Chapter Text
He was not supposed to be here. He knew that. In fact, he knew that he was supposed to be a few miles away, at the backyard wedding of his sister Harry to her longtime girlfriend, Clara. Yet here he was.
John fidgeted. His formal army uniform chafed a bit and the collar was too stiff for his liking. He had never worn it much before and had just pulled it out now to make up for his lack of fine clothing at the moment. But Harry had insisted that it made him look dashing. John felt far from dashing as he leaned heavily on his walking stick, wobbling down the hill towards the place he had not thought of in several years.
John had parked his car down the lane and picked his way gingerly through the woods to reach the pond, edging himself between the slats of the broken fence that lined the property and down the slopes that fell away to the peaceful waters below. The house at the top of the hill looked empty, and John couldn’t imagine that anyone still lived there after all this time.
So much time…
John halted by the edge of the water. He knew it was just a pond but for some reason as he looked at it he could only think, what a small ocean. The water was placid, a scattering of lily pads floating over the algae flecked water. There was an eerie calm about the place, yet John found it comforting. The worried questions of his family and friends seemed far away, silenced completely by a gentle breeze blowing ripples across the water.
He stared, and as he stared memories began to come back to him, thoughts and reasons for many things that he had long since forgotten to contemplate. There was something about the water, something beneath its surface—if he could only look deeper…
“Hello again, Dr. Watson.”
John turned around with a start, nearly dropping his cane. To his surprise, a familiar face was descending down the hill towards the pond. “Mrs. Holmes! I’m terribly sorry, you must think me so rude-- I don’t know what came over me.”
A frog croaked in the distance. John felt suddenly ridiculous. The decorative saber hanging from his belt clanged against his cane, a sharp sound in the quiet place.
He couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. This couldn’t be Mrs. Holmes, after all—it had been over twenty years since he had been a boy visiting this house, and the woman that stood before him now seemed as if she had not aged a day since.
“Hush now, stop babbling. You don’t have to explain anything to me.” The elderly woman stepped firmly to him, reaching up to touch his face with a calloused palm. “You are always welcome here.”
“You are Mrs. Holmes, then?” John couldn’t quite tamp down his embarrassment. He shook his head, “Jesus, it’s been a long time hasn’t it?” He laughed, but stiffly. Old Mrs. Holmes simply smiled at him. Her look was so kind it almost hurt.
She tilted her head, a curious gesture, almost childlike, “Look at you, a handsome soldier.” The way she said it made John feel as if she was speaking of something more than his dress uniform.
John reddened. He grasped for something to say, “I remember when you gave me that milk, that one day— best milk of my life, honestly.” He could have punched himself.
“Ah yes,” Mrs. Holmes broke her long gaze, looking thoughtfully up the hill, “Old Bess could be tempted out of a bit more milk now, if you’d like.”
John thought this was a joke, ”Ha, Old Bess must be quite old by now though, aye? I was what, seven?”
“You were seven.” Mrs. Holmes smiled in agreement.
John flushed, and he didn’t know why. “I was just thinking of the last time I’d been here, for Sherlock’s party, remember? I was just thinking, I wonder how he’s doing. Is he still—where did he go, again?” There was a thought scratching at the inside of his mind, a tear in the fabric.
“He’s still traveling, dear. Don’t you worry.” Her steely eyes met his, and there was a shimmer of something peculiar there, something young and familiar, but then it was gone. “I don’t want to keep you long, but I thought I would come down to see if you’d like any tea—or milk, if you’d prefer.” She must have seen something in John’s face because she continued, “You can stay right where you are, never you fear. I’ll just be up the hill in the cottage, waiting for whenever you’re ready.”
John nodded, “That—that would be lovely, thank you so much.” Mrs. Holmes turned around. “And just tea for me, thanks!” He figured that whether or not Mrs. Holmes was joking about the age of her milking cow, he’d rather not find out. Some things remained best as memories.
Slowly, using his cane to support himself, he lowered himself down onto the grass. He leaned against a large old stone that reminded him of a pirate’s ship, though he couldn’t say why. It was just a stone, and the ocean was just a pond.
Wasn’t it?
--
John’s seventh birthday party was a disappointment to everyone involved but John himself. Only one boy from the guest list, Mike Stamford, actually showed up. Mike was a good sport about it, but John could tell how uncomfortable the other boy was sitting at the long lawn table set for fifteen empty chairs. At the other end of the table, John’s little sister Harry giggled to her two friends, both of whom had come over at the suggestion of John’s mother when she realized how much extra cake there was going to be.
