Face the Odds

Chapter 2: Spiegel

The following weeks continued as normal... almost. Sherlock continued to take cases in between looking after Marie as her stomach grew larger and larger and her emotional swings fluctuated at increasingly distant ends of the spectrum.

The Case of the Dusty Death

"He drowned, Mr. Holmes." The lady stated as Sherlock paced around while on his phone. "That's what we thought. But when they opened up his lungs..."

"Yes?" Mary asked intently from where she sat beside John, and the lady said in a hushed voice: "Sand."

"Superficial." Sherlock huffed, and then turned back to his phone as it whistled with a new message, while Marie sighed from her seat on his chair.

Another time

"Marie, I really wouldn't recommend eating that." Sherlock informed Marie as she sat digging into the tub of ice cream. "Or, well, Mrs. Hudson said I shouldn't let you eat that."

"Why not?" Marie demanded, and Sherlock shrugged: "It's supposedly not healthy."

"You think I'm fat?" Marie asked sharply, and Sherlock paused before he answered: "That's not what I was going for."

"You paused." Marie pointed out, and Sherlock sighed: "That's not-"

"So you do think I'm fat?" She retorted, and Sherlock demanded: "How did you even come to that conclusion?"

The Case of the Wrong Thumb

Sherlock examined the thumb his latest client had dropped off, and he called: "Come back! It's the wrong thumb."

He looked up, just as the front door slammed downstairs.

"Where'd he go?" Sherlock demanded, and Marie shrugged as she walked in with a cup of tea.

"I don't know, maybe he left after you made that deduction about his girlfriend?" Marie teased as she sat down beside Sherlock.

"It was perfectly obvious." Sherlock scoffed, and Marie chuckled: "Maybe for you."

"And you." Sherlock pointed out, and Marie grinned at him.

A different time

"Sherlock, don't forget we have an appointment with the obstetrician." Marie reminded him. "This Friday; we haven't been once since I confirmed my pregnancy."

"Do we have to?" He groaned, and Marie just gave him a look.

"Yes."

The Case of the Duplicate Man

John stood staring down at the photos of Dennis Parkinson, the array showing the murdered man in two different places at the same time, even managing to get murdered in on of them.

"Sherlock-" John began, but Sherlock cut him off, not even looking up from his phone as he said flatly: "It's never twins."

Friday

"I can't believe you forgot." John scolded Sherlock, who winced.

They'd burst into the hospital after Sherlock remembered belatedly about the appointment. They'd discovered the appointment had just ended, and Marie and Mary – who had come as moral support – would be out in a few minutes, and John was using that time to lecture Sherlock.

"Sherlock, this is your wife and kid!" John argued, and Sherlock muttered: "Yes, I know, I said I was sorry!"

"You've got a lot of apologizing ahead of you, if you think you're going to make it out of this one." John warned. "Poor Marie-"