No characters belong to me. Etc etc.
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The Delicate Adventure
"Bloody hell Sherlock, will you stop pacing a hole in the floor and sit down. This is doing none of us any good."
I watch him stalk the grey rubbery tiles, peer into windows he shouldn't, and generally disrupt the flow of traffic in the waiting area. He is incapable of standing still; his dark coat swirling behind him with every dramatic movement he makes.
We had occupied this room for three hours so far with no news. The last few hours of this were always going to be the most difficult and I had never been so scared about what I had introduced into our lives as I was in that second.
I had watched the grey cloud of agitation descend upon his features immediately after we had received the phone call at Baker Street instructing us to be ready and make our way down to the unit. I had put the phone down and we had stared at one another for a minute or so in recognition of what was about to be.
The last week had been full of unknowing and uncertainty and we couldn't safely count on there not being a last-minute change of heart by the woman we had met four times only. Secretly I couldn't entirely rule out one from Sherlock either. We had been dependant on each other in this way for nine years now (not including the three he was dead!) Although I trusted him with my life and indeed my heart, (which was why he had been so willing to follow me into this; my last dream) I know that through no fault of his own that I couldn't trust him with my hope. He is unpredictable to the extreme. It is what I love about him and what makes him dangerous. Lestrade calls it his 'selective autism'.
Once the call had come, Sherlock had appeared engrossed in his thoughts and I could see he had begun recalculating the risks. Now that this final stage was upon us, hope was the most fragile thing in the world. So I had slid a strong hand across the table to him where it was readily received, held tightly and studied; his long fingers tracing the ring upon my finger. I myself had just needed to make the connection, to feel the tangibility of this moment that was going to change everything.
"Take a last look around Sherlock" I whispered with a tentative smile. "This place is about to change in the most amazing way."
Sherlock was still watching our combined hands upon the table and didn't acknowledge my statement immediately. In the few tense seconds that followed, I decided for perhaps only the third time in my life that I couldn't read him.
"Do it already John. I know you need to. It's okay, ask me again. It will remove that expression from your beautiful face, I promise you."
I swallow hard and gripped Sherlock's hand harder than I ever had before.
"Do you still….? Are you sure…..? Because Sherlock, this is it. Once we're in this I will never be letting go. Do you understand?"
The calmest smile I have ever observed makes his lips. "I do John. There will be no letting go for me either. There never was."
I let out a large breath of relief and feel sick at the same time for not giving him the credit of understanding me to the fullest. "I'm sorry Sherlock. Good. Fuck. Okay, very good because we are doing this. Today."
"I know John. Shall we go and collect our son?" says the calm voice from across the table.
And now it was the waiting. The quiet voice of all those hours ago a distant memory and the eye of the storm that replaces it waits alongside me instead. This particular brand of energy is usually reserved for the intensity of a 'good murder' and so I sit on an uncomfortable chair watching said storm.
"How can you be so calm John? There is so much to assess, so many variables to map. What if…"
"Sherlock, I am just hiding it better. You're scaring people." I stretch a hand out that brushes his as he flurries past in a whirl of coat and scarf. He squeezes it for a second then lets it drop, returning to his stalking.
"Why is it taking so long?" he shouts, startling a nurse as she walks past. "Go and find out John. Something is incorrect, I know it."
"Keep your voice down. It can take time, you know that."
"Well it is inconsiderate, I must say."
"Sherlock behave!"
In a strange way it had been this attitude that had assured me that we would be okay right at the beginning of all this. It became the greatest case of all to him, larger than the one labelled 'us' and that was all I could wish for.
We had been out for dinner. After I had confessed to him what was left for me to want out of our lives together; actually, scratch that. After he had explained to me with precise clarity what had been distracting me for the last twelve months, he had asked me all the questions under the sun regarding what I wished our lives to be that they were not. There was only one thing. A child.
At first he was hurt and angry, as if I had implied us to be lacking in some way. 'He was happy, was I not?' But my wish was more than likely a fruitless one and I lied and said that the very fact that I had finally discussed it with him, had made me feel better and that it was a silly idea really. Impractical, irresponsible even given our work.
He then asked if I wished to leave him.
I told him he was the stupidest man I'd ever met and put more money on the table than we could afford in order to cover the bill. I then dragged him home and closed the curtains; a terrible guilt creeping in with the cold. I felt selfish for wanting.
He waited until he believed me to be asleep, and then left. I presumed he had needed to walk the streets of London and think. I knew that he had just to process this part of me again; re-map it and allow us to return to normal. Carry on running, jumping, chasing, and breathing.
