Chapter Twenty-Eight

31st August to 2nd October

Warning at the bottom of the page as it is a spoiler but angst is pretty much a given!


By the end of August, Lestrade refused to have Sherlock on a crime scene.

"You cannot do this," Sherlock yelled at him in the middle of the office. "You will solve nothing-"

Lestrade said nothing from where he sat on the chair, looking older than his years with his head in his hands.

"-nothing," Sherlock continued to roar. "I saw the back log of cases while I was away. How many people will continue to get away with their crimes, continue to kill because you have a problem with how I ask a question-"

Hands were grabbing at him, trying to calm him down. "For God's sakes," Anderson's voice hissed. "You aren't helping yourself-"

Disgusted, Sherlock wrenched out of Anderson and MaCalister's grip, all the while glaring at Lestrade. The DI had stood at some point, and looked deathly pale.

"Go home," Lestrade ordered, sounding a little unsteady.

"I will not 'go home'," Sherlock sneered. Home was John and John was gone. "Not until you change your mind-"

"You assaulted a witness," Lestrade yelled at him.

"He was lying-"

"You cannot do this," Lestrade shouted, slamming his fist down. "I have a law suit now, I have to throw out every bit of evidence you had your hands on and start again. This is the third time, Sherlock. There will not be a fourth-"

"The law is wrong," Sherlock snarled. "Arbitary and pointless. Technicalities," he scoffed. "Technicalities that lock people up while the law pays for terrorists' funerals."

"Sherlock-"

"How can you let another one get away?" Sherlock continued as the atmosphere turned to a deeply uncomfortable silence. "How can you all stand there and let them get away with it and not have let John?"

In the corner of his eye, he could see Donovan folding her arms, closing her eyes and looking away.

"We do not make the law or pass judgment," Lestrade said quietly. "It's not our job and, for the moment Sherlock, this is not yours."

Sherlock shook his head, staring at him furiously.

"Send a memo," Lestrade said to Maggie, who was standing off to the side. "Sherlock Holmes is not permitted to cross police lines. Any attempt to do so will result in a night in the cells, away from his daughter."

Sherlock stared at him.

"You are finished," Sherlock promised.

The office was silent as the grave when he turned on his heel and walked out.


2nd September

"Lestrade came to see me last week," John said quietly.

Sherlock stared at the wall, drumming his fingers on the table.

"Sherlock-"

"I do not want to hear it," Sherlock snapped. "Whatever you're about to preach at me, I do not want to hear it."

Across from him, John put his head in his hands for a moment, then scraped them back through his hair, tousling it. "I get that at the moment it must seem unfair-"

Sherlock snorted and shook his head.

"Please."

The tone made him snap his gaze to John, who looked so very tired.

"I still have private cases," Sherlock murmured, looking away. "It will keep me busy."

"And you can do those without the cooperation of the police?" John asked doubtfully.

No.

"Mycroft is vaguely useful," Sherlock offered.

John sighed, not buying it apparently.


3rd September

School.

There had been many arguments about it. About what was best for Ava and how to approach the situation. Sherlock would have been content with having a tutor come over, but John had put his foot down.

"Send her back," he had said. "Send her back to her friends and normality. God knows she has little enough of that at the moment."

Mycroft had talked at length with the head and the teacher for this year before they had agreed that, as a one-off, Mrs Parker would continue with the class and swap with the year two teacher.

It wasn't going to help one bit, Sherlock thought as he watched Ava in her school uniform that morning at breakfast.

She was eating better now, he thought as he watched her intently, and sleeping a little better. She was still very quiet, though, far too quiet for her normal self.

Fragile. And children hardly had the best reputation at helping someone who was struggling.

They went to the school together, she holding tightly on to his hand and staring at the people on the bus.

Sherlock took her into the classroom, a new classroom with posters and fresh paint that made Ava peer around cautiously.

"Hello, Ava," Mrs Parker said, walking over.

Ava pressed close to Sherlock's leg. Silent.

There was a flash of sorrow on Mrs Parker's face as she knelt down, then sat on the floor by Ava. "Did you read any good books this summer, Ava?"

Big blue eyes turned to look up at Sherlock, pleadingly.

"Some," Sherlock answered for her. "Not many though."

"I read a lovely book," Mrs Parker said. "Can I show it to you?"

A nod.

They had agreed to go in early, before the other pupils arrived, and see how Ava reacted to being at the school again. There had been some concern that Ava might panic, remembering the last time she had gone in early, but so far there seemed to be nothing.

Though she did have a death grip on his hand.

"Here," Mrs Parker said, picking the book up and shuffling a little to let Ava see. "A Pony for Polly," she said. "Shall we read it all together before the others get here?"

