Title: Written in the Stars
Author: Rewrittengirl (or now that I think about it, you can call me Leffie. XD)
Fandom: Sherlock (TV series)
Wordcount: 3,696 words.
Rating: T for this chapter, but rating will go up later on.
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, Inspector Lestrade, maybe Anderson later, definitely Jim Moriarty a lot later, a little Mycroft, and an OC.
Pairing(s): Shwatsonlock (duh), maybe some other pairings later on if I rewatch the show for all the other character's little nuances. I was really only paying attention to Watson and Holmes the first run through. :3
Genre: Romance, angst, mystery, drama, family, friendship, etc.
Warning(s): Expect sex, violence, LOTS of angst and gay loving, drugs, alcohol, and very soon Mpreg, child abuse/violence (perpetrated by the next warning, not either of our boys). And Jim Moriarty. He's a warning in an of itself.
Contains: In the entire fic, sex, mpreg, angst, adorable awkwardness, kidnapping, child rearing, secrecy, shootings, violence, some drug abuse by our favorite detective, alcohol, etc.
Notes: Yes, I know I just posted a chapter today, but I'm seriously obsessed with this fic right now, so you guys are going to have Christmas probably every day. XD If I have the time. I would have had this finished a lot earlier had it not been for my summer reading. XD THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR YOUR AMAZING REVIEWS AND HOLY CRAP OVER 20 ALERTS! *throws muffins into the air* THANK YOU SO MUCH! This chapter is pretty long, because its the series of events I was talking about last chapter. We don't REALLY get Holmes at the end, but Watson does meet him again (and of course doesn't remember him). Tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock Holmes, nor any of the characters mentioned in this fic (apart from one introduced later). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle owns the characters, and the BBC, Steven Moffat, and Mark Gatiss own the modernized version. If I owned the BBC version, Holmes would have kissed Watson in a dark alleyway in thanks for saving his life. Episode one. :3
Summary: What was once a forgotten (and drunken) one night stand turned into much more for Dr. John Watson. He doesn't remember meeting Holmes, nor that his little bundle of joy could also be Sherlock's little bundle of joy. He just thinks he's moving in with an unusal flatmate who he happens to feel deja vu around, and that they somehow met each other somewhere before. But he just can't place where.
Nothing.
There was just nothing. He remembered nothing, he felt nothing, he heard nothing in his inner ear. His mind was completely blank as he woke up the next morning, head pounding and mind wiped clean. It was like he was in a sci-fi story where he knew too much, and they had to erase his memory. With beer.
He groaned, wishing he hadn't gone out now. He was on his couch, face down, the morning news blaring on the tele in front of him. It was a good sign that nothing terribly bad had happened, since he'd made it home.
Coffee, probably, that would be swell. Wasn't he supposed to meet someone for coffee today? He couldn't remember, so he checked his phone. No appointments, just calls from the office asking him to come in.
Well, he wouldn't come in that day. Not when his head was pounding and he couldn't remember a thing from the night before. He trudged to the kitchen, grunting in pain when he turned the light on, his eyes probably red from the hangover.
He went through the motions of making coffee, not nearly as enthusiastic about it as he usually was. Perhaps he'd spend the day soaking in the tub, or crawl back in bed.
It was odd because he never drank that hard unless someone else was with him. He hadn't gone to the bar with Harry, that would have been a bad idea. Had she met him there? No, no, he didn't think so. He was pretty sure she didn't particularly care about him celebrating going off to war. She was his sister after all. Why would she want him to risk his life like that?
Then who? Who could he have been with that got him that drunk? Or was he really that excited about fighting for his country...?
"You're no doubt joyous because you get to 'fight for our country,' as many so... ahem... eloquently put it."
A flash of someone speaking he didn't know. He stopped pouring his coffee in his mug for a second, trying to discern where the flash had come from. Maybe it was just his over active imagination...
Either way, his head was far too persistent in killing him by the end of the day that all inquiries into it were fruitless.
He drank it black, hoping the caffeine would wake him up. A few sips in, and he was already feeling better. He leaned on the counter, smiling and taking another sip.
Suddenly, a sick, acidic pain raced up from his abdomen, to his stomach, to his chest. He covered his mouth, setting the mug down on the counter and rushed to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before the contents of his stomach spilled into the bowl.
He groaned, thankful he didn't have anything to clean up later, and laid his head on the side of the seat. "Damn hangover..."
His stomach lurched again, and more alcohol and other substances left his body.
This was not going to be a good day.
John was right. It wasn't a good day that day. In fact he hadn't had a good day since, as the hangover was kind enough to visit him every morning for five weeks.
If he didn't know better (being a doctor himself), he would have diagnosed himself as a pregnant woman. Imagine that! He had all the symptoms, the crying, the vomiting, the cravings, the ridiculous romantic ideas that kept popping into his head, the mood swings, dreams of children...
