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John stands just beyond the glass, the fluorescent lights giving the room a clinical, sterile feel. He needs to stop himself from raising his hand and placing on the cool pane before him; it’s a compulsion, it’s a cliche from a thousand different films.
The tiny, helpless infant squirms in the plexiglass cot and then screams at the top of her lungs. No one comes for her and John just watches, nauseous and detached; eventually she gives up.
There’s a odd pull to run to her, slam his way through the doors and scoop her up, but he doesn’t.
John balls his right hand into a fist and presses it against his thigh, and just watches.
---
It’s late.
It’s later than visiting hours allow, but John refuses to move.
“John.” It’s gentle, and John can’t hear it. Sherlock Holmes is many things, but he’s not gentle.
John is silent for a long time.
“She,” John begins, not even glancing up. He can’t, he can’t fathom any of this, not really. He’s built up a tolerance to fear and pain and loss but he can’t quite bear this. If he looks at Sherlock, he’s frightened he’ll crack and split, right down the middle. “She left. Just… pulled out the IVs, pulled on her clothes and left. Left her…”
John gestures with his chin to the baby who is now asleep. Third from the left, fluffy white blanket tucked around her. “I didn’t even know, not until it was all over. Last night, I…”
John can hear Sherlock swallow beside him, feels rather than sees him take a step closer. “We had a row, she…” He heaves a huge gulp of air into his lungs, shrugs. “I woke up, the car was gone. She was… she came here and… then she was gone.”
There’s a beat of silence that’s filled with the quiet, standard sounds that accompany evening in a hospital. The beep of a heart monitor echoes down the hall. “John,” Sherlock says again, but nothing more, and John honestly can’t stand it.
When he turns to face Sherlock he feels lost and angry and sad and says, “I was going to leave her. That’s what we fought about. I was going to leave her.”
Sherlock blinks, turns away and looks back at the baby. “I know,” he says quietly.
“Of course you do,” John sighs, and it’s a comfort, because of course Sherlock knows. Of course Sherlock knows it all and so John remains silent, steps a fraction closer to Sherlock and continues to look at the sleeping child.
---
There is an obscene amount of paperwork to sort out. The social worker sits him down and goes over everything, but John can’t seem to process any of it. It’s like being underwater but worse, the top of the lake has frozen over and he doesn’t feel like working up the effort it will take to break through the ice.
Mycroft contacts him and--in his own, starchy, detached way--offers both his condolences and assistance. He says nothing about finding Mary, and whether that’s because he’s already in the process of doing just that or doesn’t want to burden John with yet another problem, John can’t tell. He is resoundingly grateful for the lack of offer of retribution and rings off after thanking Mycroft.
The satchel with all of the documents is heavy; he likens it to lead in his mind but that too sounds like a cliche. It’s just more weight, more tacit evidence that he can’t ignore this for much longer.
His daughter cries in her cot and John has to decide if he wants to keep her or not.
---
There’s little sleep, of that he’s not surprised. He turns the situation over and over in his mind, resting in the bed that he and Mary had once shared, in the house that had once been theirs and not just his.
He can’t stay here and he knows it, knows it the way he knows he’ll be welcomed back to Baker Street without having to ask. It’s a small miracle that he has someone like Sherlock Holmes in his life, he thinks. It’s a small miracle that either one of them has weathered these storms of their own creation.
But Baker Street, Baker Street is complicated in an entirely different way.
John turns onto his side, curls into a ball and stares at what was once Mary’s pillow.
He thinks of the few items of clothing gone from the closet, of the passport missing from the lockbox beneath the bed, the medications gone from the cabinet and the absence of her small, but functional jewelry box. He thinks of all of the things she’s left behind and he picks up her pillow and chucks it.
It skitters across the floor and ends up wedged between the toilet and the bathtub.
That wasn’t Mary’s pillow, because Mary was a figment of his imagination.
The pillow belonged to a woman on a flashdrive; he finds sleep when he realizes that he didn’t know her at all, not really, and fuck her for lying to him.
---
The hospital calls while they’re boxing up A.G.R.A.’s things, nearly nine days after she gave birth to ‘baby girl Watson’. He and Sherlock and a very quiet, very efficient Harry fold and place things in boxes, wrap things in paper. Truth be told he wants to smash it all, place it in a heap and set the whole thing aflame, but he can’t justify putting waste to such serviceable items.
