"Hamish, will you sit still and let me wipe your nose.?"

John held the still-unused tissue in one hand and tried to get a firm hold on the back of the toddler's head with the other.

"No! Yucky, John!" Hamish tried to wriggle away but his escape attempt was thwarted by John grabbing him around the waist and pulling him into his lap.

"Yeah, no kidding, mate, you've got snot running down your face."

"Yes. Boogies."

John laughed as he was finally able to at least wipe his face clean. "Where did you learn that word, Hame?"

"Daddy say boogies."

The doctor nearly dropped the tissue. "Does he really?"

"Mhmm. Daddy say 'They yucky boogies, Ham'."

"Is that what Daddy says?"

"Yah."

"Daddy's full of surprises isn't he?"

"Na!"

She wasn't even at the top of the stairs when Hamish greeted her, and smiled when the little boy flew out of John's lap and across the room to hug her legs.

"Hello, Hamish dear. John, I've booked you boys a table at Angelo's for six-thirty tonight, alright?"

"I… uh… thanks, Mrs. Hudson. For Hame too?"

She shook her head. "No, love, I'll mind him. Just for you and Sherlock."

"Oh… okay… are you sure? He's got a cold, he's pretty grotty."

"Yes. We'll have fun, won't we, Hamish?"

"Yes."

Sherlock, who had been lying on the sofa in his mind palace since before breakfast that morning, suddenly returned to reality and said, "What's happening?"

"We're going to Angelo's. Mrs. Hudson's booked us in; she's going to mind Hame."

Sherlock frowned. "Why?"

"Oh, I just think that you two need a little break," she smiled and picked Hamish up. "Now, Hamish and I will go downstairs and watch some telly, you two had better get ready."

"Hamish, you must behave, do you understand me?" Sherlock knelt before his son, holding his little hands between them.

"Yes."

"When Mrs. Hudson asks you to do something, you must do it."

"Okay."

"Mrs. Hudson is in charge, alright? When she says it's time for bed, then it's time for bed, and you mustn't argue."

"Okay, Daddy," he pulled an irritated face and tried to tug away from Sherlock's grasp.

"You need to be good for me, alright?"

"Yes. Okay, Daddy. Go now."

"Good boy. I'll see you in the morning. Have a lovely night. I love you."

"Mhmm. Love Daddy too."

Sherlock kissed is cheek, ran a hand through his curls, and stood, his posture stiff.

"See you, Hame," John smiled, holding him close for a moment.

"Bye-bye, John. Love him."

Hamish still hadn't quite grasped the concept of pronouns and how to use them correctly.

"I love you too, little man," John smiled, kissing his cheek.

They sat in the cab in complete silence, Sherlock staring at his hands clasped in his lap.

"Are you alright, Sherlock?"

"Mmm? Fine."

"You sure?"

"I'm fine."

"Hamish'll be okay."

"I know." Apparently he had lost the ability to make eye-contact.

A sigh. "Mrs. Hudson's looked after him loads of times before."

"I know," he said, a little more forcefully than he'd meant to.

"Is it because it's at night?"

"I…"

"Sherlock, we're raising a child together. We need to be able to talk about things like this."

"I don't… talk about things, John."

"Yeah, I know. But if you need to…"

Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'm anxious for a number of reasons."

John nodded. "That's okay."

Finally, eye-contact. It was a glare, but at least the detective was looking at him. "You are not my therapist."

"I know that."

"I'm worried about her bathing him."

John nodded. "She'll be careful, though, Sherlock. And he isn't scared of it anymore."

Sherlock bit his lip. "But what if… he only isn't frightened of it with us? He might panic if we aren't there."

"If Mrs. Hudson needs us, she'll ring."

"I don't want him to be scared, John," Sherlock said quietly.

"He feels safe with her. What else are you worried about?"

"I don't like the idea of us not being home when he goes to bed."

"Why not?"

Sherlock thought for a moment. "I don't… he might… he might feel that we've abandoned him."

"Why might he think that? He knows we're coming back."

"I just…"

"Is this about you or Hamish?"

Sherlock cleared his throat. "I suppose… it may be a product of my own childhood."

John nodded. "Sherlock… he is not going to have the childhood you had. He'll never feel like we've abandoned him. He matters so much to us, and to Mrs. Hudson, and to Mycroft, and to Lestrade. And he knows how much we all love him. He'll be okay."

