10.
I am not a child now. I can take care of myself. I mustn't let them down now.
- I'll Try, Peter Pan 2: Return to Neverland
School.
Sherlock scoffed at the idea – he and Mycroft rarely interacted with children their age when they were growing up, and they both grew up fine – but experts (and Mycroft) insisted that it was important for Elspeth's development to attend school, and therefore get an education and interact with people her age, which she hadn't done since she'd started to live with Sherlock.
The thought of Elspeth going to school made Sherlock feel something akin to worry. He wouldn't be there to look after her or make sure that she was alright, and he knew for a fact that children could be cruel sometimes. He'd lost count of how many names he'd been called, how many times other kids had pushed him in the corridor or deliberately tried to trip him over when he was engrossed in a book; Sherlock didn't want Elspeth to go through the same ordeal.
"It's natural to feel worried," Molly told him when Sherlock reluctantly explained his worries to her.
Sherlock gave her a narrow eyed stare. "I'm not worried," he lied. "Elspeth will be fine."
"Of course she will. She's a great kid – she'll make friends really easily," Molly said with a sincere smile, then returned to her work. She didn't know for certain what it was like to send a child off to school because she wasn't a mother, so Molly could only guess how Sherlock felt. She was just pleased that he could open up to her. "It's always a bit daunting, watching them grow up," she added.
Sherlock made a quiet noise of agreement but didn't say anything on the matter. Molly smiled to herself.
"I suppose it'll make your days easier now, won't it?" she continued. "Not having to find someone to look after her while you're working –"
"Molly," Sherlock interrupted in a low voice.
Her cheeks burning, Molly murmured, "I'll just let you get on with your work, then."
Elspeth stood in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection with an uneasy stomach, playing with the hem of her grey skirt and tugging on the collar of her shirt, fidgeting even though Sherlock told her to keep still while he made sure that everything fit properly.
There would be a lot of people there that she didn't know. And the school was going to be a lot bigger than Elspeth was used to. The thought made her stomach twist uncomfortably.
"You're nervous," Sherlock said.
"No I'm not!" Elspeth lied stubbornly, glowering at him. She crossed her arms and scowled when Sherlock raised his eyebrows at her. "I'm not!"
Sherlock looked at Elspeth closely but didn't say anything else, helping her into her school jumper. It was a bit too large for her because someone once told Sherlock that children grew into their clothes quick enough, but looking at her then, he wondered if he should've got a size smaller. It was too late now, though. Elspeth didn't seem to mind that much.
He braided her hair quickly, his hands steady, then sent her through to the living room to collect her coat and shoes. Sherlock watched her go.
Sherlock wondered if this was how his mother felt when she sent him and Mycroft to school. It was strange. He knew it would be more convenient for work; Sherlock would only have to make sure he was there in the morning to get her ready and at the school in the afternoon to collect her. Mycroft wouldn't have to babysit his niece anymore. He'd purchased an apartment in London under the pretence that it was for work, but Sherlock knew Mycroft disliked having Elspeth in his office.
Elspeth picked up her coat and shoes, frowning. She was scared.
What if she didn't make any friends? Or people didn't like her? And what was Sherlock going to do all day while she wasn't at home? So many questions went through Elspeth's head. She bit her lip.
"Don't do that, Elspeth, it's a terrible habit," Sherlock scolded as he walked past.
Elspeth trailed after him. "Do I have to go to school?"
"Yes."
"But you don't go."
"That's because I'm an adult, Elspeth, I go to work," Sherlock explained, opening the fridge and taking out Elspeth's snack. He reminded himself to give Elspeth money to hand in for school dinners. "You have to go to school."
Elspeth frowned again and asked, "Why?"
"Because we'll both get in lots of trouble if you don't get to school, and we don't want that, do we?" Sherlock glanced down at Elspeth, who was wringing her hands together and staring at her feet. "Sure you're not nervous?"
"I'm not," Elspeth insisted.
"Hmm," was all Sherlock said, packing Elspeth's lunch in her bag and kneeling down to help her into her shoes, doing the buckles up so they wouldn't slip when she ran about. He'd made sure to find shoes that fit properly. Elspeth slid her arms into her coat, giggling when Sherlock zipped it up and gently tweaked her nose, and took Sherlock's hand as they left the apartment. It was a short walk to the school.
