From the corner of the room, Laura finally cleared her throat quietly. "Sorry to interrupt," she sincerely said. "I think that we should forego talk about arrangements such as travel and medical needs until a decision is made. Perhaps you'd like to see Jessica now, Mr. Haynesworth? I'll just go fetch her, and then you all can talk with her about what she wants."

They all agreed, and minutes later Laura was returning with Jessica. The girl didn't look any different from when they last saw her, except that she was in different clothes (shoes still intact) and the infection on her arm had cleared up. However, there was a significant shift in her face to one of bright joy at the sight of the people waiting for her in the room, and for a moment it seemed she didn't know who to run to first.

"Jessie-cat!" cried her uncle Robby, practically leaping out of his chair and opening his arms.

Decision made for her, Jessica launched herself into her uncle's embrace. "Uncle Robby!"

Sherlock shifted in his seat, feeling the odd vibrating feeling rise up under his skin again. John's hand anchored him in place. Jessica and her uncle talked animatedly for several minutes, and it wasn't until he felt a sharp pressure in the sensitive skin of his forearm that he paid attention and realized that Jessica was positively ranting about him.

"...and then we went to the park and chased snipes! Only then David - I didn't like him - at Mrs. Norris' house - she's the lady I had to stay with with - she smelled like cats - David said that snipes aren't real, and I told him 'uh-huh they are, because Mister Homes said so!' and then he threw a worm at me because he thought it would scare me - hah! - and then I told him how Mister Holes taught me that if you cut a worm in half it'll just grow another head and then I showed him and he got scared! It was so funny!"

Something seemed to occur to the girl while her uncle was praising her on teaching the David boy a lesson. She turned and looked right at Sherlock - keeping himself almost painfully still in his chair - then wrenched herself free of her uncle's embrace to run to Sherlock's side. "Mister Hose, David didn't believe me when I told him that if you cut a worm in half it would grow another head, and then got scared and ran away when I showed him!"

He couldn't fight smiling, and certainly had no desire to. "Well, of course he got scared! You are much braver than most children your age. And snipes are tricky; they're only real when you believe that they're real. But once you stop believing, they go away."

"Really?"

"Would I lie to you?" he asked sternly, and Jessica rapidly shook her head, beaming. Then she blinked, seeming to find error in something going on, and started pulling on his chair. He scooted out slightly, bemused, and she pulled him bodily out of the chair. "What are you-?"

Warm, tiny arms encircled his waist, and Jessica buried her face in his midsection. "I missed you. Did you miss me?"

His throat suddenly was very sore, and he had to swallow before dropping to a knee and wrapping his arms back around her. "Of course I did; I was completely lost without my assistant. John was not nearly as good at the bubble experiment as you." She giggled, and he pulled away, feeling the eyes of John and her other uncle on him. "Now, why don't you go say hello to John and your uncle Bruce? I think they're getting jealous." He winked at her, his eyelid feeling like lead, and she scampered across the table to do as he said.

There was more talk, more business, but Sherlock wasn't listening anymore. He sat in his uncomfortable chair and stared at the table surface until the little dust eddies all blended into one another. The only thing that held in him place, kept him from floating away into the cosmos forever, was the feel of John's hand back on his arm, and then the sound of Jessica's voice.

"What? No!"

He snapped his head up to look at the girl; her face was flushed and she looked utterly gobsmacked. John's hand was suddenly crushing him, and the doctor would not look up. Jessica's uncles looked grim but determined. Sherlock didn't need to ask to know what they had said.

"We're sorry," said Robby, "really we are. But Jessie, you belong with us. I think this meeting's over, yeah?"

The uncles started to stand up, and finally Sherlock felt something snap in the air when John lifted his head. "No, please," the doctor blurted out unwittingly. Laura cleared her throat. "I know that this must seem foreign to you, and uncomfortable, but just give us a chance!"

Laura stood up as well and approached them. She looked just as upset as Jessica's uncles, but also just as resigned. "Mister Watson, the decision's been made. I'm sorry, there's nothing more you can do. I'll show you two out."

