A/N: Thank you enp for following! This story is coming to an end pretty soon...
"Rachel Adams, you are arrested on suspicion of having murdered Tom Baker. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you don't mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
The sound of the men coming in had caused Sherlock to leave his mind palace. The detective was unable to get up from his armchair, unable to say anything, as a series of images flashed in front of his eyes. Mary Watson, a gun pointed at him, a bullet fired… But this couldn't be true, not Rachel. How could he have been so blind? He heard John's voice inside his head like an echo: Listen, Sherlock, I … I don't think she's the sort of person you should spend time with. What had John seen that he'd missed?
Rachel was a murderer. She had not simply found the body of Tom Baker in that alley, but she had murdered him herself, as a revenge for her sister's death. How could he not have seen that?
Sentiment, he thought, stupid sentiment. He never should have gone into that kind of thing. It had made him a blind, stupid idiot.
Rachel's voice interrupted his thoughts: "Sh-sherlock, you don't actually believe this?" She stood in front of him, a pleading look on her face, while DI Miller put cuffs around her wrists. "P-please, don't tell me you believe this."
Sherlock stared at her. He couldn't think, couldn't speak clearly faced with this unexpected turn of events. "No, I-"
"Right", interrupted DI Miller, "if you two want to continue your little chat you better come visit her in prison, Mr Holmes." Miller and the policemen left the room, taking Rachel with them. Sherlock still sat in his chair, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Being in prison was weird. It seemed completely unreal to Rachel, as if she were in a tv show, or in a really confusing dream. The days passed by incredibly slowly, only interrupted by further interrogations with DI Miller or visits from her lawyer, an old friend of her mum. Kathy Jones looked exactly the way anyone would picture a successful lawyer - she was tall, had a short, modern haircut, and was wearing expensive dark dresses; she was always very straightforward and quite obviously eager to get over with this case. Rachel didn't like her very much.
The police had found Rachel's DNA on the body, and it didn't matter how often she told them that Baker had already been dead when she found him and that she never touched him, nor ever even saw him other than in television - no one believed her. All evidence pointed towards her being the killer, and the recent murder of her sister gave her a motive which, in the eyes of the police, was just perfect.
But none of this even really mattered to her, because the only thing Rachel could think of was that look on Sherlock's face the moment she had been arrested. He had seemed so vulnerable, as both disbelieve and hurt, and also - yes, hatred - had crossed his face. Rachel couldn't bear him thinking this way about her. She knew that he had been hurt before, how often people he had cared about had lied to him or left him, and the knowledge that she belonged to these people now - even if it wasn't the truth - broke her heart. She had hoped for a visit from him, a call, anything, but as the days passed, she realized that Sherlock probably believed everything the police and the media said about her. He held logic about everything else, and all logic suggested that she was the one who had killed Baker.
When Rachel was guided towards the visitor room and sat down at one of the tables, she thought her mother had come to visit her again. But it was not her mother who walked into the room, but the man she had been waiting to hear from all this time.
Rachel tried not to raise her ambitions too high as Sherlock walked towards her. He looked just as he always did, with his coat and the blue scarf around his neck, maybe a bit paler and thinner than usual.
"H-hi," said Rachel as Sherlock sat down opposite to her. "I had given up the hope of you coming to visit me."
"Mhm, yes," Sherlock answered absentmindedly as he took off his scarf. "I've been spending a lot of time with Mycroft and Lestrade making further investigations, but so far I haven't accomplished anything, I'm afraid. There's absolutely nothing to prove you're innocent, not yet at least, but if I-"
"Sherlock, hold on," Rachel interrupted him. "D-did you just say I'm innocent?"
Sherlock looked at her for the first time and raised an eyebrow. "Yes, obviously. Now, as I was just trying to explain…"
Rachel started laughing out loud, which made Sherlock stop talking. He looked her in the eyes, completely confused at her strange behaviour.
"What is it? What did I say that's so funny?" he asked.
"Nothing, Sherlock, it's just that … with you not calling or visiting me, I didn't think that - I thought you believed that I had murdered Tom Baker."
"No, of course I don't," Sherlock said honestly. "I only tried to get you out of here, that's what I've been working on. I don't want to lose you."
Rachel smiled at him. "Thank you."
"What for?"
"Everything."
"But, as I said, I haven't reached anything yet." He took Rachel's hands into his own. "I promise, I'll find the real murderer and prove your innocence."
Exactly one week later, Sherlock and Rachel were back in the same room, talking about the trial against Rachel which had started the previous day. Although of course she had pleaded not guilty, it wasn't looking very good for her.
"Doesn't that just fit to the rest of my story?" she wondered. " As a kid, I get leukaemia, then I suffered from depression for multiple years, my sister got murdered and now I'll probably sit in jail for the rest of my life - for a murder I haven't even committed. But just for the record: my life didn't only just suck. I had great friends, for instance. I remember that time when Billy and I would go to th-"
"What did you just say?" Sherlock interrupted. Rachel could see how thoughts started running through his head.
"I was just about to tell you how my old friend Billy-"
Sherlock made a movement with his hand as if to mute Rachel. "No, not that. Before. You had leukaemia? Why haven't you ever told me about this?"
"Well I don't know, it just never came up. And anyway, it really doesn't matter anymore. I got a bone marrow transplant, you know."
Rachel saw how a light lit up in Sherlock's eyes. "Oh that's just brilliant! Clever! I never would have thought of this!"
"William Sherlock Scott Holmes, explain to me now what you got!"
"Don't you see? You got new bone marrow, from another person!"
"So what? It's only some bloody stem cells, that doesn't have anything to do with - oh! Yes of course! I got my donor's stem cells out of his bone marrow, and therefore also…"
"His DNA in your blood," Sherlock finished her sentence. They smiled at each other.
"I'll finally get out of here," Rachel said, relieved.
Sherlock nodded, the smile still on his face. "I'll make sure of it."
