Though I Shiver
by imp

Though I Shiver

imp

Summary

Mary and John swap bodies, and suddenly it's Holmes' issues they have to deal with.

Notes

None

Chapter One

She had, of course, noticed the way Holmes looked at her husband. Who could avoid it, in her position? But she had never before seen that look directed at her, which was her first clue that something odd had happened between last night and this morning.

The other clue was that she had a member between her legs that should not have been there, and it was really quite sensitive.

"Holmes," she said, and sat up. "There's something wrong."

"Indeed there is, good fellow," Holmes said. "Your wife is naked. I'm committing a rather ghastly impropriety."

"No," she said. "Well, yes, you are. But there's something else wrong."

Holmes narrowed his eyes. "You're drugged, or sick. Your speech patterns are completely wrong."

Just then, Mary's body groaned, rolled over, and said, "Holmes, it's bloody early, what do you want?"

The sheet slipped off John's chest, and his eyes widened. She looked rather odd when shocked, she noted.

"Oh, bloody hell," John said, staring at his - well, Mary's - breasts.

Holmes met Mary's eyes again. "Mary," he said quietly, then glanced at John.

"Yes," she said.

And John promptly windmilled his arms and fell out of bed.

||

"It's rather a large problem," Holmes said when they were all properly clothed and slightly calmer. "And really very extraordinary. I find myself quite overwhelmed."

"I know," Mary said. "You never use so many adjectives when calm. And you talk more quickly."

"I say, having access to Watson's brain has improved your deductive skills to some degree."

"Hardly," John said before she could slap Holmes. "She's intelligent, Holmes. She simply chooses not to waste her time demonstrating it to you."

"Proof of her intelligence, in its own way."

"I'd thank you both to stop talking about me," she said loudly.

"As the lady wishes," Holmes said, smirking and looking her up and down. "Have you a better suggestion?"

"We need to each write down what we did yesterday," Mary said, looking at John. Good heavens, seeing her own face with John's expressions was jarring. "Separately, without discussing it. We might convince each other events went differently than we properly remember, otherwise."

"Don't say a word," John said without even looking at Holmes. "If you insist on acting the fool over my wife's intelligence, I'll be forced to punch you, and Mary's hand lacks the callouses on her knuckles."

Mary reflexively felt her hand. Or John's. This was all hellishly confusing.

But John's hand was familiar, even if she was currently controlling it. And his callouses...she'd enjoyed them before.

When she realized they were both looking at her, she cleared her throat and said, "I agree. And desire to retire to make my list." She stood. "I'll leave you two to it, then, shall I?"

She left Holmes and Watson staring at each other across the table. It was such an ordinary circumstance that she was a bit comforted in spite of herself.

||

Composing the list was singularly easy. She had had a rather simple day, and she had an excellent memory. Unfortunately, it also confirmed what she had already suspected: she'd done absolutely nothing yesterday that would precipitate the sudden unleashing of mystical powers.

Unless being rather short with Mrs. Keller had caused the good woman to utilize heretofore unknown magical powers, but Mary did not need Holmes' detecting experience to know that was really very unlikely.

She wondered if he was having a crisis of faith of some sort over this. He was, after all, the sort of man who believed quite firmly in rationality. She wouldn't be surprised if even now he was attempting to discover a chemical compound that could induce a shift in consciousness.

It made her feel a bit sorry for him, but not sorry enough to attempt to comfort him. John would do it adequately; and anyway, she and he had only just reached an uneasy peace, largely through allowing one another to insult the other at his or her leisure.

When John entered the bedroom, she was more relieved than she wanted to admit. "Have you finished, then?"

"It was distressingly simple," John said. "I've no idea what could have caused this."

"Nor I," she said. "I suppose Mr. Holmes has a theory or two."

"He's muttering to himself and looking rather lost," John said, smiling just a bit. "Poor fellow."

"We may have to solve this ourselves."

"Possibly." John squinted at her and shook his head. "This is close to terrifying."

"I know." she stood and went over to him, feeling a bit of a jolt when she took his hands. They were smaller than she'd realized, she thought - or perhaps John was larger than she realized. They had fit together so well for so long that she'd forgotten the slow process of discovery by which they'd learned one another's bodies, frightening and exhilarating, taking months to complete.