They’ll all be sent to the battered women’s shelter where Harry volunteers when they’re through sorting it all. It’s an enormous effort; they’d accrued so many things in the short time together that John feels a little overwhelmed.
The hospital phones again in the afternoon--the fourth call of the day--and they all stare at John’s mobile as it rings.
“John,” Harriet says, walking up and placing a gentle hand on his lower back. Her words are carefully meted and he wants to be pissed at her tone, but he’s too tired to care. “It could be important.”
“Of course it’s important,” Sherlock says quietly but without any heat, folds another pair of A.G.R.A.’s jeans.
Harry gives slight pressure to John’s back, “It’s time. And we’re here. I know it’s not okay right now but…”
“Don’t,” Sherlock says, too quiet, too quiet, his eyes flashing up at the both of them. “Pointless placations, just… Harriet and I are here, for whatever you need.”
John blinks and blinks.
Harry pulls away.
John reaches for his mobile.
Sherlock folds another pair of jeans.
---
It never gets any better for me, John wants to say. It will never be any easier. He’s not one to complain about the cards he’s been dealt in life because he’s a fighter, but dammit if he doesn’t feel like throwing in the towel.
But now that he’s made the decision, there is no turning back.
“God,” he says, a rushed breath skittering out of his lungs. “Jesus, I.”
“Hm,” Sherlock hums to his right.
“Wow,” Harriet mumbles, to his left.
They, all three of them, stare as a NICU nurse peels the small, wriggling bundle from the cot and secures a blanket around it. The nurse makes eye contact with John--a wink, a fleeting smile-- and walks towards the doors.
There’s the instant urge to flee. John could tear through the double doors and be out of the hospital in under a minute if he simply bolted right now. He knows, god he knows that once that damned tiny human is placed into his arms he’s going to be locked in, locked down, have a new life, new responsibilities.
He’s not ready for all of the change, but he has little choice. He’s too brave, too proud, too noble to leave this child to the hands of fate--adoption, foster care, worse. This tiny human is a part of him and it terrifies and humbles him.
He made this person with someone that he now despises, and will that affect how he feels about… her, the child, his… daughter.
It’s at quarter-speed, the nurse walking towards him.
“John,” Sherlock says, placing a hand high on his back. It’s such a warm and welcome weight that John sobs at it, actually releases a hiccough of all of the pent up pain and anger. “You’re the best person I know.”
They’re startling, Sherlock’s words, but they ground him, just a bit.
“I don’t know how…” John can’t speak anymore. He lacks the ability; the nurse and the infant draw closer.
Sherlock scoffs, so loudly it makes Harry jump. “Please. No one does. She’ll,” he tips his head in the direction of the approaching baby, “teach you,” Sherlock finishes and doesn’t remove his hand from John’s back.
The nurse is just in front of him now, gently offering up the still-squirming bundle. “Mr. Watson, this is your daughter.” The soft parcel is placed in the cradle of John’s arms--he doesn’t remember his body moving to accept the thing--and a second later two glassine-blue eyes are blinking up at him.
Questioning. Searching.
Then a hand reaches out and cuffs John right in the nose.
There’s a beat of shocked silence and then Sherlock barks out a laugh that is followed by delighted chuckles. John feels his face morphing into a smile himself as he looks from Sherlock to the baby and back.
“She’s a fighter, eh?” the nurse says, joy in her voice.
Harry is smiling too, as she deadpans, “Who’s surprised?”
---
The baby sleeps in her cot, a small thing, propped up next to the sofa. There’s little furniture left in John’s flat. Just the sofa, an easy chair, one table and one chair in the kitchen. The television, the stereo system, most of the appliances and accoutrements of a home are gone.
It feels like a bedsit, all over again. John wagers that he might be depressed, if he were allowing himself to access any of the multitude of feelings he was keeping at bay. But he’s not. He’s still quite numb.
The infant snuffles in her sleep, John watches.
Sherlock sits calmly in the easy chair, legs crossed, watching John watch the baby. “I daresay,” he finally says, after nearly ten minutes of silence. “This will be the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to do.”
John turns to him slowly, licks his lips and says in a tone as not to wake his daughter--his daughter, Christ--”Yeah, I get that, thanks.”
Sherlock nods his understanding, waits a beat and says, “I think that you should move back to Baker Street.”
When John swallows, it hurts. As though all of the words of thanks, of grief, of love and hate are balled right there, just in his throat. “I…” he tries and shakes his head. He needs a moment to get it all sorted in his mind. “You didn’t plan for this.” John decides. “Sherlock Holmes and an infant… this isn’t something that you ever wanted. This isn’t something you want now.”
