On the first day of the trial, John woke up in his own bed. For the past three nights Sherlock had been absent and although he'd been there the previous night he'd spent the whole night pacing downstairs. He showered and dressed, feeling slightly anxious. Sarah knew he'd be attending the whole thing ("Don't worry about your position," she reassured him) and Lestrade had taken him off the list of probable witnesses. Even though he knew he wasn't going to be anything but an observer, he couldn't shake the feeling in the pit of his stomach. When he came downstairs for breakfast, all he could manage was a cup of coffee.

"You'll be getting there before the start of the trial, I presume," Sherlock said from behind him. John turned to look at him. He stood in the doorway, still wearing the clothes had worn yesterday, Hamish under his arm as usual.

"Yes," John replied as he sipped his coffee.

"Are you going to witness the whole thing?"

"I'll try to."

"Phillip rang me last night."

"He must be anxious." If John felt anxious even though he was only going to be an observer, he couldn't imagine how Phillip felt.

"He will be testifying after Moira and her family."

"I wonder why his mother pays for a mobile for him. It's not like she puts any other effort into him," John idly remarked.

"You are correct. I should look into that myself. Why did I not think of that before?" Sherlock's surprise was evident. He then turned and walked back out the door, and after he disappeared from sight John could hear him heading up the stairs.

After another cup of coffee John headed out the door and hailed a cab. He gave the general intersection of the court, but not the precise address, as he didn't want to have any sort of discussion about the trial. Unfortunately, the cab driver eagerly started talking shortly after John got in. "You'll be right by the trial, then," he commented. "Seems like every paper's got it on the front page." Not wanting to encourage him, John merely made a nonspecific noise. The cab driver seemed to take this as a cue to continue talking. "I don't think it will go anywhere," he went on. "Look at those pictures in the paper. She looks like someone's kindly old aunt. And why didn't anyone say anything until now? Apparently they've got people saying something happened twenty years back, but none of them bothered to speak up at all."

John bit his lip and considered asking the driver to just let him out now. He instead made another nonspecific noise while thinking Shut up, shut up, shut up again and again. Of course he wasn't that fortunate; the cab driver went on and on about the trial until they got to his destination. He had several ideas about why K was being falsely accused, amongst them the former foster children wanting to sue and at least two of the fathers having really committed the crime. As John got out, he shoved some pounds at him, pointedly leaving no tip.

Thankfully, it was early enough that no crowd had gathered by the courthouse. Before he could go up the steps, he saw Lestrade walking up. "John!" he said, clearly happy to see him. "I thought you'd be here. The prosecutors will be here shortly. You wouldn't know them, of course. Lewis George - everyone calls him Lou - and Susan Glenn. Both good people who've done abuse cases before."

"Who's the judge?" John asked. He wouldn't know whoever it was either, but he was curious.

"Richard Foster. He's been on the bench for twenty years. The defense solicitors are Marvin Clark and Rochelle Harvey. Both of them have gotten some very big acquittals." An uncomfortable silence fell between them, and after a minute Lestrade called out: "Lou! Should have known you'd be early!" to a man getting out of a nearby cab.

"I'd rather get up at five in the morning than make my way through the crowd that's going to be here," the man said. He was tall and round in a way that made John think of Tweedledee. "Let's go in." He then turned to look at John. "Who's this?" he asked. "I thought I'd already met with all the witnesses. And you told me Victim Three had black hair."

"This is John Watson. He's helped us with this case," was Lestrade's clipped response.

"Oh yes, you were on the potential witness list," Lou said pleasantly.

"Yes," John replied. "I won't be testifying though."

"John is well acquainted with Victim Three," Lestrade added.

"Well, I hope Susan and I can talk to him before he gets on the stand. Now we should go in." Lou ascended the courthouse steps surprisingly swiftly, and John and Lestrade struggled to keep up with him. As they walked down the main hall, Lou stopped at a set of doors and opened one to look into a vacant courtroom. "We beat the buffalo," he said.

"Buffalo?" John echoed in confusion.

