SwissMiss' Creativity Outlet

Title: Cracks in the In-Between Places
Author: swissmarg
Beta readers: ruth0007, billiethepoet
Rating: PG-13
Relationship: John/Sherlock
Word count: ca. 93,500 when complete, this chapter 4,770 words
Summary: AU set in the universe of nox_candida's Getting Better. John and Sherlock work together to flush out Mary's killers, and Tristram has to come to terms with what his father's new friend means for him. No series 3 spoilers (or series 1 or 2, for that matter).

See chapter one for the complete header with warnings, acknowledgments, disclaimers, and notes.

Chapter 7 on AO3



Chapter Seven

When Tristram wakes up, he has a moment of disorientation before he recognises the green tasseled curtains over the windows, dimming the already bleary daylight even further. He can hear rain pattering against the panes. A vague memory surfaces of being carried in, more than half asleep, and being deposited in the four-poster bed by his father. He checks his watch - seven-fifteen - and sits up, expecting to see Emily, but the room - his room, the one he always stays in at Grandmother's - is otherwise empty. He has an uneasy feeling, not recalling whether Emily was brought in too; but Doctor Watson was in the car with them, and he would have made certain she was safe.

Tristram swings his legs out of bed, and is surprised and pleased to see his school bag on the chest of drawers. When he opens it, he finds all of his schoolbooks - including the Harry Potter book from the library - along with his extra clothes and toothbrush from Uncle Mycroft's, and the school uniform he wore the day before. He wonders who thought to bring everything along; surely not his father.

He gets dressed in the extra set of clothes, then steps quietly out into the hall. The house is silent, as if everyone else is still sleeping. Grandmother at least is no lie-a-bed, though, so she's probably downstairs or out in the gardens or in her studio. He wonders where Emily is, if not in Tristram's room.

There are only four bedrooms on this floor of this wing: Grandmother's suite (bedroom, sitting room, and bath); Father's and Uncle Mycroft's old rooms (which probably originally comprised another suite, as they share a common bath); and the guest room that he always uses when he stays. Father's room is most likely reserved for him, although it's doubtful he's actually in it. Therefore, it would make sense if Doctor Watson and Emily were in Uncle Mycroft's old room. Or maybe Grandmother had a room in the other wing of the house opened and made up for one or the other of them.

Tristram hesitates outside the door to Uncle Mycroft's room, torn between not wanting to disturb Doctor Watson if he's in there, asleep, and wanting to find Emily. If it were him, he figures, waking up in the house of his friend's grandmother, he'd want his friend to come and get him when they woke up, so that he wouldn't have to wander out into the house alone.

He pushes the handle down very slowly and opens the door just a crack; the light sound of snoring lets him know that someone, at least, is using the room, and he'd be very surprised if it were Emily making that sound. He pushes the door open a bit further, and sure enough, there is Doctor Watson, lying on his back on the big double bed, fully clothed, with his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open. And standing by the window, dressed in different clothes from yesterday, is Emily.

Her face lights up when she sees him, but she puts her finger against her lips to signal that Tristram should be quiet before she tiptoes over and slips out into the hall with him.

"I got my mobile," she tells him happily, patting the pocket of her jeans. "My dad packed everything and brought it along." She seems very relieved. "Yours too?"

Tristram didn't even think to check for his phone. "Yeah, my bag's here, but I didn't see my mobile. Wait, I'll just go get it."

"Is this your grandmother's house?" Emily asks as she follows him across the hall.

Tristram nods. "We come here every summer."

Emily leans over the balustrade to look at the floors above and below. "It's like a hotel!"

Tristram doesn't know what to say to that. It's just Grandmother's house, although admittedly there are rather a lot of rooms, many of them unused, as far as he knows. "We can look around, if you want. Or do you want to go have breakfast?"

He goes into his room and rummages around in his school bag. He finally finds his mobile in one of the side pockets.