She thought, suddenly and with exceptionally strong clarity, that she had absolutely no wish to learn her own body from John's perspective. There was a reason she had not remained a spinster, after all.

Realizing she had been silent for too long, she said, "It will work out. We will make it work out."

John's laugh was choked. "Now you sound like him."

And he looked like him, she thought, lost and confused, utterly out of his depth. Well, Mary was as well, but she was rather more proficient at detecting emotional turmoil and soothing it than either of them. So she put a finger under John's chin, gently urging his head up, and kissed him.

It was utterly strange, and yet not strange at all. For she knew her chin, and the shape of her lips, and the feel of the tip of her nose. She knew her tongue and her teeth. And she knew John's, just as she knew his kiss: it still sent a shiver through her, despite the body she wore.

When they pulled apart, she cleared her throat and said, "So you see, we will find a way to resolve this."

"One way or another," John said with a mischievous curve to his lips. It looked, she thought, rather attractive on her.

"Yes," she said, and then put a hand at the nape of John's neck and kissed him again.

"I've thought of something," Holmes said, opening their door. "I'm a fool for not thinking of it before. The root of the hemlock plant, though quite poisonous, has some properties that, when absorbed by charcoal and burnt in a brass dish - "

Mary finished the kiss, more than slightly pleased that John was happy to follow her lead. When she'd caught her breath, she licked her lips and turned to Holmes.

"I don't believe I inhaled such a concoction," she said, "but if you think it is worth investigating, then we certainly shall."

"I have often thought," Holmes said in the distracted tone that meant he was primarily talking to himself, "that were I ever to spontaneously replicate, I would find myself compelled to explore what sexual congress must feel like for my past partners."

"And if you were to find yourself transported to Irene Adler's body?" Mary said.

"Don't be ridiculous, dear - woman," Holmes said. "I should throw myself off the nearest high building and think nothing of it."

"Presumably not, since you'd be dead."

"Yes, yes, you're very clever." Holmes turned to John. "I shall investigate the hemlock further. Have you the lists?"

"On the table," John said. His hand was still on Mary's wrist. Holmes very obviously inspected it, then turned towards the table and snatched up the papers.

"I'm sure they'll prove to be invaluable, at least as distraction." Holmes' lips twisted. "Good day."

"Holmes."

Holmes stopped, on the verge of leaving the room. Mary, having surprised herself by speaking in the first place, was entirely unsure of what she might say.

Finally she said, "Do try not to injure yourself overmuch. This is, after all, a complex case."

"Duly noted," he said, and shut the door firmly behind him.

"I feel bad for shocking him," Mary said.

"Do you really?"

"I'm not entirely cold-hearted, you know."

"I do know." John sat down on the bed and made a face, looking up at her. "I'm too tall, my dear."

She sat down next to him. "We're both entirely too upset to do what you're thinking about."

His look of pure surprise was something she would savor. "How did you know? I'm not -"

"You're pressing your thighs together, John."

Good heavens, her blushes were really very obvious, weren't they? "Ah," John said. "I see."

And now, of course, it was difficult to turn her mind away from precisely what she'd said they would not do. "Come here," she said finally. Her voice – John's voice – had that roughness in it that she associated with frustrated interludes in secluded corridors, their hands on each other in ways they should both have been too chaste to explore.

But there was no such constraint upon them now. There was, of course, the very real trepidation that Mary supposed was normal for a couple that found themselves in one another's bodies – if such a thing could be normal – but no one would find them, scold them thoroughly, and throw them out of society.

Holmes might try, of course, but the idea of Holmes expelling anyone else from society was humorous more than fearsome.

"What are you thinking about?" John said. He'd obeyed her order, but was still not touching her.

"Holmes," she said, and blushed. "I mean – well. No. I mean Holmes."

"I see," John said, tone indicating that he didn't.

"There's no one to tell us not to do this," she said, putting her hand on John's back, "though he would if he could."

"You don't know the half of it."

