Chapter 1: Love letter
Set the scene. Imagine being alone in a dark room. The kind of dark where closing your eyes to keep out the fear makes no difference no matter how hard you would want it to. Imagine cold air hitting you at all sides to the point where both fingers and toes had become numb and immovable. There is nothing to see, nothing to deduce, in the dark, naked as a newborn and inside a parameter soundless as an unmanned tree crashing with out a timber. The hours passing that feel like centuries drag without guidance and it becomes slow torture. Imagine the sound of someone entering with sinister intentions as a relief from being left in the dark. Someone has come to hurt you, but you feel happy because it is something to remind you that you are still alive. Something to deduce, something different to fear than the nothingness.
What a tragic thought, a lost fear, something denied to memory countless times by many, voluntary or not. That one memory that haunts the soul of a damaged human being can be hidden with denial, multiple personalities, and amnesia... for a normal damaged human being that is. But, Sherlock Holmes is not normal human being. He is not an angel that can deal with emotions in phycological ways unknown. Though useless to him, he remembers his time of captivity much to his dismay.
As much as he tries to discard of the distracting pain his mind palace refuses to let it go, those hours of hell. He will wake up in the middle of the night and turn on his bedside lamp to illuminate a blinding dark. If it becomes too silent he will pick up his beloved violin and play a violent yet melodious tune to awaken himself. The elixirs he has chosen to save himself from reliving that horrible time are temporary and become less credible each time they are used.
His flat mate, John Watson is still in the dark about Sherlock's traumatic experience. However that does not make John Watson a horrible person for not picking up the red flags. If anything, Sherlock is an excellent actor, pretending as if the sleepless nights do not bother him and pretending that the near tears expression he occasionally has is just a trick of the light. Each day that passes, he feels himself getting closer to his John, he fully trusts him but he shields himself as well. He hides. Sherlock hides and hides, not wanting to seem weak to any man and John thought nothing of it at the start. But, after another night of hearing him wake up screaming, John's concern buds.
He asks, "Was it a nightmare?" The awkward pop of conversation startles Sherlock, all this time he has been sitting quietly, tightening his violin strings and hadn't noticed that John had been sitting across from him for quite some time. It is a summer morning on 221B Baker street and the smell of burnt toast and orange juice pulp still hang limply and waft with the air from the open window. John waits patiently for Sherlock to answer, his budding concern turns to a bloom with Sherlock's brief moment of hesitation and suddenly wide eyes.
"Yes, you could say that. But, its no bother to me. Simple brain chemistry not even I can avoid." Sherlock puts his violin down and plunges into deep thought, his way of changing the subject. John, is unconvinced yet gets up to leave anyway, him being late for his new job at a small clinic, something to help pay the bills. And as John grabs his wallet and heads for the door for a daily grind he doesn't particularly prefer when compared to watching Sherlock do what he does best: make life exciting, he wonders what a person like Sherlock is afraid of.
John is well aware that although extremely smart, his flat mate is still human. 'He must have some fears. What do machine men dream of?' He feels so consumed with the idea he can help himself and asks, "What was your nightmare about?" Sherlock doesn't seem to hear him. John hates it when he goes into thought like that, ignoring exterior forces. He simply rolls his eyes and just as he touches the door knob, Sherlock abruptly answers.
"It was about being within nothing," John let out a sigh at the pretentious sounding response.
"I'll be back by 16:00, try not to put too many dead bodies in the fridge." With that the doctor leaves. Sherlock sneers a bit at the door that John had used, thinking, 'thats ridiculous, I can't fit a whole body with the size of that fridge... only appendages.' He also feels put off at how his friend didn't read between the lines of his statement about his nightmare. When he said being within nothing, that nothing is what he fears. To be in a state where he is the stupid one, to be in complete darkness where he can deduce nothing, not being able to predict what will happen next. Sherlock doesn't think too low of John though for not picking that up. He knows that that is just how the ordinary think, thats how their minds work. As the bell tower not far off signals the hour of 8:00, he hears John from outside calling a taxi.
Without thinking Sherlock nonchalantly shouts, "Get milk on your way back," towards the open window. He thinks John replies but the sound of morning traffic drowns him out and so Sherlock is left to infer. John has good ears, so he guesses he got the message.
He remembers the tightly wound violin in his arms and begins to play Gymnopedie No. 1 at double time.
"Sweet little Sherlock... are you afraid of the dark?"
A harsh flat note brings an end to the classic and the instrument lowers from his shoulder instantly, accompanied with a small violent gasp and a vacant stare. There it is again. The memory persistent to stay one step behind every one of his thoughts. Out of the whole experience, that line haunts him most of all. The cliche so simple and harmless as 'afraid of the dark' was uttered by that person with such a tone, it still sends him into a horrible anxiety.
