NOTE: Okay, I have absolutely no idea why decided to list this story as complete when I hadn't finished uploading chapters yet. It's been screwy lately, so who knows.

The title of this chapter comes from another Mountain Goats song: "Age of Kings", which might as well be called Reichenbach Feels: The Song if you ask me.

One more chapter after this one. Once again, thoughts greatly appreciated. :)


Andy finished lacing up her new glossy, candy red knee-high boots before admiring herself in her full length mirror. At sixteen, puberty was finally beginning to be kind to her. She had spent the last couple of years feeling like a rail-thin nightmare creature made entirely of knobbly knees, pointy elbows, and a nigh-uncontrollable desire to pin every Omega in the school against a wall and ravish them into oblivion – even Stacy with the halitosis and headgear. Her muscles and flesh had caught up with the completely unfair sprint her bones had broken into at the start of her adolescence, and now she looked more like a human being than she did an animate scarecrow. People had started referring to her as 'slender' or 'lithe' rather than 'skinny' or, God forbid, 'twiggy'.

Her enthusiasm over the idea of ravishing anyone who smelled good enough was still great, but now she felt like she had a much better chance of achieving that goal. She'd seen the way some of her classmates admired her cheekbones, and such looks were definitely worth a good preen.

Satisfied with her appearance, she strode around the room in a circle a few times, hobbling a bit more than she'd have liked thanks to a lack of experience wearing such high heels. She made her way to the door and slowly descended the stairs, jingling a bit as she went.

John was sitting in his chair and checking his email when he heard the sound of his daughter's descent. "Nice to see you're finally up and about, And-" He looked up. "-ear sweet God, what on earth are you wearing?!"

Andy had on a red dress with a neckline that was as low as its hemline was high, barely covering her chest and bum. White fluff around the edges and a bulky black buckled belt implied that it was supposed to bring to mind a certain jolly fat man's coat. Her boots, also lined with fluff, came up to her knees and the expanse of thigh between the top of her boots and the bottom of her dress was covered in fishnet stockings. A red Santa cap finished off the ensemble, sitting atop her strawberry blonde hair at a jaunty angle.

"My outfit for the Christmas party at Grace's place while her parents are away in Aruba," she explained. She gave a flourishing pose, and she jingled when she moved. "What do you think?"

"What do I- what do I think? I think you look like the bloody result of a gene splicing accident between Father Christmas and a French prostitute!"

"That just happens to be exactly what I was going for." Andy grinned and clapped her hands together, jingling again. "I was going for a Le Marais angle specifically. Does it come through?"

John stared at her. He opened and shut his mouth a few times, but eventually what came from his lips was, "Where's that jingling coming from?"

"Now that's a secret."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," John muttered. He removed his glasses so he could rub the bridge of his nose. "SHERLOCK! Get in here and see what your daughter's done."

"It has never been anything good when she's my daughter," Sherlock's voice called from the bathroom. He emerged in his dressing robe with shaving cream still over his face. He stared unblinking at Andy for a moment. "Not my daughter. Adler broke in while you were in heat and had her way with you while I was asleep. Only explanation."

With that, he turned on his heel. "By the way, John, I will need your assistance in order to finish shaving. If left to my own power, I suspect I will open my carotid artery with the blade." With that, he stumbled back into the bathroom.

John shook his head. "You," he said, turning a pointed stare to Andy. "Young lady, are going upstairs and changing immediately. And then you are going to give those clothes – and I use that term very generously – to me so I can burn them."

"Oh, but-!"

"No buts! Yours is practically falling out of that thing as is. Now get moving; I don't want you in that… mess when your brother gets here."

"Ooh, that's right," Andy crooned, smiling. "We finally get to meet his dirty little secret. He changes his status to 'In a Relationship', but doesn't specify with whom and uploads no pictures that imply who it could be? Very suspicious."

"Or maybe it could be that he's a more private person than you are. Not that that's an especially difficult feat. It only puts him in the same category as everyone else on the planet."

"I'll have you know I maintain an elaborate and flawless cover by audacity. People only know what I want them to know."

"Stop stalling and go change!"


Abby jolted awake to the sound of the dramatic choral portion of Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King". He blinked blearily as his right hand fumbled for the phone in his pocket. The hand that was clasping his left squeezed, and he felt his companion give an amused huff against the top of his curly head.

"Why that ringtone?"

"The lyrics are eerily accurate for how my family will probably react today," Abby replied. Slagt ham! repeated several times as he looked at the call ID. "Oh God, it's my sister. If I don't answer, she'll just keep calling and leaving maddening voice messages. Her record is 25."

