Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

By the time Sherlock gets back to Baker Street, the effects of Mary’s drug have nearly worn off. Sudden clarity, however, does nothing to prepare him for the sight of John Watson throwing the door to 221B open just as Sherlock rounds the landing on the stairs.

“Where the hell have you been?” He’s got Rosie on one hip and a bottle in his free hand. Sherlock’s return has clearly interrupted a late dinner for the baby if the grumpy look on her face and way she reaches for the formula is any indication.

“How long have you been here?” he croaks and John’s look turns thunderous.

“Since I came home from work to find Mary gone and Rosie with the neighbors,” he snaps, though he’s clearly not angry with anyone actually present.

“Is she all right?” Sherlock asks as he ascends the last remaining stairs and runs a hand down her pajama-clad back.

John releases a weary sigh before replying, “Yeah.” It’s drained and resigned, but not surprised. He steps back into the flat, watching Sherlock trudge through the door, and only then does he seem to notice the fugue in Sherlock’s features as the man collapses on the sofa. “You okay?”

He grunts an affirmative. “Paper laced with a sedative. I must have been out for - ” he glances at his watch - “two hours.”

“Jesus,” John mutters, unconsciously bouncing Rosie as she starts to fuss.  “C’mon, you feed her. I’ll get my kit.”

“I’m really fine,” he protests with not a little fear, but accepts the baby that John is handing over. It’s to her credit that she only whines for a moment before settling in with a silent Finally in her eyes when Sherlock raises the bottle to her lips.

“See? Give her some food and she’ll love you forever,” John states as he returns with the spare kit from the cabinet in the toilet.

Is it like that with all Watsons? Must cook more, Sherlock thinks before mentally berating himself. Idiot.

“Why are you here?” he finally asks as if it only just occurs to him that John and his daughter are back at 221B. Certainly not a rare occurrence, but not as often as Sherlock might allow himself to hope.

“What do you mean?” John asks as he fiddles with the penlight, but Sherlock can read the tension in his shoulders.

“Why come here? You have a perfectly good flat that surely can cater better to the needs and whims of an infant. I haven’t even disinfected the table after the incident with the ears.”

John sighs. “Can we not?”

“I didn’t mean - “ he begins, but is cut off as John shines the torch in his left eye, followed by his right. Sherlock sees spots as the light is switched off and John presses two fingers to the inside of his wrist, gently taking his pulse with his capable doctor hands.

“Heart rate a bit elevated and pupil dilation still sluggish, but you’ll live.” Then he smiles. “And I disinfected the table as soon as I walked in, you loon. Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson by now. Ears? Really?”

Sherlock ducks his head bashfully before Rosie knocks the bottle out of his hand, promptly proclaiming herself to be finished. “Oh,” he murmurs, staring from the nearly empty bottle to the baby and back again. “Now what?”

“She needs to be burped,” John replies. He’s returning the light to the kit, which is why he misses the look of immediate and intense alarm that crosses Sherlock’s face.

“Burped?” he asks, voice high.

John chuckles as he stands with a pop and a groan, deftly pulling Rosie from Sherlock’s arms and draping a cloth over his shoulder. “C’mon, darling,” he murmurs, situating her properly and patting her back. She rewards him with a burp a moment later and, luckily, no spit-up. “See? Easy peasy.”

The two of them look, frankly, adorable so Sherlock lets the ‘easy peasy’ slide. He also allows himself the use of ‘adorable’ because there really is no other word for the sight before him.

He swallows hard, feeling the smile slide from his face. He could never have this. It doesn’t - they don’t - belong to him.

“The trace?” he asks, voice rough, already halfway to his laptop on the table. He catches sight of John’s face in the mirror above the mantle and the crease between his eyebrows makes Sherlock’s stomach clench. “Can’t be sure that she got a flight out this late, but you never know.”

“It’ll still be active in the morning,” John quietly replies. His voice is soft, placating, and Sherlock is mortified to find that the inflections that work to calm the infant work just as well on him, apparently. 

He looks up to find John smiling at him. Just a little uptick at the corner of his mouth. He’s still doing that unconscious fatherly swaying in the middle of the room as Rosie’s eyelids droop in post-feeding lethargy.

“But,” Sherlock straightens, “you don’t care where she’s going?”

