Chapter Text
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“Delete.” Click
“Delete.” Click
“Delete.” Click
“…… Delete.” Click
‘Good, was there no-one interesting carrying out heinous acts anymore?!’
Sherlock groaned as he opened up the next email.
Dear Mr Holmes,
My mother has been in a nursing home for three months now and gradually, her clothes have been dis….
“Delete.” Click
He went through four more emails like this before one caught his eye.
Dear Mr Holmes,
I live in a town called Farsund in Norway. When my cousin, who is a resident of London, heard of my plight his first thoughts turned to you. You see, I own a small antikk store here, in Farsund and just two weeks ago, something strange indeed happened.
It all started when last month a small journal came in to my possession, less than a dozen pages filled out. The book itself would be of little value but, as it turns out the journal had indeed belonged to Magdalene Sophie Buchholm, an 18th century Norwegian poet - in fact, the only recognised female, Norwegian writer of the time. The book has been verified as being authentic and I placed my own valuation on the book and had several other colleagues of mine also place a value on it, deeming it worth 19,579 kr. The book was placed in my vault two Thursdays past. Only I and a colleague of mine, who is currently in South America, have access to the vault, which is air tight, but somehow someone managed to get into the vault and remove the journal. When I came into work on Friday morning, the book was gone. Our security footage shows nothing. The local constabulary have also come up with nothing so far.
The book is far from the most valuable item in our store, but it is most certainly one of the most interesting and I would dearly love to know what has happened to it, if not for return to our store, than to at least know it is in good hands.
My cousin speaks highly of you and I do hope that we can interest you to come our way, all expenses paid of course, to help solve this small problem of ours.
I do look forward to hearing from you, Mr Holmes.
In the mean time, I wish you well.
Sonja Undset
Sherlock re-read the email. A locked room mystery. He did like those. Quite a lot. But it was in Norway. Which was not London. As a general rule Sherlock hated most places that weren’t London.
Sherlock wriggled on the couch, trying to get the blood flowing in his legs as they were starting to loose feeling, seeing as he had been sitting there for over an hour, when something jabbed him in the back of the thigh. With a wince and a scowl he leant over enough to squeeze his hand under his leg and reach whatever it was that was poking him.
It was a dinosaur. A green diplodocus to be exact, four and half inches long and made from standard acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.
Sherlock frowned down at the little dinosaur face staring back up at him. He thought he had found all of these. It had been a month; four weeks; 32 days since he had said farewell to William and John at the hospital. One month for his life to get back to what it had been, only, it hadn’t. After a week and a half he had found over a shopping bag full of things that William had left behind. It had been handed over to Lestrade, who had promised to make sure they made their way back to William. Sherlock had thought that was the last of everything. Williams pictures had been taken off of the fridge and put in the bin. Not even two minutes later they had been taken out and put in between two journals in his bookshelf. There were currently three boxes of fruity-bix in his cupboard - berry, apricot and honey flavoured - all at various stages of emptiness, as Sherlock had taken to having breakfast every morning (or afternoon, depending on what time he got out of bed) and he still hadn’t managed to delete ‘Timmy Time’ from his mind palace, as was evident three nights ago when it played on loop for over two hours while he was actually trying to get to sleep. Then there was the smoking. Three weeks ago, Sherlock had reached for his cigarette packet for the first time since he promised William he wouldn’t smoke anymore. It was on the third inhale that he realised that it wasn’t really doing anything about the stress that he was undergoing due to the stupidity of Lestrades latest team member. He had continued to smoke it anyway and by the sixth puff, he was starting to feel ill. He had put it out and not lit another one for four days, where he went through the same process. Since then he had continued to try smoking again, but it was always the same.
William was apparently still in his head and Sherlock needed him gone.
He had never been to Norway. It may possibly be quite enjoyable.
~o~
Sherlock looked over the draft email one more time and re-read it, the cursor on his computer screen hovering over the send button, but his finger not clicking on the mouse pad. Maybe this was too rash. Surely he should think, more than two hours, about whether he actually wanted to go all the way to Norway or not for something that, although did sound intriguing, was probably no more that a good six. Barely a seven, at a push. With a sigh he slammed the lid shut and reached for the cigarette packet one more time, only to find it empty. It was right then that the doorbell rang downstairs.
