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His back aches and the last vestiges of the evening snow storm are slipping between his coat and his vulnerable neck, making him shiver as he trudges home from the tube. The fairy lights and various Christmas decorations twinkle from the passing windows, but John doesn’t feel particularly cheery. Getting called into the surgery for an emergency on Christmas Eve is not his idea of fun, but needs must, he supposes. The case lingers, though: a little boy brought in because his father turned his back to engage in some Christmas frivolity and the child pulled a pot of hot apple cider from the stove on top of himself, resulting in major burns. It’s every parent’s fear - injury or harm due to your own lapse of judgment, however brief.
And despite this, despite the occasional seriousness of his work, Sherlock’s been angry with him because he can’t go on cases all of the time. But the job at the surgery is paramount because its paycheck isn’t just going to rent and takeaway anymore. He has a daughter now. A daughter who needs nappies and food and daycare and education and clothes and - he could go on and on and on.
Sherlock has taken to Rosie like a house on fire, but he still bristles when John puts his shifts at the surgery above The Work. A sentiment that John takes massive exception to, not that it ever deters the madman with whom he’s decided to share his flat (and his life, if he’s honest, though perhaps not all aspects). It’s a topic he tries not to focus on too hard.
Things have been strained - not as strained as in the more recent past - but polite. And if there’s one thing John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are not with each other, it’s polite.
He turns the knob of 221 and bangs his boots on the door jamb before wiping them on the mat Mrs. Hudson always yells at them for not using. He’s making an effort; it is Christmas after all. He unzips his coat and hangs it up, running his hands through his hair and soaking the snow in. He wants nothing more than to cuddle his daughter, put his feet up by the fire, and enjoy a finger or two of scotch, the good stuff that only comes out on special occasions. Then he’ll put the presents currently hiding in the back of Sherlock’s closet under the tree and tell Rosie in the morning that Father Christmas came because she was such a good girl. Most of the time.
Mrs. Hudson’s door is closed and the light is off, though he thinks he hears the television. Deciding not to bother her, he groans as he climbs the stairs, frowning at the distinct lack of sound coming from the flat above him. Certainly he should hear the pitter-patter of Rosie’s running feet or Sherlock’s violin or the telly or Rosie crying because Sherlock didn’t give her something she wanted (though he’s a distinct pushover in most areas when it comes to her).
Sure enough, when he shoulders the door to 221B open, it’s dark and decidedly empty.
“Hello?” he calls fruitlessly, wandering down to Sherlock’s bedroom and then upstairs to his own. The fire has been lit since he left this afternoon, but it’s long since gone out. A plastic bowl of Rosie’s is in the sink as is a cold cup of tea, so they were here for dinner. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and swipes it open, just confirming that he hasn’t missed any calls or texts.
Panic rising, he stumbles down the stairs and heads to Mrs. Hudson’s, mindless of the hour. It’s Rosie’s bedtime. She should be here.
He knocks perfunctorily before opening the door. “Mrs. Hudson?”
“John? Is that you?” he hears before she pokes her head into the hall, wrapped in a dressing gown, the telly still blaring from the living room.
“Where are Sherlock and Rosie?” he asks, cutting right to the chase.
“Oh, they bustled out over an hour ago. I thought you were meeting them there.”
His stomach drops. “Where?”
“Oh, crime scene, I suppose,” she says, Christmas brandy sloshing in her glass as she gestures with her hand. “Greg came by.”
“Greg,” John manages, fists clenching at his sides. Sherlock had been given two rules when he was deemed fit to watch Rosie: no dangerous experiments. No crime scenes. “Right,” he grits, nodding militarily and spinning on his heel.
He fires off a text to Greg (Where are you?) before immediately hitting Sherlock’s name under his mobile’s Favorites list. It goes straight to voicemail and he curses.
“He mentioned the Southbank Center, if that helps!” Mrs. Hudson calls as he snags his coat off the hook and slides his arms through, hitting Sherlock’s name again.
“Ta, Mrs. Hudson.” The call immediately goes to voicemail again. This time, he waits for the beep. “Where the hell are you, Sherlock? And more importantly, where is my daughter?” He hits the sidewalk and raises his hand, despite the fact that there are no cabs to be seen and he lacks Sherlock’s magic touch. “This is not the time for you not to answer your bloody phone.”
Giving a cab on Christmas Eve up as a lost cause, he jogs towards the tube, figuring it would be faster regardless, hitting redial on his phone over and over to no avail. Never has a twenty minute train ride felt so long.
Why would Sherlock do this? It’s not like John made a fuss over putting Rosie in his care. He had two (reasonable) rules. He trusted Sherlock with his daughter and that’s why John is so fucking mad because Sherlock broke that trust. And it was hard-won to begin with.
His phone vibrates and he drops it on the floor of the tube in his haste to get it out of his pocket. It’s Greg:
Southbank Centre.
Winter Festival.
Did Sherlock not call?
“No, Sherlock did not fucking call,” he mutters as his fingers fly over the keyboard.
Do not move.
His phone vibrates again as he disembarks at Embankment.
Shit. Leave it to Greg to sum up the situation succinctly.
He receives a gps ping from the DI a moment later and he takes the steps two at a time as he heads above ground. The cold steals the breath from his lungs for a moment, but he pushes through the burning, jogging across Jubilee Bridge towards the lights and music carrying across the Thames. The Eye is blue, matching the canopy of fairy lights covering the Christmas market, and John stares at his phone, bumping into last minute shoppers and revelers as he tries to get closer to the pin marking Greg’s location. As he approaches, the smell of melted cheese, chocolate covered waffles, and mulled wine assaults his senses, but soon, the pin doesn’t matter - all John needs to do is follow the flashing lights from the idling police cruisers.
He sprints the last hundred yards or so, bobbing and weaving through loiterers hoping to catch a peek and police officers making sure their murder scene doesn’t end up on Instagram.
“John!” a voice calls and he turns to find Sally waving at him maybe thirty paces away where she leans against a car on the phone.
“Where is he?” he shouts, never breaking his stride.
She points to a group gathered near the base of the Eye and he spots Rosie’s pink beanie hat in a sea of black and grey immediately.
“Rosie!” he yells, voice pitching up at the end, betraying his desperation.
“Daddy!” she calls, arms already reaching out for him where she sits in DI Hopkins’ embrace.
Not even in Sherlock’s.
His anger spikes again, but he pushes it down as he scoops her into his arms and buries his face in her hair. “Hello, darling. You alright?” He pulls away and looks her over, but she seems none the worse for wear. Merely plasters a grin on her face and gives him a sloppy (and slightly sticky) kiss on the cheek.
