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Robert looked down, and down again at the curly-headed boy in front of his desk.

"May I help you?" he said. He didn't have time for this. He had a practical exam to set up and two sets of unknown substances to make before lunchtime without having someone's kid running loose in the lab. "Who are you looking for? Your big brother?"

"Hardly," the child said. "He'd never come into such a place. Not unless the prime minister was giving a speech here, or someone was hosting a reception. He is very fond of tea cakes."

Robert frowned. "I'm sorry but you're going to have to wait outside. Only University students are allowed in the chemistry laboratory."

"But I am a University student," the child said waving an ID card in front of his...navel. He couldn't reach high enough to wave it in front of his nose.

The card showed a scruffy boy with a stupid scowl on his face, this boy. Robert scoffed, "Very funny. This is someone's idea of a joke isn't it. Who put you up to this, kid?"

"I am not a kid! so please refrain from calling me that. No one "put me up" to this. I am here to take a class. This is the chemistry lab isn't it?"

"Yes, this is the chem lab, but we teach university students not primary school ones."

"Primary school was ages ago. As I said, I am a university student. The card is not a forgery. Call the admissions office if you doubt it. It took her forever to convince before she'd make it for me. Hurry up! I don't have all day to do this lab. Mummy says that I need to be home before dark."

Robert smiled and jotted down the ID number. He would look it up later and see who it really belonged to. He handed it back and said. "You know kid, we really can get in trouble for having a child like you among this many dangerous chemicals."

The boy wrinkled his nose. "Citrate! My goodness. I can buy more dangerous chemicals than these in the shops."

"How do you know we are isolating Citrate this week?"

"Honestly? Is this supposed to be a difficult deduction? I am a child, not an idiot. Besides the smell, which is bloody obvious, I did read the lab book before coming to class. This is what I'm supposed to do isn't it? Or are you implying that I am too young to read?"

Robert looked again at the boy. He was a short, pale boy with dark curly hair, not yet having reached puberty. He was dressed in blue trousers and a blazer with a white shirt with no tie. He carried a book bag, and sticking out of it were the lab book, the chemistry text book, and a physics text. He had heard of people coming to uni young before, but not this young. Could this boy be one of them? A prodigy? "Are you honestly a student here?" he asked.

The boy sighed, "Finally! A light comes on. Yes, I am a student. Thus the ID card and the text books. I thought University instructors were supposed to be smart." He crossed his arms and smiled a smug smile.

"I take it this is your first visit to the open lab?" Robert said. The boy rolled his eyes, so he went on. "You'll need to fill out this form. I need your name and the name of your instructor. Who is your instructor by the way?"

"Jones."

"So you're an online student."

"Of course. I wouldn't even be here if this university didn't have the outmoded belief that a student can not prove that they have learned to do chemistry without someone witnessing them doing it. It's not like I don't have my own lab at home, although I am looking forward to using your equipment. Some of it is top rate, or so I've heard. When do we get to use the NMR Spectrometer?"

"Never. Not in this class, at least. This is a beginning chemistry lab. We can't afford that kind of equipment."

"Why of course you can? What else are my University fees for? Besides Oxford Instruments makes a very affordable one that doesn't contain superconducting magnets. I asked Mummy to buy me one, but she said that I'd get to use one here. If you don't have one, then I don't see the point of coming."

Robert shoved the form and the syllabus across the desk at the boy, and then turned away. So now he was a babysitter? This job didn't pay enough to compensate for the hassle it caused. He went to the bench and started mixing his unknowns only to stop some minutes later when he noticed a pair of greenish-blue eyes looking up at him. He placed the blue crystals into a watch glass and went back to labeling the row of test tubes.

"That's Cobalt Chloride isn't it? It's just ...It looks a bit like anhydrous Cupric Chloride, but that's a different shade of blue. I have it in my chemistry set at home."

Robert frowned down at the boy, "How is it that you come by any of these chemicals. They're supposed to have only nontoxic substances in the chemistry kits that they sell to kids."

"You mean the ones with baking soda and vinegar? Pah! I wouldn't sully my hands with them. It was a Christmas gift from Mycroft. He had to import it special from China! They don't sell it here."

Robert poured the powder through a funnel and into the tubes, capping each one carefully before wiping his hands down the sides of his lab coat. He turned toward the boy. "Now, what is it you want?"

The child thrust the form at him. He took it in his hands and read the name written in neat schoolboy cursive.

Introductory Chemistry Lab I
Instructor name: Jones
Student name: Sherlock Holmes

He looked down into the bright excited eyes of the dark-headed boy and knew that this year would be an interesting one.

It took less time than he thought it would for Robert to get used to his youngest student. Sherlock Holmes would come in on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. He'd turn in his prelab assignment, read the day's instructions, and then get to work.

The first time, Robert had hovered around him, explaining how to assemble the glassware and suggesting that he read the instructions carefully, until the child had glared at him and quoted back the instructions in the book verbatim. Robert backed away then, and let him work in peace. He was well acquainted with how to use the equipment, and he bristled at any suggestion that he didn't know what he was doing. What he did appreciate were the tricks and tips that Robert could give him about working with real substances. The things that you could only learn hands on. The kind of things that no one ever bothered to write into the text books. He stared engrossed at the way that Robert flicked the test tube to rapidly mix the sample, and he requested that he repeat it over and over until he could do it just as well and just as fast.

After a while, Robert began to look forward to his visits, for unlike most of the students who ran through their lab quickly hoping to get it out of the way as rapidly as possible so they could go on to visit their friends at the pub, Sherlock Holmes would repeat each step until it was perfect. He always came prepared, and he always finished with a good product. He was progressing very well indeed, until they reached their first group assignment.

