Hi, beautiful readers! Reflecting back on this fic, I realize I wanted it to be over so much that I think I sacrificed my sanity at some point, and while cohesive, this piece is just...wonky. My sister aptly described it as "plot-driven, well-meaning crack" and I am inclined to agree. I also wanted to finish this before The Name of the Doctor came out and ruined its canonicity, so keep in mind this was all written before I knew anything from that episode. I still like the idea that Clara is the child of the Doctor and River, and I think Moffat can still make it work...

Anyway, for those of you who read the last two works, good on you! I am proud that I managed to write this much for this universe, and I appreciate those who stayed with me through my well-meaning crack. And I mean crack, guys. The last few chapters are just 50 shades of cray.

Hamish Watson-Holmes knew a thing or two about great men. After all, he was the son of two of them.

His fathers had made sure that Hamish studied his fair share of Shakespeare, and the Bard had a few things to say concerning the achievement of greatness, whether someone was born into it, earned it, or had it thrust upon him.

His father, Sherlock Holmes, was born great. With an IQ off the charts, he was widely considered the cleverest man in all of England, if not on the entire planet. He was astoundingly intelligent and amazingly sharp, traits he was born with and carry with him for the rest of his life.

His dad, John Watson, had greatness thrust upon him. Though he'd lived an unassuming existence before meeting Hamish's father, John had taken the notoriety and accomplishments that came with marrying the world-famous consulting detective in stride, even proving his own worth along the way. Yes, Sherlock was smart, but John was brave and unfailingly loyal, and neither could be great without the other.

There had even been a man that Hamish remembered vaguely from his childhood, a man who he'd heard stories about from Dad, who had undoubtedly achieved greatness. One time, when he was four, he remembered meeting a strange man in a blue box with a funny tie, who had introduced himself as the Doctor. When he'd left, his parents had been sad for several days. Hamish was later informed of all the mighty deeds of this man, which sent him further into a funk as he grew up.

Hamish was surrounded by great men in his life, but he certainly didn't consider himself one of them. He was adopted by John and Sherlock, for one, so he couldn't say that he'd been born into greatness, and at this rate it seemed like he'd never achieve it. He was awkward and tall and ungainly, reaching a ridiculous height above his own father, with messy dark hair that made people often mistake him for Sherlock's biological son. In reality, he'd been the orphaned son of two unfortunate Londoners, but that didn't stop Sherlock from expecting his adopted son to tap into the family genius. He'd been reared in morgues and crime scenes, with periodic tables as his playthings. Thankfully, he'd gotten a knack for chemistry, but he was certainly no genius. Hamish Watson-Holmes was just an ordinary 17-year-old boy who had trouble talking to girls, with a voice that sometimes squeaked and an obsession with video games.

Sherlock and John loved him, of course, and doted on him. And he wasn't unintelligent—he just felt like a disappointment in the world of extraordinary. He'd tried to develop deductive reasoning skills, like Sherlock, but he couldn't pull it off. He'd attempted to develop an interesting in medicine, like John, but it bored him. And now he was about to graduate and go to uni and he hadn't the foggiest idea what to do with his life.

Hamish Watson-Holmes had no idea how to achieve greatness until November 4th, 2031, two days before his eighteenth birthday, when he determined that he would leave his mark on the world not through intellect or power, but through love. He would become one of the great lovers of the world, because on November 4th, 2031, Hamish Watson-Holmes met the most beautiful woman in the entire world and fell head over heels in love with her.

"Afternoon, luv," John called from the kitchen when he heard the familiar footfalls of his son come up the stairs and into the flat. "How was school?"

Hamish flopped onto the couch, throwing his backpack on the floor, and humphed in response. Thankfully, John Watson had become fluent in Teen Angst over the years parenting Hamish.

"So, Nicholson gave you trouble again, did he?"

"He's such an idiot," Hamish sighed. "I don't get it. How did evolution decide that the males with brains the size of a soggy walnut would have dominion over the smart kids?"

"Well, I'm sure your father would say something about brawn versus brain on the evolutionary ladder and then tell you to go read his old neurology textbook," John surmised. He sat down on the couch with Hamish and ruffled his hair affectionately. "Fancy a cuppa?"

"That sounds perfect, Dad." He rubbed circles into his forehead while John stood up to get tea. "Dad, can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Do you and Father talk about me?"

"Every day. That comes with the territory of being someone's kid."

"No, I mean…I mean about me. Not being like you."

