On the first day of Sherlockmas: Sherlock and the Queen of Winter, for 2ndskin
Author: blueonblue
Title: Sherlock and the Queen of Winter
A gift for: 2ndskin
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Greg Lestrade, John Watson, Molly Hooper, Sally Donovan, Irene Adler
Category: slash
Rating: T
Warnings: No warnings apply.
Summary: Rescuing humans who have been stolen by fairies is the part of Lestrade's job that Sherlock doesn't know about. AU
Author's Notes: The cook’s song is “It’s Turned Out Nice Again” by George Formby
Molly looked up at the hazy winter sky and wished it would snow for Christmas. The first snow always turned London into a postcard version of itself, snow muffled harsh sound of cars and people shouting into their mobiles, and brought memories of a pastoral that never existed, robins cheerfully posing on ancient stone walls. Her thoughts were interrupted by an odd, gurgling voice.
"Human woman, would you like to accompany me to a bangin' party?" A short man with a shock of riotous pink and orange hair hanging over his round face grinned up at her. He looked friendly, but Molly was afraid once she turned his offer, he would begin pestering her to buy a CD or worse, a cassette.
"No... I'm meeting a colleague for lunch, then I'm going to a party. Maybe not a 'banging' one, but I'm looking forward to it." Molly felt a little silly. There was no need to explain her plans to a stranger. She decided to walk a little faster, but the stranger stuck out his foot, sending her sprawling.
"What was that?" she said, more surprised than angry.
"Sorry. Let me help you up." The stranger stuck out his hand, which Molly foolishly took.
---
"Sally, we've got another one, and this time it's someone we know." He handed the report on Molly's kidnapping to Sally Donovan, the only one in he could trust with these incidents. He'd taken her with him on the last three cases, and she had proved to be as practical and impervious to temptation as he had hoped. The last time had been rough, and he knew that he was getting too old to travel into Fairyland to rescue the unhappy humans who had been stolen away.
"Why do they always pick Christmas?" Lestrade asked. He'd been looking forward to Mrs Hudson’s Christmas party this year. It was the one time he could count on Sherlock almost being nice. Maybe that was a little unfair. Sherlock had been calmer lately, fewer SOCOs going home in tears. Perhaps Sherlock had listened to and believed one of John's speeches about the reality of other people's feelings. A few weeks ago, Sherlock had turned to him, asked "What do you think?" and it had been a serious question, not a set up for a monologue about Lestrade’s shallow and disorganised thinking.
Fairyland and Lestrade's world had parted ways long ago. Some said the Romans had driven the magic out of the land, others blamed earlier conquerors, saying they had drained the land of magic and constructed the Gate of Iron so Fairyland could never take its revenge. Lestrade didn’t know and didn’t much care, all he knew was that someone had to be there to pick up the adventurous and misguided fairies who straggled through the Gate and rescue the humans who’d been taken. When creatures from Fairyland appeared in London, their powers vanished and they were left as helpless as babies. Wild-eyed creatures dressed in rags, they stumbled about, barely comprehending the language, not understanding the people who towered over them, bemused by a land that contained its own reality and couldn’t be bent by the strength of will. Lestrade would escort them to the Gate, watching rags turn to rare silks as they crossed the threshold.
"It's when our winter and theirs run at the same time. Or they like parties. Who doesn’t like food and presents? I'll go sign for the glasses," Donovan said.
"I didn't return them after the last time." Lestrade rummaged through one of his files until he found two pairs of eyeglasses. The thin wire frames, titanium alloyed with iron, repelled enchantments and allowed the wearer to see what was real, what could be trusted. It revealed the paths of roses and briars, which appeared to scale cliffs and plunge into gorges, to be a dusty path leading up a slight incline. Lestrade handed one pair to Donovan, and put on the other.
"If we’re lucky, sir, we can get to the castle, get Molly, and return in time for me to catch the 17:57 to Barnet, and for you to attend the freak’s party."
"Sally."
"This time I mean freak in a good way, you know that."
"What a charming compliment." Sherlock, with his usual disregard for making appointments and checking availability, appeared at the door of Lestrade’s office. Lestrade casually folded the report and put it in his jacket's inside pocket. Like most civilians, Sherlock did not know about the Gate and Lestrade wanted to keep it that way. The last thing Lestrade needed was Sherlock stealing the glasses and investigating Fairyland. Lestrade couldn’t imagine Sherlock in a place where the logic he prized so highly broke down.
"What are you doing here?" Donovan asked. She looked from Lestrade to Sherlock. "You didn’t tell him about it, did you?"
"There’s nothing to tell," Lestrade said. The quickly masked flicker of interest on Sherlock’s face worried him. Sherlock hadn’t believed him. "It’s the usual pre-Christmas smash and grab." Lestrade hoped that sounded sufficiently boring.
"Mrs Hudson has a shopping list for tonight’s party. I brought it here so you could do the shopping."
"Normal people would send a text, maybe do their own shopping," Donovan said.
Sherlock ignored her and dropped the list on Lestrade’s desk. "She wants glittery hats and mushroom pâté and I don’t know where they sell things like that."
Lestrade handed the shopping list back to Sherlock. "I’m sorry, but I might be late to tonight’s party. Don’t wait for me start."
"Why would we?" Sherlock asked. He shoved the list in his pocket. "Since when do you wear glasses?"
"You always say I'm blind, wouldn't recognise a clue if it dropped on my head." Lestrade hoped his voice sounded natural.
Sherlock reached across the desk and pulled the glasses off Lestrade's face. "Plain glass," he said. He folded the glasses and placed them neatly in the breast pocket of Lestrade's jacket. "It's not a good look for you," he said.
"You can play What Not to Wear tonight, yeah?" Donovan stood in the doorway until she was certain Sherlock had really gone. "That was close," she said. "If he knew something had happened to Molly, he'd want to come with us."
"That’s what I was thinking, but we don't need him. We’re going to get her back. You might even make an earlier train and Molly and I will have time to dress for the party."
"It will be fine, sir." Sally put on her own glasses. The light wire rims suited her face. She looked like a schoolgirl, out to cause some innocent mischief. Lestrade had never seen himself in the glasses, but he assumed they made him look old. They didn’t, but Sherlock was right when he said they didn't suit his face. Too much light reflected off the plastic lenses and hid his eyes.
The Gate of Iron which led to Fairyland appeared to have been built into the walls of the Church of St Bartholomew the Great, but the Gate had been built before the church; the church had grown around it and been protected by the Gate. It was a rust-darkened and unremarkable, an unlocked metal door with a corroded handle.
Lestrade stepped up to the Gate and pulled it open. It moaned in protest as the false winter on the other side pushed against the barrier between the two realities. It was like watching a tiger throw itself against the walls of a glass cage. He took a deep breath and plunged into Fairyland. Sickly, greenish sunlight drifted through eggshell skies. Malicious faces gleamed at them from behind the bare trees. Their entrance had been noted. Fairyland's endless grassy plains stretched before them, dry grass starving in the chilly winter air.
"Are you okay?" Donovan asked. She sounded out of breath.
"Yeah. That never gets any easier. Where are we?" The road stretched before them, covered in tiny pebbles drawn from distant shores.
"It looks like it brought us directly to the Queen’s Country. I guess we can’t accuse her of not playing fair." Donovan smiled encouragingly. "You’ve done this before, guv."
Lestrade focused on the road on front of them. Seven leagues in one stride. The pebbles crunched under his shoes. Seven leagues. In Fairyland, all roads led to the castle, but some were longer than others. Years ago, when he had first been chosen, it had still been summer in Fairyland and he had been delighted by all he had seen. He had followed the river, following it through the forest, with its hidden goblin villages, and through underground caves where he caught brief glances of jewel-like eyes. He'd tried to talk to elderly fishermen, who spoke a form of English that had been new when they were taken, and watched as the dazzling fish resisted their hooks. He'd listened to the water-maidens sing and allowed them to feed him thin slices of golden apples. But summer had ended, both in Fairyland and in himself.
"We’re almost there," Sally whispered.
The Queen's castle glowed brilliant white and sapphire against the fog-shrouded mountains. To the west, the castle's orchards were bare, a few leaves clinging to spiky branches, but the greenhouses were lit as brilliantly as the castle itself. Lestrade knew the greenhouses were bursting with every fruit, every flower that could be cultivated under the sun or moon.
In front of the castle, enterprising fairies and goblins had set up stalls to entice visitors into parting with gold coins or fragments of a dream. These fairy merchants regarded Lestrade and Donovan with suspicion. Soldiers from the world of iron, representatives of the law. They scowled, muttered insults, a bold wombat-faced goblin tried to pelt them with overripe pears. He hissed when Donovan easily caught them and threw them back. Only the dream-trader was friendly. He'd once bought a memory from Lestrade, a small wish in exchange for the London-born detective's first glimpse of the sea, and he hoped to make another such bargain. He welcomed Lestrade like an old friend, but Donovan hurried them along to the castle door.
The Oak Door, guardian of the castle, considered itself to be the Gate of Iron's more discerning sibling. Unlike the Gate of Iron, it wasn't in the habit of allowing humans to come and go as they pleased. Its heavy bronze knocker glowered threateningly at the visitors, but their glasses prevented them from the Door's intimidation.
"No." The Door's sonorous voice echoed through their minds.
"Give us a chance, mate. We haven’t answered any questions yet." Donovan reached for the knocker.
"There’s no need for that," the Oak Door said. "Hunger drives me, I consume all I see. Thirst is my enemy: rivers and sea."
"A fire," Donovan answered. The Oak Door swung open.
"Wait for me right inside," Lestrade said. Donovan waved at him as the door slammed shut.
"Your turn." The Door cleared its throat. "If you place a grain of rice upon each square of a chessboard so that one grain is on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, how many grains of rice would be on the chessboard when you finish?"
"That’s not a riddle, that’s maths," Lestrade protested. "It didn’t even rhyme. Go on, ask me a proper riddle."
Lestrade knew that if he took off the glasses, he would see the Oak Door smiling smugly.
"It’s not my fault you spent your school days smoking behind the bicycle shed instead of studying."
"Are you going to let me in or not?"
The Oak Door squeaked its hinges in a distinctly mocking manner. "You have an astoundingly average mind."
"I get enough of that from Sherlock, don't you start. Let me in." Lestrade looked at his watch. It had stopped running the minute he crossed into Fairyland. He wondered if Sherlock had ever found the pâté.
"Sherlock likes you. I don't like you at all," the Oak Door said.
"He doesn’t..." Lestrade tried to think of a way to explain his relationship with Sherlock. It wasn't exactly friendship. Sherlock needed someone at Scotland Yard who would be on his side, and Lestrade occasionally, not as often as some people thought, needed a fresh set of eyes to go over a crime scene. There were moments when he thought there could be more. If he were a different person, perhaps younger and cleverer, he would be able to find the words that would bring them together.
