Neither of them spoke on the way home, and John wondered what he might be able to do to keep Sherlock from barricading himself in his room. He certainly wouldn't want to talk anymore. He had let his guard down after the first encounter with K, but John could tell the shields had gone back up again; if he asked now Sherlock would most likely deny he had feelings at all. But John knew that wasn't true. And if he thought about it, he was really all Sherlock had. Moira had her father and siblings. As Sherlock had said before, he didn't have friends, just the one. Even worse, Phillip was depending on Sherlock. If he wasn't strong for the both of them, they'd all collapse like dominoes. Still, what was he supposed to do? He was certain if this had been a patient he would have referred him to a therapist. Of course, Sherlock wouldn't see a therapist in the first place. Until yesterday he hadn't told anyone about what had gone on except that friend he had before. If someone forced him to see a therapist, he'd either sit silently or be as obnoxious with his deductions as possible so he could get out of any further sessions.

When the cab finally stopped in front of Baker Street, he got out and was striding towards the door when he realized that Sherlock was just standing there on the curb, a blank expression on his face. "Sherlock?" John said gently as he came to stand in front of him. "Are you all right?" It sounded stupid even in his head, but he couldn't say nothing.

"Fine," Sherlock tightly replied. He still looked half-blank.

"You need to come inside," John said.

"I will."

John wasn't sure if he'd actually move or not, and was relieved when Sherlock walked towards the door. He was careful to stay behind him all the way upstairs, close enough to be ready to help him move but not so close he was crowding him. As soon as he was through the door Sherlock flopped down on the sofa, not even bothering to take his coat off. He didn't shift himself in any way, just stared up at the ceiling. It occurred to John that he had to go to work tomorrow. He didn't want to miss another day, but at the same time he didn't want to leave Sherlock alone. For one, he knew there were drugs in the flat somewhere. He didn't know precisely where they were, or what type they were, but he knew they were there. Sherlock hadn't promised him that he would tell John if he got the urge to take anything, and while he very well might do so, John wasn't going to count on it.

"Please don't shut me out," he said, thinking out loud.

"I'm not trying to." Sherlock didn't break his blank stare at the ceiling.

"You're doing it though. I know you're in a lot of pain. I just want to help."

It was like he had flipped a switch. In a second Sherlock went from blank to furious. He thrust himself off the couch and in two long strides he was standing in front of John, looking down at him menacingly. "You know nothing about any of this! Nothing! Don't you dare to say 'I know you're in pain!' because you can't even understand part of it!"

On one hand, John was glad that Sherlock actually seemed to be showing some emotion, but he wished he wasn't the target. "You're right, maybe I don't understand even part of it. It's still very clear you're in pain, though. Even if I can't understand that pain I can still be concerned for you."

"Concerned over what? It's not any of your business!" There was a pinkish tinge to Sherlock's face, the most color John had ever seen in it.

"Yes, it is," John calmly replied. "I'm your friend. When you're in pain, I'm in pain."

"I'd pick Her over you!" Sherlock all but spat out in his fury.

"Why?" John was bewildered. It certainly hadn't been the reply he was expecting.

"Because at least then I'd know what it's like!"

John had heard people talk before about silence falling over a room, but until that point he'd never actually seen it happen. As soon as Sherlock apparently realized what he had said, he took two steps back, his eyes widening as he did so. He was probably attempting to flee to his room, but as he turned for the stairs he tripped on the lowest step and fell like a bundle of sticks. Instead of getting up, he curled into a remarkably compact ball. For a minute John stood there in stunned silence. Whatever else he said, Sherlock valued his company and liked having him around. And despite any sort of bravado he might put on, he was clearly frightened of K. It wasn't a barb designed to keep John away, either. Sherlock's response to hearing himself say it was not a calculated one. Then he remembered Molly saying a long time ago Sherlock seemed to want something he couldn't have, and the gears clicked. He crouched down next to Sherlock. John knew better than to touch him, and he couldn't catch his eye when he was curled up like that, so he threw caution to the wind and just said it. "You loved her. And you didn't love anyone else after that. Until you met me. And you love me." He knew "in love with me" was probably a better description, but right now was a time to carefully choose his words. "But you're afraid because you don't want to have sex with me, and it scares you. And no matter how bad it was with her, you know what it's like already, and that's better than any unknown." John wasn't really surprised by his feelings at all. Pretty much every single person who had met both him and Sherlock had noticed those feelings, and had all but hit him over the head with the fact Sherlock Holmes loved him. If he had to pick a reason why Sherlock never acted on those feelings, though, he wouldn't have come up with this one.

Sherlock didn't move. He didn't uncurl himself and he gave no indication that he'd heard a word John said. At this point John had no idea if he was doing the right thing or not. Please make me know the right thing to say, he thought. "You're not responsible for any of that, you know. She might have told you something like that, but that's not the case. Remember how upset you were when you realized Phillip felt that way?"

Since Sherlock was curled up on himself, and speaking in such a low voice, John almost didn't hear his response. "Different."

"Different how?" he retorted. "Both of you even met her at the same age. What makes Phillip different than you?"

His only response was to mumble something John couldn't make out. John suspected at this point that he couldn't offer a reason for them being different and it was simply a matter of emotional reasoning. That of course didn't make things better; in fact if there wasn't any logic that would convince Sherlock that they were not in fact different he had no idea how to go about doing so. "Think about how you would feel if Phillip said something like that. That's how I feel right now."

