Fic: One More Miracle (3/11)
Title: One More Miracle (3/11)
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Characters: Sherlock/John, Mummy Holmes, Harry Watson, Greg Lestrade, OFC
Warning: None
Rating: R
Summary: Six weeks ago, Sherlock went to finish off Mrs Moriarty - leaving John and their daughter behind. Again. This time, though, John's the one with the secret, and John's getting tired of waiting for Sherlock Holmes. Part Three of the Heart ‘Verse.
A/N: The Catalan translations are courtesy of Google, which is why I’ve provided the English as well. Corrections gratefully accepted (and anticipated, come to that).
Chapter One ~ Two
Chapter Three
Emily fell asleep during tea; John glared at Harry and resisted the urge to kick her ankle, absolutely convinced he’d seen her slip something into his daughter’s milk. Melatonin, most likely, which wasn’t exactly healthy for a small child to ingest, but was unlikely to cause lasting damage. John carried the little girl up to her bedroom and laid her on the bed while her eyes fluttered.
“Sleepy,” said Emily, and John leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
“I know. You’ll feel better after a nap.”
“And we’ll play.”
John bit his lip, and thought of something.
“Hey. I bet Uncle Mycroft will be here in the morning, what do you think?”
“Yay,” said Emily in a sleepy cheer, and John kissed her forehead again, pressed his nose to her soft black curls, and breathed in her scent.
“Tell him you want a tea party,” said John. “Don’t let up until he does.”
“Okay,” said Emily.
“Love you,” he whispered into Emily’s hair, and Emily murmured something that could have been “love you too”, but it was hard to tell.
John crossed the room to the little table, set up for a continuous tea party attended by various stuffed animals. Emily wasn’t one for tea parties generally, but Aurora adored them, and Emily was a very good sport. John found a bit of paper and a pencil, wrote the note quickly, folded it in half, and wrote “MYCROFT” in large letters before sliding it in the teapot’s spout.
With this task done, John gave Emily a last look - fast asleep, of course - and headed back downstairs, where Harry waited in the foyer.
“There you are - is she asleep?” asked Harry. Her eyes were bright with unasked questions. Ready for the plan?
“Yes,” said John. What the hell did you put in her milk, Harry? “Heading out?”
“Think so,” said Harry casually. “Long drive and all that.”
John didn’t have a clue if Harry was sending him a signal or not - maybe she was acting for the recording devices. Would Mycroft spy on his own mother’s house? Probably, thought John. If there was something worth recording.
John leaned in and gave Harry a kiss on the cheek. “Drive safely.”
“Will do. See you next time,” said Harry, and gave his arm a squeeze, and she pulled him out the front door.
“Harry,” said John evenly, once they were clear of the house. “What did you give my daughter in there?”
“Oh, honestly,” said Harry. “She’ll be fine and she won’t wake until morning. Nod your head for the cameras, Johnny, and whatever you do, don’t be stupid.”
“You are much too good at this,” said John cautiously.
“Makes up for your inability to lie effectively,” said Harry smoothly. “Nod, John.”
John nodded.
“Right then,” said Harry. She got into her car and started the engine. John leaned down, as if to speak to her, and Harry rolled down the window. “John-”
“I still don’t know why you’re doing this,” John began. “I…I thought you hated him. Sherlock.”
Harry’s hands were still on the steering wheel. “I do, sometimes,” she admitted. “But I love you.” She glanced at John. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Our secret,” promised John.
Harry nodded, and shifted the car. “Be safe, idiot. I’m too old to take up motherhood now.”
“Get on with you,” said John, and stepped back to let Harry drive away.
*
Aurora seemed distracted when John returned to the sitting room. She kept picking up the tea cups, and setting them back down again as if she wasn’t entirely sure whether she should drink what remained, or leave it for the maid to clear away.
“Aurora, I’m going on a walk.”
“All right, dear,” said Aurora, only half listening, and then she perked up. “Did you want company?”
“No, that’s all right.” John watched as she picked up another cup. “Everything all right?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Aurora, and sat down with a sigh. “Your sister.”
John grinned. “Sorry. She’s like that with everyone.”
Aurora shook her head, and it seemed to clear the distraction for a moment. John found himself needing to hold steady under a suddenly piercing gaze.
“John Hamish Watson.”
John blinked back at her, hoping he looked innocent enough, considering how innocent he wasn’t.
“You’ll take care on your walk,” said Aurora firmly. “I don’t want you returning to this house injured or having endangered your health.”
John opened his mouth to answer, but wasn’t entirely sure what to say.
“And take a few sandwiches from the kitchen,” continued Aurora.
“Aurora,” said John slowly. “We just had tea.”
“Then there will be plenty to share, won’t there? You’ll find the thermoses in the right-hand cupboard on the other side of the fridge, dear.”
John looked harder at his mother-in-law. But Aurora was, as always, unreadable, aloof, poised, and completely impenetrable. John had no idea if she really thought John might want a snack for a quick walk in the woods, or was sending him away with a meal for later in what would undoubtedly be a longer journey.
“Thanks,” said John finally, because he honestly couldn’t think of any other answer that wouldn’t show his hand, assuming Aurora hadn’t already managed to deduce his intentions.
Aurora waved her hand at him: of course.
Half an hour later, John was on the path leading to the road, a knapsack slung over one shoulder carrying a change of clothes, four sandwiches, and a thermos of sweetened tea. The sun was just setting through the trees, and John was already feeling peckish - no first-trimester nausea for him - when he saw the lights on the road. He picked up the pace; the day had been cold, and night was falling. John’s face was damp with mist, and he didn’t think it would be long before it turned to a light rain. It wasn’t until he was nearly at the road itself that he saw the car sitting in the bushes, and he went to it without hesitation, just as the rain began to fall.
“Greg,” he greeted the driver.
“John,” replied Greg Lestrade as John climbed into the passenger seat. “Lovely night for a walk.”
“Isn’t it just?” John buckled up and opened the knapsack. “I’m starving, do you want a sandwich?”
“Ta,” said Lestrade, and crammed half of one into his mouth.
“Been waiting long?”
Lestrade shrugged. “Five, ten minutes. So - where to, guv?”
“Heathrow. And don’t ask where after that, Mycroft might try to torture it out of you.”
“Bloody Mycroft,” said Lestrade, and started the car.
“Chancy thing, driving your own car.”
“Well,” said Lestrade. “We don’t think Mycroft has it tracked. Yet.”
They drove in companionable silence for a while, while John ate the sandwiches and drank the tea. The rain turned into a steady deluge; the sound of the wipers working back and forth, the drumbeat of drops on the roof of Greg’s car all providing a comforting background noise that let John’s mind wander. It didn’t wander very far; he went over the plan continuously in his mind. Heathrow, board the plane, land in Spain, and then…
John wasn’t entirely sure. Sherlock was in Spain. Nola Moriarty must have been in Spain. For a moment, John felt entirely frustrated, exactly as he did when Sherlock was twenty steps ahead leaving no discernible track, and John was forced to leap from Point A to Point Zed without any indication of how to find the points in between.
Next to him, Greg coughed. It was the sort of cough meant to initiate conversation, and John opened his eyes and shifted, the sort of shift that meant he was open to it.
“Heathrow,” said Greg. “I can’t decide if this is Shakespeare or Homer.”
“Journeys end in lovers meeting, or the Odyssey, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“If I meet any soothsayers, I’ll let you know.”
“Football,” said Greg.
“Arsenal and the Hammers,” remembered John, and reached to switch on the radio. Within moments, the familiar sounds of the football broadcast filled the car.
Greg chuckled. “Christ, I remember after Em was born - you didn’t even know there were games being played, let alone who played them.”
