221b_recs | Fic Rec: The Quiet Man (Sherlock/John, John/Mary, explicit, BBC)

Title: The Quiet Man
Author: suitesamba
Pairing: Sherlock/John, John/Mary
Length:7891
Rating: explicit
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: John Watson has been separated from Sherlock Holmes for most of nineteen years when Mycroft Holmes whisks him away to see his brother and convince him to come home.

A "fix it" fic with ample spoilers for Season 3 of Sherlock.
Reccer's comments:
This is a fic with no easy way out of what the end of the third series suggests. It makes you hurt for both John and Sherlock because of all the time they did not have. There's quite a bit of angst, but there's also a happy end - as happy as the circumstances allow. (I hope this is cryptic enough for those who haven't yet seen S3E3.)

Mary’s been gone four years now, and he visits her today in the quiet churchyard, drops a white rose on the grass where she sleeps, and tries to tell her that it’s no good anymore. Annie is on her own and the flat is too quiet and the rain bothers his leg and there’s crap on the telly and his job is boring and predictable and he hasn’t heard from Sherlock since she died and that was an e-mail sent to Mycroft and printed out and handed to him at the fucking wake.

Sherlock Holmes who is still paying the penalties nineteen years later. A lifetime sentence at His Majesty’s service.

Mycroft Holmes.

Mycroft who loves his brother. Mycroft who understood the truth.

A life no longer his own. Living on borrowed time, permanently on-call, alive in some world, but not in John’s world.

They’d each killed a man to save the other, but with such different consequences. John killed and found himself irrefutably bound to Sherlock. Sherlock killed and found himself taken from John.

Sherlock Holmes.

His best friend. His greatest sacrifice. His deepest regret.