A/N: This was written in response to a prompt sent ages ago to me by a tumblr user. I am very, very sorry it took so long! :x

Here is the prompt I received:
Hi! I don't know if you're taking any prompts right now but if you are, here's one: Sherlock been away for a case and then he called his family and when his baby daughter (or son) spoke over the phone, cue the cute convo. His daughter told him all sort of random stuff, she still didn't speak very well, and then she told him she missed him and wanted him to come home soon. Basically parentlock fluff :) Thank you

I hadn't written parent!lock in a while so it took me some time to get those gears going. I did, eventually, and I hope you like the end result :) x

Virtue

As it stood, if a case presented itself as less than a seven, there was no need for Sherlock to leave 221B Baker Street. This (self-created) rule had remained unchanged for a very long time, surviving past his false suicide, past the wedding of his best friend to Mary Morstan, and even after his own wedding to Molly Hooper.

When his daughter, Stella Holmes, was born, it remained the same. Only if a case was urgent or mysterious enough did it warrant the detective to leave his flat, or in some instances, London. This was not to say that Sherlock Holmes did not worry about his baby daughter. However, he was—if he had believed in a god other than himself—blessed with the good fortune of a brilliantly capable and resourceful wife, and the unusual fortune of the British Secret Service for an older brother.

It was a case that had taken him to the South of Devon which removed whatever blessing Sherlock knew he had and replaced it with paranoia - the paranoia that if he were to be separate from his daughter, even for one moment, anything could happen and if it did, he would never forgive himself. When Sherlock saw the distraught face of the innkeeper, whose lost teenage son had been Sherlock's mystery to solve, have to identify the grotesquely bloated corpse of his drowned son, the detective was never the same again.

"Sherlock, there's no such thing as an in-house case," Molly said one evening. "You just happen to be genius enough to solve most of them without having to step foot out of the door. But not all the cases are like that. You cannot save lives cooping yourself up in Baker Street forever."
"I won't leave for anything less than a ten. And frankly, there just aren't any tens anymore," he replied stubbornly, whilst his four-year old daughter slept soundly against his chest.
"Oh, Sherlock," Molly said with a sigh as she sank next to him on the sofa and leaned against his arm.

He turned to kiss Molly on her temple and leaned his head against hers. Sherlock knew it was selfish - to put aside the saving of other lives in order to preserve one. It seemed terribly extreme, but such was the love he had for his daughter, for this small unit of a family that he and Molly had built.

"I just can't bear the thought of—"
"Sherlock, what happened in Devon didn't happen to you," reminded Molly firmly.
"But what if it does?" he asked, turning to look at his wife with unusually anxious eyes.
"You can be above this, Sherlock," said Molly placing a gentle hand on her husband's face, "The man I love, the detective I know would not let his fears hold him back from doing good."
"Maybe I'm not that man anymore…" he murmured, staring down wistfully at his sleeping daughter's face.
"It's who you are, Sherlock," whispered Molly assuredly, "It's just being overwhelmed at the moment."
"Perhaps," he said quietly.

Their days continued to consist of Sherlock not wanting to be away from his daughter, ignoring cases on his phone and only taking the ones from clients who were willing come to Baker Street. Molly resigned herself to letting time be the one to gradually allay her husband's fears. It seemed nothing she said or did could reassure him that life had to go on.

It was another warm evening and after dinner, Molly had gone to take a shower whilst Sherlock went to sit at his desk with Stella on his lap. He briefly scanned through the day's news with Stella following the movement of his cursor on the screen. His daughter, the bright spark that she was, was a keen observer of her own surroundings. Sherlock and Molly always made it a point to occupy her with a diversity of education and knowledge - from the symbols in a periodic table to the varying viscosities of honey.

As Sherlock scrolled through various news articles and as his inbox constantly chimed with new case requests, Stella sat quietly with her eyes wide open, waiting to see what her father was possibly about to teach her. However, when a photo of a crying child appeared on his screen, it was Stella who spoke first.

"Daddy," she said, pointing to the laptop. "What happened?"
"Let's see, shall we?" said Sherlock, scrolling to find its caption.

A five-year old girl was left stranded on a busy intersection after a group of masked assailants allegedly snatched her father away right in front of her. Police investigations are under way.

"Oh."
"What Daddy, what?" asked the wide-eyed toddler.

