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Here's a heavy chapter for you guys…. hahah sorry!

"It's him," Sherlock heard Kylie say upon seeing the horror that waited in her flat.

He looked at her, she was pale, paler than he'd ever seen her. She was usually confident, brave, and witty… this however was pure fear. her hands were beginning to shake as if she'd seen a ghost from her post.

"Thomas," she uttered quietly before he knees began to wobble.

"Kylie," Sherlock said trying to keep her upright as he was afraid she would pass out by how pale she was.

Upon feeling something solid and steady holding her, she grabbed onto him, still staring at her flat.

He gave the flat one last look before gently pulling her away from the door, trying to get her to take her eyes off her flat.

"Come on," he told her gently.

Next thing Sherlock knew, Kylie had turned and clothed on to him as if he were a life preserver, burring her face in the crook of his neck; clinging to him.

He stiffened at the fact that this woman was hugging him, but as soon as he felt how badly this strong woman's body was trembling in fear, his heart broke for her. She was frightened, frightened out of her mind. His mind began racing. She had seen crime scenes worse than this, granted those weren't even in her own flat, but she had never been this frightened before.

He felt her knees wobble and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her up before he slowly lowered the both of them to the ground, out of fear that she would collapse.

Sherlock heard sirens approaching Baker Street as he sat on the floor, pulling Kylie closer to his chest, rubbing her back and stroking her hair in attempt to calm her. He usually hated when people became irrational with fear and emotion. It annoyed him. It always had. But this… he felt as if he wanted to comfort her; he wanted to make her feel better. She didn't deserve to be afraid.

What on earth was she so scared of?

Who was Thomas?

….her ex… Thomas must be her ex…

Of course, it was so obvious, he threatened her. That's why she had moved to London in the first place. He hadn't expected him to be a killer, but logically, it only made sense. He had seen her on cases. She never showed a shred of fear unless it had to do with her past.

He looked down at the trembling woman in his arms, a swell of anger towards this psychopath rose in his chest.

That bastard hurt her…. He hurt her in more ways than one.

Sherlock slowly kissed her temple, running a hand through her soft hair, pulling her tighter to him, "I wont let him near him near you. I promise."

He felt Kylie clutch him tighter in response.

Lestrade and John entered 221 Baker Street, leaving Mrs. Hudson with the paramedics, only to freeze in their tracks, seeing Sherlock sitting on the floor, leaning up against the hallway with Kylie in his lap, clutching onto him for dear life.

Both men felt their blood run cold. They had never seen Kylie lose it like this. They had been on some horrific crime scenes, truly terrible scenes… but how on earth did a break in frighten her like this?

That wasn't the weirdest thing though…not even close. The strangest part was, was that Sherlock Holmes had a woman in his lap, holding her tightly and attempting to comfort her. He looked up at them, anger and hurt in his eyes.

John knew from that look, that something was immediately wrong. The detective never allowed his emotions to show through.

"What happened?" John asked quietly.

"Her ex," Sherlock quietly said, motioning to her flat as he tightened his arms around Kylie.

Why did this feel … good?

You are comforting a friend. That's why.

…or trying to be a knight in shining armor…

Shut up…

Sherlock looked up to see John and Lestrade push Kylie's door open, revealing the scene that had been left in her flat.

"Good Lord," Lestrade said to himself under his breath as he tried to take in the scene.

John was stunned. He looked at Sherlock who had gone back to trying to comfort Kylie and whispering something to her softly as he tried to coax her into pulling her head out of the crook of his neck and look at him.

"How do you know her ex did this?" Lestrade asked stunned.

Sherlock looked up at Lestrade, "Its what she said when she saw the scene," he told him, not able to stop his hands from running through her hair.

"How did she know though?" Lestrade asked.

"I would guess by the writing in blood on the wall," John said as he looked at the scene in shock.

"But still, she's put people in prison," Lestrade said, lowering his voice as to try to hide his skepticism from Kylie, "I mean she probably isn't enemy free. And I doubt she's the type to date a psychopath."

"Apparently, I am," Kylie said meekly as she slowly pulled her head from Sherlock's neck, wiping the tears that were running down her face.

"Thomas was the only one who called me Kales," she continued, "It's him. Its definitely him."

Lestrade softened, he hadn't meant for her to overhear that. He knelt down next to her and Sherlock as compassion for his young anthropologist took over.

"Kylie, we have to get a crime scene unit in here. We also need to get a statement from you."