Sherlock signed his name on the sheet on the wall, and others signed up below him only to move their names to other groups when they discovered who their partner would be. No one was willing to risk their grade on a child. In the end, Robert had to help him himself, although Sherlock insisted that he could easily do the entire assignment alone, and he did, doing each part of the chemical isolation himself (the work of four people) by spending extra hours in the lab. Often it would be dark when the man in the black suit would show up at the door to retrieve him. The man looked to be a servant, perhaps a chauffeur. Who were the Holmes family anyway? Despite having to do the assignment alone, Sherlock's grades were at the top of the class.

By this time in the term, friendships had begun to spring up in the lab, and the students formed study groups. Most of this 'studying', however, ended up going on in pubs or dorm rooms after hours. No one wanted a kid tagging after them, and even if they did, Sherlock had to be home by dark. The result was that Sherlock was alone most of the time.

Robert was locking up the door one Thursday morning when little Sherlock Holmes walked up the hall toward him carrying his book bag. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here for lab."

"Lab is closed today. Didn't anyone tell you?" The boy looked up at him and then at the door of the lab, wistfully. "You should go home."

"I can't. Harcourt dropped me off and then he has to take Mummy to the hair dresser. She'll be hours and hours."

"Then maybe you can get ahead on some other coursework. The Library is open. There's a good lad."

Robert picked up his bag and started down the hall. He would have made it out alright if he hadn't looked back. He turned his head to see if he had gone, only to watch the tousle-haired boy looking down at his feet, dejected.

The sight pulled at Robert's heart. He tried to keep going, but he couldn't continue. It was as if there was a rope anchoring him to the spot where the boy stood. He couldn't pull away, so he turned around and walked back to the door.

"I'm going to listen to a lecture. Would you like to come along?"

The smile that greeted him was entirely too warm and too open. He resisted the urge to ruffle the boy's hair. He turned on his heel and walked rapidly down the hall conscious all the while of the sound of feet skipping beside him. Pauli matrices for electron spin had never before elicited such glee, except perhaps to Wolfgang Pauli himself. He looked like the type of man who could chortle about eigenvalues. Robert didn't expect that Sherlock could understand any of the things that the dour faced white-haired lecturer was saying, but then again, you could never tell with this boy.

When the black coated man finally did show up at the lab door to retrieve the child, the look that the boy gave him was full of much too much hope. Robert wondered if he had just acquired a follower. He didn't think that he wanted a follower, and Robert was a bit too prejudiced about age to call him a friend. He was a student, a child, and he was as isolated on this university by his age as if he'd been alone on a deserted island. He had finally found a bridge to understanding University life, and unfortunately for Robert, it appeared to be him.

The next Tuesday, Sherlock was waiting when he got to lab in the morning. "Why, you're early. The lab won't open for another half-hour you know."

The boy smiled and rolled onto his toes. "I told Mummy that I needed to come early from now on. I don't want to miss anything!"

"What is there to miss? You've always had enough time to complete your labs before."

"But there's so much more than lab. I want to study maths and find out about matrices. Can you believe that they haven't covered that in school yet? It seems so simple, but I don't quite have my head around it. And the orbitals. I thought that they were just drawings, but he described them as if they were simply equations. Are they shapes or equations?"

"Both...or neither. I guess it depends on how you look at it."

"But how do YOU look at it?"

"Whoa there, lad...I mean Sherlock. You shouldn't be thinking about them at all yet. You need to learn to walk before you can fly."

"No you don't," Sherlock said. "Baby birds learn to fly straight out of the nest. They learn to fly before they can walk. I want to learn it all. I want to learn it now!"

"Why the rush? You have plenty of time to learn things you're only...what...ten?"

"I'm twelve!" he said frowning.

"Oh sorry, twelve. You still have a few years yet. What do you plan to do with all this knowledge anyhow?"

"What do you mean, 'what do I plan to do?' What does anyone plan to do with knowledge? You learn it all. That is a goal in itself. I want to know everything about everything, and life is too short for that, so I need to learn this now."

Robert smiled, "An admirable goal, but you should run along and play in the courtyard or something. The lab still won't open for half an hour."

"Twenty four minutes now."

He glanced at his watch, "I guess so. Give me some time to set up, will you?"

Robert closed the door behind him, making sure that it was locked before walking over to put his bag down under the bench. Sherlock Holmes was enthusiastic. Sherlock Holmes was excited. How long would that last, he wondered? For some people it lasted their whole life, but such a person was rare. He gave it a month before Sherlock tired of it all and went on to some other subject.

Robert remembered feeling that kind of excitement when he had first been able to see molecules in his head. He had closed his eyes and he had understood the way that the chemicals were dancing with each other in the beaker, and the beauty of it had blown him away. He didn't often feel that way. He didn't often have to stop and appreciate something about the world that had seemed like such a mystery before. It did happen, occasionally. He looked forward to it. Revelation was a part of science. The part that made the slow, trudging work worthwhile. But mostly, it was lots of hard work. He picked up his folder and headed out of the door to find Sherlock facing the wall and muttering to himself. He turned when Robert came out and stood up straighter, like a spaniel did when someone dangled a treat in front of it.

"Not yet," Robert said. "I'm just going to make some photocopies. The boy deflated and then plopped down on the floor cross-legged burying his head in his lab book.

Soon, the weeks took on a periodic quality. Sherlock continued to come early every Tuesday and Thursday, waiting for the lab to open. By the second week, Robert let Sherlock wait inside rather than having him sitting on the floor. Sherlock asked questions, constantly. "Why are you using beakers instead of test tubes? Wouldn't they be more efficient? Why are we using Litmus paper to determine the pH? A pH meter would be more precise. Why is this product double-distilled when the difference in vapor pressure means that the first product is pure enough. In fact, if one does not adequately clean the round bottomed flask one could get more contaminants with a second distillation."