"He’s right, you know. Your thinking is very sloppy. If he didn’t find some kind of pleasure in your company, why would he seek your company?" The door resumed its squeaking. "Why don’t you let them stay?" The Oak Door asked. "When I was a sapling, if someone wanted to stay, they weren’t forcibly rescued."
"It’s not something a door could understand."
"Your sergeant will find it very hard going. Little Molly will spend eternity scrubbing out the Queen’s kitchens."
"So Molly is in the castle? Good." He felt relieved knowing that Molly was safe inside, not put to work scraping living diamonds from the caverns under the mountains. Lestrade had learned the hard way that fairies were unpredictable when it came to the humans they stole. They were as likely to send them to fetch dragon's eggs from the peak of a glass mountain as to feed them sweet berries and treat them as pets.
"Wait. How do you know anything about Sherlock or what he thinks?" Lestrade reached in his jacket pocket for the report on Molly’s kidnapping. It was gone, replaced by Mrs Hudson’s shopping list. Sherlock’s aggressively friendly goodbye made sense now. "Where is he?"
The Door cleared its throat portentously. "Bring me the grains of rice I request, and I will show you our unwelcome guest."
Lestrade banged the knocker a few times. "Sally!" he shouted.
"Don’t get stroppy, you have to answer a question before you can ask a question. There are rules."
"No, there aren’t. This is a land of will. If I can..." Lestrade placed his hand on the Oak Door and concentrated on his need to know Sherlock’s location. Years of intruders, repelled by the Queen’s magic, had strengthened the Door. The splinters furiously resisted him, but he could feel it bending as he focused.
"Sally!"
"I’m here." Her voice was very faint, as if it had travelled years to find him.
"The Door isn’t letting me through and Sherlock and probably John are wandering around out here somewhere. I’ll find them and bring them here, you ask the Queen to let Molly go, and we’ll all go back to the Gate of Iron together."
"Cheers, guv." Donovan should have everything inside under control. This was Donovan's third visit to Fairyland, but she’d never met the Queen before. Lestrade would have liked it better if he could have been there. The Queen’s tongue was made of honey and deceit, and even with the glasses, it was difficult to resist her promises.
"You win." Lestrade stepped away from the door and stepped on to the road. "Sherlock," he said. He concentrated on reaching the place where Sherlock would be. The road curled around his feet, desperate to return him to the castle. He kept Sherlock’s image clear in his mind as he walked.
---
Sherlock had called John immediately upon seeing the report he'd stolen from Lestrade.
"How dare he not tell me," Sherlock said when John met him at the church. John looked at the expression on his face and knew that if he had been in Lestrade’s place, he wouldn’t have told Sherlock anything.
"It’s really quiet here," John said.
"A door in the church that doesn't lead to the church," Sherlock said, thoughtfully.
"Maybe it means the door to the café?" John suggested.
Sherlock stopped in front of the Gate of Iron. "Wrong time period," he said. "And the frame doesn't quite fit the bricks." Sherlock opened the Gate and reality broke. Winter howled at them from the other side. Sherlock cautiously stretched out his hand, ice crystals clung to his skin, but they didn't feel cold at all. He moved forward, eager to document this strange phenomenon, an impossible landscape. As he crossed into Fairyland, he heard John's voice shouting his name from very far away.
---
After ordering Molly's kidnapper to hand her over, she was sent to the kitchen to help the cook. The castle’s kitchen was hot, with fires roaring in the oven and tiny fairies dancing in the ashes. The head cook was one of the most important jobs in a place where feasting was taken seriously. The tiny fairies told her if she ruined Miss Barbara's puddings, they would bite her all over and make her cry. Miss Barbara, was a rosy cheeked woman who looked around Molly’s age, but Molly knew appearances could deceive. A childhood spent with books had taught her a few things about fairies. Molly sloshed the mop around in the murky bucket and dragged it across the floor. Miss Barbara ignored Molly's half-hearted attempts at cleaning. She enjoyed a few minutes of knitting during the peaceful time she had after the Queen's tea was ready and before the rush for dinner. Her needles clicked as she sang.
Springtime, summer, autumn, winter, so the seasons go
Sometimes we get them all at once with a little rain or snow
The sun for long it doesn’t shine, it’s either wet or else it’s fine.
Last night I said when I went to bed, it’s turned out nice again.
"I think I’ve heard that before," Molly said. She wiped her forehead with her linen sleeve. When she arrived in Fairyland, her cardigan and jeans had vanished and been replaced by a dress that looked better suited for a barmaid on a sign outside a pub. It showed the exact same amount of cleavage as the dress she had planned to wear to the Christmas party, but she still felt self-conscious.
"They were singing it the night I left London," Miss Barbara said.
"You’re from London? Are you a human?" Molly asked.
"As human as you, dearie." Her needles rhythmically. "I was rescued, wasn't I? Never thought there’d be a London to go back to and now it’s too late."
"It’s not too late. There must have been people..."
"They’re all dead, and if they aren’t, they’ve done their mourning." Miss Barbara's needles didn't stop, but a shadow crossed her face.
"I’m sorry."
"Don’t be. I’ve got a good job here, head cook to the Queen of the good people is nothing to sniff at. They won’t keep you in the kitchens for long. Maybe the Queen herself will take you as an attendant. You’ll see such lovely things."
Molly scrubbed away at the floor until it shone like glass. It made her feel a little bad about the shabby state of her own kitchen floors, but she couldn't regret choosing her job and her friends over spending time cleaning. She had to return to her life in London. She had friends, she had cats, she had work she loved.
"If no one dies here, it will impossible to do anything like my old job," she said, more to herself than anyone who might be listening. "Can I go out to the market?" Molly asked.
"You've been a good worker today, you do what you like." Miss Barbara arranged a heavy cloak around Molly’s shoulders and gave her a basket to carry. Before Molly left, she kissed her cheek, and said "It really is nice here. I wish you could see that."
The market stalls came to life as Molly approached. The fairy merchants called out to her, offering to fill her basket with plums and pineapples in exchange for one lock of hair. They pawed at her dress and told her they could wrap her in starry velvet if she would only part with a dear memory. She pretended to be very interested in the hair ribbons and the fairy fruit and the spells made into teacups and saucers, but nothing truly caught her eye until she saw the filigreed cage containing silvery-winged kittens. She put her hand against the cage and their pink tongues licked her affectionately. "You would never hide under the bed for two days, would you?" They meowed softly and rustled their wings to suggest they understood and they longed for nothing more than to sit in a basket at the foot of Molly’s bed and drink sweet cream.
Molly reluctantly tore herself away from the fairy kittens and browsed through a book stall at the end of the market, as far as she dared wander from the watchful Oak Door. Most of the books were in languages she couldn’t understand, and some were barely books at all, bundles of leaves tied together with green grass and stained with dark juices. She heard a soft meowing and looked down to find one of the kittens had followed her, a fluffy white ball of fur with golden wings.
"I can’t afford you and I certainly can’t take you home with me," Molly told it. It rubbed its head against her ankle, looked up at her, and winked.
The kitten rose up, beating its golden wings furiously. It launched itself at the bookshop owner, who yelled and tried to knock it out of the air with an ancient grimoire. The kitten circled the booth, knocking over stacks of books, yowling and swiping at anyone who tried to get close.
The Oak Door was distracted, laughing at the plight of the unfortunate bookshop owner, so Molly ran. She ran into the wintry depths of the Queen’s land, her boots crunched on the brittle snow, she ran until she felt she couldn’t breathe. There was no sign of the castle or the gate back to London. She was completely alone in a world of snow.
---
"It’s not cold," John said. "It’s snowing, but not cold."
"I’ve noticed that," Sherlock said. "It’s not real snow. Real snow isn’t pink and blue."
"True. We’ve lost the door we came through. Maybe we should have left a trail of breadcrumbs."
"Is that supposed to work?" Sherlock asked. This was worse than his experiments with hallucinogenics. The humiliation involved in babbling nonsense at fairy lights was better than a reality where tinsel and glitter fell from the sky.
---
Molly's kidnapper swore and kicked at the clumps of glittery snow. It wasn’t fair. He went to a lot of trouble and danger bringing in a human to play with, and as soon as he did, she was taken by the Queen. "Stupid Queen. She’ll get hers when this whole place gets dragged off to hell." In the old days, Peaseblossom had spent a lot of time around humans and picked up some odd pieces of theology.
---
The Queen watched Peaseblossom’s tantrum on a frosted snow globe. She hid the globe within her ermine sleeve and her red lips curved into a smile at her guest.
The walls of the Queen's parlour were covered in a jumble of paintings, lords and ladies parading in their finery, solemn aristocrats and rakish priests, bewildered animals, baskets overflowing with unnatural fruit, wars and grisly murders. The paintings were real. Donovan had checked, looking over the rims of her glasses to see what changed and what remained the same. The Queen's gown and the delicate cloths on the table blinked into existence when she moved her eyes, but the damasked chairs and crowded tea table didn't change.
"You’re lucky being Queen isn’t a popularity contest," Donovan said.
"Is your job a popularity contest? You wield power in your way, I in mine. Your lost lamb will make her way back here. All roads lead to the castle. By the time we finish our tea, she will be back with us and you can take her home, if you still want to return to that other world."
---
Molly’s triumph at escaping from the castle was short-lived. No matter how straight her steps every time she came over a hill, the castle was before her. "You have to run fast to stay in one place," she said. She felt a little silly talking to herself, but it made her feel less alone.
"That's because all roads lead to the castle."
Molly almost screamed. Sherlock was standing in front of her in his dark coat, blue scarf around his neck, and the curls she’d always secretly thought of as "Byronic" tumbled across his forehead.
"You...what are you doing here?" Molly gasped.
"Rescuing you," Sherlock said. He smiled and held out his hand.
"No. You’re not him. He doesn’t... that face you’re making is not his face." Molly stood up very straight and stared at the fake-Sherlock. "Could you please stop looking like him."
"The thoughts flitting across the surface of your mind, they are all open to me. You wanted him to rescue you," Peaseblossom, the fake-Sherlock smiled again.
"Okay, so you can read my mind a little, that’s embarrassing, but you can’t be very good at the mind reading because then you would know that no, I do not want Sherlock to rescue me. You would also know that I really, really want to go home. Are you the one who brought me here?"
Peaseblossom considered lying, considered writing her a sonnet comparing her to the moon and stars, considered dunking her in the ocean until she cried real salt tears.
"Ah, fair maid, for the love of thee--"
"No," Molly said firmly. "Take me back. There are people waiting for me and my cats expect to be fed in the morning. Take me back."
Peaseblossom’s eyes were sharper than any humans. "It’s your lucky day. Your friend Sherlock is going to rescue you after all."
