Summary: A little girl calling them both her daddies is all it takes for John and Sherlock to realize the obvious: they're a family now.
A/N: Spoilers for Sherlock series 4.
Family Matter
The young woman stood up abruptly, shaking the chair she was sitting on in the middle of the messy room. She wiped away a few tears from her cheeks, then put her overcoat on, careful not to drop the photos that Sherlock had handed her. She ran her fingers through her hair and tried to put herself together, still failing to control her breath after crying so hard.
From his armchair, John couldn't help staring at her blonde, mid-length hair, so reminiscent of Mary's. There was something in her attitude, be it her desperate attempts to defend her broken facade or her collected sorrow, that reminded him of his deceased wife. The circumstances of her case might have also contributed to that impression.
She had first come to Baker Street a couple of weeks before, asking Sherlock to investigate on her husband. As many before her, she suspected him of cheating on her – a matter that Sherlock would usually consider trivial and irrelevant, yet this time the anomalies in the man's behaviour had intrigued him enough to accept the case. Two late night stakeout sessions, and a close analysis of the clothes that the man had left to an easily corruptible dry cleaner, had convinced Sherlock that the man was sneaking out of home to meet not his secret lover, but indeed his secret daughter.
The pictures Sherlock had given to the blonde woman were the definitive proof. In the first photo, her husband was holding a sleeping girl, not older than three years of age, outside his car. In the second, he was leaving the child to an old lady – the mother of his runaway former wife, Sherlock had deduced. This revelation was more upsetting and complex than the blonde woman had anticipated. She had just realized she was living with a man she knew nothing about, who had lied about his entire past, who had a secret double life that might compromise all their future together. Life as she knew it was collapsing on her. She was reasonably shocked.
John moved his gaze from the young woman to his daughter Rosie, sitting on Sherlock's lap and playing with her rattle, completely oblivious of what else was happening in the room. He felt guilty for the insanity and neglect she had to suffer in her first months of life, as he always felt when looking at her. But he was determined to make it up to her.
"I'm acting foolishly," the blonde woman sighed with a forced smile. "I shouldn't be upset. Children are a blessing, aren't they?"
"You have the right to be upset," Sherlock replied automatically, as if it were a rehearsed answer. He prevented Rosie from throwing the rattle and raised his eyes to John, detecting his accustomed look of guilt. He caressed Rosie's head and repeated, "You have every right to be upset," as if he was talking to John now, as if he was trying to tell him, 'It was a rough time. Taking your time to sort things out didn't make you a bad parent. You're doing your best. It's okay. I'm here to help.'
The blonde woman's lips trembled. "Still, your daughter is very lucky," she said in a broken tone. "Having two brilliant dads like you is more than most children could wish for. I hope I can have a family of my own like yours one day."
"No, no, we're not... I'm her only father..." John stuttered, glancing at Sherlock.
"Rosie isn't my daughter," Sherlock precised immediately. He's voice was unmoved but, had he only been capable of human emotions, John would have sworn he was blushing. "She just seems to prefer my company to most other grown-ups," Sherlock continued with a light smile, "possibly because I never really grow up myself."
"She's my daughter only. Only mine," John awkwardly attempted to explain, unsure what to say.
"I'm sorry, I just assumed... I didn't mean to..." the blonde woman mumbled reaching for the door, too confused and overwhelmed by her own troubles to compose a proper sentence.
"I had her from a previous marriage," John felt compelled to disclose, only to regret it a moment later.
"Previous?" Sherlock frowned, over-analytical. "Previous suggests that you are currently married. Which you aren't."
John was taken aback by his own words. "I meant—"
"I know," Sherlock interrupted him.
"I better be going," the blonde woman said while stepping out the door, visibly needing to escape the confined space to unleash her emotions and figure out how to continue her life. "Thank you Mr. Holmes. Doctor Watson."
As soon as she was gone, John stood up and went to close the door, but hesitated and decided to leave it open. He walked the room as if trying to shake off embarrassment, then let out a nervous giggle.
"God, people will definitely talk now that we live together with a baby," he laughed forcefully in an attempt to break the ice.
"It really bothers you, doesn't it?" Sherlock stood up too, gently holding Rosie to his chest.
"I just don't like people getting ideas," John shrugged, keeping a light tone.
"And don't you ever get them? Ideas?" Sherlock asked him, firmly.
"How do you mean?" John scowled.
Sherlock moved closer to him, facing him directly. "Don't you ever consider... other possibilities? Even in the privacy of your own head?"
"What?"
"Do you never... wonder?"
Sherlock averted his eyes and moved past John, heading for the hallway.
"Sherlock, wait," John called out for him, perplexed and slightly worried. "What..? What do you mean? Have you been... wondering?"
"Rosie needs changing," Sherlock replied, avoiding the question, before stepping inside his room.
