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madlorificTitle: The Blog of Eugenia H. Watson
Author: MadLori
Length: 4000
Genre: Family, humor, shameless fluff, although quite angsty of late
Pairing: Sherlock/John (established), John/OFC (referenced, in the past)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Teenagerfic
Summary:We weren’t feeling very festive. We hadn’t even managed to get the tree up this year. Mum had hung up our stockings like usual, but then there was That Awkward Moment when she hesitated over hanging up Sherlock’s. She hung it up anyway. I caught Dad staring at it later that night.
Genie's blog stars here: 1 September
The Blog of Eugenia H. Watson, A Right Jolly Old Elf
24 December
Merry fucking Christmas.
The holidays have really sucked around here this year. I don’t need to tell you why. Mum and Dad are making an effort to let things be merry, but we’ve gone through almost the whole month of December with the shadow of Sherlock’s disappearance over us. I’ve been walking around with a semi-permanent resentful sneer on my face. Stop that singing. Take down those lights. How dare you shove holiday merriment in my face? Don’t you know Sherlock is missing? Don’t you know my dad is miserable? Don’t you know my whole family is staggering and exhausted and worried?
But the rest of the world seems to want to still have Christmas in spite of what’s going on with us, so Christmas it is. Bloody wankers.
Not that Sherlock is terribly involved in Christmas when he’s here. Oh, he gets us gifts and opens his own, he goes to the family gatherings, but mostly he ignores the rest of the goings-on. It’s not that his absence has such an effect on holiday festivities. It’s that his absence affects everything else.
There is a bit of a bright spot, though – at least I think it’s a bright spot.
We have an unexpected house guest for the holidays.
This afternoon we were doing the traditional pre-Christmas gift-wrapping marathon. These were the gifts for other people, like Adele and Lily and Roger and everyone else. Traditionally we spent Christmas Eve at home, just us, and then Christmas Day we’d go to Nana and Grandpa’s for Christmas dinner, followed by massive gift-opening extravaganza.
We weren’t feeling very festive. We hadn’t even managed to get the tree up this year. Mum had hung up our stockings like usual, but then there was That Awkward Moment when she hesitated over hanging up Sherlock’s. She hung it up anyway. I caught Dad staring at it later that night.
So we sat around the dining room table with the paper and the ribbon and scissors and tape and wrapped up Grandpa’s book, and Roger’s knife-sharpener, and everything else. I’d gotten a rainbow-patterned picture frame for Estelle and put a photo of her and me at Pride in it. Then there were toys for Emily and baby board books for Cillian and damn, there were lots of presents.
Dad pulled out a flat black box and stared at it for a moment, turning it around in his hands. I met his eyes and I knew that it was his Christmas gift to Sherlock. I held out my hand and he passed it over.
Inside the box was a beautiful Patek Phillipe pocket watch on a long filigreed chain. It was very modern, looked like a stainless steel housing, the mechanics visible and the watch face stark and minimalist. It would suit Sherlock perfectly. “Oh, Dad,” I said, Mum leaning over my shoulder to look. “This is gorgeous.”
“He hates wearing a wristwatch, so I thought…” He shrugged. “I thought he would like it.”
I flipped open the back. Sure enough, it was engraved. Your blogger, always. Love, JW I smiled and looked up at Dad. “He’ll love it, Dad.” He just nodded. “Let’s wrap it up and put it under the…oh. Well, with the other presents.”
I handed the watch back to Dad and he wrapped it up. My own present for Sherlock – a new scarf that I had painstakingly knit myself under Metsy’s less-than-patient tutelage – would seem paltry in comparison, although Mum had put my name on a gift for him that she’d bought, a cunning little palm-sized HD video recorder.
We were just about finished when someone knocked on the door. We all looked at each other. “Anyone expected?” Dad asked.
“Not that I know of,” Mum said.
“It’s probably Zack or something,” I said, and got up to answer it. I trotted downstairs and opened the door.
It was not Zack.
The woman on the step had one of those “ready to deliver a friendly greeting” canned smiles on her face, but when she saw it was me, it faltered a bit. She stared at me with unabashed interest. I couldn’t help but stare back.
She was just a little taller than me, slender, and of indeterminate age. She had to be at least sixty but could have been much older. Her hair was pure snow white and cut brutally short; her face was lined but full of life. She was – well, she was very striking, with high cheekbones and a mouthful of straight, white teeth.
She was dressed in jeans tucked into knee-high boots that had seen a lot of wear. She had on a dark green thermal shirt under a frayed barn jacket and had a bright red kerchief tied at her neck. She was wearing a large pendant, a fossilized conch shell, on a long leather cord. She looked like an adventurer, like she’d just stepped out of a Jeep or out of the cargo hold of a plane in an Indiana Jones movie. She looked like what Amelia Earhart might have looked like if she’d lived another thirty years.
Then I looked in her eyes. Large and wide-set, a changeable shade of verdigris, not blue or gray or green but all three at once. I knew that color. I knew those eyes.
Sherlock.
