Sherlock POV
The hiding place that I chose - slightly unoriginally - was behind a set of drapes. I sat with my head against the wall, listening intently for any potential threat and hoping that I would wake up soon and be free of the trap before any of them could find me. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
I heard a soft noise echoing from the end of the corridor and looked in that direction, peering through the chink in the curtains, but there was nothing there. When I turned back to stare at the wall across from me, however, Lockie was sat across from me. His wide eyes were watching me carefully, and there was an obvious look of fear and urgency on his face. I could tell that he was desperate to take to the other personalities immediately, but I didn't want to go. I wanted to wait until my body gained control of itself.
The little boy reached a hand out to me, and I took it reluctantly. He pulled my up on to my feet and, after checking round the curtains to be sure that the coast was clear, he pulled on my hand and tugged me out of the hiding place.
"Quick, we have to get the others-" He set off into a run, tugging me along after him; we were running down the corridor that lead towards the throne room, and he would check around corners frantically before he dared to take a step. I decided to feign ignorance, not wanting him to know of my eavesdropping on their conversation,
"What's going o-?" He cut me off with a shush, looking around frantically,
"He's everywhere. He'll hurt you, and then he'll hurt John. I promised Greggie. I have to help."
There was a shove in my stomach, and I tried to protest as he shoved me behind another set of curtains. I realised quickly what was happening, and it was when I was trying to be silent that my heartbeat decided to pound loudly in my ears. It felt so loud that I was sure it was audible throughout the Mind Palace, summoning the Psychopath like a beacon.
The mad-eyed creature prowled past our hiding place, luckily without pausing to look through the gap, with his eyes narrowed as he searched for his prey, and we watched the psychopath snarl and then disappear from sight. We didn't took for a couple of seconds, as we waited for him to get out of earshot, and then Lockie spoke in a whisper,
"We have to get the others to help. We need to lock him up, or he'll hurt John. We can't let him hurt John again." The child burst into hysterical tears, and I shushed him in case the psychopath heard the whimpering and came back, "We hurt him before and he's our best friend. I don't want him to do it again!"
A voice echoed down the corridor, apparently having been drawn by the crying,
"Lockie, where are you?!" We froze and I clamped a hand over his mouth, silencing him. One of the other personalities came into sight through the small crack and for a second we feared that it was the psychopath, having returned. His face was cold and set into an angry snarl, and I ducked out of sight as he spotted Lockie through the gap. I had just a glimpse of blue eyes, however, and I was certain it was the Sociopath that was coming towards us. "What are you doing down there? I told you to stay close in case the psychopath came." He had reached the curtains now, and he pushed them open to reveal that I was sat there as well. "Sherlock? How did you get there?"
"It's my mind palace," I reminded him.
The sociopath scoffed, looking extremely unimpressed,
"Your mind palace? I have guarded these walls for twenty years. Whilst all of the other personalities sat in their cells, I was here. I was the only one you allowed to roam freely, and I spent that time filing, learning and searching. I made your mind palace what it is, and it would fall without me!"
"But it is still my palace! I come here all the time. How have I never seen you?"
"I wasn't visible before, I'm more a part of you than the others, and I only fully separated in light of the recent events. I, unlike the Psychopath, would like to return to my true position as part of your mind, which is why you're here. Your brain slipped into a coma to enable you time to repair yourself. You have the chance to put yourself back together, and to be whole for the first time in decades. You can finally be the man you should have been, if not for your father."
Lockie bounced at my side, nodding excitably,
"Yes, we're going to put Sherlock back together and rid of all the others-"
"We can't get rid of them all. Sherlock needs me, or he loses how he defines himself; he needs you because you're his childhood memories, and he'll have nothing left without you; and he needs his nice and lustful sides around, every once in a while. Some of us need to stay; we make him who he is-" The boy rolled his eyes at the sociopath's reasoning, clearly finding it dull, and I was suddenly reminded of the hyperactive child I had once been. I had been so happy and curious, excited to learn things, but unable to sit still for long explanations. Mycroft had encouraged that, and he had never understood what had happened to that boy, nor had I - since I had forgotten the abuse. Now, I knew.
