TITLE: It Takes a Village

CHAPTER/TITLE: Chapter Twenty Nine/ Peter

RATING: T (language, content)

A/N: good job for those of you that guessed in earlier chapters who Peter was! Here are some flashbacks at some of "Peter"'s antics

Please read and review, many thanks.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sherlock.

Chapter Twenty Nine: Peter

"Peter!"

Billie's voice cut through the haze the drug was turning his mind into.

Peter.

Moriarty.

Peter was Moriarty.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Yet another thing Sherlock had somehow missed.

"Sweet dreams."

Peter - no Moriarty - whispered, his voice echoing inside his mind, bouncing off his brain alongside Billie's scream.

And then Sherlock watched, helpless to anything else, as Billie's not so imaginary friend carried her away.

Peter.

As Sherlock slipped under the black blanket, he definitely wasn't granted sweet dreams.

No, these were nightmares.

Memories.

Of Peter.

Of Moriarty.

Moriarty playing with Billie. Sneaking in at night to sit at her bedside. Holding her hand.

Years.

Peter had been Billie's imaginary friend for years.

James Moriarty had been Billies' friend for years.

If he had been awake, Sherlock would have been tearing his hair out. Punching a wall. Knocking over a chair. Screaming. Anything.

Instead, he was trapped in the nightmare.

The memories.


The first two times Billie went missing had been in Sherlock's care while at a crime scene. Both had nearly ended in disaster.

But there was a third time.

This one wasn't at a crime scene, but it was just as terrifying.

John and Sherlock were picking her up from one of her first ballet practices. It was one of the detective's least favorite tasks. It wasn't the actual action, it was the people, that bothered him. Gaggles of little girls giggling and screaming and running about while parades of parents flocked in the building to retrieve their children. Some of the adults even attempted to make small talk with Sherlock when he was there. Not to mention the woman who presumed he was a single dad and fawned over him. After his third request for a date, Sherlock refused to pick up Billie for John and Mary again, at least not alone.

The duo had just finished a case and instead of Sherlock slipping home after their near ritual post case dining out, he decided he could endure tagging along.

Sherlock searched the small faces once inside the building, hoping to collect Billie and make a quick and clean get away before another unfortunate conversation. When he had scanned each girl with no sign of Billie, Sherlock furrowed his brow. John seemed to be noticing his daughter's absence too if his wrinkled features said anything.

"Excuse me," the doctor approached the instructor, and Billie's personal dance tutor, with a disarming smile.

"Oh, John," Virginia Preston grinned warmly. "Good to see you. And Sherlock?" She smirked. "I thought you said you refused to set foot in my studio again. Shame too. Kelly Walters and Beth Peterson really had their eyes on you." She laughed teasingly until she saw their drawn faces. "What is it?"

"Have you seen Billie?" John asked not unkindly.

"She was right over -" Virginia spun around, hand half ready to point to where two other girls were sitting and laughing. "Huh. She was just with Jody and Rachel."

John and Sherlock both whipped their heads around. With the nature of their work and lives, it was almost second nature to assume the worst.

The studio was one floor of a building of several. There were other businesses and such inside as well. There was no telling where the girl would have wandered off to, and that was if she didn't venture outside.

Sherlock suggested the most logical path of going out to the street. They could check through the windows and count the floors. The genius was mumbling something about an equation with the amount of floors and probability, taking into account Billies' height, gait and walking pace. John was hardly listening as he followed the man out the front doors.

Craning their necks, the duo began to examine the building, both sets of eyes coming to a startling stop at the same moment.

It turned out, there was no need for Sherlock's mental math.

Because there, hanging from one of the balconies, was a pink pair of tiny feet.

"Stay here," John instructed Sherlock. "Get under her and get your arms ready, now."

Sherlock nodded as his eyes darted across the windows.

"Sixth floor, second room to the left," the detective informed his friend. "Go."

It was several nervously sweating minutes later that the father managed to track the child, finding her perched just on the edge of the window balcony.

"Billie!" John exclaimed through what sounded like a gasp and a sigh combined. "Come away from the ledge, sweetheart, please."

Billie frowned, but did as she was told.

"What are you doing up here?" John panted, taking his daughter in his arms.

"Jus' talkin' to Peter," she shrugged.

"Peter," John shook his head, "right. Okay. Well, you can talk to Peter without wandering off - or hanging out of a window. We didn't know where you were."

"Peter wanted to come here," Billie explained with a smile. "He likes it. High up. Said he likes the - the - v - v -"

"So he likes the view, does he?" John finished for her, to which Billie nodded. "Well, you, and Peter, can enjoy the view, with me or Sherlock or Mummy or Miss Preston. I don't want you to ever go near the ledge of a window or anything like this again, okay? It's dangerous. You can hurt yourself. And I don't want you off alone without a grown up."


Sherlock swam in the darkness as the memory faded.

John had told him about the conversation after the fact.

Sherlock had been so focused on his goddaughter, he couldn't even recall if there had been even a shadow of someone next to her up in that balcony.

Peter had been a grown up the entire time. Billie trusted him because they basically told her to. They of course taught her not to follow or talk to strangers. Only adults that she knew. But then, Billie thought she knew Peter. He had been with her for who knows how long. Had grown up with him as her friend.

Finding Billie by a window, practically on the ledge and near toppling over, now that they knew Peter's true identity, sent shivers through Sherlock's soul.

The view.

It certainly explained the next nightmare that assaulted him.

A memory that had happened not a week later.


At a young age, Billie was already not only intellectually and musically curious and inclined, she also liked to explore outside of her mind. She had a vast imagination, but also an adventurer's spirit. Usually, they combined to create wonderful journeys and games. She would scour every inch of a park, watch and help with Mrs. Holmes gardening with eager eyes and hands, have grand quests through the trees and scale small hills that in her head were mountains.

This was why, when Billie decided to climb a tree, it was no surprise to the three that had taken her to the park.

It was only when she declared that she was going to jump, that her guardians sprung to action.

"What?" John practically shouted.

"Sweetheart," Mary instructed calmly, "just climb back down."

"Peter said I can fly!" Billie boasted from the top most branch.

"Great," John grunted more to himself than anyone else. "He's bloody Peter Pan."

"Statically speaking, at that height, if she jumps -"

"Sherlock," John rounded on his friend. "Not now."

Before anyone could say anything more, Billie's foot slipped. Even she wasn't ready as her arms flailed. Her tiny scream ripped through the park and their hearts.

John was the quickest as he launched himself underneath the tree. Billie's body crashed into his awaiting arms, the father instantly pulling his daughter closer.

After the embrace, the doctor promptly examined his patient as Mary tucked the child's hair behind her hear, kissing Billie's cheek.

"He said you'd catch me if I fell," Billie spoke proudly to her father.

John's mouth was too busy hanging open to respond.

"I wasn't thinking happy thoughts," Billie continued to explain far too calmly for a kid who nearly crushed her skull. "That's why I fell."


"Off you pop."

Four times, Billie had nearly been taken from them.

By a desperate cabbie, by a bomb, a window and a tree.

And each instance was connected to Peter.

To Moriarty.