Chapter 20: In Arduis Fidelis

A/N: Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that wherever you are, and whomever you're with, you are having a lovely time (even if you do end up wanting to strangle your relatives as usually happens 'round these parts). Hopefully you will like the coming chapters enough to consider them a Christmas gift rather than the literary equivalent of a lump of coal; they're all about John surprising those around him with acts, skills or qualities, as that seems to be what this fic has morphed into in the months since that first chapter leapt out of my head and onto the page. There are four of them.

Special Christmas greetings to all those who've favourited the story (or, Heaven forefend, my author page), and to all those who've reviewed since this began, particularly some of you who've consistently taken time out of your day to write something:

johnsarmylady; chappysmom; ArtyDiane; Alohilani Hudson; Howlynn; VorpalSword; book girl fan; hjohn302; Khelc-sul Renai; Jfreak; YYHfan-KB; TYRider; Prothoe; Raychaell Dionzeros; aliceAmnesia; Laranha Steadyblade (love your name-sort of hoping it's Viking/lore in origin); spedreder; otala; Confictura; MapeleafCameo and SakuraBlossom62.

Feliz Navidad/Joyeux Noel/God Jul/Buon Natale and Merry Christmas!

A/N II: IAF is the motto of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and seems very apt to describe 'very loyal, very quickly' John Watson: the perfect person to have on your side in a crisis situation. I got it round the wrong way, not never having learned Latin: I've used it the right way before and am rather annoyed at myself for having mucked it up, but never mind! Thank to the reviewer who pointed it out! There's a bit of experimenting with tenses here: I'm not sure whether or not it works, so critique away! Fluff-fluff-fluff-fluffity-fluff, but a) it's Christmas, and b) if anyone could engineer this it would be the Holmes-Holmes-Watson triad.

November

Rifling through the sheaf of letters bundled up on the coffee table one morning ("Bored!"), Sherlock had come over to John, who was diligently scraping the last of the strawberry jam out of the jar with a knife and taking care to spread right to the edges of his toast. He had plopped a letter down near his plate, coming far too close for comfort to dropping it on his bloody breakfast. Finishing his task, and giving the last remnants clinging to the groove under the rim up for lost, John had glanced over to the letter with a piece of crust halfway between mouth and plate. Frowning, he had set it down on the plate and picked up the letter with his clean hand. The writing had been precise, but sloping, in a hand he would have recognised anywhere; the postmark said BFPO. British Forces Post Office-it could only be from Bill Murray. He had opened the letter, finding with a smile a picture of his old unit, grinning and waving in the Afghan sun having beaten the Cherry Berries in the annual 7-a-side footie game.

[Address redacted]

7th November

Dear John,

Hope this letter finds you well, and that your mad flatmate hasn't blown up all your possessions yet. Met Aonghas Macalister a few days ago when we were out in Chaghcharan and he was asking after you; he'd heard on the Scablifter grapevine that you'd been nabbed. He's a Corporal now. Bloody Hell, I feel old...

Anyway, I'm signing my discharge papers in the New Year, so this is my last tour here. It's a bastard, but I won't be home for Christmas this year, just like us in '09 (the one with the 'Scottish' custard: you probably mind that one better than I do for some reason). Annie and the girls were really upset, and so was I, but Richie Foster's still recovering from the incident up in Mazar and they needed a trauma consultant, so here I am. Other than that, there's not much to report. Not much enemy action so far this month, but who knows, eh? Hope to see you in the new year, pal.

IAF/KBO,

Bill

PS: Pass on a thank-you to your housekeeper for those Hallowe'en biscuits, will you? They went down a storm in A&E, and for some reason half of Radiology decided to pop by for a chinwag just after they arrived...Nothing is sacred!

December

11th December

After writing to Annie Murray, whom he'd kept in touch with, John knew which FOB Bill was posted at in Kandahar. He had also managed to track down others in his unit and Bill's who had been able to come home for Christmas, and asked them to complete the same letter-writing 'homework' he'd given to Ailish and Rhona, his two wee girls. He had spent a very enjoyable afternoon with Mrs H and Sherlock, for heaven's sake, making scores of various Christmassy gingerbread shapes down in 221A, packaging them up in cellophane bags and ferrying them outside to where Angelo's van was waiting. From there, they went out to a distribution centre for forces mail, ready to be shared out along with the letters as part of the Christmas boxes made up for soldiers who wouldn't get anything from family on the day.

Mrs Hudson had beamed at him as he placed silver dragees on the tips of the snowflakes with surgical precision, and he had ended up in gales of laughter as an impatient Sherlock had torn open a box of icing sugar and emerged, coughing and spluttering, from the cloud with his curls liberally dusted, then proceeded to ice perfectly straight lines onto the stars' edges with his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth.

