Fic: The Cuckoo's Lullaby, 4/17
Jul. 12th, 2014 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swissmargTitle: The Cuckoo's Lullaby
Author:
swissmarg
Beta readers:ruth0007, 
dioscureantwins, special thanks to ladyprydian for medical advice
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 Four on AO3
They end up having a late lunch in the restaurant next to the toboggan run. The waitress gives them a kids' menu with pictures of all the choices, which Tristram is happy about because it means he doesn't have to rely on Father to translate anything.
Emily chooses the 'poulet nuggets', which, going by the picture, are actually chicken nuggets. 'Poulet', Father tells them - although he says 'poo-lay', which sends Tristram and Emily into a fit of giggles - is French for chicken, so that makes sense. The picture Tristram picks shows a piece of breaded meat with a huge pile of chips. It says 'schnipo' next to it, which stumps Father for a while until he reads the description.
"Ah, schnitzel and pommes frites," he declares triumphantly, even though that makes exactly as much sense to Tristram as 'schnipo'.
"Schnitzel, that's the meat," Doctor Watson explains. "And pommes frites" - he says 'pom freet' - "is French for chips. It means fried potatoes."
"I thought the people here spoke German," Tristram says. This is something that has been bothering him ever since they arrived. At the airport, Father said they spoke German, but since then there's been an awful lot of French.
"They do," Father says.
"Then why did you speak French to the lady at the airport and the man at the hotel?" Tristram wants to know.
"Because my French is much better than my German, and anyone dealing with the public here can be expected to speak French."
"You see, Tris, Switzerland has more than one language, like Canada," Doctor Watson explains. "Except here, they speak German in one part of the country and French in the other part."
"Italian and Romansh as well, if we're being thorough," Father mentions.
Doctor Watson raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Really? Romantsch, what... is that an actual language?"
"Nearly dead, but yes."
"But everyone also speaks English," Emily points out with a furrow of confusion on her forehead. "Why don't they get rid of German and French and everything else? They don't need it."
"Quite right," Father says, nodding at her in acknowledgment. "But people are generally idiots."
"But why do you have to speak German or French to them at all?" Emily presses. "The man at the hotel spoke English to us. And so did the lady before."
"And the man at the toboggans," Tristram adds. Although he didn't speak it very well. Still, it must count.
"Because Sherlock is an incorrigible show-off," Doctor Watson says with a broad smile. At Father's scowl, Doctor Watson raises his hands. "Not that I'm complaining. I think it's -" He clears his throat and his tongue flicks over his bottom lip. "I appreciate your talent at languages," he tells Father diplomatically, still grinning.
Father does a funny frowny-smiley thing with his face, like he's trying not to look pleased.
When the food comes - with cooked carrots and peas, which Emily wrinkles her nose at but John insists she eat - Tristram is confronted with the problem of how to tackle the huge piece of meat, since he can't cut it with one hand. Rather than ask someone to cut it for him - which he's much too old for - he decides to just spear the entire thing with his fork and bite off the edges. It works excellently, and he is much pleased. He can't help, though, teasing Emily about eating nuggets made of poo. She opens her mouth and gives him a good look at the chewed-up mass in retaliation. Tristram decides he's not very keen on ever eating chicken nuggets again.
Father has noodles with a creamy white meat sauce, and Doctor Watson orders a big white sausage with some unhappy looking cabbagey stuff on the side. He also gets a couple of thick slices of dark bread with it. He does the same thing as Tristram and picks up the whole sausage on his fork so he can take a bite off the end. Father watches him, both wary and cautiously fascinated.
"John really, that's childish," he says after a bit, scooping up a big forkful of his own meal and shoving it into his mouth. Father doesn't have the best table manners, as Grandmother has often pointed out.
"What?" Doctor Watson asks with his mouth full. Apparently he doesn't either.
Father waves his now empty fork at him. "That. It's- Oh for heaven's sake, cut it up first," he grumbles, looking away as Doctor Watson takes another bite.
Doctor Watson looks puzzled as he chews. He peers at his sausage, then his expression lightens and he sets it down, his eyes twinkling.
"My God, Sherlock," he says, chuckling, "speaking of childish. It is a sausage. This is how one eats a sausage."
"In a..." He pauses and glances at Tristram and Emily. "...certain type of film, perhaps," he mutters.
Doctor Watson's grin becomes even bigger, but he picks up his knife and starts cutting his sausage up. "Properly," he says, as if he's just settled something very important. Perhaps he has. He also mentioned doing something properly last night. Tristram thought he meant kissing, but now he seems to be talking about how to eat a sausage. Honestly, Tristram thinks you can eat it either way. But Grandmother would probably say cutting it up is more proper than biting it off too.
Father glances at Doctor Watson, then back at his food. "Childish," he mutters again, but Tristram can see the corners of his mouth fighting not to smile.
Tristram decides he hasn't any hope of understanding what they are talking about, and dedicates himself to his own lunch once more.
Their meals come with a serving of ice cream in a tall glass with chocolate sauce and whipped cream on top and a rolled-up biscuit stuck in it. It's funny to be eating ice cream in the middle of winter surrounded by snow, but somehow that makes it taste extra good.
Emily digs around in her glass to get the last of the sugary liquid in the bottom. "Tonight, we can move our things around so you and your dad can have the bedroom," she reminds Tristram.
Doctor Watson shifts in his seat, glances at Father next to him, and says, "Actually, Em, we'd like to try it with Sherlock and me in the bedroom tonight, and the two of you on the couch." He rests his arms on the table and smiles mildly, looking first at Tristram then at Emily. Father has his arm hung loosely over the back of Doctor Watson's chair. He looks down at his shirt, which still has some damp spots from their snowball fight-stroke-wrestling match.
Tristram is ... He doesn't know what he is. Surprised? Not at the sentiment behind the request, not at this point. At the forthrightness, yes. Tristram sort of thought they'd all continue not openly acknowledging what was going on. But after the pictures of them kissing came out, Doctor Watson had said he wanted to sit down with them and talk about it. And here they are, all sitting down.
Doctor Watson raises his eyebrows and lets out a long breath. He looks round at Father, who doesn't give him any help, then back at Emily and Tristram. "Okay, well, I didn't mean to put quite that much of a damper on things. If everyone hates the idea so much-"
"What if I wake up in the middle of the night?" Emily asks in a small voice.
"I'll be right there, Ems," her father assures her. "It'll be like when we stayed at their flat. Remember? You and Tris upstairs in his room and Sherlock and I downstairs? Only I'll be even closer. Right in the next room."
It won't be exactly like when the Watsons were at their flat, Tristram thinks. Because Father and Doctor Watson didn't sleep in the same room there. Unless you count Father curling up on the floor next to the couch. Which, actually, Tristram supposes he has to. And maybe Doctor Watson sleeping in Father's room as well, because the jury is still out as to where his father spent that night.
"What if I have a bad dream?" Emily asks, her voice steadier but still needy.
"You can knock on the door and I'll come out and help you. But only if it's really a bad dream, or if you or Tris are sick." Doctor Watson looks at Tristram too, including him in the rule.
Tristram knows that rule already, because Father told it to him when they were at Grandmother's: he's not to open a closed door without permission unless it's an emergency. A nightmare, even a bad one, doesn't qualify as an emergency. At least not for Father. But Doctor Watson apparently has a different perspective. Tristram also knows why they have the rule. Father and Doctor Watson want privacy so they can kiss and hug, and maybe look at each other like they did in that last picture.
"What about you, Tris? You have any concerns?" Doctor Watson asks him.
Tristram glances quickly at Father, who's watching him like he's hoovering up every bit of information with his eyes. His main concern, always, is where his father is, but that's been answered. Secondary to that is the state of his father's health, but he presumes there won't be much opportunity for him to be injured while he's shut up in a bedroom with Doctor Watson. Having a nightmare isn't really a concern. His father never does anything for him when that happens anyway. Well, all right, sometimes he'll play his violin, but he doesn't have his violin here so that's a moot point. And he knows if he's really, really upset, or hurt, or sick, the same goes for him as for Emily: knock and one of them will come out. So, no, he doesn't really have any concerns. As Doctor Watson said, it will be just like when he and Emily stayed at their flat. And that was actually fun, aside from the whole walking in on their fathers in the living room part, but that can't happen here because there will be a door between them, and everyone's in agreement as to where everyone else should - and wants to - be.
