A/N: the story of Sherlock, through snapshots of different years. A lot of this is from my headcanon. My first Sherlock fanfic.

Characters: Sherlock, Mycroft, John, Lestrade

Pairings: None

Rating: T for drug use and the occasional swearing

If I owned Sherlock, we would have season 3 already.

Inside My World

He is twelve, and it is raining at the funeral. Mycroft and Father are both huddled miserably under black umbrellas as they stand at opposite ends of the graveside, but Sherlock lets the rain pour down his face and ruin his tailored suit and wash away the feelings that are settling in his chest like sediment in one of his experiments, until all he feels hatred, because Mycroft wasn't there when it happened, and Father has been sleeping with the nurse for two years, and now mummy is dead-dead-dead, and he is useless.

Because even though he is the one who stayed with her, it was Mycroft she had been calling for at the end, perfect bloody Mycroft who swore to look after Sherlock and went off to Oxford instead, and now Sherlock wants to scream because the sound of the rain and the muttering of prayers and his own treacherous breathing are too bloody loud, and the crowd of people is closing in around him like a wall of lies and secrets, details he doesn't want to notice.

He flees as if he could outrun his skin itself.

He is thirteen, and Mycroft won't answer his phone, even though he swore that Sherlock could call him any time. Sherlock believed him then, but the phone just keeps ringing until it cuts off, and when he tries two minutes later, it has been switched off, and he knows that Mycroft has left him too.

It is a betrayal that almost makes him cry, but Sherlock doesn't cry, not even when Jamie twists his arms behind his back so that Victor can black both his eyes, not even when they kick him in the ribs until he can't breathe, not even when Father slaps him when he is drunk (which has only happened twice, but Sherlock is counting).

And so Sherlock decides that he doesn't care, and he almost, almost deletes Mycroft's number, except maybe, he thinks, it would be prudent to have a number to contact, even if his brother doesn't care either.

Years later, when he's fleeing for his life through some dark alley, he is glad that he kept the number on speed dial.

He is fifteen, and angry at the world as only a teenager can be, but Mycroft knows it is more than that. Sherlock will never confide in him, not anymore, but Mycroft remembers enough of himself at that age, and of course, to the man who will go on to be the British Government, Sherlock is transparent. Or almost transparent. Because this time, for the first time in a long time, Mycroft has no idea what he has done to upset his little brother. And, while he could brave the warzone of Sherlock's bedroom to find out, it will mean being late for his new job, and so instead he calls goodbye to a father who won't listen, and gets into the car.

He's never regretted something so much as he regrets leaving that day.

He is twenty the first time he meets Mike Stamford, and the corridor at St. Bart's is packed with people. Sherlock doesn't pay much attention to the grinning medical student who brushes past him where he stands, and he soon deletes all memory of the man, overwriting it with his newest lab experiment. Sherlock isn't really studying for anything (Cambridge was dull and there's no way he's going back to university), but he has wormed his way into the good books of most of the lecturers and he soon becomes a familiar face at the hospital. Still, it's not until he's twenty six that he really takes note of Stamford. The man has changed, gained weight, and Sherlock does not recognise him, but the student-turned-lecturer seems to remember him, and they strike up a sort-of-friendship. When, idly complaining that nobody would want him as a roommate, Sherlock plants the idea in Stamford's mind, he never expects the throwaway comment will change his life.

Even geniuses can be taken by surprise.

A/N: Thank you for the favourites, but please review so I know what you like and what you don't. Thanks again.