NOTE: Hopefully this longer chapter will make up for the delay. Part of the reason for said delay is actually that I spent a few days working on a different Sherlock fic for a contest on Tumblr, which I expect I will be posting in the next two weeks or so, once the contest has ended! It is much more humorous in tone than this one, so if that sounds like your cup of tea, keep an eye out for it!

Continued gratitude to Morwen33 for all of the beta help and generally saving my story from all sorts of bumps and errors.

I did a little doodle for this chapter; I'll post a link to it in my profile if you want to check it out. Hope you enjoy this chapter! My birthday was just this week...so, y'know...getting to hear your thoughts on this story would be a great present... /unsubtle

... ... ...

John looked over his shoulder once more at the police. They'd paid him no mind; he was just another pedestrian in the crowd that had gathered, if one who had taken a closer look at the woman than most of them.

Right, the Tesco would be just a few streets down. John arrived there with little other than a few glances from some rather posh individuals who seemed to be questioning his fashion sense. Not that that was terribly out of the norm; he was used the occasional withering look from Sherlock when he donned some of his favorite jumpers.

It was a shame working with the police wouldn't have worked out—it always helped to have an extra pair of eyes. Even Sherlock had held that opinion. John pushed his way through the door into the Tesco and first made his way to the aisle of the first item on the woman's receipt. Doubtful canned tomatoes were involved in her death, but it was worth a check. John wasn't sure if there was anything Sherlock ever got from asking him to look something over; maybe he just enjoyed torturing John, or maybe—hopefully—he was trying to more actively teach John his methods. If John was able to give the police something valuable to help them solve this case as a result, he'd have to thank Sherlock later.

John felt that through Sherlock's constant insistence that John make observations for him, he had finally started to learn. He'd benefited from Sherlock's observations from day one, of course. John inspected the area around the tomatoes—nothing to be seen there except that there had been a fantastic sale on them this week. Not that he had any idea of what to look for—some way that a drug could have been administered? Signs of a struggle? Someone still stalking around with wary eyes? John proceeded to the peaches. Sherlock had always been what John needed when he returned from Afghanistan, and that included the constant (usually humiliating) lessons on observation.

The first time Mycroft met John—no, the first time John met Mycroft—Mycroft had pointed out that when John was with Sherlock, he saw the battlefield. It turned out to be truer than John could have known at the time. And even now, even after Sherlock jumped—well, before Sherlock jumped—well—he'd never be doing that again, but anyway, after John had seen it happen—what had kept John something like functional was the fact that Sherlock had taught him to see so much even while Sherlock himself wasn't there. Maybe it was only a ghost in comparison, but John could still see some of the small things that others didn't, noticed snippets in the news or heard words on the street that he could interpret and knew meant something. Even while he worked through life with such low energy, he could still feel that he was in a city teeming with criminals and crimes and maybe there wasn't the chance he'd almost die twice a week now that he wasn't working on cases with Sherlock, but it was a bit like the war again. That made it easier for John to slip into a routine.

Of course, right now he was in Tesco in 1984 investigating what was probably a serial killing as a quick stop on the way to visiting his best friend, who was currently a six-year-old, so for the time being he was quite sated in the area of excitement and adrenaline and whatever else it was that he needed to make his hand stop shaking and his leg stop hurting.

There wasn't much to be found, however, among the peaches, or the canned vegetables, or the oatmeal. Well, it wasn't as if he should expect that whatever it was had come from Tesco specifically. His questions to employees were similarly useless—of course no one would remember some random customer who made a perfectly normal purchase. Maybe the police would be able to find more here—maybe they could look at the security footage, or something. If he got stuck, maybe he'd leave that as a tip, if it didn't seem the police had checked Tesco. In the meantime, best to keep on it while there was a chance of finding something—well, fresh.

The next natural choice would be the laundrette; the woman had clearly been by there, and John didn't have much else to go on. She was probably at whichever one was nearest to this Tesco, especially if she'd just been carrying her laundry around.

Well, Sherlock? Would you go to the laundrette?There was no answer, of course. John would just have to make do with his gut.

... ... ...

If she was here washing her laundry before she went to Tesco, there might still be someone here who would've seen her, John thought, and Sherlock-over-his-shoulder nodded. John began looking around the place to identify anyone who appeared to have been in the laundrette for a while. Anyone who's almost done with their laundry. His eyes continued to wander over the patrons of the laundrette as he tried to choose the most likely candidate. Even if it was only in his head, it helped John to have someone to talk to.

Of course, he knew that already. On one of his visits to Baker Street after Sherlock d—was gone, John's gaze had been drawn to the skull on the mantel. He'd just come back from an(other useless) appointment with his therapist, who continued to insist that John vocalize anything he would have wanted to say to Sherlock before he died. He'd already done so, he told her, at Sherlock's grave (where no one else was around to listen, because that was the problem; his words were words for Sherlock and no one else), but she seemed convinced he had more to say, or should have said it to someone's face, or something.

"Basically," John had collapsed into his chair at 221B, coughing down some of the dust as he fixed his attention on the skull, "you're an inconsiderate git."

He imagined that the skull, in typical Sherlockian fashion, asked a clinical, "Why is that?"

John went on, trying not to feel crazy, hoping that Mrs. Hudson wouldn't choose this moment to arrive back at 221. "Well, it's a bit not good to just up and disappear on your best friend."

"I didn't disappear."

"You were here, and now you're gone, so yeah, you did."

"But you know where I went."

"Yeah, into the ground. Not really as comforting as you'd think. Except," he leaned back in the chair a bit, readjusting his cane so that it wouldn't fall over, "you, you know, the skull, are not in the ground, which is a bit unusual for skulls."

The skull was already grinning, of course. "Guess I'm special."

