Of Dubious and Questionable Memory

Of Dubious and Questionable Memory
By Diandra Hollman

---

Sherlock

---

The new memory stick, like the one I hid in the hive, contains a journal that was obviously meant to be kept from Henry, then Josh. Except this one more or less covers the time between the accident and the honeymoon. The early entries are nearly identical to the ones in the official version on my laptop, except Josh seems to be caring for me not in hospital, but in a sparsely furnished flat outside of London.

The entries also provide clues as to how I became addicted to the drug affecting my memory. I began the journal two weeks after the accident when it became clear my memory retention wasn't improving despite the rest of the symptoms of concussion abating. Josh provided me with tablets twice a day to alleviate pain, but wouldn't tell me where he kept them and became distressed if I tried to search for them myself. It is easy to work out what must have happened. Either because of my tolerance to drugs or because I simply must have forgot how much I had taken in a given day, I had overdosed myself. When Josh realized what had happened, he put me on a carefully controlled regimen, but the damage had already been done. Subsequent efforts to drastically reduce the dosage or eliminate it entirely resulted in gaps in my journal and hazy recollections of illness. These incidents caused Josh great distress and I noted the way his professionalism gradually slipped and he cared for me less as a doctor and more as a devoted partner.

Three months after the accident, I described waking up to find him curled on the bed beside me after a violent bout of illness. I noted the fitful nature of his sleep, the dark smears beneath his eyes that told me this was the first rest he'd got in a while, and the way he had positioned himself close enough to be alerted if I needed him yet far enough to remain respectable. I confronted him with this obvious evidence of his love for me when he awoke and he affirmed it with a kiss. A tender, chaste kiss that held no expectations of anything more, uncaring of the foulness of my breath.

Our first kiss was followed by our first sexual encounter - a clumsy affair wherein he climaxed practically the moment I got his pants off. He was mortified, but I was undaunted.

The familiar patterns began to emerge as my condition stabilized and I grew to trust Josh. Our sex life improved as well, though I express some frustration with how tentative he was in our first forays into penetrative sex. My notes started to include details like what sort of attentions yielded the most positive responses and the fact that holding him down seemed to both thrill and terrify him to some degree depending on other variables like whether he could see my eyes. Seeing this now reinforces my belief that the story he told me about his ex yesterday is true. How many times have I accidentally triggered his anxiety because he refuses to "burden" me with his past?

As with the journal I found in the bee hive yesterday, this one contains an obvious point at which I began keeping a separate account of events on the memory stick. Before I would have assumed this meant all the entries before that point were suspect. And maybe they are. But then everything after that point could have been changed too. He has had the memory stick in his possession for long enough that he could have altered the entire contents to fit the narrative he chose. And that doesn't appear to be the case.

The first entry after I began keeping a separate account voices suspicion that the Thomas Gruener case is not what I believed it to be.

Thomas?

I text Molly again. 'Forget Andrew. Need anything you can find on Thomas Gruener.'

A hand grips my arm as I tap "send", startling me. I realize I have completely forgot my current surroundings.

"Who are you texting," John asks.

I blink at him, wondering for a moment if it really is him and I really am conscious.

He sighs and takes the mobile from my hand, glancing at the screen as if he knows what he will find there and tapping the phone icon before bringing it to his ear. "It's all right. It's me," he says. "I'll talk to him."

"What are you doing," I ask as he rings off.

"Good job I told Molly you were alive two days ago despite orders not to tell anyone. Mycroft is already looking for Gruener." He frowns at the screen again. "Thomas Gruener?"

"I believe he was Andrew Gruener's husband. That's why his initials were in my ring."

"What ring?"

Right. I hold up the ring finger on my left hand. "I've been keeping track of Henry's identities by inscribing the initials on my ring inside my mind palace. Well...probably the whole names, but the initials seem to stay even if I forget the rest. TS. Thomas Schlessinger. JA. Josh Amberley. G. Gruener. I must have forgot the first name on that one, or else mixed it all up sometime these past three months and forgot which Gruener was which."

John frowns again. "Josh Amberley? Not James Armitage?"

"It could be both. Why?"

"That was his name when he worked for MI-6. He was a hired hit man who specialized in accidents and suicides. The sort of thing that wouldn't rouse suspicion when an enemy of the state turned up dead."

Oh. Oh.

"That must be what he drew upon to create the perfect case for me to solve. Deaths deliberately designed to be impossible to trace back to the person who orchestrated them. Probably mixed up some real assassinations with some accidents and suicides from the papers, imagining how they might have been done by someone with his skill set. Oh, he is clever."

John winces. "That's how you respond to finding you the man holding you prisoner has had you solving years old murders he himself committed?"

"They weren't murders, John. You said it yourself: he was a government hit man. He is no more a murderer than you or your wife."

He flinches again and I remember too late that Mary is dead. Killed by a fellow government assassin.

"Sorry. When did it happen?"

"About four months ago. Not long before you died again."

Was that what triggered the sudden change? Did I find out about Mary? Did I think Gruener was escalating and the only thing that would stop him was my death?

No, that doesn't make sense.

"Did I try to contact you?"

He looks baffled for a moment. Then he glances at the folder as if he is remembering my condition. "Er...not about Mary. You were hiding from a serial killer. At least you thought you were. But I made you promise to check in so I'd know you were still alive, wherever you were." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his mobile. "I still have the texts..." He taps the screen a few times and hands me the phone, open to a text conversation between him and an unknown number. 'I'm sorry, John,' reads the last one.

I scroll up through the one-sided conversation. Most of the messages simply say 'still alive', but there is an occasional picture of scenery or a pile of chips on the day's paper. I don't remember any of it, of course, but I don't understand why none of this is mentioned in my journal. I skim ahead in the journal, looking for any mention of John. The entries in this journal are sparse, as I seemed unable to reliably remember I had hidden the memory stick in my violin case.

"What is it," John asks.

There. Toward the end of this journal is an entry where I attempted to contact John as I began to question the threat of Gruener. Except I suspected it wasn't really John. 'I know I am risking not just John, but Mary, Rosie, Mrs. Hudson and everyone else if Gruener really is watching as closely as the evidence leads me to believe,' the entry says. 'But his reprimand was too cold, too abrupt. It was as if he would be perfectly content if he never heard from me again.'

I turn the laptop toward John and point to this paragraph, letting him read it while I verify that there is nothing on his mobile that corroborates such a conversation ever taking place.

John splutters a bit in confusion. "I never..." He clenches his fist and takes a deep breath, which explodes out of him in a curse.

"It wasn't you. And this," I hold up his mobile. "Wasn't me. We haven't been in contact with each other since the accident. In fact, I haven't been in contact with anybody." I hand the mobile to him and he watches in bewilderment as I reach into the bag and pull out both the mobile I have been using these past months - the one with all the fake numbers programmed into it - and Henry's. If my theory is correct... I select John's name from my contact list and dial the number, half expecting to see Henry's phone light up, but not wholly surprised when it doesn't. John's voice answers with the familiar outgoing message he has had on his voicemail for as long as I have known him. John stiffens at the sound of it.

"I know who you really are," I say and hang up, then search through Henry's phone. There are multiple texting and voice apps in a locked folder, each renamed for a different person I might try to contact. Lestrade, Molly, my brother, Mary. No doubt each of them has an outgoing message similarly copied so I would believe I was really calling each of them. How he got those recordings is a mystery. Or perhaps not. For a trained spy, this whole set up is probably as simple as establishing new identities and burning old ones.

"Greg," John says suddenly and I realize he has taken my mobile - the one with the fake numbers programmed into it - while I was busy searching for clues on Henry's phone. "Yeah, this is his phone." He looks up at me, still a bit bewildered, but starting to catch on. "Hang on a sec, I'm gonna put you on speaker." He pushes the speaker icon and holds the mobile out on his palm between us. The screen says "JOHN". He dialed the number again and this time someone picked up.

"Will," Lestrade's voice calls tentatively from the speaker.

Not exactly who I expected. "Whose phone are you using?"

"We took it off of Armitage when we arrested him."

"He had two," John says. "Sh...Will is using his mobile right now."

Lestrade sighs. "Right. Guess that explains why this one has hardly anything on it but some missed calls and texts."

"He had a separate mobile for you," I mutter. "Of course. He didn't need to answer it. I believed you were dead."

I turn back to Henry's mobile. Thomas'? No, too confusing. The locked folder with the additional phone apps also contains some photos and videos as well as a locator app. The first - or rather last - photo appears to be a paragraph of my journal.

