Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rain started at three in the morning.  It was only a light drizzle at first, but the clouds  darkened until the sky and the wet streets of London were a uniform gray. Lights winked on in windows as people got out of bed to get ready for work and school.  In Mary Morstan’s flat, the light shone out between cheerful curtains in the kitchen window.

Mary looked out the rain-streaked window while she sipped her morning tea. She turned to survey where she lived, looking pleased with how bright the flat was in spite of the rain outside. The sitting room had a comfortable couch for snuggling to watch the telly or talk over a glass of wine. Yellow flowers decorated the sideboard next to the dining table set for dinner for two.  Framed snapshots of Mary and her friends on the mantel gave the flat a homey touch.

Mary walked into the bedroom to dress for work. Her eyes glanced at the large bed, the fluffy pillows, the soft blanket. A man could fit in and be happy here, Mary thought.

He has to fit in.  It’s my undercover assignment.

Mary smiled in the mirror at her jumper and skirt. Preparing for an undercover mission was as easy as getting ready for work after all the missions Mary had completed. The CIA originally gave Mary a good background as a nurse.

She gave the flat an approving look while she put on her gray coat. All the guns, passports, materiel were stored away in boltholes. Her cover was good. John Watson will never know about her past assignments. Everything she did in the past is a secret.

---o0o---

Forty minutes later Mary arrived at the clinic.  It was like any other clinic Mary knew in Taiwan, Texas, Russia, India - some were larger or newer than this one, but none of the other clinics had John Watson.  

She wondered if he would be in later. Some days he was just gone from the clinic, off sick. He never displayed any symptoms of being sick, only his limp was worse when he came back to work. Some days he showed up at the clinic with a smile but with deep-set eyes and stooped shoulders; he must have had a sleepless night.  Other days he is distracted, hops to check every incoming message as if this would be the day Sherlock Holmes messaged him from the dead.  

Sherlock Holmes was Watson’s old flat mate.  It didn’t take a background file to figure that out. His website detailed his adventures with “consulting detective” Sherlock Holmes.  Holmes must have had something wrong with him, like a nutter, committing suicide by jumping off the roof of St. Bart’s. John Watson isn’t over it, more than a year later.

The clinic security system pinged to announce the staff door opening.  Mary looked up to see John Watson stomping through the door to get the rain off his shoes.

“Dr Watson, you have to take care of yourself!  Where is your umbrella?”  Mary flipped the water from his hair with her fingers, then brushed off the shoulders of his jacket.  She stood back but stayed close to him. He visibly relaxed with her attentions.

“Thought it would stop raining so hard by now.” He wrinkled his forehead and gave Mary a hint of a smile.

Everyone expects nurses to care for them, at all levels. She had fostered this impression with John Watson over the last five months they had worked together. Mary matched her respirations to a rate slightly lower than his to help calm him.

“Want me to bring you some coffee? Your first patient isn’t here yet.”  

“Yes, thanks.  Will you do me another favor?” He licked his lower lip.

“Of course.”

“Let’s go for drinks Thursday night. Probably still be raining then at this rate.”  Mary saw him breathe out, calmer still.

“Will you be upset if I have to leave early for my book club?”

“That’s fine. It’s a date, then.” He grinned as he looked in her eyes.

John Watson was very easy for her to read. He wore his emotions all over his face, all over his body. Mary liked that about him.

And John Watson laughs when I wrinkle my nose.

---o0o---

The rain stopped long before Mary arrived at the restaurant for their Thursday night date.

She had changed into something sunny that suited her peach complexion and blonde hair.  When she saw John in a secluded corner of the bar, her lips curled into an enticing smile.

Mary walked confidently towards him. She knew John's day at the clinic was filled with acute cases that were his specialty. Mary felt like a delicious, tempting dessert for John’s exceptionally good day.

John looked at her eyes, her lips, her face.  He moved his hand around her waist and pulled her to him.  His first contact was sweet.  He brushed little, fluttering kisses across her eyebrow, her cheekbone.  

He whispered in her ear, “Let’s start where we want tonight to finish.”

John softly pressed his lips against Mary’s. Her lips relaxed, parting slightly so John could run his tongue on the inside of her lower lip. With a hum, John closed his lips.  He gave her more of the little, fluttering kisses back up her cheekbone, until he pulled back to look into Mary’s eyes.  He stayed there a moment before John guided Mary to a seat close to him.  

“We got that out of the way, then?”  John asked with a grin on his face.

Mary cleared her throat.  “Yes, now how about that drink you promised?  Something strawberry and cold? A daiquiri?” Mary tried to keep it light and teasing, but her cheeks were flushed.

John ordered Mary’s drink and his traditional pint.  

“The rule tonight is no talk about work.  Anything else goes.”

