The Accidental Family

Mycroft did not get a lot of headaches. Those that he did get were usually caused by his thrill-seeking little brother, but not this time. Pressing his face into his hands, he took a moment to mentally clear his mind of all clutter. The pulsing in his skull already dying down, he leaned back in his chair and waited for it to stop completely. The country could surely manage a few minutes without his mechanisms.

Rap rap rap.

Or not. Eyes sliding open, he braced his hands on his desk, headache already crowding out a good portion of the problems jostling for attention in his head,

"What is it?" he called out.

The door opened and Anthea ushered in a curly-haired little girl into his office.

"What is it?" he repeated, a little irritated now.

His eyes flicked over the scene, quietly deducing. Already he knew that Anthea had bad news she was unwillingly going to tell share, and the little girl had just finished attending a funeral. Well, this wasn't adding up to be a pleasant afternoon.

~o0o~

What was wrong with her?

Alice hugged her knees more tightly to her chest underneath the too-big pea coat that her aunt had all but thrown at her as they'd rushed out the door.

She wanted to grieve like her aunt, silent tears down ridged cheeks, or like her cousins, wailing loudly in the too large, nearly empty church. But no matter how hard she tried, all she could summon was a dull ache that spread through her entire body. Her aunt's words from before rang in her mind. "Why won't you just feel?"

Mum would have never said that. Mum would have brushed her hair out of her face and told her it was okay not to feel because she knew Alice would if she could. Mum would have taken her away from the uncomfortably loud displays of emotion. She would have tried to understand, and even though it failed, it would always make Alice feel better. But none of that mattered because Mum was dead and Alice was alone and she just couldn't cry.

So when the smartly dressed men in suits appeared at her mother's gravesite and led her away from her unprotesting aunt, Alice didn't feel a thing.

~o0o~

John, quite frankly, was sick of being kidnapped. Once, fine. Twice, really? But three times? He needed a new flat-mate.

"Mycroft's in," the said flat-mate growled, readjusting the knocker.

John groaned. The last thing he wanted was to have a conversation with the oldest Holmes brother when he was half dead on his feet.

"What is it?" snapped Sherlock, all but storming into the flat.

John followed a bit more calmly. As unsettling as it was, he owed his life, several times over, to Mycroft's CCTV access. Besides, he could care less why the man was there. He just wanted to go to bed.

Standing next to Mycroft was a little girl, maybe about nine or ten, wearing an oversized pea coat. It was an image that John had thought he'd never see—Mycroft willingly within six feet of someone under the age of twenty.

"You remember the Wisteria case, don't you?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock nodded.

"And how long ago was that?"

"Ten, ten and a half years—oh."

John had seen Sherlock face criminals twice his size without batting an eyelash, bombs without missing a beat and murderers without slowing his step. Now, he looked positively terrified. His eyes locked on the little girl in the look John had come to recognize as the one he took on when he surveyed a possible witness.

"Mummy always did want grandchildren," said Mycroft, looking much more pleased than he had a right to be.

"You came from a funeral," Sherlock said rather than address his brother. "Your mother's?"

Voice surprisingly even for someone who had just lost her mother and had the fact shoved back in her face, the girl responded.

"Yes."

Father and daughter stared at each other for a very long moment, unblinkingly.

"What's your name?" John asked, once it had become apparent that Sherlock wasn't going to ask.

"Alice," the girl said.

Still silence.

"So, is she staying?" John finally asked.

"Sherlock's her legal guardian."

He'd never thought he'd see his flat-mate as a father. Alice plunked herself down in Sherlock's chair to better examine her father.

"That explains the hair," she said. "Mum's was straight."

"It's a dominant trait. I'm not surprised it showed up."

Their staring contest continued. Alice didn't shift in her seat, didn't even bat an eyelash. She just stared at him as intently as he did her. Mycroft rolled his eyes. John was still trying to process the idea of Sherlock Holmes as a father.

"Maria was a good woman."

"She was sick for a long time."

