Back

Another depressing day-they’re all depressing since you lost your baby, then your husband left you for someone skinnier and prettier. At first food was your friend and television was your comfort, but then your depression got worse and you’re an anorexic now as well as an insomniac. Your parents died, your siblings cast you out with their ”I told you sos” and their, silent, judging looks. You were both so excited for the baby-it would’ve been a little girl, already had her nursery made out. Once you miscarried, he started sleeping around with that harlot, then left when she said she was pregnant.

“Mails here,” you mutter bitterly as you slowly make your out of your house, “what’s the point in even getting it?” you ask yourself as you slowly make your way down the drive to the mail box, “all it ever is, is bills and junk.”

You get the mail out of the box with your same dull lifelessness to your soul as fake a smile to your neighbors who look at you in pity. You start going through the mail as you head back to the house-like you thought: bills and ju-

“wait,” you whisper as you stop in your tracks, “Wha...” you say in confusion, “this can’t be...can it?”

You flip the envelope over and over-your address is right, but you don’t recognize the return address, and the envelope itself is yellowed with age. It looks as if it will disintegrate the moment you open it, who the check could this be from?-when could this be from? Should you, do you dare to open it?

“nobody even writes like this anymore...” you whisper taking in the penmanship, “and how old is this stamp?”

A British Queen is faced on it, but which one is she again?-Victoria you think. You quickly pull out your phone and look up the exact years of her forty year reign...1, June 1837 to 22, January 1901. This letter is centuries old...you were’t even alive in the eighteen hundreads-so how could this be addressed to you? Still stuck rooted to the spot you froze in upon finding this letter, you gingerly open it in fear of it’s disintegration. You carefully pull the letter out of its envelope, and find it written just as fancy as the writing on the envelop.

My dearest Olivia, 16, May 1887

It’s been two years now since I became a consulting detective like you suggested back when we first met during my time in University. Two years since you disappeared-assumingely back to the time you told me about, your own time. I figure by the time this letter reaches you, you’ll be at the lowest point in your life at the moment-as you told me. You were only here a year before you disappeared without a trace, like how you just showed up here out of the blue. You likely recall it all as being nothing more than the manufacturing your brain concocted as you slept, but I assure you it was real.

I‘d like to say that I hope you return here to this time-my time-but that wouldn’t be the complete truth if I said that. Though I will admit-begrudgingly mind you-that I had grown a rather strong fondness for you. Things have been hectic since you left Basil with me-it hasn't been easy taking on cases and keeping her entertained. Watson‘s-charming wife-often watches her while we’re on cases...she has your eyes. She’ll be an intelligent genius by the time she’s fully grown, and who knows: she may be the one to figure out how you got here and back to your time.

Mycroft has always said that caring is not an advantage, and I suppose that it is-to an extent. But I will admit that I have managed to some find some flaws in hi philosophy. As much of a struggle as I find this to admit, I-do miss you, as does Basil...and the Watsons. It seems no matter how hard I work my brain, and search my mind palace, I can’t seem to figure out the fundamentals of how you managed time travel. But I assure you, I will workout the factors of it all and recreate it-somehow.

Yours,

S. Holmes

”I think I’ve gone mental,” you mutter as you read and reread the letter, “completely mental,” you mutter as you stare at the signature, “Sherlock Holmes?-but he’s just a fictional character in books and things...isn’t he?”

As you fold the accent letter back up, you find more writing on the back center fold. The writing looks even stranger than that of the supposed Mr. Holmes. The ink is smudged, and the words are hard to read, you can just barely make them out...

“Turn the hands of time-turn them back, and reverse this life’s threads of mine...Undo what has been done-make the clocks go back-make their hands rewind,” you struggled to read aloud, “Unravel the fates that have intertwined and unseal the fates now known, so to see the possibilities of futures unknown-“

The letter and mail still in my hand, and still not having moved from where you stood upon finding this bizarre letter. Your neighborhood was ALWAYS mostly quiet with the exception of the kids that ran around. So when you suddenly hear the sound of a horse’s neigh, you tense up in your already frozen to spot. As you blink in disbelief, you find yourself no longer in your driveway, standing frozen before your house. You start having a panic attack at the sight of the clothes, the buildings.

Your body quaking in fright at the sight around you at finding yourself no longer in YOUR time. Your mind frantic as you look around like a frightened mouse scurrying from a screaming woman. You desperately stand in the middle of a street, trying to recall the last time you were-apparently here. What you did, where you went; you look down, only to find yourself now dressed like everyone else: in Victorian fashion, and the mail-with the exception of the letter-gone from your hand. The light bulb suddenly clicks in your head, not caring about the proper edict of this time, you lift the skirt of your dress and run all the way to two twenty one Baker Street.

You’re panting and out of breath by the time you reach the steps of the street door you’re looking for. You use the door knocker as you stand catching your breath from running in what the ladies of this time call shoes...

“Yes, can I help you dear?” Mrs. Hudson asks me answering the door, “wait...have we met?”

“Olivia Flaversham,” you reply with a small smile as you shake her hand, “a pleasure to see you again.”

“Oh my,” she says seeming at a loss for word at the sight of my frailty, “come in,” she says awkward ushering me in, “Sherlock!”

“How long have I been gone?” You ask her as you look around finding nothings changed

“Sherlock!” She shouts and you can hear his violin, “t-oh,” she mutters seeming stressed, “SHERLOCK!”

“Mrs. Hudson?” You ask quietly

“Two years dear,” she finally answers, “SHERLOCK you’ve got one!”

“Send them up then Mrs. Hudson!” The familiar voices yelling down the stair, followed by the sound of a crying child and an irritated groan

Mrs. Hudson shoos you towards the stairs and the scurries off else where as you quietly make your way up them. You follow the sound of gun fire, ignoring the shouted complaints from the landlady below. The crying only gets louder as you get closer and the violin starts up again-to which the cries die down as you reach the open doorway of where all the ruckus was coming from. You just stand there a moment, unable to believe this is really real. The child is now quiet and starring at you as the man’s back faces you while he plays his violin.

“I got your letter,” you say and he stops suddenly but not yet turned around, “my how our little Basil’s grown...I can’t believe I forgot her even for a moment-or that I forgot you, William.”

“...” your gaze being on you twos daughter’s, you hadn’t notice him turn around until you looked to him, “how?”

“...” you shrug your shoulders with a happy grin on your face as you push off the door frame and go to hold you twos daughter: Basil, “magic.”

“Scientifically impossible,” he replies as he comes to the two of you with a cocky smirk to his face

“As is time travel,” you smirk back, “as of yet at least,” you add in, “who knows?-the world works in mysterious ways.”