Wow, that took waaaaaay longer than I was expecting. Sorry about the wait guys, but I had a bout of depression that decided it was going to repeatedly kick me in the face for about a week, and then somebody sprung a language oral exam on me. And it only gets worse from here. I have seven Uni exams this semseter, so like I said, don't expect anything like regular updates. But with any luck, I'll be able to get a lot of this planned out properly rather than making it up as I go.

Huge amounts of love and banana cake go out to everybody reading, reviewing, faving and alerting this story, it means one helluva lot to a struggling (fan)artist like me.

While I'm here and rambling, is everybody enjoying the 'Sherlock growing up POV' at the end of every chapter? It's really just kinda my headcanon of how Sherlock got to where he is now. Hope you're enoying it.

I shall now shut up. On with the update =D

Chapter warnings for implied drug use and one swearword (if you care about that kind of thing. It's called for, honest)

Definitely the biggest shock I've ever had in my life.

I didn't register the thud the book made on the dusty floor as it fell from suddenly stiff fingers. My heartbeat rocketed.

Mum never mentioned my dad. I know the basics of human reproduction, of course, so I knew I had one – he was just never talked about. He was just – implied, I suppose. This image of a strange man from whom we'd heard hide nor hair in almost fourteen years. So I'd formed an impression of him as a selfish bastard. A 'player' as somebody at school has once said, who'd screwed my mum once in a one-night stand, then brushed her aside, refusing to acknowledge his daughter. Someone we were better off without.

Somehow, the truth was exactly as I'd expected it to be, just worse. The image now had a face, with high cheekbones and strange, strange eyes. The face of someone whose intellect scared me as much as intrigued me. The face of Sherlock Holmes.

I couldn't process it, until the box that I'd filed away gave an annoying rattle and I realised what had been nagging at me. He was familiar. Looking at him had been a little like looking in a mirror. My high cheekbones. My lean figure. My whiplash way with words. My hair was my mum's colouring – a dark chocolate brown – but the way it curled could only have come from him.

That was the final nail in the coffin.

Someone touched my shoulder. I yelped and realised I'd been frozen to the spot for the best part of five minutes while my brain tried to sort through this sudden new development in my life.

John was standing there, looking concerned. "Evie? You okay?"

For a second I just wanted to blurt out the whole story, but checked myself. Much as I respected John, I knew I had to talk to Sherlock first, and bugger me if that wasn't going to be awkward. If he even believed me.

"Yeah…sorry, just being clumsy." I bent and retrieved the diary – I would need it if I was to convince Sherlock of the truth. But something told me that wasn't all the date had meant. Mum had never so much as mentioned him, and she wouldn't send me out to find my father on a whim even if she was running away. There must be something more to it.

I flipped back to the pages she had indicated. As I turned to the middle of December a second piece of paper fluttered out. This note was fuller.

My dearest Evie.

By now you've found Sherlock, and I hope the truth won't be too difficult for you to wrap your head around. You get all that brain from him, my love.

I have to go underground – deep underground – possibly for a very long time. Years, even, because I came across something I shouldn't have, when a client came to me asking for help with her husband's Will. All I can give you is his name – Percy Trevelyan, CEO of Trevelyan Enterprises. He had some information in his possession which CANNOT fall into the wrong hands – trust me when I say that many influential people would quite happily kill to have this. To the right buyer it's worth billions. I'm so sorry I can't explain everything more fully. When they say knowledge is power, they don't tell you it's also lethal. It was stolen. I know who by, but I have no proof, and he's after me. The info is Safe. I need Sherlock – I've been following his work and I know he's the only person who can help me.

I love you, Evie. God keep you safe until we meet again.

Irene Adler.

The letter was almost detached. A goodbye note. I knew then I'd never see my mother again.

Evie Adler doesn't cry, but not even I could stop the wetness brushing at the corners of my eyes.

I'd forgotten John was still in the room until a strong hand settled on my shoulder. He'd obviously seen part of the note over my shoulder, or at least guessed at its meaning.

"I'll…I go grab your stuff if you need a minute…" he said quietly. His footsteps faded as he left the room. I appreciated the gesture.

