Greg Lestrade sat in an MI6 safehouse in Sussex and minded the sleeping baby, as he'd been instructed. She was totally unconcerned by all of the adventure going on around her, and he remembered when his own kids, now almost grown, were this age. Once they'd gone all floppy like that you could pretty much fold them in half and put them into a sack while singing, "Rule, Britannia!" and they still wouldn't waken.

What a family, he thought. Mummy, apparently formerly one of the most dangerous intelligence agents in the world, who shot godfather Sherlock, who shot Charles Magnussen, which crime had been concealed in defiance of all law or justice by Uncle British Government (who had related all these facts before going comatose and snoring on the sofa). Greg was also starting to suspect that he didn't have all the facts in regard to her Dad and the shooting of Jefferson Hope. These lot were far too fond of guns.

Then, of course, back in London, there was Granny Tony Montana, and godmother fiancé-stabbing death-certificate forger Molly Hooper. And you couldn't forget loony mass murderer Auntie Eurus, now.

"Poor little mite," Greg muttered, "You don't stand a chance."

Right then, Greg made an oath, none the less true and sincere for its never being spoken aloud. From that moment, Rosie had a fourth unofficial godparent, who was determined that she would, despite all odds, grow up to be sane.

She did. Twenty years and a bit after that night, Rosie Watson finished her degree in criminal justice, passed her CPK, took an oath of her own and began training as a proper copper in the Metropolitan Police Service. By then Greg had passed compulsory retirement age, but he sat right down front at her enlistment ceremony, wearing his own full-dress uniform and nearly bursting with pride.

Her mum and dad were also very proud, though slightly… confused that she'd taken so thoroughly to the side of law and order. And Sherlock acted disgusted at this development but everyone could tell he was secretly pleased.

London wrapped her comforting arms around him. Every building, every alley and corner they passed told him its secrets as clearly as print. Sherlock hastened to the street where Molly lived, to find it blockaded off by what looked like the entirety of the Metropolitan police force. He ducked beneath the crime scene tape, dodging a uniformed constable who tried to stop him, when a familiar but wholly unwelcome voice shouted out, "Oi! Holmes!"

Sherlock grimaced, and then pasted on a false smile to say, "Detective Inspector Donovan, what a pleasure!"

Sally folded her arms across her chest and looked up at him with her normal flat-eyed glare.

"What brings you here, Holmes? Because if it's for the crime scene you can piss off. It's police business and you're an amateur."

"It's-"

"And if it's for Molly," she interrupted him, "Then she's sitting in the back of that ambulance you just walked past."

Sherlock hesitated. Donovan rolled her eyes and said, "Go on then. Dickhead," before turning back to her work.

Molly had changed, at some point, into pajamas. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and her horrible cat was sitting in her lap. Toby put his ears back and went "Rrr" when he saw Sherlock.

She'd obviously been crying, but she smiled a watery smile when she saw Sherlock and said, making air quotes with the hand that wasn't petting Toby, "'Definitely cameras and possibly explosives.' It's all go with you, isn't it? Really never a dull moment."

"Molly-" Sherlock began.

"Sherlock," Molly said, "It's okay. Really. We…"

She laughed grimly, "I got it out of my system. Just like you did when you were high and came over to my flat. So it doesn't have to be the enormous pathetic elephant in the room anymore. I'm sorry I made you lie to me, I know that you try not to do that anymore. And I will be okay with it and be a good sport and not make any fuss… tomorrow. I will do all that tomorrow."

There was an air of finality and "Piss off, Sherlock," about her statement.

"Yes, fine, Molly," Sherlock snapped, "But the thing is I didn't lie."

Molly blinked up at him.

"I didn't realize it. Nobody did, until my sister… did they tell you about her yet? She's called Eurus, and she's the smart one in the family. You may actually have met her, she leads quite an active social life for someone nominally in prison, I'll have to look into that. Mad, though. Very very mad. There have been several horrifying deaths. No idea what I'm going to do about that."

He was babbling. So he cleared his throat and folded his hands behind his back.

"She realized what I felt when I didn't know it myself. That's why she made me call you, because she knew what my feelings would do to me. And I don't know if I would have said it, otherwise, but I didn't lie. Every word was true."

Molly was staring at him, and Sherlock continued, "There's no obligation imposed upon you because of it. I have… neglected, and mistreated, and ignored you. I owe you everything, and you would be entirely in your rights to never speak to me again. When you popped up on the screens and I saw that you had been crying I knew I'd already hurt you again, and I regretted every minute of that call for making it worse. Regardless, it seems important that you know, it was true. It is true. And I suppose it always will be."

Molly opened her mouth, then closed it again. Sherlock crammed his hands into his pockets, and said, "Anyway, that was all. Thank you for your attention, yours sincerely, Sherlock Holmes."

