SwissMiss' Creativity Outlet

Title: The Cuckoo's Lullaby
Author: swissmarg
Beta readers: ruth0007, dioscureantwins
Rating: R
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Other characters: Irene Adler, OCs
Word count: ca. 85K when complete
Summary: Sequel to 'Cracks in the In-Between Places'. A Swiss holiday seems to be the perfect way for the Holmeses and the Watsons to recover from their recent troubles and deepen their attachments to each other, but when Tristram's mother and the bogeyman both turn up, loyalties are put to the ultimate test.

See Chapter One for additional notes

Read Chapter Nine on AO3



Father comes down to breakfast with them the next morning. Tristram's a bit surprised, as his father hasn't shown any interest in the hotel breakfast room before. But then they find Irene waiting for them in the lobby, and the reason becomes clear. She greets Father with kisses on both cheeks. Emily and Doct- John, he corrects himself, remembering - both watch suspiciously, but Mrs Hudson kisses Father on the cheek too so Tristram reckons it's all right. It's only kisses on the mouth that mean something else, and Irene doesn't try that. Then she bends down to give Tristram a hug, and kisses him on the cheek too. She smells nice, and her brown dress is fuzzy like a tiger moth caterpillar. John shakes her hand, but his smile is stiff and his fingers twitch afterwards.

Irene is just as complimentary to Emily as she was yesterday, and while Tristram still doesn't think she really means it, Emily is obviously flattered and pleased by the attention. Emily's not ready to entirely accept Irene at face value, however, and when she and Tristram come back to their table with their plates filled from the breakfast buffet, she finagles a seat beside Irene - Father's on her other side, and Tristram somehow ends up between Father and John - and proceeds to doggedly protect her interests.

"Sherlock's my dad's boyfriend," she tells Irene in no uncertain terms.

"So I'd gathered," Irene says dryly. Her eyes flicker to Father. There's a hint of amusement there, as if she's sharing an inside joke with him. His expression remains impassive.

John's arm suddenly darts out to the basket in the middle of the table with individual portions of jams, marmalades, and chocolate spread. "See, Ems, they have strawberry," he says, holding up a miniature, foil-sealed plastic pot with, indeed, a picture of a strawberry on it. His expression looks a bit desperate.

Emily doesn't even appear to hear him. "Are you and Sherlock getting divorced now?" she continues addressing Irene. It sounds more like a strong recommendation than a question.

Irene's laugh tinkles brightly. "I like you," she tells Emily, and this time Tristram believes her. "No, we're not getting divorced." Emily's expression hardens, but before she can say anything, Irene leans forward, bracing her wrists on the edge of the table, to tell Emily in a conspiratorial tone, "We were never married." Then she smiles, sits back, and flicks her hand toward a waiter a couple of tables away.

That answers that question, then, to Tristram's relief. But Emily's not satisfied.

"Are you going to live with Sherlock and Tris now?" she presses.

"Wouldn't that be cosy, the five of us?" Irene purrs.

Tristram doesn't think that would be cosy at all. Unless by 'cosy' she means 'cramped'. There's not even really room for four of them, much less five. Where would Irene sleep? At this point, Tristram imagines there isn't any question that John would sleep in Father's room with Father, but even after his very short acquaintance with Irene, he can't picture her on the couch in the living room.

"We don't live with them," John says without looking at Irene, spreading jam on his roll rather forcefully.

Irene gives him a long, musing look. "No..." she says slowly, and looks like she's going to add something else when the waiter comes over.

"I'll take my coffee here, Thomas," Irene says, pronouncing his name in a foreign way.

"Very good, Miss Adler," the man agrees in quite good English before looking expectantly around at the rest of them.

"Yeah, coffee would be great," John says. "And two hot chocolates." He points at Emily and Tristram.

Father requests coffee as well, and barely waits for the waiter to move away before remarking, "All this time abroad and you never bothered to learn the language?"

