A/N: A belated Mother's day drabble. Please forgive any grammar and punctuation mistakes as it is not beta read.

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.

"Muh! Muh-maaaaa!"

Rosie wailed as she half-ran, half-staggered her way towards Molly Hooper as she had just arrived at John Watson's flat with both John and Sherlock in tow.

Rosie was little over two now, as it had been a little over a year since Mary's death. A babysitter was watching her while the Baker Street boys and their pathologist were working on a case. Rosie had decided to practice her walking, and had just managed to fall flat on her face, hence the wailing. She made her way over to Molly and clung to her legs. Molly picked her up and she burrowed her face into her godmother's shoulder, seeking comfort.

John was incredibly still.

Rosie had called this woman her mother. She was too young to remember the incredible woman named Mary Watson. She was too young to remember the loss of the woman who brought her into this world.

The thought made him incredibly sad.

It was Molly that spent the most time with her, loving and nurturing his daughter as a mother would. It was natural to associate her as Rosie's primary maternal caregiver. It was a part of her role as godmother, which she took very seriously. Even now, she was gently soothing and examining the child, making sure that she had not seriously bruised or harmed herself.

It was always Molly, not Mary who saw to his daughter's needs.

Rosie was the last bit of Mary living on this earth. It was an irrational thought that John felt like his wife was slowly being washed away.

No. He will not have it.

"Here. Let me take her." John reaches out and takes the child from her arms. "I'll…I'll go put her down."

Throughout the entire exchange, Sherlock watched silently.

As time went on, it was clearly becoming readily apparent that John Watson was slowly disentangling Molly from his daughter's life. He enlisted Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson more for babysitting duty, as he felt they were not pulling their own weight by allowing the pathologist to do main bulk of it. Molly protested that she didn't mind keeping Rosie at all, but John was firm that all the responsibility should not be carried on her shoulders and that she deserves time for herself. There were three godparents after all.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock asks John one day as he sets Rosie on his lap.

"What do you mean?" John refused to look into the detectives eyes, choosing to feign ignorance.

"Acting like an idiot is beneath you John. You know exactly what I mean."

'I don't know what you're talking about." The doctor's voice was gruff, with a hard, stubborn edge.

"I'm talking about Molly"

"What about Moll—"

The consulting detective interrupted, "You have been slowly reducing her exposure to Rosie, as of today by my calculation she only sees her 68% of the time—"

Watson interrupted his friend back "She needs her own life."

Sherlock's brow furrowed in confusion.

"She needs to get on with her life. She wants a family and children. She can't pursue that while playing babysitter for us. Trust me. It's best for all of us in the long run." Watson explained.

He takes Rosie from Sherlock's lap and cuddles her close.

"This is about Mary." Sherlock said blandly. "The fact she called Molly mama."

"She's my child, Sherlock. Mine and Mary's." Watson held Rosie tighter, as if it was the answer.

"No one can take the place of Mary, John." The detective said gently.

In his heart John Watson knew that, but still something inside him would not let him take any chances.

Sherlock made a decision.

Something had to be done.

It was because of him that Rosie did not currently have a mother.

He would be damned if he allowed her to lose another one.

John worked on his blog while Sherlock and Rosie were sitting on the couch looking through a book. Occasionally, Sherlock would point to something and his daughter would say something back.

"Tade!" She said.

"Very good, Rosie. How about this one?"

"Na-na!"

"Sherlock, what are you doing?" Watson asked.

"Teaching your daughter on trustworthy faces. Facial recognition is important in early development, so she can differentiate from a friend and a stranger." Sherlock replied.

"Wee-Gee!" Rosie cried out happily.

"You're teaching my daughter to trust that doss house drug dealer?!" John exclaimed, pushing his chair back to move over to the pair.

"Oh come on. Wiggins is very useful as well as being an excellent chemist. He babysits adults for a living." Sherlock smirks. "Besides, you never forget your first."

John was not amused.

"If I ever find out you put my daughter in his hands…." He threatened, while quickly flipping through the other pages of the album to see if there were other inappropriate figures that his daughter was learning.

John froze as there was a copy of his wedding photo.

Rosie tilted the book so she could see.

"Ma-ma! Da-dee!" She exclaimed.

She knew.

She knew who her mother was.

John choked up.

Sherlock watched his friend carefully as he attempted to control his emotions.

Rosie pulled the book out of his hands and resumed her spot beside her uncle Sherlock.

"Very good, Rosie. " He kissed the top of the girls head, and purred in a low baritone.

John was still trying to put himself together.

"Hey Sherlock! I got the parts you wanted…Oh!" The emotional moment was interrupted by the entrance of Molly Hooper carrying a styrofoam cooler. "Sorry. I didn't know you were busy." The pathologist apologized.