"There's a group of people who come to court every day and watch all the trials. They sit right in front. Every court's got them, and they're called buffalo." Lou shut the door and headed once again for the back room. "I'm glad we got Foster for this case. He's a fair man. I have great respect for him. Knows how to keep order." He turned and opened a door to a small carpeted room with a few tables and chairs. All three of them sat down. "We'll wait here for Susan. And Victim Two and her family, but you can't be there for that part, John."

"I've met her," John said. He wondered why Lou didn't use her name.

"I know you have, but when Susan and I brief her for testimony no one else can be here. Lestrade's going to talk to us before she gets here; he'll be testifying much later on." He looked John in the eye before speaking again. "I'm not calling her Victim Two because I enjoy it, you know. It's easier to speak to the media if I'm accustomed to referring to her as that instead of Moira Aherne." He looked towards the door. "It's Susan's turn to bring breakfast, so we'll get bagels and some fruit pastry with the coffee - and the cocoa for herself, of course. She says she needs the buzz from the sweets to begin these monster trials."

A minute later the door opened and a woman with short dark hair and glasses walked in. She carried a large bakery bag in one hand and a six pack of coffee in another. "Thought you'd beat me here, Lou. When it's your turn to bring breakfast you never seem to show up this early." She set the food on the table. "Good morning, Lestrade. As good as it can be, at least, for a case like this." Next to Lou she looked pocket-sized; she had a thin build and was barely five feet tall. She sat down next to John. "You must be John Watson."

Lou must have noticed John's startled expression, because he went on to explain: "Susan's the case computer. She's memorized every victim's birthday, full name, and appearance. She knows what every single potential witness looks like and how they relate to the case. She's even memorized most of the details of the charges."

"Someone has to do it," she calmly replied. "Doctor Watson, feel free to help yourself to the food." She took two of the coffee cups and put one each in front of Lou and Lestrade. "There's two more coffees and an extra cocoa if you'd like something to drink."

After two cups of coffee that morning, John wasn't thirsty in the slightest, but to his amazement he was now starving. He reached into the bag and took out a bagel and an apple pastry. In a few short minutes, he had devoured both. Everyone else reached into the bag and took out bagels and pastry. Despite her petite stature, Susan ate three pastries and a bagel that looked like it had chocolate chips in it. Lou was the one who took only half a bagel (he gave the other half to Lestrade). Only when every crumb of food had been finished did Susan speak again. "You should probably go get a seat in the courtroom now, John. With a case like this there's going to be a mad rush for seats and you don't want to sit right behind the buffalo."

"The Ahernes should be here soon, and we can't talk to a witness with anyone else here. Even Lestrade is leaving in a minute, once we go over some details," Lou added.

"I'll just head down there, then," John said. "It's the one you were looking in before, right?"

"The exact same one," Lou said.

"Thanks for breakfast," John told them as he left the room and walked down the hall to the other door. He opened it slowly and saw that a row had already been filled with people. The way they chatted amongst themselves indicated they all knew each other. This apparently was what the buffalo looked like. None of them looked at him as he settled himself into one of the middle benches, next to the aisle. They didn't seem to notice he was there at all until he coughed very audibly. Only then did they look back at him, then began talking among themselves again. He heard one say, "Who is he?" but the others were smart enough to not speak loudly.

For the next hour, people slowly trickled into the room. Most wore a press badge on the front of their shirt; some had cameras, video equipment, and tablets of both the electronic and traditional variety. They conversed with each other as easily as the buffalo did. Unlike the buffalo, they didn't seem surprised by John's presence. Other people without press badges came in and sat themselves down. They clustered together and all seemed to speak in unison; none of them made any attempt to speak quietly, but they couldn't be made out amongst the din anyway.

John didn't look at any of the people who came in until he heard a collective intake of breath from behind him. He turned to look as the doors swung open. A man and woman in suits stood there, both of them saying a few words to the reporters. As they talked they walked down to the dock. And a few steps behind them was K. She wore a neat business suit and her black hair had been pulled back into a bun. She still had some of the motherly air she'd had before, but she also seemed very much the respectable professional.

Then, it happened. She locked eyes with John. He felt too shocked to do anything, but she had no such problem; she smiled broadly at him. It was only for a second and it would have been hard to prove she directed it at him, but John knew it was meant for him. It meant, "I'm not going to be found guilty." It meant, "I'm proud of what I did to your little friend." It meant, "When I get off the charges I'm going to start doing it all over again." John bit back the urge to start screaming to everyone in the court that you'd know she was guilty from that smile and the look in her eyes.