Irene smirks. "When there are so many more interesting things to do? Hardly. Besides, people do so enjoy practising their skills on me."

John clears his throat like he's about to say something. He doesn't, though, and when Tristram looks at him, he has his eyes firmly on his plate, although his eyebrows are raised so high his whole forehead is wrinkled.

Irene raises her eyebrows back at him. "Language skills, Doctor Watson. Whatever are you thinking? Oh look, Sherlock, he blushes," she coos. John's eyes snap to her. There's something dangerous there, but Irene just titters.

"So you are going to live with Sherlock and Tris?" Emily repeats, both obstinate and oblivious.

Irene tears her eyes away from Emily's father and her face softens. "No, darling. Let me put your mind at ease. I have absolutely no intention of coming between your father and Sherlock. My only interest is in Tristram. My son." Tristram frowns internally at that. Her son. He is, of course, but somehow it's easier to think of her as his mother than of himself as her son. He's Father's son. No one else's.

She reaches across Father to wrap her hand around Tristram's, tight, like a pair of handcuffs that have been fastened one notch too far. Tristram checks with Father. His eyes are fixed on Irene, pinning her, but she's not paying any attention to him. Tristram keeps very still.

"It was a gift from fate that brought us together here," Irene says. Her voice is just at the right pitch to send prickles up Tristram's scalp. "And I don't intend to let it go to waste. But I also don't intend to disrupt your life. I have a contract to finish here, and after that ... maybe I'll go back to England, just for a little while, and we can get to know each other better. But only if you want it. And if you decide it's too soon, I'll make sure you always know where to find me, in case you ever change your mind."

No one says anything. Not even Emily. The clinking of silverware against china from the other tables rings out unnaturally loud. Tristram, cautiously relieved, thinks it sounds like a good plan. Maybe it was just a coincidence that she was here after all.

But then Father says, "That was a very pretty speech." Something in the way he says it gives Tristram the impression that it's not meant to be a compliment. Tristram's suddenly unsure about the truth value of anything Irene just said.

She sits back, letting her hand slide away from Tristram's. He lets his breath out. He didn't even know he was holding it.

"It's the truth, believe it or not." She sounds resigned, like she's used to people not believing her.

"Would be nice, if so," John interjects crisply. "Tris's been through enough lately." His eyes flicker from Tristram to Sherlock and back to Irene. Then he takes a big bite out of his roll and starts chewing, his strong jaw working the bread.


&&&&&&

After breakfast, Father says he has some things to check on up in their room, so John takes Emily and Tristram out to explore the town a bit. Irene attaches herself to them. Tristram can tell John isn't happy about that at all, but he asks Tristram if it's all right with him, and it is, as long as John's there too, so John just gives Irene a tight little smile and a nod and they set out.

Tristram really doesn't mind. In fact, he kind of appreciates the effort Irene's making to spend time with him in an unobtrusive way. He's not entirely sure why John still dislikes her so much. She's only ever been polite to him. To all of them, really. She said she wasn't going to try to take Father away from him. And that she wasn't going to move in with them, and that the only thing she wanted was to get to know Tristram better - and even that on Tristram's terms.

It occurs to Tristram that Emily succeeded in getting each and every one of his questions regarding Irene answered in the space of a few minutes, and with a minimum of fuss. Maybe she should tackle Father's questions about Irene too. Although there's still some uncertainty - at least in Father's mind, which for Tristram is as good as empirical evidence - as to whether she was telling the truth. But for the time being, her answers are good enough for Tristram to be going on with.

John starts off walking at a brisk pace, perhaps in an attempt to outstrip Irene in her high-heeled boots as she picks her way carefully through the streets. It's cold and icy, and even though the shopkeepers have swept the pavement in front of their shops, there are still treacherous patches with hard-packed clumps of snow frozen to the ground and deceptive stretches of slickness where meltwater has refrozen into an invisible sheen.

