"A child born prematurely in the the outback of Australia was tucked into the pouch of a pet kangaroo. Caretakers took the child out to feed and clean it. The system worked well until the kangaroo became unhappy when they tried to take the child out of her pouch." - old Internet story
The events leading up to the raid had been more brutal than usual, so Lestrade had taken the precaution of bringing SCO19 with them. The Met's armed unit were, frankly, frightening—intended to be—and even less pleased than Donovan to have a consulting detective and his blogger tagging along. Sherlock and John kept to the back as the police entered the disused office building with all the subtlety of a concussion grenade. John's eyes blazed. "Familiar?" Sherlock asked him.
"Intensely," said John. "Have I talked about anti-ballistic vests?" They ran up another few feet, still well behind the action. This was for the best: a single tatter of automatic fire ripped suddenly into the cacophony of battle. John pulled him down as Sherlock tried to see better. "Complete. Pillock," Sherlock read from his lips. Sherlock rolled his eyes. The shooting stopped; shouting, footsteps, crashing noises proceeded farther into the corridors of the building. Sherlock glanced at John, who released his arm and shouldered in front of him.
"You're an idiot too," Sherlock muttered.
"Fuck off." John cautiously left their inadequate cover in the reception area, his eyes darting as he looked for other figures holding back from the main conflict. It seemed clear. "It's okay, come on, I suppose you want to catch up?"
"After three weeks of eye-watering boredom I might want to be in on the dénouement, yes." He didn't bother to mention that John wanted to be there are as much as he did. John's face, his bearing, were always more lively when there was cordite in the air. Sherlock sniffed more analytically. Cordite and blood. Lots of blood. Someone was dead.
They stopped just short of the elevator bank. Someone (white woman, bleached brown hair, late twenties) had taken shelter behind a planting ofStrelitzia. It had not been adequate. She sprawled, still sluggishly bleeding from the upper chest, a Ruger LCP clenched in her relaxing hand—
"Sherlock," said John. His tone drew all of Sherlock's attention. "I need you to tell me formally: dead, right?"
"Visual assessment supports that hypothesis," said Sherlock, almost cautiously. There were many things about which he'd resigned himself to John's being stupid. Fast, violent death had not been one.
"Right. You have thirty seconds to take all the pictures you'd like if you were a stupid forensic tech—use your imagination—take some with my phone too. I am about to disturb the crime scene."
But we're missing all the fun, Sherlock almost whined, before something about the woman's body finally clicked into meaning. He accepted John's phone and took overviews, then details. The gun. "I don't need thirty seconds," he said, as John removed his kit from the pockets inside Sherlock's coat. He squeezed alcohol gel over his hands, rubbed it in, and tore open a package of gloves. He thrust some at Sherlock. "Or gloves. She's well past needing antisepsis precautions, John."
"I know, but you're not. This sounds stupid, but give me a couple of compressions on her heart. Now." Sherlock did as he asked. More blood flowed from the chest wounds; Sherlock doubted that he was doing much good. Still. John pulled up what was left of the woman's blouse, swore at the elastic waistband of her trousers, cut it, and made a sweeping transverse incision on the tight skin of her abdomen, just above the pubis, revealing layers of muscle beneath.
"Does it matter where—?"
"Practice," John said. He cut, more carefully, again. The muscle tissue pulled back, released from its strain. A different layer. "Been a while since I did this. Right, here we go." He swept the razor blade across once more, and clear liquid spilled from the wound and soaked his knees. "Ah, nice, good position, you were just about ready, sorry, darling—" He reached into the wound, the womb, quickly, carefully pulling the baby from its mother, the head still down. Shook the baby gently, squeezed its chest. Tore the glove off his left hand neatly with his teeth—
"What, oh, you're worried about contact with the mother's blood," said Sherlock. "It's 20:54, GMT."
