I Want to Know, Too
Dreams and Memories
Brightness is something that plagues hospitals. Glowing red against closed eyelids. Bouncing off every white surface and assaulting open eyes. Too much light for someone who has been spending an unknown amount of time sleeping. Especially to wake up in a panic only to find that tubes and contraptions are holding your body to a bed. Trauma center, indeed.
Sherlock's eyes were shifting between widening with panic and wincing at the gleaming light. Moments ago, an octopus with thin arms had been holding him down and shoving needles into his arms. The dreams he had been skating through before waking up in the stark white hospital room had been both bizarre and familiar. His memories seemed to have been twisted by the dreams. There were many alarming memories that seemed too fantastic to be real. The faint sound of the heart monitor mimicked the racing of his mind. It was the appropriate soundtrack as he sped through his thoughts separating his dreams from memories.
Mycroft on his knees. Dirty suit must have worn for days. Mouth covered with red duct tape. Body lit with the red dots of hidden snipers.
Dream. Delete.
Mrs. Hudson wrapping an old blue scarf around his neck before allowing him to scout out his new neighborhood. The blue wool smelled wonderfully of pipe smoke.
Memory. File.
Slowly approaching an alarm clock time bomb with a gun. Rushing, instead, toward a black demon. Red lights falling like snow. "Move quickly. I'd hate to have to break my favorite toy," the demon shrieks.
Dream. Delete.
Amazing? "What do people usually say?" Freak. Psychopath. "Piss off."
Memory. File.
Turning around to see John at the door. No wall to protect him. Why was John not beside him? Being a hero? Too much sound.
Memory. File.
A girl heard crying over a phone in an art gallery. Comets.
Memory. File.
First kiss experiment. Beautiful girl. Witty. Front door. Leaning in. Too moist. Invading mouth with tongue. Feels alien. Leaving her in the doorway. Final kiss experiment. Personal social experiments rarely ended pleasantly.
Memory. Delete.
The taste of Mrs. Hudson's scones when forced to eat every couple of days. Even after having shot some initials into the wall.
Memory. File.
Running through the streets with a cripple after a black cab. So close to a killer. Failing to make the taxi connection. Wasting a decent mind due to boredom with life. Should have left pill alone. Was I right?
Memory. File.
Playing the violin on a balcony. Night sky is filled with red stars. Someone encircling waist from behind. Placing their chin on my shoulder. Final kiss experiment was also final intimacy related experiment. Ridiculous.
Dream. Delete.
Girl in lab. Molly. Looks like kiss experiment girl. Less make-up and longer hair. Eyes dilate slightly when she looks this way. Blushes when I look up. Must curb this.
Memory. Should keep memories of work relations. File.
Solving a murder involving Stonehenge. Killer left path of models of Stonehenge using rocks or found items near where next victim would be taken.
Interesting dream. File.
Molly again. Asking me out to coffee. Divert. Place order, instead. Comment on lack of make-up to further divert. Need person working with to be focused on the task at hand.
Memory. Keep.
John with very bloody hair on a stretcher. Being attended by white robed, winged people.
Dream. Delete.
Molly's new boyfriend leaving his number. Girl does not realize he is gay. Must preempt possible emotional disaster. Could be potentially disruptive to her work.
Memory. Keep.
John being pulled into a whirlpool slowly sinking into dark water.
Dream. Delete.
The rush of nicotine the first time trying two patches at the same time. Mind racing in several directions. Finding the answer quickly, but having to walk Lestrade through the solution at a snail's pace.
Memory. File, delete.
John being hit by a burst of water through a doorway. Being thrown backwards to the ground. Pain.
Memory. File.
Pointing a gun at Molly near the ocean. Jumping off a cliff after her.
Dream. Delete.
Sorting through the memories and dreams gave Sherlock a sense of control on the situation. The heart monitor echoed this by playing a slower tune. Recent memories floated just beyond his reach. Words and feelings but none of the details he was accustomed to. John and Molly were connected to important things, but exactly what he was not sure. He believed John had been in danger and would likely be in a state similar to his own. Molly was connected, but probably not hospitalized.
Finally, Sherlock started taking in his surroundings. Lestrade must have gotten involved in whose care Sherlock was under. By the way his appointed doctor signed his care sheets on the wall, he had been told often he was great, but did not believe it himself—he thought he was the greatest. The doctor was wrong. He carried his own expensive fountain pen. However, some of the sheets had corrections in the head nurse's pen, a humble stick pen. Probably advertising some prescription drug for depression as the writing was subtly perky in a defiant way. The doctor would try to sound important with jargon while the nurse followed behind making corrections. When the doctor came in Sherlock would ignore him and speak with the head nurse. Intelligent people hated being ignored. Sherlock hated being ignored.
From the CT scans peaking from his folder, Sherlock deduced he probably had some temporary head trauma. Certainly concussed, but luckily his frontal lobe seemed in order. It had been a while since he had demanded to get an MRI of his brain out of curiosity. However, from his comparison to the one currently hanging next to x-rays, his left temporal lobe seemed to have a slightly lighter spot. Nothing serious from the pictures visible to him, but it would cause some temporary retrograde amnesia, which fit his damaged memories. The x-ray of his head showed that all his cranial bones appeared to be intact.
Sherlock's left tibia was no so lucky. A nasty line trailed across the white bone in the x-ray of his lower leg. He found his foot movement restricted and knew if he moved the sheet, there would be a bulky cast to greet him. Laying back, Sherlock sighed and wondered when he could get someone in here to tell him how John had fared the exploding pool and if he had been through as many machines as Sherlock.
His charts had been filled recently by the doctor. Maybe that was why no one was racing in to check on the person waking up from a three day sleep. Only one of those days had been drug induced. Sherlock wanted to get some answers for the missing or scrambled memories. When the doctor or nurse came and heard about his faulty memory, they would demand he rest to heal. Unless he could convince them that it would be in their best interest as well that he be released. To his right was a clicker with a button on a chord for the nurse's station. Luckily for Sherlock, he had been leaving a trail of annoyed people ready to kick him out the door since primary school.
He was able to click the button 52 times before a blond woman in pink scrubs busted into the room.