A Scandal in Britain, Part 13/13

So it just happened that I finished posting this behemoth of a fanfic on the one-year anniversary of Sherlock debuting. I really can’t remember what my Holmes fandom was like without it, to be honest. This last year has been crappy for me beyond words, and to have this crazy lovely jam-filled fandom to be able to disappear into whenever necessary…that’s a great gift. That’s a tremendous gift. Thank you, all of you! And I can’t wait for season/series 2!!!1!!11eleventy!11!!1 Remember, Moffat, it’s not too late to steal a few plot points or lines of dialogue…

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 

22 December

Some time later, I was strolling through Addie’s gallery. She had an impressively large collection of fine art. For some reason, I had been expecting a series of paintings of circles and squares, but her tastes were surprisingly old-fashioned - bucolic landscapes, Victorian portraits of mothers and children, cats and dogs. The voices of doctors and policemen buzzed in the distance. A pair of footsteps strode through the gallery with great purpose, then stopped.

 “It’s not a coincidence that you’re asking about her one day and she’s dead the next,” Lestrade said.

I didn’t even bother turning around. I shrugged.

“You need to be careful, Holmes.”

Lord, just what I needed now: a lecture. I turned around to snap at him, but he had already disappeared.

John came in a few minutes later. He stood next to me for a moment and together we inspected an old oil portrait of a woman sitting at a piano.

“I didn’t know you had an interest in art,” he finally said.

“I don’t.” I turned away from the painting. “So. Did you finish the exam?”

“Yeah. Didn’t take very long.”

“No. He’ll live, won’t he?”

“Unfortunately.” He appraised me a little nervously. “Sherlock? You all right?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you…you did almost, you know, sacrifice your career.” He cleared his throat. “For a woman.”

“Funny how you imply that sacrificing my career would weigh more heavily on me than killing a man.”

“Well, I’m right, aren’t I?”

I sighed. He knew me better than I knew myself. “I suppose so.”

“So she wasn’t part of a group.”

“Obviously not.”

“Who was spying on us at the Diogenes Club, then?”

“Nobody was spying,” I said, voice sharp with scorn. “She guessed that Ormstein would come to me for assistance, and he did. And if that weren’t indication enough, she heard us talking on the stairs about Mycroft. Simple as that. It should have been obvious from the beginning.”

“Oh.” He glanced toward the floor. “Sherlock, I just want to say…”

I looked at him. His tone insinuated that he was about to share something of great importance.

But then - “It’s totally normal to feel…emotion for women that you find attrac - ”

“Oh, for God’s sake, John! She was a problem. A unit in a problem. Nothing more.”

“Then why the hell did you try to kill - ?”

I cut him off. “Why do you insist on analysing everything I do? You do it in the blog and you’re doing it now, and as if that wasn’t annoying enough, you come to all the wrong conclusions, to boot.” I lowered my voice; I didn’t want anyone but him to hear what I was about to say. “I’ll tell you why I nearly killed him - because it was my pride that killed her. Ormstein was right. If I’d been a little quicker - not been intimidated by her - taken it all a little more seriously - none of this would have happened. Because of my shortcomings, a perfectly…” I hesitated. “A relatively innocent woman was killed, and I thought that maybe I could make up for it by finishing the perpetrator off like he deserved. It has absolutely nothing to do with me wanting to prance down a church aisle with her, or kiss her, or shag her, or whatever euphemism you want to employ.”

He stared at me, shocked at the outburst.

“There,” I said. “Is that detailed enough for you? Were you recording that? Or can you remember it verbatim? It’ll make a wonderful blog entry, won’t it? It almost writes itself.”

Suddenly the front door slammed and a familiar voice floated through the house. John looked away from me and rushed to the foyer, where he launched into a distastefully demonstrative kiss with Sarah. I watched them with an eyebrow raised.

“John! My God, John, are you okay?” She patted his arms, as if she wasn’t sure he existed.

“Yes, I’m fine; we’re both - ”

“They told me there were guns involved. Were there guns involved? I told you, John, any time - ”

“We can talk about this later.”

I strode up to the happy couple. “Thank God you’re here, Sarah. Take your boyfriend. He’s being unbearably sentimental.”

Something I said irritated her. She stopped in the middle of a kiss with John and took a few steps up to me. The lights of the police cars flashed across her face.

“Boyfriend?”

“Um, yeah - Sarah, about that - ” He reached out and grabbed her arm. She didn’t stop.

“Boyfriend.” She turned on John, eyes blazing. “You haven’t told him, have you?”

“Well - I - I’ve been meaning……”

I looked quizzically between the two of them.

“I cannot believe you, John! You nearly damn well get killed following him around, and you never even let him know?” She pushed him toward me. “You are more than my boyfriend, John. This is absurd. Tell him. Now.”

He bit his lip and looked up at me.

Suddenly I understood everything.

“I might not always be here, you know…”

“Why don’t you try to find - I don’t know…a girlfriend?”

“Let me guess. Riviera? Within the month?”

“Sarah likes French food and this is the closest French restaurant to Sarah’s place…”

“He can’t survive on you alone the same way you can survive alone on him. Sooner or later he’s going to leave you. And then you’ll be alone. And then…”

“Sherlock,” he said. “I’m engaged.”

And that is the end of the story.

***

Oh, great. Way to go, making me feel guilty for getting fricking engaged…

- Comment posted by John Watson


Guilty? All I said was that you were engaged. I said at the beginning that I wouldn’t insert any superfluous romance. You got engaged and I don’t have anything to add to that.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


You just insinuated that my marriage would encourage you to return to drugs!!! How is that not supposed to make me guilty?

- Comment posted by John Watson


YOU’RE.

WHAT?

YOU’RE ENGAGED?!??? TO SOMEONE OTHER THAN SHERLOCK?

JOHN, WHAT THE HELL????????

AND NO, I HAVEN’T BEEN DRINKING!!!

DAMN!!!!!

- Comment posted by Harry Watson


You never told her?????????? John!!! It’s like you’re ASHAMED of us!

- Comment posted by Sarah Sawyer


Of COURSE I didn’t tell her. Look at how she reacted! I KNEW this would happen! I’ve already got six obscene texts from her in the last ten minutes!

By the way, Sherlock… You never said if you’re okay with being best man…?

- Comment posted by John Watson


Why don’t you ask me in person? I’m in the kitchen.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


Er…you’ve kind of not given me an answer when I ask you in person.

- Comment posted by John Watson


Maybe I’m still kind of thinking about it, then.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


Oh. Congratulations, John! Sorry that I always forget your name. I know who you are! : ) I guess Sherlock needs to get engaged now, right?

- Comment posted by Molly Hooper


That’s what his mother thinks.

- Comment posted by Anthea


By the way, her invitation still stands for Christmas dinner.

- Comment posted by Anthea


Oh, heck. What do I have to lose. I’ll come. Can’t be any worse than moping about the flat by myself. How about you, John? Or do you have plans with your fiancée?

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


Why do I imagine you saying that last sentence with an unbearably sarcastic tone?

I’ll come, if Sarah lets me.

- Comment posted by John Watson


Oh, just go ahead. You’ll be distracted the whole holiday if I don’t let you go.

You know, John, I have the rather unsettling feeling that I’m marrying two people…

- Comment posted by Sarah Sawyer


Maybe that’s because you are.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes

The End