Because there's a reason for everything. (Or twenty. )
20 reasons Sally Donovan hates Sherlock Holmes:
Because people get killed around him, and he doesn't even care.
He looks at dead bodies at crime scenes without the slightest empathy and for that she could maybe commend his professionalism. But when he sees people die in front of him, around him, for him, there's not so much as a flicker of remorse in those cold blue eyes. And she hates him for that. Of looking at human life like it's nothing. Death follows Sherlock Holmes like a cloud, and people who hang out around him tend to end up dead. She's seen it happen. And not the slightest care from the man who made it happen. He looks at them as though they should be willing, should be proud, even, to die for him and his work. It makes her wonder how long John Watson has left.
Because he acts like she has no right to be there when it's the other way round.
He is the trespasser here, invading her territory, lording over it like he's owned it all along. He shunts her out of her own kingdom. She hates him for that too.
Because he killed her boyfriend.
His name was Mark Evans, and he was sweet and funny and mild, brown-blond hair and shining eyes, the type your mother wants you to go out with, the type Sally Donovan never ever has. Sally's never had the most commendable taste in men, and she's not sure how they ever fell for each other but somehow they did and it worked, and it was beautiful. He was a reporter, but he wanted to be a poet, and he wrote her poems. Sally's never had a man write her a poem before in her life. The idea is disgusting and sentimental, but he's turned her the same and she loved it. For the first time in her life she felt special, which should have been the first hint that it would all go to hell in the end. Because when Mark meets Sherlock Holmes, he's fascinated. He's obsessed. He hero-worships the man, follows him round like a little dog, begs to be taught the secrets of deduction. Sherlock never brushes him off. Mark feeds his ego, his already over-inflated sense of self-worth - strutting around like he's king of the goddamn crime scene - and he lets her boyfriend trail after him. Mark can't understand why Sally can't see Sherlock like he does. Sally can't understand why Mark can't see him for what he is. And she takes a backseat to Sherlock sodding Holmes for weeks and weeks and one week before Christmas the man who's supposed to be doing the holiday shopping with her - they had a date, and yeah, it was just shopping, but it was a date- follows Sherlock off after a killer and gets shot. And Sherlock doesn't even care.
Because everyone thinks he's so damn wonderful.
The man who can solve crimes in ten seconds flat. Who finds homicides boring. Who knows everything about you from a single glance. Is she the only one who sees that he's not the god he makes himself out to be? He's not part of the team, he's not even supposed to be here, but every accomplishment of his is to be celebrated. The great Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. Sherlock's not the man Lestrade sees, the man Mark wanted. She tries to explain that before someone else gets hurt, before John- who worships the ground on which Sherlock walks -ends up dead, but they're all too busy basking in the glory of this man who can do anything.
Because he's Greg's son.
Sally doesn't have a dad anymore because the man who told her to always be brave and keep her chin up fell into depression and died. Lestrade's the one who led her by the hand to something better than what she had, who looked at that little black girl with the dead mother and the eating disorder from the poor family and saw something better. She owes him her everything, she suspects everyone at the Yard owes him something- Greg and his crushing hugs and his warm rough hands. She prides herself on being one of his closest friends. But Sherlock is his son. Bloodline doesn't matter. One look is all you need to know that they're father and son, though they look nothing alike. Greg will do anything, anything, for Sherlock. The detective slips once and calls him "dad" while he's barking orders, and the look on Sherlock's face when he realizes is one of acute mortification. But Greg smiles like it's the happiest day of his life, and the love in his eyes is so potent that Sally can't look at the pair of them.
Because he thinks he's a god.
They all look at him with reverence and awe, and he thinks he deserves it. He thinks they should drop everything to tend to his every whim. She wonders if Mark was happy to die in his name. If he found it an honour in some awful twisted way. He'd love that, the egotistical bastard. Looking down on her, on everyone, the entire of Scotland Yard a joke to him, something to be laughed at, all of them struggling to be even half the detective he is. He thinks they're useless, worthless, and he doesn't keep that opinion to himself, either. He thinks they're all insects to him, not just the Yard, the whole human race, and she hates how he paints himself as above everyone else.
Because he has perfect hair.
Petty, yes, but every black-brown curl falls into place in the way that drives her absolutely mad because she's hated her own hair her whole life and the fact that his is so damn perfect makes her hate him all the more.
Because Greg is so proud of him.
Sally used to try to make people proud. Back when she was a kid. She'd try to run the farther, jump the highest, bring home the best grades to make her mum and dad smile. Then she turned round and did her best to make them disappointed in her. She didn't study for tests. She went out with the filthiest guys in school. And it's only now that she works to make people proud again, to make Greg proud of her. To get that smile of pride from the one person she has left to look up to. So she works her hardest, and still that smile is reserved for Sherlock, for doing nothing at all. For not doing something bad. For showing tiny bits of human compassion that people should just be born with, that's what makes Lestrade proud. Sally works and works and can't make Greg look at her the way he looks at Sherlock, and she hates him for that.
Because it's against the law to consult him, and no one else seems bothered by this.
She is an officer of the law, and she's breaking it every day because Greg wants Sherlock in on their crime scenes. All her instincts tell her this is wrong. She's considered reporting it, but even she wouldn't stoop that low. And she can't bear to think of Greg's face if she did.