Rosie pushed herself off the couch and ran towards her yelling "Mow-wee! Mow-wee! Mow-wee!"

Molly's eyes flicked towards John for a moment before kneeling down and extending her arms towards the little girl.

"Oh! You're so big now!" Molly proclaimed loudly and tickled her.

Rosie giggled.

There was no mistaking the look of pure joy on Molly's face when she was able to be hold Rosie once again. It was a far contrast to her sadness and emptiness she felt having to abide by and accept John's wishes, as she recognized what and why he was doing as he did. Still, she eyed the doctor warily for a negative reaction to their contact.

Rosie squirmed in Molly's arms, indicating she wanted to be put down. She pulled the pathologist to the couch where Sherlock and the picture book lay. Molly sat down on the other side of the couch, with Rosie sitting with her book on her lap in-between her and Sherlock.

She opened the book to see an image of Sherlock and said "Shur-luk!"

Molly smiled.

Next was a picture of Molly in her lab coat. "Mow-wee!" Rosie exclaimed.

Another page turn and there was a photograph of Mycroft. Molly wondered how her goddaughter would manage to say his name.

The little girl pointed at Mycroft's face and said "Faa-Tee!"

The pathologist looked at Sherlock and rolled her eyes. She tried to give him an admonishing look, but her mouth was fighting against an irrepressible grin.

Rosie skipped a few pages and Molly was face to face with the blissfully happy image of Mary Watson nee Morstan in her wedding dress, looking radiant with her husband on her wedding day.

"Ma-ma…" The little girl caressed the photo with pudgy fingers.

"Yes…That's your Mama. She was a great and beautiful woman. You take after her quite a bit." Molly pulled her goddaughter closer and held her a bit.

It was at that moment John realized that Molly was in mourning too. It was Molly who supported him and his daughter the most while he crippled by his own grief. Given Mrs. Hudson's advanced age and limited energy, she never could have cared for Rosie at all hours for weeks on end. Plus, given John's anger at Sherlock, he was not even an option for help. Molly gave him time and the ability to mourn Mary fully, without the worry of being responsible for Rosie. Rosie, who looked so much like her mother, that there were days that he could not bring himself to face her. It was Molly, who was charged with and protected the last living bit of Mary Watson in the world, and here he was, trying to take that away from her.

Watson was ashamed.

"Sherlock, do you mind putting Rosie down for a bit?" The doctor asked his friend.

The men stared at each other for a moment, having a silent conversation with one another, before the consulting detective scooped up the toddler and took her into his room.

Molly looked down, and nervously wrung her hands.

John took up Sherlock's seat and angled himself towards the woman.

He took a deep breath and said, "Molly…I am so sorry."

She stopped wringing her hands. "It's alright John. I know why you did it."

Watson shook his head. "No…it's not right. I've done you wrong. You had always been there for me, when I needed you. It's because of you, that I have my daughter. Social services would have declared me unfit to have her and put her into foster care by now. You had allowed me to keep the last bit of Mary I had. I was a fool to think that you were slowly going to erase Rosie's memory of Mary."

"No one can take the place of Mary, John." The pathologist said gently.

It was the same words Sherlock had told him before.

John squeezes his eyes shut. "I know…I always knew…but it was still something I was afraid of. You loved Rosie like she was your own. I just…" He broke off and cleared his throat. "I would like it…if you would spend some more time with her. She needs someone aside from me to keep her mother's memory alive."

"I would be honored John."

Molly stayed for dinner. The three of them had Chinese takeaway, and had to keep an eagle-eye on Sherlock from feeding Rosie too long pieces softened lo mein noodles. The tension between the doctors had finally relaxed. It wasn't long before John and Rosie left to go back to their flat.

Molly and Sherlock were left to clean up.

"Thank you." Sherlock heard Molly say as he was tossing the empty cartons into the bin.

"For what?" Sherlock said indifferently.

"I know what you did."

"It was just an experiment." He didn't look up at her.

"An experiment?" She pressed him.

"On how social behavior affects the learning of language. Babies learn language from the reactions of adults. They put two sounds together and their parents get excited over the action, therefore the child learns what sounds determine an almost Pavlovian-like response. There was a similar study done with feeding pigeons. I just used a photo album to reinforce the assignment of certain sounds in Rosie's vocabulary." The detective stated.

"Uhuh." Molly did not seem to believe him. "You're so full of it. Just don't tell John you have been practicing pigeon experiments on his daughter."

She kissed Sherlock's cheek.

"Molly?" He said as she picked up her coat and bag.

"Yes, Sherlock?" She turned toward him.

"You would make a great mother."