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Joan was thinking about children.
It wasn't abnormal. Not at all. She had already been on the declining side of her childbearing years when she returned from Afghanistan—of course she hadn't considered having children as a single mother while she was still a soldier—but since she'd fallen in with Sherlock nearly three years ago, the time seemed to just fly by. She loved kids, and she always felt that having them was something that would happen "someday". But here she was, at the dawn of her forties, childless.
There was adoption. There was always adoption, and she considered it very seriously, but as long as her own reproductive system was in working order (not that she knew whether it actually was), she thought she might like to have a child of her own.
That was as far as her thoughts could comfortably go before running into the major obstacle in her path, the bit that was holding up the whole endeavour: sperm.
Occasionally, while Sherlock was out of the flat (she didn't trust her expression or body language not to betray her and she was not ready to discuss the topic with him), she investigated sperm donation on the internet. It was only a halfhearted search driven by curiosity more than anything else. If she could be honest with herself, she already had her eyes on one particular set of DNA...
That particular set of genetic material was, at the moment, performing some kind of titration in their kitchen.
Joan was sitting in her armchair with her laptop, wondering, as always, how she could possibly bring the subject up in conversation. How would one even approach this kind of request? "Hey, buddy, we are pretty good friends, yeah? Would you be so kind as to jack it into this jar so I can impregnate myself with your sperm?"
Right.
There was no delicate way to tell her flatmate that she wanted to have his babies.
Sometimes she would lie awake at night wondering about it. Would Sherlock be protective of his DNA? She could understand, because what DNA it was. There was his intelligence, obviously, which was definitely genetic (if Mycroft and "Mummy" were any indication); even beyond that, he had quite the set of desirable traits. His height, his health, his stunning good lucks... frankly, she was surprised they didn't have single women lining down Baker Street for the genetic material of Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps he might be hesitant to share it.
On the other hand, Sherlock was a man of science. Surely he could appreciate the argument that he ought to pass on his superior genes (a bit of ego stroking couldn't hurt) to the next generation? He could think of it as doing his part for the human race if that would get him going. Yes; perhaps the evolutionary angle was the right approach to take with him.
Oddly, with all the strangeness of the situation and its life-changing potential, one of the biggest worries that kept her up at night was whether it would make things awkward. They had such a good thing going as it was. Joan was straight but rarely dated nowadays. Sherlock was somewhere between asexual and gay (dormantly gay? demi-sexual?) but it hardly mattered because he was, as he said, married to his work... and he was nothing if not a faithful spouse. Perhaps the space they inhabited was a bizarre one, being more intimate than normal friends but less so than proper lovers, but whatever they were, it was comfortable. Having a kid together, even if they didn't really have it together, definitely qualified as something that could push them into awkward territory.
Of course it would change everything; of course. She was willing to make those changes in her life to become a mother. She could deal with change. But she wasn't sure she could take it if it made the most intimate relationship in her life awkward.
"You're thinking very loudly today, Joan," Sherlock called over from the kitchen.
"Oh, sorry," she retorted, turning around to glare at him. "I'll just turn the volume knob on my thoughts down to a four and ask me if I mind whispering. What do you want me to do about it?"
Sherlock was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the sitting room, removing his gloves. "I've got nothing to do while the precipitate filters," he said.
Joan raised an eyebrow. "Is that an invitation?" she said dubiously.
Sherlock's eyes roamed over her in his familiar deductive sweep. "So. You're thinking about children again."
Joan sat up straight, almost knocking the computer off her lap. "Jesus!" she complained. "What, do I have it stamped across my forehead? A glimmer in my eye? A spring in my step that says I'm dreaming of the pitter-patter of little feet?"
"No, but as always, I would recommend clearing your browser history when you borrow someone else's laptop in the future."
Ah, bugger. Joan was so used to picking up the nearest laptop that she didn't even notice if it was hers anymore. She sighed.
"Well?" she prompted.
"Well, what? You were thinking about it."
"Thinking. Thinking, Sherlock. In my head, to myself. Perhaps I'm not ready to talk about it," she said, crossing her arms over her chest irritably.