Following a strained chorus of Happy Birthday and a short-lived attempt at musical chairs, Mike shoved his gift into John’s hands before red-facedly explaining to Mrs. Watson that he had chores to do at home and was expected before dinner. The gift had obviously been wrapped by a fastidious mother, all shiny paper and neat bow. It was probably chosen by one as well. But John didn’t mind. He’d never been close to the boys from his school, though Mike was nice enough in his own way. And John did like the gift, which was a set of toy soldiers that he thought would look quite dashing defending his Playmobil castle.
From his parents John received a remote control car and the complete Chronicles of Narnia. John was ecstatic.
Harry quickly ran off to hula-hoop with her friends and loudly talk about how sad her brother was. But John didn’t mind this either. In fact, he was quite happy that the whole birthday party nonsense had been a disaster, though he could see how it upset his mother. He quietly helped her fold up the lonely chairs and pack them back in the shed behind the house. Then, he stacked up the unused dishes and carried them into the kitchen from whence they’d come, where he found his mother bent over the sink, shoulders silently shaking.
John hesitated before gently tapping her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” John accepted the hug from his mother with grace. She knelt down so that her face was level with his, and he allowed her to touch her fingers to his cheeks. “Keep your chin up, there’s my beautiful boy.”
“Mum I’m fine. I like being by myself anyhow.” The newly unwrapped Narnia books were sitting on the stairs up to his room, just waiting to be devoured. He smiled into his mother’s eyes, willing the shimmering wetness away from her gaze.
She laughed, but it was a wet gasping sound. “Oh, you’re just my little soldier boy, aren’t you?” Standing up, she banished all visible pity with a quick hand swipe across her eyes. “Off with you then! And I expect you back before dark.”
Grabbing The Magician’s Nephew, John exited the suffocation of the house as his mother packed away the extra cake into the family’s Tupperware containers. She would probably try to convince John’s father to bring it into his work the next day. Mr. Watson had not returned home yet, and John wondered what his mother would tell him about all the uneaten cake.
The Watson home was an old house built on the edge of a large plot of unused land at the outskirts of a small town. They had only moved there a few months before, and John’s father had to travel ninety minutes both ways just to continue working at his office.
Mrs. Watson often complained about its isolation, but that was what John liked most about the house. It did not strike him as lonely, but mysterious. There were so many more places to adventure here, unlike the rigorously boring batch of townhouses they had moved from. There had been nowhere to call his own in those places. Even the walls were too thin for real privacy. He could always hear the television or the vacuum cleaner or angry conversation from just the next room over, and there was never a place for John that was simply his.
Already John had a favorite hideaway. Book in hand and one of his new soldiers shoved into his pants pocket for company, John picked his way down the gravelly drive away from the house.
If John had been an adult, he knew he would have followed the lane leading away from his house to get where he wanted to go. But John was seven, and knew that following paths was unnecessary. Instead, he cut left from the gravelly strip of the winding drive to clamber over a creek at the bottom of a gully, over a gnarled log that reminded him of a giant’s hand, and beyond the strip of abandoned fence that must have once delineated property lines. He knew exactly where he was going.
The ring of grass, when looked at quickly and from afar, did not appear at first as anything special. But the closer one got, the more perfect the grass ring appeared, and all the grass within it, while the grass outside of the ring seemed shabby by comparison. Something about the color and the texture, some indescribable glow. It was the width of about two Johns lying down (John had determined this for himself), and was the softest bed of grass anyone could hope to find. That it was situated in a wooded clearing by an old stump of a well that looked at least a hundred years old only added to its property value in John’s mind.
Flopping onto the grass that was fresher and more welcoming than any other patch of grass, John allowed himself to tilt his head back and soak in the sun. He closed his eyes against the glare, staring at the red insides of his own eyelids, veins a glowing black across his vision. In one hand he clutched his book, while the other reached into his pocket to touch his new toy soldier. The metal felt warm against the dryness of his palm.
Suddenly, John sat up. His eyes opened, vision swimming for a moment in the sudden brightness before refocusing-- but in those moments of disorientation he swore he saw a face. He glanced around the clearing, the face still swimming like a sunspot in his vision.
“Hello?” John wasn’t afraid, so his voice was strong and clear. He wasn’t afraid, but he was curious. “Hello there?” He closed his eyes, counted to ten, and then opened them again very quickly. But the face did not reappear.
It had been that of a young boy, scarcely older than John, with a head of unruly dark curls and eyes that shimmered bright blue from within the shadows of the trees.