“John, you are interesting.  There is so much to talk about.”  Mary clearly was flattering John.  But she had something she had wanted to hear from John.

“Would you tell me something about being in the military?”

“What would you like to know?”

“Anything you would want to tell me, but, oh, this sounds so personal, but you asked.  We were talking at book club about the military.  There is the Hippocratic Oath and the Geneva Convention and lots of ideals about being a soldier.  But you carried a gun and had people shooting at you.  There was killing, how do you do that?”

Mary thought she had phrased the question to make her look hesitant.  It was vague enough to let John choose to say almost anything about being a soldier.  She wanted to gauge his reactions to talking about the war.

“That’s OK, Mary.”

Mary saw John look around in confusion for a moment.  She noticed he had stretched his arm across the bar, palm up.  She reached to run her fingers across his palm with a reassuring touch.  

“We had a guy who spoke Dari in our section, always carried around a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. ”He told us it was about a soldier going into battle. It winds up saying a soldier is forgiven because he is doing exactly what a soldier does. One night we asked him to read it to us. None of us knew a bloody thing more about it when he finished than when we started!  We still joke about that when we get together.”

John laughed at himself and his military buddies, not at Mary’s serious question.  

“No one teaches you how to handle it. You just do it. Some days I didn’t feel like a good guy but I sure wasn’t a bad guy. You learn it isn’t either good or bad, just a range from good to bad.  A soldier tries to stay on the good side. A soldier is a defender.”

John looked into her eyes to see if he had answered her question. He sounded genuine to Mary, but there was something he wasn’t saying.  What John needed now was her approval. She beamed at him in admiration.

After a moment John squeezed her hand.  “Now tell me about your book club.”

“Oh, we are reviewing some period novel with soldiers.  Totally different than modern war.   They had flintlock rifles.  If you got shot, there was as much chance of dying from infection as the wound itself.”

John nodded. She caught the slight change in his expression when she mentioned infection. Now was the time to guide the conversation away from serious topics.

“But our crazy book club, nobody pays much attention to the study guide questions like that. Half the group wants to figure out how many buttons the soldiers had on their trousers.  The other half wants to figure out how much beer they drank.”

“Well, how many buttons and how much beer?  Too much beer and you’d have more problems with the buttons, you know?”

Mary sipped on her drink, trying not to laugh while she drank.

They kept making jokes about trousers and beer rations until it was time for Mary to leave for book club. John helped Mary into her coat in a quiet alcove near the coatroom.  

Mary turned and pushed him backwards to the wall with a smile on her face. She continued his kiss from the beginning of the date.  Her hand held his chin for a moment then she smoothed her fingertips over his adam’s apple.  They had so much to say in one long kiss: contact, a nibble, a nip, moistness, urgency, response, strawberry taste, a touch of regret, a tease, a promise.  

Mary pulled back slowly.  “Will that do for now?”  

“If you will have dinner with me on Friday night.”

“Oh, John, of course.”

John took her hand and kissed her hair.  “Until Friday night.”  

Chapter Text

Mary’s book club on Thursday night was uneventful compared to what John’s kisses had been.  She managed to have fun, nevertheless. She was bubbly, acting excited about her upcoming Friday night date, as if she were a member of the Dr John Watson fan club.

The women in the book club all talked about being excited that way before. They had confessed over glasses of wine about romance and fantasies of romance.  Their fantasies are all about women with men; at least those are the only fantasies they bring up.  They routinely go, “the woman slides her thumb slowly down the line of the man’s index finger,” “The man touches her back with three fingers to guide her into the car, drawing his hand down her spine...”

Mary’s romantic thoughts tend to the statistical likelihood of dating a man whose physical endowments are on the low end of the bell curve. She thinks about body dysmorphic issues for all genders.  She considers favoring certain sexual positions, depending on the biomechanics of the bodies involved. That is romance for Mary.

For a few of the women, things aren’t perfect in their romantic fantasies.  Glasses break, people spill coffee and tea, and the cookies still crumble.  But in all their fantasies the stars have a magical quality; the sex always resolves to happy endings for all, eventually.  There never seems to be an awkward moment, where “Is this good?”  gets answered with “Not quite.”

If confined to declare her romantic fantasy, not everything goes beautifully.  What if you could walk away from your most awkward conversation with something better than you ever dreamed of?  Wouldn’t it be a true life fantasy when the worst possible thing happens, and you still live?  When your greatest fears come true and life goes on?

---o0o---

Mary’s electric toothbrush ran out of battery charge in the middle of brushing her teeth on Friday morning.

Her mind wandered as she got ready for work at the clinic, back to her martial arts training.  She remembered the hot, humid workouts with the Grandmaster in Taiwan.  Training was all day, every day, with the Grandmaster and her training partner in the mirrored dojo they called The Studio. At one point, Mary described her training partner to the Grandmaster.  She said he had a good heart, that he was a good man, in Mandarin and English.  The Grandmaster nodded and stared into the mirror.  Then he pointed at her and said, in his limited English, “You good man”.