"At least let us say goodbye-" John protested, but Sherlock pulled his arm free and grasped his husband's hand. He pulled them both out without a glance back into the room, feeling a rush of adrenaline soaring through his veins that made him want to run and scream with the injustice of it all, but restrained himself. There was no power in fighting, not this time.

Mycroft's car, the one that had taken them to the offices in the first place, wasn't waiting for them out front as had been promised. John was beside him, looking numb and hurt in all the ways that made Sherlock want to rip someone's innards out, namely his own, but that was apparently a contributor to why they would never be able to have what they wanted.

The air was too thin, too constricting, far too quickly. John felt Sherlock's hand release his, and suddenly his husband was gone. John looked around, confused and muddled by bitter disappointment he hadn't expected to feel, and found Sherlock curled in a ball on the pavement beside him, fists balled tightly in his black curls. He swallowed thickly, tried to tell Sherlock that he was making a spectacle of himself, but found he didn't care anymore. His leg was stiff and painful when he hunkered down beside his husband and wrapped an arm around his thin shoulders. Sherlock was shaking.

He didn't know how long they sat there, but when his legs began to fall asleep Sherlock stood again, pulling John up with him. They smiled blearily at one another, and John leaned up for a kiss laced with regret.

Then the collision happened.

A tiny bundle of energy was suddenly crushed against their joined bodies; they looked down and saw Jessica clinging to their jackets. That bright, brave girl, who had suffered infection and hunger and impossible heartache and yet still fought not to shed a tear, was sobbing into Sherlock's side.

"It's n-not f-f-fair!" she shouted, voice muffled in Sherlock's jacket. "I w-want t-to go w-with y-you!"

The only time John had seen Sherlock so stricken was three years ago in a darkened swimming pool when he'd been bidden to say "Gottle-o-geer." He knelt back down and took Jessica's shoulders in his hands as her uncles and Laura ran out of the building after her. "Jess, it's not our choice," he said apologetically while Sherlock looked the opposite direction, his fingers tangling in Jessica's hair.

Robby caught up with them and pulled Jessica away. "Jessie, you have to stop doing that!" he reprimanded, obviously trying and failing to be gentle. "You're coming to live with me and uncle Bruce at our house."

"I don't want to!" shouted Jessica, becoming more distressed by the minute. "I don't like it there! There are too many people all the time and there's so much stuff and noise and the attic smells funny and the other kids laugh at me and tell scary stories and I don't want to go! Mister Holmes is nice and he watches Doctor Who with me and makes me feel smart and if you make me go with you I'll just run away! I will!"

For a moment it looked as though Robby was about to say that was too bad because she was going anyway, but uncle and tearful niece simply looked at one another for several moments. Then he sighed heavily, looking much older, and nodded his head. "Okay," he said softly. "Okay. I mean...God, I don't want you to be unhappy, Jessie. Your dad wouldn't want..." He shook his head again and looked at the ground for several moments before turning to Laura. "It's okay."

Jessica and Sherlock wore matching expressions of shock on their faces, as though they'd just been told Christmas was coming early but didn't quite believe it. On impulse, John pulled out his phone and snapped a picture. Then Jessica's face split into a grin and she hugged her uncle tightly round the neck. There were tears in the older man's eyes, but he was smiling as he wrapped his arms around his niece. "I love you, Jessie-cat," he said tightly, pressing a kiss to her hair before letting her go. "Maybe you can come for Christmas?" That was directed at Sherlock and John.

"Of course," said Sherlock, always happy to avoid his own family during the holiday season. "Yes, of course. I-I..." He floundered helplessly with a hand tangled in his hair, lost for words for the first time John had seen, again, since Moriarty and the swimming pool.

Jessica's uncle smiled sadly at him as he stood up. Jessica then made a mad leap into Sherlock's arms, locking her legs around his waist as though she would never let go. Sherlock looked just as willing to release the girl, crushing his eyes closed and hiding his face in her curls. John took two long steps forward - ignoring Laura's talk of paperwork that still needed to be done and at least a week-long process before she could move in - and closed Sherlock and Jessica into his arms.