Sustain III: Obbligato 3/14

Authors: Onemillionnine and MaybeAmanda

See Chapter One for Details

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As it turned out, Sherlock's Aunt Angelique and Uncle Jean-Michel were 'normaler' than his immediate family. They had a nice, but not obscenely nice, house that backed on to the shore, and a beautiful garden that didn't require full-time staff. Their home was lovely in an eclectic sort of way, just the thing you would expect from two art history professors who'd been married over forty years.

But on a personal level, the first thing that struck Molly about them was that they were extremely French. When she first met Sherlock's mother, Molly had thought she was 'very French,' as opposed to the 'a bit French' Sherlock had used to describe her. But, surrounded by his relatives, it soon became clear that there was a 'being French' spectrum, and that Violet was not as close to the far end as Molly had first thought.

And Molly, who had excelled in French at school, couldn't hear or speak the language to save her life. It was embarrassing.

Not that it fazed Sherlock in the least. "Mary est quelque peu timide," he told his aunts, uncles, and cousins with a shrug. Which, Molly thought, meant Sherlock would rather tell them she was shy than that she had learnt French from a series of nuns who could barely speak the language themselves.

They worked out what he meant soon enough, though, and their English was miles better than her French. Molly just felt like a moron, was all. The status, as her dad would say, remained quo.

And in a few moments, she had to face dozens of them again, maybe hundreds. And try not to embarrass herself or anyone else while doing it. Her stomach somersaulted at the thought.

She peered into the mirror and carefully brushed on mascara. "Couldn't you wait in the lounge with your brother?"

"God no," Sherlock answered.

She smudged the corner of her eye and screwed up her face in frustration. "Why not?"

"Waiting in the lounge with my brother would necessitate waiting in the lounge with my brother." He was sprawled on the bed, playing some sort of game with Eddie that involved hiding things under a handkerchief and squealing.

"It's just, well, you're making me nervous," she said.

"I'm testing Edmund's understanding of object permanence. How on Earth am I making you nervous?"

Molly sighed. She put too much store in his opinion, and she knew it. "No reason, I'm barking, that's all." She backed away from the mirror to get a better view of herself in the mirror. "Is this dress a bit short? It feels a bit short."

"No," Sherlock said. "You are a bit short, and as a result, most of your skirts hit several inches lower than they were intended to, rendering a matronly, formless effect. Despite being what you've become accustomed to, it does not logically follow that the amorphous, dressed-yourself-in-the-dark-with-clothes-stolen-from-clowns-twice-your-size' aesthetic is either suitable or correct."

She blinked. "What?"

"On the other hand, the dress you are wearing is flattering, properly fitted, and the right length. Red letter day."

"Fine. Tell me one thing: do I look hideous?"

Sherlock's forehead wrinkled like a annoyed sharpei's. "When did this become a second-rate television comedy?"

It was her own fault, really. She felt stressed and she wanted reassurance, but he was probably the least logical person to turn to for that. "I want to make a good impression, that's all. Is there anything I should change?"

He looked her up and down quickly. "The shoes."

Molly looked at her ballet flats. "What about them?"

Sherlock said, "They ruin the effect."

"What effect?" Molly asked her reflection. "I like these shoes. I want to wear these shoes."

"Right," Sherlock said. He climbed off the bed, brushed down his own clothes, and then Eddie's. "We'll be in the lounge. Waiting. With my brother."

After he left, Molly looked down at her feet. These shoes were comfortable. They were fine. What was he on about?

Still, she wondered.

She stepped out of her flats, stepped into her heels. Just to see.

In the mirror, her legs seemed longer. She looked her reflection up and down, caught sight of her bum in the vanity mirror opposite.

Oh. The heels did make a difference, didn't they? Well, they weren't that high, really, and she might make it all the way to Sherlock's chin now.

Dammit. Why was he always right?

Next time Sherlock told her she was short, she was going to accuse him of being tall just to spite her. That ought to confuse him. It would serve him right, too.

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Violet didn't know where she had gone wrong. She'd done her best - music lessons, summers with the relatives, au pairs who were properly French instead of nannies who were strangely English. She had tried to nurture their tastes and temperaments. In spite of it all, one day she looked at her sons and realized they had grown up to be Englishmen.

She could hear Mycroft defending the British monarchy at the far end of the room.

"For heaven's sake, Claude, one needs someone reliable and experienced to launch ships, plant trees, and come round to see the common man in hospital after a major disaster. The last thing anyone wants after a catastrophe is to regain temporary consciousness on your death-bed to find some career politician leering down at you like a jackal, wondering how he can squeeze a few more votes from your soon-to-be corpse."