John tried to think of what else he had wanted to say to Sherlock, what else he could bear to say. There was an awful lot, and an awful lot that was still a bit buried, buried like bodies and coffins and a pale grey suit that Mycroft had obviously chosen, Mycroft, stupid, why grey, why Sherlock, why now, and those were buried things that John didn't particularly want to dig up. After all, if he went through all that effort, what was the point? Sherlock would never hear it. It would just be a lot of work to suss out what words he wanted, what feelings he had to convey, and he'd come out of it hurt and then he'd need to go to even more appointments with that damn therapist (because what else was there to do, besides burden Mary with his problems?) and try to sort himself out and tell the therapist just the right amount to satisfy her while not revealing everything (anything) about himself.

"I had a lot of mates in the army," John started, and licked his lips, thinking. "We got along fantastically, and all that."

The skull waited patiently.

"Whenever we could afford it, there was a lot of laughter, and—god, and the pranks. You know? They were great blokes to hang around with. But…"

"But?" John imagined that the skull asked it in Sherlock's voice. He used his waiting tone, his maybe-John's-got-it tone, his "John, take a look at this murderer's closet and tell me what you can deduce about his girlfriend's dog," tone, the one he used once John was getting to saying that the girlfriend didn't have a dog at all, it was someone else's, this wasn't the murderer's closet at all.

"But even though I'm sure some of them are back by now, I still haven't called them up." He licked his lips again, bit down on his tongue a little as he considered his words. "At the time I knew them, I thought I knew what friendship was like. I thought, all right, so this is what it's like to have a best mate, who you live and maybe die with. Because, you know, we saved each other. Every day.

"And I had friends when I was a kid, too, of course. I thought I had it down, knew what it was all about, this friends business."

"But?"

"I didn't."

The skull's stillness was now confusion, concern.

"I don't know what it is, but you're something else…Sherlock," he breathed the name out with a little shudder. Talking to the skull was one thing; actually addressing it as Sherlock was another, made this somehow more real. "I think you noticed it too, but maybe you didn't know how amazing it was to me, if you've never had any close friends before."

"I don't understand."

"I thought I knew how it felt to have a close friend, and then I met you, and we just fit. Like that. No months and months of squirming around and adjusting to one another. We were just…already there. That's…not how it normally is."

"Am I ever how it normally is?"

"No," John smiled faintly, "no, never."

John snapped out of the memory as he finally noticed a young man folding up his laundry, tucked away toward the back of the room. He headed in that direction. "Hey," John waved, approaching the man and pulling out his notepad. John scribbled down a few notes about him—anyone here could be the murderer, and he would have to watch out for hints that they were. Even if there was nothing he could immediately identify as off, John remembered how Moriarty had so convincingly played "Jim from IT," evading both his and Sherlock's attention. If John could take good notes now, make good observations now, he could review them later. And he would need to remember anyone here who appeared to have been here for a while in case he ran into them again—especially if, although John dreaded to think it, the killer struck once more before he could help solve the case. The man glanced at John before returning to his work. "I was wondering if you might have seen someone in here. Probably a while ago." The receipt had been from over half an hour before the woman died.

John decided that the man's silence meant he was waiting for more details. "Rather small young woman with blonde hair, striped shirt, teal handbag? Quite pretty?"

The fellow shook his head. "Sorry. Don't think so."

"Right," John made his way to the next person who reasonably could have been here for that long, an older woman, and asked the same.

"Not that I recall," she answered, "but I've been reading most of the time, so I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask. Sorry."

"Hm," John nodded, "yes, okay, thank you."

By the time he had interviewed anyone who had stood even the slightest chance of having seen the woman, most of the original customers he'd talked to were gone. If this was, in fact, the laundrette had gone to, it was a bit surprising that no one had noticed her. She seemed like the sort of woman who would stand out—at least to some of the blokes.

So maybe she wasn't actually in here while they were. How likely was it no one would have noticed her? Not even someone who was doing their laundry right beside her?

"You'd be surprised," said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, smirking. John wondered if he ought to check a different laundrette, if he—"No, no, this would be the right one, and rather likely she was here before these people. It was a good deduction, John."
John smiled a bit to himself. It wasn't a real compliment from Sherlock, of course, when this Sherlock was all in his head. Really, he was just patting himself on the back and trying to make himself feel better, no matter how much it seemed like Sherlock-over-his-shoulder had a mind of his own.

Some of those people must've been here for a couple of hours at least, John thought, based on how much laundry they had. So if anyone had drugged her here, or anytime before, it would have to be something slow-acting—interesting. Of course, she also could have been drugged somewhere between here and Tesco, or even between Tesco and where she'd collapsed, but John would have no way of knowing where. He didn't even have Mycroft to go to for access to the CCTV, even if the idea of finding him sounded the slightest bit appealing—which it didn't. Mycroft wasn't even done with school at this time, John supposed, wasn't even in university, so he certainly wouldn't be any help. Well, John could at least have another look around the laundrette for any other physical clues. He wasn't holding out for much—what would he find, a needle in the trash? The trash, though—that was a good place to start.

John wished that he kept a pair of gloves on him, but instead he would just have to be cautious. The last thing he needed right now was to be taken to hospital—or, well, die of whatever had killed the young woman.

Right: some socks, apparently newly discovered to have been full of holes, about six receipts, a banana peel, an apple core, more dryer sheets than he particularly cared to separate and count, piles of lint, an empty baggie, half-eaten granola bar, another pair of socks, gum wrapper, gum wrapper, gum package, gum, gum, gum. Papers, looked like notes about literature. John could think up half a dozen ways most of these things could be important, and about a hundred ways they were just a bunch of rubbish of no relevance to the case whatsoever.

He oughtn't take any of it—in case the police came by and found that any of it was important evidence. They'd seen more of the previous crime scenes than John had; they'd know what to look for. John took down some notes, an inventory of the bin's contents, just to be safe.

