Saturday dawns. Dawn is when you go to the firing squad. Rory read that in one of his soldier books. He knew better than to tell the uncles, because then the soldier books would be taken away, and the girls would have cried, so he told John all about it. He said, when you are a prisoner of war, and the evil generals of the other side have decided you are too dangerous to live, you go to the firing squad. You get a blindfold and a last cigarette. You get put against the wall and then-
John flinches out of dozy half-sleep. At the time they had sat up under the duvet together with torches, and whispered that they would be strong and noble if they were 'sent to the wall'. They wouldn't be afraid. Rory said he wouldn't even take the blindfold, and John agreed with him, but he's not sure that's entirely true. That might just be something he said.
Maybe he did get some sleep. Maybe last night was a dream.
But then John hears purring, and looks up at Molly's bunk. The kitten. Scrabble. The kitten is real so the rest of it must be real. The laptop and Uncle Sherlock and Molly told a lie and all of it was real.
There's movement in the bunk below. John rolls to the edge and looks over, to see Rory role led to the edge and looking up. "Are you awake?" Rory hisses.
John nods, "Yeah."
"Did you ever go to sleep?"
"Not really. Did you?"
Rory shakes his head. "We are in so much trouble. We're going to get grounded and banned from computers and no biscuits ever again. And they won't let us keep the kitten."
No. They can't let that happen. Scrabble is their responsibility, and at least until they find her owner, Scrabble needs them. The children have an obligation. Miss McTaggart taught them that word. It means a thing you have to do, and if you don't do it or if you make excuses then you're not a good person. John wants to be a doctor, and doctors have to be good people.
You see his dilemma, don't you? And it's not just the kitten to think of. There are the girls too. He and Rory are stronger, but the girls wouldn't last two days without biscuits. Amelia and Molly are always flagging by morning break at school. By lunchtime, without a biscuit, well… John hates to say it, but two of his best friends could be d-e-a-d .
No. John's not standing for it.
He sits up, straightens his pyjamas and climbs down. Then he climbs back up again and gets his tiger from next to the pillow. Not that he needs it or anything. He's not a little kid that has to hold on to a stuffed toy all the time. He's way bigger than that now. He could leave the tiger there if he wanted to. But the morning is cold, and the tiger's been next to him all night, so it's still a bit warm. That's why he gets it. For warmth. He gets back down again. Rory has sat up, has cleared a space at the end of the bed for him to sit. He thinks they're going to discuss a strategy.
John smiles bravely and heads instead for the bedroom door.
"Where are you going?" Rory asks. He sounds nervous, and like he thinks John is about to do something really very stupid.
Which he might be, now that he thinks about it.
"If the girls wake up, just tell them to pretend to be asleep."
Amelia sits bolt upright, chewing the end of her ponytail. Mumbling through it, "Yeah, we haven't slept either. What're we going to do? They'll send us to live in the orphanage with Mels and I really like Mels but I don't want to live in the orphanage. They get other people's old toys and all their books are falling apart and I need markers and all the markers at the orphanage are dry."
Molly, who cannot sit up, who can do little more than tremble in the little ball she's made of herself, whimpers, "And Rory's right; they'll take Scrabble away. She'll go to the pound and if she doesn't have an owner then they'll…"
Molly breaks off crying and John knows why. It was in the movie on TV last Sunday afternoon, and even though the talking animals got away in the end, Molly was already in tears. D-e-a-d.
"Everybody just stay in here," he tells them. "Just wait, okay? The Uncle always comes in to get us up on a Saturday, right? Just pretend you're still sleeping, okay?" At the door, he turns and salutes. It's not a very sharp or polished salute. His arm isn't really
long enough, and he can't make his first two fingers lie side by side the way you're supposed to. But he means it. Rory salutes back. It's something they do sometimes. Rory will keep the girls and Scrabble safe here. John trusts him with that.
And then he leaves the children's room, not knowing if he will ever return again.
If they make him go and live in the orphanage (something that hadn't crossed his mind until Amelia said it) he'll run away. He's not staying there. He'll break out. If Mels wants to come she can come. She was cool enough. And they'll rescue Scrabble from the pound and everything will be okay.
Thus, John knows he has a plan for every eventuality. He is ready for a life without biscuits, and he goes willingly unto his fate. He asks for no blindfold, and cigarettes are bleugh.
But you get a last meal. This wasn't in one of Rory's books, this was on TV. Holby City wasn't on because of tennis and they watched a police program on Channel 5. When something really terrible is going to happen to you, you're allowed to have whatever you want for your last meal.
The Uncles aren't up yet. John, for his (possibly) final breakfast, chooses Coco Pops. They're in the high cupboard, but he pulls over a chair. They're allowed sweet cereal on a Saturday anyway. He gets down the box and a bowl and pours. When he opens the fridge, a stab of fear and guilt goes through his heart; there are two cartons of milk. One was brought home by Molly from the shop last night. One was sitting on Uncle Sherlock's desk and they pretended it wasn't there. John uses up the last of that one on his cereal, as if ending it, as if throwing away the carton, could make things better.
