Oh god. I mean. You know. Holy moly and all that. I mean, god. Thank god. JW

Oh, goody! Martha

I really mean, fuck. JW

Dear John is probably wording this much better than I could! Martha

Bet he forgot the milk, too, the great pilchard. So much for sodding off to Switzerland. JW

Good for you, sir! Sally

Wait. What do you mean, three years? JW

We're not funding international cab expenses for three years, mind. Sally

Marie T. just popped in. Hoorraying with a lavender mojito! Martha

I'm not waiting three years for him! Abso-fucking-ly not. JW

At a stretch, and as a favour to you, sir, we'll all pitch in and buy him a spacehopper. Sally

Don't you worry, dear. I made her swear on Mary Berry. Shhhh. Martha

Not a sodding sailor's wife, me. JW

I'll git maryed. To smeone. Tellim. TellimImeanit. JW

I mean! JW

Bible not much good, as dear Marie's a Zoroastrian at heart. But she believes in Sherlock Holmes and Victoria sponge – and no soggy bottom for either! Martha

Greg, mate. Sorry for being a dick. Had a lavender too many, obviously. JW

Look. Whatever he's done, whatever trouble he's making? He'll make it through. JW

You and I, we know he will. JW

Even if it feels like three years already. JW

...Fuck. I'm sounding like a sailor's wife, right? JW

Brilliant, beautiful Saturday was kids' day out at Doniford Bay. Twenty families craddled between sea and sky on the beachgrass that had been trodden by Celtic sheepskin and Saxon leather and Roman nail-studded sandals long before the age of Clarkes and Crocs began.

All in season, Lestrade thought, ducking as a red frisbee zoomed within an inch of his skull, followedwith by a toddler in hot pursuit. He watched a flight of gulls cross throatily to another latitude and wondered if they were the same white dots he'd once held under his merciless fire, back when crimefighting was all play and no work, and his biggest case record the taking down of fifty Imperial Stormtroopers between tea and jam.

Mouth and fingers duly wiped, he stole a glance at Ma still gathering the scraps of what had been a glorious picnic indeed, and turned back to his pocket German-to-English dictionary. So far he'd drawn a blank with his Sigers. Taking a bold guess and eliminating the probable Sieger, aka winner, victor, champ, conquering hero (hail the). Yeah, except nah. Lestrade had his penny'orth of pride, same as any vintage cop, but the words just didn't...pack a meaning. Spark a pang. Didn't sound family, a word you'd tip into your old man's ear with half a wink and half a smirk, to make him huff. To make him glad.

Lestrade laid down the squat little book and flumped onto the tartan blanket, one arm pillowing his neck. He let the wind nuzzle his cheek, conscious of the dune striking a green distance either side of him, and the children's cries in every direction, nipping at the bright perpendicular sky. Getting there, sunshine. He still felt the book's heaviness at his side, under his palm, grounding him to his quest. Give us half a mo'.

A word clue. Well, his old man had been pretty good at them. The Timescrossword champion twice over, as he'd told Sherlock, and one helluva punster to boot. Learnt from the best, Greg had. The suck-and-give of the waves down below was getting louder, and he let them pull at his mind, let himself turn in the grip of the tide and drift away until the light had turned a more parchment white, and he was sitting again at the kitchen table, next to Da's hunched back as he slumped forward from his chair, resting his elbows on the tabletop after a long day's shift. There were other shapes playing across his eyelids, shadowy, tiny fingerbrushing motions. The garden bats, he knew, their rounds caught by the ceiling lamp and flashed back on the kitchen wall, again and again, like the revolving stars in a kid's nightlight.

Strange, how their evening riteritual was coming back to him, down to the faint crinkle of noise at his ear. Like foil paper crumpled it into a ball. The sound of the crisp fresh sheet which Da opened and spread out for them first thing after supper, flattening it against the plastic tablecloth with the heel of his hand. And then the game was on, him reading the clues and Da's hand flashing over the grid. Sometimes he'd ticked all the boxes into brilliance before Greg's bath finished running upstairs. Sometimes it took longer. Thing is, Da said, clapping his shoulder against the rising squeaks of the bats, your clue's a bit of a mix-up. Bit wayward, eh? Hiding out, like he doesn't care to be found. Like you and I don't know better. See, lad? Little mix-up, that's all. Nothing a dad can't sort out.