John was left to his own thoughts.
"D... da..." Rosie muttered, giggling to herself.
She was in that phase of infancy when children start to increase their repertoire of sounds, and she had been incredibly loquacious for the past few days. John expected her to utter her first word any moment now, and like any other parent was both thrilled and terrified of what she might say.
"Da... hum... da..."
Yet, Rosie seemed completely unconcerned. She just kept babbling and crawling on the floor between the armchairs, eventually ending up at Sherlock's feet to play with his shoelaces. John expected him to react with his usual irritation, but he didn't flinch. Maybe he was too absorbed in the chemistry book he was studying to even notice.
"Uh... d..."
Anyway, Sherlock and Rosie never failed to get along. John was glancing at them from the other side of the room at regular intervals, hiding behind the laptop he was typing on ferociously to complete the next entry of his blog before the memories of their latest case started to fade. He was happy that his daughter had bonded so deeply with Sherlock, he wasn't jealous of their relationship. Simply, he was genuinely surprised most of the time.
"Da... dada..."
"What did she say?!" John jumped from his chair at the table, knocking his laptop over.
Sherlock had already dropped his book. "I think she's trying to say..."
"D... da..." Rosie burbled, and the two men listen intently. Then she finally said, clear and loud, "Dada."
"Rosie..." John stepped towards the little girl, touched, but she spoke again before he could approach her.
She turned to look directly at Sherlock, raised her chubby finger to point at him, and repeated distinctly, "Dadda."
John and Sherlock froze, startled.
Then, the detective intervened to solve the misunderstanding. "No, Rosie, you got it wrong," he corrected her, pointing at John to guide her attention toward the right person, but not daring to look at him. "Your daddy is over there."
Rosie turned her gaze to John, raised one finger at him, and uttered another, "Dada." John felt relieved, as if he had finally won her daughter's affection. Warmth filled his chest as a soft smile curved his lips.
But Rosie's hand moved back to Sherlock, and she said, "Dada," one more time. This time, it was clear that she hadn't just made a mistake. It was intentional.
Sherlock repressed a jolt of emotion down his throat. He couldn't identify that feeling, and he most certainly couldn't allow himself to feel it. He started to panic and, as he always did when he was panicking, he started fibbing.
"She's probably just confused," he stuttered. "I've read that it can take up to several months before babies start recognizing their parents' faces from a distance, so it's completely normal for her to—"
"She's not wrong, though," John interrupted Sherlock gently. He had just understood something so obvious even a one-year-old toddler was able to see. "I think she got it quite right."
Sherlock looked up at him, meeting his eyes and spotting a tender, sweet look he hadn't expected. "Pardon?"
"You've taken care of Rosie since she was born, although not always in an usual manner," John explained, picking his words carefully. "You've helped me raise her since Mary died. You obviously care for her deeply. So you are her father as much as I am. I think it's right to say, we are both her fathers now."
He remembered blenching when one of their clients had mentioned something similar some time before, but now that Rosie herself had suggested the idea, it suddenly felt so natural to John. So right.
Possibly for the first time in his life, Sherlock was speechless, torn by feelings too complex for his abstinent heart to elaborate at once.
John picked up Rosie, stroke her hair, and slowly laid her on the sofa. "We should probably mention something about Rosie's first word," he then added.
"Hum?"
"In the blog, I mean. People will love to know."
John and Sherlock were sitting opposite each other in the kitchen, sunbeams coming from the adjacent room illuminated their faces.
Sherlock was angrily scrolling his website on his mobile phone, desperately looking from some new case to solve as an addict who looks for his next dose. He couldn't physically bear more than a few days of inactivity.
John was feeding breakfast to Rosie, who would always sit on his lap for hours and toss food everywhere except in her mouth. John couldn't ever bring himself to scold her.
It was an early Sunday morning, and they could afford a lazy day. But their temporary tranquility was suddenly shattered by the most inappropriate of sounds. Irene Adler's personalized text alert ringtone.
The erotic moaning made John wince. "What is the occasion? Is today a special day?" he asked, almost offended.
Sherlock immediately dismissed the notification and kept scrolling on his phone, looking rather indifferent. "Probably Chinese New Year or something. She writes for every holiday," he shrugged.
"Still not texting her back?" John pressured him.
"Nope." Sherlock smacked his lips.
"Why?"
"I think I'm beginning to repeat myself," Sherlock complained raising his gaze, but avoiding John's eyes. "As I have explained to you many times before, romantic entanglement has no appeal to me. Sentiment is just a defect that gets in the way of the pure, cold reason I hold above all things. I abhor emotions."
"No, that's not true. I don't believe you," John retorted with a half-smile. "Not all emotions."
"Do we really need to have this conversation?" Sherlock sighed.
"Yes," John replied firmly, getting serious. He put down the spoon he was holding, giving up on feeding his daughter. "Because we talk all the time, but we don't say anything."
