Over the last few days, the wind rushing over the hills has swept Y/N's chest clean and knotted her hair. Wading through thick grass and leaping over brooks has set her slow blood pumping, and Mrs Holmes' fresh vegetables have tipped her ears red and set her skin alight with a healthy glow.
Y/N sighs sadly as she slots her wash bag into her suitcase.
She doesn't seem to realise she's doing it, breaths of air being taken in and held, her lungs trying to drink as much of the clean breeze as they can before returning to the soupy London smog.
On the opposite side of the bed, Sherlock methodologically folds a pair of jeans Y/N never knew he owned.
Something has put colour into his pale cheeks too---although she's not sure if it's entirely down to the countryside.
Taking up her own pair of grass-stained trousers, she folds them, then again, then again, the fabric not squashing down into the neat little square she's aiming for.
It's always easier to pack to go somewhere, Y/N muses. Straight from her chest of drawers, everything fits in uniform, evenly folded shapes.
Packing things away after a holiday is much harder; her case never seems to zip up right, as if each jumper, each well-thumbed book, each dress and swimsuit has gotten memories caught in their thread, swelling them up to twice their size.
Y/N takes her watch and hair ties off her temporary night table, then notices the fat leather book remaining, the marker a mere few millimetres into its tower of pages. She holds it up, hovering it questioningly over her open case. "Do you really think your mum won't mind us borrowing Anna Karenina?"
"Yeah, she won't mind, she'll be happy it's being read." The ghost of a smirk twitches Sherlock's lip. "...When we've finished it, maybe I could show you my Great Gatsby?"
Y/N looks at him, surprised and, sure enough, finds a boyish twinkle in his eyes. Slyly, she returns it. "Okay...then, after that, we could explore my Secret Garden?"
Delighted that she'd caught onto his little game, Sherlock zips his case up, throwing her a shameless, dark grin that makes her knees a little weak. "Then, perhaps I could show you a picture of my Dorian grey?"
"If you do, I might just let you scale my Wuthering Heights."
He snorts, then frowns thoughtfully. "...There's got to be something in Moby Dick, right?"
"Well, I think it's more likely that Moby Dick will go into something."
They giggle, the sound bouncing around the low-ceilinged little room, getting absorbed by the thick rugs and floral, patterned wallpaper.
As it pitters out, leaving nothing but the whisper of the trees and the chattering of bird song, something clouds Sherlock's eyes.
Y/N steps around to his side of the bed and places a concerned hand on his arm---to tether him in case he's gotten lost in his head. Giving it a squeeze to show him the way back:
"What's wrong?"
He presses his lips into a reassuring smile. "I'm okay. It's just odd, really, but I sort of...had a moment where I didn't want to go home."
He's turned to the window, his eyes passing over the green fields and lofty skies.
The honeysuckle taps on the window pane in the morning breeze, which had changed direction in the night, bringing with it the sappy smell of pine trees from the woods across the field. The rain, although violent and torrential, has all but dried out and left the leaves and flowers a little bruised but brighter and more radiant than ever, the sun illuminating the golden wheat and shimmering white poplar. The air is heavy with the sweetness of wet soil, and a proud male pheasant scours the lawn for worms with his harem of speckled females, unbothered by the clatter of Mrs Holmes preparing breakfast in the kitchen.
Y/N watches him puff up his resplendent feathers, beads of dew scattering like glass as he shakes them dry. "I understand. I'll miss it here too."
"Sometimes...I don't like London," Sherlock admits and Y/N blinks, dragging her gaze away from the window. "Remember that week I was being framed by the man who blew up Hammersmith Bridge? He threatened to kill you if I didn't hand myself in? I had to do that special knock on the door every time I entered the flat so you knew it was me."
Y/N sifts through her mental filing cabinet.
There have been a lot of people who've threatened to kill her.
"Yes, I remember that. It sounded like the Moonpig advert."
"I used to like the adventure, but now every time I take on a case that's a little too dangerous I can't help worrying about you. And..." he seems puzzled, his dark brows knitting together. "...And...myself. I think it hit me a few weeks ago."
Y/N feels his hand take hers.
He holds it as if to feel the warmth of her palm pressed against his. "...I think I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"Lots of things. Of dying. Of you getting hurt. Of not getting to see what my future looks like. We had that dry spell in July where I couldn't get any work so we just pottered around the flat. But I wasn't bored. I realised I don't really...care as much anymore."
"About cases?"
He shrugs as if he's not quite sure. "I used to sort of...rely on them. As a distraction. But I don't want to be distracted now."
Y/N thinks he will raise his head to meet her eyes and she'll find a look of lost, melancholy sadness.
Instead, she is surprised to find a smile.
"You don't?"
"No. I like this more." He swings their hands between them childishly, his smile bashful like a boy. "It turns out I am really quite smitten with you."
