Chapter Text
John knew he'd end up doing the lion's share of the work. Sherlock was recuperating and not terribly mobile, and he wasn't very good at staying focused on boring (though essential) tasks at the best of times. Which these weren't, honestly, though they did have some positive aspects.
First one: the renovations to Baker Street*, including all the tiny, last minute updates/revisions/corrections, were finally complete. They had thankfully moved back in prior to Sherlock's mugging**, with the help of what seemed an army of friends (and what was indeed a small army of Mycroft's minions, now and again), and had been enjoying their updated digs when they had the opportunity.
Second one: the updates had blessed them with considerable extra storage space, including dedicated areas to store Sherlock's huge volume of research materials, experimental supplies, costumes and memorabilia.
The second of those two, though, was also a negative (Well. For John, anyway), because it meant that someone had to go through the many, many ramshackle cardboard boxes, manky plastic tubs and black bin bags to sort out what needed to go where.
And it wasn't going to be Sherlock. Both of them knew it; Hell, anyone who had ever encountered Sherlock for more than five minutes would know it. But the detective would fight to the death before he'd allow a stranger to touch his things, an attitude John had a fair amount of sympathy for. And, now that his focus needed to be on his own recovery, Sherlock's involvement was even less likely, except as a bored observer. Of course, in his current circumstances, lying on a hospital cot in his ground floor room in Mycroft's home, he was also very much a captive audience, and John decided they might as well take advantage of that. Today, though, things weren't going especially well.
"Look, you agreed," John said, for the third time in the past ten minutes. "If I went through the boxes, you'd decide what we could get rid of, and what you wanted to keep, and actually think about your answers. And you said you'd tell me the truth about anything I asked about. That's the deal."
The detective grunted, reaching out to stroke the cats aligned on either side of his blanket-covered body. "Just put it all up on the third floor. We'll get to it when I'm better." Which. Um. Sounded very tempting right now. John knew Sherlock was having a bad day; he'd awakened still tired, had pulled healing muscles when he slipped coming down the hall on his crutches, and Denny had sort-of shouted at him when he didn't tell her about the injury until one of her stretches had reduced him to near-tears. He'd had been ordered back to bed with four ice packs, and had stayed there in a dark, brooding mood that had now yielded to a despondent sulk. In desperation for a reliable distraction, John had asked Andrew, Mycroft's driver, to run over to Baker Street and bring back an assortment of boxes from the basement flat where they currently sat, abandoned.
"Let's just do one and see how it goes," John cajoled. "If it bothers you too much, we'll pick it up tomorrow." He looked around the room at all of the other items—puzzles, sound system, books—that had been tried and discarded already. "It's not like you've got a lot else. Unless you want to watch another Monterey Bay Aquarium video." John cringed at the very idea; he'd seen each of them at least four times since Molly dropped them by. But he'd go, reluctantly, for five if there was no alternative.
Thankfully Sherlock was of a similar mind. He made a disgruntled face, sighed, and pointed towards the top box. "That one, I guess," he said resentfully.
It went surprisingly quickly, though in retrospect John realized he shouldn't be especially surprised; with Sherlock's memory, he could easily identify, categorize, and accept or reject items in the time it would have taken John to pick something up. The first box was summarily sent to the skip—old newspaper clippings that never resulted in a case, outdated scientific treatises for which Sherlock already had updated versions, a hilarious series of email copies between Sherlock and one of his graduate professors (that John surreptitiously put aside for later reading, on his way out to the skip).
When John came back he was prepared for Sherlock to have tuned out. He was pleasantly surprised to see his friend gesture imperiously for the next box; apparently this was more entertaining than the aquarium videos after all.
This box was a little different, a mishmash of Sherlock's research materials from uni joined to a host of things that had apparently come from the house in Surrey. John pulled out a raft of photos for later review; he suspected that, even if Sherlock didn't want them, his mum definitely would. A batch of school reports (that John would have loved to read through, but Sherlock did have his limits, after all) was put in the "Mellie" pile, as well as an assortment of schoolwork examples. John did pick out several small watercolours and held them up for Denny's approval, while the tips of Sherlock's ears grew pink as he gruffly characterized them as "puerile". John noticed that he didn't, however, demand they be thrown away.
The final items in the box, though, were sustantially more interesting. Four slightly worn sheets of paper; one, offical-looking, words filled into a pre-printed form; the other three, a typed narrative, with several signatures and dates at the bottom of the final page. What grabbed John's attention, though, was the black-and-white photo stapled in the upper left-hand corner of the printed form—a small child, maybe 5 or 6, with flyaway curls nearly covering his eyes, one of which was blackened and swollen. The nose, too, looked discoloured and outsized for the woebegone, tear-stained little face. It took John a moment, because of the distracting injuries, to note that the child had Sherlock's eyes.
And the document the photo was attached to was a police report. A car accident, single vehicle encountering a tree. And the driver was listed as "W. Sherlock S. Holmes, unaccompanied juvenile."
John must have made a noise of some kind, as Sherlock's attention was suddenly riveted on him. John turned the paper in Sherlock's direction, and received a spluttering outburst of indignation for his pains. "Oh for God's sake," the detective moaned. "That woman keeps everything."
"But, I mean, what happened?" John asked, trying to envision how Sherlock ended up in a car crash by himself, at such a young age. The Holmes parents weren't conventional, certainly, but they were a long way from neglectful, if their careful tending to Rosie was any indication.
"I was trying to get to London, to see Scotland Yard, and maybe just move there as well, since we had a townhouse just sitting there," Sherlock said simply. "They wouldn't answer my letters, and my parents wouldn't let me call, though I did try several times on the sly. I...overestimated my ability to both see over the dash and reach the pedals. Had a rather hard stop into a tree about half a mile from home, and one of the neighbors called the police rather than my nanny."
John stared. "What were you, six?" he asked. "No wonder you couldn't reach. And how did you get away from the nanny in the first place?"
"I had just turned eight," Sherlock said, a little offended. "I was very small for my age until I hit puberty. I pretended to fall asleep on the sofa downstairs after lunch, and Daisy didn't want to disturb me so she left me there. It was quite convenient, since the car keys were on the mantle. She went upstairs to get the schoolroom set up for the afternoon, and I took my chance."
"But why were you so set on getting to London, and specifically Scotland Yard, in the first place?" John asked. "Had you been reading books on crime-solving or something?"
Sherlock stared. "But you know the answer to that, if you think about it," he said slowly. "The Carl Powers murder. I know we discussed this."
And John nearly dropped the photo, struck by a visceral horror at the thought of this delicate, elfin little creature coming to the attention of James Moriarty. Even a 10-year-old Moriarty. "God, I'm glad you didn't make it," he said.
Sherlock thought about that, then sighed. "On reflection, I suppose I am as well. Though I certainly wasn't at the time."
John laid the police report on Mellie's pile; if Mellie didn't want to keep it, John certainly would (and he suspected Mrs. Hudson would love to see it as well). He picked up the second document and took a closer look.
This, too, seemed to be an official document of a sort. But, unlike the first, this one was a confession. And the subject of said confession seemed to be admitting to...kidnapping? Child kidnapping? The further he read, the more confused John grew. "You were kidnapped?" he finally managed, in a register rather higher than usual.
Sherlock, surprisingly, looked shifty rather than traumatized. "Well. In a sense," he said carefully.
John's bullshit alarm went off, loud and clear. "In what sense?" he asked, just as carefully.
The detective was suddenly very interested in brushing the cat fur off his blanket. "In the sense that I arranged it," he said finally. "Tea?"