Author's Note: So I just tweaked a couple things for this chapter. I hope to upload more soon. Thanks for reading.
The sky was bright and clear as the black car drove on the streets of busy London. Isla Williams was feeling the exact opposite of the sky. She was in the back seat of the car, twiddling her thumbs, while an annoyed child services worker named Carol was driving. Other cars and people passed by outside. A group of teenagers made their way into a coffee shop. She looked back to her twiddling thumbs. A tear started to drift down her cheek. Two months ago her mother had died in a car crash. It had been heartbreaking, the phone call with the police that night. There had been a rush of fear, dizziness and then extreme grief for the next few weeks.
Isla grew up with her mother; she had been very close with her. She was all Isla had. The child services workers had told her that she had one relative she would be able to live with, her birth father. A man named Sherlock Holmes. A father was something foreign to her, she'd frequently imagined what he would be like, but was never informed further. Her mother had relationships, but they hadn't lasted more than one year. Every time a relationship ended, her hopes of a father shattered. Coming back to reality, she gazed out the window of the car. They turned on to a street mainly with flats and other various shops. Baker Street read the street sign above them. The car pulled to a stop in front of a small café called Speedy's. The car door beside her was opened, and the thirteen-year old got out into the cool air. Carol got her suit case from the trunk and wheeled it to her. They approached the door of the flat and the child services worker knocked on the door. 221B was printed in gold letters.
Isla was growing anxious and had no idea what she was expecting. She thought back to the name child services had given her, Sherlock Holmes. When the door finally opened, a woman came into view. The woman was elderly, with graying hair and walked like she had a bad hip. "Hello," she said. "Can I help you with anything?"
"We're looking for a Sherlock Holmes," Carol said, dryly. Isla gripped the handle of her suitcase tight and bit her bottom lip. "Ah, yes he's right upstairs. Come in," the woman told them. Isla entered the flat slowly. It was quite narrow, and the wallpaper in the hallway was odd. "You're lucky," the woman continued. "He's usually out on one of his cases. I'm Mrs. Hudson by the way, the landlady." Cases? Isla thought. He must be some sort of police officer. "Are you a client?" Mrs. Hudson chirped brightly. Carol shot her a confused look. "What? No."
Walking up a flight of stairs, she arrived at a door and Mrs. Hudson lightly knocked. Within a minute, a man opened it. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties. His hair was blond, but slightly graying, and he was wearing jeans and a white jumper. "Mr. Holmes?" the child services worker asked. The man looked confused for a second, and then responded, "No, I'm John Watson, his uh, colleague. And you are?" Before the worker could respond, a voice coming from the living room spoke up. "A child services worker with Isla Williams." John Watson turned around, and then smiled at the two. "Please, come in. Thank you Mrs. Hudson."
The flat Isla entered was spacious, well would be if there weren't so much clutter. Books flooded the desk near the window, and the kitchen table was filled with various science instruments. She noticed another man sitting in an arm chair near the window, typing furiously on his laptop. The man glanced for a second, and then promptly turned back to his laptop. He was particularly tall, with black curly hair and pale skin, with piercing gray eyes. There were definitely physical similarities between them. She had shoulder-length dark curly hair and pale skin as well, though her eyes were hazel. "Mr. Holmes, this is your daughter, Isla Williams," the child services worker spoke. John seemed quite surprised, and turned to Sherlock. "Yes, thank you," Sherlock said, not even looking up. "Well, I'll let you get settled in. Now this is just temporary until we can find something more…" Carol glanced around the flat with a hint of disgust, "permanent. Call me if you need anything." She quickly strode out of the flat. Isla looked at the two men. John was still stunned at the news. "You have a daughter?" John asked. "Yes," Sherlock said simply. "I thought relationships weren't 'your area'."
"They aren't, it was an experiment." Isla's eyes widened. "You got my mother pregnant for some experiment?" she finally spoke up, a little louder than she would've liked. John and Sherlock shifted their gaze from each other to her. "In a matter of speaking, yes," Sherlock said. Isla scoffed. "How could you?"
"Look, I think we're getting off on the wrong foot," John spoke up. "Now if Isla is going to be living with us for a while, I suggest that you, Sherlock stop being so insensitive." Sherlock sighed. Isla was a bit confused at what John had said. "Us?" she asked. "Oh, uh, yeah, I'm his flat mate," John clarified for her." Isla blinked and she must have looked a bit worried. "What's wrong?" John asked her. "Oh nothing, it's just that I didn't think I'd be, uh,-"
"Oh, don't worry. I'm sure you'll be comfortable," John reassured her. Isla nodded and then a question entered her mind. She turned to Sherlock. "I heard, uh, Mrs. Hudson say you work on cases. Are you a police officer?"
"No, I'm a consulting detective, only one in the world, much better than the police." She nodded, a little stunned and turned to John. "And you?" she inquired. "I was an army doctor," he said. "And what about you? Surely you can tell us something about yourself."
"There's not much to tell," she said, looking down at her suitcase. "Well, let's get you settled in," John said. "There's a room upstairs which normally has more of Sherlock's experiments but I'm sure we can get it cleaned out, right Sherlock?" He then led Isla upstairs to her new room.
As the month wore on, Isla got more and more comfortable leaving with Sherlock and John. Sometimes Sherlock would take her to his cases, which she grew to love. At first Scotland Yard refused to let her near any crime scene, but Sherlock insisted, and they gave up arguing. And even though John would be the one taking care of her most of the time, she grew to like the two men. She still grieved over her mother, a subject which John told Sherlock not to talk about. But what she was nervous about the most, was attending a new school. It was October, and John said that she didn't have to go until the new year, but she couldn't help but think of everything that could go wrong. She was worried about making new friends, if she would even have friends, and the fact that she might teased because of her level of intelligence. She was very smart, like her father, which seemed to relieve him.
There hadn't been any cases for a week, well, any cases that Sherlock was interested in. This resulted in him constantly sulking around the flat and when he wouldn't act like a child he would conduct way more experiments. Isla became worried for his sanity, as she saw that he would do irrational things when he was bored. John said that it was normal for him, and not to worry. She was skeptical at first, but got used to it.
One morning, Isla trotted down the stairs after having a shower, and heard Sherlock and John talking quietly. She stopped just at the bottom of the stairs. "So you were contacted by child services and they asked you to foster Isla?"
"Yes," Sherlock replied, bored as ever. "And… you agreed. Why?"
"I thought I would like company when I take on cases. That's why I was looking for a new flat. Not that complicated." John nodded just as Isla came into the living room. "Did you hear all that?" John asked. "Yeah," Isla replied and took a seat in Sherlock's chair. "Right," John sighed and went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. "There is absolutely nothing edible in the flat. We need groceries."