"I did wonder," she said. "What would happen if – well, if he truly got to you. I am grateful, you know, for how you withstood his protestations."

"Don't be absurd," John said. "I withstood them because I love you, and no amount of dramatic entreaties, coming from the odd paid hag or Holmes himself, could make me change my mind."

It was a fine sentiment, but – "Paid hag?"

"A story for another time, possibly."

"I see." She looked John over. The expression on his face was not one of her own. He was uncertain, shy, as he'd been when they were first courting.

"Come here," she said, and drew John to her, lying down as she did.

He was warm and soft, utterly wrong, yet still her John. She kissed him as gently as she could, trying to keep calm. She knew he relied on her calm, was moored by it, sometimes even used it as a shield against Holmes' own madness.

What was happening to them now surpassed Holmes at his worst. That they could take this small comfort in one another was something for which Mary was profoundly grateful.

Still, she felt she had to be careful. "Tell me if you want me to stop," she said, running her hands over his back, his arms. She kept her eyes on his face, trying to find her John beneath her own skin.

"Don't stop," John said.

She didn't.

||

They lay together for quite some time before John said, "Time has not changed my feelings. I do not wish it to be so, but -"

"You feel as if you're betraying him." Mary moved her now-clumsy limbs, providing a space for John to curl against. "I know."

"Do you truly?"

She had to fight down a smile, humor gaining ground in spite of everything. "You cannot anyone could grow close to you and not understand your relationship with Holmes."

"We do try not to be obvious."

The undercurrent of fear in his voice that was always there when he spoke of Holmes was infinitely deeper now. "And to most, you are not." She laid a hand on John's shoulder. "But you also do not allow most to become close to you."

For awhile he did not answer. Then he turned his head so that his cheek was resting against the inside of her arm.

"I shudder to think what I'd do without you. Stay."

"Of course," she said, rubbing her thumb against John's cheek. He did not understand what he meant to those who loved him; she wondered with regretful clarity if he ever would. "Of course."

||

She did not know if the effects of having exchanged bodies was what exhausted John so much, or if his own mental turmoil had caught him. Regardless of the source, his exhaustion claimed him for the entire night and most of the morning the next day.

After waiting for him as long as her hunger would allow, she went downstairs. She was unsurprised to see Holmes in the clothes he had been wearing yesterday; she had awakened a few times during the night, John's dreams startling her out of sleep, and had heard Holmes' music each time.

"I could frighten you," Holmes said before she could greet him, "so easily. Did the good doctor tell you what he's done wearing that body?"

"It is his," Mary said, "and he told me when I prompted him."

"Such a paragon of healthy marital relations," Holmes said. He sounded rather like he wished to tear her eyes out, or take another equally extreme action.

It fell to her to be patient, then. "I have no illusions about your relationship with him. I am somewhat surprised that you think I could."

Holmes raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

She sighed. "You are renowned for your observational capabilities, and yet you cannot see that I knew him when I married him, and I knew that his mind and his heart. You are in both, Holmes, as you have been since you met him. Your – "And she could not keep from blushing, not now, "- relations are something I am not entirely certain of, for the mechanisms are not something I can definitely know of, and the subtleties of your emotional relationship requires constant study. But – Holmes." She was rather certain she had been babbling. "It is no mystery to me that the strength of your relationship requires my respect, and my acquiescence, should I wish to remain John's wife."

She didn't know what she expected. A softening of Holmes' unflinching regard, perhaps, or at the very least a grudging nod in her direction for not being a dribbling idiot – an action she was thoroughly familiar with. But instead he stood, said, "An urgent appointment requires me to be elsewhere," and walked directly out the front door, still wearing his dressing gown.

Anyone else would have been back shortly, but Mary knew Holmes was entirely capable of wandering London in his dressing gown for hours on end. So when Mrs. Hudson came in and inquired after him, Mary told her that he had gone out without mentioning what garments he wore, and asked for food to be brought to her.

It was a silly indulgence, but she was positively flummoxed, and could not discuss the matter with John.

In the end she did very little discussing of any sort. She spent the time staring at her knuckles, reading a book, and then staring at her knees. John's body, so dear to her, had never seemed more foreign than it did right now.

