fic: a broken heart is blind (everybody knows this); John/Mary; one-sided Sherlock/John
Title: A Broken Heart is Blind (Everybody Knows This)
Rating: NC 17
Spoilers: For the Empty Hearse, S03E01, and nothing else.
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Mary Morstan, John Watson
Warnings: Failed negotiations for a potential polyamory relationship. The potential remains, but this current negotiation failed. Nothing came of it. There’s a lot of angst in this one, and no clear resolution to what is clearly a complicated problem. I haven’t been able to write in a happy ending. No other warnings apply.
Relationships: John Watson/Mary Morstan, One-Sided Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Summary: Mary is not a genius, like Sherlock Holmes. Mary is an ordinary woman, if a little sharper than most. And as a woman who is in love with John Watson, she figures that she should probably talk to the only other person who is also in love with John Watson. There are difficult decisions to be made, and no easy solutions.
AN: This is set at some point before the whole bonfire scene, but after the reveal. When Mary goes to get Sherlock, he recognizes her voice and responds to her with more familiarity than I think would have come from their one meeting, in which she didn’t really speak to him. So, I propose that she’d been to 221B before, to speak to Sherlock Holmes, without John, because she is an intelligent woman and there are important things to be said.
Disclaimer: The title of this ep comes from a song called ‘Little Black Submarines’ by The Black Keys. I don’t own it, or the characters portrayed in the fiction below. I am in no way making any profit from this portrayal.
Cross posted to AO3
“Mr. Holmes,” she starts, smiling guilelessly at him, standing the doorway. “This is a little forward of me, but I was wondering if we could have a chat?” she knows she sounds a little hopeful, and also like she expects him to send her packing. He stands there, very still, the room dark behind him, except for the light from one table lamp. Nothing is on, not the telly, not the radio. The air in the room smells like disuse.
He turns away from her, but doesn’t slam the door in her face, and she assumes that is as good a welcome as she is going to get. She follows him in and closes the door, carefully. “Sherlock,” he says, gesturing with one graceful hand towards the sofa John never sat on, because he’d said it wasn’t his. He flicks on the light in the living room, and turns around, looking for something on the floor.
“Sorry?” she asks, confused, because she’d been busy studying the flat, and it’s only inhabitant. If the man has been living there for even twenty-four hours, it doesn’t look it. There is a slight indent in one chair, and the flat is freezing cold.
He doesn’t sigh, or roll his eyes. “Call me Sherlock,” he repeats instead and turns again, his enormous coat flapping every-which way. He bends gracefully to turn on the small portable electric heater plugged into the wall. Thank god, because Mary had been just about to start shivering. It is like a crypt in there. Oddly enough, she thinks the gesture is entirely for her benefit, like he’d been sincerely intending to sit in the cold before she’d come along. It endears him to her, because she’s heard a hundred-and-one things about this man, but no one had told her that he was kind, too. Not even John.
“I’m Mary. I’m sorry we weren’t properly introduced earlier.”
He waves a hand casually, dismissing it. “Tea?” he asks, and it is stilted, like he is trying very hard to do something he didn’t know how to do, or he isn’t used to doing. Her heart softens even further.
“Let me help you,” she says, and follows him into the kitchen. The kitchen is even colder than the living room, and it is evident that no one had lived there for a very long time. Every surface is covered in a thick layer of dust, and the kettle has to be washed out thrice before she feels comfortable plugging it in and setting water to boil. It is only dimly lit by the light from the living room, because the light in the ceiling doesn’t seem to be working.
“The circuitry in this part of the flat has always been faulty,” he explains, noticing her glance. “When we lived here, I had a hospital grade lamp on the table, and it was enough for our purposes.” She nods, smiling at him. “I’m afraid I don’t have any milk, Ms. Mo-Mary. Will you take it black?” It feels like she is speaking to a pod person. She has, in fact, read John’s blog. It’s hard to believe that this is the same man who’d not understood why a woman would think of her dead daughter with her own dying breaths.
“That’s fine, Sherlock. Thank you,” she replies, and they walk into the living room, and the silence is still oppressive and stifling, but he is trying, and so is she. This has to be done.