She sighed.

Meanwhile, Sherlock and Mary were at it again, taking turns making cow eyes every time the other looked away. It was ridiculous. How could they share a bed and a child and each still treat the other as if they were some unattainable object? If they wanted to be passionately in love, that was fine with her, more than fine. She'd encourage it, in fact. What she could not abide was this pointless business of romance conducted at arm's length. It was so stupidly English.

"Sherlock, your glass is empty. Is that any way to celebrate your mother's sixtieth birthday?" Violet asked. He was engaged in balefully staring at Mary as she walked through the garden.

"Sixtieth? Are you my younger sister now?" Marguerite waved her glass in Violet's direction. "Don't forget the rest of us."

"Shut up," Violet said with a smile. She filled her sister's glass to the brim. "No one's told you? I've been getting younger for years!"

Phillipa laughed, a sound that reminded Violet of a brigade of cavalry charging over a wooden bridge, the champagne having done its work on her. "You'll be younger than Mycroft soon, Violet," she said.

"That was always my plan," she said. She arched one brow. "Sherlock, darling, be sociable, and drink your champagne."

A scowl flashed across his features, but he lifted the glass and downed its contents in a single motion.

"Who in the name of all that is holy taught you to drink champagne that way?" She reached across the table and poured him another. "Now, enjoy this one. Savour it. That is not a request, that's an order."

Sherlock sniffed. "Oui. Merci, Maman."

"Mercy? I have none!" she replied. "And where, by the way, is my beautiful grandson?"

"Mary has him." He craned his neck, no doubt to keep sight of her amongst the ripening fruit trees. He drank his champagne without even bothering to pretend to taste it.

If that wasn't love, Violet didn't know what was.

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Mycroft Holmes was, by design, a very boring person. It was a state he had actively cultivated since before his university days, and had long been a point of pride. He had no addictions, no odd habits, no peccadilloes or little ways. His eye did not wander, and his zip stayed zipped. His personal financial situation was best described as 'comfortable' and he had married into enough wealth that graft would have been gilding the lily. He had no temper to speak of, unless he was dealing with his younger brother. He didn't even swear. He was fond of his wife and children to a degree that was respectable, but not immoderate. He was, as Sherlock had once put it, 'as dull as one could be without actually being in a coma.' Thus, he'd long believed was more or less beyond the reach of blackmail.

It was amazing how stunningly wrong he'd been.

Sherlock sat perched on the arm of the divan, staring out the wide-flung garden doors, watching Molly chat with Oncle Jean-Michel.

"Do sit down on the seat like an adult," Mycroft said. "And here, have some of this excellent cognac before it's gone."

He watched Sherlock top up an unattended glass and drink. Sometimes Mycroft suspected his brother had an awareness of germ theory roughly equivalent to that of a two-year-old.

Sherlock slumped down in the corner of the sofa, hunching his shoulders as if trying to hide, all the while watching his little doctor and their son.

"Why is it that we love them so?" Mycroft asked eventually.

Sherlock turned to give him a hard look, clearly misunderstanding.

"The children, Sherlock, our children." Mycroft took another mouthful and rolled it on his tongue to get the full effect. He held it there, enjoying it, waiting to swallow. "It's not, it's not like it is with women; we don't carry them in our bodies, do we? And yet, somehow, they have the power to make us love them madly. Why is that?"

"Obvious." Sherlock waved his free hand. "Evolutionary biology. Males willing to protect their offspring are more likely to have those offspring survive to reproductive age and pass their genes on to the succeeding generations."

"No, that's far, far too simplistic." Mycroft shook his head, noting how easily Sherlock admitted to loving his child. As he should, of course, but one never knew with Sherlock. "You can't tell me our father would have paused a moment before tossing either one of us to a saber-toothed tiger, and for the life of me I can't imagine him failing at anything -" his lip curled, "- biological in nature."

"Different tactic." Sherlock said. "The 'shag-every-female-you-can-get-to-splay- her-knees-and-hope-a-few-of-the-little-buggers-survive-long-enough-to- reproduce' model. Messier, but just as effective over time. Perhaps more so, really."

"Do you think?" Mycroft said and refilled Sherlock's glass.

"They claim sixteen million men currently carry Genghis Khan's Y-chromosome." Sherlock took another mouthful of his drink. "I seriously doubt he tucked them all into bed at night."

"Even considering it seems exhausting." One woman was more than sufficient as far as Mycroft was concerned, and Phillipa, for all her vinegar, was rather low-maintenance. "Out of curiosity, could you name the current Prime Minister of your native country?"