He feels his hands quake without instructing them to do so and curses under his breath for loosing focus on his memory repression. He wants that time of his life gone forever. It was horrible and hellish, yet that was not why he wanted it gone so much. For he cares nothing for self pity or disturbed nostalgia, he wants it gone because its a distraction to his work. He considers himself married to his work and this constant intrusion of what happened ages ago needed to go.
Already he wained down the experience considerably, pushing down the details like what exactly happened. He know he was held captive, it was cold, dark, he had no clothing, and the person that abducted him put him through a form of extreme pain, though he can't recall which kind. It wasn't denial or amnesia that caused this missing puzzle piece, it was simple as being put on extensive drugs when in captivity causing a jigsaw puzzle of recollection. It wasn't the memory itself that bothered him, instead that it had happened to him. The fact of the experience is enough of a nuisance. That pain and terrified feeling of uncertainty of the nothing is a useless to him and he is more than eager to put to rest.
He looks at the clock. 8:30... quite a drifting train of thought to be sitting in one place for so long without realizing. As he contemplates whether to try his frozen eye lid experiment or some basic DNA comparison to kill some time, he hears none other then his dear land lady Mrs. Hudson coming up the stairs.
"Sherlock," she says in her normal motherly voice "your mail has been building up at the door you know. Its starting to make a pile." Sherlock gets up from his seat and steps over to her. She holds an enormous pile of junk mail and advertisements in her hands.
He doesn't bother to relive her of them as he simply puts it, "Its of no use as far as I know. All my clients write by e-mail and John sorts out the bills." He picks up one that leaped from the women's arm and focuses on the small print words below the alarmingly red words: Win a Getaway Trip! Obviously intended for those who look but don't observe the fine print about having to spend 900 pounds to enter, little chance of winning. "Throw them out will you?"
"Not your housekeeper," She says plainly, yet exits with them in arm, quite a few dropping to the floor like deflated multi colored leaves. Sherlock sighs in an annoyed way and picks them up lazily. He really wants to start that experiment the more he thinks about it. He sees the usual junk mail and catalogs however one out of the bunch catches his eyes. A thick piece of paper, slightly damp. It came in days ago because it hadn't rained in quite some time.
There are no obnoxious labels or brand names on it, in fact the paper's handwriting is so small if it stayed any longer in the rain, the words would be unrecognizable. What stands out to him are the initials stroked on in very expensive looking coal black ink. Delicately hand written in wavy broad stroked letters, it glints mysteriously past the layer of dirty water that covers it, they are the letters: JM. He flips it over and reads the inscription.
I know your little secret from your past.
Being trapped in that tiny room was fun wasn't it?
You know which one I mean.
Lets talk about it.
Come and find me, Sherlock.
Underneath the text is a series of 'x's to symbolize kisses, that doesn't shock him though, he expected no less from Jim. It is the letter's words that disturb him. He tries not to waver as it sinks in. The spider knows. Sherlock doesn't take his eyes off the sick parody of a love letter. He thinks back to that time, feeling no other choice. How could anyone outside the kidnapper know about that time? The man got away and the investigation turned up nothing, not to mention he was only 14 at the time and didn't even know that Jim Moriarty existed then and he was pretty confident that its the same vice versa. At least he used to think that.
It couldn't have been any other instance though, he has many different secrets from his childhood but its the line about trapped in the tiny room that gets him. Sherlock realizes that Jim knows something about that, something he himself is unaware of. He sets it down on the table, still in a blank shock as he traces the initials with his fingers and mumbles, "come and find you? I'll do just that."
Without another second to think about the consequences this decision would inevitably lead to, he gets out a small slip of scratch paper to leave a note for John. The last thing he wants is for get him involved in this, although Jim's letter didn't say come alone, bringing John along would be a danger to the both of them. After scrawling down a semi convincing ramble about being out of light bulbs and having to get more he sets it down on John's chair and hopes that he'll buy it.
Sherlock makes the decision that putting on his signature coat and scarf on a warm summer day will not be ideal in weather hot enough to melt butter now that the wind has died out, so he decides against it, wearing nothing more than his usual button up shirt and black trousers. Before leaving, Sherlock goes to John's room and grabs his gun from the not very cleverly hidden stash box, putting it up under his shirt, the back of his belt and departs.
He thinks of Moriarty and why he'd do this. If he knows something that could be used as either a form of leverage or an upper hand, why bring it up now of all times after all these years? The notion is random at best but then again Jim isn't one to be mentally sound or even logical when it comes to timing. He leaves Jim's letter behind because he doesn't need it. He instantly recognized the traces of his whereabouts that Jim left for him on purpose, even with a portion of it swept away by rain he knows exactly where he is going. He calls for a taxi on the curb and slides into the back seat, instructing the man driving of his wanted destination, "The Savoy."