A little nod, then a questioning look shot up at Sherlock. Restraining the urge to sigh at how meek she had become, Sherlock sat and settled her on his lap so she could hear the story.

When they had finished and the other students started to arrive, Sherlock slipped away as Ava smiled at her friends and took a seat at reception.

His daughter managed forty minutes.


Mycroft seemed to be led by example and started reading with Ava at night. Stories about brave princesses and dashing princes. Fairies and magic that could fix things.

"You'll fill her head with nonsense," Sherlock muttered when Mycroft finished one night.

"I'm filling her head with hope," Mycroft replied gently. "Or would you prefer her to be as doggedly pessimistic as you?"


Slowly, they worked their way up to Ava staying for a whole morning. It seemed being around her peers managed to do what Sherlock had failed in so far.

She started to laugh again.


22nd September

Ava managed a whole day at school and laughed in the playground, looking a little more like her normal self.

Sherlock watched from a window.

"You could probably start to go home," Mrs Parker said gently. "Or at least pop to the library around the corner."

There was somewhere else he could go.


23rd September

After dropping Ava off at school, Sherlock hovered and waited for half an hour. Usually Ava would show signs early in the day if she were going to have a wobble, but so far she showed no signs of doing so.

So he went to the flat.

Since the day Ava had been taken, Sherlock hadn't trusted himself to speak a word to Mrs Hudson. Mycroft had mentioned her a few times and then stopped raising the topic when Sherlock threw him a filthy look.

It was strange to be back.

Mrs Hudson was out. He'd timed it to ensure she would be as he still had no wish to deal with what she had done. It gave him time to pause at the top of the stairs, key in the lock, gathering up the courage to go in.

It was tidy.

Mycroft's people had been in. Sherlock knew that they had collected clothes for him and Ava, books, toys, etc.

John's chair was empty.

Running a hand over it, Sherlock reached out for Ava's medal, stroking a thumb over it and then dancing his hands across the mantelpiece.

When he looked up and caught himself in the mirror, there was a gaunt face staring back at him, humourless and angry.

John would not approve.

Turning away from the image and the thought, Sherlock looked around the living room, hating that it had been tidied and looking like it was waiting for something. He would have liked to pick through their last days together, seen for himself traces of John and Ava and him, collected together, living together.

The kitchen was eerily quiet; no kettle boiling or experiments bubbling. Sherlock passed through it, then braced himself before opening the door to their room.

Tidied.

Cleaned.

It was foolishly stupid, but he marched in, yanking open a drawer to find John's clothes, and brought them to his nose, wanting to smell-

Fabric conditioner.

Someone had washed everything.

Infuriated, Sherlock slammed the drawer shut and yanked open the wardrobe, trying again and again.

Nothing.

They could be anyone's clothes, anyone's jumpers.

On the bedside table, on John's side, there was a book.

Bookmarked.

Walking over, Sherlock traced his fingers along it and then picked it up.

A book that had been well read and used. John had been struggling to concentrate then. Unsurprising, given what had been going on. The book was commonly now categorised as a children's book, full of myth and fantasy, of trying to do the right thing. John had wanted to believe that good would triumph, that there would be a reward after all they had endured.

Sherlock closed his eyes and kept the book in his hands, attempting to steel himself before he opened his eyes and turned, searching for something else.

Nothing.

Upstairs, Ava's room was just as silent. The walls were still purple and, as much as Sherlock stared at them, the words that he knew the pair had scrawled underneath when they had been painting did not show up.

Sherlock, Daddy and Ava.

I believe in SH.

Wiped away, covered.

Gone.

The bathroom held nothing. Cleaned and scrubbed, it was a vacuum of information.

Oddly numbed, Sherlock walked back into the living area. He stood there uncertainly, turning in an aimless circle, before his eyes fixed on the kitchen floorboards.

They'd tried, really tried, he thought as he stepped towards the stain, to get the blood out. John's blood. But there were still darker streaks in the grain, a pattern that could be seen, even if just barely.

A book and a stain.

Sherlock slid down the wall and sat there, fingers stroking the ruined wood as tears started to fall.

"They're taking you away," he whispered. "I don't know how to stop them from taking you away."


That night he glared at Mycroft when the man went to read a story with Ava.

"Would you like us to read what Daddy was reading?" Sherlock asked her.

Ava's eyes lit up with enthusiasm and she nodded. "Could I talk about it with him?" she asked as Sherlock settled down on the bed with her.

He nodded. "I think he'd like that."

When John finally bowed and allowed Ava to visit. He seemed to detest the idea of Ava being anywhere near a prison.

Six years was a long time if John didn't bow to it.

"It's huge," Ava whispered when Sherlock lifted the book up.

"We'll manage."

