When Sherlock woke the next morning, finding himself unceremoniously collapsed on a row of seats outside the hospital ward, he half expected to find Mycroft lying in his own private room of the hospital. What he really found surprised him.
Mycroft was in the main ward, positioned between a man who had obviously gotten the wrong end of a bar brawl, Sherlock deduced that it occured after his girlfriend's husband found out about their Saturday meetings, and a child who had broken his legs after a car crash.
His brother looked rather smaller lying in the hospital bed, his face paler than normal, his torso wrapped in thick bandages, but the wounds still visible by the red blood over each wound.
He looked a lot less imposing in the large hospital bed.
Sherlock began to get suspicious. First, no Anthea, no black car following them as they drove to the hospital in the ambulance, now no private room for a government official. It was almost as if... No that's impossible.
"Hello, Sherlock." Mycroft smiled. Sherlock jumped. He hadn't expected him to be awake.
"Mycroft." Sherlock said, slightly relieved, then he caught himself.
"What's going on, Mycroft?"
"I don't know what you mean, brother mine."
"You knowexactly what I mean, brother mine." Sherlock retorted back, sharply "First no car, then no Anthea and now in a hospital ward with the common public." Sherlock checked off the list "What's going on? Why aren't your 'people' falling over themselves to get this mess cleared up. Why did you have to come to ME to help you with something that your own security team can do ten times as efficiently?"
"Because I don't have a security team anymore, Sherlock." Mycroft snapped. Sherlock tensed, then stood up, smiled at the man in the next bed and pulled across the surgical curtain till they were sectioned off from the rest of the ward. Not the most discrete of talking places, but it was better than nothing.
"What are you talking about, Mycroft?"
Mycroft sighed, wincing slightly at the pain twisting round his abdomen "After the Bond Air fiasco, I was, as you would put it, 'Demoted' in security clearance as a punishment. For a month I have no car, no Anthea, no protection whatsoever."
"Just a month?"
"I will have managed to climb back up the ranks by then." Mycroft explained "But until then, I am completely out in the open, and as luck would have it, someone heard of this turn of events and has hired someone to... 'Take me out'" Mycroft grimanced at the colloquialism "I can't even go to the Diogenes Club for danger of putting other government officials in danger."
"Don't worry about it, Mycroft. John shot him dead just after he shot you."
"They'll hire more." Mycroft told him "ones who probably a little more discrete than shooting me in broad daylight outside my detective brothers flat..."
"I should hope so..." Sherlock said, then caught himself "Sorry, I-"
"I understand, Sherlock." Mycroft smiled slightly.
"Sentiment, Mycroft? Now I know your ill."
"Indeed."
"So where do you suggest I start?"
"You'll help?" Mycroft looked slightly helpful despite his best attempts to look just as cold as normal
"Someone just put three bullets into my brother, of course I'm going to help."
Sherlock stood up, going to leave, but stopped and turned back.
"Oh, by the way, thought you might want this back." He carefully held out a familiar looking umbrella to his brother. His brother took it and held onto the handle habitually, as if it where a life-line, letting a small smile flicker across his face.
"Thank you, Sherlock."
He was in his house. Not 221B. His childhood home. He was in his room, habitually neat, just as Mycroft always wanted him to keep it.
Mycroft.
There he was now, sitting on the bed, looking away from him towards the window. He was shuddering. Sherlock took a step forward, a childish, almost primal urge to get to his brother.
All of a sudden, Mycroft vanished and Sherlock found himself stood in the drawing room, staring up at his father.
He was angry, too angry. He looked down and saw a pile of glass. He'd dropped his fathers whiskey decanter.
"You good for nothing wretch!" His father screamed, the stench of alcohol on his breath, "I'll get you for this!"
There was a smash. Glass. Father. A flash of cloth, a scream.
Not his own.
Sherlock tore open his eyes, sitting up slightly. His breathing was fast and sharp, like he had been running.
He was in his room. 221B. He could hear John moving in his sleep next door. Light was peeking through the curtains, he deduced it was around five o'clock in the morning.
Sherlock seldom slept while on a case, and therefore seldom dreamed. On the rare occasion when he did, he was often so into the case he simply found himself dreaming about the case itself.
He didn't understand. What was that? Was it a memory? He couldn't recall it ever happening. All he knew was that he didn't sleep for the rest of the night.