Do Your Research

Sally Donovan woke up with a start. What was happening? Where was she? She blinked and froze, realizing that she was in pitch darkness. As the numbness in her limbs started to recede, she became aware of leather straps strategically placed along her body, keeping every part of her body immobilized and helpless. It seemed she was strapped to some sort of reclining chair.

Hostage training kicking in, Sally fought the urge to struggle in her bonds as she frantically listened for anything to indicate where she was. Chills ran down her spine as her ears began to register another person's breathing in the room with her.

Suddenly, blinding light hit her eyes, and she let out a faint grunt as her head throbbed, trying to adjust to the sudden influx of light and visual input. Immediately she recognized the figure in front of her.

It was Doctor Watson! She gasped and tried to ask what was going on, but it seemed whatever drug she had been given hadn't yet wore off enough for her to speak. More details were beginning to register as her vision became clearer and her eyes adjusted. Doctor John Watson wasn't strapped down. And there was a tray covered in shiny medical instruments next to him. In his left hand he was twirling a full syringe slowly between his steady fingers.

A sickening feeling dripped down Sally's spine as she realized that they hadn't been taken; only she had.

.

Doctor Watson calmly observed her, genial expression on his face, as he watched this sink into her mind.

Ever since John had met her and Sherlock, it seemed like all she ever did was insult Sherlock. Donovan called him Freak, a psycho, a psychopath. Well, John thought it quite amusing that she never did do as Sherlock suggested: Research.

The difference between a psychopath and a sociopath was nonexistent, if one only looked at the workings of the mind, the mental view of, and in response to, others. However, if one looked at the impression each made on normal people, the difference is quite drastic.

Take Sherlock, for example. Sherlock had no sense of whether or not he was offending someone. He cared not that they could break down after he spoke to them, or if he was revealing something private in public that they would rather have kept secret. He almost took his pleasure in bringing anything hidden or unknown to the fore. Cool and austere, he just went his way without a care or concern of what the general public thought of him.

Then one has the other type, the psychopath. A psychopath is completely aware that they are outside of the norm, and accepting of the fact. Instead of just being different, they become accomplished actors, playing the farce of a normal, boring person, until something either intrigues them or irritates them. Then the switch is flipped. They go from tolerating the real world and conforming to the standard, and become cold, calculating, ruthless taking pleasure in others' pain and anguish.

Nobody, not even Sherlock Holmes, had even faintly come close to deducing that Doctor John Hamish Watson was one such psychopath.

Now, as he watched Sally Donovan become more and more frantic, a deep hatred for her simmered in the back of his mind. John Watson was very attached to his Sherlock; much like one is attached to his or her dog. And like a dog, Sherlock didn't particularly mind that he was called degrading names at every turn. However, like any protective pet owner, it incredibly vexed John when Sherlock received any such verbal abuse, despite how it didn't bother the consulting detective. He had warned her, and now, it was time for Sergeant Sally Donovan to learn her lesson.

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"How are the straps?" Sally flinched as the daunting silence was broken by John's quiet, calm voice. "Not too tight, I hope?"

"What do you think?" she snapped, "That I'm comfortable strapped to this thing, stuck in a room with the Freak 's pet? What's going on here? He's somewhere near here, isn't he? He's just watching and waiting for one of us to snap, as you cater to his every whim!"

Sally was on the defensive, she knew that that Freak Sherlock had something to do with her being stuck in a room with the boring benign doctor. Maybe it was just scare tactics. Her mind was still slow, adjusting as the drugs were still slowly burning out of her system. She did worry about the syringe that he held, ever twirling between dexterous fingers.

"Well, now that that's cleared up, let's get started, shall we?" John stood up and walked outside of Sally's line of sight. He kept speaking to her as she listened to him rustle about on a surface. "One of the first things I learned in medical school was to always wash my hands and put on gloves before doing any procedure on my patients." The sink turned on. "We wouldn't want me to expose my patient to any sort of bacteria;" he continued calmly "they might get a deadly infection."

Sally tried to ignore the sinking feeling in the base of her stomach; Doctor Watson had always been normal, safe even. He might have had bad taste in friends, but he certainly wasn't a psychopath like the Freak.

"What are you doing?" she asked, becoming more frantic as he started searching for a prominent vein in her exposed wrist. "Untie me right now! If you do, maybe we can work something out and only your psychopath of a flatmate will have to be arrested."

"See, this is what you need to learn. Sherlock isn't a psychopath, haven't you ever listened to what he told you and done your research? It's really quite fascinating, the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath." Tapping the syringe to clear out the air he got ready to inject the slightly opaque liquid into her wrist.

"STOP, don't you dare! Doctor Watson, John, Stop!" She struggled violently as she tried to move her sluggish, restrained body away from the needle. His deft doctor's hands slid the small needle smoothly into her skin as she protested "No, no, no, No, NO!"

