Light From A Distant Shore, Part 3a
Title: Light From A Distant Shore
Part 3a: Second Trimester, cont
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: M, for sex, some violence, and eventual depictions of labor and birth
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/Joan Watson
Summary: Sherlock convinces Joan to have his baby. Things don’t go quite how either of them expect.
Author’s Notes: This was originally a prompt over at sherlockbbc-fic that I started writing for fun, on a whim, and then it just snowballed and turned into this whole massive THING and now I’m posting genderbent babyfic oh god oh god NO ONE JUDGE ME I HAVEN’T WRITTEN THIS MUCH IN LITERALLY OVER A YEAR.
Lestrade and Donovan were in and out of their flat at insane hours for four grueling days, in which Sherlock slept not a wink and ate almost as little. Twice Joan fell asleep on the couch while trying to work as a sounding board for him while he paced and talked himself through possibilities. It wasn’t that their culprit was a particularly clever man, far from it in fact, but he was a natural survivor and desperate, with (as Sherlock had put it), “loads and loads of powerful, unsavory friends to help him along.” They’d made two arrests, but the Yard had cut both men loose on account of airtight alibis, as well as Sherlock’s assurance that neither were the shooter.
As the citywide manhunt entered its fifth day, Joan was startled out of a light doze by a small clatter, and awoke to find Sherlock curled in the leather armchair and staring at the place where his mobile had landed when he chucked it across the room in a sudden fit.
Joan sat up with a sigh and went to get it for him, for what would probably be the last time for a long time. Bending down was increasingly difficult. He didn’t move when she dropped it in his lap, so she leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead before shuffling off to bed.
He grabbed her hand before she could turn, and said without looking at her, “He’s going to get away.”
“He won’t,” she insisted before she could even think. “You won’t let him.”
His hand gripped hers harder, and he pulled her back to him and then down to straddle his lap. The chair was just big enough for both of them. He was shaking when he got his arms around her and pressed his face into her shoulder, his forehead resting just against the knot of scar tissue under her blouse.
“All right?” she asked as she wrapped her arms around his head and pressed as close to him as her belly would allow. He wasn’t all right of course, and she knew that very well, but sometimes little, normal questions, just a small show of concern, was enough to calm him. She had a feeling she’d be in for another night of angry violin playing otherwise.
“Is this what it’s like?” he asked suddenly. His voice was muffled by her shoulder but unmistakably bitter, and his fingers flexed and trembled against her back. “For them, for you - always one step behind, always too slow. Rutting around in the muck and mess in a vain attempt to create order out of chaos, make safe what’s dangerous.” He paused to collect his thoughts, drawing a ragged breath as she combed her fingers through his hair. “Like fumbling about in the dark looking for a lightswitch - and how do you find it? How do you bear the possibility that you might never find it?” She opened her mouth, drew in a breath to speak, to answer him, but he rode right over her. “Well nevermind that, I know how you do it, how all of you do it, barely enough brain cells between you to function in the-”
She gave his hair a particularly hard tug, effectively cutting him off. He pulled back to give her a hard look, and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing gently. “As if you’d have it any other way.”
His trembling subsided a little, and he sat up straighter, turning to press his forehead against the side of her neck. His lips moved against her collarbone, sending goosebumps shooting up and down her arms when he said, “No I wouldn’t.”
One of his hands slid fluidly up her spine to cup the back of her neck, stilling the breath in her chest. She bowed her head at his gentle insistence, and kissed him softly for a moment while he tugged open the buttons of her blouse one-handed. They made love slowly, Joan’s arms braced against the back of the chair on either side of his shoulders as he thrust up into her with long, lazy strokes. He came quietly, gasping against her shoulder, his hand still working between her legs to bring her off. She was exhausted when she finally followed him down.
Afterwards, she coaxed him back to his bedroom. They all but fell into the bed together, and Joan just barely managed to pull the sheet up over them before her eyes closed of their own volition. Sherlock was already asleep.
***
They had a heatwave in August, with record highs for six days straight, and Joan missed an appointment because she couldn’t bear the thought of doing anything besides laying around the flat in a light camisole and sleep shorts. During the hot, slow stretches of daylight she occupied herself by making wishlists on Amazon of the things they’d be needing soon for the baby, organized by level of importance. This turned out to be a surprisingly engrossing task, which was a relief because the heat had caused her nausea to return ten-fold, and Sherlock had become unbearable.
