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“Come on Amelia!” John encouraged. His daughter was now eleven months old, and he was becoming desperate to hear her say her first words. He knew it was only a matter of time before he heard ‘da!’ for the first time, and each day he grew more anxious. “You can say it. Da. I’m making this easy for you!”
His daughter simply looked from him to Sherlock, confused. They sat on the floor so they were level with Amelia, who innocently sat up with a Winnie the Pooh doll in her hands.
“Please, John, she doesn’t have a clue what you’re saying,” his partner insisted.
“You know I’m Daddy,” John said to Amelia in his ‘baby’ voice. “I’d love to hear you say it. You don’t even have to say the whole word. You don’t even have to go for ‘Dad’. Just…da!”
Amelia laughed and clapped her hands, as though she thought John was putting on a show for her. And as well as this was going, he pretty much was. With a sigh he reached forward and lifted her in his arms. It was getting late in the morning, and he was due for his afternoon shift at the surgery.
“Da,” he said as he carried her into the kitchen. “You’re Amelia, and I’m Daddy. Da!”
They had been at this for a half an hour, and he was beginning to feel like he was going crazy.
“When will you be home?” Sherlock asked.
“Around ten, if all goes well,” John said before planting a quick kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek. “Thanks for watching her.”
“You know I don’t mind,” Sherlock replied.
The consulting detective took the baby into his own arms and grinned at her.
“Can you say Sherlock?” He teased, mocking John. “Sher-lock.”
“Sure, make fun,” John shot. He reached into the fridge for his lunch and stuck it into his briefcase before throwing the back over his shoulders. “You’ll get the last laugh when she says my name first.”
Sherlock made a face.
“She’s not even saying your real name,” he pointed out.
“Well she’s not bloody well going to call me ‘John’ her whole life, is she?”
Grinning, Sherlock rubbed his forehead against Amelia’s and quipped:
“No, she’ll be calling you ‘idiot’.”
With a roll of his eyes, John kissed Amelia’s cheek and grabbed her hand to squeeze it.
“Goodbye love,” he said to his daughter. He placed a hand gently against her cheek and smiled. “I’ll love you forever no matter what you call me.”
“Yeah, she’ll love you as long as you feed her and give her money,” Sherlock said.
“Oi, that’s enough teasing!” He shot. “Just please, remember her napping schedule. I think the schedule’s really helping her sleep through the night.”
“The schedule, the schedule, the schedule,” Sherlock sang to Amelia, who giggled. “That’s all Daddy is concerned about. Well guess what? We’re going to have fun today. Yes we are. Yes we-"
“Sherlock…” John warned.
Letting out a sigh, Sherlock promised:
“I’ll make sure she naps right on schedule.”
“Good,” John said with a smile. He kissed his daughter again. “I love you, sweetheart. Bye-bye!”
Reluctantly he turned, leaving his two loves to fend for themselves for the day. He hated having to be a working father, leaving Sherlock alone to watch her all day long. He felt like he was missing out on seeing her grow up. In the mornings he usually only had enough time to feed her and play with her a bit before he left, and at night she was already in bed. Sure she usually work up screaming at least once a night, but he was so tired and out of it those didn’t exactly count as quality father-daughter moments.
As soon as he turned away he heard Amelia squirm and whine. He tensed and forced himself to keep walking.
“Da!” A tiny voice suddenly cried out. He froze, wondering for a moment if he imagined it, but then he heard: “Dada!”
Amelia whimpered, and when John slowly turned back around he found her desperately squirming to get out of Sherlock’s arms. She was reaching for him, she wanted him, she said his name…she said his name! A grin broke across his face as he dropped his bag and broke into a run. He practically jerked her out of Sherlock’s arms and held her close, rubbing his face against the side of her head and laughing.
“That’s right,” John said; he wasn’t ashamed to realise a few tears were falling from his eyes. “Dada, that’s me.”
A hand fell to the small of his back and he looked up to find Sherlock beaming down at him.
“I don’t ever want to let you go,” John sighed. He kissed her cheek and she reached out for him, grabbing her nose.
“Da,” she said, quietly now, as though it calmed her to know he was close.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Da.”
It almost felt like they were talking to each other. The sound of her tiny little voice piercing through the air for the first time made his world stop. His throat closed up a bit as tears continued to form one by one in his eye. He breathed in deeply, trying to pull himself together. He couldn’t help but to think of Mary and how proud she would have been to hear her daughter speak for the first time. Looking up, he met Sherlock’s eyes and smiled through his tears when he saw how proud his boyfriend obviously was.
“I think she doesn’t want you to go to work,” Sherlock said, letting out a laugh as he wiped at his own tears.
“Yeah, I think so,” John said. It made him feel even worse knowing his daughter was so desperate for him to stay that she forced herself to say his name for the first time. It confirmed his fear that all this time she was aware of what was going on around her: she was aware that he was leaving her every day. She knew he was different than Sherlock; she knew she was his. “But Daddy’s got to go make people better. I’ll be back soon.”
“Dada!” Amelia cried again, her little eyes squeezing shut and her body squirming again, like she was about to throw a fit.
“I think she really wants you to stay home today,” Sherlock said.
If John didn’t know any better, Sherlock was just as desperate for him to be home for the day as Amelia. Now that Sherlock had gotten the hang of babysitting John had been taking on longer and more frequent shifts at the surgery (after all, they did need the money). But maybe he had been working too much.
“You know what, I’ve been pretty good about making all my shifts the past few months,” John said. “I think it’s about time for a mental health day.”
“Doctors take mental health days?” Sherlock challenged.
John shrugged.
“They do when they’re in a relationship with you,” he teased.
Sherlock opened his mouth in protest, but couldn’t seem to come up with a retort. It was all too obvious his boyfriend was excited to have him home for the day.
“I’ll phone into the surgery,” John said. “How about starting lunch?”
“Da!” Amelia exclaimed, burying her head into his shoulder and pumping her little fists into the air, as though she knew she had gotten her way.
“Yes baby girl,” John grinned. “Daddy loves you. I can’t be here all the time, but every now and then I can break the rules.”
He kissed her cheek one last time before he walked them over to her highchair. He went back for his briefcase and put his lunch in the fridge for tomorrow. John knew that each day it would continue to be harder and harder to leave Amelia, and with each new milestone he would be afraid he was going to miss out on something. Still, it was nice to get to enjoy one of those milestones for the day.
He placed a quick call to the hospital before rejoining his little family in the kitchen. John threw Amelia a big, goofy grin as he took out a jar of her baby food and began to prepare to feed her. Amelia giggled and reached out for him, as though making sure he was staying close by. He grabbed her hand and met her eye, reassuring her he was there for her.
“I love you, Amelia,” he told her. “Now will you eat something for Daddy?”
She banged her first against the tray of her highchair and began to cry.
“Well that lovely family moment was fun while it lasted,” John sighed before he began consoling her.