Lestrade awoke with a jolt to the screeching gulls and the radiant afternoon glow. A mix-up – Christ, yes! Or anagram, Da would say, the oldest, smoothest trick in the crossword trade. (He grabbed the book, ripping at the too-thin pages in his hurry to check, to find.) In German, because Sherlock had been in shock for real, that day, must have been after surviving the fall, his mind blanketing itself in his childhood lingo... and...yes! There it was, top of the page, standing out black on white. The last joke he'd shared with his son. Their last bond, before the night had gone and swallowed Sherlock. Old man, litt. grey-haired man, man of wisdom and experience. Lestrade's fingers touched the word lightly, fervently, a caress to an absent cheek.

Greis. Siger. Sigerson.

He was raising his face to a pair of blue eyes, lined from the weight and wisdom of living, but still giving as good as they got. "I'm a father," he said.

Ma nodded. She was reserving judgement, Lestrade saw, but he also saw the humorous tilt in her face muscles while she weighed up his words.

"You're giving family a go, then. Well, I'm glad of that. Of course, your da would say it's a bit late in the day – or no, you know how he was, more like 'couldn't lay your truncheon to rest, eh, officer,' but – "

"Ma!" Lestrade turned aside to frown and wither the teen and teenette on the next blanket into soberness. Perhaps Doniford Bay hadn't been such a good idea.

" – she looks like she's got a head on her shoulders, fine head of hair too, and if she's got the heart that goes with it, she'll be my girl and welcome. Are you two planning to marry? I'll fetch your Nan's garnet ring, should go nicely with her colouring."

What? Oh god, she couldn't possibly think... and now the dapper old gent walking his Labrador in a navy cardy with epaulettes – yeah, the dog too – was stopping to hear his answer.

"I'm not marrying Donovan!" His desperate whisper would have been more successful if half the bay hadn't gone on a lull in faultless synch. "Jesus, Ma! I'm not marrying anyone. It's not like there's a woman involved."

"Really?" Oh, he knew that turn-of-the-tide darkening of her eyes, the way they fretted up first thing in her face and flicked to a darker blue, from cornflower to Watchet. Watch it, Detective Inspector Lestrade cautioned himself.

"They say it takes to sides to make a war," Ma rued loudly to the cliff at large. "Last time I checked, forty-seven years ago, the same went for babies."

"Ma..." Lestrade shook his head helplessly as the Hon. Old Salt took a step forward, tugging on the lead and readying himself to soothe the widow in distress. "There's no woman because it all happened more than twenty years ago and she's dead and buried." This, he saw, had the merit of slightly diminishing his audience appeal. Grabbing his chance, Lestrade crossed himself dramatically. The teens backed out to the fringes of their plaid, and the Labrador uttered a dismayed woof. Lestrade lowered his voice again. "My son's all grown-up, Ma" – though there were those that would dispute the fact, but never mind them now – "and his name's Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes."

He gave the bay a quick once over, but it had taken up its Saturday buzz with renewed indifference. Contrary to their Saxon ancestors, John, Sherlock & Blogs still had to take over Somerset.

Ma, on the other hand, was staring at him open-mouthed.

"Surely not your Sherlock Holmes?"

"Ma, really. It's not like they come in dozens."

"That very odd, very rude young man who solves cases for you? Martha's tenant? The one with, what was it again, 'a size eighteen ego squeezed into a size twelve shirt'?"

"Ma, what did I say about reading the Daily Mail?"

"But, Greg..." There was no earthly way of stopping her now she'd found her track. Reminded him of someone. "Oh, sweetheart. I know how it is. Turned fifty before you did, and don't I know what pits and aches it digs into you, longings you don't even remember you had in you. I wish that marriage of yours – but let's not go into that. But, son, you have to face up to reality. That man just can't be one of us, he's...he's all cucumber and IQ!"

