Chapter Text
Sherlock awoke with a start to the sound of Rosie’s muffled, yet distinctly impatient cries floating down from her makeshift nursery on the third floor of 221B. The consulting detective, who had fallen asleep in his chair, glanced around the darkened flat, looking for John; he found the doctor fast asleep on the couch, his mobile resting atop his chest, one arm hanging over the side, and his mouth lolling open just slightly. For a moment, the detective merely stared at John, taking in the deep bags under his eyes, the deepened creases in his forehead, the stubble on his cheeks, his unkempt hair. It made his heart ache.
Inhaling softly to re-focus and re-orient, Sherlock glanced at the stairs and, with some effort, sat up in the chair. He groaned softly, massaging a sore spot just behind his shoulder. Though Sherlock was used to operating on limited sleep, his years of ignoring and abusing his body’s natural sleep cycle, coupled with his age, had started to catch up with him now Rosie had practically moved in. He could hear the little girl’s shuddering cries growing more and more incessant. He glanced back at John, thankful to find the doctor hadn’t stirred. John had spoken with him (at length) about the importance of getting Rosie set on a sleep schedule, which included leaving her be throughout the night and letting her settle herself when she cried—something Sherlock generally disregarded.
Pulling his dressing gown back over his t-shirt clad shoulder, as it had slipped down, Sherlock padded into the kitchen, mindful of the floorboard which tended to creek, and rummaged around in the refrigerator for a bottle of formula, which he placed in the warmer. He then used the hallway exit from the kitchen to make his way upstairs to Rosie’s room. “Really now,” he whispered disapprovingly as he opened the door a crack and slipped through it, hoping to limit the volume of Rosie’s cries from leaking downstairs to John. “Is that completely necessary, Miss Watson?”
Sherlock’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dark room, bolstered by several nightlights they’d installed for Rosie. In the room was a plain cot in which Rosie slept, a rocking chair, and a dresser. The young girl in question, who had just reached her 7th month of life, was standing in the crib, her chubby little fingers wrapped around the support beams of the cot. Sherlock noted the little girl’s blotchy cheeks, flushed from the strain of her cries and glistening with the tracks of freshly shed tears.
Sherlock approached the cot with a yawn. “What’s the matter, old girl?” he whispered as the yawn subsided. With several shuddering breaths, Rosie quieted at the sight of the detective’s approaching form and released the slats from her tiny hold, subsequently falling back on her bottom, electing instead to use her chubby fingers to reach out to Sherlock; her fingers clenched and unclenched in the air—a clear, unspoken message. Sherlock chuckled in mild amusement and obliged, pulling Rosie from the cot and settling her against his hip in a series of swift movements that had become almost second nature in the past months.
Now settled in Sherlock’s increasingly familiar hold, Rosie pressed her forehead into the detective’s shoulder and quieted even further, her snuffling breaths the only evidence of her outburst just moments before. She shoved her hand into her mouth and whined softly, chewing on her fist. “Ah,” Sherlock hummed knowingly as he exited the room and treaded softly down the stairs, returning to the kitchen, where Rosie’s bottle had finished warming. “John said you would start teething soon. Dreadful business, that.” Using his free hand, Sherlock grabbed the bottle and then passed it to Rosie, who removed her (spit-covered) fist from her mouth, eagerly taking the formula from Sherlock’s grasp. The detective chuckled as Rosie’s eyes rolled back in her head while she sucked fervently at the formula, her chubby fingers’ hold on the bottle haphazard at best.
Taking a seat at the kitchen table, Sherlock moved Rosie onto his lap and glanced around the mess he now called a kitchen while the little girl slouched against him, tilting her head back against his chest while she sucked down the milk, the sounds of her suckling filling the otherwise silent flat.
It had been two months since Mary’s car accident and subsequent, sudden death. Per his own insistence, Sherlock had been the one to identify the doctor’s wife. He had done so with the dual intention of preserving John’s memory of Mary and sparing him from the trauma of seeing her mangled corpse; from seeing her broken teeth and the odd angle at which her cheekbone protruded beneath sallow, purpled skin.
“Christ, Sherlock,” John had whispered, his feet dragging across the carpeted hallway of the house he and Mary had called home as he and Sherlock returned home from Bart’s morgue on the night of accident. Sherlock, who had been several steps ahead of John, his fingertips poised atop the light switch, ready to bathe the hallway in light, had stopped upon hearing the anguish in those two words, in the uttering of his name.
The detective had glanced over his shoulder, fingers still hovering over the light switch, and had watched with careful, guarded eyes as John sobbed into his hand, tears dripping from beneath to splatter soundlessly atop the floor beneath.
