Hamish - 18

Lock - 15

Sophia - 12

Benedict and David - 9

Chapter 11:

Transitions

It was late. Sherlock went upstairs and found Sophia sitting on the sofa, her legs stretched over the table, tightly wrapped with her bright pink robe, colourful socks on, a frown between her eyebrows, her eyes focused on the book she was reading. Her hair was lose, falling down like a cascade over her shoulders, long till her waist.

"It's late." Sherlock said as he walked towards her but sat on the other end of the sofa.

She nodded, her eyes focused on the book. "I know."

"You'll have bags under your eyes."

Sophie curled the corner of her lips upwards, just slightly, her eyes still on the book.

"What's wrong, Princess?"

For the first time Sophie left the book on the table and turned to him. Her brown eyes were bloodshot - she was tired and she had been crying, it was obvious. She had bags under her eyes and her normally pink cheeks were pale. The twelve-year-old girl moved further close to Sherlock and finally lay down, resting her head on her father's thighs, her slender fingers curled on the fabric of his pyjama trousers.

The detective smiled and started running his fingers over her brown long hair, then he caressed her cheek and stroked her arm.

"It's been ages since you last called me 'Princess'," Sophie whispered. "I missed it."

"I thought you hated it."

"I love it," Sophie sighed. "I thought I wasn't your princess any more."

Sherlock smiled. "You'll always be my princess."

Sophie looked at her Dad's pale arm over hers and frowned. She sat next to him and let her fingertips feel those scars on Sherlock's left arm. "This is why you're always covering your arms?"

Sherlock said nothing.

"How you got these?"

No.

Sherlock was not going to tell her daughter that. No. She would never know. Sophia would never know how he got those scars, that he did drugs. No.

"Is it something bad?"

"Yes."

"OK," Sophie left his arm and snuggled up to him. "It's OK, Daddy."

Sherlock chuckled. "It's been ages since you last called me 'Daddy'," he moved an arm around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I missed it."

She giggled. "Daddy," Sophia repeated. "Daddy, daddy, daddy."

"What's bothering you?" the detective asked. "Why were you crying?"

"Mummy didn't tell you?"

Sherlock shook his head. "No. Just got back from a case. What happened?"

It was a moment Sherlock knew he would never forget. Sophie's bloodshot eyes were on his. She wasn't little any more to be cuddled. But she wasn't too big either. She was there, in the middle between being a little girl and an adolescent. Sophia was in the middle and Sherlock didn't know what to do. But he could feel her nervousness, her tears rolling down her cheeks, her crying eyes asking for help, for a kiss, for a cuddle.

"I don't want this, Daddy."

"What? What is it?"

"I don't want you to stop loving me," Sophie said between tears. "Please tell me you'll always love me."

Sherlock kissed her cheek and wiped the tears off her face. "I'll always love you. Independently of who you are, of what you choose to be, always."

"I'm not little any more."

"What?"

"Today..." She blushed.

Sherlock frowned. "What? Are you hurt?"

Oh, Sherlock.

"Mummy says I'm a woman now."

Oh.

WHAT?

NO.

NO.

Sophia was still too little!

Sherlock went pale.

"And Mum says I'm a little woman now and that my breasts will grown and I don't want that! I wanna be little! I don't want to grow up!" Sophie said close to tears.

Daughters were not easy to raise. Let alone to understand. As Sophia was the only girl, his only daughter, Sherlock had always struggled to understand what she felt, why she felt that way and what he could do to help. Truth to be told, Sherlock would never stand seeing Sophia crying - he never did. He hated himself for it. He wished he could just lock her up somewhere where no pain, no harm, nothing could hurt her. Because he was her father and he needed to protect her. Always.

"I have no wish to see you as an adult," Sherlock said softly. "I wish you could remain little forever because one day a man will steal your heart and I'll have to let you go," the detective confessed. "You'll stop coming to me when you're sad and when you think there's a monster under your bed."

"Daddy..." Sophie whispered and then smiled. "Monster don't exist! That's silly!"

Sherlock smiled. "You thought they existed."

"I'm not going to let any man steal my heart," She said softly. "I'll be your Princess forever."

