Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He hears the fire before he sees it. Crackling and popping, a roar of ravenous, inhuman consumption. He turns to see it snaking up in the corner of his bedroom, fingers of flame reaching for the soft curtains, devouring the wallpaper. Heat steals the breath from his lungs, singes his skin.

He runs to the door, grasps the handle and turns, but it doesn’t budge. Locked. He’s trapped.

His bed is burning now. His chair. His toybox and his drawings on the wall above his desk. Smoke fills the room and he screams for help as the blaze draws nearer, the roar of fire closing in on him from all sides.

The noise builds into a crescendo in his ears, waking him with a jolt. He sits up, gasping for air, trying to snatch the images quickly scattering back into the shadows of his mind. Adrenaline coursing through him makes him want to leap out of bed and run, and he already feels as though he’s sprinted for miles. He blinks into the darkness, searching for something familiar to dispel his disorientation, but he’s never seen this place in his life. 

He is on a bed, the cloying smell of a cologne he doesn’t recognize coming from the sheets. He can make out a small kitchenette and the shape of an armchair in the dark. Not a hotel, not big enough to be a flat. A bedsit?

He shifts and his shirt clings to him; a huge, wet slick down the center of his chest has started to harden at the edges. Deep, thick crimson, almost black in the weak moonlight streaming in through the dusty window blinds. His pulse pounds in his ears as he surveys the carnage, and a chill courses through him. He gingerly pulls the fabric away from his chest and stomach, fingers gently skimming, taking inventory of his body, looking for the source of the blood. There is so much… it’s as if he’s bathed in it. He’s dimly aware that logically he should be panicking, but his head is full of fog. 

He shifts slowly, waiting to feel the pull of a wound, a lightning strike of pain lacing through him from the source. The only thing that hurts is his throbbing head, and he doesn’t seem to be bleeding there.

With shaking hands, he pats at his pocket, relieved to feel the shape of his mobile. Pulling it out, he calls the only person he’s bothered to program into his favorites list.

“Sherlock?” John’s voice is thick with sleep.

Sherlock pulls the phone away to squint at the screen. 4:22am. 

“John,” he starts, but his breath catches in his throat. He is shaking all over now, tremors coursing through his system, pouring from his bones. He is so cold.

John is instantly more alert. “What’s wrong?”

His tongue is a dry, clumsy thing in his mouth. “I … I don’t know––”

Movement on the other side of the line. A door closing. Sherlock can imagine John standing on the landing outside his bedroom so as not to wake Rosie. 

“Where are you?” John demands. He sounds alert now, urgent even.

“I think I’m in a flat. A bedsit,” Sherlock responds, frowning at his own disconnected words. 

He rises onto weak, shaky legs, moving to the small desk in the corner. Mail is scattered on the chipped particle board surface. 

“A flat? Whose flat?” John asks. 

His sharp, concerned voice seems to be the thing to bring Sherlock out of the suffocation of his blurry mind. 

“Darren Mather’s flat,” Sherlock replies robotically, reading the name off of the envelopes. “In … Islington?”

“Who's Darren Mather?”

Sherlock is sure he’s never heard the name before. “I don’t know.”

“Sherlock, you’re scaring me. Are you alone?”

He looks around again, although the tiny space couldn’t be hiding another person. “Yes, I’m alone. I just woke up here.” He takes a deep breath. He feels so disoriented, so unreal. “There’s… quite a lot of blood. I’m… I’m covered in it.”

“Jesus, what happened? Are you hurt? Give me the address, I’ll call 999––”

“No, I … John, I …” he trails off, mind struggling to think, panic starting to creep in. “I don’t think it’s my blood.”

A beat of silence hangs heavy between them before John swallows, audibly. “Give me the address; I’m on my way.”

The building is dark and dingy, a heavy smell of mildew permeating the air. It reminds John of the building where his bedsit pre-Sherlock had been: old paint peeling from the walls, flickering, green-hued overhead lights, tenants who aggressively keep to themselves.

John’s stomach drops when he sees the door to flat number four is cracked open. A lot could’ve happened in the thirty minutes it’s taken him to get to Islington from Baker Street. Has Sherlock had to leave? Perhaps the flat’s occupant had returned? 

He reaches around to grasp his gun, snug at his back in the waistband of his jeans, adjusts the small carryall he has slung over his shoulder, then pushes the door open slowly. 

The pre-dawn light washes the room in muted grey light. It’s a small space, a tiny table with one chair against the wall near the meagrely furnished kitchen area. Some hooks on the wall dangle random articles of clothing, and a small, messy single bed is tucked against the wall. Empty. 

“Sherlock?” John calls out warily before he registers the white noise coming from behind the room’s only other door. The shower is running.

He knocks twice before opening the door slowly. “Sherlock?”

An affirmative hum, nearly drowned out by the rushing water.

“Can I come in?”

A grunt, vaguely resembling an affirmation.

Sherlock’s clothes are in a pile on the floor, which is so unlike him that John looks past them for a moment until the crimson stains catch his eye. As crumpled as they are, John can make out large patches of dark red, now mostly dried, saturating the shirt. He picks it up and finds his jaw dropping at the carnage. “Jesus, Sherlock … are you … you’re sure you’re not hurt?”

“N-n-no,” Sherlock replies shakily, teeth chattering. His voice is low, coming from below John’s ear-level. John pulls back the curtain a bit to see steam, long toes, and knees, Sherlock’s arms wrapped around them tightly. He’s sitting on the floor of the tub, curled as tightly into himself as he can manage. The hot water raining from the shower head is scalding his skin red and filling the tub with steam, but Sherlock is trembling violently, chills coursing through him.

“I’m so … c-cold,” he manages, looking up at John through dripping raven ringlets. 

“Neurogenic tremors,” John mumbles, mostly to himself. A warped evolutionary version of fight-or-flight. A flood of stress hormones with nowhere to go but into shaking muscles. He reaches in and turns off the shower. Sherlock’s head drops to his knees, which are knocking together beneath his shivering shoulders.

John grabs two folded towels from a shelf under the sink, draping one over Sherlock’s shoulders and the other over the edge of the tub. “Dry off, I brought you clean clothes. Once you calm down, you’ll feel warmer.”

Sherlock scowls. “I am c-calm,” he protests, but his conviction is lost in his shaky words.

Running a hand through his hair, John takes a deep breath as he steps back into the bedsit. 

Everything looks deceptively normal, and it’s obvious the flat is lived-in. There’s clutter, stacks of mail, a few pieces of clothing draped about, dishes in the sink and an unmade bed. It’s not a place anyone would boast about. John is suddenly very thankful for their home on Baker Street. 

The bathroom door creaks open and Sherlock emerges, a towel tied around his waist and one wrapped around his shoulders, still shivering. 

“Sit,” John instructs, leading him to the foot of the bed. Up close, he can see the stains spread across the pillow and sheets, not immediately noticeable against the dark colour.  He tilts Sherlock’s chin up to look in his eyes. Both pupils appear appropriately, evenly sized and react normally to light. John wishes he’d had the sense to bring his full medical bag. “Follow my finger,” John says quietly, and Sherlock does so without complaint. John moves to feel Sherlock’s neck and throat, and takes his pulse, which is mildly elevated but not alarmingly so. A few extrasystole, logical with the stress of the situation. Blood pressure adequate, judging by how John can easily find even very distal pulses. 

“Are you nauseous? Dizzy?” He asks next.

“No,” Sherlock answers quietly. “Though I woke up in the bed with a terrible headache.”

“And the person who lives here? Darren Mather? You’re sure he wasn’t here?”

“I was alone when I woke up… but I… I can’t remember anything before that.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“We had curry for dinner,” Sherlock says, brow furrowing, eyes distant.

“That was two days ago,” John replies. “You told me you were going to visit your parents, taking an evening train. I’m going to take a guess you didn’t make it there.”

Sherlock hums his agreement absently.

“The real question,” John murmurs, “is if you ever intended to in the first place.” 

Sherlock shrugs and shakes his head, then lets out a frustrated growl and grabs his temples.

His frustration, his uncharacteristic timid cluelessness seems genuine to John who leans down, chasing eye contact. “Does the light bother you?”

“No, I just… I can’t remember anything. It’s infuriating.” 

A head injury would so easily explain everything, so John tips Sherlock’s head up, and runs his fingers through Sherlock’s damp hair checking for lumps or lacerations, but finds none. He steps back, the next question sticking in his throat. “Did you … take something?”

“No.”

“But you said you don’t remember.”

“Then why ask me at all?” Sherlock replies tersely. He huffs out a frustrated breath. “If I did … take something,” he sneers, “I don’t have any evidence of it.” He huffs impatiently when he sees John’s eyes flit to the crook of his arm. “You can check yourself if you don’t believe me.”

“You know as well as I do that hallucinogens aren’t typically injected. They could also be administered in ways you wouldn’t notice.”

Sherlock pokes him in the arm with his forefinger. “Corporeal, so clearly I’m not hallucinating you being here or anything else, nor am I experiencing any symptoms indicative of coming down from a dose of stimulants or opiates.”

John raises his hands in surrender. “And you’re sure you don’t have any cuts or bruises?” he asks, even though, with Sherlock wrapped in only towels at his waist, John can mostly see that for himself.

“None.”

“Does your stomach hurt?”

“Just a touch of nerves,” Sherlock mumbles reluctantly.

“Alright,” John says, rubbing his forehead. He picks up the bag he brought from its place near the door, unzips it, and places a stack of clothes on the bed next to Sherlock. “Get dressed. I’ll get us a cab.” He pulls out his mobile and opens the maps app. “Whittington isn’t too far from here, I think.”

Sherlock’s head snaps up. “Whittington? As in Whittington Hospital?”

John pins him with his best ‘don’t try it’ look. “Yes. We’re obviously going to —”

“I don’t need to go to hospital!” Sherlock exclaims, springing to stand and hoping John doesn’t notice when his balance wavers for a moment.

“Sherlock, listen to me,” John begs. “You need to be in hospital, seen by a neurologist. This is serious, Sherlock. You’re missing a significant portion of time, you’ve got a significant headache, your actions and thoughts are sluggish —” 

Sherlock’s jaw drops. “My thoughts are most certainly NOT sluggish.” 

John’s eyebrows climb to his hairline. “Is that so? Tell me, then. What does Darren Mather do for a living?” 

Sherlock’s eyes dart around the room, trying to take in clues, to make connections, but John can see he’s coming up empty-handed. The room is messy, enough evidence spread around that Sherlock usually would have figured out the man’s life story by now. 

John shakes his head. “You haven’t deduced a single thing about this situation, about this bedsit, about its occupant, or the blood all over your clothes. Or have you just forgotten to mention your findings to me? That would be out of character too, I might add. Genius needs an audience and all that.” 

Sherlock glares but his silence speaks volumes. He can’t conceal his befuddlement from someone who knows him as well as John does.

“This could be the sign of a problem with cerebral blood flow or a viral attack… encephalitis, maybe. Epileptic activity is also a possibility. Even if it’s TGA, that’s a diagnosis established by ruling out a lot of other things.” He firmly pushes away thoughts of brain tumours and aneurysms. “Or what if you coughed up all that blood? It could be a gastrointestinal bleed,” he points out.

John doubts that’s the case, since he would have noticed the familiar, cloyingly disgusting smell of stomach contents mixed with congealed blood, but in his current state Sherlock seems unlikely to make that argument, and John’s trying to build his case. Normally, he’s very astute when it comes to medical things, so his lack of debate is noteworthy. “Regardless, you need to be examined, in hospital, now. We go by cab, or I can call an ambulance. Your choice.”

Sherlock clenches his jaw and drops the towel from his shoulders, reaching for the pile of clothes. The shirt and trousers are slightly wrinkled, but luckily the pants are clean.

“I just grabbed the first things I found off the top of the dry cleaning pile,” John says apologetically, watching Sherlock with a wary doctor’s eye. “I didn’t want to waste time getting to you, and I had to check on Rosie and run the baby monitor down to Mrs Hudson…” He trails off, finally convinced his patient isn’t going to keel over, and turns his back to give Sherlock a modicum of privacy to put on his pants.

Sherlock picks up the bag, and John suspects he’s hoping to find toiletries. Without product, his hair is a quickly-drying frizzy disaster, but there’s nothing for it because John hadn’t thought of it and it’s hardly a priority right now. 

“My coat?” Sherlock asks, looking around the room. 

John shakes his head. “It wasn’t in your room or by the door. I think I would have noticed it. I’m sure you had it with you when you left.”

The only thing remaining in the carryall are shoes. John turns back as he hears them hit the floor, and wordlessly indicates that Sherlock should sit down again. 

“I’m fine,” Sherlock protests, but John only needs to purse his lips and stare Sherlock down a moment before he relents. John kneels and slips the shoes onto Sherlock’s feet, tying them quickly and tightly. He stands and reaches out a hand.

Sherlock looks at it and sighs pointedly before standing on his own. “John, I swear to you, I am fine. If a crime was committed, and I was there, I need to know what happened. And we need to do it now, before the Met gets wind and pollutes my crime scene.”

“I promise you, we will figure out all of the details. But we need to make sure you’re alright first. Neurological problems can advance rapidly. Aneurysms come on like lightning strikes. We don’t have time to waste. If you’d like to continue to argue about it, you can do it from the backseat of a cab.” 

John holds the door for Sherlock expectantly.

“My clothes?” Sherlock asks, looking toward the bathroom. 

John licks his lips, and looks down a moment. “Are evidence. We should leave them. When we get to the hospital, we’ll call Lestrade, let him know what’s happened.”

“We don’t know what’s happened.”

“No,” John agrees, “but it doesn’t look good. And I want to make sure whatever happens next, we’ve got someone on our side from the start.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone—”

“Of course you didn’t,” John says quickly, sincerely, but his expression is grim. “But it’s not me you may need to convince.”

The look Sherlock gives him tells John that he knows he’s right.

There’s one more thing. Just one more thing that needs to be discussed, but it’s the hardest one. John swallows, holds his arm out to prevent Sherlock from leaving just yet. His stomach twists at what he has to suggest. “Once we get to Whittington, I think you should also consider requesting a rape kit.”

Sherlock’s eyes flash with surprise, then dismissal. “No.”

John exhales slowly to give himself time to phrase this right. He needs to appeal to logic. “You wake up in a strange bed in a strange apartment, without knowing what’s happened. There are no obvious, visible injuries so someone could well have drugged you. What’s the most common purpose for which people get slipped stuff like that, Sherlock?” 

The possibility had been in John’s mind ever since he’d heard the shower running. Seeing Sherlock shivering in the shower had made him suspect hypovolemic shock as a possibility, but the water had run clear into the drain. Still, the thought of someone hurting Sherlock that way made him ill. There could have been a struggle. An attacker looming over Sherlock bleeding from the mouth or nose could account for some of the blood on Sherlock’s shirt.

“Don’t you think I’d notice... that I’d be sensing it right now if something––” Sherlock says, flustered. "Nothing like that happened. I would know if it had."

“Right," John nods. "Sorry. I'm just... don't want to take any chances, you know?"

“I need my wallet,” Sherlock says abruptly, changing the subject, spinning on his heel and ducking back into the bathroom. John can hear the rustle as Sherlock digs through his trouser pockets, and then silence. 

“Sherlock?” John’s voice is tight, concern warring with a comfortably familiar flare of protective anger. Sherlock steps out of the bathroom, holding up a set of keys in silent reply. From the door, John can see a few standard metal house keys and an old, scratched car key. There is blood on all of them, a large swipe of red across a Union Jack keyfob. His eyebrows raise as he  moves to the bedsit’s single, small window, clicks the lock button on the car key, and watches the lights flash on an old silver Datsun on the street below.

“Sherlock?” It’s quieter this time, but impatient. “We need to go.” The quicker they get to a hospital and get labs, a thorough exam, and a head CT done, the faster they’ll find some answers.

“Well, John, we’re in luck. It appears our ride is already here.”

Chapter Text

The car is in the same condition as the bedsit; small, untidy, worn down but seemingly functional. Sherlock opens the passenger door and wastes no time rifling through the glove box, pulling out a folded sheaf of registration papers.

“Darren Mather?” John asks beside him, and Sherlock hums affirmatively.

He surveys the rest of the car’s detritus. Charging cords, a few food wrappers, and an empty takeaway cup. In the other cupholder, a business card: Marissa Delamere - Holistic Psychotherapy and Memory Recovery Specialist.

John walks around to the passenger door and leans down to peer in. “There’s blood on the steering wheel,” he announces grimly, turning to look at Sherlock, but something else catches his attention and his expression falls. “And what looks exactly like your overnight bag is in the back seat.”

Sherlock twists to see. John is right. He gets out of the car, opens the back door and retrieves the bag. 

“Jesus, Sherlock,” John breathes out, running his hand through his hair. He shakes his head in disbelief as he looks at Sherlock over the top of the car. “We have to call Lestrade. We’re getting a cab, and we’re going to the hospital. We’ll phone him on the way.”

A flash of yellow catches Sherlock’s eye and Sherlock reaches down to the floor to pull out a small, ripped piece of lined yellow paper. A handwritten address. Sherlock holds up the piece of paper, brow furrowed.

John comes to stand beside him. “What’s that?”

“Address in Milbury.”

“That’s your handwriting.”

Sherlock hums, typing the address into his mobile. “It’s not far. We can be there in less than twenty minutes.”

John’s eyes go wide. “No. Absolutely not! We are going —”

“To hospital, yes. In fact, the Royal Claringdon Hospital is right near there, leagues better than Whittington, if memory serves, and you’ve mentioned before that you know some of the doctors there which makes it even more convenient. Just a quick pop by to see where this leads and then straight to the A&E.” He starts walking to the main road to find a taxi, John storming along behind him.

They stop on the corner, Sherlock watching the quiet street like a hawk. John is livid on the kerb, jaw clenched, nostrils flaring. He shakes his head. “I don’t understand why you aren’t taking this seriously. You always insist that your mind is the most important thing to you, the rest is just ‘transport,’ yet your mind is in danger and you can’t be arsed to care.”

Sherlock’s spins to face him. “Of course I care! It’s driving me mad! I’m missing days worth of memory! But let’s be honest, John. You and I both know what we’ve already found is not painting a favorable picture of what I’ve been up to these past few days. I deserve at least a chance to try and figure out as much as I can for myself before I’m not allowed to anymore.”

“It’s not the same as walking in with a gunshot wound — they won’t have reason to involve the police if we just give them your symptoms.”

“And risk the trail of what the hell has happened going cold? People always have… people , and they’ll find out whatever happened to–– to––” He struggles to remember the name.

“Darren Mather,” John supplies, alarmed. “See what I mean? You’re not exactly functioning normally.”

Indignantly, Sherlock turns back, hailing a cab that’s just turned a corner.

John exhales a frustrated breath through his nose as the black taxi pulls up. “Fine,” he relents. “Five minutes, tops. Then straight to the hospital. Agreed?”

Sherlock paints an expression of innocence on his face, and opens the car door for John. “Scout’s honor.”

467 Hawksmoor Road in Milbury is out of place. A derelict, mostly deserted street in an otherwise established affluent neighborhood, the businesses still open are niche shops that have obviously been around for some time; an auto repair shop, a dusty musical instrument rental, and an insurance storefront. There are remnants from buildings that have been torn down, bits of foundation or piles of debris in lots. Gentrification seems like an oppressive cloud hanging over the place, just waiting for a chance to rain down and cleanse the area.

The door to 467 is the center of a block of three buildings, little more than a doorway between two full storefronts. Number 465 looks long abandoned, windows painted over, faded leasing information taped to the door, and 469 is a thrift shop, unimaginatively called “Second Chances.” Nothing on the block is open yet, the sun still relatively low on the morning horizon. Looking at the structure of the building, it’s obvious what lies beyond the door to 467 is nothing more than a set of stairs up to a rental space on the first floor.

“Wait for us, will you? We’ll be five minutes,” John asks the cabbie, who nods and reminds John the meter will still be running.

They agree to split up and survey the exterior of the building first, and as soon as John rounds the corner of his assigned side, out of sight, Sherlock jogs back to the cab.

“Looks like we’ll be a bit longer than we thought,” he tells the driver, passing their fare through the window. “We’ll call another when we’re ready.”

“You sure?” the cabbie asks, looking dubiously in the direction John went.

“Yeah, definitely. Going to be awhile.”

The cabbie shrugs and puts it into drive. Moments later John comes back around the building, breaking into a sprint when he sees the cab’s tail lights.

“Oi!” 

Sherlock strides to meet him as he runs up. 

“I told him to wait!”

“And I told him he didn’t need to. We’ll call another one when we’re done here.”

“Damnit, Sherlock!”

“This place feels familiar, John. It’s like the memory is on the tip of my mind, I’m so close to grabbing it. We need to go inside.”

“This situation is bad enough without the two of us getting busted for breaking and entering. If what we find in there is related to… to whatever happened to you these past few days—”   

Without warning, unbearable pain spikes through Sherlock’s head like lightning. He can’t help but cry out, grabbing his temples in a futile attempt to stop the agony. 

He can feel John’s hands on his arms, hear his panicked voice calling to him, but reality slips from his grasp, his surroundings growing distant.

He screams again, tears running down his face now. The flames are closing in, the room consumed by the inferno. He is momentarily transfixed where he is standing by the door, watching the sheets on his bed catch fire. He pulls and twists the doorknob. “MYCROFT!” 

Eurus is before him, emotionless eyes boring into him from between bouncing pigtails. “You need to play with me,” she says, but it’s as if the fire is speaking to him instead of a little girl, words roaring and crackling. “He needs to go home.” Victor looks back angrily, then stomps off towards the beach with his sword. Crying.

Suddenly, the flames are gone and his favorite stuffed toy is in the bed, and it’s wrong because the memory can’t be from the same day. Charred, soggy remains of what had once been a bumble bee, soft yellow and black fur, given to him by his Grandmere when he was born. It’s a threat.

He watches Mycroft pacing in front of his parents; somehow, he’s now downstairs. 

His mother has her head buried in her hands, his father has his back turned, staring into the roaring fireplace. “She’s manipulating you!” Mycroft insists, and instead of his adult brother Sherlock is seeing Mycroft at eleven, still a child himself. He’s been home from school since Victor had gone missing. There’s yelling; Daddy is furious. “They’ll come for him tonight and that’s that! It will be safer for all of us.” Sherlock can’t seem to make out the other words. Mycroft turns slightly, sees Sherlock on the stairs. They make eye contact a long moment before Sherlock flees back to his bedroom. 

