John is still in exile. He's being separated from the rest of them for the whole weekend. It'll be after school on Monday before he's allowed to come back to their room, and his own bed. The children, in ritual effigy, have tucked in their various sleeping companions (Amelia's ragdoll, Molly's blanket, Rory's Action Man), where he ought to be. It's the only way they've been able to sleep at all.

And they are not friends with the Uncles.

Yesterday afternoon, after sentence had been passed, Rory and the Uncle went out to put up 'Found' posters with Scrabble's picture on them. It should have been Molly's job, but Molly had trouble stopping crying after John's scolding. Rory did not utter one single word to the Uncle through the entire process. Quite apart from his confusion (Rory had never heard of a Found poster before), he just didn't want to speak to him.

Molly is still having trouble bringing the tears to a halt. On advice from Amelia (a veritable oracle on matters of emotional manipulation) she isn't really trying to anymore. She doesn't dry her eyes anymore, except to keep her cuffs damp and show she's been trying to dry her eyes, and she doesn't even sniff. She does not turn her face away or hide when Uncle Sherlock walks into the room.

For her own part, Amelia has been working on the Really Scary Masks. The plot to attack the Moffiss has been somewhat on hold lately. The children have been a little busy. Between new girls at school and kittens and all the rest, they've hardly had time to breathe. But now she's right back to it. John got sent to that attic so that they could stick together, so that they could prepare for battle, and Amelia is going to honour that.

She applies painstaking layers of papier-mâché, using a trophy she found in the Uncle's study – which says he won first prize in the World Limbo Championships, 2005-2047 – as a mould. Three are made, and sit blank, propped against the walls in the corner where she has set up her workshop. The fourth is almost finished. While it dries, she stays in her corner. She stays cross-legged, unmoving, grim-faced, determinedly watching it dry.

Watching this from the kitchen, Uncle Sherlock has been put off his tea and sets it to one side. "Uncle," he murmurs, "I'm beginning to understand why the school keep calling us about her."

"…I know."

"It's the eyes. They just go dead. It's like looking into a light bulb and seeing only the burnt-out filament."

"She's got a lot of love to give-"

"-And can switch it off at will."

"-And she has her own way of expressing that. Sherlock, are you saying my ward is a potential psychopath? Because that's what I'm hearing."

"Certainly not."

"Good."

"The word 'potential' never came into it."

Amelia is oblivious. Even if she wasn't so deep in her reverie, even if she could hear them, she wouldn't respond. She wouldn't get up. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction. She'd just wait, as the clock ticks on, until the mask starts to crispy at the edges, and the centre stops looking wet. Then she eases it away from the mould and props it against the wall with the others. Then she gets up. Then she goes right over to them, into the kitchen. Making a point of turning her nose up at the uncles, she almost walks into the cupboard under the sink, pretends not to have noticed, and goes to the cutlery drawer. It has one of those little plastic locks on the inside to keep the children safe, but all she has to do is reach over the top and press the latch down. Then she feels around until the round plastic handles slip under her hand, brings out the scissors and goes back to her masks.

The uncles' eyes follow her as she draws two angry lines in marker where eyeholes need to go, and stabs them into the first blank face.

"…Sherlock, while she's doing that, go in and hide her paints. We can stall her if we can't stop her."

"You'll have to do your own subterfuge."

"Why? Where are you going?"

"Prisoner's rights; John still needs new school shoes. Best get it over with." The Uncle panics. He has wanted to be calm and collected about this. He's usually very good about that. When it comes to the children, that's what he aims for. If he's relaxed, they'll be relaxed. If he is strong, they'll know they're safe. But now he panics, because Sherlock is escaping. He's leaving him here. Alone. With them. Sherlock sees all this cross his face (the whimpering, too, is something of a giveaway) and claps a hand to his shoulder. "Don't look at Molly and she can't hurt you. Don't pay Amelia any attention; that's what she wants. Rory needs help with his homework, but don't offer; he'll only resent you."

That's all the advice the Uncle gets, and Sherlock sweeps from the room suspiciously quickly after that.

