Chapter Text
Chapter Twenty
Mrs Hudson is delighted to see me.
It’s not that I’m not pleased to see her, but she’s spilling inquisitive questions everywhere and following me about like the hovering, motherly sort that she is and at the moment it’s driving me slightly mad. (Force myself to be patient: am very fond of Mrs Hudson, after all. She can’t help being the way she is any more than I can help being the way I am in response. Allowances must be made.) I answer or evade as many questions as I can take, then beg off, claiming to need a nap. She flutters her hands and says inane things about jet lag and making me a cup of tea “you know, just to settle you down” and busies herself in the kitchen. She calls over her shoulder that I can go ahead and unpack and I nearly laugh. What few possessions we had left were in Kathrin Reger’s flat when it blew.
Think of Kathrin as I wander into the bedroom and assume she’s safe at her brother’s. Helga Stiefl and her staff will get Kathrin sorted with a new flat and help defray the loss of the building itself. Insurance will help, I think vaguely. (Know little about insurance, though a great deal about insurance fraud, thanks to a case back in 2006, not long after I started consulting.) Think of Duncan and wonder if I’ll see him again, whether he’ll go back into deep-cover operations with CSIS or come back to London with Lestrade. Though they barely knew one another, they worked well together; anyone could see that they had a certain level of automatic working chemistry. And he’s unusually good with surveillance equipment, even for a spy. Perhaps he could turn to the private sector, become a security expert or some such thing. Consult for Mycroft or Lestrade or whomever else. Somehow I suspect that after his experience at Yilmaz’ hands, he will not return to the field, at least not in the same manner.
My eyes skim disconsolately over the objects in the bedroom. I’m well aware that my disjointed thoughts are little more than a desperate effort to distract myself from thinking of John, trying to predict what he is doing at this moment. Shower first, probably, clean clothes. He’ll bring in the mail, check his email, poke about in the kitchen. When will he call Mary? (Stop it.)
Mrs Hudson appears in the bedroom doorway (the door was open), holding a steaming cup. “I’ll just set it down here,” she says, eyes moving around the room and finally coming to rest on my face. She puts the cup on the dresser, then unexpectedly she crosses the small space and puts her hands on my shoulders. “Oh, my dear,” she says. “It’s been difficult, hasn’t it? And where’s John, then? I saw it in the papers, that he was out in Germany with you, there! I’d have thought he’d come home with you…”
Keep my voice resolutely even. “He went to his flat, I assume.”
“But everything’s all right, with you two?” She’s fretting. (Loathe being fretted over.)
I make myself sound reassuring now. “Yes, yes, of course,” I tell her, trying to sound soothing. “Perfectly all right. He’ll come round in a day or two, I’m sure.”
Her face brightens. “Oh, well that’s all right, then!” She gives me a little hug, squeezing my shoulders and I pat her back until she desists. She retreats to the doorway and flaps her hand toward the tea cup. “Drink that while it’s hot, now,” she admonishes. “And then get yourself some sleep, Sherlock dear. I’ll be downstairs.”
I make some sort of vague response and wait for her to go. Her idea isn’t half bad, honestly. It’s just after six in the evening but I have nothing better to do. Perhaps a shower and then a bit of sleep. (Have no idea what else to do with myself.) I do exactly that: take a long shower, drinking the tea at the same time, then dry myself and return nude to the bedroom. The sheets need airing but otherwise it’s comfortable and blessedly familiar after all this time. The only thing missing is John.
***
I wake at four, restless. Must have been dreaming of John; his face is everywhere in my scattered thoughts, though no solid narrative presents itself to my waking memory. I lie awake and stare at the ceiling, wondering where he is. Am sick with fear that he went to see Mary, just one last time, to be utterly sure. Would he do that? I don’t think he would, but I am incapable of being sure of anything until he returns. Perhaps I will never be sure. Perhaps, no matter what he says or does, this gnawing doubt will always consume me. That he’ll tire of me and my moods, my lack of courtesy, my messes and annoying habits, and finally leave. Or that, ironically, my very doubts and insecurities will finally exasperate him to the point of going.
