Tonight, John comes home, laughing to himself, and looking bright and happy. He notices she's awake and comes to kiss her, but still remains distracted. Talks on and on about how amazing Holmes was tonight, how superb; the wonderful enjoyment of the case, the thrill! Wistful. Glowing. Virtually intoxicated. Wishing he could be there still.
She says quietly, as he undresses and comes to bed, "You haven't shared our bed for a long time."
"Hmm?" But then he realises what she means by "sharing their bed." Turning, W frowns and apologises. "My dear, I hadn't realised. Has it been so long?" Comes to her and duly makes love, but it's just comfortingly, out of obligation and expectation, she can tell. John is strangely awkward and clumsy, as though he's forgotten how. As if this were their first night together all over again. The entire time, he remains extremely distracted and not truly here. He thereupon rolls over and promptly falls asleep.
The next morning, W looks apologetic over breakfast. "My dear, you are right," he takes her hand. "I have been neglecting you terribly, Mary. I've thought about it, and I have decided that from now on things shall be quite different for us."
"Shall they?" her hopes are raised.
"Yes." he assured. "I shall invite Holmes here instead."
"What?" she swallows.
He smiles obliviously. "I've been spending inordinate amounts of time going over to visit him in Baker Street. Instead, I'll have him come here, and then we can all spend more time together." John shrugged, "Except for his cases of course, but it shall improve our time together, all the same."
She stares at him incredulously, silent and crestfallen.
Upon finishing breakfast, John rises and lightly kisses her cheek. He says that he's off to invite H to dinner tomorrow night. "Would that be all right, dear?"
Still unable to speak, she nods slowly. After watching John leave, Mary sits down again with a heavy sigh. She shakes her head unhappily and recalls the last time that she saw H.
[flashback]
It was the wedding reception several months ago. Mary could remember nearly all the guests dancing or chatting happily around them. Though the wedding party consisted mostly of friends and policemen due to the lack of living relatives, the guests remained warm, jovial, and enthusiastically festive.
H, though, sat at the table with John and Mary in silence; he looked entirely un-cheerful and sullen. The others had laughed it off at the time, finding it a too-serious cynic's mood; W had said that H was just being perversely morose because he had lectured W not to marry and waste his potential on emotion. They had all told her that it was all right and not to let H's attitude depress or dampen the happy occasion. But now H's strange silence and discomfort came back to Mary. H's continual frown, his merely dutiful toast, and his visible aching for the occasion to end. There was something lonely about it all, and some loneliness haunting her now, here.
John returns home just then, not at all as sunny as he had been at breakfast. Looks puzzled and sad. He explains falteringly, as though unable to understand, "Holmes refused me. He just said no." W keeps talking and worrying over this, obsessing. Seemes utterly bewildered at the vehemence of H's reply. No. Absolutely no. Even when he'd given H the reasons--that keeping up with him took its toll on W's time and energy; that W needed respite, needed H's reciprocation. Still no. Why? No explanation. H had glared as if he were offended and distraught that W would even ask such a thing. W shakes his head, unable to get H's unsettling replies out of his head.
Watching John's endless pacing, Mary can only brood and say nothing.
Days later, W tries again. He believes H is merely discomforted by the prospect of being a lone bachelor in a domestic household. He had only stayed the night once [during CROO] and perhaps found the notion of confronting with Mary and John as a couple daunting. Inviting H as one of a group would make him feel better. W changes his invitation to an offer of Christmas dinner with several Scotland Yard inspectors, friends, other single people. That surely will work.
But W returns again, more distraught than ever. H refused this, too. Emphatically. The look on his face, seeming to say: Don't ask me that. How can you?
Mary is more certain than ever why H refuses W so. H can no more face such a meeting than she can, anymore. She tries to make John let go of the subject, but he is unquestionably upset and not to be comforted. Remains restless and confused and frustrated over H.
W cannot even sleep that night. She wakes at the sound of his brooding in their bed.
John sits there, biting his lip. "He doesn't care for me," he whispers to himself mournfully. "Doesn't think of me that way."
She stares at him, too tense to move.
He goes on, without apparently noticing her anxiously fixed gaze. "A friend? An equal?" he shakes his head. "No. I'm nothing." scoffs, disgusted "I'm entertainment. An audience for his wondrous methods. A sycophant who amuses him. But no, not someone to waste his time on. Not to waste his energies being a part of my life." sighs with a hurt expression, frowning.
finally notices Mary awake next to him and turns to her for sympathy. "I thought he'd missed me, really missed me when I was gone!" W insisted. "He seemed so glad to see me when I first visited him. As though he feared that I would never return after we married."
