Chapter 3:
At five in the morning, Sherlock was up and picking the lock to John's old room.
He made sure he was silent in his endeavors – he had no doubts that this Harry girl was a light sleeper.
He examined the bed carefully, gleefully pulling a strand of shredded hair from the bed. Definitely Harry's. He had to pluck one from the child's head, but he doubted the child was as light of a sleeper as the girl most certainly was.
Armed with both strands, he made his way back to the kitchen where his DNA testing kit was already set up.
He spent the next hour running and comparing DNA. John and Harry most certainly were related – not brother and sister, but first cousins did seem to be an option. In fact, he was almost certain of that.
But what troubled him was the child's DNA.
Because it matched Harry's.
Eyebrows furrowed, he pulled his own strand of hair out and examined it in comparison to Teddy's.
Only for it to match.
Impossible.
He remembered everything. He had never met Harry before, nor had he bedded her. He was certain he would remember such an occasion. Bedding people was something he did not do frequently. He supposed artificial insemination was an option, but he had never donated sperm and he couldn't think of any way someone could have stolen it from him.
Something didn't make sense, and Sherlock planned on figuring it out. Even if that meant checking Teddy's DNA every day to watch for a change.
It was just as he'd finished this decision when he heard footsteps. He glanced up to see Teddy padding into the room, stuffed animal in each hand. His eyes scanned the room, narrowing when he stopped on Sherlock.
"I see you're up. Didn't your mother tell you to stay in your room?" Sherlock asked, lifting an eyebrow. Teddy stared at him, as if not knowing what to say.
"You're exceptionally smart for a child." Sherlock said, analyzing his actions.
"What do you know about DNA?" Sherlock asked the child. Teddy continued to stare at him. Sherlock waved him over, and Teddy reluctantly walked over, climbing onto the chair next to Sherlock.
"Now, these strands here are…"
When Harry woke up, she was surprised to feel both warm and content. It was an odd feeling. She was on something soft – a bed? Oh, a bed.
She stretched, letting out a soft yawn as she reached for Teddy…and felt nothing.
Any content she had been feeling vanished. She rolled out of the bed, crashing hard into the floor. She was on her feet and running out of the room before she could register the pain.
She crashed into the wall next to the kitchen, not even realizing there was a wall there. She steadied herself, eyes searching the area.
Standing on a chair at the table was Teddy.
Babbling with Sherlock.
Next to all sorts of chemicals and a…microscope?
"So that's why it's odd. Because I've never procreated and you have my DNA," Sherlock finished, glancing up at her.
"Looks like Mummy's awake," Sherlock said. Teddy spun around, nearly falling off the chair. He climbed down quickly and ran at her, hugging her tightly around the legs. Harry's grip on the wall tightened as she fought to stay standing.
"You appear to be dripping blood on the floor. Pity. I could have used that for the DNA test," Sherlock said with a sigh.
"Hurt? Mommy hurt?" Teddy asked in alarm.
"No honey. I'm fine," Harry lied, carefully bending over and scooping the infant up. She settled him on her hip, still leaning against the doorframe.
"Obviously you are not. I guess I should take you to St. Barts," Sherlock said with a sigh.
"No. I'm fine," Harry said quickly, eyes wide.
"I know someone who works in the mortuary section. She can mend you up just fine," Sherlock said, waving it off.
Harry shook her head once again, opening her mouth to protest when her vision darkened.
Sherlock sighed as the girl collapsed on the ground. She hit her head when she fell out of bed, Sherlock was certain, and then she ran into the doorframe. Concussion, most definitely.
Teddy was shaking his mother. That wasn't good for her, Sherlock surmised. He let out a second sigh as he stood and made his way over to her.
He was going to have to take her to St. Barts now. Not only that, he would have to carry her there, possibly the child as well. He lifted her, shifting her light form in his arms as he stared down at Teddy.
"Can you walk alongside me?" he asked.
"Mommy hurt?" Teddy repeated his previous question, wide eyes glued to Sherlock.
"Yes. Mommy is hurt. We will take her to a hospital where they will make her better," Sherlock said, feeling ridiculous as he dumbed down his words. The child nodded, however.
The child was abnormally bright, Sherlock admitted. He seemed to have grasped what Sherlock was telling him about DNA, although Sherlock knew some words went over his head. Still, for a child of his age, he was good.
He strode out of the room and down the stairs, realizing when he got to the bottom that Teddy was not with him. Instead, he was standing at the top of the stairs, staring dubiously down at them.
Sherlock walked back up the stairs and sighed loudly, earning a glare from the child.
"I thought we were past the glares," Sherlock said. The child waited for…something, watching him as he did.
Oh. He would have to carry the child down the stairs. Sherlock shifted Harry in his arms and picked Teddy up, placing the child on his hip before shifting Harry back to her previous position in his arms.
Mycroft was bound to notice this. Did they really need to go to the hospital?
Yes, Sherlock reluctantly decided. John would kill him if he called saying Harry was unconscious on her second morning.
"Bag," Teddy said suddenly, eyes wide.