I wonder how it would have been different if I had actively realised my feelings sooner, before the fall, before leaving London. Would that have ruined us permanently? It’s a moot point now; we both realised too late and nothing was ever said or done. Though the possibility was always there, wasn’t it? From the very first; acknowledged and side-stepped and relegated to the parallel domains of friendship and cohabitation.
Have always been somewhat nocturnal. In the past, there would usually have been an experiment to begin, or one ongoing to check on. A website to keep up, an essay in-progress. Now every canvas is blank. I could go and find my violin and see if the strings are in any condition to play, I suppose, but I feel uninspired and flat. Don’t feel like playing. There will be email, I suppose, comments on the website since my being alive went viral two days ago. This is day nine hundred and fifty-one, and the operation is over at last. It’s hard to grasp. There will be live media attention once it becomes known that I am back in London. I don’t want to deal with any of it before I know where things stand with John. If John is here with me, I’ll endure any amount of media, I vow to myself. I’ll get my old coat back and wear it, cram a deerstalker onto my head, or any other ridiculous thing they’d like to dress me in. Don’t care; I can take any of that if John is there.
If he doesn’t come back, I will shut myself inside the flat until they’ve given up hope and then… I don’t know. Could I stay here and start consulting again, with John and Mary sharing the city with me? I’m back to the point I where I was when I first got back to London. Except: he told me over and over and over again that he loves me, that this is what he wants. Realise that I am not actually seriously contemplating a decision based on John not returning because my hope that he will is still too great, despite my crushing fear that he won’t. He must. He has to. He promised.
Close to six, I fall into a shallow sleep again, tossing and turning, legs tangling with the sheets. Have forgotten how to sleep on my own and hate it.
At eight I get up and go to the laptop in the sitting room, the one Mycroft gave me when I first came back. I was correct: there are hundreds of emails and messages. I put off responding to anything for the time being and check the news sites instead. My return to London is not yet known, but the news out of Berlin has spread. Lestrade and Duncan have both made statements about John and I having taken down Sherkan Yilmaz and his operation. Helga Stiefl has spoken on behalf of Interpol and said some rather complimentary things about what I’ve accomplished in the past two and a half years with regard to Moriarty’s network of terrorist operations across Europe and the Middle East. The word hero is used several times, by both Stiefl and Lestrade. A news site out of Abu Dhabi reports the murder of Al-Amri and the related defection of Osman, both government employees. Al-Amri’s liaison with the British government is revealed and a tribute to his career follows. Good. He deserved that much, at least.
Mycroft said yesterday that Duncan, Lestrade, Salib and Al-Amri would all be receiving some manner of honorary as well (posthumously, in the case of Al-Amri, of course). I’m satisfied on Lestrade’s behalf particularly; that sort of thing would matter to him, would please him. It takes until past ten to finish catching up with the news related to this operation, let alone anything else that has transpired while I’ve been away. Enough; my attention span cannot tolerate any more. I wander barefoot into the kitchen and check the fridge for bread. Bless Mrs Hudson; she’s done the shopping. Mycroft must have alerted her to my imminent return. Even with everything else he was coordinating yesterday, he or one of his underlings thought to instruct Mrs Hudson to ready the flat for me. He really is rather extraordinary. Perish the thought. Pining for John is making me unendurably sentimental.
By noon I’m going out of my mind. Don’t want to leave the flat; there will be press waiting and in the unlikely event that John comes sooner than he said, I don’t want to miss him. I shower and try to reacquaint myself with my violin. I was never disciplined enough in that regard to play professionally; could never force myself to practise when I just didn’t feel like playing and now is no different. I give up after fifteen minutes of it, my fingers sore, having lost their calluses after two and a half years away. That particular return will be a slow one, but I can feel the music still there in my fingers somewhere. It will return.
At one I text Mycroft.
Where is he now?
There’s a bit of a wait, but then he responds.
I would not recommend whatever
it is that you’re currently contemplating.
