The Hounds of Baskerville

The next day, John had been telling Tory about Louise Mortimer, she'd cracked up laughing when his "date" had been ruined when one of the men from Baskerville had interrupted. The two of them walked, along the pavement.

"So she just got up and walked off?" Tory asked.

"Yeah" John nodded "Tried to get what little information I could, but barely got nothing"

"Are you sure it was just information you wanted? And not because you wanted a date?"

"Well" John trailed off and Tory laughed.

"Don't worry John, she's out there somewhere" Tory said with a smile "The one you'll marry is out there"

John scoffed "Hm"

"She is" Tory said as they walked into the graveyard. "Have you seen.."

"No" He said shaking his head "Have you?"

"Nope" Tory said with a shrug "Don't know where he is"

"So that morse code was rubbish then" John said.

Tory laughed at the memory of the night before "Of course it was, those two in that car was ridiculous" She said "Don't worry anybody with our brains would have thought the same"

The two of them sat down, Tory rubbing her hands together and chewing her lip, as John pulled his notebook out, and began looking through it, that was when they heard the footsteps approaching them. Both looked up and seen Sherlock.

"Did you, er, get anywhere with that Morse code?" Sherlock asked.

John stepped down and Tory rubbed a hand over her face "No" John said and he began walking.

"John" Tory sighed, following after him.

"U,M,Q,R,A, wasn't it?" Sherlock asked behind them. John kept walking, Tory catching up to him "UMQRA"

"Nothing" John said

"U.M.Q..." Sherlock began.

"It's nothing Sherlock, we got it wrong" Tory said.

"Sure?" Sherlock asked.

"yeah" John said, tightly.

"How about Louise Mortimer? Did you get anywhere with her?" Sherlock asked.

"No"

"Too bad, did you get any information?" Sherlock said.

Tory looked away to hide the smile, and John even smiled a little too "You being funny now?"

"Thought it might break the ice a bit" Sherlock said.

"Funny doesn't suit you, I'd stick to ice" John said and Tory sighed.

"John...Tory.."

"It's fine" John said shaking his head a bit.

"No, wait" Sherlock said "What happened last night...Something happened to me; something I've not experienced before.."

"You were afraid Sherlock" Tory said "Sherlock Holmes was afraid"

Sherlock caught not only John's arm, but Tory's and he stopped them "No, no, no, it was more than that. It was doubt, I felt doubt. I've always been able to trust my senses, the evidence of my own eyes, until last night"

"You can't actually believe that you saw some kind of monster" John said.

"No I can't believe that" He said "But I did see it, so the question is how; how?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes. Yeah, right, good. So you've got something to go on, then? Good luck with that" John said and Tory had already started walking, John too.

"Listen, what I said before, both of you. I meant it" Sherlock said.

"That's...really nice, Sherlock. Thank you for clearing it up" Tory said, and kept walking as John stopped, and turned to look at Sherlock.

"I don't have friends" He said "I've got two" John turned again and began walking "John? Tory?!" He said "Both of you!" He began chasing after them. "You are amazing, you are fantastic!"

"Yes, all right! You don't have to over do it" John said and Tory smirked, still a bit ahead of the two of them.

"Neither of you have been the most luminous of people, but as conducters of light, you are unbeatable" Sherlock said.

"Cheers...what?" John asked.

"Some people who aren't geniuses have an amazing ability to stimulate it in others"

"Hang on, you were saying "sorry" a minute ago. Don't spoil it. Go on; What have we done that's so bloody stimulating?" John asked.

Tory had stopped outside the pub, and noticed Lestrade and she smiled, and went in, as John and Sherlock stopped outside.

"Hello, Greg" She said.

"Tory" He grinned back at her.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" A voice asked and both turned to see Sherlock.

"Well, nice to see you too! I'm on holiday would you believe?" Lestrade said.

"No I wouldn't" Sherlock said.

"Hullo John" Lestrade said, taking his sunglasses off.

"Greg!" John grinned.

"I heard you were in the area. What are you up to? You after this hound of hell like on the telly?" Lestrade asked.

"I'm waiting for an explanation, Inspector. Why are you here?" Sherlock demanded.

"I've told you: I'm on Holiday"

"You're brown as a nut. You're clearly just back from "holidays" Sherlock said.

"Yeah, well I fancied another one" Lestrade said.