Mary sighed and her mind returned to finishing up in the loo.  She looked into the mirror over the sink to see how her hair curved around her chin.  Her hand pushed a stray curl behind her ear.  

John is coming here after our dinner date.

Mary wondered what kind of jam John Watson likes on his toast. Mary Morstan eats strawberry.  Maybe she could stop at Tesco for some blackberry jam, the kind without seeds. It was what she liked better.

She thought of another martial arts training session years later. The class was training in a city park in the United States. It was a sunny spring day. The ground crew had cleared brush from around the trees and hedges into a pile in a clearing. On top of the pile was an impressive brown and white hawk, stomping, peering into the sticks and branches. The hawk knew there was prey underneath the brush, some small animal making noise as it scurried frantically. Mary and the class stopped their practice to watch the scenario play out.  

Mary remembered the broad wingspan of the hawk as he suddenly spread and raised his wings.  The hawk made a dramatic “whoosh” with a single stroke of his wings to skim majestically over the ground. He dipped to catch the escaping rabbit in his talons just five meters away from the brush pile. With a second stroke of his wings the hawk flew off into the sky until he could not be seen anymore.  

Mary looked in the mirror again to finish putting on her lip gloss. She liked how the lip gloss matched the slight flush of anticipation in her cheeks.  

She looked at her phone to check the time.  

At the end of the night I will lie in my bed next to John Watson, totally satiated.

---o0o---

John had picked a Malaysian restaurant for dinner because he heard Mary talking about lemongrass and seafood. Mary had come to expect such courtesies from the ever-considerate John Watson.  John Watson was always the one to make things right for everyone else.

Mary wanted to make things right for John.

It was so easy to react to things unrelated to her assignments as if she didn’t care.  It was a defensive, lizard brain approach to the world.  But John Watson was her assignment.  He was in a very different part of her brain.

John smiled at Mary with the same interested, mischievous smile he had the night they had drinks.

“I hope you like this restaurant. What other restaurant is confident enough to have an exclamation mark at the end of its name?  It sort of recommends itself, right?  I’ve been here many times after solving detective cases.”

Mary appreciated his good humor and kept the mood light.

“I stood still for five minutes in the park yesterday watching a spaniel chase a butterfly. His ears flew up! He was SO CLOSE to catching it!”  She waved her hands in imitation of the spaniel jumping from hillock to hillock in the park.

“I felt so silly, but the dog’s owner was laughing, too, so it was ok.”

John and Mary laughed together.  

“Was your book club interesting?”

“Oh, yes. Everyone appreciated your thoughts about being a soldier.”

“Um, well, yes.  Sherlock always thought my war experience....”

Mary perked up. She tracked how often John mentioned Sherlock Holmes and how he talked about Sherlock.  Of course, Sherlock was dead, but she associated Sherlock with John’s grieving and John’s bad days. Sherlock had let John down. Maybe betrayal was not even strong enough to describe what he had done to John.  

Mary reached out to wrap John’s jaw in her hand.  “John, you will always be so brave in my eyes.”

Her touch reset something in John.  His shoulders settled a little, his posture softened, and he leaned over to give Mary a sweet kiss.

“Dessert?” John asked.  

She looked at John and decided to amend her description of this evening.  She was going to fuck John exactly how he wanted. Then she was going to fuck him how he deserved to be fucked.

“Come home with me, John.  Just come home with me.”

---o0o---

John touched the small of her back while she unlocked the door to her flat.  Mary wondered how his contact could energize her so.  He looked into her eyes as he took off his jacket. She reached for the jacket without taking her eyes off John.  

Mary remembered to breathe deeply, slowly. Now started a negotiation as Mary saw it; two people with needs and wants.  She would reach, John would give. John would move, she would respond.  Isn’t that give and take the whole reason for sex with another person?

John pulled her to him to kiss her softly like their lips had never touched before.  Not tentative, but systematic, thorough, as if every nerve ending merited its share of attention. “Oh, John,” Mary tried to say but all she could get out was a low murmur.

John paused for a moment to pull her to the couch. Her body warmed all over to feel John to take the lead.  He was acting stronger and more confidently than she had ever seen before.

Mary touched the buttons on John’s shirt.  She knew most men’s shirts would have seven buttons.  Hers had six.  

John unfastened one button on her shirt.  And he kissed her again, deeper, breathtaking. One more button on her shirt.  He kissed across her cheekbone. One more button on her shirt.  He kissed across her other cheekbone.

Mary felt she was being teased now.  She wanted so much to touch John.  “Please, John,” and she reached to unbutton his shirt all the way and take it off his shoulders.