When a party makes a request for space,
it is usually in one’s best interests to
respect that. You made a wise decision
regarding the microphone yesterday. John
would not have appreciated your attempts
at surveillance. However: the following
is the encryption to the SIM card on
his mobile phone. Use it wisely.
A string of numbers and characters follows in the second text and I realise what he is doing: by giving me the encryption to the SIM card, I will be able to access the GPS device embedded in John’s phone. It will allow me to see where he is, if not to hear or see him directly. It’s something, at least. I go to the laptop and key the sequence into the correct programme and wait for the map to appear. When it does, I realise I’m no more enlightened than I was. Text my brother again.
Who lives at 229 Portobello Rd?
His reply comes immediately.
That’s John’s address, you imbecile.
I frown and don’t respond. So John is at home. This tells me little; I have no way of knowing whether he’s there alone or not. (Is he the sort of man who would break an engagement on his own territory or someone else’s?) This proves to be a difficult question but in the end I determine that John would either choose neutral territory or, if he was feeling apologetic, the other person’s. It would be an act of graciousness. Then he could leave and let the other party recover in the dignity of privacy. Yes, I decide: he will do it at Mary’s. Unless: a public environment would allow either party to leave if the situation becomes too difficult. The person whose home it is would be stuck, unable to leave.
The temptation to go to his building and wait for him to leave, to follow him, is very strong. There are good arguments for doing so. If I want to tail him to Mary’s or wherever he decides to do it, it will be too late if I wait and watch from here to find out when he’s leaving and where he’s going. Need more data. Text my brother again.
Last request: require Mary’s address.
He replies quickly again.
I do recommend against this course of
action, but far be it that I dictate your
decisions in this matter. Mary’s address
is 35 Grafton Rd, Dagenham.
I look up the address on the map. It’s far, and street views prove it to be ugly. Drab, stucco row houses, the very thing John’s complained of in the past. According to him, one should either live in the heart of the city in a place like 221b Baker Street, or else live outside the city somewhere quiet and peaceful in a house that isn’t attached to other houses. Dagenham is far enough to be inconvenient unless one works in Dagenham or Becontree or any of the other godforsaken pockets of residential London out that way. There are no large parks (John was always quite fond of our proximity to Regent’s Park) and the nearest Underground station (Dagenham-Heathway) is inconveniently far on foot. A more detailed search of the street view proves that a disguise will be difficult; I’ll have to feign being service personnel of one sort or another. Perhaps he will meet her in a café or something instead. A public space would limit the potential for drama. I find myself hoping for this option. A public space would also prevent any possible reforgings of romantic attachment, or so I hope.
The other option is, of course, to stay at home and simply wait.
I cannot make a decision; in the end it makes itself by default when dark has fallen and I have not left the flat. The blinking dot on the map shows that John has not left his, either.
***
It happens the next morning: John’s dot leaves the flat at precisely fifteen minutes to eleven. Coffee, then. I search the cafés in the vicinity and determine the one he is heading toward, as he’s walking in the opposite direction of a tube station. (Could be taking a bus, but I don’t think so, somehow.) I fly around the flat and find a floppy newsboy cap that pulls low over my brow, pair it with an elderly cardigan with elbow patches that droops nearly to my knees and a pair of holey jeans left from my university days. Sunglasses would be too suspicious combined with the hat but I find some non-prescription dark frames favoured by the hipster crowd and choose an appropriately “ironic” moustache to wear with them. Enough: I’m out the door and into a cab less than twenty seconds later, barking out the name of the café to the driver.
I arrive just after John, who is settling himself at a table along the window. Wait until his back is turned and then skirt along the opposite wall until I’m sitting just over his shoulder, facing the opposite direction. Directly behind him would be too close and too suspicious; the café is not yet full enough to warrant having to take a table so close to any other. I am in his blind spot here. My short hair is hidden by the cap, my clothing unrecognisable to him. I cross one leg over the other and slouch over the table, feigning absorption in Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
A few moments later, I hear the clip of heels crossing the café and stopping at John’s table; he’s getting to his feet. “Mary,” he says. “Thank you for coming.”
