Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

3am.

Rosie is crying again.

It’s three in the morning and John is at the side of her cot, jogging her up and down and making soothing noises and she just won’t settle. He’s tried everything for the past half hour and has finally resigned himself to lying down and waiting for her to exhaust herself from crying.

She’s still making keening noises with little hiccups between them when the door opens, Sherlock’s face peering around.

“God, I’m sorry -” John starts, his voice low.

“Is she ok?” Sherlock interrupts.

John looks down at Rosie, her little face furrowed as she whines. “Getting there.”

Sherlock steps into the room and holds his hands out. “Do you want me to try?”

“It’s fine,” John protests, even as Sherlock pries Rosie from his arms with no real effort. “I’m sorry we woke you up.”

Sherlock adjusts his hold, pulling Rosie a little closer. “I wasn’t asleep,” he replies, voice barely a whisper.  She hiccups again, then quietens.

John scrubs at his eyes. “How did you do that?”

Sherlock smiles and his eyes crinkle. “John, you don’t give yourself enough credit,” he says. “You did all the hard work here.” He nods towards the door. “Go and get some sleep, she needs a little more time yet.”

John moves towards the bed to take a pillow and blanket, but Sherlock moves carefully into his way. “Don’t sleep on the sofa, you need a real bed. Take mine, I’ll get her down.”

“But –”

“Go,” Sherlock whispers firmly.

After a long moment of Sherlock staring him down, John leaves, closes the door behind him as quietly as possible, and pads down the stairs. He pauses for a moment and considers the living room. It looks surprisingly uninviting.

He’s too tired for this. He opens the door to Sherlock's room. The covers are thrown back – he just has to lie down and sleep.

He doesn’t take much convincing.

Chapter Text

Mycroft visits.

“Hold the baby.”

Mycroft continues with his sentence, wilfully deaf. “- it's a delicate time so the sooner we can do this, the better.”

“I can't hear you if you don't hold her,” Sherlock says.

“Sherlock really, is this absolutely necessary?”

“I'm her godfather, you're my brother, go ahead and dote .” Sherlock stares him down and Rosie blinks owlishly.

It takes a full five seconds, then Mycroft sighs. “Fine, but just so you'll listen.” He takes hold of her and awkwardly tries to imitate the way Sherlock had been doing it. “Don't look so smug. It would be best to avoid -” Mycroft starts again, interrupted by Rosie wriggling uncomfortably. “This could well become a national emergency.”

“Yes, yes, they always are.” Sherlock says absently, leaning forward and digging through a box of baby toys which now apparently lived between his chair and John's.

“It will likely become an inter national emergency,” Mycroft bites out. Rosie is playing with his tie.

Sherlock straightens up, a plush butterfly in his hand. He holds it out to Rosie. “Don't let her play with that,” he says, nodding to Mycroft's tie pin.

“Sherlock.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Mycroft shifts awkwardly under Rosie’s weight, and grits his teeth. “It's elbowing me.” Sherlock says nothing, waiting for him to continue. “I just need to use you for two events, you don’t need to do any of your undercover -” Rosie waves the butterfly and it hits Mycroft on the nose. “- shenanigans. I just need a second pair of eyes on the floor. London events, you won’t even have to leave the city.”

“All right.” Sherlock leans back in his chair and studies the two of them. Mycroft is stock-still, Rosie waving her toy more vigorously at her inattentive playmate. “I'll think about it.”

Mycroft looks between the infant and Sherlock somewhat desperately. “Please. Take her back.”

Sherlock’s demeanour changes instantly. He smiles broadly and stands up, picking Rosie out of Mycroft’s uneasy grasp.

As soon as the path is clear, Mycroft is out of the chair and standing by the door.  He gestures back to where they were sitting. “What was that all about?” He studies Sherlock for a moment, then rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, you wanted me to call it ‘her’, didn’t you.”

Sherlock shrugs, but amusement lingers at the corner of his mouth. “No, I was hoping she would throw up on you.”

There is a pause, each sizing the other up.

“I am loathe to say this Sherlock, but -” Mycroft looks the two of them up and down. “This suits you.”

Before Sherlock can laugh in his face, Mycroft is gone.

