A/N: This was supposed to be a one-shot to try and practice writing Sally's voice for another story, but I ended up writing a lot more. Sally Donovan (despite the fandom) is one of my favorite characters. Reviews are welcome!
Sally Donovan's drained, turning in the last few files at the police station, when she the woman comes in. Messy dark blonde hair, dark eyes that look gray but are probably some really dark shade of blue, kind of short. She's got her coat collar turned up against the awful wailing wind outside, a pair of what looks like sleeping pajamas (or very comfortable slacks), and a frown on her otherwise beautiful face. It's the kind of face that needs to be comforted so Sally smiles at her.
She ignores Sally and says to the receptionist, "They called me. I'm here to pick up my brother; he got arrested earlier in a drunken brawl at the pub." She sounds tired and annoyed, probably done this before, already reaching into her purse to show proper ID.
"He'll be in the back waiting area where you'll pay the bond," the receptionist examines her ID first and makes a copy of it, then returns to her computer to ask, "Okay, Miss Harriet. And who's your brother?"
"I've been here before; my number should be on file."
"You'll have to state the name of your brother for the record, Miss."
She sighs, "John Watson."
"John Watson?" Sally interrupts the exchange.
Harriet gives her an almost dirty look. "Yes, John Watson, the blogger John Watson. If you've got something rude to say, go ahead and fucking get it out of your system instead of saying it in front of John."
"Oh, no, it's nothing rude… I'm Detective Donovan. I, uh, I worked with Sherlock and John. I've met him before," Sally says.
Instantly, Harriet's expression changes. It becomes softer, she's almost embarrassed. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean it like that. You have to understand, things have been rough for John. Losing his best friend then having to deal with the things people say. Awful things."
Sally can imagine. All the times she called Sherlock a freak, they nag at her. She can't help but think on some level that this is all her fault; the death of one man and the breaking of another. After his suicide, she went over all the case files Sherlock had been involved in and they were all clean. They were real. Sherlock had been real. And Sally was left with the guilt that she had gotten him, her boss, and the ex-army doctor, all in a very deep mess.
Now, she says to Harriet in atonement, "If I can help in anyway, please let me know."
Harriet smiles. "I appreciate that. Thank you. For now, I think I can handle it."
"Oh! Here," Sally says, digging into the pocket of her skirt to find a card. She scrawls her mobile on the back of it with a pen from the Reception Desk. "Call me if I can be of any assistance."
"Actually…" Harriet hesitates as she puts the card in her purse.
"Yes?" Sally prods.
"Do you mind if John doesn't see you while I'm bringing him out. It's just that he doesn't like when anyone sees him, you know, like this. Especially not a coworker. It'll save him the embarrassment," Harriet shrugs. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was a big deal."
"I get it, that's all right, really. I was just leaving anyway. Pleasure to meet you, Harriet," she adds, holding out her hand for the other woman to shake.
"Just call me Harry," she replies. Her hand is warm, steady; her grip surprisingly powerful.
"Sally," the detective answers. She flashes one more smile for the pretty lady, then Harry's walking down the hall to the holding cells.
Sally fulfills her promise and waits outside and out of sight by the corner of the building, keeping an eye on both the entrance and the parking lot. The wind has gotten worse and she doesn't have any hairties for her frizzy hair and she's cold, but she wants to see John. Her guilt bubbles up until it's difficult to swallow; she thinks of Greg calling 221B Baker Street to check up on the doctor, of the many files pending because the Met wasn't genius enough to solve them. She thinks of Mycroft Holmes, the terrifying and overwhelming, spending hours in Lestrade's office to reveal all the threads of James Moriarty's web and shut them down with scary efficiency.
Sally hadn't cared of the lives she had hurt when she took her suspicions to the Superintendent. So she stays.
The door opens eventually, spilling light and noise onto the street. Harry, skinny and short Harry who's certainly at least a head shorter, has her brother's arm slung around her shoulders. He's ranting about something angrily, his drunken tongue stumbling nearly as bad as his legs. Harry's practically carrying him out to her car. She's saying something to him in a soothing voice, though Sally can't make out what it is. They pass Sally and she crouches. Her heart is beating too fast, mouth dry and sweat springing up on her forehead. What is she doing? Hiding from them to spy on them?
They don't seem to spot her anyway, making their way through the abandoned parking lot. The siblings pause at her car while Harry struggles to hold John upright and simultaneously dig through her purse for keys.
