Sherlock attempted to concentrate on Irene's words but memories bombarded the present until he no longer saw or observed the others, only the others from his past seemed real now. "I remember," Sherlock thought. "I remember you all. You were all so brave." Then his mind shut down and carried him back, back to the day his parents checked him into The Thames Hospital for Children.

Sherlock's mom hugged him. "Now, Sherlock you won't be here forever. You need to get better. Mycroft saved you last time but he might not be there next time and your father and I couldn't bear to lose you."

Sherlock nodded afraid to speak. He glanced over at Mycroft, expecting to see him gloating. He wasn't. Mycroft looked pained. His pale face a large white oval. He moved towards Sherlock but was pushed away by a nurse.

"Prolonged good-byes will only jeopardize his treatment program," she said clasping Sherlock's arm. "You can see him in 30 days."

Sherlock spoke for the first time since Mycroft had found him in a state of overdose a week earlier. "No, I won't be able to stand it. I will be good. I promise."

Sherlock's father licked his lips, a sign that he wanted to give into Sherlock's demands. "Father, please don't put me in here," Sherlock wined.

Seeing his reticence, Sherlock's mother took her husband by the arm. "Come on let's go. It's for the best. We love you Sherlock."

Sherlock looked after them somehow knowing nothing would ever be the same.

"Sherlock, are you alright?" John asked. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock blinked confused for a moment. "I need to go to my mind palace."

John watched Sherlock stumble towards the door that led outside to freedom. "What's wrong with him? Will somebody tell me what's going on?" He demanded.

Irene smiled. "John, I am not as cruel as you would think. For I don't have the key. Sherlock does. It's all in his mind palace. You see he was the last person to see it. He just doesn't remember."

Mycroft leaned against the wall. "So, that's why you brought him back to this place."

Irene smiled. "Yes, that is the main reason. Now while Sherlock is otherwise engaged I will tell you what I know of the key. The key is to a Swiss Bank Account that was opened by my grandfather before he was taken to the camps and killed. He gave the key to a trusted friend-a Doctor. Doctor Dunkle betrayed my grandfather and took the key for himself. He couldn't use it because of his past record with the Nazi's. He was a Nazi war criminal and would have been tried and convicted for his part in the extermination of the Jews. The key passed to his son. On his death bed Doctor Dunkle told his son about the key, making him swear to give it back to my family. I don't need to tell you that he did no such thing. The son followed in the footsteps of his father and became a Doctor here at the Children's Hospital. When he was arrested for participating in illegal experiments on the patients, the key was nowhere to be found. However, many of the surviving children said that the Doctor wore a key around his neck. He never took it off. However, the police didn't follow up on the lead, due to the fact that most of the children were unstable and went stark raving mad. Only one didn't."

"Sherlock," John whispered.

"Yes, Sherlock, our darling boy has a secret in his head that must be extracted." Irene said fingering the leather choker around her neck.

Sherlock sat down in the courtyard, folding his legs into a meditative pose. He closed his eyes, accessing his mind palace. The peeling paint of the walls seemed to regenerate as Sherlock remembered. He gritted his teeth in order to keep the visions within his mind organized, shaking his head when images of needles, maniacal laughter, crying and restraints threatened to overwhelm him. His lips moved slowly in a chant. "I must remember the day the Doctor took Daniel, nothing else just that day."

Mind Palace File 116-Daniel

When Sherlock next opened his eyes he lay strapped down on a gurney. Doctor Dunkle looked down at him. "Sherlock, you are a fine boy with a fine mind. You are the only patient to come out of solitary unscathed. Unlike your friend Daniel. He was weak and is now paying the price for it."

Sherlock turned a tear stained face to where his once vibrant friend Daniel lay. His eyes were glazed over revealing his catatonic state and nothing more. If the eyes were the window to the soul his had been drained away until the essence inside bled out becoming an empty vessel.

"Sherlock, focus as I taught you to do. Remember emotion clouds the intellect. You are superior now act like it. Oh, and never fear your friend will be well taken care of. I've recommended that he be placed in one of the best sanitariums in the country. He'll be waited on hand and foot." Doctor Dunkle said leaning down to peer into Sherlock's wide green eyes. Smiling he took off his glasses, frowning. "Damn, glasses. I hate when a piece of grit gets on the lens."

Sherlock watched in fascination as the Doctor cleaned his lenses. "The grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment…That's what emotions are."

The Doctor put his glasses back on and said, "Bravo, Sherlock very good. See how I have molded you, shaped you, made you."

In a last act of defiance Sherlock pulled on his restraints and screamed out, "Doctor, you are incorrect. No one made me this way. I made me this way. Do you hear me? I made me this way!"

Doctor Dunkle stared into Sherlock's eyes and when Sherlock didn't look away he laughed. "Sherlock, you just don't get it do you?"

Sherlock could feel panic and anger building up in his chest. He was going to lose it any minute. In order to keep himself in check, Sherlock spewed out the first thing that came to his mind. "Well, at least I'm not dark like you. Don't think that the word 'dunkle' escapes me. It means dark in German. That's what you are, a dark evil person and evil never triumphs."

The Doctor laughed again, then his expression sobered. "Sherlock, you are still young yet. Though you may not see it, you are just like me-dark."

"No," Sherlock shouted and spit at the Doctor.

The Doctor wiped his cheek with the sleeve of his uniform. "Sherlock, you are a sociopath. That in itself makes you dark. Haven't you ever wondered why you don't feel things like other people? Why you never cry, except when physically hurt? You are exceptional like me. You will never have close friends, or even a lover. You are incapable of such relationships. You are a genius and genius does not tolerate sentimentality. Oh, Sherlock you will leave them all behind without so much as a thought."

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut in order to block out the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. The Doctor approached Sherlock after he had filled a syringe. Sherlock's eyes fluttered open, dreading what was coming next. The Doctor's cold hands upon his arm, the thump of a vein with his index finger, the smell of rubbing alcohol, the prick of the needle, then bliss followed by terrifying nightmares.

Sherlock opened his eyes. The Doctor's figure blurred in and out of focus. Then the sound of shouting voices reached them. It appeared as if the police were raiding this foul place. "Mycroft must have come through," Sherlock thought. He looked over at the Doctor in satisfaction, reveling in his terrified expression. Just before he lost consciousness, Sherlock watched as the Doctor took a necklace off from around his neck. He looked both ways placing it in a secret panel inside the wall.

"Very clever," Sherlock thought closing his eyes.

"Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, can you hear me?" A voice asked shinning a flashlight into Sherlock's blown pupils. "Where's this kid's family? We're losing him. Fuck. Someone find out what was in that syringe. We have a code blue, code blue…"

"Sherlock, can you hear me? It's me, John. Sherlock, answer me," John's frantic voice called Sherlock into the present.

Sherlock's eyes snapped open. "Yes, John all of London can hear you. You know how I am when I go to my mind palace. We must work on your stress reduction techniques."

John held Sherlock's hand in a tight grasp, for he could see the terror and sadness that lurked behind those murky green depths. He bent down and whispered in Sherlock's ear. "I love you."

Sherlock's eyes grew moist and he fingered John's palm. "I am quite well, John and more importantly I remember where the Doctor put the key."

Irene and Laura clapped their hands together and Mycroft looked smug. Sherlock ignored them watching the sun glint off of John's golden hair. "You're wrong Doctor Dunkle," he thought," I may be dark but somehow an angel found me."