“Genie?” she said, her eyebrows going up. “Oh…are you Genie?” Her accent was very posh, her voice throaty and cultured.
“Yes,” I said.
The woman abruptly stepped over the threshold and hugged me. She smelled like old leather and classrooms. I just stood there, sort of stunned. She pulled back, keeping her hands on my upper arms, now beaming a wide smile. “You’re so beautiful,” she said, a hint of pride in this declaration.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I knew.
“My name is Ellie Forsythe. I’m…” She took a breath and let it out. “I suppose you could say I’m your grandmother.”
“My grandmother?” Her name had thrown me.
“Once upon a time, my name was Ellie Forsythe Holmes, dear. I’m Sherlock’s mother.”
My mouth was just hanging open. “Uh…I…well…” Great first impression, Eugenia. Really ripping.
She didn’t seem fazed. “I know this is terribly sudden, and rather rude of me to just show up like this. Mycroft didn’t give me much notice. I gather he didn’t tell you I was coming, did he?”
“No, he really, really didn’t.” I was gathering my composure. And my guard was going back up. “So you’re – Sherlock’s mother?”
She picked right up on the note of suspicion in my voice. “Oh, Mycroft said I’m to tell you ‘Stradivarius.’”
I relaxed. “Oh. All right. Thanks. Well, gosh! I’m a little overwhelmed! Um, come in, won’t you?” She came in and I shut the door behind her. We just stood there for a moment, staring at each other. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know what to say right now,” I said.
“It’s all right. I know I’ve caught you a bit wrong-footed.” She sobered. “And at a difficult time.”
“So you know, then? About Sherlock?’
She nodded. “In a way, that’s why I’m here. Finally.” I opened my mouth again but she spoke before I could get a word out. “I know you must have loads of questions, Genie. I’ll be happy to answer them all as best I can. But right now…” She swallowed hard. “I’d very much like to meet my son-in-law.”
At that very moment, the door upstairs opened and Dad came to the landing. “Genie, who was at the…” He stopped short when he saw Ellie. She went still, staring up at him.
“John?” she said, in a near-whisper.
Dad looked like he was seeing a ghost, or a made-up person sprung to life before him. “You – you’re Sherlock’s mother,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You know me?”
He came down the stairs. “I think I’d know you anywhere,” he said, a note of wonderment in his voice. A tiny, shaky smile touched the corners of his mouth. “He has your eyes.”
They stared at each other for a few long beats, then all at once they were hugging, a whole-body hug like they were long-lost relations finding each other again. Which, I guess, they sort of were. Ellie finally pulled back, sniffling and wiping her eyes. She put her hands on Dad’s face. “Oh, you dear man,” she said. “I’ve wanted so long to know you.”
Dad nodded. “Likewise. I guess you’ve met Genie, my…our daughter,” he said.
“Oh, yes.” She put her arm around my shoulders. Her manner was disarming and easy. I was already starting to feel like she was one of the family. How on earth had she raised two sons who were both so intimidating and standoffish? Their father must have been quite the piece of work.
“Come upstairs, meet Grace. And we have some things to talk about.”
We went upstairs. There was another round of introductions and hugs with Mum, then there was tea and confusion and finally we all got ourselves settled in the lounge. Ellie was looking at some of the family photos on the mantelpiece. Mum and Dad’s wedding. Me on my first day of school. Me and Sherlock at my first chess tournament. Me, Dad and Sherlock at Pride. Her eyes lingered on that one, I noticed.
“I feel as though I’ve been here before,” she said, looking around. “And I feel like I know you, all of you. Sherlock speaks of you so often. Especially you, John.”
Dad shifted uncomfortably. “I wish I could say that he’s spoken to us about you. I’ve asked, Genie’s asked, we’ve both wondered why we haven’t met you before now.”
“Don’t blame him for that, it was my request. I’m an absolutely dreadful mother. I’m never around, I come and go as I please and I’m impossible to contact. I raised my boys to adulthood, and then I pursued my own interests. To most people, my refusal to lay my own life on the altar of motherhood makes me a reprehensible creature. I made my peace with that long ago, and so did my sons, but I had no wish to inflict it upon their families. In addition, for the past twenty years I have not been allowed into the country. This visit is being conducted ex officio, so to speak.”
Dad and I exchanged a glance. “You haven’t been allowed into the country?”
Ellie smiled, and it gave me a jolt, because it was that same smile, the smirky half-smile that I’d so often seen on Sherlock’s face. “The British government once took great exception to my sharing of so-called proprietary historical information with the outside world. I face arrest if I’m discovered here.”
“Sorry, but what exactly is ‘proprietary historical information?’” Mum asked.
Ellie sat down. “Perhaps I ought to explain my vocation. I travel the world seeking items and information of historical value.”
The pieces clicked in my head. “You’re a treasure hunter?”
She laughed. “You could say that. But I don’t hunt gold pieces or precious relics. I hunt for truth. Humanity’s truth. The missing pieces in the intellectual and creative development of our species. You’d be amazed of all the things we don’t understand about what we knew and thought, and when. Just as an example, I’ve just come from Tunisia. One of my colleagues thinks he may have discovered evidence that there was contact between Europe and the Far East a good five hundred years earlier than it is thought to have first occurred. If it’s true, it could explain a lot of things.”
