I am not lonely [Mystrade]

CHAPTER 64 : All to the Tardis

"Sarah! Lucas ! Can you come and put your shoes please ?"Mycroft called out, helping Jack to tie his bootlace. "Try to do the other one." he encouraged the young boy.

"Can I take my new book to show it to Papa ?" Alden requested, showing his father the said book and begging him with his eyes.
"Sure." accepted the man, patting his son on the head before turning back to the stair and yelling once more. "Sarah ! Lucas ! Now or you'll stay here.". It was the first time he had to manage the four kids at the same time on his own but his natural authority and the good education the kids had received had made it quite easy for the moment.
The last two children dashed down the stairs smiling at the auburn. "Sorry, we were feeding the fishes." explained the little girl seizing a pair of blue converses and slipping quickly her feet in it.
"Oh, the fishes ..." the official smiled before turning back to jack who seems to have some difficulties with his bootlace. He kneeled near him again and showed him once more how he was supposed to achieve the task.
Five minutes later everyone was suited and booted and climbing in the black car waiting for them in front of the house. Letting the three Lestrade kids monopolize the back seats, Mycroft sat in the passenger seat with his son on his knees, thinking that as much as he loved the Jaguar, it was most probably not the best car for a family.
Fortunately, the drive to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital only lasted a dozen of minutes and the toddler spent most of his time looking at the pictures of his book, sometime pointing out something at his father asking for its name.
Once they were all gathered behind the detective's door, the elder Holmes turn to the Lestrade kids. "Hey guys, your dad don't know you are coming." he whispered them. "He doesn't know I've been authorized to pick you up from your mum. So we are going to do him a surprise ok?". The three children nodded, waiting for further instructions ."I'm going to go in with Alden and make him close his eyes before you enter, alright ?".
"Sir yes sir." giggled Sarah, speaking for her brothers.
The auburn winked to them and stepped in the room, letting the door half opened for the kids to know when to enter.
"Good morning darling." he greeted his husband before leaning to him and placing a gentle kiss on his lips.
Alden climbed on a chair beside the bed then on the bed and hugged his father tightly. "Papa ! I miss you !"
"I missed you too little man." replied the policeman hugging him back.
"And me ? I don't have the right to a hug ?" complained the official with a little pout.
"It depends ? Have you misbehaved lately ?"chuckled the inspector, opening his arms to his boyfriend.
As his head was crawled in the elder Holmes's neck, Gregory didn't see his children entering the room and lining at the end of the bed. Breaking the hug, Mycroft stepped back, revealing the surprise to the DI who was now looking rather agape.
"Good morning Dad !" the three of them exclaimed at the same time, giggling of their father's reaction.
"But ... What the hell are you doing here ?" He finally asked after half a minute.
"Nice to see you too, Dad." Sarah laughed, hugging her father, closely followed by her two brothers.
"Is your mum here ?" wondered the detective, still surprised to see his children after nearly a month and a half.
"Mum? You must be joking !" Lucas laughed, sitting on one of the chair Mycroft had collected for them in the corridor. "She hates you."
"Then how did you get there ?" questioned the policeman, starting to have an idea of what had happened.
"It's the doctor ! He brought us here with his Tardis of course." Jack, the youngest of his son, explained.
"And does this doctor wear a three pieces suit and have auburn hair. And does his Tardis look like a black luxury car maybe ?" their father chuckled, looking at his partner.
"It may. It may not. A doctor never reveal his secret, do he ?" retorted the elder Holmes.
"Look Papa ! Daddy gave me a new book !" suddenly intervened Alden, handling his book to is father.
"Oh, Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone ... And with pictures. Daddy spoiled you !" Greg appreciated.
"You read ?" the little boy requested, sitting on the bed beside his father.
The detective turned to his other children to ask for their assent before opening the book and starting to read. "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense." he started reading in a smooth and dapper voice, every one in the room, including Mycroft, hooked to his words. "Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere."
They spent more than two and half hours listening to the policeman before the kids started to feel hungry and the auburn decided it was time to leave. He leaned one last time to kiss his husband and was to go when the yarder grabbed his shoulder, preventing him from leaving.
"I thought you had promised not to meddle with my divorce." the older man whispered.
"If you prefer not seeing your children and them not seeing you, I can still bring them back to their mother." evaded the auburn.
"It's not what I'm saying Myc'. But you should have told me." the inspector reassured him. "Thank you honey."
The elder Holmes blew him a last kiss before leaving the room and joining the four kids waiting for him in the corridor. "Who wants some hamburgers ?" he asked in a smile, making the children shout in joy. "Everybody to the Tardis then !"

