Chapter Text
Children are curious wonders.
It started as an accident, really. It was last winter when he was idly shifting through the morning newspapers, as he waited on the table while Sherlock made them both breakfast. An advertisement on one tiny corner that most people would have likely missed; a temporary job offer at a nearby orphanage. It seemed that one of the sisters who normally attended to the children there had a family emergency to attend to, that she had to leave for her hometown for the holidays. As a result, the orphanage was a little short-handed for the season, and they were willing to offer compensation for anyone who’d help look after the children for a few weeks.
William was aware of the orphanage, and he had seen some of the children there out and about, either running errands or playing tag at the nearby park.
It brought him into a wave of nostalgia, and it surprised him how fondly he thought of the older days, despite not having the most positive experience children should have had at his age that time.
So much, it seemed, that he didn’t notice Sherlock coming back to serve their plates on the table, that he had to call his name a few times. Only when William felt his hand on his shoulder that he finally noticed.
“What’s gotten you so entranced so early in the morning?” Sherlock teased, almost as teasing as the scent of freshly cooked bacon and the bread from their favorite bakery.
“Mm,” William nodded in gratitude as Sherlock handed him a cup of coffee. “You, perhaps.”
It came so naturally that the him from a year ago would have scolded him in pure disbelief.
But now, it was just them. It was just him and Sherlock, like some kind of a picture-perfect portrait from his daydream that he wouldn’t have dared to entertain before.
And yet, there they were.
“Ha!” Sherlock blurted out, and William didn’t miss the amusement lacing his lopsided grin. “As much as I wish that was true, I know when you got something in your head.”
It wasn’t untrue, though. William thought, but instead he settled with taking a sip of his coffee (for all his confidence, Sherlock somehow managed to make it taste exactly the way it did when he was using an old handkerchief as a filter. How he did it was still a mystery to William to this day).
“So,” his companion continued, sitting down on the seat across from him and taking a big gulp from his own cup of coffee. “What’s up, Liam?”
“This advertisement,” he put down the papers on the table, spreading the page of interest open so that the other man could see. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, his eyes darting towards the section William was pointing to as he took another gulp of caffeine. “It seems the nearby orphanage is looking for some help for the holidays.”
“Hm,” The dark haired hummed. “You should go for it.”
“Huh?” The response came so, so easily that it caught William off guard.
“You’re good with kids, right?” Sherlock looked up from the papers, and William still couldn’t hide his surprise when their eyes met. “Besides, you’ve been missing teaching, haven’t you? I’m sure you can sneak in a few hours of maths into those tiny human brains.”
The detective was grinning, like teaching little kids maths was somehow equivalent to pulling pranks and committing petty crimes.
(‘He did score a grand zero on your exam’ , William reminded himself).
It was true that William had mentioned on a couple occasions that he wondered what his students back from the university in Durham were doing. He wondered if they had managed to find a replacement for him following his supposed ‘death’, or if the university board had faced many, many backlash for unknowingly hiring the Lord of Crime. He wondered if his last year students had behaved and graduated, and if those who claimed would be interested in pursuing research in Binomial Theorem, following William’s own footsteps, were ultimately turned away from the idea after hearing about the true identity of their most beloved professor.
He truly did miss teaching. He missed both the brilliant looks of utter eagerness and the frustrated groans of complete confusion from his students when put under the mercy of the wonders of mathematics. He missed listening to the holiday anecdotes on the first day of classes, and he missed having to consistently patrol the dorms to make sure no students were being too adventurous .
Truly, he had no right to complain. What he had now was more than he deserved. Never once he thought of the possibility of the second chance, to start anew, to be able to atone….though whatever it meant, he hadn’t fully grasped yet.
He had no right to complain, nor did he want to, for a chance to live- a chance to live with the very person who turned his entire world upside down, inside out- was more than he could ever imagine.