He slams the door behind him. But he’s horrified to see he’s returned to the firestorm. The door is locked behind him. The flames are closing in. His throat is burning with the hot air. He can’t cry out. He can’t breathe. He can’t— 

“Sherlock? Sherlock, can you hear me?” A hand on his face, thumb stroking his cheek urgently. “Open your eyes. Come on Sherlock, open your eyes.” John’s voice is commanding, but desperate. He smells John’s shampoo as he leans down close, listening for Sherlock’s breathing. 

Sherlock finally musters the energy to obey. “Oh my God, oh thank God,” John breathes out as Sherlock finally opens his eyes, wincing up at the bright blue sky. He’s flat on his back, grass tickling his palms, heart pounding.

“Do you know where you are?” John demands, scrutinizing him, leaned down close to examine his pupils. “Sherlock? Can you hear me?”

Sherlock swallows, trying to blink away the cobwebs clinging to his ability to think. “What happened?” 

“You grabbed your head and yelled like you were in pain, and then lost consciousness,” John says, fingers finding Sherlock’s pulse at his wrist. “I barely caught you in time to keep you from cracking your head on something. Jesus,” he breathes out again, as if he’s been running a race as well. “Do you remember where we are?”

“The address from the paper we found in Darren Mather’s car,” Sherlock answers without hesitation, then tries to sit up, earning firm hands on his shoulders. 

“Nope. You need to lay still,” John instructs. “What’s the last thing you remember?” 

Sherlock relents and allows John to help him back down; he’s dizzy so getting up does not seem enticing.

“The cab drove away.” 

A shadow passes over John’s face. “Yeah, bloody good job, that. If I hadn’t agreed to this nonsense we’d have been in A&E when this happened. How do you feel?”

Sherlock tries to concentrate, but the tendrils of the memories aren’t letting go, and they’re threatening to pull him in. They’re frightening, and he needs John to keep him back in the now. He struggles to put words to the sights and sounds flashing through his mind. “I was… I was a child again… Eurus and the fire, I was trapped… it was so real. ”

John frowns. “There are areas of the brain which can produce hallucinations during seizures. I remember patients from our neuro course who even remembered their dreams afterwards.”

“No, it was a memory, John, I’m sure of it. It was real. And I didn’t have a seizure, did I?”

“We can’t know that without an EEG and by ruling out other things. You did lose consciousness and not all clonic fits have tonic symptoms. Could have been some sort of an absence seizure.”

“I don’t have epilepsy. And aren’t headaches supposed to happen after a seizure, not before them?”

“That’s why we need testing to rule things out.”

“Like what?"

“That’s what a neurologist is going to have to tell you, Sherlock.”

“I feel fine, now.” 

John digs in his pocket for his mobile. “You are most certainly not fine. You just lost consciousness without warning and experienced some sort of significant cerebral event. We’re going to a hospital. Now.”

John hits three numbers on his phone in quick succession and Sherlock knows it’s futile to argue. Besides, talking has made him even dizzier.

“This is Doctor John Watson at 467 Hawksmoor Road in Milbury. I need a blue light transport for a patient to the nearest A&E with acute neurology services. He’s a 37-year old male with no known history of neurological illness. He’s had a series of suspected new-onset seizures and amnesia. No speech difficulties or motor function deficiencies that I can see. Very brief thunderclap type headache before losing consciousness.”

John’s brow furrows, listening to the dispatcher. “Alert and awake now, pupils symmetrical and reacting to light, breathing normal…” 

He listens for a moment more, then addresses Sherlock. “Any chest pain?” 

“No.”

John addresses the dispatcher again. “No, no chest pain.” Another pause. “Nausea?”

Sherlock attempts to sit up again this time, shooing John’s hands away and avoiding the question. “I’M FINE .” He swallows down the bile that threatens to rise up his throat.

John shoots him a look that could freeze hell over twice, but begrudgingly helps Sherlock sit while squeezing the phone between his ear and his shoulder. “The cross street?” He looks around, squinting at a sign pole on the distant corner.

“Don’t move,” he orders, then jogs quickly toward the corner. It’s all the time Sherlock needs. He pops to his feet without a problem, delighted to find he can think more clearly, and the dizziness is tolerable. 

“Damnit, Sherlock!” John yells at his back as Sherlock strides to the door. 

“It’s not breaking and entering if we have the keys,” he says nonchalantly.

“That’s not even remotely true,” John seethes. “They’ll be here soon, we should stay out here and wait.”

There aren’t many keys on the ring, and Sherlock gets it on the second try. The door opens to reveal a long staircase, natural light spilling in from windows above. Sherlock steps into the small entryway slowly, then starts up the stairs, but John lunges before he gets far, grabbing his arm. “You’ve taken this far enough. The ambulance is on the way, you need to come sit on the kerb with me until it gets here.”

“Once the police are called in, they’ll be swarming this place, I’ll never get a look at it.” The door swings shut behind John, catching Sherlock’s eye then. The doorknob to the outside is antique brass, ornate rosettes encircling the plate. And… something else. “Well. Maybe they’ll let me see the pictures entered in as evidence at my trial,” Sherlock adds grimly and John turns to look.

“Jesus, that’s—”

“Blood, yes. I don’t think it’s a long shot to assume my fingerprints might be on there somewhere as well.”

This time, when Sherlock starts up the stairs, John’s protest changes. Wordlessly, he stops Sherlock and steps ahead of him to take the lead. 

They creep up the steps quietly, finding a silent, musty art studio at the top. The morning sun floods in from large glass windows along the front wall, washing the room in warm light. It’s easy to make out the silhouettes of easels, many with what appear to be paintings on them. John squints as his eyes adjust. 

Still, it seems to be enough to spark something in Sherlock, who spins to look at the space slowly. “I remember this,” he murmurs. “Well, not precisely, but it feels too familiar to be a coincidence.”

“You think you’ve been here before?”

“Maybe.”

“Sherlock, deja vu can be a symptom of temporal lobe––”

“ Shut up and let me think!”

They find a light switch near the stairs, and finally get a better look at the place. The room is filled with canvases of all sizes, some atop easels, others stacked against the walls. A rainbow of acrylic paint splatters speckle the floor like confetti. Discarded brushes and palettes lay on tables and stools.

“Christ,” John says, now that they can see the paintings. He examines one of them in morbid wonder, a male figure in absolute torment, screaming as he rips his own face off. “It’s like something out of a horror film.” Flesh and muscle and sinew rip from bone in garish colors, disturbingly realistic. The backgrounds are slashed in broad, violent strokes of black and white and red. 

Sherlock moves to another easel, then another. “They’re all the same,” he says, and John looks around to see he’s right. At least 15 nearly identical variations of the painting are scattered around the studio, differing in canvas size alone.

They both turn to the windows at the sirens suddenly audible in the distance, heading to them, no doubt.

John turns to the stairs, to suggest they head back down, but his foot catches on fabric. A pile of familiar dark wool, with a bright red buttonhole John sees every day.

“Sherlock, it’s your—”

And that’s when they see it. A huge pool among the splatters, blackish maroon, ending at the coat. In some places, it’s still shiny and wet. 

They follow the slick to the source. Hidden behind a workbench and rolls of canvas, lays the body of a very dead man. Dried blood surrounds a gaping wound in his neck. Beside his hand, a bloody craft knife.

Sherlock exhales heavily. “Darren Mather, I presume.” 

Sirens blare, just down the street now. They’ll be here any moment, and these days in London metro areas, EMTs are escorted by police. 

Sherlock’s gaze is panicked. “We need to go outside. If they see us coming out of here, once they find him––”

John grabs his arm and they make for the stairs. As they descend, he pulls out his mobile, dialling quickly. “Lestrade? Something’s happened. Yeah, it’s about Sherlock. Can you meet us at Royal Claringdon A&E?”

Chapter Text

It doesn’t take long for the Met to descend on Hawksmoor Road. Sherlock is restless in the back of the ambulance, watching John talk to investigators when he’s not being distracted by the EMT assessing him. There’s no getting out of a hospital visit, and to Sherlock’s dismay, they’ve started an IV for fluids. At least he’s been spared from wearing a ridiculous, claustrophobic oxygen mask.

He had not lied when he told John he was worried about his health, but his frustration over being sidelined from investigating what had happened outweighs his concern. And if he starts down the road of worrying about why he can’t think, all the horrible possibilities John has already outlined… well, that’s not going to solve this case; it’ll only distract him until he is truly useless. In his current state he can’t deduce, can’t remember, and can’t string enough thoughts together to make much sense of any of it. It’s terrifying, but it’s a terror that will overwhelm him if he lets it, and there’s no time for that. A man is dead, and Sherlock knows he’s the obvious suspect.  

The endless parade of flashing blue lights as more police and forensics units arrive on scene makes his head ache. He tries to close his eyes and recall anything that happened after that dinner at Baker Street days before, but all he can see are flashes of his sister, of Mycroft and his parents, of Musgrave Hall and Victor. As much as he wants to chase that white rabbit, he knows it won’t lead him to any information about Darren Mather. He pushes it all away, but the rest of his mind is horrifyingly blank.

After God knows how long, John finally ducks under the newly-strung police tape and heads to the back of the ambulance, and Sherlock is grateful for the familiar presence. John looks the picture of grim and determined: expression dark and stony, posture ramrod straight with clenched fists. It’s obvious he’s returning from his first battle while preparing for the larger war. Sherlock can tell he has won this round, but only just. 

John nods to the paramedic and takes a seat on the side of the trolley. “The police want to ask you some questions, but I insisted we go to the hospital first. They won’t question you until you’re cleared by doctors.”

“You mean not without my lawyer present?”

“Sherlock, I refuse to believe you are responsible for that man’s death.”

“I woke up covered in blood, in his flat, John. I have no recollection of my whereabouts or actions the past two days. I had keys to his home and his car, and my coat was lying in his studio, next to his body. And I can’t…” He grabs his hair and lets out a yell of frustration. “I can’t think! I can’t deduce, I can’t remember… anything. I can’t prove my own innocence, so even I’m starting to wonder if I really am as innocent as you seem to be convinced I am.”

John sucks his teeth and nods, squinting out at the road a moment before looking back at Sherlock. “You’re right, it doesn’t look good,” he agrees somberly. “But I know you better than that.”

They’re interrupted before Sherlock has a chance to respond when a plainclothes officer strides up, mind clearly made up about Sherlock. Disgust and disdain practically drip from him as he introduces himself as D.I. Michael McVey. 

“How are you feeling, Mister Holmes?” the D.I. asks, even though it’s obvious he doesn’t care about Sherlock’s wellbeing in the slightest. 

They’d told Lestrade to meet them at the hospital, something Sherlock is hugely regretting now. He eyes the officer warily. “I’m a bit … bewildered.”

“Your boyfriend says you're suffering from some kind of seizures,” McVey says patronizingly. 

Beside Sherlock, John raises his chin in challenge. 

“He says that you had one right here on the kerb,” McVey adds.

“Is that a question, or can we go?” John asks irately. 

“What were you doing inside Mister Mather’s studio?”

“Trying to piece together my missing memories from the past few days.”

“And did it work for you?”

“No.”

“Not a single memory of what happened in that building?”

“Not one.”

“And not a single memory of how you wound up at his flat in Islington?”

“No.”

“Mister Holmes, did you know Darren Mather?”

“I don’t recall ever meeting him, no.”

“So you’re telling me that the first time you saw Mister Mather was when you used his keys to get into his art studio, where you found his body.” 

“Yes.”

“We’ve got plenty of evidence in that studio, including lots of fingerprints with blood on them. We’re going to run those fingerprints, and I think we all know who they’re going to match. So now would be the perfect time to tell me: is there anything else you think I should know?”

Sherlock shakes his head.

McVey nearly rolls his eyes. “Alright, Mister Holmes. We’re going to need you to come down to the station and answer a few more questions.”

“The only place we're going is to the hospital,” John demands, folding his arms.

“Sure,” McVey says condescendingly to John. “But once they’re done figuring out what’s causing this incredibly convenient amnesia, he’ll be coming to the station with me.”

They spend four hours in the A&E. It appears to be a slow day, and Sherlock is taken back immediately for tests upon arrival while John promises to get a flabbergasted Lestrade up to speed. The DI is called away before Sherlock returns, with a call about a break in a murder investigation he’s running, so John grits his teeth and takes the time to fill Mycroft in as well. Unsurprisingly the elder Holmes brother already knows of the situation from his underlings, and promises to contact his best lawyer to handle Sherlock’s case.

McVey has sent a constable along to ensure Sherlock won’t pull a runner, but since he hasn’t been arrested yet, there’s nothing to stop John from being at his bedside as well, so that’s where he plants himself for the duration of their stay. Although the curtain is drawn, they know the officer is stationed right outside, and Sherlock can feel the tension radiating off of John because of it. 

They avoid talking about the situation at hand, lest someone overhear, except for occasional questions by John that break Sherlock from the vacuous labyrinth his mind has become. 

What starts as a “How are you feeling?” or “Do you need anything?” turns to “Is anything coming back to you?” and finally, “Do you remember anything from before you left that might tell us where you went? You seem to have planned an alibi, afterall.” 

Sherlock isn’t always great at reading people, but even he can detect the hint of bitterness in that last bit. John has leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, head hanging low.

“John, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you whatever I had planned—”

“We weren’t supposed to be keeping secrets anymore. You and I, we’re supposed to be past all that,” John says, voice tight. “I’ve kept up my end.”

“I know,” Sherlock agrees, averting his gaze.

John turns to look up at him, expression pained. “It’s not just for me, Sherlock. Rosie… she’s old enough now… if something happened to you, it would affect her too.”

“Then I fear I’ve hurt her already.”

John shakes his head and sniffs hard. “You didn’t kill that man, Sherlock. I don’t care what I have to do to prove it, but I know you didn’t do it.”

“But why didn’t I prevent it? Wouldn’t have been the first murder I’ve kept from happening,” he scoffs.

Before John can answer, a nurse interrupts them for vitals, and the doctor stops by with CT results: completely normal. Sherlock watches with hollow resignation as John interrogates the physician, who is an old, jaded man nearing retirement age whose interactions with Sherlock have all been rather disinterested, even brusque. 

The man leaves after begrudgingly agreeing to an MRI and John sits down in the chair beside the bed with an angry grunt. “They have a duty — took a hippocratic oath — to give you the same treatment and consideration as everyone else here,” John grumbles. “That bloody constable standing out there is making people think you’re dangerous and guilty. Jesus. You haven’t even been charged with anything.” 

The unspoken ‘yet’ hangs between them. Sherlock doesn’t protest, knows it’s pointless to get into an argument with John while he’s so riled. But he worries that there may be a kernel of truth to it. What if he is dangerous and doesn’t know it? 

John’s phone rings, and he holds it up, a picture of Mrs Hudson on the screen. There isn’t enough reception, though, and he steps out to find better signal, mouthing “I won’t be far.”  A few minutes later, he is somber coming back to Sherlock’s bedside. 

“Mrs H is all set to watch Rosie today, with Harry on backup.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Just that we were caught up in an important murder investigation.”

Sherlock cocks an eyebrow in amusement. 

“Well, it’s not technically a lie and I couldn’t very well tell her the truth,” John defends. “Not until we know what the truth is, anyway. And definitely not over the phone.”

Sherlock nods, sighing and looking down at himself in frustration. An IV and a pulse oximeters. A dingy hospital gown. His memory is still frustratingly blank, and his thoughts are cloudy. The chances he’ll be seeing Mrs Hudson, Rosie, or Baker Street again any time soon seem slim. He’d soon be separated from John too. His chest aches a moment at the overwhelming weight of the realisation and he immediately casts it far from his mind. He can’t bother getting emotional now, he’s already compromised in so many ways. Allowing sentiment to engulf him will render him completely useless right now.

In the end, the much more thorough MRI shows nothing pathological to explain Sherlock’s amnesia, nor his collapse in Milbury. It’s a bizarre feeling, the relief at the absence of a tumor, stroke, aneurysm, arteriovenous malformation, or any obvious head trauma, but also frustration at the lack of answers. 

Sherlock can feel John’s tension and worry rising. Sideways glances watching Sherlock like a hawk, waiting for another episode to strike. He’s already argued with the A&E doctor, insisting that an EEG is warranted, but the grumpy A&E consultant insisted they wait for bloodwork to return before ordering any other tests. Now that imaging has proven useless, the focus seems to have shifted to pharmacology since Sherlock isn’t currently presenting any obvious symptoms indicative of epileptic activity. Questions are asked, repeated, then repeated a few more times about drug use, about partying , and Sherlock replies with increasing annoyance. He’s beginning to regret allowing John to cart him here.

The doctor returns once again to his bedside, now looking smug and vindicated. He pulls back the curtain with a flourish, and turns to exchange an obvious look with the constable, before pulling the curtain mostly closed again behind him. He addresses the patient, ignoring the army doctor who has been causing him grief all morning. “Mister Holmes, your blood tested positive for traces of ketamine.”

Sherlock feels his heart sink. Ketamine is a field anaesthetic with known hallucinogenic properties, and it also has a strong foothold as a party drug. Had he used again and can’t remember it? Why would he have picked ketamine, since it has never been in his range of drugs? 

John will be livid if this turns out to be the explanation. Things had been going so well… they’d been living such a calm and happy life since John and Rosie had moved back to 221B a year ago. Evenings in, only taking low-key cases. He hadn’t had any cravings since he’d got clean after the Culverton Smith case. He’d worked so hard to win back John’s trust, to bring their relationship back from the shambles it had been in, and he could tell John is doing his best to repair damage he’d caused as well. Sherlock loved teaching Rosie about the world, taking her around town to playgrounds and the zoo… quiet evenings spent reading or watching telly with John once Rosie was in bed... it was the highlight of his days in ways he’d never imagined. The most medication he took these days was the occasional ibuprofen, or the Mycroft-supplied granisetrone on the choppier helicopter flights to Sherrinford. He would never have voluntarily used anything even remotely recreational, he’s absolutely sure of it — wouldn’t jeopardise his home life now that it was finally the way he’d dreamt of ever since having to leave John behind. 

He glances down at his arms again to be sure, but his own examination as well as the physical he’d had less than an hour ago both return the same results: nothing. No new track marks. 

It now registers that John’s gaze is on him, brow furrowed. There’s a flicker of betrayal in his eyes, but once they make eye contact, it seems to make up his mind that Sherlock isn’t using again. That split second moment of trust… they’d been working up to that for so long now. 

Still, Sherlock flinches a bit when John’s head snaps back to face the other doctor grimly. “Any other narcotics? Cocaine? Heroin?”

The doctor’s eyes scan the report and he shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. The tox screen was negative for opioids and benzos.”

“What about—”

“See for yourself,” he grumbles, handing John the blood results. After skimming through it, he gives the printout to Sherlock. They make for strange reading: some of the usual tox screen panel has showed faint positive results, but additional testing has proven that whatever was causing them were not the usual suspects of what people use recreationally.

John frowns. “I don’t recognize some of these results.”

“Neither does the lab,” the A&E consultant confirms. “Might be experimental drugs; those often give off partial positives. We’re waiting on a few more results for identification purposes, but nothing that will change his treatment plan.”

“But if you don’t know what they are, surely more tests—”

“The remnants of those medications are not enough to justify keeping him here. Most will be gone from his system in the next few hours. The ketamine alone explains his memory issues, and even the brief loss of consciousness. At this point, he shouldn’t be in danger of any more fainting spells or memory loss, as long as he stays clean.” He turns to address Sherlock. “I’m discharging you, Mister Holmes,” he says, pulling the curtain aside and striding out. 

Enraged, John pulls open the curtain so hard it nearly gets ripped off the railing and is soon hot on the doctor’s heels, their argument fading down the hall. 

The constable keeping an eye on the proceedings ends a call, rises from his seat and takes a step closer to Sherlock. 

The interrogation room is cold and dilapidated. Light, grey-green paint is peeling off the walls, and a single light hangs above a metal table and chairs. It’s nearing dusk, but enough light gets in through the room’s small high window that the shadowy corners are well lit. The wall facing Sherlock mostly consists of  a two-way mirror glass, and he knows he’s being scrutinized from behind it. It’s hard to tell how long he’s been waiting, but it feels eternal, and he’s aware that’s all part of their tactic to unsettle him. Let him stew in his guilt, let the tension build until he’s overcome with anxiety. 

He’s been in rooms like this countless times, but rarely in this capacity. Normally, he’s one of those on the other side of the mirror, watching the suspect for odd body language, or for a slip of the tongue that reveals a detail they shouldn’t know. He knows what’s coming, and he’s defenseless. He has no alibi, and no explanation for why he was with Darren Mather. By now he knows the police have gone to the man’s flat, and found evidence of Sherlock there too. But neither is he hiding anything, because he has nothing to hide. One can’t conceal what one can’t remember.

When McVey finally walks in carrying a folder and a paper bag, Sherlock feels nothing. He knows what’s coming and the helplessness that has settled over him leads to a hollow acceptance of his fate. 

McVey smiles at him, obviously playing up his smugness to further unnerve Sherlock. He places the paper bag down on the table. 

Sherlock looks at it, then up at McVey, but says nothing.

“How are you feeling, Mister Holmes? All that time in hospital help you to remember anything new?”

“No,” Sherlock answers simply, without much inflection.

“Are you sure? Because I’ve got evidence here that contradicts what you’ve told me.”

Sherlock is unmoved. “All I've told you is that I can't remember anything.”

“You said you’ve never met Darren Mather, and you’d never been in his art studio before.”

“I said I didn't remember meeting him or being in his studio. Am I to assume whatever you have there proves me a liar?”

“I'm not saying you're a liar, Mister Holmes. For your sake and Doctor Watson’s I hope your amnesia is real, and that you murdered Darren Mather in some fit of blind insanity.”

Sherlock refuses to be riled. “What's in the bag?”

“It isn't the palette knife... which in our preliminary forensics analysis seems to be the murder weapon. A cut across his throat, execution style. Do you remember that, Mister Holmes?”

“No,” Sherlock says with no small hint of frustration. “Are you going to stop this ridiculous game and show me the evidence?”

“Go ahead,” McVey nods.

Sherlock reaches in and pulls out a wad of familiar silky white cloth, warped and hardened with an alarming amount of dried blood. 

McVey gives him a moment to process it, before the questions start again. “There’s one blood type on that shirt, and it’s a match for Darren Mather. Is that your shirt, Mister Holmes?”

It’s undeniable, so Sherlock doesn’t bother with coy or clever. He checks the label for the manufacturer and the size. It’s bespoke, and he recognises it easily. “Yes.”

“Can you explain to me how your shirt is covered in the blood of a man you claim not to know?”

