Always Find You Chapter 2: Experiments in Play
The Second that John woke up, well after using the loo, being bathed, and being dressed in a new outfit (another pair of khakis and a red jumper this time), Sherlock had set up what he'd decided to call the toddler prison, but others called a play pen.
He placed John in it with a pot and a wooden spoon. "I need you to make as much noise as possible, while I clean the kitchen," he told the toddler.
It was about five in the morning, Sherlock figured that he had until eight before he could take John out for breakfast or hit the shops to pick up some breakfast.
John took to his assignment with glee, clanging and banging, and making an unholy racket with utter abandon.
Downstairs, Mrs. Hudson wondered once more why she didn't evict Sherlock, and tried to remember why she was so fond of him.
Sherlock on the other hand, was packing science equipment into boxes, storing chemicals for transport, and clearing out cabinets.
It was a lot of work, but it was for a new experiment, well actually for a series of experiments, and therefore it was worth the work.
All of the experiments together answered one question: Could he keep John alive and sane through his toddlerification?
"Shit!" he said as he dropped a box filled with glass vials on his foot. None of the glasses were broken and neither was his toe, but it had still hurt.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" John began yelling.
"No John, don't say that," Sherlock said, glancing at where John was sitting, no longer playing with the pan but watching Sherlock, "It's a bit not good."
John looked sad for a moment. His lower lip trembled.
"No Shit?" he asked.
"No," Sherlock said, "I'll try not to say words you can't repeat. Say Photosynthesis."
"Phogosympthis?" John replied.
"Close enough," Sherlock said with a grin. He was relieved that shit was probably forgotten from John's vocabulary.
People already questioned whether or not Sherlock was a fit caretaker, the last thing they needed was John's foul language convincing them that Sherlock wasn't able to take care of John.
John was better off with Sherlock than some strangers, who wouldn't understand his phobia of lab coats and needles, who wouldn't understand that he knew things from a previous adult life, and anyways even when John was grown up Sherlock had certainly understood him better than his sister Harriet or his therapist.
No John was staying with Sherlock, which meant making sure that any foul language was promptly deleted.
Distraction was probably his best bet, so Sherlock went and grabbed another pan, "How about we see how loud you can get when you bang two pots together?"
John giggled. "Otay!" and went back to making an unholy racket.
Once he had the kitchen is some sense of order and most of his science stuff down at 221C, Sherlock realized that it was time for breakfast.
It took some time, a good deal more than he would have liked, to get John and himself ready to get breakfast.
Shopping with a toddler was an adventure. John hadn't wanted to ride in the cart. John had wanted to hold Sherlock's hand and walk, seconds later he was too tired and he wanted to be held, then he wanted to ride in the cart, then he wanted to walk, this cycle went on for a while until he fell asleep with his head resting against Sherlock's shoulder.
Once that ordeal was done, and Sherlock finished his row with the checkout machine, it was time to go home and feed John.
John woke up from his nap once Sherlock had put the groceries away and had been scolded by Mrs. Hudson about noise and how other people needed sleep.
Having learned his lesson from feeding John ice cream the day before, Sherlock fed John a meal that consisted of orange segments cut up into small pieces and toast with strawberry jam.
John wasn't as messy of an eater as the internet suggested toddlers were, which meant that Sherlock didn't have to spend as long cleaning up after John.
His phone let him know that he had a text from Lestrade. It confirmed that they had the details about the scientists and asked if he would come down today.
He confirmed that he would be down.
"Mrs. Hudson!" he called as he went downstairs, but Mrs. Hudson had already left to visit his sister.
"Well John, it looks like you and I are going down to Scotland Yard," grabbing John's car seat, he once again got them ready to go out, and got into a cab with his favorite toddler.
When they got to Lestrade's office, after walking past gawking officers, who apparently had never seen a toddler before, Lestrade greeted Sherlock without looking up. He took a sip of his coffee and then looked up. He swallowed so quickly it looked painful.
"You brought John here?" he asked.
"Mrs. Hudson, couldn't watch him, where was I supposed to leave him?" Sherlock asked. "I won't leave him with strangers, so lets see the files, if I'm right, I have about an hour before John will need a nap."
