Okay, so I was going to wait a lot longer to put this up, but my hand has been forced by one, Rosalie Storm. So this first chapter is dedicated to her. Also, the next series is out in just over a month (EEEP!) and this needs at least starting before then. I am writing chapter four at the moment, so there will hopefully be very little waiting time between chapter uploads. This will be an extremely controversial story, as you will see further on. So, now that's out of the way, on with the story!

Chapter One: The return

Doctor John Watson sat, as he had sat for the past three years, in an armchair in a small house in Cambridge, reading the morning news. Mary wouldn't be arriving home for another week – some sort of girl's holiday with her old work mates. He always looked at the detective reports; a habit he couldn't quite rid himself of, even after all this time. He would try to work out the cases as he once had on foot with his old friend. This time, it was the Honourable Ronald Adair, murdered under the most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. He sighed, and quietly closed the printed sheets, laying them down on the small table next to him. The case had baffled the police, and himself; an event which wasn't surprising. He grimaced, and held his bad leg – it was playing up again – and rose slowly. He limped to the window and opened the curtains, letting in the early morning light. He had long since moved away from Baker Street; he had grown to hate the memories of a tall, skinny man with dark, curly hair. After gazing down onto the street, which was slowly starting to fill, he once again retreated steadily to his chair.

Mrs Hudson was still the landlady of 221B Baker Street, although she had considered selling. However, she remembered all too well a young man announcing that he did not desire her to leave it; 'England would fall' were the words he chose to use. On this particular morning, her hip wasn't hurting her quite as much as usual, and she didn't feel quite so tired. As she bustled about her little kitchen, making herself a herbal tea, she allowed herself to remember, just for a moment, a gangly young man who shot holes in her walls in an attempt to cure his boredom. Then she pushed her memories back into her mind, and carried on with her day.

Mollie Hooper prepared for another day in St Bart's. She too missed the young detective who would dance swiftly through the morgue, carelessly toss a microscope around, mangle a few corpses, and then saunter off again to complete a couple of cases. She of course knew a secret that only three people in the world knew, and this was what kept her going. That, and her strong relationship with another; someone who she cared about even more so than Sherlock, and for once she loved her back.

Mycroft Holmes sat in his office, contemplating another pile of paperwork; something about Boris upsetting yet another foreign ambassador. 'Andrea' stood in the doorway; awaiting orders as she did every morning. This man knew the country's greatest secrets, and also a fair few that belonged to foreign powers also. But one of the greatest belonged to three people in the entire world. His younger brother had always been a great disappointment to him, and he had often wondered why his mother hadn't sold him for medical experiments. It was a simple procedure, not particularly expensive, and brought in a good profit. If it wasn't for sentiment and emotions, he would have seen the back of his sibling long ago. He smirked, and turned back to the file before him.

The one person having a fairly peculiar morning was Detective Inspector Lestrade. The man sat opposite him was a tufty, white haired old man, with a wizened face poking out from the mane atop his little head; He carried at least a dozen books under his right arm. He had insisted on seeing Lestrade, and refused to leave, ignoring both Donovan and Anderson, and hobbling through to the poor man's office. Now here he sat across the desk from him, forcing a beaming, wizened smile upon the extremely confused bloke, wondering what had he done to deserve it this time.

"You're surprised to see me, sir," Said the little man in a strange, croaking voice. The Detective Inspector acknowledged that he was. "I am here on business you see. I must speak with certain people." Lestrade nodded as politely as he was able. "You, of course are one of them." At this, Lestrade became – if it were possible – even more baffled than previously, and before he could stop himself exclaimed.

"What the hell do you want with me? I've never met you in my life!"

"Ah. That, my good Detective Inspector, you shall see."

One and a half hours later, a group of people sat in Lestrade's office, waiting to hear what on earth was going on. They were, of course, John Watson, Mrs Hudson, Mollie Hooper, and Detective Inspector Lestrade. The little old man rose slowly from his seat, looked at each individual face, and then, with an air of great importance said:

"Well Sirs, Madams, if it isn't too great a liberty, have any of you ever considered expanding your libraries?" The group stared at him, dumbstruck. He continued. "I have here British birds, and Catullus, and The holy war – a bargain every-"

"What the bloody hell are you playing at?" Interrupted a seriously angered Lestrade.

"Why Sir! With five volumes you could just fill that gap on the second shelf. It looks untidy, does it not Sir?" The other four people turned to look at the small cabinet residing in the corner of the office. When they turned around again, instead of seeing the idiotic, doddery little fellow they had seen not moments before, they saw Sherlock Holmes standing before them, holding a tufty grey wig and a couple of pieces of plastic stage makeup that had distorted his face so cunningly. The books were still firmly clamped under his right arm.

It is easily said that they all had different reactions to the sight before their eyes. In half a second, Sherlock had managed to throw Mrs Hudson into violent hysterics, produce a beaming smile from Mollie Hooper, made Detective Inspector Lestrade stand there with widened eyes and a hanging, open mouth, and Doctor John Watson had risen slowly from his seat in disbelief, and promptly fainted to the ground.

Okay, so I hope you have enjoyed the first chapter; the next one shall be much more controversial, this was merely showing his return, based on the original book by Arthur Conan Doyle. It shall get much more exciting as it progresses. I know many people say that Mycroft knows nothing about Sherlock's fake death, and I really like some of the stories that have cropped up because of it, but the book said he included Mycroft in his secret, and I really want to stick to the book as much as possible in this first part, because I am going to go in a completely different direction now and bring in my own character and an extremely debateable story line.

Keep reading,

ReaderMagnifique.