Fic: Nothing to Remember (3/10) [Sherlock/Dollhouse Crossover]
Title: Nothing to Remember
Author: arwen_kenobi
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For Sherlock: through series 2. For Dollhouse: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~2 800 for this part. Entire fic will be ~ 35 000
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain but this incarnation belongs to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and the BBC. Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy
Summary: Eighteen months after faking his own death Sherlock Holmes returns to London only to discover that John has sought refuge across the Atlantic and away from himself.
Author’s Notes: I realise that it says crossover with Dollhouse up above here but no knowledge of Dollhouse is required. I’m really using the concept and some of the characters and that’s all explained within. So if that’s the only thing holding you back from reading this do press on; I’d rather you stop reading because you don’t like it and not because you’re not familiar with Dollhouse. If you really would prefer a bit of a primer the Wikipedia article should serve you well. Enjoy! :)
Part One
Part Two
An Englishwoman’s voice greets him but Sherlock turns his attention to the office he’s in instead. It’s neat as a pin, functional and comfortable at the same time. The space is efficient (the slightly nicer and cozier chairs over by the alcohol for clients and guests, the harder chairs closer to her desk for staff) for her needs but can also serve as precisely whatever whoever is in the room needs.
“Mr. Holmes? Would you like a seat?” She offers him one of the ‘staff’ chairs and Sherlock takes a moment to look at Miss DeWitt before making any sort of response. She’s a harsh featured woman of a chilly temperament to the majority of the world. There is the potential for caring there considering what Sherlock gathers she must be in charge of but it is strictly regulated and given it only in exceptional circumstances or for professional dealings.
“I’m here for John Watson.”
“Yes, I know that,” the hand remains extended toward the chair. “We’re going to discuss that once you sit down.”
“Now there’s no need for that. Page him up here or shall I do it for you?”
“You may try,” she challenges, smile polite but menacing. “Judith has been here long enough to recognize my voice. Besides I think we both know that he is not going to answer.”
Sherlock reaches into his jacket as if he were going to draw a gun. She is not impressed and it oozes out of every part of her. “Come now,” she scoffs. “We both know you’re unarmed so don’t insult my intelligence and sit down before I do something I may regret.”
Sherlock makes a move for the desk but he is stopped when Miss DeWitt produces a gun and aims it levelly at his heart. It is real, it is loaded, the safety is off, and she is quite serious about shooting. Well, he allows, mostly serious except for one thing. She’ll say it any second now.
“I promised Doctor Watson several things when it came to you. I never did agree that I would not kill you but I understand that he will be incredibly put out if I do put a bullet in you.” She directs him to the chair with her eyes. “Now take the seat, stop trying to play the hero, and listen. John is here willingly and I think you know that so there’s no reason for any of this.” She gestures to the space between them with the gun this time. “Fair?”
You’d best sit down then.
Sherlock sits down.
The woman smiles again. “Lovely,” she grins. “Now you are Sherlock Holmes and I am Adelle DeWitt. I am in charge of this House and all goings on inside it. I write up the contracts, I book the engagements, I select the Actives for each engagement, and I make sure everyone here is kept happy in whatever format they wish to take their happiness.”
There was only one possible thing, and thing was the word, that an Active could be. “How does someone without a mind be happy, Miss DeWitt?”
“Quite easily, in fact.” She takes a file off her desk and hands it to Sherlock. Inside is a brain scan and Sherlock refuses to look at it. DeWitt goes on anyway. “They’re little more than children after everything’s been swept away. Keeping them happy amounts to making sure they’re safe, warm, fed, and given some activities to do from time to time. I will show you all this later - “
“I’m not staying,” Sherlock snaps. “I’m here for John.”
“I know that and he does too.”
“Does he?”
Sherlock wants to pull the words out of DeWitt’s brain and back into his but the words were gone before he even thought of them. He needs to know John’s status, this is essential to his next step, but there is a power of delusion in not knowing. In not knowing he can continue to assume that John is a staff member, that he’s an advisor or a doctor or security for the House or for the ‘Actives’ or both. Speaking the question aloud gives DeWitt the ability to tell him that John isn’t John but Sherlock’s need to know everything has always trumped everything.
Sherlock is quickly proven right about DeWitt’s capacity for caring; the brown eyes soften and he voice loses a touch of its edge. “He did when he came here a year ago. He knew you’d come find him one day, though I will say the precise phrasing was “I hope” rather than “I know” but he was trying to fool the both of us and we both knew it.”