As definitions went, Lestrade reflected, he'd take her any day over the Daily Mail.

"We've had every test under the sun," he answered simply. "I can produce a chit from the British government if that's what it takes to convince you. But he's my boy for good. And yeah, he's everything you said. Rude. One-man demolition site. The only witness in courtroom history who got the coroner to bite him so he could use the tooth printmarks to prove his case. Yeah. But he's so much more. You have no idea. He's fine and brave and smart and fast, and... he's such a lad, Ma." He paused, his voice faltering, and took in a gulp of briny air to steady himself. "It's not comfy, being a good man for him. Half the time, it takes the bejesus out of me. But it's a blessing too. All the time. He's a blessing."

The sky was changing over their heads, the white of clouds gathering quicker from the west, pitching the light into blunter, eel-coloured tones. She was lost in her thoughts. After a while, she looked up and spoke, the old home-voice as even as before.

"Does he run truant?"

"A lot." Lestrade swallowed and smiled.

"Married to his work?"

"That's one below...Yeah. For better or for worse. Only, I think there's someone on the side now."

"And you say he's a good manm?"

The cliff before him turned to a foggy, dewy sight. They weren't alone, but they might as well have been when he leant forward and ran a light hand down the precious horsey face. "The very best."

"Then he's enough of a Lestrade for me." Ma nodded once again to herself, briskly, before starting on her usual slow-mo routine of getting up. "When do I get to meet that newfound son?"

"Ah." Lestrade, also rising, felt his knees go numb under him and had to hunker again on the plaid. "That's just it. I – I've lost him."

A sharp turn of the head. But what she saw must have told her that he wasn't punning, wasn't playing games, wasn't pulling a Lestrade on her – her words every time Da and he ganged up to tease her. The next thing he knew, it was she pulling him up, never losing her grip on his elbows until they were facing each other on the grass, the west wind buffeting them closer. They made a brittle axis together, aging bones, hearts under arrest, white and grey wisps of hair ridiculously tangled in the air. But the old alliance was there , the have-and-hold between them, a bit ragged at the seams by the losses that had come and gone, his divorce, Da's passing, the pits and aches dug into a house where only one lived now, but still here. Ever tangible, like her hand cupping his cheek, soft-worn and warm as the pulse in her words while she said,

"All right, love. Gimme."

On Sunday, he let Ma take him to church and ensconce them in her favourite pew, close enough to the altar that she could keep a close watch on the main flower arrangement. Why, Lestrade wasn't entirely sure – possibly in case the hydrangeas were taken in a faint mid-sermon and had to be carried out. They came from Mr Parry's garden, he suspected, and hadn't been blessed with worm vim.

The weather was holding, the daylight fountaining all around them from the stained glass windows until it seemed to come out of the walls, dazzling Lestrade's eyes and distracting his mind. Prayer didn't come easy to him, never had. He'd never been a Sunday School copper and the twenty past years had taken some of that wind, spiritus, out of his sails. His pleas to God came and went much in the manner of his son's texts to him – all shortcuts, all about bundling facts, sequence and meaning into a mere flash and beep. God help me, his prayers went, usually followed by Sherlock, Anderson. Ta, or Gregson. Into temptation. HELP, or, in his rushed, panicky, blue-light-in-a-blue-funk hours, a mere God or Please on a suffocating loop.

Sherlock, he tried again, pressing his face into the cup of his hands and totally unaware that once upon a time, an anon mystic had advocated one-word prayers as the shortest way to God's heart. He paused, and tried again. Sherlock…

"And here, dearly beloved, is the answer!" Lestrade started, tossed out of his loop by Father Ellis's trumpeting baritone. He peeped between his fingers, only to see the stocky Padre bunch up his alb, slip a hand into his trousers pocket and wave...an iPad tablet in front of his audience? Who, knowing their shepherd well, were answering with a shy, yet hearty, Aaaah. You never could tell with Father Ellis, who liked to think of himself as a Roman Cathogeek and whose project of having the Youth Group rewrite the Annunciation as a series of Tweets from the Holy Dove had nearly made the national news. So far, the diocese top brass had kept a low profile. But might draw the a line at Nokia-sponsored sermons.

