December 24
In the upstairs parlour of 221B Baker Street, with a roaring fire burning in the hearth, awash in the aroma of perfectly seasoned turkey, Sherlock Holmes tapped his foot nervously against the floor boards as he checked his watch for the third time in thirty seconds. It was 5:57 pm.
You said 6pm. That's three minutes until everyone is officially late. Occupy yourself until then.
He cast his eyes about the room, running through the list in his head.
Baking, he thought, looking over to the coffee table, where two three-tiered serving trays he'd borrowed from Mrs. Hudson sat piled high with tarts and cookies and Christmas oranges. He'd spent hours on the pastries—first baking them and then using a fine cheese grater to scrape off the burned bottoms of the first batches. He wished he'd listened to Mrs. Hudson a little bit closer when she'd gone over the oven temperature part. Still, he nodded. Check.
Fire, he turned to the hearth before scolding himself. You can feel the heat of it on your legs. Don't be daft. Check.
Food. He'd just basted the turkey; it was within ten minutes of being done. Sage and onion stuffing was cooking on the stovetop—safer that way, less risky than cooking it inside the bird, despite what Mrs. Hudson may have told him—next to the potatoes. He'd make the gravy from turkey drippings when that was done. In the slow cooker—also borrowed from Mrs. Hudson—a mix of vegetables stewed on low. Two loaves of French bread from a nearby patisserie were laid out in the basket on the counter; the butter dish sat next to the cranberry sauce and the prawn cocktail ring, already on the table. Check.
He took a deep breath and checked his watch. 5:58.
Cleanliness? He cast his eyes about the room. His and Molly's decorations had withstood the intervening days admirably well in spite of the excitement of his professional life. Her fine decor sat next to a random assortment of tacky vintage ones Sherlock had been talking about—a few gold foil garlands, two collapsible red and green bells, and a handful of starburst pom-pom type hangers—which she'd hung up around the parlour with exactly the same care she'd hung her own things. The random clutter besides had been arranged into something far closer to neatness; what couldn't be remedied had been packed away in the empty upstairs bedroom. He'd put away his case files. He'd removed his computer. He'd even vacuumed the rug. Check.
Table. He counted the place settings. Then he counted them again. Gleaming china and silverware—also borrowed from Mrs. Hudson—gleamed in the place of the beakers and test tubes that once cluttered the dining table, lining a tablecloth the colour of Devonshire cream. A table runner—something he'd never known existed before a week earlier—spanned the length of the table, the same colour as the ornaments on the tree in the corner. Check.
Tree! He turned towards the corner and beheld the glittering branches of the tree Molly had helped him select and decorate a dozen days earlier, with ornaments from the box his mother had given him. Molly had been right—it was a happy little tree. Beautiful on its own, with the simple ornaments from Sherlock's school days and the vintage ones he remembered from his tree growing up it took on a hue of nostalgia that Sherlock still hadn't quite gotten over. Next to Molly's rather elegant decor—both in the room around him and on her own tree back home—Sherlock's stood out as different but not unwelcome. He actually rather liked it. Check.
Presents. Five boxes wrapped under the the boughs, exactly where he'd left them after obsessively arranging them that afternoon. Check, check, check, check, check.
Fire? Still burning. Stop checking.
He'd spent a solid week reading about how to throw a successful Christmas party. He was ninety-nine percent of the way there.
A knock at the door downstairs caused his stomach to bottom out. He checked his watch. 5:59 and fifteen seconds…
Sherlock raked a hand through his hair, letting out a deep breath as he tugged on the sleeves of his suit jacket and counted the place settings on the table for the third time. Mrs. Hudson—who'd been forbidden from coming up at any point in the last three days—bustled about downstairs on her way to the door. Sherlock heard her voice echoing up the stairwell, which reminded him that he hadn't put on the Christmas music yet, and for a lone second he let his panic overtake him. In a flurry of movement, he turned on the speakers and cued up his playlist, and as the first footfalls on the stairwell began their approach, the soundtrack to the party started.
Molly was the first to enter, with Lestrade—slack-jawed—moving in behind her. On the landing, Mrs. Hudson gasped. They were each laden down with gifts—bags and boxes and parcels tucked under their arms and gripped in their hands.
"Sherlock!" Mrs. Hudson cried, nearly dropping the stack of three boxes in her arms.
"Welcome," he said.
Molly smiled, setting her bags down. "It looks wonderful," she winked at him.
"It smells wonderful!" Lestrade said. "Did you cook?"
"As a matter of fact, I did," he said. "You can place your parcels under the tree. May I take your coats?"
Molly and Lestrade handed their outerwear to him and he walked down the hall to his room, placing the coats on the bed.
Lestrade hadn't moved past the cooking part. He was peering into the kitchen as Sherlock made his way back into the parlour. "Like—a turkey? And everything?"
Sherlock walked back into the parlour as the door downstairs opened. He took another breath. "Drinks, anyone?"
Voices in the stairwell came up from the downstairs landing. "Hello? We let ourselves in—suppose you didn't hear the…doorbell…"
John and Mary stood in the doorway, shock registered on their faces.
