Sorry for the delay in getting this next chapter up – impressively, there are apparently still places you can go on holiday in the UK without Wi-Fi access or 4G (although usually preferable to know this in advance!)

Also, we listened to a lot of 'Cabin Pressure' in the car (keeps everyone quiet), so I have been struggling to keep Martin Crieff's voice off the page!

And…it turns out that I've basically just written 2,000-odd words of complete fluff - but if you like Sherlock going head-to-head with Mummy and Daddy Holmes, you'll hopefully enjoy this chapter!

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It made for a nice scene, Sherlock conceded to himself: the garden at his parents' house on a balmy August afternoon, Molly helping Rosie to water the flowers with a miniature watering can - even John snoring underneath the Sunday supplements.

"Almost idyllic, eh, William? Pleasantly bucolic, one could almost say," Sherlock said, adjusting the sunhat on his son's head. "Such a shame I have to un-invite Granny and Grandad from the wedding, hm?"

Molly had been fairly sanguine about his parents' decision to help the nation's tabloid hacks and resentful criminal underclass in their efforts to derail their wedding day. More sanguine, he noted, than her reaction to the Twitter photo (seventeen thousand re-Tweets from the Met account, the last time he dared to look). He had once again floated the idea of elopement, even offering the sweetener of taking John, Rosie and Mrs Hudson with them (they would need witnesses, he acknowledged), but Molly wouldn't go for it. Loved the idea of running away with him, she said, but couldn't do it to everyone – and by 'everyone' she meant his parents. She did seem oddly attached to them.

William yanked the sunhat from his head and cast it onto the grass, giggling at his achievement and no doubt at the expression on his father's face.

"You're right, William," Sherlock told him. "It is still hilarious the sixteenth time. Much like your Uncle John's jokes."

"Heard that, you git," John murmured. "Not actually asleep."

A text alert chirped from his phone, a follow-up from Lestrade about a woman who claimed that her cat had shot her husband. His interactions with Toby suggested to Sherlock that the will to murder a human being was probably there, but he couldn't be convinced on the issue of dexterity.

He started to tap out a response, trying to keep his phone at arm's length from William's spirited grabs.

"You're not working are you, darling?" came his mother's voice. Speaking of cats – she had the bloody stealth of one.

"No, Mother, I am showing William the natural splendor of the garden in full bloom."

"Is that brain-matter?"

Sherlock quickly withdrew his phone and clicked the lock-screen button (Lestrade and the murderous cat would have to wait). He looked up to see Molly grinning at him across the garden; he thoroughly approved of the cut-off-shorts-and-bare-feet look, and would have to convey his appreciation later.

"It was nice of you to finally accept our invitation, Sherlock," Wanda Holmes said with a hint of sarcasm. "One would have thought from your previous responses that the Metropolitan Police had been disbanded and you were taking over their entire workload."

His mother leaned in to tickle William's chin, which resulted in a traitorous giggle.

"Actually, there was a reason why now seemed a good time to visit," Sherlock ventured. "Seeing as, oh, we now have to plan a wedding from scratch in less than four weeks."

His mother narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

"What do you mean?"

Sherlock sighed. She knew exactly what he meant.

"Well, thanks to you and Dad, the entire nation now has a detailed itinerary for our wedding. Given that I distinctly remember a conversation about needing to keep things low-key, I can only surmise that when you made this decision you were both having a 'senior moment'?"

"Look at these adorable curls, Timothy!" she said, calling over her shoulder as she lovingly touched the top of William's head.

"Yes, yes – back to the small matter of you ruining our wedding day?" Sherlock cut in.

"Oh honestly, sweetheart!" his mother replied, rolling her eyes. "You're not royalty, and you're not George Clooney. You occasionally create enough of a drama to get yourself in the paper, yes, but I don't think one tiny advertisement is going to bring hordes of marauding journalists to your door."

"Who's George Clooney?" Sherlock said, before realising that he didn't actually care. "Never mind. Actually, Mother, reporters are a mere nuisance. What concerns me a teensy bit more are the devious psychopaths and gangs of criminal lowlifes it's going to attract."

"Do they regularly read the announcements section of The Telegraph?" his mother queried. "And besides, Sherlock, I'm not sure you're one to talk about privacy. The chap who cleans our windows showed me the photograph you posted of William in that little hat – I believe it was quite popular?"

Bugger.

Although it was actually a pleasant surprise that it hadn't come from Mycroft.

"Yes, okay, fine," he replied through gritted teeth. "But the wedding plans still need to change."

"As you wish, darling," Wanda Holmes said, lifting her grandson out of his arms. "Just let us know the details."

"Don't count on it," Sherlock muttered, as his mother took William off to see his grandfather.

