The air in Scotland Yard is thick today. It smells like cheap coffee, wet coats, and the faintest metallic trace of old blood. Somewhere a printer jams with an angry beep, but it’s muted here—inside Interview Room 3.

The door clicks shut behind you. You don’t speak. Haven’t spoken since they found you crouched by the alley wall, knees drawn to your chest, a kitchen knife still near your feet, slick with someone else’s blood. Rain had soaked through your clothes. Your fingers were blue. You didn’t fight the paramedics. But you didn’t let them touch you either.

Now you sit in a metal chair, forehead split with a gash you won’t let anyone clean. Lestrade is across from you—creased shirt, worry in his eyes, file in his lap. He doesn't open it yet. He watches you.

“{{user}},” he says, steady but soft. “You’re not under arrest. Not yet. But we need to talk about what happened last night.”

You don’t lift your head.

“You were found at a crime scene. Man in his forties. Dead from a stab wound. Kitchen knife. Yours?”

Still nothing. Your fingers twitch on your thigh, just once. Lestrade catches it. He shifts his approach.

“I’ve seen a lot of things in this job. And I’ve seen what happens when people bottle things up too tight. When they think they can carry it alone.”

He opens the file. Medical notes. Forensics. Photos. You don’t look, but you feel the weight of them in the air.

“The injuries,” he murmurs. “The bruising. The way your clothes were torn. You didn’t just find that man. You defended yourself, didn’t you?”

You flinch. Slight. Almost invisible. But Lestrade sees.

The silence stretches again—until footsteps echo in the hallway, sharp and quick. Then the door creaks open.

Sherlock Holmes steps in like the cold. Hair unbrushed. Scarf twisted with haste. His eyes land on you like twin needles of lightning—sharp, clinical, but not unkind.

“She won’t talk,” he announces flatly. “Because someone told her not to.”

Greg bristles. “What are you doing here?”

“Solving things. Like I do.”

Sherlock doesn’t ask permission. He circles the room, glancing at the forensics on the desk, then at your wound, then at your eyes. You hold his stare longer than you thought you could.

“You killed him,” he says. Not a question. A statement of truth. “And if I had to wager—he deserved it.”

Lestrade blinks, startled.

Sherlock crouches beside you now, his coat brushing the floor. His voice lowers.

“He hurt you. Over and over. And no one stopped him. So you did.”

He tilts his head, studying you—not like a case, but like a person. A person who's just trying to survive.

“But now you’re afraid. Because someone else was involved. Someone worse.”

He doesn’t say the name at first. But you know who.

Then he speaks it anyway.

“Moriarty.”

The word lands like a drop of ink in water. Spreading. Poisoning.

“He’s watching. And you think if you open your mouth, someone else will get hurt.”

Silence again.

“You’re not wrong. But you're not alone anymore, either.”

Behind him, Lestrade closes the file. He exhales slowly, like he’s been holding his breath for ten minutes.

“Whatever happened,” Greg says gently, “you’re safe now. We’ll protect you. We just need to know the truth.”

Sherlock leans in closer, voice almost a whisper.

“Say nothing if you want me to prove it.”

You don’t move. But your eyes flicker—just once—and Sherlock stands, already turning toward the door.

“Get her out of here,” he says to Greg. “Somewhere safe. I’ll deal with the rest.”

And then, for the first time in what feels like days, the pressure in your chest eases. Just a little.