A/N

This is another chapter written by the great Elbafo! It actually happens right after the other chapter she wrote, but in terms of 'timing' I felt this would be the best place to put it. Because… well… reasons.

Enjoy this amazing chapter, showing off once again Elbafo's amazing skills in setting and writing a scene!

* S *

Sherlock let the door fall shut behind him. Unwinding his scarf, he listened to the sounds floating from the kitchen. His family. A smile beckoned from the corners of his mouth. "Hello?" he called, shrugging out of his coat.

"It's Daddy!" he heard Rose's gleeful bid to their daughter.

After hanging his coat and scarf on the hook by the door, he made his way along the hallway towards the kitchen, his eyes cast downwards in anticipation of his daughter toddling her way to greet him. He loved it when Grace powered along under her own steam. Instead, he was almost bowled over by Rose, who flung herself at him.

"Oof," he responded as the air was forced out of his lungs. "Rose."

She loosened the grip she had around his neck and drew back, first ruffling the hair at his temples, then raking her eyes over his neck of all things.

"What?"

As if as an afterthought, Rose pressed a kiss to Sherlock's lips.

"Hello," she murmured, a mere whisper away.

"Hello, Rose."

Behind Rose, Grace toddled up.

"Dad-dee!"

Sherlock stepped back from Rose and frowned.

"You raced your daughter to greet me?"

Rose gave him an almost-embarrassed smile and sidestepped to give her daughter room to clasp her daddy's legs.

"I'm just glad you're home."

Sherlock eyed his wife in suspicion then bent down to pick up his 18-month-old.

"Uh fye!"

Grace raised her arms above her head.

"I think you've just eaten," Sherlock told her as he thumbed away a telltale smudge of yoghurt from the infant's cheek.

"Uh fye, Dad-dee!"

How could he resist?

"All right. One for the road."

He readied his daughter into take-off position when Rose cut in with a firm 'No'.

"She's just eaten," she added. "A lot, actually."

"Oh no," Sherlock lamented, bringing Grace to rest on his hip. "Grounded at the eleventh hour. Not my fault. Your mother's."

"Uh fye… Dad-dee!" A kicking of legs accompanied the raising of arms this time. "Uh fye!"

Sherlock knew a meltdown was imminent — not his fault — so he circumvented the tantrum in the best way he knew.

"How about a race up the stairs?" he said, lowering Grace. She squealed in delight even before her feet were firmly planted on the ground. It was their second favourite game: a scramble up the stairs, Grace in front, Sherlock hot on her heels (for safety reasons), the thrill of being chased by a monster-daddy, the adrenalin pumping through those infantile veins.

Sherlock paused in the middle of the stairs to shoot Rose a look. Instead of shaking her head and walking away like she usually did, her eyes seemed to glisten with admiration. Curious. He'd deal with her out-of-character behaviour later.

It was, in fact, much later that evening before Sherlock and Rose found the time to sigh out twin breaths as they both tidied up the kitchen. While one meltdown in the entranceway had been avoided earlier, there were two more scheduled and skilfully negotiated around before bedtime: bathtime and storytime. Preferred toys who could float on the water, versus those that had to perch on the edge of the tub. Likewise, for which story Sherlock could read to her, and which one Grace would 'read' to Sherlock and her cuddly toys.

Still, a whole evening now stretched out before them, one in which Sherlock could finally interrogate his wife.

"So, who visited this afternoon?" he asked, casually drying a teacup with the tea towel.

Rose crouched down beside Grace's highchair. He noticed her pause for a split second as she swept up the dinnertime crumbs.

"What makes you think we had a visitor?"

Rose didn't meet his gaze, finding additional debris to sweep into the dustpan.

"Teacup."

He placed the offending item onto the countertop with an audible plonk.

Rose straightened up, her eyes taking in the offending item before meeting Sherlock's.

"Teacup?" she asked. Her expression was unreadable.

Sherlock indicated said item with a flourish.