Once the reality of failure had set in, he’d decided to rehash every unsolved case he’d ever had, and he’d made a proper mess of the flat in the process. It got so bad that she retreated to her room, the last bastion of tidiness, and refused to come down until he cleared the couch so she could lie down on it. If he wanted to talk at her, it was the least he could do, and after an hour of ignoring his shouting he finally did as she’d asked.
When she wasn’t shopping or listening to Sherlock’s conjectures, she slept. It seemed the only thing to do in the heat.
They didn’t see Lestrade all week. The city seemed to have gone to sleep, even the criminal element, and Joan couldn’t help feeling this was somewhat of a blessing. The last time she’d seen the DI, she’d got the distinct impression that he’d been drinking rather hard in his off hours. She couldn’t really blame him. He was still hurting from losing Officer Tarver - everyone at the Yard was - and she hoped the downtime would do them all some good.
“When should we have the baby shower, do you think?” Mrs. Hudson asked one evening as she brought up a tray of lemonade, and Joan’s already wandering thoughts ground to a complete halt. A baby shower hadn’t even crossed her mind.
“Never,” Sherlock offered helpfully from the kitchen table.
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Mrs. Hudson chided gently. “People love to buy gifts for babies. You shouldn’t deny them that.”
“And who would we invite?” Joan asked, trying not to shoot down the idea before she’d really considered it. The only woman she could think of was Molly, and things had been increasingly awkward between them since Molly had realized what was going on. Now whenever she went around to St. Bart’s with Sherlock, Joan felt, somewhat unreasonably, that she was rubbing Molly’s nose in it. Molly Hooper was easily the sweetest, most unassuming human being she had ever had the pleasure of knowing, and she’d racked her brain for a way to stop inadvertently hurting the girl’s feelings simply by being pregnant with Sherlock’s baby. So far she hadn’t come up with anything.
“You’d have to branch out a bit I suppose,” Mrs. Hudson said. “If you only invited ladies it wouldn’t be much of a shower at all. The Detective Inspector might like to come. He’s always such good company at Christmas, isn’t he?”
Joan couldn’t help nodding in agreement.
“And your brother,” their landlady continued, laying a hand on Joan’s arm.
It wasn’t until that very instant she realized she’d never told Harry.
“What an awkward affair that would be,” Sherlock said to no one in particular.
“Mycroft,” Joan offered, trying to stave off the sinking feeling in her stomach.
“Better not,” Sherlock said much too quickly. “He wouldn’t come. It would be a waste of paper.”
Joan laughed. “He’d know whether we invited him or not.”
“Just as I said,” Sherlock huffed. “Better not to waste the paper.
That seemed to put an end to all the silly conjecture about baby showers, and in the conversational lull Joan found herself fishing her mobile out from between the couch cushions. She scrolled through her contacts on muscle memory, and before she could stop herself or think about what she was doing, she’d selected Harry’s name and opened a text box. She typed the words ‘I’m pregnant’ and hit send, then turned her phone off.
“I’m going to take a nap,” she said, hoisting herself off the couch. “Someone make dinner in a few hours and then... wake me.”
Mrs. Hudson was looking pointedly at Sherlock’s direction as Joan left the room. He was very pointedly ignoring her.
***
It was hot even in Joan’s dreams, and muggy, almost tropical. It made deep sleep difficult, and she drifted in and out of dreams filled with trees and insects and rats and babies with dark curly hair. When Sherlock laid a hand on her shoulder she woke instantly. “We’d better not be having beans and toast again,” she mumbled, pushing herself up out of sweaty sheets.
He said, “Harry’s downstairs,” and if she hadn’t already been awake that would have done the trick - but instead of feeling angry or scared or nervous, all she felt was numb, and that was more upsetting than anything else. Suddenly beans and toast didn’t sound so bad.
“Well shit,” she said tonelessly as she swung her legs onto the floor.
“I’ll throw him out if you like,” Sherlock offered.
That wouldn’t do at all. “Better not,” she sighed. “I don’t think it would help.”
“How will we know if we don’t try?” he asked, reaching out to steady her when she wobbled a little.
“That’s not helping either,” she reprimanded gently, rooting about in the hamper for something to put on that amounted to more than underwear. Laundry was just one more thing that had suffered neglect during the heatwave. After less than a second of consideration she pulled on a sleeveless check dress that she immediately sweated through, combed her fingers through her mussed hair, and preceded Sherlock down the stairs.
Harry was sitting on the couch, but leaped to his feet as soon as he heard them on the stairs. He stood nervously, waiting in the center of the room, unconsciously scrubbing the palms of his hands on his jeans. He looked pretty good, she thought, clothes clean and hair tidy. He looked sober.