“Hello John,” she says. There’s the sound of a cheek being kissed. Her voice is soft, somehow mellower than I’d expected. A touch melancholy.
They sit down. John clears his throat. “Er, how have you been?” He sounds stilted, awkward.
Mary gives a small laugh. (I want to turn around, look at her, but it’s too risky. Am suddenly curious to know what she looks like.) The laugh is tinged with a slight bitterness. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.” The shrug is there in her voice. “And you?” (Slightly pointed.) “I see you’re back in London after your… adventures.”
“Yes,” John says. It sounds pained. “About that…” He trails off. (Can practically hear him gathering his thoughts together.) “Mary… when I said that I needed time away from you because there was someone else, it was true but it wasn’t the entire truth. I imagine you’ve been a bit confused by my sudden appearance in the media, there in Berlin, and I’m sorry you saw me in the news before hearing it from me directly. I couldn’t tell you where I had to go; it was completely classified. I couldn’t even tell you that I was needed on a mission with Sherlock, since as far as you knew, Sherlock was dead and I could hardly explain that – even that fact was still extremely classified, and if I’d just said I had to go on some mission, it wouldn’t have made sense because that part of my life was supposed to be over. I’m sorry that I couldn’t explain. But what I said about needing time because of there being someone else was also true. I’m very sorry.”
She is breathing slowly, deliberately, choosing her words just as carefully. “So – it was all part of the same thing, then? You found out that Sherlock was alive and needed your help, but it was also that you wanted to be with him? That’s what I’m gathering, but if you could explain a little more…”
John sighs. (Can feel his frustration from here, how much he hates having this conversation.) “The thing is, he’d been on his own for two and a half years already, fighting terrorists and living on the run, being captured and tortured and constantly on the verge of being killed. He was back in London temporarily and he was exhausted, anyone could see that. He needed help, but he didn’t know how long it was going to take to solve it, so my only choice was to let him go back out there by himself and wait here, not knowing what was happening to him, or go with him and just disappear for weeks or months, for all I knew. I couldn’t tell anyone what I was going to do, because one of the reasons it was a secret was that my life would have been in danger if the terrorists had found out he was still alive. So I had a bit of an obligation to help him as it was, for both his sake and mine. But I always should have been there, with him. We were partners. And he’d been doing it on his own for so long already. He was protecting me by letting me think he was dead, he thought he didn’t have a choice about that. But this time, I had the choice to help him. I had to, though. I had to go.”
“I understand that,” Mary says. “I also think it’s more than that. I mean, you just said. You were partners, but you also loved him.”
John exhales slowly. “Yes,” he says. No prevarication. Just a simple, honest, admittance. “I did and I do.”
“I knew,” Mary says quietly. “I knew that you had loved him before he died, or before he faked his death, I suppose. I knew you didn’t want to acknowledge that part when you talked about him, but I knew it. And when I saw you in the Times with him in Germany, it all made sense. I didn’t understand how he could have been alive, but obviously he was, and therefore you were with him. And there was a picture – the two of you were just walking down a street, in front of a Starbucks, I think. You’re not touching or anything, but it was just obvious to me that you were lovers. It just shone from both of you, and I thought then that you’ve never looked at me like that.”
Her voice is gentle and steady, but she’s being brave. Yes: that fits. John would have chosen someone like himself, quiet and firm and courageous, yet honest enough that her pain is quite evident despite the evenness of her voice. John’s is less even. “I’m sorry, Mary,” he says, sounding wretched. “I did love you. That was never a lie. And I’m sorry that this was going on before we officially – well. I suppose that’s what I’m doing now. Breaking it off. I have to. You know that I love him. I feel terribly that this all worked out the way it did. If I had known he wasn’t dead, I never could have got involved with someone else, but I did think that, and I met you, and it was – wonderful while we had it. But – ”
“I know,” Mary says. There’s the sound of skin against skin, just a whisper of it. She’s touching his hand or hands, I think, patting. “I know, John. But you love him. And you loved him before you loved me. I understand how it works. I can’t even blame you for this, though I sort of wish I could. I think I would have had to do the same thing, if it had been me.”
