Chapter Text
"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."
-Frank Robinson
-
The gun shot wound to the chest Mary Watson took in the aquarium did its best to be the end of the Watson’s marriage.
But really it was coming out of a medically induced coma after four months and learning her husband had (for all intents and purposes) cheated- with Sherlock's sister no less! The very same sister who'd nearly killed them all in a desperate bid for Sherlock's attention- that put on the strain.
When she was released from hospital Mary was unsure how to feel about her marriage and in no condition to make any kind of serious life choices. Instead she had gone to Molly's flat rather than home to John.
Her infant daughter had spent a significant amount of Mary's recovery in her godmother's care and as such a cot and other necessary items were, conveniently, already there.
Molly gave her the master bedroom and took the guest room. Mary argued at first, but Molly insisted- the cot was already set up in the master anyway, and mums always get the room with the en suite.
Who was Mary kidding? She had nearly died, her husband had cheated, she had a baby to care for, and she'd just relearned how to walk- she didn't have the energy (or ability) to be unobtrusive in her friend's life.
Mary took the master bedroom, the daily homecooked meals, free childcare, nights in with romcoms and ice cream, doing face masks (and crying about how unfair it all was).
She happily took any and everything Molly had it within her to give- even knowing she could never repay her for this monumental kindness.
She took it because she didn't really have a choice not to impose- the only family she had was her baby. Any friends she had before John aren't close enough to the situation to understand and Janine? Well that bridge was truly burnt; And justifiably so.
She also didn't need advice of the bumper sticker psychology or faux girl-power varieties telling her to simply divorce John and move on. They had a life together, a home, a child. Even being divorced from him- they would still be a family tied forever by the child they shared.
She knew intrinsically that staying for the sake of the child was not the healthier option despite generations of people believing otherwise. However she was also uncertain if being without him was truly what she wanted.
When she held her perfect baby girl in her arms and she looks up at Mary with her father's eyes and her mother's name (a monument to a former life)- Mary struggled to feel anything less than gratitude for the man who made her a wife, gave her a namesake, and keeps her darkest secrets.
Molly was the perfect companion through such a dilemma. If anyone can understand carrying a torch for an impossible man- it's Molly Hooper.
Molly must have sensed Mary's reticence to end things with John because she never spoke disparagingly of him or gave an opinion on her decision either way. However each time John came to Molly's flat to pick up Rosie for his half of the week- Molly leaves John and Mary alone to dress and pack Rosie up.
The "packing" took longer and longer each time with Molly giving excuses like searching for Rosie's favorite teether, finishing a book or cartoon they'd conveniently begun just before John arrived and one memorable time- not fully tightening the lid of her sippy cup so that milk splashed down her little jumper.
"Silly me!" Molly had said, "I'll just give her a quick bath and change her outfit. The ehm... kettle's on if you want tea."
Over time, chatting turned into joking, joking into flirting, and before long he'd turned up at Molly's doorstep with a fresh haircut, a bespoke button down (both clearly foisted upon him by Sherlock). With a small bouquet in hand, he asked if Mary would join him for dinner.
Over dinner they agree to couple's counseling and, with the tools their therapist taught them, (and a sexy beach holiday in Mallorca planned by Sherlock and Molly and paid for by Mycroft Holmes) rediscovered the intense passion they'd found when their relationship had first begun.
For all of it they had both their best friends seeing them through. Their constant support had been essential. But as Mary and John healed to the point of moving back in together, the support of Sherlock and Molly shifted into something different...
She would have said "crutch" but she and John no longer needed their hand holding through every bump in the road. They could lean on each other for that now, but the pair of them insisted on babysitting Rosie and organizing elaborate date nights for her and John that crossed over into something more intrusive than helpful.
***
The first time they slept together after their reunion they awoke to a champagne brunch set on the kitchen table and their daughter's crib long empty with a note in Sherlock's tidy scrawl,
"Took Rosie to Baker Street for the night. Enjoy the afterglow."
When a furious Mary flung the door open to 221b Sherlock and Molly were sitting in the middle of the floor with their goddaughter as she attempted to build a block tower.
"Why are you here? You can't have finished brunch already! Much less your second round!" He looked up at them baffled and slightly affronted.
"You kidnapped our baby, you cock!" John shouted.
"Kidnapped? Hardly!" Sherlock scoffed. "I left a note."
Molly gaped looking apologetically toward the fuming parents then annoyed toward Sherlock.
"Sherlock, you didn't tell them first?"
"I didn't want to bother them with minutiae!"
"The whereabouts of a child is not minutiae, Sherlock!" Molly grumbled.
"Oh I suppose it is rather the done thing for a kidnapper to leave a note. Oopsie!" He said looking down at his goddaughter and making her giggle with a little boop to her nose.