“You didn’t plan for it either,” Sherlock says with a ghost of a smile. “But please do not presume to know what I want.”
“Sherlock,” he tries.
“The way I see it, after everything that we have been through, the two of us, together… after all of the pain and suffering you’ve had to endure due to me… after everything we have been through together,” Sherlock uncrosses his legs, leans forward with his palms curling over his knees. “You are absolutely mad to think that I would let you or want you to go through this on your own.”
---
“I’m going back to Baker Street,” John tells Harry over take out containers of Vietnamese.
All she does is nod and take another bite of noodles.
John waits and waits, his pho cooling. “Nothing to say to that.”
Harry puts down her chopsticks, wipes her hands on a napkin and settles her eyes on the baby’s cot. “That man,” she says, voice cracking. “Cares about you so much, John.”
---
Three days later they’re in a cab, the last of John’s things in boxes in the boot. John keeps the baby nestled in his arms while across the seat from him Sherlock taps away on his mobile.
They are silent, and the baby’s eyes are fixed on the abundance of colors that whizz by out the window. John watches Sherlock for a time and then follows the baby’s gaze with his own.
London blurs and fractures like a kaleidoscope.
“I have to name it,” John murmurs aloud, and startles at his own voice.
He turns to look at Sherlock, whose thumbs are poised over the screen of his mobile. “Her,” he reminds John gently. “You have to name her.”
---
“But how are you going to see clients?”
“I’ll figure it out, John,” Sherlock replies, typing at his laptop while John googles the proper steps to baby-proofing the flat.
“And your experiments? You can’t have experiments-”
“I will,” Sherlock growls, eyes flashing up to meet John’s gaze. “Figure it out. I always do. I’m brilliant, it will be fine.”
It’s a testament to Sherlock’s growth--John realizes--that he doesn’t raise his voice in the slightest. Somehow Sherlock has assumed his role as a caregiver, as someone who now lives with an infant, with aplomb. He hasn’t changed much, is still surly and dramatic and bored, but he doesn’t complain. He does some of the shopping, and allows Mrs. Hudson to clean and cook and coo; he even finds the patience to feed the baby, cradling her in a long arm and levering the bottle while he balances a textbook on his knees.
Sherlock is adapting, and much better than John, it seems.
John loves him for it.
It’s a slow awakening, learning that the tight knot in his chest is something other than the love he knew for Sherlock during their first months together. He tries to pick it apart, tries to figure out just when the pressure in his throat at seeing Sherlock, at being with Sherlock, became something more like a need and hunger, rather than a gentle reassurance.
John rather shocks himself when he concludes that it had been there all along, perhaps not as obvious, not as whole a concept, but John thinks that he’s always loved Sherlock. In that marrow-deep way, in that end game sort of way. And Sherlock, Sherlock must love him too, must have loved him for so long.
People don’t do the things that Sherlock has done for him, is continuing to do for him. People don’t sacrifice like that, not for just-a-friend.
But before him is a person who has done and would do anything for him, and isn’t that a bit all too much.
He nearly breaks when he watches Sherlock bend down to listen at the baby monitor. John wants to cry. It all crashes down, fills him up, overwhelms him in that instant, all he’s had and all he’s lost and he doesn’t know how to deal with a single damn bit of it.
“I’m going for a walk,” he says, throat scratchy, and Sherlock glances up, vague concern etched across his brow.
Sherlock nods, “Alright.”
---
They go to Sherlock’s parents’ place, out in the country.
The baby is four months old, and it’s Sherlock who suggests it. “My parents, unsurprisingly, want to meet your daughter.” He says it like he’s telling John it’s going to rain today.
John looks up from the paper. “I’m alright with that. Are you alright with that?”
“I,” Sherlock begins and then very nearly collapses into his chair, across from John. “They’ve been calling her, or rather, my mother has been referring to your child as…”
John knows what he’s going to say before he says it; anxiety coupled with secret joy begins coiling in his belly.
“Her granddaughter,” Sherlock finishes, eyes on the hearth, rather than on John.
John takes three deep, even breaths and does his very best to seem unperturbed by what Sherlock’s admission is doing to him. “Well, I think that’s… it’s lovely, Sherlock. My parents aren’t around and-” he stops himself short, “your parents will dote on her.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes at the hearth, cringes and nods.
