Well... I'm a little worried that I've come up with this to be honest but bear with me when I say that my brain isn't working to my preference (which is why I've written this instead of adding to A Pink Apron). Anyway moving on from that. I hope people like the dynamic between John and Sally in this; I've read quite a few fics that kind of paint her in a bad light (and whilst I personally don't like her) I think it's only fair to try and make her out to be less bitchy than what she appears.

Anyway, tell me what you think.

Kasey


TRUST IN ME

"Just tell me why you did it? Just give me that much?" Sally pleaded as she stared into those evil, evil eyes; the eyes of a monster she was sure, a monster that wasn't going to answer her, wasn't going to give her a twisted sort of peace of mind. But she still had to try, for her sanity's sake.

A smile was her answer, a demonic, dark and purely evil smile. Dark, beady eyes blinked at her filled with morbid delight and self-gratification upon fulfilling their basic desire. Their deepest, darkest most evil desires that were supposedly hidden within everyone's minds; only Sally hoped that they weren't somewhere inside of her too because what she was staring at with desperation-tinged hatred was too horrific for her to believe was present in everyone. If that was the case, it would make what he'd done less... well, less really.

"Get him out of here!" Lestrade snarled as he lightly placed a hand on Sally's arm and looked at that monster opposite them with absolute disgust apparent in his gaze. He felt Sally tense up slightly under his touch but he didn't remove his hand, knowing that if he did then she may well attack the sick bastard sitting opposite them in the interrogation room at 7:30 in the morning.

Sally wasn't even aware of the wretched creature being bodily removed from the room; all she could see was that smile, those beady eyes, that leering glares, those greedy stares, it was too much for her to handle. Too much to deal with after so much had happened; her objectivity had gone right out the window earlier in the week and she knew that it wouldn't be returning anytime soon. Her heart felt like it was being pressed upon, her body compressed and her lungs blocked; she couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, she had to get out of that room!

"Donovan! Sally!" Lestrade exclaimed as Sally bolted from her seat next to him suddenly, he barely managed to finish shouting her name before she was out the door and off down the corridor running for all her worth. She needed to get away from that room, from that monstrous man, from all the pain and hurt that had been inflicted upon people; even the pain that had been inflicted upon her.

She ignored all the funny looks she received as she fled, ignored the calls and shouts, the worried glances of other female officers, the smirks from the egotistical bastards who thought she wasn't cut-out to be a detective sergeant. None of them mattered to her, not their looks, not their concern and definitely not what they thought of her. The need to run, to get away, was too strong for anything else to overcome and she didn't bother to counter-act it, to stop or steam its flow because she wanted to run away from everything running on repeat in her mind. It was just too much.

That was how she now found herself standing on the roof-top of Scotland Yard, listening to the sound of the city around her, staring at the pale grey horizon that was broken and deformed due to the buildings around her, not really taking it all in as she just tried to breathe.

In-out-in-out-in-out that's how it went but try as she might Sally's breathing wasn't conforming to the norm, it was fast and hitched; as though she was crying without spilling salty tears. Sally couldn't be sure if she was crying, she hadn't cried in so many years; she's taught herself not to cry because crying was a weakness for a woman in this day-and-age. Crying when she'd been a kid had meant she was a prime-target for bullies who wanted to see pain. Crying when she'd been growing up in her... home had meant that she wasn't worth the effort. Crying when she'd been in college, scraping her way through her courses while working three jobs just so she could survive would have meant she'd have never stopped once the tears started flowing. And crying now whilst she was serving in one of the most competitive police districts of the whole of the UK would be showing a weakness she couldn't afford to have.

She was so focused on her breathing that she never heard the gentle footfalls on the semi-gravel, semi-concrete ground behind her, and it was only when someone stepped up beside her and stared out at the London skyline did she notice that she wasn't alone.

She didn't speak and she didn't look at them and she wasn't crying; she wasn't, she couldn't be. So it was silent save for the noise of London Town echoing around them. Slowly but surely her breathing began to slow down, bit-by-bit, breath-by-breath it slowed until it was almost completely normal and that was when she looked at who was standing next to her.

She'd expected it to be Lestrade. He was her superior, her friend and mentor and he knew a lot more about her than anyone else presently did; or ever would really. Sally Donovan wasn't one for sharing her secrets with people lightly; it was one of the reasons she hated that infernal man so much! The sociopath who knew her whole life after just one glance! They were her secrets to tell and she didn't tell him, she didn't give him them he just took! Like everyone else always does...

"You should probably be wearing a coat."

Sally blinked and stared at who was standing next to her; why would he be acting kind to her after everything she'd said in the last week? All the words she shouted and snarled at him, at them both, that she knew were out of hurt, out of familiarity, he shouldn't be bothering with her. So why was he?

"It's not that cold," she replied automatically, her voice sounding raw and emotional; which she didn't want. Quickly she turned away from the person next to her and set off back towards the service staircase but she didn't get more than three steps before she stopped. Frozen by what she was hearing.

