Jun 11, 2011 15:01
Obligatory Mummy Fic
Rating: G
Warnings: This is so fluffy, gooey that I'm embarrassed to post it.
Notes: Everybody has to do a Mummy fic, right?
Pairing: John Watson/Sherlock Holmes
Summary: Sherlock's got a boyfriend. Mummy must be informed. Mycroft has lunch with his mother.
She knew the moment Mycroft noticed her. He rose elegantly from the table, waiting to kiss her cheek and hold out her chair.
He had chosen the restaurant, one of her favorites. Really, he was a very attentive son.
Lady Wintergrace Holmes did wonder why she had been summoned. Oh, of course it had been a perfectly cordial invitation.
“Mummy, would you like to meet for lunch this weekend?”
But she was more observant that most. She had raised the brothers Holmes, after all. God knows they didn’t take after their father. Well, maybe Mycroft, a little around the middle, but that lovely Anthea had taken care of that with her usual efficiency.
No. Mycroft would have appeared very cool and detached to any number of world leaders, but Lady Holmes saw right through him. He had invited her to La Fonda with all the earnest glee of a six year old holding out flowers.
Mycroft had something to show Mummy.
She was in no way surprised that it was about Sherlock. She knew Mycroft worried about him so. Indeed, after the addictions, she was often grateful for her oldest’s near obsessive desire to protect his whole family.
In her case, Mycroft always insured her bodyguards were strapping young men in the prime of life, and she never complained. She could see how Sherlock would feel hemmed in though. He was always so independent-and reckless. After rehab failure number three Mummy had insisted that Sherlock quit complaining about the surveillance. He hadn’t, but she only had to see one grainy video of her son overdosing to fall completely on the side of his brother.
“Now, my dear. What did you want to tell me?”
Mycroft smiled, subdued but delighted. “Sherlock has a flatmate.”
“Yes, dear. Six months he’s made it. I confess myself shocked.”
“I thought you might like an update.”
This was interesting. Sherlock had had flatmates in the past. Of course, before Doctor Watson, the longest lasting had been for two months. Still, Mycroft had never had much to say about them. The truly undesirable had been quietly encouraged to leave days into the arrangement. Six months, truly a statement to Doctor Watson’s stamina, also testified to Mycroft’s, at least tacit, approval.
Leaning back in her chair just slightly, Lady Holmes raised an eyebrow. “By all means.”
A file was pulled from Mycroft’s smart black case and slid demurely across the table. Flipping through, Lady Holmes saw a not unattractive, but thoroughly average, man in brown. She read his CV and looked over his service records.
All in all, a completely normal little man. She couldn’t imagine how he’d weathered her son, but she saw nothing truly remarkable about him.
Looking at her oldest, she realized she was expected to make some sort of pronouncement. “He seems very. . . nice, dear.”
It was as far as she was prepared to go. She was intrigued now. Not so much about plain Doctor Watson, but about why Mycroft thought he should be discussed.
Mycroft produced an iPad from the black case. “I have some surveillance video of the two of them at dinner.”
Dinner? Average or not, if Doctor Watson could get her son to eat, she was prepared to approve of him. Leaning forward, Lady Holmes tapped the small triangle on the screen, playing the video.
It was, of course, the most polished of surveillance videos. One establishing shot of Sherlock and his flatmate sitting across from one another at a small table outside an Italian bistro. The video cut to a close up of Doctor Watson, who appeared to be telling an amusing story. He wasn’t eating, was gesturing with his hands and his smile reached all the way to his eyes.
The angle switched to Sherlock, and Lady Holmes’s mouth dropped open in shock. She stared as her youngest child laughed. As he laughed. Nearly hysterically. His whole body shook while drawing in gulping breaths. He wiped away tears while flicking his pasta fork at Doctor Watson and mouthing the word “stop.” He settled down twice, only to be set off again at another anecdote.
Lady Holmes was enthralled. Her beloved Sherlock, who existed only at the emotional extremes of desperately bored and manically obsessed. Her delicate boy, who had been disillusioned since infancy, was sitting at a perfectly normal restaurant, on a perfectly normal day, talking to his perfectly normal flatmate, and he was perfectly, normally, incandescently happy.
Lady Holmes did not realize she was crying until Mycroft offered her his handkerchief. Never one for useless emotional displays, she found her rigid self control broken. She had spent years worried about Sherlock. A baby who never cried, a toddler who mostly stared, an adolescent diagnosed with sociopathy. She knew that he was special. She knew that he had been waiting since the day he was born. She never knew for what, but it appeared to be this extraordinary doctor.
It only took Sherlock thirty years to find himself.
Well, many people never do.
Mycroft interrupted her thoughts. “He’s wonderful.”
Lady Holmes moved to play the video again. “Sherlock?”
Mycroft gave an amused huff. “Well, yes. But I meant John. He’s deceptively average, but he understands Sherlock. I think possibly even better than you or I.”
“He’s made him happy.” It wasn’t a question. She began to play the video a third time, she would watch Sherlock’s eyes this time. How they lit up and danced.
“Would you like to see another?” Mycroft began to pull the iPad back to his side of the table.
He had managed to shock her again. “There are others?”
Mycroft leaned forward and took her hand. “Mummy, Sherlock smiles everyday now.”
Lady Holmes closed her eyes. She did not open them. “Do you think it will last?”
Half not wanting to hear the answer, she stilled herself. Holmes’ did not retreat from the truth. She must know. If there was a time limit she would need to act now.
Mycroft faltered. “I’m not a clairvoyant, Mummy. But yes, I think it will. I hope it will. They are in love.”
Nodding, Lady Holmes opened her eyes. “I must meet this boy immediately.”
“Of course,” Mycroft nodded. “I’ll arrange for him to have some time off at the clinic. You could have him to the country house.”
Choosing not to correct him, Lady Holmes smiled. Of course she wanted to meet John-wonderful, amazing John. But she had meant Sherlock. She could not wait to meet her son-this person she always knew he could be. Himself and content.