True to his word, John was back in ten minutes, after eight minutes of crying, one of punching a pillow, and one of quickly washing his face off before he went back downstairs. Sherlock was still sitting on the couch; while he wasn't looking at anything, he hadn't curled up on himself again. He did look up when John came into the room. If he was able to deduce John had been crying he didn't say anything about it. For a variety of reasons, John was quite good at crying silently, but one could never remove all the traces of it.

"That's what you meant, when you said that people always assume," John said as he sat down again. "At the time I knew nothing about K, didn't even have an initial, and I still must have called her a he." He couldn't make himself call her "Dr. Martin," didn't want to give her the respect of the title, and calling her by first name was little better, so he stuck with the initial.

"Correct," Sherlock quietly responded.

"When did you know that K was the same person as the one you knew before?" He was sure that Sherlock had figured it out some time before, but had never said so.

"I first suspected when I talked to Phillip for the first time. Then he rang me that night." Sherlock turned his head to the side, away from John, and stared off into the distance. "He tried his best to conceal anything that might give away Her identity, but he slipped and called Her 'She' on one occasion. That was when I knew." Another pause. "Of course even then I had no concrete evidence it was indeed Her. But I knew and just had to confirm it. Everything I later found would point towards Her."

"Her house isn't where you grew up," John said, more to keep the conversation going than anything else.

"Of course not. She moves frequently because She is independently wealthy, as I said before."

"Even if it hadn't been the same person, you still would have been able to figure that out," John continued.

"Yes, of course. Every fact I saw led me closer to the conclusion that She was K, but I investigated it as if I knew nothing about K in the first place." He briefly turned to look at John, looking proud for a moment. "However, even if She was not wealthy, She would still frequently move because of the children."

"The children?" John echoed. He had a feeling this was about more than the children K had abused, but wasn't sure what it was.

"She's a pediatrician," Sherlock clarified, like this was an obvious thing.

"What?" John replied stupidly.

"Phillip met Her at work, remember? She has always used Her work to pick out Her choice of little ones. Since She has money of her own, She can move any time She thinks that She may be close to detection. The actual threat of detection is low of course, thanks to Her gender." Sherlock sounded more like himself now, with the exception of a tremor in his voice every time he referred to K. "But She is careful and moves periodically anyway."

"And you helped her at work," John said slowly. He had suspected what that meant almost since K had said it, but Sherlock apparently hadn't known he had known that. He sprang up from the couch with a look of horror on his face and if John hadn't stood up himself and grabbed his arm he would have probably bolted to his room. "If you didn't, what would happen?" John asked in a neutral tone. K might have told Sherlock otherwise, but he knew perfectly well that the only reason Sherlock would have done such a thing would be under duress. "Because threats are just as much as force as holding a gun to your head," he continued. Sherlock was as still as a deer in headlights, frozen in his attempt to flee. "No matter what she told you, you're not going to be arrested for it. You told Phillip the same thing, remember?" He made his voice as soft as possible, as if he was trying to calm a frightened animal.

"Different things," Sherlock finally whispered in reply. He was looking at John but it was clear he was not actually seeing him.

"How old were you then?"

"She stopped letting me go with Her to Her office when I started secondary school. She said She didn't need my help anymore," he replied in a childlike tone.

"Can you tell me one of the things that would happen if you didn't?" John wondered if there was something more fragile than cobwebs; if their previous talk had been spun from those, this seemed to be something more careful still. He steered them both back to the couch. After he sat down, Sherlock blankly followed suit.

"She would send the pictures to Mycroft." From the brief look of surprise that crossed Sherlock's face, John guessed that wasn't what he had intended to say. Fortunately, he didn't try to run away again.

"Pictures of you and her? Engaged in sexual activity?" John silently cursed himself for phrasing it in such an awkward way, but there was no taking it back. Sherlock appeared to not notice that and moved his head in the smallest nod John had ever seen. "What did you think would happen if she did send them to him?"

"Don't know," he muttered in response.

John thought privately this was unlikely, but decided not to push the issue. "What else did she say?"

"That She - nothing important." He had clearly caught himself mid-sentence in something he didn't want to reveal.

At this point John figured it would be easier on all of them to change the subject. "When was the last time you slept?" It wasn't that he didn't want to encourage Sherlock to talk about K, because he wanted him to.

The question seemed to snap Sherlock back into a sense of reality. "Some time ago," he said in what was almost close to a normal tone of voice.

"You should get some sleep. You need to sleep. This isn't going to be over in a few days, anyway," John pointed out.

"It would - I dislike sleep." He looked dazed again.

"I know. You told Phillip that." While this probably wasn't the best time to bring up the fact he'd overheard the conversation, it was better than silence.

"You were awake when I talked to him." It was a statement of fact.

"Yes, I was. But you were talking right outside my door." That wasn't really much of a defense, but it was the truth.