“I was busy,” protested John. “And there’s not been much to do lately.”
“’Spose not.” Greg drove for a little before speaking again. “That was a good day.”
“Anna came over and cooked me dinners for a week,” remembered John, smiling.
“Do you remember her lasagna?”
John groaned appreciatively. “Lemon cake. I always liked her lemon cake.”
“Roast chicken, with the onion and the ginger.”
“Black pudding.”
“That…thing she did with the trout.” Greg made a sort of odd motion with his hands, briefly off the wheel of the car. “With the paper. I never understood the point of the paper, but…” He shook his head, and fell silent.
John didn’t say anything for a moment; no doubt Greg was remembering Anna, and John let himself remember her too - the easy way she’d come in and take over his kitchen, his daughter, laughing and relinquishing it all once she was done, without a spark of resentment or jealousy. As though John had been giving her the gift, instead of the other way around.
John didn’t like to think about her at the end, in the last weeks before she died. Not the pale woman who held his hand with hot, paper-thin fingers, and smiled only when Emily drew near.
“She asked me to watch over you,” said John, not entirely sure why he was saying it at all. “Done a crap job of it, haven’t I?”
Greg didn’t say anything. Someone in the game scored; John wasn’t sure who, but the crowd and the announcers sounded appreciative. It all blended together with the rain.
“Other things on your mind, mate,” said Greg finally.
He’s in love with you, Sherlock’s voice reminded John.
No, John had said, but watching Greg in the car now, he wasn’t so sure. If Greg were in love with John, why would he drive him to the airport so he could chase after Sherlock?
John pulled the letter from his pocket, unfolded it and read it again.
Where the land juts out bravely into the sea…
Harry’s phone was in his pocket; it only took a few moments to call up a map of Spain, and John thumbed through the coastline, his eyes roaming over the cities, the thin colors of green and grey and blue. And then, just north of Barcelona, he saw it, and remembered.
Tell me about the roses.
What roses, Emily?
I don’t know, tell me!
Why the sudden fascination with roses, Em?
And Emily would giggle and clap her hands over her mouth. John wasn’t sure where the fascination with roses came from: there weren’t rose bushes on the estate, and it was still the middle of winter. He looked online and found children’s books about roses, the fairy tales of Rose Red and Snow White, and read them to Emily every night before bed. And every night, when he told it, Emily asked the same thing:
Does Papa know this story?
I’m sure he does.
Roses and Sherlock, when roses were something John had never associated Sherlock with, but for some reason they were inexplicably twined together in Emily’s mind.
And now, looking at the eastern shores of Spain on the Mediterranean - a town called Roses, on a bit of land jutting out into the sea.
“Do you believe in coincidences?” John asked. The game on the radio let out another cheer.
“Depends on the coincidence,” said Greg. “Did you just get a text telling you exactly where to find Sherlock?”
“It’s more of a hunch than anything else,” said John.
“Sherlock wouldn’t call it a hunch, he’d call it deductive reasoning.”
“Do you think there was ever a point in his life where he wasn’t sure about anything?”
“No,” said Greg, and turned off the motorway toward the airport. “That tosser was born knowing everything there is to know in the world.”
John snorted, and folded the letter up and put it back in his pocket. “Who’s winning?”
“Hell if I know,” said Greg. “Do I get to know a terminal, or shall I just kick you out at a convenient spot?”
“Five.”
The terminal was busy and loud, and the drop-off point was strangely warm and breezy. John watched the dozens of people moving and talking, going about their lives with goodbyes and hellos, and for a sharp moment, didn’t want to leave the safety of Greg’s car.
“Shite,” he said. “Six weeks of being holed up on a country estate, and suddenly I’m hit with agoraphobia.”
“Get over it quick,” advised Greg.
“Yeah.” John gripped the strap on his knapsack, and reached for the door handle.
“Hey,” said Greg, and John looked back at him. “You and me…”
John waited.
“We would have been crap together,” said Greg. “I mean. You root for Liverpool.”
He’s in love with you, Sherlock reminded John, and John didn’t laugh.
“Anna never did understand the football,” said John, and Greg laughed, breaking the odd spell in the car.
“Yeah, well,” said Greg. He broke eye contact with John. “Wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”
“Would have killed each other before the first season was over,” agreed John.
“Marrying outside the faith is fraught with problems.”
“Think of the children, living in that kind of environment,” said John solemnly, and they both dissolved into giggles.
“Christ, mate,” said Greg, and looked over at John again. The smile was just a shadow on his face now, replaced with something far more serious. “I love Em like she’s my own. Have since the day I met her, and it’s got nothing to do with you. If things were different - I’d have been proud to call her my daughter, adopted or otherwise. But she’s got you and she’s got Sherlock, and I know she doesn’t need me.”
“She’ll always need you. You’re just as important to her as the rest of us. More so - you were there when Sherlock couldn’t be.”
Greg breathed in deep, and before he could say anything to break the sudden odd feeling of emotional disclosure - because honestly, they were British, they were men, they did not do this sort of thing - John added, “You’re important to me, too, mate.”
Greg was still for a moment.
“Even if we’d have been rubbish in the sack,” added John, and with that, the moment was gone. Just as well.
“Speak for yourself,” said Greg. “Get the fock out.”
“Ta,” said John, and went.
*
John had always pictured Spain as hot, with everyone wearing thin shirts and bare shoulders, sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats.
He hadn’t expected rain. Even if the air was warmer than it had been in England, it was still just as wet, and all John had to wear was his leather coat and no hat or umbrella.
By the time John found himself in the little hired car and on the road toward Roses, he was soaked. He changed into his spare clothes, which were luckily still dry, and laid out his coat on the seat next to him. Hopefully the rest of his clothes would dry by morning.
It was a two-hour drive north along the coast before he reached his destination, and by then the rain had finally let up, leaving a crystal-clear sky of stars above him. John stepped out of the car near the tiny little guest house he’d managed to find on Harry’s phone while waiting for his flight at Heathrow, and stared up at the sky. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen so many stars - Afghanistan, maybe. That seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Hola, puc ajudar-lo?”
John turned toward the voice; an older man, with what had to be the most fantastic moustache John had ever seen in his life, leaned outside the door of the guesthouse, looking somewhat stern. He could have been a caricature of the beleaguered but good-humored Spanish innkeeper, the sort who always knew exactly what his guests required and was perfectly capable of supplying it in spades.
“Hola,” said John. “Ah…I’m John Watson?”
“Juan Watson,” said the man, nodding, and he waved his arm to motion John to come in. John grabbed the knapsack from the car and followed him in. Within moments he was shown to a room, a tiny garret under a stairway, with barely enough space for the twin-bed, the washbasin, and a chair. There was a round window looking outside - completely useless for anything, John thought, since there wasn’t a way to open it - and only a bare hook on the wall for clothes. The bright patchwork coverlet on the bed cheered the room up, but then, it was a small room, so there wasn’t much cheer required.
“L'esmorzar és a les vuit. No arribar tard o no a menjar. Hi ha un bany pel passadís. Dormir bé i ignorar l'aranya a la cantonada, que és perfectament còmode amb els clients.”
(Breakfast is at 8. Don't be late or you won’t eat. There is a bathroom down the hall. Sleep well and ignore the spider in the corner, she is perfectly comfortable with guests.)
And with that, the innkeeper closed the door. John sat on the bed and listened to the man’s footsteps fade down the hall.
He was alone.
John had been alone before, even within the last three years since Emily’s birth. Afternoons where Sherlock and Emily went to museums, giving him a bit of time by himself, which he had been craving for months but never quite knew what to do with once received. Mornings at the clinic between patients, when he’d close his eyes and try to catch a few winks of sleep. For a short time, in simpler days, train rides to Buckley, to shoot with Sebastian Moran.
