After half an hour of being beaten to a pulp, and a three hour plane journey (though technically it was a jet), Sherlock was sat in Mycroft's office getting his face shaved and his hair cut. After all the running around he'd been doing, a shower was at the top of his to-do list.

He had managed to block Mycroft's comments about being a 'busy bee' out, focusing more on his annoyance towards his brother for not intervening sooner when he was being beaten up by a russian thug.

When he was finally back into his old clothes, Mycroft started giving him updates on everyone, though Sherlock knew his brother wanted to talk about the upcoming terrorist attack.

"How's Clara?" Sherlock couldn't stop himself from asking.

Panic began to flood him when Mycroft's only reaction was looking down at the floor, avoiding any eye-contact.

"Mycroft?" He pressed, trying to get an answer out of his brother.

The older Holmes brother drew in a deep breath, before reaching behind him and picking up a pile of photographs. Handing them to Sherlock, he quickly snatched them off him.

The first one was just a head-shot of Clara, clearly taken by someone she didn't know was there. He couldn't see her eyes, those eyes he'd remembered so well.

As he turned over to the next one, his heart dropped. Clara was in the same position as the previous picture, except this one was a full body shot.

Clara was pushing a pram, with a baby around one year old strapped into it.

"Sh-She's met someone else?" Sherlock looked up at Mycroft, feeling as if a thousand daggers had been shoved right through him.

"No." Was Mycroft's short reply.

Sherlock looked at him in confusion, and looked back down at the photo to get a good look at the baby. It was clearly a girl seen as how it was wearing a pink baby-grow, she didn't seem to resemble Clara, but the photo was taken at a long distance, so. As Sherlock looked closer he noticed the girls curly hair, that was ebony like his own, he couldn't tell what her eye colour was but it was definetely a light colour.

"She's mine?"

Once again, Mycroft only gave a short reply, "Yes."

A whole wave of emotions hit him.

He was a dad, an actual dad.

He'd missed the first year of his daughters life while he was playing hide and seek. Guilt clung to his chest as he tried to take it all in.

"Why didn't you tell me?" his voice was an inaudible whisper.

"Sorry?"

"Why didn't you tell me!" Sherlock made sure he could be heard this time.

"Because it would have distracted you."

"But she's my daughter, you didn't even tell me!" Sherlock made a grab for his brother.

"Tell me, if you had known what would you have done?"

Sherlock let his grip on his brother turn slack. What he said was true, if he had known he wouldn't have been able to turn back and tell her he was alive, he had a job to do.

xxx

Standing outside of 221B brought back a whole load of memories, some good and some bad.

Sherlock had contemplated whether or not he should knock, or use the key Mycroft had kept for him. It would probably scare the life out of Clara if he just walked in, so he decided on knocking.

With a shaking hand, he tapped the knocker onto the door. It took her a minute to get to the door so Mrs Hudson was probably out, which Sherlock was glad about, it meant he could talk to Clara without being interupted or distracted.

As soon as Clara opened the door, she almost fell backwards but quickly caught herself just as Sherlock reached out to catch her.

"Get away from me! Y-you're dead!" Her voice cracked.

Sherlock held his hands out trying to calm her, "No, it's me! It's me Clara, I'm alive!"

"Wha-? How?" Clara cautiosly walked up to him, as if he were a wild beast.

"Mycroft, he helped me to fake it." Sherlock couldn't think of anything else to explain it at that moment.

Clara wasn't sure if she had just fallen into one of her dreams, "Prove it."

Taking a deep breath, he began to speak "You're Clara Oswin Oswald. You dislike your middle and last name, because you think they're strange. I prefer to call you Closwald, even though it annoys you. We met when The Doctor came to see me again, and you stayed with John and me in our flat. Your favourite movies are 'The Addams Family', and 'Revenge of the Bridesmaids', no romance films because you think they're too cheesy, with the exception of 'Titanic' of course. You make souffles when you're stressed or nervous, and almost always fail." Sherlock could see Clara was trying to hide a smirk at his comment. "You prefer your tea to be milky with no sugar." he finished.

