Authors Note

Madilin Cressenda Adeline Holmes (though she goes by her Cressenda, or Cress) is the closest to normal a Holmes can be. The result of a drug-induced, teenage hookup, she is everything Sherlock tries to prove he isn't. Yet she is who he loves most in the world. His only daughter, his reminder of love.

The real reason Mrs. Hudson offered up the flat at 221 Baker Street for so cheap is because Sherlock really needed it. He needed custody of his daughter, and his daughter needed to be around him.

Mycroft had been given custody of Addaline as soon as she was born. Her mother was unfit, with no family, and destined to die within a year. But Mycroft knew she needed her father. He went above and beyond to keep them together.