Disclaimer: I do not own/make no money from/am not associated with Sherlock.
Story
Having held John and Mary's baby for one whole minute, Sherlock has come to one horrible but incontestable conclusion: the baby hates him. He had high hopes, despite the fact that this is an opinion held by the majority of the world. After all, both her dad and her mum, for some incomprehensible reason, had decided they liked him. It stood to reason that their baby would share that trait, just as it had John's eyes and Mary's ears and soft blond hair. Obviously, the gene for liking Sherlock is recessive.
Sherlock held baby Watson and she screamed in inarticulate fury. He was doing everything right, too. He had researched. You had to hold newborns close to you in a secure hold, always supporting the head. Babies like warmth and snugness. They also like heartbeats. Basically, they liked anything that reminded them of being in the womb. Therefore, Sherlock held the bawling infant wrapped securely in the soft, all natural blanket which he had carefully sterilized and then washed in gentle soaps which research suggested contained nothing to abrade sensitive skin. It smelled nice, not flowery or overpowering as the soap was unscented, but fresh and clean. It was soft and warm and snuggled about the baby like a swaddling cloth just like YouTube had taught him.
She hated it. Her tiny arms and tiny legs kicked within the confines, her face was a very unattractive red, her mouth open wide to reveal her toothless gums and she wailed and wailed and wailed. Tucking her against his chest, her ear to his heart, did nothing to assuage her.
"Try jiggling her a bit, yeah," a drunken sounding John suggested, his eyes blinking owlishly. He wasn't drunk. He was exhausted. Sleep deprivation could mimic the effects of alcohol. He didn't look particularly alarmed at the way his baby was exercising her lungs in Sherlock's arms, or that his baby hated his best friend or that her face was completely crimson. He looked almost dopily pleased. Mary didn't look much different. She had smiled at them and taken photos on her phone.
Normally, Sherlock would accept John's advice when it came to matters like this; medical or emotional and this seemed a bit of both, but Sherlock had just been reading up on all possible dangers to the infant, and the articles on shaken baby syndrome had been nailed to the walls of the baby's room in his mind palace, the dire print bold and terrifying, and even the thought of giving the baby a gentle jiggle sent his heart racing and he clutched its tiny body protectively to his chest just that much tighter.
Baby Watson did not want to be squished into Sherlock's chest. Somehow, someway, she found the capacity to screech even louder.
"Perhaps you had better have her back," Sherlock suggested at last, not wanting to have to say the obvious, that the baby hated him and only wanted Mary or John or Mrs. Hudson to hold her. Sherlock didn't even blame her. If he were a baby, he'd want them to hold him too.
But something odd happened when he started speaking, shouting really, to be heard over the baby's screams.
She stopped screaming. She did that from time to time, of course, not because she was done screaming but because she had gotten to the complete end of her lung capacity. Her face would stay red, her mouth open and trembling, but for a second or two no sound would come out, like she had been put on mute. It was at once terrifying and a relief when that happened. A relief because the sound had stopped. Terrifying because she looked like she was about to make herself pass out or something, like she was somehow never going to manage another breath again and none of Sherlock's readings suggested that was likely but it didn't stop him from having to remind himself to breathe whenever she did it.
This wasn't like those times. Her mouth was still open, but not in a scream. It looked more like surprise. And where her entire face had been squinched up, eyes closed tight, her face looked relaxed now, her eyes open, staring up at him.
They stared at each other. Everyone in the room stared at them. The baby almost seemed to be waiting for something. And when it didn't come, he could see her face scowling again, scrunching up in preparation for another howl. When it came it was the most piercing yet, the chance for her to actually catch her breath and fill her lungs being put to good use.
"Hey, hey, talk some more," Mary ordered him. "I think she likes your voice."
"Nonsense," Sherlock answered. "If there's any voice she'd like best, it would be your voice, since she'll have become familiar with it in the womb. And probably John's too."
Except maybe she was right after all, because the moment he started talking, the wailing instantly stopped and once again those eyes were staring at him, huge and watery in her tiny face, and very much like John. Sherlock hesitated, and then, when she wrinkled her nose at him, he started speaking again.
"You like my voice?"
She blinked at him, not smiling, of course, because she was still too young, but her mouth slowly morphing into something that wasn't a howl.