Sherlock ignored her, as always. He quirked his head to the side and gave her another scrutinizing look. "You've been thinking about it for a long time. Months." He spoke as casually and disinterestedly as if he were deducing what she'd had for dinner the previous night. "For the last couple of weeks you've been preparing the flat for an infant, putting away sharp objects and moving fragile items out of reach. You probably don't realize you've been doing it. You started weaning yourself off of your SSRI inhibitors a couple of months ago and just in the last few weeks you've altered your diet to increase your iron and calcium intake, and you've added folic acid – a common prenatal supplement - to your daily vitamins. Not to mention the more obvious actions of comparing prices on baby products online and looking into paternity leave procedures. Obvious conclusion, really. Joan Watson wants to have a baby, and she is getting serious about it."
Joan sighed and closed the lid of her laptop. She was sure she was probably blushing at least a bit at the direction this conversation would certainly take. It looked unavoidable. "All right," she said, defeated. "Obviously, I'm thinking about it." She raised her head and looked right into his grey eyes. "I don't know how long I've got left, Sherlock. I've already passed my peak fertility, I know. It might already be too late."
His expression didn't change. That was Sherlock, though. Sentiment. Not his area. Not usually.
"Have you considered adoption?" he suggested.
"Yes," she admitted. "And I would, if – if this didn't work out. I suppose it's a bit selfish to want to bring yet another child into this world, but I'd at least like to try."
"No," he said. "It's a perfectly logical desire, in a biological sense. Organisms exist to reproduce themselves. By not reproducing, one is breaking a chain that is the result of millions of years of evolutionary success."
Great. It was great that he thought that. So, about that chain of evolutionary success...
"Why not," she said airily. "Yes. I desire to pass on my genes. I just plain adore kids, too, but I suppose that's just killing two birds with one stone. Except with birthing, not killing."
"How efficient of you, Joan," said Sherlock. His eyes were sparkling.
"Right," she said, taking in a deep breath. "All right. Well. See, the thing with this whole plan is that its success hinges on... well. I mean. I can't just conceive this baby on my own. I need..." your sperm please. She was definitely blushing now. "Well, I need another set of DNA," she finished.
"Yes. Obviously." He had thrown the gloves on the counter and was pacing around the sitting room, his hands folded characteristically in front of his lips. He paused to look at her. "I loathe the thought, but you absolutely must give me five minutes with each of your potential donors to assess their... suitability. Anonymity is completely out, of course; far too risky. I will need to borrow a pair of shoes from each of them, as well, recently worn. Yes. One cannot be careful enough. This person would contribute more or less half of your child's genetic material, after all." He was pacing again. "Yes, I think I ought to take cheek swabs as well... see if I can have someone at Bart's process the DNA for me... cross-referencing with criminal records at Scotland Yard, of course..."
Joan stared at him. Was the world's only consulting detective really that dense?
He was still going on. "...Really, we should have some kind of pre-screening process, I think. A questionnaire, maybe a litmus test, just to short-list the most suitable candidates, of course..."
"Sherlock..."
"...I don't put much faith in I.Q. tests, but I suppose we ought to include some kind of assessment of general intelligence and critical thinking ability..."
"Sherlock." She put her laptop on the table and stood up, reaching out and grabbing his arm to stop him from pacing. "I..." He turned to look at her, his eyes sparkling with what she knew were a dozen trains of thought running off in different directions at once. Tests, interviews, insemination, prenatal care; maybe even diapers, daycare, schools. It warmed her heart to know that he would take such an interest in her child, but of course she knew he would, because she was Joan Watson and he cared about everything related to her. What she wanted, though, was something more – but she couldn't find the words on her lips to ask for it.
In her silence, genuine curiosity filled those bright eyes. She thought, innocence. How could it be so hard to deduce when she felt like it was written all over her face?
"Joan?" he prodded.
She had to look away from those eyes. They were too all-seeing, but not all-seeing enough. You see but you do not observe, she thought, and she wished she could find it in her to be witty in that moment because she would probably never get a chance to use it against him again. She hadn't let go of his arm.
Look at my face and deduce it for yourself, Sherlock. But that would be the easy way out.
"I was hoping," she started. And stopped. Gathered herself and looked into eyes again. "I was actually wondering if..." her lip trembled, "...if you would be the father, Sherlock."
It was rare to see a look of genuine surprise on the face of Sherlock Holmes. Much more rare to see one that she'd put there herself. His eyes were so wide she could hardly see anything else. His hands lowered and fell away from his chin. She would have appreciated the moment more if she hadn't been nervous to the point of nausea.