And so that evening, when they shift their things around. Tristram understands - and he thinks Emily does too - that this isn't just to try it out. This will be the order of things for the rest of their holiday.
Doctor Watson goes with him into the bathroom so he can check Tristram's back again. The scabs on his knees and elbows from crawling across the broken glass on the floor have almost all fallen off. His hair protected his scalp fairly well, so the cuts there haven't even needed to be checked at all after the first three days.
Doctor Watson puts on a pair of surgical gloves and takes all of the bandages off Tristram's back. Every day there are fewer, as more of the cuts close over, but the three big ones with the stitches still need to be kept covered so his clothes don't catch on the threads in his skin.
"Do you want to see?" Doctor Watson asks.
Tristram does. When it first happened, he was alarmed at the thought of all those pieces of glass in his back, and at all the blood, but Father took pictures of his injuries the next day, after everything was tidied and sewn up but before the surgery on his hand. He was so intrigued by the patterns he said he saw that Tristram decided he wanted to see them too. And when Father showed him the pictures, it really was interesting. With all the blood cleaned away and just the thin red lines left, it was like one of Grandmother's paintings.
Father also made sure the doctors saved the pieces of glass they took out of his back. The vast majority were tiny slivers, but some were big enough to pick up without even using tweezers. Tristram imagines he must have looked like a hedgehog. And then there were three pieces that were as long as the blade of a pocket knife. Those were the ones that left cuts deep enough to need stitches.
He and Father were planning on working together on reconstructing the pattern of which pieces of glass made which cuts based on Father's pictures once he got home. Now that's going to have to wait even longer. He wonders all of a sudden where the pieces of glass ever got to. Hopefully Father took them home and put them in a safe place before they had to leave.
Doctor Watson takes a picture of Tristram's back with his phone, then gives it to Tristram to look at.
"Looks pretty good," Doctor Watson says. "I'm just a little concerned about this here." He presses carefully on a spot along Tristram's left shoulder blade. Judging by the picture on the phone, it's one of the three that needed stitches. There's a little burst of pain at Doctor Watson's touch. Dull, though, not sharp like when the glass was in there. "Does that hurt?" Doctor Watson asks.
"A little. Not so much," Tristram tells him.
"How about here?" Doctor Watson touches another spot lower down. Tristram compares the picture on the phone. That must be the second stitched-up cut. It's sore but not painful. Tristram shakes his head.
The third one, also on his left side but closer to the middle, doesn't hurt either. Given that the worst cuts were along the left side of his back, Tristram thinks he must have been angled with his left side more exposed to the window than his right, even though it was his right hand that was hit by the bullet. He's pleased at the thought, since that's a deduction just like his father would make.
Doctor Watson puts a salve from his kit onto all of the cuts, then covers them with fresh bandages again and goes out so Tristram can finish getting himself ready for bed.
When Tristram comes out of the bathroom, Emily and Doctor Watson are sitting together on the couch bed with their legs stretched out in front of them. Doctor Watson has his arm looped around Emily's shoulder, and Emily is holding the Goblet of Fire book open on her lap. They're looking at one of the pictures together. Father is sitting on one of the armchairs to the side. He has his legs stretched out too, so that they're resting on the foot of the bed. He's doing something on his phone, not exactly part of the group, but present.
Tristram isn't sure where he's supposed to fit in. He finds a spot at the bottom of the bed next to his father's feet, but facing Doctor Watson and Emily.
Doctor Watson looks up from the book. "Come on up here, Tris," he says, raising his arm on the side opposite Emily in invitation. Tristram glances at his father. He'd almost rather sit down here, near him, but Father doesn't look like he's paying any attention to the rest of them. Tristram crawls awkwardly up the bed and slots himself in next to Doctor Watson. Due to the limited amount of space, he doesn't really have much choice other than to press right up against Doctor Watson's side, but it seems that's what he intended, as he wraps his arm around Tristram's shoulder the same way he's done with Emily.
"Right," he says cheerfully. "I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to seeing who ends up being chosen as Hogwarts' champion."
"Harry, of course," Emily says.
"I thought he was too young," Doctor Watson objects.
"He'll take some of the twins' aging potion or something," Emily says dismissively.
"I don't know..." Doctor Watson hedges.
"It's got to be Harry," Tristram says. He doesn't know how Harry manages it, but it's going to be him.
"Why?" Doctor Watson asks.
"Look at the cover." Tristram nods at the book in Emily's lap.
Emily turns the book round so they can see the cover, holding her finger in between the pages so they don't lose their place. As Tristram said, there is clearly a picture of Harry, on a broomstick, competing in one of the Triwizard Tournament tasks.
"Ha! Yeah, all right," Doctor Watson agrees. "Pretty clever." He gives Tristram's shoulder a gentle squeeze, being careful not to press on any of the bandages he just put on. Tristram glances at his father again, but he's still staring at his phone. "But how he does it..." Doctor Watson wonders.
"Read it!" Emily says impatiently, holding the book up to him.
"How about you hold it for me, Ems. My hands are a bit full at the moment," he says wryly.
So she does, and Doctor Watson starts to read. Tristram is the kind of listener who follows along with his eyes if he has the text in front of him, so it doesn't take long before he's leaning closer in order to be able to see the page better. He likes the way Doctor Watson reads. He doesn't read too fast - not the way Father did, actually, that one time he read to them up in Tristram's room back home - and he does all the voices so well that Tristram can tell who's supposed to be talking even without the names. He's a little embarrassed to find, when the chapter draws to a close, that he's ended up with his head resting on Doctor Watson's shoulder and his cast lying on Doctor Watson's leg. It turns out that there's not actually anything in that chapter about the Triwizard Tournament and who's going to be the champion for Hogwarts, so Emily pleads with her father to read the next chapter too.
Doctor Watson flips through the pages. At first Tristram thinks he's just checking to see how long the chapter is, but then he takes his arm off Tristram's shoulder and closes the book. "No," Doctor Watson says, "we're going to skip the next chapter. I'll tell you what happens, but I'm not going to read it."
"Why not?" Emily asks indignantly. Tristram is also immediately and hugely curious.
Doctor Watson shifts around a bit so he can see Emily better. That means the reason he doesn't want to read it is because of Emily. "Because they talk about something very sad happening," he says.
"It's not real," Emily says promptly, as if Doctor Watson might have forgotten.
He frowns a little. "I know, but sometimes a story like this can remind you of something that is real and make you sad too."
Tristram knows exactly what he means. In one of the earlier chapters, Death Eaters kidnapped some Muggle children and were hurting them. That made Tristram think about him and Emily being kidnapped. It even (possibly) made him have a nightmare that mixed up his real memories of the man who tied him to the chair with the imaginary scene in the book.
"I won't be sad, I promise!" Emily begs, but Doctor Watson is not to be moved.
"I don't think you can really control that. Look, it... " He sighs a little, apparently seeing he's going to have to be straight with her. "It tells about when Harry's parents died. It's pretty vivid. I don't think that's a scene we need to paint in any greater colour."
"But we already know that," Emily scoffs.
"Yes, we know they died, but there's a difference knowing it as a vague fact and reading every detail as if you were there."
Tristram has never seen a murder occur, but he has seen crime scene photos, and he finds himself agreeing with Doctor Watson, at least on the principle. Knowing that someone has died is just words. Seeing the protruding tongue, the glassy eyes, the wet and glistening insides on the outside... that lands in your stomach and pinches your throat. Whether or not it would be disturbing to read about the deaths of Harry Potter's parents is another issue. He doesn't think it would be, for him, but he can see how Doctor Watson might think it would be for Emily. Even if her mother wasn't killed by an evil wizard.
"The imagination often conjures up far worse images than reality," Father interjects. Tristram jerks his head up to look at him. He almost forgot he was sitting there.
"Not helping here, Sherlock," Doctor Watson mutters.
"You've made the decision to read the book with them, you can't back down." Father settles himself more comfortably in his chair. Tristram recognises the body language as a signal that he's preparing for an argument he's confident of winning.
"I'm not backing down," Doctor Watson says defensively. "I just feel that this particular scene is of a particularly sensitive nature and it won't do us any harm to skip over it and continue from there."
"Because of what happened to Mary." It's not a question. It's a statement of obvious fact. The only time Father states obvious facts is when he wants to point out what idiots other people are.
"Yes," Doctor Watson agrees. "Because of that." The way he says it makes it sound as if he thinks Father's the one who's being an idiot at the moment.
