For security's sake, it was decided that the dossier should not leave the clinic. And so the following day, Kate and John found themselves in a bright sunny room in the education section of the clinic, with windows looking out onto the garden, preparing to read about Sherlock's past on a pair of identical laptops.

'You ready?' John asked Kate,

'Ready as I'll ever be.

They had read in silence, John finishing first, but waiting for Kate, watching her read, unconsciously chewing the side of her thumb as she did so, worrying off the strips of skin there in a habit he knew that she'd been trying hard to break. His friendship with Kate had been one of the unexpected bonuses of this whole messy situation. Alone, he knew that either of them would have struggled to cope, but as a team, they had found that they had a strength that was far greater than the sum of its parts. When one of them had faltered, the other had stood strong. They had supported each other and supported Sherlock, and John couldn't help feeling more than a little proud of what they had achieved together.

Finally, Kate finished reading, closed the laptop and turned to John.

'Well?' she asked.

'You first.'

'I thought that I'd seen the worst of it. But that stuff with the boy - Daniel. Did you know about that?'

'Something came up when I went to Cantley Hall. I knew that the groundsman was the one who had found Sherlock after he had allegedly thrown himself out of that tree. I had no idea that he was responsible for his injuries.'

'So, Sherlock's father arranged the second set of ECT in Elmhurst to ensure that he wouldn't remember and implicate him?'

'It makes sense, doesn't it?'

'But if there were others - as Sherlock seems to think that there were, shouldn't we tell the police?'

John shook his head. 'You can't prosecute somebody after their death, remember? Besides, it would mean Sherlock making what happened to him public, and I would imagine that would be the last thing that he would want.'

'Perhaps,' Kate had said thoughtfully.

'What is it?'

'I can't help thinking there's something missing.'

'Go on.'

'Well since when did Sherlock just stop investigating? There are threads there, vague mentions of other government ministers who visited Cantley for no apparent reason, and then it just - stops.'

'You think he took stuff out? Before he showed it to us?'

'It's possible isn't it?'

'But why?'

'I don't know,' Kate said shaking her head. 'All I know is that whatever he's done it's for a good reason. Perhaps there was stuff that he didn't want us to know. Not yet.'

'And what about the rest? All of the information that was in there.'

'Knowing about his past makes him seem - more complete, somehow, I suppose. It explains a lot.'

'It explains why Mycroft is so protective as well.'

'It's odd, but I sort of forget that it's Mycroft's story too. It's strange to know so much about his past, about his family history when I feel that I barely know him. It almost feels like intruding. Do you think that Sherlock is going to let him see it too?'

'Knowing Mycroft Holmes, if he hasn't already seen it then I'd be incredibly surprised,' John said.

...

'Did you read it?' Sherlock asked as Kate walked into his room. He was sitting on his bed, sketchbook propped on his knees, drawing. He sounded calm, and his posture was relaxed, but Kate knew him too well to be fooled by that.

'Here,' she said, throwing him his coat. 'Come for a walk with me.'

'Why?' he asked, immediately suspicious.

She leant forward and whispered in his ear, 'Because I don't think you'll want Anna to overhear the conversation that I want to have with you.' And she kissed him, not on the cheek but on the side of his neck, and he felt a flicker of the desire that had been absent since the beginning of his illness, catching him by surprise.

'Excellent idea,' he said aloud, accepting the hand she offered to pull him up from the bed.

They walked to the far end of the garden, accompanied not by Anna, but by Mark, who kept a respectable distance. 'Did you arrange this?' he asked.

'I just thought you would rather have a bit of space to talk,' she said, and he smiled at her, gripping her hand tighter.

'You don't seem shocked, Kate.'

'Should I be? John and I investigated most of it, don't forget. There weren't that many surprises.'

'Daniel Brierley?'

'No, I didn't know about that, but realistically there would always have been others, Sherlock, there always are.'

'Of course. You would have worked that out.'

He put an arm around her shoulders pulling her close as they walked, kissing the top of her head. It was one of the first spontaneous gestures of affection that he'd made since he'd been admitted to the clinic, and Kate was profoundly relieved by it. To be able to shift once more from carer back to girlfriend, even if only for a brief time, was a precious thing indeed. But she also knew when Sherlock was avoiding an issue, and when he was trying to cover something up.

'There's something that you're not telling us, isn't there, something that isn't in that dossier.'

'Yes.'

'Is it going to cause trouble.'

'Yes.'

'Good trouble or bad trouble?'

'Depends on who you are.'

'Have you talked to Ed Harris about this?'

'Yes.'

'And?'

'And he understands what I'm doing and why.'

'And he agrees?'

'He appears to, yes.'

'And presumably your not telling me and John so that we can't be held responsible?'

'Correct.'

'Then I'll try to restrain my curiosity.'

'Did anything else in that dossier surprise you, Kate?' he asked as they came to a fork in the path and chose the option that led the furthest away from the main buildings.

'Not really. Your mother's story hit me hardest,' He squeezed her a little closer in response. 'She gave up so much Sherlock, to marry your father, and she had such a hard time of it.'

'It doesn't put you off?' The words were spoken lightly, but she knew that the emotion behind them was anything but.

'Put me off? Because you might turn out like your father? No of course not. Don't be ridiculous. You're nothing like him.'

'No, I'm not.'

'I'm proud of you, you know that? Going through all of that data to compile the dossier, dredging up all of those memories. It can't have been easy.'

'It wasn't. But it was necessary.'

'So are you done now?'

'I think so, yes.'

'Anna wants us to have a discharge meeting - you, me, John, Ed Harris.'

'Why?'

'To discuss you coming home.'

'Don't you ever get bored of discussing things, Kate?'

'I want you home, Sherlock, but I want it done the right way. I want you home, and well, and to make sure you stay that way, and if it takes a thousand meetings to accomplish that, then I'll sit through all of them.'

And he had pulled her closer as they walked, his arm around her shoulders, her arm around his waist. As they reached the perimeter of the grounds and followed the path around, they discussed what they had discovered about his past, and when they had exhausted that topic, what they wanted from the future that Sherlock was finally able to begin to contemplate.