Fic: It Only Takes a Moment
Title: It Only Takes a Moment
Fandom: Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, DI Lestrade, Landon Holmes (OC), mentions of Irene Adler
Pairings: Sherlock/Irene, Sherlock/John
Warnings: Mentions the death of a child
Summary: June 8th will always stand out to Sherlock Holmes. This is why.
Word Count: 4,034
Wednesday, June 8th, and John awoke just as he had every morning for the past eight months: the sun shining in his eyes from between the gap in the curtains, and Sherlock’s chest rising and falling slowly beneath his head. Even when the detective didn’t sleep he allowed John to coax him into lying sedentary while he thought over whatever puzzle he was trying to sort out. He craned his neck to look up into Sherlock’s face and saw that his bed-partner’s eyes were open, showing no signs of having closed at all.
“Did you sleep?” he asked, voice cracked with misuse in the night, reaching up to brush an errant curl out of Sherlock’s eyes. Without a word, Sherlock turned onto his side and wrapped his long arms around him, practically suffocating John with the strength behind the unusually intense emotions behind the embrace. “Sherlock?”
His only response was a bruising kiss being pressed to the crown of his head before Sherlock slid out from under him and drifted to the sitting room. The telly blared out the news of a dreadful triple-murder and John actually felt his spirits lift slightly; if anything could get Sherlock Holmes out of a funk, it was a good crime. John checked his phone to see if Lestrade had sent a text for them, but instead found one from Mycroft.
It would be in your best interests if you treated Sherlock gently today.
-Mycroft Holmes
John squinted suspiciously at the text and crawled out of bed to use the loo. Why was today any different from any other day? Sherlock condemned sentimentality and only acquiesced to having a first-year anniversary dinner because Mycroft offered to pay and Sherlock wanted to take full advantage of being able to spend as much of his brother’s money as possible in three hours. However, he had never heard (or, well, read) Mycroft to be quite so sensitive, even when insisting that he worried about his brother constantly.
Sherlock was slumped on the sofa when John emerged from the bathroom and sat beside him. “Mycroft texted me,” he said cautiously, covering one of Sherlock’s thin hands with his own. Sherlock jerked away and scrubbed at his face. “Sherlock, did something happen?”
He couldn’t help flinching under the sharp silver glare that rounded on him. “Why don’t you ask my brother?” snapped Sherlock before getting up and pacing the length of the sitting room. “Why hasn’t Lestrade called? Damn it all; I knew this would happen! Come along John, we’re going to the crime scene.”
Something seemed off, something seemed seriously wrong with Sherlock, even moreso than usual. It was as though they were back at the pool all those ten months ago and the detective was still trying to express his gratitude for John trying to save him. He was erratic, shaking, pulling at his own hair in agitation, like a livewire coiled and ready to snap at a moment’s notice. Yet John followed him as he always did, knowing that getting Sherlock more upset would only make things worse.
The cab ride to the crime scene was stonily silent; that illusion, however, was shattered when they arrived and Lestrade instantly started in on Sherlock.
“No, absolutely not,” he protested as they attempted to duck under the yellow tape around the perimeter of the scene. “Sherlock, I will call you when I need you, and right now I don’t.”
“Don’t patronize me,” snapped Sherlock viciously, storming into the DI’s personal space until he was towering over the older man. “Don’t ever patronize me, Lestrade. Let. Me. In.”
Donovan and Anderson rounded the corner and froze with distaste when they saw Sherlock and Lestrade arguing, John hovering helplessly a few feet away. John had never seen the DI looking so conflicted, both trying to appear stern but with the faintest hints of pity around his eyes. “Look, Sherlock, you wouldn’t even find it interesting on a day other than today,” he said impatiently. “You’re trying to distract yourself, and in this case, it’s not healthy. Go home, Sherlock.”
John took a tentative step forward, feeling like things were about to escalate beyond his control very quickly, and when he touched the slim man’s shoulder Sherlock jerked viciously, practically snarling like a feral beast and leaning into Lestrade’s space. “Why are you treating me like this? You’ve never condescended to me like this before, not any other year, so why is today so fucking special?” John didn’t even have time to be shocked by Sherlock’s language before Lestrade was blowing up.
“Because there’s a dead child, Sherlock!” the DI shouted, face turning red with a combination of anger and shame. The crime scene went eerily silent, all eyes on Sherlock as his shoulders went rigid and something died in his eyes. “An infant of four months old, killed in his cradle before the parents. I intended to spare you, Sherlock, but you wouldn’t listen.”
Having expected a vast array of reactions from Sherlock after almost a year in his company, seeing the way the taller man immediately turned his stare to the ground and made no sign of moving, John had to remind himself to close his mouth while Lestrade attempted to apologize.
