This is my Frenchsmattering fic, a crossover between Sherlock and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It shall be on-going, I've got about 4,000 words written for it at the moment and will be writing more.

Enjoy!

Richard made him go to the christening, of course, even though the man himself stayed home to read the paper and simmer. They'd only just made up six months before, and things like babies didn't just disappear. Belinda had been wonderful in a stilted kind of way for a year and then she'd come to him to tell him she was tendering her resignation from the Service. She was taking her six year old, Mykie, and going to the country to have her baby. His baby, too, though initially they'd both agreed it was best he had limited contact. Especially after he'd faced his demons and gone back to Richard.

Belinda had said it was worth having her pension marked as "interrupted service," to have the child properly. Peter wasn't even rightly sure that the baby was his—a tiny head of dark curls which didn't match Belinda's golden hair or his own gingered blonde. Time would out, he decided. The infant was two weeks old when she'd come to London, and Richard had cooed despite himself over the boy while Mykie had stared at Peter in a less-than-vaguely betrayed manner.

At the time he hadn't the heart to tell the seven year old boy that his mother would never give him a permanent parent to look up to. He hadn't said anything other than a pleasant, if distant, greeting to the boy who not a year ago he was contemplating the task of being father to. If Richard hadn't agreed to take him back, Peter had been fully prepared to live like George Smiley—and let Belinda walk out on him when she pleased, leaving him to limp the rest of their lives along. It would be better for Mykie to have one constant in his life, he'd once bravely thought in Belinda's shower as he vigorously scrubbed himself of her scent, of her touch. He'd even brought his own soap for the very cause.

Because of the special circumstances of Sherlock's birth, Peter spent a lot of time looking after the two boys. Belinda still wandered about, but with the anchor of Sherlock to Peter she could leave the two with him and Richard for a weekend. Or two. Or seven. Richard had an affinity for Sherlock, calling the infant Sher, while rocking him in his arms. Mykie looked on usually, standing just at Peter's elbow. A pudgy boy fortunate enough to not need glasses paired with a thin and forgettable face, and a hairline fracture of clinginess in his icy personality—Peter felt terrible that a seven year old was so closed off, but didn't know how to help, not really.

Richard was an apt parent for Sherlock, leaving Peter able to set straight to work on Mykie—Mycroft, because Belinda was some sort of psychotic and had given her children freakish names. Hadn't she thought that these two children would eventually have to face boarding school?

"Mykie, do you like Sher?"

The little boy shrugged, uncomfortable in the knitted sweater that Peter's mother had made for him—part of her last ditch attempts to "cure her boy from the queer," as she so lovingly put it. She wanted to play grandmother to Belinda's children, so occasionally they stuffed Mykie or Sher into her knitting projects and took pictures. His mother thought that having fathered a child meant that there was some sort of "hope" in Peter's "case."

He hated her.

"I suppose he's alright."

"Could you imagine doing anything for him?"

Another shrug. Peter sighed and put a hand on the small shoulder, kneeling down in the same motion to see the world from the vantage point of a seven year old. It looked rather insurmountable from here, if he was honest. Belinda had long forgotten their agreement that they go their separate ways—Mykie was on the verge of beginning to call him 'Da' before he'd gone back to Richard, and then there was Sher—and the woman was quite content letting himself and Richard raise her children.

Peter decided to do this properly.

"In another few years, son, I hope that you will be able to. We'll talk about this again then, right?"

Mykie's light blue eyes swung over, and his little mouth was just barely agape. In his language over the last three years since Belinda introduced him to her son—Peter hadn't been all that surprised, after all he had concealed his relationship with Richard for about the same amount of time so he knew it was possible—Peter had been careful to never get too friendly with how he treated Mykie. But, if Belinda was going to rope him into this despite his rekindled relationship with the man of his dreams, he was going to do it right.

He was also going to get a good few secret agents out of it too.

"Is this one of those things I can't tell Mummy?"

"It would probably be a lot less awkward next week if you refrained, yes."

"I like Mr. Litton…Da." the name hung in the air strangely, unused and uncertain. Peter put his arm around Mykie's round little waist and they watched Richard play with Sher's fingers for a while. Despite Sher being a constant reminder of their previous pain, the fact that the boy was Peter's flesh and blood had bonded him to Richard closer than Peter ever could have hoped for.

"I do too My—son." They would figure out this charade if it killed them. But they would succeed, he could tell already from the triumphant little twitch of Mykie's lips. The same twitch was probably on his own face as well, but it was too small for him to quite tell.

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