Angelo pulled Sherlock into a bone-crushing hug the second he walked in the door, and ushered them to their table, shouting all the while. "Sherlock! And you've brought your partner with you. You two haven't had a date night in so long! How are you John?"

"I'm fine, thanks, but we're not… I'm not…"

"Why do you bother, John?" Sherlock smirked as he sat down.

"Doesn't it bother you?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I know that we're not sleeping together, and you know that we're not sleeping together, what does it matter what other people think?"

A sigh. "Sherlock, I'm not gay, and if everyone thinks I am, I have absolutely no chance of ever finding someone."

Sherlock frowned. "Someone for what?"

John raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Now they were both confused. "What do you need someone for, that you can't find if everyone thinks you're gay?"

"A woman, Sherlock," he said, as if the detective was a complete moron.

"Oh. Are you still… oh."

"Am I still what?"

Sherlock cleared his throat and pretended to look at the menu.

"Sherlock?"

"Looking for a… partner." He spat the word out as if it personally offended him, not even bothering to meet John's gaze.

"Well… yeah."

"Right. Good for you. What are you eating? I'm leaning towards the risotto."

"Are you… did you think I'd… given up?"

"No, I just thought that since we had Hamish now, he was fulfilling your emotional needs."

And it dawned on him. "Oh. He is… I just… have… other needs as well."

Sherlock pulled a disgusted face. "John, that level of detail is hardly necessary."

"It does alarm you." A smile spread across his face while Sherlock's frown deepened.

"What does?" he snapped.

"Sex!"

"Will you keep your voice down?" he hissed, looking around the restaurant. "It does not alarm me."

"Why does it alarm you?"

Sherlock responded with a glare, returning to the menu.

"You're not… are you? Have you really never..?"

"Shut up. What are you eating?"

"Sorry. The fettuccine."

Sherlock recovered quickly from his embarrassment, a rarity in itself; and they found conversation easy and constant. Apparently, they'd been spending less time together than they thought and had a fair amount to catch up on.

"Molly's pregnant, did you know?"

John choked on his mouthful of pasta and stared, wide-eyed at his flatmate. "What? Molly Hooper?"

"Yes. Almost three months along now, she should be announcing it soon."

"Sherlock… were you planning on telling me this?"

"I just did."

"Does she know that you know?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I'm sure she wouldn't be surprised."

"Whose baby is it?"

"Some moron's. He left her when she told him."

John frowned. "Oh my God. How long have you known?"

He shrugged again. "A few weeks."

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "We've been so busy, John. You're constantly at the clinic, Hamish has had this cold, I've been working on this case. I was going to tell you."

"How is the case going?"

Sherlock's eyes lit up and he dropped his fork as he launched into a Sherlockian monologue.

"It's fascinating, actually. Seven identical murders of real estate agents. Two in Scotland, one in Essex, one in York, one in Bath, and the other two in central London, yet all under exactly the same circumstances, and with only a week between the first and the last. No forced entry, houses all locked from the inside, yet they're definitely not suicides. And do you know the most interesting part? All seven men have identical tattoos on the insides of their dominant wrists." Sherlock grinned maniacally and returned to his risotto.

John couldn't help but smile. "How close are you to solving it?"

"Close, John. Although, I'd appreciate a second opinion. Would you be able to come down to the morgue tomorrow and take a look at the bodies?"

"Yeah, sure, as long as Mrs. Hudson isn't Hamished-out. I love him to pieces but he's pretty tiring."

They both smiled fondly at the thought of the small boy and relaxed into a few moments of comfortable silence.

"I think we should discuss education before Mycroft starts annoying us about it," Sherlock said after he'd ordered a second bottle of wine.

"Oh, right, okay. Well… what did you have in mind?"

"I don't care. My only condition is that he doesn't go anywhere near any of those awful boarding schools. I… he needs to be at home."

"Alright, that's fine. I've never really liked the idea of sending your kids away, anyway. What's the point in having them if you're just going to palm them off like that?"

"Yes, quite right."

"So, just a normal school for him, then? We could send him to a public day school, I'm sure he'd get a better education there. That's important to you, yeah?"

"Yes, well, we'll have to see how he goes. I... he may not thrive at school and I don't..." Sherlock stopped and cleared his throat. "I don't want him in an environment where he doesn't feel safe."