"And you think - what, hearing how some fictional mother is fictionally murdered will somehow trigger a trauma that the actual murder of her actual mother failed to?" Father asks, as if that's the stupidest thing he's ever heard of, and Tristram knows for a fact he's heard of some spectacularly stupid things.
"Jesus, why don't we all just read the damn thing!" Doctor Watson explodes and throws his arms up in the air.
Father raises his eyebrows and looks back down at his phone. "Yes, why don't you?" he says mildly. "Would have been much less bother."
Doctor Watson looks like he's about to rip Father a new one. That's what one of Sebastian's friends said after Doctor Watson scared them away that day way back long ago outside the school: 'I thought that old man was gonna rip you a new one!' Tristram likes the sound of the phrase, even if he doesn't know what new one is to be ripped (and he doesn't think Doctor Watson is that old, even if he does have grey hair and lines on his face). He's also not sure Doctor Watson is looking at Father in exactly the same way that he looked at Sebastian and his friends. There's less menace and more disappointment. Or frustration. Something uncomfortable, anyway, something that Tristram doesn't like seeing in the lines around Doctor Watson's eyes.
"I don't mind if we don't read it," Tristram volunteers.
Tristram will read it on his own, anyway. He's curious now. But he needn't mention that. He doesn't realise that he's sided with Doctor Watson against his own father until after the words are out. He didn't mean to do that. He was just trying to fix the unhappiness he saw in Doctor Watson's face. He glances apprehensively at Father, but he seems to have tuned them out again.
"I don't either," Emily agrees, stoutly now, and maybe, Tristram considers, Father wasn't working against Doctor Watson after all.
Doctor Watson looks down at his daughter as if he'd momentarily forgotten she was there but at soon as he does, his displeasure crumbles into concern and guilt. "Oh Ems, I'm sorry." He turns more toward her and cups her head in his hand. "I'm the one who doesn't want to read it, all right?" he tells her gently. "It's me. It's... Sometimes I... I don't forget, I'll never forget. I'll never forget Mum and I'll never forget what happened, and why she died. But there are days when I don't think about it all the time. And just now, it reminded me, and it made me sad, and I didn't want you to be sad too. Okay?" Doctor Watson puts both arms around Emily and she puts her arms around him. He pulls her against his chest and holds her tight while she buries her face in his chest.
Tristram feels out of place. He wants to get out of bed, but where would he go? He looks over at his father, who is watching Doctor Watson and Emily with an inscrutable expression on his face. It's sort of the way he looked one time when Tristram had to stay home from school because he was sick, and Mrs Hudson stayed with him all day. She made him a nest on the couch and brought him broth and showed him how to make shadow animals on the wall. When Father came home late in the evening, Mrs Hudson was reading to Tristram with him curled up against her. Father stood in the doorway, just watching them for a few moments. Tristram didn't notice him at first, he'd come up so quietly, or maybe Tristram was feverish and not entirely alert. But he does remember the look on his father's face, seeing Tristram and Mrs Hudson sitting there like that. It was similar to how he looks now, watching Doctor Watson and Emily. Not sad, exactly, but it makes Tristram want to do something that will make Father smile. Tristram's never been very good at making Father smile, though. Oh, Father smiles at him - and with him - often enough, but Tristram's not good at eliciting it on purpose. Not like Doctor Watson is.
Eventually, Doctor Watson lets go. He pushes the hair back out of Emily's face. "Okay?"
Emily nods. "I try not to think about it, but I do sometimes. It didn't hurt her, did it?"
"No, you know what the coroner's report said. It was very fast. She didn't know what was happening, and she didn't feel anything," he assures her.
"Okay," Emily says, although she doesn't sound very reassured.
Tristram realises he doesn't actually know how Emily's mother died. He wonders if she does. Her father mentioned a coroner's report. Did she read it? Tristram would be a little surprised, if so; not even Father lets Tristram read the reports he gets from the police. He always has to sneak peeks when Father's out. But then none of them have concerned his mother. That he knows of, anyway. Perhaps if Tristram's mother were murdered, Father would let him see the report. But of course that won't happen because no one knows where she went off to after Tristram was born. Maybe she really is dead by now.
"Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of it," Doctor Watson is saying, "but there are enough horrors in real life without adding to them. Especially in this. And on that happy note, scoot under the covers, the both of you."
Doctor Watson slides down the bed to get up from the end. He gives Father's shin a brief, passing rub as he goes. Maybe he's not upset with Father after all. On the other hand, he doesn't say anything to him. Father reacts by taking his feet off the bed and standing up.
Tristram pulls his side of the cover up and next to him, Emily does the same. Despite the unhappy awakening this morning, the bed did turn out to be more comfortable than it looked like it would be when it was a couch. It's also big enough that they both have room to lie on their backs without touching each other, which is good because Tristram needs to have a bit of extra space for his cast. He carefully lays that arm on top of the cover as an extra precaution against Emily possibly rolling over onto it.
Doctor Watson goes to Emily's side and leans down to kiss her on the forehead. "Okay, Em, we'll be right in the next room," he says, rubbing his thumb over the spot where he kissed her. "So you keep it down to a dull roar out here. You too, Tris," Doctor Watson says, pointing at Tristram. "No yodeling." He looks completely serious.
Tristram would never even have thought of yodeling, but he nods and says, "Okay."
Maybe Doctor Watson wasn't so serious after all, or maybe that was some secret code between him and Emily, because she giggles and lets loose with a loud, sing-song "Yodel-ay-hee-hoo!"
Doctor Watson laughs and grabs her pillow out from under her head so he can swat her body with it through the cover. She shrieks with laughter and curls up to protect herself.
Tristram, catching the spirit, sits up, takes his pillow, and tries to whack Doctor Watson with it. He manages to get him on the arm once before Doctor Watson grabs the pillow away from him and looms over the bed with one pillow in each hand, threatening to wallop both of them at the same time. Tristram yelps and pulls back into the corner of the couch with his knees bent up. He's not scared though. This is fun. He knows Doctor Watson isn't really trying to hurt them. And anyway, it's just pillows.
"No, Daddy, don't!" Emily screams through her giggles. She writhes and twists, as if trying to find a position that will give her some protection.
Tristram hasn't been tracking Father during this time, but he notices now that he's standing by the door with his coat on and his hand on the handle, about to go out.
Doctor Watson must also hear him, or perhaps he saw where Tristram was looking. He turns around, lowering the pillows. "What's wrong?" he asks, immediately on alert.
"Nothing, I'm just going out for a bit." Father looks annoyed, perhaps at being asked to explain himself.
Doctor Watson tosses the pillows onto the bed, not paying attention to where they land. Tristram's thumps down onto his feet, but Emily's bounces off onto the floor. She quietly leans over the side of the bed to pick it up.
"All right," Doctor Watson says slowly, like he's trying to buy some time to figure out what Father's doing. "I wasn't going to be long." His body tenses, as if he's going to take a step forward, but he doesn't.
Father nods curtly. "I won't either." Then he slips out and closes the door with a soft click behind him.
Doctor Watson stands there, still facing the door, for a few moments. When he turns around, the laughter's gone out of his face, although he doesn't look sad, exactly. More frustrated.
"All right, monkeys," he says. Tristram can tell he's trying to be jolly, but it comes across strained. He picks Tristram's pillow up and passes it to him. "It's been a long day."
"Where's Sherlock going?" Emily asks in a thin voice.
"I've no idea," Doctor Watson says. He doesn't sound much more robust than her. "Out, apparently."
"He'll be back," Tristram says, finding that he wants to assure him. He doesn't like the way Doctor Watson went from laughing to frowning so fast, and he especially doesn't like that it seems to be because of Father. Father always, always comes back. It's just that he doesn't like to be cooped up inside for long when he doesn't have something to occupy him. The prospect of being shut up in the bedroom from now until morning is probably daunting for him. Even with Doctor Watson in there with him. It's not as if he could actually sleep for ten hours. There's not even a telly. Maybe they'll switch beds back again tomorrow. At least out here there's a table where he can sit and work, and the fridge and coffee maker and sink if he wants a drink. And if Father and Doctor Watson really want some privacy so they can kiss, they could just go in the bedroom for a few minutes while Emily and Tristram watch telly or something, and then come out when they're done. There's no need for them to be alone for hours and hours.