...
Mrs Holmes insists on sitting her son and Y/N down for a proper breakfast before they start the long journey home. She serves pancetta and pepper piperade that she'd fried in a deep, wide pan taking up three ring burners, and toast made from homemade bread.
Fretting about with a jug of grapefruit juice and poppyseed muffins and sliced banana, she piles two helpings onto Y/N and Sherlock's plates, tutting about them being nothing but skin and bones, and 'doesn't London have any proper food?'
Eventually, Sherlock and Y/N manage to wave away her fussing enough to load their cases into the car, which is a lot less shiny than when they'd driven it out of the rental place's car park.
Gathered on the doorstep, Mrs Holmes presses a straining bag for life into Sherlock's hand which falls several inches as he supports its weight. "Here, take this."
"What is it?"
"Just some bits and bobs from the garden."
Peering inside, he rifles through it, the sound of packets, tins, and jars clinking together. "...There's a whole ham in here, Mum."
"It's for you to take home."
"What are we going to do with a whole ham? There's only two of us."
"Invite some friends round."
Flatly:
"Again, there's only two of us. And there's like a million tomatoes in here!"
"I see your numeracy hasn't improved," Mycroft drawls, passing through the hallway.
"Have you ever thought of moving?" Sherlock mutters, not bothering to take his eyes away from the contents of the bag. "Australia is nice and far away."
"There's only a few," Mrs Holmes insists, ignoring their squabble. "We got so many this year, we'll never eat them. We planted extra---in case of slugs---but I think those ducks ate them all, so at least they have their uses."
"There's three bushes worth! And---" He takes a box of chocolates from the bottom and holds them up, the red ribbon fluttering in the wind. "---Mum, these are yours. We brought these."
"I know, and it was very sweet but I want you to have them."
"But we brought them for you. They're M&S, you like M&S."
"Yes, but I know how you love your chocolate. And cheese, I popped some cheese in there too."
Sherlock opens his mouth and Mr Holmes interjects, gently closing the bag:
"Just take them, son, you know what your mother's like."
"Charles! I'm not like anything." Her eyes widen like a light has switched on in the busy rooms of her mind. "Oh wait!" Turning back into the house, she disappears, Sherlock peering after her.
"Mum? Where are you going?"
"I forgot something!" In a moment she returns with an unlabeled jar of deep purple liquid. Holding it out:
"I got up early and made you some jam from the blackberries out the back garden. You love jam."
"You didn't have to do that!"
She waves him away with a hand Y/N notices is still stained a little purple. "Well, it's done now. And we can't keep it, you know your father shouldn't have too much sugar."
Mr Holmes frowns crossly. "Just because Mr Biggs down the road decided to eat a whole crumble and have a heart attack, the fun's ruined for the rest of us!"
Sherlock stoops to give his mother's flour-speckled cheek a kiss. Seriously, pressing the words down firmly so they'll stick:
"You don't need to keep doing things like this, Mum."
She blinks up at him. "Things like what?"
"Like this!" He shakes the bag and Y/N thinks the handle might snap. "I worry about you. Remember what the doctor said about resting? You will tell him if your knee starts to play up again, won't you?"
"Oh, I don't want to bother Dr Thorne, he's such a busy man."
"That's his job, Mum, you're supposed to bother him!"
Y/N interrupts quickly, accepting the jam gratefully:
"Thank you for this, Wendy, it was very kind of you! I'm sure it's delicious."
"Well, at least someone appreciates me." She huffs, looking like a prickly little round hedgehog in an apron. She reminds Y/N of an illustration of Mrs Tiggy-winkle from the Beatrix Potter books she used to read as a child.
"We do appreciate you!" Her sons insist in baffled, irritated unison, and she ignores them, speaking directly to Y/N now.
"Do you have enough money for petrol? It's a long drive from here to London and remember, there's road works on the A429. Here, take this." She takes her handbag from the hat stand and draws out a crumpled twenty-pound note.
"We can afford petrol." Gently, Sherlock tucks it back into her purse.
Then he brings it out again, his brow furrowed. "Mum, this is paper."
"Yes."
"You know money is all plastic now? They don't accept paper anymore. Where did you get this?"
"I found it in my sewing box."
"What was it---never mind. Thank you for everything, it was wonderful to see you. I'll call to let you know we got home safe."
"Make sure you do." She pulls him down for a hug, a kiss just not being enough, his face squashed comically against the tea towel draped over her shoulder.
It makes Y/N smile. "You have a wonderful home, thank you for letting me stay with you. It was great getting to meet everyone," she says honestly, a surprising, genuine sadness welling up within her as she remembers in a moment she'll have to leave it all behind.