I was fascinated. “You’re a historical detective!”
“That’s one way of putting it, perhaps. Sherlock has occasionally helped me, when the situation has required his skills.” She folded her hands beneath her chin, another gesture reminiscent of Sherlock, reminiscent enough that I felt Dad shudder next to me. “I’ve so often wanted to meet you, all of you. I haven’t seen Sherlock or Mycroft in person for well over a decade. My restrictions are often difficult to bear. Detachment from my family has been the price I’ve paid for the work I do.”
Dad sniffed. “You’re married to the work. That’s what Sherlock used to say. But he’s done it. He still does his work and he has a family. It can be done. You could do it, too.”
She gave him a sad smile. “Not everyone’s lucky enough to meet a John Watson to lead them to a better life, I’m afraid.”
“You don’t need to meet your own John Watson,” Dad said. He reached out and grasped her hand. “You’ve got the original, right here. You can’t be a tougher nut to crack than he was.”
“No, but I think he might object if you used the same techniques on me,” she said, her eyes twinkling with laughter. Dad flushed. “It’s too late for me, John. I appreciate the thought. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“If it’s news of Sherlock you want, we’ve none to give you. We’ve had no new information since his video chat with Genie last week.”
“I didn’t come in search of news. I came to bring you some.”
We all looked at each other. “You have news?” Dad said.
“Nothing specific. But when Mycroft told me his suspicions about the sort of people who had Sherlock – well, I think I know what he means. In the course of my work, I’ve dealt with just about every government on the planet, and the UN as well. Over the years I’ve gotten the sense that there’s something else at work, behind the scenes. Moving the pieces around the board. I’ve had occasions when I was stymied by a bureaucratic roadblock or a diplomatic incompatibility, and then suddenly with no explanation, the access or the information I need is dropped into my lap. I’ve had people I desperately needed to consult suddenly appear, as well as suddenly disappear. I’ve had the sense of events being manipulated, at a very high level, much higher than any single government.”
“What are you telling us?” Mum asked.
“That there’s a group. Maybe a network of groups. Maybe it’s individuals. I don’t know. There’s no name. There’s no headquarters, no secret underground lair. They’re just – out there. Moving the chess pieces. Sometimes making sure things go well, other times making sure they go badly. This is all very vague, I know. I’ve got nothing to show you, no evidence, no proof. No one ever does. But anybody who works globally, as I do, knows what I’m talking about.”
I reached out and took Dad’s hand. He gripped my fingers back right away. “What can we do?” he asked, sounding like he already knew the answer.
Ellie sighed, her eyes wet. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, John. I don’t know any more than you do about these – people. I don’t know who they are or what they want or where they have him, or why they want him.”
“I know why they want him,” Dad said. “Because he’s the best.”
“Yes, he is,” Ellie said.
“They just better give him back.” Dad’s jaw clenched.
We all sat there in silence for a moment. Finally, Ellie spoke, her tone more cheerful. “Well. I know how we all feel about Sherlock. But I confess, I’m still happy to be here and to be meeting you. I would like to get to know you, if I can.”
Dad brightened a little. “We’d like that.”
She reached out and took Dad’s hands. “John, I – I hardly know what to say to you. Sherlock showed me a photo of you once, but you’re even more handsome in person.” Dad blushed again and ducked his head. “You must be a miracle worker, or at the very least a candidate for sainthood. You’ve done what I never imagined any person could do. You’ve made my son happy.”
He looked up and met her eyes. “He’s made me happy.”
She smirked. “Something else I never would have believed possible. I know Sherlock. I never thought he’d be part of a family, not even the one he was born into. And the idea of him being a father – well, it’s a terrible thing to say about your own child, but I would not have thought him capable.”
“He’s a good father,” I said.
“I’m glad to hear it. He’s certainly very proud of you.” She looked around at us. “I know I’ve dropped in you very unexpectedly, and it’s Christmas Eve. I don’t wish to interrupt your holiday plans.”
“Our plans don’t amount to much this year,” Mum said. “None of us can really muster up much holiday cheer.”
Ellie nodded. “I hope it’s not too presumptuous of me to ask, but…”
“Ellie,” Dad said, stopping her. “We’d be thrilled if you’d stay with us and share the holiday. I know for me – it would help.” He swallowed hard. “It’d be like having something of him here.”
And so I got a new grandmother for Christmas.
I hate to say it, but we were almost cheerful around the dining room table that night. Since Christmas was such a home-cooked holiday, our tradition was to get takeaway on Christmas Eve, usually Chinese. Ellie found this delightful, and to have her sitting in Sherlock’s habitual chair felt nice.
I was a little in awe of her, actually. Unless she’d started out as a teenager, she had to be nearly eighty years old. Sherlock was fifty, and Mycroft seven years older. She didn’t look much older than sixty, though, and seemed to have boundless energy. “So, Ellie,” Dad said. “Is it Eleanor?”