Sherlock sits in his chair, steaming mug clutched in his bare fingers, and she isn’t sure how his fingers haven’t melted off. She gingerly puts down her own mug on the table beside her. “I want you to know that John is glad you are home, Sherlock.”
He studies her, and it feels like he is looking right into her soul, with his pale grey eyes. She knows, all of a sudden, why people have called him disconcerting. He’s absolutely silent, and the room is too, except for the whirring of the little heater. She feels the need to keep talking, which she presumes is his (very effective) tactic. “He doesn’t show it,” she continues, “but he is. I know it can’t have been easy for you, to leave, but he was a wreck when you left. He was a wreck even when I found him. And I still think he’s mostly a wreck. He’s just learned to hide it a little better.”
He is still silent, and she wishes he’d say something, because she’s slowly losing track of her original purpose, misguided as it may have been.
“Thank you,” he replies, finally, and it is unexpected enough to be jarring. She hadn’t expected that. At all. There’s another beat of silence, and she huffs a laugh.
“You’re amazing, Sherlock.” He flinches, and she cannot comprehend why, because she is completely sincere and she means it, she really does. Her mind doesn’t work fast enough to figure it out, so she keeps talking. “You are. Your deductions and your mind, I can’t even imagine. I know you’ve heard it a million times, but you are incredible. And you changed his life. Please believe me. He’s overjoyed you’re alive. And when he comes to his senses, he’s going to come and tell you. But he has me,” and she knows immediately that she’s made a mistake because his lips twist, horribly.
“And I have no-one, Ms. Morstan. If that is the point you’ve been trying to make, then consider it adequately made.”
She flinches, because yes, that had come out wrong. “Sherlock, please. That’s not what I meant, and I really am trying. I’m not good with words. Please call me Mary.”
His expression shifts back to its impassive state, and she hates it. She has been taught to be careful around strange men, and Sherlock is hardly a safe man to be around. And still, she’s hardly felt unsafe, because even when he was angry and she’d been horribly insulting, he hadn’t been threatening. Not towards her, anyway.
“I’m saying that you’re not alone, even though you think you are. Because you have him, Sherlock. I just wanted you to know that. He has me, and it’s different, but you have him. There’s no question that once his temper’s simmered down a little, and I’ve spoken to him, you have him. He’ll drop anything to be by your side. We both know that.”
“And what about you?” he asks, cutting straight to the crux of the matter, because yes, she knows very well that she’s disrupted their relationship, even if Sherlock hadn’t faked his death and left John to grieve alone for two years. She sighs.
“I’m not going to stop him. You mean a lot to him.”
He doesn’t say anything, but that’s because there’s nothing to be said. And it’s horrifically awkward and if he kicked her out, she wouldn’t blame him, but she still has more to say.
“And Sherlock, you love him.” It’s not a question. The silence that follows after that is the worst one yet, echoing and hollow, in a way that aches to be filled. She wants to blurt something out just to end the silence, but that would be a bad idea. She knows that. For the first time in the conversation, he looks away from her.
He’d been making non-stop eye-contact with her, all the while, and it had been creepy but also understandable. Now he isn’t meeting her eyes at all, his chin tucked into his fluffy blue scarf, and his face turned away. Sherlock Holmes is a beautiful man, and if she’d been more inclined to art, she’d have been enchanted by his jawline. As it is, she’s stunned by this man; by his strength. She doesn’t have to be a genius to empathize with him. She only has to be human. Everyone knows what it feels like to be in love with someone, who doesn’t love you back.
But she also loves John Watson. She loves him deeply, or she wouldn’t have agreed to marry him. She hopes he loves her too. But she loves him, and she knows him. Like the back of her hand. They’ve had a short but very intense courtship. And she knows that he had loved Sherlock Holmes too. That he possibly still loves him. She is an open-minded woman, and she has never believed that it’s only possible to love one person at a time.
“You love him,” she repeats, “and so do I.”
“Why are you here?” he asks, and his voice is low, and dark, but still not threatening. If he stood up, he could easily push her out of a window for what she’d said this evening, and she’d hardly blame him. And still, he is quiet, and still, and deliberately smaller than her. It must have felt like she was rubbing salt into an open wound, but that had never been her intention.
