Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to BBC's Sherlock or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes or anything like that.

Sherlock spent most of his time while he was not a school visiting his Aunt Rebecca Holmes. His mother had always found him to be a difficult child while he was young and so by the time he was eight, he was spending every holiday at his aunt's house in the forest. Normally, he would spend all day out in the forest exploring and learning everything he could. He knew he would surprise Rebecca by being home before lunch time, but he hoped it would be a pleasant surprise. He could read that it was in the crinkles of skin that formed in the corners of her eyes as she smiled when he presented her with the flowers and a light kiss to her cheek.

"You are home earlier than I expected. Will you want lunch?" she asked as she busied herself with finding a vase and filling it with water.

"Yes, thank you." Sherlock had always respected his aunt, loved her even. Since he was young she had filled the role of mother when his own was distant. She had always been pleasant and seemed to enjoy living secluded in the country – though the rest of the Holmes family seemed to enjoy speculating aloud as to why she was still single.

The two felt little need to talk after that. Sherlock knew his aunt enjoyed silence when she was cooking, with the exception of classical music – Bach today – set for background music. This gave him the perfect situation for studying for his next classes and just thinking in general. He brought his current book – something on geology – to the kitchen table and they kept each other company while she cooked.

Ordinarily, Sherlock would have no trouble learning his coursework for the next term, but today he found his mind wandering. There had never been anyone in the forest before, at least no one near his age. This girl had appeared from nowhere and Sherlock struggled to make sense of it.

Over an hour later Rebecca was instructing Sherlock to put away his book and setting a plate of food in front of him – food that for the next five minutes simply got pushed around his plate by his fork.

"Alright, Sherlock," his aunt cut through his thoughts. "Out with it. I mean, I know I'm not the best cook in the world, but I'm decent. So what is bothering you?" She was joking of course. Sherlock's aunt was the best cook he had ever met, so he briefly smiled before exhaling loudly and frowning.

"I met someone today, out in that clearing just past the old fence," Sherlock informed her.

"Oh?" Rebecca was truly curious now. Very few people wandered around out there because there was simply no reason to.

"Yes, a girl, about my age," he continued. "She just appeared."

Rebecca thought for a moment before replying, she also took the time to help herself to a mouthful of food, much to Sherlock's irritation. "Well," he replied finally, "that certainly is odd, but the McClain family down the road has a daughter who I suppose is just a few years younger than you. Do you remember? You met her when you were twelve, really big on physics that year if I remember correctly."

Sherlock did remember the girl. She had pushed over his newest experiment at the time and dumped the marbles he had been using all over the floor. He grimaced and the memory, causing his aunt to laugh. "No, it wasn't her. I would remember the girl who had ruined a perfectly good experiment. The girl I met today said her name was Molly."

He watched his aunt puzzle over this bit of information then hum noncommittally. "I don't know Sherlock; things have been changing so fast around here recently that I suppose there simply must be a new family that I don't know about."

Sherlock wasn't really pleased with that answer, but figured it was the best he would get from his aunt. He knew when his aunt had an explanation that suited her, that was the last she worried about it, but his mind could not let him be.

OoOoOoOo

After Molly had grown tired of sitting in the tree, she decided she had no other choice than to head back home. There was plenty of work on spring days like this for a fairy, especially for a healing fairy like Molly.

All fairies know the basics of the world around them, but there is so much in the world that, at the same time that a brood of fairies choose their talismans, they also choose aspecialtyfor their magic. Molly had always favored working with those fairies who had gotten ill and the animals that were sometimes brought into her care.

Spring was an unbelievably busy season for healing fairies – perhaps only exceeded by the flower fairies – because of all the young animals that arrived in the world as the season progressed. To add to the chaos that accompanied the new little ones, this season there seemed to be some sort of flu making the rounds through the fairy population. So when Molly arrived at the healing rooms located underneath the roots of one of the larger trees of the forest, she was not at all surprised to find it packed with all sorts of fairies and small animals.

"Oh, there you are Molly. I was beginning to wonder where you had gone to. Bed three needs a consultation and bed five is ready for discharge." Michael, the head healer and teacher for the youngest recruits, greeted Molly the second she flew into the rooms.

"On it!" Molly replied as she worked her way through the crowd towards bed three on the left wall of the rectangular, tree-root-lined room. As she tucked her wings behind her back before she started working Molly could feel the odd looks from around the room. It had gotten better as she grew up and people found better things to worry about, but every once in a while there was still someone. Molly shook off the stares though, and the feelings that accompanied them, before walking to bed three.

A young male fairy sat on the bed that Molly had been assigned to. His face was black and blue, and his nose looked broken. When Molly pulled back the spider silk curtain separating his bed from the others though he smiled widely despite his wounds. "It looks like my luck just got a whole lot better for me to get the prettiest healer here."

"I must not be the prettiest nurse here. If you were really lucky then you wouldn't have gotten into a fist fight." Molly knew that the boy's words were nothing more than harmless flirting; he wasn'teven old enough to specialize yet.

"Well, you're wrong, they must have punched the lucky right into me. My name is Wiggins, but everyone calls me Wigs." He offered and hand to Molly and she took it for a brief moment before pulling a length of gauzeoff the shelves.

"So what did a youngling like you do to get into so much trouble?" she asked as she started cleaning the cuts on Wigs' face.

The young fairy sobered immediately and looked at the woven pine needle mat covering the floor. "A couple of the boys two years above me were making fun of my wings," he whispered as he unfolded his wings from their resting position. Wigs' wings were a light blue that mirrored the clear sky outside with the exception of different sized black speckles that dotted both the upper and lower wing tips.

Molly sighed with understanding. "Well, I think your wings are amazing," she said with the biggest smile she could manage. While blue wings were common in butterflies, they were abnormal in fairies, and more often than not young fairies with blue wings were tormented by their peers. No one knew why this had started, or even when, but Molly knew all too well what Wiggins was going through. Her own wings were a dark blue in the center that radiated out to a pale white-blue at the tips.

"Thanks," Wigs said with little enthusiasm as he folded his wings back.

"You know, it gets better. Once you get older, people don't care as much usually." Molly said quietly as she finished cleaning Wigs' cuts and bruises with a little flourish before switching the subject. "It really won't take much magic to heal these, but if you would rather let them heal at their own pace then you might had a handsome scar."

Wigs seemed amused by the idea but shook his head before replying. "Nah, best keep my face nice and smooth don't you think?" Molly smiled and nodded wordlessly as she laid her hands softly on his cheeks.

She breathed deeply as she worked. Molly loved healing magic because it showed how all nature was connected. Healing Wigs broken nose was the most difficult part – resetting the cartilage and then repairing it – but the bruises were simple so it only took two minutes to complete the healing. When Molly finished the spell, Wigs looked much better and even joked with her as she had him sign the record of the healing. She was finished with him in almost ten minutes in all and had left him to go check on bed five, which Michael had told her needed release forms of some kind, when Molly heard the crumbling sound that was only caused by dirt sliding against dirt. It was a methodical sound with a tempo that sounded a lot like an animal walking. Then the main light source at the front of the room started to fade before all at once, the lights went out, leaving the room pitch black.

Hi all! Just a quick author's note to apologize for taking so long to update. I was on holiday, but I'm back now so I should be updating with more regularity if I'm lucky. Thanks for reading!