Before anyone gets confused, this follows Lucy, John and Mary's second daughter; I think Sherlock would have a bias towards the younger sibling anyway. And say what you will about Mary, I will continue to believe that she survives until Moffat the Troll inevitably kills her. First Sherlock fic, tell me what you think please!


The Daughter and the Detective: I

Lucy Watson buried her head in her hands and smeared her fingers down her face. She was getting a nasty headache and her eyes were burning from lack of sleep; but after this much effort, nothing was going to keep her from solving the puzzle.

Sighing deeply, she removed her hands and blinked until her tired eyes focused again, quickly resuming her scrutiny of the images on the page before her.

...A duke kneeling before a king...beside a yellow beach...orange fish jumping out of the ocean next to them...trees and mountains fringing up in the background...a garishly colored sun shining through the clouds…delegations from both sides lining up behind the two dignitaries...

Two pictures. Exact same image. The exact same image. Every section, every color, every minute detail was completely and totally similar. Of course they were, they had to be!

Lucy had poured over them constantly, night and day, using every method she knew—glanced away and then right back; crossed her eyes so they focused on the separate images and saw them simultaneously; taken them squared inches by squared inches and compared ruthlessly; even referred to her older sister's opinion as a last resort, and it wasn't like Grace could observe to save a life.

And still those two images were Just. The. Same.

But yet, somehow, the handwriting at the top spelled clearly, "SPOT THE DIFFERENCE." It was her godfather's handwriting—just as distinctive as his voice. By now, that handwriting was mocking her: "Can't figure it out, can you, hm? The time's ticking away, Luce. I thought you'd said you were getting better at these things?"

Her nostrils flared at the thought and she crossed her eyes again, hoping they'd spot the trick, but the shooting pains in her brain forced her to relax again and massage the throbbing migraine.

He'd handed her the page three days ago.

"Give this one a try," he'd said with the hint of a smirk in his eyes. "See if you can figure it out."

"Stain glass windows?" she'd asked, taking it from him, arching an eyebrow. "You are kidding, right? Like a kid's coloring book? It's so simple. It's pre-sectioned off—the eye spots differences immediately."

"We'll see."

"I can do it."

The skin beneath his eyes lifted just enough—amusement, mischief, curiosity—to tell her he was concealing a smile.

"We'll see."

Three. Damn. Days. Ago.

"Lucy?"

Were the crowns different perhaps?

"Lucy."

Maybe a different angle? She spun the paper ninety degrees.

"Lucy Watson!"

Her head popped up and she felt the back of her neck warm with color. Twenty-one sets of eyes were trained on her, one of them her French teacher's, Madame Ross'.

Oh.

Right.

Lucy cleared her throat.

"Ah—Pardon?"

"Could we take the translation, please, Ms. Watson?"

Lucy glanced down at the book in her lap, open to a story that had probably been translated aloud a long time before while she was concentrating on the pictures.

So...Just what page was the class on now?

Her eyes flicked up and around the room for answers.

Madame Ross' lips were pursed in annoyance. This was the second time Lucy had been caught ignoring the lesson since Monday, and by now the French teacher was showing no mercy—so there would be no help from her. The boy to Lucy's left—Nicholas, wasn't it?—had turned his page up so that she couldn't read off his book and pretend she was doing so out of her own—apparently he'd figured out her trick then.

Damn—she'd have to get creative. Lucky for her, she'd spent half her childhood with a high-functioning sociopath doing his very best to indoctrinate her into his way of thinking. After all, she had been the prime choice for an apprentice, since Grace, three years her senior, had been amicably dismissed by the time she was five. Lucy wasn't anywhere near as good as her godfather would have preferred her to be—a fact he liked to go on a rant about whenever he fancied—but: she was still leaps and bounds ahead of her classmates as far as intellect went.

A quick glance behind Nicholas proved fruitless—there were no reflective water bottles, glasses, or screens she could she could use to decipher his book and the angles were wrong for her to see anyone else's. She was in the front of the room too—so there would be no hints from before, none from behind, and none to the left.

