"So, you wanted to talk to us some more sir?"

"Yes, it's about your ages, and how you all actually met up"

"I see...what would you like to know?"

"Well, how bad was the age difference originally?"

"Between five to ten years depending on the person"

"I see, now then from what I can see you're all within one or two years of each other correct?"

"Yes"

"Does it make things any easier?"

"To a degree, though actually you're missing someone"

"Actually we're not, at the moment I'm not including Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft in the group for reasons of my own, though I do know he's in the same position as you guys and he's at least five years older than most of you. In any case I think being near the same age helps relate to each other, but I also need to know about how you all actually met up, and that includes our consultants, one of whom was in the military and thus you couldn't have easily met him before he became a consultant"

"True, I guess some of our actions have been a bit suspicious and with you knowing our biggest secret I guess you have the right to know the truth of our meeting with each other. The four of us here did indeed meet in America's equivalent of high school but it wasn't as easy as you might have suspected, in fact we almost didn't meet at all"

"No kidding, if things hadn't gone our way..."

"Yeah"

"Oh?"

"Lestrade here can explain it better considering the full sequence of events that needed to happen for us to meet up in high school, or at least the equivalent of American high school"

"Indeed I can, as you know I'm the eldest of the group by about a year if we ignore Mycroft Holmes, as such I entered high school first. I honestly felt pretty alone at the time, I didn't know others were in the same situation as I was in and quite honestly thought if I met any of my old comrades they wouldn't know me and yet I would know them but would have to gain their trust and friendship all over again. I somehow managed to survive that first year mentally and emotionally intact and honestly expected the next three years to be the same, just surviving until I could join the academy and then Scotland Yard not knowing what was going to happen in the next year. I started off the new semester thinking that it would be the same as the previous year and then I heard a name I hadn't heard in a long, long time in one of my classes, I heard Hopkins's name being called out and when I heard his voice I had to hold back my emotions so that I wouldn't be discovered, because while it was younger than what I remembered it was still his voice. I deliberately decided to stay away for a couple of days so that it wasn't so strange that a classmate would want to get to know a fellow classmate but as it turned out my plans were...waylaid within half a day through no fault of my own. I ultimately am not complaining but still, my plans were for the best I thought at the time, in any case the way my plans were waylaid happened later that school day, I was walking to the last class of the day when I heard two more familiar yet much younger voices, it would turn out that Gregson and Bradstreet were in my last class of the day, I had three of my friends and couldn't say anything"

"And we only found out about this several years later because he refused to say anything"

"In any case the class went well and I was packing up when suddenly I had two people in front of my desk holding a couple of my items. I decided to wait and see what would happen next when they said that they wanted to meet me later at a nearby local park and because of my previous friendship with them I immediately agreed, though I probably shouldn't have in retrospect. I went home and completed my homework fairly quickly in my parents' mind and went to the park and to my surprise Gregson, Bradstreet and Hopkins were all there waiting for me, I was naturally still unaware that they too remembered their previous life so I decided to let them make the first move and it happened in a fairly unexpected way. As soon as I was close enough Gregson speaks up and says, and I quote 'So Inspector Lestrade, despite being only a teenager and not having access to police reports until after the fact, if then, have you solved any cases in the newspaper lately? I also wonder if you know anything about what happened to Hitler, besides what's in the history books I mean' as soon as I heard that I knew that all three of them remembered and simply tackled them in sheer relief"

"I remember, we weren't expecting that to be honest but we got up quickly afterwords"

