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“Mmmm, I’m sure she’s beautiful,” said Sherlock, frowning at the baby John had lovingly placed in his arms with distracted interest. “Now, take her again.”
“What?” said John. “You’re not…. Oh, no, never mind, of course not.”
He didn't know why he was disappointed; perhaps the way Sherlock had clearly rushed to he hospital in response to John's text had raised his hopes. But he supposed it was a bit much to expect Sherlock to be very interested in a baby. Even John’s baby.
Jessica.
John was still getting used to her having a name.
“No,” John said, fending Sherlock off, “give her to Mary if you don’t want a hold, she hasn't had a turn since they finished stitching her up.”
He sent Mary a quick smile. Her hair was a mess, her eyes bruised, and there was a brownish smear of blood on her cheek. She was beautiful. The mother of his child. She didn't smile back, staring at Sherlock with narrow eyes.
“No, John,” said Sherlock, and deposited the baby back into John’s arms. “For this conversation, you’ll need to hold her. It'll help you stay calm.”
John’s arms automatically closed around the little bundle, still feeling the same slightly disconnected sense of awe he’d had an hour earlier when she’d been placed, wet and squirming, on Mary’s chest.
“For… what conversation?” he asked suspiciously.
“Sherlock,” said his wife from her bed, her warning tone verging on dangerous. “I’m very tired. We all are. Now is really not the time.”
“Moriarty’s back,” said Sherlock, apparently oblivious. “I’ve given you all the time I can. Months, when I thought it didn’t matter. And the last twenty-four hours while you were…” he glanced at the baby in John’s arms. “Otherwise occupied. As was I. But I've already wasted too much time.”
“You were occupied withdrawing!” John put in with a wary glance at Mary. “From a self-inflicted near-overdose! That’s what you were wasting your time on while Mary was giving birth!” He stopped himself before his voice could raise above a hush and took a deep breath through clenched teeth.
They hadn’t even made it home from the airport before Mary had discovered a rather urgent need to go to hospital a few weeks earlier than expected. They’d dropped Sherlock off at Baker Street under Mrs Hudson’s supervision—as though she, or any of them, could have stopped him if he did want to get high again—but there was really no other option but to leave him to it and redirect the car to the hospital.
John had sent him a brief text announcing the birth of his daughter—Jessica Angela Watson, six pounds eight, mother and baby both well—and Sherlock had arrived not twenty minutes later, his pupils reactive and looking nearly as worn out as Mary, clearly no longer high but with no improvement in his sense of the appropriate.
“If you're not here to congratulate us,” said John, “then I think perhaps it would be best if you leave. Now. You’ve got a rather important case to follow up on, if you hadn’t noticed. Maybe you should go and do that.”
“Thank you for my life,” said Sherlock calmly, ignoring John and still addressing Mary. “And for loving John in a way I can’t. I’ve done my best to respect your desire to make a clean break from your past. But for the safety of your family—” John clutched his daughter tighter as Sherlock tipped his head towards them without looking, “—you know that this can’t wait.”
“Sherlock, please,” said Mary, looking agonised. “Don’t do this. Not now. Not in front of John.”
“Do you think we could hide that from him?” demanded Sherlock, as though John wasn’t even in the room. “I need him on this case. And I need all the information that you can give me on your former employer. His next move is easy—but as to where this is leading? No idea. I need data.”
“Wait,” said John, as the conversation abruptly begin to make sense. “You…” He looked from Mary to Sherlock, to Mary, and back again. “She worked for Moriarty?”
“Look,” said Mary, breaking off her glaring at Sherlock. “I know it’s a shock, John, but…”
“You’re damned right it’s a—” John checked his voice suddenly, as the the baby shifted in his arms and let out an unhappy squeak. John shut his mouth, holding her close, and she subsided.
“Nothing shocks me,” Sherlock was saying. “I’m a scientist. The statistical probability of John finding an entirely unconnected undercover assassin in his life at precisely the time one had been assigned to watch him is insignificant. The identity of your late employer was obvious. I’ve read the information in that highly-edited personnel file you gave John, but you must know more—”
“Hey!” protested John.
“Of course I read the files, John!” snapped Sherlock. “Keeping it in your trouser pocket all those months at Baker Street? You might as well have given it to me. Someone had to read it, even if you didn’t want to. Now, if you’re going to keep interrupting, maybe you’d prefer to take your daughter for a walk while your wife and I have a conversation about matters you chose not to probe into too deeply. Mary’s about to tell me about the first time she met you. The very first time.”
Mary glared mulishly at Sherlock for a long moment, and then something seemed to pass between them that made her shoulders slump. She turned to John. “You don’t want to be here for this,” she pleaded. “You didn’t want to know!”
John couldn’t hold her eyes. He fixed his gaze down on the baby in his arms: a small, helplessly bundled up parcel with only her head visible. She was still asleep, her lashes nestled on her cheeks, her tiny, delicate mouth pursed in a rosebud. Their baby. His baby.
Jessica.
Her mother had worked for Moriarty. Had been assigned to watch John. Was still watching him now; watching him holding their child, with tears in her eyes. His child.
Jessica.
John had another responsibility, now—an even higher one than the vows he’d made to a woman he hadn’t truly known. He couldn’t hide from this.
“I’m staying,” said John. He sank down into the chair on the far side of the room and pressed his lips onto the velvety skin of Jessica’s scalp. He wasn't altogether sure Sherlock was right. Calm wasn't precisely how he would describe the way she was making him feel. “I’ll try not to interrupt.”
“Excellent. Now Mary?” prompted Sherlock, apparently dismissing John from notice. “The first time you saw John. It was through a sniper scope, I believe. At a swimming pool. How long had you been working for him, at that point?”
Mary sighed, and with one more desperate glance at John, began to talk.