Chapter 11:

Trigger warning: Bullying, accidental self-harm

It had erupted overnight. The firestorm of the once diluted press. Perhaps it was the Chief, perhaps it was someone with a grudge that death had done nothing to absolve. John couldn't care to guess. Yet madness drove him to the silent vigil of the Diogenes club that day. Mycroft met him, face the color of broken cherries, and lead him by the arm outside.

"You called me about your brother, I take it." John's nails were bloody. He'd chewed them halfway through when he'd seen the last satire piece Reilly printed in the Sun:

The Blooded Return of a Sociopath "Genius":

By Kitty Reilly:

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb,

Fleece of which was white and red,

Good as dead,

Or so NSY told us so,

So all the king's horses and all the king's men,

Had stumbled with Mary to the devil's gate,

And there lay the pieces, like pieces o' eight,

The pieces of Humpty ol' Dumpty, twice shattered egg-head

Say what, but Sherlock's good as dead,

Liar before and a liar again,

All the king's horses and all the king's men,

And how did old Sherlock nip off from the pen?

With the Serbs and the gold cut from his teeth-

And uglier words were said, but John couldn't read them in Mrs. Hudson's copy of the Sun. He'd spilled tea all over it this morning, choking on his breakfast in consternation.

Mycroft silently pulled a mobile from his shirt pocket. He pulled up a video streaming from The Telegraph and hit the play button without speaking.

A journalist came on screen. Her eyes were wide and shiny, and she seemed rather depressed.

"Kitty Reilly, a reporter for the Sun, has been known to cause a public stir with her political satire recently. Still, her public harassment of Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective of MI5 and NSY fame, has been the subject of recent public controversy. Nothing short of murderous today…" The journalist differed the screen to another telecaster on the ground.

"We're here at the scene where Kitty Reilly and a conspiracy media group called TruthBlood, chased Sherlock Holmes into oncoming traffic." The reporter's face was twisting in horror. John nearly passed out, but Mycroft caught him. The reporter turned to the back of an ambulance. Sherlock was sitting there, face in his hands. He had no idea the camera was on him.

"Mr. Holmes, sir, can you tell us what happened?" The reporter took Sherlock by the wrist.

Sherlock looked up. John gave a chirp of pain. There were bloody scrapes on Sherlock's prominent features. His hands floated near them like a person with battered syndrome. His eyes were wide, hair all a mess in his face and bloody as well.

"Mr. Holmes?"

Sherlock looked in earnest at the reporter. He opened his mouth and said:

"Ja sam ovde."

Which is Serbian for:

"I am here." as if he were grounding himself.

"Mr. Holmes, could you repeat that please?" The reporter looked at the camera in shock. Sherlock shook his head and then started animatedly talking, in his rapid deductive way-

Completely in Serbian.

"Oh, um...It appears, that Mr. Holmes-"

Anthea suddenly pushed her way through the crowd.

"I am Lara Yance. Mr. Holmes' interpreter." Anthea held a badge, the camera crew admitted her.

"Sherlock-Could you repeat your answer for me this time?"

Sherlock looked confused, unaware that he was not speaking English. Anthea nodded and turned to the camera.

"Mr. Holmes said: I am here. In England. I know that. But you people have made it very much like Hell. I'd best be off. I had work to do. When can I go back to work? I had an appointment. I am an agent of the English government and harassing me about my work is the same as assaulting a police officer, a librarian, a teacher. When will you people...er...wrap your silly little brains around this?" Anthea had been a godsend. Mycroft said a soft blessing under his breath the moment she'd finished speaking. She took Sherlock's hand.

"It's alright, dear. I've come to take you to our dictation lessons. You've been doing so well with re-learning English. There's no reason to stop now." Anthea smiled. Sherlock pointed an index finger to his head.

"Mozete li to dati na popravku?"

Which was asking if she could get his mind repaired like it was an object.

"Oh, dear, Sherlock. Oh, dear…"Anthea turned away from the reporters.

"Please. Please, I am authorized for his care. If he's not in a vital emergency, I'd very much like to take him back to his own physician." Anthea was talking to the medic, but the reporters would not let it be.