“No.” Sherlock lets the crumpled fabric drop back to the table and throws his hands up in frustration. “I don’t know how—“ He grits his teeth and forces a breath through his nose. “I can’t explain anything because I can’t remember!” 

McVey just blinks at him, then shakes his head and produces a set of handcuffs. “Mister Holmes, you are under arrest for the murder of Darren Mather. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

Chapter Text

John is livid. After watching an officer escort Sherlock out of the hospital, uncuffed but loaded into the back of a panda car, he wastes too much time trying to hail a cab to follow. By the time he gets to the station, Sherlock has already been taken back and all he can do is wait. 

The main vestibule of the police station holds a large wood check-in counter, surrounded by safety glass, staffed by constables. The whole place is dingy and industrial, obviously untouched since the building was erected in the mid-90s. The flecked linoleum floors are worn and warped, outlining the most common traffic patterns in the lobby, and echoing every footstep that comes through. Everything has a patina of grime on it. 

John is instructed to wait on a hard, scratched wooden bench near the door, unaware of the police and citizens coming and going around him. Instead his overwhelmed mind latches onto the fact that one of fluorescent lights above him is flickering in a maddeningly random pattern. Somehow, it seems appropriate.

Mycroft arrives at the station shortly after, looking uncharacteristically human with flustered worry for the briefest moment before he spots John and his stone faced façade slams back into place. 

“Where’s the lawyer?” John says in lieu of a greeting. “They’ve taken Sherlock back for questioning and he’s alone.”

Mycroft’s expression turns stormy. “Broken down on the side of the road, coming from Birmingham. Out of range for mobile signal until he walked to a roadside stand.”

John’s jaw drops. “You didn’t send a car for him?”

Mycroft tilts his chin up to look down on John more pointedly than usual. “If I’d sent a car it would have doubled the travel time. I calculated he’d get here much faster were he left in charge of his own transportation. Due to unforeseen and unlikely circumstances, I was... mistaken. In any event, he’s been retrieved from a petrol station and is en route now.”

John shakes his head in frustrated disbelief. 

“They won’t question him without an attorney,” Mycroft assures him. 

John isn’t so sure. He doesn’t trust McVey and Sherlock isn’t acting like himself. And to be honest, he’s a pompous git around coppers on a good day, who knows what his attitude is now. “Let’s hope not,” John concedes. 

When the lawyer does arrive, a serious looking older man with mud on his oxfords named Emilio Trudeau, he rushes back after a few words with Mycroft. John knows he’s heard the name before on the news, in conjunction with several recent high-profile cases in the UK. He surreptitiously googles him while they wait, relieved to find all his recent clients have been exonerated. 

But Trudeau emerges again far too soon, looking grim.

“They’ve already questioned him. Apparently he did not ask for counsel so they went ahead without.”

“Fool!” Mycroft curses under his breath. 

Trudeau nods in agreement. “They’ve arrested him for Darren Mather’s murder, with a bail hearing set for 11am. I’ll be back then to see him through it.”

John’s stomach drops. “So there’s no way to get him out tonight?” 

Trudeau shakes his head. “He’ll be spending the night in lockup here. If he’s denied bail tomorrow, he’ll be transferred to a different detention center to await trial.”

Trudeau takes his leave, with one of Mycroft’s infamous black cars shuttling him off to his temporary London lodgings. 

John paces, wanting to rage. He clenches and unclenches his fists and turns to Mycroft, who is typing something on his phone. “Isn’t there anything... else you can do?” John asks desperately, hoping Mycroft will understand the extent of what he’s asking. 

Mycroft frowns and tucks his phone primly in his pocket. “I’ve already magicked away Sherlock’s murder of Charles Magnussen, Doctor Watson. There is a limit to how much I can do in these situations my brother keeps finding himself in, especially now that I’ve been informed the media has got wind of it. Not to mention the sheer amount of evidence mounting against him. This time he’ll have to lay in the bed he’s made, unfortunately.” 

John’s brow furrows. “Oh my God… you think he did it?!”

Mycroft purses his lips. 

“How could you —”

“It’s not as if he doesn’t have a history of such things,” Mycroft says, defensive and dismissive. 

John speaks through clenched teeth. “He didn’t kill that man, Mycroft. I know it. I don’t care what the evidence says. And something is seriously wrong with him, medically. He needs more thorough testing until we figure out what.”

“I wish I could achieve the same level of blind optimism you have, Doctor Watson, but alas, I am a realist. I will assist Sherlock in whatever way I can, but the best I can do for my brother now is to make sure he has the best possible legal representation. Trudeau is top class, and he will be staying close until this case is over.” 

Another black town car pulls to the kerb, and Mycroft takes his leave. The driver gets out and opens the door for him, but Mycroft pauses to look back at John once more. “If there are other ways I can assist, my resources are at your disposal. But I can not make this situation disappear, as much as we’d both like me to.” 

It’s nearly 15:30 when John knocks on the mortuary door at Barts, and he’s grateful his rumbling stomach is put off by the smell of formaldehyde. Aside from a bad cup of coffee at the hospital, he hasn’t eaten at all today. 

Molly’s expecting him, and she greets him with a sad smile. He’d filled her in as best as he could from the hospital, so he’s spared having to give her a recap. 

“How is he?” she asks, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. 

John sighs. “He’s… hanging in there. Frustrated. Confused. But he’s holding up.” 

Molly nods but looks dubious. “And you?”

“I’m… not,” John admits, running a hand through his hair. “There’s no way he murdered that man, Molly. Something is going on with him medically, I don’t know what. All his scans at the hospital came back clear, but he’s not himself. He says he can’t think, can’t deduce… I’ve never seen him that way. And he collapsed so quickly outside of that studio, I thought he’d had an aneurysm.” 

He sighs and shakes his head. “Something is going on and I just can’t figure out what it is. I’m terrified it’s going to kill him before I can get to the bottom of it. There were unidentified chemicals in his blood labs, and I’m sure they have something to do with it. And it’s yet another sign that he’s not in his right mind that he didn’t even seem interested in all that.”

“Well, I’ve only just gotten access to the blood reports for Darren Mather,” Molly says, handing John the lab results. “Maybe it’ll lead to some answers. He had some strange things in his blood work too.” 

John skims them a moment before pulling out the copy of Sherlock’s labs for comparison. “Lysergohexthomidate?” he asks, frowning at the unfamiliar medication on Darren Mather’s list. On further inspection, the chemical makeup, as far as he can tell, is identical to the unknown things found in Sherlock’s tox screen. 

Molly nods. “I’ve never heard of it either. I looked it up before you got here, but I can’t find anything.” 

“Can you get access to the rest of the coroner’s report? I’m wondering if there’s an injection site on Darren Mather where the drugs would’ve been administered.” 

She shakes her head. “It hasn’t shown up yet. It might still be in progress,” she adds, looking at the clock. “Worth a call, though.”

“That’d be great,” John says, a fresh wave of exhaustion washing over him. His 4am wakeup feels like a year ago. 

He sits heavily on a metal stool in the corner of the room, leaning on the counter and resting his head in his hand while Molly makes the call. He doesn’t even notice when she hangs up, so absorbed in his own thoughts about how his life is poised to unravel, yet again.

“Bruising and a puncture mark on Darren Mather’s right deltoid,” she declares triumphantly, startling him from his trance. “They’re just starting the autopsy now.”

“How much longer?”

“A couple of hours, maybe.” 

“Alright. The injection site might be enough to be going on with for now. I’m going to head back to the station, see if I can talk to McVey. Thanks, Molly.”

“I’ll keep you posted, text you the second the full report shows up,” she promises, then looks him up and down a moment. “When’s the last time you’ve eaten?” 

What had he had for dinner last night? John pauses too long trying to remember, and she hands him a brown paper bag with a smile. “Hope you like turkey and tomato on wheat.” 

“That’s kind of you, Molly, but I can’t eat your lunch,” he protests weakly, looking in the bag. His stomach immediately lets out a traitorous growl when he sees there’s also a banana and bag of crisps inside.

She chuckles and waves him off. “They’ve got a great curry in the cafeteria tonight,” she explains. “Only comes round once a month. Now I’ll have an excuse to get some.”

“Thank you,” he says earnestly, and turns to the door. 

“You’ll get him out of it, John, I know you will,” she calls behind him, and he hangs his head a minute before nodding once. He turns to look back at her, managing a weak smile before he pushes through the double doors. He wishes he could be as confident in himself as she seems to be.

“He’s been booked,” the stoic constable at the check-in desk informs John. “You won’t be able to see him today. His bail hearing is tomorrow, if he’s granted bail, that is.” 

“I want to talk to DI McVey,” John demands. “I’ve got evidence—”

“The DI is busy,” the constable replies firmly. “If you’d like to leave contact information I’ll pass it along.”

“It’s alright, Adams,” McVey says, walking up beside John, taking a sip of his coffee nonchalantly. The constable looks relieved to be rid of the problem. “What’s this about new evidence?”

“I’ve got medical evidence from the toxicology reports on Sherlock and Darren Mather. Both had the anesthetic ketamine, as well as something called lysergohexthomidate in their systems. It appears it was injected into Darren Mather’s arm. If we examine Sherlock again, we should find the same thing.”

McVey looks unimpressed. “And if we do?” Judging by his tone, there’s no doubt that McVey is humoring him at this point, and John has never longed to be at New Scotland Yard so badly, among familiar faces that know them. He’d called Lestrade on the ride from Barts, but there wasn’t much the DI could do tonight other than keep his ear to the ground for information that might help. 

John pushes forward anyway. “The combination of these drugs could explain Sherlock’s memory loss and hallucinations, as well as the times he lost consciousness.”

McVey sighs exasperatedly. “Given the weight of all the other evidence... I think that's all it explains,” he says, turning away from John, ending the conversation as he starts to walk away. 

“You’re locking up an innocent man,” John protests, clenching his fists to try to channel the helpless rage he’s feeling.

“Yeah, well,” McVey shrugs unapologetically. “At least this way he won’t disappear for two days and do something else he won’t remember. Think of it as being for his own safety, if it helps you sleep tonight.”

It’s late by the time John returns to 221B. Rosie is fresh from a bath and runs up to John with damp ringlets and wrinkly fingers, clad in her favorite pyjamas. He scoops her up into a hug, burying his face in her neck. She giggles. “Daddy! No! It tickles!” She should be in bed by now but he’s glad she’s not. It’s been a long day and the cuddle is as much for him as it is for her. 

Some days he can’t believe how much she’s grown, what a small person she’s becoming. Nearly three years old now, it seems surreal they once lived a life without her.

Mrs Hudson rounds the corner, wiping her hands on a towel. The flat smells like shepherd's pie, and he knows she’s made it just for him and Sherlock. Although he’s been agonizing over it all day, John hasn’t really worked out how to tell her that Sherlock has been arrested for murder. He knows she’ll read it in the paper tomorrow morning, though. Better the news comes from John than from a front page headline. 

“Dinner’s in the oven, love, and Rosie has just had her bath.”

“I got bubbles!” Rosie proudly declares.

“Bubbles? Nana is spoiling you!” he says to her, planting a big kiss on the top of her head, then turns to Mrs Hudson with a tired smile. “You’re a lifesaver, Mrs H.” He puts Rosie down, and without prompting, she runs off to the top of the landing to look down the stairs. Rosie waits for a moment before turning back to John, and he knows what she’ll ask before she says it. “Sherlock?” 

“He’s working, love,” John lies, ushering her back into the sitting room. Luckily she doesn’t question him and goes to play without prompting. He walks back to the kitchen where Mrs Hudson is putting away the last of the clean dishes. She senses something is off, and turns to wait for the information. John leans back against the worktop, then begins the process of filling her in. 

By the end of it, he feels like he’s run a marathon. He pulls out a chair and sits heavily. He rubs his hands over his eyes, then looks up to meet her eyes, finding worry and determination

“It’s going to be alright, John,” she reassures him, her lips pursed, and places a hand on his shoulder. “Think of all the impossible situations you and Sherlock have got into and then out of. You always make it right in the end.”

“ Sherlock makes it right in the end,” John laments. “I’m having to solve this one on my own , so he probably doesn’t stand a chance.”

She frowns at him. “You need to give yourself more credit, John. You’re not his sidekick… you two are a team. You’re a doctor , for heaven’s sake. If this is a medical problem, then who better to get to the bottom of it?” 

Mrs Hudson ushers Rosie upstairs, insisting John sit and relax while she gets Rosie and the flat settled for the night. He considers his chair but sinks into the couch instead, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his thoughts drift to the person at the center of all of this. 

Where is Sherlock now? They’d have taken his clothes, he’d be dressed in prison garb. It isn’t the first time Sherlock has been in this situation, John knows. Lestrade met him because his drug habits landed him in jail, long ago. There was the time they’d spent in the drunk tank together, but that didn’t really count. And Sherlock had been locked up after Magnussen, but he was in solitary then. John isn’t sure if that’s any better than Sherlock being exposed to the general prison population.. This time, he just seems more vulnerable, especially if he’s sick. Does he have a cellmate? One? More? What if he’s locked up with people he’d once worked to put away, who have a grudge against him? If Sherlock has another seizure in police custody, will they get him medical attention or be negligent and assume he’s malingering?

John shivers. The flat is chilly now that the sun has long since set. Is Sherlock warm enough, wherever he is?

John’s heart feels tight and he swallows hard. Why can’t the universe just let them live their lives in peace? It's been such a long and rocky road for both of them, getting back to the place they were now. The thought of losing all they’ve been working for… all they have ahead of them, it was too hard to think about. 

They were both shaken to the core after everything that happened with Eurus, returning to London in silence, soggy and shellshocked. Sherlock stayed with Mycroft while the flat was being repaired, and the brothers dealt with making sure Eurus and the prison were once again secured. 

John had gone home to his daughter. He’d taken a few days off of work to help Sherlock with the flat, but there was no real conversation between them, then. They simply couldn’t find the words at first, but eventually the unspoken fear of opening the floodgates and allowing the nightmare to follow them to Baker Street became too terrifying. They’d talk eventually, John always assumed, but each time that heavy, leaden silence fell over them, he was relieved when Sherlock instead cleared his throat and asked John to pass a new bin bag, or turned back to the wall to resume painting, and the tension broke. Little by little, they cleaned and repaired and restored the place John still felt in his heart was his home, but doing the same to their relationship was overwhelming and frightening. It felt like another patience grenade waiting in the wings, ready to end them for good. Best just to stay still. Maybe it would run out of battery given enough time.

When John was back at the flat he’d once shared with Mary, he threw himself into fatherhood with a focus he’d never had before. Focusing on Rosie made it easy to forget the rest, as everyday survival with a toddler often does. It mostly worked to distract him from the rumblings of deeper feelings he knew were lurking in the shadows. He had a new log to throw on the nightmare fire, and it involved water, shooting innocent people who begged for it, and the bones of a child whose terrified ghost screamed for his help. 

After, as he lay awake, the taunts from Mycroft often replayed in his head. He knew now they were only a ruse, but they still cut deeply in their truth. “Whatever lies ahead requires brainpower, Sherlock, not sentiment… Put this stupid little man out of all our misery. Look at him — what is he? Nothing more than a distraction, a little scrap of ordinaryness for you to impress, for you to dazzle with your cleverness. You’ll find another.” 

It made him wonder if Sherlock truly would be better off cutting loose the anchor of plain, simple John Watson. Would this case, Sherlock’s case, prove once and for all how useless he was, simply a bit of expendable kindling for Sherlock’s burning brilliance? 

It had taken several more days after Sherrinford before the more severe effects of his own near-death trauma in the well set in. It came on in an instant — a panic attack as the spray of the shower suddenly turned to cold water, as the dodgy old water heater failed. When his head cleared and his heart stopped pounding, he found himself soaking wet, naked, and freezing on the bathroom floor, tangled in the shower curtain and pole he’d ripped down in his scramble to get out of the tub. Rosie was screaming in her cot. A look at the clock revealed it had been over an hour since he’d put her down for her nap and come in to get cleaned up. John barely made it to the toilet before vomiting. He managed to dry himself off and went to soothe his daughter, trembling violently all the while. Once Rosie was tended to, he called Ella.

John was all too familiar with nightmares and self-loathing, depression and trauma. He’d come so far since the war, and again since Sherlock’s fall. The therapy he’d tried to get after Mary’s death felt in many ways like it led to all of this mess, so he’d nearly sworn off trick cyclists all together, but... now as Rosie’s only parent, he couldn’t allow this to consume him, or she would be consumed too.

So he began meeting with Ella again, focused on parenting, and made sure he and Rosie were seeing Sherlock on a regular basis, even after the flat was back to a liveable state. In some ways, the horrible experience had rejoined them in places they’d been pulled apart, even as they refused to face it head on. But although they’d forgiven each other cautiously, the wounds were still recent and raw enough to keep distance between them. As Mycroft had said, there were demons beneath the road, and not just the one Sherlock was walking.

John had been shocked when Sherlock suggested they see Ella together, and even more shocked when Sherlock admitted he’d already been seeing her on his own. John knew Sherlock was struggling with piecing together his murky past, grieving for a friend and a childhood he’d just found out he’d lost. John never knew how to broach the subject, but there was something so haunted about Sherlock in the weeks after Sherrinford, and John knew it was the ghosts of Victor, Eurus, and Musgrave surrounding him. Memories he couldn’t quite recall, situations he couldn’t make sense of. Still, Sherlock seeing a therapist voluntarily was surprising, and suggesting they add what was essentially couples counseling to their lives really caused John’s jaw to drop.

Agreeing meant being ready to exorcise the demons between them, for John to admit his thoughts and feelings to Sherlock, and to hear Sherlock’s thoughts and feelings in return. There were so many things left unsaid, things John swore he’d never say, even as much as he’d wanted to years ago. Even when Sherlock wouldn’t have been around to hear them. It was terrifying to imagine being so vulnerable. But John said yes without hesitation, agreeing on a visceral level before his fear could get in the way. 

Much like the flat, the process to repair their relationship was long, exhausting, and in the beginning, rarely enjoyable. Although some truths were hard to hear at first, with Ella’s guidance, they pushed through. When John’s anger flared and he lashed out in defense, she knew just how to calm him and put things in a digestible perspective. When Sherlock used sarcasm to deflect from his real feelings, and was hesitant to admit his thoughts for fear of upsetting John, she bolstered and encouraged him, helped him to find the right words, and to view his feelings as valid. 

Some weeks were harder than others, but the progress was impossible to ignore. Slowly, they softened to each other, letting down the guards they’d built after every trauma. Sherlock was more assertive, yet more sensitive in ways John appreciated. John was more cognizant of his own actions, and learned to control his anger using techniques Ella taught him in their private sessions. They spent more of their evenings together, taking turns traveling to each other’s homes. Nights were spent playing with Rosie, eating dinner together, and allowing themselves to sink back into that easy domesticity they’d had before Moriarty had upended their lives. Soon enough, there were always two mugs in the dish racks of both flats. Laughter and squabbles only two people who are intrinsically woven together can share filled the emptiness of John’s house left behind by Mary’s death, and Baker Street regained its warmth, too.

Sherlock took on more and more child-rearing responsibilities, preparing Rosie’s meals and changing diapers without ever being asked. He played with her and read to her, and brought her down to Mrs Hudson’s for visits when John needed a break. Rosie adored Sherlock, and it was plain to see the feeling was mutual. John had never pegged Sherlock to be a person who would enjoy looking after a toddler, but Rosie had him wrapped around her little finger. On nights Sherlock visited John’s flat, he’d scoop Rosie up for bedtime, where she behaved much better and went down much easier for her “Sher” than she ever did for Daddy. 

Eventually, each night would draw to a close and one or the other would have to make the long journey back to their own bed. On so many of those evenings John could feel a pull between them, a magnetic attraction in the desire to just stay. Not for anything serious, no matter how John’s mind might wander. Just… the desire to not be alone, the feeling of security another person in the flat brought. 

It was one of those rainy nights on Baker Street, after half a year of joint sessions with Ella, that John just couldn’t bring himself to do it. The fire was dying, but John was comfortable in his chair, his socked feet warm near the hearth. Rosie was sprawled on Sherlock, both of them sleeping soundly. The thought of having to wake them, to drag Rosie out into the cold, wet night… to have to leave the safety of his home and Sherlock to go back to his empty house… He watched the two of them with such love and fondness, and started arranging his jumbled, hesitant thoughts into sentences to ask for what he wanted.

But Sherlock was the first to break the comfortable, suspended quiet. He spoke quietly, eyes still closed, reading John’s mind as always. 

“Stay,” he murmured softly. And although John didn’t know if he meant for the night or forever, his mind was made up. John still had a room here — he and Rosie both did. A cot sat next to the bed now, “just in case.” There was a high chair in the kitchen, toys in the sitting room, a diaper pail and tear-free shampoo in the loo. They’d childproofed the flat as they’d made repairs, and Rosie was as at-home at 221B as she was anywhere.

John and Rosie never spent a night at the other flat again.

“You’re sure this is alright?” He’d asked two days later, as they cleaned out his and Mary’s kitchen. “We’re coming up on the terrible twos, and I know it’s not easy having a toddler underfoot on the best of days.”

“221B is your home. Yours and Rosie’s,” Sherlock had answered simply, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, while tucking a stack of wrapped plates into a box for donations.

“But is it what you want?” John countered, turning to look Sherlock in the eyes. 

An almost pained look flickered over Sherlock’s features, before he let out a small huff of a laugh and smiled. “To have my family home? More than you can know, John.”

It is that memory that finally leads John to drift off, not even stirring when Mrs Hudson covers him with a blanket and turns off the sitting room lights.

The door won’t open. The smoke surrounds him. He can’t breathe. “He needs to go,” Eurus says before him on the stony beach, and beside Victor is John. They stare at him, eyes full of betrayal. 

“Sixteen by six brother and under we go,” they mouth, but it’s Eurus who sings. 

“He’s dangerous!” his mother cries, not knowing Sherlock is listening on the stairs. “He can’t stay here. We need to protect her!”

“No, Mother,” Mycroft pleads. “Sherlock is the one in danger!”

Victor and John turn away from him, toward the water. “He needs to go home. You need to play with me,” Eurus says, flat and emotionless, as Sherlock’s only friends walk straight into the waves.

He wants to yell out to stop them, but he can’t speak. He can’t breathe. The fire consumes him as they drown.

Sherlock wakes with a violent jolt in the darkness. Before he’s even realised where he is, he’s sat up on the cold, thin mattress. Shivers wrack his body, and he feels sick. 

He needs to see John, needs to know he’s alright. He needs to get out of this place before he’s consumed again. It all seems to be closing in, the shadows of his cell shrinking toward him, dark bars of his cage crushing closer. Fear grips his heart like a vice, and Sherlock tucks his forehead to his knees, cradling his head and rocking himself as the aftershocks of the nightmare pour through him.

