"It's too much," she says finally, the words no match for the noise in her head. She's not sure he'll understand, but if anyone could, it's him.
"What is?"
She struggles with the words, mulling over something complicated, before finally settling on something simple, but so very accurate in all the most painful ways.
"The world."
"Oh god," Sherlock says quietly.
"What?"
"You're just like me." He sounds sad when he says it, like he would have wished for anything else in the world for her.
"What's wrong with that?"
He looks at her, and she stares back at him. "It may seem like a blessing to some, to be gifted with such... genius. Perception, memory, senses. But it's not. The world is too much when you take it all in. It just needs to... slow down."
He clasped his hands under his chin and sank back into the couch, his eyes closed.
"You think I'm like you," she said skeptically.
Sherlock sighed. "I hope not. I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
He cracked an eye open.
"When you were younger, you told me you wanted to be like me when you grew up." He smiled with a certain fondness. "I told you that growing up was overrated. But you did, didn't you?" he sighed. "You grew up, and you're just like me, and it hurts, doesn't it? The world hurts."
She focused on a point across the room, unable to look at him any longer.
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes it does."
The world was too much, so much, and she wanted to breathe it all in, fill her hands and mind with it, but it kept slipping through her grasp, leaving her without air, and only reminding her of how much she was still missing. That no matter how much she saw or tasted or touched or knew, it would still never be enough.
So why bother?
She supposed that was the thing. If she couldn't do it all, then she didn't want to do it. If she couldn't be the best, she couldn't be bothered.
Oh god she was just like him.
"How do you cope?" she asked him.
He glanced at her. "My methods weren't the best," he commented wryly. "I became rather fond of drugs. They had a remarkable ability to calm the noise."
She cocked her head at him. "True. I've never thought of that."
"Don't," he said sharply. "Your father would kill me. And you. Both of us. Perhaps multiple times. That's the problem with him being a doctor, he'd know how to do it." He smiled to himself. "He knows how to sprain people."
"What?"
He shook his head. "Just something from a long time ago. I suppose you've never seen that part of your father."
She shook her head.
"He was careful. He didn't want that life for his daughter. He was addicted to danger and dangerous people, and would have done anything to keep you from that." He smiled and shook his head. "And look how that turned out..."
He sounded wistful.
"I can be whoever I want," she retorted.
"Oh Anna," he sighed. "I was there when you were born. You and your mother both nearly died. You were a risk taker right from the start."
She was startled. "No one told me that."
Sherlock frowned. "Oh. Well, I suppose it's not really a secret, but it was hard for them to talk about. I've never seen your father more destroyed."
Except perhaps once, he continued, but the words were unspoken.
"Your father both loved and hated the dangerous lifestyle. He thought he'd gotten away from that after I was gone and he married your mother."
She smirked. "But you came back, and he found out the truth about her."
He shrugged. "For the best, I suppose. He only made it a month living a suburban lifestyle before he beat up a junkie."
She snorted. "He did what?"
"That's the spraining thing I mentioned earlier."
He sighed.
"He was so angry when he found out what your mother was. So very angry. At me, at her, at the world. Probably even at himself. I pointed out that he chose her. He saw something hidden away, and he still chose her, married her. He was so angry about that. I'm not sure where the anger was directed, but I was the one speaking, so it sort of... came out at me. And a table." He sighed again. "It really wasn't the most opportune time to discuss his attraction to dangerous situations and people, considering what he'd just found out, and the fact that I'd skipped out of hospital."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "What was that now?"
"Not important."
He straightened up.
"What I'm trying to say Anna, is that danger is written into your DNA. You can't escape it. I'd hope you could have escaped my..." he waved his hand in the air, "Curse... thing, but apparently not. But to have the two of them together..." he shook his head. "It can either be incredibly magnificent or incredibly dangerous."