A/N: so this is long overdue, but I promise I have an excuse! I've been studying hard for the SATs and on top of that, this chapter is 7k words so :') hope that y'all enjoy!

It was still dark out when John arbitrarily woke up - dark in a way that sunk into things, soaking up the noise. His eyes darted to a loudly ticking analog clock next to their bed. Four. Jesus, John thought. He'd fallen asleep three hours ago. 

John rolled against Claire's unmoving body. The hand he'd wounded was wrapped in gauze, throbbing as it cupped her bare shoulder. John's torso nestled against the curve of her back; his entire field of vision was gray-blue hair. He could smell her shampoo.

Touching her was like touching an island. Ever since she found out. Always curled around herself in bed, always surrounded by waves of blonde tresses; John could never hold her like she was laying next to him. Always reaching.

Her shoulder was petite in his palm. He cursed the thought even as it occurred to him: powerful biceps, contracting under his touch, defined like a demigod in a classical sculpture. 

We never deserved this, John wanted to say. Instead, he buried his nose into the nape of her neck and tried to assuage his constant, misplaced longing. What small, odd comforts.

***

I have to live in a world where Sherlock Holmes exists.

He reminded himself of that whenever he became overwhelmed by the constant violin music. Sherlock was back to being a permanent resident at the academy - until he graduated from university in May. In hindsight, it was a little foolish of John to think that a shoulder injury would have stopped Sherlock Holmes from finishing school. Even if it was paired with a broken rib. And a dislocated ankle.

John was trying to get used to it. And he was trying to reintroduce constancy back into his life, even if that meant going back to the academy, subjecting himself to indirect torture. He resolved never to step foot in that hallway again. That would be the end of that.

But hearing Sherlock's compositions - all the time, ones that John had weighed in on, ones that John had been ordered to listen to and critique - was taking its toll. He'd gotten so many injuries from being associated with Sherlock Holmes. (The bruising on his stomach from being punched in the gut by Moriarty's crony. The puncture wound in his hand, which was now just a tiny white dot. The latest being self-inflicted - his knuckles, which were now always bound by gauze and ointment, never fully coiled around an object. He'd told Claire he cut his hand on glass, which was not a lie.)

The music was its own kind of weapon. It was one of the constancies that John was going to have to get used to, the kind that hurt, the kind that broke things; every sonata cut deeper. Sherlock was about to hit bone and John didn't even know how - they hadn't spoken more than two words in a row to each other in three fucking weeks.

In the meantime, John was trying to regain his life. Which begun with Claire at six o'clock in the morning, went on at the clinic for ten hours, and every other day or so ended with Mark at dusk. Then came the sirens for curfew, and occasionally the sirens for an air raid - which lasted all night and left John exhausted the next morning when he had to treat all those wounded the night previous.

It was tourniquet, stitch. Wash hands, stitch. Surgery, wash hands, stitch, wash hands, vaccine, antibiotics, prescription, tourniquet, prosthetics fitting, surgery, another surgery, lunch, wash hands, surgery, stitch. John learned more about suturing in one week than he had in six years of medical school.

Talking to Mark after a long day at work usually helped. Today was thankfully one of these days - and although he was still a little frosty, there was something very significant in their interactions. They grew more recognizable to each other by the second, which was... a good thing in a sea of not-so-good things. 

"How was the funeral?" Mark asked him. It almost sounded as if he didn't really want to know. He spoke quietly, eyes trained on a monochromatic palette of gray. 

"The funeral?" John parroted, understanding Mark's reference but not exactly comprehending its relevance.

"Gabriel Tabbot's funeral," Mark clarified, misconstruing John's confusion. He stopped mixing his palette and looked up at John, lips pursed. "Your father-in-law." 

"No, I know." John smiled, tersely, sharing an uncomfortable look with his canvas and Mark. "It was, uh, difficult. I'm sure that Claire and Allison have had a conversation about it."

John found his throat getting tight. Difficult. The understatement of the year. Still, against John's hope, Mark delved shamelessly deeper into the subject. The prodding would have been fine if that hadn't been the last time he'd seen James, politely distant, unnervingly even. Had I even said goodbye? John couldn't recall. Had I even spoken to him?

