Out in the Open

Dr. Patel, thought John, would probably throw a party tonight, once he was rid of them.

Between Sherlock's inability to keep still and let himself heal, his cocaine withdrawal combined with malnutrition and exhaustion, and a post-surgery infection scare, the detective had been at the hospital for four weeks, not counting the week before his escape. It was a blessed relief that the younger Holmes brother had a room to himself, or he'd have driven his roommate mad within hours.

John himself had visited every day, although his new job kept him busy during regular work hours. He'd enlisted Greg, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, and Anderson's fan club to fill Sherlock's room with visitors, eliminating the chance of a second escape. No matter how abrasive Sherlock became, none of them had backed down, and Greg had left with some interesting videos on his mobile. Even Bill Wiggins had popped by, and amused Sherlock by deducing the other visitors and passing nurses with surprising accuracy.

It was amazing to see how many friends Sherlock had, really.

On the eighth of October, Sherlock was to be discharged, pending a final visit from his doctor. John had taken the day off work, to help Sherlock settle back into Baker Street. Bill had come too, looking strangely clean and sober. He'd sat in Sherlock's hospital room, reading a comic book, as John helped the detective to and from the shower.

Now, John supervised as the dark-haired man poked at his breakfast.

"I mean it, Sherlock. Eat the lot."

Sherlock made a face that might have been called a pout. "Look at it, John! What exactly is this supposed to be?"

John squinted down at the plate. "It's a slice of banana, Sherlock. Honestly. Any room for fresh fruit and veg in that mind palace of yours?"

"Only if it's relevant in a murder case," Sherlock retorted, poking the soggy banana slice with his fork. "Billy, go down to the canteen and buy me some proper food," he ordered, startling Wiggins out of his reading.

"You have food," Wiggins objected.

"Not really. Go on, I'll give you twenty pounds if it's the breakfast special from the restaurant across the street," Sherlock added, staring expectantly at his junkie friend.

John sat down with a huff. Sherlock was such a child!

"Oh, wait a mo," Wiggins said suddenly, peering out into the corridor. "There's an older couple coming this way."

John saw an alarmed expression crossing Sherlock's face. "Describe them."

"He's about six feet tall, wearing a bow tie and an old checked shirt," Billy recited, "prominent cheekbones, white hair. She's turned her coat collar up, and her eyes look just like—" he stopped, looked at Sherlock, and grinned. "It's your mum and dad, innit, Shezza?"

The detective groaned theatrically. "I don't suppose you two could leave?"

"Sherlock, you might convince the rest of the world that you were grown in a lab," John said, exasperated, "but your friends know that you have parents, and by all accounts, they're lovely people. Calm down, will you? I'm sure they left the embarrassing baby pictures at home."

Sherlock looked ill. "I wouldn't count on it."

Mrs. Holmes chose that moment to open the door, her husband following.

"Oh, Sherlock darling!" she cried, heading straight for his bed and kissing him. Wiggins caught John's eye and they both grinned at Sherlock's scowl. "Myc says you're going home today."

"Yes, Mum," he answered, resigned. "Hello, Dad."

"It's good to see you so lucid, son," Mr. Holmes told him, his eyes over-bright. "You had us worried."

"Business as usual, then," Sherlock said flippantly. A stranger would have thought this callous, but Sherlock's father knew him too well to be offended.

Mrs. Holmes then realized there were more men in the room. "Oh, John!" she said, extending a hand to him delightedly. "It's wonderful to meet you at last. Margaret Holmes," she introduced herself, and John shook her hand. "I've been reading your blog since the Chinese acrobat case!"

"Oh, wow," John said, impressed. "I had no idea. You're not one of my anonymous commenters, are you?"

"No, I just read the blog entries and then ring Sherlock to tell him off when he's careless," she admitted readily.

"I can't thank you enough for what you've done for my boy," Margaret whispered, sneaking a glance at Sherlock, who was talking to his father. "He was so alone until he met you, and you saw past the prickly exterior and became a friend to the good man inside."

John was getting uncomfortably pink about the ears. "He did the same for me, Mrs. Holmes—"

"Margaret, please!" she ordered, louder. "You're practically family."

