Chapter 16

Sherlock's mouth dropped open. The TARDIS, here?

"That's the Doctor's! He's here, he must be!" Hamish said, hopping up and down with excitement.

Sherlock had already strode over to the box and was pounding with all of his might on the door. "Doctor!" he yelled, ignoring the curious looks and glares from the Victorian passers-by.

"I can't believe it! He's here, he's really here!" Hamish was practically bursting with glee.

Sherlock was far from gleeful at facing the Doctor again—all of his past run-ins seemed to end up with enormous upheavals—but he was dying for answers to questions only the Doctor could give him.

"Doctor, if you're in there, open up immediately!" he yelled.

"Why, Sherlock Holmes!" The jovial voice came from behind him. Sherlock whirled around to see the Doctor grinning at him. He was dressed as he was before, in his antiquated bowtie, ridiculous suspenders, and too-short trousers. The only thing that was different was the top hat perched on his head. "Look at you! I just popped out to have a look, see if you were getting on all right."

"Would you care if I wasn't?" Sherlock asked coldly. "You didn't have a problem displacing John, Hamish and I."

"Hamish? HAMISH!" the Doctor seemed to see Hamish for the first time, and stared down at him in shock.

"Doctor! I'm so glad to see you! I've missed you very very much! 1895 is brilliant! The schools are so funny, and my dads wear hats all the time now. Science equipment is rubbish, though."

"But you're—you found—" The Doctor took a step back, scratching his head, looking Hamish over. "How old are you, Hamish?"

The young boy leaned in confidentially towards Sherlock. "He always forgets my age."

"Not forget, I just don't see you in order…apparently," the Doctor said, perplexed.

"I'm 9 and a half!" Hamish laughed. "Same as when I saw you at Craig and Sophie's!"

"Craig and Sophie? You lived with them?" The Doctor knelt on the cobblestones to look Hamish over, touching his shoulder.

"You don't remember?" Sherlock frowned, then rolled his eyes. "Oh, wait, let me guess. For you it hasn't happened yet, because your timeline is so very special."

The Doctor grinned, ignoring Sherlock's spiteful tone. "See, there's a reason you're known as the greatest detective of all time."

Sherlock raised his eyebrow. "Of all time?" He couldn't help but feel a bit pleased.

"Doctor, don't say things like that, or his head will get too big for the flat. That's what Dad says all the time."

Sherlock glared down at Hamish and the Doctor laughed, leaning against the door of the TARDIS.

"Speaking of your Dad, Hamish, I think we deserve some answers…don't we, Doctor? The main one being, how did John and I come to have a nine year old child we weren't aware of?"

The Doctor smiled and snapped his fingers, and the door of the TARDIS swung open on its own. He leaned with it and half-fell inside. "Come on, then."

The Doctor led Sherlock and Hamish through the console room and down an oddly-shaped corridor, then another, and another. Sherlock lost count of the rooms they passed and the number of turns, some off them not left and right but up and down, their center of gravity switching to the point where Sherlock felt dizzily disorientated.

Once they were situated in a sitting room which seemed designed solely for housing a myriad of sofas, settees, divans and couches from all different eras, Sherlock was able to focus back on the most important question, the one that had been bothering him since he'd first heard Hamish's name.

"How was this possible? He's nine and a half and John and I have only known each other for two years. Even taking time travel into account, it's simply not possible for two men to have a child. And neither of us would have willingly elected for having a child at any rate."

Hamish's eyes widened with hurt. "You didn't…you don't want me?"

Sherlock looked over at Hamish, realizing too late that his words had a cutting effect he didn't intend. "That's not what I meant, Hamish. You were a surprise to both of us, but you were…needed." He frowned, but it was the exact word. "Sometimes…you get what you need before you realize it was what you wanted."

"Well said," the Doctor said with admiration, and Hamish looked up at his Dad with grateful eyes, leaning in on the upholstered sofa to wrap his arms around Sherlock's middle.

"So. Explain," Sherlock said, looking across at the Time Lord with a raised eyebrow.

The Doctor sat back. "When I found you in the 21st century, I tried everything I could to avoid sending you back to 1895, uprooting you from your life. It seemed too messy—there were so many things that could have gone wrong. And you and John Watson were flourishing. When I heard that Sherlock Holmes was living in the 21st century, I had assumed you and Dr. Watson both would be out of place, clearly not for that time. That was not the case."

Sherlock raised his chin, intrigued. His eyebrows went up as the Doctor explained his attempt to fix the universal glitch without displacing Sherlock and John.

On their first meeting, the Doctor said, he had lifted a hair off Sherlock's coat and had attempted to create a DNA replication in the TARDIS.

"You tried to clone me?" Sherlock asked. He didn't know whether to be disgusted or proud.

"It would have created a way out for you. It would allow you to maintain your life in modern London and it would have closed the loophole, since the other you would grow up in Victorian London as the universe destined."

"You do enjoy playing with cosmic forces, don't you?"

"Yes, that's pretty much in the job description."

"Hamish isn't my clone, though." Even now, Hamish was resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists, his brow furrowed in a perfect impression of John.

