A/N: For Christmas, I got you all the second chapter! I'm warning you now, it's a bit more angsty than the first, but I promise it will all work out ok. Happy Christmas!

Sherlock had held himself distant from the girl. The only person he'd ever felt affection for was the man he lived with; how was he supposed to fit two people into a heart that even his own brother believed only had room for Sherlock himself? And yet, one day, he couldn't find Astrid anywhere in the flat; knowing where she would be, he ventured up to the second bedroom, now hers, and knocked. A muffled sound, some movement, and the door opened. Her eyes red and watery, nose raw from tissues rubbing it, Astrid peered around the door at her father and burst into another round of tears.

Sherlock did not understand people. He was a high-functioning sociopath, after all. But that day, instead of turning around and leaving her in the doorway crying, he took a few steps forward, took her into his arms, and held her. For a moment, just a moment, Sherlock attempted empathy: what would it feel like to lose John? A single mother with no family for Astrid would be much like John for him: the one person that could be counted on, the one who loved you unconditionally, the one who would be honest with you when no one else would… And Sherlock understood. Not fully, but enough. He held his daughter while she cried and then he rocked her to sleep in his arms, only laying her down after he was certain she had drifted off.

Being a parent is difficult. It requires responsibility, something Sherlock only has when it comes to gruesome or particularly clever crimes. It demands self-sacrifice, which Sherlock has only recently come to realize he is capable of, and then only for John. You're expected to set an example for an impressionable, smallish human to follow. He was very, very much 'a bit not good' for this job. It is necessary that you be available, physically and emotionally, for said smallish human. Sherlock was many things, but emotionally available was not on the list. And one hardly qualified as physically present when, at any given moment, one may need to chase down a mafia hitman or follow an obscure clue that can only be made use of during a certain time of day on a certain day of the week in a certain season, or something like that. Sherlock knew all of these things. At some point, he had more or less acknowledged them in so many words. But a part of him still longed to know if loving one's child could be as deliciously painful an experience as loving a soldier, a beautiful man that never, ever thought you were a freak and couldn't bear to see you in pain…but children are cruel, Sherlock knows that all too well. Children mock what is different. He has known enough pain inflicted by children to last him a lifetime. He doesn't know that he can tolerate that kind of pain, inflicted on him here, in his flat, his last stronghold against people like Anderson and Donovan who hurl words like "freak" as though they were spears that would deflate his mind, leaving him on their level. Home, this flat, is where John is, where John tells him he's brilliant, where John gives him those hugs that are more intimate than a hundred sexual encounters because John understands. He knows those words hurt Sherlock, even if he'll never say so. Home is safe; if he lets the child in, she could hurt him. He can't lose his only refuge from the storm raging outside those doors.

These thoughts, this conflict, keeps him in stasis. He will not push her away; he refused to hide from her. But he will not be John either, John with his quick smile to cheer her up, John with his insatiable desire to learn more about her, to make her feel loved, to fill the gap that Sherlock's paralysis was leaving.

He desperately hated being unable to decide; it was a foreign feeling for him. It never happened. Indecision was something lesser men were plagued with, but not Sherlock. He could see her pain, every time she looked at him. She wanted words, actions, but these were things he'd never known how to give. If he could just ask John, if he could find the words to tell John how he felt, he knew John would know what to say, what should be done. Instead, he is held hostage by his own emotions, so recently awoken by an unassuming army doctor that he isn't even accustomed to their presence yet.

It was a few months after Astrid's abrupt arrival on their front step when the three of them knew that she had settled in. The milestone wasn't having finally unpacked everything; it wasn't finishing all the paperwork and legal hurdles; it certainly wasn't Mycroft finally ceasing his "visits" that were transparently obvious as checking up on the girl. What finally gave them license to call themselves a family was the day Astrid decided that Sherlock was Daddy. Not Father, it was too cold. Papa sounded too childish ("And Daddy doesn't?" Sherlock argued, though he was secretly pleased). No matter how Sherlock felt, she had made up her mind: her biological father was Daddy to her, from now on.

Sherlock, because he'd never think to ask, would never know that she had seen the internal conflict, that she'd looked into his eyes and known, utterly known that he couldn't move. So she took the first step. If he needed her to, she'd take the second. And slowly, he would begin to move again; she'd be his doctor of a different sort, in a different way, if he needed her to be.