"What's he saying?" the man with the mic gasped.

Anthea turned to the camera.

"Mr. Holmes...is...very tired." Anthea's bottom lip trembled. John's heart leaped in his chest, and he gave a soft cry into his hand. Mycroft looked pained as if he'd break down crying. John laid a palm between his shoulder blades.

"This aired at 16 hundred hours. Which was almost two hours ago. God only knows why they've been delayed...John, I'm not a medical man. I've no idea why the PTSD would make my brother lose his ability to speak English. It has only happened once before. For about a month after we escaped Clarice-or Ms. Morstan's-torture facility." Mycroft coughed. John nodded.

"Well, that's not entirely uncommon for prisoners of war." John braced himself as a long black car pulled up. Anthea stepped out. Sherlock stepped out too, on crutches.

"De se, brate!" He said with deep affection. He was looking past Mycroft, right at John, oblivious to the words coming out of his mouth.

Anthea locked the car and held out a hand to steady to Sherlock. She swallowed. And with a hurried hand gesture she said:

"That is...Like an informal, a bit crude way even perhaps, way of saying "hello". Think he's trying to be cheeky, aren't you, dear?" Anthea cringed. Sherlock went into a rapid-fire description, deductively and all, of what had happened to him today. He had no idea that he was not speaking English. Mycroft was reduced to tears, to the horror of all of them. Sherlock paused, mid-sentence, stunned.

Straaaashno...It didn't take Anthea to interpret whatever Sherlock had said that time. He was clearly deeply upset for his brother. Limping over, he dropped the crutches and hugged him to his shoulder.

"You...You are..you understand us so that is...I'm...I've no idea why I can't compose myself." Mycroft held Sherlock close, discreetly assessing his physical damage with quaking hands.

Sherlock looked at John and his upset became evident. John smiled and suddenly, he did the unexpected:

"Khe chare, Sherlock." Which was a Pashto dialect word for "hello".

Sherlock flinched.

"John, what…?" Sherlock stumbled over to John. Anthea and Mycroft flinched, surprised. John held out his arms, laughing softly, even through the pallor on his face, at Sherlock's confusion.

"Deer wakht wosho na khary." (Pashto for "long time, no see") John beckoned Sherlock closer and hugged him.

"What the hell are you...are you saying?" Sherlock nuzzled John. John laughed and breathed relief.

"Well, you weren't speaking English. So, I thought, if I spoke Pashto which is a language I learned in the war zone, your fabulous brain would take over and force you to respond to me with your rational mind, which is preprogrammed posh English, mm?" John kissed Sherlock's forehead bowed to his shoulder suddenly overcome with relief that he was mostly fine. Then, he winked at Mycroft, who was wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"Oh, so he's a much cleverer sort than I'd ever given him credit." Mycroft's face settled again into the sour expression it often wore when Sherlock had flustered him into emotions.

"Nah, it just takes one to know one. Hey, you alright?" John had discreetly been medically examining Sherlock all this while even as the young detective sort of wilted against him.

"I'm gravely behind on the follow up I promised Lestrade. Suppose I'll have to phone him, which I detest doing. Still, he'll need what I've found communicated verbally, and I couldn't well do that when I apparently lost my native tongue, now could I?" Sherlock shivered in John's arms, so, so very tired.

"You'll need to tell us, you know, how it happened. After we've had some, sleep, yeah? Care to take us home, Anthea?" John looked at Anthea and made the sign that Sherlock was actually alright. She wiped a cloth over her forehead, nodding.

"I'll e-file you a report. I can check his sutures better when I've had time to remove the bandages, but for now, I believe he only bumped his head a bit. Must be the reason for the gibberish relapse. Isn't concussed, I shouldn't think." John smiled. Mycroft nodded then.

"We've had 12 physicians look at him before when this happened, Doctor Watson. You take one look at him and he's recovered tremendously already." Mycroft shook his head.

"Well, you have many fine physicians in your employ, Mycroft, but none of them are his doctor." John smiled and gently led Sherlock to the car. He fell asleep in his lap, and neither John nor Anthea exchanged a word about the lack of seatbelts.