The hours when Emily napped, when she was tiny, and the early days when he still mourned, he’d sit in Sherlock’s chair and feel her move under his skin.
Sitting in the miniscule room in Spain, however, was more alone than John had felt in years. For the first time, no one physically near him knew who he was. No one emotionally close to him knew where he was.
He pulled Sherlock’s letter from his pocket, and held it in his hands for a moment. There was every chance that he was on the wrong track, that Sherlock wasn’t in Roses, that he wasn’t even in Spain. It didn’t make sense for Sherlock to be in Spain.
John slid the letter back into his pocket, and undressed to his boxers. He stretched out on the bed, and folded his hands over his stomach to sleep.
Morning. The rest would wait until morning.
*
The room was expansive, so much so that John couldn’t see the walls. He started walking along the hard-wood floors, heard his footsteps echo, but despite walking for miles, nothing changed. He was forever in the center of the light, shadows all around, and alone.
“What are you looking for?” asked Sherlock, behind him.
“No idea,” said John, still walking. Sherlock was just behind him, could have walked beside him if he picked up the pace by a step or two, or if John slowed down.
“Do you think you’ll find it?”
“Hope so.”
“Why?” asked Sherlock, and he sounded genuinely curious.
“I miss you,” said John, and turned around, and woke up.
Light streamed into the little room through the circular window. John stared at the steps above him, which was just disorientating enough that he felt somewhat nauseous. It took a moment of even breaths and concentrated effort before he was able to calm his stomach and sit up without fear of retching.
“You might have missed the memo,” John told the baby, “but I don’t get morning sickness. So stop it.”
John pulled on his clothes and opened the door to the hall; he could just hear signs of life coming from downstairs. There’d be a loo somewhere along the way, as well, thought John, and he went to investigate.
Twenty minutes later, having showered and shaved and more or less prepared himself to look as friendly and congenial as possible, John headed downstairs, an English-Catalan phrasebook in his pocket. He followed the noises to the breakfast room, and there found the mustachioed innkeeper from the previous night, as well as two other people.
“Er, hola,” said John, and the innkeeper raised his arms wide.
“Bon dia, bon dia! Dormia tan tard, pensàvem que eren morts. Haver perdut primer esmorzar, però pot fer una truita d'ous si tens gana, o pa amb tomàquet. I vostè es anglès, voleu que te? Els I tenen instal•lacions per preparar te.”
(Good morning, good morning! You slept so late, we thought you were dead. You have missed first breakfast, but I can make you an omelet if you are hungry, or some bread with tomato. And you are English, do you want tea? I have tea.)
“Ah. Tay. Tea. Tea, yes,” said John, practically leaping on the single word he had understood. “Ah…sugar?”
One of the women at the table groaned and reached over to smack the innkeeper on the arm with her newspaper. “El meu Déu, idiota, ell no parla catalana, que és l'anglès!” She turned to John. “Please excuse him. He is idiot. He will get you tea.”
(My god, you idiot, he doesn't speak Catalan, he's English!)
“Idiota! Qui és l'idiota? Ell és l'anglès, per descomptat ell vol que te, què més voleu anglesos?” shouted the innkeeper in response, and John watched as the two of them bickered back and forth in Catalan, arms waving in the air, while the innkeeper fussed with a kettle and a mug. Within a minute, John had the mug thrust into his hands, and he sat down, already winded, to watch as the two Catalonians continued to argue.
(Idiot! Who's the idiot? He's English, of course he wants tea, what else do Englishmen want?)
The second woman leaned over to John. “They will argue about you the rest of the day.”
“Oh,” said John. “Ah…sorry.”
“Oh no, they enjoy,” said the woman. She was much younger than the other two, and rather pretty. Her English wasn’t half horrible, either.
A crash from the arguing Catalonians, who had moved their frenzied discussion into the kitchen. John craned his head to follow their progress.
“I don’t suppose I could get a bit of toast?”
The woman stood and shouted toward the kitchen, “Francesc, el vostre convidat és fam! Deixar que manifesten amor a la meva germana i fer-li alguna cosa per menjar.”
(Francesc, your guest is hungry! Stop professing love to my sister and make him something to eat.)
A shriek from the older woman, followed by a “Si, Marisa!” from the innkeeper. The woman - Marisa, John gathered - sat back down and smiled at John.
“Why do you visit Roses?”
“I’m looking for someone,” said John, thinking it could not possibly be this easy. “Another Englishman, he would have come through sometime in the last six weeks. Tall, dark curly hair, alpha, absolute berk who can tell your life story by your fingernails.”
Marisa almost looked disappointed as she shook her head. “No. I have not seen him. Ana, has vist un anglès en el darrer mes?”
(Ana, have you seen an Englishman in the last month?)
“No,” called back Ana.
“Shite,” said John under his breath.
“I am sorry,” said Marisa, and she did sound apologetic. “A lover?”
“My bondmate. It was just a hunch that he came here - stupid.”
“Perhaps he did. Ana is not observant, or she would have already seen Francesc is in love with her,” said Marisa.
“Gossa!” shouted Ana from the kitchen. Marisa blushed pink, and John didn’t wonder too hard what it meant.
“We shall ask,” said Marisa. “What is his name?”
“Sherlock Holmes,” said John. “Oh, there’s another name, though. Not him. He was looking for someone, too, a woman. Irish. Nola Moriarty.”
The plate dropped on the table in front of John. “Irlandès?” asked Francesc. “Jo pensava que era anglès. És ell aquí sobre els jardins?”
(Irish? I thought he was English. Is he here about the gardens?)
“Ell és l'anglès. La dona que busca el seu marit és irlandès, i va pensar que podria ser aquí.”
(He is English. The woman his bondmate looks for is Irish, and he thought they might be here.)
“Llavors és sobre els jardins.”
(Then it is about the gardens.)
“No es tracta de jardins -”
(It’s not about the gardens-)
“Ha de portar-lo als jardins avui i mostrar-lo. Potser ell hi arreglarà cap amunt una altra vegada.”
(You should take him to the gardens today and show him. Perhaps he will fix them up again.)
“Francesc, no li importa sobre els jardins -”
(Francesc, he doesn’t care about the gardens-)
John nearly had to shout to be heard. “What gardens?”
Marisa, flushed, turned back to him. “There was an Irish woman who lived here, long ago, before I was born. At the top of the hill in the gardens. There was a fire, everything was destroyed, and she went back to Ireland.”
John’s heart thumped, and he leaned toward Francesc. “Nola Moriarty?”
Francesc shrugged. “Jo era un nen, quan ella va sortir. No recordo el seu nom.”
(I was a boy when she left. I don’t remember her name.)
“What kind of gardens?”
Marisa looked surprised. “Don’t you know where you are? She grew roses.”
*
Francesc told the story, and Marisa translated. It was slow going, and John half listened to the lyrical Catalan from Francesc, the way his voice rose and fell with passion, as he both stood and sat in turns, his arms waving for emphasis. It was a performance, not a story, and Marisa’s translation washed over it all. John almost wanted to tell her to stop, to see if he could figure out the words on his own.
“The gardens have been there for generations, several centuries of the Bordas family growing roses on the hill overlooking the sea. Longer than the town has been here, longer than Spain, longer than Catalan has been part of it. They say the Moors brought the rose with them, that a Moorish king had them planted here because his omega fell in love with the spot, and died here. They’re a way of commemorating her beauty. That’s the story. But the Moors never came this far north, so it is unlikely to be true.
“But it is true that the only Bordas who inherit the rose garden are alphas.