There was a moment of silence between them longer than any that she'd shared in conversation with Sherlock before. She had the feeling that all the trains had simultaneously derailed and for one instant, however fleeting, there were simply no trains running at all.
His face started falling back into composure, slowly at first, and then all at once he was Sherlock again, and the trains were running, all focused on her. He adjusted his stance to face her more directly and clasped his hands behind his back.
"I am flattered, Joan," he said finally. "But I don't think that you would like that."
She actually pulled her head back in surprise. That was the one answer she hadn't prepared herself for.
"And why is that?" she asked slowly.
He turned his head to avert his eyes. "You could do better."
It was her world that stopped turning in that moment, her train that ground to a halt. Sherlock, who regularly called even his best friend an idiot. Sherlock, who turned up his nose at all the mere mortals and their mere mortal concerns that were so far beneath him. Sherlock was avoiding her eyes and telling her that she should find a better man to father her child.
What could she even say to that?
She gripped both of his shoulders.
"You know that you're Sherlock fucking Holmes, don't you?"
The corner of his mouth twitched and his eyes flicked up briefly to meet hers. "The middle name is a novelty, but I have been known to answer to that name, yes."
"Right. So explain to me exactly how I could do better, because I really missed that part."
"There's little to explain. I merely stated that you could find a more suitable donor than myself to contribute to your child's genetic makeup."
"See, there. That's the part I'm having trouble with," she said, tightening her grip on his shoulders. "Just a moment ago you were going on about the biological imperative to pass on one's genes, and about evolutionary success. You don't want to contribute to that?" She added, trying to lighten the mood: "You aren't worried about the idiots taking over the gene pool in your absence?"
He did smirk at that. "I fear the damage has been done. Anderson does have a two-year-old son, after all." The smirk faded quickly back into his forced nonchalance and he regained his air of seriousness. "Despite that, I have no desire to pass on my genes. Spitting in the face of Darwin, I suppose, but I do believe I have the right to choose whether my DNA is passed down or not."
Joan frowned. "I don't understand. Sherlock, you're brilliant. Why wouldn't you want to give that a chance at passing on to another generation?"
"Because there is more to me than a brilliant deductive mind."
The train was flying off the rails again. Joan really, seriously wanted to shake him and check his arm for needle punctures. There was no way that a sober Sherlock was having this conversation with her.
"Shocking conjecture, I know," he deadpanned.
"What is it?" Joan demanded, frustrated. "What is it that you're so desperate to avoid?"
He was looking away again. Then he stepped back, out of her arms, and turned around. She thought he would reach for his violin and thus end the conversation – but it seemed he just didn't want to be facing her gaze, because he stopped and continued speaking with his back to her.
"I am more than just a brilliant deductive mind," he said quietly. "I am... unstable. I am depressed. I am within the diagnostic range of sociopathy. Possibly on the autistic spectrum. You and I know that I am not entirely heartless, but I still find it... difficult... to care for people. You've met Mycroft and Mummy so you know that they aren't mere quirks of my person, but I know my own family far better. We are, nearly all of us, quite brilliant... but we are just as brilliant as we are depressed, unstable, and isolated from our peers. I would not wish that on a child. And so... I feel it's best that the Holmes line die with Mycroft and myself. What do I care if we rob the world of a bit of intelligent genetic material? I, after all, will not be around to suffer it."
Joan was speechless.
Sherlock turned his head to look at her. "If that's all," he said, "I'd like to collect my precipitate from the filter. I have further experiments to perform with the residue. I will assist you in finding a suitable donor to the best of my considerable ability, Joan, but anything more involved is out of the question."
She had nothing to say.
He walked past her into the kitchen and busied himself with the preparation of the next stage of his experiment. Joan backed up and sat down on her chair, deep in thought. Only the clinking of test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks from the kitchen table formed the soundtrack to her thought process.
"Sherlock," she called suddenly.
There was no reply, but she knew he must be listening.
"Do you enjoy your life?"
Still no reply, but the clinking of glass faded slightly. He was being petulant then.
"It was a serious question," she said, turning to face him in the kitchen. "I really want to know. Are you really as unhappy with your life as that?"
"It's tolerable," he replied finally, not looking up from his work. "In the midst of a really good murder, I'm quite happy. It's been some time since I was genuinely unhappy, but you know my history. I did not have a pleasant childhood and I was unhappy for a long time before I met you."