"Yes, fine. We can just get rid of those three, and then we can all return to our proper place as part of Sherlock." They both turned to look at me, and I grimaced slightly at the way he had phrased the statement,
"I don't know what becoming 'part of me' entails, but I can't imagine it's going to be fun-"
"I'm sure you can handle it, Sherlock. Pain is hardly unknown to us." He looked at the blood stain seeping through the front of my shirt, "And on that note, how's the stab wound?" I pulled up my shirt slightly, and he mirrored the action to compare our wounds. They were symmetrical down to the tiniest detail,
"I think this shows how closely we are related. We will be the easiest to join up again, but it's not going to be easy. How are you feeling? Are you up to fighting?"
"As up to it as I'll ever be. It's this or risk dying." He nodded,
"We'll go after the psychopath first then. He's the strongest, and we'll need all out energy to deal with him-"
Another figure appeared at the end of the corridor, running towards us with a frantic expression on his good-natured face. There was something about his face that, though the features were completely identical, made him look like a completely different person. His face was soft and kind, the hard features becoming smooth contours and gentle angles, and it was strange. All of the personalities managed to retain the essence of my own face, the intelligent coldness, except for him. It showed just how much difference there was when the same face was controlled by a completely different person.
"Oh, thank goodness you're alright Lockie, and you, Sherlock! We worried that something may have happened to you. Are you comparing battlewounds? Do you need any help? I may have a first aid kit-" He had a ridiculous smile on his cheery face, so desperate was he to please us. He was remarkably like a puppy dog. I'd never met anyone so sickening cute, and I live with a man who always wears fluffy jumpers and drinks tea. He reached out a hand to comfort us, but the sociopath glared him down,
"Touch me, and I'll snap your arm." He shrugged, backing away with that same smile still plastered on his face and patting me on the back, chuckling at the sociopath's threats.
"Anything you say, buddy. I just want what's best for all of us. Shall we kick the next part of the plan into action?"
"Yeah, go get whoever you can gather - except the Psychopath, of course - and meet us in the throne room. We're taking Sherlock's palace back and fixing it, for good. Lockie, go track down the psychopath and lure him to us. Sherlock, you're with me."
I nodded and followed him down the corridor. He was definitely the one most like me. Even now, his eyes were flickering over the empty shelves in the throne room, drinking in and filing away the tiniest details as I did for everything, and he sighed loudly,
"I had just finished alphabetising all of this. Twenty years of work down the drain. These were all the details of the last five years of cases, placed into ranks of importance and then ordered alphabetically. It's all ruined, all hidden away or ripped up. I'll kill him!"
"Oh, will you?" We turned in time to see the bloodied form of Lockie land at our feet. He whimpered, but before I could offer comfort he had crawled away and hidden away behind the throne. I actually felt a small welling of sympathy for the boy, and it only made me angrier with the man who had hurt the innocent young creature.
The Sociopath's eyes were narrowed, clearly I was not the only one affected by the cruelty, and he moved to square up to his twin,
"You can't keep doing this. Sherlock reigns here and that will always be the case. Sherlock is the true personality, we are merely fragments, and none of us can take control without him, because there's not enough of us to sustain a whole person for longer than a few hours. Killing the true Sherlock will kill us all."
The psychopath sneered at him, unsettling me further. I had frequently been called cold, sociopathic, unsympathetic and "generally a bit of an arsehole", but I had never thought of myself as evil. I work for the good of others, even if it is for selfish reasons such as boredom, and it was deeply troubling to see myself so horrifically twisted and cruel. I silently vowed right there and then to start listening to John's lessons on social nicety.
"I really don't care anymore. At first, it was just about control and power… now I don't care about that. When I was with Moriarty the other day, we hatched a plan. We're going to kill someone from every country in the world... but, oh, won't it be hard to track them all down when I have so little time. Well, it would have been, but Mycroft helped me on that front. A little bit of sweet-talking and playing little brother, and I have a pass into-"
"The UN building," whispered the Sociopath. "He was talking about his meeting the other day, and Moriarty mentioned your idea. You're going to plant a bomb-"
"I made it myself. One explosion and not only do I kill someone from every nation, but I take down the world's leading politicians. Minimal time, but maximum impact. Going out with a bang you could say."