“Because I want to tell you that all is not lost, Sherlock.”
He scoffs, and it’s the first impolite thing he’s done all evening. “Please, Mary, don’t condescend.”
“I’m not,” she says firmly, before he can continue, like she would to a misbehaving child. “Listen to me. He loved you. He loves you. Somewhere, inside, he still loves you. When you left, the way he reacted, that was not the reaction of a friend. That was the reaction of a brother, or a lover. I know John, even if I don’t know you. When I met him, eight months ago, he was definitely still grieving the loss of his lover. All is not lost.”
He makes a small sound, like he’s in agony, like he’s dying. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She just knows that she has to do this.
“Why are you doing this?” he pleads, and he wants her to leave, and his voice is breaking and god this must be so incredibly painful for him. “Why are you here? Why are you telling me this?” he demands, still not looking at her. “What about you?” he asks, and that really is the crux of the issue.
She looks at the man in front of her, really looks. She sees someone who is broken. His body has been ravaged by hardship, undisguised by his nice clothes, which hang just a little bit too lose. There are scars on his face, and his eyes look like they’ve seen horrors. His cheeks are sunken and this is not a man who looks like he has much left to live for. This is a man holding on by the last threads of his sanity. It’s no wonder he’d been making mistakes. She’s not sure how everyone’s been missing it.
“It’s possible to love more than one person at once, Sherlock Holmes,” she says quietly, because she’s running out of words, and he’s running out of time. Exhaustion is choreographed in every movement, every time he cards his hair with his own fingers, gaunt and thin.
“John doesn’t love me,” he whispers, and it so soft she almost hadn’t heard it. This is a far cry from the man who’d commanded John to shave off his moustache just a few hours prior. This is not the man who had tried time and time again to reconnect with a friend who did not seem to be there, anymore.
This is a shattered man, sitting alone in a dark, cold room, holding on to the vestiges of his good memories, and the last tatters of his sanity. This is a man who had not a single time threatened her.
“John is loyal, and true, Ms. Morstan,” and she knows she’s losing this battle because he’s not saying her name; he’s creating distance, and that’s not a good sign for a man this far gone. “John will never love me, when he loves you. He will not come to me, when he has you. You have won the fight before it begun,” he says, and his voice is an utter mockery of what it had been, not fifteen minutes earlier.
He stands up and bows, defeated, and it’s a courtier’s gesture, like one would expect on a dance floor, or on the battle field. She doesn’t like this. This isn’t what she’d intended. She stands up to leave, because she’s clearly not helping things. She steps close to him, and she’s eight inches shorter than him, but he flinches back like she’s about to hit him.
She touches her fingers to his freezing cold cheek, and this is so far from appropriate that she can’t even see appropriate anymore. But if this man- if something happens to this man, it will destroy John all over again. And neither of them deserve it.
“John has enough love for two people, Sherlock. More than enough. I’ll say the same thing I said earlier. If he comes to you,” she begins, and takes a deep breath, because this takes bravery too, “if he comes to you, I’ll not stop him. I love him, Sherlock. With all my heart. With everything I am. And I want him to be happy.”
Sherlock has frozen, not comprehending what she’s saying. She hardly comprehends what she herself is saying; she can’t quite believe the words that are spilling from her mouth. That doesn’t make them any less sincere, or true.
“John is an adult. Both you and I are adults. At some point, he is going to marry me, no, listen. He is, because he’s got it in his head that he has to prove he loves me. But that’s the problem with marriage, Sherlock. If I told him that you were off limits, I’d break his heart. Because I don’t think he’s ever stopped loving you. What kind of person would I be, to do that?”
“A wife,” he whispers in response, because it’s clear he still doesn’t really believe her.
“My promise to him is in my heart, not on a piece of paper. Do you understand?” she asks, because she’s not sure she does either, just knows that this is right. “He’s never broken his promise to you, Sherlock. Even though he’s so angry he can’t think straight. I know him, you see. And he loves you.”
