Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fourteen red half-centimetre lines.

Well, fourteen half-centimetre lines and two dots, to be more precise.

Though “half-centimetre” is really just a guess.  Not even a very good one since it’s obvious that three-quarters-of-a-centimetre is likely a much more accurate measurement, but it’s a bit of a mouthful—“three quarters of a centimetre”—isn’t it?  Seems easier just to call it a half-centimetre and be done with it.

Not that it matters.

In the space of sixty seconds it will change, and then he’ll count the number of lines that make up this new slice of the night that glows at him from the clock next to the bed—and whether he calls them "half-centimetre lines” or “three-quarters-of-a-centimetre lines” during the following minute he’s still not sleeping is largely irrelevant.  Even if the entire conversation wasn’t taking place inside his head in the dead of night, whether there are fourteen half-centimetre lines in the digital representation of one minute to midnight or fourteen lines that are three-quarters-of-a-centimetre long makes no difference at all.

There’s a slight shift of the mattress beneath him, a soft puff of a sleepy sigh against his neck, the tightening grip of the slender arm draped over his chest as his sleeping wife stirs and he stiffens beneath her.  He wills himself not to move, not to further disturb the slumber of the woman asleep next to him—and when her arm relaxes and she falls limp against his chest once more he slowly releases the breath he’s been holding, concentrates on letting it out slowly and then drawing in another.

He remembers a time when the warmth of her small body tucked next to his was a comfort, a constant reassurance that he wasn’t alone, a reminder that the gaping hole in his chest might yet be refilled with her soft touch and gentle affection.   He longs for the days when the steady thrum of her pulse lulled him to sleep, when her arms were the only safety to be found in the midst of despair.

Before his blood smeared hands felt for a non-existent pulse, before sirens and speeding ambulances and stark hospital lights and hushed voices and the stern face of a surgeon approaching him from down a long hall.

He’s a very lucky man, Dr. Watson.  Just a quarter of a centimetre to the left and he wouldn’t have had a chance.

How much difference does a quarter of a centimetre make?

All the difference in the world.

---------------------

“Hullo, Poppet,” John says gently, bent over low and resting his lips against the thin fabric of the flowing night gown falling in soft folds over skin stretched taut and pushed out round.  Calloused fingers catch slightly on the delicate cloth as he presses his palms into the roundness beneath his hands.  “Got a kick for your old man this morning?”

An answering nudge against his grasping fingers manages to startle him, it always does, then his lips stretch into a grin just as warm fingertips brush lightly above the collar of his dressing gown, trimmed nails skittering softly over the skin of his neck and he freezes—goes stiff and tense a moment before the hand touching him does the same.   John feels the seeds of panic rising within, closes his eyes and wills them to recede, forces a calm he doesn’t quite feel to settle back over his shoulders as a signal to his wife that this normal touch, this casual intimacy, is welcome.  Because it should be.  Because it is.  Of course it is.  After a moment the message is transferred, and the fingers resume their gentle glide over the back of his neck and then come to rest at his nape.

“She always moves when you ask her to,” Mary says, a hint of playful accusation in her voice.  “Already such a Daddy’s girl.”

“I’d better enjoy that while it lasts,” John says, then looks up into his wife’s eyes and smiles.  “Soon enough she’ll want nothing to do with me I expect.”

Mary smiles warmly.  “Don’t be ridiculous, John. Little girls always love their fathers—no matter how old they get.”

“Did you?” John asks, looking at her expectantly.

It takes him a moment to register the alarmed flash in her eyes as surprise, it’s there and gone almost before he noticed it at all, her face settling quickly back into as close an approximation possible of the happy smile it had been wearing seconds earlier. 

“I did, yes.” Mary clears her throat with a quiet cough, then turns toward the mirror and reaches for her toothbrush, then twists on the tap.

He’s broken the rules, of course.  Slid a toe over that invisible line between Mary Watson and whoever this person was before he’d stood in front of a church full of people and vowed to love her, to honor her, to cherish her.  They’ve agreed: it doesn’t matter who she was before. 

Before he married her.  Before she was carrying his child.  Before she’d put a bullet in his best friend to keep her secret.

John watches her for a moment longer, examines the profile she cuts there in front of the sink in their bathroom—at her sleep mussed hair, her upturned pixie nose, her soft, full breasts swaying slightly beneath her night gown as she brushes her teeth, at the swell of her belly full with the daughter they’ll welcome into the world in mere weeks.  After a moment he reaches for his own toothbrush, stripes a bit of paste over the bristles, then sets to work cleaning his own teeth.  He extends his arm to lean against the counter and his hand brushes against the one his wife has propped there as well, a soft slide of flesh against flesh, a snapshot of the everyday casual intimacy that makes up a marriage, a familiar touch that is so common he rarely ever notices it anymore. 

Shifting his weight a bit John readjusts his stance, his hand sliding the slightest bit away from Mary’s in the process.  Not enough to be noticeable, surely.  Hardly any difference at all.

Barely a quarter of a centimetre.

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“I’m off.”

John looks up from his book, shifts a bit in the overstuffed armchair that Mary deflected his objections to purchasing for the sitting room of their unfurnished suburban home on the grounds that it wasn’t particularly comfortable to sit in by assuring him that he’d get used to it.

He hasn’t.

She’s standing in the doorway, the buttons of her bright red coat straining over the bump she rests her small hands atop, late afternoon sun from the window reflecting off the diamond on her finger and setting small fireflies of light shimmering across the bright fabric and up over her face.

“Are you?” John asks, confusion warring with a hint of disinterest he’s not sure he’s ready to admit is there at all.  “Where?”

“Late lunch and a bit of shopping with Kath,” Mary tells him, good natured exasperation wrinkling her eyes at the corners as she rolls them at her husband.  “I did mention it, you know.”

“Did you?”

“Three times,” Mary replies with a smile, shaking her head as she winds her scarf about her neck and then crosses to stand before him.  “I expect I’ll find you right here when I get home, nose still in that book.”

She extends a hand to his shoulder and leans over for a kiss.  John lifts his head to meet her half way as she presses her face toward him, then tilts his neck a bit and her lips slide next to his then press softly into the corner of his mouth, half against the chapped skin of his lips and half against the late afternoon stubble on his cheek.    A kiss, to be sure, but just slightly off centre—a centimetre or so from being a direct hit.  Not a great distance.  Hardly even noticeable really.  Mary pulls back and looks at him for a moment, then puts on a grin that doesn’t quite extend to her eyes.

“I won’t be late,” she says, her fingers squeezing gently where they still grasp his shoulder, then turns and walks toward the door.

“Have fun,” John says as she steps through it, throwing a small wave over her shoulder as the door snicks softly closed behind her and quiet fills the room.

“I’ll be right here,” John says into it.

The silence that descends in her wake is like a living thing, John thinks, a warm blanket of absence that slinks around his shoulders and settles against his skin and muffles the discordant noise that lingers just below the surface of the soundtrack of his days now, and his nights, and even his dreams.

He used to notice it, this hum that fills his ears and sets his teeth on edge and chafes against his skin, this constant barrage of second guessing and indecision and what the hell have I done that underlies every moment since that plane touched back down on the tarmac nine weeks ago.  He recalls the moment he first felt it, the initial sting of it against his skin as Sherlock descended the stairs and disappeared into the sleek black sedan waiting for him without so much as a glance in John’s direction, the sharp slap of it as it pushed through his clothing and under his skin and seemed to settle into his very bones like a brutal, frigid gust. 

Like an east wind.

He’d taken Mary home and then sat down in this chair he hates and waited for Sherlock to contact him.  Looking down anxiously at his phone anticipating that the summons would come at any moment, he waited. 

And waited.

Well into the night he’d dozed off in his chair, awoken by the soft patter of Mary’s stocking feet coming down the stairs, warm hands and sad eyes beckoning him to come to bed.  He’d nodded sleepily, told her he’d be along in a moment, then clumsily typed out a text to Sherlock:

What do you need me to do?

He’d stared dumbly at the phone waiting for the response that came several minutes later.

*ping*

Nothing. Stay where you are.  –SH

John read the response twice.  Then a third time.  Then a fourth before typing out:

I want to help.

The response was immediate.

*ping*

Will contact you should assistance be required.  Look after your family.  –SH

John had felt it then, the warm heat of anger pooling low in his belly, an indignant rage at being excluded (again) from the battles Sherlock had promised he wouldn’t shield him from any more and his short fingers were flying across the keyboard to tell the lanky arsehole exactly what he could do with his condescending mollycoddling when…

*ping*

Please, John. –SH

And so he had stayed out of it.

Not because he’d wanted to (he hadn’t), or because he was angry at Sherlock for excluding him (he was), or because the safety of his wife and unborn child should be his priority (of course).  He’d stayed away because Sherlock had asked him to.

And so instead of haring off into the night to run behind the flapping coattails of his best friend in the race to defeat (again) their greatest foe, John had climbed the stairs, peeled off his clothes and slipped between the cool sheets to lie next to the woman who had given him the life that Sherlock had sacrificed himself (again) so that he could live.  Because that’s how it was.  How it always had been.  How it always would be.

Sherlock Holmes had said please, and John Watson had complied. 

And six long weeks later, when it was all over and the “return” of Moriarty had been exposed to the world as an elaborate hoax and the culprits identified and brought to justice, John had breathed a deep sigh of relief that his isolation had finally come to an end, that Sherlock would be along any minute now to rescue him from his voluntary exile…

And he hadn’t come.

He’d texted him, once, a perfunctory notification that the crisis had passed, and that Sherlock would be in touch soon.

Soon.

Such a deceptively small word, it takes up so little space on the page or the tongue—in his head he knows that the space of three weeks’ time can fit nicely within the borders those four letters create, but in his heart the word spans kilometers, countries, continents.  And with each passing day, the distance grows greater in his mind, dulls his defences and chips away at the carefully constructed wall he’s built around this latest absence of Sherlock from his life, a dam that keeps the cumulative grief from breaking free and destroying everything its path.  It’s an impressive piece of architecture, really.  Necessitated in the time it took one man to leap six stories to his death, constructed over months in the wake of that event, and then fortified and strengthened by the steady healing hands of a love that was found in the midst of that chaos. 

And so he prepared himself for soon, kept a watch over his phone and his eyes on the front door and as each minute turned to hours turned to days he’d felt the thick walls begin to bow from the pressure, thin cracks appearing, springing slow leaks that dripped like tears.  He had acted out of instinct—turned to the place he’d found healing and refuge when he’d lost Sherlock the first time.  The voice had been familiar, the arms had been the same, the soft smile of comfort one he’d seen countless times before.  But what he saw in her eyes, what lingered just beyond the reassuring words…he didn’t recognise.  What he saw now—the steel and contempt and exasperation held in check so impressively that it might never have been noticed by someone who hadn’t spent so much time repressing his own darker feelings?  That was someone he’d never met.  Someone new. 

Or someone old, to be more precise. 

And in that moment John realised that whoever she’d been before she became his Mary, that person wasn’t gone—she was always there, just below the surface.  And whoever she was—she wasn’t his at all. 

John shivers involuntarily at the memory, heaves a deep sigh against the wave of familiar disappointment that starts low in his gut and spreads slowly to numb him from the center out.  Shaking it off he squares his shoulders, sits up straight, then he reaches into his pocket and retrieves his mobile, taps open the messaging app and composes a simple text:

Anything on?

He stops for a moment, the pad of his finger poised just above the screen, and purses his lips considering…then hits send.

He attempts to settle into his uncomfortable chair to wait, pressing his spine into the back of it where the angle is all wrong, then winces in pain as the top seam of the ridiculously over stuffed cushion digs into the tender skin below the scar on his shoulder--and in an instant he is up on his feet, wheeling around to face the hateful piece of furniture  before bending low and grasping it along the bottom edge of the frame and flipping it up and back until it tumbles over the rug and onto the polished wood floor and hits the wall with an impressively loud BANG for something so fucking padded.  Breathing heavily, lips curled in a snarl, he stalks toward the hateful chair where it lies and pulls his foot back in preparation to kick it as hard as he can when:

*ping*

Double murder, locked room.  Heading to the scene now. –SH

John reads the text and the rush of anger induced adrenaline that still courses through his body begins to slow, his heart rate evening out and the slight tremor in his hand steadying while his breathing does the same as he composes his response, walking to the door and shrugging into his coat as he types.

I’m free.  Where?

He’s reaching for his scarf when the reply comes in.

*ping*

Minsk. Plane just touched down. –SH

Not exactly a cab ride away.  John stares at the screen for a moment, then hangs his scarf back over the hook and lets out a resigned sigh before replying:

Well, some other time then?

*ping*

Of course, John.  Soon. –SH

John slips off his coat, hangs it neatly, and puts it away.  He slips his now silent mobile into his pocket and turns back toward the sitting room, pausing for a moment before crossing to the upturned armchair and bending down to right it before dragging it over to its place beside the couch.  He wrestles the overly large beast back to an approximation of where it had been before, then turns and sits heavily into it.

He wonders, idly, how far it is to Minsk.  Not that it matters, really.  Sherlock’s gone away, and he can’t follow.

Might as well be the moon.

He shifts a bit in his chair, pushing himself down into the ample cushions as comfortably as he’s able, then picks up the book he’d set down earlier, finds his place, and begins to read. 

If Mary walked in right now, she’d think he’d never moved.

Unless she happened to notice that the divots in the thick rug beneath him, the depressions created by furniture set into and kept in place, no longer line up perfectly with the legs of the chair he’s sitting in.  It’s not a significant difference, particularly.  Just a centimetre or two to the right of where it stood before.

Barely noticeable at all.

Chapter Text

“Give her the medicine twice a day as directed, Mrs. Finch, and the spots should clear up in the next forty eight hours.”

“Thank you, Dr Watson.” The young mother replies, relief in her tired voice.  “Hopefully her throat will feel better soon--she’s barely eaten or slept in days.”

“Strep throat’s no fun at any age, but the good news is that the little ones bounce back quite quickly.” John smiles reassuringly at the woman, then looks down at the tear streaked face of the toddler in her arms as he reaches out to smooth a hand over her small, warm brow.  “You’ll feel better very soon, Dora.  I promise. And if it’s all right with your mum, I think I just may have a nice cold ice lolly for you.  What do you say?”

Three year old Dora Finch looks up at her mother hopefully and when the woman smiles and nods down at her she turns back to John and gives him a small grin and a nod before laying her head back down on her mother’s shoulder.

“Good girl,” John says with a wink, then turns to his left and presses the red ‘call’ button on the large console office phone on the counter before pulling out his prescription pad and writing out an order for a course of antibiotics along with dosage instructions onto it.  As he’s handing the sheet of paper to Dora’s mother, the door opens and Nurse Mary Watson pokes her head in the room.

“You called, Doctor?” she says, looking over at her husband with a bright smile.

“Ah yes,” John replies, smiling down at the little girl he’d just diagnosed.  “Our friend Dora here has come down with a case of strep throat, I’m afraid, and I think an ice lolly might make her feel a bit better, don’t you?”

“Oh my goodness,” Mary says seriously, peering down at the little girl and smiling softly. “You must be very special if Dr. Watson thinks you deserve an ice lolly.  Would you like to come with me and pick out your favorite flavor?”

Dora takes a deep breath and swallows, wincing a bit against the pain, and then nods and climbs down from her mother’s lap to take Mary’s outstretched hand and follow her out through the examination room door and around to the small freezer tucked behind the desk at the nurse’s station across the hall.  John goes over the specifics of the medication regimen once more with her mother and then escorts her out into the hall where her daughter is waiting for her, clutching a wrapped strawberry ice pop in her hand and smiling.  John bids them goodbye, then ducks back into his office and sits down heavily in the chair tucked behind his desk and begins to make a few notes in young Dora’s case file.  He’s finishing up her paperwork when the door clicks open and soft footsteps cross the room to stand in front of his desk.

“Such a sweet little thing, wasn’t she?” Mary asks.

“Very,” John agrees, looking up from the file in front of him and into his wife’s face, bright cheeked and smiling, her red wool coat draped over her arm.

“All those blond curls,” Mary continues, rubbing a palm absently over her belly where it juts out round and tight against her maternity scrubs.  “It’s hard to believe we’ll have one of those in just over a month’s time.”

John swallows at that, his eyes fixed on the distended abdomen that rests at eye level just in front of him.

“Yes,” he agrees with a nod.  “Though she’ll be a bit smaller than that, at first.”

“I should hope so,” Mary laughs, her other hand joining the one already clutching her stomach.  “Though with the way she’s growing lately it feels like there’s a toddler in there some days.  Think she’ll be a blond, this one?”

“I’d expect so,” John says off handedly, “We’re both fair haired, aren’t we?”

John’s thinking of the albums tucked into the shelves at the bottom of the china cabinet in his parents’ house—the sticky backed pages filled with photos of him and Harry when they were children, fair haired and blue eyed, all stocky legs and toothy grins smiling for the camera. 

He looks up at Mary and catches a glimpse of something uncertain behind her eyes, sees it flash across her expression before it’s gone as quickly as it appeared, shuttered behind eyes that are bright pools of green.  Eyes that crinkle at the edges with the broad smile that stretches across her face.  Eyes framed by arched brows.  Brows far darker than the short blond hair of her signature pixie cut.

John knows she dyes her hair, of course.  Many women do—hell, most women John knows aren’t walking around with the hair colour they were born with.  He lives with this woman, is more familiar with her body than any other person he’s ever known.  He knows that the stubble she shaves daily off her shapely legs and from underneath her arms is a coarse black, that the neatly trimmed patch of soft curls between her legs is a minky brown, that the roots that peek out from her scalp and are promptly seen to every six weeks or so stand in stark contrast to the light blond she prefers to keep it. 

And all of a sudden he finds himself imagining the child this woman was, the baby born nearly forty years ago, the little girl she grew to be—a tiny, coltish thing with bright green eyes and the same crooked grin she has now, all elbows and knees and dark hair (Long? Short? Curly? Unruly?) blowing in the wind, tinkling laugh carrying in the breeze, other children laughing and calling out her name, calling out…what, exactly?

He could ask her, of course. 

But he won’t. 

He can’t. 

The simplest of questions would beg the next, and the next, and soon enough the answers would become more than she is willing to share.  More than he should know.  More than he cares to know, really. 

And yet he can’t help wondering.

What colour was your hair when you were a girl? Was it curly? Were you a quiet child, or forever laughing and shouting and running ahead?  Did you grow up happy, with green fields beneath your feet and the blue sky above you?  Did it snow where you’re from?  Did you like it there? What did they call you then?  When did that little girl become a killer?  When did that killer become Mary Elizabeth Morstan?  Who are you now?  Who are you really?

No. He won’t ask.

“Well,” he says, breaking the tense silence with a soft cough and a smile.  “I suppose we’ll just to have to wait and find out in six weeks, won’t we?”

“We certainly will,” Mary agrees, the smile on her face as much about relief as anticipation, and she regards him fondly.  “That was your last patient for the day, you know.  Ready to go home?”

“Actually,” John says, gesturing to the pile of files on the corner of his desk with a tired wave, “I’ve got a mountain of forms to catch up on.  You go on, rest up a bit.  I’ll catch the train, follow in just a while.”

“Ok,” Mary says brightly, the disappointment in her face not entirely masked by the cheery tone of the reply.  “But I’m cooking tonight so don’t be too long, yeah?”

“Mmm.” John hums in response, as she steps around the desk and leans over him where he sits.  He looks up in time to turn his head and land a glancing kiss over her soft cheek.  She pauses for a moment, then stands up straight, reaches a hand out to card her fingers through the hair over his right ear, the way she’s done hundreds of times, but her arm stills a few inches from his face.  John looks at her hand where it hovers in his view, sees the delicate fingertips twitch slightly in midair, then watches as she draws her arm back slowly and lets it fall to her side.  John flashes a smile up at her, hoping it reads as reassuring, before turning his attention back to the files before him.

---------------------

He’s missed these moments.

The quiet stillness when he’s alone in the office—when there’s no one waiting to be seen, or knocking on his door, or sitting before him and saying “ahh” on command as they wait for him to diagnose and solve their problems.  It’s in these stolen minutes when everyone else has left for the day that he’s at his most productive, presented with an uninterrupted stretch of time where his mind is clear and focused and there’s work to be done and nothing to distract him from completing it.

Most days he and Mary arrive at and leave the surgery together, and he’d forgotten how quiet it is this time of night.  It’s been so long since he’s experienced it, he hadn’t even known that he’d missed it.  It’s nice, really, this welcome silence. 

Welcome silence.

Strange to think of those two words together at all. 

In the days and weeks and months after Sherlock left (the first time) there had been nothing welcome about the silence that crept into his world, wove it’s way around him in ever tightening layers, followed him from the moment he opened his eyes in the morning and stayed with him when he closed them at night.  A living and hateful thing, it pressed in on him from all sides, invaded his ears and shrouded his eyes and settled over his skin.  It was a thick blanket that suffocated him, greeted him in the middle of the night when he sat up suddenly, gasping for breath after visions of dark coattails falling toward the ground filled his dreams and not even his screams upon waking could penetrate the cloak of it. 

In the end it wasn’t the memory of Sherlock that drove him away from Baker Street, away from their friends, away from the life he’d built for himself there.  It was the silence, the emptiness that moved in to fill the void left in Sherlock’s wake.  He’d hated it, had fled from it, sought out a place to spend his days where there was no room for it.  And when, one day, a pretty blond nurse walked through the door and chased away what remained of it with her easy smile and clever conversation and carefree laugh, John began to resent the silence a bit less, to remember that there was a difference between avoiding silence and craving sound, and Mary had helped him learn to embrace the latter.  He’d liked her immediately.  Loved her in no time at all. 

He smiles at the memory.

In a very short period of time she’d entered his world and then very quickly became it.  Funny how that seemed to happen to him, really.  Just like…

*ping*

John fishes his mobile out of his pocket and looks at the screen, at the text he’s just received from his wife:

Supper on the table in 30 minutes. xxx

John stares at it a moment, at the simple reminder and customary three kisses from the woman he married, the same woman he’d just been thinking of and smiling about—and feels the smile slowly slip from his face, the warmth that filled him just moments before diffusing to something cooler, something sad, something that tightens in his throat and pricks at the corners of his eyes and he swallows against it, shaking his head slightly to clear it before typing his reply:

On my way. oxo

He raises his thumb to tap ‘send’ and he hovers above it for a moment, a slight hesitation as he reads over the three simple words and the affectionate suffix his fingers add to every text he sends his wife, his body long since doing so more by muscle memory than intention, then drops his thumb in three small taps on the backspace key, and presses send.

---------------------

The train is less crowded than it would have been an hour ago, and John is grateful for the buffer this affords him, a welcome bit of breathing room and space to stretch out his legs.  With ten more minutes until his stop, then another 5 minute walk home, he pulls out his mobile to pass the time. 

The messaging app is still open from earlier, his simple three word response to Mary there on the screen, marked as delivered and still without a response.  He taps the screen until a list of his recent communications light up the display, Sherlock’s name appearing just below Mary’s in the queue.  He swipes his finger idly across it, rolling the list upward until Mary’s name disappears under the top of edge of the phone and Sherlock’s is now the first one visible.  He strokes his thumb over the familiar name, and their most recent string of messages blooms onto the screen.  He reads over the sparse communication, the short conversation they’d had just two days ago—the first they’d had in weeks.  Before he can stop himself, John taps on the input field and begins to type:

Passing time on the train.  How’s Minsk?

He hits send.

His eyes widen as three small dots appear almost immediately in a grey bubble to the left of his message, and is only marginally surprised to find that he’s holding his breath awaiting the reply that appears in just seconds.

Cold, And full of Russians.  –SH

John huffs out a small laugh, his face stretching into a genuine smile, the muscles in his cheeks pulling taut at the oddly unfamiliar action, when the second text appears:

Just returned to London, on my way home now. –SH

John lets out a small sigh, and a bit of the tension that’s taken up near permanent residence in his shoulders these days eases, just a bit. 

Case solved then?

The telltale ellipsis appears at once, and John finds that he’s no longer holding his breath—his breathing steady and easy as he waits.

Appeared to be an 8, turned out to be a 4.  Jealous lover:  She killed both the husband and wife, then hid in a broom closet and slipped out while the police where securing the scene.  Tedious. –SH

John barks out a laugh, the sound feeling strange in his throat, and replies:

You’ll have to tell me all about it for the blog. 

Which has been sorely neglected these last few months, he thinks.  He wonders if his readers have given him up completely.

And give you the opportunity to title it “The Minx In Minsk”? I think not.  –SH

John giggles a bit at that.  He giggles.  He shakes his head as he composes his response:

I was going to go with “From Russia: With Love”.

Sherlock’s reply arrives shortly.

Bond. How predictable. –SH

John smiles to himself.

I’m impressed you remembered.  Thought you’d have deleted that weekend movie marathon by now.

John sends the reply, shaking his head at the memory of Sherlock keeping up his constant mocking commentary about the improbability of nearly every major plot point—and most of the minor ones as well—through 5 of John’s favorite 007 adventures during a particularly slow patch of the London crime cycle.

Believe me, I’ve tried.  It simply won’t be erased. –SH

A grin breaks out over John’ face, again, and he catches a glimpse of it in his reflection in the window opposite.  He looks a bit deranged, he thinks, which only makes him smile wider.  He gazes at the scenery rushing by outside the window and sets about typing a reply:

Next stop is mine, glad you made it home safe.  We’ll talk soon?

The train starts to slow, and his fellow commuters begin to gather themselves in preparation to exit.

Yes. Soon. –SH

John can see the platform just around the bend and he feels a sudden panic welling within him as he hastily types:

Promise?

He sees the undulating ellipses appear and before he can stop himself adds:

Please, Sherlock?

The brakes begin their telltale scream as the train slows, and John watches as the indicator that Sherlock is typing a response finally appears, and reads his reply:

Soon, John.  I promise. –SH

John breathes a sigh of relief, then coughs against the strange tightness in his throat as he stands and follows the other riders out the doors.  He stands on the platform for a moment, people passing in front of and swerving around him. 

