Let The Shadows Win

There's No Time For Regrets

John could tell that Sherlock was tense, and even as they were driving, even with Rosie's full view from the backseat, he reached out and held Sherlock's hand, so as to attempt to calm him down. Sherlock tensed immediately, looking towards John as if wondering if he was joking or not, however he eventually seemed to get acclimated. He eased up, clearing his throat a bit awkwardly before turning his eyes away from John and back to the road ahead of them.
"So you said you knew a babysitter? Just for an hour or two?" John clarified.
"But I just got back from daycare!" Rosie complained, kicking her feet in complaint. Yet both men ignored her, since there was a perfectly valid reason far beyond her contemplation which explained why she could not go along tonight.
"Yes, well I think I do. My landlady has been taking rather good care of me, I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I had her help out." Sherlock guessed, his grip around John's hand tightening absentmindedly.
"Your landlady? Do you even know her?" John wondered suspiciously, to which Sherlock nodded his head in a very positive sort of way.
"Oh yes. Yes, Mrs. Hudson has become my only friend since I got back. Other than you of course but you're...well you're different." Sherlock admitted quietly.
"Ya, you're right. I am." John agreed proudly. "So Mrs. Hudson, I imagine she lives where you do?"
"Ya, just up Main." Sherlock agreed, nodding along the street that they were already following. John trusted Sherlock's judgment to a point, however at this point he really had no other options than this mysterious caretaker. If Sherlock said that she was a worthy guardian then John really was in no place to argue, for they had both a child and a body, and one of the two was going to have to leave before the other could be properly taken care of.
"Right here." Sherlock said quickly, pointing to a small apartment building that stretched up alongside the road. John pulled the car into a rather horrible job of parallel parking, getting out and unstrapping Rosie. This time they were following Sherlock's lead, which wasn't altogether a comforting thought. However he seemed confident, so it was all John could do to trust him with the welfare of their daughter. 

Sherlock POV: As reluctant as Sherlock was to call in another favor from Mrs. Hudson he knew that it was a desperate matter. They had no other choice but to ask her to watch Rosie, considering they had no other friends who were trustworthy enough around children for such a task. Besides, Mrs. Hudson would take such a task to be an honor, for Sherlock imagined it had been some time since she last had the job of watching after children. And today would be the first time she could properly look at John, for she had heard all sorts of stories about the man but had never gotten to meet him in real life! This was going to be an honor for her, truly. And so Sherlock didn't feel all that guilty now as he crossed the street to his apartment, the run down little place which felt almost foreign to him after last night's string of events. It felt like forever since he's walked through the halls that he was supposed to be calling home, yet it was only yesterday that he had left for the Watson household. Had it really been just a day, all of this having happened in merely twenty four hours? It felt like a year, this day having dragged by as he had the burden of trying to clean up the mess he had made with Mary's supposed disappearance.
"Come on then, just in here." Sherlock said with a smile, walking into the little lobby to find the desk empty but the door to the back room open just a touch. As soon as she heard the door opening Mrs. Hudson already began to make some noises, and whether that was to warn any intruder that someone was home or to assure her guests that she was on her way, well Sherlock didn't really know.
"Mrs. Hudson, it's me!" Sherlock called. Rosie took to entertaining herself over by the two chairs and the houseplant, Mrs. Hudson's idea of a sitting room presumably. John just stood loyally by Sherlock's side, looking about the place as if wondering if this was actually where Sherlock had to live.
"There are a lot of people who would dare go by that name, Sherlock. You'll have to be more specific." Mrs. Hudson warned as she made her entrance, wiping soap suds from her hands onto her apron as her face broke out into a little smile. At first she only looked at Sherlock, however as she looked closer she obviously realized that someone here was a stranger.
"Hello." Mrs. Hudson murmured, looking towards Sherlock with that knowing gleam in her eyes that was worn by most women over fifty. It was obvious just by gauging her expression that she knew exactly who was in her lobby.
"Hi Mrs. Hudson, I'm John Watson. Sherlock's friend." John muttered with a nervous little smile. It was obvious he could tell that Mrs. Hudson knew something; however he didn't know just how much she knew. Sherlock felt his cheeks up in some humiliation as Mrs. Hudson's thin lips curled into that conniving smile she always wore.
"Judging by the empty apartment last night, I'd say you're more than that." Mrs. Hudson managed, to which Sherlock gasped, his face now turning the color of a beet as John just stammered, obviously unsure of how to respond to something like that.
"Oh so you told her about me?" John clarified, looking to Sherlock as if he was accusing him of some great crime.
"Only the bare minimum. She's good at filing in the blanks." Sherlock grumbled.
"You told me quite more than the minimum, dear." Mrs. Hudson warned, looking John over for a moment and winking at Sherlock. "Nice catch there."
"Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock whined. "You're embarrassing me."
