A/N: Hey kids! It's been a while, but I'm back with more Gabriel and yes... it's official... Scarlett can talk. Lord help us all! Have fun! Remember: Reviews are food for creative thought!
Disclaimer: I own nothing except Gabriel, Scarlett and Cat the dog.
Balance is a funny thing. Sometimes it feels so out of reach. The chaos of one's life spirals ever onward, threatening to be out of control at every turn until finally you're drowning in a bubbling stew of work, responsibility and life. And then, one day when you least expect it, the scales tip, and balance is achieved. By the time Scarlett was nearly two, balance had been restored, both sides of the scale at precisely the zero mark with Sherlock and Molly dancing gracefully on the fulcrum. The turnaround began when Molly cut back her hours in the lab and started teaching more. "The key to successful management is delegation," Sherlock had said. "You have to start giving other people jobs, Molly. You can't do everything." John snorted, reminding Sherlock that: one, he was not his manager and two, delegation didn't mean that he gave orders for others to carry out. Sherlock countered that this was exactly what delegation meant and even went so far as to google it for his friend's perusal. The conversation quickly descended toward violence until Scarlett stepped in. Like her mother, she was ever the peacemaker.
"Daddy! Too loud!" she would scold, stepping between them. Her auburn hair bounced in a tangle of ringlets around her shoulders as she shook her tiny finger at them. "No shout ina house!"
"Quite right, Peaseblossom," Sherlock replied, scooping her up and spinning the little girl around until she was giggling madly. There was definitely no doubt to the child's lineage. It became more apparent with each passing month. Like Gabriel, Scarlett was a spitting image of Sherlock with her unruly curls and sharp features, but her personality and demeanor became more like Molly every day. Especially the part where she could tell off her father with a bat of eyelashes. "I'm going to get into trouble with Mummy, aren't I?"
"Say sorry, Daddy."
"Sorry, Daddy," Sherlock replied sarcastically with a sneer toward John.
The only thing Scarlett loved more than scolding her father and uncle was Gabriel. Mycroft had been quite right when he assured the boy that he would be idolized by his sibling. If Gabriel was at home, Scarlett was his shadow. Most times, this was a source of great pride and joy for the nine year old boy, but other times he wished that there were some sort of extractive surgery that one could get for baby sisters. "Dad! Make her leave me alone!" Gabriel frequently whined as he tromped through the flat. Scarlett would be right on his heels, trailing after him.
OoOoOo
"Bre play!" Scarlett fussed. It was date night for their parents and Scarlett was already bored. She had played with Izzy until they got angry with one another, helped Mary in the kitchen and watched Dr. Who with John. Her two year old attention span was no longer satisfied, it was still an hour until dinner and she looked to Gabriel for entertainment. She stood in front of her brother with Sherlock's skull, wrapped in her favorite pink baby blanket, clutched in her arms.
"I don't want to play today, Scarlett. I have to practice my violin." This was usually his excuse when he wanted his sister to go away. The high-pitched notes hurt her ears and for this reason, she was terrified of the instrument.
"No, Bre. Play with baby," she replied, pointing at her chest. She often referred to herself in the third person.
"You aren't a baby," Gabriel sighed, taking his violin from the case.
"Uh huh. Scar-baby," she said, attempting to climb onto the sofa beside him. Her wobbly center of gravity caused her to slide down twice, nearly tumbling to the floor before Gabriel caught her by the back of the overalls and hoisted her up. "Bre play!" she said again, shoving the skull into his arms.
"No, Scarlett. I don't want to play," he said, unwrapping the skull. "And Dad's going to kill you if he catches you using his skull for a doll."
She jerked it back, her lip poked out. "Skully my baby!"
"No," Gabriel said. "Skully is not your baby. It's Dad's and I don't think he wants you to play with it, Scarlett. He's told you a million times." He pulled it back from her, his violin momentarily forgotten.