"'Oopsie?!' You took her from our home in the middle of the night, without our knowledge That's the definition of kidnapping, you bleeding knobhead!" Mary shouted.
The atmosphere in the room changed instantly and all eyes were on Mary.
"Our home?" John asked, looking to his very recently un-estranged wife with a glimmer of hope.
"Well... I..." She looked down at her hands, linking them together as she paused.
"I... think it's time for it to be our home again. It's what you want and, I know now, it's what I want to so let's just..."
"Get the hell on with it?" John asked with a smile stepping closer to her and taking her hands in his.
She smiled up at him through her lashes, blinked away fresh tears.
"Yes!" She answered with a giggle before they fell into a frenzied embrace of kissing.
The couple were two enraptured with one another to see the little fist bump their friends gave each other over Rosie's head
The embrace became more heated as John fumbled for his car keys and they shuffled out the door.
"Oi! You want your sprog back or what?" Sherlock called after them.
"You got this!" John shouted from down the stairs before the front door slammed.
"I always do..." Sherlock murmured haughtily to a giggling Molly as they returned to the very serious business of block tower architecture.
***
John was lacing the handmade leather boots Sherlock had taken him to get fitted for earlier that afternoon- a rather spontaneous errand and, yet another, expensive gift from the Holmes estate.
"Hey big spender!" Mary sang, shimmying her shoulders.
"Those are awfully posh! Was that the emergency his nibs called you in for earlier?"
John paused and raised from his kneeling position.
"Allegedly..." was his cryptic answer as he brushed the dust from his pant legs.
Mary was intrigued. There had been something awfully odd about their friends' vehement insistence that they continue planning John and Mary's social life. Something that went beyond simply wanting the best for her and John.
"Go on..."
"When I got to the shop he was sweaty, like he'd run all the way there. And he wasn't wearing a jacket. It's obviously too warm for the Belstaff, but not even a jacket?" John raised a brow in emphasis.
"Yes for Sherlock the jacket is like a bra. He only takes it off when hes making himself at home" Mary teasingly agreed as her husband chuckled at her analogy.
"The shopkeeper was pleased to see Sherlock but seemed surprised. It definitely wasn't a planned appointment because the poor sod was scrambling to put his tea away. He'd clearly just tucked in when we got there."
John shook his head regretfully, loathe to ever be a nuisance to a retail worker.
"Aw poor lamb. I'm sure that black card from Moneypenny Holmes esquire made it worth his while." Mary smiled reassuringly, coming toward him to adjust the way his shirt collar fell over on of his new suits provided by Sherlock's tailor and Mycroft's money.
John accepted her reassurance gratefully before adding of the event, "Sherlock seemed very highly strung. Well, more than usual. Like the shoe shopping was some sort of an afterthought, or distraction."
"Interesting you should say that because I had a very similar spa experience with our own Doctor Hooper last Sunday... very impromptu massages and facials with a woman who might as well have been in outer space."
"Sherlock wasn't in outer space necessarily... he was babbling non-stop, talking over the shopkeeper about hand stitching and leather grains like he was trying to win a trivia contest. Needless to say I didn't get a chance to talk to him about..."
Mary groaned, "Of course you didn't have a chance. He was never going to give you one. I'm having the same issue with Molly. I think they know the conversation is coming and throw a road block our way each time. It's getting to the point that it's going to be impossible to ask them to back off without seeming...?" Mary fumbled for the right word.
"Ungrateful?" John supplied helpfully.
"Yes." Mary sighed, rubbing the space between her brows with her fingertips.
"It would help if we knew why they were doing this..." John grumbled. "I know they really love us... we're a family in our own special odd sort of way but this just goes beyond..."
"Shhh!!!" Mary hushed him, alerted by the sound of a car door opening, they both crept to the window to see Sherlock rushing around the back of a cab to open the other passenger door.
He reached in with one hand to take hold of carrier bags and then the other to hand Molly out of the car. They stepped away from the leaving vehicle but paused before they walked up so Molly could lick the pad of her thumb and gently rub something off Sherlock's cheek. He graced her with a warm smile for her efforts and said something John and Mary could not hear but made Molly blush.
For a heart racing instant, Mary was almost certain Sherlock was going to lean in to kiss Molly. His hand flexed as though he were contemplating using it to raise her downturned chin up to face him. Molly licked her lips as though she anticipated it herself.
However it seemed as though he could feel they were being watched, of course he could, damn it. The spell they were under broke as Molly relieved him of one of the carrier bags then determinedly walked toward the Watson’s front door.
John and Mary retreated from the window and looked at each other knowingly before the doorbell rang.
The next few moments were a flurry of movement as the pair shoved their way in unloading a bag of new books for Rosie and another of all the snacks and supplies for overnight babysitting.