"Are you adopting John, Mum?" Sherlock objected, raising an eyebrow. "His own parents might have a problem with that."

"Nonsense! It's about time we met your best friend properly, Sherlock."

"Ah, Doctor John Watson," her husband said, coming to join her and shaking John's hand vigorously. "William Holmes."

"Nice to meet you," John told him sincerely. "This is Bill Wiggins," he added, so Bill wouldn't be left out.

"Alright?" said Wiggins, giving a quick smile from his seat.

"Now, what's all this food doing on your plate, Sherlock?" Margaret asked, and John didn't have to look to feel Sherlock wince. "You're not getting out of this room until you eat it all."

Mrs. Holmes was not a woman to trifle with. She glared at her son until he ate every bite, no matter how much he complained. Mr. Holmes watched with a fond smile, and began a lively discussion of football with John and Wiggins.

That is how Dr. Patel found them, when he arrived at eleven o'clock.

"Good morning, Mr. Holmes," he said cheerfully, looking a bit surprised to see four visitors in the room. "Ah, you must be Sherlock's parents," he recovered, extending a hand to Mrs. Holmes.

"Good morning, Doctor," she said, shaking it.

"Right," the doctor told them, "this should be fairly quick, so if you could step outside for a moment, I'll examine my patient and declare him fit to leave, if all goes well."

The men stepped outside Sherlock's room, still discussing the latest match. Margaret Holmes was a step behind them, warning her son to behave himself with a stern glare.

"Right," she said comfortably, smiling at the other three. "Lunch, anyone?"

"Please," agreed John. "We'll need our strength today."

"Isn't that the truth," Mr. Holmes concurred, chuckling.

With the ease of a loving, older married couple, he offered an arm to his wife and they led the way.

"I remember when Sherlock was ten," William told John and Wiggins, "some boys from his school got together after class and roughed him up, broke his arm. He didn't even cry about the pain, but staying in hospital?" He shook his head fondly. "We had to sedate him to stop him complaining. He was bored out of his skull."

John winced at this casual reminder of childhood bullying. He'd never stopped to ponder Sherlock's life as a little boy, cleverer than his whole class put together, and probably his teachers, too. It could not have been pleasant.

"Did he have any friends as a boy?" John asked earnestly.

There was a slight pause as they waited for the lift.

"None but Redbeard," Margaret Holmes answered.

For a moment, John wondered where he had heard that name before. Then, with surge of disgust, he remembered the repellent Charles Magnussen and his visit to 221B. It seemed a lifetime ago, even though it had been the same day as The Shooting.

"Obviously the letters no longer have any practical use to you, so with that in mind..." Sherlock was saying. Once he noticed Magnussen's distraction, he huffed. "Something I said?"

"No, no," replied the newspaper mogul. "I was reading. There's rather a lot."

He did this while adjusting his glasses. Wildly, John wondered if he had some sort of high-tech spectacles that allowed him to see through Sherlock's expensive suits and indecently tight shirts.

"Redbeard," murmured the visitor.

The name meant nothing to John, but slight movement on his left told him that Sherlock understood...and was unnerved.

"A pet?" John asked aloud.

"Yes, our Irish Setter," Sherlock's mum answered.

"I bought him for Sherlock," her husband explained. "He was a brilliant boy, but had difficulty making friends. I thought a dog would be just the ticket, and so it was."

"He was seven years old at the time, and wild about pirates," Margaret recalled. "So as soon as Dad came home with the puppy, Sherlock named him Redbeard. They were inseparable."

They reached the hospital exit, and crossed the street to the little cafe. As they ordered drinks, Wiggins asked what John didn't dare; if Redbeard had been just another childhood pet, it would not have been a 'pressure point' for Magnussen.

"What happened to Redbeard?"

William Holmes closed his eyes. "When he was fifteen, Sherlock said something to a classmate at school. The little cretin decided that hurting Redbeard would be appropriate revenge." He paused. "Sherlock found the poor bugger in a park near the school, too injured to come home. We had to put Redbeard down that evening."

The smiling waitress appeared to take their orders, but John had lost his appetite. He asked for the first sandwich on the menu, too distracted to care.

"That's why we were so delighted when Mycroft told us about you, John," Margaret said, eager to lighten the mood. "He's never had anyone to confide in except a dog, and that Victor boy at university."

