again and again, 'til i'm stuck in my head

"A week in a prison cell... I should have realised."
"Realised what?"
"That, in your case, solitary confinement is locking you up with your worst enemy."

The ceiling was blank and nondescript. He had counted the cement bricks in the wall several times, keenly aware of how many there were immediately following a small calculation. The bed beneath his skin was a mattress with a fitted sheet; the top sheet was tangled in a heap at the foot. Off-white. Ochre, perhaps. Clean but having seen their use. The mattress itself was eleven years old and still firm. The only other thing in the room was the metal toilet, and the light filtering down from the fluorescent bulbs above.

Sherlock blew out a shallow breath, and stared towards that nondescript ceiling.

He wondered if there was something else that he could have done. He had true and well been certain that Appledore had been a physical and tangible thing. He had been completely taken in, like any other common civilian, that Magnussen had vaults in which all of his information had been stored. Just like he had with the spectacles (although he hadn't truly believed that, but it had been worth a check in his grand scheme), but on an infinitely more large of level.

He had truly expected to be able to trade the laptop - a controlled trade, as it were - for all of the information on Mary. All of the CIA work, all of the freelance jobs. Everything that Magnussen had that could potentially threaten Mary's comfortable life with John Watson, Sherlock had been expecting to receive in hand, walk out the door, and leave the rest to his brother and all of his men.

But there had been no papers. No files, no files, no vaults. A mind palace. Sherlock had never hated the idea of that memory technique so much as he did now, staring at the uninviting wall in the jail cell that he was calling home. Not only because it was a mind palace that had thwarted him, it was that same idea that was running the events over and over in his head: the swift realisation, the crushing disappointment, the unassuageable fear, and the cold trickle of knowing what had to be done, circumstances be damned.

You must protect John and Mary Watson.

There were many things that Sherlock Holmes could say that he did well, and making friends was not one of them. Accepting people into his lifestyle and developing a bond with him that, well, that was stronger than even family... it did not happen. It just didn't happen. He wasn't built that way, some defect in his programming, but if he had to give that up to receive his intelligence, he'd do it all again, but. John and Mary had somehow managed to get past all of that, and they had become... more important than the work, more important than his intelligence. More important than his own being.

"No chance to be a hero this time, Mr Holmes," Magnussen said, shouting over the noise of the helicopter to make himself heard.

A hero, a hero. There were many things that Sherlock Holmes was, and a hero was not one of them. Certainly he had made some decisions that had left people he cared for still standing, at the cost of his own freedom, but that wasn't being a hero, that was being... selfish.

"Oh, do your research. I'm not a hero; I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Merry Christmas!"

It had been a tactical move, again. He would do what he could for the people that needed it, and since it was John and Mary, there was no alternate. There was no baiting, there was no begging, there was no turning tail and walking away.

There was only gently removing John's revolver from his pocket, so smoothly that the good doctor didn't even notice he had done it, and giving into the repressed anger he felt for Charles Augustus: shooting the man with all of the British government there to witness. How dare he put John's life in danger, how dare he threaten Mary with her past, how dare he make assumptions that Sherlock would roll over and give in when there was still one available ending.

And so he had.

Shot him.

And he'd had no regret as Magnussen had collapsed, blood pooling beneath his body, dead immediately through a well placed shot. There was no saving the man, Sherlock would not allow it, he would not do what Mary had done for him. He would not make this surgery; there was no second chance for Magnussen. Instead, he had held his hands up as the guns had converged, appeared to be fascinated with only the blood on the cement, and pretended he didn't see the look on John's face: shock, horror, disappointment, and only the slightest questioning undertone as something seemed to pass through John's mind. Maybe he knew... maybe he didn't.

And in the end, it didn't matter if John knew. If he made the connection. All that mattered was that John was alive, John was safe and so was Mary. Even if the look on John's face was etched beneath his eyelids, and the way he'd yelled at him afterwards was still ringing in his ears.

Sherlock reminded himself to breathe in and did so, and the shallow breath turned shaky as he inhaled.

He did wonder what was to come of John and Mary now, though. He had saved them from Moriarty and he had saved them from Magnussen, but there would also be new criminals. He hoped that they stayed away since he was going away. They should be safe. Sherlock certainly hoped so.