"I suppose it's never too early to be introduced to the world around you," Sherlock told her. She listened, her head still turned to his chest. One arm had managed to wiggle free from the confines of the blanket, no matter how carefully and securely it had been swaddled, and a minuscule hand was waving in the air, fingers curling and uncurling.
"Alright then," Sherlock said. "I am Sherlock Holmes. You can call me Uncle Sherlock, when you are ready. Don't worry if the sounds don't come out just right on your first try; learning to speak is an ongoing process. I'm not your real uncle, of course, as I am not the brother of your mum or your dad, but sometimes 'uncle' is used as an honorific."
Baby Watson took this new information well, issuing a soft cooing sound that sounded absolutely nothing like 'Uncle Sherlock'.
"You don't have a name yet, so I can only call you Miss Watson. Your mum and dad will probably decide on something very boring, like Jane or Susan, but that's okay. Sometimes a boring name can hide extraordinary people. It's like having a disguise. Anyway, if they keep not deciding I'll just decide for them."
He glances at the adult Watsons in question, waiting for the usual objections, only to find that at some time during his brief explanation on names, both Watson's eyes had closed and they had fallen into each other on the settee, somehow managing to look cozy rather than dreadfully uncomfortable, Mary's head nestled in the crook of John's neck, his curled over her. If they weren't actually asleep then they certainly looked nearly there. Then baby Watson made a questioning sort of sound and reminded him that he better start speaking before she cried some more and woke her parents up.
"I had suggested they call you Sherlock," he told her. "Like me. But that's when I thought I was going to die. It would be difficult to have two Sherlocks about, and it doesn't really suit you, I don't think. I wasn't completely serious anyway. I rather like being the only me. So what is a name that can be only you? I already suggested names like Datura and Gloriosa and Hermione. John laughed at the last one, for some reason. They're all flower names, which is common for girls, because flowers are pretty and therefore considered feminine. All the flowers I suggested are also toxic, which I like because being deadly is part of your heritage. Mary pointed out that roses have thorns and make a nice name, but there are lots of Roses in the world and anyway, I like toxic better because then the danger is hidden. You look pretty but you hide that you're also toxic."
Baby Watson did not seem alarmed or delighted with any of these name suggestions.
"What about Segovia?" Sherlock asked her. "Segovia Johanna Watson. Johanna is after both your parents, you know, but in secret, because no one knows what Mary's name was before she became Mary. And Segovia is a kind of bulb flower, also called a narcissus or daffodil. It contains the toxic crystalline alkaloid lycorine, and has been used in suicides, though I wouldn't recommend that method as it is not a pleasant and painless way to die. It was used as a murder method that I investigated once; the murderer hoped to pass it off as a suicide or accident but she wasn't very smart and she still had dirt under her fingers and her botanical book was creased at the page for Narcissus Segovia."
Baby Watson considered this new information, making soft noises. Then her eyes closed and more suddenly than Sherlock believed could be possible, she was asleep in his arms.
"I see you have John's sleeping habits," he whispered to her. He looked over at her parents, still sound asleep. John's mouth was open as he made soft snoring sounds and a drop of drool threatened to fall into Mary's hair. He supposed the baby had Mary's sleeping habits as well, considering how fast they both seemed to have fallen asleep. He wasn't as familiar with Mary sleeping, though, so this could just be a matter of extreme exhaustion.
Now, surrounded by sleeping Watsons, Sherlock stood and felt a bit at a loss. He could set Segovia Johana Watson down into her cot, but what if that woke her? What if that set her screaming again? He felt strange, something similar to his darker days when the entire world was pure tedium and he didn't feel like his chemicals and experiments or his violin or talking and he wound up just lying on the settee and wanting everything to end, or more accurately, everything to start again. This antsy feeling of not knowing what to do next was rather similar, but somehow it held none of the dreaded heaviness that accompanied a dark mood.
The weight of a baby in his arms was somehow impossibly light and at the same time, surprisingly heavy. He supposed he had half imagined holding a baby to feel like holding a doll. Not that he held many dolls, but he still somehow seemed to have an expectation that the baby, being the size of a toy, would be the same weight. It was heavier though, being filled of course with bones and muscles and organs and water, rather than air or cotton.
He didn't know how long he just stared down at his arms at the sleeping infant. At some point, Mrs. Hudson came in with a tray of biscuits. She made soft cooing words over him and the baby, spread a blanket over the sleeping parents, took some pictures, and left. Baby Watson slept on.
