AUTHOR'S FIFTH NOTE

First of all, I'm so terribly sorry for the delay of this chapter and the continuation of the story. Deadline for my master's thesis was in May and it absolutely destroyed me. After that I had to spend time preparing to defend it at the final seminar. I must say that I did well though and I got the grade that I wanted, so I'm giving myself a high five. Now I'm back to my fiction writing and I'm just as ambitious with my research for it as I am with my studies. Actually, I'm in London right now visiting a fellow Sherlock fangirl, even though I'm from a different country. Today I walked parts of the route I'm imagining that Sherlock and John take in this fic. That is a bit extra, even for being me but it was awesome.

Please enjoy the continuation of the story!

Chapter three

UNIVERSITY MEMORIES

Well, to be fair, from what I had learned during the last few months, the sight in front of me wasn't one I had expected to see any time soon. I continued staring fascinated at the two men until Victor Trevor smiled and took his hand from my friend's shoulder. Sherlock raised his own and after a long handshake, Victor headed back to his wife. He waved visibly in my direction as they left and I waved back, all while hearing our landlady finally giving up on trying to reach through to me on the phone. I wasn't too worried when she hung up. There was definitely chance that she might forgive me later when I told her about the afternoons events. Something made me suspect that she would be rather interested.

Sherlock gazed after the couple for another moment before turning around and walking back in the direction of the asphalt path. I stood waiting for him and watched him closely as he approached me. He looked straight ahead, his face blank and unreadable and joined my side without uttering a word or giving a glance in my direction. The silence continued as we resumed our walk through the park in the afternoon sunlight.

"He seemed like a nice bloke." I finally said.

"You sound surprised." Sherlock answered, still looking ahead of him.

"Well, just surprised at the way he greeted you."

My friend frowned.

"How should he have greeted me?"

"I don't know. From experience, most likely with a right hook."

Sherlock glared at me momentarily and rolled his eyes violently. I smiled, folded my hands behind my back. As the subject was now already addressed, I decided to push my luck.

"You've never told me what you studied at uni, or how it was."

"You never asked."

"Well, I'm asking now."

Sherlock glanced at me from the corner of his eye, his manner reserved and sceptical. To him, I guess my curiosity seemed as unreasonable as any other detail about his life that didn't involve his work. However, after a moment he changed his focus back to the path before us. He put his hands into his pockets and his features seemed to relax.

"I studied practical chemistry for two years." he began. "One of the few subjects I found tolerable to actually study together with other people. The possibilities of its value for my work compensated for the negative aspects in this case. Victor was studying computer engineering but took, for some incredibly stupid reason, a chemistry course which made us end up in the same class. He was absolutely terrible at it and once miscalculated gravely on an experiment during a lesson. I happened to stand too close."

Sherlock pulled up his shirt sleeve a bit further and showed me a very faint scar which covered part of the back of his lower arm. It was clearly the result of a burn wound from some sort of corrosive acid.

"I hope you were hospitalised for that."

"I was. Put on observation for three days. Already on the first, Victor came asking for me. Have to admit I was slightly surprised. I hadn't thought him to have any particularly interesting qualities and he hadn't paid any significant attention to me either. After this incident happened, I frankly considered him just another moron."

"How unusual." I muttered loudly while having to stop for a young boy running straight over the path in front of us together with a large dog.

"But Victor kept visiting, being around for at least an hour each day." Sherlock continued, looking slowly after the happy pair screaming with laugher and loud barking as they played with each other. "Obviously it was to relieve his guilt-ridden conscience but our conversations actually became lengthier for each time. As it turned out, he was one of few people in my year that wasn't a complete idiot, having other fine qualities which weighed up for his terrible understanding of chemistry. Even though his constant talk about 'Middle Earth' and some creature he called 'Bilbo Baggins', we also bonded over the fact that he had no more friends than I had. Victor was from the beginning also quite fascinated by my 'Professor X skills', as he for some reason called my deductions, insisting that I would take it as a compliment. It was in any case something of a new experience for me."

I looked at my friend after this first recollection of his university years. His face was however as firm and blank as ever. Mine must have been much more telling, with sympathy for what he had told me about himself coming through stronger than I thought it did. Sherlock sighed loudly, clearly becoming tired of what he found was my all too loud thoughts but continued speaking just as calmly as before.

"After I returned to campus, we actually became quite good friends, the only friend I made during those years. Apart from his studies, Victor spent his free time reading, writing and building software. He also had quite impressive skills in system hacking, a hobby he was less public about than the others. Well, his skills and my logic turned out to be an exceptionally effective combination for this purpose and when we had nothing to do, we entertained ourselves by hacking MI6's security systems from time to time. My brother wasn't too pleased about it."

