Part One

"Please pay attention to how this is arranged on your hand."

John watched as The Counsellor snapped the bracelet around his right wrist, then wrapped a thin silver chain around the bracelet. She then pulled a silver ring out of her pocket and looked him in the eye as she slipped it onto the index finger of his right hand. Mary came to mind, that moment during their wedding when she'd slipped a ring onto his left hand – but there was much less pain. It felt more like a fond strain of nostalgia, a bittersweet memory like an old song on the radio.

"Oh, God," Sherlock muttered impatiently.

John and The Counsellor giggled, then she pressed a thin strip of something transparent along his palm, connecting the bracelet and the ring.

"From now on, you have to take it off and put it on by yourself," The Counsellor said, the words feeling a bit like a vow. Her voice was trembling. John grasped her hand and caught her by surprise, mid-thought:

I will lose you someday, oh, so much, too much it'll hurt, I don't want it to hurt, no attachments, how can I bear this? Attachments, ridiculous, this –

He let go, giving her the privacy of her thoughts. "So am I now officially married to my work?" he asked, turning to Sherlock.

The Counsellor took their hands in hers, and John could see a memory from Sherlock's perspective: his wedding to Mary. He saw how Sherlock had been sitting in the back, pathetically removed and alone.

Yes, thought Sherlock.
No, thought the Counsellor.

And they smiled at each other, all three.

Part Two

"Counsellor! You have to tell me how to save her!"

John was elbow deep in the chest cavity of a female alien. Her breathing was ragged and her eyes were open; she was watching him, terrified.

"Hang on!" the mad Time Lord shouted as she chased Sherlock out of the room.

"Damn it!" John said. He returned his attention to the alien. "Shh. Calm."

"I am calm," she said. "Well, as calm as I can be with some earthling's hand in my chest."

"I can't find your heart."

"That's because it's not in my chest."

He looked down into her chest. His hands were slipping through – entrails? "What is all this, then?" he asked.

"My digestive system and some of my reproductive organs," she answered. Her eyes were still wide with terror, but her voice was as calm as a Sunday morning in the country. It was ludicrous.

"Oh. Well, of course it is. Heart, then?"

"Head."

"Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes. "If you're trying to save my life, you're going to want to find the rock near my stomach. You're close. A little to the left –"

"This is intensely disturbing."

"I was told you were a professional."

"I am!"

"Fine. Then save my life so I can marry the heir to Fillacolaprintca," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said. His hand closed around something solid and hard and not slippery.

"Just pull."

He did. The rock started to burn in his hand as he pulled it free. The alien female let out a long, gusty sigh of relief.

"Did I get it?" he asked. He lifted the rock in his hand and turned it over. It shone, warm and pulsing white and . . .alive. He couldn't get past the idea that it was a beating heart, a precious thing –

"Thank you," the alien said, her smile faint and fading.

"What?" John asked, panicked. The signs were clear: she was dying, now, right now.

"Husband," she whispered.

"Here!" The Counsellor shouted. The male alien she pulled along behind her went from dazed to very keen in a second, and he rushed to the female's side. He dropped to his knees beside her and, without so much as an excuse me, grabbed the stone from John's hand.

The female gazed up at him, and John saw something different, something amazing. She had just fallen in love. It was that easy and complete, here on the planet of Fillacolaprintca. He noticed the same look on the face of the male alien.

"Wife," he whispered, placing the stone in her mouth.

"Husband," she said again with what had to be her last breath.

Their mouths joined around the stone. It shone, pulsed twice, then –

The female sat up with a gasp, and the male collected her in his arms.

Sherlock jogged into the room. He took in the scene with a glance. "Oh, for God's sake," he grunted. "Counsellor, did you really bring us all this way and all this time for a damned wedding?"

"Come on, Sherlock, it's romantic."

"You told me this was a jewel heist."

"It sort of is!" she cried, gesturing at the two aliens in front of her. "See, on Fillacolaprintca, the bride's family steals the Heart of Marriage from the groom's family. She swallows it and, when it's mature, it bursts free of her stomach and slowly starts to kill her –"

"Counsellor." Sherlock's voice was a low growl.

"Counsellor." John's voice was awkward and uncomfortable. The male alien had just unzipped his jacket. John thought again about the placement of the female's reproductive organs. He flinched.

"Right," The Counsellor said. "Time to run. Congratulations, you two!"

They fled the bridal chamber just as cries of pleasure began to fill the room.

Part Three

"What, all three of you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Hudson."

His former landlady sat uncomfortably on the sofa in the sitting room of the new flat. She fidgeted and looked uncomfortable. "In one flat?"

John gave her a small, tight-lipped smile. "Yes."

"And you're . . .not married?"

"Er, no."

"Well, that's . . ." He could see that she was demonstrably upset and trying very, very hard to hide it. "That's different, isn't it?"

He could see so many ways the word different was a euphemism for something else. He knew what people were thinking; he'd seen the gossip magazines. For some reason Sherlock Holmes sharing a flat with John Watson wasn't a big deal, and Sherlock Holmes sharing a flat with Astrid Smith wasn't a big deal, but Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and Astrid Smith sharing a flat together was a really big, really lascivious deal.

"Sorry we couldn't have made you famous, Mrs. Hudson," John said. He knew it was a little rude, but he'd been holding it back for far too long.

"Oh, boys," she said, forgetting that Sherlock wasn't in the room. "I don't mind being famous. Heaven knows that before, we had any number of odd people showing up on the doorstep. It was exciting! But this is just . . .different."

