After the rather exciting weekend they'd had, John found himself getting up way too early on Monday morning. He had stayed up well into the night thinking over all the mind boggling information he had been hit with in the last week. Sherlock was alive, Greg was divorced and rode a motorcycle, Harry's best friend was a witch, Mycroft played pirates (fairly well, not that John would ever admit it out loud) and Harry had asked to call him Papa.
When he had put Harry to bed the night before, he had told him of another case he and Sherlock had worked on together. Normally when he was done with the case Harry was fast asleep, but tonight he was wide awake. John had been watching his up down glances for the last few minutes and Harry wa practically wringing the fabric of his bedspread in his hands.
"Harry did you have something you wanted to ask me about?" He looked up at John.
"Can I call you Papa?" He whispered it, but John heard and couldn't help but be flabbergasted. He had never planned on having kids, but hadn't thought twice about taking Harry in. He already thought of Harry as his, so why did such a simple question cause something in his chest to catch? It wasn't fear or trepidation, honestly John was having a hard time identifying the emotion, but he knew it was a good one.
John let loose with his biggest smile. "Of course you can call me Papa, Harry. I am honored that you want to."
Harry smiled back shyly while John blinked away a few tears. "Now tell me what you want to be for Halloween! We only have a few days to decide!"
"I want to go as the Doctor!" John giggled, somehow he was not surprised by this choice. He thought it over, the costume should be easy enough to pull together with a trip to the department store.
"What about you Papa? What do you want to be for Halloween?" That hitch happened in John's chest again and he rubbed the spot over his heart. He thought it over for a few minutes before coming to a decision.
"How about if I go as Rory the Roman? Then we can look for our missing Ponds together?" Harry's eyes got wide and his crooked little smile lit up his face. "Really?"
"Really, really. We'll go tomorrow afternoon after work and school and get our costumes." He gave Harry a hug, then kissed his lightening scar as had become their bedtime ritual, then left the room after turning out the light.
After dropping Harry at school and arriving at the clinic, he found his day dragging by. He had to admit that he was looking forward to spending the evening shopping for costumes. Last year, he had not been in a good place and had not celebrated the holiday, the year before that he and Sherlock had been on a case, and the previous years before that he had mostly been deployed. On the few years he was home for Halloween, he used to dress as a soldier. He was looking forward to going all out with Harry this year.
When his day was finally over, he collected Harry and they were off to the shops to get what they needed. A few hours later, they were set. John tried not to think about how cold he was probably going to be in his costume and sandals.
The rest of their week dragged on in the same manner as Monday, but Halloween finally arrived. Sarah let him leave early along with the few other parents on staff. Back at the flat he got Harry dressed first. He had on a pair of dark colored corduroy trousers and black boots. John had found a blue dress shirt, red suspenders and bowtie, and luckily a brown tweed jacket. John used gel to comb his hair over to the side and with his sonic screwdriver toy he looked like a miniature version of the Doctor. John took a few pictures with his phone until Mrs. Hudson came up and started cooing over how adorable he looked. She had brought treats with her, so Harry didn't seem to mind too much.
John went into his room and pulled his costume out of it's hanging bag. When he had suggested going as a centurion, he hadn't really thought through what the costume would consist of. He pulled on his red boxer briefs, then the red undershift. Luckily it was long sleeved. He then put on the red overshirt and breastplate, from which the leather strips of his 'skirt' and scabbard fell. Pulling up the brown leggings, he put the sandals on followed by his arm gauntlets and shin guards. He gathered the cape and plastic sword and went out into the sitting room standing at attention to pull off the look of a soldier.
"Papa, you look fantastic!" Harry cried when he spotted John decked out in his costume.
Mrs. Hudson smiled and took the cape from him before attaching it to the hooks hidden in the collar of his shirt. He slid the fake sword into its scabbard. Mrs. Hudson insisted on taking pictures of the two of them and they happily posed for her while she went on about how handsome her boys were.
They managed to extricate themselves a few minutes later and headed toward New Scotland Yard. They had to walk a couple of blocks before they could get a cab and were stopped five times so strangers could comment on how cute Harry looked. Harry loved all the attention he was getting, but kept insisting they must be on their way, they had to find their "Ponds"!
When they finally arrived at the Yard, they took the elevator up to Lestrade's floor. John handed Harry his treat bag as they exited the elevator and they begin to make their way to all the occupied desks. Harry charmed his way through several of the Yard's finest officers simply by being himself and occasionally quoting lines of Doctor Who to them. John could see the questions in their eyes, but instead of asking them, they simply said it was good to see him again and how handsome he looked as a Roman.
John was grateful that they didn't bring up Sherlock or spout rude questions in front of Harry. He thought they were doing fairly well until he spotted Donovan and Anderson sitting on her desk. He tried to steer Harry in the other direction, but Harry was having too much fun to be diverted from his goal. As they approached the pair, John shot warning looks with his eyes. Sally picked up on them immediately, it seemed their little 'discussion' had had the desired effect. Anderson, however, was gaping at the pair of them.
