This is just a bit of nonsense. I haven't written anything that's even close to publishing quality for months, but I rather like this one, and hope it might make someone smile.

Pip xxx

The British Museum Incident

Rosie had had a cold. Sherlock had had a cold. Mrs Hudson had had a cold.

John had apparently been hit my something that was probably just a cold, but which was also a lot of complaining, whining and near tears when he called to beg Sherlock to babysit for the day. Aparently, he was his last resort. Last resort. It was that level of whining.

So Sherlock thought, as he stood on the Watsons' doorstep, waiting with joyful expectation of being able to gloat at John the way John usually gloated at him whenever he thought he had pneumonia which John always diagnosed as a cold. Or laugh the way he had that time when Sherlock accidentally stapled his finger. It had gone on far too long, and then even more so when Sherlock demonstrated precisely how he'd done it. Thus, doing it again.

Then John opened the door.

'Holy f...' Sherlock just about stopped himself on seeing a three-year-old standing right behind her father. 'Feathers,' he ended.

Sherlock was aware that his language had been getting worse since living with an ex-military doctor, but it still took quite a lot to make him swear. Even more to make him nearly swear in front of Rosie.

This warranted such a reaction though.

'Thanks for coming,' John uttered through a nose apparently filled with concrete and a throat that had apparently had a thorn bush stuffed into it.

'It's fine!' Sherlock said, unable to take his eyes of the wreck of a man in front of him.

John was obviously pale, as expected, but he accompanied the pasty look with bright red eyes sunk in deep, purple hollows, a dry, pink area beneath his nose, cracked lips, and a pin pricking of a fevered rash over his cheekbones. Just to confirm the fever diagnosis, he was shivering happily to himself.

It was extraordinary. John did not get ill. He just didn't. What John did was tear around town looking after sick detectives and landladies, tersely explaining to the former that he hadn't had a stroke or a heart attack and gently checking that the latter hadn't either. He even did this while comforting his young daughter and letting her sleep in his bed to comfort her when her stuffy nose and coughing kept waking her up. It was utter madness that he would get ill himself.

'Her day-bag's there,' he said, when Sherlock had done nothing but stare. He pointed at a little, black rucksack that inexplicably accompanied Rosie everywhere.

'Is there anything I can get for you first?' Sherlock managed to ask.

'No, Sherlock, let's go!' Rosie demanded, jumping up and down.

'I'm fine,' John croaked. Then he sniffed and looked set to faint.

Sherlock grasped his elbow and steered him back to the living room and where he lowered him to the couch.

'What the hell is it?' Sherlock demanded.

'Just a cold,' John said. Then, when Sherlock glared, 'And it's decided to make a nice bed of infection in my sinuses and I think now into my throat. That's all.' He waved a weak hand at Sherlock.

'Oh yes. That's all,' Sherlock replied. 'Can I at least get you water or paracetamol or Lemsip or something?'

'Sherlock, come on...' Rosie whined, pulling at his hand.

'In a second, Rosie-Petal.'

'I'm fine,' John lied again. 'I've got water, none of the rest is staying down, and I can't risk losing the antibiotics.'

'Oh, John...'

'Honestly, the best thing you can do is get rid of that one for a while.'

'Love you, Daddy,' Rosie chirped. 'Let's go now.'

'I'll keep her tonight,' Sherlock said, as he was dragged away.

'You don't need to!' John called painfully after him.

'Yes, he does!' Rosie argued, then she dragged him out the door. Just for good measure, she turned and closed it after them. Then she blinked expectantly at Sherlock.

'Are we going to the zoo?' she asked.

'No, it's too cold today.'

'Not for the animals,' she reasoned.

'No. Today I thought I'd take you to the British Museum.'

'Does it have animals?' Rosie asked.

'Er...'

'Er is not an answer.'

'Let's get a cab, shall we?'