Chapter Text

The DVD.

John put the ‘Miss You’ DVD away after they watched it. He put it between the pages of a book in the bottom of a drawer, with no intention of watching it again and no intention to throw it away.

Despite this, he finds himself watching it every so often.

Once, it was when the flat is freshly empty, Sherlock having just left in a flurry with Rosie strapped securely to his front. Another time it was just before he fell asleep after putting Rosie down, the whole flat warm and quiet. Once it was during the brief respite they had between a stream clients on a Sunday afternoon. All of them times where his bubble of contentedness had been burst by a sudden pang of guilt. And now, lying awake at 11.30 and listening to clattering in the kitchen, knowing Sherlock is almost certainly reading a scientific paper on beehives to his daughter.

He wants watching it to make him feel better, that he is somehow carrying out Mary’s wishes, but as the video progresses he always has the same thought.

He is so much happier now than he has ever been in his life.

John gets out of bed, throwing a dressing gown on to go to the kitchen and take over from the bee lecture Rosie is getting, but as he descends the stairs he hears something familiar and he is overcome with nausea.

“...what you two could become. Because I know what you really are -”

The sick feeling is gone almost as soon as it arrives, replaced entirely with anger. He crashes through Sherlock’s door, but his brain hasn’t quite caught up with him and all he can get out is “don’t watch that”. He doesn’t know what he means.

Sherlock doesn’t react. He is crosslegged on the bed, fingers steepled in front of his mouth, the DVD paused.

After a long pause, Sherlock reaches forward, ejects the DVD from the laptop, and stands up, handing the disc to John as he passes him wordlessly. He goes into the kitchen and John can hear him talking to someone.

John still hasn’t moved when Sherlock sweeps past the doorway, coat on and violin in hand. “I’m going out,” he says, then he’s gone.

The door slams and John goes to the kitchen to see Mrs Hudson sitting with Rosie, a slightly bewildered expression on her face. “Did you two have a fight?” she asks. “Sherlock only asked me to watch her for a minute. What’s that?”

John looks down at the DVD, then at Rosie in her highchair. She’s wearing a top that they had received in the baby shower, white with ‘I Love My Dad’ on it. It was only now the right size for her.

“No,” John says.

Chapter Text

A good morning.

After another night where Rosie wouldn’t settle and Sherlock had offered to take over, John wakes naturally at eight-thirty and is both surprised and relieved to find himself alone in Sherlock’s bed. He sits up and listens to the sound of movement in the kitchen, the click of the kettle and the clink of spoons in mugs. He gets out of bed and heads for the kitchen, slowing as he realises that he can hear Sherlock speaking.

“...there’s enough evidence that we can avoid any food neophobia considering that your parents have always had normal enough eating habits, and you haven’t displayed much rejection behaviour to these foods as yet, good morning John.” Sherlock doesn’t look up as John walks into the kitchen to find a cup of tea ready for him and Rosie at a high chair. There’s a smell of vinegar in the air, and Sherlock is making notes.

“Are you experimenting on my daughter?” John asks good-naturedly. There’s an open jar of cockles just out of Rosie’s reach, and she’s crushing a small handful of pickled shellfish against her mouth joyfully.

Sherlock studies Rosie’s face for a moment, makes a few notes and finally meets John’s eyes. “Not at all, just assessing her development.” He waits for John to take a sip of tea. “Did you sleep?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

John sits quietly for a while, watching as Sherlock offers and talks Rosie through two other different flavours and notes down his observations. He sits down, apparently satisfied, and takes a sip of his own cup of tea. Sherlock is watching Rosie with a warm expression as she plays with splodges of avocado and dried apricot on her high table.

John hasn't felt this comfortable in a long time.

“I was -” Sherlock starts.

“Do you want -” John says at the same time. He huffs a laugh. “Go on.”

“I was going to get Rosie cleaned up then take her to Regent's Park,” Sherlock says, tearing his eyes away from the infant. “Would you like to join us?”

John looks between them. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice, actually.”

Sherlock does that smile again, the one where his mouth barely moves but his eyes do, and John wonders when the twilight zone became so welcoming.

Chapter Text

After Sherrinford.

