In the end it was an easy decision. The therapist they chose was a woman in her late 50s. She had worked mainly with soldiers but had also worked for the MI6. She employed a mixture of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, a kind of meditation, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Both methods had a scientific background that suited Sherlock's way of thinking and from what he gathered from Mycroft's file Doctor Rosewood was a no fuss kind of person, a deduction that the woman proved in every way. But it was another deduction that let to Sherlock trusting her after only seeing her for a few seconds. She had a dog, as it turned out a female border collie called Buffy. Sherlock didn't waste any time and asked her to bring her along to the therapy sessions.

Sherlock was pacing the living room, well walking as fast as his sometimes still hurting left foot would allow it. It was his first therapy session after their initial meeting yesterday. But yesterday they hadn't talked about what happened to him. They had talked about her methods and about her dog. And Victor stayed with them all of the time. Now he was alone. Victor was in his bedroom, reading. Sherlock was nervous. Yes, he knew he needed this, this was his chance to get better, but he was anxious nevertheless. What would she asked of him? Should he describe what had happened to him? Should he show her the videos? The thought of the videos made him shudder.

A knock at the door interrupted his thought process. He slowly walked to the front door and opened it. Even before he greeted Doctor Rosewood her dog greeted him and made him smile.

"Well, she likes you." Dr. Rosewood said with a smile.

They walked to the living room. Sherlock said on the sofa while Dr. Rosewood settled on the chair. Buffy lay down on the floor between them.

"Shall we start?" Dr. Rosewood said.

Sherlock nodded. "What do you want me to tell you?" He asked hastily.

"I want to talk about something we already talked about yesterday." She spoke with a soft voice. "You said you want your life back. And you want to rebuild your mind palace."

Sherlock nodded again.

"I want to clarify that. What do you mean when you want your life back?"

Sherlock bit his lips. He needed to think about the answer, but Dr. Rosewood didn't push. "Take your time."

"I want to forget what has happened. I don't want to fall to my knees just because a door creaks. I don't want to wake up with nightmares every night. I want to feel like myself again. And I want to go back to London, solve crimes, preferable with John, but I guess that will only be partly possible as he has a daughter now, my goddaughter." Sherlock hesitated a moment. "If I am honest I want the life back that I had before I left to destroy Moriarty's network, but I guess that is not possible, but I want to get as close as possible to that. I want to live my life like I have done it before, without the flashbacks and the nightmares." He sighed.

Dr. Rosewood nodded. There was strange silence between them. Then Dr. Rosewood sighed. "You will never forget what has happened. Most of my patients want that, but that is not possible. And it isn't something you should aim for."

Sherlock looked at her. "Somehow I already anticipated that." He said quietly.

"The aim of this therapy is not to help you forget, but to get you to the point where you can live with the trauma without the trauma dictating your life. But again, that doesn't mean forgetting it. And it also will not mean a life without nightmares and flashbacks." Sherlock looked at her and she could see the desperation in his eyes. "The therapy will be able to reduce the occurrence of nightmares and flashback significantly, in a way that will allow you to return to your life. But there might always be triggers that will bring back memories, a face that looks familiar, a voice, a room. Even more so than you will be exposed to crime scenes if you resume your work as a detective."

Sherlock nodded. He didn't know what to say. Should he say something? But then Dr. Rosewood resumed. "I always advise my patient to accept what has happened to them and not try to suppress or delete it. That will not work. Even a perfect therapy will not be able to make those things undone and from the information I got about your trauma so far, it is so massive that expecting to go back to be the person you were before will do more harm than good. You are a different person now. The trauma has changed you. The only thing you can do is to make it not dictate in which way it changed you and I will help you with that. Okay?"

Sherlock stared to the floor where the dog was dozing and nodded. He knew she was right. In the past days since Mycroft had brought them the files on the different therapist Sherlock had researched a lot about trauma therapy and what it could do. He knew it and the scientist in him was willing to except it, but there was also one part in him that still wished for the possibility to just delete everything.

His thoughts were interrupted by her once more. "And the same applies to your mind palace. I am not a specialist on the method of loci, but I researched a bit and I talked to a colleague yesterday evening. You said yesterday that your mind palace is in ruins and that you find it hard to rebuild it. Maybe this is not the time to rebuild it. Maybe you are not able to do it now. And maybe you should think to start a new one, one that symbolizes and holds everything you are now."

Sherlock looked at her with a mixture of dismay and shock. "But I have built it for all my life. It contains everything that is important. I cannot abandon it like that."

Dr. Rosewood smiled. "I don't ask you to abandon it. I asked you to delay the repair work, so to speak. But since you need a mind palace as it is an important tool for your mind, I suggest building a new one, just beside your old one. Yesterday I asked you why we are here in Sussex and you said that you came here when you were on the run and that you came back after your time in the hospital. You said you like the peace and quiet here and that the garden reminds you of a place you always felt safe as a kid. Why don't you use this cottage as a model for a new mind palace for the time now, for our therapy sessions, for your time here with Victor, for the visits of your goddaughter and your friends? And when the time is ripe you will rebuilt and reorganize your old mind palace."

Sherlock said nothing, just thought about her suggestion, but his mind had already made a decision without him consciously taking part in making of that decision, but he saw a cottage similar to this and a garden that was a mixture of his old mind palace back garden and this one, in fact it was the same as he could see his old mind palace in the background. He smiled.

"Okay?" Dr. Rosewood asked.

Sherlock nodded. "Yes."

"Good. How about if we go out in the garden while we talk a bit more?" She asked and got up.

Sherlock got up too, grabbed his cane and followed her and the dog in the garden. Maybe this could really work, he thought.