Chapter Text

John’s mobile wakes him at half eight the next morning. He struggles to open his eyes in the bright sitting room, disoriented for a moment before he realises he must’ve fallen asleep here last night. Another buzz has him scrambling to get his phone out of his pocket

His eyes widen when he sees the time on the screen. 

“Greg?” he croaks, and then clears his throat after he hears the groggy gravel in his voice.

Lestrade doesn’t seem to notice. “I’ve got great news, mate! The forensics reports just came in and they’re expecting a pretty simple coroner’s court session because as far the the Met is concerned, Darren Mather’s death is a suicide. The blood spatter patterns in the room and on Sherlock’s clothes don’t match with Sherlock being the killer, and only Mather’s prints were found on the weapon. In fact, it appears Sherlock may have actually tried to save Mather’s life, but he bled out too fast.”

“Oh my god,” John feels faint with relief. He stands and paces the sitting room, his mind reeling. “I’ve got to get out to Milbury, I’ve got to —”

“I’m on my way to pick you up,” Lestrade says. “Be there in ten minutes. And I’ve got something else you’ll want to see. Molly just sent it over. See you soon.”

John thunders up the stairs to his room before remembering Rosie must still be sleeping. He opens the door quietly, and peeks in only to find her tiny bed empty. A note on the pillow reads “Breakfast with Nana,” prompting John to whisper a thank you to the saintly woman in 221A. 

His phone rings again, this time it’s Mycroft “Trudeau just called to inform me, they’ve determined Mather’s death was a suicide. They’re dropping all charges and releasing Sherlock today.” 

“Lestrade just told me,” John says, running a relieved hand through his hair. Giddy relief was starting to take hold of him now. “We’re going to pick him up from the station.”

“I’m pleased this has come to such a positive and swift conclusion for Sherlock,” Mycroft admits. “Proof that my intervention isn’t always the only solution.”

“Proof that my instincts about your brother aren’t wrong,” John can’t help but add, unable to keep the bite from his voice.

“Indeed,” Mycroft answers simply, but there's a tinge of contrition in his tone, and John knows his real message was received. “Pass along my regards,” Mycroft says, and they end the call. 

There’s no time for a shower, so John changes out of yesterday’s clothes, which had also been thrown on in haste. Mind firmly elsewhere, he washes his face, cleans his teeth, and reapplies his deodorant. It’ll have to do.

He’s in the sitting room lacing up his shoes when Lestrade bursts in, slightly out of breath from running up the stairs. John hadn’t even heard the door.  

“There’s another one,” Lestrade says, holding up a file folder. “Another suicide, and it might be connected to Darren Mather’s.” 

For a moment, John is overwhelmed by the deja vu. This was how it all began, wasn’t it? Years ago in the sitting room of this flat, Lestrade at the door going on about serial suicides?

John wastes no time in poring over the police report.

Maura Kincaide, female, 34. Found hanged in her gardening shed by a neighbour last week. No foul play suspected. The toxicology report is virtually identical to Sherlock and Mather’s: ketamine and… “Lysergohexthomidate?” John murmurs to himself.

“Yeah, Molly said she did a records search looking for Ergo… hex… what you said, on a hunch, and this is the only other case where that turned up besides Mather.” 

As John turns the pages he comes to the crime scene photos. The images of the woman’s body are gruesome, but what catches John’s eye is something else. Scattered across the worktop of the crime scene lay dozens of small, colorful rectangles. 

“Are those… photographs?” 

Lestrade nods. “They said she’d cut herself out of all of them.”

“Cut herself out?”

“Yeah, like she was trying to erase that she’d existed, or something.”

“Darren Mather had paintings all over his studio… portraits of himself, I think, ripping the flesh off his own face.”

“Jesus,” Lestrade says, flinching. “It seems like they were both pretty eager to go.”

John flips through the rest of the case report, scanning the blood labs and other medical findings. On another page, a list of Kincaide’s physicians, including her GP, dentist, an orthopaedist, and a psychotherapist by the name of Marissa Delamere.

He turns the folder toward Lestrade so fast a few pages slip out and float to the floor and stabs his finger at the name. “We found this same woman’s business card in Darren Mather’s car, and it listed her as a... a holistic alternative... memory therapist? Something made-up like that. If they were both seeing her, maybe she’s the missing link to where they got the lysergohexthomidate. And why they both committed suicide.” John hands the folder to Lestrade, feeling his stomach roil with anxiety. 

“Did Sherlock recognise the name Marissa Delamere when he saw the card?”

“No, but it’s not as though he remembers anything else, either, so that’s not to say he didn’t see her. He had the same drug in his system and if she’s the one dealing it out…” John pushes down the panic rising in his gut. He needs to see Sherlock, to make sure he’s safe. Now. “Let’s get Sherlock out of that cell first. We can make sense of all this later.”

“I’m sure he’ll have a dozen theories in no time,” Lestrade says, heading for the door after collecting the scattered papers and the folder.

Somehow, John isn’t so sure.

It’s been less than twenty-four hours, but the relief John feels when he finally sees Sherlock again is overwhelming. When the man appears before him, wearing his own rumpled clothes and generally looking a bewildered mess, John moves toward him for a hug before pulling up short and giving his shoulder an awkward pat and squeeze instead. Sherlock seems relieved to see John too, but John rationalises it’s more likely he’s just glad to be out of police custody. 

John catches him casting pained side glances at him as they walk to the car, but he can’t place the emotion. Overwhelming relief maybe, but there’s something else there too… worry? Guilt?

Once in the car, Lestrade and John start filling him in on the latest developments.

“They said forensics proved it was a suicide?” Sherlock asks, buckling himself in beside Lestrade in front while John does the same in the backseat.

“Yeah,” Lestrade says, pulling out of the parking space and heading to the motorway. “He slit his own throat with a palette knife.”

“But I was there.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock looks out the window for a moment. “Have they worked out why? Because I still can’t…” He shakes his head in frustration.

“No,” John says somberly, leaning forward between Sherlock and Lestrade as much as his seatbelt allows. “But you and Mather both had the same odd collection of drugs in your system. Ketamine and something called lysergohexthomidate.”

“A lysergic acid derivative? Like LSD?”

John shrugs. “Fuck if I know. Thomidate sounds like ethomidate; that’s an old anaesthesia drug.”

“Hex could point to the molecular structure of the compound, which could mean it’s organic; then again lysergic acid isn’t. It has stereoisomers; hex could point to a specific ciralic form of it––”

“Hear that, John?” Lestrade speaks up from the front. “I told you he’d crack this in no time.”

Instead of beaming after such praise, Sherlock is biting his lip and looking hesitant. “I’ve never come across such a substance before.”

There’s an unspoken statement contained in that comment: he’s not heard of it, or used it before. Or, maybe that’s what he thinks, John reminds himself. He doesn’t remember anything else, so why would he remember using some experimental hallucinogen, or whatever this poison is?

“We need to find the connection between the two of us,” Sherlock remarks grimly.

“Actually, it may be three,” Lestrade says. “There’s a folder in the glove box.” 

Sherlock fetches the rolled up folder and frowns while reading it over. Suddenly his eyebrows rise, and he turns to look at John. “Marissa Delamere? Her card was —”

“In Mather’s car, I said the same thing. There must be a connection.”

“Does that name ring any bells?” Lestrade asks, merging onto the motorway toward Baker Street.

“Not in the slightest,” Sherlock replies.

“And she had the same drug in her system,” John adds. He knows what has to be done. “We need to go talk to this Doctor Delamere, get some of these questions answered. Greg?”

“Yeah, alright,” Lestrade agrees. “But we need to tread carefully. This isn’t my investigation, we can’t interfere with McVey’s.”

“Fair enough,” John replies. 

Sherlock hums in agreement, and puts the folder back in the glove box. He then seems to retreat into himself, looking out the window. “Why didn’t I do anything?” he asks into the silence, and John wonders if he actually expects an answer or if he’s talking to himself.

Either way, John feels the need to answer him. He sighs somberly. “From the blood patterns on your clothes and on his body, it looks like you did try to help him, Sherlock. The wound was just too severe. It’s not your fault.”

It doesn’t seem to be much comfort, and Sherlock doesn’t reply. They ride the rest of the way in silence.

Back at Baker Street, Sherlock heads for the shower while John updates Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade fetches a quick lunch for them all from Speedy’s. 

Fresh out of the shower and dressed in crisp, clean clothes, Sherlock looks much more ready to tackle the case in which he’s still tangled up. The fog is gone from his expression, and although his memories don’t seem to have returned, there’s a clarity John can sense immediately — Sherlock’s sharp wit springing back to life. But it isn’t until Mrs Hudson and Rosie come up to join them for lunch that Sherlock really seems to release the tension that’s been dragging down his shoulders since John found him yesterday morning.

“Sherlock!” Rosie squeals when she sees him, running into the sitting room at full speed. He breaks into an unguarded grin and stoops down to scoop her up. 

“Hello, Petal,” he says to her softly as she throws her arms around his neck, and John sees Sherlock squeeze her back just a little tighter than normal. 

They clear the kitchen table and sit to eat, Rosie firmly planted on Sherlock’s knee. Mrs Hudson and Lestrade make small talk over soup and sandwiches, and John watches Sherlock sneak crisps to Rosie and tend to her messy hands and mouth with a fondness that makes his heart ache. He’s struck at how close they came to this never happening again, to Rosie and Sherlock being pulled apart. Overwhelming relief at having Sherlock here, back in the flat instead of in prison for murder hits him like a wave. Their little family might not be traditional but John can’t fathom losing it. 

John watches with a lump in his throat as Sherlock cuts Rosie a large portion from his own cheese pasty. He gently reminds Sherlock that he needs to eat too. 

“I’m fine,” Sherlock dismisses, and in a small act of defiance starts to wrap up the remnants of his sandwich.

“Eating and drinking will help flush the rest of those drugs out of your system,” John remarks nonchalantly, not rising to the bait. “You’ll be able to think more clearly.”

Sherlock pauses, shoots John a stroppy glare that barely holds heat, unfolds the paper, and begrudgingly takes a bite.

“Does this look familiar?” John asks as they survey the exterior of Marissa Delamere’s office, a small, unassuming brick storefront on a side street in Badderly Gardens. 

Sherlock stares at the building, trying to latch onto something, anything about it that he can remember, but his mind is blank. He shakes his head.

Lestrade flashes his badge at the receptionist and they’re ushered in to see the doctor quickly.

Marissa Delamere is an imposing woman with short salt and pepper hair. She is dressed professionally in a business suit, but the batik pattern of her blouse and soft rainbow tones of her jewelry add a splash of colour. She rises from behind her desk to greet them.  

Sherlock takes the lead before anyone else can speak, extending his hand to shake hers, and holding it a few beats too long as if looking for clues in the shape of her hand. “Doctor Delamere? My name is Sherlock Holmes. Have we met?”

Delamere holds Sherlock’s gaze steadily. “I don't believe so. My receptionist says the three of you are from Scotland Yard?” 

“Yes,” Lestrade says and for once, doesn’t specify that only he is actually a Met officer. “We're investigating the death of Darren Mather. We understand he was a patient of yours.”

“I spoke to Detective McVey not an hour ago about that,” she responds dismissively.

“We have a few follow-up questions,” Lestrade replies, leaving no room for argument. 

“Alright, yes. Please, sit down,” Delamere says with a sigh, frowning a bit as she gestures to two chairs in front of her desk. 

Sherlock is prowling the room, closely examining the certificates and plaques on the walls, so John and Lestrade sit instead. 

“I was very upset to learn about Darren. He was a troubled man who'd struggled through an unfortunate period of darkness in his life.”

“What kind of darkness?” John asks.

Delamere shakes her head. “I’m not at liberty to go into detail due to patient confidentiality laws. And I was told the Met was already taking steps to acquire Darren’s medical records through the correct channels. But I can tell you my treatment of Darren was simply an aggressive method to access buried or repressed memories.”

John and Lestrade frown. “What do you mean by ‘aggressive?’” the latter asks, pulling out a notepad and pen from his breast pocket.

“I have developed a unique system of cortical pathway reprogramming which utilises a combination of transcranial magnetic stimulation, and certain other components of this technique trigger the hippocampus to release concealed memories.”

Lestrade jots down a few notes, then looks back up to Delamere. “Doctor, did you also use this treatment on a woman named Maura Kincaide?”

Delamere nods. “Maura is one of my patients, yes.”

“Ms Kincaide hung herself last week.” 

“Oh my god,” Delamere breathes out, color draining from her face. She shakes her head. “I had no idea.”

John can sense Sherlock behind him, and turns a bit to see him standing with his arms folded, stoically watching Delamere with slightly narrowed eyes.

Lestrade continues his questioning. “Is this treatment safe? Has it been used or approved in the NHS?”

“The types of treatments I do here are unconventional but they aren’t harmful. Just because a therapy is alternative to traditional methods doesn’t mean it’s unsafe. I source the components completely legally, I assure you, and participate in registered clinical trials.”

“You recruit patients for drug trials?”

“Not lately. But my background in the pharmacological industry means I have certain connections, access to things normally red-taped by the NHS.”

John shifts in his seat. “Does your treatment include a pharmaceutical component? Injections of any type?”

Delamere lets out a small sigh, as if annoyed by the question. “I administer a mild sedative to help my patients relax. Nothing else.”

“Have you ever heard of a compound called lysergohexthomidate?” 

“No, I’m not familiar with that,” she replies, shaking her head, but the way she breaks eye contact doesn’t go unnoticed.

“And you had absolutely no idea that Darren Mather and Maura Kincaide were suicidal?” John asks.

Delamere flinches, instantly offended at the suggestion. “No! Of course not! I’d never do anything to put my patients in danger! I would have promptly interfered if I had any indication that either of them were struggling with thoughts like that — would have taken the proper steps to get them in-patient treatment. I have been in practice for over 25 years. I have a very good ethical and professional reputation, if you'd care to check.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sherlock says, and promptly leaves the room. John shoots Lestrade a look and shifts in his seat as if to follow.

“Go ahead, I’ll catch up. I have a few more questions,” the DI assures him. 

John finds Sherlock on the kerb, pacing. He spins to look at John, eyes full of the familiar, bright energy John hasn’t seen in days. 

“I have been here before, John! I remember! I met Delamere with Darren Mather. She was lying when she said she didn’t know me.” He starts pacing the pavement again, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Why?”

“She’s lying about more than that,” John adds. “I think that she administered the lysergohexthomidate to Darren, Maura, and to you. I think that you were treated by her, with this electromagnetic stimulation… thing, and I think that your blackouts — these seizures — are because of it.”

“It seems plausible,” Sherlock concedes.

Frustration bubbles up in John, and he shakes his head. “But… I don’t understand why you would do this, Sherlock. Were you trying to access repressed memories like Mather was? Why would you undergo something this crazy and dangerous and put your mind at risk?” 

Sherlock opens his mouth to answer, but then gasps suddenly and staggers forward, hands coming up to grip his temples, eyes squeezed shut. He lets out a few choked sobs, and John catches him by his biceps as his long legs give out. 

“Sherlock? Sherlock! Shit,” John swears, guiding him down as they both sink to their knees. Sherlock’s eyes are open this time, and darting erratically, as if he’s experiencing REM sleep while awake. It subsides in less than a minute, and with two or three final, intentional blinks, Sherlock’s eyes clear and John knows he’s with him again. 

“Sherlock? Look at me,” John says, chasing eye contact.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock manages, shaking his head a bit as if to further clear it. He pushes away from John and stands on wobbly legs. His balance is so shot that only John’s firm grip around his arm keeps him from toppling over.

“Christ, Sherlock! You’re not fine! The effects of whatever she’s done to you are still in full effect. You need to be somewhere where you can be monitored safely and we can figure out how to stop this!”

Ignoring him, Sherlock steps into the road to hail a cab, wobbling slightly before regaining his balance. 

John practically sees red as the leftover dregs of adrenaline merge with blinding frustration. “Where do you think you’re going? We have to wait for Lestrade, he’ll drive us back.”

“I need to see my brother.”

“Then Mycroft can come to us! If you won’t go back to the hospital, we should at least go home. You need to rest until these symptoms go away!”

Sherlock spins, face flushed with frustration. “I don't want these symptoms to go away, John! Whatever's happening to me, whatever treatment I've received, it’s allowing me to remember things I’ve buried away for the first time in decades! My whole life it’s all been encrypted, and now I have the access code. What happened to Victor, what happened with Eurus… it’s finally becoming clear to me, and I need to know more!” 

John stops dead in his tracks. It suddenly makes sense — the silences, the apprehension… it’s not just this case that has Sherlock so wrong-footed! It’s his past crashing in through the gates while he’s trying to piece together how he’s ended up a part of a Met case.

A cab rounds the corner and Sherlock waves to catch it. It makes a beeline to them and as Sherlock opens the door, he turns back to John. “You can come with me, or you can stay. But I won’t let you stop me, John.” His tone then softens a little. “For what it’s worth, I’d rather have you by my side than to go it alone. But I need to go.”

John casts a glance back at the building. Still no sign of Lestrade, so John pulls out his phone to send the DI a text, and climbs in the cab beside Sherlock. 

Chapter Text

Mycroft’s home is palatial and ornate with far too many rooms to be a practical residence for a single man. As they pull up to the brick and stone monolith, John vaguely wonders if he will ever visit this place for a reason other than demanding answers about Holmes' family secrets.

Mycroft’s black town car — and subsequently his driver, Wallace — are noticeably absent from the driveway, but his personal Bentley Continental sits under the porte-cochère. 

“He might not be home,” John murmurs, aware of Sherlock twitching like a live wire in the seat beside him. He partially hopes he’s right. 

“Oh, he most certainly is home,” Sherlock growls, practically throwing himself out of the car the minute the cabbie puts it in park. He strides up to the ornate wooden doors and begins to pound. 

“MYCROFT!” he roars, and John knows there’s no use in pointing out that the sleek video doorbell might be a better option for summoning someone from the depths of this estate. It’s not catharsis Sherlock needs right now, and the door is probably made of some indestructible material that will ensure Sherlock breaks before it does. 

“I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE, MYCROFT!”

Indeed, the elder Holmes answers the door after a few more thumps, looking incredibly unimpressed with his brother’s stroppy display. “Sprung from the Clink, have you?” He mocks bemusedly, accenting the k. 

Sherlock ignores him and barrels into the house without waiting for an invitation. “You’ve been keeping things from me,” he announces without preamble. “Things about Eurus. Things about our parents.”

This throws Mycroft off enough for John to notice a minute flinch. “What? I don’t know what you’re talki—”

Sherlock lets out a frustrated growl. “Goddamnit, Mycroft! Stop trying to protect me from the truth! It was my life too and I deserve to know. I’m not leaving until I get answers. ALL of the answers.” 

He storms off deeper into the bowels of the house, leaving Mycroft blinking, mouth uncharacteristically agape a moment before he composes himself and turns to John. 

“Is he… using again?”

“No. He’s undergone some sort of experimental treatment, though, and it seems that includes some sort of mystery drug we can’t place. It doesn’t seem to be recreational. He thinks it’s making him remember old things with more clarity.” John shrugs. “You’d best just come clean with him, Mycroft. He’s going to work it all out, anyway, and I’d prefer that to happen sooner rather than later so I can get him home and resting.”

“Ah, yes, the seizures. I saw they had no luck in recreating them at the hospital?”

John ignores the question. Of course Mycroft would already know everything. John is surprised Mister British-Government-And-Also-The-NHS hasn’t interfered in what’s going on. It could well be that he wanted to avoid the conversation Sherlock has now brought to his doorstep. 

He finds Sherlock in the parlor, on the couch, legs crossed, hands folded. Normally, it would be a calm position, but pent up frustration radiates off of him, and John can see his jaw muscles flexing as he clenches his teeth. Without a word, John sits beside him. Although this isn’t John’s battle, he will still fight alongside Sherlock, as always. Sherlock shoots him a sideways look and relaxes just enough for John to know that his presence isn’t unwelcome.

Mycroft enters calmly, surveying the scene a moment, then takes a deep breath and arranges himself into the armchair across from them, clasping his hands and squaring his shoulders. 

The ornate furniture, the sense of mystery juxtaposed with annoyance… It reminds John of Buckingham Palace all those years ago. He doubts anything he says or does could make Sherlock laugh now, though. At least this time he’s properly clothed. 

Mycroft sighs and raises his chin. “What do you want to know?” 

“There are things about the fire, about the time when Victor went missing… you were all fighting over me and I want to know why.”

“Ah,” Mycroft says, face clouding in dismay. Then he snaps to his professional persona, putting up a wall of intellect and superiority John has grown used to. “You know, Louis-Ferdinand Celine once said, ‘You can lose your way groping among the shadows of the past.’”

“Now is not the time to hurl quotations at me,” Sherlock snarls.

Mycroft tilts his head, brow furrowed. “I have told you of our sister, of the devastation of our family. You’ve witnessed enough of it yourself, now. There is nothing good in cataloguing more minutiae of that history, and what you know of it has already caused you considerable pain. I implore you to reconsider. There is nothing of use in the past. Let it go, Sherlock.”

But Sherlock is unmoved, staring back at Mycroft with as much determination as ever. It tells John that any attempts to discourage him will fall on deaf ears.

Mycroft sits for a few moments, lips pursed, then nods and takes a deep breath. “Eurus was a genius, and a master manipulator. She was unlike any child the world had ever seen. She applied her brilliance for influence and control in ways that the most insidious and power-hungry men in this world would envy. Despite our parent’s best attempts to find people to keep her intellectually occupied, she grew bored. You were the only thing that seemed to alleviate her boredom.”

“Yes, yes, I know all of this,” Sherlock growls impatiently. “I know what she did to me, that’s not what this was about.”

“You don’t know all of it.” Mycroft ducks his head, then unclasps his hands and sets them on his knees, bracing. “She knew just how to play you, how to bully you quietly and subtly, how to play the long game. Even I was often unaware of what she was doing to you until it came to a head. And always to such an extreme that you’d finally lose your composure and retaliate against her, often physically. 

“Of course, Mummy and Daddy only ever saw the aftermath of what you did; their favorite, youngest child crying because her brother had hurt her, without provocation, she’d claim. You always struggled and often failed to articulate what she’d done to you, and what you accused her of either seemed so small and insignificant, or so outlandish and monstrous, that the adults in our lives couldn’t believe it. I tried to get them to understand, but my arguments fell on deaf ears.”

