Lunch, Michael noticed, was the first meal at least since she'd been home that Sherlock didn't gulp down his food and excuse himself as quickly as possible. Instead, he sat and ate quietly. He didn't say anything if he could help it, and he still didn't eat much, but he didn't bolt - that had to be a good thing.
The next morning around the breakfast table, Mrs Johnston announced they were going to the library. As it turned out, this was a weekly activity - Sherlock couldn't believe he'd only been at the Johnstons' for five days.
They left after breakfast, each person with their own bag for books. Sherlock didn't expect much from the library. They were off in the middle of nowhere, so it was bound to be small and full of old, outdated books. He would be glad of the opportunity to explore and find a new place to add to his memory palace repository, though, and he was looking forwards to that if nothing else.
He was completely and shockingly wrong in his assumption. The library was almost a forty-five minute drive away in the closest city, and while the drive was horrendous (Mrs Johnston's minivan could just barely hold everyone), the place itself was amazing.
It was a huge, sprawling thing, grand and tall, and just as impressive on the inside. Every shelf was jam-packed with books on everything possible, old books and new books and every sort he could imagine. He spent almost an hour there, carefully selecting books to bring home and in the end choosing more than he could carry - he had to put a good deal of them in John and Mycroft's bags, and even then he still almost had too many. In the end, he had checked out 36 books, a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and all of it scientific. More than a few of them had been recommended to him by Cassidy, who he'd learned had excellent taste in reading material.
Sherlock was in heaven, or as close as he could be.
He was allowed to pick one book to read in the car, and, after a moment's thought, chose one of the ones he had been most excited for, a treatise on the history of science in Europe from ancient times up to the present day, or so it said. It was good enough that he managed to become fully engrossed in it, despite being crammed into the car with not nearly enough room between the eight people in it. It became more and more interesting as he read on, and after a few chapters it would have been quite difficult to bring him back to the real world rather than the world of the history of
WHAM
and Sherlock knew no more.
Hey, all, sorry about the long hiatus of the last couple of chapters! School started, and I love it, but the workload is a punch in the face and gets more and more difficult every year :P anyways, read and review, if you don't mind, and I'll try to start updating more consistently.