"There are two of them," he began. "If you were just having a cup of tea with Justine before she left — it does happen, usually on a Friday afternoon — you'd normally use mugs, not teacups. Therefore, you were visited by someone you had to impress. Now, I'm normally the only person in recent times who'd insist my tea be poured into a teacup on those occasions you and I want to make the time to just sit and chat, or… more rarely these days, on those occasions either you or I are upset. So…"

"Sherlock," Rose said with a weary sigh. "Just leave it."

"The way you hugged me when I returned home means someone upset you."

"Just—"

"Was it Mycroft?"

"Stop… No, it wasn't."

"So someone did visit you."

Rose folded her arms in front of her, angling her body away from him. Telltale signs.

"It doesn't…" Rubbing her forehead, she heaved out another breath. "You wouldn't believe me anyway. Can we just drop it?"

"I wouldn't…?" Alarms bells began to ring in Sherlock's head. This had the Clarence House Cannibal written all over it. Or worse.

Tentatively, he approached Rose. He drew in a steadying breath to temper the pace at which he'd normally need to interrogate someone.

"Why wouldn't I believe you?" he said carefully.

She shook her head.

"Because it's so far-fetched. Look, Sherlock, please." Her eyes grew larger as she implored him, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "Just trust me. It was nothing. He didn't upset me. It was a weird conversation, and now it's over."

"He?"

Rose rolled her eyes and gave him a resigned smile.

"I'm going upstairs to have a shower, and then I'm heading to bed. You can join me for one or the other… or both."

The narrowing of Sherlock's eyes did nothing to prevent Rose from leaving. He watched her disappear up the rear staircase, and then he commenced a scan of the rest of the kitchen. Sherlock couldn't detect anything that identified Rose's afternoon caller of the male persuasion—the person who had a cup of tea with her and hadn't upset her. All he could detect was his own cologne.

Sherlock joined Rose in the shower, and then their bed. If she was still upset, she didn't show it. He used everything at his disposal to satisfy Rose. And she, of course, knew how to disarm and charm him in equal measure. When she drifted off to sleep, her limbs entwined with his, Sherlock lay staring at the light cast on the wall from the streetlamp outside.

He may have fallen asleep, or not, but before he knew it, the light had changed and dawn was only moments away. After donning his pyjamas and dressing gown, he opened the blinds fully and waited until Rose stirred.

Sinking down beside her, Sherlock loomed over Rose as her eyelids fluttered open.

"Do I know him?"

Rose gasped, then blinked til she could focus on Sherlock.

"What?" she croaked.

"Do I know him? Your visitor."

Rose raised herself onto elbows and glanced over at the digital clock on Sherlock's side of the bed.

"It's five o'clock," she said groggily. Sinking back down, her eyes closing once more, she murmured, "Is Grace okay?"

"Rose!"

"Fuck! Sherlock!"

She was wide awake now. And the furrows between her brows indicated her current mood.

"Do I know him?" Sherlock repeated. He knew there was more than a hint of desperation in his voice. Perhaps he hadn't slept at all.

Rose sighed and tutted, then flopped an arm over her forehead as if to block out the light.

"Yes, no. Not really."

"Yes, no, not really?!"

"You won't believe me," she said wearily.

Sherlock leant closer.

"Let's operate on the assumption that I believe everything that comes out of your mouth. Hmm?"

Rose dropped her arm and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds as if she was contemplating her next sentence.

"Do you understand the concept of alternate universes?" she said.

Sherlock had to replay Rose's question in his head to make sure he'd heard her correctly.

"Do I understand the theory of alternate universes?"

"Let's operate on the assumption that the theory is true, okay?" she said, echoing Sherlock's own turn of phrase.

"What's this got to do with anything?"

"It was you," Rose said, and this time she met Sherlock's gaze.

"What was me?"

"The visitor. Yesterday afternoon. It was you… or a version of you from another universe. Sherlock Holmes. Looking for his wife. She'd disappeared into another dimension because of some mad scientist who pushed her through a portal or something, and he was looking for her. Not another version of me, by the way. A woman named Kyrie."