Elspeth's grip tightened the closer they got to the school, slowing down when they turned the corner.
"What are you going to do today?"
"Go to Scotland Yard," Sherlock told her. They crossed the road. "No doubt they need my assistance."
There were a lot of parents gathered at the school gates, dropping off their nervous children as well. Only a couple of them seemed confident about their first day at school, swaggering about and insisting that they didn't need to kiss their mothers goodbye, but most of the kids were clinging to their parents, their eyes darting about.
"See," Sherlock said to Elspeth. "Everyone's nervous."
"I'm not nervous!"
A few parents turned their way, giving Sherlock understanding smiles of sympathy, and he nodded in acknowledgment, grimacing when they looked away.
Elspeth was pale and she continued to chew on her bottom lip, so Sherlock crouched to her level, putting his hand under her chin.
"It's normal to feel nervous," Sherlock said, remembering what Molly had said to him in the lab. "You'll make friends really easily. You're a great kid." It all sounded incredibly soppy and insincere coming from Sherlock, but Elspeth brightened up a little, gazing back at him with hope in her eyes. Sherlock grimaced. "Elspeth, you're going to be absolutely fine. You're going to make me proud."
Make me proud. Elspeth's chest swelled and she nodded earnestly at Sherlock's words, filled with more determination she'd ever felt before. Yes, she was going to make Sherlock proud. She was going to show everyone that she wasn't afraid.
The bell rang, taking Elspeth by surprise, and she looked around at all the other children slowly making their way towards the doors. She supposed she had to follow them.
"Go on," Sherlock said. "Time to go."
"Love you," Elspeth said, hooking her arms around Sherlock's neck for a moment, hugging him as tight as she could. Sherlock hugged her back.
The day started off well enough. Elspeth got taken to a big hall with all the other kids in her class, where they sat on the floor and listened to the head teacher, a middle aged man with a big stomach and funny moustache, welcomed them all to the school, wishing them the best in their time there.
"I like your hair," one of the girls told her shyly on the way back to their class. She was a bit taller than Elspeth, with short blonde hair with lots of pretty clips in it.
"I like yours too," Elspeth said with a nervous smile of her own. "I'm Elspeth."
"That's a pretty name. I'm Jessica."
Elspeth decided that she liked Jessica. Remembering how Sherlock greeted people he'd just met, Elspeth held her hand out.
Jessica frowned. "What are you doing?"
"You're supposed to shake it." Elspeth frowned. "I think."
"Oh." Jessica giggled and reached out, shaking Elspeth's hand from side to side. "Like this?"
Elspeth laughed. "No! They have to go up and down," she explained, showing Jessie how to shake hands. She'd learned that from Sherlock. "Like this!"
"What are you doing?" a boy with lots of freckles asked.
"Shaking hands," Elspeth said. "It's what adults do when you meet someone. First you tell them your name, then they tell you their name, and then you shake their hand. Like this. I'm Elspeth." She thrust her hand towards the boy, snatching it away when he tried to shake it. "No, you tell me your name first, then you shake it."
"I'm Tommy." He hesitated. "Do I shake your hand now?"
"Yep," Jessica said. She added, "Do it up and down, not side to side."
Tommy shook Elspeth's hand, attracting the attention of several other's in their class. They gathered round, asking what they were doing, and Elspeth explained the concept of shaking hands to them all with help from Jessica, who reminded them all to shake up and down, not side to side. Soon the whole class were introducing themselves to each other and shaking hands – "You have to do it up and down!" – so when the teacher arrived, she was met with a very funny sight.
"What are you all doing?" she asked, grinning from ear to ear.
"Shaking hands, miss," Tommy piped up. "Elspeth showed us how to do it."
"Which one of you is Elspeth, then?" Elspeth hesitatingly lifted her hand, and the teacher turned her smile towards her, crouching down. "It's very nice to meet you, Elspeth. How did you learn to do that?"
"My Dad does it," Elspeth mumbled with her chin pressed against her chest.
"It's a very good thing to do. You should be very proud of yourself."
Elspeth lifted her head, grinning back.
The teacher introduced herself, telling them all that her name was Miss Cassidy, and everyone sat in a wide circle on the carpet with her.
"Now I know a lot of you know each other's names," Miss Cassidy said with a smile at Elspeth, who was sitting between Jessica and Tommy. "But I want you to say them again and tell everyone a little bit about yourself. It can be anything you like."
