The dreams
Thursday, March 21th 1867.
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Sherlock's night was not an easy one.
He woke up multiple times. The pain from his head and his leg had receded but during the night, it returned vigorously, which made it difficult for him to fall asleep.
The gash had started to hurt after the long walk with Patterson. Contrary to expectation, resting was not making it better, but worse.
Even more difficult than the moderate pain were the nightmares, though.
Shortly after midnight, he woke up bathed in sweat, remembering exactly what he had dreamt about.
At first, there had only been vague images of Mycroft and him as children, but then it became more detailed. He remembered there was a girl, who climbed a tree and teased them to follow her up.
Mycroft refused, but little Sherlock tried. He hadn't even reached one of the thick lower branches when the girl started to kick him from above. It didn't take long until he fell down, hurting his leg on impact.
Sherlock assumed his real pain had influenced the dream, integrated itself in it.
The dream itself was not unsettling to a level that kept him from falling asleep again, but something he couldn't decipher was. Additionally, his senses started to act up a bit while he tried.
The little noises in the building were getting to him, especially the distressed ones from further away. The rough fabric of his pyjamas and the bed were hard to ignore. The discomfort worsened the pain reception and although he was aware of the vicious cycle and tried to ignore it, it felt like hours until he managed to drift off again.
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After barely an hour of undisturbed sleep, he woke to his leg pounding with pain.
The strong urge to unwrap the dressing and inspect the wound resulted in him shoving away the blanket and sitting up.
His entire calf was burning and the moment he moved, a stabbing pain made him hiss. The dim light was not helpful when he tried to peel away the bandages.
Looking around the room, he noticed that something was bright outside, although it felt way too early for sunrise.
He limped over and opened the window blinds.
A full moon was shining outside* lighting up the room. He leaned against the windowsill and put his foot up for better access.
To his surprise, he found the wound looked fine, neither infected, reddened nor swollen. It seemed to heal nicely.
Wondering if there might be an infection under the skin, he prodded it gently. As expected, the pain intensified and he cursed. He focussed on the wound itself, tried to deduce what might have caused it.
It was a not a clean cut, the margins of the wound were slightly jagged.
Half of the cut itself was a gentle curve that started on the side of the calf, but then it took a sharp turn, deepened and ended in a twist. It was an odd shape. Which meant whatever had caused it was sharp but had happened rather slowly, maybe his leg had moved, which caused the shape.
Another possibility was that he had been dragged, probably face up - while his foot was slack and tilted sideways?
He leaned back, tried to focus on how it must have felt when it happened to jumpstart his memories, although he tried for several minutes, nothing new came back.
The cluelessness left him frustrated and he messily wrapped the wound up again, not caring to do it right.
If John were present, he'd tell him he needed to speak to a doctor about it tomorrow.
That was when he realised that not even a virtual version of John had paid him a visit since he was in this institution.
Sometimes, when he was in dire need of his friend, the mind palace had provided him with a virtual version that confronted him with wanted or unwanted intel about what he thought about Sherlock's behaviour, needs, case or whatever.
Why wasn't it working this time?
He was longing for John's presence.
Maybe he just didn't deserve john.
Greg and several other people had tried to hammer it home that Mary's death was not his fault, but he couldn't eliminate the guilt he felt, wondered if she would still be alive if he hadn't asked her to come back to London. She'd probably be safer on her own, on the run but alive. Her abilities and ruthlessness might have saved her.
Looking out of the cold window into the darkness of the gardens, he felt all the grief and deep sadness weight him down.
The sudden onslaught of emotions made him lean against the wall for support. It was so intense; he had to fight a stinging sensation in his throat that indicated tears might follow close.
Trying to overpower the unwanted sentiment, he gulped repeatedly and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
He had rarely felt this alone and lost in his life.
Before he had known John, he didn't know what he was missing, but now he did.
Just as he thought he had shoved the emotions away, desperation and hopelessness pressed down harder. He knew that he could manage to ignore them for a long time, but at some point, they would catch up with him, causing a shutdown at best or a full-blown meltdown at worst.
The room contained nothing to keep him occupied and he needed a distraction very badly at the moment.
Out of other options, he started to walk, tried the walking meditation technique he had learned during his time in Nepal. The problem was he couldn't clear his mind enough to do it. In addition, it was harder inside a building – and a room that was so small he had to watch where he was going all the time.
The only thing he could think doing was to try to analyse his problems, think about them properly.
He stood by the window again, tried to see anything that would help him escape in the dark, but the view was bleak and not helpful.
Up to now, he felt, he hadn't managed to really focus on escaping and therefore not found the solution. He didn't necessarily want to go back to reality, but he needed to get out of this hellish place that destroyed people even more than they already were.
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Sherlock woke when the wakeup call came, slightly surprised that he had managed to fall asleep sitting on his bed.