The defense solicitors didn't seem to have noticed the exchange. They first watched as K settled herself in the dock and then made their way down to the defense box. The woman, Rochelle Harvey, seemed to be in charge; she talked to the man while he nodded. She looked taller than John by a few inches and wore wire-framed glasses. Even though she had to at least be in her fifties, her hair was still platinum blond and thick in a way that indicated she wasn't dyeing it. Marvin Clark also wore glasses and had dark hair creeping towards baldness.

Only a few minutes after the defense came in, Lou and Susan walked in through the doors. Unlike the defense, they didn't stop to talk to the media representatives that swarmed around them. They simply waved them away and walked down to their section of the court. The press took this as the cue to stop hovering around the doors and make their way to the press box. In a few minutes the courtroom was full and quiet, everyone in it politely seated. The jury then was lead in by an usher and seated. Shortly after that an usher called, "Court rise!" and everyone got to their feet. Judge Foster entered the room through a side door and seated himself at the bench. He banged his gavel and the others in the courtroom sat down. "The Crown Court is now in session. Today's case is R vs. Martin." He looked towards the prosecution. "Is the prosecution ready to begin?"

"Yes, your Honor," Susan said.

He looked at the defense solicitors. "Is the defense ready to begin?"

"Yes, your Honor," Mr. Clark said.

"Then Mr. George should come to the front to present opening arguments."

Lou strode to the front of the courtroom like he didn't have a care in the world. He turned to face the spectators. "Child abuse," he said with no leadup. John could feel the collective shudder of the people in the room, like just hearing the words hurt. Before they could recover he added, "Sexual abuse," and a few people gasped. And they know what the trial's for, John thought. "You don't want to hear that, do you?" he asked as he looked at the rest of the court. "No one does. Doctors never stop being shocked at a thirteen year old boy whose arm got broken by someone, or a nine year old girl with vaginal lacerations. The police say those are the hardest cases to deal with. So it's easy to understand why the first reaction in a case like this is disbelief. Especially when the accused is so normal-looking, and seems like such a nice lady. No one wants to think that an abuser is someone who we see every day, who's not some mysterious other that you can avoid." He paused as if to let that sink in. "But the only victims in this case that knew each other were siblings, and they all picked out the same person. They all gave details that matched the other ones. And they were all found in photographs. Kelly Martin had those photographs. And I think that once you hear from all of the victims we could find, you'll agree she was the one who assaulted them all. Thank you." He returned to sit next to Susan. John glanced at the people around him and saw that many of them were wide-eyed. Most looked dazed. One or two of them seemed on the verge of tears. He looked back at K and saw she was still sitting calmly, with a small smile on her face.

An eerie silence hung over the court as Mrs. Harvey came to stand in front of all of them. John resisted the urge to be angry at her. Even the worst criminals needed a defense, and she was just doing her job. That didn't stop his stomach muscles from contracting, though. "Mr. George was right before. Child abuse is a horrible topic, and many abusers are right amongst us," she began. "It's such a horrible topic that sometimes we lose the ability to think rationally about it. The photographs he mentioned do in fact exist, but they are not Dr. Martin's at all and in fact belong to someone else. Someone we will show has considerable reason to be angry with Dr. Martin." Her constant use of "Dr. Martin" irritated John; he knew it was an attempt to make her seem as respectable as possible. "But Dr. Martin has never had any complaints in her long pediatric career. She's never had any complaints about her foster care work. Unfortunately, there is one individual who has a grudge against her. He is the one who is responsible for all of the charges now, and he is sadly mentally unbalanced. As this trial goes on, we hope you will see that there is nothing Dr. Martin is guilty of other than placing trust in the mentally ill. Thank you."

John barely remembered the next minute or two; the solicitors talked to the judge but he wasn't able to remember anything they said. They're pinning it all on Sherlock, he thought to himself with dread. It was almost another way to victimize him, even after so long. Would the jury be able to see through it? Or would Dr. Martin earn that smug grin?