And, it's a boy!

I hope Victor's fate was happy enough *grinning evilly*

A few hours later, Sherlock's bedroom door is latched shut, the only occupants being Sherlock himself and the harassed landlady Martha, who helps him through it. The labour can go on for hours, which means that Martha would have to deal with the extremities of Sherlock's annoyance (which was a laughably mild label) for hours.

"Mr. Altamont, breathe, it's okay," she whispers, holding on to his hand.

"I am breathing!" he snaps back, "Stupid old woman!" He moans in pain, and squeezes her hand tighter. She just tries to console herself that this was the irritation and the mood swings coming on full-blown.

"It'll soon be over, my dear sir," she sighs, speaking as coaxingly as possible, "Just breathe in... deeply, like ooooo, huh u."

Even in the midst of a contraction, Sherlock rolls his eyes while his face contorts with pain, "Need... John..."

Martha and Louise have never ventured further to ask Mr. Altamont about who "John" was, the only name Sherlock usually takes during his Heats. They fail to understand why Mr. Altamont would take his own name during his Heats. Nevertheless, Martha keeps up her soothing litany.

"He is not here at the moment, sir - "

Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Martha!" he hisses through clenched teeth, and she's left wondering if Mr. Altamont's Alpha's name was also John.

Peculiar indeed.

Another contraction wracks up Sherlock's body, which he suffers through solely as he refuses Martha's offered fingers for abuse. She simply sighs, and dabs his forehead with a linen cloth dipped in cool water. Sherlock's fever has been returning to him, in continuous, painful bouts. From outside the door, they can hear Louise's agitated footsteps. Sherlock throws his head back, his body shivering in response to the labour.

"How long?" he hisses. She just shakes her head.

"Minutes to hours, I'm afraid I can't tell. It's your first child... Water?"

"Yes, plea-gah!"

Several contractions pass before Martha tells him to stop trying to push it out, "Just breathe, Mr. Altamont. Don't try to push it out as fast as possible, it'll all be over soon."

The next half hour is spent alternating between Sherlock leaning into Martha and coldly declaring that she was not needed and that she needed to get the hell out of there. Several times Sherlock even tries to push her away, or threaten her with burning down the house and reporting them to the police for having built their house on an illegal scrap of land and other preposterous threats. His resolve lasts through two sets of contractions before the fingers Martha had left next to him are crushed again in his grip.

"I WILL have you arrested for the charge of murder on someone!" he growls consistently, "I will hand your daughter over to gangsters!"

"Stop this, Mr. Altamont, and sip it!" she orders, and Sherlock simply makes a face at her even as his face twists with pain, sticking his tongue out like a petulant child. The next set of contractions are drowned in a dry-throated scream that tears itself treacherously from Sherlock's lips.

"It'll all be over soon, sir," she tries to console him, "It'll all be - "

"If you ever come near me again," Sherlock starts on a fresh collection of insults, "I will - "

"Yes, you will, sir. I believe you," she speaks quickly, "Now breathe, and drink the water."

A few more contractions later, Martha decides that it is maybe now time, "If you feel the urge to push with the next contraction, go right ahead," she smiles reassuringly, gathering up the linen and moved them closer.

Groaning, Sherlock tries his best but the pain is too much. He tries to tell himself that he has had worse, but the thought isn't very helping. He grabs a pillow, and bites into it, stifling the moans, and Martha puts all pillows out of his reach, telling him that he needed to breathe, and Sherlock simply launches into a fresh assortment of swearing, especially the new ones he has picked up from the recent Irish society he has been frequenting.

"Do it, Mr. Altamont. The head's visible now!" she calls out encouragingly.

Minutes pass torturously slow as she calls out the milestones: the crown, the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the head. Sherlock's eyes go wide with the effort and his whole body convulses in pain. He can almost feel the baby tearing its way out, tears prick his eyes, and he closes them shut. He feels like giving up, but his body insists on ejecting the child out, and he tries to.

"Almost there, that's it - !" And she is interrupted by a high-pitched wailing. Sherlock's soul, his whole constitution seems to give away with that one heavenly piece of wailing as he the contractions calm down finally, and Sherlock's slumps back against the bed, his eyes fluttering and then closing shut, the corners of his mouth trembling.