Mary saw his scars.  She decided to ignore them for now since John was ignoring them. There were other things more important, like running her fingers across his nipples and through his chest hair. She rubbed his skin through his vest, disappointed she could not touch all of him.

John chuckled at her impatience. He undid another button on her shirt. His fingertips went from the button to her lips.  He sculpted the outline of her lips, her jawline, the muscles of her neck drawing a line to the arc of her breasts.

“I have condoms.  My tests are clear, anyway.”

“Mine, too. Don’t stop, John.”  Mary recorded John fulfilling his role as the considerate lover, the good doctor, to review later.   

John translated Mary’s need to touch him into her desire to be touched. He gathered his hand around her right breast through her shirt, rubbing her nipple through the layers of cloth.  He nibbled the line where his fingertips had been just moments before across her neck.  He rubbed her other nipple, gentler now since the nipple was hard and pushing against his fingers.  Her breathing stuttered.

“I don’t want to stop touching you, ever.” He pulled her shirt out of her slacks, then removed her shirt.  He wrapped his hands around her shoulders, massaging, squeezing.  Mary willed her body to melt into his hands.

Mary reached for John’s belt.  The chill of the metal stopped her for brief seconds.  She had lost control of the situation with John.  “This is not working,” she thought. John was giving her nothing to negotiate. John’s every move had been for her pleasure.  He was laughing in the middle of foreplay, for heaven’s sake.  

Mary reached to hook her fingers in the waistband of John’s trousers. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

“No.” The room was quiet except for the intake of Mary’s breath.

John pulled them both to standing beside the couch.  He wrapped his fingers in her hair. “You are so beautiful. I want you here and now...unless you have a reason....”  John suddenly looked worried, like he missed something that made Mary uncomfortable.

He stared into her eyes.

Mary smiled at John.  “Here and now, with no shoes and fewer clothes.”

They both toed off their shoes. John put a condom packet on the table from his pocket before he stripped to his pants. Mary quickly made her body as naked as possible.  She would have sloughed off a layer of skin if it would have put her closer to John.

John surprised Mary by rotating her to shape her back to his chest.   He leaned down to nibble at her ear while his right hand moved down her hip bone to the trimmed mound of hair at her pubis. She squealed at the touch to her sensitized skin. Her neck arched against John. Her hips pressed back against the thin pants that covered his bulging cock.

“Mary, I want you. I want you to come on me.”

John stripped his pants off and pulled on his cock, then put on the condom. He laid on the couch so Mary could straddle his lap.  He held her hips while she focused on the wet slide of John’s cock into her cunt.

She draped her arms on his shoulders, moving herself on top of him.

“Christ almighty I can’t last.”

“Take all the time you need, John. Oh, god, yes.”

She squeezed John’s cock with her internal muscles, pausing the up and down motion to feel his fullness inside. John pressed his feet on the floor to push into her. Mary began moving, slowly at first; then, up and down faster.  She could finally touch John the way she wanted to, her on him, his hands on her hips, her waist, her breasts.

“Christ, just like that.”

Then her orgasm took over.  She curled her body inward, pulling him further inside her. Her cunt pulsed on his cock.

John's body stiffened.  He cried out as he came, pushing his hips high as his ejaculation took over his body. Mary dropped her head to John’s shoulder. He pulled Mary from his lap to let his cock slip from her cunt. He pulled off the condom and put it in the dustbin.

“Mary, Mary, what are you doing here with me?  I don’t understand,” he whispered so softly that Mary almost didn’t hear it.

They rested together. Mary measured the time in her head until John’s heart rate returned to normal and his breathing was regular.

“John, now will you come to bed with me?”

John gathered himself with a deep breath to sit up. He held her closer as he spoke. “Let me be with you but I cannot stay. I want you to ask me to stay but I can’t tonight.”

Mary wrapped her arm around John’s neck. “Here and now, John. Be with me.” She decided, no matter what she thought earlier in the day, this was enough for now.

Chapter Text

When she woke on Saturday morning after their date, Mary was alone but happy. She stretched, but it was not the stretch of a sleepy cat or a small child. Her hands moved from her sides in arcs to bring her fists together in front of her face, as if she was boxing someone in the ears.  She was surprised to identify it as derived from martial arts.

John left last night with what he wanted and what he needed.

Mary checked the weather. The outside temperature was cool enough to wear an extra shirt for her morning training outside. The sky was London gray, again, but it looked like the rain would hold for a while. She dropped into training mode as soon as she put on her shoes and socks.  

Her phone beeped as she started running away from her flat.  

Sleep well?  You choose the restaurant next time. -J

Running now. French restaurant? West End OK?  

If you speak French. -J

--o0o---

Training with weapons always amped Mary up. Didn’t matter if the weapon had an edge like the sabre or was just a stick. Her favorite was the double-edged sword.  There is deception in every element; even in the way it is held, an observer cannot detect the size of the sword or the angle of attack. The subtlety of motion puts attention one place but then delivers a cut from the other direction.  