The boy was frenetic, writing corrections in the lab manual that he dutifully copied onto notebook paper for Robert to 'get fixed'. He stored them in an envelope in his desk promising that the next time that he saw the author of the manual, he would pass them along. The child was irritating. He was always underfoot, but Robert couldn't begrudge him his enthusiasm. So few ever kept it for any length of time. It was worth giving it free reign for a while.

When term was ending Sherlock stayed in the lab long after he had successfully finished his final project. He sat watching as others rushed in full of apologies and asking for ways to make extra points at the last minute because they had spent most of the term goofing off. Robert simply glared and handed them their grades. Sherlock held his form in his hand. The passing mark clearly visible as he waited. Robert looked up suddenly, feeling as if something was missing but he didn't know what, until he realized that Harcourt had not yet come to get Sherlock. The lab was closing, and Robert was ready to lock up. He looked down at the boy.

"Your ride is late today."

"Yes. I told him that I had to stay after."

"But you don't. You've been done for hours. Aren't you excited about the holiday?"

"Holidays are boring."

"Boring? Come now. You are entirely too young not to be excited about Christmas."

"I hate Christmas."

"How can you say that. You told me that you got your chemistry set at Christmas."

"I don't like Christmas because they all treat me like a child."

"But you are a child."

"I am not!" he said rising to his feet. "I am not a child. I thought that going to college would make them understand, but no one seems to. People look at me as if I'm a trained monkey. They think that I'm doing tricks. Making it look like I understand complex things when I don't. But I do understand them! I do! I know more than they do, the idiots! Why must people always look down on me?"

Robert didn't know what to say. "Maybe, they look down on you because you're short? But that won't last forever. You'll hit your growth spurt and then they won't call you a child. But honestly, I wouldn't be too ready to grow up if I were you. There are so many things that you have to deal with as an adult that you don't as a child. "

"Like what?"

"Like work, laws, dating, taxes... Take your time. Enjoy your childhood while you can."

"But I like the lab."

"The lab will still be here when next term rolls around. Get some rest. Think of things other than chemistry, and you'll appreciate it all the more when you return. I'm leaving so good bye lad ... I mean, have a good holiday, Sherlock."

"Happy Christmas to you, Robert."

Robert paused for a moment simply looking at the boy. He didn't think it appropriate for the boy to call him by his first name, but he deserved a bit of a break for all of the good work that he had done. Robert nodded his head and walked out of the door locking it behind Sherlock before heading off to his car. This time, he didn't look back.

A new term and a new lab, but one thing was constant. Sherlock was there first thing Tuesday morning with a smart suit, a new lab book, and a smile.

"How was your holiday?"

"Tedious."

"Tedious? What kind of presents did you get?"

The boy snorted. "Clothing. Books. A model train of all things! What am I, five?"

"Did you get anything that you did like?"

"Well, there was a microscope."

"That's good isn't it? So, are you ready for this term's labs?"

"Absolutely. I have read the book from cover to cover, and I already have some corrections. Did you get a hold of the author yet?"

"Not yet, sorry."

Sherlock followed him into the lab, and Robert turned back to look at a handful of students at the end of the hallway waiting. He closed and locked the door. "Sherlock, I don't know if I should keep letting you in early like this when other students are waiting."

"Why ever not?"

"I might get accused of favoritism."

"But I am your favorite! Aren't I?" Sherlock looked up at him with eyes filled with expectation.

Robert's voice caught in his throat. "Well...yes, of course, but if I treat you special people might say that the only reason that you are passing the class is because I am making things easy for you."

"Bull docks!" Sherlock said, "I work harder than anyone else in this class."

"True. I'm just saying what people might think."

"Who cares what people think! I thought that science was about objective truth."

"It is. But the world is subjective, and what people think and feel often has more weight than objective truth."

"That's stupid!"

"Yes, I suppose so, but it is true of human relationships that what makes logical sense isn't always the most important thing."

"Then I won't have any. I won't have relationships with anybody."

Robert laughed, "I don't really think that's possible. We are all connected in some way or another."

"Watch me. I don't need anyone else."

"You don't, huh? Then you won't mind if I kick you out now so I can set up the class in peace."

Sherlock looked stricken. "Don't kick me out. Please?"

"So, there are some relationships that you still value? Try not to be so extreme Sherlock. Will you check to make sure all of the gas spigots are off? I'd hate to have a fire so early in the term."

Sherlock ran over to the desks and began checking the knobs. "Does that mean that we can have a fire later in term? I haven't seen an actual explosion yet. Mycroft always stops me when I try to blow things up. I did set a tree on fire though. It was an accident. Story books never mention overhanging branches."

Robert shook his head before opening the door to the rest of the class.

As it was, no one complained about Sherlock's special treatment. And no one accused him of getting his high grades unjustly. He made it absolutely clear to everyone, by his tone and manner, that he understood exactly what was going on in the lab far better than anyone else. He had already mastered the art of the sarcastic dig, and he used it when anyone suggested that the lab was no place for someone as young as he. In fact, most of the time he acted like a little snot. His superior manner was starting to breed resentment among his fellows, although none of them would stoop to hurting a child. It would be too insulting that they felt the need to.

When a pairs project came around, Robert resigned himself to help Sherlock do his assignment alone again, but he was surprised when someone volunteered to be his partner. Her name was Iris, an average student in everything but her looks and her ambition. She quickly realized that making friends with Sherlock was her ticket to an easy pass.