Molly turned in the direction Peaseblossom indicated. In the distance, two dark figures struggled against the snowy landscape.
"Are you sure?" she asked, but the fairy was gone. Molly started walking towards Sherlock and John. Running hadn’t helped, so tried the opposite, setting one foot carefully in front of the other.
---
"Why are humans like that? Ugh." Kicking the snow was unsatisfactory, so Peaseblossom kicked an innocent mulberry bush instead. A tiny fairy, about the size of an apple, rolled out. She was wearing a bundle of greyish-blue rags and her silver hair was tied back in an enormous bow. It was the housewives' scourge, Cobweb.
"Because they’re human," Cobweb said. "Why do you bother with them?"
"It’s so boring here, especially in winter. Humans have feelings and cry all the time. They’re not like us."
Cobweb adjusted her ribbon so it was perfectly centred on her head, then she adjusted her size so she could tower over Peaseblossom, who hadn't bothered to stop being Sherlock. "Did you ever think that maybe, maybe if you don’t make ‘em cry, they might want to stay? Promise her a palace on the moon, feed her cherries and sweet limes from the Queen’s greenhouses. If you really want this human, you gotta say sorry and give her a present."
"A present?" Peaseblossom tried to think of what a human might like. Cherries did sound like a good place to start, but not flash enough. He needed something that would show Molly the Human the power of Fairyland.
"That bloke you’re dressed up as, does she fancy him?" Cobweb asked. "He might make a good present." Cobweb focused her eyes on the reunion taking place in the distance. "A little touch of you-know-what and he will follow her around like a slave. It’s good for you as well because you’ll get two humans instead of one"
"What about the other human?"
"Don’t be greedy." Cobweb shrank herself until she was the size of a snowflake. "I’ll lead him back to the Gate."
---
"Is he okay?" Molly asked John. Sherlock, after deciding he had not been drugged, was filling up a notebook with observations.
"I don’t really think this is his kind of place." The glittery snow was falling upwards now, drifting from the ground and floating away into the sky. John shivered even though he knew it wasn’t cold. "Not really my kind of place, but I’m glad we found you."
"I’m really happy to see you. Now we need to find the door to get out of here," Molly said. "Really happy."
"The big metal door, that’s where we came through as well," John said.
"There are no straight roads in Fairyland. So I think we need to curve a bit, maybe. The road keeps trying to take me back to the castle and I do not want to go back there."
"Fairyland," Sherlock finally spoke. "It’s impossible, but here we are."
"Here we are," John agreed.
---
The road tried to take Lestrade back to the castle. It twisted across the snowy plains, it dove under mountains, it rolled into the forest and spread itself over the canopy of trees. Lestrade kept Sherlock’s image in his mind and willed that every step should bring him closer. The enchanted bricks grumbled, the dirt rebelled under his feet, but he continued forward. He would find Sherlock and John and get them out. They wouldn't be happy with with a life of fairy fruit and mandatory folk dancing.
---
"Would you like to have a look?" The Queen handed the globe to Sally. "One of the stupid little flowers is rummaging around in my cellars, looking for distilled Love-in-Idleness." They watched as Peaseblossom emerged from the cellar holding two vials, one of ruby-red, the other pale azure.
"It’s not his fault if you don’t label them," Donovan said. The tea was too bitter and she didn't trust the milk.
"Oh, that’s not fun at all." The Queen sighed. "None of this is really fun any more. At this point, I’ve seen all of the comical love potion mishaps that could possibly occur. It’s become a little dull. Peaseblossom!" she called.
The flower fairy tumbled into the room. He may have looked like Sherlock, but he lacked the ability to wear a long coat gracefully. The Queen took the azure bottle from his hand and sent him on his way.
"There. My Lady’s Disdain can go back in the cupboard."
"If you ask me, you shouldn’t let him go running around with the love potion either. Why does he look like Sherlock?"
"He doesn't wear it well." The Queen sighed. "Who knows the whims that cross a flower fairy's mind. Maybe he's going to use it on Sherlock. Maybe he's going to take Sherlock's place."
"Sherlock is here? Oh, no. You can’t let him use that on Sherlock?"
"Why not? Do you fancy him?" The Queen giggled at the horrified expression on Donovan's face.
"No, I don’t. I can’t imagine anyone... Sherlock doesn’t do "love’ or any other feelings for that matter. It’s not who he is."
The Queen’s laughter reverberated through the icy halls of her castle.
---
Peaseblossom and Cobweb surveyed their work. Molly and Sherlock, fast asleep next to each other, John, a few feet away. The white kitten stretched out protectively next to Molly and watched the fairies with suspicious eyes.
Cobweb studied John carefully. He had a trustworthy face and looked like he might take orders well. "Maybe I’ll keep him." She straddled John’s chest and slapped his face to wake him up. "Oi. What’s your name?"
John groaned. He’d been talking to Molly and Sherlock, then something had come flying at him from the trees, directly at his head. He looked up at the woman who was sitting on him. She had grey eyes and seven freckles on her nose. Her small feet were bare, with silver ribbons tied around her ankles. Part of him thought she was kind of cute, a more sensible part of him thought he might be in danger.
"Aren’t you supposed to guess my name?"
She slapped him again, but not very hard. "Don’t be an idiot. It's not like I'm going to do something bad with it."
John turned his head. It looked like Sherlock was standing over Sherlock.
"What’s going on over there?" John asked.
"He’s doing something nice for your friend. That way they’ll like him and go live in his house." Cobweb pulled John to his feet. "And now you’re gonna come live in my house." John tried to escape from her, but she was already running, snowfields blurring as they passed. John threw himself at the ground letting the weight of his body free him from her grasp.
He found himself standing in what looked like the middle of Camden Market, only cleaner and without clouds of marijuana smoke. The market came to life as John passed through, goblin voices shouting, thrusting chalices of ruby and ivory, lush and dangerous, in front of him. He politely refused everything. He pushed his way past a man in a feathered hat who was offering silk harvested from the webs of the spiders of the north and another with a feathered face who promised velvets made from the crushed petals of moonflowers. When he came to the end of the stalls, Cobweb was waiting for him.
"There you are, human. Why'd you run away?" Her heart-shaped mouth twitched with annoyance.
"I’m sure you have a lovely home, and once I leave here I will be absolutely gutted I missed it, but right now I need to find my friends."
"Buy him some ice cream," the feathered man suggested. "Humans like that." With a snap of his fingers, the shimmering cloths vanished and were replaced by a colourful van, "Waltzing Matilda" weakly floated out of its speakers. "The finest ices, culled from blackberries grown in the gardens of Ys."
"I’m good, thanks," John said. "Look, I’m not going to go to your house, I’m not staying in this place. That’s out of the question. If you help me find my friends, I’ll owe you a favour, and that’s something, right?"
Cobweb’s grey eyes shone. "Yes, there is something you can do," she pulled John over and whispered fiercely in his ear. The ice cream seller turned down "Waltzing Matilda" in a futile attempt to hear. "And, you have to tell me your name," she concluded.
"John. John Watson."
"Okay, Watson. I might as well take you into the castle. All roads in this place lead there." They walked hand-in-hand to the Oak Door.
"If wonders inside, you wish to see, first you must answer these riddles three," it boomed.
Cobweb slammed the knocker against the door a few times. "You pompous twig. He only has to answer one riddle and you know that."
"He looks like he might enjoy riddles. You do like them, don’t you?"
"Not particularly," John said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard a riddle.
"Fine. Call my name with love, call my name with care. Call my name softly, I’m not there."
"Silence," Cobweb whispered into John’s ear.
"That’s cheating," the Door creaked angrily.
"It’s bad manners, but it ain’t cheating," Cobweb said. "Go ahead, tell him."
"Silence," John muttered, and the Door swung open.
The silver bow in Cobweb’s hair gave off a watery light in the dark hallway. It was almost enough to illuminate the seven freckles on her nose.
"The Queen must be in a good mood. She didn’t send trolls or banshees to greet us. Follow me."
"I’m glad I didn’t know that was a possibility."
John had to run to keep up with Cobweb. She was used to the castle, the rooms of iridescent gems, sleeping maidens, quarrelling knights, creatures with metallic wings swooping overhead.
As they ran, a few lines from a nursery rhyme repeated in his head: The Queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey. The Queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey
The Queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey with Sally Donovan.
"It’s good to see you, John." Donovan stared at him intently through her glasses before smiling.
"John Watson." The Queen’s voice had the rich, golden tone of sunlight melting the snow. She held out her hand for John to kiss, and he did so, feeling a little foolish with Donovan and Cobweb watching.
He’d never seen a woman as beautiful as the Queen before. Hair eyes were the deep blue of underwater ice as black as coal, lips as red as blood. Her dress was an intense white made of all the colours in existence rushing together to clothe her. Rich ermine was at her slender wrists and throat. He searched for the perfect words with which to address her.
"Cobweb, my little Cobweb." The Queen smiled sweetly at the fairy. "Don’t you know I hear every word uttered in the land. Every word."
Cobweb bowed her head. Her silver ribbon drooped apologetically.
"Run along to the kitchen and tell them we are expecting more guests. John is here already, Sherlock and Molly will be arriving soon."
Sally tapped the globe that had been placed in the middle of the table. "We’ve been watching them, like a magic CCTV. The boss caught Peaseblossom, that’s his name, Peaseblossom, trying to dose Sherlock with a love potion and he gave him a kicking. Or tried to. Peaseblossom kept changing shape."
"Flower fairies are really not very clever," the Queen said. "He could have vanished in an instant and reappeared on the moon. No human would follow him there."
The scene was still before them in the globe. They watched Lestrade approach Sherlock and Molly, who were both still fast asleep.
---
"Sherlock, Molly, wake up." The fight had been exhausting. Lestrade was tempted to stretch out next to them and fall asleep, but sleep in Fairyland could last a hundred years. "Wake up."
Molly yawned and blinked at him sleepily. "What happened. Oh." She sat up and looked around her in dismay. "Oh. Am I awake?"
"Looks like it. Do you remember what happened?"
"There was a skinny man in the alley, he pulled me through a door. It’s like Narnia." She coughed. "Except it’s snowing, but it’s not cold," she said.
"It’s not real snow. I’m wearing glasses that show me only what is real, so I don't see it."
"So you know this place." Molly coughed again. Her eyes and throat felt like a desert.
"Walk ten paces north, there’s a stream. The water is safe to drink, don’t worry, you won’t have to serve for seven years or anything like that if you drink it," Lestrade said. Molly looked dazed, but she stood up and tried to walk.
Sherlock wanted to stay asleep, but there were voices, a confused babble interrupting his dream. Not a dream, a memory, the first time he'd seen DI Lestrade. Lestrade, handsome even in the ugly, plastic boilersuit. Lestrade, not arresting him even though he had good reason to. He opened his eyes, and there was the real Lestrade, looking at him with concern, the lines on his forehead had deepened with worry, but to Sherlock he was still the most handsome man he’d ever met. His heart beat faster as their eyes met.