From the corner workshop, sharp and bawling, "Rory! Come and try your mask on so I know if the eyes are right."

Half a minute passes. When Rory shuffles out of the bedroom, squinting from concentrating so long on his maths, he is carrying her paint box, markers and brushes. While he tries on the mask, he mutters from behind it, "They were talking about taking your paints away so you can't finish. You should just keep them on you."

"Thanks, Rory. Is Molly okay?"

"She's playing with Scrabble. I think she feels better." But he says this very quietly indeed; if the Uncle heard that, it would make him feel better, and that's not what they want.

"Can you see out of this?"

They spend a few minutes evening Rory's vision, and discussing the troublesome maths. Under the pretence of going to his study, the Uncle takes advantage of the open bedroom door to look in on Molly. She is rolling on her back, as is Scrabble, wrestling at either end of the ragged blanket. Her eyes are red, puffed up like bullfrog cheeks, nose all but glowing, but at least she seems to be playing again. But Rory catches him spying, drops his Really Scary Mask back into Amelia's hands and rushes to Molly's defence. He stands angry in the doorway, glaring at the Uncle, before he flings the door shut, closing him out.

It's a long afternoon. The Uncle goes to his study (door open, thank you, keeping an eye, being available, sociable, ready to help with maths at any given moment) and stays away from it all. He counts in the hours, thinks about calling River, talks himself out of it, thinks about finding a war to end somewhere in the cosmos, talks himself out of it, taps a pencil sixteen-hundred consecutive times without once losing the rhythm, gets bored, taps his foot, waits for Sherlock to come back, waits for Sherlock, waits for Sherlock…

Sherlock, in fact, is on the way back. He's having a very good day. Buying shoes for grumpy, silent John has been much easier than the normal i-want-trainers-I-want-ones-with-lights-in-the-sol e-I'm-too-old-for-velcro-now shopping. It was a case of:

Pointing, "Those do?"

Sullen shrug.

To the shop girl. "Those please. Size one."

Uncle Sherlock is having a fantastic day. He's got some ideas for the next back to school shop. Mostly they involve manipulating the children into doing naughty things, so he can get them into a state like this, and go about happily pointing at 'This?', do the whole thing in a couple of hours, buy the cartoon character backpacks off Amazon, have a cup of tea and back to work. He has only two problems. Firstly, the part of his brain that often takes on the viewpoint of a certain victim or witness declares, scandalized, But that's entrapment! This, he can combat easily – there is no such thing as entrapment under British law. The part of his brain that will forever belong to the Uncle, however, glowers disapprovingly and is much harder to ignore.

But he's got all summer to get around that.

They are not two streets from home when, back at the flat, the phone rings. For once, the children do not rush to gather round it, do not clamour to be the one who is allowed to answer. The Uncle almost doesn't realize it's ringing without that familiar cacophony, and it's four or five separate trills of the bell before he gets up and answers.

"Hello?" and he's wondering, who could it be, who would be calling on the weekend, because River calls the superphone, and it can't be the school and-

"Ask young Hooper to blow her nose, would you? It's turning into a frankly disgusting watch. Post-watershed, very MTV gross-out humour. No, it won't do at all."

The Uncle freezes. "Who is this?"

"Please. Bring Molly a tissue first."

He weighs his options. Then, keeping good hold of the phone, paying careful attention to the sounds on the line, and to that voice, the Uncle grabs a couple of tissues from the box and goes hurriedly to the children's room. Rory tries to protest the invasion, but he is quiet quickly. Because when a guardian is upset or tense, it shows, and children respond to that. The Uncle kneels on the floor next to Molly, and cradles her against him. For the first time in a day and a half, she accepts when he brings a handful of soft handkerchief to her nose and blows hard. And when all's said and done and he's wiped all that away, she looks a lot better.

The voice on the phone concurs, "There. Much more BBC-friendly, don't you think?"