"My wife won't tell me anything that Claire says in confidence," Mark exclaimed, almost jokingly, but not quite. "They've a pact of some sort, I s'pose."

"Oh." John frowned, a wave of anxiety washing over his head, his hands. His damaged fist worked into the hollows of his ribcage involuntarily. "Right... Nothing?" John questioned, badly concealing his subtle panic. He felt himself blinking a little too rapidly. "At all?"

"Nothin' at all," Mark said as he turned back to his painting. John distinctly recognized the scene in which it was placed, lined with short apartment buildings on either side. It was the stained glass window in Mark's church before the whole street it'd been on had been blown to high heaven; the window was intimate and hazy, from Mark's memory. He applied paint to the canvas, smoothing away the color. And for a second, staring at that painting, so passionate in its authenticity, John thanked God that Mark didn't seem to know anything about his infidelity. A tiny miracle. Suddenly, breaking John out of his terrified reverie, Mark said, "Allison wanted to support Claire, y'know."

"You didn't" - John smiled, although he kind of wanted to punch a hole through his canvas. "You didn't need to come."

"Yeah, I did." Mark deliberately wasn't looking at him.

"You said you had to go to the obstetrician." John leaned into Mark's line of sight and attempted to make eye contact. There was definite shame in the creases of his face, drawn tight as he furrowed his brow.

"We could have rescheduled," Mark murmured. "Allison wanted us to."

There was a moment of silence as John tried to parse his own thoughts. Ultimately, they both knew why Mark hadn't come to the funeral. And as much as John liked to pretend, it had been both John's fault and his responsibility. The seconds stretched out; John finally thought of something that would ease the claustrophobic quiet. Jokingly: "I know you loathe the denomination and anything to do with it, but I think that you're developing Catholic guilt."

Mark broke into a laugh, sharing eye contact with John. Crinkled brown eyes, crow's feet at the corners. "And I'm sorry, too," John spat out before he could lose the nerve. Mark's smile faltered as John continued. "I haven't been a great friend lately - not even a good one. I know that, and I'm going to be better. Much better." 

Mark said nothing, stoic as ever.

"I swear," John added very seriously, for good measure, "to God." 

Mark actually cracked a smile at that. "What, you're a bloody Catholic, now?"

"Well, no," John began, not really catching onto the humor.

"Thank our blessed Lord," Mark said, clapping John on the back. "I'd rather you be an atheist, mate."

John nodded at Mark and grinned. Sounded easy enough.

***

It was a couple of days later when John popped in to say hello after Mark finished teaching an art class. Walking inside the art room was like walking into a microcosm of a war zone. Everything was everywhere. Puddles of murky water, unwashed brushes - John physically grimaced at the dirty paper towels strewing the floor like litter at a circus.

"Jesus," John said, stepping over a spill of yellow tempera paint. Mark was organizing things on the other side of the room when his head snapped up to see John weaving through the mess. 

"Yeah," Mark sighed, holding up a paper soaked with dirty paint water. 

"They tore the place apart." 

"Well, y'know. Thirty six-year olds. They were attentive. Can't complain." Mark gave John a half-smile, then leaned back down.

John gestured to a seat. "May I?"

"Course," Mark answered, throwing ruined paper into the trash.

"Do you want me to help at all?"

"'S fine, honestly," Mark answered, "I'm just gonna tidy" - he bent over, voice straining as he picked up three acrylic paint tubes - "this up."

John sat for a second in silence, watching Mark maneuver the room, wiping counters down. For the sake of conversation, John asked, "When do you think everything will be rebuilt?"

Mark turned to look at John from the other side of the room, all six feet of hulking mass; in his bare hands were tubes of empty paint. He pursed his lips under a trimmed brown beard. "Dunno. After the bombings stop, probably."

"I mean, Claire can't get food, anyway," John informed him. "That's why I'm wondering."

Mark's head popped back up. He fixed John with an incredulous look. "Huh?" 

"She can't go to Mrs. Hoffman's shop anymore to change out the ration slips," John explained to him, "It's destroyed."

"She's not going to the grocer on Downing?" Now Mark was sincerely confused.

"...No." John paused, giving Mark a dubious look. "Not that I know of."

"That's pretty funny," Mark said in a way that didn't denote any humor, "'cause Claire's been giving us all your leftover rations."

