Hamish lived off pureed fruit, ice cream, and warm water with honey for almost two weeks. By the end of the first week, he had regained a fair amount of his energy. He was back to crawling, feeding himself, pulling his socks off, and arguing with them about having to wear clothes; but was still too sick and sore to eat anything that wasn't virtually liquid, and his usual happy demeanour had simply vanished.

The toddler was also getting closer and closer to being able to walk. He had become incredibly good at standing up, and if he was within reach of a piece of furniture or some other fixture to hold onto, he far preferred toddling around said piece of furniture to crawling.

"Sherlock! Sherlock!" John suddenly shouted one afternoon. Hamish had almost fully recovered and Sherlock was back on a case, having taken the last two weeks off to take care of him.

The detective was sitting at the kitchen table, much to John's disdain ("You cannot conduct experiments on the table we eat off!"), peering into a microscope. He looked up at his flatmate in irritation. "What?" John was supposed to be watching Hamish so he could work undisturbed.

"I think he's going to walk," John grinned.

That got his attention. Sherlock flew out of his chair and across the room to where Hamish was standing one step away from the sofa, which he had let go of.

"Are you going to walk, Hamish?" Sherlock asked as he knelt down a few feet in front of his son, who looked warily at him.

"Mhmm," he finally said, swaying on his feet a little.

"Wait! Let me get the camera." John dashed into the kitchen and returned with the video camera he'd bought the week before. "Okay, go!"

As Hamish moved to take his first step, he leant back slightly too far and fell backwards, resulting in a frustrated frown.

"It's alright, Hame, try again. You walk over to Daddy," John said.

With a determined glint in his eye, Hamish pulled himself up again, bit his lip in concentration, and took a little step. Once he'd done this, the little boy was filled with confidence and took three more hurried steps over to where Sherlock was sitting.

Sherlock opened his arms as Hamish approached, and scooped him up when he reached him.

"Well done, Hamish!" John cheered.

"John look?" 'Look' was Hamish's newest word, and he enjoyed using it so much that he often chose it above the correct word. Just that morning, he had called his toast 'look'.

"Yes, I saw you, Hame. That was amazing."

"Dah?"

"Yes, I saw as well. Why don't you walk over to John now?"

"Mhmm."

John was a little further away than his father had been, so Hamish fell over twice on his way across the room.

"Good boy, Hamish." John bundled him up into his arms and held tightly onto him, before tickling him until his laughter reached the point of absolute hysteria.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen."

"My! Look!" Hamish slowly stood and toddled across to the doorway where his uncle was standing.

"Well done, Hamish." Mycroft picked him up and cuddled the toddler against his chest. "How long has he been walking for?"

"About two minutes." John smiled.

"Pat!" Hamish shouted, wriggling until Mycroft put him down. Postman Pat was his favourite television show and it could not be missed. Nobody in 221B or probably the entirety of Baker Street had ever seen a temper-tantrum of the magnitude of that which had occurred two days prior when they arrived home from the park a little later than planned and missed Postman Pat.

"Yes, it's time for Pat now," John smiled, turning the television on.

Hamish clapped and crawled over to the sofa, pulling himself up to sit in his spot, and sticking his thumb in his mouth.

"My?" He looked expectantly up at his uncle.

"Ah… I… I have to go."

"Oh." Hamish pouted and his eyes filled with tears.

"I suppose I can watch a little with you." This earned him a round of applause and a huge grin, and when he sat down, Hamish crawled into his lap to sit with him.

And so, the British Government watched the entirety of Postman Pat, followed by Fireman Sam and Shawn the Sheep, before he took his leave.

"Sure you don't want to stay for dinner, Mycroft? We're getting pizza." This earned John a glare from his flatmate.

"Thank you, John, but I really must be going. Goodbye, Hamish."

"Bah, My!"

"Doctor Watson. Little brother." They were given a nod. He was given a glare and a dismissive wave by his brother.

"See you, Mycroft." John ignored the detective's childish behaviour and instead tried to work out what suddenly had Hamish so excited.

The little boy's eyes had widened, he was kicking his little feet and his hands were clenched into fists, an enormous grin adorning his face.

"What is it, Hame?" John asked.

"More Pat!"

"That's wonderful, Hamish." Sure enough, when John checked, the boy had been blessed with a Postman Pat marathon that went for the next hour. "There's lots of Pat on today. When it's finished, we're going to turn the TV off, okay?"

Hamish frowned. "Pat?"

"You can watch Pat until he's finished, and then I'll turn it off."

"Kay. Dah Pat?"

"Daddy's working right now, Hamish. I can watch it with you if you'd like."