'Henry told me about his past. The fact that there is nothing in my previous notes about it I can only attribute to an effort to spare him the pain of re-living it. But I now believe this to be based on faulty logic that could potentially cause even more pain when I inevitably question him about it. He is a survivor of abuse. He believes telling me this will make him appear weak in my eyes or prompt me to treat him as if he has been damaged by his abusers and is now easily broken. A victim. But he is stronger than he thinks he is. What he experienced could easily and justifiably have left him bitter and cynical - distrustful especially of the men closest to him. Yet his love for me is whole-hearted and genuine. He clearly has complete trust in me, which is probably why I instinctively trust him as well, despite knowing that he is keeping secrets from me. He spoils me with all the love which he was once deprived and expects little to nothing in return. He deserves better than I can give, yet he has chosen me. And he fears the day my memory improves enough that I will no longer need him as much as he needs me. He hopes that by then I will love him as deeply as he already loves me. But how can I love a man I cannot trust to tell me the truth?'

It is obviously my writing, yet I haven't seen it in either version I read yesterday. He must have deleted it from the official journal, as I suspected he might be doing, but he couldn't bear to erase the words entirely.

"Will?"

John is off the phone. I think this may not be the first time he's called me. I look up.

"You know that I love you, right? That you are like a brother to me? And even though you drive me round the bend sometimes..." He glances at the laptop. "I would never consider you a 'burden'."

"Yes, I know. I suspect that is how I knew something was off. He could fool you into believing you were in contact with me, but I knew I wasn't really in contact with you. He could play every other role he needed to to maintain the illusion, but he couldn't make me believe he was you."

John blinks, looking thrown by that answer, though I'm not sure why. Is he afraid I see him the same way Henry did? "Okay," he says finally, twisting in his seat toward me. "Help me understand this. Because these," he waves the folders for emphasis, "just seem to prove that Thomas has been holding you prisoner for months, feeding you lies about a boogeyman, torturing you so you won't even respond to your own name and drugging you so you'll forget everything."

"He didn't hold me prisoner and he didn't torture me. The drug erases my memories. It doesn't affect my cognitive functioning or my ability to make decisions."

"So, what, you believe this was all your idea?"

I gesture at the open laptop. "I have documented three separate, slightly different accounts of the past few months and they all seem to suggest that the drugs, at least, were partly my doing. I believe Henry didn't know I was predisposed to a chemical dependency. He has been carefully controlling the dosage and lowering it gradually for at least the past five months. I believe he invented that 'boogeyman', as you call him, to keep my mind occupied during this treatment."

"Treatment? He cut you off from everyone you know."

"Yes, that was the part I couldn't quite understand either. But I think Gruener may be the key."

"Gruener..."

I thrust the phone into his hands. "I wrote this five days ago according to the date on the screen. He deleted it, but only after taking a photo of it."

As John is reading the text, I turn to the journal and skim the remaining entries. There isn't much more to this journal though, aside from the increasing belief that the threat of Gruener wasn't actually real and my "amnesia" was being caused by the medicine I was purportedly taking to treat it.

It used to be in the tablet. Was the switch to drugging the tea instead his idea or mine?

I focus on one entry where I tried to gather data on Thomas Gruener and report finding nothing useful aside from a possible connection to a somewhat powerful deceased businessman named Andrew Gruener. There is a photo clipped to this entry.

"Jesus," John mutters under his breath. I turn back to him and his focus on the phone screen is broken. "What does this have to do with Gruener?"

"Henry had to give his killer an identity. I believe he used the identity of the most vile man he knew. The man who delighted in tormenting him for three years."

John looks at the photo on the laptop screen. "Andrew Gruener?"

"His ex-husband." I point to the watch adorning Gruener's right wrist. "He was left handed. He died of a heart attack. It all fits."

John shakes his head. "Sorry...you lost me."

Right. He doesn't have all the data. I bite back a frustrated groan that I have to pause to explain everything. "The man I described - the man Henry described to me - left a scar on his body. A scar that was clearly made by someone left-handed." The other scar, I realize suddenly, the one on his abdomen, was made by someone right-handed. That was why the stories he told me never fully made sense. Two different attackers. Two separate incidents. "He escaped and was working in Africa when he got word Gruener had died." I pick up the folders John set down moments ago and locate the coroner's report. "Of a heart attack."

Something about this is wrong too. A young, healthy man doesn't usually simply drop dead of a heart attack...

"None of this explains why he felt it necessary to abduct you and construct this elaborate scheme to prevent you from contacting any of us."

Right. Not important right now. Focus. "Did you see him in hospital? After the accident?"

"I didn't see you in hospital. The medics only pulled me from the car. You..." he trails off as something suddenly occurs to him. "The medic...That's why his voice was familiar!"

"Whose voice?"

"The man at the scene of the accident. I thought he was a paramedic, but the medics said there was no one else in the car when they pulled me out. It was Thomas. That was when he took you."

I frown. "And you recognized his voice? When did he speak to you?"

"Today, at the airport. I knew I recognized him from somewhere..."

"What did he say, exactly?"

"Er..." John falters a bit at that. "He asked me to be gentle with you. He said you believed I was dead."

Be gentle. Too cold and abrupt.

"He expected you to react violently to my return."

John winces. "Yeah. I noticed you did too. That's how I made the connection. Look...I never apologized for the way I behaved back then. I was angry. And I know that's no excuse..."

I wave off this little detour he's headed for impatiently. "No, you're missing the point. How did he know about that months ago when he depicted you as cold and put upon? I knew I wasn't really speaking to you because his portrayal was based on a faulty perception, but where did that perception come from?"

A long discarded memory comes back to me suddenly, many of the details now missing as the entire incident was deemed unimportant. A man approaching me as I stood on the curb nursing my bloodied nose after John and Mary left me. He had offered to call the police and, when I refused, insisted I should at least have my injury looked at by a doctor. I close my eyes and try to remember the man's face, but I was too preoccupied to be concerned by some prying Good Samaritan. All I am certain of is that he was tall and had dark hair and a very proper accent. He could have been anyone.

He could have been Henry.

"Lillian expressed concern that I was being abused based on observations that were clouded by past experience. She obviously failed to recognize the signs in time to save someone once and was determined to avoid repeating the mistake."

"Her flatmate," John murmurs.

"What?"

"Her flatmate was murdered. Mycroft already noted that as a possible reason for some of her testimony."

Did she tell them about my black eye? The bruises on my wrists? I could provide an explanation for the latter, but not the former.

"What if he made the same mistake? Assuming he witnessed your response to my return from Siberia somehow. What if he mistook your temper as an inherent personality trait? What if he saw Andrew Gruener reflected in you?"

This statement clearly unsettles John, but I rush onward before he can protest, the pieces finally seeming to fit together in my mind. "He thought he needed to save me as he once had to save himself because nobody saw Andrew Gruener for the monster he really was."

"Hold on...you think he believed I was hurting you and staged an accident so he could get you away from me?"

"Absolutely not. Anything that would put me at so great a risk would be abhorrent to him and run counter to his intentions. I'm not sure how he came to be at the scene of the accident, but he couldn't possibly have caused it."

"That doesn't make sense, Sher..." John clenches his fist, his face twisting in frustration. "You have never believed in coincidence. Why make an exception now?"

"I'm not making an exception." I massage my forehead. The effort of trying to solve this ever expanding puzzle is giving me the beginnings of a headache. Or is that the withdrawal symptoms setting in? "The one constant in all the data I have collected these past months is that he is incapable of causing me deliberate harm. The lies, the elaborate false serial killer case, it was all designed to insure I continued taking the drug in a controlled environment under his care. Not because he wants me to forget, but because he wants to reduce the risks of withdrawal."

John looks at the mobile still in his hand. Its screen is dark. "You, er..." He shakes his head. "You actually are falling in love with him, aren't you?"

I take the phone from him and unlock it, looking at the photo again. "I mention his abusers, plural. He only spoke of the one. I must have uncovered more when I wrote this."

John clears his throat, clearly frustrated by my avoidance of his question, but not surprised. He won't press. "Most people are drawn to partners that remind them of a parent. What do you know about Thomas' parents?"

"According to my notes, they are dead, though I'm not sure if I ever verified that fact."

"Not sure?"

"My memories are hazy. I seem to recall uncovering a tragedy in his past, but I don't remember any of the details."

"But you believe what he told you about Gruener?"

I look at John; weigh his intent with this question. He has always trusted my judgment when it comes to people's character. Right now he is balancing that against the evidence that that judgment may have been compromised by my feelings toward Henry. I need to convince him that I can still be objective in my thinking.

"I have always suspected he was lying to me about something. But the story he told me about his ex yesterday was not the sort of story anyone would invent. He omitted details like the man's name, but I've no doubt that the pain and torment he described were genuine."

John's eyes search mine as I speak and I can see he is at least partly satisfied by my answer. He nods. "All right. So he believed he was rescuing you when he abducted you from the scene of the accident. Is it possible he caused the accident unintentionally?"