The novelty of this sufficiently distracted her to at least get them underway. It wasn't until they were half way across London, while watching her wipe a stream of snot onto the back of her hand, that Sherlock realised he'd left her day-bag behind.

It wasn't the worst thing in the world. He knew there were tissues in there, and wipes, but they could be easily sourced if necessary. Snacks too, possibly, but he had every intention of spoiling Rosie with whatever she chose to eat rather than whatever morsels of health that John tended to select. He saw no flaws with that plan at all. That all settled in his head, he started to tell Rosie about the 'Toys around the world!' exhibition that he was taking her to. She listened with a detached interest before asking if there'd be any cats.

oOo

The excursion had been carefully chosen. Enjoyable, but educational. Intellectual, but something that Rosie could relate to.

Sherlock was certain that Rosie's preschool was not sufficiently challenging her. John knew it too, because Sherlock had informed him of such when arriving at his house for dinner once. John had then accidentally closed the door in his face and failed to hear the doorbell for another ten minutes. Sherlock had searched for his keys, but discovered that John must have mistaken them for his own at some point, so had removed them from his keyring. It was fine, because Sherlock found them again, when rooting through John's dresser drawers. He'd made several copies, just in case such an accident recurred, but he tried not to use them in case John repeated his mistake. It was annoying because John's doorbell seemed to work only intermittently, and his phone connection didn't appear to be that stable either.

Toys around the world! was informative and interesting for almost exactly half an hour. Rosie had no intention of looking at anything that might be considered educational, and played with the demonstration toys for about half a minute each. Sherlock did squat down with her and explained which of the toys he himself had owned when he was a little boy, but she just stared at him as though he'd announced that he was an alien from Mars.

'Right,' he said, finally defeated. 'Shall we go and look at the mummies?'

'I haven't got a mummy,' she said, blankly.

'Not that sort of mummy,' he replied, not missing a beat.

'Why are they different?'

'These ones are dead.' He instantly winced and braced himself for many comparisons that she might choose to make just now, right in front of the alarmed young demonstrator sitting among the toys.

'Ok then,' she replied, shrugging.

Doubt started to fill his mind as soon as they reached the Egypt room. He went through the door and was faced with a glass box with a corpse in it. It was a mummified corpse, to be fair, but one that had been unwrapped to show the efficiency of the mummification process. It was, basically, a corpse. He wasn't entirely sure, but he could vaguely remember that at some point in the past, John might have suggested he wasn't keen on Rosie viewing a corpse. She was already in though, and stretching on her tiptoes to look.

'Shall we look at all the gold jewellery?' Sherlock suggested.

'Is this a man?' she asked.

'Yes. But look over…'

'Is he dead?'

'He is but…'

'He still has his skin on him!'

'It's…'

'And you can see his teeth!'

'Yes.'

'Why isn't he a skeleton? I thought dead people were supposed to be skeletons.' She asked quite loudly, and the room was annoyingly echoing, and an elderly couple raised their eyebrows in their direction.

'Well, because the ancient Egyptians mummified the dead if they were of sufficient social standing,' he whispered back.

'Why?'

'Because they thought it would benefit them in the afterlife.'

'Why?'

'Because they were stupid.' He remembered himself. 'While also producing the most advanced civilisation of its time.'

'My mummy isn't a skeleton,' Rosie announced to the room.

'No.' He wondered when John had discussed the nature of cremation with her.

'She's in Heaven,' Rosie said. 'I can't go there, because it's not like France or Sherlock's flat.'

Sherlock was so moved he tried to hug her, but she wriggled away from him and went to anther cabinet.

'Is that a cat?' she asked, finally finding the one cat in the British Museum.

'Yes,' he said.

'Is it dead?'

'Yes.'

'It's still got its fur on it.'

'Yes. They mummified the cat too.' He prepared himself for the anticipated 'Why?'

'I think,' she said, giving the matter due reflection, 'I'd prefer not to be a mummified cat.'

