CHAPTER 3:

A warning: at the end of this chapter is a particularly violent scene. If you don't enjoy that kind of stuff I suggest you skip it, as the situation will be spelt out in the next chapter. Also I sincerely apologize for the rather scandalously long time between this chapter and the last. I'll try to pick up my slack

I wake up in bed feeling hazy and the smell of vomit surrounds me, though it is faint and mingled with the harsh stench of surface cleaner. That's John's work, I think. Mrs Hudson buys a different brand. I smile minutely, realising that my deduction skills are up and running reasonably quickly. A quiet humming strays from the kitchen to my door and my smile broadens. I lean my head further back into the pillow and sigh. John. John's back. "JOHN!" I shout. Well, if he's back he might as well be of use- I could use some tea. The slow scuff of slippers tells me he's only just woken up. Hmm, I wonder what kept him awake. No, wait. He's here now-time for deduction. Bloodshot eyes, tea in hand, hands paled by the cleaning equipment, hair mussed from fitful sleep, dressing gown barely crinkled or even warm yet. John turns his tired, experienced eyes to me, taking in my pallor and the likeliness of another bout of retching, which by the way, is at a minimum. I kept him awake last night. John's back. I smile.

"Sherlock, are you feeling better?" he asks, shuffling over to feel my forehead, as I nod, adopting an annoyed expression. Sometimes it's so inconvenient to spell everything out for him. My thoughts are miles ahead of his understanding. If he could read my mind…no. He mustn't know about the Numbn- "Careful what you wish for…" A young Mycroft's voice shouts through my memory, ricocheting off the sides of my head. No. Not now. No. "I wish you had never been born!" My voice now. Then Mycroft's cackling laughter. He had a high voice as a child. "Careful what you wish for! You were a mistake, that's why you're all wrong!" "No." I mumble aloud. Everything is blurred. "I'm not a mistake! I'm not all wrong!" "Yes you are! Why do you think Daddy tried to get rid of you, then?" "Sherlock? Sherlock!" John. The razor. John's here. Mirror. Can't see me like this. Pills. John. "Sherlock?!" John. A voice that's not my own fights its way out of my throat.

"Help."

John's hands on my shoulders, shaking. Darkness.

I wake to the sound of beeping, important sounding machines, irritated voices and sterility. My first emotion, pointless as they are, is anger. John has taken me to the hospital. There is no doubt it was John as my clothes are folded precisely the way he folds his own on a chair in the corner, whilst I wear a hospital gown. And he's the only one who cares enough, I suppose. I groggily look up and attempt to get my bearings. White walls, pale blue floor, hideous pink curtains, mid-eighties design, hanging since…1988, have been washed approximately five times. Charming. There's a television suspended in at an absurd angle above my head, so that even if I wished to kill more brain cells than I already do naturally, I couldn't. A light snore brings my attention to John, slumped uncomfortably in the twin of the corner chair beside me. His right hand lies through the bars, open and slack. I look at my left hand to see the slight imprints of fingernails in my skin, as if someone had held on tightly. My gaze turns back to John, and I see the wear and tear lined in his face, the way his hair falls messily across his eyes when not brushed, and I feel a twinge in my chest and the machine beside me starts beeping more regularly. The quickened noise shakes John from his awkward sleeping position and he immediately checks the monitor, then me. He is still wearing his slippers. I meet his gaze and deduce that he is happy, presumably because I am awake, but there is something else too. I see it and he sees me seeing it. The happiness fades a little. I clear my throat. "Were you present when I was transferred from my much more comfortable clothes to this horrific piece of fabric?" A slight blush rises in the man's cheeks, but it is not one of embarrassment as per usual, but one of pity. "Yes." he croaks; with emotion or sleep I don't know. I persist. "You saw them, then?" His grey eyes glance to my thighs, where the thin, white scars lay embedded in my skin forever and back to my face. There are tears in his eyes when he nods. We sit in silence for approximately seven minutes and twenty-four seconds. Finally he clears his throat and asks, "You did those." Not a question, but a statement, but I answer anyway. "Yes," I reply, "with a blade from my father's razor." John moves as though he wants to be closer, but checks himself and sits back in his grotesque chair. Silence ensues and eventually John nods back off to sleep, his hand now on his knee. After half an hour's deliberation, I place my hand in his and the machine's technical melody picks up its tempo.

The floor creaked quietly as a dark figure slid across the polished timber floor. A woman stood at the kitchen bench, carrying a small, dimpled child. She was singing softly, an Italian lullaby and the boy had his head resting on her shoulder, half asleep. Lucy's boy. The figure slipped past the pantry, avoiding other squeaky floorboards and pulled out a length of rope, rough and course in their gloved hand. The nanny didn't hear a thing until the rope was tugged tight across her throat. The boy cried out at the figure and clung to the nanny. The intruder tore him from her arms and threw him into the corner, where he promptly curled up and wailed. Kneeling on her elbows, the figure squeezed the last of the air from her lungs and slit her throat with a kitchen knife. They turned to the little boy in the corner who was whimpering now and lifted a finger to their lips. Quiet. Then, turning back to the girl they dipped a finger in the dark red pool beneath her head and began to write on the pale wall. They then strode across to the crying boy and tied him up with the rope used previously and placed him beneath the words on the wall. The figure stood and looked about the room, hands on their hips, as if proud of the atrocities they had just committed, and calmly loped out, closing the door softly behind them. The boy could hear the heavy boots thump down the hall. There was no need to be silent anymore. The child looked up to the wall, smearing blood into his hair. He could just make out an arrow, pointing downwards to him, and a word. He cocked his head further to the side to read it.

"NEXT."