"Thanks, good one—" John's fingers went into the baby's mouth, clearing some mucus. Squeezed again. The baby was still inert. Extremities blue; body…bluish. Hopeful. John put his mouth over the baby's whole face, it seemed, turned aside and spat, covered the baby's face again and breathed into…her. The tiny chest moved. Again. She hit John in the eye, startling him into a laugh, as the baby took the recently borrowed breath to squall at him.
"20:55, breathing good, muscle tone good, colour less good, irritability excellent; heart rate?" Sherlock sqinuted at the umbilical cord, but it wasn't pulsing.
"Can't really tell, but she's pinking up fast. When did you learn the Apgar scale? We'll give her an 8, but I don't think we'll have to wait five minutes for her to get to 10." Judging by the volume, Sherlock thought the baby's lungs seemed more than adequately mature. "Hey, hey, baby, now, I'm sorry, it's okay, poor baby, so sorry about your mum—"
"I'm not," said Sherlock. "She was shooting at police with a small-calibre handgun. At what, nearly forty weeks' gestation? I'll take her, John." He took off his gloves, retracing the last few things he had touched. Nothing too toxic. He leaned closer to the mother's body.
"Thanks, yeah—support her head, now—" Sherlock gave him a look that would have stripped paint. The child, small enough in John's hands, became tiny in his own: the heel of his hand under her tiny bottom, his fingertips brushing the back of her head. Some downy brown hair, pink (now) skin. A perfect face contorted in outrage.
"I do know that much about babies, John." He unbuttoned his shirt and put the baby carefully on his chest, pulled out his handkerchief and tucked it around her, then his scarf. "What did you think: twenty-one hundred grams, plus or minus thirty?"
"I was just glad she could breathe," John said. "Nice weight, then." He opened another pair of gloves, twisted one to tie off the cord.
"Is latex allergy inborn or acquired?"
"It varies, and these are vinyl."
His collarbone tickled. "Her sucking reflex is excellent." Sherlock tucked his chin over the baby; so much heat is lost through the head, and the building was cold.
"Her mother must have been at least somewhat responsible, as far as prenatal care went," John said, mildly. "She probably didn't intend to be part of a firefight." The narrow focus of the past few minutes expanded again, as they both heard the shouting and shooting continue inside the building. "I'll take the baby to A&E, you can go catch up."
"I'm coming with you."
"Good," said John. "Do you want me to take her, or shall I call the DCI and let him know what's going on?"
"You're better at that than I am," said Sherlock. "You'll keep them from wanting to put her in an evidence bag. Can you try to fasten my coat around her?"
John snorted with laughter. The baby squalled, unsatisfied with life so far. Sherlock offered her the tip of his smallest finger.
"Her name can be Julia, for the duration," said Sherlock. "The birth record will be dismal enough, 'mother: name unknown, deceased; unknown father.'
"Julia?" asked John.
"Caesarean section, why not Julia?" He handed the bottle to the midwife and patted the baby's back. Julia burped and settled back against Sherlock's collarbone. They had been separated for long enough to weigh her (2.150 kg), and put a nappy on her hips, but no more. Sherlock had drawn the line against bathing or further clothing, and had responded to any suggestion that the baby be taken elsewhere with the restraint of a well-trained Rottweiler. Though he had accepted their offer of flannel receiving blankets in place of his scarf. "In other circumstances she would be with her mother, would she not? Then I don't see any reason she needs to be in a cot somewhere." The midwife had taken his part with glee, smiling up to her [second generation London, Sikh by choice not birth] turban. The social worker wasn't so sure.
"We prefer to keep emergency C/sec babies for 24 hours' observation, Mr. Holmes—"
"Her vital signs are entirely unproblematic. John?"
"I'm not an obstetrician or a neonatologist, Sherlock. I'd go with protocol." He looked at Sherlock with concern. "Um. Are you, are we keeping this baby?"