If I just continue on as I was, like nothing had happened, maybe he will come back. So John lay back down, lifting the new book over his face with both hands (an awkward position that he would need to readjust countless times in the next hour) and lost himself in the beginning of a new world, one full of magical creatures and evil Ice Queens.
The sun had nearly sunk beyond the tips of the trees, the clearing bathed golden, before anything happened outside of John’s book. But then, just as John’s body was starting to ache from his awkward reading positions, and just as he got to the best bit, the bit about the talking Lion, a voice called to John from beyond the clearing.
“How did you know about my fairy ring?”
It was a young voice, with a proper accent and a touch of royal imperiousness. John, not wanting to startle the voice’s owner, slowly folded one corner of his book’s page on itself and laid it down beside himself in the grass. He did not sit up or turn his head to see who was speaking.
Placing both hands behind his head to form a cradle, John replied, “I didn’t know it was yours to claim!” He sounded surer of himself than he actually was—to be honest, he didn’t even quite know what a fairy ring was, but he supposed it was the perfect circle he now lay in.
“Well of course it’s not really mine but you know you oughtn’t lay there like its yours, it could make everything a bit restless. And it being your birthday today you could very well be inviting trouble.” The voice was moving closer as it talked. John examined the rim of light that still came through the tallest branches of the trees that bordered his vision. He really needed to be headed home soon.
“How did you know it was my birthday?”
“A bit obvious, don’t you think? That book you are reading is brand new, therefore it must be a gift. The clothes you are wearing are a tad too nice for just any other weekday, so that suggests party. It’s not a holiday today, at least not a well known one with a tradition of gift-giving, so this tells me it must be a birthday party. Combine the obvious with the fact that you certainly don’t smell a day over seven suggests that today is, in fact, your birthday.” The voice, which had been moving ever closer during its tangent, stopped.
John couldn’t help it now. He looked over to where the voice stood, his eyes gleaming with excitement, “That was amazing!” He sat up, grinning broadly at the other boy, who stood now just outside of the fairy ring. His pale face was caught in a look of wonder for just a moment, bow shaped lips open in surprise, before he relaxed his small body from its stunned rigidity. John laughed delightedly to finally see the voice materialized. “My name is John Watson, what’s yours?”
The other boy, who didn’t seem much older than John but whose manner suggested that of a pleased schoolteacher, hesitated for only a moment before responding, “Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.” He smiled uncertainly down at John, who was now propped on his elbows.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“Oh, it’s always come natural, I suppose. Though I guess the process of deduction could be taught. It’s no great feat, really.” But Sherlock looked pleased.
“I mean, I didn’t even know you could SMELL years on someone. I mean, no one ever did that in front of me before! Could you show me how?”
“Well, that’s a bit more than I know I could teach.” Sherlock looked doubtful now, “Maybe Mother could show you, but I’m not sure.”
“Oh, well that’s all right then, I don’t mind. A lot of adults get mad when I try to guess their age, or even ask it.”
The other boy’s brow furrowed, “Well, that’s silly of them.”
John laughed at Sherlock’s perplexed face. He was the most serious looking child he had ever encountered. “Don’t worry about adults, though. I try not to. Do you want to play?”
“Play? Play how?”
John shrugged, “Adventures!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his toy soldier. “Look, I’ve got a toy. Do you have one?”
Sherlock looked doubtful. “Well, I suppose…” Then a thought dawned on him, and he looked suddenly excited, face rewritten with lines of energy. “I know! Follow me, John.”
John clambered to his feet, ready to bound after the other boy, who had already charged into the underbrush. He bent down to pick up his book, and when he looked up Sherlock was standing inches from his face. John almost fell down again in surprise.
“Sorry.” The dark haired boy didn’t look very apologetic. “But I remembered I ought to help you out of the fairy ring. Don’t want anything following, after all.”
John didn’t question it, just accepted the other boy’s small hand in his own. Hands clasped, they exited the grass circle together, and John had the distinct sensation that they had somehow walked from one room into another.
Sherlock and John continued to hold hands as they half ran into the dark of the woods, Sherlock a step faster than John though he was only a little bit taller. After about a minute of their jogging pace Sherlock slowed. It felt as if they were wading into deeper and deeper water, though John knew that didn’t make any sense.
“Don’t let go of my hand, John.” Sherlock said firmly, and John responded by tightening his hold, Sherlock’s left hand in John’s right.
