This chapter takes place two days before John and Mary's wedding, immediately following the chapter entitled "Typical Evening" in the story called "Making Friends and Forming Alliances."

000

He made himself comfortable in Sherlock's armchair before the fire in the Baker Street flat, feeling more at home here than he had in any place for some time. Greg Lestrade had given up his house to his ex-wife when she'd divorced him, and the little bed-sit he'd lived in since was never home. Of course, Baker Street had never seemed like home before, either—more like a Little Shoppe of Horrors—until Mary Morstan had moved in to care for the recovering John. Now it seemed cosy and warm and good to sit here, listening to Sherlock and Molly murmuring over mysterious experiments on the kitchen table and Mrs. Hudson and Mary rattling dishes as they cleaned up after dinner. John, having just taken his evening pain reliever, dozed peacefully in his own armchair across from Greg with a softly whiffling snore.

When Mary had called him that afternoon with an "anonymous tip" concerning a murder, Greg had not questioned it but investigated immediately. It seemed that Mary and Molly's house-breaking exploits that day had unearthed a nearly perfect crime, one the police had utterly overlooked. Greg had not been able to wait to congratulate the young women, arriving just as the little Baker Street family were starting dinner. He'd been warmly welcomed and invited to stay. And now dinner was over, and he was left sitting by the fire while the others went about their business, pleasantly ignored as if he belonged there as a part of the family rather than a guest that needed entertaining. He knew this was due to Mary's open and affectionate nature. He and Sherlock had been colleagues for years, and he and John had become close mates; but Mary pulled them together into a family of sorts, and had done it in an amazingly short period of time.

It had been less than a year ago that he had first met Mary at a crime scene. Sherlock and John were investigating the mystery surrounding her father, who had disappeared ten years earlier; Scotland Yard had been called in as evidence developed that the man had been murdered. Mary had impressed Greg with her cheerful warmth and irrepressible courage during the investigation; but while filling in the official reports, he discovered something that drew him to her even more. Mary had been born on the same day as his Rose. Not just the same date; the same, exact day as his own daughter, twenty-six years before.

His little Rose, with her shining blond hair and mischievous blue eyes, with her indomitable, adventuresome, and utterly fearless spirit, seemed to come alive again in Mary Morstan. Greg had no doubt in his mind that, had Rose lived, she would be just the sort of young woman that Mary was. Sometimes that certain knowledge brought back the pain of loss in a fresh flood of grief that felt akin to drowning. But more often, it filled him with an inexplicable joy, as if he were privileged now to see what could have been, had life been kinder.

As he learned more of Mary's life, the contrasting parallels continued to confound him. While his little four-year-old Rose was going through the terrifying series of tests to help the doctors learn why she was in so much pain, little Mary was experiencing the painful loss of her mother. While Greg took an extended leave of absence in order to spend every possible moment with his little girl, Mary's father withdrew his affections and pushed his daughter away. Even as Greg, against the doctors' advice and even his own wife's wishes, refused to put Rose into hospice but spent a fortune in medical devices and in-home care in order to keep his baby close to him, taking on much of her care himself; Mary's father was making plans to send his baby girl half-way across the globe into the dubious care of strangers. Six-year-old Rose had died in her father's trembling arms, safe and loved and wanted and cared for; that same day, Mary's father had put her, alone, on a plane to England, never to see his little girl again. Greg could not comprehend the man. How could Matthew Morstan have sent his only child away so deliberately, when Greg Lestrade would have fought off legions with his bare hands to keep his precious girl close to his side? "Rosemary", he always thought of her, in the privacy of his own mind. "That's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember."*

Now Mary stepped lightly into the sitting room, tray in hand, and served Greg tea and biscuits with a warm, cheerful expression. She gestured towards her fiancé with a wink. "Not much company tonight, is he?"

"It's companionable enough, just sitting here," Greg confessed, looking self-consciously into the fire.

Mary settled onto the rug between the armchairs, her own cup in hand. "Tuppence for your thoughts," she smiled.

He looked at her sombrely, wondering if it were permissible to be open with this young woman. "My daughter Rose would be just your age. You and she share a birthday."

Mary looked at him compassionately. "What happened to her?" she asked softly.

"Cancer. Inoperable brain tumour," he said abruptly. He didn't like thinking about his Rose that way. He liked remembering her as she was before she was ill—energetic, full of mischief, exuberantly alive. "She died when she was six."

He could see that Mary could read between the lines and see all the grief and loss behind his simple statement. She put a gentle hand on his arm. "I'm so sorry. I know what it's like to lose ones we love, but the loss of a child must be the worst of all."

A companionable silence fell between them. Then, for the first time in twenty years, Greg felt able to talk about his daughter. He and his ex—well, that was one of the things that had made his marriage fall apart, wasn't it? They just couldn't talk about Rose. It was as if she'd never existed for them. But he found himself able to pour out his grief to Mary, who also knew sorrow as a lifetime companion and understood his loss. And then, to his relief, he was able to share with her some of the joyous memories of his little girl—things he'd never spoken of for so very, very long.

"I imagine Rose and I would have been great chums," Mary smiled as he told of some of his daughter's wilder exploits, before she'd become too ill to have adventures. "I wish I could have known her. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could have grown up together?"

Greg nodded. He wished this, too. Then shyly, he added, "I wish we'd known you then. Maybe we could have looked after you, when you came to England alone."

Mary looked wistful. "You'd have made a much better father than mine ever did," she agreed. "I wonder what I might be like now, if you'd been my father instead of him."

John chose this moment to rouse himself from his drugged state. "Who's whose father?" he muttered in confusion.

Mary chuckled. "Fancy this, Captain. Greg's daughter Rose and I share a birthday. I was wondering what it would have been like had we changed places."

"You'd certainly have been better off. Matthew Morstan was a bloody monster!" John declared darkly.

Mary leaned against John's knee. "I've sometimes wondered what it might have been like to grow up in a stable, loving family." She looked up at her fiancé fondly. "Would you still want to marry me if I were called Rose Lestrade?"

"That which we call a Rose, by any other name would smell as sweet,"* John smiled gently. Greg was gratified that he was not the only man who quoted Shakespeare when delving into sentiment. However, the allotted time for sentiment was now long over. What he needed to know now was how John would react to his friend harbouring paternal feelings towards his intended, and then he must really stop wallowing in the past.

"John Watson, what on earth makes you think I'd let any daughter of mine anywhere near an old rogue like you?" he said dryly, and looked his friend in the eye with amusement.

John chuckled. "You'd be grossly negligent if you did," he admitted cheerfully. "I supposed I'd just have to work round you."

"I would have to rebel," Mary sighed dramatically, falling into the spirit of deliberate levity. "We would be forced to elope; but then you'd eventually come round to accepting the inevitable. And we'd all live happily ever after."

"Elopement would be an unnecessary deception," Sherlock put in, never looking up from his microscope, "as it is obvious that Lestrade would give in to whatever Mary wanted with little hesitation."

Greg was momentarily startled. He'd somehow forgotten as he had talked with Mary that there were others in the flat. Now he had to decide whether he minded that the others all knew his most personal business.

And he found he really didn't mind. After all, isn't sharing what families are for?

000

*Greg is quoting from "Hamlet"—from Ophelia's speech mourning her father's death—a bit of turn-about.

*John is quoting from "Romeo and Juliet"—from Juliet's speech as she tries to persuade Romeo to leave his family for her sake.