Sherlock noticed with some small measure of satisfaction that they were holding hands. He hid his grin as he glanced at his watch. "You're late," he said.
John's eyes traversed the circumference of the room. "You decorated."
"Someone had to," he replied, glancing at Molly. "Though I had help."
The doctor's eyes landed on the trays of baked goods. "Are these edible?"
Sherlock sighed. "Of course they are," he replied. "They are Mrs. Hudson's recipes, so if they taste like rubbish—"
"My recipes?" Mrs. Hudson gaped. "But I don't—" She covered her smiling lips with her hand. "Oh Sherlock…"
Mary stepped into the room, a smile on her face. "The place looks lovely, Sherlock," she said as she planted a kiss on his cheek.
"Did you know anything about this?" John asked Mrs. Hudson.
She raised her hand. "God's honest truth, I knew nothing."
Sherlock watched John's reaction intently. "Have I done it wrong?" he asked.
John, still at a loss, let a breath out and broke into a smile. "Quite the opposite," he said. "It's…marvellous."
He reached out a hand to shake Sherlock's, setting off a round of hugs and handshakes and "Happy Christmases" that nearly obscured the peal of the oven timer.
"Is that—?" Lestrade asked.
Molly chuckled. "What is it with you and food? You hungry or something?"
"I'm starved!" Mary smiled. "They always said you'd eat for two but I never thought that meant two armies!"
"I hope you bought a large bird, Sherlock," John said.
"And a small ham," Sherlock replied with a smirk at Lestrade.
"No," Lestrade laughed. "You bloody didn't!"
John shook his head. "What's funny?"
Sherlock's smile was warm as he looked between his friends—all of them, the closest people in the world to him, gathered in his living room—and realized he was no longer nervous, and hadn't had the compulsion to check his watch in—Damn it, you looked at your watch again! he scolded himself. Still, he felt contented as he shook his head at John.
"Inside joke," he told him, clasping his hands together in front of him. "Now—who wants to carve the turkey?"
Sherlock mashed the potatoes; John and Lestrade fought over how to properly carve; Mary dished out stuffing and vegetables into serving bowls on the table; Molly sliced the baguettes; and Mrs. Hudson poured the wine.
It was a success by anyone's standards.
At the end, with dishes empty and bellies full, the six of them leaned back in their chairs, laughter dying on their lips as they contemplated how they might move. But move they did, after another half an hour had passed, to start an assembly line at the sink to wash the dishes, dry them, and return them to their rightful spots in the cupboards. Someone started singing "Jingle Bells"; soon they were carolling as they cleaned, and an hour passed though it felt like only a quarter of that.
When the work was done, they collapsed in the parlour. Conversations continued. More wine was poured. John stoked the fire. Molly regaled Mary with the story about her hand in the decorations; Mary told Molly about how badly her feet had swelled after an afternoon's excursion on Marylebone High Street.
It was Mrs. Hudson who finally suggested they dive into the gifts now piled high under the tree and spilling out into the room itself.
"Mine first," Sherlock said, with enough persuasive adamance that no one argued. He got up and walked to the tree, then dug out his gifts, which he set in an ordered pile next to his chair. "Before I give these out, though, I just wanted to say—"
"Oh, a repeat of your wedding speech!" Lestrade joked.
"Get on with it," Mary prodded with a laugh.
Sherlock grinned but shook his head. "I suppose you've all been wondering why it is that I've been acting so strangely these last few weeks."
"You always act a bit strangely, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson grinned. "You do realize you're a bit of an odd duck, don't you?"
Another impatient grin. "Yes, well…I-I don't think it's any secret that I'm not good at this sort of thing. But I spent my last three Christmases alone, respectively, in a Belgradian narcotics warehouse, a Fort Lauderdale motel, and the bad books of almost everyone in this room as a result of the previous two…" he paused. "I thought it was as good a time as any to rectify that."
He looked around at the rapt, attentive faces of the people he'd gathered in his small central London flat. He cleared his throat and continued. "I used to think Christmas was just another excuse for relatives who never really liked one another to spend extended period of time together in forced isolation. In talking with each of you over the last few weeks, however, I learned that Christmas is about something more. It's about traditions. Shared with family. And when I realized that each of us, for whatever reason—choice, circumstance, or, in my case...hopeful accidental adoption—each of us is often without family in the strictest traditional sense."
He waited until the laughter at his joke—which he never realized he'd made—to stop before continuing: "Except…we're not."
Sherlock handed out the gifts to each person, their names written on gift tags tied to the delicate bows adorning each impeccably wrapped box. "We can't always choose the family we're born into, but we can choose the family we stick with," he began again. "And you are—to me, anyway—family. I don't always say it and I know I don't always show it, but I hope you all know how important you are. To me." He paused, briefly, before nodding. "Thank you."
He sat down, and the five faces peering up at him barely moved, until Mary hitched a sob and Mrs. Hudson swiped at a tear starting down her face.
"You did this for us?" she asked.
