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“He’s lying, of course.”
Lestrade blinked and looked up from his cup of tea. “Excuse me?”
John gave him a look over the rims of his glasses. The late summer sun glinted off of his pale hair, more white than blondish-brown now, but still with hints of gold. “Oh, come on. I know you don’t get out here often anymore, but do you really think Sherlock has a daily half-past three check-in on his hives?” John snorted loudly enough that Lestrade imagined he could see his moustache move. He’d had it for over ten years now, but Lestrade still couldn’t quite get used to it. “He knew you wanted to talk to me in private. And so do I. So what is it?”
“You get more like him every year,” Lestrade grumbled. It wasn’t true, not really. Sherlock had always been frighteningly perceptive, and that hadn’t changed, but when it came to people needing an ear, John had always noticed just as quickly as Sherlock. Retirement from London and the lives of consulting detectives hadn’t changed that.
“Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.” John glanced out the open windows of the cottage sitting-room, towards the still-tall, still-sparse, gracefully limping figure in beekeeper’s whites moving slowly towards the fenced-in area where Sherlock kept his hives. John’s smile grew soft and fond as he watched Sherlock’s progress.
Memory swept over Lestrade as he watched John watching Sherlock, of the first time he’d ever heard Sherlock talk about keeping bees.
“I’ve always dreamed of retiring to the country someday. Someplace with a garden, where I could keep bees.”
The total nonsequitur caught him by surprise, coming as it did after the blood and the adrenaline and the fear and the sirens, but Lestrade did his best. “That’s nice.”
Sherlock’s eyes, wide and frighteningly intense, pinned him where he stood. “Always, Lestrade. Always. Since I was a little boy. And in those dreams, I was always by myself in my little cottage, just me with my bees. Then the bees started dying, and I worried that there wouldn’t be any left. I would be utterly alone.”
This was, beyond question, the most bizarre conversation he’d ever had with Sherlock, and that included the ones where Sherlock had been higher than a kite on the drug(s) du jour. Sherlock wasn’t high now. This was something much worse, much harder to fix. “But the bees are doing better now, aren’t they?”
Sherlock acted as if Lestrade hadn’t spoken. “Then John came. And I started dreaming of him in the cottage, with the garden and the beehives. And it wouldn’t matter so much then, when I retired, if there were no bees in the hives. I wouldn’t be alone if John was there, even if there weren’t any bees.”
“That’s a nice dream.” It was a stupid thing to say, but what wouldn’t be stupid, when Sherlock Holmes was breaking apart and bleeding out his soul in front of him?
“What if that’s all it ever is?” Sherlock looked utterly lost. “What if when I finally go there, it is as I first dreamed it, and there are only bees?”
“Woolgathering?” John’s voice wrenched Lestrade back into the present, and he found himself the subject of a doctor’s concerned scrutiny as well as a friend’s. “It must be something serious, then.” The lines in his face settled into a sudden frown. “It’s not Sofie, is it?”
“Sofie?” Surprise made Lestrade sit up straight. “God, no! No, Sofie’s fine. More than fine, actually.” He didn’t try to hide the smile tugging at his lips. “In fact, although she hasn’t told me so directly, from the way she’s been glowing in our last video calls I wouldn’t be surprised if she made me a grandfather again sometime next spring.”
“That’s fantastic! Sherlock will be thrilled to death, if it’s true. Twice as thrilled if they move home soon. Any chance of that happening, do you know?”
“Maybe. I know she’d rather be back in England, but with their careers…well, I haven’t liked to press.”
“Understandable.”
“But now…well, now I’m wondering if I should. It’s part of the reason I came out to see you today.”
“And we’re back where we started. Care to clue me in this time?” John gave him a look equally mixed up of humor, patience, curiosity, and something that wasn’t quite stubbornness, and wasn’t quite determination, but a unique cousinly compound of those two things, something that clearly said “you know I can and will outwait you on this, so you might as well cough it up now and save us both the aggravation.” Lestrade could only imagine that particular look was something John had developed over prolonged exposure to Sherlock.