But that was of course ridiculous. He was a man. Men couldn't get pregnant! Perhaps... No... Oh God, he had gotten some girl pregnant that night he was drunk, and was experiencing a sympathetic pregnancy. Even though he had no idea who the woman was.
No! He would of least had the decency to wear a condom! He knew they didn't always work...
But the dreams. He kept getting the feeling that he hadn't spent that night with a woman, but with a man. He dreamed of a man, making him cry with laughter and giving him company in his drunken celebration. He couldn't see his face, he was just a blur, but he knew he had enjoyed himself.
So a sympathetic pregnancy was out the window. But there was no way he could possibly be really pregnant.
He decided to seek another doctor's opinion, even though he was more than qualified. He was a little out of his mind, and didn't trust his own personal advice, much less his medical ones.
"You're pregnant," the doctor said. So did the second, the third, and fourth, and fifth, that one a woman who had had 3 kids already. She was a specialist in pregnancies, and she could tell just by looking at him. She said it was the glow.
"I know a pregnancy when I see one," the woman said. "You should too, doctor. You should have diagnosed yourself. You said you recognized the symptoms."
He hung his head in his hands, sitting on the examining table with such disbelief that he looked positively exhausted. "You're insane. These tests HAVE to be faulty!" Watson wasn't going to give in to this lunacy.
The doctor put her hand on his shoulder. "Take my advice. Just get through it. You'll feel a lot better about yourself if you just accept it and move on." She shrugged with a smile. "And besides! Kids are fun, if not a little bit of a hassle."
John stood in defiance. "But I'm a man! A straight, completely normal, non-pregnant man!" His desperation wasn't winning her over.
"Apparently not, Dr. Watson," she sighed. "Look, I've seen cases like this before. Its some sort of freak accident that occurs at birth that doesn't manifest until... the right time." She raised her eyebrow in suggestiveness to indicate she meant sex. Homosexual sex.
He shook his head. "No. No. I'm straight. I've never had sex with a man in my life! I wouldn't want to! I mean, not that being gay is a bad thing, but... but... Its just not me!"
But there was that night. He didn't know what happened, nor who the guy was in his dreams. But if something had happened, that night, he'd clearly have his explanation for this debaucle.
She leaned on one leg, crossing her arms and looking at her with a look that said "don't deny it, this is all true."
"Don't look at me like that! I'm not pregnant!" he said.
She nodded to his stomach. "How do you explain that weight you've gained?"
"Over eating. I've been agitated lately, and I over eat when I'm stressed."
"So do pregnant women. Your mood swings?"
"I haven't sleeping well lately."
"Also attributed to pregnant woman. Weird cravings? Don't tell me that your stress has caused that too."
John glared. "I haven't been eating that weirdly..." Lies, he had. Last week he had eaten two helpings of fish'n'chips, covered in soy sauce.
The doctor merely glared back. "Do you really expect me to believe you, mom?"
John gulped, clutching at his stomach in fear. "But... If I am pregnant... How... I mean... Uh..." He looked down at the floor, not knowing how to put this.
Her eyes softened in understanding. "A Caesarean section is your best bed, hon." She placed her hand on his shoulder. "I'm going to give my advice one more time, and I want you to follow it. Don't try to fight any of this, unless you want an abortion. I don't recommend them, most of the time, unless there are complications, but you seem to be perfectly fine. A man, but fine." She smiled at her own humor. "Just take it one day at a time."
John took deep breaths, contemplating all she'd said. Suddenly, a terrifying thought occurred to him. "I'm going to Afghanistan next year."
What was he going to do?
Nothing.
John awakened to nothing for the first time in months. He usually heard the sounds of the morning traffic outside his window, busy bees buzzing around his petunias outside the window, perhaps his sister in the kitchen, drinking or making food. But this was silence, glaring him in the face with urgent defiance. He could only guess why.
He lay in his bed, face up (you couldn't really lay face down with a very large stomach containing a living being), staring at the ceiling. He was going over the dream in his head, trying to figure out who he father of his child was. He lay a careful hand on his bulging abdomen. It was just a matter of waiting these days.
He wasn't really worried any more. Not about the social implications. He'd tried to quit his job, after telling his boss what happened. She wouldn't have it, and was kind enough to give him a maternity leave, labeled as a temporary suspension to other people in the office. He never went out. His still skeptical, but understanding sister brought him food and other necessities. He felt like a hermit, but he was safe from anyone who might not understand.
John wasn't worried about his sanity anymore either. He'd accepted that he was having a baby about two months after he'd found out, when the baby kicked for the first time. He was just going to have to deal with his issues with his sexuality later, since he really wasn't gay. What had been wrong with him that night? The booze?
