Author's note: I am obsessed with minor characters, so I decided to participate in the fifth let's write Sherlock challenge on tumblr.

I don't own anything, please review.

He really shouldn't have got out of bed this morning. Events like this – employees from other banks coming to be shown around theirs and trying to make polite small talk while actually wishing them to go bankrupt – were the ban of his existence. He was accustomed to being overly polite and to act interested, but that didn't mean he liked it.

He was a grown man and responsible banker, though, so he had got up and made his way to work.

Only to be proven right when he got stuck in the elevator.

The presentation – followed by lunch, more presentations, and eventually dinner with numerable bottles of expensive wine being consumed – was to take place on the second floor. Normally he would take the stairs – he usually did when he didn't have to go farther than the fourth floor, he had to keep in shape – but he felt tired and grumpy enough to make an exception.

He ignored the young woman who got into the cabin after him although he noticed that she was obviously going to the second floor too until, suddenly, the elevator stopped between the first and second floor and the lights went out.

Thankfully, they went on again almost immediately, but despite his hope that this meant this was only a temporary malfunction, the cabin didn't move.

He shot the young woman a resigned smile and pushed the emergency button.

"How can I help you?" a much too chipper sounding voice asked, and Seb suppressed a cringe.

"Sebastian Wilkes, head of the Trading Floor. I'm stuck in the elevator between first and second with another passenger".

He heard something like a muffled course – of course it didn't look good when the boss of a whole floor got stuck – and then the voice answered, rather subdued, "I'm sorry sir. We'll send the technicians immediately".

"You better" Seb snapped, even though normally he made a point of being polite to anyone in the bank, but he was annoyed and tired and certainly not in the mood for being stuck in a small cubicle for God knew how long.

He remembered the young woman only after he had snapped at the technician, and turned around, putting on his most charming smile. He'd always known how to charm people, even in school and university.

"It seems we might be stuck here some time".

She nodded, but didn't answer. He shrugged it off as a decline to enter into conversation – for which he was grateful, to be honest – and leaned against the wall opposite her, waiting for the technicians to come.

Ten minutes past. They didn't speak, but Seb didn't really want to anyway. He'd slept badly, he had to visit an event he really didn't want to be at, and now he was stuck in an elevator.

He would indefinitely prefer not to have to make polite small talk – he would have enough of that once he got to the presentation, if he got there – thank you very much.

And then his eyes landed on the young woman's name tag.

He was wearing one himself, Shad Sanderson having demanded it of all employees who would visit the event. The woman, however, had a sign that declared here to be "Press" and her name was...

Kitty Riley.

At first, he didn't understand why the name seemed so familiar.

Then he connected it with all the articles that had proclaimed Sherlock Holmes a fraud. That had led to Sherlock Holmes's suicide.

Sherlock, the freak he'd met at university.

Sherlock who had more or less saved him from his bosses' wrath when he solved the case of the ghost burglar last year.

When he'd heard the news, he hadn't believed it. Not at first. Sherlock Holmes had never seemed the type to commit suicide, and Seb had always prided himself on his ability to read people. It was necessary in his job.

Until his death, he hadn't paid much attention to the news coverage of Sherlock's supposed crimes. He hadn't seen how anyone could believe the consulting detective had invented the cases he had solved; one had only to meet Sherlock Holmes once to know that he was a freak, yes, but also a genius. A genius who had happily announced to all in the room that Seb had slept with Amanda Brittell as he had come down to breakfast on his first week at university.

He had hated him then. They all hated him.

And yet, at the same time, he had been intrigued.

Because he would never be a genius like Sherlock Holmes.

He had good marks, of course, and later, he was good at his job, because that was all he had ever wanted, a career, money, being successful, but he would never be so unpredictable, so intelligent, so crazy as Sherlock. And sometimes he was glad for it, and sometimes he was jealous. Just a bit.

Maybe, he decided after Sherlock had died, and after he had taken the time to think about it, he had always been a little jealous of the man who didn't care what other people thought about him, simply chose his own path because he wanted to. Seb had become a banker because his father had been one too, and had never questioned his choice.

Naturally, he had given Sherlock a hard time at university; they all did. Nobody liked him, nobody even talked to him, and he didn't care.

Or so he'd believed.

He'd immediately thought of Sherlock when he'd come to work and been told that the old office had been broken into. He had always made a point of keeping track of his former colleagues' careers; although he had to admit that for a long time, he hadn't heard anything about Sherlock, and he'd wondered if he'd indeed taken an overdose (as had been the rumour when he'd dropped out of university in his second year), but then had learned about John Watson's blog during a dreadfully dull business dinner and he'd realized the consulting detective the man was talking about was no one but Sherlock Holmes, the freak he'd met at university.

Since then, he had followed the blog because – because he couldn't imagine not to, and when the problem at the Bank had presented itself, he had immediately decided that he would send him an email.

