Title: Mother's Love
Disclaimer: Not mine. Lovingly played with and put back in the box.
Rating: PG
Triggers: Possible post-natal depression
Summary: The problem with children is that if you don't like what you end up with, you can't hand them back. The brutally honest diary of Mrs. Holmes.
A/N: Written for thegameison_sh round 2. Theme: Love.
Day 1
"Get this parasite OUT of me!"
Those were the first words my son heard. His mottled head was out, and five grisly minutes later the rest of him slithered into the world. He continued screaming far longer than normal. The midwife seemed relieved to plop the blaring child onto my chest.
He screamed even louder at this. It was as if he wanted everyone to know that the first three minutes of life had been horrific and that he doubted very much the rest of existence would live up to the hype.
He continued throughout the night. At four am I gave up and curled up into a ball with my hands over my ears.
Day 3
I expect you think I was suffering from post-natal depression (not that we knew about that then) - my husband certainly did.
"He seems quiet to me," he shrugged. He was holding the suspiciously placid baby in an awkward fashion.
He'd even pressed the child into Mycroft's pudgy arms, and though the baby squirmed ferociously there wasn't the slightest hint of the devil child that had occupied my days and nights.
"The nurses hate him!" I snapped, with a tinge of desperation. "They say they've never seen anything like it!"
My husband lifted the baby up to eye-level, like a man guessing the weight of a fruit cake, then he handed him back to me.
"You were going to call him Sherlock, weren't you?"
I nodded unsurely. The child looked nothing like the soft, dimpled sweetness I had been imagining for the last nine months; he was scrawny, mean eyed, and red-faced – but 'Sherlock' would have to do.
One minute after his father and brother were out of earshot, Sherlock started screaming again. He was doing it to spite me.
"Yell all you want!" I snapped back, "You're stuck with me, and I don't like it any more than you do."
Year 6
I tried to love Sherlock, I really did. But nothing I did pleased him; he wanted nothing and he appreciated nothing. His favourite word was 'bored' and his favourite sentence was 'I don't care.'
In many ways I doted on him – full of false smiles and touches. I was desperate for some affection, some humanity…anything to prove he would turn out normal.
But he made a mockery of that desire. He followed me around like a lamb. He sat at my feet and read to me. Overnight he went from being my enemy to being my best friend.
"Mummy's boy," Mycroft would mutter.
I wasn't fooled. Sherlock liked me because unlike his father and brother I had never fallen for his act.
Year 12
I began to be frightened of him.
He'd grown over the summer. One day I woke up and he was taller than me. He was learning to box, fence, and shoot. We'd brought a psychopath into the world and now we were teaching him to kill.
"It's perfectly healthy," yawned my husband, "I was just the same.
Sherlock will grow out of it as soon as girls come onto the scene."
But girls never played a part in Sherlock's life. It was just another tiny piece of proof that I was right.
Year 18
I dreaded him going to university. At home I could keep control of his gruesome 'experiments'. At school he had less freedom than in a high-security prison. But University amounted to us letting his emotionless world-view and terrifying intellect loose on an unsuspecting population.
I cried with worry as he headed out to the car, granite-faced as always. He stopped, turned back, and leaned down to give me an awkward, cynical embrace.
Every night afterwards I dreaded waking up in the morning to find that I was now the mother of a mass-murderer.
Year 29
There was another parasite inside my womb now, one more commonly known as cancer. I liked to imagine it was one last piece of spite from Sherlock – he had been the womb's last occupant.
It had almost finished its work.
Mycroft was my only visitor. I lifted a wavering hand to swipe the tears from his face.
"Shall I get Sherlock?" he whispered.
I shook my head. "No. Not him. Not him."
Mycroft frowned. "Mummy… he's upset. I know he doesn't show it well, but he loves you. He wants to say goodbye…"
"No!" I rasped.
I squeezed my precious, loving son's hand. "Mycroft?"
"Yes?"
"Promise me…promise…that you'll keep an eye on him?"
Hope you enjoyed it :)