This is a short but quite important chapter. Hope you all enjoy it.

Chapter Fifty Four

Sherlock opened his eyes and was instantly alert. The sound that had roused him was barely audible but he was a very light sleeper and, even in what John had labelled his post-case coma, this sound would still have had the same effect. He unwound himself carefully from around his sleeping partner and rolled over, reaching for the baby monitor on the bedside cabinet, where one blue LED flickered in response to movement in the Nursery.

Molly had been quite correct in her prediction. Violet had slept through every night when Sherlock had not been speaking but now he was talking again she had awoken two nights in a row for her regular nocturnal commune with Daddy. He pressed the 'Mute' button on the baby monitor to cut off the sound but the light still flickered and more of the LED's fired as the noise levels in the Nursery increased.

Sherlock rolled out of bed and felt around in the dark for his discarded nightwear. They had started the night on his person but ended up on the bedroom floor, due to his and Molly's own nocturnal communing. Having located his PJ bottoms and t-shirt, he crossed the room to the en suite bathroom, where he used the toilet, washed his hands and pulled on his dressing gown then exited through the second door, onto the landing, and approached the Nursery door.

By the time Sherlock got to the Nursery door, Violet was vocalising energetically, having triggered the baby monitor with her waking fidgets and escalated from there. As the door opened and her father's outline appeared, framed in the doorway, she began to gurgle and coo, waving her arms and legs in greeting, and grinning with delight. Sherlock smiled as he reached into the cot and lifted her out.

'You rang, m'lady,' he intoned, in his best Jeeves impression.

He picked up the cellular blanket from inside the cot and wrapped it around the baby, holding her against his shoulder, as he left the Nursery and padded barefoot down the stairs. The hall floor tiles were cool to the soles of his feet but not cold as this was July. In the winter, the tiles would benefit from underfloor heating so walking around in bare feet was not a problem at any time of year.

Sherlock turned right at the bottom of the stairs and passed though the stripped wood door into the kitchen, switching on the main lights. Violet continued to coo and gurgle into his ear and wave her little fists around in anticipation of her 2 a.m. feed.

'Would m'lady care for a little light supper?' Sherlock enquired, crossing to the big American fridge-freezer and opening the fridge-side door. There were three baby feeding bottles stored, rather appropriately, in the milk compartment in the door, each containing 120 mls of expressed 'Mummymilk', as the boys called it. Sherlock removed one and elbowed the fridge door closed then moved across to the microwave oven on the counter top, loosening the lid of the feeding bottle and chatting conversationally to Violet as he went. She chatted back, with a variety of interesting and unusual sounds that she had recently acquired, evidence of her speech development.

Popping the microwave door, Sherlock placed the bottle on the glass plate inside and set the oven for the required number of seconds to warm the milk through without making it dangerously hot for the baby or destroying the beneficial bacteria that was so essential for the healthy development of Violet's digestion. When the microwave pinged, he removed the bottle, fixed a sterile teat to the top and gave it a little shake.

He walked over to the leather armchair in the corner of the farmhouse-style kitchen, set there just for this purpose, and sat down, settling the baby's head in the crook of his elbow and offering her the teat, which she took eagerly between her Cupid's bow lips and began to suck with intense concentration. Sherlock relaxed back into the comfort of the chair and gazed into his daughter's liquid eyes.

Violet was so small and fragile, much smaller than Freddie had been at the same age, and with the delicate bone structure which gave her face that distinctive heart shape, with high cheekbones and a snub nose. In this light, her eyes were aquamarine, like pools of crystal clear water.

The feelings he experienced, holding this infant in his arms, defied description. The analytical part of his brain informed him that his emotional state at this moment was entirely governed by the release of powerful endorphins triggered by the close physical contact between him and the child and by the intense and prolonged eye contact of the feeding situation. But he pushed those thoughts into a convenient cupboard in his Mind Palace and closed the door. He had learned another name for this emotion – unconditional love. It was less rational but far more satisfying.

His thoughts returned to the subject of the on-going conversation that he and Molly had been sharing intermittently over the last two days - his tendency to behave recklessly. What was it he had said to Moriarty, all those years ago, on the roof of St Bart's?

'I am you. Prepared to do anything. Prepared to burn.'

Did those words still apply? Did they still have relevance?

That was such a long time ago and now everything had changed. Back then he still believed that no one would really miss him if he 'died' – not even John. Yes, his friend would be sad for a while, perhaps, but then he would move on with his life - and he had, with Mary. They all had – all except Molly. And even she had, to a degree, because of the legacy he had left behind. She had made a home and a life for their son but she had made sure that William knew who his father was. There had always been a Sherlock-shaped space in that life waiting for him to fill it, should he choose to do so.

The need to prove to himself – to no one else, since other people's opinions of him were invariably hostile and dismissive – that there was a purpose to his existence, had been a driving force for as long as he could remember. A desperate need to feel alive, his mother's avatar had called. That wasn't strictly accurate. It was more a desperate need to feel necessary, a natural consequence of having grown up feeling irrelevant.

But what could be more relevant than to be a parent?

As usual and with a pathologist's precision, Molly had cut straight to the heart of the matter. His children gave him licence to take better care of himself because, if he didn't, the potential impact could be catastrophic for them. John Watson, Greg Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, even Mycroft – they would all move on but that Sherlock-shaped hole would never disappear from his children's lives. By forcing him to confront the issue of his recklessness, Molly had pushed him to this astonishing realisation.

Violet took hold of his little finger with her tiny hand and he focused his awareness on the little creature in his arms. He mattered to her, just as he mattered to the two little boys sleeping upstairs. William, who according to Molly was the child he could have been, had he been cocooned in a bubble of love, like William was. Quiet, introspective, thoughtful William who noticed everything, rationalised, deduced and stored it all away for future reference. Freddie, who applied the same joyful enthusiasm to every activity, however mundane, and found something to love in every person he met. And Violet, assimilating and adapting, learning and developing, right before their very eyes.

Oh, God, yes! If ever there was a justification for his existence it was these three souls who only existed because he had made them – him and Molly, who always put everyone else's needs ahead of her own. She deserved so much better but she had chosen him!

This life that he could never have imagined for himself was utterly improbable but when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Was he prepared to risk losing all this?

Not any more.

He was prepared to do anything, prepared to burn – but only to preserve what he never thought he would ever have.

Violet opened her lips and Sherlock heard the hiss of air entering the feeding bottle to fill the partial vacuum there.

'All done?' he asked, sitting the baby upright and rubbing her back to encourage her to burp. The infant obliged and Sherlock stood up, propping her against his shoulder as he placed the empty feeding bottle on the worktop and made his way out of the kitchen, turning out the lights as he went.

Back upstairs in the Nursery, he changed Violet's disposable nappy and then stood with her by the window, looking out at the back garden lit only by the weak light from the street lamps at the front of the house. He rocked and swayed, transferring the weight from one foot to the other, humming a quiet tune. He felt the baby relax, her head resting on his shoulder, and her regular breathing told him she was asleep.

Placing her gently in her cot, he covered her lightly with the cellular blanket and quietly left the room. Passing his own bedroom, he climbed to the top floor and checked on each of the boys, in turn, listening at their doors for the sounds of peaceful sleep. Satisfied, he returned to his own bed, cancelled the 'Mute' on the baby monitor and slipped under the duvet, curling around Molly once again. She mumbled something incoherent and moulded her body to his as he closed his eyes and sighed with deep contentment.

ooOoo

Just one more chapter, I think, to wrap up this episode in the lives of the Holmes boys and their nearest and dearest.

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