John takes the moment to yell, "And then I punched him and said 'FUCK YOU, HE WAS REAL!' right to his face!" He mimics punching an invisible enemy, falling out of Harry's arms and hitting the ground painfully. Even Sally flinches from her hiding place.
"Oh, fucksake, Johnny. Pull yourself together," Harry says, kneeling beside him.
John lay's on his back and slurs, "There's nothing to pull together. I'm all here and I'm all gone."
Sally joins her brother on the concrete, at first sitting and looking up at the stars, eventually letting her head touch the ground as well. They stare up and Sally strains to hear any conversation between them. There doesn't seem to be any, and if there is, the wind eats it up.
Then the wind quiets down and she does hear, Harry is talking, saying, "…and now the roles are reversed. I've finally found my place in the world and you've lost yours. But I'll be here for you, just like you were there for me. And- unlike you- there are no wars that can take me away from my big brother."
Sally can't feel her toes anymore, her nose and ears have gone numb from the wind, and it feels like her knees are bruising against the wall. But she keeps her head leaned forward in hopes of hearing more. She wants Harry to speak more reassuring words. She wants to hear them and imagine that they're for her. Tears are welling up in her eyes, making it difficult to see their silhouettes under the harsh fluorescent streetlamps.
But there are no more words. Just John and Harry, looking up and sharing the silence in the wind.
Finally, she hears Harry say "Okay, now sober the fuck up and get in the car. I'll run you a bath when we get home and we'll pretend this was another one of those 'Watson Temper' things that never happened."
The way she says Watson Temper makes it seem like a regular occurrence. Sally is suddenly much more fascinated than she should be in the life of the doctor and his sister.
This time, there are no complaints from John as Harry stuffs him into the car. Headlights flash in the dark, the engine rumbling with a particular exhausted strain, and the pair disappear down the street. Sally stays there long after they've left until her entire body is sore and cramped, face chapped by the wind, and hair tangled so that'll take centuries to brush out.
She gets to her feet and the sudden rush of blood is painful, nearly paralyzing. Sally leans against the wall and struggles to maintain her balance. Carefully, she totters a few steps forward and gains confidence. The detective makes her way to the car on legs that don't feel like legs.
Harry hasn't called. There are a million things wrong with a missed phone call, and Sally is blaming all of them on herself.
I scared her off. I was rude and a total bitch. I wrote my number wrong. My handwriting was too messy. She lost my card. She's extremely busy with work and her brother. She isn't the least bit interested in women- or at least not me. Something happened- someone's hurt. John told her all about how I'm the one responsible for Sherlock's suicide. She knows about my drunk one night-stand with Anderson.
The longer Sally waits, the more implausible and ridiculous the theories became until Sally is completely desperate for a call. I can't be that bad. Of course she's justified in hating me as much as she wants, but I'm not that awful.
Even Greg notices, wondering why she was checking her mobile constantly, even at a crime scene.
"Oh- sorry, I was just… erm, my mum was supposed to call…"
Greg definitely notices her stammering but says, "It's alright, Sally, I was just asking."
She puts her phone away, scolding herself as a fucking retard and returning to work. That it is actually possible to become this enamored with a woman she only met for five minutes seems unlikely to believe. Sally keeps trying to find a rational solution for it.
Eventually, she finds herself searching police records for Harriet Watson. Her information comes up with a phone number, but when Sally tries it, an operator tells her that this number has been disconnected. In a last effort that borders obsession, Sally realizes where she can find an updated number and returns back at the station's holding cells, asking the receptionist for last month's records. "Regarding a case," she lies cleanly.
They're already arranged in alphabetical order, all Sally has to do is flip to the very end and find Watson. And there she is, her face on the drivers ID in a slight smile, hair definitely longer, looking younger even though the ID's still recent.
Sally takes a photograph of the ID with her phone and returns the records.
She goes home and takes off her work boots and coat and sits on the sofa, staring at the number until she's unwittingly memorized it. Sally isn't sure why Harriet has become such a focal point in her life. She tries to justify it: I want to be sure John is okay. I find her attractive.
She realizes: I want her to forgive me. She's the one dealing with John and his heartbreak, and she's doing it because of me. Because I refused to believe a man could be that much more intelligent than the Met. Because I was incompetent at my job. She is a real person who is in crisis. I have to accept that she is a byproduct of my selfishness.
Sally wants to cry. Of course she does, though she manages to hold back. She's never been comfortable with accepting blame. When she was just a beginner, one of her friends she worked with had gone to a hostage situation. She had happened to be lucky enough to stay back that day, busy with paperwork and bored. Wanting to be out there in the field doing actual work.
