Eulogy

A Sherlock fanfiction for all my Constant Readers

by hrlyqin

Jamie,

I think that I can finally say, albeit with a heavy heart, that I have finished putting all of Mary's last affairs in order. I took the liberty of selecting some items that I thought might have sentimental value to you, they are arriving via post. Most of her other personal things are in storage so please let me know if there is anything you think you could make use of.

I have also closed up the house in Jukkasjarvi. I had planned to stay but there are too many memories right now, it was like living with her ghost. After much consideration, I think the best thing for me is to return to London and the arms of my family. I have taken my time to grieve and would like to get on with the business of finding my place in the world again, so I thought, where better to start than the streets that I know like the back of my hand? I will be in town no later than Friday the 18th. I look forward to seeing you, your mother and of course your Uncle. Until then, know that I remain,

Your Loving Father,

M.

Jamie scrolled through the email one more time before closing it and then glowered at the now blank screen as if the computer itself had offended him instead of his father's trite emotional ramblings. His loving father, right. Finding his place in the world, whatever. He hoped that Mycroft didn't expect some sort of gilt-edge reunion where Mum and he and him would all have tea together and sob a bit then reflect about how funny life was. But the sad sack bastard was probably expecting that exactly.

Jamie could remember, distantly, that Mycroft Holmes had once been a feared and respected figure, someone his mother spoke about with reverent admiration and even his dad had begrudgingly had to give credit to. His mind was stuffed with memories of Mycroft at his computer or on his phone, commanding the world to march when he said so, always taking the time to tell Jamie how much he loved him, valued him and wanted him, even though pretty much from the moment he had been born their family had been spectacularly fucked up. When Mom and Dad had gone off the rails, Mycroft had been there to assure Jamie that no matter what they thought of each other, all these adults loved him profoundly. He would never need to fear being left out in the cold.

Then his Dad died. He had been shuffled back and forth from Mom to Mycroft too many times for him to count, he had been uprooted constantly by his mother moving here or there, he had lost his Aunt Harry and tried to deal with the lack of emotion he felt about it, oh and there was that small business of a crime lord kidnapping him, trying to kill everyone he cared about and then getting tossed off the side of a waterfall. What did Mycroft do at the end of all of this when Jamie needed him the most? He had taken off with his fucking nurse, who, granted, was nice and got along with Jamie and blah blah blah, but still, he ran off with the help and thought that video chat and postcards where going to take the place of a male father figure in his life.

So yeah, Father could keep his happy family reunion chatter to his fucking self.

Jamie came out of his scowling long enough to notice the silence that had fallen over the rest of the room. He looked around to see the teacher and other students all looking at him expectantly. Shit, what had he missed?

"Mr. Watson, can you please favour us with the solution to the problem on the board?" Mrs. Hill asked. It was clearly not the first time she had asked the question, but she was being nice and repeating it so she could have the fun of watching his scramble for the answer.

Clearly, Jamie wasn't the only one not paying attention during lessons. If the teacher had been as attentive as she expected her students to be, she'd know Jamie never had to guess. At sixteen, he was probably better than most university math students and he didn't even need to try. So she could try to knock him down a peg all she liked, but it wouldn't work.

He gave a cursory glance at the numbers and symbols on the white board and answered, "42."

He kept paying attention long enough to see Mrs. Hill get a look on her face like she needed a root canal and then he went back to playing on his computer, avoiding the email this time.

After classes were out for the day, Jamie was supposed to head directly to his biweekly appointment with the newest in a long succession of psychiatrists, but he somehow didn't really think that would be too helpful today, so he blew it off. "Jamie, you seem irritated today." he muttered to himself as he marched out onto the sidewalk, imitating the high nasal voice of the doctor. "Well you see Doc, my father has this idea that he's going to pop up and I'm going to be six again and therefore, give a shit." He paused in his steps to light up a cig and then continued. "But since I don't see any blue phone boxes around here, I think he's going to be disappointed."

