She glares at the tall figure smirking down at her as she raises her communicator to her lips.
"Freak's here." She hears her own voice, hard, cold: the product of perfecting a mask of contempt. Sherlock Holmes does not react at all to the name – he never did; never will either – and continues to smile at her patronizingly.
Her boss's reply crackles back at her. "Bring him in."
She turns to lead the way into the apartment, but he simply stretches his long legs and saunters past her, his face lighting up at the prospect of another murder, another puzzle. She does not bother to try and regain her superiority as the leading figure, and only watches the black coat flare dramatically as he twirls into the crime scene, pace light and merry. She dredges up reluctant bitterness at being ignored in such a fashion – she is a sergeant and he a civilian – and lets the resentment rise within her.
"Freak," she mutters under her breath as he disappears from view, scowling fiercely at the door. She does not follow; does not want to see him hovering over the corpse while looking like a child on Christmas morning, does not want to hear his remarks on how 'dull' the murder is or how 'cleverly' it is carried out. She does not want to see him treat the ending of a life like a trivial game. Instead, she lets herself hate him, hate his arrogance and disrespect and his belief that he is always right and everyone else is wrong.
"Donovan!"
She lets herself hate him, because it's the only thing that stops her from being completely and utterly terrified.
.
There is always someone in every school that everyone else avoids. Whether it's because they are extremely uncommunicative or abnormally slow or insanely smart, there's always someone. Daniel was that person in her high school, the odd one out. But he wasn't like most of the others who were ignored – there was something different about him.
It's not so much his detached manner and astonishingly high grades that marked him out, although that did not make him too popular – it was the way he talked and acted. He was usually either grimly silent or coldly critical, and he actually preferred being on his own than with others. He purposefully turned away potential friends, isolating himself as much as possible. While other students spent their breaks on the playground, chatting or playing sports, he locked himself away in the science labs, requesting to use them as often as possible without his behaviour being reported to the principal. When he wasn't in the labs at break, he was huddled over books in empty hallways. She had glanced at the titles a few times, and they had all been about odd chemicals. Back then, she had carelessly associated it with his fascination in science, especially chemistry.
Because he had seemed alright – a strange but amazingly intelligent boy rejected by his classmates just because he was deficient in the skills of interacting with others. It wasn't his fault, not really. He had grown up with that attitude and no one had corrected it. That was what she had thought. He was odd, but just as human and as innocent as anyone else. There was no reason for others to ignore or make fun of him.
She remembers seeing him hunched over on the stairs one day, all alone as groups of friends wandered past, laughing and conversing. She remembers the discomfort within her; a twinge of pity as she stared at his lonely figure and bent head. She remembers feeling sorry for his inability to socialize properly.
She remembers how foolish she had been.
"Hello."
He had glanced up at her greeting, sharp green eyes darting to her face before he looks back at the book in his hands.
"Hi."
Pause.
She stands next to him awkwardly, already rethinking her decision to approach him. A feeble attempt at conversation. "So… what do you usually do at break? I don't see you around often."
"I read." There was an almost disparaging undertone to the clipped response; a hint of exasperation, as if he was talking to a five-year-old.
"Oh." Silence. "Uh… what do you read?"
He held up the book without looking at her, angling the cover so that she could see the title:
Top 100 Deadliest Poisons.
She started, flashing a shocked glance in his direction. Her unease is temporarily forgotten as she blinked at his impassive expression. His gaze never left the page as he said flatly:
"It is really quite useful, but you won't understand. Don't bother to try and be friendly with me. It's not worth your time."
An explicit warning. Yet she had only been more determined, deliberately ignoring the sirens going off in her head. And like a fool, she pressed on.
"Well, you don't exactly deal with poisons everyday, so I don't quite see how it's useful."
He had looked up at her then – really, properly looked at her. For a few long moments, he had just gazed at her warily, as if he was debating whether or not she could be trusted.
Finally, he reached a hand into his bag and pulled out a plastic bag. Inside was a small fuzzy mess of pale gray, and it took her a few seconds to realize that it was actually a rat.
A dead rat.
Daniel smiled at her, a real, beaming smile. Ironically, it was its genuineness that scared her. "That's how poisons are useful. They can decide whether a life continues or not." Then the smile disappeared, and he shrugged carelessly.
"It's just an experiment." He dropped the bag back into his bag. "Testing the effectiveness of cyanide. No harm done."
He stood up, grabbed his bag, and quickly went away, leaving her staring after him.
.
Daniel never showed her anything again. The only words he exchanged with her all the way to graduation was either necessary for their lessons or sarcastic insults. She never approached him again either.
After they all graduated and left on their various paths of life, she didn't see him again. Not until she was a constable, the constable who found the first corpse discarded in an empty alleyway.
.
They were brutal murders, acid-filled wounds decorating the back of each victim, a signature pattern carved and burned into the body. The victims were all conscious at that time – there was no trace of any drug in their systems and there were tell-tale marks on their wrists and ankles. The detective squad put together the evidence and reconstructed the kill: a slow, burning death through acid corrosion and blood loss. It would have been a painful fading from the world.