I consider that for a moment. "That would explain the guilt and feed his savior complex. I became addicted to a drug he used while he was treating me for injuries he inadvertently caused." I strain to remember the time immediately preceding the accident, which has become just as hazy as everything that followed. "Before the accident, did I express any sort of concern that we were being followed?"

"Er...not in as many words, no. But after...I started wondering how long you'd known about the killer you claimed you were chasing. There were times when you seemed...distracted."

"As if I knew someone was watching me," I murmur. I have some recollection of this, but I wasn't sure if I was remembering the time before the accident or after, when the drugs were making me paranoid.

"Yeah," John agrees. "You think it could have been him?"

'I never meant to hurt you.'

'You shouldn't have to live like this.'

"It is a logical explanation. It might explain some of his more effusive romanticism as well. He may be overcompensating."

The Icelandic pilot's voice fills the cabin suddenly, warning us that she is about to begin descent and we should prepare for landing. I remove the memory sticks from the laptop and stow everything back in my bag, except Henry's phone. While John checks his own mobile and watches the London skyline appear as we drop below the clouds, I return to the contents of the hidden folder. Some of the text conversations are familiar - I have already read them on my phone and in my notes - but some seem to be slightly altered. The discrepancies happen with more frequency the further back I go in the conversation histories - as if he had to go back and edit them after the fact each time he slipped up and I began to catch on to the deception.

I thumb through the photos in the folder. Aside from the photo of me with a black eye that he obviously didn't realize I had saved to my secret journal, they seem to all be missing bits from my official journal, in order from most recent on back.

The one immediately preceding the one where I describe his history of abuse has a similarly vague account of returning home after Henry tracked me down in Liverpool and 'explained everything'. I express understanding for all the lies surrounding my current predicament and describe the sexual encounter I planned to engage him in that night wherein I would allow him to tie me to the bed and then bring himself off at my verbal guidance. This being largely similar to what the Woman did, I assume the inclusion of this entry in the journal would have easily led me to draw the correct conclusions about Henry's past sexual experience.

'I decided to test my theory about Henry's predilections today,' the next entry reads. 'I took a more aggressive role. Initially, he was very receptive, exhibiting obvious signs of increased arousal as I detailed my plans to tie him to the bed and fuck him senseless. But when I threw him on the bed, pulled his hair and growled some filthy nonsense about making him scream, making him mine, he snapped. He fought his way out from under me and punched me in the face. By the time the pain receded and I could focus on him again, he was crouched just out of arm's reach from me, still trembling a bit with fear but clearly horrified by what he had done. Once he calmed, he fetched a bag of frozen peas for the swelling and fretted over me. I confronted him over the obvious signs of post traumatic stress and what I could do to avoid triggering an episode in future. He told me a story I suspect was only partly true about a paranoid, schizophrenic ex and assured me it couldn't possibly happen again and I needn't burden myself with his past.'

I am simultaneously relieved and sickened by this explanation to one of the most maddening discrepancies in my journal. His determination to keep his past trauma hidden from me drove him to conceal the most obvious evidence of it that I had uncovered, deleting the incident from my journal and inventing an argument with the neighbor to cover it up.

I try to recall the journal entries surrounding this incident. Did I confront him about the lie, as I did yesterday? Did he tell me the real story and I didn't add it to the journal either because I thought I would remember it in the morning or because I decided the mention of it wouldn't ultimately prove useful?

I send this image to John, adding to the text conversation Henry began months ago while pretending to be me. I see John startle a bit and reach for his mobile from the corner of my eye as I move on to one of the videos. I reach for the earbuds I packed in the bag when I realize that, like all the other videos, it is sexual in nature.

The video was obviously taken during the honeymoon, in a hotel bed. I am splayed sideways across the mattress, my fingers twisting in the already rumpled sheets as his head ducks between my legs. Even though the angle obscures what he is doing, it is very obvious he is riming me.

He stops and shushes me as I let out a particularly desperate whine, pausing to press his lips to my inner thigh as he arranges a pillow beneath my backside.

My back arches as he penetrates me and my head tips back over the edge of the mattress. Oh. I remember this. The Eiffel Tower was just visible on the horizon outside the window my face is turned toward.

I reach for my cock and he swats my hand away gently with a murmur of "not yet, Will."

I cling to him as he thrusts slow and deep, murmuring encouragements the microphone doesn't quite pick up. It does, however, catch my heated whisper of "Josh..."

His thrusts falter and his face twists in something like pain.

"Henry," I correct.

He smiles, kisses me and prompts "again" as he resumes thrusting.

There's a solid couple minutes of copulation, the wet sounds of sex punctuated by moans and sighs and the occasional whisper of "Henry" and "Will" and "yes" and "fuck". And then suddenly I'm reaching between our bodies and popping off practically the moment I touch my cock.

John moves suddenly, standing up, and I realize the plane has landed and come to a stop. I pull out one earbud and he says "Mycroft is waiting for us." The sounds of me and Henry kissing fill my other ear as the video continues, creating an odd juxtaposition.

John's eyes land on the screen suddenly and he very nearly recoils. He averts his gaze quickly and mutters an embarrassed curse. Right. I will have to be selective in what information from my journal I share with him. I may delight in proving to my brother that I am not the virgin he chooses to believe I am, but John always reacts as if I am the one corrupting him somehow.

I stop the video and collect my things.

John clears his throat. "Er...so Gruener was schizophrenic?"

"No. That was a comforting lie Henry sometimes told so he could pretend he couldn't possibly have seen the signs of abuse sooner. A form of psychological defense."

John nods. Then he retrieves my Belstaff from the bench opposite and holds it between us hesitantly. "I can...hang on to this if you like."

I stare at it, the same odd feeling coming over me as did when the pilot handed it to me. I had once felt lost without it, and yet now it is like some alien...thing. It's absurd. That I had so longed to have it back after two years and yet not be so eager now after mere months. As if this experience has fundamentally changed me in a way that one didn't. John obviously understands and patiently waits for me to reply. I nod and he drapes it over his arm without comment.

---

Mycroft is waiting beside a government car. He eyes me critically as we approach, no doubt looking for evidence of the case they are building against Henry. I climb into the car without a word.

"How is he," I hear Mycroft ask, not quite low enough for me not to hear.

"Perfectly capable of speaking for himself," I call back.

John mutters something under his breath before sliding into the seat beside me.

Mycroft sits opposite and, as the car begins to drive, reaches into his pocket and passes me Henry's watch. "It's still in there," he says as I immediately begin searching for the opening.

"What's still..." John begins, trailing off as the face of the watch slides away, revealing a small compartment beneath containing a single, small tablet.

"Cyanide," I pronounce. "Did he give you this immediately after we spoke or some time later?"

"Perhaps ten minutes later," Mycroft estimates.

"You must have realized what I was referring to, but you did nothing. Would you have stopped him if he had tried to use it?"

Mycroft's expression doesn't change, which is answer enough.

"He was going to commit suicide," John asks, and I realize he's fallen out of step again.

"Old spy instincts. He knew he would be captured. He left his weapon in a locked drawer several rooms away, so he wouldn't be tempted to resist."

"Isn't that usually meant to prevent giving away state secrets if an agent is tortured?"

"Yes, like I said: instincts. He would likely consider life in prison a form of torture. Especially if it turned out he was wrong about my current condition and the symptoms of my next withdrawal were severe enough to kill me. My journal notes multiple instances where he stated he would rather die than live without me. He is an inveterate romantic with a flair for the dramatic."

"'Until my body ceases to draw breath,'" John quotes. "He sees himself as some sort of romantic hero."

"What have you found on Andrew Gruener," I ask Mycroft.

"Nothing of much interest. A wealthy businessman of some moderate power. He was married to a Thomas Scott for three and half years, though the marriage wasn't officially recognized, of course."

That was why there was confusion about the initials in my ring. He never took Gruener's name. He remained TS.

"He never tried to hide his homosexuality, but no doubt his upbringing instilled a sense of shame in him that fueled his sadism."

"Sadism?" John cuts in.

I turn to address him. "Henry, or rather Thomas, was his submissive. At least that's what he believed. In reality, Gruener wielded their matrimonial bond as if it were a deed of ownership compelling Thomas to submit to his cruelty."

John looks increasingly repulsed and horrified as I speak, but I can also see an increasing understanding. I never specified how Henry had been abused by Gruener. Now that he has this detail, no doubt he understands better the context behind that passage of my journal.

"I assume your request for the full coroner's report indicates that you believe Andrew Gruener may have been one of Agent Armitage's victims," Mycroft says mildly.

I say nothing, so he forges ahead.

"Bloodwork showed a significantly high level of alcohol at the time of his death, which, coupled with the evidence of recent sexual activity could easily have put undue stress on his heart. And while this is exactly the sort of accident Armitage often arranged, it turns out he was tracking key members of Al Qaida in Algeria at the time of Gruener's death."

