A/n: Just a little idea I had about why Sherlock really doesn't know anything about the solar system even though he appreciates the beauty of the stars and wanted to be a pirate as a child. This story was started under another title, but i have made changed and revised what the course of this story is going to be. I've also deleted the old version. I just could not get it to work for me!
Chapter 1
It started soon after The Woman disappeared. John developed a strong curiosity about how such a brilliant man could not know anything about the solar system. This curiosity also led him to wonder what kind of childhood Sherlock had that he had never absorbed those basic facts. John had it ingrained in his mind that the Earth moved around the sun and he was convinced there were nine planets even though Pluto had recently been disqualified as a planet. Even a few basic constellations were part of his very basic education about space. Even so, the man that knew about over 240 types of tobacco ash couldn't distinguish one planet from another let along find constellations.
The first night it really occurred to him was when John was awake after a particular bad set of dream about dying and the war. He was watching telly around 3am after he had given up on sleep for the night. John flipped through a few channels trying to decide what to watch. He had fallen asleep twice while reading in bed and succeeded in waking up drenched in sweat each time he did. Crap telly was even worse at 3am. This had happened more than once since he had been back and usually when he couldn't sleep Sherlock had a cup of tea sitting on the table when he came downstairs. Either Sherlock could deduce when John wouldn't be able to sleep or he heard him shouting from downstairs. John still was unsure which it was. Either way the company usually comforted him enough that he would doze off after he drank tea and watched Sherlock puzzle out cases and think. Tonight though, he was alone. It was a rare occasion for Sherlock was passed out upstairs after spending almost three straight days awake trying to solve a case that involved cake, dogs and dead men.
He scrolled through dozens of channels full of ads, bad music and reality shows. There was a documentary about pirates on which he settled on because nothing else caught his interest. As he watched, he remembered Mycroft's reference to Sherlock wanting to be a pirate as a child. John had to chuckle when he thought of a small version of Sherlock running around with an eye patch and a wooden sword. The longer John watched the more questions he had about Sherlock.
The program droned on about how in the past pirates used constellations to guide their journeys around the globe. They had instruments that could help them, but their knowledge of the stars was helpful in several ways. His flatmate outright admitted he didn't know the Earth orbited around the Sun, which had actually been important in sailing, and he told John he had very little knowledge of the heavens in general. John found this a bit off. If Sherlock was interested in something, he absorbed as much about the subject as he could before there was another case or something to distract him. Obviously as a child he had held an interest in pirates and he probably spent all his waking hours, and the ones meant for sleeping, learning about pirates, privateers and ship navigation. He doubted Sherlock had many cases to solve as a child in primary school.
His flatmate was not someone who shared much about his life, but John had gathered bits and pieces of information along the way to suggest that Sherlock's was not a happy childhood. Sally Donovan's insults were mild compared to what children could come up with to hurt someone who was different. John suspected Sherlock had spent a lot of his time alone honing his deduction skills and learning about the things that interested him rather than playing in the school yard with other children. If Sherlock wanted to be a pirate, he would have learned everything there was no know about pirates so he could be an accurate representation and John assumed Sherlock had learned skills to make his childhood self a convincing pirate. So why didn't Sherlock learn about the solar system? Why was all that knowledge deleted?
Somehow, despite no Sherlock and no tea, John managed to nod off just before dawn. Sherlock had already gone out when he woke up several hours later. John tucked the questions into the back of his mind and decided to find time to ask. He had a feeling there was more to this story than just storage space.
A/n: Input always appreciated.