It was a late Sunday evening in early Spring as Sherlock Holmes, world's only consulting detective, sat quietly in his flat at 221B Baker Street. He has spent an enjoyable afternoon at the home of John and Mary Watson, and their toddler daughter, his godchild, Claire. Sherlock had been surprised at how easily he had fallen in love with the child. Sociopaths are not noted for their affections, after all. Perhaps he should reconsider his self-diagnosis.
In any case, he found Claire to be enchanting. He loved studying her. The way she learned things, her unguarded expressions, her unfiltered declarations of joy, or anger, or affection. He had to admit that he rather liked being on the receiving end of the later, much to his surprise. It seemed that he did not regard the expression of sentiment to be a weakness in the child, and, he had to admit to himself, he had come to think he had been mistaken as to its value in adults as well. He had made a few visits to his mind palace to better gather his thoughts on the subject, but had always been distracted.
Lately, when Sherlock made his way to his inner sanctum, his self-labelled "mind palace", he had the most disturbing feeling that he was not alone. He would hear giggles echoing through the corridors, a disembodied childish voice. He knew that, despite himself, he had become thoroughly charmed by the Watson's spawn, but had not expected her to make her way into this most private of places. On each occasion he had found himself smiling at her supposed presence, his mood lifted a bit as he went about his meditations. But this evening, when he entered his mind palace to review some minor point of an even more minor case, he found that he was too distracted to continue along these lines, and instead decided to go in pursuit of the giggling child, just to see where she would lead him. His mind palace was, after all, his own subconscious mind, and he always found himself quite interesting, indeed.
With this intention, he concentrated until he heard the tinkling of the child's laugh more clearly, and headed off in hot pursuit. The quest led him to a section of his palace dedicated solely to his circle of friends. There were no headless corpses, or types of weaponry, or even varieties of tobacco ash to be found along these corridors. No, in fact, this was a relatively new wing, as he had not found himself in need of such a facility until a few years ago. His life before then had been all business. The Work. Or the drugs. Or Mycroft, who had been previously relegated to the dungeon, although now had been upgraded to a third floor walk-up. Mummy and Papa had their own little self-contained nest in a sunny turret, happy as clams and seldom visited. Just as in the outside world!
The child's laughter was coming from one of the corridors leading to a series of rooms, some large, some small. As he rounded a corner he caught a glimpse of a small figure, although still somewhat taller than Claire, and certainly more steady on her feet. Or his feet? Sherlock couldn't be sure. Her hair was much darker than his godchild's, but the curls were still there. Sherlock knew that Claire's was bound to darken with age. John liked to say that she had her mother's blond hair, but everyone knew that Mary's blond hair was mostly of the bottle variety. But this child's hair was very dark, indeed, and Sherlock was now completely puzzled.
Only in an otherworldly place such as a mind palace could the tall man's longer strides not overtake the child's short skips with ease, but Sherlock found himself merely keeping pace, not catching up. The kid was leading him on an extended chase, and seemingly enjoying it. She would look over her shoulder occasionally, as if to assure herself that he was still following, and then continue skipping onward, sometimes giggling, sometimes singing a nursery rhyme, always smiling. That is until she tripped over her own flying feet and fell in a heap on the uncarpeted floor. Who puts carpets in a mind palace, after all? Sherlock quickly closed the distance, and fell to his knees to comfort the now sobbing little girl. For, indeed, it was a girl.
"Are you alright?", he asked with concern, while he examined her scraped knee.
"My knee hurts," the little girl replied through her broken sobs. "I want my mummy!" When she said this, the child finally raised her face to look at the man who knelt on the floor so close to her, and who was now gazing down, surprised, yet not completely, at what he observed. A delicately built girl of about four, with wild dark curls, and the most meltingly beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen. Or, perhaps, the second most beautiful.
"Is you mummy here?"
"She's always here! You know that!"
"Yes, I suppose I do. Come on, then, let's get going!" And he scooped her up into his arms, hoisted her up onto his shoulders, and headed toward the oldest, and by far the largest, room in this section of the mind palace. "I'm surprised your mother lets you out to wander around so much. You could get into trouble, you know. There's lots of rather unpleasant things in here."
"Mummy says you'd never let anything happen to me. And you should see what Jack gets into!"
"Who's Jack?" Sherlock asked, but had the feeling he already knew.
"My big brother, of course. He's named after Uncle John, but everybody calls him Jack!"
"And what's your name, may I ask?"
"You should know! You named me!"
"Ah! Mary Margaret, then. Your mother's real Christian name. But that leaves so many options. So, what do they call you? Mary? No, that would confuse you with your Aunt Mary…"
"Maggie! I'm Maggie! Because you said you could never call me Molly, because there is only one Molly!"
"True," Sherlock said with a smile, just as he reached the door of Molly Hooper's room, where she had apparently been hiding a couple of rather important developments. Or dreams. He put the child down gently in front of the door, ruffled her curls, and gave her a kiss on her cheek.
"Mummy says you do that to her all the time. She says it fus..fruta...frustrating!" Maggie stomped her feet. "Aren't you coming in?"
"Not this time. It would appear I have some matters to take care of in the real world."
"Will I see you again?"
"Indeed. I'm on my way to discuss the matter with your mother at this very moment!"
"But it so late now. Won't she be mad if you wake her up?" For some reason the little girl had no difficulty separating mind palace Molly from real world Molly. But one could only expect such intelligence from the daughter of Sherlock Holmes!
"I hope not. I don't think so. But I could be wrong, so keep your fingers crossed." Sherlock snickered as the child made a great effort of crossing eight fingers, and finally her two thumbs. "Now you get in there and tell your mum that you've handled everything quite well. And you didn't have to resort to hitting me with a ton of bricks!" Maggie smiled knowingly as she opened the door and entered the room.
Sherlock Holmes bolted upright from his chair, grabbed his Belstaff and headed to Molly Hooper's flat, despite the lateness of the hour. After all, he had showed up at even odder hours, and for far less important, and less, pleasant reasons. Maggie had indicated that her mother was feeling a bit frustrated by his habit of kissing her on the cheek, and this was a problem he could certainly remedy, and the sooner the better.