Sherlock started school without Mycroft. He felt as though half of him was stuck in hospital, and the other half was clutching sweatily onto Lizzie's hand, dragging his feet towards the white building which housed his school. John was almost skipping with excitement.
"You'll get to meet everyone! It'll be so, so cool, you just wait! Everyone loves it when we have a foster kid our age! You'll be in my class, not with the babies, cause you're smart, see. Our class has big kids who are nearly eight in, and you'll be the youngest. I'm in the middle, my seventh birthday is in four months and six days. It's going to be amazing! Do you have any marbles?"
"No" Sherlock mumbled, clutching tighter onto Lizzie's hand.
"What about yo-yo's?"
"No" Sherlock looked embarrassed. He would never fit in. He'd never even heard of yo-yo's.
"You can share mine."
"Now then, John, you take really good care of Sherlock, okay? Promise me." She looked sternly at her son, and, guessing that he would follow her instructions, turned away from him. "Now then you," she said to Sherlock, pulling his coat tighter around him, "you'll be good, won't you? Don't be too noisy, but talk to the other children nicely. You'll soon make friends. Your teacher will be Amy, and she's really, really nice. If anyone asks you about Mycroft, tell them he's poorly, okay?"
"Yes Lizzie." He looked intently at her, absorbing all the information.
"Alright, off you go then." She said, kissing both boys on the head. It was such a shame Mycroft wasn't there to see his brother running haphazardly towards John's friends and nervously introduce himself to the enthusiastic boys. She sighed, and turned back got he car, entrusting her boys to the school. Her boys. Sherlock isn't yours, she chastised herself. But he might as well be.
Sherlock found himself enjoying school very much. He had made friends with two of John's friends, and they went to lunch together, and sat next to each other in the reading lesson at the end of the day. He went home exhausted and wonderfully, blissfully happy. No guilt or shame marred his experience, and nothing completed his happiness more than pizza and ice cream for dinner. Going home to his father never even crossed his mind.