Fixing Hopkins with a look, she just nods her head over to a cordoned off area, where John can see Sherlock leaning over a body as Greg stands watch. At least someone had the foresight to keep his toddler away from the actual murder victim.
“Give us a good hug, love,” he murmurs as he walks over to the yellow tape and Rosie acquiesces by wrapping her tiny arms tightly around his shoulders and burying her face in his neck. “That’s a good girl.” It’s enough to keep her from seeing anything she shouldn’t.
He stands there for a moment and clears his throat, not daring to go any further with the very impressionable nearly two-year-old in his arms. Greg’s gaze immediately snaps to him and he nudges Sherlock with a knee. The infuriating man stands and turns, fully ready to unleash a verbal whipping on Greg for interrupting when he catches sight of John and pales, visibly swallowing.
John could kill him.
“Home. Now,” he grits, turning on his heel and not even bothering to see if Sherlock follows.
“Home?” Rosie asks as she releases him and John nods, not trusting his voice at the moment. He hears footsteps jogging up behind even as the officers he passes give him a wide berth.
“It was my fault,” Greg says when he’s caught up, but John won’t hear it.
“Not now.”
“It was, though. I needed him.”
“Greg,” he snaps as he stops, not wanting to have a row in the middle of a sodding Winter Festival. “I said ‘not now.” Sparing a glance behind him to make sure Sherlock is indeed following, he strides off in the direction of the bridge, hoping he’ll have better luck with a cab on the other side.
“Look, at least let me give you a ride,” Greg pushes. “Get this young lady in bed for Father Christmas, yeah?”
John slows and sighs, adjusting Rosie in his arms. It’s way past her bedtime and he’d prefer to have this fight with Sherlock sooner rather than later, but half the Met doesn’t need to witness their latest domestic.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, alright.”
Greg claps him on the back and then squeezes his good shoulder in a show of solidarity as he pulls his keys from his pocket and gestures over to the cruiser. Sherlock continues to hang back and John bristles because, sure, the genius is smart enough to keep his distance while John’s this irate, but not smart enough to realize that bringing Rosie to a murder investigation is more than a bit not good.
“Go easy on him.”
“No, Greg. We had one rule and he broke it,” John snaps, opening the back door and sliding in. A minute later, Sherlock gets in the front seat and wisely keeps his mouth shut.
He’s pretty sure it’s the longest ride of all of their lives. Even Rosie is finally picking up on the tension.
Greg flips on the holiday station on the radio just to beat back the suffocating silence, but it doesn’t help much and by the time they pull up to 221B, John can barely breathe.
“Merry Christmas, Greg,” John manages as he gets out, listening to the DI’s holiday wishes in return before slamming the door and heading for the flat.
Mrs. Hudson bustles out to greet them, fluttering about over Rosie, but quickly retreating, most likely due to the thunderous look on John’s face. Her sherry is gone but there are curlers in her hair and the sight would be amusing on any other night. Any night but this one.
“Right, well, if you need a cuppa, you just call,” she says as John makes his way up the steps, Sherlock a ghost in his wake.
When he gets to the living room, he sets Rosie down and takes off her coat and hat, watching as she runs over to the anatomically accurate skeleton (“Bob”) Sherlock got her for her first birthday and tries to serve him tea.
“John - ” Sherlock’s voice rumbles behind him, hoarse from disuse, but John merely shakes his head, eyes remaining on Rosie.
“Why?” he asks. “Why would you think it was okay - ”
“It was imperative, John - ”
“We had one rule!” he explodes and Rosie jumps, dropping the tiny teacup from Bob’s mouth.
“Technically, two rules,” Sherlock says with a small smile that fades quickly. He never could gauge a room well.
“Don’t fucking test me, Sherlock. I am in no mood.” It’s a testament to how worked up he is that he curses in Rosie’s presence. She’s been picking up words left and right and John knows that four-letter ones are her favorite.
“John, please. Can we talk about this after the holiday? It’s the first Christmas she may remember. You’re spoiling the fun.”
“I’m spoiling the fun? I am? I’m not the one who took her to a murder scene!”
“Shh,” Sherlock says because they’d only just gotten her to stop saying that word at daycare, but John’s on a roll that apparently can’t be stopped. “I just meant - ”
“Yes, I know what you meant,” he snaps. “Everything would be so much better without me, wouldn’t it. Ruining all the fun.”
Sherlock looks horrified. “That’s not what I said and you know it!”
“What is all the racket?” Mrs. Hudson asks, poking her head into the room, hands fluttering. John hadn’t even heard her approach.
“Sherlock decided to put my daughter in danger - ”
“She wasn’t in any danger, John - ”
“ - and disappeared without a word to me on Christmas bloody Eve!”
Rosie has stopped playing and is just staring between the two of them. “Daddy?”
“Not now, Rosie,” he barks and Mrs. Hudson huffs.
“Now, John, that is no way to speak to your - ”
“She wasn’t in danger, John. You know I would never - “
“ - daughter. Heaven knows you were raised - ”
“Daddy!”
“ - put her in harm’s way. Ever. In my life!”
“ - better than that.”
“ Daddy!”
It builds to a cacophony and, suddenly, John’s already pounding head can’t take it anymore.
“Will you just shut up!” he roars landing a punch to the wall, and everything stills. Somewhere a clock ticks and he pants harshly, but he can’t look up as shame, hot as a fire poker brands him somewhere on his heart.
Rosie immediately bursts into tears, running across the room and burying her face in Sherlock’s knees. He instinctively reaches down and runs his fingers through her hair, staring at John like he’s a completely different person.
“Honestly, John Watson, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Mrs. Hudson admonishes, voice shaking with rage, and the fight seeps out of him immediately, leaving him lost. Hollow. He stares at his bleeding knuckles.
“Oh God, Rosie - I’m - ” He reaches for her, but she shrinks back, hiding behind Sherlock’s legs now to get away from him. From her own father. Horror floods him and he swallows down bile. “I’m so sorry,” he manages, meeting all of their damning gazes, before he’s bolting for the door, ignoring Sherlock’s call of “John!” as he thunders down the steps.
xxxxxx
He walks nearly an hour, head down, face hidden in the collar of his coat. He always makes fun of Sherlock for his poncy scarves but what John wouldn’t give for one right now. His cheeks sting and his eyes water as the wind continually slaps his face with every gust she blows. It feels like penance, in a way.
“You were raised better than that,” Mrs. Hudson had said.
But he wasn’t. And he’s spent his whole life trying not to become the man his father was. Even if he doesn’t enjoy the bottle quite as much as Owen Watson did, John still inherited his rage. A thought that’s haunted him ever since the tiny, fragile bundle that became known as Rosamund Watson was placed in his arms.