I feel something like relief at this. Not because it exonerates Henry - in fact, I am more convinced now that he was involved in his ex-husband's death somehow - but because the government is satisfied with this explanation. I will not persuade them otherwise. There are some crimes which the law cannot touch and which, therefore, necessitate more private rectification.

"Sexual activity," John asks.

Mycroft clears his throat uncomfortably. "Yes, there was...paraphernalia supporting my brother's claims of his proclivities. All evidence in his flat indicated he was living alone, however, and the 999 call was made anonymously. It was assumed his partner that night was either a professional or a one-time diversion."

"A logical assumption," I say, handing the watch back to Mycroft. "You must have a protocol for disposing of this. He won't be requiring it any longer."

Mycroft glances at John as he takes back the watch and tucks it into his jacket, a silent question. Still using John to spy on me then.

"Have you dropped the rape charge, then?"

"There was nothing to 'drop'. He was never charged with rape. We felt abduction, wrongful imprisonment and possession of illegal narcotics was sufficient."

"Good. Should be able to make an arrangement then since I was never abducted or imprisoned and the drugs were mine."

Mycroft's eyes narrow and John tries to intervene, gently calling "Will..."

"And you can stop this 'Will' business. I will not explode if you use my name, I will simply become mildly ill."

John falters a bit, but continues without correction. "I understand that you want to protect him, but he is not innocent. You can't just accept all the blame for everything when you admit you don't even remember anything."

"I may not remember, but I have three journals full of data that clarifies my role in all of this. I will not allow you to paint me as a victim. I made my own choices and I chose to stay with a man who could provide me with a distraction elaborate enough that I wouldn't notice he was weaning me from the one narcotic that yes, he obtained for me because he feared stopping me taking it entirely would kill me." I pause a minute, allowing them to fully digest that, then ask Mycroft "have you already begun the interrogation?"

Mycroft sighs with an air of annoyance. "We have tried questioning him, but he insists he will only speak to Doctor Watson."

That is...unexpected. From John's reaction beside me, I gather he is just as surprised by this news. "I want to be in the room..."

"No," Mycroft interjects.

"You know perfectly well that I am in the best position to..."

"No," he says more forcefully.

John's hand closes on my wrist before I can argue further. "We can compromise," he offers. "You can be part of questioning without being in the room."

I forgot how much John could say without saying a word. He can convey entire sentences and paragraphs with a look. And right now, he is simultaneously pleading with me to not create trouble and reminding me that he is my partner, not an adversary. I can trust him to help me, to act on my behalf without treating me like a stroppy child. I can trust him to be open minded and fair.

I can trust him with this case.

I nod and I see victory flash briefly in his eyes. He smiles and squeezes my wrist slightly before releasing it.

John was wrong earlier when he described us as brothers. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. He is family to me, yes, but we are not bound by the obligations of shared genetic material. He has chosen to stand by me time and again, against all odds and reason. He is my best and closest friend. I would be lost without him.

"I need you to swear that you won't give me the drug when I begin to exhibit symptoms of withdrawal," I say suddenly as a realization comes over me. I thought I could be content with simply having control over when I lose my memory, but the idea of willingly erasing the past twenty-four hours is just too galling. "I realize the risks involved and the reasons he has treated me by reducing the dosage gradually, but I have come too far to turn back now. If it becomes too much for me to manage, admit me to hospital, but I will not consent to any further treatment involving the drug that has erased my memories."

"Of course," John agrees quickly.

In all probability, he will struggle with keeping that promise as my withdrawal symptoms worsen. But I have confidence that his sentiments toward me will not cloud his judgment to the extent that Henry's have. He will be able to resist the temptation of an easy fix. He will be stronger.

But this does not lessen the urgency of catching John up and convincing the authorities to release Henry. I may be able to retain my memories, but once the withdrawal starts, I will become useless. Utterly insensate and unable to think clearly.

I need to work quickly.

---

John

---

Sherlock spent the rest of the trip to the facility Thomas was being detained in getting us caught up on relevant details from the months since he went missing. At least the parts of it he had recorded in his notes. He made sure to stress all the gaps that could only be filled by "Henry" like how he came to be at the scene of the accident and why he lied about the neighbor hitting Sherlock if the truth was just as benign as the story behind the bruise Thomas was currently sporting.

The most striking thing about the way he told his story was the ways in which he seemed to deliberately skim over the bits having to do with their sex life. It was obvious he wasn't doing it to be delicate. He was very candid about the fact that he uncovered Thomas' history the day before after he was too rough during a session of shagging that had triggered his PTSD. But compared to the way he had practically rubbed my nose in his fake relationship with Janine, he was more guarded.

'Because this one's real,' the tiny voice that still sounded a bit like Mary whispered in the back of my mind.

"You don't believe feigning death and concocting an elaborate ruse to keep you from leaving is an overly complicated way to manage your withdrawal," Mycroft asked dryly when he had finished.

"Yes, but considering it was 'concocted' by a former spy and myself I would hardly expect anything less."

I suppressed a snort. Mycroft's disapproving frown deepened.

"I suspect much of it wasn't part of the initial plan. The accident and my subsequent addiction to the drug affecting my memory...probably even his falling in love with me. Each time something unexpected altered the plan, a new layer of deception was added until the truth became entirely obscured."

"The original plan being to rescue you from me," I said.

Sherlock's eyes met mine. "You will have to confirm that with him, but it seems the most likely explanation."

"Sherlock believes Thomas was projecting similarly to Mrs. Taylor," I explained for Mycroft's benefit, catching the wince Sherlock tried to hide and regretting my use of his name immediately. "Except he was driven not by his failure to save someone in the past but by his own experience as a victim."

I could see the understanding settle on Mycroft's face. So could Sherlock.

"You knew about his past," he accused.

"We knew about his parents, yes," Mycroft said.

"His parents," I asked. "Not his ex-husband?"

"No. Although that might explain some of the discrepancies in his file."

"What discrepancies," Sherlock prompted.

"He struggled to complete his medical studies. He was cited on multiple occasions for truancy. One professor expressed concern over evidence he was getting into fights."

"Evidence being bruises and injuries consistent with being struck repeatedly."

Mycroft looked a bit uncomfortable at that. "Yes. His recruitment and training officers described a very different man, which they chalked up to age and maturity."

"Of course," Sherlock sneered. "A convenient explanation based in gendered assumptions. If a man shows signs of having been beaten repeatedly, people assume he was simply on the losing end of a fight. If a woman does, surely somebody would consider the possibility she was being beaten by a domestic partner."

Silence filled the car for a bit and I thought again about the man I'd seen at the airport and how he hadn't matched my expectations of him.

"What about his parents," Sherlock finally asked.

Mycroft took a deep breath. "His mother was charged with his father's murder. She claimed she did it to protect the boy as well as herself although it was never proven he had laid a hand on the child. She committed suicide shortly after being imprisoned."

Jesus. I swallowed and asked "did you...did he ever tell you about this?"

Sherlock's eyes met mine and I could see my own disgust reflected in them. "Possibly. But I haven't found any mention of it in my notes. He may have deleted it along with anything else pertaining to his past that he didn't want me remembering."

"You said he had a scar that proves the story he told you about his ex-husband," I said slowly. "What sort of scar?"

"He threatened to leave. Gruener retaliated with a threat of castration."

I winced reflexively and I thought I could sense Mycroft do the same.

"If all this is true, he is most likely suffering from PTSD," I said carefully. "He would distrust people, especially men. It might explain why he felt he needed to take such extreme measures to rescue you from a perceived threat."

"He knew my brother would find me and arrest him," Sherlock agreed. "He must have realized long ago he'd made a mistake, but by then I was well on my way to addiction and he...was becoming infatuated."

Despite understanding the chemistry of it, the concept of love still mostly eluded Sherlock. He could feel it and he could recognize it in others, but he still found it a pointless distraction from his more cerebral endeavors.

"Regardless of his intentions, we cannot simply drop the charges against him," Mycroft said.

"I know that," Sherlock snapped. "But I believe given the extraordinary circumstances and after questioning we can come to some sort of agreement. He needs treatment, not a prison sentence."

I reached for Sherlock's arm, hoping to diffuse the situation before it got fully underway. "Okay. He hasn't officially been charged with anything yet. We can get him the treatment he needs once we determine what, exactly did or did not happen."

Sherlock calmed and nodded. Mycroft muttered an agreement.

We returned to the details Sherlock had gathered and the questions still left unanswered for the rest of the drive.

----

The interrogation room was in the basement of a government building. The walls were padded to prevent the more violent prisoners from injuring themselves. 'Or to muffle screams,' I thought morbidly. A one-way mirror on one wall allowed for an audience outside the cell. I didn't find out until later that it was the same room that had once been used to hold Moriarty while Mycroft questioned him.