"I want to go to bed." John didn't register what Sherlock had said for a second, since it wasn't a response to his comment. He had to pay attention when his head emerged from the ball he had made of himself. At first John wondered if this was an escape tactic, as Sherlock usually went for so long without sleeping and he'd slept for so many hours yesterday, but when he saw the dark circles under his eyes John figured he was telling the truth.

"You want some help getting up there?" he asked. If it wasn't for the fact John had kept an eye on him for most of the day, he'd wonder if Sherlock hadn't taken something. He nodded and John offered his arm. While Sherlock managed to unfold himself easily enough, he seemed to have difficulty getting up and only by taking John's hand and John pulling was he able to stand upright. Just like the day before, the two of them slowly went up the steps and into his room. "Music?" John asked and Sherlock shook his head in response. He sat down on the bed and took off his coat. After that he just sat there and John figured that was his cue to leave. He went back downstairs for fifteen minutes or so, putting a few things away. Since he couldn't hear anything upstairs, he decided to at least check on him and to his surprise Sherlock was fast asleep and buried under a mound of covers.

Before all of this began, it would have been the sort of lazy Sunday he rarely got to have. Now, however, there was something sinister about it, and not just in the fact Sherlock was asleep upstairs and not working on one of his experiments or stealing his laptop or pacing around or sulking. Everything suddenly seemed tainted by K. John thought he'd been angry at K before, but then she had just been some unknown monster. Now she was the person who had broken his best friend. Someone who made you think all relationships caused pain and the best you could do was keep that pain familiar. He knew that there was nothing he could do at this point, so he spent most of the day doing small things that needed to be done and doing his own sulking to try to control his anger.

While he wasn't exactly thrilled when he woke up the next day and remembered he had to go to work, it was at least some sort of distraction. Sherlock was awake but was curled up on the sofa in what would have appeared to be a sulk if he had not been facing out and staring that blank stare again. He didn't respond when John said "Morning," and only moved when John put a cup of tea in front of him. He was slowly sipping from it as John headed out the door.

Any idea that this was going to be a normal day at work, or at least as normal as one of John's days ever got, was shattered when Sarah approached him before he even took his jacket off. She looked stunned, the sort of look you saw when some patient came in with a rare and quickly fatal disease. "That Yarder, Lestrade, he was here just before you got in," she informed him. "He was..." Whatever she was about to say bothered her so much she went silent.

John assumed this had something to do with collecting the records of K's victims. "I think I know what you're talking about," he said reassuringly.

"I never would have thought it. I knew Dr. Martin. A few weeks ago we stood right here chatting for a bit. Everyone always liked her. Never any complaints." She shook her head.

A vague memory of hearing about Dr. Martin from Sarah a few weeks ago came back to him. She had complained about Dr. Arthur but had said that Dr. Martin had been nice. Whether it was because he had forgotten or that he'd chose not to make the connection, he hadn't thought about that. "Why was Lestrade here?" he made himself ask.

"He wanted all of her records here. I only knew her for a little while; she left here five years ago, but she never..." Sarah shut her eyes for a second, like she was thinking of something. "Actually. Now that I think about it, it's not the case. You know she worked in the pediatric clinic here, usually in the evening. One thing she always insisted on was that she examine children without their parents in the room at the same time. She said it was because parents so often get hysterical over minor things."

"They do," John agreed. "But at the same time..."

"No one else seemed concerned by it," Sarah said firmly. "And I told myself it wasn't a big deal. But honestly? If Dr. Martin has been a male Kelly instead of a female one, I'd have talked to social services."

"You're not the only one to make that mistake. Everyone at the Yard seemed about to fall over in surprise when they found out our suspect wasn't a man." John looked away, biting back his "Everyone but Sherlock" response because it wasn't his place to tell Sarah about something like that.

"I shouldn't have," she told him. At that point she noticed that they were blocking a door and ducked into an unused office nearby, gesturing for John to join her. "We have time to talk; you're early anyway." John knew he had been early, almost an hour early, but he couldn't bear one more minute of Sherlock silently staring off into space with that blank look on his face. He followed her into the office. "She was always well liked, that's true," she continued after shutting the door. "And on some level I liked her. But at the same time I should have gone with my instincts."

John was suddenly seized by the desire to talk about anything but K for a change. "Well, there's no way you can change that now. What's been going on here for the past couple of days, anyway?" Thankfully, she got the message, and they spent the next hour in idle chitchat.

The rest of the day at work was... odd. On the one hand it did provide something of a distraction; for long stretches at a time John successfully banished K from his mind. On the other hand he was still worried about Sherlock. Every so often, when the feeling bubbled up to the surface, he would ring Mrs. Hudson on some pretense to get her to check on Sherlock upstairs. While he was pretty sure she was aware of what he was doing, she always accepted his excuses. She never had much to tell him, of course; she would report back and tell John that Sherlock was pacing around or curled up on the sofa. After several such reports, he started counting down the time he had left at work and it was a relief when he was finally able to head back home. That itself was a painful reminder of how much K had changed their lives.

When he was finally back and opening the front door he was surprised to see Phillip Rodgers standing in the hall. "Did you come to see us?" he asked.

Phillip nodded. "Your friend. The landlady let me in a few minutes ago." John couldn't help but notice the boy was ghostly pale.

"Well, come upstairs with me." Phillip obediently followed John up the steps and stood aside as he unlocked the door. From the door he could see Sherlock was on the sofa like before but was sitting normally instead of lying down. Phillip apparently saw him as well, as he pushed John aside to get into the flat. He was momentarily annoyed but this evaporated when Phillip sat down next to Sherlock and started to cry.