Sherlock straightened up. Rose hadn't altered her expression at all and was staring at him expectantly.

Sherlock huffed out a breath.

"Look, Rose. You don't have to fabricate a far-fetched story just to make a point about me not believing you. Just tell me who he was and stop acting so—"

"It's the truth!"

The ferocity of her tone gave Sherlock pause and he clamped his jaw shut. He studied her face, trying in vain to make a deduction about her state of mind.

Rose's expression softened, and she pulled herself up to a sitting position against the bedhead.

"I'm sorry," she said. "There isn't another way to explain all this. I know it all sounds like science fiction… I didn't believe him at first… but then…"

Sherlock tore his gaze away from Rose, not to focus on anything in particular, but to traverse his Mind Palace for a moment.

Of course, it had been too long since an opposing force had made itself known in their lives. Moriarty was dead. His network broken up. All of Eurus's fighting spirit had long been doused by overwhelming emotions. Culverton Smith was incarcerated—writing a book, apparently. Charles Magnussen was nothing more than a footnote in his own newspaper. So who was behind this… this imposter… who had now infiltrated their household?

"Rose," Sherlock said tentatively. "Are you saying he looked like me?"

"Exactly like you."

"And what did he want? Not just on the surface—the whereabouts of his wife—but what did he want specifically from you?"

"He… he…" Sherlock carefully observed Rose's mannerisms. Body language experts would assert she was trying to recall a memory, rather than constructing a fabrication. In essence, she was attempting to tell the truth.

"He'd visited all these other dimensions," she said in a rush, "looking for Kyrie, and I think he was getting disheartened. He couldn't find one instance of Sherlock Holmes with Kyrie. All of the Sherlocks he encountered were alone. They were arseholes, he said. All of them. And then he found Kyrie with someone else in our universe. Happily married. It must've played heavily on his mind. And then he saw you and I, and I guess he was… curious."

Sherlock blinked a couple of times. While she looked and sounded like his Rose, the words she was uttering were completely nonsensical.

"So… I think he followed me home," she went on. "He wanted to know why I was with Sherlock… with you… and how we met."

And there it was.

"How we met," Sherlock repeated.

"And so I told him the story… you know, about a case together with the Met and Greg introducing us, and he just called out the lie straight away. And when I told him the MI6 version, he became… intense."

"Intense? How?" Sherlock knitted his brows together and leant in.

"Like…" Rose began, and she reached up and smoothed her hands along the arms Sherlock had placed on either side of her as he loomed over her. A smile teased her lips. "Like you get when you want to know the truth about something and someone's not cooperating." She lifted a brow.

Sherlock eased back a little.

"And did you tell him… how we met?"

Rose nodded once.

A steel clamp gripped Sherlock's heart.

"Rose."

"I know what you're thinking."

"You're the most intelligent and cautious woman I know…"

"I thought he was a fraud, too. An imposter. Another secret sibling, like Eurus… maybe an identical twin or something."

Sherlock exhaled heavily.

"Haven't I ever told you, it's never—"

"Twins, I know. That's what he said, too."

Sherlock's insides roiled. He hated being played. He hated being mocked. But most of all, he hated every move of his to be anticipated.

"But then I saw the mole," Rose added.

"The mole?"

Her eyes dropped to his neck, making Sherlock feel self-conscious. Rose reached up, cupped her hand to his nape and rubbed her thumb lightly over his skin.

"I know every inch of you," she said, her voice infused with affection. "I know that mole. If it was suddenly a different shade or shape, no matter how slight, I'd ship you off to a skin specialist quick smart. So I knew then that—"

"A mole!" Sherlock exclaimed, removing Rose's hand, and rising from the bed. "You've undone everything we set in place, all the precautions, your entire identity, all because of a mole!"

Rose winced at his outburst, but Sherlock had no time to feel sympathetic.

