Sorry this chapter has taken so long! Real Life - in the shape of two whippet puppies - got in the way! But they are back in their own home again now! And this chapter is extra long, as a little reward for your patience. :)

Chapter Fifty-Two

On returning to their own home, Sherlock was able to use his tablet as a communication aid. Historically, text and email were his preferred forms of communication and, in the past, he had been known to go for days without speaking, quite voluntarily, but that was before he became a parent.

William continued to chat with his father using finger spelling and they both became quite fluent, even developing their own short-hand abbreviations to speed up the process.

'You two will be able to have secret conversations, now, and the rest of us won't know what you're talking about!' Molly remarked. William was shocked at the very idea and assured his mother that he would never keep secrets from her.

Freddie had the benefit of William as interpreter but William was not always keen to take on the role, which led to tensions between the two brothers.

'I tan't wait til I go to Big School and learn to wead, Daddy,' Freddie declared, with a frustrated little sigh. 'When I can wead, I will learn to talk wiv my pingers, too! And den Willum won't get cwoss wiv me!'

Prompted by Freddie's frustration, Sherlock did an internet search and found some software called Widget, which used a collection of graphic symbols called rebuses to provide a visual representation of a concept and could be used with text to make the meaning of the written word clearer. Having downloaded the software, he used it to write simple sentences on his tablet that Freddie could 'read' by reference to the symbols. And he typed Freddie's comments, too, so that they appeared with the rebus symbols and Freddie could see his own words in print. Freddie loved being able to 'read' and William was relieved to be 'off the hook'.

But Sherlock was struck by how Violet peered at him with a curious expression, obviously perturbed by his silence. She might not be able to understand spoken language but she clearly missed their vocal interactions. She gurgled and grunted, trying to get a response from him but when he didn't reply, she turned away and cried until Molly took her back. This was the first time Violet had ever preferred her mother's company to that of her father and he felt the rejection keenly.

Tuesday morning could not arrive soon enough and the return visit to Harley Street turned into a family outing. William was curious to see inside his daddy's larynx and, if William was going to see it, Freddie was not going to miss out. Violet was noncommittal on the subject but came along by default because Molly was not about to be left at home, either. Mycroft, unable to attend due to pressing business in Whitehall, sent his car to transport the Hooper-Holmes clan to Sherlock's appointment with the ENT specialist. When they arrived in the doctor's treatment rooms, they caused quite a stir.

'How nice to meet you all,' Harry Levitt declared, rather unconvincingly. His Receptionist and Practice Nurse had been considerably more sincere in their enthusiasm. 'Do take a seat,' he invited, indicating the sofa near the door. Molly sat down, with Violet in her lap and William next to her but Freddie was having none of it. He marched straight to the chair in front of the doctor's desk and scrambled onto it, settling himself comfortably and smiling benignly at everyone present.

Mr Levitt looked from Sherlock to Molly and back, waiting for them to take their child in hand but neither did so he walked past the wilful child, with a sniff of disapproval, and invited his patient to sit in the treatment chair again. He went through the same routine as before – spraying a local anaesthetic up Sherlock's nostrils and on the back of his throat - then inserted the fibre optic probe and looked at the image on the monitor, nodding and grunting much as he had the first time. Once he had taken a good look around inside Sherlock's larynx, he invited the patient to say 'Ah'.

For a reason he could not quite define, Sherlock was suddenly reluctant to make the sound. He swallowed and took a few preparatory breaths, in order buy time and steel his resolve. Molly looked on, feeling apprehensive, aware that her husband was finding this apparently simple task quite challenging. William sensed the tension in both parents' demeanour and slipped his arm though his mother's, offering and seeking reassurance.

'Tum on, Daddy, be a dud boy.! Say 'Ah' for de dot'tor!' Freddie encouraged. That elicited an involuntary chuckle from his father and broke the dam of his inhibitions.

'Aaaaah' he said, most decisively.

'Excellent!' the doctor declared and withdrew the laryngoscope smoothly, placing it in a surgical tray and inviting Sherlock to sit up straight and sip some iced water. He gathered the family around his desk and turned the computer screen so that they could all observe the replay of the laryngoscopy. He pointed out the absence of swelling and the smooth, white, unblemished vocal folds.

At the point where Sherlock laughed, they spasmed convulsively but when he said 'Ah' they opened up and vibrated, quivering evenly along their entire length. William moved forward for a closer look and scrutinised the image intently.

'Are dose yips inside your nose, Daddy?' Freddie asked, not quite au fait with the internal anatomy.