"Oh, this is Mycroft isn't it?"

"No, look..." Lestrade began.

"Of course it is! One mention of Baskerville and he sends down my handler to...to spy on me incgonito. Is that why you're calling yourself Greg?" Sherlock asked.

"That's his name" John said.

Sherlock frowned "Is it?"

"Yes Sherlock" Tory said rubbing a hand over her face.

"Yes, if you'd ever bothered to find out. Look, I'm not your handler" Lestrade said, he turned to pick up his pint "And I don't just do what your brother tells me"

"Actually, you could be just the man we want" John said.

"Why?" Sherlock asked.

"Well, I've not been idle, Sherlock" John said as he rummaged around in his pocket "I think I might have found something" He showed them the slip "Here. Didn't know if it was relevant; starting to look like it might be. This is an awful lot of meat for a vegetarian restaurant"

"Excellent" Sherlock said.

John looked to Lestrade said "Nice scary inspector from Scotland Yard who can put in a few calls might come in very handy"

"Yes because this would be boring without our favorite Inspector" Tory grinned, Lestrade smiled at her and John rang the bell on top of the counter.

"Shop!"

Later, while Lestrade was sitting at a table, looking through paperwork, sitting in front of Gary and Billy, who were looking at him anxiously. Sherlock poured two cups of coffee, putting sugar in them, stirring them and then picked the cups up, taking them over to both Tory and John who were standing talking about something. They looked at him.

"What's this?" John asked.

"Coffee, I made coffee" Sherlock said.

"I didn't think you could even make coffee" Tory said.

"I just did. Do you want it?" Sherlock asked.

"You don't have to keep apologising" John said.

A hurt expression crossed Sherlock's face, and John looked to Tory who shrugged, the two of them taking the cups from him.

"Thanks" John said.

"Thank you" Tory smiled.

John took a drink, and grimaced "Mm. I don't take sugar" John said. The hurt expression crossed Sherlock's face and Tory noticed, he looked like a puppy who'd been told off and Tory nudged John, who looked as if he'd been forced to take another drink.

"These records go back nearly two months" Lestrade said.

Grimacing at the taste, John put the cup into the saucer "That's nice. That's good" He said as he put the cup down.

"Is that when you had the idea, after the TV show went out?" Lestrade asked.

"It's me" Billy said "It was me, I'm sorry Gary, I couldn't help it. I had a bacon sandwich at Cal's wedding and one thing just led to another..."

Sherlock grinned behind them and Lestrade stared at them "Nice try"

"Look, we were just trying to give things a bit of a boost, you know? A great big dog run wild dog run wild up on the moor. It was heaven sent. It was like us having our own Lochness Monster"

"Where do you keep it?" Lestrade asked.

"There's an old mine shaft. It's not too far. It was all right there" Gary said.

"Was?" Sherlock asked.

"We couldn't control the bloody thing. It was vicious, and then a month ago, Billy took him to the bet and, er...you know"

"It's dead?" John asked.

"Put down" Gary said.

"Yeah. No choice. So it's over" Billy said.

"It was a joke, you know?" Gary asked.

"Yeah, hilarious" Lestrade said as he got up, staring at them angrily "You've nearly driven a man out of his mind" He turned and walked out, Tory finishing the last of her coffee, before heading out of the pub too, behind Lestrade said.

"You know, he's actually happy you're here" Tory said and he gave her a disbelieving look "Okay, secretly pleased, then"

"Is he? That's nice. I suppose he likes having all the same faces back together. Appeals to his...his..."

"Asperger's" John asked, as they stopped. Sherlock followed them, out, and heard John's last words, glowering at him.

"So you believe him about having the dog destroyed?" Lestrade asked.

"No reason not to" Sherlock said.

"Well hopefully there's no harm done" Lestrade said "Not quite sure what I'd charge them with anyway. I'll have a word with the local Force" he said and he nodded at them "Right, that's that, then. Catch you later" He smiled "I'm enjoying this, It's nice to get London out of your lungs" he said as he walked off.

"So that was their dog that people saw out on the moor?" John asked turning to Sherlock.

"Looks like it" Sherlock said.

"But it's not the one you saw" Tory said "Not just an ordinary dog, was it?"