Sherlock is back in London, he knows now.  If he was so inclined, he could cross the platform, board the next train back into the city, change cars at the Bakerloo line, and be at 221B in just under forty minutes. 

He won’t, of course.

But he could.

He walks down the platform and onto the street, a slight spring to his step and a smile on his face.  Walking the short distance to their house, he’s surprised to realise that he’s quite hungry—famished, really—and he’s suddenly eager to get home and see what Mary’s made for dinner.

---------------------

“How about Sarah?” Mary asks him, handing him a freshly cleaned dinner plate to wipe dry as they stand side by side at the sink washing up after supper.

“Nope,” John says with a shake of his head.  “Old girlfriend.  Can’t sign off on it.”

“Good Lord, by that criteria we’ve eliminated half the alphabet from consideration,” Mary says with a smirk, bumping her hip against his playfully.

“I can’t help it if the birds love me,” John says with mock seriousness.

“We all have our burdens to bear,” Mary replies, rolling her eyes.  “What about Jeanette?”

“Actually…” John begins sheepishly, and Mary huffs out an incredulous laugh then flicks soap bubbles at him with her fingers. 

“Oh for heaven’s sake, John.  Another one?” She shakes her head and looks at him, tilting her head in thought. “Ok.  What do you think of Adelaide?”

John raises his eyebrows in surprise.

“Adelaide? That was my Gran’s name.” He purses his lips and thinks for a moment.  “She was a dear old gal, you know.  She made the best blackberry crumble I’ve ever tasted.  Mind, I was six when she passed on but I stand by that assessment nonetheless.”

“So you like it then?” Mary asks, a small smile blooming over her face.

“Yeah,” John tells her with a nod.  “I really do.  Adelaide Watson.  Has quite a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Mary agrees, her top teeth coming to rest against her bottom lip thoughtfully.

“Well good,” John says with a nod and a smile, drying the last glass from their supper and reaching to put it away in the cabinet.  “It’s settled.  I think Gran would be very pleased.”

“That’s good then.” She sighs softly, smoothing the palm of one hand over her round belly.  “She should have a name that means something.”

“Agreed. And you’re in luck—I’ve never been with an Adelaide, so we’re all clear on that front.”

He closes the cabinet and looks back at Mary, and for the smallest moment—a mere fraction of a second, no more—he watches her expression go from pleased to confused to upset before it snaps back into the smile she was wearing when he first looked at her.  She reaches forward to take the towel from him and dries her hands on it before laying it flat over the edge of the sink to dry.  She stands there for a few moments, staring off into space, her hand rubbing steady circles over her abdomen.  John looks over at her, at the far off look in her eyes, and tilts his head questioningly.

“Are you all right?” he asks, his tone taking on a hint of doctorly concern.

“Fine.” She replies quickly. 

John's brow furrows. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, of course.  Just a bit tired.” She waves a hand dismissively, then looks up at him as a soft smile stretches across her features.  “I was thinking I might go up and take a bath.  Maybe turn in early?”

It’s a bit of a code between them, this seemingly innocent pronouncement.  He knows how it goes.  She’ll excuse herself to take a bath, and after a while he’ll follow her upstairs where he’ll find her clean and warm and smelling of jasmine, all soft skin and sweet curves and bedroom eyes. 

John smiles back at her, nods, and watches as she scales the steps up to their bedroom.  He crosses the floor to sit down in his chair, attempting to settle into it as best he’s able, and listens as Mary turns on the taps and begins to fill the large tub in the en suite bathroom upstairs. He smiles a bit to himself imagining his wife as she goes through her nightly paces, his heart beating a bit faster at the thought of joining her in a bit, the notion that he’s actually excited about the prospect helping to offset the unease he’d felt earlier in the day.

Adelaide, he thinks.  It really is a lovely name, and his mum would have been tickled with the choice as a tribute to her own mother.  It’s strange how quickly this person he’s not even met yet has already become associated with a name that’s only been hers for all of ten minutes.

He thinks a bit on the serendipity of the choice, he can’t recall ever mentioning his grandmother’s name to Mary—hasn’t thought of it himself in years—and is happy that his daughter will bear it.  It’s fortunate that Mary brought it up, that she seemed to like it as well.  And she does, doesn’t she?  She’d seemed pleased by the choice, but there was that moment, something in her eyes when he’d agreed to it, declared that their daughter should have a meaningful name. 

John frowns to himself, replaying the moment in his mind.  Mary had suggested the name, John had said it was his Grandmother’s name, and that it was a good thing he’d never been with an Adelaide, and then Mary’s face had…

John takes in a sharp breath, his pulse seems to slow, and his mind conjures up an image: four initials inked onto to silver casing of a flash drive: A.G.R.A.

A.

Adelaide.

---------------------

“John,” Mary calls softly from the top of the stairs.  “Are you coming up?”

He’s not sure how long he’s been sitting here, in a chair he hates, in a house that looks exactly like those on either side of it, married to a woman he’s having a harder and harder time forgetting that he barely knows.  Long enough that she’s grown tired of waiting for him, it would seem.

“On my way,” John says, then listens as she turns and her feet pad across the hall and into their room, the bed frame creaking a bit as she settles onto the mattress.  He climbs the staircase toward the softly glowing lamp in the bedroom, crosses the threshold and sees her waiting for him on the bed—a soft nightgown falling about her shoulders, her hair toweled dry and charmingly mussed, smiling at him as she rubs fragrant lotion into the skin on her elbows and up her arms. 

“I think I’ll take a quick shower myself,” he says and watches as a slightly puzzled expression crosses her features before her soft smile returns to take its place.

“Ok,” she replies, then adjusts the pillows behind her before lying back on them.  “I’ll be right here.”

“Good.” John says with a nod, walks into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, then takes two steps forward to lean heavily on the sink. Taking a deep breath, he twists on the shower taps and shucks his clothes efficiently before tucking them neatly into the hamper in the corner.  He steps under the water and lets it roll down his head and over his body, bracing his arms against the wall as the hot spray beats down over his tense muscles. 

As the water flows over his skin, the thick cloud of steam around him takes with it much of the confusion that clouded his thoughts earlier.  Reaching for the bar of soap in the tray, he runs it over his skin and considers the events of this evening with a clearer head. 

The woman out there in that bedroom isn’t a stranger.  She is his wife, the mother of his child—of his daughter.  She’s Mary Watson.

That’s who she is.

Who she was doesn’t matter.  He told her so.  He made a promise.

John Watson keeps his promises.

He twists off the taps, dries himself off, wraps the towel around his waist and walks through the bathroom door into the cool air of the darkened bedroom.  He switches off the bathroom light, and stands there for a moment as his eyes adjust to the darkness.  In the ambient glow of the streetlamps through the window he can see the soft curve of Mary’s hip beneath the duvet, the line of it extending up over her waist and up to her shoulder to the spot where he sees the back of her head pressed into the soft pillow below it.  In the stillness of the room he can hear her steady breaths, the slightest of snores that punctuates the crest of each one.

Crossing to the chest of drawers he pulls the towel from his hips, lays it neatly over the back of the chair by the bureau, then carefully slides the top drawer open and retrieves a clean pair of pants and a t-shirt.  Padding softly to the bed he pulls back the covers and climbs between the sheets, lying back against his pillow and staring at the ceiling.

He doesn’t slide across the mattress to press himself against her back.

She doesn’t roll toward him to lay her head on his shoulder.

After a few moments he relaxes, closes his eyes, and falls asleep to the steady rhythm of her breathing.  Gradually, the blankets stretched over their bodies sink down to fill the space between them.

Chapter Text

“There she is,” the technologist says brightly, her free hand pointing to the monitor on the mobile cart next to the bed.  “Pretty thing, isn’t she?”

“Beautiful,” John agrees, staring at the ultrasound image of a tiny face in profile and nodding.  It’s not the first time he’s seen her, of course.  They’ve had a handful of scans over the course of the pregnancy, a few more than is strictly normal for younger parents, and each time the image clarifies itself out of the hazy fog of pixels and blooms into focus he feels the same sense of awe and surprise he’d felt the first time—a gradually dawning wonder that they’ve created this entirely new person out of, well, nothing. 

“Of course she is,” Mary says from her reclined position as she cranes her neck to get a better look at the screen.  “She’s grown so much—and look, John, she’s got your chin.”

John feels the sudden warmth of her hand sliding over the back of his where it rests at the edge of the examination table and he flinches in surprise at the contact.  Mary’s head turns his direction at the sudden movement and John tamps down the panic that rises unbidden at her touch before turning his own hand palm up beneath hers to twine their fingers together.  He points at the screen with his free hand. 

“That’s your nose, though.” He says.  He can feel Mary watching him, her gaze sliding over his features, and he tilts his head and narrows his eyes as though attempting to get a better look at the image on the monitor.  After a few moments Mary follows his line of sight and they stare together at their daughter.

“Have you decided on a name?” the technician asks, her warm smile directed at each of them in turn. 

“Adelaide,” Mary tells her.  “After John’s grandmother.”

John’s shoulders stiffen slightly at the pronouncement, and the smile on his face tightens a bit as he squeezes Mary’s hand once before untangling their fingers and letting his arm fall to his side.

“That’s lovely,” the tech coos, using her free hand to set a few digital markers on the screen then presses a sequence of keys, and a copy of the image slides into the tray of the small printer on the cart.  She picks it up and holds it out to Mary who takes it, looking down at photo with an affectionate grin.

“Actually,” John says, clearing his throat with a small cough, “would you mind printing out a second copy?”

“No problem,” the tech says cheerfully, turning her attention to the monitor to accommodate his request.

John feels Mary’s eyes on him, and he turns to look at her.

“Thought it might be nice to have a copy of my own,” he explains, with a shrug.  “Something to pull out of my wallet and show off.”

“Of course,” Mary replies, and despite the soft smile that never falters as she looks at him, John thinks he sees something else in her eyes—a sadness that lingers at the corners, a look he recognizes as the one that stares out at him from the mirror so often lately.

The technician hands the small photo to John, reminding them to stop at the desk on their way out and schedule an appointment for two weeks from today, and he looks at it once more before carefully folding it and slipping it into his wallet while Mary wipes the thick gel from the procedure off of her skin and sorts out her clothing.  John turns to the hooks behind the door and takes down her coat and holds it up so Mary can slide her arms into it, the buttons pulling the red wool tight as she fastens it—barely—over her swollen belly.  Slipping into his own coat he holds the door for her and they walk down the hall and set their next appointment time as instructed.  Stepping out into the cool late afternoon air, they start down the street toward their car, John shortening his normal gait to keep pace with Mary’s newly slower one. 

“In the mood for anything in particular for dinner?” John asks as they walk.  “We could grab some takeaway on the way home.”

“I’ve got Yoga tonight,” Mary reminds him.  “Tuesday, remember?”

“Yeah,” John says, distractedly.  “Of course.  I forgot.”

“And I’ve made plans with Kath for after,” Mary adds.  “She and Duncan are on the rocks again, thought she could use a bit of girl talk.”

So she’ll be gone all evening, then.  Again.  John considers this information and is surprised that the primary emotion he feels at the moment is relief.  He tries not to think too hard about what that means.

---------------------

Mary left a half an hour ago, decked out in her exercise clothes with her yoga mat tucked under her arm glowing bright yellow against the red of her coat.  He’d been sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper when she came down the stairs, announced she was off, leaned forward to grasp his shoulder and press a warm cheek fleetingly against his own, then walked out the door.

Walking from the kitchen to the sitting room now, a hot mug of tea in his hand and a new book tucked under his arm, he takes a careful sip as he crosses the floor.  He pauses for a moment, listens to the quiet of the otherwise deserted house, and looks down at the chair in front of him.

His eyes trace the corners of the ridiculously broad cushion, glance over the comically large arm rests, follow the lumpy outline of upholstery stuffed within an inch of its life by a substance that rejects his every effort to tame and reshape it even after months of daily use—and suddenly thinks to himself that he never wants to sit in it again.  He looks around the room at his other options, at the matching couch against the wall, the tall backed wooden parson’s bench by the door, the antique claw footed beast with the threadbare cushion that Mary had pronounced “shabby chic” when she’d seen it at a rummage sale and that he’d carried half a mile home but has never once sat down in. 

Chairs, chairs everywhere—and not a single place to sit.

John stands there in the stillness, in this place he and Mary have tried to make into a home, and despite the abundance of furniture and decorative pillows and cheery prints on the walls it feels…empty, a feeling echoed in the vacuum that inhabits the space low in his gut, a creeping hollowness he has fought hard to ignore even as it continues to expand.  The realisation has a paralytic effect, a slowly spreading heaviness in his limbs and lungs and he’s suddenly afraid it will overtake him right here in the middle of this sitting room that he can’t bear to sit in.

He closes his eyes and imagines himself in another sitting room, his mind conjuring images of ancient flocked wallpaper and stuffed bookshelves and tall twin windows and skulls on the wall (and the mantlepiece), and an unremarkable red chair; soft woolen blanket draped over the back, fabric worn at the edges of the arms, the sensible cushion stuffed just enough to be comfortable—and a wave of homesickness crashes over him, knocks the breath from his lungs and pushes it out of his mouth in a soft gasp. 

He fumbles in his pocket for his mobile, and quickly taps through the screens to bring up his messaging app.  He stares at Sherlock’s name for a moment, then slides his thumb over it and types a simple message, just four letters and a question mark:

Busy?

He stares down the screen, sees the confirmation that it was delivered below the text he sent, and seconds later the response indicator appears and the tightness in his chest eases as he waits for Sherlock’s reply.

Crime scene.  En route now.  –SH

John feels his mood deflate slightly.  He’s not sure what he’d expected Sherlock to say, really.  Come at once if convenient? He’s contemplating a reply when a second text comes in:

You? –SH

John sighs into the silence of the room, wishing he had a response that was anything but:

On my own for the evening, quiet night in.  You’ll have to let me know how the case turns out.

He sees the telltale ellipsis blink in the corner of the screen, and John prepares himself for Sherlock’s typical vague signoff—so when his actual reply appears it takes him by surprise:

142 Bronwyn Road, Clapton.  Come and see for yourself. –SH

---------------------

John drums his fingers against his knee in a steady rhythm and fidgets in the back seat of the minicab as it comes to a stop in front of the address Sherlock texted him forty minutes earlier.  He’d been out the door, pulling on his coat as his footsteps flew down the front stairs, before he realised that he’d need to call for a cab.  He did so standing in the front garden, having contemplated going back into the house to wait for it arrive, but in the end deciding he’d rather stand in the cold.  Paying the cabbie, he nods at the young police sergeant (whose name escapes him at the moment) who recognises him and waves him up the stairs.  John is grateful for the courtesy, glad that his recent absence from Sherlock’s side at crime scenes hasn’t been so lengthy that he’s been forgotten.

Scaling the stoop and stepping through the open front door of the Victorian factory conversion, John follows the sound of activity and voices up the stairs where Greg Lestrade is walking out of one of the two flats on the second floor. 

“John!” He says, the surprised expression in his eyes giving way to genuine smile as he reaches out a hand to shake John’s. 

“Hello, Greg.” John says with a grin.

“Been a while, mate.  Wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

John smiles and pretends that doesn’t sting a bit, this confirmation of just how long he’s been away, and grasps Lestrade’s hand firmly in return. “Last minute invitation." 

“Wife gave you the night off, did she?” Greg asks with a wink, then claps a hand on his shoulder and gestures toward the open door.  “He’s inside. Just follow the frustrated huffs of the forensics team and you’ll find him in no time.”

John nods his thanks, and crosses tentatively into the small sitting room of the flat and starts down the hall toward the sound of a familiar baritone demanding to know if he is indeed the only person in the room with an IQ over that of a house cat, grinning as he steps through the bedroom door.

Sally Donovan is the first to notice him.

“Well, it’s about time,” she says, looking him up and down before rolling her eyes and jerking her chin toward the bed set into the corner of the room.  “Glad you two have kissed and made up, he’s been a right pain in the arse without you.”

John isn’t listening to her, though. His eyes are fixed on the back of a head full of mahogany curls jutting up from the edge of the upturned collar of a long dark coat that strains across the shoulders of the tall man crouched over the very dead body of a young woman wearing a studded black leather belt, a matching collar around her neck, black boots with shining silver spurs…and nothing else. 

“Nice to see you too, Sally,” John says distractedly, his full attention on the man he hasn’t seen in months, who is suddenly now just across the room.  Sherlock whips his head around at the sound of John’s voice, eyes widening a fraction and then crinkling softly around the edges as a smile—a real one, John observes, not the convincing facsimile he puts on when he’s shamming for information, but an honest to god actual smile—stretches across his face.  An answering grin tips at the corners of John’s mouth and the moment stretches out between them, and something tight and constricting inside John’s chest gives way, a sense of relief rushing in to fill the newly expanded space.  He watches Sherlock’s gaze as it quickly travels over his face and then down the length of him and back up before returning to his eyes and lingering there for just a moment longer—then he looks back down at the body before him.

“Finally,” he says, a hint of exasperation in his voice as he throws out an arm and beckons John closer.  “Come and take a look.”

John crosses the room and crouches next to the detective and listens raptly as he details the observations he’s made thus far.  John injects his opinion where appropriate, Sherlock rebuts his assertions dismissively, John tells him not be such a dick, Sherlock requests that John try not to be an idiot, then.

Sherlock paces, running his hands through his hair and throwing out questions, John stands still and offers answers, Sherlock insults his intelligence…and then lets out an excited gasp of realization before running out of the room, coattails flapping—and when Sherlock calls out ‘Come ON, John!’ from the hall, John follows.

There’s a short stakeout, a madcap chase, a low tackle in an alleyway, and the sound of approaching sirens as he and Sherlock detain the suspect until the police arrive.

It’s ridiculous and dangerous and probably not entirely legal.

It’s the best night he’s had in months.

---------------------

“You got all that from a stain that wasn’t even there anymore?” Johns asks, shaking his head as he and Sherlock make their way down the elevator and out the front doors of New Scotland Yard. 

“The stain should have been there, John,” Sherlock explains as they walk.  “Only someone knowledgeable about various methods of stain removal and with access to the appropriate chemicals to perform them would have been able to remove blood spatter from the sheets in the time between when the victim was killed and the body was discovered.  The killer was, therefore, likely associated with the dry cleaning industry, and the victim’s clandestine lover was a dry cleaner.  Simple deduction.”

"Simple? Amazing is more like it.”

Sherlock shrugs off the pronouncement, but the grin that quirks at the edge of his lips and the way he tilts his chin a bit higher at the praise aren’t lost on John.  When they reach the sidewalk, they turn to face one another, and John smiles up at Sherlock who returns the expression. 

“Thanks for this,” John tells him.  “It was a good night.”

“It was,” Sherlock agrees. 

“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” John says, in a tone that he hopes reads more ‘light and friendly’ than ‘pathetic and desperate’.  “If you want to, that is.  I mean, if I’m welcome.”

Sherlock stares down at him, and John can’t be sure but he thinks he sees the smile there falter a bit, accompanied by something that looks like pain flash through the pale eyes that regard him—but as quickly as it’s there, it’s gone.  He’s not all together certain is was there at all.

“You are always welcome,” Sherlock says earnestly, and John swallows against the lump that forms in his throat.  After a few moments John realizes he’s staring and shuffles his feet awkwardly while checking his watch. 

“I’d no idea it had gotten so late,” he tells Sherlock with a smile.  “Probably should be going.”

Sherlock nods. “Of course. Give Mary my best.”

John’s smile slips a bit at the mention of the name, and he realises with a start it’s the first time she’s come up all night.  Sherlock’s eyes narrow slightly and John can feel the detective scrutinising him, so he nods and looks down the street for an approaching taxi.

“I will,” he tells Sherlock, who steps up next to him and throws out an arm—and within seconds a cab seems to magically appear before them.  John opens the back door and turns back to look at Sherlock.  “See you soon, then?”

“Yes.  Soon.”

John nods and climbs into the cab.

“John?” Sherlock calls out just before the door is closed, and John swings it open and leans out.

“Yeah?”

“It was…good to see you.” Sherlock says in a soft voice, his eyes flitting away from John’s after the pronouncement for a moment before his gaze settles back on John’s face.

John smiles back at him, and nods.

“You too.”

As the cab pulls away from the kerb, John resists the urge to look back to see if Sherlock is still there.  His resolve lasts for approximately ten seconds before he turns and looks through the back window of the cab to see the tall silhouette standing exactly where he left him.  He watches him until the cab turns the corner and out of sight.

---------------------

The car is parked outside the house when he gets home. 

He slips his key into the lock and lets himself into the deserted sitting room.   No light shines in the darkness, not from the bedroom at the top of the stairs, not even the soft glow from the bulb above the kitchen sink that is nearly always left on. 

John shuts the door quietly behind him and leans back against it for a moment, listening.  There’s no rustling of bedclothes being thrown off, or soft footfalls on the landing.  She must be asleep then, John thinks, the wave of relief that washes over him promptly shaken off and left unexamined for now.  He hangs his coat and climbs the stairs as quietly as possible, toeing off his shoes just inside the bedroom door and walking past the bed towards the bathroom, when there’s a slight creak of the mattress behind him followed by a yawn.

“Hello, you,” Mary says softly, as John flips on the bathroom light to partially illuminate the room. “I tried to wait up but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open.  Sorry.”

“Don’t be, you had a long day,” John tells her.  “Been home long?”

“Hmm,” Mary says as she stretches and then looks over and squints at the clock.  “Just over an hour.”

“How was yoga?”

“Good.” Mary says, without elaboration.  “What did you do tonight?”

“Went for a walk,” John says, the ease with which the lie rolls off his tongue surprising him.  “Got a bit stir crazy cooped up all night, thought the fresh air would do me good.”

“Good night for it,” Mary says, nodding and lying back against the pillows.  “Coming to bed soon?”

“Yeah,” John nods.  “Need the loo, I’ll be along in a minute.”

“All right,” Mary says sleepily, rolling onto her side and pulling the duvet up around her shoulders.

John watches her for a moment, traces the curves of her small body beneath the covers, then steps into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him.  He strips down to his pants and vest, and as he’s emptying the pockets of his trousers he notices a small rip below the left knee—a souvenir of the tumble he’d taken after knocking over the murderer attempting to run earlier.  He pushes a finger through the hole, smiles a bit at the memory, then sighs as he balls up the trousers and stuffs them into the small rubbish bin next to the sink.  He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, takes in the goofy grin and tries to remember the last time he’s seen himself look so pleased.  He can’t.

Switching off the bathroom light he crosses the floor and climbs into bed.  He lays there for a moment, then rolls away from Mary, onto his side, listening to the even sound of her breathing.  He knows she’s not asleep but pretends that he doesn’t.

She pretends not to notice.

---------------------

He’s going over his email when she walks into his office a few nights later after his last patient has gone, and the rest of the staff has left for the weekend, her red coat and fuzzy white scarf already in place as she’s pulling on her gloves.

“Do you want me to drop you at home before I go?” she asks.

“Go where?” he asks idly, clicking on the next unread email in his queue.

“Girls night,” she tells him, her mouth twisting in an exasperated smile.  “Last hurrah before the baby comes?  I told you on the way in this morning.”

“That’s right,” John says sheepishly, scratching his fingers through his hair.  “Sorry, of course. You know what?  I think I might call Greg, see if he’d like to grab a pint.  I’ll grab a cab after.”

“Ok” she says, smiling at him from across the desk.  “I’ll see you later then?”

“Of course,” he says.  “Have fun.”

“You too,” she says, extending a hand across the desk.  He reaches up and takes it, gives it a squeeze, then draws his hand back and watches her walk out the door.

He picks up his mobile, taps out a message to Sherlock:

Dinner?

He smiles when the reply comes moments later.

Starving. –SH

---------------------

“I ask you every time if you’d like to order your own dim sum, and you always say no!” John complains as Sherlock reaches over the table and deftly grabs a dumpling from John’s plate with a pair of chopsticks held gracefully in his long fingers. 

“I don’t want my own dim sum,” Sherlock replies, before dipping the stolen dumpling in a puddle of plum sauce on John’s plate.  “I want yours.”

“Well I want them too,” John explains, “which is why I ordered them.”

“I never eat more than half,” Sherlock says, as though this settles the argument, popping the pilfered prize into his mouth and smiling as he chews.

“So as long as you leave me half of the meal I intended to eat all of in the first place I suppose that makes us even then.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock agrees, reaching across and plucking another off John’s plate.

“Ah, all right then.” John nods his head, then reaches over the table and spears a good sized prawn off of Sherlock’s plate.

Sherlock looks scandalised as he watches John chew the stolen morsel, and John looks back at him innocently.

“What? I’m not going to eat more than half of them.”

“You don’t even like prawns.”

“I do now,” John says through a mouth full of masticated shellfish, wincing a bit with the effort of swallowing it down. “In fact, they’re my new favorite thing.  Hope you don’t mind sharing.”

“Oh, is that so,” Sherlock says, smiling pleasantly as he traps a particularly large one off of his own plate between his chopsticks and leans across the table to dangle it in front of John’s face.  “Have another, then.”

“No thanks.” John shakes his head, then pulls his head back a bit and picks up his glass of water and takes a healthy swig—grimacing while he runs his tongue over the front of his teeth to sweep the taste away.  “I’m full.”

“Oh good,” Sherlock says, dropping the prawn on to John’s plate and quickly picking up another dumpling.  “Then you won’t be needing this.”

John huffs out a laugh and just as Sherlock lifts the dumpling out of the plum sauce on John’s plate he darts his head forward and grabs the dumpling between his teeth before Sherlock can pull it back over the table.

“Thief,” Sherlock accuses.

“Learned from the best,” John replies, and they both tuck back into their respective plates of food as a companionable silence falls over the table.  After a while, John sets his fork down and rubs a hand over his full stomach, leaning back into his chair for a stretch and regarding Sherlock fondly.  “I’ve missed this, you know.  Glad you were available tonight.”

“It’s fortunate you were as well,” Sherlock replies.  “Mary was otherwise occupied, I take it?”

“Yeah,” John confirms.  “Girls night out.  Last one before the baby comes apparently.”