“Mario Bordas had grown up in Roses, and he was very clever. He found ways of making the roses bloom larger, more colorful, more fragrant. He shared his roses freely, but never disclosed how it was done. He was so sure that no one would be able to discern his secrets, and he was correct; no one ever did. When he died, his roses died with him. But this is getting ahead of the story; you want to hear about the Irishwoman.
“I remember the day she arrived. I was young, and good-looking, and she was young and blonde and spoke not a word of Catalan, only a bit of Spanish, and I followed her thinking I might be able to steal a kiss. But she saw Mario on the street, and he saw her, and they followed each other up the hill and there was no hope for me. She rarely came down from the hill, and when she did, her Catalan had improved, and her hair was blonder, and she let it down her back free. And she smelled of roses. I think Mario told her his secrets.
“But we all knew - they had not bonded. Of course not, they did not love each other. It was obvious, even to me, that there was nothing between them. She did not love Mario - she loved only the roses. Mario did not love her. None of us understood why he kept her, why he suffered her in his gardens, but he did, and even when it was obvious that he taught her the secrets of his roses, he did not love her, did not talk to her. She craved it, I think. When she came down to the town, and I followed her like a love-sick puppy, she basked in my attentions, and laughed at me, and I could tell that even though she would never reciprocate my adoration, she enjoyed it, and sought me out when I did not appear immediately.
“She was lovely. And then she had a baby.”
“How?” interrupted John.
Francesc shrugged. “In the usual way.”
“Was it-” John hesitated, and Francesc roared with laughter.
“I told you, I was a boy! No. It was Mario’s son, of course. One look at the boy, and none of us doubted for one moment that Diego was a Bordas. But they did not love each other. Of course you can, without love, and for anyone else, it would have been a scandal, but Mario and Nola did not seem to care for the scandal, and they went on as they always did.
“I still loved her. But she turned her attentions away from me, and to her child. Which is correct, but she never sought me out any more. She loved only two things: roses, and Diego. And then the fire.”
“What happened?”
“There was never an inquest, though there should have been. I was young; I was in my first frenzy. By the time I came out for air, it was all over, so I do not know why there was no inquest. The fire destroyed the gardens and the house, and Mario and Diego died. Nola was not in the house. She watched it burn, and them with it. And four days later, she left for Ireland, and never returned.”
*
Despite the rain of the previous day, the sun shone brightly through dramatic clouds, and John could tell that it was going to be hot by afternoon. Marisa had been perfectly happy to let John drive up the hill to the rose gardens, as she tried to give him directions in a mix of English, Catalan, and wild hand gestures. The hand gestures were the most helpful; the little car lacked air conditioning, and they’d opened all the windows. The resulting cloud of dust and noise made talking difficult.
The rose gardens were deserted; as far as John could tell, no one had been there in weeks, if not months. The entire property was ringed with a fence and a sign on the gate that surely threatened trespassers with the fullest extent of the law, but the sign itself hung by a corner and it was clear that Marisa didn’t give it a second thought. She seemed so comfortable ignoring the sign, and so confident about where they were going, it was clear she’d been many times before. Once they’d parked the car, and John stepped out to view the property, it occurred to him exactly how remote they were - of course Marisa would have come here. It was the perfect place for teenagers to come, drunk on love and hormones and wine, to lose their respective virginities in the ruins of a rose garden.
For a little while, John didn’t speak; he just walked through the gardens themselves, while Marisa poked around as if looking for familiar markers. Rows of bushes surrounded the dilapidated building at the crest of the hill, knarled and ugly yet still showing signs of life. Many of them had leaves and a few sported small buds. John thought the air should have been filled with the scent of roses; instead, it was dry and dusty, although he thought he could taste roses at the back of his throat.
“I didn’t think roses were so hardy,” said John, his hand hovering over one of the tiny rosebuds.
“These are not your ordinary roses,” said Marisa. “They are…super rose? The Bordases grow roses for generations. They knew things about how to grow a sturdy rose.”
John frowned, and touched the rose with a finger. “Genetic manipulation?”
Marisa shrugged, clearly not quite understanding the phrase, and John let it go. He stared at the ruins of the house, and thought about Nola standing amongst her rose bushes, watching it burn down with her mate and child inside.
Exactly the way Sherlock had nearly done the same thing.
John had almost begun to feel sorry for Nola Moriarty - he supposed she might have considered it poetic justice, to force Sherlock to go through the same terror and heartbreak she must have felt, watching her life burn to ash. But having narrowly escaped being that poetic ash, John wasn’t sure he wanted to spare the sympathy.
“Does the Irishwoman own all this?” he asked, standing to look at what remained of the house.
Marisa snorted. “No. A cousin in Seville, who has never visited and does nothing more than pay the taxes. He’s let the entire place fall to ruin. The Irishwoman, my mother always said she was…how you say, snobbish? She never greeted anyone or spoke a kind word when silence was an option. But at least she loved the roses. If she owned the gardens, they would still grow.”
John continued to look at the house, and his heart felt heavier and heavier. It was too easy to think of the flames licking at the sky, the people inside, and Sherlock outside, watching it burn…
No, not Sherlock. Nola.
John turned away. Marisa stood just behind him, looking at him curiously.
“Do you know her?”
“I met her once,” said John. “I don’t know her at all.”
“And yet your mate is looking for her.”
“An old score to settle. I think I’m done here,” said John, and walked past Marisa to the car.
“She would have cared for the roses,” said Marisa behind him - less to John, he thought, than to herself, and he heard the longing in her voice.
They drove back to the village in silence. Only after they arrived at the guest house did Marisa turn to John again.
“What do you seek?”
The question startled John. “My mate. Sherlock.”
“No,” said Marisa, and she shook her head. “You look for Sherlock. But you are seeking something else, or you would not have gone with me up to the gardens, and you would not have looked at the ruins of the house for so long.”
John closed his eyes, the image of the rose bushes, burnt to stubs, still in the back of his mind.
“You recognized it,” said Marisa, continuing to press him.
“I was in a burning house,” said John, and his eyes opened. “With my daughter. And Sherlock was on the outside, looking in.”
Marisa said nothing; her face was impassive.
“I sent him away afterwards,” said John, and he turned and walked quickly toward the guest house.
Marisa called out. “Because he did not save you.”
John stopped on the pavement. “Because he did.” John turned; Marisa had not moved from the car. He couldn’t read her expression, she was too far away now. “I’m not looking to forgive him. He didn’t do anything I need to forgive. I don’t…I don’t know what I want.”
“You won’t find it until you do,” said Marisa.
“Maybe that’s what I’m trying to find. I’m trying to figure out why the hell I’m here anyway.”
Marisa shrugged a shoulder, and smiled. “Perhaps. You said you sent him away. Perhaps you are trying to find a way to let him back in.”
John scoffed, and Marisa let out a soft sigh.
“Ah,” she said, low. “You are not sure you want to let him back into your life.”
John felt his stomach turn, just a bit - the first twinges of what he imagined might be nausea. He placed his hand on his stomach automatically, and closed his eyes, turning inward, examining just a bit closer…
The bond held tightly, a steady thrum of connection, though Sherlock was a thousand miles away. John half imagined he could feel Sherlock breathing through it, waiting for John to answer, to acknowledge Marisa’s theory.
“I do,” said John, and opened his eyes again. “Why would I look for him, if I didn’t want him back?”
“It’s your journey, not mine,” said Marisa. “Where will you go next?”
“Ireland,” said John, without thinking. “If that’s where she went, it’s where Sherlock would have gone.”
Marisa smiled. “Then I wish you a pleasant journey. And I hope you find what you seek.”
It was dark, when John left Roses, and the stars shone brightly over the sea. He kept the windows open as he drove, and listened to the waves hit the shore, and imagined he could smell the scent of ashes and roses on the air.
