Chapter 25 – Look After You
"We came into the world like brother and brother,
And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another."
― William Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors
They finally give Sherlock permission to roam the hospital grounds without an escort. Spring is bringing out the best in the gardens, and the walled vegetable patch is sprouting a wonderful array of tiny seedlings all in their serried ranks, transplanted from the cold frames that had protected them from the March winds and gales. Some still shelter under plastic cloches, and some things, like the tomatoes in their growbags, will never escape the polytunnel. To Sherlock it feels almost like a metaphor for the inmates of this hospital. 'Patients, not inmates,' he remembers Smathers' intoning yet again.
He has been offered the option to join a gardening group, which he had swiftly declined. He enjoys having time for himself more than having to make small talk with other patients while potting on, transplanting and weeding.
Getting out into the fresh air is oddly claustrophobic at first, which he puts down to sensory issues. He can't remember ever being confined in four walls for so long a period. When he has moved between buildings, he's always had an escort. What few walks the winter weather allowed took a member of staff off the ward, so they had to be planned in advance. He always felt horribly self-conscious during those route marches. Having someone physically following him a few paces behind made him realise that with the CCTV he had, at least, been able to pretend that he was unencumbered by constant surveillance.
The first few walks on his own have been disconcerting. As they are slowly being freed from their pharmacological prison, his senses can easily be overwhelmed: the scents, sounds and visual impact of all this newness of Spring challenge his capacity to manage the flow of data. On occasion he's had to sit down on one of the benches, put his head down between his knees, close his eyes and cover his ears. The sensory storm passes after a while, and he can then continue wandering the paths.
He's leaning on one of those benches at the moment, trying to clear his sinuses of the sudden assault of a flowering currant bush. Ribes sanguineum has a pretty fuchsia pink raceme of flowers, beloved by the early spring bumble bees, but it also has a scent that reminds Sherlock of cat urine. Too many assignations down dark alleyways come to mind; the scent bringing back memories of things he would rather forget. It takes him a minute before he can move on.
The Royal Bethlem Hospital might have just celebrated the 760th anniversary of its foundation, but it has been on the Monks Orchard site only since the 1930s. Sherlock finds himself appreciating the fact that being this far out from central London means space – the grounds cover 270 acres of green, with the various buildings spread out across the site. Once he's past the bowling green, he knows that he can't be seen by any of the CCTV cameras, which naturally focus on the buildings and the carparks. The local residents in the area sometimes grumble about how few of them there are elsewhere on the grounds.
Once out of range, Sherlock fishes in his pocket for the stolen cigarettes and match box he'd liberated from the head gardener's pocket. Under the cover of a tree, he lights up and draws the smoke deep into his lungs, relishing the speed with which the nicotine rush starts to thrum. Miriam gives him a new nicotine patch every morning, but isn't a smoker herself, so does not understand that it can never be a proper substitute for the real thing.
It takes him only two and half minutes to consume the cigarette, and he stoops to bury the filter under some soft earth at the foot of a pine tree.
He has always liked walking as exercise. His cramping muscles complain at first; it's been more than five months since he has had the opportunity. There is a limited gym on the grounds, but he avoids that like the plague. Too many bad memories of PE classes at school; anything involving close proximity to other people is always bad idea. For the same reason, he studiously avoids the Occupational Health building; he has no need of classes to learn art, drama, pottery, computer skills or things like cookery and sewing. The Care Team can go take a flying jump; he just ignores Miriam's suggestions that 'life skills are important if you want to be independent.' Boring. He has all the skills he needs, thank you. Cooking is basic chemistry, and the rest he can work out if he can be bothered.
The exercise helps disperse the anxiety which is now more on a backburner, and he's been sleeping better than he remembers doing in years. He wonders if all these developments have more to do with the exercise or the medications, some of which have already been removed from his cocktail. Barnes doesn't think he needs the antipsychotics anymore, which is a relief, but the antidepressants continue.