He locks onto that sentence and pushes back the new data. He pushes it back, he locks away the void in his head (Mind Palace John yelps to get this thing out of the Great Hall before somebody gets hurt), and restrains the heart that is trying to burst out of his chest. It takes every iota of his concentration to remain seated and sane at the knowledge John Watson does not exist.
I do so exist.
This doesn’t count
No, I mean I actually do. Turn your ears back on and listen to the woman for God’s sake.
Sherlock asks Miss DeWitt to repeat herself. Her eyes are almost kind when she does.
“He is not gone, Mr. Holmes. He is safe as houses with us and he trusted us to keep him that way.” Sherlock attempts to let her know exactly what he thinks about that statement but finds that he has no air in his lungs to spare. It’s just as well he decides; such an insulting comment deserves no reply. What would possess John to think that he could trust these people, especially with his mind? John didn’t trust anybody except him and Sherlock didn’t trust anybody but John.
But he hadn’t been here had he? He’d been out keeping John safe but John hadn’t known that so he’d done this. But why this? It couldn’t be just because they had helped him clear his name. DeWitt was not lying when she said John was here willingly. Sherlock was certain of that. Nor had DeWitt been lying or equivocating or deceiving in any way when she’d said that John had hoped he would come for him. Had known that he would. How could he have known? The plan had worked perfectly.
Mycroft’s voice floats through his head reminding him that he suspects something other than keeping Sherlock safe. John could have done that alone.
“Dr. Watson was doing quite admirably on his own,” Miss DeWitt is saying now. She gets up and moves to the other side of the room to retrieve the decanter of brandy and two glasses. “He really was loathe to accept the help but we gave him some extra information, information your brother I’m sure would have provided had Dr. Watson a mind to ask him for it, but that was the arrangement. No tricks, no hidden prices, no catches. It was a mutually beneficial relationship and we were both content to leave it at that.” She pours the glasses and ushers one toward Sherlock. “Some of our Actives end up as Actives for certain reasons for certain actions, your friend was not to be one of them. I made sure he understood that.”
John may not be as brilliant as he was - that was wrong; John was brilliant but a different sort of brilliant - but he was not one to throw his lot in with an unknown corporation on a hope or a whim. No matter how hurt or desperate (not desperate, Sherlock amends. Dedicated is the ‘d’ word he wants here) he would have made sure this was done properly and to his satisfaction.
This was also the man who had tried to die for him as well. This was a man who had made it his personal mission to keep him safe. If John suspected Sherlock’s life was in danger he could expected to do all kinds of stupid things. Sherlock knew this because he has seen it and because, as the evidence would suggest, he is more than willing to do all kinds of stupid things to keep John safe too.
“He began to suspect just as he was finishing writing the book.” DeWitt confirms Sherlock’s thoughts before he can voice them and never has it felt like a loss before now. “He asked us to fly him out without letting it on to Mycroft and we complied. He pitched us a contact, we accepted it, and we obeyed his wishes. He’s been with us ever since.”
“Why?” He needs to hear it.
“I was his business partner not his confidant,” she reminds him. “What he did say was that if anyone found him it was best that he literally had no answer for them. Your brother has demonstrated that interrogating an Active gains you nothing. There is nothing more basic that any interrogator can send them down to. Our Actives are in a blank slate stage.”
Blank slates still have traces of what was on them before. Slight ones but traces nonetheless. Sherlock isn’t sure if he would do well to keep that in mind or forget it. “There is another reason.”
“He didn’t say it to me. Do I need to say it to you?”
As much as Sherlock knows part of this was to keep him safe, if there was any Sherlock alive to keep safe, Sherlock also knows that John wanted to forget. Considering the portrait that had been painted by Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson there was no other reason. He wanted to not exist but was not the type of man to put a bullet in his brain in the face of despair - he was the type to fade away into nothing if he made the choice to fade and he certainly was not going to do it if there was a chance that his suffering was for a reason or had a potential positive end result. It was an ideal solution to both of John’s dilemmas and Sherlock cannot say he blames him for leaping into such an arrangement. Sherlock cannot say he would not have seized the same opportunity under the guise of an experiment either.
No,” he admits finally. He takes the drink he has been ignoring and drains it. “No, I don’t need to hear it.” He sets the glass down, DeWitt pours him some more. “What are the terms of his contract?”