"Now Jamie," he continued on in the doc's voice, "don't you think your father deserves a chance?"

Angrily, he dragged smoke in to his lungs before he finished the conversation. "That's the problem, he's had nothing but chances."

He shook his head and tried to put it out of his mind until he got to Uncle Sherlock's. It didn't take long for a distraction to present itself.

"Excuse me!" he heard someone calling frantically behind him. "Excuse me...scuse me!"

He turned and waited long enough for his pursuer to catch up with him. A girl from his class. New girl. French mother. Father was a tailor by trade. She had lost a lot of weight recently, no doubt in an attempt to be more accepted at her new school, and tended to favor her left foot when she walked. She had clearly chosen to study maths as he had but had a fondness for poetry and art, judging by the backpack she owned. Also, she was miserable at running seeing as how she struggled to catch her breath once she stood next to him. Other than that, he hadn't really noticed her.

"Thanks," she huffed, "for slowing down."

"I didn't want you to pass out." he said, dropping ash next to their feet. Why was she chasing after him?

"I just..." pause, huff, breath, "I wanted to introduce myself."

"You could have done that tomorrow without risking oxygen deprivation."

She took a few more deep draws of air and then straightened up and after a moment, was able to smile at him and talk normally. Or as normally as women ever did. "I'm Holly Lightner."

"Jamie Watson. Now we're introduced. So, have a nice day." He started walking again.

She followed after him, having to take quick steps to match his pace. "Aren't you- I mean," she hesitated, reminding Jamie strongly of his mother in her stammering, "You're John Watson's son, right?"

"Stepson." he corrected. Now he knew what this was about at least.

"Oh I just love his stories, the stories they made out of his diary, I mean. I've read them all, but I think the Geek Interpreter or maybe Silver Blaze are my favorites. It's just so interesting, how Holmes and Watson could take the smallest little things and figure out everything from them, I mean, it's like a superpower or something. Your father was brilliant, really brilliant. I heard your name and I thought that it was you, I read that article about you and your Mom in The Strand a few years ago, but I couldn't really believe it. I actually can't believe I'm talking to you right now."

"So..you're...a...fan?" he asked carefully, enunciating every word clearly.

"The biggest." she said, visibly gushing over it. "Just like, the very biggest."

This was one of those times that Jamie painfully felt the strangeness of his upbringing. He knew how Sherlock, Mom and both of his father figures would have wanted him to treat this girl. To pick any one way was to feel like he would be disappointing the rest of them. It was like having four consciouses... well, three and a devil anyway. There was also the fifth voice, not really his own, but the one that he usually wanted to listen to, it would always pick the cruelest option available. His dark side. The reason for all the psychiatrists and that one incident he didn't like to chat about. It's impulse, his impulse, was to tell this sick bird exactly what he thought of people who got off on stories about murderers and rapists and criminals and ask her what the fuck was wrong in her life that made her think it was a good idea to just prance up to people to gossip about their dead parents.

But making her cry wasn't going to make him feel any better. It'd probably just make him feel worse later. So he tried to be nice, if not exactly encouraging. "That's, uh, good to know and it's nice to meet you and all but I've got this thing and I'm going to be later, so I'll see you around?" he said, backing away from her while he talked.

"Yeah!" she answered back enthusiastically. "Sure. I'll see you in class!"

His bizarre encounter with Holly Lightner gave him much to mull over on his way to Sherlock's, so much so that he avoided thinking about his father almost entirely, but the minute he knocked on the door the anger came surging right back up in him. He didn't wait for an answer before going up into the apartment and snatching an apple from the kitchen before looking for any of the residents.

"Uncle Sherlock?" he called out. "Uncle Pierce?"

