John rolled over. He stretched out his arm patting the bed beside him as he searched for a body that wasn't there. His eyes opened, and he woke to the melancholy perfection that was his life. John didn't like to sleep alone, but as the world began to rush into the chasm of his sleeping consciousness, he remembered that he was a far, far distance from alone.

On the other side of the room, Sherlock lay sprawled across his bed, sheets askew, his foot sticking over the edge. John smiled at how a man so dignified in his waking bearing could look like such a child in sleep. The alarm rang then and John rolled on to his back with a groan. He lay with his head on the pillow squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to ignore the repeated beeping, then he signed remembering why he had set it so early. He pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, reaching out to turn the alarm off with a quiet click.

His alarm never woke Sherlock. He wasn't sure why not, because sometimes Sherlock was wakened by the hitch in his breath that preceded a nightmare. He would sit on the side of John's bed and shake him awake to stop him, before the dream became too bad. It was strange for John to find himself sharing a room at his age, as if he and Sherlock were brothers. Especially strange since John had never had a brother, and Sherlock's brother was not the type of person with whom one would ever share a room.

John rose, pushing his feet into his slippers and lifting the robe from the back of the door to wrap around his body. He opened the wardrobe and pulled out the set of clothes that he had set aside for himself the night before, carrying it out of the room and closing the door quietly so as not to wake Sherlock. Not that that was likely. Yesterday, he had finished a case, and was in the midst of his 'sleep of the damned'. Sherlock had never managed to figure out a way to sleep like a normal person. John smiled softly as he realized that he was thinking the thoughts Sherlock and normal as if those words had ever belonged together.

John hung his clothes on the inside of the bathroom door. He used the lavatory and washed his hands before tramping down the hall toward the kitchen. The lamplight spilled through the sitting room window. It was just bright enough for John to find the switch and turn on the kitchen light, yellow glow glaring off the linoleum table, and John thought again of buying a larger one as he shuffled across the room to fill the kettle.

John had his first mug of tea alone in the quiet of the flat. It was his meditation, his time to get his thoughts together before the chaos of the day began. He trained his eyes on the window, watching the spill of light through the curtain sheers as they slowly brightened, then when the sound of the trucks began to get louder, and he heard the first hoarse cawing of the crows on the rooftops, he would shower, shave and get dressed.

He pulled out a pan and started breakfast: eggs and toast, the bacon having been used up the morning before. Mary would have insisted on adding fruit as well, but John doesn't have the energy for complexity at breakfast time. Strawberry jam will have to do.

William was the first to come down. John heard the soft, rapid patter of his feet on the steps and had his plate ready by the time that he came out of the bathroom. He began eating immediately, saying 'good morning' as he shoved the first piece of toast in his mouth.

Violet followed in a more stately matter. Her honey blond hair spilling across her back as she passed by. She moaned in reply to his greeting, slamming the bathroom door behind her.

After a second egg, William jumped up, scraping the scant remnants of food off of his plate into the bin and placing it in the sink before rushing off to find that the bathroom door was locked.

"Let me in! I gotta brush my teeth."

"I'm in the shower."

"I can still brush my teeth while you're showering."

"I can't open the door. I'm in the shower."

"Dad, Violet won't open the door! I can't brush my teeth."

"Go upstairs and get dressed, you can brush them when she gets out," John said watching as William charged up the stairs.

Violet emerged a few minutes later wrapped in a lavender robe, a towel draped around her head like a crown as she made her way back upstairs to dress. John placed her plate of eggs in the oven to stay warm after checking to make sure that there were no body parts inside. Sherlock had been an angel, not having brought home so much as a fingernail since the kids moved in, but John always checked anyway to make sure.

Violet returned wearing a green dress, her hair tied up with a matching bow. She placed the napkin on her knees, daintily eating everything that her father served her. Luckily she was still too young to have discovered dieting.

"William, what are you doing with that boomerang?"

"I'm going to take it to school."

"You can't take that to school, William. It's a weapon."

"I know. Sherlock says that someone killed themselves with it. So cool! I want to show all my friends."

John plucked the boomerang out of his hands placing it back on the bookshelf. "Now let's leave Sherlock's things alone, shall we?"

"But dad!"

"What would happen if you ended up hurting a teacher? Then I'd get in trouble as well as you."

"But Sherlock says you like trouble."

"Not for my children, I don't."

"Oh dad. You never let us have any fun."

Violet walked past reaching for her coat, stopping when John put a hand on her shoulder. "We need to buy you some new clothes, that dress is getting too small. It's above your knee."

"But everyone wears them above the knee now."

"It seems a bit short to me."

"Oh dad, you are so old-fashioned." She buttoned her coat just as the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!" William said charging down the steps like a hurricane.

"Careful! One of these days you're going to trip and break your head." John said as he followed him down the stairs, watching as William flung open the door revealing a brown-haired woman and her son. He rushed out to play with the boy on the sidewalk.

"Good Morning, Portia," John said placing one hand on the door frame.

"Good Morning, John. Looks like it's going to be a marvelous day today."