“What, the Freak’s got feelings?” asked Anderson to Donovan. She, looking stricken as she stared at the consulting detective, elbowed him in the ribs.
Sherlock’s eyes snapped up, lethally furious, and John took that as their cue to leave, taking Sherlock by the elbow and dragging him to a cab with a curt nod to Donovan and Lestrade.
“What the bloody hell was that?” he demanded once they were a significant distance from the crime scene. “Sherlock?”
The detective curled his knees to his chest despite the times John had begged him not to in a moving cab and stared out the window, one hand pressed to his mouth as London rolled by. Cautiously, John touched his shoulder; rather than flinching away again, Sherlock leaned into the touch and closed his eyes. “Sherlock, please talk to me. What happened?”
Sherlock continued to state out the window, but moved his hand to cover John’s as he began speaking quickly and emotionlessly.
“Three years ago I had a brief affair with an American by the name of Irene Adler that had, though I was unaware until much later, resulted in an illegitimate pregnancy. I had no real affection for the woman, but merely an appreciation for a kindred spirit with similar intellectual prowess (and sexual activity made a sound distraction during my cocaine withdrawals), and I was not sorry to see her return to America for her silly Idol competition. Lestrade had just become DI at Scotland Yard and my career was thriving quite well.
Some eight months after the affair ended I was awoken in the early morning by my landlord, who seemed just as perplexed as I at the sight of Irene at the door, bearing a days-old infant in her arms. Without so much as a word of greeting she passed the child to me and walked away. Needless to say, I panicked and ran after her down the street - don’t laugh, John - but she was more capable of moving through the crowds now that she wasn’t not burdened as I was with the child and easily escaped.
I stood on the pavement for several minutes, trying to regain my bearings, when I became distracted by a damp feeling on my chest, and looked down to see the child mouthing at my shirt. It was…unusual, but not entirely unwelcome. I had no idea what had possessed Irene to leave it with me, but the thought gave me pause enough to fully examine her child. My arms had curled instinctively around it, my right hand cupping its head to my breastbone. It opened its eyes - blue - and squinted at my face, apparently displeased by my lack of lactation. I didn’t even know its gender; knowing Irene’s low-level malevolence, she could have wrapped it in a blue blanket to confuse me or start an argument with anyone who thought to call it a boy without thinking.
The infant mouthed at my shirt again, and when I was again proved to be male it began wailing. When I sensed that a significant number of eyes had been drawn to me by the child’s cries, I returned to my flat and found my landlord’s family watching with shock; after all, who in their right mind would leave an infant in my care? No, John, don’t look at me like that; you know it’s a valid opinion. Even I had been thinking it. However, when faced with their scrutiny I was suddenly overwhelmed with determination to prove them wrong. I went upstairs and called Lestrade, hoping to perhaps pat Irene back for thinking she would be able to shirk her responsibilities onto me. I also needed some way of feeding it and there was a Tesco’s between mine and Lestrade’s.
I described Irene to the DI, while the bottle was warming on the stove (Lestrade has children who were young enough at the time, and experience that I lack), as colorfully as I was able, hoping at least to get her interrogated by the American Embassy for child endangerment before she got on a plane. As I explained the circumstances of the child (male, by the way, a boy…named Landon) being left with me I handed him off to Lestrade; my arms were tired. This apparently led the DI to the assumption that I wished for him to take…Landon…into protective custody. By some odd instinct I reached for the child the moment those words had been mentioned, but didn’t move beyond resting my hand on the crown of his head. He had such dark hair….
‘Surely you don’t intend to raise him on your own?’ Lestrade asked me, looking just as appalled as I had felt when I reached for Irene’s son.
I didn’t even realize how far into Lestrade’s personal space I had encroached until I could smell the powder on Landon’s head as I contemplated his question. Why should I want to care for a mercilessly needy infant, when I myself was only just freed from the cocaine and more successful in my career than ever? Should I, who succumbed so easily to distraction and boredom, even be allowed to raise a child? Besides that, it was no secret that I’m suffering at least some form of sociopathy - I never was officially tested, but I have all classic signs of high-functioning Asperger’s - and Irene is a genius in her own right and her own dangerous ways. If he, if Landon, was as blindingly intelligent as the two of us put together (Irene and I, we’re brilliant in opposing ways. I am a scientist and she is a manipulator), what sort of normal parents would ever want him, understand him in the way I craved for my own parents to understand me? The closest I ever had was Mycroft, and our amiable relationship ended when I was nine years old. Even with my apparent lack of sympathy for mankind…I couldn’t subject another child to such oppressive loneliness.