"You didn't see what I did," Rose said, her voice quivering slightly. "Every gesture, every expression. It was all you. Even the way you look when you're hurt or upset and feeling vulnerable—"

"I never look vulner—"

"The expressions nobody else sees, except me. And perhaps... Kyrie. It was all you, Sherlock. Nobody could feign that. And don't forget: I know people! It's my profession! Both of them!" Her voice crackled a little, and Sherlock felt a stab to the heart. Rose would rarely use her original 'profession' to prove a qualification... Unless they were having fun in bed.

"And there isn't a single person on this earth," she continued, "that I know better than you. And that includes Grace."

Sherlock's head buzzed. None of this made sense. Alternate universes? Another version of… him? How had she been so gullible?

But Rose had come to her conclusion based on feelings and emotions and sentiment. He had to look at this logically. Someone had to.

"Did he enter through the front door?" he asked.

"What?" Rose asked, obviously confused at the change of pace.

"How did he appear? Was it a portal in the cloakroom? The back of a wardrobe? Did he fall through the ceiling? Or did he ring the front doorbell like a normal person?"

"He rang the doorbell. Yes. Like a normal person. As normal as Sherlock Holmes can be," she muttered.

"Right, then. I'm off to check the CCTV footage. Mycroft has cameras set up all over the street, pointing at our front door. I wasn't supposed to tell you that, but there you have it."

He heard Rose sigh behind him as he left the bedroom.

Set up in their home office downstairs, Sherlock waited for the security programme to forward through the footage to the point where Rose arrived home from work yesterday. He scratched at his head, deep in thought. This was a bit not good. Some day, this intruder would reveal his hand, using the information he'd obtained from an unsuspecting and naïve Rose. That day could be weeks, months or years away. And it would be their undoing. Sherlock had to act fast.

"Dad-dee!"

Sherlock turned to the door. Rose held Grace on her hip, the toddler waving a sippy cup in Sherlock's direction.

"I have to concentrate now, Rose," he said, turning back to the screen.

"You solve cases with Grace on your lap, you're always boasting to John. Now, I'm going to have a shower, and it's Daddy-time."

While Sherlock's attention was mostly drawn to the image of yesterday's Rose leaving a taxi, this morning's Rose was lowering an animated toddler into his lap.

"Mum-mee," Grace said, banging her cup against the screen.

Sherlock caught her arm as he balanced her on his lap.

"Yes, that's Mummy," he murmured distractedly. "And where is he..."

"There, on the motorbike," Rose said, pointing over his shoulder to the figure who pulled in behind the taxi, just as on-screen Rose disappeared into the house.

Sherlock carefully scrutinised the man dressed in his Belstaff climbing from the motorbike and removing his helmet. From this distance, and at that resolution, it certainly looked like Sherlock Holmes—the World's Only Consulting Detective. This detective placed the helmet over the mirror of the motorbike, while the real Consulting Detective scoffed.

"Why not bring the helmet inside with him? Oh, obvious. He commandeered the bike."

The figure then approached the house, scanning the facade before arriving at the steps leading to the front door.

"He doesn't seem very confident."

"Would you be," Rose asked, "if you were about to meet a woman who was in an intimate relationship with another version of yourself?"

Sherlock tutted, watching as the poser climbed the steps to the door. As he was now in close proximity to the security camera, Sherlock could quite clearly see that the visitor reaching for the doorbell was... him.

"Single ring," he recited automatically upon hearing the buzz. "Maximum pressure just under the half-second. Why does he think he's a client?"

"Because it's not his home," Rose volunteered.

The intruder appeared taken aback by the door opening in quick time.

"Hi, I'm Sherlock," they heard, followed by, "Not him, by the way." Off-screen, they heard Rose say something, to which this 'Sherlock' replied, "Mind if I come in?"

Just as he was about to disappear out of view, Sherlock dragged the progress bar back a few seconds.