There are additional positive developments: the nightmares that have always plagued him frequently have stopped, and he doesn't feel a need to avoid the Mind Palace anymore. He's been getting back in there quite regularly. No longer afraid of what he might find in there, Sherlock is using his perambulations to do some spring cleaning. He has moved most old things to the basement or the attic of the Palace because he so rarely needs any of them anymore. The strange earworm of a fragmented melody that had somehow alarmed Mycroft and plagued his nights particularly incessantly hasn't been forgotten, but he is not compelled to chase it with his violin anymore, nor does he care about any of the other strange bits of recollections that sometimes escape his memory banks. He's making room for new things, now.
Instead of an invisible threat haunting his every footstep, his thoughts are now more focused on trying to solve a mystery: how can he make the future something that he does, rather than what other people do to him or for him? He's railed against the constraints that others have placed upon him in the past, but wasted too much time and energy on that. What he needs is a chance to do things himself, to take responsibility.
Sometimes, as he walks he voices things, has a dialogue with his own intellect – so long as no one is in earshot or might see him talking to himself. It's always been part of his repertoire. The staff at Bethlem had told him that, at his worst, he had been talking to inanimate objects. He hasn't pointed out to them that he has always done so. Of course he doesn't think that the family heirloom skull that nowadays resides on the mantelpiece of his bedroom at Mycroft's house is alive or his 'friend' – he simply likes to direct his attention at something concrete to process things out loud. As a child, he apparently did talk to people who weren't there, imaginary friends who kept him company, who didn't contradict him, walk over him or challenge him. Maybe his subconscious creates people like that for him because they're safe. They're nicer to him, unlike most real human beings, because they understand him in a way real people don't.
He converses with himself in preparation for interacting with others: he needs to hear what he's going to say, thinking through how it will sound to other people. There are scripts he has to learn, now, to convince people he is ready to leave.
Still, he does wish he had an actual someone that he trusted to discuss various things with – a sounding board of sorts, someone to help him stop the frustrating loops in his head of not seeing the forest for the trees because he's too focused on small details and complex patterns. Smathers is a therapist and doesn't count; he's paid to listen. Mycroft can be grouped together with a therapist – the blood connection means he's obligated to listen. Sherlock has come to the conclusion that he would appreciate someone who could tell him everything will be alright when he doubts himself, and when he doesn't see the answers and the solutions to everything. Someone to tell him when things are a bit not good, before he makes them worse. He doesn't want a therapist for life, certainly not, but a someone in his life could be… nice.
He probably wouldn't be any good at a relationship – at interacting with someone on a regular basis who wasn't related to him. Yet, some of Smather's optimism about the future seems to have rubbed off on him. Despite his miserable history regarding friends, he now dares to hope that Mycroft won't be the only company he gets to keep for the rest of his life. He doesn't have anything to lose, so why not hold on to that hope, as thin as it may be?
'There might well be someone whose paper is equally crumpled, and they might look at the patterns on yours and think that they're the most beautiful thing they have ever seen.'
As Sherlock had explained to Smathers after that statement, he has never met someone like that. Even so; that was then, this is now, and he likes thinking about that idea. As he lengthens his stride on the path, a part of him really wants to believe in such a possibility.
His walk today takes him up to the northwest border of the grounds. He leaves the path that skirts the edges of the large meadow and enters the woods. He knows that despite appearances, the metal railed fence that encircles the hospital is less than fifty meters away. Pushing through the brambles and early growth of nettles, he reaches the five and a half foot fence and looks dispassionately through it to the modern housing beyond – a rather boring blend of beige brick and white cladded cubes, with neat little parking spaces, only a few of which have a car in situ. It's a weekday, so commuters will be off at work and the place has that semi-abandoned feel of commuter housing. It's called Dorchester Court, according to the little sign at the end of the tarmacked road. He grimaces. It's about as far away as it could be from the idyllic little market town in Dorset after which it is named.
That's the problem with the real world outside the hospital walls. It rarely lives up to what it is supposed to be.
But, he doesn't mind. Once he has left these walls behind, he'll do whatever he needs to make his own way in it. He will not stop being a realist; he's simply going to quit being a nihilist. He's going to make it, even if it's the last thing he does. He is going to make sure Mycroft's prophecy of him self-destructing without a heavy fraternal hand to guide him will be unfulfilled. It will be an adventure, if not an easy or an entirely pleasant one.