"Well there's no need to be embarrassed dear, I'm sure he gets it all the time." Mrs. Hudson assured with a little chuckle.
"Not usually from strangers." John managed, looking quite humiliated himself as he looked back to where Rosie was now paging through some sort of magazine. To be quite honest, Sherlock wasn't upset about this whole encounter. Yes it made everyone uncomfortable; however it was almost nice to finally have someone to introduce John to. It was nice to have more than one acquaintance, and Mrs. Hudson seemed to have adapted perfectly to the role of his embarrassing mother. She was everything the mothers on TV were, caring women who really needed to watch their tongues sometimes. It was actually quite the honor to be properly humiliated by her.
"Well I'm not really a stranger now." Mrs. Hudson muttered. Sherlock nodded, clearing his throat awkwardly so as to get to the real reason they were here.
"I need to ask a favor, if you'd be okay with taking on yet another burden from me." Sherlock muttered a bit shamefully.
"Anything for you Sherlock, you know that." Mrs. Hudson teased.
"Someday I'll do something for you, mark my words. Someday I'll..."
"You pay rent, Sherlock. That's truly enough for me." Mrs. Hudson interrupted, for obviously she didn't want to hear some great promises that they both knew would never be fulfilled. That was enough to bring a smile to his face, for at least Sherlock knew now that he wasn't as much of a bother as he had previously suspected.
"Well um, thank you. But anyway, John and I need to go do something very important, and we were wondering if you could watch Rosie for a little while? We can't leave her alone, and we don't know anyone else." Sherlock admitted with a frown.
"Something very important, hm?" Mrs. Hudson clarified with a smile. "Don't you know about just closing the door and putting on the TV downstairs?"
"It's not...come on Mrs. Hudson. It's not that." Sherlock grumbled, his smile fading away into something of a rather bothered look. Mrs. Hudson nodded, seeing now that this situation was much more dire than she had expected.
"And what about...well wasn't there a wife in the picture?" Mrs. Hudson wondered, dropping her voice as if that was at all going to affect whether or not John heard. Of course he did hear, for he was standing right next to Sherlock at the time!
"Not anymore." Sherlock muttered a bit shamefully. "That's why we need a babysitter."
"Oh well...well congratulations! A divorce?" Mrs. Hudson asked, suddenly breaking into a smile that might be a little bit premature. For while John and Sherlock both knew that Mary's death had been coordinated, arranged, and disregarded, such a statement from Mrs. Hudson was bold enough to take them both aback.
"No um...she left." John muttered quietly, for he knew that such a story might not seem very convincing in the eyes of a woman who knew it all. Yet despite Mrs. Hudson's inside knowledge on the affair, even she couldn't know the real means of Mary's disappearance. Mrs. Hudson may be a good sport about extramarital proclivities, however even she must draw the line somewhere around murder. No, what Sherlock and John had done together was much more than an accomplished affair, it was worthy of a prison sentence, if not a padded cell.
"Oh I'm sorry to hear that." Mrs. Hudson muttered, although she sounded genuinely confused as to whether or not this was a sad occasion. Obviously she was on Sherlock's side here, or at least she was rooting for him to end up with John; however John was still doing a very good job pretending to be upset. Then again, who knows if he was actually in a state of mourning?
"It's fine." John assured. "I'm sure you know that I've moved on to better things."
"Oh yes, Sherlock is very much better." Mrs. Hudson said confidently, despite the fact that she didn't even know John's wife.
"Well then, can you watch Rosie?" Sherlock asked finally, coming back to the reason they were here. Of course he was beginning to worry that Mary's prolonged time in the trunk would make the whole car smell, and should ever the police come poking around such a stench would be incriminating.
"Yes I think I could. I'm only washing dishes now, but I'm sure she'd be willing to just sit and watch TV?" Mrs. Hudson presumed.
"Ya she likes TV." John agreed with a bit of a nod, now looking rather eager to get this over with as well.
"Well that's great! Rosie dear, do you want to spend the evening with me?" Mrs. Hudson asked, leaning over the counter so that she could smile over at where Rosie was sitting now on one of the chairs, her little feet dangling as she looked at pictures in the gossip magazines. Rosie looked up at Mrs. Hudson, studying her for a moment before smiling.
"You look like my grandma." Rosie decided, yet in the tone that meant that was obviously a good thing.
"Well she's not really a flatterer, is she?" Mrs. Hudson grumbled, however she was smiling all the same.
"She means that in the nicest connotation." John offered in apology. "Come on then Rosie, you get to hang out with Mrs. Hudson while Mr. Sherlock and I take care of some business we need to do."
"Okay." Rosie agreed quietly, looking at least a little bit intrigued by what sort of fun stuff Mrs. Hudson could have planned.
"Awesome, I'll pay you when we get back. Shouldn't be more than what, an hour? Hour and a half?" John presumed, looking over at Sherlock with a shrug.