Sherlock was sarcastic to her at first, as he was to everyone these days, but she would smile and call him smart, and it would confuse him. She started to do something wrong, and he took the beaker out of her hand and did it himself. When it was done, she smiled and called him brilliant and all expression drained from his face. Sherlock was shocked. He was overwhelmed. He stared. Iris simply brushed her long blond hair over her shoulder and started to fill out her lab book, until Sherlock became irritated again and corrected it for her.

Robert felt a little conflicted. He wanted to say to Sherlock, "She's just using you." but on the other hand, the fact that Sherlock was interacting with someone at all was a good thing. He was always so alone. Now he had a lab partner. It was progress, or it seemed to be.

Another thing that kept him from warning the boy was the way that Sherlock acted around Iris. He stared at her almost constantly, and when she stood close to him he would shake a little. It was almost imperceptible, but he noticed, and he was sure that Iris did too. She noticed the way that he looked at her breasts. How could he not? They were eye level to him. When they got first in the class on their mid-project evaluation, she clapped her hands, leaned over, and kissed Sherlock on the top of his curly black head. He stood very still then, as if he had forgotten to breathe. So much for his resolution against relationships. It was obvious. Sherlock had a crush on the girl.

Sherlock wasn't the first one to come to lab anymore. He waited in the front hall for Iris to arrive and he left when she did, walking her out of the building rather than staying behind.

When a friend dropped off Iris' assignment saying that she couldn't make it to lab due to 'club commitments'. Sherlock visibly deflated. He turned to face the wall and didn't move for half an hour. When the last pair of students left and they were alone, Robert went over to Sherlock's side. He wanted to say something, but he wasn't quite sure what to say.

"Feeling a little down?"

"Steady on there, bloke."

"She'll return next week." or perhaps, "There are plenty of other fish in the sea."

Nothing seemed appropriate, so he just stood silent with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly Sherlock jumped to his feet. "I remember!" he said. "The Greens club is having a charity function tonight to help blind children. She's at the theatre!" He stood up and ran out of the room leaving his bag and books behind him.

Robert looked around the empty lab before deciding to follow the boy. He placed his books in the bag, and set out for the theatre at a much more sedate pace. When he reached it, he could see students hanging banners and dressing the tables, but there was no sign of Sherlock or Iris. He asked a young woman where he might find the young lady and was directed backstage. She was on the stage with a long-haired brunette girl placing bottles of water and note cards on a table.

"Where are you in the mornings these days?" The brunette asked her, "I never see you anymore."

"Chemistry lab," she said.

"Chemistry? How can you take such a class? It's just smelly things and men with no muscles at all. We missed you at the rowing trials. Walter was looking absolutely edible."

"I'm sorry, but I simply can't afford to fail another term. I have to go."

"But the rowing team! Now that the weather is better they'll be starting to compete again. You must come with us next week. Get out of that stuffy lab."

"Not yet. Once I get this project done I'm sure to pass."

"But you were always awful at science. Why do you think you'll succeed this time?"

Iris smiled as she pushed her straw-colored hair over her shoulder. "I have a lab partner who is super smart and does all the work for me. Its a guaranteed pass."

"You mean you've been spending all this time with a man? Have you given up on Walter for some brainy nerd?"

She laughed then. "He's not a man. He's just a kid. I smile at him and he does all the work. I couldn't date a kid, that'd be ridiculous. Just one more week, and when I have enough points to pass the course, I'll come out and join you."

Robert frowned. It was a cruel thing for her to do, and a thoughtless thing for her to say in public. The stage lights were bright, so she couldn't see him standing in the wings. He turned to go, and stared into the face of a stunned Sherlock Holmes. Without thinking he reached out a hand to him, but the boy bolted down the stairs and away.

Robert walked back to the lab and placed Sherlock's things behind the desk, but he didn't come back for them. And on Thursday, for the first time since Robert had known him, Sherlock didn't come to class.

Robert was surprised when he walked up to his door Tuesday morning to find a smart young man in a slate grey suit waiting for him. He thought, at first, that he might have been sent from the finance office to chastise him for waste in the lab, but such warnings usually came by letter, not by messenger; and the way that the young man frowned at him seemed eerily familiar.

"Good day, how may I help you?"

"Good Day, Mr. Bell. Would you be so kind as to invite me into the lab so that we can have a private talk."

"A private talk? About what Mr..."

"Holmes. Mycroft Holmes."

"You're Sherlock's big brother."

"Indeed."

"Just a moment then," he said unlocking the door. He closed the door behind him, but did not lock it.

The young man turned his torso to look at the door, and then turned back to face him. "You normally lock the door when Sherlock comes into the room with you. Why is that, Mr Bell?"

"I always do it. I did it before I met Sherlock as well," Robert said bristling at the suggestion that he might be doing something improper. "The lab has very specific hours. When the door is unlocked, students assume that it is acceptable to enter. I like to have some time to set up before they arrive, so I keep the door locked when class is not in session."

"I see, " the man said, "and you've worked at the university in a professional capacity for how long?"

"Two years."

"And you are, I am taken to believe, single? You live alone?"

"Yes. What's this about?"

"This, Mr Bell is about my brother, Sherlock Holmes."

Mycroft Holmes stared into Robert's eyes. He was a few inches taller, but he was still a young man. From the spread of his shoulders, Robert guessed that he was about twenty. Maybe younger. He wore a formal suit with a waistcoat and chain in an attempt to hide how young he really was. He looked...ambitious. He placed his knuckle against his chin, and bowed his head, saying nothing. Robert stood attentive for a few moments, but when the man did not move or speak, he walked over to the table and placed his things under the lab bench. Then he took out a folder and began to set out the day's papers. When he looked up again, Mr Holmes was staring directly at him.

"You wanted to talk?"