'No,' Sherlock agreed. 'I think I prefer you exactly as you are too.'

oOo

Rosie was more easily contained when she was riding on Sherlock's shoulders. She couldn't run away, she couldn't whine about being tired, he got to choose their pace, and she didn't constantly pull on his arm by skipping while holding his hand. She didn't mind it either. She could be very tall on his shoulders. Even taller than she was when she was on Daddy's shoulders, as she delightfully liked to tell John over and over until he started muttering under his breath.

She stayed on his shoulders, sometimes pointing things out with hands and arms that he couldn't see, all the way from Egypt to Asia. She did condescend to sit on her own stool while she ate lunch (a quarter of a cheese sandwich, a chocolate muffin the size of her head and a bottle of fizzy drink, but not one with caffeine in it. Sherlock wasn't stupid.) Then she went back on his shoulders some more as he finally agreed to take her all the way up the circular rise up to the middle of the central dome. To be fair, the safety wall was so high that she'd never be able to see otherwise. And she was even taller than everyone else in the whole museum up there.

'There you see?' Sherlock asked, pointing down at where the people were eating in the café. 'They're tiny now!'

'Sherlock,' Rosie said patiently, 'they're actually just further away.'

He couldn't help but snigger.

'There's something else I've been meaning to tell you,' she said.

'What's that, Petal-Pet?' he asked.

'I need a wee.'

'Oh!'

He hadn't anticipated this at all. Both of them had used the facilities before they'd had their lunch, and he certainly didn't need to visit again.

John seemed to have a constant state of curiosity relating to the state of Rosie's bladder. He asked if she needed a wee as soon as she woke up, before and after every meal, any time they happened to walk past a public toilet, before bed, and seemingly at half hour intervals between all of those times. On one embarrassing occasion, he'd asked Sherlock when they were leaving a crime-scene. Lestrade had laughed far longer than was strictly necessary.

John was so obsessed that he'd even developed the idea of a 'thinky wee'. These were occasions where he would utterly refuse to accept Rosie's 'no' and made her sit on the toilet and be talked at until she went.

'Maybe we should go to the toilet,' Rosie suggested now.

'Yes,' he agreed. 'That does seem sensible.' Suddenly the winding path down the centre seemed very long indeed.

One of the reasons he was so much more efficient than John in these matters was that his powers of observation were superior. John might happen upon a toilet block and suggest they use it. Sherlock knew where the two closest were already, and opted for the slightly further one, based on the fact that there was hardly anything in the distance, and being obscure, they would be quieter and the queues shorter. What he hadn't counted on was them being closed for cleaning. There was a helpful sign pointing to the busier set.

'Sherlock, I'm at eleven now,' Rosie told him from above. 'And it's a bit of a worry, because I only go up to twelve.'

It was so endearing that he wanted to laugh. On the other hand, it was so alarming he wanted to run.

A fast walk wasn't quite enough. He'd just come into view of the signposted stairs where the promised toilets were when he felt a warm, trickling sensation down his back. He stopped and closed his eyes. He started blushing on Rosie's behalf.

'I'm very sorry,' Rosie said in a tiny voice.

'I know. It's OK,' he said. 'It was just an accident.'

He carefully lifted her over his head and put her down on the floor. She was pink and tearful.

'It's fine,' he said again, squatting down to talk to her. 'It really is OK. What do we do now? I mean, what would Daddy do now?'

'Daddy would take me to the toilets, clean me with the wipes in my day-bag, and put me in the clothes. I won't like the green trousers as much as my red trousers with the flowers, but Daddy would tell me they'd do for now, and then we'd be allowed back to the rest of the party.'

'Right.' He was starting to notice the sogginess. 'How about we catch a taxi to my house? We can change there.' He looked at the dark patch on her trousers and hoped that a cabbie wouldn't notice it. His coat would need dry cleaning for the second time in two weeks, but being charcoal wool, at least the wet part wouldn't show.

'Could we watch cartoons?'