What had Holmes and John done? What did they continue to do? She was certain there were books on the topic, but she was equally certain that they were entirely inaccessible to her. Even the thought made her flush a bit.

Eventually, she thought, Holmes would come back – and she would ask him.

She was waiting most of the day, during which John did not come downstairs. She was tempted to go upstairs and ask him if something was wrong, to at least try to comfort him; but if he was uncomfortable in her body, or with what they'd done, then she was not entirely certain she could function as effective comfort.

So she read a book, and ate, and tried not to think too terribly hard until she heard the front door close.

Holmes strode in a moment later. He stopped dead when he saw her. "Still down here, are we?"

"I am," she said, and stood. "I need to ask you a question."

His expression shifted; she did not know him well enough to tell what he was thinking. "Very well, then. Ask."

"You spoke of frightening me." She did not take a deep breath, did not situate her body so that she felt more confident. She simply looked him in the eye and said, "I am his wife. You must tell me what it is you have done."

She'd expected any number of responses, but laughing had not been one of them. And yet he did laugh, his head thrown back, stumbling backwards to lean against the wall as he fought for breath between bursts of mirth.

She waited. She supposed she should feel embarrassed or offended, but an odd sort of calm had overwhelmed her. This was important: she would get to the bottom of it, one way or another.

When he finally fell quiet she said, "You've not answered my question."

"No, I have not," he said. He had a peculiar sort of look on his face, one she suspected was meant to warn her away. "Do you truly want to know?"

What was he asking her? Nothing she was prepared for. But she had decided to press forward, and so she would. "Yes," she said. "I do."

He did not move quickly. It was an important detail to note, because he could very well have moved quickly, and then she would have at least an excuse for what happened next: he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

He kissed like John, she noted dimly; but observation was overcome by sensation. John's body was responding, and she had no idea if it was from her own feeling or if the body simply remembered this. Her nerves were thrumming in the way they hadn't since the last time she'd been with John in her own body; they had been too mutually frightened last night for this sort of feeling.

If Holmes was frightened, he didn't show it. He ran a hand down John's body and over his prick, and Mary felt his body shudder. No – she felt herself shutter, because however much she did not own the body that was responding, she did hold some amount of control over her own reactions. And it was she who was responding to the action.

It was also she who, after a few mad, pleasurable moments, pulled away. "Thank you," she said, endeavoring to straighten John's clothes as best as she could. Had she given the matter thought, she would have anticipated scornful laughter from Holmes, or at least disdainful amusement. Some sort of action festooned with adjectives and rich with that particular air of superiority that Holmes always assumed when he found himself facing down an enemy.

But he simply looked shocked. Poleaxed. Utterly at a loss for words.

This time it was Mary's turn to leave the house. She did not endeavor to produce an excuse: they both knew she was running away.

||

Later she would remember the oddity of walking as a man. For it was odd, in ways she had not expected. The English world deferred to her male body. She could walk into any store she chose, and meet whichever eyes she wanted to.

But at present her mind was occupied with the sort of controlled panic she remembered from being a girl and learning that her sex had few choices and fewer freedoms within those choices.

He had been asking a question, she knew. He lived his life as a series of questions asked; he gathered information from the change of a gaze, the tilt of a head. He had not done it only out of anger, or – Regret? The desire to touch that which, at the moment, did not exist: John Watson in his own body. But he had also wanted to know about her, she supposed. Why she'd asked the question, and what her response would be.

She completed a full circuit of fifteen blocks and found herself staring at their house without a single concrete conclusion in her mind. All she could think – well. All she could think was that she bloody well hoped he had a plan, since she did not. And the two of them were going to upset John now, no matter what they did.

Her confusion thus established, she squared her shoulders and walked inside.

Holmes was nowhere to be seen. John was sitting on the stairs in a deeply unseemly pile of skirts, handkerchiefs, and uncombed hair.

"You look a fright," she said.

"He told me, Mary."

"Yes, I suppose he would have." What did she mean by that? She didn't know. "We've made a mess of it, then. I rather recall resolving not to, when it came to you and him."

