"Mr. Holmes, good to finally meet you! My name is Mrs. Donavan." She said with a grin, holding out a hand to shake. The hand was bedazzled with rings and bracelets alike, so much jewelry that Sherlock almost had a hard time shaking her hand without wincing as a diamond or two dug into his exposed skin.
"Hello Mrs. Donavan." He muttered, following her into what could only be Annie's little classroom. Sherlock's own memories of school had been a lot...well bigger perhaps was the word. Walking through such a classroom he never realized just how small the chairs and desks were, all made for little children who were surely too small to see over the top of the teacher's desk. The furniture was so small that Sherlock was almost hesitant to sit down anywhere, as his knees would stick up probably to the height of his nose if he tried to squeeze down into one of those little chairs. Thankfully Mrs. Donavan pulled around a normal sized chair, placing it near the front of her own desk before sinking down into her own swivel chair and smiling a bit awkwardly.
"Is this about Annie, then?" Sherlock presumed, sitting down in his chair and keeping his posture quite perfect. The woman seemed to have a distasteful look on her face, though he couldn't imagine why. Surely he hadn't done anything wrong, not in the two minutes they had been acquainted?
"It partially is, yes." Mrs. Donavan agreed, pausing for a moment as she unearthed a large white paper from inside of the desk.
"Partially. Don't tell me she's getting bullied? I told her to be nice to everyone, but sometimes kids are just raised rotten." Sherlock muttered with a dramatic sigh, though with every word that came out of his mouth the woman seemed more and more displeased. At last she set the paper down before him, revealing what could only be a children's drawing. He recognized the style of drawing that was presented before him, the sort of bent limbs and large heads that characterized most of his own daughter's artwork.
"Mr. Holmes, my children were tasked to draw me a picture of their families." The woman began to explain, allowing Sherlock to look over the picture and see ultimately what was wrong with it. Well after such a description he was able to make out the main players of the drawing, those that were supposed to be there and those that were not. There he was, with great circles drawn in black around his head, standing a good couple inches taller than the little stick figure next to him. That was Annie, then. Above them hovered a figure in a white dress, with little white angel wings and long black hair. That was her 'mother', or what she imagined her mother to be. All of that was quite fine, if not just a little bit depressing. It was the other figures that were perhaps the subject of this meeting, all very poorly drawn and downright expressionless figures standing on the other side of Sherlock.
"I counted nine other people in that picture, Mr. Holmes. And when I asked her if she had many brothers she told me no, they were just the men that were there in the morning." Mrs. Donavan explained. Sherlock smiled a bit reluctantly, feeling quite foolish to assume that his daughter had done anything wrong when in fact it was he who was being punished. And punished for what, exactly? If he was quite correct, this woman had no jurisdiction over what he did with his free time, especially as he was a mature and consenting adult.
"I see um...well I see where the concern is." Sherlock admitted at last, deciding to abandon his posture as he realized this woman already saw him as a distasteful wreck.
"I cannot tell you how to live your life, Mr. Holmes, as that is far beyond my job requirement. But I am tasked at minding my children's home lives, and making sure they are given the best possible upbringing. Exposing a child to such an atmosphere is terribly unhealthy, for all parties involved." Mrs. Donavan warned, her eyes narrowing as if she had also decided to abandon her friendly and caring nature. Sherlock hesitated for a moment, trying to think of a proper response to such an accusation.
"Are you sl*t shaming me?" Sherlock asked at last, to which the woman turned a distasteful color of red and leaned forward on her desk. Perhaps she didn't feel as though he was taking this seriously enough, which in the end he wasn't at all. He could feel himself putting up defenses; he could feel his brain mustering up an attempt to make this all into a fun joke. He was trying to smile, and to laugh, though he was being attacked, he could feel the cavalry in her stares. This woman didn't think he was very amusing at all, and she took his poor attempt of humor as something terribly troubling.
"I am saying simply, Mr. Holmes, that you are not providing a healthy atmosphere for your daughter. I understand that it's difficult for a single parent to raise a child themselves, but teaching them such bad behavior, and demonstrating that it's alright to have so many sexual partners..."
