Chapter 1
"I'm working."
"Sherlock."
"Not now, John. I'm working."
"Sherlock! This is important."
Sherlock looked up from the microscope disdainfully. "What?" he spat.
"Harry has been hospitalised."
"OK. Goodbye."
John could have screamed. "SHERLOCK! Look, I don't mind if you don't care about my sister. But her daughter has nowhere to go, and since I'm her only uncle who doesn't live in a bachelor pad in Ibiza, we're taking her."
"This is a bachelor pad."
"In Westminster. There's a difference, Sherlock. Anyway, if you're not civil to her, I will chop up all your pickled arms and burn them."
Sherlock sulked.
After a while, when John had sat down with the newspaper, considering the conversation closed for the moment, Sherlock said, "What's her name?"
"Laurinda Magdalene Parnel Watson."
"What?"
"There's French in us."
"So of course, your mother decided to name you John."
"Only Harry really acknowledges it. I mean, if I were to ever have children, I'd call them something English. George, perhaps."
"You'd make a good father, John," murmured Sherlock.
"What?" John looked up, surprised.
Sherlock coughed. "Nothing. How old is she?"
"14, Harry said. She'll be raging with hormones and we'll need to buy cider."
"Cider? At your age? John, really."
"No, for her."
"You're going to give a child cider?"
"She's not a child, Sherlock. Do you know anything about teenagers?"
"No. I think I bypassed that stage."
"Wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, she arrives tomorrow."