Hello again!

As promised, another chapter.

Not a long one, but sets the tone for the next chapter. :)

Chapter 5, In Which Love Takes a Turn

John and Sherlock needed Sarah Jane to break through a firewall. The hard part was going to be preventing Jo from finding out that's what she was doing. John was against asking a seven-year-old to do something illegal, but after Sherlock had begun listing, in dispassionate detail, the crimes of the man behind the firewall, John had agreed that perhaps it was for the best. Josephine would still never allow it, hence the need for trickery. Sherlock wasn't worried; trickery was one of his skill sets.

Just as he had memorized John and Molly's work schedules, Sherlock had memorized Josephine's as well. He knew that on the first and third Tuesdays of every month, Sarah Jane took the tube to the station nearest St. Brides after school and walked a block to the library, where she joined Josephine for the four remaining hours of her shift in the children's section. That's precisely where they found Sarah Jane and Josephine the first Tuesday in September.

Sarah Jane was at a desk, books piled around her, writing every now and then in a notebook. She was a pretty little picture, and Sherlock knew she'd help him break that firewall in seconds, but it was Josephine Sherlock had to look out for. He scouted through shelves, John close behind him, until he spotted her talking to a young boy with an unruly mop of blonde hair and a face full of freckles. Sherlock paused behind a shelf, out of their line of sight, listening for the opportune moment to surprise Josephine with his well-reasoned, slightly falsified request for Sarah Jane's help.

"So what did you think of Peter Pan, Charlie?"

The boy wrinkled his nose and didn't quite meet Jo's eyes. "It was nice."

Josephine laughed gently. "Charlie, you don't have to lie to me…if you didn't like it, just say so!"

Charlie sighed audibly. "Well, I liked the Lost Boys, and I liked the pirates…but Captain Hook was a…a…complete clot! He wasn't a fun pirate at all. I wanted a fun pirate."

Josephine's smile was heard more than seen. "Naturally. You want a clever pirate, and there's none cleverer than the pirate in Treasure Island. I won't tell you who it is, though – that'd ruin the story. And I'll get you a biography on a real pirate, too – who sounds more fierce to you –Blackbeard or Calico Jack? I'll get it from the adult section. You can handle that, right?"

As the boy nodded furiously, a smile lighting his eyes, Sherlock closed his own, swallowed, and fought a memory that was rising like a painful bubble from the center of his chest. He'd deleted this memory from his mind palace – he'd deleted it, so why – why was it coming back now? Why?

Sherlock is five years old. He's in the children's section of – something – memorial library (he did try to delete this memory – there are bits and pieces missing), and he's frowning at the titles in front of him. He's just returned Peter Pan, and it was not as good as he'd hoped. He'd wanted a book with REAL pirates, and Mrs. Rush had given him Peter Pan.

Someone walked up behind him – a librarian, but not Mrs. Rush. This was a different woman. Younger. Probably working her way through uni. She smelled like book dust and chocolate biscuits.

"Can I help you?"

"I don't think so."

"What are you looking for?"

"A book with pirates."

"Have you tried Peter Pan?"

Sherlock sighed and frowned.

"Ah, didn't like it then? What didn't you like?"

Sherlock's frown lessened a bit. Usually, people asked you what you DID like about a book. This was different. "Captain Hook. He was a coward, and stupid besides."

He could hear the smile in the librarian's voice beside him. "So naturally, you want a book with a clever pirate. Have you ever heard of "Treasure Island"?"

Sherlock smiled. "Yes. My brother says I'm too stupid to understand it, though. I think he's wrong."

"How old are you?"

Sherlock felt his heart sink a little. "Five."

"Well, any five year old who can read Peter Pan and think Captain Hook is a big girl's blouse can handle Treasure Island. How about I get a biography on a real pirate, too?"

Sherlock smiled. He was going to visit this librarian more often.

In the span of seconds, more memories of visits with this librarian popped up, half-deleted, with bits and pieces missing, and he never saw her face in them – he had deleted that quite soundly - but it's enough to remind him that he cared about this librarian, and when she left after she'd graduated it hurt. But there was something – something –

And now he's being pulled, dragged, by an invisible force through the hallways and maze of his mind palace, and he stops at room that is covered in dust and has been carefully barricaded and tucked away. The doors blow open and his heart is thudding heavily in his chest as he enters, and the room is full of filing cabinets and toys and reminders of that time from his childhood when emotions controlled him, and they were too extreme, too different – and the difference was painful – the extreme joy and happiness of being clever, and having the cleverest dog that ever was, and having a librarian that knows you're clever and treats you like it, contrasted with the utter sorrow and despair of losing your favorite librarian and your best friend, your dog, and your brother thinks you're an idiot and it's so painful Sherlock turns to go, to run away. But every filing cabinet bursts open at the same time, and he is trapped in a gale of paper and memories, and then he remembers that he's Sherlock Bloody Holmes and HE'S in charge of this and he takes a deep breath and stops all of this nonsense.

Immediately, the papers drop to the floor. Except one, which flutters gracefully into his open palms. It's a photograph. It's a woman with long, wavy, strawberry blonde hair, and blue eyes that are always smiling (Josephine's eyes are always smiling) and she has round cheeks and a thin nose that turns up just a bit at the end (Sarah Jane's nose turns up at the end) and he knows who it is, but he still turns the photo over and there is her name – his librarian – Evelyn Burlingame.

Sherlock opened his eyes. His face was stoic and statue-esque, but his eyes were narrowed and he breathed through his nose. The craftiness was gone from his eyes, and to anyone else, he'd have looked no different than he did ten seconds ago. John Watson, however, was not anyone else. He was Sherlock's best friend, and he noticed immediately that something was off.

"Sherlock?" John asked, looking anxiously between Josephine and his best friend. "What's wrong?"

Sherlock turned on his heel, turned his coat collar up, and strode out of the library with all the purpose of a general at war. John stared at his back for a moment, before glancing back at Josephine, Sarah, and the young boy in confusion. He sighed, and went after his friend.

It had taken Sherlock two days of perfect stillness in his armchair at Baker Street, sifting through memories and facts in his mind palace to work his brain around the fact that Ian, Josephine, and Sarah Jane were the three children of his favorite childhood librarian. And this changed things. He wasn't sure he could explain exactly how, but it did. He couldn't…dislike them, or pretend indifference to them, now that he saw how similar they were to someone he loved when he was a boy. And he saw the similarities, now that he was looking for them. In Josephine's baking, in her round cheeks and smiling eyes and in that steel will and iron self-control, and in her ability to acknowledge that children were children but still treat them like little adults. In Sarah Jane's little nose and in her methodical, careful way of doing things, and in her wavy blonde hair. In Ian's wide smile and loud laugh and in his silliness – although, Evelyn was only silly when she thought no one important was watching. Ian was always ridiculous.

Sherlock had admitted he cared for – loved – Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, John, Mary, and Molly. He had vowed to protect John, Mary, and Baby Watson. He could not care for anyone else. It was dangerous, impractical, and impossible. He could not see the Conners again until he was sure he did not care about them.

But he could look into their parents deaths.

Ooooh, a bit of a teaser for the next chapter! :)

I've seen His Last Vow, so stop reading if you don't want some minor spoilers. I'm doing some calculating in my head...in my head, my thought is that after the springish/summery wedding, Sherlock and John meet the Conners. They spend the summer getting to know them, on and off on a few light cases, and then September is when Lady Smallwood arrives, asking Sherlock to take the case with Magnusson. Will there be a connection between Magnusson and Robert and Evelyn Conners' deaths? There's a lot of reasons to hate him, maybe I'll add one more. :)