[Note from the author:

Hello everyone! I know I said Thanksgiving weekend, but someone close to me landed in the hospital that wednesday, so it's taken a little longer to write than I expected. Also, thanks for sticking with this story considering I havent updated in a long long long time. I had to reread it myself to make sure I was all caught up.

I'm also kind of curious; even though i havent updated in a while, i notice that this story still gets quite a few more views than i expected. How did you guys come across the story; do you find it yourselves, or do people tell you about it?

Anyway, thanks for sticking with, i really do appreciate it. ]

Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when they heard the baby cry for the first time. Harriet, smiling, taught the tear-stricken tinker how to wrap his child in a blanket while the doctor continued to mother-hen Aileen.

"Doctor Heal, back off! I am fine." The doctor scoffed.

"You are most certainly not fine! You just pushed out a small human out of your loins! No small task to say the least. You gave us quite a fright there. I was petrified that-"

"You mean we were all shitting bricks-"

"Thank you young lady. But yes, in all honesty, we were." Aileen smiled at Harriet and said,

"That was quite an interesting conversation we had, wasn't it?" Harriet nodded and added,

"I had no idea you had such a fascination with kelpies."

"Me neither." Aileen paused before she continued with, "I want to see my child and all, but my husband-" everyone glanced to the tinker who was still holding the babe to his chest and gaping; he had yet to take his eyes off of his child, "seems to have a good hold on 'em. Can I take a moment to get changed? I'm going to need some help. As Doctor Heal put it: 'I just pushed a small human through my loins.'" Harriet and the doctor helped Aileen get changed and cleaned up while John and Sherlock left to get the glass of water that Aileen had requested before the situation had turned sour.

As John and Sherlock opened cabinets and shuffled dishes around looking for a cup, John noticed that Sherlock was still a little pale. John murmured,

"Hey, Sherlock? Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost." Sherlock paused in his search and turned to John to answer him.

"Yeah, I'm good. I just don't like the sight of all that blood." There was a sticky pause where Sherlock chewed his lip as John waited for him to finish voicing his thought. "For a moment I thought…" Sherlock trailed off, unable finish the sentence. John helped him out by saying,

"Aileen wasn't going to make it?" Sherlock broke eye contact to look at the floor, quickly wiping away a hot, fat tear from his face.

"Yeah. Or the baby." John took a small step closer to his friend and placed his hands on Sherlock's still-pale and clammy cheeks.

"You don't have to worry about losing anyone anymore, Sherlock. People here will take care of us." Sherlock wiped away another tear, still inspecting the floor as John continued. "That doctor, strange as he is, will take care of Aileen and the baby for the next few days, just like he did a few minutes ago when Aileen wasn't feeling well. He isn't going to let anything happen to them." Sherlock finally looked back up from the floor to meet John's eyes. He let out a sniffle before he mumbled,

"Okay. Let's find the cups and get Aileen her water." Another quick minute of searching the kitchen cabinets yielded a set of small, glass cups. John filled one of them up under the tap and they made their way upstairs to a much happier, and much cleaner, Aileen. They walked into the room to find her sitting in a chair holding the still-wrinkly baby as her husband looked over her shoulder, a smile from ear to ear and tears still streaming down his face. John handed Aileen the glass of water silently, not wanting to intrude on this special moment.

"Thank you, John. I could probably drink an entire ocean right now," and without further ado, she drank the whole glass in one large gulp. Sherlock stepped forward to take the glass from her grasp. As Aileen passed it over, he got a good look at the baby for the first time.

Sherlock had never seen something so small and vulnerable. He had also never seen something so beautiful. Sherlock was too young to remember the birth of his younger brother, but he couldn't help but think that this is what he might have looked like. Red and rosy, the baby had cheeks so chubby that Sherlock was surprised that they fit on the baby's face at all.

"I'll go get more water," whispered Sherlock as he admired the baby. He saw a little, raisin-wrinkly hand wriggle its way out of the blanket and reach out; fingers outstretched and spread wide. Aileen put her finger into what Sherlock thought was an impossibly small palm and kissed the back of the baby's soft hand. Sherlock left to get the water after seeing this, only John noticing the tear travelling down his face. John, stuck in the same tender moment as Sherlock and Aileen, was rather forcefully brought out of his reverie by his sister.

"Oi! If you aren't doing anything but staring, you can help me and Doctor Heal strip the bed and make it fresh so Aileen doesn't have to sleep on bloody sheets." John nodded and tore his gaze off of the happy family and got to work. While they were pulling the first layer off, John heard Harriet mutter, "These are going to be a real bitch to clean." The doctor heard her and scoffed.

"Not if you know what you are doing, young lady." Doctor Heal got the evil eye from Harriet before she asked,

"You've gotten this much blood out of white sheets before?" The doctor simply nodded before he added,

"I'll even show you; I brought stuff to remove the blood in my bag downstairs." Harriet, still a little skeptical, politely agreed and continued peeling the blood-soaked sheets off of the bed. Just as they were pulling off the last sheet, Sherlock returned with the second glass of water for Aileen. Just as she had the last, Aileen downed the whole glass in next no time.

"Thank you, dear."

"No problem. Do you want another?"

