~ Memento Mori ~

For Friday, March 9th, Theme: Late Marriage / Grandchildren

"Don't be long! They'll be here soon!" Molly called after him from the kitchen door.

He lifted a hand in a casual wave of acknowledgement, but continued to make his way across the wide lawn toward the line of trees, behind which lay the south field and, at the far end of that, his beehives.

It was still early, plenty of time to check the hives for damage from the short but violent storm that had swept through the previous night. Bees were tough little creatures, but even the latest technology had not eliminated their vulnerability to the buffets of early spring in the English countryside.

That vulnerability had been at the back of his mind hours ago, even as he and Molly had lain snug in their bed, enjoying the sound of wind and rain outside and their last evening of real privacy for the next month.

"Don't, Sherlock," she'd whispered at one point. "Your bees will be fine. You'll see." And she had kissed him, very tenderly.

The golden light and shadows of the dying fire had blurred to insignificance the sins age had inevitably perpetrated upon their persons. They'd moved on, exploring the familiar paths of their hard-won Eden. Familiar, yet stirring, even now.

The children would be quite shocked.

His chuckle made a puff of fog in the cold morning air.

She was still beautiful, his Molly. His little wife. Body and, most especially, soul. Almost a saint, really, to have put up with him all these years. Oddly enough, she seemed still to think the world of him. He would be inclined to call her a fool if he did not know for a fact that she was no such thing.

She had always been able to see him, even when he'd been blind himself.

Saved his life too many times to think about.

No use in rehashing the past, however. Just acknowledge that it was there, a series of inalterable facts, as was the love that brought balance to the equation. That was the thing to keep in mind as one moved onward and upward.

He laughed again. How he had changed over the years.

And yet, not really. He had, perhaps, simply reverted to what had been originally intended for him, before everything had gone pear-shaped. He had been driven from the straight path to walk some very dark ways indeed.

The roads we walk have demons beneath…

But Mycroft had said that thirty-five years ago.

A long time.

Sherlock had come out on the other side by steps that ran the full gamut of pain and joy, and now, in this place, he sometimes felt he was once ag the boy he had been all those years ago, when he and Victor had played at pirates in these very fields and grief had seemed the stuff of some dark fairy tale.

He stopped for a moment to turn and look back at the house.

The renovation of Musgrave Hall was an on-going project and would be for many years to come. Mummy and Dad had, understandably, had no desire to return after the fire and its aftermath, no desire to rebuild the backdrop of the tragedy into which their lives had devolved. Far better to hole up in the cottage in Suffolk and keep to simpler ways. But Musgrave was part of the National Trust, so it lay mouldering for years, abandoned and unloved, until the inhabitants of the Suffolk cottage had followed one another to their heavenly reward (Molly seemed convinced of that, at least, and it would be nonsensical to argue the point) and Sherlock had taken up the challenge, since Mycroft had no interest in doing so.

His brother had become quite the hedonist after he and Alicia Smallwood had made a match of it. Not that the tendency hadn't always been there, a settled part of his personality (hence the love of cake, Sherlock thought with a smirk). But these last ten years, basking in the south of France? It was fortunate that the aged but still spry Alicia retained her sharp wits as well as luck, or the tables at Monte Carlo would have seen the pair beggared. As it was, they still enjoyed considerable wealth and were fit enough to travel - including their impending visit. They wouldn't arrive until tomorrow, thankfully, and would leave the morning after the party, two days hence.

Mycroft had given Sherlock monetary assistance in the restoration of their childhood home. But all the decisions and work had been left to baby brother.

Not that Sherlock had minded.

It had been a wrench to sell Molly's place in London, where their children had spent their early years, but it had seemed absurd to keep two valuable London properties when the money could be used to such good purpose elsewhere, and Mrs. Hudson had left 221B Baker St. to Sherlock outright in her will. He hadn't been surprised. It might be said that he was closer to Martha Hudson than he had been to his parents, and she had had no children of her own. He'd been using the central London flat as his office and private lab since the conclusion of that first traumatic visit to Sherrinford, and when Martha had suffered a stroke not long after Daisy was born, Sherlock had seen to it that his landlady received the best of care for the remainder of her time with them. Thanks to John Watson's connections, the arrangements had been easy enough, and Sherlock had taken great pleasure in providing her with a tray of tea and biscuits each morning, as she had so often done for him.

Molly's flat, large and modern and relatively secluded, had always been their residence of choice. But when Dad and Mummy had passed away within a year of each other, and Jon had gone off to join his brother at Eton College, it seemed to be time to make a change. Greg had retired from NSY a few years before and his successors seemed a dull set, less tolerant of Sherlock's… methods. There had been no lack of other cases, of course, some of them very lucrative indeed, and there had been the occasional request for his services from the British government. But when all was said and done, it had seemed the time was ripe to move on.