"About Sherlock, yes."

Robert waited, and continued to wait. Mycroft stared at him without speaking. His suit was stylish and a bit shiny. His shoes were incredibly expensive looking. probably Italian. His brown-hair was slicked back across his head with a slight bang pushed to the right. His face was long and stern and his hawk-like nose overlooked a dark red tie. He wasn't exactly attractive, but he was extremely well groomed. He continued to say nothing. He was probably expecting that silence would make Robert feel the need to talk in order to fill the empty space. If so, he was going to be disappointed. His sister had tried it once on a dare and found that Robert could sit up to three hours without saying anything. It would have been longer if she hadn't been sitting on his jumper.

The man spoke first, "You've made quite the impression, Mr Bell. Sherlock has nothing but praise for his laboratory instructor."

"Tell him 'thank you' when you see him. Where is he by the way? Is he sick?"

"In a manner of speaking."

The silence went on. This time Robert chose to stop it. "Mr Holmes. I'm going to be opening the lab in twenty minutes and I have things to set up, so if you have something to discuss with me, can you please begin, because I have work to do."

Mr Holmes rocked back on his heels in a way that he had seen Sherlock do, and then he crossed his hands. "Well then if you insist, I do have a question."

"What is it?"

"Are you having a sexual relationship with my brother."

Robert looked up sharply, "What? The boy is twelve!"

"You still haven't answered my question."

"No. God no! Absolutely not. Where did this come from? Did he say that I was? We talked about relationships before, but only normal interactions between people, not...not that. What's happened? Has something happened to Sherlock?"

"Has something happened to Sherlock? I think so, yes."

"What?"

"Last week he was excited to come to lab, and this week he refuses to go."

"Well, I can't say that I'm surprised about that."

The man narrowed his eyes, "Why do you say that? What do you know about my brother?"

"I know a great deal about him on the one hand, and next to nothing on the other. I know that he loves chemistry. That's more than obvious, but he knows very little about how to relate to other people especially the opposite sex."

"The opposite sex? So there was a girl? Tell me about her."

"His lab partner, Iris. He was quite smitten with her, but he heard her refer to him as a child, and say that she only spent time with him in order to get him to do her work for her."

"Ah!" Holmes said touching his fingertips together and placing them against his lips. "He's been manipulated. He was called a child again by someone he wanted to think of him as a man. He was taking a chance, and he was rebuffed. The young lady, is she coming today?"

"I don't think so. I got an email saying that she is sick, but it's the rowing team tryouts where she's most likely to be found."

"I don't think it will be necessary for me to see the...female."

"Can you get Sherlock to come to lab today? He has a project to complete."

"It is possible ... likely now that I know the cause. Thank you Mr Bell. You seem to be a ...useful man."

Robert didn't know whether or not to feel insulted by the term 'useful'. The man looked up as if he read the thought. "I meant no disrespect. You understand that it is...rare that Sherlock finds someone, anyone in fact, that he admires. You are indeed one of those rare souls. You should be proud. It may not last for very long."

Robert had nothing to say to that, so he said nothing. He could see Mycroft Holmes' approval in the way that the edge of his lip turned ever so slightly upward. "Please pardon me for interrupting your work. I shall send Sherlock along later today. Good day."

"Good day."

The door closed but he could still hear the crisp sound of the man's footsteps walking down the hall. He stared at the door for a few seconds before turning back to his papers.

---

It was late afternoon when Sherlock finally made it to the lab. He walked in slowly, looking around as if expecting someone to jump out at him. Probably he was worried about meeting Iris. Robert smiled at him, but he turned away. He spied his bag and his books and he walked over and picked them up before going over to the furthest lab table in the back to set up. He finished quickly and turned in his work.

"Thank you," Robert said. Sherlock said nothing. He simply walked out.

He came late again on Thursday and it was much the same. Iris stopped by and smiled at Sherlock, but he did not talk to her. He refused even to look at her. She tried feebly to put together her distilling apparatus, and he ignored her, letting her fail. He quickly turned in his papers, and left the lab.

Sherlock missed next Tuesday's lab, but there was no need. As soon as Iris was assured that she would pass the class, she stopped coming to lab altogether. It was rowing season, and she was far too busy.

Sherlock starting coming again in the mornings, although not before the lab opened, and he would quietly finish his work, not even bothering to be sarcastic about anything anymore. He was waiting for a reaction to happen, all slouched in his seat, his back curved and his head drooping. He radiated sadness. So Robert walked over and stood beside him for several minutes saying nothing.

"Why didn't you warn me?" he whispered. "You weren't at all surprised when you heard what she said. If you knew that she was using me, why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what? That a girl that you fancied didn't fancy you as much as you fancied her? To tell you that you were doing all of her work for her? I thought that was pretty obvious. This isn't the kind of thing that you can tell a bloke. Especially not the first time. You just have to live through it. Get the scars. You can't ever tell a bloke that a girl is wrong for him."

"No, but you could tell a friend."

He rose to his feet and walked out of the room just as his mixture started to fizzle. Robert watched his curved back as Sherlock turned toward the bathroom. Was he getting taller? He leaned forward and turned the spigot stopping the reaction.

As the end of term approached, Sherlock was top of his class, again. Exams were coming, and Robert was tapped to do a series of tutorials on chemistry for the students. He was setting up for a mini lecture when Giles Lombard came in. Robert sighed. Mr Lombard was a second year student studying both Law and Science. He was a self-professed authority on everything, especially chemistry. He liked to point out places in lecture where Robert Bell was being imprecise and blow it up into an argument so that he looked right, and everyone else seemed wrong. His attitude, argumentative nature, and family background almost guaranteed that he would one day sit in the House of Lords. Robert hoped that he would graduate soon so that he could begin his career and leave him alone.