"Scar is Daddy's baby! Not skully!" She pulled on the skull again, but this time Gabriel wasn't letting go. Back and forth they tugged, knocking sheet music and blankets off the couch as they wrestled for possession of the skull. A dissonant screech sounded as the violin slid off the edge of the sofa and hit the floor, followed by the case. Neither noticed in their struggle until John cleared his throat from the doorway. Both started and the skull went flying across the room to crash against the mantle and onto the hearth. "Oooh… Bre… you broked Daddy's skully."
"I did not! John!" Gabriel exclaimed, jumping up. "I was telling her to stop!"
"You took Skully baby from me!" Scarlett wailed, starting to cry.
John sighed and made his way into the room toward the fireplace. Isabel was toddling behind him, giggling. She loved it when someone else was in trouble. He knelt down and picked up the skull, surveying the damage. Miraculously, it wasn't shattered, but one of the teeth was missing and there was a large, jagged crack from the corner of the eye socket to the nose hole.
Gabriel scrambled off the couch to where John was knelt, carefully pushing Izzy to the side. "Is it br—oh… no. That's not good is it?"
"A bit not good, yes," John replied.
Scarlett had tumbled off the couch and was toddling over to them when Izzy laughed and pointed at Scarlett, then chanting, "Scarlett's in trouble…"
"I not!" Scarlett said, her voice watery with tears. "I not in trouble, am I, Bre?" She sniffled and tugged at the end of Gabriel's button-up. Ironically, though the fight with her brother was the cause of her woes, Scarlett was confident that he would protect her from the wrath of their father.
"Uhm…" Gabriel stammered, watching as another tooth fell out of the dry socket. "John? Can we fix it?"
"If we could find all the missing pieces," he replied, sounding doubtful. Soon all of them were crawling around on the living room rug, looking for a tooth and shards of bone matter. Gabriel even used his magnifier to go over the floor, but it was no use. The skull was properly ruined. "I don't think I'll be able to fix this one, mate." John was very used to having to fix and cover up destruction after a date night. He often wondered if Sherlock did the same when he and Molly kept Izzy.
Gabriel flopped down on the armchair and sighed. He knew he was doomed. Scarlett followed him and tugged at his sleeve until he pulled her up into his lap. "I sorry, Bre," she murmured.
"You should be. This is all your fault," Gabriel scolded, letting his sister snuggle into the crook of his arm. "Dad told you not to touch that skull again."
"But it's my favorite."
She looked up at him so wistfully with her round eyes glazed with unshed tears and her trembling lower lip. Gabe couldn't help but feel sorry for his sister and it was likely that she would be in lots of trouble. They both would. When Scarlett got in trouble, Gabe was usually guilty by association, but he was used to it. But one cross word from their father, and Scarlett would go to pieces. A few weeks previous when they were all walking to the Tube station, she had broken away from Sherlock and run toward the street. He'd been so frightened and so angry at her disobedience by her refusal to stop that once he caught up to her, he snatched the toddler off her feet and smacked her twice on the backside before scolding her soundly on the sidewalk. Scarlett had cried for the rest of the day. And not tiny sniffles, but heartbreaking wails that went on and on until she finally cried herself out and fell asleep. No one wanted that kind of scene again. For one thing, Gabriel hadn't been lying this time when he said he had to practice. "Yeah, well just because you like something doesn't mean that it's yours," Gabe grumbled.
"Maybe Sherlock won't notice," John said, trying to fit the tooth back into place before setting it on the mantle once more. He stood back to examine it. The jagged crack down the middle was pretty obvious as if the snaggletoothed grin wasn't enough. Sherlock would most definitely notice. "I think your only hope is to pray that date night goes really well, mate."
Another hour later when Sherlock and Molly returned, they were surprised to see that both children were awake and looking innocently adorable as they watched telly, curled up with Mary and a sleeping Izzy. "Wow! Everyone's still awake!" Molly said, taking her coat off and hanging it. Her clothes looked suspiciously disheveled. "We figured you'd all be asleep by now."
"We wanted to see you and Dad," Gabriel said with a yawn. "John said it would be okay since we could all have a lie in tomorrow."
"Did he?" Sherlock asked, an eyebrow raised at John.
John smiled and nodded, a mischievous and knowing grin on his face. "Well, we should be going. Izzy wasn't quite so keen to stay awake." The adults exchanged hugs and thanks and promises to return the favor the next night.