Yet it didn’t escape Sherlock (nothing ever did, William noted). What he thought were mindless remarks stayed in the forefront of the detective’s infamous mind palace, and, from the way Sherlock’s reaction came immediately, it was as if he was waiting for that chance to come.
Even when William thought he was able to read Sherlock (just as much as Sherlock was able to read him, like an open book with its pages yearning to be studied), the latter still always surprised him, one way or another.
Above all, only Sherlock would grace the lack of response with a smile- one that was too gentle, one that always made William’s heart ache.
“Give it a go,” he said, and it sent tingles to William’s aching heart. “This could be the first drop of paint on your brand new canvas.”
--
He had held himself from expecting too much when he walked in the doors of the orphanage, seeing the doubt in the sister’s eyes as he explained how he was there because of the advertisement.
(Not that he blamed her- for if a strange, one eyed-man hailing from across the ocean with no clear background suddenly appeared on his doorsteps asking for a job, he too, would most likely have more than a few reservations).
She had asked a few basic questions, regarding his thoughts on children (‘I too, grew up in an orphanage, so I understand the challenges very well’), his relevant experience (‘I have always been a teacher, as I love teaching. Even as a student, it was my honor to tutor my colleagues’), and his family life (‘I have two loving brothers back home, who are more than I deserve’). The answers he gave turned out to be more honest than he had planned, if not painfully so, and for a moment he worried if he had given away too much. However, they seemed to strike right into the sister’s heart, as he then saw an emotion in her eyes that he had gotten so, so familiar with growing up; pity disguised in a pretty envelope called respect.
It was evident to him, when she stopped herself from asking what he assumed to be the next obvious question- the eyepatch. William had prepared for it in case the question ever came (truly, it was only human nature to be piqued by the scent of tragedy), and yet, it never did.
Instead, the sister gave him a smile; one you would expect to see in formal balls and parties, one that was just a little too stiff, told him that he seemed to be good for the job, and asked if he wanted to meet the children, just to ‘get a feeling of it’.
William nodded, and smiled a smile that was different from hers, eased by years and years of practice. Although he wasn’t sure if it was to earn some brownie points from the other, or if it was to mask the insecurity that was starting to creep up his spine.
‘You’re good with kids, right? ’ Sherlock’s words rang in his ears.
He wouldn’t consider himself ‘good’ with them, as opposed to having spent the majority of his child and teenagehood looking after the other kids his age, becoming their ‘role model’. ‘Knowing how they think’ would be a far more accurate assessment, he would say, and yet, Sherlock specifically chose to word it the other way.
Yet, the last time he was face to face with a child, it didn’t go very well, did it….
“Mister Moriarty?”
He could hear the concern in the sister’s voice when she called him, and William didn’t realize that he had momentarily zoned out, carried by his own thoughts yet again.
They were now standing in front of a door, and he could hear the carefree laughter and excited chatters of the kids from behind it. Voices that were so familiar and warm that he could feel the pang in his chest again.
“Are you alright?” She asked.
“Yes,” William replied, and he wondered if the smile he wore was convincing enough. “A little nervous, I suppose.”
For whatever reason, she seemed to catch on to his unease, as her too-stiff smile gradually mellowed into something more genuine. She patted him on the arm, gently.
“You will do fine. The little ones will love you.”
It was a bit too much of a leap from her initial hesitation towards him- like the pity was starting to peek out from its charming casing- but William decided to take it for what it was.
“Thank you, sister, I will do my best.”
--
Children truly are curious wonders.
It’s fascinating how familiar it all feels, and it’s amazing how quickly he falls into a routine that every one of his muscles seems to remember, despite not having been into actual, meaningful contact with children in many years. It surprises him, that he instinctively knows when the younger ones will soon start crying because they’re hungry, or when the slightly older boys will start fighting because they wish to play with the same old wooden toy car, or when the little girls wish to have their hair done, but are too shy to ask for help from the older (albeit very, very pretty , William heard the girls say in hushes that really weren’t all that quiet) man.