'No, Freddie, they are here, in my throat,' Sherlock explained, indicating his Adam's apple. Freddie, sitting in Sherlock's lap, reached out and placed his hand on his father's trachea and Sherlock made some yodelling sounds so his son could feel his larynx react. Freddie laughed with delight.

'Well, Mr Holmes, your larynx has made a full recovery,' Mr Levitt announced. 'You may begin speaking again but I advise you to take things steadily. No singing, no shouting and definitely no public speaking for at least a month. Your throat may feel sore for a day or two but that should resolve itself. However, if you have any concerns, please don't hesitate to get in touch.'

Sherlock shook the man's hand, quite determined not to see him again. Mycroft's friends tended to treat him like a wayward teenager and he had no desire to subject himself to that experience any time soon.

The family exited the doctor's consulting rooms and climbed back into the limousine. Having installed the children in their child seats, all in a row in the back of the car, Sherlock and Molly took the dropdown, rearward-facing jump seats and strapped themselves in.

'Well, that calls for a celebration!' Molly declared. 'How about a visit to Amorino?'

William and Freddie both squealed 'Yeeeeees!' at the prospect of visiting their favourite Italian ice cream parlour. Sherlock gave the chauffeur instructions to divert to Soho.

ooOoo

Mycroft was acutely aware that he had neglected his duties for three whole days, following Arthur's abduction, so he had been back at his desk since Friday. But there was still some unfinished business waiting in his study - the enigmatically labelled DVD 'B'. He had a strong suspicion of what that DVD would contain so he was not about to let any of the technical staff see it until he had viewed it himself.

In the meantime, his time was divided between attended to the day to day departmental business and keeping tabs on the interrogation of Colonel Moran and his associates. He didn't feel any compunction to take part in the process or even to observe. He already had a fair idea of Moran's intensions, based on what Sherlock had disclosed. His brother would need to be properly debriefed, once he was passed fit to speak again, and would no doubt fill in all the relevant details.

The security DVD's from the Middleham house and the documents found in the Colonel's office had provided plenty of background and a few more names of co-conspirators. These individuals had been rounded up and were also being interviewed. All in all, the counter-intelligence personnel were managing the situation perfectly well without any input from Mycroft.

This was just as well, since he was still the go-to person for the containment of the bubbling crisis in Westminster. The government had implemented his suggestion to set up cross-party enquiry but the biggest problem there seemed to be finding someone of sufficient integrity and the right sort of skills to chair the group. Every person suggested so far had contemporaneous connections with the then Home Secretary and could not, therefore, be considered to be completely neutral. Mycroft rather feared that he might have to chair the thing himself, if an acceptable person did not pop up soon! He was, after all, still at school in the '80's so could not possibly be accused of complicity.

Daily reports from St Hugh's were encouraging in terms of a long-term prognosis but heart-rending in the details. Arthur was still struggling with his guilt at having succumbed so readily to the brain-washing techniques, despite his own expertise in the field. It was for this reason that Mycroft felt he could not put off any longer the onerous task of watching DVD 'B'. He felt sure that this would be a graphic record of Arthur's ordeal.

He owed it to his fiancé to view this evidence and to prepare a detailed analysis of how Moran's people had used Arthur's personal pressure points against him. If the facts were presented to him in that manner, he might see how inevitable the end result had been, and perhaps feel less of a failure and more of a victim. Mycroft resolved that, however painful it might prove to him, he must not put off the viewing of this vital piece of evidence any longer. He would bite the bullet this very evening, as soon as the children were in bed.

'Sir?' Anthea's voice broke through his reverie and he looked up to see her standing just inside his office door. She had knocked a couple of times and, on receiving no response, had felt obliged to check that her boss was not somehow indisposed. She was quite relieved to find him sitting at his desk, lost in thought. He was a relatively fit man and accustomed to managing stressful situations but the last few days would have tested even his iron constitution.

'Apologies, my dear, I was miles away,' he said with a self-deprecating smile.

Anthea nodded her understanding and delivered her message.

'The Tech people have completed their examination of your brother's mobile. It is clean. There is evidence they tried to extract information from the hard drive but the security in place defied them. They have returned it.'

She held out the iPhone to show it to Mycroft.

'I'm sure Sherlock will be relieved to hear that and to have his phone back. Call my chauffeur, would you, and ask him to give my brother the good news. I expect he'll want to be reunited with the instrument as soon as possible.'

