1. Forgetfulness

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They had been living together for a little over six months now and the whole Moriarty affair was behind them, thank God. John had chosen not to ask what actually happened to Moriarty, but after the whole swimming pool incident, Sherlock had stopped playing games, teamed up with Mycroft and if Moriarty was lucky, he was dead. That was one of the reasons John did not want to know, Mycroft was a very scary man when someone threatened his little brother and, as it turned out, Sherlock was a very scary man when someone threatened John. All in all it had been a very eye-opening experience.

John was even almost used to Sherlock's annoying habits, which was why when they changed it worried him. Sherlock could often be found staring into space, but there was always that intense look in his eyes that said there was a very sharp mind calculating things. Those moments John had learned to interpret and he knew when to interrupt and when not to, what was worrying him were the other moments. They had started about two weeks previously after a case which had been weirder than usual. It seemed they had a killer who was fond of fantasy books and movies and had taken to recreating famous death scenes. There had been Boromir from Lord of the Rings, Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter and the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz (that had involved acid and had not been pretty).

John was not sure what about the case had affected Sherlock, but he was sure it had been something, even though Sherlock had put the pieces together and solved the crimes as usual. John would have thought that if anything was going to affect Sherlock it would have been the Moriarty debacle, but, it seemed, not. Ever since the end of the last case, John had noticed changes in Sherlock's behaviour and every now and then he would find his friend staring off into space looking confused; as if he had lost something. Frankly it was unnerving and John had read enough about mental illness thanks to his own condition to know that something was wrong. He also had a fair idea of what kind of thing it was, which was the one and only reason he walked up to the surveillance team Sherlock had pointed out days previously and demanded to be taken to see Mycroft.

"Hello, Dr Watson," Mycroft greeted when he stepped into the nondescript office that Sherlock's brother had decided to use as their meeting point, "have you changed your mind?"

"What has Sherlock forgotten?" he asked, not bothering to beat around the bush and for the first time he saw genuine shock on Mycroft's face.

At that point he was absolutely sure of his diagnosis; Sherlock had some form of amnesia.

"What has he told you?" Mycroft asked, for once sitting down and, unlike the three one on one meetings they had had since his moving in with Sherlock, John did the same.

"Nothing," he said honestly, he was not here to play games, "but I know the symptoms, I've seen them in soldiers on the front line. Is it post-traumatic or dissociative amnesia?"

"A little of both," was the surprisingly forward answer, "but what symptoms? Sherlock has never shown any inclination to recall what he has lost."

That didn't surprise John, but it began explaining a few things about Sherlock that had had him wondering. Of course Sherlock was a person designed to make others wonder, but that wasn't the point.

"I keep finding him staring into space as if he's trying to remember something, but isn't quite sure there is anything to remember," he said simply; there had been other things, but those incidents were what he considered the most significant.

"Oh dear," was the response and for a moment Mycroft actually appeared to be a human being.

The whole situation was a bit of a revelation to John.

"Has he done anything?" was Mycroft's next question and the way 'done' was stressed made John frown.

"Done?" he asked, since he was not quite sure what Mycroft was getting at; Sherlock did a lot of things, but he was pretty sure the question was more specific than that.

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