"Put her on speakerphone. I'll even clamp a hand over my mouth so she doesn't hear it." A moment later, in a muffled voice, he added, "See?"

Abby rolled his eyes, but grinned. He tapped the answer button. "Hello, Andy."

"Abby," she replied, drawing out the Y for a good three seconds. "Where are you? I want to see why you're so embarrassed about your sweetheart."

"We're in a cab, about five minutes away. And I'm not embarrassed by him."

"Aha! You fell into my pronoun trap. A boyfriend, then."

"Yes, Andy, aren't you clever," Abby said dryly.

"Why haven't you told me anything about him? Is he a gross old person? Ooh, do you have a sugar daddy? OH! Even better. Is it Uncle Greg?!"

"No!"

"Then… what? Ugly?"

"Way off." Abby glanced to his companion, who wriggled his brow in a display of faux-lasciviousness even with both hands still clamped over his mouth. Abby tried to hold in his laughter, but failed spectacularly.

Andy asked, "What are you giggling about?"

"Nothing!"

"You know, you should be nicer to me," Andy said, her tone pouty. "I'm being so considerate by just asking you questions like this, when I could very easily just find it all out on my own. Uncle Mycroft taught me all his tricks before he handed over surveillance of the family to me."

"So you snoop on us and you report to him."

"Bingo."

"And what's keeping him from having someone keep tabs on you?"

"Oh, I know all about them. I just make sure they see what they need to see to suit my purposes."

"Uncle Mycroft created a monster."

Andy laughed. "Be glad I'm a force for good. Well… a force with your best interests at heart, anyway. Let's go with that. Now tell me."

"No. You can wait."

Andy sighed dramatically. "Fine. Ah, just a warning: Dad and Papa may be a bit snippy when you get here. I think they're upset about my choice of outfit for an upcoming Christmas party. Papa's burning it now, but I've got a spare at Eleanor's. And a spare spare at Devon's just in case. And a spare spare spare in an undisclosed location."

"Thanks for the notice, but I think I'm about to raise the bar of parental upset. Speaking of which, I have to go. The flat's come into view."

"My anticipation is enormous. You'd best not disappoint!" With that, she hung up, eager to have the final word.

The cab pulled to a stop on Baker Street and Abby turned, catching his companion's brown eyes with his own. He took in a deep breath and gave a smile which was equal parts awkward and fond. "Ready to meet my family, Jamie?"

Jamie Moran grinned in response. "As I'll ever be."


The bomb would hit thirty seconds after Jamie and Abby were through the door of 221B, after Andy let them in and tripped a bit, accidentally dropping her phone down Jamie's shirt. Once it was retrieved, the countdown began.

10 seconds in, Abby and Jamie hauled in their luggage from the hallway. John fussed, wanting to help, while Andy retreated to lounge on the sofa and Sherlock stood eerily still in the middle of the living room. In all the activity, nobody else noticed that the colour had drained from Sherlock's face the moment he looked at Jamie. Far, far too much of him matched an existing entry in his database for it to be a coincidence. The entry which still, twenty years later, had so many caution signs around it.

His mind raced.

20 seconds in, formal introductions were made. "Jamie, this is my family," Abby said, one arm looped around the taller man's waist. "My Papa, John Watson. My younger sister, Andromeda, but most people call her Andy-"

"Some people call me Miss Andry because they think puns are clever," Andy interrupted, flipping her phone in her palm like a toy.

"That was once, and you were being a pain in the arse at the time since you kept going on about how much better girls are than boys," Abby said, pointing at her. "Anyway. And standing there trying to read your entire history in your face is my Dad, Sherlock Holmes. Everyone, this is Jamie."

28 seconds.

"Great to meet you, Jamie," John said, offering his hand for a shake, which Jamie enthusiastically accepted. "I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your last name."

29 seconds.

"Er. Yes. That," Abby said. "It's, ah, well…"

The bomb dropped:

"Moriarty," Sherlock croaked.

The room went silent. John clearly intended to apologize and make some excuse, but he stopped, seeing the resemblance himself. Despite the fact that he would hit sixty in the following year, John's body language immediately went alert and rigid, ready to respond. All of Andy's flippancy was gone, replaced with a look in her grey eyes that could burn through steel and a new grasp on her phone which made the device look like a weapon.

"Moran, actually," Jamie replied. "Less baggage attached. Well, less widely-known baggage, anyway."

John ran a hand over his grey hair. "But… you are…?"

"The son of Jim Moriarty and Sebastian Moran? Yes. I'm the white sheep of the family."