She shook her head. “Elspeth, actually. A lovely, stuffy old name. I’m rather fond of it.”
“Sherlock’s spoken of you in very vague terms,” he said. “He’s never told me much about his family, apart from Mycroft.”
“There isn’t much of a family left. Do you know anything about his father?”
“Just that he died when Sherlock was a teenager,” Dad said. Huh. That was more than I’d known.
Ellie nodded. “Our marriage was like something out of a Regency novel, I swear. The Holmes family was exceedingly rich but had only one male child, Fitzwilliam. Yes,” she said, smiling at me as my mouth gaped open, “like Mr. Darcy. Don’t think that wasn’t intentional,” she said, with a bit of an eyeroll. “He was Fitz to his friends, what few he had. His parents were dead set on marrying him to some woman with an aristocratic lineage. I had that but my family was by no means rich. I was twenty-two when I met Fitz. I’d dropped out of university and had spent two years traveling Africa with Doctors Without Borders trying to avoid my family. Bloody snobs, the lot of them. They caught me when I came home for a family funeral. It was a long shot, to be sure, but I liked Fitz. He was a nightmare socially. Cold and unfriendly and superior. But if you could get past that, he was the smartest person I’d ever met, and I like a challenge. He fell wildly in love with me. I agreed to marry him.”
“You agreed?” I said. “You didn’t love him?”
“I did, in a way. Remember, my dear, it was 1965. I was more or less resigned to having to marry someone at some point. Fitz wouldn’t expect me to be a dutiful homebound wife. He promised me as much freedom as he could give me to explore my interests, and quite frankly, his financial support would be a big plus.”
“You married him for his money,” Dad said, neutrally.
“That sounds so mercenary,” Ellie sighed. “It wasn’t the only reason. I won’t claim it wasn’t a ticky mark in his favor. I was fond of Fitz. I grew to love him more as he made good on what he’d promised me, even participated in his way. Mycroft was born in 1969, then Sherlock in 1976. They are both the image of their father, each in their way, although I like to think that Sherlock gets his sense of justice and his stubbornness from me.”
“Oh, so it’s your fault,” Dad said, smiling.
“Sherlock looks like you,” I said.
“In the face, perhaps. In his height and build he is his father’s son, for certain. Fitz died when Sherlock was fifteen. Mycroft was not much affected. He and Fitz never got on very well. Sherlock felt the loss greatly, but he subverted it into other things. It was then that he began throwing himself into the study of – well, everything. I always felt that he thought if he’d known enough, if he could see enough, then he would have been able to spot his father’s illness before it was advanced enough to take his life. And he’s been trying to make up for it ever since.”
Dad had a stricken look on his face. “Dad, what?” I said, putting a hand on his arm.
“Sherlock doesn’t pay much attention to anybody’s physical state, most of all his own, but – he sometimes is preoccupied with my health. He’ll ask me if I’ve had a checkup, he’ll notice if I’m lightheaded, or if I’m sore anywhere.”
Ellie nodded. “As I said. Making up for it.”
We all fell silent for a moment. “I have a question,” I said. “What the devil made you give them those names?”
Everyone laughed. “They’re both old family names,” Ellie said. “Mycroft is from the Scottish branch of the family, a croft is a term for a parcel of land. Sherlock is an old English surname having something to do with sheep shearing. Don’t ask me. They were Fitz’s ideas. Believe it or not, those were the least objectionable options I was presented with. I rather like them, myself. I enjoy unique names, which is fortunate, given my own.”
“I’m so used to the name that when other people comment on it, I hardly know what they’re talking about,” Dad said.
Ellie was looking down at Dad’s left hand, at his wedding ring. “When did you marry my son, John?” We were all a little surprised by the question. “I’m afraid my knowledge of the events of his life is somewhat scattershot.”
“Six years ago,” Dad said. “We’d been together for three years when he proposed.”
Ellie looked surprised. “He proposed?”
“Yes. I was just as surprised as you are.”
She shook her head. “The sea change in him – I just can’t overstate it.”
“He hasn’t changed so very much. He’s expanded. Accepted new aspects of himself that he’d written off as irrelevant. In essence I think he’s just as he always has been. Insufferable, condescending, and impossible,” Dad said, smiling.
“And would you have him change?” Ellie asked.
Dad sighed. “Not for anything.”
We sat there for a couple of hours, just talking. Mum told some funny stories about decomposed bodies (you’d be surprised how many of those stories she has), Dad showed Ellie some more photographs, and we had rum toddies and everyone got a bit tipsy, including me.
It almost felt like Christmas. But every time I’d catch Dad’s eyes when we were laughing, we’d both hesitate and our laughter would die off a little, because we’d remember our missing piece.
I hope wherever he is, he knows how much we miss him. I hope they’re at least having Christmas crackers at Evilco or wherever he’s being held. Maybe some egg nog? I hope they are treating him well. I hope he has the kind of tea he likes.
