Caroline betas, Godfrey woos, and Irene says a sex thing, of course it’s a sex thing.

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“Ugh,” Godfrey said.  “I never liked Hamish.”

Irene blew the steam off
her coffee as she tilted her head toward him.

Auntie had been behind
that vault door for two hours now, almost two and a half.  He had no idea what the man was doing, but
the whole thing made him antsy.  He hated
being antsy.  This was not how he
pictured spending his first day in London with his lady and his bestie. He
thought they’d wander around with the adorable nephews and maybe do something
twee and gimmicky, like go to that one monster shop on Hoxton Street or go to a
tea shop or something.  The littlest
Watson loved tea.  And yet here he was
left waiting against a wall.

Since she didn’t feel the
need to comment, he specified.  “I know
Auntie has this whole big brother thing going on, where Hamish is perfect
forever because he was his brother or whatever, but all he did was have him go
on these dangerous missions and demand attention.”

Irene didn’t point out
Hamish was the one who died, who jumped, while Tim lived still to eat waffles
with them on Sunday mornings.  Who was he
kidding?  Sunday afternoons.  Only nuns and cowboys got up before noon on
Sunday.

“What’s he even doing in
there?”

“I don’t know.  Something sciencey?”  

He hated it when Irene
played dumb. “Something dangerous, if it wasn’t he’d have us in there helping.”

“Family business is
family business, beloved.  It takes as
long as it takes.”

“Family business.  Hmp.
Hamish was far too entitled with Auntie,” Godfrey said as an answer to
the question he had never been asked.

“Tim is a big boy,” she
smiled against the lid of her coffee cup.
Her arm folded easily over the plane of his shoulder.  “He can make his own decisions.”

“He took advantage of
Auntie’s good nature.”

Irene looked sideways at
him, her eyes bright under the fashionable red of her eyeliner, her smile
subtle in soft rose gold.  When had he
started investing so much brain space in memorizing makeup colors?  “So he acts like you?”

“No!” he snapped,
resentment so heavy in his chest it made it hard to breathe.

She sipped her expensive
coffee with the six-page long name while he fumed.

What a thing to say!  He never took advantage of Auntie.  Auntie did what he said because Godfrey was
always right and Tim dressed like a hobo.
Or a teddy bear, one of those sad one’s that lived in thrift shops with big
dark eyes, and round soft faces, and set little mouths.

“What do you care?” he
snapped back at her since she wouldn’t do the decent thing and start a fight
herself.  “You just like him because I
like him.”

“Every couple needs a
hobby?”

He snorted, unamused.

She looked even less
amused by his response to her peacemaking.
“That’s not the way you talk to me,” she told him.  “You don’t have to apologize right now, but
you need to woo me.”

She was his wife.

Irene always wanted him
to be reasonable when he wasn’t done being mad about dumb stuff.  “You have to woo me, too.  I didn’t want to hear that stuff.”

Smiling like a
professional, Irene curled a hand around the muscle of his shoulder.  “You’re so extra.”

“Hmp, no one’s said extra
for years.  You sound like an old lady.”

“That what happens when
you give your years to someone.”  She
stood in front of him, lips curling upward at the slow capitulation that was a
matter of muscle memory.  Her eyes were
open in the honest guile of seduction.

“Is it?” he asked.

“Wooing you is one of my
favorite things to do.”  And wasn’t it
just?  A predator knows a predator.

He placed a hand on her
waist and other in her free hand.  He
tangoed her back, their foreheads almost touching, their bodies close enough to
feel each other’s heat.  Dipping her back
over his arm, he leaned over her.  “I
have a friend who is a trout, he became an accountant.”  They waltzed around the waiting room, one two
three, one two three, pose.  Her perfect
face tilted at the perfect angle, her laughter half hidden behind her lips, her
hand strong where it was braced at the back of his neck.  

In that moment Godfrey
wanted to give her nothing but honor and glory.

In every moment he wanted
to give her nothing but honor and glory.
Wanted just to give her delight all the days of her life.  What was love?  What was their life?

“He worked in a river
bank, on the scales,” he told her.  “The
bank began to flounder, or so he went to go work for a loan shark.  The pay wasn’t great, but he got plenty of
pearls of wisdom.”

She laughed so hard he
had a hard time holding her upright.  Who
was Godfrey kidding, he was très buff,
he was fine, he could probably lift a bus.

