At six that evening, John and Molly returned to the hospital with Charlie in tow. The first person they came across was Mycroft, loitering outside near the nurse's station.
"Why haven't you gone home?" John demanded anxiously, quickening his step. "What, is he worse?"
"I've been home," Mycroft said drily; seconds later, John realised he was wearing a different suit than the night before. "Well, I've been to the apartment." Linwood was too far out of London to be a practical base when Mycroft was working; there was a swank penthouse in the city he used for this purpose, though John had never seen it and wasn't sure exactly where it was. "I was there for most of the day, and only came back an hour ago so that Detective Inspector Lestrade could go home."
"That's very obliging of you," John remarked, unsure himself whether he was being snarky or serious. "And Sherlock…?"
"Still on nil-by-mouth and in a lot of pain, but Dr. Grantham tells me that he's recovering as well as expected… and how terribly rude of me. It's good to see you again, Molly," he said, as pleasantly as he was capable of. John smiled to himself. The jab about "Mrs. Watson" the night before had obviously made an impression, but Mycroft sounded deeply uncomfortable addressing Molly by her first name.
"Hello," she responded brightly.
"And so this is young Charlotte, then?" Molly had Charlie in her arms.
"Yes - oh, have you never met her before?"
"I don't believe I have."
"Oh, well, you're lucky she's in such a good mood right now." Molly smiled. "She's not always."
"So I've heard. She's a lot like her father, and perhaps in more than looks." Mycroft glanced at John.
"Yes," Molly agreed contentedly. "Yes, she is. Maybe you'd like to hold her for a bit…?"
John braced himself, waiting for the expected no-no-no reaction and hoping Molly was rested and happy enough to not take it personally. He knew that a few of Sherlock's protests over holding Charlie had hurt her feelings. But Mycroft shrugged. "Certainly."
Certainly?
Well, he had said the night before that he'd once contemplated having children himself, John conceded, watching Molly hand Charlie over and hoping finding herself in the arms of a stranger wouldn't provoke a screaming meltdown on Charlie's part. She'd already reacted as such to Melissa three times and counting in the seven short weeks she'd been alive.
No screaming. From anyone. Excellent. Now if Charlie could desist in spitting up breastmilk all over Mycroft's expensive three-piece suit, all could be called a success. John put his hand on Molly's shoulder for a second.
"Just going in to see Sherlock," he murmured to her, leaving them in the corridor and tapping on the open door of Sherlock's hospital room before entering. Sherlock lay propped up against his pillows, looking a little absently out the window at the darkening sky beyond.
"Hi," John said carefully. "How're you feeling?"
"Hayfeverish." Sherlock sounded slightly hoarse and extremely cross. John ignored the attitude. Sherlock had never suffered from hayfever, but there was an enormous floral bouquet sitting on his nightstand.
"Mrs. Hudson's been in, I see," he said with a straight face. "Cheer up. The faster you get better, the faster you can accidentally break the vase and throw them out."
"It doesn't seem like a process I can hasten." Sherlock was still looking out the window, and John frowned.
"Well, you can help it along," he said. "It probably won't feel as long as you think it will. And today's the hardest day, so once you're through with it, you're on the way up again. Unless your notes have changed, you're slated for an easy liquid diet tomorrow…" He looked up just as Mrs. Hudson herself came back in with a jug of water for the flowers.
"John, how lovely to see you," she said. "Did you bring...?"
John was never going to allow Mrs. Hudson to be "burdened" with too much of his daughter's company, but that had never stopped her from trying.
"Oh, yeah, they're both out there somewhere. I'll take that..." He took the jug from her and went over to water the flowers. "Sherlock's going to be able to eat something tomorrow. Do you think you could bring in soup for him?"
"Yes, of course," she agreed as Sherlock scowled, even though Mrs. Hudson's chicken and leek soup was a favourite of his. "It'll be nice to avoid the nasty hospital food, Sherlock, especially after what the nutritionist said this afternoon…"
John put the jug down on the bedside table. "What did the nutritionist say this afternoon?" he demanded. "And keep in mind, half the hospital already thinks we're in a civil partnership, so if you lie to me -"
"She said I'm underweight."
"I'm not surprised. And I don't think you're surprised, either. What else did she say?"
This time Sherlock paused, and John resisted the urge to nag him not to pick at the IV tape on his hand. "She wants me to gain three kilograms before I leave the hospital," he finally said.