The revelation took a second to really sink in. John stared at Mark unblinkingly, palm going to the nape of his neck. "Us?" John asked, smiling from the sheer absurdity - the sheer audacity - of the word. There wasn't enough food to share between the two of them, nevermind any "us." 

"My family, James and Francis," Mark clarified.

"Huh." John licked his lips, smiling in a way he hoped wasn't blatantly transparent. 

"It's unbelievable amounts of food," Mark continued. "The government plan you're on must be pretty generous, yeah?"

They had stopped eating eggs or meat in favor of plain boiled potatoes. At any given time, there were thirty of them in the house. He'd never heard of any government plan - nor any ration book - that required twenty-one fucking servings of steamed potatoes and broccoli a week. Beyond John's peturbance at the food he'd been eating, there was a definite, gnawing confusion. He knew Claire had her own secrets. But this was arbitrary. Senseless. 

It didn't even truly matter that Claire was keeping something from him. What annoyed John most was the way he couldn't even grasp what she was trying to hide by buying lots of potatoes. It was maddening. Potatoes were maddening.

"Yeah," John said to himself. Mark didn't hear him say anything; he'd grabbed a broom that had been leaning on the wall and had begun to studiously sweep the floors of dust and messy scrap paper.

"Speaking of James - have you seen him?" Mark asked to the floor.

"No." John shook his head ardently. "I saw him last at the funeral, but we haven't spoken since." Which was a white lie - they didn't exactly speak at the funeral. 

Mark continued to sweep. "Well, I s'pose that he's always out during the raids with the Auxiliary Fire Service."

"But you live right next to each other - you'd think that he'd say hello to Allison if anything," John commented, starting to get the creeping feeling that James had isolated himself - and not just from John.

Mark frowned as he finished tidying the far side of the room. "Fair point, yeah, absolutely. Allison's halfway through the eighth month, so he probably has a good excuse, yeah?"

John was launched him into a wave of harsh - almost painful - nostalgia."The eighth month?" he said disbelievingly. "You can't be serious."

"I'm being completely serious!" Mark said, placing the broom inside the maintenance closet, moving to the sink, turning on the water.

Eight months ago, it had been summer. John unknowingly kneaded the crease in his forehead with his palm, sparking a strong discomfort in his aching hand. In summer, John hadn't even known who Sherlock Holmes was. His life wasn't a semblance of what it used to be, it wasn't a barely held facade. Work, getting married - that's what John thought about. Not stealing missile plans, not creating intricate, blasé lies. "Wow," John exhaled, saying it so he wouldn't think about the person he was trying so consistently not to think about, forcing his way back into this mundane conversation.

Mark wiped his hands on a towel and walked across the room, dress shoes clicking. "I can't believe. She looks like she's about to burst." 

"That's good, though," John told him, tracing Mark's movement towards him with his eyes. "Very good. Are you excited?"

Mark grinned as he sat down in a chair adjacent to John's. "Incredibly."

The energy in the room calmed. They were silent for a moment, even as Mark searched John's eyes for something.

"I'm glad to be back here with you," Mark eventually stated. "I was worried."

"Nothing to be worried about." John gave him a false, tight-lipped smile, and tried to believe it himself. "Everything's okay."

"We're good?"

"Oh, yeah," John sighed, readjusting in his seat. He crossed his arms over his chest and the smile naturally died away, leaving John at a loss when Mark said nothing in return. He was watching John like a hawk - with dark eyes, unflinching and unreadable, dark swirls of thought. He seemed to be silently weighing something.

Then, seamlessly, his expression broke. John could now see disturbance, concern. A couple seconds of heavy silence passed between them. "What is it?" 

Mark looked reluctant to answer John's inquiry. His brow furrowed and he leaned back in the plastic seat, eyes darting to the floor; his arm came up to smooth over his extremely short hair. When he spoke, his voice was tentative, low, and somewhat apologetic. "I was gonna ask you about it. I just didn't... I didn't..."

"What is it?" John repeated, his voice inflected with empathy.

"I didn't know how to ask," Mark murmured. He still wasn't looking at John directly. "I need your medical opinion."

John sat up a bit in his seat, the soft flitting pulse of concern growing into a palpable being in his stomach. "You're okay?"

