The follow-up to "Let the Devil Dance Again," titled "And the Devil Will Dance." This was difficult to write, because of the events of the 14th here in the US. It felt awkward and wrong to be writing about a father basically meeting/reuniting with his daughter when so many parents had lost their little ones. So please bear with me when I say that this is truly the end of this story.

I hope you all enjoy it :)


They kept meeting for coffee, getting to know one another again. She tried to get him to talk about his travels and experiences, and he tried to deflect. Only when he curled up next to her on her couch, shielded from most of the rest of the coffee shop within her nook, would he open up a little. What he got in return were small tales of Anna. Her fascination with butterflies and fear of moths, and her ill-fated project for pet spiders. The little goldfish which was her responsibility to feed every day, and the last five names Anna had given it so far.

Molly also told him how John had insisted on helping her through the last few years, even as he got married and moved on with his own life. It had helped stave off his depression, giving him something to shake his head about with a smile when he thought of Sherlock—and seeing Anna, thinking he knew the circumstances of her conception, had made John think of Sherlock. In John's words, it was 'just like Sherlock' to accidentally father a child just hours before his suicide, and that was that.

They had their first date several weeks after he came back to her. Just a simple one, and Molly had her cousin look after Anna for the early evening. Sherlock knew that he didn't deserve her, taking her hand and walking slowly down the pavement towards the museum they were going to see. She was warm at his side, curling around his arm eventually.

"She wanted to know why Rosie was looking after her today, so I told her that I had a date." Sherlock let that sit for a moment, digesting just what it meant. Molly had said that she wanted to work up to his meeting Anna—she wanted to figure out how they were going to present Sherlock in the context of Anna's life. Molly had said no matter what, if he was to be part of it he had to be all in—there was to be no bowing in and out. What he and Molly ended up doing was their own business.

"And what did she think of that?" Molly hummed, the sound happy rather than contemplative.

"Anna has wanted me to find someone for about a year now. Started when she was old enough for the story days at the library and saw the other parents—Mummy, I don't mind if you need me to have a Daddy I think is what she says most often. Though she has given serious thought to having two mums—twice the number of kisses on skinned knees you see, and twice as many sneaked sweets in her lunches too."

Sherlock nodded, a tiny smile quirking at his lips.

When they said goodnight—it was only seven but Molly wanted Anna at home in bed by eight—Sherlock laid a gentle kiss on Molly's forehead.

"That is for Anna," he said softly, "and this," he trailed his lips down her cheek, kissing the corner of her mouth, "is for you." Molly's lips were warm against his for a long moment. It felt different but the same as it had years ago, and he was incredibly grateful that he hadn't been shut out of her heart in the time they'd been apart. Maybe put into storage and hidden, but not evicted entirely. There was also the fact that he was beginning to feel excited, just stirrings at this point, at the prospect of meeting Anna.

She was a bright and beautiful little girl, and he couldn't wait to begin teaching her and helping her grow.

He was picking Molly up for a date several weeks later when Anna escaped from the door that was just closing. The little girl wrapped herself around Molly's leg, hiding most of her face against her mother's trouser-leg and peeking one eye up at him. Sherlock slowly crouched down to her level while Molly tutted and combed her fingers through their daughter's hair.

"Are you going to marry Mum?"

Molly's fingers paused briefly but returned to stroking Anna's hair. They'd only barely—barely—started sleeping together, such a question wasn't on the table yet in the least.

"Well, I don't even know you—why do you want to know?" Anna's face screwed up into a tiny scowl, her hands balling into fists in the fabric of Molly's trouser leg. Sherlock kept his face open and curious, keeping the cold detective at bay in the face of this very young person. A tiny human being.

"Because she's my Mum and if you marry her you'd be my Dad and I have to know things like that because I have to," she peeked out more as she spoke but quickly retreated, "and my name is Anna."

"I'm Sherlock, and," he leaned in a little stage-whisper to her, "I want to marry your Mum very much. But that's a secret, between you and me, Anna."

"Okay," she said, peeking out a little more to let him see her tiny smile. She looked exactly like her mother and Sherlock was quite sure that in fifteen years he would lie awake at night worrying if her dates were treating her properly. His heart was clenched painfully and he couldn't get enough air as Molly convinced Anna to go back inside to Aunty Rosie.

"So which is the secret, Mr. Holmes? That you're named Sherlock or that you want to get married?" Molly leaned up against the closed door and Sherlock stepped up to her, putting his arms low around her waist.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"


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