"Why? Can't you recall?" Sherlock glanced his way for an instant. "And yes, more than one seems excessive."

Mycroft wasn't sure whether they were discussing women or children, but thinking of his daughters, he couldn't help but feel defensive. "It's not bad. They do keep one another entertained."

Sherlock blinked at him. "Women?"

The cognac was slowing his brother's brain. "Children, you clot."

"Ah." Sherlock took another sip, was quiet for a moment. "Children aren't trouble, not the way people usually make them out to be. It would be a wonder the human race managed to reproduce at all if you listened to some people."

"Child, in your case," Mycroft said.

"Yes, child in my case," Sherlock said. "I could bear a few more, though. If Mar- Molly decided it was what she wanted, I mean."

Mycroft tried not to give away any surprise. If she had any sense, Molly Hooper would keep her legs crossed, henceforth. Sherlock was already out of his depth; no point driving him even further out to sea.

"Exactly how much have you had to drink, little brother?"

"Enough," Sherlock said. He set down his emptied glass, rose from the divan dramatically, straightened his shirt, and walked away.

Mycroft was left with the same problems he had before Sherlock sat down, problems that had nothing to do with Sherlock, and everything to do with Phillipa. Phillipa and himself. Phillipa and himself and the twins.

Mycroft poured himself another cognac.

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"Of course, as an art historian, I was familiar with the Vernets long before I ever met Angelique," Sherlock's Uncle Jean-Michel said. With his white hair and beard and stern expression, he reminded Molly of an old-fashioned postcard of Father Christmas - tall, thin, and uncompromising. He was, from what she gathered, a bit older than his wife, Sherlock's Aunt Angelique, and once you spoke to him, he was quite friendly, and more than a bit flirty.

"Oh?" she said. She shifted Eddie, who was sleeping and drooling on her shoulder, from one side of her body to the other. She had no idea what Jean-Michel was talking about.

"Forgive me," he laughed. "It's the academic's curse, you know? We forget sometimes that what is common knowledge in our field is not quite so common outside of it. The Vernets have been artists as long as anyone knows. The cathedrals of France are rife with examples of generations of their work."

"Really? That's, um, wow!" Molly said it, then instantly felt stupid. "Sorry, sorry, that was - "

"No need to apologize, my dear. Honest enthusiasm is always welcome and it is a fascinating topic. What is perhaps most interesting is that, for generations, they were very fine decorative painters, skilled craftsmen. Then, in 1728, fourteen-year-old Claude Vernet cast off a very comfortable life in pursuit of true art. He was wildly successful. His son Carle was also, but the Revolution scarred him deeply."

"Oh?"

"Yes. He stopped painting after he lost his sister to the guillotine."

"I can see why he might find that upsetting," Molly said honestly.

"Sherlock has never told you this?"

"No, never." Sherlock never talked about his family much at all. At least, not to her.

"No doubt it's very dull to him, they've all heard it a thousand times. What is also interesting is Horace Vernet, Carle's son, who was actually born in the Louvre during the Revolution. He, too, was a painter, but rejected the classical idealized style of his father and grandfather for a realism that could have been the end of his career if he had not been skillful and well-connected." Jean-Michel was waving his arms, now. Molly suspected he would have liked to have a black board behind him. "You must forgive me, Mary. See how it is? A professor is a professor, in the classroom or at the party for the sister of his wife. I have bored you, and just in time, your handsome young lover has come to rescue you from the tiresome old man, droning on about art."

"No, no," she assured him. "Not at all, it's fascinating."

"Your Sherlock, he cares for art very much, I would say."

"Oh?" That was news to Molly.

"Of course! A man with such a woman does not lack appreciation," Jean-Michel said as Sherlock joined them.

"Oh? And what sort of woman is that, Oncle Jean-Michel?" Sherlock asked.

"One who looks like a virgin martyr, of course," Jean-Michel said, grinning. "You, Mary dear, are the lover of a man with an eye for subtlety."

Sherlock didn't smile. He didn't react at all, as far as Molly could see. He simply took Eddie from her arms, then kissed her on the forehead. Twice.

He reeked of liquor. It worried her. Sherlock never drank.

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Sarah had been having the nicest dream.

She was in a beautiful restaurant, having soup, when she felt and heard her spoon clink against something solid. She kept eating, and there, down to the bottom of the bowl, was a big gold coin. It was only a dream-coin, but her dream-self kept staring at it, wondering whether or not to eat it.

The decision was taken away by her ringing phone.

For some reason she could not explain, the unfamiliar voice on the other end practically frightened her awake.

"May I speak to your husband, please, Dr. Sawyer?" the man said.

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End 3/14