"No, he most certainly isn't! When I replicated your DNA, some of Watson's was latched onto it—a particle of skin, perhaps, or—saliva," the Doctor said, a trace of a smile on his face. "What do you two do when you're not on the case?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, and the Doctor hastily held up his hand, glancing at Hamish. "No, wait, don't tell me."

"It's hardly your business anyway," Sherlock muttered.

"Oooh, certain academics would be high-fiving right now if they heard that," the Doctor grinned. "At any rate, what was created was not a clone of you, but a clone combining the DNA of both you and Watson. This created, essentially, well…a child. Of sorts."

"I was…a mistake?" Hamish asked.

"Hamish, you should know very well that some of biggest scientific breakthroughs were mistakes. You're the best mistake that I've ever inherited." He rested a hand on his son's shoulder.

Hamish looked like he could melt with happiness, and pressed his cheek against his father's arm.

"So you really were trying to help us," Sherlock confirmed, frowning at the Doctor.

"Oh, Sherlock Holmes. Did you honestly think I was gleefully sending you back into the past, wrenching you from the life you knew and loved because it pleased me? I had to save the universe, but I wasn't about to give up on saving you as well."

Sherlock looked at the Doctor with a new respect. He understood entirely why the Doctor hadn't told him and John about the plan; he would have done the same. No sense getting someone's hopes up if there was a chance it could fail. Sherlock looked down at Hamish, who was still clinging to him. He would hardly consider Hamish any sort of failure, however.

"When was the last time you saw me, Doctor?" Hamish asked.

"When you were just a new little thing in my lab," the Doctor said. "I've just popped back from dropping you off with Wilfred Noble."

"Grandpa Wilfred!" Hamish said. "I still visit him! And Aunt Donna—she's so funny. Then after that I went to live with the Williams'."

"The Ponds!" the Doctor exclaimed. "So I send you off to live with them, too? Oh, brilliant. How old were you? No, wait, don't tell me—I imagine things will fall into place now that you're settled in with Wilf. Blimey, he didn't even recognize me when I dropped you off. I had some explaining to do. Did you know, Hamish, he was there with I died for the 9th time?"

Hamish shook his head excitedly and Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "The 9th time?"

"Regenerated, really, not died. I never did like to be over-dramatic." The Doctor frowned, thinking. "Well, that's not entirely true…" He muttered, as if to himself, "Maybe I should get a long, dramatic coat again. You certainly pull it off, Sherlock."

Sherlock frowned at him again, but he felt somewhat sated knowing how Hamish came into existence, even if the science of it seemed dodgy. "How did you do it? Replicate our DNA?" Sherlock asked.

"Ohh, there are some things humans aren't ready for. Spoilers, to quote a friend of mine." The Doctor smiled and stood up, and Sherlock rose to join him, forcing himself to be satisfied with this non-answer. The three began walking back towards the console room.

"I take it that the pocket universe has closed up tidily?" Sherlock asked. "If John and I came here for nothing—"

"You saved the universe, Sherlock. I hope that doesn't inflate your head too much." The Doctor tousled Hamish's hair.

Once they were at the TARDIS door, Hamish turned to the Doctor. "Will I ever see you again?"

"I can't answer that, Hamish. I know I'll be seeing you. I imagine you're quite the precocious five-year-old."

Hamish's eyes welled with tears and he hugged the Doctor tightly. "I'll miss you, if I don't ever see you."

The Doctor held Hamish. "Well, lucky for you," he murmured in Hamish's ear, then looked up at Sherlock. "You have two fantastic dads who will look after you now."

Hamish nodded tearily, then finally pulled away, wiping his eyes.

"Good luck, Sherlock!" the Doctor grinned. "I'll cross my fingers that a brilliant head-scratcher comes your way!"

Sherlock couldn't help but smile at that. "Tell the serial killers to bring their best game. And Doctor…thank you."

Sherlock and Hamish watched the blue box whir and fade from the empty street corner. They returned home to John, who had gotten home from the hospital and was in his chair with a newspaper.

"Dad. You'll never guess what we found out," Hamish grinned, crawling onto his Dad's lap.

"Oh?" John turned to look at Sherlock, eyes raised and a smile cocked.

Sherlock hung up his top hat and pulled off his scarf. It had begun to snow outside, flurries that danced rather than settling on the ground, the first concrete sign that winter was on its way.

The small, strange family gathered together in front of the crackling fire as Hamish recounted his unusual history and creation, Sherlock leaning over John's chair to wrap his arms around his shoulders from behind, Hamish nestled in his lap.

"Right," John laughed when Hamish was done and he had let it all sink it. John looked up and back at Sherlock. "Anything else unusual happen today?"

"Hamish and I stopped a robbery, nothing too exciting. The criminal was too obvious, but we were in the neighborhood. It's good to be home."

John gave his son's shoulder a squeeze. His eyes wandered from Sherlock to the fire in the grate and the snow out the window. "Yes," he agreed. "It's good to be home."

Welp. That's all, folks, at least until Right Hand Man! I hope you've enjoyed the ride- thesherlockedboffin and I had fun creating it! Do let me know what you thought.