He always knew he’d be a failure as a father. Tonight just proved it. Just as he was a failure as a husband and a failure as a friend. That last thought was his constant companion in the days/weeks/months after Sherlock committed suicide and it still dogs him, despite the fact that Sherlock is flesh and blood at his side.
Before he knows it, he’s looped through Trafalgar Square and is stepping foot on Jubilee Bridge again, wandering to the middle, leaning his elbows on the railing, and dropping his head in his hands.
He’s always loved the sound of the Thames at night. The sound of any body of water, really. When it’s quiet and the air is crisp and all you can hear are the waves lapping against the shore. It’s the constant caress of a lover or the gentle, steady pat of a friend. He swallows down the sudden swell of emotion he feels but a hiccuped sob still breaks through.
He’s been such a shit. A shit father, a shit friend, a shit… something. He doesn’t know what he and Sherlock are. Careful, is what it is. So, so goddamn careful. And then John has to go and lose his damn mind. Should Sherlock have brought his daughter to a crime scene? On Christmas Eve, no less? Absolutely not. Should John have blown a gasket over it? No. But John never did seem to listen to his better angels.
Which is why he’s here.
He stares at the water, thinking about how inviting it seems. Quiet. Peaceful. Disgusting, yes, but an end. A resolution. His boots hit the railing as he shuffles forward and hangs his head low, hands shaking as he clasps his fingers together.
“Jesus, I need help,” he breathes, feeling something tug within him, something deep down that he hasn’t felt since his mother dragged him to church on Sunday mornings where he did nothing but kick the toe of his nicest shoes against the wood of the pew in front of him. And maybe it’s the memory of her that has him doing what he does next:
“God, or whoever, I know you haven’t heard from me in a while...” Something sharp twists within him as he remembers the last time he sought out a higher power: “Please, God, let me live.” He smiles, even as his eyes tear. “Thanks for that, by the way. Done a piss poor job with the time you’ve given me, though, yeah?” He shakes his head ruefully, bitterly, and clears his throat. “Yeah, I wouldn’t expect anything better from me either.”
He rests his right foot on the bottom rung of the railing, keeping his left firmly planted on the ground. He tells himself it’s out of comfort, a way to keep circulation up in the cold, but even he’s not sure why he takes that first step.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice says and his head snaps up as he turns to find a young woman, late twenties, possibly early thirties, leaning against one of the cable-stays.
“Do what?” he asks. He’s not one to engage with strangers, but he’s so startled that he can’t help himself.
“That,” she replies, nodding to the railing and the darkness beyond.
He raises an eyebrow. “You think I want to jump in the Thames? In December? No thanks.”
“But the thought crossed your mind,” she pushes, arms casually crossed in front of her chest.
He shakes his head and turns back, hunching his shoulders further. “I’m not in the mood for crazy tonight. I have enough of it already.”
“You’re not crazy, John,” she murmurs. And he freezes for a moment, the sound of his own name in an unknown voice echoing in his mind, before slowly turning back to her once more.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Don’t recognize me?” she asks, stepping under the streetlight. “I’m wounded.”
John just stares blankly, but there is possibly something a bit familiar around the eyes.
“Though I suppose I’d need the piano wire to really complete the picture,” she says, gesturing to her neck and striking a pose.
And then it clicks.
“Oh my God.”
“There is it,” she sing songs.
“Oh my God,” he repeats, shaking his head and taking a step back, the railing knocking painfully against his spine. “But you - you’re dead.”
“So they say,” she smiles.
“Murdered by your boyfriend.”
“Mm. Should’ve listened to my mother. Never date a musician.”
“How are you - How…?” but he can only trail off, convinced he’s absolutely lost his mind. Or Sherlock’s drugged him again. He wouldn’t put it past the git.
“Personally, I find it’s best not to ask too many questions,” she says as she shrugs.
He continues to stare, clocking the clothes she wears - jeans and heeled ankle boots with a black silk shirt and a maroon leather jacket. She should be freezing, but he knows she’s not because it was what she was wearing when she died.
She takes a step forward and tucks a wayward curl behind her ear. “How’s Harry?”
“What?” he whispers, still staring slaw-jawed, mouth now dry from the bitter wind.
“My case affected you because you said I reminded you of Harry before she let the drink get the best of her. That, and my name was - ”
“Clara,” he breathes. He swallows thickly, remembering the way her light brown hair splayed out across the pillow. If you ignored the brutal bruises surrounding the piano wire around her neck, you’d think she was just sleeping.
“How do you know that?” he manages when his tongue stops sticking to the roof of his mouth.
“Perk of the job,” she quietly replies.
“Why are you here?”
She shrugs again and begins to gather the snow that’s accumulated on the railing, packing it into a ball. “Something about wings. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“Wings,” he scoffs. “Right.”
“Hey, man, don’t knock it ‘til you try it. They’re all the rage.”
“Look - ”
“You think you’re better off dead than alive,” she interrupts.
“No… I….”
She stares at him keenly and he feels it the way he does when Sherlock looks at him like that. “Don’t you?”
“I’m not suicidal,” he defends. “I don’t want to die. I just - I just sometimes think the world would have been a better place had I never been born.”
“That’s a little dramatic,” she murmurs, tossing her newly made snowball up and down in the air. “But I can work with it.”
“Work with what?” he asks just in time to get a mouthful of snow. “Oi, what the hell!”
But Clara merely giggles, wiping her wet hands on her jeans and looking very proud of her handiwork. “John?”
“What?” he snaps, still wiping snow from his eyes.
“Your knuckles aren’t bleeding anymore.”
“What?” he repeats with a little less bite.
She nods at his hand, where it hovers in front of his face. “Your knuckles stopped bleeding.”
He flips his palm over, and sure enough, his hand is no longer bleeding. In fact, it doesn’t even hurt.
“How did you do that?” He flexes his fingers, but they move just fine. No longer swollen or bruised.
“John, you’re talking to a dead girl on Christmas Eve in the middle of the Golden Jubilee Bridge. When I say, ‘perk of the job,’ the definition is vast.” She opens her hands in front of her and gives a tiny bow. “Congratulations, it’s December the 24th, 2016 and you, John Hamish Watson, have never been born.”
He stares at her for a moment. “No…” he begins, shaking his head. “Nah, this isn’t… this isn’t happening. You’re not here.” He spins on his heel and stalks off the bridge, trying to convince himself that he’s actually sane, but he’s honestly not entirely sure. He can’t even blame it on the drink because he hasn’t had a drop. Speaking of -
A drink doesn’t sound so bad. He’s not ready to go home yet. Glancing over his shoulder, he finds the specter of Clara following at a distance, frowning at him. He picks up his speed until he’s off the bridge and able to hail a cab.