Merry Christmas, Sherlock. I love you.
Next Entry
Author: MadLori
Length: 4000
Genre: Family, humor, shameless fluff, although quite angsty of late
Pairing: Sherlock/John (established), John/OFC (referenced, in the past)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Teenagerfic
Summary:We weren’t feeling very festive. We hadn’t even managed to get the tree up this year. Mum had hung up our stockings like usual, but then there was That Awkward Moment when she hesitated over hanging up Sherlock’s. She hung it up anyway. I caught Dad staring at it later that night.
Genie's blog stars here: 1 September
The Blog of Eugenia H. Watson, A Right Jolly Old Elf
24 December
Merry fucking Christmas.
The holidays have really sucked around here this year. I don’t need to tell you why. Mum and Dad are making an effort to let things be merry, but we’ve gone through almost the whole month of December with the shadow of Sherlock’s disappearance over us. I’ve been walking around with a semi-permanent resentful sneer on my face. Stop that singing. Take down those lights. How dare you shove holiday merriment in my face? Don’t you know Sherlock is missing? Don’t you know my dad is miserable? Don’t you know my whole family is staggering and exhausted and worried?
But the rest of the world seems to want to still have Christmas in spite of what’s going on with us, so Christmas it is. Bloody wankers.
Not that Sherlock is terribly involved in Christmas when he’s here. Oh, he gets us gifts and opens his own, he goes to the family gatherings, but mostly he ignores the rest of the goings-on. It’s not that his absence has such an effect on holiday festivities. It’s that his absence affects everything else.
There is a bit of a bright spot, though – at least I think it’s a bright spot.
We have an unexpected house guest for the holidays.
This afternoon we were doing the traditional pre-Christmas gift-wrapping marathon. These were the gifts for other people, like Adele and Lily and Roger and everyone else. Traditionally we spent Christmas Eve at home, just us, and then Christmas Day we’d go to Nana and Grandpa’s for Christmas dinner, followed by massive gift-opening extravaganza.
We weren’t feeling very festive. We hadn’t even managed to get the tree up this year. Mum had hung up our stockings like usual, but then there was That Awkward Moment when she hesitated over hanging up Sherlock’s. She hung it up anyway. I caught Dad staring at it later that night.
So we sat around the dining room table with the paper and the ribbon and scissors and tape and wrapped up Grandpa’s book, and Roger’s knife-sharpener, and everything else. I’d gotten a rainbow-patterned picture frame for Estelle and put a photo of her and me at Pride in it. Then there were toys for Emily and baby board books for Cillian and damn, there were lots of presents.
Dad pulled out a flat black box and stared at it for a moment, turning it around in his hands. I met his eyes and I knew that it was his Christmas gift to Sherlock. I held out my hand and he passed it over.
Inside the box was a beautiful Patek Phillipe pocket watch on a long filigreed chain. It was very modern, looked like a stainless steel housing, the mechanics visible and the watch face stark and minimalist. It would suit Sherlock perfectly. “Oh, Dad,” I said, Mum leaning over my shoulder to look. “This is gorgeous.”
“He hates wearing a wristwatch, so I thought…” He shrugged. “I thought he would like it.”
I flipped open the back. Sure enough, it was engraved. Your blogger, always. Love, JW I smiled and looked up at Dad. “He’ll love it, Dad.” He just nodded. “Let’s wrap it up and put it under the…oh. Well, with the other presents.”
I handed the watch back to Dad and he wrapped it up. My own present for Sherlock – a new scarf that I had painstakingly knit myself under Metsy’s less-than-patient tutelage – would seem paltry in comparison, although Mum had put my name on a gift for him that she’d bought, a cunning little palm-sized HD video recorder.
We were just about finished when someone knocked on the door. We all looked at each other. “Anyone expected?” Dad asked.
“Not that I know of,” Mum said.
“It’s probably Zack or something,” I said, and got up to answer it. I trotted downstairs and opened the door.
It was not Zack.
The woman on the step had one of those “ready to deliver a friendly greeting” canned smiles on her face, but when she saw it was me, it faltered a bit. She stared at me with unabashed interest. I couldn’t help but stare back.
She was just a little taller than me, slender, and of indeterminate age. She had to be at least sixty but could have been much older. Her hair was pure snow white and cut brutally short; her face was lined but full of life. She was – well, she was very striking, with high cheekbones and a mouthful of straight, white teeth.
She was dressed in jeans tucked into knee-high boots that had seen a lot of wear. She had on a dark green thermal shirt under a frayed barn jacket and had a bright red kerchief tied at her neck. She was wearing a large pendant, a fossilized conch shell, on a long leather cord. She looked like an adventurer, like she’d just stepped out of a Jeep or out of the cargo hold of a plane in an Indiana Jones movie. She looked like what Amelia Earhart might have looked like if she’d lived another thirty years.
Then I looked in her eyes. Large and wide-set, a changeable shade of verdigris, not blue or gray or green but all three at once. I knew that color. I knew those eyes.
Sherlock.