Straight away, he crossed the lawn to where John was sitting in the deckchair, now holding a glass ridiculously stuffed with fruit and garnished with leaves.

"What does your mum put in this?" he asked, blinking widely, as Sherlock approached.

"No idea, but I expect it keeps my father in submission," he replied flatly. "I need your help with a plan."

"What plan?"

"Thanks to my parents' mindless blundering, Plan A wedding needs to become the decoy wedding, Plan B becomes Plan A, and I need a new Plan B."

John shook his head and glanced at his drink.

"What in the name of all things holy are you going on about, Sherlock?"

"Weddings, John, try to keep up. Molly and I. Getting married."

"Yeah, I got that part. It's just that it now sounds like you're planning three weddings."

"Well, yes, sort of," Sherlock continued.

"Pull up a seat," John grinned, gesturing to the empty deckchair beside him.

Sherlock frowned. There was literally no way one could hold an important conversation while sitting in a form of seating that could, at any given moment, collapse entirely or enfold its occupant within its lethal wooden limbs.

"Look, I'd offer to get up, but thanks to your mum's 'summer punch', I'm not convinced I'd be standing for long," John said. "You could always sit there instead."

He was indicating to the picnic blanket that was strewn with William and Rosie's toys, hardly a dignified option for a grown man wearing a bespoke suit and hand-made Italian shoes. In the end, Sherlock settled for perching on the low, dry-stone wall.

"Right, listen carefully," he began, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his hands under his chin. "Obviously, we can't cancel the original venue, because word of that will get out. So we leave everything as it is, and it instead serves as a decoy."

"Won't the lack of guests and, you know, a bride and groom, give the game away a bit?"

"Oh, there'll be guests!" Sherlock replied. "It would hardly be a very good decoy without them. That's in hand. Plan B is also fairly solid, just requires a few tweaks here and there, but it's more or less ready to bring into play as the real thing."

John squinted at him and rubbed at his brow.

"Hang on. You already had a backup wedding planned?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at his friend.

"You...didn't?"

John barked with laughter.

"Er, no, Sherlock," he replied. "In case you didn't notice at the time, Mary and I found planning the one wedding was about as much as we could manage while still maintaining both our sanity and our relationship."

"Hm," Sherlock replied. "Just as well I had that covered, then."

"Sorry?" John said. "Are you saying that you organised a Plan B wedding, without telling us, just in case anything went wrong with the original?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, by the time it transpired that a murder was to be committed during the evening do, it was rather too late to change horses mid-stream. However, the current scenario only serves to prove the wisdom of a Plan B, and it thankfully only leaves me with the challenge of finding a satisfactory alternative to move into its place."

"Satisfactory alternative for what?"

Sherlock looked around to see Molly right behind him, somehow managing to carry William in one arm while giving Rosie a piggyback. Rosie was sort of hanging off her, but still shrieking with delight, while William was determinedly trying to reach over his mother's shoulder to grab at the little girl he currently idolised. Sherlock felt his heart perform some kind of flip, as it still did every time he was reminded that Molly was his - and this particular sight only served to increase his yearning (there really was no other word for it) to have another child with her.

"Hi Molls," John said, catching Rosie in a hug as she sped into his arms. "Come here, you monkey!"

Molly came to sit beside Sherlock, leaning in to plant a kiss on his cheek. He turned, capturing her lips in a longer, sweeter, more satisfying kiss, his hand finding the lovely bare skin of her thigh - until they were interrupted.

"What Uncle Serlock Aunty Molly doing?" Rosie asked inquisitively. "Kissy-kissy?"

Sherlock heard Molly snigger in his ear, the intimacy completely shattered. It also coincided with his son lurching from his place on Molly's lap to clamp his gums (and single tooth) around Sherlock's jacket lapel.

"Yeah, Rosie," John replied, with raised eyebrows. "Your Uncle Sherlock and Aunty Molly like to do a lot of kissy-kissy, don't they?"

"Make new baby?" Rosie asked brightly.

Sherlock felt Molly's muffled giggles against his neck. What the hell had John been sharing with their not-yet-three-year old goddaughter?

"It's where I told her babies come from," John explained quickly. "Didn't expect to get that question quite so early, so I'll admit I panicked slightly."

"Your mum said to tell you that lunch is almost ready," Molly said, rearranging her face into a more neutral expression, despite the gorgeous blush that Sherlock was enjoying. "And Mycroft will be here in ten minutes."

"Too late to pack up the car?"

Molly shoved him lightly in the ribs.

"I'll see you inside in a moment," Sherlock told her, retrieving his phone from his pocket. "Just need to, ah...ring a man about a cat."

Molly grinned, hitching William onto her hip.