"Bag?" Sherlock repeated.
"Need bag," Teddy said urgently.
"We don't need the bag," Sherlock said.
"No. Need backpack bag," Teddy said firmly. Sherlock made his way back into the flat and picked up a bag lying by the door. It wasn't the girl's backpack, but it was the bag Mary had packed for her the night before.
Sherlock hadn't really been paying attention as to its uses. He just knew it was there.
This time, Teddy was silent as they went down the stairs and out of the building. He had no problem hailing a cab – the first one driving by stopped at the sight of an infant and unconscious woman in his arms and sped towards the hospital without even being told to do so.
It was early when they made it to St. Barts – perhaps around 8, Sherlock guessed. Which was fine with him – Molly usually arrived about that time, if he remembered correctly. He walked right past the secretary, a bored girl who didn't even glance up at him, and hopped in the elevator. Teddy was still silent.
He expected he would receive a call from Mycroft within the hour about his mysterious woman and child. No doubt Mycroft was running facial match scans on both of them.
He made his way down the hallway and into the morgue, where Molly was looking over a clipboard in her hands. Her eyes flew up at the sound of the door and widened when she saw what he was holding.
"Sherlock! Please tell me she isn't dead!" Molly said, moving quickly towards them.
"Of course not. She hit her head twice and John would not have reacted kindly if I told him his sister had already been hurt after only a day at the flat," Sherlock said smoothly. He laid her down on one of the tables. Molly didn't even spare the child a look, quickly examining the bump on the front of her head and the blood from the back.
"You should have brought her upstairs. Did she become unconscious immediately?" Molly asked.
"No. She gradually fainted a few minutes after her second collision," Sherlock offered.
"Then it wasn't the bump that caused her lack of consciousness. She might have a cold or be pregnant or something. I'll get some blood and run a few tests," Molly said. She quickly did as she said she would and popped into the next room, handing the blood off to an assistant who scurried upstairs.
It was only then that she looked at the child.
And gasped.
Her eyes darted between the child in his arms and the woman on the table.
"John's sister. You have a child with John's sister?" Molly asked faintly. Sherlock opened his mouth, ready to automatically deny such an accusation, when he remembered he had offered to use that very story just the night before.
"Yes," Sherlock said.
"You never mentioned a child," Molly said.
"No. I was unaware of his existence. She only came to visit John yesterday and let it slip. I refused to allow her to leave without me getting to know my son," Sherlock said, trying to keep the disdain out of his voice.
Molly moved closer, frowning.
"Did you guys just wake up?" she asked, examining the child.
"She did. Theo wandered into the kitchen an hour or so ago and listened to me explain DNA," Sherlock supplied. Yes. Theo. Sherlock liked that name. It sounded much more suitable to his mentality than Teddy did.
And it offered another degree to their identity. He wouldn't have a child called Teddy.
"Did you change his clothes? Or his diaper?" Molly asked.
"Diaper?" Sherlock asked, eyebrows furrowing. Molly took the child from him instantly, as well as the bag. Teddy began to whimper the moment he left Sherlock's arms, eyes darting around the room wildly. They kept falling back to Harry's still form.
"Shh, darling, it's okay. You'll feel better," Molly said soothingly. She laid him down on the table next to Harry and pulled the bag up as well. She dug out a piece of fabric and a piece of…cloth? Sherlock was uncertain as to the exact nature of the material in her hands. She also pulled out a packet of…wipes? Sherlock's eyebrows furrowed.
They continued to furrow as Molly motioned him closer.
"I'm assuming, judging by your looks, that you haven't changed a diaper before. If you're to take care of a son, you need to know," Molly said, making him take her place. Teddy started to squirm uncomfortably. Molly stilled him, showing Sherlock how to remove the diaper.
A traumatizing five minutes later, Teddy was wearing a clean…diaper…and new shirt. He was still staring warily at Molly when he wasn't watching his mother worriedly.
The moment Molly tried picking him up, he started whimpering as he had the day before when Sherlock had grabbed him. Sherlock quickly pulled him from Molly's grasp, grateful when the whimpers stopped.
"She kept him isolated with her. He's not used to other people holding him. He's only letting me because he's worried about his mother," Sherlock said smoothly. Molly frowned but nodded.
"I'll go ahead and clean up her head while we wait for the results. How old is he?" Molly asked as she moved to Harry, gently rolling her over onto her stomach.
"Two years old," Sherlock said, glad he knew that fact. If she asked much of anything else, he wouldn't have an answer.
"Bit small for two years old. Has he had a checkup recently?" Molly asked, cleaning the back of Harry's head with antiseptic wipes. She had to do a lot of moving the hair around though, Sherlock noticed. He thought about suggesting she shaved it off, but doubted Harry – or John – would be very happy with him.
"I doubt it. Harry's a bit paranoid. Didn't have the best living conditions. Came to John for help," Sherlock supplied.
"Well, once she wakes up we can bring them upstairs and find a pediatrics doctor to give him a checkup. I'm surprised John didn't force them here as soon as they arrived," Molly said.