“She made them think Sherlock was the problem,” John rephrases. Had he not met Eurus Holmes, he’d be sceptical of such grandiose statements about her abilities. But no, John knows how to fear her even in her current, sordid state. She made even Moriarty her puppet, and made it look easy.

“After enough of her orchestrations, she finally pushed them to the point where the therapists visiting the house were no longer for her but for you. They didn’t find as much as our parents assumed they would, but you were assessed thoroughly and established to reside firmly on the autism spectrum, and in those days when such children were often declared hopeless cases by many experts, that was enough. So little was known about it back then, and the doctors and our parents were misguided. They thought you were dangerous, a threat to her safety, and that her more disturbing tendencies were a result of watching you or acting out after being terrorised by you. Eurus was always their favorite, their youngest and only girl, the brilliant one. They just didn’t understand that one of her great talents was playing the victim.”

“But you said she cut herself — surely that made them realise she was unstable,” John interjects.

“Indeed, but they’d caught Sherlock dissecting a dead bird he’d found in the garden barely a week prior. They were mortified, and concerned he showed no hesitation to cut it up, more fascinated with the way it’s internal muscles and organs worked. Of course, Mummy thought it was horribly gruesome and macabre, and it so happened Eurus had been with Sherlock at the time. They assumed the violence she committed against herself was a direct result of what he had exposed her to and a means to alleviate her anxiety. They even worried he’d encouraged her to do it.”

“Jesus,” John breathes. The more he learns about Sherlock’s upbringing, the more pieces fall into place. It’s a wonder Sherlock has turned out as well as he has, considering all he’s been through. For so much of his life he’s blamed himself, using the sociopath title as a crutch in lieu of an explanation. In reality, so much of the man he was today was nurture, not nature. 

“Until she set fire to Musgrave Hall, Mummy and Daddy believed Sherlock was responsible for Victor’s disappearance. They’d already had reservations about subjecting other children to his company, certain that he was volatile and violent. But Sherlock and Victor had always played happily together with no conflicts as long as Eurus was not involved, so they let that friendship continue. Thought it was good for both of them, even.” Mycroft finally brings himself to look away from John, locking eyes with Sherlock, who stares right back. “Still, when he went missing, they questioned you. The police pressured you, and the fact that you were genuinely grieving for Victor and being terrorised by our sister was masked by the fact that the police and our parents put immense pressure on you to reveal his whereabouts. When he wasn’t found, some of the suspicion was cast aside.”

“When it became evident that Eurus was responsible, instead, by her own admission to me , though I attempted to communicate that to our parents they still found a twisted logic in assuming you’d driven her to it, that she was so abused by you that she found no other way to lash out. They were upset with her, obviously, but they were still a long way from seeing her as the psychotic threat she was. After days of Eurus taunting you about Victor, you reacted with violence again, throwing a crystal sugar bowl at her head while we were eating breakfast. They were ready to send you away that day, but I convinced them to keep the two of you separated instead. They refused to believe she was the dangerous one, but agreed for her safety it was better, and they’d give you one more chance.

“That was the day I became your shadow, the one who made sure you didn’t get into trouble. In reality, I sought to safeguard you from her, but as far as our parents were concerned, I was a calming influence on you. They’d never admit it but our parents had grown emotionally distant with you, and preferred to supervise our sister. It was plain to see that you were happier and more carefree, isolated away from her. But Eurus herself only grew more frustrated and resentful that her plaything had been taken away.”

John watches Sherlock taking in the news. It’s a lot, and it’s hard to tell what is going on behind the almost exaggeratedly stoic, cold demeanour he’s presenting to his brother.

Mycroft continues with an air of resignation. “When Musgrave burned down, it appeared the fire started in your bedroom. I heard you screaming, but I couldn’t get into your room. The door had been locked and I didn’t have time to search for the old key. By the time father arrived and knocked the door down, you were already unconscious. The smoke inhalation nearly killed you. It’s a miracle you didn’t suffer any serious burns or long term damage, though you required respirator treatment for days afterward because of the damage caused to your lungs. The rest of us got out without any injuries, but the family estate, as you know, was a complete loss.

“They were sure you’d set the fire, that you were destructive and vengeful. The lock on your bedroom door, as all the doors in the house, was antique. We never locked the doors since they required keys, so it was theorized that it had been a fluke, and somehow the door locked on its own thanks to an old and faulty mechanism." 

Mycroft’s sigh sounds like something long held in. “They were planning to send you away to a residential psychiatric institution straight from the children’s hospital. It was only after the forensics report came back that our parents accepted your innocence. The fire investigators found evidence that the fire was started not within your room, but right below it, by a match held to the ceiling near the vent that led up beside your bed. Your smoke detector and others in that wing of the house had been tampered with, batteries removed. They also discovered remnants of Eurus’s drawings, depictions of your gravestone, you burning alive, and other obvious indications of her motives.

“The situation was sealed when I convinced them to search Eurus, and they found the old skeleton key to your bedroom door in her pocket. She confessed without remorse she’d wanted to see what the fire would do to you, and how long it would take you to die. She seemed to grow bolder seeing their horrified reactions, and confessed to… something else.”

Mycroft opens his mouth as if to continue, then closes it again, blinking. It’s obvious he’s debating whether to continue, and Sherlock has no patience for it.

“What?” he prompts coldly, and John is surprised by the flatness of his voice. Surely hearing all of this is getting to him? John is struggling to keep his own emotions in check just listening to the trauma Sherlock had been through. 

Mycroft looks at his hands to avoid Sherlock’s eyes. 

“ What, Mycroft?” the younger Holmes demands, anger spilling through.

Mycroft’s calm facade finally breaks. “I don’t understand why you need to dig all of these things up,” he exhorts. “Let the past lie where it belongs, little brother.”

“It’s not the past to me, Mycroft, if I’m only now learning of it. Why won’t you tell me? I need to know.”

“I’ve only ever tried to protect you from this. All our lives, even when it was happening, I tried to shield you from it. I have carried this burden so you don’t have to.” It is the most sincere and emotional John has ever seen the man.

Sherlock is breathing hard beside him, trembling slightly. But Mycroft’s admission has softened him a bit. The venom is gone from his voice, replaced by pleading. “I need to know, Mycroft.”

Mycroft closes his eyes, exhaling slowly. He swallows and purses his lips before he continues. “She had planned for it to be you, instead of Victor. Since she refused to tell us where Victor was, what she’d done to him, we couldn’t save him. She told us ‘drowned Redbeard’ was supposed to be ‘drowned Yellowbeard.’ She orchestrated a row between you and Victor. He was supposed to go home, and you would play with her, as was usual when you two would get into squabbles. Then she’d lead you off to … the well, as we now know. But instead, you stormed off into the house, and Victor agreed to play with her instead. So she changed her plans.”

John feels his own jaw drop, and risks a glance at Sherlock to see he’s gone an alarming shade of pale. His expression is slack with shock and he blinks rapidly, no doubt processing the bombshell Mycroft just dropped on them. For his part, Mycroft plows ahead, unwilling to lose his tenuous momentum.

“Terrorizing everyone with Victor’s disappearance appeased her for awhile, but it didn’t last. She set fire to the house after deciding she still wanted you dead. She came so close… twice. Once she confessed, our parents could deny it no further. Eurus was obviously the one who had to be sent away, not you. They reexamined everything you and I had told them of her bullying in the past, finally realizing you were telling them the truth. They also accepted she acted alone and of her own volition in Victor’s disappearance. The guilt crushed them, the realisation that they’d enabled your tormentor and villainized you. But instead of trying to make it up to you with more nurturing, I fear they never really recovered, and in their guilt and grief, kept emotional distance with you, instead. 

“Still, by the time you recovered enough to come home from hospital, she was in a secure facility hundreds of miles away. You wouldn’t see her again for over 30 years.”

“It was supposed to be me,” Sherlock says foggily, staring into the middle distance, blinking rapidly over shining eyes. “Victor would be alive right now if I hadn’t left him alone with her. I blamed myself for not solving her ridiculous riddles, when I should have accepted blame for more .”

“Sherlock, you can’t think like that,” John rushes to say. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“Our friendship literally killed him,” Sherlock whispers, mostly to himself.

Mycroft’s answer is swift and leaves no room for argument. “Our sister killed him, Sherlock.”

“I need a cigarette,” Sherlock mumbles, standing abruptly on shaky legs, and leaves the room without looking back.

Mycroft looks exhausted and ill. “There’s so much pain in our past,” he says softly, tracing the ornate woodwork on the arm of his chair. “I wish he wouldn’t dwell on it.”

“But he’s right — it’s not the past for him, is it?” John asks, standing. “Healthy or not, he can’t leave it be, and he’s willing to risk a hell of a lot to make sense of it. Right now, he feels like this has just happened to him. He needs time to process and put it behind him.”

“All I’ve done is try to protect him.”

John nods once, a somber acquiescence. He understands the sentiment all too well — he feels that same protectiveness towards the adult Sherlock, and he’s had to learn how to let go of family members whose decisions are too destructive. “I think he’s done letting anyone protect him.” 

Mycroft says nothing, closing his eyes as John leaves to find Sherlock.

Chapter Text

The long cab ride home is silent and tense. In contrast to the anxious energy that had radiated from him on the way to Mycroft’s house, Sherlock is now deflated and detached, staring out the window with a furrowed brow. The quiet is deafening, and John is anxious to fill the vacuum between them. The urge to rush in with damage control is a holdover from his army days, the hope that if he works quickly enough, he may be able to limit the long-term effects of this new trauma. 

“Sherlock, nothing Eurus did was your fault,” John starts, heavy words feeling louder than they’d been spoken.

No response.

John sucks his teeth, nods, and turns away, trying to conceal a sigh. “You can’t blame yourse—”

Sherlock turns, his eyes are piercing, challenging. “Did your parents not hold you accountable when you did something wrong? If you had killed another child, would you have considered yourself blameless? Would your parents? If your actions, if your very existence began a chain of events culminating in––” Sherlock trails out, evades his companion’s gaze, “…would you be able to exonerate yourself?”

After a moment he grits his teeth, swallows, and tries again. “Eurus is the one responsible, Sherlock. And maybe your parents. But you were just a child, you —”

Sherlock’s eyes flit to his in the reflection of the window. “John.” Shaky but firm, the message is clear. Stop.

John breathes out through his nose.

Sherlock’s hand rests on the seat between them and a part of John wants to reach for it, to show Sherlock he’s not alone. To be honest, the physical connection would make John feel better too. But with all this information so fresh, John knows better than to try and force comfort on a man who wants solitude. To touch him would be a new, awkward, and possibly unwelcome thing on a normal day. Right now is not the time, as much as John wishes it were. 

John needs time to process it all, too, so he leaves Sherlock to his own thoughts, vowing that he’ll find a way for them to discuss it later. The way Sherlock had instantly viewed Victor’s fate as his fault is unthinkable and worries John, even if Sherlock’s arguments over it make some sense. Sherlock has carried a heavy load of guilt right after Musgrave — that if the boy hadn’t been his friend, he would still be alive. Now, to discover that Victor’s death wasn’t in Eurus original plans at all, and that it was originally supposed to be Sherlock in the well…  

If he can’t get Sherlock to talk about it with him, maybe Ella will have a better chance. John had begun to believe that they had stopped bottling up their emotions as badly as they used to, but it feels like Sherlock has reverted back to his old, private, impenetrable fortress self. They’ve come too far to fall back to those habits.

John’s phone buzzes in his pocket.

Does this mystery medication have a name?
-  M

Lysergohexthomidate , John responds, battling his autocorrect the whole way. He waits a few moments to see if another message is forthcoming, but gets no reply.

Sherlock slips out of the taxi at Baker Street, leaving John to pay the cabbie. He makes it to the first storey landing before he hears Sherlock’s bedroom door close. It’s not surprising that he wants to be alone right now, but John wishes he could be on the other side of that door, that Sherlock might see him as a shoulder to lean on in a time like this. 

He sighs, then decides now's as good a time as any to finally have a shower. Harry picked up Rosie from Mrs Hudson this afternoon, and is keeping her overnight, so the only two people John has to take care of this evening are himself and Sherlock. It’s a relief, as much as he could use a cuddle from Rosie about now. He can’t imagine her experiencing the tragedies that Sherlock has, and his heart breaks anew when he imagines a tiny boy with raven curls and a brilliant but misunderstood mind suffering the way he had. He runs the water hotter than he normally would, letting the steam fill his lungs and the raining heat soothe the tension from his shoulders. 

Clean but far from refreshed after his shower, he casts another glance at Sherlock’s closed bedroom door, then retreats to the sitting room to make a few phone calls. He checks in with Harry, replies to a few texts from Molly, and gets caught up with Lestrade. McVey’s team is now coordinating and sharing case information with the investigative team who had been on the scene for Maura Kincaide’s suicide.

Although he’s been avoiding the local news for the last few days, John decides he might as well see what the press has been reporting in regards to Mather’s death and Sherlock’s involvement therein. He reaches down beside his chair, where his laptop is normally propped, charging, but his fingers only find air. He glances down, confirming it is indeed gone, and remembers it’s in his room, battery completely dead. He sighs and starts to get up, when his eyes fall on Sherlock’s laptop on the desk. 

Sherlock wouldn’t mind, surely. It’s not like John has any measure of privacy when it comes to his own computer, and Sherlock keeps him updated every time he changes his password. 

John grabs the laptop and settles back into his chair with a sigh, opens the lid, wakes it from sleep, and logs in. His plan to head to the BBC News website dies instantly when he sees what was left on the screen. 

The administrator dashboard of Sherlock’s blog. 

John’s is nearly identical in layout, so he recognises this is the area where Sherlock can approve or delete comments people have submitted on his blog posts, and deal with private messages readers had sent him. 

The last message received is from a user named iDarreYa127: 

Mr Holmes, 

I am hoping you might be able to help me. I had an experimental treatment recently, hoping to access traumatic memories from my childhood. When I was 8, my mum went missing under suspicious circumstances, but now I have learned through these new memories that I witnessed her murder at the hands of her best friend. The police won’t reopen the case because it was ruled as a suicide by the coroner and I don’t have any new evidence to represent besides what I remember. I know decades have passed, but at this point, I believe if anyone can help bring my mother’s killer to justice, it would be you. It would also be a huge relief to finally find her remains and put her to rest properly.

I know that some groundbreaking new-fangled memory therapy probably sounds too good to be true and that there’s been lots of problems before with hypnosis-based approaches giving people false memories, but I swear that this is the real deal. I was skeptical as well, but I swear it works. I am planning to undergo another treatment and my therapist says she will allow you to be there to witness it, and answer any of your questions as long as you sign some papers and promise not to talk about the details of the method. I am sure the things I now remember really happened, the images are so vivid it is like I am actually there, and I can feel it in my heart that it’s the pieces I was missing. It all makes sense, fills in all the blank spaces I had. I have sought many therapies over my life to try and recover this information I knew must be locked inside of me, but this is the first time anything has come close to succeeding. 

My therapist is well known and renowned, and she is located not far from London in Badderly Gardens. 

Any advice or help you can offer is appreciated. I am happy to give you more details, anything I can to help my mother’s killer face justice.

Sincerely,

Darren Mather

John lets out a shuddering breath as the pieces fall into place. Why hadn’t Sherlock told him about this? He knows about Eurus, knows about what happened to Sherlock as a child; why wouldn’t Sherlock trust him with the knowledge that he was pursuing this? 

Maybe he had dismissed the treatment at first and then become convinced upon witnessing it, John reasons. Had he tagged along to Mather’s appointment with Delamere and then elected to try the procedure himself? 

There is a phone number listed which he assumes Sherlock must have called, as that is the only piece of correspondence he can find. The time stamp on the message is the morning of the day Sherlock took off after dinner; the message was never approved to be posted on his website. 

It must not have taken Sherlock long to decide to take the case. The next time John had seen him was two days later, covered in blood in Mather’s own flat. 

John rereads the message two more times before he closes the laptop and puts it back on the desk, realizing Sherlock would know he’d used it at a glance anyway. He takes a deep breath and goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water for his suddenly incredibly dry throat.

He’ll apologise profusely for the invasion of privacy and hope that the knowledge he’s gained, the pieces of the puzzle he’s connected will appease Sherlock instead. Appeal to the side of him that wanted answers just as badly.

John paces in the kitchen, torn between wanting to wake Sherlock immediately or let him sleep a bit longer, when his mobile buzzes in his pocket. A text message. 

Check your inbox.

- M

With a frown, John switches to his email app and opens the message from Mycroft. What he finds are scanned clinical reports on the stationary of a pharmaceutical company from the preliminary clinical lysergohexthomidate trials. Usually notes like this are never made public, and there is a bold, uppercase notice at the top of the document reminding the reader of the vital confidentiality of the results. John is thankful Mycroft was able to get access to the file, as he certainly never would have been able. These sorts of things would never be found on PubMed or any of the other websites for medical scientists and clinicians. This is the stuff companies will want to hide, both to prevent competitors from finding out about a new, promising drug, and to prevent PR disasters regarding drugs which have proven too harmful or useless.

John pulls out a chair from under the kitchen table and sits to read. Developed after some promising preliminary case reports regarding the use of LSD and ketamine, lysergohexthomidate was developed and had been tested as a possible medication for patients with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Derived from the same components as LSD, as Sherlock had guessed, the company had hoped that it would provide all the benefits of hallucinogens with less side-effects and a shorter half-life. In recent years the benefits of psychedelic drugs for patients with PTSD have become more popular. John has read studies where MDMA, known more commonly as Ecstasy, was already being used in treatment of combat veterans. It’s controversial, but the positive results are hard to deny. The reports detail how the developers had chased an angle of potentiating psychotherapeutic methods such as EMDR with the drug; usable only as an intramuscular or intravenous solution, it was impractical for home or long-term use.

John starts scanning the notes and write-ups of the subjects involved, including details on demographics, drug administration methods (injected to the deltoid muscle), intended outcomes, and the results that actually presented themselves.

John's stomach drops as he understands why the drug was dropped from trials. All of the 42 patients involved experienced mania and paranoia and 31 had headaches with seizures or episodes of syncope. The only positive outcome recorded was that 27 subjects also found success in accessing repressed memories while on lysergohexthomidate. It worked, but at what cost? It appeared that some of the drug’s more insidious effects lingered longer than the pharmaceutical company had anticipated in preclinical animal trials, presumably because subtle psychological effects would be kind of difficult to gauge in a bunch of rodents.

What really makes John’s breath catch in his throat is the note on why the phase two clinical study was finally shut down: fourteen of the subjects had attempted suicide. Six succeeded.

Follow-up attachments show orders to cease further development of the drug and limit sales to research units as well as the classification of the trial data. He suddenly remembered the therapist’s near-bragging on her industry connections.

Mrs Hudson’s voice breaks John from his trance. “Sherlock! John!” she calls from the landing, panicked, and John bolts from the flat, taking the stairs down two at a time, nearly falling on his face as his body tries to catch up with his intent.

Although he expects to find her injured in some way, he’s relieved to see her standing at the bottom of the stairs, hand clutched to her chest. “Oh, John,” she says, eyes wide with distress. She points to the back door, which leads to the small alleyway where the bins are kept. 

“My car’s gone! I’ve been parking it in Mrs Turner’s garage. I was going to go visit friends for a game night, but I couldn’t find my keys anywhere. It’s one of those keyless types, you know, so I thought maybe I’d dropped them inside the car somewhere. When I went to look, I saw it was gone!” 

Sudden clarity comes crashing down on John. Without a word, he spins from Mrs Hudson and bolts back up the stairs, slamming through the flat without any care to stay quiet. He’s down the hall to Sherlock’s room in moments, and he doesn’t hesitate to enter this time, throwing the door open without knocking.

Still the same sleeping form, covered in the sheets. But John sees now what he failed to before. No shoes on the floor, no sign of Sherlock’s suit coat. Even if he’d been tired enough to sleep in his shirt and trousers, Sherlock never would have laid down wearing shoes or a jacket. With a sinking feeling, John pulls back the sheets to find the bed full of carefully arranged pillows. The gauze curtain covering the window to the fire escape twitches in the evening breeze.

He’s been hoodwinked, fooled by the oldest trick in the book. But why? Where is Sherlock going? How long has he been gone? He pulls out his mobile and hits Sherlock’s entry in his favorites list. It rings and rings and finally goes to Sherlock’s voicemail, and John is about to let loose all his fear and frustration in a recording before his eyes catch the sleek black mobile still docked on the bedside table. Sherlock left it behind, no doubt on purpose. 

John’s mind races, so blind with worry and rage that he nearly jumps out of his skin when Mrs Hudson knocks at the bedroom door, giving him a worried, questioning look.

“He’s gone,” John says, feeling his composure waver. “He snuck out and stole your car and now he’s gone, God knows where.”

“He could have just asked,” Mrs Hudson says, at a loss. “If it were really serious, you know I’d let you both borrow it.”

“I know you would,” he says, giving her a pathetic attempt at a reassuring smile. “But he’s not well. He’s not in his right mind right now and he didn’t want anyone to know he was leaving.” John runs his hand through his hair and breathes out a shaky breath through his nose. 

“Oh, John,” she says, voice full of worry. “Is there anything I can do?” 

“I’ll let you know. Right now I need to call Lestrade. I’ll keep you posted.”

His hands shake as he dials, barely waiting for Lestrade’s greeting before the words start pouring out. “Sherlock’s gone. He’s snuck out sometime in the last hour, and he’s stolen Mrs Hudson’s car.” John can hear the tremors in his own voice, the slightly too-high pitch, but there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

“Whoa, wait, slow down! Go through what’s happened since I last heard from you.”

“We went to visit Mycroft after leaving Delamere’s office. Sherlock learned more about his childhood… more information about what happened with his sister and Victor Trevor.” He takes a deep breath and sighs it out shakily. “It wasn’t good.” John is grateful Lestrade was there at Musgrave at the end of their Sherrinford nightmare, that he knows enough of the pertinent details to not need to be filled in.

“Shit,” Lestrade swears. 

“Yeah,” John agrees. “He was… off the whole ride home, and then went straight to his room when we got to the flat. I thought he was taking a nap. He set it up to fool me, pillows under the blankets and all. He left his phone behind, snuck out the fire escape, and stole Mrs Hudson’s car. And, Greg…” John’s stomach twists. “I think he’s armed.” How and when Sherlock had gotten to his gun, John doesn’t know, but it’s missing from the locked drawer he keeps it in, and he has no doubt that Sherlock is in now possession of it.  

John hears Greg’s sharp intake of breath, but doesn’t wait for his reply, unable to stop the flow of words now that they’ve begun. So much has happened in the last half hour John feels completely overwhelmed trying to keep the information straight. 

