A/N – Okay so I'm experiencing Sherlock withdrawals and this idea has been floating around in my mind. Also, things may seem slightly OOC and dates and details may not quite add up but bear with me.
And you throw your head back laughing like a little kid
I think it's strange that you think I'm funny 'cause he never did
I've been spending the last eight months
Thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end
But on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again
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Born on 17th February 1995, Imogen Scarlett Holmes was alert and bright-eyed from the beginning. When first handed to her father, the drug addled detective Sherlock Holmes, she clung to his comparably large finger with her tiny pink fist as though it were a life force. It was then and there that Sherlock decided that he would protect his little girl in any way he knew possible and, he knew, that meant kicking his heroin habit.
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Months later, the detective returned to the home he shared with Jane Richardson, Imogen's mother, clean and sober, only to find she'd taken up with some brute of a man. He'd been gone too long and without warning, she claimed. Could he at least see their child? He asked her, a rare pleading look in his eyes. No, she announced with finality in her weed and alcohol induced state. He could have cried, he could have threatened her with his brother but he didn't. Instead, he left and resorted to writing letters to his little girl in the hopes that once she was able to read them, she'd understand why he left.
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Three years later, Imogen sat in a taxi, one of her father's letters in hand, the one with his address written on it. The words 221B Baker Street held such hope to her.
She'd gotten sick of it all. Jane would leave her, sometimes for days at a time, with Stuart – a man who insisted he was her stepfather – not caring that the three-year-old was being beaten and abused in any way possible by the swine. So one day, while her mother nursed a hangover and Stuart was out cold, she packed her tiny pink suitcase with her books and pyjamas and ran away, away to the place where her father lived.
Upon arrival, she paid the nice man who drove the taxi the money she'd accrued from her mother's purse and clambered out, pink suitcase and stuffed bunny trailing behind her. It took quite an effort to carry both the suitcase and the bunny up the stairs to the front door but she did it. She knocked three times and hoped for an answer.
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When Mrs Martha Hudson answered the door, she was surprised to see a little girl stood on the doorstep clutching tightly onto a stuffed bunny and a pink wheelie suitcase. She had black hair that hung in ringlets and eyes that couldn't seem to make up their mind as to a colour. Her cheekbones were high and her nose pointed downwards towards her butterfly lips. However, the girl's resemblance to the tenant of 221B wasn't what shocked Mrs Hudson, it was the bruises that dotted the girl's small, pale frame. Who could do such a thing to a child so young? "Hello, are you lost?" the middle aged woman asked, a kindly smile on her face.
Here, the girl shocked Mrs Hudson yet again "No, I'm not lost per se. I'm looking for my father, Sherlock Holmes, he's a detective. And you must be Mrs Hudson, his landlady not his housekeeper," the small girl surmised and Mrs Hudson's jaw dropped. The girl couldn't be older than three and yet she spoke like she were eighteen.
"You'd best come in then," the landlady said, shaking her head at how similar the young girl was to Sherlock.
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He saw her for the first time since the day she was born, battered and bruised and standing in his living room. He was shocked, she looked so much like him and yet she couldn't be the tiny girl he'd left. Jane wouldn't have hurt their little girl, would she? He was about to ask about her marks when she said "You look like me," her tone was so innocent and yet the look in her eyes said otherwise, it said she'd experienced pain.
Still, he smirked, he couldn't help – it was a reflex. "Well, because I'm older, you'll find that you look like me," he corrected and watched as she rolled her eyes.
"Yes but it's from my perspective so to me you look like me and to you I look like you," she explained, nervously tucking a stray curl behind her ears. Had she said the right thing? He smiled, yes she had.
"Goodness, you're both very alike aren't you?" Mrs Hudson interjected and the two Holmes rolled their eyes. Captain Obvious had struck again.
"Of course we are Mrs Hudson, she's my daughter after all," Sherlock said proudly.
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From that day onwards, Imogen and her father were as thick as thieves. She'd help him with experiments and he'd tell her bedtime stories; he'd let her sleep in his bed after a nightmare and she'd pick out everyone's Christmas and birthday presents. She knew that she could tell him anything and he knew the same of her.
When Imogen was fourteen, John came along and the little unit expanded by one. Not that Imogen minded really. It meant that she could hang out with her – very few – friends and not feel guilty about leaving her father alone.
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She'd been at school in the middle of lunch when John rang to tell her about the fall. After Kitty Riley's article very few had stayed friends and she was with the few who'd remained by her side that afternoon. She answered the phone, knowing that John only phoned during school hours if there was an emergency. He sounded distraught and she'd never heard John sound like that. "You may need to sit down," he'd said and fear started to engulf her.
"What is it? D-did Moriarty do something? Is Mrs Hudson okay? W-where's dad?" she asked, question after question flowing from her mouth in a nervous stream of consciousness. An arm snaked around her shoulder in an attempt at comfort, she wouldn't learn until later that it was her best friend, Alec's, arm.
She heard John take a deep breath and knew the news must be far worse than she could have imagined "Y-your dad jumped off the roof of St. Barts," he said and her breath hitched in shock.
"I-is he a-alive?" she stuttered out hoping for the best all the while fearing the worst. Tears streamed down her face as she awaited his response.
"No," he told her and she started to struggle for air as realisation hit her right in the gut. Sherlock would never see her graduate from university, he'd never get to walk her down the aisle, he'd never hold his grandchildren. He would miss all of the milestones left in her life and that hurt more than any injury her former stepfather had given her.
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The funeral was the worst part. She'd had to turn down all of her university offers, even with the scholarships Oxford and Cambridge had offered her, there was no way she could afford it all.
It almost felt like someone was playing a practical joke on her. Only John, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade Imogen and, strangely, Anderson were upset at all.
She hated the dress she'd chosen for the event, she'd been too numb to pick something halfway comfortable and had picked the first black dress in her wardrobe. The satin scratched at her skin and the high neck felt more like a dog collar than a part of a dress.
Her Uncle Mycroft smoked cigarettes throughout the whole service and lord knew where her Uncle Sherrinford was. She hadn't seen him in years though so there weren't any surprises there.
Shockingly, Imogen was leaning on Irene Adler and starting to appreciate the dominatrix's company. Her father would laugh at that were he alive and she knew it. Still, Irene acted as a pillar of strength and the teenage girl needed that more than anything.
Strangely, Molly was calm. The mousy pathologist hadn't shed a single tear for the detective she'd supposedly been in love with. Were it not for the fact that Imogen was so distraught, she would have found it suspicious.
Odder still, Imogen realised, her grandparents – Violet and Siger Holmes – weren't upset at all by their son's death. That raised a few red flags, maybe Sherlock Holmes wasn't dead after all. No, that was a ridiculous notion. Imogen had seen and identified the body, knew the height from which he'd jumped, he couldn't be alive.