If the drug—if that's what it was—was administered a long time before she died, it could explain why the others all died at home. The murderer gave them the poison in the afternoon or evening, they went through their day, and they finally collapsed once they'd gotten back home later. Clever, thought John.

"Isn't it?" said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, beaming. John sighed and tilted his head back in exasperation—okay, yes, maybe his mind had strayed into the realm of just a little too much like Sherlock for that moment. "But isn't it, John? Isn't it clever?" John sighed. It was. If that's what really happened. It was also possible she was drugged more recently, which would mean that wherever the other victims were found dead, it was probably very near where the killer had administered the drug.

John scanned the floor and equipment for more clues. Next he'd have to go to whatever library was nearest by and see if he could find anything more about the previous victims. Chance were, just that information alone wouldn't be enough; John braced himself with the idea that he might actually have to break into the previous victims' places of residence, if they hadn't already been cleaned up and occupied by someone else. Sherlock did things like that all the time—he could, too. He'd just have to…not get caught. It would all be worth it if he could help catch the killer. Of course, the police had thought these to be suicides, there was no telling how differently they could have treated the scene. Would they have investigated the homes less? Surely if they had found what poison had been used they also would have looked for where it had come from. John would just have to find out—and that would require someplace he could look up old newspapers. To the library it was, then.

... ... ...

The nearest library, thankfully, required only a bit of a walk rather than a taxi ride. John was fairly certain he had at least some money of the proper year if he had to take a cab, but since he couldn't be sure how long it would take him to solve this case (or for the police to solve it), he'd prefer to save what he had for food.

Not so long ago John had been used to going longer than he wanted to without eating; perhaps he would hold out until tomorrow morning before he grabbed a bite. It would have to be something filling, with as much nutrition as possible, but would have to be cheap more than anything else. Hunger was a familiar enough thing; there had also been the occasional case he and Sherlock had taken that involved a stakeout. Sherlock, of course, being Sherlock, only bemoaned the waiting because it was boring. John was hungry, if they stayed in the same place for hours on end, as they sometimes did. He didn't mind it so much; usually afterward Sherlock took pity on him—John, the poor ordinary human with an ordinary need to, oh, eat—and insisted they go out for one of John's favorites, or else bring it home and lounge about watching bad telly while eating it.

Sherlock didn't insist on the bad telly, but he seemed to accept it as part of the deal. John knew that Sherlock would never want to admit to how much he enjoyed poking holes in every aspect of a show just to impress John with his knowledge. Sometimes, John would put on a medical drama so that he could point out the flaws, which Sherlock seemed to enjoy most of all—as bad telly went, anyway.

The most recent several editions of the Evening Standard were easily located, but, of course, John hadn't expected to find anything in those. While he had never been much for computers, John did particularly miss the internet at this moment. He wondered how Sherlock would dart about solving cases at the rate he did without a smartphone to consult. This was 1984, though, and so John was resigned to a much more thorough and deliberate search through the microfilm copies of the older editions of the newspaper. He took note of any mentions of suicides that seemed to indicate the use of poison, especially any that seemed to be accidental or particularly unexpected, and a pattern began to emerge.

Young women, thought John, reviewing his notes for any of the mysterious drug-induced deaths over the past ten months. There had been five of them that seemed to definitely fit the pattern, so if John hadn't missed any, today would be the sixth. Maybe there were some that had happened earlier—but the way the reports had been phrased in the newspaper suggested that he'd found all of them; the first one was described as an enigma, was allotted more attention than any of the later ones. The timing seemed sporadic—sometimes months and months between the deaths, sometimes only a week. The latest one had only been a week before this one, which John hoped meant that he had a while before the next. The reports indicated that the poison was probably derived from or related to belladonna.

John checked the clock—oh. It was getting toward the evening; he ought to think about where he wanted to stay for the night. Sleeping beside the time machine would probably be best, and he had been fine resting there before. Really, he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Well, it would probably take him a while to walk back; he should start at it now. These notes were a good place to start. John found a copy of the phone book in the library and searched for the addresses of the victims, copying those down in his notebook on the page after the physical description of today's victim. He could check those places tomorrow, assuming they hadn't been cleared out. Maybe they would all share some common quality, some piece of evidence of where the poison had come from or who had administered it. If they had all gotten it from the same place, John could check whether the woman who'd died today had been there, too.

"Good," said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. "Now you're thinking."

Today, though, it was much too late to start with that, especially if John wanted to walk to as many of the victims' homes as possible, rather than take a cab. A glance over the addresses, though, told John that it would not be completely unavoidable. For now he would walk back to Mummy Holmes' garden, sort out how much money he had available, and get some rest.

... ... ...

John must have walked more briskly than he'd thought, for by the time John was nearing the Holmes residence, it was still too early to go to sleep. He opted to take a bit of a walk around the neighborhood to pass the time—loitering around the garden anywhere but where his time machine was seemed risky, and it had been a while since John had properly enjoyed a sunset, anyway. A chill came with the evening, but since John had left from the nighttime in February anyway, he found he was still comfortable in his jumper and jacket. Some small satisfaction came with breathing the cooling air while his legs ached with tiredness beneath him.

John made it out to where he had threatened the sixth form kids that had bullied Sherlock before he looped around in a different direction. From this point in time, 1984, there were still a lot of rough years ahead of Sherlock. John doubted that anything that he did could stop that; Sherlock was still brilliant and still a complete arsehole and if Sherlock ever learned when to shut up for his own good, well, he wouldn't be Sherlock anymore. Still, perhaps John's actions would help a little.

John's path took him near a school that Sherlock could have attended—or so John figured, given its proximity to his house, although it was equally likely Mummy Holmes sent him elsewhere. Now, in the evening, the playground was empty. Nearby, a rabbit ran through some tall grass. Well, maybe not a rabbit. It was quick, but definitely too big to be a rabbit. A fawn, maybe? Were there deer wandering around in this part of London? No, wait—there was something poking above the grass. If it was a fawn, it was the darkest, curliest fawn John had ever seen. No, it was definitely a kid. It was definitely…Sherlock? Could it be? He was in the right area…Sherlock would be…what, six? John felt sure it was him.

