Mary (Morstan) Watson

“You’re terrible,” John says with a conspiratorial grin, though it does not completely overwhelm the concern that has been clear on his face for at least the past week. To say he has been hovering would have been putting it mildly. “You’re sure you don’t want to go home?” he asks, and never mind that he has already knocked. “If you’re still not feeling well, I’m sure they’d understand."

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Before the question could be properly answered, Jax had pulled open the door and was leaning against the frame. It hadn't occurred to either him or Tara to leave off his kutte, so he stood there with his shirt sleeves rolled up, memorial tattoo for his dad exposed. It was a miracle he'd thought to tie his hair back, not that it gave him all that much more of an air of respectability.

"John and Mary, right?" Jax stuck out a hand to shake. "I'm Jax. Tara's finishing up with the kids."

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Tara came out with Abel on her hip, one hand holding a frozen teething ring in his mouth, the other tangled in his mother's hair. Thomas was holding her other hand as he toddled beside her - he was fairly steady on solid ground, and they didn't have long before he'd start to run. "Hi, John! You must be Mary," she said with a smile, and her hand slipped from Thomas's to rest on the back of his head for a moment. "This is Thomas, and Abel," she said as she shifted Abel up a little bit. "Honey, why don't you go play with your dinosaurs?" Thomas obliged, and Tara flashed a smile as the two came inside. "Here, Jax can grab your coats - feel free to have a seat."

It was the odd sort of song and dance that happened whenever you had people over for the first time, along with that shuffle of This is somebody's house you don't know. Tara and John'd talked about them getting together for dinner, and that's why most of the kid's toys were away, why there was a lasagna in the oven and they had wine and bread and a salad in the fridge - most of it picked up from the store, but it's not like the Tellers tended to entertain - it was more of a family get together.

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The first few moments always pass in a whirlwind and this is no exception. She says hello to the children, holds a hand out for Tara and gives her coat to Jax with a smile. Her eyebrow quirks slightly as she looks at John, but it's not in criticism of anything, more an inside joke they share.

"Thank you for having us, and sorry for cancelling on you before." Her hand rests lightly on her massive stomach. "It seems that somebody is trying to stop us from doing anything other than paying attention to her already."

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John follows Mary into the cyclone of hand-shaking and introductions, offering a polite nod and a handshake for Jax, and a flash of a smile for Tara, watching with something like wary amusement as she corrals the kids. He’s reminded how much this really isn’t his thing, and the whirlwind of domesticity catches him a bit off-guard. Sure, they’d hosted a get-together or two at 221B, mostly after endlessly dropped hints from Mrs. Hudson, but that had always been people who knew them well, and anyway, nothing involving Sherlock was ever anything close to normal. As for he and Mary, they had always been meeting-friends-at-the-pub types.

A look from Mary confirms that she has caught something of his deer-in-the-headlights look, and he rolls his eyes - faintly, fondly - before offering up the bag with their own contributions to the meal. “Anywhere I can put these? Mary insisted."

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"Yeah, I got them," Jax said, emerging from the bedroom where he'd laid their coats. The closet had room for coats, but they had no spare hangers. It just wasn't something that Jax had ever thought to need.

"Table's set up so have a seat. You guys want some water, beer?" He glanced at Mary. Shit, right. No beer. "Tara, we still got lemonade?"

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Tara was used to friends making themselves at home, even if they'd never been there before. She wasn't quite used to this sort of.... it was weirdly formal, but she's trying to smooth over whatever bumps there might be. "Thank you so much," she said for whatever they'd brought - she had no idea what was normal for these things. "I think we've still got some. Mary, we've got... water, apple juice, lemonade, milk - anything sound okay?" She's trying to just sort of stay on her toes, and hope that this is as awkward as it's going to get and it'll even out once they're all comfortable.

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“Lemonade is fine. Fizzy or still, either, I don’t mind.” Mary doesn’t want to be an imposition, and she understands how this dance works. It’s one she’s done many times, only this time she’s not playing at it, she actually finds herself caring what these people think of her, and of John. That is enough to make her laugh as she awkwardly settles in a seat. “I’d actually kill for a beer, but I have a little while longer. Is it standard practice to have wine or a cocktail waiting for immediately after the birth? I think it should be.”

