A/N: Inspired heavily by 'It Feels Like Home When I'm With You' by etothepii on AO3.

A brush up on my World War I history was researched here, for the detail of it my U.S. History class breezed by: firstworldwar(dot)com.

One: Whispers of Hello

His name is Sherlock Holmes, and he is aged ten. He can calculate maths well above his years, he attends a well respected primary school, and every day his brilliant older brother, Mycroft, comes and takes his hand, walking him home.

"Brother," Sherlock remarks with a tug on Mycroft's sleeve one particularly misty afternoon. Overhead, the sun is straining to show its vibrant face from behind immense, forebodingly shadowy clouds. "May we visit the cemetery today?"

Sherlock adores the cemetery, the one located between his school and their home. It features many of those who served in the World Wars, and always has something of medical or scientific interest to the young, dark-haired boy. He isn't always permitted to go, but when he can, he tries to talk his brother into it. There is always something new alongside something incredible old to discover, and it's breathtaking.

"It might be a tad damp," Mycroft remarks with a sigh. He uses his free hand to graze his finely groomed chestnut hair. "So I won't stray from the path, but you may if you like. I'll keep an eye on you. We can't stay long, though; Mummy might get worried. You know how she is."

"I understand," Sherlock answers in his child's voice, but every adult agrees that it is one of the lowest voices they have ever heard on a little boy. He will be a rich-voiced man when he's older, they all say. Sherlock doesn't know why it matters, unless it's good for commanding people as well as his father does; in which case, then he is glad he inherited such a mood-leveling voice. "I won't be very long. I just want to see if there are any new ones, and I wish to get to W today with the First World War heroes' tombstones."

"Go ahead," Mycroft says as he opens the gate of the graveyard and releases Sherlock's small, nimble-fingered hand. It's already trained for the violin, piano, and flute, and can write cursive as fluidly as an adult. Sherlock is a rare child, Mycroft thinks. But then again, so is Mycroft. Their entire family is unique, rare. It's no wonder Sherlock's only friend is his older brother, and vice versa.

Sherlock has unusual grace for his age and doesn't slip or fall or dirty his knees as he jogs eagerly over to the headstones. Some are clean, polished, new; the soil stretching out from them still covered in grass seed, waiting to blend in with the rest of the graves. Sherlock lingers by these, tracing the family names of strangers and tip-toeing around the freshly turned dirt. Once, he was lucky enough to arrive during a burial, and it was so utterly fascinating to watch, because people are so funny with their reactions, and Sherlock likes to watch them, study them, put the information away for future reference.

The young boy follows the rows up and up and down and down until he comes to the slew of military stones, crisp and white but graying, getting a bit crumbled and worn. It's been decades since many of them were buried; over sixty years, in fact. And some of them would still be alive, maybe, if some tragic incident or another hadn't killed them. Sherlock likes to study the graves and see which ones tell the cause, or the location, or any remotely interesting fact. And if they tell none but seem haunting, Sherlock likes to look up the soldier's name in the records at the library, with Mycroft's help. Some of the ways they die is especially fascinating, and Sherlock loves the mystery of it all.

As Sherlock turns down another row, Mycroft not too far in the distance behind him, on the walkway, Sherlock stops and stands still.

There's a man sitting on one of the headstones, peering down at the ground, directly above where the body's head would be. He's looking at it, elbows on his spread knees, hands dangling toward the grass, and his head is bowed sadly, a hat in his left hand.

Sherlock keeps his pace slow and cautious. There is something not right about the man; he appears… transparent. The day is dim and misty, sprinkles of moisture able to be felt in the air like fog, but not hazy enough to be true fog, which means the transparent, softened look isn't being cause by the natural state of the day.

It leaves a tart, wet taste in Sherlock's mouth. He swallows, curls his unruly hair around his ear, tacking it back, and straightens his tiny, slim shoulders. "Sir," he greets, and the man doesn't look up at first. This gives time for Sherlock to look him over.

Now, Sherlock is pale, very pale. Most children his age play outside, get the fragments of sun London's weather allows, and are a healthy peach or pink. But Sherlock is not. He likes to remain indoors, reading, dissecting, playing with his chemistry set and miniature microscope, studying the cellular makeup of his hair and spit and cuticles and the like. So when he sees this man as thinks him as white as a sheet, it is not an exaggeration, because Sherlock knows pale, and this man is beyond so.

Worse still are his clothes. They don't look right. They appear as though they have come from another time period altogether. They are faint in color, washed out by the hue of the dismal day, and the man's hair is cropped short and is every shade of blond in one, although it is primarily golden-wheat, and the man's face reminds Sherlock of an animal he can't place at the moment, but it is endearing and handsome, this man's face, however it looks.