Andy was the first in the room to begin to relax. She had been staring intently at Jamie since the revelation, but a small chirrup from her phone drew her attention. She looked down at the device. When she turned her attention back to the scene before her, whatever conclusion she drew about the situation in general and her brother's new beau in particular allowed the tension to drain out of her.

A grin spread across her lips.

"Oh. My. God," she breathed. "This is magical. Absolutely magical. This is why I was born, so I'd be here for this precise moment. I'd go make popcorn, but I don't want to miss a second of this."

"Jesus Christ, Andromeda, now is not the time," John hissed through his teeth.

"But he's harmless, at least to us," the young Alpha insisted. "Just look at him."

"You knew, Absalom," Sherlock said, ignoring his daughter's observation. "Slight flush to your skin, breathing elevated but not remotely close to hyperventilation. Not the shock of an unexpected revelation. You're irritated. With us. With our reaction."

"Right as always," Abby said. His tone was clipped.

Sherlock glared. "How long?"

"From the start. But he tells it better than I do."

Feeling the weight of three sets of eyes (Andy's – amused, John's – curious but leery, Sherlock's – completely impossible to read), Jamie took a deep breath and began the tale.


It was the first day of Michaelmas term, and Jamie was idly considering if he could convince the post to deliver his mail to the Radcliffe Science Library. He was going to be practically living there until graduation at the end of the year anyway, if staring red-eyed at mountains of research for his dissertation could be called living. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice that someone was standing at his side until they cleared their throat.

"Excuse me. Is this seat taken?"

Jamie looked up at the Omega beside him. If Jamie had to guess, he'd say that the young man was a year or so younger than he was. He had dark curly hair and deep blue eyes, but there was one thing about him that had Jamie trying to suppress a grin.

"No, by all means," Jamie said, gesturing to the free seat. He watched as the Omega pulled out the textbook for the class. "Saw a lot of sun this summer, then?"

The Omega laughed, a full and unabashed sound that Jamie found quite pleasing. He lightly touched the bright red sunburn on his neck. "What gave it away? But yes. I was in Australia for most of the break. So from that perspective, it's more like I saw a lot of sun this winter. I got this burn even though I nearly bathed in sunscreen every day."

"Australia! Wow," Jamie said. "Went to all the wild parties, I imagine."

"I pulled a few strings and got accepted as an assistant by one of my professors. I spent a lot of time crawling around the Outback and studying inland taipans. I actually helped get venom from a couple of them." He smiled. "I suppose that's my version of a wild party."

"Taipans?"

"Often considered to be one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. They possess a very deadly neurotoxin; it's why I'm in this class at all, really. To fully appreciate how much damage it can inflict on the brain, you have to know what it's like when it's healthy. If that makes sense."

Jamie wondered if his own neck was beginning to flush as much as the one he found himself peering at. "Perfect," he murmured. "Sense! Perfect sense. Yes. My field requires knowledge of healthy brain activity as well, so it's similar. But with fewer deadly, deadly snakes."

The Omega gave him a thoughtful look which soon melted into a smile. He held out his hand to Jamie. "I never did introduce myself. I'm-"

"Silence, class!" the professor crowed as he burst through the door. "There's much to cover in neurobiology, so let's waste no time getting through attendance." Sure enough, he immediately began to barrel through the names on his class list, giving each student barely enough time to announce their presence before moving on.

That is, until he reached a certain name.

"Holmes, Absalom W.?"

The Omega sitting beside Jamie raised his hand. "Present, sir."

"Where have I heard that… ha!" The professor pointed at the young man. "You're Sherlock Holmes' son! The one born the day he came back from the dead! My God, has it really been that long? Stand up, boy, stand up. Let me get a good look at you."

"Oh God, not a fan," Absalom groaned beneath his breath. He sank into his seat and said, "Ah, I'd rather-"

"No need to be shy! Up you get!"

Jamie felt vaguely ashamed of allowing his eye to linger on Absalom's backside as he reluctantly stood, but consoled himself with the notion that other red-blooded Alphas would openly leer. Then there was the fact that his mind was still whirling with the revelation of Absalom's parentage. What a small world.

The professor nodded. "I definitely see some resemblance, but it's an even split on which parent you take after." He clapped his hands together. "See me after class, would you? If you can arrange it so I could meet your parents, I'd be most appreciative."

"I'll see what I can do." His tone was flat as a pancake.

"Wonderful! Everyone, keep an eye on this one. If he's got half the brains of his father, he'll be an indispensable study partner."

Absalom forced a smile as all the eyes in the room turned to look at him, but the moment they turned back to the roll call, he slumped in his seat. "God, how embarrassing," he murmured.