“I see.” Sherlock says, examining the label on the bottle of soy sauce on the table with sudden interest, until he looks up and sees John examining him through narrowed eyes, his brow creased and a question forming on his lips, then says, “Won’t be long now, will it?”

“No,” John says, the question on his lips forgotten for the moment with the subject change, and he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet and retrieves the ultrasound photo from a few days ago and slides it over the table in front of Sherlock.  “Just over a month to go—here’s the latest shot of her.  Amazing how far the technology’s come, you can see she’s got Mary’s nose.”

“You’re right,” Sherlock says softly, something soft like wonder colouring his deep voice as he examines the image, one long finger tracing the baby’s profile.  “But she’s got your chin, John.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely.” Sherlock nods, then looks at the photo once more before holding it out to John who takes it from him, his short fingers barely brushing Sherlock’s longer ones in the process.

Later that night, on the cab ride home, John rubs two fingers softly over his chin, remembering what Sherlock said—thinking that it won’t be long before they’ll know for sure. 

The house is empty when he gets home, he has a shower and goes through his nightly routine, then climbs into bed and falls asleep almost immediately. 

He doesn’t wake up when Mary gets home a few hours later.

---------------------

When Mary comes downstairs on Monday night as John is clearing the supper dishes, slips into her red wool coat and announces that she’s off for her monthly Book Club meeting, John wishes her well from his place at the sink and listens to the door close behind her as she leaves. 

He finishes the washing up, dries his hands and then slips his mobile out of his pocket.

Going to be in the neighbourhood, mind if I drop in?

He’s got his coat on and is already walking toward the train station when the reply comes in.

*ping*

What a ridiculous question. –SH

John smiles down at the screen, taps out a response:

See you in a bit.

---------------------

After switching trains, John passes the time surreptitiously watching the other passengers who board and get off at each stop and taking a stab at deducing where they're coming from or headed to.   Three stops away from his destination, he remembers the Lithuanian bakery he used to frequent when he lived in town, recalling the flaky almond pastries they sell that Sherlock always favoured.  When he couldn’t get the man to eat anything else they were the one thing that could tempt him—it was John’s secret weapon in the battle to keep the lanky git adequately nourished.

On a whim, he decides to make a quick stop to pick up a few before he gets to Baker Street, scaling the stairs from the tube station up to the sidewalk two at a time.  When he gets there he takes a moment to orient himself, trying to remember which direction the bakery is in.  As he looks across the road and sees the old Scala cinema and starts towards the corner to cross the road that will take him to the bakery, tucked between a sports massage centre and a second hand bookshop. As he’s waiting for the light to change on York Way, something catches his eye—a flash of colour across the way, a flicker of bright red in his peripheral vision—and he turns to look.

It’s Mary.

In her red coat, her white scarf wound around her neck, her arm laced through the elbow of a tall man who bends down to whisper something in her ear—something that makes her throw her head back and laugh, her other hand coming to rest on the man’s forearm. 

John freezes in place, the crowds of people separating and flowing around him as the light changes at the corner, and watches as his wife smiles suddenly, reaches out and grabs the man’s hand, and pulls it toward her swollen belly, his fingers splayed wide over the bump.  After a moment, the stranger jumps in surprise, and smiles broadly down at her, then slips his arm around her back and pulls her close, bends his head down to nuzzle his face into her neck, into the sweet spot behind her ear that always smells like jasmine and fresh baked bread.

John stares from across the road, his feet rooted in place, and as though she senses his gaze Mary turns her head slightly, her eyes widening a bit in surprise, before the expression morphs into something new—something softer, something sad.  They stand there looking at each other, four lanes of traffic between them, the stranger who has her gathered in his arms oblivious to the entire exchange.

After a long moment, John breaks the stare, turns on his heel, and walks back down the stairs and onto the next train.

---------------------

John lets himself into the house, looks briefly around the deserted sitting room, then slowly climbs the stairs to the second floor.  He walks past the bedroom, past the hall bath, and stops in front of the closed door at the end of the hallway. 

Pushing it open, he flips the switch on the wall and the lamp on the dresser throws its soft glow over the room.  He stands there motionless for a few moments, his eyes roaming over the butter coloured walls, the bright white chest of drawers, the plush woven blanket draped over the arm of an empty rocking chair.  He takes a step forward and runs his hand along the sleek top rail of the cot he spent an entire Saturday putting together, reaches down into it and brushes his fingers over the soft white fur of the stuffed rabbit he and Mary bought on their honeymoon—a souvenir for the third person they hadn’t even known would be joining them that week.  His eyes travel up to the pink “A” Mary had stenciled onto the wall the day after they’d chosen their daughter’s name.  John takes one last look around, then switches off the light, walks out of the room, and shuts the door behind him.

He walks back down to the bedroom, crosses to the closet, stretches up on his toes and pulls down his large Army rucksack.  He unzips the top, lays it neatly on the bed, takes a deep breath, and begins to pack.

Chapter Text

He’s waiting for her when she gets home.

He’d taken his time—emptied the closet and chest of drawers in their bedroom of his clothing, culled out his toiletries and grooming items from the en suite bathroom, did a slow lap of all the surfaces in the rest of the house plucking up the occasional book and retrieving his RAMC mug from the cabinet next to the sink—and when he was done found himself back in the sitting room, his rucksack still far from full to capacity.   Looking slowly around the room at his options, eventually he’d crossed the floor, set his bag down at his feet, sat down at one end of the long couch, and waited.

He hears her before he sees her, soft footfalls tapping up the front steps, the familiar slide of a key into a lock, the metallic clunk of the deadbolt disengaging, and the faint creak of hinges as the door swings inward bringing a soft whoosh of cool evening air with it.  With his elbows propped on his knees and his eyes on the rug near his feet he listens as she shuts the door behind her and walks slowly into the sitting room.

He doesn’t look up.

“So this is how it ends, is it?” she asks, voice even and cool.

“Seems so,” John says simply, punctuating the words with a small, tight nod.

“I see,” Mary replies, crossing the floor and lowering herself slowly onto the cushion at the opposite end of the couch before folding her hands over the top of her distended belly.  John can see the bright red wool of her coat where it clings at the very edge of his vision, can smell the faint hint of Claire de La Lune that always hangs about his wife, a sweet scent that she leaves in her wake wherever she goes.  Part of him even imagines he can feel the slight ghost of the cold she brought in with her, even from three cushions away.

They sit that way for a few long minutes, both staring straight ahead, the air in the room thick with a sense of resignation and regret and inevitability.

“I want to be a part of her life,” John says, breaking the silence.

“Of course you will be,” Mary assures him immediately.  “You’re her father.”

“Sure about that, are you?” He turns to look at her, chastened a bit by the small flinch his words provoke.

“Yes, John.” She sighs quietly, the look she gives him equal parts disappointed and withering.

John shrugs. “Under the circumstances, I had to ask.”

“Did you?” Mary asks, tilting her head, her gaze challenging.

John stares at her for a moment then looks back out into the room, pursing his lips and huffing out a tired sigh.

“So.  Who is he?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not,” John concedes, his left hand clenching and unclenching where it rests next to his thigh, his right hand reaching down toward the handles of his bag. “I’ll be at Baker Street.  Give  Mr. ‘Book Club’ my regards.”

“Sure,” Mary replies easily.  “And do tell ‘Went for a Walk’ hello from me, as well.”

John freezes at her words, his hand stalling in mid-reach, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling at the implication behind her retort.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demands, his voice low and tense.

“Just that I’m not the only one who’s been sneaking about lately.”

John stiffens at that, his eyes flicking down to his feet, his mind replaying white lies and omissions and mad chases and stolen dumplings and the relief of coming home late to an empty house—before it next recalls a tall stranger spreading a broad hand over his wife’s pregnant belly, that same man bending forward to press his face into her neck.  Any momentary guilt he might have felt evaporates in the comparison.

“No,” John says, shaking his head emphatically then checking his temper before taking a deep breath.  “You don’t get to compare Sherlock to him.”

“I’m simply pointing out that there have always been three people in this marriage, John.  So really, what difference does a fourth make?”

“You leave him out of this, Mary.”

“Bit late for that, isn’t it? He’s always been here, John.  Standing right between us.”

“I’d think you’d be quite grateful for that, actually,”  John says, turning his head to look at her.  “He did kill a man for you, after all.” 

 “You really believe that, don’t you?” she asks, shaking her head slightly and regarding him with disappointed eyes.

“I was there,” John snaps.   “I watched him fire that gun, I saw Magnussen fall.”

“You’re absolutely right, John.  That is what happened.” Mary stares at him for a long moment, the look on her face something close to pity.  “But I can’t believe that, after all this time, you still think he did it for me.”

John stares at her, jaw clenched as he exhales a long breath through his nose.  He tilts his chin down to stare at the floor, then pulls his gaze back up to the woman sitting at the other end of the couch—and for just a moment he can see her, not this woman he married whose real name is a mystery to him with her dangerous past and cold eyes.  He doesn’t see Mary Watson, or A.G.R.A. or the woman that shot his best friend and then stood in that empty house and promised she’d do it again.  He sees Mary Morstan, the breath of fresh air who’d walked into the clinic one day, her blond hair tousled by the wind with her bright eyes and playful smile and pink cheeks and contagious laugh and soft touch.  He sees the woman who saved him, who gave him a reason to go on living when he’d lost his.  She’s just three cushions away, he’d need only to lean over, extend his hand and he could touch her.

He sucks in a breath and presses his eyes closed, and when he opens them again his Mary is gone, this Mary back in her place…and the space of three cushions between them might as well be a mile.

Letting out a sigh, John turns his head and looks back out into the quiet room, then reaches back down for his bag, adjusts the handles in his palm, and gets slowly to his feet.   He pauses, wondering if there’s something he should say—but after a moment rolls his shoulders and walks toward the door.  Reaching for the knob, he pulls it open and the night air sweeps over his face, a welcome chill against his skin.

“We’d have been all right, you know,” Mary says to his back, and he turns his head slightly toward the sound.  “If he’d just stayed gone.”

“Which time?” John asks, a humorless laugh in his voice and his eyes fixed on the doorjamb to his right. 

Mary sighs then, her breath hitching a bit as the exhalation breaks into a gentle stutter near the end.

“All of them.”

John stands there for a moment, half in and half out of the house he wished had ever felt like his home, hovering in the space between here and gone. 

He nods once, squares his shoulders, and walks out.

---------------------

When the taxi stops in front of the familiar black door, John pays the cabbie then stands on the sidewalk and stares at the gleaming brass '221B' as the cab drives away and the sound of the engine fades into the distance.  Fishing out his keys, he slips the one he’s never taken off the ring into the lock, hauls his bag through the entryway, and closes the door behind him.

The sound of a single violin playing, a melody ringing clear and bright through the air, beckons him forward.

Scaling the seventeen steps up to the flat, taking each rise singly instead of the customary two at a time in deference to his heavy load, he crests the top of the staircase and stands for a moment on the landing, staring through the open door into the lamp-lit sitting room beyond.  A deep breath fills his nose with the smell of fireplace ash, worn leather, old parchment, sticky rosin, furniture polish, a hint of cigarette smoke, and something in the kitchen that probably should have been binned several days ago, at least. 

A lone figure stands at the window, long fingers caressing the neck of the instrument tucked under his chin, dressing gown swaying in silken ripples behind him as he slides his bow across the strings, the song drifting through the space, a living thing that winds itself around the flat, filling the air as thickly as any scent.

He breathes it all in, feels it slide over his tongue and down his throat and into his lungs.  It’s a feeling he recognises immediately, one that lingers below the surface of every other place he goes—familiar and settled and remembered.  It’s tea and good scotch and music and shouting and laughter and sorrow and comfort and danger all at once.

It’s home.

As the last long note soars from Sherlock’s violin, the detective lets his bow fall to his side, then turns to face John as he steps through the door of the flat.  John feels the sharp eyes glide quickly over his face, then slide down the line of his shoulder to the bag in his hand before traveling back up to meet his gaze and knows that in those few seconds the events of John’s evening have likely been deduced with uncanny accuracy.  It can be disconcerting, at times, to have one’s history revealed and laid bare at the sparest of glances—but tonight it feels like a gift, relieving him of the burden of having to say it aloud. 

John looks at his best friend where he stands.

“Hello,” he says, his voice tired.

“John,” Sherlock says quietly.

The moment hangs between them for a beat.  Then another.  Sherlock tilts his head slightly. John sighs.  Sherlock tips his chin up a bit.  John nods…then turns and makes his way up the stairs, walks into the flat’s second bedroom, and closes the door behind him.

He doesn’t need to turn on the light.  He takes a few steps forward, drops his bag on the floor next to the bureau, toes off his shoes, sheds his socks and trousers, drags his jumper up and over his head then slips his shirt buttons free of their holes and lets it slide carelessly from his shoulders and onto the floor with the rest of his clothes.  Stepping forward he reaches out a hand and runs his palm up over the duvet and under the pillow at the top of the bed, then slips his hand beneath the covers and pulls them away from the mattress.  He crawls between the sheets—soft and familiar and recently laundered—and presses his head into the pillow, pulling the blankets up and tucking them under his chin. 

He’s left.  Left his wife, a woman he barely knows.  Left her miles away from here, in a house that never felt like home.

He’s come back to Baker Street.  To the home he couldn’t bear to stay at when Sherlock wasn’t in it, this man who knows him better than anyone else, who is playing his violin just one floor away.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out shakily as the first notes of a new song drift up the staircase, high and sweet and mournful—and familiar, John thinks, humming along softly with the melody as his eyes grow heavy, his exhausted mind shutting down with each haunting phrase, the music softly beckoning him toward slumber.

It’s a lullaby, John realises as he drifts off to sleep.

He’s playing me a lullaby.

Chapter Text

John wakes slowly, stirring as the early morning light seeps through the gap in the curtains he hadn’t thought to draw closed the night before.  Eyes shut against the creeping brightness, he stretches a bit—slides his arms and legs out slowly between the soft top and bottom sheet to feel his muscles contract and lengthen, tendons pulling taut over joints that creak with the disuse of the last several hours.  Resting one hand on his bare stomach, he runs his other palm over his face and yawns, the scratch of morning stubble and warm breath ghosting against his fingers.  Opening his eyes and sitting up, it isn’t until his bare feet hit the cool wood beneath them that he remembers where he is. 

Gazing around the familiar second bedroom in 221B Baker Street with bleary eyes, the events of the previous evening come rushing back to him; the moment he’d emerged from the tube station on his way to this very flat and seen his wife in the arms of another man, the train ride back to the house in Chingford, the process of packing all the things he felt he had the right to take with him into a single rucksack.

The same one that sits by his feet right now, surrounded by the clothes he’d been wearing at the time, now crumpled and discarded on the floor around it.

He takes a shallow breath and waits for it—the onset of anxiety, the slow rise of panic that develops into a wave that grows to loom over him while he sits cowering in its shadow wondering what the hell have I done before it crashes down over him and carries him away on a tide of regret.

It doesn’t come.

He looks slowly around—at the ancient wallpaper over the sturdy headboard above the rumpled bedclothes on the too-soft mattress next to the mismatched bedside table beside the tall chest of drawers across from the antique wardrobe on the opposite wall—and it isn’t panic that that wells up inside him, that snakes through the emptiness in the pit of his stomach and flows outward like smoke through his limbs. 

It’s relief.

Taking a deep breath, holding it for a moment, then heaving out a sigh, John gets to his feet and collects the clothes from the floor, tosses them into the basket next to the wardrobe, heaves his rucksack up onto the bed, and begins to unpack.

------------------

Twenty minutes later, his clothes are tucked into drawers or hung neatly in the wardrobe, and the bed has been made with military precision.  Wrapped in his comfortable dressing gown, John collects his spare armful of toiletries, his shaving kit and the single mug he brought with him and makes his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. The flat is silent at the moment, Sherlock's bedroom door stands closed at the end of the hall.

He sets his RAMC mug on the counter next to the kettle, then walks into the flat’s single bathroom.  He slides his toothbrush into its customary slot next to Sherlock’s, tucks his shampoo and soap into the shower in the same place he always has.  Twisting on the ancient taps to give the water a chance to run warm, he opens up the medicine cabinet expecting he’ll need to clear a bit of space—and finds that there’s plenty of room available.  His half of the cabinet (or third, really, and that’s being generous what with all of Sherlock’s poncy lotions and potions crammed in there) is already cleared, the narrow shelves ready to welcome his razor and shaving lotion and toothpaste and aftershave back into the very same spots they used to reside.  He stands there staring for a moment, suddenly touched by this smallest of courtesies, the notion that Sherlock has made room for him here again.

Swallowing against what is absolutely not a lump in his throat, he smiles the slightest of grins and sets about filling the empty spaces.

------------------

Thirty minutes later he’s well-scrubbed, clean shaven, and wrapped tightly in his dressing gown as he rubs a towel at his wet hair before slinging it over his shoulder and emerging from the bathroom.  The bedroom door is thrown wide open now, John notices, and he walks out into the stairway and through the sitting room door.

“Sherlock?” He calls out, his voice ringing through the silent (and apparently otherwise empty) flat.  Glancing to his right, John notices that the Belstaff is gone, missing from its customary hook on the wall next to the door.  Must have been quite a case, John thinks with a smile, for him to run out of the house without demanding I vacate the bathroom and give him access to the arsenal of hair care products he pretends he doesn’t use daily.  Huffing out an amused sigh, he pads into the kitchen to fill the kettle and stops short in surprise.

Not only has the kettle already been filled and recently boiled, his RAMC mug sits before it—full to the brim, the milky liquid sending thin ribbons of steam into the air, The Times folded neatly beside it. John picks up the mug and sets it to his lips, blows softly across it, and takes a long sip.  Perfect, he thinks, smiling like a lunatic and making his way into the sitting room, snapping open the paper as he goes, reading over the front page headlines while muscle memory guides his feet into the space between the two armchairs set before the fireplace and down into the one that’s always been his.

When the cushion gives under his weight, when he leans against the blanket draped back, when he props an elbow onto the threadbare arm that sits at the perfect height for him to do so—there’s no moment of epiphany, no conscious sigh of recognition, no mental comparison between this chair and another that never quite fit him.  It simply welcomes him like an old friend, offering a familiar comfort remarkable only in its absence.

Setting his tea on the small table beside him, John pulls his mobile out of the pocket of his dressing gown and checks the time.  He’s not due at the surgery for over an hour, yet.  Thumbing open the messaging app he taps out a text to Sherlock:

I had no idea you even knew how to make tea.

Moments later the message has been delivered and John awaits the response he can see that Sherlock is composing.

You’ve been doing it for years.  Mrs. Hudson does it several times daily.  I knew it couldn’t be terribly complicated. –SH

John rolls his eyes and replies:

Well, it’s good to try new things, hone useful skills.

John lifts the tea to his lips again, enjoys the taste of the hot liquid as it warms him.

Morning tea is hardly advanced chemistry, John.  Boring.  I’ve already deleted it.—SH

John smirks around the edge of his mug, typing one handed.

Ta, all the same. 

John watches as the three dots appear, and Sherlock’s response blooms onto the screen.

Don't get used to it. –SH

John huffs out a laugh, staring at the phone for a moment before he sets it aside and goes back to reading the paper, a soft smile lingering at the corners of his lips.

---------------------

Walking into the surgery later that morning, John is momentarily surprised to be greeted warmly by the nurses on duty, each of them offering a friendly hello as he looks over the list of patients waiting to be seen and reviews his schedule for the day.  Given the events of last night, he’d been certain that at the rate gossip normally makes its way through the clinic there would be one or two disapproving glances thrown his way, even if Mary wasn’t in yet. 

Looking up at the personnel roster posted behind the reception desk, he sees Mary’s name on today’s schedule—then sees the parenthetical notation beside it: (ML). 

Mary’s maternity leave has begun. 

He’d forgotten.   Or it’s entirely possible that he hadn’t known it was starting, really.  In theory he knows that her due date is just over a month away now and that her leave would commence soon, but he didn’t realise it was today.  Had Mary mentioned it?  Surely she had.  As she’d be sure to remind him, with a frustrated grin and shake of her head.  I did tell you, John.  Three weeks ago when I set the date, then last week at the midwife appointment, and again on the drive home last night…

He smiles a bit at the imagined conversation, versions of which had been happening at regular intervals since he’d met her, his occasional inattention to details offered during idle chatter being something of a pet peeve of Mary’s, though she’d always borne it good naturedly.  Staring up at her name on today’s schedule, the absence of it on all the days that come after suddenly seems portentous—a sign of things to come that he’d missed, a warning he might have heeded if he’d only seen it sooner.  It’s a ridiculous thought, of course, but one he nonetheless loses himself in contemplating before a voice saying his name for a second time snaps him out of his reverie.

“Dr. Watson?” Joanna asks, the receptionist’s eyes a bit wide as she looks up at him from her chair. “Are you all right?”

“Sorry,” John says, putting on a smile and shaking his head.  “Went day dreaming there for a bit, not getting enough sleep lately I suppose.”

“You ought to try and get it while you still can,” she replies, smiling back at him warmly.  “Once that little one arrives you’ll get even less.”

“That’s good advice,” John says, hoping his answering grin looks more far more genuine than it feels.

“I was just saying that your first patient’s arrived, I’ll send him in whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you Joanna,” John replies, walking toward the short hall that leads to his room.  “Give me two minutes.”

---------------------

Making his way down Baker Street later that evening, arms laden with Tesco bags, John attempts to readjust the load so that his fingers don’t go completely numb from the strain of the plastic handles digging into his skin and contemplates the folly of shopping for groceries on an empty stomach.  A cursory look through the cupboards and fridge that morning hadn’t even yielded anything as edible as toast, and a busy day at the surgery meant that except for coffee and one stale pastry he’d managed to lay claim to that afternoon he’d not eaten all day.  Given the contents of the bags he’s dreading hauling up two flights of stairs, that won’t be a problem for at least the next week.  Or two.

Possibly three.

Huffing up the last of the seventeen steps to the flat, John manoeuvers himself through the sitting room door and stands for a moment catching his breath.  Sherlock regards him from his leather arm chair, wearing his blue silk dressing gown over the customary posh, slim-fit shirt and tailored trousers, violin tucked against his chest, his long fingers idly plucking at the strings.

“John,” He says in greeting, tipping his head.

“No, no,” John says breathlessly, shaking his head and making his way into the kitchen, “Don’t get up.  I can cope.  No help needed here.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Sherlock replies with smile.

“Great.” John mutters, heaving the bags onto the blessedly clear kitchen table while rolling his eyes but smiling a bit in spite of himself.  Flexing his sore fingers, he fills the kettle and switches it on, then goes about the business of unpacking the shopping, tucking items into nearly empty cupboards and clearing a shelf in the fridge that he mentally designates as a ‘food only’ zone.  “I’m starving.  Are you eating tonight?”

“Undecided.”

“Well I’m cooking,” John says, binning the empty bags along with several unidentifiable items he’d cleared from the fridge regardless of whether they were part of an experiment or not, and pulling down two mugs just as the kettle boils.  “In case you’ve got a request that might tip the scales, and all.”

He sighs at Sherlock’s answering noncommittal hum, then sets about preparing two mugs of tea (splash of milk in each, one with sugar, one without) before walking them carefully into the sitting room and setting one down at Sherlock’s elbow, then settling himself into his chair with a deep sigh. 

He takes a sip of his tea, sets it off to the side, then drops his head back and closes his eyes, enjoying the silence.  After a few minutes, he senses he’s being watched and looks over at Sherlock who is gazing at him intently, a look of patient curiosity on his face.

“So,” John begins, awkwardly.  “I’ve left her.”

“Obviously.” 

“It was all very civil, really,” John continues, reaching up to run a palm roughly over the short hair on the back of his head.  “We talked a bit, said a few things I’m sure we’d both wanted to say for quite some time, and then I left.”

“Sounds fairly uneventful,” Sherlock agrees.  “And Mary?  Did she seem…upset?”

John thinks for a moment, head tilted, replaying the conversation in his mind.

“Not particularly,” he says, brow furrowed at the memory.  “She seemed, I don’t know, tired I suppose.  Resigned.  Not the reaction I was expecting, to be honest.”

“Oh?” Sherlock asks, raising a brow in his direction.  “What did you expect?”

“Oh I don’t know, that she’d point a gun at my chest?”

“That wasn’t likely to happen,” Sherlock says dismissively.

“It would hardly be unprecedented, would it?”

“She’s never pulled a gun on you before, John." Sherlock tilts his head and regards him with narrowed eyes.  “Has she?”

“Well, no,” John concedes.

“Then there you are,” says Sherlock, as though the matter is settled.

“What are you talking about?” John asks, incredulously.  “She shot you.”

“True." Sherlock shrugs.  “But just the once.”

“Once is plenty, I think.”

“Oh please, John,” Sherlock says, a half grin tipping at the corner of his mouth.  “Every woman you’ve ever been involved with has expressed the desire to shoot me at one time or another.  Frankly I’m surprised it’s only happened the one time.”

John stares hard at him then, his eyes raking over the smooth planes and unlikely angles of Sherlock’s face, at the smug grin that curls at the edges of his lips, at the cavalier way he jokes about one of the worst days of John’s life, and after a moment he opens his mouth…

And laughs. 

A short bark of a thing, a huff of inappropriate amusement that devolves into something that can only be described as a giggle that is soon accompanied by the low staccato thrum of Sherlock’s throaty chuckle.  He brings his hands up, presses his palms to his forehead and runs them roughly down over his face.

“You’re ridiculous,” John tells his best friend.

“Undoubtedly,” Sherlock admits. 

“This whole situation is ridiculous,” John adds, shaking his head, his mood deflating slightly. He’s left his wife.  His pregnant wife.  His very pregnant wife.  He’d made vows to her, in public, in front of everyone he cares about—and now he’s broken them.  He’s well on his way to falling down that particular rabbit hole of self-loathing when his mind conjures up a flash of red, a bright smile not directed at him, the back of another man’s head…and he remembers that she also made vows, and broke them as well.  It doesn’t fix anything, per se, but the tight band of guilt that winds around his chest loosens just a fraction at the thought.

John huffs out a tired sigh, “Well. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done quite enough talking about my feelings for one night.”