He looked up. "It appears so. Thanks for walking the kids to school. I would but ..."

"No, don't worry about it! I have to take Charles anyway, so it's no bother. And as you can see, he enjoys the company."

"Well I appreciate it anyway."

"Good Morning, Mrs Porco," Violet said gliding down the stairs.

"Morning, oh goodness." Mrs Porco exclaimed, turning to chase after the boys.

"Don't you have a goodbye hug for your father?" John asked with his arms outstretched.

Violet leaned over and gave him not just a hug, but a kiss as well before turning toward Mrs Hudson who had just exited from 221A carrying a bag of rubbish.

"Good Morning, Mrs Hudson," Violet said brightly.

"Good Morning, dear... and to you too, John."

Violet left then to follow the others, and John leaned out of the doorway to glance after her. He only tore his eyes away when he noticed Mrs Hudson trying to slip past him with her rubbish bags. "Let me do that for you, Mrs Hudson."

"Really, do you mind?"

"Of course I don't mind. It's no trouble to take this out to the bins for you."

"Well, thank you. It would save me lifting, and my hip isn't what it used to be."

.

John settled down in his chair to enjoy his second cup of tea while reading the newspaper.

Sometime around ten o'clock, Sherlock appeared, eyes half-closed, his robe hastily tossed over silk pajamas. He yawned, his mouth extending down, cheeks jutting out impossibly far, lengthening his face like a horse. He narrowed his eyes, before snatching the paper out of John's hands.

"Hey, I was reading that!" John yelled. Then he sighed rising to walk into the kitchen. Sherlock followed leafing through the pages. He grabbed a piece of toast abandoned on a plate, devouring it. Then he held out his hand grasping at air until John thrust a mug of coffee into it. He sipped, and hummed approvingly. Then he glanced around.

"Where are they?"

"What?"

"You know," Sherlock said waving his arm at waist level, "the short...ones."

"Do you mean my children? They've gone to school."

"Oh, I thought it was vacation or something... Easter?"

"That was weeks ago, do you even know what date it is?"

Sherlock peered up at the top of the newspaper, "Of course I do."

John snickered and returned to his seat.

"Aren't you supposed to be at work? I thought your grubby little practice would fall apart if you weren't there to prop it up."

"I'm taking the morning off. Won't have to go in till the afternoon. How'd the case go?"

"Dead simple in the end. No need to bore you with the details now. There'll be plenty of time later once I've had time to dress. There's a section missing. half of the obituaries are gone. What did you do with it, John?"

"There was an article that I wanted to read. I saved it."

"Saved it? Where?"

"In the drawer."

Sherlock strode across the room and fished the carefully folded pages out. He read through the death notices before turning the page over to reveal a photo of Mary. "What's this?"

"An article about Mary's company. Seemed interesting. I thought the kids might like it."

"Did you?" Sherlock said eyeing him warily before refolding the page and tossing it down on the surface of the desk. "I wonder why she allowed it? She's usually so careful to keep her picture out of the paper. Someone still could recognize her from her days as an assassin."

"Yeah, well, I wondered about that myself."

"Then again, the Mansfield murderer was elected Mayor of Swansea and served for two terms before anyone noticed, despite having his face on the police's most wanted list. People are idiots after all."

"I certainly hope so in this case."

Sherlock paced over to his laptop, opening it with one hand and tapping some keys as he checked his email. "Gustuf keeps inviting us to Croatia to hear my symphony. Are you sure that you can't make it, John?"

"I'm sorry, Sherlock, but I can't take the kids out of the country now. I'm going through divorce proceedings. It would be suspicious, as if I meant to abduct them."

"Leave them behind then."

"No."

Sherlock crossed his arms placing his hands in his armpits as he climbed into his chair to sulk. "You're no fun anymore."

"My children would agree with you," John said as he leaved through his bills.

Sherlock rose then and tossed himself down on the couch turning to face John. "He sent a recording of their practice. Do you want to listen to it?"

"Of course," John said smiling up at Sherlock and they spent the morning peacefully in each other's company listening to the music play on Sherlock's laptop speakers.

John went to work, returning that evening to find that Violet had cooked a dinner of sausages and rice. Mrs Hudson had been teaching her. They sat at the table together and ate, John's glowing pride making up for her brother's cutting remarks about the burnt sausages.

There was a note in William's bag. Apparently he had tried to make a boomerang of his own and knocked over some books in the library. John sent him to his room early. He stomped angrily up the stairs his feet echoing impossibly loud for someone so small.

Sherlock came home late that night. He had been at Barts looking at bodies again. He showered and then tossed himself on the bed so that they could talk before John fell asleep. Sherlock didn't sleep. Instead he reorganized his mind palace, putting in shelves for all of the parenting books that he had downloaded and read. He chatted with John about how the texts all seemed to contradict each other. He went on and on about how you could trace the rise and fall of attitudes on parenting by decade, before noticing that John was snoring. He shrugged then and turned on his side, and surprisingly, he fell asleep as well.