Sherlock swallowed hard and realised he had been presented with a dilemma. For the past weeks, all he could see in his mind was the traumatised face of a mourning father. Now, he was faced with the distressed, crying face of a daughter who had lost her father. What was more, it seemed to be affecting his own daughter as well.

"She's crying, Daddy," said Stella softly, pointing a chubby finger at the photograph. "Why? What happened?"
"She—" he could not believe it but he was choking on his words, "She can't find her daddy, Stella."

To his surprise and utter heartbreak, a large tear rolled down the soft, rosy cheek of his four-year old. He heard the soft but sharp inhale of a first sob and felt the slightest tremble in her chest.

"Oh no," whispered Stella, "Where is her daddy? Where did he go?"
"We don't know, darling," he whispered back, "Some bad people took him."
"You must find him, Daddy," said Stella, turning to stare at her father with glistening eyes, "Because she will cry. And I will cry."

Stella did not realise that her words also made her father want to cry - and he never cried. She continued staring at the photograph, not being able to read the lengthy article or its wordy headline. To his amazement, however, she pointed at a word on the screen and began to spell it out.

"F-A-T-H-E-R," she began. "Father."
"Yes, well done, Stella," said Sherlock, kissing the top of her head.
"Daddy is my father," she said, leaning into his chest.
"I most certainly am," he answered, smiling.
"But who took her father?" asked Stella, staring back up at Sherlock.
"Nobody knows, Stella."
"Maybe you know, Daddy," said the little girl.
"Hmm?" Sherlock raised a puzzled eyebrow.
"Mummy says you're clever, you know where to find things," Stella remarked, smiling proudly at Sherlock, "You find it first because you're the fastest."

A small laugh escaped the detective as he wrapped his arms tightly around his precious daughter and kissed the side of her face. Her words struck him like little ice-picks to an armour of ice that had surrounded his ribcage. Slowly, the face of the crying girl in the news began to take over that of the mourning father's. What was more, Sherlock had begun to imagine if the crying girl had been his own, and the pain from that was the final strike to the ice that fortified his heart.

"Should I go find him then?" he asked his daughter softly.

At his words, Stella turned excitedly to him, beaming with a smile that melted his heart.

"Yes! You will find him, and she won't cry anymore," Stella exclaimed happily.
"All right, but Daddy will have to be away for a while," he said, brushing away her wispy fringe from her eyes, "Is that okay?"
"It's okay, Daddy," said Stella, settling against his chest again, "If I miss you, I will use Mummy's phone."

Just then, Mummy herself appeared as Molly, freshly showered, stepped into the living room, smiling at the sight of her daughter sitting cosily in her husband's lap.

"You seem excited, Stella," she said, beckoning for Stella to come to her. Molly knelt down by the sofa as their daughter leapt off her father's lap to run into her arms.

"Daddy has to go out, Mummy," Stella exclaimed excitedly.
"Oh? He does?" said Molly, looking up at Sherlock and raising a curious eyebrow.
"Yes, to help the crying girl."
"What crying girl?" asked Molly, picking her little girl up so they could sit on the sofa together.

The detective got up from his desk and took his laptop with him, joining mother and daughter on the sofa.

"Her father was snatched off the streets when he was out with her just this afternoon. She saw the assailants and the vehicle they'd driven him off in. Why did they just leave her like that? And all of this happened in such a busy part of Manchester too. Curious, isn't it?" he said, reaching for his phone as he began texting the extension of his homeless network located where the crime had taken place.

Molly smiled as she saw the life come back into Sherlock's eyes. Those anxious eyes that had been filled with nothing but paranoia were no longer there and instead, were alight with the gleam of newfound mission. This was who he was, and he had finally returned.

Things moved swiftly into gear as Sherlock launched himself into solving the mystery of the kidnapped father. He had phoned DI Lestrade to get him onboard with all the current investigations happening. Before dawn, Sherlock was already out of the flat and on a train to Manchester. Molly, together with Stella, had waved proudly at Sherlock as he set off to save lives - that of the missing father and his crying daughter.

With Sherlock onboard, the cases never took more than a week to be solved. In the case of the kidnapped father, he had taken only three days, leading the police first to the brawn that had executed the crime and finally to the brains that had had the motive for kidnapping the innocent man. The case had made the news of course, and while Sherlock had been busy and unable to call home, his home had been following the case as closely as they could. Molly and Stella were glued to the laptop or the television, seeing if any progress had been made. When the breaking news arrived that Sherlock had cracked the case, mother and daughter squealed with delight and waltzed around their Baker Street living room in celebration.

