Falling Stars and Cigarettes

Something Familiar

   Sibley set the photo down and took in a deep breath. There was no doubt in her mind that the man in the picture was her father. She had never cared before. She asked about him a few times when she was little and began school to find that everyone else had both a mum and a dad. After that, though, she had no interest. He was just a man. Still, now that she was staring a proof that he exists and that she wasn't just some freak of nature, she found herself wondering.

   She looked over to see what else was there. What she found furthered her suspicions on the man's identity. There was an old positive pregnancy test in a plastic bag. A few candid Polaroids of the mysterious man looking into a microscope or reading a book, or writing something down. Her birth certificate. It said the same thing it always did, though, Father: unknown.

   She quickly packed everything back into the box except for the first photo, and took the blankets into the sitting room, draping them over the sofa. As she got ready for bed she took the photo and tucked it in her sock drawer.

"Maybe one day." she muttered before walking into her bedroom, and climbing into bed.

~~~

"You're firing me?!" Sibley cried, following her boss who wasn't paying her much attention.

"Yep, we gotta new guy coming in to take your place. We're trying to get older workers," he said. Sibley huffed, turning around to grab her things. What was she going to do now?

   Eventually she found herself sitting on a chair in the morgue talking to Molly Hooper. She hadn't seen Molly in quite some time, they knew each other through her mother's happier days and occasionally one would visit the other.

"Well, I could find you a job here," Molly offered. At this, Sibley perked up.

"Really? That would be awesome. It's obviously the closest I'll ever get to being an actual detective," she grinned.

"Oh, now don't say that,"

"Molly, I'm a highschool drop out what Uni is going to take me? Besides, I can't exactly afford it," she sighed with an eye roll.

"We'll talk about this later. Anyway, Lestrade owes me, we don't typically hire underage obviously, but I'm sure there's something you could do."

   And that's how Sibley found herself carrying two trays of coffee into Scotland Yard and passing them out to the detectives. Her job was simple enough, make coffee and food runs, fill out what little paper work she could, and other office like things around the place. When she was finished with the first day, she was so tired and excited, that she forgot all about Sherlock Holmes. He didn't come up until a month later, long enough for her to completely push him out of her mind.

   This was going to be Sibley's seventh time at a crime scene. In the mornings when calls were made about dead bodies or shops being robbed, she was asked to bring everyone their morning coffee. She already knew everyone's orders by heart, due to her superb memory, and was already rocking at her job. She learned the system on the first day and worked officiantly and quickly.

   Today there were two men whom she had never gotten coffee for. She handed everyone their drinks, rounding to Sally Donovan, a woman whom Sibley enjoyed being around, as she treated the teenager just like another part of the team rather than a kid.

"Run while you can, the freak's here," she said, taking the cup.

"Who?" Sibley asked.

"Him," she said, gesturing to a curly haired man, crouching over the dead body. She squinted slightly, there was something familiar about him.