I wake up in a similar state as before. I hope this isn't going to become a regualr occurance. There's someone in the room.
"Hush now," they say as they notice I'm awake. "I'm just making sure you're okay." She plants her lips on my forehead before dad stirrs in the bed beside me. She looks up and kisses him on the lips. "It's okay, she says gently, stroking his head. "I'm only returning your coat." My eyes close and she becomes blurry. It feels like the next second, but it's actually a few hours later that I wake up. I notice I'm still fully dressed.
"John?" I hear dad slur and shakes his head in an attempt to clear it. "John!" he repeats, louder this time as he throws the covers off and struggles to his feet.
"I really wouldn't advise -" I croak, but he keels over and falls to the floor.
"You okay?" John asks as he opens the door.
"How did I get here?"
"Well, I don't suppose you remember much," he replies and I can hear his contained smirk on his voice. "You weren't making a lot of sense. Oh, I should warn you: I think Lestrade filmed you on his phone."
"Where is she?" dad groans.
"Sophie?" John questions. "She's here, Sherlock. She's right beside you." He walks over to check on me. "How're you?"
"I'm good," I say, forcing myself to sit up. It's clearly a different drug to what she gave me before and it doesn't seem to have made me as weak as before. John hands me a glass of water, which I take, and drink back in one.
"No," dad says. "The woman. That woman."
"What woman?" John questions, helping me to stand up.
"The woman," dad repeats, standing up and stumbling around the room. "The woman woman!"
"What, Irene Adler?" John questions again, still watching me carefully as I stand up. "She got away. No-one saw her." Dad stumbles towards the window and looks through it. I wonder how she got here and out again, as I'm certain it wasn't a dream. "She wasn't here, Sherlock," John says seeing what he's doing. Dad turns around and promptly falls to the floor and then drags himself along towards to look under the bed.
"Sherlock? I say, questioning his sanity as he begins looking around elesewhere. "She's not here anymore, and I doubt she would have left any evidence behind." He grunts in response but continues to look.
"Right," John says and grabs hold of dad and hauls him, face down, onto the bed. "Back to bed. You'll be fine in the morning. Just sleep."
"Of course I'll be fine," dad slurs. "I am fine. I'm absolutely fine."
"Yes, you're great," John says sarcastically and I follow him towards the door. "Now we'll be next door if you need us."
"Why would I need you?"
"No reason at all." We walk out and I close the door softly behind me.
"You have a date tonight," I say, observing his clean shirt. "You don't have to stay here, I'll be fine."
"I don't doubt it," he replies turning to the kettle as we reach the kitchen. "But it's only Rachel."
"Rachel?" I question, sitting down in dads chair. "That's the one you were with during the Aluminium Crutch - the spotty one - isn't it?"
"Mmhmm," John agrees from the kitchen.
"You were going to dump her tonight anyway, am I wrong?"
"How do you -" John tried before shaking his head. "Yes, you're right."
"It was quite obvious," I say. "Typically, a lot of money is spent on a first date and the only occasions which have more spent on them are either proposals or breakups. You took her to the chinese last week, but this week it was going to be a midrange restaurant. Not one of the best, but the food is passable and I find the wine served there are some of the easiest to get out of clothes. It's the oldest trick in the book. I'd be suprised if she hadn't noticed as well which is why she's going to call in a minute to cancel, in an attempt to make you pay a reservation cancellation price." John nods in agreement as he sets down a mug of coffee beside me.
"Well it's good to know you weren't affected by the drug," he replies.
"She gave me a different one to Sherlock," I shrug. "I'm her daughter after all." Smash. "As cold hearted as she is, she wouldn't let any harm come to me." I look up to see John staring at me, his cup of tea currently smashed on the floor in a puddle.
"Irene Adler is your mother?" John questions, completely dumbfounded.
"Yes," I say frowning. "I thought that was fairly obvious."
"Your mother," John repeats. "Wait. How did Mycroft not know - when we were at the palace?"
"Family feud," I reply. "We didn't speak to Mycroft for years after dads first overdose. He never met Irene." John nods in understanding, then shakes his head in disbelief with the idea. I guess I am also still grasping hold of the idea of who my mother really is.
I'm woken next morning as dad stirs from the bed beside me. He sits up in bed, groans and sinks back under the covers. I know the reason for this. We told Mycroft that we'd have the photographs by today and now it turns out we've lost Irene again and knowing my dear uncle, he'll gloat.
And I'm right. Mycroft turns up while we're having breakfast - well, John is having breakfast. Dad and I are leafing through various newspapers, hoping to find a new case while our homeless network hunt Irene down.
"I've had to take an hour of my very busy schedule to collect the photographs, Sherlock," Mycroft sighs. "Please tell me I have made a false assumption in thinking you have failed."
"The photographs are perfectly safe," dad says calmly.
"In the hands of a fugitive sex worker," Mycroft finishes, and John shoots me an anxious look over the top of his new mug.
"She's not interested in blackmail," dad says. "She wants ... protection for some reason. I take it you've stood down the police investigation into the shooting at her house?"
"How can we do anything while she has the photographs?" Mycroft replies, exasperated. "Our hands are tied."
"She'd applaud your choice of words," dad resonds as John covers a smirk. "You see how this works: that camera phone is her 'Get out of jail free' card. You have to leave her alone. Treat her like royalty, Mycroft."