“Not tonight. I’ll care tomorrow, but I just - ” his shoulders slump and the frown is back. He’d been making a good show of things, but the anxiety in his eyes when he first greeted Sherlock at the top of the stairs is rapidly gaining ground.  “I just don’t have the energy,” he finally admits.

Sherlock is glad. To be frank, he doesn’t have the energy either.

John clears his throat and nods to the pair of bags sitting just inside the kitchen. “Tonight, I just want to put my daughter to bed, watch a Bond, and share a scotch.” His expression is carefully guarded, but the hope shines through anyway. “I think we’ve earned that, don’t you?”

Sherlock thinks of Baker Street and how cold it’s seemed. How empty, even when it’s full of people. He glances at the roaring fire John built to ward off the bitter damp, at the child that John helped make softly snoring on his shoulder, at the balloon with John’s silly scribbles still bobbing in the air. He thinks of the packaway crib no one knows he’s purchased, hiding in the back of the closet in John’s old room. He wonders how long they can pretend until Mary decides they’ve had enough peace.

His mind has been whirring for approximately forty-five seconds, wondering what tools he’ll need to nick from Mrs. Hudson to assemble the cot’s many pieces and whether or not John will finally make him change his first nappy, before he realizes he hasn’t actually said anything.

He looks up and John is staring at him like he knows exactly what Sherlock is thinking. And perhaps he does. He’s pretty damn smart, after all.

“I think we’ve earned it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he finally whispers. “I think we have.”

Chapter Text

For all of the books he’s read (in secret) on childrearing and for all of the forums he’s visited (incognito) online, nothing prepares him for the shriek that fills the flat at approximately half past three in the morning followed by the most pathetic whimper that swiftly and severely cleaves his heart in two.

He should have expected this: new environment, new sounds, new smells. Even John, who called this home for years, spent the first few hours of his first evening back tossing and turning on a bed that no longer readily conforms to his body. Rosie must be wondering where her (rather alarming) fish mobile has gone.

“Shhh, please don’t,” he hears John murmur as they pad down the stairs. Whether consciously or out of habit, John avoids the creaky fifth step from the bottom, and the fact that he might have done it for Sherlock’s sake stokes something warm behind his sternum.

Sherlock pushes himself up against the headboard and listens to John putter around the kitchen, muttering platitudes like, “Daddy’s here,” that do nothing to soothe the squalling infant. The kitchen doesn’t help matters either as her wails seem to echo off every tile and shiny surface tenfold.

He kicks the covers back and grabs a dressing gown, ready to help should the need arise. He’s been wary of overstepping. Rosie is John’s daughter and John is only here because his wife has ‘done a bunk,’ as it were.

But she’s not here now and John and Rosie are, humming and screaming in his kitchen, respectively.

“C’mon, sweetheart, you’ll wake Sherlock.” It’s a bit muffled (lips likely pressed against her forehead) but it’s enough to get Sherlock to open the door and pad down the hallway. He’d rather assure John himself that he wasn’t actually asleep to begin with.

As it is, John still radiates guilt by the time Sherlock makes his appearance, but Sherlock merely bats it away with a flick of his hand.

“Transport.”

John snorts and returns to the stove where the bottle is resting in a pot of warming water. “Lucky bastard.” His eyes are bloodshot and his skin sallow. Gone is the man who giggled with him over the rim of his scotch glass only hours ago when he eviscerated the physics of a completely ludicrous Bond stunt.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“What month is it?” John wryly replies.

Sherlock smirks and watches as John goes about testing the bottle’s temperature on his wrist before putting it to Rosie’s mouth.

“She eats an awful lot.”

John smiles softly as he makes his way to his chair and Sherlock follows, collapsing in his own and cocooning his dressing gown around him. “Babies do.”

“So I read.”

John raises his head at that. “You read? Read where?’ Sherlock’s eyes go wide at the slip, but John positively beams. “Sherlock Holmes, are you telling me you’ve read up on childcare?"

He glares and burrows further into the silk that provides little cover for the blush heating his face. “No.”

“Liar,” John murmurs affectionately, even as his over-tired eyes blink sluggishly. “I’m sorry we woke you.”

“Wasn’t asleep.”

