Molly Hooper was enjoying her weekend off, rolling around on the floor with the eight month old daughter of her good friends, John and Mary Watson. A casual observer would be hard-pressed to decide who was giggling more, when the two were interrupted by a tone indicating an incoming text on Molly's mobile.
WHY ARE YOU BABYSITTING MY GODCHILD? - SH
BECAUSE AS BRILLIANT AS YOU THINK SHE IS, SHERLOCK, SHE STILL CAN'T MAKE HER OWN LUNCH - MH
WHY WASN'T I ASKED TO BABYSIT? - SH
BECAUSE AS BRILLIANT AS YOU ARE, YOU STILL CAN'T MAKE YOUR OWN LUNCH! - MH
I'M ON MY WAY - SH
TO SUPERVISE AS USUAL?- MH
MERELY TO OBSERVE. I'LL DECIDE WHETHER YOU NEED SUPERVISION WHEN I GET THERE - SH
Molly just rolled her eyes and put down the mobile, only to receive a further text.
BY THE WAY, WHAT'S FOR LUNCH? - SH
It was only a short time later when Sherlock Holmes, world's only consulting detective and doting godfather, came walking through the door of Molly's flat. Without knocking, as per usual. Even though it was a Saturday, Molly was still surprised by his casual attire. Instead of his customary fitted dark suit and oxford shirt, the detective wore jeans, a tee shirt, and trainers.
"Don't look so stunned, Molly. I do actually own casual attire."
"I always thought your idea of casual was a lighter shade of black for your suit. Dark gray, perhaps? And do you even know what kind of a tee shirt you're wearing?"
"Of course, a white shirt with rather interesting interlocking circular designs. I liked it."
Molly started to explain about the Doctor and Gallifreyan glyphs when she was interrupted by a petulant Sherlock.
"Doctor who, for god's sake?"
"Exactly!" Molly said, leaving him with a puzzled look on his face. Sherlock them plopped himself down on her couch, indicating the conversation was over.
Molly was now sitting on the floor, helping Claire build castles with her alphabet blocks. As soon as a pile reached three or four blocks in height, Claire would laugh uproariously and topple them. She never seemed to get bored, and Molly would smile, giggle, and start to rebuild. Sherlock made an observation.
"Perhaps you should be spelling out simple words, since they are alphabet blocks, after all."
"Lighten up, git, she's only an infant!" Molly was smiling even as she insulted him.
He sometimes missed the old Molly Hooper, the one who stammered when she spoke to him, the one who he made nervous and clumsy with his presence. But, in general, he preferred Molly 2.0, although he still liked to rattle her occasionally. He liked the self-conscious reaction he got when he sometime kissed her on her cheek when they parted company. Or the nervous flinch when he "accidentally" brushed against her in the lab. Sherlock like to reassure himself that she still had some feelings for him, even if it was taking him forever to admit his feelings for her. But as he watched her play with his goddaughter, he felt himself compelled to comment.
"You're really good with children. Perhaps you should consider having one of your own."
Molly looked up at him with a "please let's not go there!" look in her eye, but he continued.
"Is that why you got engaged to Tim?"
"His name was Tom, as you well know! And I suppose it was."
"Didn't Tim/Tom want children?"
"Yes, he did. It just turned out that I didn't want Tim/Tom!"
"Of course not! He was an idiot. Your children would have been morons, even given your advanced intellect." Molly looked doubtful about this backhanded compliment, but Sherlock continued, "You're not getting any younger. Perhaps you should give it some further thought."
"I have given it some thought. This is the twenty-first century, I don't need a man to have a child…"
"I am not sure that that is biologically accurate, Molly." Sherlock pointed out calmly.
"You know what I mean, you prat! I could adopt. There's always artificial insemination. I could have a one night stand with a genetically appropriate stranger!" At this, Sherlock winced. "I have a reasonably successful career. St. Bart's provides day-care. Eventually I would have to get a bigger flat, but everything is certainly within the realm of possibility!"
Sherlock was sitting on the couch, carefully taking in all this new information to be added to Molly's room in his mind palace. The room had become inordinately large, as he could not bring himself to remove a single item concerning his pathologist. He was interrupted when Molly gently placed Claire onto his lap, saying "Take care of her, will you. I've got to make us lunch."
As she was working in her small kitchen, warming up baby food for the child and some soup and a sandwich for the larger child, she couldn't help but steal glances into the sitting room. Sherlock was holding the little girl carefully on his lap, smiling benignly as she playfully yanked at his curly hair. Every once in a while Molly would catch him planting a kiss on her tiny head, then tickle her into gales of laughter, laughing along with her as he did. This was a new side to the consulting detective, one that she always guessed was there, but was nevertheless surprised to see.
"Lunch is ready. Bring her out to the table, Sherlock."
She placed a sandwich and a bowl of soup in front of him, and reached to relieve him of baby Claire. "That's quite alright, Molly. I'll feed her. Don't let your lunch get cold," Sherlock said, and took the small bowl of vibrantly green baby food from the mildly started woman. "What is this disgusting concoction?" he added, sniffing at the bowl.
"Peas. Strained peas. Super mushy peas, Sherlock. What does it look like? Be sure to use her bib," she added, "that stuff will really stain her pretty dress."
He took the bib, and gently snapped it around Claire's neck, proceeding to feed the child as he bounced her on his knee. Molly looked at him and smiled, then went back to eating her lunch. It hadn't taken long for the hungry child to finish her meal, and Uncle Sherlock was now holding her above his chest and bouncing her in the air while making gurgling noises. The first sign of imminent disaster was when Claire started to make gurgling sounds of her own, but from lower down in her digestive system.
