Two Months Later

Everything Sherlock did was mechanical. He did it automatically, his mind completely somewhere else. But all that happened in that huge, complicated mind of his was a dark idea growing:

Why would they do this to me if they weren't right? Maybe they are... Maybe I am a fraud.

The depression took up more and more space, pushing away all the sense of logic and right in him, making him truly believe he was a criminal, and that he deserved all this. If someone were to open his grey leather notebook, the first twenty-five pages or so would be drawings of pretty much any object that would pop into their minds, but then they would only find scribbles in an almost unreadable handwriting, all saying "I AM GUILTY."

Because he was guilty, or at least he deeply believed that. He spent restless nights and days when he barely moved an inch. His eyes, which used to be so vivid and focused, were now empty and dull. His mouth, always straight, never quivered or twitched into a smile or even a frown. Doing nothing for five months, knowing that there was no hope for anything better, had just completely broken him. He simply needed something to do!

This wasn't just imprisonment; this was pure torture.

And that was why he believed it: because he couldn't imagine the world being so cruel without any good reason.

One day, he thought it was a Monday, but Saturday or Wednesday seemed possible too, Sherlock was lying in bed mumbling some incoherent sentences into his uncomfortable cushion while the radio was on. He couldn't remember why it was on, but he couldn't be bothered to get up and turn it off. The voices in his head were drowning out all the sound it was making anyways. He was completely sealed off from the rest of the world; nothing from outside could reach him anymore.

Except for one thing.

"Sherlock Holmes wasn't a fake."

There was much more to it, but that was all he heard. Sherlock's eyes ripped open and he frantically turned around and sat up to listen to where this was coming from. He looked at the radio and couldn't believe what he was hearing. John was on the radio.

John hadn't visited Sherlock since he'd told him not to anymore, and somehow, his isolation had made him completely forget about him. Sherlock was so depressed that he'd forgotten his happy life before. He was in such shock that he couldn't hear the rest of the interview, but at some point he managed to catch a couple words:

"...Possible?"

"...friend...innocent."

"...do...know?"

"...just do."

"...planning...do?"

"Get...out."

"How..."

"Don't..."

Only the last sentence fully reached him:

"He isn't a fraud, he isn't guilty and I will do my all to get him out."

Sherlock was excited, thrilled, even overwhelmed when he heard that. Just hearing someone else, someone he completely trusted, one of the very few people he cared for say that no, he wasn't a fraud. And somehow that brought back everything, his logic, his common sense, his knowledge... Sherlock felt infinitely relieved for a minute, feeling himself take control of himself again.

He jumped up joyfully and hit his desk with his leg. Suddenly he remembered the size of the room he was in, and he realized that his problems were far from over.

Sherlock pursed his lips and sat down on the chair in front of the desk. He closed his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could on trying to solve the problem. He wouldn't be able to get any proof of his newly rediscovered innocence locked up here, and he couldn't contact anyone. That meant there was only one option left: Prison breakout.

Sherlock immediately reached for his notebook in his pocket and searched for the first blank page. He opened it and took the pen, writing down every idea that popped into his head about how he could pull it off. He smirked, as for the first time in his entire five months of being at Pentonville, he wasn't bored at all.