"Can Daddy come home now?" asked Stella, as she lay on the carpeted floor with her mother, exhausted from their victory dance.
"Yes, darling. He'll be home soon," Molly replied, staring up at their ceiling.
"Can we phone him, Mummy?" asked Stella, getting up from the floor.
"What a good idea, love," said Molly, getting up as well. "Let's go get Mummy's phone."

It was almost midnight and after a round of press conferences at the police station in Manchester, Sherlock was being driven back to London as a thank-you from DI Lestrade. He took a moment to relish the calm after the whirlwind of events that had taken place. Shutting his eyes, he leaned his head back against the leather seat, only to be startled by the sound of his phone ringing. It was a ringtone that signified a call he was more than happy to receive.

"Hello?" said Sherlock, unable to resist a smile.
"Hey," came Molly's voice. "You okay?"
"Yes. Just glad to be on the way home," he answered, "And you?"
"We just did a victory dance for you," said Molly with a chuckle.
"Did you?" said Sherlock, amused.
"We'll do it again for you when you get back."
"Please do. I'd love to see it," he remarked with a warm laugh.
"Someone's desperate to hear your voice though."
"The desperation is mutual."
"All right, hold on."

Sherlock waited patiently as he heard the muffled sounds of Molly passing her mobile phone to his daughter's tiny hands. There were more strange sounds which Sherlock deduced was Molly trying to put the phone on speaker mode. Eventually, they were connected and the voice he had been waiting for came through.

"Daddy!"
"Stella, hello darling," he exclaimed, overjoyed at hearing her sweet voice.
"I saw you on the telly!"
"I was on the telly, yes," replied Sherlock with a laugh, "Did you also see the girl and her father?"
"Yes! She stopped crying and I am so happy now, Daddy," Stella exclaimed joyfully.
"It makes me happy that you're happy, Stella," said Sherlock.
"Are you coming home now?" asked the little girl.
"Yes, I am in a car, coming home as quickly as I can to see you and Mummy."
"Okay good because I miss you," said Stella.
"I've missed you too," Sherlock replied.
"Daddy?"
"Yes, Stella?"
"You're so good," said Stella earnestly.
"What do you mean, darling?" asked Sherlock with a laugh.
"People stop crying 'cause of you, Daddy," his daughter explained, "So you are good."

Again, words caught in his throat and he found himself having to blink tears away. Molly must have sensed this over the phone and quickly cut in so his silence would not worry their daughter.

"Stella, Daddy needs to take a nap in the car now," said Molly, "When he comes home he'll talk to you again all right?"
"Okay, Daddy, goodnight!" said the little girl, blowing a kiss at her father even though he could not see her.

From the footsteps he could hear in the background, Stella had probably trundled off back to her nursery. Molly turned the phone off speaker mode and brought it to her ear.

"Are you crying, Sherlock Holmes?" she asked, smiling.
"I'll leave you to your deductions…" he answered, clearing his throat.
"She's right though," Molly continued.
"Hmm?"
"You're good, Sherlock. You're good at what you do and you're a good man for doing what you do."

The detective went silent again as Molly's words resonated with that of his daughter's. Perhaps it was time to believe in a god other than himself because had he been in charge, he would have been given none of this. What had he done to deserve the love of Molly and the love their daughter? It baffled him constantly and especially so this night.

"Are you short-circuiting?" asked Molly, grinning, "I can actually see your incredulous face, you know…"
"Well, I can't wait to see yours," said Sherlock softly. "What, my incredulous face?"
"Just your face," he said, smiling, "It is rather beautiful."
"Are you flirting now, Sherlock Holmes?" Molly said with a laugh, "Careful. At the rate you're going, we just might end up with another baby."

Sherlock chuckled softly at her words and sank into his seat, so much more relaxed now that he had gotten in touch with the only ones that mattered to him.

"Well, we make good babies, don't we?" said Sherlock, smiling to himself as he stared out of the car window.
"That's because you're a good man."
"And that's because you made me one."
"It's who you are, Sherlock," Molly remarked gently. "And I love you for that."

Her words made him shake his head in disbelief again. He would never not short-circuit when she said things like that.

"Molly."
"Yes, Sherlock?"
"I'm going to make a deduction."
"Yes?"

Sherlock paused, biting down a grin that threatened to spread across his face.

"At the rate you're going," Sherlock remarked, amused, "We're most certainly going to have another baby."