The newspaper headline hit poor Sherlock with the strength of a meteorite, and nearly sent him tumbling backwards onto the kitchen floor. His father was looking solemn, with his head hanging over top of his breakfast and his fork lying unused at his side. Sherlock merely gaped, ruffling up the pages to better scan what was left here by the reporters. He recognized the face that was looking up at him, though it made no sense why he would make headline news.
"You knew him, didn't you dear?" Mrs. Holmes asked, coming up alongside of her son and looking down at the terrible mug shot they had chosen of Father James. He looked as if he had aged forty years throughout the time of his arrest, for there were deep wrinkles settled within his face and his eyes were dark and gray. It had been years since Sherlock had last seen that man, though this was the first time he had given any thought to him. He was in his junior year of high school, so far removed from that third grade class. Evidentally he had been lost throughout the school system enough to have missed one of their teacher's arrests.
"What has he done?" Sherlock asked quickly, looking up towards his mother with a concerned look upon his face. The woman hesitated, keeping her glass of orange juice poised between her manicured nails and giving her husband something of a frantic glance.
"Read the headline, Sherlock." Mr. Holmes demanded, as if he wasn't brave enough to pronounce those words himself. Sherlock obeyed, looking down upon the headline once more as if to spot something he had missed before. Child Molester Gets Sixty Years. Sherlock's frown deepened, his fingers ruffling at the pages as if he hoped to find a dictionary lodged between them.
"I don't know what that word means." Sherlock admitted at last. "What's...a molester?"
"Shhh!" Mrs. Holmes demanded, springing upon her son and snatching the newspaper from his hands at once. "Sherlock don't say that word around here!" quickly the woman made the sign of the cross, to which her husband and son followed quickly. Surely God will have forgiven them, even if the word had been said purely accidentally. Sherlock's face had grown quite pale now, as he was trying to connect the strings which didn't seem to reach quite yet.
"He's arrested for it?" Sherlock clarified at last.
"Yes, yes Sherlock." Mr. Holmes agreed, his voice sharp and short, as if he wasn't intending to go any farther with that statement. But now Sherlock was curious, wondering if that was just a fancy word for teacher or something like that.
"Mother, what does that mean?" Sherlock asked a bit more forcefully, his fear mounting as he remembered each moment he had ever spent with Father James. Most of that time had been in the classroom, some of that time was regrettably behind closed doors. What did it mean, this word? And did it have any connection to that strange activity?
"It's when..." the woman sighed heavily, trying to choose her words carefully to cater to her son's very limited vocabulary. It was a shielded household; in fact there may as well have been iron armor across the entire exterior! Sherlock had hardly even seen a kiss before; much less understand where babies come from. He knew God, and the rosary, and almost every page of the Bible. In those days he figured those were the only things that mattered, the only things that would keep you safe and pure.
"It's when older men take a romantic interest in younger boys." Mr. Holmes declared at last, saving his wife from this awkward and prolonged silence. Sherlock felt his legs begin to numb, his fingers clenching along the etched wood of their kitchen table as he stared across towards his father's dull, uncomfortable face.
"Romantic?" he muttered again. "Romantic as in...as in what context?"
"Sherlock you're too young to think about these things, dear." Mrs. Holmes insisted, patting her son on the shoulder carefully and tucking the newspaper even farther behind her back. Sherlock faltered, looking between his parents once more and trying to find a reasonable explanation or their silence.
"But I knew him! Shouldn't I at least know what he's being charged for?" Sherlock defended.
"It's nothing to concern yourself over." Mr. Holmes insisted sharply.
"Mother, men aren't supposed to love boys. Men are supposed to love women." Sherlock pointed out, twisting in his chair to scan his mother's worried face. Obviously she could tell her son was thinking too much upon these forbidden subjects, and with the more questions he asked the more troubled he became.
"Certainly dear." The woman agreed. "That's what the Bible tells us." For a moment Sherlock sat stiffly in his chair, staring down at his breakfast with his stomach turning over and over again. He didn't have an appetite any longer, for his brain was beginning to think back into long forgotten territory, into memories he had pushed away because he simply didn't understand them. A romantic interest...romantic interest... Suddenly Sherlock felt his stomach drop, finally connecting the dots which had seemed not to correlate before. He realized now, now after all of these years...
