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It was an open-and-shut case – or at least, it was to Sherlock, who was currently waxing lyrical about how small everyone else’s brains were while he applied rosin to his bow.
John cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow. “You’re doing it again.”
Sherlock frowned. “Doing what?”
“Showing off.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and dropped the rosin back onto the desk. He placed his violin under his chin and gently drew the bow across the E-string, winced, and twisted the peg marginally. He repeated this a few times, then moved onto the next string, and the next, and the next, until he was satisfied with them all.
He continued as if there had been no interruption. “I simply fail to see how everyone else missed the obvious signs –”
“For god’s sake, Sherlock, not all of us are as incredibly gifted as you!” John snapped, pushing himself out of his chair. “I’m hungry, and I’m not cooking. Chinese?”
Sherlock shrugged and shouldered his violin again. “Fine,” he agreed.
John stomped away down the stairs, but softened his steps and slowed despite himself when the first notes of a haunting new composition echoed after him. No matter how much the man infuriated him, he couldn’t help fall in love all over again every time he played.
He was determined to work out the case by the time he got back. He didn’t want to have to ask Sherlock again – not after the monologue he’d just delivered. John was better than Scotland Yard – he would work it out.
It took him his whole walk to the Chinese, and the wait for the food, and most of the walk back, but eventually he connected the dots.
“The receipt,” he announced as he re-entered 221B. The music had stopped. “It was the receipt, you recognised the wife’s card number on it. She bought the thermometers, one for each child, and the blood pressure cuff.”
Sherlock looked up from where he was scratching some notes onto a hand-drawn stave. “Yes,” he agreed. “And Scotland Yard thought that was proof that she was poisoning her husband with mercury. Idiots.”
John put the Chinese down on the table and headed into the kitchen for plates and cutlery. “But if she was,” he called, “she wouldn’t have left the receipt out. She would have paid cash and she would have destroyed it. She was genuinely worried about him.”
“Yes, she was. Scotland Yard were tipped off about a murder in progress at their home address and broke the door down to prevent it – not realising it was a long game, and nobody would actually die in the end.”
John scraped Sherlock’s rice and meal onto a plate and pushed it onto his side of the coffee table. “The husband was flagged by the emergency services as a high-volume service user just a few days prior. He seemed genuinely unwell each time they visited, but no tests were ever conclusive.”
“Yes. He was poisoning himself, not enough to kill, just enough to make him unwell. Then he was claiming the benefits and the sick leave, because the youngest child needs full time care and they can’t afford to provide it any other way.”
“Quite sad, really,” John reflected. “So who tipped off Scotland Yard in the first place?”
Sherlock grinned and drew his bow across the D and G strings simultaneously, producing a pleasant but deafening chord. “Come on, John.”
John plated his meal up slowly. “The oldest child,” he said finally. “It was Freya. She’s studying law, she knew how much trouble he could get into. She thought by making it look like a poisoning, he’d get off… oh my god, she set it up to look like she’d done it.”
Sherlock leapt up in his excitement. “Yes! Which is why all the tools and the remains of the items were in her room, despite the fact that her father claimed he’d thrown them away. She saw them in the bin and realised what he was doing. She tried to take the blame so he could look after Hannah – she had already nearly dropped out of university to manage her care.”
John dropped onto the sofa and sighed. “I sometimes wonder if I should have done the same for my sister,” he admitted. “Harry might not be so screwed up if I hadn’t run off to join the army.”
Sherlock set his violin down and scooped up his meal, joining John on the sofa. “You can’t compare a traumatic brain injury to alcoholism. Hannah can’t walk, she can’t talk. She can’t feed herself. She has seizures most days. Harry is not your responsibility – she can make her own decisions. Hannah can’t.”
John – surprised that Sherlock had said something comforting – grunted. “I guess,” he agreed gloomily.
“Oh come on, John. You’re always on the end of the phone when she needs you. You’ve helped her out of so many holes in the time we’ve been together. You’re brother of the decade compared to Mycroft – he locked his sister in a secure unit and gave her all the tools to torture everyone inside it, as well as some visitors, and brainwashed me into forgetting she existed.”
John chuckled hollowly. “You have a point,” he admitted finally. “I just wish I could do more to help her, that’s all.”
“You do as much as you should have to. And for what it’s worth, I will never forgive myself for putting you through the same things with my… habit. I never want to be that out of control again.” Sherlock hesitated, and then wrapped his arm around John’s shoulders. “Harry doesn’t have that desire. Until she does, you can’t help her. It is what it is,” he said softly.
It had become their mantra. Ever since that day, Sherlock had been more willing to comfort – physically, as well as emotionally. He had been more willing to share his thoughts, his worries. More able to admit that he felt. John couldn’t say he disliked it – even if every half-hug came with that solemn phrase.
He leaned into Sherlock and sighed. “It is what it is,” he agreed. “Come on, eat, Rosie needs fetching in less than an hour.”
Sherlock squeezed him and let go, shovelling food into his mouth like he was half-starved.
“Erm, we’re not in that much of a rush,” John said pointedly.
Sherlock barely slowed. “I need to finish that,” he answered, gesturing at the half-written melody. “It was for Rosie.”
John felt something constrict in his chest, and his stomach filled with warmth. Mary – the Mary who never left, and was always there, watching – smiled at him. “You’ve got a good one,” she told him gently. “Quirky… but you’re good for each other. And he’s smitten with Rosie.”
“I know,” he murmured, too quiet for Sherlock to hear – almost in his head, in fact. “I know.”
“I love you, John Watson, and I know you love me too. But I’m not here any more, and he is. You need each other. It is what it is.”
John smiled at Mary; she looked so solid and real and comforting. She said their phrase like a promise; like a good thing, rather than an admission of defeat.
“It is what it is,” he agreed, barely above a whisper, his eyes on the man who had turned his world upside down – who had just finished shovelling in his dinner, and had bounded enthusiastically across the room to scoop up his violin. He was playing the tune he’d written at double speed, still chewing, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown.
For the first time, John felt the need to finish the declaration. “It is what it is… and it is good,” he said, and locked eyes with Mary. She smiled at him – his favourite smile, the one that showed all her teeth – and turned to watch Sherlock play, standing tall, eyes closed, in the centre of the room.
“I’m going to teach her to play,” he announced when the last note rang into silence. “I’ll get her a half-size violin until she’s bigger. And dance, she needs to know how to dance. And she’s going to beat Mycroft in deductions by the time she’s ten.”
John swallowed a lump in his throat and stood up. “Who knew that a toddler is all it would take to break this cool exterior of yours,” he said. He intended it as a joke, but it came across more awed.
“Not any toddler, your toddler,” Sherlock corrected. “My goddaughter – not that god exists, but that’s a debate for another time. Anyway, I believe you broke the exterior long before Rosie came along, John – or I wouldn’t have jumped off that rooftop. I wouldn’t have made it out of Sherrinford.”
John blinked, opened his mouth to – to what? Ask what Sherlock meant? Reply? He didn’t know – he had no idea how to respond to something so heartfelt.
Sherlock saved him the trouble. “Come on, then. We have a Rosie to collect.”
And he swung his coat over his shoulders, threw his scarf around his neck, and strode out of the door before John’s mouth could catch up with his brain.