"Yeah, no, 'course, it's nothin' like that." He paused. Then: "Can I be frank with you?"

"Of course," John answered, anxiety tightening his crossed arms to the point of discomfort. He was lying, sort of - this conversation was shaping up to be a bit more emotionally heavy than John was ready for. Regardless, Mark began to speak, although looking at John directly was still proving to be difficult for him.

"Allison... had been a few weeks pregnant in May of last year," Mark said, his speech losing its easy cockney drawl to a stiff formality.

"You never-" John objected, on impulse.

"She miscarried."

Just like that, somber understanding hit John in a way that stunned him into terrified silence. He was a doctor, a healer, but he still couldn't figure out what to say.

"Coupl'a times," Mark reluctantly added. Oh, Jesus. No wonder. The noise in the hallway quieted. "I told her we didn't need to have more children if her health was in danger, but-"

"I'm sorry," John finally managed. "Really, truly." He almost reached out to touch Mark's hunched shoulder - but a twisted fear of his own propensities pulled his hand back into his lap. He couldn't even touch his best friend without becoming nauseated, now. God forbid.

It took a second for Mark to even acknowledge what had been said; he was obviously lost in his own thoughts, his memories. "I'm... concerned about this baby."

"I'm not an obstetrician," John murmured sympathetically. His bedside manner took over. "But, at this point, it's almost impossible to miscarry. The baby's fully formed. Healthy."

"Yeah," Mark said, unconvinced, "I've been telling myself that."

"Sometimes it's just more difficult for one couple than another."

John watched as his words triggered something in the air, drove something deeply into Mark. "Like you and Claire, right?" he bit, fixing John with a look that was completely incongruous with the tone of the conversation they'd been having up to this point. A glint of spite - small, uncharacteristic, but definitely there - was in his gaze. John felt taken aback, affronted by the subtle outburst.

"Mark," John began, his voice a little incredulous.

"No, I don't understand," Mark interrupted, brows becoming furrowed in poorly-disguised anger. "You're able to have children, yet you refuse to."

Of course he didn't understand. Asking anyone to comprehend the complexities of a man who refused to have children was bound to be a monumental task in and of itself - but asking them to understand why he hadn't married his fiancée of six years went beyond what most Christian men were willing to ponder. John was trying to be placatory, but it was difficult when the incongruities were so obvious. "Why is that an issue?"

"Because we can't," Mark said, sorrow capsizing his voice. 

There was a second of surreal silence as they stared at one another, and then Mark's elbows went to his knees, angling his torso towards the floor. He placed his hand to his brow so John couldn't see his face, twisted in pain.

"I didn't know, Mark." John's hands were tightly laced together, bunched at the base of his spine, petrified to venture outside their personal space. Still, John tried to comfort Mark without touching him. He wasn't much of a talker to begin with - maybe it was a sense of unbreakable, intemperate masculinity that someone like him, father and husband, whose sole purpose was to create and care for a family, inherently possessed. Maybe John didn't have that. When he became angry, he broke things. Mark was sitting here, dead silent for fear of speaking. "You're not less," John murmured. "For not being able to."

John heard a low rumble that sounded faintly like "my fault."

Maybe John was somehow paternalistic - a fierce part of him became frustrated at Mark's self-loathing. "It is not your fault, Mark. I know it caused you and you wife a lot of pain. I know it was absurdly difficult. I know I have no idea how losing a child must feel. But I do know that it's not your fault. Not even scientifically. Sometimes fetuses don't attach to the cervix properly. Sometimes things don't work. It doesn't mean you did something wrong."

Mark said nothing except to press the base of his palms to his eyelids. 

"You're going to have a beautiful child, Mark," John said to him. Against his better judgment, John leaned in close and placed his hand on Mark's shoulder. "You know that, right?"

Mark nodded at the floor. He grunted in agreement.

"So it's going to be alright."

He nodded again.

"Hey." John's hand went to the back of his skull. It was strange to get this close to a man that wasn't Sherlock after all this time without any other platonic intimacy. The hair there was soft, and short enough to see scalp. "Come on."

He wiped his face, although he hadn't been crying, and sat up a little, giving John a weak smile. "Yeah."

