(A/N: Thanks to incredible inspiration and complicating factors on other fronts, you can thank the fan fiction gods for chapter 15 arriving so soon! PLEASE leave reviews, I beg of you. I have one wonderful and regular reviewer (Thank you, Niflheim89!) but would love to hear from the other amazing readers following and favoriting this story! You're all awesome! Thanks so much for taking the time to read my work! BTW, I'm considering a second part to this visit with Sherlock's parents. Do you guys want another chapter with them? Let me know. Thanks!)

Chapter 15 – Tea and Biscuits

My darling love's best friend clearly had more money than necessary by any standards and could likely use crumpled fifty-pound notes to light any one of the three fireplaces in his penthouse flat. However, Lucas was also damned generous to a bloody fault, and because of these things, lent us a car for the three-hour drive to my parents' house in Denby Dale, West Yorkshire. And not just any car, a posh new cherry-red convertible Jag.

Oh, the despicable things that man did to torture me.

"Only another fifteen minutes from here," I announced, taking the exit off M1, and Victoria shut off the music in the car, though she had kept the volume down during most of the drive since we'd been talking about various and sundry topics to pass the time.

"What's it like, the house you grew up in?"

I'd already told her my parents moved into the house in Denby Dale shortly after Mycroft was born, and I came along seven years later to spend the entirety of my childhood there. "It's just a quaint cottage, nothing extraordinary by any means, but all the memories I have as a child exist in that house, and I can't picture Mummy and Dad living anywhere else."

"I can understand that. My parents sold the house I grew up in and moved upstate right outside Poughkeepsie almost six years ago. Lucas wanted to buy it just to stop me from freaking out. Aaron and I were both furious, not that we could stop them, and not that they didn't have good reasons, but I was born in that house. Literally. My mom had a home birth because she was into all that homeopathic stuff like a leftover hippie. And Aaron basically didn't know any other home as a kid. So yeah, I get it."

She rested her hand on my thigh and leaned her head on my shoulder, and when I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw her eyes were closed as she smiled peacefully, looking as content as I felt when we were together.

"I haven't seen them in a while, not since shortly after I returned from my 'life sabbatical'…" She laughed at my attempt at a joke. John still found nothing amusing about it, but I was thankful Victoria humored me. "It wasn't a nice visit. I made no effort to converse, and when John turned up, I hurried them out the door without explanation or anything in the way of pleasantries to bid them farewell."

"They'll forgive you. I'm sure they had before you'd completely shut the door. They're your parents, and from you've told me about them, they sound lovely."

"That doesn't change the fact I feel guilty about doing so, and I never felt guilty in the past." Excitement and nerves grew into giant butterflies in my stomach as I turned onto my parents' lane.

"Yes, well, the Sherlock you are now, and the Sherlock you were in the past aren't necessarily the same. Experiences affect people, change them. Everything you've gone through since Moriarty has affected you, and you're different now that you've allowed that to be part of you rather than trying to hide it." She kissed my cheek, and I parked the car, turning to kiss her on the lips. "Now you're my Sherlock, and I love you. Of course, you've always been your parents' Sherlock, and they love you no matter what."

"Sherlock!" Mummy was already at the door, waving excitedly. "Oh my! Siger, they're here. Come on now," she called into the house, seeking out my dad.

"Are you ready to meet the first Mrs. Holmes?" I felt as anxious as a schoolboy.

"The first?"

Biting my lip for a moment, I smiled rather shyly. "Well, I'm certainly hoping you'll soon be the next." Quickly, I pecked her on the cheek then hopped out of the car with a wink and ran around to open her door, knowing Mummy would have my head if I didn't mind my gentlemanly manners. "My lady."

When I reached out my hand, she took it with a wide smile, and I pulled her right into my arms, hugging her tightly, hearing my parents sounding off with their sentimental commentary nearby. I didn't mind all that much if they watched. With forty-odd years of marriage and children together, no one could better understand my happiness than my parents could.

With Victoria's hand in mine, I led her to greet my parents, more boyish nerves and excitement flowing through me than I could recall in my life. "Mummy, Dad… this is Victoria Rose Taylor, my girlfriend," I introduce her, slipping an arm around her shoulders.

Victoria nodded politely. "It's wonderful to meet you both."

I'd carefully not mentioned anything about her when I'd called to say I was coming for a visit, wanting to surprise them, and for a moment, surprise registered greater than any other emotion I could read in their expressions. Then surprise melted into joy unadulterated by judgment or misconceptions of me, the sort of joy and pride in my accomplishments only they ever displayed.