"Then it is you," he mutters darkly, containing his rage while the children are in the same room. The Uncle leaves Molly and Rory in the safety of their confusion and turns. Amelia is still trying not to look interest, but she can't help herself. He goes out, picks her up under his arm and deposits her in the bedroom. Then he glares warningly from one pair of eyes to another, pointing, and shuts the door.

You might well imagine, given you know them a little by now, how the conversation goes in that room. Therefore, perhaps it's best to linger with the Uncle. After all, all the mysteries are with him.

The voice on the phone, purring with pleasure, "Yes, it's me. Found you, long last. Olly-olly-oxen-free."

"You stay away from those children. You come at me and Sherlock with whatever you've got, but you stay away from those children."

"I like Amelia. Interesting balance, there. She'd make a wonderful Mummy-Bear sort of character, don't you think?"

"They are not characters!" he bursts, trembling with a hate he can no longer control.

"And Rory… what a good soldier. What a good, solid everyman. Oh yes. He could be pushed to the very limits of human experience. Eight years old; what a perfect age to begin, to sow the seeds. Get something growing, hm? They have to grow, you know. It's called a development arc."

And the development arc of the children in the Uncles' care is going to involve growing up happy and untroubled and going to big school and then to uni and various professions, marrying, having children, growing old in the same lovely, sunshine cycle and the end will not be sad because the life will have been well-lived. They will make sure of that. How did this happen? Oh God, this phone-call, how on earth or any other planet could it ever have happened?

He goes out the front door and stands on the landing, holding the phone to his ear. Luckily he can hear Sherlock's key turning in the door. He watches, and the moment those other eyes meet his, they know something's wrong.

The voice on the phone has noticed something out of place too. "We're one down. Where's our future doctor? That's another one with a good strong heart in his chest, could take a bit of working-on."

John tries to storm on past on his way to the attic. Like Amelia, the Uncle scoops him up at the waist and carries him, protesting, to his proper place with the others. If the children were confused before, now they're afraid.

"Don't do that! Poor little souls are terrified. You've told them nothing. Trauma's supposed to be my speciality."

"How can you see them?" the Uncle demands, grabbing Sherlock by the arm, dragging him into the flat. Rather than explain to him and give it all away, he picks one of Amelia's markers off the floor and writes on the window, Gaffatt. Sherlock immediately presses his ear to the back of the phone.

"Same way any god can see the hidden things; mysterious ways."

"I don't like riddles," Sherlock sighs, and then winces as he realizes what he's done. He has given the Moffiss the opportunity to laugh at him, in a small, cruel sort of way.

"Learn to," he echoes, and the voice glows with too much of his own cleverness and importance. "Yes, they do look much better together, the four of them. It'll be a real pity to split them up between the two of you."

The Uncle is determined, "You will not separate them."

"Oh, I will. And when they're in separate worlds, they won't even remember that they ever knew each other, and they'll never meet. Except for those vile fanfiction people, I'm sure they'll give it a go." The voice of the Gaffatt takes on a cheerful, mocking whine. "John-x-Amy crossover El-Oh-El! You should just see what they can do with you two."

While the Moffiss gloats, Sherlock picks up another marker and adds, He can see them?

The Uncle nods, and Sherlock turns on his heel. He goes to the children's bedroom, and begins to gather charges like the back-to-school shop. Molly and Amelia up on each shoulder, then hooking Rory and John's hands to his elbows, and he takes them en masse out of the flat and up to the attic room. "I realize," he tells them, smoothing Molly's hair (and passing her another tissue from his own pocket), "that this room has been associated lately with punishment. I assure you, you've all done nothing wrong. It's just there's… There's a huge bumblebee in your bedroom, and we're going to get it out before it stings one of you. Stay here until I call, alright?"

"We can help," Rory tells him. He steps up, sticks out his chin and really means it. "Even the masks are nearly ready."

Waving a dismissive hand, Amelia adds, "Give me fifteen minutes, we're battle-ready."