"What... what do you mean?"

"He'll be bullied." Sherlock said, using the voice he always used when John didn't understand him. He sighed and buried his face in his hands as John stared analytically at him.

"Bullied?"

"Yes, bullied."

"Why will he be bullied, Sherlock?"

"Because that's what happens to children who are even the slightest bit out of the ordinary. Weren't you bullied?"

John's brow furrowed and Sherlock looked at him expectantly. "Am I out of the ordinary?"

"Yes, of course you are. I'd hardly tolerate you if you weren't."

John shrugged. "I got picked on a bit in secondary school."

"I suppose it's unavoidable for a child like Hamish." Sherlock sighed again and glared at his plate, as if it were responsible for his son's supposed fate. He jumped when his phone rang, and panicked when he saw it was Mrs. Hudson. "Is everything alright?"

"Everything's fine, dear. Hamish is just going to bed, and he wanted to say goodnight to you both."

There was a rustling sound and some rather loud whispering as the phone was passed to Hamish. Then, there was a sudden "'Lo, Daddy!" at a ridiculous volume.

Sherlock winced and held the phone a little away from his ear. "Hello, Hamish. Are you going to bed?"

"Mhmm. Ham be good."

"You've been good?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Good man. Did you want to speak to John?"

"Mhmm. Ni, Daddy."

"Goodnight, Hamish."

Sherlock passed the phone across the table and John smiled. "Hey, Hame. Did you have a fun night?"

"Mhmm. Bed now."

"Yes, it's bed time now. Have a good sleep, little man."

"Yes. Daddy be good?"

John laughed and said, "Yeah, Daddy's being good. I'll see you in the morning, okay?"

"Okay. Ni, John."

"Goodnight, bud."

"Were you bullied then?"

Sherlock was reading something on his phone while John ate dessert, and didn't even look up when he was spoken to. "What?"

"Were you bullied… at school?"

"Of course I was!"

"All through?"

"Yes. From the very beginning."

"Who by?"

"Must you interrogate me like this? Nobody liked me. Can you imagine me getting on with any of my peers?"

John shrugged. "You get on with me."

"You're not normal. Your tolerance of me is the first of its kind I've experienced."

John calmly placed his fork on is plate and caught his flatmate's gaze. "I don't just tolerate you, Sherlock. If that's all it was I would have moved on properly when you… when you left, I wouldn't have waited around. I care about you, you know that."

"Why did you wait around? You thought I was dead. I've never understood why you waited for so long, when you didn't think I would come back."

John cleared his throat and looked down at his plate. "Look, this is really… I don't like talking about it."

"I'll tell you about my schooling if you tell me about… that time."

John paused for a moment, mulling it over, before nodding and saying, "You first."

Sherlock cleared his throat and nodded. "I had one friend when I first started primary school. Robert. His brother was Mycroft's best friend so I think his mother forced him to be nice to me. It didn't last very long anyway. At that age I didn't understand how… normal children behaved, and I had little awareness of my own behaviour. I'm sure you notice that I still struggle with that. I've never really had… a filter." He stopped and rubbed his temples with his fingers.

"You alright?"

"Yes, I'm just… trying to remember. I couldn't delete it but it's… at the back of my memory."

"Take your time."

"You're not my therapist," Sherlock said with a frown.

"No, I'm not, but I think you need one."

This was ignored. Sherlock took a deep breath and continued. "You must understand, I never went to nursery, and Mycroft is much older than me. Until I started school, I had never been exposed to the way that a normal five-year-old should be. For the first few weeks I didn't understand why the other children would… laugh at me. Whenever I answered a question or was asked to show my work to the class which, as you can imagine for a child of my intellect was often, they would laugh. All of them, even Robert. I asked Mycroft about it and he said that they were just cruel and jealous which… I suppose was true but it wasn't enough of an answer for me. I asked Robert and he said that it was because I was odd."

John gave a sympathetic not-quite-smile not-quite-frown, his eyes urging Sherlock to continue.

"The turning point was seven weeks into the school year. The tallest boy in our class cornered me in the playground and started saying things. The usual, you know, 'freak', 'weirdo'. Then he said that I had no friends, and I said that I did, and that Robert was my friend. So he turned to Robert and asked him if he was my friend." He sighed. "He said no, that he wasn't my friend, that he didn't like me, and who'd want to be friends with a freak?"

