Author's Note: Hi guys. Thanks for the nice reviews last chapter. I apologise about the lateness of this one. It is also short and not the story driven chapter I intended to write. I'm very sorry but I'm having a really rough… almost week at this point. I won't go into much here but readers are aware at this point that I have OCD and I'm just not having a fun time. It'll effect next chapter to (see the end), sorry. I do think this turned out okay. I retconned something from the blog for this but it still all lines up pretty well considering. Please read, review, and enjoy.

Disclaimer: Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Margot's First Favourite Toy

Mycroft was dressed in a full suit but that was no indication that he was leaving the house. It was Mycroft, most of the time he dressed that way because he wanted to. His casual wear was just remove the jacket and roll up the sleeves. Nor was his sour disposition a true indicator that he was being dragged out of the house. Again it was Mycroft and an irritated expression was not uncommon. Especially when he had just gotten off the phone. What gave it away to Anthea was the way Mycroft's eyes looked as he looked at her. It was with a longing like he had already been taken away and he was looking at a photo of her. Like he'd already been gone for months and not simply about to pop out for a bit.

"Being dragged into work?" Anthea asked. Her smile was carefully constructed. It was warm, teasing, and not all jealous that he was getting to go do real work. Not at all. She'd kill just to have some time to do some emails right now. Mycroft sighed as his eyes trailed down from Anthea's eyes, to her nose, to her mouth, and kept going.

"There is apparently something of a situation." He finally spoke, already sounding exhausted. "I need to speak directly to security about who had access to certain files and report it back to Lady Smallwood without writing anything down." His eyebrows danced up and down. Anthea perked at the sound of something so interesting.

"A leak?" She asked, failing to hide her interest.

"Alicia seems to think so, yes." He hummed. He pursed his lips. "Quite frankly it I don't care and resent being called in for it." Anthea tilted her head to the side.

"Mycroft." She whispered.

"It wasn't my doing, I shouldn't need to help clean it up." He quipped. That wouldn't normally be his attitude. And it would normally be Anthea doing this kind of legwork anyway. Never mind. Anthea stroked Mycroft's cheek lovingly with her thumb.

"You'll be gone for a few hours." She said. Mycroft's lips pulled into a scowl. She could practically hear his brain yelling a few hours too many at her. "And then you keep going with your time off like nothing happened." Mycroft hummed thoughtfully and shrugged. Anthea's face pulled into a natural smile. Her hand fell from his face, to his neck, and landed on his chest. "And you can bring some dinner home." She said. Mycroft worked an eyebrow.

"Really?" He asked, fake offended but seriously surprised.

"Saves the delivery cost." She whispered. Mycroft rolled his eyes. He took Anthea's hand off her chest and used his thumb to stroke her knuckles before offering quiet words of farewell.

After another successful feeding Anthea found herself alone with an awake Margot. There she was with her big, beautiful, sweet blue eyes, looking at her mother like she was the entire world. They shared that, at this moment, that they were each other's worlds. Except where Margot depended entirely on Anthea, Anthea had no idea what to do with Margot.

"Mummy's tired, little one." Anthea said as she rubbed Margot's little belly. She squirmed and made noises. "Mummy's always tired." This might be what it feels like to be Daddy she thought fleetingly. She stroked Margot's head. The sweet little thing looked like she was listening.

"Do you want to come play in Mummy's room? Then she can relax and look after you at the same time?" Anthea asked. She picked Margot up, supporting the back of her head, and held her close. "Let's go lie on Mummy's bed."

Anthea lay Margot down o Mycroft's side of the bed, using pillows as barriers to ensure she couldn't roll or squirm off. Although Anthea wasn't entirely sure if Margot was even capable of that yet – she just wanted to be safe. Into the room Anthea had brought a few teddies and toys.

They lay on the end of the bed in a small pile near Anthea's feet. Currently Anthea was testing out a brown little teddy bear. She lay on her side of the bed, head propped up on her closed fist, making the bear dance in front of Margot's face. It interested the baby for about five minutes before she lost interest. Anthea booped Margot's noise and made a booping noise to go with it. That got Margot's attention again but only for a further ten minutes.

Anthea dropped the bear off the side of the bed. She sat up hummed, and selected another toy from pile. This was a ring that jingled when you moved it. Apparently, according to Molly who was quite helpful in things to buy newborns, it was good for a newborn. The noise was stimulating, it was soft and couldn't hurt, and the circular ring shape was good for grabbing.

Margot did like it. She liked it for whole fifteen minutes. Until she let go of it and then had no intention of picking it back up. Anthea, thinking maybe she didn't know how to find the item, picked it up and held it out for her. Margot was more interested in Anthea's voice and gurgled.