"It was a delight to have you, my girl." Charles plants an enthusiastic kiss on both of her cheeks. He smells of soil and encyclopaedias and expensive tweed. "You're welcome back anytime. And you're right, it's nice to have the family assembled all together. I don't know how many more times we'll get to do it before Wendy and I give up the place."
Finally released from his mother's grasp, Sherlock pales as if someone has slapped him. "What?"
"Charles, don't scare the boy!" Mrs Holmes shoots a glare at her husband:
Smoothing her composure, she explains in a gentle, soothing tone:
"Well, not right now, mind, but it's something your father and I have been talking about---for the future. We love this house but it's a lot to manage, and we are getting on in years. We were thinking of moving into a nice little bungalow down in Dorset."
"It would be a shame to see the old place go, though," Mr Holmes sighs. "My father's father's father planted those trees, you know? You could move me to the other side of the earth but, just like the trees, us Holmes's are rooted in Musgrave Cottage." He's looking at his son with an expression Y/N can't read.
Outside, below the sunny sky, his eyes are a cheeky forget me knot blue. They seem to twinkle as he smiles, giving Sherlock a hearty pat on the back. "It would be nice if it could stay in the family."
Sherlock looks from his dad to his mum, then back again. His mouth opens but before he can string a sentence together, Wendy says, straightening his shirt collar where she'd hugged it askew:
"You'll come back at Christmas, both of you, won't you?"
Collecting himself, Sherlock looks to Y/N. "Well, it all depends. Do you think you could stick an entire holiday with my family?"
"It's more or less the same," Charles shrugs, "but with puddings that catch fire, a turkey so big it must have been fed steroids, and a lot more sherry."
Y/N gives Mrs Holmes a beaming smile and a confident kiss on the cheek.
Immediately she's absorbed into a lavender-scented hug.
"Of course we'll be there!"
Epilogue...
Y/N clicks the radio on as they rumble down the uneven driveway and onto the woodland track.
REM is playing, a sad voice accompanying a melancholy guitar.
"This place
needs me here
to start."
Sherlock steers them towards the main road, oak branches passing overhead and sifting the sunlight into green crystals. They scatter all over the car as Musgrave Cottage shrinks in the rearview mirror.
"This place
is the beat
of my heart"
...
Hours later, the street lamps' orange light glares like watchful eyes as Sherlock inserts the key into the lock of 221B.
A moist drizzle had set in around dusk, and continued to thicken as they'd taken the taxi from the car rental, droplets forming on the window and distorting the city into an endless grey smudge.
Tiptoeing across the old floorboards, only a few tired words pass between Y/N and Sherlock as they take their things upstairs.
Y/N didn't really remember the flat having a smell, but it does; books and violin rosin, and the faintest muggy tinge of roads and buses and chimneys.
Sherlock departs silently to his room with his case, and Y/N takes hers to the kitchen.
She smiles as she unloads Mrs Holmes' gifts.
The bag smells sweetly of tomatoes and Y/N slowly fills the fridge's crisper with them, their vivid red sheen brightening up the barren shelves.
Wendy had given them carrots too, still gritty with healthy brown soil, and potatoes and onions and two ears of sweetcorn swaddled in feathery green leaves.
Bringing the unwanted box of chocolates with her, Y/N then drags her case upstairs to her bedroom on the third floor.
It's quiet up there, besides the rain on the roof. She pulls her cardigan tighter about herself as she draws the curtains, the night made bright as day by office buildings and hospitals and overworked traffic lights.
The city that never sleeps.
Having unloaded her case, she plonks it down on the bed and flops next to it with a sigh.
There's a little knock at the door and she sits up.
Her guest nudges it open and she smiles automatically.
"Hey, Sherlock. I know it's late but I was thinking we could whip up some pasta for dinner. Goodness knows we've got enough tomatoes."
Giving a small smile, he nods. "Yeah, that would be nice."
He's still dithering in the doorway, his socked feet playing with a crack in the floorboards.
He's brought his case with him.
Y/N frowns. "You haven't unpacked yet?"
"No, I was thinking...well...what if I unpack...here?"
For the first time since they'd left the countryside, the clouds part enough to reveal a silvery moon. It peeps from the gap in Y/N's curtains.
She grins. "In my room?"
His cheeks colour. "I don't have to if you don't want me to. I just thought, seeing as we're---you know. I mean, we could take mine, but your room is brighter and more colourful with all your things that make me think of you. And we seem to sleep so much better when we're in the same bed anyway so it makes sense---"
Standing, Y/N steps over her open case to where he's struggling by the door, and places a soothing finger to his lips. "Sherlock."
Mesmerised---as he always is whenever she gets particularly close to him---Sherlock watches as she takes both his hands.
Softly, she leads him over the threshold.
His feet touch to her squashy carpet and he grins.
"I'd like that very much."