"No" He said, his gaze becoming distant. "It was immense, had burning red eyes and it was glowing. Its whole body was glowing" He shuddered, shaking of the memory. "I've got a theory but I need to get back into Baskerville to test it"

"How? Can't pull of the ID trick again" John said.

"ID trick?" Tory asked.

"He pretended to be Mycroft" John said.

"Oh, right"

"Might not have to" Sherlock said, as he pulled his phone out and put it to his ear. "Hello, brother dear. How are you?"

The big land rover stopped outside the gates "Afternoon, sir. If you could turn the engine off" One of the guards said, Sherlock handed over his ID and turned the engine off. "Thank you" He went over to the gate and swiped the card, as one of the other soldiers checked the vehicle over from the outside.

"I need to see Major Barrymore as soon as we get inside" Sherlock whispered.

"Right" John said and Tory nodded.

"Which means you two will have to start the search for the hound" He said.

"Okay" John said.

"In the labs; Stapleton's first" The guard brought the ID over to Sherlock "Could be dangerous" Sherlock whispered, and both Tory and John smiled.

"I need to go find a bathroom somewhere, there has to be one somewhere" John muttered to himself.

"Go, then I'll get you in there" Tory nodded, and John walked off as she got into the lift.

The doors to the lift opened and Tory walked into the lab, and looked around, noticing that the two scientists walked out of the other door, and the main lights switched off.

"Well that isn't odd" She said to herself.

Tory walked around, looking around as she kept going towards the other two doors at the end, pulling out the card she'd been given and opened the doors, not noticing the KEEP OUT. UNLESS YOU WANT A COLD!

She walked through the doors, into the decontamination zone, looked around she shrugged, and opened the others doors, going in there. There and looked around at the things everywhere, before going into the lab. As she went in, the large arc lights turned on, bright light shone in her eyes and she flinched away from it.

"Oh..that's...oh my god" She said rubbing her eyes, squinted to see through the blind light, just as she began to blink, a loud noise began to blare into the room. "John?!" She shouted, overwhelmed with the noise and bright lights. Putting a hand over her eyes and trying to see where she was going, Tory made her way across the lab towards the next set of doors. She swiped it, getting; ACCESS DENIED, on the small reader. She stopped for a minute before doing it again, getting the same message. "You've got to be kidding me" She said putting her hands to her ears. As she done it again, the lights went off and the noise stopped. The room was then dark, and red. "What the hell..." She said as she looked around. She turned the flashlight on, on her phone and let the beam go around, although it didn't help much. "John!" She hissed out "Sherlock!" Nothing but silence. "Hello?!" She squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them again, blinking through the dots she could see.

Something however, to her right rattled and she turned her head in the direction, she stayed still for a minute and then walked forwards cautiously, and she looked to the cages, and breathed in before moving one of the sheets over it, seeing nothing inside. The sound rattled again, letting the sheet go, something clinked near the door and Tory turned, grabbing yet another sheet, nothing in that cage either, but the door was open. She moved to more cages and moved the sheet, this time she jamp back in surprise as a Monkey, shrieked at her.

A low savage howl behind her, made her turn and she began breathing heavily, her eyes wide as she shone the light from her phone around the lab, she walked to the nearby door and swiped the ID card, the reader whined. ACCESS DENIED. "No...No..No.." She said shaking her head and she turned, and then dialed John's number, getting nothing. She sighed out in exasperation, calling Sherlock. "Pick up...pick up" She said, nothing and she grunted. She looked around the lab "Right.." Shining her torch around, she walked cautiously again, and as she made her way across to the doors that the scientists had left, there was a sound of claws on the tiles behind her, across the room. "Shi-" She began as she ducked and made her way lowly to the door, she pulled her card out. The claws trotted against the tiles again and Tory turned to look.

She shoved the card in her pocket, switched the torch off on her phone and covered her mouth with her hand. The claws made the noise again, the sound of the equipment being shoved out of the way and then a low growl. She looked around, nervously, her eyes wide as she ran across the lab, and remembered one of the cages were open, she pulled the sheet back and opened it up. She got in and moved back, pulling the sheet down, keeping her hand over her mouth, her heart beating furiously in her chest, as the thing growled again.

Her phone began ringing and she gasped, pulling it quickly from her jacket pocket "Hello?" She answered in a shaky whispered.

"Where are you?" Sherlock's voice asked.