“Genie?” she said, her eyebrows going up. “Oh…are you Genie?” Her accent was very posh, her voice throaty and cultured.
“Yes,” I said.
The woman abruptly stepped over the threshold and hugged me. She smelled like old leather and classrooms. I just stood there, sort of stunned. She pulled back, keeping her hands on my upper arms, now beaming a wide smile. “You’re so beautiful,” she said, a hint of pride in this declaration.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I knew.
“My name is Ellie Forsythe. I’m…” She took a breath and let it out. “I suppose you could say I’m your grandmother.”
“My grandmother?” Her name had thrown me.
“Once upon a time, my name was Ellie Forsythe Holmes, dear. I’m Sherlock’s mother.”
My mouth was just hanging open. “Uh…I…well…” Great first impression, Eugenia. Really ripping.
She didn’t seem fazed. “I know this is terribly sudden, and rather rude of me to just show up like this. Mycroft didn’t give me much notice. I gather he didn’t tell you I was coming, did he?”
“No, he really, really didn’t.” I was gathering my composure. And my guard was going back up. “So you’re – Sherlock’s mother?”
She picked right up on the note of suspicion in my voice. “Oh, Mycroft said I’m to tell you ‘Stradivarius.’”
I relaxed. “Oh. All right. Thanks. Well, gosh! I’m a little overwhelmed! Um, come in, won’t you?” She came in and I shut the door behind her. We just stood there for a moment, staring at each other. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know what to say right now,” I said.
“It’s all right. I know I’ve caught you a bit wrong-footed.” She sobered. “And at a difficult time.”
“So you know, then? About Sherlock?’
She nodded. “In a way, that’s why I’m here. Finally.” I opened my mouth again but she spoke before I could get a word out. “I know you must have loads of questions, Genie. I’ll be happy to answer them all as best I can. But right now…” She swallowed hard. “I’d very much like to meet my son-in-law.”
At that very moment, the door upstairs opened and Dad came to the landing. “Genie, who was at the…” He stopped short when he saw Ellie. She went still, staring up at him.
“John?” she said, in a near-whisper.
Dad looked like he was seeing a ghost, or a made-up person sprung to life before him. “You – you’re Sherlock’s mother,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You know me?”
He came down the stairs. “I think I’d know you anywhere,” he said, a note of wonderment in his voice. A tiny, shaky smile touched the corners of his mouth. “He has your eyes.”
They stared at each other for a few long beats, then all at once they were hugging, a whole-body hug like they were long-lost relations finding each other again. Which, I guess, they sort of were. Ellie finally pulled back, sniffling and wiping her eyes. She put her hands on Dad’s face. “Oh, you dear man,” she said. “I’ve wanted so long to know you.”
Dad nodded. “Likewise. I guess you’ve met Genie, my…our daughter,” he said.
“Oh, yes.” She put her arm around my shoulders. Her manner was disarming and easy. I was already starting to feel like she was one of the family. How on earth had she raised two sons who were both so intimidating and standoffish? Their father must have been quite the piece of work.
“Come upstairs, meet Grace. And we have some things to talk about.”
We went upstairs. There was another round of introductions and hugs with Mum, then there was tea and confusion and finally we all got ourselves settled in the lounge. Ellie was looking at some of the family photos on the mantelpiece. Mum and Dad’s wedding. Me on my first day of school. Me and Sherlock at my first chess tournament. Me, Dad and Sherlock at Pride. Her eyes lingered on that one, I noticed.
“I feel as though I’ve been here before,” she said, looking around. “And I feel like I know you, all of you. Sherlock speaks of you so often. Especially you, John.”
Dad shifted uncomfortably. “I wish I could say that he’s spoken to us about you. I’ve asked, Genie’s asked, we’ve both wondered why we haven’t met you before now.”
“Don’t blame him for that, it was my request. I’m an absolutely dreadful mother. I’m never around, I come and go as I please and I’m impossible to contact. I raised my boys to adulthood, and then I pursued my own interests. To most people, my refusal to lay my own life on the altar of motherhood makes me a reprehensible creature. I made my peace with that long ago, and so did my sons, but I had no wish to inflict it upon their families. In addition, for the past twenty years I have not been allowed into the country. This visit is being conducted ex officio, so to speak.”
Dad and I exchanged a glance. “You haven’t been allowed into the country?”
Ellie smiled, and it gave me a jolt, because it was that same smile, the smirky half-smile that I’d so often seen on Sherlock’s face. “The British government once took great exception to my sharing of so-called proprietary historical information with the outside world. I face arrest if I’m discovered here.”
“Sorry, but what exactly is ‘proprietary historical information?’” Mum asked.
Ellie sat down. “Perhaps I ought to explain my vocation. I travel the world seeking items and information of historical value.”
The pieces clicked in my head. “You’re a treasure hunter?”
She laughed. “You could say that. But I don’t hunt gold pieces or precious relics. I hunt for truth. Humanity’s truth. The missing pieces in the intellectual and creative development of our species. You’d be amazed of all the things we don’t understand about what we knew and thought, and when. Just as an example, I’ve just come from Tunisia. One of my colleagues thinks he may have discovered evidence that there was contact between Europe and the Far East a good five hundred years earlier than it is thought to have first occurred. If it’s true, it could explain a lot of things.”