---
The Queen sipped her tea while her guests continued to stare into the globe. "They’re both awake now. Lestrade will bring them here and then we can all leave together. I think--" Sally stopped, astonished by the scene in front of them.
"Did Sherlock just--" John tapped the globe. "Does this thing have a rewind button? It looked like--"
"This only shows what is, not what was or what will be." The Queen sighed again. It was a lovely sound. "Another love potion mishap."
"Mishap? That’s a disaster," John said.
"That isn’t something I thought I’d ever see. I owe Anderson a fiver. He always said there was a reason the boss let Sherlock get away with being Sherlock."
They watched Lestrade push Sherlock away.
---
"What the hell are you doing?" Lestrade pushed Sherlock away.
"I should think that’s obvious even to you." Sherlock fell back to the ground, a little startled by the rejection.
Lestrade wondered if the magic in the land was feeding Sherlock an illusion. He closed his eyes and took off his glasses. "Here. Put these on." He felt Sherlock take the glasses from his hand.
"Why do you have these?" Sherlock asked.
Lestrade kept his eyes closed. "Put them on, Sherlock. Now what do you see?"
"I see you." Sherlock tried to kiss him again.
"Stop. Look around. What do you see?" Lestrade kept his eyes firmly shut.
"With the glasses on, it’s very boring. We’re standing in a field of dead grass. There are a few trees, they look as morbid as the rest of the landscape. With the glasses off, it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been." Sherlock handed the glasses back to Lestrade.
"I think it’s beautiful and sad, like a place in a dream." Molly quietly joined them. Her face and hands were wet, but she was still thirsty. "What are we going to do now?"
"We’ll meet the others at the castle, then we will all leave together," Lestrade said.
"I can’t go back there, they’ll lock me in the kitchen again." The kitten sensed Molly’s concern and beat his wings encouragingly against her shoulders. "Thank you," she said.
"They can’t," Lestrade reassured her. "We have an agreement with them. Any humans they bring to Fairyland have to be allowed to return to London to file a change of address form. Once they’re in London, all enchantments vanish and they can do what they want."
"Why a change of address form?" Molly asked.
"This isn’t the sixteenth century. If you swapped a bundle of twigs for a human body, it would be noticed."
"It's something I would definitely notice," Molly said.
"Castle." Sherlock took Lestrade’s hand.
"Grab my other hand, Molly. I’m the only one who can see where we’re going."
He took their hands and let the road carry them to the castle.
The Oak Door opened when Molly approached, no riddles, only a grumpy,"Get back to work, human."
"Before I go in, we need to talk," Sherlock said. Lestrade followed him past the market stalls, through an archway and into the field outside. "I want you to see what I’m seeing. Take off your glasses and keep your eyes open."
They were standing in a field of stars and the Aurora Borealis illuminated the sky above them with wild streaks of rose and green and violet. Lestrade tried to break the mood. "Since when did you care about astronomy?" Sherlock kissed him, the diamond stars spiralled above them in the firmament. He closed his eyes and returned Sherlock’s kiss. It was warm and real, and he forgot about the ice and the magic.
Sherlock murmured nonsense into his ear, "It's for us. The stars are dancing for us," and Lestrade wanted to believe him. He opened his eyes and watched the stars blazing away with unselfconscious joy. "There’s no one here except us," Sherlock whispered. The delirious turquoises and pinks faded from the sky as the snow started to fall again. Sherlock stroked Lestrade’s cheek with his hand. Lestrade was still holding him, but he had slipped the glasses back on and they no longer shared the same dream.
"Why do you bring people back from here?" Sherlock rested his head on Lestrade’s shoulder. Lestrade had stopped trying to push him away. "Why is a change of address form so important? Are you really so paper-obsessed at the Met?"
"It’s not the paper. I bring them back because there are people who miss them. If they really do want to stay, then I bring them back so they can say goodbye. It’s not right, people disappearing without anyone knowing what happened."
The sadness in Lestrade’s voice made Sherlock want to kiss him again and promise he would never be the one who disappeared.
"Go, see why Sally hasn’t brought the others out yet. The Queen can’t make anyone stay against their will, but she can be difficult. I’ll wait here."
"I want to kiss you again." Sherlock pressed his lips to the side of Lestrade's mouth, but he moved his head away.
"Not now. When we're back in London. I’ll say yes to anything you want."
Lestrade watched Sherlock walk back to the castle. Now that he knew what is was like to be looked at and wanted with such intensity, their relationship would never be able to return to what it had been. On the other side of the Gate of Iron, free of the enchantments of Fairyland, Sherlock would hate him. Sherlock would remember they had kissed, but the feelings would be gone, and he would be angry Lestrade had allowed it to happen. Sherlock claimed to be able to delete any memory he found useless, so Lestrade would be left alone remembering what it was like to kiss Sherlock under a dancing sky.
---
Everyone was in the parlour eating bread and honey when Sherlock entered. The Queen rose to greet him. "You're a clever man. You left my poor, faithful Door in tears," she said. She held out her hand for Sherlock to kiss, which he ignored.
"John, Molly, Sally. The school trip is over," he said.
"Do you really think I'll let you simply walk out of here with your friends?" The Queen's eyes glittered with amusement. "Since your beloved can no longer enter the castle, don't you think we should send the new knight on a quest of some sort? She could fight one of the great wyrms that sleep beyond the mountains."
"That's not in the agreement," Donovan insisted. "You have to let people go."
"Are you giving me an order?" The light in the room dimmed as the Queen grew angry. Molly watched the two women with wide eyes.
"Why are you doing this?" Sherlock asked. "You're clearly bored. You don't care if Sally goes on a quest or if Molly stays in your kitchen. Why do you feel obligated to make a scene?"
"Perhaps you're right. It has all been rather dull for me, even as it provided amusement for others. I don't think any of them are going to forget how silly you looked after the flower fairy gave you a love potion."
Sherlock's eyes narrowed as he stared at the Queen. "Did it amuse you?" His voice was low and dangerous.
"No. I have seen every variation of this story and it is boring."
"This world always yields when you exert your will. Come with us. Test yourself against London's vast indifference."
"Sherlock, she can't..." John protested.
"I think it's a good idea," Molly said. The Queen looked at her with surprise. "London is never boring."
"You would have me forsake midnight revels under the frozen moon?"
"I've never been very good with nature. If you did get bored with London, you could try rambling in the Cotswolds." Molly tried to remember other places outside London. "Brighton can be nice."
"She's right," Donovan said. "London is never boring."
"We're leaving," Sherlock said. "Will you come?"
The Queen's blue eyes met his. The castle held its breath as she decided.
---
"It’s nice to be back in my own clothes." Molly had never been so happy to see a cardigan. The kitten obviously agreed. It happily allowed her to button the cardigan over him for warmth. She looked at the Queen. "Oh. You haven’t got any..."
The Queen’s white gown had been made of wishes and stardust, winter roses knit together with dreams, and had dissolved as she passed from Fairyland into London. She smiled in delight. "It’s cold! How lovely, true cold." She stretched her arms out and shivered.
"Sherlock, give her your coat." John tried to keep his gaze socially appropriate.
"It is cold," Sherlock grumbled, but he shrugged off his coat and draped it over the Queen’s shoulders. "My love will keep me warm," he said. He wrapped his arms around Lestrade’s waist, under his coat. Lestrade hesitated for a moment, then hugged Sherlock tightly.
"Sally... you and Greg have those glasses. When we were in there, did you see..." Molly couldn’t take her eyes off the Queen.
"Like Lady Godiva," Donovan said.
"And you sat there having tea? Okay... right. Is it still Christmas? Mrs Hudson is expecting us."
"Christmas in London." The Queen’s eyes still shone with snow and moonlight. "How delightful."
---
Molly’s new kitten was regarded with suspicion by her other cats, and sometimes Molly believed it still possessed wings she couldn’t see. She would find it in the strangest places and it couldn't be just a cat being a cat.
After Christmas, no one heard anything from the Queen. Sherlock had said she would be fine, would rise to the challenge of London, but no one had expected just how far.
"She’s calling herself "The Woman", John couldn’t believe what was on his computer. "I suppose it’s better for business than "Not a Fairy". And she has a Twitter."
"She says she’s indulging humans in their natural desire to obey." Sherlock emerged from his bedroom. He was wearing a new suit, a less severely cut charcoal grey.
"You’ve talked to her lately, have you?"
Sherlock continued to stand in the middle of the front room.
"You look very nice," John said. "What do you two talk about?"
"She sends me texts. It’s useful having someone to advise me since I have to live under this terrible love spell." Sherlock walked over to the window and scanned the street.
"Love spell? Sherlock, I don’t think--"
"It must be a spell, otherwise why would I want to stare into Lestrade’s eyes while eating chicken korma. There are more efficient uses of my time. He’s here." Sherlock hummed the Habanera as he tied his scarf around his neck. "We're going away for the weekend. Love spell, you know how it is," Sherlock said, letting the door to the flat slam behind him.
"I don’t actually." John watched Sherlock enthusiastically hug Lestrade, oblivious to anyone else who might be on the pavement.
He called the number listed on The Woman’s site.
"John Watson, did you call to make an appointment? I am booked through March, but for you I will always make time," she purred.
"Have you told him? You have to tell him he’s not under any spells."
She laughed. Her laugh no longer held the frost it had in her snow-covered realm. "Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant man. If he wants to think he's under a spell, who am I to interfere with his fun?"
"It’s not fair to him and it’s not fair to Greg."
"Do you really think love is about fairness? Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point."
John switched his phone off with all the heartfelt dismay of one who has been forced to use the French he learned at school.
---
Sherlock accelerated, pleased with his successful theft of Lestrade's keys. He hadn't done it because driving was more exciting than being a passenger, he had stolen them because Lestrade needed sleep. The dark circles under Lestrade's eyes, the wrinkles in his suit, the barely perceptible coffee stains on his sleeves that marked where he'd leaned against a dirty table, everything said he was in desperate need of rest or the weekend would be spoiled. Sherlock hadn't planned on actually using the bed for sleep.
Lestrade was leaning his head against the window, but his eyes were open and his thoughts were distant. Sherlock took one of his hands off the steering wheel and reached for Lestrade's hand. It still surprised him how solid and real he felt when they touched.
"You do know, you're not my only source of information at the Yard."
"What are you confessing to, Sherlock?" Lestrade didn’t take his eyes off the motorway.
"Some of those times I went to your office, I knew there weren't any cases."
Lestrade turned his head and smiled, so Sherlock knew that he had understood. London was indifferent to human joys and sorrows, but the lights from passing cars and the lights over the motorway reflected back their happiness as clearly as any sky in Fairyland.