“Where to, mate?”
“Northumberland Street,” he says, unsettled. “Angelo’s.”
The cabbie drives off and John pointedly does not turn around to see if the mysterious woman is watching him go. Uneasiness grows within him, though, bubbling up into the first icy pings of panic.
“There’s extra money in it for you if you hurry.”
“Right-o,” the cabbie replies, accelerating, but it does nothing to ease the tightness in John’s chest. To loosen the vise around his lungs.
Clara Harrison. Thirty-two. He remembers now. But it doesn’t mean he can explain how he had a conversation with her in the middle of Jubilee Bridge. How she threw a snowball at him when she’s been dead for eight months. She did, right? Didn’t she?
He glances down at himself and sees the collar of his jacket is still wet from the melted snow she had cupped in her hand.
“Jesus,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Nearly there, mate,” the cabbie says, eyeing him with concern in the rearview mirror.
John manages a “cheers” as he rests his forehead against the cold glass and tries not to hyperventilate. What’s he going to say when he gets home? Apologize profusely, obviously, but beyond that? He’d been absolutely vile. And all because the stress and worry and anger of a piss poor day was taken out on the people he cares about.
Frank Sinatra croons lowly over the radio and John sighs, feeling his stomach roil.
“... until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow. So have yourself a merry little Christmas now...”
The cab pulls up in front of the restaurant and John forks over a healthy tip, earning a “Blimey! Cheers, mate!” in return.
The restaurant looks much like it did - no change there - and yet he flexes the fingers of the hand that should not be recovered from his punch as he pushes open the door. Part of him, a tiny, minuscule part that holds out hope for some higher power, wonders if the strange woman was right.
No. He refuses to entertain the thought.
The restaurant is busier than he expected it to be for Christmas Eve, but he supposes that people have their own traditions and make their own pilgrimages. The change in temperature from outside to in is severe and he finds himself sweating in the low light emanating from the candles on the tables as he tries to calm his beating heart. He’ll have one drink and then go home and atone for his sins.
A familiar face comes down the aisle, a waiter he knows by sight but not by name, and John gives him a tight smile.
“Can I help you?” He seems vaguely annoyed, which of course sets John’s teeth on edge. Not that they weren’t already.
“Yeah, is Angelo in?” he says tersely.
The guy frowns and looks him up and down. “He’s in the back.”
“Well, could you get him? I’m a friend.” What was up with this guy? Maybe he, too, is having an utterly shit day.
The waiter just raises an eyebrow and turns on his heel, disappearing into the kitchen. John shakes the snow from his coat and looks over his shoulder, but the girl from the bridge is nowhere to be seen.
The squeak of the swinging doors brings his attention back to the kitchen as Angelo ambles between the tables, skeptical look turning his features into something ugly. Something angry. For the first time in their entire acquaintance, John could believe he’s a man capable of a murder charge.
“You know me?” he gruffly asks, cutting right to the chase. Gone is the jovial proprietor who never stops sending bottles of wine to their table and who will literally chase after them if they ever try to pay for anything.
“Angelo,” he tries, tongue feeling too thick for his mouth. “It’s me. John. John Watson.”
But Angelo merely raises his eyebrows as if that name is supposed to mean something to him. “Look, if you don’t have a reservation, you’ll have to go. We’re full up tonight.”
“Angelo - ”
“And how do you know my name?” he cuts off, suspicious now, stepping closer. “You a cop or something?”
John wants to make a quip about how it’s on the front of the goddamn building, but Angelo’s got both inches and weight on him, and he doesn’t want to start bleeding again now that he’s finally stopped.
What the fuck is going on?
“Sorry - sorry I’m late!” a voice calls and he’s both relieved and terrified when Clara comes through the door. “Wrong restaurant. Too much eggnog, you know?” she says to Angelo, sliding her hand in John’s and tugging him towards the door. “C’mon, love. Sleep it off.”
For being such a tiny thing, she’s got a hell of a grip and he’s got no choice but to follow as he’s manhandled out the door, mouth gaping at Angelo, who still looks like he wants to deck John.
“It does me no good if you get yourself killed here,” she growls. “I have no idea what happens if you die when you haven’t technically been born. I haven’t read the rulebook.”
He stares at her and he wants to laugh, but something in his gut tells him this is no laughing matter.
Home. He needs to get home.
“This is a dream,” he mutters and her features break - just barely.
“John,” she whispers, but he’s already shaking his head and backing away, before turning and breaking out into a run.
There’s a cab at the corner and he jumps in, barking “Baker Street, as quick as you can.” His head is spinning and he groans as he presses the palms of his hands into his eyes.
The cab has barely slowed to a stop outside 221 before John is handing over twice the fare and opening the door. He bounds up the steps and tries the door, bumping into it when it doesn’t budge beneath his momentum. Patting his pockets for his keys, he frowns when he comes up empty. He must have left them in the bowl by the door in his haste to get out of the flat, though he truly doesn’t remember removing them from his coat. Giving it up as a lost cause, he rings the bell and waits for Sherlock’s familiar tread on stairs, agonizing over what his opening line should be. Which is why he’s totally unprepared when a young man who is decidedly not Sherlock opens the door instead.
Jesus, he wasn’t gone that long.
“Uh, hi. Who are you?” he blurts and the guy’s eyebrows fly up.
“Um, who are you?”
“I’m John Watson, I live here,” he says, not in the mood for any games, but the kid merely frowns and leans against the door, effectively blocking John’s path.
“I think you’ve got the wrong address. I live here.”
“Are you one of the homeless network?”
The kid barks out a laugh. “Homeless? Did you not hear me, mate? I said I live here!”
“Where’s Mrs. Hudson?”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Hudson, the landlady.”
“Uh, look, sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. My family have owned the flat for twenty years.”
And sure enough, John gets a glance down the hall and it looks nothing like the 221 he knows. There’s no green wallpaper, no umbrella stand, no coat hooks. Rosie’s pushchair, which he knows had been folded up by the bottom of the stairs is not where he left it. And that’s when the panic really begins to set in.
John gets his forearm on the door and bangs it open, out of the young man’s grasp as he stumbles backwards.
“Oi, what the hell are you doin’?” he manages, but John is already pacing down the length of the hallway, looking for any sign that he once lived here.
“Rosie - where’s - where’s Rosie?”
“Who the hell is Rosie?”
“My daughter!” John roars. “Sherlock, then. Where’s Sherlock?”
“Sher-what?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” John growls, grabbing the boy and slamming him up against the wall.
“You’re a nutter, man,” the young man says, feeling his pockets for his mobile to call the police, no doubt. “I’ve lived here for five years and my brother the five before me. Okay?”