But one things bothers Sherlock: from this profile view, it looks as though the man is… wounded. He is hunched in a way that screams of pain and defeat. And one thing more: he doesn't appear to be breathing.

"Sir," Sherlock tries again once he is much closer, nearly at the man's side. He is about one grave away, and finally, the man looks up.

"Hello," the man says, and his voice is like the chilled cinnamon-apple-butter his grandmother makes during holidays, firm but sweet. "You can see me?"

"Of course I can," Sherlock frowns. "Why wouldn't I be able to see you? There you are, sat on the headstone. That is a bit disrespectful to the dead, don't you think? And you're dressed a bit like a military man, so why are you disrespecting a soldier's resting place?"

"Ah, well," the man says gently, and he looks away, body reclining slowly, like a breath of air. He places his hat back atop his head and rubs a tear from one eye, sitting up straight. He still isn't noticeably breathing whatsoever. "It's alright, because this is my headstone, and I can sit on it just fine without disrespecting myself, I think." He looks over at the boy and offers a sad smile. "What's your name?"

Sherlock blinks. His headstone? "Sherlock Holmes," the boy introduces, and he holds out his hand. "I am ten years and four months old. I have lost all but two of my baby-teeth and I aspire to be a pirate one day."

"A pirate, eh?" the man chuckles. He stands and bends over just enough to shake Sherlock's hands without the boy having to stretch his arm upward. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Holmes. I'm Captain Watson. I would tell you the rest of my name, but I can't remember it, you see. 'Watson' is all that's all that's on my stone, aside from the date of my birth and the year of my death."

Sherlock lets go of the man's cold, empty-feeling hand and peers down at the grave. Sure enough, it reads:

Capt. Watson
Born 1888
Died 1918

"…You are a specter," Sherlock breathes, glancing back and forth a few times between the words on the marker and the translucent man standing before him.

"Yes," Watson nods woefully, and Sherlock thinks the man would sigh, had he any lungs to sigh with. "I wish I could remember it, my life, but it is so well faded that it is difficult. And I have been walking amongst the living for decades now, wandering London, weaving in and out of buildings and moments, recalling only fragments. But I remember The Great War."

"World War I," Sherlock nods as he sits down on the ground and folds his legs into a pretzel. He peers up at the man and watched him sit down on the grave marker again, legs together this time, hands on his thighs, leaning over to maintain eye contact with his younger companion. "We learn about it in school, along with the other wars. 658,700 countrymen died in your war, but the casualties including the wounded and missing is much greater in total."

"That many?" Watson says, horror on his face.

"I memorized the numbers precisely. I like to collect facts and data and make educated assumptions," Sherlock confirms, and Watson is a bit astounded by how well this boy speaks for his age, his vocabulary incomparable. "I would be a masterful pirate; I would know all of my treasure to the pound and exactly where I had hidden it, all from careful study, planning, and stored in memory."

Watson gives a small smile. "I bet you would be. But with a head for facts and data and ideas, wouldn't you be better suited as a scientist, or a philosopher?"

"My brother thinks so," Sherlock remarks with a sigh. He gestures with a thumb behind him, down the row, where Mycroft is looking on the scene with mild interest, his umbrella (always prepared for the rain, he is; Sherlock doesn't care if he gets wet, so he never bothers with his own) acting as a walking stick to lean on. "He says I would be good at it."

"So do I, I gather. But you have plenty of time to decide what you want to be, and plenty more schooling to go through until you be it." He looks away, then, from the pale boy with high cheekbones and piercing eyes and scrawny limbs. The boy reminds him too much of his little sister, Harriett, and he misses her. She was just the same: all angles beneath the roundness of her youth, and her eyes shot straight through everyone she met. Watson clears his throat. "And there was a second Great War, and many conflicts afterward, weren't there, if I'm not mistaken? Always fighting, always losing men. And now they are teaching it to children as history, when it was all so new and current to me, and everything that followed was so dream-like." The man is strange, and a trapped spirit, and Sherlock thinks he would like to study him.

"There were," Sherlock murmurs. He looks thoughtful, gears churning, and when he pipes up, he bears an offer. "Do you want me to research you? I might be able to access more information about you, to help you remember."

"That would be wonderfully helpful, thank you," Watson says with genuine gratefulness. "No one has ever suggested that to me before, and one or two people have seen me and spoken to me. But they all were too afraid of me, in the end, to do anything for me. They disliked the idea of me being dead."

"On the contrary, I think it's brilliantly fascinating that you're dead," Sherlock says with a frown. "Why wouldn't they think it's fascinating? It's the paranormal meeting the scientific, and it deserves looking in to!"

"Thank you for thinking of it that way. You're fantastic," Watson says, and Sherlock feels himself blush brightly.

