"Lestrade. Good to see you," Sherlock had managed to recover from his surprise and change subjects like this was just some chance encounter between the two of them. "I hope you heard at least some of what I was saying before; I hate to repeat myself."

"Did you bring him here? What possessed you to do that?" Lestrade was staring at John as if in shock.

"I didn't bring him here," he managed to say.

"While it might be convenient to blame John for my presence here, this was entirely my idea. Last night he mentioned he'd been involved in a disturbing case where the Yard had been called in, and I told him I was coming here. After attempting to talk me out of doing so he insisted he accompany me as to not cause further trauma to the child." He crossed his arms over his chest. "She asked if I would be coming back, so I assume that nothing of the sort occurred."

Lestrade gaped. "She asked you to come back?"

"She asked if we could talk again once she was out of the hospital, and her father was willing to allow that." He gave a smug grin and John felt momentarily relieved that he was apparently back to his normal self. While it had been good to see Sherlock was able to question a child about sensitive subjects it had also been somewhat surreal. He never bothered to try to get along with anyone before, so what made this situation different? Maybe he was one of those people who didn't consider children part of the human race, bad from most people but from Sherlock that would be a twisted compliment. "Now, what are you doing here? Have you come to question the child again and in the process get various forms of denial and stonewalling? That's all you'll ever get, by the way."

"I was actually coming to take a statement from the father. It hasn't been done yet and for the last few days we've been more concerned with questioning Moira than Mr. Aherne." Lestrade's voice was tight.

John jumped into the conversation. "Right now he's reading a book to his children. I think we should give them an hour or so together before we bother them again. He needs the quiet time." Trying to defuse the situation, he added, "Have you eaten already? Neither of us have, and getting a meal would be a good way to pass an hour or so." While Sherlock was probably uninterested in eating, it had been a long time since breakfast.

"No, I figured I'd eat once I was done questioning him. I suppose we'd be leaving the hospital? Can't imagine the food in the cafeteria is much better than what they serve on the patient trays," Lestrade chuckled.

"There are a few good places right nearby. Chinese, Indian, fish and chips, sandwiches?" Truthfully, John rarely ate at most of the places in the area, since he usually picked up something on the way home if he hadn't bothered to bring something with him, but all of the places he was thinking of he had eaten at at least once and they were, if not gourmet, far better than cafeteria food.

"Sandwiches are fine. I don't want something deep-fried and I ate Indian yesterday." He glanced at Sherlock, who had receded into the background. "Are you going to come eat with us?" While Lestrade didn't add, "You never eat when you're on a case, and is this a case, right?" it was fairly obvious that was what he was implying.

"I'll come. I want to ask the father a few questions myself. He doesn't know the perpetrator – he may have met them once or twice, but he isn't familiar with them – but he could have some important information." His voice was flat again, and John was reminded of last night and Sherlock's oddly restrained anger.

"So you haven't figured out who the man is by some mark on the girl's shoes or something?" Lestrade snapped. There was a slight pause before he shook his head, looking abashed. "No, I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. Cases like this are always upsetting."

"No, I haven't," Sherlock responded, still sounding flat, like he hadn't heard the apology.

"Shall we go and eat?" John interjected. He wasn't sure if this exchange was going to lead into a fight, but he didn't want to find out.

The meal was not exactly torture, but it was certainly one of the most uncomfortable meals John had ever eaten. Sherlock came along, to be true, but he merely sat with them and stared off into the distance while he and Lestrade tried to make awkward small talk. It would have been easier if he had at least been pretending to pay attention, but he wasn't even looking in their direction. Lestrade seemed to feel just as he did, as after about ten minutes he gave up the pretense of conversation and they just ate their turkey sandwiches as fast as they could manage. (Sherlock didn't order anything himself, but he did steal the cucumber off of John's plate. That was fine with him; he didn't particularly care for cucumber anyway.)

It took forty-five minutes for them to be seated, order, eat, pay the bill, and head back to the hospital, and that was enough for them. When Lestrade knocked on the door of the room, Mr. Aherne was no longer reading the book and his children were all sitting on the bed, watching some cartoon. "Mr. Aherne, can I have a word with you outside?" Lestrade asked him. "We'll just be outside the door, so your children should be all right."

"I'll be there in a second." He lifted himself up from his chair and glanced briefly at the bed before leaving the room. "I suppose you want to take a statement," he said when the door was closed.

"Yes, but Sherlock here wants to ask you a few questions," Lestrade said. "I'll try to make this easy as possible."

"All right. I knew you were going to take a statement because they always do that on the police procedurals." He pointed towards an alcove near the lift with a few chairs and a round table. "We can sit there, since you can still see the door from there."

John, Lestrade, and Mr. Aherne all sat down around the table. There were only three chairs, but Sherlock didn't look like he was going to sit down, and instead began to circle the path from the alcove to the room door. Lestrade put some papers down on the table. "I'll be taking notes." Mr. Aherne nodded. "Some of these are silly questions, but they're for the record."

"All right."

"Can you give me your name?" He tapped his pencil on the table.

"John Aherne."

"Your age?"

"Thirty-four."

"And your occupation?"

"I'm a caterer. I currently work out of my flat. It's with a larger company, but I'm responsible for a lot of their smaller work, mostly in London."

"And you're a widower?"

"Yes. My wife, Nora, passed away three years ago." Mr. Aherne looked like he could say a great deal more on the subject, but did not.

"You have no living family?"

"If I do they're not aware of me. My mother drank and I was taken into care when I was small. Either no one could take me or no one was able to. Nora was in care because she was abandoned when she was an infant."