"Yes, tomorrow," Sherlock called down the stairs after them. "Don't forget to have a long, frustrating cab ride home so you can find your child wide awake and waiting for you!" He waved and plastered an exaggerated smile on his face. He sighed and pulled his scarf off, his eyes drawn to the flickering light of the television. It was some random news show and though both of his children were exceptionally bright and seemed to be staring intently, Sherlock knew that they weren't actually watching it. Something was up. Immediately he began staring around the flat looking for anything destroyed, on fire or immersed in questionable liquid. It only took a few seconds to light upon what was wrong. His skull. There was something strange… off… not quite right…
Sherlock started to speak when Scarlett flew off the couch and wrapped tiny arms around his waist. "I sorry, Daddy!" she cried. She then began to sob uncontrollably, spitting out random words that he couldn't make out.
Her shrieks immediately drew Molly into the living room, having only managed to get into the top of her pajamas. "What in the world?"
Sherlock shrugged and looked down at his daughter, his body stiff as if he were afraid of her. "Scarlett?" Bending over finally, he picked her up and hoisted her tiny body on to his hip. "What are you on about?"
"No, Daddy…" she sniffled. "You be mad."
"How do you know that?" Molly asked, coming around to Sherlock's other side and patting the little girl on the back.
"He will," she whined.
"Does this have something to do with my skull?" Sherlock asked, looking over at Gabriel who had been charily silent during this whole exchange.
"I play and it got broked," Scarlett said.
"You were playing with my skull?" Sherlock questioned. His tone was immediately tense. Molly placed a calming hand on his shoulder, sensing the rising anger. "Haven't I told you not to touch it?"
"Sherlock, it's just a skull," Molly started. "And she's just a baby."
He whipped his head around. "But it's mine! I've told her a thousand times not to touch it. The bone dust notwithstanding, what about all of the other things in the flat that are far more dangerous? She has to learn to do what we say, Molly!"
"I did it." Everyone stopped at Gabriel's small voice and turned to stare at him. He stood up and walked over to his parents. "Don't scold Scarlett. It was me. We were playing and I wanted to make her laugh, so I was tossing the skull in the air and catching it. Then Cat barked and distracted me, so I missed and it fell on the hearth and cracked." He hung his head and handed Scarlett her pink blanket. "Sorry, Dad."
Sherlock handed Scarlett off to Molly. "Come on, love. Let's get you into a bath and bed," she said to Scarlett, carrying her off down the hall before the shouting started.
OoOoOo
It was well after two in the morning when Scarlett climbed out of her tiny bed. The house was completely quiet and it was a little scary, but she was determined. Clutching her pink blanket, she gathered her courage and toddled across the hall to Gabriel's room. The door was cracked, but she knocked lightly like she'd been taught. "Bre? You in there?" she whispered.
"No, I ran away," Gabriel grumbled, sitting up in his bed and turning the lamp on beside him. "What are you doing awake, Scarlett?"
"I see you, Bre," she replied. Without invitation, she threw her blanket up on the bed and began climbing the foot board until she could wriggle onto the edge. She crawled on her hands and knees up to the top where Gabriel was. She looked around and noticed that something was missing. His small television that hung on the wall opposite was gone along with his tablet that was usually charging on the nightstand. She gasped. "You got buggled, Bre!"
"You mean burgled," he replied, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes. "And no I didn't. Dad and Mum took my television and my tablet for a week."
"You got troubled?"
"Yes, I got in trouble. Thanks to you," he sighed.
"I sorry, Bre." She climbed into bed beside him and pulled his covers up. "I sleep wiv you, Bre?"
What choice did he really have? She was already there. He nodded and turned the light off again. "Just so you know, I'm not lying for you again, Scar."
"Okay, Bre. Night-night," she said, shoving her thumb in her mouth and snuggling up beside him. Gabriel was almost asleep, listening to the sound of Scarlett slurping on her thumb when she spoke up once more. "Bre?"
"Mmhmm?"
"You my best big brother."
He smirked and let her snuggle closer to him in the dark. "I'm your only big brother, dinkus."
