1)
My dearest Rosie,
Today is your eighteenth birthday, and I hope to God you aren't reading this. If you are, it means I'm not there to celebrate with you. It means I'm dead.
Sorry for the cliché.
I want you to know, that no matter the circumstances of my death, I loved you more than life itself. You were the most important person in the world to me, and I was so incredibly lucky to have been your father.
I'm hoping this never reaches you, but if it does I hope you have your mother's smile and determination. I hope you're stubborn and set in your ways like me. I hope you don't put up with shit like your godmother Molly, you are generous with your love like your godmother Martha, and I hope you are a loyal and kind friend like your uncle Greg.
I have a job for you, and you are going to need determination, stubbornness, loyalty, kindness, and the ability to see through someone's bullshit.
Together you and I are going to save your godfather's life, whether he likes it or not. I don't know what kind of shape he's in, or for how long he's been that way, but if I'm not there, I promise he will have spiraled down a path of self-destruction even he thinks he won't be able to crawl out of. There will have been attempts before to save him, and he will have brushed them off before.
You are going to have to show him that Watsons are made of sterner stuff than even his older brother.
I'm warning you now, this is not an easy job I have unfortunately been forced to give you. Your godfather is the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant, and all around obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet. He will voluntarily and openly explain to anyone that questions him that all emotions stand opposed to the pure cold reason he holds above all else. He will openly admit, even to people who don't ask, that he is a high-functioning sociopath.
If he is behaving in the way that I suspect he will be if something happens to me, those spectacular qualities of his are going to be magnified. He will have isolated himself and will probably be abusing drugs. No matter the situation, rest assured, he will not be a danger to you.
Keep a close eye on any civilians you bring into contact with him though. I cannot promise his self-control will extend to innocent bystanders.
If you know him already, then you know who and what you are up against. If you don't, then the situation is worse than I thought, and I'm sorry for putting you through this. However, I promise you are the only one who can save him. You're the only one he will listen and respond to. It's a cross us Watsons have to bear and now that privilege belongs to you.
I'm going to assume that you don't know what you're walking into, so I suppose we should start at the beginning.
His name is Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker Street.
Sherlock groaned, covering his eyes against the dim light that flooded his flat. The pounding noise he had originally attributed to ambient noise in his mind palace suddenly registered as a tangible force. Sherlock squinted suspiciously at the door from his prone position on the couch; the whole of London knew he didn't take cases anymore. He couldn't even recall the last time Mrs. Hudson had visited.
Mycroft was the only person who could be counted upon to continue to try to impose his presence on Sherlock, and even then, he usually just let himself in, standing disapprovingly in the doorway until Sherlock drove him away.
The pounding on his door stopped for a long moment, and Sherlock could swear he heard annoyed murmuring on the other side. Then it took up again, if possible, louder than before.
Something that felt vaguely like curiosity tickled the back of his mind and before he'd had time to consider the action he was rolling off the couch, stepping over the coffee table, and wrenching the door open with a scowl he hoped would send even the most determined solicitor running for cover.
Standing on the other side of the door was not, in fact, a salesperson or his brother, but John Watson, looking the same as he had when he'd died. Sherlock had hallucinated John before, did so on a regular basis in fact, but the hallucinations had never been so loud and persistent in their quest for his attention.
They'd also never shown up at his doorway, shoved past him, or began looking around his flat disapprovingly before.
Sherlock dazedly shut the door and turned to face the intruder into his flat. His vision swam as he looked at it, and when be blinked the haziness away, he realized it wasn't John at all, but a young woman wearing jeans, converse, and a light brown long sleeved top. Her blonde hair was pinned up in a messy bun on top of her head, and when she turned around to look at him silver dog tags hung around her neck.
When Sherlock met her gaze with his own, the eyes staring back at him were familiar, and he knew exactly who was standing among the startled dust motes in the middle of the sitting area of his flat.
"Rosie." he said, voice rasping against his throat.
"Good deduction," she said, voice displaying her disapproval even more. Underneath it though, was something in her eyes he couldn't quite put his finger on. John would have known what it was, but John hadn't been there for years.
And that was the problem.
"You can't be here," Sherlock forced out, needing her gone. "You need to leave."