Clara opened her mouth to say something, but quickly closed it. She flung herself into his arms and he held her tightly, burying his face in the crook of her neck. The next thing Sherlock knew, Clara had torn herself away from him, and connected her hand to the side of his face. His head went flying to the side, giving him slight whiplash.

"You're an arsehole." She whispered.

Before either of them could say anything else, a crying noise started from upstairs.

Clara eyes inflated and Sherlock could have sworn there was slight fear in them.

"There's something you need to know. You-"

"I know." Sherlock cut her off.

Clara's brows drew together, "How?" Was all she could manage to say.

"When Mycroft brought me back to his office, he told me. Clara I'm so sorry, I honestly had no idea-" Sherlock didn't manage to finish his sentence as the crying became louder.

Sherlock quickly followed behind Clara as she hurried up the stairs. He came to a halt as she went down the hallway next to the kitchen to get the baby, thinking it a better thing to do then go in with her.

As soon as the crying stopped, Clara emerged from the bedroom again. In her arms was a small girl with ebony curls and pale blue tear stained eyes, her chubby cheeks were highlighted with tears and the sleeves of her white and pink polka dot baby grow was damp with them.

Sherlock walked towards them and hesitantly placed a hand on the baby's back as she chewed on her sleeve, giving the man a curious look, "What's her name?".

"Ellie."

Sherlock immediately knew where he had heard the name before, Clara's mother, who had died when she was young.

"Do you want to hold her?" Clara asked gently.

"Yes." Sherlock replied instantly.

Sherlock carefully took the baby from Clara, holding her close to his chest, the baby let out a gurgle as she was passed between the adults.

Ellie made an immediate grab for Sherlock's hair, pulling on it so it was at her eye level. Sherlock tried to pry his fringe out of the little girls fist, but that resulted in her tugging on it harder.

"That's her latest habbit." Clara giggled.

"Mumum." Sherlock was stunned when the girl spoke, twisting around and reaching her arms out for Clara, who stepped forward and took her hand.

"W-what else can she say?"

"She calls John 'On', and Mrs Hudson 'Hudders', she can say a few other things like for when she's hungry."

"Who dis?" Ellie asked, pointing at Sherlock.

There was an awkward pause in the air, Sherlock looked at Clara for permission. She gave him a small nod of confirmation.

"I'm your daddy."

The girl's faint eyebrows drew together slightly, "Daddy?", she looked at Clara in confusion. "Is dis my daddy?"

"Yeah." Clara answered.

"Daddy!" Ellie shrieked, wrapping her arms around Sherlock's neck.

Sherlock held the girl tighter, not wanting to let go, her soft curls tickled his nose as he pressed a kiss to the back of her head. Tears began to form in the corners of his eyes as he thought about all the times with his family he had missed.

He didn't realize he was actually crying until Clara wrapped her arms around his neck aswell. She began to sooth him, running a hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." Sherlock nestled his face into Clara's neck, making sure to keep a firm grip on Ellie.

"It's okay." Clara pulled back, looking into those impossible blue eyes she had missed, sure Ellie had her dad's eyes, but they weren't exactly like Sherlocks, they didn't have the same love in them. Slowly, Clara moved onto her tip-toe's and pressed her lips against Sherlocks.

Her lips were still the same, soft and gentle. Snaking his free arm around her waist, Sherlock pulled Clara closer to him.

When they eventually pulled apart, they turned their heads to see Ellie giving them a disgusted look. She made a noise that resembled a scoff and put her head on Sherlocks shoulder to block the sight.

Well there you go!

I was going to write a moment where Sherlock has to deal with Ellie crying, but I think I'll just leave it there. I know this was a bit OOC for Sherlock, but I think it's better that way.

Thank-you to everyone who reviewed/ liked/ favourited!

Please let me know what you think! I rather enjoyed writting this chapter as there was more to write.

Sorry it took so long!

WAIT!

Before you go, I just want to say that I am writting another Oslock story, which will be out soon, but I want to make sure I have a few chapters done before I post it 'cos as you can tell, I'm a slow updater. It's called 'One year with Sherlock', the prologue is out on Wattpad already, and it will be on this website soon, so look out for that!