Ding!

Sherlock Holmes looked up from his microscope and fetched his phone. He was currently looking at his son's skin cells, trying to determine whether he had developed a skin disease after accidentally splashing himself with the chemicals in the laboratory, much to Sherlock's horror. Irene had been breathing on his neck ever since then.

He read the text from Hamish. Irene had tried to reason with Sherlock about buying their five-year-old a Blackberry, stating that Hamish didn't need one and would most definitely not be allowed to take it to pre-school with him. So Sherlock had had no choice but to buy the boy an iPhone instead.

Daddy I found a whip under your bed. Can I use it for my horsie? -HH

"Bugger" Sherlock muttered as he immediately called Hamish's phone. Irene was going to get an ear-full for not remembering to hide it in their secret stash.

"Hello?" Hamish answered.

"Hamish, you put that back right now. And didn't I tell you to stop snooping around our room?"

"But Daaaaaddy!" The little boy whined.

"Hamish..." Sherlock warned.

"My horsie needs a whip so it can move faster, just like the horse racers do on the telly," he reasoned.

His father found his line of thinking cute and would have given a chuckle, but the fact that his son was holding the whip that he and Irene used in the bedroom was somewhat disturbing.

"Put Mummy on the phone, Hamish. I need to speak with her."

"Mummy's not here. Why do you have a whip, Daddy?"

Great. He had always known that his son might at some point find out about his parents' odd erotic tastes, but he had never expected it to be this soon.

"Mummy and I both use a variety of odd tools in our line of work. And what do you mean your mother's not there? Who's with you?"

"Can I borrow the eyeballs in the fridge?"

"No. Who's with you, Hamish?" Sherlock repeated.

"I'm all alone, Daddy. I'm taking good care of myself, like a big boy!" he announced proudly.

"What?" Sherlock immediately collected his coat and hurried to get back home.

"Where's Mummy?" he asked, as he ran down the street.

"She left before you did. I was still 'sleep."

Bugger! He had completely forgotten.

"And aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"You forgotted to take me to school."

Well I thought that your mother was with you.

"I'll be there in five minutes. You should be ready to go by then. And it's forgot."

"I don't wanna go to school," Hamish pouted "The other children are dull and the teachers get angry when I get clever. Mummy said they can't accept that I'm cleverer than them."

Sherlock smiled. For a five-year-old, Hamish already had a wide vocabulary and was already reading far more advanced books than children twice his age. His talent for deduction and his fondness for outwitting others had obviously been passed on to him by his parents.

"You need to go to school, Hamish. I'll just take you in late. I'm hanging up now. Remember, do not open the door for any stranger, okay?"

"I don't wanna!"

A full-blown tantrum was the last thing Sherlock needed now. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to hail a cab and soothe his son over the phone.

"Shh, Hamish," Sherlock cooed. He could hear his son sobbing at some distance from the phone, the call forgotten.

"I'm *hiccup* telling *hiccup* Uncle John!" He could hear his son wailing from a distance and assumed him to be in the living room, while the phone lay somewhere in the dining room.

He sighed, hung up, got into the cab, and made his way back home to Baker Street.

After Sherlock had married Irene, John had moved into Mary's while Irene had moved in with Sherlock. They had transformed John's old bedroom into a nursery a year later, when they found out about their newest addition to the family. Mrs. Hudson had knitted blue socks almost as soon as they found out that it was a boy. John was, of course, smitten with the little nipper, who possessed his mother's personality and his father's looks. Mycroft, although still not too willing to accept Irene Adler into the family, was wrapped around little Hamish's fingers. The child's every whim was met by everyone. Irene had even caught DI Lestrade giving Hamish piggy back rides inside the morgue when the latter was getting bored.

Sherlock was just about to relax when his phone rang, not two minutes later.

"Where are you?" He didn't need to look at the caller I.D. to know who was ringing.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" his wife's annoyed voice said. "I just got back from work and I find my son crying his eyes out and holding our whip. Care to explain why he isn't at school and why he is alone?"

"Lestrade called you instead of me?"

"Answer my question first, dear." He decided not to trifle with her when she was using that tone.

"I thought you were with him, so I took some skin samples from him and headed to the lab to check if he's got an infection"

"Mummy!" He heard Hamish cry out to his mother.