"Too often, we think of ourselves as a despised minority," Father Ellis was booming on. "A bunch of has-beens in the present age, our message old news to the new media, Corpus Christi yesterday's tagline to the corporate world. O we of little faith! Has anyone here checked up on Google this morning? Really? Not even the weather? Oh, well. Switch on your phones, then, dear brothers and sisters, and prepare for a heart-warming sight."

There was a sound of shuffling and mumbling, then a medley of sharp vibrations as the congregation followed suit. Ma burrowed into her raffia-woven bag and brought out a BlackBerry smartphone, so new and shiny that Lestrade had to narrow his eyes at her.

"So that's why we had instant cocoa mix this morning?" he whispered, flicking his own decent-enough-IQ Sony open.

"I've no idea what you mean." But Ma had the decency to blush a little. "It's Easter Sunday. We always have milk chocolate on Easter Sunday."

"And there I was, thinking the price of a virtuous kettle was far above rubies. And pixels." Lestrade grinned back at her schoolmarm frown. "It's a fair deal, Ma. Now switch it on and lemme see what I get out of it. Because I think I know exactly... Jesus Horatio Christ, will you look at that! "

"Greg." But her reproachful "Not in church!" was drowned under the humming and buzzing that were quickly taking over the shuffling and mumbling as everyone gaped at today's Google page. More especially, at the faint, almost translucid group of letters hovering inside the search bar like a watermark. Lestrade, who already knew what they spelled, let his eyes scan the new Google doodle instead. Trust Mycroft to fit his own grain of salt into the picture and do so with minimal effort. Merely by inserting a demure little cross between the second and third letter, leaving the tiniest gap before the fourth and fifth, and turning the final e into a busy bee that took off now and then to flit gently about the clever, "GO †O GL" and its lovely background landscape, all green hills and red cider apples, with a brilliant slash of blue which Father Ellis was now explaining could only be Lake Tiberias.

"A call to all disciples of the GOOD LORD to go and join Him now He is risen, and live in hope for we know, of course we do, we all know where to..."

"Greg." Ma sounded hopeful indeed, her lips twitching in amusement more than reprobation. "Young man, is this any of your doing?"

"You said to signal back, right?" Lestrade whispered back, his grin wider and dafter as he stared at the screen. "Tell him that we're good, he can come back any time, his dad will be there and waiting. No proviso, no tit for tat, no matter what or who he catches me first. Like the old story. Well, there you go."

He looked down again at the search bar and the pale shimmering letters in it, chuckling to himself even as Father Ellis called for everyone to peal their ringtones high in the air in celebration of the joyful day. You know where to find me. Yeah, that should do the trick, the wink. The prayer. That should say it all.

The grin wouldn't leave him alone that day. It was there when he sat before Ma's lunch of roast shoulder of lamb with garden herbs and garden honey, and it was still there after the last dish had been washed and dried, and he watched her climb the stairs to her early afternoon nap.

Feeling too restless to stay indoors, Lestrade grabbed his coat and went out for a walk. The childhood sights took him in again as he drifted from street to street, pushing his collar up against the nippy breeze, and yet there was a new impatience in him, a shift of mood that kept his feet on the move and made the past a more slippery handrail than two days before, when he'd clung to a green bus and let it envelop him into a warm glut of nostalgia. He had to stop to greet a man in a windcheater, with a rugged face, whom he knew had been one of his gang, Greggo's Gang, possibly Teddy (unless it was Mickey), and punch his arm genially when Mickey (or it could have been Jo-Jo) said he'd made it to senior fucking manager, yes sir, take the job and keep the change.

