What The House Forgot

Keys and the Keeping of Secrets

John POV: John didn't expect this patio outing to be entertaining in the least, though he of course did not imagine it would be so miserable. Mary Watson was propped up in a declined rocking chair, with pillows stacked all along the back of it so as to separate her skin and nightgown from the wood which had been baking in the sun all morning. Her body was weak enough that it could not pull the chair into an upright position, so instead of rocking back and forth like a normal elder, instead she was reclined so far back that her feet were pulled up into the air, falling into a deceptively athletic position as she seemed to do some sort of core exercise. Every so often Rosie would rise from her own chair and pull her mother back into the proper sitting position, though as soon as her assistance faded the old woman would fall in a mad decent, as if she was enjoying her time staring directly into the sun.
"Strange sort of family reunion," John declared, tapping his fingers against the diluted lemonade as Rosie scrambled large decorative river rocks to shove underneath the prongs of her mother's chair. Finally, with the braces preventing the chair's curved structure from reclining any farther backwards, the woman was sitting upright. She looked rather ghostly from this angle, with the direct sunlight catching across the smooth, white folds of her skin. Her eyes had sunken into her skull many years back, though still when they were aimed in John's direction he could read them like a book. He could see eons of pain conformed inside, the sort of misery that would age a woman fifty years in a mere seventeen.
"Why, because mother's half dead or because my father is a year younger than I am?" Rosie snapped back. John's eyebrows knit, though he held his tongue. Immediately his brain wanted to snap back with authority, as if some part of his consciences still recognized this sassy teenager as someone under his control. Nevertheless, a direct command would come off as too hostile. He didn't want to ruin this moment, miserable though it may be.
"Well, at least we could get together again. At least we could try to make up for lost time." John suggested. Rosie's scowl said enough. He was tempted to drop the subject.
"I know I'm in no position to blame you for what my father did, but considering you share the same rotten soul I'm tempted not to take this so seriously," Rosie admitted. Mary chuckled in her chair, the entire frame creaking as her frail frame began to shake in forced amusement. She wasn't yet too senile to allow a decent insult to pass by unappreciated.
"I have to hope the soul isn't inherently rotten. I think it's the man who owns it that makes it what it is. My soul...well I'd like it to be redeemable," John pointed out, pursing his lips before taking a sip of lemonade to prevent himself from going on with his ramblings. The grains of unabsorbed powder ground within his teeth, dissolving upon his tongue like pellets of sourness, the sort of artificial flavoring that developed sores upon the gums.
"I can only hope you're right. It's a sad truth, but it's you that I'm most confident in. You, even though you're supposed to be the big bad villain. In my past and in your own."
"I'm not a villain," John reminded her.
"You're a murderer," croaked Mary's suffering voice, the first sign that she had actually been listening this whole time. John blinked in surprise, whereas Rosie immediately covered her mouth, forcing her fingers upon her lips as if deciding she ought to prevent the first of verbal reactions from escaping into her mother's ears.
"Mary, I didn't know you were listening," John muttered.
"I'm not deaf, you idiot!" the woman snarled. "And I'm not weak enough to go unspoken for. I won't sit here and listen...listen to you vouch for yourself." The words she spoke were slow and suffering; as if it took a tremendous amount of effort to merely speak what was on her mind. Nevertheless, the thought was cohesive. It only spoke to the superior state of her mind in comparison to her body, and perhaps the frustration that was beginning to build as a capable brain watched its vessel degrading around it.
"I'm sorry for what happened to you, but I feel the need to remind you that it wasn't my doing," John pointed out. He felt rather like a broken record, reminding these two that he was merely a replacement for their past family member, not a direct copy. Well of course he was drawing a very fine line between taking responsibility for who he used to be and denying any connection between himself and the monster he supposedly inherited. While he was proud to allow himself a spot in this family, this broken shell of one, at least, he was not going to attest for the crimes he did not commit. He was not responsible for breaking this family apart; he was merely the byproduct of the downfall of the previous John Watson.
"Have you fallen in love with him yet?" Mary wondered, her voice slowly gaining momentum as it became accustomed to speaking. It began to gather more strength, more accusation. Instead of a monotonous groan, instead it seemed to have noticeable emotion, the sort that could be investigated for further meaning. "Rosie said you two...you two have met."