"If it makes you feel better, Claire and I are going to have children. So." John clapped his neck twice. "Not now, but very soon."

"What changed?"

The question was a simple one, a reasonable one - somehow, John couldn't find it within himself to answer immediately. Or, rather, he could, but John wanted to tell him something true, even if it was only partially true, slightly true. 

John was starting to consider that maybe Sherlock was nothing more than a petty distraction from his mundane life. Because when he came in - constantly changing, ephemeral - John's life with Claire didn't change at all. The war continued. He still had bills to pay. She still wanted children. Maybe he fucked Sherlock because he was bored. Or maybe he fucked Sherlock because he was terrified of what his life was becoming.

How could he communicate something so absolutely base?

Here he was, again. He could be willing - now that there were no distractions, no childish whims to distract him from what was supposed to be inevitable. 

"I think it was just a matter of both of us being ready," John said after a long-suffering pause.

"Oh," Mark said with hidden weight. As in, Oh, glad you finally came to your senses. "Well, you should come over, John."

"When?" John questioned, deciding to not press on his deliberately loaded response.

"Why not right now?" Mark proposed after a short second, pulling himself into a stand.

"Oh, I don't know," John revised. "Claire's at home."

"She's with Allison today, so now you have no excuse," he replied jokingly.

John smiled a little. "I don't think I have a choice, do I?"

Mark laughed as he walked to the coat rack by the door.

***

James's home was a strange new thing when John witnessed it again. Adjacent to Mark's, exactly the same build and make, but so silent in comparison to the loud TV blaring inside Mark's living room, the sounds of his son running around inside. It looked smaller. Much more pale, much more lopsided, like the foundation had sunken in somewhere. Mark, as a successful grocery store owner, made hefty amounts of money - which explained how he readily got into the parties of the Bristol elite - but James, in comparison, was King Midas himself. Forged by the Great Depression and stock brokerage, he was one of the richest families in America. Yet he chose to stay in a modest home with a lopsided kitchen window next to his best friend's family. One could parse his motives. Especially now, when it looked like life had never stepped foot in that house. All the lights were off, although the sun had set half an hour ago. It didn't seem like James was living there.

John spared a last lingering look at it before following after Mark into his home.

There was profound warmth in the soft yellow light that splashed against the many, many paintings lining the walls of Mark's home. John hadn't been here in a while, but he could still place most of them, besides the recent ones that were now framed on the new mantelpiece in the living room.

The living room was much better decorated than Claire's and John's. A fireplace was burning steadily at the far side of the room, heating the two women chatting animatedly on a beautiful cotton, patterned couch. Mikey was constructing a tall building using colored blocks, sitting on the tapestry carpet in the middle of the room. The walls were clean and dark blue and absolutely brimming with busy portraiture and landscapes and still-life paintings, some of those who were recognizably John's - one painting Mark had even bought off from an auction after an exhibit at Bristol's local museum (now in ruins). Mark's house was a firm testament to what people knew of John - a healer, someone who loved and cared for people. Every one of his paintings on the Bakers' wall was now seemingly imbued with divine meaning. Also evident was the presence of divinity.

Embroidered into pillows on the two couches, painted onto canvases hammered into the wall, framed on printer paper - were biblical parable and platitude, merged within and synonymous with John's creations. It appeared to strip John's art of all worldliness. And even more religious was the amalgamation of bibles sitting on the coffee table left of the middle of the room. Different editions, all bookmarked. John didn't know if he was jealous of Mark's faith or terrified of it.

It was still strange to walk into a place of such safety, such energy, after witnessing what he had outside of their door. Claire and Allison hadn't noticed them yet, still entrenched in their conversation. The house smelled of cooking and lilac and John was truly at a loss.

"Honey?" Mark said as he stepped in. "I brought a stranger home from work. Hope y'don't mind."

Allison's head snapped up at Mark; then her eyes shifted to John. Immediately, pregnant belly and all, she wobbled onto her feet and went to him for a hug. "Dr. Watson!" she exclaimed, short, incredibly friendly and harmlessly round - a perfect contrast to her solemn, large and well-defined husband - "I haven't seen you in absolute ages, absolute ages!"

He squeezed her warmly. "You were very missed, Mrs. Baker."