Because he at least knows his brother is alive.
Her big brother took off running the second he was old enough to get out of the house. He left her at home with the ruins of a life and just ran away from it all. Joined the army. She wrote pages and pages to him and got paragraphs back. One year he stops writing. She never gets discharge papers, or a notice apologizing for her loss. Maybe he's alive, maybe he isn't, but she hasn't heard from the boy who taught her how to whistle and protected her from bullies in years and it hurts and she hates Sherlock for having a brother that cares about him so much.
Because she wishes she could lock her emotions away like that.
It must be nice to be a Sherlock, not caring. It must be nice to be strong.
Because he makes Greg worry.
She sees the toll Sherlock takes on the DI, sees him pacing back and forth in his office when Sherlock hasn't called in awhile, burying his face in his hands in fear and distress, pulling his hair out in clumps as he worries and frets over this man who gives him every reason to worry without effort made to console him. "Stop that." she says, as Greg pulls at his hair, breaking off strand after strand. "You're already gray. You don't want to go bald too." Greg looks hurt and Sally feels like the bad guy.
Because he knows everything about her.
She wants to lock her past away inside, and he lays it all out for the world to see. The most minute of details, and he knows, because of the way she buttons her shirt. Sherlock knows her better than anyone else, and she hates it.
Because Greg would die for him without thinking about it.
"How much do you trust him?" she asks. "I would die for him." says Greg, and he says it with such complete honesty and conviction that it never occurred to her to doubt it. A year later, he almost does. It makes her sad because Greg's done so much, and he thinks the life of this pretentious detective is worth so much more than his own. And it makes her afraid because no one on earth could stop Lestrade taking that fatal bullet for him if the time ever comes, and certainly not her.
Because he's bloody rich.
She's never had much money to go on. She still doesn't. And she's okay with that. But him, flaunting his money like the girls who mocked her clothes at school and pushed her down in the schoolyard. So what if she doesn't spend money on clothes? There are more important things - not that she has money for those either. She accidentally - and it is an accident, because she'd never do it on purpose - touches his scarf once and he tears it away from her. "Dolce and Gabbana" he says, "Don't dirty it." As though her touch alone spreads filth. Dolce & Gabbana means nothing to her. So she's not sure why it hurts so much that she'll never be able to afford it.
Because he announces her romantic exploits to the world.
Her mum called her taste in men disgusting, and she was right. And Sally even knows it. She locks eyes with Anderson over the corpse of some poor kid in an alleyway, and he's the most repulsive ponce of a guy she's ever met, and he's married, and for some damn reason it makes her want him all the more. She feels guilty and disgusting and dirty for it, but she doesn't stop. She's been with a whole bunch of filthy slimy idiots, a lot of them married, and somehow it's an act of defiance, but god only knows who to. And every time, Sherlock knows and tells everyone. Whatever self-loathing she feels for it, Sherlock has no permission to lay it out in front of all the world, open up her insecurities for ridicule. But he does, and she hates him for it.
Because he knows why Greg is sad, and he can make it better.
Greg's always sad, and she can see it in his eyes, but there's days when he's sadder than usual, when he snaps at people without reason, sits at his desk with his head down. She wants to help, the way he helped her. She wants to make him happy. She doesn't know what makes him so sad, but Sherlock does, Sherlock can see it in a matter of seconds. And somehow he manages to put Greg back in a good mood again. Sally wants to know what it is that makes him so upset, but she doesn't want to deduce it. She doesn't have to. She's Greg's friend. She doesn't have to read it off his coffee mug and his ballpoint pen and the laces of his shoes, he'll just tell her. Except that she keeps waiting. And he doesn't.
Because he's a bully
Sherlock Holmes wasn't the only one bullied in school. He wasn't the only one who they hollered "Freak!" at when he passed in the halls. She grew up being pushed around on the playground, having kids spit on her and pull her hair and push her in the dirt. She's been tripped in the cafeteria, pushed into lockers, and had racial slurs shoved in her face. In high school they started rumours about her, and that was even worse. They called her slut and trash and wrote horrible things on the bathroom walls. The popular girls laughed at her. She had no friends and she stopped caring. You'd think Sherlock would have learned something from his tormented childhood, but he's just as bad as the rest of them now. He bullies her. And you'd think she'd have learned something from her's, but she retaliates right back. He's a bully. She's a bully. Sally hates bullies more than anything.
Because he treats her like dirt.
She's grown up being treated like dirt, because of her gender, and the colour of her skin, and oftentimes for no reason at all. He looks at her as something to be disgusted by, like she's a cockroach on the floor. Like she's nothing. He laughs at her, scoffs at her, ignores everything she does, everything she is. He treats her like nothing important at all. He doesn't even look at her as a human. And John's started treating her the same way, this man she hardly even knows, and it hurts. Her name is Sally Donovan, and she is not a cockroach, and she is not a piece of dirt, and she is not nothing. She is a person. But Sherlock won't acknowledge that, and that's why she hates him.
Because she's grateful for him.
For making Greg smile. For making the sadness in his eyes ease just a little. For being the son he needed so desperately, putting that lightness in his step and his eyes. Greg is her best friend, and she owes him her everything, and she can never pay him back. So she's grateful he has Sherlock. To give him what she never could. To make him happy. She hates that.