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-
Mycroft puts the bags of groceries down on the table and pulls out the lamb chops to get them into the fridge before the late spring's warm snap can get to the meat. Opening the fridge, he decides to put in the champagne bottle he's bought, rather than add it to the cellar. He'd been good today – walking past all the sweet things, denying himself that indulgence. But, as he passed the wine and spirits aisle, he couldn't resist this particular purchase.
A lot can happen in the time it takes for a bottle of wine to chill properly, but on this occasion, Mycroft feels he has good reason to celebrate, given the outcome of the day: he's finally succeeded in winning over the powers-that-be to his point of view. The gist of it was that it is now safe for Sherlock to be released. His full NHS files have been scrutinised by those who were looking for an excuse to keep him incarcerated for longer, and it has been judged that he posed no immediate risk if discharged.
It was the classic Catch-22, based on a judgment that Sherlock must never know about. When Eurus had been sent to Sherrinford – as a child arsonist who wilfully murdered her 39 victims at the Fairhaven secure paediatric psychiatric unit in Warrington – the intelligence community couldn't have cared less about such an event. Amongst the host of cannibals, serial killers and other miscreants on the island, the only thing that made her special at that time was her age.
Only later did they learn just what that extraordinary mind was capable of doing.
Uncle Rudy managed to coax her into becoming an intelligence asset in exchange for increasingly astounding favours, someone who could be negotiated into cracking the unsolvable problems that the Commonwealth faced in an uncertain world. The select few people aware of her abilities and her continued existence soon realised the dangers of letting that intelligence loose on an unsuspecting world. Awe was accompanied by tremendous fear, and it was a logical step that worry that the "other one" might be a threat, too, would develop.
Ever since Sherlock went to university, Mycroft has had to deal with prying questions from his superiors about what his little brother is up to; if it is "safe" to let someone like him roam free. Far from being the compulsively meddlesome big brother that Sherlock has always accused him of being, Mycroft had not been the one who had signed the order for CCTV surveillance and the close watch protocols. After all, he knew Sherlock best, and was well aware of the distinct differences between him and Eurus. Still, it was not up to him, and in the line of intelligence, suspicion is always the preferred policy – better safe than sorry. At least he was already in a position where he could oversee the proceedings. He shudders to think of what someone without that knowledge would have done to Sherlock over the intervening years.
The NHS's meagre efforts at patient confidentiality were no match to those who truly held power. Sherlock being sectioned made those people outstandingly nervous, and voices called for an indefinite extension on the grounds of erring on the side of caution to protect the general populace. Mycroft was aware that releasing him could have been blocked; there were legal routes that could have been used, if the forensic powers under the Mental Health Act were invoked on grounds of national security. He'd been forced to argue long and hard about how his brother's problems were his own, and would never endanger anyone other than himself. It was solely the product of his own insistence that he was allowed to act as a liaison in the matter, still. Thankfully, the large pile of medical documentation has proved his point. The proviso is that Sherlock remains under Mycroft's own strict supervision, if and when he was considered fit to be released.
He would like to do more. Unbeknownst to his superiors, he has been exploring what might be done to convince the sceptics that Sherlock would never be the threat that Eurus was. The research project that Sherlock had participated in might offer some possibilities, but he must remain a realist: most likely it might just lengthen the leash that they allowed Sherlock to wear.
Of course, none of this could ever be explained to a brother who hadn't really done anything all that loathsome to anyone but himself. Sherlock simply wanted to be left alone. It wasn't his fault that he had a sister who scared the bejeezus out of the few individuals who knew of her existence.
So, Mycroft walks the tightrope of keeping Sherlock "contained", according to the requirements of those select few, whilst trying to deliver the freedom that he knows Sherlock wants. Sherlock would never believe it, but the latter has always been Mycroft's higher priority. No question about it.
For that reason, he has carefully concealed from the powers-that-be that fact that he had worried Sherlock's memories of Eurus might be resurfacing, shaken loose by the psychosis and ill-fitting drugs chosen by that travesty of a psychiatrist. If Sherlock ever remembered fully, or got wind of her existence, he'd seek her out, no doubt about it. And that would cause no end of trouble for all concerned.