"Yes, in any case we caught each other up that day, with me finding out that they'd found each other over the summer by pure coincidence and then simply decided to wait and see if anyone else from their old lives popped up, which I did on the first day of school, I also later found out that the three had an agreement that if only one of them had a class with me that person would do what they could to contact me the first day of school and if that didn't happen find a way of approaching me as quickly as possible so that we could meet up. After I caught them up and they caught me up we all agreed that we wanted to find Sherlock and John as quickly as possible, unfortunately it wasn't as easy as we hoped. I graduated first naturally and then waited until the group was old enough to join the academy and we were close even though I had moved to London well before them because of our history together and in private we all made a pact to become Inspectors again. I also told them of the search I had been doing for John and Sherlock during our time away from each other and that so far I'd had zero luck, and so we all agreed to continue to keep an eye out for them, and as it would so happen Bradstreet got lucky one day"

"No kidding, I got very, very lucky one day as a constable, I was working a simple burglary case when I had to put that investigation on hold due to an accident that happened in front of me. I took control of the scene and called for backup and while I did what I could I got a list of names and one of the people was Mycroft Holmes, yes the same Mycroft that was reincarnated along with us. I didn't do anything immediately but a few days later I did a follow up report and when I went to Mycroft's home he invited me in, I thought to be polite and keep the conversation from reaching public streets, I soon found out that it wasn't the case and that Mycroft remembered his old life. He told me that Sherlock also remembered but was deliberately staying away in case we didn't and that he would tell Sherlock that we did in fact remember our old lives, he also told me that he had no news of John at that time. I finished my follow up and came back to the station and let Lestrade and the other two know about Mycroft and Sherlock and that John was still an unknown factor for us"

"Fast forward two years and I'm the first of us to become an Inspector, I haven't truly kept in touch with Sherlock since he had been found for personal reasons and he and his brother had done the same though for different reasons. I get my first case and realize that my skills just aren't up to the task like Sherlock's would be so I go to where he was staying at the time since he did that much at least and I discover a pleasant surprise waiting for me there. I knocked on the door and heard Sherlock tell me to enter, when I got to the living room I found out that he had a visitor, now then I was about to leave when Sherlock said my name and told me to stay since I obviously needed help, when the person with Sherlock heard my name they gasped in shock and turned around and there was John standing there like he'd been doing it most of his life. I got their agreement to help and as you know I then got the paperwork for them to be official consultants, after the case we all met up and discovered that John had found Sherlock about six months earlier and thus knew about us but didn't dare approach so that it wouldn't be suspicious. After the case though John agreed to meet up with us and told us about how he regained his memories, which...wasn't very easy on him in all honesty and in fact was the harshest way one of us could have remembered. He had a training accident right after he'd joined the military which rendered him unconscious for two weeks, partly because of the doctors giving him anesthesia for emergency surgery, in all honesty the doctors were amazed that there was no permanent damage when he woke up, but as it turned out after he was weened off the drugs keeping him unconscious he started dreaming about his past life and while he initially thought that they were dreams the newspapers let him know that it was possible that they were real because Mycroft was in them. However John didn't try and seek Sherlock out until he'd finished his military duty as planned due to them paying for medical school, but until he was able to seek out Sherlock he kept up with the news in the hopes of seeing our names as well which did happen, even if it was only because of promotions"

"And then after the case you guys could get together from time to time and it not be suspicious because you know each other from the case"

"Exactly"

"How big is the age difference between you and your consultants?"

"About a year with John, two with Sherlock"

"Understood, now then, since I know the full truth now about you four and our one remaining consultant and you're actually aware of it I need you four to let me know when it's a bad day in regards to your memories so that I can either give you an easy day at the office or simply let you guys go home early. I also do need you guys to talk to Watson about what you've been doing lately understood?"

"Yes sir"

And so the group leaves and has a long and detailed conversation with Watson about his job as a consultant and how the Inspectors had deliberately been leaving him out of cases when they could use him. They eventually came to an agreement that Watson would come by every day at a certain time to see if there were any cases that he could possibly help with for three months as long as they remembered to follow the original agreement afterwords.