"And that was why you attacked Sherlock in the bathroom. I thought it was rash, but you just needed to act quickly. You needed to be at the UN meeting in a few hours and you needed Sherlock trapped in here, or dead, to do so…"
"I must admit, for my plan to work I need total control of a physical body and a few hours uninterrupted by you lot-"
"But we'll all die! If this Sherlock dies then he leaves a gap, and the mind slowly decays. All of this disappears and within a few hours, probably before the plan's complete, we go into a coma permanently… we'll be brain dead!"
"And I'll never be punished for my crime… in a way I get off scot free."
"These are people's lives, entire nations, we're talking about! If you take out all the world leaders, you could destroy the planet's politics. You could start world war three, and for what? To stop the boredom! You can't kill innocent people just for fun and you can't end the world just because you feel like it!"
"Oh really? Well, who's going to stop me?"
"Us." In they filed, one by one, to line up around the Sociopath. They all there except the Depressed personality, who they probably couldn't convince to get out of bed. Together, they formed a united front against the Psychopath, and even Lockie got up to help - taking the Kindest personality's hand and attempting to look brave. They were fighting for their home and to stand against their biggest threat. Forget Irene Adler, forget Moriarty and forget the assasins, murderers and rapists I dealt with on an everyday basis for years… the biggest threat I'd ever faced was now stood before us. A self-loathing psychopath who was trying to take my mind from within. His lips quirked into a smile, and he laughed at them,
"You forget, I have fought every one of our battles for the past twenty years. I am the strongest of us all. Do you honestly think you can beat me?"
He began to laugh, his face adopting a manic expression, and they all looked at each other in worry, beginning to doubt if they really could beat him. They seemed on the verge of backing down when suddenly there was a loud bang, and his expression froze mid-laugh. His eyes widened in shock as blood tricked down his face, staining it like tear-tracks, and he fell face first. There was a thud as his body hit the ground, and we watched in shock as the blood spread around his head in a scarlet halo.
In unison, we turned to discover the identity of the killer, and we shouted together,
"John?" I was glad to see that I was not the only one surprised by the development of events, as they all exchanged confused looks. He gave me - note I said me, which gave me an odd sense of satisfaction - a cheeky grin and tucked his gun away in his front pocket,
"That's my name, and don't wear it out-"
"That would be completely impossible," said the Sociopath, who clearly couldn't resist. He was silenced by our irritated looks, however. I was the first to move, shortly followed by Lockie, and I ran to wrap my arms around my friend. It wasn't something I would usually do, but it was a relief to see him. He had come at just the right moment. I pulled back and John patted Lockie, who's arms were round his waist, on the head affectionately.
"What are you going here? You're not another personality are you?"
"Oh, God no!" He laughed, shaking his head, "No, thankfully not. You could say I'm a... resident. I'm the only one who can get inside your head, and you have to admit that I'm usually on time to save the day with a well aimed bullet. It's basically my job description at this point." I laughed, it was true. John usually turned up in just the nick of time, and the Study in Pink was just one example of his exemplary timing. It only seemed fair that the man who had changed my life so thoroughly had a place in my Mind Palace, where I only stored the things that had mattered once. Until now, that had only been the work and never a person.
He turned to look at the personalities, and I did the same. It was strange to be stood staring at a whole line of me, especially when they were all regarding me with identical expressions and their heads were all quirked at an identical angle. It only made it worse that "my" still warm corpse was lying at their feet. I shuddered, and John seemed to share the feeling because his fingers twitched to his gun.
Clearly, spotting John's intention, the Sociopath's eyes narrowed,
"We are all deemed necessary to Sherlock's personality, so I would advise against disposing of any of us." He looked down the line and quickly backtracked, jabbing a thumb at the personality to his immediate left, the addict, "Except him. You can do as you want with him."
"Hey, you can't send me ba-" He was cut off by John's fist cracking into his jaw, and the Sociopath gave him a brief, appreciative look before turning to look at the others.
"Right, I'll take him down the dungeons and make sure he never gets out again. John, you track down misery guts and get rid of him. Little-Miss-Sunshine?" The Friendly personality immediately jumped forward, eager to help and clearly not at all offended by the nickname, "Look after Lockie and make sure Sherlock get's some rest." They all looked at me, and I immediately felt disconcerted under their identical gazes, "He's going to need it."