"You don't like being compared to your parents?"

"I hate it." He sighed. "No. I don't know. It's complicated. Everyone who knows my parents always has such expectations of me, ones I don't particularly want to fill. Who wants to live in their parents' shadow?"

Jamie nodded. "I understand completely. I'm in the same boat, Absalom."

"Call me Abby." He gave Jamie a skeptical look. "And really? Who are your parents?"

"How about we make a game of it? When my name is called out, if you think I've grown up under a tougher shadow, I win."

"You win what?"

Jamie grinned. "Your company for some coffee after class."

Abby's cheeks managed to turn even redder as the professor continued to call out names. Finally, he responded, "Deal. When can I expect you to try to prove your point?"

Jamie hummed in thought. "What name did he just say?"

"Montague."

"Probably right now, then."

The professor called out, "Moran, James A.?"

Jamie raised his hand. "I go by Jamie, sir."

"Jamie it is, then. Noted."

When Jamie turned back to Abby, the Omega's eyes were wide. "James is too stuffy," he explained. "And I am most definitely not a Jim."

Never breaking eye contact, Abby murmured, "You win."

"Good. I was thinking a fun little conversation over coffee would be how our parents tried to kill each other before we were born. Still accept our little wager?"


"And you know what he did?" Jamie asked his audience. "He laughed and said, 'That depends on the odds of you blowing me up after.'"

"What'd you say?" Andy asked, rapt.

"That I'm a true gentleman who never pressures his company to get blown – up or otherwise – on the first date."

Andy howled with laughter, clapping her hands. Abby blushed and smacked Jamie on the arm, chastising him for including that portion of the story. Despite his concern, John found himself suppressing his own laughter, but the moment he glimpsed over at Sherlock, his expression turned grim.

"Entrapment," Sherlock hissed.

"He gave me an out, which I chose not to take," Abby retorted.

"Coercion."

"He said that it would be dangerous to keep seeing each other after that first coffee." Abby crossed his arms. "I don't understand why people insist on translating 'crawled after poisonous snakes all summer' to 'flinches away from anything remotely dangerous'."

Sherlock's voice was low and dangerous. "He can't stay here."

"That's fine. Then I'll stay with him in a hotel. Alone." Deep blue met grey in a steely glare of a challenge. "Who knows what we could get up to, unsupervised like that."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't."

"I'd be shocked if they haven't," Andy murmured. John cuffed her on the shoulder.

"This is a package deal," Abby said. "Here or elsewhere, we'll be in the same place."

"Do I get a say in any of this?" Jamie hazarded.

Sherlock and Abby's response was simultaneous, even as they continued to stare unblinking at each other. "No."

Jamie raised his hands defensively and leaned against the wall. "Good to know."

Sherlock turned his back to the room and stormed to the doorway. As he moved, his phone buzzed with an incoming text. He glanced at it, and with his back to his family and the interloper, nobody saw the brief flicker of dread that twisted his features. He shoved the phone violently into his pocket and tried to reign himself in.

"He will stay in 221C once I have locked up my valuable equipment and secured my experiments," he said in as level a tone as he could muster. "Absalom, you will sleep upstairs where your sister will make sure you stay put."

Andromeda very loudly expressed her displeasure at this turn of events, going on about how the upstairs bedroom had been her room for years. When it became apparent that her complaints were not going to change anything, she huffed something about how all the hard work she'd put into avoiding being the responsible child had been in vain and she sauntered upstairs.

"And why can't I stay in the room Gran left for me when I was thirteen? It should just be the bed and some storage boxes now anyway," Abby asked.

Sherlock was still for a long moment, his back and shoulders tense. "John, bring Moriarty's spawn to C in exactly five minutes. I will be finished by then." With that, he exited, slamming the door behind him.

The strain drained out of Abby's posture. He closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh, tilting his head back slightly. He heard footsteps and felt a warm hand lace its fingers with his own. When he opened his eyes and looked up to meet his boyfriend's brown eyes, Jamie gave their joined hands a squeeze and moved in to murmur something into Abby's ear. Whatever it was, it made the young Omega smile warmly.

John watched the display, his brow furrowed and his lips pursed in deep thought.


That night, Jamie received three visitors. In retrospect, he couldn't resist the urge to call them the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

The first came when he was lying on the creaky folding cot that had been left for him in the room. His phone was worthless; he wasn't sure if it was a coincidence or if Sherlock had somehow managed to create some sort of interference in the flat. With nothing else to do, he had resigned himself to an evening of staring at the stains in the wall where damp had once reigned and of uncomfortable slumber.

