I've never disliked Sgt Donovan, but her standards of professionalism with regard to a certain Consulting Detective have always been appalling. So, with a few hints to Sally's back story, I'm letting DI Noor Panesar attempt to sort things out.

Noor Panesar was a happy woman. She was sitting at her own desk in her own office in New Scotland Yard. It may be eight o'clock in the morning and she may be cruising on four hours sleep, but the vanilla latte was hot with an extra shot, the salmon and cream cheese bagel was soft with just the right amount of toasted crunch, and her team had ID'd the driver and vehicle on the Heathrow CCTV. Not only that, but they'd got him meeting other girls off the same flight from Mexico City every month for the last eleven months. They'd also identified the company that owned the vehicle, the driver's place of employment and residence from his driving licence and work visa, and had therefore identified his employer and probable accomplice.

At ten o'clock Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes would give their statements, tying up the loose ends of how Noor had got onto this lead in the first place.

That just left forensics to hopefully provide the final evidence to put a nail firmly in these shits coffin.

Yes, today was looking like a good day.

Until the knock at the door.

Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan entered, her face a picture of barely concealed loathing.

"Morning Sergeant. A good day I think. Quite a result if we can move quickly on the forensics. Dr Watson and Mr Holmes will be in at ten to give their statements. I want you to sit in with me while we take them as they will prove critical to tying this up."

Donovan fidgeted in her chair, her mouth a thin line of anger as though she was trying to stop her thoughts from escaping her lips.

"Out with it." Noor had had enough and wanted to hear what was going on in her bagman's head. She couldn't deal with the situation if she didn't understand it. The bagel now sat like lead in her stomach. She took a swig of coffee, but it was cooling and the syrup tasted sickly and fake. She threw the mostly empty cup in the bin and turned back to the woman who was beginning to seriously piss her off. If Donovan didn't get her head out of her arse soon, Noor was going to ask the DCI to move her on to some other poor sap, or better yet, another division.

"Come on. We've got a busy day, so if you've got something to say, just say it."

"Why did you let that freak into this case?"

Noor sighed and nested her fingers together as they rested on her desk. She could feel the tension building in her shoulders. She felt a pang of sympathy for DCI Lestrade if he'd put up with this all these years.

"I assume you mean Mr Holmes. I listened to him because his deductions were logical at the time and ultimately proved correct."

"But he's a psychopath. He gets off on it. And he has no feeling for the victims or their families. I've seen him reduce grieving relatives to tears just to get information out of them. He's a cold, heartless machine who just does this for the game, and you let him sucker you into letting him on this case."

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Noor's hand stung from where she'd slammed her palm onto the desk. She wanted to shake it out, but having done the unforgivable and lost her temper with her subordinate she was not going to compound the error by showing weakness.

"Firstly Sergeant, he did not sucker me. Dr Watson, a fully accredited Met Consultant, called in Sherlock Holmes, another fully accredited Met Consultant, to look at a case. Secondly, Mr Holmes' logic and deductions were perfectly sound and offered an alternative interpretation of the crime which ultimately proved correct. Thirdly, from what I saw of him, Mr Holmes is by no stretch of the imagination a psychopath."

"How can you say that? I've known him for six years and he so obviously gets off on it. You know he laughs, at crime scenes, with the victim laid out at his feet, and he'll grin and giggle like it's all a big joke. Serial killers are his favourite. He calls them Christmas. He's psycho and should be locked up before he kills someone else, because we've all heard the rumours about what he was doing while he was dead!"

Noor sat back and took a deep breath. She felt sure that this deep seated hatred of Sherlock Holmes was more than just professional jealousy.

"What I saw was a very talented detective. At no point did he treat the body of Ximena Mendez with anything but respect. I saw a highly intelligent man examining the subject and the data to pull together a hypothesis. At no time was his behaviour inappropriate." Taking a breath she phrased her next words carefully. "I take it you've never once laughed at a crime scene, shared a joke possibly at the expense of the victim, drunk a cup of coffee or eaten a sandwich while forensics did their job? You've never taken satisfaction and even elation from pulling together all the different threads of a case and seeing the solution or the key piece of evidence?"

"Of course I have ma'am. But he's different. He never used to get paid, he'd just turn up and flounce around, destroying our evidence."

"Really? I can't imagine Lestrade or any other DI would allow someone onto their crime scene who destroyed evidence or who jeopardised the case. They certainly wouldn't invite them in to consult on a regular basis or write them a personal recommendation for accreditation as a Consultant. Or is DCI Lestrade wrong?"

Sally looked shaken. Much as she'd argued with Lestrade over the years, she'd never once questioned his professional competence, except about … Holmes.

