BBCSH His Last Vow Missing Scene 'Poor Mary'

Author: tigersilver

Pairing: S/J (implied unrequited but then again maybe not), J/M (wedded and expecting); all canon relationships observed.

Word Count: 1600

Warnings/Summary: Sherlock POV. As the tin says above, this is a missing scene, set directly after Sherlock awakens in hospital after having been shot by his best mate's wife. Minor angst, some pining, nothing nasty; please don't be alarmed unduly. Dedicated to a brilliant cast and crew for the wonderful gift they have given us in the Third Season. Ta!

The view of London's rooftops was eerie but oddly comforting, laid over like a thin membrane and projected across John Watson's face like that. Bothersome. Fortunately it dissipated with a single blink, as it was nastily vertigo-inducing and Sherlock had no patience for that sort of physical failing.

John.

A bullet hole, though. Bit different. Sherlock inhaled sharply: not quite a gasp, as he didn't have the breath for that, but more than a sigh: "John." He concentrated, wrinkling his forehead to aid the quickening spiral of his mental reboot.

Not dead, was his second thought. Thank you. His third.

The flood came, as expected: details, details, scraps and bits and pieces, all telling tales. Whispers into Sherlock's ear, really. Fancifully the secret language of the bees or perhaps (in worse circumstances than lying safely in hospital, clearly having returned from the dead yet again) the scuttle of rats in the wainscoting. But no matter.

John was indeed not dead but only dozing heavily, sat fairly straight in the armchair placed by Sherlock's hospital bed, the fingers of one firm hand wrapped about the limp fingers Sherlock's free one, being the one not connected to the drip (morphine, antibiotics, fluids, Sherlock thought dismissively) and then he promptly forgot all that life-sustaining nonsense in favour of simply gazing at John Watson. His John Watson, his!

John Watson. John Hamish Watson. So dear and so nearby, intimately connected even by flesh and by shared pulse pound, and yet? So very nearly lost to Sherlock, this last time.

How had that gone, again? Oh, yes—Mary!

Sherlock instinctively suppressed a shudder, wary of the ever-present pain. His chest ached abominably, he was exhausted and yet somehow not at all sleepy. Past time to consider how to cope with his latest lease on life, then.

Lover's triangle? he pondered, eyes flickering over the pouchy bags under the bristle of John's sandy lashes, shut in an uneasy sleep. No. No, no, no; far too simplistic. Mary hadn't been driven by jealousy. She might kill to keep John, she would definitely kill to protect him, but she'd known as well as Sherlock did that Sherlock was the exact opposite of a threat to their mutual beloved. No—jealousy, that great and persistent motivator of murder, didn't figure into this case.

It was a case, most definitely, Mary's. Sherlock had already solved it, too. Obvious, once he'd sorted out what had been under his nose all along. Liar, liar, yes? Skip codes and a quiet confidence, an eye for detail and ear cocked to gather all pertinent data, indubitably trained so, and above all an unrelenting tension that must be so deeply imbued in her small and deceptively delicate female form that John Watson, medical professional par excellence, had never even noted it, and John was no slouch, really. Not after years of Sherlock's tutoring. Sherlock had, naturally, but for once he'd been a victim of sentiment. Must have been, to walk that blithely into Magnussen's office like that. There was always something, wasn't there?

Fear. Poor Mary.

Sherlock knew fear, ta, and very well indeed, these days. This moment, in fact. Mary. He should say it aloud, should proclaim the name as loudly as he could from the rooftops of London, should probably (most definitely) answer the question he very vaguely recalled a frantic John demanding of him, of the entire world and the Fates, too (as if they existed, Sherlock sneered internally): "Who did this to you, Sherlock? Sherlock!"

John had shouted and prodded and poked, fussing madly, methodically, his face blanched as parchment pale as Sherlock's had likely been, what with getting on the with tedious act of lying there bleeding out as he'd been. John had summoned the ambulance, barking out the address in short sharp syllables, harsh as anything, and then he'd brought his face close up to Sherlock's and begged of him—of Sherlock, his disastrous choice of a best mate, a best man, a best anything—to live.

To live, for John's sake. Only for John, no one else.

Sherlock blinked, his sight suddenly gone a tad bit blurry. Blinked again, not wanting nor willing to miss a single instant of being able once more to look upon the countenance of his friend. His friend, and his light, and his (possibly? No, probably!) deliberately myopic beloved.

Time had not, as was its wont, stood still. Sherlock's chance had been gone nearly from the moment he'd realized it even existed as a viable supposition, oh lo, those several years ago. John had been saved, though, which was right and proper and the only ever acceptable course of action, and Sherlock had quite, quite deliberately resigned himself to the loss.

