Chapter Text
“It’s too hard.”
“It’s not too hard. It’s a very important word for a very important place. Now listen - Af-ghan-i-stan.”
Rosie scowled. “It’s not on my list.” She crossed her arms and glared at Sherlock. The glare was ineffective, first because it was coming from a small face still a bit crusty from the macaroni cheese she’d had for lunch, and second because over the past few years, he’d had that expression leveled at him so many times he’d become all but immune to it.
“Ah.” He rested his chin on folded hands. “So, learning to spell is simply about knowing the words on the list well enough to pass a test?”
“That’s a trick question, isn’t it?” she asked, clearly familiar with this tactic.
Sherlock reached over and tousled the little girl’s hair. “Life’s a trick question, Rosie.”
She puzzled that one for a moment, then shrugged. “When’s Dad coming home?” she asked, not for the first time that day.
“Tomorrow,” Sherlock answered, also not for the first time.
“In the morning or night?”
“Neither. Afternoon. Before you get home from school, I expect.”
“Well, he won’t make me spell Afghaninstant.”
Sherlock grinned. “No, I suppose he won’t.”
“I miss him,” she said, turning suddenly sad eyes up at him.
“I know you do. You don’t hesitate to inform me that I’m doing it all wrong – your breakfast, the clothes I put out for you, your hair, even your spelling homework.”
“I just miss him,” she repeated. “He does do my hair better.”
“And your breakfast, but I’m much better at your clothes and homework. Besides, your father has told me more than once that you complain about how he does things when I’m gone.”
“Because I want you both here,” she declared. “I want your stories and Dad’s hugs and breakfasts and ‘sparements with you and going to New Scotland Yard and Mr. Bart’s.”
Sherlock didn’t correct her. She’d been calling the hospital Mr. Bart’s since she was four. He reached across and tugged her braid. “Your dad’s trip was very important to him. He’s counting on you to take good care of me.”
“I’m to keep you out of trouble,” Rosie corrected. “And to make sure you sleep, and eat.” She brightened at the mention of food. “What are we having for dinner?”
“No idea. Take-away, I suppose. Thai?”
Rosie shook her head and gave a resigned sigh. She didn’t need to mention that her dad always had the meals planned. “Oh Sherlock, you really shouldn’t,” she said in a dead-on impersonation of her father. “You have to mind your sodium. Dad says take-out has loads of it, and you shouldn’t have so much ‘cause of your blood pleasure.”
“My blood pleasure - pressure - is just fine, thank you very much, Dr. Watson.” He pretend-glared at her as she gave him a smug little smile. “Fine. No take-out. We’ll have beans and toast then.”
“With sausages?” Rosie pressed.
“Too much sodium,” said Sherlock, stealing her smug expression for himself.
“So do beans,” she countered.
“Your father bought a tin of the low sodium variety.”
They stared at each other for a bit longer, until Sherlock’s mouth tipped up into a slow smile. “Alright – low-sodium beans, toast and cheese omelets for two.”
Her face brightened – she had a particular affinity for cheese omelets and Sherlock well knew this – but a frown soon crossed it again. “Are omelets bad for your blood pleasure?” she asked suspiciously.
“No. Not at all. And my blood pressure is absolutely fine – your father worries too much.”
“’Because it’s trending higher,” Rosie reminded him.
“You aren’t my conscience and you aren’t my mother,” Sherlock said. “In fact, you’re my responsibility, which means I get to make the decisions. We’ll pass on beans and toast and omelets and go to Angelo’s tonight, and you can personally direct him to make me something exceedingly healthy.”
Rosie’s homework was quite forgotten. She clapped her hands together, then scooted her chair back and ducked under the table, popping up again on Sherlock’s side to wedge herself in the vee of his legs.
“Angelo’s! That’s excellent! When he brings our candle, I’ll tell him to feed you something that won’t make your head blow up.”
“I should hope he wouldn’t ever give me anything to make my head blow up,” Sherlock said, obligingly scooting back his chair just enough to hoist Rosie onto his lap. “Did you have anything in particular in mind? Perhaps an exploding cake?”
Rosie giggled. “Not that kind of blowing up,” she clarified. “The kind inside. An – an – an-your-illian.”
“Aneurism.” Sherlock shook his head and gave a very dramatic sigh. “Your father taught you that word too, I expect?”
“He didn’t make me spell it though,” she said, her suspicious glare back again.
“Spelling!” Sherlock made a show of palming his forehead. “That reminds me – in all the excitement of discussing dinner and sodium and my blood pressure and Angelo’s and how much you miss your father, we seem to have forgotten your spelling lesson.” He picked up the list she’d reluctantly dug from her school bag and handed him a few minutes before, studied it, then ran through the words with her by memory, mixing them up to keep her on her toes.
“Excellent.” He began to sign across the top of the paper as her teacher required but stopped mid-letter and set his pen down beside the paper.
“What? What is it? I did them, didn’t I? Sign it so we can go to Angelo’s before he gives our table to someone else!”
“You haven’t done the challenge word,” he said, very seriously. “Do you remember what it was?”
“You can sign without the challenge word,” she assured him, handing him the pen. “The challenge word is something you made up, anyway. My teacher doesn’t ever ask about it, and no one else’s parents give them challenge words.”
“Rosie – ”
“I know, I know!” She threw up her small hands in exasperation. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else’s parents do or say. Their children will have the vocabillary of a head of cabbage.”
“So – do you remember the word?” Sherlock picked up the pen again and pulled a blank piece of paper off the notepad they kept on the table for grocery lists. He printed the letter A on the paper.
“It was a place,” Rosie remembered. “I’ve heard it before. A country, I think. A country with wars.”
“The country is Afghanistan,” Sherlock said. “Look – A – f – g – h – a – n – i – s – t – a – n. It’s not as hard as it looks. The only tricky part is the h after the g.”
They practiced printing it, and spelling it out loud, until Rosie had it down and Sherlock signed the top of her paper with a flourish.
“Why’s it important, Sherlock?” she asked as she tucked the paper back into her school bag. “You said it wasn’t too hard, and I guess it’s really not. And that it’s an important word. So why’s it important?”
“Do you remember where your dad went this week?” Sherlock answered.
“To see his friends from the army,” Rosie answered. “In Dublin.” She brightened. “Can we do Dublin next week? I already know how to spell that one.”
“Then it wouldn’t be much of a challenge, would it?” answered Sherlock. “And yes – your father is at a reunion. With his old friends from the army – they served together in Afghanistan. That’s where your dad was wounded.”
He explained it all matter-of-factly, as if every little girl’s father had a scar on his shoulder from an actual bullet.
“And came home to London to find you and live happily ever after!” Rosie twisted around on his lap and planted a kiss on Sherlock’s cheek. “So can we go to Angelo’s now?”
“Yes. We may. Get your shoes and wash that macaroni cheese off your face. Angelo might not feed you if he thinks you haven’t finished your lunch yet.”
She giggled and slid off his lap, crawling back under the table and out the other side before disappearing into the corridor to search for her missing shoes.
Sherlock glanced down at the paper on the table.
Afghanistan.
Happily ever after.
He supposed she was right, in a way. John had come home to London. Had found Sherlock. And what was this – this life they now shared – but a happily ever after?
It didn’t happen in a tidy condensed package like Rosie envisioned, but it did happen. All those things in between that initial meeting and the happily ever after?
Details. Mere details.