"Yeah, I can imagine." I assured, picturing Mycroft's stern facade of a face, hiding that he probably screamed internally with frustration when he had received another report of security break. I tried not to laugh but failed anyway.

"Victor was in the same class as you and Sebastian then?"

"Same 'class' is a very generous phrase to use when speaking about Sebastian Wilkes, even in that respect." Sherlock scoffed contemptuously. "Sebastian took an independent course in political science that Mycroft forced me to study, which is how he knew me but he never knew or spoke to Victor."

I furrowed my eyebrows in genuine confusion.

"Why would Mycroft force you to do political science?"

"Oh, back then he was still having his hopes that I could become a potentially important future asset to the British government." Sherlock explained casually.

"Well, he wasn't completely wrong about that."

"I made sure he was."

I turned my head slowly and my eyes fixed on Sherlock. He was now having a strangely content smirk on his face.

"You failed the class?"

His smile widened.

"I did. Gravely. The teacher almost had me expelled."

My frown deepened.

"You failed a university course because you wanted to prove your brother wrong?"

"I failed it because I had no use for it. That it annoyed my brother was a fortunate bonus."

Leaving the green of Hyde Park behind us for the usual grey pavement, we walked past a woman who tried to separate and talk sense into two young girls. Same clothes and the same features; sisters, and they really looked like they wanted to claw each other's eyes out.

I raised my eyebrows. Because I had never gotten along with my own sister, I thought I knew fairly well how complex relationships with siblings could be. Well, that was before I met the Holmes brothers. Should I really be surprised by Mycroft's intentions by forcing his little brother to study, or how Sherlock chose to have his revenge by refusing by all means? Knowledge was power and the Holmes brothers had turned their infinite banks of knowledge into powerful tools to terrorise the other with ever since they were just kids. Thinking about it, I was probably just lucky to still be alive, considering all the times I had been meddling between the two geniuses and standing right in the firing zone. They were so different and still so similar. Both the calm and the storm; both trying to adapt to a world that wasn't fit for any of them. From my experiences, one of them was better at least at disguising that he was adapting to his surroundings. Let's just say that this brother wasn't the one I was living with.

"But you didn't stay in contact?" I continued asking, changing back the subject. "After uni, I mean. You and Victor?"

Sherlock sent me another look as he pushed the signal button for a pedestrian crossing leading onto Bayswater Road.

"No."

"Why?"

"It was complicated."

I pursed my lips as we crossed the street, feeling my curiosity growing wild again.

"Complicated?"

"With his father."

"He didn't approve of you two?"

Sherlock closed his eyes. Again, a smile spread across his face.

"Do you know what is the most common mistake people do when they think they're close to solving a mystery?"

"They become too eager?" I replied confidently.

"Yes." he confirmed. "Too eager and blinded by their confidence in their abilities. It's foolish and very human. Because it makes them–"

At the same moment, realisation hit me.

"Jump to conclusions too quickly..." I sighed.

Sherlock snickered.

"Exactly, John."

I fell quiet and looked away, for a short moment wanting to disappear. Of course, I had let my all too obvious curiosity rule my conclusions. God, who was now the one acting like a teenager?

Sherlock said nothing more and his smile faded. I guessed he probably lost the motivation to tell me more as I was obviously high on gossip, but maybe he simply didn't found it worth lingering on the subject. He might be rude, throwing insults everywhere around him about people's intelligence but most times he didn't hold a grudge for long. His lack of any moral opinions also had its positive sides when thinking about it. It meant of course that he didn't see the reason for bothering about people's feelings at all but it also made him refreshingly free from judgement. To him it was all just data.

"You weren't completely wrong."

My friend's words released me from some of my shame and I gazed back at him.

"Though maybe not in the way you think."

"How then?"

Sherlock raised his chin.

"It's quite a long story." he said deeply.

"I got time."

Breathing deeply, Sherlock closed his eyes again against the sunlight. Maybe he activated his mind palace, trying to find the memories he hadn't deleted from his 'hard drive'? Maybe he simply tried to process memories he hadn't thought about in a long time? When he opened his eyes again, he seemed to have found them. He began to speak and I listened.

AUTHOR'S SIXTH NOTE

So now we know a bit more about Victor but not everything. A bit of a cliff hanger here too then. What do you thing about my characterisation of Victor? I have imagined something of a "nerd" but also, I just wanted to give Sherlock someone to hack systems with on equal terms. What did you think of the chapter in general? I have studied at British universities recently but please do Brit-pick if you find any mistakes! I hope the chapter was worth the wait! Please Follow & Favourite and Comment!