January 29th, 1913. His son's birthday.

It's over, he thinks.

Martha reaches out for the scissors, and separates the baby from Sherlock.

He takes some moments to calm himself down and somehow, even if he tries hard, John's face looms up somewhere in his mind's eye.

Our baby, Sherlock, says he while Sherlock smiles, trying to reach out for him, I'm proud of you, love.

Almost immediately, Sherlock succumbs to tears again, tears of anguish that John cannot see this, the sight of the perfection that was his child. He does not notice the door that is thrown open and Louise's face when she chokes on the heavy, rich and pungent scent of afterbirth. It was unfair, that John wasn't there with him, that Martha had to hold his hand instead of him. Martha assumes that Mr. Altamont is in pain, and she lets him weep.

"Bring him to me," Sherlock croaks, wondering if the child was an Alpha or an Omega. The gender would take some more years, at least till puberty, to be determined. Martha's face shines with a radiance he has never seen upon her, as Sherlock's tired eyes rest on the little crying bundle of white cloth in her arms.

"He's beautiful, Mr. Altamont," says she, the wrinkles on her face becoming more prominent, "You made it through in eight hours - "

"Eight hours, twenty six minutes," he hisses, and Martha and Louise laugh.

"Here you are," she does not let her daughter touch the baby, lest she should drop it. Sherlock extends his arms shakily, and accepts the blond baby into his arms, determined not to drop him or making him shoot off into wailing. He tries to tell himself that it's just a baby, just another human, however little, and because he was his son, he won't cry. He inhales a sharp breath before looking at at him, almost afraid of what he might look like.

His breath is lost.

The baby, his son, is red and purple, with a little scrunched-up face and a smattering of blond hair, glued down to his skull by the birthing fluid and some blood. Sherlock stares at his face disbelievingly, as if it is almost a miracle, and then his eyes go up and down his little body, and at his chest rising up and down rapidly. Almost immediately, the baby's cries stop, reducing to only a whimper as he recognises his mother's scent, and closes his eyes, making himself comfy as Sherlock gently cradles it. He is still squashed from the birthing, but even in his neo-natal face, Sherlock can make out John's features in him. He had John's nose and his deep-blue eyes, and Sherlock imagines how they would look when his face would crinkle up in annoyance or irritation. Maybe just like John's.

And Sherlock feels terrified, much more than when Titanic had hit the iceberg, or when that Alpha had assaulted him. He doesn't realise it at all as he utters a deep, throaty chuckle at his own stupidity. It's just an infant in his arms, and that too his. There's no reason to be scared, but he still is. He swallows, wondering what kind of life would he be able to give him. Had he taken a wise decision by bringing the little life into the harsh world, the world which was slowly steering itself towards unrest? Should he go back to Mycroft? Would he be able to raise him properly? Would he be able to feed him, take care of him, and the worst of all, protect him?

It's these moments for which Sherlock hates his practical thinking.

Nevertheless, he just brushes his lips against the crown of his head as his fingers reach out for its chest, where its new heart beats, just like John's chest felt under his fingers. The baby screws its face, giving out a hiccup and followed by a squeal, trying to move away from Sherlock's fingers as he prods him curiously. Martha laughs beside him, startling him. He had forgotten that mother and daughter were watching him closely.

"He's ticklish," she exclaims, and for the first time since the Titanic sank, Sherlock smiles a real, genuine smile. It's actually funny and shamelessly amazing to think of the baby as ticklish, where it was a natural reaction. To Sherlock, everything seems like a miracle now. He had no idea he had it in himself to bring the child into the world.

His child, his baby, with his adorable John-like-garden-gnome nose and his rising-and-falling chest, his perfect eyelashes, and his eyebrows and his lips, and from his ten perfectly formed tiny fingers and his ten toes with his perfect nails and the smooth warm skin and his silky hair. It's all so perfect.

All in all, a little version of John. Sherlock strokes his cheek lovingly. But the little baby doesn't like it at all, as it catches hold of Sherlock's forefinger in one of its chubby miniscule palms, while looking like Sherlock does when he is almost about to throw a sulk.

"So," Louise sits beside him on the bed excitedly, "What are you going to call him?"

It strikes Sherlock all of a sudden that he has not even had time to even think about his name. But before he can open his mouth in answer, a bout of pain overtakes him. Louise recoils back, terrified.