Chapter Four
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Characters: Sherlock/John, Mummy Holmes, Harry Watson, Greg Lestrade, OFC
Warning: None
Rating: R
Summary: Six weeks ago, Sherlock went to finish off Mrs Moriarty - leaving John and their daughter behind. Again. This time, though, John's the one with the secret, and John's getting tired of waiting for Sherlock Holmes. Part Three of the Heart ‘Verse.
A/N: The Catalan translations are courtesy of Google, which is why I’ve provided the English as well. Corrections gratefully accepted (and anticipated, come to that).
Chapter One ~ Two
Chapter Three
Emily fell asleep during tea; John glared at Harry and resisted the urge to kick her ankle, absolutely convinced he’d seen her slip something into his daughter’s milk. Melatonin, most likely, which wasn’t exactly healthy for a small child to ingest, but was unlikely to cause lasting damage. John carried the little girl up to her bedroom and laid her on the bed while her eyes fluttered.
“Sleepy,” said Emily, and John leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
“I know. You’ll feel better after a nap.”
“And we’ll play.”
John bit his lip, and thought of something.
“Hey. I bet Uncle Mycroft will be here in the morning, what do you think?”
“Yay,” said Emily in a sleepy cheer, and John kissed her forehead again, pressed his nose to her soft black curls, and breathed in her scent.
“Tell him you want a tea party,” said John. “Don’t let up until he does.”
“Okay,” said Emily.
“Love you,” he whispered into Emily’s hair, and Emily murmured something that could have been “love you too”, but it was hard to tell.
John crossed the room to the little table, set up for a continuous tea party attended by various stuffed animals. Emily wasn’t one for tea parties generally, but Aurora adored them, and Emily was a very good sport. John found a bit of paper and a pencil, wrote the note quickly, folded it in half, and wrote “MYCROFT” in large letters before sliding it in the teapot’s spout.
With this task done, John gave Emily a last look - fast asleep, of course - and headed back downstairs, where Harry waited in the foyer.
“There you are - is she asleep?” asked Harry. Her eyes were bright with unasked questions. Ready for the plan?
“Yes,” said John. What the hell did you put in her milk, Harry? “Heading out?”
“Think so,” said Harry casually. “Long drive and all that.”
John didn’t have a clue if Harry was sending him a signal or not - maybe she was acting for the recording devices. Would Mycroft spy on his own mother’s house? Probably, thought John. If there was something worth recording.
John leaned in and gave Harry a kiss on the cheek. “Drive safely.”
“Will do. See you next time,” said Harry, and gave his arm a squeeze, and she pulled him out the front door.
“Harry,” said John evenly, once they were clear of the house. “What did you give my daughter in there?”
“Oh, honestly,” said Harry. “She’ll be fine and she won’t wake until morning. Nod your head for the cameras, Johnny, and whatever you do, don’t be stupid.”
“You are much too good at this,” said John cautiously.
“Makes up for your inability to lie effectively,” said Harry smoothly. “Nod, John.”
John nodded.
“Right then,” said Harry. She got into her car and started the engine. John leaned down, as if to speak to her, and Harry rolled down the window. “John-”
“I still don’t know why you’re doing this,” John began. “I…I thought you hated him. Sherlock.”
Harry’s hands were still on the steering wheel. “I do, sometimes,” she admitted. “But I love you.” She glanced at John. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Our secret,” promised John.
Harry nodded, and shifted the car. “Be safe, idiot. I’m too old to take up motherhood now.”
“Get on with you,” said John, and stepped back to let Harry drive away.
*
Aurora seemed distracted when John returned to the sitting room. She kept picking up the tea cups, and setting them back down again as if she wasn’t entirely sure whether she should drink what remained, or leave it for the maid to clear away.
“Aurora, I’m going on a walk.”
“All right, dear,” said Aurora, only half listening, and then she perked up. “Did you want company?”
“No, that’s all right.” John watched as she picked up another cup. “Everything all right?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Aurora, and sat down with a sigh. “Your sister.”
John grinned. “Sorry. She’s like that with everyone.”
Aurora shook her head, and it seemed to clear the distraction for a moment. John found himself needing to hold steady under a suddenly piercing gaze.
“John Hamish Watson.”
John blinked back at her, hoping he looked innocent enough, considering how innocent he wasn’t.
“You’ll take care on your walk,” said Aurora firmly. “I don’t want you returning to this house injured or having endangered your health.”
John opened his mouth to answer, but wasn’t entirely sure what to say.
“And take a few sandwiches from the kitchen,” continued Aurora.
“Aurora,” said John slowly. “We just had tea.”
“Then there will be plenty to share, won’t there? You’ll find the thermoses in the right-hand cupboard on the other side of the fridge, dear.”
John looked harder at his mother-in-law. But Aurora was, as always, unreadable, aloof, poised, and completely impenetrable. John had no idea if she really thought John might want a snack for a quick walk in the woods, or was sending him away with a meal for later in what would undoubtedly be a longer journey.
“Thanks,” said John finally, because he honestly couldn’t think of any other answer that wouldn’t show his hand, assuming Aurora hadn’t already managed to deduce his intentions.
Aurora waved her hand at him: of course.
Half an hour later, John was on the path leading to the road, a knapsack slung over one shoulder carrying a change of clothes, four sandwiches, and a thermos of sweetened tea. The sun was just setting through the trees, and John was already feeling peckish - no first-trimester nausea for him - when he saw the lights on the road. He picked up the pace; the day had been cold, and night was falling. John’s face was damp with mist, and he didn’t think it would be long before it turned to a light rain. It wasn’t until he was nearly at the road itself that he saw the car sitting in the bushes, and he went to it without hesitation, just as the rain began to fall.
“Greg,” he greeted the driver.
“John,” replied Greg Lestrade as John climbed into the passenger seat. “Lovely night for a walk.”
“Isn’t it just?” John buckled up and opened the knapsack. “I’m starving, do you want a sandwich?”
“Ta,” said Lestrade, and crammed half of one into his mouth.
“Been waiting long?”
Lestrade shrugged. “Five, ten minutes. So - where to, guv?”
“Heathrow. And don’t ask where after that, Mycroft might try to torture it out of you.”
“Bloody Mycroft,” said Lestrade, and started the car.
“Chancy thing, driving your own car.”
“Well,” said Lestrade. “We don’t think Mycroft has it tracked. Yet.”
They drove in companionable silence for a while, while John ate the sandwiches and drank the tea. The rain turned into a steady deluge; the sound of the wipers working back and forth, the drumbeat of drops on the roof of Greg’s car all providing a comforting background noise that let John’s mind wander. It didn’t wander very far; he went over the plan continuously in his mind. Heathrow, board the plane, land in Spain, and then…
John wasn’t entirely sure. Sherlock was in Spain. Nola Moriarty must have been in Spain. For a moment, John felt entirely frustrated, exactly as he did when Sherlock was twenty steps ahead leaving no discernible track, and John was forced to leap from Point A to Point Zed without any indication of how to find the points in between.
Next to him, Greg coughed. It was the sort of cough meant to initiate conversation, and John opened his eyes and shifted, the sort of shift that meant he was open to it.
“Heathrow,” said Greg. “I can’t decide if this is Shakespeare or Homer.”
“Journeys end in lovers meeting, or the Odyssey, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“If I meet any soothsayers, I’ll let you know.”
“Football,” said Greg.
“Arsenal and the Hammers,” remembered John, and reached to switch on the radio. Within moments, the familiar sounds of the football broadcast filled the car.
Greg chuckled. “Christ, I remember after Em was born - you didn’t even know there were games being played, let alone who played them.”
“I was busy,” protested John. “And there’s not been much to do lately.”
