Sherlock and Marie Chapter 10, a sherlock fanfic

A/N: Many thanks to Phish Tacko for her help beta'ing this!

Ch. 10

Marie and Tony go to the Dance (and Sherlock Freaks Out)

Sherlock was rarely one to be nervous, but now, he couldn't help it.

Hinsdale School, where Marie attended the ninth grade, was having its first formal dance in two weeks.

Not only had Marie been going on about finding a dress for it, but she'd been talking non-stop about her date, Tony.

Sherlock had never met Tony, but he instinctively disliked the boy, if only because he was taking Marie on a date. Granted, it was a chaperoned date at the school, but Sherlock couldn't help but wonder how far things would go. Was Marie attracted to this Tony fellow? She was only twelve – far too young, in his opinion, to have a relationship. He felt that she was too young to go to the dance in general, but he couldn't just stop her from going.

'Damn her intellect.' He thought to himself for the fifth time that day. She was younger than the others in her grade because she had skipped a year.

After a good twelve hours of anxiety, he finally talked himself down. He had two weeks, and he was a detective, after all. Surely he could figure out who this Tony boy was and what Marie saw in him.

Sherlock had just finished hacking into the system and checking the school's student records. It was a huge risk – he could surely get into legal trouble for it – but it had seemed worth it at the time.

Now he wasn't so sure. His search had turned up only three boys named Anthony. After some meticulous research, which mainly consisted of searching their social media accounts, he concluded that none of them were the Tony that Marie had mentioned.

That meant that he did not go to her school.

Things just got infinitely harder.

Marie walked in an hour after Sherlock had finished his research. Selah had taken her to pick out a dress, and she'd settled on a thankfully conservative light pink gown.

"Hi dad," Marie greeted him, giving him a peck on the cheek. "Do you mind if Selah stays for a little bit? We want to go over different hairstyles for the dance."

"No, not at all." Sherlock looked up to see Selah still standing in the doorway, holding Marie's gown. "Hello, Selah."

"Uncle Sherlock," She said, smiling at him. "How have you been?"

"Doing well. You know… lots of cases and all. Boring stuff," He quickly closed his laptop, which had a Facebook page open on it.

Too late. Selah had caught it.

"On Facebook?" She asked.

"Oh… well, yes. People post everything to social media these days," He forced a smile. "It only makes sense to check it. My current suspect is rather young, so I was checking to see if he had written anything that might tie him to the crime."

It was a lie, and Sherlock knew it. Thankfully, Selah bought it.

"Oh. That makes sense. Well, we'll be off now. See you later!"

Sherlock contemplated asking Selah about this Tony character. Surely she would know something.

She and Marie were close. They spent a good deal of time together, even though Selah was older and seemed to be on a less promising academic path than Marie. She was in her final year of school now, and was planning on taking classes to become a hair stylist. Despite their differences, they got along well.

The only problem was that Selah would surely tell Marie if Sherlock asked anything, and that wouldn't end well. Marie would probably start lying to cover her tracks if she felt that he was snooping.

Sighing, he decided to turn to Mrs. Hudson for help.

The older woman was sitting downstairs watching television when Sherlock arrived. She'd quickly let him in and offered him some tea.

"The issue is that I've never met this guy, and I don't know what he's like and I don't know what he's going to do with Marie!" Sherlock finished.

Mrs. Hudson took a sip of her tea then looked at him.

"Well, eventually Marie will want to date boys."

"But she's only twelve!" Sherlock exclaimed. "She's too young for that!"

Mrs. Hudson smiled.

"The school will have chaperones, right? They can't do too much, even if they wanted to. You're a detective, haven't you been able to figure out something about him?"

"No. That's the worst part! I… well, I hate to admit this, but I logged into Marie's Facebook page."

Mrs. Hudson glared at him.

"Before you start, let me say that I had her password. I made her give it to me when she first created an account because I wanted to monitor it, what with online bullying being so rampant these days."

Mrs. Hudson sighed.

"Go on."