John hums and tilts his head back against the chair, Rosie safely and steadily eating in his arms, looking up at her father with an absolute trust that Sherlock envies. He wonders what it must be like to garner that kind of faith from someone. Unwavering. Resolute.

John Watson is that person for him. If only he could be that person for John Watson.

“Would you like me to take her so you can sleep?” he asks, nearly cursing himself once the words are out. Of course John won’t leave his daughter alone with him. Why on earth would he -

“You sure?” John has raised his head and is squinting one eye open, face a mask.

Sherlock swallows hard. “Yes.”

John continues to stare him, eyebrow raised, as he mutters a disbelieving, “Seriously?”

It gets an eye roll and a snappish, “Yes, though I understand your wariness. Who’d leave a child in the care of Sherlock Holmes?”

John smiles that soft smile that only seems to come out when it’s just the two of them. “I would.”

That little knot inside his chest unwinds a bit. “Really?”

John nods and stands, placing the most precious of cargos in his arms seemingly without a second thought. “I trust you.”

Sherlock exhales and the knot unwinds completely.

Oh, he thinks. That’s what that feels like.

xxxxxx

Sherlock’s eyes narrow as he stares at the blinking dot on the screen in front of him, his coffee mug hovering just below his chin and sending steam up his nose.

There’s no pattern to her movements, no rhyme to the tune she’s following. John let Sherlock read the letter she left - perhaps she really is doing it all by the roll of the dice. A bit overly dramatic in Sherlock’s never-humble opinion.

“Where is she?” John murmurs behind him and Sherlock startles, sloshing coffee down the front of his dressing gown and hissing in pain. “Sorry, sorry!” John appears at his side with a wad of paper towels, some wet with water and some dry, and proceeds to pat him down.

Sherlock’s cheeks heat, but he accepts the attention with clandestine relish, vaguely remembering a question being asked. “What did you say?”

“I asked where Mary was,” John replies, nodding to the screen, but not examining it closely.

“Oh. Norway.”

John makes a non-committal hum and returns to the kitchen to toss the soiled towels. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

“Not flying to Norway, I presume.”

“God no.” John shivers. “Not at this time of year.”

The comment draws a rather undignified snort from Sherlock, so he closes the laptop with a click since he will not be chasing the good doctor’s wife after all. For someone who loves the game, he’s surprised by how happy he is to sit out a few rounds.

John returns to the living room still in his pajamas and bends down, bopping a toy hanging above the blanket Rosie is lying upon. She makes a noise that’s half giggle, half a screech of delight.

Yes, quite happy to sit out for a day or two. Maybe a month. Hell, why not a year?

“Hello?”

He shakes himself to find John staring at him as he holds out a fresh cup of coffee to replace the one that ended up down the front of his dressing gown.

“Oh, thank you.” He takes it, sips, and of course, it’s prepared perfectly. John hasn’t forgotten.

“I also asked what you were up to today.”

Sherlock shrugs and wonders if all three of them staying in their pajamas is a suitable way to spend their time. John seems to be buzzing with barely contained energy so perhaps not. They really should get out of the flat at some point. “Thought I might go for a walk. It’s a nice enough day.”

John raises an eyebrow and says nothing. Sherlock frowns.

“Isn’t… that what people do on nice days?”

“Yeah,” John says softly. “It is.”

“Care to join?” He keeps the invitation as light as possible but he really doesn’t want to traipse around Regent’s Park just for the sake of his health. Company would be… nice.

“You sure you want to unleash her on an unsuspecting public?” John nods at the happy baby now, but she had been a right terror at six o’clock that morning.

“Indeed,” Sherlock replies, bending down and tapping another toy, much to her delight. “She’s got to learn deductions at some point. Might as well start now.”

He stands again and the look of utter fondness on John’s face nearly steals his breath.

“Then we best be off,” John says, darting over and scooping the baby up in one swift, practiced move. “The game is what, Rosie?” She makes a noise that in no way represents anything English. “On,’ very good.” He nuzzles her cheek and she frowns at his stubble. “My clever girl.”

Sherlock watches them disappear upstairs as he shuffles to his room to change out of his coffee-stained clothes. He barely remembers dressing, the previous moment playing over and over on a loop in his head like a black and white film. A part of him, a bitter, horrible part, wishes Mary just wouldn’t come back. That she’d leave him with his bubble of happiness that only seems to exist on Baker Street when John H. Watson has come home.