"That's...that's personal," John whispered as he glanced very hesitantly towards Rosie. She seemed extremely interested in this question, as she was the only one capable of playing both sides here. She was well acquainted with her father's past, though she was also embedded into the relationships currently playing out between their teenaged gang. John may feel comfortable admitting his vices to the woman he used to call his wife, though Rosie had the capability to judge and share anything he spoke of this afternoon. How could John admit to anything when there was a strong possibility it would be shared to Victor, or to Sherlock?
"That's a yes," Mary muttered, her withered fingers gripping along the chair's handles as if to solidify her understanding.
"That's an ambiguous answer...intentionally so!" John defended immediately, to which the old woman repeatedly shook her head. Well of course it was a mere jerk of the neck from side to side, though John understood the meaning rather well. She didn't believe him for one moment, and given her past, she had no reason to.
"He used to tell me the same," the woman reminded them. "Oh, Sherlock was just a friend. Victor was just a friend. Nothing was...nothing was happening. Of course not until he told me about the affair. Not until..." Mary broke into a fit of coughs, interrupting herself as she hastened to finish her thought. "Not until I found him overflowing in a bathtub, his limbs swollen and his body hanging over the rib of the tub!"
"Mother, that's morbid!" Rosie defended, her voice catching on a tripwire of emotions that had laced itself across her lips. A quick realization, a painful detail she had never heard before. A denial that turned painful as suddenly she understood that there was more to this story, more ghastly details that her mother had kept hidden for good reason.
"He preferred it to us, Rosie," Mary reminded her. "He'd rather soak than live in the same house as me."
"I thought he had to choose, and he couldn't?" John protested, speaking up for himself as he remembered the last diary entry he had read in the ancient journal. "You made him pick between the family and Sherlock, and he couldn't commit to either. He thought resetting would be the only compromise."
"What?" Rosie whispered, this time unable to hide the sheer amazement within her voice. The girl studied her mother for a moment, her eyes growing wide as she did not recognize an immediate denial in the old woman's expression.
"He's lying," Mary grumbled at last, having taken a moment to recollect herself and repower for the next string of conversation. "He'd say anything to justify himself."
"Why would he lie?" John muttered. "He knew the only person who would read that journal would be me. Why would he try to lie, when he was truthful about everything else?"
"Mother, you never told me this," Rosie debated, leaning forward far enough in her rocking chair that the entire thing began to tip, the backrest beginning to collide with her dyed hair as the entire frame shuttered upon the very edge of the track.
"He was going to leave us, Rosie. I knew that and he knew it too. What choice would I have? What choice, if not to arrange it by my own terms?"
"You forced him out?" Rosie presumed, now beginning to rise to her feet as her muscles refused to sit still any longer. The girl's fists were clenched, though at the moment she seemed to be more likely to punch herself in the side of the head than attack her mother. She seemed more upset about her blind faith in her manipulative mother than angry at the lies she had been told for the past eighteen years.
"I made him choose, and it seemed as if his own family held equal weight to a graduate student he had known for two months."
"Give or take two hundred years!" John reminded her, convinced of the importance of history. Even if he wasn't determined to relive it, certainly each lifetime they had spent together should could for something.
"And that's why he killed himself? Because you weren't giving him a choice?" Rosie clarified, her syllables dropping with such agony that they sounded audibly upon the sidewalk. John was squirming in his chair, not yet moved to his feet, though certainly not comfortable merely sitting down and nodding his head.
"I gave him a choice! A choice between what he was committed to and what he had fantasized!" Mary seemed to want to rise as well, though her body simply could not handle the strain of supporting itself. The words themselves seemed to be too strenuous to tolerate, as the longer she spoke the quieter her voice became, dwindling into the frame of her body until she had to take a break to recapture the passion she wished to speak with. "What compromise could be made? Would you like me to share my house, my bed, my husband with some student with a pretty face?"
"He was conflicted, he was miserable. And you drove him to kill them!"
"So he wasn't a murderer, not truly," John decided. "He was just desperate."
"I don't want to hear any more of this," Rosie decided, shaking her head pointedly before grabbing the lemonade pitcher from the glass coffee table. "Mother, I'm not moving you. I hope you bake in the sun." with that the girl stormed off, pulling violently at the screen door before throwing it open in a fit of unchecked rage. John hesitated where he sat, wondering which of the two he ought to comfort, though in the end he did not rise. Instead he looked towards the old woman, and startlingly he saw a look of glee upon her face. Those cracked lips, those which seemed so strained to even form a word, were now pulled into a smile. The corners of her lips had conformed into the banks of her cheeks, and while no teeth were yet visible, it was obvious that she was smiling.