John gives an unhappy laugh. “It would almost be easier if you weren’t being so bloody understanding and kind about it.”
(Can hear the sad smile in her voice.) “But I do,” she says. “I’m sorry. And in a way, I think it’s wonderful. I’m happy for you: you lost someone who was the very centre of your life. I always knew that whether your love for him was strictly platonic, or – not – he was everything to you, and I’m glad for your sake that you’ve got him back.”
“We were never together before he died,” John says. “Not like that. We were partners in his work, and we lived together, but it wasn’t – ”
“I know, sweetheart.” Mary’s gentleness is inexorable. “I always knew that it was unrequited. That’s why it was so bitter. Otherwise grief heals more cleanly than yours ever did. I knew that what we had was only second-best for you, but I believed it could be enough, over time.”
John is quiet for a moment, perhaps wrestling his emotions into check. “It would have been,” he says at last. “It really would have. We would have been happy together.”
The sound of her hands on his again. “I thought so, too. But I really am glad for you,” she says. “That he’s not only alive but loves you back is wonderful – for you. And it’s clear to me that he does love you. I hope he’ll be very kind to you.”
I think for a horrible moment of what John might say in response to this, that one thing that I rarely am is kind, but he doesn’t say it. (Writhe with self-loathing for a minute or two.) “Thank you,” he says, his voice rough with emotion. “You’re a star, Mary. I never deserved you.”
“It’s not about what we deserve or don’t deserve is it?” Mary says, the question rhetorical. “It never has been. Otherwise, maybe I would still have you.” Her chair scrapes against the floor; she’s leaving. There’s a pause and then the sound of something small is set down on the table. “This belongs to you,” she says. “I stopped wearing it when I saw your picture in the paper.” She bends and kisses his forehead. “Be well, John,” she says softly, and then she’s gone.
I twist in my seat to catch a glimpse of her, a long-coated figure with short blond hair disappearing through the doorway. My gaze catches on John before I can help myself. He’s buried his face in his hands, the ring box on the table in front of him. (He’s crying.) Guilt hollows out my gut. I want to go to him, but understand that this is the very last thing I can do. As far as he will ever know, I was never here, never overheard this. (But I’m glad that I did.) After a few moments, he pulls himself together, blows his nose on a serviette, then gets to his feet and leaves the café. Neither of them even had anything to drink.
When I’m certain he’s well clear of the premises, I return the Tolstoy to one of the shelves lining the back wall and go outside to find a taxi. Time to go home and wait – wait to see if he will still love me after this, or if his resentment will keep him away. I barely see Westminster as it passes out the taxi windows; my gut is curled in on itself in misery. It was his choice to involve himself with me while he was still engaged. I know that. (How do I convince him, now, that it was worth it? That I am worth it, worth him?)
***
Back in the flat, I wait. And wait and wait and wait. I cannot do anything productive. Am non-responsive or monosyllabic to Mrs Hudson when she attempts communication. Mycroft threatens to visit when I don’t answer his first three texts inquiring about John. I answer the last text, at least, just to stave off the visit. I understand John’s need for space now. I do. I appreciate that he’s ended it with her, and am somewhat consoled by his direct acknowledgement of his feelings for me to her, yet I also understand entirely that his sense of integrity is suffering at the moment. Misplaced as it is, he feels he can’t just go from that, from breaking his engagement, directly to me and to being happy to be with me.