They sit there for a moment longer, comfortable silence stretching easily over the space between them, and John can’t help but wonder a bit at being here; back in his chair and Sherlock in his, just a few feet away, close enough that their knees are nearly touching.  What a difference a single day makes.

“Ok then,” John says, getting to his feet.  “I’m making pasta.  And you’re going to eat it with me.”

“Fine,” Sherlock agrees, watching John as he makes his way to the kitchen and starts pottering about with pots and spoons and knives and tomatoes.

Forty minutes later—when Sherlock receives a text from Lestrade describing a crime sceme and requesting his assistance—he reads it with interest, declares it a possible seven, abandons his half eaten plate of food and rushes to slip out of his dressing gown and into a pair of shoes. 

John shovels in the last few bites of his own meal, finishing just as Sherlock shouts out his name and orders him to hurry up, already!  John checks his pockets for his wallet and keys, and slips into his coat as Sherlock flits around him impatiently, buzzing with energy like some overgrown, posh, annoying bee.  When at last John is ready to go, the consulting detective smiles with manic glee and disappears down the stairs in a flurry of coat tails, and his blogger shakes his head with a small smile and follows.

---------------------

Hours later, when they burst through the entryway door into the foyer at Baker Street and collapse in breathless laughter against the wall, John struggles to speak through the wave of hitching giggles that erupt from his mouth.

“His face…when you jumped down…like some great bat…oh my god...” he sputters, his back pressed against the wallpaper, composing himself for a moment, then losing it completely again when he looks over at Sherlock and remembers him leaping from the bridge piling, coat billowing out around him, flattening their suspect who let out a comically high pitched squeal of alarm.

“Hush, John,” Sherlock says, affecting a demanding tone that loses its effect when he bursts into silent laughter, his shoulders shaking as he breathlessly adds, “You’ll wake Mrs. Hudson.”

“You’re right,” John says, looking over at Sherlock and taking in a shaky breath and nodding seriously, “Enough of that, all better now.”

“Yes.” Sherlock agrees, returning his nod and looking sternly at him.

Then they both burst into laughter again.

They ride it out this time, side by side at the bottom of the stairs, just a foot of wall between their shaking shoulders and heaving chests.  As their breathing begins to return to normal, John looks over at his friend—at his disheveled curls and sparkling eyes and cheeks rosy with exertion—and recalls another night many years ago, and smiles.

“I can’t believe you found him so fast,” John says, a familiar fond awe in his voice.  “Gone to ground like that, he could have just disappeared.”

“It pays to know the right people,” Sherlock shrugs.

“You mean it pays to know the right people to pay,” John corrects, thinking of the old woman under the bridge who’d taken the offered note from Sherlock and pointed wordlessly down the embankment before pocketing it and pushing her rusted trolley full of treasures before her as she walked away.

“My homeless network is an invaluable resource, John,” The detective replies, a smug smile tilting at his lips.  “You’d be surprised how much loyalty fifty quid will buy you.”

“Yeah, about that,” John says, narrowing his eyes at his friend suspiciously.  “You had no cash for cab fare earlier, but just happened to have a fifty on you for bribes?”

“Of course not, John.”  Sherlock starts up the stairs two at a time then pauses at the first landing to turn and smile down at him, a worn leather wallet held up between his long fingers.  “But you did.”

“Is that my wallet?” John asks, patting down his trouser pocket and looking first surprised, then indignant, upon finding it empty. “What did I tell you about pickpocketing me, Sherlock?”

“Oh don’t be like that,” Sherlock pouts, looking down at him and waving dismissively, then cutting him off before he has a chance to reply. “You should thank me, really.  Your wallet was much safer with me in that neighbourhood than it would have been in your trousers.”

“Yeah, very selfless of you. I’ll have it back now, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Sherlock says with a grin, then tosses the borrowed wallet carelessly down the staircase where it hits the wall above John’s head and bursts open, the contents raining down around John in a flurry of notes and receipts and cards.

“Git,” John mutters under his breath, shaking his head and trying not to smile as he gathers up his wallet and the various items scattered on the floor and trudges up the stairs to the flat.  He crosses to the coffee table and deposits the handful of things that used to be folded neatly into his pocket onto it, then shrugs out of his coat and sits down on the sofa to put them back into some semblance of order.

He straightens the cash (fifty quid less of it, now, thank you very much) and slides it into the long pocket for notes, inserts his bank cards back into the small slots that house them, looks over the few receipts he’d stuffed in there carelessly and decides they can be put aside for the bin, then snatches up the last item on the table, a small white rectangle with one folded edge.  Sliding his thumb between the two layers of thick paper, he opens it flat to see the grainy black and white image of a face—perfect upturned nose and pursed lips and the unmistakable form of a tiny fist clenched next to a familiar chin.

John stares at it for a long moment, this inaugural photograph of his daughter that’s found a home in his wallet, the first of many to come in a set that could one day be laid out side by side to form visual history of her smiling face as she grows.  He’s been looking forward to meeting her, to seeing that face in the light, to cradling her tiny head and pressing his lips to her skin.  To comforting her when she cries, to walking the floor after nighttime feedings and soothing her back to sleep, to seeing her smile.  To first laughs and first teeth and first steps and first words.  To taking her to school each morning and reading her bedtime stories each evening, to good morning hugs and goodnight kisses and watching her grow and the endless refrain of do your homework young lady and well done love and don’t make me come up there and please be careful and because I said so and Daddy loves you too.

Eight months ago he hadn’t even known he’d wanted any of that.  

He traces the line of her profile with his eyes, remembers the feel of a tiny foot as it jumped beneath his fingers pressed tightly against a swollen belly, and suddenly the image in his hand blurs slightly, ripples out of focus obstructed by the tears welling in his eyes, one thick drop escaping to slide down his face and splatter wetly on his daughter’s cheek, his heart breaking with the realisation that comes crashing down around him:

Everything will be different now.

There will be weekend visits and Wednesday night suppers and the occasional longer visit over the summer holidays.  There will be two homes and two bedrooms and two Christmases and two birthdays and two parents who drive separately to school plays and parent-teacher meetings.  There will be more days apart than together, more nights he doesn’t tuck her in than those when he does.

There will be an Adelaide Watson, this brand new life who grows and changes with each passing day…and he won’t be there to watch it happen.

John lifts his arm, raises the small picture clutched between his fingers to his chest, and presses it against the soft patch of jumper over his heart.  His head falls forward, his chin trembles, and his shoulders shake with the sobs he can’t stop from coming.  He cries for the marriage he couldn’t save, for the woman he’d loved once, for the daughter he loves already, for the life he thought he would give her, for the father he wanted to be.

There’s a dip on the cushion next to him then, a slow shifting of weight as another body sits down, a soft rustle of fabric as Sherlock settles into place and then stills beside him.  Even with his eyes pressed closed John can feel him there, just inches away, offering support without words, comfort without touch.  He’s a sentinel, an anchor, a warm and steady presence reminding John that in this moment he is not alone.

John cries, and Sherlock is there.

Right there.

---------------------

“Everything is progressing perfectly,” the midwife says with a smile, snapping off her nitrile gloves and crossing to the small sink to wash her hands as John extends a hand to help Mary sit up—which she takes after a brief look of surprise crosses her features.  “We’re two weeks out from your due date now, but if she decides to come sooner it wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

“Never know with this one,” Mary says, rubbing a hand over her stomach and smiling.  “She’s surprised us from the beginning, we’ll just have to wait and see what she decides.”

Mary had surprised John two days ago when she’d texted to remind him of the appointment and asked him if he’d be there.  He’d said yes, then met her here this afternoon.

“Got your bag packed and ready to go?” the midwife asks them.

“All set,” Mary answers with a nod.

“That’s good,” she says.  “If I don’t hear from you before, we’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Thank you,” John tells her as she exits.

Mary moves to get up from the exam table, and takes John’s offered hand without complaint or comment.  As she sets about getting dressed, John turns toward the wall to offer her a bit of privacy.

“Would you prefer that I step outside?” He asks, awkwardly.

“I’d prefer it if you’d help me with my shoelaces, actually.” Mary tells him, pulling on her maternity leggings and slipping her feet into the old brown brogues she’s favoured the last several weeks of her pregnancy when her feet have swelled a bit.  She slides one foot forward a few inches and looks at John expectantly.

He quirks a small smile and drops to his knees, tying the offered shoe first and then seeing to the other.  Getting back to his feet, he holds out her coat as she slides her arms into the sleeves, then pats her shoulders through the bright red wool.  They make their way down to the appointment desk to set a tentative time for two weeks from now, Mary looking at him for confirmation as the receptionist tells them which slots are available. 

As they leave the clinic, John walks Mary toward their car where he can see it’s parked just down the road, stopping next to it and opening the door for her.

“Thank you for asking me to come today,” John says.  “I appreciate you keeping me involved.”

“Of course, John.” Mary says easily, her expression softening as she looks at him for a moment.  “Whatever we aren’t anymore, we are still her parents.”

“Yeah, agreed.” John replies, the stiffness in his shoulders easing a bit as she turns to sit down behind the wheel.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Mary says, straightening back up and reaching into her pocketbook and fishing out a plain white envelope and handing it to him.  “Here you go.”

John looks puzzled look as he takes it from her. “What’s this?”

“It’s for Sherlock, actually. Just thought I’d save him a bit of time.”

“All right,” John answers, brow furrowed in confusion. “I’ll pass it on.”

“Thanks,” Mary says as she lowers herself into the driver’s seat.  “I’ll be in touch.  Take care, John.”

“You too.” He closes the door behind her and watches her pull out into traffic and drive away.

John turns the envelope over in his hands a few times, then lifts the unsealed flap and pulls out the sheet of plain pink stationery with three lines written in Mary’s neat, flowing script:

Roger Alan Wentworth

29 Nov 1968

QQ 16 91 54 A

John doesn’t recognise the name and wracks his brain for any memory of a Roger Wentworth.  When he comes up empty he folds the note, puts it back in the envelope, slides it into the breast pocket of his coat, then heads back to Baker Street.

---------------------

The flat is empty when he gets there, and the kettle's just boiled when he hears the front door open and a familiar set of footsteps climbing the stairs. 

“I’m making tea,” John says toward the hall as he’s already reaching for the second mug and dropping a teabag into it.

“Excellent,” Sherlock says, striding into the sitting room as he unties his scarf from around his neck and tosses it carelessly toward his coat already hung by the door and then flopping down gracefully into his chair and crossing his legs primly.  “I’ll take mine in here.”

“Of course you will,” John grumbles half-heartedly, preparing two cups as usual and delivering one to Sherlock before sitting down across from him with his own and taking a sip.  “Case today?”

“Mmm.” Sherlock confirms against the lip of his mug, in mid drink.  “Mildly interesting.  I’ve pointed Lestrade and his band of imbeciles in the right direction, told him to text me if there are any loose ends that need tying up.

John nods his understanding, and Sherlock examines him over the mug still pressed to his mouth.

“How was the appointment?”

“Fine,” John says.  “The baby’s healthy and right on track, midwife says she could come at any time.”

“Good news,” Sherlock says.  “And Mary?”

“She’s fine too,” John tells him, with a slight shrug.  “It was pleasant, actually.  No drama at all.  Oh—I nearly forgot.  She gave me something for you.”

John gets up and retrieves the mysterious envelope from his coat pocket, then crosses back over and hands it to Sherlock before sitting back down.  Sherlock eyes it suspiciously, then carefully removes the sheet of paper within and reads it silently.  He raises his eyebrows at the contents, then sets it on the table beside him, and takes another long drink of his tea.

“Well?” John asks impatiently.  “What is it?”

“Name, date of birth, National Insurance number.”

“Yes, I gathered that, thanks. But who is he, this Wentworth?”

“The other man, I assume.”

“What other ma—”  John begins, then stops short as he cottons on, the image of a tall stranger with his hand over John’s daughter, making her mother laugh and then nuzzling into her neck. He feels a sudden rise of bile in this throat, a flash of anger that makes him slam his mug down onto the end table a bit more forcefully than he’d intended, gritting his teeth before continuing. “And why would she ask me to give that information to you?”

“Presumably so that I can perform a thorough background check,” Sherlock tells him, as if it’s the most sensible thing in the world.  “She could hardly believe I’d allow a stranger any sort of regular access to your daughter without thoroughly vetting them beforehand.”

John stares at him for a moment, eyes focused and searching.

“Did you know?” John asks him, his voice hard.  “About the affair?”

“Really, John.  Do you imagine that I have your wife on constant surveillance?”

“Yes,” John confirms.  “Or that Mycroft does, anyway.”

Sherlock tips his head slightly in vague assent.

“Touché." Sherlock raises a hand as John’s opens his mouth to reply.  “But the answer to your question is: No.  I suspected infidelity may have been in play, but I didn’t know.”

“You might have mentioned it, don’t you think?” John asks, a hint of suppressed anger colouring his tone.

Sherlock shrugs. “The subject never came up.”

John looks at him then, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed in anger, and takes a few deep breaths.  Sherlock, as usual, is right.  It hadn’t come up.  Technically, nothing had come up—absolutely nothing—during the long weeks when Sherlock hadn’t spoken to him at all.  And when he did see him again, Mary’s name was seldom mentioned.  And the truth is, John had been fine with that—and suddenly the anger that had been welling up inside of him moments ago begins to recede, a tired resignation settling in its place, just another ebb and flow of the emotional tide he’s caught in these days.

It’s exhausting.  

Taking a deep breath, he gets to his feet and walks over to the desk by the window, opens the small middle drawer, and begins leafing through the stack of takeaway menus that reside there.

“I was thinking Thai tonight,” John says over his shoulder, holding up a menu from the place that makes the green curry chicken Sherlock never turns down.  “But I could go for Indian if you’d prefer.”

“Actually,” Sherlock says behind him, “I’ve got…plans.”

“You do?” John turns around to look at him.  “A case?”

“Not as such,” Sherlock replies, looking a bit uncomfortable.  “More of a social engagement, arranged weeks ago.  I’m having dinner with...an old friend.”

“Oh,” John says, hoping the surprise he feels isn’t written all over his face.  Or the other feeling, just below it—the one that prowls slowly back and forth with green eyes and bared fangs.  Shaking his head to clear the strange combination of reactions he’s experiencing, he fixes his lips into a smile and gives a small nod.  “Well that’s…good.  I’m on my own tonight, then.  Good.”

Sherlock stares at him where he stands, something curious in his eyes—a question he’d like to ask, perhaps, but hasn’t yet decided if he will—and after a few long moments John begins to fidget under the scrutiny and turns back to the takeaway menus and begins to sort through them.

“I don’t have to go,” Sherlock says, getting up from his chair and coming to stand next to John at the desk.  “If you’d prefer, I’ll cancel my plans and we can—”

“No,” John says, shaking his head and looking at him apologetically.  “Of course not.  You go on, have a nice time.  It’ll be fine, actually.  I’ll watch terrible telly and eat something you hate—maybe I’ll order a pizza.”

Sherlock scowls in distaste and John laughs to see it.

“I won’t be late,” Sherlock tells him, eyeing the shorter man intently until he’s satisfied that John’s not upset with him, then flashing him a small smile before walking down the hall and disappearing into the bathroom.  John hears the squeal of the taps in the shower as he takes the pile of menus over to the couch and dumps them on the coffee table, shuffling through them looking for the one from the pizzeria John had thought made a very good margherita, and that Sherlock had dismissed after only two bites, declaring it to be a “hot circle of melted rubbish”. 

*ping*

John reaches for his mobile, but when he retrieves it from the table next to his chair there are no new messages in his inbox.

*ping*

He looks up and see’s Sherlock’s mobile balanced on the arm of his grey leather chair.  He considers ignoring it, but remembers that Sherlock had mentioned Lestrade might text about the case he’d consulted on earlier that day, and as the concept of privacy and personal space has always been somewhat wooly within the walls of 221B, he leans over and plucks the phone off the chair and taps on the screen. 

A message string titled “Griffin Lestrade” blooms into view (John rolls his eyes and smiles, having long believed that Sherlock’s inability to remember Greg’s name was more of a lark than a failing of memory) and John reads through the texts quickly, just to make sure there’s nothing urgent in the content.  They turn out to be just a confirmation that the suspect was apprehended and an expression of thanks to the detective for his help.  John taps the thread closed, and moves to set the mobile back down where he found it when the name on the thread below it catches his eye:

Mary Watson

Bringing the phone back up to examine it more closely, he sees the notation beside it that indicates when the last text from that party was received: 

Yesterday.

For a moment, John considers not looking.  He imagines himself putting down the phone, walking back to the sofa, and resuming his search through the takeaway menus.  A moment later, he is backing up the few feet to his chair and sitting down, his thumb swiping over his wife’s name and bringing the record of her recent text conversations into view.

(yesterday)

How is he?

He’s well.  –SH

John stares at the exchange, a bit puzzled and essentially nonplussed. He’s not sure what he’d expected to find, but a pleasant (if brief) exchange about his welfare wasn’t it.  He scrolls up.

(two days ago)

We have an appointment with the midwife this week.  Please remind him of it.

You have his number. –SH

(three days ago)

Is he sleeping?

No nightmares that I’ve detected. –SH

And it goes on like that, simple two line conversations, couplets of concern between the woman he left and the man he returned to.  Mary asks after him, Sherlock replies.  One such exchange for each day since he moved back to Baker Street—the night that John had packed his bag and left—when the exchange was somewhat different:

(ten days ago)

We had a deal, Sherlock.

To which I have complied in full. –SH

To the letter perhaps, but not the spirit.

We agreed that I would not contact him. We had no such agreement about how I was to respond in the event that he contacted me. –SH

What a convenient loophole.  Congratulations, then.  You’ve won.

Nobody has won in this scenario. –SH

No?

He’s not a prize in a raffle.  John was never mine to win. –SH

Right. He was mine to lose.

I am sorry. –SH

I don’t believe you.

That’s hardly my problem. –SH

Take care of him.

Of course. –SH

John stares at the phone, eyes fixed on the conversation Mary and Sherlock had on the night he’d seen her in the arms of another man, the night he’d packed his things and left.  He reads the exchange again, then sits and stares at the phone for a very long time, long enough that the screen’s gone to sleep, long enough that the bathroom taps were turned off some time ago, long enough that by the time he hears Sherlock’s footsteps tapping down the hall from his bedroom, through the kitchen, and into the sitting room, the anger that started burning low in his gut when he’d opened that text string has had time to roil itself into a furnace of barely contained fury.

“I’m off,” Sherlock says from his right as he pauses to look at his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace, adjusting some imagined misalignment in the shoulders of his perfectly tailored suit and brushing a presumably errant curl from his forehead and back into its proper position.  He pats his broad palms down the narrow lapels of his suit jacket, then looks down at his chair--then at the table next it, then crouches to peer at the ground below—before looking over at John.

“Have you seen my phone?” He asks, looking around the room quickly.

John raises the hand clenched around the mobile on his lap to chest level silently and waits for Sherlock to notice.

“Ah, there it is,” Sherlock says distractedly, looking again into the mirror and holding out his hand to receive it.  When it becomes clear John isn’t going to give it to him, he cocks his head and looks at him quizzically.  “Problem?”

“What was The Agreement?” John asks, his tone low and dangerous.

“Sorry?” Sherlock says, tilting his head in what John recognises as a very good facsimile of confusion.  It might, no definitely would, work on someone else, but not him.

“The Agreement, Sherlock.” John repeats, emphasising the capital letters in the phrase. “The one you made with my cheating wife?  The one, it would appear, that you broke?”

The feigned look of confusion melts from Sherlock’s face, and in its place there’s a flash of something different—something genuine and raw—just a split second, no more than a moment, where something very much like panic passes over his features before he’s able to compose himself and lock it up behind a cool mask of indifference.

“You read my texts.” Sherlock says haughtily, and John laughs at the indignant note in his voice.

“Oh please,” John sneers.  “Spare me the outrage, Sherlock. If I had a minute for every boundary crossed in this relationship I’d live to be two hundred years old.”

“I suppose you read them all.” Sherlock asks quietly.

“All the important ones, I’d wager,” John confirms.  "Your daily check-ins with Mary about my well being since I moved in, which started the day after you apparently broke whatever deal the two of you made, about me, behind my back.”

John sees it again, that flash of emotion that passes so rapidly over Sherlock’s face that he’s not sure it was ever there to begin with—but not panic, this time.  Something else, something like…relief?  But as quickly as its there, it’s gone—replaced by something equally sincere but more easily defined: Guilt.

“I’ll ask you again,” John says icily.  “What.  Was.  The.  Agreement.”

Something inside Sherlock seems to deflate, his shoulders falling the slightest bit, his chin dipping down from its previously raised position.

“She asked me not to contact you.” Sherlock says quietly.  “After the message from ‘Moriarty’ was transmitted and I was called back from my…mission.”

“And you agreed to this?” John asks him, the anger inside him giving way to a fresh wave of hurt.

“Things between you and Mary had been…difficult, since the incident.” Sherlock begins carefully and John cuts him off before he can continue.

“The incident?” He asks, getting to his feet and facing Sherlock where he stands.  “You mean that time she put a bullet in your chest and then promised to do it again?”

“Yes.” Sherlock answers calmly.  “An action for which you eventually forgave her, as I recall.”

“As I recall it,” John bites out in clipped tones, “You were the one who encouraged me to forgive her in the first place.”

“You loved her,” Sherlock says, one shoulder quirking up in an indifferent shrug—the effect of the gesture lost in conjunction with the sadness etched into his face. 

“God help me, I did.” John's voice breaks a bit before he regains his composure. “And then she shot you, she murdered you and I had to sit there with my hands covered in your blood and watch you die.  Again.”

“I’m right here, John.”  Sherlock tells him.  “She didn’t kill me.”

“Yes she did!” John shouts, and Sherlock startles at the change in volume.  “You died on that table, Sherlock. Your heart stopped beating.  Mary did that.  She saw what your first ‘death’ did to me, and she still shot you.  She ended you, knowing it would end me.  And you sent me back to her!”

“She’s your wife.” Sherlock explains, his voice low and strained.  “And the mother of your child.”

“I know that,” John snaps, fists clenched at his side, his shoulders drawn and tight as he steps toward Sherlock.  “And I tried.  I really did.  I wanted to believe it would be all right, that I could leave the past behind and make a new future with her.  I woke up every day and tried to see the woman I fell in love with, and I went to bed every night and tried to fall asleep next to a stranger.”

“I did what I thought was best, John,” Sherlock says, raising his chin and trying to project confidence in the assertion.  John doesn’t buy it.

“Of course you did.  Because that’s what you always do, Sherlock—you do what you think is best, and damn the consequences.” John stalks another foot closer, his voice steady but thick with emotion.  “You treat me like a pawn in some game you and Mary are playing, the two of you sitting across the table from each other deciding what’s best for me without ever once considering that I might have an opinion on the subject.”

Sherlock looks suddenly stricken, his lips pressed together in a tight line, his eyes averted as a deep crease appears over the bridge of his nose.  John’s seen this same look before—hundreds of times over the years, and knows that Sherlock is weighing all the evidence, putting all the pieces together in his mind, trying to solve the puzzle before him.  After a moment he looks down at the floor, his shoulders curling in a bit, making his tall, powerful frame seem suddenly small and fragile.

“I thought it was what you wanted.” 

“And that’s just it, Sherlock.  It was what you thought I wanted.  But you had no idea what I wanted, because you never asked.”

Sherlock tips his head up, and his gaze flicks over John’s face and then up to meet his eyes.  He looks intently at John for a long moment.

“What do you want, John?”

“What do I want?” John repeats back to him incredulously.

“Yes,” Sherlock nods, his face open and guileless.  “What do you want?”

“I want…” John begins, then shakes his head a bit and looks aimlessly around the room, lets out a frustrated sigh and brings his hands up to his head and pushes his thick fingers through the short sandy hair, then looks back up at Sherlock, staring hard at him for a moment.  “I want…”

John takes a deep breath, drops his hands to his sides—then raises them up, steps towards his best friend, grabs him by the lapels…and crushes their mouths together.

It’s a rough thing, this kiss, this hard press of lips against lips.  It’s an awkward collision of mouths, John pulling Sherlock tight against him, their breath mingling as they stand together, neither of them moving.  After a few seconds, John slowly begins to pull away and for the briefest of moments he feels Sherlock lean forward, following his mouth and maintaining the contact—but when their lips part John steps back, and lets his hands slide from where they’re tangled in Sherlock’s jacket.

John chances a look up at the taller man’s face, sees him staring somewhere over his shoulder with a confused wonder, watches him bring a hand up to his own mouth and run the pads of two long fingers across his lips.  A few seconds later Sherlock sucks in a sudden breath, looks at John’s face, then takes two short steps back then turns and leaves through the sitting room door, grabbing his coat off the hook before fleeing down the stairs.

John stands where he is, rooted to the floor, dazed and wondering what the hell just happened.  After a few long moments he walks slowly to the door, shrugs into his coat, and does what he always does when he has no idea what to do.

He goes for a walk.

Chapter Text

His feet hurt.

There are countless thoughts and realisations tumbling around in John Watson’s brain at the moment.  Hundreds of ideas, disjointed and relevant and somewhere in between, vying for his conscious mind’s attention as his feet pound against the cold pavement in a steady rhythm that’s not let up for the better part of two hours now.  And yet, among them all—scattered between the constant refrain of what have I done and where did that come from and I’m not gay and I’ve ruined everything and Jesus it’s cold and what the hell I do I do now and we’ve run out of milk and I kissed Sherlock that hasn’t let up since he walked down the stairs and locked the door behind him—the one screaming the loudest at this very second is:

Damn, my feet are killing me.

It’s no wonder, really.

His worn leather lace-ups are just fine for everyday wear, for a shift at the clinic and the walk to and from the tube, for a casual dinner out and a leisurely postprandial stroll, for a quick trip to Tesco, or a run down to Ming’s to pick up the crispy spring rolls that Sherlock gobbles down with such enthusiasm that sometimes John eats one on the walk home just to be sure he gets one at all.  They’re good shoes, footwear that is serviceable if not terribly stylish.  They simply weren’t designed for prolonged periods of walking at a punishing pace, the likes of which John has been subjecting them to during this most recent (of many) circuits of the park.

