Chapter 26 - Back to School
When Miss Hudson had first left Rainbow Valley to accept the position of Avonlea schoolteacher, she and Miss Turner had promised to write to each other every day. It was a promise each had faithfully kept. Two years of daily correspondence had gone a long way toward easing the sorrow of being apart. A summer spent in each other’s company, however, had brought delights which could not be had in letters...
Do you recognize a young Una Stubbs as Miss Hudson?
Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, confirmed bachelors who have recently moved to Avonlea, decide to adopt an orphan girl to help with the housework, rather than hiring someone local, who might be tempted to carry tales back to the village about how many beds were — or were not — slept in. However, the hand of fate steps in to deliver them a boy, instead. Since Sherlock could just as easily be a girl’s name, they decide to keep the child, and pass him off as a girl. Little do they know just how much trouble — and joy — Sherlock will bring into their lives.
“Oh, I have such news, Sherlock. Guess. You can have three guesses.”
“You know I never guess, Molly. Give me a moment, and I’m sure I shall deduce it.”
Sherlock observed Molly closely, his mind swiftly searching through all the sorts of news that could account for her excitement…. Suddenly, Sherlock knew.
“Your Aunt Martha has invited us both to come and stay with her in Charlottetown for the Exhibition!”
“Sherlock!” Molly cried, eyes wide with wonder. “However do you do that? If you weren’t my bosom friend, I’d almost be afraid you’re a witch.”
Sherlock laughed. “You know there’s nothing magic in my deductions, Molly. They’re simply observation and logic.”
Then his face sobered. “Oh, Molly,” he said, finding it necessary to lean up against a maple tree for support, “I’m afraid Mycroft won’t let me go.”
Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, confirmed bachelors who have recently moved to Avonlea, decide to adopt an orphan girl to help with the housework, rather than hiring someone local, who might be tempted to carry tales back to the village about how many beds were — or were not — slept in. However, the hand of fate steps in to deliver them a boy, instead. Since Sherlock could just as easily be a girl’s name, they decide to keep the child, and pass him off as a girl. Little do they know just how much trouble — and joy — Sherlock will bring into their lives.
Following John’s gaze, Sherlock looked down his own body to realise, with horror, that his wet slip had become completely translucent. While he was sitting in the boat his lap had been covered by Mrs. Hooper’s shawl and scarf, but now the sheer white fabric clung to him, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Sherlock quickly wrapped the black shawl around his waist as a skirt and draped the yellow scarf over his shoulders to hide his chest. One glance at John, though, showed that he was too late. His secret was out.
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Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, confirmed bachelors who have recently moved to Avonlea, decide to adopt an orphan girl to help with the housework, rather than hiring someone local, who might be tempted to carry tales back to the village about how many beds were — or were not — slept in. However, the hand of fate steps in to deliver them a boy, instead. Since Sherlock could just as easily be a girl’s name, they decide to keep the child, and pass him off as a girl. Little do they know just how much trouble — and joy — Sherlock will bring into their lives.
Over a year went by before Sherlock’s hair grew long enough for him to look like a proper girl once more. It didn’t affect anything other than his vanity, though. Of course no one in Avonlea ever suspected him of being a boy. How would such an idea have entered anyone’s head? For a boy to go about wearing girls’ clothes was unheard of and unimaginable; therefore, the good folks of Avonlea did not imagine it. Any lack of femininity in Sherlock’s behaviour was put down to being raised by a couple of bachelors. As for his looks, well, if he kept on growing taller without growing any curvier, he must simply be a late bloomer.
Though Sherlock might be short on curves, he was never short on imagination — or trouble. He did his best to share the former with his friends, often unintentionally sharing the latter in the process.
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“Sherlock has no business to leave the house like this when I told him he was to stay home this afternoon and look after things. I must say, with all his faults, I never found him disobedient or untrustworthy before and I’m very sorry to find him so now.”
“Well,” said Greg, who, being patient and wise and, above all, hungry, had deemed it best to let Mycroft talk his wrath out unhindered, having learned by experience that he got through with whatever work was on hand much quicker if not delayed by untimely argument. “Perhaps you’re judging him too hastily, Mycroft. Don’t call him untrustworthy until you’re sure he has disobeyed you. Maybe it can all be explained — Sherlock’s a great hand at explaining.”