Doctor Watson frowns, distracted. He has his hand in his trouser pocket, and through the material Tristram can tell he's holding something in his fist, probably his phone. He's thinking of texting Father. Or hoping Father is going to text him, and he doesn't want to miss the vibration.
"Yeah - yeah he will," Doctor Watson says finally, as if he's trying to be reassuring. He touches Tristram's foot through the covers with his fingertips and gives him a small smile, but it's really an afterthought. "I'm going to bed too, but I'll leave the door open until Sherlock gets back," he tells them.
Then he goes to the bathroom, and everything falls silent.
"Was he angry about the pillows?" Emily whispers to Tristram.
"No." Tristram's certain that wasn't a problem. Father has neither any respect for property nor any illusions about the appropriateness or lack thereof of rough play. "I think he just needed some air."
That's what Mrs Hudson always said, anyway, when Father would sweep out of the house after days of inactivity, calling out, 'Off out, Mrs Hudson,' on his way past her door.
'Your poor father, all work and no play will do that to you,' she'd fret to Tristram then when she climbed the stairs to make sure he wasn't stuck halfway up the flue or halfway down the toilet. Although they'd played quite a lot today, and Tristram didn't see much evidence of Father working. There was still something, though. He was certain. Maybe Father was off to follow up on a lead.
"What was your mum like?" Tristram asks then, both to get off the subject of his father and because he's been wondering ever since the earlier mention of her.
Emily turns her head on her pillow to smile at him. The light coming from the open bedroom door is plenty to illuminate her features. "She was nice," she says. "She laughed a lot. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. I'll show you a picture the next time you come over."
"Okay." Tristram doesn't have any particular need to see a picture, but it sounds like it's important to Emily.
"What about your mum?" Emily asks. "What was she like?"
"I don't know. She left when I was born." Emily already knows that, or should anyway. Tristram told her once.
"I know," she says, confirming Tristram's recollection, "but don't you have any pictures of her or anything?"
"No." At least none that Tristram has ever seen. They don't have any pictures of Uncle Mycroft or Grandmother either, though, so he doesn't find it peculiar, even though he knows that other people display pictures of their families.
Emily's aunts have a whole bookshelf full of pictures in the living room at their house. Tristram hasn't had the opportunity to look at them more closely, but he assumes they're of family members. Maybe the picture of Emily's mother is there too.
Mrs Hudson has lots of pictures of people in her family too, all over her flat. Her parents and her brother and her sister, at various ages, and their spouses, and her nephew and his wife and kids. Mrs Hudson's nephew's children aren't too far off Tristram's age. There's a boy and a girl. Tristram's sometimes thought it might be interesting to meet them. But they've never visited, even though they only live in Blackpool. Mrs Hudson gets a Christmas card from them every year with a new picture - sometimes just the children, sometimes all four of them. She always puts the picture in a frame and finds a place for it on one of her already cluttered shelves or tables or mantel and tacks the card up on her kitchen wall. There's even a picture of Mr Hudson on one of the little side tables off in the corner of her living room. He's sitting outside somewhere with palm trees in the background, smoking a cigar and smiling. Mrs Hudson says he has a rakish grin in the picture. Tristram assumes that must mean something about the way his teeth are showing like the prongs of a rake.
The only pictures in Tristram's flat are of murder victims and suspects, and they only get sellotaped to the wall for a few days until Father solves their case.
"I bet she was pretty too," Emily muses, referring to Tristram's mother. Tristram has no way of judging so he doesn't say anything.
Emily looks up at the ceiling and continues, her voice softer and further away. "My mum used to do this special kind of plait thing with my hair. Daddy tried to do it but he just made a mess. I guess only mums can do it." She pauses, perhaps remembering her mother fixing her hair in that certain way. "And she always yelled at my dad when he'd push me too high on the swing," she adds, one memory apparently having jogged another. "She was afraid I'd fall off but Daddy wouldn't ever let me fall," she explains as if that one were too obvious.
"You went to the park together?" Tristram has seen families together at the park lots of times. Mrs Hudson and Father used to go together with him sometimes, when the weather was fine and Father didn't have anything else on. That was only when he was very small, though. He barely remembers it now. But Mrs Hudson isn't his mum. Isn't any kind of relative, not really. He's never gone to the park with his whole family. He wonders if it would count if Uncle Mycroft went with him and Father, but immediately dismisses the idea as untenable; Uncle Mycroft wouldn't be caught dead at a children's playground. Although it would be rather entertaining to see him try and navigate the monkey bars with his umbrella. Tristram has to grin at the thought.
"Sundays," Emily tells him, regarding her visits to the park with her parents. "When neither of them had to work. We'd go to the park and play, and then have a bun at the cafe."
It suddenly occurs to Tristram that he's done exactly the same thing with Emily and Doctor Watson, that weekend when the Watsons stayed at their flat. "Like your dad did with us?" Tristram asks cautiously. She makes an agreeing sound, as if it was only natural.
So is that like... are they sort of like a family now? They're not actually living together, but practically. Emily said that when people are in love, like her aunts, they get married and live together. Doctor Watson told Tristram that he and Father weren't married, and he promised they wouldn't get married without telling Tristram and Emily first. But they've been staying together, either at Llanbroc or at their flat in London, and now here in Switzerland, since that day when Emily and Tristram were supposed to spend the night at Uncle Mycroft's. And when Tristram asked Father if he and Doctor Watson were boyfriends, he didn't say they weren't. Are they in love? Is that what that look in the last picture means?
Tristram hears the bathroom door open and Doctor Watson walk into the bedroom. He leaves the door open, as he said he would. There are some soft rustling sounds, and then silence again.
Emily is very quiet too. Tristram's not sure if she hasn't perhaps fallen asleep, until he hears her sniffle.
"Are you okay?" he whispers. Maybe she's sick.
Emily sniffles deeply and says, her words distorted with tears, "I miss her." She kind of hiccoughs the last word and a sob escapes her that she immediately cuts off. She's crying. 'Her' is obviously her mother.
Tristram doesn't know what to do. Should he go get Doctor Watson? He won't be asleep yet. On the other hand, Emily could get up herself and go to her father if she wanted to. She's trying to cry really quietly. Maybe she doesn't want her father to hear. She told him she wouldn't get sad if they read about Harry Potter's parents being killed. And now she's sad just from talking about it. If it were him, Tristram thinks, he wouldn't want his father to know that he was crying. So he doesn't get Doctor Watson. Instead, he slides his hand under the cover until he finds hers, and holds it. She doesn't say anything, but she squeezes his hand back. They stay like that until her sniffles stop, but Tristram is already asleep.
Chapter notes: The language situation in Switzerland is exactly as Sherlock describes. There are four official language areas. When you cross from one to the next, all the signs on the roads and in the stores are suddenly in another language, even if they're just across the street. The German area is the largest, in the northeastern part of the country (Zurich, Lucerne, Basel), followed by the French area in the southwest (Geneva, Lausanne). The southern tip of the country - called Ticino - is Italian-speaking with the cities Lugano and Locarno, while the easternmost canton of Graubünden contains a small Romansh enclave of about 50,000 speakers centered around the city of Chur, but has generally been assimilated into the German area. (The total population of Switzerland is around 8 million.)
Here is what Romansh looks like (top line):
Fourth line:
Aside from those Romansh speakers, however - who of necessity also speak German in order to communicate with the world at large - most Swiss are not functionally bilingual. Most German Swiss, for example, don't speak French any better than the average Brit, know little to no Italian and definitely no Romansh. Interestingly, though, nearly everyone you meet will speak English to some degree, likely better than they speak any one of the other national languages. I would assume that all the employees at a 5-star hotel who deal with the public would be at least functional in all three of the major national languages (German, French, Italian), though, plus English, and any ticketing agent as well.
Swiss German, by the way, is actually a language unto itself. It has a different grammar and vocabulary from the standard German (called High German) you might learn in school. It has several dialects that are more or less mutually intelligible, but someone from Germany would have difficulty understanding any of them. Due to the varied dialect situation, generally only High German is used in writing, which Swiss German speakers must learn in school like a foreign language. I don't even get into that in this story, though, just assuming that any Swiss will identify Sherlock as a foreigner on sight and speak to him in High German.
Here is a sample of Schwyzerdütsch (the Lord's Prayer):
Author:
swissmargBeta readers:
ruth0007, ladyprydian for medical adviceRating: 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 Four on AO3
Chapter Four
They end up having a late lunch in the restaurant next to the toboggan run. The waitress gives them a kids' menu with pictures of all the choices, which Tristram is happy about because it means he doesn't have to rely on Father to translate anything.