Mary hardly knew what to say. She touched his face, pleading again, "Please, just forget this. Just sleep and don't think of it anymore."
He only turned away, finding her of no comfort. He rose to pace again, muttering to himself. "I really thought he cared for me." His voice broke a little. "That I meant something to him. After all his talk about never getting emotionally involved, about no attachments and irrationality, I thought I knew what he really felt, what he wouldn't admit." swallows. "But no. I'm nothing. Nothing." leaned at the window sill and shivered, whispering, "H looked at me as if he'd rather I never came again, than come to just ask him here again."
Mary tries to calm him, to make him stop. She comes near and touches him.
He's upset and shaking. He looks away, disillusioned and unhappy. Crumbling to pieces.
"No, no... It's not true," she insists, shaking her head. She clings to him, beginning to tremble with her own emotion. weeps and falls apart, too. She cries, of all things, not for herself, for her husband being utterly blind to his blocking her out, but for H. Him, of all people. Because Mary can somehow imagine his loneliness. And his wishing too that John would not be blind.
She weeps so much that W forgets his own pain enough to turn. He embraces her and hushes her tears. "My dear, my dear." Puzzled that she could be this upset. He holds her, staring at her. This would normally, in their earliest days, be a time that he would most instinctively try to comfort her, to love her. Strange thing is, though, that he isn't now. Nor does she want him to.
They return to lie in bed next to each other, quite silent.
In the morning, without even stopping for breakfast, John tells her that he is firmly resolved. He'll go see H and permanently break things off with him. He'll tell H that he knows when he's not wanted, and will never see him again. She begs John not to go, but he is still moved by his rage and hurt, unable to listen to reason. He storms out.
Mary hesitates at the door after his departure, standing with tears in her eyes. Shaking and not knowing what she is feeling, or for whom. However, she grows dizzy and pale after a time. The maid finds Mary half collapsed on the floor of the front hall. She's feverish. The maid helps her to the doctor's next door, where she is soon sick. [Morning sickness. Mary is pregnant, ironically, from that last time that they touched.]
Meanwhile, W arrives at 221B and hurries up the steps. H lounges silently in the sitting-room. He's upset and brooding in his chair, the way he had been at the wedding reception long ago. H looks up when W suddenly barges in.
W confronts him angrily. "Holmes, you ... you--!" kicks a chair. "How could you lead me on this way?" Paces and babbles on and on, as he had last night. Upset, and pouring out his hurt disconnectedly. snorted. "...And I suppose you expected to lead me, puppy-like, along after you forever? You refer to me as your partner and associate as a personal joke, don't you? I'm not a part of your investigations; I'm not an insightful colleague. No--not romanticising, melodramatic, unobservant old me!"
H sits still, staring at W with shock. looks wounded and at a loss for words.
"No reply," W scowls. "Yes, that's what I should expect from you, I suppose. Why should I imagine that I should know you, any little piece of you?" covers his face. Sank, sitting down wearily. "Oh God, why didn't I see? Dropping everything at a moment's notice to come to you. I'm at your beck and call, and my wife had to make me see it with her own tears. I'm a tool to you, a mere prop to be employed whenever I suit the stage dressing you've set up for the occasion. You've eaten up years of my life, ages of my affection, on a whim."
H closes his eyes and shakes his head. Speaks very faintly, "You blind, cruel...."
Looking up. "Cruel? Which of us has been cruel? Selfish?" wavers, stubbornly fighting against falling apart again. "Telegramming me, 'Come if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same'! What kind of a request is that? Does one address a friend that way? Commands. Instructions to the letter, because by heaven, I'm not to be trusted to know what to do, myself! And you thoroughly resented the one time I've ever gone against your instructions--my marriage. Still resent it. Never want to see her, do you? Never want me to see her? What did you expect me to do? Live the rest of my life following you? I'm not like you. I can't live as a cold, inhuman machine in isolation. I need warmth in my life, attachments, affection, all the things you can't give me--have never given me."
Still faint, swallowing, "You don't understand."
W clutches at H furiously. "Then tell me! What's so damn hard for me to understand? What is it that's so beyond me? That my poor feeble mind can't grasp?"
Both of them shaking, thoroughly. H looks away painfully.
W swallows, then bites his lip, murmuring brokenly to himself, "Why couldn't you ever care for me? What did I do wrong...?"