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“Beer would be great, if you don’t mind.” John brushes his hands over his trousers and shoots Mary a long-suffering look. “Honestly, you’d think I’d been torturing her on purpose.” He grins a bit and adds, mostly to Tara, “How’ve you been?"

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Jax nodded, taking out three bottles and then pouring a glass of lemonade for Mary while he silently pondered why on earth she thought lemonade was supposed to be fizzy. As far as he knew, lemonade just came in...lemonade.

"Tara might know some tricks on putting up with that, seein' as she's a doctor and she's had a baby too."

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"You can," Tara said as she moved dug through the junk drawer in the kitchen to pull out a hairband and tie her hair back. "Although not directly after, since it's a blood thinner, and you really won't need it. There's pretty much a crazy cascade of hormones that make everything pretty great," she said with a short laugh. "Nature's way of taking the edge off so we're willing to have more kids." She sort of glances at Jax, and there's actually a small smile on her lips - the last time they'd talked about it, she'd pretty much flipped out; but now, talking about it extremely obliquely...

It seems a little less bad, if they're talking about years down the road. A theoretical timeline. "There's actually a lot of research going on about drinking and pregnancy - it's pretty fascinating." She moves to grab a block they'd missed and tosses it into the basket, flashing a smile at John. It was weird to have guests in such a formal way - Tara would actually be really glad when they finally did manage to find a house so it could be a little more... hanging out. "Good. I've been good," she said with a smile. "Hospital's finally earmarked more nurses, so we're not quite as understaffed. You?" She actually had a couple of pretty fascinating cases that she wanted to talk to him about, but she knew that Mary and Jax would probably be left out of the conversation.

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"Thank you," she says softly to Jax before giving Tara a smile that is tired. "I suppose it will all stay a dream then, won't it? My imaginings of hopping out of bed for a night out at the disco."

There's an edge of laughter in her words, Mary hasn't had more than one night at the disco in years, and then only due to a hen's night that had turned rather pear shaped as they all seemed to. "Funny isn't it? To think I won't remember the feeling of swollen ankles and not sleeping and horrible indigestion and that I might want to do it again sometime."

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John can feel Sherlock looming large in this room, even after a two-year absence and a leap across time, space, and possibly dimension. He would deduce something about Jax’s tattoos, about the way Tara ties up her hair, about what in Mary’s laugh is genuine, and what is there to hide nerves about impending motherhood. He would say something about how fucking ridiculous they were all being, and probably ruin the evening, but God, John would have the time of his life in the process, whether he cared to admit it or not.

But those days are over. Sherlock is a very long away. Things are different now.

John shrugs a bit in response to Tara’s question. “Good. You know, the clinic’s good.” How much does he really have to say about a string of check-ups, minor injuries, and flu shots. “May’s keeping me busy enough, getting things ready for the baby.” He shoots Mary a look that’s half amused, half horrified. “That means you’re not thinking about another one already, right?"

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Jax glanced back at Tara, eyebrows raised ever so slightly, but quickly smoothed away with a smile. They would talk about it later, if it was going to come up. If not tonight then...sometime. He reached out and squeezed her hand. "I'll put the boys in the play pen while get the food out? It smells ready."

He grinned at John and Mary before hoisting each of the boys under his arm and listening to their squeals of delight.

"One sec, gotta cage these monsters."

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Tara shrugs a shoulder. "I.... honestly, it's all a blur. The hormones and the sleep deprivation and I already had Abel, so... I don't really remember as much as I probably should," she says with a soft laugh, shaking her head. "Or, it's possible it's exactly the way it's supposed to be. I did it without pain killers, so I don't really know if I'd want to remember it all in vivid detail, but I can say it's okay. When I think back on it, it's one-hundred percent worth it, because I have-" Just as Jax picked him up and he squealed, Tara smiled. "... Thomas."

She shook her head slightly as she moved into the kitchen, taking the dishes out of the oven. "It's good that things are going well at the clinic. Definitely sort of on a wild ride lately in surgery - one of the guys I work with is..." She actually huffed out a laugh. "Believe me, you ever want to see a crazy doctor, talk to some of the surgical specialists."