One week, Astrid's class took a school trip to Edinburgh, in order to study the city's history, the parents were told. Thank God, John would say later. Their daughter didn't need to be around for what happened that week: her father, solving cases at the beck and call of a psychopathic bomber, and enjoying it. Certainly not bored anymore. Sherlock, for his part, was glad for the lack of distraction: he wanted to focus all of his energy on solving the cases and preventing further deaths, which his absorption in getting to know his daughter would have hindered. What neither of them wanted to mention was that they both thought she was safe, out of London, away from the bomber's constant surveillance of 221B, because this would imply that when she came home, she would be unsafe. The last thing either of them wanted was to admit and have to face the fact that there was no way to guarantee anyone's safety, least of all someone so important to both of them.

Sherlock was exceedingly glad this had been the week chosen for her trip when the flat was blown up, and his first thought was that his daughter might have died, had she been there. Completely unsafe for a detective who needed to solve complex cases in just a few hours, or else cause the death of an innocent person.

While solving the Carl Powers case, Sherlock's mind wandered to another teenager on a school trip whose parents were sure their child was safe. He found himself wishing she were nearby (he could watch her himself, 24/7 if need be. He knew that way she'd be safe, nothing and no one could get by him), but at the same time being so very glad that she wasn't anywhere near London. Not right now. Not for this.

When he solved the Ian Monkford case, he thought that no one could pay him enough to leave his family; there was no trouble he'd ever be in great enough for him to vanish like that. Never.

When Astrid walked in the door and threw down her bag, she could sense something was…off. Not wrong, necessarily, but not the 221B Baker Street she was accustomed to. Of course the bomb damage had been mostly repaired, but it was the atmosphere: the feeling of home being not-quite-safe anymore, a feeling she didn't quite understand.

"Daddy? I'm back!" She smiled at him. The two had grown more attached to each other than Sherlock would dare admit.

He smiled at her, albeit weakly. He'd just scheduled a meeting with a murderer. He hoped she'd be asleep by the time he left for the pool. With that, he opened his arms for a rare hug. "How was it?"

"Not quite fascinating. Would've been better if I didn't already know most of it. And the people at my school don't really know how to talk to me, so I just sort of…kept to myself all week."

Even in Sherlock's mind, that seemed a bit unhealthy. But what did he know? John would've known exactly what to say. John always knew. Sherlock felt like he never did.

He settled for:"You just missed John. He'll be happy to see your safe return."

"What's wrong?"

Sherlock's head jerked up. His daughter could read emotions like he could read a crime scene; there was no hiding from her.

"I'm just...tired."

Astrid had quite literally never heard her father admit to a human weakness like exhaustion or hunger; this confession left her off balance, but she was happy. Maybe he'd be less tense if he could come to grips with the fact that he couldn't go weeks without sleep. She worried for him.

Sherlock continued, brushing off her look of concern: "You should go to bed. It's been a long day for you. I'll have John wake you if he gets back at a decent hour, but you need some sleep."

Astrid didn't tell him that the same could be said for him.

When she woke up and looked at the clock, it read 3:02 AM. She climbed out of bed and grabbed some socks for her frozen feet. Sherlock must've broken the heater again. She wandered into the main area of the flat groggily, looking for her parents, planning on complaining light-heartedly and then snuggling with John, whose body was like a radiator. When she could find neither of them in their usual spots, she checked the bedroom: no one. A little concerned, she shot off a text to DI Lestrade, one of the few phone numbers in her cell phone, put in by John.

Do you know where my parents are?

-Astrid Holmes

Not very many minutes later, her phone rang.

"Astrid?"

"Detective Inspector?"

"I'm sending a car 'round for you. You're to go with them and they'll bring you to me."

"Are you with my parents?"

"…In a manner of speaking…"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand…"

"It will be easier to explain in person."

He hung up.

Astrid waited for ten minutes that seemed like ten days, even as filled with preparation as they were. She threw her wallet, cell phone, and a few other important odds and ends into the same leather backpack she'd carried the day she came to Baker Street. Then, changing out of her pajamas, she grabbed one of John's jumpers off a chair and put it on. It was far too big for her, but it was warm and comfortable and smelled of Dad to her. She pulled on some black pants and her favorite pair of shoes. As she grabbed her coat and was walking out the door, she noticed something: her father's favorite blue scarf, not on his neck, but on the coat rack. A growing sense of concern creeping in, she grabbed it too and wrapped it around her own neck. Surrounded by the two scents that had come to mean absolute safety for her, she set off down the stairs to meet the car from Scotland Yard.

A/N: So what did you think? The reviews I've gotten have been absolutely amazing and so helpful! I'm really grateful to all of you guys for even bothering to read my stuff. Please pretty please review this chapter!