John exchanged a concerned glance with Mrs Hudson. "Okay," he said. "Can't hurt. If she weighed you today, you're probably still a little under with dehydration. It shouldn't take you long to put the weight on if you actually, you know, eat."
"And thus you see the difficulty." Sherlock tried to sit up a little more, wincing. "It's unfair to tell me to put on weight... and then forbid me to eat today..."
"Well, what's been your excuse for these past six months, Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson scolded as John went over to help Sherlock raise the bed a little. "A grown man like you, and you can't even tell somebody when you're feeling poorly, or feed yourself without someone watching to make sure you do it. Sometimes I wonder if it might be better if you moved back in with your brother after all, so he can keep an eye on you."
"You'd miss me," Sherlock reminded her, sinking back against his pillows again and exhaling.
"I certainly wouldn't miss cleaning the upstairs flat, young man. The mess you made, it was quite - and oh, here's my favourite girl..." Mrs. Hudson suddenly chirped. Mycroft and Molly had just appeared in the doorway, and she hurried over to take Charlie out of her mother's arms. "Come on, you dear little thing, come over and say hello to your poor Uncle Sherlock..."
"I can't hold her, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock announced, sounding pleased that he finally had a legitimate excuse for it. "John, anything new on the case...?"
John blinked. "I wouldn't have a clue," he said. "I've had better things to worry about than Edwin Bartlett."
Sherlock huffed in clear disagreement. "There's something I've missed... something big. But every time…" He trailed off, putting his fingers on one temple. "I lose it. And it's driving me mad."
John decided not to tell him that it was probably the morphine. The last thing Sherlock needed was to refuse pain medication in order to sharpen his intellect. He looked at Mrs. Hudson again.
"You know," he said, "you could bring in some ice cream tomorrow. I'm sure that'd go down a lot better than watery hospital souffle."
"I don't want ice cream," Sherlock growled. "I want to go home."
After returning home from the hospital, Lestrade had crashed in bed for an hour and a half; a marathon nap for a man who rarely slept during the day. Not even the knowledge that Dyer was downstairs with Hayley helped to ward off such a heavy sleep. He was woken again by his phone ringing. After a bleary-eyed scrabble on the bedside table, he picked it up and tried to answer as energetically as possible.
"Hi, it's me." Sherlock's tones were unmistakable.
"Jesus Christ, Sherlock, you're supposed to be resting, not yapping on the phone."
"You need to interview the doctor, Ralph Inglis," Sherlock said, as if he hadn't heard Lestrade's comment. He sounded a little weak, but no doubt his mind was beginning to churn again.
"Yeah, we are." Lestrade sat up with effort. "Tomorrow. We've got an appointment with him for -"
"Move it forward. There are questions we need answers to as fast as possible, Lestrade..."
Lestrade picked up his watch and peered at it. It was just after six-thirty.
"I can't haul him in this late in the day," he said. "Not unless I start with something like 'you are under arrest.' We have him in first thing tomorrow morning, so unless you think he's likely to do a bunk or kill someone, it'll have to do. Anyway, what questions?"
"Have you got a pen?"
"Yeah, give me a second." Lestrade got up and started searching in the bedside drawer for notepaper. "You owe me for this one, Holmes. You really do."
"Yes, fine," Sherlock said. "Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Are you writing this down now?"
"No, because you haven't told me what to write yet, smart-arse."
There was a slight pause on the line, as if Sherlock was taking in Lestrade's response and appreciating it. "Okay," he said. "Write this down exactly as I say it, then read it back again exactly as you've written it…"
~~oo~~oo~~oo~~
"Poor sod," was John's commentary on the situation. It was later that night; he'd not long before left the hospital for the second time that day. Sherlock had tried to continue his way through the case with him, but had been forced to give in to fatigue and pain. His morphine had been upped slightly before John had left him. This in itself was not a real cause for concern, but it indicated even further that Sherlock's chances of leaving the hospital before a week was out were slim.
"But he's being well cared for, isn't he?" Molly ventured. They were sitting on the sofa, and she was curled up into his side, Casper dozing on her lap. The television was on, but neither of them had been paying much attention to it. On the mantelpiece, the baby monitor faithfully sent through Charlie's placid cooing to herself.
"Oh, yeah, of course. Mycroft wouldn't have it any other way. But I don't think he understands just how sick he is, and he hates hospitals."
"Everyone hates hospitals."
"Yeah, but it's a close call who hates being a patient more, him or me," John said.