"Sherlock...help me...get me out of here" She said, her voice high pitched with fear, her breathing heavy and she went quiet as the growl happened again.

"Tory? Tory?" Sherlock's voice asked.

"Sherlock" She said shakily "Please. Get me out" She pleaded.

"All right, I'll find you. Keep talking" He said.

"It'll hear me, Sherlock...I can't" She whispered.

"Keep talking. What are you seeing?" He asked. She peered through the small gap, it growled again "Tory?"

"I'm here" She breathed.

"What can you see?" Sherlock asked, insistently.

She moved closer to the cage door again, trying to get her breathing under control, her heart now hammering in her chest. "I...can't...there's nothing there..." She breathed out. "I can hear it" She said and it growled. "Did you hear that?! Sherlock, help me!" She said, terrified.

"Stay calm, stay calm" Sherlock said "Can you see it?"

"N-" She began and she stopped, and moved back "I see it...I can see it, Sherlock..." Her eyes were now wide with horror, "I can see it" She said, a shadow approached the sheet and she chewed her lip. "Sherlock it's here" She said, and the shadow moved closer, the sheets being tugged up and the lights turned on, Tory felt like her heart was going to explode. Sherlock's face then appeared on the other side of the cage, an anxious look on his face.

"Are you all right?" he asked. Tory's eyes were wide with horror, as Sherlock put a hand on her shoulder. "Tory.."

"Oh my god" She said as she grabbed a hold of him, into a somewhat hug, her hands shaking. "its...the hound, Sherlock. I swear to god...it was here...it must...did you, see it?!" her voice frantic, as she clung to Sherlock's jacket. "You had to have seen it! It was right there!"

"It's all right. It's okay now" Sherlock said, hands on her shoulders.

"No. No it's not!" She said.

"What did you see?" He asked.

"I told you. The hound, Sherlock!" She said frantically.

"Huge red eyes?"

"Mhm"

"Glowing"

"Yes"

"No" Sherlock said.

"What?" She asked, bewildered.

"I made up the bit about the glowing" Sherlock said "You saw what you expected to see, because I told you. You have been drugged. We have all been drugged" and that was when John entered.

"Drugged?" John asked.

"Can you walk?" Sherlock asked Tory who nodded.

"Yes" She said her voice shaky. "Course I can walk"

"Come on, then. it's time to lay this ghost" Sherlock said.

Sherlock moved himself from Tory's grasp after a minute, and headed for the door and Tory, still breathing heavily looked to John, and then around the lab before she and John followed after Sherlock.

They followed him into a small room "Oh. Back again? What's on your mind this time?" The woman asked.

"Murder, Doctor Stapleton. Refined, cold blooded murder" Sherlock said as he leaned back and switched the light off. There was a limited light coming from the window at the end of the room, showing that the rabbit was glowing bright green.

"Will you tell Kirsty what happened to bluebell or shall I?" Sherlock asked.

"Okay. What do you want?"

"Can I borrow your microscope?" Sherlock asked.

Now in a larger lab, Sherlock was gazing through a microscope, unhappily and he turned away from the scope and crushed something into smaller bits as he continued to gaze into the microscope. Tory and John were sitting at a near table, Tory's face blank, as she stared into space, at nothing. John stared at her and then at Doctor Stapleton, looked at him and then at Tory.

"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked Tory, who didn't answer and she looked to John "She looks very peaky"

"She'll be okay" John nodded.

"It was the GFP gene from a jellyfish in case you're interested" Stapleton said.

"What?" John asked.

"In the rabbits" she said.

"Mm, right, yes"

"Aquoria Victoria, if you really want to know" She said.

"Why?" John asked.

"Why not? We don't ask questions like that here. It's not done" She said, Sherlock looked irritated as he picked something up and put another slide under the microscope. "There was a mix up anyway. My daughter ended up with one of the lab specimens, so poor bluebell had to go"

"Your compassion's overwhelming" John said.

"I know. I hate myself sometimes" She said.

"So, come on then. You can trust me, I'm a doctor. What else have you got hidden away up here?"

"Listen, if you can imagine it, someone is probably doing it somewhere. Of course they are" Stapleton said.

Sherlock, staring at the slide, looked across at John, Stapleton and Tory for a second.

"And cloning?" John asked.

"Yes, of course. Dolly the sheep, remember?"

