Disclaimer I do not own Sherlock
Chapter 2: Home
"The difference between a house and a home is like the difference between a man and a woman-it might be embarrassing to explain, but it would be very unusual to get them confused (Daniel Handler)."
Home is where the people you care about reside. It was only right then that the people who mattered most should be there to welcome Molly and Loki home. As Molly opened the door to her apartment and switched on the lights, bits of confetti came tumbling down and a bright green banner with the world's welcome home Loki in gold, flashed before her eyes. John and Mrs. Hudson stood with Michael and her cat Toby ready to welcome the new addition to their lives home.
"Now we know you already had a baby shower, but I didn't get to bring my grandson my gift yet," Mrs. Hudson winked as she brought forth a small box tied with a green ribbon.
"Neither did I," John smiled as he handed Molly over his own gift for his godson.
Molly opened one box and then the other as Loki lay against her chest sleeping soundly. The trip home from the hospital and all the fusing and prodding of strange people before he was ready to leave the strange place that had provided little comfort to him before the thing with the sweet voice came to take him away, had worn him out. Now he just wanted to sleep and dream as he sucked on two of his left fingers, instead of a pacifier, because he at 1 week old he was too young for such a tool.
Molly opened the gift from John first to her surprise it was a camera and not a digital camera mind you. Instead it was one of those old fashion film camera were the picture developed automatically and came out of slot in the bottom once a picture was taken. Along with the camera were three boxes of colored film and two books.
The first book was covered in ducklings with the words Loki's Baby Book in green cursive. The image on the front was one that was very familiar to Molly's eyes and she smiled on seeing it. The picture in question had been taken in the hospital room at Saint Bart's. It showed a relieved Molly holding her newborn son just a few short minutes before they had taken him to NICU. Molly also noticed that a green book mark with a yellow duck on it was sticking out from the end and moving the front page apart she was overwhelmed with happiness. "Well now I know why you wanted that picture Mary." Molly looked at her friend whose cheeks were a deep red. Thumbing her fingers over the familiar image of her family, which had been taken a year before her mother's passing, back when all her family had still been alive.
"Well I baby's got to nowhere its family comes from, speaking of which you're going to love the next one Molly."
"Mary don't ruin the surprise?" John folded his hands trying to look pissed with his girlfriend, but failed terrible .
Oh what's to ruin John she's already opened the book now, so she knows what to expect sort off.
Molly wiped a dear from her eye as she turned the page her eyes going wide. "Where the heck did you get this John?" Molly asked turning the picture so the rest of her friends could see it and Michael to his credit was just as shocked as her.
That one was from me dear Mrs. Hudson smirked I was the Holmes boy's nanny after all. That just so happens to be the oldest picture I had of them, before I married my ex-husband and moved into Baker Street. I thought it would do you more good than sitting in an old box in my house after all a boy's got to no his father, even if it's through memories.
"Thank you," Molly replied taking a closer examination of the current picture she held before her. It contained two older people a man and a women, which Molly could only gather were Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, both of which were pictured standing up right. It was the boys however that were standing at her feet that caught her attention, Mycroft stood in the middle, followed by a smaller boy with dark brown curly stood and his hands wrapped around the neck of a frisky looking Irish Setter. However, it was the figure on Mycroft's left that caught her attention and confusion, "Mr. Hudson?" she asked.
"Yes dear" Mrs. Hudson noting the curious tone to Molly's voice.
"Who is this?" Molly pointed to the first boy situated next to a teenage Mycroft.
"That is Mycroft and William's older brother Sherrinford Holmes."
An explanation followed shortly of the eldest Holmes and how William and Sherrinford had been extremely close before the untimely and mysterious death of his big brother several years ago. The circumstances of which had never been solved.
Subsequently Molly flipped through the rest of the book which while it held a few more pictures was not completely full leaving plenty of room for more pictures to be added as Loki aged. The other book was olive green and was completely empty with her son's name written simply in gold cursive and the phrase, 'life is always full of special moments so take plenty of pictures to remember them by' Uncle John Watson.
Finished with John's gift Molly moved onto Mrs. Hudson to find a green and blue handmade blanket with the name Loki Hooper in gold thread along one of the corners.
There was much thanking afterwards on Molly's part before she said goodbye to her friends.
Toby for his part had watched his mistress through these events eyeing her as she rocked back and forth from his position on the couch were he lay draped over John's leg, one of the very few male person's in his mistress life that he didn't seem to mind. His golden eyes watched the mysteries bundle that Molly held in her hand, curiously. Trying to make sense of the situation, his mistress had left the house with her stomach building, was gone for two days and didn't tell him why. During which Mary came by to feed him and then several days later she came home without said bump and looked well sad. Finally, she went out two weeks later and came back with this thing in her arms. A strange thing which Toby had yet to get a closer look at, because his mistress had yet to put whatever it was she was holding down. Then there were his mistress friends giving out gifts and gushing over this bundle. 'Well what about me,' Toby meowed letting out his discontentment at being ignored.