Until the door opened.

He propped himself up on his elbows to investigate. It was Andy, dressed in a short pink nightgown and an enormous, fluffy lavender dressing robe. Her long strawberry blonde hair was pinned up by several glittery hairclips shaped like butterflies, and her face was covered in a green facial masque.

She strode over to the cot and stood there expectantly for a moment. She cleared her throat pointedly. When Jamie gave her a confused look, she sighed dramatically and said, "Scoot over. We're talking."

"Are we?" Jamie asked, sitting up and making room for her on the cot. "Considering you just stormed in here looking like some kind of avant-garde fashion model and, you know, not saying a word."

"We're talking now, aren't we?" Andy reached into a pocket of her dressing robe and pulled out several cucumber slices wrapped in cling film. She placed two over her eyes and made herself comfortable. "Look at all the words we've said already."

Jamie opened his mouth to reply, but Andy continued. "Do you want to know why I wasn't concerned about your identity once the truth came out?"

"It's a very impressive reason, I suspect."

"You suspect correctly." Even with the cucumber slices over her eyes, Andy didn't fumble as she reached into another pocket and pulled out her phone. "A present from my uncle. Special model, absolutely state of the art in more ways than you could possibly dream of. Incredibly useful for my line of work."

"Aren't you a little young to be working?"

"Think of it as an internship. Unpaid in wages, but a supremely lucrative payout in experience." Andy's brows furrowed over her cucumber. "Now, if I could proceed without interruption?"

"By all means."

"When I dropped this phone down your shirt, it wasn't an accident. It has a special sensor which can pick up DNA, in this case the trace amounts of sweat and oils from the skin of your torso. If you had ever been even suspected of a serious crime, our best and brightest would ensure that your DNA would be in one of our watch list databases." She stretched. "That said, running your genes came up with two partial matches. I think you know why."

"That doesn't really take everything into account," Jamie said, scratching his chin. "What if I was cunning enough to avoid all detection?"

Andy smiled. "That's where the next little part of my speech comes in. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt in a major way. Officially, your past checks out, and right now that's good enough for me. But if things turn out otherwise, if you hurt my brother in any way, I will see to it that you pay a thousandfold."

"You won't die…" She peeled the cucumber slice off from her right eye, which she popped into her mouth with a flick of her finger. "But, oh, you'll wish you could. Clear?"

"Crystal."

"Good. I like you; you're fun. And it's always a little tragic when you have to get rid of fun things." She peeled the other cucumber from her eye and ate it. She then stood and smiled at him; the drying masque cracked slightly around her lips. "Abby sends a kiss by the way, but I'm not a devoted enough messenger to be a proxy for that. I'm not into other Alphas."

Jamie pulled a sour face. "Yeah, please don't. No offense taken. Send one back for me."

Andy gracefully rose from her seat on the cot. "Will do, but I'm not going to smooch him either." She sashayed to the door, waving a hand lazily. "Just keep our little chat in mind." With that, she left, securing the outer lock.

Jamie slumped back into his lying position on the couch, covering his eyes with his forearm. He was still in that position about two hours later, when a faint knock jolted him from his sleep. Blearily, he rubbed at his face as he struggled to sit up. It took a moment for his sleep-clouded vision to focus enough to realize that he had a second visitor: John, dressed in cozy-looking red-and-green striped pajama bottoms and an oversized sleep shirt. He held a sheet of paper in his calloused and time-worn hand. "We need to talk," he said, his tone serious.

"I don't know if you're more or less direct than the last one," Jamie murmured, still wiping the sleep from his eyes.

John squinted in confusion. "Sorry?"

"Nothing, nothing. What did you want to talk about? There's such a long list of possibilities, after all."

John made his way to the cot and handed Jamie the paper. "Read this first."

Jamie accepted the sheet, which was a printout of a news article from three years prior. The headline read: DRUNK DRIVER KILLS FAMILY OF FIVE, SELF IN HEAD-ON COLLISION. He read through the article as it detailed how the Michaels family – Alpha Donna, Omega Stephen, and their three young children ages 8 to 2 – were the victims of a tragic automobile accident at the hands of a driver who had needed to be identified by her dental records.

"Harriet Watson," Jamie whispered, his eyes on the name of the culprit.

"My sister."

Jamie looked up at John, who had been standing rigidly the entire time as he read the article.

John cleared his throat and continued, "She had a drinking problem for years. Alcoholism runs in the family; one of our grandfathers had it bad enough to die of cirrhosis at age 50, an aunt and uncle were in and out of rehab for it for years, it hit our father hard near the end of his life, and then Harry." His mouth quirked into a small, sad smile. "There used to be a family joke: 'A Watson and whiskey go hand in hand.' But everyone who slurred that at the pubs is dead."