"Human cloning?" John asked.

"Why not?"

"What about animals? Not sheep...big animals"

"Size isn't a problem, not at all. The only limits are ethics and the law, and both those things can be very flexible. But not here, not at Baskerville"

Furious, Sherlock snatched the last slide out and threw it against the wall "It's not there!" he said, completely livid.

"Jesus" John said.

"Nothing there! Doesn't make any sense" He grumbled to himself.

"What were you expecting to find?" Stapleton asked.

"A drug, of course. There has to be a drug. A hallucinogenic, or a deliriant of some kind. There's no trace of anything in the sugar"

"Sugar?" John asked.

"The sugar, yes. It's a simple process of elimination. I saw the hound, sat it as my imagination expected to see it, a genetically engineered monster. But I knew I couldn't believe the evidence of my own eyes, so there was seven possible reasons for it, the most possible being narcotics, Henry Knight- he saw it too but you didn't, John, neither did Tory. Now, we haven't eaten and drunk the exact same things since we got to Grimpen apart from one thing: you don't take sure in your coffee, John"

"I see. So..."

"I took it from Henry's kitchen, his sugar" He glared down at the microscope. "It's perfectly all right"

"But maybe it's not a drug" John said.

"No it has to be a drug" Sherlock said as he sat down "But how did it get into our systems, how?!" He said "There has to be something...something...ah, something" He said and his eyes opened "Something buried deep" He took a sharp breath through his nose, "Get out" he said looking at them.

"What?" Stapleton asked.

"Get out. I need to go to my mind Palace"

John got up "Your what?" Stapleton asked.

"He's not gonna be doing much talking for a while, we may as well go" He said and he touched Tory's shoulder, who stood automatically.

"His what?" Stapleton asked again.

"Oh, his mind palace. It's a memory technique. A sort of mental map. You plot a map with a location, it doesn't have to be a real place, and then you deposit memories there that...theoretically, you can never forget anything; all you have to do is find your way back to it"

"So this imaginary location can be anything, a house or a street?" Stapelton asked.

"Yeah" John said as they walked towards the exit.

"But he said "palace". He said it was a palace"

John looked back "Yeah, well, he would, wouldn't he?" John said and led them out the room.

Stapleton led Sherlock, Tory and John along a corridor and used her card to swipe them into the area leading them into Major Barrymore's office. As they went in the room and pointed to the door they came through.

"John" He said.

"Yeah, I'm on it" John said with a nod, and he turned back.

"Project HOUND. Must have read about it and stored it away. An experiment in a CIA facility in Liberty, India" Sherlock said as he stood behind Stapelton, as she typed in her user ID onto the computer and then added in her password. Tory watched silently, and her eyes travelled to Sherlock, something he'd said about the sugar had made her think about the whole being drugged thing. How easy it had been for some people just to drug others. Her eyes went back to the computer.

"H, O, U, N, D" Sherlock said to her and she typed it in getting NO ACCESS. CIA CLASSIFIED.

"That's as far as my access goes, I'm afraid" She said.

"Well, there must be an override and password" John said.

"I imagine so, but that'd be Major Barrymore's"

Sherlock walked into Barrymore's office "Password, Password, Password" He said switching the light on at the desk as he sat down "He sat here when he thought it up" He said, folding his hands in front of his mouth, he slowly spun in a circle on the chair. "Describe him to me"

"You've seen him" Stapleton said.

"But describe him"

"Er, he's a bloody martinet, a throw back, the sort of man they'd have sent into Suez"

"Good, excellent. Old fashioned, traditionalist; not the sort that would use his children's names as a password" Sherlock said and gestured towards the drawings on the board above the desk. "He loves his job; proud of it and this is work related, so what's at eye level?" he said, scanning the room. "Books. Jane's defense weekly, Bound copies. Hannibal; Wellington; Rommel; Churchill's "History of the English-Speaking Peoples" All four volumes" Sherlock said. "The downing street years" One; two; three; four; five separate biographies of Thatcher" He said and looked to a framed picture. "Mid nineteen eighties at a guess. Father and son; Barrymore Senior" He said "Medals; Distinguished Service of Order"

"That date?" John asked. "I'd say Falklands veteran"

"Right. So Thatcher's looking a more likely bet than Churchill" Sherlock said and he walked back out of the office, and to the computer.