"Oh, Sherlock."

"It started when I was five and it never stopped. But I have a friend now." There was still a little uncertainty in his eyes when he looked across the table.

John was quick to confirm. "Yeah, you do."

"Mycroft always let me sit with him at recess and lunch. It was very kind now I come to think of it. But he was in his last year of primary school when I started so by the time I was in year one he'd gone to boarding school and I was… well…"

"Alone."

"Yes."

"What about your parents?"

"I never told them. I'm sure they knew. It couldn't have been surprising. But I don't think they knew what to do. I managed to avoid it quite well. I'd sit in the library, or sometimes my teachers would let me stay in the classroom during the breaks. It was worse at boarding school. I couldn't escape in the afternoons. My roommates were often rather cruel, but by the middle of secondary school they'd put me in a room by myself on Mycroft's request so that made it a lot easier."

Silence fell across the table and John poured them both another glass of wine.

"Your turn, John."

"Right." John took a sip of wine and a deep breath. "For about six weeks after… after you jumped, I was… stuck. I didn't leave the flat. I was… it was…" A sigh. "I missed you a lot. More than I thought I would. I missed your bloody experiments all over the flat and the body parts in the freezer and the violin in the middle of the night. I always regretted that I'd never told you how important you are to me. I knew you mustn't have had many friends before. You don't get told that often that people actually like you, in spite of…"

"My personality?"

John cleared his throat. "Well… you're not the easiest of people to live with. Anyway… I… this is going to sound stupid, but I guess it turned out to not be so stupid after all. I sort of… I suppose I didn't really know… I hoped with everything I had that you weren't dead. That's why I waited. Just in case. That's why."

"That's… very touching, John. Thank you for… yes… well." He cleared his throat and pretended that he'd suddenly seen something very interesting in his wine glass while John did some stammering of his own.

"Yeah, well. Thanks for telling me about… you know… all that stuff… I suppose that was difficult… Should we ah… get the bill?"

They should have checked the weather before they decided to walk home. John had brought a flimsy compact umbrella which was so small that the tops of their heads were the only areas that weren't completely soaked.

The boys walked quickly down Baker Street and had almost reached the flat when a rather attractive woman about John's age, soaked to the skin, ran to catch up with them and grabbed the sleeve of Sherlock's coat.

"Excuse me, I'm terribly sorry but I'm just wondering where I'd be able to get a cab?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Can't you…"

John hit him, actually hit him. A rough whack on the arm, and pushed past him to give the woman directions. He also gave her his umbrella and a charming smile.

"Thank you so much. I'm Mary by the way."

"John Watson."

They stood awkwardly staring at each other while Sherlock huffed.

"Sorry, this might be… totally out of line, but… could I have your number? Life's short, that's all."

And so, they walked down the rest of Baker Street, Mary Morstan's phone number clutched tightly in John's hand while they were slowly saturated.

They pulled the door to 221B open and rushed inside, stripping off their wet coats and scarves and stumbling up the stairs.

"John!"

Sherlock was standing at the door to his bedroom, staring into the room in horror.

"What's wrong?"

"Mrs. Hudson!" The detective bolted through the flat and down the stairs.

John's eyes flicked to Hamish's empty cot and he felt ready to throw up. Meanwhile, Sherlock flew down the stairs and into Mrs. Hudson's flat, where he breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's alright, John!"

Their landlady was sat in her armchair fast asleep, with Hamish in his pirate pyjamas, thumb in mouth, blanket in hand, cradled against her chest, his back slowly rising and falling with sleepy breaths.

John ran down the stairs and came to a halt in the doorway, his entire frame relaxing as a smile made its way onto his face.

Sherlock carefully scooped Hamish into his arms, and Mrs. Hudson woke with a start.

"Oh, Sherlock, it's just you. I'm sorry, I did put him to bed but he was rather anxious about you not being home so he couldn't sleep. I brought him down here to see if it would settle him."

"Well, it seems to have worked. Goodnight, Mrs. Hudson. Thank you for watching him. We had a lovely evening."

Sherlock meandered up the stairs to put his still-sleeping son to bed.

"Yeah, thank you so much, Mrs. H. We really needed that," John said before following Sherlock up.

"Any time, dear."