But that happiness, somehow , now includes one Rosamund Mary Watson. She is paramount to it. He may not believe in a higher power, but he can certainly say miracles do happen.

He returns to the sitting room to find John wrestling Rosie into a winter onesie. He’s making the most ridiculous faces to keep her happy and the tug on his heart almost has Sherlock pulling out his phone just to take a picture. He controls himself, though. Barely.

Rosie is bundled into the pram Mycroft magicked and they’re off, two men and a baby, to walk in the park. Sherlock tries to pinpoint the moment when his life became so domesticated and finds he can’t. It was a gradual transition. A fluid change of orbit from his world revolving around one sun, to his world revolving around the sun and its accompanying star.

They enter the park and John points things out as they go, a bird here, a dog there, even though Rosie can’t understand a single word he’s saying. Sherlock follows it up with its biological classification all the same, just so she really gets the full picture. He hasn’t seen John smile this hard since the night Rosie was born.

They pause by the basin, watching a flock of geese skim over the water that has the baby’s eyes widening to the size of saucers.

“Ah, yes, Watson. Goose. Waterfowl belonging to the tribe Anserini of the family Anatidae, which comprises the genera Anser, Branta, and Chen, grey, black, and white geese, respectively. I expect you to remember that. There will be a quiz in due course.”

John bursts out laughing, head thrown back, sun catching the silver and gold in his hair, and Sherlock allows himself the rare moment to think, Yes. If I pretend hard enough, this is mine.

Rosie shrieks and kicks her little legs as the birds make a perfect water landing. John gives in to fatherly instincts, grabs his phone, and snaps a picture of her reaching out for them.

“What a beautiful daughter you have!” a voice says to their right and Sherlock turns to see a woman (late sixties, grandmother of three) admiring the view as her husband peers through a pair of binoculars further down the path.

Rosie giggles, as if further proof was needed to show just how adorable she is. And yes, Sherlock will admit that she is a step above most children her age (not that he knows many, or any), but then again, she’s part Watson. He’s biased.

John stands and shields his eyes away from the sun and only then does Sherlock realize the woman’s gaze is darting between John and Sherlock.

“Ta, thanks,” John replies. “We’re fond of her. Think we may even keep her.”

The woman laughs and gives Rosie a little wave. The child is bored with the geese already and squirming in her pram. Probably in need of a nappy change and Sherlock would check his phone to see, but he’s so utterly and completely floored by what just occurred that he cannot seem to get his hands, or lips, or brain to function properly.

By the time he comes to, the woman has disappeared down the path to collect her wayward, birdwatching husband and John is staring at him in that wary, concerned manner he has when he’s gone into ‘doctor mode.’

“You all right?”

“She assumed we were together,” Sherlock blurts. Idiot.

“Sorry?”

“The woman. She assumed Rosie belonged to us. Both of us.”

“So?”

Sherlock can barely breathe. “You didn’t correct her.”

John shrugs, such an inadequate gesture for such a monumental moment. “Seemed easier than explaining that my assassin wife has run off to do God knows what to God knows whom thereby putting us in a position which we wouldn’t even be in to begin with if she had just been truthful from the start.” His cadence is calm, likely for Rosie’s sake, but his tone is laced with bitterness. Sherlock can’t fault him for that.

“Ah,” he replies after a quiet moment. “Yes, that was easier.” He’s not sure how he feels at being the convenient way out.

“I don’t mind, you know,” John says and the panic is starting to rise again.

“What?” he squeaks and promptly clears his throat.

“If people think she’s yours. It doesn’t bother me.”

“But - ” he flounders for a moment, “she doesn’t look like me.”

John cocks his head, his expression broadcasting Oh, you silly man . “Genes aren’t what make a family.”

And Sherlock doesn’t quite know what to say to that.

“C’mon,” John says, taking his arm and steering his hands to the handles of the pram, effectively breaking the moment. “I could do with a cuppa and Rosie needs her nappy changed.” He nudges him slightly where he walks beside him. “It’s your turn, I believe.”

“Ah,” Sherlock sighs (chokes, really), feeling so much more than he can ever possibly express. “Couldn’t outrun my fate forever.”