Of course, that meant a new array of questions—if it was, should he leave now? What if Sherlock spotted him? What if he already had? But he had so wanted to—to comfort Sherlock, somehow. To tell him everything would be okay, in whatever vague, obscure way he could manage. Sherlock had an excellent memory, John thought—but certainly, this young and with no prior recollection of John's voice or anything else, he would just delete a random stranger. Surely Sherlock had always deleted things, John told himself—or else he would start doing it sooner or later, which was all the same so long as John didn't show up and let Sherlock see or hear him again in the meantime. He could do that—he could avoid seeing Sherlock again between now and when he had seen him about ten years from now. Ten years was a long time and Sherlock was young; even if Sherlock didn't delete things, he'd probably forget. John was safe to talk to him and be remembered as nothing more than a nameless, faceless person who happened by one day and said some nice things. "Hello?" he called out.

The movement stopped, and John could no longer find the little head of hair. John looked around: no one else here. He didn't want to imagine what sort of a person an angry Mummy Holmes would be, if she were around and thought that John was some sort of…pervert, or something. He set off into the tall grass, in the direction he'd seen the kid. Well, of course, this might not even be Sherlock. If it was, though, maybe John could appeal to his need to show off. "Uh, I'm a bit lost," he called out. "Do you know your way around here?"

Silence. John continued toward where he thought the child might be.

"Leave me alone," came a little squeak from near his foot. John leaned down to part some of the grass and found—oh god, it was, it was. A small, scared Sherlock, huddled up hidden in the vegetation. John noted a jar and a net nearby, as well as a little blue backpack. A tremble worked its way up his spine as he tried to grasp the realness of the situation, that he was really here, seeing and soon to be talking to a young Sherlock—crouched down in a grassy patch near a school, the setting and the air and the time of day so mundane as he reached back and touched something, spoke with someone, spoke with Sherlock, from twenty-eight years ago. It wasn't a movie or a play or a daydream or a nightmare. God, it was real. He could touch Sherlock's hand and it would be real—but he wouldn't do that. Of course. He was a stranger to Sherlock.

"I'm not going to hurt you," John backed away a little, in the hopes it would reassure the boy. "Is that what you thought? Is that why you hid?"

"I thought you were one of the big kids," Sherlock admitted, climbing back to his feet. "Sometimes they bother me."

"Bother you? Bother you how?"

Sherlock gave John a dubious look, clearly trying to decipher his motive. "They kick my stuff."

"Just your stuff, though?"

The child frowned. "I don't like when they kick my stuff. It's important," he insisted, the high pitch of his young voice making his tone no less pompous.

"So…"

"So I don't let them." John's brow creased as he tried to make out the meaning of Sherlock's words, and little Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I jump on top of it so they can't get it." He glanced down at his backpack.

"So they kick you instead." John thought of the older kids shoving Sherlock to the ground and kicking him. Perhaps even then Sherlock had tried to curl around something—some precious experiment in his bag, or his violin, or whatever he had been carrying with him.

Sherlock seemed loathe to admit it, but he looked John in the eye while he did so. "Sometimes."

"Oh," John said, fighting the impulse to ask their addresses or take the next few weeks to act as Sherlock's bodyguard or teach Sherlock where to pinch someone to make it hurt the most and still have an elbow free to bash their nose in. "What are you protecting?"

Sherlock's eyes snapped to John. "Experiments. And samples." He considered. "Sometimes projects from school. Mine are the best ones in the class so they want to ruin them."

Oh. "What kinds of experiments?" Talking about that would get Sherlock onto a happier track, and probably distract him. And Sherlock needed to know that he was doing a good thing by learning the way he was—not that John was terribly chuffed with having body parts around the flat, but it did help Sherlock solve his cases, and that was what mattered. Sherlock's research mattered. "They must be important for you to protect them like that."

"They are," Sherlock leaned forward earnestly. "Our class' pet mouse died and I got it after Missus Ivers threw it away, so now I'm making notes about how dead mice look after each day so if I ever find one again I can tell how long it's been there! Of course it would be messed up if somebody threw my backpack around," Sherlock noted, "it would fall to pieces. It's very fragile right now."

"May I see?"

John had hardly blinked before Sherlock had pulled it out and held it up to him, sealed in a small jam jar. Obligingly, John took it and rotated it around. "How old is it?"

"Nine days."

John nodded and handed it back. "You know, though, you might find a dead mouse that's been sitting out in the rain or something for nine days, and it would look quite different from this one." It was the sort of thing Sherlock would test.

"Oh! Yes! I'll do that when the next class mouse dies!" Sherlock grinned. "I could keep it in a jar with some water in the bottom, like it's been sitting in a puddle. And mist it every day, as if it were raining or foggy!"

"Lots of variables to consider," John smiled, and tried not to think of Sherlock eagerly awaiting the death of the class pet.

Sherlock was practically beaming. "Yes! Exactly! You can see why I don't want my experiments being jostled around. They're important."

"They are," John agreed. John leaned down. "Do you want me to teach you how you can keep them away? The kids that always try to throw your stuff about?"

"You mean hurt them?"

"Well…" Yes. Very much yes. Hurt the living daylights out of whoever decided it was okay to hurt Sherlock. John's chest swelled at the thought, at the idea of protecting Sherlock. He had done it so many times before, in the time he was supposed to come from—he would do it a thousand times again in the past, if he could, but he couldn't. Or Sherlock could learn where to hurt those bastards who hurt him, and think of John every time he pinched a nerve. No, no, go back, erase, delete, John thought. He can't remember me as anything other than a stranger who chatted with him for a while.