Molly winced. She had unpleasant memories of just how much John hated being a patient, anyway. "Well, if he needs to be there…"
"Yeah, that's what I keep telling him. He actually had a bit of a point about recovering quicker at home, but there's no way he'd cope with pain levels like that at home. Anyway, they're still on the lookout for peritonitis."
He made an impatient movement, and Molly nestled further into him in support. She knew that he was still on the lookout for peritonitis, regardless of what Sherlock's treating doctor thought. "Has he been out of bed yet?" she asked, teasing Casper by rubbing his pink nose.
"Not yet. That's first thing tomorrow." John grimaced. "And I can tell that it's going to be fun. I'm going to try to be there with him for that. The last thing he needs is to make another nurse cry."
"Another one…?"
"Oh, didn't you hear about that? That was this afternoon's work. All she was trying to do was get a second IV line set up when the first one collapsed. There was no need to tell her that her boyfriend was cheating on her with her aunt -"
He looked up as his mobile started to ring from the kitchen bench. Molly sat up and let him get up to answer it.
"Sherlock," he said by way of an answer. "Everything okay?"
Molly picked up the remote control and turned the television to mute.
"Yeah... okay, so... oh come on, it's not the end of the world... no, it isn't. I know it's not glamorous, but it's supposed to happen… what about him?"
He paused, listening down the line.
"Hang on, hang on. Let me write this down…" He fumbled at the kitchen counter for a pen and started scribbling on the back of an electricity bill. "Mm… yep… okay, yes, I've written it down exactly, Sherlock. I'll let Molly know… Do you seriously need this information tonight? It's half-past nine… so we can't call anyone to babysit this late, that's 'so what'… no, what you're asking for is almost an actual autopsy, and one person couldn't in a million years…" He covered his eyes with his hand for a second. "Sherlock, I'm serious. Does this absolutely need to be done tonight?"
Molly waited.
"I will consult with the better half," John said long-sufferingly. "If she says no, then the answer is no."
~~oo~~oo~~oo~~
"I can't believe we're doing this," Molly whispered. She and John had just made it to the end of the shadowy hospital corridor and she stood looking around nervously, as if expecting to be 'caught out' at her own place of work. "What if -"
"Oh, it'll be fine." John fumbled with the keys to unlock the morgue door. "You're the one who agreed to it, even if it was to shut Sherlock up. And anyway, we're allowed to be here."
"It's not us I'm worried about..."
"Mum used to take Harry and me to work with her all the time when we were little, and we turned out okay."
"Your mother was a librarian."
"That's not the point." John held the door open so that Molly, with Charlie strapped to her chest, could go through first and turn the lights on. The morgue was almost Molly's second home, so it was quicker and easier to just let her handle most of this than make too many clumsy, misguided attempts to "help" her. He had Charlie's wicker carry-basket in one arm; once the lights were on he looked around.
"Over here okay?" he asked, pointing to a spot on the floor.
"I suppose that's as good enough place as any. I don't like her being on the floor, but I know what sorts of things people put on the counters in here..." Molly unstrapped Charlie while John fussed with the blankets in the basket; finally she laid her down among them. "There we go," she cooed, playfully jiggling her foot for a second. "Good girl. Now you sit quietly for Mummy and Daddy while we work, okay?"
The response was a serious, thoughtful stare. Charlie still wasn't smiling for Mummy.
"Which one is he?" John was looking at the shining wall of refrigerated storage drawers.
"2D." Molly checked her paperwork. "Dead three days... no wonder Sherlock wanted this done tonight, even if he's been in storage."
John winced. He was thinking about Bartlett's tapeworm infestation.
"And the full autopsy's already been done?" Molly continued.
"Yes. Sherlock just wants us to take a second look at his mouth, oesophagus and trachea."
"And stomach contents, according to this…" She flipped the page on her clipboard. "But they've already been removed, so there should be no real reason for us to disturb the main abdominal cavity at all."
"I'll take what we can get…" John had located the right drawer; he gently tugged at it, then moved the tarp aside slightly and checked the toe-tag on the corpse within. "Yep. This one's him." He started to pull the drawer out. "Right, well, let's get this over with. I'd like to be home before midnight, if that's possible."
"Not likely, sorry. You scrub in, I'll prep him." Molly had already donned her lab coat and was washing her hands. "I still feel awful that we've got our daughter lying on the morgue floor, John."
"She won't even remember it… and it'll be a great story to tell her one day. Look at her, she's fine. I guess if we keep talking..." John gave a soft, high whistle. "Char-lie," he said in a sing-song voice. "We're still here... won't be long. We just have to make a quick incision -"
"John, don't talk her through it!"