Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author Note: Set after the series two finale episode 'The Reichenbach Fall'. A slice of alternate canon.
UNREASONABLE DOUBT
It didn't feel like winning. Okay, so some part of Sally viciously rejoiced when the whole Moriarty mess spilled out and proved what a nasty freak Sherlock Holmes really was. But that was before Moriarty killed himself, before Sherlock did too.
Sally had wanted to believe that Sherlock had killed Moriarty, only it was the definition of a suicide shot. The press still howled for justice though because Sherlock had turned out to be a fraud and now, they claimed, he had blood on his hands too. Only Sherlock was dead. It was the only answer that his big brain had been able to come up with.
It didn't feel like winning.
John hadn't been inside the police station since, and he only really talked to Lestrade now. Sally had seen them walking towards the pub together, walking like soldiers. Something twisted in her chest, but she'd been right, she and Anderson had been right about Sherlock. That had to mean something, despite the bodies and the terrible demanding press, it had to mean something.
Anderson had been smug about it, happy even for a while, though the suicides had taken some of the shine off that. He'd muttered something, well away from Lestrade's hearing, about Sherlock finding a way to ruin everything even now. Sally had almost agreed with him.
She spent even more time with Anderson now; they drank frequently and still slept together more often than not. Sally worked to ignore how often Anderson spent nights with his wife too, and how talk was spreading that Lestrade's wife was seeing somebody on the side again. Thinking about that always made something shameful and furious bubble up inside of her.
Lestrade didn't treat her any differently; he still commended her on her work, thanked her for the long hours she put in, and commiserated with her when their weekends were eaten up by the job. He wasn't like some of the others who left therapy leaflets on her desk and acted like it was her fault, the way the department was being scrutinised for letting Sherlock Holmes in in the first place. She'd heard the rumours, that Lestrade could lose his job, that all the cases Sherlock had helped out on were going to be reviewed. It really didn't feel much like winning.
A man started visiting Lestrade's office – very smartly-dressed, always with umbrella in hand, a piercing stripping look in his eyes that reminded her for a splinter-sharp moment of Sherlock. But the man was polite to everyone so any Holmesian likeness dissolved right there. He visited Lestrade, despite the Inspector hating anyone in his office these days. They seemed friendly enough, there were no raised voices and once Sally saw Lestrade getting into a car with the man, a very nice black Jaguar.
She raised significant eyebrows when she next saw the stranger leave Lestrade's office, the Inspector himself trailing out too to get another cup of what passed for coffee. Lestrade looked a little closer to both healthy and himself after the stranger's visits, which could only be a good thing considering.
"He's helping me with the upstairs situation," Lestrade replied to her eyebrowed-question.
Oh, well, he had looked like the management type. Anderson had snarked more than once that the man probably made twice as much as they did for doing half the work. Anderson had also been turned down twice by the pretty brunette who sometimes accompanied Lestrade's friend. Sally could have told him that that was obviously on the horizon – the girl was way too invested in her Blackberry.
And Lestrade had some help with his...job problems, which was good. Sally said as much and Lestrade nodded slowly, then more decisively as he poured himself a coffee. "I think so, well I hope so. Any help's good at this point."
That was all he said, but Sally mentally categorised the suited stranger and his frequently-propositioned assistant as Good People To Have Around, seeing as Lestrade almost smiled properly after a visit. God, how long had it been since he'd actually looked happy?
Then everything went to shit.
First Lestrade called her in for a meeting, with Anderson. He looked greyer than usual, sort of drained and crumpled in a way that could only mean Bad News. He handed files to them both and carefully explained that Max Bruhl's daughter, the one who'd been kidnapped and who had shrieked with complete traumatised terror every time Sherlock Holmes had been near her, had been attending therapy ever since. Her therapy sessions had included some intensive hypnotherapy by one of the foremost practitioners in the field and the outcome of these sessions had been...enlightening.
The file in Sally's hands said it plain enough – the girl had been conditioned during her kidnapping on a cruel endless loop, her young terrified mind broken down and shaped. It had taken months, but progress had been made on unpicking and getting to the root of the damage done. The girl would need therapy for a lot longer to deal with everything, but some things were becoming clear – one of the reasons that she'd been terrified of Sherlock was because she'd been conditioned to be.
So, yes, he still could have kidnapped her, Lestrade said before Anderson could get there first, but now, there was reasonable doubt.
Those two words made something heavy drop in Sally's stomach. Fuck. Lestrade had wanted them to hear it from him first before the rumours started. The bosses knew and were getting nervy, they'd already had to suppress the news once but they wouldn't be able to suppress it forever. The world would know, the press would focus even more on the police. Fuck.
There were more therapy leaflets on Sally's desk. She flung them into the nearest bin and glared down at it. When that kid had reacted so traumatised and scared, just from Sherlock entering the room, a bright flare of Yes! At last had lit up inside of Sally. Because now people like Lestrade wouldn't keep needlessly protecting Sherlock, yes, he solved cases, but see how dangerous he was? He created cases, he traumatised children, he needed to be dealt with.