Unsure what else to do in this situation, Jamie looked back down at the article, gazing at the faces of the victims and Harry Watson. Her picture had been taken relatively close to the time of her death. She resembled John in the shape of her nose and face, in the set of her eyes and the curve of her ears. Even with the five year age gap, they must have looked quite similar in their youth. However, while John wore his age very well, years of her hard lifestyle had weighed heavily on Harry's features.

"That article isn't even completely accurate," John added ruefully. "In the morgue, they discovered that Stephen had been expecting."

"I'm sorry," Jamie murmured.

John's lips twitched as he accepted the sympathy. "Thank you. You're a smart kid; I bet you can imagine why I've brought this up."

Jamie nodded. "I've got an idea. Would you like to sit?"

"I'm fine. Made of tougher stuff than people like to think." John sighed heavily. "Harry's death put me in a dark place for a while, and once I finally worked through it, I found it really impacted my view of the world. If you'd shown up before… all that happened, or if it had never happened at all, I think my reaction would've been more like Sherlock's. Possibly worse. Certainly louder, at any rate."

He gave Jamie a measured look. "Now, more than ever, I understand the desire to not be compared to family members. I'm pretty happy with this current worldview. I'd rather not have to revise it."

"You won't," Jamie said, keeping his eyes locked on John's. "I swear."

John's countenance brightened slightly. "That's great. Well, I'll leave you to try to get some sleep." He headed back for the door, and stopped. "Ah, and one more thing. Abby is smart and independent. I trust his choices to be good ones, and you seem to make him happy. But if you've somehow managed to trick him…"

"Let me guess. You never really forget what you learn in the army?"

John chuckled as he left. "Got it. Get some sleep."

That wasn't likely to happen. Jamie knew a pattern when he saw one, and he knew that there was still one more person in this household who had yet to give him a piece of his mind. As soon as he was alone, Jamie carefully folded the tragic article and set it on the hard, starchy pillow on the cot. He reached into the deep pocket of his jeans and pulled out his weapon of choice.

If Sherlock already knew everything about him, then there was really no point in hiding anything.

When the door opened for the third time that night, Sherlock was treated to the sight of Jamie kneeling in front of the cabinets which he'd locked his lab materials in, flipping a hairgrip in his hand. The doors were open, though the materials seemed untouched. A display of ability, not an intended robbery.

"You already knew I could get into your things if I wanted. That I'm skilled at lock picking," Jamie said, his back to Sherlock. "Maybe even before you realized who I am."

"Yes," Sherlock replied. "Simple deductions."

"You locked everything up as a test. Would I own up to my suspicious abilities, or would I try to hide them? Well, here they are, in full view."

Jamie finally turned to face Sherlock, taking in the features of the man who had bested his father. Though in his middle fifties, Sherlock had aged well. Aside from the spreading dusting of grey in his curly hair – particularly prominent around his temples – and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and across his forehead, he could easily pass for a man in his forties. Unlike Jamie's other visitors, Sherlock was not dressed in night clothes. Rather, he wore dark from head to toe: dark shoes, black trousers, dark grey button-up, and what was likely at least the third generation of his signature coat.

"What else can you tell about me?" Jamie continued.

Sherlock took in a small, sharp breath and crisply replied, "You have the ability to mimic nearly any handwriting, owed in no small part to the fact that you have inherited Moran's impeccably keen eyesight and precise dexterity. You've never had trouble making friends and commanding loyalty. All told, you could be the most destructive force to sweep across the world in a generation."

"Could," Jamie said. He pressed his lips together into a thin line and nodded thoughtfully. "Won't, though."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "Elaborate."

"What about that needs elaboration? I could be better than both my parents in their fields. Worse. Semantics," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "But I'm not going to be. I refuse."

"One does not refuse psychosis," Sherlock stated. "Madness does not care one whit about personal volition. The fact that you have nearly completed a degree in your field of study without realizing this is deplorable. Your grades are impeccable, so Oxford's standards must be slipping dramatically. Perhaps Absalom can still transfer to a more respectable school."

"Been reading up on my records, I see. But here I thought I got into Abnormal Psychology because it isn't boring."

Sherlock bristled. Jamie seemed to notice and waved his hand in what was likely meant to be a reassuring gesture. "But that's not all," he continued. "It isn't even the top reason. The number one reason is so I'll know." He slowly tapped his index finger against his forehead. "If anything starts to go… wrong, I'll know what to look for."