John put down his mugs of tea on the coffee table. "Mish, we've had this discussion a million times. You are perfect just the way you are, and we couldn't ask for a better son."

"But Father—"

"—gets frustrated with anyone who isn't on his own intellectual plane. I should know after 21 years," John huffed. "He's not angry that you're not—you know—a mini-Sherlock. You two aren't even related, for goodness' sake, and I thank my lucky stars each day that you're not." He laughed. "Imagine having to live with two of you."

Hamish laughed with him and nodded. "You're right. It's just…gosh, I feel like I can't do anything right."

"You're 17, Mish. No one ever feels like they're doing something right at 17. What you need to know," John said comfortingly, "is that your father and I are both immensely proud of you. Don't let bullies get you down, okay?"

With a slap on the back, John went back to the kitchen to look at his paper. But Hamish wasn't finished. "Why, exactly?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you proud of me?"

John racked his brains. "You're a brilliant chemist, you're one of the smartest kids in your class, and you're a good kid. Deductive reasoning does not a successful person make, all right?"

"Ugh, it's not that." Hamish stretched on the couch and mumbled to himself, "I'm not doing anything important."

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I'm signing up for the army, Dad."

John chuckled—he saw right through Hamish's bluff. The boy was lanky and a bit on the stringy side, in terms of muscle. He could hardly do three push-ups. "Sure. Shall we get you fitted up for a uniform, then? I'm sure the girls would love it…"

"Dad," Hamish groaned, "do NOT mention girls. This is a girl-free zone. You two don't need to be successful with the ladies, so I feel less horrible that I have zero success with them."

"Ha." John busied himself in the kitchen, putting down the paper and looking for an afternoon snack.

"Dad, I'm two days away from being a legal adult—I can get my own snack."

"Oh, this isn't for you—your father has been on the Bishop case since Tuesday and if he doesn't eat a sandwich, I am instituting a shag-ban."

"Dad. Why are you doing this to me?"

With that, a jingle of keys was heard downstairs and the man himself ran up to 221B with a fox-like grin. "It was the maid, of course! She had the letter opener in her pocket! John, you missed it—I was spectacular!"

"What else is new?" John greeted Sherlock with a peck near his rapidly graying temples. "Sandwich. Eat."

"I don't want to eat."

"You're 52 and you're skinnier than Hamish—sorry, dear—so you'd best eat that sandwich now before I make you."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"We won't play Captain and Detective for a month."

Sherlock whined. "Dull. But fine." He shoveled half of the sandwich into his mouth and flopped onto the couch with Hamish. "Your dad is being ridiculous as usual. How was school, Mish?"

"Absolutely groovy—I found mayonnaise in my trainers, courtesy of David Nicholson."

"Oh, you'd hope that the jocks would get more creative with time, but they never do. Sorry about the shoes, though. How did you do on your chemistry test?"

"110 percent—literally. There was a bonus question."

"Excellent. And your history exam?"

Hamish's ears went red. "Er…well, it's a bit of a funny story…"

"You got a C, didn't you?"

"Sherlock, what's rule one?" John called from the kitchen. "No deducing your son. We put that one on the refrigerator."

"No, he's right," Hamish grumbled. "Bloody hell, can't even keep my bad grades from my parents like any normal teenager."

"Ah, but a normal teenager wouldn't be allowed to keep explosive chemicals in his room for fun, now, would he?" Sherlock clapped his hands. "Now, what's on the schedule for the evening? Anything loud? I need to think."

John was about to open his mouth to answer when a faint wind rustled the papers in the living room, accompanied by a wheezy noise that emanated from the empty space by the coffee table. His eyes flickered to Sherlock's.

Hamish, for his part, screamed in a high voice that squeaked and jumped over the couch to hide behind it. "What the bloody hell IS that thing?!"

He screeched again when out of nowhere, a gigantic blue box materialized in the middle of the room and settled down next to the coffee table. Carefully, he moved from behind the couch to investigate the thing.

Abruptly, the door to the box opened and out tumbled the most beautiful girl Hamish Watson-Holmes had ever seen.

She fell ungracefully out and immediately tried to collect herself, brushing herself off and looking at the blue box. "You know, I get better at parking her every day—it's the landing that always gets me. Oh! Hello, Sherlock!" She ran forward and gave Hamish's father a huge hug. "You're getting older, you know. I hope John's taking good care of you."

Sherlock gave her a genuine smile. "Clara Oswin Oswald, it's been 19 years. You look as lovely as you did on our wedding day."