Sherlock seemed to be considering it. "I don't think so." He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, looking over John as he appeared to consider something. "If you care so much," his voice spoke of so much disbelief, of probably already a year's worth of visits to the school nurse and the counselor and the principal to no avail, "won't you just do it for me?"

"Well, I don't live here," John smiled. "I don't think I can just follow you around and beat up everybody who tries to bully you." Oh god, though he wanted to. "And usually it looks pretty bad when an adult attacks a child."

"Oh. Yes," Sherlock nodded, taking a few steps away and reaching for his insect jar. He was apparently more confident now that he had decided John was somebody to be trusted, and his posture loosened. As Sherlock paced a few steps closer, John recognized the careless swinging of limbs that would become Sherlock heaving himself onto the sofa at 221B with a degree of petulance that would be more appropriate to him here and now, at six years old. "And I guess once I'm grown up enough that it's not kids picking on me anymore you'd be too old to beat people up."

John laughed. Oh god, but if he opened up his mouth now he'd give everything away. He waited for the impulse to subside.

"And I won't need anybody by then. I'll be able to take care of myself."

"Mm," John pretended to think about this. "I think everybody needs somebody."

"Why? Who protects you?"

"A friend." Well, up until—but before then—

"Is that what friends are for? To protect you?"

"No—well, yes, that's what friends do, but that's not what they're for." John felt his legs aching, so he took a seat in the grass. "When you have a friend, a really good friend, you just…want to protect him. You get this feeling that you need to. You'll see."

"I don't have friends." John opened up his mouth, but Sherlock pressed on with, "And don't say Thomas is my friend, he only acted nice because he wanted me to help him find his markers. He's back to ignoring me now he's got them back. Did Mummy send you here to convince me that I have friends?"

"Nobody sent me here." Not true: You sent me here, Sherlock, in a way. "I don't even know your mother." I just use her garden for a landing pad for a time machine, is all.

"Oh."

"I just…well, you will have friends, all right? Even if you don't right now."

"I'm too clever to have friends. 'Nobody likes a smart-aleck,' that's what Mummy always says."

"I don't know; I think I'd be friends with you."

"Of course you'd say that. You aren't going to stay, so you don't have to prove it."

"All right, yes, that's true. You're too clever for me." John held his hands up in mock surrender. "But look," he leaned in conspiratorially, "if I could, I would prove it. All those prats who give you a hard time for being so smart, they're not what matter."

"I know."

"You always matter to somebody, okay?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Again, of course you'd say that. No way to prove it." John wished he could, wondered if there was something he could say that was more than just vague advice. Sherlock tossed the jar back and forth between his hands. "And I hope you're not counting Mycroft."

John reached forward and took the jar, observing its contents. Several insects inhabited the jar, accompanied by some vegetation from the area. "Mycroft? Who's that?" He hoped he sounded somewhere in the range of genuinely confused or mildly interested.

"My brother."

"Oh? I suppose I ought to ask your name, too. If you'd like to tell me it. Or you can make one up. Just so I have something to call you while we talk." He definitely didn't want to seem—creepy. Not that Sherlock would probably notice.

Sherlock considered this. "Sherlock. That's my real name, not a fake one."

"Sherlock," John repeated, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not make it feel foreign to his tongue. It never had, really. It rolled into his speech naturally, like he had reserved a spot for it earlier and just didn't know it, like it skipped the being-new stage and was overgrown with moss from the moment John first used it. Young Sherlock's wide eyes stuck to John's at the sound of it, as if it came from John's mouth magnetic. "I like that," John said, "Sherlock." John's own name came easily enough to Sherlock, too, thought John, to Sherlock's credit. Sherlock had always presupposed John's name into his vocabulary, stole it and used it like it was never John's to start with.

"That's not what people normally say."

John couldn't hold back a smile. "And what do people normally say?"

"'That's a weird name. Pronounce it again?'" Sherlock frowned. "And yours?"

His was significantly less memorable. "Rather more dull, I'm afraid. I'm John."

"Oh. All right." Sherlock, now distracted, and grabbed for his net. His gaze was set on something a few feet away—presumably some sort of insect.

"Look, um, Sherlock." John fidgeted. Sherlock raised himself onto the balls of his feet, crouching and waiting like a cat, and did not acknowledge John. "Just…uh…" He couldn't say anything too personal; Sherlock would definitely remember that, and possibly turn him in to the police, if he knew what was good for him (he obviously didn't, but John wasn't about to risk it). John would have to run off and stop working on catching the serial killer, and let god-knows-how-many other people die as a result, and Sherlock would definitely recognize John if he saw him again. "It's…it's gonna be…all right."

Sherlock leapt for the insect, net stretched out before him. "Damn," he muttered, and John cracked a smile. Then Sherlock turned to John. "And you would know, I suppose?"

"Huh?"

"Giving away generic advice even though you don't know anything about me. Like a fortune teller. Or my teachers. It's easy to say that it will all be fine, but how do you know? You don't." One corner of Sherlock's mouth turned down, and his gaze conveyed clear disappointment. Oh, John thought, you think I'm just like your teachers and whoever else in your life has been unhelpful in god knows how many ways. The life of a genius is a tough one, eh? He was at a loss for what to say, and pretended to study the contents of Sherlock's jar again. John wished he could tell Sherlock otherwise, tell him that he knew, really knew. Little Sherlock would probably be fascinated with the idea of a time machine. John envisioned him comparing every science fiction novel in the library against John's version of how time travel worked, or maybe reading up on the latest physics developments to see if it seemed like it would really be possible by John's time, or maybe latching onto John's leg and making John take him along to the future.

"'Lo, Sherlock," he'd say to his flatmate, after killing Moriarty. "I'm from the future, where things are awful, but that doesn't matter anymore, because Moriarty is dead. Look, I brought you to see you. Can you tell yourself that everything will turn out all right?"

