"Look!" Jessica practically shrieked, pointing over Sherlock's shoulder into the park. "Ducks!" She scrambled back down to the pavement and had to be held onto to keep from running right into traffic to get at the waterfowl in the pond. When the lights changed, Sherlock and John - who had both grabbed onto her in a moment of panic - grasped her hands to walk her between them into the park for a small detour. They weren't all that hungry yet anyway. Several people - mostly older ladies - looked at the three of them and exchanged fond smiles with their own companions.
Once in the relatively safer confines of the park, Sherlock and John released her hands and Jessica streaked away to look at the ducks. They didn't go as close to the water, but kept a careful eye on her and occasionally called out to make sure she didn't lean too close. That was mostly Sherlock, actually, who twitched every time she reached out her fingers toward one of the birds.
There was a click to Sherlock's right, and he turned to see John snapping a photograph of him. "John!"
His husband grinned and tucked his phone away. "What? I don't think I've ever seen you so wound up before." He let out a low whistle and wrapped an arm around his waist. "So much for a sociopath."
Sherlock rolled his eyes but leaned into John. "I'm still a sociopath John, I assure you."
"Then what possessed you to let a homeless child follow you home?"
The corner of his mouth twitched almost painfully as Jessica reached out and nearly fell over. "Jessica, step back a bit, would you?" he called out before regaining his composure. "It was...nothing. I did it because I wanted to and that's that." He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, fighting the urge to run down to the water's edge and lift the girl until she was an acceptable distance away.
John eyed him carefully, pursing his lips. "Is it-...is it because she looks like you?" When Sherlock rounded on him in shock he shrank back slightly. "No, seriously. I mean children tend to gravitate toward adults who look more like them, and so perhaps it's like that for adults to children as well? She's the spit of you, except with darker eyes."
"Like yours," murmured Sherlock absently, then caught himself a moment too late. Oh good, now his face was hot with embarrassment. "I mean - no - that's not why. I didn't even look at her first."
He sighed quietly, knowing he would never live that down, and John continued speculating. "Well, I suppose even an automaton would feel sorry for such a skinny little thing," he reasoned casually.
"It wasn't because she was thin," Sherlock immediately argued, then bit his tongue again. "Would you stop prying? I took a child home and that's the end of it. You can call the damn CPS tomorrow if you want to; I won't bat an eyelash." He had to squint his eyes carefully and stare determinedly at Jessica for several moments before he would allow himself to look at John without worry.
John nodded and took his hand. "Alright. Jessica, come on back now!" With a resigned noise Jessica returned from her entertainment with the ducks, then pulled Sherlock's hand from his pocket to wrap it around hers.
They got fish and chips, as promised, and then because John forgot they stopped for a bottle of chocolate milk before bringing the food back to the flat.
"Mister Watson, are you in the army?"
John blinked and looked up from his chips. "Er, yes - or I mean I was. Did Sherlock tell you that?"
She shook her head. "No, I saw a picture in Mister Holems-"
"- Holmes -"
"Mister Holmes's room with all the cool stuff in it. Except that there's no bow ties or fezzes in there."
Sherlock nodded gravely. "I'll make certain to acquire a fez, and if you look very carefully there is a bow tie in there. Not now! After you eat something and finish your milk." Jessica sighed and took a long sip from her milk.
"Mister Watson, why did you marry Mister Howes?"
"It's Holmes," John laughed. "And I married him because I love him, of course."
Nodding solemnly, Jessica then turned to Sherlock. "Why don't you have the same last names if you're married?" she went on to ask, the curious little gosling.
Sherlock set aside his half-eaten meal and quirked an eyebrow at her. "John and I have both made reputations for ourselves with the names we had. He has patients - he's a doctor, you see - who know him as Watson and I have clients who know me as Holmes. If one of us were to change it would be confusing for several people, so we didn't bother."
"But don't you want people to know you're married?" asked Jessica, obviously very confused.
Exchanging rehearsed glances, John and Sherlock quietly decided who would answer this time around. "It doesn't matter what other people think, Jessica," said Sherlock seriously. "John and I know that we're married, and precisely how we feel for one another, so what other people think doesn't matter, does it?"
She considered this for a very long time, picking at her fingernails, which were in poor condition. "I guess that makes sense," she agreed at last. "Uncle Robby and Uncle Bruce love to tell people they're married."
"Why don't you live with your Uncle Robby and Uncle Bruce, Jess?" asked John, brows furrowed with concern.
Jessica shrugged and didn't speak until she gulped the four fat chips she'd stuck in her mouth. "They already got loads of kids."
Ah, there it was, then. Foster parents, most likely, as the adoption process could take years.
"Last Christmas we went to their house, and Daddy asked Uncle Robby if they were going to get anymore, and Uncle Robby said 'no way that another kid'll ever fit in here!' So I never asked."
Sherlock had to fight the urge to throw something, and could see that John felt the same way. Only seven years old and she felt extraneous in her own family.
"They must be very worried about you," John prompted. Sherlock already could see him itching for his mobile, wanting to set things to his version of rights, and took his hand to stop him, reminding him of his promise to call CPS the next day.
Shrugging and sticking a finger in her milk to fish out a bit of chip that she'd dropped in, Jessica didn't seem too bothered. "They were nice, but I only ever saw them at Christmas or when Daddy got sick."
Before John could ask Sherlock mouthed the word cancer to him, and he nodded understandingly.
"Mister Holmes, do you wanna see a picture of my TARDIS?"
He shot up his eyebrows in faux-disbelief. "You don't have a TARDIS."
Jessica nodded, beaming, and ran out to the foyer. She returned with one of her shoes, and peeled away the inner sole to pull out a crumpled and water-damaged photograph. She unfolded it very carefully and smoothed it out on Sherlock's knee. "See? Daddy painted my cabinet for me to look like the doors of the TARDIS! And on the inside it looked just like the inside!"
"The inside looked like the inside?" smirked Sherlock.
"Yeah!" nodded the girl without noting the redundancy. "That was after the Eleventh Doctor came on the show, but Daddy liked the Tenth better so he made it look like that one instead. I miss my room." She crouched on the floor until her nose was only a few inches away from the worn-out photo, rubbing one finger over the doors of a TARDIS long lost. "I wish I had a real TARDIS. Then I could find the Doctor and we could go back in time and then he could fix my Daddy."
Cautiously, Sherlock exchanged a glance with John - who looked utterly devastated - before smoothing a hand over Jessica's back. "I know you do," he said carefully. "But, well...if you had your own TARDIS you would have just run off with the Doctor to have adventures, and I'd be lost without an assistant like you here. Imagine the bubble experiment! That would have been rubbish without you!"
Jessica nodded slowly to herself without looking up. Then, in a higher voice, she asked, "Can we maybe do the bubble experiment again?"
He moved his hand from her back and ran it through her hair; she leaned into the contact. "Well, of course we have to; all Very Important Scientists do experiments at least twelve times before drawing any conclusions. However, we'd have to wait until you got really properly dirty, wouldn't we?" he reasoned. "How about tomorrow?"
John looked like he was going to remind him that he was calling CPS tomorrow, but Sherlock silenced him with a glance. You said after work, he reminded his husband silently. The fight instantly left the smaller man, and he nodded.
When they finished with their dinner Sherlock put in a Doctor Who DVD. He and John stretched out on the couch while Jessica jumped around on the furniture in time with the story. She paused for breath between episodes, and was dead asleep on the rug within minutes.