"She doesn't even know what sex is, Mrs. Donavan." Sherlock interrupted.
"Either way, Mr. Holmes!" the woman growled, just about getting out of her chair to dispute him from a higher angle. Sherlock's soul gave a shutter, though he forced himself to stay calm and relaxed. He knew the woman's point, he understood just everything she was trying to say and he understood why she felt she had to say it. But he couldn't...he couldn't process the reasons why he should listen. He couldn't fathom the idea that he was in the wrong, he couldn't accept that he was being a problem to his daughter. He did everything right...he did everything!
"I'll keep them in the room, then, until she's off to school." Sherlock decided at last, in whatever small voice he could muster.
"I would hope that you would. I cannot tell you to mind your romantic habits all together; as my concern is only for your daughter and the impressions you are placing upon her." the woman insisted, seeming to calm down just as Sherlock was beginning to be more receptive to her requests. Well of course he didn't intend for Annie to be introduced to the men who wander in his door every night, though they seemed to want to invite themselves to breakfast, or to get a cup of coffee from the machine. Annie always seemed to encounter them, no matter how hard Sherlock tried to keep them away. She was always very polite, always asking their name. Sometimes the men humored her and her conversation, other times they kept quiet as if they felt it was some sort of interrogation. In the end Annie might have learned more of their names than Sherlock ever did. When she asked who they were Sherlock merely introduced them as friends, and when she asked why they never came back Sherlock had to make some excuse or another, trying to rationalize in her little head why someone would show up as a friend one single morning and never return again. One day she'll grow old enough to understand the concept of a one night stand, though until her impression of her father was tarnished for good she would only understand him to be a very friendly man, acquainted with a lot of mercurial and traveling men.
"Is that...is that all?" Sherlock managed at last, feeling his fingers griping his knees in a very painful sort of way. He felt it, the despair; it was crashing down upon his shoulders like a ton of bricks. This woman was stoning him, she was putting him up to the firing squad, she was pulling the rope of the guillotine. He was being...he was being killed. All by a simple conversation about the one single thing he had ever done wrong to his daughter. The one single toe he had ever stepped out of line. It was all...it was all coming back to him now. The faces of the men, the voices of the men, the feelings of the men. And his daughter, poor Annie, his lost little bird...
"Now that you mention it, Mr. Holmes, there were some other mild situations that had been brought to my attention. The fact being that Annie has been late to class on multiple occasions, sometimes claiming to have missed the bus because you were not able to wake up and feed her breakfast in time. And once...well I dare to even think of this once more...but once I found that she had a whole carton of cigarettes inside of her lunch box." Mrs. Donavan announced, heaving a great sigh of discontent as if she felt revolted just admitting to such a discovery. Sherlock paused, shaking his head in exasperation and realizing that probably reflected quite badly upon him.
"In truth, ma'am, the cigarettes weren't mine." He admitted quietly, though he knew that with further questioning as to whom they belonged to he would dig himself into an even bigger rut. And so he didn't admit to the woman that they were the property of one of his nightly companions. He didn't admit that the cigarettes in Annie's lunch box had been that strange man's idea of a joke.
"Mr. Holmes, I know it's not my position to tell you how to raise your daughter. I know that it may be difficult for you, as a single parent, to take upon the whole of parenting duties yourself. Though the environment you are presenting your daughter with, it borders on dangerous. It borders on negligence. I cannot command you to change your ways, but I do suggest you put more time into making sure your household is...well a bit more family friendly. You could be teaching Annie habits that will stick with her for the rest of her life. And certainly you don't want that." Mrs. Donavan insisted lethally.
"We don't want that. We don't want her to...to grow up to be just like me." Sherlock clarified, as he understood the main connotation of such a little speech. The woman considered him a wreck, and for all he knew he could be. For all he knew, he might be the worst parent imaginable. For a moment the teacher just sat there, staring upon her victim with poisonous eyes though not giving him the satisfaction of looking away or even blinking. It felt like her gaze sat upon Sherlock so heavily that it was boring into his soul, so deep and so lethal that he was given no choice but to shutter.