"I happened to be pacing up the stairs at the time." Sherlock didn't sound angry. "Conducting that conversation outside your door was pure happenstance."

"Well, all right, but you still need to sleep," John persisted. "If you really, truly cannot sleep, I'll give you some sort of sedative, but you need to at least try."

"Perhaps you're right." Sherlock looked back at him.

"Do you think you can at least make it up the stairs?" John asked.

"Maybe," he replied.

"I'll come up with you." Just like before, he offered his good shoulder and Sherlock draped an arm over it. As they both made for the stairs, John unfortunately spoke before he thought about what he was going to say. "What was in all those bags of garbage you've gotten rid of over the past few days?" He wasn't sure why he said it; he'd wondered about it for a while but knew better than to think he'd ever find out. The effect was immediate. Sherlock froze in place and if he didn't have an arm around John's shoulder he probably would have fallen. "No, forget I said that," John quickly added, and that was enough to get them moving again. They both walked up the stairs and into Sherlock's room. Sherlock didn't let go of his shoulder until they stood next to his bed. Only then did he allow himself to fall limply on to the sheets. "Do you want me to get you anything?" John said anxiously. "I'm not going to try any drugs until you've at least tried to sleep, but if there's anything else you want?"

"Radio," Sherlock replied softly. John managed to locate and turn on the digital radio, and some classical station began to play.

"Is it too loud?"

"It's fine," Sherlock said as he turned over on his side. John took this as the cue to leave the room, but as he was in the doorway he heard one word, quiet as a whisper. "Bedsheets." He was halfway down the stairs when he realized that Sherlock had just answered his question. In a second he realized what that meant and suddenly fought the urge to be sick.

At that point, before he could do any more than process that information, his mobile rang. He was almost glad for the distraction as he answered it. "John," Lestrade said, businesslike. "I was going to ring Sherlock but I figured you might be a little more rational about all this."

"K's at the Yard?" he made himself ask.

"If K's Kelly Gene Martin, then yes, she's here. I've made some more calls and Mr. Aherne and Moira will be coming down to the Yard tomorrow for a line-up. The Rodgers boy will also have to pick her out. Without an ID all we've got is the fraud charges. If this is the right person, then we're going to search the house and the flat you and Sherlock found, amongst other things." Even he sounded surprised, even though he had worked with law enforcement for so long and had clearly seen many horrible crimes. It was quickly becoming more and more accurate that, as Sherlock said, "people always assume."

"Do you want us down there then?" John forced himself to only think about this as a case right now, and not as a personal attack on someone he cared about. At some point he was going to allow himself to get good and angry, but that could wait.

"That would be good of you, especially since Sherlock's got a rapport with Moira no one else has. It might make the whole thing less stressful for her."

"Has she said anything yet?" John dared to ask.

"She requested a solicitor. That's it. She seems quite well off. I hope this really is this K, because if she isn't this will get very bad very quickly." Lestrade sounded doubtful.

"She's the one," John said right away. "She might have not said anything to the police, but she and Sherlock exchanged words."

Lestrade must have picked up on something in his voice, because he said: "That bad, was it?"

"Just about the worst you can imagine," John told him. "I'm glad the police showed up before I was forced to strangle her."

He could hear Lestrade's breath catch. "Where is Sherlock now, anyway?"

"Asleep. At least I hope he's asleep."

"He's sleeping on a case?"

"I told him to get some sleep and if he couldn't fall asleep on his own I'd give him some sedative. He had a rough time. K said he -" John managed to cut himself off before he revealed too much.

"I see." It sounded like Lestrade had already figured it out, or at least suspected it, because there was no surprise in his voice. "Well, once I find out when the Ahernes can get down here tomorrow, I'll ring or text one of you with a time."

"That'd be good, thanks. I should get going. I want to see if he's fallen asleep yet." John knew perfectly well that that was a pathetic excuse to end the conversation, but couldn't think of a better one.

"I'll leave you to it, then. Goodbye." As soon as Lestrade disconnected he shut off his mobile and went up the stairs as quietly as he could. He poked his head in Sherlock's room and to his relief Sherlock looked to be asleep, curled up in a ball on his side while the music still played.

He decided that a walk would do him some good and get rid of some of the pent-up anger, so he headed outside and roamed the streets for an hour or so. It didn't help. He still came back home feeling like he wanted to punch someone. A particular someone, of course. The urge was strong enough that John had to remind himself that he was supposed to be the well-behaved one and not the one that shot up the walls. Anyway, it might wake up Sherlock. While he didn't go upstairs again to check on him, he assumed that since Sherlock didn't come back downstairs he was either asleep or otherwise occupied. He didn't think he could do anything about the horrible anger inside him, and as a result he spent several hours that night staring at the bedroom ceiling, trying to blot out the past twenty-four hours.

Of course, it didn't work.