Tristram hovers uncertainly in the middle ground between the two adults. He doesn't want to fall back too far behind John, but he thinks it prudent that he take extra care as well, even though his boots give him a good grip. It would be dumb if he slipped and fell on his injured hand. Or broke his other one too. Emily is apparently equally torn between sticking with her father and accompanying Tristram, with the result that the four of them end up strung out at relatively equal intervals along the length of an entire block. The distance between Tristram and John is unacceptably long. Although he can still see him, almost at the street corner, he's not sure John would hear him if he called out. Suddenly, Tristram feels uncomfortably exposed.

Across the street is another row of shops. Up above the shop fronts on the ground floor, the first-floor windows with their railinged balconies bring to mind the upper gallery at the airport where Mister Tonga, the not-bodyguard, was watching them. Where he was - if Father is to be believed, which Tristram unequivocally does - just waiting for the signal to shoot John. No one's standing on any of the balconies now, but the windows...

Someone catches up to Tristram and pulls even with him. It's a man wearing a black knit hat, just like Mister Tonga did that morning in Grandmother's stable. Tristram has a heart-stopping moment of being convinced it is Mister Tonga. Even once the man passes by without so much at glancing at Tristram and Tristram has seen his fair complexion - knows that he can't possibly be - isn't - Mister Tonga, Tristram's heart doesn't fall back into its normal rhythm.

He is suddenly dizzy. Automatically, he reaches out for something to hold onto so he doesn't topple over. It turns out to be a rack of postcards on display outside a shop. It feels like his throat is closed off. He can't breathe. It's like the other morning, when Emily had the curtains open. But now it's not just the feeling of something being wrong; it's that there are people all around him, and he doesn't know which ones are the good guys and which are the bad guys. He wants to run, or hide, or just get away, but he's paralysed by the tightness in his chest. Someone grabs his arm. He cries out - a strangled sound, not nearly loud enough to alert anyone to his distress - and tries to jerk away, but the person's hold is too tight.

"Here, you can hold onto me," he hears them say. It's Irene, which lessens his agitation somewhat but not entirely. "A country this rich, you'd think they could afford to salt the streets, but all they ever put down is this bloody grit," she grumbles.

Tristram has no idea what she's talking about, but he can't take the time to think about it because he's still struggling to get air into his lungs. A moment later, Emily is standing in front of him, looking concerned.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

He sort of half nods and half shakes his head. It's beginning to be a bit embarrassing now. He wills his body to work the way it's supposed to, but he still can't get more than a teaspoonful of air in at a time before his windpipe closes up. It's probably not really that bad, but it feels like it.

"Tris, breathe," Emily says. Her blue eyes are right in front of his face, not letting him see anything else. He's trying, he wants to say, but he can't spare the air.

Emily takes a deep, slow breath, lifting her hands as if holding her lungs up, then lets it all out in a deliberate whoosh, miming pushing the air out. "Come on, do it with me," she encourages him, just like they did that morning in the hotel room. Tristram focuses on her face, on the flaring of her nostrils as she inhales and the O shape of her mouth as she exhales, and tries to join in.

Tristram registers John arriving somewhere behind Emily. "What's going on?" he asks. He sounds ... not angry, exactly, but his voice is loud and demanding. Insistent.

"I've no idea," Irene says helplessly. "He grabbed for the rack, and I thought he'd slipped."

Emily takes another big breath, holds it long enough to say, "We have to help him breathe," then lets the air out again, all without relinquishing Tristram's gaze.

Tristram feels Irene's hand let go of him, to be replaced by John's on his elbow. "We need somewhere he can sit down," John says, and Irene disappears. To Tristram, he says, "It's all right, Tris. You're doing great. Nice and slow, it'll come back."

Tristram nods, concentrating hard on getting air in and out. He hears John's exaggerated breaths right next to him, matching Emily's pace, but he doesn't want to look away from Emily. It's almost like she's pulling the air in and out of his lungs with the force of her eyes.