He eats half the Coco Pops while they're crunchy, waits until the rest turn the milk chocolatey and finishes them. Then slurps the chocolate milk away, washes the bowl and spoon and dries his face.
And then John Watson, aged eight-and-five-months, holding a toy tiger by the scruff, waits in his pyjamas for the inevitable. It's a little after six-thirty in the morning, so he might have a bit of a wait on his hands. Suffice to say, he is brave for the most part, and only once catches himself snivelling. Once or twice the door of the children's room creeps open, and he'll see just one of Amelia's eyes spying. She's a good agent. She'll serve them well in their pursuit of the Gaffatt, even if John's no longer around to co-ordinate the field efforts.
He is sitting with his chin up at the kitchen table when Uncle Sherlock emerges blearily, not from his room but from his office. He is mumbling chemical formulae like a song stuck in his head, and seems to have come out for no more than a glass of water. He is standing almost on top of John before he spots him.
John opens his mouth to speak, and Uncle Sherlock raises a silencing hand. "But-"
"Oh, I have my suspicions why you're up so early, young Watson, and I'd still like you hold off just a moment. We're going to talk, and it may take some time. I'd like to write something down before we begin."
Of course, Uncle Sherlock has no need of written notes. Not for simple equations anyway, not for the sort of reactions that are going to tell him the elemental breakdown of the substance found on the victim's shoe. He can return to chemistry like that on a heartbeat. But John is not quite sweating just yet, not physically. Sherlock writes, and watches the eyes follow the tip of his pen across the page, brackets and subtext and surtext and annotations. He makes it a little longer than strictly necessary. And when the first bead breaks on the boy's forehead, when the hand that chokes the tiger grows a little tighter, then he stops. Turns to John. Triggers his fevered, burning confessions with a nod of his head.
"I know why you're really, really angry-"
"Am I?"
"…Yes."
"Alright then. Let's wait until the other children get up, shall we?"
"No."
Uncle Sherlock is shocked. Sits back a little. Folds his arms. "…Beg your pardon, John?"
There's a tremor, a crack in his voice, the bob of a tiny, nascent Adam's apple. "They didn't have anything to do with it. It was just me. All of it. The laptop and the internet and everything. It was just me."
"Oh, now, I don't think that's true, do you? Miss Hooper, for instance, has some explaining to do."
John shakes his head again, harder. "Molly didn't want to. I told her what to say and everything. I told her it was because of the Gaffatt."
Oh, thinks Uncle Sherlock, well, these are interesting developments. Somewhere in the last twenty-four hours an awful lot of growing up has gone on, and he's not sure either himself or the Uncle even had anything to do with it. First Molly, now this. Very interesting indeed.
He turns his chair, then reaches out and turns John's (it screeches a little on the floortiles, and the other children shudder, cry out as one. They gather on Amelia's bed, closest to the door.) Now, sitting knee to knee, Uncle Sherlock stares at John until he meets his eyes. "You understand this is very serious? Aside from the initial theft, and the deception involved in trying to cover it up… which you didn't do very well and that's disappointing too… you're now telling me you lied, and that you encouraged Molly to lie, and that you preyed on her fear of the Moffiss in order to manipulate her into complying. Is that what you're saying?"
"…What was the last bit again?"
"You made her scared so she'd do what you wanted."
Definitely, with a single, sharp nod, "Yes."
From the other room, Molly cries out, "No!" before Rory claps a hand to her mouth.
"Do you know what he's doing for us?" he hisses in her ear. "Do you want him to be doing it for nothing?"
She shakes her head and he releases her. Molly dives under Amelia's arm and curls miserably against the pillows. Amelia takes custody of Scrabble so she won't have to watch her new mummy cry.
The Uncle, who vromphed in from an evening in the ice forests of Calexifor in the middle of all this, and whose study is positioned quite handily between the two rooms, fills his mouth with the end of an old scarf to stifle his giggling. It's not working. He can still hear himself, and can still be heard sniggering by Uncle Sherlock.
Sherlock wishes he wouldn't. It's getting very difficult to keep his own amusement under control.
Or it was, until he remembers the next question he has to ask.
"John, I couldn't help but notice what you childr- what you, John, were using my laptop for to begin with. Your Uncle and I really must insist you drop this ridiculous obsession with the Gaffatt. You're eight years old. Even if there was anything you could do, it wouldn't be safe."
This, however, is not a conversation John is willing to have. He says, in tones which he hopes will end this part of the argument, "Eight and five months."
"You are very young," Uncle Sherlock insists. "Your Uncle and I work very hard so that you have a long, and happy, and unobserved life. Once the Gaffatt finds you, that's it, over, the end. I'm not sure you entirely understand that."
"…Like Mufasa? D-e-a-d?"