She shut her eyes and nodded, "Yeah… okay."

"Do you want to do it now? Are you up for talking?"

"No," Sherlock interjected protectively, "She's not talking to you right now."

"He's right," John told Lestrade, "She needs to rest."

"No," she said as she sat up, gently pulling herself out of Sherlock's arms, "I just want to get this over with."

"You sure you are up for talking?" John asked gently, "I mean you've had quite a shock. This can wait…"

"No," she said shaking her head, "I just want to get this… over with."

Sherlock couldn't stop his hand from reaching out and rubbing her back, trying to calm her once more. She wiped her eyes and gave him a small smile in thanks.

"Okay," John said, looking at Lestrade as if to give his doctor's approval, "Can we just do this upstairs in our flat?"

"Of course," Lestrade said as he stood up, "There's no need to go all the way down to Scotland Yard."

"Alright, come on then," John said as he bent down to help Kylie up, allowing Sherlock to get up as well.

Kylie stopped outside her door, staring at the poor woman who had been killed in her flat.

Thomas was back. He had found her. He had killed this poor girl just to prove a point…

"Ky," Sherlock said quietly, as he touched her back gently, urging her to walk past the door, "Come on, there's nothing you can do."

Lestrade gaped at what was occurring before him as he watched his consulting detective soothe his anthropologist. He never had seen Sherlock act this tender towards another person, let alone so patient with someone's emotions.

She stared for a moment longer before nodding and allowing Sherlock to nudge her towards the staircase. Sherlock gave Lestrade a look before following her up the staircase.

Lestrade looked at John incredulously, out of pure shock.

"Yeah, I know," John said before he followed them up.

Lestrade stood there for a moment before shaking his head and walking up the stair case and into 221B.

Once upstairs, Lestrade found John in the kitchen making tea, while Kylie stood in the middle of the flat, lost in her own thoughts. Sherlock walked back in the room with a blanket and stared at her.

She was staring at the ground vacantly.

She wasn't safe. No one around her was safe…

"Ky," Sherlock said, pulling her out of her thoughts, causing her to look at him as if she just realized he was there, "Come on," he said gently as he took her hand, leading her over to the couch and putting the blanket around her before he sat down next to her.

Lestrade couldn't help but fight a grin. The situation was dire; they had a serial killer with an eye for their friend… and yet he couldn't help but smile at how the man who defined himself a sociopath taking care of a woman.

John came out of the kitchen handing her a cup of tea, which she accepted thankfully. Her hands were still shaking as she took a sip, slightly spilling some of the tea. Embarrassed, Kylie set the cup down on the table.

"Alright Kylie," Lestrade said as he sat down in an armchair, pulling out his notepad, "What can you tell us about your ex?"

"Take your time," John said as he sat in the armchair opposite of Lestrade.

Kylie shut her eyes and ran a hand through her hair. She didn't want to go into this. She had run for a reason. But he had murdered at least one girl, and that was ignorantly thinking he hadn't been the person behind the princess case as well. She had no choice but to open up her past.

"I met Thomas Moore four years ago, about six months after I finished graduate school," she told the group as she stared at her mug of tea, "I was working for the FBI at the time, when my partner and I came across a case that happened to overlap with a CIA operation. Thomas had just entered the CIA, and was assigned to us as a CIA liaison in order to keep us out of the operation and to give us enough information to solve the case."

"So, a glorified babysitter?" Lestrade inquired.

Kylie laughed sadly, "Yes, pretty much. The CIA tends to want to control everything." She paused and leaned forward before continuing, "Needless to say, Thomas and I hit it off. He was smart, witty, and charming. I hadn't really dated seriously before, and it was something different, he wouldn't let it go. Kept asking me out until I finally gave in and went out with him. I ended up liking him, and we started dating a few weeks after the case was first eight months of our relationship were wonderful. I fell for him, hard."

She paused and looked down at her hands, trying to calm her emotions, "Everything was wonderful until he was promoted and became a field agent. He was sent to Moscow for three months and when he came back… he was, well different. He was colder, more distant. He wasn't the same man I had been dating, the one who I fell in love with. I attributed it to PTSD with his first mission abroad. he began having nightmares, and one night he pulled a gun on me in my sleep. We broke up for a short time, and my Dad and I were able to convince him to get some therapy. Once he completed it, we got back together."