Sherlock was seated in front of the chess board in the living room. He thought his brand new stalker would like, totally freak out if she could be here right now, facing the master detective. Jamie was used to that at least, people tended to get flustered around Sherlock. He made it his business to be smarter than anyone else in the room and time and time again, he proved that he was. He also knew that both sexes found Sherlock attractive and sort of threw themselves at his feet. He was still at his age darkly and archly pretty, kept from being feminine only by the cold and superior way in which he carried himself. The charisma of Sherlock was made even stranger by the fact that Sherlock had a live-in lover that he had been with for years, took out in public and was not especially tender or even nice towards. But people still flocked to him. Sometimes, Jamie envied it but mostly, he was glad he didn't have to deal with that kind of celebrity.

"Hardly a celebrity." Sherlock said as he studied the board. It was the same game they had been chipping away at for two months.

"What? I didn't say anything."

"But you were thinking on it, reflecting about how people are drawn to me despite of my character flaws." Sherlock determined quick perfectly before moving a pawn.

"I met a fan of yours." Jamie replied.

"Did she try to blow you up?"

"Um...no." he answered, moving a knight.

"Oh, good then. That's progress. Who was it?"

"Just some girl in my class." Jamie shrugged.

"And you're upset about this, although not as upset as you are about something else."

"Have you heard from Mycroft?"

Sherlock paused, his movements frozen. "Why?"

"He's coming to town, apparently. He wants us all to be one big happy family again."

Sherlock snorted. "No, he has not contacted me. He is clearly trying to use the element of surprise, or taking it for granted that you and I are close and you would tell me."

"Of course we're close, it's not like I have an actual father around or anything."

"And this is why you are not at Dr. Arrington's."

"Fuck him. I can't deal with that bullshit today."

Sherlock was silent while plotting out his next move. Perhaps five minutes passed before he spoke again. "You know how much I disapprove of psychiatric medicine. I do not think it benefits society for adults to be able to blame their personality problems on bad parenting or lack of breastfeeding and thus absolve themselves of all responsibility for their flaws. However, the courts determined that you are in need of care and should you continue to show such disregard for their decision, you may find yourself in detention for your crimes."

"So?"

"Then they would undoubtedly blame me, and I do not need the hassle."

"Fine. I'll go next time."

"Does your mother know that you're here?" Sherlock questioned next, although he knew the answer.

"No, she's probably busy finding something lacy and low cut."

Sherlock sighed and rubbed his temple. "You are upset about this, aren't you?"

"Yeah I thought we kind of already went through that. Check."

There was a quick flurry of moves back and forth before attention was drawn from the game back to the bigger problem before them. "Sometimes," Sherlock said, "I wish that you were still a child. Children are by far and large easier to explain things to."

"Speak slowly and use small words then."

"Your Father..." Sherlock began, "Mycroft is an extremely complicated person. He claims he has spent the greater part of his life trying to understand me and I find him just as inscrutable. If we did not so readily carry the traits of our parents, I would be certain that one of us was adopted. He is also an arrogant, meddling, simpering bureaucrat, perfectly willing to sign off on other people doing the actual work and taking the actual risk. He could rival me, if he wanted to, if he tried very very hard to, in mental prowess and reputation, but he would rather take the easier route. Since his retirement, he has become even worse, preaching a new found zen lifestyle and trying to cram the same serenity down the throats of anyone else who happens to be in the vicinity, lecturing us all about our terrible vices and obsessions. Mycroft could sit down with the greatest minds and rulers in all of history and still think that he was better than any of them."

"I know all this, that's why I'm bloody distressed about him wanting to play parent again."

"I am only trying to impress upon you that there is no love lost between my brother and I."

"Okay."

"I loathe Mycroft, and even though I am loathe to defend him... he loves you, Jamie. For all his professional triumph, there has never been a single decision in his personal life that he has made well, including the choice to leave Britain so many years ago. But he did not do it to abandon you."

"Funny how it worked out that he did exactly that, though."

Sherlock sighed again. "That is all I am going to say about it."

"Fine."

"When did he say he was coming?"

"Friday."

"Shit. You don't have a cigarette, do you?"