Well, maybe not the line
about the bus.

The door slid open and
there stood Auntie.

The man’s skin was so
pale it was tinged yellow.  He had sweat
so much his hair was soaked black, his shirt was soaked grey, his face dripped.  Godfrey got Irene up on her feet in time to
rush over to Tim.

His eyes rolled up in
head, his knees gave out just in time for Godfrey to catch him.  Tim didn’t grumble, didn’t make a sound, just
collapsed into Godfrey’s arms.

He tucked his arms around
Auntie, the man’s short, but dense, like a grumpy little brick.  He’s almost panicking because, whoop there
went Auntie’s eyes up in his head and whoop down Auntie went.  Auntie was like a rock, what could have
shaken him like this?

“Hey, hey, buddy you
okay?”

Letting out a shivery
little laugh, Tim only shook his head.
Irene slid down on the other side of him, her hands hovering above him.

“The Thing,” Auntie said,
his hand reaching out to hold onto Godfrey.
“The Thing that ruined our lives.
I had to touch it, I had to deal with it.”

Godfrey’s brain kind of
went ??? then !!! then !?!.  He felt like
one of those texts Auntie sent him when his brain was more machine than man.  “You’ll be okay,” he said, because what else
was there to say?  “We’re here with you,
we’re not leaving you.”

Auntie laughed.  “Everyone leaves.  Everyone passes away.  Not even a name left for anyone else to
remember.”

Employing care, Godfrey
gave him gentle slaps to the cheek.  “Hey,
you’re wandering into no sense zone.
Come back to the station, friend.”

“I may have gained a
nephew, but I lost a brother to the thing.
I love John, but I wanted a brother.
I wanted a grown up.  That thing
killed by family, it ruined my life.  We
thought we’d destroyed it, but it–”  

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”
Godfrey said, because he was a survivor, not a fool.  “Hamish was stupid stubborn.  If this thing could make him go wonky I don’t
want to know any of its intimate secrets.”

“You’re not curious?” Tim
rasped.  The man looked so yellow pale,
he looked like a corpse.  All wane and condensing
moisture, Godfrey squeezed him tighter.

“Look, I don’t suffer
from white people problems.  I’m not more
curious about anything than I care about Irene’s and your safety.  If this thing is messing with stuff, sure,
let’s stop it.  I just don’t really want
anything to do with it more than that.
Tell me just what I need to know to help you and I’ll help.”

“It’s just that simple?”

“I’d say I’m a simple
man, but that’s a lie.  I’m a complex
masterwork of elegance and art.  I’m the
baroque of people.  Bernini is all about
me.  I’m the Saint Teresa of hot men.  I’m touched by that angel.”

Tim let out a croaky
little laugh, and so Godfrey squeezed him even harder.  Tim squeaked and so Godfrey gave him a little
air again.

Irene leaned in, pressed
a kiss to Tim’s sweaty forehead.  Didn’t
even flinch.  What a woman.  “How can we help you feel safe?”

“I…” he looked up at them
with his big brown eyes.  What a little
snuggle bear.

“You don’t need to be in
control right now,” she told him, squeezed his hands together at his chest with
both of hers.  “Just trust us, and hand
that control over, just for a little bit.”

Tim grumbled, but didn’t
fight.

“Come along, Auntie,” she
said.  “Communication is the cornerstone
of every healthy relationship.”

Tim sighed, closed his
eyes, rested his head against Godfrey’s chest.
“There’s not much you need to do.
While Sherlock was distracted I altered John’s laptop to be the center
of a network to interfere with international scientific and governmental observation
and security systems.  Just satellites
and things like that.  I put together a
subroutine to mimic solar flares, lightening, tea time power drains, the
basics.  As long as no one reboots any
systems or tries to go over the data themselves it should be fine.  No one will be able to pick up the energy
fluctuations that are part of the diagnostics.”

Godfrey made a wide-eyed
gesture at Tim to commiserate with Irene.
Did Auntie hear the words coming out of his face?   He just sat down and made himself a
subroutine to fake out NASA.  Toodle,
toodle do, let’s just get it done!  

Irene couldn’t gesture
because of the whole dom throwback thing, but she widened her eyes and nodded
too.  He loved Irene.  Irene was the best Irene.

“Yeah, sure,” Godfrey
said.  “So that’s taken care of.  What’s next?”