"What's wrong?" she asks her mother. Martha simply takes the baby in her arms, and hands it over to Louise, "Hold the head like this, and don't let go of him," she turns to Sherlock as her daughter exits. Sherlock groans upon seeing his son being led away from him, but Martha simply rubs his arms and takes his hand in hers again, "It's okay, this pain happens. It's normal," she adds calmly, seeing his panic-filled eyes. Sherlock sags back, half-relieved, while trying his best to fight the pain, "Do you need me to - ?"

"Leave," Sherlock commands automatically, and she flinches.

"I'll just - erm... give him a shower, alright?"

And with that, Sherlock is left alone in the room. To his relief, this time, the pain is much less intense.

Name, he thinks, wondering how such an unimportant issue had suddenly become top-priority for him.

Sentiment.

An hour later, Sherlock is still in his bed, exhausted with the whole laboring process, although in new pyjamas and with the sheets changed. Martha had helped with a shower, if one could call that, and now the little baby lies peacefully tucked against his chest, blinking up at him curiously as he feeds him.

"You father would have been proud," says he, and although he knows that logically, the baby does not understand him, and that he is too young to be actually looking and seeing, nevertheless he talks, like he used to do with John. His eyes track every rise and fall of his chest like it is the most alluring puzzle in the whole world.

It had been only four days together, and Sherlock has still not forgotten the fact. In four days, he had met John, solved a case with him, fallen in love with him, let him knot him and then Bonded to him. Only four days. One could almost call it a whirlwind romance or a fling, but for Sherlock it is much more, so much that even he fails to rationalise it. Even now, he can't help but blink in shock at how comfortably Thomas is around him.

"Thomas," he whispers, "I'll call you Thomas because there's no way in hell I'm letting anyone call you 'Hamish'."

Sherlock does not suppress the chuckle that rises up through his chest at the memory, and to his surprise, Thomas also giggles as is he understands it, but maybe it's because he sees his bearer laugh too, blowing a bubble out of his mouth. And then he refuses to be fed anymore, throwing what looks like a promising sulk even if he's only a couple of hours old.

"Painfully ordinary, I confess," Sherlock continues, "But better than 'Sherlock' at any rate."

At this, Thomas' facial features screw up, as if disagreeing with him. He waves his little fists around while his eyes are still fixed on his. Louise enters excitedly, carrying Sherlock's dinner with her, but mostly in the hope of getting to hold the baby. Sherlock tries his best not to roll his eyes.

"So," she begins cheerfully, "Thought up any name?"

"Thomas," he shrugs, "I'm awful at names." He admits it as if it's his own dark secret.

"Aw Tom," says she with a twinkle in her eye, whilst Sherlock tries not to look appalled at the butchering of the name, "Can I hold him?"

Sherlock sags against the pillows, "Go ahead, but if he starts crying, that'll be the end of it."

Louise looks at him, a little shocked at his tone, only to see that his eyes are crinkled with humour and she is relieved to find that he is only joking. Slowly, as if he is the most precious thing in the whole world, Louise takes Thomas, or rather Tom in her nervous arms, cradling it and rocking it gently from side to side.

And the multitude of thoughts that Thomas manages to keep away when he is wrapped up in Sherlock's arms slowly make its way through to his mind.

He is reminded of the dangerous, gambling lifestyle that he leads now, and he wonders how he is going to bring Thomas up through all the adversities. Colonel Moran still haunts the back of his mind, after all the first time he had punished Sherlock for trying to hand him over to the police over the Jennifer Wilson case by setting an Unbonded Alpha loose with him in a locked room... he doesn't know what he can do once he finds out that Sherlock now has a child with him.

His thoughts shift towards the night advancing on him. The darkness could turn tables, could take away the only thing reminiscent of John from him. How would he know that Thomas would still be there in front of him, safe and sound and uninjured when he would blink his eyes? How would he know if he'd still be there in the morning, or for his next feeding? He tries to tell himself that such thoughts are preposterous, but he can't help it. They just keep creeping up like weeds in a garden.

And then came all the costs of raising Thomas. Sherlock's income was unpredictable, whereas for a child, a regular flow of cash was a pre-requisite, and then school, and university...

