When I was eight, I was asked to write an essay about my name for my English class (which at that point was still unrelated to my classes with the organization): its origin, its meaning, why I was called that, whether I liked it or not.

Of course, every word I wrote down was a lie but when I accidentally blurted about this to John a couple days after Sherlock and Joan left, he advised me that it would be a good idea to write something of the sort again, so that I could, to quote "finally try to move on from my fucked up situation". The idea of moving on was distant to me before I met Sherlock Holmes #25 and non-existent at the age I wrote about how my parents had chosen that name for its meaning of "fare locks", which became ironic when I grew older and my blond hair turned dark...
So here it goes:

Names

Names are basically a failed attempt at describing. Like trying to explain what the colour red looks like to someone born blind. It is usually for this reason that we tend to hate our names so much.
However, like titles of a book, names have to explain to you the idea behind thousands upon thousands of words, without revealing too much about what lies behind the cover. This is a near impossible task, so we mustn't blame those who fail to.

John hated his name because of how closely it represented his reality; being a worthless Beta-version of his sister. In this respect one could say that his name was a complete success at describing him. I believe not. I believe that he and Joan, not unlike Sherlock and I, saw their names as descriptions of themselves and accepted them as their fates.
Joan just did everything John did, because she believed that, being given a name incredibly similar to his, she had to be him. Having more talent than him in many fields she was better. Simple as that. Thus their names weren't made for who they are. They made themselves to match their names.
My case (and I assume Sherlock's too) was little different: I hated my name so much because it dictated me who to be, shouted the words "consulting detective" in my head at all times, commanded me to never be anything else. I hated my name because it stole my freedom. And even though it divided me from the rest of society, I also despised it for basically grouping me into the same person as twenty-four others. That's really why we were all given the same name. We were told that we were the same person. The same distant, cold, genius, sociopathic person none of us really wanted to be.
And the thing that took me all this time to understand. That took me finding out that my position is not of value and that I am not needed for anything in particular. That took me coming close to killing someone in my rage.

That thing is that a name is just a name; It tries to describe but all it does is mask who we really are. In the end, people may have the most horrible name in the world and it doesn't matter. So long as they are a good person. I would like to try and be a good person now. Or if I was already, a better one.
I think someone with a name is more likely to be better than someone with a number.

The Watsons are setting an example: They promised to call each other once Joan had landed on American soil. And she did. They talked for hours. It was a pleasant conversation they had, at least the half I heard. John said something about me shooting the wall again, so I'm assuming that's a good sign...

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, that seen as a name has no real power to tell you who you are or should be, you may as well like it. And even if you don't, don't bother about it. I can see dozens of miseries in your life at one glance and I'm sure that's barely even scraping the surface of the pain and suffering in your ordinary day-to-day life full of offices, beers and affairs, so why make your name another? Why fuss about such useless and unimportant things?

It's been thirty-four years but finally I can say in all honesty: My name is Sherlock Holmes.

I like my name.

A/N: I am happy to say I finished this the day before the new Sherlock hiatus will start, and with that finished my last open fic :) It may be my last as I really want to concentrate on trying to write a novel now, but I really enjoyed writing this last crossover. I actually have had it almost finished for the past couple of weeks. It was hard for me to continue writing because of a textpost I read on Sherlock's character on tumblr the day after The Empty Hearse aired (Series 3 has been amazing (up until now at least :3 btw I absolutely love TEH and TSoT). Another reason which made it hard was that I started coming across Sherlock fans hating on Elementary and Elementary fans hating on Sherlock, which made me feel like I might really piss people off with this fic. But at some point I pushed all those doubts aside and concentrated on finishing this fic. And I am happy how it turned out. I wrote it in part to show that I completely support both TV series and that they are both brilliant and should be respected as that. Anyways I am really glad so many people read this when I thought NO ONE would read it, so I'm happy so many people do like both :) Thank you for reading and if you care to give me a review that would be awesome :))

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!