A/N: So don't ask me what inspired this because I don't know. :P It just seemed like the right thing to write. As per usual, reviews are very much appreciated and will be responded to. ^-^
"Hi, Uncle John!" Stacy ran forward and hugged John hard around the knees. He laughed, leaned down, and picked her up.
"Hello, Stacy. How have you been?"
"Great! I just got out of school and I made a drawing of a horse."
"Oh did you? Very interesting." He put Stacy back down as Jessica made her way up to them. "Hey Jessica, it's good to see you." She smiled gently at him.
"It's good to see you too, John, Stacy was looking forward to it." She gave John a hug and then reached down for Stacy's hand. "Come on, Stacy, calm down now- John's going to take us to dinner." Stacy brightened visibly.
"Ooh, like he does every week?" John laughed.
"Of course. We're going to get Italian food, do you like that?" Stacy nodded; she loved it when she and Jessica met up with John. They went out every week for dinner (well, every week they could manage) and once a month they went to see a movie.
"Can I get pasta?" she asked.
"Well, you can get whatever your mother thinks is okay. It's not really up to me." They went to the small Italian place a couple of streets over, where they had a nice dinner. Stacy showed him her picture of the horse, drawn in standard five-year-old quality, so that you couldn't tell which end was which or whether or not it was actually a dog. Nevertheless, John told her how nice it was and helped her solve the puzzle on the back of the kids menu. It was a slow, relaxed evening and they took their time- Sherlock was out of town on a case, and Jessica was off work until tomorrow, so neither of them had any obligations to be fulfilling.
"Are we going to see a film next time?" Stacy asked John when they had finished eating.
"We will if there's anything worth watching," John replied. They paid the bill and left the restaurant, where John walked the two back to their small flat just a couple of streets away. Stacy jumped up and down and gave John another hug.
"Goodnight, Uncle John, see you next week!" John gave her another hug, and then said goodnight to Jessica, who told him,
"Thank you for this. I know how much she loves it when we go somewhere together." John smiled.
"It's no problem- I needed a night off anyway. So, see you next week, then?" Jessica gave him one last hug and took Stacy into their flat. John turned and started back to Baker Street. To his immense surprise, when he got to the crosswalk, he ran into Lestrade. "Oh. Hello, Lestrade, how are you?" The other man greeted him, looking rushed.
"Good, just getting back to work, though, I've got to be there all night. Was that your new girlfriend?" he asked. John gave a slight laugh.
"No, just the wife of a really good friend of mine. We knew each other a while back and Jessica and I stayed friends." Lestrade nodded.
"So is her husband out of town, then?" John bit his lip.
"Um, no, he's not. We knew each other a few years ago. We were in Afghanistan together." John remembered Christopher Sayler vividly. The two had been together in the same unit out in the desert. "He was hilarious to be around, but he had the rudest sense of humor I've ever heard- not to mention he had the vocabulary to match." John gave a slight laugh. "He was the only person I ever met out there who never let things get to him, even on the worst days. He'd just laugh and swear it off and keep going, every time." The light changed on the crosswalk and the two men started across the street.
"He sounds like a good guy." John nodded.
"Yeah, he was, he was a great guy. He had this way of making friends with everybody, even if he'd never seen them before."
"So what happened?"
"Just a month before, we'd gotten some leave and we were back in Britain for a few days. I went with him to visit Jessica, his wife. Stacy hadn't come yet, but it was just a couple of weeks until she was due. He was so excited, more than I'd ever seen him; he couldn't wait for her to be born. But we got sent back to Afghanistan before she was. She came a couple of weeks after we shipped back over, and Chris was over the moon about it." John laughed. "He practically ran all the way around the base showing everyone the picture Jessica had sent to him- he'd talk your ear off about her if you stood still long enough and she wasn't even a week old yet."
Even though he had no reason to be going in Scotland Yard's direction, he kept walking with Lestrade; he'd never explained to anyone why he took Jessica and her daughter out every week, figuring people either didn't know or didn't care. "A few days after that we were out on patrol. It seemed like it would be boring, and we didn't think anything was going to happen."
"But something did?"
"IED," John replied shortly. "And then a lot of gunfire. But it was the explosion that killed Chris; he was dead quick, at least. Stacy was only two weeks old when her father died. I remember we spoke just the day before he died and he couldn't quit talking about her. When we spoke that day, he told me how worried he was that something would happen to him before his tour was over and he wouldn't be able to be there for Stacy. And the very next day..." John shook his head. "I told him that nothing would go wrong and that if something did I would tell Stacy all about her father and what a great guy he was. When I got back to England, I found Jessica and told her what I'd promised Chris and ever since then, I've been taking them out to dinner once a week. I still tell Stacy stories about her father, and so does Jessica, but still- it's not the same as having him around. Jessica's never remarried and so I'm the closest thing Stacy has to a father." He gave a short, sarcastic laugh. "Not much of a substitute, I suppose, but I'm the best she's got." Lestrade nodded slowly and looked at John.
"She could do worse, you know. There are a lot of men out there who wouldn't even come close to being able to do what you do for a friend. It's just too bad you ever got put in that position at all." They had finally arrived at Scotland Yard, and Lestrade had to go into work, leaving John on his own. He took his time getting back to Baker Street, lost in thought and not particularly paying attention to his surroundings. He'd never been bothered by living up to his promise to Chris- it was the only thing he could possibly have done and he genuinely loved Stacy and her mother. But what Lestrade had said was true; Chris should have been there raising his own child, not lying dead in the cemetery because of some terrorist with a bomb and an ideology. John shook his head and kept going. What had happened had happened, and there was nothing he could do to change that fact. But that didn't mean he couldn't try and make it better.