"That it is," John said. "But nothing inappropriate is happening, I assure you."

She stood slowly from the sofa, carefully favoring her bum hip. "Well." She looked around again, then gestured to the neatly-wrapped package on the coffee table. "Be sure you share those with Sherlock and, er . . ."

"I will," John said, carefully taking her forearm and guiding her to the front door. "It was very nice of you to drop by and bring us some biscuits, Mrs. Hudson."

"I do miss you boys," she said. "All the carryings-on. It's been so quiet without you."

John smiled, thinking of the last case they'd worked on – the fireworks factory. The explosions. If you only knew the half of the noise, Mrs. Hudson. "I bet it has been."

She gave him a deep hug and left.

He picked up the package and carried it into the flat's kitchen. It was spotless. Well, of course it was. The kitchen they used was in the Phantom Baker Street, and, as usual, it was filled with experiments and unwashed mugs and horrid body parts, both animal and human, in the fridge. He couldn't get to that kitchen, however. It was in the TARDIS, which wasn't here. The wardrobe room was empty. The Counsellor and Sherlock had taken it to Los Angeles to visit with Captain Jack Harkness, and he'd been left behind to play nice with Mrs. Hudson.

Right then, the bracelet on his right wrist started to glimmer. The TARDIS had returned. He smiled to himself and started unwrapping the package. Mrs. Hudson's shortbread biscuits. He thought he'd cry from the sheer joy of the sight of them.

"John."

He turned. The Counsellor was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, looking gorgeous in a bright blue sundress and wedge sandals. "Hullo," he said with a fond smile. Yeah, he was supposed to not form an attachment to her, but what the hell did that mean? It was impossible. Friends are attached, for God's sake, especially friends who traveled through space and time solving crimes and, sometimes, matchmaking.

And . . .so what if his specific form of attachment went a little deeper? He didn't let her read his mind often. She didn't have to know he was already breaking her rules. And he certainly wasn't asking her to reciprocate.

"Mrs. Hudson?" she asked, nodding her head at the package on the kitchen counter.

"Biscuits," he said, offering her one.

"She's okay?" she asked, accepting his offer and sniffing the treat suspiciously.

"Fine."

She arched her eyebrow at him. "But?"

Sherlock swept into the room and grabbed the biscuit John had been putting in his mouth. He chomped a bite out of it. "But there are too many rumours of our scandalous lifestyle in the press, and it's getting back to her. Her friends are hounding her for information. She came to warn us that we're getting too famous again. It might impact our safety."

John rolled his eyes and picked up another shortbread. "Basically, yes."

"Lifestyle? What about our lifestyle?"

"Don't play stupid, Counsellor, it doesn't become you," Sherlock grumbled around his food.

"Two bachelors and one bachelorette sharing a flat," John said. "People will talk."

"People are talking," Sherlock clarified.

She huffed. "So it's the unmarried status that's bothering everyone?"

"It would appear to be, yes."

She crossed her arms and leaned against the kitchen counter. "And this could potentially impact the safety of our friends."

"We don't have friends," Sherlock said, reaching for another biscuit.

"Sherlock," she said, that cross tone in her voice again.

"Maybe it will affect them," John said, "but surely that's quite a long time off. We have no archenemies."

"Not right now we don't," The Counsellor said. "That will change."

"So, what? We change how we live so nobody can disapprove?"

She shrugged. "Bad idea?"

John felt a flush of panic. "Are you asking me to move out?"

Both Sherlock and The Counsellor looked at him like he'd just asked if he had a chance to make it big as a pop singer.

"Okay, so no," he said, exhaling a held breath. "So –"

"I for one don't want it to become necessary for any of us to pull the kind of stunt that requires the faking of death certificates just to keep our . . .allies safe," she said, shooting a harsh look at Sherlock, who was pointedly avoiding her gaze in favor of rooting through the fridge for something to wash down the rich shortbread.

"So then, who's moving out?" John asked. "Because it's the math that's bothering everyone."

"No, it's the unmarried status," she said. "The math is irreducible, John Watson. Do keep up."

He stared hard at her. "What are you saying?"

She slipped her hand into his, and he scrambled to hide his — Infatuation, enchantment, obsession —secret feelings from her.

John, as a friend, as a colleague, as a partner – will you marry me?

He pulled away violently. He cut his eyes over to Sherlock, who was smiling at him knowingly.

"I – what – you – I – but –"

"It's an Earth custom to give the other party time to consider," she said, turning away and heading for the wardrobe room. "So, you know. Take your time."

John turned to Sherlock. "You –"

"Yes, of course I know. We deduced the reason for Mrs. Hudson's visit while we were out. We came up with the idea together. More believable if you marry her, of course, but I'll do it if you can't."

"Believable?"

"Oh, you know – a widower rebounding and finding love with his colleague's friend. It's the stuff of romance novels."

"But you'll still be living here!"

Sherlock shrugged. "I'm not a threat. The whole underworld already refers to me as The Virgin, remember? I'm the neutral party."

"The neutered party," John said absently.

"There's no reason to be rude."

"I –"

"Again, take your time, think it over. It may never actually come to a problem, but it's better to be safe with these things – you know, in case the Vatican goes into the crime business." He gave John another of those mad-genius smiles, grabbed several more biscuits, and headed off for the wardrobe room.

John leaned against the counter and closed his eyes. Two of them. Bugger. He smiled.

END (for now)