The detective couldn't help but smile at that because he knew that, even when Sophie meant it, Sherlock knew one day she would fall in love, marry and leave Baker Street, leave her pink room, his home, his arms. Sherlock knew one day he would have to let her go - and he also knew he won't be able to stop it.

He always used complicated words with all his children - that's how they put it. But with Sophie he was tender, softer.

Sophia was special.

"I can't stop your periods," Sherlock said and Sophie blushed. "I can't stop you from growing up. But I'll always love you."

The girl smiled happily and threw her arms around the detective's neck. "I love you, Daddy."

"I think this situation calls for a glass of hot milk, a cuddle and a story."

"I'm not a baby, Daddy."

No, she wasn't.

"But... can I have a story?"

The detective nodded and walked with his daughter to her room. "'The Hounds'? I've been telling you that one since you were three."

"It's my favourite, Daddy," Sophie said and yawned. "Remember when Lock deduced Mr Knight ate a sandwich on the train?"

"You lost your virginity."

The seventeen year old went pale. "What the fu-"

"I believe you were clever enough to use a condom," the detective said and glanced at his surroundings. Hamish and Lock's room was an entire mess of clothes spread everywhere, books covering the desk, a video games console and games on the floor and dirty clothes discarded at the top of their beds.

Lock, who was in the room, immediately headed to the door. "Going to help Mum with the dishes."

Once they were alone, Hamish rushed to the door and closed it. "Shit, Dad!"

"Answer my question."

"That..." Hamish blushed. "That's private!"

Sherlock glared at him.

"Yes, I used protection, happy?"

Yes.

Sherlock was happy his son had used protection.

But he didn't know if he was happy about the other thing. About his eldest son growing up, going on dates, having girlfriends.

Already sleeping with a girl.

Hamish was not a little boy any more.

Hamish was a man now.

"So her parents were away?"

The boy rolled his eyes. "Why bother asking if you can deduce?"

"Because I'm your father."

"I don't ask you whether..." Hamish tried not to think about his mother and his father like that. He had to find another example. "Whether... whe-"

"How frequently your mother and I have sex?"

"Ugh, that's gross."

"You have just slept with a girl."

Hamish sighed loudly. "It's not the same!"

"I wish to know nothing about your sex life -"

"Then stop asking these kind of questions!"

The detective stopped for a moment to look at his eldest son. Hamish already shaved and he liked to wear product on his hair. He had grown so much and no he was not a little boy any more. Hamish was now tall, not as tall as the detective was, but he was close. He had soft features, blue eyes - Jane's eyes - sandy hair - Jane's hair - and a calm look on his face. He looked a bit like his grandfather John Watson, but no one, not even Sherlock, could deny Hamish looked like his biological father Sam Sawyer.

Hamish was, to what Sherlock knew girls considered, 'attractive'.

The boy had already been going out with a few girls a few months ago and now he was dating one whose name Sherlock always forgot.

But Sherlock didn't care if Hamish's girlfriend's name was Jasmine, Jamine, Joan, whatever. Sherlock cared and was worried because he didn't want his eldest son to do things wrong and end up like-

Like...

"I don't want you to impregnate the first girl you sleep with," Sherlock said. "And to make mistakes you could have avoided by just being clever enough to use a condom."

Hamish pulled a face. "I'm not going to say 'Janine's parents are coming' and you'd start 'and who's Janine?' and I'd say 'Janine is my girlfriend and she's pregnant'."

That hurt.

"Stop treating me like a baby."

"Then if you want to be treated as an adult be one," Sherlock said.

For a moment neither said a word.

Until Hamish sat on the edge of his bed and buried his face in his hands. "If you don't want me to make the same mistakes you did, just say it."

"You weren't a mistake."

"You just said it," Hamish spatted. "'to make mistakes you could have avoided by just being clever enough to use a condom'," the boy quoted his father. "I'm not your mistake. I'm Mum's."

No.

"You're my son."

"Not biologically speaking."

Sherlock winced. "You were not a mistake you mother did. You are our son."

"What d'you want?" Hamish asked tiredly. "If it's teaching me how things work and how girls get pregnant, I already know that."

