Title: A Day at the Office
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't work for the BBC, yadda, yadda, make no monetary gains, et cetera et cetera. The only time I was in England was when I kissed the porcelain god at Heathrow while in transit from NYC to Rome, but that is another story entirely.
Apologies: To the grammar police. Let me know if anything is truly atrocious, as participles will have surely been dangled, and I cannot for the life of me even remember what a gerund was.
Six year old Gabby tugged her mother's hand trying to impel her to move towards her Daddy's office.
Diane peered down at her daughter with an exasperated look. "Gabrielle Lestrade, you will stop yanking on my arm this instant and behave while I talk to Sally!"
"But Mummy!" Gabby's face broke into a frown. "You said we were going to see Daddy." She dropped her hand from her mother's and pointed down the long glass corridor. "And his office is only just there!"
Diane stroked her daughter's hair to placate her. "I'll only be a few minutes, and then we'll go see Daddy."
Gabrielle pulled herself up to her full height and squared her shoulders. "I'll go by myself, I'm big enough now."
Sally smiled down at her DI's youngest. "Your dad's got someone in his office now anyway. So why don't us girls keep having a chat?"
Gabby's eyes grew wide. "Is it a crim…crim...? Is it a bad person?
"Maybe yes, maybe no." Sally's mouth grew into a wicked grin.
Diane made eye contact with Sally and raised an eyebrow in question.
"Freak and his doctor," was all Sally said.
"Sally!" Diane admonished and motioned with her head at her daughter. "Little pitcher…big ears."
Gabby looked from her mother to Sally and crossed her arms across her small frame. "Mummy and Daddy say it's not nice to call people names!"
Sally had the decency to look properly chastised as she was reminded of her manners by a six year old.
Gabby looked back to her mother with the same big brown eyes her father had. The ones that turned any resolve she ever had into mush. "Please, Mummy? I'll wait on the chairs by the door."
Diane sighed. "Oh, go on then…but you promise you'll wait on the chairs? Over where Mr. Anderson is sitting? You remember Mr. Anderson don't you?
Gabby nodded in acquiescence and took off skipping down the hall before her mother could change her mind. Gabby figured the weasely looking man was Mr. Anderson, but who cared as long it got her away from the boring chit-chat of her mother and Sgt. Donovan.
Diane took Sally's elbow and pulled her towards the staff break room. "Tell me, what's happened this time?"
Gabby was half way down the hall when two men she had never seen before left her father's office. She could hear him yell at them. "You two wait out there!" Followed by a terse, "Anderson, in here now!" What made Gabby slow her step was the timbre of her father's voice as he said "shut the door". She felt sorry from whomever Mr. Anderson was because that was Daddy's 'you are in all sorts of trouble voice'.
Sherlock paced like a caged panther while John took a seat one of chairs outside of Lestrade's office. "I will not be treated like an errant child John! He is the one who constantly requests my…"
Sherlock cut himself off mid rant to scowl down at the young girl who perched herself on a chair next to John.
Gabby pushed herself to the chair back and let her dangling feet swing back and forth. She looked up at Sherlock and asked, "Is that man in trouble? Are you in trouble? Have you been naughty?"
John looked down at the little girl next to him. "No we've not been naughty, at least I've not been naughty." John looked up at his flatmate. "Him, well…that remains to be answered."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the young girl cataloging everything about her.
Eyes – brown. Hair – brown. Heart shaped face. Double lobe on her right ear.
Sherlock smirked at her and looked up over her head at John. "Lestrade's daughter…the youngest, I believe…Gabrielle.
John gaped at Sherlock. "How can you possibly know that?" Of course he knew, John thought, he just couldn't stop the question tumbling out of his mouth.
"Obvious John. The brown hair and eyes. The vacant expression. The too trusting nature." He waved off his explanation as though Anderson himself could have figured it out with no effort at all.
"Sherlock!" John's voice warned.
Gabby let out a small shocked gasp beside John and suddenly got to her feet standing on the chair and grabbed the lapels of Sherlock's great coat and pulled him closer to her. She placed her hands on his jaw and tried to turn his head from side to side all the while Sherlock was stuttering, "John…John! She's touching me…her hands are sticky!"
John was nearly doubled over with laughter as he watched his flatmate nearly paralyzed with fear over a six year old with jammy hands.
Gabby gave up her inspection of Sherlock's face and then pulled his hands up close to peer at his fingernails. She dropped them with a huff and plopped back down in her seat.
When John got his laughter back under some semblance of control, which still threatened to break loose watching Sherlock scrub his handkerchief up and down his face, he turned and looked down at the little girl next to him. "And what brought that on?"