I was fascinated. “You’re a historical detective!”
“That’s one way of putting it, perhaps. Sherlock has occasionally helped me, when the situation has required his skills.” She folded her hands beneath her chin, another gesture reminiscent of Sherlock, reminiscent enough that I felt Dad shudder next to me. “I’ve so often wanted to meet you, all of you. I haven’t seen Sherlock or Mycroft in person for well over a decade. My restrictions are often difficult to bear. Detachment from my family has been the price I’ve paid for the work I do.”
Dad sniffed. “You’re married to the work. That’s what Sherlock used to say. But he’s done it. He still does his work and he has a family. It can be done. You could do it, too.”
She gave him a sad smile. “Not everyone’s lucky enough to meet a John Watson to lead them to a better life, I’m afraid.”
“You don’t need to meet your own John Watson,” Dad said. He reached out and grasped her hand. “You’ve got the original, right here. You can’t be a tougher nut to crack than he was.”
“No, but I think he might object if you used the same techniques on me,” she said, her eyes twinkling with laughter. Dad flushed. “It’s too late for me, John. I appreciate the thought. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“If it’s news of Sherlock you want, we’ve none to give you. We’ve had no new information since his video chat with Genie last week.”
“I didn’t come in search of news. I came to bring you some.”
We all looked at each other. “You have news?” Dad said.
“Nothing specific. But when Mycroft told me his suspicions about the sort of people who had Sherlock – well, I think I know what he means. In the course of my work, I’ve dealt with just about every government on the planet, and the UN as well. Over the years I’ve gotten the sense that there’s something else at work, behind the scenes. Moving the pieces around the board. I’ve had occasions when I was stymied by a bureaucratic roadblock or a diplomatic incompatibility, and then suddenly with no explanation, the access or the information I need is dropped into my lap. I’ve had people I desperately needed to consult suddenly appear, as well as suddenly disappear. I’ve had the sense of events being manipulated, at a very high level, much higher than any single government.”
“What are you telling us?” Mum asked.
“That there’s a group. Maybe a network of groups. Maybe it’s individuals. I don’t know. There’s no name. There’s no headquarters, no secret underground lair. They’re just – out there. Moving the chess pieces. Sometimes making sure things go well, other times making sure they go badly. This is all very vague, I know. I’ve got nothing to show you, no evidence, no proof. No one ever does. But anybody who works globally, as I do, knows what I’m talking about.”
I reached out and took Dad’s hand. He gripped my fingers back right away. “What can we do?” he asked, sounding like he already knew the answer.
Ellie sighed, her eyes wet. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, John. I don’t know any more than you do about these – people. I don’t know who they are or what they want or where they have him, or why they want him.”
“I know why they want him,” Dad said. “Because he’s the best.”
“Yes, he is,” Ellie said.
“They just better give him back.” Dad’s jaw clenched.
We all sat there in silence for a moment. Finally, Ellie spoke, her tone more cheerful. “Well. I know how we all feel about Sherlock. But I confess, I’m still happy to be here and to be meeting you. I would like to get to know you, if I can.”
Dad brightened a little. “We’d like that.”
She reached out and took Dad’s hands. “John, I – I hardly know what to say to you. Sherlock showed me a photo of you once, but you’re even more handsome in person.” Dad blushed again and ducked his head. “You must be a miracle worker, or at the very least a candidate for sainthood. You’ve done what I never imagined any person could do. You’ve made my son happy.”
He looked up and met her eyes. “He’s made me happy.”
She smirked. “Something else I never would have believed possible. I know Sherlock. I never thought he’d be part of a family, not even the one he was born into. And the idea of him being a father – well, it’s a terrible thing to say about your own child, but I would not have thought him capable.”
“He’s a good father,” I said.
“I’m glad to hear it. He’s certainly very proud of you.” She looked around at us. “I know I’ve dropped in you very unexpectedly, and it’s Christmas Eve. I don’t wish to interrupt your holiday plans.”
“Our plans don’t amount to much this year,” Mum said. “None of us can really muster up much holiday cheer.”
Ellie nodded. “I hope it’s not too presumptuous of me to ask, but…”
“Ellie,” Dad said, stopping her. “We’d be thrilled if you’d stay with us and share the holiday. I know for me – it would help.” He swallowed hard. “It’d be like having something of him here.”
And so I got a new grandmother for Christmas.
I hate to say it, but we were almost cheerful around the dining room table that night. Since Christmas was such a home-cooked holiday, our tradition was to get takeaway on Christmas Eve, usually Chinese. Ellie found this delightful, and to have her sitting in Sherlock’s habitual chair felt nice.
I was a little in awe of her, actually. Unless she’d started out as a teenager, she had to be nearly eighty years old. Sherlock was fifty, and Mycroft seven years older. She didn’t look much older than sixty, though, and seemed to have boundless energy. “So, Ellie,” Dad said. “Is it Eleanor?”