"Do you wish you hadn't been born?"
"It has occasionally crossed my mind, but it's pointless to entertain such illogical scenarios."
"But if it were your parents," she pressed, "Having this very same conversation about whether they wanted to have you. Would you prefer that they decide not to?"
"I already exist. The question is moot."
"I just think you're being awfully fatalistic," said Joan. "Don't get me wrong," she added. "I'm really touched. Worrying about the well-being of a child you might bring into the world. That's pretty sentimental for you, Sherlock."
He shrugged.
"Maybe I've come on too strong with this whole genetics conversation," Joan continued. "To be honest, I don't think it's a big deal. Really, I don't. I think you put too much stock in your genetic determinism."
"Such is the result of a materialistic worldview."
"I think I may have egged you on, though, by pushing the idea too much myself."
She stood up and walked over to the kitchen, but stopped to lean in the doorway, looking at him. He had finally put down his pipette to give her his attention, a rare show of courtesy.
"The truth is, Sherlock," she said, "I really do want you to be the father of my baby. I have since the start. And I don't want it for your genes – although, despite what you think, I still say you have some damn fine DNA." She grinned. It wasn't returned, but she didn't waver. "I'll be honest, all right? It's sentiment. You're my best friend. Even more than that, you're really all I've got, relationship-wise. There's no one that I'm even remotely as close with. And, whatever you think about yourself... there is no one, no other man in the world, that I would rather have as the father to my child."
Sherlock was giving her that look again, for the second time that day. That frozen look, the look that said all the trains had hopped the rails. Then he began to twiddle nervously with a pen that had been within grabbing distance on the table. He looked distracted.
"I really don't think you want this," he muttered.
"I really think I do," she insisted. "Of course, it's still up to you. But I would be really honoured, Sherlock. There's really no one else I would prefer."
He sighed. "What if the child turns out like me?"
"Do you need to ask?" she said incredulously. "I love you like crazy, and I didn't even give birth to you. I think it's safe to say I'll love our child no matter how they turn out."
He relaxed, but still gave her a scrutinizing look. "If I am to understand your plans," he said, "You plan to stay here and raise the child at Baker Street? You intend for us to raise the child together?"
She sighed. "I would really like you to be involved as more than a genetic donor, yeah. I would really like for them to have two parents, even if we aren't – well – together in the conventional sense. But it's something that I've given a lot of thought, and I would be all right doing most of the childcare. It's something I would have done on my own, anyway, if you weren't here."
"Hmm," Sherlock hummed. The trains were moving again. "We do have a very convenient living situation. Mrs Hudson is home all day, I'm sure she'd be beyond thrilled to babysit a child of ours while we follow up leads..."
"Exactly!" said Joan brightly.
Sherlock hummed again. Joan could tell by the look in his eyes that he was sending new trains out of the station every minute. Names, finances, doctor's appointments, college funds, new furniture... she was content to look at him in silence and watch him contemplate several threads of their future at once.
"I will consider it," he said finally.
Joan wanted to fling herself into his arms and give him an enormous hug, but she felt that could wait until he announced what she was sure he'd already decided. She settled for giving him the biggest smile her lips could manage.
"Thank you, Sherlock," she said cheerfully.
"I merely said I would consider it," he said irritably, turning back towards his experiment. But his attention was only partially there. One thread of many was thinking about the chemical compounds on the table; more than a dozen others, she knew, were already weighing the benefits of public schools and extracurricular activities and university options.
She turned away to skip back to her armchair and immediately start pulling up all of the pregnancy and parenting links she'd bookmarked in the last few months. Finally, she could read them in mind with the knowledge that it really could be her - once they'd sorted out the finances and logistics and all the messy little details that came with having a baby and started making it happen...
"Joan."
She turned around. Sherlock was still looking quite spaced out, but he did meet her eyes. "Just to be clear," he said nervously. "What we're talking about – we are talking about artificial insemination, aren't we?"
Joan burst out laughing. "Oh, god, of course!" He visibly relaxed and Joan wiped the tears out of her eyes when she caught her breath. "I like you, Sherlock," she said fondly. "But I feel like that would make things a bit weird, don't you think?"
One corner of his mouth twisted up in a smile. "Very," he said.