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May Prompts 2024
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Published:
2024-05-05
Completed:
2024-06-02
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19,612
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26/26
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Chapter 2: Ecosystem

Summary:

A tender moment. Rosie has a question, and Sherlock, being Sherlock, gives the scientific explanation. John, being a writer, sides with Rosie's imagination.

Prompt: Rain

Notes:

Chapter Rating: G.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Lock-Da, is the sky crying when it rains?”

“Not a bit of it, young Watson. It’s a perfectly natural process. The atmosphere always contains a given amount of moisture. That’s called humidity, and it’s what makes you feel sticky on a hot day.”

“Humidy.”

“And when temperature and pressure conditions are just right, the humidity condenses out of the air. Just like when the water runs down the side of your cold drink.”

“So the world is having a big drink?”

“Something like that. It’s a necessary part of the ecosystem.”

“Want to go to the park. When it’s done with the exsystem.”

“Maybe we’ll go after your nap.” Sherlock glanced up as John looked in; Rosie was still at an age where she’d be cranky and hyperactive in the evening if she didn’t go down for a short sleep in midafternoon.

“She’ll just jump in puddles, you know,” John said on returning from the upstairs bedroom. “You’re cleaning her shoes if she gets them mucky.”

“Experimentation must be permitted. One learns best from experience.”

John was silent for the best part of a minute, looking at the trickles running down the outside of the oversized panes.

“I used to imagine it, you know,” he said.

“Imagine what?" Sherlock glanced up at the back of his head. 

"That the rain was… grief. When you were gone.” John seemed intent on something outside the window. “I heard you talking.”

Sherlock knew that: that sometimes John would stand outside a door and quietly listen to the two of them together, the bond of curiosity that ran between him and Rosie.

“Because, you know. Big boys don’t cry, right? Doctors don’t cry. Spoils our detachment. Soldiers don’t cry. So I’d – you know, I’d stuff it all, turn up at the surgery, do my job, let everyone think I’m fine.” Sherlock doesn’t say what he might: that Greg, Molly, Mycroft, everyone had let him know at one time or another that during his absence, John did not appear fine. That a part of him had been queerly reassured to see John had managed to move past his grief (he thought), that another part had gone dead inside, and his shot at combining both of those reactions into history’s most spectacular reunion fail still hurt to think about, and not because of the memory of John’s right cross.

“And then it’d rain. World was having a big drink, so I did too. And after a while I’d reckon the sky was crying, so I’d join in. Then get up the next day and. Well. Stiff upper lip. Kept it to myself.”

“John. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t mean that, Sherlock – just – was thinking about what a load of tosh it is. The way we’re raised. Thinking feelings make you weak.”

“I believe even my brother has come round to the folly of that point of view. And – when I said I was sorry. I meant that I’m sorry I didn’t get there earlier myself, instead of having to -- learn from experience.  We could have – not lost so much time.”

“Right couple of prats, aren’t we?” said John, and when he turned his cheek was wet, but he didn’t try to hide it. Sherlock was already raising his arms. It felt so natural, at last, for John to slide into them.

“We’re here now,” he said, pulling him close. “We’ve got –you’ve got me, I’ve got you, Rosie’s got us both. Our stable ecosystem. That’s what matters.”

Notes:

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