Anthea nodded and reversed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

ooOoo

Molly sat at the farmhouse table in the kitchen, flipping through the evening paper. The media were still all a-quiver about the terror attack that had been foiled by the security services the week before. The speculation about who the culprits had been ranged from IS to the IRA. She was fairly sure that most of the rumours had originated in Mycroft's office. He did like to keep the 4th Estate busy chasing red herring and well clear of the real news story.

She heard footsteps coming down the stairs and pushed away from the table to switch on the electric kettle. Sherlock had bathed the boys and put them to bed and had stayed a little longer than usual to read each of them a story, making up for the last few evenings when William had filled in on bedtime story duties. She had bathed and fed Violet and put her down in her cot before returning to the kitchen, clearing away the supper things and loading the dishwasher. Their lives were back to a normal routine – except things weren't at all normal, not by a long way.

She and Sherlock had been avoiding one another all day – despite having spent nearly every minute of the day together. There was an enormous elephant in the room and they were both acutely aware of its presence. Molly was beginning to regret giving Sherlock the ultimatum of the 'serious talk'. Now that he was able to talk, she felt reluctant to bring it up so when he walked into the room she could barely meet his gaze.

'Tea's nearly in the pot,' she announced, rather unnecessarily since the kettle had just begun to emit a high-pitched whistle, signalling that it was on the boil. She poured some of the bubbling liquid into the ceramic pot and swilled it around to warm it, then emptied it and added three scoops of loose tea before pouring the boiling water over the leaves, replacing the lid and putting the pot on the cast-iron trivet in the middle of the kitchen table.

Sherlock, in the meantime, had taken two mugs from the cupboard, the tea strainer from the side board and the milk jug from the fridge, placing them on a tray along with a spoon, and carried that to the table too. They each took their usual seat, alongside one another with their backs to the Aga. In the winter, this would be the warmest place in the house and even though it was summer and the Aga was cold, the practice still prevailed.

Molly lifted the teapot lid and gave the contents a stir, still avoiding eye contact. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so awkward in Sherlock's company. When he spoke, it took her by surprise.

'Have you read 'Lord of the Flies'?'

'What?' she asked, meeting his gaze, at last. He had that crease between his eyebrows that always showed up when he was troubled or disconcerted.

'The book by William Golding, 'Lord of the Flies' – have you read it?' he repeated.

'Er, yes, at school. I can't say I remember much about it. A bunch of school boys go feral on a tropical island and turn into blood-thirsty savages – don't they?'

Sherlock gave a rueful smile.

'That's a pretty succinct synopsis, yes!' he replied before his expression grew solemn again. 'William Golding liked to explore the human condition in his work. In 'Lord of the Flies' he explored good versus evil, order versus chaos, reason versus impulse.'

Molly suddenly understood what had inspired this odd topic of conversation.

'I read it when I was about fourteen and, at the time, it resonated with me more than any work of fiction since Peter Pan.'

'I can see a common theme,' Molly remarked. 'Lost boys?'

'Yes...well, children left to their own devices with an absence of adult supervision. It happened in Enid Blyton, too, but with less dire consequences. As an abandoned child, I obviously identified more closely with Golding and J M Barry,' he replied with a wry smile.

'Let's have our tea before it's stewed,' Molly interjected, placing a tender kiss on his cheek, and began pouring tea into the two mugs, adding milk to both. 'Shall we take them through to the sitting room?' she added, wanting to curl up with Sherlock on the sofa for this difficult conversation which was long overdue.

ooOoo

'I suppose that's been the story of my life,' Sherlock mused, in reference to the themes of Golding's masterpiece. I'm attracted to chaos, to anarchy, to instant gratification. Because I have to restore order, take control, uncover the truth. I've never thought of it in that way before but, these last few days, I've had a lot of time to study the subject.'

'I'm sorry I forced that on you,' Molly apologised.

'Don't be!' he exclaimed. 'It's been most enlightening. I've always thrown myself into dangerous situations without ever asking myself why I did it. I sort of assumed I was an adrenalin junkie but now I find it was quite the opposite. The thrill was not of the chase but of the resolution. Making order out of chaos is the real attraction. Solving puzzles, being in control, working things out, cataloguing - it all amounts to the same thing.'

'But what about the danger?' Molly pressed the point. 'Are you never afraid for your own safety?'

'Only when I stop and think. Which is why I tend not to do that,' he admitted, with a guilty shrug.

Molly pursed her lips. So he wasn't prepared to 'stop and think' for his own sake, but perhaps she could persuade him to do so for the sake of the children.

'When you decided to offer yourself in exchange for Arthur and his sister, did you even think about how it might affect the children, if you were to get killed?'