"Oh no, Mycroft, not modern art, it's rubbish ..." Lucas complained when they arrived in front of the Tate Modern museum after lunch.
"Eh young Lestrade, we don't say 'It's rubbish', we say 'I don't like it'. And I swear you will like this one." the auburn tutted him.
"Still. Modern art make no sense to me." sighed the little boy.
"Stop complaining and follow me. If you don't like it, I will ask the car to bring you back home, but have a look at least ok ?" the elder Holmes proposed, pushing the kid to the entrance.
"You swear it ?" asked Lucas, doubting.
"Have I ever let you down ?" retorted the official in a smile.
The five of them entered the museum and the kids waited calmly while the auburn was buying tickets, Sarah trying to convince her brother that if Mycroft had chose to bring them to this peculiar exhibition it must be because he thought it could interest children and that Lucas should at least let him a chance.
Half a dozen of minutes later the five of them were entering an exhibition room where was displayed a giant T-rex skeleton made only of Lego bricks. The kids look at the 4 meters-high sculpture, agape.
"Is that only made with Legos ? Like, the entire exhibition is only Legos ?" Lucas asked the auburn, his eyes the size of diner plates.
"Yep." the man answered, insisting on the 'p'. "If you had paid attention when we were outside instead of complaining you would have seen the posters announcing the exhibition and noticed that it was called 'The Art ofthe Brick' noodle ..."
"Sorry for doubting of your choice." apologized the little boy in a smile.
"Apologies accepted, now go on, there are many things for you to discover." chuckled the official, patting the boy on the head.
The three Lestrade kids scattered, running from one sculpture to the other while Alden was holding his father's hand, asking him how the sculptures were made.
"Hey Jack, look at this one." Sarah chuckled gesturing toward a flying pig.
"Why did they hanged up Lucas in a gallery?" her younger brother laughed, pulling out his tongue to Lucas.
"Aha, very funny ..." moaned the boy making the two other laugh even more.
"Oh look at him, he is grumpy ..." his sister teased him once more.
"Oh shut up !" the little boy replied, punching her softly on the shoulder.
"Hey kids, behave..." the official told them gently, appearing behind them.
"But she compared me to a flying pig !" Lucas exclaimed, half crossed, half amused.
The elder Holmes looked at the sculpture for a few seconds before turning back to the little boy. "It's not that spurious actually ... Maybe it's the ears ... Or the nose ?" he chuckled, collecting a soft punch in the stomach by the boy.
"I don't care, I've found yours." the kid retorted, nodding toward a reproduction of an Easter Island's Moai with a prominent nose.
All the children, including Alden who had left his father's hand go, dashed to the sculpture and started turning around it, observing it from every angle, looking from it to the official and to the sculpture again as if they were comparing the two.
"Identical." finally concluded Sarah with an appreciative and falsely expert nod. "Absolutely identical."
"And that's it, you try to please them and you ended up being bullied by four brats ..." replied the elder Holmes in a pout before cracking out in laughter with the kids. After catching up his breath, he seized his phone and took a picture of the children around the sculpture and sent it to his husband and to Greg's parents.
The visit ended up in a room where the kids were allowed to create their own Lego sculpture using the bricks displayed on the tables and each of them decided to built something they could bring to their father when visiting them the next day. Lucas and Jack worked together to built him a football ball and Sarah was working on a miniature model of Marcus while Alden was trying hisbest to build a multicoloured heart, his tongue pulled out in concentration. Even Mycroft joined, attempting a sheriff star despite his poor ability at manual and creative work.
Sarah, who had always been gifted when it came to art and craft was the first one to be finished and helped her half brother sat beside her to finish his heart, showing him how to piece the bricks together to prevent it from breaking too easily. When they finally left the museum, they were all arboring gleeful smiles and looking very proud with their creations.
"So Lucas, no regret in staying ?" the elder Holmes asked in the car while they were stuck in the traffic.
"Nah ...You were right, it was great ..." chuckled the boy
"If you want we could do others like this when you'll come for your holidays next month." the auburn proposed.
"Yeah !" the kids shouted from the back seats, joined by Alden who started punching the air happily, making the lot of them laugh.

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I've cheated a little for this chapter as the exhibition of Nathan Sawaya "The Art of the Brick" never came to London, but if you want to take a look at his sculpture to picture a bit better what I am talking about, you just have to search for it on google image, they are very easily findable :)

However, I hope you liked this chapter after all the drama of the last ones and that you will like those to come.

Love xxx Dan