Sherlock remembered his childhood about as clearly as he remembered what he had had for breakfast.

Which had been nothing except a coffee, black with two sugars.

Sherlock remembered how he and Mycroft had actually got along, how they used to play Operation in the hallway. How his elder brother had slowly drifted away after he had met Georgia.

He remembered how his father would come home stumbling and shouting. He remembered his sweet mother, the one who left at 2AM when he was twelve.

He remembered the first time he went to the library. It had been a Wednesday in February, four degrees Celsius, snowy, and complete with blue skies that reminded him of the sweltering hope of summer.

"Hi. How may I help you?" That was the first time Sherlock had met Mrs. Hudson, the librarian he would soon grow to adore.

"I want a book. Approximately three hundred pages of adventure," seven year old Sherlock responded.

"I have just the novel for you." She had smiled, and the wrinkles around her kind brown eyes had dipped low into her cheeks.

Sherlock remembered how wonderful The Hobbit had smelt. Like water had seeped into its pages and dried onto the black words.

Sherlock remembered the day he had fallen in love with books, but he mostly remembered the day he met John.