To the right? The girl had her book in her lap. Dammit. Further to the right? Bad angles. Not legible. Dammit again. But—there was the open window on the right wall. And if she leaned back just a little, it would be reflecting the open pages of the boy beneath it.

'Le mouvement écologique a commencé en France dans les années 1970…'

Oh yes, simple really. Regardless of the fact that it was backwards and upside down—oh! the exercises she'd been drilled in when it came to ridiculous reading situations—the translation itself was basic knowledge.

She glanced down at the book in her lap again and pretended to translate.

"The ecological movement began in France in the 1970's but it only really developed in the 1980's…" a glance at the window to memorize the rest, "…when ecological conscience was awakened by major crises such as Chernobyl in 1986, the greenhouse effect, and oil spills."

Unable to help her cheek, Lucy looked up and batted her eyelashes at the teacher.

"Correct," Madame Ross said, obviously disgruntled. "Thank you for that Ms. Watson."

Lucy smiled vaguely, held the other woman's gaze for just a moment, and began to duck her head again to examine the pictures.

"Just a moment!"

Lucy winced despite herself, and she could just hear the voice of a certain special someone berating her for showing guilt. After all, one was only caught when one allowed themselves to be. Carefully schooling an expression of mild confusion onto her face, Lucy resurfaced, leveling her gaze with the French teacher's.

Madame Ross adjusted her glasses.

"Lucy, what were we on about this time?"

"I-I'm sorry—?"

"What were we doing when weren't we weren't following along?" Madame Ross asked, her voice steely.

It was best to just play dumb—everyone knew better anyway so it wasn't as though her classmates would think her ditzy; and in any case, a teacher could argue a student's intentions only so far.

"I'm afraid I zoned out," Lucy replied, carrying enough guilt in her voice to sound believable.

"You never just zone out," Madame Ross insisted. "What was it this time?" She was apparently quite tired of Lucy pursuing other (arguably more important) matters during her class and was going to embarrass or badger the girl into giving the practice up.

"I was just..." Lucy shrugged. "Thinking through another assignment, I suppose. Very sorry."

"For which class?"

Dog with a bone, this one. Lucy controlled the urge to puff her cheeks out with frustration.

"It was only—"

"Hello? Yes, excuse me, hello," came a new voice.

Gasps and hardly-hushed whispers abounded as twenty-two pairs of eyes fixed on the man at the door, one of the Madame Ross,' one of them Lucy Watson's. The girl's face split into a wide grin.

"Sherlock Holmes," whispered Nicholas to the boy on his left. "Really, look, it's the Hat Detective. Trench coat and everything."

"Not interrupting anything important, am I?" asked the man of the moment, ignoring the teacher and addressing Lucy directly.

"Not really," she replied, fully aware that she was knocking the lesson. "Why, do you need me?"

He winked at her in affirmation.

"Grab your things."

Lucy grinned again and snatched up her schoolbag, slid her books and pens into it, and rose to her feet all in one fluid motion. She was shrugging on her coat when a sputtering from the teacher's direction caught her attention.

"Sorry," Madame Ross managed to get out. "We're very sorry." Lucy glanced to her godfather and Sherlock arched an eyebrow at her in disbelief. This woman wasn't really about to stand up against them, was she?

"We're very, very sorry Mr. Holmes," Madame Ross continued, the levels of irritation and disremorse mounting in her tone with each 'very sorry.' "But I don't think we're aware of something important. We don't have the right to take Lucy out of school."

"Is that so?" Sherlock murmured, delving into one of his deep pockets. "This permission slip states otherwise. Signed by both her parents, see?" he produced the piece of paper with a flourish.

Lucy bit her tongue and refused herself the desire to crack a smile. What was this, the fifth permission slip Sherlock had produced in the semester? She glanced over the page and noted the signatures with approval. Sherlock was definitely improving in his forgery hobby.