I told Lestrade, ‘I think I’d like to keep him.’
When he continued to gape at me with a most endearingly vacant expression I took the child from him, went to the kitchen, and tested the temperature of the formula before giving it to Landon. He stopped crying almost instantly, and I felt the most unusual rush of fondness for silence. For the first in a very long time, I was completely focused on a singular task rather than a conglomeration of facts whirring through my head. Landon was suckling at the bottle and staring up at me with such naked trust that I almost felt a moment’s derision for how blind he must be. Even dogs treat me with disdain before curling up at the feet of their masters. I think…I think it was the first time in my adult life that I ever truly cared for someone other than myself.
Lestrade all but abandoned me to my fate when I dismissed him from my flat, but within three hours I was calling him for help. I admit, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I went to Tesco’s, bought the necessary supplies for child-rearing (however a cot would have to wait until a later day, so I emptied out a drawer in my bureau and lined it with a spare shock-blanket I’d nicked from an ambulance in one disoriented drug-haze or another), and just when I thought I had things under control and all parents were simply complaining, the infernal child started screeching at me and refused to stop no matter what I did.
I changed him, I fed him again, I patted his back until he belched spittle and formula onto my favorite shirt, and no results. I phoned Lestrade at three in the morning, holding the mouthpiece to Landon’s face in the hopes that Lestrade might be able to decipher the meaning, with children of his own. When I presented this theory he nearly laughed himself out of bed, judging by the things his wife was saying in the background.
‘Have you even put him down since you’ve had him?’ Lestrade asked me, and I felt a moment’s humiliation before replying that I hadn’t. It seemed rather daunting, the idea of putting him down for even a moment among the thousands of things that could kill him in my flat. Plus, I had the oddest sensation that Landon would stop breathing if I wasn’t keeping a constant eye on him. That only seemed to make Lestrade sound both amused and like he was having an attack of sentimentality.
However, when I put Landon in his makeshift-cradle and a matter of minutes later he stopped crying, I had to admit that Lestrade was correct. It was hideously embarrassing.
As the days passed on, and I still continued to stumble my way through unexpected parenthood, found myself wondering when it was going to become too much. The tasks set before me had been frustrating, obviously, but not so much that I felt overwhelmed. Every night, I sat up with Landon and convinced myself ‘tomorrow…tomorrow is when it’s going to become too much and I’m going to bollocks this up.’ Then tomorrow came…and things remained the same.
I’m not saying things weren’t difficult, John, because they were, horrendously so. There were moments, moments when Landon’s colic was acting up and I actually craved sleep for how little I got; moments where he spat up and it dribbled all the way down my front; moments when I ran out of nappies in the middle of the night and I had to use tea-towels until the shops opened; moments when Landon didn’t cry, but screamed as though someone were murdering him; moments where the noise and stench and fatigue made me want to scream, to shake him, to throw him out the window just for a moment’s peace. Some moments I wanted to ignore him altogether, let him figure things out for himself if he was so difficult to please. It seemed like it was always those moments when Lestrade showed up to check on us, and I practically threw Landon into his arms so I could hide in my room with my head under a pillow.
But…those moments didn’t seem to matter as much in the moments when Landon was quiet. Not asleep, just…quiet. When he would finally take his bottle and stare up at me with that same naked trust as the first day I ever held him. When I changed him properly for the first time, and when I smiled triumphantly, he smiled back at me. When…when I would play my violin over his cradle, slow gentle songs, and I would watch him fall asleep. When I spent hours on the sofa with him a hot squirming bundle in my arms until he was comfortable, and he gummed my fingers until I looked like I’d been swimming for hours and didn’t care. When his hair started to grow out in wispy dark curls, and it finally dawn on me that he was mine…and, god, John, I loved him in those moments. I loved him in all of them. I never thought I could care for anyone but myself, and the extent to which I cared for myself never reached further than basic survival.
Landon loved me. I’m almost certain he did, if infants have such a capacity to love. He trusted me indefinitely, and I trusted him in return. Late at night, when we were settled down and looking over case files, I would tell him secrets. Just little things, nothing of great importance, but things I had never told anyone else before. You’re the only other person I’ve ever repeated those secrets to, John, and I haven’t even told you all of them yet. Landon was the only creature in the world who had never judged me beyond my abilities for producing food and warmth and…and love. Because I loved him, John. I loved him.
Almost…almost exactly nine weeks after Landon came to live with me…I was asleep…. I woke up around two in the morning, out of habit, because that was usually when Landon got hungry. But he…wasn’t crying or even gurgling in that goofy way of his when…when trying to get my attention before letting out a screech.
And I was glad for the quiet.
And I went back to sleep.