DeWitt slides it out of another file on her desk but doesn’t allow Sherlock to look at it. “Dr. Watson’s contract is unique. A typical volunteer signs themselves over for five years. Their original personality is stored on what we call a wedge, hard disk if you would prefer, and we upload whatever personalities our programmer creates to satisfy our clients’ needs into their brains. This can be anything at all and all of our Actives understand that before they are wiped. After five years their original personality is restored, they receive whatever payment has been negotiated, and they leave. “
Sherlock’s heart tightens into a ball until is almost nonexistent. Four more years without John? There was no possible way he could survive or that he would stand for it. Miss DeWitt smirks at him knowingly. Fortunately for Sherlock’s bubbling rage she is in a sharing mood. “As I said, his contract is different.”
“Specify.”
“Most importantly for him he wanted a limit on the type of engagements he can be sent on. He specified no amorous encounters of any kind and no murdering the innocent and all that.” She laughs a little at a memory. “He made quite clear that he was fine with illegal activity so long as it didn’t fall into anything he considered untoward. He supplied a list and I have adhered to it. The second thing he asked was that we help him set up the pretense that he was living away from London. That was easy enough to handle. The last thing refers to the length of his stay with us.”
Of course, Sherlock smiles, John would have something in the paperwork that said his time at the Dollhouse was over once Sherlock arrived to claim him. He tames the smile and turns it into something more neutral; if that had been the case this entire conversation needn’t have taken place.
“Five years it what he signed up for if one Sherlock Holmes never darkened our door or if he appeared and was not agreeable to the following term,” she begins. “That term is that the contract is up once Mr. Holmes serves the equivalent of whatever time he has been ‘dead’ as his handler. Handlers, by the by, are the staff members that accompany our Actives on engagements and ensure their safety. You’ve been gone eighteen months, yes?”
Sherlock nods.
“Then you’d both be free to go eighteen months from tomorrow. You’ll forgive me for not starting today, of course. The day is almost out.”
“And if I say that I can just break him out of here, body and mind and everything, and ignore your contract with John what then?”
“Aside from the fact that I can have this contract upheld in a court of law, and believe me I can Mr. Holmes even considering the circumstances, this is not John Watson’s contract with us but our, rather my, contract with him.” What little warmth was in her voice is now gone. “For whatever reason he decided he needed to not exist for a time. In my name going on that document I promised I would not bring him back unless the five years are up or you adhere to the last term.” She slides a piece of paper across to Sherlock. “. That is a contract between you and him and I don’t take you as the type who right now, after everything, is going to throw the contract away.”
The contract is brief, only outlining the duration of the contract. Sherlock still very much wants to throw the contract in Adelle DeWitt’s face, rush the building, find John’s body and mind and get them out. He could reunite the two. Just give him time and some equipment he is sure to be able to replicate whatever process they do here.
And John would have known that when he’d decided this. He had known that there was a very real chance that he would do just that. Could he disappoint John yet again? Would John stay with him when he woke up and saw that his wishes had been ignored yet again?
This is different, Sherlock argues. This is completely different than pretending to be dead to keep him safe.
But it is no different. It is very near the same. This situation will be harder because he will see John everyday but it will not be John. It will be whatever John is without what makes him John or whatever he is programmed to be. He will be dead but not all at once.
Come to think about it, it’s no different into how John must have felt near the end of the sixth months. He suspected that Sherlock was alive but could not be sure. There was no way to find out for certain and no way to get anyone to tell him. Sherlock doubts he ever would have suspected Molly and he hadn’t told Mycroft he was alive until after John would have come here. He was keeping Sherlock safe by removing an unknown element from the plans as well as keeping himself sane.
It was also a form of penance. Sherlock is not sure if John intended this when he signed the contract but it is functioning as one. Sherlock had known he would have no hope in redeeming himself to John. He was fully prepared to be thrown out of John’s life and never spoken to again if it meant that John would live. He was also prepared to submit to whatever John decided would be penance for his crimes against their friendship.
This might be one way to start.
Sherlock holds out his hand for a pen and signs the contract with the option stating that John will be free a year and a half from today because Sherlock will serve a year and a half as his handler.
“Thought you would,” DeWitt smiles. It isn’t a particular triumphant one but Sherlock averts his eyes nonetheless. “Welcome to the Dollhouse, Mr. Holmes.”