"So that's the password?"

"No. With a man like Major Barrymore, only first name terms would do" Sherlock said. He leaned forward and deleted the words, and typed in Maggie. He waited and the computer beeped.

After a slight pause information began to stream across the screen as everything related to Project H.O.U.N.D. became available. Sherlock's concentration became intense as he took it all in and focused on certain phrases like Extreme suggestibility, Fear and stimulus, Conditioned terror, Aerosol dispersal. A photograph came up of the project team posing happily together and he identified the five project leaders amongst the larger group: Elaine Dyson, Mary Uslowski, Rick Nader, Jack O'Mara and Leonard Hansen. Clearing the photo from the screen he rearranges the names into another order:

Leonard Hansen
Jack O'Mara
Mary Uslowski
Rick Nader
Elaine Dyson

"HOUND" Stapleton said.

They stared at the screen, horror stricken as the screen produced more information Paranoia, Severe frontal lobe damage, Blood-Brain, Gross cranial trauma, Dangerous Acceleration, Multiple Homicide which was identified with photographs as well.

"Jesus" John said.

"Project HOUND: A new deliriant drug which rendered its users as incredibly suggestible. They wanted to use it as an anti-personnel weapon to totally disorientate the enemy using fear and stimulus; but they shut it down and hid it away in nineteen eighty six" Sherlock said.

"Because of what it did to the subjects they tested it on" Stapleton said.

"And what they did to others. Prolonged exposure drove them insane- made them almost uncontrollably aggressive" Sherlock said.

"So they've been at it again?" Tory asked. "The experiments?"

"Attempting to refine it, perhaps, for the last twenty years" Sherlock said.

"Who?" Stapleton asked.

"Those names mean anything to you?" John asked her.

"No, not a thing" She said.

"Five principle scientists, twenty years ago" Sherlock said, and he zoomed in on the photograph of a team, the footage showed the sweatshirts, which said HOUND on them. "Maybe our friend's somewhere in the back of the picture, someone who was old enough to be there at the time of the experiments in 1986-" Sherlock trailed off and stopped when he came across a recognizable face. "Maybe someone who says "cell phone" because of the time spent in America. You remember, John?"

"Mm-hmm" John said.

"He gave us his number in case we needed him" Sherlock said.

"Oh my god. Bob Frankland, but Bob doesn't work on...I mean, he's a virologist. This was chemical warfare" Stapleton said.

"It's where he started though..and he's never lost the certainty, the obsession that, that drug could really work. Nice of him to give us his number" Sherlock said. "Let's arrange a little meeting"

John walked closer to the screen and his phone began ringing and he dug it out of his pocket "Hello?" He waited. "Who's this?" He asked and he looked to Sherlock "It's Louise Mortimer" He said "Louise, what's wrong?" He asked. "What?" He asked "Where-Where are you?" He asked and waited "Right: stay there. We'll get someone to you, okay?" He lowered the phone.

"Henry?" Sherlock asked.

"He's attacked her" John said.

"Gone?"

"Mm"

Sherlock had his own phone out, and hit speed dial "There's only one place he'll go to: back to where it all started" He said and then spoke into the phone "Lestrade, get to the Hollow. ...Dewers Hollow, now. And Bring a gun"

Just as they got to Dewer's Hollow, they spotted Henry, a gun to his mouth.

"No, Henry, no. No!" Sherlock shouted and they scrambled down the hill towards him. Henry scrambled to his feet and staggered back from them.

"Get back. Get- get away from me!" Henry cried. His voice was frantic, and hysterical.

"Easy, Henry. Easy. Just relax" John said.

"I know what I am. I know what I tried to do!" Henry screamed

"Henry...put the gun down, just...put it down. It's okay" Tory said.

"No, no, I know what I am!" He shouted again.

"Yes, I'm sure you do, Henry" Sherlock said reassuringly "It's all be explained to you, hasn't it? Explained very carefully"

"What?" Henry asked, confused.

"Someone needed to keep you quiet; needed to keep you as a child to reassert the dream that you'd both clung on to, because you had started to remember" Sherlock said and he stepped forward, Henry lowered his gun momentarily and then raised it again.

"I thought it had got my dad- the hound. I thought.." He began and he lost whatever control of sanity he had over himself "Oh je...oh Jesus, I don't- I know know anymore!" He began sobbing, and bent forward and aimed the gun into his mouth.