Sherlock thinks about his own plans for his university. It's all too messed up.

Relax love, John's voice wafts through, we'll make it through, you and I.

The corners of Sherlock's mouth twitch in the tension that seeps back into his shoulders.

Nevertheless, feeling unprecedentedly hungry, he tucks into his meal, watching the landlady's daughter discover her latent talent and make faces at his son and revelling in his innocent peal of giggle and incoherent noises.

The next few weeks pass by like a blur. The attention of the entire house is fixated on Thomas, and Martha and Louise look much happier than Sherlock at the prospect of having a baby around. With a lot of grumbling and generous amount of sulks, Sherlock learns changing nappies and all the tasks that he had previously dubbed as mundane and boring, but watching Thomas grow so fast in front of his very eyes is a completely otherworldly feeling. Sometimes he remembers that even he was this pint sized-human that Thomas is now, and that even his bearer did this with him. Slowly and slowly, as Sherlock recovers from the birthing, he starts going out now that his heats have stopped for some time (another consequence of Omega biology to keep the bearer's undivided attention on the newborn).

His mates at Breckenridge's Irish club ask him about the "business" in Vermont, and Sherlock feels relieved for a moment that he has not told them about the fact that he was a father now. Even if he knows that he would have to turn to his mates once he needs to seek refuge from Colonel Moran should he appear in Chicago, because that is precisely the reason why he even joined the club, he still doubts their loyalty, especially one of the boys of the boss in there.

McCarthy was a sly man who, as Sherlock thought of him as, always filled his boss' ears with the unusual brand of gossip, and as for loyalty, its only with himself that his loyalties lie at all. In the highly unlikely event where the Colonel found out about Sherlock, he suspects that McCarthy will be the first person to turn against him.

Nevertheless, the first few months are full of joy accompanied with fatigue. Thomas, or Tom as Louise insists on calling him, is a demanding little boy, crying out just when Sherlock tries to close his eyes to catch a couple of hours of sleep, only to see the cheeky little imp laughing at his perplexed face. Kicking Sherlock right in the face just when he is about to be fed seems like his favourite pastime, and Sherlock feels thoroughly annoyed when he doesn't exhibit the similar behaviour with Martha.

"He knows that his bearer is just as annoying as he is, Mr. Altamont," says she fondly, watching Tom wave his arms around while folding the sheets one morning, "It's good to see you getting your comeuppance for being such a git to me."

Tom grins mischievously at Sherlock, as if confirming her words, showing him only his toothless gums. Sherlock rolls his eyes at him, instead of the other way round, and Tom tries to imitate his mother and succumbs to another laughing episode.

"Say 'mama'," Sherlock demands, curious to see how far the boy's intellect has developed. But Tom's smile fades, and he looks up at him in genuine confusion.

"Ma-ma," Sherlock tries again.

"Don't be foolish, Mr. Altamont," Martha chides him, "It'll take him more time." Sherlock sits right back up, the corners of his mouth twitching in embarrassment, "My mum said that I got it in the first three weeks."

"Well, he was fooling you, sir," she manages a small laugh.

Sherlock's room has become a makeshift nursery, and Louise hardly spends any time with her books, taking Tom out for small garden trips when Sherlock needs to sleep. It seems that, like his mother, he also hates sleeping, while demanding to be paraded around. Sometimes Sherlock takes him out for short walks while Tom experiments with whether he can put his whole fist in his mouth, and doubles up with high-pitched laughter right in Sherlock's left ear when he discovers for the hundredth time that he can.

"I'll send you to university even if you're an Omega," he promises, pressing a kiss to his hair, trying not to think about what may befall them before that, "Your Sire would've liked that... do you know that he was the most stubborn man in the entire world?"

Tom screws up his face, as if not liking his Sire being called 'stubborn' when Sherlock was himself the finest example of that.

"No, seriously! He was," Sherlock escapes into thought, remembering John again, thinking how different his life would've been if John were still alive.

"He was... he made up a stupid, unimaginative story about ice-fishing... just to keep me from jumping..."

William Sherlock Scott Holmes...

That's quite a moniker. I'll have to get you to write that one down...