Title: Sherlock and the Queen of Winter
A gift for: 2ndskin
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Greg Lestrade, John Watson, Molly Hooper, Sally Donovan, Irene Adler
Category: slash
Rating: T
Warnings: No warnings apply.
Summary: Rescuing humans who have been stolen by fairies is the part of Lestrade's job that Sherlock doesn't know about. AU
Author's Notes: The cook’s song is “It’s Turned Out Nice Again” by George Formby
Molly looked up at the hazy winter sky and wished it would snow for Christmas. The first snow always turned London into a postcard version of itself, snow muffled harsh sound of cars and people shouting into their mobiles, and brought memories of a pastoral that never existed, robins cheerfully posing on ancient stone walls. Her thoughts were interrupted by an odd, gurgling voice.
"Human woman, would you like to accompany me to a bangin' party?" A short man with a shock of riotous pink and orange hair hanging over his round face grinned up at her. He looked friendly, but Molly was afraid once she turned his offer, he would begin pestering her to buy a CD or worse, a cassette.
"No... I'm meeting a colleague for lunch, then I'm going to a party. Maybe not a 'banging' one, but I'm looking forward to it." Molly felt a little silly. There was no need to explain her plans to a stranger. She decided to walk a little faster, but the stranger stuck out his foot, sending her sprawling.
"What was that?" she said, more surprised than angry.
"Sorry. Let me help you up." The stranger stuck out his hand, which Molly foolishly took.
---
"Sally, we've got another one, and this time it's someone we know." He handed the report on Molly's kidnapping to Sally Donovan, the only one in he could trust with these incidents. He'd taken her with him on the last three cases, and she had proved to be as practical and impervious to temptation as he had hoped. The last time had been rough, and he knew that he was getting too old to travel into Fairyland to rescue the unhappy humans who had been stolen away.
"Why do they always pick Christmas?" Lestrade asked. He'd been looking forward to Mrs Hudson’s Christmas party this year. It was the one time he could count on Sherlock almost being nice. Maybe that was a little unfair. Sherlock had been calmer lately, fewer SOCOs going home in tears. Perhaps Sherlock had listened to and believed one of John's speeches about the reality of other people's feelings. A few weeks ago, Sherlock had turned to him, asked "What do you think?" and it had been a serious question, not a set up for a monologue about Lestrade’s shallow and disorganised thinking.
Fairyland and Lestrade's world had parted ways long ago. Some said the Romans had driven the magic out of the land, others blamed earlier conquerors, saying they had drained the land of magic and constructed the Gate of Iron so Fairyland could never take its revenge. Lestrade didn’t know and didn’t much care, all he knew was that someone had to be there to pick up the adventurous and misguided fairies who straggled through the Gate and rescue the humans who’d been taken. When creatures from Fairyland appeared in London, their powers vanished and they were left as helpless as babies. Wild-eyed creatures dressed in rags, they stumbled about, barely comprehending the language, not understanding the people who towered over them, bemused by a land that contained its own reality and couldn’t be bent by the strength of will. Lestrade would escort them to the Gate, watching rags turn to rare silks as they crossed the threshold.
"It's when our winter and theirs run at the same time. Or they like parties. Who doesn’t like food and presents? I'll go sign for the glasses," Donovan said.
"I didn't return them after the last time." Lestrade rummaged through one of his files until he found two pairs of eyeglasses. The thin wire frames, titanium alloyed with iron, repelled enchantments and allowed the wearer to see what was real, what could be trusted. It revealed the paths of roses and briars, which appeared to scale cliffs and plunge into gorges, to be a dusty path leading up a slight incline. Lestrade handed one pair to Donovan, and put on the other.
"If we’re lucky, sir, we can get to the castle, get Molly, and return in time for me to catch the 17:57 to Barnet, and for you to attend the freak’s party."
"Sally."
"This time I mean freak in a good way, you know that."
"What a charming compliment." Sherlock, with his usual disregard for making appointments and checking availability, appeared at the door of Lestrade’s office. Lestrade casually folded the report and put it in his jacket's inside pocket. Like most civilians, Sherlock did not know about the Gate and Lestrade wanted to keep it that way. The last thing Lestrade needed was Sherlock stealing the glasses and investigating Fairyland. Lestrade couldn’t imagine Sherlock in a place where the logic he prized so highly broke down.
"What are you doing here?" Donovan asked. She looked from Lestrade to Sherlock. "You didn’t tell him about it, did you?"
"There’s nothing to tell," Lestrade said. The quickly masked flicker of interest on Sherlock’s face worried him. Sherlock hadn’t believed him. "It’s the usual pre-Christmas smash and grab." Lestrade hoped that sounded sufficiently boring.
"Mrs Hudson has a shopping list for tonight’s party. I brought it here so you could do the shopping."
"Normal people would send a text, maybe do their own shopping," Donovan said.
Sherlock ignored her and dropped the list on Lestrade’s desk. "She wants glittery hats and mushroom pâté and I don’t know where they sell things like that."
Lestrade handed the shopping list back to Sherlock. "I’m sorry, but I might be late to tonight’s party. Don’t wait for me start."
"Why would we?" Sherlock asked. He shoved the list in his pocket. "Since when do you wear glasses?"
"You always say I'm blind, wouldn't recognise a clue if it dropped on my head." Lestrade hoped his voice sounded natural.
Sherlock reached across the desk and pulled the glasses off Lestrade's face. "Plain glass," he said. He folded the glasses and placed them neatly in the breast pocket of Lestrade's jacket. "It's not a good look for you," he said.
"You can play What Not to Wear tonight, yeah?" Donovan stood in the doorway until she was certain Sherlock had really gone. "That was close," she said. "If he knew something had happened to Molly, he'd want to come with us."
"That’s what I was thinking, but we don't need him. We’re going to get her back. You might even make an earlier train and Molly and I will have time to dress for the party."
"It will be fine, sir." Sally put on her own glasses. The light wire rims suited her face. She looked like a schoolgirl, out to cause some innocent mischief. Lestrade had never seen himself in the glasses, but he assumed they made him look old. They didn’t, but Sherlock was right when he said they didn't suit his face. Too much light reflected off the plastic lenses and hid his eyes.
The Gate of Iron which led to Fairyland appeared to have been built into the walls of the Church of St Bartholomew the Great, but the Gate had been built before the church; the church had grown around it and been protected by the Gate. It was a rust-darkened and unremarkable, an unlocked metal door with a corroded handle.
Lestrade stepped up to the Gate and pulled it open. It moaned in protest as the false winter on the other side pushed against the barrier between the two realities. It was like watching a tiger throw itself against the walls of a glass cage. He took a deep breath and plunged into Fairyland. Sickly, greenish sunlight drifted through eggshell skies. Malicious faces gleamed at them from behind the bare trees. Their entrance had been noted. Fairyland's endless grassy plains stretched before them, dry grass starving in the chilly winter air.
"Are you okay?" Donovan asked. She sounded out of breath.
"Yeah. That never gets any easier. Where are we?" The road stretched before them, covered in tiny pebbles drawn from distant shores.
"It looks like it brought us directly to the Queen’s Country. I guess we can’t accuse her of not playing fair." Donovan smiled encouragingly. "You’ve done this before, guv."
Lestrade focused on the road on front of them. Seven leagues in one stride. The pebbles crunched under his shoes. Seven leagues. In Fairyland, all roads led to the castle, but some were longer than others. Years ago, when he had first been chosen, it had still been summer in Fairyland and he had been delighted by all he had seen. He had followed the river, following it through the forest, with its hidden goblin villages, and through underground caves where he caught brief glances of jewel-like eyes. He'd tried to talk to elderly fishermen, who spoke a form of English that had been new when they were taken, and watched as the dazzling fish resisted their hooks. He'd listened to the water-maidens sing and allowed them to feed him thin slices of golden apples. But summer had ended, both in Fairyland and in himself.
"We’re almost there," Sally whispered.
The Queen's castle glowed brilliant white and sapphire against the fog-shrouded mountains. To the west, the castle's orchards were bare, a few leaves clinging to spiky branches, but the greenhouses were lit as brilliantly as the castle itself. Lestrade knew the greenhouses were bursting with every fruit, every flower that could be cultivated under the sun or moon.
In front of the castle, enterprising fairies and goblins had set up stalls to entice visitors into parting with gold coins or fragments of a dream. These fairy merchants regarded Lestrade and Donovan with suspicion. Soldiers from the world of iron, representatives of the law. They scowled, muttered insults, a bold wombat-faced goblin tried to pelt them with overripe pears. He hissed when Donovan easily caught them and threw them back. Only the dream-trader was friendly. He'd once bought a memory from Lestrade, a small wish in exchange for the London-born detective's first glimpse of the sea, and he hoped to make another such bargain. He welcomed Lestrade like an old friend, but Donovan hurried them along to the castle door.
The Oak Door, guardian of the castle, considered itself to be the Gate of Iron's more discerning sibling. Unlike the Gate of Iron, it wasn't in the habit of allowing humans to come and go as they pleased. Its heavy bronze knocker glowered threateningly at the visitors, but their glasses prevented them from the Door's intimidation.
"No." The Door's sonorous voice echoed through their minds.
"Give us a chance, mate. We haven’t answered any questions yet." Donovan reached for the knocker.
"There’s no need for that," the Oak Door said. "Hunger drives me, I consume all I see. Thirst is my enemy: rivers and sea."
"A fire," Donovan answered. The Oak Door swung open.
"Wait for me right inside," Lestrade said. Donovan waved at him as the door slammed shut.
"Your turn." The Door cleared its throat. "If you place a grain of rice upon each square of a chessboard so that one grain is on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, how many grains of rice would be on the chessboard when you finish?"
"That’s not a riddle, that’s maths," Lestrade protested. "It didn’t even rhyme. Go on, ask me a proper riddle."
Lestrade knew that if he took off the glasses, he would see the Oak Door smiling smugly.
"It’s not my fault you spent your school days smoking behind the bicycle shed instead of studying."
"Are you going to let me in or not?"
The Oak Door squeaked its hinges in a distinctly mocking manner. "You have an astoundingly average mind."
"I get enough of that from Sherlock, don't you start. Let me in." Lestrade looked at his watch. It had stopped running the minute he crossed into Fairyland. He wondered if Sherlock had ever found the pâté.
"Sherlock likes you. I don't like you at all," the Oak Door said.
"He doesn’t..." Lestrade tried to think of a way to explain his relationship with Sherlock. It wasn't exactly friendship. Sherlock needed someone at Scotland Yard who would be on his side, and Lestrade occasionally, not as often as some people thought, needed a fresh set of eyes to go over a crime scene. There were moments when he thought there could be more. If he were a different person, perhaps younger and cleverer, he would be able to find the words that would bring them together.
