Life After Death - A Post-Reichenbach Trilogy

Part Three - Unfinished Business

Chapter Six

A black cab drew up outside 221 Baker Street and the tall slim figure in the long black coat stepped out, paid the cabbie and crossed the pavement to the front door, ringing the bell. After a short pause, the door was opened by a petite old lady in a patterned house dress.

'Sherlock!' she said and hugged him warmly. 'Welcome home. Your flat is just as you left it. I haven't moved a thing, just picked things up to clean under them then put them back in the exact same place. The fire's on, there's milk and bread in the fridge and I've made up your bed with fresh linen.'

'You spoil me, Mrs Hudson,' he chided her, affectionately. 'Remember, you're my landlady, not my housekeeper!'

'Yes,' she gave him an equally affectionate poke in the ribs, 'and don't you forget that, young man!'

They parted in the hallway and he mounted those familiar stairs with an over-powering sense of deja vue. Many times he had climbed those stairs before but never with so much emotion. It was very good to be home.

Mrs Hudson was true to her word. Everything was, as far as he could remember, exactly where he had left it, with the obvious exceptions of his last experiment and his late collection of body parts. The fridge was clean and empty except for a litre of fresh milk and a tub of spreadable butter, and the kitchen work tops were bare but for a loaf of bread. All his science equipment – Petrie dishes, retorts, test tubes, pipettes and the like, were put away in one of the kitchen cupboards. Only his microscope stood on the kitchen table, with a box of clean slides beside it.

Walking through to the sitting room, he noted his favourite chair, sitting opposite the one John always used, the bison skull, on the wall, with the head phones still in place, the human skull on the mantle and the pen knife lying next to it, waiting to secure some newly unread mail. He scanned the room, drinking in all its comfortable familiarity. Even the yellow-painted smiley face, its outline traced in bullet holes, still endured. What a treasure Mrs Hudson was. He could not imagine any other landlady would tolerate such behaviour from a tenant.

Moving through to his bedroom, he looked at the Periodic Table on the wall behind the door and the martial arts poster above his bed. His antique double bed was made up with white Egyptian cotton sheets, crisp and fresh from the laundry. He took off his coat, threw it over the bedroom chair, kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the mattress.

The sound of the doorbell roused him from a deep, dreamless sleep. He rolled over and sat up on the side of the bed, feeling groggy and disorientated, then the bell rang again and he remembered who was calling today. He ran down the stairs, calling to Mrs Hudson that he was on it, and opened the front door that led out to the street.

John and Sherlock stood, one each side of the threshold, looking at one another for the first time in three years and three months, both taking in the familiar features and also the changes that the intervening time had wrought in the other.

'Well, are you going to let me in or are we just going to stand here and stare at one another? John asked, in his typically sardonic way.

Sherlock pursed his lips in a half smile, stepped aside and beckoned John into the house. John walked into the hallway and stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. Sherlock closed the front door and stood behind his long lost friend, giving him space to complete whatever thought process was holding him in limbo. Eventually, John reached out and put his hand on the newel post of the stair rail. He walked up the stairs and Sherlock followed him.

At the top, on the landing, John walked straight into the sitting room whilst Sherlock turned left into the kitchen and put the kettle on, watching John through the double doors, as he walked around the sitting room in much the same way as he had done earlier. John completed his circuit and then came to rest opposite Sherlock, on the other side of the table. The two men looked at one another again. At last, John drew a sharp intake of breath and said,

'Well, that's two things I never, ever thought I would do again – set foot in 221B Baker Street and look at your ugly fucking face.' His voice cracked but he held up his hand to deter any overly-emotional reciprocation from the other man, even though he knew that none would be forthcoming.

"John," said Sherlock, in the rich baritone voice that John remembered so well, "I owe you a thousand apologies.'

'Too fucking right, you do, you sneaky bastard!' John snapped. 'Now make that bloody tea and come and tell me what the hell has been going on whilst I've been wasting my god-damned time, mourning your passing.'

With that, he turned, walked back into the sitting room and sat down in his favourite chair. Sherlock cracked a little smile and finished making the tea.

When Mrs Hudson came up the stairs, two hours later, carrying a tray of sandwiches and a coffee cream cake she had made especially for this happy occasion, she heard the two men laughing, hysterically. She smiled to herself. Her boys were back together again, each one not quite complete without the other. She put down her tray, on the kitchen table, and set about making a fresh pot of tea to serve to the Baker Street Boys.

Later still, after she heard the front door close behind John Watson, returning to his own flat and his wife, Mrs Hudson traced Sherlock's footsteps across her ceiling, heard his bedroom door close and the bedsprings creak. No pacing, no sobbing, no sadness at all. Things had changed and would never be quite the same again but Holmes and Watson were still a team and they would adapt to the new arrangement.

ooOoo

Molly looked out of the front window of her sitting room for the umpteenth time in as many minutes. She was flitting around the room, straightening cushions that were already straight, dusting invisible dust motes off pristine surfaces, sitting for a moment then up and off again, round the room, looking for things to do.

William was playing in his bedroom, building another Lego masterpiece, honing his skills of fine motor manipulation and cerebral creativity. He could occupy himself for hours like this, making hypotheses and testing them out with small, plastic bricks. Molly glanced out of the window again and caught a glimpse of a long, black coat as it swished through the gate way. Moments later, the entry phone buzzed. She went to the door, checked it was Sherlock's face in the security monitor and pressed the button to release the lock. Opening the front door of her flat, she let him in, gave him a quick peck on the cheek and patted his arm.