“’Spose not.” Greg drove for a little before speaking again. “That was a good day.”
“Anna came over and cooked me dinners for a week,” remembered John, smiling.
“Do you remember her lasagna?”
John groaned appreciatively. “Lemon cake. I always liked her lemon cake.”
“Roast chicken, with the onion and the ginger.”
“Black pudding.”
“That…thing she did with the trout.” Greg made a sort of odd motion with his hands, briefly off the wheel of the car. “With the paper. I never understood the point of the paper, but…” He shook his head, and fell silent.
John didn’t say anything for a moment; no doubt Greg was remembering Anna, and John let himself remember her too - the easy way she’d come in and take over his kitchen, his daughter, laughing and relinquishing it all once she was done, without a spark of resentment or jealousy. As though John had been giving her the gift, instead of the other way around.
John didn’t like to think about her at the end, in the last weeks before she died. Not the pale woman who held his hand with hot, paper-thin fingers, and smiled only when Emily drew near.
“She asked me to watch over you,” said John, not entirely sure why he was saying it at all. “Done a crap job of it, haven’t I?”
Greg didn’t say anything. Someone in the game scored; John wasn’t sure who, but the crowd and the announcers sounded appreciative. It all blended together with the rain.
“Other things on your mind, mate,” said Greg finally.
He’s in love with you, Sherlock’s voice reminded John.
No, John had said, but watching Greg in the car now, he wasn’t so sure. If Greg were in love with John, why would he drive him to the airport so he could chase after Sherlock?
John pulled the letter from his pocket, unfolded it and read it again.
Where the land juts out bravely into the sea…
Harry’s phone was in his pocket; it only took a few moments to call up a map of Spain, and John thumbed through the coastline, his eyes roaming over the cities, the thin colors of green and grey and blue. And then, just north of Barcelona, he saw it, and remembered.
Tell me about the roses.
What roses, Emily?
I don’t know, tell me!
Why the sudden fascination with roses, Em?
And Emily would giggle and clap her hands over her mouth. John wasn’t sure where the fascination with roses came from: there weren’t rose bushes on the estate, and it was still the middle of winter. He looked online and found children’s books about roses, the fairy tales of Rose Red and Snow White, and read them to Emily every night before bed. And every night, when he told it, Emily asked the same thing:
Does Papa know this story?
I’m sure he does.
Roses and Sherlock, when roses were something John had never associated Sherlock with, but for some reason they were inexplicably twined together in Emily’s mind.
And now, looking at the eastern shores of Spain on the Mediterranean - a town called Roses, on a bit of land jutting out into the sea.
“Do you believe in coincidences?” John asked. The game on the radio let out another cheer.
“Depends on the coincidence,” said Greg. “Did you just get a text telling you exactly where to find Sherlock?”
“It’s more of a hunch than anything else,” said John.
“Sherlock wouldn’t call it a hunch, he’d call it deductive reasoning.”
“Do you think there was ever a point in his life where he wasn’t sure about anything?”
“No,” said Greg, and turned off the motorway toward the airport. “That tosser was born knowing everything there is to know in the world.”
John snorted, and folded the letter up and put it back in his pocket. “Who’s winning?”
“Hell if I know,” said Greg. “Do I get to know a terminal, or shall I just kick you out at a convenient spot?”
“Five.”
The terminal was busy and loud, and the drop-off point was strangely warm and breezy. John watched the dozens of people moving and talking, going about their lives with goodbyes and hellos, and for a sharp moment, didn’t want to leave the safety of Greg’s car.
“Shite,” he said. “Six weeks of being holed up on a country estate, and suddenly I’m hit with agoraphobia.”
“Get over it quick,” advised Greg.
“Yeah.” John gripped the strap on his knapsack, and reached for the door handle.
“Hey,” said Greg, and John looked back at him. “You and me…”
John waited.
“We would have been crap together,” said Greg. “I mean. You root for Liverpool.”
He’s in love with you, Sherlock reminded John, and John didn’t laugh.
“Anna never did understand the football,” said John, and Greg laughed, breaking the odd spell in the car.
“Yeah, well,” said Greg. He broke eye contact with John. “Wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”
“Would have killed each other before the first season was over,” agreed John.
“Marrying outside the faith is fraught with problems.”
“Think of the children, living in that kind of environment,” said John solemnly, and they both dissolved into giggles.
“Christ, mate,” said Greg, and looked over at John again. The smile was just a shadow on his face now, replaced with something far more serious. “I love Em like she’s my own. Have since the day I met her, and it’s got nothing to do with you. If things were different - I’d have been proud to call her my daughter, adopted or otherwise. But she’s got you and she’s got Sherlock, and I know she doesn’t need me.”
“She’ll always need you. You’re just as important to her as the rest of us. More so - you were there when Sherlock couldn’t be.”
Greg breathed in deep, and before he could say anything to break the sudden odd feeling of emotional disclosure - because honestly, they were British, they were men, they did not do this sort of thing - John added, “You’re important to me, too, mate.”
Greg was still for a moment.
“Even if we’d have been rubbish in the sack,” added John, and with that, the moment was gone. Just as well.
“Speak for yourself,” said Greg. “Get the fock out.”
“Ta,” said John, and went.
*
John had always pictured Spain as hot, with everyone wearing thin shirts and bare shoulders, sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats.
He hadn’t expected rain. Even if the air was warmer than it had been in England, it was still just as wet, and all John had to wear was his leather coat and no hat or umbrella.
By the time John found himself in the little hired car and on the road toward Roses, he was soaked. He changed into his spare clothes, which were luckily still dry, and laid out his coat on the seat next to him. Hopefully the rest of his clothes would dry by morning.
It was a two-hour drive north along the coast before he reached his destination, and by then the rain had finally let up, leaving a crystal-clear sky of stars above him. John stepped out of the car near the tiny little guest house he’d managed to find on Harry’s phone while waiting for his flight at Heathrow, and stared up at the sky. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen so many stars - Afghanistan, maybe. That seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Hola, puc ajudar-lo?”
John turned toward the voice; an older man, with what had to be the most fantastic moustache John had ever seen in his life, leaned outside the door of the guesthouse, looking somewhat stern. He could have been a caricature of the beleaguered but good-humored Spanish innkeeper, the sort who always knew exactly what his guests required and was perfectly capable of supplying it in spades.
“Hola,” said John. “Ah…I’m John Watson?”
“Juan Watson,” said the man, nodding, and he waved his arm to motion John to come in. John grabbed the knapsack from the car and followed him in. Within moments he was shown to a room, a tiny garret under a stairway, with barely enough space for the twin-bed, the washbasin, and a chair. There was a round window looking outside - completely useless for anything, John thought, since there wasn’t a way to open it - and only a bare hook on the wall for clothes. The bright patchwork coverlet on the bed cheered the room up, but then, it was a small room, so there wasn’t much cheer required.
“L'esmorzar és a les vuit. No arribar tard o no a menjar. Hi ha un bany pel passadís. Dormir bé i ignorar l'aranya a la cantonada, que és perfectament còmode amb els clients.”
(Breakfast is at 8. Don't be late or you won’t eat. There is a bathroom down the hall. Sleep well and ignore the spider in the corner, she is perfectly comfortable with guests.)
And with that, the innkeeper closed the door. John sat on the bed and listened to the man’s footsteps fade down the hall.
He was alone.
John had been alone before, even within the last three years since Emily’s birth. Afternoons where Sherlock and Emily went to museums, giving him a bit of time by himself, which he had been craving for months but never quite knew what to do with once received. Mornings at the clinic between patients, when he’d close his eyes and try to catch a few winks of sleep. For a short time, in simpler days, train rides to Buckley, to shoot with Sebastian Moran.