"Oh, calm down, Sally," John's voice still calm, but now with a cruel condescending edge to it as he sent the liquid spiraling into her veins "it's only a general anesthetic, with a few beneficial side effects. You won't remember a thing of this tomorrow. Now, go ahead and struggle all you want, it will just quicken your pulse and further the spread of the drug."

Sally's mind began to swim, her mind almost sharpening with her adrenaline rush, even as it slowed further from the newly administered drug. Gradually she began to notice, that while her mind slowed, she could still feel her limbs, just not control them. Doctor Watson stood in front of her once again, setting down the syringe and picking up a scalpel.

"Since you refuse to do as Sherlock asks, and research the issue, I've taken it upon myself to inform you of the difference between what you call Sherlock: a psychopath; and what he really is: a sociopath." Once again he began twirling the shining instrument. Sally could see the lights in the room in the glinting reflection, smooth like a mirror of metal. John continued to speak, pacing on front of her.

"You see, there is really only an outward difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. It is that a psychopath can masquerade as normal person, and will, so as not to be noticed as cold and uncaring by others. A sociopath is aware they are different, but doesn't care and goes about their life offending others and the like, just because they don't bother to hide their differences.

"You, Sergeant Donovan, are acquainted with both a psychopath and a sociopath." John came to a stop directly in front of her. The scalpel continued to twirl. "I've told you who the sociopath is; can you guess who the psychopath is?"

Sally was mesmerized by the spinning blade in Doctor Watson's hand. Her thoughts vaguely drifted, as she momentarily contemplated the lack of a tremor in that now-dexterous left hand. Hadn't that been the hand with the tremor? How strange… Then there were snapping fingers in front of her face. Oh, yes, she had been just asked a question, hadn't she?

"I .. I have no idea," she stammered, "I don't think about that kind of thing." Mind blurred and slow, her observation skills had denied her what was standing right in front of her.

"Well, I suppose your mind has deteriorated so far as to make it impossible for you to deduce it."

He was becoming more and more unfeeling as she watched, his genial, pleasant, unassuming persona dissolving before her eyes. Then, like the final opaque curtain falling, his entire personality changed. Horror wrapped around her heart like a sickening fog, as she looked into the cold, cruel, hateful eyes of the man she once knew as Doctor John Watson.

.

John had lost his patience. Obviously, the dull girl's observation skills were nonexistent. He was finally comfortable, no longer wearing the kind mask that he never dropped when in the presence of others. He stood with a stance showing military rigidity, except for the constant twirling of the scalpel in his hand.

"I am the psychopath."

This just didn't make sense to Sally, who couldn't place the placid, patient man she knew as a cold-blooded mindless psychopath. He wouldn't hurt a fly!

"Now you're going to learn what it really means to anger a psychopath."

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"John, John!" Sherlock rushed into the living room in their cramped, cluttered, shared flat. "Get up! We have a case! Lestrade wants us to go down to Scotland Yard immediately; it seems something happened to Sergeant Donovan last night! She's just turned up there this morning, with some of her memory missing!"

"All right then Sherlock, calm down already!" John carefully got up from where he comfortably had been seated. "I'll just put my shoes on and we'll go."

After a quick ride in a cab, they arrived to see an extremely anxious Gregory Lestrade waiting for them out in front. He gestured for them to follow him into his office.

"Sherlock, look at these pictures and please tell us everything you've got. Other than the common anesthetic we found in her system, we have nothing to go on."

The detective took one look at the pictures and began his commentary. "Ligature marks show she was restrained, but the bruises tell us that she was kept drugged enough to prevent any further damage. They obviously had access to various medical supplies. Is she here? I need to get more data."

"She is," Lestrade replied, "but do be careful, she has no memories of the last 16 hours, which was before she disappeared."

They exited the office, and walked over to where Sally was sitting, shock blanket over her shoulders, staring blankly at the wall.

"Sergeant Donovan!" Sherlock exclaimed, heading over to her quickly, "I need to ask you a few questions, try to jog your memory."

"Well, hello to you too, Frea.." Donovan flinched suddenly, and froze. She had spotted John walk in just as she was once again about to demean Sherlock as usual. Her face paled, taking on a sickly-green pallor as she swallowed heavily. "Sherlock," she amended. "Doctor Watson," she whispered.

Sherlock looked at Donovan, and then he looked at John. He watched as the more she looked at him, the paler she became. He saw a brief flash, as John dropped his friendly façade for a millisecond, of a dangerous cruelty hidden in those steel-gray eyes.

His eyes widened as he made the clear deduction as to the cause of her faintness.

John smiled. "Hello Sally, how about we do a quick exam, make sure you're okay?"