Keeping those fires of suspicion dampened means that Mycroft will never tell anyone else about the recording that had been sent to him a few months earlier. The nurse had been easy enough to bribe; 'what harm is there in that?' she'd said, when he had asked her to use his device to record what Sherlock was currently playing on his violin. 'He plays so beautifully that you'd definitely want to hear some of it.'
Within seconds of pressing play in his soundproofed and swept-for-surveillance study at home, Mycroft had recognised the tune, and it had brought a chill that still distresses: evidence that whatever else the therapy and drugs were doing at Bethlem, they have shaken loose a memory of a very particular tune, the associated lyrics which had been chanted at them all those years ago when everyone was searching for Victor. The emergence of it posed such great risks that Mycroft had been forced to try to purposefully trigger Sherlock to see if there was more. His relief had been intense, when the words 'East wind' had elicited no reaction at all. It seems that the notes were the only thing that had emerged, and everything else remained behind sturdy locks in the Mind Palace. Thank heavens for that.
According to the nurse who most often accompanied Sherlock to the music room, once he had begun playing again after the lithium debacle, Eurus' song was no longer in the repertoire. Disaster had been averted – for now. More than ever, Mycroft needs Sherlock home, where he can be monitored, to see if anything else is breaking free from the suppressed memories. As the drugs taper down, Sherlock's deductive capacity has been improving. He has always been able to deduce when people are lying to him, so Mycroft could never trust the medical staff with the truth, lest Sherlock find out about it. After all, he is bound by the Official Secrets Act, and cannot disclose Eurus' existence even to Sherlock without putting himself in prison.
Sometimes Mycroft dares to wonder whether reminding Sherlock of what had happened all those years ago could open his emotional floodgates and allow him to get close to someone again. It could happen, or it might decimate what is left of him. The risk is immense, and the potential rewards very much unknown. There are simply too many unanswered questions about Sherlock's emotional fortitude to wager any sort of guess as to what would happen.
He is free to indulge in these speculations as often as he wants to, but today he sternly banishes those notions, sweeps them out of the way of celebration: Sherlock will be discharged, the Recovery Plan can commence, and they can continue their lives. His time at Bethlem could be nothing but a side note in the margin of Sherlock's life, if he makes use of the support and aid provided to start over again in the coming months.
Sherlock's extreme reticence at returning to South Eaton Place has not escaped his notice, which is why he has been making some pertinent preparations. The physical evidence of his plans is now being built into this very home.
The level of hammering going on two flights above the ground floor kitchen are reverberating down the stairwell, as builders finish installing a new door upstairs. It will separate a study, the library, the larger upstairs guest bedroom and a spacious bathroom from the rest of the house. That door has a proper lock, which has two keys. One of them will reside in the safe, and it is only to be used in an emergency. The other key will belong to Sherlock. Rather than housemates, they will be neighbours, since privacy and autonomy is what Sherlock so desires.
His brother will be welcome to make whatever use he wishes of any room in the rest of the house, of course, and the housekeeper will tend to his needs in an equal manner as to Mycroft's – or won't, if that's what Sherlock prefers. Mycroft would prefer it – when left unchecked, any space of Sherlock's tends to turn into chaos. Cleanliness never registers on his priority list, and he gets upset if he doesn't find things exactly where he'd left them – which usually is lying on the floor in some random order that makes sense only to him.
Sherlock's chemistry equipment and everything else related to his chosen field of study have been moved to a study which has been re-fitted with water, plumping, and heavy-duty electrical sockets. Uncle Rudy's old desk has been moved there, and a lab bench with wall cabinets acquired. There will be plenty of space for experiments. Mycroft makes a mental note to establish some ground rules regarding those. No explosives, for one thing. New fire extinguishers have been purchased, a fire blanket installed in the study-lab, and new smoke alarms and sprinklers have been set into the ceilings. The last thing his brother needs is to endure the trauma of another house fire; God knows what memories might be shaken loose by that.
