Over the next three and a half months, nearly everything changes.

Not all at once. At first, most of the changes are gradual; it feels like surfacing from a deep sleep. Like the days after the winter solstice, when it seems there might be more light than before, but it also seems it might be just imagination. She moves slowly at first, and she focuses first just on the essentials, but accomplishes more with every passing day. Her daughter, her restless holubka, moves often now, encouraging her.

Her habits change. She goes to the OB/GYN immediately and often -- at first in a panic that she’s already ruined her baby’s life with her previous lies and neglect, but later, after the tests say otherwise, for regular checkups on her and her improbably healthy, perfect daughter. (A daughter! She smiles and begins talking to her baby about things she liked when she was a little girl.) In between, she takes her supplements and eats an impossible amount of food.

Her job changes. She officially quits her job at the clinic, unwilling to pretend everything is normal when John is there. She also tells Mycroft she’s going on maternity leave early. In reality, she suspects she’s quitting the service for good. No more lying about who she fundamentally is -- even if John never takes her back, she doesn’t want to lie to her daughter.

She starts volunteering at a clinic treating veterans with PTSD. Few want the job -- it’s dangerous and unpredictable when the veterans have flashbacks, and tragic when they break down and cry. She loves it, and she’s good at it. When they ask if they can hire her on as an employee in the future, once her baby’s born, she’s delighted.

Her flat changes. (It was once her and John’s flat; she mostly stops thinking of it as such as time goes by and she hears nothing from him.) She gradually converts the guest room to a nursery and begins buying things her daughter will need. (At one point a beautiful mahogany crib appears, which she didn’t order. The card beneath the red bow says, simply, M. She sends a text on the now dormant Mycroftphone -- Thanks.)

Her body changes (and her entire wardrobe with it). Her skin itches and stretches. Every part of her aches or tingles or cramps or swells -- or all of the above. She is never comfortable. She eats constantly, tries to sleep all the time (but with less success than ever before), urinates incessantly -- but has to take pills in order to defecate.

Her physical capabilities change. After a brief return to running, she switches to jogging and eventually mostly takes walks. Her vision swims and she fights for air every time she climbs a hill or stairs. She’s no longer nimble, and no longer capable of lifting heavy things. She feels both restless and tired all the time. At night, she tosses and turns, trying to ease pain in her hips and an itching, crawling discomfort in her legs.

Her mind changes. This child that she never wanted now occupies most her thoughts, waking and sleeping. Her anxieties, especially, are omnipresent.

She dreams her daughter has no eyes or no limbs. That she’s born with a vulture’s head, and it’s Mary’s fault for not taking proper care during the pregnancy. She dreams her child is healthy, but she forgets her on the subway platform; in a locked car; in a secret room in the flat that Mary had forgotten, where her cries go unheard for days. Mary watches, helpless, as her daughter finds and plays with her loaded gun.

Amid the grim visions, though, there’s so much anticipation and joy -- more than she ever would have predicted.

She dreams -- asleep and awake -- about holding her child. About her daughter’s expressions, smile, her rapt curiosity and delight as she explores the world. She imagines reading to her daughter -- she finds and purchases some of her favorite books that her mother and grandmother read to her. Imagines singing to her. She imagines patching up her scrapes, watching her learn to run and swim and climb. She imagines taking her daughter on adventures, showing her every corner of the world that Mary has previously loved, and discovering new ones together.

She thinks about her daughter’s tiny body, hands, face. Will her eyes be her mother’s or her father’s? Will her chin be square or pointy? Who will she look like when she laughs? Mary dreams about every possible face, and loves them all.

She researches nannies and daycares; she’ll need a great deal of help, and her pay from her time in the service should cover it. But her heart breaks already at the idea of giving her daughter up for hours each day. She’s a bit frightened by how attached she can feel to someone she’s never met. At times she’s still frustrated and terrified about how much she’ll be tied down in the future, how huge a commitment she’s making. But the alternative -- giving her daughter up to be cared for by another -- seems even worse.

Nearly everything in her life changes, but one thing does not. John doesn’t contact her. (Sherlock doesn’t, either, though she periodically still sees Wiggins lurking and observing her.) She misses John still, so much -- and Sherlock, and Janine, and for the moment Anthea; her life is lonely -- but most of all, John. But she begins to accept it, to grieve over the loss, and to prepare to move on.

There’s one thing she needs to do before she does, though. She needs to take down Magnussen.

* * *

She’s tried, but she can’t leave well enough alone. She doesn’t trust Magnussen not to go after John and Sherlock. And she doesn’t trust him not to threaten to separate her from her daughter -- she can’t keep custody if her alleged crimes get out. She wishes she could ask Sherlock for help and trust him not to go haring off alone to confront Magnussen again directly. But his track record on that front is not good. And she still can’t bear to talk to him, with the wound of John’s leaving her so fresh.

(She does worry that Sherlock might take matters into her own hands, though. She collars Wiggins at one point, while he’s attempting to pretend he’s not spying on her, and makes him promise to let her know if Sherlock appears to be gearing up to go after Magnussen. She impresses upon him that Sherlock may die if he goes after Magnussen without talking to her first. Wiggins stutters that he’s seen no signs of such actions on Sherlock’s part at all, but that he’ll let her know, before he goes back to pretending to be coincidentally buying groceries at her local shopping mart.)