He turned away, making the first of several million disbelieving lifetime repetitions of the phrase "Yours Sincerely, Sherlock Holmes," when Molly called, "Sherlock, get back here."

He did, and Molly scooted over on the gurney and pointed to the spot next to her.

"Sit down," she ordered. He climbed in, and did. Molly sat next to him, a small solid pressure along his right arm and thigh. Toby showed his displeasure at Sherlock's nearness by stalking off and staring intensely into the corner of the ambulance.

"I'm crying now because of you. But when you called me, I was crying because of this," she began, gesturing at her left leg, which Sherlock noticed now was encased to the knee in a stabilizing boot.

"When did that happen?" he asked confusedly.

"Yesterday morning," Molly said, "Did you really miss that?"

"I was watching your face," he said defensively.

"I was prepping for a post-mortem and dropped the reciprocating saw right on top of my foot. Broke two of my metatarsals," she said, sighing, "It really hurts. And I left my painkillers in my flat in all the confusion."

Sherlock volunteered, "They don't keep very good drugs in ambulances. But I can send a text along to Bill Wiggins and get him to-"

"Mmm, no," Molly said, "I'll be all right. But Sherlock, you have to learn that not everything that goes wrong for the people around you is your fault. You just have to do your best with the things that are your responsibility and hope that it works out otherwise."

"I suppose so."

Molly folded her hands in her lap, and asked, "So… you love me?"

"Apparently."

"Like proper in love love me, not like "Oh, I love Thai food" or anything?"

"Yes. I don't even like Thai food."

"Huh."

She looked up at him, and asked, "So now what?"

Sherlock sighed, "No idea. This is the absolute definition of 'not my area.' I had rather hoped you might have some suggestions."

Molly pursed up her lips and thought about it for a minute, then said, "You could probably kiss me and we'll see how it goes from there."

So he did, until eventually Sally came back to let them know the flat was safe.

Doctor Donoghue was an older man, with iron-grey hair, a neatly kept goatee, and an Irish accent. Like all therapists he had a low voice, a soothingly decorated office, and radiated serenity.

Unlike the last therapist, he wasn't one of Sherlock's relatives. John had made very sure. This had not been an easy referral for him to get and he wasn't leaving any precautions untaken.

"What I like to do at these first sessions," the therapist said, "Is begin with little… capsule autobiographies, just so we know a bit about one another and why we're here. I'll go first. I'm Charles Donoghue. After leaving university in 1975 I received an officer's commission in the army, where because of my accent and aptitude I was solicited to work in covert operations in the troubles ongoing in northern Ireland at the time.

"I infiltrated the IRA in 1977 and spent four years undercover, followed by other dark ops missions in various nations in western Europe. On six occasions this involved my taking the lives of other human beings. During the course of my career in intelligence I saw firsthand the profoundly negative effect it had upon people in the profession: the high rates of depression, PTSD, alcoholism, the gamut. Thus when I left active field service in 1995 I returned to Oxford, where I received a master's degree in psychodynamic counseling and a doctorate in social intervention.

"Now, I have the dubious distinction of being the only person in the UK with a top-level MI5 security clearance… who is also a licensed marriage counselor."

He beamed at John and Mary as they sat on his (aggressively beige, aggressively pleasant) couch. Mary looked at John with a gaze impregnated with wifely WTF. She'd never been in therapy, wasn't used to this sort of thing, so John took over to show her how.

"I'm John Watson. I was RAMC for fifteen years, mostly in Afghanistan though I did my medical qualification here at home. I got invalided out when I was shot, developed a psychosomatic limp, came home, and started working as a GP and assisting a consulting detective. I married Mary, and we have a little girl, Rosie, who's a year old. I've killed… three men, in my life. And I'm here because…"

He took a deep breath.

"Because I have a hard time dealing with human failings. Everybody's… but hers, in particular. I've got a really violent temper. Like dangerously bad. And I've found monogamy, um, trickier than I expected."

They both looked at Mary, who rolled her eyes.

"I'm Mary Watson. I started off in the CIA but then went freelance and founded a covert operations group called AGRA-"

"Ooh, I've heard of you lot," Donoghue said, impressed.

"Where I worked until about seven years ago when we disbanded and/or died and I took up a new identity and started working as a nurse. John didn't know any of that when we got married but he found out about a month after because in the course of trying to avoid having my secrets revealed I shot his best friend. Currently I'm a housewife because I recently got shot trying to save said best friend. I'm here because I tend to try to solve all my problems by lying about, running away from, or shooting at them."

She was being flip, but Donoghue didn't bite. He just prompted her to continue, with an, "And-?"

Mary looked at the carpet.

"And I've killed more people than you two combined. Can we leave it at that?"

