Allie looked nervously at her passport once more. In her wallet, she had all the money she possessed - in cash form, of course. Also in her wallet was an identification card. This identification card had a picture of her on it, alongside her date of birth, height, and hair colour. The name and eye colour on said ID card were not Allie's own.

Allie didn't feel comfortable in the brown eye contacts. She also didn't like the idea of being addressed as 'Kitty'. "A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do," she said quietly, looking in the mirror. "Keep telling yourself that," said Alaya.

"You could help me," Allie said to herself. Alaya sighed and motioned for her to turn around. Allie closed her eyes and did as she was instructed. Almost immediately she was whisked away to her Mind Palace, where Alaya sat to critique her.

"Tuck the shirt in," commanded Alaya. "And pull that little wisp of hair out from behind your ear." Allie obeyed, and soon she picked up the bag - which contained her clothes, a few books, and some writing utensils - and headed out the door.

"To the airport," she said to the man in the taxi. She stared out the window, blocking out Alaya's inane prattling with thoughts of herself seeing Sherlock again. "You do realise that he isn't going to know it's you?" Alaya asked her after a while. Allie looked at her absently. "It's Sherlock," she said. "Nobody fools Sherlock."

"You will," said Alaya matter-of-factly. Allie closed her eyes and entered her Mind Palace, where Alaya watched as Allie constructed scene after scene of her meeting with Sherlock.

"Hello, Sherlock," Allie said. Sherlock jerked his head up. "Al-Alaya?" he asked. He looked shocked. Allie smiled. "It's Allie now," she told her brother, and then they were embracing -

Alaya laughed. Allie glared at her. "I told you," said Alaya, "that Sherlock won't recognise you." Allie closed her eyes again.

"Ah," said Sherlock, looking up at Allie's greeting. "Miss Riley, we meet again." "Indeed, Sherlock," said Allie with a smile. "Please," said Sherlock. "Call me Mr. Holmes. Sherlock is extended to my friends, and my friends alone. Hardly my enemies." Allie blinked coolly. Sherlock laughed, a cruel, grating laugh. "Surely you didn't think we were friends?" he asked. Allie couldn't respond. She was choking. She turned to where Alaya sat, watching her with big, sad eyes. "Help me!" she begged, but the words were caught in her mouth, and Allie fell to the ground, gasping. "You poor, poor thing," Alaya whispered as Allie twitched on the ground. Sherlock's shadow fell across her. "You… Repel… Me," he whispered, and then everything went dark.

Allie jerked her eyes open. They were filled with tears. Sweat dripped down her face and her shirt was soaked through with the stuff. "Why didn't you help me?" she demanded of Alaya. Alaya shrugged. "I couldn't," she said. "You lost control of me."

Allie had only completely lost control of her Mind Palace once that she could remember. She had been eleven years old at the time, and Sherlock had fallen asleep. Nobody could get him to wake up. On the car ride to the hospital, Allie had slipped into her Mind Palace, where she received beating after beating from her parents, telling her she had been a bad girl. She and Alaya were better friends then, and afterwards Alaya had held her hand and comforted her while the doctors talked to her mum and dad.

"Sherlock has to go away for a while," they told her, and Alaya cried with her as the men in white robes with gloves took Sherlock away, to a rehabilitation center. Allie never told her parents about Alaya. She had told Sherlock, once.

"Nobody ever taught you," he said, watching her. "Taught me what?" asked Allie. She was thirteen, Sherlock was eighteen. "How to use your Mind Palace," he said. "I'm sure I know," she said defensively. "Besides, I don't need to know how to use it, 'cause I've got Alaya to work it for me." Sherlock sat up at this point in the conversation. "Who's Alaya?" he asked his little sister.

"You're talking to her, dumbo," said Mycroft, walking by the room. Sherlock scoffed. "No," he said. "I'm talking to Allie." Once Mycroft had left, Sherlock turned once again to his little sister. "Allie, who is Alaya?" he asked again.

Allie had explained briefly who Alaya was and what Alaya meant to her, and Sherlock had speculated in a way that only Sherlock could. Not, "Allie, you're insane," not, "don't worry, Allie, that's completely normal, just like everything else about you," not "Take your imaginary friend and get out of my room." Sherlock had thought for a moment before saying, "Fascinating! You have an untamed subconscious which has taken the appearance of the tamed version of yourself, someone who technically doesn't even exist, because your mind understands just what it can do but it has no way to tell you, so it transformed into what you trust the most!"

That was the beginning of their friendship, mainly because - as Allie realised at a later time - Sherlock finally noticed just how unique and clever Allie really was. They stayed in contact as Allie homeschooled herself, and Sherlock confided in her when he admitted that she was the only reason he bothered coming back to his parents' house.

When Allie went to college, she often got emails and calls from her parents saying that Sherlock had stopped coming 'round. She never did tell her parents just how much Sherlock came to visit her on campus.

Allie got insanely jealous when, after these visits, all of her 'peers' began swooning over her brother. "Hey, Al," they'd say. "Why didn't you tell us you had such a cute brother?" Allie never mentioned this to Sherlock the next time he came to see her. She left him to his deductions.

When she graduated, Sherlock was the only one who came. Nothing could've dragged Mycroft out of his hiding-hole, and her parents were both at work. "They don't matter," she said when Sherlock approached her, both to congratulate her and to comfort her. "No, they don't," Sherlock had agreed.

Allie had gone home, and her parents both also congratulated her. That was that. No celebration, no fancy dinner, no gifts, nothing. "Only two years early?" her father had asked. "Mycroft graduated at eighteen, and Sherlock…" "Dropped out of college," Sherlock had interrupted, and that's when she knew. Sherlock was trying to hide her from a deeper truth, one that he felt she couldn't face alone.

Allie left later that night, after confronting her parents. They as good as admitted that they were unimpressed by her achievements, and Sherlock had no words to smooth it over. "Allie," he had whispered, "Please don't go, don't leave me, don't make me stay here alone with these machines, I'll crack, I won't be able to bear it."

Allie looked him in the eye, shook her head, and walked away. It was a feat that would've made her parents proud; being able to successfully break the one she loved for my own benefit. Allie had no idea what happened after that, but a few years later, she wasn't sure when, exactly, she looked him up. And started following him. She fell in love with him all over again - her crazy brotherly best friend, and when he pitched himself off of the building, she was horrified.

Horrified that he might have actually done it. All of his current friends would say, "Oh, not Sherlock, he wasn't like that!"

Allie knew better. She thought that she might have left Sherlock as walking, talking, breathing bomb, and little things piled onto it until finally it went off. And then she got over herself and realised that it was all just a clever hoax.

That was all that led up to Allie sitting in the cab, on the way to the airport, to board a plane under the name of Kitty Riley. Kitty Riley, the woman who contributed to the emotional, mental, and physical fall of my brother. Allie should have been angry at her, but every time she tried to be Allie remembered that she was no better. In her mind, Allie was much, much worse. But none of that mattered to Allie at the moment, because, at the moment, Allie could see the airport out of her window. And she smiled, because she knew that she was getting closer. One step closer to finally, after all those years, being able to see her brother once again.