"Hang on a minute," said Rose. "Why have we got sound? Did Mycroft—"

"Hi, I'm Sherlock," the on-screen detective said again. "Not him, by the way." Sherlock peered closer, dragged the progress bar back again, and carefully scrutinised the man's features. His expression. His… smile. "Hi, I'm Sherlock... Not him, by the way."

"Dad-dee!" Grace said gleefully, pointing to the figure on the screen with her cup.

Sherlock rolled his chair back a little so his daughter couldn't splash water droplets onto the keyboard in her excitement.

"When she saw him in the flesh," Rose began. "She thought he was you as well."

A knot formed in Sherlock's stomach, and he directed his attention to Rose.

"He got to see my daughter?"

"Our daughter. And yes, more than just see her. He made her fly."

"Sorry?"

"He was holding her," Rose said, indicating Grace. "And she said her usual 'I fly' thing that she always says when you greet her in the entranceway…"

"Uh fye!" Grace echoed.

"…and he happily obliged. Four times he threw her into the air."

Sherlock's insides were somersaulting now.

"Four times?"

"Uh fye, Dad-dee!" the infant repeated, banging her cup on the top of Sherlock's head. He gently lowered the offending arm once more.

"Yes," Rose replied with a resigned smile. "He's another person who doesn't like to give up after three."

Sherlock jolted out of his chair.

"Here," he said, thrusting Grace into Rose's chest.

"Sherlock!"

"Mummy, eggy!" Grace happily babbled, prodding Rose in the sternum with her sippy cup.

Striding out of the office, Sherlock made for the entranceway.

"Sherlock!" Rose called behind him.

In no time at all, Sherlock had the step ladder from the cupboard under the stairs and was probing the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling. It was the only possible place in that area in which to stow surveillance equipment.

"What are you doing?" Rose demanded, stopping at the foot of the ladder, holding their toddler.

"He's been watching us for a very long time," Sherlock said, unscrewing the lightbulb.

Below, Rose sighed.

"No, he hasn't," she said. "Up until now, he's been happily living his life, with a wife and child, a son—a little boy called St John—in another dimension." As Sherlock descended the ladder, lightbulb in hand, Rose went on. "Don't bother looking for him. He's not going to come back. He's probably got a lot of other universes to search."

"Bubble, Dad-dee," Grace said, stretching out her pudgy hand for the lightbulb that Sherlock was still scrutinising.

"Why would he come back to this one when another version of his wife is happily living with somebody else?" Rose continued. "And if he's anything like you, he'll never give up until he finds her."

Words like "another dimension", "universes", and "another version" began to circulate around Sherlock's head.

Dragging his eyes from the lightbulb, he said to Rose, "Are you… hearing yourself, right now?"

"Bubble, Dad-dee!"

Sherlock took the bulb and made for the kitchen.

"Sherlock! It's more important that you hear me right now!"

Rose followed him into the kitchen. Sherlock spun around, losing track of what he was supposed to be looking for.

Universes! What was she on about!

"Bubble, Dad-dee! Gace bubble!"

He placed the lightbulb onto the sideboard and pulled open a drawer at random. What was he searching for?

"If you spend the rest of your days looking for this man," Rose said, coming up beside him, "you'll never find him." She sounded like she was running out of steam. "Our lives will be miserable."

This, he couldn't abide. Slamming the drawer shut, he drew himself up to his full height, opened his mouth and… made eye-contact with Rose.

"Just drop it," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes were glistening when she added, "…like I asked you to in the first place. Now feed your daughter. She wants scrambled eggs today."

Grace was also looking up at him expectantly, one hand tightly holding her sippy cup to her chest.

"Eggy!" she demanded.

Sherlock blinked, then reached for his daughter.

Wordlessly, Rose grabbed the lightbulb from the sideboard and marched from the room with it.

"Miserable," Sherlock repeated, his mind a whirlpool of thoughts.

"Bubble," said Grace.

Sherlock sighed.

"Eggs," he told his daughter, while his mind steeled itself for the long journey ahead. Because this was only the beginning.