"I'm just smart," Sherlock mumbles. He's never been complimented before, outside of his family, which doesn't count because family is supposed to compliment and adore and gush over the kids of the family. He plays with his own fingers and stands up, fidgeting. "I should go soon or my Mum will worry. But I'll look up the British army records and search for you. Do you at least remember where you died? It will help narrow down my search in case there is more than one Watson from the First World War."

The ghost puts a hand to his chin and closes his eyes, humming. Opening them, he relays, "Aisne comes to mind. I remember the word 'Aisne.'"

"There were three battles of Aisne, and judging by the date which you died, it must have been the third, because the first two occurred in 1914 and 1917, respectively, and your stone reads 1918. Pity; you were so close to reaching the war's end," Sherlock comments, his blush thankfully, finally receding. He clears his throat. "I'll start with the casualties of that battle, then, and hopefully I will find you, Captain Watson." And he does a perfect execution of a salute.

Watson's impressed. He smiles. "Thank you, Mr. Holmes," he says respectfully, giving a little bow to the child, and he watches in amusement as the boy's blush flares up again.

"Just 'Sherlock' is fine. I'm not your equal," the boy reminds.

"Not in age or accomplishment, no, but you're the first person to stay in my company for longer than a minute, and that puts you on some nearer level, I believe," Watson says kindly, and Sherlock can only blink and nod his head.

"Okay, that's acceptable, I suppose," Sherlock murmurs, and he glances down shyly for a second. He smiles when he lifts his head again. "I look forward to visiting you again with information to give."

"And I look forward to receiving it. Until next time, Sherlock," Watson says, and he smiles again before vanishing into thin air without so much as a ripple in his appearance. Sherlock simply blinks, and his new friend is gone.

When Sherlock walks back to Mycroft and holds out his hand to grasp his older brother's, Mycroft asks, "Who were you talking to, Sherlock? I saw someone there, but I couldn't make them out well."

"His name is Watson and he's a captain – but not the flying sort; not from the look of his uniform, anyway – and he's from World War I," Sherlock grins. He chances a look up at Mycroft's face. His brow is raised in question. Sherlock's smile grows as he faces forward again, following the path at Mycroft's long-legged pace. "He's dead. A ghost, Mycroft! Isn't it brilliant? I'm making him a case study. I'm going to research him, find out all I can, and visit him often enough to collect data from any memories he can tell me."

"I wouldn't believe you if I hadn't seen him myself, the way he disappeared like that without walking away or turning. Incredible," Mycroft remarks softly. "But we mustn't tell Mother. She would think we're playing games or have gone bonkers."

"Agreed," Sherlock says. He frowns, suddenly. "But you can't take this case from me, Mycroft; Watson is mine. I want to be the one to unravel the mystery, not you! Promise me you won't interfere," he says determinedly.

Mycroft chuckles. "I don't care much for the supernatural, little brother, so do as you wish. But if you need my help finding something, I won't decline." He snorts a chuckle as they close the gate of the cemetery behind them and continue home. "You make the oddest friends, Sherlock. First that skull Daddy brought home for you, and now a specter to match. You've always been morbid, but now I wonder."

"Nothing to worry about," Sherlock shrugs. "Living human beings just don't like me much. I'm too strange."

"You're ten. Everyone small and imaginative is strange," Mycroft points out, giving Sherlock's hand a squeeze.

"But I'm not imaginative; I believe in what I can see and touch and what others can see and touch as well, to make sure it isn't my mind going overboard. And you saw him, too, which makes him real, and you know how much I like direct facts. No child is like me, Mycroft. I'm… too old for my age," Sherlock says, his frown pinching between his eyes at the top of his nose almost painfully-looking. His face smoothes out when their front door comes into sight. "But it doesn't matter. I have what I need: you, Skull, and now, Watson. And myself, of course. I don't need anyone else. They're all too stupid compared to me, anyway. I would get bored of anyone else."

"True enough," Mycroft agrees. Because he himself is likable and charming and people look up to his brains and grades and he is very good at charming his teachers to always be in their favor when he needs it, but Mycroft doesn't have friends; children to associate with at school, yes, but no one to bring home to chat or study or do other friendly things with. He chooses not to; they're all very boring people to him, too boring to befriend.

Their mother greets them at the door, ushering them inside. "Come along, boys," she says sternly, "You're late, the tea's cooling, and it could rain at any moment. And if you catch cold, I swear on my mother's grave that I won't nurse you; you will have to attend school anyhow."

Mycroft smiles like flatterer he is and says, "Yes, Mummy," and Sherlock sulks and grunts, "Yes, Mum," under his breath as he removes his jacket. She seems satisfied, though, and her glower becomes a smirk as she leads them into the drawing room for tea and schoolwork.

And that is how Captain Watson became the future great detective Sherlock Holmes' first murder case. Because war is murder, and Watson was in war, and Sherlock has taken it upon himself to sort out the how of it all.