“I think that’s lovely. She deserves grandparents who will dote on her, I think. And your parents are wonderful and I think… yeah, that’ll be alright.” John waits and waits and eventually Sherlock turns to him, his face revealing nothing.
“God, my mother going to be insufferable,” he finally says. He tries to sound displeased, but the right side of his mouth is giving an attempt at a smile.
---
“Oh John, oh dear,” Margaret says as she bustles out to meet them. The baby is swaddled in John’s arms and seems to be waiting silently, looking at the woman who is approaching them.
Margaret makes no move to take the baby but John immediately offers her up, holding the bundle out. Sherlock’s mother takes it, face turning from John to the tiny one in her hands. “What an absolute wonder, oh what a darling.”
Neither she nor Robert ask after the baby’s name, something John is grateful for.
Robert pulls Sherlock into a tight hug, drops a kiss on his cheek and then places a hand on John’s shoulder. “Come, son, you look like you could use a drink. And some dinner. Maggie has been baking for days.”
“Rum cake?” Sherlock asks, a note of excitement in his voice as he happily pulls up the rear.
“Of course, dear,” Margaret says, over her shoulder. “Extra raisins.”
John feels at simultaneously like he’s somehow been transferred to another dimension, and like he’s being welcomed home.
---
John realizes how woefully underprepared he is when Margaret produces a worn-looking high chair. “This was Mycroft’s, and Sherlock’s actually. Bob made it,” she says as she wipes it down carefully with a damp cloth. “It’s the only reason I kept it, really.”
“Told her to junk it,” Robert says as he fills a carafe with cool water and places it in the center of the dining table.
“Oh hush, you. It’s gorgeous; I never even considered getting rid of it.”
John watches it all happen from the periphery, wonders what he should do to help. He doesn’t have a high chair or a bassinet. John has the bare minimum it takes to raise a child and while he’s gotten by thus far, the introduction of the intricately-carved high chair nearly sends him into a panic attack. “I-”
He begins and everyone turns to look at him, even the baby, who is carefully ensconced in Sherlock’s arms.
Sherlock turns to him, noticing immediately and pads over in his bare feet, settling the child in John’s arms. “It’s lovely,” John manages, forced, breathing in deeply the scent of baby powder and Sherlock. “You’re very talented.”
“Oh!” Margaret says, popping up straight. “You boys should have it. Oh, of course you should have it, silly me for not thinking to offer before now. Yes, little baby Watson should have this! A gift!”
He can’t move, can’t think, for a moment he loses the breath he’d just earned; what’s become of his life? The baby squirms, snaps him out of it. He blinks up at Sherlock, at a loss.
“Yes,” Sherlock says, still facing John before he turns to meet his mother’s gaze. “Thank you, mummy. That will be a great help.”
“Thanks,” John echoes.
---
The baby is quiet. She’s nearly silent through dinner, watching them all as they eat. She baps John in the side of the head once, and Sherlock is the one to comment on it. “No hitting,” he says quietly and then tickles her tummy just a bit; she cracks a smile, but doesn’t laugh, content to keep watching.
It’s almost unsettling, being the focus of her gaze; he feels as though she’s trying to find somewhere to place the blame, which is insane, because she’s an infant and she doesn’t know the first thing about regret or shame or responsibility.
John chats about inane things, accepts a glass of tempranillo, as does Sherlock, and that coupled with the scotch he had earlier takes some of the edge off of the situation.
Sherlock fills most of the time by describing his most recent case--a month ago--and lets John off the hook. By the time he has words he actually wants to speak, they’re through eating. “That was lovely, thank you both.”
“Oh John,” Margaret says, as though it’s nothing at all. “You’re so welcome. And you’re always welcome here, you know that.” He doesn’t know that, he wonders why he should, if he should.
He goes to rebuff the offer but he finds he hasn’t the words, again; the baby reaches out and tries to grab at his hair.
“Don’t bother refusing, John,” Sherlock says and finishes the rest of his wine. “My mother is very persistent.”
---
It’s nearing midnight, Robert and Margaret having retired just after John put the baby down.
He and Sherlock sit before the fire, no sounds save for the electronic hum of the baby monitor and the crackling logs. They each hold tumblers of Robert’s exquisite scotch, sipping them slowly.
John’s not drunk but he’s buzzed, touched a little by the alcohol. He can tell by the gleam in Sherlock’s eye that he’s touched similarly and then basks in the knowledge that he can tell such a thing about Sherlock. They know one another so well, it’s incredible. It’s intimate and humbling how well he knows Sherlock Holmes, better than anyone else in the world.
