(A/N: Sorry for the long wait on another update. I've just had a lot going on, but I appreciate you following along and sticking with me. As always, reviews make my day and inspire me to keep at it! Thanks so much for reading and supporting the work I put into this story!)
Chapter 21 – Along the Way
The week with Aaron had been interesting to say the least, but he'd kept good to his word on doing everything possible to help Victoria, and that Thursday found me suffering intense anxiety for entirely new reasons than worrying over her well-being.
I'd only met Victoria's parents via Skype once. She wasn't as close to them as to Aaron and didn't keep in contact with anything near the same frequency. However, they were still her parents, and she was their only daughter, only child in truth. They would not miss her wedding, no matter how small an event we had chosen to make it.
And we had opted to make it quite small. After lecturing me on how technically, a wedding held in our parents' garden wouldn't be legally binding by English law, Mycroft later called to inform me he'd 'taken care of the minor legality' and that our parents' property held a place on the list of licensed venues as a 'stately home' in part due to some historical significance of the land but mostly because my brother is the British government, ever providing evidence against his own claims to the falsehood of that statement. So it stood that the ceremony would be held under the oak tree with a mere fourteen guests in attendance, Victoria and me.
My anxiety that Thursday derived itself solely from the situation I found myself during the caravanning of twelve of us from London to Denby Dale after Dr. and Mrs. Taylor arrived that morning. It seemed like such a good idea, Lucas generously providing three spacious Land Rovers for everyone… until the decision was made how the twelve of us would divide among said Land Rovers.
Victoria wanted to spend the time with her mother and Mary talking matters of the wedding and babies, and Mrs. Hudson quickly volunteered to be the fourth person in their car. Greg knew Molly and Sally (who Victoria insisted be invited) well enough to want to spend the long ride with them then asked John to join them as well.
And that's when I realized I would be alone in a car for nearly three hours with Victoria's father, Victoria's older brother, and Victoria's male best friend of twelve years. Victoria, the woman I would marry come Sunday, the woman carrying my children. Victoria, their daughter, sister, and best friend whom I'd impregnated and proposed to within a month of meeting. When explained in that way, nothing about the drive sounded as if it had a good outcome for me.
The venture began in silence, Lucas driving, Dr. Taylor in the passenger seat, Aaron behind him, and me trying to be invisible if at all possible, avoiding awkward conversation. However, it didn't take long before I ran out of luck.
"So, Andrew, how did you enjoy your first year of retirement?" Lucas asked Dr. Taylor, making me painfully aware how deeply rooted his personal relationship with Victoria went.
Aaron tapped me on the arm and nodded to the front. "Dad made the big leap from philosophy prof to rose gardener last year with a side job of being all up in Mom's business."
"Boys, I'd imagine Sherlock isn't terribly interested in my newfound hobbies, but I'm quite keen on hearing more about the young man about to marry my little girl." He looked back at me with a pleasant smile and eyes warning of thin ice. "What exactly is it that you do? Lucas tells me the past few years you've been entangled in one of the biggest scandals in England, were reportedly involved in life threatening dealings while working with New Scotland Yard, faked your death, and completely disappeared for two years, only recently popping back up as if nothing happened, picking right up where you left off. Tell me, Mr. Holmes, should I be concerned regarding the future you have in store for my daughter and grandchildren?"
I felt Lucas's piercing eyes on me through the rearview mirror and Aaron's demeanor seemed decidedly less friendly. Although the three of us had been getting on quite well, clearly, they were waiting for Victoria's father to swoop in with the difficult questions and the hard facts we all knew.
"Everything Lucas told you of me is quite true. My reputation was utterly destroyed in scandalous claims of absolute rubbish; however, it has since been set to rights, such false reports and defamations of my character and reputation publicly rescinded, all good faith and professional respects restored." At least I told myself the matter was behind me, and certainly the public image portrayed since my return appeared positive to date. "I cannot deny the positions of danger in which I have put myself while investigating cases, but I can say that in the past, I held no responsibilities to anyone other than myself and; therefore, deemed the impact of my death as one of minor consequence. Indeed, I did fake my own death, went away to places unknown to anyone who considered me a friend, and recently returned with the expectation those same friends would accept me back without question."
Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I steeled my resolve to continue making my case. "Yet I did not 'pick right up where I left off' by any means, for if that were true, we would not be having this conversation, and I would be either sitting alone in my flat or out solving a case without the slightest interest in sentiment, romance, love, marriage, or children. Yes, the man I was prior to meeting Victoria was unemotional, distant, selfish, and often immature and irresponsible, but while I was away those two years, I had a great deal of time alone, time to reflect, time to determine if the sum of the man I was measured up to the man I wanted to be, and I knew I fell short."