"There is a reason doctors are discouraged from diagnosing themselves," Sherlock replied. "It is the ultimate in professional bias; an impartial diagnosis is impossible."

"I think you'll find I'm my own harshest critic." The smile that spread across Jamie's lips was slow and small. "As much as your son is my strongest proponent."

"Don't," Sherlock hissed. "You will never have my approval."

"That's really too bad. In that case, at least two people involved in this situation will be very sad indeed." Jamie gave a long sigh, shaking his head in thought. "I wonder who they will be."

Sherlock stood for a time, staring at Jamie as if that act alone could peel the young man's skin from his still living body. Eventually, the words came, and Sherlock delivered the most severe threat of the evening.

He tossed Jamie his phone, which bore the following text message: Deal's off. Come chat. Will be where you expect. Midnight.

Jamie's brows furrowed. "Deal?"

"When Absalom was three months old, Moran threatened that the only thing that would keep him from murdering my son would be for me to stay out of your path." Normally Sherlock would cherish how all the colour instantly drained from Jamie's face, how he looked as if the wind was knocked forcibly from his lungs, but he could find no enjoyment in the moment. "Here we are, at the crossroads."

"Wait-!" Jamie cried, lurching to his feet and managing to get a hand on the doorframe as Sherlock slammed it closed. He hissed in pain and curled his fingers into the wood, splintering the nail on his pinkie. Blood dripped slowly from the wound and the flesh of his hand grew inflamed, but all he said in his rough, pain-thickened voice was, "I can help. Please. Let me."

Sherlock looked at the hand clawing into the doorframe for a moment and slowly released the doorknob.

"Follow me," Sherlock said as Jamie pushed the door open. He handed the young Alpha his coat. "Wear this. It should blot your scent. Stay out of sight. You'll know when to come forward. And, lastly, do not think that this changes my disapproval."

Jamie shoved his arms through the sleeves, willing himself not to wince as his sensitive and already bruising hand rubbed against the material. He nodded curtly and followed several paces behind when Sherlock strode to the stairs.

Both knew that Jamie would not be the only person in 221 Baker Street to have visitors that night.


From the age of thirteen until he moved out to attend university, Abby used the small rooms that had once been Mrs. Hudson's flat as his own space. The kindly old woman who had served as a surrogate grandmother for the family had passed away peacefully and without regret when Abby was twelve and Andy eight. In the sad act of going through her personal documents, John and Sherlock discovered that Mrs. Hudson had left them the building. Furthermore, she was very particular about having Abby use her former rooms as, in the words of her handwritten will: "He's getting to that age where a little privacy's worth more than his weight in gold, the sweet thing. Give it a little renovation and redecoration, and I'm sure it'll be perfect for him. P.S. – don't worry about it being on the ground floor when it's that time. You've seen all my locks. You never know with London, you know."

And indeed, half a year later, Abby moved his things out of the upstairs room he had always shared with Andy (who had taken to redecorating her new personal bedroom with nigh-religious fervor – a pinker room was quite likely scientifically impossible). He took to this newfound privacy well, appreciating Mrs. Hudson's thoughtfulness. Although John had prepared him for what was to come once puberty started, it was nice to be able to shut himself away from the world on the days when the still new, unfamiliar heat coursed through his blood.

Now, two years after Abby had left London to attend school, Sherlock crept in the dark of 221A, avoiding the few storage boxes within. In the centre of the room, he stopped. Waited for a sign. All the effort he had expended twenty years before had taught him a valuable lesson: one does not find Sebastian Moran. Sebastian Moran finds you. Trying anything else was an exercise in futility.

After a solid minute of waiting in the dark, he heard the light echoing tap of a knuckle against glass. He turned his head toward the sound; it was coming from the small sliding door that led out the back to what had been Mrs. Hudson – and later Abby's – modestly sized garden. Abby had maintained the tiny green space with great enthusiasm, mostly because the flowers drew the attention of passing insects which he could study at his leisure.

Sherlock drew closer to the beveled glass, making out shapes in the moonlight. All the pots with the winter-dormant plants within. Normal. The small patio table which Mrs. Hudson had often had her tea on and which Abby had frequently used for doing classwork in the garden. Normal. The plastic lounge chair pressed up near the door. Someone was reclining on it, their finger making the tap-tap-tap on the glass.

Sherlock pushed the door open.

Although Sherlock had never seen Sebastian Moran in person, there was no mistaking the identity of the man lying on the lounge chair. He was in his mid to late fifties, but he had clearly kept himself quite fit – perhaps a continuation of his army regimen, perhaps mere practicality for his chosen line of work. His hair was steel grey, making it difficult to determine what colour it had once been. Hard lines were set in the flesh of his forehead and the corners of his lips.

