John watched as Sherlock paced back and forth in front of the window. Every few moments he would peek outside for just a second thinking that John didn't notice. John found it endearing, like Sherlock was an excited puppy waiting for his master to come home.

Bradley said that he got out of school at two-thirty and would come straight over with more information. It was as the clock clicked to four that John began to get nervous for the two of them. The boy had either lost interest in his endeavour or he was in trouble. Whichever reason, John worried that another day without a busy Sherlock would be more annoyance than he could handle.

"Where is he?" Sherlock said under his breath as he tapped on the window pane.

"Got held up at school?"

Sherlock tugged at his jacket. "Unlikely."

"You think you were duped?" John asked.

Sherlock glared.

"What?" John asked.

He shook his head. "I'm not waiting on a child. This is foolish."

John sat back in his chair and smirked. "You've been waiting on a child for the last hour. I should set up playdates for you more often."

The look he received could have wilted a garden but it was worth it. John had never felt more satisfied than seeing Sherlock pissed off, especially when it was at the hand of a little boy.

It was as Sherlock sulked away from the window that the doorbell rang. As hard as he tried to not look excited, Sherlock's entire body perked up like an excited puppy but yet he didn't many any gesture towards the door.

"Really?" John asked.

"What?"

He set down his book next to him on the couch. "He's your client."

"Funny," Sherlock said, "I thought he was our client."

John hoisted himself up. "So you do listen to me."

"At times."

"I'll go get your new buddy," John said. "Maybe I'll put out some juice and biscuits in case you two need a snack."

Bradley held his school bag close to his chest with his hand woven through the straps. John had allowed him to sit in his chair and the boy sunk back into the seat and his feet hovered six inches above the ground.

Sherlock sat across from him and stared. As hard as John tried to fill the silence, the unnerving eye contact was difficult to overpower.

"Would you like some water?" he asked.

Bradley shook his head for the fifth time. John had run out of refreshments to offer and the boy seemed entirely uninterested or unable to feel comfortable in the flat.

"Why are you here?" Sherlock asked.

Bradley's brow furrowed. "I told you."

"Yes," Sherlock said as he tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, "but why are you here now?"

Bradley looked back at John for support but there was nothing for him to add. He was just as confused as Sherlock.

"I thought you were going to help."

Sherlock leaned forward. "Help you how?"

Bradley's grip on his bag loosened. "Get him in trouble. You do that. I read about it on your website. You said…"

Sherlock pointed to the bag. "What's in there?"

Bradley sat in silence.

"Clearly you brought something in your school bag. You're protecting it from me. Why?"

His eyes flickered to the front pocket of the rucksack.

"The front. What did you put in there?"

Bradley looked at him with astonishment at the apparent magic trick. "How did you know that?"

John waited for the long-winded explanation but Sherlock sat with the slightest hint of a smile. "Doesn't matter."

John nearly spit out his drink. "Doesn't matter?" he said without thinking.

"No," Sherlock said in frustration, "it doesn't."

"That's a first," John muttered.

Sherlock waved away John with a flick of his hand. "Don't mind him."

"Don't mind me? What is going on?" John continued to say under his breath.

Sherlock sat at the edge of the chair and pointed at the bag. "What did you bring?"

Bradley slowly unzipped the front pocket and dug his hand inside. He pulled out a small piece of paper and held it upside down against his leg. His entire body tensed as the paper moved closer and closer to Sherlock's outstretched hand.

John stood back and tried to read Sherlock's body language. They had spent time with children in the course of their cases but he had never seen Sherlock as comforting and open as he was sitting across from Bradley. There was a gentleness to his movements. Instead of the normal tricks and manipulations to get what he wanted, there was a patience as Bradley took his time to hand Sherlock the paper in his hand.

"It was in his desk," Bradley said.

Sherlock looked at him with a side-eye. "You went back into his office?"

Bradley nodded.

"You shouldn't do that," he said as he took the paper.

"He wasn't home," Bradley said. "He's on a trip until Saturday."

"Even so," Sherlock said, "he may suspect if you go in too many times. The more re-entries the higher likelihood that you will forget what you have moved."

Bradley nodded and sat expectantly as Sherlock looked over what he had handed him.

John craned his neck to see what on the paper. All he could see was the bent edge of a photograph and what looked like a face covered in blood. Even from ten feet away he could tell that it wasn't pretty but Sherlock didn't even flinch. He examined the photograph at every angle and placed it back on his lap.

"Were there many of these photographs?"