He even dozed off again after the call.
In semi-sleep, he felt something sneak around his wrist. The touch was gentle and immediately spawned intense disgust. For some reason he couldn't move, was caught in the drifting state.
The hand lingered, probed. Very gently, but clearly a man's hand.
For a moment, he hoped it was John, but it was far too unfamiliar. When he realised that, he reflexively tried to wind away from the touch. But - as it was so often in dreams - he couldn't. A moment later, he felt Magnussen's breath on his face.
He struggled and within a second, disgust turned into panic.
His breath caught, then someone shook his shoulder.
"Mr Greenbaum, wake up!" a loud voice boomed through the room.
He was shaken harder, the touch on his hand and wrist gone.
Even before he was fully awake, he rolled away from his assailant in distress. But the wall stopped him. Before he could move down the bed to jump out of it, Hughes's voice boomed again.
"Hey, it's me! Wake up! We will do you no harm."
Sherlock blinked, disoriented, the loud voice brought him back to reality – the new reality, the one in the Victorian era.
"What...?"
"I am sorry, I didn't mean to frighten him. He was dreaming and in distress... and I tried to feel his pulse, but he became agitated and..."
"It's alright, Cooper. You did nothing wrong. He just had a bad dream," Hughes explained to the young lad.
"I'm fine. Just a bad dream," Sherlock panted, desperately trying to hide his distress. He was still wondering why this kid was going for a job in this institution. Sherlock was sure Cooper would be happier with another profession.
"Also... I don't like to be touched," Sherlock continued, "I have been..." he stopped. This was none of their business; they didn't need to know the touch had triggered a memory of Magnussen molesting him in the hospital.
"I am alright. I was plagued by nightmares tonight," Sherlock reassured him while taking stock.
He felt dazed, his heart was pounding uncomfortably fast, his leg hurt, and he felt cold.
"Get dressed, you need to hurry. It's late. Breakfast in sixteen minutes."
"You want me to help you with your hair?" the young man asked and Sherlock shook his head, horrified by the idea.
"My leg pains me a lot, may a doctor take a look at it later today?" Sherlock asked politely.
"I will put it in today's list," Hughes mumbled and left, Cooper followed him.
Sherlock was glad to be left alone. He rubbed his face with both hands, trying to fully wake up.
Much to Sherlock's dismay, he found Miller waiting outside his room when he headed for the lavatories. He was accompanied by the nurse, who kept a close eye on him the entire time until he delivered him to the dining hall.
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While waiting for the meal to be served, he realised he had gone through the morning routine like zombie.
His mind felt as if it was enveloped in cotton, as if he couldn't shake sleep off completely. It felt odd but not unfamiliar.
He tried to determine the cause and was fairly certain that no one would have managed to administer any medication while he was asleep. The thick needles of this era as well as the key in the lock would have woken him. The idea that the food might be drugged was discarded immediately, too. He would have noticed earlier if it had been.
It took until after Patterson addressed his absentmindedness that he realised that although it felt like being stoned - without the high - that it was probably an episode of mild dissociation.
It had happened before, back in the months after he returned from Serbia. His episodes back then were more intense but felt similar to this.
When triggered, his mind kicked him into a haze that prevented him from experiencing the memories fully to protect him from the horrors.
Apparently, he was wandering in that mist again. The moment he realised it, it was also clear that the trigger had been the touch on his hands.
Being molested by Magnussen had left imprints in his mind. The assault had happened while he couldn't move, was too out of it. It left him fighting with issues like helpless and vulnerability again. The real trigger was being unable to take a stand against a threat, this was just a sub-variant.
The fear that his PTSD might renew itself due to the more recent assault he had lived through in Culverton's hospital. It had been a long hard fight to get back on his feet the first time and he would not have managed it without John's constant support. He was not sure he would ever find the strength to go through that again, especially not on his own.
He consciously pictured a vault in his mind palace and tried to lock the trigger away, together with the sensation of feeling helpless.
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The morning passed slowly, but was not too demanding.
At some point, Miller escorted him to the dayroom, which Sherlock was not too fond of. Luckily, Patterson was there with a chessboard looking for an opponent.
Before, Miller told him he was expected to socialise and he neither wanted to nor had he any idea how to do it without rubbing people off the wrong way.
John was usually the one who'd undertake the part of first contact in social interaction, his absence was like a sore spot that was agitated whenever he interacted with someone.
With John, everything was so easy.
So familiar.
The more time passed in this reality, the more difficult he found it to handle even the vaguest reminders of his friend.
Maybe his absence was not just a sore, but a wound created when Mary died and during the time Sherlock had taken drugs, it festered.
Wasn't it supposed to have started healing when John saved him from Culverton?
Maybe it had started to heal, but now the wound seemed to have reopened – or gotten infected.