Gabby shrugged her shoulders, looked up disappointedly at Sherlock and turned back to John. "He isn't bloody at all."
John regarded her quizzically. "Beg pardon? What do mean Gabrielle?"
"Well…" Gabby looked back and forth between John and Sherlock, who's interest was now somewhat piqued. "Daddy always says, 'bloody Sherlock Holmes this, and bloody Sherlock Holmes that'…but, he's not bloody at all." She then drew closer to John's side and whispered in a typical child's way so that everyone that wasn't stone deaf could hear. "He's actually quite pretty."
"Yes, yes…I dare say he is." John chocked back on the giggle that was bubbling up his throat. "But not as pretty as you."
Gabby broke into a huge grin. "Is he a pirate then?"
Self-importantly, Sherlock answered her. "No, not a pirate. I'm a consulting detective. The only on in the world. I invented the job."
Gabby seemed a bit disappointed that Sherlock was not a pirate, and was not overly impressed by his credentials. But, she smiled up at him anyway and proudly proclaimed, "My daddy is a detective inspector!" She turned back to face John. "Are you a policeman too?"
Sherlock huffed indignantly. "We are not policemen! John…John! Really, she truly is Lestrade's daughter!"
John rolled his eyes at Sherlock before calmly answering Gabby's question. "No sweetheart, I'm a doctor. Dr. John Watson, at your service!" John proffered his hand to her.
"Are you a big people doctor, or do you take care of children like me?" She eyed John warily. "Do you make people have shots?"
John grinned at her. "I take care of all sorts of people, and don't worry, no shots today."
"Oh, okay." Gabby visibly relaxed, picked at the hem of her skirt and resumed kicking her legs back and forth a few times before bouncing back up to stand on the chair to try and peer through the closed blinds of her father's windowed office to see what was going on inside.
Sherlock's lips twitched into a grin. Perhaps she wasn't as bad as he thought. He always appreciated a natural inquisitiveness that hadn't been brow beaten out of the young.
John, who had been raised in the 'sit straight, fly right' middle class couldn't stop the words of his Gran from slipping out of his mouth. "Chairs were made for sitting young lady."
Gabby raised an eyebrow at him while still dutifully sitting back down. "You sound like my Mum."
The two raised eyebrows and the bemusement in Sherlock's eyes made John wince. "Lord, I'm channeling my Gran…oh, I'm getting old."
"Getting?" prompted Sherlock, breaking into a wide grin.
If John had something to throw at Sherlock right then and there, bad example or not, he'd do it in a heartbeat. Instead he shot daggers with his eyes while grinning like a fool.
"Do you have kids?" Gabby interrupted the two men's staring war. "Maybe a little girl like me?
John continued to smile at Gabby. "No, sweetheart. I'm not married."
Gabby looked at Sherlock giving him a 'is he for real look' before saying. "My cousin Christina is going to have a baby and she's not married. But, Uncle David said he's going to get the shotgun after Joey Harrison."
"Yes, well…" John started to splutter.
"Or, you can adopt a baby too. Jenny Phillips in Mr. Trent's class was adopted by her Mum and Dad.
"Yes John, I can see it now." Sherlock smirked. "Nappies and bottles…you'd be the perfect Mummy."
"Sherlock!" John rolled his eyes again and snorted.
Gabby looked between the two men and something in her tiny mind clicked. "Or, it could be like my best friend Billy!"
Just then the door to the office opened and Anderson slithered out leaving Lestrade standing in the doorway. Anderson gave Sherlock a baleful look and set off back to his section of the building.
"Daddy!" Gabby squealed and sprung into his arms.
Greg Lestrade hugged and kissed his (indeed) youngest daughter. The day's prior events melting away into nothingness at the innocent joy exuding from his beautiful little girl. "What's this about Billy then?"
Gabby snuggled into her daddy's arms. "I was just going to tell Dr. John. He could have a boy like Billy."
"What's going on?" Lestrade queried, unspoken mirth in his eyes.
"Apparently, your daughter thinks John would make some child an excellent Mummy." Sherlock deadpanned.
"And how does Billy work into all this?" Lestrade said with barely contained glee.
Gabby looked crossly at her father. "Daddy! You know!"
"And who is this Billy then?" John politely asked. He felt something was going to happen. Oh God, he thought. Billy surely had a single mother and a six year old was going to set him up. God, could this get any worse.
And then, of course, it did. It was a the candle incident all over again.
Gabby smiled at John and then at Sherlock from the safety of her father's arms. "Well, Billy's got two Dads now doesn't he?"
A/N: So, here you have it. My first foray into the world that is Sherlock. I hope you have enjoyed it!