"How've you been?" Allison exclaimed, drinking in John's features like she hadn't seen him in ten years. John shared an accidental look with Claire, who was clearly unamused by his surprise appearance. 

"Better," John stated with a reluctant smile.

Her smile slipped as she stared at him. "Oh, well." The sudden change in tone unnerved John; he stepped back, out of the radius of her hug, and broke eye contact. From his periphery, he could see Claire cross her arms across her chest and scrub her bottom lip with bright teeth. Silence settled over the living room, emphasized by the sound of Mark's son rolling his wooden car on the floor. 

"Mikey," Allison almost snapped. "Did you set the table, like I asked?"

"No," came a petulant voice. John glanced over to catch Mike giving him a very strange look - he turned away before John managed to smile at him.

"Dr. Watson will be sharing a table with us tonight. Set four plates, please." She was stern, but ruffled his hair maternally as he stood to go to the dining room. After he was gone, she grinned at John again. "My little handful, hmm?"

"Oh," John said, almost flustered, "Sure, yeah."

"He remembers you," Mark told John as he crossed the room to turn on the radio. "He's just a little reserved."

Claire cleared her throat behind the three of them; they all turned in tandem to look at her. She looked like she was going to shoot John dead. "Does anyone have a cigarette, perchance?" Claire asked, arms still folded across her chest. Her pale blue dress bunched as she pulled in her legs on the Bakers' couch.

"Dinner's going to be ready soon," Allison implored, placing a hand on Claire's left shoulder. Claire looked up at her like she had forgotten who she was. "Smoke afterwards."

"But-"

"Please," Allison said, leaning down to unwind her arms, trying to pull her up.

When Claire finally stood, John took three noticeable steps back, up against the coffee table. The radio show host's speaking hid the soft noise the coffee table made as it scraped the carpet. 

The glare when Claire's eyes finally landed on John - his body slanted back as if repelled - was almost castrating. She brushed past him on the way to the dining room. Her bare forearms had goosebumps, even though John was hot, much too hot. 

John removed his coat with a strained smile and placed it on the coat rack. It felt like both Allison and Mark were staring at him, waiting for him to explain what had just transpired in the middle of their living room. They stood still as John's eyes darted between them uselessly. 

"Dinner's ready," Claire called in a deadpan from the dining room.

Allison was the first one to break cynical eye contact with John - he traced her path as she walked into the kitchen to serve the meal. When John turned back to look at Mark, he was still staring, brows furrowed in unfathomable thought. 

"Dinner's ready," John said in a unenthusiastic murmur. Mark's troubled gaze finally flickered away from John's face - he wordlessly followed after Allison.

John could hear speaking from the kitchen. Hushed, stilted. He loathed to think about the damage this visit could cause.

***

Dinner passed without incident, surprisingly. Afterwards, Mark retired to his room to sort out finances for his grocery store. John was currently washing dishes in the kitchen, trying to ignore the soft trickling of animated conversation from the living room. 

John paused in scrubbing a pot to look through the doorway. Allison was sitting on the couch with Claire at her feet, chatting. He could almost hear them.

Surreptitiously, he lowered the faucet to a quiet trickle. Their voices rose and lowered with each sentence, with every exclamation.

"It's getting quite ridiculous at this point," Claire said matter-of-factly. "Children aren't safe here, anymore."

"You're right." John heard Allison sigh with real weight. "But Mike-"

"I'm not saying it's your fault, darling." 

"I know. But Bristol has the best schools. And Mikey's a tad... you know..." Allison trailed off into implicit silence, leaving a question hanging in John's mind. Mikey was what?

"Yes," Claire replied. "I understand." There was a pause in the flow of the conversation, and John glanced back again to see Claire move a little closer to Mikey, who was playing with wooden trucks on the other side of the carpet. 

"May I play with you, Michael?" Claire asked politely. "You seem to be having fun."

Mikey looked up from his cars. "Do you like blue?" he asked her, seemingly apropos of nothing. 

John knew Claire liked blue. Robin's egg blue. It was her favorite color, so she always said. John used to paint entire landscapes in blue monochrome, portraits and still life pastels, and give them to her. They'd been hung up in their living room. They weren't, anymore.

"Yes," Claire responded to Mikey. 