He also looked angry, and hurt.
Harry took one look at the bump under her dress and said, “Jesus Christ, Joan.” Somehow it was worse than any shouting would have been.
“I didn’t expect you to just show up on the doorstep,” Joan said defensively. A surge of protectiveness swept through her under his scrutinizing gaze and she laid a hand over the top of her belly. Sherlock was a still, predatory presence behind her right shoulder. The uncommon display of emotional support both surprised and pleased her.
“What else was I supposed to do?” he asked. “You won’t answer the phone when I call anymore, you don’t ever visit.”
She barely bit back telling him that was hardly her fault, that he’d been doing the same thing for years because he was boozed out of his mind, but that only would have been throwing fuel on the fire. Her life was slightly more together, that was true, but she was as much to blame for the degeneration of their relationship as he was, and to say otherwise would have been a blatant lie. “I don’t, do I?” she replied quietly.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room, finally to be broken by a little snicker of a laugh from Harry.
“What?” Joan asked.
Harry shook his head, and stuffed his hands back in his pockets, saying, “It’s just - I always figured you two would end like this. You’re the longest relationship she’s had outside the family, you know that?” he asked Sherlock.
Joan imagined she could hear Sherlock’s teeth clenching in annoyance. Before he could break the tentative truce she and Harry had quickly settled on, she turned to look at him and made a vague gesture with her head - a gesture that clearly said be somewhere else. He scrunched his eyebrows at her in question, and she had to gesture again before understanding dawned on him. He rolled his eyes at her when it did.
“I’ll just leave you to it then,” he said pointedly before making his way downstairs.
“Do you wanna sit down?” Harry asked when the sound of creaking stairs had abated. Joan nodded, and wondered if Sherlock was listening in. She lowered herself down onto the end of the couch with care, and another uncomfortable silence settled over them. This was not how she’d wanted to spend the afternoon.
“You’re not married too, are you?” Harry asked suddenly.
Joan laughed. “No. Absolutely not.”
After a pause he asked, “Are you going to get married?”
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
“So,” he said slowly, “just the baby then. Do you know what it is yet?”
She sighed. Definitely not how she’d wanted to spend the afternoon.
Part 3b
Part 3a: Second Trimester, cont
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: M, for sex, some violence, and eventual depictions of labor and birth
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/Joan Watson
Summary: Sherlock convinces Joan to have his baby. Things don’t go quite how either of them expect.
Author’s Notes: This was originally a prompt over at sherlockbbc-fic that I started writing for fun, on a whim, and then it just snowballed and turned into this whole massive THING and now I’m posting genderbent babyfic oh god oh god NO ONE JUDGE ME I HAVEN’T WRITTEN THIS MUCH IN LITERALLY OVER A YEAR.
Lestrade and Donovan were in and out of their flat at insane hours for four grueling days, in which Sherlock slept not a wink and ate almost as little. Twice Joan fell asleep on the couch while trying to work as a sounding board for him while he paced and talked himself through possibilities. It wasn’t that their culprit was a particularly clever man, far from it in fact, but he was a natural survivor and desperate, with (as Sherlock had put it), “loads and loads of powerful, unsavory friends to help him along.” They’d made two arrests, but the Yard had cut both men loose on account of airtight alibis, as well as Sherlock’s assurance that neither were the shooter.
As the citywide manhunt entered its fifth day, Joan was startled out of a light doze by a small clatter, and awoke to find Sherlock curled in the leather armchair and staring at the place where his mobile had landed when he chucked it across the room in a sudden fit.
Joan sat up with a sigh and went to get it for him, for what would probably be the last time for a long time. Bending down was increasingly difficult. He didn’t move when she dropped it in his lap, so she leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead before shuffling off to bed.
He grabbed her hand before she could turn, and said without looking at her, “He’s going to get away.”
“He won’t,” she insisted before she could even think. “You won’t let him.”
His hand gripped hers harder, and he pulled her back to him and then down to straddle his lap. The chair was just big enough for both of them. He was shaking when he got his arms around her and pressed his face into her shoulder, his forehead resting just against the knot of scar tissue under her blouse.
“All right?” she asked as she wrapped her arms around his head and pressed as close to him as her belly would allow. He wasn’t all right of course, and she knew that very well, but sometimes little, normal questions, just a small show of concern, was enough to calm him. She had a feeling she’d be in for another night of angry violin playing otherwise.