“How am I supposed to raise that little girl on my own?” the doctor had wept brokenly. “Mary was still breastfeeding her, for Christ’s sake. I can’t do this alone.”
Without thinking, Sherlock had closed the space between them and slowly wrapped his arms around the doctor, enveloping him in his arms. He hadn’t questioned the way the army doctor had leaned into his touch, the way John’s head pressed into his shoulder, shuddering from the force of his sobs. “It’s okay,” Sherlock had whispered feebly, pressing his cheek atop the doctor’s hair.
“No, it’s not,” John had croaked between sniffles.
Sherlock had taken a breath. “No,” he had admitted softly, pulling John closer and running a hand over his arm. “But it is what it is.” The detective had closed his eyes then, pressing John’s sobbing form close, breathing in his familiar scent, which was mingled with the sterile smell of hospital. His heart had ached for the army doctor, for the man who had stolen into his life so many years ago and ineffably changed it—changed him—for the better.
“You’re not alone,” Sherlock had whispered then, inhaling deeply as John leaned further into his touch, legs growing weak from the burden of grief. “You have me. I’m here. For both of you.”
Since then, Sherlock had done his best to help John sort through the detritus that was his new life as a single parent. Primarily, this had meant taking over care for Rosie. It had started just a few days after Mary’s funeral. Though Sherlock had taken up temporary residence in the house John had shared with Mary and Rosie—ensuring the retired army doctor was eating, drinking, bathing, sleeping, and tending to all the other tedious day-to-day tasks that seem meaningless and hollow in the midst of grief—in the days following Mary’s funeral, he had relocated back to 221B.
It had taken less than 48 hours for John, accompanied by Rosie in the expensive pram Mary had insisted on buying, to show up on the doorsteps of 221B, bags slung over either shoulder, a desperate, lost look in his eyes. Sherlock had welcomed his former flat mate inside, taking the bags from his weary shoulders and following him up the steps into the flat they’d once shared.
Over the following weeks, Sherlock had noted that John and Rosie were spending more time at 221B than in their own home. John would show up unannounced, at varying hours of the day and night, Rosie in tow, bags of supplies slung over both shoulders, generally looking dazed and exhausted. Each time, Sherlock would offer a wordless welcome by taking the bags from his shoulders and following him upstairs to the familiar flat.
It hadn’t taken long for Sherlock to convert the upstairs bedroom, which had once been John’s, into a makeshift nursery for Rosie.
Now, as Sherlock sat with Rosie suckling contently in his lap, his eyelids growing heavy while he mentally parsed through the past few months with Rosie and John, both his flat and former flat mate in a state of disaster, the detective wondered how long it would take for things to feel normal once more. He didn’t have long to dwell on such thoughts, however, as he was startled back to the present by a shock of sound; having nearly fallen asleep, Rosie’s chubby, still-developing fingers had released their hold on the bottle of formula, sending it tumbling to the floor below.
“Shit!” Sherlock whispered, settling a hand around Rosie’s middle as he leaned down to retrieve the empty bottle. “Shit,” he added with a sigh and an unamused glance at Rosie, in front of whom he had been trying very hard not to swear. He could hear the sounds of John stirring in the other room. Exhaling a soft huff of air through his nose that floated through Rosie’s hair, stirring her blonde curls, Sherlock scanned the kitchen, searching for one of the dozens of dummies that had been scattered around the flat. He spotted one on the counter next to the sink and, settling Rosie against his chest, stood up to retrieve it.
“Sherlock?” came John’s groggy voice, thick with sleep and sorrow.
“Just in here,” Sherlock called softly in reply as he crossed the kitchen, snatched the dummy, and then offered it to Rosie, who wrapped her little fingers around it and shoved it in her mouth before snuggling into the detective’s hold. Sherlock hummed approvingly as he padded into the sitting room, where John was now seated on the couch, one hand resting limply in the space between his splayed legs, the other running slowly over and across his face, in what Sherlock had come to recognize as a feeble attempt to rub away the day’s anguish and exhaustion.
John glanced up at the detective, his eyes flicking to Rosie’s contented form, wrapped snugly in his arms. For the first time in days, the doctor smiled. “You’re bloody horrible at sleep training, you know that?” he said with a chuckle—nothing more than a huff of exhaled air—as he settled his palms on his thighs and stood up from the couch.
Sherlock smiled ruefully in response as he glanced down at the little girl in question, silently acknowledging the truth in John’s words. The doctor settled himself close to Sherlock and Rosie, settling a hand on the little girl’s back. She shifted slightly at his touch, sighing serenely into Sherlock’s shoulder.
“I can take her back upstairs, if you like,” John whispered, lifting his hand from Rosie’s back and gesturing towards the stairs with a tilt of his head.
