Note:

I do not own these lovely characters I'm writing about and Moffat won't let me own BBC's Sherlock no matter how much I beg and plead and promise to throw the characters off of buildings.

The title isn't mind as well. I would like to thank the person for it but I can't put their URL nor can I put the link to the quote that she gave me for the title. So all I can really say is thank you so much for giving me a lovely title based off of a quote from the Velveteen Rabbit. Since I can't put more than that please message me if you want to know who the amazing person is that's responsible for supplying me with these amazing things.

So many times they had talked about it, always planning for the what-if's as John had called them. Such as who call, where he'd get buried, and what to do after everything got finished, such as moving on for the sake of Sherlock's sanity as well as Hamish's. Never in his life had the detective actually thought it would happen, that his husband, the man he'd said he'd spend the rest of his life with, would be gone. The news had been delivered to him at 8:37 in the morning. Two men had been let up by Mrs. Hudson - the woman had thought it had been a case for him - and right away he had known it had something far less delightful than that from the stiff posture and somber look on their faces.

"I'm so sorry," the first had said, a genuine look of sadness crossing his face for a brief second.

"There's nothing we can bring back to bury," the other had explained.

"You should be honored. He saved many people by doing at he did," the first had added on.

With another apology they had seen themselves out for Sherlock felt too weak to stand up do it himself. The nicely dressed soldiers seemed used to the reaction, somewhat grateful as well seeing that he hadn't broken down into a fit of tears. Silence filled the flat and the hole quickly forming in his chest. Plans would have to be put in place with a calm mind, not one crowded by grief. Calm was filling him, but the kind that came before a storm.

Hamish would have to be told - Hamish Watson-Holmes, their four-year old son they had adopted around their third anniversary as a freshly born and oh-so perfect. Their son that was still young enough to call John, Daddy and Sherlock, Papa, yet smart enough to be placed in primary school not nursery school like most children would be at his age, happily learning shapes, colors, and writing, something their little boy had begun to master at the age of two.

Hamish was going to be devastated.

With a shaky hand Sherlock pulled out his phone, only knowing one number that he could text for
anything. Lestrade. The DI had been good friends with John, someone who came over to their house for dinner and had been John's best man their wedding. Sherlock trusted the man because John had truly made it so.

I need you to pick Hamish up from school. -SH

Why? What's going on? GL

It was rare for Sherlock to pull Hamish out of school; he saw school as important since it was something that was going to get his son a good job at some time in the future. John had always told him he was stupid to think ahead that far in life when Hamish was four - Bloody four! he would have exclaimed - and did have his whole life ahead of him. That had been one thing they had fought about more than they wanted to admit to each other. He allowed a sigh, feeling his phone vibrate again as he sat in his chair. There was no will power in him to pick it up, his hand heavier than anything he had ever lifted in his life. The motivation to even do a simple task was weighing him down more than he could have ever imagined. But, as always, he found a way to do the impossible - no, the improbable.

Sherlock, are you in trouble? GL
I'm going to pick Hamish up but explain to me, alright? Simple yes or no will work fine. GL

Yes. I'll tell you. -SH

Lestrade deserved that after all. They had worked together since had been a pretentious teen, waltzing in on crime scenes unannounced and sometimes high as a kite when going on. Only way he had been able to do what he had planned to do since the age of thirteen was kick his habit. And he had... mainly. Some relapses but nothing as bad as it had been before. Since he and John had married he hadn't taken it. Seven years sober. According to Lestrade he was still pretentious but at least got announced now when he came on, which people still didn't enjoy very much.

Not that it mattered now.

He tossed his phone in the direction of the couch so not to worry about it, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees and hands over his face, hiding himself from the world around him. It was all too loud with the silence, eating and picking at him, forcing him to acknowledge more than he already had that the man he loved had died in some foreign country defending it for a shit war that had no real reason besides gas. He was going to punch Mycroft for that one upon their next meeting. John had died, not in his arms, but throwing his body over a damn bomb and having everything of him obliterated, down to the dog tags. All they had to go off of was the people who had seen his last heroic act.

"God damn your hero complex," he said, more like shouted, to himself with a sharp movement of his hand turning into a fist to connect with the arm of his chair in a hammer strike.

One hand still remained over his face to hide it from prying eyes as tears prickled in them to their own accord. By the time Hamish and Lestrade arrived they'd be bloodshot either from his crying or from holding it in for too long. He knew Lestrade would go to the worst - another relapse - to ignore the idea that John Watson had died. The position he was in stayed that way until he heard the door open from below and a cheery greeting from Mrs. Hudson while Hamish bounded up the stairs, probably extremely excited that he was getting out of school for the rest of the day, not to mention until the funeral was planned out and over.

Sherlock saw Hamish and knew that his easy assumptions of his son's character had been correct. A bright and happy smile was plastered on his face, lighting up his pale features that was only accented by the black hair that sat atop his head in a mop of hair. Clothes were perfectly picked out and definitely not appropriate for the weather with how thin they were, something John would have scolded him for. The small hands were clutched around the straps of his bag in an excited style until his son's deep blue eyes met his face and their eyes connected. An instant understanding was forged and the smile, his son's beautiful smile, disappeared in a flash.

