A/N: For everyone who requested it! I took the title from my second favourite BBC show Escape to the Country, so I can't claim credit for it. And a word about the train - I've travelled by train several times in England but in my head, the train that goes to Buckinghamshire from London looks like the Harry Potter train on the inside. I can't stop this. So I'm not even trying to. This may be completely inaccurate (probably is), but just go with it, for my brain's sake. I do not own, nor do I profit from! I expect there to be no real plot whatsoever. Enjoy!

"The only problem with the house is that they don't sell souvenir magnets," Sherlock commented.

John looked up at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Souvenir magnets, John. Like the ones on the fridge. We have one for England, and one for Scotland. We could start a collection, one for every place we go."

John gave Sherlock a suspicious look but the detective seemed entirely serious. And he was grinning.

"We don't really go anywhere," John pointed out. "And your parents' house is still in England."

"We go loads of places!" Sherlock protested.

"Loads of places around London," John amended. "And since we have a Union Jack magnet, that pretty much covers all of them. Plus, what do you want, a tiny photo of the house on a magnet?"

"Good idea," Sherlock said thoughtfully and John instantly regretted having suggested it, because there were probably services online where one could upload a photograph and have it made into a magnet. He'd be lucky, now, if they didn't start having magnets of corpses from Sherlock's cases although it was possible – just possible – that Sherlock would avoid that because of Josephine. But it could go either way.

"Well, maybe we just need to go somewhere else?" John suggested.

"We can't go anywhere else, John. We've already got the train tickets."

"I don't mean now, Sherlock. I mean maybe in the spring, or summer. You know, I've never been to France."

"You don't speak French."

"Right, I'm sure no one in France speaks English. Just like no one here speaks French. Least of all you."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Excessive sarcasm aside, John, if you wanted to go on a trip, you need only have said so. I'm sure we can manage a trip to France, or anywhere else you'd like to go. Now come on, there's the train."

"Surely there must be magnets for London itself," Sherlock mused, still stuck on the topic for some reason. "It stands to reason that other larger centres in England should have them. Why not Buckinghamshire?"

"I don't know," John said. "Why not? Maybe we just haven't found any? It's not as though we spent any time in souvenir shops up there."

"Something to do this time, then," Sherlock said.

"If that's what you want," John replied, boarding the train behind his husband. They found a small compartment and John put his bag on the overhead rack while Sherlock just lay his down on the floor, but stowed his violin case carefully on the rack, and sprawled all over two of the seats on his back, still bundled in his coat.

"Not allowed to sit with you, am I?"

Sherlock turned his head toward John and gave a mild scowl.

"Take up as much room as you can," he instructed. "I'd rather not have to share the compartment with strangers."

John sighed but did as bidden, stretching out on the seat so his back was resting on the wall, his legs stretched out on the seat in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He glanced over at Sherlock again who was, unsurprisingly, on his phone.

"This trip was your idea," John reminded him. "No cases."

"I'm looking for souvenir shops near the house!" Sherlock protested, then held out his phone as proof and John leaned over a bit to see the small screen. His husband was, in fact, telling the truth.

"What's got into you?" John asked.

"What do you mean?" Sherlock replied.

"You seem positively giddy. You've never been this excited to visit your parents before."

Sherlock looked away from his phone – astonishing enough in its own right – and gave John a bright grin.

"Mycroft is in Monaco."

John rolled his eyes but smiled, shaking his head.

"You know, I think you might have waited your entire life just to say that sentence."

"It does have a nice ring to it, you've got to admit."

"It's brilliant," John agreed, more so because it very likely meant that his brother-in-law would not be returning to England just for the purposes of dropping into the Buckinghamshire family home. It was, indeed, the first time they'd been up there that Mycroft hadn't also been visiting, usually because he arranged the trips and then manipulated Sherlock into going, which meant John going as well. Of course, Sherlock knew he was being manipulated but went anyway, which just proved to John that neither brother was quite as reluctant to go home as they pretended.

John knew Sherlock had chosen this weekend in particular, sandwiched between their anniversary and Christmas. He'd suggested going up for Christmas and Sherlock had dismissed that, saying he preferred Christmases at home, their home. John had no problems with that, because he did, too. He'd been suggesting more out of some vague sense of marital duty, to let Sherlock know it was all right by him if that was what the other man wanted to do.

