Archive of Our Own ^beta

Yet another ‘drugs bust’ was being perpetrated in 221b Baker Street, Marylebone, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe, Northern Hemisphere/Just under ten miles from technically being in the Eastern Hemisphere, Earth(Sol III), Sol system, ZZ Plural Z Alpha, the Universe.

  Sherlock Holmes* had, once again, stolen and withheld evidence from one Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade’s crime scene.

However, the item recovered in that raid wasn’t the most interesting thing found.

  No, it wasn’t the toes in the fridge(“Experiment!) Nor the note with one-half of it ripped off and pinned to the wall with a kitchen knife(the only legible words were “Sher- we’ve tal- the body- fridge do_ Molly to stop. John.” and the angrily scribbled post-it note under it(“John, you know that the heart was essential to the experiment that proved Miss Bordey was incapable being the one who stabbed Mr Poole in the heart with the ice pick. Do think before you say things. -SH.”)

  Rather, it was the picture of a young John Watson and some adults that was found in the couch cushions, or rather the small words written on the back of it.

The words on the back of the picture found in the cushions read as such;

  “Hello, Johnny! I had finally dragged your dad to Hawalius to visit the Old Woman in the Cave when I found this! So, of course, Arthur insisted we send this to you... I hope they managed to get this to you; the mail service around here is the absolute worst! Love ya, Trisha/Trillian(Arthur insisted)

  Sorry about your mum John; I tried to stop her writing all that, but she’s written it in pen. Please be good for the Watsons, I would rather not have to bring you to most of the places your mother insists we visit. Arthur.”

 The human that found the photo was the bane of Bowerick Wowbagger, First name unknown Anderson, who is well known for being the only being to have two or more names that had less than ten people in their life that knew more than one of them; as well as being one of the less pleasant specimens of humanity.

He quickly showed the picture to his On-again/off-again partner in crime, Sally Donovan, who was the one who spotted the not-quite-right thing stated in the small print.

  “Ah! I was looking for that,” John said, reaching for the photo.

Anderson and Sally didn’t give it to him, opting to question him about it instead. “Who are these people?” Anderson asked, not so politely.

  John looked at the picture, smiling slightly. “Let’s see, that’s my Uncle Ford, Uncle Zaphod, not that either was actually my uncle and my mom, Tricia Marie McMillan, though she preferred Trillian Astra.”

  Several eyebrows were raised at the rather odd names John had mentioned.

“What were your father talking about, ‘be good for the Watsons?’” Sally asked.

  John looked at her oddly. “He’s talking about the family I’ve lived with since I was two.”

He got a lot of surprised looks.

  “You mean you didn’t know that Watson isn’t my original name?” he asked, honestly confused.

“What about Harry?” Sherlock’s voice asked from the kitchen where he was instructing the officer who had taken the toes out of the fridge on how to properly return them to their chilly residence.

 John looked amused as he looked over at the kitchen door, where Sherlock had suddenly appeared. “She’s my third cousin I believe, but we might as well be siblings seeing as I’ve lived with her for almost as long as I remember.”

  Sally was suspicious, after all, what type of parent leaves their child with a distant relative without any apparent reason.

While Sally was staring at John, apparently stuck in time due to the author’s reluctance to actually describe what was happening any more than what was necessary, Sherlock snatched the photo from Anderson’s hands.

 “Do you have a picture of your father?” Sherlock asked.

John thought for a second for running up to his bedroom. He quickly returned with a 100m by 148cm print in his hand.

  From where DI Lestrade was standing he could see the photo that was now in Sherlock’s hands featured a grinning man who looked nearly identical to John with a cup of tea in hand and wildly decorated banner behind him that stated “Happy Forty-second birthday DentArthurDent!”

Also behind the man were the same people seen in the first photo along with another, older, a man wearing a large fuzzy coat. Sherlock flipped the picture over and read the writing on the back aloud, using slightly different voices for each of the different handwritings.