I understand. Yet I long to reassure him that he’s made the right choice, long to brand confirmation into his skin cells, breathe it into him, remind him that we are what we are. Restore that sense of intense intimacy of being practically inside one another’s skins. I have been within him – I should have insisted that he do the same, but there wasn’t another chance. We haven’t been together – not in that way – since that night in Hamburg, when I fell apart because the very intimacy was overwhelming. But no, that wasn’t the reason for my emotional wreckage that night – it was the fear of losing that very intimacy. I want that. I want to be overwhelmed by it, by him. I want him inside and over and around me. I want to fuse myself to him and breathe his air, feed his lungs with mine. Want to tell him that I’ll never leave him again, never lie to him again, never be cruel to him again. (Am uncertain about my own abilities to keep these promises, but I will try, damn it. I will do everything in my power to be less… myself. To make myself someone that he can feel justified in having given up Mary for.) I want to curl myself around him and tell him a thousand, unhesitating times that I love him and will forever, that he is the very best thing that ever happened in my life and that I will never willingly let it go. Never let anyone threaten or hurt him again, not as long as I am drawing breath.
Shadows gather in the sitting room and before long, it is dark. After a long while, I go to the kitchen and eat the sandwich Mrs Hudson told me she’d made for me hours ago, then brush my teeth and take myself to bed. Two nights without him now, four since we last touched each other. It feels like an eternity.
***
Morning brings more press, more articles, more emails and comments and tweets. I read through it, then shower and dress myself in one of my old suits. I choose the one that was the mostly tightly tailored, as I’ve lost weight during my time away. It’s a black corduroy suit that always did cut neatly in at the waist. After all this time it still hangs well and I must have gained back some of the weight I’d lost because the fit is similar to during my first year with John. His presence from the United Arab Emirates through to Germany ensured that I ate regularly, I suppose. I study myself in the mirror and decide that I look acceptable. If he comes today, I want to be sure that I’m not in my pyjamas or some such thing.
Just before eleven, the bell rings. Mrs Hudson answers it and I’m not sure what’s going on, but she sounds quite excited, her voice high and happy. Then she’s calling my name. I go downstairs to find two burly men and two dollies of boxes in the foyer. I understand immediately, something unclenching in my chest at last: movers. They’re looking at me questioningly. “Take them right up to the sitting room,” I say. “You can just leave them there.”
“Right you are.” The first mover is gruff and quick, already wheeling his load to the bottom of the stairs.
John is out on the pavement calling directions to someone else. (Don’t want to see him with all these people around. I retreat up the stairs after the boxes to direct traffic up there instead.) The first load of boxes are labelled Kitchen and Books respectively, so I carry the kitchen things to the work top, which is still clear of experiments for the moment. The second mover arrives with boxes labelled Clothes & Shoes. I direct him to the bedroom, my bedroom. “Just leave them inside the doorway,” I say. “No need to unpack.”
“As you say, sir,” the mover says, shifting the boxes off his dolly. “I was instructed to do any packing or unpacking you and Mr Watson prefer, so it’s down to you, sir.”
“We’ll do the unpacking,” I say, not bothering to ask from whom his instructions came. That’s quite obvious, but for once I can’t make myself feel annoyed with Mycroft.
John comes up with the third mover, who deposits a load of boxes in the sitting room near the others and goes out to the hall where John still is and tells him that was the last of it. John thanks him, says something to Mrs Hudson (not sure what, can’t spare attention for that, but it makes her leave at any rate, which is all I care about) and then he comes in and shuts the door behind him, looking at me.
I stand there, in my suit, and for a moment have no idea what to do or say. And then I do. I cross the room in about two seconds, and then John is grabbing me by the arms and swinging me around into the closed door, pushing me up against it. (Relief; this is precisely what I wanted.) Relief makes me weak in the knees, my hands grabbing at his head, his back, my mouth on his the instant I can get it there. John is no less insistent, no less demanding in his need for confirmation. That’s precisely what this is: he needs to know this, feel this again, make sure that he’s made the right choice. He did, I know it in my bones. I may never deserve him, but as Mary said, it was never about deserving. He loves me, and I am utterly ruined with love for him. His hips are pushing me into the door, pinning me there and I’m hard already. I think of our first time, here in the sitting room, my failed erection and skittish, uncontrollable mind. Just as the thought of him having been with Mary ruined that sexual episode for me then, so his having chosen me over her now fuels it. And after four days, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that I could possibly lose this erection if I tried. (Am decidedly not trying.) John’s hands are all over me, fingers fighting at the zip of my suit trousers, shoving the jacket open and off my shoulders. I’m unbuttoning his blue-checked shirt, the one I always particularly liked (don’t want to make a mess) and his fingers are busy on my shirt now. I’ve dealt with his jeans and now finally, finally his hands are fighting their way into my pants to touch me, hand curling around my penis to grasp it, begin a hard, sure stroke that leaves me gasping. (Four days is definitely too long. Never again.) I’ve got a hand wrapped around his erection inside his pants, the waistband pulling tight and somehow we manage to shove the offending garment down around his hips so that he can move. We kiss and kiss, short of breath and dizzy, and it’s too fast, too hard, but going any slower would kill us both, I think. We need this, this confirmation, this re-establishing of who and what we are to one another.