They had helicoptered Sherlock and John back to London, and Sherlock hadn’t spoken the entire time. He hadn’t even looked at his phone, simply sitting there deep in thought, but John had watched and seen his shoulders sag over the course of the journey.

Back on the ground, Sherlock hailed a cab. His expression was unreadable as he turned to John. “Will you accompany me to Baker Street?” he asked. “It would be understandable if you would rather go to your daughter.”

“No, no,” John replied. “I’ll come.” He tried a smile, but received no response.

When the cab turned into the street, the first sight to greet them was the smoke damage to the upstairs windows - two forlorn, blackened eyes looking out at the street below. John glanced at Sherlock’s impassive face, then back to the door which opened as they pulled up, Mrs Hudson looking distraught. “Oh, you two -” she started, but halted as she saw Sherlock looking up at the building. She stepped back into the doorway. “I’ll make some tea,” she tells John, then disappears.

Sherlock stayed motionless for a full minute, although John could see his eyes flicking over the entire facade. From the street, they could see people moving around in the flat, cleanup already in progress.

If John didn’t know better, he would have said that Sherlock was psyching himself up to go inside.

“Let’s get that tea,” Sherlock said eventually.

When they got upstairs, Mrs Hudson bustled the people who had been cleaning up out of the living room, mouthing ‘just giving you some space’ to John as she passed them. John’s stomach twisted as he saw the familiar details of bomb damage that he had only really seen in homes in war zones. Sherlock looked at John like he was about to say something, then stopped.

“We can come back to this tomorrow,” John offered. “Mrs Hudson can look after things for now. Let’s go.”

It was too much, John realised. This was the first time he had ever seen Sherlock emotionally drained - no wonder it had taken him so long to realise what was going on. After everything that had happened, to come back home to a bomb site was just one blow too many.

“You can stay at mine,” John said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sherlock looked at him like it was not.

Chapter Text

A Gift.

Molly has been at the flat all afternoon. She called beforehand, made sure they were home with no plans, and appeared at the front door with a huge box forty-five minutes later.

“I know it’s not quite Christmas,” she says as she hauls the box upstairs, refusing the hand John offers. She smiles at Sherlock and Rosie when she gets up to the first floor, places the box on the floor and Sherlock already has Rosie held out, ready for Molly to take hold of her. “Hello you!” she greets the infant, giving her a cuddle. Rosie laughs and wriggles in her godmother’s arms.

Once Rosie has been cuddled to her satisfaction, Molly turns to Sherlock and John. “I brought her a gift,” she says in explanation, gesturing to the box. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give it to her a bit early, considering all the - upheaval.” She bites her lip and looks at John apologetically.

John shakes his head dismissively and starts to pick at the tape which has been liberally applied to the plain cardboard. Sherlock smiles at Molly. “Nothing wrong with spoiling your goddaughter,” he offers, and she brightens up. He watches John struggle with the tape for another second, then picks the door keys off the side table and passes them to John so he can break the seal.

“There’s a knife in the mantelpiece,” John says as he takes them.

“The knife is for cases,” Sherlock replies without missing a beat. “Tea, Molly?”

Molly looks a little flustered but nods, and goes to give John what little help she can with one hand.

By the time Sherlock returns with her tea, the cardboard has fallen away to reveal a brightly coloured, wheeled walker for Rosie. It has panels on the front that say letters and numbers when they press them, switches and buttons for her to play with, flashing lights… John shakes his head. “I didn’t even know these existed,” he admits.

Sherlock, by contrast, looks positively delighted. He gives Molly her tea in exchange for Rosie and wastes no time in sitting down and starting to explore all of the features on the toy with her. “Well, he seems to love it,” John says to Molly as they sit down.

Molly stays for the rest of the day, playing with Rosie and recounting a few interesting sights from the morgue. While Sherlock is wrapped up in showing Rosie how turn one of the dials, John catches himself watching them, smiling. When he shakes himself out of it, he notices Molly doing the same.

Her phone beeps, and Molly jumps, pulling her phone out. “Oh, I need to go,” she says as she checks it, standing up. She smiles at them. “It’s been lovely though.”

John gives her a quick hug, then takes a wriggling Rosie from Sherlock, who stands and brushes himself off. “She’s getting hungry,” he says to John.

