A/N: I own nothing. This story is my submission for the November Ladies of Sherlock Challenge: Career Day and was inspired by a conversation with saathi1013
There were some who'd said that the only reason Sally Donovan went to the Chief Inspector about Sherlock Holmes was because she was angling for Lestrade's job. Those people were almost all rookies. Because a veteran would know that one of the number one rules in police work is that you don't go over your superior's head, no matter what.
For Sally Donovan, "no matter what" ended when two little kids almost died because some psycho with daddy issues wanted attention.
Well, it hadn't turned out to exactly be that, but the evidence was there and Greg should never have even let Sherlock leave NSY that night after that little girl screamed her head off at the sight of him. What the hell was Sally supposed to do?
She hadn't been surprised when she'd gotten suspended and then sacked, the same as the rest of her team, when the shit hit the fan. Everything from her desk in the same cardboard box as everyone else's. Her bank account drying up like everyone else's. Reporters pounding on her door like everyone else's.
There were some who'd said that Sally Donovan probably went down to the pub for a pint the night after Sherlock Holmes plunged from the roof of St. Bart's. They were almost all idiots. Sally Donovan did get well pissed that night, but she did it on whiskey, and she went down to St. Bart's, wearing a bulky hoodie and baggy jeans (Sherlock wasn't the only one who could hide in plain sight) and spent a long time staring at the makeshift shrine that had sprung up almost immediately. She'd stared at the dark stain on the pavement and fought back tears and then gone back to her flat and let them flow, sobbing so loudly that her neighbor came to check on her.
She never wanted Sherlock Holmes dead. She just wanted him to piss off out of her life.
Then, a week ago, that bastard had shown up alive and it turned out that Richard Brook was the fake and Moriarty was real. She'd heard a rumor that he'd interrupted John Watson on a date to tell him he was alive. She didn't doubt it. It sounded just like something that prick would do.
When she heard, she called up one of her few remaining cop friends, who snuck her into the range and let her shoot about a hundred rounds of ammunition, her aim improving in direct proportion to the amount of rage she expended. When she finished, she thought she might be able to go home without punching one of the reporters camped outside her building shouting at her for comment.
She'd gotten well pissed on whiskey, but this time, she sobbed into her pillow.
The next day, even though it was technically still true that Sherlock shouldn't have been used on any of their cases, they were offered their jobs back.
Sally had laughed into the phone and hadn't stopped for five minutes after she hung up. Right before she took the call she'd closed a deal on an account that would allow her to hire twenty new employees and offer job security for her current employees for years to come. Her firm would be the exclusive private security service for one of London's largest banks and all its branches in the city. She had her eye on opening an office in Bristol.
To put it bluntly, going back to New Scotland Yard sounded about as appealing as a hysterectomy performed with a rusty spoon. She'd be damned if she'd let herself be put in position to be someone's pawn ever again.
Her new gig wasn't all sunshine and happy thoughts. She knew that some of her people resented taking orders from a woman. Even some of her women guards called her a bitch behind her back. She'd been called much worse at the Yard. But ultimately she was their boss and in control of their destinies. And she was a damned good boss. Even the loudest of the grumblers would admit to that.
Five days after Sherlock's return, Sally got a call from Greg Lestrade. They last spoke almost two years ago. Lestrade said he wasn't angry at Sally, and she believed him, but their friendship had ended along with their professional relationship all the same. She'd heard through the grapevine that he'd finally gotten divorce and that it had stuck.
Greg asked to meet her for a pint and she said yes before he'd finished the question. She couldn't count how many times she had caught herself halfway through dialing his number, wanting to tell him a story about a stupid client or a brain dead criminal or to gripe about an employee she was this close to firing. She missed him. For five years he'd been the person she'd spent the most time with, and before that, when she was a constable, when she sometimes felt she'd rather hang out with the criminals they apprehended than her own coworkers, he'd been a big part of why she'd never given up.
