Would it be Better?

The babe snuffled, turning her face towards his voice and releasing a gentle mewl against her pacifier. Sherlock reached down with one hand, brushing the back of his fingers against her warm cheek.

"Rosie Posy." he murmured gently.

She gave a deep sighing sound and then drew it back in as a yawn, her eyelids fluttering as crescent moons of blue became visible beneath. Sherlock watched her, feeling the edge of that ache curb just a little. Enough to breathe. She stirred, babbling and stretching and moving each limb as though testing they were there before his eyes were open once more, finding Sherlock easily.

"Hello, Rosie."

In return the baby smiled around the pacifier in her mouth, making a gurgled sound Sherlock recognised as designated to him. When the Watsons had brought her home from the hospital, Sherlock hadn't given a thought to holding her, something that anyone would believe would never happen. They had tried to push her on him often and he had avoided it at every opportunity until that first time Mary had made him, left him to talk to his new, living skull while she went for a much-dreamed-of peaceful bath.

And after, when she'd finished and Sherlock was still sitting with Rosie in the crook of his arm and his baritone mellow and low as he talked through their case, Mary had left him to put her to bed too. Sherlock hadn't become a fan of children over-night, nor anything of the sort. But if John and Mary noticed his arguments against holding their child grew less and less vehement as the months went on, then they never said a word.

Mycroft on the other hand? Well, his infuriating older brother brought it up as often as he possibly could, sometimes sitting outside 221b in one of his many identical black cars just to do so, fobbing off Mrs Hudson's attempts to shoo him until John sent Sherlock down to tell him to bugger off.

Sherlock still rarely lifted her of his own volition, preferring to talk to her while she lay in her moses basket or her crib, on her playmat when she grew enough to hold herself up, to crawl. He would scold her mildly in amusement when she crawled over to touch the velvet of his slippers, a habit that remained strong until one day the velour rabbit appeared in her cot with her, much to John's momentary confusion and Mary's gleeful amusement.

A chubby hand reached for his sleeve with clumsy fingers and a grip he knew could hurt. He bent over the side to tuck his hands under arms. She made pleased noises as she rose into the air, her face turning to peer up at him as he tucked her into the crook of his arm. He hooked an index finger through the hoop of the pacifier, giving a coaxing tug to request she give it up. Her brow furrowed as she tugged back, but then she relaxed her grip and let go with a round pop!

Instead, she reached to curl one hand around his fingers, trying to scowl when she found the hand now magically empty, the object tucked safely in Sherlock's clean coat pocket. The one he now never put unpleasant things in.

Not strictly for the purpose of storing Rosie's things, naturally. Just a happy coincidence, he told anyone who might comment. Namely, his brother.

"What is it you are always saying of coincidences, brother dear?" Mycroft would quip, pretending to look thoughtful and leaning on his ever-present umbrella.

"Shut up."

"Ahh, yes."

The insolent, wicked little smile.

"The universe is rarely so lazy, Sherlock."

"Not now, Rosie. You know your mother want…ed you to stop relying on the useless thing."

Rosie pouted, azure eyes round and liquid. But Sherlock shook his head gently, leaning down ever so slightly.

"Rosie." he asked firmly.

Rosie blew out her cheeks and made a hiccuping noise before releasing a loud and amused squeal, tugging Sherlock's hand up and trying to bite his fingers. Sherlock chuckled, moving them to a nearby chair, sitting her upon his knee with one arm as he watched her gum his fingers and look at him.

"Oh, Rosie." Sherlock sighed, suddenly filled again with that ache as Rosie's eyes, Mary's eyes, blinked trustingly up at him.

He removed his fingers from her mouth to brush a feather-light sandy strand of hair from her head, the end trailing to almost tuck behind her ear. She was growing so very fast. It was confusing to see, for Sherlock had mapped out the averages for everything of a child, from holding her own head up to walking, forming articulate sentences and coordinating shoelaces. But still the time somehow managed to catch him unawares, as he looked at her and wondered where it had gone while simultaneously knowing exactly.

It was an exhausting conundrum that made no sense at all.

"Bnewif." Rosie burbled, ending by blowing a bubble.

"If you were old enough to understand why you're here, would it be better?" he asked her, as though she could answer, "Or is it best that you won't remember her? Sentiment has never been my area of expertise." he confided, "Rather the opposite. If you were old enough to know her and who she was, would it be worth how much you would hurt?"

Rosie only gave him a garbled laugh in response, her eyes lighting up with her own unknown humour as use laughed at him and grasped for her own feet. Sherlock felt it, then. That deep and frightening loss of direction. Of responsibility without the preparation or experience to meet it. He listened to her as she began to babble, clearly telling him something and wondering as always if she knew what she meant. It was something that would ordinarily fascinate him, not that anyone would know that.

But now? Now it only fed the sad ache in his chest and left him wondering what other pains were to come.

"Where has your father gotten to, hm, Rosie?"

She looked at him at the sound of her name, eyes rapt and paying attention. Something Mary had teased John mercilessly about, considering how the child utterly distracted herself whenever her dad was speaking to her.

"Three days." he mused, his eyes wandering the room absently as he turned the information over in his mind. "Where would he go for that length of time? Surely not to Harry. Family or no, she's no good for him when he's not himself."

"AAhyypff." Rosie told him brightly, her mouth open in a wide smile as she blinked at him and awaited his opinion of her idea.

"Perhaps." Sherlock said, frowning. "But why?"

Rosie put her thumb in her mouth and blinked silently at him, as clear a sign as any that she didn't know either. Sherlock blew his fringe from his eyes, smiling wanly when Rosie gave a screech of laughter and rocked back, one hand clutching her feet together.

"You've proven far more helpful than I initially predicted." he told her seriously, the smile on his lips gaining solidity when her eyes grew lidded and pleased. "Don't let it go to your head." he added quickly as a tease, and whether she understood the words or not didn't seem to matter because she giggled anyway.

Molly didn't come through while Sherlock was there, even when he was sure he'd heard her in the adjoining kitchen, and when Sherlock took the baby through to the kitchen with him in search of a bottle hours later she wasn't there, nothing but the lingering scent of fresh perfume to indicate she was even in the flat.

In total, Sherlock stayed six hours. During that time he spoke to Rosie, telling her of the case he'd solved days prior, extravagantly detailing the ways in which he'd put puzzle pieces together, waving his arms every now and then to earn a whoop of hiccuping laughter. He humoured her penchant for adults animating her toys, walking her velour rabbit across his knee to hers, performing bows and ear-cocks all the while speaking in a gruff and grumbly voice that enchanted her.

By the time he was gone Rosie had been fed and changed and nestled back in her crib with that velour rabbit and a kiss upon her sleeping forehead.

But only because there had been no-one else in the room to kiss her goodnight.