"Depends on how recently it rained." Sherlock guessed in a bit of an absentminded sort of way. Of course he hadn't quite realized how odd such a sentence was without context, to which Mrs. Hudson sort of blinked.
"What are you doing that matters on the weather?" she asked curiously.
"Nothing that concerns you. Thank you again, Mrs. Hudson. As always, I owe you one." Sherlock said with a smile.
"You'll pay me back just fine come the end of the month. Now off with you both, and whatever secret earth ritual shenanigans you need to get to." Mrs. Hudson muttered, shooing them away in an almost burdened manner. It was obvious that she couldn't think of a good reason why the two of them were so frequently sneaking around, especially when taken into account Sherlock's statement of the rain. However she seemed to think that this hour and a half was almost intended to be a romantic getaway of sorts.
"Thanks so much. Bye Rosie, you be a good girl alright? You help Mrs. Hudson with her chores, and you follow her rules. I'll be back in a bit." John promised, patting his daughter on the head before thanking Mrs. Hudson once again. Together Sherlock and John made their way back to the car, able to breathe easier now that they were unburdened by secrets or children. Now they didn't have to watch what they said or did, it was purely business as usual.
"Alright then, I'm thinking a field down that abandoned road, past my house, in those fields that they stopped planting in." Sherlock suggested.
"That's a good plan." John agreed, seeming a bit absent minded as he got into the driver's seat and started down the road towards the abandoned road that led to the Holmes household. Sherlock felt as though he should stop pestering John about such a subject, almost as if the task they had set out to do was becoming too much for the poor man to bear. Was he actually saddened by his wife's death, was that why he had suddenly gone quiet? And so Sherlock merely twisted his walking cane around in his fingers, tempted to say something of an apology before deciding it was best to just let John be. If he wanted to mourn for his wife there was nothing Sherlock could do to stop him. His only consolation was that John had chosen such a fate for his wife, and the murder wasn't entirely Sherlock's idea. John had picked this path, and it was his fault if he ended up regretting it. Yet how could he? He had Sherlock; he had all he seemed to need! Wasn't this the future they had both desired enough to kill for? Sherlock watched the landscapes go by with a bit of a smile on his face, for these were the roads he remembered from all of his childhood drives. Back when he was totted around in that horrible black hearse of a car, with his brother and his cruel silence in the driver's seat. Sherlock knew he shouldn't think of memories such as those as the good old days, for surely he was loving his life much more now, yet there was a sort of nostalgia that came when he remembered his childhood. A terrible experience it was, yet it was still untainted by his own mistakes. It was still, well, uninterrupted. There were times when he missed his brother, there were times when he would be suddenly reminded of the gentler times they had together when they were young. Like the times Mycroft would bake a cake as a surprise, or go outside to catch fireflies in the summer. Those were the times that Sherlock liked to remember his brother by, not so much when he used to drag Sherlock around by his ear and beat him with his umbrella until he stopped falling in love. Yet Mycroft wasn't gone, not in spirit at least. He was absent as of now, but Sherlock knew that he and Victor would show up in time. The house passed by on the left, obviously confused as to why Sherlock was driving past it without so much as a casual acknowledgement. Yet he merely gave it at glance, saddened by the horrible wooden planks that were covering it's aged and iconic old windows and doors. He really would have to get that fixed up, in time. John drove for another three miles or so before finally coming across a wildly overgrown field, up over some sort of hill where it couldn't be spotted by a common passerby. Even if anyone did drive on this road, which was highly unlikely even at rush hour, they would not see the two digging. To be safe they parked the car a little ways down the road, and now was the most difficult part. It wasn't as if this place was heavily wooded, in fact there was virtually no cover at all! The challenge was going to be moving Mary's body quickly and efficiently so as to get her out from the sight of the road, and even more importantly they needed to somehow manage to get her into the ground before a tractor or even a bird happened by to be witness to their grotesque acts! John got out of the car and popped the trunk, immediately releasing that horrible funk that had been building up inside of the car the whole way they drove. It was a damning smell, something that would have to masked quickly with air fresheners of some sort.
"Let's get her out first, then the shovels and the bag." John decided, staring into the trunk at the shapeless blue mass of tarp that could very well now be empty if it wasn't for the loose foot that was sticking out, still covered in a very distasteful white sandal. Sherlock smiled proudly, hobbling now that he had left his walking cane in the car (he would need both hands for this job), and looking down upon his third official victim. The third life he had taken, now sitting there in a helpless mass in the trunk of her own car. His other victims had met much more glamorous endings, freezing in their own pools of blood, forgotten in the darkness of the walk in freezer. Those sorts of deaths were a lot easier to forget about too, for there was no clean up necessary afterwards. They just lay there unattended until they froze into solid masses, and there were never any burials, sneaking around, or excuses needed. Once again, that really shouldn't be regarded as the good old days...