What a treasure that is.
There’s a little mewl on the monitor and they both turn towards the device, but nothing follows it, just the piteous little noises of an infant dreaming.
John turns his attention back to the fire. “I need to name her.”
“Eventually,” Sherlock says.
“I was thinking,” John takes a sip, runs it between his upper teeth and lips before swallowing. “Beatrice, after my grandmother.”
There’s the hiss and crackle of the fire, a few heavy moments of silence. “That… is a terrible name.”
John smiles.
“What about Gertrude?” Sherlock poses and John knows from the dip in his voice, that he’s taking the piss. A flurry of butterflies fills up John’s lungs and he feels some of the tension crumble away.
“Mmmm, Blanche.”
“Hazel,” Sherlock quips back.
John smiles, turns to gaze at Sherlock, then at the fire; there’s a scant three feet between the two of them on the sofa. It seems instantly to be too far; there shouldn’t be any space. John wants to touch and hold and have. God, it’s unbearable.
“What about,” he says it nearly into his tumbler, lips on the rim. “Margaret.”
It hangs there between them, not heavy but buoyant, hopeful; Sherlock swallows and then turns to face John, all traces of humor gone from his face.
“That’s decidedly sentimental,” Sherlock rumbles, folds his left leg up onto the sofa, facing John fully.
“I know,” John says, simply, puts his drink down on the floor, moves to mirror Sherlock’s position. “I know it is.”
Sherlock toys with his glass, stares at it, takes a breath. John feels his heart, not breaking, but expanding to a point where it’s painful, like hot glass being blown to capacity. “I never wanted to be a father,” Sherlock says.
John nods. “I know.”
He raises his eyes to look at John. “I am selfish; I can’t stop thinking about how I’m going to fuck all of this up. Because you came back, to Baker Street. And that’s all I wanted.” He’s so quiet. So quiet. He’s been so quiet lately. “I,” he sighs, purses his mouth and considers the words he wants to speak; Sherlock Holmes considers before he speaks, now. “You’re a remarkable man and I have no doubt that you could handle all of this,” Sherlock swallows, tries again. “All of this on your own, I just…”
Sherlock blinks down at his hands, back at John. “Don’t want you to.”
“Okay,” John breathes.
Sherlock nods, tipping his face to the ceiling. He licks his lips and sucks in a wavering breath before levering his gaze at John once more. “And I think Margaret is a fine name,” Sherlock chokes out and John grins.
There’s nothing that can stop him from surging forward, cradling Sherlock’s cheek in his palm and kissing him. It’s difficult; there’s too much emotion between them in the moment, both caught between laughing or crying, but John manages, settles Sherlock’s lower lip between both of his own and applies pressure.
It stays like that for a moment, until Sherlock gasps and then they’re kissing. Deep, wet, tongue against tongue; it’s perhaps the most passionate and least technically-accurate kiss that John Watson has ever had, but it’s also the best. John maneuvers his head, changes the angle and presses Sherlock back, takes control. He endeavors to prove to Sherlock just how he feels, just with his mouth.
It’s magnificent and arousing and terrifying. He loves this man; he loves this man and this man wants to help raise a child with him, wants to put his entire life on the line, for John. John’s head spins as he realizes how vastly fucking unpredictable the universe is.
Sherlock pants against him, their foreheads coming together as they both catch their breath. It’s a lot to process. The past four months have been a lot to process. This is all too much, right now, but they’ll take time to sort it all out later, the important and the mundane.
John holds Sherlock’s face in both of his hands, searches it, nods. “We can do this.”
“Yes,” Sherlock says, voice sure. “Yes.”
John smiles, Sherlock smiles back, and then they just stare at one another, the wonder not quite wearing off, but not as fresh. The fire dies slowly, John leans into the sofa, their shoulders flush against one another, Sherlock’s hand on his knee.
The night unravels and they don’t speak for quite some time.
“I believe it goes without saying,” Sherlock begins, his voice much more sure than it had been earlier. “But as I understand it, the words are meant to be said.” He looks at John, face entirely blank. “I love you and I have… for some time. A very long time, John.”
“Good,” John says with a judicious nod, not taking his gaze from the grate. “Because I’m bloody well in love with you too.”
“And we can do this,” Sherlock says, leaning a bit more weight into John’s side as he refills his glass from the rapidly diminishing bottle.
John grins determinedly, straight ahead. “You’re damn right, we can.”