He began to write his notes onto the white-board watching out of the corner of his eye as the students filed in. He smiled briefly when he noticed Sherlock Holmes threading through the crowd to sit in the front row. He wasn't sure, but he seemed a little bit taller than the last time that Robert had seen him.

Robert cleared his throat and stood behind the podium. There were about forty students, mostly first years reading chemistry, but there were a spattering of second years, and the odd biology and physics student tossed in to make a good mix. He began.

"The review sheet is there on the edge of the table. Please pick one up and complete it at home at your leisure. I will cover some of the key points that are confusing for students."

"Confusing for some students," Lombard said under his breath, "and some instructors as well." The students next to Giles began to snicker. Robert waited for them to calm down before continuing.

"That is to say, I am covering things that I have noticed previous students struggle with during the test. We will begin with point number five, pH."

"pH? At least he's starting with something simple. Even he can't screw that up... probably." There was more snickering, and Sherlock Holmes turned to face Giles Lombard with a frown on his face.

Robert bowed his head leafing through his notes one more time before writing on the board. "The pH scale was devised by the Danish chemist, Sørensen in order to measure the ionization state of water. The 'p' stands for 'potenz' which is French for 'power'. He was measuring the power or the charge of Hydrogen, H+, in water."

A hand flew up, and Robert resisted sighing as he called on Lombard. "You have a question?"

"I think that you're wrong there." Lombard said, "The word 'Power' in French is 'puissance' not 'Potenz'. 'Potenz' means power in German."
"Ah, I stand corrected. Thank you, Mr Lombard. The word begins with 'p' in either case, so you can use whichever word you choose to help you remember it's meaning. Anyway, pH is defined as the negative logarithm, base ten, of the concentration of Hydrogen ions in a solution of water. The concentration of Hydrogen ions normally found in water being, one times ten to the minus seven moles per liter. Mr. Lombard, another question?"

"You say that we should use either to remember it. Isn't it more proper to learn the correct word so that we do not continue to spread misinformation as you did when you told us that 'potenz' means power in French?"

"I think that whatever it is that helps you remember a thing so that you can get the correct answer on the test can be useful to you, yes."

"So, passing the test is all that you care about then? Is that what you think that we're here for? I thought that we were in University to get an education."

"You are, but we are here in this tutorial to give you the information that you need to pass the test so that you can continue on, and get your 'education'. "

"But that's hardly the correct attitude for an instructor at this university."

"Can you please be quiet and let us go on with the lecture!" Sherlock interrupted. "I would like to hear what he has to say."

Lombard's face puckered as he narrowed his eyes at Sherlock Holmes as if centering on a target. "Ah, so you must be Sherlock Holmes, The clever little primary school student allowed into the university to appease his powerful father. I suppose that you are right to offer such basic tutorials in order to allow people like this to memorize the answers by rote."

"I don't just memorize things by rote. I'm not a trained monkey."

"I wasn't the one to call you that, but now that you mention it, it is as if we are trained monkeys the way you are spoon feeding us this curriculum. You haven't told us anything that we couldn't have learned ourselves from reading a book. And a book would have been more accurate."

"Mr Lombard. You are more than welcome to go to the University library and read any number of chemistry books instead of coming to this tutorial. You have already passed your preliminary examinations, so I am at a loss as to what you can possibly gain by being here."

"I'm with a friend. I wanted to hear what you had to say, so that I could correct your mistakes in his notes afterwards."

Sherlock rose to his feet. "I don't know who you are, but I suggest that you either be quiet or leave so that we can go on with the tutorial. I would prefer that you leave."

"Ooo, the child has a temper. Don't you know that a child shouldn't talk back to his elders?"

"You are hardly an elder. As I understand it, you are only a second year student or, shall we use the American term 'sophomore' meaning 'a wise fool' for only a fool seeks to criticize those who are trying to help them."

"Who are you calling a fool?"

"Excuse me, but as riveting as this discussion is, you will have to continue it after the session. We have only a limited time here, now back to pH."

It was a charged meeting, that only became worse as the weeks went on. Robert had no fear that Sherlock would fail his preliminary examinations. He gave chemistry the single-minded devotion that only a child could. The kind of devotion that led young boys to know the complex names of dinosaurs, or the makes and models of cars. He had memorized the periodic table so accurately that Robert would often ask him the Atomic Mass of an atom rather than spend the time looking it up.

Giles Lombard came by every so often to criticize Robert, but mostly to attack Sherlock. They reacted like a batch of acid on metal, sizzling and spitting until all logic was dissolved away. Lombard obviously felt threatened by Sherlock, so clever at such a young age. He felt the need to assert his dominance over him, and the chance to criticize Robert in front of his class was simply an added perk. Robert let the insults roll off of his back, but Sherlock couldn't ignore him. A visit by Lombard almost always ended with Sherlock on his feet spitting insults while Lombard condescendingly commented on the immaturity of today's 'freshers'.

"Why the freshers are getting smaller every year," he said. "Like fishermen, we should take the small ones and throw them back."

Their rivalry continued to erupt in small explosions, like a bubble of steam bursting when water was dropped into a vat of hot oil, but it became a full scale conflagration when some bright sadist decided that what the students needed to encourage them, was a Chemistry Challenge Competition. When Robert first saw the flier for it, he tore it off of the board, and walked directly to the office of the ill-fated organizer to try to talk him out of it. When that didn't work, he said in no uncertain terms that he would have absolutely no role in it. None at all. That was when they decided to add the requirement of a chemistry coach for each participant.

