It was a good half hour and innumerable circuits of the flat before Sherlock finally performed a rather impressive maneuver and Jessica dove into his old bedroom door to avoid being caught. "Wow!" she exclaimed, instantly forgetting the pillow-fight to look at the newspaper clips that practically papered the walls. "What's all of this?" Sherlock followed her into the room and glanced over the familiar territory before turning his attention to Jessica. It was like he was looking through her eyes, feeling that same wonderment and delight for something new, just the way he had felt all those years ago when he was her age. She was a few years away from how old he'd been when Carl Powers happened, but he still could feel the pull working on her.
"This is where I put all of my souvenirs from old cases," he told her, lowering himself to sit on the old bed. As though sensing she were about to get a story, Jessica scooted up to sit beside him, leaning happily against his arm. "You see that gyroscope up there? That was a case almost...ten years ago now, when I was still at university. There had been a particularly vicious-...well, there was a bad man, and he was hurting people in order to steal things from them - very expensive things. That gyroscope is solid gold, and one of the items stolen. When I successfully saved-...solved the case, the owner gave it to me."
Kicking her feet idly against the edge of the bed. "You've never told a story before, have you? Only you're not very good at it," she said frankly.
Sherlock scoffed. "You want a better story? Fine. Once upon a time, there was a consulting detective. He was a consulting detective because all of the detectives at Scotland Yard were idiots and couldn't do anything for themselves properly, but they wouldn't hire him either. So one day, the consulting detective was looking into a case while he was hi- ill, and that was a very bad idea because when one tries working when they are ill, it makes it very difficult to concentrate. The consulting detective had been getting ill quite a lot over the past several years, but it was his own fault, and he really oughtn't have done so many things to make him so ill."
"What was wrong with the consulting detective?" Jessica asked in a small voice. "Did he have cancer too?"
Suddenly, it felt as though Sherlock had swallowed a block of ice. "Who else has cancer?" he replied, bemused and concerned against his instinct. He leaned in and conspiratorially whispered, "It's not you, is it?"
Jessica smiled and shook her head; he was flooded with relief. "My daddy had cancer," she explained. "He had cancer for a really long time, and then he went to heaven." After a moment Sherlock heard her sniffle quietly, and put an arm around her shoulders without looking at her fighting so hard not to cry.
"This was a different kind of being sick," he continued as though there had been no interruption, letting Jessica get things out of her system without being ashamed. "The consulting detective took different types of potions, because he thought they would make him clever, but they really didn't. They just made him ill, but he couldn't stop taking them. He was usually able not to make himself ill when he was on cases, but he had been getting worse with his potions, taking them more often and getting more ill..."
He told the story of his last case before Mycroft threw him into rehab, changing words that might offend a child's sensitive nature, and by the time he finished Jessica had stopped crying. "Was that better?" he asked, but received no response. "Jessica?"
She had fallen asleep on his arm, cheeks flushed and breathing softly.
Feeling his chest constrict almost painfully, Sherlock gingerly lifted her, trying not to jostle too much. His bed wasn't exactly the most trustworthy place - even after John had insisted on clearing out half of his hoarded junk - and so Sherlock carried her back out to the sitting room and rested her on the sofa. The blanket that used to be on the back of the furniture piece had been regrettably destroyed in an experiment a week before - John had not been happy with that - but since then Sherlock had successfully nicked a suitable replacement.
The orange of the shock-blanket looked rather appropriate wrapped around Jessica, and if Sherlock took a bit longer than necessary to tuck it around her, or brush a stray curl behind her ear, then there was no one around to see it.
It hadn't been because she'd looked so tired, if that's what anyone had been thinking.
When John finally came home, just coming out of a double-shift at the surgery, Sherlock had put the plate of half-eaten toast in the bin and retrieved the cushions from his old bedroom - placing one gingerly under Jessica's head. "Shh," he hissed as soon as the doctor opened the door.
Mouth twitching into half of a smile, John allowed Sherlock to swoop down and kiss him before shrugging off his coat. "Why am I being quiet?" he whispered, toeing off his shoes without noticing the extra pair of pink trainers mingled in because his eyes were glued to his partner.
Sherlock briefly considered coming up with some clever lie, but then realized it would be pointless, and gestured John into the sitting room. The doctor looked suitably confused but followed the instructions given to him. It didn't look any cleaner or messier than usual, there were no burn-marks on the ceiling, the skull was intact, there was a child asleep on the sofa, he didn't notice any new holes in the - hold on.
The silence in the room went stale as John did a double-take and looked at the little girl sleeping on their sofa, hands tucked plaintively under her chin and lips parted as she breathed. He turned to Sherlock with wide eyes. What's this? he asked with a wave of his arm.
A shrug was Sherlock's response. What does it look like?
John pursed his lips. It looks like a strange kid on our sofa, you idiot. Then he put his hands on his hips and he shook his head slightly. What's it doing here?
She, Sherlock corrected with a twitch of his eyebrows before waving his hand at the sofa's occupant. And at the moment, sleeping.
"Sherlock," John whispered warningly.
Sherlock knew what would happen next if he didn't think quickly. If he didn't think quickly John was going to go to his bag, pull out his mobile, and call CPS to take Jessica away. And though a part of him knew that Jessica would probably be in more experienced and capable hands than his if she went, it still felt like there was a hole being ripped in his stomach. He gripped John by the elbow and pulled him into the kitchen.
"John, I know what you're thinking," he began quietly, and John let out a breath of laughter. The 'of course you do' was implied. "She was assisting me with a few experiments. It's not as though I could have called you away from work, could I?"
"So you took a child off the streets?" John replied in an incredulous whisper. "What if she's got parents looking for her? You could be arrested, Sherlock! Not to mention if you had her doing anything dangerous, and don't think I didn't notice that she was wearing your clothes - do you want people thinking you're a paedophile?"
He leaned right into John's space - John hated when he did that, but it was important - and narrowed his eyes. "Her father's dead and there is no mother to worry about," he hissed venomously. "She's homeless, John. She followed me home, and now she's sleeping, so leave your mother-henning for a few hours, will you?"
They had another silent sparring match - this time with their eyes - and finally John sighed. "Alright," he agreed. "Fine, she can stay tonight. But only tonight, Sherlock, I mean it." Sherlock nodded in agreement and John pulled him down for another quick kiss. "What's her name, then?"
"Jessica."
The shorter man repeated the name to himself slowly, then shook his head. "Have you two eaten?" he asked as though there was nothing unusual about a strange child sleeping on his sofa. At least not anymore.
"She had toast earlier, but didn't finish." John's eyebrows show up - Sherlock, cooking? - but he ignored the nonverbal barb. "We've got nothing else in but peanut butter," he continued.
He could see the signs that John was fighting another sigh, but didn't let it bother him. "Right, then, can you, I dunno, deduce what sort of takeaway Jessica would like?" he asked, trying very hard to sound put-out but coming on as amused.
Sherlock smirked. "I can do you one better."