Sherlock didn't see a gun on him, but that meant nothing. What he did see were two immaculately wrapped presents sitting beside the chair. His eyes must have lingered on them, for the first thing Sebastian Moran ever said to him in person was, "Don't do combination birthday-Christmas presents. Not humane."

Every cell in Sherlock's body coiled tightly, prepared to spring into action at the slightest provocation. "Says the man who had an infant in his sights. You certainly don't care about being humane."

Moran shrugged. "True. I only care about what's mine. And what's mine loves what's yours. No accounting for taste, I suppose." He looked at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye. "What to do."

Sherlock's fists clenched. "In all frankness, at the moment, me killing you with my bare hands is the most appealing option."

Still in the shadows, Jamie opened his mouth to protest, but clamped his uninjured hand over his mouth.

Moran let out a bark of laughter which curled into the cold winter's night in a puff of fog. "You're welcome to try. Probably won't get far. Besides, I don't think our little lovebirds would appreciate the fallout. Speaking of which, did you really think I wouldn't know my own flesh and blood's scent under your stink? Get out here, Jamie. And take that damn thing off before you do."

The young man obliged, shrugging off the coat before moving past Sherlock out into the small garden. He held his hands up in a pleading gesture. "Da, please –"

Moran stood abruptly, glowering at Jamie. "What happened to your hand?"

"What? Nothing – it doesn't matter. Just please don't-"

"Like hell it doesn't matter!" Moran boomed. Jamie winced; it wasn't often that his Da raised his voice, but when it did happen, it was terrifying. He stormed the few feet to his son, and he took his wounded hand in his own, examining it closely. "Not broken, but close."

"What about his hand?"

Sherlock's blood froze at the sound of that voice. He turned stiffly to see his son move out from the shadows of his former room, trailed by Andromeda and a very confused John. Sherlock shot his daughter a displeased look, but she shrugged and chirped, "Prison break."

"Go back to the flat, Absalom," Sherlock commanded, but the young man did not stop his approach.

When he stood directly before Sherlock, he took a deep breath and said, "No, dad, I won't. Please move out of my way." Sherlock squared his shoulders, as if it would help him block more efficiently.

"He will kill you," he hissed. "He promised as much when you were an infant."

Abby's dark curls bounced as he shook his head. "I don't think so," he said, pushing past Sherlock and out to the garden. He approached Jamie and Moran, tenderly taking Jamie's wounded hand in his own. He frowned at the angry red inflammation and dried blood there. "Jamie and I have taken each other hostage. If something happens to me, he'll react negatively. Just as I, for one, am not at all happy that you've hurt my boyfriend." Still holding Jamie's hand, he glared at his father.

Sherlock lurched and opened his mouth to retort. There was a scathing remark about how – technically – Jamie had injured himself ready and willing to slide off his sharp tongue, but he stopped when he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. He wrenched his eyes away from the unpleasant sight of his son so close to the interloping Morans to see that it was John, giving him an expression that he found incredibly difficult to read. His mouth was set in a small, wistful smile, and there was a bittersweet glimmer in his eyes – an even split between pride and sadness.

"Sherlock," John said, his quiet voice thick with emotion. "Let's trust Abby to make his own decisions. He's an adult."

Sherlock watched as Abby refused to flinch as Moran detailed the many horrible and lengthy ways he could inflict pain upon anyone in the Holmes family if Abby allowed anything like what had happened to Jamie's hand to happen again. Jamie hovered, embarrassed, and occasionally interjecting embarrassed complaints. Abby simply nodded at every demand, looking completely certain of his choice to stick with Jamie.

"When? When did that happen?" Sherlock mumbled. "He was just a baby."

He immediately regretted saying that. It was the sort of thing soppy, overly-made up mothers moaned to themselves during University graduations, snuffled into mascara-stained pink handkerchiefs. It was a cliché, the least articulate description of the inevitability that was time's inexorable march onwards. In other words, it was the purest and most lethal form of sentiment, and he was better than something so base.

But then John's hand slid from his shoulder. The pressure of John's blunt nails traced down Sherlock's arm, and his callused palm rubbed against his own as their hands linked together. And at that moment, Sherlock found that he just didn't care if his words were sentimental or not.

He squeezed John's hand tighter. "Perhaps," he said once he fought the lump in his throat. "It's time to consider retirement."

"Are you sure?"

"I have heard pleasant things about Sussex."