They had never been friends. He had hated him. Somehow, this made him even more ashamed that he'd never spoken up for Sherlock after he'd been accused.

The man had saved him, after all.

He had gone to the funeral, had stood in the back, hidden from view, because he felt he owed Sherlock that much.

He had seen John Watson (he didn't know what he had been to Sherlock – colleague? friend? something else? But it didn't matter now) break down, cry before the coffin.

A few weeks later he had returned to the grave to pay his respects without anyone staring at him.

Sherlock hadn't been a friend, or rather, he hadn't been Sherlock's, but that didn't mean he couldn't grieve. He didn't have any real friends anyway. He might as well grieve for someone who had done nothing wrong except being himself.

And now he was standing in front of the person who had started it all, the person who (unintentionally as it was) had caused Sherlock's death.

Seb was aware that he had no right to be angry; he and Sherlock hadn't been friends, and he had certainly never tried to defend him against any accusations.

Furthermore, he was used to walking people over. His job demanded it. He had never thought about making someone's life miserable twice, not when it meant helping along his own career.

But this was different. This was Sherlock. He had been a freak. But he had also been the most honest and perhaps, exactly because of that fact, the best human being Seb had ever met.

A man who had dared to defy any expectations, a man who had gone his own way. Who was dead because she had chosen to listen to the accusations of a man who had gone missing immediately after Sherlock's suicide.

He cleared his throat.

"Kitty Riley?"

She looked into his eyes, and he noticed how tired and defeated she looked. Good. She should feel guilty.

"Yes?"

"My name is Sebastian Wilkes".

The name meant nothing to her. Of course – he had read John's blog entry, and he had never mentioned his name. So he added, "Sherlock helped me out once".

"Oh". She didn't say anything else, but it was clear that she had understood, that she knew what he was going to say.

And, suddenly, he found himself doubting if he should go on.

John Watson had been Sherlock's friend. That Inspector who was now suspended according to several articles had been Sherlock's friend.

Seb? He had ignored him, had called him a freak, had happily told anyone that they had all hated him.

But he was here. They were not. And Kitty Riley stood before him.

He swallowed and continued.

"I was just curious – how could you think he was a fraud?"

"I had enough evidence" she replied, and he noticed her use of the past tense, which implied that she had had doubts since.

"And you never thought of contacting any of the people who commented on John's blog or Sherlock's website?"

He was angry, far angrier than he had realized, far more angrier than he had any right to be.

And yet, looking at her, he realized that they weren't that different.

He remembered how he'd blown of Sherlock when he'd told him Eddie Van Coon had been murdered.

And neither does my boss.

He hadn't listened to Sherlock either, had barely spared him a thought after he'd solved the case, and yet he was here, grieving for the consulting, for the friendship that could have been, if he had bothered to try and understand him a little bit better.

He would have liked to think that he would never have been able to destroy a man's life like this, but he knew better. He'd done it often enough; he had fired people, ruined businesses, destroyed careers... And that, perhaps, was what made him so angry to begin with.

It was easy to blame others. It was a lot harder to remember that oneself was guilty of the same crime.

That realization should have stopped him.

And yet he still had to go on, because they were talking about the one truly original person he had ever met, the one he would always remember.

"No" Kitty interrupted his thoughts, and he frowned.

"I beg your pardon?"

"No, I didn't think about contacting anyone else. Rich – I" she started playing with the sleeve of her jacket, and he knew immediately what she was trying to tell him. He tried not to hate her for it.

If there was one rule he had always followed, it was never to sleep with a colleague or business associate.

"Were you friends with him?"

The question he had secretly dreaded.

He should answer "No". He couldn't say anything else.

He hadn't deserved anything else.

But –

He had never really picked on Sherlock, not even after he had told everyone within ear reach about his sex life. And Sherlock had never told anyone of his affairs after that, maybe because he hadn't. Sherlock had nodded when they passed each other on the corridor. Sherlock had come immediately when he had asked for his help. Sherlock had shook his head and refused the money he'd offered.

"He was my friend" he finally replied because it was true. He had not been Sherlock's friend, but Sherlock had been his.

She nodded, once, twice, and looked anywhere but at him.

"I would tell you I wish I hadn't written any of those articles" she said tiredly. "But I guess it doesn't make much of a difference".

No, it didn't. But there were many things he wished he hadn't said.

Freak.

Piss Off.

We all hated him.

And neither does my boss.

"It doesn't make it easier either" he said, and she looked at him as if she understood what he wanted to say.

The elevator started to move again, and they didn't speak as they moved upwards and finally exited it.

Seb, though, had for once in his life decided to do something entirely unexpted.

He saw Ned Tyler, their spokesperson, who still owed him a favour.

He drew him aside, not regarding the speeches that were being held, and began, "Ned, do you remember that break-in about a year ago?"

Author's note: I hope you liked it; I just found the premise of Kitty Riley and Seb trapped somewhere interesting.