Erin Lestrade was running. Not for the first time since she'd started secondary school nearly three years ago, either. Of course, it had been different running then. Main streets, flat out, necessary. But it was still running. She didn't even run this much in PE for God's sake! Dodging down an alley way, she threw a glance over her shoulder at her pursuers. Yep, one, two, three 14 year old girls, still there. Great. Fan-freaking-tastic. She vaulted over a low wall and dashed across someone's back garden, hurling herself at the next wall before Bree, Janice and Cara could make it over the first. Leaping the next fence, school bag banging on her hip, she found enough time to wave at the bemused three year old that watched her hurtle across his garden. Running across the next garden and dodging a pond, she heard him calling: "Mummy, there's strange girls in the garden!" She allowed herself a grin. Hopefully that'd slow them down a bit. She didn't stop running though, flinging herself over the last fence in the row and sprinting along the alley beyond. She didn't really want them to know where she lived. Then they'd chase her to school every morning, as well as chasing her home. Grabbing at a lamppost, she spun herself into a narrower alley, branching off the first at a funny angle. It was the kind of alley that brushed her arms as she ran, and she prayed she didn't meet anyone coming the other way or she'd be screwed. A few moments later, she burst out into the car park behind their local shops. Not slowing her relentless pace she pressed on, making for a black metal fire escape on a building to the left of the backs of the shops. She raced to the top, glancing over the rail once or twice and satisfying herself that she had indeed lost her unwanted tail. The rooftop was wide and flat, a raised edge running, three bricks high, around the outer most edges. Far from slowing down in her precarious position, (five floors up), Erin sped up, running straight at the opposite side of the roof, jumping at the very last second and landing on the next roof along in an unsteady crouch. She had gone searching for this new route, as well as various others, the week before term began again. She hadn't been so fast the first few times, and had bruises, a mostly healed split lip and grazed knees and elbows to show for it. She set off across the new roof at a fast walk, taking the fire escape steps two at a time, walking down the alleyway they led to and out onto a sunlit street two minutes from her dad's. Shifting her bag into a more comfortable position on her shoulder, she strode towards home, humming cheerfully. Another day she'd survived - well, there was a bruise blooming on her right shin from a moments inattention at dinner break, but other than that... Nothing anyone would notice. Nothing she might have to tell about.
Letting herself into the building and, a few minutes later, into the flat, Erin felt happy. The happiest she'd been in a while. She stepped into the living room and everything changed. She didn't face an empty living room, like usual, or even her Dad sprawled on the sofa with a beer and the football, his paperwork spread over the coffee table like he did the rare nights he beat her home. Instead she faced a pretty, well dressed young woman with neat dark hair and a blackberry in her hand, and a tall man in an immaculate three piece suit.
"Ah, Erin." Mycroft Holmes greeted her, "How was your day, dear?"
"Just dandy." She replied, dropping her bag on the chair and crossing to stand in front of him, her arms crossed; legs apart; feet planted firmly in as strong a stance as she could manage when her insides were rapidly turning to water. Whenever she came home to Mycroft and no Dad, it was never good news. "What's happened?"
"There's been a little accident, Erin. Gregory's been in a car crash." His face was schooled into its usual careful mask, but as he said the words there was a tiny flash of pain in his eyes. Mycroft Holmes telling her that her Dad had been in an accident and showing emotion about it… that was the moment that the bottom dropped out of her world.