“I found a message from Mather on Sherlock’s blog. He had reached out hoping Sherlock could help him get justice for his mother’s death, using memories he’d recovered with Delamere’s treatment. He invited Sherlock along to watch a session with Delamere, and he must have had his first exposure then. 

“And to make matters worse, I got the information on lysergohexthomidate from Mycroft. It’s worse than I thought. It was a test drug, aimed at treating PTSD, they used it like some other hallucinogens have been used, to enhance some forms of therapy like hypnosis and EMDR. The results were catastrophic: mania, paranoia, seizures, and attempts at suicide, including six that succeeded. They shut down the trials immediately, and never pushed it to the market. Most of the stocks were supposed to be destroyed, and the rest limited, only sold for research purposes. That therapist, Delamere, said she has industry connections.”

“Jesus,” Lestrade breathes. “That definitely feels like a solid connection between Darren Mather and Maura Kincaide then. Is Sherlock experiencing any sui—”

“No,” John cuts him off. 

He can’t bear to hear it, can’t bear to think of Sherlock being suicidal. Again. Even if the first time was just for show, it was real for John. Years on, and he still has the occasional flashback or nightmare. It can’t happen again. John will never let it happen again. But the helpless pit forming in his stomach seems to know better. Sherlock is volatile and unpredictable at the best of times, and he’s just been told a rug pull of a version of his childhood. He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t, normally , but… 

“He’s still affected by the drug’s side-effects and God knows what that therapist did to him…” John reminds both Lestrade and himself.

“Is he still having seizures?”

“He had one… episode, more like an absence seizure this time, right after we left Delamere’s office. It was quicker than the others, and he didn’t lose consciousness, so I think the effects of the drugs are finally wearing off, but it still worries me.”

“I can put an alert in the police database,” Lestrade offers. “Won’t take them long to spot him. That car would turn anyone’s head, I think.”

John thinks a moment before he sighs heavily, rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t like the idea of Sherlock being pulled over and having to deal with police in whatever state he’s in, but the idea of him having a seizure while driving is terrifying. “Alright. But make sure he’s not arrested. Mrs Hudson isn’t upset about the car, we’re both just worried about him.”

“Will do. Any idea where he’s gone?”

At a loss, John shakes his head, even though Lestrade isn’t there to see. But before he can admit he has no idea, realization dawns on him. After everything, would Sherlock trust that Mycroft had told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or would he seek to confirm it himself?

“Yeah,” John says. “God help me, I think I do.”

He’s out of the cab before it stops, throwing bills over the front seat and flying across the pavement into Delamere’s office. There’s no sign of Mrs Hudson’s red Aston Martin, but that doesn’t mean Sherlock isn’t here. John peers through the small window panel on the wooden door. The reception area is dark, but John can see movement and lights on in the back. The door is locked, and John starts pounding, feeling very much like Sherlock just hours ago at Mycroft’s house.

Moments later, blue lights flash, bouncing off the buildings and reflecting in the windows as panda cars pull up in front of the office. 

Lestrade is beside John then, yelling at the door. “Doctor Delamere! This is The Metropolitan Police! Open up!” He instructs officers to check the back of the building as John continues to pound. After a few more calls to the occupant inside, she finally comes forward with wide, fearful eyes and unlocks the door.

“What’s all this —?” she starts as Lestrade and John push past her, followed by a pair of constables.

“Where’s Sherlock?” John demands.

Delamere shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m here alone, I was just cleaning up, I —”

“Check the building,” Lestrade orders, speaking over her, but John is already ahead of him.

“Sherlock? Sherlock!” He heads for the room where the lights are still on, an examination room across from Delamere’s formal office that had been closed earlier. They hadn’t entered it when they’d been here before.

The room  holds a reclining chair similar to a dentist’s, with restraint buckles around the arms and legs. A large machine stands to the side, idle but powered on. Strange paddles lay on the chair as if dropped in haste, covered in disposable sanitary plastic covers. Empty medicine vials lay on a silver tray, along with a used, uncapped syringe. John picks up the bottles: ketamine and lysergohexthomidate. 

It’s obvious everything has recently been used. 

He looks up to see Lestrade in the doorway of the room, and holds up the vials wordlessly. Lestrade nods. “Bag it all as evidence,” he tells a young forensic tech and heads back to the front. 

“Marissa Delamere, you are under arrest,” John can hear Lestrade say, and he rushes from the treatment room, eager to get to her before she’s carted away to be booked.

“Where is he?” John thunders, halting the constables beginning to lead Delamere away. She purses her lips and refuses to make eye contact, instead watching as her office is torn apart and evidence cataloged. “I know he was here,” John yells. “I need to know — did you treat him?” Her silence enrages him, but he packs it down deep and instead manages to lower his voice to a growl instead of continuing to yell. “You know he’s a danger to himself. I need to get to him before he does anything rash. Now answer me. Did you treat him?”

Her eyes finally lift to his, full of resentment and regret. “Yes,” she admits. “He begged me to.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know where he went. I didn’t ask.”

John’s heart sinks and he turns away from her a moment, shaking his head in disbelief. Sherlock couldn’t have just disappeared into the ether. There had to be some clue, something that would point him in the right direction. “What’s the last thing he said to you?” John asks, desperate now.

She drops her head a moment, before looking him in the eyes.  “He said he needed to sift through the ashes.”

Chapter Text

The drive to Musgrave Hall feels eternal, even with Lestrade’s lead foot. Sherlock only has a 10–15 minute head start, but a lot can happen in that amount of time. John tries his hardest to avoid thinking of what those things are, but fails. He spends the trip cycling between anger, worry, and despair. 

Why had Sherlock been so foolish to go back to Delamere? Wasn’t what Mycroft told him of their childhood enough? How much of his decision was influenced by the remnants of the last treatment? How could he be so selfish to put himself in such danger, even knowing what he does about the side effects? And all of this, knowing John needs him?

He does know John needs him… doesn’t he?

If — no, when they get out of this — John will make sure Sherlock knows, and that he never ever forgets it. They’ve been here too many times, on the precipice of the end. After everything they’ve been through, all the extra chances they’ve been given, why is it still so hard to tell Sherlock what lies in John’s heart? Why has it been so hard to admit it to himself? The fear of rejection is nothing compared to the fear John feels now — that this time, they might not get another chance. The pain that thought evokes is dizzying.

The sight of Musgrave Hall in the dark is just as formidable as John remembers. Although he had seen the façade of the hulking estate after he’d been rescued from the well years ago, John has never been inside. 

They approach the mansion slowly, pulling off behind a grove of trees before they get too close. Backup from the local police is waiting for them, as summoned by Lestrade: two police cars, one unmarked vehicle, and an ambulance sit idling with their lights off. Lestrade has instructed them to monitor for Sherlock but not approach him.

“He’s definitely in there, we saw movement about ten minutes ago, but it’s been quiet since,” the lead sergeant  on site tells them. “Should we call in a negotiator?”

“I’m going in,” John announces without hesitation. “I assume he’s the only one in there and besides, he’ll just run circles around any negotiator you’d have. It needs to be me. He’ll listen to me.” 

The sergeant is incredulous, and looks to Lestrade for a reaction. 

Lestrade sighs and turns to face John. “You know I can’t let you do that, mate. You don’t know what state he’s in, you said it yourself. And he’s armed. It’s just not safe.”

John shakes his head. “If you send anyone else in, you know he’s not going to react well. He’d be liable to do something more rash, especially if he sees someone in uniform.”

“No. Out of the question. It’s too dangerous. You’re a civilian. I’ll go.”

John shakes his head, shifting his weight and clenching his fists. “I was a soldier. I’ve swept buildings much more dangerous than this one, full of people actively trying to kill me and my team. I know how to disarm an enemy in combat. I’ve had de-escalation training and most importantly, I’ve lived with him for years. I’ll take the risk.” John exhales a shaky breath, trying to convey a sense of calm and confidence he doesn’t entirely feel. “He won’t hurt me, Greg. He’s ill. He needs help. You have to let me go in.”

Lestrade frowns and puts his hand on his hip, trying to formulate another argument. After a moment he sighs, then pulls the sergeant to the side and they talk quietly. John can tell the other man is unhappy about Lestrade’s decision, and when the DI returns, he’s carrying something.

“Alright, you can go, but you’re wearing a stab vest.” 

John doesn’t argue, stripping off his jumper so they can get it strapped onto him quickly over his button down shirt. It’s heavier than it looks, and hugs him tightly around the middle, but shouldn’t impede his movement. He pulls the jumper back over and hopes it’s not too noticeable. 

Lestrade surveys him, re-tightening a few straps, then sighs. “You have a signal on your phone?”

John pulls it out and they both see he does.

“You call the moment you need us. We’ll be quiet and calm so’s not to spook him. But if I hear gunfire, we’re coming in running. Understand?”

John agrees. 

“Good luck,” Lestrade says grimly. “I want you both back here safe and sound, alright?”

John nods and gives Greg a sad smile. Taking a deep breath, he turns and heads for the manor. The grass is tall all around him as he slowly breaks through the trees, creeping through the shadows. If Sherlock is watching, he doesn’t want to scare him, and out here in the dark, John might be hard to recognize. Then again, this is Sherlock, the most observant man on the planet who John has jokingly suspected has x-ray eyes and night vision. 

Better to find Sherlock before Sherlock finds him. 

It isn’t long before John finds Mrs Hudson’s red Aston Martin parked haphazardly outside, driver’s door open, interior light on. He pauses for a moment to peer into the car, but nothing seems awry. He slowly, almost silently closes the car door, and turns to face Musgrave again.

John’s heart beats like a fist against his ribs. The unfamiliar, burned-out building, enrobed in moonlight, shadows, and soot, makes him feel like a soldier again, but this place feels more like the ruins of a castle than a scorched hut in Afghanistan. He itches for his weapon; reflexes forged in war hard to ignore. The sick dread knowing Sherlock has possession of his gun coils in John’s stomach. If he is in the same mental state after visiting Delamere a second time as Darren Mather and Maura Kincaide were… 

What if John is already too late? At least the officers posted outside the house hadn’t reported any gunshots.

From what he can see of the house in the dark, the fire damage seems to be contained in the East wing. East wind, his mind unhelpfully fills in. 

He enters through an arched entryway at the front of the estate on the west side, heavy wood door still intact, and unlocked. The foyer is dark, with stone floors bathed in pale light from windows high above. With his phone’s flashlight, he can see it’s surprisingly well-preserved for a place that’s been vacant for decades, with no fire damage in this area. The large staircase before him beckons, but the soldier in John knows he should clear the ground floor first, and get a layout of the building. 

The juxtaposition of damaged and preserved is shocking. In some rooms, dust and cobwebs are the only evidence of abandonment. Furniture sits, frozen in time. Some knickknacks remain on the mantle, a few paintings still adorn the walls. Surely in all this time there would have been a looter or squatter, but the estate seems largely intact. Maybe they also felt the eerie atmosphere of the place as John did, and decided not to enter, let alone stay.

But as John moves toward the East wing where the fire had been, sooty stone walls seem to tower above him, open to the night sky in places the roof has burned away. Windows in the dining room and kitchen have long since lost their glass panes to time or tragedy, empty hinges in doorways speaking to the ghosts of wooden doors. Nature has a stronghold here, pernicious thorny tendrils snaking their way through the charred rubble. Decades of gossamer webs frost the ashen shadows in the corners. A gentle breeze pours through these rooms like water through a sieve, rustling old dead leaves that have gathered in the corners, and the new plants forcing their way up through the cracks in the stone floor.

He steps slowly and lightly, straining to hear any signs of life. 

“Sherlock?” John calls, trying to keep his voice gentle and neutral. He pauses to listen, then creeps forward again carefully when no reply comes.

He clears the ground floor methodically, frustrated by the necessity of his snail’s pace. All he wants to do is run through this huge place until he finds Sherlock. Knowing the state he’s likely to be in, John can’t afford to waste time. 

This wing of the manor is dangerous. Devastating fire damage and three decades of exposure to the elements has left some rooms with collapsing walls and holes in the floors. In what appears to be a parlor, animals have taken up residence in the fireplace and furniture, and nearly give John a heart attack when they panic and scurry away, erupting from the hearth and running past him to the exit. 

Small white crumpled balls litter the room. Photographs. In the middle of the floor, an ancient leather photo album. John crouches over it, and sees half the photos have been removed. He delicately turns the plastic pages, finding photos of a young Mycroft, and Mr and Mrs Holmes. Other people John doesn’t recognize, too. He knows whose photo the empty slots once held. 

Confirming his sinking suspicion, John plucks the nearest crumpled ball off the floor, smoothing it out to reveal a photograph of Sherlock as a child, smiling brightly. He looks to be Rosie’s age, barely three. John picks up another crumpled photo and finds the same. Every photo he picks up, another shot of a tiny Sherlock. A wave of nausea sweeps over John. Sherlock was trying to erase himself like Mather and Kincaide did. John wants to rage on behalf of the small, sweet boy whose photo he holds in his hands. All the hurt he’s been through, leading now to this… if only John could go back in time and protect Sherlock from all that lay ahead of him, he would do it in a heartbeat.

There’s no time to dwell. He won’t let Sherlock end his life the way the others did. He needs to move quickly. He puts the photo down on top of the album, and moves on.

John’s own labored breath echoes in his ears as he approaches another staircase to the first storey, fueled entirely by adrenaline. 

“Sherlock?” he tries again, and this time there is an answer, although John can’t quite make it out. He scales the unstable staircase as carefully as possible, stepping around debris and over missing risers. 

At the top of the stairs, he pauses, listening. “Sherlock?” 

“Leave me alone,” comes the flat, unaffected reply, but John is overwhelmed with relief to hear it. 

He heads toward the voice into the hollow shell of a room. The outer stone walls are partially crumbled, and the roof has long since burned away. A blackened metal headboard and bed frame is all that remains of furniture, piles of charred wood suggesting a bookcase and desk. It’s obvious this room was more damaged by the fire than any other room John has seen, and it doesn’t take long for him to realize it must have been Sherlock’s bedroom. 

Completely open to the elements now, John can see the sweeping hills and overgrown orchards that remain for miles around. The night is clear and cold, the bright moon like a spotlight on Sherlock’s pale complexion. He is sitting in the middle of the room on a pile of rubble, hair blowing in the chilly night wind. His eyes are closed and he rocks himself gently, arms wrapped around his knees. 

John’s stomach clenches. “Sherlock, it’s me.” 

“I said, leave me alone, John,” he murmurs, trance-like. 

John swallows and steps into the ruins of the room slowly. Every movement seems to echo, each scrape and scratch and breath amplified. John searches the shadows around Sherlock for a hint of his weapon, but doesn’t have to look hard. It is clutched in Sherlock’s hand, thankfully pointed away from them both. The bright moonlight glints off the metal barrel. 

John wills himself to stay calm. “I just want to talk. I’m worried about you.”

Sherlock whimpers, both hands grabbing the back of his head to pull it toward his knees. The debris beneath him shifts, ashen stones and bits of scorched wood tumbling down the pile he’s sitting on. “I understand it now, John. The only solution to this. I’ve always been the problem. It’s always been me.”

“No, Sherlock, that’s not true,” John says, trying to keep his voice calm and clear despite his pulse crashing in his ears. “You’re not responsible for things Eurus did. You’re under the influence of a drug that’s keeping you from thinking straight, and you’ve had a procedure––”

“You don’t know!” Sherlock yells, red eyes lined with tears as he looks at John for the first time. “It’s me, it’s my fault, it should have been me!” He curls into himself again, rocking. “I remember it all so clearly now. All the pieces… I remember. He was just a child, just a little boy, he didn’t deserve it! If I had just played with her, he’d be alive. It makes sense now , John, I always thought there was a piece missing when I should have realised it never fit into the whole picture in the first place.” To John’s horror, Sherlock lifts the gun to his temple with a shaking hand. “There are no answers left, John, none that would make things better. Everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve put you through, it’s just more of the same.”

It suddenly feels like John is diffusing a bomb. He inches closer, arms outstretched in a placating manner. He swallows against a suddenly dry mouth, but thankfully his voice stays steady. “You were just a little boy too, Sherlock. It’s not your fault, I swear it’s not. They should have protected you from her, both you and Victor. You’re not a psychopath like her, you’re the opposite , and that’s why it hurts. Let’s talk about it. Just... put the gun down. This isn’t fixing anything.”

“Don’t you understand?” Sherlock rasps, desperation dripping from his words. “Nothing can be fixed, and it almost happened to you too! You’ve been in danger so many times! The Black Lotus gang! Moriarty’s bomb vest and snipers! Magnussen’s bonfire! And the well with V...Victor!” He chokes on his old friend’s name. “All because of me!”

“It’s not you, Sherlock! The actions of other people are not your fault, and there’s so many people you’ve saved, so many people whose lives you’ve made so much better!”

“So many times, you could have died, so many times… You met Mary because of me, and you lost her because of me. I draw people in, and they lose everything.”

“But I didn’t die, Sherlock. You saved me from the gang, and from Moriarty, and from the bonfire and the well. You did! And without you, there would be no Rosie and God knows I might still be married to some bloody assassin I never even loved! ”

He’s never said it out loud, never really admitted it to himself, but right now, saying it feels almost easy because there are more important things than for John to keep up his walls while Sherlock’s are crumbling down all around him.

“I wouldn’t have survived past four months after Afghanistan if it weren’t for you,” John admits, words thick in his mouth. 

Sherlock lets out a strangled gasp and moves as if caught in a dream, throwing his head back, jerking back and forth in a struggle only he can see. “Saved you only to cast you into hell.”

“Sherlock—” John says, taking a step closer without thinking. His foot crunches on broken glass, and the sharp sound in the stillness breaks the spell over Sherlock.

“Get back!” He roars, scrambling to his feet, pointing the gun straight at John. 

John freezes in his tracks, blood cold in his veins. He can feel the stab vest on him like a shield, except the gun barrel is pointed at his forehead.

He inhales slowly, keeping his hands in clear view, non-threatening. “Sherlock, please… You’ve been given a powerful hallucinogen, you’re not thinking clearly. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you.”

Sherlock is shaking, eyes clouded and wild. “I’m thinking more clearly than I ever have!”

“Are you sure?” John says, emotion finally bleeding into his voice. “The Sherlock I know would never point a gun at me.” He swallows, hard, struggling to keep the feelings surging through him from breaking through any more. “The Sherlock I know has only ever saved me.”

“I should have died at Barts,” Sherlock says hollowly, staring off into the middle distance, gun arm wavering a bit. “If I had, you’d be happy now, you’d be safe with Mary. You’d have a good life. All these things you claim I helped you with… you’d have that, and none of what happened after.”

John shakes his head emphatically. “Sherlock… Mary was an assassin! My life with her was a lie!” His throat is tight, and tears he doesn’t realize he’s been fighting suddenly line his eyes. “The only life I want, the only one that is good and makes me happy, is my life with you. I wanted you back, and I was the one who made it so fucking complicated after, not you! I need you, Sherlock. Rosie needs you. We love you. Please, put the gun down. Let’s go home to Rosie, alright?”

Sherlock’s brow furrows at John’s words. He looks down at the gun and follows it’s trajectory to John, as if he’s been released from a spell and suddenly realizes what he is doing. He flinches and drops the gun as if he’s been bitten by it, backing away and shaking his head in horror. “I… I…” He lets out a choked sob. His legs crumple beneath him and he falls to his knees. “I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean to… ” he croaks, voice broken, leaden with tears. 

John kicks the gun away into the ruins and rushes to kneel beside Sherlock, placing a cautious hand on his back, afraid to startle him. But after a moment, Sherlock doesn’t turn away, and instead collapses toward John, who finally wraps his arms around Sherlock’s trembling form. 

“I’m so sorry, John,” Sherlock weeps. “I’m so sorry for everything,” he repeats, words drifting across the empty rooms and breaking in the wind. Perhaps they’re not just for John, but also for someone who’s been gone a long time while at the same time, remaining right here. Someone who Sherlock has carried in his heart without even realising.

John is sorry, too, for Victor. For the childhood Sherlock lost. For things he, himself has said and done, too. And the last person who should carry any guilt over what’s happened to any one of them is wrapped in his arms, now, where he should have been long ago. 

“It’s okay,” John soothes, holding him tightly, feeling Sherlock’s heart pounding against his thin ribs. Wind blows through the hollowed room, and Sherlock shivers. John wants to take him away from this evil, haunted place, back to the safety of their flat. In his arms, Sherlock feels small and fragile in a way that shakes John to the core, and prompts him to place a kiss to those riotous curls, breathing him in as relief floods through his system. He is suddenly incredibly exhausted, and Sherlock is limp in his embrace. But John knows they’re through, they’ve survived the worst of it. 

“It’s going to be okay.”

Chapter Text

John isn’t sure how long they sit there in the ruins, holding onto each other as if they’re holding onto life itself. Eventually he feels their heartbeats calm in tandem, and when he is confident that their emotions are no longer running wild he loosens his grip and pulls back a little to look at Sherlock.

His best friend is the picture of misery and exhaustion, face covered in soot and streaked with tears. Sherlock swallows hard under John’s scrutiny, dipping his head and avoiding eye contact.

“Hey,” John says gently, placing a hand on Sherlock’s cheek and tilting his face up. Reluctantly, Sherlock finally raises his eyes to meet John’s. So much lies behind them… confusion and panic and sorrow. Remorse. Desperation. Fear. 

“It’s alright. We’re okay,” John says, smiling a little and nodding for extra reassurance, running his thumb over Sherlock’s cheek to wipe away a line of tears. They’re far from okay right now, but at this moment, they’re both alive, the dangerous spell over Sherlock is somewhat broken, and help is waiting outside. It’s enough, and John feels the relief of it to his core. 

Sherlock manages a shaky nod, blinking away tears and sniffling.  

“Okay,” John says. “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

He stands, then helps Sherlock to his feet, steadying him when he falters. Slowly, they pick their way out of the room, arms around each other so John can support Sherlock. It’s obvious he’s still in a daze, movements sluggish and shaky, following directions silently. 

As they reach the doorway, John dares cast one more look back over his shoulder at the place that had nearly claimed Sherlock’s life decades before John even had the chance to know him. The place that had almost claimed his life once again mere minutes ago. 

John vows they’ll never see these cursed, crumbling walls again. 

A strong breeze pours through, sweeping up a pile of dead leaves and dust, spinning them in the air where the two of them had been just moments before. Clenching his teeth, John turns away, urging Sherlock forward, away from the room. The East Wind has done enough damage to them both for a lifetime. 