John smiles and nudges him again, expression proving that he knows precisely what kind of picture they’re presenting as they walk side-by-side down the path. “Quite right.”

Family, Sherlock shakes his head. What a concept.

Chapter Text

Russia... Austria… Hungary...

He’s halfway through chapter three of The Beekeeper’s Bible when the computer dings with an alert. Rosie is in his lap and he’s been reading aloud while simultaneously trying to keep her from tearing the pages. Her enthusiasm is to be commended but the book is precious and he’d really prefer to keep it intact if it’s all the same to the infant now gnawing on his finger.

He reaches forward and tries not to jostle her too much, hitting the keyboard and pulling up the map showing Mary pinging in Iran.

“Where now?”

Sherlock should be used to John sneaking up on him by now, but he’s not. He’s gotten stealthy in the intervening years. He supposes living with an assassin will do that to someone. “Tehran. Can’t be more than a stopover, I would think.”

“And if you had to make an educated guess on where she’s heading?”

Sherlock sighs and drops his chin to rest his lips against Rosie’s soft head. Not quite a kiss, but nearly. “Mycroft thinks she’s doubling back to Morocco. Most likely. AGRA had an old safe house in Marrakech.”

John is quiet for a long moment. Long enough for Sherlock to think he’s disappeared back into the kitchen. Which is why he’s thrown so off-kilter when John says in a small voice: “It’s time to go, isn’t it.”

They both know it’s not a question that expects an answer, but Sherlock gives one anyway. “Yes, I think so.”

Silence descends again. Sherlock’s grip on Rosie tightens just a bit. He’s not ready to say goodbye. Not yet.

“Right,” John murmurs. “Right.”

Sherlock listens to him head back to the stairs and slowly climb, each step hammering away at the fortifications surrounding that which he’s not prepared to examine. Rosie swats at the book again, letting out an indignant squawk as he rises and hikes her on his hip, heading down the stairs toward 221A.

“Mrs. Hudson?”

“In here,” she calls, appearing a moment later and wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s the matter?”

“John and I are going to have to go.”

“Mary?” she asks. They hadn’t told her outright, but she knew enough. Not that Mary was the one who put a bullet in his chest but enough to know that she had a past and it was catching up with her.

“Unfortunately,” he replies. “Do you mind - ?” he starts to ask, but she’s already reaching out for the baby who goes only too willingly.

If things had been different, if everything happened the way he still holds out hope it will, Rosie Watson would likely one day call Mrs. Hudson Grandmother. Or whatever inane nickname John came up with. Grammy? Nana? Sherlock wants to roll his eyes, but finds he can’t. He wants it too much to mock it.

“We have to get ready,” he says after clearing his throat. “Pack and whatnot.”

“Don’t you worry about us,” she replies, booping the baby on the nose and leaving a smudge of flour. “I’ve just popped the scones in the oven. She can help me keep an eye on them.”

He pulls his phone out of his dressing down to find two new messages from Mycroft.

LGW to RAK 12:20

MH prepped to take RW.  

It’s nearly half past 10 in the morning. They have just about two hours to prep and get to Gatwick for whatever plane Mycroft has waiting for them that should land them in Marrakech no later than 4pm.

“Dear?”

Sherlock shakes himself to find Mrs. Hudson staring at him sympathetically. He’s not so deluded as to think she hasn’t noticed how happy he’s been recently. She must have enjoyed it too. Hardly any explosions or shootings. It seems Rosie Watson puts him on his best behavior. Lord knows he didn’t do for John’s sake. The smiley face on the wall can attest to that.

“Molly will pick her up around 5pm. I’ll just - ” He makes an aborted hand gesture towards the stairs and all but flees, listening for any sound from the upstairs bedroom as he gets to the landing, but hearing nothing.

He allows himself a moment to ponder whether he should go up and check on John or continue into his own room to pack and decides on the latter. He can be brave when he’s got his battle garb ready.

He has a quick wash and while he’s deciding on how many pairs of pants to pack, he hears John go into the toilet and start the shower up. It takes every ounce of his not-inconsiderable willpower to not glance through the frosted glass.

He packs for two nights, just in case. They really should be able to intercept Mary and be back on a flight to London that very evening, but he’s learned to plan for unforeseen eventualities.