"The moment I met her, she changed the course of my life, though I didn't quite see and wouldn't admit it for a few days. Nothing I've done in my past gives me a sense that I've earned a love like Victoria's, but every day, I try to be the man I want to be, the man who does deserve it. So to answer your question, Dr. Taylor, no, you should not be concerned. While no man can place a guarantee on what the future may hold, I do promise that Victoria and our children are, and always will be, first in my life, taking priority above all else."
Dr. Taylor turned back to me, a much wider smile on his face and less serious eyes. "That's more or less what Victoria said about you, but I wanted to see if you had the brass balls to say it to me yourself. … Welcome to the family, son. Just call me Andrew, no need to be so formal."
Bloody hell. I leaned back against the seat, taking calming breaths, feeling my heart still thudding in my chest while Lucas and Aaron fell into a fit of laughter.
Thankfully, any further inquisition during the remainder of the drive fell interspersed between conversations of current events, sports, hobbies, and work, but it did come.
"Not that I mind becoming an uncle, Shezza, but you sure knocked up my sister awfully fast. Gotta admit, seems a little sketchy." I swore I heard Lucas snort out a laugh when Aaron said that.
"Hm. Well, it may seem that way, but I'm thirty-six years old, not getting any younger, and have wasted my entire adult life committed to the belief that sentiment was for fools, so I do beg your pardon if I dismiss acceptable social protocols that, in my opinion, simply waste time." With a huff, I straightened my shirt collar, terribly annoyed by the particular subject in question. "Being likeminded individuals, Victoria and I found we were in agreement on the defining parameters of our relationship and took decisive action to progress with expedient forward momentum toward our relationship goals. To be honest, Victoria and I are two mature, consenting adults, and I don't see how anyone has the right to judge how we conduct our relationship in any aspect, so long as there is no negative impact upon either of us."
"She's pregnant with twins and more than a little moody, I'd say that aspect might have some negative impact coming your way, Sherlock," Andrew commented as he watched the scenery outside his window.
I had no argument for that point, and Lucas turned the topic to football for a while. … Until the subject inevitably returned to me. Any superpower allowing me to escape would have been a blessing. Never had I wished superpowers were real so much as I did in that moment.
"You know, Sherlock, I don't think you've ever mentioned where you went to uni."
Bollocks. Why did Lucas have to bring that up? I'd managed to be 'busy' every time he and Victoria talked about their days at Cambridge, her studies to earn a PhD in psychology and his for an Executive Masters in business administration. And I definitely did not want to discuss the topic while trapped in a car with her double Masters degreed brother and her Dartmouth/Cornell, Ivy League, doctorate elitist father.
But they were all waiting for a response.
"Cambridge."
Aaron laughed and teasingly punched me in the arm. "I knew it. I took you for an Oxbridge guy." I stiffened. "It's the suits. Every pic Little Red sends me, you're always in a suit. Totally Oxbridge. But with all the deductions and stuff, I was leaning toward Cambridge, better science program."
"Indeed. Mycroft opted to go the route of politics and economics at Oxford, but I preferred NatSci at Cambridge."
"A fellow Tab? That's fantastic! I can't believe you didn't tell us before." I was quite sure if we hadn't been in a car at the time, Lucas would have hugged me. "Really, that's fantastic, mate. So, not Dr. Holmes then I'm guessing you were getting your Masters about the same time I was, maybe a year ahead of me. Hell, we might've even run into each other on campus and not realized it."
"No, I highly doubt that." I could have left it alone at that, left them to their assumptions, but I didn't want something said to Victoria, something false. I didn't want lies between us. "I didn't stay that long. Uni and I didn't get on too well."
An all-consuming silence filled the car, suffocating me in its presence until Andrew finally spoke. "College isn't for everyone. My wife hated it. Evelyn's too free-spirited, and after two years, she'd had enough. She ended up learning aromatherapy, massage, and herbal medicine from a guy who'd spent his twenties backpacking through Europe then lived in a Tibetan monastery for twenty years. Somehow, she made a career of it. Her little shop in town's cute. Does pretty decent business too." He turned in his seat to face me, and the sun's angle softened his appearance, the light making his white hair almost glow and glinting off his wire-rimmed glasses. "We each forge our own path, Sherlock. The important thing is that you like who you are as you reach each destination along the way. Unless you'd honestly like yourself better with an alphabet soup of credentials behind your name then you made the right choice, and that's all that matters."
And I came to realize he was quite right. I'd only begun to doubt myself because it seemed most everyone in Victoria's life aside from me had an impressive education; however, she'd never requested my CV in order to qualify for a position in her life, and I had no doubt mine was an extraordinarily profound and unique intelligence unlikely to be found among the majority of highly educated people. The only credentials or titles I needed in order to feel professionally successful and personally satisfied were: World's Only Consulting Detective, husband, and father. … Well, those and friend.