"Your mother was seventeen when she knew she was expecting you," the detective said softly, as softly as his deep voice allowed him to. "And I was your age when I married her. We were scared."

Hamish remained silent.

"You're not a baby we can cuddle or sing lullabies to sleep," Sherlock sat next to Hamish. "But you're still not an adult we can just... let go."

Silence again.

"Do whatever you want. We'll be always support you and your life decisions. I don't want you to be scared."

"What did Grandpa do when you told her about Mum being pregnant?"

Sherlock curled his lips upwards. "He lectured me in sex and contraception methods and then ranted because I wanted to get married and not to go to Cambridge."

Hamish wanted to laugh.

The detective stood up and headed to the door.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

Sherlock grinned. "I love you, son."

"I want to be a soldier when I grow up."

The words escaped from his full lips, the very same pair of lips that made him look a lot more like his father and not so much like his mother, and in exchange, he got two pair of eyes on him.

His Dad was looking at him as if 'you are saying this now because you don't know the implications of being a soldier are'. And the detective was probably right, because the eight year old boy knew nothing more than training and guns - the most common assumptions people made.

However, his Mum looked at him and smiled.

She combed his son's soft dark reddish curls. "A soldier?"

"Yes. A soldier like Grandpa John."

"I want to be a soldier too," David said. "But I want to be a pilot!"

That was cute.

"A soldier..." Jane smiled. "What do you know about them?"

Benedict rolled his eyes. "I know it's not only gunshots and bombs and killing the enemy."

"Soldiers protect people. We want to protect people," David explained.

"The chances of any armed conflict are high," Sherlock added. "Especially if this country gets involved, which will surely happen."

"So we'll get a chance to go to a war!"

"Do you know what that means?" Jane asked the twins. "You'll protect people, but you'll also have to fight for this country... your life will be in danger."

Benedict shrugged.

David showed no emotion whatsoever.

"You're still too little to know what you want to do."

Both boys knew this was true. They were eight. Eight. They had lots of time to think of what they wanted to be once they grew up.

The detective thing was interesting too. "I could be a Detective. Like Dad." Benedict suggested.

Sherlock looked at his son. That was incredibly... flattering. That one of his children were actually considering to become a Detective like him somehow made him feel... good? None had shown any signs of interest into the detective business. All of his children had the brains to deduce, observe, experiment - but none of them, but Benedict were that interested. He had taken all of them to crime scenes, to the Yard, to Bart's - all of them had seen corpses, clues... and yet no one was interested. Hamish was going to be a doctor for sure, already following his mother's footsteps having the best grades in Biology and so on. Lock, and by just looking, Sherlock could tell was going to be a adventurous traveller and that he had the whole world to see and explore. Sophia was taking her drama lessons seriously and she was very talented - she was the actress of the family, the one who liked to read far too much, as well as watching old films and watch plays at the West End. And David had previously said he wanted to be a doctor too, like his Mum, but Sherlock saw none of it on him. Sherlock saw both twins, Benedict and David were to share the same things, the same destiny.

He stopped for a moment to think he would never get used to the idea of his children not being children any more.

Since Hamish, and then with Lock, Sherlock imagined two boys, always running to and fro, always asking him to take them to the park, to the movies to watch those horrendous action films involving superheroes. Then Sophia joined the family and soon Sherlock found himself surrounded by two different worlds in which one was ruled by his two sons and one in which his daughter liked pink things and Princesses stories.

However, when the twins were born, the cot that had belonged to Hamish, Lock and then Sophie had to be prepared, tons of nappies and formula had to be bought and then the house was full of noises, screams, tears, kids running, a girl jealous of her little siblings, a depressed Jane and two very little babies that liked to cry during the night.

That's what he liked. That's what Sherlock got used to and loved. Sherlock loved the noises, sometimes annoying, sometimes comforting such as Lock playing the violin or Sophia reading a script from a school play. He liked to hear Hamish read out loud to improve his reading and speech skills, the sound of the twins doing their mischiefs, playing. Children being children.

And he had five.

They were five.

And then, Hamish was a teenager, almost an adult going on dates, Lock was an adolescence who was discovering what he wanted to be and liked to spend far too much time at the library reading books, Sophia had no nightmares any more so there were no monsters Sherlock had to scare away and the twins were two boys who rejected cuddles and stories.

