Tall Buildings and Pill Bottles - A Johnlock Story

The Tantalizing Tale of Alice Truby

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AN: In this story, italics are primarily used for flashbacks, sorry if that's caused any confusion. In this chapter I'll put a line of ___ between each memory so not to cause any confusion. Let me know if I need to do anything further! Enjoy!

Third Person

Alice hung up the phone after making plans to meet up with Sherlock. She needed to see him, her brother would know something was up and shut her back in the mental institution. Where she and the mad man had met. She'd taken to calling him the mad man after first reading John Watson's blog, she thought it suited him. They were both mad, stark mad, completely bonkers. Of course, he hadn't told John Watson, his brave army doctor boyfriend, where they had really met. She suspected he told him something more like a suicide rehab support group. Not the mental institution, not the mad house.

She found that her mind had wandered to their time in the mental ward, lingering there unpleasantly. She'd hated him at first, he was much to clever to be safe, to be kind. He'd deduced her life and she'd screamed at him to get out. They'd been friends from that point on. Although, her heart sunk when she thought about seeing him again. He knew when she was lying, and she knew it would be pointless to keep it from him. In the comfort of her own room, she rolled up her sleeve. Six new scars shone brightly in her wrist. She couldn't see him after this, a heartbreaking fact that she knew was for his own good.

Sherlock Holmes was going to ask her when she'd gotten out of the mad house, and she was going to lie to him, and he was going to see through it, and he was going to be mad. Oh, he was going to be upset. He was going to be livid, he was going to be hurt, and she, she was probably going back to the mad house. Her skin crawled at the thought, and she knew, no matter how much time passed, the mad man's skin would crawl too. And Alice, no matter how much she hated it, was correct.

Sherlocks POV

John had offered to go with me to meet Alice, he still didn't really know how we'd met, mainly because I wasn't ready to tell him yet, but I would tell him soon. I shivered, remembering Alice and I's first meeting and the months spent in that wretched place.

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I looked over the room full of suicidal thoughts and sighed. They were mostly idiots, too consumed by their own thoughts to even blink. Only one didn't fit this pattern, and I watched her as she glared out into the room. Her icy blue eyes warily scanned the room, and she was curled up in the corner of the room.

Her mahogany colored hair was anything but limp, it cascaded down is huge waves in an enormous amount of volume. I didn't need to get any closer to see the scars covering her wrists and arms. Daughter of an abusive, alcoholic set of parents, working in a family run business. Both parents had been arrested, and she was taken care of by an older sibling. She wore a 'little sister' bracelet, meaning it was likely that there was a big sister or brother one.

I'd been in here for less than a day, it had been less than a day that by own brother betrayed me and shoved me in here. Though, perhaps it was granted after a 5th suicidal attempt. I walked over to the mystery girl, realizing exactly how young she was. She was maybe 14, if that. She looked up at me looming over her, and hugged her knees even closer to her chest. I sat down next to her, leaning my back against the hard wall. She stared at me curiously, the way a cat would watch a mouse. She cocked her head.

"How long have you been here?" I asked, stretching my legs out. She resumed her survey around the room as she answered. "2 months, this time." She had a thick Scottish accent. Of course, she'd been here multiple times, her older sibling was running a business, they couldn't both do that and take care of a depressed, suicidal, self harming sister as well, they probably didn't know how. "Brother or sister?" I asked. She lifted her head, looking at me confused.