But of course that couldn't happen, John thought. Right here, it was just him trying to remain a stranger, and little Sherlock without someone to properly hold his hand as he tried to decipher what was going on in his mind, what made him so different, so special.

"I'm not a fortune teller," John laughed. "Just, you know, a…a bloke who has a pretty good idea of what's going on. I'm not trying to say life is rainbows and butterflies, or that it should be." Sherlock seemed to find this satisfactory. John did, too. If life was rainbows and butterflies his hand would never stop shaking and his leg would never stop hurting. Of course, he probably wouldn't have had either of those problems in the first place, were the world rainbows and butterflies. He would just be an incomplete person and not know it, strutting around playing rugby and doing surgery and flirting with pretty girls with a big gaping hole in his insides that was meant to be filled with danger and Sherlock (which were generally one and the same, anyway). "Just…hold on when it gets bad, and it'll get better."

"Where are you from?" Sherlock asked. He seemed resigned to the idea that he wasn't going to catch any more insects, and stuffed the jar into his backpack.

"Why do you ask?"

"You said you're not from here. And you…" Sherlock paused. "Well, I was just wondering."

"And I what?"

"And you're wearing a weird kind of jacket I've never seen, and you have a funny device in your pocket." John looked down. Shit. His mobile was slipping out. He tried to push it back in as casually as possible. "So where are you from?"

"Uh…" Should he just make someplace up? Surely Sherlock wouldn't be able to tell whether he was lying, or come up with some reason he couldn't possibly be from wherever he decided on…then again, maybe something closer to the truth was better. Just keep it vague. "About halfway across London, to the…north."

"Oh." Sherlock seemed unsatisfied with the answer, but, thankfully for John, seemed to become distracted, deep in thought about whatever was on his mind. After a brief glance at his surroundings, Sherlock dug through his backpack and pulled out a notebook.

"What's that?"

"My field notes. I'm writing about what I found today," Sherlock said, scribbling something into the book.

"Field notes, huh? That's pretty serious stuff for someone your age."

"I'm six," Sherlock huffed indignantly.

"Ah, of course. And, my sources tell me, a bit too clever for your own good."

"Your sources?"

"Well. You."

Sherlock smirked, and John couldn't keep himself from smiling back. There they were, now just as always: two idiots grinning at one another over something stupid while none of the rest of the world cared or understood. See, little Sherlock, John thought, this is what friends are like. See, I care. Somebody cares. All the time. If it were physically possible for John to stay conscious during one of his journeys through time, he would think about Sherlock the whole way, just so he could argue how true that was, that all the time bit. See? It will worry me so much if something happens to you. Don't hurt yourself.

"What are you doing out here, anyway?" John asked.

"Collecting samples."

"And what experiment is this for?"

"I think Mycroft is trying to poison me. I'm looking for what's poisonous out here."

"I don't think your brother is trying to poison you. Brothers don't do that."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Have you ever read a history book?"

"Okay, but," John started, and then sighed. This was probably a hopeless track of conversation. "Well. Found anything?"

"Not yet. I haven't made it all the way through here, though. There are also some berries near our house that I haven't looked at much. Mycroft could easily sneak them into a pie, which I'm sure he'll be making eventually."

"Have you found poison in your food before, or something?" John humored him.

"Not yet," he repeated. "But he keeps cooking. Usually Mummy cooks. I don't know why Mycroft is doing it. It must be something bad. Last night he made my favorite food." Sherlock shuddered.

"What's that?" John asked. He honestly had no idea—Sherlock hardly ever expressed an opinion over food. He suspected Chinese or Thai, since that was their most frequent fallback for takeout, but the more John thought about it, the more likely he found it that Sherlock ordered that because John liked it. Sherlock, after all, usually only picked at his order, and left most of it for leftovers for John to eat the next day. John had tried to do something about it, but he picked his battles carefully. He couldn't get Sherlock to eat every day, heaven forbid. Anyway, little Sherlock probably had slightly less refined taste than his older self. John remembered a time when he had loathed broccoli. And peppers, how had he ever hated peppers?

"Apple crumble," Sherlock said matter-of-factly.

"Obviously," they both said, John notably more sarcastically than Sherlock. They grinned again.

"Right, well," he said, pulling himself to his feet. "I'd better…get going." Christ, he should, but he didn't want to.

"You said you were lost."

John clung to the excuse. Right, of course. He was lost. Got to stick to that. "Oh. Er. Right."

"Do you want me to show you to one of the main roads? My school is close by."

John considered it. He'd already had quite a lot of conversation with Sherlock—whether that alone was enough to make him memorable, he wasn't sure. Still, the Sherlock he knew was easily distracted when it came to his work. John remembered being left behind at the crime scene the first time he had gone with Sherlock—"The Work" took precedent over everything. "Okay," John finally decided. He could distract Sherlock with conversations about his projects, places and things they were passing as they walked. He couldn't…he couldn't let go yet. This would be his only chance to talk to Sherlock like this. And anyway…this was probably the last he would see of such a kind, polite Sherlock, and he wanted to savor it. And possibly encourage it. Just a little. He could oblige Sherlock in his considerate request and enjoy it along the way; wouldn't want to seem ungrateful. Sherlock should know that he'd be appreciated for doing good things. "Sure. Unless—will I be stopping you from gathering your samples?"

"I got what I need," Sherlock said, packing up the last of his supplies.

"What are the bugs for?"

"Insects," Sherlock corrected, swinging his backpack onto his shoulders. "Testing the poisons. Of course it's not the best way, there are lots of things that would poison people but not insects, but it's hard to find people to—"

John felt panic swell over him. He turned to face Sherlock, and when their eyes locked John said as gently as he could manage, "Not good, Sherlock."