“He’s not here when I told him to stay,” retorted Mycroft. “He’ll find it hard to explain that to my satisfaction. Of course, I knew you’d take his part, Greg. But remember, I’m in charge of bringing him up, not you.”
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Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, confirmed bachelors who have recently moved to Avonlea, decide to adopt an orphan girl to help with the housework, rather than hiring someone local, who might be tempted to carry tales back to the village about how many beds were — or were not — slept in. However, the hand of fate steps in to deliver them a boy, instead. Since Sherlock could just as easily be a girl’s name, they decide to keep the child, and pass him off as a girl. Little do they know just how much trouble — and joy — Sherlock will bring into their lives.
“There’s so much to learn at school,” said Sherlock enthusiastically. “And I love writing compositions. Mostly Miss Hudson lets us choose our own subjects; but next week we are to write a composition on some remarkable person. It’s hard to choose among so many remarkable people who have lived. Mustn’t it be splendid to be remarkable and have compositions written about you after you’re dead?
“Oh, I would dearly love to be remarkable. I think when I grow up I’ll be a chemist, and perform brilliant experiments — or maybe I’ll be a detective, and solve the most baffling crimes. That would be very remarkable, wouldn’t it?”
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Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, confirmed bachelors who have recently moved to Avonlea, decide to adopt an orphan girl to help with the housework, rather than hiring someone local, who might be tempted to carry tales back to the village about how many beds were — or were not — slept in. However, the hand of fate steps in to deliver them a boy, instead. Since Sherlock could just as easily be a girl’s name, they decide to keep the child, and pass him off as a girl. Little do they know just how much trouble — and joy — Sherlock will bring into their lives.
“Although you can’t walk well enough to go back to school yet, Sherlock, I suppose we must have the new teacher up to tea someday soon,” said Mycroft reflectively. “She’s been almost everywhere but here. Let me see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to have her. But don’t say a word to Greg about it, for if he knew she was coming he’d find some excuse to be away that day. He’s going to worry that a lady school teacher will want to marry him.”
“I’ll be as secret as the dead,” assured Sherlock. “But oh, Mycroft, will you let me make a cake for the occasion? I’d love to do something for Miss Hudson, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time.”
Do you recognize a young Una Stubbs in the photo above as Miss Hudson?
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Mycroft was out in the orchard picking a panful of summer apples when he saw Mr. Hooper coming over the log bridge and up the slope, with Mrs. Hooper beside him and a whole procession of children trailing after him. In his arms he carried Sherlock, whose head lay limply against his shoulder.
At that moment, Mycroft had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that pierced his very heart, he realised what Sherlock had come to mean to him. He would have admitted that he liked Sherlock — nay, that he was very fond of Sherlock. But now Mycroft knew, as he hurried wildly down the slope, that Sherlock was dearer to him than anything else on earth, save Greg himself.
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Aunt Martha, thin, prim, and rigid, was knitting fiercely by the fire, her wrath quite unappeased and her eyes snapping through her gold-rimmed glasses. She wheeled around in her chair, expecting to see Molly, and beheld a white-faced child whose great eyes were brimmed up with a mixture of desperate courage and shrinking terror.
“Who are you?” she demanded, without ceremony.
“I’m Sherlock of Green Gables,” said the small visitor tremulously, clasping his hands with his characteristic gesture, “and I’ve come to confess, if you please.”
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Oops! Forgot to reblog this last Sunday. Here it is, a week late - to be followed immediately by the next chapter. :)
Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, confirmed bachelors who have recently moved to Avonlea, decide to adopt an orphan girl to help with the housework, rather than hiring someone local, who might be tempted to carry tales back to the village about how many beds were — or were not — slept in. However, the hand of fate steps in to deliver them a boy, instead. Since Sherlock could just as easily be a girl’s name, they decide to keep the child, and pass him off as a girl. Little do they know just how much trouble — and joy — Sherlock will bring into their lives.
“My opinion is that you ought to let Sherlock go,” said Greg.
“Impossible,” retorted Mycroft. “We can’t allow him to sleep in a bed with a girl!”
