DEAREST, a fanfiction by Hrlyqin

part two – chapter two (chapter 21)

Leaning on the metal railings outside the neat and trim Watson household, Sherlock blew tiny smoke rings into the air while observing the frankly alarming collection of garden gnomes that were hidden in the few bushes and also tucked into the corners of each step. They didn't even have a proper garden, why did they need... he counted... 4 garden gnomes? Did it express some deep seeded longing for suburban life?

His seething disdain for ceramic lawn creatures was interrupted by the opening of the front door and the forward launch of a small dark haired boy into his body where he impacted with a thump and wrapped little arms around his legs. "Uncle Sherlock!"

Sherlock rubbed Jamie's hair because that was the proper greeting and took one last drag of the cigarette before stubbing it out. "Curie Point." he said.

"The temperature at which an object loses it's magmatism." the boy answered.

"Magnetism."

"Mag-NEH-tism." After he said it correctly, Sherlock dug into his coat pocket and found his gum. Jamie got the first piece for his correct answer and he got the second to take care of the lingering odor of nicotine.

"I thought you quit again." John said to him.

His reply was a shrug, so John just continued, "Thanks again, for doing this. I just couldn't handle it today."

"You act like it's a chore." he replied, voice laced with only mild sarcasm. "If you make sure your room is clean will Molly let you out to play this weekend?"

"Ha. Ha. Ha. You're sticking around after right? I want to hear about that headless corpse thing."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

There was, as there usually was, a few seconds of silence where John tried to figure out how to end the conversation. He was never very good at stopping a conversation with Sherlock Holmes as it was deeply ingrained within him that the conversation would be continued over dinner, around the living room while he tried to type and then the next morning over coffee. Saying goodbye seemed unnatural even after years of practice. "Well," he said finally, "you don't want to be late. Be good for Sherlock, okay Jammer?"

"OK Dad, love you." Jamie now had Sherlock's hand and trying to drag him away. Sherlock meant taxi to him, and he loved riding in taxis. Sometimes when he was good, Uncle Sherlock even let him wave for the taxi himself. The adult let himself be pulled away with nods to John and promises to fill him in on the criminal activities in London when they got back.

Safely secured in the taxi, Jamie, normally extremely communicative and verbally advanced for his age, was quiet as a church mouse. Sherlock gave him sidelong glances to make sure he was alright but other than that didn't bother him. It was only after he paid the driver and they were making their way across the park that he looked at the boy and asked, "What did you see?"

"So it was a lady driver which is weird because it's mostly men, not ladies. She dyes her hair because it doesn't look the same in the picture of her on the license. I know that Aunt Harry dyes her hair because she says she old now, so maybe the driver wants to look younger too. She wasn't married because I looked when you gave her the money and she didn't have a ring on like Mum and Dad's and she didn't have any pictures of kids but I saw a picture of a cat so maybe she's an older lady that never got married but has a cat. How's that?"

"I think you're getting smarter than me."

"No, stop foolin'."

"I am entirely serious."

He laughed and also beamed because he did think he was pretty smart, even if no one was as smart as Uncle Sherlock (which was one of the few things all the adults in his life agreed on – his parents loved him, Mrs. Hudson made the best cookies and Uncle Sherlock was the smartest person in the word). Maybe when he grew up he could be like Uncle Sherlock and catch bad guys and make everyone go "OOOOOO." at how smart he was, but he didn't know if he wanted that or not because Uncle Sherlock seemed very lonely and well, other stuff too. Stuff he was going to talk to Father about.

Mycroft was waiting on the bench by the pond, looking at the ducks, twirling his umbrella round and round as it dangled next to his leg. Sherlock walked Jamie up to his brother and stood him right in front of the man.

"Sherlock." Mycroft nodded.

"Mycroft." He nodded back. "Molly would like him home by five today. Text me when you're ready."

"Aye-aye." Mycroft gave him a mock salute and Sherlock pondered giving him a little salute of his own back but no, John would hear about it happening in front of Jamie and be upset. So he settled for rolling his eyes and leaving the two of them there.

"Hello Jamie." Mycroft said once Sherlock was gone.

"Hello Father."

"Do you want to sit by me and feed the ducks? I brought bread but they don't seem to like it."

Jamie sat down next to him and picked up the bread, testing it for himself to see if the ducks would eat it. After some curious inspection, they abandoned it. "Maybe they're sick of bread. It's all they ever get."

"Hmm, a sound theory. What do you think they'd like?"

"Well if all I ever got was bread, maybe I'd like some peanut butter or something."

"So next time we'll bring peanut butter, and see how that goes. You may become some sort of duck hero. Saint Jamie of the Mallards."

Jamie gave a half-hearted laugh in reply.

"What's wrong Jamie? Do you want to go home? I can text Sherlock." He drew his phone out of his pocket.

"No." he shook his head a little.

"Is there something you want to talk about?"

"...maybe."

"I am all ears. Not literally, of course. But I could be. Do you think all ears would look good on me? I should have to get them pierced, I suppose."

That got a slightly more sincere laugh from Jamie and then he was ready to talk. "Am I a freak?"

The endless twirling of the umbrella stopped dead and all of Mycroft froze, clouds passing behind his eyes at the notion someone had said that to his boy. "Where did you hear that?" he asked calmly.