“Arthur’s 42nd birthday, (left to right)

  Ford Prefect Better known as Ix, right Earth-man Nobody calls him that anymore Zaphod. Love ya too sweetheart!

Slartibartfast I thought I told you my name wasn’t important Arthur.

  Arthur Dent Love ya, sweetie! Hey Arthur, have you figured out The Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything, yet?

Tricia Marie McMillian-Dent You know I prefer Trillian, Arthur Yeah, give the little lady what she wants Earth-man.

  Zaphod Beeblebrox That’s right, and don’t you forget it! Do you think of anything other than your ego? If not, would you mind if I ran a few experiments?”

Even Sherlock had to admit that his blogger’s family was more than a little eccentric, though it did explain why he kept surprising Sherlock; he could obviously manage to hide some of his own odd habits with a family like that.

  Only John seemed to think that this was perfectly normal behaviour or even vaguely sensible names.

“Your mother was American?” Sherlock asked. John glared at Sherlock, daring the famously insensitive man to say something.

  After several seconds of that he answered; “Yes, she was.” He paused for a second, thinking. “That was probably why I ended up staying with Da and Mum.”

Everyone looked confused, didn’t he just say he lived with a different family?

  Luckily, John recognised the confusion in the room, for once, and gave them an answer; “Sorry, my Uncle Robert and Aunt Joan Watson; I have lived with them since I was two, of course, I would call them some form of Mother and Father.”

  Shaking himself free of the stupor he had been in, Lestrade asked one of the questions buzzing around his brain like a mattress wondering just why all of its species was call Zem or what exactly it was supposed to gain from life, all while folloping and volloeing on their home planet of Sqornsherllous Zeta; “Why did that one man call your father ‘Earth-man’?”

  John shrugged; “I have honestly no idea**. Not too much out of the ordinary, though, Uncle Zaphod often claimed he was kidnapping himself just to get out of work and away from his vice-president.”

In the end, it turned out the evidence had, in fact, been misplaced by Forensics and not stolen by Sherlock and soon the entire incident of “John Watson is in fact not really John Watson” was forgotten***.

*Sherlock Holmes(see entry); well known as one of the most brilliant detectives of the 20th-21st century in the area of ZZ Plural Z Alpha. Exceptionally famous due to his adventures later being embellished, written, and published by his not quite Earth native flatmate and friend, John H. Watson/John Hamish Watson McMillan Astra Dent(see entry).

**This is a lie on Mr Watson’s part, but in his mind a necessary one. His father, Arthur Dent(see entry), was called Earth-man by President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox (see entry) due to the fact that he was from Earth. However, this is rather hard to explain to the rather ignorant inhabitants of Earth, who have yet to realise their near daily contact with ‘extraterrestrial’ beings.

***Well, at least it was by the lesser minds of (First name unknown) Anderson(see entry) and Sally Donovan(see entry); Sherlock later reluctantly asked his brother, Mycroft Holmes(see entry), about the names John had provided him with. There were too many Arthur Dents to narrow down which one John had been talking about, but the only Tricia Marie McMillian(see entry) on record had been born nearly nine years after John and the only Ford Prefect(see entry) was a man who had showed up out of nowhere and claimed to be from Guildford, despite having a clearly American accent. There was no record of a Zaphod Beeblebrox or Slartibartfast(see entry). Did we mention that this was checked in all countries’ databases, not just the U.K.’s?

Copyright “The Official Unofficial Companion Book to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Information on Some Less Important Things, But You Still May Find Interesting.”

Published Earth Year 2017, by the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor.

If you find this book for free anywhere but from a fellow Hitchhiker, please assume it has been stolen or hacked from our database and return to the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor next time you Hitchhike there, you will be given a free copy from one of our resident Hitchhikers.

This entry was written by; Idreta Gilloffee(see entry) originally from Autt(see entry), a long-term Hitchhiker and consultant of Usseb Thosnek(see entry), the author of “What Are the Babel Fish, And Where Do They Come From?”(see entry)