Sherlock's release date came as a relief to everyone. John was beyond sick of traipsing Hamish down to the hospital every single day and sitting in a hard plastic chair while Sherlock complained. Sherlock was sick of being forced to eat hospital food and having various combinations of his parents and his brother visiting. Hamish was sick of John not letting him eat cupcakes for breakfast.

John could also see the relief in the faces of the nurses and doctors on Sherlock's ward as he and Hamish walked down the halls again, Hamish proudly holding a card he'd made for Sherlock. It would be joining the seventeen other cards he'd made his father during his hospital stay.

Sherlock smiled when he spotted them through the open door to his room. He was sitting in a chair having his IV removed.

"You be careful with that needle, lady," Hamish said firmly to the nurse.

"Don't you worry about that, love. I've done this lots and lots of times," she said kindly. "Are you excited for Daddy to come home?"

Hamish nodded enthusiastically. "John is nice. But he doesn't know about bedtime songs," he said very seriously, and John bit back a laugh and started to tidy the room up.

"Let's help Daddy get his things together. Then we can go downstairs."

"Uncle Myc am sending a car," Hamish added.

Sherlock groaned and rolled his eyes. Hamish frowned at him.

"It is nice of Uncle Myc," he said, taking Sherlock's hand. "I maked you a new card," he said as John pulled the other cards down from a shelf where they'd been displaying them. "It has a cat," Hamish pointed out, holding the card up to Sherlock's face.

Sherlock squinted at the orange scribble on the card. "That's a cat is it?"

"Uh-huh," Hamish nodded. "See? It has a tail," he said, pointing to a squiggle poking away from the rest of the drawing.

"It's an excellent cat," Sherlock decided as John helped him stand up. "I'm quite fine. I don't need help."

John closed his eyes in frustration for a short moment before nodding and stepping aside. Sherlock took Hamish's hand and led him from the hospital. John followed them with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Hamish chatted animatedly as they walked slowly down the corridors, Sherlock trying to hide his discomfort from both Hamish and John.

"John cleaned up your 'speriments, Daddy," Hamish said as they reached the ground floor and started to walk out to where a black car with dark tinted windows sat waiting for them.

"He what?" Sherlock snapped, glaring at John.

John rolled his eyes. "I… The deal was, you don't have that stuff out in the flat."

"Maybe it was when you lived there, and when we were both parenting him. But I don't think that's the case anymore," Sherlock snapped.

"Who do you think has been looking after him for bloody weeks while you've been in here?" John said, starting to raise his voice.

"Oh dear. Not more fighting," Hamish said. "Daddy, John lives at our house again now. He even bringed all of his jumpers."

Sherlock blinked at them both for a moment.

"I just couldn't stay with… I needed some time. Hamish needed looking after anyway. It made sense to bring my clothes and that back over. But, Hame, I told you I might not be able to stay for a long time, remember?"

Hamish nodded. "I 'member. Cause of the little baby that will be mine."

"Well… it will be your brother or sister… sort of. It won't really be your baby though. It will be… I suppose it will be mine and Mary's baby," John said.

Hamish scrunched his face up. "But you am not talking to Mary right now, John."

John sighed. "Well, no. Not right now. I just need some time to think about things."

"Well, it's good we am going back to 221B," Hamish said seriously as the driver got out of the car and opened the back door and John started to wrestle Hamish into his carseat. "It is very good there for thinking about things."

Sherlock sat relatively quietly as they drove home. He tried to follow Hamish's incessant chattering, but the buckets of pain medication he was on was making it difficult. By the time the car pulled up outside 221B, he'd fallen asleep, his head resting on the window.

Hamish kicked his feet wildly as John unbuckled him from the carseat and gently shook Sherlock by the shoulder. "Sherlock? We're home, mate," he said as Sherlock blinked sleepily at him.

"Come on, Daddy!" Hamish shouted as John deposited him on the footpath. He jumped up and down and grabbed Sherlock's hand once John had helped him out of the car. Hamish filled Sherlock in on all of Mrs. Hudson's gossip, as they slowly made their way up the stairs.

Sherlock made a beeline for his bedroom, Hamish following close behind. "Um… How I can help, Daddy?" he asked as Sherlock lowered himself into bed.

"Er…" Sherlock said. "You can help by having a nice nap with me."

Hamish wrinkled his nose. "I not tired. I just stupervise you," he decided, clambering up onto the bed beside him.

"That's fine, just don't wake me up," Sherlock grumbled, tossing and turning until he found a position that didn't aggravate his injuries. Eventually, he curled up and closed his eyes.

Hamish lay down beside him and gently took hold of Sherlock's hand. "I'm right here, Daddy," he said quietly.

Sherlock smiled and gently squeezed his little hand. "Goodnight, Hamish."

Within minutes, both Sherlock and Hamish were asleep, the small boy bundled up in Sherlock's arms, both of them snoring softly.

By the time he'd been home for a week, Sherlock had just about stopped complaining that John had destroyed months of work by safely disposing of his toxic and/or corrosive experiments. Hamish had been convinced to return to nursery school, but cried each morning when Sherlock told him he wasn't well enough to drop him off. John had settled easily back into life at 221B and found himself wondering how he'd managed to stay sane without the chaos of the Baker Street flat.

"What's on this?" Hamish demanded one afternoon, a peanut butter sandwich in one hand, and the silver AGRA memory stick in the other. He waved the memory stick at Sherlock, who was sitting at his microscope, pretending he couldn't hear him, and then at John, who'd just walked in from work.

"Um…" said John, putting his bag down at the door and kicking the leg of Sherlock's chair to get his attention.

