Chapter 9- Reunions

'Come on, pick up!' Marie was to say the least, frustrated. They had been caught out. In this annoying game of cat and mice, they were as good as dead and the sick psycho would be all too happy to kill them.

'Sorry the person you are trying to reach is unavailable to answer your call. You can leave a-'

That didn't help her mood in the slightest. The one time she needed to hear his voice to really help her calm down and needed to tell him something really important; he didn't answer his damn phone. Now, there were rational reasons for why he might not be picking up. He had forgotten to charge it and it had died or it was just turned off by accident. Marie inwardly shakes her head, sure her dad was forgetful sometimes, but not like this.

'Marie,' a deep baritone voice said from behind her. 'Or is it Samantha? I don't do well with aliases. Any luck with reaching your father?'

'No! Two options: his phone is turned off, which it never is, or it has ran out of battery, which isn't possible with dad.' She took a deep breath and counted to ten in her head to calm her nerves and, she will never admit, to stop the tears that were threatening to spill.

'Samantha, I can call you Samantha?' Sherlock actually sounded sincere.

'Yeah but I prefer Sam. Samantha's a bit of a mouthful and whenever I was in trouble it was "Samantha".'

Sherlock nodded. 'Mike is John, you are Sam and you've been incognito for five years.' He stated. Marie, or rather Samantha, nodded her head.

At that moment a phone went off. Sherlock put a hand into one of his Belstaff's pockets and took out said phone. It was the pink phone from earlier. His brow furrowed into a small frown before he read the message to her. 'Well done.'

'Right, let me explain the rules of me telling everyone the whole story and not the half-arsed attempt the Fuzz made of it. No interruptions, no questions until I'm finished because I don't know all the details so it's likely I won't be able to answer all of them. No grilling me or I will clam up and refuse to speak and ask for a lawyer. And last but not least, I want to wait till my Aunt Harry gets here so I don't have to repeat myself.' Sam wondered where half of that had come from but stared at her least favourite members of Lestrades team, challenging them to argue 'It wasn't fair' and 'she can't make the rules' etc.

'That's not very fair,' Sherlock protested. Sam realised she had been glaring at the wrong person completely.

'Well, my tale, my conditions. Build a bridge and deal with it. Since Dad's not answering his bloody phone for some obscure reason, I'm all you've got. Plus, I don't feel like repeating myself and explaining it once is enough thank you very much.' She smiled, her eyes darkening.' Or will I have to use blackmail?' Sherlock closed his mouth and went quiet. 'Shame. Mrs Hudson would have loved me.'

'You do realised you have just threatened to use blackmail, to the freak no-less, in front of three officers of the law, right?' Donovan said. 'You can be arrested for that and then we wouldn't have to follow any of those 'conditions' of yours. You do know that, don't you?'

Sam tilted her head to the right just ever to slightly. A smirk plastered on her face. 'Oh, yes, I do know I can be arrested for blackmail and the last time I counted, there was only one police office here, a consulting detective, a member slash ex-member of Her Royal Majesty's Army, me and two idiots.' She sat down in her pervious seat and waited for some sort of half arsed retort. When none came she turned to speak to Bill. 'Sorry you had to witness that. A bit not good as Dad would put it and I'm really not helping the whole godparent-godchild relation, am I?'

Bill's eyebrows shot up. 'You remember that?'

'Course I do. I recognised you as soon as I saw ya. How can I forget my non-uncle uncle who spent most of his leave in our house? How are you anyway?'

'I'm fine. I have a wife, Lucy, and two kids called Rose and Kimberly. They are a right pair. They manage to scare off every baby sitter we get… Actually they are a lot like you when you were that age. I don't want to think what the three of ya could do if left alone together.'

Samantha flashed a toothy smile and shook her head. 'Sorry, but I could have sworn I heard you offering me a job.'

Bill smiled right back. 'It takes one to know one. So that would mean, it takes a menace to know a menace.'

Sherlock looked at his watch. Harry wouldn't be here fro at least another twenty minutes and that was if the traffic was good. It was going to be a long wait. A long wait indeed…

Samantha and Bill continued to chat, discussing all manner of things. It turned out Harry was most likely to be a bit more then tipsy when she got here. At that moment two women walked in, escorted by Anderson. The first had red hair that appeared to have not a hair out of place and appeared to have her make-up, jewellery and clothes perfect. The other had blonde hair, blue eyes and seemed more then a little off balance. Harry then.

She stopped dead when she saw Sam, who smiled sheepishly back, before running (more like staggered) over and grabbing Sam into a tight hug, which left the latter winded.

'Sam?' Sam nodded into Harry's shoulder. 'Where is your father? Why did you just disappear like that? When I get my hands on John…' Tears were slowly trickling down her face.

'Don't worry Harriet,' Bill stepped in. 'Sam insisted that we wait for you before she told us anything,' he explained to the slightly drunk women.

'Harry,' Sam spoke up quietly from Harriet's embrace, 'I'm so sorry for all the pain dad and I have caused and I wish everything were different but it's not and-'

'Shhs…' Harry cut off her rambling, bringing her impossibly close.' I wish that too, sweetheart and don't understand but I might after you've told us, um.' She moved Samantha away from her and cupped her face in her hand, giving her a long glance. 'You look so much like your mother except for those eyes, that's all Watson there.' Sam smiled. 'Now, why don't we hear your little story?'

'Little doesn't even begin to cover five years, Harriet,' Bill said half-heartedly.

'Right, lets all get seated and Marie-Samantha doesn't want any interruptions or questions until she's finished.' Lestrade reminded everyone even though his eyes were fixed on Sherlock the whole time.

When everyone was seated, they looked at Sam who started fiddling with her hands.

'It all started when…'

A/N: Hello. sorry for the long wait but I literally had no time to type it up. For the grammar police among you, you will see that my grammar in this chapter has greatly improved and that is all because of my beta IzzyDelta.

Thanks for reading and please review 'cos I like reading...

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