Now, though, he sat in front of the fire with a steaming mug of mulled wine, watching Sherlock attempting to make fake snow from a packet and grumbling as it stuck together in clumps. After a call to Aonghas up at home in Oldmeldrum, he had managed to procure a small bottle (gratis, thankfully) of 15-year old Glen Garioch whisky. Now he had to check where he needed to send it. His next call was to an ex-directory number which routed him to a nondescript office in Bloomsbury, then to a central exchange in leafy Cheltenham, before ringing in a plush oak-panelled room near the British Museum.

"Mycroft Holmes.""

"Mycroft, it's John."

"Ah, Doctor Watson. I do hope my brother has not indisposed you again. A minor household fire, perhaps?"

"Actually, Mycroft, it's about the case in Wittenburg. Anthea mentioned you were appreciative and had apparently agreed to keep a favour for me?"

"Ah, yes. I do recall that. I was under the impression you had forgotten."

John all but smirked down the phone. He could practically hear the elder Holmes's 'Oh, bugger'. "I realise it's a big ask, but do you think you could speak to whoever's done the Army's duty rota for the last week of this month? There's a substitution needing made..."

A few hours, and one (honestly) successful medical later, the British government furnished his signature on a slip of paper authorising a temporary suspension of one Captain Watson's medical discharge.

25th December

It was around 9pm in Kandahar, and Bill was catching up on some much-needed sleep in his digs when a rap on the metal siding startled him awake. Two Army Air Corps soldiers appeared in the doorway.

"Major Murray? You've been ordered to report to base command centre immediately."

Their faces were grim, and he shuddered as they led him at a fast trot through the maze of dirt paths in the base. He was expecting to see a lawyer, or worse, a padre standing in front of his CO and the camp command team.

What he got was John Watson.

A couple of years older and a fair bit greyer, he was nonetheless slim and compact in his old, immaculate uniform. Bill noted with satisfaction that the old sparkle in John's blue eyes was well and truly back as they returned his puzzled look with no small amount of amusement. They clapped each other on the back in a joyful hug, then stepped back to look at one another.

"John...what are you doing here mate? I mean, great to see you, and looking so well, but why?"

"Shift change. You are hereby relieved of your post for the next shift."

"What? But you were discharged!"

"I passed my medical, and a staff change needed doing. You haven't had a full day off in a fortnight."

"I-i-it's Christmas Eve," he stammered.

John gave him his old, wolfish poker grin.

"Exactly."

That was how Bill found himself being bundled onto the same untraceable aircraft that had brought John Watson back to Kandahar and dropped off, bewildered after a 16-hour plane-and-Jeep journey, at the end of a cul-de-sac in Aldershot.

Walking under the still, clear sky, he grinned as his boots crunched on the hoar frost underfoot. It was 9am, and families were gathering excitedly round their trees on a bitterly cold Christmas morning. Coming up to the front garden of number 62 with its bare-branched young plum tree he stopped, running a hand over his beret and hoisting his pack up onto his shoulder. A tall, thin, auburn-haired man stood silent as a ghost at the outer corner of the lawn.

"Major? Mycroft Holmes. Your wife and children have not been informed you are coming, but I daresay they will be too excited to wonder who I am, as you are doing."

Bill shuddered at the appraising look in the cool blue eyes before straightening his back. He knew this Holmes gadgie was important, and assumed he was a relative of John's daft bugger of a flatmate, but he decided he would worry about that later. Right now...

"Dr Murray? Mycroft Holmes, Civil Service." 'Mycroft' was now smiling brightly, the picture of genteel charm. "If you could bring your girls outside, I'd be most grateful. "

Sending him a strange look halfway between pride and irritation, Mycroft Holmes swept past him with an obsequious smile, pausing to murmur, "I'll leave you to it, shall I? The same driver who took you here will be here to pick you up at 0700 hours tomorrow. Merry Christmas, Major Murray."

Annie's face as she and the kids descended the steps was pure confusion. She looked up, obviously scunnered, and stopped dead, stunned.

"Bill?"

"Apparently John has friends in high pla-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence as two wee bundles in spotty dressing gowns barrelled into his legs. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. There had always been the sense that John felt he somehow owed Bill for his actions on that Sunday.

Stubborn bugger. Now he definitely owed him a dram.

A/N III: There are a couple of Scottish terms in here, so here's a lexicon.

Wee - Small.

Scunnered – Confounded, either in the sense of being frustrated or stalled in a course of action or in the sense of being flummoxed or confused. There's an even better word for that: dumfoonert!

Gadgie – A word in the Glaswegian dialect for a man. I don't know how common it is nowadays, but I like it.

Dram – A measure of whisky. The size of it depends on the generosity of the pourer, but it usually corresponds roughly with a pub measure.

Oldmeldrum is an actual place in Aberdeenshire (the traditional recruiting ground for Macalister's regiment, the Black Watch), and Glen Garioch is a malt whisky distilled there. I used to live round those parts, so it's lovely to be able to include the area here. KBO stands for Keep Buggering On, a nicely salty way of telling someone to keep their chin up.