Lestrade sighed and capitulated. “I need you to explain something to me.” He reached into his jacket pocket and held out the data chip his doctor had given him.
John’s eyebrows rose as he recognized the proprietary type used by the new NHS. “I see. Well, let me get my reader.” He pushed himself up out of his chair with a grimace. Lestrade couldn’t help but notice that he pushed off much more strongly with his right arm than his left. Then again, given the long-ago bullet-wound to his left shoulder, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Lestrade started to rise himself, instinctively wanting to give John a hand, but the doctor waved him back to his seat and shuffled off towards the old-fashioned medical bag by the door.
Unlike Sherlock’s limp, which John had said was mostly rheumatism catching up with him, John’s ungainly gait was a direct by-product of their years battling the worst elements of the criminal classes. The knee had been replaced, but no replacement yet existed for the damaged nerves that left John with only partial control over the muscles of his lower leg and ankle. The foot-brace could only do so much.
Memory swept over Lestrade again, of a conversation years before John had acquired that permanent limp.
“What are you doing this weekend?” Sherlock asked abruptly.
If it had been anyone else, the awkward delivery and out-of-the-blue question might have led Lestrade to suspect he was being chatted up. This being Sherlock, he naturally assumed that this was a precursor to something unpleasant, or an invitation to get into trouble. “Sofie’s coming home this weekend for a visit, in fact.”
“Yes, I know.” Sherlock shifted uncomfortably, looking away from Lestrade and over to where John stood chatting comfortably with Sally Donovan, now a DI in her own right. “I was rather hoping both of you could join us for a day in the country.”
“In the country?!?” If Sherlock had said “on the moon,” it would have sounded less outlandish. “Whatever for?”
“To see our cottage.”
Lestrade froze. “Your…what?”
“We bought it last year,” Sherlock said, still not looking at him. Still watching John, watching him with something close to a smile. “It was a bit of a mess, but we’ve been having it fixed up, bit by bit. It’s just about ready for visitors now.” Sherlock finally gave Lestrade a brief, sideways look. The sharply-angled light made his eyes look almost translucent. “You’d be our first.”
“You’re – you’re not…” Lestrade couldn’t finish that sentence. Couldn’t imagine it.
“No.” Sherlock’s negation was soft but swift. “No, not yet. Maybe in a few years. Maybe not for a lot of years. But we have it now, can enjoy it now. And whenever we’re ready, that’s where we’ll go.”
Lestrade’s throat felt tight. “Are there bees?”
“Not yet.” Sherlock’s smile widened, the genuine smile almost no one ever saw. “But there will be.”
John didn’t bother reseating himself in the armchair. He set the bag on the seat and perched instead on one arm of the well-padded chair, like the much younger man he’d been once upon a lot of years ago, when they’d first met. Unlike the bag, John’s medical records reader was sleek and modern, practically top of the line. “Ridiculously over-the-top for a mostly-retired country practitioner, isn’t it?” John acknowledged, catching Lestrade’s stare. “Sherlock insisted. I think Mycroft had something to do with it, too.”
Silence fell again as John fitted the chip into the slot with still-agile fingers. He touched the screen, unlocking it with his fingerprint, and then started scrolling through the records. The glow of the data reflected in his glasses, streaming by in random patterns, distorted and backwards and just as meaningless as when Lestrade had first tried to understand what his doctor was telling him. John’s face remained thoughtful, unchanging, giving away nothing.
He’d looked similarly serious at Lestrade’s retirement party.
“Whoever thought we’d live to see the day, hey?” Lestrade said, only half-jokingly. He could feel the effects of the various drinks that had been foisted on him over the evening. He wasn’t pissed, not really. Well, maybe mostly not. And even if he was, it wasn’t every day you retired, was it?
“I did,” John replied, his friendly smile fading to reveal the serious solider always lying just beneath the surface. “At least, I always figured you would.”