He returned at breakfast and asked me what I imagined would change. That was easy to answer; everything. He had been to see Mycroft, which in itself had startled me. He placed a folder down upon the table and told me he wanted whatever I wanted. I took his face in my hands and thanked him for what he had done, but made no action toward the folder with the Harley Street emblem on it.
The omniscient brother; was there nothing he couldn't fix?
Weeks went by and I was observed from a quiet distance. I found out that Sherlock had begun to turn cases down, preferring to spend more evenings in with me in front of the TV than usual. I had been recovering from a particularly nasty bought of the flu and he had been content to read in front of the fire whilst I flicked the channels.
"What have you been reading these last few nights? You are positively enthralled Sherlock, " I ask as I run my hand through his hair from the sofa.
"Did you know that recent studies have confirmed that an infant's brain cells in utero grow in response to external sounds, especially when brain maturation is rapid from twenty four weeks onwards? That is important to know John."
I didn't answer. Instead I went to get up from the couch and place my arms about his neck from behind; nuzzling his cheek in thought.
"Do you want tea?" I asked.
"Of course", he said absentmindedly. "Will you be in the flat tomorrow afternoon?"
"Probably. One more day then I'll be fighting fit again I promise. Why?"
"It's not important."
I nipped out around lunchtime the next day to stretch my underused legs. When I returned the flat was covered in brown boxes. "What the…" I picked out a path to the living room and opened one. Old fashioned wooden toys with beautiful old furniture slightly worn around the edges. My phone sounded a text alert.
John. I understand Sherlock has had mummy send all the old things form the Estate. Does this mean I can go ahead and make the appointment? MH
Reply to message: No preferential treatment though. I don't want any queue jumping Mycroft, I'm serious. Thank you. Just thank you. JW
The offices were plush. I knew all the options already, as did Sherlock of course but it was other- worldly to hear them said aloud. 'Had we decided which one of us was to be the father?' This was real then. Sherlock was insistent, but I could only think about how beautiful any child from him would be; those eyes, his height and of course his intellect. I expected this to be his train of thought also. Why pass up the opportunity for a child with his mind.
"No John; You. That is all I will dare hope for in this."
Months later and probably what was a considerable bill that Sherlock told me he had handled, we met a woman who had selected us. She was a mother and a wife and more amazingly, an ex-Doctor. She was wonderful and kind and had given her brother and his partner a child three years ago and couldn't get over the feeling of making a family and wrapping it up for someone else to open. I talked to her about everything and anything. My mind was racing.
Sherlock was quiet in his observation of me whilst I happily chatted with her. He sat slightly behind me and flicked through the file he had bought with him; despite me telling him to leave it at the flat.
"Sherlock is it?" She had said in a sweet voice. "John says you are a Consultant Detective. How fascinating."
"It's Holmes, and you would have read that in my file before we came here."
Slipping away
"Yes, I did. How clever of you." She looks kind but uneasy and glanced at me. "He tells me you play quite exquisite violin."
Her attempt to bring him into this was commendable. He was out of his depth; lost in what he was needed for and glanced at the door.
"I play cello. Did you know Mr Holmes, that you can teach a child perfect pitch right from the womb by applying 'sound technique'. You can….."
"Increase right brain, left brain connections that allow musical aptitude and therefore allow him to compose and play music perfectly from memory," he says.
"Him?" she said with quiet interest.
"Yes, I always just thought… never mind."
Yes. She was wonderful.
After that, the journals and books took over the flat. Clearly this was how Sherlock was to prepare. It was to become his new case. I could only hope that it wasn't an experiment also.
A door opens and a nurse in scrubs approaches Sherlock with a smile. "Mary would like it if you both came in now. She has someone she would like you to meet."
I freeze and my breath becomes ragged as I try and blink the stars from my eyes. I really should have used this time to get some sugar in my system instead of just panicking and forgetting to drink the copious amounts of tea Sherlock had bought.
He just says one thing over and over when he holds him for the first time; "fascinating."
Two days later, we shut the door to Baker Street and listen to the sounds that now exist within it. He watches Sherlock like he is the brightest light he has ever seen. I cannot wait to tell him that he is exactly that. I don't believe I have never seen a child so utterly captivated by another and where some children would be startled by his harsh movements and sharp voice; our son only watches in amazement.
Sherlock is fierce in his approach to parenting; charting and recording every stage that can be. He once banned Lestrade from the flat for sneezing in fear of 'contagion' and had Mrs Hudson throw out the entire contents of the kitchen because he thought the child may have an allergy. The strangest thing was, despite its impossibility, our son had had his hair. I vaguely remember photos of my Grandfather with thick black curls before the greyness took over, but I preferred to believe that somehow, it was because of Sherlock.