He wasn't worried about much of anything anymore, to be perfectly honest, except the glimmer of hope that the baby would be born in time for him to recover before being deployed.
He didn't want to leave the child, but he really had to. He'd been wanting to go for the longest time. He could always tell his commanding officer that he'd "gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and had to now take care of the baby." But he didn't want to lie to the country. He felt that he would essentially be doing that if he stayed.
John also hoped beyond hope that he would return from the battlefield in something other than a stretcher. Or a coffin. He really couldn't bear the thought of abandoning the child growing inside him like that, no where to go, no one to take care of her (he'd finally given in last week and found out its sex). Harry wasn't very reliable. He was giving Dolores (the name he'd picked out for her) to her to take care of while he was gone (making sure they had a nanny), but if he'd died, or was seriously injured, he didn't know that he could fully trust his drunk sister to raise his daughter right.
This left him at a loss. If only he knew who the father was. Maybe he'd be more reliable... Or maybe not. He didn't know.
He did know, at that very moment, that his water had broken.
So much for the waiting.
His heart had stopped the moment he saw her.
He had been unconscious during the whole thing, per his request. He didn't want to fool with the craziness, the rush, the hassle of being awake. And the pain of course. Sometimes the pain leaked through the meds, he knew that from delivering a few kids himself. Call him a coward, but he wasn't ready for that. Save it for Afghanistan.
Or the moment he saw his daughter or the first time. There was plenty of pain in that. In a loving sense of course. Like, "Oh my God, is this really true? Is this my daughter? Is she really a part of me? Oh my God."
But in the form of erratic heartbeats.
He held her close, the two of them completely alone. Silence everywhere, apart from her sweet little gurgles and the beep of the monitor recording his heart rate. He could really hardly breathe, and didn't doubt that the monitor read out would be all over the place.
She had the darkest hair he'd seen in a baby, and a rather prominent nose at that. She had thin lips, and angled baby eyebrows. These things must have came from her other father, whoever he was. But the jawline and shape of the face was his, the little hands were his hands, and the way she licked her lips when he kissed her forehead was his. All his. He cradled her to his chest, as close as possible without hurting her.
This was the first time John Watson felt unconditional love for a human being. Sure, the rest of his family was important to him, but sometimes he could only barely tolerate his sister, who had been, until this little girl in his arms, the most important person in the world to him. Everything was new now, so many new feelings escalating in his mind and heart.
And now he was wondering, would her father feel the same way if he saw her? Would he feel the same exhilaration at stroking her hair, at her wrapping her tiny fingers over his thumb? Would he care about this creature as much as he did? He hoped so, because he vowed to find this man and let him know that they had created this little picture of joy together out of love.
Wait, love? It was a cliche, so he had used it appropriately. But he didn't even know who this person was, much less if he'd felt any inkling of love at all for him. He was drunk. You couldn't fall in love when you were drunk.
Or maybe you could, because in that moment, little Dolores opened her eyes for the first time, and John was drunk inside them. She stared up at him blankly, as most babies do, but only for a moment. Soon, her entire face lit up, and she laughed, squeezing his thumb. His breath caught in his throat, and in that single, beautiful moment, she looked like she loved him back. He knew she did.
In the same moment he saw her eyes for the first time, he realized he'd seen them before. In a dream, in a forgotten memory.
"She has your eyes."
He was startled by his sister's voice, and found her bending slightly down over them. "Harry," he said, smiling frailly at her frazzled appearance. She'd been out drinking when his water had broke, and she'd been apologetic ever since.
"Really, she does," she said. She touched her niece's cheek, smiling brightly at her. "She's got that look of determination. Not unlike a soldier I know..." she smirked, looking back at John.
He looked at his girl, noticing what she was talking about. "They're a different color..." he said.
John suddenly realized where he'd seen the eyes before.
They were his eyes. The elusive man who clouded his dreams with fuzzy laughter. He couldn't remember them vividly, but the color and the intellect held inside them were the same. Another thing that was his, just like the hair, and the nose, and the lips. He'd never be able to escape from them.
"Are you alright?" Harry said beside him.
He was pulled out of his daydream, but nodded, smiling happy. "I'm wonderful." His heart was aflutter. He looked back at Harry. "Would you like to hold her?"
The woman looked surprised, but obliged, holding out her arms to take the baby. John reluctantly let her go, but in the end, he liked the way Harry looked while holding her. It seemed... right. A woman holding a baby.
Unlike him, in the hospital bed, after going through labor. It wasn't right, it didn't feel right. He was a man. But he didn't feel too much like one at that time. He felt like a woman, eyelids droopy from exhaustion. He wanted to doze off, as long as Dolores was taken care of.
Harry could tell. "Go to sleep, John," she said. "I'll make sure she's taken care of."