Before W got any further, H grasped and kissed him. Kissed him deeply. H felt so empty and aching then; he needed W to feel it too, just once. To understand, to know....
W blinked, frowning with surprise. "Holmes, wh--?" H's kiss continued. It was so strong, so ardent. Unmistakable. Rather than protest again, W leaned closer into the kiss. H could feel his own fingers slide onto H's, returning their grasp warmly. It began to sink in to W how very much he was returning H's kiss.
There was the sound of a knock on the door. They abruptly pulled apart, W falling off the ottoman where he had been sitting before Holmes. W looked up from the floor, staring into those grey eyes wordlessly even as the door opened.
"Ahem," Mrs. Hudson peeked in. "Mr. Holmes, I just wanted to know if Dr. Watson will be staying for breakfast?"
W did not turn. H closed his eyes, struggling for an analytical frame of mind.
Her words ... so conversational. The tone of her voice ... faintly sarcastic. She'd clearly heard Watson's raised voice from downstairs, and took the lull in the argument as an opportunity to halt any further row and to delicately insist on civil behaviour. So much, H could deduce.
H swallowed and spoke quietly, still blinking at Watson, "We... haven't decided yet, Mrs. Hudson."
She tsked at him, talking breezily but not disguising the lecturing tone in her voice. She frowned. "Well, you must decide soon, that I might know whom to expect for meals." (Translation: Whatever it is you've made him upset about, apologise!) "I shall prepare breakfast for you both, for now, and you must let me know if you need anything else." (Don't you dare have a fight like this, in my house, that is so uncharacteristic and abominably beneath you both. I will intervene again, if I must, to make you make up.)
"Yes, Mrs. Hudson."
She nodded and exited, suspicious nonetheless, and no doubt determined to listen for the slightest rumble indicating the resumption of the row.
When Mrs. Hudson was gone, they sat there opposite each other, motionless and staring at each other. The intensity of that kiss. Even the memory of it burned fiercely in both of them. H remained fixed in the chair, pale and uncertain. He had at last expressed himself to W, and W had actually responded to him fervently. H could barely believe it.
W attempted to break the tension between them by leaning close to H again, but H pulled away from W's touch. This was no time to indulge a fantasy. H swallowed, his eyes looking as wounded as before, knowing that the kiss had done them no good.
H rose suddenly and hurriedly retreated to his bedroom. W stood up also and followed him. W caught up at the bedroom, not letting H shut the door on him however hard H pushed. Giving up, H withdrew to his window, drawing the curtains to leave him in darkness.
Entering, W shut the door quietly behind him and then approached H slowly, touching his arm. "Holmes," he whispered.
H turned and jerked away, swallowing. "So you've had it out of me," he spoke huskily. "You've humiliated me. Broken me." Closing his eyes, he shivered. "Now do you see? I won't see her, Watson--do you understand? You can't have it both ways. You can have her, your lovely perfect wife--all the marital bliss you like--at home. And you can have me, settling with your friendship, your spare time--spending every hour, every day, waiting for just your presence." H shook his head. "You can have me here--hopelessly, irrationally, devoted to you. I'll even joke about her with you, acknowledge her if you really wish. --But you cannot make me see her. Chat with her, smile at her like some unfeeling idiot who doesn't ... need you. I won't play the part of your damned friend that far. You can't do that to me. Make me endure...." He could get no further, shaking.
W took hold of H and tried to ease his trembling, but H pulled further against the wall, shaking his head. He murmured under his breath again, "You can't have it both ways."
W swallowed, frowning. He realised that H was right to retreat; H saw things quite rationally, as always. None of their problems had been solved by their kiss. Whatever love that W was beginning to understand he had been feeling for Holmes for a long time, whatever he wanted now, he was not free to decide. There was Mary to think of.
Mary. W could kick himself for his blindness. Oh God, how could he ever face her again? All these years he'd spent excessively close to H, and W had never realised how much he needed H until being separated by marriage had made W need H all the more! W shook his head, touching the wedding band on his finger. What a blind fool he must be!
Leaning weakly against the curtains, H choked on his breath and tried to regain control of his voice then. "Please go." He sank down into a chair, his eyes closed. "Please, before I can't bear it..."
W knelt before H's chair, reaching to stroke his hand. "Holmes--"
"Go!"
W bowed his head unhappily. To have to leave H now, to go when he only just knew what H really meant to him--! W frowned, and tenderly kissed H's hands. He could feel H shivering, biting his lip at this so necessary touch.