The pair waded further into the woods, where the light that broke through the tree canopies became more and more scattered, the shadows ever more encroaching. Sherlock was feeling the trunks of each tree now, slim fingers stroking at the gnarled bark. “I know it’s somewhere around here, maybe deeper.” His brow was furrowed, and John felt a thrill as he glanced at the strange boy’s face, whose eyes still seemed lit by an unearthly glow despite the darkness around them. As frightening as the woods around them were, John also knew this was all part of the game of adventures.
“Here we are!” Sherlock said, though where they were standing looked no different from anywhere else they had been before. Still clasping John’s hand, Sherlock knelt on the ground at the foot of a particularly gnarled and old looking tree, reaching his hand into what looked like a series of broken roots. His arm disappeared up to the elbow as he groped in the hole that John had not even realized was there.
“What is it, what are you looking for?” John realized he had been following Sherlock all this time without questioning why, but this thought didn’t perturb him. He felt that walking anywhere with Sherlock would have been worth it, whatever the reason.
“This.” And Sherlock’s arm wrenched back out of the earth. His fingers clutched an object that John couldn’t distinguish at first beneath all the dirt, but he could tell it was small, not much bigger than Sherlock’s palm.
The dark-haired boy frowned at the object before rubbing it down his pant leg and murmuring something under his breath. He lifted it again, holding it up for John’s approval.
It was a small pirate, the size of an adult’s index finger. “A friend for my soldier!” John gasped, laughing. Tucking his book under his armpit, he reached in and pulled the soldier figurine once more from his pocket. The pirate and the soldier were the same size, both brass, and made for each other. Even Sherlock looked shocked, his eyes wide as they held the toys up to each other. A small smile played on his full lips, and John, glancing out of the corner of his eyes at the other’s face, felt his heart pound a beat fiercer because of it.
“Why did you bury him?”
Sherlock was quiet. Tugging on John’s hand, he pulled him back through the heaviness of the forest. As they went, the sunlight returned through the branches, but it was a dim, dying light. Sherlock murmured, more to himself than to John, “We need to be quick, I didn’t think of how late it was getting.”
“I know-- I need to get home before dark.” John agreed, though Sherlock hadn’t looked at him once since they started walking. Sherlock paused for a moment, almost surprised at the voice interrupting his reverie, before continuing. So John squeezed his hand tighter, just as a reminder. Sherlock squeezed back.
John was incandescently happy.
They emerged from the woods, and John looked around in surprise to realize they were on the gravelly lane that he had left so long ago. “Just follow this and you’ll be home in no time.” Sherlock murmured, pointing down the road. He finally let go of John’s hand.
“Can I visit with you again? I want to see more of those woods.” Sherlock looked at John, his eyes sizing him up. John clutched his new toy soldier tightly in his palm, feeling the edges of it cut into his soft skin, before holding it out to the other boy. “We could exchange toys, as like a promise, you know? A promise for more adventures.”
Sherlock stood for a long moment, considering John’s offered toy. He clutched his own toy pirate close to his chest. “I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s safe yet…”
John laughed, not understanding the trepidation in the other’s voice. “I’ll keep it safe, don’t worry!” In a quick motion, he pressed the soldier into Sherlock’s other hand, surprising the boy into holding it. “And I trust you, so there you go!”
After another long moment of consideration, Sherlock held his toy pirate forth. “Yes, it will be all right I suppose.”
“Where do you live, by the way? When do you want to meet up again?” John had never been this excited before to interact with another child his own age, but he didn’t examine that thought. He just felt a rush of excitement at the idea of adventuring with the strange new Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock, for his part, was busy examining the soldier toy in his hand. Without taking his eyes off the soldier’s face, he replied, “Oh, at the end of the lane.”
John had not even known there was an end to the lane, had just supposed it turned into another regular road that branched off into more boring neighborhoods. But he supposed he hadn’t lived there long so he shouldn’t be surprised that there were still secrets in this part of the world.
“Can I see you tomorrow?”
Sherlock met his eyes again, and that small delicate smile was tugging at his lips. “Yes.”
John grinned broadly, then turned to leave. Behind him, he heard Sherlock’s voice again, “And happy birthday, John!”
He turned to wave his thanks, but the lane behind him was already empty. John supposed he had vanished back into the trees, an unnecessarily mysterious move on the part of the other child. But even now John thought maybe that was what he should expect from now on from a new friend like Sherlock. His friend, Sherlock Holmes.
John didn’t mind that thought one bit. Tucking the small toy pirate deep into his pocket, he started back toward his house.