'Don't look so worried. He won't bite you,' she smiled.

'It's not so much the biting that I'm concerned about,' Sherlock replied. 'It's more the screaming and the running away.'

Molly gave a little laugh, took his coat and invited him into the sitting room.

'I think it would be best if you sat down,' she advised. 'You'll be more on his level. He knows you're coming and he knows who you are, remember. He's been kissing your photo ever since he was born. He may just need a minute to adjust to you being here in the flesh. Just let him do it in his own time.'

Molly patted his arm again and disappeared through the door which led to the bedrooms, as Sherlock sat down in the arm chair and tried to steady his racing heart. He heard Molly's voice, coming back toward the sitting room, and she stepped through the door, carrying his son, William, in the crook of her arm. She stood still, just inside the doorway and said,

'William, this is your daddy. He's come home, at last.'

Two pairs of almond eyes gazed at one another, two Cupid's bow mouths pursed, two sculpted faces remained impassive. Then William turned to look at his mother, reached out a small pointing finger toward the seated man and said

'Daddy?'

'Yes,' she said, 'That's your daddy. He's come to see you.'

William flapped his legs to indicate that he wanted to be put down so Molly stood him on the carpet. The two year old walked towards Sherlock but stopped beside the sofa and leaned on the arm, scrutinising his father's features then scanning over his shoulders, arms and legs, down to his feet, then back up to his face. Sherlock, for his part, sat quietly, watching his son gathering data. Having completed his visual survey, William stepped forward, cautiously, reached out a tentative hand and touched Sherlock's left knee. Immediately, a broad smile lit up the child's face and he threw himself at his father, shouting,

'Daddy!'

Sherlock scooped up the toddler onto his lap, his face split into a broad smile, as he hugged him clos. The little boy put one arm round his father's neck and held his free hand against Sherlock's cheek, as they gazed intently into each other's eyes.

'Yes, William, I'm your daddy,' Sherlock confirmed.

Molly excused herself to go to the kitchen and put on the kettle. She brushed a couple of stray tears from her cheeks and shook her head, chiding herself for being such a blubber. She had dreamed of this day for so long and it had not disappointed. She could only imagine how it must have felt for Sherlock to watch his son adopt the same strategies as he would himself when faced with a novel situation.

The first time Molly had noticed William 'scanning', she had convinced herself that she was imagining it but when it became an established facet of his behaviour, she had to recognise that the skill that set Sherlock Holmes apart from all other men had been somehow genetically passed on to his son. What was it that Sherlock used to say? Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever was left, however improbable, must be the truth?

So there it was. The evidence was irrefutable. If the almond eyes and the razor sharp cheek bones were not sufficient proof that this was indeed Sherlock's child, then no one could deny the boy displayed all the signs of being a fledgling detective. As Molly was pouring boiling water into the warmed tea pot, William appeared in the kitchen, dragging Sherlock by his hand.

'Go owside?' he asked, cocking his head on one side.

'Of course, darling, but put your wellies on. It's a bit damp out there,' Molly replied.

William picked up his little blue wellingtons, standing side by side on a piece of newspaper by the back door. He offered them up to Sherlock.

'He still needs a bit of help with getting dressed,' Molly explained. 'Shall I do it?' she asked.

'No,' Sherlock replied. 'In the parent stakes, I have a bit of catching up to do so I'd better start learning.'

He knelt down on the floor and sat William on his knees, folded the bottoms of his son's trousers round his ankles and pulled his socks up over them, to keep them in place. Then he pushed the little boy's feet into his wellington boots and lifted him back up to standing.

'Wow!' exclaimed Molly, 'that was pretty textbook for a first try. Have you been having secret parenting lessons?'

Sherlock smiled, a little embarrassed.

'No, but I did grow up in the country, remember, where wellingtons are de rigueur for ten months of every year. I always knew my privileged up-bringing would come in handy someday.' He gave her a knowing nod, opened the back door and followed William out into the garden.

When Molly came out a few minutes later, carrying a tray of tea things, which she placed on the wrought iron table that occupied centre stage on the paved patio, Sherlock and William were about half way down the garden, giving close attention to something in one of the shrubs in the perennial borders. As she watched them, she saw Sherlock reach into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and take out his folding magnifying glass. He held it in front of whatever it was they were looking at and then handed it to William, who continued to hold it next to the mystery object and peer through it, whilst Sherlock drew his attention to some detail which he felt was particularly interesting, relevant or crucial.

Molly smiled to herself. Sherlock had told her he did not know what he could bring to the parenting table. This was exactly what he could bring. She thought back to the times she had spent with her own dad, doing just this sort of thing. It filled her heart with joy to think that her boy would be able to look back on his early life and relish these memories of 'Days out with Dad'. At this moment in time, she felt that her world was complete. It could not get any better.

'Tea's ready!' she called, pouring tea into two cups and taking a glass of milk and a plate of biscuits off the tray. She sat and sipped her tea as she watched the two people she loved best in the world walk, hand in hand, up the garden towards her, so easy in one another's company.

ooOoo