When I woke up again at four, and still Landon hadn’t made a sound, I…I knew something must have happened. I had been so blind, John; so blinded by the perfect little world I had built around myself and my son, that I had been neglecting the use of my deductive reasoning beyond deciphering what Landon wanted from the pitch of his crying.
I got out of bed so quickly that I tripped over the sheets tangled around my legs, falling to the floor and crawling to Landon’s makeshift-cradle that I still hadn’t gotten around to getting replaced. I…I never knew just how much…how much expression infants showed on their faces, even when asleep…until…until I saw how blank and how - how empty Landon’s had become…. I touched his cheek and it was cold. Even in the half-dark of the early morning I could see that he had turned blue. I-I touched his hair, I whispered his name again and again, screamed at him to wake up…and he didn’t move, John. My son, the only human being who had ever relied on me for his safety and care, was…he was…
I took Landon into my arms - god, he didn’t move, didn’t curl up like he was meant to - and sat on my bed with him as I phoned Lestrade. I’d called him no less than fifty times in the sixty-three days Landon had been alive, and the DI was getting short with me. He snapped at me before hearing what I had to say, telling me that if I hadn’t figured out how to care for my own child in nine weeks, then I…then I never would.
‘Landon’s not breathing’ I told him, and it was only when I spoke in less than a scream did I realize I was weeping like a woman. I repeated myself. ‘I was asleep, and he stopped breathing. I need an ambulance.’
The rational part of my mind knew that it was too late, that he’d probably been dead before I woke up the first time, but…I think, when people become parents, and their child is…has been hurt…they lose that rationality. They believe in miracles, just long enough to hope that one might happen for them. But there are just as many miracles as there are heroes.
My landlord’s family was woken up by the paramedics kicking the door down. I wouldn’t - I couldn’t move from my bed, holding my son’s lifeless body to my chest as Lestrade and my landlord broke into the flat because I wouldn’t answer the door.
Everything that happened after that is a blur. I think…I think there was a moment…I wouldn’t let the paramedics take Landon from me. How could I? How could I know they wouldn’t…how could I know they wouldn’t damage him? However, in the next moment I was demanding that they save him, make him breathe, for the love of God, bring him back…but of course that was impossible.
They took Landon away to the…the morgue. Lestrade stayed with me through the night and much of the day. He and his wife had fought over him coming, but he came regardless, and I’ll always owe him for that.
Lestrade walked me through my grief like any average person would expect a father to. He was patient with me when I shouted abuse at him and God and Mycroft, when he deigned to show up at the funeral. He was able to shake sense into me when I didn’t leave my flat for a week and he found me slumped over the shock blanket I had used to line Landon’s cradle. He hit me when I tried to go back to the cocaine and eased me back into detective work for the Yard, making sure I never spent more than eight hours alone. He…he practically force-fed me at times. Even if my own father had been alive, he wouldn’t have done half as much for me as Lestrade had.
My son died on June eighth, John. Even if I don’t think about his death except for on the day it happened, I will always remember Landon. I will remember the quiet moments, and the ones where I wanted to tear out my hair with frustration. I’ll remember sitting him up in my lap so we could read old case notes together. I’ll remember the first time I laid him on his stomach and he lifted up his head to see where I had gone. I’ll…John, I…”
John squeezed his hand, swallowing thickly and blinking quite a lot. “I know, Sherlock. He’ll always love you, too.”
Their cab didn’t pull up at 221 Baker Street. Instead, Sherlock stepped out at the gate of a tiny cemetery just off of Cromwell Road. He held out a hand when John hesitated and pulled the shorter man with him at an easy pace up the small grassy hill. The day was fine, warm and bright, and there was a breeze that lifted only the smallest curls from Sherlock’s forehead.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” John said out of the blue. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I know, John,” replied Sherlock immediately. However, he squeezed John’s hand. “I know.”
They stood silently beside the grave of Landon Godfrey Holmes for roughly three minutes before Sherlock took a deep breath through his nose - sounding a bit congested, but John wasn’t about to point it out after the emotionally-exhausting day Sherlock had already had - and knelt in the grass. John thought for a moment that the detective was breaking down, but then realized that there was quite a bit of grass growing over the edges of the stone. He lowered himself beside Sherlock, and together they jerked at dry grass until Landon’s headstone was properly cleared.
“Shall we?” Sherlock asked once they had finished and he had kept one hand on the smooth stone for several moments too long. “I’m thinking Chinese tonight.”
“You’ll be alright?”
The detective smirked. “Life goes on, Doctor Watson.”
They left the cemetery hand-in-hand, and if the figure of a young red-haired woman tentatively approached the grave moments later to put out flowers, neither of them noticed, and she let them go in peace before making her own way home.