There is a parallel here to child-proofing a house, but Sherlock would not appreciate the analogy. From Mycroft's perspective, Sherlock can't manage on his own, he never has been able to do so. He barely got by in the structured environment of a boarding school. At university, academic freedom was clearly a bit too much for him. Even if he recovers to reach the best of his abilities, he has never picked up certain life skills required to manage the minutiae of sensible adult life. He hides his bills because his capabilities of setting priorities for dull things are non-existent. He doesn't care about the law, or taxes, or common decency. He gets into fights because his underdeveloped sense of self-preservation won't shut his mouth for him. He's unlikely to be able to hold a job, because that would entail resisting the urge to flambé snail entrails in order to get to work at times that suited an employer rather than his latest whim of curiosity. Authority repels him, and he repels anyone attempting to enforce such a thing on him.
Thank God for Grandmeré's trust fund, and thank the Lord for the fact that the Recovery Plan which Sherlock will have to agree to before release will ensure that Mycroft continues to hold power of financial attorney over him. It had always been an argument with the trustees before now. Before, pointing to his brother's drug use as a reason to ration his access had worked but only barely. Now, at last, he will have a sturdy legal right to manage Sherlock's access to finances instead of the shades-of-grey arrangements of the preceding days. The facts of severe mental illness and past drug use will ensure that.
He isn't looking forward to the discussion about that condition of his release with Sherlock himself. He will have to point out his brother's total incompetence in the area of managing basic life skills, and the conversation will invariably turn into an argument. There will be plenty of them in the coming weeks, he's certain of that. He can only hope that the paranoia will not escalate again.
Sherlock has always been a fascinating mix of a lack of self-preservation and deep suspicion of other people. The origin of this twin-headed predilection appears obvious: Eurus, tirelessly poking at Sherlock's weaknesses, had tricked him into doing things or outright hurt him, and then watched the ensuing emotional reaction with detached curiosity as though such feelings were truly alien to her. By the time she was four, she had mastered the role of the caring little sister trying to keep her brother out of trouble. When seen through the prism of later events, it was sickening. How could Sherlock not have developed a healthy sense of suspicion, when every interaction with Eurus could lead to fear, shame, pain or being blamed by their parents for things he hadn't even done? Yet, due to his neuropsychiatric makeup, he could not truly protect himself from those seeking to harm him.
Under Eurus' reign, Sherlock had suffered greatly. Eurus thrived, clearly satisfied with the arrangement. She was an exquisite liar, effortlessly explaining away every ligature trace, every burn mark and every meltdown as Sherlock simply being Sherlock: emotional, weak, different from her. He wore his heart on his sleeve; yet, as an adult sought to deny its very existence. Everyone knew Sherlock was clumsy, that Sherlock didn't have the best grasp of consequences, and that he didn't understand things said between the lines. In contrast, Eurus never cried, never seemed to get upset.
Sherlock always lost, and Eurus always won. She was night to his day.
It had always confused Eurus why weaker, irrational beings – including her brother – were the ones who were loved and whose company was enjoyed by others. She was aware of her superior intellect at a young age, which contributed to the fact that even her family had trouble warming to her. Father was first bemused, then perplexed by the little genius who was so far from the darling daughter he had wanted. Mummy kept trying to explain away the inexplicable behaviour, preferring to focus on the fact that she was a mathematics prodigy among her other abilities. But, even Mummy struggled to connect with her.
By the time she was three and Sherlock four, their differences from ordinary children were too pronounced to ignore any longer. A battery of tests followed, and various labels applied. Genius, but… Eurus had vocally protested to those seeking to evaluate her that there was nothing wrong with her, she was just smarter than everyone else. She had been terribly wrong about the first, but right about the second. The world must have felt so terribly unfair to her.
The rest of humanity began to disappoint Sherlock as well a few years later, when it became abundantly clear that his issues – not created, but in many ways made so much more complex and severe by what Eurus had done – were also going to drive a wedge between him and others. When he'd overheard a conversation detailing what was supposedly wrong with him he had stopped speaking for the second time in his young life. It was as though he'd given up on people. Thank God for his re-discovery of the violin. They'd not given him a new one after the fire, for fear of it triggering memories that were better off buried. He quickly re-learned his skills, never realising that Eurus had once taught him the basics.. Mycroft has wondered if Sherlock's rebound fascination with the string instrument might have something to do with buried memories, but it's hard to tell for certain.