Emily chooses the 'poulet nuggets', which, going by the picture, are actually chicken nuggets. 'Poulet', Father tells them - although he says 'poo-lay', which sends Tristram and Emily into a fit of giggles - is French for chicken, so that makes sense. The picture Tristram picks shows a piece of breaded meat with a huge pile of chips. It says 'schnipo' next to it, which stumps Father for a while until he reads the description.
"Ah, schnitzel and pommes frites," he declares triumphantly, even though that makes exactly as much sense to Tristram as 'schnipo'.
"Schnitzel, that's the meat," Doctor Watson explains. "And pommes frites" - he says 'pom freet' - "is French for chips. It means fried potatoes."
"I thought the people here spoke German," Tristram says. This is something that has been bothering him ever since they arrived. At the airport, Father said they spoke German, but since then there's been an awful lot of French.
"They do," Father says.
"Then why did you speak French to the lady at the airport and the man at the hotel?" Tristram wants to know.
"Because my French is much better than my German, and anyone dealing with the public here can be expected to speak French."
"You see, Tris, Switzerland has more than one language, like Canada," Doctor Watson explains. "Except here, they speak German in one part of the country and French in the other part."
"Italian and Romansh as well, if we're being thorough," Father mentions.
Doctor Watson raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Really? Romantsch, what... is that an actual language?"
"Nearly dead, but yes."
"But everyone also speaks English," Emily points out with a furrow of confusion on her forehead. "Why don't they get rid of German and French and everything else? They don't need it."
"Quite right," Father says, nodding at her in acknowledgment. "But people are generally idiots."
"But why do you have to speak German or French to them at all?" Emily presses. "The man at the hotel spoke English to us. And so did the lady before."
"And the man at the toboggans," Tristram adds. Although he didn't speak it very well. Still, it must count.
"Because Sherlock is an incorrigible show-off," Doctor Watson says with a broad smile. At Father's scowl, Doctor Watson raises his hands. "Not that I'm complaining. I think it's -" He clears his throat and his tongue flicks over his bottom lip. "I appreciate your talent at languages," he tells Father diplomatically, still grinning.
Father does a funny frowny-smiley thing with his face, like he's trying not to look pleased.
When the food comes - with cooked carrots and peas, which Emily wrinkles her nose at but John insists she eat - Tristram is confronted with the problem of how to tackle the huge piece of meat, since he can't cut it with one hand. Rather than ask someone to cut it for him - which he's much too old for - he decides to just spear the entire thing with his fork and bite off the edges. It works excellently, and he is much pleased. He can't help, though, teasing Emily about eating nuggets made of poo. She opens her mouth and gives him a good look at the chewed-up mass in retaliation. Tristram decides he's not very keen on ever eating chicken nuggets again.
Father has noodles with a creamy white meat sauce, and Doctor Watson orders a big white sausage with some unhappy looking cabbagey stuff on the side. He also gets a couple of thick slices of dark bread with it. He does the same thing as Tristram and picks up the whole sausage on his fork so he can take a bite off the end. Father watches him, both wary and cautiously fascinated.
"John really, that's childish," he says after a bit, scooping up a big forkful of his own meal and shoving it into his mouth. Father doesn't have the best table manners, as Grandmother has often pointed out.
"What?" Doctor Watson asks with his mouth full. Apparently he doesn't either.
Father waves his now empty fork at him. "That. It's- Oh for heaven's sake, cut it up first," he grumbles, looking away as Doctor Watson takes another bite.
Doctor Watson looks puzzled as he chews. He peers at his sausage, then his expression lightens and he sets it down, his eyes twinkling.
"My God, Sherlock," he says, chuckling, "speaking of childish. It is a sausage. This is how one eats a sausage."
"In a..." He pauses and glances at Tristram and Emily. "...certain type of film, perhaps," he mutters.
Doctor Watson's grin becomes even bigger, but he picks up his knife and starts cutting his sausage up. "Properly," he says, as if he's just settled something very important. Perhaps he has. He also mentioned doing something properly last night. Tristram thought he meant kissing, but now he seems to be talking about how to eat a sausage. Honestly, Tristram thinks you can eat it either way. But Grandmother would probably say cutting it up is more proper than biting it off too.
Father glances at Doctor Watson, then back at his food. "Childish," he mutters again, but Tristram can see the corners of his mouth fighting not to smile.
Tristram decides he hasn't any hope of understanding what they are talking about, and dedicates himself to his own lunch once more.
Their meals come with a serving of ice cream in a tall glass with chocolate sauce and whipped cream on top and a rolled-up biscuit stuck in it. It's funny to be eating ice cream in the middle of winter surrounded by snow, but somehow that makes it taste extra good.
Emily digs around in her glass to get the last of the sugary liquid in the bottom. "Tonight, we can move our things around so you and your dad can have the bedroom," she reminds Tristram.
Doctor Watson shifts in his seat, glances at Father next to him, and says, "Actually, Em, we'd like to try it with Sherlock and me in the bedroom tonight, and the two of you on the couch." He rests his arms on the table and smiles mildly, looking first at Tristram then at Emily. Father has his arm hung loosely over the back of Doctor Watson's chair. He looks down at his shirt, which still has some damp spots from their snowball fight-stroke-wrestling match.
Tristram is ... He doesn't know what he is. Surprised? Not at the sentiment behind the request, not at this point. At the forthrightness, yes. Tristram sort of thought they'd all continue not openly acknowledging what was going on. But after the pictures of them kissing came out, Doctor Watson had said he wanted to sit down with them and talk about it. And here they are, all sitting down.
Doctor Watson raises his eyebrows and lets out a long breath. He looks round at Father, who doesn't give him any help, then back at Emily and Tristram. "Okay, well, I didn't mean to put quite that much of a damper on things. If everyone hates the idea so much-"
"What if I wake up in the middle of the night?" Emily asks in a small voice.
"I'll be right there, Ems," her father assures her. "It'll be like when we stayed at their flat. Remember? You and Tris upstairs in his room and Sherlock and I downstairs? Only I'll be even closer. Right in the next room."
It won't be exactly like when the Watsons were at their flat, Tristram thinks. Because Father and Doctor Watson didn't sleep in the same room there. Unless you count Father curling up on the floor next to the couch. Which, actually, Tristram supposes he has to. And maybe Doctor Watson sleeping in Father's room as well, because the jury is still out as to where his father spent that night.
"What if I have a bad dream?" Emily asks, her voice steadier but still needy.
"You can knock on the door and I'll come out and help you. But only if it's really a bad dream, or if you or Tris are sick." Doctor Watson looks at Tristram too, including him in the rule.
Tristram knows that rule already, because Father told it to him when they were at Grandmother's: he's not to open a closed door without permission unless it's an emergency. A nightmare, even a bad one, doesn't qualify as an emergency. At least not for Father. But Doctor Watson apparently has a different perspective. Tristram also knows why they have the rule. Father and Doctor Watson want privacy so they can kiss and hug, and maybe look at each other like they did in that last picture.
"What about you, Tris? You have any concerns?" Doctor Watson asks him.
Tristram glances quickly at Father, who's watching him like he's hoovering up every bit of information with his eyes. His main concern, always, is where his father is, but that's been answered. Secondary to that is the state of his father's health, but he presumes there won't be much opportunity for him to be injured while he's shut up in a bedroom with Doctor Watson. Having a nightmare isn't really a concern. His father never does anything for him when that happens anyway. Well, all right, sometimes he'll play his violin, but he doesn't have his violin here so that's a moot point. And he knows if he's really, really upset, or hurt, or sick, the same goes for him as for Emily: knock and one of them will come out. So, no, he doesn't really have any concerns. As Doctor Watson said, it will be just like when he and Emily stayed at their flat. And that was actually fun, aside from the whole walking in on their fathers in the living room part, but that can't happen here because there will be a door between them, and everyone's in agreement as to where everyone else should - and wants to - be.
And so that evening, when they shift their things around. Tristram understands - and he thinks Emily does too - that this isn't just to try it out. This will be the order of things for the rest of their holiday.
Doctor Watson goes with him into the bathroom so he can check Tristram's back again. The scabs on his knees and elbows from crawling across the broken glass on the floor have almost all fallen off. His hair protected his scalp fairly well, so the cuts there haven't even needed to be checked at all after the first three days.