Fandom: Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, DI Lestrade, Landon Holmes (OC), mentions of Irene Adler
Pairings: Sherlock/Irene, Sherlock/John
Warnings: Mentions the death of a child
Summary: June 8th will always stand out to Sherlock Holmes. This is why.
Word Count: 4,034
Wednesday, June 8th, and John awoke just as he had every morning for the past eight months: the sun shining in his eyes from between the gap in the curtains, and Sherlock’s chest rising and falling slowly beneath his head. Even when the detective didn’t sleep he allowed John to coax him into lying sedentary while he thought over whatever puzzle he was trying to sort out. He craned his neck to look up into Sherlock’s face and saw that his bed-partner’s eyes were open, showing no signs of having closed at all.
“Did you sleep?” he asked, voice cracked with misuse in the night, reaching up to brush an errant curl out of Sherlock’s eyes. Without a word, Sherlock turned onto his side and wrapped his long arms around him, practically suffocating John with the strength behind the unusually intense emotions behind the embrace. “Sherlock?”
His only response was a bruising kiss being pressed to the crown of his head before Sherlock slid out from under him and drifted to the sitting room. The telly blared out the news of a dreadful triple-murder and John actually felt his spirits lift slightly; if anything could get Sherlock Holmes out of a funk, it was a good crime. John checked his phone to see if Lestrade had sent a text for them, but instead found one from Mycroft.
It would be in your best interests if you treated Sherlock gently today.
-Mycroft Holmes
John squinted suspiciously at the text and crawled out of bed to use the loo. Why was today any different from any other day? Sherlock condemned sentimentality and only acquiesced to having a first-year anniversary dinner because Mycroft offered to pay and Sherlock wanted to take full advantage of being able to spend as much of his brother’s money as possible in three hours. However, he had never heard (or, well, read) Mycroft to be quite so sensitive, even when insisting that he worried about his brother constantly.
Sherlock was slumped on the sofa when John emerged from the bathroom and sat beside him. “Mycroft texted me,” he said cautiously, covering one of Sherlock’s thin hands with his own. Sherlock jerked away and scrubbed at his face. “Sherlock, did something happen?”
He couldn’t help flinching under the sharp silver glare that rounded on him. “Why don’t you ask my brother?” snapped Sherlock before getting up and pacing the length of the sitting room. “Why hasn’t Lestrade called? Damn it all; I knew this would happen! Come along John, we’re going to the crime scene.”
Something seemed off, something seemed seriously wrong with Sherlock, even moreso than usual. It was as though they were back at the pool all those ten months ago and the detective was still trying to express his gratitude for John trying to save him. He was erratic, shaking, pulling at his own hair in agitation, like a livewire coiled and ready to snap at a moment’s notice. Yet John followed him as he always did, knowing that getting Sherlock more upset would only make things worse.
The cab ride to the crime scene was stonily silent; that illusion, however, was shattered when they arrived and Lestrade instantly started in on Sherlock.
“No, absolutely not,” he protested as they attempted to duck under the yellow tape around the perimeter of the scene. “Sherlock, I will call you when I need you, and right now I don’t.”
“Don’t patronize me,” snapped Sherlock viciously, storming into the DI’s personal space until he was towering over the older man. “Don’t ever patronize me, Lestrade. Let. Me. In.”
Donovan and Anderson rounded the corner and froze with distaste when they saw Sherlock and Lestrade arguing, John hovering helplessly a few feet away. John had never seen the DI looking so conflicted, both trying to appear stern but with the faintest hints of pity around his eyes. “Look, Sherlock, you wouldn’t even find it interesting on a day other than today,” he said impatiently. “You’re trying to distract yourself, and in this case, it’s not healthy. Go home, Sherlock.”
John took a tentative step forward, feeling like things were about to escalate beyond his control very quickly, and when he touched the slim man’s shoulder Sherlock jerked viciously, practically snarling like a feral beast and leaning into Lestrade’s space. “Why are you treating me like this? You’ve never condescended to me like this before, not any other year, so why is today so fucking special?” John didn’t even have time to be shocked by Sherlock’s language before Lestrade was blowing up.
“Because there’s a dead child, Sherlock!” the DI shouted, face turning red with a combination of anger and shame. The crime scene went eerily silent, all eyes on Sherlock as his shoulders went rigid and something died in his eyes. “An infant of four months old, killed in his cradle before the parents. I intended to spare you, Sherlock, but you wouldn’t listen.”
Having expected a vast array of reactions from Sherlock after almost a year in his company, seeing the way the taller man immediately turned his stare to the ground and made no sign of moving, John had to remind himself to close his mouth while Lestrade attempted to apologize.