Perhaps it’s because it’s been four days, but I am going to reach orgasm far too quickly at this rate. (Don’t even care for once.) I can hear myself begging – “please, John – oh God, yes, yes – just like – ah – ”, voice rising helplessly. John is moaning into my mouth even as I spill into his hand, then lets me go to wipe his hand on his own shirt (oh, John), then puts both hands on my bare arse, all ten fingers digging in as he thrusts into my fist. He comes a moment later, cursing and groaning my name. I let my forehead drop onto his, panting and still drowning in relief that he is here, that he with me like this, that he is really mine. “I love you,” I say, when I can speak again, and am glad that I managed to say it before he could say it first.
He releases his grip on my arse and takes my face in his hands. “I love you,” he counters.
“I know,” I say, hearing the slight unsteadiness in my voice, because I finally believe it. It doesn’t mean that I’ll never have doubts, never question it. But I do know. At last, I know. “Are you here to stay, then?”
John smiles. “I thought so, yeah. If you’ll have me.”
“Of course I’ll have you,” I say, trying to sound cross and mostly failing. “Is this everything? No furniture?”
“No, I left that behind,” John says. “I called your brother this morning and said I could use his help moving, if he wanted to provide any assistance with that. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard him sound that genuinely happy before. Anyway, I said he could do what he liked with the furniture.”
“Was he actually there?” I ask in disbelief.
“Yeah, he came himself, ‘to supervise’, he said,” John says. He grins. “I know. Unusual. I think he, er, really wanted this to happen, though.”
“He did,” I admit. “Though not as much as we did, I think.” I observe his face, searching it for any signs of regret and find none. “Are you all right?” I ask quietly. “No regrets?”
John shakes his head. “No. Not a one. It… wasn’t easy, when I saw Mary yesterday, but I think she’ll be all right. It’s the right decision. I always knew that.”
“Doesn’t mean that it was easy,” I say, agreeing. I touch his face. “You’re sure you’re all right? This isn’t too soon?”
“It’s not half soon enough,” John says, and his smile is real, bone-deep and lovely. “We waited long enough for this.”
I hesitate for half a second, then say it. “The other morning in Berlin, when I asked you to promise to stay forever, I meant it. You wondered if I was proposing. I wasn’t then, not exactly, but I am now. I thought of buying you a ring but I didn’t want to presume, and thought you might like to choose it yourself. Marry me, John. Please.”
John’s eyes rove over my face, intense and heartbreakingly open. “You really want that?” he asks. “You’re one hundred percent sure?”
“A thousand percent sure,” I say firmly. (Never mind mathematical possibility.) “We belong together. Like you said. We’re partners, in everything. We’ve had some good people around us lately – Mycroft, Lestrade, Duncan. Salib and Al-Amri. But at the end of the day, you’re all I need and all that I want, John Watson.”
John blinks and I realise that his eyes are wide and blue and full of tears, but the right sort of tears this time. “I’m yours,” he says.
He closes the space between us, my heart pounding as my arms fold themselves around his back, lips meeting his. I waited nine hundred and fifty-two days for this. Think briefly of everything that occurred from the day that I jumped from the rooftop of St. Bartholomew’s until this moment.
(It was worth it.)