A/N: This story takes place in what I affectionately refer to as The Astridverse. It is some time after the end of A Great Man, which no, isn't finished yet, but you can still read this without that. Enjoy and review please! :D
"Why, exactly, did you feel the need to get into an altercation with a group of drunken teenage boys?" John asked Astrid as he tended her injuries.
Not to say that when she had walked in, he hadn't been proud of her. She had clearly held her own in a fight, and he was even prouder when she snuck in and tried to tend to herself without help. Of course, he didn't let her.
Astrid tried to mumble a reply through the bag of frozen peas icing down her black eye, but it was entirely incomprehensible.
Lifting the bag off, John prompted, "Come again?"
"They said...things... About you. And Daddy."
Astrid had been especially protective of her family since The Great Game, as John had called it in his blog. This was just the latest (and most severe) in a string of incidents.
"Like what?" he inquired.
Astrid thought of a way to phrase the horrible things she'd heard so that it neither hurt John nor made her angry again. She did her best.
"They made...insinuations. About your...sexual preferences. Among other things." She hoped he wouldn't press further.
"Love, lots of people talk about bisexuals or gays negatively. Have you been brawling with them too and we've just missed it?"
"It wasn't a general statement," her voice dropped to a whisper:"it was about you and Daddy...specifically."
John cocked an eyebrow. "Did you know these kids?"
In answer, Astrid said, "Some of Scotland Yard's finest-" a snort of derision-"should learn to keep their mouths shut. Or at least not speculate about certain things within hearing of their children."
At that point, John suddenly understood. Several of the officers that worked with Sherlock less than regularly were quite entertained by making slurs in their general direction. He could tough it out. But Astrid?
"I gave them a dressing-down and walked away. Then the obviously least intelligent member of the group decided that his best course of action was to yell...something beyond toleration, and I just couldn't help myself." it seemed Astrid needed to tell John the whole story, now that she'd gotten this far.
John couldn't help but get a little angry himself at the image in his head of a group of boys retaliating against one angry little girl, alone in her fight. The honorable soldier couldn't fathom what could make any man hit a girl, much less inflict the amount of damage his daughter had sustained. Of course, an abusive father had made him that much more sensitive about the issue.
"Dad?" Astrid called him. He had drifted off in thought and was clearly no longer mentally present.
"Yes?" he answered.
"Can we...not tell Daddy about this? I'd just rather he didn't know."
"And you're planning on explaining these injuries how, exactly?"
"I dunno, I fell down the stairs or something."
"Astrid, I'm not lying to Sherlock for you. If he asks, I'm telling the truth."
Just then, the man in question stormed in, typing violently into his phone.
The two of them exchanged a look that clearly said Mycroft. She jumped up and hastened into the bathroom in her parents room, returning John's medical kit to its proper place. Of course Sherlock wouldn't ask, John mused. As soon as he saw the two of them (and, more than likely, either one of them), he'd know. He was, after all, a master of deduction.