“Is this what it’s like?” he asked suddenly. His voice was muffled by her shoulder but unmistakably bitter, and his fingers flexed and trembled against her back. “For them, for you - always one step behind, always too slow. Rutting around in the muck and mess in a vain attempt to create order out of chaos, make safe what’s dangerous.” He paused to collect his thoughts, drawing a ragged breath as she combed her fingers through his hair. “Like fumbling about in the dark looking for a lightswitch - and how do you find it? How do you bear the possibility that you might never find it?” She opened her mouth, drew in a breath to speak, to answer him, but he rode right over her. “Well nevermind that, I know how you do it, how all of you do it, barely enough brain cells between you to function in the-”
She gave his hair a particularly hard tug, effectively cutting him off. He pulled back to give her a hard look, and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing gently. “As if you’d have it any other way.”
His trembling subsided a little, and he sat up straighter, turning to press his forehead against the side of her neck. His lips moved against her collarbone, sending goosebumps shooting up and down her arms when he said, “No I wouldn’t.”
One of his hands slid fluidly up her spine to cup the back of her neck, stilling the breath in her chest. She bowed her head at his gentle insistence, and kissed him softly for a moment while he tugged open the buttons of her blouse one-handed. They made love slowly, Joan’s arms braced against the back of the chair on either side of his shoulders as he thrust up into her with long, lazy strokes. He came quietly, gasping against her shoulder, his hand still working between her legs to bring her off. She was exhausted when she finally followed him down.
Afterwards, she coaxed him back to his bedroom. They all but fell into the bed together, and Joan just barely managed to pull the sheet up over them before her eyes closed of their own volition. Sherlock was already asleep.
***
They had a heatwave in August, with record highs for six days straight, and Joan missed an appointment because she couldn’t bear the thought of doing anything besides laying around the flat in a light camisole and sleep shorts. During the hot, slow stretches of daylight she occupied herself by making wishlists on Amazon of the things they’d be needing soon for the baby, organized by level of importance. This turned out to be a surprisingly engrossing task, which was a relief because the heat had caused her nausea to return ten-fold, and Sherlock had become unbearable.
Once the reality of failure had set in, he’d decided to rehash every unsolved case he’d ever had, and he’d made a proper mess of the flat in the process. It got so bad that she retreated to her room, the last bastion of tidiness, and refused to come down until he cleared the couch so she could lie down on it. If he wanted to talk at her, it was the least he could do, and after an hour of ignoring his shouting he finally did as she’d asked.
When she wasn’t shopping or listening to Sherlock’s conjectures, she slept. It seemed the only thing to do in the heat.
They didn’t see Lestrade all week. The city seemed to have gone to sleep, even the criminal element, and Joan couldn’t help feeling this was somewhat of a blessing. The last time she’d seen the DI, she’d got the distinct impression that he’d been drinking rather hard in his off hours. She couldn’t really blame him. He was still hurting from losing Officer Tarver - everyone at the Yard was - and she hoped the downtime would do them all some good.
“When should we have the baby shower, do you think?” Mrs. Hudson asked one evening as she brought up a tray of lemonade, and Joan’s already wandering thoughts ground to a complete halt. A baby shower hadn’t even crossed her mind.
“Never,” Sherlock offered helpfully from the kitchen table.
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Mrs. Hudson chided gently. “People love to buy gifts for babies. You shouldn’t deny them that.”
“And who would we invite?” Joan asked, trying not to shoot down the idea before she’d really considered it. The only woman she could think of was Molly, and things had been increasingly awkward between them since Molly had realized what was going on. Now whenever she went around to St. Bart’s with Sherlock, Joan felt, somewhat unreasonably, that she was rubbing Molly’s nose in it. Molly Hooper was easily the sweetest, most unassuming human being she had ever had the pleasure of knowing, and she’d racked her brain for a way to stop inadvertently hurting the girl’s feelings simply by being pregnant with Sherlock’s baby. So far she hadn’t come up with anything.
“You’d have to branch out a bit I suppose,” Mrs. Hudson said. “If you only invited ladies it wouldn’t be much of a shower at all. The Detective Inspector might like to come. He’s always such good company at Christmas, isn’t he?”
Joan couldn’t help nodding in agreement.
“And your brother,” their landlady continued, laying a hand on Joan’s arm.
It wasn’t until that very instant she realized she’d never told Harry.
“What an awkward affair that would be,” Sherlock said to no one in particular.
“Mycroft,” Joan offered, trying to stave off the sinking feeling in her stomach.