Emily hesitates in the doorway, glancing back at the room where her father is sleeping. "I don't want my dad to wake up and not know where I am."

"You could leave him a note," Tristram suggests. He puts the phone into his pocket. The weight there is comforting.

"Okay," Emily agrees. "Do you have a piece of paper?"

Tristram tears a sheet out of one of his notebooks and gives her a pen. She writes a quick note and dashes back across the hall to leave it next to her father. He is still dead to the world.

"Does he always snore like that?" Tristram asks, amused.

Emily smiles. "Yeah. Lucky I don't always have to share a room with him."

"You don't have to here, either. I mean, there are lots more rooms. I can ask my grandmother to open up one of the other ones for you. Or you could sleep in my room."

"No, it's okay," Emily says quickly, looking away. "I don't mind. Come on, show me the house."

There are plenty of things to interest two inquisitive children in the old estate house, where Grandmother and her parents – and possibly even further back - have tended to dump unwanted reminders of bygone eras in the various unused rooms rather than get rid of them.

By the time they make it down to the ground floor - having in mind to return later to a particularly jumbled lumber room up on the third floor - they are covered in dust and flushed with the exertion of discovery. But their stomachs have finally got the better of them, and Tristram leads Emily towards the dining room, where he hopes to find some breakfast.

On the way, they pass by the green parlour (as Tristram's grandmother calls it), where they see Tristram's father stretched out on a stiff, horsehair sofa with a carved wooden frame, focused on his mobile.

"Good morning," Tristram says politely, making a detour into the room with Emily trailing after him.

"Morning," his father murmurs, his fingers tapping over the screen of his phone.

"Is my dad up yet?" Emily asks.

Father makes a negative sound. "I haven't seen him."

"Do you think it's all right if we have breakfast without him?" Tristram asks. It would probably be correct to wait, as Doctor Watson is a guest, but on the other hand it is after nine by now and they don't usually stand on form.

Tristram's father looks up, apparently only just now registering that Emily is there too. He looks irritated at the interruption. "I'm sure it doesn't matter," he says curtly. "Cook's probably put something out in the dining room." He returns to his mobile, and Tristram knows that means the end of the discussion.

"Come on," Tristram says to Emily and goes back out.

"Isn't he coming too?" she asks.

"He doesn't eat that much when he's working," Tristram says.

There are two dining rooms. Tristram assumes his father meant the family dining room, as opposed to the formal one. Although Emily and her father are guests, this doesn't seem to be an official visit. Grandmother hasn't even received them yet. However, when they get to the family dining room, they find the table unset and the sideboard empty, so Tristram goes through into the bigger room with the huge chandelier. But there is nothing set out there either.

He's not sure what to make of that, because when they come in the summer, there is always toast and milk and juice and cereal out, even when he's the only one eating. When Grandmother eats with him, there's usually bacon or ham and oatmeal, too. Maybe Grandmother only has a cook to help when they come, and as this visit is on such short notice, she wasn't able to organise one.

Tristram knows where the kitchen is, though, so they go down below stairs, where the cool damp is a welcome respite on hot August days. Now, in November, it's a contest as to whether it's colder outside or inside, and the dim, dank cellar is not so much refreshing as unwelcoming. The kitchen is old; Tristram can't judge the age exactly, but the appliances are thicker and squatter than the sleek, trim ones he's seen in advertisements in magazines, or at Emily's aunts' house. The colours too - drab green and dirty ivory - remind him of the pictures in the old photo albums Grandmother gets out for him sometimes, from when she was little.

Still, the fridge works - even though it groans and shudders a bit - and they discover butter and milk and cranberry juice inside. There are a couple of half-hard rolls in the bread box, and Emily finds the dishes and silverware by opening all the cabinets and drawers she can reach.

"This is the first time I've missed school when I wasn't sick," Emily confides in him, once they've settled down to eat.

"Me too, I think," Tristram says.

"I hope we don't get in trouble," Emily says.