"Mr. Holmes, aside from these issues Annie seems to get along very well with the children. She is a well-mannered, respectful girl. A bright future ahead, I'm sure." Mrs. Donavan promised, though her teeth seemed to be grinding as she offered him a half of a compliment. Sherlock nodded, flexing his jaw for a moment before getting to his feet and stumbling for a moment upon his own two feet. He wasn't entirely sure what was wrong with him; he wasn't sure what sort of feelings were bubbling up inside of his chest. Something that felt like shame, something that felt like anger...
"She is, isn't she? So...so well mannered. I raised her that way, yes? I was the one who made her like that, I'm a good father. I'm the best father." Sherlock insisted, as if he felt the need to remind the woman of his own validity.
"Mr. Holmes, I was never in the position to dispute that." Mrs. Donavan insisted, though such a statement seemed quite contradictory to the speeches she had just given moments before.
"Yes...yes you called me a sl*t. I'm not a sl*t, I'm a human being. I'm a human being, and I have needs, yes. Needs aside from just food, and water. I need people, you see, I need feelings." Sherlock insisted with a shutter, pressing his finger to his chest as if to demonstrate that he had a heart somewhere inside of his ribs. The woman was looking uncomfortable, as she still had not risen from her chair. She seemed to notice that something was wrong; she seemed to understand that Sherlock wasn't entirely...wasn't entirely there. She stayed silent, gripping onto the desk as if prepared to raise it and use it as some sort of defense, if she needed to. And perhaps Sherlock was not giving the impression he intended to; perhaps he wasn't making a good show of himself and his character. But she understood, yes? She understood what a blow she had made to his ego, she understood that she was very obviously and very offensively doubting his parenting skills.
"I am going to leave, Mrs. Donavan. I am going to leave, so that I can pick my daughter up from the babysitter. I don't want to pay the extra hour." Sherlock explained at last.
"That would be best." The woman agreed, though she was just about as stiff as a board. She was tense, perhaps in an attempt to keep herself from activating fight or flight. Sherlock gave a smile, something of a pitiful grimace in which he merely showed his teeth and was done with it, as if to demonstrate his predatory nature should she ever try to come between him and his daughter again. And so with that he turned on his heel, storming down the unusually cramped hallway and out to his car before he broke down into tears in the visible range of this accursed woman. 

For all Sherlock cared, Mr. Turner could keep Annie throughout the night. He knew her bedtime, and he had that dingy little spare room that she used for Sherlock's overnight escapades. They both knew better than to wonder when he might be getting back, as they could surely hear his footsteps above them, his footsteps as they stamped into the wood right over their heads. But no one came up. Mr. Turner may be a fool, but he knew Sherlock well enough not to deliver his daughter unless he was specifically asked. One too many times there had been a man here, and twice too many times poor Annie had walked into her father having one of his fits. It was best for them both to stay downstairs and watch their cartoons. And they knew that, they knew that because of practice. Sherlock rampaged through the apartment at will, knowing he was as free as he could ever be, free from judgement, free from Mrs. Donavan's wandering eyes. He wasn't a bad father; he was quite the opposite of a bad father! He was a good father, the best father, so why did she want to put doubt into his mind? Why did she want to villainize him, when everyone needed love? Was she homophobic, was she trying to change Sherlock in some way? Would she accept him better if there had been women parading about his apartment instead of men? Or perhaps...perhaps she had some sort of personal vendetta towards him. Maybe her own husband, or boyfriend, or love interest...maybe they had wandered into Sherlock's bed at one point? It wouldn't be the first time he had a jealous woman on his back, tailing his every move to try to find his weaknesses. It wouldn't be the first time he had been sabotaged. The first thing Sherlock did was find the needle, that needle that he kept hidden away for emergencies such as this one. He perched himself on the kitchen counter, rolling up his sleeve with shaking fingers and tying the tourniquet tightly around his arm, pulling it through with his teeth before plunging his much needed medication through his veins. Well, perhaps it was not medication...but it certainly felt good. It certainly healed him, from the inside out. When at last he felt the drug coursing through his veins he grabbed a bottle of whiskey, the very same bottle he kept hidden up amongst Annie's juice boxes, much too high for her to reach and therefore much too difficult to ever discover. And with a swig he felt better, with a swig he could feel the alcohol burning down his throat and beginning to collect at the very bottom of the vat that had been hallowed out inside of him. It splashed there for a moment before it was joined by some more, and by the end of the night his goal was to replace that happiness instead with whiskey, fill the void which Mrs. Donavan had carved out inside of him.