"Oi, Watson! What are you doing here? I would have thought you'd be too ashamed to show your face here after what the Psychopath did!" Sally elbowed him in the side trying to get him to shut up, but it seemed he was as obtuse as Sherlock had always accused him of being. He looked down and Harry and opened his mouth, but Lestrade, who had been approaching from behind him managed to speak first.
"Anderson! You are completely out of line!" He barked. "John and Harry are here on my invitation, so shut it!" Anderson flushed red at being reprimanded in the middle of the fairly busy room.
Harry was looking between the adults in confusion. John was desperately trying to reign in his anger, Sally was trying to pull Anderson from the room, and Lestrade was furious.
Still, knowing when to shut up had never been one of Anderson's strengths, so he looked back at Harry, and unwisely said what he was thinking. "Is that the Freak's kid?"
He looked back at John, whose hands were clenched into fists, before Harry let out a yell the likes of which John had heard only once. " I AM NOT A FREAK! You are a mean man, you...you...DALEK!"
Harry stomped his foot once before turning to John as the tears started to flow. John immediately let go of his anger and picked Harry up. He needed to calm him down before things got out of control. At this point, Sally had her head in her hands and had moved away from Anderson, while Lestrade approached him and quite vocally told him that he was suspended until further notice starting immediately.
Anderson sputtered. "Why? You can't do that!"
They had the whole room's attention by now and it was eerily quiet other than Harry's soft sobs and John's soothing words to him.
Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose before looking up. "Anderson, you just verbally assaulted a four year old in public simply because he happens to resemble a dead man, who I might add, was cleared of all charges. When you and Donovan went at it with Sherlock, that was one thing, but I will not allow you to act that way around a child who has done nothing to you! You will apologize to Harry, then you will leave the building, or I will have you escorted out. Do not return to work until you have heard from me."
Anderson glared at Lestrade for a moment in utter disbelief. He then turned to John, who was still holding Harry, although he had managed to calm his sobs down to whimpers and shaky breaths. "Sorry."
He didn't mean his apology and that was clear to everyone in the room. Harry lifted his head up off of John's shoulder and stuck his tongue out at the mean man. Anderson pointed incredulously and looked back at Lestrade who shrugged. "He's four Anderson, not stupid, get over it."
Anderson huffed and turned toward the door. As he passed his co-workers they muttered caustic comments under their breath. "You really are an idiot, Anderson." "Way to make the kid cry!" "Shoulda stopped while you were ahead!" and many others in a similar vein.
Greg walked over to where John was holding Harry. "God, John, Harry, I'm so sorry! I told him not to say anything, I swear. I'm sorry, mate!"
John shifted Harry up a little higher. "Not your fault, Greg. I knew it was a possibility something might be said when we came, but we'd being doing good until then. Right then, Harry, there are two more floors to go, are you ready?"
Harry lifted his head again and looked between John and Lestrade. "I'm not a freak!" He pouted.
"Of course you're not! You're the Doctor! You're a Time Lord!" Greg told him. Harry gave Greg a small smile.
"No more mean Dalek men?" Greg shook his head.
"No more mean Dalek men. I'm going to come with you to make sure of it." Harry looked at John, then leaned down to whisper in his ear. John barked out a laugh which confused Greg.
"He says you can come with us, but you have to be our Amy Pond." Greg facepalmed, but looked up again quickly with a smile on his face.
"Alright, sounds like a deal. Shall we?" They turned and made their way through the rest of the room. Harry finally asked to be let down and after thanking the last person for the candy they placed in his bag, he turned to the two men tailing him.
"Come along Ponds! Geronimo!" He yelled quite loudly causing several chuckles around the room.
A/N: Hello Lovelies! Finally the Halloween chapter! I had the idea for this way back (you know last week, at the rate that I do updates) while writing chapters 12 & 13. So I got out my trusty writer's journal and started making my circle graphs with all my ideas. Anderson finally got his back too, even though it was Harry misunderstanding what he said, I think the word freak would definitely be one of Harry's trigger words. Donovan tried, and we'll have to give her credit for that. I don't think she is intrinsically a bad person, but I do think she's got a major chip on her shoulder that she needs to get rid of!
As for the costumes, I may not have gotten very creative, but I really just wanted to picture John as a Roman Centurion, I mean picture it in your head, then tell me if you can blame me for it! There is also an adorable picture of a little boy dressed as 11 floating around the internets, and it's just soooo stinkin' cute! Somebody gave me the idea about Harry sticking out his tongue at Donovan and Anderson, I think it might have been Kai19, but I can't seem to locate the review, so whoever you are, this one's for you!
Until next time, gentle viewers, enjoy!