Sherlock's music stand is now in the Library, where Mycroft hopes he will use it during socially acceptable hours. Serenades at three in the morning might pose a problem with the neighbours, which is why Mycroft is awaiting a quote from a contractor about how to soundproof that room better. Sleep deprivation would impact on his duties; complaints from neighbours would add to the stress, too.
The Home Treatment team will be visiting Sherlock twice daily. It has been agreed upon that due to the nature of Sherlock's now only residual paranoid symptoms, it is imperative that Mycroft not involve himself in any part of his actual psychiatric care. This condition includes dealing with any and all his medications; Sherlock is required to demonstrate his commitment to stay on them by proving that he is taking them to the Treatment team. Mycroft hopes they will require laboratory testing. Sherlock does so excel at shamming in such things – he had tricked the Bethlem staff for an unforgivably long time. Idiots. Mycroft could have told them that such shenanigans were not only possible but highly probable.
The workmen, done for the day, greet him as they leave the house. Glad of the peace and quiet, he returns to the kitchen and makes himself a cup of tea. He will soon have to finish up some paperwork, but he decides to allow himself a moment more to consider the future.
Even with the sturdiest of outpatient treatment plans, two important questions remain: where do the two of them go from here, and what direction will Sherlock's life take? In a way, the problem of aimlessness, of not having any other sort of life plan, remains as acute as ever for Sherlock.
Mycroft can't take him under his wing and steer him towards a proper career in British intelligence – his substance abuse issues and his diagnoses make him too much of a wild card to be even considered for the service. Those worried about him following Eurus's path are terrified at the prospect of bringing him into contact with any information that could be abused.
Mycroft had once used his connections to find Sherlock freelance work with a private intelligence start-up, but since Sherlock's idea of freelance meant disregarding everything that the company's owners wanted or tasked him with, their paths had diverged quickly.
Academia does not interest Sherlock either, for various reasons. Mostly, this is because working within the scientific community inevitably involves having to deal with other people. When his first article had been rejected by an editorial board before it had even been sent for peer review, Sherlock just sniffed; "Idiots. All of them." Unbeknownst to their parents – as usual – his entry to Cambridge had been originally deferred due to the fact that he'd been coked out of his head when the term was about to start, and Mycroft had arranged for his very first stint in rehab. It had not lasted long enough; he'd signed himself out after four months. Perhaps he'd gotten bored enough to really want to start attending university.
Sherlock began his studies, stayed sober for a while but the university was rife with pharmacological temptations. His drug use did remain somewhat controlled during his studies, since science offered something in which he was actually interested. Mycroft had hopes that he would latch onto that world and remain in it, but he lost the fellowship he had been offered during his final term when he was suspended for misuse of lab facilities. Uncle Rudy's connections had managed to obtain extenuating circumstances and a chance to re-sit his exams, which he did pass with a reasonable 2.1 classification, despite being in the midst of withdrawal at the time. The recommendation letters written earlier by some impressed professors could have earned him a position somewhere else, but it was not to be. Sherlock wouldn't hear of settling down at a university or a research post.
At one point, Mycroft had put him in a flat on Montague Street and told him to do what he bloody well wanted. It was hardly a surprise that after six months, he'd lost the lease due to unpaid rent, nearly burnt down the flat due to a neglected experiment, and after a close call with an overdose, it was time for another rehabilitation unit. Mycroft could have, of course, made sure that his bills went paid, but that was hardly the point. Sherlock was an adult who should have been able to manage.
The sobriety after that particular incident had seemed promising, so Mycroft went out on a limb and pulled in a few favours so Sherlock could be appointed to a minor advisory role to an MP whose campaign had focused on the British oil and gas industry – the scientific technicalities of which a graduate chemist could be of use to help understand. It was supposed to be a limited, safe position with flexible office hours and a reasonable pay for a relatively recent university graduate. In hindsight, Mycroft should have realised the obvious: Sherlock's propensity for verbalising his observations, his lack of care for social finesse and his disdain for authority were a recipe for disaster when it came to the world of politics. He would never admit this to Sherlock, but in a small way his next relapse had been a relief, because it offered a convenient excuse for Mycroft to explain away his behaviour. There was no salvaging a scene in which Sherlock had described, to the man's face, his employer as someone who had climbed so high up the ladder of career politics that one could only see their arse. The fact that he had tried to explain that he was merely rephrasing Francis Bacon had done little to dilute the effect. The MP was a bluff Northerner who had been a trade union official in the gas industry before privatisation. He probably thought Bacon came in a bap with brown sauce.
