AN:This fic was written after I requested a prompt on Tumblr for an AU Sherlock fanfic to write as a side-project to Hipster!Frankenstein, and the wonderful and amazing mesmiranda obliged. It was supposed to be a oneshot, LOL nope. I got wayyy too into it. So, enjoy, everyone!

Rated T for language; dark themes; violence.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own BBC Sherlock, nor any of the characters in it.

Now those are out of the way, I won't do them again - thanks everyone! Oh, and also, there is now a sequel to this story called 'The Gifted League', available on my profile :) - B.

"So what you're saying, Detective Inspector, is that you don't know what's causing this?"
The journalist on the second row at the right had a piercing, shrill voice that cut above all other journalists, yet echoed every one of them exactly. The others all piped down, pens poised above paper, thumbs hovering above BlackBerry keyboards, expectant eyes fixed on D.I. Lestrade as if they were predators prowling before a kill.

It was Sergeant Donovan, with a hesitant glance at the pensive Lestrade, who spoke first with a faltering voice: ". . . We are not currently in a position to, to-"
"So you don't know, then?" Cut in a different journalist, a man at the back of the room.
"We are working on several leads; we have our best people working on this case as we speak-"

The Sergeant wasn't interrupted by a voice this time, but by the simultaneous and irritating noises of every mobile phone in the room receiving messages. The journalists lost concentration for a short second or two, checking their phones. A few raised their eyebrows, and some threw questioning glances at one another. Both Donovan and Lestrade checked their work phones. An anonymous number had messaged them a single word:
"Wrong!"

Donovan glanced again at Lestrade, a stormy look in her eyes, clearly annoyed. Lestrade grimaced: it was his default expression in these confusing and dark times, it seemed.

"It says, 'Wrong! ' . . ." One of the journalists stated, though it sounded more like a question.
"Just, ignore it," Lestrade instructed the uncooperative crowd, holding his hands out in front of him, and trying to maintain control; it was like they were a renegade class of schoolchildren. It was a headache he frankly could do without.

"Detective Inspector, the police haven't been very open with us about this, this, epidemic," The shrill journalist pointed out again. "Please, could you just tell us what you think's causing it? Is it something in the water supply? Is it airborne - a disease? Should people be staying indoors?"
"It's important, above all, not to panic," Lestrade said, trying to reassure the incredulous journalists. "It is an abnormal amount of cases of amnesia in such a short amount of time, in such an, um, in such a concentrated area, but we can assure you, we're working closely with medical experts and we're very close to a breakthrough in the case now-"

There was a second chirruping chorus of beeps. The same message. Once more received by all phones in the room.
"Wrong!"

The journalists began to look even more sceptical, though it seemed nearly impossible that their faces could contort into even more disapproving expressions than before.

"'Wrong! ' Again . . ." Someone in the first row read aloud, irritating both of the police representatives again.
"Just ignore it, please!" Donovan insisted. It was highly unlikely that this conference could be salvaged now. It was over before it had started, and everyone knew it: they had nothing on the sudden amnesia 'epidemic' in London.

The cases had developed in people sharing no known connection: no common gender, ethnicity, age, job, place of work, location – they had nothing in common. Yet they had developed, always, overnight, after a short disappearance. They always turned up somewhere in Brixton. Of course, the police had no leads; everyone knew it.

"Do you have any advice for the public? How can they avoid becoming a victim of the epidemic?"
"I think it's a bit rash to be calling it an epidemic," Lestrade pointed out loudly, over the hubbub of the crowd "It's only ten people–"
"So far!" Interrupted a voice from the back.
"–All I can say for now is - well, try to remember who you are. . ."

Of course, at this blithe suggestion, the crowd went into uproar, but Lestrade was mercifully distracted by the lone bleating of his personal mobile phone. It wasn't his work phone – it was his personal mobile phone, the number to which he had given to almost no one, especially not him,or anyone likely to tell him it. It was displaying a message sent from the same number as the previous texts:
"You know where to find me. – SH"

Pocketing the phone with a frown, he drew the conference to an abrupt close, ignoring indignant cries from the journalists, and yelled implications of his incompetence, to make his way out of the room trailed by the Sergeant.

"You've really got to stop him from doing that, Sir," She complained to him with a disapproving stare at the messages she'd received along with everyone else in the room.
"I'll stop him when I know how he bloody finds out people's personal numbers in the first place . . ." Grumbled Lestrade, shaking his head. It was a mystery to him how someone who wasn't even technically on the force knew all of the journalists who were coming to official police conferences, as well as their numbers, and most importantly of all, his personal phone number, which he kept reserved for only his immediate family. He knew so much about everyone. It was uncanny, almost impossible, and even to a smart man like Lestrade, unnerving. It made him feel anxious and on edge . . . Lestrade reassured himself that he was clearly just meticulous in his research.

Yeah, that was probably it. After years of sleuthing, his contacts were likely to be many in number; some of them might even be useful and trustworthy.