They went round the circle, each student telling everyone their name and giving some information about themselves – their favourite colour, their hobbies, their pet names . . . it all seemed very dull to Elspeth. She decided that she was going to tell everyone something really cool, far cooler than anything they'd all said, and racked her brains for something that would impress everyone. By the time they reached Jessica, who was sitting beside her, Elspeth knew what she was going to say.
"I'm Elspeth," she announced. "And my Dad's a detective. He solves lots of puzzles and gets bad guys put in jail."
"Wow," Tommy said with clear admiration in his eyes. "Is he like Scooby Doo?"
"Nuh-uh, monsters aren't real," Elspeth said haughtily. "He works with the police all the time and today, he's going to Scotland!" She felt as if she may have gotten things mixed up a little, but Elspeth shrugged it off and continued anyway. "He knows a lot about people just by looking at them."
"Can you do that?" Jessica asked.
Elspeth nodded. "Miss Cassidy has a pet."
There were hairs on the bottom of Miss Cassidy's trousers, but the teacher was so stunned that she didn't say anything, gazing back at Elspeth with disbelief. She did, in fact, have a pet; a small dog. She had no idea how Elspeth could've known that.
A lot of the kids were amazed by Elspeth's deduction, begging that she do it to them too, but Mycroft had once told her that showing off was rude so she shook her head, refusing to do anymore.
"You're lying," Tommy said, sitting on Elspeth's other side. "Scotland is ages away."
"No it isn't, Dad goes there all the time! He goes to the yard to help the police," Elspeth said. "And he'll be back in time to pick me up."
"Why doesn't your mum pick you up?" one of the other students asked from across the circle.
"Because she's in Italy. They have a lot of pizza and pasta there. She was in rehab but now she's out and she's gone away with a new friend."
"What's rehab?"
"A special hospital for adults."
"Thank you, Elspeth," Miss Cassidy cut in before anyone else could ask another question, her face losing some of its colour when Elspeth mentioned rehab. "Maybe we should give the others a chance to talk, yeah?"
"I'm Tommy and I've been to Scotland and I needed a plane to get there!"
It was playtime and the playground was so cool because it was large and there was a frog in it. Elspeth was chasing it with Jessica and Tommy when a few of the other boys from their class – Jacob and Alex and Sean – came over.
"Your dad can't be a detective," Jacob told Elspeth. He was taller than her so she had to crane her neck back to look at him, unafraid. "That isn't a proper job."
"Yes it is," Elspeth replied. She wasn't going to let them bully her father.
"No it isn't," Alex said. "He doesn't get paid for it."
"Yes he does!" Elspeth didn't know that for certain but if Sherlock's job was to be a detective, surely he got paid for doing work; all adults got paid for their jobs, didn't they? "You don't know anything, you big stupid head!" Elspeth had heard Sherlock call people stupid when they didn't know or understand something, so she didn't see anything wrong with repeating his words.
"You can't call people names!" Jessica wailed from behind her, pressing herself against the fence as if to hide herself. "You have to say sorry now!"
But Elspeth didn't.
Alex shoved her. Elspeth scowled and pushed him back. Jessica continued to wail and Tommy ran off to get a teacher, but none of that mattered to Elspeth, who was glaring up at Alex and Jacob and Sean through her tears, furious that they were being mean about Sherlock.
With a yell, Alex pushed Elspeth as hard as he could. It was hard enough to send her falling backwards, landing heavily on the ground and staring back at him in shock.
They both got in trouble for fighting even though Elspeth only shoved Alex because he did it to her first, and frustrated tears rolled down her cheeks when she was made to stand by the wall with her back to everyone. She wasn't allowed to play with her new friends and everyone was going to hate her for getting in trouble and Sherlock was going to be angry at her. Letting out a quiet sob, Elspeth rested her forehead on the wall and squeezed her eyes shut. She hated school.
Elspeth knew that Sherlock knew what had happened the second she saw him at the school gates, trailing out with her bag dragging along the ground. Tommy and Jessica said goodbye to her, and that lifted Elspeth's spirits only a little; she was certain they would hate her tomorrow.
Sherlock carried Elspeth's bag for her on the way home and held her hand all the way, but he didn't say anything to her. She tried not to cry again.
