"Oh no," exclaimed Mary Watson as she stared down at her phone.
"What? What's wrong?" asked John quickly. Sherlock looked up at Mary and shook his head.
"Calm down, John. A friend is in the hospital. Nothing serious. No need to be alarmed," mumbled Sherlock before he took a small bite of the eggs Mary made him. The Watsons and their baby daughter had gone to have breakfast with Sherlock that morning. They said it was because they hadn't seen him a while but the truth was they were worried about his eating habits as of late. So Mary had cooked and watched Sherlock intensely as he slowly ate. That is until she got the text message.
"Archie's in the hospital. Mallory just texted me. Appendicitis."
"Archie as in the young boy at your wedding?" asked Sherlock genuinely. Mary looked over to see that he had miraculously finished eating his breakfast.
"Yes, Sherlock. Why?" John asked but his friend was already sliding a Belstaff onto his shoulders.
"I just figured out what I'm going to do today," he replied before grabbing something off his desk and walking out of the flat and down the stairs. He had been bored and spending the morning with the young boy could prove to be beneficial for the both of them. Archie reminded Sherlock of himself as a child, and Sherlock was more than happy to fuel the boy's enthusiasm. Besides, he did owe him some pictures.
When Sherlock got to Bart's, he automatically headed straight for the lab, pushing open the door dramatically before walking in. Before him sat Molly Hooper, her hair pulled into a high ponytail and her form hunched over a microscope. He wasn't sure if she hadn't heard him come in or if she was simply ignoring him. She was still mad at him over the drug-incident and he wasn't so great at asking for forgiveness. He walked over and cleared his throat.
"Yes, Sherlock?" she asked without looking up. He stood beside her, his hands behind his back and a stoic expression on his face.
"Molly. Is it customary to bring a gift to a child when they are in the hospital?" he questioned. She looked up now and raised an eyebrow in skepticism.
"Yes…why?"
"Good. Do you have any spare eyeballs?" He smiled widely at her.
"First of all what children do you know and second of all you can't take an eyeball to a child, Sherlock. I can't imagine a mother would appreciate that," she replied while giving him a cold stare. He sat on the stool beside her.
"The Watsons ring bearer has appendicitis and I should like to visit him. Cheer him up, I suppose. And if you had children Archie's age you would let them look at an eyeball." She scrunched up her nose in thought.
"I suppose I would but that doesn't mean…"
"Exactly. So the eyeball? Please?" She didn't reply. "For Archie?" he asked again and gave her one of the puppy-dog faces that she couldn't resist no matter how mad she was. She rolled her eyes and walked over to a freezer, pulling out an eye and handing it to Sherlock. He smiled gratefully at her before going to walk out of the lab again.
"How many more times do I have to apologize before I'm forgiven?" he asked her before he left.
"I haven't decided yet."
"Then I guess I'll have to keep trying. I'm sorry, Molly Hooper. Truly. Thank you for the eyeball." She smiled at him so he gave her a wink before leaving the lab.
When Sherlock arrived at Archie's room he found the young boy with his nose in a mystery book; his eyes were lit up and shifting back and forth across the page. Sherlock had a flashback to when he was a young boy and how much he enjoyed reading. He always learned from books and he loved being transported to anywhere and everywhere just by cracking the spine. Having a mind palace meant that he was an excellent visualizer, an important thing to be when one is an eight year old little boy who is desperate from some quality intellectual human interaction. Books created that for him. Books wove words into stories and stories into pictures in Sherlock's head. He created the brightest of blues and the tallest of trees. He envisioned good guys and bad guys and dead guys and smart guys. He went to crime scenes and solved the murders before the characters even collected all the evidence. And even though he was ahead intellectually, he still found comfort in those books.
"Mr. Holmes?" he heard a soft voice ask as he was brought out of his reverie. He focused in on Archie again who now had his book lying off to the side.
"Archie," he replied, walking into the room and sitting down on a chair beside his bed. "I heard you were sick. I brought you something." He held up the bag with the eye ball and the curly haired book looked at it with amazement.
"Whoa! A real eyeball! Did you bring my pictures?" Sherlock retrieved a stack of photographs he managed to grab before leaving the flat, most of them containing beheadings. The boy took them and Sherlock watched as his face lit up with pleasure. "Thanks, Mr. Holmes!" exclaimed Archie. "Your job is so cool. I want to be just like you when I grow up."
"No you don't," Sherlock said without even thinking. He pursed his lips as he realized what he said. But it was true. He didn't want Archie to end up like him. He didn't want Archie to hold people at arm's length or be closed off to those around him. He watched as Archie simply shrugged and looked at the pictures again.
"Will you teach me how to do your thing?" the young boy asked.
"What thing? Please try to be more specific. I know you are much smarter than that." Archie scrunched his eyebrows together and tried again.
"Will you teach me how you know someone with just a look?" Sherlock cracked a smile and leaned forward to talk to the child.
"Okay. Look at me. Now use all of your senses to notice things about me. Get them all in your head. Come to conclusions about what that information could mean. Now eliminate anything that couldn't be true about me. Whatever is left has to be true." The boy gave Sherlock a once over.
"Your pants are wet on the bottom so I think you walked here today cuz it's raining out. You haven't been sleeping. Your eyes are all red." Archie poked a finger under Sherlock's eye and giggled. "And you went to see your girlfriend today."
Sherlock sat back, shocked, and blinked a few times before answering. "Sorry?"
"Your girlfriend. You smell like a lady but it's not what Mrs. Watson smells like. So I think it's the lady that does pato…path…"
"Pathology," sighed Sherlock.
"Yeah. Mr. Watson said you have a friend who works on the dead people. Do you think she'd let me see?" This little lesson in deduction took quite an unexpected turn.
"No," replied Sherlock. "But why do you think she's my girlfriend?"
"Cuz she gave you the eyeball. And you were all smiley when you came in. And now your face is turning red, Mister Holmes." Archie giggled as, true to his word, Sherlock's face began to turn a bright shade of red.
"She's not my girlfriend," replied the consulting detective.
"Okay. But you like her." Sherlock looked about the room for a minute before turning back to the boy.
"Nicely done," he said before spending the afternoon with his new protégé.