(Don't go, don't go...) H had to fight and choke to keep such words down.
W let go slowly and swallowed. H was right. Leaving was rational. It was the only thing they could do. What else could they hope for? W must go and not torture H further with his presence. Beginning to rise, W reached to kiss H's cheek goodbye, but had difficulty pulling back. This is rational, W repeated to himself.
But then again, W had never been the one of them to be strictly rational. After wavering a moment, he grasped H and kissed him.
H caught his breath and did not move. He blinked and felt W come close again, pressing forcefully. They kissed again and again, as if to drown in each other. H whimpered when the intent kisses became more. W's hands moved down his neck, his shoulders. W pulled H out of the chair and, irrevocably, to the bed.
W did not let go of this decision for some time. He paused to lock the door, then returned to the bed. He undressed H rapidly as he covered him in heated kisses. Even W's uncertain fumbling at some moments drew a warm intensity out of H.
"Watson," H sighed and kissed W like a starving man, running his hands through W's hair. His eyes closed with pleasure whenever W ventured guesses about he should do next. H's hands eagerly guided Watson's in touching him. H was impatient to know W's caress on every part of his body.
W explored H with a kind of wonder, pausing now and then in their movements to get used to the feeling of his body, to understand and be aware of what he'd chosen. H seemed to worry at his hesitations, and W answered by kissing H the more firmly, by advancing that much more forward, to prove his sincere desire.
"Oh please, please..." H caught his breath at W's teasing nibbles of his flesh.
H's responses greatly delighted W, and he realised how very far his touches of Mary had been from true passion lately. Oh, to stroke and love H this way... to learn what he could do to him...
There was the sound of footsteps. W heard them first, H being quite far from his usual senses at the moment. W stopped and looked up in silence.
Mrs. Hudson's knock. "Mr. Holmes?"
W sighed, then turned to H, who was finally blinking his eyes clear again.
"Mr. Holmes?" knocked louder.
With an effort, H answered. "Yes?"
She tried the door, then huffed. "You've run him off, haven't you?" she tsked again. "Mr. Holmes, locking him out is hardly civil, or adult, behaviour. I know that he did come here in that terrible mood, about whatever it is that's been troubling you both lately. But please, I do wish you would try a little more." She spoke maternally, "You haven't hidden from me how upset and withdrawn you've been these past few days. I know that you care for him more than your cold manner ever suggests in front of people."
She took H's silence as his having difficulty articulating emotion. "Please just try a little more," she pressed. Then cleared her throat with dignity. "In the meantime, there's your breakfast to eat--although I shall have to put away Dr. Watson's portion, for now, it seems. I'm sure you won't force me to do so tomorrow." Her commanding tone was unmistakable. (You are going to apologise to him, promptly.)
When her steps faded away, they lay together in awkward silence. W caressed H's face, then reached to kiss him tenderly. H finally managed to faintly laugh off his chagrin. "Funny, isn't it, that both you and she automatically blame me for any argument between us. What am I doing so wrong? Or right?"
W kissed him, embracing H tightly once more. Finally, he murmured softly, "I have to go."
H nodded, saying nothing.
"For Mrs. Hudson, if nothing else!" But W glanced at his wedding band again.
H just nodded.
W kissed H a final time. "I'll come see you, when I can." He watched H try to manage saying, "I'll wait," then rose from bed and got dressed. W stopped and looked back from the door. "Thank you ... for forgiving my blindness. You ought to punish all my incorrect conclusions that way--with a kiss." He left and quietly walked out of the house, hurrying to miss Mrs. Hudson.
--goes home
finds Mary lying upon the sofa
with the maid tending to her.
she tells him of Mary's collapse, not long after W had left.
just then Dr. ? arrives to check up on Mary again.
he sternly lectures W about not being observant enough to see
Mary's
distress,
to just walk off and practically abandon her in her time of need.
mutters, "your detective adventures more important than your home
and
practice!"
W feels guilty and is silent.
thanks the neighbour for taking care of her.
he pales at hearing that Mary is with child.
when Mary and John are left alone, he can hardly face her eyes.--
"How--how are you?" he asks.
softly "Well enough, John. Much better now, really. This morning, I just--just was so worried for you."
"For me?"
"Yes. I--I've never seen you so upset, John. I didn't want you going to see him like that. "
silent, feeling more guilty.
"John, what did you do? What did you say to him? Have you really broken things off?"