And Sherlock got used to be needed, to be called 'Daddy' and to be asked for help. The detective liked to help Hamish doing his science homework, correct Lock's composing and help him to clean his violin. The same happened with Sophia, he liked to scare those monsters as a child she claimed lived under her bed and inside her wardrobe but she was growing up and now she didn't hug him before going to bed at night. The twins rejected his old stories and cuddles and said they were far too old for that.

"Can't sleep?"

The detective was sitting on his armchair. It was late, it was dark, it was a cold night and he was barefoot. Though he didn't feel the cold through his feet.

Sherlock merely stared into the darkness of the living room, where a football wall was resting next to the sofa, Sophia's hairbrush was on the small table, Lock's violin was sitting on a shelve close to the windows and on his hands an old bottle.

"What's that?" Jane asked, sitting across him on her armchair.

Sherlock looked at the object on his hands. It was Lock's bottle. He had found it in a box downstairs and Sherlock couldn't help but smile. His son had used that bottle until he was four. He had perfect teeth, he could speak and even read, but yet he preferred to drink his milk using a bottle.

Brat.

"Lock's."

Jane smiled and rested, unconsciously, a hand over her stomach.

Such a gesture Sherlock remembered she always did when she was pregnant.

"You're thinking about what Benny and David said," Jane said softly. "They're just eight."

"You can see it."

"Hmm?"

Sherlock rose to his feet and turned one lamp on. Then, he returned back to his place, still holding Lock's old bottle. "That's not what they think they like. That's what they want to be."

Jane smiled. "They are eight," she repeated.

"And when Hamish was six he said he wanted to be a doctor and he's applying for medical universities. Lock was five when he said he wanted to explore the world and now you can ask him and he will tell you the best route to get into the deep of the South American jungle," Sherlock said and then fixed his eyes on Jane's. "Sophie had always said she wanted to be an actress and there you have her taking parts in every school play."

That was awfully true.

"And today our two youngest children said they want to be soldiers like their grandfather."

"I still think they are too young to know what they want," Jane insisted. "I'm as worried as you are -"

"I'm not worried."

"Then what are you doing up at three in the morning with Lock's old bottle?" Jane asked softly. "If that's what they want, well... we can't do anything to stop them."

Sherlock nodded. "We must."

"But we can't."

"They could die."

"Or there couldn't be a war."

The detective looked into her eyes. "I don't want them to grow up." He admitted. "I want to be able to protect them."

"Are you planning to die?"

"No."

"Why wouldn't you be there to protect them?"

Sherlock looked down at the bottle. "Because they will become adults."

Jane smiled. "This same thing happened to our parents the day we told them we were expecting a baby when we were just seventeen."

Sherlock remained silent.

"You were your parent's baby, their only child left at home and I was... I guess I was something like that to my mother," Jane explained. "We were children, Sherlock... and they had to see us leaving their sides -"

"It's not the same. Hamish's not impregnated that girl he likes - Jasmine."

"Janine." Jane curled the corner of her lips upwards. "The fact they don't ask you for cuddles, kisses, stories or help doesn't mean they don't need it."

"I don't understand them."

"Me neither. One day Hamish wakes up grumpy and doesn't wear his hearing aids because he doesn't want to listen to anyone, Lock has his moments too, remember the day he woke all of us at two in the morning with his violin?" Sherlock nodded, slightly smiling. "Sophia is a little woman now and I find it difficult to deal with her mood swings," both chuckled. "And David and Benedict are fighting most of the time."

"They should have been born with a textbook each."

"Then parenting would have been extremely boring."

"Am I a good father?" Sherlock asked her.

Jane smiled tenderly at him. "Of course you're a good father. Everything you do is the best for them. Everything. I always thought you and me would be a disaster but here we are, two against five. And we manage."

Sherlock smiled and kissed her softly.

After a few kisses, both looked into each other eyes.

Dilated pupils. Sherlock touched Jane's wrist. Her pulse was high.

"You still love me."

She smiled. "Of course."

"Always?"

"Always."