When Sherlock came to him watery-eyed, begging him to be his coach after having just come back from a tussle with Giles Lombard, he didn't have the heart to say no. However, he secretly resolved to paint the hinges of the organizer's door with an unstable explosive compound so that when he left his office at the end of the day, it would blow his door off. He returned to this pleasant image again and again whenever he had to witness the rabid slathering-at-the-mouth that occurred whenever the two of them got within ten feet of one another.

The initial part of the competition was a set of written questions, some basic, and some obscure that cut out ninety percent of the participants. The top ten percent would compete in live competition in front of an audience. The sheet that they gave Sherlock about what the test would cover was laughably vague.

Atoms and atomic structure
Organic and Inorganic chemical principles
Polymers
Gas laws
Biochemistry and Enzyme kinetics
Thermodynamics
History of Chemistry

This wasn't a study guide? Anything could be on the test, so Sherlock studied everything.

Robert had thought that he was busy before, but he had been mistaken. Now Sherlock inserted himself into virtually every free moment of Robert's life, asking him obscure details about how orbitals filled with electrons, and the properties of transition metals. Many of them were questions that he didn't know, and he had to resort to telling Sherlock to go look it up. When Robert complained to Sherlock that he had to take time from tutoring to eat lunch, Sherlock arranged for his lunches to be catered so that he could stay on campus. He had to admit the food was good. Who were the Holmeses again?

When the day came, Sherlock was so agitated that he was bouncing off of the walls almost literally. There were about ten students in the competition, but most everyone was either favoring Sherlock or Giles Lombard. The people held signs and cheered when the names of the participants were announced. As one of the front runners, Sherlock would go out last. He bit his nails and literally hopped around backstage. He was going to wear himself out at this rate.

Robert put his arm around the boy's shoulder. (He had grown an inch since the competition was announced.) And he led him away to a quiet corner sitting him down on the floor behind a curtain. Sherlock looked up at him. He was strung tight like a bow about to snap.

"Sherlock, you've got to calm down. You'll lose all of your energy, lose your edge. We don't have time for you to make simple mistakes. You need to relax."

Sherlock furrowed his brow and tangled his fingers in his curly mop of hair. "Relax? How do I do that?" he asked truly puzzled.

Robert squatted down beside him and placed his hand over Sherlock's eyes. At first, Sherlock fidgeted. But soon he quieted down and was still. "Now, I want you to image a vacuum."

"What kind of vacuum?"

"An empty one. It is dark and cold and there is nothing in it. Then we release some atoms into the vacuum. Just a few. They move around the small chamber in straight lines bouncing off of the walls."

"What kind of atoms are they?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does. What kind of atoms?"

"Well, let's keep it simple and say that they are Helium atoms. They bounce around the walls like a perfect gas."

"An ideal gas. PV = nRT ."

"Exactly. Now I am introducing a bit of Oxygen into the room. It bounces around too but it is a bit larger."

"A diatomic molecule, O2, molecular mass thirty two."

"Yes, but don't think about the numbers now. Just think of the shapes. The way the larger molecule turns as first one atom and then the other hits the wall. The atoms and molecules continue on straight paths until an atom of Helium and a molecule of Oxygen collide and go flying off into different directions. Do you see it?"

"Yes. The Helium flies away faster. This is fascinating. I've never done this before."

"Visualization is a very useful tool in chemistry. It's how the structure of Benzine was discovered."

"You mean the story that Friedrich August Kekulé dreamed of a snake eating its tail? I heard that that story was apocryphal."

"Never mind. How do you feel now? More relaxed?"

Sherlock opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He smiled. "Yes. I feel good."

"Then, let's go out there and win this competition!"

The first week after the competition, there was lots of talk among the students. No one but those on-stage appeared to have seen Iris' performance, so most people simply thought that Sherlock had choked from the pressure. 'It was to be expected,' they said. 'he was only a child.'

Giles Lombard was elevated by the competition to the status of chemistry god. He was invited to the right places by the right people, and was acknowledged by all to be an extremely clever fellow. The upshot of this, was that he found no more time in his busy schedule to harass Robert.

The downside of the competition was that Sherlock was gone. Simply gone. He didn't come to class. He didn't come to tutorials. No one was waiting when Robert came to work in the morning. He hadn't realized how much he had come to expect having Sherlock Holmes underfoot until he wasn't there anymore.

But classes continued, and Robert had his work to do. The term was ending and students were readying to take their Preliminary examinations, when he saw Sherlock Holmes standing at the laboratory door. He smiled at him, and the boy...young man, came in. He was even taller now, Just above Robert's shoulder and the way that his limbs had become long and thin suggested that he would become much taller still.

Robert stamped a student's book and then announced to the room that the lab would be closing in ten minutes. Sherlock looked up. "It's a bit early isn't it?" he said. His voice was becoming deeper now. How had he changed so much in just a few short weeks?

"The lab finished last week. These students are simply preparing for their prelims. It won't hurt them to get out of lab and into the fresh air. Besides, I'm taking you to tea."

Robert watched the corner of Sherlock's mouth twitch up into a smile before going back to the neutral expression that he had worn the entire time that he had been here. "You missed a lot of work, but I'll let you make it up."

"There's no need," Sherlock said. "They're withdrawing me from the University."

"Withdrawing? Why? You can pass the coursework easily."

"Mycroft says that I'm not ready, emotionally, to deal with adults. He's placing me in a school with students my own age."

"Oh," Robert said. "That's good, I suppose, but what do you think of it?"

"I think that I'll be bored out of my mind before the week is out."

The last student left the lab then, and Robert gathered up his things. He walked outside waiting for Sherlock to leave before locking the door. They walked down the hall side by side in silence. Every so often Sherlock would look up at him as if waiting for him to say something, but Robert had nothing that he wanted to say. Not yet.