Sherlock watched as John yawned, the lines and wrinkles in his face deepening. “No, that’s all right,” he murmured, running his palm up and down the length of Rosie’s clothed back. “I’ll get her settled. You should get back to sleep.”
John did not protest. “I might just do that,” he said with a simple, grateful nod of his head.
Eventually, as John returned to work and settled into the rhythm of his new life, his desperate, sleep-deprived visits to 221B became less frequent. When John worked, Sherlock watched Rosie, electing to work cases on the side. (Infuriatingly stupid, easy, non-dangerous cases, mind you, but it paid the bills.) Sometimes, John would return home after work to pick Rosie up and take her home with him. Other times, Sherlock would keep Rosie overnight until John came to pick her up the next day after he’d had a night to decompress.
Under Sherlock’s nurturing and watchful eye, Rosie blossomed into a caring, curious toddler, seemingly unaware of her unconventional living situation. The detective’s affection for John’s daughter was no secret. For her 1st birthday, Sherlock planned an extravagant party, complete with hand-made decorations (which he’d YouTubed) and brain-stimulating manipulatives for presents, even though John, Molly, Lestrade, and his brother all insisted that Rosie would not remember the occasion.
Life continued in this way for the small, unconventional family of three, with John returning to work full-time and Sherlock tending to Rosie during the days and on occasional weekends—whenever John needed a break.
Despite the fact that John and Sherlock maintained their separate residences (with Sherlock living at 221B and John having kept the home he’d purchased with Mary), the flat mates still found time to share in Rosie’s upbringing and, as such, were able to witness most of the milestones in her first few years of life together. They’d both stared questioningly at each other when Rosie uttered her first word, “Papa” (the name she’d associated with John after hearing the doctor use it), wondering if they’d heard her correctly. They’d cheered, arms outstretched, watching in tandem awe as she took her first, wobbly steps across the wooden floors of 221B. They’d beamed, sharing proud glances, as Rosie started to string her words together, forming haphazard, broken sentences.
Despite these moments and despite the fact that life was getting easier, John still felt as if he was floating through existence, moving from day-to-day with little distinction between each. He knew he should feel guilty about occasionally abandoning Rosie at Sherlock’s for the sake of having a few hours of quiet at home, but most days, he just didn’t. He resented himself for it, but lacked the energy to do much about it. He knew that, for the time being at least, Rosie was better looked after with Sherlock than with him; the two were positively soppy about each other.
However, as Rosie neared two years of age, John found himself slowly returning to a semblance of his old self. He was laughing again, smiling with regularity.
Today, it was the sight of Sherlock, seated on the couch, clad in his best dress suit, his fingers steepled against his lips, with Rosie on his shoulders that brought a smile to John’s lips. Sherlock had finally gotten a stimulating case and he was perusing the details in his mind. Rosie seemed to have a different plan. From her perch atop Sherlock’s shoulders, the little girl was sifting (rather aggressively) through the detective’s curls, tugging at them and pulling at them. She laughed boisterously at the way Sherlock’s hair moved and slipped beneath her fingers.
The sound was pure joy. And pure joy is infectious.
Grinning at Rosie’s sheer happiness, John felt something stir in his chest while he watched as Sherlock, endlessly patient with little Rosie, re-located her from atop his shoulders to his lap. Ever adaptable, Rosie decided that, instead of tugging on Sherlock’s curls, she could explore his face instead, seeing as how it was now so close.
Using Sherlock’s shirt to steady her, Rosie stood up on his thighs. Keeping one hand tangled in the detective’s dress shirt, the little girl gently tapped her palm against Sherlock’s nose.
“Yes, that’s my nose,” he murmured, keeping his eyes closed. Rosie babbled something unintelligible in reply and then placed both her hands in the hollows of Sherlock’s cheeks. “And those are cheeks,” he explained.
“Teeks,” Rosie repeated.
“Indeed.”
“What dis?” she asked, moving her hands to Sherlock’s chin.
“Chin.”
“Tin.”
It continued this way for several minutes with Sherlock calmly and patiently listing off each body part as Rosie tenderly tapped it with her haphazard fingers, mimicking the words as Sherlock said them.
His spirits lifted, John eventually decided to rescue Sherlock from Rosie’s curious and tactile inquiries. “That’s enough, Rosie,” he said, crossing over to the couch. “Let’s leave Sherlock to his thoughts, yes?”
For the first time, the detective opened his eyes, watching as John crossed over to him and gently pulled Rosie away. The little girl pouted for a moment, pushing out her bottom lip, but soon quieted when John set her down in front of the pile of manipulatives Sherlock had purchased for her mental stimulation and growth. Hands on his hips, John glanced back at Sherlock, who mouthed, “Thank you,” before closing his eyes and returning to his thoughts.
The doctor smiled.