Finally, he did set her down in the cot. He was careful, tucking the free hand back into the blanket, lying her on her back like his research suggested was best. She didn't wake up. She did make suckling motions with her mouth, and for one terrifying moment Sherlock thought she might be hungry, and that she'd wake up any second wanting food, when the only milk currently available for her was in her mummy's breast. What was Sherlock to do if that happened? Mary and John needed their sleep. Was there some way he could position her on Mary without waking them? They tended to not like it when Sherlock undressed them while they slept, but surely this was an emergency situation. But Segovia stopped almost at once and seemed to settle down into sleep, so that crisis was averted before it started.
Then Sherlock didn't know what to do. The baby was sleeping. John and Mary were sleeping. Normally, Sherlock would just wake them up, but he knew that John, at least, tended to be grumpy when he did that, and they did look awfully tired. Sherlock might not be the most considerate of people, but he did care about his friends' wellbeing.
What could he do that was quiet that wouldn't make his brain leak out of his ears? What did he used to do when he had to be quiet?
"Let's play a game," Mycroft's voice said inside his head. "It's called the quiet game. How long can you be as quiet as a mouse?"
This, as Sherlock recalled, turned out to be a very unfair game, because Mycroft refused to acknowledge that Sherlock was being as quiet as a mouse. He said that was an idiom and it meant make no noise at all, not actually make as much noise as one mouse. Sherlock said it was a simile because it used 'as', and that people are stupid if they think mice make no noise at all. In the end, it changed to 'as quiet as a garden snake'. Sherlock went to find one, to see how quiet it was, even though it was raining which was why they were playing quiet inside games in the first place, and Mycroft shouted at him, as quiet as a barking dog, so Sherlock won the game.
He was too old for quiet games now, of course, and he couldn't go on a snake hunt because Mary and John were asleep so that left him to watch Segovia, even if she was just sleeping.
Sleeping Segovia, sleeping Mary, sleeping John. He was used to being awake when everyone else was sleeping, but usually they weren't in the same room as him. He had a sudden urge to make a lot of noise, to scream and shout and throw his chemistry set across the room in a great cacophony of sound, to wail with his violin and jump on the settee and overturn tables and chairs. Somehow, even in this desire for chaos and noise, it never extended to overturning the cot.
Sherlock didn't do any of the noisy, destructive things his ears itched for. Instead he gave into his curiosity and looked through all the bags and supplies the Watsons had dragged in along with their new baby for a visit. There were extra nappies of course, and cloths, wipes, and then a small bear that Sherlock took aside to study in particular detail. He first noted with approval that the eyes were part of the bear, not plastic bits or buttons that could become choking hazards. Next he made a small incision along a seam and extracted some of the bear's insides, along with a loose thread for closer analysis. The incision was sewn closed again using surgical thread. Nothing Sherlock discovered about the toy suggested anything unsafe.
There were also extra clothes in the bag; two dresses, some tights, two onsies, one with a hood and one without, and no less than four pairs of socks, one pair pretending to be shoes too. He was particularly curious to unearth the dummies near the top. His research had suggested those were to be avoided. Surely John and Mary knew about this? So why were there three of them at the top of the bag? Then there was disinfectant, the kind meant to be safe around babies. He studied the ingredients and deemed it allowable. Then there was moisturizer, sun block, a red and green plastic thing that turned out to be a sort of rattle, a bag with a zip that he couldn't fathom the use of, and finally, an extra sock that didn't seem to have its mate stuck down in the bottom.
Sherlock looked down at sleeping Segovia Johana Watson. Then he went to analyze the plastic of her rattle. The entire flat felt peaceful and calm, John snoring, the soft hiss of the Bunsen burner, the soft humming sound Mary occasionally made in her sleep.
Then, just as suddenly as Segovia had fallen asleep, she seemed to wake up all at once, and was angry about it. At any rate, she let out a sudden piercing shriek. Sherlock may have jumped slightly at the sudden interruption of the quiet. He may have nudged the rattle over slightly towards the flame.
All he is certain of is that he heard the baby start to cry, saw her parents shift in a floppy, not quite awake sort of way, and he ran to try and settle Segovia before she could properly wake her parents, all the while thinking on all the things that might be wrong with her, from being hungry, to having a wet nappy, to wanting attention, to having somehow gotten one of the horrible diseases his research had offered as normal childhood illnesses.
