This is an AU set in the past, as if Sherlock was active during the second world war. Please drop me a line and tell me what you think. We writers thrive on critique! If the response is positive I may consider a proper multichap fic set during the war with the whole 1940s kit and caboodle. Kind of a cross between 'The Big Sleep', 'Black Book' and 'Band of Brothers'.
Scene One - An Unexpected Visitor
1970
The old man did not answer the doorbell right away. He replaced the honey super in the hive and mopped his rugose brow.
Years ago, he'd installed a bell out of doors, running a hotch-potch of salvaged wires and strings through a makeshift system of hooks and pipes, all the way from the front door to the barn.
The May sun beat down, toasting the back of his neck to a deep nut-brown. Beads of sweat soaked into his blue chambray collar as he began the sedate walk back to the house.
Halfway up the gently sloping garden the inevitable bad mood was rising and he paused at the memorial bench. Oh, the evenings they'd spent languishing there under the magnolia, drinking Connemara sixteen year malt, not feeling they had to talk.
He still didn't talk much, but it was a different kind of not talking. Since…
Since Molly died.
There, I said it. That's progress for you.
She'd been ripped from him in the autumn of her life, and he often said they didn't have enough time together. They'd realised their mutual devotion too late, and now only the name on a bench remained, to testify she was in his arms at the end.
The flaking patio doors creaked and he slipped out of his outdoor shoes and into those infernal slippers that she always complained about, but secretly loved.
The indoor bell chimed, a proper ding-dong this one, not like the tinkling campanological nightmare of his homemade efforts.
"Almost there. Give an old man a chance. I'm not as young as I used to be, but fortunately for you, I'm still pretty." He made his way through to the front hall, where mail lay unwanted on the sisal mat.
He unbolted the door, weighing up the balance of friend versus foe, and found a young woman in an egg-yolk yellow trouser suit, her fair hair shoved tightly into a bun.
Sherlock shuffled about the tiny, chaotic kitchen fetching coffee, his apiary forgotten for the time being.
"Dad always says you make the worst coffee imaginable."
"He would."
"You're still not talking to each other."
"You'd know better than me, what goes through your father's mind, Temple."
"Black, two sugars. Thanks." Temple took the mug and sniffed the thick liquid suspiciously. "Actually, it's not that bad. We get a lot worse at work. You should come up, show them how it's done."
"That and detective work. Present company accepted."
"He misses you, you know."
"If he misses me that much, he can pick up the phone." Sherlock sipped his own coffee, perching on one of the kitchen stools. Temple was the standing sort, so he didn't press her into the other.
"You'll never change will you?"
"No one's ever expected me to change. Why should I change for him?"
"Because he loves you. He may not know how to show it, but he does."
Sherlock muttered, contemplating the scum on the surface of his drink. "Molly understood. She never asked me to change."
"Molly was special, but you can't let her loss send you back to that place, withdraw, become him again." Temple involuntarily glanced out at the Magnolia tree.
"What do you mean, 'him'?"
"You know, that cantankerous old git."
"While she was there I felt like I could face being around other people. Without her I… I don't know what to say."
"You should call him."
"Did you come here to check up on me for John, or is there something else?"
Temple put her mug down on the marble counter and fished a small plastic bag out of her pocket. It contained an off-white powder and she held it out at arm's length for him to see, flicking it from underneath with her little finger.
Sherlock frowned and slipped his varifocals back on. "Is that what I think it is?"
