Greg Lestrade is a film buff.
-"What You Don't Know About Greg Lestrade"


It wasn't widely known, but Greg Lestrade's birthday was July 9th. They never kicked up much of a fuss at the station. He'd made some offhanded comment a bunch of years ago about how embarrassing it was to be made the centre of attention for something silly like being born. So after that, the birthday recognition was subdued – they would usually buy him lunch, or a box of doughnuts, or a gift card to his favourite coffee place. The whole office would sign one of those vulgar greeting cards and set it on his desk before he came in.

Greg Lestrade didn't really have friends, though, so that was his entire birthday celebration. Condensed into a greeting card printed with some crude joke about how old he was getting. He didn't mind. It was nice that they cared at all.

Sherlock Holmes was at the station one morning when the card was going round. Sally held it out to him, lips pursed. "Want to sign?" she asked. She looked as if someone had put her up to it. When Sherlock didn't answer right away, she put a pen in his hand. "Hurry up," she said, "before he gets here." She watched him as he signed something illegible, then took back the card and her pen and didn't say anything else to him.

Birthdays had not really occurred to Sherlock before. He hadn't celebrated or even marked the passing of his own since he was a very young child. Honestly, if not for it being printed on his ID card, he might have forgotten it entirely. He looked over at Lestrade's empty desk in the office across the way. There was a small potted cactus plant adorned in a bow sitting next to the card. Sherlock's eyes narrowed. Who in the hell thought that was a good idea?

A few hours later, Lestrade came into the office and accepted his stupid cactus plant and the card and a glazed doughnut. But after all the fuss had died down, he opened his desk drawer and was surprised to find a tiny, plain, twine-bound box sitting there amongst the office junk.

The box contained a season pass to a local theatre called Film Streams, which screened classic movies one night a week for the duration of the summer. The inside of the lid of the box was signed. Enjoy. –SH

Greg Lestrade grinned like an idiot for the next hour.