Sherlock seemed frozen for a moment, staring at John. John wondered if he was trying to process it, process what John meant. "Oh. Yes. Okay." He watched John, seemed to be expecting more. "I know I'm supposed to know that. It's just…"

"It's fine," John soothed. You're okay, who you are is okay. Some things about Sherlock were troublesome, but if Sherlock had—had jumped—because of John trying to change him, well, he wouldn't. Especially not this early. "Some people have a sense for that sort of thing, and some people don't."

"The people who don't are called psychopaths," Sherlock sounded sour.

"You're not a psychopath," John walked to the sidewalk and waited for Sherlock to begin leading the way.

"How do you know?" Sherlock started along the sidewalk, and John followed.

John sighed. "I've met one or two in my time." Or three or four, or twenty-eight or twenty-nine, depending on one's definition of "met."

"Interesting," said Sherlock.

"I'm sure if you do your research and really think about it you'll reach the same conclusion as me."

"'As I,'" Sherlock corrected. "Okay."

"Anyway, since I'm a bit…off from my, uh, normal route, I was hoping you could tell me about this area."

"What about it?"

"You know, the buildings, the…I dunno, the plants, or…if anything interesting happened around here…"

"Oh!" Sherlock nodded. "Yes." He strutted along the sidewalk, eyes scanning the area in front of him for ideas for where to start. "Well, I've been looking at the plants here a lot. They're mostly native species but the school takes care of some that aren't. You would think that they would try to keep poisonous plants far away from school grounds, but there are actually four plant species close to the school that are poisonous that I've found so far."

"Oh?"

"There are buttercups, for one. You could eat enough of those to kill yourself if you really wanted to, or if you were really stupid, but they taste awful, so I guess they figure we won't. Those hedges over there are cherry laurel."

"Shame on whoever put those so near a school," John frowned, and held back from warning Sherlock against them. He obviously already knew they were poisonous. He probably knew why, too.

"There are some potatoes growing wild near where we were."

"What's in potatoes?"

"Well, if they've sprouted, or if they've been sitting out in sunlight or decayed, they grow toxic. You can look for green areas. It's not really a problem if they're cooked, though. I read that the poison is related to Atropa belladonna. Nightshade."

John quirked an eyebrow. "Is it?" Of course the murderer wouldn't be feeding his victims rotten potatoes, and certainly not in a laundrette or a Tesco. Still, it was something to consider. This sort of stuff was just growing all over the place.

"Yes. Which leads me to the last one; I think there is some nightshade growing here too."

"You mentioned berries before."

"Yes, exactly."

"Maybe you should, I dunno, tell someone at your school about this."

Sherlock shrugged. "It hasn't killed anyone while I've been there."

"Right." Okay, well, true enough. It would probably take someone getting hurt before there were any changes, anyway, and that's not what he was here to do.

They came to a corner and stopped; John took it they would be crossing the street here. Sherlock faced toward the other side of the street and waited.
"This way?" John came up beside him and motioned across.

"Yes. But we have to cross it."

"Yeah, well, ehm—let's—look both ways," John smiled a little. Sherlock was, after all, still a child.

"Mummy makes me hold her hand."

"Oh." Yes, he was still at that age, wasn't he?

"I can tell when I can cross," Sherlock huffed. John relived visions of countless instances of Sherlock leaping in front of traffic. Definitely a bad habit, rather than simply safety never hesitated. "But…"

"But?"

"I like having somebody walk near me."

John smiled. "Oh, you want to use me as a human shield, eh? I see."

Sherlock laughed.

"Well, here, you can take my hand if you want," John held his out. "Not because you don't know what you're doing, but just, you know. If you'd like it. Your choice."

Sherlock grabbed it and John marveled at how small it was. In years, of course, Sherlock would be tall and have those long, thin violin fingers. Right now Sherlock's right hand fit so neatly inside John's left. John's longer paces only just made up for Sherlock's quickened steps as they crossed. "Over here is the dentist's. Mycroft had to get two cavities filled three weeks ago. It's because he eats so many sweets."

John couldn't suppress a grin. As they got to the other side of the street, his grip loosened, but Sherlock's hand remained on his as he maintained his quick walk and actually began leading John along, "You have to see this, it's the restaurant Mummy took me to for my birthday last month!" He let go of John's hand as they came to a stop in front of it.

"Was it very good?"

"It was awful!" Still, he sounded delighted. "I found a fingernail in my food, and then I saw a chef out running about, and I realized that she was doing that because she had lost the fingernail and was looking for it to apologize. And I was right!"

"Well done!"

Sherlock looked up at John and then continued to walk in front of him. "Want to hear about another one of my experiments?" he asked, marching forward and not even so much as glancing at John. John smiled. That was just about the natural order of things, at least once Sherlock got so far into talking about a case or experiment that he forgot about such silly thoughts as food or sleep or people having feelings.

"Love to."

By the time Sherlock finally slowed down over half an hour later, John was fairly certain they had almost walked by a main road at least ten times—but Sherlock had always led him someplace else, down a narrow street or an alley or through a park—and not once had he run out of things to talk about. Sherlock barely paused speaking for more than half a second the few times he did, and looked back at John even less, only glancing back out of the corner of his eye on occasion to make sure he hadn't lost John, or to make sure he was still paying attention. John, for his part, remained fairly silent, responding only when prompted or when Sherlock seemed to expect a reaction—Sherlock was content to speak, and John was content to help make sure his voice wasn't remembered so he could just fade in Sherlock's memory as "that nice bloke who actually shut up and listened."