None of the toys held Margot's attention for too long but she was at least entertained and stimulated enough that she eventually got tuckered out. Anthea too, actually. The pair dozed off at about the same time, Anthea's head still resting on her hand. When Anthea stirred later she almost had a panic attack and was so grateful she had those protective barriers up. Margot was happily snoozing in her cushioned prison.

The girls were no longer napping together when Mycroft came home. In fact Anthea had just changed a nappy – the joys of motherhood – when she heard Mycroft enter the house.

After cleaning her hands Anthea went downstairs to find him. Mycroft was in the kitchen depositing food into the fridge to be heated up later. Good boy had listened to instructions to get food. It made Anthea smile. Since when had he become so obedient?

"Hey." She said, laughter in her voice. Mycroft turned his head. He forced a tired smile upon seeing her and nodded. Anthea rolled her eyes. "It couldn't have been that bad." She hummed. Mycroft made a noise in his throat then leaned against the counter.

"Objectively, no it wasn't." He… agreed? With her. "Subjectively I'd much rather have been elsewhere." She wondered briefly if that was his version of explaining his feelings simply.

"You're home now." Anthea said, the only consolation she could think of. Mycroft hummed, his eyebrows dancing up as he stared into space. It was then as she looked him over that Anthea noticed he still had a plastic bag in his hand. He'd already put all the food in the fridge. Or had he forgotten one? Anthea nodded towards it.

"What have you got there?" She asked. Mycroft inhaled sharply.

"Oh." He peeped, having been summoned from his own deep thoughts. "Walter and I went for a walk," which meant Walter and he went outside for a smoke and wandered around while they did so. "And we saw this."

Out of the bag Mycroft brought a teddy bear. It was made out of patchwork, each square on it a different type of fabric. It was mostly made up of pink and blue but there was some purple, yellow, and green to be seen. Actually, it was kind of like the Alice in Wonderland blanket from Violet. Except this was cute, its face was so sweet and very classical for a teddy with its sewn mouth. Anthea adored it. Had she seen it herself she would have absolutely bought it.

"I commented on it and Walter convinced me to buy it." Mycroft continued. Anthea touched the bear's little feet. How had they not found anything like this before? Anthea would have been all over it for her little one.

Anthea shook her head. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to express how cute she thought it was and she didn't want to shower Mycroft with love and compliments because that might have the adverse reaction and he might shy away from buying anything on his own again. She just took a deep breath and gave the largest shrug she had ever given.

"I think we have to go show our little girl." She said. Mycroft's mouth twitched into an almost smile.

"Certainly." He said.

It was decided that Anthea, having the most experience introducing toys to Margot as of today, should be the one to show her the bear.

Anthea first went for the new trademark move of booping Margot's nose with the bear's nose.

"Hello, Margot." She said in a silly deep voice. "I'm Patches the bear." The voice made Mycroft's brows furrow deeply. He looked at Anthea incredulously and laughed.

Margot squealed delightfully as Anthea continued to make Patches dance around above the crib. Anthea continued to sing in the strange voice as the little girl was enraptured. Little hands reached up so Anthea gingerly gave her the bear. She was incapable of laughter yet but Margot made a noise that was, while not sounding close to laughter in anyway shape of form, to Anthea sounded like a burst of joy.

Immediately Patches' ear went into the baby's mouth. Anthea, startled by this, inched closer. She was stopped by Mycroft's hand on her shoulder. He was ensuring her it was okay.

"I think it's a hit." Anthea said, watching her daughter embrace this new teddy.

"I think so." Mycroft hummed in a quiet voice.

"It's a shame she's too young to be allowed to sleep with it." Anthea thought out loud. The little thing was not going to be happy to be separated from this bear any time soon. As soon as she grew tired of it for now it would have to come out of the crib. It didn't matter how long it took. Anthea would wait here until she grew tired of it or fell asleep again. Watching her daughter play happily was… well… better than filing, that's for sure.

"Don't wish for her to grow too quickly." Mycroft said from besides Anthea. He was watching Margot too. Anthea leaned in closer to his body heat.

"I know." She answered. "I don't. This is too nice."

Author's Note: How was it? I hope it was sufficiently okay given I made you wait and that its short. So what I changed was on the blog Patches was bought a different way. That was AGES ago and I liked this better. Plus the blog is fun while the fic is law (in the AFTFE canon that is, not anything important -_-). Thanks to last chapter's guest reviewers; Observant Potato, and B. Thanks to all my readers. I'm going to take a week to write the next chapter because I need it. I really need it. It's not the story's fault, don't worry, I still love it dearly and am excited for it. I just can't do anything right now. I need the time to force words onto pages and stuff. Thanks for understanding. See you in a week.