They take a different route through the house, avoiding the decaying staircase John had come up in favor of the safe and intact one in the west wing. He leans Sherlock against the wall in the foyer, and sends a text to Lestrade. 

We’re ok, coming out now. Unarmed. Bring EMTs, no cops. Be calm, he’s pretty out of it.

Lestrade texts back the affirmative, and John wraps his arm around Sherlock’s torso again. 

They head to the hospital, but leave off the lights and sirens. Sherlock doesn’t resist in any way; he allows John to wrap him in a blanket, lets the EMT strap him onto a gurney for the ride as if he’s in a trance. It’s obvious the lysergohexthomidate still has a strong hold on him, with the way his eyelids flutter but rarely blink. He keeps focusing on the middle distance as if there is something to see there, and John wishes he could flick a switch, administer an antidote to turn it all off. But, no such thing exists for the substance so all John can do is sit beside Sherlock, holding his hand to ground and reassure him. 

With the drug so fresh in his system, it’s unsurprising but still alarming when a seizure hits Sherlock en route to the hospital. John manages to feel calmer this time — he’s more prepared now by the fact that he definitely understands the cause. This fit is longer than any John has witnessed so far, though, and that does scare him. A dose of intravenous benzodiazepine finally ends it at the six-minute mark, and when Sherlock begins to show signs of emergence, John can no longer contain his rattled nerves and is forced to look away and bite his quivering lip hard. 

By the time Sherlock opens his eyes, his emotions have gone haywire, too. He covers his face and weeps silently, traumatized by the onslaught of memories his mind is now revealing in full technicolor. John rubs his back and murmurs calming words while the EMT riding in back with them preoccupies himself with jotting down vital sign readings to give them a shred of privacy. 

Sherlock grows quiet and distant again after managing to answer all of John and the EMTs assessment questions checking his cognitive function. There are times he breaks out of the spell and looks around in panic, only calming when he finds John. 

At the hospital they draw bloods and monitor Sherlock’s vitals. While the grand mal seizure doesn’t repeat, he appears to be having repeated short partial seizures in the form of staring and blinking spells, which interrupt what little he’s willing to talk, and he doesn’t remember these bits of lost time or notice them happening.

John realises this stage in recovery from the drug must have been how Sherlock lost so much time after Mather’s death… it would be easy to lose a day in the state he’s in. After an urgent neurology consult, continuous EEG monitoring is initiated and he is infused with a loading dose of fosphenytoin — a potent antiepileptic drug, which stops the epileptic activity. Together with the additional doses of lorazepam for anxiety, he falls into a fitful sleep, for which John is thankful.

It is painful for John, seeing Sherlock so tormented, unable to do anything but witness it. It doesn't help that he’s not the physician in charge, either. All he can do is offer helpless platitudes and reassurances, to provide a familiar presence. John can’t help but wonder if all of this is caused by the drug, after all — in hindsight, the way Sherlock had seemed to almost bounce back from his initial re-introduction to his murderous sister should have rung more alarm bells for everyone around him. It is obvious, now, that Sherlock had not properly processed all that he’d learned. Mrs Hudson’s words about stabbing the game board keep coming to John’s mind about how he processes confusing and difficult emotional things: if he can’t resolve them or push them away, he ignores them. Now, all that he has tried to shove aside has flooded back in and he is drowning.

The night in the hospital is a tumultuous one; nightmares and new episodes of anxiety and dejected agitation are very seldom punctuated by moments of clarity or genuine rest. All Sherlock can do is to weather it like a storm: flashes of blinding memory are followed by darkness and disorientation, terror and pain rumbling like thunder deep down within him. 

In the moments of clarity, John is always there, looking tired, concerned and sad. Sherlock wishes, knowing that it’s a fool’s hope, that John could pull him out of this nightmare, make the onslaught end, but he knows it can’t be done. He’s brought this on himself and now he just has to wait it out. The first treatment couldn’t have been as powerful — he is sure he’d have remembered this level of misery even if some of it had been lost in the throes of an electric storm in his brain. 

He has been through countless drug-induced trips and withdrawals in his life, but he cannot remember any he’s ever wanted to escape as badly as this. If this had been a street drug when Sherlock was young, he’s certain it would have pushed him into sobriety. 

He had learned so much about his past when he first learned of Eurus, but he wanted to remember it himself, needed to see the whole picture through his own eyes. Before Delamere’s treatment, all he’d had were the briefest glimpses, gossamer threads of recollection which he couldn’t even be sure were genuine. For all he knew, they could just be what his imagination had conjured up based on what he’d been told. He thought he wanted these memories, was certain he could handle them — surely he was entitled to knowing his own history. He’s a grown man now, he doesn’t need protecting. Without the truth, how could he work out who he is, why he functions the way he does, why he struggles with certain things not explained by the brain he was born with? 

Unfortunately, the person Sherlock now finds himself to be is a monster beyond even what he thought his adopted role of sociopath entailed. Inadvertently or not, Victor died because of him, because of their friendship, because he had been too weak to resist Eurus’ influence. 

God, how he hates John seeing him like this. He feels numb and detached one moment, while feeling every emotion stronger than he ever has in the next. Pain pours through him as he is transported right back to being six again at the slightest of prompts by his wandering, unruly thoughts. The daily terrors he was subjected to by his sister, the helplessness of being villainized by the parents who should have protected him. Relief in the safety Mycroft brought, validation in his support. Details and minutiae… scents and sights and feelings. Half of the time he feels as though he is still right there, reliving a life he can’t believe he lived in the first place. John is the only thing that keeps him tethered to the present, since John’s existence is incontrovertible proof of where and when reality is transpiring.

The memories of Victor are hardest. They are filled with utter joy — escaping to imaginary lands together, long days of playing in the fields and forests. But his genuine adoring affection for his friend only accentuates the horror and grief of losing him. There is no distance on these new memories. Unlike recalling things from childhood as an adult, with all the time and wisdom and ability to process that the years bring, this is all so real, and so new, and his soul feels torn to shreds with every horrible recollection. 

The feeling of being a child again is most obvious when he surfaces from the storms and finds himself in a full blown panic attack despite whatever medications he keeps getting administered. Thankfully, John is always right alongside him, holding him, soothing him. The relief is immense, feeling John’s strong arms around him. It’s safety, reprieve until he’s pulled back into the nightmare again. John keeps having to explain things to him, remind him where he is and what has happened, because the blasted absence seizures are keeping him from forming new memories. They finally start to taper off around dawn, with longer spans of time in between. By mid-afternoon he feels as though he’s emerging from a fog, utterly battered, exhausted, and ashamed. 

Around dinnertime, John tells him that his body should have nearly metabolised the dose administered by Delamere. By then he’s gone six hours without any abnormalities in his EEG, so the continuous monitoring is no longer necessary. Having that mesh hat covering all the electrodes in his scalp had added insult to injury in terms of embarrassment over his predicament.

A few hours later, he hears John arguing with Mycroft outside the door. He’s too exhausted to be interested in the reason, which should alarm him but after being at the mercy of his emotions for so long, they seem to have now completely deserted him. What he feels is an emptiness, as absence, a sense of being removed from himself.

Finally, John emerges from the hallway.

“Mycroft’s pulled some strings, made some arrangements, and I’ve talked to the neurologist and the psychiatrist on call. The last time, it was probably a mistake getting you discharged without a proper psych eval, but I just don’t see the point right now. Mycroft agrees that this environment is the worst for you, considering your history with— with—”

John trails out, sniffs. “Well, anyway. Provided that you attend an appointment with Ella in two days — Mycroft is making sure she's properly debriefed on some of the classified information — there will be no psych visit tonight, and you’ll be released into my care. I really mean it when I say that — I won’t be leaving your side, and this plan can be revisited at any time if I get more worried about you than I already am.”

All Sherlock can do is nod. John is going against established hospital protocol for him, and Mycroft is doing what he does best which is bending rules to his will. No, Sherlock hardly wants to talk to Ella, but right now he doubts that going home will make much of a difference. He just wants to curl up into a ball, not think, not talk, not… be anything at all. All his life, he’s chased the truth, wanted to solve all the mysteries. For what? What has that ever gained him but pain? What has any of it brought onto others but suffering?

The ride home is a blur. Safe in John’s presence, Sherlock is on autopilot the whole way, until he finds himself standing in the middle of the sitting room. It’s all so odd, so surreal. To have gone through what felt like a lifetime of trauma in the last 24 hours and wind up back in the flat where everything was normal, and yet…

As if the sitting room is an alternate universe, everything nearly identical but … off, somehow. They’d done their best when repairing it after Eurus’s exploding drone, but some things just couldn’t be replaced or replicated. They were lucky to find the same florid black and white wallpaper, and John repainted the smiley face in bright yellow, but it isn’t the same smiley face. A round side table has been replaced with a square one of roughly the same size. The new persian rug has the same general colors as the old one, but a different pattern. And John’s old armchair was a complete loss, needing replacement altogether. They’ve both grown used to these things as their new normal now, but every once and awhile it felt like living in deja vu, eerie moments that gave Sherlock chills.

“Hey,” John says quietly, coming up beside him. “Are you alright?”

Sherlock shakes his head to clear the cobwebs and lets out a shaky sigh. “Yes, I just… the little changes still catch me off-guard sometimes, even now. Everything so nearly right but… not. Even here in our flat I can’t escape the way she’s hurt us. The way everything changed even though it’s the same on the surface. We’ll always know it isn’t.”

John purses his lips and nods. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again and takes a deep breath instead. “Let’s get you to bed,” he says softly, and reaches to take Sherlock by the wrist, but when their hands slip together, Sherlock doesn’t resist, and John doesn’t flinch.

John waits while Sherlock gets cleaned up, insisting the door stay open a crack in case Sherlock develops yet another seizure or passes out in the loo from exhaustion. Sherlock knows all the hard porcelain surfaces are setting John on edge, and he’s visibly relieved when Sherlock emerges, face washed and teeth cleaned. John helps him into worn-soft pyjamas, then offers him a glass of water and two different tablets Sherlock can’t identify.

“It’s just melatonin and something to help you fall asleep. I’ve got something longer-acting if staying asleep turns out to be a problem.”

“Offering sedatives to an addict?” Sherlock asks dully.

“There’s addiction and then there are legitimate reasons for using meds with addiction potential. Mycroft disagreed with me on these, but he’s not your doctor.”

John hadn’t been Sherlock’s physician at the hospital, but it appears that here, in the safety of Baker Street, Doctor Watson is in attendance.

Sherlock sits on the bed feeling lost. “I’m not tired,” he protests weakly, but the dull static in his head and his shaky muscles say otherwise. 

“Just lay down for a bit. I don’t want you to fall and hit your head,” John says, gently, looking knackered himself. 

“Ella can discuss further medication needs with you, and make sure whatever I’ll give you in the next few days won’t become an issue.”

“What further medication needs?” Sherlock doesn’t really want to discuss this, but feels as though he needs to assert the fact that he won’t just let other people walk all over him. He doesn’t need medications, he needs his life back the way it was before Eurus returned to wreck it.

Or maybe he needs it back the way it was before she killed Victor. But would he have met John if none of the heartbreak had ever happened?

It’s all so confusing and upsetting that he physically shakes his head, overwhelmed.

John swallows, slips his tongue across his lower lip in what Sherlock has learned to recognise as John’s nervous tell. “You’ve been through a lot, and once the drug’s gone from your system, things won’t magically be fine again. You tried to pretend they were, after Sherrinford — just another adventure and all, but that’s not how it works, is it, when it’s family?”

“And you somehow think shoving an antidepressant down my throat will change anything?”

“No, but if everything… if what’s happened has drained you of your reserves, those might help you along while you’re sorting out how you feel about all of it. There's nothing wrong with antidepressants, Sherlock. If you had a broken leg you wouldn't scoff at a cast." John huffs an incredulous laugh. "Well... okay maybe you would, but... in all seriousness, if you were my patient, if you were someone I knew but wasn’t so close to, if I didn’t know what you’re capable of, what you can endure, I would insist that you belong in inpatient care right now.”

“So now you think I’m certifiable to the point of being a danger to myself?” He knows the criteria for sectioning and it hurts that John would even mention the possibility.

“I need to know what’s going on with you; we need to make sure that what you were tempted to do at Musgrave Hall isn’t an ongoing impulse past the effects of the drug. Mental health is just as real as physical health. It's not weakness to need some help sorting it out. But, that’s a conversation for later. Now, you need rest.”

Sherlock complies, shifting under the sheets, settling back with a sigh. “Where’s Rosie?”

“She’s having a sleepover with Harry for a few days. I’ll go see them tomorrow while Mycroft keeps you company.”

“Acts as my gaoler, you mean.”

“No. This isn’t rehab, Sherlock. This isn’t detox, and this isn’t that travesty of an intervention we put you through. I wasn’t in a place to help you properly; I don’t know if I still am, which is why it can’t be just us sorting things out on our own.”

Sherlock’s eyes burn, and he longs to close them, but the knowledge of what is waiting for him in his dreams clenches his heart like an icy talon. 

“Do you need anything else?” John asks. 

Sherlock shakes his head hesitantly. 

“Alright, then. Get some rest. I’ll be in the sitting room, give a shout if you need me.” John manages a wrung-out smile and turns to leave. 

Sherlock swallows, forcing the words out before he loses his nerve. Needs must.  “Wait! I… Don’t… don’t go.”

John pauses, hand on the door jamb, and turns to look at him. Suddenly, Sherlock can’t bring himself to hold the eye contact.

“I don’t want to be alone with… with this right now,” Sherlock says frustratedly, gesturing to his head.

John nods and steps back in. “Yeah. Of course,” he says. He looks around the room for a place to sit, eyeing the uncomfortable looking wooden chair in the corner.

“You can lay down too, I know you’re tired,” Sherlock offers awkwardly. “I mean… we’ve shared a bed countless times when we travel, it’s nothing strange.”

John chuckles — a watery, disbelieving and hollow sound, and somehow, it’s so familiar and so John that it brings a flush of warmth to Sherlock’s chest.

“I don’t care about that. Haven’t in a long time. Shouldn’t have made such a fuss of it in the first place. Habit, I guess,” John admits with a yawn. He appears relieved to be spared more time in a stiff seat at Sherlock’s bedside. Sherlock can see the dark circles under his eyes and realises that neither of them has really slept in nearly two days. John had seemed to doze off a few times last night at the hospital, but the chair he’d been in was obviously troubling his bad shoulder, so that sleep can’t have been of very good quality. As broken as his own sleep had been, John, watching over him, just may have had it worse.

John leaves to change into his own pyjamas, and returns a few minutes later, sliding in under the sheets on the side Sherlock had left open to him. It’s mere minutes before they’re snoring side by side.

It doesn’t take long before fire surrounds him again. This time, Victor is trapped in Sherlock’s bedroom, pounding at the door, begging for someone to help him, and Sherlock is outside, desperate to free him.

“Sherlock! Help me!”  Victor screams. “Please, Sherlock! I can’t breathe!”

Sherlock twists and pulls at the door handle, which refuses to budge. He throws his tiny body against the door over and over, but it might as well be made of brick. He screams for Mycroft or his father… for anyone to come and help, but he and Victor are alone. Smoke and fire pours out of the top of the door, engulfing the ceiling, twining down the hallway walls.

“Sherlock! Please!” Victor cries, and Sherlock weeps, helpless on the other side of the locked door. 

“I’m so sorry,” he cries, throwing himself into the door again. “I’m trying! I’m trying!”

“Sherlock! Sherlock!” the voice begs as fire surrounds Sherlock too, but this time, it isn’t Victor’s voice, but John’s.

It can’t be. John wasn’t— why would he—

“Sherlock!” John says, shaking him gently. “Wake up, Sherlock. You’re having a nightmare, open your eyes.”

Relief washes over him as he blinks himself awake, heart pounding in his chest. He looks around, orienting himself in his bedroom at Baker Street— far, far away from Musgrave. He is safe, but the sorrow of knowing Victor is most decidedly not makes him curl into himself again. He can’t stop the emotions. Pain and rage and regret… so much regret. He pulls at his hair and lets out an anguished howl before succumbing to tears.

Without a word, John shifts closer, wrapping his arms around Sherlock and holding him tightly. Sherlock tries to calm his breathing, inhaling slowly against John’s thin grey t-shirt, head tucked under John’s chin. He is warm and solid and safe, and the comforting scent of him envelopes Sherlock in a sense of overwhelming calm. John’s hand cradles the back of his head, the other rubbing soothingly at his back.

“Shhhh,” John whispers into Sherlock’s hair. “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

When Sherlock wakes again, the room is full of sunlight, but the angle of the shadows suggest it’s well past lunchtime. He turns his head to see John, curled up close in the sheets, watching him. 

“Hey,” he says softly, giving Sherlock a small smile that doesn’t reach his worried eyes. “How’re you feeling?”

Sherlock takes a deep breath and stretches, rubbing his hand over his face and taking inventory. He feels so much better, the closest approximation of himself since… since when? When did it all begin to slip, to change irrevocably?

“Much improved, actually. I can… think again.”

John’s smile turns more genuine now. “That’s great. I know the sleep definitely did me some good, too.” He gestures with his chin to Sherlock’s nightstand. “You’re overdue for your antiepileptic meds.”

A full glass of water and a small shot glass of pills sits on the bedside table. Sherlock sits up, dutifully swallowing the pills with a sip of water. “How long do I have to take these?” He grouses. He doesn’t like the idea of more drugs affecting his brain function even if these had been selected to prevent any more seizures.

“Drink the whole glass,” John commands. “We want to keep flushing everything out of your system. Nobody can tell how long the residual predisposition to seizures might remain since what we’re dealing with is an experimental drug and the most complicated brain in Britain.”

“Both Mycroft and Eurus would beg to differ, I’m sure.”

It’s the mention of his sister that shifts the atmosphere in the room, making Sherlock wonder if mentioning her will always feel like ripping open a wound. They sit in silence for a moment, the weight of the past few days suddenly settling over them. 

John takes a deep breath and blows it out through his nose. “It’s been… quite a week. I think it would be good to give Ella a call… I'm going to set something up for me, too.”

Sherlock bites the inside of his cheek and nods. He knows it’s the right thing to do, but he’s not looking forward to it. He and Ella had been working through struggles related to Eurus for nearly two years now. It feels all the progress he’s made has been wiped away, and it’s embarrassing to have to go back to her with the shattered pieces and ask her to start gluing them together all over again. 

John sits up, ruffling his own sleep mussed hair self-consciously. He looks at the window for a few long moments, eyes lingering on the fire escape, before turning back to Sherlock. “I know this might not be an easy question to answer, but… what do you remember from this past week?”

Sherlock frowns, sorting through the clutter of his mind. Just like the last time, he’s missing huge swaths of time, although he does have a few bits of memory now, which he didn’t have of his time before, during, and after his encounter with Darren Mather.  

“I remember Mycroft’s house… and driving Mrs Hudson’s car…” 

John lets out a disapproving grunt at the latter. 

“In the ambulance with you, and… the hospital.” He frowns, sifting through his fractured memories. So much of what was coming back to him now were memories from his childhood, confusing for their newness. His timeline was jumbled, pieces of what actually occurred this week mixed with things he had merely re-lived this week. 

His Mind Palace is a disaster, as if a gale has swept through. Things lay scattered everywhere, piled in the corners, littering the floor. In some areas, the place itself seems to be in ruin, like a bomb had gone off, walls crumbling and charred. 

A sudden image makes Sherlock’s breath catch in his throat: the burned, disintegrating remains of Musgrave. Childhood photographs… so many lies. So much hurt. He needed to destroy them. The ruins of his bedroom. He could only remember this place as it was on fire. A gun in his hand, pointed… at John.

“The Sherlock I know would never point a gun at me,” John had said. “The Sherlock I know has only ever saved me.”

He turns to look at John, who is watching him somberly. “Musgrave… John, I…” Sherlock feels his jaw drop helplessly, unable to form words.

But he doesn’t need to explain. John knows where his mind is, can see what he’s remembering. “Hey…” John starts, trying to soothe Sherlock’s distress. “You were under the influence of an incredibly strong drug, Sherlock. You weren’t thinking clearly, but I never got the sense you were threatening me, not really. You just didn’t want the help because you thought help didn’t exist. Or you thought you didn't deserve it.” His voice is full of kindness Sherlock does not feel entitled to. “Do you remember getting another treatment from Delamere? You slipped the flat, stole Mrs Hudson’s car, and went to her office, demanding it, according to her.”

Sherlock shakes his head in a daze. He doesn’t remember anything about a second treatment. But it isn’t important right now. He had almost shot John. John could be dead, right this moment, by Sherlock’s hand. It’s staggering. It’s terrifying. He thinks he might be sick.

“Sherlock, you didn’t know—” John says, laying a hand on his shoulder to calm him.

It has the opposite effect. Sherlock recoils, then throws back the sheets and scrambles to his feet. “I could have killed you!” he chokes out, the real weight of the realization hitting him like a tonne of bricks. He needs to get away, wants to get away from himself, but feels like he needs to be far away from John as well. It would have just been another entry on the list of people who are dead because of him. Victor, Mary, those nameless, faceless collateral damage on his quest to rid the world of Moriarty.

“Whoa!” John yells behind him, as Sherlock charges into the sitting room in a panic. “Wait! Sherlock!”

Footsteps hurry down the hall behind him. Sherlock paces, tearing at his hair, not sure what his plan is, but the urge to flee is overwhelming. And he remembers something else.

“I’ve always been the problem. It’s always been me.” It is still true, and no kind, empty words from John can ever change that. 

John grabs his arm, but Sherlock spins around, pulling away. “Don’t you see, John? What will it take for you to understand?”

“Sherlock—”

“I am a danger to you, John. I’m a danger to all of those I care about, but especially to you! Our friendship is going to be your demise one day! You need to get far, far away from me while you still have time!”

“You didn’t hurt me, Sherlock” John says gently, but firmly. “I’m fine. We made it out in one piece. You were not yourself, not thinking clearly. I’m fine, and you’re fine. It doesn’t do to dwell on a situation that didn’t happen.” John swallows hard. “You were more of a danger to yourself, and your brain has saved both of us more times than I can count.”

Despair overwhelms Sherlock. His stomach roils with anxiety, his heart hammers in his chest. He puts his hands to his mouth, for a moment sure he’s about to be ill.  “Why did you stop me?” he whispers. 

John’s expression changes in an instant, as if Sherlock has just slapped him in the face. His jaw drops in outrage.

