I have a dream, a song to sing

To help me cope with anything

If you see the wonder of a fairy tale

You can take the future, even if you fail

I believe in angels...

-Abba, I Have A Dream

He's the first of The Three (as she's taken to calling them) that she's actually met, and she's surprised at how nervous she feels. As if this grand mystery-adventure has suddenly become all too real. "Um, hi," she says as Aunt Molly gives her an encouraging squeeze and says something about seeing her later.

He seems to consider her greeting before repeating it back to her. "Hi."

They stand there in awkward silence for a brief moment before each speaking at once. "How was your trip?" "You look...well."

They both fall silent again, then make as if to speak and stop, Rosie with a grin, Sherlock with an 'after you' gesture. "How was your trip here?" she asks again.

Again he seems to consider his words carefully before answering. Again, he supplies her with a single word. "Eventful."

She cocks her head at this, purses her lips, and nods. "I'll bet. Wanna elaborate?"

This time he meets her grin with a reluctant one of his own. "Very eventful," he expands, and she giggles, not surprised in the least when his baritone laugh joins with hers. "So, Miss Rosamund Mary Morstan, may I ask what possessed you to invite such an unprepossessing trio as myself and my unwitting traveling companions to your wedding? Might you not have, perhaps, included home DNA tests with the invites?"

She can tell he's only half-joking about that, and immediately sobers, meeting his gaze square on. "I would have, but where's the fun in that? Besides," she adds before he can say anything, "I wanted to meet the three men who managed to win my mother's heart in such a short period of time. She hasn't really dated anyone since, you know."

He raises an elegant eyebrow. "No one?"

Rosie shakes her head. "Not since I've been old enough to notice, and Aunt Janine says she was too busy with me when I was a baby to even think about getting a leg o- uh, to even think about dating," she amends, winning another chuckle from Sherlock.

Sherlock Holmes. THE Sherlock Holmes, might be her father. He might not be at, say, Prince William level of celebrity but as far as she's concerned he's even better. Someone she'd actually like to get to know even without the potential genetic connection.

Right now he's giving her his undivided attention, scanning her - deducing her? Yeah, definitely deducing her, she recognizes the look from the descriptions in John Watson's blogs. Blogs she's only recently started reading (well, devouring) now that she knows what she knows about both men. "You're wondering about my relationship with John Watson," Sherlock says, and although she knows he isn't actually reading her mind, it certainly feels that way.

"Sort of," she admits with a shrug. Trying to look as if she doesn't care very much about that relationship, even though she really, really wants to know if any of the gossip is true. "I mean, not in the 'tell me what he's like' sort of way, because I'll find that out on my own pretty soon, but in the…"

"In the, 'it's really not my business but are my potential dads shagging one another' sort of way," Sherlock finishes for her when she falls silent, searching for the best way to express her thoughts.

He seems more amused than upset by his (correct, darn him!) deduction so she nods. "Yeah, that. So. Are you? Together? That way?"

"Although John would hasten to assure you that it's all good, he would also be the first to rather loudly and with a great deal of aggravation assure you that he's not gay and never has been. Nor am I," Sherlock adds with a shrug that indicates that no, he really doesn't care what anyone thinks about him. But he does care how his friend and flatmate is perceived, Rosie notes, because (reading between the lines) it's obvious that said friend and flatmate cares about such things a great deal. It's nice, knowing that they have the same kind of looking-out-for-one-another friendship that she and Gwen and Stacey have - and that her mother has with Aunt Molly and Aunt Janine.

"OK," is all she says. "So what else has the press got wrong about you two?"

He chuckles but obliges her by describing the life he and John lead together in London. She's always wanted to go there, to visit, but her mother has always steered their vacations away from England. She'd even encouraged Rosie to attend uni in Australia rather than anywhere in the UK. (Rosie still finds it ironic that she'd met Danny here rather than there, despite them both attending school in the same city.)

She tells Sherlock about that, fills him in on the broad strokes of her life so far, and listens greedily to the stories he has to tell about his own life. "Your mother was right never to contact me before now," he says abruptly, right in the middle of an anecdote about a giant rat. "I would have made a terrible father, Rosamund."

"What about now?" she asks, heart hammering in her chest as she meets his gaze.

He smiles at her rather sadly. "I'm afraid I'd still make a terrible father, even if I've been drug-free for well over a decade. I'm still a thrill seeker and adrenaline junkie, not unlike John, truth be told. Of the three of us, Douglas is probably the best candidate for fatherhood, at least as far as temperament and reliability go."

"David," Rosie corrects him, somewhat absently. "But does it really matter at this late date what kind of lives any of you lead? I mean, I've graduated uni and am about to be married, so it's not like I need a lot of parenting at this point."

"Are you sure about that?"

She gives a start but Sherlock simply smiles, as best she can tell in the near darkness that's fallen over them as they spoke. "Ah, John, there you are. Finally got that famous temper of yours under control?"

"Yes, no thanks to you, you arse," the newcomer - John Watson himself - says amiably. "I thought it might be nice to ask my - my maybe-daughter if she'd like to have dinner with me. With all three of us, actually, if I can find David to invite him to join us."

He smiles, and Rosie sees the charm that had attracted her mother to him, once upon a time. Oh, not that he's trying anything on with her, that would be gross, but there's an easy confidence in his manner that Rosie could easily see her mother responding to. "Sure, dinner would be great," she says. "But it'll have to be tomorrow night. Tonight's my Hen Night, and Danny's Stag Do - I'm sure he'd love for you to join in on whatever the boys have planned. Besides," she adds, sounding a bit guilty, "I really need to find my mum first. We, ah, haven't had a chance to talk yet. At all. Mostly because I've been avoiding her," she admits. "I guess I didn't think about how having all three of you here would affect her. Emotionally," she adds, as if they need clarification.

