Chapter Text
John had just finished another long day at the clinic and was looking forward to passing out in his bed in 221B Baker Street. That’s how his days had gone since they’d buried Sherlock six months ago. John would get up, get dressed, eat a light breakfast with Mrs. Hudson in her flat, take a cab to work, see patients, fumble for his cane halfway through the day, furiously do his paperwork until five, and finally, if he was lucky, go home to Mrs. Hudson’s cooking. Not his chef, she claimed, but every time he came home, there was a plate set on her table for him.
He stepped out of his cab in front of 221B and paused. There was a figure on the front porch, huddled under a black rain slicker. John approached slowly, his hand flicking to where his gun should have been. “Um...excuse me?”
A blonde head popped up, “Oh, thank God. Do you live in 221?”
John stared at the young woman. She was beautiful, wavy shoulder length pale blonde hair framing a heart shaped face, she stared back at him with ocean blue eyes, a hopeful smile on her lips, one thin eyebrow quirked up in anticipation. “Uh...yeah, yeah I do. John Watson. And uh, you are?”
“Kate. Mary Hudson is my great aunt, she told me a while back that she had a flat open still, but the key isn’t where she said it would be.” She explained.
John was surprised, no family had ever come to see Mrs. Hudson before, “You’re Mrs. Hudson’s niece?”
She nodded, shifting the black bulk draped across her lap, “Great niece, yeah. My grandmother is her older sister.” She squinted up at him, “Do you think you could let me in?”
John shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his leg acting up. “I don’t have a key to Mrs. Hudson’s flat, and I really wouldn’t feel comfortable letting you in if I did.”
Kate smiled, pulling the parka over her head where it had slipped down, “I understand, and I’m glad my aunt has someone looking after her like that. Are there any places nearby I could duck into to get out of the rain? Speedy’s kicked me out after my third hour of sitting there. The owner’s been glaring at us ever since.”
“Us?” John asked.
Kate nodded, pulling on a corner of the fabric in her lap, and instantly John realized something he’d missed about the scene. The black bulk had a pair of trainers poking out of the far end, and in Kate’s lap, was a little girl with a head of long red hair. Kate ran a hand across the sleeping child’s hair, “My daughter, Emma.” Her mouth pressed into a tight line, very different from the smile that he’d seen so far. “We ran out of cash for cabs, so we did a lot of walking before the rain started. We ran three blocks to get here when the rain began. She’s exhausted.”
John dug in his pocket for his keys. “I’ve been rude, please, you can come in and wait for Mrs. Hudson in my flat.”
“Really? Thank you so much.” Kate said, the smile returning to her face. She brushed the little girl’s hair from her face, still being careful to keep the rain off her child, “Emma, time to get up and get out of the rain.” The child made no movement to acknowledge she’d heard her mother. Kate sighed, “She gets like this. She’ll stay up for days at a time and then sleep like she’s dead.”
John was tempted to check the little girl’s pulse. Her hair was bright red, and fell oddly straight against her face before suddenly twisting into ringlets at her shoulders. The bright color of her hair contrasted starkly with her skin. She was as white as a sheet of paper, and her stillness made it seem like she was a little corpse. Only the steady rise and fall of her chest and the bright pink of her lips belied that she was alive.
Wether Kate found his quiet observation of her child odd or not, she sat the girl up against her and looked at him, “She’s gotten a bit too heavy for me to carry while she’s asleep. Would you mind terribly carrying her in?” John picked the girl up, instantly surprised with how heavy she was. Kate laughed, “Emma’s tall for her age, all bone. She’s only seven, but I can see her being far taller than I am.” Kate followed him up to the flat and thanked him profusely for hauling her gangly seven year old up the stairs.
“Where are the rest of your things?” John asked when he’d draped the girl across the sofa.
Kate gestured to the bag she’d carried up, “That’s all I could grab before my father threw us out. Mostly Emma’s things, but we each have some extra clothes. I’ll have to go to the bank tomorrow and find out if my father emptied my accounts this time or not.”
“Why would your father empty your accounts?” John asked.
Kate rolled her dark blue eyes at him, “Ever heard of Edward Tyler?”
John tilted his head, “The high profile lawyer?”
“The very same. I’m Kaitlyn Tyler, his wayward daughter. He tried to make me send Emma away to boarding school, and I balked. I’m not about to let my father manhandle me into hiding my daughter like she’s some sort of terrible mistake that I should be embarrassed of. Needless to say, I ran my mouth a bit more than I probably should have, he said and did things that should never have been done in front of a child, I called him out on it, and he told me I could take my opinions and my child elsewhere.” Kate explained sharply.
“I’m confused, why would your father feel that way about his granddaughter?” He asked, watching Kate as she gently moved her daughter’s head into her lap.
Kate kissed Emma’s temple, “Mr. Watson, I’m twenty-five. I was a minor when Emma was born. According to her birth certificate, Emma’s parents are my father and step-mother. I actually wouldn’t be surprised at all if my father sends the Yard after us. That’s why I came here, Auntie hates my father, and I know she’ll back me up.” She shook her head, “Anyway, tell me about yourself. I feel I’ve been talking too much.”
