Johnny Blue-Eyes

Chapter 3: Frontpacks and cold coffee

It took John three tube changes (loaded down with nappy bag, brolly, and baby) and a half-kilometer walk through crowded North London sidewalks in the drizzle, a total of over an hour travel, to reach the out-of-the-way coffee shop (The Jumping Bean? Honestly?) that Sherlock had chosen, and somehow he still managed to beat Sherlock there by a wide margin. Typical.

After he got himself a cup of coffee, John settled Alice into a high chair and spread out bits of scone on the table in front of her, grimacing as she smacked her palms on the table and squealed. At least the coffee shop was fairly empty and the only person who seemed to notice was an older woman, who smiled at him indulgently when he gave her an apologetic look.

"Here we are, Alice. See?" John picked up a chunk of scone and held it out to her. Her hand wavered toward it like a drunk for a second, then she secured it in one chubby fist and jammed it into her mouth. Satisfied, John turned his attention to removing the front pack and folding it up onto the bench next to him. He was annoyed at Sherlock for choosing a coffee shop that was so far from his flat when there were loads of other closer ones. He wondered if the owner of this shop owed Sherlock a favor as well.

Ten minutes later, Alice had consumed half the scone and was tossing the rest of the bits onto the floor when Sherlock strode in, scowling, shaking the droplets of rainwater out of his hair. He chucked Alice under the chin, scowl quirking up a bit around the edges at her responding giggle, and then turned to John.

"Sit on the other side of the table."

John waggled his eyebrows at Sherlock but didn't move from his seat facing the window. "I was here first," he said mildly. Alice started making noises that John knew meant a meltdown was imminent, so he fished her toy monkey with the rubber teething paws out of the nappy bag and banged it lightly on the table to get her attention.

Sherlock' scowl deepened, but John just rested his elbows on the table and stayed put. Finally Sherlock huffed, wrapped his jacket more tightly around himself, and edged around the high chair into the seat across from John, with his back to the window. Alice dropped the monkey onto the floor. Sherlock reached down, picked it up, and returned it to her without looking, because his head was craned around trying to watch out the window.

"What's so interesting out there?" John asked, bemused.

Sherlock's response was an unintelligible grunt. John rolled his eyes and slid toward the end of his bench. "Fine. Trade me seats." Sherlock was up instantly and standing beside John's seat before he could even vacate it. Alice dropped her toy again, this time leaning over to watch it fall, and Sherlock bent down automatically and handed it to her again.

"You know she's doing that on purpose," John said as he slid into the seat against the window.

"Hmm? Doing what?" Sherlock was in the seat across already, eyes on the view behind John's head.

"That thing with the toy. It's a game, and you fall for it every time."

"Of course it's a game. I'm not 'falling for it', I'm teaching her about cause and effect."

"Huh." Well, that was interesting. Sherlock Holmes, child psychologist.

Sherlock looked down at the bench beside him and then gave John a pointed glare. "You've brought the frontpack."

"Yes. I had to change trains three times. Do you know how hard that is to do with a buggy?" John shook his head at the expression of distaste on Sherlock's face. "Why did you want to meet here anyway? There are plenty of other coffee shops much closer to my flat or yours."

"They have good coffee here." Sherlock was still looking out the window while he picked up the monkey and handed it to Alice again, who banged it on the table with a happy screech before tossing it onto the floor once more.

"So are you going to order some?"

"No."

John snorted. "Of course not." Alice had dropped the toy on the floor again and was now looking at Sherlock, who was too busy watching out the window to notice. She slapped her palm on the table and vocalized impatiently. That was new—she actually seemed to be waiting for him to respond. Cause and effect. John's lip tilted up, and his grin widened when Sherlock turned to the baby and exclaimed, "You've got it! Clever girl." He picked up the toy again and handed it to her, and was rewarded with a gummy smile. After two bangs on the table, the toy was on the floor again, and this time Sherlock was obviously waiting for her to vocalize before he picked it up.

"And now you're teaching her to shout for what she wants," John said wryly. "Ta for that."

