My little go at a post-Reichenbach fic, with a…twist. There will be a few minor references to a past-tense Sherlock/OC relationship. Takes about eighteen months after Sherlock 'died'. And I'm sorry, but this probably is going to be somewhat lacking in the Britification. I'm an American, and no amount of British TV will change that (unfortunately).

DISCLAIMER: I only own Shirlee and Emma. Nobody else. Spoilers for The Reichenbach Fall (obviously).

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For the first time since he had become the world's only Consulting Detective, Sherlock found himself willingly going to his older brother for help. "Mycroft, I… Require you assistance."

"Whatever for, my dear brother?"

Sherlock took a deep breath, glancing at the smaller figure asleep next to him. "Do you remember Emma Stone?"

XXXXXXXX

"So," Mycroft said about an hour, Sherlock seated in front of him while the nine-almost-ten year old leafed through a French-English dictionary (where she had gotten the thing, Mycroft had no clue). "Shirlee…"

"Yes," Sherlock said. "Emma had no idea until two weeks after she moved, and by then had no way to contact me. I bumped into her purely by mistake about fifteen months ago." It still hurt to talk about what happened afterwards, though.

"Shirlee was able to recognize you solely from photographs," Mycroft said, watching her mouth phrases to herself. "Quite remarkable, but not entirely unexpected."

"Did you know?" Sherlock's next question was sharp, sudden anger flashing.

"Of course not. Why would I have kept something like this from you?" Mycroft asked, slightly insulted by his brother's lack of faith.

Sherlock said nothing for a moment, just staring at his brother before accepting that he was telling the truth.

"Who was it that took care of her while you were hunting down Moriarty's web?" Mycroft asked, curious as to who Sherlock had trusted through all his aliases. "I'm going to assume this is the same person who helped you get done so quickly."

"A mutual friend of ours," Sherlock said with a half-smirk. "We alternated who was watching Shirlee and who was destroying the web. Very helpful person."

Mycroft was puzzled. Who did both he and Sherlock know that they would be willing to trust with something like this…? "I should have realized."

"Yes, you really should have."

"Where is Miss Adler now, Sherlock?" Mycroft asked.

"I have absolutely no idea," Sherlock replied. "She was going after the last few little strands of his web, but after that…"

Mycroft sighed, somewhat annoyed. However, there were other matters he had to tend to. "Your name was cleared, you know. I believe it was the forensics analyst you're so fond of that found the Rich Brook connection."

Sherlock choked on his tea. "Anderson? Oh, please tell me that was just a horrible joke…"

"Would you rather be a fugitive? Because I can have that arranged…" Mycroft said, knowing his brother's response.

"No, but I'm not keen on the thought of being indebted to Anderson, of all people," Sherlock grumbled, steepling his fingers in thought. "What part did Donovan play? And don't tell me she didn't, I can still read you like an open book, you know."

"I believe she was the source of some of the more… Colorful terms for you that were gratified all over London, in your support, of course," Mycroft said. "And Lestrade's supervisor found himself short a job after several rather interesting facts came to light about your case."

"And… John? How is he?" Sherlock asked, making a note the strange tightness that came when he asked about his friend, because John was his friend, his best friend.

"He's limp is back," Mycroft said. "And he wanted nothing to do with me at first, although he's become a little less hateful with each meeting."

"You're still kidnapping him." It wasn't a question, but somehow Sherlock had known this was coming. "And that doesn't answer the question. How is he, Mycroft? How… How badly did I hurt him?"

Mycroft sighed again. Why his brother wanted to hear news that would only hurt him, he had no idea. "He couldn't live at Baker Street for nearly five months. He hasn't gotten rid of anything of yours, but he did take up a job as a consultant for Scotland Yard."

Sherlock said nothing processing that, or rather, failing to. "It doesn't add up."

"Huh?" Shirlee spoke for the first time, and Mycroft noticed that she had been listening to something on a Blackberry.

"John's actions, they don't add up," Sherlock said. "I knew… It doesn't make any sense! If I hurt him so badly, why doesn't he just get rid of everything that reminds him of me?"

"Perhaps because he refuses to believe that you're actually dead," Mycroft said. Before, he might have said that caring was a disadvantage, but never again. "Rather good of him, don't you think?"

Sherlock just snorted decisively, glancing at Shirlee as he did so. She had gone back to teaching herself French. "He's probably going to punch me."

"You're going to let him."

"I deserve it."

"Have you always been this self-deprecating?" Shirlee asked, looking up again.

"Yes, he has."

"Huh. Good to know."

"I'm right here, you know," Sherlock said, rather annoyed by the fact that his brother and his…ward, were speaking as if he wasn't in the room.

"We know," Shirlee said before going back to her 'lessons'. Sherlock sighed. "I've got my work cut out for me," he muttered.

Mycroft spared him a look of sympathy.

XXXXXXX

Thanks to Mycroft, Sherlock was able to get into 221B Baker Street without anyone noticing. John will be gone for four days due to Lestrade insisting that he take a vacation, and Mrs. Hudson was out for a week visiting her sister. Which left Sherlock plenty of time to get Shirlee and himself set up.

He starts by tidying up the place. Sherlock lets Shirlee sleep in his bed the first night, and by the second he had refitted a previously unused room into a bedroom for the youth, with help from Mycroft. The third day started on the phone with Mrs. Hudson, and after promising he wouldn't be doing that to her again, he made managed to convince her to let him use 221C for his more dangerous experiments, so that Shirlee wouldn't be around dangerous chemicals and body parts, because even he knew that could be potentially scarring for a child; although when she snuck down and managed to go unobserved while he experimented with a foot, only announcing her presence by pointing out that there was a scar across the heel, Sherlock reasoned that it was still a good idea for everything not to be in the same flat as an adolescent was living in, and maybe now John wouldn't be as annoyed all the time.

Sherlock spent the fourth day waiting, and buying more groceries, for two reasons. The first was that even if Shirlee had proven to need less calories and sleep than the average person to function, she wasn't him, and needed to eat twice a day.

The second was because John would be upset enough to learn that he had tricked him; he didn't need to get scolded for not having got milk.

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Can anybody guess who Shirlee is?