"Are you trying to force me to text the woman?" Sherlock sighed harder.
"No. You don't need a relationship, I got that," John shook his head. "But I've deduced one more thing."
"And that would be...?"
"You don't want to be alone either," John declared with confidence. "All the signs are there, it's quite obvious."
Sherlock stared at him in the eyes, laying down his phone. He had been unmasked, and he'd never felt more vulnerable. But it was a nice kind of vulnerable, almost relieving.
"I'd go as far as to say," John continued in a severe tone, "that I know what you need. You don't need romance. You need family."
Sherlock was helpless, all the walls he had built around himself were tumbling down. He opened his mouth, trying to make some clever remark, but nothing came out. He kept staring at John, dazzled and frightened to death. None of the deductions he had made in his career could match that. John had really deduced his heart.
John gently let Rosie on the floor and stood up, moving his face out of Sherlock's range of vision before suppressing a smile. He knew he had won the battle, but didn't take pleasure in it. He just wanted to be close to the second person he loved and care about most in the world.
So he walked round the table towards Sherlock, hesitated a moment, approached him, and stood next to him, who had remained motionless. Then, he carefully placed a hand on Sherlock's shoulder, fondling his purple shirt imperceptibly.
"Is that what you want from me?" John faintly asked the detective. "Do you want me to be... your family?"
"I don't understand," Sherlock mumbled with an unsteady voice, lying through his teeth.
"Remember that time Mycroft was here, on the client's chair, to tell you what happened to your sister?" John said, shifting the topic.
"How could I forget?" Sherlock nodded.
"He wanted me to leave before disclosing any private matter, since I'm not part of the family," John went on, after taking a deep breath. "But you made me stay. You wanted me to stay particularly because it was family matter."
"Yes," Sherlock let out.
"You know I find it difficult, this sort of stuff," John murmured, looking away from him.
"You and me both," Sherlock agreed, petrified.
John lowered his gaze to the floor and squeezed Sherlock's shoulder vehemently, as if gathering strength. "Look, you are the only family I have left – you and Rosie. So it's fine."
"Yes."
"It's all fine."
"Yes."
"So...?"
"No, listen, I mean— yes," Sherlock said again in an attempt to sound more clear, still unable to speak his mind openly. He struggled to raise his hand, as if it had suddenly turned into stone, but eventually placed it over John's trembling one. "It is what I want. To be a family together."
"Right," John exhaled. "Okay."
They shared an uncertain, accidental caress, before withdrawing their hands and breaking the contact between them. John removed his hand from Sherlock's shoulder, cleared his throat, and teetered a little on his feet. Sherlock swallowed hard.
"By the way, I actually did find an interesting case on the Internet," Sherlock eventually mentioned, pointing at his mobile phone. "Would you like to— "
"Oh God, yes," John exclaimed.
"Good," Sherlock rejoiced, springing into action. "We'll need to take a cab," he announced, jumping from his chair and starting to collect his stuff.
John, influenced by his energy, did the same. Their eyes met for an instant, igniting an invisible flare in their chests. An intense look passed between them before transforming into a mischievous smile.
"Fetch my jacket!" John ordered Sherlock, running out of the room. "I'm calling Molly right now to ask her to babysit."
"Good morning," Sherlock slurred, rubbing his eyes. He adjusted his blue dressing gown, gently closed the bedroom's door behind him, and slowly proceeded along the hallway.
"'Morning," John said back from the living room, where he was already fully dressed and sitting on his armchair, reading the morning paper.
When Sherlock came in, he immediately noticed the absence of Rosie and deduced she was still sleeping in the bedroom upstairs. Judging from the dark circles under John's eyes, she must have woken him up at night, and he hadn't been able to fall back to sleep. Still, Sherlock wouldn't have to worry about Rosie's irregular sleeping schedule for at least a few more hours, until it was his turn to have the girl sleep in his room and finally give John the chance to get some proper rest.
"Tea?" Sherlock suggested, moving to the kitchen.
"Coffee, please," John replied.
Sherlock grabbed a couple of mugs from the sink, quickly rinsed them, then put the kettle on, singing to himself a catchy tune that had been stuck in his mind since the previous night. When he turned around to place the mugs on the table, though, he froze at the sight of what was already lying over it. His face turned stern.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked John harshly, gesturing to the sheets of paper on the table. It was a pre-filled form, a couple of handwritten words stood out among the many typed lines.
John sluggishly stretched out his legs, stood up and reached Sherlock in the kitchen. "It's a civil partnership notice form," he replied, clenching his left hand.
"I can see that," Sherlock snorted angrily, "but why does it have our names in it?" He felt like someone was playing a bad joke on him, and he wasn't finding it funny at all. He was dead serious about his relationship with John. It was no joke material for anyone, he wouldn't have allowed that.