The detective looked up at frowned, reaching for the memory stick. "That's nothing, Hamish. It's just mine."

"I will look at it!" Hamish said firmly, holding the stick to his chest as he made his way over to Sherlock's laptop.

"No, you don't need to look at it," Sherlock said as Hamish expertly stuck the memory stick into the side of his laptop and climbed up onto a chair so he could look at the screen.

"Hamish," John sighed, gently lifting him out of the chair. "You can't just look at whatever you like. You need to ask first. There might be something unsuitable on there."

Hamish nodded. "It's okay. Daddy has a stick with dead pictures on it."

John blinked at him. "He what?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and carefully got up from the table. "He accidentally found it. It was case files. And I told him he needs to ask."

"Well what is on that one?" Hamish asked, pointing to the memory stick.

"It's just more dead pictures," Sherlock said quickly. "For my work. You don't want to look at it."

Hamish looked at him dubiously before wriggling to be put down. "Fine," he said once John had put him back on the ground. "But you said no secrets," he snapped, pointing a chubby, accusatory finger at Sherlock.

"Yes well that rule doesn't really apply to adults. Don't you have to be at nursery or something?" Sherlock said, waving a hand at him.

"Don't be a idiot, Daddy. It is night time," he said, waving wildly at the window so Sherlock would see it was dark outside.

Once Hamish was in bed, John settled into his old armchair with a book and a scotch. Sherlock sat opposite him in his own armchair, flicking through some case notes Lestrade had sent over.

"Did he go to sleep?" Sherlock asked, without looking up at John.

"Not just yet, he wanted to look at a book. He'll fall asleep reading it, he always does," John said, putting his book down when he noticed Sherlock had placed the memory stick on his side table. "Do you have to be so… theatrical?"

Sherlock raised his eyebrows and looked up at him. "I don't know what you mean," he said, looking back at his notes. "But you do need to make a decision. I need to know what to tell Hamish. He's become used to you living here now. I need to, you know, prepare him if you'll be leaving again."

John sighed heavily and took a sip of his drink. "I like living here," he said. "But… especially with the baby coming… I'm going to have to go back to Mary."

Sherlock nodded and shrugged. "Fine. You can tell Hamish tomorrow. I imagine he'll be upset."

"Why do I have to tell him?"

"Why shouldn't you? It's your decision, it's nothing to do with me. And you do keep insisting that he's your son as well."

John gritted his teeth and tried not to slam his glass back onto the table. "He is my son."

"I understand that it's an unusual arrangement," Sherlock said calmly. "But I would appreciate if you took a little responsibility for him."

John blinked at him. "A… A little responsibility? I've been looking after him for a month, Sherlock. Day and night. While you haven't been here."

"And remind me why I wasn't here," Sherlock said darkly, glaring at him. "It was hardly by choice."

John sat quietly, taking a sip of his drink and sighing. "Sherlock… How did you not know?" he eventually asked.

Sherlock paused. "About Mary?"

John nodded and looked up at him.

Sherlock frowned and cleared his throat. "She hid it well. When I think back… the evidence was there, however… I suppose sentiment got in the way."

John furrowed his brows. "Sentiment? For her?"

Sherlock took a deep breath and shrugged. "You were happy, John, and Hamish liked her. I liked her. She liked me. It all seemed… good," he said, after searching for the words for a few moments. "I was distracted. It was a lapse in judgement. I'm sorry."

"No, I didn't…" John sighed and put his glass down. "I wasn't trying to say it was your fault. I just meant… you usually don't miss things like that."

"As I said, she hid it well," Sherlock said. "Thank you for taking care of Hamish."

"I've really enjoyed it," John said. "Being back here, I mean. With him. And now that you're home it almost feels like everything's how it used to be."

Sherlock nodded. "But I understand that you can't stay. Hamish will too. He just needs to be told," he said quietly.

"Why are we going to An-An-Angelo's?" Hamish asked, hurrying along beside Sherlock and John, his little hand clasped in Sherlock's.

"To have a nice dinner," Sherlock told him, slowing down slightly when he saw how fast Hamish was having to walk to keep up with his long strides.

"I'm a bit tired," Hamish said when they stopped at a pedestrian crossing.

Sherlock gave him a fond smile and started to lean over to pick him up, gasping and wincing when it put pressure on his still-healing chest. He clasped his side and took a deep breath. "John, could you please… carry him the rest of the way?" he said, gritting his teeth.

John nodded and carefully picked Hamish up, holding him close. "It's going to be okay," he said to Sherlock as they crossed the road and made their way into Angelo's.

They sat in their usual table by the window and Angelo came over to light a candle and fuss over Hamish. Once the small boy was settled with some colouring in, John reached over the table for his little hand. "Hamish? I need to talk to you about something."

Hamish looked up at him and sighed. "You are going back to your house wif Mary?" he asked softly, putting his crayon down.

John sighed and nodded. "Soon, yeah. Once Daddy's all better so he can look after you on his own," he said.

Hamish sniffled and rubbed at his eyes. "Kay," he said quietly.

"I'm sorry, little man," John said, gently pulling him into his lap and cuddling him close for a moment. "I wish it wasn't all so tricky."

Hamish rested his head on John's chest, but kept quiet as John held him.

"I'll visit lots, okay? I promise. It's not going to be like before, when you didn't see me all the time. Okay?"

"Okay," Hamish said with a small nod, sticking his thumb in his mouth. "Is Mary our friend again?" he asked.

John bit his lip. "I'm not sure yet, mate. I'll let you know, okay?"

"Okay. I will miss you, John," he said quietly.

"Yeah," John said. "I'll miss you too, little guy."