Work Text:
A Thorny Rosamund
30th, March 2033
“Has she been upstairs all afternoon?”
“When I returned from my research at Bart’s, the music was already playing. Its volume has increased in the last hour. The music sounds rather sad to me, John.”
“And she hasn’t come downstairs? She knows I bought more Jaffa Cakes yesterday. How about you start making supper and I’ll head upstairs and see if I can coax her down here to eat? There are some leftover hamburgers in the freezer. Heat them up on top of the stove so she can smell them. There’s a bag of frozen chips in there, too. I put the deep fryer on top of the refrigerator.”
“Got it. Go get our girl.”
“I’m going up. If I’m not back downstairs in fifteen minutes, I want you to know that I love you.”
They laughed at the preposterousness of the situation and then John exited the sitting room and made his way to his old bedroom.
“Rose? Love? Dad is making dinner. It’s going to be ready in about twenty minutes.”
Silence.
“We’re having burgers and chips! I bought Jaffa Cakes yesterday at Tesco! You don’t want to miss this meal, kiddo!”
Silence.
“Rose? May I come in? Dad and I are a bit worried about you.” Rosie vacillates from calling Sherlock by his name and Dad, depending on her mood. She stopped calling him Papa when she was twelve. “Big girls don’t say Papa! They say Dad!” It was a very sad day when the word was retired from her vernacular.
“Fine.”
John slowly opened the door and was greeted by Pictures of You by The Cure playing through a speaker next to Rosie on her night table. He’d done a pretty good job with helping guide her musical tastes. He scanned the rest of the room and his eyes landed on his little girl. She was sixteen now, but he could still sometimes see her as the squirming and screaming infant he delivered on the backseat of his car over a decade and a half ago. He blinked to shake away that innocent image of her and refocused to see his daughter, a young woman now, but looking very young at that moment. She was curled in a ball on her bed, a fistful of soggy tissues in her left hand.
“What’s the matter, darling?” John sat on the bed next to her and put his right hand on her left knee.
“Dad!” She burst into a fresh wave of tears and lunged for her father. John caught her and bear-hugged her. She settled against his upper chest, her dishwater blonde hair tickling John’s chin. He bent his neck and placed kisses on her head. Like he did when she was a baby.
“Oh, my darling girl. What’s the matter?”
“Why are people so terrible?”
“Tell me what’s happened, love.”
“Bridget and Riley have been seeing each other behind my back! He knew I liked Bridget. He told me they were just friends. I thought he and I were friends!! How could he do this to me? How could he?” She sobbed against her father’s chest, and John held her tight, continuing to kiss the crown of her head and whisper endearments against her hair.
“I know this is going to be hard for you to hear, love, but not everyone you are friends with now will be your friends ten years from now. They might not even be in your life a year from now. In my experience, you have the types of friends you need to get you through periods of your life. Most won’t be lifelong relationships. I have very few friends left from my early days. Some people are very lucky and find a best friend in a sandbox. Others don’t find a friend until they’re in university. There are also people who don’t meet their favorite person in the world until they’re thirty-nine. Or their co-favourite person until they’re forty-six.
“Shitty things are going to happen to you your entire life, bud. I know this hurts. Feels like the worst thing that will ever happen to you. And Christ, sweetheart, I hope this is the worst thing for you.” John cringes before speaking the next part. “But, I hate to break it to you, it probably won’t even rank in the grand scheme of your life when you’re older. It’s hard now, very hard. But things like this help form the person you’re going to be later in life. I just hope you don’t let this shitty thing define how you are with other people as you live your life.”
Rosie wiped her eyes on her father’s chest and looked up at him.
“You’re really wise, Dad. Must be all the experiences you’ve had in your old age.” She definitely inherited a bit of the Watson-Holmes snark. She was (mostly) joking.
“I know you’re kidding, but the longer you live, the most shit you will see. I’m not going to make it seem like life is a perfect ride. There will be absolute shit times in your life, unless you’re one of the extremely fortunate few. You will learn to have people around you that deserve to be there. They’ll reveal bits and bobs about themselves, and your instincts will kick in and you’ll just know. You’ll get better at that bit as you get older and meet new people. People will break your heart. But the right persons? There's nothing better than that, my lovely girl. ”
“Dad? When did you know about Sherlock?”
“Honestly, I knew as soon as he spoke to me. There was something about him saying, “Oh. Thank you.” It was so simple, but his surprise at the kindness of a stranger was very sweet. And then I locked eyes with him and that was it for me. I wish I’d been able to tell him that in the beginning. But I was still figuring out who I was. And he really complicated that journey.”
He couldn’t stand it anymore.
“But in a good way, right?” Sherlock finally allowed himself to peek around the corner of the doorway and smiled sheepishly.
“Oh, get in here, idiot!”
Sherlock hung his head but entered the room anyway. He sat down behind Rosie’s back. John nodded and Sherlock joined in their hug. Rosie eased her way a bit from John’s hold and leaned a bit against Sherlock’s chest. Her dads encasing her in their love.
“So, what you’re saying is: expect knives in your back. Meet people anyway; a few of them might surprise you. Be kind, but, above all be patient.”
“Actually, the ‘above all’ part is to love. Don’t let the fear of heartbreak, sentiment, hold you back. I did that for a very long time and I almost lost your father. Reach out if you sense someone is worth it. You’ll be wrong sometimes, but when you’re right… you end up with someone perfect like your father.”
“He is pretty great, isn’t he?” Rosie managed a laugh at that. John wiped at her face with the sleeve of his jumper. “It’s going to be okay, Rosebud. It is what it is right now, but it’ll get better.”
“And until it does, you have us to give you ‘old man’ advice.”
“Dads, I’ll take it.”
John’s stomach grumbled, lightening the mood a bit.
“Did you even start supper?”
“I got the burgers out of the freezer…”
“Christ, I’m starving. Jaffa Cakes for dinner; burgers and chips for dessert!” There was a quick family hug, and they made their way downstairs to the kitchen.