8 ½ Months Later
Christmas is a time of joy, love, and peace; that is, if you're not the best friend of a sociopathic consulting detective who knocked up a former dominatrix. In that case, Christmas means chasing the aforementioned detective through London in a desperate bid to find him before a group of trained assassins do.
The day had begun very normally for the Watson family; Henry, at two, had an enthusiastic love of all things Christmas, waking them up at the very crack of dawn to open his presents, while Mary showed the newborn James how to clean the gun she had received as her gift.
They had, of course, invited Sherlock to the festivities, but he had declined, just like the two years before, stating that the best gift he could receive was not having to participate in a manufactured holiday glorifying an obese housebreaker, or perhaps an interesting murder.
John would have invited Irene as well, out of love for his friend and support for the family they were starting; but outside of the regularly scheduled doctors visits, most of which were spent trying to explain why bondage did indeed count as extraneous physical labour, he hadn't seen her at all. When this thing had started, John hadn't expected it to be normal; marriage had always been out of the question where Sherlock was concerned, but he had expected them to at least live in the same city or visit regularly now that they were about to become parents.
On the single occasion he had asked Sherlock about it, he had replied with his customary snarkiness, showing him the woman's latest stream of flirty text, asking why he should know one woman's location in all of Christendom when there were so many other interesting things going on.
"Oh, I don't know, Sherlock, maybe because she's pregnant. With your children. And you haven't even discussed how you plan to co-parent across the Atlantic Ocean."
"They'll be staying with me, obviously. The Woman's travels keep her far too busy to raise children," Sherlock had said, scoffing at John's ignorance of the situation.
"Don't do that, Sherlock. Don't give me nothing, and expect me understand the entire situation in one glance, you know I can't do that," John said fiercely.
Their conversation had ended there, Sherlock had been stubborn, John had been defensive, and he had left Baker Street in angry silence. (They hadn't spoken since, Sherlock had been wrapped up in his interesting new case, the four people found in the Thames killed in identical manners, with no discernible connections to one another whatsoever, and John had been hurriedly preparing for Christmas the next week.)
Christmas morning had dawned clear and bright, with just enough snow on the ground for snowmen, and just warm enough to make it pleasant to be outside. John had taken little Henry to try out his first tricycle that he had just found under the tree, and John thought to himself that the day was shaping up to be rather perfect.
That was his first mistake…
John's phone rang for the first time during breakfast; he had quickly ignored the unknown caller and went back to his family. On the fifth call from the same number, John finally answered irately.
"Someone had better be dead," he snapped.
"Sherlock Holmes will be if you don't find him… now." The voice on the phone was unmistakably Irene's, but she sounded unlike John had ever heard. Gone was the cool, calm facade she she always maintained, designed to keep one constantly guessing as to her objective and emotions; this was Irene at her core, even panting in excruciating pain, still single mindedly focused on her goal.
The doctor in John took hold of him immediately, pushing all thoughts of family and holidays to the side; his voice became calm and clear, formed from years of experience dealing with people at their worst.
"Irene, you're in labor a full two weeks early. Nothing to worry about though, twins usually come a bit before their due date. Now tell me how far apart your contractions are, and we can figure out whether we have time to get you to a hospital."
Mary wisely began to herd the children into the other room.
"I don't need you to to meet me at the Hospital, I have an OBGYN standing by at St. Bart's. I need you to find Sherlock, he's been avoiding me so far, John. If he's not here by the time I'm finished, I will make him pay."
The line disconnected without his answer. It wasn't needed, they both knew that. John sighed, A Christmas spent chasing down Sherlock Holmes for a homicidal pregnant woman. Did the universe hate him?
That question was answered when he called Sherlock and informed him that Irene was in labor.
"Are they Braxton Hicks contractions?"
"No, Sherlock, they're real. You need to get to the hospital to help her through this."
"Hmm. No. Too busy. Happy Christmas, John."
"Don't you dare hang up on me, you tosser…"
Click. It did indeed hate him.
After uttering some choice obscenities about the world's most annoying consulting detective, he turned to explain the situation to Mary, only to find her handing him his keys and a travel mug of eggnog.
"I don't have to go, Mary. My place is here, and I'm sure the situation will sort itself out," John said, knowing full well that it wouldn't.
"John, trust me, if you don't find Sherlock, it will end badly. If you had missed our children being born, it would have been the last thing you had ever done. For Sherlock's sake, find him before Irene does."
"My life does not revolve around Sherlock Holmes!"
"You should really go into t-shirt design. We'd be much better off," was her parting remark as he grabbed his jacket off the rack, kissed Mary and the kids, and ran out the door.
John arrived at Baker Street 20 minutes later, thanks to the light holiday traffic, ready to throw Sherlock over his shoulder like he did with his two year old when he misbehaved, and takehim to the hospital (it was rather astounding how many similarities Sherlock had to a two year old sometimes), only to find him nowhere to be found.
What John did find was his former landlady, slightly tipsy, drinking spiked eggnog, slathering icing on singed sugar cookies. Her face lit up when she saw John, and she offered him one, which he took with trepidation.
"John! How lovely to see you! Have you come along to see Sher? He's gone off chasing one of his murders, can't say when he'll be back. You're more than welcome to stay for some food though, 'til he returns," She said, sitting him down at the table, beginning to fix up a plate of turkey and cranberry sauce; the smell reminded him that he had never finished his breakfast that morning, and he took the food eagerly.
"Do you know where Sherlock is exactly! Irene has gone into labor and I need to find him," He asked between bites.
"I don't know much. He ran out of here as usual, yelling something about a bank heist done from the inside out."
John nodded as he chewed, he had heard about that on the news lately, a crew had stolen 6 million dollars from a vault, escaping from the inside out. The bank was in the financial district, he could get there in less than 20 minutes if the traffic stayed the way it was, it seemed like things were finally looking up to be able to get home in time to see the kids open up their gifts from Santa.
"I swear, if Sherlock has left that poor girl all by herself to deliver those children, I'll kill him myself! And if he thinks I'm going to be the one to raise them, he's even dafter than he seems. I am not a babysitter." She said, hiccuping halfway through her rambling.
John stood up, relieved for an excuse to leave without having to endure more trivial details of the day to day life of his former landlady than was necessary for polite conversation. He gratefully took the go-bag of food had given him, kissed her on the cheek, and headed out the door, with a dark sense of foreboding telling him things would not be as simple as he had hoped, but when was anything simple concerning Sherlock Holmes?
Author's note: Sorry it's taken us so long to finish the chapter, university just started back up for me and my coauthor, so updating will be a bit slower. Please be patient and bear with us!