Oh—well, no. That was a lie (and didn't love make liars of everyone and anyone, even those clinically and rationally devoted to revealing the gruesome truth in all lies?) Sherlock was just as much a human as the rest of the lot; he'd expected (hoped for, dreamt of, had kept himself sane and alive by) the notion of a John Watson waiting for him. Poised on the bleak brink of time but sternly unbudging, stubborn as anything, Sherlock's own precious John Watson; his.

I heard you, he'd said.

I see you, Sherlock thinks, and a feeling of what can only be gratitude gradually overcomes the milky calm lent by the morphine. I see you, John.

He's not a religious man, never has been. Sherlock scoffs silently. Far from it. So, it's not a prayer, really. It's a simple request put forth to an unfeeling universe, populated by all those stars John once chuckled over, and perhaps—just like Moriarty, damn his eyes!—this universe will consent relent in its great changeableness and allow Sherlock Holmes to keep close by to him the one person he needs, the one being of the highest import in his calculating life: his own personal lodestar and deity.

Please let it be that I see you always, even if not every day, John Hamish Watson, for that is what I require to breathe.

Breathing, right. Right. Not boring, though. Not ever again. Breathing…it's a thing John does and now Sherlock does, again, and it's a bit…good.

Sherlock sighs, carefully and cautiously but not aloud for fear of waking John. John's patently exhausted, needs his sleep. Shows every indication of having been dragged through a hedge backwards and is still covered patchily in the stains of his best friend's blood. John's hand never loses its gentle grip, his deft surgeon's digits never fall lax about Sherlock's clutching ones. Sherlock fancies it is as if John is saying I've got you, I've got you, don't fret, you great wanker, and even if it's via some sort of sign language and despite the fact John isn't conscious and awake to say it, the message remains in Sherlock's mind, in letters large and burning.

No, Sherlock doesn't believe in a higher power. He doesn't cast the weight of his potential future life and actions upon any altar other than that of pure clear reason. But he does believe in John Watson and—oh! Oh?

"Sherlock? Sherlock," John whispers, coming awake from one breath to the next. "Sherlock," he repeats insistently, and Sherlock's tear-blinded gaze never wavers from watching him, his brilliant doctor, as John assesses Sherlock's state and crowds up and over the bed to listen to Sherlock's breathing (steady, if somewhat stressed), examine his colour (very little left to him, what with blood loss; quite wan) and check his pulse (abruptly heightened; stuttering). "All right?" he asks of Sherlock, despite it being obvious to any fool that Sherlock is more than a mere all right, he is ecstatic and enormously blissful and it's Christmas all over again—and again and again!

And John's fingers do not leave go. Do not. Leave go.

"Mary," Sherlock replies, abstracted, caught up as he is in relishing those pads of warmth pressing down against his wrist, entwining ever so deliciously through his own fingers. John looks briefly puzzled, which is both a delight and a worry. No matter; Sherlock will explain later. As soon as he's sorted out how to, for it's all very complex and for John's sake he must somehow manage to do it properly.

Poor Mary. So be it, then.

"Don't bloody fucking ever do that again, you sod, or I'll murder you myself," John Watson is in the midst of informing Sherlock, but there's a wisp of a grin curling up one side of his stubbly cheek and his eyes are the very best and most brilliant shade of the evening sky where they rest fondly (lovingly, affectionately, determinedly) upon Sherlock's upturned face. "Twelve times over, with my sharpest scalpel, and don't dare doubt I won't. Idiot."

"I heard you," is what Sherlock would like to say, but he doesn't. He yawns abruptly, startling even himself.

John chuckles. It really the best thing ever, the most charming sound Sherlock has ever heard, and he cannot help but smile at John. Who, contrarily, frowns.

"Now, go back to sleep," John orders him, and Sherlock does, because damnable transport, but it's all right (weak term, barely passable to describe this moment, but it'll do, Sherlock supposes fretfully) and it's good and it's…it is.

John is.

All that is required. By Sherlock, for Sherlock—for Mary as well, that murderer, that mother-to-be, that liar, that lover of John Watson. To breathe then, Sherlock agrees (not petulantly!) and then…then too, perchance also to dream.

(In his dream, although Sherlock has no memory of it later, he buys John and Mary a dog. A young one, all huge eyes and wet nose, and irritating habits. For no good reason whatsoever they name the little beast after the current PM. Silly fools; such sentiment! Sherlock thinks. Of course, he's more than a little glad to be alive-and-present to pander to it, John's stupidly pervasive sentiment. More than a little.)

Fin