When he’d left the flat earlier, it wasn’t with a particular destination in mind, but as soon as his feet had hit the pavement they set about carrying him here.  He’s walked every path, knows every fountain and signpost and soft grassy knoll.  He’s watched trees grow taller, seen old ones felled, nodded in greeting to faces that are familiar even if their names are unknown to him. He knows that just around this curve there’s a bench by the path that overlooks the lake, and he sits down on it now, a soft sigh of relief escaping his lips as his tired feet are given respite.

Over the years Regent’s Park has welcomed him on countless occasions when he’d needed to be away from 221B, driven from the flat by boredom or restlessness or cloying summer heat.  Or by Sherlock, more likely—by the fumes from an experiment gone wrong, by carelessly cruel words thrown his way in a strop, by the deafening quiet of his absence after he threw himself from a rooftop, by pitying looks and careful silences as John cared for him while he recovered from the bullet wound that nearly killed him—and now by the confusion he’d seen in his friend’s face just before Sherlock ran out of the room moments after John had kissed him.

Oh shit.  John thinks, rubbing a palm over his face.

I kissed Sherlock.

He hadn’t been planning to.  It wasn’t as though it was on his list of activities for the evening.

1.  Order a pizza

2.  Maybe do a bit of reading.

3.  Catch up on Breaking Bad

4. Get into a row with Sherlock and then snog him in the middle of the sitting room.

He’d just been so angry with the man—so incensed by what he’d read in that exchange between Sherlock and Mary, so furious at the way they’d agreed to change the course of his life (again) without bothering to consult him on the matter—that he’d actually been set to punch him.  He’d stalked toward him with a fist clenched at his side, just waiting for that smug little grin to appear as the infuriating twat justified his actions…but it hadn’t come.

Instead, Sherlock had braved his anger, and with each wave of it John sent his way he stood there taking it, absorbing it, practically shrinking under the weight of it.  And when at last Sherlock, who seemed smaller somehow in his confusion, had finally asked John what he wanted, John wasn’t thinking about clever responses or teaching opportunities or bloodying that ridiculous cupid’s bow of a mouth with his fist any more.  He wasn’t thinking at all.

He kissed him.

It was hardly a fairytale moment.  There were no trumpets, no choirs of angels, no heavenly light shining brightly down from above.  It wasn’t transcendent, or miraculous, or heated, or intense.  It was awkward and surprising and presumptuous—and the truth is that no matter what else it was, however John might feel about it when he replays the moment or if he lets himself think about it any longer—there’s one thing he’s certain of:

It was a mistake.

It was.  Of course it was.  It must have been.  If the lack of response from Sherlock in the moment hadn’t confirmed it, the way he’d fled down the stairs without a single word seconds later certainly did.   

John heaves out a long sigh, leans forward and rests his elbows on his thighs as he covers his face with cold hands and tries not to think about the look of shock on Sherlock’s face, the way he’d pressed his fingers to his mouth then wiped them over the lips John had just kissed, then literally run from the room.

It’s been a hell of a few weeks in John Watson’s life.  He’s left a wife, ended a marriage, resigned himself to being a part-time parent. The life he thought he’d be living is lost to him.

He can’t lose Sherlock too.

Rubbing his hands roughly over his face he takes a deep breath, shakes his head a bit to clear it, then gets to his feet.

He’ll go home and apologise.  He’ll tell Sherlock that it’s been a very long few weeks and that he doesn’t know what got into him and ask if he’d mind very much deleting the whole thing.

Sherlock can do that, he knows.  He can erase that moment and those leading up to it and forget the whole mess, go on with life as though nothing happened at all.

John doesn’t know how to do that.

But he’ll try.

---------------------

As his tired footsteps drag along the pavement, John stares down Baker Street towards the stoop of 221.  Glancing up he sees that the sitting room windows are dark, and he tries to remember if the lamp had been on when he left.

If it was, then it’s possible that Sherlock turned it off when he returned from his mysterious dinner date and retired to his room.  If it wasn’t, then Sherlock isn’t home yet.  John will have to apologise either way, and whether he knocks on Sherlock’s bedroom door or waits until he comes home to do it doesn’t much matter.

Sliding his key into the lock, he opens the door and stands for a minute in the hall.  It’s quiet, no stomping footsteps or soaring violin melodies drift down the stairs as he makes his way up the seventeen steps to the open living-room door.  He sheds his coat in the dark, hangs it easily on the hook he always uses, noting that the one beside it is empty when his fingers brush against cool wallpaper and not the soft scratch of the Belstaff’s textured wool where it normally hangs.  With a sigh he moves to his right and walks toward the kitchen.

“Hello, Dr. Watson.”

John freezes at the greeting, and the tiniest arachnid footfall on a slender string of silk in the part of his brain that has carefully catalogued every danger he’s ever faced sets the entire web vibrating though his skull until he thinks his teeth might shake loose from it.  Turning slowly toward the source of the voice, the ambient light from the street outlines slender shoulders, sharp cheekbones, dark glossy hair pulled up and back.  He reaches out his (perfectly steady) left hand and flips the switch on the wall and the lamp beside the couch throws its golden glow across the floor and onto the toe of a perilously high heeled black shoe dangling precariously from the end of a shapely, elegantly crossed leg.  John stares at the person sitting in Sherlock’s chair by the fire, his gaze resting on the wide eyes, sharp features, and thin smile of Irene Adler.

They stare at each other for a long moment, neither of them moving.

“You’re dead,” he says flatly.

“Apparently not.”

“You died,” John insists.  “Beheaded, Mycroft said.  Years ago.”

“And yet,” she says, narrowing her eyes and smiling coquettishly, “Here we are.  Again.”

“Does he know you’re alive?” John asks tightly.

“I should hope so,” The Woman replies with a smile.  “We had dinner earlier tonight.”

Let's have dinner, John thinks with a sinking feeling in his stomach.  Of course.

“Oh don’t be like that, Doctor,” Irene coos, effortlessly reading the expression on his face and looking smug.  “It was an innocent affair involving plates and forks and glasses of wine.  Disappointingly literal, I’m afraid.  His virtue remains intact, I assure you.”

If a wave of relief washes through John just then, he’s not about to admit it. "Good to know.”

“Isn’t it?” Irene narrows her eyes and examines him shrewdly.  “I thought you’d be more relieved.”

“Who Sherlock chooses to…dine with, is none of my business.”

“Oh, I think it is, Doctor.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

“Very impressive, John,”  she says with a smile.  “You’re a much better liar than you were when we last met.”

“Where’s Sherlock?” John asks through clenched teeth.

“No idea.  After we said our goodbyes at the restaurant he didn’t tell me where he was off to.” She looks at him knowingly.  “I assume he’s gone out for a walk, or however one might describe the act of wandering aimlessly through the city while brooding dramatically.”

John huffs out a short laugh in spite of himself, then looks back down at her.

“And how did you get in here, exactly?” he asks.

“Single lock on the door, not exactly Fort Knox. Hardly difficult to procure a key if you know who to ask.”

“And I’m sure you know a good locksmith.”

“I know what he likes,” Irene confirms with a sly smile.

“Okay,” he says, regarding her where she sits.  “And now you’re, what, just waiting here, in the dark, for Sherlock to get home?”

“Of course not,” she says, waving a perfectly manicured hand dismissively in his direction.  “I was waiting for you.”

“Come to take me to ‘dinner’ as well?”

“Why?” White teeth catch against her bottom lip as she leans forward and regards him with a smoky stare.  “Are you hungry, Dr. Watson.”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“Yes,” she says quickly, raising an eyebrow meaningfully.  “So I’ve heard.”

He told her, John thinks with a bit of alarm. About earlier.

“Don’t worry, Doctor,” Irene says, her tone soothing.  “Sherlock’s not the type to kiss and tell.  He didn’t give up the information willingly.”

“Whipped it out of him, did you?”

Her laugh is girlish, high and melodic as it rings from the long throat exposed as she throws her head back to release it, then flashes him a grin. “I’ve missed you."

“Can’t say the same, I’m afraid,” John replies coolly.

“No, I’m sure not.” Irene flashes him a sly wink, then tilts her head and considers him.  “In any event, as I’ve come all this way just to speak to you the very least you could do is have a seat and listen to what I have to say.”

She gestures to the chair across from her, to John’s chair, as though the invitation to sit in it is in any way hers to extend.  He glares at her icily, left hand clenching and unclenching rhythmically at his side.  He looks her in the eye, his gaze hard and authoritative, his very best Captain Watson stare doing nothing to intimidate the smugly expectant look she returns.  After a long moment he huffs out a breath through his nose and marches over to his chair and sits down.

“So,” she says, clapping her small hands together and settling them into her lap.  “Would you like to tell me what happened?”

“Not particularly.”

“Might be nice to tell your side of the story.”

“To you? I don’t think so.”

“Come now, John,” she admonishes.  “We’re on the same side, you and I.”

John fixes her with a skeptical gaze. “Oh, I doubt that very much. And anyway, I’m sure Sherlock told you all you need to know.”

“If it makes you feel any better, he didn’t want to tell me either,” Irene offers pleasantly.  “And I can be very persuasive, as you know.”

John’s jaw clenches but he remains silent, refusing to rise to the bait.

“But as it turns out, deduction isn’t a skill unique to our favorite consulting detective, and despite his less than forthcoming attitude it wasn’t a terribly difficult puzzle to piece together," she continues. "He must have made you very angry.”

John sighs. “He always makes me angry."

“Lovely set of lips on the man of course, you’ll get no argument from me on that front. I imagine you’ve punched them a time or two—but kissed them?  That’s something new.  Tell me Dr. Watson, was it everything you dreamed it would be?”

“Not exactly,” John admits without thinking, the look of surprise on Irene’s face that he answered at all mirroring the similar look on his own.

“I gathered as much, from the look on your face when you came in,” Irene says with a knowing glance. “I spent an entire meal staring over the table at the exact same expression earlier tonight.  Care to elaborate?”

John rubs his hand over his face and sighs heavily. “Not really.”

“Fair enough,” she concedes with a nod.  “Disappointing kisses make for very boring stories. And anyway, I’m not here to talk about what happened.  I’m here to talk about what happens next.”

“Which is?” John inquires, his curiosity overriding his instinct to remove himself from this conversation all together.

“I believe that’s very much up to you,” Irene says, crossing her arms and regarding him with an open gaze.

John looks at her for a moment before huffing out an incredulous laugh. “Nothing is up to me.”

“Isn’t it?” The Woman asks, raising a brow sceptically.

“No.” John shakes his head, a bitter edge creeping into his voice. “It never is, where Sherlock’s concerned.  My wife either, for that matter.  Sherlock decides I’d be better off if he faked his death and ran off for two years.  Mary decides Sherlock’s a threat and puts a bullet in his chest. Sherlock decides I’d be happier married to the woman who damn near killed him, and openly murders a man to make it happen.  Mary decides I’d be better off without Sherlock in my life, and Sherlock decides she’s right. That’s how it works: They decide, and I get to live with the consequences.”

“Self-pity, John?” she says, clucking her tongue patronisingly while shaking her perfectly coiffed head.  “Not a terribly attractive look on you, I’m afraid.  I really did think better of you.”

“I don’t give a damn what you think,” John says, a twinge of anger coloring his conversational tone.

“Perhaps not,” Irene replies, studying him carefully before leaning forward and looking him directly in the eye.  “But as we’re both here and I’ve come all this way, I’ll think I’ll tell you anyway.”

“Of course you will,” John says with a roll of his eyes, extending an arm and waving it grandly in invitation. “Go ahead.  I’m all ears.”

“For starters, I think you’d do well to be very careful in comparing Sherlock to your estranged wife,” she begins, her tone tipping from playful to something more serious.  “True, they’ve both made…questionable decisions where you’re concerned, but it may be wise to dwell a bit less on the choices they made and focus a bit more on why they made them.”

“Because they’re control freaks who think they know best and don’t give a damn if what they do happens to destroy me?”

Irene looks at him then, crosses her arms over her chest and examines him with narrowed eyes full of something that John can’t quite name—a warmth that takes him by surprise, and the chip on his shoulder feels a bit less heavy all of a sudden.

“That’s where you’re wrong, I’m afraid,” Irene says, her tone soft and a bit tired.  “They’re nothing alike.  Sherlock has made difficult, sometimes terrible decisions where you are concerned, often at great personal risk—peril even—to himself.  He’s died for you.  He’s killed for you.  And why did he do those things?  To keep you safe, John.  To keep you alive.  To keep you happy, no matter the cost.  But Mary?  The things she’s done, the decisions she’s made?  She did those things to keep you.  Full stop.  Think whatever you’d like about the consequences, but don’t believe for a moment that their motivations were ever remotely the same.”

John stares hard at her then, the gravity of her words sinking in as his lungs begin to burn with the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and a moment later he’s huffing out a long breath and taking another shakily in. His eyes flit away from Irene’s cool stare, landing on the ground before him, somewhere between their feet.

“Now,” Irene continues, taking a deep breath herself, and running her hands neatly over lines of her crisp black evening dress, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from the fabric. “At some point tonight Sherlock is going to walk back through that door, and you’re going to have a decision to make.  You can apologise for your actions, tell him that it’s been a very emotional time for you and you acted rashly and that you’d like it very much if you could just forget the entire incident and go right back to the way things have always been.”

“Or?” John asks quietly, his eyes still on the floor.

“Or…you can apologise for your actions, tell him that it’s been a very emotional time for you and you acted rashly, and you’d like very much if he’d forget the entire incident and give you the chance to kiss him properly.”

John quirks a small smile at the floor, the memory of awkwardly kissing Sherlock just a few feet away from where he’s sitting causing him to blush with embarrassment, cheeks flushing as he shakes his head sadly. “What if it isn’t my decision to make?”

“Of course it is,” Irene says dismissively.

“You weren’t here earlier,” John reminds her, looking up and around the room and toward the door.  “You didn’t see his face.  He wouldn’t even look at me, ran out without saying a word.  He couldn’t get away fast enough. ”

“I imagine he was a bit overwhelmed,” Irene tells him.  “It’s not every day that you get the very thing you’ve always wanted, after all.”

“You think he wanted me to kiss him?”

“More than anything,” Irene confirms with a nod.

“Could’ve fooled me,” John huffs.

“Of course he could have,” Irene agrees.  “He’s been doing it for years.”

He laughs.  In spite of himself.  Again. Shaking his head against the absurdity of the situation, he exhales slowly through pursed lips before replying.

“If it’s really what he wants,” he says finally, a bit of uncertainty in his voice, “why did he run off like that?”

“Because he’s afraid,” Irene says simply.  “Afraid he’s revealed too much, afraid you don’t feel the same way.  Afraid he’ll lose you.  And Sherlock isn’t afraid of anything.”

“Does that make me special?” John asks lightly.

“Very.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Yes,” Irene replies matter-of-factly, smiling at the look of surprise that flashes over John’s face before he can stop it.

His brow knits in confusion. “Then why are you doing this?”

“Because we can’t help who we love, John,” she says softly, something like sadness coloring her voice as she looks at him.  “And neither can Sherlock.”

She looks at him for a moment longer, then nods once and gets to her feet while reaching for the long Alexander McQueen coat draped carelessly over the back of the chair she’s just vacated and slipping her arms into it.

“Well, I’d better be off,” she announces, fastening her coat buttons. “Lovely catching up with you, Doctor.  And do think about what I said.”

“What should I do?” he asks, hating the uncertainty in his voice even as he looks to her for an answer.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” Irene says, wrapping a thin scarf around her neck and tucking the ends under the collar of her coat before looking down at him intently.  “Weren’t you just lamenting that no one ever lets you decide anything for yourself?  Well this decision is all yours to make.  But whatever you decide, do it quickly.  Tonight.  Don’t put it off another moment.”

With a nod, she pivots and saunters towards the stairs.

“So this is why you came?” John asks, turning in his chair to watch her as she walks away. “To tell me that I’ve got a very big decision to make—and that I’ve got to make it right now?”

“Yes,” she answers, sliding sleek leather gloves over her delicate fingers.

“Or what?” John challenges, his voice a bit desperate.  “Or I’ll miss my chance?  Better hurry, because he won’t wait on me forever?”

Irene pauses at the door, lays one hand gently on the frame and turns her head to look back over her shoulder at him, her eyes soft around the edges but pointed in their stare.

“No, John.  Don’t hurry because he won’t wait forever,” she tells him, with a slight shake of her head.  “Hurry because he will.”

And with that, she’s gone.

---------------------

John’s not sure how long ago The Woman left.

Part of him is sceptical that she’d been there at all.

It has, after all, been a very strange night—and it’s entirely possible he’s lost his mind, his brain inventing an imaginary conversation with a (not at all, it would seem) dead woman as a method to cope with what happened earlier, when a heated row with Sherlock took an unexpected turn there at the end.

It was unexpected, wasn’t it?

As surprised as Sherlock looked, and as surprised as John himself was in the wake of it, he doubts there are many who would have been shocked in the least to see him standing in the sitting room of 221B snogging Sherlock Holmes.  Half of London thinks they’re shagging, and have for years.  Even after he’d gone to all the trouble to get married (to a woman) it hadn’t stopped the knowing glances and nods and smug smiles of not only complete strangers but people they’ve known for years.  From their friends, even.  He used to wonder what they all saw that he didn’t.

It used to bother him, but it doesn’t any more.  Hasn’t in a very long time.

There had been moments, of course.  Small snippets of time, long ago, when he’d…wondered.

The press of a large palm at the small of his back as they walked, a casual brush of fingers over a slim shoulder as John passed behind his chair in the kitchen, the occasional glance after a breathless chase that lasted a beat longer than it should have—a low spark arcing between them, gone as quickly as it came.  And then Sherlock was dead…gone from his life.  And if the hole his absence left in John was deeper than any that just a friend  should leave, he tried not to think about it—eventually vowing not to spend even one more sleepless night missing him and wondering what might have been.  And then one day, Sherlock was back—and it was a miracle, but by that time there was Mary and then the baby, and not even a bullet nearly taking him away from John again could change the way things were.  The way they had to be…and yet here they are.

Maybe they were always going to end up here.

John takes a deep breath, and pulls his mobile out of his pocket and checks the time.  It’s nearly midnight now, and Sherlock’s still not home.  Without giving himself time to decide against it, he opens up the messaging app, taps out a text and hits send.

*ping*

John looks up in surprise, at the table just to his right where Sherlock’s phone sits—exactly where John had set it down before he’d stalked across the room to shout at Sherlock about what he’d seen on it earlier tonight.  He tamps down the panic that rises in him at the idea of Sherlock being out and about God knows where without his mobile, and reminds himself that Sherlock is a grown man and perfectly capable of functioning without his phone for one evening.  Then he tries to remember that last time Sherlock had gone anywhere without his phone and the panic returns in force.

Irene was right about one thing, he thinks.  Sherlock must have been in quite a state to run out of here without even stopping to grab his mobile.  John picks up the forgotten phone, his own text message lighting up the screen:

Are you coming home soon?

It’s probably just as well, John thinks to himself, heaving out a sigh. This damn phone is what had started the whole mess in the first place.

Tapping the text message closed, he sees his name now at the top of the list of recent text strings, followed by Lestrade’s, and underneath his—Mary’s.  He slides his thumb over her name, and the texts he’d read earlier bloom back into view.  Thumbing over the display to scroll back through the exchange that had started the fight that devolved into that fateful kiss, the pad of John’s thumb slides up over the scroll area, and when he tries to correct his grasp there’s a flurry of activity on the screen and he finds himself at the top of the messaging thread and the date of the first text on the screen is weeks—months, really—before the one where Mary had accused Sherlock of breaking The Agreement.  John stares at the date for a long moment.  It’s one he recognizes easily.  He remembers exactly where he was that day.

Standing on a windy tarmac with his best friend, staring at each other with their stiff upper lips, laughing at an ill-timed joke, clasping hands and saying goodbye and then watching a plane fly off into the blue sky…and watching it turn around just minutes later and prepare for landing.

He remembers wondering what had changed, recalls Mary reaching for her mobile and discovering the mass transmitted message of Moriarty’s face, vaguely remembers her tapping away on her phone next to him as Sherlock’s plane prepared to land, and recalls with aching clarity watching Sherlock walk down the narrow stairs and over to Mycroft’s waiting car without even a glance in John’s direction.  Driving back to their house in Chingford, Mary had kept her nose in her phone for the first part of the drive—reading what the world was saying about the mysterious video that had been broadcast to all of England.

At least that’s what he assumed she’d been doing.  Looking down at the mobile in his hand, John stares again at the date on the message, and begins to read:

Back so soon?

You don’t sound pleased. –SH

Was this your doing?

I assure you it was not.  –SH

It is convenient, though.  Dramatic, even.  An eleventh hour reprieve, a triumphant return.

Far sooner than expected. –SH

Oh please, Sherlock.  We both know you were never coming back.

Did John know? –SH

Of course not. He bought the ‘six month mission’ line.

Immaterial now. –SH

Is it?

Obviously. –SH

He has a family, Sherlock.  A wife, and a child on the way.  He can have a normal life.

Thanks in no small part to me. –SH

That was your choice, Sherlock.  And he’s made his.

Has he? –SH

I suppose that’s up to you.

What do you want, Mary? –SH

Six months.  Don’t contact him.

Why would I agree to that? —SH

Because you know you can never have what you want.

I want him to be happy. –SH

Then prove it.  Give us this chance.  Stay gone.

Take care of him. –SH

Of course.

And there it is.  The Agreement.  The moment his wife had asked Sherlock to stay away from him, telling Sherlock that he could never have what he wanted, that John would be happier without him.  The moment she realized that keeping John meant keeping Sherlock away from him.  And Sherlock had agreed…because he wanted John to be happy.

A familiar wave of anger begins to flicker deep in John’s gut, but it’s not the same one that flared earlier. The text just below that initial conversation is time stamped the next day, in the early hours of the morning:

He asked how he could help.  I told him to stay at home and take care of his family. –SH

Thank you.

John remembers that night, texting Sherlock when he hadn’t called in the long hours before, asking what he should do, practically begging to be included and being told to stay where he was—and things suddenly begin to make sense.  He’d thought Sherlock was angry with him, that he didn’t trust him.

John scrolls down and is surprised to find that while Sherlock hadn’t been contacting him, he had been in touch with Mary.  Regularly.

(one week later)

How is he? –SH

He’s coping.

John thinks back on those first days after Sherlock had stopped contacting him—at how miserable he’d been.  Sherlock had been asking after him, and Mary had been less than truthful in her reply.  For his own good, no doubt.

(two weeks later)

Nightmares? –SH

A few.

John huffs out a mirthless laugh at that.  A few? Try every night

He looks over each communication that follows, the questions and answers that come in pairs, weekly expressions of Sherlock’s concern and Mary’s determination to assuage it:

(three weeks later)

He’s doing well? –SH

Better every day.

(four weeks later)

He’s in good health? –SH

Very. 

(five weeks later)

Is he still angry with me? –SH

He doesn’t mention you at all.

(six weeks later)

Is he happy?—SH

He will be.

I’m not so sure. –SH

I am.

John remembers those six weeks vividly, how he got up each day and smiled and went to work and kissed his wife and painted the nursery and only checked his phone when he was alone so that no one else would see the disappointment etched into every line on his face—how happy he’d been when Sherlock had finally contacted him…and how crushed he’d been when he didn’t do so again.

Until the day he simply couldn’t wait anymore.  The day that Mary had gone out, and he’d tried to get comfortable in that godforsaken mountain of a chair and he couldn’t take the silence for even one minute more.  He’d broken down and sent a text to Sherlock, just two words: Anything on?, and hoped that his friend—his best friend—would read it for the desperate plea it was and say something.  Anything.  And when the response came from a runway in Minsk, the disappointment John felt at the distance between them was drowned out by the relief he’d experienced that Sherlock had responded at all.  He’d been able to breathe again, to relax a bit, to hope.

He looks at the next message on Sherlock’s phone, just four short lines, this last set of texts dated two weeks before the exchange from ten days ago.  John pulls out his own phone and confirms that the date is the same one that he’d sent that tentative first text reaching out to Sherlock and breaking the silence.  

Shortly after Sherlock had replied to him, he’d apparently texted Mary:

How is he?  The truth. –SH

He’s fine.

I don’t believe you. –SH

And with that, it would seem, The Agreement was forgotten.

John puts the phone aside, slips his own back into his pocket, presses his fingertips to his forehead, and thinks.  He doesn’t think about the kiss, or the awkward moments after it, or the hours he spent walking, or what he just read on Sherlock’s phone.

Of the seemingly endless jumble of thoughts that are tumbling through his mind, one keeps bobbing to the surface and presenting itself for study, refusing to be ignored. A few short words in the melodic voice of a person he never could have guessed would say the one thing John most needed to hear:

He’s died for you.  He’s killed for you.  And why did he do those things?  To keep you safe, John.  To keep you alive.  To keep you happy, no matter the cost.

Earlier tonight he had no idea what had happened or what he was going to do about it.

He knows now.

---------------------

John’s sitting on the couch when he hears the key slide into the lock, having moved there half an hour ago for its better view of the door.  He sits up a bit straighter, listens to the tap of familiar footsteps as they slowly climb the stairs, counting as they ascend…

15…16…17…

…and holds his breath as Sherlock walks slowly through the door.

He looks tired, and cold, cheeks flushed and curls blown about into a wild halo around his long face.   He regards John with an even expression, a slight upward tilt of his chin and a cool detachment that John can’t help notice doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“John.” He says stiffly, with a perfunctory nod.

John smiles.

“Sherlock,” He says softly.  “I’m glad you’re home.”

Sherlock looks at him for a long moment, his carefully impassive expression slipping a bit at the warmth in John’s voice, and he tilts his head fractionally, waiting for him to continue.

And John, after taking a deep breath, does.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he begins, “it’s been a very emotional time for me lately, and I acted rashly, and I’d like very much if—”

“No apologies necessary, John,” Sherlock interrupts, his chin tilting back up and his mask of indifference settling back over his sharp features.  “Perfectly understandable, really, we’ll simply forget the whole affair.”