Part four
Author: arwen_kenobi
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For Sherlock: through series 2. For Dollhouse: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~2 800 for this part. Entire fic will be ~ 35 000
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain but this incarnation belongs to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and the BBC. Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy
Summary: Eighteen months after faking his own death Sherlock Holmes returns to London only to discover that John has sought refuge across the Atlantic and away from himself.
Author’s Notes: I realise that it says crossover with Dollhouse up above here but no knowledge of Dollhouse is required. I’m really using the concept and some of the characters and that’s all explained within. So if that’s the only thing holding you back from reading this do press on; I’d rather you stop reading because you don’t like it and not because you’re not familiar with Dollhouse. If you really would prefer a bit of a primer the Wikipedia article should serve you well. Enjoy! :)
Part One
Part Two
An Englishwoman’s voice greets him but Sherlock turns his attention to the office he’s in instead. It’s neat as a pin, functional and comfortable at the same time. The space is efficient (the slightly nicer and cozier chairs over by the alcohol for clients and guests, the harder chairs closer to her desk for staff) for her needs but can also serve as precisely whatever whoever is in the room needs.
“Mr. Holmes? Would you like a seat?” She offers him one of the ‘staff’ chairs and Sherlock takes a moment to look at Miss DeWitt before making any sort of response. She’s a harsh featured woman of a chilly temperament to the majority of the world. There is the potential for caring there considering what Sherlock gathers she must be in charge of but it is strictly regulated and given it only in exceptional circumstances or for professional dealings.
“I’m here for John Watson.”
“Yes, I know that,” the hand remains extended toward the chair. “We’re going to discuss that once you sit down.”
“Now there’s no need for that. Page him up here or shall I do it for you?”
“You may try,” she challenges, smile polite but menacing. “Judith has been here long enough to recognize my voice. Besides I think we both know that he is not going to answer.”
Sherlock reaches into his jacket as if he were going to draw a gun. She is not impressed and it oozes out of every part of her. “Come now,” she scoffs. “We both know you’re unarmed so don’t insult my intelligence and sit down before I do something I may regret.”
Sherlock makes a move for the desk but he is stopped when Miss DeWitt produces a gun and aims it levelly at his heart. It is real, it is loaded, the safety is off, and she is quite serious about shooting. Well, he allows, mostly serious except for one thing. She’ll say it any second now.
“I promised Doctor Watson several things when it came to you. I never did agree that I would not kill you but I understand that he will be incredibly put out if I do put a bullet in you.” She directs him to the chair with her eyes. “Now take the seat, stop trying to play the hero, and listen. John is here willingly and I think you know that so there’s no reason for any of this.” She gestures to the space between them with the gun this time. “Fair?”
You’d best sit down then.
Sherlock sits down.
The woman smiles again. “Lovely,” she grins. “Now you are Sherlock Holmes and I am Adelle DeWitt. I am in charge of this House and all goings on inside it. I write up the contracts, I book the engagements, I select the Actives for each engagement, and I make sure everyone here is kept happy in whatever format they wish to take their happiness.”
There was only one possible thing, and thing was the word, that an Active could be. “How does someone without a mind be happy, Miss DeWitt?”
“Quite easily, in fact.” She takes a file off her desk and hands it to Sherlock. Inside is a brain scan and Sherlock refuses to look at it. DeWitt goes on anyway. “They’re little more than children after everything’s been swept away. Keeping them happy amounts to making sure they’re safe, warm, fed, and given some activities to do from time to time. I will show you all this later - “
“I’m not staying,” Sherlock snaps. “I’m here for John.”
“I know that and he does too.”
“Does he?”
Sherlock wants to pull the words out of DeWitt’s brain and back into his but the words were gone before he even thought of them. He needs to know John’s status, this is essential to his next step, but there is a power of delusion in not knowing. In not knowing he can continue to assume that John is a staff member, that he’s an advisor or a doctor or security for the House or for the ‘Actives’ or both. Speaking the question aloud gives DeWitt the ability to tell him that John isn’t John but Sherlock’s need to know everything has always trumped everything.
Sherlock is quickly proven right about DeWitt’s capacity for caring; the brown eyes soften and he voice loses a touch of its edge. “He did when he came here a year ago. He knew you’d come find him one day, though I will say the precise phrasing was “I hope” rather than “I know” but he was trying to fool the both of us and we both knew it.”