But he was glad Sherlock wanted to stay in London.

"Found some," Sherlock said after a minute and passed his phone again to John.

"Well done," John replied and Sherlock snorted at being praised like a small child. "No, really, your ability to use the maps function is astounding, Sherlock. It absolutely saves us from going into town and actually just walking around the main street, which is, I note, where the whole three shops are. Precisely where any rational person would have first looked."

"Oh, yes, thank you, John. Your confidence in my abilities is staggering. Maybe I'll just send you down to the shops to wander about in the cold and pick some things up."

"Sorry, this would be different than the rest of our lives how?"

"It would be in Buckinghamshire, not London. Obviously."

John laughed and heard the conductors hollering "all aboard!" across the station outside the window. A few minutes later, there was the familiar lurch of such a large vehicle pulling itself into motion. John sat up, looking out the window, even though they were still in the station and the view was composed entirely of the platform and the passengers waiting on the other side for another train not yet arrived.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock asked. "Someone might come in and see an empty seat."

John rolled his eyes and switched his position so his back was against the inner wall of the compartment and he could see out the window.

Sherlock pulled a face at him.

"And don't sit like that."

"What, you've got your feet on the seat, too!"

"No, now you're farther away from me."

"I'm exactly the same distance as I was from you before, and now I'm facing you, so you can shut up and enjoy the view or turn yourself round, too."

He tossed the detective's phone back as the door was pulled open and a conductor came in.

"Tickets," he said crisply.

Sherlock began patting his pockets, an increasingly panicked look crossing his features, and John sighed, pulling out their two outward-bound tickets.

"I have them," he said.

"Ah," Sherlock replied, then flashed him another bright smile. "Brilliant. Have I ever mentioned that I love you?"

"I think you might have expressed that opinion on one or two occasions, yes," John replied as the conductor cancelled their tickets, handing them back, not quite repressing a smile.

"Good trip, gents," he said.

"Thanks," John replied, putting the tickets back in his pocket. Sherlock had actually put his phone away and smiled when the door was pulled closed again. John heard the rattle of the door in the next compartment being opened and heard the request for tickets again, faintly.

"Good," Sherlock said after about five minutes. "Right. Now come sit over here."

"What if someone's still looking for a seat?" John asked.

"Then we'll talk about corpses until they leave," Sherlock said matter-of-factly and John was certain that Sherlock would do just this. "Besides, I'm cold."

"You're not cold, it's perfectly warm in here and you're in your coat."

Sherlock took his coat off, tossing it carelessly on the floor.

"Now I'm cold."

"No, you're not."

"Fine, I'm not, but it usually works to get you to sit with me."

"You could come sit with me," John pointed out. "Your legs are longer. It's an easier distance for you to cross."

"And you invaded Afghanistan. Surely navigating a patch of carpet inside a train compartment is well within your physical abilities."

John held out for a moment, but knew he'd lost. Sherlock waited with an expression that told John he was counting down in his head and John sighed, pushing himself to his feet, stowing Sherlock's coat – since it was better than leaving it all over the floor – and then dislodging Sherlock's legs so he could sit down.

Sherlock immediately switched his position so he was facing the other way and shot a scowl at John.

"Swing your legs up," he commanded.

"I thought I was sitting with you. Not having you sit all over me."

"This is better."

With a sigh, John managed to prop his legs up, back against the wall again, and Sherlock snuggled up against him, back to John's chest, resting between the doctor's legs, effectively pinning John's right leg against the back of the seats. It would probably go numb within five minutes, but pointing this out to Sherlock would just fall on deaf ears.

"Comfortable?" he asked when Sherlock finally finished wiggling around and settled down.

"Oh, very," Sherlock replied, tilting his head back somewhat, his dark hair kinking up against John's coat. John pressed a brief kiss on his forehead and Sherlock closed his eyes momentarily.

"Good," John said, even though he doubted he himself would be for very long. It was only about a two-hour train ride, and his in-law's house was more than a little well appointed, and they'd have a considerable amount of privacy. He entirely intended to take advantage of this and to have Sherlock put those dextrous hands to good use with a full body rubdown after they'd arrived.