The shower switches off and Sherlock hears John putter around the toilet, likely shaving and brushing his teeth before he pads back upstairs. It’s a testament to how distracted he is by the case at hand that he doesn’t ask Sherlock where his daughter is.

Then again, he did say that he trusted him. John must know that Sherlock would never let anything happen to his child.

He listens to drawers opening and closing through the thin floorboards and, when enough time has passed for John to dress, he inhales a breath and holds it, dropping his bag in the kitchen as he goes through the door and climbs the stairs. The sight that greets him, though, has the air rushing out of his lungs just as quickly as it came.

John sits on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped, elbows resting on his knees. And between his thumb and forefinger rests the thin band of gold that tied him to Mary through sickness and in health, while simultaneously taking him away from Sherlock til death do them part.

Sherlock clears his throat, shuffling a bit in the doorway. “Are you all right?”

John sighs and slides the ring back on his finger. Sherlock tells himself it doesn’t hurt, but it’s one of many lies he’s told.

“I should call Molly.”

“Mycroft has already alerted her. We’re on a flight leaving at 12:20pm. Mrs. Hudson can watch Rosie until she gets off her shift at Barts.”

John nods, but makes no move toward the empty bag lying on the floor near the foot of the bed. Sherlock doesn’t know whether to stay or go so he just hovers there like the specter at the feast.

“It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it.”

“What is?”

“Her running. Me always a step behind. Rosie without a parent. It’s just… the new normal for us.”

Sherlock bites his lip. “It… doesn’t have to be.”

“Even if - even if we do this, if we go to the end that I think we’re both anticipating, she’s still…” John shakes his head and covers his face with his hands.

“She’ll have you,” Sherlock offers and John scoffs.

“I’m not enough.”

“Of course you are.” How dare John Watson sell himself short.

“Sherlock -”

“She’ll have Mrs. Hudson, she’ll have Molly,” he lists, but even he knows they can’t replace a parent. Not really. “Hell, even Gabe can lend a hand from time to time.”

“They’re not - ”

“And she’ll have me,” he eventually admits. John stops arguing and finally looks at him. The expression on his face nearly knocks Sherlock on his arse. “You both - you’ll both have me.”

The tick of John’s watch is practically thunderous in the silence that follows.

“I couldn’t ask that of you,” John finally replies.

“You’re not asking, I’m giving.” He raises his hands, palms up in complete surrender, as if to say What else would I do, you wonderful moron? “Offering wholeheartedly.”

John’s jaw closes with a click and he does that half-smile that Sherlock loves so much.

Ah. Love. Yes, that’s the word he’s been avoiding. The word that seems to hammer on every locked door of his mind palace, beating at the walls, breaking down the parapets just to be heard. Just to be let free.

“I love Rosie, you know that, right?” he blurts and John audibly swallows.

“I know.”

The rest remains unsaid. Perhaps not for long, but for now.

John stands then and Sherlock understands that the conversation is over. The game is on, but for once, it’s not one he wants to play. John packs his bag methodically, but sparsely. Ever the soldier. He shoulders it and nods at Sherlock, making no mention of the fact that the man had stayed in the bedroom until John was finished, watching him work.

Sherlock is grateful.

“We should bring some formula and nappies down to Mrs. Hudson so she doesn’t have to take the stairs.”

Sherlock nods. “She’s due for a nap in a couple of hours. I’ll grab the cot.” He disappears but not before he catches the look on John’s face that punches the breath from his lungs. It’s the kind of look he’d like to put under a microscope and examine every possible scenario for why John’s lips quirk to that degree or why his eyes seem approximately 30% more blue. But they haven’t the time and he hasn’t the energy. He’ll have to store it in the ever-increasing wing labeled “John” in his mind palace and come back to it at a later date.

“You ever going to take that down?” John asks when he returns, gesturing to the slightly drooping red balloon still attached to his chair.

Sherlock tries incredibly hard to ignore the sharp twist in his chest, unconsciously running a hand over the scar just to the right of his sternum.

“Think I might leave it up for a bit,” he replies quietly. Reverently.

They both know that when they come home, Sherlock will be the only one returning to 221B.

“Sherlock, I - ” but the words seem to stall on John’s tongue. No use in making him struggle through it.

“Come. The car is probably already waiting.”