“They’re just children. I’m sure Sherlock would never dream of doing anything inappropriate.”
“He’s done something inappropriate every single day since he arrived at Green Gables.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do,” conceded Mycroft. “And I agree with you, as far as that goes. But still, Greg, it’s too much of a risk. What if Molly — or, God forbid, Mrs. Hooper — discovers he’s a boy?”
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“Mrs. Donovan says Canada is going to the dogs,” said Sherlock. “She says if women were allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed change. Is that true, Greg?”
“It might be. Women can be pretty clever.”
“Did you ever court a woman, Greg?”
“Well… no, I never did,” said Greg, who had certainly never thought of such a thing in his whole existence.
Sherlock reflected with his chin in his hands.
“Courting must be rather interesting, don’t you think, Greg? Irene Adler says when she grows up she’s going to have ever so many beaus on the string and have them all crazy about her; but I think that would be too exciting. I’d rather have just one in his right mind.”
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“It’s a nice room, this.”
John waved around, his aim unclear, but Sherlock understood anyway. He nodded shortly. Then, he went and put a box of letters on one of the already overflowing tables and put off his coat as well. John turned and saw THE letter Sherlock had pinned at the wall.
“Is that…”
“Oh, yes,” confirmed Sherlock. “It is the letter, the one that started it all.”
Silently, as if there was a secret bond between them, they started to reread the now familiar lines. Instantly, as if it was their letters, their story, their love, Sherlock took over Gilbert’s part and John voiced Gordon. For a flicker of a moment, they were not unsung anymore, they came to live, bright and full of hope, fierce and proud, two men out of time:
“Darling, Darling”, Gilbert said, “We are in a pretty ghastly time, I know. But we are in for it together, my dearest love. I want to be with you, always, and it is all going to be okay and we have each other and love each other more. Won’t we? Won’t we?”
“Yes”, clinging to him, Gordon said, “we will, won’t we. So that something rather wonderful will come out of it all.”
“I promise you, it will”, Gilbert said, “You will see. As long as we together.” “That’s right,” Gordon, said, “Being together is everything.”
For a minute or two, there was silence, not awkward or tense; it was companionable. As if they had been old friends, even maybe more than that, life partners, incarnations, going back decades or even centuries, and that it had been always been like that: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in 221b Baker Street in London, sitting in two chairs in front of a fireplace.
Then John cleared his throat and asked “How did you get hold of the letter?”
“I got someone to duplicate it for me. Do you remember when we met?”
“We had a row, didn’t we?”
“We did. In fact,” Sherlock said, “there is scarcely an occasion in which we have met when we haven’t got a row. Why is that, do you suppose?”
“I guess I’m rather defensive.”
“For a rather long time I rather thought you simply disliked me,” Sherlock heard himself admitting. His voice sounded odd to himself, quiet and unsure, a mirror of his inner workings.
“No, you rather got under my guard.”
[…]
And before Sherlock could explain, reply, whatever, John had pulled down his hand and put it against his lips. Everything Sherlock had ever felt, every frisson had just be a preparation for this moment when his hand melted against his lips. Presently, he found himself leaning over him. He still held his hand like a talisman. Sherlock took John’s face between his hands and kissed John, hard, on his mouth. Sherlock felt that he came alive under his lips. Then he let John go.
“Don’t think I should ask you to forgive me,” Sherlock said. “You have no right to let this go by, John. You are damn to particular to do it by half. I’m your man and you know it.”
Chapter Four of “Then All The World Would See”: Sherlock Holmes, in the language of his insufferable brother, was ‘definitely intrigued’ about his job at the dead letter office. At twenty-eight, he had outgrown the horror of drug addiction, which was so characteristic of his younger years. Enter one John Watson, a fuck-up who doesn’t want to be a fuck-up anymore and also wants to fuck Sherlock Holmes. That he’s Sherlock’s boss happens to be the least of their problems. A story about warzones beyond Afghanistan, second chances in life, and how to fall in love. Told in text, notes and (dead) letters. It’s Johnlock, elementary. (BBC!Johnlock, so far: ca. 15k, explicit).
Get your hankies and kleenex ready, this one is for the heart. I got all teary eyed when I wrote and edited it.