“Yeah,” John says with a sigh, “I’m not sure that’s possible, Sherlock, you see I’ve been thinking and—”

“Of course it’s possible.” Sherlock waves dismissively, pulling off his coat and hanging it on its hook by the door. “I’ll simply delete it.  It will be as though it never happened.”

“But it did happen, Sherlock," John says, getting to his feet and facing Sherlock where he stands across the room beside the door.  “I can’t delete it.”

“It’s a fairly simple process,” Sherlock continues breezily. “I’d be happy to share my methods with you if you’d like—”

“No, Sherlock,” John says, huffing out an exasperated sigh, smiling slightly as Sherlock looks at him, confusion cutting a deep furrow above the bridge of his nose.  “I can’t delete it, because I don’t want to.”

Sherlock’s expression changes slightly then, confusion giving way to shock, morphing back into confusion—but a softer version of it this time, paired with a sudden flash of fear through his liquid blue-grey eyes.  It all happens so fast, and the sum total of all those emotions leaves Sherlock’s face smooth and open, looking suddenly and impossibly young.

John smiles at him then, shaking his head slightly and taking in a deep breath before he speaks.

“I’ve been thinking all night of what would happen when I saw you next, trying to decide what it was I wanted to say, and it took me a while but I think I’ve finally worked it out.”

He squares his shoulders and takes a step forward.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you, Sherlock.  Something I should have said a long time ago.  I always meant to say it, but it just never seemed to be the right time.  I’ve thought it a thousand times, and tonight I realized that I couldn’t wait any longer to say it out loud.  I’m ready now.  So here goes.”

John looks down at the floor, takes a deep breath, then raises his head to meet Sherlock’s hopeful gaze and says:

“Thank you.”

There’s a quick flash of confusion in Sherlock’s expression, as though that’s not at all what he’d been expecting John to say, and he tilts his head slightly as he watches John take another step toward him.

“You jumped off a building to save me, spent two years of your life in a lonely battle to remove any remaining threat to the people you love,” John tells him, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. “And when it was finally safe for you to come home, I was so angry that instead of thanking you, I hit you.  I’m sorry, Sherlock.  Sorry for raising my hands to you, sorry for taking so long to forgive you, sorry for not saying what I should have the moment you came home: Thank you.”

Watching as Sherlock’s expression softens by few degrees, John takes another step forward.

“And then you were home, I was with Mary—and instead of running her off like you’d done so many times before, you saw that I was happy and you accepted it, accepted her, stood beside me as I married her.  I didn’t realise how difficult that must have been for you at the time.  But I know now, Sherlock. Thank you.”

He takes another step, just an arm’s length away now, looks up into eyes that have grown soft in their expression and creased at the corners.

“And when she hurt you,” John says, his voice breaking slightly, “when she nearly killed you to protect her secret?  You could have destroyed her, but instead you forgave her, and you did it so that I could forgive her too.  You shot a man to protect my happiness, and condemned yourself in the process—you sacrificed so much for me, and I never once told you how grateful I was. Thank you.”

With another careful step forward, barely a foot between them now, John looks up at the man staring back at him and slowly raises an arm to press his palm against a pale cheek, the pad of one tanned thumb swiping gently over the sharp cheekbone beneath it.

“And when that same woman asked you not to contact me, told you I’d be better off without you and that my best chance for happiness was for you to disappear—you agreed to stay away, to give up what you wanted if it meant that I’d be better off for it.  Thank you, Sherlock.” John exhales shakily, bringing his other hand up to cradle Sherlock’s face between both of his.

Sherlock stares down at him, his eyes wide, his gaze brimming with a heartbreaking combination of despair and fear, and John aches to see it—amazed that the man is still unsure of John’s intentions even when they are this close.

“And tonight, after everything that’s happened and everything I’ve just said—you’d still walk away, if that’s what you thought I wanted.  You’d do that for me, if I asked.  Wouldn’t you?”

Sherlock looks a bit stricken, his eyes flicking away from John’s as he nods his head slowly in John’s grip.

“I know you would,” John says, a sad smile playing on his lips.  “So I’m asking you now, Sherlock: Don’t do that.”

Sherlock’s eyes snap back down to meet John’s, his head tilting slightly between the strong hands that hold his face.  He sucks in a quick breath between parted lips and the fear in his eyes slips away and is replaced by something new—hope.

“I’d very much like to kiss you again,” John says.  “Will you let me?”

Sherlock nods once, and when John’s face stretches into a broad grin Sherlock’s positively lights up with an answering one.

“Thank you, Sherlock.”

“You’re welcome, John.” Sherlock whispers, taking one step forward and closing the space between them.

John presses up on his toes, and Sherlock lowers his head to meet him.

It is not a fairytale moment.  There are no trumpets, no choirs of angels, no heavenly light shining brightly down from above.  It isn’t transcendent, or miraculous, or heated, or intense.  There are a thousand things it isn’t.  But in the end, for John, none of those things compare to what it is.

It’s a deliberate press of lips (soft), and a slight scrape of stubble (new), and a brief clash of teeth (ouch), and a body pulled against him (warm), and the beat of his heart (loud), and a puff of breath from Sherlock’s mouth (sweet), and a long sigh from his own (quiet).  

It’s gentle, and earnest, and hopeful, and sincere—and long, long overdue.

It’s perfect.

Chapter Text

Sherlock Holmes snores.

John isn’t sure why he didn’t know this before.  This is hardly the first time he and Sherlock have slept in the same room, after all.  It’s not even the first time they’ve shared a bed.  Forehead wrinkled in thought, John mentally ticks off the nights he’s spent tucked into the single bed of a hastily procured hotel room in some remote part of the country when the weather or the time of day or the lack of progress on whatever case they’ve been chasing half way across Britain had forced them to find accommodation for the evening. He counts seven before he decides the exact number isn’t terribly important, remembers how his eyelids grew heavy each time watching Sherlock pace the floor before John finally succumbed to sleep—only to wake up to either a fully clothed man starfished across the bed next to (or damn near on top of, to be more accurate) him, or a fully clothed man staring expectantly at him moments after loudly insisting that he wake up immediately so that they could get on with their day.

So if John didn’t know that he snored, it’s only because he’s never actually witnessed Sherlock grow drowsy, never seen his eyelids give up the fight to remain open and flutter softly closed, never felt the tension drain out of the muscles stretched over his wiry frame as exhaustion washed over him until he heaved a last long sigh of wakefulness before sleep finally took him. 

Not until tonight, anyway.

He’d seen the entire progression as it unfolded a few hours earlier, watched it all happen in the dim light from the kitchen that spills down the hall and through the open bedroom door. 

He’s been watching him ever since.

He spent the first hour with his lips pressed softly into the riot of curls attached to the head tucked firmly into the space where his neck meets his shoulder, fingertips rubbing slow circles into the soft, pale skin on the back of Sherlock’s neck—and held his breath in preparation for the panic he was sure would be setting in directly.  Soon, surely.   Any minute now…

And it never came.

So he spent the next hour replaying exactly how he’d ended up in Sherlock’s bed with six feet of naked consulting detective pressed up against him and snoring softly into his neck to begin with.  Not that it took a whole hour, mind you.  It had all happened so fast that he had plenty of time to relive the sequence of events multiple times over the sixty minutes he replayed them in his mind:

The first time he kissed Sherlock it had been an unmitigated disaster.

The second time he kissed him, it had been something else entirely.

He’d thought it would be different, kissing a man.  And to be honest, it was. A bit.  Interestingly it wasn’t the feel of broad shoulders beneath his palms as he slipped his fingers under the collar of Sherlock’s suit jacket, or the wide expanse of a flat, muscled chest pressed tightly against his own, or even the scrape of stubble against tender skin as he sucked gently on Sherlock’s full bottom lip.  It was the fact that he had to stretch up to reach that mouth, that he had to cling to those shoulders and allow the large hand splayed over the small of his back to steady him as he balanced on the tips of his toes while long, strong arms held him in place that left John in no doubt about just who he was kissing.

Or who was kissing him back.

He doesn’t know how long they stood there, lips pressing and tongues tasting and hands grasping and sliding and knotting into fabric.  After what felt like a very long time, he’d slid his lips wetly across Sherlock’s jaw, rubbed his palms up that long, creamy column of a neck, pushed his short fingers gently into the mahogany curls, then pressed his forehead to his best friend’s and slowly lowered his heels back down to the floor.  Sherlock dropped his head to follow the movement, his hands sliding down John’s sides, long fingers slipping beneath the hem of his jumper to rub against the warm skin at his waist before coming to rest on strong, slim hips. 

He doesn’t know who took the first step, who took whose hand to lead the way down the short hall to Sherlock’s room, or even whether they’d each pulled off their own clothes between breathless kisses or divested each other of them.  One minute John was standing in the darkened bedroom fully dressed at the edge of the bed, and the next his bare skin was sliding against posh sheets with miles of naked Sherlock hovering over him, a long, muscled arm planted on either side of his ribs against the mattress. 

John remembers sliding his palms up that strong, slim chest—the tremor that shot through the man above him as his calloused fingers brushed lightly over small, taut nipples on their way to hold Sherlock’s face in his hands.  He recalls with perfect clarity the look of wonder in Sherlock’s eyes as he smiled at him before arching up to plant a kiss on those perfect lips.  Sherlock had dropped down onto his elbows, hands sliding under John’s biceps and then back up to hook around his shoulders as John’s thighs fell open to form a cradle for Sherlock’s hips between them, the hard cock lying up against John’s belly slotted perfectly next to an answering hardness from the man above him.

After that, it was all a bit of a blur. 

There were gasps, and moans, and sighs—and despite the unfamiliar territory, John’s body seemed to know exactly what to do.  There was sweat and salt and friction and rolling hips and desperate kisses and hitching breaths and the sweetest, most desperately gorgeous sound John had ever heard as Sherlock stiffened above him and came in the hot, humid space between their bellies with a sudden, slick rush—soon followed by sounds that John later realised had come from his own lips when his orgasm rushed over him moments later, wave after wave of pleasure coursing through him as his cock spurted between them, followed by a series of small aftershocks that he rode out as he clung desperately to the shoulders of the trembling man in his arms.

When at last he’d caught his breath and finally opened his eyes, he saw Sherlock staring down at him, his eyes wide and watchful in the darkness as he examined John with an intensity that he could feel against his skin, as tangible as any touch. 

Struggling to even out his breathing, John looked up at his best friend, top teeth worrying nervously against the kiss-swollen skin of his lower lip.

“Well,” John had said breathlessly, “That was…something.”

“Very articulate analysis.” Sherlock replied, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a slight grin.

“Cut me a bit of slack, would you?” John panted, “My brain isn’t back on line yet.  That all happened pretty fast.”

The immediate change in Sherlock’s face, the self-conscious shift of his eyes away from John’s and the furrow that appeared between his brows was John’s first clue that he’d been misunderstood.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock began, lifting a shoulder and starting to roll off of the man beneath him.

“Don’t be sorry,” John said quickly with a shake of his head, reaching up and cupping a hand around the side of Sherlock’s neck to hold him in place.  “It’s not a bad thing, Sherlock.  It was a very good thing, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t exercise much self-control,” Sherlock offers with an apologetic shrug, his eyes still not meeting John’s.

“You and me both,” John had replied, then huffed out a small laugh, his hand sliding up from Sherlock’s neck to cradle the side of his face and gently coax the man into meeting his gaze.  “First times are always over too quickly, that’s why there are second times.”

“Second times?” Sherlock asked him, a look of genuine surprise on his face.

“Of course,” John had said, with a nod.  “And third times, and fourth times, and fifth ti—”

But his words were cut off by the sudden, gentle pressure of Sherlock’s mouth against his own, the conversation stalled by the sweet, slow slide of lips and tongues and warm breaths.  There was no rush now, their earlier frenzy forgotten in favor of this unhurried exchange, this tentative exploration of a kiss.  After a few long, languid minutes, John nips softly at Sherlock’s bottom lip and pulls back to look up at him.

“Well.  We’ve made quite a mess of things, haven’t we?” 

“I suppose we have,” Sherlock agreed with a small sigh, his relaxed smile faltering as his expression turned serious once again.

“No, Sherlock,” John said quickly, chastising himself once again for his word choice and timing, then smiling sheepishly before looking down his own chest and nodding toward the sticky space where their bellies were pressed together.  “I meant literally.  Here, budge up a bit.”

When Sherlock rolled away to rest his hip on the mattress, John had reached down and grabbed the first article of discarded clothing he could find—an obnoxiously expensive pair of dove grey slim-fit boxer shorts—and swiped it through the mess smeared over his own stomach and groin before handing it to Sherlock who did the same, then tossed the soiled garment back onto the floor before settling back down on his side next to John.

Stretching out an arm and tucking his hand under the pillow beneath his head, John took a deep breath before turning his face toward Sherlock’s.

“So,” he’d said simply, a sleepy smile stretching over his face. 

“So,” Sherlock parroted back, his voice low and soft, the warmth of his breath ghosting softly against John’s skin. 

They’d stayed like that for a while, just looking at each other in the dim light, the moment stretching in the comfortable way that silences always seemed to settle between them.   John watched as eventually Sherlock’s eyes grew heavy, saw his long lashes flutter before they settled into dark fans against pale cheeks.  He’d stared at him for a bit then, looking his fill at the angular features gone soft and relaxed in sleep, at this never previously-seen version of the man.

When at last John sat up a bit to grab the edge of the blanket folded across the bottom of the bed, Sherlock opened his eyes as John pulled it over the both of them and settled back onto the pillow.

“What was I saying?” Sherlock slurred, bleary eyes blinking groggily.

“You weren’t saying anything,” John told him, slipping his arm beneath Sherlock’s neck and curling it around his shoulders.  “You were sleeping.”

“No I wasn’t,” Sherlock huffed, looking affronted at the very suggestion as his mouth began to stretch open involuntarily in a wide yawn, through which he continued to speak, insisting, “I’m not……remotely…..tired….”

“Of course you aren’t,” John agreed, shaking his head and gently pulling Sherlock close, encouraging him to tuck his face into the warm space next to John’s neck on the pillow.  Which Sherlock did willingly, his nose pressed into the soft skin below John’s ear, his hand sliding over John’s stomach to curl protectively around a hip, his deep breaths gradually slowing to a regular rhythm, each one punctuated by the unmistakable sound of a snore.

John’s not entirely sure why he’s still awake, to be honest.  It had been a very long day, after all, and an even longer evening.  In the last twelve hours he’s been to an antenatal appointment with his estranged wife, had a vicious row with Sherlock that ended in a very awkward kiss, spent hours skulking through the park ruminating on said kiss, been the recipient of unsolicited romantic advice from a dead woman—advice he’d then taken in the form of pouring his heart and soul out to the same man he hadn’t meant to kiss earlier in the first place—and then kissed him again.

And he’d done rather more than just kiss him that time.

Rather a lot more.

And for the second time in as many hours, John Watson takes a deep breath and holds it—waiting for the panic he assumes he should be feeling after having just engaged in some very real sex with a very real man for the first time in his life.  Sure, there was an adolescent experiment or two in his past—curious games of ‘show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ that ended in a mutual wank, and one drunken snog and a grope in his second year at university with that bloke from his bio chemistry seminar, but nothing since.  Even in the army, where it was surprisingly commonplace for men on long deployments to get each other off on occasion, John had never found himself in a position to indulge—though he never judged any fellow soldier who had.  War, as it turns out, is indeed hell.  Might as well take a little relief where you can, John always thought.

And yet, here in the cool darkness of Sherlock’s bedroom, tucked between soft sheets with his naked best friend half draped over him and panting soft snores into his neck, what John feels isn’t panic at all.  Warmth? Yes, figuratively and literally.  Confusion?  Not particularly (make of that what you will).  Affection?  In abundance.   Awe?  A bit, to be honest.  Surprise? Not as much as he should, probably.  Contentment? Yeah, that’s there too.

But the thing he feels most acutely at the moment, the sensation that jostles its way to the top of the list?  That feeling is one he never expected would be the dominant one at a time like this.

John Watson is thirsty.

Parched, even.  He’s practically dying for a tall, cool, wet drink of water—and has been for well over an hour now.

He could remedy the situation fairly easily, of course.  Get out of bed and walk to the kitchen, find the cleanest glass available and fill it from the tap and drink it down right there in front of the sink in great, gasping gulps—but that would mean he’d have to move, and that would mean making Sherlock move too…and John has simply been loath to do that thus far.  He’s never been closer to anyone in his life than he is to Sherlock, but this closeness is something new—the warm weight of him, relaxed and pliant and trusting—something he’ll never get to experience again for the first time, and John holds the moment carefully, mindful of its fragility.  As if on cue, Sherlock stirs a bit against him, a deep breath interrupting the soft rhythm of his snores for a moment, before he nuzzles his face more deeply into John’s neck and tightens the arm slung over his abdomen, the sudden pressure making John wince a bit.

Great, the thinks.

Not only is he still thirsty—but now he really has to pee.

With a sigh, he presses his lips softly into Sherlock’s curls to deposit a gentle kiss against his crown, then carefully lifts the taller man’s arm and slides out of bed as Sherlock repositions himself and snuffles down into the pillow and resumes snoring.  John smiles down at him, rolling his neck and shoulders a bit to loosen the muscles, then pads into the dark bathroom to use the loo.  After a quick wash of his hands he wanders into the kitchen and fills a glass from the tap and lifts it to his lips—a satisfied sigh escaping through his nose as he stands there drinking.  Closing his eyes, he enjoys the cool of the water as it slakes his thirst, paying no attention to anything else—which is why he damn near drops his glass when a voice coming from less than a foot behind him says:

“John?”

Spinning around, he finds himself face to face with a very tall, very awake, very naked Sherlock hovering over him.

John wipes his hand over the water that he managed to spill down his chin and over his (also naked, he realises suddenly) chest. “Jesus, Sherlock—you scared me half to death!”

“I woke up and you were gone,” Sherlock explains, eyebrows knitted together and voice a bit tight.

“Well yeah, I needed the loo.  And a drink.” John holds up his glass, narrowing his eyes at the look of relief that washes briefly over Sherlock’s face.  “Where did you think I’d gone?”

“I…wasn’t sure," Sherlock says, a small shrug lifting one bare shoulder while looking around the room, pointedly avoiding John’s eyes. “I thought, perhaps, you’d…gone back to your room, or maybe went out…for a walk, or, something.”

John looks at him then, at the uncertainty and feigned casualness in his expression, and his heart aches just a bit at the idea that Sherlock’s first instinct when he’d woken up alone was that John had snuck away while he was sleeping with no intention of returning.  And then his heart aches a bit more at the notion that it wasn’t a particularly ridiculous conclusion to have jumped to.  Reaching forward, he slides a hand around the curve of Sherlock’s slim waist and rests it there softly, the pad of his thumb swiping over the delicate skin beneath it. 

“Nope.  Just thirsty, and didn’t want to wake you.” A small smile tilts at one side of his mouth as he feels Sherlock relax a bit at the touch, the smile growing broader as Sherlock’s eyes meet his and what he sees in them now is relief.  Huffing out a soft sigh, John pivots and refills the glass before turning back to Sherlock and holding it out to him.  “Drink this.  You’ve lost a lot of fluids tonight, don’t want you getting dehydrated.”

Sherlock looks at him quizzically for a moment, no doubt readying himself to launch into a detailed explanation about the hydration requirements of the average adult male, and as he opens his mouth to speak John winks at him—and a sudden blush creeps over Sherlock’s cheeks just before he takes the glass from John, raises it to his lips, and drinks it down under the watchful gaze and broad smile of his doctor.

When Sherlock finishes the water, John takes the glass from him, refills it a second time and brings it up to his lips for a long pull.  Turning his gaze back to Sherlock, who is in mid-yawn—dark curls charmingly disheveled and sticking out in impossible directions—John is suddenly very aware of how ridiculous they must appear at the moment, and huffs out a laugh that evolves quickly into a giggle.  Meeting Sherlock’s eyes, John watches him raise a questioning eyebrow.

“It’s nothing,” John says, another giggle sneaking out, then leans a hip against the counter and gestures vaguely between them.  “It’s just—this.  You and me, the middle of the night, having a normal conversation over a drink of water while naked in the kitchen.  Struck me as funny, that's all.”

Sherlock tilts his head in thought. “It’s not particularly unusual. I’ve been naked in the kitchen on numerous occasions.”

“Of course you have,” John laughs, taking a last sip of water and looking up at Sherlock fondly.  “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

“I’m not tired,” Sherlock complains.

“Yeah I could tell, what with all the yawning,” John says, shaking his head as Sherlock’s long face breaks into yet another impressive yawn, stretching his neck and long arms along with it, before bringing his elbows back into his sides, the slender fingers of his right hand coming to rest at a spot on his chest, just below his sternum.  John’s eyes follow the movement and he watches Sherlock scratch neatly trimmed nails absently over the bright red scar beneath them.

It’s not the first time he’s seen it, of course.  In the weeks Sherlock had been recovering at Baker Street after leaving the hospital (sooner than was prudent, but John reluctantly agreed to endorse it as he’d be under the constant care of a medical professional at home), John had checked and dressed the wound countless times, was familiar with the shape of it—the round nub of healing flesh where the bullet had entered his body, the thin line where a surgeon’s scalpel had cut into the skin below it, the tiny pink dots all along the incision where the stitches had been pulled through and tied up.

He’s not seen it in months, but standing there in the kitchen he watches Sherlock’s fingers pass over it a few more times, and when the other man moves his hand away from the wound John continues staring for a long moment.

“It itches, does it?” John asks softly, still looking at the scar.

“A bit,” Sherlock says.  “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Yeah,” John agrees, his eyes still locked on the patch of angry red that mars the creamy white expanse of Sherlock’s chest.  “Mine did that too.  Still does, sometimes.”

John slowly lifts his hand and gently runs the pads of his fingers over the mark, just a whisper of a touch as he traces the long line of it down and then back up.  Sherlock doesn’t flinch, doesn’t protest, doesn’t move away when John flattens his hand over it, covers it completely with his palm and presses gently, as though his touch could erase the wound beneath it if he could only concentrate hard enough.  After a few long moments, Sherlock lifts an arm, circles his fingers around John’s wrist and gently slides the hand up his chest—over the edge of his ribs, up his sternum, then slightly to the left—before pressing his own broad palm over John’s and holding it tightly in place.

John closes his eyes and feels Sherlock’s heart beating, vibrating through his palm—strong, and steady, and true. 

The tension in his shoulders begins to fade, melts away with every beat.  When at last he looks up into Sherlock’s eyes, they’re not filled with any of the things that John’s seen in them so many times before.  There’s no confusion or judgment or insecurity or worry or pain or sorrow—nothing to cloud the pools of clear blue grey that stare down at him now with a look of wonder that something inside of John recognises at once as deep, abiding, unguarded affection.

Staring up into those eyes in that very moment, John can’t help but gasp at what he sees—the realisation hitting him suddenly and with perfect clarity:

He loves me.

Sherlock Holmes loves me.

John Watson doesn’t run from what he sees in those eyes.  He doesn’t balk, he doesn’t protest, he doesn’t deny, and he doesn’t look away.

He presses his hand more firmly against Sherlock’s chest, brings his other hand up to gently cup a pale, stubbled cheek, looks back into those eyes and wills the expression in his own to be just as open, just as honest, just as clear.

When he hears Sherlock’s answering gasp, he knows that his own gaze has conveyed exactly what he intended:

I love you too.

---------------------

When the light spilling through the curtains wakes John the next morning, he stretches his arms above his head, winces a bit at the new soreness in his muscles, smiles a bit about how they got that way, then reaches a searching hand out beside him—and feels the cool, rumpled sheets where Sherlock had fallen asleep a few hours before.  Sitting up and gazing around the room blearily, he sees the pile of discarded clothing still strewn across the bedroom floor, a damp (and decidedly soiled) flannel drying on the arm of John’s favorite jumper where it landed when Sherlock tossed it inelegantly over the edge of the mattress after he’d fetched and used it to clean them up a bit after the second—and much less hasty—round of sex they’d had last night.

If the first time had been rushed and frantic and over too soon, the second time had been exactly the opposite—slow and deliberate, hands and mouths and bodies all taking their time to affirm what their eyes had already said.  John smiles at the memory, and the part of him that is amazed at just how bothered by the whole thing he isn’t shrinks even smaller with that revelation.  Sitting up, he rubs his tired eyes and swipes a hand over his sleep (and sweat and sex) mussed hair then picks up his dressing gown from where Sherlock has so graciously laid it out at the bottom of the bed.  He shrugs into it as he stands, then pulls open the bedroom door and walks out into the hall.  He can hear Sherlock plucking absently at the strings of his violin as he pads into the kitchen.

Grabbing the kettle and crossing to the sink to fill it, John turns his head and calls over his shoulder to Sherlock.

“Tea?”

“Please,” a voice answers—but it isn’t Sherlock’s. 

John freezes in place, then slowly turns toward the sitting room.  He sees Sherlock, sitting in his chair, wrapped in his blue silk dressing gown and clutching his violin to his chest while he stares daggers at the man seated across from him in John’s chair.

“Two sugars, thank you,”  Mycroft Holmes adds, without turning around to meet John’s gaze.

John inhales a long breath, then flips on the kettle and locates three passably clean mugs before going about the business of making tea.  Walking them into the living room a few minutes later, John hands one to Sherlock, then Mycroft takes his and gives John a tight smile.

“Thank you, John,” Mycroft says, aiming a raised eyebrow in his brother’s direction.  “It’s a comfort to know that someone else in this flat has manners.”

“I do hope you’re not referring to yourself, brother,” Sherlock answers dryly.  “My skills may be a bit rusty but I’m fairly certain that barging into a person’s home uninvited is still considered a breach of etiquette.”

“Perhaps,” Mycroft Holmes concedes pleasantly, “But when that same person has ignored four texts, two phone calls and one attempted delivery by courier, even Debrett’s would concede that the rules may occasionally be bent as needs must.”

