Sherlock - The Game Is On!

The Final Problem- Four

Chapter Four

Third POV

In 221B, Sherlock stares into the distance and softly recites the next line while Eurus' voice echoes in his head: "Help succour me now..." Mycroft softly joins in while the girl's voice continues to sing along: "The East winds blow. Sixteen by six..."

In flashback, young Eurus sings the same line across the table to young Sherlock, although she adds the word 'brother' at the end of the line, a taunting look on her face as he looks back at her. "And under we go." Mycroft finished. Sherlock turns to look at him. "You're starting to remember."

"Fragments." In the flashback, young Sherlock gets down from the table and runs off. Eurus watches him go. "Redbeard!" Young Mycroft looks round as his brother, holding his plastic sword, runs outside and chases across the graveyard. "Redbeard!"

"Redbeard?"

"He was my dog." Sherlock answered. "Eurus took Redbeard and locked him up somewhere no one could find him..." Mycroft took another inhale, as if he wanted to add something else but he didn't. "She refused to say where he was. She'd only repeat that song; her little ritual. We begged and begged her to tell us where he was."

Sherlock looks away as if he is remembering. "But she said... The song is the answer. But the song made no sense." John opens his mouth. And closes it again. "Yes, John?" Sherlock prodded. John looked between the brothers. "Nothing... What happened to Redbeard?"

"We never found him. But she started calling him 'Drowned Redbeard,' so we made our assumptions. Sherlock was traumatised. Natural, I suppose he was, in the early days, an emotional child; But after that he was different, so changed. Never spoke of it again. In time, he seemed to forget that Eurus had ever even existed."

"How could he forget? She was living in the same house."

"No. They took her away." Sherlock looks round to Mycroft. "Why? You don't lock up a child because a dog goes missing."

"Quite so. It was what happened immediately afterwards." Mycroft eventually opens his eyes again, memories dissipate. "After that, our sister had to be taken away."

"Where?"

"Oh, some suitable place, or so everyone thought. Not suitable enough, however. She died there."

"How?" John asks. "She started another fire, one which she did not survive."

"This is a lie." Sherlock announced. John looks towards Mycroft, who hesitates only for a moment. "Yes. It is also a kindness. This is the story I told our parents to spare them further pain and to account for the absence of an identifiable body."

"And no doubt to prevent their further interference."

"Well, that too, of course." Mycroft agrees. "The depth of Eurus's psychosis and the extent of her abilities couldn't hope to be contained in any ordinary institution. Uncle Rudy took care of things."

"Where is she, Mycroft? Where's our sister?"

"There's a place called Sherrinford; An island. It's a secure and very secretive installation whose sole purpose is to contain what we call 'the uncontainables.'"

"Isn't that where Sebastian Moran is?" Sherlock asks, remembering when he came back from the dead. "Yes, unfortunately." Mycroft sighed heavily to himself. "Why unfortunate, Mycroft?" John questions. "The demons beneath the road, this is where we trap them. Sherrinford is more than a prison or an asylum; It is a fortress built to keep the rest of the world safe from what is inside it."