“Go on, you’re full of it,” Lestrade scoffed. “You of anyone know the risks involved in my career, the people I’ve had to deal with. We’ve had to deal with, a lot of them. What are the odds that I’d make it to retirement age?”
“Not good. Probably worse than mine in Afghanistan, to be honest. But you had something else going for you.”
“Sherlock? True, although he was as much a menace in some ways as - ”
“No,” John said, cutting him off with a half-smile. “Not Sherlock. Sofie.”
“What?”
“Sofie,” John repeated, with a nod towards the lovely young woman chatting quietly in the corner with Sherlock. “You always had her to live for. And in my experience, having someone to live for matters more than you might think.”
Lestrade felt something loosen in his chest as he thought about the man leaning stalwartly on his cane at his side, a man who had survived and come back from so much. Felt it loosen further as he watched his daughter talking with Sherlock, words and gestures and smiles flying between them. “I expect you’d know something about it, at that.”
“I do.” John’s expression altered. “It’s going to be a big change for all of us. We’re going off to the cottage at the end of the month, you know.”
“You do that every – oh.” Lestrade’s alcohol-muddled brain caught up with him. “You mean for good, don’t you?”
“Probably. We’ll keep the flat, but with Mrs. Hudson gone, and you retiring…I think a change in quarters is in order. Sherlock hasn’t quite said as much, but I’ve found several articles on the advantages of part-time country practices on my tablet, and a notice that the new NHS is looking for qualified practitioners willing to practice in rural areas, more or less under their own terms. I think it’s time.” For a moment John’s eyes went distant, focused on something Lestrade couldn’t see. Then his head tilted, and he flashed Lestrade his familiar off-center smile. “You’d better come visit. You’ll have the time. And he’ll miss you, although he’d never admit it. We both will.”
“Well now.” John set the reader aside. “You certainly don’t like the easy ones, do you?
“Would I have put up with you and Sherlock if I did?” The retort was reflex, as natural as breathing after all this time. Both men grinned at the joke, but all too soon, Lestrade remembered why he was here. “What does it mean, John? I’d never even heard of it. My doctor tried to explain it to me, to send me off to a specialist, but…” He ran one hand through his hair in the old, familiar gesture he’d never been able to break himself of, the one he used when something perplexed him. He supposed he should be grateful that he still had enough hair so that it didn’t look utterly ridiculous, since he hadn’t a chance in hell of losing the habit.
He nearly laughed at himself for thinking about his hair at a time like this. At a time when –
“It’s fairly obscure,” John acknowledged. “And I’m hardly an expert. I’m barely even a GP, these days. A specialist – “
“Sod a specialist. I can see one later. But I need to understand what this means now. I need to know so I can think, I can plan, I can…”
John’s eyes narrowed. “Have you told Sofie yet?”
“I haven’t told anyone. You’re the first.” John half-ducked his head, color tingeing his cheeks as Lestrade continued. “Look, John, I’m not asking you for another diagnosis, or to pretend to be a specialist. I just need you to explain to me what this says, what this means, in short, simple sentences an old cop can understand. Once I can wrap my mind around it, then I’ll be ready to talk to a specialist or whatever. But I have to know first, so I can figure out what to do next.”
One of John’s gnarled, nimble hands seized Lestrade’s arm in a strong, reassuring grip. Lestrade hadn’t realized until that moment that he was shaking. “Of course,” John said, calm as ever. Battlefield calm, bullets-flying calm, Sherlock-with-a-triple-murder-and-a-locked-room calm. “Of course I can explain the basics. Of course I’ll help. We both will, if you let us. Whatever you need, you know that.”
He did. It was why he’d come here. Many things had changed, but this hadn’t; he knew John and Sherlock would have his back in this, as they’d had his in so many other things, as he’d had theirs. And so he sat and listened to John’s gentle voice explain what these things meant, while the sun streamed over them both, the clock ticked quietly in the corner, and the low hum of bees thrummed in the air.