So I was watching the Sign of Three for like the 9th time and I suddenly got hid with unavoidably Sally Donovan feels that simply had to be acted on, resulting in this Sally!centric hiatus once shot.
Reviews and concrit always very welcome.
Sally Donovan is not in the habit of apologising.
All her years of battling back relentless tides of belittling comments and hasty judgements have made her thick-skinned and stubborn – like any cop worth their salt (and Donovan is a damn fine cop, she sees no point in being coy about it), she trusts her instincts, and learned out on the field to stick by them. Even when the squad's random He-man told her that her hunches were ridiculous. Especially when the squad's random He-man told her that her hunches were ridiculous.
However, underneath her protective armour of swagger and snark, Sally is at heart a reasonable woman, and while she may have fallen out of the habit of apologising for her mistakes, she is still prepared to admit when she is wrong. And she knows that she was wrong about Sherlock Holmes. The man had been arrogant, self-righteous and patronising... but he hadn't been a criminal. He may not even have been a psychopath, not entirely.
The fallout from Sherlock's plunge from St. Bart's had been immense, almost uprooting the entire division, and for several weeks after Sally had stuck to her guns. He was insane, she'd tell herself over and over, he got found out and he couldn't handle it. He got what was coming to him. She may have continued on in this calm state of denial forever, but then the clients burst on to the scene: tens, maybe hundreds of people all coming out of the woodwork to say Sherlock had solved their case, that they'd seen his genius first-hand. Sally was first and foremost a cop, and knew how much circumstantial evidence was worth in any trial. She'd seen people exonerated for far less than the tidal wave of testimonies that had followed in Sherlock's wake.
The build-up of doubt within her was vastly accelerated by the fact that Lestrade now refused to look her in the eye. As often as they disagreed, Sally respected her DI, she trusted his opinions. If her were still so convinced...
One night, when they were both working late, she cornered him by the coffee machine.
"How long are you going to carry on pretending I don't exist?" she asked him, never one for beating around the bush. "'Cause this is going to make working on cases pretty damn difficult."
He glowered at her, "Well now we've lost our best asset, I'd say we were all pretty much up shit creek anyway."
Annoyance flared inside her, "Lestrade, maybe you hadn't noticed, but you've got a whole team of highly competent detectives working under you – detectives who managed perfectly well for years before he came along, I might add." she pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Were you really so reliant on Holmes that you can't trust any of us to do our damn jobs?"
"Jesus Sally, I know you never liked the guy, but–"
"No, you're right, I didn't." she interrupted, "I had my reasons, not that you've ever bothered to hear my side of things, but... OK, look, we were wrong. I was wrong, but are you really punishing me for doing our job?"
"Driving innocent people to fucking suicide is not our job!" Lestrade spat, moving as if to shove past her.
She side-stepped, blocking his path, "No, our job is to look at cases from every angle, to ask every question that needs to be asked, to take an impartial view because we're the only ones who can!" she took a deep breath, clamping down her anger, "You can't deny that the circumstances of the Bruhl case looked suspicious. And what do we do when we see something suspicious? We investigate it." Lestrade was staring at her, looking a little shame-faced and like he was finally listening. Sally pushed her hair back off her face. "We never meant for it to go so far." she said quietly, "We never thought this would happen, and maybe I let my own biases cloud my judgement, but if this Moriarty guy really does exist, then do you really think my support – or Phillip's – would have done anything to help Sherlock?"
The two detectives stood staring at each other for a moment, then Lestrade scrubbed a hand over his haggard face. "Christ." he said, "This whole thing is such a fuck up."
He doesn't apologise for taking his grief out on her, and she doesn't apologise for being so quick to condemn Sherlock.
She steers clear of the funeral – she knows that she wouldn't be welcome there by most (hell, Sherlock wouldn't want her there) and she's not sure she can face all those grieving faces, not after the part she played in his downfall (she insists to herself over and over that it wasn't her fault, that she had been manipulated, but some nights she still finds herself losing sleep over it). She's seen John Watson only once since the incident with Claudette Bruhl – down at the Yard a couple of days after the news of Sherlock's death had broken out. He'd looked a mess, and she had quietly cursed Sherlock for it. Why in hell you did what you did, did you have to do this to him? He was a good bloke, that one, and now you've ruined him.
Time passes, the world and the Yard move on, and Sally tries her hardest to move with them. She throws herself into her work, almost single-handedly doubling the department's case closure rate and putting herself on the fast-track to promotion (and if she ever gets an inkling in the back of her mind that this is all in an effort to wash the droplets of a certain Consulting Detective's blood off her hands, she sits herself down and reminds herself firmly that she is Sally Bloody Donovan and this has been her dream since she was old enough to understand what a criminal was). She picks herself up and moves on, rebuilding her relationship with her boss as she goes.