Sherlock abruptly got to his feet and walked into his room. The door slammed behind him.

"Make sure she makes it to next month in one piece," Mycroft drawled. "Child Services are a bore.'

With that, he exited just as swiftly as his brother had. Alice got up and wandered over to the kitchen to look at the experiments Sherlock had left lying about.

"Right," John said, checking his watch. He could feel a headache coming on. "Do you want to get something to eat?"

Alice nodded solemnly.

"Sherlock? We're going to Angelo's."

The door remained shut and Sherlock didn't answer. John barely suppressed a groan. If his flat-mate thought that Alice was going to become his responsibility, he was dead wrong.

"Come on," he said.

Mrs. Hudson stopped them before they reached the door.

"What did Mycroft want? He's always in such a foul mood, but this one was worse, wouldn't you say, dear?" she asked of Alice.

"Mrs. Hudson, Alice. Alice, Mrs. Hudson. She's our landlady."

Mrs. Hudson's eyebrows jumped at the use of 'our' and John realized that he'd made a mistake.

"Did you two adopt?"

Alice giggled, and John resisted the urge to whack his head against the wall.

"I'm Sherlock's daughter," Alice provided.

Mrs. Hudson made a noise that sounded like a dying goose and retreated into her apartment, still laughing.

"You're not going to, I dunno, call him Dad?"

"He didn't seem really happy about it," Alice pointed out. "This'll help him ease into it."

It was odd. She was very much like her father, but at the same time, she was very different. She understood human nature better—or, at least, chose to utilize it more often. She was every bit as articulate as he imagined a nine or ten-year-old Sherlock to have been.

"How old are you?" John asked conversationally, trying to remember exactly how one was supposed to talk to a Year Five as they stepped out on to the street.

"Nine. Will I hurt your shoulder?" she asked, taking his hand.

So shocked by the completely un-Sherlock (even as a kid) move, it took John a second to register the second most extraordinary thing.

"How did you know?"

"Same way I knew you were overseas. Afghanistan or I—"

"How?" he pressed.

The girl shrugged. "I see, the information goes to my head, that pops out of my mouth. I don't have a system."

So Sherlock's gift was at least partially natural. He must have figured out how he reached his conclusions later in life.

John opened the door to the restaurant, and Alice let go of his hand to hurry inside out the cold.

"John!" boomed Angelo, running over as soon as he crossed the threshold. "Who's the lovely girl, hmm? A date?"

"Alice. She's Sherlock's daughter."

Angelo blinked a few times before his face broke into a large grin,

"He never told me! No need to pay tonight.'

While Angelo set about shoving everyone else's meals to the back in lieu of serving them, John decided to find out what he could about Alice.

"So."

"You want to know about Mum, right?" Alice looked sad for the first time. "She always used to talk about him. Sherlock Holmes. The wonderful man. She loved him, even after he left her. Even after he told her it was all just for a case."

Alice's mouth twisted into a wry grin.

"I don't understand. I—I'm wrong."

She dropped her gaze to the ugly patterned tablecloth.

"No, you're not," John said after a moment's hesitation. "There isn't wrong. Not in people."

Alice smiled, the first genuine smile that John had seen.

It was an hour and half before they made it back to 221B. Alice was in considerably better spirits. John was still worried about Sherlock. He didn't want Alice to go into foster care, or worse, to the aunt that had planted the idea that she was 'wrong' into her head.

He pulled open the door to find Sherlock sitting in his favorite chair, drawing his bow back and forth across the strings of his violin. John retreated hastily to his room.

A half hour later, he peeked out to see Alice sitting cross-legged in front of her father's chair, the violin placed carefully under her chin. Sherlock murmured a few instructions John couldn't hear, and Alice hesitantly plucked away at the strings. John grinned quietly to himself. Somehow, the accidental family might just make it.

A/N: Alice's mother, Maria, is very much like Janine. Sherlock needed information, and she was the best way to get it. The feeling was entirely one-sided.

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