A/N: So this is a semi-random idea I had after watching Reichenbach, combined with some slightly more serious thoughts, and I decided to combine them and turn them into a story. It means quite a bit to me, because I'm an outlier, and the ending is what I wish more people would think to themselves. Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and tell me what you think. ^-^
Lestrade knew that Sherlock Holmes was dead. He had seen the body, watched the burial. But Lord, if he didn't know any better, he'd have said that Sherlock had been reincarnated as a twelve year old boy outside a London café.
He had stopped there to get a much-needed coffee after work; after all, they had a massive inquiry going on right now (mostly, but not entirely involving him) of every case that Sherlock had ever 'assisted' the Yard with. Lestrade's neck was dangerously close to the chopping block, he knew, and he had found himself contemplating what it might be like to go solo, become a PI or something.
So, he had decided to take his time going back to what some of the other Yarders (well outside of the Chief Superintendent's hearing, of course) had termed the Pit of Drudgery, and stopped by a small, privately owned café. The only other patrons there were a family, the parents and their two children, a boy and a girl. The girl was only about six years old and was coloring in a picture from what looked rather like a biology coloring book. Lestrade ordered his coffee and took a seat at the table next to them. The boy glanced over at him.
"You shouldn't be late for work; you might get in trouble." Lestrade utilized his entire cop training to stop from doing a double take. How on earth could that kid know that he would be late? He decided to go with it, though, too used to Sherlock having done the same thing more times than he could count. He gave the boy a tired smile.
"Yeah, I'm in deep enough trouble as it is, stopping for a coffee is the least of my worries right now." The boy tilted his head sideways, looking half confused and half surprised.
"That's odd. You didn't ask how I knew; everyone asks how I know, but they never believe me when I tell them." Lestrade laughed.
"I had a friend who would do the same thing." Despite himself, he put in a slight hesitation before the word 'friend'. The boy nodded slowly, before,
"Did he die, or did you two have a falling out?" Lestrade looked at the top of the table, tapping his fingers against it.
"It was a little of both, I suppose."
"But it was more that he died." It was more a statement than a question. The boy's parents finally keyed into their conversation, and his mother reprimanded him for his forward behavior.
"Trevor, don't do that. We've told you people don't like you prying into their private lives."
"Sorry, mum." He turned back to Lestrade. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you."
"No, no, it's fine. I don't care, really. It's just that you remind me a lot of someone I knew. He was just like you, figuring out all these things about people even when he'd never met them before. No one could ever figure out how he did it, even when he talked us through it step by step."
"Well, I know how he felt," Trevor laughed. "People often think I'm lying to them, but I'm really not. I'm used to it, though. I'm not normal; I'm an outlier, and people always find the outliers… odd. It's not all bad, though. I can do things others can't, but they never quite look at me the same way as they do everyone else." Their conversation petered out after that; Lestrade had to return to work (loathe as he was at the prospect) and Trevor's family had finished their food and were going home.
Lestrade found his thoughts turning inward, as they had been prone to do, wondering if Trevor knew how much of an effect his words had had on the Inspector. Trevor was so much like Sherlock it was somewhat frightening; they even looked similar. Lestrade found himself wondering if that was how the tall man had felt as well, like no matter what he did the world would look at him differently. Lestrade had difficulty imagining what it must have been like to know that as a fact of your existence.
But then it had started to get better, hadn't it? Just a little bit at a time, and somehow that made what had happened even worse than it already was. First he had met John; Lestrade had known immediately that the doctor was different from anyone Sherlock had ever met, and he had found himself hoping John wouldn't follow the path so many of the detective's former 'acquaintances' had and leave him once the extent of the taller man's difficulties had become known.
And John had stayed, amazing them all even more by becoming Sherlock's actual friend, something Lestrade (who had known the detective for five years by that point) had begun to think he would never see happen. Lestrade had felt to himself that at last Sherlock had someone in his life who could just take him as he was, and it had made the DI happy to think about. His behavior had even begun to improve, living with John, and he was finally on the path to being, if not normal, then at least somewhat understandable.
Sherlock had even begun to count Lestrade as his friend, trusting the DI during that whole thing with the giant dog and the airborne hallucinogenic. Lestrade sighed as he thought of his relationship with the detective; Sherlock had (finally) grown to trust him and maybe, just maybe, actually like him. And so, in return, Lestrade had turned his back when the taller man had needed him most, instead of defending the man who had tried so hard to come out of his lifelong shell.
After the funeral, when John was looking through Sherlock's stuff (none of which they'd ended up actually giving away) he had come to Lestrade at work. He'd been looking inside the detective's desk, and had found something he wanted to return to the DI. It was a good half dozen of Lestrade's warrant badges, from all the years he'd known Sherlock.
"Strange as it is, I think that was kind of his way of showing affection for you; I don't know why he would have kept them otherwise." John didn't stay very long, which Lestrade understood; feeling between the doctor and Scotland Yard were approaching street fight levels. After he had gone, Lestrade had looked at the badges, feeling spectacularly awful.
He had one of them in his pocket right now, and he pulled it out and examined it, laying it flat on the table in front of him. There was a sliver of paper sticking out behind the photo; it read, 'if you ever manage to steal this back, I will concede the victory'. Lestrade gave a slight laugh and shook his head. Again, he found his thoughts wandering back to Trevor's statement earlier, and for some reason he began to grow angry; at himself, certainly, but largely at the world.
The world that had driven an innocent man (as far as Lestrade was concerned) to throw himself off of a roof for no better reason than that because he had not been like them, because he had been an outlier, they had happily and without thought assumed the worst lies about him. Sherlock had spent his whole life enduring the fact that he would at best be viewed through a different lens then everyone else, but still he had kept going until it looked like things were finally, just maybe, getting better for him. Then it had all come crashing down. The world had struck again, and the outlier had been forced out of the equation.
So, Lestrade decided something, sitting there at that table in a café trying to dodge work. He decided that he would never again believe what the world said about the outliers; he would never again look at someone sideways for not acting like the rest, or for seeing the world how no one else could. He had fallen for the world's lies once, rather than doing what he'd known to be right, and it had led to the death of one of the greatest men he'd ever known, simply because he didn't fit in with the rest, because he had been an outlier. Never again.