Rosie toddled in at the sound of her godparents and shrieked with delight as she's scooped up by Sherlock.
With insignificant things like parents giving kisses and saying goodbye getting in the way of more important things like leaping into Aunty Molly's arms, John and Mary were unceremoniously shoved out the door of their own home.
They looked back to see Molly on the floor with Rosie, spreading her new books out to choose one to read as Sherlock seats himself on the sofa, the smile playing on his face as he watches them choose a large colorful tome.
Molly takes Rosie and the book in her arms and joins Sherlock on the sofa. The three of them huddle close together, Rosie in the center, Sherlock and Molly leaning into one another's shoulders as they held her and the book.
John and Mary stood frozen in their front walk as they watched in awe. The pair caught each other's gaze as yet another instant of certainty they were seconds away from kissing- passed and fizzled away.
As if on autopilot, John and Mary shambled over to their car and drove in stunned silence for several minutes before John spoke.
"He must have meant it... what he said at Sherrinford..."
Mary was still in a coma during the Sherrinford incident and only got piecemeal accounts of what happened- and solely from John. Neither Sherlock nor Molly seemed keen to talk about it. She'd gotten some broad strokes from Mycroft but in so doing was his usual taciturn self- which only begged more questions than it answered.
"One of the things Eurus..."
"The sister?"
"Right. One of the things... the games" he shook his head at the word, "she played with us..."
Mary took his hand knowing just how difficult the topic still was for him.
"She... she made Sherlock call Molly and get her to say... to tell him, that she loved him or Eurus would set off explosives in Molly's flat. While we watched..."
"Jesus Christ..."
"He only had three minutes and he couldn't say anything unusual to indicate something was wrong. Definitely no time to try and work a cheeky 'Vatican cameos' into natural conversation."
"No. Of course not..." Mary agreed, dazed.
"But she wouldn't- she couldn't. No matter how Sherlock pleaded with her. It almost seemed to....hurt him, he didn't understand why she couldn't..."
John took a deep breath, the memories of that time were still raw. The guilt he felt about having an emotional affair with the person who did that to them was overwhelming at times.
"She said she couldn't because... well because it's true, isn't it?- always had been and, he almost looked relieved and told her if it was true why doesn't she say it anyway?"
"Ooh that bastard!" Mary shouted.
"That's what Molly said." John laughed softly then became somber again.
"She told him if it was so easy he should go ahead and say it first..."
Mary gasped and covered her mouth with a very recently manicured hand. "And since they're both alive and babysitting our daughter right now I can surmise he did."
"Twice" John confirmed with a knowing look.
"The first one sort of came out in a rush. And the second time he... I don't know how to describe it, but he said it like he meant it- like even he believed it..."
"It may have been the last thing he would have ever gotten to say to her..." Mary added as she herself realized it.
"God in heaven..." John agreed.
They were both lost in silent contemplation for a moment before Mary broke it.
"But it wasn't. We're all alive and we have another chance. So do they."
John nodded, but maintained focus on the road and their conversation lapsed into companionable silence as they each contemplated new information about their friends.
At the restaurant they sat across from one another reaching for each other's hand over the table.
"This is so right." John said looking at their joined hands at the table.
Mary's eyes misted slightly and she smiled, "I will be forever grateful they made this possible for us but now I think..."
"It's time we made it possible for them?" John finished for her.
"More like impossible to avoid, knowing them." She smirked.
John's eyes widened slightly and he gave a lascivious grin.
"Mrs. Watson... are you suggesting... clandestine behavior?"
"Oh Dr. Watson, dont act like you don't love it when I talk black ops..." She answered flirtily.
"Drop point..."
"Mmm!" He responded, brushing his thumb over her palm.
"Field extraction..." She nearly whispered.
He closed his eyes and licked his lips.
She leaned in closed, their noses nearly brushing as she said "honeypot."
"Cara mia..." John replied, playfully kissing up her arm and making her laugh deeply.
Later that night as they fell into a sweaty, sleepy heap in John's old bed back at Baker Street (where they'd retreated for privacy after their date) Mary settled her head against his chest, her ear over his heart.
She could feel his voice rumble beneath her as he said "I can see why they're not in a rush to stop meddling in our relationship. This covert mission business is very hot..."
"It is, isn't it?" Mary sat up on her bent elbow slightly, looking down into his eyes with a mischievous gleam in her own. "But it's also too convenient of an excuse to bail when they realize how hot it is. Do you think our plan will work?"
John graced her with an are you actually serious right now?- look.
"It's air tight, my love. You are a strategic mastermind..." he lifted his head to give her a smacking kiss, "Now go to sleep."
And with that he turned in and began softly snoring minutes later as Mary lay awake ironing out the finer details.