Her friend came back on a stretcher under a white sheet, dead.
Sally still thinks about it on days she can't get to sleep; or perhaps she can't sleep because she's thinking about it. Being down there in the morgue, everything around her cold and sterile and dead, asking to see his body one last time. He hadn't looked angry or sorry. Just sad, sleeping permanently. And she could've been lying in his place, hair spread out like a halo, just as dead as he was.
Now she wants someone like Harry to talk to her, whisper in her ear that it wasn't her fault, that she was only following protocol. No matter how awful Sherlock had been to her in the past, she had no right. Her little vendetta had extended far past detective work.
And protocol doesn't change the fact that I've caused a man to kill himself. I made his best friend lose himself in alcohol. I've taken away Scotland Yard's most valuable tool and Lestrade's most trusted detective.
Is she jealous? She doesn't have anyone to hold her at night or bring her warm tea. Anderson might be a complete wanker, but he is married. Not happily- but still. At least he goes home to a human body that takes his coat and kisses him. John's got his sister.
At first, she had taken her problems to Greg. He had sympathized and told her not to take it to heart; that she wasn't to blame. Of course his conscience was clean, though, he had practically helped Sherlock escape. And after his conversations with Sally, Lestrade always goes home to his ex-wife and tucks in his children, reads them bedtime stories and teaches them to play football.
Sally comes home to an empty flat, washing down leftover food with lager.
Sally dials the number and her thumb hovers over the green key on her phone. She stares at it. Waiting for inspiration, hoping it will ring by itself. It does neither, leaving the decision on her mind alone. In the end, she decides to call. At that very moment, she realizes it is suddenly 3 AM.
And now she has found an excuse not to call.
She falls asleep on the sofa and wakes up three hours later when her alarm screeches into her ear, a warning that the world has not stopped to accommodate her whims and shortcomings.
Lunch break, she manages to make up some bad excuse to get away from Anderson and walks to the café across the street. The sun feels nice on her bare arms, work is tolerable (but just barely), and her phone is in her hand. She finds a spot to sit, orders fish and chips, nervously squirms in her seat. Should she call?
Sally almost decides against it except she does.
Hears it ring in her ears and tells herself, it's too late to hang up now; you'll only look like a demented creep if you leave missed calls. Then she hopes, please don't let John pick up.
"Hello?" A distinctly female voice; not John, then.
Sally sighs mentally and forces her voice to be normal, "Harriet? Harry Watson? It's Sally."
"Oh! Um, Detective! How are you?"
"I'm good, doing great. How about you? How did things go with John?"
"John's fine. He started his old job at the clinic again yesterday, so with any luck he'll be staying out of trouble from now on," she chuckles.
The throaty sound relaxes Sally. "That's amazing news!"
"Yeah, actually, I think he should feel better about his old friends visiting him. You know, as a way to support him. Let him know they're still there for him. I'm sure it would cheer his spirits up."
Sally feels the relaxation dropping away abruptly. She sits up in her booth and says, "Well, things are a bit busy for me at the moment, I don't think I can drop by anytime soon."
"Well, whenever you're free. No rush."
"I'll see. But all my best wishes to John in the meantime, of course."
"Of course," Harry says. There's a pause, then she talks again but her voice is lower and no longer affable, "One person has come to see him. Since Sherlock… well, since what happened. One person. Mike Stamford was over for a few minutes. Molly Hooper and Greg Lestrade called. A total of three people showed any concern. I'm glad everyone realizes how tragic this is. Goodbye, Detective."
And suddenly, Sally's left talking to no one. By the time her food arrives, she's lost her appetite.
[3 missed calls.]
[Message Sent: I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or John. I really am busy; with our best man gone, things at the Met are hectic. -SD]
[Message Sent: Harriet? I just want to talk, would you mind picking up? -SD]
[2 missed calls.]
[Message Sent: I apologize. I just don't think I can face John yet. Someone from Scotland Yard would probably only make it worse for him; after all, aren't we responsible? I'll stop bothering you. -SD]
[Message Received: No one thinks Scotland Yard is responsible for what happened. Why would you have trouble facing John? He needs a mate. -HW]
[Message Sent: Can we please meet tonight? I'll try to explain. -SD]
[Message Received: Alright. I can drop by after work. But I'll be expecting answers. –HW]
[Message Sent: Thank you so much. I'll send my address. –SD]