Doctor Watson puts on a pair of surgical gloves and takes all of the bandages off Tristram's back. Every day there are fewer, as more of the cuts close over, but the three big ones with the stitches still need to be kept covered so his clothes don't catch on the threads in his skin.
"Do you want to see?" Doctor Watson asks.
Tristram does. When it first happened, he was alarmed at the thought of all those pieces of glass in his back, and at all the blood, but Father took pictures of his injuries the next day, after everything was tidied and sewn up but before the surgery on his hand. He was so intrigued by the patterns he said he saw that Tristram decided he wanted to see them too. And when Father showed him the pictures, it really was interesting. With all the blood cleaned away and just the thin red lines left, it was like one of Grandmother's paintings.
Father also made sure the doctors saved the pieces of glass they took out of his back. The vast majority were tiny slivers, but some were big enough to pick up without even using tweezers. Tristram imagines he must have looked like a hedgehog. And then there were three pieces that were as long as the blade of a pocket knife. Those were the ones that left cuts deep enough to need stitches.
He and Father were planning on working together on reconstructing the pattern of which pieces of glass made which cuts based on Father's pictures once he got home. Now that's going to have to wait even longer. He wonders all of a sudden where the pieces of glass ever got to. Hopefully Father took them home and put them in a safe place before they had to leave.
Doctor Watson takes a picture of Tristram's back with his phone, then gives it to Tristram to look at.
"Looks pretty good," Doctor Watson says. "I'm just a little concerned about this here." He presses carefully on a spot along Tristram's left shoulder blade. Judging by the picture on the phone, it's one of the three that needed stitches. There's a little burst of pain at Doctor Watson's touch. Dull, though, not sharp like when the glass was in there. "Does that hurt?" Doctor Watson asks.
"A little. Not so much," Tristram tells him.
"How about here?" Doctor Watson touches another spot lower down. Tristram compares the picture on the phone. That must be the second stitched-up cut. It's sore but not painful. Tristram shakes his head.
The third one, also on his left side but closer to the middle, doesn't hurt either. Given that the worst cuts were along the left side of his back, Tristram thinks he must have been angled with his left side more exposed to the window than his right, even though it was his right hand that was hit by the bullet. He's pleased at the thought, since that's a deduction just like his father would make.
Doctor Watson puts a salve from his kit onto all of the cuts, then covers them with fresh bandages again and goes out so Tristram can finish getting himself ready for bed.
When Tristram comes out of the bathroom, Emily and Doctor Watson are sitting together on the couch bed with their legs stretched out in front of them. Doctor Watson has his arm looped around Emily's shoulder, and Emily is holding the Goblet of Fire book open on her lap. They're looking at one of the pictures together. Father is sitting on one of the armchairs to the side. He has his legs stretched out too, so that they're resting on the foot of the bed. He's doing something on his phone, not exactly part of the group, but present.
Tristram isn't sure where he's supposed to fit in. He finds a spot at the bottom of the bed next to his father's feet, but facing Doctor Watson and Emily.
Doctor Watson looks up from the book. "Come on up here, Tris," he says, raising his arm on the side opposite Emily in invitation. Tristram glances at his father. He'd almost rather sit down here, near him, but Father doesn't look like he's paying any attention to the rest of them. Tristram crawls awkwardly up the bed and slots himself in next to Doctor Watson. Due to the limited amount of space, he doesn't really have much choice other than to press right up against Doctor Watson's side, but it seems that's what he intended, as he wraps his arm around Tristram's shoulder the same way he's done with Emily.
"Right," he says cheerfully. "I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to seeing who ends up being chosen as Hogwarts' champion."
"Harry, of course," Emily says.
"I thought he was too young," Doctor Watson objects.
"He'll take some of the twins' aging potion or something," Emily says dismissively.
"I don't know..." Doctor Watson hedges.
"It's got to be Harry," Tristram says. He doesn't know how Harry manages it, but it's going to be him.
"Why?" Doctor Watson asks.
"Look at the cover." Tristram nods at the book in Emily's lap.
Emily turns the book round so they can see the cover, holding her finger in between the pages so they don't lose their place. As Tristram said, there is clearly a picture of Harry, on a broomstick, competing in one of the Triwizard Tournament tasks.
"Ha! Yeah, all right," Doctor Watson agrees. "Pretty clever." He gives Tristram's shoulder a gentle squeeze, being careful not to press on any of the bandages he just put on. Tristram glances at his father again, but he's still staring at his phone. "But how he does it..." Doctor Watson wonders.
"Read it!" Emily says impatiently, holding the book up to him.
"How about you hold it for me, Ems. My hands are a bit full at the moment," he says wryly.
So she does, and Doctor Watson starts to read. Tristram is the kind of listener who follows along with his eyes if he has the text in front of him, so it doesn't take long before he's leaning closer in order to be able to see the page better. He likes the way Doctor Watson reads. He doesn't read too fast - not the way Father did, actually, that one time he read to them up in Tristram's room back home - and he does all the voices so well that Tristram can tell who's supposed to be talking even without the names. He's a little embarrassed to find, when the chapter draws to a close, that he's ended up with his head resting on Doctor Watson's shoulder and his cast lying on Doctor Watson's leg. It turns out that there's not actually anything in that chapter about the Triwizard Tournament and who's going to be the champion for Hogwarts, so Emily pleads with her father to read the next chapter too.
Doctor Watson flips through the pages. At first Tristram thinks he's just checking to see how long the chapter is, but then he takes his arm off Tristram's shoulder and closes the book. "No," Doctor Watson says, "we're going to skip the next chapter. I'll tell you what happens, but I'm not going to read it."
"Why not?" Emily asks indignantly. Tristram is also immediately and hugely curious.
Doctor Watson shifts around a bit so he can see Emily better. That means the reason he doesn't want to read it is because of Emily. "Because they talk about something very sad happening," he says.
"It's not real," Emily says promptly, as if Doctor Watson might have forgotten.
He frowns a little. "I know, but sometimes a story like this can remind you of something that is real and make you sad too."
Tristram knows exactly what he means. In one of the earlier chapters, Death Eaters kidnapped some Muggle children and were hurting them. That made Tristram think about him and Emily being kidnapped. It even (possibly) made him have a nightmare that mixed up his real memories of the man who tied him to the chair with the imaginary scene in the book.
"I won't be sad, I promise!" Emily begs, but Doctor Watson is not to be moved.
"I don't think you can really control that. Look, it... " He sighs a little, apparently seeing he's going to have to be straight with her. "It tells about when Harry's parents died. It's pretty vivid. I don't think that's a scene we need to paint in any greater colour."
"But we already know that," Emily scoffs.
"Yes, we know they died, but there's a difference knowing it as a vague fact and reading every detail as if you were there."
Tristram has never seen a murder occur, but he has seen crime scene photos, and he finds himself agreeing with Doctor Watson, at least on the principle. Knowing that someone has died is just words. Seeing the protruding tongue, the glassy eyes, the wet and glistening insides on the outside... that lands in your stomach and pinches your throat. Whether or not it would be disturbing to read about the deaths of Harry Potter's parents is another issue. He doesn't think it would be, for him, but he can see how Doctor Watson might think it would be for Emily. Even if her mother wasn't killed by an evil wizard.
"The imagination often conjures up far worse images than reality," Father interjects. Tristram jerks his head up to look at him. He almost forgot he was sitting there.
"Not helping here, Sherlock," Doctor Watson mutters.
"You've made the decision to read the book with them, you can't back down." Father settles himself more comfortably in his chair. Tristram recognises the body language as a signal that he's preparing for an argument he's confident of winning.
"I'm not backing down," Doctor Watson says defensively. "I just feel that this particular scene is of a particularly sensitive nature and it won't do us any harm to skip over it and continue from there."
"Because of what happened to Mary." It's not a question. It's a statement of obvious fact. The only time Father states obvious facts is when he wants to point out what idiots other people are.
"Yes," Doctor Watson agrees. "Because of that." The way he says it makes it sound as if he thinks Father's the one who's being an idiot at the moment.
"And you think - what, hearing how some fictional mother is fictionally murdered will somehow trigger a trauma that the actual murder of her actual mother failed to?" Father asks, as if that's the stupidest thing he's ever heard of, and Tristram knows for a fact he's heard of some spectacularly stupid things.