"He’s right, you know. Your thinking is very sloppy. If he didn’t find some kind of pleasure in your company, why would he seek your company?" The door resumed its squeaking. "Why don’t you let them stay?" The Oak Door asked. "When I was a sapling, if someone wanted to stay, they weren’t forcibly rescued."
"It’s not something a door could understand."
"Your sergeant will find it very hard going. Little Molly will spend eternity scrubbing out the Queen’s kitchens."
"So Molly is in the castle? Good." He felt relieved knowing that Molly was safe inside, not put to work scraping living diamonds from the caverns under the mountains. Lestrade had learned the hard way that fairies were unpredictable when it came to the humans they stole. They were as likely to send them to fetch dragon's eggs from the peak of a glass mountain as to feed them sweet berries and treat them as pets.
"Wait. How do you know anything about Sherlock or what he thinks?" Lestrade reached in his jacket pocket for the report on Molly’s kidnapping. It was gone, replaced by Mrs Hudson’s shopping list. Sherlock’s aggressively friendly goodbye made sense now. "Where is he?"
The Door cleared its throat portentously. "Bring me the grains of rice I request, and I will show you our unwelcome guest."
Lestrade banged the knocker a few times. "Sally!" he shouted.
"Don’t get stroppy, you have to answer a question before you can ask a question. There are rules."
"No, there aren’t. This is a land of will. If I can..." Lestrade placed his hand on the Oak Door and concentrated on his need to know Sherlock’s location. Years of intruders, repelled by the Queen’s magic, had strengthened the Door. The splinters furiously resisted him, but he could feel it bending as he focused.
"Sally!"
"I’m here." Her voice was very faint, as if it had travelled years to find him.
"The Door isn’t letting me through and Sherlock and probably John are wandering around out here somewhere. I’ll find them and bring them here, you ask the Queen to let Molly go, and we’ll all go back to the Gate of Iron together."
"Cheers, guv." Donovan should have everything inside under control. This was Donovan's third visit to Fairyland, but she’d never met the Queen before. Lestrade would have liked it better if he could have been there. The Queen’s tongue was made of honey and deceit, and even with the glasses, it was difficult to resist her promises.
"You win." Lestrade stepped away from the door and stepped on to the road. "Sherlock," he said. He concentrated on reaching the place where Sherlock would be. The road curled around his feet, desperate to return him to the castle. He kept Sherlock’s image clear in his mind as he walked.
---
Sherlock had called John immediately upon seeing the report he'd stolen from Lestrade.
"How dare he not tell me," Sherlock said when John met him at the church. John looked at the expression on his face and knew that if he had been in Lestrade’s place, he wouldn’t have told Sherlock anything.
"It’s really quiet here," John said.
"A door in the church that doesn't lead to the church," Sherlock said, thoughtfully.
"Maybe it means the door to the café?" John suggested.
Sherlock stopped in front of the Gate of Iron. "Wrong time period," he said. "And the frame doesn't quite fit the bricks." Sherlock opened the Gate and reality broke. Winter howled at them from the other side. Sherlock cautiously stretched out his hand, ice crystals clung to his skin, but they didn't feel cold at all. He moved forward, eager to document this strange phenomenon, an impossible landscape. As he crossed into Fairyland, he heard John's voice shouting his name from very far away.
---
After ordering Molly's kidnapper to hand her over, she was sent to the kitchen to help the cook. The castle’s kitchen was hot, with fires roaring in the oven and tiny fairies dancing in the ashes. The head cook was one of the most important jobs in a place where feasting was taken seriously. The tiny fairies told her if she ruined Miss Barbara's puddings, they would bite her all over and make her cry. Miss Barbara, was a rosy cheeked woman who looked around Molly’s age, but Molly knew appearances could deceive. A childhood spent with books had taught her a few things about fairies. Molly sloshed the mop around in the murky bucket and dragged it across the floor. Miss Barbara ignored Molly's half-hearted attempts at cleaning. She enjoyed a few minutes of knitting during the peaceful time she had after the Queen's tea was ready and before the rush for dinner. Her needles clicked as she sang.
Springtime, summer, autumn, winter, so the seasons go
Sometimes we get them all at once with a little rain or snow
The sun for long it doesn’t shine, it’s either wet or else it’s fine.
Last night I said when I went to bed, it’s turned out nice again.
"I think I’ve heard that before," Molly said. She wiped her forehead with her linen sleeve. When she arrived in Fairyland, her cardigan and jeans had vanished and been replaced by a dress that looked better suited for a barmaid on a sign outside a pub. It showed the exact same amount of cleavage as the dress she had planned to wear to the Christmas party, but she still felt self-conscious.
"They were singing it the night I left London," Miss Barbara said.
"You’re from London? Are you a human?" Molly asked.
"As human as you, dearie." Her needles rhythmically. "I was rescued, wasn't I? Never thought there’d be a London to go back to and now it’s too late."
"It’s not too late. There must have been people..."
"They’re all dead, and if they aren’t, they’ve done their mourning." Miss Barbara's needles didn't stop, but a shadow crossed her face.
"I’m sorry."
"Don’t be. I’ve got a good job here, head cook to the Queen of the good people is nothing to sniff at. They won’t keep you in the kitchens for long. Maybe the Queen herself will take you as an attendant. You’ll see such lovely things."
Molly scrubbed away at the floor until it shone like glass. It made her feel a little bad about the shabby state of her own kitchen floors, but she couldn't regret choosing her job and her friends over spending time cleaning. She had to return to her life in London. She had friends, she had cats, she had work she loved.
"If no one dies here, it will impossible to do anything like my old job," she said, more to herself than anyone who might be listening. "Can I go out to the market?" Molly asked.
"You've been a good worker today, you do what you like." Miss Barbara arranged a heavy cloak around Molly’s shoulders and gave her a basket to carry. Before Molly left, she kissed her cheek, and said "It really is nice here. I wish you could see that."
The market stalls came to life as Molly approached. The fairy merchants called out to her, offering to fill her basket with plums and pineapples in exchange for one lock of hair. They pawed at her dress and told her they could wrap her in starry velvet if she would only part with a dear memory. She pretended to be very interested in the hair ribbons and the fairy fruit and the spells made into teacups and saucers, but nothing truly caught her eye until she saw the filigreed cage containing silvery-winged kittens. She put her hand against the cage and their pink tongues licked her affectionately. "You would never hide under the bed for two days, would you?" They meowed softly and rustled their wings to suggest they understood and they longed for nothing more than to sit in a basket at the foot of Molly’s bed and drink sweet cream.
Molly reluctantly tore herself away from the fairy kittens and browsed through a book stall at the end of the market, as far as she dared wander from the watchful Oak Door. Most of the books were in languages she couldn’t understand, and some were barely books at all, bundles of leaves tied together with green grass and stained with dark juices. She heard a soft meowing and looked down to find one of the kittens had followed her, a fluffy white ball of fur with golden wings.
"I can’t afford you and I certainly can’t take you home with me," Molly told it. It rubbed its head against her ankle, looked up at her, and winked.
The kitten rose up, beating its golden wings furiously. It launched itself at the bookshop owner, who yelled and tried to knock it out of the air with an ancient grimoire. The kitten circled the booth, knocking over stacks of books, yowling and swiping at anyone who tried to get close.
The Oak Door was distracted, laughing at the plight of the unfortunate bookshop owner, so Molly ran. She ran into the wintry depths of the Queen’s land, her boots crunched on the brittle snow, she ran until she felt she couldn’t breathe. There was no sign of the castle or the gate back to London. She was completely alone in a world of snow.
---
"It’s not cold," John said. "It’s snowing, but not cold."
"I’ve noticed that," Sherlock said. "It’s not real snow. Real snow isn’t pink and blue."
"True. We’ve lost the door we came through. Maybe we should have left a trail of breadcrumbs."
"Is that supposed to work?" Sherlock asked. This was worse than his experiments with hallucinogenics. The humiliation involved in babbling nonsense at fairy lights was better than a reality where tinsel and glitter fell from the sky.
---
Molly's kidnapper swore and kicked at the clumps of glittery snow. It wasn’t fair. He went to a lot of trouble and danger bringing in a human to play with, and as soon as he did, she was taken by the Queen. "Stupid Queen. She’ll get hers when this whole place gets dragged off to hell." In the old days, Peaseblossom had spent a lot of time around humans and picked up some odd pieces of theology.
---
The Queen watched Peaseblossom’s tantrum on a frosted snow globe. She hid the globe within her ermine sleeve and her red lips curved into a smile at her guest.
The walls of the Queen's parlour were covered in a jumble of paintings, lords and ladies parading in their finery, solemn aristocrats and rakish priests, bewildered animals, baskets overflowing with unnatural fruit, wars and grisly murders. The paintings were real. Donovan had checked, looking over the rims of her glasses to see what changed and what remained the same. The Queen's gown and the delicate cloths on the table blinked into existence when she moved her eyes, but the damasked chairs and crowded tea table didn't change.
"You’re lucky being Queen isn’t a popularity contest," Donovan said.
"Is your job a popularity contest? You wield power in your way, I in mine. Your lost lamb will make her way back here. All roads lead to the castle. By the time we finish our tea, she will be back with us and you can take her home, if you still want to return to that other world."
---
Molly’s triumph at escaping from the castle was short-lived. No matter how straight her steps every time she came over a hill, the castle was before her. "You have to run fast to stay in one place," she said. She felt a little silly talking to herself, but it made her feel less alone.
"That's because all roads lead to the castle."
Molly almost screamed. Sherlock was standing in front of her in his dark coat, blue scarf around his neck, and the curls she’d always secretly thought of as "Byronic" tumbled across his forehead.
"You...what are you doing here?" Molly gasped.
"Rescuing you," Sherlock said. He smiled and held out his hand.
"No. You’re not him. He doesn’t... that face you’re making is not his face." Molly stood up very straight and stared at the fake-Sherlock. "Could you please stop looking like him."
"The thoughts flitting across the surface of your mind, they are all open to me. You wanted him to rescue you," Peaseblossom, the fake-Sherlock smiled again.
"Okay, so you can read my mind a little, that’s embarrassing, but you can’t be very good at the mind reading because then you would know that no, I do not want Sherlock to rescue me. You would also know that I really, really want to go home. Are you the one who brought me here?"
Peaseblossom considered lying, considered writing her a sonnet comparing her to the moon and stars, considered dunking her in the ocean until she cried real salt tears.
"Ah, fair maid, for the love of thee--"
"No," Molly said firmly. "Take me back. There are people waiting for me and my cats expect to be fed in the morning. Take me back."
Peaseblossom’s eyes were sharper than any humans. "It’s your lucky day. Your friend Sherlock is going to rescue you after all."
Molly turned in the direction Peaseblossom indicated. In the distance, two dark figures struggled against the snowy landscape.