"Sherlock…"
Semi-digested, smooshed, pureed, and super mushy peas rained down all over her godfather's white shirt. To his credit, he took this all rather calmly, as he said, while wiping a bit of green detritus from his perfect cheekbone, "Perhaps all the bouncing was a bad idea."
"No shit, Sherlock!" Molly snickered as she took the baby from him, and cuddled her to her chest to calm her.
A short time later, Claire, having been sated with a bottle, was calmly napping on Molly's bed. Molly returned to the kitchen to find a shirtless Sherlock trying to salvage his tee shirt. Taking it from him. "Let me put that in the washing machine. If there's any hope of saving it, it will require a pre-soak and some strong detergent!"
"I liked that shirt!" Sherlock sulked as he turned it over to Molly. Then he took his forgotten sandwich into the sitting room, and turned on the telly to make fun of some program or another. He needed something to cheer him up. Molly joined him on the couch a short time later, and they were both sitting there when the Watsons knocked at the door. "Come in," they shouted in unison, since neither wanted to be further distracted just as the show host was about to announce the paternity of the triplets in question.
"Well, what have we here?" John practically smirked as he took in a shirtless Sherlock and his pathologist sitting side by side.
Mary winked and said, "I hope you haven't exposed my daughter to any corrupting influences!"
Molly blushed and quickly got up, but Sherlock, never taking his eyes from the screen, replied, "No more corrupting than she's exposed to in her own home, I'm sure."
"Claire's napping, Mary. Come on, most of her stuff is in here." Molly then led Mary into her bedroom.
"Really, Molly, all this time and you finally got him out of his clothes!"
"Only his shirt, so it doesn't really count!"
"Let me guess, the strained peas. She hates them. Throws up every time. I should have warned you, but it looks like it turned out for the best!" Mary nodded toward the semi-naked man on the couch. Then she looked down at the juice cup full of grape juice. Dark purple grape juice. Guaranteed to turn anything a dark shade of disaster. She then packed everything else into the knapsack, picked up her sleeping daughter, and headed back to the sitting room. John rose as Molly and Mary entered the room. Mary handed the knapsack to her husband, and bent over the still sitting Sherlock, telling him, "Kiss your goddaughter good-bye, Uncle Sherly". Sherlock turned with a grimace, and just as he did his jeans were drenched with a cascade of purple fluid from a mysteriously loosely-capped juice cup.
"Oh, my god, I am so sorry! Oh, but we have to leave. Sherlock, I'm sure Molly can sort this out. Once again, so sorry!" And with that, Mary practically pushed her bemused husband out the door.
Molly looked a the dark purple stain covering practically all of the front of Sherlock's light denim jeans, while he stood there looking a combination of helpless and perturbed. "I guess they'll have to go in the wash, too." Sherlock made a move toward his zipper. "Wait a minute! I don't have anything that will fit you." Molly sighed, "Look, don't take this the wrong way, but you'll have to get undressed and get into my bed and cover up. Turn on the small telly, you can finish watching about the triplets in there."
Sherlock obediently went into her bedroom, handed her his pants through the door, and settled into her bed to continue watching the saga of the terrible triplets and their more than dubious paternity. Molly peeked in a moment later, and he motioned her to join him, albeit on top of the covers. A short time later it became apparent that the triplets were, in fact, a set of twins, and a ringer toddler, added to the mix to confuse the issue. Crap telly at its best.
Sherlock turned off the telly, and, much to Molly's chagrin, decided to return to an earlier topic of conversation.
"So, you want to have a child?"
A shrug from Molly.
"And you have considered artificial insemination?"
Another shrug.
"That can get rather expensive, can't it?"
"I have some money saved."
This was not the answer that Sherlock was hoping for. He was hoping for something more along the line of, "Yes, it is rather expensive. Care to save me some money?"
This was not going the way he wanted, so, forgetting that he had no social skills whatsoever, and that finesse was not his strong suit, he flipped over, grabbed Molly around the waist and proceeded to kiss her passionately. When he finally came up for air, Molly said, in a tone somewhere between angry and amazed, "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, Sherlock?!"
"I thought I was seducing you, but if you can't tell, I suppose I'm doing it incorrectly!" He then tried to improve on his technique by tracing kisses up and down her neck and moving one hand down to her hip while the other one played with her long brown hair.
"No, not at all. Now that I'm clear on the matter, you're succeeding quite admirably!" Then Molly grabbed his curly hair in both hands and pulled him in for another long kiss. "Quite admirably, indeed," she murmurred.
It was beginning to get dark when Sherlock heard the tone informing him of an incoming text.
MARY WANTS TO KNOW IF YOUR CLOTHES HAVE DRIED YET - JW
DON'T BOTHER ME AGAIN TONIGHT, JOHN. MOLLY AND I ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF AN IMPORTANT DISCUSSION - SH
WHAT ARE YOU DISCUSSING? - JW
BABY NAMES - SH
I HOPE JOHN IS NEAR THE TOP OF YOUR LIST! - JW
IT WON'T BE IF YOU DON'T LET US GET BACK TO OUR...NEGOTIATIONS - SH
"What's going on?" Mary asked her husband, having heard his snicker as he read the text messages. John handed her the phone. "Figure it out for yourself!", he said, whistling as he left the room.