His tone was decidedly wry when he said, "And yet you thought ahead, my dear. Something that we refused to do."

This, at least, she was sure of. "I won't be cast as the heroine, John," she said. "I won't be – I cannot be the communicative device, the gentle, understanding force by which this is resolved."

"I wasn't –"

"You were," she said. "And it's true that I'm certainly far more gentle and understanding than either of you. But I cannot bring you conclusions, or even suggestions, really."

"Then bring yourself," he said. "It – it is not nothing, Mary. Far from it."

She knew it was true, of course. It was not a revelation. But her breath caught anyway. "You've been sitting there for some time," she said when she could master her own voice again.

"I look rather the worse for wear, I know."

"He wasn't gentle with you, then."

"He never is."

But he was, Mary thought. When John needed it, he was. Surely John had noticed.

Of course he had. "You mean with me," she said.

"If I could somehow make him -"

"I very much doubt he would be the man to whom you are so inexorably drawn if he could be so easily compelled," she said.

"When I tell a man to do something, it is not easy for him to refuse."

"But for Holmes, such a straightforward result would be quite easy." She was still standing in front of him, she suddenly realized, like an absolute boor of a woman. She moved to sit next to him on the stair. "John, I will not tell you not to trouble yourself. But please do not blame yourself."

"You've not yet issued a compelling reason for me to do otherwise."

"He told you what happened, you said."

"In rather frightening detail." John tried and failed to smile.

She reached out, then, and touched his cheek. John's dear hands were too large for this, but she had to persevere: she had no choice. "He did not tell you, then, that it was I who instigated it."

"Mary."

Just her name, loud and accusatory. She forced herself to hold his gaze. "I did not take the first step forward, but I did tell him I wanted to know. What you do."

"It couldn't possibly have been illuminating, then. He told me the encounter was brief."

That startled a laugh out of her, as she knew he'd intended. "No. I – confess myself still bewildered, and now also simply confused. He is not who I thought he was. Not with you, or when he wishes he was with you."

Trust John to hear the fear she refused to give words. "I am always myself," he said, moving close enough to put a hand on her shoulder, draw her in to lean his forehead against hers. "Regarding that, you have my word."

And the doubts that had been moving about in her resolved themselves. She knew what she had to say, what she had to do. Not because she was compelled, but because out of her limited choices, she had chosen John – and had gained so much in the process.

It was time for a little honesty, then, regarding the subject they had been so careful about before. "It must be exhausting, then," she said. "Being who he is, and changing as he does."

"I fear for him," John said. He was following her cue, and yet the naked honesty still shook her. "He is not stable, Mary, nor is he truly sane. He changes – sometimes more quickly, sometimes more slowly. He keeps bits of his mind separate from one another or he would lose them entirely."

"You don't make him sound pleasant to commit to," she said. Nor was he telling her very much that shocked her; not after having more or less shared residence with Holmes for the time they had. But the way he crystallized it was so like John. He was always a doctor, she thought, always working to help, to heal. She wondered if he could separate it from love.

She very much doubted she wanted him to.

"Is that what we're doing, then?" John said.

She had to think a moment to recall precisely what she'd said. "You already have," she said. "You love him."

He closed his eyes then, and she understood precisely how much this talk was costing him. "I'm never certain," he said slowly, "whether to curse God for him or you."

"Thank him," Holmes said from the top of the stairs. "After all, you –"

Mary heard the sardonic tone in his voice at the same time she felt John stiffen against her. She stood and turned around, raising a hand.

And to her relief, he silenced.

"Do not," she said, "finish that sentence. Do not hurt him. I absolutely will not allow it."

He raised an eyebrow slowly, sardonically. "And what will you allow, Mrs. Watson?"

"Holmes," John said.

It was a warning, and Mary knew the man would ignore it. "What he needs," Mary said. "And by extension, what you need."

"And your own needs?"

"Are quite well satisfied, thank you," Mary said.

She made the statement as tart as she could, and Holmes nodded minutely, acknowledging it.

But the subsequent silence stretched into awkwardness, and then very nearly into intolerability. Finally, Mary said, "You two need to talk." She stood and went up the stairs, stopping a step below Holmes. "I won't be asleep for some time."

