In 1939, a mother in California fought off a mountain lion with her bare hands to keep it from attacking her and her child.
In 1975, a Nigerian father dove into the middle of the ocean from a cruise ship after his three year old daughter climbed through the railings and fell.
Throughout the 20th century, there had been multiple cases of mothers seemingly gaining superhuman strength to lift a car off their children.
Sherlock had studied these cases, he highlighted the patterns and tacked the articles to his wall. As a person who never understood romantic love, the love between child and parent was equally, if not more so, confusing to him. What could compel a person to face death without a second thought in order to protect someone they barely knew? In his opinion, the medieval serfs had gotten it right when it came to family planning: produced as many viable workers to help in the fields so that if one succumbed to whatever awful disease was popular at the time, another small body would take the place and finish the work.
This belief had been ingrained in him since he could read a history book, but in this moment, he finally began to understand what was going on in those parents' minds. Face to face with his own monster, he had the overwhelming urge to grab the throwing knives he kept hidden in the hanging plant by his head.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Moriarty said, his voice heavy like sap dropping from a maple tree. He had read his mind.
"What are you doing here?" he fired back severely.
"I'm here to give my congratulations!" he sang out, stretching his arms out like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Not every day your arch nemesis brings forth a new life into the world," his voice dropped into an icy timbre.
"What do you want," he said.
"I wanted to remind you that I'm still here," he let the balloon go. "You should be thanking me, if I hadn't decided to resurface, you'd be nine months dead in some god awful Turkish prison, maggots writhing in your eye sockets," his fingers danced over his eyes, suggesting squirming worms. Sherlock gave no reaction, and Moriarty returned his hands to his pockets.
"I came here to warn you," he said. "I was content with letting exile claim you, but then you had to go and make things interesting. Never a dull moment with you," he wagged his finger at Sherlock, like he was half-heartedly correcting a dog.
"Whatever it is your planning, we both know how it ends," Sherlock said.
"Oh I don't think we do," Moriarty walked up slowly, swaggering into Sherlock's personal space and making deep eye contact. "I wonder, if it came down between saving the country and saving your little family, which would you pick?"
Sherlock's face was stone cold as he peered into Moriarty's black eyes. If ever there was soul in his body, it had long ago corroded and dissolved into an acidic heap. In was then that he heard the kettle going off, along with footsteps.
"Honestly, Sherlock, how do you not hear that? You'd best get in there-" Mary came behind him and clicked off the kettle, before turning and noticing Moriarty.
"You-"
"Hello Mary," Moriarty smiled like he was greeting an old friend.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now," Mary seethed.
"Oh, I don't know, perhaps because I have men stationed at the entrance of this building, ready to come in here and obliterate this entire apartment if I don't leave in…" he checked his watch "three minutes,"
Mary ground her teeth. "My daughter…is deaf because of you," she growled.
"And I am terribly sorry about that," Moriarty sighed. Mary clenched the kettle tighter.
"Now, if you both will excuse me," he said, wedging himself in between the two of them. Moments later, he turned around.
"And another thing-"
Before he could speak Mary acted. In one quick moment the kettle's water splashed on Moriarty's face, scalding his skin. The noise that escaped him was inhuman, piercing Sherlock's ears. Moriarty's hands flew to his face, hands like claws.
"You bitch-"
"Better go," Mary said. " you've got two minutes by my count, and you'll need to get to a hospital if you don't want complete damage,"
Moriarty huffed, torn between destroying Mary here or getting relief for the seering pain on his face. Ultimately, unable to deal with the pain, he turned to them with a sneer.
"This isn't the end of this!" he cried back at them.
He stumbled against the hallway, dragging his feet as he stumbled down the stairs. Sherlock swung his head towards Mary.
"Before you say anything, I'd like to remind you that you killed a man a year ago,"
"He's dangerous, Mary,"
"Sherlock-"
Before she could continue, a small cry echoed from Sherlock's bedroom.
She was here.
Without skipping a beat the two raced down the hallway, shoes scuffing against the wooden floor. Sherlock caught himself against the frame of the bathroom, steadying himself against the inertia of his body.
It was bloody. Molly was lying in a bathtub slowly draining of bodily fluids. However disgusted she may have been with it was masked by the utter look of joy on her face as she held a small, squirming bundle, swaddled in one of Sherlock's pillowcases. Molly cooed and touched her fore finger to the tip of the infants nose and smiled.
"What the hell happened?" John asked. "What was that scream?"
"Moriarty. He was here."
"Here?" John asked.
"Don't worry, I dealt with him," Mary answered.
"Dealt with him?"
"How long ago?" Sherlock asked.
"Pardon?"
"How long," he nodded to the baby.
"Oh," John's face softened. "11:45 am." He turned to look at Molly, who finally looked up at Sherlock and smiled that giddy school girl smile that he hadn't seen since this whole ordeal began.
"Do you want to-?" John started, before Sherlock cut him off by walking over to the tub. Molly beamed up at him, and Sherlock found it hard to look at her. Not because he was disgusted by the bloody mess, he had seen murders more grisly, and not because he was disgusted by her disturbing amount of emotion. He found it hard to look at her the way he found it hard to look at the sun or burning magnesium. She was…bright. In front of her, he felt his shadow cast all the way to the eastern hemisphere.
"Sherlock," she whispered through small little cries. "She's perfect,"
He looked down at his daughter's face. If Molly was the sun, Violet, Violet Iris Hooper-Holmes was a super nova. Before this day Sherlock had believed that all babies more or less looked the same, but now, looking down at his child, he came to the scientific conclusion that this baby was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen.
"Ten fingers, ten toes," John came up behind him. "3 and a half kilograms, weighed on one old fashioned postal scale, which is inexplicably in your bathroom," John put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder.
"Sherlock Holmes, meet your daughter."
Molly turned back to look at him, smiling her goofy smile. Slowly, he came to sit down on the edge of the tub, and looked at the bundle in her arms.
"Do you want to hold her?" Molly asked.
Sherlock stuttered, caught off guard by her question and quickly made eye contact "What?"
"Do you want to hold her?"
"I-I don't,"
"Come on," she said, extending the baby towards him.
"Molly, I don't-"
It was too late. The baby squirmed near him, rubbing her tiny face against his torso. He stared down at her, so afraid she was going to break, stop breathing, spontaneously combust-
And then her eyes opened.
"Did I mention," John said "she shares her father's mutation?"
"One of them," Mary joked.
"Heterochromia iridium," Sherlock whispered. Violet looked at him, one blue and one brown eye scanning his face. Although it should be impossible, he could have sworn that her eyes narrowed, and her mouth pursed in quiet determination to figure out the man holding her.
"Violet," he breathed.
The baby blinked, and then, as if to show she trusted him, turned into him and closed her eyes, slowly fading off into her first nap.
Outside London was burning, Moriarty was plotting against him, and the biggest case of his life loomed on the horizon like a dark sun. But now, as he sat on the edge of his tub, looking down at his most successful experiment,
nothing else mattered.
