John shrugged deprecatingly. “When you embark upon a potentially life-threatening adventure,” he said, “and are told by your incredibly annoying, know-it-all flatmate to put on some waterproofs, and you just happen to find some makeshift protection mixed in with the Peter Storms, well it would be kicking a gift horse in the teeth not to take advantage, wouldn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Sherlock said gravely, “Never pass up the opportunity.”

“Where did it come from?” John asked curiously, “I mean, in the beginning? Does it actually belong to you?”

Sherlock gave a half-smile. “You see?” he replied. “That is precisely why I stowed it on the Madrigal; if I’d brought it back to Baker Street, you’d have asked awkward questions like that.”

“No seriously, Sherlock,” John said, “where did you get it?”

Sherlock looked shifty. “I might have – borrowed it,” he said carefully.

“From Lestrade, I suppose,” John replied with a long-suffering air.

“Kind of,” Sherlock said, “although I guess that Sargent Donovan was probably more annoyed, seeing as it was assigned to him.”

John laughed. Sherlock tilted his head to take a good look at him. John had showered and shaved and his clothes were clean. In fact on the whole, he looked hale and healthy and if he occasionally winced when he moved sharply…

“Where are you hurt?” Sherlock demanded. “You’re stiff.” Immediately he said it, Sherlock wished he had put it differently. He looked away and the faintest flush appeared across his cheekbones.

John gave him a level look. “Being hit at point-blank range will do that,” he replied steadily. “Relax, Sherlock; it’s just bruising. Mind you, I had no problem pretending I was dead. Frankly, I was convinced I was for a while.”

“How did you find me?” Sherlock asked.

“Ah,” John sat down on the side of the bed in direct contravention of hospital regulations. “That was quite interesting, actually. I was flailing around on the floor like a drowning fish when Kristie showed up. Apparently, the Kingsland lot had a meeting last night. They reckoned that whatever you were up to, you seemed to think you wouldn’t survive it and they weren’t prepared to let that happen without a fight.”

John smiled and shook his head. “You really do manage to attract the most unlikely champions,” he said admiringly, “despite your total lack of charm and social grace. Anyway, Kristie and David followed us on David's boat. They saw us moor at Westminster Pier and they tied up on the bank a bit further down. David caught sight of Adair boarding the Madrigal with a gun so he and Kristie disembarked and legged it over to us. When Adair came out with you and got in his car, David took the license plate and relayed it to Jonathan by phone while Kristie boarded Madrigal and tried to rouse me. I looked in a pretty bad way, apparently, but once she got the protection unfastened, she realized that I wasn’t badly hurt. It really aches now though.”

John reflexively rubbed his chest and winced. “Anyway,” he continued, “the River Police impounded David’s boat for sailing on the Thames without a license – you might want to give Mycroft the heads up about that – so David stayed behind to take the rap for that. Kristie called Jonathan again to see if he’d managed to find out anything about the car. Apparently, Jonathan is in touch with someone called Shiney?” John’s voice gave a questioning upward tilt but Sherlock didn’t bite.

“Okay, this Shiney somehow managed to trace Adair’s car back to Mycroft’s address,” John continued, “Kristie and I followed and once we got there, it was pretty much all over bar the shouting and shooting.”

Sherlock smiled; the homeless network is far more efficient than MI5.

“I must say, your brother doesn’t exactly slum it, does he?” John remarked after a moment. “That house of his is really something.”

“Being the British Government has its perks,” Sherlock replied, “Go on; don’t leave the story half told.”

Sherlock didn’t really require John to tell him about the mopping up; it was all either self-evident or history. No, he didn’t need to know at all. What he did need was the reassurance of John’s warmth and humor, his solid physical presence and his comforting normality. Sherlock was content just to hear him talk, to watch him laugh, to be certain in mind as well as body that John was unmistakably there, rather than lying on the deck of a boat with his life ebbing away. Sherlock felt his eyelids close once again and after a brief, halfhearted struggle, surrendered into a natural sleep, aware of John’s hand closing briefly around his fingertips.

Sherlock remained in hospital undergoing a number of unnecessary and in some cases embarrassing tests until the following evening. John spent the intervening time trying to put 221B to rights, reassuring a tremulous Mrs Hudson that Sherlock was indeed alive and well despite rumors to the contrary (again) and having a very awkward tea with Mycroft in Speedy’s.

At 7.52pm precisely, Sherlock summoned John to the hospital and promptly discharged himself, stalking out of reception and into the waiting taxi without a word of greeting. John followed, sheepishly thanking the medical staff and acknowledging their gratitude for Sherlock’s removal.

