A: So, we're halfway through this story! Woo!
Chapter Ten
"If You Stay By My Side"
They're still cuddled together when Damien, Payton, and Daisha return. Payton must've dictated he wanted to see his father, because he had bound into the room with a brilliant smile that reminds the detective of Christabella. He only falters, the boy that is, half a step before he rushes in between his parents.
Once he's swathed and cocooned, he begins to tell all about his day, becoming animated when he gets to talk about the trip on the Eye. It never ceased to amaze the boy just how much he could see from that high.
Christa tries to pull away and slip from Sherlock's lap, but both he and Payton hold her so she can't. She squints her eyes at them both.
The trio all faintly recognize that neither Daisha nor Damien have left yet. Chris is fairly sure they're both staring with adoring faces, and when Payton's not paying her attention, she flips them both the bird just in time for the sound of an automated shutter.
"That's your new contact photo," Daisha tells her.
Damien, who's made himself at home and plopped down on the sofa with his feet on the arm, smiles at the young girl. "Send that to me, will ya? I think I'll make it my lock screen."
"You're both insufferable," Christabella calls.
"And yet you still put up with us."
Daisha smacks at Damien's trainers. Once he moves his feet, after glaring at the girl, she makes herself comfortable in the newly vacant spot.
Of course, none of this is noticed by Payton, who is still head deep in his storytelling, or by his father, who is completely intent on listening to every word that falls from the boy's mouth. Christabella, as always, is caught with them, still not allowed to leave from her spot on Sherlock's lap. Giving up for the moment, she lays her head back against Sherlock's shoulder and watched her son in amusement.
After Payton reached the climax of his story, Christabella starts to squirm her way out of her family's embrace.
"Where are you going?" whispers Sherlock in her ear.
"Aren't we getting uncomfortable? I've been sitting on your lap for about an hour and a half. 'Sides, someone has to start dinner soon, unless you prefer to eat a tray of grease again," she whispers back.
"Relax, Chris, Dai and I have it," Damien whisper-yells as he pulls Daisha off the couch. "You're a terrible whisperer," he adds as an afterthought.
"Yeah," Daisha chimes in with a sweet smile. "We've got it, Ms. Moriarty. You relax with your family. While it's quiet."
"Fine, fine. Just remember Daisha, there needs to be some food on the table." She sighs. "Cuddle up, buttercups."
"Don't... ever say that," Sherlock complains, though he does tug her closer and lets his hand settle on her waist.
"Says the man that compared me to a goldfish."
He chuckles. "Mycroft compared you to a goldfish, I simply extended the metaphor."
"Mycroft's an as-"
"Muma!"
Christabella winces. "Right, yes, sorry baby boy, Muma's paying attention now. What else did Daisha do with you?"
And Payton launches back into his storytelling.
"Before I forget," Chris whispers five minutes later. "Daisha's doing an Open Mic night tomorrow night, before she leaves on Sunday. Same place as, well you know. I'm her keyboardist. Still debating on whether or not I'm going to perform. If I can work up the nerve…"
"And if I show up…"
"It might persuade me. I owe it all to you, you know." She smiles up at him.
At this point, Payton has given up on trying to tell them and slips down and into the kitchen to help with dinner.
"Why are you still using Moriarty's surname?"
"It's mine as well."
"I thought it was hyphenated."
"It is. But I no longer associate with the Quinn family. I don't even talk to Hannah. And, to be honest, I feel safer using it. I mean, is anyone really going to mess with Jim Moriarty's widow? Let alone her son."
He looks over her face carefully. Her smile is bittersweet.
Sherlock takes Payton for their outing the next day, while Daisha and Christabella practiced their numbers for that night. Damien tags along with Sherlock, sort of just trails after him.
It's a nice trip, for the most part, Payton sort of drags them around to his favorite places. They stop for ice cream (double scoop of mint chocolate chip for Payton and a single scoop of pistachio for Damien, Sherlock abstains) and after, Sherlock helps Payton clean himself up.
"You've gotten more on yourself than you actually ate," the detective says exasperatedly.
"Uncle Gabriel says I get that from Muma," he tells.
When he was cleaned and mostly presentable, the trio continues with their adventure, all the while Payton is chatting aimlessly about nothing in particular.
It was when they passed a pet shop, that he goes silent and stops in the window.
"Can we go in?" Payton asks timidly.
Sherlock nods but asks, "Doesn't Christabella have a dog? A Siberian Husky?"
Payton shrugs as he walks through the door. "Not anymore."