Sherlock nodded. "Those are your cookies," he said to her, "And the meal was inspired by Greg," he said, getting the Inspector's name right for the first time ever. Sherlock motioned to the tree. "Molly did the tree and the decor. John did the music. And Mary, you inspired the gifts…" he looked at her, clutching the silver package in her hand, tied with a purple bow. He frowned. "Sort of. Mary, when we went shopping together, I'd already purchased everything, but you helped me realize I had been on the right track and—"
"Shut up, Sherlock," John grinned. "You big bloody idiot. Just shut up."
Sherlock nodded, pinching his lips shut before flicking his eyebrows up expectantly. Molly was the first to tear into the gift, setting off a flurry of paper and bows that suddenly covered every available inch of floor space around them.
For Mrs. Hudson, he'd bought a large leather book with blank pages and a set of three fountain pens, "…for you to start writing down your recipes. You shouldn't deprive future generations of the bounty of your kitchen." Tucked inside were two theatre vouchers. She kissed him on the cheek and promised to take him with her—an unintended but welcome gesture.
For Lestrade, he'd found a collection of rare books about the history of the Metropolitan Police and a few old maps, one of which dated back to the Jack the Ripper murders. "The best lawmen know where they've come from so they know where they're going," Sherlock had written in a card tucked in the box. "Not that you need help in this area…"
For John, an antique medical dictionary. "It's clear to me now that I've spent far too much time in book stores," Sherlock said by way of apology for the repetition in his gifts, but no one seemed to mind. He'd also carefully wrapped up an mid-19th century stethoscope he'd found at an antique stall in the market and bought as an afterthought—though he didn't tell John that part.
For Mary, the delicate wrapping—the same as the kind she'd received at the German orphanage—revealed a box containing a beautiful necklace, with a heart-shaped pendant and spaces for three gemstones. Only two had been filled—one with John's birthstone, one with Mary's. The third was empty. "When the baby is born—" Sherlock began, before having his sentence cut off by Mary's arms once again flung around his neck. She cried on his shoulder and professed her thanks, and Sherlock patted her back as soothingly as he could until she stood up and walked back to John, to show him the necklace.
For Molly—the hardest one to buy for, by far—Sherlock had found a beautiful and old copy of Pride & Prejudice for a very reasonable price from a bookseller whose store Sherlock had saved a number of months earlier. This he wrapped next to a very old copy of Gray's Anatomy, and both were surrounded in the box by a long scarf, cast in a shade of deep evergreen, "…because I couldn't decide if Jane Austen trumped Dr. Henry Gray or your love of ridiculously long scarves, so I got them all…"
By the end, teary-eyes outnumbered dry and Sherlock, having tried explaining his various gift choices in sundry ways, cleared his throat to break the tension. "I have receipts for everything if you should—"
"Sherlock…" John shook his head. "Thank you."
"Thank you, Sherlock," Lestrade said.
Mrs. Hudson chorused. "Thank you very much."
"Thank you," Mary said.
"Thanks, Sherlock," Molly sniffled, resting a hand on his knee.
He straightened, clearing his throat and clearly overwhelmed. "There a-are more gifts…"
And at that, everyone else dug in. More paper was scattered around the room. Everyone tucked their haul beneath their chairs or next to their feet. And in the end, smiles abounded.
Outside the window they heard the peal of a church bell. Midnight.
"Is it that late already?" Molly asked. "I had no idea!"
"Happy Christmas!" Mary cheered, setting off another round of hugs that circled the room. Someone produced yet another bottle of wine; the song on the speakers—still playing the ridiculously long playlist that John had created for Sherlock weeks earlier—switched over to one Sherlock recognized. John's eyes brightened.
"That's my song!" he pointed at the speaker as the most obscene Christmas song any of them knew launched into its first verse. Everyone joined in at the very tops of their lungs; even Mrs. Hudson could be heard, the loudest of all, saying words no one thought they'd ever hear her say in their lifetimes. Even Sherlock had been persuaded to sing, Molly on one side and Mary on the other, laughing along as he fumbled his way through the lyrics.
"And the boys of the NYPD choir were singing 'Galway Bay'…and the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day…" they chorused, laughing until their sides hurt.
The party then began to draw to a close. Mary leaned against John, which was his cue to take the load of received gifts down to their car before returning for his heavily pregnant wife. Sherlock knew he'd see them the next day, when they'd drive over to his parents' home together for Christmas Day. The goodbye was short and sweet.
"You did a good thing today, Sherlock," John said as he shook his friend's hand on the landing. "Merry Christmas."
Mrs. Hudson tiptoed out minutes later, still singing The Pogues' song as she went. "You scum bag, you maggot..." she giggled. "Oh, you've given an old lady quite a thrill! Happy Christmas, Sherlock!"
Lestrade offered to walk Molly to her car, but she refused, politely, saying she wanted to stay and help Sherlock clean up. The Detective Inspector shrugged his coat on and made his goodbyes. "Had a lovely time," he said, wagging a finger at Sherlock. "But you've got a lot to live up to for next year, mate."
So it was that the Detective Inspector—after thanking Sherlock profusely and carting off two Tupperware containers filled with leftovers—marched down the stairs and out into the chilly December night, leaving Molly and Sherlock alone in the now far-too-empty flat.
**A/N: I've got one more chapter-a bit of a epilogue-to tie this whole thing together. Until then...**