"I think, perhaps, Sergeant, that you have a virtual Sherlock Holmes in your head that you compare the actual man against. It's quite obvious how you see Holmes in your head. You just told me. The unfeeling psychopath who cares for nothing and no-one, who just does this for kicks. And I guess you take pride in telling anyone who listens exactly what you think." Donovan flinched. "Yes, I saw the interviews you gave to the papers at the time he faked his death. Your belief that he'd faked evidence and interfered with crime scenes, even committed crimes himself so he could solve them. You really helped do a number on him. Except my understanding is that a very expensive task force investigated every shred of evidence and every case Holmes had anything to do with and completely exonerated him of any wrong doing. Yet you still persist in believing your mental picture of him instead of looking at the evidence before you. If this is how you conduct police work Donovan I am seriously questioning whether you are in the right job."

Donovan blanched.

"I am going to make a suggestion to you which you can take or leave. The choice is yours. You can come into Mr Holmes's interview with me and ask what questions you like within reason. The only condition is that you must go in with an open mind, and you must seriously consider his answers and behaviour as though he were a total stranger to you. No pre-conceptions, no virtual Holmes. Just a pure analysis of the witness and the evidence before you. Can you do that?"

Sally shrugged. "Do I have an alternative?"

Noor sighed. "Of course. You can go back to your desk, write out your resignation letter which will be on my desk within the hour, hand in your credentials, collect your things and leave the Metropolitan Police with immediate effect. "

Donovan's shock was obvious. Her mouth opened and closed several times before she controlled herself. Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes, but she angrily shook them away.

"The choice is yours Sergeant. Will you be joining me in the interview room at ten, or shall I assign another member of the team while you clear your desk?"

"I'll be there Ma'am."

Sally stormed out of the office and to the ladies loos. She hadn't smoked since her teens but at this moment she craved a cigarette. She thought about storming into Lestrade's office and demanding reassignment. How dare he palm her off on this bitch after all the years they'd worked together. She should be a DI too, not this cow's bagman. Where did she get off on lecturing Sally about Sherlock fucking Holmes, after all the years she'd watched him poncing around crime scenes, more recently with the delusional John Watson in tow telling him how brilliant and wonderful he is. Lestrade was the best DI in the Met with the highest clear up rate. He didn't need the Freak. Like Lestrade and Sally couldn't have solved most of those cases, assuming time and budget constraints hadn't pushed them further down the growing pile of new crimes until they went cold. Oh.

As Sally's anger cooled she began to think more clearly about what DI Panesar had said. Sally knew the Freak got results. She'd seen him sit with a pile of cold cases, some dating back over forty years, and just by reading the reports he could give them new leads, many of which panned out. In some cases he even identified the perpetrator. And she'd seen him at crime scenes, spotting crucial evidence that even Anderson had grudgingly admitted probably would have been missed or ruled insignificant. She'd also seen the results of the Met inquiry after the whole Richard Brook/Moriarty debacle.

Washing her face with cool water, before grabbing a paper towel to dab her still burning eyes dry, Sally stared hard at herself in the mirror over the basin.

"Well Sally, you know he's an arse. He is rude, arrogant and condescending. He swanks around the crime scene like he owns the place and we are his idiot minions, expected to kowtow to his every whim. But is he really worth losing my career over?"

Sally knew that the answer to that was a resounding no. All she'd ever wanted to be was a detective, ever since she'd watched Miami Vice with her foster mum when she was a kid and realised that people her colour didn't have to be only criminals or victims. That there was another choice. A choice that she'd worked damn hard to achieve. And if that meant that she had to sit through a witness interview and only look at the evidence and not at that stuck up git's stupid face then she could do this.

She ran her fingers through her hair, pushed her jacket sleeves up to her elbows, turned up her jacket collar and straightened the waistband of her skirt. Looking at her reflection with some satisfaction she growled "Come on Tubbs, let's do this thing." Before turning on her heel and marching back to her desk and the case.

-0-0-0-

Dr Watson and Mr Holmes sat side by side on one side of the table in the interview room. DI Panesar switched on the tape machine whilst DS Donovan started the video camera recording.

"Witness Statements from Consultant Dr John Watson and Consultant Mr Sherlock Holmes in the matter of the murder of Ximena Mendez. These statements are being recorded and filmed according to Metropolitan Police standing orders. Detective Inspector Noor Panesar and Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan are present. So Doctor Watson, do you want to start?"

John immediately launched into a long and deeply technical description of the victim's arrival at A&E, the triage, the removal of her clothing and her preparation for emergency surgery. His report was detached and almost cold, Sally noted. Not like the man she knew at all. This was the report of a former doctor and Captain with the RAMC, and she was surprised at how unemotional he seemed. This man who called Sherlock Holmes brilliant, who could smile so easily, who could giggle like a school boy or belly laugh until he was bent double, tears streaming down his face, seemed so surprisingly … professional.

"Why did you contact Mr Holmes?"