At last, an all-new chapter of ‘Then All The World Would See (How Much In Love We Are)’. It’s time for first kisses, love confessions... and drama. Those two idiots in love...
Read it here on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15210941/chapters/36128232
Thanks @doctornerdington & @redscudery for letting me participating even it’s... ehm, not summer anylonger *hust*
Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, confirmed bachelors who have recently moved to Avonlea, decide to adopt an orphan girl to help with the housework, rather than hiring someone local, who might be tempted to carry tales back to the village about how many beds were — or were not — slept in. However, the hand of fate steps in to deliver them a boy, instead. Since Sherlock could just as easily be a girl’s name, they decide to keep the child, and pass him off as a girl. Little do they know just how much trouble — and joy — Sherlock will bring into their lives.
Sherlock flung himself into his studies heart and soul, determined not to be outdone in any class by John Watson. The rivalry between them was soon apparent; it was entirely good-natured on John’s side; but it is much to be feared that the same thing cannot be said of Sherlock, who had certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity for holding grudges. He was as intense in his hatreds as in his loves. He would not stoop to admit that he meant to rival John in schoolwork, because that would have been to acknowledge his existence, which Sherlock persistently ignored; but the rivalry was there, and honours fluctuated between them.
Now John was head of the spelling class; now Sherlock, with a toss of his wild curls, spelled him down. One morning John had all his sums done correctly and had his name written on the blackboard on the roll of honour; the next morning Sherlock, having wrestled wildly with decimals the entire evening before, would be first. One awful day they were tied, and their names were written up together. It was almost as bad as a ‘Take Notice’ and Sherlock’s mortification was as evident as John’s satisfaction.
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Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, confirmed bachelors who have recently moved to Avonlea, decide to adopt an orphan girl to help with the housework, rather than hiring someone local, who might be tempted to carry tales back to the village about how many beds were — or were not — slept in. However, the hand of fate steps in to deliver them a boy, instead. Since Sherlock could just as easily be a girl’s name, they decide to keep the child, and pass him off as a girl. Little do they know just how much trouble — and joy — Sherlock will bring into their lives.
Into the house Sherlock dashed and flung himself face downward on the sofa in an agony.
“Whatever has gone wrong now, Sherlock?” queried Greg in dismay.
“I do hope you haven’t gone and been saucy to Mrs. Donovan again,” said Mycroft. “Tell us what has happened.”
No answer from Sherlock save more tears and stormier sobs!
“Sherlock Scott, when I speak to you I want to be answered,” said Mycroft. “Sit right up this very minute and tell us what you are crying about.”
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When nobody was looking, John took from his desk a little pink candy heart with a gold motto on it, “You are sweet,” and slipped it under the curve of Sherlock’s arm. Whereupon Sherlock arose, took the pink heart gingerly between the tips of his fingers, dropped it on the floor, ground it to powder beneath his heel, and resumed his position without deigning to bestow a glance on John.
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Molly whispered to Sherlock, “That’s John Watson sitting right across the aisle from you, Sherlock. Just look at him and see if you don’t think he’s handsome.”
Sherlock looked accordingly. He had a good chance to do so, for the said John Watson was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long braid of Janine Hawkins, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. Presently Janine started up to take a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek, believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at her, and Mr. Anderson glared so sternly that Janine began to cry. John had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at Sherlock and winked with inexpressible drollery.
“I think John Watson is handsome,” confided Sherlock to Molly, “but I think he’s very bold. It isn’t good manners to wink at a stranger.”
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“The brooch is gone, and Sherlock has taken it and lied about it. That’s the plain, ugly truth, Greg Lestrade, and we might as well look it in the face.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Greg asked, feeling secretly thankful that Mycroft and not he had to deal with the situation. He felt no desire to step in this time.
“He’ll stay in his room until he confesses,” said Mycroft grimly, remembering the success of this method in the former case. “Then we’ll see. Perhaps we’ll be able to find the brooch if he’ll only tell where he took it; but in any case he’ll have to be severely punished, Greg.”
“Well, you’ll have to punish him,” said Greg. “I’ve nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself.”
Mycroft felt deserted by everyone.
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