"Here." He rolled a blue car to her. She picked it up and weighed it in her hands.

"Thank you, Michael." She smiled at him, no teeth, and then began to roll the cars around on the floor. Allison watched them with the softest maternal affection.

John suddenly felt shame as he watched Claire drive her toy car on the floor with Mikey. It seemed like a private moment. A moment of quiet contentedness, soft satisfaction, and he was intruding on it, sullying it. He turned away from the three of them and recommenced washing the dishes, staring resolutely at the soap sluicing through his fingers.

"Have you heard of one 'Sherlock Holmes?'" John immediately heard Claire say as soon as he had settled down. He dropped the dish he was washing in the sink; it thankfully landed with a thud instead of a crash, but the water splashed onto his work clothes. He fought the urge to storm out - it was gradually starting to feel like Claire knew, and she was toying with him, playing with her food. 

Does she know?

"I've heard of him, yes," Allison said. "Heard he's not a very nice fellow."

John's fists balled. He felt the pressure behind his eyes building. Wherever John went. Always here, always around the next corner, always prying his way into my bloody head. 

"No, but he's the son of my father's biggest client. Apparently Father's... premature death left some business ends to tie up."

"Oh?"

"We have a meeting."

Christ, Sherlock. John stopped pretending to wash the dishes altogether; he stared at the curtain covering the kitchen sink window and let the water swirl down the drain.

"When?" Allison pried in a hushed voice.

"In a few weeks. Apparently, the Holmes' lawyers need to write up contracts and whatnot."

"For what?"

"I'm... supposing that Mr. Holmes will pay me to relinquish my shares of his company."

"That's horrible," Allison immediately exclaimed. "They can't - they can't force you-"

"It's business, dear," Claire explained evenly. "Truth be told, I will be relieved to be rid of the Holmes and their guns." The sounds of toy vehicles rolling on the floor had suddenly ceased. The only thing John could hear was the rash pounding of his pulse, the water rinsing the same pot as it had been five minutes ago.

"Why?" he heard Allison almost whisper.

"Oh, because I have no earthly idea how to be on the board of a company."

"No," Allison clarified, "Why would you..."

Her voice ran out and the house became startlingly quiet for an uncomfortable length of time. Not even the perfunctory scrubbing of porcelain bowls could ease the blistering silence.

"I-" Claire cut herself off. Eventually, with a torturous slowness that left John physically unsteady: "I feel that he is an unkind man."

Allison sighed, slowly. "Claire," she almost whispered. The home was so stuffy that it felt like Allison was whispering directly into John's ear. "Mark talked to me about Mr. Holmes, too. Apparently" - and she said it like this was her first mention of this to anyone - "he and John are friends. Good friends."

Another dose of dead silence and John was developing a thick heat, pooling at the nape of his neck. Too warm, John thought, but just barely. Too warm in here.

"Friends? John despises him."

"Not if what my husband is saying is correct."

"Allison. They look like they want to tear each other apart whenever their eyes meet," Claire explained. "The first time they met, at a party we had gone to, they insulted each other all night. I had to leave, with Sherlock's date. It looked like they wanted to jump on top of each other. And the second party we went to with Sherlock Holmes, they got into an argument. Sherlock insulted my father and John - he stormed away, to go... to go fetch..." She trailed off. And then: "He said he spoke to James. He said-"

"John's a good man," Allison placated. "If you ask, I'm sure he'll-"

"Whenever they're together, I'm left behind. It's always - them. Alone." Claire inhaled quickly. John didn't know what to do; he couldn't move, he couldn't think. He didn't know if what Claire was saying was literal or speculative, an innocent assessment or damning evidence. The panic was radiating outwards in his hands like an ink blot.

"Don't worry, alright, dear?"

"They look like they... they..."

"Did you hear me? I said not to worry!" Allison repeated, thankfully interrupting her thought. John heard the couch squeak as Allison teetered her way into a standing position. "It's a shame you have to sell your father's shares, but Mr. Holmes won't be any trouble."

Claire paused, still half-buried in thought. 

"And you and John," Allison began, seemingly afraid of this tightness that had suddenly settled over the living room like a rain cloud. "When are you going to try for children?"