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Mary watches Jax handle the children with obvious affection, laughing at John's spluttering and holding up three fingers as if that's what she's planned out. Truthfully she thinks she'll be happy with the one, for a long time. At least while so many secrets still lay between them. "They're fairly close in age? You must have planned that well."

She's happy to sit and let the conversation happen around her. Mary, for all that she is social, enjoys watching people, and not only for what there is to be learned. Once that might have been true, but that's a life she's tried to leave behind now.

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John rolls his eyes at Mary, pulling a chair up next to her. “You’re just trying to give me a heart attack before my next birthday.” Even with that laugh on his lips, his eyes follow Jax and the boys. He’s still vacillating between wonder and horror when he thinks about being a father to his soon-to-be-born daughter. John has barely gotten a grasp on being a decent person - how is he supposed to figure out how to be a decent parent, too? Christ, but he is so not ready for this.

He blinks a few times, bringing himself back to the present, and offers Tara a snort of a laugh. “There are surgeons who aren’t crazy? I thought that went with the job description.”

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"Well, she's the only surgeon I've met, so I can't say," Jax said, half-shouting from the living room as he settled the boys. "Abel, don't throw your toys. I won't bring them back."

Once the boys were playing happily, he came back in, leaning against the door. For all that they were in his home, it didn't really feel like he was part of their world. They were doctors, bonded by a common ground.

He was a mechanic.

His lack of valuable input to the conversation made him antsy, which was why he'd sort of relegated himself to baby duty.

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Tara paused as Mary held up three fingers. "They... Abel's my stepson," she says without much more of a pause, talking about how close they were in age. She doesn't care that she and Jax weren't married yet - she'd gotten married; she'd married him, for all that it was in a different life. It was in such a different life, but she felt so much more at home, now.

"And I have my own level of crazy, Jax can attest," she says, moving to pop open both of their beers, and she passed him one before she moved to sit down. "If you don't mind me asking, do you know if it's a girl or a boy?" She's noticed that it made him antsy, and she just changed the subject to something a little more... generic.

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"Of course." She has no issues with that, after all, family is what it is, and it is what people make it. It could have been a number of things, she knows, mixed up timelines the first that had come to her mind, knowing their own situation. "They both seem like wonderful boys. You're lucky."

"A girl," Mary says with a smile. She'd no idea how happy that fact would make her until she'd been told. Somehow a girl seems right for them, all other worries aside. She looks to John and winks, knowing that he's become nearly as excited as she is, if not moreso. "Of course, somebody still thinks that he has some sort of say in naming her."

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“Best keep it that way,” John calls to Jax. He can tell the guy’s a bit out of place amidst the medical gossip and the talk of impending children, and hell, John’s not exactly comfortable himself, so he can’t quite blame him. But Jax is so obviously good with his kids, for all you would never expect it if you saw him on the street, and John is sure he’ll never make fatherhood look quite so easy as that, let alone in the middle of an awkward dinner party.

He snorts a laugh, taking a drink of his beer. “Hey, you’re the one who thinks Sherlock makes a great middle name. I’m just trying to save the poor girl the grief."

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"That's just asking for 'no shit, sherlock' jokes," Jax said, shaking his head. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Sherlock was a real person to them, so Jax kept the comment neutral, hoping they weren't the first ones to tell that joke. "Folks kept saying I should name Abel's brother Cain."

That one was Wendy's fault.

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Tara's still confused by that - she can't decide if John's name, and his friend Sherlock is a nickname or a joke, or what; mostly because she hasn't actually met anyone yet that has made her think that the people in Darrow are anything but just people. No-one's been out of a book or movie that she knows, no one's name has been odd except for John's.

She makes a face at the Cain thing, though, because she's actually heard it a couple of times and there's no way on this earth. "And we named Thomas for Jax's brother." She says, in a way that's putting a point on the fact that no, their son would never, ever be named Cain.

"Do you have a name picked out?" SOmething that wasn't hopefully ending in Sherlock Watson, although she'd not mention that aloud.

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