The way he posed the question momentarily took Sherlock's breath, ushering in as it did answers to a hundred barely-examined questions and igniting a ridiculous warmth in Sherlock's chest and face. Oxcytocin. "No, of course not," he said, quelling his response. Not really the time. "I don't think either of us is ready for parenthood."
John blinked. "Speak for yourself."
"Really, John, the number of occasions we end up at firefights seems to indicate we are hardly any more fit to be parents than Julia's mother was. I gather there are long waiting lists for adoptable infants," he said to the social worker.
"There really are," she said.
"In that case, if I could see the files—"
"You can't."
It didn't end well, at least John seemed not think so. They arrived home at three in the morning with Julia clasped to Sherlock's sternum, many nappies and cans of formula, a long checklist, and the assurance from the midwife that she would be calling on them at noon the next day.
"I don't see your problem," Sherlock hissed as they crept into the flat.
"You can't steal babies!"
"I'm not! Absolutely not any more than you did!"
"I saved her life! I noticed she was there!"
"Well, I'm saving her perinatality. You heard the midwife, I'm sure you've seen the articles. Babies need skin to skin contact—"
"To facilitate bonding with the parents, Sherlock! She hasn't got any, as far as we know!"
They both paused, John in making some hasty cheese on toast and Sherlock, one land protectively over Julia on his chest, in finding a clean sheet. "Will the father have any rights?"
"Yeah. More if he was married to her mother."
"Even if he were with the others, shooting at Lestrade?"
"If he was, I imagine they might decide he wasn't a fit parent. I wonder how the raid went?" John scraped mustard over the toast. Sherlock, adept at doing so one-handed, texted Lestrade. There was no immediate answer from him or the DCI.
"Anyway, skin contact substantially increases the infant's immunities. And having no parents places her at enough of a disadvantage that any emotional and physical security she can obtain now—"
"Yes," said John, closing the toaster oven. "Actually, yes, you're right; it's just that as usual, you're right in a way that makes everyone around you determined to prove you wrong. I'm sorry. Although I don't think you're going to get to pick out her parents."
"Would I do such a poor job?"
"Probably not any worse than the adoption agency, no."
"What are you in a mood about, then?"
John sighed, in his not-world-enough-or-time-to-enumerate-them-all mode. "I haven't even been allowed to hold her, Sherlock, it's one of the usual perks to delivering a baby!"
"Oh. I'm sorry." Sherlock hesitated. "Um. I thought you would be accustomed…have a receiving blanket?" He scrabbled one-handed in the bag they had acquired. "No mustard on your hands?"
John smiled brilliantly (in an oxytocin-induced state? Or an oxytocin-inducing state, as it seemed to be provoking that warmth in his chest again?) and accepted Julia's somnolent, slightly grumbling form. Sherlock unbent his arm for the first time in hours. His body clanged back into the forefront of his consciousness; he would have liked to watch John's expressions but there were other considerations and he found himself heading toward the loo.
"Take your time," John called, "you may want a shower—"
The cordite, plaster dust, and hospital smell in his hair were probably no more to the baby's liking than to Sherlock's own. He came back a few minutes later to find John eating toast and smiling as he avoided dropping crumbs on Julia's head. Sherlock got his own toast, filled his eyes and heartand a substantial chunk of his memory with John's face, all soft and foolish, as Julia watched him chewing, her hands and arms moving like a starfish.
"She was very lucky to have you there," Sherlock said. It felt like speaking the words through a pillow; his chest was tight.
"Oh. Yeah. Probably a fantasy every doctor has, to be honest. Though not usually a mum who's bled out in a gunfight. Wouldn't you have noticed, tried to do something?"
"I don't know that it would have occurred to me to take… desperate measures, certainly not so quickly as you did. You usually prefer me not to desecrate corpses."
"Yeah, I can just hear what Donovan would have said if you'd gone after a dead woman with your pocketknife—ewugh. But, honestly, Sherlock, she's very lucky to have had you with her, too. I just didn't expect you to have such…definite, informed opinions. Though if any one had asked I would have told them your opinions would be well-informed…just farther, umm, to the left than I expected."