He locks onto that sentence and pushes back the new data. He pushes it back, he locks away the void in his head (Mind Palace John yelps to get this thing out of the Great Hall before somebody gets hurt), and restrains the heart that is trying to burst out of his chest. It takes every iota of his concentration to remain seated and sane at the knowledge John Watson does not exist.
I do so exist.
This doesn’t count
No, I mean I actually do. Turn your ears back on and listen to the woman for God’s sake.
Sherlock asks Miss DeWitt to repeat herself. Her eyes are almost kind when she does.
“He is not gone, Mr. Holmes. He is safe as houses with us and he trusted us to keep him that way.” Sherlock attempts to let her know exactly what he thinks about that statement but finds that he has no air in his lungs to spare. It’s just as well he decides; such an insulting comment deserves no reply. What would possess John to think that he could trust these people, especially with his mind? John didn’t trust anybody except him and Sherlock didn’t trust anybody but John.
But he hadn’t been here had he? He’d been out keeping John safe but John hadn’t known that so he’d done this. But why this? It couldn’t be just because they had helped him clear his name. DeWitt was not lying when she said John was here willingly. Sherlock was certain of that. Nor had DeWitt been lying or equivocating or deceiving in any way when she’d said that John had hoped he would come for him. Had known that he would. How could he have known? The plan had worked perfectly.
Mycroft’s voice floats through his head reminding him that he suspects something other than keeping Sherlock safe. John could have done that alone.
“Dr. Watson was doing quite admirably on his own,” Miss DeWitt is saying now. She gets up and moves to the other side of the room to retrieve the decanter of brandy and two glasses. “He really was loathe to accept the help but we gave him some extra information, information your brother I’m sure would have provided had Dr. Watson a mind to ask him for it, but that was the arrangement. No tricks, no hidden prices, no catches. It was a mutually beneficial relationship and we were both content to leave it at that.” She pours the glasses and ushers one toward Sherlock. “Some of our Actives end up as Actives for certain reasons for certain actions, your friend was not to be one of them. I made sure he understood that.”
John may not be as brilliant as he was - that was wrong; John was brilliant but a different sort of brilliant - but he was not one to throw his lot in with an unknown corporation on a hope or a whim. No matter how hurt or desperate (not desperate, Sherlock amends. Dedicated is the ‘d’ word he wants here) he would have made sure this was done properly and to his satisfaction.
This was also the man who had tried to die for him as well. This was a man who had made it his personal mission to keep him safe. If John suspected Sherlock’s life was in danger he could expected to do all kinds of stupid things. Sherlock knew this because he has seen it and because, as the evidence would suggest, he is more than willing to do all kinds of stupid things to keep John safe too.
“He began to suspect just as he was finishing writing the book.” DeWitt confirms Sherlock’s thoughts before he can voice them and never has it felt like a loss before now. “He asked us to fly him out without letting it on to Mycroft and we complied. He pitched us a contact, we accepted it, and we obeyed his wishes. He’s been with us ever since.”
“Why?” He needs to hear it.
“I was his business partner not his confidant,” she reminds him. “What he did say was that if anyone found him it was best that he literally had no answer for them. Your brother has demonstrated that interrogating an Active gains you nothing. There is nothing more basic that any interrogator can send them down to. Our Actives are in a blank slate stage.”
Blank slates still have traces of what was on them before. Slight ones but traces nonetheless. Sherlock isn’t sure if he would do well to keep that in mind or forget it. “There is another reason.”
“He didn’t say it to me. Do I need to say it to you?”
As much as Sherlock knows part of this was to keep him safe, if there was any Sherlock alive to keep safe, Sherlock also knows that John wanted to forget. Considering the portrait that had been painted by Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson there was no other reason. He wanted to not exist but was not the type of man to put a bullet in his brain in the face of despair - he was the type to fade away into nothing if he made the choice to fade and he certainly was not going to do it if there was a chance that his suffering was for a reason or had a potential positive end result. It was an ideal solution to both of John’s dilemmas and Sherlock cannot say he blames him for leaping into such an arrangement. Sherlock cannot say he would not have seized the same opportunity under the guise of an experiment either.
No,” he admits finally. He takes the drink he has been ignoring and drains it. “No, I don’t need to hear it.” He sets the glass down, DeWitt pours him some more. “What are the terms of his contract?”
