John's PTSD-induced nightmares woke him up at 5:00am again. After months of these dreams they were still understandably unpleasant, but now they had become routine, so he dragged himself out of bed and began his morning ritual hour an half earlier than he would have liked.

At this time of the morning the flat was pitch black and silent because Sherlock, for once, was actually asleep, draped across the sofa and clutching his violin across his steadily rising and falling chest.

By the time John had finished making pancakes and a jug full of almost disgustingly strong coffee, Sherlock woke up so abruptly that he fell off the sofa, only just reacting fast enough to rescue his violin. Had he not thrown it onto the armchair in front of him fast enough, it would have ended up straight underneath him as he fell so ungracefully on the floor. Just as he landed, he jumped up equally as quickly, straightening out his rumpled silk dressing gown with as much dignity as he could muster. "Ah, John. Good Morning." He greeted

"Good morning, Sherlock," John replied as he made his way back across to his designated arm chair with his breakfast.

"John, I believe you asked me to remind you of something last night, but I can't seem to remember what it was." The spaced out detective replied. He was still standing in the same place, staring dazedly around the room as he recovered from the shock of having more than three hours of sleep.

"Don't worry about it, I don't remember either. Tell me if it comes back to you."

Sherlock collapsed back onto the sofa with just as much grace as he had had when he first left it, and there he remained for about ten seconds, staring up at the ceiling, before he leaped up again at a speed which would have made anyone (except for John, who was used to Sherlock's odd behaviour) jump. John looked up at him from his breakfast.

"THE BINS!" Sherlock shouted, so abruptly that his flatmate spilled his coffee down himself.

"Mrs Hudson asked us to put them out while she wasn't here. You told me to remind you because you didn't see the point in even trying to get me to do it. You were right for once, John." His voice trailed off slightly on the last sentence and he promptly fell back onto the sofa, sleeping once more.

This sudden need for sleep was not unusual for Sherlock. While usually he could survive on three or four hours of rest, every so often (usually between cases), he would enter something which John affectionately referred to as his 'hibernation period'. This usually consisted of an entire day of heavy, continuous sleep, after which he would return to his regular – yet unhealthy – sleep schedule. Everybody found relief during these hibernation days. John could attempt to clean the flat if he wasn't working, Molly could attend to her cadavers in peace, and Lestrade enjoyed a break from the consulting detective's harassment.

Ah. The bins. John thought to himself. I should probably sort them before I forget.

With his dressing gown wrapped tightly around him, he stepped outside the block of flats and into the courtyard behind them, only to be immediately attacked by the bitter mid-winter air and heavy snow, which had already begun to settle and was still falling heavily. It was any child's winter dream. Arms wrapped tightly around himself, John made his way across the wintry courtyard and attempted to find the bins and be able to differentiate the colours in the dim, early dawn light. It occurred to him at this point that he was going to have to take the bins round to the front of the flats, and he was wearing only his boxers, an old grey t-shirt, a dressing grown, some worn out slippers and his bed head. He could only hope that the usual gaggle of fans and paparazzi had decided to postpone their visits until the wintry weather had passed. The fact that it was so early in the morning no longer made any difference now that Sherlock had become so famous, which was a fact John had to deal with regularly when he left the flat for work. He made his way with the bins towards the path which he was hoping would lead round to the front of the flats. In the dim light, with the lining of tall trees surrounding the place and only one streetlamp, which had yet to be converted to LED, standing in the furthest corner of the courtyard, the path looked decidedly eerie, particularly, John found, when a figure seemed to appear out of nowhere at the end of it. This figure broke the tense 3 second silence when it began a fit of loud, heaving coughs and promptly collapsed, unconscious, into the snow.

3 days earlier.

"Hello Ada."

The man had come to visit her again. He did so once a year- always on her birthday, and as soon as she was capable of conversation, every visit had been the same: he would arrive to the room just after she did; wearing one of his finely tailored suits and attempting a polite, understanding smile which Ada knew was in no way an accurate representation of what he was actually thinking. Even after all these years she still knew nothing about this mysterious man, and though it may have been his sixteenth visit, Ada still had yet to know his name, or even why he chose to see her in the first place. She was the only person in the compound he came to speak to and no one else had ever received any other visitor.