“Better not,” Sherlock said much too quickly. “He wouldn’t come. It would be a waste of paper.”
Joan laughed. “He’d know whether we invited him or not.”
“Just as I said,” Sherlock huffed. “Better not to waste the paper.
That seemed to put an end to all the silly conjecture about baby showers, and in the conversational lull Joan found herself fishing her mobile out from between the couch cushions. She scrolled through her contacts on muscle memory, and before she could stop herself or think about what she was doing, she’d selected Harry’s name and opened a text box. She typed the words ‘I’m pregnant’ and hit send, then turned her phone off.
“I’m going to take a nap,” she said, hoisting herself off the couch. “Someone make dinner in a few hours and then... wake me.”
Mrs. Hudson was looking pointedly at Sherlock’s direction as Joan left the room. He was very pointedly ignoring her.
***
It was hot even in Joan’s dreams, and muggy, almost tropical. It made deep sleep difficult, and she drifted in and out of dreams filled with trees and insects and rats and babies with dark curly hair. When Sherlock laid a hand on her shoulder she woke instantly. “We’d better not be having beans and toast again,” she mumbled, pushing herself up out of sweaty sheets.
He said, “Harry’s downstairs,” and if she hadn’t already been awake that would have done the trick - but instead of feeling angry or scared or nervous, all she felt was numb, and that was more upsetting than anything else. Suddenly beans and toast didn’t sound so bad.
“Well shit,” she said tonelessly as she swung her legs onto the floor.
“I’ll throw him out if you like,” Sherlock offered.
That wouldn’t do at all. “Better not,” she sighed. “I don’t think it would help.”
“How will we know if we don’t try?” he asked, reaching out to steady her when she wobbled a little.
“That’s not helping either,” she reprimanded gently, rooting about in the hamper for something to put on that amounted to more than underwear. Laundry was just one more thing that had suffered neglect during the heatwave. After less than a second of consideration she pulled on a sleeveless check dress that she immediately sweated through, combed her fingers through her mussed hair, and preceded Sherlock down the stairs.
Harry was sitting on the couch, but leaped to his feet as soon as he heard them on the stairs. He stood nervously, waiting in the center of the room, unconsciously scrubbing the palms of his hands on his jeans. He looked pretty good, she thought, clothes clean and hair tidy. He looked sober.
He also looked angry, and hurt.
Harry took one look at the bump under her dress and said, “Jesus Christ, Joan.” Somehow it was worse than any shouting would have been.
“I didn’t expect you to just show up on the doorstep,” Joan said defensively. A surge of protectiveness swept through her under his scrutinizing gaze and she laid a hand over the top of her belly. Sherlock was a still, predatory presence behind her right shoulder. The uncommon display of emotional support both surprised and pleased her.
“What else was I supposed to do?” he asked. “You won’t answer the phone when I call anymore, you don’t ever visit.”
She barely bit back telling him that was hardly her fault, that he’d been doing the same thing for years because he was boozed out of his mind, but that only would have been throwing fuel on the fire. Her life was slightly more together, that was true, but she was as much to blame for the degeneration of their relationship as he was, and to say otherwise would have been a blatant lie. “I don’t, do I?” she replied quietly.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room, finally to be broken by a little snicker of a laugh from Harry.
“What?” Joan asked.
Harry shook his head, and stuffed his hands back in his pockets, saying, “It’s just - I always figured you two would end like this. You’re the longest relationship she’s had outside the family, you know that?” he asked Sherlock.
Joan imagined she could hear Sherlock’s teeth clenching in annoyance. Before he could break the tentative truce she and Harry had quickly settled on, she turned to look at him and made a vague gesture with her head - a gesture that clearly said be somewhere else. He scrunched his eyebrows at her in question, and she had to gesture again before understanding dawned on him. He rolled his eyes at her when it did.
“I’ll just leave you to it then,” he said pointedly before making his way downstairs.
“Do you wanna sit down?” Harry asked when the sound of creaking stairs had abated. Joan nodded, and wondered if Sherlock was listening in. She lowered herself down onto the end of the couch with care, and another uncomfortable silence settled over them. This was not how she’d wanted to spend the afternoon.
“You’re not married too, are you?” Harry asked suddenly.
Joan laughed. “No. Absolutely not.”
After a pause he asked, “Are you going to get married?”
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
“So,” he said slowly, “just the baby then. Do you know what it is yet?”
She sighed. Definitely not how she’d wanted to spend the afternoon.
Part 3b