"I was five when it first happened to me," soft words, gentle words, quiet but pained words which could have easily been lost in the wind had it been but a light breeze that was lightly caressing their hair, "I didn't know at the time that it wasn't normal, wasn't right but... I thought it was how you showed love to someone you cared about."

Oh God, Sally didn't want to hear this; she didn't want to have to listen to this man, this good man, bear his pains to her. She didn't deserve such trust from anyone. She couldn't even give it herself.

"It was almost eight years before my mum realised anything was going on; but by then the damage had been done."

She didn't want to turn around and see that figure standing there, studiously not looking at her and just talking about something so... so secret that she doubted the freak knew; she'd never seen it either. But she did turn around and she did see that figure; she saw how his shoulders had tensed up and how he seemed to have collapsed into himself and it was so reminiscent of herself that it hurt to see.

"No charges were brought against him; he just left... but he'd left all of us scarred; not just me," a slow, ragged breath was loudly sucked in as Sally closed her eyes tightly trying to fight against the swell of emotions that were threatening to overwhelm her.

"I didn't trust people after that; I still don't really. I can't stand rapists and if anyone tries it on with me I can't help my reaction; I have to be the one in control of it all, I need that control because I... I never had a choice the first time," he laughs bitterly and shakes his head as Sally tentatively moves to stand next to him again, "My mum wasn't able to cope with it; I think she was in denial about the entire thing and... well Harry never could cope with anything; that's why she drinks," he snorted sadly and Sally instinctively reached out to place a hand on his arm; but she paused before she did so. Experience told her that right now any form of physical contact wasn't a good idea; well it wasn't for most people, normal people, but he wasn't exactly normal really. If he was normal he wouldn't be Sherlock Homles' friend.

"You're wondering why I'm telling you this, you're also wondering why I've bothered to try and explain anything to you right?" John said softly, not looking at Sally and already knowing the answers to his questions, "I've not told you all of this because I think we could have a big heart-to-heart or so I can use it against you. I've told you because I want you to know that when you want to know why they do, why they hurt them, you're not alone. I've never been able to really figure it out but I decided that trying to find out the 'why' would break me so I stopped trying; you haven't and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But I think that sometimes... sometimes people just do bad things because it makes them feel better; it makes them feel like they're worth something in a society that doesn't accept them, that doesn't understand them."

"It doesn't excuse them for what they've done," Sally argued back, feeling a spark of anger inside of her; society wasn't to blame for those monsters! "They shouldn't do it! It's sick and twisted and-"

"And it's exactly what we've all been brought up to believe; a hundred years ago it was okay for a man in his forties to marry a twelve year old girl but nowadays we call it child abuse. I'm not defending them Sally, I would never do that," John finally looked across at Sally and she could see that he was being truthful; she could see a world-weary truth in his eyes and a look of understanding that made him seem so old, "but times change; people, humanity as a race generally doesn't. That's why we still have wars. That's why we still have slavery; but now it's called human-trafficking and it's under the radar so to speak. There will always be monsters in the dark Donovan, they'll never go away and they're scary enough... but it's the ones we walk past everyday on the street that are the scariest ones we'll ever meet. And then there's the one that looks back at us in the mirror everyday because, as Louis Binstock said, we are our own worst enemy."

Sally stared back at John and was stunned; here they were standing on top of Scotland Yard discussing such dastardly things and she was more surprised that the doctor who never really seemed to talk much at the crime scenes was so... so intelligent really. He'd suffered just like she had, just like millions of people around the globe had, and he knew what was evil, what was twisted, what was wrong but he was friends with someone that Sally saw as evil. It made her almost want to know what else the man knew of the world.

"Bloody hell it's cold up here," John said suddenly snapping Sally out of her reverie. He glanced at her and Sally immediately saw that a shutter had gone down in the man's gaze; a shutter that had been down the entire time she'd known him and one she hadn't even known existed. She wondered whether the thing worked as well on Sherlock as it did on her and the rest of the world; some part of her hoped it did because she knew how important it was to have a choice about telling someone what he'd just told her, "We should be getting back. Lestrade was looking for you and Sherlock's probably murdered Anderson and stuffed his body somewhere."

Sally couldn't help it, she really couldn't, she laughed at John's attempt at a joke and smiled at him. Nodding her head Sally replied, "I'm not that bothered about Lestrade but if the fre- if Sherlock's killed Anderson then I'm going to have double the amount of paperwork to fill out!"

John laughed at that and they set off back towards the staircase and back towards the rest of the world both unconsciously agreeing never to mention what they'd just been discussing to anyone else ever again. And Sally, for all her worth, for all that she knew of herself and the way the big, bad world worked, finally realised that in John Watson she had both a friend and a comrade whom she could trust; and it was funny because when they'd first met she'd thought that there wasn't anything more to John Watson than what she saw on the surface. Apparently she'd been wrong and for once, Sally wasn't that annoyed about the fact.


END

Damn my brain is twisted...

Reviews! Reviews! Bloody well review people! :p