"Though not the way she treats royalty," John finishes with a sarcastic smile of which Mycroft replies humourlessly. I stay quiet. My silence is going to be noted at some point, and then Mycroft will be wanting to know why.
My thoughts are interrupted by an orgasmic female sigh as it fills the room, and John and Mycroft frown, their eyes automatically flitting to me.
"That wasn't me," I say, suprised myself at the noise.
"What was that?" John questions.
"Text," dad replies, trying to look casual.
"But what was that noise?" he asks as dad gets up to pick his phone up. I peek over his shoulder at the message.
Good morning, Mr. Holmes
There's a message above it which reads 'Till the next time, Mr Holmes', but no response from dad, which is suprising.
"Did you know there were other people after her too, Mycroft, before you sent your niece and I in there?" dad questions. "CIA-trained killers, at an excellent guess."
"Yeah, thanks for that, Mycroft," John says sarcastically as Mrs Hudson brings two cooked breakfasts and places them in front of dad and I. I look at it, but don't feel hungry.
"It's a disgrace, sending your little brother and your niece into danger like that," Mrs Hudson says sternly. "Family is all we have in the end, Mycroft Holmes."
"Oh, shut up, Mrs Hudson," Mycroft groans.
"MYCROFT!" dad and I cry, absolutely furious at his treatment of our, currently indigant, landlady. At the same time, John shouts "OI!" It's clear how close we've all grown to each other, despite only living here for a few months.
Mycroft hesitates for a moment as he reads our expressions and he cringes as he scrapes together his decency before turning and looking contritely at Mrs Hudson.
"Apologies," he says.
"Thank you," she replies and bustles back into the kitchen.
"Though do, in fact, shut up," dad responds and I give him a shove as his text alet goes off again.
"Ooh," Mrs Hudson cries, stopping and turning around. "It's a bit rude, that noise, isn't it?" I peer at dads phone as he checks it.
Feeling better?
"There's nothing you can do and nothing she will do as far as I can see," dad tells Mycroft, ignoring the text and putting the phone back down onto the table.
"I can put maximum surveillance on her," he responds.
"Why bother?" I perk up. "You can follow her on Twitter if you want. I believe her user name is 'TheWhipHand'."
"Yes," he says, giving me a tight smile. "Most amusing." His phone rings and he takes it from his pocket and looks down at the caller ID. "Excuse me." My eyes follow him into the hall as he raises the phone to his ear. What could this be about? Clearly it's work, due to the fact he does very little else. Maybe I'm just a little too curious. Don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing as too curious.
"Why does your phone make that noise?" John questions, forking another mouthful and eating it.
"What noise?" dad replies casually.
"That noise - the one it just made."
"It's a text alert," dad patronises. "It means I've got a text."
"Hmm," John says, stabbing another piece of sausage. "Your texts don't usually make that noise."
"Well," dad explains, sounding annoyed, "somebody got hold of the phone and apparently, as a joke, personalised their text alert noise."
"Hmm," John utters as he chews. "So every time they text you ..." As if on cue, the alert goes off again and I hear Mrs Hudson's audible tut.
"It would seem so," dad finishes.
"Could you turn that phone down a bit?" she requests. "At my time of life, it's ..." She doesn't finish.
I'm fine since you didn't ask
I look away from the screen as dad places his phone on the table and we go back to reading our separate newspapers. Why isn't he responding?
"I'm wondering who could have got hold of your phone," John says slowly,already knowing the answer, but asking anyway to make a point, "because it would have been in your coat, wouldn't it?" Dad raises the newspaper so it covers his face and any way of me reading him.
"I'll leave you to your deductions." John smiles at me before continuing.
"I'm not stupid, you know."
"Where do you get that idea?" Dad responds as Mycroft enters the room again, still talking into the phone. Why is he doing that? If what he's talking about is so important, he wouldn't be dealing with it in front of us.
"Bond Air is go, that's decided," he says, and my ears perk up. Bond? "Check with the Coventry lot. Talk later." Air could mean aeroplane, but bond? James Bond, perhaps. I need more information - it's dangerous to make assumptions otherwise - but he hangs up.
"What else does she have?" dad asks, but Mycroft looks at him, puzzled. "Irene Adler," he reminds him. "The Americans wouldn't be interested in her for a couple of compromising photographs. There's more." He stands up as he realises and stands up, I think in an attempt to look more intimidating. "Much more." Mycroft looks back at him, stony-faced.
"Something big's coming, isn't it?" I realise.
"Irene Adler is no longer any concern of yours," Mycroft says, realising himself that we've dived to far into this. "From now on you will stay out of this."
"Oh, will I?" dad challenges.
"Yes, Sherlock, you will." John looks across at me, but I don't look back. I've just found out my mother is alive. I'm not going to end all contact with her because of Mycroft.
Dad shrugs, not bothering to argue and instead turns to his violin.
"Now, if you'll excuse me," Mycroft says, "I have a long and arduous apology to make to a very old friend."
"Do give her my love," dad says and begins to play 'God Save the Queen'. Mycroft rolls his eyes and leaves. Dad follows him out, still playing, as John and I exchange grins. I do love getting on his nerves.