"School. Freddy Thalin said I was a bastard and I said that I was because my mum didn't marry my father and that's what bastard means. I tried to show them in the dictionary but then Freddy and Robert said that it wasn't a good thing to be a bastard and I was a freak if I thought so."

"They shouldn't have said that." Mycroft sighed.

"Are you upset with me now?"

"No. Come here," he picked Jamie up and put him in his lap. "I'm not upset with you. I'm angry about the things that were said to you. Did you tell your Dad about it?"

"Mum said he might shoot someone. Would he really?"

"Yes. Likely."

"But you wouldn't?"

"No, I would hire someone to do it for me. Don't repeat that." he said quickly.

"Is being a bastard a bad thing?"

Oh St. Peter where was his mother? Did he ask her about these things? Probably, and she probably told him to ask his father.

"No, it isn't. But some people use that word to mean other things."

"Like what?"

"Bad things."

"Like what?"

"Mean things."

"Like what?"

"When someone is cruel, people say they're being a bastard. So it isn't good to say that you're fine with being a bastard."

"But I am."

"No, Jamie, you're special. I didn't marry your mother so technically you are," he said before Jamie could jump on that point, "but instead of you just having a mother and a father, you have your mother and you have your father and you have your Dad, and we all love you more than anything in the world. If I just had a plain old mom-and-dad, I would be very, very jealous of you."

"So they said it because they were jealous?"

"Yes, precisely."

"Oh! Okay that makes sense. I'm glad I asked you."

"Me too."

"I was going to ask Uncle Sherlock, but that one time that I got to go in the police car with him, the time right before Mum wouldn't let me see Uncle Sherlock for awhile? Well I remember someone called him a freak when we were looking at crime stuff and it seemed like they were being mean, so I didn't want to hurt his feelings."

"That was very nice of you." Mycroft let him off his lap and resumed his umbrella twirling. "How's your mother?" he asked after awhile.

"Good. She's not so cranky lately."

"And school? How's school?"

"I don't like my new teacher, she doesn't like explaining stuff and she gets mad when I ask too many questions and..."

Jamie kept talking but Mycroft felt the vibration of his phone in his pocket and drew it out. An email. Something urgent, from the office. If it was a woman, or someone from the club, he'd ignore it of course. He tried to ignore this, to simply put the phone away and get back to spending time with Jamie, but even as his brain was telling him to put the phone away, his fingers were opening up the email.

MR. HOLMES -

RE: OPERATION CLARENCE - REPORTED EARLY THIS MORNING DEATH OF C. CARPENTER, GSW / HEAD. REPORT IN IMMEDIATELY FOR FURTHER DETAILS.

His fingers went slack and he saw more than felt the phone dropping out of his hand and falling onto his lap. After a minute, Jamie stopped talking and looked over at him. "Father?" When Mycroft didn't answer, Jamie tapped him on the knee. "Hey. Are you OK?"

"What? Yes, fine, I just... I'm going to have to go." He recovered his phone and quickly fired a text to Sherlock. "There's an emergency, I'm sorry."

"But..."

"I know." Mycroft silenced him. "But I'll see you this weekend." Where was Sherlock? How far could he have gotten in 10 minutes. He needed to make phone calls, travel plans maybe? No. But phone calls. He'd need police reports. It had to happen now, of course. He hardly ever got to see Jamie – an afternoon here, overnight there, the occasional weekend – and now that he was having to cut it short, Molly would needle him about it, no doubt, dig the guilt a little bit deeper into his flesh. It was likely that she would decide it was too much bother since he was going to cut it short anyway and not let him keep Jamie at all when Saturday came around.

But it couldn't be helped, none of it.

Sherlock was approaching with a magnificent scowl on his face about being called back so soon. As he came towards them, the two brothers exchanged an entire conversation with glances, tilts of the head and other physical indicators. The scowl lifted and changed into a squint eyed expression of puzzlement and the wheels just beginning to turn in his brain.

"Do you think...?" he began to say.

"Shh, not here. We'll speak later." Mycroft turned back to Jamie. "I'll see you this weekend, I promise."

The child nodded and hugged his father before being reluctantly turned back over to Sherlock. "Come along Jamie. Your father has bad guys to catch."

"Really?" Jamie looked between the two of them. "This is about bad guys? It's bad guy stuff?"

"Top Secret Bad Guy... .. stuff." Sherlock replied, trying to sound as completely serious as possible.

Jamie's downtrodden expression turned into one of delight. Bad guy stuff was always exciting. Everyone was always telling him the coolest stories and then telling him he couldn't tell Mum. It was also usually really important, with governments and everything. The slight of his father not being able to spend a few hours with him was greatly lessened and he ran back to give him another hug.

"Be careful!"

"I will." Mycroft said and then gave Sherlock a very grateful look. Now he owed him, on top of everything else. As soon as this could be resolved, he meant the minute it was, he was going to find some very old whiskey, crawl inside the bottle and not come out until he was forced to.

As soon as Sherlock and Jamie were out of the sight, the phone came out again and he hit speed dial. "Yes. I'm coming in. I just want... …" he paused, listened, "I just want to know if it's him."