"Papa, what's going on?"

Their eyes stayed locked as he just looked at his little boy. Now w was he going to be able to lie to him, not even for a moment. Hamish pulled his backpack off, letting it drop to the ground without a car for what was inside it like he usually would have done. The boy went to his father and climbed up on top of his lap, already nestling into him out of the new anticipated bad news.

Downstairs he heard Lestrade milling around, pacing across the space of the floor in front of the stairs. Stressed, worrying about the news that the detective was going be delivering to the pair. An absent hand went down Hamish's back to hold onto him a bit better and pull him close his chest. Sherlock finally heard those tell-tale signs of the stairs creaking under weight as the DI ascended.

Lestrade entered a few moments later, the usual clothes on his body that marked he had been at work, probably dropping everything in his haste to get there. "Signing things," Sherlock questioned in a bored tone, getting a frown from the man. There was no usual excitement to at least be deducing something. It was already a heads up that something was wr and he was just putting off telling the news. "Ink on your fingers. From that temperamental pen you use," he added for an explanation.

"Ah." A pause. "Sherlock, you said you would explain what's going on. Now do it."

No nonsense Lestrade. Hamish had perked up a bit to look at Sherlock. Hope was in his eyes that something good was going to come of this bit of news.

"Daddy's not going to be coming home," he said in as level of a voice that he could manage."He got hurt and passed away."

Hamish understood what Sherlock was saying. His eyes were up and on him, the hope slowly fading and drowning away to go somewhere else deep inside him. Merely seconds later the boy began crying. In an attempt to muffle the noise he was drawn closer, face moved to press into the familiar and comforting shoulder of his father. Little arms wrapped around his neck as the wetness grew on his shoulder from those tears.

Upon looking up from tending to his crying boy he noticed that Lestrade was standing there with tense posture that only could be marked down as shock. "I'm going to make tea," the DI said, moving back to the kitchen to get that going. That had always been John's solution to everything, a nice cuppa and it would all be fine. That rarely worked on any occasion it was put into action. Still a comfort.

The noise of someone bustling in the kitchen, getting cups down from their shelves, sugar being brought out milk to make it creamy rather than watery. Somehow the noise soothed Hamish and in the midst of his crying he went to sleep. Sherlock's cheek rested against the top of his boy's head. The warmth that came off him was amazing, reminding him of when Hamish had just been a baby and how that same warmth had put him to sleep when holding his son. None of John's scolding had put an end to that.

Lestrade came back with the tea, two cups and Sherlock's with two sugars and a bit of milk, to the sitting room. The one that was his was set down to the side of him on the little table while the DI hesitated before sitting on the couch. John's chair would have been closer but if the man had dared to sit in it Sherlock would have snapped at last. It was barely nine in the morning and everything had been ruined.

"How did it happen," Lestrade asked cautiously, eyes focused on Sherlock's in the way he focused on a suspect.

The detective's long pale fingers threaded through Hamish's hair out of reflex, needing something to hold onto and play with so he wouldn't go insane. Little ticks from his childhood were coming back with this latest disruption in his life God, he hoped the rocking wouldn't come back; he could deal with fiddling hands as a stim, but not rocking.

"Threw himself over a bomb to protect the people on his team and the civilians around him. They say he didn't feel a thing from the force of the explosion, that if there was any pain he would have only felt it for a moment."

Silence.

It only lasted for minutes until Lestrade broke it again to try to fill it with something other than the pain they were sharing. "I'm so sorry. God, is there anything I can do? ANything I can help with? This is just... awful."

Lestrade ran his fingers through the hair that was completely grey. Another sign of stress in the man's life. Didn't they all feel that?

"No, just, all I need you to do is tell people at the Yard. That and take me from your calling list for difficult cases. You know my methods and, if it comes down to it, you can do it yourself."

It was always serious when Sherlock asked to be taken off of cases. He had done it only a few times in all those years of working with the DI; first when had gone through another withdrawal from drugs right before he and John had met and the man had moved in, the honeymoon of his and John's wedding - John had requested it as a wedding present instead of going out and buying something that would be rarely used -, and finally when they had adopt Hamish for the first two weeks to get used to having a baby around the flat.

He finally reached over, pulling his hand from his son's hair, to grab the tea waiting for him. In the silence he took a sip, eyes slowly closing. The tea tasted exactly how John had made it. Lestrade had learned well how to make it to the standard of excellence.

When it was off of his mouth he said, "Do you think you could leave? I'd like to have some time alone before Hamish wakes back up. If I need anything, I'll text you."

Lestrade was nodding his head, standing and seeming to just want to please. "I'll check on you tomorrow then. Don't do anything stupid." That standard goodbye was given and off the man went, leaving his tea still steaming where he had set it on the coffee table. From below he heard the door close and as soon as the loneliness had set in his head fell down to rest on his son's.