"Maybe…" Ava looked at him hopefully. "Maybe by the time we finish it, Daddy will be home."

He doubted it. But, unsure of how to say that, Sherlock simply opened the book and began.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort..."


26th September

"What is this?" Mrs Hudson asked, looking blankly at the cheque.

"Rent," Sherlock said, folding his arms.

"This is far too much-"

"Without the discount," Sherlock added stonily. "I do not want it."

Mrs Hudson looked up, pale.

"You are my landlady," Sherlock continued. "Nothing more, nothing less. You have no need to come upstairs unless I have a broken appliance. You do not answer the buzzer for me, you do not cook or tidy."

"Sherlock-"

"And you go nowhere near my daughter."

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I am so sorry," she said, pressing her lips together. "I've gone over it so many times in my head-"

"I do not care," Sherlock spat.

Shocked, she looked up at him.

"It will not happen again," Sherlock added. "Foolish, really, to expect our landlady to care or show some common sense."

She couldn't have looked more hurt if he had slapped her.

"Good day," he added, turning away.

"Why come back?" she asked sounding close to tears.

"It's John's home," he said, without looking at her. "Nothing will make me leave it."


Boredom seeped in.

No cases, no calls. Ava was adjusting. No John.

He started snapping at everyone. Not that he saw many people these days.

He could feel it building in his head, like a parasite that needed to be fed or killed.

So bored. So monotonous. So nothing. Nothing but Ava.

And when Ava was at school he hunted down a drug dealer and jammed the needle into his veins.

He was sober by the end of school, and the slightly worried look Ava had started to wear around him fell away.

Mycroft's did not.


"What if something had happened to her?" Mycroft said quietly that evening.

"She has you as well as me," Sherlock said, feeling lifeless.

"I am not her father."

"Nor am I," Sherlock pointed out dully.

A piece of paper was slapped on the table in front of him.

"Ava would beg to differ," Mycroft said, his hand lingering on the ripped piece of paper that still had Moriarty's scrawl over Ava's clumsy letters spelling out Sherlock's name on her synonyms page.

Oops, how could I resist?

"She is yours," Mycroft snapped at him. "And yours to protect. Stop this foolishness, Sherlock."


28th September

"I am taking Ava back to Baker Street," Sherlock announced.

Mycroft was silent for the longest time. "Will the drugs be following you there too?"

"No."

He wouldn't do that, not around Ava, not when she might see or he might be incapacitated when she needed her.

As if reading all of that, Mycroft closed his eyes and shook his head. "She is six years old, Sherlock. She has been through more than anyone could imagine at her age-"

"I will not use them, not when it is just me and her," Sherlock said, staring at the wall. "You know that. I will not risk her in that way."

Mycroft said nothing.


2nd October

John knew.

It was scrawled all over the silence that lay between them as John stared at him, as if trying to deduce Sherlock using his methods.

They sat in silence for almost twenty minutes as Sherlock waited. Waited as John stared at him with bright and tired eyes.

"I trust you," John said, so quietly that Sherlock almost missed the words.

"You shouldn't," Sherlock replied.

John laughed. A vicious, twisted laugh as he looked up to the ceiling.

"What choice do I have?" he asked bitterly shaking his head. "All I can do is believe that you won't. That if you move back and have her on your own, you will never put her at risk like that."

"I wouldn't," Sherlock whispered.

John nodded and looked down, his eyes even brighter. "I am trusting you," he whispered, his tone almost pleading.

Sherlock nodded quickly. "We're reading your book," he said with a smile to John.

"What book?" John asked, looking a little lost.

"The Hobbit."

John blinked, looking baffled. "I haven't read that since I was at school."

Sherlock felt something plummet. "What were you reading then? Before…before?"

John shook his head. "I wasn't."


"Get away from me," Sherlock spat at Mycroft. "You planted it there, didn't you? You knew I'd see it, you knew-"

"Sherlock-"

"You knew I'd be looking-"

"I didn't tell them to clean everything," Mycroft exploded at him. "They…" He closed his eyes and seemed to try and centre himself. "They took initiative," he added scornfully. "I went there a week before you did and.." He shook his head. "They left you with nothing to see."

Sherlock laughed. It exploded out until he was weak at the knees and leaning against the car. "Nothing but a blood stain," he chuckled, suddenly tickled by it all. "What can you deduce about that?" he asked, utterly amused.

Mycroft looked afraid.


Within the week he and Ava were back at Baker Street.

"You need Wellies," Sherlock muttered as the rain fell down the window in tiny rivers that cracked his view of the world outside.

"Purple ones," she told him seriously.

"Mm," he agreed. "We'll walk down to the shops tomorrow."


Warning for drug use.

Obviously the Hobbit's opening line was used here. I don't own that one bit! :P