Sherlock smirked at him and said, "That's not my problem," before returning his attention to the window. John turned his head trying to see what he was looking at, but saw only a quiet street. The buildings across the street had an air of abandonment, with several boarded up windows and tattered blinds pulled down over the doorways. A man in a dark blue jacket was walking down the street toward a boarded-up doorway tucked back under a striped awning.

The monkey hit the floor again, but this time Sherlock didn't pick it up because his eyes were glued to the window. "There he is!"

"There who is?" John asked, frowning. This had better not be what he was beginning to suspect it was. Alice screeched impatiently but Sherlock ignored her, so John reached around the high chair and retrieved the toy.

"Person of interest in the McClinchy homicide. Let's go!"

"What?! You wanted to meet me here so you could chase down a suspect?"

"Not a suspect; a person of interest. And not just me. We. Now come on, he's going to get away."

John shook his head. "I'm not going. Call Greg."

"Greg?" Sherlock looked completely lost. Good grief.

"LESTRADE! GREG LESTRADE!" John could see out of the corner of his eye that they had attracted the attention of the older lady in the corner, who was now glaring at them disapprovingly, so he dropped his voice to a hiss. "Good God, when are you going to learn his name?!"

"No time." Sherlock was out of his seat now now, one foot toward the door. "Come on!"

"No!" John growled angrily through clenched teeth. What was wrong with Sherlock today? "I'm not going to go chasing after a murder suspect with a baby strapped to my chest! Things are different now, remember? I can't just dash off into danger with you anymore. Unlike you, I have people who depend on me! It's been nearly nine months, Sherlock. One would think you'd have figured that out by now."

Sherlock blinked down at Alice like he had just realized she was there. "Why did you bring her along? You should have left her with Mary."

"Mary is at work!"

"Mrs. Hudson would have taken her. You need a little adventure, get the blood pumping through your veins."

"Last time you said that to me, I broke your nose. For the last time, no! Not today."

"Then why did you bother to meet me here?"

John shook his head in wonder at Sherlock's ability to be so brilliant and yet so clueless at the same time. "Because, and God only knows why, I am still your friend!"

"But what use are you to me?"

"Sherlock!" This was beyond the pale, even for Sherlock.

Sherlock flipped his hand dismissively. "Fine. Whatever. Go on back to your boring little flat in the suburbs."

Alice was making unhappy noises again, and when John glanced at her, he saw to his dismay that she had managed to spill the rest of his lukewarm coffee all over herself and was banging the empty cup on the table. He rolled his eyes and started mopping up the mess with a stack of napkins. "Off with you, then," he said with his back to Sherlock. "Have your little adventure. Maybe I can go with you next time."

He could hear Sherlock's annoyed grunt, then the door chimed and he was off. John didn't even turn around to watch where he went. Annoying git. Although this wasn't like him lately, to be so self-absorbed and clueless about others around him. Sherlock loved Alice with a fierceness that John wouldn't have thought possible a year before, and was usually incredibly protective of her. He wouldn't ordinarily forget she existed, or at least he hadn't lately. John chalked it up to Sherlock's excitement over finally having a case worth investigating.

"Well, Alice, love," he said with a grimace. "We've made a right mess of things, haven't we?"

Sherlock drew his bow across the strings of his Stradivarius impatiently. The instrument was out of tune, which normally he wouldn't have abided, but at this point he was so annoyed and out of sorts that it was almost satisfying for the music to sound so unpleasant.

His phone buzzed in his pocket again, so he played louder to drown it out. Infuriating Lestrade. He should have been focused on the McClinchy homicide, but instead he was letting himself get distracted by some stupid paedophilia case. That boy didn't even look that much like him. Perhaps the eyes, just enough that Sherlock had done a tiny double-take before he figured out what Donovan was up to. But it was ridiculous. He was sure he had never seen that sofa before. His mother's sofa had been a ghastly red and orange, not the no-less-eye-offending yellow and green affair from the photo. Honestly, what were people thinking in the seventies anyway, producing such ugly furniture?

Sherlock played a particularly enjoyable discordant note and forced himself to focus on the more important matter of the delightfully unfortunate demise of Lord and Lady McClinchy.

Fact: Lord Joseph McClinchy, age 32, had been a young up-and-comer with an inherited title and plenty of inherited money that he was rapidly depleting due to his lavish lifestyle. His generous "investments" had made him many friends and a few enemies as well. . .