"So, how are you?" He asked, politely.

"I'm okay." She replied. There was a slightly awkward pause before she continued.

"Er- I was wondering, I mean, I know I ask you this every time, but how long do I have left before I can finally, actually, leave this place? Every time you visit you tell me that I need to wait until I get older, but I read somewhere that you can live on your own when you're sixteen."

The man sighed. Every year her pleading became more and more desperate and he knew this was inevitable. "I'm sorry Ada, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but what happens to you is out of my hands. I am merely a friendly visitor."

"So you lied to me to shut me up? Do you even know what it's like here?"

"Look, Ada-"He interjected.

"No! Throughout my whole life, none of have actually known why we're here. We're educated, yes, but when we're not doing that, they're torturing and experimenting on us. You are the only adult with whom I have ever had a normal conversation without being beaten or shouted at. For all I know, you could be my only way out of here and yet you lied to me for years then you call yourself a 'friendly visitor' as though you're free from blame!" Ada ranted loudly, shocked at herself for raising her voice. Usually that would be punished. Harshly.

"Plus, you've never even told me your name." She added.

He remained silent for a minute, watching the teenager in front of him thoughtfully while she sat sullenly with her arms crossed. It occurred to him, for some reason, how much she had changed in a year. From age eleven to fifteen her growth and change had been fast, but steady and even. Now, in the past year, she had changed drastically. That little bit of life she had left she had left was gone, and she was so thin that she was most definitely underweight. The uniform, which seemed like something prisoners would wear, served only to accentuate that weight loss. While the long, white sleeves fitted normally around her slender arms, the light blue shirt over that was huge on her tiny frame, despite the fact that she had grown so much taller in the last year and had now reached 5'8", and the blue trousers hung so loosely around her hips that she had to tie string around the waistband to hold them up.

Ada stared at him with her tired, sunken eyes, waiting for a response.

"Mycroft Holmes." He said, simply.

"What?"

"My name is Mycroft Holmes." He said again.

"Oh," She replied, staring at the floor, "why did it take you sixteen years to tell me that?"

"Well, it's a rather strange name, isn't it?" Mycroft explained.

She nodded, smiling ever so slightly, deep in thought. "What are they doing to me?" Ada continued, looking up at him. This may have been the most worthwhile conversation they'd ever had.

Mycroft leaned forward, placing his elbow on the arm rest of the chair and resting his chin on top of his raised palm. He raised his eyebrows and smiled sadly for a moment, before leaning back again. "I have absolutely no idea."

"Are you going to tell me anything else about why I'm here?"

If the room wasn't bugged he would tell her everything, maybe even tell her that he was going to try to get her out of this hell hole. Mycroft rarely pitied anyone but it was hard not to pity this child who had grown up so miserable and unloved by all. He only hoped that she would work out how to escape (without getting shot) on her own before the emotional damage became permanent.

He raised his eyebrows and smiled sadly at her.

She sighed. "Then can I go now?"

He nodded, and stood up. Ada did the same, and as he always did at the end of their meetings, Mycroft reached out to shake her hand. "It was good to see you as always, Ada. Oh, and, by the way, I have been informed that Professor Moriarty should like to see you soon. Won't that be interesting?"

Fuck.

Ada couldn't hide the shock on her face. "Er, how soon, exactly?" She stammered.

"In the next few days, I believe."

That night, instead of sleeping, the children had set up their dormitory for a meeting. Their gatherings were rare, but were a fine display of the sibling-like relationship that had formed between the group. Some of them actually had siblings, though they were never kept in the same part of the compound, and there were never any twins. Growing up in such an awful place had brought this group of teenagers together, and though there were always going to be a few tenuous relationships, they felt like family. The staff treated all of their 'subjects' in the same cold, distant manner. To them, they were nothing more than lab rats, being forced to take part in a seemingly endless experiment that consisted mainly of pain, surgery and, on occasion, watching your friends die.