One of the agents who'd met Mycroft at the airport fitted Sherlock and me with earpieces and then disappeared into another room. I gathered the folder with evidence Mycroft, Lestrade and I had deemed relevant along with some of the documents Sherlock had recovered and, steeling myself, stepped into the interrogation room.

Thomas sat at a table bolted to the floor, his hands folded in front of him, the fingers of his right hand idly manipulating the wedding ring on his left. He was dressed in different clothing than he had been at the airport. It seemed Sherlock had insisted he be allowed to shower. I tried not to dwell on the reasons he had needed one.

He looked up when I entered the room and straightened a bit. I tried to read him as I thought Sherlock would. But I didn't know him as intimately as Sherlock did - memory erasing drugs aside - and everything I'd thought I knew had been recently challenged. He was still a cunning ex-assassin, but he was also a broken, damaged man.

I set the folder on the table and reached for his nearest hand - the right one - turning it so I could inspect the bruising on his wrist from the handcuffs.

I could feel the tension in his arm, hear the way his breathing grew shallow. 'He doesn't trust you to not hurt him,' the voice in the back of my mind whispered. The idea that I could get the best of him seemed laughable, but then our location and the proximity of armed agents gave me the advantage.

After verifying the skin was not broken, I let go of his arm. He let it descend slowly back to rest on the table beside the other. I took my seat on the other side of the table.

"I realized why I recognized your voice earlier. You were at the scene of the accident."

Surprise flashed in his eyes momentarily and I wondered if Sherlock had seen it from the other side of the glass.

"Did you cause it?"

He flinched slightly. "He knew I was following him," he said slowly. "I tried to fall back, but it was too late. He'd already drawn the obvious conclusions and become anxious."

"He wasn't the other driver," Sherlock said in my ear.

"So you didn't deliberately drive us off the road," I said.

"I wasn't in the car that tried to overtake you. But if he hadn't been convinced someone with malicious intent was following you, the accident may not have happened in any case."

"The fact that he blames himself isn't proof of guilt," Sherlock said.

I bit back a sigh and pressed on. "So you just took advantage of the opportunity and abducted him from the scene."

He lowered his eyes and twisted his ring thoughtfully. "He hardly remembers the first time we met," he began slowly, carefully. "Deleted it to make room, he said. Just a random display of kindness from a stranger - a nobody." His eyes met mine and I could see something like an accusation in his gaze. "It was the night he first came back from the dead. When you aggravated the still-healing wounds on his back and left him standing by the curb nursing a bloody nose."

A cold feeling sliced through me as I saw myself for a moment through his eyes. Saw what it must have looked like to someone who didn't know my history with Sherlock - someone with his own history of experience with men prone to violence.

"I thought he looked a bit familiar, but I never really followed the stories of the great Sherlock Holmes," he continued. I flinched.

Thomas stopped talking suddenly and stared at me. His eyes slowly drifted toward the mirror behind me and Sherlock groaned softly.

"He knows I'm watching."

I had blown it already. I should have known a former spy would catch on immediately. I debated my next move. Should I acknowledge the moment? Admit that yes, Sherlock was listening because we decided it wouldn't be right to have him directly involved in the interrogation and move on?

But before I could say anything, he continued. "I found your blog. Saw the photos of your wedding. And I became convinced that you posed just as much danger to him as any of the criminals he exposed, if not more because he trusted you. Loved you. Forgave you for hurting him."

Jesus. As always, Sherlock had been right. But from his silence, I gathered he was no more pleased with that knowledge than I was.

"You, er...you thought you needed to rescue him as you wish someone had rescued you from Andrew Gruener."

He flinched. "I know what it's like to feel trapped. To be so dependent on the thing that you know is slowly killing you that leaving seems impossible." He blinked rapidly and took a deep breath. "I just wanted to talk to him. Alone. Give him an opportunity to escape. Offer whatever support he needed." He paused and rallied himself a bit. "The driver of the other car fled when I arrived. I...phoned emergency services and checked that you were both still alive. Your injuries were mostly superficial - both of you - but he was unconscious."

"And you saw an opportunity."

Thomas swallowed. "I know I should have waited for the ambulance, tried to speak to him in hospital. But I feared I wouldn't have another chance. That he would recognize me as the person who'd been following him and have me arrested. That he would never listen to me."

"A likely assumption," Sherlock confirmed.

I reached for the pitcher of water on the table then and poured a glass, setting it in front of Thomas wordlessly. He shot me a grateful look as he accepted it, his eyes darting to the mirror as he drank.

"Ask him about the drug," Sherlock prompted.

'Yes, I am getting to that,' I thought. I should have known Sherlock would get impatient. I cleared my throat pointedly, hoping he would understand the warning without me having to turn around.

"You injected me with something," I noted. "Was it the same drug you gave him?"

Thomas shook his head slightly. "Morphine. For the pain."

"And you just happened to carry morphine with you?"

His lips twitched in a pained sort of half smile. "Old spy habit. Never knew when I might need to patch myself up."

"Is that why he has a scar," Sherlock asked, his voice somewhat muffled. "He had to patch himself up?"

I wondered for a moment if I was supposed to respond to that somehow, but before I could say anything I heard Mycroft reply, his voice also muffled, and realized the question wasn't directed at me.

I tried to ignore the voices in my ear and focus on Thomas and the present line of inquiry. "When did you start giving him the other drug?"

"When he woke up he was confused; in pain. I tried to talk to him then, but... he was obviously suffering from a concussion. I kept giving him morphine for the pain, but it wasn't enough...So I gave him the other drug I carried in case of emergency. One I designed based on an anesthesia commonly used in surgery. It was never meant to be used like this, but I hoped..." He trailed off, looking into the distance past me, something like torment in his eyes. "I just wanted him to sleep. To forget the pain."

"But the fact that he was forgetting more than the pain was convenient, wasn't it," I prompted, keeping my tone neutral.

He winced. "I only intended to use it for a short time. I hoped I could get my hands on a supply of more suitable drugs. But I didn't anticipate that he would find the tablets and self medicate. I didn't know he was an addict. By the time I realized...it was too late."

"And because you knew he wouldn't react well to finding out the truth, you thought you'd buy yourself some time by convincing him he was hiding from a serial killer."

He glanced at the mirror again and I thought he might have been pleading silently with Sherlock. "As a doctor, you know that the best treatment for benzodiazepine addiction is slow reduction in dosage, monitored by a physician. It was my drug and my mistakes that had led to his condition. I thought it only fair for me to assume responsibility for his treatment."

"He didn't trust anyone else," Sherlock murmured.

Thomas rushed to continue before I could respond. "It was selfish of me, I know that. I'd already begun to fall in love with him. I couldn't bear the possibility that we would be discovered. That his brother would have me imprisoned and he would simply...forget about me. I supplied him with a case that would both serve as a distraction from his condition and discourage him from drawing attention to us. I recast all my marks as victims of Thomas Gruener, carefully omitting any details that might suggest their true identities. That they were terrorists, arms dealers, human traffickers." His lips twitched a bit. "Of course, he worked it out eventually. About four months ago, he gave me a memory stick that had the journal he'd been keeping to try to make sense of everything - his condition, the case, me - and he offered to assist me in making a few...improvements. Buy more time until he could safely stop the drug entirely. Thomas Gruner became Andrew Gruener and the number of victims credited to him grew."

"Including me."

He went silent a moment, his eyes meeting mine, unflinching. "Yes. He was especially insistent you be included. If he didn't believe you were dead, he couldn't be sure he wouldn't try to contact you and ruin the plan."

'He couldn't make me believe he was you,' Sherlock had said.

Thomas got a distant look in his eyes. "He ran away to Liverpoool about three months ago. I found him huddled beside the statue of Lennon outside The Cavern Club. It struck me as ironic that despite the fact that he most certainly had no idea who the man was, in the depths of withdrawal when he was half coherent and ill, he found a way to run to John."

I was stunned into silence by that, but Sherlock seemed unaffected in the least.

"How did he find me," he demanded.

"Ah...how...er...did you find him," I asked stupidly, not quite sure what Sherlock was getting at, but knowing it would probably prove important enough.

I could see in his eyes that Thomas understood the importance immediately though. His expression was similar to many of the criminals Sherlock had apprehended the moment they realized they'd said too much. "I embedded a tracking chip beneath the scar he got in the accident," he said slowly, quietly.

I stared at him in silence for several moments as I processed his confession. "You..."

"It wasn't the first time he'd run off. He once went three days without taking the drug. He hardly slept. He became convinced I was a henchman of Moriarty's out for revenge against him. That I was slowly poisoning him to death and reveling in his prolonged suffering." Thomas' eyes shone with tears. He swallowed thickly. "I tracked him to the edge of a cliff, where he threatened to hasten my efforts by throwing himself into the sea."