She flipped her dark hair flirtatiously and said, "Well, I try. Actually, it's only been a few months for me—I've been poking about, you know. Time traveling business, messy indeed. John!"

"Hello, Clara, you look well," John said. "Not that you ever bothered to check in on us, but we followed your instructions. Clara, I'd like for you to meet our son, Hamish."

She turned her warm brown eyes to the dumbfounded teenager and stuck out a hand for shaking. "Wonderful to meet you, Hamish. I'm Clara Oswald."

He blinked as she grabbed his hand and shook it firmly. He was pretty sure he was dying. As if to make a point, he coughed weakly.

She raised her eyebrows. "Don't hurt yourself, kid."

"Mish, your father and I know Clara from way back. Remember the stories we used to tell you about the Doctor, after he came to visit? Well, this is his daughter," John explained.

Clara's gorgeous brown eyes lit up. "Mish? I quite like that. That and Junior. Mind if I call you Junior, Junior?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call myself 'Junior'," he said before coughing again and pulling himself to his fully, manly height. "I happen to almost be 18."

"Aw, how cute. I remember 18." She flopped onto the couch Hamish had been hiding behind and crossed her arms. "Well? Aren't you going to offer me some tea? I've been traveling all over the galaxy, and the least you could do is offer me sustenance."

Hamish ran to fetch her a mug and sloppily poured a reasonable amount of tea into it before bringing it back to her and accidentally spilling some on her jean-clad lap. "Oh—I'm so sorry!"

She shrugged it off. "Easy, tiger—tea is tea. Thanks for being snappy about it, though. It's thoroughly appreciated." She flashed him a blinding grin and Hamish was positive that if he didn't kiss her in the next ten minutes, he was going to die a horrible, painful death.

"So, er, traveling all over the galaxy?" he asked. "That sounds brilliant. You're the Doctor's daughter?"

"Yep, that's me. Pretty impressive, hm?"

"Of course it is—where do you go? Is that box your time machine? It's the TARDIS, yeah?"

Clara glanced at his parents. "You've been teaching him well, it seems."

"Well, we aren't exactly teaching him anything," John said. "The Doctor came to visit for the first time in his timeline when Hamish was four, I think. Oh, it was adorable—Mish looked so chubby in his spacesuit, and he stuffed the Doctor's Jammy Dodgers into the helmet."

"Dad!" Hamish shrieked, but Clara was already giggling.

"It's no big deal. Everyone had a chubby spacesuit phase." Clara drank gratefully from her mug. "So, how've you been for the past 19 years? Sick with curiosity, I'll bet."

"You seem to be doing a lot better, since…" John trailed off. "Well, I can see that the TARDIS has been helping you cope. Good on both of you. And how's River?"

Clara nearly dropped her mug. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly with pain, and she put down her mug on the coffee table. "She's dead. Has been for two months now."

Sherlock swallowed. "River?"

Clara waved it off noncommittally. "We all knew it was coming. She figured out what she had to do when the time was right, and she did it beautifully. The Doctor downloaded her into the Library database, and she can live the rest of her life in a virtual wonderland if she wants. She was ever so cross that I didn't tell her how he'd save her," she said, smiling to herself, "because she thought it would be more along the lines of bringing her back to life, not making her a computer file. She told me she wished I'd given her some warning. But she understands, and she's grateful."

"Told you? Hold on, how did she tell you, when she's in a computer?" John asked.

Clara gave him a cheerful grin. "Email."

Hamish was trying desperately to follow the story. "I'm sorry, guys, but I'm completely lost."

Clara ruffled his hair (and Hamish struggled to keep breathing). "That's all right, Junior, I'll talk you through it. In fact, that's sort of why I'm here. I sort of need your dads' help, if you can spare them."

"Help with what?" Sherlock asked in a clipped tone.

"Reviving River, of course. And the mission to save the Doctor." Clara filled Hamish in quickly. "You already know about the Doctor, then—the Time Lord who traveled in the TARDIS all over the universe?"

"Yeah, Dad would tell me stories about him when I was a kid. He even came around once, but I don't really remember it. Have I already been on your time machine?"

"Focus, Junior," she instructed. "Several months ago in my time, the Doctor went to the Fields of Trenzalore and died, and as his daughter, it's my job to use the TARDIS and bring him back from some locked dimension where things that don't exist go, and your parents are the only ones who can help me."

"And how can we help, exactly? We're not really spring chickens," John said. "We're not cut out for running the way we used to be."