"Now, in your own words, tell me why you brought your children to A&E on Thursday night."

"Well, it was around ten in the evening and I realized I hadn't done any laundry for a week and it was piling up. I'd done a lot of cooking that week; small parties for little shops and a few things for St. Bart's and the meetings they have. I'd put the children to bed earlier, so I figured it would be a good time to get it done." He took a deep breath and swallowed. "I emptied out all the hampers and went down to the basement with everything. I started to sort the laundry and as I was taking some clothes from one of them I saw red on a pair of knickers. From the size, they had to be Moira's. This probably sounds silly, but my first thought was that she'd started menstruating. But I thought for a second and I figured if she had she'd have said something to me about it. And then it occurred to me that it might be from some damage or a tumor or something."

"I suppose that means you've had the sex talk with your older children?" John said. He wasn't sure if he was allowed to say anything, but he hadn't been ordered to leave, so he might as well try to help.

Mr. Aherne chuckled, the first time John had seen him look anything close to happy. "Dr. Watson, you must not have children. There's never one talk. You deal with those things as they come up. We've had quite a few conversations on the subject, and I knew she was aware it would happen to her. She'd seen a commercial for Tampax a few months back, and she asked me what it was about. I told her the truth, as much as I thought she could understand. I don't believe in lying to children."

Lestrade had been writing while this exchange took place, and as soon as Mr. Aherne fell silent he looked up again. "Let's get back on the subject. What did you do after that?"

"I went upstairs and woke up the children. I told them we had to go see the doctor. None of them seemed to like that, but they got up and went with me. After I got them all in the cab I first thought that it might not have been some sort of… accidental injury." He covered his eyes with one hand and choked back a sob. "That was something I didn't want to think about, so I didn't ask any of the children about it. We got to A&E and I told the woman at the desk I'd found blood on my daughter's underwear. A few doctors came and got them all and they all were given an exam. About ten minutes later one of the doctors came back to see me and she told me that Kieran and Dierdre were both apparently fine but Moira had some… lacerations." Tears were beginning to form in his eyes. "She told me that Moira would have to get a few stitches and I could be there when it was done. I went into the treatment room and Moira was upset; she told me they'd had to give her an injection to numb her up. I asked her if she knew how she'd got hurt and she told me she didn't know she'd been hurt. She cried when she was stitched up but she didn't say anything else. They had a few people who talked to her after that; Sergeant Donovan came in and there were some social workers. As far as I know, she said the same thing every time. After they talked to her I asked her again and she said she didn't know and she wanted to go home."

During this whole exchange, Sherlock hadn't said a word. He'd continued his pacing, and from where he was he could clearly hear everything that was being said, but he didn't add anything himself. It didn't look like he was focusing on anything in particular; maybe he was just thinking silently.

"All right, and I know you said you have no living family, but is there anyone else you know that might be capable of something like this? Anyone in the area that seems too fond of children? Some man who's always around but doesn't appear to be doing anything? Strange behavior from a father or a relative of one of Moira's friends?" Lestrade hadn't broken his gaze on Mr. Aherne since he had begun the tale of the trip to A&E.

"No. No one. I'm not familiar with enough people in the area to know anyone well, though." He paused to swallow. "Moira's shy and she's had some trouble since we moved from Donegal. She's had trouble making friends, so there isn't anyone that you could focus on the family members."

"Does she ever go out without supervision?"

"She walks our dog every day, and she sometimes goes to the little playground nearby. I know it's different in the city, but she's nine and she should have some freedom."

"Has she been spending a lot of time with you recently?" Sherlock's baritone voice was surprising enough that all three of them turned to look at him.

"Now that you mention it, she's following me around the house a lot the last few months. She's asking me to read her something before bed, too. Since she hadn't made friends I thought she was just lonely." Mr. Aherne looked slightly puzzled, like he hadn't thought about this before.

"And the dog sleeps in her room?"

"Yes, he always has, even before we moved here. He's supposed to sleep on the floor but recently she's been letting him sleep in her bed. I've told her he's not allowed up there but she hasn't listened."

"You live on the ground floor?"

"Yes, we do. The doors are locked when we're at home though."

"And your wife died of a pulmonary embolism?"

Mr. Aherne stared at Sherlock without saying anything for a minute. "Yes," he finally replied. "She'd gone to work; she was a fitness instructor. I can do most of my work from home, so that's where I was. She was pregnant, twelve weeks pregnant. She collapsed after arriving. The doctors said there was nothing that could have prevented it because she hadn't had any of the symptoms."

"Thank you for your information." And just like that, he walked away and stood impatiently at the lifts again. "John, we should get going," he added, and John went over to stand with him. As they got on the lift, they saw Mr. Aherne and Lestrade shake hands and Mr. Aherne scribbled something on a piece of paper that was probably his mobile number.

"We'll have to ask Lestrade for his number so you can talk to Moira again," John said. Sherlock didn't respond, and in fact said nothing through the walk downstairs or the cab ride home. He wasn't texting or otherwise occupied; he looked lost in thought.

"A bumblebee? You had a stuffed bumblebee?" John wasn't sure why this seemed to be the strangest thing he'd heard today, but it was.

"Yes."

"Who gave you that?"

"My archenemy."

"Do you still have it?" John couldn't wrap his mind around Mycroft giving anyone a stuffed toy, much less his brother.

"It got taken away," he tersely replied. John wanted to ask why, but he knew better than to try, and merely stared out the window. Rain was spitting down from the sky, casting a dull sheen on the ground. The sound was the perfect dismal soundtrack for the two people who were in the same space, and yet both alone.