Then Irene's voice says, "You can bring him in here," and the hand on his elbow is gently pushing him, guiding him. Emily breaks eye contact and takes hold of his other elbow, and he finds himself being brought into a shop. The hands lead him around behind the counter and onto a stool. He has his eyes closed now, partly because that way he can remember Emily's eyes and keep focused on his breathing, and partly because he's utterly humiliated and doesn't want to know how many people are standing around watching him, witness to his breakdown.

"Do he needs a doctor?" a woman's voice says, tremulous and heavily accented.

"I'm a doctor, it's under control," Tristram hears John answer. "We just need a moment. Thank you," he adds, almost as an afterthought.

Someone fumbles with his coat sleeve, and then there are warm, solid fingers pressing on Tristram's wrist. John's fingers, Tristram identifies them without even looking. He knows their touch by now, as often as they've tended to his wounds. He can also smell him, and that's another revelation to realise that his scent is almost as familiar to him now as Father's.

Tristram feels something moving against his leg and then pressure on his knee. "Do you need me to breathe with you some more?" Emily's voice asks, small and thin.

Tristram shakes his head and takes in a slow, controlled breath to show he can do it on his own now. It ends up being a bit more shuddery than he would have liked, but he's able to fill his lungs about halfway now, which is a great relief. He takes a couple more, then knowing he can't sit there with his eyes closed forever, blinks them open.

Emily is kneeling on the floor next to him, one hand resting on his knee. Her anxious, serious expression turns into a smile when his eyes meet hers. "Is it better now?" she asks.

"Yeah," Tristram says, only he has to cough a little when he says it, which makes him feel even more stupid. "I'm sorry," he mumbles and has to look away.

"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for," John says. He takes his hand away from Tristram's wrist but stays crouched down next to him. The stool is high enough that Tristram's looking down on him. "You reacted just right."

Tristram doesn't really think he did anything; it was actually Emily who knew what to do. But he doesn't want to talk about it. All he wants to do now is leave. "Okay. We can go now," he says. He starts to stand up, but John gently pulls him back down.

"I'd like it if you'd stay here for about five more minutes, okay? Just to give your blood pressure a chance to stabilise. But you could..." John gestures at his own head and neck and nods at Tristram. "If you feel warm, you could take off your hat and open your coat."

Tristram does feel a bit flushed and sweaty, so he does as John suggests. Emily stands up and takes off her hat and unzips her coat too. She gives an exaggerated sigh of relief, grinning at Tristram. He smiles back shyly.

Tristram only now wonders where Irene is. He looks around and sees her standing by a display of cuckoo clocks, talking to a young, thin woman with glasses. That must be the shop assistant, the one who let Tristram sit on her stool. He takes the opportunity to look around the rest of the shop. There are hats, banners, bags, t-shirts, scarves, mugs, magnets, and keychains, amongst many other items, crowded onto floor-to-ceiling shelves and display stands that leave almost no room to move through the shop. There are even cowbells, although none as large as the ones from the restaurant. Nearly half of the items seem to have the white cross on a red background that Tristram recognises by now as the Swiss flag. Much of the rest has cow motifs.

"Do you want to tell us what happened out there?" John asks.

Tristram doesn't, actually, but he pulls his attention back down to John's blue eyes next to him. They're the same colour as Emily's. Does Emily have her father's eyes, the same way Irene said that Tristram has Father's? Tristram takes in the lines around John's eyes, the short, sparse lashes and the thick, heavy skin beneath them. Somehow, he suspects Emily must have her mother's eyes. He wonders, fleetingly, what he got from Irene.

John is still waiting for an answer. Tristram doesn't see what the point is of talking about it. It's over now. It was stupid - just like the thing with the curtain. He knows what John will say, anyway: the man out on the street wasn't Mister Tonga. Mister Tonga is in jail in England. And there wasn't anyone standing up behind any of those windows with a gun either. He knows all that. He knows it now, and he knew it when he was outside, too. That didn't stop his stupid heart from getting all scrambled and his stupid throat from cutting off his air supply.