"I don't need you for running. River's got it all worked out," Clara said, crossing her legs on the table. Hamish tried very hard to listen to what she was saying so he could be involved with the mission, but he found himself very distracted. "There's a whole hidden volume on Netherspace in the Library, and she's learned a bundle. Netherspace is a dimension only for the theoretical, so bodies can't travel there. However, a TARDIS can get you to the threshold if it's piloted by an expert, which River happens to be. We take the TARDIS into the Untempered Schism—"

"Untempered what?"

"—and from there, I've jerry-rigged a system with some help from Sexy that will put us into a deep sleep that should tap us into the psychic network of Netherspace, if an imprint of us already exists there. We can operate inside of Netherspace, looking for the Doctor, while our bodies wait for us to come back. Like that one movie with the Titanic bloke."

Hamish couldn't stop himself from telling her, "You're absolutely brilliant."

She beamed. "I know. You won't believe the amount of research I had to do to get this plan to work. Being the new Doctor is such hard work with only a human brain—it'll be better when Dad's back. At least, I hope so."

"So, what do you need us for?" John asked again.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock said. "Imprints of us already exist in Netherspace from the abandoned timeline, including Clara. She doesn't want to go in looking for him alone. Of course we'll go."

"Sherlock, you can't just make decisions like that anymore. We have a son to think about."

"I'll come, too!" Hamish volunteered. "I can help!"

Clara looked doubtful. "You don't have an imprint in Netherspace, Junior. You've always existed. I've made sure of it."

"Well, you said your mum—River—would be piloting the TARDIS in the Untempered Thingy, but you also said you'd be in a deep sleep with my dads. Someone should watch over you three, and River will be busy." He crossed his arms and tried to look stubborn. "Problem with me joining you?"

"None at all, Junior. Maybe we can reward you with a lollipop for your troubles." She looked to John. "Come on, Watson, this one's a cinch. Your body won't even be in real danger, and your son will be safe on the TARDIS. One last hurrah to save the Doctor?"

"What if our minds get lost in there?" John asked fearfully. "What if we don't wake up?"

"Well, Hamish'll be there to monitor us, won't you, Mish?" Clara said, putting an arm around Hamish.

"Er. Yeah. Yeah, I will. Come on, Dad!" he said, clasping his hands together. "Please? Please can I go on a relatively safe adventure in a time machine?"

John grumbled. "We'll have to think about it."

"Jooohn," Sherlock grumbled. "Adventure, John! Entirely new dimension of being to explore!"

"At the very least, we should sleep on it," John said with finality. "Can we have the evening to think about it, Clara, dear?"

She huffed. "Fine. Can I stay for supper?"

"You're welcome to, of course. I was about to run to Tesco, actually…"

"Don't bother—I'll go!" She ran into the TARDIS, came back out with a coat and a scarf, and bounded down the stairs. "Be back in a jiff!"

John chuckled to see her go. "You know, after only a few months of being in the TARDIS, she certainly acts like the Doctor."

Hamish, for his part, fell on the floor. "Dads. I think I'm in love."

Both of his fathers began to laugh to themselves while he argued against them. "No, I'm serious! As soon as she appeared in her, as soon as I saw her face—stop laughing! It's not funny!"

"Love at first sight is an illusion brought on by endorphins and adrenaline, Hamish," Sherlock said airily. "Yes, Clara is very pretty, objectively speaking, but you certainly can't be in love with her after five minutes of meeting her."

"Oh, give him a break, Sherlock, he's a teenage boy," John said. "Hamish, luv, Clara's a very nice girl. Certainly an interesting one, but she also leads a very different life than what you're used to. You should probably think about that before you ask her out for chips."

He pressed a pillow to his face and sighed. He wasn't an idiot—he knew how stupid he sounded. But it felt true to him, in some silly, sitcom way. As confused as he'd been when a mysterious blue police box landed on their carpet, when she'd opened the door and toppled out, he hadn't imagined it—his heart really did stop for a moment.

There was something irresistible about her cheeky smile, or the way her eyes sparkled when she went off on a tangent, but it was more than that—Hamish felt the desire to protect her, to make her laugh. To be there when she explored whatever she explored, making sure she didn't get hurt.

The feeling was overwhelming and very, very illogical. The voice of Sherlock he heard in his head when he was about to do something stupid was rambling on an on about how love is really made of chemicals and how no one can tell who their true love is at first glance, but his heart was pounding and he didn't care. He was hopelessly in love with a clever girl with a time machine.