John’s breathes harshly but let’s him go, vision going blurry as his lungs struggle to bring in enough air. “Oh God.”
“Yeah, mate. You got the wrong fucking flat,” he hears as he stumbles to the door and breathes in the cold night air.
“Clara?” he shouts, but she’s nowhere to be found. “Clara!” If anyone will have answers, she will, he thinks as he trips down the stairs of the stoop, barely registering the slam of the door behind him.
He hears a moan to his left and spins, spying her leaning against the window of Speedy’s (closed, given the hour and the holiday), plastic fork heartily digging into a container full of cheesy chips.
“Oh my god, I haven’t had these in ages,” she groans through a mouthful. “Calories don’t matter when you’re dead.”
When you’re dead. When you’re dead.
“This is really happening?” he asks, voice soft and not a bit strained.
“Want me to slap you and find out?” she replies cheekily and he knows she would have no problem (and would in fact probably take great delight in) winding up and walloping him.
“Oh God,” he manages, bending over and placing shaking hands on unsteady knees.
“Deep breaths,” she mutters as she shovels in another bite. “Ready to listen to me now?”
“Where’s Rosie?” he rasps around the lump that’s suddenly taken hold of his throat.
She cocks her head and studies him for a moment, before jamming her fork into the pile of cheesy goodness and letting it stand there like a flag. “Sherlock never threw himself off a roof. He never faked his death to save your life so you never grieved. And the woman known as Mary Morstan was never placed in your office to watch you. To get close to you.”
“So Rosie doesn’t exist?” he chokes.
She places the container down on the pavement beside her and puts a hand on his shoulder. “No, John, she doesn’t. I’m sorry.”
He had known it was coming, but the words still make him ache like never before. He nods and bites his lip, but the tears still come, spilling over onto his cheeks.
“I never did deserve her. I was such a shit father.”
“No, you weren’t,” she replies. “There’s no right or wrong way to grieve. You did what you had to to survive. And if that meant giving Rosie to a friend because you knew you couldn’t take care of her the way she deserves, then that’s the best thing you could have done for her. That’s what a good father would do.”
He still shakes his head, but she stops his rebuttal with a hand in his face.
“Yes, John Watson. And look at you now - you love her so much. So, so much. She knows she’s loved. Trust me.”
“God, I miss her. I know it’s only been an hour, but I miss her so much,” he manages through his tears. He didn’t think he ever wanted children, but look at him now.
She holds her elbow out. “Shall we see the rest?”
He scrubs his hands across his face. “The rest?”
“The others,” she clarifies, because despite the fact that he’s ready to pack it in now and grovel on his knees to return to the frankly brilliant life he had, he knows she’s not nearly done putting him through the wringer.
He sighs and holds his arm out instead, allowing her to link her elbow with his.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
She smiles. It’s a little sassy. A little sad.
“Nope. Not one bit.”
xxxxxx
John is silent for the first part of their walk, detachedly watching as Clara turns right onto Melcombe Street to hail a cab. One stops almost immediately and, for the briefest of moments, he wonders if that’s a perk of being dead, but then he recalls Sherlock’s talent for it and the line of thought abruptly ends.
“Come on, then,” she calls when she realizes he’s still lingering on Baker.
“Where are we going?” he asks as he slides in.
“Somewhere familiar, I thought,” is her reply as she gets in after him, but it’s all she says. ‘Familiar’ could be any number of places in London, but as they cut through Park Square, he has a sneaking suspicion. London looks much the same, though he doubts a life as insignificant as his would have made much of an impact on her.
“Where’s Mrs. Hudson?”
Clara doesn’t look over at him. “Stayed in Florida.”
“Sherlock didn’t go help her?”
“Oh, he did. But she chose to stay. Preferred the weather.” She glances at him then. “She has a hip, you know.”
He smiles softly. “That I do.” Then he frowns. “But I wasn’t involved in Sherlock helping Mrs. Hudson. Why would that be different?”
Clara shrugs. “I don’t control what happens in this universe any more than you control what happens in yours.”
“Huh.” He feels like he’s on a ride that he can’t get off and panic is starting to creep in again. Clara seems unperturbed, though, but then it’s not her life that’s been turned inside out and upside down. Granted, a premature death probably wasn’t a part of her long term plan either.
Glancing out the window once more, he sees Barts looming in the distance, proving his suspicions correct. He sighs as the cab pulls to a stop and he hands over a few quid, idly wondering if he’ll get his money back when this nightmare is over.
“So Molly is to be my Ghost of Christmas Past, then?”
Clara smiles wryly. “And what does that make me?”
“Jacob Marley,” he replies without missing a beat and she barks out a laugh as she exits after him.
Barts is quiet this late at night, but he knows the way. He’d know it in his sleep, but he’s sure even his dreams would keep him away from the roof. His nightmares, however, not so much.
He stands outside the door to the morgue and steels himself, but part of him, some part deep down, still holds out hope that she’ll know who he is. That she’ll tell him that Sherlock left ten minutes ago and didn’t bother to bloody call. That she has a new dress for Rosie even though she’s already gotten her three because she saw it in a shop and it was just too perfect not to buy.
He can hear puttering on the other side of the door and then Molly comes into view through the window looking exactly like she had six years prior - except as if someone had leeched all of the color from her world. Her clothes are bland and muted, her skin pale and makeup free, and her hair is pulled into a low, messy ponytail like an afterthought.
“What the - ” he murmurs and, without thinking, pushes the door open, hinges protesting.
Molly jumps nearly a foot in the air, knocking over a tray of metal instruments that clatter to the floor with an almighty clang.
“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean - I didn’t mean to startle you.” He holds his hands out like he does to placate Rosie when she’s on the verge of a meltdown.
“Oh, hi,” she squeaks.
“Hello.” He vaguely notices that Clara does not follow him into the room.
“Are you - I don’t think you’re supposed to be down here. Are you lost?”
His heart twists. This isn’t the woman who strode up to Sherlock Holmes and slapped him clear across the face. “No, no. Not, um, not lost.”
“Oh God,” she blanches, turning to glance at the sheet-covered body laid out on the table behind her. “I thought the family had come earlier to identify the - the him - the body.”
“No, I’m not family,” he whispers.
Her eyes widen even further, which he didn’t think was possible. But then she murmurs something that halts his study of her.
“Partner?”
“Sorry?”
“Are you his - his partner?”
Oh. Partner. It seems cruel to pretend to be a dead man’s significant other, just to spend a few minutes more with a woman who’s looking at a stranger.
“No, sorry. Not a partner.” He meets her gaze once more. “Friend,” he says, and he doesn’t mean the poor sod on the table.