"There's nothing political about good science—you needn't laugh so hard, John, you'll wake Mrs. Hudson—"
"But when did you—I mean, you really seemed to know your way around a baby. I hadn't thought you would have had the chance."
"Rehab."
"Really?"
"Woman booked herself in the day after she found out she was pregnant. She'd been there for four months when I met her, just before the child was born. She had an awful time. She liked me because I thought it was interesting, instead of either telling her how stupid she or how brave she was. I had quit acting out at the staff by then so they were happy she liked _someone_."
"How was the baby?"
"Very well, really." He could see John reading his expression. "The baby, child now, is still very well, as far as I know; I exchange Christmas cards with his family."
"The mother, not so good?"
"No. She held out for a few years, but it was hard, and it didn't work out. The family are good, though." Sherlock aggressively finished his toast, avoiding John's eyes. He washed the crumbs and mustard molecules off his hands. "Don't look like that, John. Rehab's an odd place, but I didn't ever fancy myself in love. I admired her courage. And the baby was…a baby. Perfect to project one's own vulnerability upon, and biologically useful to do so."
"And you hate being stuck alone in hospitals."
"Everyone in hospital is alone. Except perhaps the staff."
"Where are you & Julia going to sleep?"
"Couch. I don't fancy exposing her to the off-gassing from polyurethane—"
"Hippie," said John fondly.
Sherlock awoke to find half the population of London in the kitchen, and John feeding Julia. He went to wash and dress, and returned to take the baby out of John's arms. The midwife, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and ah, at last, Mycroft watched him. "Shut up," he told Mycroft, resettling the bottle in Julia's protesting mouth. "Has she been awake long?" he asked John.
"Half an hour. She was starting to stretch when I came down and I thought you could use the sleep. You missed a horrible nappy."
"You missed the one at six thirty-five," Sherlock said smugly. "And she cries very well." He turned to Lestrade."The raid went well, then? You caught the rest of them? Any other deaths?"
"No, thank God. One of the CO19's caught a bullet in his calf, and two of the gang are in hospital, but it was more noise than actual shooting," said Lestrade. "And you were right, the stuff was in the office safe: two kilos of heroin and a fortune in smuggled guns and gold bars. I thought you'd be there—a bit of a turn when we noticed you'd disappeared, to be honest."
"And when you went back and found—" the words 'disembowelled woman' were almost certainly not socially adept, and Sherlock found a euphemism—"an entirely different crime scene—"
"Sally realised it at once," Lestrade said. "She said, 'Oh my God, he's got a baby—' which reminds me—" Lestrade drew his phone and snapped a picture. Everyone but Mycroft laughed and demanded copies. Julia startled at the noise, throwing her arms out; then she calmed, covering her face elegantly with the back of her hand. He moved so her eyes would be out of direct light. She burbled, calmer.
"I hope she realised John was in charge," Sherlock said. "He's much better at seeing the obvious than I am. I don't think her mother had been dead for more than two minutes before he was clearing Julia's airway."
"Poor little thing," said Mrs. Hudson.
"Her, or her mother?" asked John.
"Both of them, really. Do we know anything about her?"
Sherlock looked at Lestrade. "Not yet," said Lestrade. "Forensics is still all over the office building. Thanks for pictures, by the way."
"Are you keeping her?" Mrs. Hudson asked. Julia burped. John indicated something with his eyebrows and gestured at her. She didn't deliver herSherlock glared back at him; but he relented and offered Mrs. Hudson a chance to hold the child.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hudson, but I think she deserves a more settled family, don't you?"
The midwife looked relieved, but less than he would have expected. "There are some very nice couples in the system, Mr. Holmes."
"Don't forget that her father may have rights in the matter," said John. He handed Sherlock a cup of tea.