Mary looked at her hand wrapped around the grip of the sword. She swung the sword ‘round her shoulder then held it straight like an extension of her arm.  Real weapons had a better heft and balance.  But they would bite if your attention slips.  

As Mary stood steady with the sword outstretched, she could see the scar on the top of her hand near her thumb.  She remembered that slip of the blade, how she bound it in a bandanna and finished out the day of training.  If asked, she says it is from a kitchen accident.  

Mary ran through one sword form, gracefully.  Then another sword form, strong.  Sweat soaked her hair. She repeated both forms with the sword in the opposite hand. Her mind was empty except for the curves drawn by the edge of the sword, until everything was done and her mind was still.

A drink of water, then Mary thought of John Watson.

Coffee this afternoon at the Tate Modern? Something to show you.

OK.  2pm, Great hall, bottom of the slope? -J

See you.  Hugs.

--o0o---

Mary met John at the Tate Modern with a big hug and a kiss.  “Can we look before we get coffee?”

Mary and John walked hand in hand through the galleries, Mary looked at a Dali painting, “Art or not?”

“Art.”   They peeked into a gallery with a Hlobo sculpture.

They looked at each other and said, “Not.”

“John, talk to me.”

“Football, rugby or cricket? Want to know my sign?”

Mary pushed his shoulder playfully.  “I just want to hear you talk.  We can make up headlines for the Dr. John Watson in-depth interview.”

“I did enough of that for the blog.”

“Blog?  How did you get started with a blog?”

“My therapist recommended it when I moved to London after the hospital stay for this shoulder.”  He tapped the shoulder with the scar Mary had ignored last night.

“She was trying to give me things to keep me busy.  Talking with her was not doing much good.”

John continued, “When I started doing cases with Sherlock, it was natural to write up how he solved the case. You should look at the website.  Even the staff at New Scotland Yard said they read the blog.”

John pointed to a Picasso.  “Art or not?”

“Art but I don’t want it hanging in my flat.”  Mary looped her arm through John’s elbow. “Some time you are at my flat, could you stay?”

“You mean overnight?”  John acted chuffed but he was clearly uncertain.

“When you weren’t there this morning, I missed you.”

John paused.  “I have nightmares.”

Mary could see John’s breathing go ragged with emotional distress.

“You were worried about freaking me out? Would you hurt me?”  

“I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you. I would be so sorry if that happened. With the nightmares I yell in my sleep, or wake up thinking I’m in Afghanistan.” He grabbed her hand.  Mary felt an undercurrent of desperation and caressed his fingers.

“When I am with you, Mary, maybe it will be all right.  The nightmares are lighter now, but they are not gone.” He wrapped her in his arms.

“John, it was a selfish request.  Just spend time with me, anytime.”

“Let me think about how to work it out.”  He released his tight hold but still held her close. She kissed his cheek and nodded.  

They walked into the next gallery.

John stopped at a Rothko painting and stared silently at the red and maroon canvas.  Mary watched John’s spine straighten. A military bearing came across his body and face. He stared into the painting. Blood, she thought.  Blood is crimson and red and maroon.  

“Art,” he said.     

He turned to Mary.  “What did you want to show me today?”

“It’s a sculpture that’s upstairs.”  Mary guided John to August Rodin’s The Kiss.

“It’s a beautiful sculpture. How do they make the cold marble look like warm skin?  The man and woman hold each other, their heads are together, but are they kissing or not?  I have walked around the sculpture hundreds of times to see if their lips touch.  Can you see?”

John walked around the statue on the plinth. “It’s a mystery.”

He whispered in her ear, “If that was us, we would be kissing.  And then we would kiss some more.  Right?”

Mary leaned into kiss his cheek. “Let’s go get that coffee.  And I have to tell you about that French restaurant.”

Chapter Text

Mary began her morning exercise for the day quietly.  She bent over to put her hands on the floor. She pressed up into a handstand. There was a fluid line from her fingertips to her toes. She surveyed her body alignment, the hands positioned directly under her shoulders, shoulders rotated to support her torso, core stabilized so the crest of her hipbones rested over her hands.  

She lowered her feet to the floor and raised them again towards the ceiling. There was nothing out of line.  Again and again she lowered and raised her feet until her arms were shaking. Finally she put her feet flat on the floor and slowly came to standing.

Mary thought about the uncertainty of this assignment with John Watson. She had heard no updates before today from her handler which was not unusual for long term assignments. But she was scheduled to meet with her handler tomorrow.

Tonight was another date with John Watson, everything ready for the next maneuver.

--oo0oo--

John looked at the menu.  “Crêpes. See, my French is not so bad after all.”