It surprises him, that the children don’t take all that long- a week at most- until they come running towards the front door when they know William’s shift is starting, until they ask for stories of adventures and drama and all the cool things he did in his journey all the way to America because that’s what pirates do and William is obviously a very cool pirate, until they ask him to sing with them and play the piano to silly old tunes as the kids dance out of sync, until they insist to stay awake past their bed times because they want to spend just five more minutes- please oh, please - with him as he tucks them to bed.
It surprises him, because everything feels so warm and right and he feels emotions in his chest that he thought he had long abandoned.
‘Is this really alright, I wonder?’
He finds himself thinking, every now and then, as he watches the children kick balls and run around the backyard.
Sherlock seems to encourage him. ‘Do what your heart wants you to do, Liam,’ he said, even when William wasn’t particularly voicing his concern. That’s always the thing with Sherlock, isn’t it? That William doesn’t have to. That Sherlock just knows .
‘Don’t think too much about it, ‘kay?’ The detective also said, which is also a whole contradiction, seeing how Sherlock is always thinking at 150 miles per hour at any given moment. He is probably the last person in the world who should be telling William that.
Yet William can’t help but smile remembering it.
Oftentimes he feels bad, that Sherlock waits, and because he knows Sherlock will wait twenty, fifty years more if that is what William needs to find himself again. Oftentimes he feels bad, that Sherlock will do anything, absolutely anything if that means he can be of any support in the journey that William has set himself into- a journey which destination he knows nothing of, just yet.
Oftentimes he feels bad, when he sees Sherlock coming home from work, shoulders slumped and shirt all crumpled up, his ponytail messier than when he left in the morning.
But recently, there has been a distinct twinkle in his dark eyes. William notices, while the seemingly permanent tire is ever so present, there is something so remarkably tender, so unbelievably sweet and soft in the way his lips curl up into that charming smile that William still can’t fully put his finger on.
Is it relief? Is it joy?
Perhaps Sherlock is just glad to see him finally up and about, and actively doing something that he more than visibly adores.
(‘Told you you were good with kids’ , he said one time, the playful smirk once again displayed in all its glory, and William didn’t know why his ears felt particularly warm).
Sherlock himself isn’t exactly the biggest fan of ‘little humans’, in the way he often calls them, and William was sure that tales of him reading bedtime stories and teaching two year olds how to read wouldn’t be of any interest to the detective.
Yet Sherlock listens, and he always does, even when it’s a little too late at night and Sherlock has just come back from work with eye bags darker than his older brother’s. Sherlock listens, plopping himself next to William on their secondhand, worn-out couch and doesn’t once break eye contact as he asks about the kids and urges him to keep talking about his day.
And when Sherlock laughs, William feels his heart may burst into a million rose petals. It’s cheesy, it’s ridiculous, worse than the third-rate romance novels his brother Albert sometimes buys for the giggles (before he proceeds to eloquently trash-talk them). It’s not logical and it’s definitely not scientific.
‘Perhaps it is alright.’
He finds himself thinking, every now and then, as he watches the younger ones fall into their mid-day nap, while the older ones wash the dishes and take the laundry out to dry.
Perhaps it is alright, that he allows his heart to feel familiar and warm and right, just for the moment. Perhaps it is alright, that he allows himself to believe in the innocent praises and words of dreamy awe and surprisingly tight hugs from the children under his care. Perhaps it is alright that he feels alive, for once in many years.
…And perhaps it is alright, that he allows himself to bask in Sherlock’s smile, in his booming laughter that is sometimes too loud, in his groggy complaints first thing in the morning and in the wishes of sweet dreams every night that he can never get enough of.
“It is alright.”
He repeats, not more than a whisper, not to anyone in particular. When he looks out of the window, through the sheer curtains, he finds the looming sky welcoming him with its bright, blue smile.
The wind blows ever so gently.