"I'll find you," John said.

When we're finished was unspoken, but no less obvious for all that. She closed her eyes briefly, willing herself to have patience, and turned to continue up the steps.

Holmes' figure, thin though it was, blocked her. His eyes –

Mary had never once seen anyone's soul shining from the eyes, whether they belonged to a man or a woman. But something about the set of his face told her very clearly how desperate he was, and she found she could not look away from his eyes.

Slowly, silently, Holmes reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder.

Not John's shoulder. This was not Holmes touching the body that ordinarily held the one person Mary was entirely sure he loved. No: he was touching her, Mary.

He was incomprehensible, she thought, with no small amount of irritation. He was utterly, completely ridiculous – and handing her a sort of truce, or benediction, or something, here on the stairs with her husband two meters away.

No amount of mental protestation, however, would change the simple fact that this – whatever it was – was something she had agreed to. She bowed her head, reaching up to cover his hand with her own.

A moment later she was finishing her walk up the stairs, and Holmes was watching after her with something like surprise on his face, if such a thing were possible for a man like him. John still had not turned around.

"Later," she said, for lack of an acceptable thing to say. "I – later."

It was a welcome relief to shut herself in their room. She understood why John had stayed up here for so long: despite the mirror throwing the truth in her face every time she was careless enough to glance its way, this room felt a good deal safer than any other part of their home.

When reading became intolerable thanks to nerves, she sat and closed her eyes. She was not expecting to sleep: it was hardly evening, hours away from supper.

But the stress of the day had taken more from her than she'd realized. She fell asleep still in the chair by the window, her neck at an angle that she knew would be painful when she awoke, but that she was not awake enough to correct.

||

She woke to see Holmes staring at her with an utterly blank face. It was not an event she wished to repeat, ever.

But then, Holmes rarely looked so blank: he was schooling his expression. To hide what, Mary could not have said if her life were dependent upon it.

"It's dark," she said. Her book had tumbled to the floor.

"I thought it rude to wake you," Holmes said brusquely.

"What have you decided, then?" She moved her neck from side to side, attempting to ease the tension.

She heard Holmes moving towards her. It was still a shock when he placed his hands upon the join of her neck and shoulders and put pressure on it.

Mary was utterly and thoroughly tired of such fraught moments. She broke this one by bowing her head, leaning back into his hands.

He kneaded the muscles, slowly and surprisingly carefully. It wasn't until she felt herself relaxing that she said, "You haven't answered my question."

"We decided nothing," Holmes said.

"That's not precisely true," John said from the doorway.

Mary couldn't help it: she jumped. "John!"

"Do have a care, dear fellow," Holmes said sharply. "You'll undo all my work."

John's smile was easy in a way it hadn't been since this business began – only a day ago. It seemed like longer. "Your work of moments?"

"My moments are precious, and my work is exquisite," Holmes said. As if to prove it, he returned to his ministrations with redoubled energy. His fingers touched the knots of muscle and forced them to relax. And it made sense, she thought, that his hands would know John's neck like this, would know to work down to John's shoulders, to press knuckles against the line of his spine, to –

The moan was utterly accidental, as were Mary's nearly-hysterical thoughts upon seeing them both stiffen. Stiffen could be a joke, stiffen could mean anything, she herself could stiffen now.

And, God help her, that was it. She laughed. "Oh, God," she said. "I cannot – oh, dear."

When she regained control of herself, both John and Holmes were looking at her as if she'd turned into a sideshow creature. It was startlingly easy to smile in the face of such regard. "And like Holmes, you have not yet elaborated on your statement."

"We decided that we would not make any of the decisions I suspect you expected us to make, for they are not ones we can even formulate answers to, without you there. Here. With us."

"I commend you, Doctor. Even measuring with my admittedly exaggerated standards, that was a decidedly convoluted statement."

"I understand," Mary said. "I – I was not expecting that to be your answer, John."

"I rarely do what's expected of me," Holmes said. "I find it dull, and rather dangerous as well."

