Seething with anger, Sally took quick, shallow, shaking breaths in and out through her nose. She clenched her fists. Unclenched her fists. Clenched. Unclenched. She was done with that freak assuming she was some dumb bimbo, just like everyone else. And this, the freak thinking she was stupid enough to believe that this new sad excuse for a human body traipsing around her office was ill with some, some cold- This would not do. This would not do at all.
Clenched.
Sally felt her feet pound into the carpet beneath her, but soon realized she was stomping her way across the office; through desks and sergeants in their little suits and dress suits, with their grande mocha cappuccinos, through piles of paperwork and red flag files, straight to the restroom with the sign with the stick figure of the little man on it and before she knew it there was a fist in front of her face, which proceeded to pound into the little stick man, swinging the door open hard. Was that her fist? Had she done that? She had little time to dwell on the matter as she stomped her way into the dimly lit bathroom before finally stopping beside the first sink in the row of sinks. Not much registered in her still agitated state, primal energy coursing through her veins, although she did note the distinct smell of bleach and urine. A part of her, somewhere in the back of her mind, did bother to wonder 'What on Earth am I doing?' Though that thought was pushed away rather easily and quite abruptly.
"You." Silence. "You!" She hissed, her voice gravelly from seething, rapidly growing annoyance. What had she meant? Was she now fighting with bathroom stalls? But no. No, a rustling and then a creaking and then the third stall from the left opened and out walked the freak. Sally could not help but lose some of her fighting power when she saw the state of the consulting detective. Clothes disheveled, eyes bloodshot, and leaning, seemingly breathless against the side of the stall, something was off. Something was definitely off, Sally quickly detected.
"Sherlock-" Had she just used his name? What was happening to her? She knew this would not go unnoticed by Sherlock and wondered what he would make of it.
"Sorry, this was the men's bathroom the last time I checked."
The strangled, croaking voice that escaped the consulting detective's throat surprised Sally so much that she wasn't even irritated by the sarcastic quip that had just been hurled in her direction. The distinctive baritone voice was now gone and those characteristically self-assured eyes were now flitting around the bathroom as if looking for a fire escape amidst a blaze. Sally stood dumb-founded four feet in front of the spectacle, staring, well, dumbly.
"Excuse me, Inspector Donovan. I think it's customary to wash one's hands after using the loo. You don't mind, do you? Are you the bathroom monitor now? Are you going to report me to Lestrade if I use too many paper towels?"
Sally stood for a moment, still stupefied, before moving over a few feet to let Sherlock pass. He proceeded to turn the water on and wash his hands, back now turned from Sally, seemingly through with the conversation.
"Sherlock."
"Oh, what now?!" Sherlock pleaded suddenly, helplessly. The emotion in his reaction surprised Sally but she pressed on.
"Sherlock, were you sick just now?"
"No."
A pause and then - "Were you using in there?"
"In the bathroom of Scotland Yard? Even Anderson couldn't be daft enough to do that. Then again, given that you had that idea, maybe he is."
"What's wrong with you then?" Sally asked, exasperated.
Suddenly, Sherlock spun in a coat-whirling half circle and moved two swift steps in Sally's direction before stopping and fixing her with a mightier-than-though glare that could have frozen any criminal. It certainly froze Sally.
"Nothing is wrong with me! Is something wrong with you?" The deep baritone voice echoed off the white-tiled walls and sped on like a freight train. "Is there no escape from your incessant questioning?! I'm not using anything. I'm not dying. And I'm not in need of your ridiculous hypotheses about my health so if you would please let me use the restroom in peace I would quite appreciate it!"
After the initial shock of Sherlock's sudden outburst and of being reprimanded like a child, Sally stepped forward and stuck her finger right up close to Sherlock's face and fixed him with a glare of her own. "You listen here, freak. I couldn't care less about what kind of illness you have or what you stick into your arm but there are real cases here. Real cases with real human lives at stake. And for whatever strange reason Lestrade has for keeping a psychopath like you around, god knows why, the fact is, he does. I'm not going to just sit here and watch some crack heroin cocaine whatever the hell it is you've mixed yourself up in junkie tinker with all those lives. Contrary to what you may believe, we actually do work here. We save people. And you're selfish insistence on contaminating those cases with whatever the hell- this is, that's not something I'm going to stand around and watch!"
Sally felt that old familiar floating feeling she always got after a particularly well-delivered blow to the freak. She stuck her hands on her hips and turned her cheek from the insufferable bastard. She knew being on her high-horse would be short-lived though, however well deserved it was. It never lasted. It never took too long for the freak to offer a rebuttal, and more often than not (a lot more often than not, if Sally was honest with herself), Sherlock bested her in their back-and-forth battle. Sally gritted her teeth, awaiting the litany of abuse she had coming her way.
Only it didn't come. After the silence stretched for a few seconds too long, Sally glanced at the consulting detective from the corner of her eye before fully turning her face back in his direction. "Oi! Say something then. Let's get this over with."
Only no words came in her direction. Instead, Sherlock seemed to have no reaction whatsoever to her comments for a few moments then, finally, walked straight past Sally and out through the restroom door. Sally stood motionless for a few seconds, confused, before quickly following his lead.
"Where do you think you're going?" The words received a few surprised glances but none of them were from Sherlock. Although maybe it was more a reaction to Sally storming out of the men's restroom like a woman on a mission; Sally wasn't sure. Still, Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. 'Great,' she thought. 'Now I'm shouting at random people. Good riddance he's gone' Sally concluded, before returning to her desk. She was already behind on paperwork.