"I won't tell your mum," she said. "Oh, and what was it you and John were talking about before, Sherlock? The, um, 'satisfactory alternative'?"

Since the day he confessed to Molly that he had planned all along to get her pregnant (and yes, that did still sound imbecilic, even in his head), Sherlock had made it a policy never to lie to or otherwise mislead her again. There was too much at stake.

"We can talk about it later," he replied. He could tell from Molly's pursed lips and slightly narrowed eyes that even if she hadn't yet guessed the topic of conversation, she would most definitely still hold him to it. Still, she accepted his parting kiss, waiting while he planted another kiss on William's crown, getting a quick hit of his baby son's unique scent.

Molly had only been gone a few moments, and Sherlock had only just swiped to the keyboard of his phone when he sensed that someone was ambling up behind him. Given that he only really knew one person who could be relied upon to 'amble', it wasn't difficult to deduce who was about to disturb him.

"Ah, there you are, old boy!"

Good god. Since when did he become 'old boy'?

"Yes, Dad, surprisingly enough I am precisely where you last saw me," Sherlock replied, turning to greet his father. Fresh from the kitchen, he was wearing an apron bearing the unfortunate slogan Warning! Hot stuff coming through.

"Well, I'm still getting used to that, I suppose," Timothy Holmes smiled. "You still being here, I mean. Your mother and I used to take bets on how long it would be before you did a runner on us. I think your record was four minutes, when you gave us the slip during the aperitifs at your Uncle Rudy's anniversary dinner."

Sherlock knew he was probably supposed to offer a belated apology, but really, standing around pretending to celebrate someone (Carolyn? Caroline?) managing to stay married to Uncle Rudy for twenty-five years was a waste of everyone's time. Including Uncle Rudy's, as it turned out – the divorce settlement was still rumbling on in court three years later.

"Your young lady has changed a lot of things," his father continued, coming to stand beside him.

Sherlock sensed rather keenly – although also rather too late – that his father was gearing up to impart some of the wisdom he'd presumably been sitting on for the past twenty years, waiting for one of his offspring to pair off with someone.

"She has," he agreed, tentatively.

"Your mother tells me that you're trying," his father continued.

It took Sherlock a moment to realise that there wasn't more to that sentence still to come. His mother had described him as a lot of things over the years, and in all honesty, 'trying' was one of the tamer designations.

"Trying…what?"

"You and Molly," Timothy Holmes smiled, affably. "Trying to conceive. Marvellous news, of course."

Sherlock hadn't realised it was possible to choke without actually having something stuck in your throat or windpipe - but he managed it anyway.

"H-how does Mummy know that?" he gasped.

"Oh, I think Molly mentioned it to her," his father replied airily. "Either that or your mother trapped her in a room with an angle-poise lamp and demanded to know whether further grandchildren were on the cards."

His father chuckled.

"I wouldn't put it past her, you know. She's absolutely besotted with little William. We both are."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, trying not to let his father's warmth and general contentedness rub off on him.

"Yes, well, it's…something we're considering," he replied, being careful to keep his eyes on the horizon.

At which point, he felt his father's hand come to rest on his shoulder. Sherlock chanced a sideways glance at the offending hand. Yup, this was definitely a prelude to wisdom-impartation.

"You know, Sherlock, you mustn't worry if it takes a little while," his father began. "As you know, it took over six years for us to conceive you. We started to wonder whether your brother had done some irreparable damage to your mother when he arrived in the world – he was quite a bouncing baby, after all."

Polite term for massive, great big mutant baby. And yes, trust Mycroft to try to sabotage the creation of any future siblings.

"Anyway," Timothy Holmes continued. "We just kept trying. Tried all sorts of things people recommended, but who knows whether any of them actually had any effect. Of course, the trick is to not make it become routine – but your mother was always very good at keeping things interesting in the bedroom department."

Enough! He was actually starting to sweat. Molly would no doubt think this was hilarious, as would Mycroft – given that he wasn't on the receiving end (and likely never would be).

"Okay, yes, fine, thank you, Dad – appreciate the…whatever this is, but I-"

"Relax and enjoy each other!"

Was he really still speaking?

"Although one word of warning," his father continued, with a conspiratorial chuckle, "We relaxed a bit too much after you were born, Sherlock – bit blasé with the old birth control, relied a bit too much on the breast-feeding doing the job, and suddenly your sister was on the way, too."

Someone up there apparently liked him (implausible though that seemed), as at that very moment – just as he thought he might have to feign a stroke - Sherlock's phone buzzed with a text alert.

"While we're sharing, Dad," he said, clearing his throat. "Which is just lovely, by the way – how would you liked to see a photograph of someone who may or may not have been shot in the head by their four-year old Siamese cat?"