When they got home, Elspeth was allowed to take off her school uniform and sit in front of the TV while Sherlock made dinner for them both. Her favourite cartoon was on but Elspeth didn't pay much attention to it, curling her legs up to her chest and hugging them with her chin on her knees, frowning miserably. She decided that she didn't ever want to go back to school.
Reaching round, Sherlock picked up the remote and turned the TV off. Elspeth didn't protest.
"Come here," Sherlock said, sitting down on the sofa next to him. Elspeth didn't hesitate to scramble onto his lap, wrapping her small arms around his waist and burying her face into his chest. "What happened, then?" Elspeth shrugged. "Don't do that, Elspeth, you know you're more than capable of talking. What happened?"
"Everyone hates me," Elspeth mumbled against Sherlock's chest, her voice muffled.
"Why?"
"Because I pushed Alex in my class."
Sherlock knew all about it. Elspeth's teacher – Miss . . . Casey? He couldn't remember – had told him, and though she made it clear that Alex had provoked Elspeth, Sherlock wanted to know his daughter's side of the story.
"Well you didn't do that without a reason," Sherlock said.
Elspeth sniffed, lifted her head a little, and frowned up at Sherlock. "I told everybody that you were a detective and that you go to the yard in Scotland, and Tommy said you need to get a plane to go there, but that didn't make me angry."
"What did, then?" Sherlock stroked Elspeth's hair soothingly, pushing it behind her ears, and she shrugged. "Elspeth."
"Alex said your job wasn't a proper job because you don't get paid and I said you do and I called him a stupid head –" Sherlock had to hide his smirk as Elspeth admitted that. "– so he pushed me, and I only pushed him back because he did it first! Then he pushed me again and that's when I fell over."
Sherlock's arms tightened around Elspeth, holding her close, and he sighed. "Elspeth," he began. "You can't call people names."
"But you call people stupid all the time," Elspeth pointed out.
That was true. Sherlock realised he was going to have to be careful about what he said around Elspeth.
"Yes, I do," Sherlock agreed with a frown. "But I shouldn't, and neither should you. It's not very nice. You wouldn't like it if I called you a stupid head, would you?" Elspeth considered it, then shook her head. Being called stupid head wasn't very nice. "Exactly. That's why you can't call people names."
"But he was being mean about you first!"
"People are mean to other people who are different. They don't mean to be, they're just . . ." Sherlock frowned, trying to think of the right word. "Scared, usually, because something isn't the way they thought it was."
"That's not very nice," Elspeth muttered.
"Not everyone is nice," Sherlock reminded her. "Elspeth, you don't need to get upset or defend me when people say not very nice things about me – I'm an adult, it doesn't bother me. It's my job to look after you, not the other way round."
"What if they keep doing it?"
"Tell me. Or the teacher. But don't get mad, don't push people, and especially don't call them names like stupid head." Sherlock cradled Elspeth's face with both his hands and looked her in the eyes. "Do you understand me?"
Elspeth nodded. "I thought you would be proud."
Sherlock felt something in the pit of his stomach and he couldn't tell what it was; not pain, it wasn't that unpleasant. It didn't feel like sadness, either.
"You do that every day by going to school," Sherlock said to Elspeth. "Because you're going to learn a lot of new things and make a lot of friends, and that makes me feel proud of you. Not fighting, though. Fighting makes me do this." Sherlock pulled a silly face, purposefully exaggerating his frown, and Elspeth giggled. "So no more fighting, do you understand?"
Nodding, Elspeth stood up on Sherlock's lap and hugged him.
The next day, when Sherlock dropped her off at school, Elspeth sought Alex out in the crowd and apologised for calling him stupid and pushing him. Alex, who had apparently had a similar talk with his own parents the previous evening, said sorry for being mean about Sherlock.
When the bell rang, the pair of them rushed to class together, leaving Sherlock standing at the school gates with a small smile. All his worrying was for nothing – Elspeth was going to be just fine.
Thank you WerewolfHybrid31, EICochrane, Capricornwholovesbooks, Princely Archer, bellechat, Adrillian1497 and BlueGreen216 for reviewing!
Exciting (but not fanfiction related sadly) news: I passed my driving test! That's partially the reason I didn't update sooner, but I was so happy when it happened I couldn't think of anyone better to share it with than all you lovely people who take the time to read and review my work!