References to sexual activity and drug abuse.

Chapter Forty Nine

The Hooper-Holmes family, sans Violet who was napping upstairs in her cot, arrived in the breakfast room to find the Holmes family and the Watsons already there. Molly helped Freddie choose his repast, William helped himself and Sherlock, following the doctor's advice for once, opted for a bowl of porridge, cooled with full-cream milk, followed by scrambled egg and smoked salmon. He eyed the coffee pot with longing but poured a glass of iced water, instead.

'How are you this morning?' Mycroft asked his brother, who replied with a noncommittal shrug.

'He's a little delicate, Mycroft, but the anti-inflamatories are helping,' Molly replied on his behalf, giving her brother-in-law a smile of appreciation for his concern. She sat opposite Mary, at the breakfast table, and could not help but notice the furtive smiles that the Watsons kept exchanging. Mary had obviously forgiven John for his irresponsible behaviour. Molly could not yet find it in her heart to do the same.

The conversation followed a general vein with Freddie explaining to anyone who would listen that Daddy and William could talk with their hands. Charlie was very impressed – anything that impressed Freddie was bound to impress Charlie, too. It went without saying. But the main buzz around the table was the imminent trip to see Poppah. The twins could hardly contain their excitement.

Sherlock had been reunited with his pad and pen. Molly had placed them on the bedside table, when she emerged from her shower, along with the pack of cigarettes and disposable lighter, giving him a look which forewarning that these items would all be added to the agenda of topics for their 'talk'.

At the first mention of the visit to St Hugh's, he scribbled a quick note and passed it to Mycroft.

I'm coming too, it read.

Mycroft surmised Sherlock's intensions immediately and he was deeply grateful but simply inclined his head in acknowledgement and said no more about it. If anyone could convince Arthur that the contents of the videos were pure lies, it was his brother, but he could not afford to hope for a positive outcome. He suspected that nothing short of a complete deconstruction of the offending footage would be sufficient proof. He chose to remain neutral rather than have to deal with disappointment at a later date.

After breakfast, Sherlock went back upstairs to change into his suit, which Andrew had expertly steam-pressed and hung on the wardrobe door in Nelson, while the family were eating. He came back down to join Mycroft, the twins and Sara, the nanny, for the journey Berkshire. Molly and the boys were there to see them off. He hugged and kissed both Freddie and William, assuring them that he would be home again before bedtime, then turned to Molly.

She hesitated, just for a moment, then stood on tiptoe and gave him a peck on the cheek, reminiscent of the early days following his 'return from the dead', before they became intimate. He caught her in a hug and pressed his cheek to hers then let go and followed Mycroft to the car waiting on the forecourt. He climbed into the front passenger seat, next to Mr Orgreave, the chauffeur, and waved to the boys as the car drew away.

Molly, William and Freddie went back inside to find the Watsons coming down the stairs with their bags. They both needed to return to their jobs so Mycroft had asked Charles Meadows, the Estate Manager, to give them a lift to the local station to catch the London train.

'Are you sure you're going to be alright, Molly?' Mary asked. She had noticed the cool atmosphere between Molly and Sherlock at the breakfast table and appreciated how frustrating it must be for her friend, not being able to have it out with her errant husband, as she had done with John.

'Yes thank you, Mary. At least I know he's safe, now. I'm going to take the children to the playschool, in the village, so they can let off some steam. They need a good run around and I could do with some fresh air. The walk will do us all good.'

John came over to say his goodbyes and Molly offered him a cheek to peck and did not return his hug.

'I am sorry, Molly, I truly am,' John said, looking chastened.

'I can't pretend I'm not disappointed, John,' Molly replied. 'You know, I do rely on you – perhaps unfairly – to keep him on the straight and narrow. If you had refused to go to that derelict hospital, I don't think he would have gone on his own.'

John acknowledged the rebuke with a repentant nod.

'But I also know that he's a grown man and you are not responsible for his actions,' she added.

'No, Molly, you have every right to be angry with both of us. We behaved like idiots. I will try not to do that again in the future.'

Molly gave him a tight smile and hugged Mary and Lily Rose before walking them out to the land rover, which was waiting to take them on the first leg of their journey home.

'Bye-bye, Lily Wose!' Freddie called out, waving enthusiastically as they drove away. William, in contrast, was very quiet.

'Are you alright, Will?' Molly asked.

'Why are you cross with Daddy and Uncle John? Did they do something naughty?' he asked.

Molly pursed her lips, thinking how she should answer this question or even if she could answer it at all. Kneeling on the floor and putting her arms around her eldest son, she said,

'There is something I need to talk to Daddy about and I can't do that at the moment because he's not allowed talk. And I can't talk to you about it until I've talked to him. But once I've talked to him, I promise I'll explain it to you. Is that OK?'

William nodded, not completely placated but accepting of the compromise, and put his arms around Molly's neck.

'I love you, Mummy!' he said.

'I love you, too, baby. Now, let's round up your sister and brother and get this show on the road!'

'OK! You get Ada and I'll get Freddie – ' who had wandered off along the front of the house, on a little mission of his own ' – and then we can go to Play School!' William declared, offering Molly a 'high five'.

'Deal!' she replied, with a smile, matching his 'high five' with her own.

ooOoo

Throughout the journey to Berkshire, Sherlock was deep in thought whilst Mycroft and Sara entertained Katy and Charlie in the back seat. Charlie, especially, was so desperate to see his Poppah he couldn't help but ask, every few minutes,

'Are we der, now?'

'Are we nearwy der?'

'Is dat where we going, der?'

'When will we be der?'