“But not like he loves you, Mary,” Sherlock responds, and oh god, she thinks he’s going to cry, but it’s understandable, because she thinks she might be crying herself.
“Just like he loves you, Sherlock. He just doesn’t know it. I can see it in his eyes. Be gentle with him. Let him forgive you. And you’ll see it too. I’m a liar, but I’m not in the habit of lying to myself. I can see it as clear as day.”
“What do you want me to do, Mary? I’m horrible and cruel and heartless, I’m a sociopath, for gods’ sake! But I cannot do this to him, or to you. I want him to be happy,” he says. “I love him, and I want him to be happy. And he’s happy with you. I can’t do anything to disrupt that, Mary. If he forgives me, it’ll be enough. It will have to be. And I’ll leave London, if I have to, afterwards. I’ll leave you, because I want him to be happy. I am many things, but not this.”
“Sherlock,” she starts in protest, but he doesn’t let her continue.
He scrubs at his face with one coat sleeve, and clears his throat. “It was very nice meeting you Mary,” and he’s definitely reciting these words, as if from a lesson. “But I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I have some things to do.” He gestures to the door, and she goes. Because she’s caused pain, unintentionally, and if leaving is the only kindness she can do, then she will do it.
But deep in her bones, she knows that what she’s said is true. That if Sherlock told John the truth, then John would be torn between the two of them. But the both of them, they love John, and they want him to be happy.
Something is going to have to give, and she doesn’t know what. Nothing is clear anymore, in her head. She’d known the moment Sherlock had re-appeared in that restaurant, with John fiddling with a ring box under the table, that something would have to give. They couldn’t sustain this forever. And Sherlock just hasn’t seen it yet. Because if she can see the love in his eyes, it’s only a matter of time before John sees it too.
She doesn’t even know what she wants from this. She doesn’t know if she’ll really be able to handle John going to Sherlock, some nights, and staying with her on others. She doesn’t know if she can share her husband with another man. She doesn’t know if John would be able to handle that, if he considered the situation in the first place. Even if the three of them sat down in the room and were open with each other, as if they had nothing to lose, John would not be able to choose. And she didn’t know if she is that good, to be that selfless.
Sherlock loved John, but she loved him too.
Rating: NC 17
Spoilers: For the Empty Hearse, S03E01, and nothing else.
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Mary Morstan, John Watson
Warnings: Failed negotiations for a potential polyamory relationship. The potential remains, but this current negotiation failed. Nothing came of it. There’s a lot of angst in this one, and no clear resolution to what is clearly a complicated problem. I haven’t been able to write in a happy ending. No other warnings apply.
Relationships: John Watson/Mary Morstan, One-Sided Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Summary: Mary is not a genius, like Sherlock Holmes. Mary is an ordinary woman, if a little sharper than most. And as a woman who is in love with John Watson, she figures that she should probably talk to the only other person who is also in love with John Watson. There are difficult decisions to be made, and no easy solutions.
AN: This is set at some point before the whole bonfire scene, but after the reveal. When Mary goes to get Sherlock, he recognizes her voice and responds to her with more familiarity than I think would have come from their one meeting, in which she didn’t really speak to him. So, I propose that she’d been to 221B before, to speak to Sherlock Holmes, without John, because she is an intelligent woman and there are important things to be said.
Disclaimer: The title of this ep comes from a song called ‘Little Black Submarines’ by The Black Keys. I don’t own it, or the characters portrayed in the fiction below. I am in no way making any profit from this portrayal.
Cross posted to AO3
“Mr. Holmes,” she starts, smiling guilelessly at him, standing the doorway. “This is a little forward of me, but I was wondering if we could have a chat?” she knows she sounds a little hopeful, and also like she expects him to send her packing. He stands there, very still, the room dark behind him, except for the light from one table lamp. Nothing is on, not the telly, not the radio. The air in the room smells like disuse.
He turns away from her, but doesn’t slam the door in her face, and she assumes that is as good a welcome as she is going to get. She follows him in and closes the door, carefully. “Sherlock,” he says, gesturing with one graceful hand towards the sofa John never sat on, because he’d said it wasn’t his. He flicks on the light in the living room, and turns around, looking for something on the floor.