Another, longer silence before I asked "how did you talk him down?"

He gave a humorless sort of chuckle. "I told him you were alive. Told him I could prove it if he'd just come away from the edge." He swiped at a tear as it spilled from his left eye. "You probably don't remember, but I called you that evening, pretending to have the wrong number so he could hear your voice."

Of course I wouldn't remember that any more than Sherlock would remember their first meeting on the street. Still, I felt the same sort of frustration he no doubt had felt upon learning the significance of the moment.

"There is nothing about any of this in my notes," Sherlock said.

'Of course not,' I thought. 'You had to go on believing I was dead.'

"I told him everything that night. And he took the drug, willingly." Thomas trailed off, seemingly lost in thought for a bit before he continued. "That was when I first thought of buying him a dog."

"Sorry?"

His eyes focused on me as if he'd forgot I was even there for a moment. "There's a classic Italian movie about a man who is so depressed he's decided he will commit suicide. But before he can go through with it, he finds a stray dog. He takes in the dog, feeds him. And the next time he thinks about killing himself, he looks at this dog and he realizes that he can't bring himself to do it. I thought if Will..." He stopped talking, swallowed, and averted his eyes from mine. "I hoped I could give him something to live for."

The silence stretched even longer that time as I tried to remember the questions I was supposed to be asking while all the new information swirled around in my head along with snatches of memory, particularly the one of Sherlock falling from the roof of St. Bart's. Thinking back, this was probably the first time I realized I may have had more in common with Thomas than I'd previously cared to admit.

I recalled one of Sherlock's questions as I skimmed the contents of the folder in front of me. "You lied to him about a black eye you gave him around that time. You told him your neighbor - Robert Brown - punched him during a fight. Why?"

He looked up from his left wrist, which he'd been fingering absently. Just where the watch with the cyanide pill had been. "It's difficult for someone of his celebrity status to hide. It was easy enough in Sussex where we had little cause to interact with others and on the continent where not many would recognize him. But I feared Bob would work out who he really was and draw attention to us. It seemed a harmless enough lie to discourage them from talking. It also worked to distract Lillian, who became so convinced of her perceived narrative that she was blind to anything else."

"It didn't bother you that she believed you were a monster?"

His eyes met mine and for a moment I was convinced he could see straight through to my soul. "Am I not? I orchestrated the deaths of more than a dozen men. Am I any less monstrous than them simply because I was acting under government orders?"

Before I could respond, the door to the interrogation room opened.

"Doctor Watson, could you step outside," Mycroft asked in that manner that made it clear he wasn't really asking.

Thomas reached for my wrist as I moved to stand. "The details of the drug are on my laptop," he said urgently. "Exact composition and dosage as well as a record of the past eight months."

Mycroft cleared his throat - an obvious warning - and Thomas flinched and released his hold.

Thomas' words, the pleading look in his eyes, coupled with Mycroft's interruption brought a sudden realization to my mind. Sherlock hadn't spoken for several minutes. And Thomas had already worked it all out and knew what must have happened.

"I only have a few hours, perhaps, before the withdrawal symptoms set in," Sherlock had said.

I stepped into the hallway quickly and barely waited for the door to close before asking "where is he?"

---

Four months ago, Henry

---

It may be the endorphins talking, but I am certain you have never looked more gorgeous than you do right now, arching and moaning beneath me, tugging helplessly at the sashes from the dressing gown securing you to the bed. Your body welcomes mine eagerly, your thighs trembling with the effort to draw me closer, deeper inside you.

"Say my name," I demand, stilling your movements with a firm grip on your narrow hips. ‘Still too thin,' I think.

We've done this many times over the past hour and I fear you may be too far gone to respond anymore. I doubt I will have the strength to pull out this time and wait for your arousal to wane if you say the wrong name. This may be an effective means of training you – as you called it – but it requires a lot of stamina and discipline.

You writhe and squeeze your thighs around my hips, bearing down on my cock. Every inch of your skin is hot and slick and perfect. You mutter something, but it isn't coherent even before it dissolves into a helpless groan.

"Will," I prompt, hoping this is enough to trigger the correct response. ‘Please, don't force me to stop.'

Your eyes open, wild and bright with arousal, slowly focusing on me. "Henry," you moan.

An insensible, half-curse, half-thanks tumbles from my lips as I double my efforts, determined to push you over the edge now before you say anything else.

You come with a wild cry almost the moment I touch your cock, having been denied for so long that your body seizes the opportunity without hesitation.

I manage to free your wrists before succumbing myself, feeling you cling to me, preventing me from pulling away as we both come down.

Your eyes are already clear by the time my senses fully return and I find you studying my face with some fascination.

"You are ashamed of the way bondage excites you," you say, still slightly out of breath. "Normally I would say that could be attributed to a strict, religious upbringing, but in your case..."

I kiss you in a futile effort to distract you, or at the very least stop you from going any further down this path of deduction. I should know by now that I can't hide my demons from you.

"What was his name," you murmur stubbornly against my lips.

I sigh and pull out gently. I would prefer avoiding this conversation entirely, but as that is unlikely I can at least have it while we aren't so intimately entwined.

I clean the worst of the mess with the flannel I left close at hand as I gather my thoughts. I need to be more cautious in how I speak of Andrew now as his name has been bestowed on the killer you believe we are running from. I may have to avoid speaking about him altogether, in fact, so you don't make the connection and unravel our carefully laid plans immediately.

You wait patiently for me to answer, your fingers tracing along the scar on my abdomen. This gives me an idea.

"He was schizophrenic," I begin, the story forming in my mind as I speak. "We were young – still at University."

Andrew wanted me to drop out. Said I was wasting my time when he could easily support the both of us on his salary alone. Of course, that would have achieved his real goal of making me entirely dependent on him.

"He became increasingly paranoid. Delusional. First convinced that I was cheating on him, then that I was trying to kill him."

I can still see the desperation in the eyes of the arms dealer when he understood who had sent me. The moment of victory in his eyes as he plunged the knife into me, believing he had successfully cheated death. The surprise frozen on his face as the bullet tore through him.

"One night, he tied me to the bed and threatened to castrate me. He'd come to believe I was a spy sent to seduce him. God knows to what end. I managed to escape, but..." This story is too complicated. You assured me that if I included enough true elements I could make any lie believable, but in future I should really try to simplify.

I look at you as my words trail off, half expecting you to tear my story apart and demand I tell you the truth. I suppose there wouldn't be any harm done, really. After your next dose, you will forget this entire conversation, just as you've forgotten the truth about Gruener. But all I see in your eyes is sympathy. A recognition that regardless of the believability of all the details I've just told you, the pain behind them is genuine.

You stroke the inside of my thigh softly and I expect you to move higher, to seek out the proof borne out by the other scar. I realize suddenly that if you do, you will know that it was left by a different assailant than the one on my abdomen. It's on the wrong side. I have made a mistake. Not the first and likely not the last either. But a very stupid one.

But you seem content with keeping your touch well away from my groin. Whether out of some sort of respect or simply because you don't want the contact to tip over from soothing into sexual, I am grateful.

There's a knock on the door of our room. I slip reluctantly from the warmth of the bed and have just enough presence of mind to arrange the covers over you for the sake of decency before fetching my dressing gown and answering it.

The hotel employee has the room service I ordered earlier this evening along with the package I have been waiting for, discreetly wrapped, yet obviously some sort of drugs. Whether because of this or because of the clear evidence that I was recently having sex with another man – his objections to which might be explained by the prominent cross around his neck – his expression is one of obvious disapproval. Either way, I tip him generously, hoping he won't cause us any trouble.

I expect you to declare the exact source of the man's contempt the minute I close the door, but you are focused on the package in my hand. I set it down on the cart.

"We should eat before it gets cold."

"Not hungry."

I bite back a sigh and sit on the bed. "I know, love, but you should eat anyway."

"Why? Will taking the tablet on an empty stomach make me ill?"

I could say yes, but I will never earn your trust if I lie to you unnecessarily. "Probably not, but not eating for days could make you ill regardless."

You grunt something unintelligible. Then..."he wasn't schizophrenic."

It isn't a question.

"Your almost Pavlovian response to the use of bondage suggests a familiarity and comfort that go beyond one traumatic incident. He restrained you regularly. Or you did him. Which means you trusted him at one time." You look at me with prying, but not ungentle eyes. "Did he catch you cheating?"

I am grateful that you seem to have disregarded the spy business as part of the lie, but I will still have to be careful. "I threatened to leave him." I take a deep breath as I try to piece together enough truths without revealing too much. "He was possessive. He treated our marriage contract as if it were a deed of ownership." I had to be ready to perform when the desire struck him. At first, I found preparing myself every day erotic. The knowledge that he could be so overcome that he would need to bend me over the nearest piece of furniture and fuck me without warning made me feel desired and deliciously filthy. Until the day I didn't prepare and tried to say no. He treated it as a lesson I needed to learn.