Rosie twitched her lips at him, arms crossed and with a raised eyebrow that made her look so much like her mother it made Sherlock's chest hurt. "That's not going to happen."
Sherlock attempted to pull himself up to his full height in order to tower over the young woman who was slightly shorter than her father. He could tell from her expression he wasn't intimidating her very well.
"You will leave or I will call…"
"My parents?" she interrupted. She ignored Sherlock's flinch and took a step towards him. "Go ahead. I dare you."
Sherlock stepped back from Rosie and she stopped moving. He took that moment to try and read her, but his mind was trapped in a swirling fog he couldn't quite push through. All he knew at that precise moment was that Rosie couldn't be anywhere near him. He was dangerous; he was bad; he'd gotten both her parents killed.
He'd made a vow to protect the young woman standing in front of him, and the closer she was to him, the further away from safety she was.
Rosie had been waiting patiently while he worked through things in his head, and was leaning against her father's old chair when he refocused on her.
"Where's…Molly?" he asked. At Rosie's questioning look, he twitched a hand towards her. "Isn't she supposed to be looking after you? Why has she let you come here?"
"Because I'm an adult and Molly is my godmother, not my keeper or jailer."
"Only because she isn't doing her job properly," Sherlock grumbled under his breath, turning towards the kitchen. He paused for a moment, before turning back to her. "You're an adult? When did that happen?"
She smiled slightly, the same way her Mary did when she thought he was being especially slow. "Yeah. Thanks for noticing. It was last week."
"Many happy returns," Sherlock ground out grudgingly. "Leave."
"Make me."
Sherlock stared at her incredulously. "I will."
"Okay."
He ground his teeth in frustration but didn't make a move towards her. "Get. Out. Now." He even pointed to the door helpfully.
When he didn't make a move towards her, Rosie smile brightened triumphantly, as if he'd answered a question she hadn't asked. She pushed John's chair and held her hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, I'm going. I just thought I'd introduce myself to my new flatmate before I moved in and freaked him out."
Rosie had a hand on the doorknob when her words registered in his brain. "What?" Sherlock asked, whirling around to look at her.
She looked over at him with a stubborn set to her eyes that reminded Sherlock of her father. "You heard me. I'll be by tomorrow with Greg to start cleaning up the room upstairs."
"No," Sherlock said firmly.
"Tomorrow at about noon, I think. Greg is not a morning person unless he has to be. I'm sure you remember. Plus, he was oddly reluctant to come with me tomorrow." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Wonder why that would be."
Sherlock glared at her. "Because I don't take kindly to unwelcome visitors, Rosamund."
She smiled brightly as she left the flat. "Good thing I'm not a visitor then, William."
He pinched his lips together angrily and moved to watch her skip quickly down the stairs. "What are you then?" he called out, hoping it sounded like a challenge.
Rosie turned at the front door, meeting his stare head on and without fear, trepidation, or any evidence at all that she was put off by him.
"I'm your new flatmate. And your goddaughter."
Rosie waved sweetly and then left the flat calling out a goodbye as she left. Even through the fog that lay over his brain, he noticed she used the door knocker to shut the door.
He sighed and slammed the door shut, hard, hoping it would annoy Mrs. Hudson and that Rosie would be able to hear it and his anger from the street.
When he turned around, the hallucination of John that he was used to seeing was leaning up against the same spot Rosie had been moments before. "You could have just taken her arm and forced her to leave," the hallucination said.
Sherlock frowned at the grey-haired man in front of him, wearing a tan jumper and jeans that looked eerily similar to what Rosie had been wearing.
"Piss off," Sherlock muttered, slamming doors and obstacles in his way as he moved towards his bedroom. When he slammed that door shut too, he glared at the hallucination of John leaning against the far wall.
Both he and his hallucination knew he hadn't physically escorted her out of the flat by her arm because they both knew he'd never lay a hand on John and Mary Watson's daughter.
He flopped face first onto his bed, disturbing dust and a large pile of junk as he did.
"You like her," John said from his position in the corner of his room.
"Shut up," Sherlock grumbled, voice muffled by the pillow.
As John's laugh followed him down into a hazy sleep, Sherlock's dreams were filled with blonde hair and grey-blue eyes.
Somewhere, deep in the dark corners of his mind palace, a soft, weak light began to glow.