"It's okay, there wasn't anything there," Tristram finally says, so that John doesn't have to.

"But you thought there was?" John prods.

"There wasn't," Tristram repeats irritably.

John doesn't let Tristram's tone fluster him. "All right, that's good," he replies evenly. "Although sometimes our instincts are smarter than we are, but if you're sure..."

"I saw a man," Tristram admits, cringing internally at how stupid he's going to sound. But maybe he really does need to reassure John that there wasn't anyone there. "He reminded me of the man from the airport. But it wasn't him. The man I saw was white, and I know they caught him. Mister Tonga," he adds for clarification.

"That's right, Tonga's in custody. I can check with your uncle to be sure-" John is already reaching for his phone, but Tristram cuts him off.

"No, I know it wasn't him."

"Okay." John presses his lips together and looks down, like he's trying to gather his thoughts. Then he looks back up at Tristram. "You know, Tris, these reactions you've been having, when you see something that reminds you of what happened ... that's perfectly normal. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I know it can be a bit scary when you can't catch your breath and your heart starts racing like that, but that's your body reacting to a very stressful situation in the only way it knows how. It happens to a lot of people."

It does? Tristram's never seen anyone lose their breath before and have to be coached back into it. "Really?" he says dubiously.

"Sure," John confirms. "Grown-ups too. Big men. Soldiers even."

"Does it happen to you?"

John grimaces a bit. "Not exactly like that. But do you remember, back when we first met, I had a problem with my leg?"

Tristram does remember. Emily's father used to have a limp and walk with a cane. But he hasn't used it in months now. Tristram has wondered from time to time how his leg suddenly got better.

"That was kind of the same thing," John explains. "My body was reacting to a big unhappiness inside me. There wasn't really anything wrong with my leg, just like there isn't really anything wrong with your heart or your lungs. But it hurt anyway, and there wasn't any medicine that could make it better."

"How'd it get better then?" Maybe whatever fixed John's leg can also fix Tristram's heart and lungs.

"Sherlock fixed it," Emily interjects brightly.

John grins at her somewhat sheepishly, then at Tristram. "Yeah, he probably had something to do with it. Making me feel useful again. Being able to use my skills, feeling like I was important. Basically filling up a void I'd been carrying around with me. Honestly, I don't really know. But it worked, whatever it was."

Tristram considers this and comes to the only conclusion he can see. "So... do I have to get a boyfriend?" He starts thinking of all the boys he knows, but he can't imagine wanting to kiss any of them. He can imagine even less any of them wanting to kiss him.

John laughs. Quite loud, in fact. It's a nice sound and it makes Tristram feel better, even if the reason John's laughing is because he thinks Tristram said something silly that Tristram hadn't meant to be silly at all.

"No, no," John assures him, "that's not what I'm saying. My leg was already better even before your dad and I got closer in that way. And you know, just because your dad's in a relationship with a man doesn't mean that you ever need to be. Maybe you'll find a girl you really like, or you might be happier on your own. It's all fine. But none of that's anything you need to be thinking about now. It doesn't have anything to do with this. And the reasons for your panic attacks are probably different than whatever was causing the pain in my leg."

A panic attack? Is that what it's called when he can't breathe? That sounds pretty bad, actually. But, Tristram reminds himself, it happens to lots of people. Even soldiers. "What can I do then?" he asks.

"Well, I think Mrs Daniels or another therapist might be able to help you with that," John suggests. "We already agreed I'd make an appointment for you when we get back, remember?"

Yes, Tristram remembers. He hasn't thought about it since they had that conversation because he doesn't really want to go, but he knows John promised to do that, so he says, "Yeah."

"You can go with me," Emily offers. She wanted him to go with her a couple of times before, but it never worked out.