"He raped you," you say softly, startling me. Sometimes I believe you really can read my thoughts.

I nod. "I asked for a divorce. He...reacted violently. I feared if I didn't leave, he would kill me. So I ran. Changed my identity. Joined the MSF."

Your hand wraps around my wrist, squeezing gently. "Is he still..."

"No. He died years ago." For a moment I wonder if your gesture of comfort is really just a clever way of monitoring my pulse to judge whether I'm lying. It doesn't matter. Nothing I've just said is technically untrue.

"You have told me this before."

I nod again.

"I'm sorry I keep forcing you to relive painful memories. I will put it in my notes, so you don't have to tell me again."

I know you will. And, as I did last time, I will delete it before morning. Because as excruciating as it is to have to re-open old wounds every time you uncover the truth about Andrew, it would be too easy for you to unravel the rest of our carefully constructed lies if you start out knowing that much already.

You sigh up at the ceiling suddenly. "God, I could use a fag."

I chuckle softly. "Would you settle for a cup of tea?" Nicotine may be the least reprehensible of your habits, but once you give in to that addiction, other drugs are likely to follow. I can't risk the possible interactions.

You groan, mutter a couple expletives under your breath and finally say "fine."

You slip from the bed and put on your dressing gown while I put the kettle on and set food on the small table in the corner. I know if it weren't for the cold you wouldn't bother covering yourself at all. You might even have stepped out onto the hotel room balcony naked. I sometimes admire your complete lack of shame. I don't think I have ever been so un-self-conscious.

You eat some of the food I put in front of you – realizing that you are actually hungry after recent exertions – and drink all of the tea.

"You should put the tablets in the tea."

I swallow the bite of pasta in my mouth slowly, wondering if you expect me to object or ask for clarification. But you simply continue.

"Paranoia is an inevitable side effect. I cannot be trusted to take a tablet regularly. Lacing my food with the drug is unlikely to be a viable solution." You gesture at the untouched food still on your plate. "But I am far less likely to refuse a cup of tea." You must see something on my face, as you frown and declare "We've already discussed this, haven't we?"

"Argued more like. Especially when you insisted I continue giving you sugar pills twice a day so you wouldn't know when you were being dosed."

"Ah. That's the other bit that was bothering you earlier. The elimination of free choice, even if you had my consent."

"This is not the same. You cannot withdraw consent later if you don't remember what you consented to."

"Did you wait until you had obtained my consent before giving me the best drug you had at your disposal for treating pain after the accident?"

"This is not about..."

"Medical ethics? I should think it is. If not giving me the drug causes harmful and possibly deadly side effects, allowing me to stop taking it because I've forgot the danger and decided to withdraw my consent of the treatment would hardly be responsible."

I set my fork down, no longer hungry myself. You reach for my hand, suddenly, gripping tightly, prompting me to meet your insistent gaze.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't trust you."

You've said before that you could always tell I was lying to you, even if you were uncertain what I was lying about. But you were absolutely certain that you could trust me with your life. The idea that I could be willing to fake my death, change my name and go into hiding with you after only knowing you for five months didn't even seem absurd – an extreme measure only someone with a history of becoming someone else would agree to so easily.

I smile weakly and squeeze your hand. Your left hand. I can feel your ring pressing into my flesh. And I think of the night we planned our escape. This honeymoon and the next phase of your treatment. When you told me you knew Andrew's death hadn't really been an accident.

"Whether you administered the potassium that caused the fatal heart attack or – more likely – provided his newest victim with the means and opportunity and the assurance he would suffer no consequences...it doesn't matter. I don't need to know the details. The world is better for having fewer men like him to continue their reign of terror and abuse."

I found emotional release that night in your arms as well as physical. And as I watched you sleep afterward, I thought that just might have been the moment beyond which I would no longer have the strength to walk away, even if I knew I should.

I don't know how long I can keep up this charade. And I suspect it cannot end well for me. But I am in too deep to turn back now.

I hate having to lie to you. I hate watching you suffer physically when you don't take the drug and go through withdrawal, mentally when you do and believe you are losing your mind and emotionally when you believe you were responsible for Mary's – now John's - death. But I cannot bring myself to leave.

"I love you," I whisper.

Your lips twitch slightly in a smile before you pull away, turning your attention to your mobile and the notes you have been keeping there until we return to England and you can use a proper laptop. I know declarations of love make you uncomfortable. But the fact that you no longer roll your eyes and grumble about 'sentiment' suggests a sort of shift in your opinions. In your own way, you might just be falling in love with me as well. At least, that's a comforting story I can tell myself on the bad days.

"Are all forms of physical restraint objectionable, or would you be amenable so long as it doesn't involve anything rope-like?"

The question catches me off guard and the images it invokes send a flush of desire through me. "Er..."

"I would like to experiment with different variables."

"Now?" Normally, I would expect a man your age to be finished for the night after what we just did. But you have seemingly boundless energy and I suspect you are capable of getting a similar high from sex that you would find in solving cases or using drugs. I sometimes find it difficult to keep up with you.

You set your phone down. "When you're ready."

---

Present, Sherlock

---

Mycroft knows better than to say anything as I leave the observation room. My notes suggest I had suspected Henry bought Grace for me to try to win my affection.

'I hoped I could give him something to live for.'

I turn off my earpiece as John starts asking about my black eye and the neighbor my journal claimed was responsible for it. I no longer need an answer to that particular question. It's obvious enough.

I vomit into the toilet in the men's and take a moment to steady myself before washing up. I try to get a closer look at the scar in the mirror above the sink, but the angle is wrong. I try to feel the stitches instead and wince as this causes pain. I should have realized the wound was too fresh. That it must have at least been partly reopened recently.

The tracking app on his phone. I should have understood what it meant sooner. Of course it was meant to track me.

The door opens and John steps in. No doubt Mycroft sent him to check on me.

"When did he call you," I ask before he can say anything. "What did he say?"

"Er...Thomas? I don't remember."

"But you must have recognized his voice. It's far more likely you were recalling that than the one conversation you had months ago when he was disguised as a paramedic. Think!"

He bristles a bit at that. "People sound different over the phone than they do in person. It was a wrong number. I put it from my mind. What does it matter?"

This is getting nowhere. I sigh and rub my forehead where the headache is beginning to form. "He said months ago. Not two days ago?"

"No," John says firmly. "I would definitely have remembered that."

I'm not sure that's true, but if MI-6 was alerted early this week and Mycroft, Lestrade and John were working on a rescue plan ever since it is unlikely any strange phone calls would have failed to catch their attention. So that couldn't have been the proof Henry gave me two days ago that prompted the journal entry. Unless he recorded the conversation somewhere for the occasion he might need it again.

No. I didn't need proof that John was alive yesterday. I wouldn't have needed it two days ago.

John's fingers wrap around my wrist, checking my pulse. "Look at me."

I acquiesce, impatiently waiting while he checks my pupils.

"Any symptoms besides vomiting?"

"Headache," I mumble.

"This is the withdrawal?"

I nod. He mirrors the movement unconsciously.

"Okay." He pauses for a long while, still holding my wrist, and I wonder if he's still monitoring my vitals or has simply forgotten to let go. "What do you need?"

"I need to be in that room."

"Anything but that."

"Why," I spit, my frustration growing by the minute. "It's obvious he doesn't pose a threat to me or I would not be here now."

"This isn't about whether or not he poses a physical danger. He has been deceiving you – successfully – for the better part of a year."

"All the more reason for me to be involved in this interrogation! If he could keep me from finding out the truth for that long, what hope is there for the rest of you?"

John sighs heavily and visibly switches gears. "You are too close to this – to him – to be objective."

I snort. "That's ridiculous, I..."

"You love him," John interrupts. "I don't doubt you want answers, but not if getting them means sending him to jail."

I don't attempt to fill the silence that follows. Honestly, I'm too stunned by the way he said ‘you love him.' As if it was a simple statement of an obvious fact. How can he be so certain of something I haven't even sorted out myself?

I start as the answer to my previous inquiry comes to me suddenly.

It takes less than a minute to find the voicemail in the locked folder of Henry's phone. The sender is not identified by name. Of course. He wouldn't risk me finding John's name on his phone.

"I can respect your conditions and I swear I won't try to contact you again if you'll just promise me one thing. Don't disappear like you did last time. Text me. Send me an email from an anonymous account. Send me a goddamn postcard. Just...anything. I won't respond or try to contact you or do anything whatever that might compromise you. I just...I need to know you're still alive. Please, just...do that for me?"