"I honestly don't mind that so much," John commented.

"Oh good, I was worried," Mary snapped sarcastically.

"It's true, though. It's all the rest of it."

"Ah," Mary said, quietly.

John reached over and took her hand.

"We do love one another," he said to the therapist.

"Yeah. Quite a lot, actually," Mary agreed with a sigh.

"Well there's no better place to begin," Donoghue smiled.

"I cannot believe you kept the bloody thing."

"It cost nearly two thousand pounds, John."

"So, like, one of your suits? It's morbid."

"It's practical. I'm certainly going to need it again at some point and Mycroft was clever enough not to include my dates, so why not save it for reuse? In the meantime Molly uses it to roll out pastry crust."

"Actually, I tried, and it's a bit bulky and inconvenient, and the "Sherlock Holmes" gets in the way when I want to do big stuff," Molly replied from the kitchen where she was stuck arranging dishes in the newly-installed cupboards despite being the second-shortest person in the flat, "So I mostly just use the refrigerated countertop at mine."

"You two-" John hesitated, "It's just really good you two found one another, is all."

"I agree," Sherlock said smugly.

"For the benefit of the rest of society."

"Oi, Baker Street boys, shut up," Mary said in a quiet intense voice, "I think Rosie's going to go for it."

The shortest person in the flat had met all her other milestones handily but was rather delayed in walking, which had caused a lot of anxiety on the part of her parents, godparents, and everyone unfortunate enough to enter their orbits and hear all about it. But now she was standing in the center of the living room, staring fixedly at John and Sherlock who were trying to level a heavy painting to Mary's instructions.

The two men lowered the painting and each took a knee as Molly limped out of the kitchen to watch.

"Rosie? Can you come to Daddy?" John coaxed.

"Come to Uncle Sherlock, Watson," Sherlock commanded.

"You know you sound exactly like General Melchett in Blackadder when you talk to her?"

"You'll see, John," Sherlock said.

Rosie, stiff-legged and unsure, took her first steps, tottering to begin with, but then with more confidence. Without any particular difficulty she made it to the other side of the room, where she ignored both father and godfather and instead started fiercely gnawing on the corner of the skull painting they'd been trying to hang.

Mary smiled wistfully, and said, "That's my girl."

"That's not lead paint, is it?" Molly asked.

John was almost asleep when he heard quiet footfalls on the staircase. There was a creaking of the old hinges, and he could see Mary's silhouette in the dim light from the hallway, before she closed the door behind her and locked it and let the dark back in.

She joined him on the bed, and said, apropos of nothing, "So I had a really good checkup today."

"Did you?" John asked.

"I did. The doctor says I can go back to work… just desk stuff, and just for four hours at a time to begin with, but then more as I feel up to it. I can drive again, and exercise lightly. And I can resume 'all other normal activities, as indicated.'"

John ran his hands along the smooth skin of her thighs, past the silk of her pants, up her sides under her nightshirt. He stopped when the fingertips of his right hand were just barely grazing the curving scar left by the surgery that had saved her life.

"And what normal activities would those be?" he asked, though he had a pretty clear idea, obviously. In an experience of women that extended over many nations and three separate continents, he'd never found that they climbed into bed with you and straddled your crotch in order to ask you to empty the cat box.

Mary laughed quietly above him.

"I think that 'normal' for you and me isn't quite what the doctor had in mind. Some more marriage counseling… I'm looking forward to 'how to fight effectively without taking the nuclear option' next week. Some interesting crimes to solve, I hope. Ideally no more unexpected friends popping out from my past life. And it might be fun to take Rosie up to the lake district this summer and do a bit of camping."

"All that sounds-" John hesitated, "Lovely. Really lovely."

"But for tonight I was actually just thinking it'd be nice to have some sex."

"I can probably help with that."

"Oh, good. Teamwork is so critical in these things."

This time when the DVD arrived, six months after the aquarium, six months after it all changed, Mary was alone. The usual suspects that might have been with her were, respectively:

-Solving crimes.

-Keeping people from murdering said crime-solver.

-Conducting an analysis on the stomach contents of a fifty-year old poisoning victim, and feeling an odd craving for Kung Pao chicken, which had been his last deadly meal.

-Enjoying a justified nap after a challenging morning spent trying to work out the goddamned stackable cups.

-Just sparking up a pinhead jay now that the laundry was done.

It was in a little padded par avion envelope, and had been sent to the address, rather than the person, so Mary went ahead and opened it up. She honestly had completely forgotten about it until she saw the little block-printed "Miss you."

Mary's eyes widened, she exclaimed, "Oh, sod!" and as quickly as she could manage she tossed the thing into the bin.

A shiver ran up her spine, and Mary dry scrubbed her hands on her trousers. That was spooky.