In the taxi Sherlock heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Go on, then,” he said.

Sherlock gave him an old-fashioned look. “You know you can’t hide it from me,” he said, “so it’s pointless to try." he told John firmly, “and get it over with.”

John schooled his face into a calm expression. “Alright then,” he replied. He turned his body until he was facing his flatmate. “I’m very sorry about your mother, Sherlock,” he said quietly.

“There, you see,” Sherlock replied after a short silence. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

John stared, his mouth slightly open; Sherlock looked up and raised his eyebrows. He frowned slightly. “Bit not good?” he ventured.

John shook his head. “Absolutely not good, Sherlock,” he replied with some heat. “I thought it was Mycroft who was supposed to be the Ice Man?”

“Mycroft’s heart is not made of ice, John,” he replied composedly, “it is one hundred per cent titanium.”

John glared and drew himself as upright as possible and opened his mouth, but his flatmate forestalled him.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Sherlock exclaimed, turning to face John. “What?” he said loudly, “You think my brother suddenly developed the human emotions of love and nurturing because he was close to selling out over a threat to the life of a blood relative? Oh, come on, John! Even you know Mycroft better than that!”

The taxi pulled in to the curb, its engine idling; Sherlock reached for the door handle and vaulted out, leaving John to pay as usual.

Hearing the front door bang, Mrs Hudson came out of 221A, clearly having been listening out for Sherlock’s return. Sherlock ignored her, taking the stairs two at a time, ignoring John’s admonitions and Mrs Hudson’s querulous questions alike. The two looked at each other helplessly; John patted their landlady on the shoulder.

“He’s okay,” he said, “it’s just been a – difficult time.”

Mrs Hudson drew herself up to her full height. “It certainly has!” she exclaimed. “What with the hazmat team, the endless searches and the police questioning – I’d be within my rights to evict the both of you!”

“You certainly would, Mrs Hudson,” John replied seriously, “but just imagine all the fun you’d miss out on if you did.”

John winced as he ran up the stairs; never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that Mrs Hudson knew language like that.

Sherlock was sitting on the sofa, still in his coat. When John entered the room, he favored him with a long look.

“You need to go down and see her, Sherlock,” John said, hanging his jacket. “She was worried.”

Sherlock raised his head and shifted until he could plant his elbows on his thighs, resting his chin in one hand.

“I am not a psychopath,” Sherlock began, enunciating the words slowly and carefully.

“I know you’re not…” John began but Sherlock overrode him.

“As you know I was assessed” he continued, “by several psychiatrists, all eminent in their fields. They all agreed that I showed sociopathic tendencies and a marked social juvenility. They recommended keeping me on at Eton for the full two years of sixth form, even though I had long outgrown everything the school could supply academically, in the hope that I would develop the necessary maturity to cope with life at Oxford. I’m sure you learned all about my condition in your second year medical training – poor impulse control, grandiose sense of self, pathological lying, incapacity for love, lack of remorse, need for stimulation, etc. etc. blah, blah, blah.”

Sherlock took a deep breath and placed his palms on his knees. “Mycroft, however, is not a sociopath,” he said.

“Well, no,” John responded, slightly confused, “he’s not like you…”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock interrupted crisply, “is a psychopath.”

There was a pregnant, rather helpless silence. John pursed his lips then let a rather surprised breath escape in a rush. “I’ll make some tea,” he said and escaped to the kitchen.

Sherlock sat on the sofa, elbows on his knees, gazing sightless into the cheerless grate. His tea steamed gently on the table in front of him. He glanced round at John. “Can you imagine what sharing a childhood with such a person was like?” he asked.

John sipped his tea and gave it some thought. “Well, no,” he replied awkwardly. “I mean, Harry was bad enough but…”

“Nothing like a brother, older by ten years, whose hobbies included waterboarding and vivisection, you mean? No, I can assure you it wouldn’t have been.” Sherlock quietly replied.

“Sherlock, I…” John began.

"Don’t!" Sherlock spat the word out like an unpleasant taste.

“It took Mycroft a number of years to gain a measure of control over his more, ah, antisocial impulses,” Sherlock continued after a while.“When I was five, father insisted on sending me away to prep school for my own protection – acting very much against mother's express wishes, I might add.” Sherlock sighed. “Then when I was seven, father rather conveniently disappeared after a fight with Mycroft and mother had finally succumb to her demons not long after, thus leaving me in the 'care' of my big brother.”