Besides, Mum had given me one more clue. I know where she wanted me to go next.

Our safe is under the stairs. There's a sliding panel at the back of the cupboard that Mum had installed when she first bought the place, and the safe itself is protected by a combination lock. I didn't even have to think what the code was, though she'd never told me. 6 digits. No spaces. I punched it in.

101294. The date of my conception. The numbers written on the back of Mum's first note had served a dual purpose.

Beep. The catch jumped open. At first I thought it was empty, then I realised something was shoved to the back. A small leather case. And inside was a handheld smartphone. PIN-locked, obviously. And whatever info these fat-cats or whoever were so desperate to get their hands on was obviously stored on the phone.

"Evie?" It was John, my suitcase in hand. "You ready?"

"…Yeah." Even so, it took two deep breaths before I could move. I had a lot of explaining to do, to the most difficult man I had ever met.

This is going to be hilarious.

Back at 221B Mrs Hudson had made up a camp-bed in her small kitchen that I quite cheerfully dumped my hefty suitcase on, praising the gods of sanity that John had had the sense to hail a cab. I was not getting back on a tube train.

Besides, it had given me time to think over what I was going to say. Mum's new note and old diary were burning a hole in my pocket.

You don't just walk up to a guy and tell him he's a father. He'll think you've been playing him. Just show him the diary…tell him you worked it out…

Shit. I don't usually curse and I'm not normally terrified to the point where even my old 'evaluate' trick isn't going to work. But I'd brought myself up into the mindset that 'every problem has a solution,' and I also know I couldn't stall the inevitable.

The strains of the violin had long since stopped bleeding through the slight crack in the door. Poised on the darkened landing, I peered inside. Sherlock's head was about all I could see of him as he lay sprawled across the couch, eyes closed, fingers steepled under his chin and his brow drawn down in thought.

Deciding I would get no answer if I knocked, I simply pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Holmes lay on the couch, two nicotine patches stuck fast to his inner elbow. For a second I felt furious. Switching one form of drugs for another. Meet my father, ladies and gentlemen. I was still having a lot of trouble believing it.

He didn't even open his eyes. "What have you got for me?"

"I…" The words seemed to stick in my throat. "I found out what the…date was."

He opened one eye.

"My mum…she kept diaries all the way through school and…uni….and stuff." Well this is awkward. Mentally I told myself to stop being such a child. "Christmas 1994, she was in her final year at Cambridge."

Holmes opened the other eye. "What, is that it? Just an ordinary date, nothing else?"

"Well give me a chance and I'll explain!" I said hotly. Fumbling in my pocket, I brought out Mum's second note and passed it to him. "This was tucked into the pages. The information she's referring to was in the safe, and the combination was also the code she gave me…us…on the first note, it had a dual purpose." Evelyn, you're babbling, shut up.

Holmes glanced up from scanning the note. "What was it?"

I pulled out the smartphone. "I don't know. She didn't give me the PIN and I shan't try and guess it. It's probably one of those 'get it wrong once and it blows up' things."

Holmes turned the phone over in his hand a couple of times. "No way of guessing the code, she's too smart to set it as anything even remotely obvious. More likely one of an infinite combination of random numbers. But why the treasure hunt…what has she got on here as well as whatever this Trevelyan character gave her…"

He appeared to be talking to himself now, and I realised I couldn't tell him. The moment wasn't right. The words stuck in my throat, my hands clutched at the diary entry. All I had to do was say, 'Look, there was something else as well.' But I couldn't do it.

John materialised in the kitchen doorway and put the kettle on. I left Holmes to his muttering and went over to him.

"Tea?"

"Oh, please."

We lapsed into a comfortable silence, broken only by the rumble of the kettle and the clink of the mugs. I watched Sherlock gab a laptop from a nearby table and flip it up, fingers tapping impossibly fast over the keys. I'm the opposite. Most of what I do on a computer involves typing up the odd school assignment, and only if necessary. I'm way more of a book, pen and paper sort of girl. Sherlock, however, was obviously very IT literate - from the eye-roll John gave him and the mutter of 'every bloody time.' I gathered Sherlock had just hacked his laptop, and that is was a fairly regular occurrence.