All the doubts and self-hatred Sherlock had felt while brooding alone in Baker Street were slowly rising up to the surface again. He felt the need to block it out, couldn't afford his depression to show more than it already did – or any of the symptoms of posttraumatic stress. Any deterioration of his fettle would make things worse, but it was a herculean effort.
Hunting down Moritarty's web had almost ended in disaster because of John's absence. It had disabled him, made it harder to concentrate so much it became life threatening. Mycroft even advised him to take antidepressants to enable him to survive his 'hunt'.
Waiting for Patterson to make moves provided him with way more time to let his thoughts roam than he liked.
Not for the first time he wondered how much time had passed in real life. Usually, time passed faster in the mind palace, enabling him to do more work in less time. In this case, though, it would be a disadvantage. It might mean that he'd be in here for weeks while in real life only a day passed. Which meant that if he wanted to not experience two days of intense, dreadful withdrawal he might have to stay in the Victorian era for months.
The only thing he was not really worried about was his transport. Two competent doctors were monitoring him and no one would really miss the obnoxious junkie who needed medical care after overdoing it.
If he was honest with himself, he knew he could have done with half of the drugs, feigning the rest.
In hindsight that made him feel additionally guilty, because he knew his abilities had faltered under too much being-under-the-influence.
Mrs Hudson had told him repeatedly how stupid it was to take that much. He was unable to listen to her unnerved and worried efforts.
He missed her, too.
She had been his rock after Mary's death.
Had kept him alive by now and then taking care of him. For days, she had been the only person he saw. Although she had complained and interfered, she had understood his sorrow. Her patience and tender loving care had not bounced off him. Maybe the worst thing about this relapse was that it was all so different from before. Although her affection had done nothing to soothe his grieve, he had been able to trust her care, had submitted to her efforts because he knew he was completely out of his turf and lost in his failures.
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After lunch, when Sherlock was on his way back to his room, his leg hurt so much, he had to lean against the wall to catch his breath.
"Mr Greenbaum?"
Someone was there, but he didn't realise they were addressing him, failed to recognise the imposed name.
"Mr Greenbaum?" something touched his shoulder.
When he stumbled in his haste to seek solitude, someone held him upright.
"Let me help you," a male voice said, keeping him steady.
He did not try to shake off the hand, afraid it might be seen as a provocation, but the urge was strong. He bit his lip to keep the disgust hidden.
With clenched teeth and narrowed eyes, he looked up at the stranger.
The man was dressed like a doctor and Sherlock was quite sure he had never met him before.
"Oh, of course, you don't remember me. I am the ward's physician. I examined you the day you arrived, but you were unconscious. You don't look good," the man said in a friendly and careful tone. "I read you suffer from severe exhaustion?"
It was at least a diagnosis Sherlock did agreed with. Moments later he realised this was a possible source of information.
"When?"
"What when?"
"When did you examine me?" The detective hoped to get some more clues to his puzzle.
"Four days ago, when you were brought here from the admissions ward."
No new information then, Sherlock concluded. That much he knew already.
When he didn't say anything, the doctor continued, "Well, we will then nurse you back to good health."
The man was in his mid forties and Sherlock realised this was the first time an older member of the staff seemed hopeful to really do some good in the world working in the asylum, whereas most of the older ones had already abandoned all hope and were just trying to get through the insaneness of the day.
"My name is Dr Winter, by the way", he added when Sherlock continued his silence. "You look ready to keel over, my friend. Allow me to bring you back to your room."
Without waiting for an answer, he hooked his arm under Sherlock's. The touch made him flinch.
This was excessively close and way too intimate.
Only John was allowed to do this, not this stranger.
Without a word, he tried to endure it, fearing the slightest slip of a rough word might make his life a lot worse.
It was pathetic really.
Since when did he care what people thought? Or feared things like cold water?
These days every little discomfort seemed to spawn real fear, which was quite annoying and made life a lot harder and more stressful. He knew that in his head, but the bedlam emotions were disabling nevertheless. No matter how much he tried to mark his internal troubles as 'ignore', it affected him.
Even after years of John trying to explain it to him, it still wasn't easy for him to decide when to wisely keep his mouth shut and just collect information. Being forced to refine this paltry ability during his time on the hunt had helped, but it was still far from satisfiable.
Dr Winters helped him to his room and informed him he would be back to examine his leg, which was obviously bothering him.
Sherlock had not mentioned it. He was so tired he sank into the bed and covered his eyes with his forearm, tried to shut out the world.
If they would just leave him alone!
That doctor being friendly was too much. He didn't want the man to be friendly. He was too much like John, caring and trying to help.
No one was allowed to do that, only John.
Far too soon, Winter came back with Miller and young Cooper in tow. They removed the bandages and inspected his leg.
It still looked good, although the pain was getting worse. Sherlock made an effort and described his ailments. He left out that in the past thirty hours things seemed to go downhill when it came to his physical health.