John learned about the building that had been abandoned for as long as Sherlock remembered, about Sherlock's attempts at growing flowers in the garden last summer and finding out some flowers were stupidly referred to as weeds, about how he used to want to be a pirate but had decided that that wasn't viable and was now set on keeping bees and making honey and making sweets with honey. Sherlock had especially enjoyed John's crack that from the sound of it, Mycroft might be a sizable portion of his market. John learned about street names and neighbors' names and how Missus Bourke, who always carried a red bag with her, went to visit Missus Stacks, who was very tall with a very sharp nose, when Mister Bourke, whose suits didn't fit very well, came home in a cab, stumbling around, and once Mister Bourke brought over a guest who Missus Bourke was definitely not expecting and Missus Bourke was gone for a while after that. Miss Ingham was new and had a very round face and nobody liked her landscaping but Mister Bourke must like her because he sometimes visited while Missus Bourke was still at Missus Stacks'. Mycroft's piano tutor lived farther down the street and kept at least six types of sweets in bowls around her house and sometimes her son visited Mycroft at home. Her son was very bad at maths and Sherlock had figured out that Mycroft was helping him cheat at maths but Mycroft got very mad when Sherlock said he would tell Mummy, and threw Sherlock's field notes into the bathtub where Sherlock was trying to wash the mud out of his school uniform before Mummy found out he got it messy. John learned about the time Sherlock spilled paint on the fancy rug in the living room and Mycroft yelled at him and then Mummy pretended like that made the rug look better even though it really didn't, which made Mycroft mad, which made Sherlock happy.

John felt like he was filling in for the skull again. He could probably turn a corner and Sherlock wouldn't notice for four or five minutes that he was gone: just as it always had been—or, apparently, always would be. So much for the possibility of getting him out of that habit, John thought. He would eternally be coming home from the grocery to an indignant Sherlock frustrated with the fact that it had taken John over an hour to grab him those files from the desk for him—but that was okay, because at least he would be coming home to Sherlock.

"Here we are," Sherlock muttered, looking out at the road. He finally glanced back up at John. "You recognize this?"

"Yes," John said, "and I don't think it's half an hour away from your school, either," he added, and smirked when Sherlock raised guilty eyes to him. "It's no problem. Thank you for the tour. You should get home."

"Can I borrow that notebook you have with you?"

"Oh—" John glanced down at it, poking out of his jacket pocket. "What for?"

"I want to draw you a map. In case you get lost again."

"Oh," John pulled it out. "Yes. Good idea." He handed Sherlock the notebook and a pen. "Here you go. Just do it on the last page, that way I can find it easily." And you won't see all my notes about possible serial killers in a laundrette.

"Thanks." He glanced over the materials and opened the small notebook to its last page, scribbling things in earnestly. "Here," he held it up to John, "this is where we are. This way is north. Okay? I put my house on in case you want to visit later."

"I don't think I can do that," John smiled. "I'm very busy. But thanks." Sherlock looked up at him, apparently hesitant to speak. "Do you need to cross this road, too?"

"Yes."

"Is this the only one on your way home you need to cross?"

"Look at your map!"

"Oh! Yes. Okay. Well, how's this: I'll cross with you, and then we'll say bye."

"Okay."

So they did.

"Can't you walk to my house with me?" Sherlock asked as they crossed, his hand held tight in John's.

It was so tempting—but he couldn't give Sherlock the option of watching him after they got to that point. This way he could just go a bit out of the way, dawdle a few streets down, and then turn and take the same path as Sherlock. "Afraid not. I'm going the opposite way and I need to get back home too."

"Okay."

When they reached the other side, John let go of Sherlock's hand. "Good luck with the mouse experiment," he said. "Be safe on your way home. Yell as loud as you can if something happens to you." He would stay close enough that he could hear—just in case.

"Okay."

"Bye," John turned around so that his back was toward Sherlock.

Sherlock didn't answer. John was afraid to look back, so he marched dutifully in the direction opposite Sherlock's home. He could do this. It wasn't as if he wouldn't see Sherlock again. But this was—special. And he hoped he had done the right thing, struck just the right balance between getting his reassurance across to Sherlock while not being too memorable. He was a pretty generic bloke. A young Sherlock wouldn't have piercing eyes to look back on, or some kind of majestic aura to remember him by. He didn't even have an interesting psychosomatic limp, right now. They'd had an interesting conversation, and maybe Sherlock would remember that, remember telling some stranger about his experiments and deductions and leading him in circles for half an hour before drawing him a map, but he wouldn't remember that John was that person, not in enough detail to recognize him ten years later when he gave those bullies a talking-to, and certainly not in enough detail to influence the direction of their meeting in twenty-five years.

John turned back to face Sherlock, but Sherlock was already walking home, brisk purposefulness to his step. "Okay," John mouthed to himself, squaring his shoulders and continuing on his way.

He startled at the sight of a woman crossing the street in front of him, and chastised himself for being so jumpy. She was probably just out taking a walk, too. She wasn't about to report John for traipsing about this tiny corner of London with a small child before sending him to walk the (admittedly short) distance home all alone. "Calm down," he muttered to himself. The woman glanced over her shoulder, dark curls bouncing as her head shifted. John smiled politely. She smiled back. Okay, okay. Now just walk around a bit, make sure Sherlock can't see you, and get back to the machine and get some rest. He would pull out his laptop tonight and use it to recharge his phone, and from there, the time machine; he guessed even then the laptop would still have some battery left. He could use his mobile as an alarm to be sure he got up to investigate at a reasonable hour. He'd do it at night, if he weren't so damned tired…and, of course, in the daytime it was a lot easier to pretend you belonged someplace. At the next corner, John turned to go at a right angle to the woman in front of him, and she didn't follow. Okay. Good.

He took it from the relative silence on the way back that Sherlock made it home safely, and John probably got to the time machine some twenty minutes after Sherlock got home, having taken a roundabout way so that he wouldn't come into view of the house's windows. By the time he got to the time machine, it was completely dark out. John had spent his walk trying to commit his entire conversation with Sherlock to memory, trying to steep his mind in it until it was permanent, until it stained his mind like rings in teacups. When he arrived, the machine was safe and sound.

And there was water sitting out.

Huh.