Uh so I haven't written anything in... two years? More than that? Gosh, it has been a long time. So hopefully this is somewhat good. I've got at least another chapter I want to add, so look for that sometime soon (it won't be two years, I promise). I tried to do my own Brit-picking on this (I married a Brit, so hopefully living with him means I've got more of the language down, but who knows), but my Canadian-ness sometimes comes through.

Hope you enjoy it. :)

Molly stares down at the little stick in her hands, her eyes trying and failing to focus on the little positive symbol that looks back up at her. Her fingers squeeze and clutch at the thin piece of plastic, like a flimsy lifeline keeping her afloat (or is it an anchor dragging her down? She's not sure). How could she be so stupid? How could she have thought that that one night with a dead man (a dead man whose warm hands and soft mouth made her melt underneath him) would have no consequences for her (aside from the emotional ones, of course). She curses under her breath, curses both at the stupidity of her actions and at the dead man who'd risen from her bed that morning two months ago, bruises on his chest and barely closed cuts on his face, silently slipping out of her window without even a word to her.

She swears the little positive sign pulses at her, a beacon in the dim light of her bathroom, declaring loudly over and over "you're going to be a mother, you're going to be a mother, you're going to be a mother". She drops it suddenly, the plastic stick clattering to the ground, as she folds her hands around her face and leans into her palms. She moans dejectedly in defeat, as the true weight of her current situation sinks down onto her.

She is pregnant. She is pregnant with Sherlock Holmes' baby. That thought alone barely makes sense to her, and if she hadn't physically been there on that night after the fall, when full of adrenaline he'd surged forward in her apartment towards her, knocking her cup of tea from her hands as he kissed her, she wouldn't believe it.

"Well believe it, Molly," she whispers to herself, her voice muffled in her hands. "You've got the proof." At that thought she chuckles a bit to herself, the absurdity of it all hitting her. She starts to laugh uncontrollably, a panicked laugh, an anxious one, but as she starts to calm down several minutes later, she can't help but smile a bit to herself, thinking about a baby, a really little baby, with black hair and blue eyes, and she feels happy.

Days pass, and then weeks, and Molly makes peace with it all. She starts reading baby books at night, curled up on her sofa in her overlarge dressing gown, sipping horrible decaffeinated black tea and taking notes about the proper way to burp a newborn. She'd not grown up with other children in her home – her mother had died giving birth to Molly – and her father had never remarried, so she'd spent most of her time with adults and friends her own age. She knows a fair bit about the technical medical aspects of it all – gestation, labour and delivery, infant growth rates – but she knows next to nothing about the practical side of infant care, like how to change a diaper and how to put an infant to sleep (she had no idea there were so many schools of thought on the issue, she'd stupidly figured it would be one way and that was it, silly Molly). At the beginning, she was frightened of how little she knew on the subject, her anxiety over it keeping her up at night, but as time passed and her normally flat stomach started to swell outwards, pushing out into the world, she began to think of herself and the little tiny thing inside her as a team, Molly and Em(bryo), the two of them against the world.

"We'll figure it out together won't we Em?" she whispers to herself, resting her hand on her abdomen, her fingertips gliding over her own stretched skin. She gasps as she feels a tiny little kick from her passenger inside, and smiles as another kick pushes up against her hand. She closes her book and settles down horizontally onto her sofa, her hands wrapped around her belly, cradling the little life inside her.

She curses his name (in her head of course, can't curse a dead man's name out loud, it's not respectful) as another contraction rips through her. Even though her mind is foggy from the medication and from the hormones coursing through her veins, she can't help but laugh at the thought of it, imagining how insane it would be to see Sherlock Holmes here, awaiting the birth of his child. She has a hard time picturing it in her mind – even though she is currently giving birth to his offspring, she still cannot picture him ever being a father. The doctor tells her to push hard now, this is it, this is the moment, and she suddenly feels terrified, terrified to bring this little being into the harsh reality of the world, a world where his mother is lonely, mousy pathologist and his father is an exiled sociopath, off God's knows where in the world. Molly can't help but fear what kind of life she's giving to this new human, and for a moment she has the insane thought of squeezing her legs shut and keeping him inside, safe from all the horrors of the world.

The doctor yells at her again, and her biology takes over from her, ignoring her internal struggle, and pushes for her.

Minutes later, exhausted beyond belief, Molly is handed bundle of warm blankets, a tiny little face, red from crying, looking up at her. His eyes are blue (like all babies' eyes are), but she can't help but wonder if they will stay that colour, like his father's.

"Hello Em," she whispers, and then catches herself. She can't possibly call a baby "Embyro", that's not a real name. And then she grins wildly, as the perfect name comes to her. Her father's name. He would have liked that.

"Emerson. Emerson William Hooper," she breathes, wincing as she bends down to kiss his little forehead, her lips brushing his soft (unbelievably soft) skin, her arms wrapped around him.

In a rundown hovel in Tangiers, a mobile phone buzzes once, signalling a text message. Sherlock Holmes – currently Marcel Dupuis in this country – reaches into his pocket with one hand, his cards held in the other. He looks down at the screen briefly, and looks up at his companions at the table.

"Pardonnez-moi, monsieurs," he states, pushing himself up from the table and dropping his cards face up to show a straight flush. They gape after him open mouthed as he strides away, staring down at his phone.

Outside in the hot, heavy air of the Algerian night, he stares unblinking at the cracked screen of his awful second-hand phone. Three words on the screen burn into his retinas, though it's the attached photo he can't seem to stop staring at.

Emerson William Hooper is all the text reads (Mycroft was never one to waste words). Sherlock had barely reacted to the news of Molly's pregnancy, except for a tinge of regret that he wouldn't be present to conduct a few experiments during her gestational period (what fantastic access to new data that would have been), but now looking at the tangible proof of that night in London after he fell, he can't help but feel a tinge of emotion, a fascination with the small human being on his screen. His thumb glides over the image, imagining the feel of the soft black curls against his skin, the smell of a new infant, the warmth of the little human's skin.

He shakes his head, willing the sentiment away. He files the image away in his mind palace, deletes the message, and returns to his poker game (but that night, that night he swears he dreams of a little boy smiling up at him, a tiny little hand reaching up to grasp his own).