“Yeah,” John agrees. “It was great to see you,” he says to Molly, then ducks into the kitchen.

“Thank you for the gift,” John hears Sherlock say.

“It was nothing, really,” Molly replies. The door clicks open.

“Molly.”

There is a pause. John tries to busy himself with getting Rosie into her high chair.

“I really am sorry.” Sherlock sounds pained and John mentally chastises himself for listening in, even while straining to hear.

“It was nothing,” Molly repeats. “It was - it was a case,” she says tentatively.

“You know -” Sherlock starts.

“I know,” Molly cuts him off. There is a pause. “You look happy,” she says. “This suits you.”

“You’re the second person to say that.”

“Maybe it’s true then,” Molly says, a little more confidently. “Bye, Sherlock. Bye John!” she calls out.

“Bye,” John calls back, then dashes over to the fridge guiltily.

That night, John listens to Rosie hum in her sleep and wonders what Molly knows.

Chapter Text

Impermanence

Rosie is asleep upstairs, the occasional contented burble coming from the baby monitor which has become a permanent fixture on the mantelpiece. Sherlock is curled up reading some of the case files that Lestrade had dropped off earlier, and John is only half reading his book, because across from him something incredible is happening.

Sherlock is falling asleep.

John watches out of the corner of his eye and Sherlock’s eyes flutter closed and blink open again, and smiles. This absurd man, who has arch-nemeses and solves murders and forgets to eat, has been defeated by an eight month old girl. He has been unfailing in his attentiveness, uncharacteristically patient with her, and he hasn’t stopped since the moment they returned to 221B. It can’t possibly last.

“You’re worried,” Sherlock says, his eyes closed. He’s quiet for a moment, head tilted towards the baby monitor. Apparently satisfied, he opens his eyes and turns his full, laser-like attention on John. He waits.

“When will you get bored of her?” John asks quietly after a moment.

Sherlock looks slightly startled. “I don’t believe that’s possible.”

John huffs disbelievingly.

“No, John,” Sherlock says sincerely. “She is truly amazing. She learns so much every day whether we try to teach her or not. We are watching an entire human mind develop before our eyes, and it is beautiful.” His face is completely open and John feels a twist in his gut. “I am not prone to poetic exaltations but I could easily watch her forever and witness something new in every second. Besides, John,” Sherlock says. “She is an extension of you, and I could never get bored of you.”

John coughs, his lungs suddenly rebelling for a moment. He looks away and rubs his hand over his mouth.

Rosie squawks over the monitor, and John makes his escape.

Chapter Text

Chocolate.

It's Thursday, so John is late coming home from the surgery after evening appointments. He stumbles in on something he thought he would never see, and a few years ago would have been actively concerned by.

Mycroft is sitting on the sofa , knees at odd angles. He is sitting with Rosie, a chocolate button in her hand, a second one in his.

John actually takes a step back. “Erm.”

Mycroft doesn't look up but he goes still.

“Where's Sherlock?”

“Making tea,” Mycroft replies stiffly. Rosie doesn’t acknowledge his awkwardness and reaches out to take the next chocolate button from his hand.

Always perfectly on time, Sherlock comes out of the kitchen with two mugs. He hands one to John, and puts the other down next to his brother, who has another chocolate button ready. “Don’t give her the whole bag, Mycroft,” Sherlock says, stepping back to stand next to John. “You’re not the one who has to clean up.”

John sips his tea and tilts his head towards Sherlock. “I didn’t know he was any good with them,” he says.

“Children?” Sherlock asks.

“Humans,” John replies with a grin, and Sherlock stifles a laugh. Mycroft glares at them, which only makes John laugh properly.

In an act of uncharacteristic brotherly affection, Sherlock saves Mycroft any further embarrassment by swooping in and taking Rosie out of his hands, disappearing into the kitchen and reappearing with a damp cloth to wipe the best of the chocolate off her hands and face. He looks at Mycroft, who shakes his head and pulls a handkerchief out of his inside pocket to wipe his own hands. He stands up, placing the bag of remaining buttons on the table in the same movement. “For later,” he says to Sherlock. John can’t help but feel that Mycroft is avoiding eye contact. He forgives him.

