Chapters in Our Life

"John!"

"I'm right here, love."

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock pressed his back against the wall firmly, shoulder blades aching from sitting and leaning against the wall for the better part of sixteen hours. He looked warily up at Mary's face. "I'm fine."

"I wasn't asking if you were fine, clot-head!"

Sherlock winced slightly. "What do you want?"

"Mrs Watson, I'm going to need you to push, alright?"

"Give me your hand!"

"What?"

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock pushed away from the wall and gripped Mary's free hand firmly. She was sweating and the pressure she was able to exert on his fingers made him re-think her physical strength. "I fail to see how this is going to help," he muttered.

"Shut up!"

Sherlock peered over the top of his phone towards Mary and John. He was trying not to be interested, but John had explicitly given him orders not to leave, and the most interesting thing in the hospital room was the Watson's newborn daughter.

John met his gaze and Sherlock dropped his eyes, thoroughly caught.

John laughed softly. "You don't have to admire from afar, Sherlock. You can come see her."

Sherlock glanced up again. "I think I probably shouldn't be here to begin with. Isn't this... a personal thingy or something?"

Mary smiled tiredly, looking up at him. "You're family."

Sherlock made a face. "Let's not get unduly sentimental," he muttered, slipping his mobile in his pocket and standing up. "You said you named her, er, Tiffany?" he asked, hesitantly joining the Watsons by the hospital bed.

"Yes. Little Tiffany," John cooed, brushing the pad of his thumb against the sleeping newborn's cheek. "She's the most beautiful baby in the world."

Sherlock frowned. "It's a baby. Don't they all, by design, look the same?"

"No," John murmured. He hadn't stopped smiling since Mary had delivered her. It was nice, though... because John hadn't done a lot of smiling in the past few months, so Sherlock thought it was nice to see. He wouldn't admit that, though.

"Do you want to hold her?" Mary asked, looking away from Tiffany.

Sherlock frowned. "I don't... really know how," he muttered.

John laughed again, carefully taking the baby from Mary's arms. "We found something, then?"

Sherlock glanced from the sleeping infant to John. "Found what?" he asked distractedly, his eyes invariably falling back to Tiffany.

"Something you don't know how to do," John said teasingly. "Just hold out your arms, like - no, like that. Yeah. Here." Carefully, he transferred the baby into Sherlock's arms. "Just make sure you support her head, right there in the corner of your arm, yeah."

Sherlock swallowed back a pang of irrational fear, biting the inside of his lip. He wasn't a kid person. He most certainly wasn't a baby person. They were too... fragile.

Not very good for his lifestyle.

"Now that's something that I thought I'd never see."

Sherlock looked up at John.

"You," John continued. "Holding a baby. My baby."

Sherlock stared for a moment before looking down at Tiffany again. "Best not say that too loud. You know how people talk."

John rolled his eyes. "And right now, they can think what they want. They're not going to ruin this," he murmured.

Tiffany shifted in Sherlock's arms and Sherlock's heart blasted to his throat. Tiffany turned her face into Sherlock's coat and fell still, and Sherlock irritably tried to swallow back the emotion, trying to coax his heart to where it should be and the speed it should be beating.

"You don't have to look so scared," Mary said teasingly. "She's not going to bite."

Sherlock gave a non-commental noise in reply, keeping his gaze on Tiffany. He had perfect reason to be experiencing 'panic'; if he broke John's daughter, John would never forgive him.

"You'll need to get used to her, anyway. You'll be spending a lot of time with her," Mary said softly.

Sherlock looked up. "Why?"

"Don't you want to?"

"... I guess?" His gaze again went back to the baby.

"We were kind of hoping..." John started, pausing to clear his throat. "I mean... Mary and I, we... We were kind of wondering if you'd..."

"We want you to be Tiffany's godfather," Mary interrupted.

Sherlock froze, forgetting to breathe in the moment where the words filtered through his eardrums and sank, echoing, into his mind palace. Godfather.

He looked up slowly. "... What?" His voice came out disturbingly thin and he swallowed, licking his lips.

Both of the Watsons smiled up at him. "We want you to be her godfather," John said. "If you'd... well, we just really would like you to be."

All attempts at calming his heart rate had gone out the window, Sherlock realised, feeling it pound beneath his chest and in his ears. It was just like when John had said he was his best friend. His mind went blank. Everything short-circuited. What did he say to something like that?

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock sucked in a deep breath, blinking. "Why?" he asked, instead of answering the question. "Why me?"

John's eyebrows went up. "Do we have to go through what we did before my wedding again?"

Apparently John's mind had gone back to the 'best friend' conversation, too.

"But..." Sherlock said slowly. "This is different. This is... a baby. You can take care of yourself in being my best friend, but Tiffany's... she can't."

"We'll take care of her," John said. "Trust me. But we also trust you enough to be able to take care of her if we can't." He paused. "Besides, if she ever gets tired of us when she's older... we would be... well, not happy, but you know, if she knew she could come to you."

Sherlock blinked again before looking at Mary. "You're on board with this?"

She nodded, smiling gently. "Have been since the beginning."

"Oh." Sherlock looked back at Tiffany. "Oh... okay."

"Okay? Does that mean 'yes'?" John asked.

Sherlock nodded slowly. "I... well, I don't know what I'm doing, obviously, but I'll... do some research on what godfathers do and things."

John chuckled. "Just be yourself. Nothing special."

Sherlock looked up, raising an eyebrow. "Really?"

"... Well, maybe not yourself," John amended.

Sherlock smiled faintly and looked back at Tiffany again. "Do my best," he mumbled, more to the baby than anyone else.

I had meant to shove all of the godfather!lock I'm going to write for this into one chapter, and then I realised that it would be a REALLY long oneshot. So, separate chapters. Some will be very, very short, some will be longer, but they'll all be about Sherlock being Tiffany's godfather (I'm so horrible at names, so I just picked one *o*). The rating will change, or at least have a note about it as chapters progress, but I'm leaving that unspecified for the moment.

Stay tuned for more godfather!lock. I do not own Sherlock. Thank you!