"Yeah, well, it's not an easy situation to find yourself in," John agrees with a wry grin. "So. Just tell us when and where, and we'll all of us sit down together and try to sort this out, shall we? Tell Mary - your mum - that she's welcome to join us if she'd like." The offer is made almost diffidently, as if it's an afterthought, but Rosie thinks she can see just how much he'd like to see her mum again. "You, er, might tell her I'm sorry about earlier," he adds and Rosie knows her assumption is spot on.

"I will," she assures him, then impulsively kisses each man on the cheek before saying her goodbyes.

Sherlock and John watch her go. Once she's headed down the stairs leading to the main part of the hotel, John says, "I suppose you'll want an apology from me as well, for earlier."

Sherlock shrugs. "Didn't you once tell me that you heard 'punch me' whenever I spoke? I suppose it's only reasonable that you finally acted on that."

John lets out a hefty sigh. "Christ, Sherlock, do you know how in love I was with that woman? She's still the one I compare every other woman I meet to."

"Yes, I knew there was someone in your past you weren't telling me about," Sherlock says. "And now that I know it's the woman I knew as Rose - well. Let's just say I completely understand."

He and John exchange looks. "Right, then," John says after a contemplative moment of silence, "I don't know about you, but I could use a drink right about now. Join me at the bar?"

Sherlock nods, and they head into the light and noise of the early evening crowd.

oOo

It feels...odd, seeing Rosie in the flesh for the very first time. She's so much like her mother, but there's something else familiar about her eyes, the shape of her nose...but it's not until he's taking his first sip of a rather good whisky that it hits him, like a punch to the gut.

She doesn't have Mary's eyes or nose, she has Harry's.

In that moment John Watson knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that he's Rosie Morstan's father, and his earlier anger and hurt comes flooding back even as he downs the remainder of his drink in one gulp.

He can see Sherlock from the corner of his eye but simply shakes his head to indicate that no, he doesn't want to talk about it right now. So Sherlock shrugs and turns his attention to Molly Hooper, next to whom he's coincidentally (?) seated himself.

Wait, hang on; Molly Hooper? What the hell is she doing here? He leans around Sherlock, about to ask her that very question, when his flatmate says, "She's one of Rosie's godmothers, John, and no, she had no idea before today that either of us were invited - or that we each might be Rosie's father."

John must flinch or something, because Sherlock turns back to him with narrowed eyes. "You've figured something out, John, what is it?"

John shakes his head again, rising abruptly from his barstool. "I need some air," he says, or something like that. "I'll see you later."

Then he takes off before Sherlock can stop him, if that was his plan, walking rapidly down the stairs and out of sight.

He makes it all the way to the docks before realizing where he is, too lost in his thoughts - and, admittedly, his fury - to notice where he's going. The launch that brought them over is long gone, but the ferry is making the last run of the day and for a split second he considers climbing aboard and heading straight back to London.

He doesn't, of course; John Watson has never been one to run away from his troubles; if anything, he admits ruefully, he's more prone to running directly into them.

Even when - or is it especially when? - they're troubles of his own making.

Oh, sure, it was easy to blame Mary - or Rose, since that seemed to be her real name - for the mess they were all in at the moment, but deep down he knew exactly whose fault it was that she'd left him. Left him and found Sherlock and David to console her, apparently.

His heart clenches and his breathing goes a bit ragged as remembered outrage struggles with the (admittedly very small) part of him that knows he has no one to blame for this but himself. If he'd just been up front with Mary about Sarah, or tried to explain before he went back to London to break it off with the woman he once believed he wanted to marry…

"'It is what it is'," he says aloud, a reluctant, reminiscent grin briefly curling the edges of his lips. Mary'd been fond of that saying, back in the day.

Did she still say it now? Or had time - and, let's face it, Johnny-boy, a certain no-good, two-timing twat - caused her to lose her easy acceptance of whatever life threw at her?

Does she even care who Rosie's father is, he wonders, and if so, does she want it to be him, or one of the others?

He's rock-solid in his certainty that it's him, that Rosie is his daughter, but there's no point in announcing that belief - certainty - until DNA testing is done.

Sherlock, of course, has probably already figured it all out, but John can't muster the energy to care at the moment. Well, that's not entirely true; he does wonder how Sherlock feels about it all. And David, of course, mustn't forget Contestant Number Three, he thinks with a certain amount of bitterness. David seems like exactly the solid, dependable type that Mary should have settled down with, to act as father to Rosie and perhaps a brother or sister or three…

Nope, not going down that particular rabbit hole, he tells himself firmly. Whatever Mary did with her life after she left him was entirely up to her.

Besides, who would want him as either a father or a life partner, husband, whatever? He had a terrible temper and probably would have made a huge mess of things, alienating Mary and his daughter in the process. Would it have been better or worse to have known Rosie from birth and then lost her to his own demons?

He reaches up and ruffles agitated hands through his hair. "John Watson, you're a bloody fool," he says aloud. "You cocked this up twenty years ago and you're likely to cock it up even more, but…" He gives a firm nod, decision reached. "Time to try and mend a few fences."


End note: Well, now Rosie's met two out of three and one of them is positive he's the dad. What do you think?