The Rather Extensive Consequences of a Failed Experiment, Chapter 1

Just so everyone knows, there is a rather extensive author's note attached to this, but is included on the fanfiction.net page where it will be posted soonish. The following is why I have avoided reading, writing, or in general even thinking about crossovers in general at all. Enjoy?

It had been little more than an experiment, a few weeks after his ‘last case,’ with Doctor Watson concluded with Lord Blackwood’s real death. Mostly to see if there was some way he could eek out a ‘life,’ with a relationship complete with physical affection. He’d long ago deduced what was wrong with his dear Doctor Watson—a tragically repressed attraction to dangerous men, and to women made of steel and manipulation. It was perfectly boring, and Sherlock had soon wanted to deduce himself, to find out what he wanted. Irene had been most obliging, she, being, of course, the only person on Earth who he could possibly see himself eeking out a passably normal relationship with. He much preferred being alone—in fact, he knew that he quite enjoyed going without physical stimulations for months or even years, save for those of the mind—with a trusted few close by but never quite touching. Doctor Watson was the closest he’d allowed anyone in years, after Irene. 

And the good Doctor was soon to be married—the Fall after this coming one, a perfectly awful time to marry, of course, but it was what the man wanted. A good long engagement to Miss Mary Morton or whatever her name was. He knew he very well could not expect that the Doctor would be willing to assist him in this experiment, but that Irene would. She was smarter than he was, on some days, and that intrigued him and gave him a strange, irrational hope that perhaps for once he and Watson were both wrong in their deductions that Sherlock Holmes would die alone. 

The experiment had been a miserable failure. To be sure, Irene had been pleasant about it, even sympathetic as he struggled to understand the basics and grasp at mastery in just a few short days. She had teased him relentlessly, and it was only when she was being particularly snarky that he found any pleasure in the acts at all—debating with her took his mind off of the distasteful chore he’d set out to learn. He could perform of course—to a modicum of success—but could only watch at an impossible distance as Irene would gasp and curl and arch against him. She had left him, on that Sunday morning, with a kiss and a “We will have to practice later, Sherlock.” 

It was ten months before he saw her again, looking well but worried. Something in him had twisted at the thought that Irene, who was brilliant, was afraid. He’d known who she was afraid of, she helped Sherlock whenever she could to derail Moriarty’s plans. Things had also happened in her absence—she’d briefly been a mother, and briefly married to an American man named Stark. They’d adopted a son together apparently, from what the papers said about it. Stark had gotten the infant in the divorce proceedings, and Irene had gotten a third of his estate. Sherlock rather thought that Irene had gotten the better end of the deal. She hadn’t lived long to enjoy it, however, because before Watson had managed to marry himself off—in a desperate attempt to escape 221B and Sherlock permanently—Irene was dead. 

Moriarty was methodical in getting rid of the people closest to Sherlock, who was only glad that Irene’s tiny adopted son was far, far away from the man. He would perhaps have to see to that child’s safety, but not before he secured that of Doctor and Mrs. John Watson. They were all he had left, after Irene’s death—after Irene’s murder. 

In the next few weeks—really just two weeks had passed?—he hadn’t been able to give a single thought to Irene other than the last one on the steamboat across the channel to France. He hadn’t even stood long enough to watch her monogrammed kerchief fall to the sea—it was far too painful. He had been open and weak to Irene more times than he’d like to admit, and her loss was a great blow to him—probably far greater than Moriarty gave credit to, if he was very honest with himself. 

After surviving his fall from the chateau in Switzerland, he had also been more concerned with taking out Moriarty’s last few contacts who apparently had orders to make Doctor and Mrs. John Watson’s lives difficult. There were none who were to make trouble for Mr. Arnold Stark or his toddling son, and for that Sherlock was glad. Irene had never done anything vaguely attachment-y with any of her husbands, and that made Arnold Stark speci—

The math had come quickly to Sherlock after that—they had had a date set for tea several weeks after that unpleasant weekend of learning, and Irene had sent a note pleading sickness. She had just returned from a brief visit to France and so Sherlock had thought nothing of it. After that she had quickly gone to America and married yet another brilliantly rich man and had stayed out of the limelight of his fame for several months before it was announced that Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Stark had adopted a son, naming him Carlton Stark. After another few months, the family released a photo of the new parents and their son. A son who was the spitting image of a daguerreotype of Sherlock himself as an infant sitting in his mother’s lap.

Sherlock felt no sudden pangs of paternal regrets or anything of the like—it was certainly not his fault that Irene had not told him or included him or the rest of it. She had obviously arranged a good home for the child to grow up in, one with money and support, and understanding. Unless Mr. Stark was a blithering idiot of the highest kind—and the sharp expressions in his photos did not lead Sherlock to believe this—he had to have known Irene was carrying a child and married her despite it. Even after her death, Irene was brilliant. However, Sherlock did want to assure himself that his child would grow up as it should. 

So the last thing he did before permanently returning to England—with a hell of a plan to scare the daylights out of Watson, it was just perfect—was to visit New York to meet Mr. Stark and the young Carlton Stark who was just a year old now. When he knocked the doorman took one look at him before nodding him in.

“Mrs. Stark said that sooner or later you would show up, please follow me to the drawing room and Mr. Stark and his son will be along shortly,” the old man said—he rather reminded Sherlock of Stanley, at home. 

Left to his own devices he quickly deduced half of the things Stark would wish to tell him when he arrived simply from the desk and the arrangement of the chairs. Letters addressed to American lawyers and British solicitors, applications in various piles from women hoping to nanny the child of the divorced Mr. Stark, two chairs one new to the room and one an original occupant—facing one another, set away from the desk. So, it was to be business, and the discussion of financial care for the child. It seemed that Irene still had standards after she’d left—intelligence, directness. 

“Ah, Mr. Holmes, so good to meet you. This is my Carlton, and this,” Sherlock turned round to look at the middle aged Arnold Stark who was accompanied by a maid, “Is Phineas, who is yours.” In the maid’s arms was a dark haired little boy who stared back at Sherlock in a steady way which Sherlock found reassuring, despite the hand the child had stuffed half-way down it’s throat. Of course, of course of course—twins ran in Irene’s family, it was how she had first come to his attention. Irene and Rudolf Adler had been partners in crime for nearly ten years, until he had gone to some eastern European country and gotten married and settled down. Irene had conceived with twins, with two boys who looked nothing alike—one took after him, and the other after Irene. It was also obvious, seeing him in person, that Stark was not in the kind of health that would lend itself to fathering a child, was actually likely impotent—Irene had probably seen that as well and offered him an heir for his empire.  Sherlock nodded, knowing that his lips were twitching—not knowing to smile or frown—and strode across the room to his host. 

“Phineas? A fine name, might I hold him?” Sherlock prided himself on being unflappable, and this was a shining moment of such ability. The maid handed over the little boy who had Irene’s large blue eyes, settling the heavy child into Sherlock’s arms. Phineas quickly nosed all around Sherlock, taking in the scents of his recent adventures, and grasping all around at his shirt and jacket—getting a feel of who this man was. Sherlock didn’t immediately fall in love with the boy, but he knew right then that this child might well be his greatest experiment. Perhaps he could bully Mrs. Watson or Mrs. Hudson into looking after Phineas from time to time, even.