Sherlock and John hold hands as they walk down the street together, in a bad neighborhood. There are boarded up windows on some of the buildings. John recognizes it as a rough part of town, but Sherlock knows that these closed-down buildings are full of homeless people. He thinks he has stayed in one of these buildings before, when drugs were still a predominant part of his life. There's a girl laying out behind one of the trashcans, curled in a ball. It's cold out, and Sherlock can see the breath of him and his partner fogging away. John doesn't notice the girl, but of course Sherlock does. He lets go of John's hand, and walks towards the girl. John's hand on his shoulder stops him.
"Where are you going?"
"There's a girl behind those bins, John. Why isn't she inside? These buildings are all homeless refuge, so why doesn't the girl go inside, John?" John doesn't know, he thinks Sherlock has a point, so he lets him go. Better that they find the girl, instead of somebody, he thinks.
Sherlock stoops low as he approaches the girl. She's curled inside a black garbage bag on the ground. When she unfurls, John can see her ribs through a particularly large cut in her tee-shirt. She's shivering badly, and she stutters when she sees the men.
" W-what-t-t d-do you w-want-t?" She's got freckles covering her nose, and her blonde hair could use a wash. Her blue eyes have large bags under them from lack of sleep. Her shirt's been ripped in more than one spot, and there are bruises covering her revealed skin.
"What are you doing outside?" Sherlock asks. The girl shrugs.
"I don't want to go inside. It's dangerous in there." She hasn't stopped shivering.
"They hurt you." It isn't a question, Sherlock is telling her that he knows. She seems to shrink even more. Sherlock stands, and shrugs off his coat, and helps the girl put it on. It swims on her, but she looks so grateful that she's got tears in her eyes. A few drip down her cheeks, but she stops a moment later.
"Thanks, thank you. Really, thank you so much. Thank you." Sherlock waves it off.
"Why are you out here? I mean, what happened to your parents?" John asks, now also squatting beside his partner. This girl is pretty, he thinks; she is so young. She should have been in school, not the streets. She looks maybe sixteen, younger than that if she wasn't aged by the bags under her eyes.
"I ran away- a few years ago." She shrugs, and fiddles with the collar of her new coat. If Sherlock can feel the cold, he doesn't show it.
"Why would you do a thing like that?" John asks, but Sherlock gives him a pointed look.
Before they leave, Sherlock pulls out his wallet. He pulls out all of the bills, pointedly does not count them, and hands them to the girl. They leave before the girl can thank him. They don't even know her name.
"That was a very nice thing you did for that girl, Sherlock." John lightly squeezes his lovers hand. Sherlock squeezes back.
"She wouldn't have lived the night otherwise." Sherlock is just stating facts, but John's appalled. He hadn't thought of that. "For future reference, John, please don't ask a homeless young girl why she's homeless. Don't be so dull."
They are back on a main road now, and can begin to hail a cab.
"Why not? What's wrong with that?"
"It's obvious John. She's fifteen or sixteen years old. And she ran away from home 'a few years ago', so three. She had to have been twelve or thirteen when she left, then. Thirteen is more likely, if it had only been two years, she would have said 'a couple of years'. What kind of twelve year old wants to leave home, John? You should know."
"She was abused, then?"
"For a long time. Probably years, maybe her whole life. The first few times, victims think it will still stop. Then, they blame themselves, so on and so forth. She must have realized that nothing was ever going to change, which was probably brought on by a particularly traumatic event. I'll leave you to your deductions."
They've finally hailed a cab, glad to get in out of the cold. Sherlock told the cabby the address and John took a moment to think.
They never saw her again, but John always remembers the girl in Sherlock's coat.