The soft noise of the heater running was the only noise that he could hear in the jail. It was something and nothing all at once; he could hear it but he couldn't focus on it. When it was kicked on, it was a steady, even sound, unchanging, so unlike his life with John and Mary and their adventures.

Maybe, Sherlock thought, if he had uncovered all of this sooner. If he had gotten far enough in the Magnussen case before John had found him, before Mary had gotten to Magnussen's office. He wondered if he would have figured it out, figured it out in time, regarding Mary, regarding her past. If he would have gone deeper than Lady Smallwood, saved her as well as saving everyone else that Magnussen could have threatened.

If only he had been quicker...

He shook his head roughly. The headache was rattling his skull and, God, wouldn't it go away?

He was right, though, wasn't he? There had been no other outcome that he could have looked to. If they had arrested Magnussen, he would have eventually gotten out and immediately, likely, would have set his sights on Mary.

When the heater kicked off, it snapped off with a thud and a crack that screamed of needing to be repaired, and it clanged against Sherlock's head each time. Unlike the even noise it produced when it was in use, there seemed to be no pattern to how long the heater stayed on, when it came on and when it went off. The lack of pattern was irritating, and it made Sherlock flinch every time. It reminded him of the bang that had been the gunshot, and that made him flinch every time, too.

He hadn't wanted to kill him. He might not be a hero, but he wasn't a villain, either. (Heroes, villains, dragons to be slayed. His life was beginning to sound so fictional.) Taking a life wasn't something you took lightly. It pressed down on your chest, weighing down on your shoulders. It made breathing hard and it made your hands shake. It was the reason your eyes stung as the wind whipped through your hair and your best friend looked on as the handcuffs were snapped on.

He did the condemning, but he wasn't the one preparing the noose. Usually.

He huffed out another breath and sat up, running his fingers through his hair. He could deduce his pulse from the pounding in his head, the steady thump-thump-thump from where it pressed into the pillow, from the pulsing beneath his eyes. He needed paracetamol. He dragged his nails against his skin, scratching at an itch that only some sort of stimulation could ease. Stimulation that he did not have. But he wanted-

Why was the wall so white? And the floor so... granite? He stared at the mismatched colours in the floor and huffed an almighty sigh, grabbing at the blanket at the end of the bed to pull up over his head. He flopped back into the pillow and focussed on his breathing. Inhale for three beats, exhale for five. Inhale, exhale. In... out... in...

The heater kicked on. Sherlock jumped.

"Get away from me, John! Stay well back!"

Sherlock growled, wrapping his arms around the sheet wrapped around his face. It was too hot, thin fabric still smothering him with his own body temperature and thoughts and memories.

He pulled the sheet down to his shoulders and rolled over onto his side. There was no clock and no window; he had no way of telling the time because it felt like it was moving impossibly slow. All he was sure of was that he had been brought food twice today, too vague to tell if it was meant to be breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Mycroft's face had been emotionless both times, unlike the look he had had after Sherlock had been arrested.

Mycroft's face had been devastated. And Sherlock tried not to remember that, either, because, next to John, that was perhaps the worst part. It wasn't even pity, so Sherlock hadn't even been able to be angry. Of course, he had gotten a tongue lashing after he and Mycroft had been left alone, the first time that Sherlock had been told off in a by his older brother in ages. And even that in itself hadn't been at all satisfying, either; Sherlock had been left sitting, stock-still, with Mycroft's raised voice still vibrating in his ears.

How long ago had that been? Hours? Days?

He tried to see if there was a way to match his breathing to the hum of the heater. There wasn't.

But what if Magnussen had-

Sherlock bit off a curse and pressed his face into the pillow. Maybe being smothered was preferable to this. But still he would keep breathing, eventually pull his face away from the pillow when the oxygen wasn't forthcoming, and he'd continue all over again. This thought process... over, and over, and over again.

Well, he'd be out soon.

Surely?

Wherever they decided to send him, he'd be out of here soon.

(Little did he know, he'd be there for five more days.)

A/N: Solitary confinement, I feel I didn't do this justice enough but Sherlock's head would have been an absolute mess in that week. I tried to capture that, at least a little bit. Writing in his POV can be so tricky sometimes, not only because of the way his mind works but because of the way he perceives some of the things he does.

Titled derived from Fall Out Boy's Fourth of July. (I really like FOB, okay? xD)

I do not own Sherlock. Thanks for reading!