The hours when Emily napped, when she was tiny, and the early days when he still mourned, he’d sit in Sherlock’s chair and feel her move under his skin.
Sitting in the miniscule room in Spain, however, was more alone than John had felt in years. For the first time, no one physically near him knew who he was. No one emotionally close to him knew where he was.
He pulled Sherlock’s letter from his pocket, and held it in his hands for a moment. There was every chance that he was on the wrong track, that Sherlock wasn’t in Roses, that he wasn’t even in Spain. It didn’t make sense for Sherlock to be in Spain.
John slid the letter back into his pocket, and undressed to his boxers. He stretched out on the bed, and folded his hands over his stomach to sleep.
Morning. The rest would wait until morning.
*
The room was expansive, so much so that John couldn’t see the walls. He started walking along the hard-wood floors, heard his footsteps echo, but despite walking for miles, nothing changed. He was forever in the center of the light, shadows all around, and alone.
“What are you looking for?” asked Sherlock, behind him.
“No idea,” said John, still walking. Sherlock was just behind him, could have walked beside him if he picked up the pace by a step or two, or if John slowed down.
“Do you think you’ll find it?”
“Hope so.”
“Why?” asked Sherlock, and he sounded genuinely curious.
“I miss you,” said John, and turned around, and woke up.
Light streamed into the little room through the circular window. John stared at the steps above him, which was just disorientating enough that he felt somewhat nauseous. It took a moment of even breaths and concentrated effort before he was able to calm his stomach and sit up without fear of retching.
“You might have missed the memo,” John told the baby, “but I don’t get morning sickness. So stop it.”
John pulled on his clothes and opened the door to the hall; he could just hear signs of life coming from downstairs. There’d be a loo somewhere along the way, as well, thought John, and he went to investigate.
Twenty minutes later, having showered and shaved and more or less prepared himself to look as friendly and congenial as possible, John headed downstairs, an English-Catalan phrasebook in his pocket. He followed the noises to the breakfast room, and there found the mustachioed innkeeper from the previous night, as well as two other people.
“Er, hola,” said John, and the innkeeper raised his arms wide.
“Bon dia, bon dia! Dormia tan tard, pensàvem que eren morts. Haver perdut primer esmorzar, però pot fer una truita d'ous si tens gana, o pa amb tomàquet. I vostè es anglès, voleu que te? Els I tenen instal•lacions per preparar te.”
(Good morning, good morning! You slept so late, we thought you were dead. You have missed first breakfast, but I can make you an omelet if you are hungry, or some bread with tomato. And you are English, do you want tea? I have tea.)
“Ah. Tay. Tea. Tea, yes,” said John, practically leaping on the single word he had understood. “Ah…sugar?”
One of the women at the table groaned and reached over to smack the innkeeper on the arm with her newspaper. “El meu Déu, idiota, ell no parla catalana, que és l'anglès!” She turned to John. “Please excuse him. He is idiot. He will get you tea.”
(My god, you idiot, he doesn't speak Catalan, he's English!)
“Idiota! Qui és l'idiota? Ell és l'anglès, per descomptat ell vol que te, què més voleu anglesos?” shouted the innkeeper in response, and John watched as the two of them bickered back and forth in Catalan, arms waving in the air, while the innkeeper fussed with a kettle and a mug. Within a minute, John had the mug thrust into his hands, and he sat down, already winded, to watch as the two Catalonians continued to argue.
(Idiot! Who's the idiot? He's English, of course he wants tea, what else do Englishmen want?)
The second woman leaned over to John. “They will argue about you the rest of the day.”
“Oh,” said John. “Ah…sorry.”
“Oh no, they enjoy,” said the woman. She was much younger than the other two, and rather pretty. Her English wasn’t half horrible, either.
A crash from the arguing Catalonians, who had moved their frenzied discussion into the kitchen. John craned his head to follow their progress.
“I don’t suppose I could get a bit of toast?”
The woman stood and shouted toward the kitchen, “Francesc, el vostre convidat és fam! Deixar que manifesten amor a la meva germana i fer-li alguna cosa per menjar.”
(Francesc, your guest is hungry! Stop professing love to my sister and make him something to eat.)
A shriek from the older woman, followed by a “Si, Marisa!” from the innkeeper. The woman - Marisa, John gathered - sat back down and smiled at John.
“Why do you visit Roses?”
“I’m looking for someone,” said John, thinking it could not possibly be this easy. “Another Englishman, he would have come through sometime in the last six weeks. Tall, dark curly hair, alpha, absolute berk who can tell your life story by your fingernails.”
Marisa almost looked disappointed as she shook her head. “No. I have not seen him. Ana, has vist un anglès en el darrer mes?”
(Ana, have you seen an Englishman in the last month?)
“No,” called back Ana.
“Shite,” said John under his breath.
“I am sorry,” said Marisa, and she did sound apologetic. “A lover?”
“My bondmate. It was just a hunch that he came here - stupid.”
“Perhaps he did. Ana is not observant, or she would have already seen Francesc is in love with her,” said Marisa.
“Gossa!” shouted Ana from the kitchen. Marisa blushed pink, and John didn’t wonder too hard what it meant.
“We shall ask,” said Marisa. “What is his name?”
“Sherlock Holmes,” said John. “Oh, there’s another name, though. Not him. He was looking for someone, too, a woman. Irish. Nola Moriarty.”
The plate dropped on the table in front of John. “Irlandès?” asked Francesc. “Jo pensava que era anglès. És ell aquí sobre els jardins?”
(Irish? I thought he was English. Is he here about the gardens?)
“Ell és l'anglès. La dona que busca el seu marit és irlandès, i va pensar que podria ser aquí.”
(He is English. The woman his bondmate looks for is Irish, and he thought they might be here.)
“Llavors és sobre els jardins.”
(Then it is about the gardens.)
“No es tracta de jardins -”
(It’s not about the gardens-)
“Ha de portar-lo als jardins avui i mostrar-lo. Potser ell hi arreglarà cap amunt una altra vegada.”
(You should take him to the gardens today and show him. Perhaps he will fix them up again.)
“Francesc, no li importa sobre els jardins -”
(Francesc, he doesn’t care about the gardens-)
John nearly had to shout to be heard. “What gardens?”
Marisa, flushed, turned back to him. “There was an Irish woman who lived here, long ago, before I was born. At the top of the hill in the gardens. There was a fire, everything was destroyed, and she went back to Ireland.”
John’s heart thumped, and he leaned toward Francesc. “Nola Moriarty?”
Francesc shrugged. “Jo era un nen, quan ella va sortir. No recordo el seu nom.”
(I was a boy when she left. I don’t remember her name.)
“What kind of gardens?”
Marisa looked surprised. “Don’t you know where you are? She grew roses.”
*
Francesc told the story, and Marisa translated. It was slow going, and John half listened to the lyrical Catalan from Francesc, the way his voice rose and fell with passion, as he both stood and sat in turns, his arms waving for emphasis. It was a performance, not a story, and Marisa’s translation washed over it all. John almost wanted to tell her to stop, to see if he could figure out the words on his own.
“The gardens have been there for generations, several centuries of the Bordas family growing roses on the hill overlooking the sea. Longer than the town has been here, longer than Spain, longer than Catalan has been part of it. They say the Moors brought the rose with them, that a Moorish king had them planted here because his omega fell in love with the spot, and died here. They’re a way of commemorating her beauty. That’s the story. But the Moors never came this far north, so it is unlikely to be true.
“But it is true that the only Bordas who inherit the rose garden are alphas.