John sat and sipped his tea in silence. Sherlock had learned to interpret some of John’s body language in the time they had been at Baker Street, but it did not take a genius to tell that, by his very stillness, John’s generous heart was breaking for the young Sherlock.

Sherlock put his hands behind his head. “The psychiatric reports on my brother as a teenager,” he continued, “declared him to be an extremely intelligent, emotionally mature, well-balanced, charming individual, something of a control freak but amusing and like-able with a rather adult sense of humor.”

Sherlock gave a huff of humorless laughter. “They all missed the fact that he is a consummate actor,” he continued without smiling. “His ambition from the first was control and power; politics and being thrust into parenting role to me, furnished him with a stage that spanned the whole world upon which to exercise his thespian talents. He remains to this day an actor playing a role, perfectly controlled and ruthlessly disciplined.”

Sherlock turned to John. “Mycroft had no choice but to allow Adair to blackmail him over mother,” he said quietly. “Any other course of action would have cracked his carefully constructed façade wide open and set loose his inner monster. And I know all to well the consequences should that event ever occur.”

John stirred, sighed and placed his empty mug on the table. His face, when Sherlock looked up at it, was pale.

“This is the man who is the British Government,” John murmured, shaking his head.

“Although it pains me to admit it,” Sherlock replied briskly, “he's making a good job of it. It would be the easiest thing in the world, John, to blame my brother for everything, I have spent a better part of my life doing such, but the truth is that he is a moderating influence on an organisation I can only describe as terrifyingly totalitarian. His handicaps are severe indeed, but they at least make him flawlessly logical.”

John nodded slowly. He looked at Sherlock and opened his mouth to speak; Sherlock held up a hand before John could coax his vocal chords into action.

“Don’t say it,” he told him wearily.

John closed his mouth then opened it again. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“You were about to commiserate with me over my unbelievably horrific childhood,” Sherlock told him calmly. “You were also about to ask me never to give you the details because your dreams are vivid enough as it is and you would rather not have a further source of night terrors. Oh, don’t worry!” Sherlock shook his head and smiled grimly. “Those things, along with a number of others, including the shot you took in the chest from Adair’s gun – all these, John, are locked up, squirreled away in their own separate compartments.” He tapped his head. “They’re secured and safeguarded, carefully neutralized until I can take them out and tackle them, one at a time.”

Sherlock smiled ruefully. “Living with Mycroft,” he said, “made it necessary for me develop the technique for my own survival and also for the sake of my sanity.”

“This is what happens when you Delete something, then?” John asked curiously.

“To a large extent, yes,” Sherlock replied. His mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “Unfortunately, I seem to lack the specialist software necessary to wipe the data sector of my brain – I suppose that would be the amygdala. In most cases, these things are just being stored temporarily until I find the time to deal with them. However, there are some things that cannot be changed and will always remain despite any and all efforts to the contrary. Those are the things I have to work to keep at bay.”

There was an awkward silence, and then Sherlock seemed to shake himself out of his introspection and sat upright. “Quite apart from anything else,” he remarked, “Mycroft really did have a serious vested interest in mother continuing to live, you know, even in the parlous state she had reached, for as many years as possible.”

“Oh?” John raised his eyebrows.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied conversationally. “You see, according to the terms of her Will, I inherit most of her money; some kind of last ditch attempt to apologize for her share in my ghastly childhood, I suppose – I took little notice of it at the time, I confess, it's the same reason I got rid of the majority of what I received from the inheritance father; I didn't want it and I wanted to stick it to Mycroft.”

John waited for the rest of it but Sherlock simply paused.

“I never imagined Mycroft to be particularly mercenary,” John ventured. “I mean, he's wealthy as things stand. Why would he want more?”

“Want more?” Sherlock asked, frowning at John, then his expression cleared. “Oh, no, he doesn’t intend to contest her will or anything – how very vulgar! He just wanted to put off the dreadful day when I had complete financial independence rather than just a modicum; ever the control freak.”

Sherlock grinned evilly. “He also inherits the family seat in Warwickshire and Sussex,” he added, “which will put a considerable cramp in his style and make him even busier.”

John frowned. “Why?” he asked.

Sherlock just smiled. “I’ll tell you at a later date, and then you’ll understand, because for now... we have a case,” Sherlock exclaimed. “Lestrade is back and without a doubt needs help already…”

Sherlock trailed off, absorbed; John finished his cold tea in silence, and then repaired to the kitchen to do something about dinner. Food occupied only a fraction of his milling thoughts, however, and it was almost a relief when Sherlock barreled in and swept him off to a crime scene before he had really made a start.