"Me? I'm a family man, pal," he countered proudly, upgrading the grin to a senior-to-senior wise nod. They'd all managed, give or take. And they'd all turned aging men in the process, though he felt it as a brave thing now, a proud thing, not to be hidden or denied, like their common silvering hair. They stood a minute more in the wind, trading clipped news and good wishes, before they waved each other on their parting ways.

Lestrade took the left turn that led to the lane along the graveyard wall and paused for a furtive smoke, turning his back on the graves and letting the first hard buzz of tobacco swirl him into a contented haze. I'll take him here someday, he thought, watching the play of shadows on the sun-warmed wall and remembering the old tale, that it had been raised to keep out the thieves who stole in at night to nick bodies for the local anatomist. He'll like it. And the bees, there's always the bees. And then...

And And then became a game of faith, a loose tale that he told himself stubbornly, adding the worms to the bees, with a side dish of sea-kelp, and the best view of Orion and the stars from Ma's sunflower bed, and the butcher's jackapoo, who could only enter his kennel tail first. Before he knew, And then had carried him to Ma's gate, his heart still swirled by hope and nicotine. There were muffled, steady sounds coming from the back garden, and he turned the corner of the house, ready to give her a hand in that last hour before the evening train claimed him.

But the figure squatting on his hams and digging at the wild grass with a sharp, exact swing of arm and shoulder, wasn't Ma. Lestrade glanced at the close-cropped yellow hair and the profile ear sticking out from under an old straw hat and remembered Mr Parry's nephew, the Army lad with the Army buzzcut, who Ma had said came to help with the rough end of gardening.

"Hey." He extended one arm with his thumb up, wondering if youth-friendly salutations had changed much since his era. Of course, the effect wasn't quite the same when he wasn't riding a Honda. "Nice sun we're having."

"Arrh."

"Bit cloudy at the seams. But that would be a plus in your line of trade, eh?"

"Arrh." The lad laid the gardening fork down and bent his knees and shoulders forward, taking hold of a clump of dandelions.

Lestrade dropped his jacket on the grass and sat down. The bee-hives were casting their shadows on the grass, but to his eyes the shadows merely added patches of a deeper, fresher green. "Say, you wanna hear something funny?"

This time, the lad grunted. Not that he could hear much difference.

Lestrade gave him a break and a benevolent smile. He could smell a whiff of something warm and buttery coming from the kitchen, where Ma must be fixing him some sort of home-made takeaway. He waited until the slim shoulders were once more bent over the soil and spoke. "They used to say it went round and round the Earth, like a busy yellow Pac-Man. Yeah. You'd think we know better in this day and age, but I'm not so sure. No, I'm not so sure. Because what I know about the sun is – well, it's not the scientific stuff. Haven't got the brains for that. It's the marrow stuff, the stuff that comes from getting your arse up for work, fashionably early, and knowing he'll be here."

He took a breath and looked at the still figure. "And it stays with you, the thing, the knowledge, even when it's still dark when you get your car and you could be thinking, so it came yesterday, and the day before, but how can I sodding tell it's gonna be here today? Bang out there, between the cuppa and the car keys? But you don't. And there he is. And you should be so damn proud and happy not because he's a star, not because he blitzes into your scene and makes you see things you couldn't possibly see without it, but just because, yeah. There he is again."

The figure sighed, the figure turned. Lestrade leant forward and flicked the ridiculous hat, which he now remembered as his Nan's Sunday best, off Sherlock's head. His fingers brushed the tip of an ear, the shorn head, his son's left cheek, where the palest patch of pink still lingered. Behind them, the delicious butter-dripping smell was in full swing now, shaping up into – yeah. Definitely hot-cross buns. He shook his head. "I see you've met your Gran. Got properly introduced to the family rites, too."

Sherlock was still looking at him, his face ten years younger than when Lestrade had last seen it, not from the silly disguise but from the pulse of hesitant, avid joy. He rubbed at the chastised cheek, then bit his lower lip. "She – seems to have skipped a part."