“Mario Bordas had grown up in Roses, and he was very clever. He found ways of making the roses bloom larger, more colorful, more fragrant. He shared his roses freely, but never disclosed how it was done. He was so sure that no one would be able to discern his secrets, and he was correct; no one ever did. When he died, his roses died with him. But this is getting ahead of the story; you want to hear about the Irishwoman.
“I remember the day she arrived. I was young, and good-looking, and she was young and blonde and spoke not a word of Catalan, only a bit of Spanish, and I followed her thinking I might be able to steal a kiss. But she saw Mario on the street, and he saw her, and they followed each other up the hill and there was no hope for me. She rarely came down from the hill, and when she did, her Catalan had improved, and her hair was blonder, and she let it down her back free. And she smelled of roses. I think Mario told her his secrets.
“But we all knew - they had not bonded. Of course not, they did not love each other. It was obvious, even to me, that there was nothing between them. She did not love Mario - she loved only the roses. Mario did not love her. None of us understood why he kept her, why he suffered her in his gardens, but he did, and even when it was obvious that he taught her the secrets of his roses, he did not love her, did not talk to her. She craved it, I think. When she came down to the town, and I followed her like a love-sick puppy, she basked in my attentions, and laughed at me, and I could tell that even though she would never reciprocate my adoration, she enjoyed it, and sought me out when I did not appear immediately.
“She was lovely. And then she had a baby.”
“How?” interrupted John.
Francesc shrugged. “In the usual way.”
“Was it-” John hesitated, and Francesc roared with laughter.
“I told you, I was a boy! No. It was Mario’s son, of course. One look at the boy, and none of us doubted for one moment that Diego was a Bordas. But they did not love each other. Of course you can, without love, and for anyone else, it would have been a scandal, but Mario and Nola did not seem to care for the scandal, and they went on as they always did.
“I still loved her. But she turned her attentions away from me, and to her child. Which is correct, but she never sought me out any more. She loved only two things: roses, and Diego. And then the fire.”
“What happened?”
“There was never an inquest, though there should have been. I was young; I was in my first frenzy. By the time I came out for air, it was all over, so I do not know why there was no inquest. The fire destroyed the gardens and the house, and Mario and Diego died. Nola was not in the house. She watched it burn, and them with it. And four days later, she left for Ireland, and never returned.”
*
Despite the rain of the previous day, the sun shone brightly through dramatic clouds, and John could tell that it was going to be hot by afternoon. Marisa had been perfectly happy to let John drive up the hill to the rose gardens, as she tried to give him directions in a mix of English, Catalan, and wild hand gestures. The hand gestures were the most helpful; the little car lacked air conditioning, and they’d opened all the windows. The resulting cloud of dust and noise made talking difficult.
The rose gardens were deserted; as far as John could tell, no one had been there in weeks, if not months. The entire property was ringed with a fence and a sign on the gate that surely threatened trespassers with the fullest extent of the law, but the sign itself hung by a corner and it was clear that Marisa didn’t give it a second thought. She seemed so comfortable ignoring the sign, and so confident about where they were going, it was clear she’d been many times before. Once they’d parked the car, and John stepped out to view the property, it occurred to him exactly how remote they were - of course Marisa would have come here. It was the perfect place for teenagers to come, drunk on love and hormones and wine, to lose their respective virginities in the ruins of a rose garden.
For a little while, John didn’t speak; he just walked through the gardens themselves, while Marisa poked around as if looking for familiar markers. Rows of bushes surrounded the dilapidated building at the crest of the hill, knarled and ugly yet still showing signs of life. Many of them had leaves and a few sported small buds. John thought the air should have been filled with the scent of roses; instead, it was dry and dusty, although he thought he could taste roses at the back of his throat.
“I didn’t think roses were so hardy,” said John, his hand hovering over one of the tiny rosebuds.
“These are not your ordinary roses,” said Marisa. “They are…super rose? The Bordases grow roses for generations. They knew things about how to grow a sturdy rose.”
John frowned, and touched the rose with a finger. “Genetic manipulation?”
Marisa shrugged, clearly not quite understanding the phrase, and John let it go. He stared at the ruins of the house, and thought about Nola standing amongst her rose bushes, watching it burn down with her mate and child inside.
Exactly the way Sherlock had nearly done the same thing.
John had almost begun to feel sorry for Nola Moriarty - he supposed she might have considered it poetic justice, to force Sherlock to go through the same terror and heartbreak she must have felt, watching her life burn to ash. But having narrowly escaped being that poetic ash, John wasn’t sure he wanted to spare the sympathy.
“Does the Irishwoman own all this?” he asked, standing to look at what remained of the house.
Marisa snorted. “No. A cousin in Seville, who has never visited and does nothing more than pay the taxes. He’s let the entire place fall to ruin. The Irishwoman, my mother always said she was…how you say, snobbish? She never greeted anyone or spoke a kind word when silence was an option. But at least she loved the roses. If she owned the gardens, they would still grow.”
John continued to look at the house, and his heart felt heavier and heavier. It was too easy to think of the flames licking at the sky, the people inside, and Sherlock outside, watching it burn…
No, not Sherlock. Nola.
John turned away. Marisa stood just behind him, looking at him curiously.
“Do you know her?”
“I met her once,” said John. “I don’t know her at all.”
“And yet your mate is looking for her.”
“An old score to settle. I think I’m done here,” said John, and walked past Marisa to the car.
“She would have cared for the roses,” said Marisa behind him - less to John, he thought, than to herself, and he heard the longing in her voice.
They drove back to the village in silence. Only after they arrived at the guest house did Marisa turn to John again.
“What do you seek?”
The question startled John. “My mate. Sherlock.”
“No,” said Marisa, and she shook her head. “You look for Sherlock. But you are seeking something else, or you would not have gone with me up to the gardens, and you would not have looked at the ruins of the house for so long.”
John closed his eyes, the image of the rose bushes, burnt to stubs, still in the back of his mind.
“You recognized it,” said Marisa, continuing to press him.
“I was in a burning house,” said John, and his eyes opened. “With my daughter. And Sherlock was on the outside, looking in.”
Marisa said nothing; her face was impassive.
“I sent him away afterwards,” said John, and he turned and walked quickly toward the guest house.
Marisa called out. “Because he did not save you.”
John stopped on the pavement. “Because he did.” John turned; Marisa had not moved from the car. He couldn’t read her expression, she was too far away now. “I’m not looking to forgive him. He didn’t do anything I need to forgive. I don’t…I don’t know what I want.”
“You won’t find it until you do,” said Marisa.
“Maybe that’s what I’m trying to find. I’m trying to figure out why the hell I’m here anyway.”
Marisa shrugged a shoulder, and smiled. “Perhaps. You said you sent him away. Perhaps you are trying to find a way to let him back in.”
John scoffed, and Marisa let out a soft sigh.
“Ah,” she said, low. “You are not sure you want to let him back into your life.”
John felt his stomach turn, just a bit - the first twinges of what he imagined might be nausea. He placed his hand on his stomach automatically, and closed his eyes, turning inward, examining just a bit closer…
The bond held tightly, a steady thrum of connection, though Sherlock was a thousand miles away. John half imagined he could feel Sherlock breathing through it, waiting for John to answer, to acknowledge Marisa’s theory.
“I do,” said John, and opened his eyes again. “Why would I look for him, if I didn’t want him back?”
“It’s your journey, not mine,” said Marisa. “Where will you go next?”
“Ireland,” said John, without thinking. “If that’s where she went, it’s where Sherlock would have gone.”
Marisa smiled. “Then I wish you a pleasant journey. And I hope you find what you seek.”
It was dark, when John left Roses, and the stars shone brightly over the sea. He kept the windows open as he drove, and listened to the waves hit the shore, and imagined he could smell the scent of ashes and roses on the air.
Chapter Four