Worse, Sherlock thinks, like Simba afterward. But he can't say that to the boy; he'll start thinking he gets to be king someday, and King John is a different film entirely. He could try and explain about the Chinese, whose greatest curse is to say, 'May you live in interesting times', but the children are apt to think that's a good thing too. It's easier, when you're eight-and-five-months old. It's easy to crave excitement. How much harder for them to dream of the day when they might begin to feel old, when they might crave above all else in this world a moment's peace.
He settles, eventually, "Quite possibly d-e-a-d, yes." It's true, after all. "Now, John, I want you to go very quietly back to your room and get dressed. Then empty out your schoolbag and pack all the things you would usually bring to a sleepover. And leave those pyjamas out for the wash. You think I don't notice, but I do, and you've been told before; you cannot wear the jungle ones every night. They have to go to the laundrette sometimes."
"Rory's Spiderman ones went to the laundrette and the trousers didn't come back."
Nastily reminding John that it's not nice to play on people's fears, "Yes, well, the Moffiss got them, didn't it?"
John lowers his head and slips down off his chair. Uncle Sherlock can only see him from the top of his head, but even down that profile he can see the trembling, wet bottom lip stuck out. But the eyes stay down, and the hand dragged across them is very swift and tough and trying to be a fist. John goes wordlessly, acceptingly, about following his orders. Go to his room. Get dressed. Leave out his pyjamas. Pack a sleepover bag.
He opens the door and faces the little cluster on the bed. "I'm going to the orphanage."
"No!" Molly says again. She clambers towards the edge, ready to go and confess everything, to bare her soul, but the others hold her back.
Rory stands up. He puts a hand on John's shoulder, really firm, like on TV. Says, "We'll come for you. We've been talking about it, and wherever they send you we'll come and get you again. We need you, mate, for the Moffiss."
"What about Scrabble?" Amelia asks, hugging the cat with one arm and Molly with the other. Scrabble, for her part, seems to have missed entirely the gravity of the situation, and is playing with the hair of Amelia's ragdoll.
"He didn't mention her. I think we're okay on Scrabble now that Molly's in the clear. I have to get dressed and start packing."
Molly sniffs hard to manage, "You can take my blanket if you want."
"And my army codebook."
"And some of my markers."
"Thanks everybody. It's okay." John walks away from them, gets some clothes from the dresser, and closes himself into the little bathroom. He hums a song so he won't be thinking of how much he's really, really going to miss them all.
The Uncle comes out into the kitchen finally. Sherlock points up at him. "You. Laughing. I was trying to be a disciplinarian."
"You couldn't hear the rest of them. Molly's being silenced for her own good and the good of the cat."
Sherlock barks laughter just once before he stops himself. "Oh, God, should we be happy about this?"
"Yes. This means that whatever we're doing, they're coming out okay."
"They're coming out daft enough to take the wrap for a stunt like this."
"Sherlock, I think you mean loyal enough."
"I think I mean daft enough, Uncle.
"Loyal. And smart. And very determined. Devoted, when they've got a cause." Sherlock stops. Must be too early in the morning, or his brain is still stuck on his case work, because he's missed this until now. He thought John came out here to suffer the blame out of simple friendship, but that's not it. No, he came out because it's better one of them be punished than all four. One of them is punished and that still leaves the other three free to pursue… the cause. "Oh. Oh, Sherlock, dear boy, don't tell me you hadn't… Did you just get, as the hip young things say, played, by an eight-year-old?"
"That's it. I was just going to make the little bugger pack to scare him, but that is it."
"Mmh, what is he packing for?"
"I thought we might move him up the attic for a couple of days. Teach him a thing or two about acting the patsy."
"Sherlock, there are spiders up there!"
"Oh, we won't make him hunt; we'll bring him supper."
The Uncle is about to admonish him for that, but the door of the children's room opens. At first it's just John, in shorts and t-shirt that don't match, in little desert boots he got at Christmas. His schoolbag on his back, with the tiger hanging on one of the straps. Not that he needs it or anything. Just in case they don't have pillows at the orphanage. He's being silent and very courageous.
Then the other children break, can't stand it anymore, and come flooding out. First it's Molly, teary-eyed and runny-nosed, rushing to hug Uncle Sherlock's leg at the knee, sobbing and begging and utterly incomprehensible. Then Amelia, standing in front of the Uncle, stamping her foot, both hands stuck out to hold him back. And Rory, standing sternly between them and John, jaw set, looking grimly at the floor. A tiny dawn chorus of 'no-no-no-you-can't' and 'no'.
Up above all of this, looking from the top of Molly's head to middle-distance, Sherlock begins to look confused. That's what it looks like anyway. The Uncle doesn't have much experience of Sherlock being confused to compare it with, but that's definitely how it looks. The furrowed brow, the down-turned mouth, the slight creasing of one eye… Yeah, confusion. "What's the matter?" he asks warily.
"Is it just me or are we doing alright at this… parenting thing?"
"Aside from that time we mentioned the Moffiss, yes. Please don't look so shocked about it."
"I'm not, I just… Do we get prizes or something?"
The Uncle only smiles, as Amelia balls up her fists and starts drumming at his stomach.