He gets there first, sitting at a table by the window. She spots him as she walks past and he waves, grinning madly. Once inside, they have a weird moment where she holds out her hand and he goes in for a hug, but they end up hugging with her right arm wedged between them.
"Greg, what the hell did you do to your hair? Did you lose a bet?"
He runs a hand over his closely buzzed head and laughs. "Dougie thought it'd be funny to play with my clippers while I was sleeping. Didn't wake up until he'd mown a path right down the middle. No salvaging it so I buzzed the rest."
"I thought kids were supposed to give themselves awful haircuts."
"Yeah, me too."
They laugh and sip their beers and fall into silence. Unfortunately it isn't the same kind of silence they would lapse into when sitting in a cruiser on a stakeout or working together late at night.
"Well, erm, I hear you've done well for yourself," Greg says after finishing his first pint.
"Yeah. You looking for a job?"
"I'm going back to the Yard. I wanted to say no but I couldn't. Early retirement didn't suit me and I'm not good as a private detective."
"Did you want to meet with me to try to get me to come back?"
He shifts in his seat and stares deeply into his glass as though it holds the mysteries of the universe. "Might have," he mutters.
"Greg. There's no way in hell. Ever."
"Come on, Sally, don't you miss it? How exciting can it be, managing a bunch of rental cops?"
"That's not fair. You know the other shit I dealt with, every day. And then on top of that I'd have a reputation as a tattle tale? No fucking way. Collaring a hundred murderers isn't worth that heat, especially if you're still going to work with him."
Greg smiles. It's that unassuming grin that always put suspects at ease before she swooped in and scared the piss out of them. "It was worth a shot."
"Yeah. It means a lot that you'd ask."
They finish their second pints silently, and it's almost the way it used to be.
"So the other day, one of my men called me up. He works the gate at a posh housing complex. Now this guy is big, masculine as hell. And he's afraid to leave the booth to do his perimeter walk, because there's a frog sitting outside the door to the guard shack. He's so afraid of frogs that he was waiting for it to move, but it wouldn't. So I went out there to scare it away or whatever, and it turns out it was some kid's toy frog he'd dropped."
Greg laughs, a chuckle that turns into a deep belly laugh, and Sally's chest fills with warmth at the familiarity. "Poor guy. It's like Hendricks and chickens. That time we had that body found in that hen house and he had to take leave for a week after."
The third pint goes down like water and small beads of sweat pop up on Greg's forehead. If Sally had come in just now, she would have known it was the third pint just from that.
"Your cheeks are flushed," he says. "Always happens about now. Makes your freckles stand out."
Her cheeks burn even more and she rolls her eyes. "Is that how you woo all the ladies?"
"Just you," he says.
"Greg—"
"Sally, look. Tell me to piss off if you want but I wanted to see you because I miss you and I think that I want to see you. Because I kind of fancy you. And even when I was separated which honestly was most of the time we worked together if you add it all up, I didn't want to go there because I was your boss and it wouldn't have been right, especially with what all those jackasses already assumed. But that's all over now, for good, and I'll never be your boss again and I want to put all of that shit with Sherlock behind us. And ask you to a proper dinner. Just dinner." He picks up his pint glass and drains half of it, looking at her over the top of it with wide eyes.
"Okay," she says.
He sets his glass down hard enough for beer to slosh out and earn a stern "Oi" from the bartender.
"Really?" he says, mopping at the spill with a napkin.
"Why not?" she shrugs, forcing herself to stay casual though her stomach is flip flopping around like a liver she once saw fall to the floor during an autopsy.
And then Greg is out of his seat and bending down and kissing her firmly on the lips, his hands on her cheeks. It's over too quickly and she knocks over her beer and the barkeep tells them to get the hell out and they hurry outside sheepishly. It's starting to rain and they're going in different directions, but they hold hands while they sort out plans for dinner, and then she's hailing a cab and watching him walk toward the Tube station and, well, this is her life now.