He sighed. Such a mummy's boy.

He leaned back against the head rest and closed his eyes. He hung up once he heard his wife tending to their son.

~o~

"Hamish, I'm home. I'm taking you to school!" Sherlock called from the bottom of the stairs.

He heard the pitter-patter of small footsteps and his son's voice saying, "You have to find me first, Daddy!"

He was sure Hamish was hiding inside the toy box filled with his decapitated action figures.

"Irene, reason with your son" Sherlock said as he climbed up the stairs.

"He's got that stubborn streak from me, I'm afraid," she said as she greeted him with a kiss.

"Hamish, I don't care how dull the students and teachers are. You are still going to go to school today," Sherlock called.

"Since you're already here..." Irene said as she adjusted his collar, her voice turned from sweet to threatening, "Why on earth was he alone when I got back?"

"It slipped my mind that you had an appointment, and I was getting worried that he might develop a rash after that...incident. But you didn't tell me you had an appointment with Lestrade, would you care to explain?"

"Hmmm," she said pulling him closer. "He said, and I quote, 'We need you here. We're already running out of time and you can obviously do a faster job than your husband so we need your help'."

"He said that? Well let's see if I'll help him with the next case he can't crack." Sherlock suddenly remembered his son. "Hamish, get out of the toy box, get your phone from the dining table, and let's go."

"Lighten up and let him miss just one class. He's still in the first year, he won't get left behind. He's already smarter than the other kids in his class," Irene defended her son, "And remind me why we got him a phone again?"

"Because he's an intelligent young man, fully capable of handling a mobile."

"And why did you give him an iPhone? Children his age should not be given such expensive things."

"Because we can afford one. Can we please go to school now?"

"I'm telling Uncle John and Uncle Mycroft!" Hamish threatened.

"Blackmailing is in his blood," Irene commented with a smile.

"Your mother will confiscate your phone if you don't go to school!" Sherlock threatened in return.

Irene smacked his arm, "I didn't say that. Dear, he's still in the infants. While other kids are playing in the sandbox he's fiddling with his phone looking at pictures of microorganisms. He doesn't even have friends."

"He doesn't need other kids. It's much more beneficial for him to understand technology than to make friends with a bunch of boring five-year-olds. And he does have friends."

"Really?" Irene crossed her arms. "Who?"

"You, me, Mycroft, John, Mary, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. He has more friends than me."

"We're his parents, we don't count."

"Even if we don't count, he still has a variety of friends. My only friends are John and Mrs. Hudson and look how I turned out. He's going to be fine."

"His friends are all adults, his playgrounds are laboratories, crime scenes, and morgues. I just want him to have friends his age for once in his life." She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"He will make friends his age when you let us go to school," Sherlock reasoned.

Their son suddenly appeared out of nowhere, ran towards his mum and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Don't let Daddy take me to school, Mummy," he begged, looking up at her with those green orbs he had inherited from his father.

Sherlock had had enough: "I'm not taking you to school anymore. But your mother wants you to make friends, so we're going to the playground later. And no, you are not allowed to bring your phone with you."

"I can be friends with Uncle John's dog." The little boy proposed.

"You can be friends with the dog, but your mother won't stop pestering me until you're friends with a human being as well."

Irene picked Hamish up and wiped the chocolate stain off his lower lip. "Just do it for Mummy, sweetie."

"I don't wanna be friends with Anderson." The boy's lip trembled.

"Well Anderson's not human, so you don't have to worry about being friends with him," Sherlock said. "Now go and play with the fingers in the fridge."

The boy darted to the kitchen, happy with his victory.

Irene was about to follow her son when her husband pulled her back.

"Hold on Ms. Adler, I haven't asked you why you left our whip out in the open for Hamish to see."

"Well Mr. Holmes, I didn't plan on Hamish being left alone so he could find the whip and call you to ask if he could use it, which would result in you asking to know where I was and going home when you figured out that you had forgotten to take him to school. I also didn't plan on us having a debate about Hamish's unusual variety of friends when I got home, which would lead to you giving up trying to reason with me, taking him to the playground and letting him play with the other kids. Nope, didn't plan that at all." She winked at him and sauntered off to play with her son.

Sherlock smiled and gave a chuckle, "Irene Adler, you are quite a woman."