Holme Again

14

                                        We had bombs.

Text sent. A few minutes later, Caroline replied.

When?

                                        Last night.

That must have been awful! Were you scared?

                                      No, I was having the time of my life!

                                     Yes

                                   Sorry

Don't worry

About the sarcasm, I mean. You can worry about the bombs

I grinned for a moment, then turned my phone off. Then I turned it back on. And off again. I sighed and went to see if Mycroft would play chess with me again. I needed something to take my mind off the previous night.

Sherlock - my dad came for Christmas day. He gave me a book on codes and ciphers and a leatherbound notebook.

"Mycroft suggested it to me," was all he said once I'd unwrapped it.

"Thanks. " I wasn't quite sure which of them I was thanking, maybe both.

Mycroft gave me a guitar.

"I noticed you played, but you didn't bring one with you, so after some deliberation, I thought it possible that I might, for once, give a Christmas present. Sherlock stated at him as though he'd grown a third head.

We had Christmas dinner, with Christmas pudding and a trifle I'd made for pudding. Afterwards, we tried playing Cluedo, but then Sherlock claimed it had been a suicide, so I won the game and we stopped. Instead of that, we played a few rounds of card games, then sat around the fire with some Christmas music on.

It wasn't my best Christmas ever; it wasn't perfect, but perfection is overrated anyway, and it was decent enough. Decent enough for the middle of a war with family members I only discovered I had two months previously.

And, most importantly of all, no bombs fell that night.