The corridors were in darkness as he walked down them, security lights flicking on as he passed. It was later than he had thought, he must have been reading those notes for a good couple of hours, pouring over them, making notes, jotting down dates and times and injuries, just in case the notes should disappear as quickly as they had arrived.

Sherlock was sitting up in bed, reading and writing notes on Napoleonic history, which he had developed a recent interest in. He found the battle plans strangely fascinating. He looked up surprised as James Harrison knocked on the door and buzzed himself in.

'Hullo,' he said.

'Sherlock I need to talk to you.'

'Obviously.'

'I've just been reading through your medical notes, the ones from your GP, they finally arrived.'

'Oh?'

He looked wary. So he does remember, thought James Harrison, something at least..

'They make interesting reading. Did you know that you allegedly felll out of a tree just before you first got ill?'

'No, did I? I don't remember.'

'You were pretty badly injured by the sound of it. Fractured ribs, broken collar bone, facial injuries, concussion.'

'My collar bone still aches sometimes, is that why - look here.' Sherlock pulled aside his T-shirt to show Dr Harrison his right collarbone, there was a definite lump in the middle of it, sign of a recent fracture.

'Yes, that would be it.'

'Was I in hospital? How bad was it?'

'Pretty bad, but no. Thats what I don't understand. Don't you remember any of this?'

He shook his head. 'Not a thing, sorry.'

'The GP organised a private CT scan for you a week later when you were still getting headaches and were starting to show signs of depression. He was worried you might have a subdural, bleeding round the brain, but the scan was normal.'

Sherlock shrugged. 'So do you think it was related? The head injury and me getting ill I mean, that it triggered it somehow?'

'Not in the way you think, no.' He hesitated. 'Sherlock, the injuries you had don't fit with falling out of a tree.'

Sherlock shook his head. 'I don't understand. My medical notes say I fell out of a tree, so I fell out a tree.'

'No Sherlock, I think that somebody beat you.'

Silence. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Sherlock was pushing on the pencil still grasped in his hand on the paper so hard that the lead snapped, making them both jump.

'You're wrong.'

'Am I? There were other injuries, Sherlock, documented in your notes, spreading back over years. Inconsistent injuries, too many injuries, and injuries that the GP managed when he should have referred you to the hospital.'

'Maybe I was just a clumsy child.'

'And maybe thats exactly what a child who had been abused would say.'

'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Because its true? What are you afraid of Sherlock?'

'I don't remember!' Sherlock yelled, bringing the night nurse flying into the room a few seconds later. James Harrison held up his hand at her and shook his head, indicating that she should leave them to it.

'Really?'

'Honestly, truly, I don't remember,' Sherlock said, his voice shaking slightly.

'And the nightmares.'

Sherlock buried his head in his hands and slowly shook his head. 'Please don't,' he whispered, 'please.'

James Harrison hesitated, watching Sherlock's shaking shoulders, then remembering a particularly worrying entry in the notes said gently. 'Sherlock, let me look at your back.' Very carefully, he reached a hand across to the bottom of Sherlock's T-shirt, lifting it up slightly. Sherlock batted his hand away.

James Harrison held onto the hand and waited until Sherlock looked at him. 'You can trust me,' he said. 'Just let me see.'

Sherlock turned away from him and allowed him to lift up his T-shirt. He was thin, so thin, every rib and vertebra clearly defined, and criss-crossed across his back, barely visible unless you knew what you were looking form were a number of thin silver scars. The GP notes described an incident with a barbed wire fence, but these scars were too linear, too regular for that. Sighing James Harrison dropped the T-shirt back down.

'Belt?' he asked casually, as Sherlock picked up the pencil and began to draw patterns on the paper in front of him.

'Whip, I think. At least thats what it is in the nightmares.'

'Sherlock I have to tell somebody about this?'

'What, no! You said that I could trust you.'

'And you can, but I have a duty of care to you, to keep you safe.'

'I am safe here, aren't I? He cant get to me here.'

'Who? Your father?'

'I think so. Its his face on the monster in my nightmares, but I can't remember, so how can I be sure?'

'Sherlock the evidence is there. Someone has obviously been beating you, not just recently, for years, and the local doctor has been covering it up. Put that together with the nightmares and your father seems like a fair bet.'

'Fine, so maybe he did beat me. Lots of kids get hit by their parents, but you can't tell anybody, promise me that you won't tell anybody.'

'Why not?'

'Because something awful will happen if you do, please, please.'

Sherlock was sobbing now, papers swept onto the floor, head in his hands. James Harrison put an arm round his skinny shoulders. 'Okay, its okay, calm down.'

The night nurse came into the room again and looked at him questioningly. He indicated swallowing tablets with his spare hand, and she went to get them.

'I'm not going to do anything tonight. I promise. We can talk about this again in the morning, but getting yourself worked up won't help anything.'

'Talk to my brother first, please, talk to Mycroft, he'll explain everything, please...'

'Okay, fine. Here, take these for me.' He took the pot of tablets from the nurse and handed them to Sherlock. Sherlock took them without even checking what they were, and lay down in the bed, still shaking.

'I wish I could understand what you're so afraid of, Sherlock. You're safe here.'

'But thats just it. I'm not. My father can get to me anywhere, you'll see.'

'Thats the paranoia talking.'

'No, its really, really not. Talk to my brother, he'll explain, but please just don't talk to anyone else until you've talked to Mycroft. Promise me.'

'I promise.'