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Sherlock closes his eyes.
The leather beneath his skin fades, dulls, until it is nothing more than a watered-down coolness. The insides of his eyelids are dark and warm.
They fade too.
He opens a door, and steps out into his Mind Palace. The great yawning vastness of it feels like eternity.
After the Vermeer incident, Sherlock begins to understand John's point. Stars and the solar system and the like, however distant and therefore uninteresting, are important to some people.
Ordinary people out on the street, watching the sun traverse the skyline.
Alex Woodbridge. Surely there has to be more than just one of him? Amateur astronomers are all over the place.
Ergo: of the countless human beings who share Woodbridge's admiration (and there must be countless), the statistical likelihood is that some of them have criminal intent.
Criminals, then, with a love of the stars. Important to Sherlock's work. Could be important.
And John. Not a criminal, but Sherlock's first and only best friend. He likes the stars. Knows quite a lot about them, even if he's not an astronomer. Thinks Sherlock should know about them too.
And if John thinks that, then maybe Sherlock should listen to him. That's what best friends do, isn't it?
He's not sure, but he thinks so. He decides to take the risk.
It takes him approximately three hours and twenty-seven minutes to redesign his Mind Palace.
Recycling Bin(computer style) -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Supermassive blackhole.
Facts gleaned from numerous astronomy books and papers:
1) A Supermassive blackhole sits at the centre of every galaxy. It is several million (or billion) solar masses in size. The singularity is where the laws of physics break down. Anything could happen here. It is impossible to tell what.
Of all the new things Sherlock learns about the universe, this is his favourite. He doesn't really know why; probably because it is a greater mystery than even he will ever be able to solve.
He makes it a Supermassive blackhole rather than an ordinary, smaller blackhole, for the simple reason that for as much interesting information he comes across on a daily basis, there is always twice as much of the uninteresting.
He needs somewhere big to store all of this, so Supermassive blackhole it is.
Case Files Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: The sun.
2) The sun is the major star in the Milky Way. All life depends on it. It is 15 million degrees Celsius at its core.
There is no particular reason for Sherlock making this his new case files storage. The sun is important, vitally so, apparently, and so is Sherlock's work. Perhaps that is the reason. Every case solved in the past, every criminal caught, is something important. All these past puzzles build up and up, layer upon layer, and sometimes they're interconnected with new cases. New crimes.
He needs these old crimes to help solve the new ones, so they are placed at the centre of everything. His Mind Palace (he still calls it that, because he hasn't come up with a new name) orbits them, and they shine light on everything.
Childhood Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Mercury
3) Mercury is the planet closest to the sun. It is only slightly larger than Earth's moon, and has virtually no atmosphere. It is covered in craters and holes as such, as there is no protection from impacts. The temperatures there range from scorching in the daytime, to extreme sub-zero in the night.
This is where Sherlock keeps his collection of childhood memories, meagre though it may be. Whatever memories he keeps in here are important, in one way or another. Some are memories he keeps purely to make him happy when he needs it: Mycroft being chased by irate hens when Sherlock was six. Mycroft sitting on a chair and breaking it when Sherlock was nine. Mycroft falling into a stream on holiday in Switzerland when Sherlock was fifteen (most of his Happy Memories seem to involve Mycroft's humiliation, strangely enough).
Some of what he keeps in here are not happy. Cocaine highs and lows. The schoolyard thugs who used to follow him around. A compound fracture in his ankle at the age of twelve. His father's death, long ago though it may have been. Mummy, succumbing to early onset Alzheimer's disease and forgetting her sons' faces.
Not happy, but important nonetheless. And close to his sun (case files) because that was where he started, wasn't it? As a child with an eager and destructive curiosity.
The Woman's Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Venus
4) A dimly lit and highly dangerous planet. The temperature here is enough to melt lead, and the atmosphere thick enough to trap toxic gases. The surface of the planet is dotted with volcanic activity and misshapen mountains.
Sherlock almost decides to dedicate this space to the female gender in general, but his interaction with women is limited to Mrs Hudson and mummy, and he thinks they shouldn't be in such a poisonous part of his Mind Palace. More importantly, he doesn't differentiate much between the two sexes, so he decides to put them all in one area later.
There is only one other woman Sherlock has any special regard for, and stereotypical though it may be, he puts her on Venus. Beautiful, maybe, but dangerous. Different. Toxic.
It seems like an ideal home for the Woman.