Not Lestrade. The button was pushed for too long.
The bell rang again, this time only for a small burst. Definitely not Lestrade.
Mycroft never bothered with such pleasantries, such as waiting to be invited into the flat, so it wasn’t him either.
Mrs Hudson wasn’t expecting anyone as she was telling Sherlock just that morning that she had a quiet day in, one that she was looking forward to, (aka - the day she makes her herbal soothers), so it wasn’t anyone calling for her.
A client then. Sherlock groaned. It was bound to be someone dull and uninteresting and extremely frustrating. Not someone Sherlock wanted to deal with right now, especially since he didn’t have any cigarettes to fall back on, even if he couldn’t get through a full one these days.
He got up to go slam the door shut, a clear indication that he did not want visitors of any sort, just as Mrs Hudson opened the door to his unwanted visitor.
“Mithuth Hudthon” came the very familiar and even more unexpected voice of William and Sherlock froze, his hand on the door, ready to swing it shut. But he didn’t swing it shut. He stood there and listened to Mrs Hudson greet William.
“And you must be Doctor Watson” She greeted warmly, obviously turning her attention to the man who had brought William back to Baker Street.
“John, please, and yes. It is finally nice to meet you. I do believe this belongs to you” came the sound of Johns genial voice, floating up the stairs.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have bothered” she admonished in that friendly motherly manner of hers and Sherlock could only assume that John had come over to return Mrs Hudson’s Tupperware container, which had been full of biscuits for the still healing doctor and his son, the last time Sherlock had seen it.
“Do you have any more bithcuitth” Sherlock heard William ask hopefully and he couldn’t help the smile from tilting his lips up, even as John replied with “William, manners.”
“Why don’t you head on upstairs and I’ll see what I can do” Mrs Hudson told him, and before she had even finished small feet were thundering up the stairs, ignoring the “William, slow down” coming from a slightly exasperated John.
Sherlock had a total of 5 and a half seconds to go back to his chair and sit in it with his laptop on his lap, acting as if he hadn’t just eavesdropped on that entire conversation before there was a small figure standing in the doorway.
Sherlock looked up from his laptop, which was actually still closed and facing the wrong way, to see William standing, looking at him with a ridiculously wide grin on his face.
“Therlock” he giggled out in greeting, running across the room, not bothering to be invited (not that he would ever have to) and scrambling up onto Sherlocks lap, giving the man mere seconds to move his computer from out of harms way, on the floor next to his chair.
“William, you can’t just run into someones house” John said as he made it up to the landing, sounding more resigned at the fact that he was probably wasting his breath, and Sherlock took in his appearance as he frowned down, with no real anger, at William from the doorway where he had stopped, presumably waiting for an invitation into Sherlocks home (again, unnecessary). He looked much better. He had put on weight again, and the swelling and bruising had completely gone away. He still held the cane in his left hand but his right was no longer bandaged and his hair was cut and brushed into something resembling the style of his military days.
“It’s fine” Sherlock said, still a bit thrown at the fact that both John and William were here. At his home.
“Look” William said, pulling Sherlocks attention away from the man in the doorway and Sherlock looked down to see that one of his bottom teeth were gone.
“You lost a tooth” Sherlock observed unnecessarily. William nodded.
“Michael got angry ‘cauth Brian wanted to play with me inthtead of him, tho he hit me with hith Ironman and my tooth fell out.”
“He hit you with an Ironman?” Sherlock asked, appalled at the gaul of this little shit, that he had never met, for daring to even think about directing any sort of violence William’s way.
“And then Brian kicked him in the ouchy partth.” The grin that William shot Sherlock told that he wasn’t as upset at being smacked in the face, hard enough to lose a tooth, as he was entertained at the thought of Michael being kicked in the bollocks.
“Michaels dad is also expecting a letter from my lawyer any day now” John added, still from the doorway.
“Sit down, John” Sherlock gruffed out, as way of invitation. “And you’re really suing?”
“God no. I avoid lawyers whenever possible” John brushed off as he made his way, not to the couch as Sherlock had predicted he would, but to the red arm chair - which Mycroft threatened to have thrown away on a regular basis - right across from Sherlock. “But the man is a pretentious prick. I figured a bit of sweating wouldn’t kill him.”