"He wasn't the same though. He didn't have anymore nightmares, but he was secretive, extremely secretive. Secretive evolved into possessive and jealous. He started demanding me home at certain times, certain clothes of mine would go missing when he stayed over. I figured it was something he was dealing with fem being in the CIA. God knows they have enough secrets. But it wasn't just about work with him anymore. I noticed he began spending more time at work, even though he told me he didn't have any cases. He wanted me at his apartment all the time, saying it was to ensure my safety, but I…" she trailed off sighing, shaking her head, "I knew better."

"I let it go for a while, too long in fact. I felt myself pulling away from him, despite my stubbornness to stay with him. I knew there was something off, but I convinced myself it was all in my head. It wasn't until I noticed Thomas beginning to buy a lot of expensive things, things that were way out of his price range. That seemed to snap me out of my denial. I was trying to convince myself that I needed to trust him and let him work it out, as stupid and naive as that sounds. It was only with the over spending, that I finally broke down and used my connections at the FBI to ask a friend at the CIA about it, only to find out he had been let go from the CIA three months before that."

"He had apparently gone rogue and gotten too close to an international crime boss. The only reason the CIA hadn't killed him yet, was because they were trying to extract info from him along with about five other major countries and was on every major watch list, the FBI, NCIS, and every other domestic bureau purposely kept in the dark, leaving me about it in the dark as well. Thomas… he hadn't told me any of this. He had been lying to me the moment he had gotten back from Moscow. I went to confront him about it and…. well, lets just say it went badly."

She paused for a moment, struggling to gather herself. Taking a shaky breath and shutting her eyes before continuing.

"I came home that night and he was slightly drunk. It was our four year anniversary. He and made dinner for us and told me that that night was going to be 'special'. I asked him why he hadn't told me about the falling out with the CIA. He kept ignoring me and kept trying to seduce me. I kept telling him to stop kissing me and answer my questions when he literally threw me against the wall. That's when I started to freak out. I grabbed my gun to try to get him away from me, but he had removed and taken the firing pin."

She stopped, her voice was shaking so badly she could barely talk.

"That's when he attacked me. I was beaten pretty badly in the struggle. I blacked out somewhere along the way, I think he hit me in the head with a bookend. I woke up hours later gagged and handcuffed to the bed… where he… uh… he uh… choked and raped me… repeatedly."

She paused as tears streamed down her face while she struggled to stay in control.

"I… uh… died five times. He choked me to death five times while he was raping me. I woke up every time hoping I had died each time, only to find him reviving me, so he could do it all over again."

"Jesus Kylie," Lestrade muttered as John had his head in his hands in disbelief that this had happened to his friend. Sherlock however continued staring at her, unmoving.

"While he was doing this, he kept telling me that if I ran or told anyone, he and his boss would hunt me down and destroy me. He admitted to me all about how he left the CIA and gone rogue, saying that money was in the side of the devil. he had been undercover with this crime boss and been made that he was CIA. This guy convinced him to switch sides and act as his mole in the CIA. Once the CIA found out, and every world power was fighting over him, he began to do his own bidding. He told me about how he killed an entire village in Morocco just to help keep the war in the Middle East alive. He was a completely different man. … He was a deranged psychopath, not the man I had once been in love with."

She shook her head, avoiding every eye in the room.

"The next morning, I was able to get out when I heard him leave for something. As soon as I did, I packed my things and ran, lying to my Dad and telling him I got a job interview. I hopped on the first flight out of the country, which happened to be to London. I hid out here for a few weeks in a hotel, trying to heal and get my bruises to fade and my ribs and skull to heal before I applied for the job at the Yard. I was able to cover my tracks pretty well, buying four different plane tickets and paying for the one to London in cash, plus with some help from favors I cashed in at the FBI, I disappeared. I haven't told anyone the truth. My own father has no idea what happened. I know that Thomas still works for this psychopath, and has been asking my father where I am, but other than that, I have no clue what he has been up to."

Silence took over the flat, as Kylie's companions attempted to absorb the information she had just given them.

"Did he ever tell you who he was working for?" Sherlock asked, getting a glare from both Lestrade and John.

"Jesus Sherlock," John condoned, "Timing!"

"Its fine John. I want normalcy, I don't want pity," Kylie told them as she wiped her eyes, before she looked at Sherlock, wracking her mind, "Yeah, he mentioned his name. I think it was James or Jim Moriarty."

John dropped his cup of tea while Sherlock paled and sat up perfectly straight, both in stunned silence.

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