'We can definitely watch cartoons.' He shook in an attempt to redistribute some of the liquid. 'We'll tell Daddy that we've only watched two, but we if we accidentally watch more than that, it doesn't really matter.'

He took her hand and led her to the exit.

oOo

Sherlock was bordering on nervous exhaustion by the time John called him late that afternoon.

'Hello,' Sherlock answered, hopefully. 'How are you feeling?'

'Well, I slept for four hours, and have managed toast and paracetamol, so I'm starting to feel closer to human. You really can bring Rosie back.' Despite his bravado, he still sounded stuffed up and croaky and shivery.

'No, it's fine,' Sherlock replied.

'She's exhausting.'

'She's fine! Besides, we wanted a change of clothes and all we could find here were four pairs of pyjama trousers, one fluffy jumper and a newborn vest. I have no idea how that happened. She's here until Mrs Hudson finishes the laundry.'

'Children bring chaos. Why did you need a change?'

'We just fancied one,' Sherlock said quickly.

'Fair enough.' John yawned. 'What's she doing?'

Sherlock looked to where Rosie was spinning in circles on the coffee table. He was concerned that she'd fall off at some point, but was too tired to do anything about it.

'I think she's dancing.'

'Are you trying her on Paganini again?'

'No. Whatever she's listening to only exists in her head. Did you know she is able to count to twelve, make comparative measurements, and understand perspective?'

'Yep. She's a smart little cookie. Preschool's doing wonders for her. She knows a fair number of letters too.'

'Hm.' He watched the spinning child. 'Do you think we should get her trampoline lessons?'

'I don't think she needs any encouragement in that area.'

'Maybe not.' He had an interesting thought. 'Technically, given that she's your child…'

'I'm not buying you a new sofa, Sherlock.'

'How did you know?' he asked, incredulous.

'Because,' John said, patiently, 'she was out with you, so you've pumped her full of sugar, so it's technically your fault that she bounced on your sofa until she broke the springs.'

Sherlock looked lovingly at the little girl. She was worth several sofas. She stopped spinning and swayed, dizzily.

'I am going to feed her a vegetable for supper though,' Sherlock said, earnestly.

'Which one?'

'A potato, which is technically…'

'You're getting her fish and chips, aren't you?'

'Maybe.'

John managed a quiet, croaky laugh. 'Put her on then.'

'Rosie, did you want to talk to Daddy?' He secretly hoped not, as that would be safer.

She came to take his phone though.

'Hello, Daddy!' she said, delightedly. 'We went to a big building and saw toys, and did you know Sherlock was a little boy once? And he had a train, but I could only watch it, and then we went to see a dead man, and you could still see his skin and teeth and there was a dead cat too, and then I weed on Sherlock's head, but he still loves me very much, and he gave me a bath, and my pyjamas here don't fit, and we watched seven cartoons but we're only to tell you two.' She didn't wait for an answer. Damage done, she merely handed the phone back to Sherlock.

John was laughing. It was a croaky, wheezy sort of laugh.

'Oh lord,' he said. 'That hurts.'

'You could choose to not to then,' Sherlock said peevishly. Then he sighed. 'I hadn't quite understood how difficult it is. I don't think I'd quite appreciated that.'

'You're doing fine,' John said. 'This is the first time you've had her solo.'

'Yes.' It was. It hurt Sherlock that everyone else had been trusted by now, apart from him. He knew John was justified. It still hurt though, and he really had wanted to do well.

'I appreciate it,' John said, gently. 'If you really are fine, then you could have her tomorrow too…'

'No! I mean, obviously fine but… well, surely it's better that you come here so Mrs Hudson can feed you chicken soup and the like. Yes, that's certainly the best idea! See you tomorrow!' Rosie finally took her tumble and fell to the floor. 'Got to go! Everything's fine! Bye then!'

He tossed his phone to the wreck of a sofa and went back to work.

Sorry. I'm rubbish at endings. Plus, I could probably have kept going for hours and I really need to get on with the washing up.