“I could have it arranged, making him sweat, if you ever needed it” Sherlock offered lightly, thinking that a night in an undisclosed holding cell might certainly be justifiable. “I know people.”
“Ah, yes. The Umbrella Man” John frowned and Sherlock scowled. Of course his idiot brother had interfered - he couldn’t help himself. “Seems he has a weird obsession with vetting everyone his partner comes into contact with.”
“Anthea?” Sherlock queried, thinking it odd that John had had anything at all to do with Mycrofts assistant.
“Greg” John offered and Sherlock was even more confused. “Yeah, he said you would do that” John smiled.
“Do what?” Sherlock all but snapped.
“Your eyes glazed over when I said Greg” John explained, his smile growing.
“He ith talking about Graham” William whispered helpfully and it took a few seconds to realise that they were talking about Lestrade and then it took another second to register Johns use of the word ‘partner.’ A sour look took over Sherlocks face. He tried not to acknowledge his brothers relationship very often as both he and Lestrade always seemed rather smug about it.
A chuckle left John’s mouth, startling Sherlock out of his thoughts on his brother. “He said you’d do that too.”
“How much do you two talk about me? And how do you even talk about me? You’ve met, what, twice?”
“Several times” John supplied. “You sent him to our house with all of Williams things a few weeks back, and we got chatting. He’s a nice guy.”
Sherlock gave a small sniff. Of course he was a nice guy, it was why Sherlock liked him, but he wasn’t going to tell Lestrade that.
“Anyway, we didn’t actually come here to talk about Lestrade, or your brother” John told him.
“No, you came to return Mrs Hudsons Tupperware container” Sherlock said, the thought that he was an afterthought pulling him back to his previous mood from before he had heard Williams voice float up the stairs.
“Wait, how…” John stated, but William cut him off.
“No, thilly. We come over to athk if you wanted to go to the park.”
Sherlock looked from John, who had a small, odd smile on his lips, to William, who was looking up at Sherlock with those wide, round eyes that Sherlock couldn’t say no to.
“The container was just an excuse in case it turned out that this was overstepping some boundary.”
“No” Sherlock said, and the second Williams hopeful face fell into one of crushed, disappointment Sherlock saw his mistake.
"It wasn’t an overstep” he corrected. “And I suppose a trip to the park would be a pleasant change of scenery. Nothing too interesting has happened these days.” (Or weeks.)
The smile that lit up Williams face was bright enough to power all of Baker Street, he was sure. “Come on then, letth go” William said excitedly, rushing to the door, and pulling on Sherlocks scarf so it slid off the hook.
It didn’t take long for Sherlock to get ready, pulling on his coat and scarf, and making sure he had his phone and keys, and before long the three of them were heading down the stairs, first William and John, with Sherlock trailing in the back, all thoughts of Norway, gone.
“I was wondering if you could maybe clear something up for me?” John asked as they headed down the street, in the direction of the park, both John and Sherlock on either side of William, each holding one of his hands.
“I can most certainly try” Sherlock answered.
“William said that something happened down at the park. Something he can’t say, I was just curious, is all.”
Sherlock frowned, wondering what on earth John could be on about, when his and Williams first trip to the park came to mind. “Oh, yes. That would have been the bastards” Sherlock supplied and John just responded with a thoughtful “Huh, so there were swans then?”
William took that moment to shout “Jump” and then lifted both of his feet off of the ground and Sherlock had to instantly tighten his grip, so Williams small hand didn’t slip out of his. Obviously, John was used to this, as his step didn’t even falter, despite his gait being uneven, due to the use of a cane.
“No, not quite” Sherlock supplied, once he got his balance back and prepared for the next “Jump” and as they continued down to the park Sherlock proceeded to inform John about the teenagers and about how impressed he was with all of the foreign swear words William knew. He was very pleased that John didn’t seem the slightest bit abashed, and Sherlock found himself pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to fit in with the easy, comfortable life that John and William had created for themselves. It made it much easier to ask them out to dinner after their trip to the park, even if it was done somewhat awkwardly and it also made it more gratifying that John and William both eagerly accepted.