"Henry, no!" Tory said, as John lurched forward.

"Henry, remember. "Liberty, In" Two words; two words a frightened little boy saw here twenty years ago" Henry began to calm a little, but was still hunched over with the gun in his mouth. "You'd started to piece things together, remember what really happened here that night. It wasn't an animal, was it Henry?" Sherlock asked and Henry straightened up, blinking. "Not a monster" Henry looked at him "A man" His eyes widened as whatever memory he had of that night came back to him and again he looked to Sherlock, his eyes still widened with horror, gaping at the man in front of him. "You couldn't cope. You were just a child, so you rationalized it into something very different. But then you started to remember, so you had to be stopped. Driven out of your mind so that no one would believe a word that you said"

John moved forward and held out his hand for the gun, as Lestrade arrived and called out "Sherlock" As he came down the slope.

"Okay, it's okay Mate" John said as he slowly took the gun from Henry's hand.

"But we saw it: the hound, last night. We s...we, we, we did, we saw-" Henry said tearfully.

"Yeah, but there was a dog, Henry, leaving footprints, scaring witnesses, but it was nothing more than ordinary dog. We both saw it, saw it as our drugged minds wanted us to see it. Fear and stimulus, that's how it works" Sherlock said and Henry looked at him with confusion. "But there never was a monster"

That was when the howling started and everybody looked around, Lestrade aimed the flashlight up the way, a shape stalking towards them.

"Sherlock.." John trailed off.

Sherlock looked up in disbelief as Henry turned to him horrified. "No" and he began to wail in panic "No, no, no, no!"

He backed away as Sherlock tried to hold out a calming hand towards him "Henry, Henry" Sherlock said.

"Sherlock" John said again as Tory made her way towards Henry, the creature slinking towards them.

Henry fell to his knees, continuing to scream out "No" as Tory moved next to him. "Henry" She said as she put her hands on his shoulders "Henry, Henry look at me" She said. He wouldn't look up however.

"Greg, are you seeing this?" John asked, and Tory looked to see the look on Lestrade's face had answered John's question.

"Henry, it's just a dog. It's there, but it's just a dog" Tory whispered to a frantic Henry, who was like a child, terrified.

"All right! It's still here" Sherlock said "But it's just a dog. Henry! It's nothing more than an ordinary dog"

"Oh my god" Lestrade said as the monster howled and leaped down. It's eyes glowing red in the light, "Oh, Christ!"

Tory moved in front of Henry, who was now looking up, as if he was going to be killed. She touched his face "Listen to me, it's not going to hurt you, I promise" She said and she looked around, seeing that Sherlock was now tackling a man with a mask over his face. Sherlock took the mask off "No!" He shouted. "It's not you, you're not here!" He said with a low growl. Spinning the figure around, Sherlock headbutted him in the face. And that was when they all seen him, Bob Frankland. Sherlock was now breathing heavily, frantic as he clung onto the man, and it then made sense to him.

"The fog" Sherlock said.

"What?" John asked.

"It's the fog! The drug, it's in the fog. Aerosol dispersal, that's what it said in those records. Project HOUND, it's the fog! A chemical mine field" Sherlock said and Lestrade threw his arms over his nose and mouth. The hound stalked closer to them.

"For god's sake, kill it! Kill it!" Bob said.

Lestrade aimed his pistol and shot at it three times, but the bullets flew past it and it then leaped towards them, John aimed the gun and shot it, the bullets striking the hound down and it landed with a squeal of pain and crashed to the ground. Sherlock then rushed over to Henry, grabbing him from Tory's grasp.

"Look at it, Henry" Sherlock said.

"No, no, no!" Henry said digging his heels into the ground.

"Come on, look at it" Sherlock said pushing him it, he pushed the young man forward and they both seen it, clearly on the ground. It was no longer a big black monster with red glowing eyes, now however was nothing more than a huge dog. Henry then looked to Frankland.

"It's just...you bastard!" he screamed, hurling himself towards the older man as he screamed with rage. "You bastard!" John and Lestrade managed to pull him off of Frankland. "Twenty years! Twenty years of my life making no sense! Why didn't you just kill me?!"