"I'm going to go pack my things for school." Sherlock announced abruptly, pushing out his chair fiercely and scrambling up the stairs before his parents could catch up. He heard their mutterings of concern, but only briefly before he slammed the door to block out any sound coming in or going out. Suddenly the boy's legs gave out, and he went tumbling upon the ground in a panicked heap. A child molester, a criminal...a man who loved boys, a man who summoned boys, a man who touched boys. Sherlock's eyes closed anxiously, with one hand he covered his face and with the other he crept his fingers along the buckle of his belt, remembering a time when different fingers had followed the same path. Had it really been so long, had he really not given it another thought for eight years, simply because he didn't understand the entire interaction? After all of these years he had been keeping a secret he didn't know he had, and carrying a weight he only just realized had been strapped to his back this whole time! He had been...he had been a victim. After all of this time that strange interaction in the office, the one which he couldn't quite understand enough to discredit...it had been wrong! It had been criminal! The man was going to jail for the things he had done to Sherlock, for the things he had done to other boys. It was wrong... 

John POV: The priest was much heavier to move than he had previously imagined, though it was admittedly easier to control him once he had finally lost consciousness. With Mary's help John was able to heave the man up and onto their shared mattress, at least giving his heavy limbs somewhere to sink into rather than to bruise even more upon the hardwood floor. With his own special touch John tucked a pillow underneath Sherlock's curly head, trying to make him as comfortable as possible while he slept. Perhaps it was sleep deprivation that had finally gotten the better of him, or perhaps he had a strange medical condition that caused black outs? Either way his actions were strange, strange enough to require a story once his eyes finally opened.
"He is alive, right?" Mary wondered hopefully, coming into view with Hamish curled within her arms. She was bouncing the baby up and down the best she could, though his crying at such proximity was making her scowl in indignation. Both mother and child were exhausted, and neither of them benefited from Hamish's excessive discontentment.
"I think so." John assured, leaning down a bit closer to Father Holmes's chest and watching as it rose and fell very slightly. "He's probably just knocked himself unconscious with the fall."
"Why on earth would he fall? And what was all that yelling about?" Mary demanded, at last settling Hamish down next to the priest in the hopes that the warm sheets would calm him. The baby kept on screeching, though perhaps his voice would be enough to pull Father Holmes from whatever darkness he had fallen into. John sighed a bit embarrassingly, figuring there was an abbreviated story to be told here. He knew that he hadn't been doing anything strictly against the rules, for he was surely allowed to hug any person eh wanted even while wearing this wedding band. Though while his actions were perfectly innocent he could not entirely speak to his motivations, save for what his exhausted brain and deprived heart might be able to come up with. John's tired system would forget the details that might make it questionable; all the while Mary's would come up with every excuse to being yelling at the poor man. Certainly she would search into that story more thoroughly than John would, picking up every sign of infidelity there was! It would be useless to tell the truth, lest they forget their real concern.
"I went up to check on him, and I think I just scared him." John lied quickly. "He probably wasn't expecting to be confronted at midnight."
"What a coward." Mary muttered with a bit of a sour face, looking down upon the priest as if he was causing more problems than he was worth these days. John bent over upon his knees, having sat up in one of their lonely armchairs, and gazed upon the priest's sleeping form with as much concentration as you might find on artists in a gallery. Well he was surely appreciating something just as stunning as any masterpiece of the Renaissance age, though this piece of art was not merely paint upon canvas, nor a lump of clay molded into an impressive shape. He was skin and bones, hair and clothes, angles and lines, simple but mysterious, obtainable but just out of reach. Holy but...but wandering.
"Our own priest." John muttered with a little chuckle. "How strange this whole situation has gotten."
"I feel as though it's only going to get much worse." Mary admitted with a little frown, crossing her arms across her chest and wincing as Hamish's cries reached a new octave. John sighed, figuring he ought to do his best to quiet the screaming child. Perhaps he felt neglected, or was still afraid from the show Father Holmes had put on within the nursery.
"Why do you say that?" John wondered, looking up towards his wife as innocently as he could manage. The woman looked a bit defensive now, though her eyes were narrowed with some dedication to her last point.