“You can have a few minutes, if you’d - ”
“No, you know what? I don’t -” his voice is thick, eyes stinging, “I don’t think I can do this.”
She tilts her head sympathetically, but continues to anxiously wring her hands. “Of course. It’s probably best to wait until the viewing anyway, when he’s not… yeah.”
John smiles and tries to nod his thanks at the shadow of the woman in front of him; the woman who’s lied to him and for him, who’s watched his daughter when he couldn’t, who’s loved his best friend sometimes better than he was able to, who’d drop everything if he called and said he needed her.
“Have a nice night,” he manages, already backing out the door.
“Merry Christmas,” she murmurs, watching him for a moment before turning back to the chart on the table.
The door swings shut in front of him and he watches Molly go back to work through the window. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Clara leaning against the wall, arms crossed, staring at the floor.
“Molly’s in mourning.”
“For whom?” he croaks. But Clara doesn’t answer him. “Why is Molly in the morgue on Christmas Eve?”
Clara finally glances up and smiles sadly. “She has nowhere else to go.”
John swallows hard and thinks of silly holiday parties that he and Sherlock didn’t particularly think were a big deal. That he somewhat enjoyed and Sherlock barely tolerated. Everyone wore ridiculous jumpers and Sherlock played carols on his violin, but it was just a bit of fun. Not to Molly, though. Perhaps not to Greg or Mrs. Hudson either. Not even to himself, if he really thinks about it.
“John?”
“Mm?”
“The count on your blog - still says one thousand eight hundred and ninety five.”
“Oh no, Christmas is cancelled!”
“You’ve got a photograph of me wearing that hat!”
“People like the hat.”
“No they don’t. What people?”
They take the lift to the ground floor and John relishes the slap of cold winter air that finally clears his head. Clara has been quiet beside him, so unlike her usual self. He can feel the evening weighing on him like the indictment it is.
“How many are you going to show me?” he murmurs.
She loops her arm through his again. “A couple more,” she says as she turns down the road, but instead of hailing a cab, she leads him down Giltspur Street towards the A40. He senses that this had started out as fun for her, but the evening is draining them both. And she’s dead.
They make a left onto the main road followed by a right onto Warwick Lane. John vaguely recalls Sherlock having a bolthole somewhere around here when a sudden left brings him face to face with the imposing facade of St. Paul’s.
“Midnight mass?” he drawls after a moment, but Clara merely shakes her head and nods to the right, where he finally spies the flashing lights of several idling police cruisers partially hidden behind the stately and proud Christmas tree in front of the cathedral.
“Oh.”
Snow begins to fall again as they make their way over to the crowds that have gathered. John finds himself holding his breath, bracing himself for the sight of the next familiar face that will not know him.
He thinks of pints with Mike and heart-to-hearts with Greg, of cruiser rides with Donovan once she thawed towards them, of Hopkins always having their back because she adores Rosie and God forbid anything happen to either of them. He had always grown up alone, feeling all too small and solitary in a house full of yelling and hitting and drink. Even in the army, he was a mite smaller than the rest, having to punch up or drop low just to get by.
He never realized just how many friends he had until this moment. Now that he’s alone again.
“I don’t have friends. I’ve just got one.”
They somehow make their way to the front of the police tape (another ‘perk of the job,’ he supposes) and John gapes when he gets there.
“Anderson?” he blurts, because Anderson hasn’t worked with the Met since Sherlock stepped off Barts and ended John’s world.
Right. Sherlock didn’t jump. Not in this life. Not in this world, which in John’s mind, has already ended.
“Yep, he’s still around,” Clara says, watching him bend over a piece of pavement marked out with tiny orange cones. “Still a twat, too. And Sally Donovan is still sleeping with him because you weren’t there to tell her she deserved someone better.”
“What? I didn’t - ” But he remembers it now: the brief (and insignificant, he thought) exchange in an empty corridor of NSY.
“What are you doing, Sal?” he had asked, the nickname coming unbidden to his tongue.
And she must have been caught off-guard because she blinked at him for a full ten seconds before flushing with shame.
“It’s not my business - ”
“You’re right, it’s not,” she spit.
“But you can do better. You deserve better.”
He didn’t think anything of it at the time. In fact, he flushed with embarrassment because it really was out of line - but he never noticed that she started being slightly nicer to him after that.
The weight of a truth he doesn’t want to accept presses on his shoulders, bringing with it the judgment of all his failures.
He sways where he stands, stumbling forward and snapping the police tape -
“Oi, mate. You alright?”
A hand grasps his shoulder and rights him, and he looks up into a weathered face that has seen better days and kinder nights.
“Greg,” he blurts before he can think better of it.
Greg steps back but keeps his hand out, immediately wary. “You know me?” The ring on his left hand glints in the flashing lights.
Greg had finally gotten divorced after Sherlock revealed his wife was cheating on him for the third time. John laughs because that happened at Christmas, too, even though there’s really nothing particularly humorous about it.
“No, sorry,” he murmurs, getting his feet under him. “What -uh - what happened?”
Greg narrows his eyes but apparently deems John to be not a psycho. “Someone was killed, poor sod. Should have it cleared up in an hour or so. Sorry about the traffic.”
But John doesn’t care about the traffic. An hour or so? Sherlock would have had this sewn up in a minute. Which means -
Sherlock isn’t here.
“Right. Well,” he rasps. “Tough tidings on a holiday.”
“Right you are,” Greg quietly replies with a sigh, looking far older than John knows him to be. There’s a light in his eyes that’s dimmed, possibly irrevocably. “Merry Christmas.” And then he starts to stride back towards the scene, leaving John feeling cold, helpless, and utterly, utterly alone.
He backs away, far from the lights and the noise and the steady thrum of tension. It reminds him of too many other evenings where the company was better and the ending was happier.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve considered it,” Clara murmurs, interrupting his thoughts as she stops beside him once more.
“Considered what?” His voice sounds hollow, like he knows where she’s going with this.
“Taking your life.”
“I told you, I wasn’t going - ”
“John.”
He stops abruptly and swallows, because no matter how careless the placement of his foot was earlier that evening, the hours spent staring at the gun in his drawer upon his discharge were very much real.
“Nothing happens to me.”
And then he thinks of the person that pulled him back from the brink; that arrived in his life like a beacon in a storm, said “Afghanistan or Iraq,” and incontrovertibly saved John from himself. He thinks of the fact that he willingly handed his gun to Greg in the aftermath of Sherlock’s death because his thoughts were beginning to scare him. The depths of his despair seemed to have no bottom and those nights alone in the dark were some of the most terrifying he’d ever seen. War had nothing on the hole Sherlock Holmes left in his life.