“How dare you say that to me?” John rasps, clenching his jaw and shaking his head. Pain and anger fill his eyes. “Do you know what it was like for me to lose you the first time? Hmm?” He clenches his fists at his sides. “Do you understand the absolute hell my life became? Every waking moment thinking there was more I could have done, more I should have done, and because I didn’t, you were dead. Going over every scenario in my head. What I should have said, and the words I couldn’t take back.” He swallows hard, and his eyes are shining when he looks back at Sherlock. “The fact that I left your side when I did, that I left you to do what you wanted and not what I knew was right. I wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone. I spent two years thinking I could have found a way to save you and I failed. If you hadn’t come back, I would have believed it for a lifetime. This time, I wasn’t going to watch you die, wasn’t going to fail to pay you back for everything. You’ve kept me alive, and you’re kept me sane, Sherlock.”

John turns away, and rubs his hand over his face, then turns back and takes a shaky breath, visibly forcing himself to calm down. “I understand, Sherlock. I do. I know what you’re feeling about Victor. I know you think it was your fault. Because I did too. I thought your death was my fault. But you couldn’t have stopped Eurus anymore than I could have stopped you. Because we didn’t know then what we know now. You didn’t know she’d lead him off to that well. And I didn’t know you’d end up on the edge of that rooftop. Don’t stop following the chain of consequences until you really reach what connects all of it, and it’s Eurus, not you.”

“But what happened with Moriarty was completely different,” Sherlock protests. “I had to do it to protect you. And I didn’t actually die.” 

“I didn’t know that,” John counters, and Sherlock doesn’t miss the bite in his voice. “So the guilt… the pain. It was real to me, Sherlock. For two years it was very, very real. And even now, even now that I know it was a ruse—”

Sherlock opens his mouth to protest and John cuts him off before he can speak. 

“A necessary ruse, yeah, but, still. I know it wasn’t real. You didn’t commit suicide. But there’s a piece of me deep down that will always hold the visceral memory that you did. And when I found you, Sherlock… in that house, with my gun to your head, for real this time…” John trails off, voice thick. He fights to swallow, then sucks his teeth a moment to regain his slipping composure.

“I couldn’t stop you last time. But I wasn’t letting it happen again. I know you feel you need to dig up these skeletons from your past, but if excavating all of this trauma is going to bring you to that place, to that dark place where you feel like you can’t—” he struggles to get the words out. “Like you can’t go on… Like you want to end your life… I’m not going to let you—” He stops abruptly, pursing his lips and blowing a shaky breath out through his nose. “I will do everything in my power to make sure— because I can’t … I can’t go through that again. I can’t. And Rosie sure as hell doesn’t deserve to lose two of her parents before she’s three years old.” 

“You wouldn’t!” Sherlock exclaims, aghast.

“Not me, Sherlock. I’d keep living for her, as hard as it would be, as miserable and impossible as it would feel, I’d keep going because I have to. I’m talking about you.”

“But you said two of her parents…”

John smiles sadly and shakes his head, looking at Sherlock fondly.

Sherlock’s stomach twists. “You mean… I’m… her… parent?”

“Of course,” John says warmly. “Of course you are.” He shakes his head a bit, as if he’s been silly. “I mean, that’s if you want to be. That’s how she sees you, and you’ve proven again and again that the decisions you make, you make with her best interests at heart. That’s not something I can really say about Mary. That’s how I see you too, as Rosie’s parent. I couldn’t do this without you.”

“Yes,” Sherlock nods, his heart swelling with such affection he can’t contain it. He grins, eyes lined with tears. “Of course I want to be. It’s an honor… I have always thought of her that way but I didn’t want to overstep… ” 

“There is no question in my mind. But part of being a parent is the fact that you can’t play with your own life so recklessly, Sherlock. You can’t do things like… secret experimental psychiatric treatments, especially without telling me. Because your life isn’t just your own, anymore. You know how it hurt me when you… the first time. I barely survived my own grief. But what would it do to Rosie, to lose you? That little girl thinks her Sherlock hung the moon. I know you can’t just live for other people, that it doesn’t work that way, but what I’m trying to say is… I’ve been there, I’ve felt like that, and I know that the only thing that helps are other people. People we choose. People who make us better. People who make us feel we’re not the fuckups we believe we are. Victor and Eurus, they’re… they’re both gone, in the sense that they can’t be a part of our lives. They shouldn’t be, and I think the way going to see her always makes you miserable and anxious is telling you precisely that. And I don’t want her in Rosie’s life. I don’t want her to know Eurus.”

Sherlock swallows against a lump in his throat. The love he feels for Rosie is like nothing he has ever experienced in his life, and he can’t imagine hurting her in such a way. And knowing how he’d hurt John before isn’t new information, but a familiar sick pit of regret forms in his stomach all the same. The game he’d played with Moriarty had nearly succeeded in burning the heart out of John.

“Just… answer me this,” John says, but there’s no anger in his voice now, just sadness and resignation. “Did you find what it was you needed? Was it worth it?” 

Sherlock drops his eyes to the floor, chastened. “I wanted all the pieces to my own puzzle, John. To make sense of my life. In hindsight, it was a grave mistake for many, many reasons. I doubt I’ll be able to forget the things I’ve learned, and I fear that knowledge will haunt me in ways I never anticipated. But it was too tempting to gain access to it all. I needed to understand who I am. Now I feel like I still don’t know.” 

“Who you are? I’ll tell you who you are, you bloody git,” John says with an exasperated laugh, looking at Sherlock with something between anguish and fondness. “You’re a detective who has made it his life’s work to solve crimes and give the victims closure. You’ve brought countless criminals to justice. There’s no telling how many people you’ve saved by stopping villains and terrorists. 

“You’re a bloody brilliant man, who has the most unique, inquisitive, and quick mind I have ever seen. You look at problems in a new light, you see things no one else can. You’re an absolute genius.

“You are a most loyal and singular friend who has made unimaginable sacrifices to protect those closest to you. You are the definition of selfless and you are kind, even if you don’t want to admit it. You are an amazing father figure to Rosie, and I am so grateful she will grow up knowing you in that role.

“And you’re the best friend I could ever have. You mean so much to me, I can’t even put it into words, but I’ve got to try because I can’t keep myself from telling you anymore.” John drops his eyes to the floor and clenches his fists for a moment, stepping closer to Sherlock before taking a deep breath and locking eyes with him. “I love you, Sherlock. I always have, and I always will.”

Sherlock feels his jaw drop. It’s as if the floor has fallen away below him, but in a surreal and wonderful way. This was a turn he’d never expected, a fantasy he’d only entertained in his wildest dreams. Is he still under the influence of the medication? Is this really happening? 

There’s something I meant to say but never have…

“John… I —” he manages, but John cuts him off. Sherlock can see he’s trembling — apparently Captain Watson isn’t impervious to nerves when it comes to matters of the heart.

“I’m not expecting anything, nothing between us has to change,” John hastily promises. “I know you aren’t… that you don’t… feel things like that about me, maybe not about anyone but I had to say it. I needed you to know. Because I have come so close so many times to not being able to tell you, and I can’t risk it happening again. So… yeah.” He nods to himself, taking a deep breath through his nose and doubling down. “I… I love you.”

Before he can stop himself, Sherlock closes the gap between them, bringing one hand up to cradle John’s face, and kisses him. It’s so soft, so chaste and tender and sweet. He pulls away and they stare at each other for the briefest moment before relief and affection break as a smile on John’s face, and they are drawn together like magnets. 

It’s passionate but gentle, soft lips and rough stubble. They melt into each other naturally, John’s arms around Sherlock, Sherlock’s hands cupping John’s head. It’s so right, as if they’ve been doing this for a lifetime, and Sherlock never wants to stop. 

They break apart after a moment, hearts beating together, breathing each other’s air. Sherlock leans his forehead on John’s as they stand in the warmth of each other’s embrace.

“Don’t let your past hurt you any longer,” John whispers. “Leave the old memories where they belong.”

Sherlock hums in agreement. “I would prefer to make some new ones.”

Chapter Text

A cold, relentless wind bends the tall grasses brushing John’s legs. He wraps his jacket tighter around himself, crossing his arms across his chest to hold in as much warmth as possible. The sky above is flat and grey, not a cloud or shred of color in sight. The day feels almost funereal, and that seems appropriate.

Before him stands a building he once vowed they’d never see again, but today is different. Today, Musgrave Hall will be razed to the ground, and John wants to witness it. Not an erasure, not completely, but as close as possible. 

From his place on the hill, he stares across the field at this formidable, haunted place, its walls the witness to so much pain and tragedy. He assumes it must have one time been a happy home, and wonders when it all went wrong. Was it when Eurus was born, or even before that? Was the place always destined to feel so dark and frightening? The naked trees add to the mood, twisting and swaying as another gale buffets the land.

One week earlier

The last of the fall leaves swirl around John’s ankles as he walks the handful of steps from the front of 221 Baker Street to Speedy’s.  He nods to Mr Chatterjee as he enters and heads for the back of the tiny cafe where an umbrella lies neatly balanced across the top of a posh attache case on the floor. A partially eaten blueberry scone sits beside a cup of tea on the table.

“I see the preliminary hearings for Marissa Delamere are underway,” Mycroft says by way of greeting from behind his spread newspaper. Delamere’s mugshot is blown up on the front page, accompanying the words “Therapist who drove clients to suicide to stand trial” in bold letters. They’d received a copy of the tell-all expose this morning at the flat as well. Mrs Hudson had offered to hide it, but John knew Sherlock wouldn’t appreciate the interception. 

John hums in agreement and pulls out a chair for himself. “Sherlock will be testifying once the trial gets underway. She belongs behind bars for what she did. All the pain she caused.”

John hadn’t learned much he didn’t know from the newspaper article. He’d waited until Sherlock was in the shower to read it, not so much so Sherlock wouldn’t know he had, but to avoid forcing him to stare at her face on the front page while John did. He has suffered enough — and continues to be reminded of what has happened, thanks to the trial, even without the media’s involvement.

“ Authorities allege psychiatrist Dr. Marissa Delamere performed unsanctioned, untested procedures on vulnerable patients, lying about the safety of her methods and failing to monitor victims afterward for serious side-effects, ” Mycroft reads out loud from the paper he has folded so that it fits on the smallish cafe table.”

It appears that Delamere’s defence is largely based on her claim that initial results had been promising and that the first patients didn’t suffer any negative side effects. However, prosecutors claim that no such patients have been found, and that hindsight estimations of safety and efficacy are impossible because of her shoddy patient record -keeping. What has been established beyond doubt is that she’d gone above the doses of the pharma company’s prior human trials and released patients from observation before the hallucinogenic component of the drug’s effects had worn off.

The police have identified over forty patients. In addition to four suicides, several other patients have been discovered to have been hospitalised following suicide attempts or acute psychosis. The trial is scheduled to begin in late November, with several former patients expected to testify. 

John snatches the paper from the older Holmes. “ Barristers for Delamere will bring witnesses to the stand on behalf of her character and previous expertise in the field. Delamere has been involved in many drug trials over her 25 year career, which is how she gained access to the unapproved medication she administered to her patients .” He sniffs. “Someone in the regulating bodies of the pharma industry could have done a better bloody job in preventing this.”

“There will be an inquiry. Still, we should place blame where it truly lies. Sherlock sought her help willingly, and perhaps she really did believe she was providing genuine assistance to her patients.”

“Some people think they have the right to play God. Your sister and Delamere included.” John says, aware of how accusatory his tone is. 

Mycroft raises an eyebrow and purses his lips haughtily. “Yes, well. Some of us are better at it than others.”

Oddly, his expression then shifts; has he realised the weight of what he’s said? John watches the softening of his features the slightest bit in humility. A rare form, indeed.

“I trust things are well with you two? Er… forgive me, you three,” Mycroft corrects. The question is less biting than John is used to, almost as if Mycroft is genuinely curious.

John nods. “We’re well. Getting back to normal.” John inhales deeply through his nose. “He’s not angry at you, anymore, Mycroft, if that’s what you wanted to fish out of me at this summons.” He holds eye contact. It’s uncanny how a mere mention of his younger brother can bring Mycroft’s walls down. 

Mycroft sniffs. “Surely it doesn’t bode well that I only receive such information through a messenger.” Mycroft says with a smile that is more rictus-like than amicable.

John nods, conceding the point. 

Mycroft sits up a little straighter, resetting the conversation. “In any event, that’s not what I called you here to discuss.”

John debates telling Sherlock, worried the hard-won progress from the last two months of therapy might be jeopardized. They’ve been working so hard to find some semblance of stability and balance as Sherlock recovers from the ordeal with Delamere. It feels like they are finally getting back to the way things used to be again. 

Well, a new normal, anyway, and only after the trial is over. John can’t wait. It will be the better future he hasn’t truly believed could exist since Sherlock came back from that dead.  It will be a future where Sherlock and he share a bed and Rosie has her own room, a new normal where Sherlock dutifully takes a few pills every morning to make the day a little easier, and doesn’t view it as weakness. A new normal where Ella’s phone number is now third on Sherlocks’ iPhone favorites list, below only John and Mycroft. Sherlock seems more like his old self with every passing day, confident and quick-witted and itching for mysteries to solve. The fog around him is still present in wisps, but therapy, antidepressants, and the passage of time just might keep it at bay. Good timing has never been their strong suit, but as odd as the start of their relationship was, it has kept them both grounded as they salvage, scrap, and rebuild Sherlock’s heart and mind. They are growing and healing together in many ways, from this most recent trauma and all those before. John has a strong sense that they can now rely on each other in ways they never could before.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that John hesitates to disrupt this new, brittle but calmer flow of life. Returning to the scene of so much pain, yet again? How could it be anything but detrimental to Sherlock’s mental health? But, as John discussed the details with Mycroft, a decision took shape. Sherlock deserves to know, has the right to decide for himself if and how he wants to be involved in the final chapter of Musgrave Hall. They  had vowed to stop keeping things from each other and this certainly rates as a significant enough development that it shouldn’t turn into one more secret. 

“I don’t need to be sheltered,” Sherlock had told John during one of their joint therapy sessions a few weeks ago. “I need you to weather the storms with me, not overprotect me.”

It had been a breakthrough moment for them both — Sherlock putting his needs in such simple and direct terms, and John suddenly seeing his role as it had been all these years, more harmful than helpful. Sherlock needed to feel and process his emotions, to be supported in working through them, not be spared from the knowledge in the first place. That day John had promised: no more secrets, no more depriving Sherlock of choices he deserved to have under the guise of protecting him. 

Even so, there’s no hiding his one-on-one meeting with Mycroft. Not from the world’s most observant man. He barely gets two steps into the sitting room before he’s called out.

“And how is British Government getting on, today?” Sherlock asks derisively  from his spot on the floor where he’s helping Rosie stack chunky plastic building blocks. They’ve already created quite a structure — a castle by the looks of it. “Did they have his favorite blueberry scones in or did he have to settle for apple today?”

“He’s hired a demolition crew,” John says simply, without hesitation, throwing his keys on the side table and joining them on the floor. He hardly needs to specify the object of the demolition.

Sherlock's mouth drops open a bit in surprise and he frowns. He puts the blocks down on the rug. For a moment, John waits for a reply, but Sherlock just takes a deeper breath and licks his lips, nodding. He runs a hand through Rosie’s blond curls absently, and she hands him a tower of Duplos with instructions to break them apart for her.

He obliges. “When?” he finally manages, making a little pile of the individual bricks at Rosie’s side.

“Next Thursday.” John pauses, takes a breath. He had half expected Sherlock to scoff at the idea, to dismiss it as just a bit of melodrama designed by his brother. For lack of a better word, Sherlock looks… shaken by the idea.

A part of John feels he has no right to say what he says next, but he must see it done. “I’d like to witness it. I can understand if you’d rather not —”

“I want to be there,” Sherlock cuts him off quickly. “I want to see it myself.”

John nods, reaching over to squeeze Sherlock’s knee supportively.

Their reshaped, now unadulterated love is definitely tactile — surprisingly so sometimes. In the bedroom, yes, of course, but the physical contact during less intimate moments feels just as important. Sherlock doesn’t hold back on touching or seeking to be touched. A gentle hand on a shoulder here, a cuddle on the couch there. In the beginning it was all cautious as they sought to map out each other’s boundaries, before realising there really weren’t any. Most nights find them sleeping in each other’s embrace. It isn’t uncommon for Sherlock to slip his arms around John’s waist while he washes dishes or for John to pull Sherlock’s feet into his lap when they’re sitting on the couch. 

There are extra touches on the difficult days. Silent reminders of security when they’ve slipped into their own thoughts. I’m here. You’re not alone. I love you.  

The heaviness of Mycroft’s plans hangs in the air the rest of the day, an unspoken tension in the flat. It’s part relief and part anxiety, laced with the weight of why. 

It’s hard not to dwell on the evils of the place, the horrors witnessed in and around its stone walls. The secrets it still holds, and those that have been burned away. This happens every time something happens to remind them of Victor, of Eurus, and of Musgrave. Of Sherlock’s impulsive decision to undergo such a risky treatment, which yielded only horrors as rewards. They try to compartmentalise these things, to keep them all within the walls of Ella’s office, but Sherlock still wakes in tears more nights than not. The trauma of his childhood and their confrontation in the ruins haunt him, and John supposes that on some level, they always will. After all, John himself is often jolted awake in a cold sweat after his own nightmares, tearing through the rotting ruins of Musgrave Hall, unable to find Sherlock before a gunshot rings out and lets him know he’s too late. He just hopes that the effects will be diluted sooner rather than later, and normal life resumed. The hardest notion to defuse seems to be the idea that John’s life would be better off if he’d never met Sherlock. John is often having to remind his partner that life has a way of finding methods to fling crap at people regardless of whether they are spinning in the orbit of a genius consulting detective or not.

On good days, such explanations manage to amuse, even cheer up Sherlock. On bad days, nothing John comes up with seems to have much effect. Thankfully, the good days are slowly beginning to outnumber the bad ones.

They haven’t had much time in their new relationship for joyous and playful sex yet, nor have they been in the mood for anything so lighthearted. Tonight is no different. Their union is slow and somber and passionate, a drive to be closer together, to become one, clinging to each other for dear life in their ecstasy. Secrets are passed through bare skin, messages in every touch, meaning in every soft press of lips. Warm and strong, their hearts pounding like war drums together, kissing and biting and sucking, stroking and kneading and caressing. It’s a language all its own, brutally honest and vulnerable and full of trust in ways they’ve never been. It is the most emotional sex John has ever had, their climaxes practically sacred.

Afterwards, sweaty and satiated and drifting on oxytocin, John can’t help but double check the decision made earlier. Sherlock had seemed to wake up in the throes of ennui, and John suspects that may have had an impact on his decision-making earlier. Now, with Sherlock lying on John’s chest, ear to his heart, satisfied and relaxed, he wants to test the waters anew. For a moment, he relishes just  watching Sherlock’s curls rise and fall as he breathes. 

Then, he bites the bullet: “You’re absolutely sure, then, about Musgrave? You’ll have time to think it over. You don’t owe that place anything.”

“No, but it might just owe me. I need to see it done,” Sherlock murmurs simply. “I’m sure.”

Present Day

Construction crews finish moving garishly colored heavy machinery and other equipment into place, their yells and machine noises punctuating the monochromatic morning. A foreman goes to do a final walkthrough to make sure no one is inside, and the area falls quiet again as the rest of the workers wait idly for instructions to proceed.

A crow calls out from a skeletal tree on the east side of the house, it’s caw harsh and grating, even at a distance. It seems appropriate that the air is absent of the song of other birds. Perhaps they’re all hiding from the angry wind.

Sherlock appears around the side of the estate then, walking with Mycroft and their parents. From a distance, John can’t see their expression but their body language seems sombre and resolved. They’re speaking amongst themselves, words lost in the breeze. Sherlock stays quiet, wrapped in his new Belstaff as a strong gust of wind coils around them. John had matched the color best he could, but the new coat is solid black where the old one had been flecked with greys and whites. Still, it’s a style that will always suit Sherlock, a necessary armour that helps him feel secure. His shoulders relax under the weight of it, his head held a little higher. As they get closer, John watches as Sherlock looks to his parents, nodding at something his mother is saying. She reaches out to squeeze Sherlock’s arm and he doesn’t pull away. He’d been reluctant to see them after being discharged from hospital, filled with confusion and resentment, but John had urged him to find some sort of path forward with them. If not a relationship, at least some sort of closure.

After some hemming and hawing, Sherlock had gone to see them this past weekend along with his brother, and returned with a semblance of peace about him. He’d told John that he didn’t want today to be their first encounter after he’d learned the rest of the truth. There is still a lot of damage to be repaired, nearly a lifetime of it, but it seems that all involved are willing to put in the work. Sherlock had told John that his parents openly admitted their guilt and shame over their treatment of him as a child and begged for another chance.  

It’s a start, and John finds it a great relief.

The wind blows almost vengefully as the group climbs the hill, nearly bowling down Mrs Holmes who clings to her husband and Mycroft momentarily before regaining her footing. 

Sherlock meets John’s eyes, grim but determined. He comes to stand beside John while Mycroft and Mr and Mrs Holmes take up position beside Sherlock. Finally, they give the signal to the crew that they’re all ready.

Although the Holmes brothers would openly scoff at the sentiment, the symbolism of reducing this relic to dust is a necessary step. They wouldn’t be tearing it down if they didn’t believe the same thing, even if they won’t admit it. Razing Musgrave won’t change the past, but maybe, somehow, they can all rebuild a sense of strength from its ruin. No longer will their former home stand as a physical reminder sitting formidably in a field, a shadowy spectre reminding them of all they had struggled with, and all they had lost, or come so close to losing. 

Instead of burying the past, this is about making room for the future , John thinks. He takes Sherlock’s hand in his and squeezes, Sherlock tightening his grip in response squeezing back just as tightly. 

It’s time for Sherlock to write a new story for himself now. Although it may include a devastating beginning and a tenuous middle, John wants to help ensure that it won’t be classified as a tragedy. He hopes that Sherlock can salvage his relationship with his parents and Mycroft while leaving Eurus behind. John can’t see any other way for Sherlock to let go of any responsibility he feels toward her. Closing the book on her is what’s best for them all. Every day, Sherlock is more empowered to come to terms with his past, the way his life has been shaped around it. Now, finally free of the artificial bonds that held him down all his life, he can become the man he wants to be. Now, with John and Rosie — the family Sherlock has chosen — he can live his happy ending.

In the distance, the construction crew gets to work. Machines are started up, orders are given.

John realizes everything has gone still, the grass and trees standing tall and straight. The East Wind has lost this fight. 

John turns to look at Sherlock. “You ready?” he murmurs.

“Tear it to ashes,” Sherlock replies, quietly, eyes alight. 

With a deep breath, they watch together as the wrecking ball is released.