"Jesus, why don't we all just read the damn thing!" Doctor Watson explodes and throws his arms up in the air.
Father raises his eyebrows and looks back down at his phone. "Yes, why don't you?" he says mildly. "Would have been much less bother."
Doctor Watson looks like he's about to rip Father a new one. That's what one of Sebastian's friends said after Doctor Watson scared them away that day way back long ago outside the school: 'I thought that old man was gonna rip you a new one!' Tristram likes the sound of the phrase, even if he doesn't know what new one is to be ripped (and he doesn't think Doctor Watson is that old, even if he does have grey hair and lines on his face). He's also not sure Doctor Watson is looking at Father in exactly the same way that he looked at Sebastian and his friends. There's less menace and more disappointment. Or frustration. Something uncomfortable, anyway, something that Tristram doesn't like seeing in the lines around Doctor Watson's eyes.
"I don't mind if we don't read it," Tristram volunteers.
Tristram will read it on his own, anyway. He's curious now. But he needn't mention that. He doesn't realise that he's sided with Doctor Watson against his own father until after the words are out. He didn't mean to do that. He was just trying to fix the unhappiness he saw in Doctor Watson's face. He glances apprehensively at Father, but he seems to have tuned them out again.
"I don't either," Emily agrees, stoutly now, and maybe, Tristram considers, Father wasn't working against Doctor Watson after all.
Doctor Watson looks down at his daughter as if he'd momentarily forgotten she was there but at soon as he does, his displeasure crumbles into concern and guilt. "Oh Ems, I'm sorry." He turns more toward her and cups her head in his hand. "I'm the one who doesn't want to read it, all right?" he tells her gently. "It's me. It's... Sometimes I... I don't forget, I'll never forget. I'll never forget Mum and I'll never forget what happened, and why she died. But there are days when I don't think about it all the time. And just now, it reminded me, and it made me sad, and I didn't want you to be sad too. Okay?" Doctor Watson puts both arms around Emily and she puts her arms around him. He pulls her against his chest and holds her tight while she buries her face in his chest.
Tristram feels out of place. He wants to get out of bed, but where would he go? He looks over at his father, who is watching Doctor Watson and Emily with an inscrutable expression on his face. It's sort of the way he looked one time when Tristram had to stay home from school because he was sick, and Mrs Hudson stayed with him all day. She made him a nest on the couch and brought him broth and showed him how to make shadow animals on the wall. When Father came home late in the evening, Mrs Hudson was reading to Tristram with him curled up against her. Father stood in the doorway, just watching them for a few moments. Tristram didn't notice him at first, he'd come up so quietly, or maybe Tristram was feverish and not entirely alert. But he does remember the look on his father's face, seeing Tristram and Mrs Hudson sitting there like that. It was similar to how he looks now, watching Doctor Watson and Emily. Not sad, exactly, but it makes Tristram want to do something that will make Father smile. Tristram's never been very good at making Father smile, though. Oh, Father smiles at him - and with him - often enough, but Tristram's not good at eliciting it on purpose. Not like Doctor Watson is.
Eventually, Doctor Watson lets go. He pushes the hair back out of Emily's face. "Okay?"
Emily nods. "I try not to think about it, but I do sometimes. It didn't hurt her, did it?"
"No, you know what the coroner's report said. It was very fast. She didn't know what was happening, and she didn't feel anything," he assures her.
"Okay," Emily says, although she doesn't sound very reassured.
Tristram realises he doesn't actually know how Emily's mother died. He wonders if she does. Her father mentioned a coroner's report. Did she read it? Tristram would be a little surprised, if so; not even Father lets Tristram read the reports he gets from the police. He always has to sneak peeks when Father's out. But then none of them have concerned his mother. That he knows of, anyway. Perhaps if Tristram's mother were murdered, Father would let him see the report. But of course that won't happen because no one knows where she went off to after Tristram was born. Maybe she really is dead by now.
"Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of it," Doctor Watson is saying, "but there are enough horrors in real life without adding to them. Especially in this. And on that happy note, scoot under the covers, the both of you."
Doctor Watson slides down the bed to get up from the end. He gives Father's shin a brief, passing rub as he goes. Maybe he's not upset with Father after all. On the other hand, he doesn't say anything to him. Father reacts by taking his feet off the bed and standing up.
Tristram pulls his side of the cover up and next to him, Emily does the same. Despite the unhappy awakening this morning, the bed did turn out to be more comfortable than it looked like it would be when it was a couch. It's also big enough that they both have room to lie on their backs without touching each other, which is good because Tristram needs to have a bit of extra space for his cast. He carefully lays that arm on top of the cover as an extra precaution against Emily possibly rolling over onto it.
Doctor Watson goes to Emily's side and leans down to kiss her on the forehead. "Okay, Em, we'll be right in the next room," he says, rubbing his thumb over the spot where he kissed her. "So you keep it down to a dull roar out here. You too, Tris," Doctor Watson says, pointing at Tristram. "No yodeling." He looks completely serious.
Tristram would never even have thought of yodeling, but he nods and says, "Okay."
Maybe Doctor Watson wasn't so serious after all, or maybe that was some secret code between him and Emily, because she giggles and lets loose with a loud, sing-song "Yodel-ay-hee-hoo!"
Doctor Watson laughs and grabs her pillow out from under her head so he can swat her body with it through the cover. She shrieks with laughter and curls up to protect herself.
Tristram, catching the spirit, sits up, takes his pillow, and tries to whack Doctor Watson with it. He manages to get him on the arm once before Doctor Watson grabs the pillow away from him and looms over the bed with one pillow in each hand, threatening to wallop both of them at the same time. Tristram yelps and pulls back into the corner of the couch with his knees bent up. He's not scared though. This is fun. He knows Doctor Watson isn't really trying to hurt them. And anyway, it's just pillows.
"No, Daddy, don't!" Emily screams through her giggles. She writhes and twists, as if trying to find a position that will give her some protection.
Tristram hasn't been tracking Father during this time, but he notices now that he's standing by the door with his coat on and his hand on the handle, about to go out.
Doctor Watson must also hear him, or perhaps he saw where Tristram was looking. He turns around, lowering the pillows. "What's wrong?" he asks, immediately on alert.
"Nothing, I'm just going out for a bit." Father looks annoyed, perhaps at being asked to explain himself.
Doctor Watson tosses the pillows onto the bed, not paying attention to where they land. Tristram's thumps down onto his feet, but Emily's bounces off onto the floor. She quietly leans over the side of the bed to pick it up.
"All right," Doctor Watson says slowly, like he's trying to buy some time to figure out what Father's doing. "I wasn't going to be long." His body tenses, as if he's going to take a step forward, but he doesn't.
Father nods curtly. "I won't either." Then he slips out and closes the door with a soft click behind him.
Doctor Watson stands there, still facing the door, for a few moments. When he turns around, the laughter's gone out of his face, although he doesn't look sad, exactly. More frustrated.
"All right, monkeys," he says. Tristram can tell he's trying to be jolly, but it comes across strained. He picks Tristram's pillow up and passes it to him. "It's been a long day."
"Where's Sherlock going?" Emily asks in a thin voice.
"I've no idea," Doctor Watson says. He doesn't sound much more robust than her. "Out, apparently."
"He'll be back," Tristram says, finding that he wants to assure him. He doesn't like the way Doctor Watson went from laughing to frowning so fast, and he especially doesn't like that it seems to be because of Father. Father always, always comes back. It's just that he doesn't like to be cooped up inside for long when he doesn't have something to occupy him. The prospect of being shut up in the bedroom from now until morning is probably daunting for him. Even with Doctor Watson in there with him. It's not as if he could actually sleep for ten hours. There's not even a telly. Maybe they'll switch beds back again tomorrow. At least out here there's a table where he can sit and work, and the fridge and coffee maker and sink if he wants a drink. And if Father and Doctor Watson really want some privacy so they can kiss, they could just go in the bedroom for a few minutes while Emily and Tristram watch telly or something, and then come out when they're done. There's no need for them to be alone for hours and hours.
Doctor Watson frowns, distracted. He has his hand in his trouser pocket, and through the material Tristram can tell he's holding something in his fist, probably his phone. He's thinking of texting Father. Or hoping Father is going to text him, and he doesn't want to miss the vibration.
"Yeah - yeah he will," Doctor Watson says finally, as if he's trying to be reassuring. He touches Tristram's foot through the covers with his fingertips and gives him a small smile, but it's really an afterthought. "I'm going to bed too, but I'll leave the door open until Sherlock gets back," he tells them.