"We're with our fathers," Tristram points out. "They can give us permission not to go to school."

"No they can't," Emily says. "It's the law that children have to go to school."

Tristram considers this. It may be true; he's never actually heard it stated one way or the other. But his family has never had an absolute relationship with the law. "It's okay to do things that are against the rules, if you have a good reason," he tells her with the absolute confidence of a child who has seen authority figures do just that, with few or no repercussions.

Emily chews a while before answering. It could be that she is taking time to think of an answer, or that it's hard to get her teeth through the stiff bread. "But we're not here for anything," she finally says.

"We must be," Tristram says. His father never does anything without a reason, and 'just for fun' isn't one of them.

"What?" Emily asks.

Tristram considers the evidence. His father and Doctor Watson were working on a case last night, while Tristram and Emily were stashed at Uncle Mycroft's. His father's vague answer that he and Emily's father would 'feel better' with them there, rather than at their own respective houses with Mrs Hudson and Emily's aunts, suggests to Tristram that there was an issue of safety involved. Maybe - He stops himself from theorising further, because there is more evidence to consider.

The next point is that their fathers took them from Uncle Mycroft's house in the middle of the night and drove straight across the country without stopping, causing them to miss a full day of school, unexcused. (Or excused? Tristram has to admit it's possible his father arranged for him to be absent from school in advance; Father's made enough plans this week involving Tristram without letting him know until the last moment. But usually, when a student knows that they will not be in school - such as for a doctor's appointment or a funeral - the teacher gives them the assignments for the days they will miss before they go. Mrs Norris didn't mention anything yesterday. So, the logical conclusion is that his absence today is unexcused.)

The next piece of evidence is that his father is glued to his mobile and he isn't eating.

"Hello? Earth to Tris." Emily's voice interrupts his train of thought. She giggles. "You know, you looked just like your dad just now. You've got this line right here-" She reaches over and touches his forehead, between his eyebrows. "All you need is a phone."

Tristram knows she doesn't mean the phone in his pocket. She means one like his father has, where he can send text messages and look up facts on the internet. However, he doesn't see how that would be helpful in this case. He has all the evidence he needs without it. Anyway, his father spends a great deal of time thinking without his phone, too, although Emily couldn't know this.

"So, why do you think we're here?" she asks him again.

"I think... I think it has something to do with the case they were working on," he says slowly.

"You think they need to investigate something here?" She sounds eager, probably hoping to see a frozen foot or a chemical experiment in the kitchen.

"Maybe. But mostly, I think they're trying to keep us safe." He looks down into his milk. Saying it out loud makes it more real. He doesn't want to scare either of them, but all the facts at his disposal point toward that conclusion.

Emily's hopeful look fades to one of apprehension. "The bogeyman?" she says in a half whisper.

"Maybe."

They finish their breakfast in silence - neither one of them eats much more - and are in the middle of putting things away when a woman in red trousers and a bright jumper with a zig-zag pattern bustles in with several plastic bags of groceries. Tristram recognises her as the same household help who was here when they visited the previous summer. Mrs Bowen, her name was. She's about ten years younger than Mrs Hudson and has a few extra pounds around her middle.

"Oh, bless me," she exclaims when she sees Tristram and Emily. "Here you are already, and me just back from the shops. Your granny only told me this morning you'd be here." She slings the bags onto the counter.

"Hello, Mrs Bowen," Tristram says politely. "This is my friend Emily. Her father's here, too." He isn't sure if she knows about Doctor Watson, and he doesn't want her to be surprised by having an extra person to cook for.

Mrs Bowen beams at Emily. "It's lovely to have you, dear. Just staying the weekend, then?" she asks as she sets about unpacking the bags.

"I think so," Tristram says. That's the impression he has, anyway. Doctor Watson said something about making a 'long weekend' of it in the car last night. "You'd better ask my father to be sure."