"I think Tristram should go on his own. At least the first time," John says. "But maybe we could go along and wait outside, like he did for you that time." And Father, Tristram adds silently. John said he'd make sure Father went along too. He hopes John hasn't forgot.

"You have to try the magnets, they're really cool," Emily tells him. That's one of the things Mrs Daniels has in her room. Emily said she had lots of toys and games.

"But what's she going to do to make it stop?" Tristram wants to know. That's all he really cares about. If he knows what it is that she does, he can do it now and won't have to go to any appointment at all.

"Part of it's figuring out what sets off that reaction, and part of it's learning to deal with it when it does happen," John explains.

Tristram's heart sinks a little. That sounds like it's probably going to happen again. But he wants to make it go away entirely, the way the pain in John's leg did.

"But how do you make it stop?"he asks. He can't help his voice coming out plaintive, verging on whinging.

"Just like you did," John says patiently. "You try to focus on your breathing and tell yourself there's no real danger, and eventually your logic gets through to your body."

"No, I mean how do you make it not happen in the first place?" Tristram is becoming more and more anxious as well as frustrated at not being able to make his meaning clear. Father would understand, probably without Tristram even saying anything. But then Tristram doesn't think he could talk to Father about this.

But it seems that John has finally understood. "That's what the therapist will help you figure out," he says. "The mind's a complicated thing, Tris. There's no magic word that can make everything go away. It takes time."

That's not a very satisfactory answer at all, in Tristram's opinion. John's leg got better seemingly overnight. He didn't have to go through lots of meetings with a strange woman. But then he also said that the pain in his leg and Tristram's panic attacks weren't exactly the same thing. So they probably have to be fixed in different ways. Maybe there really isn't anything else Tristram can do other than what John said. It's a discouraging thought.

"Can we look around the shop a bit before we go?" Emily asks, apparently having unilaterally decided the discussion is over, a sentiment which Tristram heartily supports.

"Sure, I think Tris is good to get up now," John agrees. He stands up and brushes his trousers off. "We should probably buy something to thank the woman for letting us use her shop." He glances in the direction of the rack outside the door where the whole thing started. "I'll go pick up a couple of postcards for Harry and Clara. Why don't you two go see if you can't find some souvenir you'd like. Something small," he admonishes them, glancing over at Irene. "I'm not keen to take a whole cuckoo clock back with us."

Tristram gets up too. He doesn't see why they can't just tell the woman 'thank you' for letting Tristram sit on her stool. Nor does he really understand why buying something is equivalent to the words. But Emily's eagerly moving toward the jumble in the sale room, so he goes with her.

It doesn't take them long to find what they want. Emily picks out a snow globe with a parade of miniature cows in front of a backdrop of miniature mountains. The cows are wearing flowers on their horns and have huge (miniature) cowbells drooping from their necks. Tristram chooses a pocket knife, like Father's only smaller. It has a corkscrew and a bottle opener, but honestly Tristram doesn't think he'll have much use for either of those. A magnifying glass would be really nice. Father's pocket knife has a magnifying glass.

Tristram has a very clear memory from when he was about three years old of Father taking out that pocket knife and flipping out the miniature magnifying glass to inspect a scratch on their door knocker and then concluding that Uncle Mycroft was up in their flat. He was, too. That's the first time Tristram consciously remembers being aware of his father's specific talent for taking seemingly unimportant facts and extrapolating meaningful - and sometimes startling - conclusions from them. And so it would just be nice if he also had a magnifying glass in his pocket knife. But he doesn't see any other models. Maybe he can ask the shop assistant.

Tristram also picks up a packet of playing cards with funny, old-fashioned characters on them because he thinks Mrs Hudson might like them. He can pay John back when they get home. Or if John only lets him take one thing, he'll put back the knife. Father always lets him use his, when he doesn't need it.

&&&&&&

John's trying to decide between a postcard showing the Matterhorn - impressive, but they haven't actually been there - and one with a montage of several images of the local scenery, when Irene appears beside him.