"So what was all that about with the diary?" John asked.

"Mm?"

"Was it just the note in the diary, or was there something particular about that date?"

"The date was also the combination on the safe. It made sense to hide it there," I muttered. But John wasn't a doctor for nothing, it seemed. When I turned to look at him, he was regarding me with an 'I know you're not being truthful' face that reminded me of Mum's when I'd lied about a particularly bad bullying day.

But if I couldn't tell Sherlock, I couldn't tell John. I still wanted him to know first.

"Evie?"

"I…I can't. Not yet." And I fled, abandoning the tea.

I never saw John's eyes, and the grey-blue ones of the man on the sofa, follow me out of the door.

They called it 'blow.' They called it 'charlie.' Mixed with heroin, they called it 'dynamite,' and it certainly blew many of them away. They called it 'good shit' and 'my Peruvian Marching Powder.' They called it 'an awful habit,' 'a dangerous addiction.' 'A killer.' Sherlock called it clarity. The key to his mental block, put in place by so many teachers over so many years. Under its influence, the sixteen-year old felt pure stimulation fly through his veins in a way nothing else could match.

He could only imagine what Mycroft would say. But he hadn't heard from Mycroft in years. He had just graduated from Oxford and had been awarded a prestigious junior position in the British Government. Sherlock had little doubt that one day - one day soon – he would be the British Government. As such, he had obviously had no further time for his younger brother, instead basking in the pride of his parents. The brother who lived up to the fine name of 'Holmes.'

So Sherlock cared very little for what either his parents, or his brother, would think about how he really spent his evenings and weekends, once his work was finished and there was nothing to do. Banned from the chemistry labs after an ill-advised experiment had resulted in one of the biggest explosions the school had ever seen, and having read everything interesting the library had to offer, Sherlock chafed at the boredom. His mind was like a coiled spring – all wound up and nowhere to go. Even cigarettes had lost their charm…and their effect. He craved something stronger. Something –or someone - that would take away the annoyance of being so bored.

That someone was Isa Whitney.

Wealthy parents, obviously. Kept his nose clean at school, for the most part flew under the radar. Average grades, average looks, average guy. Except Sherlock knew, through both deduction and a little on-the-side sleuthing (which he had begun to really enjoy), what the 'ordinary private school boy' exterior hid.

Isa Whitney was a drug addict.

Sherlock had followed him down many a back alley in the town close to the school, been witness to enough small – time trades to turn him in a hundred times over, but he had bided his time. He had no intention of turning Isa in. On the contrary, he wanted to try a very different sort of experiment to his usual antics.

Sherlock cornered Isa in the library after school one day.

"I know what you are."

Pure fear flashed in the scrawny boy's eyes. "Please," he spluttered pitifully, "Don't turn me in, it was my brother got me into them, I swear, I haven't done anyone any harm…"

"Calm down for heaven's sake." Moron. "I'm not going to turn you in. I want to know where you get them from."

"Get…what?"

Sherlock sighed. Humans are strange. "I want to know who sells you the drugs."

"So you can turn them in instead? Please. Like I'd tell you."

Sherlock lost patience. He leaned in.

"Listen to me. If I wanted to turn both you and them in, I'dve done it by now. I have enough evidence on you and your shady dealings to bang you up for a fair period. I want…I want some for myself, moron. Why else do you think I'd come to you?"

"You could find them yourself," The boy pointed out.

Sherlock smiled mirthlessly. "I was hoping you could introduce us."

Isa narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "What's in it for me?"

"I don't turn you in for possession. You can continue nursing your…habit…and I'll never bother you again."

Isa regarded the lanky boy with too much dark, curly hair for a second, then held out his hand.

"Deal."

At sixteen, Sherlock took cocaine a couple of times a month to alleviate his boredom pangs.

By age eighteen, the age he attained Cambridge with four top-grade A-Levels, the age he met Irene Adler and unknowingly conceived his daughter, he was shooting up every couple of days.

His family remained blissfully oblivious until age twenty-one.