Chapter Five

Yeah, it's short, but I don't care. :)

For the next four days, things went on as they had been: meals, movies or television and visits. Molly came over again, and once again, Sherlock was calm around her. John couldn't explain it. He was still jumpy around them all, but when Molly visited, it seemed to calm him. He would ask, but Sherlock wouldn't answer anyway, so what was the point?

And when Sherlock's parents visited? John had not been expecting them at all. They were just so ordinary compared to Sherlock and his brother. How had they produced these two eccentric geniuses? It was especially difficult watching Mrs. Holmes try to control herself when all she clearly wanted to do was hold her son. And the tears only made Sherlock more and more uneasy.

Sherlock had finally made it through the night without waking up in a cold sweat with a scream on his lips. It had been reduced to some hyperventilating and trembling. And, of course, John was always there to chase away the night terrors.

The next morning, John was helping Greg make some breakfast as Sherlock sat at the kitchen island, reading a fantasy novel as he waited.

"So, he's reading now," stated Greg quietly.

"Yeah, grabbed it from the library last night," John told him.

Greg glanced back at the reading detective. "He almost looks normal again, doesn't he?"

John smiled at Greg. "I know what you mean. I thought I missed the cases before, but now…" He gave a significant glance in Sherlock's direction. "It feels like things are back to normal, and yet, it feels different. You know?"

"Exactly," said Greg, laughing a little. "I never thought I'd miss being called an idiot."

John laughed as he pulled the kettle out of a cupboard.

"John."

John froze and looked over at Greg with wide eyes. Together, they turned to look at Sherlock sitting at the kitchen island.

Sherlock was staring at him with a shy, nervous gaze. "I…" He closed his mouth, wringing his hands in front of him. "I would like some tea, too."

The voice had barely been above a whisper, but it was music to John's ears all the same. He hadn't heard it in over a year, and he had started to fear he would never hear it again.

John smiled at his friend. "Sure. I'll fix you a cuppa."

A smile appeared on Sherlock's face, and he nodded. John looked at Greg, and they shared a smile. John went back to his preparations, and before long, he was setting a cup of tea in front of Sherlock.

"Thanks," said Sherlock quietly.

"You're welcome," said John, relishing the rare moment that Sherlock thanked him for anything.

Greg walked over to the island, a plate of biscuits in his hand. "There we go. Have as many as you want."

"Thanks, Geoff," Sherlock softly replied.

John let out a loud laugh as Greg did as well. Alarmed by the sudden outburst, Sherlock jumped and shrunk in on himself.

"No, no," said John, fighting the laughter back as much as he could. "We're sorry, Sherlock. It's just that you called him Geoff, and his name is Greg."

"You never could get my name right," Greg told him with a gentle smile.

"We're just very, very happy to see that you're still you," John tried to explain. "Does that make sense?"

Relaxing a bit, Sherlock nodded. "I never got his name right?"

John shook his head. "Not once."

"You would call me all sorts of things," said Greg. "Garret, George, Gavin—"

"Glen," said John.

"Gabe," said Greg.

"Don't forget Gil," said John.

"Oh, and my personal favorite: Gustav," said Greg with a smile. "Not sure where you got that one."

Sherlock smiled.

"There was a pool going round at the Yard on how many names you could come up with," said Greg. He looked at John. "I think Dimmock won."

Sherlock laughed a little before venturing a question in a small voice. "Has my memory always been bad?"

John took his cup of tea and sat next to Sherlock. "It depends on who you ask. You had a mind for facts and memories. It was near perfect recall. The only issue was that anything you deemed unimportant, you would delete."

Sherlock frowned.

John shrugged. "Your own words. You referred to your brain as a hard drive."

Sherlock looked down at the counter with his frown.

"Yeah, it's strange," said John. "But it worked for you. It's what made you…you. And that was just fine with us."

"So…" began Sherlock, still frowning at the table, "I decided that my life was unimportant?"

It took John a moment to understand, but when he did, he reached forward and covered Sherlock's hand with his own. "No, you didn't. I think you compartmentalized it to help you deal with what was happening to you. It's still in there." He motioned over to Greg. "Obviously."

Sherlock nodded and picked up his tea, taking a drink from it.

"Hey," said John gently, "is it all right if I ask you a question?"

Sherlock looked up at him and nodded.

"Do you remember Molly?" John asked him.

Sherlock frowned a little.

"You're so calm around her, more than you were around any of us," John explained. "I just wondered what it was about her that doesn't…you know, scare you."

Sherlock was silent for a moment. "Don't know. I just get this feeling around her. It's…" he struggled with words for a moment before looking down at the table, "I can't explain it."

"It's all right," John told him. "You don't have to. Thanks for telling me."