And then arms were rising, his, Sherlock's – it didn't matter which of them took that first step, and it would be Lestrade's own joy, in retrospect, not to know – and he was gathering Sherlock to him, making that tight, safe place between his arms and his heart that would be Sherlock's space and privilege as long as he claimed it. He knew he was being held too, with an impetus that left them slightly rocking on their knees, in the open grass, father clasped to son, son cradling father, until the shadows had lengthened across the grass, one of which appeared to be waving a wooden spoon over their head in a five-o'-clock benediction.

"All right, you two. Less cuddling and more cooking – I could do with a pair of hands to peel the apples." But she wrapped an arm around Sherlock when he leapt to his feet with his customary niftiness and looked at him with a beaming smile. His was a little self-conscious, but a far cry from his usual Hark-Hark-the-Snark edition. Lestrade watched the two of them, a proud if slightly misty sight. He listened as his son and heir asked eagerly how he'd fared, if he'd got the accent right, and looked at Ma as she mock-ruffled the absent curls – she must have been looking for pictures of him on her new toy – and told him next time, if he gave a bit more notice, she'd teach him how to sew knee-patches on his jeans, the true gardener's badge of office. Apparently, Sherlock had walked right into the house and collided with Ma as she climbed the stairs down from her nap. No heart had been harmed in the process, though Lestrade suspected decibels must have flown high and low around their prodigal before they set their heads together to surprise him.

"I wish you boys would stay another day or two." Ma sounded already wistful. "The new worms are due on Tuesday, all forty-five of them, and they'll need a bit of cheering on at first. The last batch was simply hopeless, you'd think they'd never seen a tomato in their lives. No zing at all."

"Oh," Sherlock said, and then, clearly struck by lightning, "oh. Have you thought about Africanizing them? I could try and get – "

"The 6:25," Lestrade cut in hurriedly. Then relented. "We'll be back at Whitsuntide, Ma. Plenty of time for you two to do your research in-between. Now come inside and help me get some food into him. I think I know whose turn it is to tell his old man a tale or two."

It was only when they were settled in the bus, their bags stored overhead in the rack, that Sherlock spoke the one-word sentence, the question Lestrade knew had lain in waiting all the time.

"...John?"

"Hmmm? John what, son? Oh, don't you huff-and-puff, Your Highness – you deserved it. And if you're asking if John will give you the back of his hand, too, before he asks me for yours, the answer is I've no idea. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But, Sherlock –"

He leant sideways; Sherlock bent over him.

"Sunshine, listen. What I told you this morning – it's a given. Goes without saying. So when you run off again, because we both know you will, you'll know how I stand. Because that's what Sigers do. Let go when they have to and wait until they're found again. But John's a fighter, and it's not fair to take off on a spin leaving him with his arse on the side road." Lestrade took a new breath. "You tell me about my mistakes often enough, Sherlock. Don't make that one."

Sherlock was no longer speaking, but Lestrade felt their shoulders touch; felt the tiny rustle and give that was Sherlock nodding.

"So we'd better hurry up before he ODs on lavender. And next time you come back, you bring him to meet your Gran. Though I swear, God help us all if he tells her to Afghanize her worms."

"You're really – " For some reason, Sherlock had to stop and give it another try. "You're really very certain that I'll always come back."

"Course I am." And Lestrade said no more. For the bus was storing a new speed, and as it lurched toward the station, a tunnel vision opened in him, a mere flash, a grace snapshot a long way into the road, but what it showed him was another figure posing before a cluster of bee-hives, his hair turned from grey to white, with a bee perched on it. He knew he'd be that man on a day yet to come, and he had an inkling of who would be behind the camera, taking the pic. "We're Lestrades, son." The next bumping turn of road was coming up, and he took advantage of it to drop a kiss on the shorn head. "Coming back? That's what we do best."

FINIS

(All good journeys come to an end! Thanks for everyone who followed this and sorry, really, about the delayed postings. I'm terrible when it comes to finishing stories. Well, at least we know what my new year's resolution will be!:)