A/N: I know! It's been a really long time since I updated. But I'm between "real" work right now, so I have high hopes that I'll actually get to update all my stories this week. Anyway, this chapter was running long, so I'm breaking it up. I hope you like it- a new twist will be revealed!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Gabriel and Scarlett.

Mary Morstan Watson was an extremely laidback sort of person, but the one thing she could not abide was being late. It gave her an anxiety that was almost unbearable. She'd become cranky and short—even with little Izzy. She was nervous and constantly thinking about who she'd inconvenienced by being late. "Just one link in the chain, Mary," an old boyfriend had been so fond of saying. He was the one that had made her such a freak about it. He wasn't the nicest guy anyway and would frequently become enraged if she was the slightest bit late about anything. So she'd learned to always be prompt. Today, the world was not cooperating and by the time she got to the day spa, she was fifteen minutes late and Molly had probably already gone inside.

She rushed through the door and against the counter, panting at the receptionist. "Hi… late for… appointment… Molly Holmes… I'm Mary… Watson…" She slapped the certificate down on the counter, leaning heavily against it. "Sorry… I ran all the way… twelve blocks… traffic."

The receptionist smiled and typed away on her computer. "She just went back, Mrs. Watson." She stood up and led Mary past the reception desk and into a spacious dressing room beyond. "There's a robe and heated towels waiting for you here. Just leave your clothes in the closet. You and Mrs. Holmes are in room five." Mary nodded and did as instructed, undressing quickly and pulling the fluffy robe around herself. She wandered into the hall and finally found room five. She started through the door, but stopped short when she heard a whimpering sound coming from inside. Peering around the doorframe, she could see Molly sitting on one of the massage tables with her head in her hands.

"Molly?" Mary called, making her way into the room. "Are you all right?" Molly nodded and tried to smile, but a choked sob escaped and she hid her face again. "Oh…. Oh Mols… what happened?" Mary sat down next to her on the table and put a reassuring arm around her shoulders. "Did you and Sherlock have a fight?"

"No," Molly replied, shaking her head.

"Are Scarlett and Gabriel all right?" she asked, suddenly alarmed that something terrible had happened to the little ones. "Mrs. Hudson?"

"Everyone's all right," she sniffled. "I'm not even sure why I'm crying, really. I'm just so…" She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and adjusted the towel around her head. "It doesn't matter. Let's just enjoy our day. The boys went…" Again she choked up, leaning against Mary as she cried. "…to all this trouble…"

"Oh darling. It can't possibly be that bad."

"No. It isn't terribly bad, really. Just… such a surprise."

OoOoOo

Scarlett stood naked, arms crossed over her chest in the center of the bedroom, watching as her father threw things around. He was currently leaning face first into the chest of drawers desperately looking for something. Molly had given him one job this morning before she left for the spa and apparently he was too inept to do it. "Change the batteries in Scarlett's hearing aid." It should have been a simple enough task. He always kept the batteries in the same place—the bedside table. While she was playing in the tub, he'd take the aid, clean all the parts and replace the battery so she could put it back on when she got out. Seems simple. And it would have been if only he could find the damn batteries. He'd been looking for them for so long that Scarlett got herself out of the bath and wandered down the hall to find out why her father had not come to retrieve her. "I cold, Daddy," she whined.

"I know, darling," Sherlock replied, trying to keep his tone even and light, despite the fact that he was annoyed. He turned to look at her and made an "I'm sorry" sign on his chest as he said it. Scarlett's hearing without her aid was pretty dodgy and so they had decided to begin learning signs. Scarlett and Gabriel were already experts after only a couple of months. They could hold entire conversations without saying a word at this point while Sherlock and Molly were still working their way through simple survival signs. A psychiatrist might say that the both of them were slow to learn because they were in denial, but he would be wrong. Both of them had accepted the fact that Scarlett may someday be completely deaf and decided to be proactive. At the moment, she still had some hearing in both ears, but the doctors weren't sure how long that would last. With the help of her hearing aid and a speech therapist, she was doing well.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock saw Gabriel wandering down the hall with his earbuds firmly in place as he played a game on his tablet. He rolled his eyes, wondering how he ended up with one child who was born deaf and another that chose to be. "Gabriel!" he shouted. "Gabriel!" he tried again when the child didn't respond.

Scarlett heaved a sigh and walked into the hallway, stopping her brother with a pull on his sleeve. "Bre?"

Gabriel stopped, looking down at his baby sister who was completely naked in the hallway. She didn't seem to notice. He pulled his earbuds out and knelt in front of her so she could see him talking. "What is it?" he asked, signing as he spoke.

"Daddy call you," she said, signing back and then pointing toward the bedroom.

Gabriel smiled and nodded, nudging her back toward the room. "You rang?"