He picked her up. She made noises at him, her face squished, threatening to start wailing at any moment. She didn't have any sort of rash that usually accompanied the horrible diseases. She felt a bit warm, but that might be from being wrapped up in a blanket. She didn't settle when he picked her up, not even when he talked to her.
"Dirty nappy it must be," he deduced. "Don't worry Segovia, I've researched how to do this. What you do is, you lie the baby on the changing pad and strap it in, so it can't roll off, and you pull of the dirty nappy, and you wipe off the dirty bits on the baby's skin, and then you put on a new nappy. Quite simple, and nothing to fuss about."
Segovia disagreed. She didn't like him untangling her from the blanket. She didn't like him strapping her to the pad.
"I bought the changing pad just for you," Sherlock told her while he went to fetch a fresh nappy from the bag and the wipes. Somehow, despite all the fussy and unhappy noises, John and Mary hadn't quite woken up, though they were both twitching a bit.
The nappy came off easily. It was wet, just as he suspected. Nothing about the urine suggested any horrible disease. At the very least she had functioning kidneys. The wiping bit was easy too. Segovia didn't like any of it. There was an awkward moment when he realized he hadn't planned on what to do with the dirty nappy or used wipe afterwards, but he settled on setting them aside for later. Getting the new nappy on only took him a bit longer than getting it off, mostly from figuring out which was the front and which was the back. Segovia wiggled a lot, but she was still too young to make the task impossibly difficult.
"There you go," he told her, leaning over her and hoping the crying would stop now that she was clean. To his surprise, it did. She quietly looking into his face, unhappy noises settling into soft sounds. The Watsons, somehow, slept on. Sherlock felt a buoyant sensation fill his chest, rather like when he solved a particularly hard mystery, even though he hadn't done anything difficult. The feeling of success.
Then baby Watson reached out a hand and poked Sherlock in the eye. Sherlock stumbled backwards, stepped on the nappy on the floor, slid, and the next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground, his head was ringing, and a horrible noise was buzzing through his ears while the noisome stench of urine, dust, and burnt plastic filled his nostrils.
This had a bit to do with the way his head had cracked against the mantelpiece on the way down and a great deal to do with the fact that the kitchen was now filled with smoke. Somehow, time must have jumped a bit, because Mary was in the kitchen with the fire extinguisher and John was leaning over Sherlock, asking him annoying questions while holding up fingers and shining his penlight in his eyes.
"I was right," Sherlock lamented. "Segovia does hate me."
"Who?" John asked, a bit distractedly while his hands ran over the back of Sherlock's head. He found the place where it had hit and Sherlock hissed and jerked his head away.
"Segovia Johanna Watson," Sherlock explained.
"Yeah…no. We're not calling her that," John said, still trying to make Sherlock turn his head to give him a better look while Sherlock continued to try and escape.
"I don't know," Mary said, somehow now on the other side of them, unstrapping the baby and cooing at her. "Johanna sounds sweet. Is there a reason you decided to melt her rattle on the Bunsen burner?"
"Segovia," Sherlock insisted, ignoring the bit about burning the rattle. "Segovia Johanna. Its small and sweet and has a poisonous bulb."
In the end, John decided that Sherlock didn't need a hospital, but he did need watching. Sherlock decided that John and Mary still needed more sleep, but he didn't want them to do it just then because he was done with being super quiet. Segovia decided that she wanted supper and Mary took her away.
"Segovia hates me," Sherlock said again, when he and John were alone, sitting on the settee. The flat was still in shambles; even with the windows open it still smelt of burnt plastic and no one had gotten around to picking up the used nappy or sanitizing the changing table, and quite a bit of what had been in the baby bag was now strewn about the room.
"She doesn't," John insisted. "She's a Watson. She went to sleep in your arms."
"She tried to kill me, John," Sherlock pointed out. John looked at him with a look that suggested he wanted to examine his head for a second time, but thankfully he decided not to and just shook his head and settled back on the settee.
"Well, she is a Watson," John answered. "That doesn't mean she hates you." Then, a moment later, "And her name isn't Segovia."
When Mary finally came back, arms full of contented baby, both men were slumped into each other, this time with Sherlock's head over John's. The flat was quiet. Mary smiled at her two boys, then took a careful, one handed photo on her phone.
"Come on, Johanna," she whispered to the baby, "Let's go put this on John's blog." The baby makes a cooing noise. Then Mummy and baby went downstairs to visit Mrs. Hudson while John and Sherlock slept.