The deathly silence gaped open like a rotting cavity; it was toxic to a point that even Allison could not ignore. "Claire?" she questioned, her tone tinted with desperate cheeriness. 

John heard Claire stand up, too. Like she was displacing all the air in the fucking house, like she was the siren before a bombing. Her response was short and terse, her voice venomous - acidic and almost wrathful in its restraint. Claire seethed, "John's... not ready."

There was a moment where no one knew what was going to happen next. Allison felt this, especially, because she deliberately ignored what Claire had said and hastily moved on to the next topic of conversation.

"Can you put Mikey to bed, Claire?" she asked, her tone barely as assured as it had been before. "I would, but..."

"Of course," Claire answered. Her voice had mellowed with almost inhuman speed. "But I don't want to wake him."

John wiped shaking hands on a wet towel and walked back into the living room. "I'll carry him upstairs, Mrs. Baker," he said, deliberately avoiding eye contact with his fiancée. Half of him wanted her to know that he had heard their conversation. Maybe to let her simmer in her own awareness. Which was really not what he should have done, given that he was currently trying to repair the divide between them - but they way she had spat the words, with such disdain...

As if John hadn't already agreed to having children with her. As if he hadn't tortured himself with the thought.

He smiled politely at Allison, not allowing her time to register or answer. She looked a bit disgruntled, although it soon faded into relief.

"Can't get him to sleep once he's woken up," she kind of whispered. "Thank you."

John leaned over and plucked the sleeping child off of the floor. His head lolled back, up against John's shoulder, although he was a little smaller and quite a bit lighter than most eleven year olds. Up close, he could see Mikey's resemblance to Mark. The dark hair, the thick black eyelashes, and a nose that could cut. Allison's freckles were sprinkled all over his face unsparingly. And even though his eyebrows were still sparse and thin, John could see the unmistakable jut of Mark's brow bone in Mikey's face.

"He's safe with me," John remarked quietly, still looking at the boy's face, lips half-parted to bring in air. He probably had some congestion - his breaths were stuttering in his chest, a little rough to the touch. His heartbeat was going as fast as a snare drum. 

Throwing one more reassuring look in Allison's direction, John walked out of the living room and up the stairs, to Mikey's bedroom. He nudged the door open with his foot, and light cut into the room, illuminating a sliver of Mikey's twin sized mattress. It was robin's egg blue. Hardly surprising for a boy of eleven, but John was almost reluctant to know it. As if any resemblance to Claire - be it as mundane as a favorite color - was the universe actively working against him.

Putting children to bed - it was strange, this ritual of fatherhood. He was holding a living, breathing person in his arms, something that had conscious thought and sentience. His breath was quiet and strangely fascinating, so much shallower than John's. For a second, he didn't want to put Mikey down. He admitted himself that 

The sound of someone's heels clicking on the way up the steps broke the thoughtful respite and drove John to quickly lay Mark's son on the pillow, placing blankets on his chest, tucked up close to his chin. He looked like he was going to be hot - John didn't want Mikey to be overheated. He pulled the blanket down a little and then slipped out of his room, into the hallway.

Claire was waiting for him, standing at the top of the stairs with her body leaning against the banister. There was a lit cigarette held between her fingers. "Claire," was the first disbelieving word out of John's mouth - "what are you...?"

She stalked forward. Her heels were sinking into the carpet flooring, muffling all the noise it would have made as she advanced on John. In this low, orange light, her eyes were gray, no hint of blue in them. 

"It's a shame," she remarked. Mikey's door was still cracked open, and she shut it with the heel of her shoe so she could squeeze between John and the wall. The smoke was rising up and clouding her face, clouding her poppy red lips.

"What?" John asked, his voice earning some bite to it. "What the hell?"

She was close enough to kiss him. Instead, she held her lit cigarette against his shirt, watching the end rumble and glow with heat as if expecting it to burn John alive. Immediately, he felt the heat eat at his clothing and press against tender flesh. He gritted his teeth against the pain as she pressed into him harder. "You would be a wonderful father, John," she explained, her voice going mockingly deep and sincere. "I simply don't understand why you refuse to become one."

Then she was walking away, down the stairs. John looked down in shock; there was a black ring on his shirt where her cigarette had burned a hole into it, and the skin underneath was singing with pain. What the hell was that?