"Yes. Could you help Scarlett put her clothes on while I put this stupid thing back together?" Sherlock had managed to find the battery, but his fingers were clumsy and he was having trouble installing it.

"Sure," he replied, setting his tablet on the vanity. She sang a little song as Gabriel helped her step into her pants, then jeans.

"I do it myse'f, Bre," she scolded as he tried to button them.

He watched as she struggled with the snap. "Dad, Scarlett's outgrowing her jeans."

"I know," Sherlock sighed. "That's on our list of errands today."

"I thought we were going to NSY," Gabriel said, tugging Scarlett's jumper down over her head.

"We are," he replied, snapping the tiny mechanism together. "Your mum left a list."

"Oh," Gabe said. He hated shopping. Especially with Scarlett. They had to fight with her to get her in and out of clothes. She wanted everything she saw and would grab things off of shelves. By the end of the afternoon, she was always tired and cranky. Of course, Scarlett had learned quickly that pitching a fit with their father was inadvisable. "Can Katie come along too? And spend the night?"

"We're supposed to be leaving in ten minutes, Gabe. She'll never be ready in time," Sherlock replied, fitting the earpiece carefully on the back of Scarlett's ear. She tugged at her ear gently, still not used to the small device fitted on the back. She'd been intrigued at first with the bright pink plastic box, but when the doctor tried fitting the clear receiver inside her ear canal, Scarlett was having none of it. She'd made such a fuss that the doctor threw up his hands in defeat. Fortunately, her otologist was in the same building as John who saved the day by intervening. Scarlett sat on his lap, playing with his stethoscope as he carefully fitted the tiny receiver inside her ear. He'd shown Sherlock and Molly how to do it and she no longer got upset when putting it back on. Still, it felt weird and she was always pulling on it.

"Sure she will," Gabriel said. "I already asked her to come."

Sherlock sighed and shook his head. "I suppose I already said yes."

"Kinda, yeah. She's downstairs waiting."

"Gabriel, I'm not sure I like Katie sleeping over now that you're both… older." If he was being honest, Sherlock wasn't the one with the problem. Molly was the one concerned that the prepubescents were going to get frisky in the middle of the night. Especially after the kissing on the playground incident.

Gabriel rolled his eyes dramatically. "Oh God, Dad. She's my best friend. I don't like her like that. Besides… kissing? Really?" He stuck out his tongue. "Ugh."

"Someday you may not mind so much."

"Okay, Dad. Whatever. Can't she stay? If it will make Mum feel better, Archie can come too."

"You already asked him too didn't you?"

Gabriel smiled guiltily. "Kinda."

"I thought you and Archie were on the outs since the last group outing."

"What?"

"Remember? The haunted house where you nearly came to blows over who was going to hold Katie's hand in the mirror maze?"

"Dad, that was ages ago."

OoOoOo

"You're going to start hyperventilating if you don't calm down, Mols." Mary patted Molly's back gently, trying to calm her. "Besides, I thought you wanted to have another baby."

"I did," she hiccupped. "I mean, I do. But once we found out about Scarlett's hearing and the fact that she's going to need speech therapy and maybe even a tutor… we just decided to wait until she was older." Molly took a deep breath. She hadn't intended to tell anyone just yet, but her emotions got the better of her this morning after her doctor visit. "And then after… the last…I didn't mean to tell anyone until I was sure… sure that…" She shook her head, wiping her eyes again vigorously as if trying to wipe away the news.

"Sure that what, Molly?"

"Sure that I wasn't going to lose it!" she spat as if regurgitating a bit of poisoned food. "I couldn't bear it if I lost another one."

Mary gasped, her eyes narrow as she took in what her friend had said. "Another one? Another baby?"

Molly nodded, dabbing at her nose with the edge of the towel that was wrapped around her. "Last summer. I got pregnant. I told Sherlock and we were going to tell everyone as soon as we hit the twelve week mark, but…"

"You lost it?"

"Yes," she sobbed. "We were both so devastated. Remember when we asked you and John to take Gabe and Scarlett for the weekend? You thought we were going to Ambergris on some kind of sex holiday, but I spent part of it in the hospital having the remnants of my pregnancy scraped out. The rest of it I spent lying in bed watching telly and crying into Sherlock's dressing gown. I just… I just don't think I could go through that again, Mary. And I can't put Sherlock through that again."

Mary hugged her friend tightly. After a moment she pulled back and offered a bright and reassuring smile. "There is no reason to believe that you'll lose this one. And Sherlock's a big boy—he can take it."

"I know, but—"

"No buts. You just have to believe that it will all work out, Mols." Molly sniffled and nodded, knowing that Mary was absolutely right. She was being irrational. "How long have you known?"