The children had soon learned, during the first five years of their lives before they were moved up to the second part of the facility that the only love and decency they would ever experience would have to come from each other. They lived in the most unspeakably awful situation and it made them kind, which was why they were now all gathered together, sitting in a circle on the floor and listening to Ada talk about the meeting she had had with the man she finally knew as Mycroft.

Chloe, Ada's best friend, was sitting next to her on the floor with her head in Ada's lap. The room fell silent. Moriarty was a name to which they could place no face. He was a word, a threat, to keep the kids in line.

Oh, you fell behind in class? You didn't score 100% on a test? You didn't follow orders, or didn't want to take part in yet another drugs trial or be the victim of yet another vivisection? Professor Moriarty would find out. He would see your name on a list of misbehaving children (you were never important enough for your name to be mentioned to him directly) and he would organise for you to be killed off. He didn't forgive people, or give them second chances. You weren't important. You were just a name on a list, and if you failed at the only purpose you had in life, which was to aid the research of the scientists at the compound, then you didn't deserve a life at all.

"We can't presume that anything good can come of this. No one who has been sent to see him in the past ever came back." Ada explained.

"Well then what are you going to do? Whatever your plan is, we'll help." Andy, one of the boys, spoke up from the other side of the circle.

"What is there to be done? I mean, escaping from this place is completely impossible. The number of people who have died trying is proof enough." Chloe asked. She looked sad- everyone did.

"No, I won't try to escape like that, it's too obvious. I act on impulse, I always have done. They've probably guessed that I might try something really fucking stupid like escaping a high security compound with over a hundred armed guards and three layers of ten-foot barbed wire electric fencing, so they'll be ready for me if I do."

Ada placed her hands out on the floor behind her and leaned back, holding her arms straight for support, and sighed. In the dark of the dormitory, with only the glow of the dim hallway light outside the door, she looked incredibly ill. Though everyone was quite skinny, Ada was positively skeletal and she had not taken part in any physical training for many weeks. No one ever spoke about how unwell she had become. There was no point in dwelling on something that was out of her control.

"If the opportunity arises I'm going to try to escape, though. Nothing good is going to come of this meeting, but even if this Moriarty guy doesn't plan to kill me, I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try. Actually, do you remember when Holly got called in to see him? I swear, when we went out for PE that day, I saw her leave the compound with him. If that happens to me then I could always try then. As soon as I'm past all the fencing I can just...run."

Chloe sat up. "Ada, are you really in a fit state to do any form of exercise right now? How are you going to run away from guards who are constantly in a state of peak physical fitness when you've been told that you're way too weak to even do a jog around the building a couple of times a week?"

Ada rolled her eyes back and sighed once more. "Ugh, I don't know, Chloe, I'm sorry. I guess adrenaline will help. I'm just so fucking tired, I mean, I'm probably gonna die anyway, even if I escape. I have no idea what's causing me to end up like this because it's obviously a nasty side effect of whatever the hell they're doing to me. I really don't care anymore, I just don't want anyone else thinking that they shouldn't try if this happens to them."

There was whispering in the circle, and there was a general feeling that Ada's speech was bringing their little gathering to an end.

"Okay, so, is that it? You're just gonna wing it?" Andy asked. He secretly didn't blame her, given her rapidly deteriorating health.

"Yep. A couple of months ago I'd probably have a complete plan by now but Jesus fucking Christ, I feel like an 80 year old woman. But anyway, who knows? Maybe I'll have some miraculous burst of adrenaline-fuelled energy and manage to escape these people!"

The meeting was over. Ada felt like a coward.

A/N: So, what do you think? I have several more chapters written out and I plan to continue writing this for a long time! This whole story has been planned out in my head for weeks. I tried to make it a bit of a break from the norm when it comes to a lot of Sherlock fanfiction. Please rate and review! Thank you!