It didn't seem that long ago that Greg was having Christmas at Baker Street while Sally endured almost constant cop jokes at her brother's house, texting him under the table knowing that he would never respond but feeling better knowing that he would share her pain. That's what they did, Donovan and Lestrade. They shared each other's burden.
Greg's dissolving marriage had weighed on her every day as she watched it take its toll on him. She was a keen observer and she knew her friend well, but even a stranger could see that he wasn't sleeping and had gained a newfound appreciation for any and all pastries. Still, at least she had managed to get him off the drink before that particular addiction got too bad.
She'd give almost anything to go back with the knowledge she had now, to prevent everything from happening the way it had. She had watched silently as Greg went through the motions, heard words pass over his lips that meant nothing as he tried to brush aside his pain. Some of them believed it. They believed it all.
The papers, that he had been a fraud, that Greg's only regret about his association with him was that it had almost gotten him demoted. Sally wanted to grab them by the shoulders and shake them until it hurt, wanted to scream at them because couldn't they see that it was all a lie. He wasn't a fraud and Greg wasn't okay. But Greg wouldn't want it so she held her tongue because it wasn't her truth to tell.
It had almost killed her when she'd voiced her concerns about him, when he had done so much with a footprint. Anyone could have come to the same conclusion. No, anyone would have come to the same conclusion if they were in her shoes. How could they not? After the microwaved eyes, and strange death of the cab driver that had never been solved, and the way he only really smiled whenever he was surrounded by death and destruction and sadness.
If she'd thought the way Greg looked at her when she gently suggested that maybe he had been too good to be true it was nothing compared to the pain in his eyes after the meeting with the superintendent.
It had been like a crippling kick in the stomach when she saw the weary sadness creeping through the cracks in his mask after he escaped from their custody. But those expressions were nothing compared to utter devastation on her best friends face when he had answered that phone call. That image would be seared into the front of brain until eventually she took it to her grave.
She still had nightmares about that day. She didn't think it was possible for Greg to look so heartbroken. By chance she had been checking in on him when the phone rang. By the time his face had gone from afraid to shattered she'd already closed the door and all the privacy blinds without a word.
She had sat there and held his hand, waiting patiently until he was ready to speak. She listened intently and without judgement as he went through emotions ranging from anger to misery to near hysteria, passing him tissues when he needed them.
She didn't know why he had done it, but she wished that he hadn't. She had been to nearly 2 dozen funerals in her life, huge events to say goodbye to persons cut down in their prime doing their duty, but none of them came closer to the emotional intensity of the small memorial for him.
Sally never pretended to understand the easy reliance on him that Greg had developed, always stood by him when push came to shove no matter how often she voiced her concerns otherwise.
But being in a small room with a handful of people who truly cared for a man who had so few friends was more confronting than Sally would have liked to admit. She was sad at his passing, but somehow the strength of the feelings of those around her was such that their grief became her grief until she didn't know where her thoughts ended and theirs began.
Then Greg's wife had finally left him and Sally had to force him to move in with her to make sure that he didn't fall back on the drink. It wasn't until a few weeks later, when the rawness of the emotional wounds had faded and the anger was gone that Sally broached the topic of his being a fraud.
At first Greg hadn't wanted to hear a word of it, but Sally persisted because it was important. He had to see that she hadn't done it out of spite or jealousy, but because every stitch of evidence pointed that way.
'I never blamed you.' He had said simply. 'Sometimes we are forced to face hard truths and god knows, if this had been true it would have been hard.' Greg didn't let her say anything more on the matter and she knew she was forgiven.
She'd even apologised to John but he'd said something about hiding small untruths in large quantities of fact, and sowing seeds of doubt, and she knew that there was no hostility between them. Not about that anyway.
It was going to be Christmas soon. Sally was dreading it. It was going to be the first one since he had gone, and his wife had left. It was going to hurt, because Greg would be miserable and Greg's misery was Sally's misery.
Now, every night as she laid down to sleep she prayed to any god who would listen, to bring back Sherlock Holmes so that her best friend could be whole again.