They entered his favorite coffee shop, Dickens, and sat at the table by the window. "Back again, and you brought someone with you this time. What a cute young lad!" Sherlock frowned.

"I think, a pot of tea today, Jenny, if you don't mind."

"Of course. I'll bring it out steaming, just as you like it."

Robert turned then and looked out of the window watching the people passing on the street. Sherlock sat up very straight in his chair. He turned and looked at the people in the shop, and the people on the street, and then back at Robert. "I've been working on some extractions in my laboratory at home. Simple metals mostly. I find that I miss the university lab. The equipment is better, and I have more space to work. Mummy says it's too messy. She makes me clean it up before I'm done."

"Then come back and finish your studies."

"Mycroft says that it was a mistake to enroll me here. I have advanced intellectually at the cost of my social development. He says..."

"Are you going to let your brother run your life forever? You should finish your studies because you want to! You have the talent, and you have the right attitude to become an excellent scientist. Enroll properly this time. Become a full-time student. I know that you can succeed at this."

"But ... in this case, though it pains me to say it, I think that Mycroft is right. I haven't learned to understand people. I don't know how they work. Most of the time, I don't even know why they do what they do. How can I show Mycroft and the rest of them that I'm not a child, when I can still be fooled like one?"

Jenny came back then holding a brown ceramic teapot with a bright red oven mitt. She placed a coaster down on the table and put the teapot on it. Robert lifted the lid and a cloud of steam came out. It dissipated as he replaced the lid. "Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome," Jenny replied before going to check on the customers who had just entered.

Sherlock picked up his spoon and began to fidget with it while Robert stared out of the window. After a few moments, Robert turned back and poured them both tea. He made it with the same precision that he used to make solutions for work. Measuring each part carefully and making sure that the sugar was completely dissolved before adding the milk. He put the cup of tea in front of Sherlock and then made his own, working in complete silence until the procedure was done.

Sherlock watched him, and when he took a sip, Sherlock did too. Robert looked out onto the street again, and Sherlock followed his eyes. A woman had stopped to stand at the bus stop. She looked down at her phone and then wrinkled her brow. She started to put it back into her pocket, but she took it out and stared at it again impatiently.

"I was wondering how you do it," Sherlock said. "I looked at Iris everyday, and thought that she was a lovely girl. You knew from the start that she was using me to get a better grade. How did you know? What did you see?"

"What do you see when you look at that woman, Sherlock?"

Sherlock turned and looked at the woman clutching her phone. "I see a woman with brown hair in a red dress holding a phone and standing at a bus stop."

Robert smiled. "That's just a description of her physical properties. I was hoping that you would go deeper. What is she doing? What is she feeling?"

"She's looking at her phone. I can't possibly know what she's feeling."

"Can't you? I see a woman who is nervous, upset. She's waiting for a call. Not someone that she can call first, or she would have done it already, but she is so impatient for it, that she can't even put the phone in her pocket because she doesn't want to lose the time that it would take to pull it back out again. On the other hand, she is waiting at a bus stop. If she was in a hurry to get somewhere, she'd take a taxi. She's taking the bus because she always takes the bus. She's trying to go about as if this is a normal day, but it's not. That bag that she's carrying. It's from a hospital gift shop. She's wearing a plastic wrist band. Pink for breast cancer awareness. Someone that she knows. Someone that she loves, mother, sister, lover, has cancer. Something is happening today, a biopsy, an operation perhaps. It isn't so urgent that she needs to be waiting at her side. She's going about as if it is a normal day. But her heart is in another place entirely.

"The trick, Sherlock, is not seeing, it's observing. Observe what is important to her. Where her eyes look, what her hands do. Observe where she has been. The dirt on her shoes, the stains on her cuffs. They tell her past as clearly as contaminants in a mineral sample give you clues to the technique used to isolate it. She has the whole story of her life written on her if you will only take the time to read it."

The bus came, and the woman climbed on. Then Robert turned back to his tea. Sherlock leaned forward having forgotten his. "Can you teach it to me?"

"Teach what?"

"Observing. Can you teach me how to read people?"

"Sherlock. I think that you're losing focus here. What's important now is your studies. I want you to sit for your preliminary exams. I know that you'll pass them. Maybe when they see how well you are doing, they'll let you continue on here."

"But this is interesting. What you've shown me is interesting. I want to know. I need to know how you do it."

"Sherlock, the exams are tomorrow. Will you be here to take them?"

"No. This is the last time that Harcourt is supposed to drive me here."

Robert looked into Sherlock's eager, young face. It was getting thinner, longer. The baby fat was almost gone. "You have a brilliant mind, Sherlock. It would be a waste to throw it away."

"I don't plan to throw it away. I just think that there might be other things that I can use it for."

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet, but when I see it, when I ... observe it, I'll know."

They drank the rest of the pot in silence and then Robert rose to his feet. He paid and opened the door for Sherlock, stopping on the sidewalk and holding out his hand. "Well I suppose that this is the end then." Sherlock took his hand and shook it, then he put his hands in his pockets and stood in front of Robert looking down.

"Goodbye," Robert said.

"Goodbye."

Robert clutched his bag to his side, nodding once, before walking past Sherlock toward home. A hand stopped him. "But if I took the exam, if I passed it, then would you teach me how to observe people?"

"Sherlock, I don't think...."

"It's a deal," he said taking his hand and shaking it again before rushing across the street. A car honked as he jumped in front of it. Robert called out, but Sherlock was already running across the quad.

In the morning, Robert came to proctor the exams, but was called away to help with a broken pipe in the laboratory. The next day when the grades were announced, he saw it. Sherlock Holmes had taken the Preliminary Exam, and got a perfect score.