To celebrate his bringing Fang back, and the arrival of the new family member to their flat, John invited Mr. Wormwood to stay for dinner. He happily accepted, and when John had trouble setting the baby phoenix down (she clung to him for dear life and whined if he tried to move her away from him), offered to do the actual cooking. Since their only other options were going out to eat, ordering take out (the former of which was probably impossible under these circumstances, and both of them cost money), or having Sherlock cook (John wasn't sure he trusted anything his flatmate could make, especially after Baskerville), he acquiesced, and sat down in his chair with the phoenix still in his lap. The gargoyle looked through the fridge and cupboards, and took out certain ingredients until he looked satisfied. Meanwhile, Sherlock was at the table, looking through his microscope at Fang's old skin (he'd shed at least once before Mr. Wormwood had taken him back to America, and now the detective wanted to see what he could learn from the old skin). As for Fang, he had contentedly climbed up Sherlock's leg and back, and draped himself over his shoulder in order to watch the study. Even though Sherlock had grumbled at him to "get off, you stupid creature," he had so far done nothing to dislodge him.

"I'm afraid my fiancee's a lot better at cooking than I am," Mr. Wormwood said as he washed his claws with soap and water, "but she has taught me a few good tricks. I hope you like Chinese chicken salad."

"That sounds delicious," John reassured him. He looked down at the fledgling. "Speaking of food, what is she supposed to eat?"

"Um, generally speaking phoenixes eat berries, maybe cinnamon sticks-Ovid thought they only eat frankincense and odoriferous gums, something like that, but since he probably never tried eating that himself, he didn't know how ridiculous a notion that was. Since she's been injected with fireflower juice since before she was hatched, it might affect her diet somewhat, but I'd say you should get some fruit to start with, try her out on that."

"We do have some strawberries somewhere in the fridge that I think are still fresh. Look behind the tonsils and the burst appendix."

The gargoyle didn't even bat an eye at this description of the fridge's contents; he just opened the fridge again, and pushed the items aside, producing a plastic carton of strawberries. He opened it, sniffed at them, and pulled out a few. Then the gargoyle crossed the room and dropped them onto the table next to Sherlock's elbow.

"Those got a bit too close to your body parts; they might have some interesting bacteria you could study."

Sherlock looked up at him in surprise. Then he finally said, "Thank you," and resumed inspection of the skin.

Mr. Wormwood returned to the kitchen, washed the strawberries, washed his claws again, and then came to John with the carton.

"Try feeding those to her."

"Thanks." John selected a small strawberry and held it close to the phoenix's beak. Her eyes opened, and after peering at the fruit suspiciously, with a lightning strike she snapped it up. Somehow she managed to completely miss John's finger and thumb, despite her being only an hour or so old. The doctor was impressed.

Something that had been niggling at the back of his mind suddenly came into focus. "Hey, Mr. Wormwood? I thought phoenixes didn't lay eggs. That they just burst into flames, and were reborn from the ashes. Sort of reincarnation."

The gargoyle snorted in derision as he used his claws to shred a head of cabbage. "That's just a myth. What really happens is that after the egg is laid, the father spontaneously combusts, and the ashes are made into a nest by the mother in order to keep the egg at just the right temperature. They will stay hot until the egg finally hatches some weeks later. Then, after the baby is old enough to fly by itself, the mother combusts too."

"Bit unfair to both the parents," Sherlock commented.

"Yeah, well, they don't seem to mind. It does mean, however, that phoenixes are extremely rare." Mr. Wormwood washed his claws again, and began to do the same thing to some pieces of chicken.

***/***

The Chinese chicken salad was delicious. Even Sherlock deigned to take a break from his experimenting and help himself to some, feeding bits of it to Fang, who was still draped over his shoulder. He didn't even seem to notice the weight. John kept the fledgling in his lap, giving her pieces of strawberry between bites. The gargoyle hid a smile as he watched the two men each embrace parenthood, sort of.

"What're you going to call her?" Mr. Wormwood suddenly asked, pointing at the phoenix with his fork.

"Good question. What's an appropriate name for a phoenix?"

Sherlock snorted. "'What's an appropriate name for a phoenix.' Of all the dumb questions-"

"Okay, then what would you suggest?" John demanded.

The hawage detective chewed thoughtfully on a piece of chicken for a few moments. Just when John figured he wasn't going to answer, he said, "Stella."

John and Mr. Wormwood gave him nearly identical strange looks, until he finally said, "What?"

"Nothing. It's just...that's a very nice name for her."

"You needn't sound so surprised," the detective grumbled.

"Well, he's probably not used to 'nice' and 'Sherlock Holmes' being in the same category," Mr. Wormwood snarked.

"I'm just being logical. She's going to grow up to be very bright, fiery, and beautiful. Stars are bright, fiery, and beautiful. The Latin word for star is 'stella.' It's a perfectly logical thought process."

"You could have also suggested naming her Star."

"No, that sounds stupid."

"Of course."

The newly christened Stella did not want to be separated from John for a moment, which made things rather difficult when he started having to go to the bathroom rather badly. Fortunately for him, after she finished gorging herself on strawberries, Stella gave a contented little sigh, and leaning against him, fell asleep. John slowly got up, and laid her down on his chair, which was still warm.

"I'll be right back."

John finished quickly, but not quite quickly enough. As he was washing his hands, he suddenly heard loud shrieking and snarling noises from outside, and Sherlock's voice bellowing, "John, get out here NOW!"

Without thinking twice, he bolted from the washroom in time to see Sherlock holding Fang, and Mr. Wormwood grabbing up an irate Stella, as both monsters snarled and snapped at each other, before the phoenix suddenly started breathing fire. John ran forward so fast he nearly seemed to break a sound barrier, and without thinking shoved Sherlock down, out of the way. Just in time to be hit by a blast of flame.