“No fair making choices based on what you can pronounce.”

“Au contraire, mon chéri.  You think I just speak English? I speak the international language of love,” said John while he wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

Both John and Mary laughed so hard the other patrons looked at them.

What could John say tonight that would make anything different?  

Mary wondered if John had any romantic fantasies. She ran her thumb slowly down the line of his index finger.  She watched his breath catch, his shoulders tense almost imperceptibly. John has such automatic reactions to Mary’s touch, her words. She had encouraged that romance, call it intimacy or flirting. She knew John had bought into the romance between the two of them.

“Mary, what were your favorite foods as a kid?”

“Pasta. Bean soup. Isn’t that what every kid likes?”  

“Oh, no. Toast and beans. Weetabix. Even a 3-year old can open a drawer and pull out Weetabix and make a mess.”

“John, did you eat anything besides breakfast food when you were a kid?”

“Have to start the day right, you know.  I could make you breakfast.  Maybe even something more grown up like an omelette.”

“Are you speaking French again or is that the language of love?” asked Mary.

“A little of both.  So do you have plans for breakfast tomorrow?”  

Mary saw a flash of need before John turned on his most charming look.

“I have an extra toothbrush for you, Mary.  And, I have the pièce de résistance: a funny movie for us to watch tonight.”

“John, are you sure the breakfast is the best part of what you are offering?”

--o0oo--

“Welcome to my humble castle.” John said as he opened the door for Mary. He had moved out of the flat he shared with Sherlock Holmes to a more modern terrace home with a garden.  

John pulled out the DVD case for the movie.  He handed it to Mary to put in the player while he rearranged the pillows on the couch.  Once the two of them were snuggled in, John pushed the play button for the DVD player.  The sounds of groans and heavy breathing came out of the speakers.  The screen was filled with naked pink flesh.  John stared, transfixed, trying to figure out what he was looking at, what body parts fit together to fill the screen, before he realized the screen was filled with a porn movie.  He jumped to turn off the DVD.

“Sherlock!” he screamed.  “Sherlock did that and I haven’t found it for two years.”

John ran to the kitchen. “I will make us some tea. Pick out something else to watch.  Make sure the picture on the disk matches the picture on the DVD box before you put it in the player.”

Mary looked for a Bond movie, as something safe to watch. She turned down the sound and set the DVD up to play at the beginning of the movie. Mary put the porn DVD in her purse. She wondered if she could figure out why Sherlock had put it there for John.

She could hear John grumbling in the kitchen as he set up the tea.

Mary walked up to him and rubbed her face on his shoulder.  “I’m trying not to laugh. Do you realize how funny this is?’

John paced in front of the kitchen counter.  “It is not funny.  After a beautiful dinner, I bring you back to my place and show you porn. In what universe is that funny?”

“John, that’s funny in any universe.”

”Sherlock has cockblocked me once again, this time from his grave.” as he pounded his fist on the counter.  

The kettle clicked off and John poured the water over the teabags in the mugs.  “Sherlock did...things. There was always some logic involved but I’m not sure I will ever figure out the logic to this one. I am sorry.”

Mary couldn't stop laughing. “Apparently he didn’t like the original and thought the porn improved on it.”

Mary could see John’s stomach jiggle a little. She heard him start to laugh at the absurdity of it.  John couldn’t stop laughing.  He was doubled over, wheezing and wiping tears off his cheeks. “At least with the porn you can deduce how it will end.”

“Come on, John, sit with me and we’ll watch a real movie.” He settled into the pillows with Mary cuddled close to him. Mary pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over both of them. John snuggled in, letting Mary hold him as much as he held her.

If I lay with you can you forget Sherlock?  Would you be with me?

--oo0oo--

“Let me up for a minute,” Mary said.

“Bond. James Bond.”  John said in his best lush Bond-imitation English.  He stopped the DVD for Mary to walk down the hall to the loo.

When Mary came back, she leaned in and kissed John. She whispered in his ear, “What do I do if you have a nightmare tonight?”

“Maybe if we are here the nightmares will stay away.  If I am yelling in my sleep in a nightmare, you can slide out of bed.  Stand away from the bed and call my name until I wake up.”

“I choose to be here.  I would not stay here if I thought you would hurt me.  Let me be here with you.  

John wrapped her in his arms.  “I want you to be here.  I can’t control the nightmares. But I can tell you I want you. I want you here.”

Mary kissed him and snuggled closer to him, not sure if the snuggling or the movie was more important.

“Bond, my Bond, my James Bond, sex on legs, my James.“

The movie played on. John rubbed his fingers on Mary’s arm for a minute. He pressed his face against her warmth, inhaling the smell of flowers, sandalwood, and fresh-baked bread. before he fell asleep next to her on the couch.