“What, the Freak’s got feelings?” asked Anderson to Donovan. She, looking stricken as she stared at the consulting detective, elbowed him in the ribs.
Sherlock’s eyes snapped up, lethally furious, and John took that as their cue to leave, taking Sherlock by the elbow and dragging him to a cab with a curt nod to Donovan and Lestrade.
“What the bloody hell was that?” he demanded once they were a significant distance from the crime scene. “Sherlock?”
The detective curled his knees to his chest despite the times John had begged him not to in a moving cab and stared out the window, one hand pressed to his mouth as London rolled by. Cautiously, John touched his shoulder; rather than flinching away again, Sherlock leaned into the touch and closed his eyes. “Sherlock, please talk to me. What happened?”
Sherlock continued to state out the window, but moved his hand to cover John’s as he began speaking quickly and emotionlessly.
“Three years ago I had a brief affair with an American by the name of Irene Adler that had, though I was unaware until much later, resulted in an illegitimate pregnancy. I had no real affection for the woman, but merely an appreciation for a kindred spirit with similar intellectual prowess (and sexual activity made a sound distraction during my cocaine withdrawals), and I was not sorry to see her return to America for her silly Idol competition. Lestrade had just become DI at Scotland Yard and my career was thriving quite well.
Some eight months after the affair ended I was awoken in the early morning by my landlord, who seemed just as perplexed as I at the sight of Irene at the door, bearing a days-old infant in her arms. Without so much as a word of greeting she passed the child to me and walked away. Needless to say, I panicked and ran after her down the street - don’t laugh, John - but she was more capable of moving through the crowds now that she wasn’t not burdened as I was with the child and easily escaped.
I stood on the pavement for several minutes, trying to regain my bearings, when I became distracted by a damp feeling on my chest, and looked down to see the child mouthing at my shirt. It was…unusual, but not entirely unwelcome. I had no idea what had possessed Irene to leave it with me, but the thought gave me pause enough to fully examine her child. My arms had curled instinctively around it, my right hand cupping its head to my breastbone. It opened its eyes - blue - and squinted at my face, apparently displeased by my lack of lactation. I didn’t even know its gender; knowing Irene’s low-level malevolence, she could have wrapped it in a blue blanket to confuse me or start an argument with anyone who thought to call it a boy without thinking.
The infant mouthed at my shirt again, and when I was again proved to be male it began wailing. When I sensed that a significant number of eyes had been drawn to me by the child’s cries, I returned to my flat and found my landlord’s family watching with shock; after all, who in their right mind would leave an infant in my care? No, John, don’t look at me like that; you know it’s a valid opinion. Even I had been thinking it. However, when faced with their scrutiny I was suddenly overwhelmed with determination to prove them wrong. I went upstairs and called Lestrade, hoping to perhaps pat Irene back for thinking she would be able to shirk her responsibilities onto me. I also needed some way of feeding it and there was a Tesco’s between mine and Lestrade’s.
I described Irene to the DI, while the bottle was warming on the stove (Lestrade has children who were young enough at the time, and experience that I lack), as colorfully as I was able, hoping at least to get her interrogated by the American Embassy for child endangerment before she got on a plane. As I explained the circumstances of the child (male, by the way, a boy…named Landon) being left with me I handed him off to Lestrade; my arms were tired. This apparently led the DI to the assumption that I wished for him to take…Landon…into protective custody. By some odd instinct I reached for the child the moment those words had been mentioned, but didn’t move beyond resting my hand on the crown of his head. He had such dark hair….
‘Surely you don’t intend to raise him on your own?’ Lestrade asked me, looking just as appalled as I had felt when I reached for Irene’s son.
I didn’t even realize how far into Lestrade’s personal space I had encroached until I could smell the powder on Landon’s head as I contemplated his question. Why should I want to care for a mercilessly needy infant, when I myself was only just freed from the cocaine and more successful in my career than ever? Should I, who succumbed so easily to distraction and boredom, even be allowed to raise a child? Besides that, it was no secret that I’m suffering at least some form of sociopathy - I never was officially tested, but I have all classic signs of high-functioning Asperger’s - and Irene is a genius in her own right and her own dangerous ways. If he, if Landon, was as blindingly intelligent as the two of us put together (Irene and I, we’re brilliant in opposing ways. I am a scientist and she is a manipulator), what sort of normal parents would ever want him, understand him in the way I craved for my own parents to understand me? The closest I ever had was Mycroft, and our amiable relationship ended when I was nine years old. Even with my apparent lack of sympathy for mankind…I couldn’t subject another child to such oppressive loneliness.
I told Lestrade, ‘I think I’d like to keep him.’