"I don't know I just feel that...that there's something else going on here. Something that this priest is hiding." She admitted at last.
"What like, like a setup or something?" John clarified nervously. His first thought was Father Holmes dressed as a mobster, planning a raid upon the church and the Watsons to steal what little valuables they had.
"Like I said, I don't know." Mary repeated, as if this time she was rather inconvenienced by having to say it again.
"Still don't believe it's the old priest?" John clarified with a little chuckle. Mary didn't comment upon that point, though her silence said a million words. By not denying the fact she was sticking to all of her past assumptions, all of those conspiracy theories that she must've thought up over a glass of wine the night before. She was sticking to this wild assumption that it was no longer Father Holmes who was sleeping upon their mattress, but instead someone much different, and with a much more sinister agenda.
"Either way, I think I like this one better." John admitted at last. "Father Holmes or not."
"I don't care who he is at the moment, just that he's taking up space on our matress. Couldn't we just put him in that chair or something, and try to get to sleep ourselves?" Mary asked at last, guestering madly to the man who was sprawled atop of their matress and seemingly taking up each and every corner of available space.
"I don't think he'll be comfortable up here." John debated, delighted to hear that Hamish's cries were instead turning to little coos of displeasure.
"I don't care if he's comfortable or not, he's lucky we don't drag him out onto the pavement and let him walk home when he's ready. I've had it with inconveniences, I just want to go to bed!" Mary exclaimed, finally narrowing in upon the priest and taking up his arms with as much strength as she could manage. The man didn't budge, save for his head and shoulders elevating just slightly off of the ground.
"Help me, da*n it." Mary demanded. John hesitated, though finally he set Hamish down upon the bed and took up Father Holmes's legs. Carefully they heaved him off of the bed and up into the chair, positioned so that he could very well have fallen asleep while relaxing within the comfort of the armchair. It was a rather haunting position to be in, with the limp body of Father Holmes sitting up so straight against the back of the chair, his closed eyes staring at a spot which would be John and Mary just as soon as they laid back down into bed. John hesitated, giving a small sneer of dislike, before pushing the Father's body off towards the side, giving his head some support with the wings of the chair all the while allowing his eyes to stare up towards the ceiling instead of down upon the couple. With some care John took the man's hands and folded them across his lap, trying to make sure the priest was very comfortable when he finally came to.
"There we go, nothing to worry about now." Mary declared at once, wandering back over to her bed and collapsing down alongside of Hamish. The baby was now falling asleep, his voice all together silent as he settled deep upon the silky sheets. John lifted him carefully, trying not to wake him and start this whole ordeal over again. Carefully he walked the baby back into the nursery, settling him down in his crib and smiling softly over top.
"Sweet dreams, little man." John said with a grin, passing his hand over top of the baby's soft head before turning off the lamp on the side table, plunging the room into darkness. 

John's attempt at getting Hamish a little bit of sunshine may have been a bit ill timed, being as though the baby wasn't exactly recommended to be in direct rays just yet. However with Mary gone to work (her maternity leave could only last about a week, for she was going stir crazy while sitting at home) John was left with Hamish all alone, and therefore what was best for the baby was left entirely in his hands. And so he carefully lathered sunscreen upon Hamish's white skin, trying to make sure he didn't get any sunburn that would keep him up even later at night, and pushed on a little sunhat to block some of the more visible rays. Then John got the stroller and settled the baby inside, figuring they'll take a couple of laps around the parking lot for good measure. John hadn't been outside in a long while either, and this late morning sun looked very tempting as it came filtering in through their stained glass. The handicapped ramp leading into the side door was a very handy thing to have, and made it terribly easy to get Hamish down to the parking lot without too many bumps or even much effort. John pushed open the door and led the child out into the daylight, marveling in how warm and delightful the rays were upon his skin. Undoubtedly Hamish appreciated it as well, for he let out a little coo and squirmed a couple of times within his seat.