It's too much. Something that reaches past anger and becomes almost sentimental stabs into Sherlock. Seething, through gritted teeth; "Really scary masks are hardly appropriate for chasing a bumblebee out of a window now, are they? No. Behave yourselves. Stop looking for an argument and just… " He flounders, until he sees the blanket bundle Molly manages to bring with her, "…play with Scrabble for a bit, hm?"

But meanwhile, the Uncle is hearing, "Oh, yes, I like this place. What's this? A grim, gloomy attic? What was that about punishments?"

"How!? How are you doing this?"

"I have eyes everywhere. According to Amelia's sketchbook, I have a line of them all down my spine."

"You can't just suddenly be watching them!"

"No. Not just suddenly. For a day or so now. I told you; I only felt the need to call because Molly was becoming so very off-putting to look at. I'm trying to work up her in-universe psychology and all I have is this snivelling, weak, girlish sort of a thing. It's going to take episode-upon-episode to give her any spine at all, never mind one with eyes all down it."

"Molly is an incredibly bright, sweet girl, with a strength all her own, and-"

"I'm sure she is," the Gaffatt smiles, "But I just can't see it. Never mind write it. I supposed I could do the one-sided love-interest. The pining torch-bearer. The fans will destroy her for me. All I have to do is keep her weak."

The Uncle meets Sherlock on the attic stairs, mouthing, He can still see them.

"Why did you hide them away from me, Doctor?" The Gaffatt is grinning. The Uncle can hear it, even as he shudders at his own former name. "You made them so much more tempting when you hid them. You know what I can do to them. Why would you make it irresistible?"

That stops him. He hangs lost and drifting on the stair, face fallen, limp and defeated. By the time Sherlock takes the phone from him, the Moffiss has hung up. "Uncle? Uncle." But the Uncle just hangs there, swaying like seaweed underwater, utterly gone. With a quick glance over his shoulder to check the children aren't watching, Sherlock brings up his hand and quickly slaps the Uncle's cheek. "Look at me and tell me what he said."

Dreamy, but with effort, "Um… Eyes everywhere… watching for a couple of days… The attic, Sherlock. He could see the children's room and then he could see the attic. He'd been looking at Molly for a while and then… It means something, but I'm missing it."

Sherlock isn't. "Don't be dense, Uncle. You're millimetres from the deduction. Now get yourself together. I'm going to need you to distract them." He turns then, and goes directly back to the door he just left. Bursting in, "Molly; the kitten, if you please."

Molly, however, knows that this is a living creature, and that she has been put in charge of it. She picks Scrabble up from the centre of the teasing, tickling circle the children had fallen so easily into and cradles her, protectively. "Why?" she demands.

"I'm going to train her to hunt bees, so she can keep your children safe when summer comes and we have to leave the window open at night." This si fair. There's a murmur of agreement from the children; summer is always a problematic time. Everybody knows spiders are much more likely to creep inside when you're sleeping than when you're awake. Bumblebee hunting must be translatable to spiders, right?

Molly still isn't sure. Actually, if she didn't know better, if she wasn't so absolutely sure the Uncles would never, ever tell her any lies ever, she'd say Uncle Sherlock was telling a naughty fib right now. She'd say bumblebees have nothing to do with it. It's not even warm enough outside for there to be bees, in Molly's opinion. But the Uncles wouldn't lie. It's as simple as that. Molly's only seven and a half; she doesn't know when Bee Season is anyway.

And so she hands Scrabble over.

She doesn't hear what passes between the Uncles as Uncle Sherlock leaves. Neither do any of the other children. But he mutters softly to his compatriot; "And if said-kitten should happen to be fatally stung during training I'm counting on you to be less upset than the children."

He goes out and closes the door.

The Uncle tries to get over what he just heard. None the less, there is a moment of dazed and perfect silence, and all the children are staring up from his feet by the time he comes round. A distraction. He is being depended on for a distraction. Surely that's the least he can do for them, after everything he's brought down upon their young heads.

First, the incredible sadness is burning his eyes. He fights it down into a hot ball in his throat. This, he is able to swallow. There is only a tremulous trace left on his voice by the time he manages to say to them, "Well… What about a story, then, while we wait?"