When he continued to gape at me with a most endearingly vacant expression I took the child from him, went to the kitchen, and tested the temperature of the formula before giving it to Landon. He stopped crying almost instantly, and I felt the most unusual rush of fondness for silence. For the first in a very long time, I was completely focused on a singular task rather than a conglomeration of facts whirring through my head. Landon was suckling at the bottle and staring up at me with such naked trust that I almost felt a moment’s derision for how blind he must be. Even dogs treat me with disdain before curling up at the feet of their masters. I think…I think it was the first time in my adult life that I ever truly cared for someone other than myself.
Lestrade all but abandoned me to my fate when I dismissed him from my flat, but within three hours I was calling him for help. I admit, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I went to Tesco’s, bought the necessary supplies for child-rearing (however a cot would have to wait until a later day, so I emptied out a drawer in my bureau and lined it with a spare shock-blanket I’d nicked from an ambulance in one disoriented drug-haze or another), and just when I thought I had things under control and all parents were simply complaining, the infernal child started screeching at me and refused to stop no matter what I did.
I changed him, I fed him again, I patted his back until he belched spittle and formula onto my favorite shirt, and no results. I phoned Lestrade at three in the morning, holding the mouthpiece to Landon’s face in the hopes that Lestrade might be able to decipher the meaning, with children of his own. When I presented this theory he nearly laughed himself out of bed, judging by the things his wife was saying in the background.
‘Have you even put him down since you’ve had him?’ Lestrade asked me, and I felt a moment’s humiliation before replying that I hadn’t. It seemed rather daunting, the idea of putting him down for even a moment among the thousands of things that could kill him in my flat. Plus, I had the oddest sensation that Landon would stop breathing if I wasn’t keeping a constant eye on him. That only seemed to make Lestrade sound both amused and like he was having an attack of sentimentality.
However, when I put Landon in his makeshift-cradle and a matter of minutes later he stopped crying, I had to admit that Lestrade was correct. It was hideously embarrassing.
As the days passed on, and I still continued to stumble my way through unexpected parenthood, found myself wondering when it was going to become too much. The tasks set before me had been frustrating, obviously, but not so much that I felt overwhelmed. Every night, I sat up with Landon and convinced myself ‘tomorrow…tomorrow is when it’s going to become too much and I’m going to bollocks this up.’ Then tomorrow came…and things remained the same.
I’m not saying things weren’t difficult, John, because they were, horrendously so. There were moments, moments when Landon’s colic was acting up and I actually craved sleep for how little I got; moments where he spat up and it dribbled all the way down my front; moments when I ran out of nappies in the middle of the night and I had to use tea-towels until the shops opened; moments when Landon didn’t cry, but screamed as though someone were murdering him; moments where the noise and stench and fatigue made me want to scream, to shake him, to throw him out the window just for a moment’s peace. Some moments I wanted to ignore him altogether, let him figure things out for himself if he was so difficult to please. It seemed like it was always those moments when Lestrade showed up to check on us, and I practically threw Landon into his arms so I could hide in my room with my head under a pillow.
But…those moments didn’t seem to matter as much in the moments when Landon was quiet. Not asleep, just…quiet. When he would finally take his bottle and stare up at me with that same naked trust as the first day I ever held him. When I changed him properly for the first time, and when I smiled triumphantly, he smiled back at me. When…when I would play my violin over his cradle, slow gentle songs, and I would watch him fall asleep. When I spent hours on the sofa with him a hot squirming bundle in my arms until he was comfortable, and he gummed my fingers until I looked like I’d been swimming for hours and didn’t care. When his hair started to grow out in wispy dark curls, and it finally dawn on me that he was mine…and, god, John, I loved him in those moments. I loved him in all of them. I never thought I could care for anyone but myself, and the extent to which I cared for myself never reached further than basic survival.
Landon loved me. I’m almost certain he did, if infants have such a capacity to love. He trusted me indefinitely, and I trusted him in return. Late at night, when we were settled down and looking over case files, I would tell him secrets. Just little things, nothing of great importance, but things I had never told anyone else before. You’re the only other person I’ve ever repeated those secrets to, John, and I haven’t even told you all of them yet. Landon was the only creature in the world who had never judged me beyond my abilities for producing food and warmth and…and love. Because I loved him, John. I loved him.
Almost…almost exactly nine weeks after Landon came to live with me…I was asleep…. I woke up around two in the morning, out of habit, because that was usually when Landon got hungry. But he…wasn’t crying or even gurgling in that goofy way of his when…when trying to get my attention before letting out a screech.
And I was glad for the quiet.
And I went back to sleep.