John let a smile edge onto his face, “Well, I’m a doctor...”
Two hours later, Mrs. Hudson popped up into 221B. “John, you wanted me to come up?”
Kate eased Emma off her lap and stood up, walking past John, “Hello, Auntie.”
John watched Mrs. Hudson carefully, pleased to see the look of awe pass over her face as she opened her arms and embraced the younger female, “Oh, Katie. How are you?”
Kate relaxed against her great aunt, “Awful.”
Mrs. Hudson pulled back, a scowl on her face, “It’s that terrible father of yours again, isn’t it? Your mother was too good for him, that man is absolute rubbish. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t have it. What did he do this time?”
“He was going to try to make me send Emma away.” Kate said, tears filling her eyes.
Mrs. Hudson looked past John, “Is that little Emma? Last I saw, she was still toddling about!”
A streak of red hair rushed past John and the child burrowed herself between her mother and great-great aunt. “Hullo, Auntie.”
John started at the girl’s voice. While Kate sounded like any other young woman from somewhere near Sloane Street who had spent a great deal of time in London, Emma’s voice was decidedly less Sloaney and more Cockney. And very, very familiar in tone. Her voice was unusually steady for a seven year old child.
When she looked up at him, he knew.
No one else had ever looked at him with eyes like those.
Emma’s eyes weren’t the deep endless ocean blue of her mother’s, they were pale, and flaked with gold. It wasn’t the color that got him though, it was the way she seemed to be looking straight at his soul, like she knew everything about him in one glance.
She stepped away from the women and faced him, holding out a steady hand, “Hello, sir. I’m Emma Tyler. You’re bored, aren’t you?”
“P-pardon?” John stuttered, staring at the girl.
She gave him a smile, looking more like Kate, “It’s obvious, you’re wearing the same tie you’ve worn for the last week, but not because you’ve been out with friends, but because you’ve been sleeping on your sofa instead of in your bedroom. You’ve got a cane in your hand, but you aren’t using it to support yourself right now, so I can only assume that you’re crazy or...”
Kate clapped a hand over her daughter’s mouth, laughing nervously, “Sorry, Emma tends to say too much.”
John laughed in amazement, “No, it’s fine. She’s...amazing.”
Mrs. Hudson sidled up to Kate, an unsettled look on her face, “Why don’t we go down the stairs and leave John to rest. We can catch up and Emma can tell me more of her delightful stories.”
One corner of Emma’s mouth quirked up and she kept her eyes steadily on John, “It’s not a story if it’s the truth.”
Kate narrowed her eyes at John, picking her daughter up and propping her on her hip. She started whispering to her aunt the instant the women turned away. Emma, on the other hand, kept her eyes on John until she was out of the flat.
John fell to his knees, his head aching. She was Sherlock’s child. There couldn’t be any doubt. So many of her features were Kate, but her eyes and mind, they were all Sherlock. Or Mycroft, he admitted, that would explain the red hair, although he couldn’t see how Kate and Mycroft would have ever run in the same circles. Regardless, Emma was a Holmes. He could feel it.
When he found her studying Sherlock’s skull from the mantel place, he was even more certain. “Emma, what are you doing?”
“I was just looking at him.” She replied, her eyes never leaving the skull.
“Him?” John asked, settling into the arm chair next to her.
Briefly, Emma’s eyes flickered in his direction, but she nodded slowly, “This skull. I’ve determined from the dimensions that it belong to a male, possibly of caucasian descent. I’m only just learning about skeletal markers though, so I could be completely wrong.” She seemed to catch herself, and hurriedly put the skull back in it’s place. “I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to touch other peoples things...or dead bodies. Mum’s afraid I’ll catch something.”
John shook his head, a smile on his face, “You won’t catch anything from Yorick.”
“Yorick? Like from Hamlet?” Emma asked, staring at him in awe.
John saw movement in the corner of his eye, “Oh dear, you’ve got her talking about Shakespeare now. We’ll be here all night.”
Emma’s lower lip jutted out in indignation, “Mum!”
Kate laughed, “I’m only teasing, love.” Kate picked up the skull, “Yorick, huh? Didn’t really see you as one to keep a skull on the mantle. Surprised I didn’t notice it earlier.”
“He’s not mine.” John said in a rush. “He belonged to my uh...old flatmate. I’ve been meaning to toss him out, but...”
Kate raised an eyebrow, “No judgement, Dr. Watson. I’m the one with the seven year old whole likes to analyze dead things.” She bent down to kiss the top of Emma’s head, “Love, what have we said about touching things that don’t belong to us?”
Emma pouted, “Not to.”
“There’s a good girl. And didn’t I tell you not to come up here and bother the good doctor?” Kate scolded, but it hardly reached her eyes, and her lips were quirked up in the corners.
Emma looked over at John, “I don’t think I’m bothering him.”
John smiled at Kate, “She’s not. And uh...if she likes the skull, she can have it.”
