I am not lonely [Mystrade]

CHAPTER 176 : The detective's assistant

Like every morning around half past seven, the Holmes Mansion was buzzing like a hive. Mycroft was trying to knot his tie whilst answering the phone and making sure his daughter was not making a mess out of her breakfast. Alden was running around the house, chased up by Greg, because he was reluctant to take his vitamins and Michael, in the middle of this confusion, was trying his best for the house not to be ruined and the breakfast to keep warm for everyone.

Only a few years ago, you would have peacefully found the elder Holmes sat at the table f his gigantic dining room, eating his toasts and reading his newspaper, a warm cup of tea by his side but two children had turned his life upside down and even if he sometime missed the peace and quiet, he wouldn't have gone back to these time for all the gold in the world.

With a little pout, he hanged up the call he was on, just on time to catch Aelane's cereal bowl before it fell from the table.

"Nice move." the detective admired as he entered the room, having finally caught his son to give him his vitamins.

"I fear I couldn't find no one to take care of this little monster." the politician informed his partner, nodding to his son.

"Even Mrs Hudson ?" Greg retorted, surprised.

"Away to her sister's." the official denied, seemingly bored.

Summer holidays were nearly over and after nearly two months of it, the men were starting to have issue to find someone to babysit for their son. Aelane was still at the nursery but Alden had grown to old for it and since the beginning of the week, every single people they would have trusted to look after him seemed to be away or back to work. Even Sherlock and Mrs Hudson were now out of town, leaving Mycroft and Greg out of option.

"I can't even stay at home today, I've got meeting at the Cabinet all day ..." the elder Holmes grudged, wondering why it was this day out of all that everyone had chose to be out of the picture.

"It's alright, I'll deal with him." Lestrade accepted after a few seconds of thinking.

After all, he possessed a private office at New Scotland Yard and as long as the little boy was able to behave, there shouldn' be too much issue with having him sat playing in one of the corners. He wasn't supposed to be out of the office that day, and he was pretty sure it wouldn't bother Sally too much if the little boy was to join them for lunch.

"Is it tolerated bringing your kids at work in Scotland Yard ?" the politician wondered, quite surprised.

"I don't know but I don't think he can be of any harm. I'm a detective with a forced passion for paper work not a SO1 ferocious armed guard." the policeman laughed before taking a sip of the tea which had been waiting on the table for all this time.

A few years ago, he would have complained, in fact he did complain, about being sat behind his desk most of the days instead of going into action like he had dreamt it as a child, but now that he was a dad, and that he had been shot in duty, he was quite happy with being able to work office hours with just the biggest and thrilliest investigation disturbing his humdrum. He didn't really like paperwork more but having evolved through the hierarchy, he found himself doing less of writing the police reports and more of reading it and that was alright with him.

Half an hour later Greg was helping his son out of his booster in the underground car park of the Yard. The little boy was pretty ecstatic at the simple idea of being allowed into the building, something that was making his father a little anxious, fearing that the fur years old would be all but behaving nicely. However, a small part of him was still proud to see that his boy was excited about the job he was doing. He was around Alden's age when he had first told his mother that he would like to join the force and to see the little boy following his path would somehow make him happy.