Chapter Text
The Time Between
Chapter One
Twelve days before Mary left for her sojourn around the world to find Ajay, she and I had a rather illuminating conversation. About John.
He’d recently woken up from a nap, and proclaimed himself the most awake of all the adults that had been in John and Mary’s flat that afternoon. He bundled Watson into her pram, and decided to take her for a saunter around their neighbourhood. As he stood, with his back to the pavement, facing the inside of his home, he caught my eye and made that little clicking sound out of the corner of his mouth, and then winked at me as he turned and closed the heavy door behind him. I returned his smile, despite myself.
Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw Mary softly smile, her eyes cast to the carpeting under her socked feet. “What?”, I inquired, truly not understanding her inclination to hide her face from me.
“I’ve not seen him this happy in all the time I’ve known him. He’s not smiled this much the entire time we’ve been together.”
“He should be delighted. He has you, Rosamund; this home you’ve made for yourselves. Things seem to be settling a bit for all of you.”
She lifted her gaze to me then, her resolve steel-like. She held my eyes and proclaimed, “He’s not delighted about anything to do with me. When he’s here alone with me and Rosie, he seems distracted, like he’s waiting for something to happen.”
“We do seem to attract ‘things’ from time to time. Tends to be the nature of our trio’s collective line of work.” I tried to maintain a light tone of voice, and began to plot my exit back to Baker Street. There was a pack of cigarettes with my name on them, hidden under John’s chair’s seat cushion. A perfect place for them, since he so infrequently kept me company at home anymore.
“You are thick sometimes, you know that, genius? John isn’t waiting for just anything to happen. He’s waiting for YOU to happen. A text, an email, a phone call, a carrier pigeon! Most days, I think he’d be ecstatic if your brother were to kidnap him off the street! When he’s not passive-aggressive with me, or helping me with Rosie, he’s twiddling his thumbs and willing his phone to light up.”
I did my best not to deflate at her pronouncement, but she saw my shoulders sag. I wish she were not so observant, but, to her defense, I was never able to keep my feelings for John off my sleeve.
“He knows where I live. He has my phone number. Neither has changed. If he wants to hear from me, phones go both ways, you see.”
“He’s conflicted, Sherlock. He is such an honourable man, and he doesn’t want to resent us, Rosie and me. But he does. He’s not forgiven me for what I did to you, and I honestly don’t ever expect him to. I still haven’t, so why should he? He loves Rosie with so much of himself, but his heart is always with you. I know he dreams of you. I’ve heard him say your name in his sleep.”
My head immediately turned to face her, and my mouth opened in a moue of surprise.
“Don’t look so shocked. No-one else would be if I told them. Certainly none of our friends. Everyone who knows about the two of you is aware of the love you have for each other. You even told him, in your roundabout way, during your wedding speech. I’m here to tell you that no-one who heard that, was surprised to hear you say it.”
I got unsteadily to my feet and made to excuse myself. I patted my thighs to remove any imaginary wrinkles. “Please give my regards to John and Watson on my behalf. I must be going. I have an experiment that needs my attention at home. Don’t need Mrs Hudson doing something unseemly, like tidying.” Mary, despite her reflexes being slowed from lack of sleep, was able to get her hand around my right elbow, and she jerked me back to the sofa beside her.
“Look, my boobs and my bits still hurt from giving birth to that sweet demon who refuses to sleep, so forgive me for being blunt: He loves you. You love him. You love Rosie. And somehow, despite how awful I’ve treated you since we met, you care for me. It is unfair that John is caught between his misplaced feelings of duty, when he should be with you as often as he wants.”
“As much as I enjoy his company, and Watson being endlessly fascinating, I would never feel comfortable coming between him and his family.”
“You are a part of this family, you twat. More so than me, and I pushed one of us out of my own body.”
“I know, I was there.” I shook my head at the frightening memory.
“John handed her to you first, you know.”
Again, she blindsided me with a truth to which I’d been unaware existed.
“I was lying there on the backseat of our car, panting and sweating, and John handed her to you. Went straight over my head, umbilical cord and all. One of his proudest moments, and he wanted to share it with you first.”
“Mary. I’m deeply sorry to have infringed upon that vital moment.”