John looks back and forth between them, then rolls his eyes and scans the room trying to decide where to sit.  After a moment he takes a few steps and sits down on the arm of Sherlock’s chair, then lifts his mug and takes a long sip of his tea as Sherlock’s hand slides over the small of his back and curls over his hip protectively. 

Mycroft’s eyes track the movement, and he takes a sip of his tea before smiling benignly at each of them in turn.

“It would seem that congratulations are in order,” he offers politely.  “All over London, money will be changing hands as the happy news spreads.”

John chuckles into his mug, shrugging a shoulder at the disapproving look Sherlock shoots his direction.

“Well he’s not wrong,” John insists, smiling at the look of alarm on Sherlock’s face. “There’s been a sweepstake at the Yard for years, you know.  Lestrade’s going to lose a tenner over it.”

Sherlock looks affronted and huffs out an exasperated sigh, but the hand on John’s waist tightens slightly and John grins into his tea at the pressure.

“Enough with the pleasantries, Mycroft,” Sherlock spits at his brother.  “Why are you here?”

Mycroft Holmes releases an exasperated sigh of his own, then reaches down into the impeccable leather briefcase beside him and pulls out a slim folder which he holds out to his brother.  When Sherlock rolls his eyes Mycroft mirrors the gesture and turns to John and extends it towards him instead.

“What’s this?” John asks, taking the file and setting his tea aside. 

“Mary’s new love interest,” Mycroft says.  “Full background check, as requested.” 

John stills for a moment, looking down at the plain manila folder in his hand and considering whether he wants to know what’s inside.  After a few seconds he makes his decision and hands the folder to Sherlock.

“How about you just give me the highlights,” John says to Mycroft, his jaw set and his voice tight.

“Roger Alan Wentworth,” Mycroft begins.  “Birth date and National Insurance Number listed are both legitimate and verifiable.  Solicitor with Harrison Grant, specializing in environmental law.  Oxford educated, no significant criminal activity in his past—save for one arrest in his twenties at a civil protest rally, all charges were later dismissed.  Married once, amicably divorced, no children.  Avid yoga class attendee, which is where he and the woman he knows as Mary Morstan-Watson met a month after your wedding, though their relationship didn’t evolve into anything of a romantic nature until just six weeks ago.”

Six weeks, John thinks, lips pursed and eyes on the floor.  Well before Sherlock reneged on The Agreement, then.  He feels a swell of something deep in his gut, a low, slow burn that threatens to rise and fill him up—but the pressure of long fingers where they gently grip John’s hip, and the ever so slight tightening of the arm around his waist grounds him, and with a sigh he feels the anger begin to recede.  He drops his own hand down to cover Sherlock’s where it rests, then looks back up at Mycroft who is eyeing him expectantly, then nods to indicate he should continue.

“Medical records indicate no history of substance abuse or mental illness. Colleagues and acquaintances have a favorable opinion of the man, and his presence on social media indicates that outside of membership of a local rugby team and a fondness for communicating with other enthusiastic tropical fish fanciers, he has no questionable social associations—obvious or otherwise.  In short, it would seem that he is exactly who he appears to be.  Quite refreshing, really.”

“Does he know?” John asks, his voice a bit strained.  “Who she used to be?”

“Surveillance reports from five days ago would suggest that she did divulge to him that there are secrets in her past,” Sherlock interjects, his pale eyes scanning the open folder on his lap.  “It would appear that after a very serious conversation on the subject over dinner at a Soho restaurant they had no communication for two days, after which Wentworth contacted Mary via phone and it would seem their relationship is back on track.”

“She told him, then?” John asks sceptically.  “That she’s a former assassin who shot her husband’s best friend in an attempt to make sure that secret never got out?”

“While exact transcripts for the conversation are unavailable, our experts are confident that the information she divulged was essentially truthful in nature,” Mycroft answers. 

“Nice of her, that,”  John says angrily.  “Suppose she thought Roger deserved the truth.”

“Perhaps she’s learned from her mistakes,” Sherlock offers quietly, another slight squeeze accompanying the pronouncement. 

John looks at him then, searches his eyes for any sign that he’s simply placating him, and finding none holds his gaze for a long moment, then nods once and turns back to Mycroft. “Anything else?”

“Nothing of consequence,” Mycroft says, then holds his hand out for the file still in Sherlock’s lap and upon receiving it slips it back into his attaché.  “In short, should this relationship continue for a meaningful length of time, I can say with some confidence that he will be of no danger to your daughter, John.”

John takes in a deep breath, nods his head a few times, then gets to his feet and begins gathering up the mugs.

“Well,” Mycroft says as John plucks the half-empty cup straight from his hand on his way into the kitchen.  “I suppose that is the signal that I should take my leave.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says without the customary venom he usually reserves for his older brother.  “I think that would be best.”

John hears his footsteps on the stairs, the rhythmic tap of his umbrella against the wood that accompanies every other step as he descends, and when the front door closes behind him John sets the mugs down rather forcefully into the sink, then walks down the short hall and into the bedroom.  He sits down on the edge of the mattress and leans forward to plant his elbows on his knees, buries his face in his hands, and concentrates on taking slow, deep breaths. 

After a few minutes he hears Sherlock’s footsteps in the hall, hears them getting nearer, hears them stop at the threshold.  Without looking up, John extends an arm, holding his palm up in invitation.  Sherlock steps forward immediately and takes the offered hand, and John feels his weight on the mattress beside him.  They sit there for a few moments, side by side, their fingers twined together, then John lets out a long sigh and leans toward his…his, what, exactly?

Best Friend?  Flatmate?  Lover?

When his head comes to rest on a strong shoulder, when a long arm reaches out to gather him close, when a warm pair of lips rests softly against his hair, John lets out another long sigh and leans into his Sherlock.

---------------------

In the days since, life at 221B hasn’t really changed much.

If you discount the sex, of course, which John admits is quite the change, as changes go.  And yet despite the fact that the other person in the bed (or the sofa, or the floor, or the bath, or on one memorable occasion the kitchen table) is a man, sex really isn’t all that different than before.  At the end of the day it’s all just skin, and sweat, and fingers, and lips, and teeth, and bodies and orgasms—and John never ceases to be surprised at how things he’d never considered might one day be a regular part of his sex life are suddenly the very things that leave him panting and shaking and moaning and sore and stretched and giddy and breathless and begging for more.

But other than the sex, things between them haven’t changed as much as John thought they might.

But they have changed.

John never went back to sleeping in his old bedroom upstairs, and despite his initial resistance to giving up his position as the ‘big spoon’, John’s got used to the feeling  of being held and cuddled by someone bigger and taller than himself.  Not that he had much choice in the matter, mind.  Sherlock, it turns out, is a snuggler.  And no matter what position either of them happens to fall asleep in, John has yet to wake without six feet of Holmes pressed up behind him, long arms encircling him and holding him close.

He doesn’t mind a bit.

The addition of sex to the list of activities they engage in together also doesn’t seem to have changed their relationship much, elementally.  They still bicker about body parts in the fridge, and who used the last of the milk, and which one of them is going to get up and bring back a wet flannel to clean up the mess.  John still gets irritated with Sherlock, Sherlock still deserves it, and eventually they both get over it.  Only now when they make up, there’s kissing involved.  Which, they both agree, is better.

No, things are still pretty much the same as they ever were--with one notable exception:

Showering, these days, is a much less solitary activity than it was before.

His back pressed up against the tiles of the shower wall, fingers tangled in the ebony curls of the man kneeling before him, John pants up at the ceiling while his cock disappears repeatedly into the warm, wet mouth wrapped around it.  He tries to remember the last time he took a shower that didn’t end in some version of exactly what’s happening now, then quickly abandons the exercise and decides that he doesn’t care if he ever showers alone again.  He feels a familiar tingling at the base of his spine, his stomach muscles beginning to tighten and clench, and he pants out a warning to Sherlock who hums his understanding around John’s engorged prick and rubs the pads of two fingers buried deep inside of John’s arse against his prostate and John is lost—coming down Sherlock’s throat with a hoarse cry followed by a litany of foul words shouted toward the ceiling.  When Sherlock finally stands up and presses his swollen lips to John’s, he smiles against his mouth and huffs out a throaty chuckle.

“The mouth on you, John,” He admonishes, grinning playfully.  “You may want to keep the swearing in check, you are going to be someone’s father you know.”

“Listen,” John begins, still catching his breath.  “If you’re going to do that with your mouth, then I’m not responsible for what comes out of mine.”

“Fair enough,” Sherlock concedes, twisting off the taps and pulling back the curtain.  “Though I’d like to remain solely responsible for who comes in yours.”

“Oh good Lord." John laughs, grabbing the towel Sherlock hands him and shaking his head at him fondly.  “Tell you what, you promise to stop making terrible puns, and it’s a deal.”

“Done.” Sherlock walks into the bedroom, and John follows.  Sherlock goes immediately to the dresser, picks up his phone, then looks confused as he stares down at it.

“Something wrong?” John asks, a touch of concern in his voice.

Sherlock shrugs, dropping his phone back on the dresser and continuing to dry himself off.  “No. I thought I heard a text come in earlier.”

“Maybe it was mine,” John says, rubbing his towel roughly over his hair, then picking up his trousers from where he laid them across the bed earlier and digging through the pockets for his mobile.  Pulling it out, he taps the home button and looks at the screen as it comes back to life—lets out a gasp of surprise, then stands very, very still.

“John?” Sherlock asks, head tilted as he regards him from across the room. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” John replies, nodding his head slowly, then looking up at Sherlock.  “It’s from Mary.  She’s in labour.”

Chapter Text

“Sherlock, have you seen my wallet?” John calls over his shoulder, looking frantically through the pockets of the trousers he’d taken off just before getting into the shower earlier that afternoon.

“Right here, John,” Sherlock says from the doorway, holding the faded brown leather item in his right hand along with a set of keys.  He steps forward and hands them both to John who shoves them into his pockets and looks around the room as though searching for something else.  With a small smile, Sherlock reaches down and retrieves the mobile on the bedside table to his left then steps forward and lays a hand on John’s shoulder to still him.  He slips the mobile into John’s front pocket, reaches up to gently smooth his still damp hair where it’s sticking up a bit, then makes quick work of undoing the first two buttons of John’s shirt and refastening them into the correct holes.  Smiling down into his nervous eyes, Sherlock brings his palms up to John’s cheeks and holds them there for a moment, then presses his lips to the shorter man’s forehead where it’s wrinkled with worry.

John melts into the touch, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.  When Sherlock pulls back, John smiles at him, his gaze travelling down the long neck to the expanse of broad, bare chest visible between the lapels of his barely fastened dressing gown—and his eyes widen with alarm.

“You’re not dressed!”

“True," Sherlock concedes with a nod. “But you finally are, and that did seem the more important task under the circumstances.”

“You can’t go to the hospital like that,” John says, gesturing wildly at Sherlock’s nearly naked form.

“I’m not going to the hospital, John. You are.”

“You’re not coming?” John asks, his voice a bit panicked.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Sherlock says, eyeing him carefully.  “Did you want me to?”

“Of course I want you to,” John insists, huffing impatiently before turning around and striding over to the bureau. He starts frantically opening drawers and rifling through them before throwing socks and a pair of pants over his shoulder in Sherlock’s general direction. “This being one of the most important events in my life and all, I thought it might be nice to have my—my—you there.”

He spins toward the wardrobe door and throws it open, fingers hastily slapping over the shoulders of ridiculously posh dress shirts until he finds the dark purple Prada.  He plucks it off the rail and tosses it toward where Sherlock is standing with a pair of socks in one hand and a pair of black boxers hanging off two fingers of the other.  The shirt cartwheels through the air and lands on the unmade bed as John turns back to the wardrobe and eyes the long row of perfectly hung suits before throwing his hands up in the air with a huff of frustration.

“I can’t tell your trousers apart,” he complains, gesturing to the line of them.  “Pick a pair and put them on.  You’ve got five minutes.”

Walking back around the bed, John watches Sherlock follow his progress through narrowed eyes set into a confused expression, until he stops in front of him.  Throwing his shoulders back and stretching to his full height, he looks the taller man straight in the eye where he stands frozen in the doorway of the bedroom.

“Move!” he says, summoning his best Captain Watson voice in an attempt to goad him into action.

Sherlock starts a bit at the command, shakes his head quickly as though attempting to clear it, then quickly sheds his robe and begins to dress.  John gives a satisfied nod and walks out into the sitting room.  Mary’s texted again to say that her contractions have been at five minutes apart for the last two hours, and that she’s on her way to the hospital.  John’s texted back to assure her that he’ll be there as quickly as possible.  She’s texted back to remind him that it’s early stages yet, so they’ve got plenty of time. He’s busy tapping out his reply when Sherlock emerges from the kitchen, fastening the button at his right cuff.  He looks up at John and raises his eyebrows expectantly.

John stares for a moment, taking a deep breath and drinking in the sight of Sherlock in his scandalously well-cut trousers cinched around slim hips below deep aubergine silk stretched over his broad chest and held in place by buttons that John is continually surprised don’t give under the strain and pop off to put someone’s eye out.  He shakes his head slightly and huffs out a small sigh.

“What?” Sherlock asks, looking down his own chest critically.  “Are my flies undone or something?”

“Might as well be,” John mutters, eyes crinkling at the corners and grinning when Sherlock looks up at him in alarm.  “Only you could manage to look like that in under five minutes.”

“Like what?”

“Perfect,” John answers, walking over and slipping his hands around Sherlock’s slim waist.  “Like you’re going off to walk a red carpet or something.”

“Well, it is a premiere of sorts.” Sherlock slides his hands up John’s arms and over his shoulders. “The big debut of Baby Girl Watson.  Social event of the year.”

“I suppose that’s true,” John says, the grin slipping off his face a bit as the moment of levity is broken and worry creeps back in to crease his brow.  “Jesus.  This is really happening, isn’t it?”

“It is.” Sherlock's voice low and steady, his eyes searching John’s intently.  “And you’re sure you want me to come?  That I’m welcome?”

“Of course you’re welcome.” John's fingers tighten their grip around Sherlock’s waist as he stares up at him intently.  “I know it may take a while and I’m sure you’ll be bored out of your skull, but I just—I would feel better if you’re—I suppose I just want to know you’re there.”

Sherlock looks down at him then, blue-grey eyes soft, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he slides a warm palm over John’s shoulder and up his neck to rest just below his jaw.

“Then that’s where I’ll be.” He leans forward to lay a soft kiss against his lips before straightening back up and pressing his hands down John’s shoulders to smooth out the fabric of his shirt. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” John says with a nod, and Sherlock gives his shoulders a final squeeze before turning and striding over to the door where he pulls John’s coat off the hook and tosses it to him before taking down the Belstaff and shrugging into it on his way down the stairs and out the front door, John at his heels.

After successfully hailing a cab and giving the driver the address of Higham Hill Hospital, the late afternoon sun slants through the windows and John sits back in the seat to tap out a quick message to Mary:

On our way.

---------------------

After making their way through the corridors to the entrance of the birth centre, John checks in at the desk and the receptionist points in the general direction of the room Mary’s been assigned to while Sherlock walks over to the waiting area nearby.

John joins him a few moments later in the sparsely appointed space—the collection of uncomfortable looking chairs empty except for one that contains a nervous looking man, his tall form hunched over as he looks intently at the screen of his mobile.

“Mary’s room is just around the corner,” John says, turning to face Sherlock then huffing out a long breath between pursed lips.  “I’d better get in there.”

“Of course,” Sherlock replies, a soft smile on his lips as he reaches out to grasp John’s fingers and give them a squeeze.  “Good Luck.”

“Thanks.” John looks down at their joined hands, top teeth worrying a bit at his bottom lip.  He lets go and turns slightly to walk away—then turns immediately back and steps forward to snake his arms around Sherlock’s waist and press his face into his broad, warm chest.  Sherlock folds his arms around John's shoulders and holds him close.

After a few long seconds, John sighs against the warm wool of the Belstaff and pulls back, pressing up on his toes for a quick kiss.

“Keep your phone close, yeah?”

“Go on,” Sherlock encourages with a smile.  “I’ll be right here.”

“I’ll try and keep you posted,” John says, backing away from him toward the long hall.  “It could be a while though.”

“I’m sure I’ll find some way to pass the time.” Sherlock smiles, his eyes now trained on the only other person in the waiting area.  John watches him cross towards a group of empty chairs, then turns and makes his way down the hall to room 703.

Knocking softly on the door, a strained voice beckons him to come in and he steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him.  Mary is alone in the room, standing at the side of the bed with her palms pressed flat to the mattress, huffing out a long breath through her lips.  John sheds his coat and tosses it aside as he crosses the room quickly and stops by her side.

“Contraction?” He asks, unable to suppress a smile at the slightly withering look Mary gives him as she nods her head in confirmation and thrusts one hand toward him.  He takes it in his, threading her small fingers between his own, his other hand rubbing gentle circles into the muscles at the base of her spine.  After about a minute passes her breathing begins to ease, and her grip on his fingers becomes less vice-like.

“Better?” John asks, smoothing his palm up her spine over the soft, thin gown she’s wearing, and rubbing gently between her shoulder blades.

“For the moment,” she confirms with a sigh.  “Coming a bit more quickly now, three minutes apart or so.”

“Progressing faster than I thought you would, first birth and all.” John's eyebrows knit together in concern.

“You and me both,” Mary replies, lifting a knee and resting it on the edge of the mattress.  “Give me a boost, would you?  I think I’ll try the next one lying down.”

John helps her onto the bed, and when Mary winces as she flexes her puffy ankles he walks to the end of the bed and climbs up to sit on it, gently lifting one of Mary’s swollen feet into his lap and softly massaging the stretched skin with strong, warm fingers.

“That’s nice,” Mary says, leaning back against the pillows and letting out a contented sigh.  After a minute she looks down the bed and regards John silently for a long moment, her expression slightly puzzled. “Your last text said ‘on our way’. Did Sherlock come with you?”

“Yeah, I asked him to," John says, with a small nod.  “He’s out in the waiting room.”

“Well,” Mary says, her eyes growing wide as she looks at him.  “That should be interesting.  Roger’s there as well.”

John’s eyes widen in response, and they stare at each other for a moment before Mary’s mouth breaks into a grin and she huffs out a laugh.  After a moment, John’s giggle joins hers.

“Do you think we should warn the staff?” Mary asks, the last word nearly lost in the laugh she fails to suppress.

“Nah, they’ll be fine,” John says, composing himself and beginning to rub at Mary’s other foot.  “We’re all adults, after all. We’ll just keep an ear out for shouting or furniture being tossed about the place.”

Mary shakes her head as they both laugh quietly then she looks at John for a long moment, regarding him with a mix of fondness and surprise.

“I was worried it might be awkward, all this,” she says.

“Me too,” John agrees with a shrug.

“I’m glad it’s not.” Her expression softens into something new—the smile playing over her lips balancing out the hint of sadness in her eyes before she huffs out a breath and frowns, one palm coming up to press at her abdomen as the other one reaches toward John as she winces slightly.   “Here comes the next one…”

John takes her hand, then gets to his feet and goes to her side, letting her squeeze his fingers as he rubs his other palm over her tense shoulders and counts through the contraction, keeping his voice low and soft.

“Less than three minutes between the last two,” John says, glancing down at his watch.

Mary lets out a relieved sigh as the pressure eventually begins to subside, and there’s a soft knock on the door as the midwife enters and greets them both with a smile.  After some pleasantries and a quick exam, she pronounces that all is progressing nicely just as Mary squeezes John’s hand and the next contraction is upon her.

Things settle into a rhythm after that, swept up into the ebb and flow of a tide as old as time itself.  Mary walks the room in a slow orbit, and John walks next to her.  She stands at the window with her arms propped on the sill, and John stands beside her.  She kneels on the soft mat near the bed, and John crouches in front of her, holding her steady as she rests her forehead against his chest.  What he can do, he does.  What she needs, he gives.

Later that night, when her water breaks as he’s helping her to her feet, he soothes her embarrassment with gentle words and soft brush of his lips against her hair, and helps her over to the bed.  After the mess is cleared away and Mary is as comfortable as she can be under the circumstances, the smile from the midwife as she asks if they’re ready to meet their daughter is met with nods and wide eyes and relieved sighs and nervous fidgeting as John climbs onto the bed and Mary leans back, half-sitting against him, taking deep breaths and preparing herself for the onset of the next contraction—when the midwife tells her it’s time to push.

---------------------

John touches the tip of each one softly with his lips, counting as he goes.

One, two, three, four, five…five perfect fingers on a tiny left hand.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten…five equally perfect fingers on the right.

She’s small and red and wrinkled and new and very, very angry at the moment.  Lying naked on her mother’s chest as the midwife wipes at her delicate skin with a soft cloth, she gulps in another great lungful of air and then releases it with a cry that both elates and pains John to hear—this unmistakable declaration that she is new to this world, that she is finally here, and that she’s not particularly happy about that fact thank you very much.  He looks down at Mary, into her eyes so soft with wonder and wet with tears as she stares down at the baby, then tips his head and presses his lips to her tired forehead, feels her lean into the kiss and sigh as she reaches out to run her fingers softly over the small head of the little girl they’ve been waiting months to meet.

Watching her tiny jaw tremble as she releases another impressively loud wail, John feels his own lip mirror the movement, his vision gone suddenly blurry as he stares down at his newborn daughter.

What the hell, he decides.

If everyone else is going to cry, he may as well join in too.

---------------------

She’s been weighed, and measured, and wrapped up snug.

She’s been held, and kissed, and stared at, and adored.

She’s had her first nappy change, her first meal, her first yawn, her first nap…

And she’s barely even an hour old.

Pulling out his mobile, John taps out a message and hits send:

Adelaide Marjorie Watson, 7 lbs 12 oz, PERFECT!

He’s still looking at the screen when the response arrives:

*ping*

Congratulations, John. Tell Mary as well.  –SH

Looking up from his phone to where Mary lies back against the pillows with Adelaide tucked snugly in her arms, John raises an eyebrow in a wordless question.  In answer, Mary tips her head and gives him a small nod.  John smiles and taps out his reply:

Room 703. Come and tell her yourself.

He hits send, looks back up at Mary, then quickly sends one more line:

Bring Roger too.

---------------------

When the door creaks open, John looks up from where he’s sitting on the edge of the mattress next to Mary who holds a sleeping Adelaide in her arms and smiles at the dark head of curls that pokes into the gap.   He stands and strides across the room, opening the door wide and beckoning Sherlock forward, pulling him by the hand over to the side of the bed.

Mary looks up from her daughter’s face to Sherlock’s, her mouth stretching into a soft smile as she meets his eyes.  They stare at each other for a moment, then Sherlock’s face breaks into a broad grin and he leans down to grasp her slight shoulders in his large hands and plants a fond kiss on her cheek.  Mary leans up into the pressure slightly, and huffs a soft sigh of laughter at the quick wink Sherlock shoots her way as he pulls back up to his full height.  She wrinkles her nose a bit, looking at him through narrowed eyes and a slow shake of her head.

“Off the patches, are we?” She asks, a slight scold in her voice.

“Of course not,” Sherlock answers quickly. “Stepped out for a bit of fresh air earlier, you know how second-hand smoke clings to wool.”

Mary looks at him knowingly, raising an eyebrow. “Fibbing, Sherlock.”

Sherlock shrugs and opens his mouth to argue, but when he looks from Mary’s face to John’s and sees an identical expression of skepticism there he sighs dramatically.

“Fine,” Sherlock concedes, rolling his eyes.  “I was out there a long time, I got nerv…I mean bored.   I did wash afterwards, you know.”

He holds up his hands for inspection, and John and Mary exchange a long suffering look.

“All right then,” Mary says, lifting the small bundle in her arms and nodding at Sherlock to take the baby from her.

Sherlock sucks in a surprised breath, then looks at John who returns his questioning look with a slight smile before stepping forward and carefully taking Adelaide from her mother and then depositing her gently into Sherlock’s arms.  John slides an arm around Sherlock’s waist and presses up against his side, joining him in gazing down at the tiny sleeping girl.   John looks from his daughter’s sweet face, over to the soft smile on Mary’s, and up to the wide eyes and awed expression on Sherlock’s.  He takes a deep breath and lets his head fall gently until it comes to rest against Sherlock’s shoulder.

A soft knock from the direction of the hall breaks the silence.  Three sets of eyes turn to look at the tall man standing in the open doorway clutching a cellophane wrapped bouquet of flowers in one hand while he nervously adjusts the wire rimmed spectacles he’s wearing with the other.

John squeezes Sherlock’s hip and then clears his throat.

“You must be Roger,” he says, walking toward the door and extending his hand in greeting.  “John Watson.”

“Yes,” Roger Wentworth answers, clearing his own throat slightly and smiling nervously as he steps forward to shake John’s hand.  “Good to meet you, John.  Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” John answers with a nod before turning back toward the bed and gesturing for the man to come in.  “Though it was Mary who did all the hard work.  She was amazing.”

Roger nods at the assertion, and John watches as his eyes catch Mary’s from across the room—sees the warmth and recognition in the look, hears the relieved sigh from the other man’s lips as he crosses toward the bed, feels the warmth that passes between them when Roger leans down and presses a chaste kiss to Mary’s forehead and asks softly how she’s feeling.  Witnessing the tender moment between them, John is surprised to find that it doesn’t upset him.  He looks at the mother of his child as she smiles at the new man in her life, and what he sees in her eyes is achingly familiar.

Not because it’s the way that Mary used to look at him, but because it’s the way that Sherlock looks at him now.

Not wanting to be caught out staring, John squares his shoulders and walks back to stand beside Sherlock whose gaze is still fixed on the baby in his arms.  Sliding his arm back around the taller man’s slim waist, the slight movement jostles Adelaide just enough that she squirms a bit, her tiny nose scrunching up adorably as her perfect little mouth stretches wide in a yawn.  John watches Sherlock’s long face mirror the expression subconsciously, and for the briefest of moments he is overwhelmed with the prospect of trying to decide which of them he loves more—until he realises that he loves both of them so much he’s afraid his chest won’t be able to contain it.  He squeezes his arm tighter around Sherlock who seems to just notice that he’s there and looks at him with a smile.