When she heard about the victims' last moments, she had never been more determined to catch the criminal. Most kill from passion, from the heat of the moment. This is a serial killer who made sure that the ending of a life is as long and as tortuous as possible – a cold-blooded murderer.
It was a long, tiring search, pulling together the best of detectives and forensic scientists to chase after an icy nightmare. It took seven and a half months of overtime shifts and sleepless nights before the murderer is found.
She saw his face for the first time when they were leading him out of one of the interrogation rooms. The same impassive face, the same sharp, green eyes, the same detached air as he was marched down the corridor – just as she remembered it the last time she saw him, almost seven years ago.
She would never have imagined that the psychopathic genius of her high school years would become a ruthless murderer.
.
She had tried to warn the doctor about Sherlock Holmes, but she could see from the hard determination in his eyes that he wasn't going to leave anytime soon. He had been polite, though, and friendly enough before she gave her advice – the kind of person who is generally nice to everyone. But he didn't understand that Sherlock just isn't the type of person to be nice to. You don't socialize with a psychopath. You don't socialize with a cold, unfeeling genius. You don't socialize with someone who'll run his experiments on you when he gets bored.
You don't socialize with someone who can kill you without a second thought.
He starts bringing the doctor along on cases, rattling off his deductions while secretly preening at his companion's admiring remarks. She watches silently, waiting for hints that the he's hurting the man. It doesn't appear though, and weeks pass as they solve case after case together.
She waits.
He'll slip up sooner or later, she knows, and she will find John Watson's body one day, dumped in some lonely place, while Sherlock goes dancing off to search for some more fun. She doesn't want to see that, but it's the inevitable if the doctor doesn't listen to her. And she knows that he won't.
So she waits.
.
They are chasing the figure through some of London's loneliest streets when it happens.
Lestrade had called Sherlock, and consequently John, in on the Lamberts' Pearl case, assigning Sally to watch over him. Sherlock, as always, manages to slip out and get into the more active parts of catching criminals, and he was out of Scotland Yard in the minute she turned her back to him to find the profile of the last suspect. She had called Lestrade hastily before following him and John out.
And now, they are running after said suspect.
Sherlock is leading, flying down the roads with his coat billowing out behind him, while John follows more steadily. She screams out at them to stop and let the police deal with it, but Sherlock doesn't reply (as always). John doesn't react either, which is odd, but then again, they are sprinting through empty streets on the heels of a dangerous criminal. They follow the figure into an empty, neglected alleyway, and she sees the end of the path blocked by a tall brick wall.
That's when the figure spins around.
The next second is a blur to her, but there is a yell and the deafening crack of a gunshot. She instinctively ducks and rolls behind a garbage can, heart pounding in her ears, mind racing forwards too quickly to form a coherent thought. The criminal passes her before she hears the footsteps again and escapes. She doesn't try to follow him.
"John!"
The panic in the voice makes her jolt, and she stands up to see Sherlock's tall figure rush to the prone heap on the ground.
Oh god, no.
She sprints to the two of them, and sees John's pale, drawn face, tight with pain. His eyes are black in the darkness. He is gripping the left side of his abdomen with all his strength, palm pressing against the wound. She can see the dark wetness gleaming in the faint streetlight.
"John, speak to me." Sherlock's frantic voice jerks her out of her horrified stupor, and she immediately reaches for her phone, dialling the emergency line. She grasps John's arm as she listens to the buzzing of the phone.
"John, just hold on. Please."
She glances up at Sherlock. And she sees.
She sees the raw terror shining in the icy grey eyes, fear she never thought he is capable of feeling. She sees the anguish in his drawn brow, his uneven breathing. Sees the human imperfection, and sees that she had been wrong all along.
Very, very wrong.
The phone is picked up and she hears the calm tone of the receiver. A few directions and an ambulance is on its way. Her hand falls down to her lap, slowly, and she watches Sherlock in a stunned trance. He is trembling; slightly, but still trembling, and he's gripping John's free hand so tightly that his knuckles go white.
"Sherlock!"
She whips around at the sound of her boss's voice, and suddenly hears the clatter of footsteps on the pavement. A few seconds later, Lestrade turns into the alley, flanked by three policemen.
She moves away as the others take over, shifting backwards as John is treated to. She doesn't know how many minutes passed as she stands there numbly, watching without seeing. Sharp green eyes slide into an ice-grey hue in her mind; a cold, impassive face creases into a despairing expression; sarcastic tones flare into desperate yells. She has been wrong all this time. He isn't the inhuman genius she thought he was. Sherlock's not him.
"Donovan!" Suddenly, someone's shaking her, and Lestrade's face fills her vision. "Are you alright?"
She blinks, once, as her eyes focused on the person in front of her. "Yes," she replies, before adding: "I'm fine." Her gaze falls from the detective inspector's face and wanders back to Sherlock. He is clinging desperately to John, refusing to move from his side. The doctor squeezes his hand, and Sherlock lets loose a shuddering breath.
She had never truly hated him. She had only feared him – feared that he will be exactly like him. Perhaps, now, though, it will be different.
Because he isn't as cold as she thought he was.
A/N: Not my favourite piece, but I really need something to kick myself back into writing. Reviews would be amazing, though, compliment or criticism.