Scarlett stood still for a moment and watched Sherlock's retreating figure in the darkness. Her hands balled into fists as she stood and watched him. She didn't want to do this alone. But what other choice would she have if Sherlock was distancing himself from their child? She didn't want her child to have an alienated father. Scarlett quickly began to run after Sherlock, her heels clicking on the ground as she did so. As she approached, she outstretched an arm and managed to wrap her hand around his skinny arm and forcefully turn him to look at her.
"I told you that we were not finished," she informed him through gritted teeth and he just looked down at her.
"And I told you that I just need time," he replied. "Or are you too dense to understand my requests?"
"No," she snapped back. "I just have selective hearing."
"So what?" Sherlock asked her and she shook her head at him.
"What do you mean so what? I want to know if I have to raise this child on my own Sherlock! I want to know if you even plan to make an effort to want it to be yours!" she yelled at him.
"All of these things which you want to know Scarlett are questions that I don't have the answers to! I don't know what I want! But I certainly don't want to be stood here in the middle of public rowing with you on a cold night!" Sherlock responded back to her.
"Fine," Scarlett raised her hands in surrender as she looked onto the street. "I'll give you time Sherlock...but if you can't accept this baby then you can't accept me either..."
"Don't make empty threats which you can't keep," he warned her and she backed off to the road and hailed a cab whilst Sherlock stood watching her.
"It's not an empty threat Sherlock," she promised him. "The baby and I are a package Sherlock...there's nothing more to it."
And with that, Scarlett climbed into the cab and asked for 221B Baker Street, staring out the window at an emotionless Sherlock as she did so.
...
Sherlock continued walking briskly along the streets of London, ending up in the heart of the city as he thought about what Scarlett had just told him. Of course he should have seen it coming. He should have known that Scarlett was indeed a package deal. She was a carrying a child. Correction; she was carrying his child. Sherlock groaned to himself, wondering what the best thing to do would be. He truly liked Scarlett...she was someone who wasn't scared to speak her mind and she wasn't some dozy airhead although she had the looks of one. Sherlock shook his head and then continued thinking. He couldn't abandon Scarlett. He couldn't make her be the one to raise his child single handed. He was the father. It was only right for him to accept the responsibility also. And besides, he knew she would be in need of help during her pregnancy and he had made her go through so much that it was time for him to return the favour. Maybe he would feel differently when the child was born. People say that you change...but for Sherlock Holmes, change was something he was not intrigued by.
...
"Did you tell him?" John asked Scarlett when she walked back into the flat. The secretary nodded and dropped her keys onto the coffee table and sat on the sofa, looking at John.
"I told him that if he couldn't bring himself to accept the baby then he can't accept me either," Scarlett informed John. "And all he did was watch me climb into a cab and say it was an empty threat."
"Scarlett..." John began but she shook her head to stop him.
"I know," she whispered. "He's Sherlock Holmes...he doesn't cope well with things like this...and I know he never signed up for having this baby. But I didn't either John...but I need him..."
"And he'll be there," John promised her. "He loves you...he just needs time to realise how he feels."
"And it's all very well him caring for me," Scarlett agreed. "But what if the baby is born and he can't stand to look at it? What if he thinks it has ruined his life? Or that he has to stop and help me at home instead of terrorise London?"
"He won't," John promised her. "He'll manage to do all the things he is good at and help you too...he just needs air to think about it."
"I don't want to be a single mother John," Scarlett asked. "I want to have a normal life...I don't know what one of them is...my parents died when I was young and Lee had to raise me...and now meeting Sherlock...well I know life will never be normal but I just want to be a normal family."
...
Sherlock walked back into 221B Baker Street in the early hours of the morning, thinking everyone would be asleep. But for once he thought wrong. The lights in the living room were still on and he found Scarlett sat on the sofa, her head resting against his cushions. She had brought out her duvet from the bedroom and was curled into it. Sherlock gently perched himself onto the armchair and looked over at her sleeping form, his hands lacing themselves together as he watched her.
"I know you're watching me," she suddenly murmured. "It's most off putting."
"Why else would you be sleeping in here if you weren't going to wait for me to arrive home?" he asked her and she finally prised her eyes open but remained lying down, looking back at Sherlock.
"You've been gone a long time," Scarlett commented.
"It was a long thought process which required a long walk," Sherlock responded.
"Oh," she whispered back to him. It seemed that the pair of them had taken the time to calm down and think things through properly.
"I don't want a child Scarlett," Sherlock informed her and she sighed, beginning to feel herself crying. She would have to do it alone. He didn't want her. "But...I don't want to leave you by yourself because I know that the thing in there is half me and half you...so...I'm going to help you through it Scarlett...I'm going to share the responsibility with you..."
"Even though you don't want this?" she asked him in a whisper and he shrugged.
"I may change my mind as time progresses." He informed her. "But the thought of you leaving and never seeing you again is not one which is particularly entertaining my mind."
"So you're not going to abandon me?" Scarlett checked and Sherlock shook his head.
"What kind of a man would I be if I did that?" he wrinkled his nose. "Even if staying here means I have to hold your hair back from the toilet as you vomit then I shall do it. Or if it even means that I have to watch you develop cravings for some God awful food then I shall do it. Or if I have to listen to you drone on about how fat you're getting-"
"I see your point," Scarlett cut him off and he smirked slightly.
"I suppose," Sherlock said. "What I'm trying to say is that, as much as I begrudge it, I'm here to help you."
"Thank you Sherlock," Scarlett said.
"You also have to know that my cases come first too Scarlett," Sherlock warned her.
"I know that...I don't know what you'd do without them."
"Rot, I imagine," Sherlock detested the thought. "Anyway, I plan to go to bed now that the air has been cleared."
Sherlock stood up and Scarlett did the same, but before she picked her duvet up, Sherlock handed her something from his coat pocket and Scarlett took it and looked down onto it.
"Women like that sentimental type of thing don't they?" he checked with her as she looked at the gift he had just given her. "You know...'baby's first present' and all that?"
"You bought a teddy Sherlock..." Scarlett said. It was a small brown little thing which was smiling up at her as she couldn't help but smile at Sherlock.
"I didn't think you'd appreciate me buying a skull for the child to sleep with," he couldn't help but smirk as Scarlett hit him lightly around the arm with the head of the teddy.
...
A/N: Possibly this shall be the only update of the day! I don't know, maybe get another one out tonight depending on how my afternoon goes. This has got to be one of the hardest chapters for me to have ever written because I don't think I could have seen Sherlock abandoning Scarlett when he knows she needs him and he also likes her but I can't see him just accepting the child straight away because it is a big thing to come to terms with. Anyway, thank you to everyone who reviews and in the next chapter I plan to bring in Mycroft! Interesting I hope! So please review!