“Sorry?” she asks, confused, because she’d been busy studying the flat, and it’s only inhabitant. If the man has been living there for even twenty-four hours, it doesn’t look it. There is a slight indent in one chair, and the flat is freezing cold.
He doesn’t sigh, or roll his eyes. “Call me Sherlock,” he repeats instead and turns again, his enormous coat flapping every-which way. He bends gracefully to turn on the small portable electric heater plugged into the wall. Thank god, because Mary had been just about to start shivering. It is like a crypt in there. Oddly enough, she thinks the gesture is entirely for her benefit, like he’d been sincerely intending to sit in the cold before she’d come along. It endears him to her, because she’s heard a hundred-and-one things about this man, but no one had told her that he was kind, too. Not even John.
“I’m Mary. I’m sorry we weren’t properly introduced earlier.”
He waves a hand casually, dismissing it. “Tea?” he asks, and it is stilted, like he is trying very hard to do something he didn’t know how to do, or he isn’t used to doing. Her heart softens even further.
“Let me help you,” she says, and follows him into the kitchen. The kitchen is even colder than the living room, and it is evident that no one had lived there for a very long time. Every surface is covered in a thick layer of dust, and the kettle has to be washed out thrice before she feels comfortable plugging it in and setting water to boil. It is only dimly lit by the light from the living room, because the light in the ceiling doesn’t seem to be working.
“The circuitry in this part of the flat has always been faulty,” he explains, noticing her glance. “When we lived here, I had a hospital grade lamp on the table, and it was enough for our purposes.” She nods, smiling at him. “I’m afraid I don’t have any milk, Ms. Mo-Mary. Will you take it black?” It feels like she is speaking to a pod person. She has, in fact, read John’s blog. It’s hard to believe that this is the same man who’d not understood why a woman would think of her dead daughter with her own dying breaths.
“That’s fine, Sherlock. Thank you,” she replies, and they walk into the living room, and the silence is still oppressive and stifling, but he is trying, and so is she. This has to be done.
Sherlock sits in his chair, steaming mug clutched in his bare fingers, and she isn’t sure how his fingers haven’t melted off. She gingerly puts down her own mug on the table beside her. “I want you to know that John is glad you are home, Sherlock.”
He studies her, and it feels like he is looking right into her soul, with his pale grey eyes. She knows, all of a sudden, why people have called him disconcerting. He’s absolutely silent, and the room is too, except for the whirring of the little heater. She feels the need to keep talking, which she presumes is his (very effective) tactic. “He doesn’t show it,” she continues, “but he is. I know it can’t have been easy for you, to leave, but he was a wreck when you left. He was a wreck even when I found him. And I still think he’s mostly a wreck. He’s just learned to hide it a little better.”
He is still silent, and she wishes he’d say something, because she’s slowly losing track of her original purpose, misguided as it may have been.
“Thank you,” he replies, finally, and it is unexpected enough to be jarring. She hadn’t expected that. At all. There’s another beat of silence, and she huffs a laugh.
“You’re amazing, Sherlock.” He flinches, and she cannot comprehend why, because she is completely sincere and she means it, she really does. Her mind doesn’t work fast enough to figure it out, so she keeps talking. “You are. Your deductions and your mind, I can’t even imagine. I know you’ve heard it a million times, but you are incredible. And you changed his life. Please believe me. He’s overjoyed you’re alive. And when he comes to his senses, he’s going to come and tell you. But he has me,” and she knows immediately that she’s made a mistake because his lips twist, horribly.
“And I have no-one, Ms. Morstan. If that is the point you’ve been trying to make, then consider it adequately made.”
She flinches, because yes, that had come out wrong. “Sherlock, please. That’s not what I meant, and I really am trying. I’m not good with words. Please call me Mary.”
His expression shifts back to its impassive state, and she hates it. She has been taught to be careful around strange men, and Sherlock is hardly a safe man to be around. And still, she’s hardly felt unsafe, because even when he was angry and she’d been horribly insulting, he hadn’t been threatening. Not towards her, anyway.