"Are you sure?" she asked, but the fairy was gone. Molly started walking towards Sherlock and John. Running hadn’t helped, so tried the opposite, setting one foot carefully in front of the other.
---
"Why are humans like that? Ugh." Kicking the snow was unsatisfactory, so Peaseblossom kicked an innocent mulberry bush instead. A tiny fairy, about the size of an apple, rolled out. She was wearing a bundle of greyish-blue rags and her silver hair was tied back in an enormous bow. It was the housewives' scourge, Cobweb.
"Because they’re human," Cobweb said. "Why do you bother with them?"
"It’s so boring here, especially in winter. Humans have feelings and cry all the time. They’re not like us."
Cobweb adjusted her ribbon so it was perfectly centred on her head, then she adjusted her size so she could tower over Peaseblossom, who hadn't bothered to stop being Sherlock. "Did you ever think that maybe, maybe if you don’t make ‘em cry, they might want to stay? Promise her a palace on the moon, feed her cherries and sweet limes from the Queen’s greenhouses. If you really want this human, you gotta say sorry and give her a present."
"A present?" Peaseblossom tried to think of what a human might like. Cherries did sound like a good place to start, but not flash enough. He needed something that would show Molly the Human the power of Fairyland.
"That bloke you’re dressed up as, does she fancy him?" Cobweb asked. "He might make a good present." Cobweb focused her eyes on the reunion taking place in the distance. "A little touch of you-know-what and he will follow her around like a slave. It’s good for you as well because you’ll get two humans instead of one"
"What about the other human?"
"Don’t be greedy." Cobweb shrank herself until she was the size of a snowflake. "I’ll lead him back to the Gate."
---
"Is he okay?" Molly asked John. Sherlock, after deciding he had not been drugged, was filling up a notebook with observations.
"I don’t really think this is his kind of place." The glittery snow was falling upwards now, drifting from the ground and floating away into the sky. John shivered even though he knew it wasn’t cold. "Not really my kind of place, but I’m glad we found you."
"I’m really happy to see you. Now we need to find the door to get out of here," Molly said. "Really happy."
"The big metal door, that’s where we came through as well," John said.
"There are no straight roads in Fairyland. So I think we need to curve a bit, maybe. The road keeps trying to take me back to the castle and I do not want to go back there."
"Fairyland," Sherlock finally spoke. "It’s impossible, but here we are."
"Here we are," John agreed.
---
The road tried to take Lestrade back to the castle. It twisted across the snowy plains, it dove under mountains, it rolled into the forest and spread itself over the canopy of trees. Lestrade kept Sherlock’s image in his mind and willed that every step should bring him closer. The enchanted bricks grumbled, the dirt rebelled under his feet, but he continued forward. He would find Sherlock and John and get them out. They wouldn't be happy with with a life of fairy fruit and mandatory folk dancing.
---
"Would you like to have a look?" The Queen handed the globe to Sally. "One of the stupid little flowers is rummaging around in my cellars, looking for distilled Love-in-Idleness." They watched as Peaseblossom emerged from the cellar holding two vials, one of ruby-red, the other pale azure.
"It’s not his fault if you don’t label them," Donovan said. The tea was too bitter and she didn't trust the milk.
"Oh, that’s not fun at all." The Queen sighed. "None of this is really fun any more. At this point, I’ve seen all of the comical love potion mishaps that could possibly occur. It’s become a little dull. Peaseblossom!" she called.
The flower fairy tumbled into the room. He may have looked like Sherlock, but he lacked the ability to wear a long coat gracefully. The Queen took the azure bottle from his hand and sent him on his way.
"There. My Lady’s Disdain can go back in the cupboard."
"If you ask me, you shouldn’t let him go running around with the love potion either. Why does he look like Sherlock?"
"He doesn't wear it well." The Queen sighed. "Who knows the whims that cross a flower fairy's mind. Maybe he's going to use it on Sherlock. Maybe he's going to take Sherlock's place."
"Sherlock is here? Oh, no. You can’t let him use that on Sherlock?"
"Why not? Do you fancy him?" The Queen giggled at the horrified expression on Donovan's face.
"No, I don’t. I can’t imagine anyone... Sherlock doesn’t do "love’ or any other feelings for that matter. It’s not who he is."
The Queen’s laughter reverberated through the icy halls of her castle.
---
Peaseblossom and Cobweb surveyed their work. Molly and Sherlock, fast asleep next to each other, John, a few feet away. The white kitten stretched out protectively next to Molly and watched the fairies with suspicious eyes.
Cobweb studied John carefully. He had a trustworthy face and looked like he might take orders well. "Maybe I’ll keep him." She straddled John’s chest and slapped his face to wake him up. "Oi. What’s your name?"
John groaned. He’d been talking to Molly and Sherlock, then something had come flying at him from the trees, directly at his head. He looked up at the woman who was sitting on him. She had grey eyes and seven freckles on her nose. Her small feet were bare, with silver ribbons tied around her ankles. Part of him thought she was kind of cute, a more sensible part of him thought he might be in danger.
"Aren’t you supposed to guess my name?"
She slapped him again, but not very hard. "Don’t be an idiot. It's not like I'm going to do something bad with it."
John turned his head. It looked like Sherlock was standing over Sherlock.
"What’s going on over there?" John asked.
"He’s doing something nice for your friend. That way they’ll like him and go live in his house." Cobweb pulled John to his feet. "And now you’re gonna come live in my house." John tried to escape from her, but she was already running, snowfields blurring as they passed. John threw himself at the ground letting the weight of his body free him from her grasp.
He found himself standing in what looked like the middle of Camden Market, only cleaner and without clouds of marijuana smoke. The market came to life as John passed through, goblin voices shouting, thrusting chalices of ruby and ivory, lush and dangerous, in front of him. He politely refused everything. He pushed his way past a man in a feathered hat who was offering silk harvested from the webs of the spiders of the north and another with a feathered face who promised velvets made from the crushed petals of moonflowers. When he came to the end of the stalls, Cobweb was waiting for him.
"There you are, human. Why'd you run away?" Her heart-shaped mouth twitched with annoyance.
"I’m sure you have a lovely home, and once I leave here I will be absolutely gutted I missed it, but right now I need to find my friends."
"Buy him some ice cream," the feathered man suggested. "Humans like that." With a snap of his fingers, the shimmering cloths vanished and were replaced by a colourful van, "Waltzing Matilda" weakly floated out of its speakers. "The finest ices, culled from blackberries grown in the gardens of Ys."
"I’m good, thanks," John said. "Look, I’m not going to go to your house, I’m not staying in this place. That’s out of the question. If you help me find my friends, I’ll owe you a favour, and that’s something, right?"
Cobweb’s grey eyes shone. "Yes, there is something you can do," she pulled John over and whispered fiercely in his ear. The ice cream seller turned down "Waltzing Matilda" in a futile attempt to hear. "And, you have to tell me your name," she concluded.
"John. John Watson."
"Okay, Watson. I might as well take you into the castle. All roads in this place lead there." They walked hand-in-hand to the Oak Door.
"If wonders inside, you wish to see, first you must answer these riddles three," it boomed.
Cobweb slammed the knocker against the door a few times. "You pompous twig. He only has to answer one riddle and you know that."
"He looks like he might enjoy riddles. You do like them, don’t you?"
"Not particularly," John said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard a riddle.
"Fine. Call my name with love, call my name with care. Call my name softly, I’m not there."
"Silence," Cobweb whispered into John’s ear.
"That’s cheating," the Door creaked angrily.
"It’s bad manners, but it ain’t cheating," Cobweb said. "Go ahead, tell him."
"Silence," John muttered, and the Door swung open.
The silver bow in Cobweb’s hair gave off a watery light in the dark hallway. It was almost enough to illuminate the seven freckles on her nose.
"The Queen must be in a good mood. She didn’t send trolls or banshees to greet us. Follow me."
"I’m glad I didn’t know that was a possibility."
John had to run to keep up with Cobweb. She was used to the castle, the rooms of iridescent gems, sleeping maidens, quarrelling knights, creatures with metallic wings swooping overhead.
As they ran, a few lines from a nursery rhyme repeated in his head: The Queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey. The Queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey
The Queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey with Sally Donovan.
"It’s good to see you, John." Donovan stared at him intently through her glasses before smiling.
"John Watson." The Queen’s voice had the rich, golden tone of sunlight melting the snow. She held out her hand for John to kiss, and he did so, feeling a little foolish with Donovan and Cobweb watching.
He’d never seen a woman as beautiful as the Queen before. Hair eyes were the deep blue of underwater ice as black as coal, lips as red as blood. Her dress was an intense white made of all the colours in existence rushing together to clothe her. Rich ermine was at her slender wrists and throat. He searched for the perfect words with which to address her.
"Cobweb, my little Cobweb." The Queen smiled sweetly at the fairy. "Don’t you know I hear every word uttered in the land. Every word."
Cobweb bowed her head. Her silver ribbon drooped apologetically.
"Run along to the kitchen and tell them we are expecting more guests. John is here already, Sherlock and Molly will be arriving soon."
Sally tapped the globe that had been placed in the middle of the table. "We’ve been watching them, like a magic CCTV. The boss caught Peaseblossom, that’s his name, Peaseblossom, trying to dose Sherlock with a love potion and he gave him a kicking. Or tried to. Peaseblossom kept changing shape."
"Flower fairies are really not very clever," the Queen said. "He could have vanished in an instant and reappeared on the moon. No human would follow him there."
The scene was still before them in the globe. They watched Lestrade approach Sherlock and Molly, who were both still fast asleep.
---
"Sherlock, Molly, wake up." The fight had been exhausting. Lestrade was tempted to stretch out next to them and fall asleep, but sleep in Fairyland could last a hundred years. "Wake up."
Molly yawned and blinked at him sleepily. "What happened. Oh." She sat up and looked around her in dismay. "Oh. Am I awake?"
"Looks like it. Do you remember what happened?"
"There was a skinny man in the alley, he pulled me through a door. It’s like Narnia." She coughed. "Except it’s snowing, but it’s not cold," she said.
"It’s not real snow. I’m wearing glasses that show me only what is real, so I don't see it."
"So you know this place." Molly coughed again. Her eyes and throat felt like a desert.
"Walk ten paces north, there’s a stream. The water is safe to drink, don’t worry, you won’t have to serve for seven years or anything like that if you drink it," Lestrade said. Molly looked dazed, but she stood up and tried to walk.
Sherlock wanted to stay asleep, but there were voices, a confused babble interrupting his dream. Not a dream, a memory, the first time he'd seen DI Lestrade. Lestrade, handsome even in the ugly, plastic boilersuit. Lestrade, not arresting him even though he had good reason to. He opened his eyes, and there was the real Lestrade, looking at him with concern, the lines on his forehead had deepened with worry, but to Sherlock he was still the most handsome man he’d ever met. His heart beat faster as their eyes met.
