The Swan Queen | Sherlock

40-30-35

   The phone lay silent on the couch beside me. Three missed calls and a voicemail which I had not yet listened to. It didn't feel real. I couldn't process what had happened. A private investigator looking for me, trying to establish contact... Why? Surely He knew who I was, where I was, how to find me. Everyone else has. Why now? Why today of all days? I stared at my phone screen, the voicemail symbol staring back, goading me.

Dr Knight wanted to meet me. Mathew Knight. My father. My father wanted to meet me!

I wasn't sure how I felt about that. It was overwhelming, confusing. I couldn't make up my mind, too many thoughts swarming. Apollo had been an easy choice, I wanted nothing to do with him. My mother had been a different story. When I first found out about her I was desperate to see her, so desperate as to go on a rampage and embarrass myself at Sherrinford. But the more I found out about her from Mycroft, the less I wanted to know.

But Mathew... He was a different story. He had been one of her doctors, charmed by her or tricked or both. There was nothing Mycroft had ever said to make me think he was mentally ill, a psychopath, sociopath, or anything but a normal guy. Just an ordinary man who fell victim to my mother, who got her pregnant and that was the end of that. A fool maybe, but a bad person? I don't think so.

Did I want to meet him though? That was the question...

I was relieved Sherlock and John weren't here. I wouldn't have been able to talk about this with them. And Mycroft, as much as I wanted to call him, he would be no use at all. He had kept us apart for this long, I'm sure he would do everything in his power to enforce that still. Unless he felt I should make my own decisions now.

My hand reached out slowly and picked up my phone, selecting the voicemail and listening. The voice of the private investigator was male, smooth-talking with an accent, Welsh I think. He rattled on about bad connections as if I hadn't just purposely hung up on him. He asked me to contact him on a number he provided if I was interested in meeting his client and thanked me for my time.

I wrote the number down, just in case, then switched my phone off. I stared at it, as though trying to memorise it. I was good with phone numbers, the trick is to find a pattern. This one ended 403035, it rolled off the tongue nicely. Forty, thirty, thirty-five. The piece of paper was crumpled up in my hand and I was saying it out loud.

"Zero seven five nine one four zero three zero three five."

I had the number. I could call anytime. But did I want to? Did I want to meet my father?

I wanted someone I could turn to and talk to about this, someone who could give honest advice without being biased. Mycroft knew Matthew, had kept me away from him all this time. I didn't feel like he would be much use in this situation. I couldn't talk to Sherlock and I couldn't talk to John because neither of them knew the truth, neither did my grandparents, neither did anyone in my life except for one, and I certainly wasn't turning to Jim Moriarty. Not again. Not ever.

There was no one I could turn to with the truth. Everyone knew me as Samantha the orphan, both my parents were supposedly dead. How do I approach the subject without giving too much away? Perhaps staying silent was safer. I could always change my number, refuse contact. But was that what I wanted?

What would Apollo do?

I wondered, but I already knew the answer. He had found our father and met with him. However, he never told Mathew who he truly was, because Mathew didn't know he had a son. Matthew knew he had a daughter and had hired a private investigator to find me. And now, I've been found. The rest is up to me.