Amelia skittered to a stop at the end of the darkened alleyway. Her piercing sapphire eyes flickered around, categorizing every aspect of her surroundings. No escape. She whirled around to face the assailant casually stalking her, the streetlight behind him painting him into nothing more than an ominous silhouette. She heard the click of his gun as he took aim.
First, the sound of shattering glass to her right. Then, two shots rang out into the still Swedish air. And then Amelia felt a heavy weight topple onto her. She fell to the ground, feeling glass shards embed into her arm. Her head cracked on the cement and a burning light exploded across her vision as she struggled to stay conscious. The coppery scent of blood filled her nostrils and she felt a burst of panic as she struggled into a sitting position, supporting the man who had tackled her, saving her from that bullet. "Oh my god, dad. Are you okay?" she cried.
John Watson grimaced at her, pressing a hand to the bullet wound in his stomach, blood pooling around his fingers.
A strange sense of foreboding overcame Amelia and, acting on instinct, she wrenched the handgun from her father and fired a single shot at the roof of the building overlooking the alleyway. She couldn't have known, but she did, that she had just delivered a death shot to the sniper on the building.
She knelt down in front of John, pulling his hand aside to get a better look at the wound. It was bad. She swallowed once and her medical training kicked in. "We need to get you to a hospital," she said, tearing off her jacket to staunch the flow of blood. Her father gripped her wrist. "No."
Amelia met her father's eyes, confused. John smiled grimly. "There are others, the entire Black Cobra knows about us. There's no where on heaven or earth that we'll be safe now."
Amelia ground her teeth together. "So what. You're just going to die?" She whispered furiously, blinking the tears away. John winked, "I'm going to pull a Sherlock."
'Have a told you about how Sherlock died and came back to life?' John asked his eight year old daughter. 'No! How'd he do that?' Amelia exclaimed, 'And why did he do that?' She asked after a moment's pause.
'Asking all the right questions' John laughed. 'You're so clever, just like your mother.' He looked impossibly devastated for a moment. Amelia curled closer into him, breathing in the smell of her father's jumper. She tried to will all her childish happiness into him. She never told him, because it would make him sad, but she was starting to forget things about her mother, her face, her laugh, her hands. Her mother was starting to become a stranger to her. But John, John was real. He was the one who told her stories about her mother and his best friend, the only consulting detective in the world. The one who took her to the playground and made sure she always had dessert in her lunch bag. The one who always whispered 'I love you' to her when he tucked her in at night.
In a tale interwoven with danger and angst, John told little Amelia Watson about the evil Moriarty, how Sherlock faked his death so he could dismantle Moriarty's network and save John, Ms. Hudson and Lestrade. She listened, enraptured, but all too soon began to yawn. John laughed and gently carried Amelia to her bed. 'Dad," mumbled Amelia, 'Where is Sherlock now? Are you still friends?' In her hazy state she missed his answer and promptly forgot about it the next morning.
Two minutes later, the sound of a rattling shopping cart echoed in the alleyway. Amelia aimed the gun towards the noise, but her father motioned her to relax. Jason, one of the men who were a part of her father's homeless network, trundled into view, pushing a shopping cart with a large black garbage bag in it. John shifted uncomfortably.
"After we killed the leader of the Black Cobra five months ago, the rest of the gang was able to figure out who we were. We've almost gotten killed twenty seven times since then." He growled. Amelia scoffed, "I hardly think the bomb in the car could count as 'almost gotten killed'" she said lightly, "Too cliché and easy to detect." John smiled in amusement.
"Even so, life has gotten too dangerous." John's voice softened "Especially for you, you're almost seventeen. You should be focusing on getting into medical school, not worrying constantly about surviving to see the next day."
"Mundane." Amelia interrupted, as Dave unloaded his cargo. John raised an eyebrow as he continued. "So I've been scrambling to figure out how to "kill ourselves." The bullet wound is inconvenient, but this is what we're going to do…"
Amelia curled into her father like a young child, committing everything to memory: his steady hands, gripping hers tightly, the smell of tea and his aftershave, his warm red-rimmed navy eyes. "I have to leave now." Amelia closed her eyes and shook her head, curling deeper into him. The last few days had past in a blur. Crying over the fake body of her father, attending his funeral, learning that he might as well be dead to her.
'I'm going to hunt them all down.' John whispered.
'And I can't come with you.' Amelia realized.
John shook his head. 'Too dangerous, and I won't be able to have any contact with you.'
'But you need me,' Amelia cried, 'No one can watch your back like I can! What happens if, if you die?'
'Oh my little solider, I can't put you in that sort of danger. And,' John drew in a shuddering breath. 'You have to know that if I die, and I won't lie there is a huge chance I will, you'll never know. I'm going undercover, just as you are. To everyone, John Watson is already dead. Don't spend your life waiting for me.' And with that, Amelia broke down, sobbing into her father's jumper, clinging onto him like she would never et go. She cried and cried, her father tightening his grip on her whispering 'I love you. I'm so sorry' over and over again.
John pulled away from his daughter. He stroked her face once and stood up, trying to hide the fact that his heart was shattering. Would he ever get to walk her down the aisle at her wedding? Ever get to hold his grandchildren and tell them stories about how Amelia was a crack shot at the age of fourteen? What he wouldn't give to have her by his side. But he knew that this journey would be saturated with violence and he was so worried about how that could affect his daughter. Her addiction to danger and apathetic attitude towards the torturing and death of those who threatened the ones she loved was frightening at times, but her compassion and loyalty was boundless, and he didn't want her to lose that.
Amelia stood up stiffly and embraced her father once more before meeting his eyes and saluting stiffly. "Goodbye, dad."