"We'll know about that soon enough," said Lestrade. "Unless we already do?" He glanced at Mycroft.
"I am confident the mills of New Scotland Yard will grind in good time," said Mycroft. "I have given John a shortlist of adoptive families already cleared by the Children's Aid Society, however."
"Should we trust your criteria?"
"I deferred to my assistant. I imagine you will be calling on the borough adoption agency today?"
"It's past one o'clock. Perhaps tomorrow?"
Sherlock could have ignored his brother, easily; but it was everyone except Mrs. Hudson giving him the 'bit not good' face. Julia snorted, deep in her milk coma. "Or perhaps one of your overly dramatic cars might have an infant seat?"
"Not them, said Sherlock.
"I thought you'd be more sympathetic—" said the social worker assigned to Julia's case [Mrs. I Have No First Name Aylesford, brought up in Essex, married to a solicitor, commutes from Slough]. She had ceased being sympathetic to Sherlock after he had vetoed the first set of potential parents for mentioning 'Disney princesses'. Whether it was Mycroft or the adoption agency putting the pressure on, the couples were apparently unsurprised at being asked for one more interview. The second couple had been worse than the first.
"I don't care if they're gay, the blond one is a bully. And the other one isn't strong enough to protect Julia if she decides to be a vegan or an actress. No. Am I being unreasonable, John?"
"Not…entirely," John said. "No. Not for you, at all. Parenthood is a different world from the one we're used to, though. Let's see the last couple, all right?"
John, Sherlock, and Julia were in a cubicle near the one the adoption agent was using. It was a deliberately less private setting than such interviews usually were, and the questions were unusual. They had gone through most of Mycroft's short list. Sherlock, aided (and somewhat stifled) by John, had come up with a list of questions to discover the worthiness (more likely, not) of the parental candidates.
"What's the last book each of you has read?"
The wife, Anna Thilsa-Beecham (grandparents from Uttar Pradesh; parents from London; residing in East Finchley with her husband: Graham Thilsa-Beecham; grandparents from Yorkshire and East Anglia; parents met in the RAF), her long dark hair neatly braided back—called out of a workplace, not an ordinary office, traces of charcoal and Tippex—glanced at her husband. "We're both listening to an audiobook of Red Mars, in the evenings, does that count? Because we're both trying to do our own art after supper, so we don't read much, as such. Except on the Tube."
"Science fiction, about humans terraforming Mars?" the husband tried to explain. The adoption agent looked blank.
Sherlock looked at John. "Really good," whispered John. "You'd approve. Of the science, anyway."
"What kind of work do you hope your child will do?" asked Mrs. Aylesford.
"Whatever they want," said Anna.
"Something not immoral—not ivory-poaching, not cooking meth, not defrauding pensioners—something that makes them happy. Legal. And, ideally, financially solvent," said Graham.
"If your child came to you at eight years of age and told you he or she thinks their bodies are not their real gender, how will you deal with it?"
"By killing anyone who so much as—"
"By keeping my wife from killing anyone who bullies them, and getting in touch with a doctor who specialises in those issues. And being supportive and trying not to misgender them if they turn out to be transgender," said Graham. "It helps if people can be in touch with that before they start dating or marrying. Or puberty, if possible."
"You're very well-informed," said the adoption agent. "When we ask that people usually just look surprised."
"My dad's trans. It would have helped a lot if he-now-she had had any real idea about it before he married my mum—"
"They're off-topic," muttered Sherlock.
"It's an interesting topic," said John. "Do you really think you'll find anyone better? He teaches history at UCL and she does renderings in an architect's office and freelance painting."
Sherlock looked at the couple again. "Yes.., but how did you know?"
John waved a sheaf of papers at him. "Cheated."
"Neither of them plays a musical instrument."
"You can buy her a keyboard for her fifth birthday. At least these people probably send interesting Christmas cards."
Sherlock snorted.