"Toby" Molly's called gathering the cat's attention now that her friends were gone "there's someone I'd like you to meet? This is my son Loki Hooper." Bending down she allowed her tabby to get a good look at the bundle in her arms. A baby, a little infant that would be grabbing for the attention that should have been his, was in his mistress arms. Based on the eyes and little bit of hair Toby had a pretty good idea that it was his mistress and who the father was. Well Toby scampered of deciding this child could stay for now, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be thinking of ways to make sure the strange man called Sherlock paid.
3 Years old
The car's trunk was full and Loki was strapped tight in his car seat his favorite stuffed animal Basil clutched in his hands. The wind that came in through the crack in the open car window ruffled threw his hair as they drove down highway 95. While outside the sun was begging to set as it painted the far off sky in shades of red and blue.
Sprawled between his legs sat a brown cat with his paws up against the window sill as they both simultaneously watched the other cars passing by. "Red Buick, Green Dodge," Loki spoke shouting out the cars color and corresponding manufacture based on the symbols displayed on several cars that drove past them ever so often, but which he was quickly get board of as he had been playing it for a half an hour to entertain himself. Without someone to play it with him it was starting to lose its appeal.
"Momma," Loki turned his head to the front of the car where Molly was driving.
"Yes. What is it Loki?" Molly sighed prepared for the age old question that every parent dreads on a long car trip. Are we there yet?'
"Why we leave and for how long will we be gone?" It was something the young Hooper had wondered as his mother had packed up his closes and told him they were leaving London.
"Permanently Loki, Dover, Delaware in America will be our new home for now. It's because of work Loki. This is a better job for me Loki, with an increased pay raise, more consistent hours, and a big apartment, with your own room. Wouldn't you like that Loki? "
"I guess. So you mean we never going back home, what about Uncle Johnny, Aunt Mary, Kallie and Jaxie?" Loki asked as he listed of the names of the Watson broad including their one year old fraternal twins.
"I don't know Loki. I don't know?" Molly turned the car off the Wilmington highway and into Bear just 45 more minutes to go girl she told herself, and then they'd be home.
The apartment building they arrived at was nice with a green yard in the front and a brick fixture to it including all utilities and the fact that it allowed pets had been the two things that she had been looking into purchasing an apartment. She had been lucky to find this particular apartment with a monthly rent of $1058 that fit in her two week budget of $5,000 and would allow her cat. Because Molly couldn't imagine leaving her furry friend behind like some pet owners were prone to do after all the years shared between them. No any apartment had to foremost fit the family cat.
The apartment itself Molly decided would need a little work before it became a home, for now it was just a bunch of unpacked boxes, bare beds and walls and sleeping bags sprawled out on the living room floor, until they began the unpacking everything.
Loki decided that while getting his own room wouldn't make up for moving away from his extended family, it felt good to have his own space for once.
10 years old
It was pretty much the same exact experience the second time around that Loki and his mother packed up the boxes from their old life and moved into his new stepfather's home. There would be a new school for him to attend the coming year and the process of making friends all over again. The only difference was that on this trip there would be no feline accompanying him, just a black urn necklace with the name Toby hanging from around his neck.
18 years old
"Mom, you can let go of me." Loki tried to wiggle out of the vice like grip that his mother held him in as they stood in the entrance to his dorm room. A gym bag with Maryland University in bold lettering swung over his shoulder and his suitcase in hand. Today was a momentous day in Loki's life, for it marked the first of what was to be many days away from home. The first day in which his life as Loki Hooper the pathologist son from Delaware ended at that of freshman Loki criminology and art major of Maryland University began. Today was the first day of the rest of his life if only his mother would stop hugging him.
22 years old
He was 22 years old and fresh out of college, with his bachelor's degree. Having been hired on as police officer by the Wilmington Police Department, after taking an internship with the force while in high school, before moving onto working as a part time cope and helping with patrol duty while still in college. However, despite his hard work some of the older and more experienced cops were of the opinion that Loki had managed to earn a spot at the department because of his stepfather's relationship to Warren Lestrade the current chief of police and because of who his father was.
With his intelligence and some of the similarities in appearance to a certain consulting detective from Baker Street, London it hadn't taken long for his coworkers to figure out who his father was. Jefferson Adders in particular was one such criminal investigator who relished in poking at Loki's relation to Sherlock Holmes when given the chance.
Still despite the misgivings that work could sometime provide him with. Delaware and the people in it were his home. For as Loki had learned over the years due to the many different place of which lived. From the tiny apartment in the city where he was born, London, France to his college dorm rooms of the last four years. It was the people and not the buildings that truly made the places where he lived his home. Today he stood on the steps of his new apartment, his roommate, best friend, and partner, Jack glancing back from his spot in the open doorway.
"Well are you coming in or what?" The younger man with a thick British accent asked holding the door open for his flat mate. Loki felt that he was home once more.
"Yay," he spoke walking up the last of the steps to his new life would begin and the starts of many adventures were to come. The first of which would arrive on his doorstep 3 months later bringing with it a wagging tail and carrying five bundles of fluff that start with the letter M.