She shook her head. “Elspeth, actually. A lovely, stuffy old name. I’m rather fond of it.”
“Sherlock’s spoken of you in very vague terms,” he said. “He’s never told me much about his family, apart from Mycroft.”
“There isn’t much of a family left. Do you know anything about his father?”
“Just that he died when Sherlock was a teenager,” Dad said. Huh. That was more than I’d known.
Ellie nodded. “Our marriage was like something out of a Regency novel, I swear. The Holmes family was exceedingly rich but had only one male child, Fitzwilliam. Yes,” she said, smiling at me as my mouth gaped open, “like Mr. Darcy. Don’t think that wasn’t intentional,” she said, with a bit of an eyeroll. “He was Fitz to his friends, what few he had. His parents were dead set on marrying him to some woman with an aristocratic lineage. I had that but my family was by no means rich. I was twenty-two when I met Fitz. I’d dropped out of university and had spent two years traveling Africa with Doctors Without Borders trying to avoid my family. Bloody snobs, the lot of them. They caught me when I came home for a family funeral. It was a long shot, to be sure, but I liked Fitz. He was a nightmare socially. Cold and unfriendly and superior. But if you could get past that, he was the smartest person I’d ever met, and I like a challenge. He fell wildly in love with me. I agreed to marry him.”
“You agreed?” I said. “You didn’t love him?”
“I did, in a way. Remember, my dear, it was 1965. I was more or less resigned to having to marry someone at some point. Fitz wouldn’t expect me to be a dutiful homebound wife. He promised me as much freedom as he could give me to explore my interests, and quite frankly, his financial support would be a big plus.”
“You married him for his money,” Dad said, neutrally.
“That sounds so mercenary,” Ellie sighed. “It wasn’t the only reason. I won’t claim it wasn’t a ticky mark in his favor. I was fond of Fitz. I grew to love him more as he made good on what he’d promised me, even participated in his way. Mycroft was born in 1969, then Sherlock in 1976. They are both the image of their father, each in their way, although I like to think that Sherlock gets his sense of justice and his stubbornness from me.”
“Oh, so it’s your fault,” Dad said, smiling.
“Sherlock looks like you,” I said.
“In the face, perhaps. In his height and build he is his father’s son, for certain. Fitz died when Sherlock was fifteen. Mycroft was not much affected. He and Fitz never got on very well. Sherlock felt the loss greatly, but he subverted it into other things. It was then that he began throwing himself into the study of – well, everything. I always felt that he thought if he’d known enough, if he could see enough, then he would have been able to spot his father’s illness before it was advanced enough to take his life. And he’s been trying to make up for it ever since.”
Dad had a stricken look on his face. “Dad, what?” I said, putting a hand on his arm.
“Sherlock doesn’t pay much attention to anybody’s physical state, most of all his own, but – he sometimes is preoccupied with my health. He’ll ask me if I’ve had a checkup, he’ll notice if I’m lightheaded, or if I’m sore anywhere.”
Ellie nodded. “As I said. Making up for it.”
We all fell silent for a moment. “I have a question,” I said. “What the devil made you give them those names?”
Everyone laughed. “They’re both old family names,” Ellie said. “Mycroft is from the Scottish branch of the family, a croft is a term for a parcel of land. Sherlock is an old English surname having something to do with sheep shearing. Don’t ask me. They were Fitz’s ideas. Believe it or not, those were the least objectionable options I was presented with. I rather like them, myself. I enjoy unique names, which is fortunate, given my own.”
“I’m so used to the name that when other people comment on it, I hardly know what they’re talking about,” Dad said.
Ellie was looking down at Dad’s left hand, at his wedding ring. “When did you marry my son, John?” We were all a little surprised by the question. “I’m afraid my knowledge of the events of his life is somewhat scattershot.”
“Six years ago,” Dad said. “We’d been together for three years when he proposed.”
Ellie looked surprised. “He proposed?”
“Yes. I was just as surprised as you are.”
She shook her head. “The sea change in him – I just can’t overstate it.”
“He hasn’t changed so very much. He’s expanded. Accepted new aspects of himself that he’d written off as irrelevant. In essence I think he’s just as he always has been. Insufferable, condescending, and impossible,” Dad said, smiling.
“And would you have him change?” Ellie asked.
Dad sighed. “Not for anything.”
We sat there for a couple of hours, just talking. Mum told some funny stories about decomposed bodies (you’d be surprised how many of those stories she has), Dad showed Ellie some more photographs, and we had rum toddies and everyone got a bit tipsy, including me.
It almost felt like Christmas. But every time I’d catch Dad’s eyes when we were laughing, we’d both hesitate and our laughter would die off a little, because we’d remember our missing piece.
I hope wherever he is, he knows how much we miss him. I hope they’re at least having Christmas crackers at Evilco or wherever he’s being held. Maybe some egg nog? I hope they are treating him well. I hope he has the kind of tea he likes.
Merry Christmas, Sherlock. I love you.
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