Mycroft's Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Mars
5) A cold desert planet with about half the diameter of Earth. It is named after the Roman god of war, and shares many geographical features with Earth; polar icecaps, valleys, mountains, canyons. There is evidence of the past existence of water on its surface, though it is still to be determined whether or not it could have, or does, support life.
Sherlock doesn't like to admit it, but yes. His fat git of a brother has his own room in Sherlock's Palace. The reason for this is simple: he hadn't been lying when he'd told John that Mycroft Holmes was the most dangerous man he'd ever met. Sherlock would call this Know Thine Enemy, if he was feeling particularly theatrical. He needs to keep information about his brother, or Mycroft might outwit him some day.
Mycroft makes war, so he gets the planet named after it. The Woman once called him 'Ice Man', and mars is cold enough for this to be true.
Sherlock's quite pleased with this, even if he hates letting Mycroft take up space in his Mind Palace.
Ordinary People Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Jupiter
6) The largest planet in the solar system. It has an immensely powerful magnetic field and many different moons. It is the home of several massive storms, the most famous being the Great Red Spot.
Again, though Sherlock dislikes admitting it, ordinary people are worthy of space in his Palace. Mainly because people are usually the perpetrators of crimes, and it is important to remember how their tiny minds work .
The people he puts here include: Father, his aunts and uncles, cousins, Sebastian Wilkes, Victor Trevor, Lestrade, Anderson, Gregson, Dimmock, Molly, Donovan, Stamford, the Queen, James Bond and the rest of the population of Earth, barring two. John and Mummy.
The Sciences Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Saturn
7) A gas giant composed of hydrogen and helium, and adorned with rings of icy rock. It is named after the Roman god of agriculture.
In his thirty-four years, Sherlock has discovered that most things can trace their origins to science. Chemical reactions, bondings, the laws of physics, biology.
Science was the only subject he ever paid any attention to in school. He loved it, even if the teacher was an imbecile and Sherlock could parrot everything in the textbook quicker than she could read it.
Everything has its root in science, and there is so much to it. A thousand branches of physics, a thousand of chemistry, a thousand of biology. So much, that Sherlock could research his entire life and still not know everything. A never-ending puzzle for him to play with. Brilliant.
History Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Uranus
8) Uranus is the only giant planet with an equator that is at almost right-angles with its orbit. This is thought to be mainly due to a collision with an Earth sized planet in the past. Its blue colour comes from the unusual amount of methane mixed in with the planetary components of hydrogen and helium.
Sherlock thinks his knowledge of history is quite good. In any case, it is about twice as much information as ordinary people ever bother to learn. And that is more than enough for his line of work.
Mummy's Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Neptune
9) Neptune is the farthest planet in the solar system. It takes 165 Earth years to orbit the sun. It is composed of helium and hydrogen, and is dark and cold. Supersonic winds are common on the surface.
In many ways, Sherlock still has a soft spot for Mummy. He'll never admit it, though. And he never really has much contact with her. She's just too far away, like Neptune. Alzheimer's disease has ruined her, destroyed the mind that set her apart from everyone else, even Mycroft. She used to be a queen.
Sherlock still thinks he'd like to talk to her, sometimes. But the last time he tried, she forgot who he was. He doesn't think he wants to see that again.
John's Room -change? Y/n
Changed. New structure: Earth
10) The only known planet to support life.
Sherlock doesn't really know why he puts John on Earth. He supposes it just wouldn't seem right putting him anywhere else. The Earth is important, and John is too. Varied. Vibrant. Colourful.
Violent, when it wants to be. Dangerous sometimes.
Yes; Sherlock puts John exactly where he should be.
And then, when Sherlock has finished rearranging the Rooms and has a whole new line of perfect, brilliant planets to show for it, he realises the most important thing of all:
The universe is endless.
There are places humans haven't explored. There are places humans aren't sure exist. There is a great cavern of quiet darkness, stretching out in every direction, on and on until the stars push the dark away with a burst of light and heat.
So Sherlock begins to fill in all the gaps: the far reaches of the galaxy, the places between stars, the deep dark nothingness left empty. Everything he hasn't sorted into different planets becomes part of this space, filtering into the dark matter and radiation and dust molecules. There is enough room for everything, and it's terrifyingly lovely, the way it's so neat. There will always be enough room for everything: will he even need to delete anything now?
No. No, he probably won't.
His Mind Palace will be endless.
In the real world, Sherlock is still sitting patiently, eyes closed, hands joined, in his chair in the living room. John happens to look up from his crossword and thinks, for a moment, that he catches a fleeting glimpse of a smile.