John raised an eyebrow. Victor boy?

"Who's Victor?" asked Wiggins between chips.

"We're not quite sure," Mrs. Holmes replied, scrupulously honest. "All we know is that Mycroft saw them together quite a bit, studying and having fun."

"I've never heard Sherlock mention Victor," John told her, shrugging. "But he does talk to me when I'm not home, so that might have been a reason."

"Maggie does the same," William told them, casting his wife a fond glance. "When I first met her, she was walking around our university library, muttering mathematical formulas to herself. She didn't even stop to say sorry when she knocked me down."

Mrs. Holmes blushed and swatted his arm. "I apologized later!"

"Two weeks later," her husband said, grinning, "when you did it again."

John watched them, fascinated. His family had no shining examples of marital bliss, and his own marriage—the doctor cut off that train of thought. Sherlock's parents, though...they were unexpected. At first glance they appeared like a happy, normal couple, so different from their two sons that they might have been a different species.

And yet, there was an air of Sherlock about Mrs. Holmes, something that John couldn't quite place beyond the physical resemblance. At the same time, John could see a bit of Sherlock in his father, too. Perhaps in thirty years, when he'd mellowed out some and his hair turned white, his best friend would be more like William Holmes.

"What did you study, Mr. Holmes?" John asked, realizing that he had no clue.

"I'm a retired English Literature professor," said he, smiling in good humor. "I married a mathematician, and my sons are a chemist-turned-detective and a government agency bigwig. Who could have predicted that?"

"Not I," chuckled Margaret, then sipped daintily at her tea.

Before John could comment, his phone buzzed. The text was typically Sherlockian in brevity and rudeness:

Discharged at last. Come at once. Have Wiggins distract parents. SH

"Best finish up soon," John suggested. "Sherlock is free to leave."

Wiggins looked sadly at his plate.

"On second thought," the doctor amended, "you three finish your lunch, and come back to Baker Street when you've eaten. You'll be spared a horrid cab ride with the world's grumpiest detective."

"Thank you, dear," Sherlock's mother said. "We'll be along shortly."

John left a tenner on the table to cover his lunch, then ran back across the street to the hospital. The second he stepped out of the lift, a Belstaff-covered whirlwind dragged him back in.

"Finally!" Sherlock huffed. He seemed to regret pulling John; he stood strangely stiff against the lift wall.

"Sherlock, be careful!" ordered John, slipping into doctor mode. "Honestly, do you want to come back for another round?"

"I'm fine," the detective said shortly. To change the subject, he took a quick look at John, deducing. "You had lunch with my parents."

"I started to, yeah."

"I expect they told you all sorts of lurid tales about how brilliant I was as a child," Sherlock rambled dryly. "Perhaps the time I built a whole castle miniature and working siege weaponry to scale, so I could destroy my castle in class."

"You actually did that?" John asked, incredulous. "Blimey. The best I did was the silly potato in a jam jar."

The taller man smirked, striding out of the lift as they reached the main floor. John followed on shorter legs, as usual, and didn't stop to wonder how Sherlock got a cab so quickly.

"221B Baker Street," Sherlock told the cabbie, then turned back to John. "If they didn't tell you about my school projects, what didyou discuss?" he asked, turning his blue-green eyes back to John. Something in John's expression must have worried him, because he spoke even faster. "Out with it, John. Rehab? Childhood bullies? My overdose?"

"No, none of that, exactly," John confessed. "The name came up, so Wiggins asked your parents about Redbeard."

Immediately, John swore he could see a wall slamming up behind those sharp eyes.

"I'm not a child anymore," Sherlock declared, his tone harsh. "Redbeard has been dead for seventeen years."

"I know," John replied, soothing.

"What do you know?" the other man snapped.

"Sherlock," the doctor said quietly, "I know what it's like to watch my best friend die."

The detective's angry expression softened. He said nothing for the rest of the drive, but the tension that had filled the cab lifted. When they reached 221B, Sherlock was perfectly polite to Mrs. Hudson, and walked up the stairs without complaint, although he stopped to catch his breath every three steps.

At last, after all the pain and confusion of the past few weeks, Sherlock and John were home.