'No,' he replied, emphatically, without the slightest hesitation or hint of regret.

Molly gasped and blinked at the bald finality of his response.

'Oh!' she exclaimed.

It was more of a sharp intake of breath than an actual word.

And, 'Oh!' – again, as she pulled away from him.

And then, after several long, drawn out seconds,

'Well, at least you're honest!' she squeaked.

'I'm always honest with you, Molly. Why would I want to be anything else?' he replied, not really sure why she had said that.

'Should I be flattered?' she exclaimed, speaking as much to herself as to him.

'No, of course not!' He was really confused, now. He could see she was upset but he didn't understand why.

'What's the matter?' he asked.

She swallowed, hard, in an attempt to push down the lump that had suddenly materialised in her throat. Later, in private, she might give in to the tears but not here and not now.

'I suppose I'm just a bit shocked at how little our children matter to you!'

His face registered incomprehension, at first, and then sudden alarm.

'No, Molly, no! Please, don't misunderstand me,' he entreated. 'Nothing could be further from the truth.'

He looked so earnest and sincere but she couldn't reconcile the two statements.

'I'm sorry, I don't understand you,' she confessed. 'You just said that you don't think about the children when you go into dangerous situations and yet you claim they mean so much to you. That makes no sense at all.

He took both her hands in his and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, as though steeling himself.

'Molly,' he said, at last, his voice strained, almost broken. 'You and the children are, without question, the most important things in my world.' He opened his eyes and they were suddenly bright, brimming with emotion. Molly felt her heart lurch and before she knew what she was doing, she threw herself forward, hugging him to her. He slid his arms around her waist, squeezed his eyes tight shut and inhaled her scent – a familiar blend of apricot shampoo, jasmine fabric conditioner and Rose Madder cologne, with just a hint of lactation. He breathed her in, deeply, like the bouquet of a fine wine.

'Explain it to me,' she whispered. 'I want to understand.'

They drew apart and he opened his eyes to hold her in his intense gaze.

'Molly, you and the children eclipse every other consideration. You tip the scale, irrevocably, in your favour. And there lies the dilemma.'

She frowned, trying to follow his obscure reasoning.

'You blind me to all logic and to every moral obligation,' he insisted, shaking her hands urgently. 'Which is why, if I'm ever to take a logical or moral decision, I have to remove you and them from the equation.'

At last, the light of understanding dawned but he was speaking again.

'I can't ever think of you at such times. It would destroy my resolve, render me inert. I would never be able to do the right thing, if I thought about how it might affect you all. Do you see?'

He looked at her so beseechingly, she could barely breathe, let alone speak, but speak she did.

'William worships the ground you walk on, you know, and he tries so hard to be like you. When you were being held hostage by Moran, he said that we must be brave and strong for you because you were being brave and strong for us. But you weren't even thinking of us!'

Her lips trembled and two tears escaped her lower lids and trickled down her cheeks.

'I have always known the sort of person you are but I chose you anyway. And I understand that logic is the bedrock of your belief system and the pinnacle of achievement, in your eyes. But - please don't be angry with me for saying this – the children didn't have a choice. We brought them into this world. We are their parents, the people responsible for them. For their sake - not for mine - do you think that occasionally, just every now and then, you could be a moral coward or a tiny touch illogical? Just for them?'

Sherlock felt a cold weight in the pit of his stomach. She was right, of course.

He took her head between his hands and pressed his lips to her cheeks, tasting the salt tears, then wrapped her in his arms and buried his face in her neck.

'How could I ever be angry with you, Molly Hooper?' he whispered. 'I only have to look at you to lose all sense of logic. But you are my moral compass so, as long as you are in my life, I could never be guilty of cowardice, moral or otherwise.'

'I don't mean to judge you, Sherlock. You saved Arthur's life and his sister's when you persuaded Moran to let them go.'

He gave a snort of ironic laughter.

'Only after I'd put them in danger in the first place. God, it was the least I could do. And. to be honest, we would all have died if Moran hadn't let them go. I knew I could find a way to escape, on my own, but there's no way I could have gotten all three of us out. So, it wasn't entirely selfless.'

That was so typical of him, she thought. He never could stand to be seen as a hero.

She slid her arms around his back and pressed her body against him, as her breath hitched. He was home safe, this time, and for that she was immeasurably thankful. And as his lips sought hers, she felt her anger melt and all objections evaporate. She lay back on the sofa, pulling him on top of her, and they surrendered to each another.

ooOoo

Well, that was 'the conversation'. I hope it didn't disappoint!