Sherlock nodded and took another drink of his tea.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked John. He glanced at Greg. "That we can do for you?"

Sherlock frowned at him.

"Even if it is just listening," John stated.

Still, the frown remained.

"If you want to talk," John clarified. "Sometimes, it helps people to talk."

A nervous look entered Sherlock's eyes.

"But you don't have to," John quickly told him. "Just that…whenever you're ready…we're here."

Sherlock visibly relaxed. "Thanks."

With that, John and Greg started up a conversation to ease Sherlock's tension with having to talk.

The conversation about Sherlock's captivity would not come back around for another four days. And not in a way anyone expected.

"And the coroner put time of death at twelve hours," said Molly as the four of them lounged in the sitting room, "when clearly it was—"

"Thirty-six," Sherlock interrupted.

The three of them looked over at him where he saw next to John on the sofa.

Sherlock blinked a couple of times and looked down at his legs with a frown. He glanced over at John. "How did I know that?"

John's mouth tugged at the corner in the threat of a smirk, glancing at Greg. "Isn't that usually my line?"

Greg and Molly chuckled as Sherlock glanced between them all.

John looked back at him. "Sorry, it's just that I'm usually the one left wondering where you got all your deductions from. You were a detective. Well, you are a detective."

Sherlock looked at Greg. "Like you?"

Greg shook his head. "You were in a class all your own. You only consulted with Scotland Yard."

"Consulted?" asked Sherlock. "Like a private detective?" He looked down at his hands. "No, the police don't go to private detectives."

John smiled. "No, they don't. You called yourself a consulting detective."

"Was I any good?" asked Sherlock.

"Very good," said Molly. "You became something of a celebrity near the end."

A grimace of disgust came over Sherlock's face for a brief moment.

"Yeah, that's exactly how you felt about it before," said John.

Sherlock then frowned and looked up at Molly again. "What do you mean, 'near the end'?"

Molly tensed, looking at the others before answering. "There were circumstances that forced you to fake your death. You were supposed to track down this criminal network, but then…" Tears formed in her eyes, and she appeared to be too choked up to continue.

"That was when you were taken to that place," John gently told him. "They left enough evidence to make the few people who knew you were still alive believe you had been killed. If it wasn't for some inside help two weeks ago, we would still think you were dead."

John was astonished when Sherlock's jaw slowly dropped and his eyes widened. "Sherlock?"

"That's why no one came for me?" Sherlock asked in a small, dazed voice.

John frowned. "What?"

"I was trapped there for a year," Sherlock went on quietly. "You didn't come for me that whole time. I thought—" His voice cut off as he tried to blink away tears.

John's eyes widened as he realized what Sherlock must have been thinking the last couple weeks: if these people were my friends, why didn't they rescue me sooner? "Oh, Sherlock, I'm so sorry. We should have explained sooner."

"You…" began Sherlock, the tears starting to fall slowly down his face, "you all really didn't know?"

"Of course not," Molly told him, getting to her feet and kneeling in front of him. "We would've gotten to you the second we knew. We would never abandon you, Sherlock."

Greg had stood to kneel next to the sofa. "Never, mate. We're so sorry you had to go through all that."

"Every day, I hoped something would stop it," muttered Sherlock in a voice that was growing slightly louder and faster as he went, "that someone would find me, that they would leave me for dead—anything but the constant beatings—"

Tears filled Molly's eyes as she squeezed Sherlock's knee for support.

"—and no one came," gasped Sherlock, practically crying in earnest. "Only them. The broken bones, the knives, the burns, the sleep deprivation—it never stopped! It never once stopped, and no one came!"

Molly couldn't stand it any longer. She pushed to her feet and pulled Sherlock into her arms as she sat next to him. John eased up from the sofa and took Molly's place in front of it. Sherlock fell into Molly's embrace, wrapping his own arms around her, his cast held awkwardly against her back. He cried into her shoulder as John placed his hand up onto Sherlock's shoulder and Greg placed his hand onto the other shoulder. It wasn't much, but Molly was doing more than enough for all three of them.

"I wish so much that I had known," said Molly, crying herself. "I would have never left you there a second longer. I'm so sorry."

Sherlock's grip on her tightened.

"I will never let this happen to you again," Molly told him.

"Neither will we," John said as Greg nodded. "You can count on that."

It took several long minutes before Sherlock calmed enough to pull away from Molly.

Molly smiled at him, reaching up to swipe at his tears with her thumbs. "There. That's better."

Sherlock gave her a smile, seeming to be much more relaxed than he had ever been since he was rescued. Then, much to John's surprise, Molly leaned forward and placed a quick kiss to Sherlock's brow.

"Feel better?" Molly asked him.

Sherlock nodded, taking a deep, cleansing breath. "Much."