"Sherlock, you are the most wonderful parent." He reminded himself, staring now at his reflection in the darkened kitchen window. He could see his eyes, dilated and intense, staring right back. The reflection was smiling though he was not; the reflection looked as if it knew something that he could never guess.
"A lost bird needs its mother, Sherlock." The reflection reminded him, and as if on cue the little baby bird began to chirp inside of its cage, it began to cry out its mournful coo despite the time of night. Sherlock winced, plugging up his ears as the melancholy sound filled his head, filled it like a rattling which could not be stopped, which could not be silenced. Oh it was as if the bird was taking the reflection's side, as if it was taking Mrs. Donavan's side! As if it wanted to remind poor Sherlock just how miserable it was, trapped in a cage that was not its home, without its mother to even glance upon.
"No, no!" Sherlock exclaimed, shaking away his reflection though it lingered, it lingered in the glass all the while he tried to look away.
"It'll die without her, Sherlock. You can't be mother...you can't be everything." The reflection whispered.
"I can...I can and I will! Annie's parents they're...they're negligent! They left her sitting, they left her crying!" Sherlock exclaimed in his own defense, trying to shake the reflection's voice away all the while he went for the bird, opening up the cage and giving a great shutter. He chased the feathered thing around the cage for a while, though today he was not trying to be gentle. Today he was not trying to teach it tricks.
"And where is she now, not in your own careful hands? She's left downstairs...who knows if she's crying? How could you ever know, if she's unhappy?" the reflection growled. Sherlock trapped the bird within his fingers, giving a growl of success as he clenched the bird, holding its struggling little head between his fingers and sneering in pleasure.
"She's happy, she's always happy. By God, she loves me. She loves me enough for me to be her father, to be her mother..." Sherlock growled, his fingers tightening rather involuntarily about the struggling bird, feeling its little legs shuffling underneath of it, feeling the wings flexing with nowhere to go.
"But you can't be...Sherlock. This is no atmosphere to raise a child, you heard her yourself! You cannot be everything she needs, you cannot be perfect." The reflection whispered.
"I am PERFECT!" Sherlock exclaimed, and yet just as his anger magnified, just as soon as he raised his head to scream at the reflection that was smirking back...well that's when he heard that sickening crack. That's when he felt the poor bird stop its twitching, as if it was suddenly content in his fingers. It stopped struggling all together, and the head...well the head seemed to decide to turn the wrong way. The head decided it wanted to look to the right; all the while the whole body disagreed with such a decision. Sherlock gave a grimace, dropping the disfigured bird as if it had burnt his fingers, dropping it into a pile on the laminated kitchen floors and stepping back in his own grief.
"I can't..." Sherlock whispered, looking up to where his reflection was nodding along to its own choreographed script. "I can't be perfect."
"You need the mother." the reflection reminded him, giving a great smile as its lips began to turn red, red with the shade of lipstick that would most compliment his hair color and skin tone. Red with a sort of feminine charm, the sort of beauty he would expect from himself. Sherlock struggled, he stared for a moment at his painted reflection and then down again at the baby bird, the bird that had at once been singing sad songs of separation...and now it was dead on his floor. Dead at his feet, and by his own hands. No mother...there was no mother here to protect it. This was no family, just a poor imitation, a society of outcasts, made entirely by a man who was losing his mind.