Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nada.

Summary: There are some people who think he has no heart and that he doesn't know how to love but Sherlock knows the terrifying truth that sometimes, he loves just a little bit too much.

A/N: I'm in the middle of writing what seems to be the mother of all angst stories for Ambur and I needed to take a little break and I promised Adi-who-is-also-mou, I would write her Parent!Lock, so here's some fluff to make me feel better from the angst. Adi, darling, my marvelous talented darling, I sincerely hope you enjoy the fluff. Because it is! It's FLUFF! I'm so excited to have written it because it made me happy! So, I hope it makes you happy. Hope you all enjoy! Reviews, as always, are deeply appreciated and any mistakes you find are mine and mine alone.

There is a slight mention of sex, but it's so brief, it's practically non-existent but I just want to mention that it's there. Hope you enjoy! The song title is taken from the title of the same name by Explosions in the Sky. But Ho Hey! Is what I was listening to while I wrote it. Also, the big chunk of italics is the beginning of Origins of Species by Charles Darwin…because Sherlock and Molly would read that to their kid. Hehehe.

Your hand in mine

One-shot

(Ho!) So show me family

(Hey!) All the blood that I would bleed

Ho Hey! – The Lumineers

He hears the door open and close. He registers the familiar sound of hurried footsteps, bare feet roughly planted on the cold hardwood floor. (It's in his mind palace, a room that steadily grows, a little boy with curly dark brown hair and brown eyes, smiling toothily at him, "it's a game," he says excitedly, as he skips on the floor, every morning, when his small feet touch the cold ground until his body becomes used to the shock.) He hears the tiny huff of frustration as small hands (he has a bandage covering his right hand from gripping an empty test tube too tightly) grip the sheets and leverages himself onto the bed. He feels the rustling of the sheets as another body buries itself under the warm duvet and inches closer and closer towards him.

"Daddy?" It's a quiet whisper, almost hesitant, as if he's interrupting something important.

(He never interrupts anything. There are only two people in the world who are able to penetrate his elusive mind palace and Sherlock finds that he doesn't mind a bit.)

Sherlock turns over, his blue eyes seeking familiar brown ones in the darkness that envelops the room. His eyes flit over his features and he finds that everyday Noah looks more and more like Molly. The small button nose, the little grin, his ears, the color of his eyes, his warm disposition. He's smart for his age (it's to be expected, his father is a genius and his mother is incredibly smart) but he's a more reserved kind of smart (another trait from his mother.)

"When's mum coming home?" Even through the darkness, Sherlock can see Noah's bottom lip tremble and his eyes water and he sees little hands rub at his eyes and he hears another little huff.

"Soon." Sherlock replies, his voice echoing throughout the room.

"Why did she leave?" He can hear the pout and the confusion and frustration.

"Because she had to. For work."

There is a loud sigh and shifting on the bed as his son turns around and flops onto his back. The mattress bounces with him. There is silence and if he were anyone other than Sherlock Holmes, he would believe his son to have fallen asleep. But he's not anyone else. He is Sherlock Holmes and he knows that his son, his six year old son, who looks so much like Molly, isn't asleep and instead, is staring at the ceiling, counting the seconds until she walks through the door and opens her arms, planting loud kisses on his face.

"I miss mum."

Sherlock doesn't say anything; he just nods and hesitantly brushes stray curls from his son's forehead. "Me too." And there's the truth. The truth is that he misses Molly. He misses her when she's not sharing the bed, he misses her conversations, he misses the way she curls into him, he misses the way she hums when she cooks, he misses the way she tells jokes, he misses her company at Bart's and most of all, he misses the way she makes 221B Baker Street a home.

(Sometimes, in the moments that he catches her with Noah, kissing the tip of his nose and when he catches her staring at him, eyes wide with admiration and pure love, he thinks that he couldn't ever handle not having her with him and sometimes, when she's underneath him, pressing every inch of her body against his and consuming his very soul, he curses himself for time wasted.)

"When is mum coming home?" Noah asks again, his voice soft.

"Soon." Sherlock answers. Not soon enough though, he thinks, because Noah isn't the only one who misses her presence. "You." Sherlock says, clearing his voice, "should be sleeping."

"Can't." His voice is bashful. "Mummy always reads to me."

Sherlock shifts and turns on the lamplight, encasing the room in a soft glow. He presses his back against the headboard and grabs the book on the bedside table.

His son, following his movement, inches closer until he's pressed against Sherlock's side. Sherlock looks down and allows a small smile to grace his lips before opening the book and clearing his throat.

"…When on board H.M.S. 'Beagle,' as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species—that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers…"

It's an hour later, before Sherlock finally stops reading and looks down at Noah. The soft little snores emitting from him resounds in the room and Sherlock watches for six heartbeats (one for every year) as his son sleeps on.

Carefully, he extracts Noah from his side and lays him gently on the bed, pulling the covers over him and bending his head down so his forehead presses against his. Placing a soft kiss on his sweat matted forehead, Sherlock turns onto his back, flicking the lamplight off and propping his hands atop his chest, listening to his son breathe in and out steadily.

He's always been a light sleeper, so when he hears the bedroom door open and soft feet tip-toeing past creaking floorboards, he feels his heart race. He can feel her presence and he can smell her body lotion (lemon, with a hint of vanilla). He hears the thud her bag makes as she places it on the floor next to bureau and he feels the bed dip with the extra body weight.

Noah sleeps on, curled in the middle of the bed, mouth slightly open, snores gently leaving his mouth.

Sherlock turns his head and watches as Molly smiles at him from above their son's head.

"Hi." She whispers, her fingers treading through Noah's curly hair. She traces a finger down his nose and presses a small kiss to it and then to his cheek and finally his forehead.

"You're back early." Sherlock replies, just as softly, trying his best not to wake Noah.

Molly nods, "The last day is just for show. Nothing really important." She places a hand across Noah's stomach and settles further into the bed. "Besides, I missed home."

Sherlock turns to his side and places his hand atop Molly's, they're fingers interlacing over Noah's stomach. He takes a deep breath and looks at her, "I'm glad you're home."

(The big bright smile she gives him, still manages to take his breath away.)

"Mum?" Noah mutters, his brown eyes fluttering open as he turns his head and stares tiredly at his mother. "You're home."

"Always, love, always." She places a kiss to his head and continues to run his fingers through his hair, "now, go back to sleep."

"m'kay." He yawns and falls back to sleep. One of his small hands coming out from the covers and places it atop of theirs.

Molly settles deeper into the covers and closes her eyes, her hand squeezing Sherlock's tightly and then falling limp as sleep overtakes her body.

Sherlock doesn't go back to sleep. Instead, he spends the rest of the morning cataloguing every breath and every rise and fall of their chests, he memorizes every soft snore and every shift their bodies make, but most of all, he sears into every wall and every room and every corner of his mind palace, the shape, feel and fit of their hands in his.

(There are some people who think he has no heart and that he doesn't know how to love but Sherlock knows the terrifying truth that when it comes to Molly and Noah, he loves just a little bit too much.)

OH. THE. FLUFF. Seriously. Adi, darling, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this. I need to write fluff and you're just so effin' amazing and yeah…here ya go, you amazing woman you!

I love Parent!Lock. Seriously, it gives me little chills and I turn into a pile of goo. Oddly though, and it's just me, but I always have this head!canon where Sherlolly's son looks more like Molly than he does Sherlock. I don't know why I think that. Just that I do. LOL. But seriously, hope you all enjoyed!

Thank you so much for all the support. YOU GUYS ARE WICKEDLY AWESOME!

Much love,

BB