A/N: I hope that everyone's holiday has been memorable so far! This took a bit longer than anticipated due to holiday merrymaking, but I hope it was worth the wait! This story is so fluffy you'll never hear it coming!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the children.

Molly paused, thinking back through the conversation she'd had with Irene earlier in the day. Despite Sherlock's best efforts, Irene had become a fixture in their lives. After eight years he'd just decided to stop complaining about it and she and Molly had slowly become friends. "Oh… yes. Sorry," Molly stammered. "We can put your stuff in the study if you like."

"Wherever is fine. I just know I'll never make it over here with all this stuff in a cab on Christmas Eve." She smiled and laid a big sloppy kiss on Sherlock's cheek. "Don't worry, love. I brought you something too."

"Let's hope it's nothing like the last Christmas gift you gave me," he grumbled.

Irene ignored him, taking up her bags and following Molly up the stairs. When they got into the study they began loading the bags into the wardrobe. Molly was silent and Irene could tell something was going on. She didn't want to pry, but the air was oppressively tense. "So… everything okay?" she asked.

"Mmmhmm," Molly lied, admiring the perfectly wrapped packages. "Did you do these yourself?"

"Oh God no. I hired someone to do it for me. I'm rubbish at Christmas wrapping." She smiled and finished putting the bags away. "I wanted to thank you, Molly."

"For what?"

"For inviting me for Christmas. I realize that I've been coming around for a few years now and I've never really told you how much it means to me."

"Oh don't worry about it. Of course you're invited."

"No really. Not many women would be so gracious, Molly. I'm really glad that we can be friends. And that you and Sherlock have allowed me to be part of Gabriel's life."

Molly laughed. "And not just Gabe. Scarlett and the twins have adopted you too."

"Well, I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate it."

"You're very welcome." Molly put the last of the bags into the wardrobe. "Were you going to drive down to Ambergris with us or just come later in the week?"

"I'll do whatever Gabe wants. I hear that Katie Adams will be coming as well. He probably won't have much time for me."

"Oh I doubt that," Molly said. "She's not coming until the day after—her father flies out that afternoon. And who knows, those two are on and off continuously. One minute we're catching them snogging in the corner, the next Katie is bringing back a big box full of Gabriel's things and saying they're through. But Gabe always has time for you."

"He is a darling, isn't he?"

"Even now as a broody teenager, he's still the sweet little boy he always was. He reads to his brothers every night and is always the first one to stand up and cheer for Scarlett when she dances, not to mention all the little chores and things he does around the flat. He still even hugs his father and me with unabashed affection. I keep waiting for him to come home with a tattoo and rings through his nose but it hasn't happened yet. My only complaint is that he refuses to cut his hair."

"Oh I know!" Irene agreed. "I told Sherlock he needed to make him cut it. It's almost past his shoulders."

"He won't! He thinks the stubbornness of his child is very amusing. Though he did make him pull it back to play with the orchestra the other night, observing that a homeless person in a tuxedo still looked like a homeless person. John Watson says he's going to wait until the boy is asleep and take the scissors to it."

OoOoOo

In all the excitement no one had noticed Will and Finn slip out of their room. The first step in their grand plan was to get downstairs to Nena's flat without detection. It seemed a hopeless endeavor until they heard their sister storming up to her room. Scarlett was having another of her famous tantrums. It would provide the perfect distraction. As soon as they saw their mother and Irene go into the study, they hurried down the stairs and slipped into Nena's entryway. The closet there was where they would find the big scissors.

"Will!" Finn hissed. "We not 'sposa touch big people stuff."

Will rolled his eyes. "We weren't 'sposa come out of our room either. Come on." The brothers worked as a team to climb up to the latch that had been installed high on the wardrobe door. Molly insisted that all of the cupboards where dangerous items were stored have locks. Mrs. Hudson kept all of her cleaning supplies, mops, brooms and other things inside along with the hedge trimmers. But Will, never one to be thwarted by locks, had devised a careful plan of how Finn could climb on his shoulders and flick the latch open so that they could open the door.

There was only one problem with stealing hedgeclippers out of the wardrobe. It was dark in there. "I don't wanna go in," Finn whined.

"Why not?" Will had never been afraid of anything ever in his life.

"It dark in there."

"So?"

"So I scared," Finn whimpered.

"Do you want to trim up the tree or not?"

"Yes, but…"

"Then we have to go in and get the tree scissors." He didn't wait for Finn to protest further and pushed his brother through the door and into the broom closet. He was careful to leave the door open a little so that they could see what they were doing.

"I don't see anything…" Finn said, his voice already quavering with fear. "We should just go back to our room before somebody catches us."

Will didn't respond but looked all around until finally, he spotted them hanging on the wall above. "Look! Finn! I found them!" They were hanging high on the wall, much too high for a four year old to reach. But luckily, a convenient set of shelves were right there waiting. "Okay, Finn…you're the littlest, so you climb up there."

"I'm not climbing up there!"

"Oh come on. I'd do it myself, but I'm too big."

"No!" Finn huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, poking his lip out in defiance.

Will rolled his eyes. "Fine. I have to do everything." With the dexterity of an elf (a Keebler elf, not a Lord of the Rings elf) Will scaled the shelves, knocking over boxes and bottles in his wake until he could almost reach the handle of the clippers.