However, not all corners of the world are so eager to forget. Die-hard fans and conspiracy theorists hold Sherlock's name reverently, chattering in corners of the internet about how the whole affair had been a hoax, that one day Sherlock would be back. The notion makes Sally roll her eyes – even in death the man is a superhero incapable of doing wrong. But she can see traces of their fanaticism taking hold around her; Anderson is the first to fall, spinning elaborate theories and letting the ghost of his old rival envelop his life. The two of them had parted long ago, so she hears of his decent into obsession through the Yard's gossip mill and occasional updates from colleagues. He was by no means the only one, and – despite his continual assertion to the contrary – she sometimes catches a flicker of doubt in Lestrade's eyes.
Some days she feels like the only sane woman left in the department.
But if Sally is good at anything it's adapting, so she adjusts to this new world where the late genius bastard is shaping up to pass into folklore, and she carries on the way she always had, with the bonus of having no one question her authority who she cannot pull rank on.
She had stopped thinking about Sherlock entirely, when one November arrived to shake everything up yet again.
Arriving home late one night from overtime, Sally kicks off her shoes and makes herself hot chocolate with marshmallows (a regular after long shifts and hard cases, not that she'd ever admit it – she has a Tough Bitch reputation to maintain after all), slumping down in front of the television and turning it on to a news channel. She's about to flick over (she gets enough murder and muggings thrust in her face at work, thank you very much) when a headline rolls across the screen that makes her freeze in place: Hat Detective Alive.
The very first thing she feels is confusion, and denial. Then, as she sees his name flicker onto her TV, a sudden, boiling anger. All that time she had spent wondering, all those hours of lost sleep, every god-damn officer at the Yard who had been held accountable for his death... Sally wants to throw something at the TV, she wants to haul off and punch him in his stupid, smug face. Instead, she pulls out her phone and shoots off a text to Lestrade: Seriously?!
She knows it requires no explanation, and few moments later her replies: Yes. I've just seen him myself.
For several days Sally fumes, thinking of every time she had felt guilty over his death and gleefully retracting it. How dare he, the utter insufferable git...
Then he shows up at the Yard with John Watson in tow like nothing had ever happened. She observes him from her desk as he talks to Lestrade and can't help but notice something different about him. Something she can't quite fathom, but there nonetheless. Something that almost makes the cauldron of vitriol inside her simmer down.
She removes herself to the break room for some peace and quite and stands watching the kettle boil. She finds herself idly pondering how he pulled the stunt at St. Bart's off and chastises herself for it. Don't give him the satisfaction.
Then the door clicks open and she turns to see him scanning the room. His searching eyes land on her and for a moment he looks almost surprised. "Donovan." he says.
She leans back against the counter, "And here I was thinking you were done playing havoc with all our careers."
He quirks an eyebrow dismissively. "I was looking for John." he says.
"Well he's not in here."
"Clearly." he turns to leave.
"Holmes." she stops him, and he turns back to her looking mildly irritated. She meets his gaze, "For your sake, you'd better have a bloody good explanation for all of this."
"Not one you need concern yourself with." he replies impassively.
"And what about John?" she counters, surprising both of them, "Do you have anything to say for yourself that concerns him?"
"That's hardly any of your business." he snaps, and turns to sweep back out of the door. Then he pauses, hesitates, and turns fractionally back around. "Lestrade tells me that you were instrumental in proving Richard Brook to be a scam. That... thank you. It was very useful."
Sally gapes at him, struck momentarily dumb by hearing Sherlock utter words she'd previously thought him physically incapable of saying. Suddenly she finds herself wondering about the last 2 years, realising for the first time that she and the Yard and John weren't the only ones dealing with the consequences of that June day.
"Welcome back, Freak." she says, slightly startled at the lack of maliciousness in her own voice. Sherlock gives a curt nod and leaves the room.
Obviously, Sherlock begins muscling his way back onto their crime scenes, and Sally finds him no less obnoxious or privileged than she did before. She has a job to do, a life to lead, and she is no more willing to accept Sherlock's bullshit than she was before. But sometimes she thinks she can sense something between them, something that couldn't quite be called a camaraderie. She finds herself ignoring his less cutting insults, and sometimes notices with alarm that he is actually taking on board her insight into the cases.
They'll never be friends – frankly, even professional tolerance is a little too much to ask – but on the good days they can occupy the same worlds without wanting to bite each other's heads off.
For two personalities as strong and as assertive as those of the world's only Consulting Detective and the self-styled Sally Bloody Donovan, that's really the best that can be hoped for.