“Clara,” he croaks, feeling the weight of an unanswered question, the unanswered question, bearing down on shoulders already shaking from too much strain.
“Yes?” she whispers, usually buoyant expression blank. Broken.
“Where’s Sherlock?”
She licks her lips and cocks her head, as a crease develops in her forehead, as if she’s losing a struggle to keep something at bay. “John - ”
“Please,” he whispers, nearly pleading.
Her breath hitches as she opens her mouth and upends John’s world for the second time that night:
“Sherlock Holmes died on January 30th, 2010. Poisoned by a cabbie - ”
“No - ” John staggers back.
“ - because you weren’t there to save him.”
“No - that’s a lie. He picked the right pill.” His finger jabs at empty air, as if his conviction alone could make it true.
“I don’t lie, John.”
“Stop - just, just stop. Please.”
Please, God, let him live.
“He’s gone, John.”
And John collapses, knees hitting snow that does nothing to soften the impact. He can feel the tears freezing on his face, but he doesn’t dare wipe them - recompense that falls far short of the harm he has caused.
“I’ll show you,” she whispers, kneeling down next to him in the snow and placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder, but he shakes his head.
“I don’t want to see.”
But when she replies, her tone leaves no room for argument:
“You have to."
xxxxxx
He’s never considered himself to be a crier. He didn’t cry when his father left, he didn’t cry when he got shot, he didn’t cry when Sherlock died, he didn’t cry when Rosie was born, he didn’t even really cry when Mary died. That volatile cocktail of despair and rage doesn’t qualify as crying.
Now, though - now he doesn’t stop silently sobbing the entire way to the cemetery.
Through some cruel twist of fate or wrinkle in the universe, it’s the same one Sherlock was buried in before, but it’s a different stone, under a different tree, surrounded by other graves Sherlock would hate to keep company with.
Clara loops her arm through John’s once more, holding more of his weight than it looks like she should be able to take, but he learned to stop underestimating her hours ago. She knows the way and so he lets her blindly lead using a mobile as a torch, stepping around roots and over plaques to a charcoal grey stone not as polished as the last one.
She stops so John stops, and he tries not to vomit at the sight of Sherlock’s name etched so permanently in granite. When he opens his mouth, a wounded sound escapes instead.
“It’s not the first time you’ve visited his grave,” she quietly states and his tears fall harder.
“That one didn’t have dates. This one has dates,” he hiccups, as if the stamp of a year somehow makes it more real.
Sherlock Holmes - an incandescent light snuffed from the world entirely too soon.
His body aches to trade places with him.
“I never deserved him.”
Clara elbows him gently. “Sure you did, John.”
“No, he was - he was…”
Everything. He was everything.
As if she can hear those unsaid words, she grabs his chin and turns him to her. “John Watson, look at me right now. You are a good man.”
He tries to shake his head, but her grip on his chin is firm. Her gaze fierce.
“Sherlock Holmes is great. Not always good, but great. You are the buoy at his side. Not an anchor weighing him down, but a raft holding him up. A tether. Sanctuary in a storm. I couldn’t have asked for better men to solve my murder.”
He finally looks away and gasps for breath, closing his eyes against both the sight before him and the pounding in his head.
“I punched him once. I beat him. Who does that to the people he loves?” He pauses, stilling into something bordering on statuesque.
The people he loves. The people he loves.
Oh.
“I have to go back,” he whispers, almost before the words can even register in his brain. “I want to go back.” He turns to her then, gripping her elbows tightly, begging. “Please, for the love of God, let me go back. I need to.”
“Why?”
“Because I love him.”
“There it is,” she breathes this time. Reverently, almost. “Took you long enough.”
“Oh God, I love him so much.” His knees buckle and he hits the earth once more, pressing a warm palm to cold stone and wishing he could feel a beating heart beneath.
“You machine.”
His hand trembles as he looks up at her, this woman who holds both his future and his past in her palm. “You have to let me go back. I don’t want to live in a world where they do not exist. Please. Let me live again.”
Her eyes brighten and her lips press together. “Oh, John. You said the magic words.”
Let me live again.
“Please,” he begs again (that’s twice, his brain unhelpfully supplies), and she holds out a hand, hauling him to unsteady feet when he takes it.
“Come on,” she says, already turning and heading towards the entrance to the cemetery. The cab they came in is still idling there and he wonders if she knew this particular revelation would occur now. Granted, it’s been a long time coming.
Both the living and the loving.
“Where are you taking me?” he asks, voice wrecked as he slides in beside her.
“Where I found you,” she replies, before telling the cabbie to take them to the Golden Jubilee Bridge.
They ride in silence, but it’s comfortable, or as comfortable as it can be for two people who no longer exist in this world. The cabbie drops them at the end of the bridge and John opens his door, but pauses when Clara doesn’t follow.
“What are you doing?”
She shrugs, before reaching forward and wiping a tear he’d missed from his cheek. “You don’t need me anymore. And I’ve got some wings to collect. I lied earlier - I was paying attention a little.”
He huffs out a chuckle at that and is surprised by how badly he doesn’t want her to leave. She’s been - well, both his heaven and his hell in this strange new universe, but like a childhood security blanket or beloved stuffed animal, he’s reluctant to let go. He just - doesn’t know what to do.
“I’m dead, John. And the man who did it is in jail. You’ve done enough,” she says simply, reading his mind once more.
He gives watery laugh and nods, looking out over the Thames. “I wish I could have done more.”
“I know,” she replies. “And that’s what makes you a good man.”
His heart feels like it’s cracking and mending again at her words. “Now what?” he asks, and she shrugs again.
“You’re not my problem anymore, John Watson,” she says slyly, despite the fact that she looks somewhat sad about it. Something else, too, but John can’t pinpoint it at the moment. It’s possibly pride.
“Live your life,” she orders, turning serious, blue eyes boring into his. “Now that you have one.”
“What - ?”
But she leans forward and slams the door, and the cab peels away, off and over the bridge towards the Winter Market whose lights are still glowing in the distance.
Now that you have one.
“What the fu - ?”
“John?”
He freezes, every muscle tightening and eyes closing against evidence of a truth he so desperately wants: his name in a voice he knows.
He turns so quickly, he nearly slips on the slick sidewalk, taking in the man exiting the police cruiser and squinting at him through the snow.
“Greg?” he yells, stepping forward and all but collapsing in his arms.
“Jesus, John,” Greg grunts under his weight, holding him up as he’s done so many times before.
“How did you find me?” he manages as his chest heaves, fingers digging in to the back of Greg’s coat.
“Sherlock called me. He was worried.”
“Sherlock,” John breathes. Possibly the sweetest two syllables in the history of the English language. “He’s okay?”