"I--" shakes his head, "That's not important now. What's important is you, your condition. How I've neglected you..." pacing and looking away, runs his hand through his hair.
she watches him, worried. "John, I am all right, really. I want to know."
kneeling before her, presses his head against her shoulder with a sudden sorrowful embrace. frowning and speaking faintly, "I never meant to hurt you, Mary. To abandon you just when you need me. To make our marriage such a shambles, such a ... farce. Forgive me please, Mary. I did not mean to hurt you. I never intended to, not you, not anyone."
softly stroking and brushing his hair. "I know, I know." she puts aside her questions for now, finding him upset and shocked about her pregnancy.
later, that night in bed, she quietly tries again. "John, what happened between you and Holmes today?"
swallows "Nothing, nothing, Mary. It doesn't matter..." looking away
"It does. You--you didn't really say those things to him, did you?"
pacing, wringing his hands "I--did."
"I was afraid you would. John, could you not consider that perhaps you misunderstand him? I believe that he actually cares for you very much, but... for his own reasons, he cannot express his feelings for you as you'd want--in public, in front of me. It--is too private, would... weaken him, make him vulnerable. And if you have said these things to him, he still is no more capable of telling you. You have hurt him. Those whom we most care for, can wound us most deeply."
He has no answer to that.
[Internal struggles of John and Mary on what's best to do. John caught between his genuine concern for her health, and for trying to know how to be honest to her.
As for H & W's, relationship, they subsist at first on messenger-delivered notes to each other. Then, when Mary's health seems fairly stable, W goes to personally inform H of what's happened. After a silence, H manages to say faintly, "If any man was meant to be a father, you surely were." W kisses him, for this supportiveness. He manages scattered visits to see H.
Time passing.]
By December, Mary gives a Christmas present and blessing for John to go visit him yet again. Murmurs to herself after he goes, "He is welcome to it... as he is, to your love." Sympathy and generosity have won out in her heart.
W has been kind enough to her, good and attentive lately, undoubtedly from guilt. She suspects that he already realises or is in the process of realising his true attachment to H--the very thing that Mary had realised earlier. She finds herself strangely relieved that she no longer is alone in this knowledge; has confirmation that she's not merely seeing things that aren't there. For now, this seems to be enough for her, and she does not want to force W to love her just as he did in the beginning of their marriage. She is not sure what will eventually happen or what she may decide to tell her husband, but she is glad to not be entirely neglected now. John also seems sincerely happy at the prospect of a child, now that he has recovered from his first shock.
Some time later, W comes to see H and tell him again of the latest news about the upcoming baby--careful to not rub it in too much--and lovingly caresses him. He realises that H hesitates significantly, though. "You don't believe I really love you, do you?" W asks. W's kisses and caresses, certainly welcome for being comforting expressions of tenderness, were still disjointed and separated over these scattered times; they did not seem substantial. "You think that I might be merely humouring you after all?"
No reply.
W resolves to shake that doubt from H's eyes.
--Though he still cared for Mary and loved and delighted in her coming child, he knew this peculiar balance could not last much longer. Her delicate condition did not make her immune to loneliness in bed. It would be most fair, most honest, to tell her that his wants had changed completely. That they really were more like brother and sister now, than husband and wife. Somehow, he would find some arrangement that would satisfy them both for when the child arrived. Somehow.
--But as for H, W was most definitely resolved. He had guilt yes, but no doubts. W would love him most thoroughly. He grasped H closer to him than he had in a long time.
They shared a bitter-sweet pleasure that night. H at first questioned W's insistent kisses and advances with surprise. "Watson, can you--? Are you sure?"
"As sure as I was, when you first kissed me."
"You're not ... an adulterer."
"I am. Have been, since I left you for her. I've rightfully belonged to you, for years." A firmer kiss. They resumed what they had begun weeks ago.
W stayed until morning.
After some hesitation, W rose and dressed, preparing to go. H watched him silently from the bed. He blinked and did not move, still much affected by last night and by a lingering disbelief even now. He shook his head. That Watson--most kind, gentle, and self-sacrificing--should have relinquished yet another of his morals for H's sake!
W kisses him softly goodbye. "I'll see you, when I can," he repeats, for the thousandth time.
H merely nods in return. Sad. Looking elsewhere.
W touches his face tenderly. Kisses him again, whispering. "My dear... husband."
H shakes his head and attempts to laugh. "How romantically foolish. Sentimental." He blinks, swallowing.
W withdraws and slowly goes to the door.
"Tell Mary," H says softly, "Tell her ... I'm sorry."
He met H's eyes silently a little longer, then finally left. Forced himself to.