"You have a very astute little girl," she says, plucking a postcard of a sunny, wildflower-filled Alpine meadow from the rack.

"What do you mean?" John returns stiffly.

"With Tristram just now. She knew right away what was going on." Irene twirls the rack around slowly, perusing the selection.

"Yeah, she saw it happen before and knew what to do," John says gruffly.

"Does it happen to him often, these panic attacks?" Irene asks, keeping her tone casual.

John haphazardly stuffs the postcard he's holding into a slot, using rather more force than necessary. "You do know what happened two weeks ago? Why his hand's in a cast?"

Irene gives up the pretense of shopping for postcards and faces him. "Yes, I know," she says simply, but there's a heaviness about her eyes that belies her serene expression.

"Did Sherlock also tell you what happened two months ago?" he challenges her, a tight, mocking smile threatening to break through.

"No."

"Then it's not my place to either. But that little boy-" John jabs his finger toward the interior of the shop.

"You love him," Irene says suddenly, as if it's only just occurred to her.

John flinches back, startled. "I... I care about what happens to him, yes. But he's not... I mean, I'm not trying to..."

"It's all right, John," she soothes him. "I've only just met him, and I can see what a special child he is. Sherlock has done surprisingly well by him."

"Yes, he has," John says, as if she'd said something else entirely. "And Tris is. He's pretty amazing."

Irene smiles faintly. "I wasn't just talking about Tristram though. I meant Sherlock as well. You love him."

John's face hardens and he looks stubbornly at the postcards again. "That's none of your business."

"I intend to be a part of my son's life from now on, and you're involved with his father, whom he lives with. I rather think that does make it my business," she says archly.

John's jaw clenches. "You said you'd only get involved if Tris wanted it. You said you weren't going to interfere."

"John. I'm his mother. He's been wondering about me for nearly nine years. Of course he wants to see me. Look how readily he agreed that I come along with you this morning."

"He's polite," John argues. "He would have said yes to anyone."

"Perhaps," she acknowledges, but the hint of smugness in her tone tells a different story.

John rounds on her, barely keeping his temper in check. "He does not need someone flitting into his life right now, upsetting what little balance he's just barely hanging on to. He needs stability, people and situations he can count on-"

"I hardly think you're in a position to be lecturing me on stabilising influences," Irene cuts across him, her eyes flashing with something she's just barely holding in check. "How long have you and Sherlock been romantically involved? Perhaps a month? For eight and a half years, it's been just him and his father, and then you and your daughter all but steamroll your way into their lives-"

"Tris and Emily were friends first," John says fiercely. "Don't drag that into this."

But Irene continues speaking right over him: "And how have his peers at school reacted to his father being in a same-sex relationship? Oh, that's right - you wouldn't know because you've taken him out of school in the middle of term and brought him to a country he's never seen before, where he doesn't speak the language-"

"You have no idea, do you?" John's almost laughing now. "You haven't the first clue."

Irene draws herself up and looks down her nose at John. She's taller than him anyway - not by much, but her boots do the rest. "I know a great deal more than you think. And for that reason alone, you'd do well to listen to me. But if you'd prefer to dismiss me as misguided and delusional, know this at least: I am Tristram's mother. He is my son. That's not going to change. And if you intend to be in his and his father's life for the long term, it would be to your advantage - and Tristram's too - if you simply accept that and make the best of it."

Her features soften, perhaps aiming for sympathy. "I don't hate you, John. I don't even dislike you. For what it's worth, I think you're good for both of them, and I don't begrudge you your position in either of their lives. God knows I think you're mad for throwing your lot in with Sherlock Holmes, but that's probably one reason he loves you." She smiles coyly. "Don't tell him I told you. He was probably saving it up to tell your gravestone in fifty years or so."

"Now you really are being delusional," John snaps.

Irene laughs, low and warm. "The funny thing about men is they think they're not entirely transparent."