Mrs Bowen snorts. "A likely story. I'm as like to get a straight answer out of him as to win the National. Well, we should have enough here for the weekend, anyway, and I'll get more in on Monday if needs be. Have the two of you had breakfast?" She takes out a loaf of sliced bread from one of the bags and opens the bread box. "Oh, don't tell me you ate those day-olds!" She tuts. "There go the dumplings. Never mind. What your friend must think of our hospitality." She shakes her head and puts one fist on her hip, but she's smiling. "Shall I fix you some toast and scrambled eggs, then? Or some cereal?" She pulls out a box of a sweetened breakfast cereal from a grocery bag and shakes it temptingly. "My grandson Davey eats this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

Tristram looks at Emily. He's not really hungry any more, but if she wants something, he'll sit with her. She shakes her head back at him, though, so he says, "No, thank you. I'm sorry we didn't wait until you were back."

"Not to worry, you weren't to know," Mrs Bowen says. "It's nice to see you know how to take care of yourselves. I know some as could take a page out of your book. Have your da's also eaten, then, or shall I send something up for them?"

"I'm pretty sure Doctor Watson hasn't had anything yet," Tristram says, avoiding the question of whether his father will eat. "But he was still asleep when we came down. He might sleep a long time," he adds.

"I'll just start on lunch then, shall I, and you tell him he can ring down if he wants something before that."

Tristram thanks her, and he and Emily go back upstairs.

"Your grandmother has servants?" Emily asks, slightly agog.

"Mrs Bowen's not a servant," Tristram says with a frown. "She just helps out. Like Mrs Hudson."

"Where is your grandmother, anyway?" Emily asks. "Is she also still sleeping?"

"I doubt it. She usually gets up pretty early. I'm sure we'll see her later. Come on, I want to show you something."


&&&&&&

"Morning." John steps into the green parlour. His face is pale and puffy and his hair is sticking up at odd angles.

Sherlock sits up and eyes him warily. "Good morning." He fiddles desultorily with his mobile. "Feeling better?"

John sits down in an armchair next to the sofa. "More rested, anyway." He rests his elbows on his knees, presses his hands together and catches Sherlock's eye, exhaling before he begins speaking. "I'm still not happy with what happened."

"I know," Sherlock says. He seems unhappy about it too. "I didn't see any other way."

"You can't trick me like that, Sherlock."

"No. You're right. I- As I said, I'm not used to working with someone." He is quiet for a moment, pressing his hands together in front of his mouth with the phone sandwiched between. Finally, he asks, "What would you have done, if I'd pointed out the weaknesses in the plan as it stood?"

John considers, looking down at his clasped hands. "I don't know. Advised waiting, probably. There wasn't any immediate threat."

Sherlock nods, as if that's what he expected to hear.

"Anything?" John gestures at Sherlock's mobile.

"No."

"Is that good or bad?"

"I can't tell yet," Sherlock says, sitting back. "Either way, his people are trying to cover it up so that we can't anticipate whatever it is they're planning."

"That doesn't sound good."

"No," Sherlock agrees.

"Any countermeasures at the moment?"

"Mycroft's sent a team up. He'll let us know when they're here. I don't want to have them in the house-"

"No, I agree," John says quickly. "But we'll need to know them by sight, at least. If only so we can tell them apart from Moran's gang, assuming they're also on their way."

"The fact that our mother is even still alive isn't exactly common knowledge. And this estate has no connection to either myself or Mycroft."

"All it would take is someone getting access to the birth and death certificates, and the deeds of property."

Sherlock gives him a look. "You can't really believe that Mycroft would be so sloppy as to let documents relating to any member of our family languish in a public archive."

John grins. "How silly of me."

Sherlock's mouth quirks up as well. "Quite."

"Still, it's a possibility. That Moran's people would show up here."

"Of course. Hence Mycroft's team."

"God, I really don't like this."

"Do you imagine I do? Allowing Mycroft in on this is going to make his head swell up six more sizes."