Winter frowned but didn't comment, just made a note in a small booklet he was carrying in his breast pocket. Then he left the carers to redress the wound.
The moment Miller and Cooper took over; they seemed to continue a conversation they had started earlier. Sherlock had witnessed that behaviour with medical professionals often in the past. It was as if the patient was not there, as if they were working on something that could neither hear them nor interact.
"I guess there are a lot of people like your aunt who are not too fond of it."
"She just doesn't understand," Cooper sighed.
"There really is a need to regulate the distribution of drugs and to make sure pharmacists know what they are doing. There are too many out there not taking the health of their clients seriously, only their own profits. We had a few cases in here that were the direct result this wrongdoing. Overall the pharmacy act will do good, keep people safe."
"I know! I agree. I tried to tell her that, but she really threw a wobbly when she read the paper. You know, she takes those pills – they are expensive. She spends a fortune on them... Those that are advertised to cure all sorts of ailments. A few weeks ago, she went to another than her usual pharmacy... and the apprentice told her they are rubbish and that she should take something that has scientifically been proven to help for her chronic cough, and that the act would come and change things. Since that day she is constantly ranting about the government trying to ruin her health."
Sherlock remembered from a lesson, which touched the history of chemistry, that in the end of the 1860s a new law had changed the way pharmacies were run.
"Yeah, the law will make it more difficult for quacks to sell their rubbish. I am happy it will finally come," Miller stated while he carefully spread antibiotic salve over Sherlock's healing wound.
"Take the salve for example. Twenty years ago, they didn't even know germs were there and that they caused health issues. However, the medicines that were invented without that knowledge are still sold... and they don't help at all. Pharmacists need to prove they are educated and that they know how to mix proper remedies."
Sherlock suppressed the strong urge to inform him that there were actually medications invented before the discovery of germs that had anti-bacterial properties.
"I understand," Cooper said.
Apparently, Miller was kind of a teacher for young Cooper.
The young man carefully redressed the wound – which took quite some time - and Miller made a few suggestions about what to improve.
When finished with his leg, they checked the wound on his head, which was also healing well, despite the intense rubbing and combing the day before.
They left him suggesting a midday nap and he was too tired to feel ashamed about the fact that his tiredness was that obvious.
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Sherlock curled up on the hard cot and pulled the flimsy worn blanket over his head, in a desperate try to shut out the world.
He had no hope left to just call an exit from the mind palace by now, but he tried nevertheless – the usual disappointed followed immediately.
He tried to imagine he was home in 221b, tried to imagine John was doing something in the kitchen.
At least the cravings were tolerable or maybe just completely overlaid by the outer circumstances of this hellhole.
It took only a few minutes until he had drifted into sleep.
.
Once more, he dreamt about the unknown girl. This time, she tried to make them climb a mountain instead of a tree.
And this time she didn't kick him, this time she tried to shove him over a cliff.
He was surprised to find that he didn't fell; Mycroft was there and kept him from toppling over into the abyss.
Sherlock woke panting, experiencing being a child again was no fun, but being saved by his brother made it annoying. On the other hand, it made him remember something he had not thought of in a very long time.
How existence had felt as a child.
How he had relied on Mycroft understanding things, explaining things, and preventing bad things because he had much more experience with the world.
Back then, Sherlock had trusted Mycroft to do the right thing – as much as he trusted his parents.
They misunderstood a lot but he knew they did their best. He had been frustrated often because they were so slow and words were not precise enough and their thought processes were so alien, but he had never doubted that they loved him.
Blinking hard, Sherlock tried to concentrate on remembering what the girl from the dream had looked like.
Unfortunately, other than the fact that she was a girl there were almost no details in his dreams, no face, no hair colour, no clothing. The only thing he remembered clearly was her high voice, it felt dangerous and excessively sharp.
Sherlock couldn't figure who she might have been. There were neither neighbour girls nor relatives that had a daughter.
Chances were high she was the result of his usual withdrawal nightmare nonsense, with a proper dose of rubbish and anxiety.
Trying to focus on something else – John – he hoped to dream something nice for a change when he drifted off once more. In his current state lucid dreaming was what he needed, but he never managed it when he felt poorly already, which was when he need it the most.
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The girl and the tree and the mountain returned a third time.
This time he ran away from her.
She followed him, yelling 'It's not me you need to fear, it's the mountain!'.
Before she could catch up with him, someone unlocked the door of his room, waking him up.
"Time for the water treatment," Hughes greeted him, some large towels in his hands.
Sherlock froze. No one in this institution seemed to bother to inform patients about what would happen next and it left him jittery whenever something new came up he had little to say about.
.
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*After I wrote this, I bothered to check the moon phases and there was a full moon on March 20th, 1867, lucky me. Source: astropixels ephemeris/ phasescat/ phases1801. html
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