"Well, I wrote them up," John smiled, trying to balance Sherlock's frown. "You need to fill out these kind of things before submitting them, you know that, right?"
"You... wrote them?" Sherlock blinked several times, confused.
"Yeah," John laughed, "but I still need you to sign it. If you want."
Sherlock blinked again rapidly, not moving a muscle or showing any sing of reaction. He just kept looking through John, motionless.
"I thought we could bring the form to the register office on Thursday, maybe?" John suggested, hoping to prompt some response from Sherlock.
But he remained silent, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
"Sherlock, say something," John grunted, tapping his feet.
And Sherlock finally broke the silence. He swallowed, took a breath, narrowed his eyes to focus on John, then whispered, "So, in fact..."
"Yes," John encouraged him.
"You're asking me to..."
"Yes," John nodded.
"You-you mean that?" Sherlock uttered in shock.
"Yes."
"You're serious?"
"Of course."
Sherlock thought for a moment. "Why," he then inquired in a shaky tone, the voice of a child who couldn't believe the treat he had just received. The voice of a man who was too afraid to wake up from an illusion. "I understand if you're doing this to secure your and Rosie's future, it would be a logical decision," he added, trying to be practical and maintain a detached approach, "but there are other options you could—"
"I'm asking you this, because it's what I really want," John confirmed in a resolute tone.
"Why, then?" Sherlock asked again, even more shaken. Since John had dismissed all logical explanations, he was forced to contemplate sentiment, and that was foreign territory for him.
John blew out a breath, then straightened up and looked directly into Sherlock's eyes. "I just want to make official something that is already there, and has been for a very long time," John spat out in a horse whisper. He then sighed and added, so that even a rational being like Sherlock could understand him, "We live together. You help me raise Rosie. We care deeply about each other, and we'd go to hell for each other – in fact we did, several times. We've been partners in every sense of the word for years now. I look at this scruffy flat, and I feel like I've always been here, and I always will. We are a family, Sherlock."
Sherlock stared back at him, his eyes wide and filled with tears. "You have to be sure."
"I am," John confirmed.
"So soon after Mary..." Sherlock commented, trying as much as humanly possible to escape the big bowling ball of emotions that was coming barreling to knock him down.
"Remember what she said in her last video message?" John replied, determined. "She said she knew what we could become, once she was gone. I think it's time to explore that possibility for ourselves."
Sherlock's lips trembled, then parted into a smile, as he finally surrendered to emotions. "I think I'd rather liked that," he admitted.
"Good," John said, mirroring his smile.
"I honestly thought you'd have preferred to reprise your old habit of dating," Sherlock said after a few seconds to lighten the tone, in an attempt to calm himself down.
"Let's say that it sort of loses its whole point when you realise that you have already found the one person you want to come home to, and you're sharing a flat with him," the doctor joked, licking his lips. "I just need to know if you too are you entirely sure about this thing, though. Are you willing to give up the chance to find someone who can teach you to be a better man, the man you want to be?"
"Oh, John, don't do yourself a disservice," Sherlock shook his head, breaking into a nervous laugh. "I've found that person long ago. You. It's always you. John Watson, you keep me right."
John let out a sigh of relief, flattered. The two men stood clumsily in front of each other for a while, slowly adjusting to the change in their relationship. Then Sherlock had a sudden epiphany.
"Is there going to be a ceremony?" he almost yelled in terror. "John, have you thought about this? Properly? I mean, this is serious! What the hell are we going to do?!"
"Oh, I thought July," John laughed, giving him a pat on the back. "But don't start folding serviettes just yet, okay?"
"Never bring Rosie out on a case. That is rule one. That's always been rule one," John complained, holding his daughter's hand firmly as she strolled cheerfully by his side.
"Rules are meant to be broken," Sherlock joked, blinking at Rosie. The detective was holding her other hand, carefully balancing the girl, who was still learning to walk properly, on the pavement between John and himself.
"Daddies, look!" Rosie exclaimed as the three of them crossed the road, spotting a group of women chatting near their house.
"Mrs Turner! How many times...? Tanya is not my girlfriend," one of the women was telling an older lady, gesturing to the third woman in the group. "She is my sister! Your flat is very nice, but we'll be needing two bedrooms!"
Mrs Turner noticed John and Sherlock approaching the building and waved at them from afar; they waved back, Sherlock not very enthusiastically.
"Oh, don't worry," Mrs Turner then got back to reassuring her two potential tenants. "There's all sorts round here. Mrs Hudson next door's got married ones."
Author's notes: Wow, what a ride. This fix-it!fic turned out much longer and complex than I originally intended it to be when it came up to my mind that Rosie will mistakenly end up calling Sherlock "daddy" sooner or later. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed reading it. Let me know your opinions on this story and Sherlock series 4 in the comments below, thank you :)