Mr Orgreave, the family chauffeur, had raised the privacy screen between the front and back sections of the limo as he always did when transporting the family, as opposed to Mycroft on his own, in order to afford them some privacy. Sherlock was grateful for that. It saved him having to filter out Charlie's anxious enquiries, difficult enough for any human being but practically impossible for a parent. It wasn't that he was uncaring – far from it – but he needed to be in his Mind Palace.

Molly had asked the question, what was he thinking, but he had answered that already – he wasn't thinking at all. But this begged the second question, which was actually the real question. Why? And in order to answer that question, he needed to review all the evidence.

He sat cross-legged on the floor of a room in his Mind Palace, surrounded by a veritable sea of photographs, spread out all around him on the carpet, each one depicting an occasion when he had leapt into the fray without any assessment whatsoever of the risks. This was his default position and had been so his entire life. He really owed it to Molly and to himself to address the issue of why he did this, time and time again, despite the frequent negative consequences.

Was it just for the buzz, the thrill of the chase? Was he really just an adrenalin junkie?

He picked up a photo and studied the image. It showed his nine year old self leaping into the river that flowed through the parkland of the family home, swollen in full flood on this occasion. He had run full tilt down the hill and hurled himself right into the middle of the racing current and let it carry him down stream, along with all the flotsam of tree branches and other detritus that the river had collected on its journey thus far.

It carried him for nearly half a mile before he brushed up against the far side bank and grabbed an over-hanging branch to halt his progress. He had dragged himself out and laid on the rain-sodden ground, gasping for breath. That escapade had cost him multiple bruises and scrapes and a three mile round trip, walking back home, via the nearest bridge.

When Mycroft went off to Eton, Sherlock had lost his only playmate. After that, his brother didn't want to play pirates any more and spent most of his holiday time in the library or staying at the homes of his various school friends. Sherlock felt abandoned. At six years old, he was more than a match for his nanny. He could give her the slip as easy as blinking.

He ran wild, during the school holidays, from breakfast to supper time. Mummy and Daddy were never there and even if they were, they had no time for him and Nanny would never say anything about him absconding for fear of losing her job to a younger person. As long as he was home by bed time, no one seemed to care what he did during the day.

Cook would make up sandwiches and leave them, surreptitiously, on the kitchen window sill for him to sneak up and grab, like a feral child, and carry off to eat in one of his many hiding places. The game keeper looked out for him and rescued him, on many an occasion, from potential danger, returning him to the house only for him to bolt again, the minute Nanny's back was turned.

He put that photo back and selected another one.

He was fifteen, following the hunt, on one of his favourite 'naughty snorties', as his mother called them. He liked the difficult rides, the horses that no one else would touch with a barge pole. You could never relax on a horse like that. You had to keep your wits about you. And he would tackle any hedge or fence or ditch or any combination of the three, the broader, the bigger and the deeper the better.

This day, on this hunt, the horse had cleared the hedge but not quite made the ditch on the far side and, scrabbling for a foothold, had tipped over backwards, pinning his rider underneath. As if that weren't bad enough, the ditch was full to the brim with stagnant water and Sherlock got a lung full. The horse managed to right himself and galloped off, to catch up with the herd, leaving him to crawl out, coughing and choking, and get back to the horse box under his own steam. And what had Mummy said, when she finally returned on her own mount, leading his? Never let go of the reins! Even if you are DEAD!

The next photo made him smile. It showed him lying on his mother's bed, getting a lesson in seduction from the saucy Kitchen Assistant. What was her name? He couldn't remember. Did he ever know? If he did, he had deleted it. That was a fun fortnight but the risks he had taken! Unwanted pregnancy, STI's - to name but two. And the wrath of his parents had they ever found out. Well now he knew his mother had found out but had said nothing…

'What good would that have done?' his mother asked, standing on the edge of the sea of images, dressed in her twinset and pearls, looking elegant and stunningly beautiful.

'Well, who knows? I might have listened. I might even have mended my ways,' he replied.

She laughed and sat down on the floor, curling her legs underneath her.

'You never listened to anyone,' she chided, 'and you always did exactly what you wanted to do, regardless of what anyone advised.'

It was Sherlock's turn to laugh, ironically.

'That is rich coming from you, Mother! How would you know? When did you ever give me guidance?'

She looked away, her face pinched with regret.

'Go away!' he barked, making her start. 'That was the only guidance I ever got from you. You used to tell me that a lot!'

'Guilty as charged,' she murmured.

She selected a photo and handed it to him, with a pained expression. In this one, he was eighteen, lying on his single bed, in halls at Cambridge. It was Fresher's Week and he had really made the most of the opportunities available to a Chemistry student at one of the top Science colleges, Trinity. That was a close call. He had never used by that method before and had totally underestimated the potency of that shot of cocaine. Lucky for him his roommate came back when he did and called an ambulance. A generous donation from Daddy to the Senior Common Room had brushed that incident safely under the carpet. And he had learned from his mistake – he always tested the purity of his supply before using, after that.

'That wasn't really the right lesson though, was it,' his mother said, sadly.

'I got there in the end and under my own steam,' he retorted.

'Yes, eventually, I suppose. And, by some miracle, you lived to tell the tale. But did you really learn the lesson or just find other ways to push your luck?'

'I don't have a Death Wish!' he snapped.

'No, just a desperate need to feel alive!' she retorted.

'Go away!' he shouted. And this time he meant it.

He looked up to see the familiar Checkpoint Charlie guard post coming in to view as the car approached the turn off for St Hugh's.

'We're here, sir,' Mr Orgreave's advised him, as the vehicle slowed in preparation for the turn.

ooOoo