Fight for Me

Chapter 77

Lydia slapped Sherlock's arm as she reprimanded him, "don't touch the door, you are going to get mud all over it and then Mrs. Hudson will get cross!"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her but pulled his hand away from the door, mostly so he could take her hands in his, making them just as dirty. "And I assume you are going to open it instead?"

"Seriously, Sherlock? At least I had the brains of washing my hands after we caught the culprit!" Lydia huffed, reaching up and smearing the mud he had transferred to her hands over the side of Sherlock's face. Not that it made much of a difference, his face was already pretty well coated.

"Oh for Christ's sake," John sighed, pushing between the two so that he could open the door. "You two need to get a room."

He slipped inside the building, Sherlock and Lydia rushing in after him so they would not touch any more surfaces than were necessary. John had only made it to the third step before a voice called out, "John, is that you?"

The trio's heads all whipped around to Mrs. Hudson's flat, where the old lady was tugging the door open hoping to catch them when they came home. Her eyes widened upon seeing the state that they were in, but she quickly recovered, simply thankful that it hadn't been blood instead of mud.

"Oh, what mess have you gotten yourselves into today?" She tutted, pulling a hanky out of her pocket and attempting to wipe off some of the mud coating Sherlock's face, much to his annoyance.

"I think that's quite enough, Mrs. Hudson," he muttered, trying to get out of her reach, however his escape up the stairs was currently blocked by Lydia. "Are we just going to stand around here all night or get back into the flat so that we can get cleaned up?"

"You two can head up, but Lia, you have a visitor," Mrs. Hudson announced, finally pulling the cloth away from Sherlock's face.

Lydia frowned at her landlady, ignoring the looks Sherlock and John were giving her, "who is it?"

"Hi, Lydia," a timid voice spoke up as a young girl stepped out of Mrs. Hudson's flat and into the foyer. She looked to be a teenager, with chestnut brown hair falling just to her waist and light brown eyes that reflected the light in the hallway. Lydia racked her brain, trying to place her in her memories, but she was quite certain she had never met this woman before in her life.

Sherlock quickly took her in, deducing exactly who she was while Lydia merely stared at her blankly. Taking a step towards Lydia, Sherlock put a protective arm around her waist as she muttered, "I'm sorry, but do I know you?"

"Sorry, I should have introduced myself," the young woman gave a shy smile. "I'm Lily, your sister."

Lydia's thoughts began to spin, her head shaking in disbelief, "I don't- I don't have a sister."

"Well, half sister, actually. Your mother, she got remarried to my father," Lily explained, causing Lydia's heart to stop. "I'm sorry for dropping by unannounced like this, er, I was just hoping to meet you and tell you about mum."

Silence fell over the five people in the foyer of the flat, Lydia's brain having had clouded with shock. She hadn't seen her mother in nearly twenty years, in her mind her mother was dead, overdosed in some drug den while Lydia could be proud of herself for surviving even if it did mean belonging to the Rose Foundation. But now it seemed that her mother was the one who survived and it was Lydia who had died - or at least a part of her had.

"Erm, would you like to come up and have a cuppa? We should probably get cleaned up, but you can make yourself at home," John finally spoke upon realising that Lydia wasn't going to say anything.