Then he goes to the bathroom, and everything falls silent.
"Was he angry about the pillows?" Emily whispers to Tristram.
"No." Tristram's certain that wasn't a problem. Father has neither any respect for property nor any illusions about the appropriateness or lack thereof of rough play. "I think he just needed some air."
That's what Mrs Hudson always said, anyway, when Father would sweep out of the house after days of inactivity, calling out, 'Off out, Mrs Hudson,' on his way past her door.
'Your poor father, all work and no play will do that to you,' she'd fret to Tristram then when she climbed the stairs to make sure he wasn't stuck halfway up the flue or halfway down the toilet. Although they'd played quite a lot today, and Tristram didn't see much evidence of Father working. There was still something, though. He was certain. Maybe Father was off to follow up on a lead.
"What was your mum like?" Tristram asks then, both to get off the subject of his father and because he's been wondering ever since the earlier mention of her.
Emily turns her head on her pillow to smile at him. The light coming from the open bedroom door is plenty to illuminate her features. "She was nice," she says. "She laughed a lot. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. I'll show you a picture the next time you come over."
"Okay." Tristram doesn't have any particular need to see a picture, but it sounds like it's important to Emily.
"What about your mum?" Emily asks. "What was she like?"
"I don't know. She left when I was born." Emily already knows that, or should anyway. Tristram told her once.
"I know," she says, confirming Tristram's recollection, "but don't you have any pictures of her or anything?"
"No." At least none that Tristram has ever seen. They don't have any pictures of Uncle Mycroft or Grandmother either, though, so he doesn't find it peculiar, even though he knows that other people display pictures of their families.
Emily's aunts have a whole bookshelf full of pictures in the living room at their house. Tristram hasn't had the opportunity to look at them more closely, but he assumes they're of family members. Maybe the picture of Emily's mother is there too.
Mrs Hudson has lots of pictures of people in her family too, all over her flat. Her parents and her brother and her sister, at various ages, and their spouses, and her nephew and his wife and kids. Mrs Hudson's nephew's children aren't too far off Tristram's age. There's a boy and a girl. Tristram's sometimes thought it might be interesting to meet them. But they've never visited, even though they only live in Blackpool. Mrs Hudson gets a Christmas card from them every year with a new picture - sometimes just the children, sometimes all four of them. She always puts the picture in a frame and finds a place for it on one of her already cluttered shelves or tables or mantel and tacks the card up on her kitchen wall. There's even a picture of Mr Hudson on one of the little side tables off in the corner of her living room. He's sitting outside somewhere with palm trees in the background, smoking a cigar and smiling. Mrs Hudson says he has a rakish grin in the picture. Tristram assumes that must mean something about the way his teeth are showing like the prongs of a rake.
The only pictures in Tristram's flat are of murder victims and suspects, and they only get sellotaped to the wall for a few days until Father solves their case.
"I bet she was pretty too," Emily muses, referring to Tristram's mother. Tristram has no way of judging so he doesn't say anything.
Emily looks up at the ceiling and continues, her voice softer and further away. "My mum used to do this special kind of plait thing with my hair. Daddy tried to do it but he just made a mess. I guess only mums can do it." She pauses, perhaps remembering her mother fixing her hair in that certain way. "And she always yelled at my dad when he'd push me too high on the swing," she adds, one memory apparently having jogged another. "She was afraid I'd fall off but Daddy wouldn't ever let me fall," she explains as if that one were too obvious.
"You went to the park together?" Tristram has seen families together at the park lots of times. Mrs Hudson and Father used to go together with him sometimes, when the weather was fine and Father didn't have anything else on. That was only when he was very small, though. He barely remembers it now. But Mrs Hudson isn't his mum. Isn't any kind of relative, not really. He's never gone to the park with his whole family. He wonders if it would count if Uncle Mycroft went with him and Father, but immediately dismisses the idea as untenable; Uncle Mycroft wouldn't be caught dead at a children's playground. Although it would be rather entertaining to see him try and navigate the monkey bars with his umbrella. Tristram has to grin at the thought.
"Sundays," Emily tells him, regarding her visits to the park with her parents. "When neither of them had to work. We'd go to the park and play, and then have a bun at the cafe."
It suddenly occurs to Tristram that he's done exactly the same thing with Emily and Doctor Watson, that weekend when the Watsons stayed at their flat. "Like your dad did with us?" Tristram asks cautiously. She makes an agreeing sound, as if it was only natural.
So is that like... are they sort of like a family now? They're not actually living together, but practically. Emily said that when people are in love, like her aunts, they get married and live together. Doctor Watson told Tristram that he and Father weren't married, and he promised they wouldn't get married without telling Tristram and Emily first. But they've been staying together, either at Llanbroc or at their flat in London, and now here in Switzerland, since that day when Emily and Tristram were supposed to spend the night at Uncle Mycroft's. And when Tristram asked Father if he and Doctor Watson were boyfriends, he didn't say they weren't. Are they in love? Is that what that look in the last picture means?
Tristram hears the bathroom door open and Doctor Watson walk into the bedroom. He leaves the door open, as he said he would. There are some soft rustling sounds, and then silence again.
Emily is very quiet too. Tristram's not sure if she hasn't perhaps fallen asleep, until he hears her sniffle.
"Are you okay?" he whispers. Maybe she's sick.
Emily sniffles deeply and says, her words distorted with tears, "I miss her." She kind of hiccoughs the last word and a sob escapes her that she immediately cuts off. She's crying. 'Her' is obviously her mother.
Tristram doesn't know what to do. Should he go get Doctor Watson? He won't be asleep yet. On the other hand, Emily could get up herself and go to her father if she wanted to. She's trying to cry really quietly. Maybe she doesn't want her father to hear. She told him she wouldn't get sad if they read about Harry Potter's parents being killed. And now she's sad just from talking about it. If it were him, Tristram thinks, he wouldn't want his father to know that he was crying. So he doesn't get Doctor Watson. Instead, he slides his hand under the cover until he finds hers, and holds it. She doesn't say anything, but she squeezes his hand back. They stay like that until her sniffles stop, but Tristram is already asleep.
Chapter notes: The language situation in Switzerland is exactly as Sherlock describes. There are four official language areas. When you cross from one to the next, all the signs on the roads and in the stores are suddenly in another language, even if they're just across the street. The German area is the largest, in the northeastern part of the country (Zurich, Lucerne, Basel), followed by the French area in the southwest (Geneva, Lausanne). The southern tip of the country - called Ticino - is Italian-speaking with the cities Lugano and Locarno, while the easternmost canton of Graubünden contains a small Romansh enclave of about 50,000 speakers centered around the city of Chur, but has generally been assimilated into the German area. (The total population of Switzerland is around 8 million.)
Here is what Romansh looks like (top line):
Fourth line:
Aside from those Romansh speakers, however - who of necessity also speak German in order to communicate with the world at large - most Swiss are not functionally bilingual. Most German Swiss, for example, don't speak French any better than the average Brit, know little to no Italian and definitely no Romansh. Interestingly, though, nearly everyone you meet will speak English to some degree, likely better than they speak any one of the other national languages. I would assume that all the employees at a 5-star hotel who deal with the public would be at least functional in all three of the major national languages (German, French, Italian), though, plus English, and any ticketing agent as well.
Swiss German, by the way, is actually a language unto itself. It has a different grammar and vocabulary from the standard German (called High German) you might learn in school. It has several dialects that are more or less mutually intelligible, but someone from Germany would have difficulty understanding any of them. Due to the varied dialect situation, generally only High German is used in writing, which Swiss German speakers must learn in school like a foreign language. I don't even get into that in this story, though, just assuming that any Swiss will identify Sherlock as a foreigner on sight and speak to him in High German.
Here is a sample of Schwyzerdütsch (the Lord's Prayer):
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-07-14 02:33 pm (UTC)"And if Father and Doctor Watson really want some privacy so they can kiss, they could just go in the bedroom for a few minutes while Emily and Tristram watch telly or something, and then come out when they're done. There's no need for them to be alone for hours and hours."
and the bit about the rakish grin!!
It's lovely seeing them all together, even though none of them are really seeming to 'settle' very much at the moment.
And now, where's Sherlock run off to?!!!
no subject
Date: 2014-07-15 01:51 pm (UTC)