Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.

Many thanks to the people who pointed out the several typos in this chapter. The emotion was clearly getting to me! All fixed now - I hope!

Chapter Ten

The sleek black staff car pulled up outside the house in Baker Street and the tall thin man got out and offered his hand to the small lady, with the long chestnut hair, carrying the chubby baby in the car seat. The utter normality of this activity made it unremarkable to any of the passers-by, moving up and down this busy Central London street. The purpose of this visit to this ordinary house in this ordinary street was anything but ordinary.

Mycroft held the door for Molly to enter and took the baby seat from her, to carry it and its occupant up the stairs, to the first floor flat. The man in the dark grey suit, standing on the landing, nodded respectfully to Mycroft, and indicated the bedroom door. Molly entered first and was met by John Watson. Anthea rose from the chair, by the window, as the three newcomers entered. John gave Molly a prolonged, comforting hug, for which she was indescribably grateful.

'Where is he?' she asked.

John indicated the bathroom.

'He's been in there for ages. He said he wanted a shower. The water's been running for about twenty minutes.'

Molly turned to Mycroft, who had placed the baby seat on the bed and lifted Freddie out.

'Are you OK with him?' she asked.

'Of course,' was his reply, before turning his attention to the baby and engaging him in some lively lap play.

Molly approached the bathroom door and tapped on it, gently.

'Sherlock, can I come in?' she called, softly, into the crack between the door and the frame. After a short pause, the door relented a fraction. She pushed it open, just enough to allow her entry, then closed it again, hiding her from the view of the occupants of the bedroom.

Sherlock was sitting on the floor, behind the door, still wrapped in his bed sheet. The room was so full of steam, it was hard to see him, even though he was so close – it was a very small room. Molly sat down on the lid of the toilet and leaned her elbows on her thighs, inclining her body towards him.

'Do you mind if I turn off the shower?' she asked, quietly. After a moment, he nodded, so she stood up and reached past the shower screen to shut off the water. The quiet was palpable. She sat back on the toilet lid.

'Decided against the shower?' she queried, keeping her voice low, gentle, soothing.

'Not yet,' he replied, his voice deep, quiet, breathy. He leaned his head back against the wall, so he could see her face. 'I've been arguing about it, with myself. I'm not sure who's won yet.'

'Need a referee?' she enquired. He gave a small, assenting shrug. She leaned back against the cistern, folding her hands in her lap, adopting a listening pose, and waited. Eventually, he spoke again.

'I need to gather and preserve the evidence, collect samples of skin, saliva, semen, and vaginal fluid. I should take blood samples, before all the ketamine is metabolised, a urine sample, too, and hair samples – that will show whether or not I'm a regular user or if this is a one-off. I should take nail scrapings – always very informative - and nail clippings, too.'

'That sounds pretty thorough to me. What does the other you think?

'I want to feel clean again, to wash the contamination off my skin, to scrub away every trace of her infestation, get her stench out of my nostrils, the taste of her out of my mouth and the sound of her out of my ears.'

He gave another small shrug, resting his case.

'Do you see them as being mutually exclusive?' she posited, in a murmur.

He gave that due consideration.

'Not necessarily. The stumbling block is the actual gathering of the evidence.'

'What's the problem?'

'I don't think I can do it myself but I don't want anyone else to do it.'

'Why do you think that is?' she coaxed, gently.

'I don't want anyone else to be contaminated.'

'Isn't that avoidable?'

'Is it?'

'I think it is.'

'How?'

'Scientific protocol.'

He thought about that. It seemed to make sense. He needed to divorce the process from the sentiment. He had been a consummate master at that, once, but, somewhere along the line, the parameters had moved.

'I don't know if I can do that, at the moment.'

'I could,' she declared, with complete certainty. He looked into her eyes and saw her purity of purpose.

'Would you?'

She nodded.

'OK,' he breathed.

Molly stood up and moved to the door, opening it just wide enough to reach out.

'John, could you pass me my bag, please?' she requested.

John Watson looked around and located Molly's voluminous work bag and picked it up, passing it to her outstretched hand.

'Perhaps you could all go and have a cup of tea?' she suggested, with an apologetic smile. She knew it was killing both John and Mycroft not to be able to give Sherlock the comfort they knew he needed but right now, what he needed most was science and she – a forensic pathologist – could give him that.

She closed the door and sat down again. He hadn't moved from his position, wedged in the corner, between the wall and the side of the shower cubicle. He jerked his head toward her work bag.

'What's in there?'

'A rape kit. I brought it with me, from work, just in case you needed it.'

He nodded his approval of her forward thinking.

'Where would you like to start?'

'Blood,' he stated emphatically. His scientist's brain had assumed dominance, for now. It provided a buffer against the emotional turmoil that had threatened to overwhelm him. He was grateful for that.

ooOoo

Molly took the rape kit out of her bag and, opening it up, she spread it out on top of the bathroom cupboard, everything individually wrapped in sterile plastic. She took out a pair of nitrile gloves and snapped them on. Taking a second pair, she offered them to Sherlock. After a tiny hesitation, he accepted them and put them on. Taking out the tourniquet, she looked at him and he extended his arm for her to put it on. He rested his elbow on his raised knee and watched as the vein became increasingly engorged. He continued to watch the procedure, as she knelt on the floor next to him and went through all the stages of taking two vials of blood, which she labelled, carefully, as he pressed down on the cotton swab and flexed his fist to his shoulder.