“I’m saying that you’re not alone, even though you think you are. Because you have him, Sherlock. I just wanted you to know that. He has me, and it’s different, but you have him. There’s no question that once his temper’s simmered down a little, and I’ve spoken to him, you have him. He’ll drop anything to be by your side. We both know that.”
“And what about you?” he asks, cutting straight to the crux of the matter, because yes, she knows very well that she’s disrupted their relationship, even if Sherlock hadn’t faked his death and left John to grieve alone for two years. She sighs.
“I’m not going to stop him. You mean a lot to him.”
He doesn’t say anything, but that’s because there’s nothing to be said. And it’s horrifically awkward and if he kicked her out, she wouldn’t blame him, but she still has more to say.
“And Sherlock, you love him.” It’s not a question. The silence that follows after that is the worst one yet, echoing and hollow, in a way that aches to be filled. She wants to blurt something out just to end the silence, but that would be a bad idea. She knows that. For the first time in the conversation, he looks away from her.
He’d been making non-stop eye-contact with her, all the while, and it had been creepy but also understandable. Now he isn’t meeting her eyes at all, his chin tucked into his fluffy blue scarf, and his face turned away. Sherlock Holmes is a beautiful man, and if she’d been more inclined to art, she’d have been enchanted by his jawline. As it is, she’s stunned by this man; by his strength. She doesn’t have to be a genius to empathize with him. She only has to be human. Everyone knows what it feels like to be in love with someone, who doesn’t love you back.
But she also loves John Watson. She loves him deeply, or she wouldn’t have agreed to marry him. She hopes he loves her too. But she loves him, and she knows him. Like the back of her hand. They’ve had a short but very intense courtship. And she knows that he had loved Sherlock Holmes too. That he possibly still loves him. She is an open-minded woman, and she has never believed that it’s only possible to love one person at a time.
“You love him,” she repeats, “and so do I.”
“Why are you here?” he asks, and his voice is low, and dark, but still not threatening. If he stood up, he could easily push her out of a window for what she’d said this evening, and she’d hardly blame him. And still, he is quiet, and still, and deliberately smaller than her. It must have felt like she was rubbing salt into an open wound, but that had never been her intention.
“Because I want to tell you that all is not lost, Sherlock.”
He scoffs, and it’s the first impolite thing he’s done all evening. “Please, Mary, don’t condescend.”
“I’m not,” she says firmly, before he can continue, like she would to a misbehaving child. “Listen to me. He loved you. He loves you. Somewhere, inside, he still loves you. When you left, the way he reacted, that was not the reaction of a friend. That was the reaction of a brother, or a lover. I know John, even if I don’t know you. When I met him, eight months ago, he was definitely still grieving the loss of his lover. All is not lost.”
He makes a small sound, like he’s in agony, like he’s dying. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She just knows that she has to do this.
“Why are you doing this?” he pleads, and he wants her to leave, and his voice is breaking and god this must be so incredibly painful for him. “Why are you here? Why are you telling me this?” he demands, still not looking at her. “What about you?” he asks, and that really is the crux of the issue.
She looks at the man in front of her, really looks. She sees someone who is broken. His body has been ravaged by hardship, undisguised by his nice clothes, which hang just a little bit too lose. There are scars on his face, and his eyes look like they’ve seen horrors. His cheeks are sunken and this is not a man who looks like he has much left to live for. This is a man holding on by the last threads of his sanity. It’s no wonder he’d been making mistakes. She’s not sure how everyone’s been missing it.
“It’s possible to love more than one person at once, Sherlock Holmes,” she says quietly, because she’s running out of words, and he’s running out of time. Exhaustion is choreographed in every movement, every time he cards his hair with his own fingers, gaunt and thin.
“John doesn’t love me,” he whispers, and it so soft she almost hadn’t heard it. This is a far cry from the man who’d commanded John to shave off his moustache just a few hours prior. This is not the man who had tried time and time again to reconnect with a friend who did not seem to be there, anymore.
This is a shattered man, sitting alone in a dark, cold room, holding on to the vestiges of his good memories, and the last tatters of his sanity. This is a man who had not a single time threatened her.