John is able to restrain himself until Mycroft is just opening the door to leave. “It’s really nice to see you like this, Mycroft,” he says kindly. Mycroft visibly recoils at the authenticity of his tone.

“Yes. Well.” And like that, he is gone.

John turns to look at Sherlock, who is standing at the window making Rosie wave to Mycroft’s car. “Did that really just happen?” he asks.

“This,” Sherlock says, going to fetch a folder from the table by the fireplace, “was Mycroft attempting to simulate ‘sentiment’.” He sits down on the sofa where his brother had been, and hands the folder to John as he joins him.

Sherlock fusses over some chocolate that Rosie has gotten into her hair as John opens up the folder. Inside are meticulously organised prospectuses for nurseries and prep schools. They are organised by distance from 221B, with - John laughs - in-depth histories on the staff at each.

John pulls one out, leans back and starts to flick through. “It’s a pretty damn good simulation.”

Sherlock smiles. “He’ll get there.”

Chapter Text

Bed.

Rosie has just crawled into John’s lap under the guise of whispering some nonsense to him and is falling asleep fiddling with one of the buttons on his shirt. John doesn’t really have the heart to take her off to bed for a proper nap, so he’s put a cushion under his elbow and has resigned himself to sitting in his chair for the next hour.

Sherlock goes to the desk to get his laptop, but turns to John just as he is about to pick it up. “I can take her if you want,” he offers, but John looks at her, face smushed against him, and shakes his head.

He is comfortable and warm, and he could probably fall asleep if he let himself.

“I’ve been thinking about Rosie,” Sherlock says after a few minutes of quietly typing away.

John smiles. “That’s unusual,” he teases.

Sherlock shakes his head. “She’s getting bigger. She really needs her own room.”

“Oh,” John replies, his heart sinking. “Yes, I suppose she does.” He thinks about the house, which he has let out to a nice couple and their nine year old son. He and Mary had decorated a room for her there.

It was a big house for just the two of them.

He looks away from Sherlock and scrubs his mouth with his free hand, trying not to disturb the snoozing toddler on his lap. He can probably give the renters a month’s notice and be out of the flat fairly quickly.

“I’ve -” Sherlock starts, catching John’s attention as he mentally packs his things. Sherlock looks at his laptop, his brow furrowing ever so slightly. He opens his mouth to speak again, then thinks better of it. He looks away, then back at his laptop, and John is still trying to suppress the lump in his throat when Sherlock finally turns the laptop around. It’s a child’s bed, a cabin in the shape of a London bus. “Do you think she’d like this?” Sherlock asks. “It’ll fit in that room, I have checked, but do you think it’s a bit much?”

John doesn’t really look at it.“There’s a bed there already,” John says.

Sherlock frowns. “No, John, that’s a cot.”

John blinks at Sherlock for a moment. “What?”

When Sherlock next speaks, John can tell he is doing his best not to speak to him like a particularly stupid client. “I am proposing that we turn the upstairs bedroom into Rosie’s room,” he says. “Two flights of stairs may be a bit of a challenge and it’s not as convenient as it would be if the room were next door, but it’s a good size - and besides,” he smiles. “I always wanted to have a bedroom in the attic as a child. I’m sure she’ll love it when she’s older.”

“Oh,” John says, feeling like a particularly stupid client. “Of course.”

Encouraged, Sherlock carries on. “We can probably decorate it over two weekends. One, if we don’t want to paint it.”

The lump in John’s throat subsides and he finds himself taken in by Sherlock’s sudden enthusiasm for interior decorating. “Can I?” he asks, gesturing to the laptop which Sherlock had closed.

Sherlock drags his chair over next to John’s and balances the laptop between the two arms. For a good half hour, they look at paint colours and rugs and shelving, and order the bed which Sherlock had first brought up - customised to be the number 74 bus to Baker Street.

Rosie starts to wake up and fidget, and another thought comes fleetingly to John, one he almost doesn’t want to voice for fear of the answer.

“Where will I go?”

Sherlock looks at him for the second time in an hour like he is an idiot. “Down here,” he says. “With me.”

“Oh,” John says. “Of course.”