Only now there was reasonable doubt.
Anderson almost managed to laugh it off, but he was tense and obvious about the whole thing. Sally squeezed in a weekend with her parents, then a few nights out with some old college friends. Anderson looked like he was getting less and less sleep every time she saw him, and he was growing a beard for some reason.
There were more eyes watching Sally, but she gritted her teeth and knuckled down and kept on doing her job, just like she always did. Lestrade occasionally gave her updates, saying that Sherlock's case was being looked into further. Sally clenched her jaw and thought about how pulling a thread could make everything unravel. She'd seen it happen before and there were rarely any happy endings, especially when the accused was already dead.
John still didn't come into the station. Sally saw him more often with Lestrade, and once or twice with the girl from the mortuary, Molly. There was a grimness about both of them, it was something about their posture, about the way they looked at each other and at the world around them. That friend of Lestrade's was around more frequently too, a strain showing around his eyes and mouth, even his assistant looked tense.
Sally saw the first of the graffiti on her way home one night. It was a bright blue piece on the side of a building, beautiful like someone had spent a lot of time on it and nobody had stopped them.
It read Sherlock was right.
More sprung up after that – I believe in Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty was real, and always Sherlock was right. Sally stared at each piece, wondering who'd done it, who believed that much without the facts, and where were they getting their information?
Pamphlets about how to deal with graffiti appeared on her desk, even though she hadn't mentioned the paintwork to anyone. It was getting past annoying and into unnerving now. But then she was swept up into a serial murder investigation – the killings were done at long-range by a sniper and Lestrade had apparently been talking to John about it, since he'd been in the army. He'd talked to Lestrade about some of the best snipers he'd known and the rumoured legends, which had turned Lestrade onto commissioning some more army research. One of the names that kept popping up was former Colonel Sebastian Moran.
An email offering links to descriptions of Britain's past military presence in India dropped into Sally's inbox. It looked like spam and according to the IT department, couldn't be traced. Sally ground her heel into the carpet and seriously considered going outside for a cigarette. Why was someone sending her a paper trail? Keeping it anonymous didn't exactly inspire confidence. In fact, it was the sort of thing that...
That Sherlock would have done, just to irritate her.
Fuck.
Sally grabbed her jacket and went outside for a smoke and for some quality time spent leaning against a cool wall, soaking in the steadiness. A beautiful black BMW was parked around the corner, just in view. A meaty bloke who just screamed 'here for violence' was behind the wheel and the pretty brunette was sat beside him, staring down at what was probably her Blackberry. She didn't seem at all bothered by Sally's stare.
That unnerved feeling was back, itching under Sally's skin. Any copper who wanted to get up the ladder had to find a way to combine their gut feelings with actual evidence. Sally's gut had been pretty reliable in the past and right now, that regular visitor of Lestrade's felt like a more-than-likely answer.
Sally stomped over to the vehicle; the brunette glanced up at her vaguely. "Yes, Sergeant Donovan?"
That just made the unnerved feeling under Sally's skin scream. She narrowed her eyes. "Tell your boss to stop littering my desk."
The girl smiled slightly. "I assure you my boss is concerned with much graver matters."
Sally was about to say something about coincidental timing when the man in question emerged from the station. He wore a similar smile to his assistant.
"Sergeant Donovan. I trust that Anthea has been helpful?"
Sally glared at him and the man's smile didn't change one bit. It made her think of too many politicians. It wasn't a smile that she'd ever seen him wear around Lestrade. But before she could verbalise anything, the man slid inside the car, his attention completely switched away from Sally now.
"Onto to Mr Campbell."
The driver smoothly manoeuvred the car away, leaving Sally with a level of fury that no cigarette break could cure.
Sherlock was right, Sherlock was right, Sherlock was right.
We believe in Sherlock
It was plastered all over the internet now as well as London's streets. Sally couldn't avoid it. It felt like there was a fresh taunt around every corner.
At work, things were better (or worse). Now that there was doubt cast on the Sherlock case, the IT bods had been taking another deeper look at Moriarty's virtual fingerprint. They'd had to do some serious digging and had found a lot of stuff in ridiculously complicated computer code. It was starting to look like Richard Brook had been a total fabrication, and that James Moriarty, whoever he'd been, had been more truth than Sherlock-created fiction.
Fuck.
Kitty Riley, the journalist who'd first broken the Richard Brook story, was forced to resign and was brought in for extensive questioning. The clamour for the clearing of Sherlock's name was growing. Lestrade's job was apparently looking safer now, as he was the man who'd always claimed that Sherlock was worth any amount of trouble. People were avoiding Anderson and Sally though, and looked at them like they were contagious.
Sherlock was right, Sherlock was right, Sherlock was right.
Right or not, Sherlock was still dead.