"Because dead men get listened to. He needed to do more than kill you. He had to discredit every word you ever said about your father, and he had a the means right at his feet, a chemical mine field., pressure pads in the ground dosing you up every time that you came back here" Sherlock said and he held his hands out "Murder weapon and scene of the crime all at once" he laughed "Oh, this case, Henry! Thank you. It's been brilliant"

"Sherlock don't be a twat" Tory said.

"What?" Sherlock asked.

"Your timing is shocking" She said.

"Not good?" He asked.

"No, no, it's- it's okay. it's fine, because this means..." Henry said and took a step forward, John doing the same "This means that my dad was right" Henry said and Frankland got to his feet, Henry tried moving towards him again. "He found something out, didn't he? and that's why you killed him...because he was right, and he'd found you right in the middle of an experiment" Henry said, his voice tearful.

The howl of pain from the dog caught everyone's attention and they turned to it, as it got up, Tory taking a few steps back, but John shot it again and it went down. That was when they noticed that Frankland had began running.

"Frankland!" Sherlock shouted, following him. The rest of them, began following him too. "Frankland!"

"Come on, keep up" Lestrade shouted at Henry, and they ran on.

"It's no use Frankland" Sherlock shouted.

As they got closer, they noticed he'd stopped but they kept going, that was until there was an explosion right where he was standing and everybody toppled back slightly. As it died down, Henry slid down against the tree, and everyone else gazed across the mine field.

The next day, John and Tory were sitting at one of the tables outside the Inn, Tory was sitting across from him as Billy brought out a plate of food for John and sat it in front of him.

"Mm. Thanks, Billy" He said.

As Billy walked away, Sherlock brought out two mugs and put one down on the table beside John, as Tory took a drink.

"So they didn't have it put down, then, the dog" Sherlock said.

"Obviously" John said "Suppose they just couldn't bring themselves to do it"

"I see" Sherlock said.

"No you don't" John said with a smile.

"No, I don't. Sentiment?" Sherlock asked.

"Sentiment" John nodded.

Sherlock rolled his eyes "Oh" He said and he sat down on the bench.

"What happened to me in that lab, Sherlock?" Tory asked as she looked to him and he looked over at her.

"D'you want some sauce with that?" He asked and looked down at the plate of food in front of John.

"Neither John, nor I hadn't been to the hollow and you said the drug was in the fog" Tory said, chewing her lip. "You said Fear and Stimulus, so how come I heard it?"

"You must have been dosed with it elsewhere, when you went into the lab maybe. You saw those pipes, pretty ancient, leaky as a sieve; and they were carrying the gas, so, John was it um, ketchup or was it brown?"

"You said it was in the sugar, you were convinced it was in the sugar" Tory said, raising an eyebrow and John looked between her and Sherlock.

"Better get going, actually" Sherlock said "There's a train that leaves in half an hour, so if you want.."

"I knew it" Tory said shaking her head "It was you. You locked me in there"

"I had to. It was an experiment"

"An experiment?!" Tory hissed.

"Shhh" Sherlock said.

"I was scared to death, Sherlock Holmes. Terrified" She said.

"I thought that was the drug was in the sugar, so I put the sugar in both your coffee's, then I arranged everything with Major Barrymore" He said. Tory slapped a hand to her face as John continued eating. "It was all totally scientific, laboratory conditions, well...literally" He said. "I thought both of you were going to be in there, you might not have been as scared"

"John wasn't in the lab with me!" Tory snapped.

"No, clearly" Sherlock said "Well I knew what effect it had on a superior mind, so I needed to try it on an average one" Tory and John looked at him in disbelief and he sighed. "You know what I mean"

"But it wasn't in the sugar" John said.

"No, well, I wasn't to know you'd already been exposed to the gas"

"So you got it wrong" Tory said tilting her head.

"No" Sherlock said.

"Mm. You were wrong. It wasn't in the sugar. You got it wrong" John said.

"A bit" Sherlock said "It won't happen again"

"Any long term effects?" Tory asked.

"None at all. You'll be fine once you've excreted it. We all will" Sherlock said.

"Think I might have taken care of that already" John said and both Tory and Sherlock, snorted laughter. Sherlock noticed Gary, who smiled apologetically at him as he poured coffee for two other customers. Sherlock stood up.

"Where are you going?" John asked.

"Won't be a minute. Gotta see a man about a dog" Sherlock said, smiling as he walked away from the two of them.