Laura didn't stay long, just enough to explain how the meeting with Jessica's uncles was going to go. She was obviously one of Mycroft's people, but it didn't stop her from being a CPS agent either. They would have background checks done, of course (Sherlock winced at that news, but didn't seem surprised), and Jessica's uncles had the right to take her without argument unless there was concrete proof that they couldn't take proper care of her. Sherlock silently agreed to everything, reminding Laura to keep her voice low. John was not entirely dozing, but not awake enough to know what was going on.
"Thank you," he said softly before getting up from his chair. She smiled gratefully and sat; Sherlock carefully shook John awake. "John, it's time for us to go."
"Hmfwhat?" murmured John sleepily, getting mechanically up even though he didn't know what was going on. Sherlock placed his hand on the small of John's back and guided him out, not allowing himself a glance back into the room. If they were never to see Jessica again he wanted to remember the sunshine and her insatiable curiosity, not seeing her curled up impossibly small in a hospital bed with a well-meaning CPS rep hovering over her. "Sh'lock, wh-"
"It's fine, John," he murmured, bundling his husband into a cab. "We're going home."
Three days had never felt so long before, not even in the stalest slump between cases. Sherlock would have been eyeing John's Browning ages ago if he were not determined to be the perfect tenant until the background checks were complete. He felt as though he were on the verge of vibrating right out of his skin. Never before in his life had he considered fatherhood to be something desirable or even something to go out of his way to achieve, but now? Now he was enchanted by the thought of pink trainers tucked in so neatly beside his and BaCoN t-shirts and animatedly jabbering along to Doctor Who.
Even John had been affected, though he was more cautious with his hope than Sherlock was. They talked only briefly about either moving back into Sherlock's room or having his old case mementos put into storage before dismissing it altogether. Optimism in a case like this was not only dangerous, but pointless. They had absolutely no power over what happened, and should therefore have bet on the worst.
And yet they didn't.
Thursday dawned bright and cold, and if Sherlock's hands trembled as he put on his best suit John didn't mention it. They clasped hands and made the seemingly endless trek to the CPS offices, where they were to have their meeting with Jessica's uncles. They had been alerted that Jessica was alive and well, but had needed two days to arrange train tickets (they lived in Edinburgh) and babysitters (four foster children, one with Down Syndrome). Sherlock had to close his eyes to keep from deducing anything further about them and cling to John's hand while they exchanged tense pleasantries.
"You must be the Uncle Robby we've heard so much about," he heard John say politely, shaking the hand of the gangly dark-haired man. Bone structure and coloring suggested he and Jessica were closely-related; Sherlock wondered if John had deduced it in the same way.
The man smiled back and wrenched John's hand. "That would be me. This is my partner, Bruce."
"Cheers," greeted the perfectly ordinary-looking shorter man, taking his turn with John. "You're John, are you? Then this must be...god, I'm sorry, I've completely forgotten."
When it was obvious that Sherlock was not going to introduce himself to the cheerful man, John smiled apologetically. "Um, yes, that's Sherlock. Sorry, he's not usually so quiet. He's, well...we're very fond of Jessica."
The other couple exchanged a nervous glance, communicating with eye-contact alone, and finally Robby turned back to John. "Yes, well, we were meaning to ask...just how did Jessie come into your care?"
John laughed, stilted and anxious. "Well, actually, she, er, she followed Sherlock home. I was going to call CPS as soon as I heard, but...well, they were having so much fun doing their experiments that I figured it couldn't hurt to wait a bit longer."
"Experiments?" echoed Bruce faintly.
"All child-safe," Sherlock interrupted, finally managing to find his voice. "Bubbles, dirt, things like that. She loves science." Then, without realizing quite what he was doing, he went on to describe how they'd played Cybermen, and their experiment with how long it took for cocoa to cool off, and Jessica's innocent fascination with everything around, smiling all the while.
By the time he'd finished John was beaming but embarrassed, and Jessica's uncles looked perplexed but happy.
They hemmed and hawed for another half hour or so, until finally it seemed that the uncles had been beating round the bush for quite a while and they finally pulled out the background check information. Sherlock closed his eyes; John squeezed his hand under the table.
"You two have pretty respectable careers," commented Robby, paging through the folders before him. "A doctor-slash-retired war hero and a consultant for Scotland Yard? That's very impressive."
John thanked him with a nod. They knew what was coming next. Sherlock could hear the words hovering in the air ages before they surfaced. "However," he sighed with the air of a man trying to avoid something very unpleasant, "our main concern was in Mr. Holmes' history with drugs."
"Not to mention the petty crime," added Bruce.
Robby nodded. "Or the mood disorders."
"Yeah, the suicide attempts really concerned us..."
John's hand tightened sporadically around Sherlock's arm, and he felt his heart rate dangerously increase. John already knew about the drugs, but the rest had never come up. He'd always intended to tell his husband about all of that, really he had, but the timing had never quite been right. There was never a good time to say Oh, by the by, dear, I tried to kill myself five times as a teenager because my mother liked to call me 'her little Monster,' and the reason I was sleeping rough for a few months in my twenties was because I was so coked up I couldn't remember where I lived; pass the sugar, would you?
The couple continued to converse Sherlock's many emotional shortcomings until he felt like he were no longer in the room. He'd absconded, and now some bizarre shadow of himself was hovering at the table, listening to them lay down his every swing like items on a grocery list. The hand John was holding was the only part of him still present. A solid limb floating in the middle of a shadow.
"The mood disorder directly correlated with the drugs," he finally said when he'd focused enough energy to make his mouth real again. "I've been clean for four years and have no intentions of returning to that way of life; your concerns are irrelevant."
Silence descended over the room, a downright uncomfortable one. It made Sherlock feel better knowing that he still had some power, and solidified once more.
Bruce and Robby looked appropriately cowed, staring alternately at the table and at one another. "We just want to know that Jessie will be well looked after," Robby finally blurted out, looking almost desperately pained. "Jay was my only brother. We lost our parents when we were very young. Jessie's the only blood family I've got left; you've got to understand why I'd be a bit concerned with two strangers - one of them with a history of drug use and manic depression - thinking they can raise my niece in a normal environment."
Now it was Bruce who was squeezing his partner's arm as he tried to regain control over himself. "Losing my brother to that wretched disease was not easy, and Jessie running away didn't help. We want her to be looked at by a therapist, to -"
"We've already spoken to a very experienced doctor," John nodded quietly, trying to return to the stiff politeness of earlier rather than this emotionally-charged conversation. "She's going to get the help she needs. And we wouldn't cut you out of her life, you must understand that. You would be more than welcome to come here and visit, or we could even make arrangements for her to see you in Edinburgh."
Again, silence fell while the uncles nodded to themselves. It seemed that the table's surface was suddenly very interesting, as everyone in the room was staring at it.