'Next?' she asked.

'Skin.'

She opened the kit and offered the scraper to him. He took it and harvested the sample. She held out the receptacle and he dropped it in, for her to seal, label and store.

And so it went, as they worked together, in perfect synchronicity, gathering the evidence, labelling, storing, systematically, in logical order.

'Semen?'

'There's a used condom, on the floor, in the bedroom.'

'She used a condom?'

'More for her own benefit than mine, I'm sure.'

'So that will have the vaginal fluid traces, too,' she tallied, mentally.

He nodded.

They continued down the list of required items until every box was metaphorically ticked, almost.

'Just urine and nails – and nail scrapings,' she concluded.

He ripped off the gloves and presented his hand to her. She took the nail scrapings first and then the clippings. Then she handed him the plastic container for the urine sample, and moved out of the way so he could access the toilet. That collected, he stood against the wall, and pulled the sheet closer around him. Molly turned to him, having secured all the samples in the container provided.

'All, done, then,' she announced. 'You can shower, now. Are you OK with that?'

He nodded his head. They had touched each other several times during the gathering of evidence but now the formal process was concluded, he seemed to be withdrawing again. She gathered up the rape kit and her bag.

'OK, I'll go and find the condom. You take as long as you need.' She nodded, emphatically and squeezed out of the door. As she began to search the floor, around the bed, she heard the shower go on again. She found the final piece of evidence without too much trouble, secured it with the other samples, spotted the hypo on the bedside cabinet and dropped that into an evidence bag too, adding it to the collection and then sealed the pack, stuffing it back in her bag. She looked around at the room – the scene of the crime. The bed linen would need to be bagged up, and his clothes, too. She didn't have any bags big enough. Where was Anderson, when you needed him? She walked through to the sitting room, where John, Anthea and Mycroft were gathered and Freddie was asleep on the sofa, taking his afternoon nap. Mycroft rose to his feet, on reflex, when she entered the room.

'Mycroft, who is going to process all this evidence? I take it this is not going to be reported to the police, or is it?'

'No, Molly, dear, my people will process the evidence. Any action will be taken through the diplomatic corp.'

'Well, I need something sterile to put the bed linen and clothes in, so they can be processed, too.' Being professional was keeping her from crumbling, so she needed to stay as detached as possible. John got up and fished in the cupboard under the sink, coming out with a roll of swing bin liners. Mrs Hudson always kept the flat well provisioned with cleaning materials. He handed the roll to her.

'Can I do anything?' he asked. He needed to feel useful.

'Yes, please, John, could you help me sort out the bedroom? We need to strip the bed and remake it and you know where Mrs Hudson keeps the bed linen.' They both returned to the room at the back of the house.

ooOoo

Sherlock stood under the shower, feeling the hot water sting his skin, letting it run down from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, cleansing, stripping, scouring. The noise of the water drowned out the sound of her voice, temporarily, at least. He wanted to forget what had happened but he knew that was impossible. There would be no deleting this from his hard drive. He knew what he really had to do was confront it and face it down. It was his mind palace, all over again. Confront your demons, exorcize them. And the sooner the better – but not right now. He also knew that there was only one person he wanted to tell it all to. She was the only one who needed to know but was that fair on her? She had already enabled him to do so much – the evidence gathering – in a way that no one else could have, so calm, so measured, so sensitive. Right now, he just wanted to curl up in a ball – but he wanted her to be there, wrapped around him like a protective cocoon.

He shut off the water. Becoming an obsessive body washer was not on his agenda. He would refuse to allow that bitch to impact on his life any more than was unavoidable. He wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped out of the shower cubicle. Wiping the condensation from the bathroom mirror, he looked at his reflection and was immediately reminded of the day before, when he had stood in here, with her sobbing her crocodile tears into his jacket. What a gullible fool he must have seemed to her. But who cared what she thought? If it was gullible to empathise with another human being, then so be it. There was a time he might have agreed with her. John and Molly and Mrs Hudson had taught him that that was a fallacy. Caring may make you vulnerable but it also enriched your life beyond measure. He took a swig of mouth wash, gargled and spat, then shook his head, to remove the loose drops from his hair, then turned and exited the shower room.

The bedroom was restored to its orderly norm. The linen had been changed, the scattered clothes picked up, everything set to rights. And someone – Molly he supposed – had laid out a fresh shirt, boxers and socks on the bed and the suit he kept here, for emergencies, was hanging on the outside of the wardrobe door. The clothes he had arrived in – was it only earlier today? – were nowhere to be seen. They were probably packed away, to be examined for trace evidence. He could hear the hum of conversation in the sitting room. He dried and dressed and put on his shoes – the only item of clothing left that he had been wearing when she attacked him. Well, they were good shoes. He wasn't going to throw them away, just because of her.

Don't get mad, get even, wasn't that the phrase? Well, right now, getting even wasn't really an option but he didn't want to get mad either because the only people who would suffer if he did that would be Molly, the children, Mycroft and John. So he wouldn't do that, either. He would just confront each situation, head on. The next situation he needed to confront was walking into that room where the people who cared about him were assembled. This was how the healing began. This was how the demons were exorcised. He needed to walk in there and not feel self-conscious or embarrassed or awkward in any way.

So he did.

ooOoo