DeWitt slides it out of another file on her desk but doesn’t allow Sherlock to look at it. “Dr. Watson’s contract is unique. A typical volunteer signs themselves over for five years. Their original personality is stored on what we call a wedge, hard disk if you would prefer, and we upload whatever personalities our programmer creates to satisfy our clients’ needs into their brains. This can be anything at all and all of our Actives understand that before they are wiped. After five years their original personality is restored, they receive whatever payment has been negotiated, and they leave. “
Sherlock’s heart tightens into a ball until is almost nonexistent. Four more years without John? There was no possible way he could survive or that he would stand for it. Miss DeWitt smirks at him knowingly. Fortunately for Sherlock’s bubbling rage she is in a sharing mood. “As I said, his contract is different.”
“Specify.”
“Most importantly for him he wanted a limit on the type of engagements he can be sent on. He specified no amorous encounters of any kind and no murdering the innocent and all that.” She laughs a little at a memory. “He made quite clear that he was fine with illegal activity so long as it didn’t fall into anything he considered untoward. He supplied a list and I have adhered to it. The second thing he asked was that we help him set up the pretense that he was living away from London. That was easy enough to handle. The last thing refers to the length of his stay with us.”
Of course, Sherlock smiles, John would have something in the paperwork that said his time at the Dollhouse was over once Sherlock arrived to claim him. He tames the smile and turns it into something more neutral; if that had been the case this entire conversation needn’t have taken place.
“Five years it what he signed up for if one Sherlock Holmes never darkened our door or if he appeared and was not agreeable to the following term,” she begins. “That term is that the contract is up once Mr. Holmes serves the equivalent of whatever time he has been ‘dead’ as his handler. Handlers, by the by, are the staff members that accompany our Actives on engagements and ensure their safety. You’ve been gone eighteen months, yes?”
Sherlock nods.
“Then you’d both be free to go eighteen months from tomorrow. You’ll forgive me for not starting today, of course. The day is almost out.”
“And if I say that I can just break him out of here, body and mind and everything, and ignore your contract with John what then?”
“Aside from the fact that I can have this contract upheld in a court of law, and believe me I can Mr. Holmes even considering the circumstances, this is not John Watson’s contract with us but our, rather my, contract with him.” What little warmth was in her voice is now gone. “For whatever reason he decided he needed to not exist for a time. In my name going on that document I promised I would not bring him back unless the five years are up or you adhere to the last term.” She slides a piece of paper across to Sherlock. “. That is a contract between you and him and I don’t take you as the type who right now, after everything, is going to throw the contract away.”
The contract is brief, only outlining the duration of the contract. Sherlock still very much wants to throw the contract in Adelle DeWitt’s face, rush the building, find John’s body and mind and get them out. He could reunite the two. Just give him time and some equipment he is sure to be able to replicate whatever process they do here.
And John would have known that when he’d decided this. He had known that there was a very real chance that he would do just that. Could he disappoint John yet again? Would John stay with him when he woke up and saw that his wishes had been ignored yet again?
This is different, Sherlock argues. This is completely different than pretending to be dead to keep him safe.
But it is no different. It is very near the same. This situation will be harder because he will see John everyday but it will not be John. It will be whatever John is without what makes him John or whatever he is programmed to be. He will be dead but not all at once.
Come to think about it, it’s no different into how John must have felt near the end of the sixth months. He suspected that Sherlock was alive but could not be sure. There was no way to find out for certain and no way to get anyone to tell him. Sherlock doubts he ever would have suspected Molly and he hadn’t told Mycroft he was alive until after John would have come here. He was keeping Sherlock safe by removing an unknown element from the plans as well as keeping himself sane.
It was also a form of penance. Sherlock is not sure if John intended this when he signed the contract but it is functioning as one. Sherlock had known he would have no hope in redeeming himself to John. He was fully prepared to be thrown out of John’s life and never spoken to again if it meant that John would live. He was also prepared to submit to whatever John decided would be penance for his crimes against their friendship.
This might be one way to start.
Sherlock holds out his hand for a pen and signs the contract with the option stating that John will be free a year and a half from today because Sherlock will serve a year and a half as his handler.
“Thought you would,” DeWitt smiles. It isn’t a particular triumphant one but Sherlock averts his eyes nonetheless. “Welcome to the Dollhouse, Mr. Holmes.”
Part four