"He tried but she arrived late and was tired," Sherlock said shortly.
"She won't need stitches. We'll have to wait for the tests to come back to see if there's anything wrong," Molly said, leaning back against a table and staring at him.
"You could have told me," Molly finally said.
"I'm sorry?" Sherlock mustered, staring at her.
"You could have told me the reason you weren't interested in me was because you already had a woman. I would have moved on much faster," Molly said.
"I was…unaware…that this was a problem for you," Sherlock tried to say smoothly, synapsises firing in his head as he analyzed her words. It had to do with emotions, he was certain, and while he had certainly improved in his ability to decode certain emotions, the subject as a whole still evaded him.
There was a knocking on the door and the lab assistant Molly had sent off with a sample was back, grim look on his face. He handed her the paper, hovering nearby.
"Oh. Sherlock, we need to move her upstairs," Molly said, eyes wide.
"She won't like that," Sherlock said.
"She has pneumonia. Later stages. She's had it for months, it looks like. It's in her blood. We should test the child too. She needs antibiotics or her body won't be able to finish fighting off the infection," Molly said.
With a sigh, Sherlock agreed.
The first thing Harry was aware of when she came to was a beeping noise. A heartbeat.
Her heartbeat. She was in a hospital. Her eyes shot open quickly, wide. She glanced around the empty room, examining the wires hooked up to her. No. She couldn't be there. She had to get out. Now.
She leaned forward, noting that she didn't feel sore. Good. Not much of a physical injury then. She grabbed the clipboard on the front of the bed and scanned over it.
Pneumonia. She could live with that, right? She was sure she could. As long as it wasn't contagious.
She had to find Teddy and get them both out of there, and she needed to do it now. Her skin was itching at the feel of being somewhere so open, being so…vulnerable. She carefully slid the IV out of her arm and slid out of the room, eyes peeled for anyone who looked like they would return her to her room.
Teddy. She needed to find Teddy, and needed to find him now. She needed Teddy so they could run. She couldn't run without Teddy. She closed her eyes quickly and summoned her magic. There were few things she could do with it, without her wand, but she could always find Teddy.
She followed the invisible strand quickly, ducking out of sight of any doctors and nurses as she did. She had been around Nurse Pomphrey enough to know that fact. She got to the room just in time to hear someone telling Sherlock and another woman that she'd disappeared. Both took off running out of the room, leaving Teddy behind.
Thank God.
Harry all but ran into the room and scooped Teddy up, dashing out of the room with him. She didn't stop running until she was out of the alley and in a back alley.
Where to go? She didn't even know for sure where she was. She didn't think she'd ever been to this part of the city – at least, she couldn't remember it. That and her brain felt fuzzy. And it was a bit chilly out. Chilly for her in Sherlock's shirt, since that was all she was wearing.
She had nothing on her. No backpack, no purse. No money. No jackets. No blanket. But they had to get out of there. She couldn't be found.
And if Sherlock was that willing to put her somewhere she could be found, she wasn't going to stay there anymore.
The room was empty. Sherlock stared at the bed for a moment, mind silent. Then he started taking it all in.
Bed rumbled but not a mess. Woke up slowly. Clipboard slightly crooked – she first checked what she had. Sherlock wasn't sure if she knew what pneumonia was, but she knew she had it. IV dangling at the side – it had been tugged out, not ripped out. She was calculating.
So she woke up, decided she had to get out of there.
The first place she would go would be to find her kid.
Sherlock turned and ran out of the room, back for the room they'd carelessly left Teddy in.
It was empty. They were both gone.
"John's not going to be pleased," Sherlock muttered as he surveyed the hallway.
He was right. John was not happy. John was upset. Extremely upset. He was more than upset though – he was worried. Especially when he realized she had both a concussion and pneumonia. And Teddy. And nothing with her.
He called Lestrade immediately, despite Sherlock's protests. But Lestrade even said he couldn't do much, and unless he saw her he couldn't bring her back.
And Sherlock didn't tell John, but he had a feeling that if Harry wanted to be hidden, she'd stay hidden. She'd been on the streets over a year before they came across her.
However, they had her bags. The handbag, Sherlock had been unable to get into, but the backpack had clothes, a bit of money, and their blanket. They had none of them.
They didn't even have Teddy's diaper bag. And Harry didn't even have pants.
And the forecast said the temperature was going to drop in the next few days. When it wasn't raining.
John begged Sherlock to find her. After all, that was something Sherlock did for a living. But Sherlock didn't want to admit that while he could find most people, he wasn't certain he could find Harry.
Mrs. Hudson was sad to learn that her help was gone, and John just acted…depressed. Sherlock didn't like the change in either of his acquaintances.
So he decided he would find her again. He wouldn't hurry – no, he'd wait a bit. She'd make a mistake. And soon. But the first week? The first week she'd be on edge. He'd find her once she relaxed a bit. And then, he'd bring her back. For John. And Mrs. Hudson.
And he didn't think he'd mind seeing Teddy again.