stance, apart from the limp. Probably too soon to mention leaving the cane at home. He looked up and the greyish-brown hooded gaze met his, then something strange clicked and whirred within Sherlock's skull; a liminal space leading to something familiar.
"... can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine."
The man was speaking, holding out his ancient Nokia as some kind of proof.
Wordlessly, Sherlock reached into his jacket, handing it to the man, still looking into his face. It was possibly unnerving for him, but he seemed unable to break the stare.
"Er… so, thanks. I'm meeting someone and I think this old thing can't really cope below ground level."
The man seemed confident in presenting such a statement in a deserted morgue and Sherlock's mind palace was finally revving into gear, recalling the new suede jacket.
"Mary Morstan is currently working in Lab 3." He slid, gratefully, from the stool, replacing the hateful laptop to the brushed steel bench and gesturing towards the door. "I shall escort you there, since she doesn't appreciate surprises, and I suspect this visit may be unexpected."
The man looked at him carefully as they walked slowly towards the door, phone call abandoned.
"I'm John Watson, by the way," he added, tugging at the heavy door with one hand whilst offering the other towards Sherlock.
"And I'm Sherlock Holmes," replied he, accepting it. The handshake corroborated everything he already knew and he was oddly cheered by it.
"Of course you are," replied John Watson, smiling, as their footsteps echoed strongly together, through empty, low-lit corridors towards Lab 3.
~x~