“See, John?” Sherlock says, cradling Adelaide in the crook of one arm while he raises the other one to trail the tip of one long finger gently down the baby’s soft cheek.  “That’s your chin.”

“So it is,” John says, beaming with pride, bringing his own hand up next to Sherlock’s.  “But that’s Mary’s nose.”

“Do you think so?” Mary asks from the bed, Roger sitting beside her in a chair he’s pulled up to the edge of the mattress.

“No doubt about it,” John says, smiling at her.

Sherlock nods in agreement, and gently transfers Adelaide back to John, who walks her over to the bed and deposits her back into her mother’s outstretched arms.  Mary tips her toward Roger, who leans forward with a smile to get a closer look.

“He’s right.  That’s definitely your nose, M.” Roger confirms, lifting a finger and tapping it playfully against the tip of Mary’s nose, and as he does Mary sniffs at the air and narrows her gaze at him.

“Have you been smoking too?” She asks, with a smirk.

Roger freezes in surprise, then looks a bit guilty as he glances around the room.

“Sherlock gave it to me,” he explains quickly.

“You asked me if I had any!” Sherlock says.

“You said you were going out for a smoke, I thought it would be rude not to come along.” Roger explains.

“As I recall, your exact words were ‘Oh thank God, I’ve been dying for a cigarette for hours’.” Sherlock rebuts.

As the clocks strikes midnight in room 703 of the maternity wing at Higham Hill Hospital, the man John loves argues with the man who loves John’s wife over which of them has been the worse influence on the other that day.  The mother of John’s child catches his eye and shakes her head, a small smile tilting at one side of her mouth.  John huffs out a laugh and shakes his own head in return.   

Adelaide Marjorie Watson sleeps peacefully through it all.

---------------------

Climbing into a cab in front of the hospital an hour later, John hears Sherlock direct the driver to take them home to Baker Street as he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the seat.  A few minutes earlier he’d given Adelaide the last of many goodbye kisses, then dropped one on Mary’s cheek before promising he’d be back in the morning before she was discharged to see them home.

Pulling out his mobile as the cab makes its way through the darkened streets, he taps open his photos and begins to swipe through them.  He knew he’d taken a fair few, but finds himself surprised at just how many of them there are.  He stops for a moment on a photo of Adelaide in Sherlock’s arms, smiling at the sight.

“I like that one,” Sherlock says close to his ear, and John nods in agreement.

“Me too,” John agrees, turning his head and pressing a quick kiss to Sherlock’s cheek and feeling the muscles beneath his lips as they curl up into a smile.

“The problem with you taking so many pictures today,” Sherlock begins, pulling up his own mobile and swiping his finger quickly across the display as the light throws shadows up over his angular face, “is that you’re not in any of them.”

He taps his fingers against the screen quickly, then slides his phone back into his coat pocket.

*ping*

John looks down at his mobile in surprise, then touches the message indicator to open the text that just arrived from Sherlock’s number.

When the image blooms onto the screen, John looks down at it—his breath catching a bit in his throat.  It’s Adelaide, the camera zoomed in close on her clear blue eyes as they stare up at his own just inches away. He’s smiling down at his daughter, pressing her tiny fist clenched around his index finger to his lips.  He remembers that moment, can recall it so clearly again now as he sees the wonder on his own face captured so perfectly in the photo he can’t stop staring at.

He swallows against the lump in his throat, feels Sherlock’s warm hand slide across his shoulders and tug him close to his side.  He tears his eyes away from the image on his phone and looks up at the soft eyes and warm smile of the man looking back down at him.

“Thank you, Sherlock,” he whispers, his eyes drawn back to the photograph before him.

Soft lips press against his temple, and he leans into the pressure, feels the whisper of Sherlock’s breath against his skin as he replies:

“You’re welcome, John.”

---------------------

Pacing back and forth in front of the long, amply cushioned sofa that dominates the space in the airy suburban living room, John presses his lips softly into the downy golden hair that covers the crown of his daughter’s head and hums against her skin.  She’d fallen asleep after her feeding two hours ago, draining the bottle of expressed breast milk hungrily with her tiny fingers clutched tightly around John’s. 

He supposes he should have taken her up to her cot then, but the warm weight of her as she settled onto his chest (after he managed to coax not one, but two very impressive burps from her) was something he simply wasn’t willing to give up.  While he and Mary have been navigating the strange world of separated co-parenting with surprising ease in the week since she was born, John knows that these daily afternoon cuddles with his little girl won’t last forever, that there will be ever increasing stretches of time between weekend visits when he won’t see her for days—weeks, perhaps. His heart aches a bit just at the thought.

Adelaide is awake now, however, and while she was in very fine spirits for the better part of half an hour--cheerfully enduring a nappy change, watching him with wide eyes as he pulled silly faces at her, tolerating his slightly bristly kisses against her cheeks, and cooing softly as he sang Norwegian Wood to her in its entirety because it was the first song that popped into his mind and John is determined that his child should learn to appreciate The Beatles as early as possible.  It’s only in the last five minutes that her mood has taken a bit of a turn, and John’s found that a walk across the floor with a slight bounce in his step seems to agree with her.

*ping*

John holds the baby against him with one arm while fishing out his phone, checking to make sure that the message from Sherlock isn’t anything urgent.

It’s not.

Did you get her to sleep? –SH

John taps out his response one-handed, swaying from to side to soothe the little girl squirming in his arms. 

Yes, she went down just after Mary went upstairs to take a nap.  She’s awake now, though.

The baby lets out a high pitched squeak, her face scrunching up as she flails her tiny arms against John’s chest.

*ping*

Excellent. I’ve emailed you a series of sound files of various tones and pitches .  Play each one for ten seconds and record her reactions in the attached spreadsheet. –SH

Adelaide lets out an annoyed cry (that consists of a variety of tones and pitches, John notes to himself) and he shakes his head, slipping the mobile back into his pocket  and then bouncing on the balls of his feet as he rests his lips against her pink forehead and makes soft shushing sounds.

“I know, little one.” John says sympathetically, picking up a tiny soother from the end table and brushing it over her quivering bottom lip.  “Let’s just try and hold on a bit longer, we don’t want to wake Mummy just yet, do we?”

“Too late,” a soft voice says from the top of the steps, where Mary is huffing out a long yawn before descending the stairs. 

“Sorry,” John says, patting the fussy baby’s back softly and looking sheepish.

“Don’t be,” Mary says with a smile, stopping beside him and cupping Addy’s head with her small hand, then leaning forward to press a kiss to it before reaching to gently take her from John’s arms.  “I had a nice nap, but I figured she’d be ready for another feeding before I was ready to stop sleeping.”

She holds the baby in the crook of one arm, backing up and sitting down in the sleek, modern leather recliner that has taken the place of the overstuffed monster of a chair that used to sit in its place.  She unfastens the top few buttons of her soft nightshirt, tips her daughter up slightly in her arms, and after a moment of open mouthed rooting Adelaide’s tiny lips close around a pink nipple and her small hands reach up to hold the soft curve of Mary’s breast.

“New chair, I see.” John says over his shoulder, walking into the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Mary says, swinging her legs up to rest on the matching footrest and crossing one ankle over the other.  “I know it doesn’t really go with the rest of the furniture, but I tried using the old chair while I feed her—but it was bloody uncomfortable. Roger had this one at his flat, so I thought I’d give it a try instead.  Much better.”

John huffs out a quiet sigh from where he stands in front of the sink, thinking about all the nights he spent hating that damned chair, wondering why he never just said so—and whether things might have turned out any differently if he had. 

Probably not.

He fills a tall glass with water and walks it back into the living room, where Mary takes it from him with a grateful smile.

“So I’m at the surgery a half day tomorrow,” John tells her.  “Shall I come round the same time in the afternoon?”

“Please do,” Mary says with a nod. “I’ve got quite used to the naps, you know.  And Addy’s grown accustomed to spending the afternoons with her Dad.”

“All right then,” John says, patting down his pockets to check that he’s got his keys and phone.  He looks back down to say something else, and finds himself sucking in a soft breath at what he sees.  Mary is smiling, looking down at their daughter who stares back at her mother with wide blue eyes—their matching profiles lit by the late afternoon sun that slants through the front windows.  John watches them for a long moment, standing in the stillness of a house that used to be his and imagining the family he might have had—shifting the things he’s lost and gained from side to side on the set of scales in his mind, willing the two ends to stay in balance.  He walks to Mary’s chair and leans over and presses a warm kiss onto Adelaide’s head, then pulls back and does the same to Mary’s.

“You’ll be all right tonight?” John asks, shrugging into his coat.

“Just fine, John.” Mary says with a smile, looking back down at her daughter and running the backs of her fingers over a plump, pink cheek.  “Roger will be here in a bit.”

There’s the tap of footsteps on the stoop, and John and Mary both turn towards the entry just as they hear the soft scrape of a key sliding into a lock.

“Ah,” Mary says, and John watches her smile brighten as she looks at the door. “There he is now.”

---------------------

“Sherlock?” John calls as he makes his way up the stairs, one hand laden with Tesco bags and the other with far too much Chinese takeaway.

“Kitchen!” Sherlock answers, just as John steps through the doorway and sees him there at the table where he’s perched in front of his microscope—dressing gown draped carelessly over bare shoulders and brushed cotton pyjama trousers.

John heaves all the bags up onto the counter, pushing aside various beakers and other experiment-related flotsam with practised ease.  Shaking out his cramped fingers, he turns to see Sherlock sitting sideways in his chair, looking up at him expectantly.  Smiling broadly, he crosses the few feet between them and steps between the taller man’s splayed knees and settles his palms onto his broad shoulders.

Sherlock tips his head up in invitation, and John leans forward and kisses him softly—taking advantage of the moment and pulling that ridiculous bottom lip between his own as he lets one hand slide up a long expanse of pale neck to tangle his fingers gently into disheveled curls.

“Hello,” John says softly, pulling back just a bit.  “Good day?”

“Productive,” Sherlock says with a shrug, tilting his chin toward his microscope.  “You?”

“Long,” John answers with a sigh before pressing a quick kiss to Sherlock’s forehead and turning back to the bags on the counter.  “But good.”

“Did you collect my data?” He asks, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“I did not,”  John says with an apologetic grin. “She was a bit too grumpy, the results would have been unreliable.  I did, however, stop and collect Chinese on my way home.  So that’s something.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes and sighs—but after a moment tips his head in agreement.

“How was Adelaide?” he asks, turning and looking back down into his microscope, long fingers turning the knobs to fine tune the image of the specimen he’s examining.

“Perfect,” John says, pulling groceries out of bags and putting them away as he talks.  “She’s gained a whole pound since leaving the hospital, I swear she gets bigger every day.  Took her bottle like a champ for me so I didn’t have to wake Mary when she was hungry, and she’s staying awake and alert a bit longer between feedings now.  Which is good for me—but a bit hard on her mum.”

“How is Mary coping?”

“She’s exhausted, of course, but otherwise just fine.” John answers, sliding over a container of something he’s too afraid to contemplate the origin of in order to make room for the fruit and veg he’s brought home.  “She manages to sneak in an hour or two of sleep while I’m there, which is good.  And when Roger’s there in the evenings I know it’s a big help as well.  He came by before I left tonight, we chatted for a bit.  All things considered, he seems like a decent bloke.”

John smiles as he makes the pronouncement, and if Sherlock happens to notice that he shuts the refrigerator door with just a bit more force than necessary, he doesn't bring it up.

“He’s pleasant enough,” Sherlock agrees.  “For a traitor.”

“Oh come on.” John laughs, reaching over to ruffle his fingers through Sherlock’s curls. “We all know you didn’t force a lit cigarette between his lips.”

“Truthfully, I did consider it.” Sherlock says, his expression darkening. “I was ready to take extreme measures to get just a moment’s peace from his constant prattle.  The man really likes tropical fish.”

“Well for what it’s worth, I appreciate your restraint,” John says, pulling takeaway containers from bags and pulling down two plates from the cupboard.  “Now why don’t you finish what you’re doing, and come and have some dinner.”

---------------------

As the credits roll at the end of the finale episode of season three, John finds himself again impressed that Sherlock seems not to merely tolerate watching Breaking Bad with him, but actually appears to enjoy it.  And while the writing and character development are both excellent in John’s opinion, he has a sneaking suspicion that it’s the well-researched and realistically executed portrayal of chemistry procedures in the programme that impressed Sherlock enough to continue watching from the first episode.  Either way, it’s nice to watch something together that doesn’t involve John missing half of the dialogue because Sherlock’s busy talking over it, and not having to worry that Sherlock’s excessive eye-rolling will result in permanent injury is a refreshing change as well.

Scooping up a forkful of pork fried rice, John is prevented from bringing it to his mouth by the sudden appearance of a pair of chopsticks that reach over him to grasp a dumpling from his plate and smear it through the puddle of plum sauce next to his rice.  He then watches as the stolen dumpling rises through the air and disappears into Sherlock’s mouth.

John chews his mouthful of fried rice thoughtfully, then looks at Sherlock until the other man notices he’s being stared at and raises an eyebrow at him.

“I bought you your own order,” John says patiently, gesturing to the untouched container of dumplings on the coffee table in front of them. “They’re right there.  You’d barely even have to move to reach them.”

“I told you,” Sherlock says, waving his chopsticks in the air dismissively before plucking another dumpling off of John’s plate and popping it into his mouth and chewing with obvious relish, swallowing dramatically before continuing.  “I don’t want my own dumplings.  I want to share yours.”

“You’re a ridiculous man,” John says seriously, biting back a smile and shaking his head slowly.

“So I’ve been told.” Sherlock shrugs, plucking the last dumpling from John’s plate and bringing it to his lips—then pausing to hold it half way between them, his head cocked as though waiting for permission.

“By all means,” John says, nodding and huffing out a laugh.  “Go ahead. What’s mine is yours.”

Sherlock smiles broadly at him, then pauses before eating it.

“Oh, speaking of which—you had a package today.” Sherlock gestures toward the desk by the window.

“Did I?” John asks, getting to his feet and crossing to pick up the narrow white box that sits atop the brown paper that it had clearly been wrapped it when it arrived in the post.  “Saved me the trouble of opening it, I see.”

“What’s yours is mine,” Sherlock replies, shrugging as he pops the last of John’s dumplings into his mouth and begins to chew.

John picks up the small envelope on top of the box and lifts the flap to pull out the plain white card inside, the hand written message in red ink reads:

Congratulations, Dr. Watson.  A gift for your new arrival.  A girl never forgets her first…

There’s no signature—just a blood red lipstick print.

While he’s quite certain who the sender is, when John lifts the lid from the box he still isn’t prepared for what he finds inside.

There, nestled down between soft layers of tissue, is an expertly crafted, perfect one-quarter scale, black leather riding crop.

John looks down at it, his mouth agape, then carefully removes the object from the box and holds it up for Sherlock to see.

“What. The.  Hell?”

“Shake it,” Sherlock says, smiling as he lifts a prawn to his lips.

John does as he’s told, and the unmistakable sound of a rattle fills the flat.

“Oh for christ’s sake,” John huffs out, a giggle escaping his throat. “Her idea of a joke, I suppose?”

“Joke or not,” Sherlock replies, “It’s an impressive piece of craftsmanship.  It’s every bit as nice as mine.”

“Be that as it may, it’s hardly appropriate for a baby.”  John says, shaking his head and putting it back into the box.

“Agreed,” Sherlock says, setting down his plate and getting to his feet.  He stretches his long arms behind his head, rolls his long neck from side to side, and ruffles his fingers roughly through his curls before looking over at John.  “Though it may have…other uses.”

“Like what?” John asks, tilting his head in confusion.

“Oh I don’t know,” Sherlock replies, shrugging a bit so that his dressing gown slides off his bare shoulders and down his long arms to land in a pool of silk at his feet, where he leaves it as he turns and strides purposefully from the room.  He stops when he gets to the kitchen to look back over his shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

John watches him walk down the hall towards the open bedroom door, then plucks the leather rattle from the box and quickly follows.

---------------------

John Watson’s life has been full of surprises lately.

Some of them good, some of them not so good.

And some of them very, very good.

Splayed out on his back, posh cotton sheets smooth and cool beneath his flushed and burning skin, John pants softly at the ceiling as Sherlock slides a third slick finger beside the two already buried inside him.  Soft lips mouth gently at the tender skin below his jaw, the wet press of a warm tongue against his pulse making him gasp as the fingers in his arse press deeper, stretching him wider, preparing him.

Sherlock twists his wrist, pushing his long fingers as deep as they’ll go, dragging his lips up over a stubbled jaw to press against the shell of his ear.

“Very good, John.” He purrs, his voice a deep rumble that seems to vibrate through John’s skull.  “You’re nearly ready for me.”

John feels a thrill snake up his spine at the words, a low electric hum that starts deep inside of him and crackles with every movement of those clever fingers, every whispered word of praise, every heady moment of anticipation Sherlock subjects him to.

He hadn’t known it would feel like this.  He’d been scared to even try, at first.

Fucking Sherlock was easy—familiar territory with a willing partner, minor anatomical differences notwithstanding—the feeling of entering another body, the clench and slide and heat.  The first time Sherlock asked John to fuck him, he dove in enthusiastically and never looked back.  But the very idea of being fucked?

Fucking terrifying.

But Sherlock had been so patient with him, so understanding of his fears even as he gently approached and systematically knocked down every barrier John erected.  And now, as Sherlock’s fingers slip slowly from between his cheeks, it’s not relief he feels at their absence—it’s emptiness.   When Sherlock slides his slick hand under his thigh, John spreads his legs willingly, bends his knees and makes room for Sherlock to climb between them.  He tilts his hips as Sherlock reaches down and lines them up, blows out a deep breath and presses into the stretch as Sherlock’s swollen cock breaches his entrance, and moans softly through the long, slow slide.  When Sherlock’s hips are at last flush against him, John looks up at him and smiles.

Sherlock returns the expression, slowly pulling out a few inches, then pressing back into John as he gasps and writhes beneath him.  Sliding a hand up and over Sherlock’s waist, John presses his palm against one plump arse cheek, fingers digging into the soft flesh and pulling him closer with each deepening stroke.  His other hand he snakes up the flat plane of Sherlock’s chest, stopping to pinch a nipple into a firm nub between his fingers, before slipping over a shoulder and fisting into the curls at the back of Sherlock’s head, pulling him down into a rough, messy kiss.

Wrapped around him now, gasping into his mouth as each stroke of Sherlock’s cock rubs unerringly against his prostate, John can’t believe he ever thought he wouldn’t like this—wouldn’t crave it and beg for it and want it.

Being taken, John realises, isn’t about losing anything—it’s about giving everything. It’s not about surrendering his power, it’s about the power of surrender.  When he stares up into Sherlock’s eyes he doesn’t feel possessed—he feels protected.  Sherlock fucks him like he is beautiful, like he is valuable, like he is precious.

Like he is loved.

When long fingers reach between them to wrap around his aching cock, holding him tight and stroking him firmly with every thrust, John stretches up to press his lips against Sherlock’s, to shout against his mouth as he comes in long, hot spurts over clever fingers, strong, sturdy thighs wrapped around slender hips that begin to lose their rhythm as wet warmth spreads deep inside of him and Sherlock shouts himself hoarse where his face is pressed tightly against John’s neck.

Lying awake in the dark later on, the mess between them long since wiped clean and Sherlock sprawled half across his chest clinging tightly to him and huffing soft, humid snores into the skin of his neck, John rubs the palm of his hand in lazy circles over Sherlock’s back.

His eyelids growing heavy, he turns his head and looks at the clock.

11:59

Fourteen red half-centimetre lines.  Or three-quarters-of-a-centimetre lines, maybe.

Not that it really matters, he thinks. In another minute he’ll be asleep.

As he closes his eyes, there’s a slight shift on the mattress beneath him, a soft puff of a sleepy sigh against his neck, the tightening grip of a strong arm where it’s draped over his chest.  The sleeping man beside him takes a deep breath and attempts to move even closer, snuffling against his shoulder and trying to press his face deeper into John’s skin.

After a few long moments of this he finally settles back into sleep, and John turns and smiles against the soft curls pressed against his face, huffing out a small laugh.

All that effort and he’s barely any closer to John than he was before.  Quite a lot of fuss for, what—a quarter of a centimetre, maybe?

John tightens his own grip around Sherlock’s shoulders, pulls him just a bit closer, and closes his eyes with a contented sigh.

How much difference does a quarter of a centimetre make?

All the difference in the world.

~the end~

Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed Relative Distance please feel free to give it a shout out and pass on the fic love!

Chapter Text

RELATIVE DISTANCE—CONSOLIDATED FIC REC CHAPTERS 1-8:

CHAPTER ONE: And because I'm nothing if not predictable, welcome to the part of my fics where I spread the fan girl love by using my pathological obsession for Johnlock fic for good by recommending something else for you to read while you're waiting for the next chapter.

If fandom juggernaut ivyblossom hadn't given us enough material to love already, her recent work It Isn’t Strange Until You Think About It would be reason enough to genuflect to her on the hour.

Written in a refreshing conversational John Watson first person POV style, this is 4500+ words of our favorite former army doctor explaining to his therapist just how he and Sherlock became what everyone has always assumed they were anyway. Read it, love it, and then if you're so inclined meet me back here on Thursday as this new tale continues.

CHAPTER TWO: And in “Read this, right now—no seriously RIGHT NOW. Go on. I’ll wait.” news: I submit for your approval helenw713’s wonderful Vital Organs.

It’s 8K words of theoretical season 4 established Johnlock that reads like poetry and wears like cashmere. It’s inventive and emotional and well-crafted and I would use many expletives to describe its beauty but I’m trying to cut down on the gratuitous swearing. Fairly certain it’s the only fic that’s ever made me “aww…” over a scene including bloody disembodied organs. Though to be fair, in this fandom? Probably not the last…

CHAPTER THREE: And now for this week’s installment of “Ok, you can read it, but make sure you bring it back to me when you’re finished because it’s all that’s keeping alive right now”.

I gotta admit, I wasn’t sure this fic would be my cup of tea—but by the time I was finished I wanted to print it out, crumple it into a ball, steep it in a pot of hot water and sip it all afternoon. Set in a magical tea-shop AU, anchors’ wonderful where the good things grow surprised and delighted me with its charming premise and darling story. I adored it, and I hope you will too.

CHAPTER FOUR: In this installment of “For Heaven’s sake, READ THIS—unless of course being happy and laughing out loud and swooning with glee isn’t your thing, then by all means don’t. Except DO. NOW.” we have a delicious little slice of heaven that had me refreshing my inbox each week as I waited for the updates.

Talented author (and all around groovy chick) cwb’s A Study In Auto-Signatures, Sniper Dolphins, and Sex Holidays is a delightful S3 fix-it project that takes place in post Morstan-Watson wedding headspace and will make you giggle and swoon and blush and fan yourself—-all in under 33K words. If by some miracle you haven’t read this yet, drop whatever you’re doing and do so immediately. IMMEDIATELY!

Hope you love it as much as I did. See you next week.

What are you still doing reading this? GO!

CHAPTER FIVE: For this week’s installment of “So you like a little gratuitous consulting detective on former army doctor porn every once in a while? Hey, don’t we all?” I’ve got a smutty little one shot that is as beautifully written as it is smokin-freakin-hot.

If graphic, plotless, naked Holmes/Watson slash isn’t your thing, by all means skip this one—but if it IS, please do yourself a favor and click through to read whiskydaisy’s gorgeous little gem My Axis you.

It’s 4K+ words of establish relationship Johnlock voyeurism, and feelings and sexytimes (oh my!) and I sort of adored it. Because: boys kissing. And stuff.
If it’s at all your thing, enjoy!

CHAPTER SIX: And in today’s installment of “I’m not saying this fic is made of clear, blue, perfectly synthesized crack cocaine—but some guy named Heisenberg assured me it’s very pure”, I respectfully request that you put this in your pipe and smoke it.

I have a sizeable soft spot for cracky premises that are taken seriously in the execution, and patternofdeifance’s The Newlywed Game: Johnlock Edition hit that sweet spot perfectly. It’s exactly what it sounds like, and it’s darling. Our boys pose as a married couple (for a case, natch) on a local version of the classic gameshow and learn that they are indeed MFEO.

Adorbs.

And yes, I’m well aware I’m neither young nor hip enough to use that particular descriptor, but it’s the one that fits.

Now go and take your crack like Mommy told you to.

CHAPTER SEVEN: And now in “If you don’t like things that are so gorgeous that they make your heart sing and ache and swoon, just move along then ‘cuz there’s nothing to see here” news, this week’s rec is 3K+ words of goddamn perfection that surprised and delighted and enchanted me on the first read through—and still do.

On a cold winter night, a lost and lonely post-fall Sherlock finds himself on the doorstep of a John Watson who is thirty years older than the one he’s trying to get back to. The incomparable cathedral_carver’s beautiful A Winter Walk is a testament to the enduring magic of love.

I know, I know--sentiment is a chemical defect, blah blah blah. Got it.

Don’t care. Sometimes sentimental=perfect. Go look and see.

CHAPTER EIGHT: In this fic’s final installment of “There’s so much good fic in the world how will I EVER READ IT ALL???” I present for you a very recent work that I didn’t even really mean to read. I meant to read it eventually of course, maybe after this fic was finally complete and no longer taking up all the room in my brain. But then I made the mistake of starting to read it…and I just couldn’t stop.

A sweet and original S3 fixit project, author Atiki’s State of Flux paints a charming picture of a post-Mary 221B where John’s come back home and he and Sherlock are navigating the winding road that will inevitably lead them to the place they’ve been headed all along.

This little beauty is Sherlock-centric, deftly penned, slow burning, charming, surprising and so warm and fuzzy that I want to hollow out a space between the chapters and live there. Add in the fact that the author’s native language isn’t even English and you’ll be even more impressed. I’ve been speaking the language my whole life, and I need TWO betas to keep me from butchering it.

Don’t miss this one, folks. It’s a beauty. Now go read. You can thank me later. :)

HAPPY READING, AND DON’T FORGET TO PAY IT FORWARD AND SPREAD THE FIC LOVE!