“Everyone’s responsible
for a piece of the device, we divided it up equally.  Mostly equally.  I took the worst piece, but didn’t tell
them.  Davey suspected but he has bigger
things to worry about.  Each of us will
run a diagnostic, try to find out if that piece is the problem, if it is will
use it to send the others back.”

And Tim will have to lose
his brother all over again.

He and Irene shared a
look.  She knew what was up just as much
as he did.

“But you’ve checked your
part, right?  You’ve checked it and you’re
fine?  It’s dead or whatever?”

Tim nodded against his
chest, tried to hide his face.  “Yeah.  It’s dead now.  A bit of an energy burst, like trapped gas in
a corpse, then.  Nothing.  It didn’t cause this.”

“Good, that’ll relieve
some of your stress at least.”

“You’re not going to tell
me I did something stupid.”

Godfrey looked down at
him, huffed.  “Look, I slayed my dragon
with books, massive law tomes heavy enough to crush a man, killed my demons
with pirate adventures and smuggling snack cakes into Iraq.  You have to do what you have to do.  You’re a grown up.  And one of the most practical people I
know.  You wouldn’t risk a little bit of
death if it didn’t mean something.”

“I hear dying a little
death is good for you every once in a while,” Irene grinned.

“That’s is a sex thing,
isn’t it?” Tim groaned.  “Of course it
is, when isn’t it a sex thing?”

“You mean la petit mort?”
Godfrey grinned.

“I never want to hear
that again.”

“Micro necro?”

Tim took Godfrey’s face
in his gross sweaty hands.  “You are
sinning, you are a sin.”

“Sin together, win
together.”

Irene did that thing
where she underestimated the force of her laugh.  Her laugh was too great, and she made a sound
like a massage chair and then a sound like a donkey that had been
surprised.  The burst of happiness
Godfrey felt made him feel like he was actually floating.

“Come on then,” Godfrey
said and picked him right up into his arms.

“Not a child,” Tim
muttered half-heartedly.

“Course not, Auntie.  But if we show up to the family gathering
with you looking like this, baby Watson is going to murder all three of us
dead.  Well, all two of us.  Irene is perfection and free from the error
of the world.  Her only fault is never
washing any dishes ever.”

“That’s what the maids
are for.  And the dogs.”

“I knew you were feeding
the dogs your scraps!”

“I’m supporting our
personal ecosystem, I practically a conservationist,” she sniffed.

“You’re teaching them to
be babies, big begging babies.  You know
Tim is weak to their giant dopey faces!
He can’t resist them!”  Tim could
resist anyone, he was more stubborn than Hamish.  And even better at looking disapproving.  It was maddening.  Tim had calculated the dog’s exact optimal
treat per day ratio and never faltered.
He was such– such–  he was such a
maiden aunt!

“Come on, Auntie,” Irene
said.  “Let’s get you to the safe house
so you can be cleaned up in time for the boys to arrive.”

“I–” Tim said and they
both looked at him.  “Thanks.  For being my friend.”

“Aw, Auntie,” Irene said
and squeezed his hands.

“I know I,” he pressed
his lips together so he looked constipated.
“I know I can be difficult.”

With great effort Godfrey
held down his sarcasm.

“You both have important
lives.  That mean something, something
really important.  It means a lot that
you took a break to come help me.”

“If we didn’t you’d just
lie on the floor in a puddle of your own misery,” Irene told him.

“Are you dying?” Godfrey
said in alarm.  He kind of sounded like
it, he had that asthmatic butterfly thing going on his breath still.

Tim made his little pug
face.  “I’m perfectly fine, you can put
me down now.”  Then he weakly kicked his
legs like a little paddle duck.  Just
these little lower case kicks; paddle, paddle, paddle.  It was adorable and not terrifying at all.

“Yeah, yeah.  You’re a venerable juggernaut.  We need to go set up so Irene can present all
the presents she’s be buying to make your family fall even more in love with
her.  Will get you chocolate!  It’ll increase your serotonin.”

“That’s fake, it’s not a
real thing,” Tim muttered, eyes at half-mast.
“It’s like tin passed as silver.”

“Delicious, delicious
tin,” Godfrey said.

“Serotinne?” Irene said,
but Tim had already fallen asleep.

Godfrey sighed.  Irene was too flawless for this world.