When the movie ended, Mary woke John up enough to guide him to the bedroom like he was a sleepwalker.  She helped him take off his shirt and trousers, and climb into bed.

“This is a nice dream,” John said as he nuzzled the pillow. ”I get to sleep with you.”

“Yes, John.” Mary climbed into bed beside him.

John wrapped his arms around her like they were back on the couch.  “Goodnight, Mary.”

John had found a way to be with Mary that was raw and exposed without sex. Mary wanted to inhale and not exhale, for fear of losing the moment.  This was a place where she and John belonged together.

“Goodnight, John. Even James Bond sleeps, you know.”

--oo0oo--

There was barely enough morning light to reveal John’s resting, calm face.  No nightmares had marred his sleep with Mary.  

Mary opened her eyes to see his face next to hers.  She matched her breathing to John and felt herself calm a little.  She should have been happy to have John next to her. Adorable John was trusting her, so vulnerable, but this morning she just didn’t care. She was frustrated and it wasn’t the sex.

Mary wanted to poke at John, challenge him, play hard, but John was still too fragile.  She needed more data to predict how long it would be before he could handle it. She didn’t want morning sex no matter how sweetly John would make love to her.

Mary felt John stir.  She feigned sleep while he got up.  The next time she turned over, she was alone in the bed. The smell of breakfast called her to the kitchen.  If John managed a good cooked breakfast it might redeem last night for her.  

Mary slipped on the dressing gown hanging on the wardrobe door. She took a deep breath to become the lover John Watson needed this morning.

John was preparing vegetables for omelettes.  “Coffee or tea?  I forgot to ask last night.”

“Coffee, cream, sugar, a hug,” she said as she looped her arms around John’s shoulders.  John swayed against her in response.

“Onion, mushroom, and cheese in the omelette?”

“Mmm. Bacon smells good, too.”

John sliced, mixed, and flipped breakfast like a master chef.  He poured Mary a cup of coffee that tasted so good Mary wanted to take a picture of it.

“I have to leave for a book club meeting soon.  It’s only Joan, but we have to set up the next set of books for the book club.”

“Then when do I get to make up for last night?” he teased.

“I think it will take many times for you to make up for it.  And many more breakfasts.”

--oo0oo--

Sherlock had left John Watson a disk. Mary was sure there had to be a message in that disk somewhere.  She started looking at all the simple things.

Check file dates:  disk was burned two days before Sherlock leaped from the roof of St. Barts.  Disk name is Dear John.  

Check for hidden files: none.

Check video files in editor for hidden text frames: none

Steganography in jpeg files: too complicated for John Watson to figure out.  No jpeg files.

File names look a little strange.  She does a full list.

It was my magic trick

Don’t call me Sherly

I am coming home

--oo0oo--

Joan had set up to meet Mary by putting a pink sticky note on the front of her book last Thursday. Joan and Mary both enjoyed the book club.  But it was also a good cover for Mary to maintain contact with Joan, her handler. Any meeting set up with the sticky note was not about books or the book club, though. It was about Mary’s undercover work.

“Mary, your assignment with John Watson is discontinued.”

“What do you mean the assignment is discontinued?”  Mary was obviously concerned.  Long term assignments were seldom stopped without some conclusion or rationale.

“It’s rather strange, I agree,” said Joan. “Our network is falling apart. You expect some change but we have had a series of odd holes in the network from death, arrest, odd reasons. I am not getting any feedback about continuing your assignment with John Watson.  Protocol says to discontinue the assignment.”

“Odd? Deaths?“ Mary was confused.

“I said death but in some cases the bodies are missing. It started at the bottom of the network about two years ago, but now big names have disappeared or been arrested.  Makes you feel like you are being hunted.  It started several of us looking for patterns.  No conclusions yet.”

“Criminal rivals?  Somebody’s power play?” Mary knew the network was filled with idiots but he expected them to figure out some things.

“You know what we do. There are no rivals. Power play? No one is ready to step into a leadership role right now so it doesn’t look like a power play.”

“What about the contract and payments?” Mary thought she could salvage something out of the work she had put into her assignment with John Watson.

“You will get the cancellation bonus at least.  It looks like there are short-term jobs that will still be available. Eventually the network will coalesce again. The world always needs our kind of work done.”

“What are my options about the assignment that’s been discontinued?”

“Your personal life is your personal life.  It is possible your relationship with Watson could be useful later. He may be of interest to a client in the future. If you have no objections, continuing the relationship is a valid option.  If you get a little romance out of it, like you talked about in book club, that’s all the better.”

Oh, hell. John. Sherlock. Everything is bollixed.

Chapter Text

Mary sat cross-legged on a cushion with her spine straight, her eyes softly focused on the end of her nose.  She was aware of the weather, the sun dawning outside, the street noise, the smell of incense but her thoughts were about breathing. She thought only about breathing out and in. Yesterday’s news about John and Sherlock was present in her mind like everything else but now it was unimportant.  Everything was unimportant by comparison to breathing.  No mantras, no voices telling her how to meditate, nothing except breathing, out and in.