"I think...I think part of it was ourselves John, we talked ourselves into thinking we shouldn't call you"

"It was your version of grieving"

"Probably John"

"In any case, it will be good to be around you guys again, I will admit I needed some time to grieve myself but I have missed working with you four"

"And we've missed you, now then I think it's time we all went home and got some sleep because I get the feeling we're going to be in for a long day tomorrow"

"Yeah good point"

The next day the group was indeed in for a long period of work because a serial killer had come to London and it had only just been identified because of the fact that police thought the two different cases were separate, but when a third victim appeared with the same MO as the other two London knew they were in trouble. Two weeks later and their fears were being proven correct when a ninth victim appeared.

"Sherlock would have loved a case like this"

"True, he also would have solved it by now"

"You're doing good John, we've gotten further than we would have if we were still being stubborn"

"I guess so, but still..."

Lestrade puts a hand on one of John's shoulders.

"You miss him John, we know, we miss him too, now more than ever considering the situation that's currently going on, but that doesn't mean that you're not doing a good job helping us at the moment"

"I know but...at the same time I still feel like I'm failing you guys"

"You're not, we're getting closer every time you give us more information though we're annoyed that the information comes at the cost of a life"

"Yeah, nine victims within too weeks is..."

"Suspicious and could mean that they're escalating at a level unheard of in regards to serial killers"

"Precisely, if this keeps up I'm thinking of asking our American counterparts for help"

The group then gets a call regarding another body having been discovered. What they didn't know was that the criminal had made a mistake and John finally had the missing piece they needed to arrest the person before they killed again and they did.

"That took longer than expected"

"At least the case is finished now"

"True"

"It was...good to have you with us again, I think we forgot about that trying to grieve in our own way and take account your feelings regarding doing police work without Sherlock"

"You have a point, there was a time where I didn't think I could continue without Sherlock, but then I decided it was what he would want"

"You're right, we shouldn't have left it so long"

"What's done is done, at least now we're going to be working together again"

"True"

"In any case let's get back to the station and get started on the paperwork"

"That's going to be a nightmare since we couldn't exactly keep up with any of it during the course of this investigation"

"I'll help wherever I can"

"Thanks John"

They return to the police station and one look at their desks let them know that they were in for a long day, they were also being glared at by fellow Inspectors but didn't know what to do about that for the moment. Fortunately though their superiors were aware of the situation, including the fact that no one knew that the four were working on the serial killer case because it had been deemed a lost cause fairly quickly and been given up on publicly.

"Inspector Lestrade, any new leads on that case?"

"We've made an arrest sir"

"Oh really?"

"Yes, hopefully we're able to save her last victim but...we may have been too late"

"Such is the risk you guys knew with this case"

"We knew alright, serial killers aren't the easiest to catch after all but still..."

"Losing a victim isn't easy, especially when you're right there and are thinking about what would have happened if you had just acted sooner"

"Exactly"

"Wait...what are you guys talking about?"

"Inspectors Lestrade, Gregson, Bradstreet and Hopkins have been working the serial killer case that we dismissed early on in the investigation, we did this so that their jobs would be slightly easier, or at least that was our hope"

"It didn't exactly work out the way they planned but they tried at least"

"Wait...so you guys have been working a case this entire time and we didn't know about it?"

"Correct, we felt it best that way as we explained already"

"And even though our plan failed to a degree at least they were able to focus on their case"

"And now we have a lot of paperwork to deal with"

"Considering our orders to you four we'll help with some of it that's not directly related to your primary case"

"Thanks, I think we need it"

"No kidding"

"As the consultant on the case I insist on also helping with what paperwork I can"

"Naturally Mr. Watson, naturally, oh and has Lestrade told you about a recent meeting?"

"Yes I know about what you higher ups know"

"Just making sure all things considered"

"Yeah, guess you're right"

The next week was spent dealing with the paperwork and the trial for the serial killer, who was declared guilty and given a natural life sentence. Once that was done the Inspectors were given a day off not because it was an anniversary regarding the loss of Sherlock, but because it was a very different anniversary, one that no one would know the significance of if they didn't know the history of the four Inspectors