"She has a dentist's appointment," he said simply, as though this cleared everything away and made for the door.

"Very, very sorry! But I'm afraid we're still missing another very important detail," said Madame Ross, adjusting her glasses again. "Miss Watson has already missed four classes this semester."

"And?" replied Sherlock drily. Murmurs fluttered across the room again as the students sensed an argument. Lucy quietly continued to pack her things into her bag.

"And it's only March!" Madame Ross said stuffily. "If we keep this up, we won't get enough credits for the class."

Sherlock sighed and leant his head back.

"Are you noticing that?" he drawled, addressing the ceiling for all the world to see.

"...The 'Royal We'?" Lucy supplied, assuming he had intended the question for her. "I am. ...Enlightening, isn't it?"

"Quite," he said softly, scrutinizing a flickering fluorescent light. "...And all the more reason to get you out of here as soon as possible. Come along then." Sherlock finished his contemplation of the ceiling panels and made to exit, Lucy in tow, when Madame Ross made a sharp noise.

"Just a moment!" she cried.

The pair pivoted around to fix her with identical looks of condescension—Lucy hadn't begged to be her godfather's pupil for nothing and after all, one was bound to learn a bit more than just deduction skills under his tutoring, general patronizing habits included. But apparently, Madame Ross had stronger mettle than the average person (or perhaps a more superior dose of stupidity) for she plunged onward.

"I'll have you know, Lucy can't leave school like this, it's not allowed." She readjusted her glasses again and crossed her arms. "Note or no note, I'm very sorry, but there's a process that must be gone through and I cannot sanction this.

Sherlock sighed.

"I didn't want to have to do this," Lucy heard him mutter under his breath.

"Yes you did," she breathed. Sherlock cut his eyes at her slyly—that was amusement and bit of pride in her showing through—causing her to blush with pleasure. He dipped his head slightly, as if to agree with the deduction he knew she'd just made, before redirecting his attention to Madame Ross.

"And why is that?" he said, furrowing his brow with sarcasm at the teacher. "Just why can't Lucy leave school?" She opened her mouth to respond but he cut across her, his irritation obviously growing. "No! Don't speak, it was rhetorical. Lucy has an average of a 98 in this class, which, judging from your other pupils' faces, not to mention your own, is higher than all the rest except for..." his eyes flicked about, "...the pair sitting over there in the corner."

He pointed to two students sitting in the back row, who both jumped and squirmed under his gaze.

"One of whom," Sherlock continued, "Has no hobbies, jobs, interests, or real talent outside of schoolwork—" he turned back and threw at the student in question: "Try all you might, you're not helping yourself if you only ingest this status quo curriculum; and the second child—" The finger shifted. "Is skating by via paying another student who is—?"

He quirked his head towards Lucy in question.

"Two years older," she offered immediately.

"Very good—two years older for their recycled papers and assignments. You may want to compare against the record or even simply against the child's own intellect. It should be obvious that he is not the one writing the assignments he's turning in.

"So to be clear, I find that if anyone can, Lucy is certainly capable of catching up on all the French translations she needs to, wouldn't you agree?" He finished with a smirk as Madame Ross mouthed the words 'French translations;' for Sherlock had just said them as though her class had been working in a coloring book instead of a text-tome.

"But you—" She tried.

"Thank you madam, I'll have her back before the end of the day!"

And, with one arm sweeping the girl out of her class, the other firmly gripping the handle, the door was slammed shut in the French teacher's face.


A/N: Came up with this one upon a midnight dreary. And no, that's not me being poetic, that's just me half-way excusing the premise. My deprived, exhausted mind cooked this up but I really did fall in love with Lucy (and even Grace,) so while they're not write-ins, please tell me what you think of them as far as OC's go because a bad OC is the most annoying thing on the planet. My judgment, as I've said, is too biased and will be disregarded. Critics—even rude ones—you are formally invited to flame this as you deem appropriate. That is all.