The muffled sound of Sherlock and Gabriel's voices suddenly caused Finn to panic. "Hurry up, Will! Daddy's in the hallway!" He tugged at the cuff of Will's trousers insistently. That was all it took and the little boy was tumbling down, shelves collapsing like dominoes as he fell. "Are you okay?"

"Shush!" Will hissed, completely unconcerned that he'd almost been creamed by a large jug of bleach. He pushed past his brother and closed the door quickly as they could hear their father and brother come down the stairs.

"The noise came from down here," Gabriel said, sprinting down the stairs. "You don't suppose Nena fell do you?"

"Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock shouted.

The twins heard their father and brother pass them by on their way to Mrs. Hudson's flat and both breathed a sigh of relief. A slow smile spread across Will's face as he clumsily held up the hedgeclippers. "Let's go trim the tree."

OoOoOo

Scarlett made a big show of storming out of her room with the balled up dance costume clutched in her fist. As Molly and Irene came out of the study, she shoved the costume at her mother. "Here," she snarled. "Take that thing back."

Molly took it, narrowing her eyes in surprise that Scarlett had folded so quickly. Of course, that didn't stop the small girl from signing angry words about her father as she turned back to her room. "Scarlett," Molly called. She glanced at Irene for help but her normally loquacious friend had nothing to say this time and could only shrug helplessly. The pair followed the child into her room where she again flopped dramatically across the bed and wailed as if the world were about to end. "Scarlett," Molly started again, sitting down beside her. "Why are you so upset?"

Scarlett snapped up. She began to sign to her mother so quickly that her fingers were a blur and the only sound that could be heard in the room was the angry slapping together of Scarlett's palms. She often resorted to going silent when she was angry. It was a defense mechanism that was iron-clad. Her parents couldn't decipher as quickly and didn't know many of the inappropriate signs that she'd learned being around the other deaf children at school. Only Gabriel was capable of understanding her when she got like this.

Molly gasped as she picked out one of the words. "Scarlett! Watch your mouth. I mean, your hands. Can you just talk, please?"

"Daddy is so mean!" was all Scarlett managed to get out before dissolving into sobs once more.

"Have I missed something important?" Irene asked, finally breaking her silence.

"Sherlock said she couldn't wear her dance costume we picked out. He thinks it's too revealing." She handed the clump of fabric to Irene who immediately unrolled and examined it.

"Oh that's ridiculous," Irene said, smoothing the leotard. "This is absolutely adorable. You'll look beautiful in it, darling."

"No I won't!" Scarlett whined. "Daddy thinks I look awful and he won't let me wear it!" Her speech was almost unrecognizable with the shuddery breaths.

"He does not," Molly interjected, brushing Scarlett's sweaty curls out of her face. "He thinks you look too beautiful in it." Scarlett wrinkled her nose in confusion and her mother laughed, gathering her in a big hug. "Seeing you in that outfit made him think about how you're not his baby anymore. You're a big eight year old girl that one day very soon will be all grown up."

"So?"

"So when you're grown up you might not need him anymore. You might like other boys better."

Scarlett seemed to consider this and shook her head vigorously. "That's stupid, Mummy. Nobody's as good as my daddy. Especially not other boys. The only boys I like are Daddy and Bre. And sometimes Will and Finn. And my John. And my Geg. And of course Uncle Mycroft. I like him most of the time."

Irene cleared her throat and stood up, pacing. "The problem we're having here is that Sherlock is a stubborn pain in the arse. We just have to make him think that Scarlett's outfit was all his idea in the first place. It's like that woman in that movie about the Greek wedding says, the father might be the head of the house, but the mother is the neck and she can turn the head any way she likes. And Sherlock is like a hydra. There's lots of necks to go around." Irene hugged Scarlett and kissed her cheek, leaving a big red lip print. "Don't worry yourself one more second. Between your mother and me, he'll be turning his head like the Exorcist."

OoOoOo

Mrs. Hudson was highly offended that Sherlock and Gabriel had assumed that she'd fallen and broken a hip. "I'm not ancient just yet you know!" she snapped. When they arrived in her flat she was buzzing about the lounge dusting while she watched the last of EastEnders.

"Bloody Hell! No one is suggesting you're feeble," Sherlock groaned. "We heard a crash that came from down here. Did you drop something?"

"No. Perhaps it was outside. You know those cars they run back and forth, up and down the street at all hours. No one watching their speed. It's no wonder they crash all the time."

Sherlock had filtered out most of what she said and was already heading back up the stairs. There was something very strange going on. That crash was inside the house. He and Gabriel hadn't crashed. Mrs. Hudson hadn't crashed. Molly and Irene were upstairs, but the sound was very definitely from below. That only left Will and Finn. Sherlock gasped and took the stairs two at a time. He glanced at his watch. He'd sent them up to their room more than an hour ago. "Damn," he rasped. "Molly's going to kill me if one of them is broken."

Of course, he needn't have worried. As soon as he emerged in the lounge he found them. Both boys sitting on the floor under the Christmas tree. Beside the twins, Cat the dog nosed around the bounty of evergreen foliage stacked all around them. It would have been a Christmas card-worthy picture if not for the tremendous hole in the tree where they'd hacked away at the branches with the set of hedgeclippers clutched in Will's hand.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock shouted.

Finn's green eyes were wide as he smiled, clearly proud of their efforts. "Trimming the tree, Daddy."