---
The Queen sipped her tea while her guests continued to stare into the globe. "They’re both awake now. Lestrade will bring them here and then we can all leave together. I think--" Sally stopped, astonished by the scene in front of them.
"Did Sherlock just--" John tapped the globe. "Does this thing have a rewind button? It looked like--"
"This only shows what is, not what was or what will be." The Queen sighed again. It was a lovely sound. "Another love potion mishap."
"Mishap? That’s a disaster," John said.
"That isn’t something I thought I’d ever see. I owe Anderson a fiver. He always said there was a reason the boss let Sherlock get away with being Sherlock."
They watched Lestrade push Sherlock away.
---
"What the hell are you doing?" Lestrade pushed Sherlock away.
"I should think that’s obvious even to you." Sherlock fell back to the ground, a little startled by the rejection.
Lestrade wondered if the magic in the land was feeding Sherlock an illusion. He closed his eyes and took off his glasses. "Here. Put these on." He felt Sherlock take the glasses from his hand.
"Why do you have these?" Sherlock asked.
Lestrade kept his eyes closed. "Put them on, Sherlock. Now what do you see?"
"I see you." Sherlock tried to kiss him again.
"Stop. Look around. What do you see?" Lestrade kept his eyes firmly shut.
"With the glasses on, it’s very boring. We’re standing in a field of dead grass. There are a few trees, they look as morbid as the rest of the landscape. With the glasses off, it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been." Sherlock handed the glasses back to Lestrade.
"I think it’s beautiful and sad, like a place in a dream." Molly quietly joined them. Her face and hands were wet, but she was still thirsty. "What are we going to do now?"
"We’ll meet the others at the castle, then we will all leave together," Lestrade said.
"I can’t go back there, they’ll lock me in the kitchen again." The kitten sensed Molly’s concern and beat his wings encouragingly against her shoulders. "Thank you," she said.
"They can’t," Lestrade reassured her. "We have an agreement with them. Any humans they bring to Fairyland have to be allowed to return to London to file a change of address form. Once they’re in London, all enchantments vanish and they can do what they want."
"Why a change of address form?" Molly asked.
"This isn’t the sixteenth century. If you swapped a bundle of twigs for a human body, it would be noticed."
"It's something I would definitely notice," Molly said.
"Castle." Sherlock took Lestrade’s hand.
"Grab my other hand, Molly. I’m the only one who can see where we’re going."
He took their hands and let the road carry them to the castle.
The Oak Door opened when Molly approached, no riddles, only a grumpy,"Get back to work, human."
"Before I go in, we need to talk," Sherlock said. Lestrade followed him past the market stalls, through an archway and into the field outside. "I want you to see what I’m seeing. Take off your glasses and keep your eyes open."
They were standing in a field of stars and the Aurora Borealis illuminated the sky above them with wild streaks of rose and green and violet. Lestrade tried to break the mood. "Since when did you care about astronomy?" Sherlock kissed him, the diamond stars spiralled above them in the firmament. He closed his eyes and returned Sherlock’s kiss. It was warm and real, and he forgot about the ice and the magic.
Sherlock murmured nonsense into his ear, "It's for us. The stars are dancing for us," and Lestrade wanted to believe him. He opened his eyes and watched the stars blazing away with unselfconscious joy. "There’s no one here except us," Sherlock whispered. The delirious turquoises and pinks faded from the sky as the snow started to fall again. Sherlock stroked Lestrade’s cheek with his hand. Lestrade was still holding him, but he had slipped the glasses back on and they no longer shared the same dream.
"Why do you bring people back from here?" Sherlock rested his head on Lestrade’s shoulder. Lestrade had stopped trying to push him away. "Why is a change of address form so important? Are you really so paper-obsessed at the Met?"
"It’s not the paper. I bring them back because there are people who miss them. If they really do want to stay, then I bring them back so they can say goodbye. It’s not right, people disappearing without anyone knowing what happened."
The sadness in Lestrade’s voice made Sherlock want to kiss him again and promise he would never be the one who disappeared.
"Go, see why Sally hasn’t brought the others out yet. The Queen can’t make anyone stay against their will, but she can be difficult. I’ll wait here."
"I want to kiss you again." Sherlock pressed his lips to the side of Lestrade's mouth, but he moved his head away.
"Not now. When we're back in London. I’ll say yes to anything you want."
Lestrade watched Sherlock walk back to the castle. Now that he knew what is was like to be looked at and wanted with such intensity, their relationship would never be able to return to what it had been. On the other side of the Gate of Iron, free of the enchantments of Fairyland, Sherlock would hate him. Sherlock would remember they had kissed, but the feelings would be gone, and he would be angry Lestrade had allowed it to happen. Sherlock claimed to be able to delete any memory he found useless, so Lestrade would be left alone remembering what it was like to kiss Sherlock under a dancing sky.
---
Everyone was in the parlour eating bread and honey when Sherlock entered. The Queen rose to greet him. "You're a clever man. You left my poor, faithful Door in tears," she said. She held out her hand for Sherlock to kiss, which he ignored.
"John, Molly, Sally. The school trip is over," he said.
"Do you really think I'll let you simply walk out of here with your friends?" The Queen's eyes glittered with amusement. "Since your beloved can no longer enter the castle, don't you think we should send the new knight on a quest of some sort? She could fight one of the great wyrms that sleep beyond the mountains."
"That's not in the agreement," Donovan insisted. "You have to let people go."
"Are you giving me an order?" The light in the room dimmed as the Queen grew angry. Molly watched the two women with wide eyes.
"Why are you doing this?" Sherlock asked. "You're clearly bored. You don't care if Sally goes on a quest or if Molly stays in your kitchen. Why do you feel obligated to make a scene?"
"Perhaps you're right. It has all been rather dull for me, even as it provided amusement for others. I don't think any of them are going to forget how silly you looked after the flower fairy gave you a love potion."
Sherlock's eyes narrowed as he stared at the Queen. "Did it amuse you?" His voice was low and dangerous.
"No. I have seen every variation of this story and it is boring."
"This world always yields when you exert your will. Come with us. Test yourself against London's vast indifference."
"Sherlock, she can't..." John protested.
"I think it's a good idea," Molly said. The Queen looked at her with surprise. "London is never boring."
"You would have me forsake midnight revels under the frozen moon?"
"I've never been very good with nature. If you did get bored with London, you could try rambling in the Cotswolds." Molly tried to remember other places outside London. "Brighton can be nice."
"She's right," Donovan said. "London is never boring."
"We're leaving," Sherlock said. "Will you come?"
The Queen's blue eyes met his. The castle held its breath as she decided.
---
"It’s nice to be back in my own clothes." Molly had never been so happy to see a cardigan. The kitten obviously agreed. It happily allowed her to button the cardigan over him for warmth. She looked at the Queen. "Oh. You haven’t got any..."
The Queen’s white gown had been made of wishes and stardust, winter roses knit together with dreams, and had dissolved as she passed from Fairyland into London. She smiled in delight. "It’s cold! How lovely, true cold." She stretched her arms out and shivered.
"Sherlock, give her your coat." John tried to keep his gaze socially appropriate.
"It is cold," Sherlock grumbled, but he shrugged off his coat and draped it over the Queen’s shoulders. "My love will keep me warm," he said. He wrapped his arms around Lestrade’s waist, under his coat. Lestrade hesitated for a moment, then hugged Sherlock tightly.
"Sally... you and Greg have those glasses. When we were in there, did you see..." Molly couldn’t take her eyes off the Queen.
"Like Lady Godiva," Donovan said.
"And you sat there having tea? Okay... right. Is it still Christmas? Mrs Hudson is expecting us."
"Christmas in London." The Queen’s eyes still shone with snow and moonlight. "How delightful."
---
Molly’s new kitten was regarded with suspicion by her other cats, and sometimes Molly believed it still possessed wings she couldn’t see. She would find it in the strangest places and it couldn't be just a cat being a cat.
After Christmas, no one heard anything from the Queen. Sherlock had said she would be fine, would rise to the challenge of London, but no one had expected just how far.
"She’s calling herself "The Woman", John couldn’t believe what was on his computer. "I suppose it’s better for business than "Not a Fairy". And she has a Twitter."
"She says she’s indulging humans in their natural desire to obey." Sherlock emerged from his bedroom. He was wearing a new suit, a less severely cut charcoal grey.
"You’ve talked to her lately, have you?"
Sherlock continued to stand in the middle of the front room.
"You look very nice," John said. "What do you two talk about?"
"She sends me texts. It’s useful having someone to advise me since I have to live under this terrible love spell." Sherlock walked over to the window and scanned the street.
"Love spell? Sherlock, I don’t think--"
"It must be a spell, otherwise why would I want to stare into Lestrade’s eyes while eating chicken korma. There are more efficient uses of my time. He’s here." Sherlock hummed the Habanera as he tied his scarf around his neck. "We're going away for the weekend. Love spell, you know how it is," Sherlock said, letting the door to the flat slam behind him.
"I don’t actually." John watched Sherlock enthusiastically hug Lestrade, oblivious to anyone else who might be on the pavement.
He called the number listed on The Woman’s site.
"John Watson, did you call to make an appointment? I am booked through March, but for you I will always make time," she purred.
"Have you told him? You have to tell him he’s not under any spells."
She laughed. Her laugh no longer held the frost it had in her snow-covered realm. "Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant man. If he wants to think he's under a spell, who am I to interfere with his fun?"
"It’s not fair to him and it’s not fair to Greg."
"Do you really think love is about fairness? Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point."
John switched his phone off with all the heartfelt dismay of one who has been forced to use the French he learned at school.
---
Sherlock accelerated, pleased with his successful theft of Lestrade's keys. He hadn't done it because driving was more exciting than being a passenger, he had stolen them because Lestrade needed sleep. The dark circles under Lestrade's eyes, the wrinkles in his suit, the barely perceptible coffee stains on his sleeves that marked where he'd leaned against a dirty table, everything said he was in desperate need of rest or the weekend would be spoiled. Sherlock hadn't planned on actually using the bed for sleep.
Lestrade was leaning his head against the window, but his eyes were open and his thoughts were distant. Sherlock took one of his hands off the steering wheel and reached for Lestrade's hand. It still surprised him how solid and real he felt when they touched.
"You do know, you're not my only source of information at the Yard."
"What are you confessing to, Sherlock?" Lestrade didn’t take his eyes off the motorway.
"Some of those times I went to your office, I knew there weren't any cases."
Lestrade turned his head and smiled, so Sherlock knew that he had understood. London was indifferent to human joys and sorrows, but the lights from passing cars and the lights over the motorway reflected back their happiness as clearly as any sky in Fairyland.