"Nonsense. You do what's expected of you, for no one ever expects you to behave within the ordinary confines of human behavior." Mary stood and turned to look at him. "I do not mean that as an insult, naturally."

Holmes was smiling. How odd, she thought. "Of course."

"And now," she said, moving to the bed, "I must bid you goodnight. I find myself still exhausted: our decisions must be made on the morrow."

John moved to pull the bedding out. Before she slipped under the covers – still wearing day clothes, she must look utterly ridiculous – he cupped her cheek and kissed her.

"Tomorrow," he whispered.

It was a promise. She smiled and kissed him again. "Tomorrow."

Holmes' stark, appraising look did not trouble her once the door was closed.

||

She woke to Holmes staring at her. This time, it did trouble her.

It also shocked her a bit, as the look on his face was tender.

"I am not John," she said – and then jumped. She wasn't John: she had returned to her own body.

"We have resolved things, the three of us," he said. He was speaking quietly; belatedly, she realized that it was still dark outside. It must be before dawn. "And thus, you have regained your proper bodies."

"How did you know?"

"The body speaks its own language when asleep."

That wasn't an answer at all – but, feeling magnanimous with relief, she didn't point it out. "John must be exhausted."

"He forced himself to stay awake long after he should have been asleep."

"I won't trouble him further, then," she said, and slipped out of bed. She was wearing nightclothes, and Holmes did not avert his eyes. It was nowhere close to the largest invasion of privacy he had subjected her to in their time sharing John, but it was the first time that it didn't feel like an invasion at all.

They walked downstairs silently, side by side. When Mary was sitting on her favorite chair with a cup of tea Holmes handed her, she said, "It's all a bit ridiculous, you know."

"Naturally." Holmes seated himself across from her. He seemed to be almost bristling.

"You didn't sleep last night."

"Correct," he said with a slight smile.

He was behaving, she thought. It was rather annoying. "Stop it. I'm not – do not even think about putting up another shade for me to see your personality through. It is thoroughly tiring, and right now also far too early for such games."

"I will return to myself soon enough," Holmes said, without the slightest indication that she'd so much as roused his temper. "Right now I find myself somewhat oddly content."

"It won't be easy," she said. "For one, I am rather exasperated that you seem to think John and I exchanged bodies simply because of our troubled relations with you."

He raised an eyebrow again. "You think otherwise?"

"...no," she admitted after a moment. "Blast it all."

His smile was back. "Quite."

They sat in silence for a time. When the sky began to show grey in the cracks between the curtains, Mary said, "This won't be easy, you know. I hardly – I hardly know what will happen."

Holmes nodded. "Wait for the Doctor," he said. "You trust him, as do I, and for a similar reason."

They were treading dangerously close to a sensitive discussion. "Yes," she said, and did not elaborate.

John came down just as the sky began to turn, pink and orange spilling across the now-opened curtains. "Good morning," he said, smiling at both of them.

And suddenly, with a clarity that was as gentle a revelation as Mary suspected any of them had had in the past three days, she knew precisely what needed to be done.

"Come here," she said quietly, looking at Holmes.

She was half expecting argument, but he moved quickly and without question. She stood and kissed him.

It was a simple motion, but it did not stay simple. He was the first to move decisively, running a hand down her back and pressing them close. He opened his mouth and she took the invitation, moving her hands into his hair and tugging a bit as the kiss deepened.

It elicited a moan from both of them, and a full-body shudder from Holmes. She pulled away, nipping his lower lip as she went.

"You don't need to be told," she said, looking over his shoulder at John.

He bowed his head for a single long moment, his forehead resting against hers, their breaths mingling. And then he left her, moving over to John and pulling him to his feet.

The kiss was much as hers and Holmes' had been, but watching it...she did not attempt to control her ragged breathing, or stop herself when she walked towards them.

"John," she said when they parted. Her voice was almost unrecognizable to her, low and rough.

But she did recognize it: it was her voice. Her voice, and her arms that reached out and pulled him to her, and her lips that he kissed. Her hand that twined with Holmes', her toes that lifted her just a bit higher. And it was her husband who pulled back, smiling down at her. Smiling at them both.

Hers.