Mary realized she couldn’t stay there forever.  She took a final breath, then stretched her shoulders, opened her eyes wide, and yawned.

There has to be something crazy about spending time sitting and breathing. But it could be crazy enough to be the solution for the assignment with John being discontinued. And a way to deal the nebulous message from Sherlock, too.

Stay put and keep breathing.

Her brain resumed thinking in its own random fashion.  She nearly broke a bone in her partner’s arm in martial arts training.  He would tell and retell how he could feel the radius and ulna touch each other before she released his forearm. The grandmaster grinned at the story every time.

Mary smiled thinking of grandmaster’s expression of approval and pride.

She remembered she broke a boy’s leg playing footy when she was twelve. It was not intentional. The boy had run into her while she had stood still playing goalie. The match had resumed after he had been was helicoptered to the A&E. The referee hadn’t carded her.  John Watson would have found nothing wrong with what she did.

remembering sleepy times yesterday.  Joan meeting was dull.

What, not remembering my breakfast? -J

Remembering you is better. Wish you were here.

Tonight?  My place?  Talk at the clinic? -J

Yes. And breakfast tomorrow.

--oo0oo--

Mary stayed with John that night and the next one, too.  

“Do you have book club tonight?  We can meet at the pub for starters, then I can stay to watch the match at the pub.”

Mary wondered if John ever ate starters at the pub with Sherlock. Did he cook breakfast for Sherlock? Make him tea?  How many absent-minded habits he’d fallen into with Sherlock Holmes would carry over with Mary?

Or what was left of Sherlock’s voice in John’s head?  Mary saw some of John’s triggers. She couldn’t say “My John” without seeing him flinch. Sherlock was dead.  She was here with John now in a way Sherlock would never be.  She was the voice of hope for John.  

--oo0oo--

John sat at the bar in the pub with his knee pressed against Mary’s.

He pushed the food around on his plate. Mary saw him looking straight ahead, not at her.

“Do you get tired of me talking about Sherlock?”

“Of course not.’

John took a big sip of his pint. He continued talking without looking at Mary.

“The flat, our cases, what we did, God, even the telly, was my life.  Before that my life was the war. Christ knows there is nothing worthwhile to tell about that. If I am going to talk about anything, Sherlock is bound to be included in some way. He is part of me as much as London is part of my blood. I can’t delete him without deleting some of my life.”

“I get that, John.”

“But it is fucking damn annoying.”

If I tell him Sherlock left a message I will lose him.

“Guess what, John?”

John bumped his shoulder against hers, and leaned over to speak in her ear. “What?”

“I know what you need, John.”

John bumped her shoulder again. “What?”

“Me.”

“Mary Morstan, are you always so fucking right? No one knows John Watson better than you do.”

Mary gave John a peck on the cheek since his question needed no real answer. “I know you want me to come over tomorrow night.”

“I believe so.”

“And stay the whole weekend.”

“I certainly believe so, Mary Morstan.”

“Watch your match and have another pint. Kiss me so I can leave for book club.”

--oo0oo--

At the book club, the major topic beyond the book was good, inexpensive wine.  No one asked about Mary’s love life, least of all Joan.  It was, as she had said, Mary’s personal business.  

But Mary couldn't resist telling about the porn video debacle “... and then the porn started.”  Everyone in the book club laughed at the hilarious story.

Someone commented “You are seeing that doctor fellow more than ever.”

“Yes, this weekend, too,” Mary said with a overstated wink. “I might as well move in.  Just a few kinks to work out first.  Need to check about getting out of my lease.”

--oo0oo--

Decision-making has no sound.  A bullet leaves the rifle with an explosion but the decision to pull the trigger makes no noise.  The actor is silent on stage before speaking “Now is the winter of our discontent...”

Mary was dressed for a special date tonight with John Watson.  Something exceptional was going to happen at dinner, perhaps even a marriage proposal.

Mary considered her life with John Watson.  Their love was interesting.  Sometimes John would devour her, other times treat her like her skin was glass, encasing light itself. And there were times when they wrestled like teenage boys, both being victorious in the end.  And sometimes she approached him as if each touch, each kiss, each lick was a gift.  Every encounter had built on the ones before it, repeated impressions on her skin that sensitized her to his next touch. John said he loved her, often, enthusiastically, and sometimes in Christ’s name.

She could leave. But she didn’t want John to become another ex-boyriend. Keeping John Watson close seemed in her best interest. There was no prediction of when the network would reorganize to reassign her to John Watson.

I will be still and wait, some more.  Maybe John Watson will propose to me tonight. And I have decided what I will say when he asks.