"Come to that, what do the ones you send look like?" John stroked Julia's head as though he hoped to calm Sherlock. Which of course it did. "It's not going to get any easier the longer you have her." He looked into Sherlock's face. It was too much; Sherlock ducked away.
"Nothing to do with that, why do people keep saying that? I just want to see her placed with people who aren't dull. Or my parents."
"They don't have enough money to send her to boarding school and she won't have an older brother. And I am certain your parents didn't meet at a science-fiction convention."
"Oh, God, they're fans—"
"I would have given the earth to've had parents who met at a science-fiction convention, you're such a snob—"
"I don't see why you aren't as invested in finding her a family as I am."
John opened his mouth, started to speak, shut his mouth, sighed, started again, and reached out to touch the arm that supported Julia. "Okay. You don't think I care about finding her a good family?"
"You keep telling me not to worry so much, but you brought her into the world, she wouldn't be alive if you—"
"Sherlock. I care very much. I probably really don't have standards as high as yours, but I have lower expectations of people generally. You didn't hear me saying you should have been fine with the other ones we've seen. Did you? Because I agreed with you, I just didn't think it needed me coming down on poor Mrs. Aylesford as well."
"Who is bureaucracy-enmeshed clod," muttered Sherlock.
"With the hoops social workers have to jump through it's amazing any of them last." John exhaled. "Listen to me. The only reason you don't see me being almost as concerned as you are is because I can see how much you care for her. And you are—I wouldn't say the best and wisest man I'll ever meet, sometimes you're horrible—but you're certainly the most intelligent, and the only thing I've learned beyond that is that your great heart is at least the size of your great brain. I wish Sally Donovan could see you with the baby. So don't you dare tell me I'm less invested, when I have my best man on the job." He paused, his voice going odd. "And let me hold her again before we give her away."
Sherlock gave John the little wrapped girl. "They were agreeable to an open adoption," he said as soon as he could speak.
"Right, yes, so Christmas cards, and maybe dinner when she's 18." John rubbed his nose in her fine dark hair as Julia waved. Sherlock met her eyes. Hers rolled around. She wasn't really focussing yet. He wished he were not.
"These people, you really think?"
"I'd date either of them," said John, with typical exaggeration, "but since they're taken we might as well…make them a family, instead of a couple?"
The couple didn't notice as Sherlock and John, holding Julia, came up behind them, but Mrs. Aylesford let out a cry of relief. "Really?" she said. She was looking for rescue, as Sherlock's question about prescriptive and descriptive grammar had devolved into a passionate debate.
John glanced at Sherlock, who was silent. "Yes, we think so. You will explain that she comes with a good deal of baggage—the Met haven't found out much about her birth mother yet, but—"
"Are you—John Watson and Sherlock Holmes?" asked Anna. "I read your blog. You have a baby?"
"No, we don't. Well—"
"We found her mother in extremis, and John delivered the child last night," said Sherlock. It seemed much long ago."She doesn't seem any the worse for her mother's unfortunate demise, we don't think she was deprived of oxygen for any length of time and she seems to be very close to full-term. And we—I'm not really suited to be a father anytime soon, possibly ever—" Sherlock's voice came to an uncharacteristic halt
"So we're here," said John. "And you have the all clear from the social workers, and both of us liked that you're artists and not dull, so—" he made a small gesture with the bundle of baby. The prospective parents' eyes left him and Sherlock, fastened on Julia. "Should I—?" John asked the social worker. Mrs. Aylesford nodded. "Sherlock, do you—"
Sherlock shook his head. "You—just. Yes."
"She's a lovely baby," John said, "Umm, which of you?" He extended his arms, as Julia waved in dismay at the loss of contact.
"Give her? To Graham—I don't know if I'll be able to let go once I get her!" said Anna. "Oh, Doctor Watson, really?"