He had never regretted it.

The basic structure had come first, and the roof and windows. Those things were costly, and they'd spared no expense on these vital components. As a result, though the ground floor rooms had been relatively easy to restore, they had taken much longer to complete. Molly's state-of-the art kitchen - he could still taste the champagne with which they'd toasted the culmination of that project - the living room, then the dining room, and finally the library: all renovated in a comfortable, traditional style. And along the way there had been several bedrooms and a rather luxurious loo, all technically part of a servants wing (they did have one live-in maid-of-all-work (a member of his homeless network who had begged for the chance and had subsequently bloomed in the fresh air of the country - and with her new sense of belonging somewhere, too, Sherlock supposed) but any other domestic help was hired by the day, from the local populace, which seemed surprisingly anxious to oblige the Holmes family in this way).

After that, they'd tackled the bedrooms on the first floor. Sherlock doubted if Mummy and Dad would have recognized any of them. Daisy, Jon, and even Will, who by then was at Oxford, had been allowed to design their own bedroom decor, and as for the master suite… well, there had been a number of lively debates about those rooms. Molly had been surprisingly stubborn about it, considering he'd put up with her predilection for frills for literally years after he'd moved into her London flat and made it his home. Made it his home and taken her to wife, with all that those words entailed. He chuckled, remembering her reaction when he'd told her as much. Furious didn't even come close. It had taken great skill and patience to get round her that time, and much longer to come to any sort of compromise. Yet they had, in the end, and if the make-up sex had been fabulous, their first night in their newly completed master suite had been one for the ages.

How he loved that woman, his darling Molly, when she kept him on his toes - which was all the time. Speaking of which…

The hives were now in sight, and he stepped up his pace. Will and Rosie were due to arrive around ten with their two young rascals, Billy (William Jonathan Scott Holmes) and Mary Millicent (merely "M" for short, which seemed entirely appropriate), and Jon and Caroline would be coming along with two-year-old Maggie (another Margaret Elizabeth) shortly thereafter.

Then Daisy tomorrow, flitting in just before the party, and then out again, early the next morning: the life of a successful actress precluded leisurely sojourns at the parental estate.

Greg and Dani, the very beautiful, very French Holmes cousin that Greg had fallen head-over-heels for at Sherlock and Molly's wedding, had flown in from Paris last night and were probably picking up old threads in London before heading out to Musgrave in time for dinner this evening.

And John would be here in the morning, fresh from a stint as a guest lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. It seemed a bit sad that Sherlock's best friend had never remarried. Mary Watson had been a hard act to follow, however, and it wasn't as though John had ever subsequently lacked for female companionship. He gave the impression of being safe, Molly had once noted, when Sherlock had wondered at the phenomenon - which just proved what idiots people were, as even John himself would admit.

Love and life being celebrated in this odd locale… this memento mori. But what could be more fitting for Margaret Elizabeth Hooper Holmes' seventieth birthday?

He looked over the hives carefully. There had been minimal damage, and the bees were safe inside - the weather had not warmed enough for them to emerge as yet. Tough little creatures, but they were jealous of their comforts, too. He was like that himself and had every sympathy toward them.

He replaced the hive covers that served to keep out the worst of the weather, and then he headed back across the field toward home, his mind at ease, at one with his surroundings.

There were still shadows in all this sunshine, of course.

Eurus had not been well for the last few months, though they still kept their weekly appointment to play together. She had been fairly eager to help him compose a duet that they could present to Molly via Skype during the party, too, which he considered an encouraging sign.

But none of them was getting any younger. Which really seemed most unfair.

He was chuckling at his thought when he made his way through the trees and came on a sight that lifted his heart toward the heavens again: his oldest grandchildren, Billy and M, pelting across the lawn toward him, and their parents, his son and his beloved goddaughter and daughter-in-law, following behind at a more sedate pace, holding hands and laughing.

And in the distance, there was his Molly, smiling and wiping her hands on a towel as she stood on the porch by the kitchen door.

"Grandpa! Grandpa!" came screeching down the wind, and he grinned as he opened his arms to them, and then allowed himself to be bowled over, landing on his back in the wet grass, all of them laughing fit to burst.

"Dad! Are you alright?" Will said, only half laughing, running up, with Rosie right behind him, looking concerned.

"Of course he's alright!" M threw at her parents, over her shoulder, before resuming the hug that was threatening to choke the life out of her grandfather.

Her grandfather pretended as much, tongue lolling, eyes rolling, and she finally sat up, scolding, "Grandpa, stop that!" though Billy just laughed uproariously.

Sherlock managed to sit up then, and put an arm around each of them, pulling them close. "I'm fine," he said, his heart as full as it had ever been in his life. He looked up at Will and Rosie and gave them a crooked grin. "Never better, actually. You have my word on it."

~.~