Sally opened another bottle of wine.
The leaflets and the emails stopped. Sally was still unnerved. Why had they stopped now? Had they really all been pointing towards Sherlock? Was everything about him?
Anderson was looking rough nowadays; he spent most of his time by himself. He talked to Sally, but he didn't make any sense. He talked about theories and Moriarty and what if he was right? Sally frowned, shaking her head. Not Anderson as well. Fuck.
His wife showed up at work once, talking quietly to him, her hand insistent on his arm. Sally could never look her right in the eye; she never had liked the idea of being second best.
Anderson left with his wife that night. His gaze drifted over Sally, distracted and weirdly obsessed with something else far away. It was almost certainly Sherlock's fault.
We believe in Sherlock
We believe in Sherlock
We believe in Sherlock.
"No one can fault your work," Lestrade told her from behind his desk.
He had less bags under his eyes now and he wasn't trying to bullshit her. Sally sat up a little straighter, having support from the boss felt like a lifeline. He managed a sort of smile, even though he was ground-down, just like the rest of them. The press were still clamouring for answers, now that word had seeped out about James Moriarty. How had the police gotten it wrong? Convenient how the press forgot the knives that they'd gleefully stuck in before, trumpeting the fact that Sherlock was a fraud.
John still wasn't around much, not inside the station anyway. Sally had seen him talking to Lestrade's friend and to Anthea. He hadn't looked completely comfortable, but he'd held his ground, like a good soldier. Lestrade's friend didn't come into the station anymore either, but his car was outside more often than not and Lestrade had been smiling a small private smile a lot recently, the one that he thought nobody noticed.
Sally ran his friend's numberplates but got nothing back in return, because she didn't have the clearance to gain access to that information apparently. What the fuck…?
One day, when the Moran case was dragging especially painfully, she asked Lestrade who his friend was. Her frustration must have bled through because he looked at her askance. He didn't tell her it was none of her business though.
"A friend," he decided on, shrugging like he was apologising for the maddeningly vague answer. "One of the good ones."
Sally wasn't convinced and Lestrade snorted at the look on her face. "Difficult to tell these days, I know, but he's on our side."
He's on your side, Sally wanted to correct him, so she did. Lestrade eyed her.
"Maybe," he allowed. "But he looks at things differently than we do. Good thing too."
Sally's skin prickled and she remembered that look on Lestrade's friend's face, a look that could have been borrowed from Sherlock. She swallowed and reached for the chocolate biscuits. Her stomach curdled and she felt like screaming. Her words came out through clenched teeth.
"Tell me you haven't found another one. Sir."
Lestrade tensed, his expression complicated for a second before it became streaked with lingering grief. He didn't look sorry or worried or apologetic. He took a couple of biscuits from the packet she was holding.
"Mycroft's his own man."
It sounded like a warning. Sally took the biscuits back to her desk, leaving a crackling silence in her wake. The packet was empty by the end of the day.
We believe in Sherlock.
Sherlock was right.
We believe in Sherlock.
Sally was late; she was supposed to be meeting up with a couple of friends at a nearby pub. She hadn't been out with anybody in too long. Anderson was always busy now and wasn't great company anymore anyway. Sally had been too preoccupied and that had to change. The press and managerial higher-ups could keep on being obsessed with Sherlock but Sally had a serial murderer to catch and it felt like she was constantly seeing things through warped glass now. She was sick of it, Sherlock wasn't taking everything.
She was passing a restaurant – posh and dimly lit, full of people in expensive clothes - when she noticed familiar faces inside. Lestrade was wearing one of the good shirts that he only ever wore for commendations and press conferences, and his friend Mycroft, without his umbrella or his assistant for once, sat beside him. He had the sort of posture and manners that the older generation always loved; he definitely wasn't the type to put his elbows on the table.
The other person with them was a stranger to Sally; an older woman with sharp cheekbones and coiled silvery hair. Her deep pink blouse was flatteringly cut and definitely expensive, though not as pricey as the discreet jewels that glittered in her ears and hung around her neck. The three of them looking comfortable together and there was a similarity in the way that Mycroft and the woman moved and gestured. Sally drew back from the window sharply and the woman glanced almost idly towards her. Her gaze was pointed and amused in a way that made a discomforting familiar chill drop down Sally's spine. She turned quickly away.
A large spread of graffiti mocked her from a nearby street corner, beautiful green lettering; someone had spent a lot of time on it. We believe in Sherlock.
Sally stared, that familiar chill still working through her. She almost called Anderson, but what good would that do? He was off in his own little world now. She couldn't call John, and Lestrade...Lestrade was having a good evening.
As she headed towards the pub, towards a meet-up that she was now very late for, her phone beeped - new message received. A couple of seconds later it beeped again, then again. It hadn't done that for a long time, not since…
The chill only intensified. Sally stopped dead, and her fingers were tense and trembling when she reached into her pocket to grasp her phone.
-the end