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" John chuckled. "That's the sun, Hamish." Obviously there was no response from the baby, though John took a moment to adjust the little visor upon the stroller, trying to keep any of the direct rays from touching upon his baby's face. For a while he strolled down the alley, talking to Hamish about all of the flowers Mary had planted in the garden and explaining some of the better aspects of their blooms. It was only the beginning of spring by now, and so most of the flowers were still only green stems poking up out of the cold mulch. Then they sat upon the sidewalk for a moment as Hamish sucked upon a bottle of formula, all of this movement having made him terribly hungry. John held the little child in his arms on the bench below the dogwood tree, still just a tangle of branches since its leaves had yet to sprout beyond their buds. There were a couple of passerby, each one giving their compliments to the little baby in his sunhat and making John smile in pride. Yes, he was quite adorable, wasn't he? And of course half of that contribution was up to John. He had made a cute little baby, he did that. Once Hamish had drained his bottle of formula John carried him back to the stroller, figuring it was time for the baby to get back inside before the sun did any permanent damage upon his skin. The warmth was appreciated of course, though John didn't want to make any mistakes of allowing him to get burnt. Therefore he started his way back down the alley, making it nearly to the door when he heard the unmistakable sound of...well of something dragging across pavement. It sounded as if it was a wooden crate, perhaps a dresser of some sort, being heaved through the gravel and disrupting every stone in its path. With a turn John was able to see that he was very close, his ears must not be fading with age after all! It was indeed a wooden box, though it was much larger than anything John would have predicted. It was the confessional, rather one side of it, and there dragging it across the parking lot was that strange priest once again. He was dressed in his usual black attire, with close fitting clothing and a white collar protruding out of his dark shirt. Despite the priest's height he looked practically tiny when compared to that large box, and with his skinny little arms it seemed as if he was going to be crushed underneath it at any moment.
"Father Holmes!" John called excitedly, wheeling the stroller over with a newfound pep in his step. Perhaps he should have minded his speed; for it was only after he noticed Hamish's head bouncing a bit roughly back and forth did he stop to mind the cracks in the pavement.
"Hello John." the priest muttered, though without much enthusiasm or surprise within his voice. Either Father Holmes wasn't exited to see him or he was expecting his presence.
"What are you doing? I thought confessions were on Fridays." John pointed out with a little frown. It was entirely possible that he forgot what day of the week it was, though he was rather certain it was only Tuesday.
"I know, this isn't for the parishioners." Father Holmes agreed, at last settling the box down upon its proper spot and going to get the other from his small concrete porch.
"What's it for then, a puppet show?" John presumed with a little chuckle, lingering with Hamish's stroller all the while the priest began to drag the second up the slight incline and towards its partner.
"No." the priest debated, giving a final push and connecting the second box with a loud scraping thunk. He took a step back; exhaling powerfully as if that was the most exercise he had gotten in an eternity. "It's for me." he declared at last. John nodded a bit doubtfully, looking up towards the priest with his eyebrows arched.
"Oh, okay." John agreed. "Well, have fun I guess."
"Me and you, John. Get in." Father Holmes finished abruptly, pointing towards the second confessional in a clear instruction. John's mouth dropped into a frown, realizing he had been tricked into this religious ridiculousness once again! Here he was so excited about seeing Father Holmes he had promptly forgotten how to best avoid any catholic set ups.
"No I'm not feeling very sinful today." John debated quickly, shaking his head nervously. Father Holmes sighed, his pale face looking quite tired in the morning sun.
"I don't think you understand me. You don't have to confess, John. I do." The priest declared at last. John's heart leapt, though at the same time his stomach plummeted nervously. He liked the idea of hearing Father Holmes's secrets, being as though he had at one time spilled his heart to the man. It was only fair, therefore, that the priest offer John the same transparency.
"I'm not a priest, Father." John debated.
"I don't care if it's formal or not. But I need to tell you something...or rather I need to explain myself." Father Holmes admitted at last, finally ending this conversation as he stepped into his assigned confessional and shut the red curtain behind him. "You can bring the baby too!" he called through the fabric, as if he imagined that was the only concern John had on the matter. John wasn't left with much of a choice, and now that there was no more priest to argue with he was standing alone and rather pathetically in the parking lot, rocking Hamish's stroller back and forth just to give his anxious hands something to do. At long last John figured there was no use just standing here, and so he scooped up Hamish in his arms and stepped inside of the booth, feeling as if he was getting his picture taken at the fair instead of lining himself up for some heart to heart conversations. Nervously John settled himself down on the bench inside, glancing towards the curtain to be sure that it was pulled all the way shut.