Kate smiled back at him, “That’s a kind gesture, but if you give her that thing, she’ll stop talking to the rest of us.”
“Mum!” The girl shrieked again in protest.
“Emma, you know I’m right.” Kate countered.
Emma’s red eyebrows bunched together in consternation. “I suppose. As my mother, you do have a wealth of first hand and instinctual experience with my responses to outside stimuli.”
Kate glanced nervously at John, but he was just staring at her daughter like he’d seen a ghost. He smiled when he noticed her gaze, but didn’t say anything to her. “How about this, Emma, you can play with Yorick when you’re in 221B. Does that sound good?”
She looked hopefully up at her mother, “I think that will satisfy all parties in need...”
Kate sighed, tapping the end of her daughter’s nose, “Okay, love, but you won’t come up here and bother Dr. Watson at all hours of the night and day, alright? It would be awfully unfortunate if you couldn’t visit Yorick anymore because you upset Dr. Watson.”
John smiled at the two females, “I don’t think either of you could ever upset me.”
Emma beamed, and Kate blushed, “Emma, why don’t you go see if Auntie needs help fixing supper?”
“Okay!?” Emma chirped, surging forward to throw her arms around John’s neck for an instant before she flitted down the stairs.
Kate chuckled at the stunned look on John’s face. “She likes to hug. I’m sorry.”
John shook his head, “No, don’t apologize. She’s a sweet girl.”
Kate looked wistfully towards the door, “Yeah, she is. I’d like to think I haven’t totally mucked up raising her. My Auntie mentioned that you’ve been taking care of after her every ache and pain since you’ve moved in.” John nodded, and Kate sighed, sitting down across from him, “Do you think you could look at one of mine?”
John nodded, “Of course.” Kate pulled up her black blouse, and John sucked in a sharp breath of air. “Oh my God.”
Kate laughed breathlessly, “Yeah, hurts like hell.”
He knelt in front of her and probed the dark bruise splayed across the bottom of her ribcage. “What happened?”
“I fell.” Kate answered instantly.
John’s eyes snapped to her face, “This is a boot print, Miss Tyler. I very sincerely doubt you fell this hard onto someone’s boot.”
“My father’s an ass, but I’ve never let him put a hand on Emma.” Kate said, eyes dark.
“Your father beats you?” John asked, probing the injury again and watching her wince. He felt so surely that there was Holmes in Emma, but he could be projecting his loss onto the two girls. “Miss Tyler, is your father Emma’s father?”
Kate glared at him and flinched away, “No, my father has never touched me like that. He’s simply content to beat me.” Her gaze softened, “I’m not sure who Emma’s father is, not really. I ran away for a year when I was seventeen. I went to America, got into drugs, and then I got hit by a car. I was fine for the most part, but when I was in the hospital, they told me I was pregnant.” Kate watched him as he went into the freezer and grabbed a bag of peas. “Thank you.” She said softly when he held it to her ribs. “Anyway, I’d detoxed enough in the hospital to know I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing, so I came back to London. At first, my father was happy I was home and that he could claim another child as his to hopefully raise better than he raised me. Until she was talking, everything was great. After though, he realized that Emma’s different, and he became decidedly less enchanted. She’s too bright for him to manipulate.” She shifted and then John noticed how she winced slightly every time she moved. “He resumed beating me shortly after that.”
“You probably have a cracked rib or two.” John said softly.
Kate nodded, “I figured. It’s not the first time. Nothing you can do for that.”
“Probably not, but you should have some tests run to make sure he didn’t do more damage.” John told her, searching through his things for a pressure bandage long enough to wrap around her for some support. “You should tell the police about him.”
“He’s a lawyer, he’d have me committed before that, and I’ll never let him get his hands on Emms.” Kate said, straightening her back as he got closer with a roll of gauze.
“I can see how much you love her.” John said gently, winding the gauze around her thin frame and trying to ignore how pretty her smooth skin was. Everything about Kate was pretty though. John fervently reminded himself that he was nearly ten years older than her, and if anything, she would see him as a sagely uncle living up the stairs. So he was stunned when, after he’d tied off the gauze, Kate leaned down and kissed the corner of his mouth.
“Thank you. Dr. Watson.” She pulled her shirt down and stood, “Oh, and please, call me Kate.”
John forced himself to come up from his knees, “Alright then, you’ll call me John.”
Kate smiled, “I’d like that.” She laughed softly, “Most people are frightened by Emma, but not you. It’ll be nice to get to know someone who’s not terrified of my child.”
“She’s just a little girl.” John said softly.
Kate nodded, “And I do love her, so very, very much. She deserves more than I could ever give her, but it’s my job to make sure she grows into a young woman that can use all that intellect to get somewhere in the world.” John moved towards her to comfort her, and she laughed unexpectedly, startling him, “Look there. Your limp, it’s gone.”
John looked down, a genuine smile on his face for the first time since Sherlock died, “Ah, I suppose it is.”
“Emma will be pleased.” She said, brushing another kiss against his lips before turning away, “Goodnight, John. I’m so glad we’re neighbors.”