When it comes to Magnussen, she can’t count on Mycroft, either. While she knows that Mycroft cares about her and Sherlock both (and John by proxy at least), she doesn’t trust that he’ll prioritize any of them ahead of what he sees as the good of the realm. She’ll have to take Magnussen down herself.

Mycroft will be royally pissed off. But it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

Before she eliminates Magnussen, she needs to identify his secret partner, if he truly has one. The dead man’s switch he mentioned when she threatened to shoot him might be real, and someone else might gain all his information when she takes him out. She needs to be prepared to take them out, too.

Unfortunately, she can’t track Magnussen via her usual means. She lacks access to her old work databases and camera feeds; Mycroft has made it clear that he’s watching her use of work resources.

She can’t do it alone, though; she needs help. A great deal of help to sort through all the information about Magnussen’s possible associates and get farther than she did before. She needs someone with unreasonable, obsessive dedication and an eye for detail.

She knows just who to talk to.

* * *

Anderson and the remnants of the Sherlock Holmes fan club eagerly take the case.

Their meetings are clandestine -- often just Anderson and Mary in an ever-changing location -- to avoid the eyes of Mycroft and Mary-haters alike. Mary breaks some of her official oaths and tells them much of what she knows about Magnussen. She encourages them to cast their nets broadly, and she hopes they’ll think differently enough about the problem to spot something that she missed in the time she spent looking for his secret partner.

They cast their nets very broad, and they come up with many theories. Too many theories, but none of them terribly compelling. She rules out immediately the ones where Magnussen’s secret partner is Mycroft -- or a member of the royal family. She argues with Anderson and the others about the rest.

“Many of the people you’re suggesting are related to Moriarty. What evidence is there that Magnussen had anything to do with him?”

Anderson frowns. “Moriarty is connected to nearly everyone in the world of crime,” he argues.

“Was, you mean.”

“Actually, some of us think he’s not dead --”

“Right,” she cuts him off, trying not to roll her eyes. “Noted. Back to their connection.”

“Well,” he continues, “They must have had contacts in common, at minimum. Given their mutual interest in power and information.” Mary frowns, still skeptical. “And at least ten of Moriarty’s network could plausibly have met with Magnussen a number of times.”

“Yes, but how many of them are dead now?” she asks, half amused, half exasperated.

“Eight of them, if you believe the papers. Which, of course, Magnussen runs.” He raises his eyebrows significantly. She sighs. He continues, “Of the remaining two, Helen thinks Ivana Belova. She was in Moscow every time Magnussen was there, and she uses blackmail.”

Mary frowns. They’ve been through her dossier before, along with dozens of others. “She uses it clumsily, without finesse. And she lives in Moscow -- not much of a coincidence.”

Anderson nods. “That’s why I still think it’s Sebastian O’Morain.”

“But why?” Mary asks. “He’s an Irish terrorist. A bomber, What do he and Magnussen have in common?”

Anderson argues, “He helped supply muscle and weapons expertise to Moriarty and his associates on a number of occasions. Maybe he’s doing so for Magnussen now -- helping him keep from getting his hands dirty with kidnappings and the like.”

“Maybe,” Mary says. “But I just don’t see the connection.”

Anderson shrugs. “It might not be either of them. We’ll keep looking.”

* * *

The problem is, she’s out of time. She’s eight months pregnant and can’t wait any longer for tenuous conspiracy theories. She’s going to have to act soon to take Magnussen out and then hope she can locate his secret partner afterward, without them inflicting too much intervening damage.

She’s deciding the best venue to shoot Magnussen -- actually shoot him, this time -- when Sherlock shows up at her door.

“You knocked,” is all she can think to say. “You never used to knock.”

“Yes, well,” he says, shifting his weight back and forth on his feet and giving a quarter of a smile, “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah.” It’s been months. She feels glad to see him, and sad, and wary, and angry, and jealous. Mostly sad, though. Has he come to fetch the last of John’s things? To tell her John is officially ending it?

“Mary,” he says, “come to my family’s house for Christmas.”

She stares at him. “Sorry?” Christmas is next week, but surely she’s misunderstood.

“Christmas,” he repeats, drawing the word out and enunciating, “And Boxing Day. Join us.”

She frowns. “Why?”

He looks at her a long moment, then looks down at her abdomen. “There are things that need resolving.”

She wraps her arms protectively around her belly, fearing what resolving might imply. “Does John want --”

Sherlock cuts her off. “We’ll see you there. Dinner’s at five. Don’t be late!” He smiles and turns away, his coat swirling out behind him.

She stares after him. “But I’m spending Christmas with the vets,” she says to his receding figure.

* * *

What does Sherlock intend? What does John intend?

Sherlock wouldn’t be so cruel as to invite her to a family holiday just so John can officially break up with her -- would he? So they can have a custody battle over Christmas dinner? Surely not. Does that mean that there’s hope -- at least of forgiveness, if not necessarily repairing things further?

Sherlock’s often unkind, though, without meaning to be. And he’s not as good at predicting John as he thinks. Besides which, he frequently seems to draw up plans that maximize drama.

If she’s wrong, she’ll have to watch the two of them being happy together from the outside. In front of Sherlock’s family. She’ll have to keep up appearances, be outwardly cheerful.

And what exactly has Sherlock told his parents, anyway? Are they aware that John’s been living with Sherlock?

The entire thing sounds ill-conceived and potentially heart-wrenching. It would be far safer to make John come here and finally have it out on her own territory.

She calls the the PTSD clinic and tells them she won’t make it for Christmas.