Mary Watson is infinite

 (Sherlock meta by notjustfuneralreasons)

 “It’s an old enough technique, known to the kinds of people who can recognise a skip-code on sight, have extraordinarily retentive memories… How good a shot are you?

Mary Watson is infinite.

Mary Watson is the best thing that could have ever happened to John Watson after he lost Sherlock Holmes, and yet she could be that second disappointment he will not be able to live with. She’s an unexpected source of friendship, offering support freely, as she brings together those two friends again. Mary is clever, quick-witted, and not above making Janine her bridesmaid if it serves a purpose. She can be charming and, for a lack of a better word, utterly adorable.

(She likes cats, is a size 12, and has a secret tattoo. She is an only child, a romantic, and bakes her own bread. She can throw and shoot a coin, in dim lighting.)

Mary is an assassin who chose to leave that life behind to become a nurse, from killer to carer. She will pick up that gun again, if you threaten her and her loved ones. But even as Mary searches for Sherlock, she stops to for a homeless man at a street corner. Desperation, determination, and panic don’t stop her from being kind. But they can make her shoot someone she cares about, even if it’s just to buy time.

All these details are not scattered mosaic pieces, distorted fragments of an incomplete, dubious person. They are integral, real parts of a whole. We might only get a hint of her past, but in the present alone she is interesting, multifaceted, flawed… wonderful. Her lies did not leave her a façade, the truth just revealed more. She is allowed to be all the things she was and all the things she wanted to be and became.

Here is a woman who knows John Waton, maybe better than he knows himself, who has done everything to bring him ‘round’ after Sherlock’s return, and yet it doesn’t even occur to her that he might forgive her. She never pleads for absolution and yet she is given more than that - acceptance. And an ultimate act of loyalty from Sherlock, the man she shot. Her friend. She loves and she is loved.

After only three episodes, Mary is already the kind of character that could fill books. It might never be possible to say that last, final word about her.

But if you find yourself hesitating on the very first page, just for a split second, the question of a name hanging in the air… The name you choose is like a promise you make. The name she chose says so much more about her than whatever could be found on that flashdrive, labelled “A.G.R.A”.

And that name is Mary Watson.