The sound of his own voice startles John briefly, but he obviously recognizes the message. "That's...that's the voicemail I sent after the accident. When you said you were off chasing a killer..." He shakes his head. "But it wasn't you."

"No, it wasn't." I brush past John, even more determined to get in that room now. I vaguely hear John voicing some form of protest as he follows me, but I am not listening. Henry is the only person who can give me the answers I need now.

He is clearly surprised to see me enter the room. He sits up straighter, his eyes momentarily darting to John. Uncertain. Wary.

I put the phone down in front of him so he can clearly see the open file. I don't need to play it for him to recognize it.

"You played this file for me two days ago, before telling me everything." It's not really a question. I know I'm right. But I do need him to verify for the benefit of my brother and John, the latter of which I can see gesturing to the former through the mirror from the corner of my eye. I may not have much time before Mycroft puts a stop to this, so I talk quickly. "You believed you were rescuing me until this," I gesture at the phone "sowed seeds of doubt. You went to the trouble of saving this voicemail despite destroying the phone that originally received it partly so I would understand, but also to remind yourself of just how wrong you'd got it."

His eyes go to John again. "Yes," he says quietly.

"The cyanide tablet wasn't insurance against facing the consequences incurred these past few months. You may say you can't live without me, but that's not true. You couldn't live with yourself if anything happened to me as a result of your mistakes."

He shakes his head slightly, visibly fighting back tears now. I press on.

"You are a masochist. You believe you deserve punishment, but you couldn't bear it if it came as a result of irreversible damage you'd done to me out of ignorance."

His lip quivers before he catches it in his teeth. He looks down at the phone, as if he can't bear to look me in the eyes now. I instinctively reach out and take a fistful of his hair, forcing his head back, forcing him to look at me. He yelps, but makes no effort to defend himself. There is pain and fear in his eyes, but also resignation. All of which confirm my deductions so far. I voice the next thought as it comes to me.

"This is why you refused to tell me your history of abuse, isn't it? Not because you didn't want to burden me but because you wanted me to hurt you."

"Oi!"

John's hand is on my arm, trying to coax me into backing off. I twist my fingers just a little tighter instead. Until Henry cries out.

"Let him go," John says in what I've come to think of as his Captain's voice. Low, but forceful. A tone that leaves no room for argument. I release my hold on Henry and allow John to guide me into the chair he recently vacated.

I realize belatedly that nobody is coming to stop me. That Mycroft has either been convinced by that display that I'm not as compromised as he previously believed or he is acknowledging that this method could possibly produce the desired results.

I keep my eyes on Henry as John retrieves another chair from the corner of the room. I had expected him to plead with me, to be desperate to explain. But he still has that look of quiet resignation. I decide this is probably for the best. I don't want excuses. I want answers.

"Why go to all this trouble? Judging by the details in the Gruener file, you obviously at least contemplated simply killing John. Or was that merely an expression of regret after the fact?"

"I didn't write that entry," Henry says quietly.

Oh. Well. That would explain the unusual amount of details compared to the others.

"I never believed John's intent was malicious," he continues. "I believed it was a combination of insecurity, ignorance and denial. I wanted to separate you from him." He looks at John guiltily. "But when I heard the worry in your voice...as I got the opportunity to see the both of you through each other's eyes...I knew I'd misread your relationship." He looks back down at his fingers, fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt, with his ring. "It doesn't excuse what I did. And yes, I can accept the consequences of my actions and understand that I deserve whatever punishment you deem just. But I couldn't live with myself if the worst were to happen." He winces. "Although perhaps that's exactly what I deserve."

"You don't believe I can survive the withdrawal if I stop taking the drug now," I conclude.

"I honestly don't know," he admits. "The risks aren't as great now as they were even three months ago, but that doesn't mean there aren't any risks at all." He takes a slow, deep breath and tries to control the warble in his voice. "I should have allowed you to make the choice whether to take the risk or continue treatment, but I was too terrified of losing you. These past months have been the best and worst of my life. Having you, but knowing I shouldn't...wouldn't if the circumstances had been different."

'You didn't choose me.'

'You shouldn't have to live like this.'

'I never wanted to hurt you.'

John clears his throat suddenly. "How did you get the drug?"

"He didn't," I answer before Henry can speak. "I did."

The look in Henry's eyes tells me this is most certainly not true and he knows I am only saying it to protect him. I don't care. I am perfectly happy to take the fall for this and any other charges my brother wants to try to lay at his feet. Even if my brother were to shift the charges to me – highly unlikely – I can leverage my current mental state in my defense.

"Obviously I have no memory of it, but that's the only explanation that makes sense," I continue. "That's why I needed the lab equipment. I worked out the exact chemical composition and called in a favor to one of my old contacts."

"You don't have to do this," John interjects. Predictably.

"I am simply drawing the most logical conclusions, John. It is obvious I was an active participant in this charade. I even wrote a rather sensational account of your murder at the hands of a fictional killer. A killer we seem to have created together under the guise of his monstrous ex as the perfect villain for a case I could never fully solve until I was clean. The idea that I may have been able to procure the drug is hardly a stretch of the imagination."

"Sherlock," Henry says sharply and I suppress a wince as my stomach rolls in Pavlovian fashion. I sense John stiffen beside me and reach to stop him before he does something rash, shaking my head. Henry's face is a mixture of regret, pain and fear. Some of it is likely an instinctive reaction to John's anger. But the regret...

"You hate it. Lying to me, causing me pain. This was not your plan. You could not have made these choices alone."

"Not alone," he admits softly. "But you know you couldn't possibly have procured the drug and I won't let you accept the consequences of my actions."

"You shouldn't have to suffer consequences for trying to save me, even if you were mistaken about the danger you thought I faced. And you certainly shouldn't have to suffer for following a treatment regimen that has quite possibly kept me alive since I overdosed, which, yes, may not have happened in the first place if not for several events you may or may not have put into motion, but there's no sense debating the exact order of cause and effect. You have spent the past nine months doing anything you thought was necessary to keep me from harming myself deliberately or inadvertently."

His eyes are wet with unshed tears. I press on.

"And if my brother will call off this ridiculous investigation, I would like you to continue treatment."

"What," John spits.

I gesture at him to be quiet, keeping my eyes on Henry. His momentary shock is giving way to a confused mixture of hope and horror. I can dispel the latter. "I don't mean that I want to continue as we have been. I have no desire to lose my memory unless there is absolutely no alternative. But you are uniquely qualified to recognize and treat my condition and you have ample motivation to ensure my full recovery. However, I know that your desire to spare me the symptoms of withdrawal will prevent you from respecting my wish to not receive any more of the drug, which is why I trust John to act on my behalf as my condition worsens."

I can hear Mycroft's voice faintly through John's earpiece. I don't have to hear it perfectly to know that he is upset by this turn.

"Hang on," John begins, looking like a negotiator caught in a heated crossfire. I turn to him, but my words are more for Mycroft's benefit than his.

"This is not a negotiation. I don't know how much time I have before I succumb to the effects of withdrawal and I don't want to waste it sitting here arguing about who is at fault. Surely the government has better things to do than pursue charges against a man whose only crime was enabling my drug habit."

There is a long silence while I've no doubt Mycroft silently fumes. I turn back to Henry.

"But before we discuss the terms of my treatment, I need you to remove the tracking chip."

"Yes, of course," Henry says quickly.

"There should be all the equipment you need right in this facility. John can assist you."

"What, now," John asks feebly.

"Yes, now." I stand up and walk toward the door before anyone has time to object, confident that John and Henry will follow and my brother will not try to stop us.

Notes:

I may have done some research when trying to figure out where "James Armitage" could have been while Andrew Gruener was being murdered that risked putting me on a watch list somewhere. Apparently there was one key member of Al Quida that mysteriously disappeared around that time and failed to show up for a trial.

"There are some crimes which the law cannot touch and which, therefore, necessitate more private rectification" is a somewhat bastardized version of a quote in the Charles Milverton case. It perfectly encapsulates Sherlock's willingness to look the other way when a victim takes revenge on her (it usually is a woman) tormentor. He did this both in the Milverton and Gruener cases, claiming to have seen nothing when the victim respectively shot or threw acid in her tormentor's face.

There is a drug used in surgery that causes a patient to lose a few minutes of memory around the time the drug is administered. This was used for dramatic purposes in an episode of "ER" to make a patient forget a conversation between surgeons. Obviously, the drug in this story is fictional and its exaggerated effects more closely resemble Torchwood's Retcon pill, but I thought an amnesia drug based on surgical anesthetic might be something a spy with medical training would find useful to create.

The Italian movie Thomas/Henry references is called "Umberto D" and his interpretation nicely parallels the "your life is not your own" argument.

Part 1: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6

Part 2: Day 10, Day 11 part 1, part 2, part 3, Days 12-14, Days 424, 500 & Day 1,552

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