“Don’t be. Please. I don’t say these things to make you feel bad about them. I’m trying to make you understand something I think you’ve been intentionally obtuse about since you returned.”
She took my right hand in both of hers and carried on.
“When you were gone, John was a ghost. I know you’ve heard these things from others, but I had a front-row seat to all of it. When we met, he was going through the motions at work; he never socialised with the staff. It took many attempts on my part to get him to leave the office for a single lunch with me. All he could talk about was you. That afternoon and most of them after that.”
I tightened my hand around hers and she patted the top of it as she spoke.
“It was difficult to watch him while he spoke of you. Once he got going, it was hard for him to stop. Talked about how brilliant you were, how he was the luckiest bloke on Earth to have been your friend, even if it ended almost before it began. I let him go, listened to him talk of you with a reverence I’d never seen from him. Tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat. I’d pat his hands, similarly to what I’m doing with you now, and just nodded my head as he told me of your adventures together. I could see it then. I knew then if he and I were to ever be more, it would only happen because you were gone. I’d never have stood a chance if you’d not gone off.”
By this time, I had my own tears and lump in my throat. I swallowed hard and asked, “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to hear it. I think the walls are closing in a bit here with the A.G.R.A. situation. I need to talk to Ajay before he hurts anyone else. It’s me he wants. I can’t let him get to Rosie or John. He already got to you, and that could have been disastrous if you weren’t who you are.”
I managed a laugh at that, while trying to pretend that Mary’d not been dropping emotional bombs on me for the last ten minutes. We shared watery smiles, but were soon interrupted by the muffled sound of John fiddling with the front door. We could hear him trying not to curse as he fished around his pockets for his keys. Realising that we had to abruptly end our conversation, Mary was not to be deterred but merely rushed along.
“Sherlock. You love him. He loves you. I will not stand for your separation a moment longer. Run him. Make up a case. Talk up a boring one and get him to Baker Street. Do what you both do best. I have some ideas on how to handle Ajay, but I could use some time to think. Rosie needs a feed and a nap. I’ve got things handled here.”
We released each other’s hands and I slid across the sofa cushion to the armrest to my left just as John managed to open the door.
"Well, lookie here! You two still all cosy on the sofa while I was hard at work trying to tame the tiny beast. Don’t worry! Don’t get up, I can do it all!” He scooped Rosie into his arms and dragged the pram into the sitting room. John was radiant. His smile was broad, his tone effervescent. I glanced at Mary and she patted my knee. “Go on,” she whispered so John couldn’t hear.
I stood quickly and said, “I do have to get up, but not to assist you. I actually need your help with a case. Something came into my inbox while you were gone, and it looks rather promising. I was just telling Mary about when you interrupted us.”
“My jobs are never done. Mary, will you be all right with the hellion if I go and help Sherlock?”
“Should be. It’s getting to be her snack time, and that’s all on me. You two go on. I can make us some supper, if you boys think you can fit it in with the case and all.”
Completely unrehearsed, John and I both turned our heads to stare at her in disbelief. “Fine. Okay. I can manage to call for a takeaway if you think you can make it back here for supper.”
“That’s more like it. I’m ready now if you are, Sherlock.” John passed Rosie to Mary, then, and turned to me. The warmth of his smile took the oxygen from my lungs.
I stood again and walked to John’s side. He led us out the door, and I quickly turned, smiled, and mouthed “Thank you” to Mary as we bid her goodbye.
I closed the door behind us and as we made our way to the pavement, I raised my arm. To John’s neverending astonishment, a cab appeared.
“How in the hell do you do that? There are never cabs in this neighbourhood!”
“I’m in this neighbourhood at the moment. Clearly, that’s all it takes.” I smirked as I usually do.
He accepted my statement as the truth and grinned back at me. As the cab slowed to where we’d stood, he looked up into my face and asked, “Ready?”
“Always, John.” I bundled him into the cab, and turned to face John’s home, to find Mary watching us from the window as she held Rosie close. She waved with her free hand and I nodded with determination, and joined John inside the taxi.
After Mary’s violent and sudden passing a few weeks later, I was not surprised to see she was wearing the same clothes on the DVD that she’d mailed me as she’d been wearing during what was likely the only honest conversation of our entire acquaintance.