"Tell us the story of how you and mummy met again please" chanted two small voices over and over, apparently this was the chosen bedtime story tonight.
Sherlock sighed, "Okay fine, as long as you promise to go to bed nicely"
"It was a long time ago when I first met your Mum, I had just started working as a consulting detective, and I ended up at the morgue quite a lot, to look at victims bodies and their post mortems. After I had been working there a few weeks or so, maybe a few months. There was a new girl working there, she had recently graduated and this was her first job. She was rather quiet, but beautiful and loved her work.I didn't really notice her, she was there to do her job, as was I. After many years, after I had met John and become something of a celebrity due to his blog, faked my death, with your Mum's help that I even finally accepted her offer to go out for coffee. Between our rather socially awkward conversations, I realised that she mattered so much to me, and she realised the same about me. Then, as much as marriage is something of a concept created by humans and creates some sort of social I don't even know, I knew it would mean everything to your Mum, and that was how much I loved her. Then Vannessa you came along two years later, and William two more after that. Now it is really time for you two to go to bed"
Pairs of tired eyes stared longingly at their father, begging for a few more minutes to be awake. They had the same dislike of sleeping as their father, much to their parents disappointment.
Sherlock found children much easier to understand than adults. He might be able to know everything about them in one or two glances, but beyond linking together motives and reasons for events, he didn't understand them. Sentiment and then games they play, manipulation for example. Children, well they said everything as it was, in many ways Sherlock's perception of the world is similar to a child's, seeing the facts and drawing a conclusion, not worrying if it is the 'right' one in the eyes of society.
Sherlock's way with children was amazing, it had truly amazed Molly. He was gentle towards them, and understood them, and somehow was able to get them to do what he wanted, without going through some fight about it, something Molly often had to deal with when Sherlock was out. Both of them had managed to stay in work, taking the children to Bart's nursery or to John and Mary's or Mrs Hudson's. Sherlock had however spent less time away from London on cases, he still put himself at risk, much to Molly's surprise. She had hoped having children might make him take less risks. Apparently not; it hadn't even entered his mind before she mentioned it.
But Sherlock knew as the children grew up, Vanessa was 4, starting school in a few weeks, and Will was only 2, he was going to find them harder. Harder to relate to, harder to understand. His deductive skills would drive them mad, and him mad in the process. Him being the slightly cold, scared of closeness sort of person he was, meant they wouldn't really know him, no one really did.
His resistance to closeness was something Molly struggled with. Molly had finally managed to get him to open up a bit more, to be more honest with him, yet she still got frustrated with his inability to tell her things. But Molly was more patient than he was, more patient than he was even with himself.