Ten Thousand Ways To Break My Heart

Chapter 7

It was another two months, nine and a half in total when he was allowed to leave the hospital. To John, it was an eternity, torture to see his best friends mind fade to blank, from genius to an empty shell.

The only things he could associate with people he had met was the emotions he had felt before. Intense fear with Sally, familiar comfort with him and Gregory, and confusion with Molly and Mycroft. "We don't even know if he'll get his memories back ever." The doctors said. "It appears he had been tortured very badly, and only held out to meet you all again." It was terrible. Why did such a brilliant mind have to be brought down so often? It wasn't fair, it just wasn't.

They tried to teach him how to deduce like he used to, and he caught on fast, but they couldn't do it all, none of them really understood how. He started muttering under his breath at times, clearly trying to deduce people, and sometimes asking them, claiming it was for scientific research for where he worked. He was good, not Sherlock good, not even close but it helped.

Mostly it helped John, when he saw the familiar sparkle in his eye when he looked at people, even if it wasn't the same it comforted him. Sherlock obviously didn't want to be a cold 'machine' like he used to but he so desperately wanted to live without blanks in his head, like little paper cuts pulled out to make a snowflake.

But you could see he was struggling, when he saw a building that he used to go to he would start to shake, and scrunch up. And his memories, soon washing away, but trying to grasp on to what he was told.

His castle was almost empty now, but whenever he pretended to sleep, he would walk in and put what he learned that day into rooms like before. It was slowly, very slowly but surely going back. John and Lestrade were now second biggest, there was a new room. Huge, scribbled on named 'random' he made in a hurry to put in what he hadn't sorted so it didn't go into another area.

It was almost a miracle when Sherlock sat by him at the table and whispered. "Alone doesn't protect people, friends protect people." John stared at him in awe, and Sherlock himself looked surprised at what he said. "Have I, I feel like I've-"

"That's what I told you before you faked your death." Sherlock's eyes widened further, and he looked at him.

"Th-that means. Oh god I hope so."

"What happened, how did you find that?"

"W-ell I just went into a room in the castle with the writing scratched out. I also found stuff about you, like your laptop password, and the tea you drank."

"Oh my god." And they hugged and he cried as he realized that his best friend may really come back.