The incident had been much frowned-upon by those who allowed Sherlock's freedom while Eurus remained incarcerated. With that latest stunt, Sherlock had raised too much attention in too high a circle. Mycroft had been furious, at both him for his indifference to how he'd compromised Mycroft's reputation, and with himself for his optimism. He will readily admit that banishing him to a rehab in the backcountry of Scotland had been partly political. Mycroft used the interval of his absence to do some serious damage control.
When he gets discharged, will Sherlock continue his earlier trajectory? Mycroft can only hope that the past trend won't resume when he floats around, amusing himself with experiments no one will ever hear the results of, reading books he can't share with anyone else than Mycroft, just passing time, idling… until the boredom drags his mood down to the depths again, and his frustrations find the inevitable destructive outlet.
Mycroft had gone as far as to discuss this dilemma with one of Bethlem's social workers. She had told him about a supportive work experience scheme they had running – charity work, mostly: volunteering at the library, assisting a teacher, working at an animal shelter, and gardening were among the options. Mycroft had looked at the leaflet and thought of Sherlock with more than a pang of unexpected desperation. There was no point to explaining that none of those roles could occupy that particularly keen mind for more than a millisecond. He might be socially inept and handicapped by his inability to get along with anyone, but any ordinary occupation was out of the question for a genius like Sherlock. He might be the slow one of the family, but even so, he must be miles above the sort that usually pass through Bethlem. Perhaps that is his brother's curse. Is this the same frustration that Sherlock had gone through years ago when he'd realised that the usual career paths would never suit him?
No, it needs to be something unique, something very out-of-the-box, if Sherlock is to find something to occupy his time and motivate him in an enduring manner. Preferably, it would be a career, not just a hobby, but it seems too late now, assuming it had ever been possible. Sherlock in his thirties would never adjust to being employed by someone, nor would anyone even want to employ a person who had mostly spent their six years post-university doing hard drugs and failing all attempts at assimilating into society.
Mycroft can't help but fear a repeat of the past six months. He also fears that the next relapse might be the last time, dreads that the moment will come when Sherlock again sees no way out of his own head, but this time succeeds in putting an end to its vicious cycles. Mycroft has regular nightmares of a phone call in the night, informing him of- Stop. No use in dwelling on hypotheticals.
He very much wants to imagine both of them as old men, sitting in the garden, enjoying their twilight years after a life well lived, but such a thing is almost impossible to fathom when it comes to Sherlock. Far easier to imagine is the visage of a moth that does not consider the consequences as long as it can fly closer and closer to the flame that will extinguish its life forever.
Yes, Sherlock desperately certainly needs something singularly motivational in his life. Or… someone. It's obvious that the past months have chipped away at their relationship enough for it to be, at times, a potentially detrimental thing to Sherlock. Mycroft knows he has to accept this now, as much as it hurts. Eurus certainly doesn't see him as her saviour and it wounds Mycroft to know that Sherlock hardly rejoices about their fraternity, either. Besides, a sibling bond naturally pales in comparison to a romantic one – not that Mycroft is entirely convinced Sherlock would be capable of such an intense commitment.
Will Sherlock want someone like that in his life? Could he find that someone? Is he even willing to try? Is there an idle saint out there who would be willing to look past the obvious problems and still find a reason to care? Sherlock has practically created a religion out of solitude just as Mycroft has, but for different reasons. Would Sherlock ever risk a repeat of a heartbreak he does not even remember? Has he buried too deep the ways in which he'd forged a friendship with Victor, or the ways in which he'd once been very capable of expressing fondness for others?
In Mycroft's books, Eurus is lost, but he desperately wants to believe that Sherlock still has hope.