#wow i'm glad the eurus storyline is done cuz that was way too much for a couple of ficlets

[missdaviswrites]

22--Miracle

"Did you mean what you said, the other night?"

"Sorry, what?" John looked up at Sherlock, who had appeared silently in the living room and was now standing next to John's chair.

"When Eurus was here. After."

John blinked at him. "Still not following you."

Sherlock sighed. "You said it would take a lot more than one criminally insane sibling to tear us apart. Did you mean it?"

John lowered the journal he'd been reading, his whole body suddenly gone cold with trepidation. "Do you have another sibling that I don't know about, Sherlock?"

"What? No. I mean, not that I know of, of course. I just mean—" Sherlock took a deep breath. "I know what your feelings are on the matter, but I've thought about it a lot, and I would like it if Eurus were somehow able to maintain a relationship with Rosie."

John took his time folding down the corner of the page he'd been reading and setting the journal aside on the table next to him before answering. "I don't...," he began, and then closed his eyes briefly. "Sherlock, we can't do that to Rosie. We can't put her in harm's way."

"I know, I know." Sherlock fiddled his hands together for a moment and then sat down in his chair across from John, leaning forward on his knees. "I want to protect her, too. But short of keeping Eurus so heavily medicated that she can't move, I don't think there's any way to ensure that she won't ever escape again. And we can't keep Rosie under lock and key, either—she's a teenager now. But I truly don't think Eurus would ever harm her."

John shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Maybe Sherlock was right, and Eurus wouldn't harm Rosie, but then again, she had tortured her older brothers without a second thought, so the label of family was no guarantee of safety. He didn't understand anything about Eurus's motivations, and wasn't even sure he wanted to. "Why did she let herself be caught and returned to Sherrinford so easily?" Eurus hadn't put up a fight when Mycroft's men had shown up to remove her from the flat—she'd lowered her head and put her hands behind her back and let them lead her away without saying a word.

"I don't know," Sherlock said. "At first, I thought it was because she knew she was a danger and wanted to be locked up again, but I think it's more than that. I don't think she's emotionally capable of being free all of the time, and I think she knows it. There's too much data out here—the world is so big that it's overwhelming. I feel that way sometimes, and her intellect is vastly greater than mine. I think she's more comfortable when she's limited to four walls and a pair of guards. She can retreat into her own mind when she's locked up at Sherrinford, and not have to deal with anything else."

John squinted at him. "Are you...jealous? Do you wish you were in her position? So you could spend all your time in your Mind Palace?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Maybe once I would have said yes, when I was much younger, but I know that there's quite a bit of value to be had in the world outside of my own head. Eurus never learned that. She never learned how to live in a world with other people at all."

"So...you're saying Eurus has no idea how she's supposed to interact with other human beings, and yet you want to let her be around Rosie? Sherlock." John tipped his head slightly to one side, looking at him.

"I understand what you're saying, John, but it's complicated. I don't think cutting Eurus off from any sympathetic human contact is the answer. I think perhaps if she hadn't been locked up as a very young child, if she'd instead had access to better mental health care and allowed to maintain some contact with our whole family instead of just Mycroft and Uncle Rudy, she may have ended up with a very different life."

"Like maybe not killing so many people?" John wasn't trying to be light-hearted, but God, this whole situation was frankly ridiculous if he thought about it for too long.

Sherlock pursed his lips, then nodded. "I don't know If she can truly be rehabilitated at this point, and I don't want to see her set free, but I also think she deserves something of a second chance. It's why I've been visiting her all these years."

"I know."

"And she hasn't killed anyone else in that time."

"That we know of," John said. Yes, people could change—Sherlock had, and he himself had, over the years—but he didn't know if that was true of Eurus. "I don't think—"

Sherlock interrupted him. "I'm not proposing that I take Rosie with me to visit her, don't worry. I think Sherrinford would be a bit much for any child to handle, even Rosie. What I'm suggesting is that they be allowed to play together. Rosie on cello, Eurus on violin. We could stay here in the flat with Rosie while they Skyped. They most likely wouldn't even speak to each other—Eurus has currently retreated into her head again, and is likely to remain non-communicative for some time, as she did all those years ago after she kidnapped us. But she still loves to play her violin."

John gritted his teeth together, considering. Sherlock's proposal was not what he'd expected. Was it still risky? Maybe. Eurus didn't need to be in the same room as Rosie in order to influence her. And John was never going to trust Eurus, but he thought Sherlock did, a little, at least, and he trusted Sherlock. They'd always made parenting decisions together, and up until now, they were almost always on the same page. He'd still rather have Rosie know nothing at all about Eurus—truth be told, he'd rather Sherlock have nothing to do with her at all either. Long-lost sister or not, she had still tortured and nearly killed them at Sherrinford. But now that Rosie had met her, she wasn't going to forget about her Aunt Eurus, and Sherlock's idea to have them in contact only through Skype might be the best option. "We could end the video chat the moment we suspected Eurus of anything diabolical?"

"Diabolical?"

"That's what I said." John stared at him, then softened slightly. "All right. We'll try it. If Rosie wants to, of course."

"Of course. I'll talk to Mycroft, see about setting something up for next month, after the holidays."

John nodded and reached for his medical journal again. At least the only relative he had to deal with on his side was Harry. He never would've predicted that one day she would be the family member who caused the least drama. Of course, when it came to over-the-top spectacle and suspense, no one could outdo the Holmes family.

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Read all the ficlets here: So This Is Christmas