"Yes. John." Hamish patted the space next to him with a tiny hand and John sat, pulling him into his lap.

"Look! Hat!" Hamish exclaimed halfway through dinner. Sherlock and John looked up to find the toddler with a piece of his pizza on his head. "Hat!" he repeated.

"That's a funny hat." John laughed and started filming again.

"John why must you film every single thing the boy does?" Sherlock asked in irritation.

John shrugged. "It's what you do, Sherlock. It's nice to watch them back. It's the same as taking photos."

"Well it isn't what I do."

"It'll be good for his file."

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand and returned to his work.

"Dah hat?"

"Daddy might be able to make a hat out of his dinner if he was eating any." John frowned at the detective who was still staring down the microscope and had refused to move when his flatmates had started eating.

"I'm. Not. Hungry. And I'm busy," Sherlock huffed.

"Ah do, Dah?"

"What am I doing?"

"Mhmm."

"I'm solving a case for Lestrade and his incompetent police force."

"Ubstred?"

"Yes, Hame. Daddy works with Lestrade," John told him.

"Ah do now?" Hamish asked Sherlock.

"Now is a new word," Sherlock noted. "Right now, Hamish, I'm examining a sample I collected off of a glove that the murderer 'stupidly' left at the crime scene. It's very interesting, actually. It appears that the murderer only arrived in London this past weekend. He lives in the Lakes District, you see, which means he'd been planning this murder for quite some time. However, the victim was from the same area, so why did he wait until this particular weekend? He's lived near her for the last eight years, why did he wait for so long? And why the honey? All of that would be important if it was, in fact, the man who this glove belongs to that murdered the poor woman but he didn't kill her. It was her son. I'm more interested in why he's trying to frame the village pastor."

"Oh," said Hamish. "Na!"

'Na' was as close as he could get to saying Mrs. Hudson's actual name, so that is what he insisted upon calling her. Sure enough, there she stood, in the doorway to the flat, something small and knitted in her hands.

"Sorry, boys, I don't want to interrupt your dinner. I just finished this jumper for Hamish."

John beamed. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Hudson. Would you like something to eat?"

"Oh no, thank you, love. I just wanted to drop this off before I went out tonight," she said, handing the jumper to John.

"Oh, it's lovely. Look what Mrs. Hudson made for you, Hamish." The doctor unfolded the tiny knitted jumper and held it up for the toddler to see. It was an exact copy of John's favourite cream cable-knit jumper and Hamish clapped his hands.

"John!"

"Yes, it's just like mine, isn't it? What do you say to Mrs. Hudson, Hamish?"

"Ta, Na," Hamish said, beaming.

"You're welcome, darling. Well, I'd best be off then," Mrs. Hudson smiled, starting for the door.

"Who is it this time, Mrs. Hudson?" the detective asked, still not looking up from the notes he was making.

"Sherlock, don't…" John began.

"It's alright, John. Sherlock, it's that lovely Mr. Walbury from 225A. I'll be very impressed if you can find a bad thing to say about him."

Sherlock took a breath, thought for a moment and said, "Actually, not a thing. Have a lovely evening, Mrs. Hudson."

"Right, well thank you," she said, heading down the stairs.

"Thank you for Hamish's jumper." Sherlock smiled cordially and returned to the microscope.

"On?" Hamish shouted as soon as Mrs. Hudson had closed the door.

"You can put it on when you finish your dinner, I don't want it getting dirty after you've only worn it for one second," John said, carefully putting the jumper on the table out of Hamish's reach.

"Kay."

They had never seen the toddler eat so quickly. He wolfed down the entire piece of pizza in less than a minute where it would normally have taken him close to half an hour, what with his examining it from every angle and picking at every single thing on it until his curiosity was sated.

"Inish. Up!" he said, holding his hands above his head.

"That was quick, Hame," John said as he wiped Hamish down and pulled him from the highchair.

"Mhmm. On?" He pointed to the jumper.

"Yeah, alright, hold on a minute."

John took off the little hoodie Hamish was already wearing and replaced it with his new jumper. He grinned.

"Dah! Look!" Hamish shouted gleefully.

"Yes, that's wonderful, Hamish." The detective didn't even bother to look up from his work and waved a hand in his sons' direction. Hamish looked dreadfully disappointed and leant into John's hold.

"Sherlock!"

"What?" His head snapped up and he glared at John.

"You didn't even look at him."

"I'm busy," he snapped, returning to his notes.

The toddler's eyes filled with tears but they didn't fall, and John quickly carried him into the living room to distract him. He knew this wasn't going to be the last time Sherlock disappointed his son.