The words were like a death sentence buzzing in his ear, like the bees usually swarming outside his window. The caved in on him, forcing him to be buried in the crossfire, blood leaking over his pores and gunshots following them in his wake, carrying with them another thought, a frightening thought, that he didn't much want to address. Not when he'd look foward to going to Afghanistan for so long.
What if he didn't come back?
John wouldn't have time to think about that, as not a few months later was he suiting up for battle. The trip to the airport had been long, his face taunt and unmoving. He couldn't bear leaving the little girl in the backseat behind.
When he'd kissed her on the forehead in a final goodbye before stepping on the plane leading to his fate, he felt more longing than he'd ever felt before. His only solace were the notions that yes, he'd be returning soon if God permit, and that he wasn't really going to fight for his country anymore. He was going now solely based on the reason that he might make the world a safer, and happier, place for his daughter to grow up in. It was every parents wish, and he was thankfully that he could put himself into the action, to protect her and also provide for her in the world's time of need.
So the journey to the foreign land was filled with thoughts of her little face, gazing up at him with eyes he was sure resembled both her fathers, though he could barely recall the man who had given her his soft curls.
Maybe their fate was written in the stars, and they would cross paths again. Maybe he was a soldier, and he would meet him on the battlefield, and they could bond over the photograph he carried in his pocket of him and Harry, with Dolores in his arms.
But more than likely not.
He had been home for some time, but his mind was preoccupied with terrors at night and boredom.
Dolores was still with Harry, and he was looking for a flat that could accommodate them both, even if they shared only one bedroom. Just someplace other than a place given to him on government pension. He felt useless enough as it was, shot in the shoulder, his legs in need of a crutch.
He couldn't even remember his dreams anymore before the war, the ones of the fleeting laughter he shared with the man who was his daughter's father. All he saw was the battlefield raging on. The medicine would only go so far, and the damned empty blog just sat there on his computer, waiting to be written. Perhaps he should write about his little girl? His quest for a flatmate? His dreams for the future, his goals, his goddamn day?
Whatever the case may be, he was at his wits end. He needed a job, and needed a flat.
But where the hell could he find someone who'd want to room with a mentally unstable doctor and his crying baby?
The doctor was the type of man who enjoyed the human body. No, not in that sense, but in the sense that it fascinated him. This was one of the reasons he had become a doctor. He loved to take care of people, and find out the causes of anyone and everyone's problems.
It was another reason he'd joined the fight in Afghanistan. To help the sick, the wounded, and the dying, as they faced the opposing side with vigor, rather than contempt.
He had seen many dead bodies as well. It was a part of the job. He didn't like their deaths, but he knew to be professional about it all. However, he liked solving the mysteries of cause of death that his job as a doctor required. It made him feel accomplished and exhilarated, knowing he had contributed to understanding the science of death just a bit more. He preferred dealing with living patients, but it was like Christmas when he was faced with a body.
Though he was always the professional.
Like he was now. The only difference was, instead of the sepia toned filter he placed over the dead and gone in order to distance himself, the room was lit by one specific color.
Pink.
Another day, saving a person's life. He felt obligated to Sherlock, after all, and didn't want the man to give in to that damned drug. He must have felt the same adrenaline rush John felt when he pulled the trigger, knowing he might die, knowing he might not. The man was an adrenaline junkie, and it was no wonder he went and solved cases for the Yard as if it was a hobby. Well, let's be honest. It was a hobby to Holmes.
It didn't help that he had leaked his love of the chase over to Watson slightly. The man didn't have to think twice about moving in with him. He'd saved his life, after all.
He didn't like much about the man. Not his rudeness, nor his general lack of hygine, nor his violin playing, nor his missing social etiquette.
But he was an interesting companion, and made a great addition to his blog.
He couldn't help but think he'd met the man somewhere before. Maybe he'd been sick once and he'd taken care of him at the office, before the war. Maybe they met at some cafe, and shared a cup of coffee. He couldn't honestly remember. He'd figure it out eventually, but he was just thankful that he'd found a place for him and his daughter to live.
Speaking of which... Dear God, he hadn't even bothered to mention his moving in required a plus one contract at all to Sherlock.
Dammit.
Dun dun DUUUUUN! How is John going to break it to Sherlock that both he AND John's daughter is moving in? Will Sherlock immediately recognize his eyes in Dolores's? Why does John STILL not remember Sherlock? And where the HELL is that tea, Watson? *Sherlock angry face*
XDDDD Anyway. Hope you liked it. I got a little teary eyed when I wrote John seeing his daughter for the first time! *sniffles* So sweet and emotional! If only Sherly could have been there. The old cad, forgetting about our John. They'll both remember later on. Not TOO soon, mind you!
As always! Read and review and favorite and alert! (Damn that's a mouthful!) We'll be seeing more Sherlock next chapter as he's introduced to his daughter (w00t!). Till then guys! ^^