"Er, Lizzy passed away about six weeks ago," Damien whispers. "She and Payton were pretty close."
Payton's already across the store and looking at puppies. The clerk comes over after a minute and asks Payton if he wanted to play with one. He shakes his head. Sherlock catches his eye for a second and he's stunned by the amount of pure sadness lacing them.
"Can we go now?"
With a nod, Sherlock picks the child up and rests him on his hip.
The bar wasn't as crowded as it had been the last time Sherlock had been there. The night was going smoothly, Daisha and Christabella would be going on back to back. Mrs. Hudson had agreed to watch Payton for the night, allowing Damien the night to join them.
Mary and John had shown up and sat to the left of Sherlock while Daisha and Damien had taken to his right, Daisha leaving a seat between the detective and herself for Chris, who had yet to appear.
"You think she got cold feet?" Mary asks Daisha who shakes her head.
"No, she was intent on performing tonight. She's gotta personal connection to the song, or something like that. She'll be here… I think."
"She wouldn't have asked me to come if she wasn't going to show," Sherlock points out.
She did show, only twenty minutes before Daisha was scheduled to go on. She looked completely different from the last time. With her hair in an eighties rocker-esque style, albeit not quite a huge but laden with black feathers, white skinny jeans and dark brown-black wrap tunic cinched at the waist with a couple of black leather belts. Her eyes were lined with white and turquoise, her lips painted a red two shades deeper than her lace stiletto platforms.
"Sorry," she says as she sits down, glass of red wine in her hand. "My hair was murder, and I'm really going to regret it when I go to wash out all the product."
"You look fantastic. I mean really fantastic," Damien blabbers, his brown eyes wide.
She blushes and looks down. "Thanks."
Daisha rocks the stage with her fantastic soulful version of Heart's "Listen to Your Heart." She doesn't get a standing ovation, but that's mainly because the majority of the crowd is far too sloshed to stand up so they settle for catcalls and whooping.
There's a brief moment of silence as the keyboard is taken off and Damien joins them, taking the spot in front of the baby grand.
Christabella smiles to the audience, whose murmurs are slowly starting to drop.
"I'm not a big country music fan. I tend to stick with my indie and Classic Rock genres, occasionally I dabble in pop. The song I'm going to sing for y'all tonight is special to me. It's the first song I sang at my family's benefit concert we do every year and I haven't sung it since. It was released shortly after my first attempt at getting married had gone rather poorly and my sister had passed away. That was ninety… seven? So I sang it in ninety-eight which was the first year we held the concert. I was drunk or high. It did not end well."
She smiles and it's light, but there's a darkness behind it. "It's probably the only country song I've ever really enjoyed and I hope you do, too. Oh, quick introduction! Back there on the piano is Damien, he's a close friend." She looks to Damien and then to Daisha and nods.
Martina McBride's "A Broken Wing" has a solemn, bluesy sound to it. Chris stands, swaying slightly, with her head down, her hair falling and keeping her face from view as she waits for her cue. Her eyes were hollow and unfocused when the first few lyrics escape her lips.
"…You're crazy for believin'
You'll ever leave the ground
He said, Only angels know how to fly…"
There's a nervousness in her that had been absent the last time Sherlock had watched her preform. It wasn't a nervousness about preforming, more like a nervousness about preforming this song. Like she was baring her soul.
The background vocals are interesting. Daisha has a more soulful voice, while Damien has a rougher bluesy sound which compliments the music and in a way each other, but neither really compliments Christabella's very indie voice.
"…He went up to the bedroom
Found a note by the window
With the curtains blowin' in the breeze…"
At one point her eyes focus, like she's returned to reality, as she sweeps her eyes over the audience, emptier now than it was before. She locks gazes with Mary for a solid second, both of them knowing. She smiles at John which turns to a beam when she gazes at Sherlock.
He nods and doesn't return the smile as brightly as she gives it, but returns it nonetheless.
"…And with a broken wing
She still sings…"
The song ends with a more upbeat sound (and showing of Christa's ever impressive vocal range), although the lyrics leave you anything but.
Like Daisha, she doesn't get the standing ovation she deserves, but the applause is enthusiastic. Her thanks is quick and she leads the other two off the stage. Her pace is metered as she takes to the table, whose occupants had given the standing ovation for both performances. Sherlock's still standing by the time Chris reaches him, just like the day before she goes to him and wraps her arms tightly around him.
He hugs her shoulders and rests his chin on her head. She doesn't say anything, doesn't even cry, just stands there in the silence for a moment. She's smiling when she pulls back.
"Thank you."
He nods once. "You're welcome."