When I woke up again at four, and still Landon hadn’t made a sound, I…I knew something must have happened. I had been so blind, John; so blinded by the perfect little world I had built around myself and my son, that I had been neglecting the use of my deductive reasoning beyond deciphering what Landon wanted from the pitch of his crying.
I got out of bed so quickly that I tripped over the sheets tangled around my legs, falling to the floor and crawling to Landon’s makeshift-cradle that I still hadn’t gotten around to getting replaced. I…I never knew just how much…how much expression infants showed on their faces, even when asleep…until…until I saw how blank and how - how empty Landon’s had become…. I touched his cheek and it was cold. Even in the half-dark of the early morning I could see that he had turned blue. I-I touched his hair, I whispered his name again and again, screamed at him to wake up…and he didn’t move, John. My son, the only human being who had ever relied on me for his safety and care, was…he was…
I took Landon into my arms - god, he didn’t move, didn’t curl up like he was meant to - and sat on my bed with him as I phoned Lestrade. I’d called him no less than fifty times in the sixty-three days Landon had been alive, and the DI was getting short with me. He snapped at me before hearing what I had to say, telling me that if I hadn’t figured out how to care for my own child in nine weeks, then I…then I never would.
‘Landon’s not breathing’ I told him, and it was only when I spoke in less than a scream did I realize I was weeping like a woman. I repeated myself. ‘I was asleep, and he stopped breathing. I need an ambulance.’
The rational part of my mind knew that it was too late, that he’d probably been dead before I woke up the first time, but…I think, when people become parents, and their child is…has been hurt…they lose that rationality. They believe in miracles, just long enough to hope that one might happen for them. But there are just as many miracles as there are heroes.
My landlord’s family was woken up by the paramedics kicking the door down. I wouldn’t - I couldn’t move from my bed, holding my son’s lifeless body to my chest as Lestrade and my landlord broke into the flat because I wouldn’t answer the door.
Everything that happened after that is a blur. I think…I think there was a moment…I wouldn’t let the paramedics take Landon from me. How could I? How could I know they wouldn’t…how could I know they wouldn’t damage him? However, in the next moment I was demanding that they save him, make him breathe, for the love of God, bring him back…but of course that was impossible.
They took Landon away to the…the morgue. Lestrade stayed with me through the night and much of the day. He and his wife had fought over him coming, but he came regardless, and I’ll always owe him for that.
Lestrade walked me through my grief like any average person would expect a father to. He was patient with me when I shouted abuse at him and God and Mycroft, when he deigned to show up at the funeral. He was able to shake sense into me when I didn’t leave my flat for a week and he found me slumped over the shock blanket I had used to line Landon’s cradle. He hit me when I tried to go back to the cocaine and eased me back into detective work for the Yard, making sure I never spent more than eight hours alone. He…he practically force-fed me at times. Even if my own father had been alive, he wouldn’t have done half as much for me as Lestrade had.
My son died on June eighth, John. Even if I don’t think about his death except for on the day it happened, I will always remember Landon. I will remember the quiet moments, and the ones where I wanted to tear out my hair with frustration. I’ll remember sitting him up in my lap so we could read old case notes together. I’ll remember the first time I laid him on his stomach and he lifted up his head to see where I had gone. I’ll…John, I…”
John squeezed his hand, swallowing thickly and blinking quite a lot. “I know, Sherlock. He’ll always love you, too.”
Their cab didn’t pull up at 221 Baker Street. Instead, Sherlock stepped out at the gate of a tiny cemetery just off of Cromwell Road. He held out a hand when John hesitated and pulled the shorter man with him at an easy pace up the small grassy hill. The day was fine, warm and bright, and there was a breeze that lifted only the smallest curls from Sherlock’s forehead.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” John said out of the blue. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I know, John,” replied Sherlock immediately. However, he squeezed John’s hand. “I know.”
They stood silently beside the grave of Landon Godfrey Holmes for roughly three minutes before Sherlock took a deep breath through his nose - sounding a bit congested, but John wasn’t about to point it out after the emotionally-exhausting day Sherlock had already had - and knelt in the grass. John thought for a moment that the detective was breaking down, but then realized that there was quite a bit of grass growing over the edges of the stone. He lowered himself beside Sherlock, and together they jerked at dry grass until Landon’s headstone was properly cleared.
“Shall we?” Sherlock asked once they had finished and he had kept one hand on the smooth stone for several moments too long. “I’m thinking Chinese tonight.”
“You’ll be alright?”
The detective smirked. “Life goes on, Doctor Watson.”
They left the cemetery hand-in-hand, and if the figure of a young red-haired woman tentatively approached the grave moments later to put out flowers, neither of them noticed, and she let them go in peace before making her own way home.