The next month was filled with furniture shopping, toy purchasing, and room decorating. They had decided to put baby Hudson's room where John's had used to be, upstairs. John had thought this might be an issue, but they installed baby monitors, along with a collection of security cameras, so they figured it would do.

Once the name issue was resolved, Sherlock and John did a much better job on coming to quick decisions. Sherlock wrote an article on his website about why, saying it was urgency forcing them to compromise. John thought it was the excitement.

They received updates from Mycroft every week. The information was almost all the same (he's developing as expected; yes, he is as comfortable as we can make him; no, you cannot visit), but the calls were still cause of of high-running emotions in 221B. Surprisingly, Sherlock tended to get more worked up over the calls than John did.

One evening, right after one of Mycroft's calls, the two were sitting together at the kitchen table, eating takeout and ignoring the most recent acid stains. It was unusually silent; usually dinner was full of discussions on the best kind of crib or the most recent toy purchase. John asked what was wrong.

Sherlock looked him in the eyes. John could sense his fear. Normally, Sherlock never showed fear, but it had happened a lot lately. Sherlock was noticing too. "I can usually push feelings aside. Sentimentality, love, fear... I don't feel them if I don't want to. I haven't even met this kid, and... I'm feeling love for him."

"Rather poetic."

"I'm serious."

"You'd better be. Hudson's your son. It wouldn't be healthy not to love him. I sure do."

"But the chemical reaction that creates love between a parent and a child-"

"I don't care about chemical reactions! This is our son! Surely you don't see it as a bad thing."

Sherlock didn't respond.

"Oh my God." John looked utterly disappointed.

"John, I have enemies. They've used you before to get to me. They'll use him."

"Sherlock, we won't let him out of our sights. He'll be okay, but not if you don't love him. With everything. He won't need protection from bomb threats, he'll need his father."

"Exactly. You're his father."

"You know what, just forget it. You'll come around." John got up and walked out the door, leaving Sherlock to contemplate.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading. Please review, I really appreciate it! Thanks to livvykitty for giving me some feedback. Per request, I have done a little editing to my previous chapters. Minor stuff, and not worth re-reading if you have already read them, but I thought I'd let you know. Thanks again for reading!