"I suspected for the last couple of weeks, but I did the test in the lab Monday night. The doctor confirmed it this morning. I don't even know why I'm worried about it. I'm sure Sherlock has already figured it out anyway." She took the offered tissue from Mary and mopped the tears from her cheeks and blew her nose as delicately as she could. "You're absolutely right. I have to get a hold on myself. This is going to be a good thing. Yes?"

"Absolutely!"

As if to emphasize Mary's point, two blonde Gods entered the room with a light knock on the door. "Ready for your massages, ladies?"

OoOoOo

Scarlett squinted as they walked into the bright and bustling office. It wasn't so much the light as the noise. One might not think that an office could be so loud, but to someone who was working so hard to filter out all the unimportant noises, it was deafening. The constant ringing of telephones, the whine of the copying machine, people rushing past, the talking, Gabriel and Katie's giggling—it all conspired to create a stew of noise that was very confusing to a three year old with a hearing problem. She held her father's hand very tightly as they got off of the elevator. Her eyes were everywhere as she tried to process all of the stimuli. She had never been to NSY while she was awake before. As they passed by one office, Scarlett noticed a little girl waiting outside the door. The little girl's face was streaked with tears and dirt and her hair was messy. The clothes she wore didn't seem to fit very well and were extremely dirty. Scarlett knew her mummy would never let her venture out of the house looking that way, so why did this girl look so ragged? She tugged on her father's sleeve until he stopped and looked down. She beckoned for him to kneel down so she could whisper in his ear. After all, she knew it was rude to talk about people out loud.

"What is it, Scarlett?" Sherlock asked as she cupped her hands around his ear to whisper.

"Why that girl look like that?" she hissed. "She crying."

"What girl?" Sherlock replied, signing his question as he said it quietly. Scarlett pointed with a large gesture. Sherlock chuckled and put her arm down, signing "It's rude to point."

"Why she crying, Daddy?" Scarlett continued as he pulled her down the hall. "She don't have a mummy?"

"I don't know, love."

"Maybe she loose her mummy." Suddenly she had the perfect solution and gasped excitedly. "You find her mummy, Daddy!"

"I'm sure that the policeman can find her mummy," he said. "Maybe that's why she's here." He stood to his full height and took Scarlett's hand once more, leading her down the hall again. Scarlett waved to the little girl. Her eyes never left the child as she stumbled after Sherlock.

"But Daddy…"

"Come on, Scarlett. I'm already late." She made no more protest, but as they proceeded into Greg Lestrade's office, the face of the lost little girl was still pressing on her mind. She couldn't work out why a little girl that didn't look much older than her was at the police office all by herself. Or why she looked so unkempt. In Scarlett's mind, every little girl and boy were like her and Gabriel: with two parents who loved and took care of them. Seeing one who wasn't had planted a seed of confusion that was somewhat frightening.

"Well I was wondering when you were going to grace us with your presence, Highness!"

Scarlett broke away from Sherlock and hurled herself against Greg. "It's my Geg!" she squealed, climbing him. If she tried, she could say his name correctly, but she'd christened him with that name before she was a year old and he'd been 'Geg' ever since.

"Well hello there, Scare-lett!" he exclaimed, hoisting her in the air a few times before settling her on his hip. "Did you make your father late?"

"Nope," she replied. "Bre too slow." She immediately pulled her hair back and showed off the hearing aid fastened behind her ear. "See my robot ear?" Gabriel had gotten into trouble when Scarlett first got her hearing aid by telling her that they were slowly turning her into a robot so she wouldn't be so messy. Ever since she told everyone it was her robot ear.

"Oh that's really cool, Scarlett," Greg cooed, squeezing her gently before depositing her on the floor once more.

"I can hear stuff real loud," she explained.

"I see," Greg chuckled, ruffling Gabriel's hair affectionately as he and Katie meandered into the office. "Gabe and Katie—well the gang's all here now."

"Yes, it's like an episode of Scooby-Doo," Sherlock grumbled. "What was so urgent?"

"I wanted you to help me interrogate this bloke," Greg explained, gesturing toward the interview room across the hall.

"Awesome!" Gabriel exclaimed. "Can I come too?"

"No!" Sherlock and Greg answered in unison.

"But Dad…" Gabriel sighed. "I'll be quiet. You won't even know I'm there!"

"I know, because you'll be down the hall in another room," Sherlock replied, checking his mobile without looking up.

Greg led Scarlett over to her brother and handed her off. "Gabriel, why don't you take your sister and Miss Katie down to the meeting room at the end of the hall?"

Gabriel sighed heavily and took his sister's hand. "I always have to watch Scarlett," he groaned as he stomped down the carpeted corridor. "It's not fair."

Katie rolled her eyes. "Oh shut it. At least you don't have two of them."