"I missed hearing you tell Mrs. Aylesford which your favourite Doctor Who was but everything else sounded good…"
"Does she have a name?" Graham asked. He seemed to know how to hold a baby. He was almost as tall as Sherlock and broader. Julia vanished in his arms.
"Umm, Baby Girl Thilsa-Beecham, I suppose, but we've been calling her Julia—here's her changing bag with her records, such as they are—"
"Look at that little face, Anna; here, I know you want to hold her—"
Anna was leaking tears, Mrs. Aylesford as well, and John and Graham Thilsa-Beecham were looking suspiciously bright of eye. Bloody oxytocin again. "Can we go, or do we need to sign anything else?" Sherlock asked.
"The Met have been in touch, right, Mrs Aylesford?" John asked the boring social worker.
"Yes, and no adoption is final for six months—"
"We have the first option if they bring her back?"
"That's not how it usually works, Mr. Holmes, but—"
"It will in this case," Sherlock said, allowing the slightest edge into his expression.
"I can't imagine that happening," said Graham, "But we can put you into our wills, if you like. Do you want to be godparents—?"
Sherlock was seized with a mighty urge for a cigarette, not to mention heroin, and stalked away. He could hear John making yet more polite remarks. Outside the building, in the cold air, he felt better. John joined him a few minutes later. "It's settled?"
"Yeah," said John, trying to keep up. "They wanted me to thank you."
"I want Chinese. Or possibly Indian." He could feel John trying to look into his face again, and walked slightly faster. After a hundred meters in no particular direction Sherlock considered the restaurants within walking distance and waved at a cab. "119 King's Cross Road, please," he told the cabbie. "Or Vietnamese. You like the fresh rolls."
"I do, very much," said John. "Are you not going to talk about this?"
"I don't see that anything needs to be said. You haven't badgered me to eat and I've only had cheese on toast since the case finished up. I suppose it's too late today get the files from Lestrade, I'd like to find out where the drugs came from." It had been an interesting case, before the loose end had impinged on their lives. Sherlock talked about it through dinner with a determination that trampled any attempts John might have made at discussing anything else. John ate; Sherlock toyed with a bowl of ga hue.
"Walk? Cab? Tube?" John asked as they left.
"Walk, if you're up for it. And we're out of milk." Sherlock walked quickly enough that conversation was difficult, and in any case John seemed to have let it drop. He could feel his friend's observation of him in Tesco's, however, since for a change Sherlock actually participated in the shopping. But John kept quiet, aside from his annoying persistence in believing Sherlock had preferences in anything besides biscuits. And teabags (faugh). And pasta shapes.
Sherlock watched as John put the food away. Mrs. Hudson had apparently taken the rubbish; there was only the faintest scent of 'unscented' nappies in the air, and no other sign that 221b had ever held a baby.
"You wanted to see that film—"
"You hate all the films I want to see."
"No, I just hate all films—"
"I want to stay in, Sherlock. And don't turn on the television."
"Fine!" Sherlock went for the nearest laptop on the desk, which happened to be his, and logged into his entirely unauthorised account with the Metropolitan Area Reports Police Log—MARPL, for God's sake—to find out what was going on with Julia's with the drug smugglers' case. John moved around the flat (irritatingly), then settled, oddly, sitting on the floor and leaning against Sherlock's chair. He appeared to be watching the fire.
"It's not cold," Sherlock said.
"Sometimes I like to sit beside the fire and think."
"Of what?"
"Just think. Or not think. A fire's like white noise for the eyes." He sipped from a Silver Jubilee shot glass Sherlock had stolen at a crime scene in 2007.
"And you're drinking from the blue bottle you wouldn't let me fill my lamp with."
"That's because, even though it IS a blend, it's far too good to burn up and that American meant well, bringing it from duty-free."
Sherlock opened another window on his screen and made notes. "The heroin was Burmese. Bit out of the ordinary."
"I'm sentimentally attached to Afghan-produced, myself."
"You don't usually joke about drugs."