The phone buzzed again with another text alert. Sherlock paused in his playing long enough to dig it out of his pocket and toss it onto the sofa without looking at it.

Fact: A photo existed, in the backwaters of the internet (since deleted, but not from Sherlock's mind palace), of Lady Millicent McClinchy in the company of one Edward Goldwater, ex-brother-in-law to known Moriarty henchman Sebastian Moran. True, this photo had been taken at a party over five years previous, but still it indicated a connection. . .

The phone buzzed again from the sofa. Sherlock ignored it.

Fact: Lady Millicent was known to be frustrated with her husband's spendthrift ways and had made moves to—

His thoughts were interrupted again, this time by Mrs. Hudson's tread on the stair. She was moving carefully, so she was carrying a tray and attempting not to spill the tea, as she had overfilled the teapot as usual.

"Yoo hoo!" She called from just outside the door. Sherlock ignored her and tried to pick up the tattered thread of his ruminations, only to have his concentration broken again when she thrust open the door anyway. "Sherlock, I've brought your tea."

"Yes, obviously. Now go away." He drew the bow across the strings again, resulting in a disharmonious racket.

"Ooh, Sherlock, that's awful." Mrs. Hudson deposited the tray on the coffee table and set about tidying up Sherlock's carefully distributed evidence photos. "It's half-seven in the morning. Perhaps you could play something a bit more soothing. Oh, my, these photos are disturbing."

"Late night? Perhaps a few too many herbal soothers?" He scraped the bow across the strings again for emphasis.

"Oh, no you don't. What on earth were you doing last night, young man? All that thumping about. . ."

What was she on about? Sherlock had spent a quiet night on the sofa with his fingertips tucked under his chin, staring at the ceiling and tracing the tangled web of Joseph McClinchy's business connections in his mind (true, he had woken up some time later on the floor, but that was neither here nor there). Ah, the business connections. . . Fact: Lord McClinchy was known to have been in league with notorious drug runner Owen Sprott, whom Sherlock had spotted yesterday entering a known drugs den, but had lost when John delayed his pursuit. . .

This chain of reasoning was interrupted by Mrs. Hudson prattling on again. "It sounded like you were rearranging furniture up here. And what was all the shouting about?"

Sherlock let off another string of dissonant chords. "I wasn't shouting." Now let's see. . . Sprott was an unsavory character—even Moriarty wouldn't jump into bed with him. . .

"Oh yes you were. I couldn't make out what you were saying, but you were definitely shouting. Up here all by yourself. . . unless you've got that brother of yours locked up in the bathroom?"

Frustrated, Sherlock tossed the violin onto the sofa harder than was strictly necessary and helped himself to a biscuit. "Haven't you got something else to do?" he asked around a mouthful of sweet. "Like perhaps the shopping?"

"I've already done the shopping, just yesterday. Although perhaps I should have bought more paracetamol." She rubbed her forehead, as if Sherlock might have missed her meaning from the snide comment alone.

"Oh? These biscuits are stale."

Mrs. Hudson drew herself up from where she had settled in John's chair. "No they're not!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"Yes, they are. You're feeding me stale biscuits." Sherlock took up the violin and bow again. "What good are you?"

"Sherlock Holmes!" Mrs. Hudson was on her feet now, which was exactly the reaction he had been looking for. "You are incredibly rude!"

"Excellent deduction, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock responded evenly. He turned his back on her, set the bow to the strings again and started to play the dissonant first movement from Beethoven's third symphony, in triple time, to hurry her departure. It worked, of course. She huffed and hustled out the door, muttering something deprecating under her breath about his mother. But he had stopped listening.

Fact: Goldwater's suspected associates included the infamous Albanian assassin Miroslav Popovic, who had also done some low-profile work for Moriarty, as well as some of Sprott's other rivals. If only Mycroft had let him stay in Albania a little longer, he might have been able to apprehend Popovic and break the Albanian connection wide open. But there was nothing he could do about that now, other than take petty revenge on Mycroft at every opportunity. So, if Goldwater (and, by extension, Moran) had seen a way to eliminate Sprott's funding by taking out Lord McClinchy. . .