The Doctor's Daughter | Wholock {1}

Chapter 1: Bored

Sherlock Holmes was bored. When Mycroft called him back from his four-minute exile and said that Jim Moriarty was believed to be back from the dead, he had thought it would be one of his greatest cases. He had been wrong. Months had gone by and they still hadn't found any clues as to Moriarty's whereabouts—if he was even alive. Sherlock couldn't bring himself to believe Moriarty was back. He had watched the consulting criminal shoot himself; he had been undoubtedly dead.

Now Sherlock was bored. He needed something to occupy his mind. He'd asked Lestrade if there were any cases Scotland Yard was investigating, but he'd said there wasn't anything Sherlock would find interesting. He had even asked Molly Hooper if there were any corpses with unknown causes of death that he could look into; there had only been two cadavers that had died of old age and one due to a heart attack—hardly anything worth his time.

Sherlock wished a client would come. Since he started investigating Moriarty's "return", the number of clients coming to him for help had gradually dwindled to almost nothing. Sherlock had already gone through his entire supply of nicotine patches and emergency cigarettes in an attempt to pacify his mind. If he didn't get a case soon—

"Sherlock?" a voice said from the other side of the door to the flat, breaking into his thoughts. Sherlock sat up, slightly surprised. Mrs. Hudson usually let him know when someone came looking for him. He also hadn't heard anyone walk up the stairs to his flat.

"Sherlock, are you in there?" the voice asked a moment later. Whoever the speaker was, she was speaking quietly, like she didn't want anyone other than Sherlock to hear her. Strange.

"Yes, I'm here," Sherlock answered as he stood up and walked to open the door. Standing on the landing on the other side was a girl, probably no older than seventeen, wearing a dark coat with the hood pulled over her head and large sunglasses in front of her eyes. She was obviously hiding from someone, though from whom Sherlock could not yet deduce.

"Can I come in?" she asked, looking up at him. She was short, her eyes barely level with Sherlock's shoulder. "I need your help."

"Of course, come in." Sherlock stepped aside and let her enter the flat.

"Thanks," the girl said as she walked past him. She sat down in in the center of the couch where Sherlock had just been laying. She finally removed her glasses and the hood from her head, allowing her golden blonde hair to fall around her shoulders. Now that Sherlock could see her face, he was sure he had seen her before, though he wasn't sure where.

"How can I help you?" Sherlock asked as he sat down in his favorite chair.

"It's more of a personal matter than a case," the girl said, not meeting his eyes. "I need you to introduce me to someone. Her name is Mary Watson."