John nods and follows Sherlock down the stairs. They drop the cot, bottles, nappies, and a few toys off - enough to hold out until Molly comes by this evening to pick Rosie up.

John kisses Mrs. Hudson’s cheek as he takes Rosie from her arms and buries his face in her neck. “Be good, darling,” he murmurs, pulling away just far enough to press a kiss to her chubby cheek. She smiles and presses a tiny palm to his face. He pulls her close to his chest and takes her hand, kissing each of her fingers. Sherlock aches to do the same.

“Oh hello,” Sherlock blurts as John places Rosie in his arms next. “Um…” he fumbles for a moment before bouncing her and staring into eyes already so like John’s. “Be good, Watson, or I’ll hear of it from Mrs. Hudson. No tantrums. No overly messy nappies.” John snorts behind him and Sherlock revels in it. “No pivotal milestones while your father and I are gone.”

“Sherlock, she’s four-months-old,” John laughs.  

“Precisely and she could start rolling over any day now,” he replies.  

That soft look is back and now it’s on Mrs. Hudson’s face, too.

“What?”

“Nothing, dear,” she warbles, clutching a hanky to her lips.

“For goodness sake,” he whispers, pressing the quickest of kisses to Rosie’s head before depositing her back in Mrs. Hudson’s waiting arms. “We’ll keep you posted on our - on my - um, I’ll let you know when I’m coming back. So I don’t… startle you.” It’s a disaster of a speech, but luckily Mrs. Hudson only grips his forearm.

“Thank you, dear.”

John, mercifully, stays silent, merely darting forward to press another kiss to Rosie’s cheek before following Sherlock into the hallway. They each have their bag and Sherlock quickly types out a text to Mycroft that they’re leaving before reaching for the door.

“I saw that,” John murmurs.

“What?”

“You with Rosie.”

Sherlock freezes, silently cursing himself. He knew he’d overstep. It wasn’t his place and yet he just couldn’t help himself. Stupid, Stupid. “I apologize, it wasn’t my intention - ”

“Sherlock, no.”

“I, in no way, meant to infringe upon - ”

“Stop.”

“I certainly never meant - ”

“Let me finish!” John finally snaps, dropping his bag and gently (oh so gently) taking hold of Sherlock’s shoulders. “Let me finish,” he whispers, as the bottom drops out from Sherlock’s world.

“I was going to say that you’re wonderful with her.” His thumbs are running back and forth over the mere suit jacket he wears and his touch is a brand, searing through wool and cotton and silk, down to the skin beneath. So much for battle garb. “You’re brilliant. And I can’t begin to thank you for the time we’ve had. It’s been…” he trails off and licks his lips. Sherlock can’t help that his eyes dart to them. “It’s been everything, Sherlock. Absolutely everything.”

“Oh,” he breathes. It remains unsaid but he understands, bringing his hand up to gently brush against John’s chest and the rapidly beating heart beneath. “Yes.” He swallows. “Agreed.”

John nods like a soldier and picks up his bag once more, turning towards the door for a moment before dropping it and spinning, clutching Sherlock’s face in his hands.

“What this was,” he says fiercely, pulling Sherlock toward him and pressing their foreheads together. “What this is, is ours. And she cannot take it from us. Do you understand me?”

And Sherlock can only nod, bringing his hands up to grip John’s wrists. “Oh God, yes.”

John smiles at the memory and nods, running his thumb across Sherlock’s jawline before stepping back and clearing his throat.

“Just the two of us against the rest of the world, yeah?”

“Three,” Sherlock replies, heart soaring, and if his eyes are unnaturally bright, he’ll blame it on the darkness of the hallway. “Rosie would make such a fuss at being left out.”

John laughs and opens the door. Sure enough, the car is waiting.

“Fair point,” he replies and Sherlock finally, finally , knows what that soft look represents.

“She’s got the Watson temper, after all,” he offers, voice choked and John (lovely, lovely John) cocks his head.

“Add in the Holmes stubbornness and she’ll give Mycroft a run for his money.” He proceeds out the door as if he hasn’t just tilted the very axis upon which Sherlock’s world spins.

Oh, he thinks, listening to Rosie giggle behind him while watching John put their bags in the boot of the car.

Yes. That’s what Sumatra looks like.