“John is loyal, and true, Ms. Morstan,” and she knows she’s losing this battle because he’s not saying her name; he’s creating distance, and that’s not a good sign for a man this far gone. “John will never love me, when he loves you. He will not come to me, when he has you. You have won the fight before it begun,” he says, and his voice is an utter mockery of what it had been, not fifteen minutes earlier.
He stands up and bows, defeated, and it’s a courtier’s gesture, like one would expect on a dance floor, or on the battle field. She doesn’t like this. This isn’t what she’d intended. She stands up to leave, because she’s clearly not helping things. She steps close to him, and she’s eight inches shorter than him, but he flinches back like she’s about to hit him.
She touches her fingers to his freezing cold cheek, and this is so far from appropriate that she can’t even see appropriate anymore. But if this man- if something happens to this man, it will destroy John all over again. And neither of them deserve it.
“John has enough love for two people, Sherlock. More than enough. I’ll say the same thing I said earlier. If he comes to you,” she begins, and takes a deep breath, because this takes bravery too, “if he comes to you, I’ll not stop him. I love him, Sherlock. With all my heart. With everything I am. And I want him to be happy.”
Sherlock has frozen, not comprehending what she’s saying. She hardly comprehends what she herself is saying; she can’t quite believe the words that are spilling from her mouth. That doesn’t make them any less sincere, or true.
“John is an adult. Both you and I are adults. At some point, he is going to marry me, no, listen. He is, because he’s got it in his head that he has to prove he loves me. But that’s the problem with marriage, Sherlock. If I told him that you were off limits, I’d break his heart. Because I don’t think he’s ever stopped loving you. What kind of person would I be, to do that?”
“A wife,” he whispers in response, because it’s clear he still doesn’t really believe her.
“My promise to him is in my heart, not on a piece of paper. Do you understand?” she asks, because she’s not sure she does either, just knows that this is right. “He’s never broken his promise to you, Sherlock. Even though he’s so angry he can’t think straight. I know him, you see. And he loves you.”
“But not like he loves you, Mary,” Sherlock responds, and oh god, she thinks he’s going to cry, but it’s understandable, because she thinks she might be crying herself.
“Just like he loves you, Sherlock. He just doesn’t know it. I can see it in his eyes. Be gentle with him. Let him forgive you. And you’ll see it too. I’m a liar, but I’m not in the habit of lying to myself. I can see it as clear as day.”
“What do you want me to do, Mary? I’m horrible and cruel and heartless, I’m a sociopath, for gods’ sake! But I cannot do this to him, or to you. I want him to be happy,” he says. “I love him, and I want him to be happy. And he’s happy with you. I can’t do anything to disrupt that, Mary. If he forgives me, it’ll be enough. It will have to be. And I’ll leave London, if I have to, afterwards. I’ll leave you, because I want him to be happy. I am many things, but not this.”
“Sherlock,” she starts in protest, but he doesn’t let her continue.
He scrubs at his face with one coat sleeve, and clears his throat. “It was very nice meeting you Mary,” and he’s definitely reciting these words, as if from a lesson. “But I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I have some things to do.” He gestures to the door, and she goes. Because she’s caused pain, unintentionally, and if leaving is the only kindness she can do, then she will do it.
But deep in her bones, she knows that what she’s said is true. That if Sherlock told John the truth, then John would be torn between the two of them. But the both of them, they love John, and they want him to be happy.
Something is going to have to give, and she doesn’t know what. Nothing is clear anymore, in her head. She’d known the moment Sherlock had re-appeared in that restaurant, with John fiddling with a ring box under the table, that something would have to give. They couldn’t sustain this forever. And Sherlock just hasn’t seen it yet. Because if she can see the love in his eyes, it’s only a matter of time before John sees it too.
She doesn’t even know what she wants from this. She doesn’t know if she’ll really be able to handle John going to Sherlock, some nights, and staying with her on others. She doesn’t know if she can share her husband with another man. She doesn’t know if John would be able to handle that, if he considered the situation in the first place. Even if the three of them sat down in the room and were open with each other, as if they had nothing to lose, John would not be able to choose. And she didn’t know if she is that good, to be that selfless.
Sherlock loved John, but she loved him too.