Mummy squeezed me in a bear-like hug, voice thick and wavering. "Oh, Sherlock, why didn't you tell us such a lovely young woman would be joining you?" Turning to Victoria, the two most important women in my life exchanged bright smiles before my mum enveloped her in a hug much the same as she had me. "You, dear, are lovely, just lovely. My, my, we have so much to catch up on apparently. Come inside. I'll put on tea."

Dad shook my hand and patted Victoria on the back, quietly welcoming her, allowing Mummy to run the show, as always. The Holmes family was an absolute matriarchy, whether she was outnumbered three to one or not.

"Should I have Siger prepare the guest room, or is that necessary," Mummy asked, flitting around the kitchen, preparing tea and biscuits. "Seeing the two of you together when you arrived, I'm venturing a guess it probably isn't."

I glanced at Victoria, who was simply grinning, while my face was warming with a noticeable blush no doubt. "Um, well… There's something I should… hm, maybe… uh…"

"What he's trying to say is that he asked me to move in with him, and I did, yesterday actually. So you're right. Separate rooms won't be necessary. Thank you for asking though."

Mummy gave a little smirk while continuing to arrange biscuits on a plate. "I always told my husband that if Sherlock ever did date, we wouldn't see a parade of girlfriends through here. He'd be decisive about it the way he is with everything else, find the right one, and that would be that." The kettle whistled, and she went on about preparing tea. "So, Victoria, you're American, a New Yorker from the sound of it. Under what circumstances did you come to live here? Education? Career?"

"Yes, Queens specifically." She took the offered with a 'thank you,' seeming unbothered by the barrage of questions. Dad and I exchanged a knowing glance. If Mummy didn't already like Victoria, she'd receive the silent treatment, or at best, polite disinterest. Questions were a wonderful sign and on par with the reaction I'd expected. "Education brought me here. Career kept me. I did my graduate training at Cambridge, and now I'm a professor of psychology at Regent's doing research work between teaching classes."

"Research?" Taking a seat to join us at the table, my mum was fully engaged on the topic, and I couldn't have been happier for it. "Do you have a particular field of expertise, anything you're working on at the moment?"

"Personality psychology is my biggest interest and where I focused my studies. At the moment, I'm doing a study of the Stroop Effect and the correlation of personality types to scores, using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. I can't say too much since Sherlock is participating as a test subject. He's taken the MBTI already, but I haven't administered the Stroop test yet."

"Yes. My personality traits tested as INTP: introversion, intuition, thinking, perceiving, though I already knew that about myself without the test. Victoria simply proved I was right," I remarked with a smirk.

"And he does like to be proved right," she commented innocently, and Dad snickered at the remark. "But it'll be interesting to score him on the Stroop test and see if attributes like thinking and perceiving correlate into lessened interference in reaction times. In the first round, subjects are timed while reading a series of color words printed in the matching color, the word 'red' in red ink. Then they do it again, asked to read the color of the word when the ink may be red, but the word actually says 'purple'."

Mummy smiled appreciatively. "That certainly does sound interesting."

"Hm. Quite fascinating." Dad nodded from his chair, the same content smile present that spread across his face the moment he saw us outside.

"Sherlock has always been so smart, so curious about the world around him that you're exactly the type of woman I'd expect him to bring home, one with a strong mind and intellectual curiosity to boot. Dare we expect wedding bells and grandbabies on the horizon?"

I took Victoria's hand in mine, receiving a smile and nod of permission before I spoke. "Yes. I have yet to officially propose or give her a ring, but to say we're merely dating or describe each other as boyfriend and girlfriend definitely lacks the necessary effect to encompass the level of commitment in our relationship."

Tears glistened in my mum's eyes, but her expression exclaimed joy, absolute delight. "Why, Sherlock, I do believe that's the most sentimental thing I've ever heard you say."

I laughed. "To be honest, I was quite glad of the opportunity to bring Victoria here to meet you this weekend. I can say without reservation that she is the love of my life, and I want … no, I need her to feel accepted by my parents." With a wide grin, I added, "Now that is the most sentimental thing you've ever heard me say."

Dad leaned closer to the table, resting his arms on it, eyeing me then Victoria. "Well, if you can get poetic confessions of love like that out of my son, you have my vote."

"My dear," Mummy said, patting Victoria's arm, "you had my vote the moment I saw the way my Sherlock looks at you. Now, once an engagement is official, will it be a long one, because I think an autumn wedding would be quite lovely."

Grinning, though I could tell she was trying not to smirk, Victoria took a sip of tea before calmly replying, "We haven't discussed the details, but I'd say it'll be a very short engagement."

I bit my lip, remaining thoughtful rather than vocal on the subject. Perhaps in a month we would know if we needed to plan a wedding date to suit the impending arrival of our first child, and I knew my mother would be thrilled, but I didn't want to give her false hope. I held enough hope for us both, enough for everyone.