Lestrade gave one of his long suffering and dramatic sighs, really the man had such a flair for the dramatic before he gave Sherlock the files.
The head scientist, the one who had told Sherlock that he had taken his lover, was connected to Jim Moriarty. This was a revenge against the pool incident and it also explained why the scientists had been so well funded and able to take John away and hide him so well, they had criminal connections. Ones that Sherlock thought he'd purged with the help of his brother already but clearly not.
He read through the rest of the files, keeping one hand on John, who'd sighed once or twice indicating that he was bored but hadn't made a move to get up. Mostly because he was watching Lestrade cautiously.
He behaved like he vaguely remembered the DI but not in the same way that he'd remembered Sherlock or Mrs. Hudson, or his address. It made Sherlock wonder once more what was determining the memories that John kept and which ones he'd discarded.
One of the scientists, not the head scientist, since he would likely never talk, since Sherlock had killed Moriarty, seemed promising. He needed more information on her. He pulled out his phone and texted his brother.
With the amount of times that he was relying on his brother for this case, when they got John back to normal, John was going to owe him dinner at the least. He ignored the little voice in his head that asked what he would owe John. After all, he was the one who had argued with him before hand, the one responsible for him being kidnapped once more, and the one who was responsible for him being tortured. He pushed that voice aside even though it was getting harder and harder to do.
What had John Watson done to him? Both as a toddler and as an adult the man had made it hard to be an emotionless sociopath. Caring was useless. The only thing that mattered was the work. He reminded himself of this again but had a feeling that once more the message wouldn't stick.
"Sherwok?" John asked, the tone of his voice letting Sherlock know that John was sleepy.
"Hmm," Sherlock replied.
"Wan food," John answered.
Sherlock told Lestrade his conclusions about why the girl would be the easiest one to crack as far as figuring out how to reverse what had been done to John, and why they had to wait for Mycroft to give them more information so that she would actually answer questions honestly.
"Now, if you don't mind, I'm going home to feed John some lunch and put him to bed," Sherlock said before sweeping out.
He barely heard Lestrade's answer of, "like you would care if I did anyways."
It was hard to sweep out dramatically while holding a toddler and a car seat but Sherlock gave it a good effort as they walked out of Scotland Yard and hailed a cab.
"What do you want for lunch?" Sherlock asked the toddler a little while later while they were heading to Angelo's.
"Wan cake, pwease," John said. A return of John's manners. Very interesting. Sherlock hadn't taught John those useless social constructs such as please and thank you but obviously some of his previous knowledge was lurking under the surface.
"Cake it is," Sherlock agreed. Cake contained many of the same ingredients as bread, so surely cake wouldn't be a bad lunch?
They ate the cake at Angelo's with Sherlock telling anyone who asked that this was John's nephew who was also named John, since explaining what had happened wasn't acceptable yet. If they couldn't reverse what had been done, then they would tell everyone.
After their cake lunch, they went home, played a game of hide and go seek, until John had gone to sleep.
An hour later, Sherlock had his answer about how much John remembered, he would wish for the rest of his life, that he hadn't.
John's scream of terror jolted him out of his reading about the various experiment notes that had been kept on what they had done to John. He tossed down his laptop carelessly, and ran to the crib that he'd set up last night.
"Swipers, been hit," the toddler cried. John remembered Afghanistan, he remembered being shot, he remembered everything, at least when he slept. Horrifying.
"John, wake up!" he exclaimed as he picked up the toddler. The toddlers arm swung out and hit him, thankfully as a toddler, John didn't have much muscle strength so, Sherlock barely felt it.
His eyes opened and blue eyes met gray. The Toddler buried himself into Sherlock's arms and began to cry.
"Sh, it's okay," Sherlock lied, as he rubbed concentric circles on John's back, "it was just a bad dream, it'll all be okay."
Wrong! Lies. John remembered everything. John remembered too much. Sherlock still didn't know how to put him in his proper body, nor did he know how to make him forget.
"Jus a dweam?" the toddler asked trustingly.
"Just a dream," Sherlock lied.
John's blue eyes said that Sherlock's lie was believed.
