"Did you have the dream again, Sherlock?"

I didn't answer her question. I never do.

"You know, it's much easier to accept reality if you try to encage in it."

I continued to glare at my psychiatrist. My eyes tensed as I willed myself to wake up.

She sighed and laid down her clipboard. "Sherlock, do you know where you are?"

I closed my eyes and tightened my fists, slowly driving my nails deeper into my skin. I squeezed my eye sockets closer and bite my lip hard, tasting blood and hoping the pain will help. Wake up I tell myself, remember.

"You're in a hospital Sherlock. You're locked away. This is reality. This is the real world. There's no Baker Street, there's not even a London, and there's no John to- "

I snapped open my eyes at the mention of John. My John. "Don't," I hiss, "speak about him."

She smiled, obviously happy to get some form of reaction from me.

"Tell me some more about John." She coaxed. "Tell me why you care so much about him. Tell me how this man won such a deep place in your heart."

"I told you, I don't have a heart." I snapped back. All I wanted was to leave. To go back to John, to go back home. My real home.

"I think we both know that's not true." she smirked and tilted her head towards me; her unspoken words hung in the air. "Prove it" her eyes said.

"I'm sure that if John were here right now, he'd want you to talk to me." She suggested, her last attempt to get me to communicate. She had no right. No reason at all to mention my John. Hearing his name from her lips made my stomach turn in pain and made my vision go red.

I slowly filled with rage. I couldn't hold it back anymore. I screamed at threw myself at the woman, aiming for her throat.

Then it all goes black.

My eyes fluttered open as I felt John's hand grasp my shoulder. "Sherlock? Sherlock are you okay?"

"Hmm." I managed to respond. "What?"

John shook his head at me, obviously dissapointed. "You can't sleep here." he said. He pushed back my curls, trying to get a better look at my face. I could feel the pain on my forehead, realizing it ment I must have fallen asleep lying on something hard.

I grunted, "I can sleep anywhere I like, thank you very much."

"Not on my laptop you can't." John reached down and graped his computer from under my chin. It wasn't hard to figure that I had falled asleep while finishing the details of the case the night before. I never slept while on a case, but 5 days without as much as a nap had taken quite a toll on me. "What do you want for breakfast?" John asked me as he pluged in his laptop and headed to the kitchen.

"You know I don't eat breakfast."

"Yes, well, you finished your case, didn't you?"

"Yes. Of course." I huffed. Sometimes John showed far to little faith in me.

"Then you're going to eat breakfast today." I opened my mouth to protest, "No buts about it Sherlock. Now, clean off the table so we have somewhere to eat." John had picked up his spoon and waved it, motioning me to the kitchen table, which was currently covered in unfinished or continuous expiraments. "And wipe it down in bleach once you're done. God knows what crap you've let sit there. I'd like to eat without the smell of mold around me." John smiles at me as he moves around to the pantry to retrieve flour and sugar. I sighed and made a big deal about having to move my work. I groaned and threw my hands in the air, defending the mycotoxins I was trying to analyze, then I saw John making his way to the refrigerator. Uh oh, I thought, realizing I had forgotten to replace John's milk last time I used it all.

Once he finishes measuring the dry items for our meal, (pancakes I deduce, simply because it was the quickest meal John could prepare and his amounts of dry condiments had confirmed it,) John opened the fridge door and began to rummage for the milk. I gulped.

I froze in place and watched as his shoulders slowly tensed up with the anger he was so obviously trying to keep under control. I heard him breathe in deeply, and without turning around, John slowly mumbled my name, "Sherlock...?"

"Yes John?"

"Where's the milk?"

"It should be in there."

"Well it's not." I didn't answer. "Sherlock. What did you do with my milk?"

"It's, um... well... Yesterday I ran out of liquid colloids to use to analyze as a base source for my light to life span reference, hoping to tie in some attention to the sunburned water victim last week, and I used it in an expirament to-"

"Sherlock!" John turned around and glared at me. "How many times do I have to tell you, MY stuff is NOT for your epiraments!"

I looked down to the floor, trying my best to avoid John's bellowing. Only John ever made me react this way. I knew one of John's few pet peeves was when his things were used without his permission, and he had already made quite the exception with my usage of his laptop. I hated seeing him angry like that. No other human begin was able to make me feel shame the way John did when he glared like that. "...I'm sorry John." I mumbled.

John leaned over and grabed the bridge of his nose. Closing his eyes he sighed. "Never mind that now. But, God, you need to learn to leave my stuff alone," he shook his head, leaning back to look at me. "Fine. Whatever. Just go run down to the store and grab some, will you?" he used his hand to shoo me towards the door and continued working to clean off the stove for cooking. Somehow John always managed to make himself look much taller whenever he scolded me like that. I assumed it was from his years in the military, but lately I had began to realize that he never really was all that strict, a little demanding, yes, but never harsh. More than likely John had simply picked up that trait to make up for his lack of height. Not that I minded, I rather like John's size. He always seemed to fit perfectly into my arms. I had to hold back a chuckle as I hastily grabed my coat and scarf and hurridly put them on.

"I'll be back in a moment!" I shouted, eagerly willing to do anything I could to make up for my fault.

"Yeah, yeah. Just get on with it you bloke." John answered. I could hear the smile he was trying to hide when he spoke. I rushed down the stairs happily knowing I was already, more or less, forgiven. John never seemed to be mad at me for long. I was one of things that I truly appriceated about him.

Quickly I ran out onto the street and around the bend to the grocery store on the corner. I rushed in and out within six minutes (I would have been faster, had the chip-and-pay machine hadn't held me up. John was right; those things must have some sort of evil built into them).

I hurried home as fast as possible, knowing John would have completely forgiven me by the time I made it back. He was the only one I knew who could put up with me so well.

As I reached into my coat pocket fumbling for my keys, a movement above caught my eye. I looked up to see the curtain move. I grinned; John had been looking for me to return. He was surely over this rediculous possessive argument by now. I looked down to take the key in my hands. It was quite small for a key, brass shaped with a retangluar head, and a slim body that went deep into the socket. It had a tag attatched to the end, reading 221 on it. Oddly enough, whenever I thought of home, it was this key that came to mind. Well, after John's face of course.

I had just slipped the key into the lock when suddenly felt this heavy weight on me, weighing me down. I stopped breathing. What's going on... what's happening to me? I looked up to the room, but John had not returned to the window. No one, save the few passerbys in the cars, was there to witness my attack. I knew that none of them would stop to pay attention to a man lying on the ground, this was London after all, it wasn't exactly rare to have drunks lined up on the pavement. I filled up with a rare feeling of fear as I fell to ground, managing one final breath before I blacked out. My vision was already gone as I tried to make one last attempt to call out.

"John..." I manged to whisper. And then I was gone.