"I couldn't find anyone named Anthony or Tony listed on her friend's list. So then, I checked Selah's page. She and Marie are friends. Nothing there, either. I did a little bit of snooping on some of Marie's other friend's pages but came up empty, so this boy likely does not have a Facebook page, which means he is probably weird, or something is off with him, because almost all young teens have one these days."

"I really think you're overreacting, Sherlock." She put a hand on his arm. "You need to calm down. Why don't we go watch the telly, yeah? I DVR'd my favorite show!"

Sherlock reluctantly followed along, taking a seat on Mrs. Hudson's couch.

"And what show is that?" He asked.

"Why, Maury, of course! I swear people go on there just to get free paternal testing done," she replied. "But it's always a trainwreck. A beautiful trainwreck."

"…Right."

Mrs. Hudson turned on the program and Sherlock settled himself in for an hour of talk show drama.

Since Mrs. Hudson was of no help, Sherlock next turned to Mycroft. He made sure that Marie was out when he made the phone call.

"A security detail? You've got to be kidding me, Sherlock!" Mycroft responded, laughing to himself.

"It's not funny! This is my daughter and your niece that we're talking about, here!"

"Oh God," Mycroft took a deep breath to calm himself. "Sherlock, the school has chaperones."

"But what if they sneak off?"

"They won't. She's twelve."

"But what if he wants to?"

"I'm sure Marie has enough sense not to follow him. You underestimate your daughter, Sherlock," Mycroft replied. "She's not stupid."

Sherlock sighed. Mycroft was right, but the whole thing still ate at him.

"It really bothers me that she's never brought him around."

"Have you asked her to?"

"No. I don't want her to think I'm crazy."

"And sending a security detail to follow her on her first formal wouldn't scream that idea?"

"...I suppose you're right."

"I am right. Have you asked her about him at all?"

"I haven't had to. She keeps talking about him. 'Tony said this' or 'Tony likes this movie, too!'. What type of teenage boy likes the Twilight movies? Oh, he must be saying it to… to make her like him."

"You're probably right."

"That just makes it worse, then! He's manipulating her!"

"Will you listen to yourself? I know you're not the most social person, but it's fairly normal behavior for a young man trying to impress a girl. What you need, Sherlock, is to take a deep breath and calm down. You have two options: Ask Marie about Tony, or wait until the day of the dance and meet him yourself. You will easily be able to learn more about him then."

Sherlock thought for a moment.

"I suppose I'll wait. I don't want her to get upset with me if I ask. Twelve year olds are so difficult!"

"They are. And sadly, it will only get worse. But have faith in her. She's got a good head on her shoulders. I'm sure she'll be fine."

The day of the dance arrived and Marie's grade had been allowed to leave school early. Selah had come over to help Marie with her hair, makeup and accessories. Now, Marie was standing near Sherlock. Tony was to arrive soon, and Sherlock couldn't wait. He'd get a quick read on the boy, figure out his motives and take it from there.

"You look very pretty," Sherlock commented.

Selah had straightened Marie's hair and attached a small flower hair clip that matched her dress and the pink flats that she wore.

"Thank you, dad," Marie replied, blushing.

Right then, a car pulled up.

"Oh! That's Tony!" Marie squealed. She rushed to the door and Sherlock braced himself.

He had come to expect a lot of things, but the small framed red-headed girl that walked in was not one of them.

"Dad, this is Toni. Toni, this is my dad," Marie introduced him.

Sherlock's jaw nearly dropped.

"Toni," He mumbled, reaching out to shake her hand. "Short for Antionette, then?"

"Yes, Mr. Holmes," The girl replied.

"I see."

There was an awkward silence before Marie finally spoke.

"Toni and I didn't have dates to the formal, so we decided to be each other's dates."

Sherlock felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

"That's a great idea!" He replied. "I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time!"

Marie and Toni grinned, then Toni began motioning to the door.

"My mum's outside waiting for us, so we probably ought to get going," She said. "But it's a pleasure meeting you."

Sherlock smiled back. "You too, Toni. You too."