"That's not what I mean," John says pointedly.

"I'd much rather simply arm you-"

"No, Sherlock, this operation is already bigger than one man can handle, regardless of his physical condition, or how well-trained he is, and I'm not exactly the best specimen on either count."

Sherlock frowns. "You're in perfectly good condition. And there are two of us."

"How well do you know your way around a rifle?" John asks dryly.

"You could teach me."

John laughs. "Christ, yes, that's the plan. You are never getting within ten yards of a firearm, if I have anything to say about it."

Sherlock's face looks like a battleground between a scowl and a grin.

John reaches over and slaps a hand down on Sherlock's knee. "Buck up. Bletchley Park wasn't exactly useless either."

"Is that the name of some rock band?"

John laughs again. "You're kidding, right? You don't know Bletchley Park? Top intelligence factory during World War Two. The best minds in the country, working to break the German codes. Shortened the war by two years, apparently." He gives Sherlock's knee what is meant to be a final squeeze, but lets his hand linger, his eyes caught by Sherlock's.

Sherlock slides his own hand carefully forward, until his fingertips are just resting on top of John's. "I'm very sorry you're caught up in this," he says soberly.

"It's not- I mean, it's my choice. I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it was the right thing to do."

"This-" Sherlock lets his gaze flicker down to their hands, then back up. "This complicates matters infinitely."

John withdraws his hand. "Yeah," he says softly. "We should probably-"

"Yes," Sherlock says, not entirely convincingly.

They watch each other for several more seconds, both of them on the verge of saying something, until John breaks the tension by looking down and pulling something out of his back pocket. "Right," he says with forced lightness and brandishes the note from Emily. "Emily says she's with Tristram. Any idea where...?"

Sherlock slides back on the sofa until he's out of John's reach anyway. "They stopped in here a short while ago, looking for breakfast. If they're not finished, you should be able to find them in the dining room."

"Right. Thanks. I'll come back afterwards and we can make plans for the rest of the day."

Sherlock watches him leave, before chucking his mobile into the corner of the sofa in frustration.


&&&&&&

Back on the main floor, Tristram pulls Emily into a small room that's full of display cases and tall cabinets. "This is the curiosity room," he announces.

Emily looks around, impressed. "It's a museum."

"Sort of," Tristram says. "Look, these are all fossils that my grandmother's parents and grandparents collected." He points at a glass-fronted cabinet full of neatly labeled rocks with the imprints of leaves and shells and carapaces.

"Cool," Emily says. "And what about these?" She moves to a wooden display box topped with glass, containing lots of small, ornate containers.

"Those are snuff boxes."

Emily wrinkles up her nose. "What's that?"

Tristram explains as well as he remembers from having it explained to him on past visits, and they make their way around the room examining the various collections.

They are in the middle of having a friendly argument over whether the jewelry made from human hair is gross or not, when they hear Doctor Watson say, "Here you are!"

"Daddy!" Emily flies over to him and wraps herself around his middle.

He hugs her back. "Hey there. Thanks for the note. That was very responsible of you." Then he smiles at Tristram over her head. "Good morning, Tris."

"Good morning, Doctor Watson," he replies politely.

"Did you two sleep well?" Doctor Watson asks.

"You snore," Emily says, but she's smiling.

"Well, you kick," her father retorts good-naturedly.

"'m sorry." Emily, suddenly contrite, buries her face in his stomach.

"Hey, no, it's okay, Ems, I'm just teasing." Her father strokes her hair. "I like knowing you're next to me."

"I won't kick you tonight, I promise."

"I hope you do, or I'll have to snore extra loud."

Emily smiles at that.

"Hey, Tris, do you know where a fellow can find anything to eat around here? Your father said something about a dining room, but this place is like a maze."

"Oh, Mrs Bowen said to ring down to her when you're ready to eat. She'll make you breakfast."