Greg frowns. “Why wouldn’t he be? Bit stroppy, but mainly, you know, concerned. In his way.”
“In his way?”
Greg smiles wryly. “Meaning he’s called in half of Scotland Yard and no doubt part of MI5. What the hell happened to your hand?”
John looks down and, sure enough, his knuckles are bleeding.
He can’t account for the giggles that spill from his lips, laughter so genuine and so relieved that he nearly doubles over. If Greg is concerned about how manic he’s acting, bless him, he doesn’t show it.
“Come on, I’ll take you home,” he says instead, ushering John to the idling cruiser.
Home.
“God, yes,” he manages, still laughing but now crying, though he’s unsure if he ever stopped. His hands are chapped from the cold and trembling from, well, everything, but Greg keeps up a running commentary during the ten minute drive, keeping his thoughts from lingering too long on any one thing.
“Look, I’m sorry I asked him to come tonight. I should have known you’d have things going on with the little one.”
In his haste to get home, John had honestly forgotten about the fight that started it all.
“Don’t even think about it,” he says. “I overreacted. It’s been… a weird day.” What a fucking understatement.
Greg nods out of the corner of his eye, but his hands tighten on the wheel. “He should be back home by now.”
“Back? Where was he?” he asks, almost too sharply.
Greg clears his throat. “Out looking for you. Mycroft convinced him it would be better to wait at home in case you returned - ”
“Wait - he called Mycroft?”
“John,” Greg says softly, looking over at him then. “It was you. He would have raised bloody Moriarty from the dead if he thought it would find you faster.”
Oh he’s such an utter shit.
“I need you to drive faster, Greg,” he murmurs.
“On it,” he replies, foot pressing down on the pedal.
Baker Street comes into view about a moment before he begins to hyperventilate. He at least manages a “Merry Christmas, Greg,” as he jumps out of the still-moving car, practically throwing himself at the door, hurtling down the hall.
“Sherlock?!” he cries, eyes raking over the pushchair and the green wallpaper and Mrs. Hudson’s perfume and everything in this flat that makes it theirs.
“John?” comes his voice from above, sounding just as desperate.
John takes the stairs two at a time until he reaches the top, nerves knotting his stomach, but not allowing his fortitude to fail him now. He shoulders open the door and nearly smacks right into Sherlock, steadying himself on strong arms covered in a plum shirt that's just a hair too tight.
“Oh Jesus Christ, you’re real,” he breathes, cupping Sherlock’s face and trying to memorize every feature. It’s been hours, years, decades since he’s seen him. He could have a millennium and it still wouldn’t be enough to drink his fill. “I’m so sorry,” he sobs. He’d been trying to keep it together, to do this like the soldier he is, but the heart won out, cracking and mending and growing at the sight of the man before him, alive and whole and utterly, utterly indispensable. “Forgive me.”
“Forgive me,” Sherlock replies, holding onto John’s elbows just as tightly. “I’m sorry I brought her. I just - it was a young woman. I wanted to solve it quickly and give her family peace for Christmas. Or, as much peace as they could get.”
Clara Harrison. Thirty-two. Her family wanted peace. And that’s what Sherlock gave them.
John swallows, feeling terrible. This Sherlock is not the Sherlock of six years ago. Of course he’s not. Just as John is not the same John Watson.
That’s the whole sodding point.
“Did you solve it?” he asks, voice cracked, breath wet.
“What?” Sherlock frowns.
“The case. Before I got there and dragged you away, did you solve it?”
Sherlock shrugs, letting go and backing away, defense mechanisms already starting to solidify once more. “No. Nearly.”
John steps forward and takes his hand, refusing to let him go far again. Refusing to let him go far ever. “Go.”
Sherlock almost startles and his grip tightens. “What?”
“Go. Give the family peace. It’s what everyone deserves on Christmas.”
Sherlock looks at him like he hung the stars themselves and steps into his space, pressing their foreheads together. “Come with me,” he breathes.
“But - Rosie - ” Oh God, Rosie.
“Is asleep and Mrs. Hudson will be happy to keep an eye on her. I just need a couple of minutes more at the crime scene and then we can come home and play Father Christmas for our - ”
But he stops himself, even as John’s heart leaps into his throat.
“For our daughter,” John shakily finishes for him, bringing his hands up and holding tight to Sherlock’s lapels.
“Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.”
“Nope. Friends protect people.”
John tried alone. It didn’t take.
And he’s willing to take a leap off a metaphorical bridge and bet Sherlock feels the same way.
“I love you, Sherlock Holmes,” he whispers, feeling terrified and brave, weightless and leaden, happy and goddamn euphoric. “And I don’t ever want to be apart from you.”
Sherlock’s jaw slackens and his rabbit-quick gaze darts between John’s eyes, as if trying to ascertain any joke, but John holds firm. Steady. True.
What he should have been with Sherlock ages ago.
Sherlock has been quiet for far too long now and John should probably be panicking, but he knows this man. He knows him better than perhaps he knows himself. He has to do things in his own time, at his own pace. In his own way.
Sherlock leans down, gaze darting back up for the briefest of moments as if to give him an out, but sod that, John manages to think as he closes the distance between them. To say their first kiss is good is to refer to the sun as a mere star. To say it’s overdue is to say that water is wet.
His fingers thread through Sherlock’s hair, thumb brushing his earlobe, as his other hand presses into the small of his back, sliding them together like a key in a lock.
In Sherlock’s arms, he finally feels complete. He finally feels home. He finally feels like a John Watson worthy of the man whose side he never wants to leave.
He pulls away and pants, brain trying to form words, but there are none.
“Let’s go,” Sherlock manages through swollen lips and a dazed expression, taking John’s hand and pulling him clumsily down the steps.
They stop by Mrs. Hudson’s where John apologizes profusely some more. He presses his nose into Rosie’s curls where she sleeps on the sofa and promises they’ll be back to carry her up before Father Christmas can come.
Mrs. Hudson clearly sees their joined hands, but says nothing, for once in her life.
John giggles as he wonders if that’s somehow Clara’s doing, too. After all, shutting up Mrs. Hudson's insinuations would be the work of the angels.
When they get outside, Greg is still waiting. They slide into the back and Greg radios Donovan, telling her they’re on their way. John resolves to text Molly in the morning and invite her over for some wine and pudding. After all, no one should be alone on Christmas.
John thinks of his friends then, of colleagues he didn’t realize had become intricately woven into his life until he was forced to live it without them. He squeezes Sherlock’s hand where it rests on the seat between them and he looks away from the window and smiles at him.
If a life’s worth is measured by the company one keeps, then John can count himself a very rich man indeed.