The Detectives Daughter

Chapter 47: The Empty Hearse: Dad?

~ (3rd POV) ~

Sherlock had almost given Mrs Hudson heart attack by revealing himself to her.

Yes the great consulting detective Sherlock Holmes was alive and well.

His landlady greeted him with welcoming arms unlike John. Mrs Hudson brought Sherlock into the kitchen and made him a hot cup of tea and they had a catch up; Sherlock had gladly filled her in on what he had been up to the last three years and told her who was involved, but there was something he was desperate to know, how was Brooke?

Mycroft wouldn't tell Sherlock anything about Brooke because his little brother didn't deserve to know, Sherlock would have to find out for himself...

Sherlock placed his cup on the table. "How's Brooke been?" He asked softly.

Mrs Hudson sighed; she remembered everything as if it was yesterday.

"Since the day you jumped of that roof, that poor girl wasn't the same." Mr Hudson began. "She kept herself to herself, she would hardly speak to anyone and when she did it would only be a few short words. She hardly ate, I'd bring food up for her but she'd leave it or pick at it, she lost a lot of weight Sherlock and the smoking, oh the smoking was horrible, the smell stunk the place out and then there were the nightmares..." Mrs Hudson paused and took a shaky breath.

Sherlock sat quietly listening too every single word the old lady said, the pain behind her words painted a picture is Sherlock's head, he could tell his death had destroyed his daughter.

"She'd cry Sherlock, cry for you to save her from whatever she was scared of. Her screams were like a small child's, so lost and so terrified."

Sherlock couldn't believe what he had heard, Brooke was alone and it was his fault! "I-I didn't mean for it to be like that for her. I thought she'd be fine, she always held her head high," Sherlock told her.

"Brooke lost the one person she could always count on. It almost killed her," Mrs Hudson told him truthfully.

If it wasn't for Mycroft then the little Holmes would have been in a terrible place right now.

"How is she now, good?" Sherlock asked.

"Brooke's fine. She turned her life around, got off the cigarettes within a month, she got a little job at a new pub not far from here as a barmaid and singer then she started renting upstairs herself. Oh she and Callum are finally a couple and have ad-"Mrs Hudson was cut off.

*BANG*
The front door slammed shut. Brooke was home from her shift at the pub.

Sherlock knew that it was time to see his daughter. He stood from his seat and went to leave Mrs Hudson-

"Sherlock just remember, Brooke isn't the same little girl you left behind," Mrs Hudson told him. "She's a grown up now, don't go trying to change her because she's just as stubborn as you."

Sherlock nodded and slowly made his way out Mrs Hudson's flat and towards the stairs.

~ (Brooke's POV) ~

FINALLY finished my long shift at the pub was finished and I was home but now I was cleaning the kitchen, my own fault really because I was in a rush earlier when Harlee and I came back from the park, I quickly made lunch and didn't put the plates away, oops!

I was half way through putting the plates away when I heard the stairs creek... No one comes up here at this time not even Callum, he would always text me if he was coming over unexpectedly.

I ran over to the cupboard and pulled out my hand gun. I checked the bullets: FULL!

I crept over to the living room then there stood in front of me was a man... A man who looked like someone I used to know.