Bradley shrugged. "Like maybe ten. They're in a drawer."

"I see," Sherlock said as he handed Bradley back the photograph.

"You don't need it?"

Sherlock tapped his head. "Don't need it."

"That's brilliant," Bradley said with a smile.

John could tell that Sherlock was beaming under his tough exterior. His little fan was so doting it was shocking that Sherlock wasn't forcing him to stay around longer to impressive with his various other party tricks.

Sherlock looked at John and pointed to the laptop. "John, don't we have guests coming for supper in a few minutes?"

John couldn't have been more confused than if Sherlock had just jumped up and done a cartwheel down the hallway. "Pardon?"

Sherlock tilted his head and squinted his eyes. "Lestrade and his wife. At five."

"Lestrade…" John began to say before Sherlock gestured subtly to Bradley's relaxed posture in their chair. The boy had certainly gotten comfortable and didn't seem like he'd ever decide to leave on his own.

Sherlock hadn't just bluntly forced Bradley out as was his usual inclination with clients. It was often a clunky goodbye and a walk out of the room while John had to awkwardly tie up the loose ends with people hadn't said two words to during the conversation. Now Sherlock was inventing entire social events to spare the boy's feelings. It was an improvement.

"Of course," John said, "and he will be very hungry. We must get prepared."

Bradley didn't move. Sherlock looked at John in panic. He appeared to desperately not want to say anything to the boy but he'd clean run out of ideas. It was now up to John to do the dirty work.

"Bradley," John said, "do you mind?"

Bradley looked up with a dazed look on his face. "Hm?"

John gestured to their empty kitchen. "We're having guests and…"

"Oh," Bradley said as he grabbed his bag, "sorry. I can go."

"Thank you," John said.

Sherlock got up and walked to the kitchen. He fumbled around the counter and grabbed a plate from the cupboard. "We'll be in touch," Sherlock said from across the room.

Bradley smiled as he went to the door and walked out. He waved goodbye to Sherlock who wasn't paying enough attention to reciprocate or he simply didn't want to. As John shut the door, he couldn't help but laugh.

"What in the bloody hell are you doing?" he asked as Sherlock placed a fork on the plate.

"I said we were having guests," Sherlock said.

John gestured to the pathetic display. "And you grabbed a plate?"

Sherlock held up the utensil. "And a fork," he said with such earnest.

"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't see the fork. Now we're ready for the queen."

Sherlock pouted as he put the plate back in the cupboard. "The photograph is not his father's. At least not from any time in the last twenty years."

John stopped cold. "Twenty years?"

Sherlock shook his head and sunk back in his chair. "At least. I suspect that they aren't even his father's. They appear to be part of a collection, perhaps purchased online."

"A collection? Like someone took a picture of a dead body?" John said with disgust.

"Crime scene," Sherlock said. "It was definitely from a crime scene. There is no doubt about that. In the distance there was a marker identifying a shell from the gun that shot the man in the photograph."

John sat, even more confused than before. "But why? Why would he bring you photographs that he knows are fake."

Sherlock tapped the arm of the chair. "I suspect he wants to get his father in trouble."

"His father? Why?"

He looked straight through John.

"What?" John asked.

Sherlock gritted his teeth and got up from the chair.

"What is going on?" John asked.

"He wants me to look at his father. He wants him to get punished for something, John. Anything." Sherlock spoke quietly and shuffled towards his room. His entire posture changed as he spoke.

It was as Sherlock looked up with a damaged expression that John saw it all. It was only a flash but it was long enough to tell the entire story. When he first moved in, John had done his digging on Sherlock and found the usual newspaper clippings on his cases and his various successes. It was only as he entered the dark recesses of Google that he discovered the depths of Sherlock's past that he was so violently private about. It was the clippings about the trial against Gregory Holmes for child abuse against his youngest son. The charges were long and horrific. Initially the scope of Sherlock's past had nearly caused him to say no to sharing the flat in the first place but there was a robotic quality about Sherlock that made it seem like nothing ever really affected him, even the terrible actions by his father.

John knew he wasn't equipped to handle anyone with trauma but Sherlock wasn't like everyone else. He appeared to have moved on in a healthy if not impressively progressive way. But that brief flash said that it wasn't all buried. Not all was forgotten.

Bradley was being abused and Sherlock saw it in him. John hadn't picked up on it in the least but Sherlock had seen straight through the excuses.

That's why he was helping him.

Sherlock needed to save Bradley from the monsters any way he could.