"Maybe you could just show me where the kitchen is," Doctor Watson suggests. "I'm sure I can get myself something."

So Tristram leads the way back downstairs while Doctor Watson follows with Emily clinging to him.

Of course Mrs Bowen won't hear of Doctor Watson making his own food, and he doesn't want anything elaborate, so they settle on coffee and toast and are soon chatting like they've known each other for years.

Tristram would like to go back upstairs, or outside; he's not interested in hearing about Mrs Bowen's grandson or the state of the local roads. But Emily is glued to her father's side and doesn't look like she's ready to separate herself from him any time soon, and Tristram doesn't want to leave without her. After all, she's here visiting him, sort of. So he sits on the far end of the kitchen bench and rests his chin on his fists and makes a game of guessing how many bites it will take Doctor Watson to finish each piece of toast (he's off by three on the first piece but only one on the second, and he's spot on for the third), and counting how many times he chews each bite (between ten and fourteen, although sometimes it's hard to tell when he takes a swallow of coffee at the same time).

Finally, finally, Doctor Watson drinks up the last of his coffee, politely declines when Mrs Bowen tries to pour him a fresh cup, and says to Emily and Tristram, "What say we go and find out what our plans for the day are?"

"Lunch at twelve," Mrs Bowen reminds them before the three of them go upstairs to find Tristram's father.

He's not on the sofa in the green parlour anymore, but one of the French doors is propped open, and Tristram can smell cigarette smoke.

"Sherlock?" Doctor Watson says as he crosses to the door.

Tristram and Emily follow him, and there's Tristram's father, standing just outside, his back pressed against the wall to stay out of the rain. He has a cigarette between his fingers. He never smokes at their flat in London, but he often does here at Grandmother's. He takes one last long drag on the cigarette before flicking it over the side of the stone balustrade.

"Still nothing," he mutters as he comes back inside.

"I'd like to take the kids out," Doctor Watson says. "They can't stay cooped up inside all day."

"They're perfectly welcome to go out onto the grounds. Tristram knows his way around," Tristram's father says. "I'd prefer it if you would stay here, in case anything comes in."

"I think at least one of us should go with them." Doctor Watson leans toward Tristram's father as he speaks, and the way he raises his eyebrows says that there's another meaning behind his words.

Tristram's father doesn't look entirely happy with the idea, but he must understand what Doctor Watson means, because he looks from him to Tristram and Emily and says, "Yes, all right. Just make sure your phone is on. Do you even have reception? Mine's been in and out all night."

Doctor Watson snaps his mobile out of his pocket and flicks it open. "One bar, but maybe it'll be better outside."

"I have mine, too," Tristram pipes up. He pats his pocket, remembering the admonishment never to take the phone out unless he needs to use it.

"Me too," Emily chimes in.

Tristram's father smiles at them. "Good. Make sure you stay close to John anyway."

Tristram basks in the knowledge that he's pleased his father, even if it was Emily who remembered they should take their phones with them.

"What do you say, Tris?" Doctor Watson asks. "Think you could show us around?"

Tristram agrees, but when Emily and her father go back to their room to get their jackets, Tristram hangs back.

"Father?"

His father looks down at him and puts one hand on his shoulder. "What is it?" His grey eyes focus their energy on Tristram's, giving him courage to speak what is on his mind.

"Are we in danger?"

His father studies Tristram's face for a moment, as if trying to figure out how much Tristram already knows. "I don't know," he admits, finally. "We're as safe as we can be here, though. I don't want you to worry, but you should continue to be observant. I want you to come and tell me immediately if you notice anything that seems unusual in any way. Can I count on you to do that?"

Tristram nods, even though he gets a twisty, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

"When I told you to stay close to John, I meant that. I know you usually have the run of the estate when we come here, but this time, I don't want you going out on your own, or with your grandmother, or with anyone other than myself or John."

"Okay."

"Good." Tristram's father takes his hand off his shoulder, which means that Tristram should go now.


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