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They were in the back of a police car, being driven home. John’s home, as Baker Street was still a shambles and would take months to repair. The sun wasn’t quite up, though the sky was changing colors, from the dark blue of pre-dawn to that odd orangey-purple that other people said was lovely, but John found it alien and had learned that little good ever happened to him when he was awake to see it.
“I do love Molly,” Sherlock said quietly. He cleared his throat to hide the quaver in his voice, and turned his head a little to look more directly at John. “I do,” he continued, more sure this time. “It pained me to hurt her.”
Johnlooked in Sherlock's eyes and saw that he spoke truth. It really hadn’t ever occurred to Sherlock before.
“Of course it did.” he replied, and fumbled in the folds of the blankets wrapped around them to take Sherlock’s hand.
---
There was more brandy than tea in the cup that she handed him. He drank gratefully and waited for her to sit. Rosie was content in her pram, gnawing on a biscuit. She gave John a wide smile and Ms. Hudson cooed at her.
“What a love she is, John. It’s hard to be unhappy with a baby around. They’re so innocent. They remind us that there’s still so much good in this world, don’t you think?”
John nodded absently, and thought about a little girl drowning a little ginger boy and shuddered. Somehow the contents of the cup were already gone.
“How is he?” She asked, reaching for the bottle. No pretense of tea this time. The brandy kissed the rim of the cup.
“As well as can be expected, I suppose.”
“You’ll get through this, of course. It must be so difficult for him. Don’t coddle him, John, but don’t make it too hard for him either. Surely you know what I mean. He has so much to process; you don’t have to wait for him to suss it all out on his own.” She drank from her cup and looked at him. “Do you really think you’ll let the apartment once it’s finished? Your house is nicer, and better schools for Rosie in that area.”
“We’ve hired an agent to sell the house.” He smiled a little at her expression. “Rosie needs a woman about, and I daresay you like having her around. And I need… we need,” he stopped, so unused to knowing what Sherlock was feeling that the possibility of oversharing those feelings was a novel one. “We’ll be moving back in upstairs as soon as the plaster’s dried.”
“Lovely!” she replied brightly, reaching to tug down Rosie’s vest, which had rucked up around her chubby midsection. “Especially since I told the workers to paint the smaller bedroom pink, for this little dear.”
John nodded, letting the questions and answers roll out silently in the warm quiet. He answered the question of who would sleep where by not answering at all, and she understood those answers in his lack of response. As much as – Well, there was Sherlock, always. But it was good to be around someone who could understand you without needing to dissect you.
Rosie slept on the drive home, while John fiddled with the radio a bit before turning it off. The noise in his head was more than enough.
The question of who would sleep where and what would happen on those beds was perhaps not as foregone as he’d let Ms. Hudson believe. It had been three weeks since Sherrinford, and those events were still unfolding; John saw it every time he and Sherlock made eye contact. The battered steamer trunks of truth and lies scattering the scorched halls of Sherlock’s mind palace as he slowly unpacked them, searching for context (how that word made John’s stomach clench now). There were cracks in the walls, and John longed to shove his fingers into them and tear and rend until there were no more walls to speak of. But he knew Sherlock, and knew that wasn’t the way. He had to stand back and let Sherlock take them apart himself, and that meant giving him space, physical and emotional.
He’d offered Sherlock the bed, saying he’d take the couch, but he’d already known that Sherlock wouldn’t so much as rest a hand on Mary’s bed. And he hadn’t. Nor on Mary’s widowed husband, not since that first night, when he’d allowed John to undress him and lead him to the bath. They were as chaste as spinster sisters.
“I’ve told Molly that she’s a dear friend and I feel great love for her, but that it never could have been more because I’ve been in love with you since the second time I saw you,” Sherlock had announced at dinner, four nights after their return from Sherrinford, one night after Sherlock had gone alone to see Molly.
“And did she tell you how much hurt you could have spared her if you’d told her that straightaway?” John had replied, shoveling another bite of saag paneer into his mouth. Rosie had banged her spoon on the tray of her high chair and warbled happily.
“She might have mentioned something of the sort in between ‘you bastard’ and ‘you heartless, cowardly lout’,” Sherlock had admitted. “Rosie, don’t throw your food, it’s impolite,” he had said, picking a lone, unsalted pea from his plate. Rosie had then tossed a handful of mostly mashed carrot and it had landed in the basket of naan in the middle of the table.
“I’ve applied to a preschool for Rosie,” John had said next. “It’s a few blocks from Baker street, Montessori style, the wait list is five years long, but we can hope.”
“Mycroft will arrange it all. He’d have the Prime Minister’s children bumped to get her into any school we want.” Sherlock had replied, watching Rosie as she’d crammed a large lump of naan in her mouth. “But we must work on her table manners. Really, John, she’s practically feral.”
And that was how they lived for the next couple of months. Rosie had two daddies, John and Sherlock lived together in a house also occupied by the ghost of the life John had never lived with Mary, and Mycroft produced a short list of therapists that he’d personally vetted for his brother to consider. John returned to work and Sherlock spent hours staring into the fire in the hearth, trying to decipher what was true and what was fiction of his childhood.
They limped along, licking their wounds, until the day John found Sherlock packing a small bag. His violin case rested on the table next to it. It had been 9 weeks since they’d returned from Sherrinford.
“I’m going to see her,” Sherlock said to him, turning to face John. “I know what you’re going to say, and I won’t hear it. I’m going.”
“Take care of yourself.” John said simply. His heart was racing with fear, and just the thought of Sherlock in the same room with Eurus made him ill. But he wouldn’t give Sherlock the fight he was spoiling for.
“I’ll be home tomorrow evening,” Sherlock replied, brought up short by the aborted soliloquy he’d planned to give. “If I don’t return, you know where my will is kept.”
John nodded, then reached for Sherlock, cupped his neck and pulled him closer, kissed him softly. Christ, the man’s lips were so soft, he thought to himself. If he’d wondered a thousand times in the past weeks why he tolerated all of this, he didn’t wonder now.
Sherlock returned the kiss, deepened it, pushing hungrily into John’s mouth, hands bunching in John’s white lab coat. John let him; let him take what he needed, used his mouth and the gentle caress of his hands to promise there would always be more. Finally Sherlock pulled away, his cheeks flushed, breath fast.
“Right,” Sherlock murmured, smoothing his clothing back into place. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
John watched him don his coat, pick up his bags, and then stood with him at the door until the car Mycroft had sent arrived for him. He then watched it pull away, and went to make himself a cup of tea. His phone chimed in his pocket; he pulled it out and looked at the screen.
“Miss you both already. Love, S.”
There were still walls and debris, scorch marks and water stains in the memory palace of Sherlock’s mind. He might never fully understand what exactly his sister and those memories had done to him. But he was trying. And for John, in that moment, it was enough. He smiled, put the phone down, and went about making his tea.