"I'm good for the moment." The tinker finally seemed to be getting his head on straight. He placed a wet, sloppy kiss on top of Aileen's head before he lifted Sherlock up by the armpits and twirled him around, exclaiming,

"Can you believe it? The babe is here!" He plopped Sherlock on the ground before he took two of his massive pases across the room and gave Harriet and the doc a hug. He let out a mighty laugh when he let them go, happier than he had ever been in his entire life. Turning towards John and tousling his hair, he said much quieter than before, "Can you believe it?" John nodded before glancing towards Sherlock and sharing a smile.

"Honey, why don't you help Harriet and the doctor with the sheets?" Everyone was smiling at the tinker's fantastic mood, especially Aileen. "I know you are excited, but this chair isn't the softest." The tinker stepped closer and patted Aileen on the top of the head very gently. "Of course." After one last look at the babe, the tinker made quick work of what was left of the sheets and blankets. The doctor ran downstairs to grab his old leather bag while Harriet and the tinker made the bed with fresh sheets. The tinker left the room soon after; he went to grab some clean blankets. As Aileen made to get up and walk to the bed a sharp pain overcame her and she quickly sat back down.

"Do you boys want to help me get to the bed while they finish getting the blankets?" They nodded and stepped forward, eager to help and unsure of what to do. Harriet came over and gently took the babe from Aileen's arms and went to pass the squirming blanket to-

"Me?" said Sherlock, clearly surprised. "I've never held a baby before!" Harriet scoffed.

"It's easy, just go like this-" Harriet led Sherlock to the edge of the bed where they sat down together and Harriet gently passed the babe over, showing Sherlock where to place his hands and how to support the baby's neck. No longer afraid and holding this tiny, new life in his arms brought a true, genuine smile to his face. He didn't even notice John and Harriet supporting Aileen as she walked the short distance to the bed and make herself comfortable among the pillows.

John took a seat next to Sherlock, pleased to see the big smile across his face.

"Isn't the baby so beautiful?" whispered Sherlock. Before John could answer, the baby reached out just as they had before in Aileen's arms. Imitating Aileen, Sherlock put one of his fingers in the baby's grasp and gasped when they took hold. Appearing out of what seemed like thin air, Inky the cat made an entrance, seating herself next to Sherlock. She took a few careful sniffs of the baby's head before giving the baby's scalp a thorough cleaning.

"I think you cat likes the baby," murmured Aileen. Sherlock, still caught up in his moment, was surprised to see that Aileen had already made her way to the bed. Sherlock passed the baby back to Aileen just as the tinker was walking back in with a stack of fresh blankets. Harriet shooed the boys and Inky off of the bed and helped Mr. Smith lay the blankets over Aileen; their homemade shamrock quilt laying on the top. When they were finished, the tinker approached Harriet and gave her a much gentler hug than he had a few moments ago.

"Thank you, lass. I don't know what would have happened without you." Harriet blushed and was saved from having to think of a response by the return of Dr. Heal and his trusty leather bag.

"You boys," he pointed to Sherlock and John as he looked over the edge of his thick-rimmed glasses, "come help me get the blood out of the sheets." John opened his mouth to interrupt because he knew how queasy Sherlock got, but Sherlock trod on John's foot.

"I want to see," whispered Sherlock. John nodded and together they gathered up the sheets and followed the doctor down the hall to the bathroom. The doctor plopped his bag rather unceremoniously onto the ground and swiftly took the sheets from the boy's grasp and deposited them into the tub.

"You," he barked, pointing to John, "run the water on hot, the sheets need to be wet. You," this time pointing at Sherlock, "grind this down for me." Sherlock was handed a large gray stone that was almost the consistency of chalk and the small mortar and pestle. He broke off small pieces with his fingers and ground them up while he watched the doctor cut up a strange fruit and squeeze the juice into a separate bowl. Once Sherlock had finished grinding a good portion of the stone, he passed his powdery mix to the doctor, who promptly dumped it into the fruit juice and mix them together to make a thick paste. Doctor Heal made a gesture for them to hold out their hands, which they did. He placed a wet, sticky glop of the stuff in their hands and turned towards the now-soaked sheets. John and Sherlock glanced at each other, hands outstretched and dripping with this concoction of the doctor's. They shared a confused moment before John interrupted what the doctor was doing.

"Errr… Dr. Heal? What do you want us to do next?" The old man swivelled around; he had almost forgotten that they were here. In a much gentler and quieter tone, they heard the doctor whisper, "C'mere, boys." They took a small pace forward and listened to what the doctor had to say. As he raised the sheets out of the water, he explained:

"Now what I want you boys to do is rub some of that paste wherever you see blood. Like this-" he took a small amount from John and smeared it on a stain to demonstrate, "Understand? When I dunk it back into the water-" which he did, "we can see the blood run out of the sheets." The boys were startled to see that where the doctor had rubbed some of the paste had foamed when it touched the water. Once the foam began to dissipate, they saw the scarlet stains running out of the sheets, leaving tendrils of red swirling in the water. John was so amazed that he didn't even realize that his mouth had fallen into an O. "Does that make sense, boys? Can I leave you with this while I go finish up checking on Aileen?" John and Sherlock nodded and as the doctor exited the bathroom, Sherlock murmured,

"That was amazing!" John nodded and added,

"Looks like magic almost." Eager to try it again, the two of them got to work, rubbing and dunking and rubbing and dunking. It was very therapeutic, it was as if they were washing away a bad memory. To Sherlock, he was doing just that. With each stain removed and each tendril of blood that got washed down the drain, Sherlock was also washing away his fear of the sticky, hot liquid that ran through his veins. How could he be now that he saw that it was so easily washed away with the right knowledge and materials?