But even if he did have amazing powers of deduction and research skills that were second to no one, he couldn't be a Detective Inspector. At least, that was what Lestrade had convinced himself. He wasn't made of the right stuff. He was impatient, difficult to like, and had problems with addiction and authority.

Lestrade's job security, even in troubling times such as this, came from the fact that he knew the brilliant Sherlock Holmes was just as human as the next man. Despite his faults, though, maybe he could help the force shed light on this case.

As he himself had put it, "You know where to find me . . ."

Happy cries and laughter always sounded like screams of terror to John Watson, always distracting and diverting his attention, no matter the situation. He should have probably avoided walking through the park on his way to pick up the groceries, but something kept bringing him back. In all honesty, he liked it, in a way: the thrill that came with thinking someone was in danger, or required his help. No, he wasn't a soldier anymore, but he tried his best to still live like one. He couldn't work out how else he was supposed to live. It was impossible to live like he used to: Afghanistan had changed him. It wasn't just his infernal limp, or memories of war's horrors, which he woke up to ever day, sweating and crying. No. It was the memories and reality of something that filled him with regret, shame and self-loathing. Something which had cost him both a place in the army, and the friendship and trust of all his fellow soldiers.

He stared wistfully at the kids at the other side of the park, laughing and joking with one another in a way he couldn't quite remember himself doing when he was that age. He wasn't sure he even had laughed like that as a child. He wished they weren't there, and wondered sullenly why they weren't in school.

He caught himself at that last train of thought. Since when had he become such an old man? He'd noticed a few silver hairs amongst the dirty blonde ones of late when he looked at himself in the mirror, it was true. But when had he started to think like an old man? He answered his own thoughts quickly and wryly: since everyone else isn't him. Since everyone else is happy. Since everyone else is normal and he isn't.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he almost missed the look of recognition on the face of the man sitting on a nearby bench. It was easily spotted by John, whose vocation had required him to keep his wits about him and to read people constantly, despite being partially lost in thought.
"John! - John Watson!"

John wasn't quite sure where he remembered the man from at first, and gave him a quick yet thorough assessment, just like he would back home in Afghanistan – No, just like he would back in Afghanistan. It made him repress a shudder that he'd referred to it as 'back home'. Afghanistan was a warzone. It was probably unhealthy to think of it as 'home '.

Male, Caucasian, middle aged, overweight. Dark, greying hair. Spectacles. Geordie accent. Smiling.

"It's Mike! Mike Stanford!" The man clarified with a beckoning gesture.
"Oh! Hi, Mark," John replied absent-mindedly, having had his confusion cleared up. Mike was a fellow doctor; an old friend from his time as an intern at St. Bart's Hospital.
"Mike," The doctor corrected with a smile, as John rubbed his eyes with the hand that wasn't holding his cane, and shook his head with embarrassment.

"What happened to you? I thought you were abroad getting shot at!" Mike asked with his usual jovial smile, always on the cusp, it seemed, of laughter. John faked a smile back, though it came across as more of a grimace, and replied:
"I got shot," Indicating his cane. He walked with a limp. John guessed that this was partly the reason that Mike didn't recognise him in the first place: they'd known each other when they were barely out of University. Young, full of hope . . . Ordinary. John would say that the best thing about that time was that he had been completely boring, average, and oh so ordinary.

They sat on the bench, and talked for a while. Well, Mike talked, John listened as he told him all about teaching, and the envy he felt for the bright young students who were, just as they had long ago, embarking on their careers in medicine. John offered sporadic nods, occasional words of agreement, and even laughter.

If he was honest, John was probably half listening, and half thinking about the time in his life when he hadn't been this way. He didn't like pretending to others that he was fine. The cycle of self-pity and loathing he was stuck in didn't suit him.

Nor did he like to pretend that he'd been invalided home, or that he'd been shot in the first place. It was the official line, but it wasn't true.

The words of his superior rang through his mind, overlaying Mike's complaining, creeping in like damp, and spreading like cancer.
". . . Not fit for duty, no place in the army . . ." - though John failed to understand why his abnormality would make a worse soldier of him, where in actual fact, it would probably make him a force to be reckoned with.
". . .Should never speak of this again. . ." - he would try and hide it, guaranteed, but he had to live with it. There was no way he could just ignore it, like they could.
". . . Not even strictly human . . ." - just plain insulting, though John wasn't really sure if it was true or not himself-

"John?"
Mike's voice crept back, much like a radio tuning in, suddenly at the forefront of his mind as John realised he'd been asked a question.
"Not like you to be away with the fairies, Watson!" Mike laughed, though there was an edge to it, and he appeared concerned. "I asked where you're living at the moment,"

"I, uh – I don't really have anywhere. Can't really afford London – not on an army pension. I'd get a flatmate, but who'd want to share with someone like me?"

Mike chuckled again. The sound would have aggravated John if it hadn't made him so curious:
"What? What's wrong?"
"You're the second person to ask me that today!"
"Really? . . . Who was the first?"