This time, Sherlock wanders further away from the house. Meanwhile, Tom runs his hands across Sherlock's chest and his chubby little hands strike something metallic, and then looks up at him, demanding to know why his skin turned cool and hard abruptly from warm and soft. Sherlock grimaces guiltily.

"Can't help it," says he, rocking his son gently to-and-fro while tucking the pistol into the waistband of his trousers properly, "Precautions."

He lets Tom explore the bark of a maple tree with his hands and fingers. Tom tries to fish himself out of Sherlock's arms and climb up the tree, but Sherlock gently pulls him away, supporting his head, and the spine which has not yet developed fully. To his surprise, his eyes narrow and he looks very much like a miniature John.

"There - erm... might be wood ants?" Sherlock tries a lame excuse, but Tom decides that he is buying none of it, and then almost unpredictably he starts blowing little bubbles into saliva which Sherlock wipes away with a natural remark of 'unhygienic'. Tom decidedly ignores him and continues with his crusade, and Sherlock lets out an all-suffering sigh, feeling very much like Mycroft.

Tom lets out a little cough, and Sherlock rubs his back. Up in the heavens, a shooting star passes by through the dusk sky. They're quite near Leo's pub now. Sherlock cradles him, showing the star to him, "That's a meteor. You're never supposed to wish on it, is that clear?"

Tom does not react. He just stares solemnly.

19th July, 1913

Slowly managing Tom and his own life is not easy for Sherlock. It's difficult to want to stay away from Tom against his parental instincts or leave him under Martha's expert care, but it is all he can do to earn his livelihood, so he goes out at the most thrice a week to help the blithering idiots at the Chicago city police department. This time, everyone is amazed as Sherlock keeps his insults to an all-time low by helping out Inspector Bradstreet, who respects him more than anything. It's hard to "turn it off like a tap", but it's all Sherlock can do to ensure Tom's safety, to ensure that people will be on his side when he needs them to be.

Tom might have got John's appearance more than Sherlock's, but in terms of restlessness, he is Sherlock's perfect successor, and Sherlock had thankfully laid him to sleep after Martha's horrified and dramatic, as Sherlock dubbed them, exclamations when he had suggested using sleeping pills in case Tom did not want to sleep.

The case had been eventful, and Sherlock hurries back home as fast as possible without any cabs taking him in that direction. It is almost time for Tom's feeding. He knocks the door, but no one answers.

"Louise? Martha?" He calls out, "Hello?"

Sherlock pins his ear to the door, listening intently. There's only the vague sounds of Tom crying, and Sherlock finds it impossible to believe that Martha has left his son unguarded and alone in the house. And then he looks down on the steps to find a couple of muddy footprints on the porch and a scratch on the door that wasn't there before. His eyes dart from one end to another and he licks his lips nervously. Going around the back, he hurries up the pipeline silently, praying for it to not fall as he makes his ascent, and slides in through the window of his bedroom. The room is ransacked, and a bottle of milk lies upturned. Taking a deep breath, he cocks his revolver as silently as he can and slithers down the steps where the strong stench of blood reaches his nostrils. Tom is still crying somewhere, and a panic threatens to seize him, but nevertheless he presses a hand to his nose and continues silently. The sight which greets him makes the ground slip from beneath his feet.

Martha and Louise lie on the ground, their throats slit while fresh blood still stains the carpet. Beside them, right in the puddle on blood, Tom is sitting, crying out loudly for anyone who cared to listen. His eyes go to the two men who're waiting near the main door, waiting for Sherlock to arrive while ignoring the protesting child's cries, their revolvers ready. Sherlock recognises them as the henchmen of the gang of bank robbers he had helped capture some weeks ago.

Putting a finger on his lips, as if Tom would understand, Sherlock walks down smoothly, firing five shots, killing the men. He almost throws up at the sight of the slain mother and daughter. Containing the instinct inside him, he grabs Tom urgently, shushing him and placating him as his one arm wraps around his little body, wiping off the blood from his cheeks. He rocks him gently, since that's the action he seems to like the best. Tom silences himself gradually, whimpering into his mother's shoulders as Sherlock holds him protectively against his chest.

We need to move, he thinks, going up to his room and loading his revolver with fresh bullets.

I mentioned a mystery regarding a missing tea cup in the last chapter... maybe I'll write that up later, who knows, as an extension to the series because I won't want a mystery coming between their story...