"It's been a hard week. Come and sit here and drink the nice poly-malt."
"Why?"
"Because listening to you stab at that poor keyboard is as annoying as you say my typing is."
"Your typing is less efficient than the Met." Sherlock touch-typed a memo to Lestrade like Glenn Gould on speed, sighed, and shut the laptop. John, quiet on the floor, was exerting some kind of gravitational pull. Entirely against his will, Sherlock felt himself on the verge of relaxation. He joined his friend on the floor. John produced another shot glass, filled it, and handed it to Sherlock. As wretched American blended whiskeys went, the stuff was very good. Even sipped, it hit his muscles like a shot of diazepam.
"Better," said John, still watching the flames on the smokeless fuel. They finished the first shots, and John wordlessly poured them each another.
"Why?" asked Sherlock.
"Why what?"
"The sit-beside-the-fire-and-drink. After a case, you're usually all mindless telly, or trying to write it up."
John nodded, slow motion. "Because," he said, still slowly, "I think she deserves more than that. And this is one of the traditional ways of dealing with having loved and lost."
Sherlock opened his lips to say 'Melodramatic,' but the whiskey had its way. "She seemed so safe."
"Safe?"
"I could give her what she needed. She didn't ask for more than I could give. And I knew it wouldn't be for long enough I would let her down."
"You really didn't. For the time it lasted, you gave her everything you could. It was…nice to see you in love."
The warmth of the fire, and the warmth (dilation of surface blood vessels) of the whiskey, and of John next to him, combined with the rush and exhaustion of the case just past to render Sherlock almost boneless. There was no point in arguing some things. Sherlock knew he could have made a good argument for evolutionary biology, and it would have been true, but the way John put it was, as well. Nothing for it.
"And you?" John asked.
"What?"
"Supposed to be a two-way street. Love. You don't regret it. What did you get out of it?"
"She was very warm," Sherlock said, wondering why he was so fixated on warmth at the moment. "And I took her fingerprints, John; so tiny!"
"So, acceptance, and a sense of wonder. She gave you, I mean."
"Does that meet your standards?"
"I think that would meet anyone's standards." John's most rueful smile came and went, and he sighed. "I take it that hasn't been your experience of anyone old enough to talk."
"The objection seems to be that I talk." John quirked a very small laugh, and refilled their glasses. "Which you seem determined to make impossible. Do you want me to reduced to intoxicated mumbling, John?"
"There are times… but no, not really. Might be good to slow you down enough so I could get a word in past your internal dialogue; too much to hope?"
"I always hear what you say. Well, not about groceries. But other things." The fire was good. He didn't have to look at John." What you said this afternoon."
"Ah."
"It was the heat of the moment."
"No, it was something I've thought for a while now. I didn't need to see you with a baby to to know the sociopath thing was bullshit." John's non-dominant hand and Sherlock's were between them, and John's squeezed his. In the boneless relaxation of the moment, Sherlock's mind called in as if from another room: mildly surprised, but not alarmed. "You give me a sense of wonder several times a day, and you accepted who I am from the first."
"No, you've got it wrong," Sherlock said. It must be the drink; his mind no longer sat quietly, was thumping on the sitting room carpet chasing its tail. "You accepted who I am, you lent me your phone—and I can't predict anything important about you. Except that you'll worry about whether it was the right thing after you've done it."
"I like to worry a good long time beforehand if I get the chance," John murmured. And he was right. He was worrying.
"Stop that," Sherlock said. He put his glass on the floor, and stroked John's face. Yes. "Just kiss me, you idiot."
Notes:
A) This fic is dedicated to Ben Dunham Miliotis, who was born November 12, 2014. His parents were not shooting at police, so they're fine, and I wish him all the best (even though his parents also didn't meet at a science fiction convention).
B) My son & his wife actually were asked about transgender children by their adoption agency, and he answered much the same thing as Graham.
C) Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson, is a great book.