"Because the Constable who brought her in was wrong. We were triaging this young woman who was fighting desperately for her life, and he was stood the other side of the curtain laughing about her cloths, her brightly coloured boots and saying how, if he was going to do a Sweeny Todd he wouldn't pick the mingers like her. His words, not mine. And he was wrong. I could see at once this was not a random attack. It was obvious that murder was not the primary motive. If he only wanted her dead he would have just slit her throat. Her attacker didn't expect her to survive, after all he left her to bleed out with massive trauma to her abdominal cavity and the early stages of shock on top of a cocaine overdose, but he couldn't be bothered to simply kill her. So something other than murder was the motive. Also the weapon used was unusual and, given the location where the victim was found, was likely a straight razor. Again, if murder was the motive why not take your own weapon. So the attacker needed a knife urgently, but with nothing to hand, broke in to somewhere where he knew he would find what he wanted. All this said crime of desperation and opportunity. The victim was the intended target and her death was not as important as her evisceration. Given that the wounds were obviously made by someone with no medical training, not organ harvesting. My feeling was drug smuggling. I'm sorry DI Panesar, but I don't know you and I didn't want to waste time. I knew it was unlikely the woman would survive surgery, and time was of the essence so I called Sherlock."

"I think you made the right call in this case Doctor, although next time I'd prefer you call me first and I'll call in the Consultants." Noor smirked.

"Yes Ma'am." John smiled and Noor felt certain, if he hadn't been seated he'd have jokily snapped to attention and saluted.

"And her clothes? You supervised their removal and had them bagged for evidence?"

"Yes. Of course all the attending staff were gloved and wore overalls. They know the precedures for handling evidence. I had all her clothing cut from her body so we could assess and begin to treat her injuries. I instructed the nurse to ensure any clothing labels were visible through the evidence bags along with any obvious blood traces. By this time Constable Patterson had arrived with a colleague of his, Constable Okocha I believe, who accompanied the patient to surgery. Patterson stayed with me and the evidence which we secured in my office. When Sherlock arrived he studied the clothing through the evidence bags. As an added precaution he also wore surgical gloves. Constable Patterson was in attendance throughout the examination. When I received notification of the patient's death, Sherlock and I left Constable Patterson with the evidence and made our way to theatre. I believe Patterson radioed in to confirm you were on your way. We were with the body for perhaps three or four minutes before you arrived. Again we were gloved. I don't believe Sherlock touched the body although I did move her arms to show him the injuries to her wrists and hands and I pointed out the wounds to her abdomen. He had just spotted the evidence in her stomach when you arrived. Constable Okocha remained in the corridor."

"Very well Doctor. Is there anything else you wish to add?"

"Yes. I doubt she could hear, but before she was transferred to surgery, Nurse Wilson told her she was beautiful and should keep fighting."

Sally suddenly felt an unexpected pang of guilt. The callous behaviour of one of their own had prompted a nurse to say that to a dying girl. Sally noticed the Doctor's left hand was clenched tightly where it rested on the table. She also noticed Sherlock briefly lay his own hand over that fist and watched the tension release. She remembered how many times she'd unconsciously noticed Dr Watson clenching and unclenching his fist when she and Sherlock were in one of their slanging matches. Had she been unknowingly responsible for causing the doctor pain? And why had she been so determined to drive a wedge between the detective and his flatmate. She'd told herself it was to save the doctor from being used, but was it really to hurt the detective? And had it hurt the doctor too? Was she really that petty and vindictive? She began to wonder if perhaps she had learnt more about being a cast iron bitch from her older sister than she liked to admit.

"And Mr Holmes, please can you give an account of your actions from the time Dr Watson called?"

Sherlock's evidence was as expected. Precise, concise and, if she was totally honest with herself, very clever. Sally watched closely throughout, scrutinizing the man before her, but trying to keep an open mind. She didn't feel the need to ask many questions, only clarifying points of evidence or joining the dots between leaps of insight so that, should this ever be needed, the deductions told a cohesive story.

By 11:20 they were done, and Sally felt exhausted. But this was no time to sit back. They had evidence to chase up, hopefully, arrests to make before this was over. She was glad she'd decided to sit in on the interview. It had given her a lot to think about, when she had the time. She was beginning to suspect that DI Panesar wasn't the cow she'd thought.

-0-0-0-

It was close to four thirty and Noor had just got off the phone to her husband, Adarshpal, to let him know it was doubtful she'd be home much before midnight, again. She needed a coffee and not the muck out of the vending machine. Grabbing her mobile, coat and purse she walked out of her office fully intending to visit the Sandwich Shop behind the Yard to pick up sandwiches and decent coffee. She rather hoped they'd still have some soup left over from lunch. She needed something with vitamins to get her through the evening. As she closed her office door behind her, she spotted Donovan at her desk, head bowed, engrossed in something.

"Sergeant Donovan, grab your coat and walk with me. I think we need caffeine."

Sally's head bobbed up in surprise, her curls bouncing and her eyes wide. "Yes Ma'am. Be right there."

The two women met at the lift just as the doors opened. They entered in silence and turned to face the door as Sally pushed the floor button.

Noor decided to open the conversation. This was make or break. By the time they returned to the office she would either have a competent bagman she could work with, or a vacancy.

"How do you think the interviews went?"

Sally bit her lip, considering her answer. "Well, I think. Dr Watson was obviously right to call in Holmes. Should have called you first Ma'am, but given the behaviour of our constable I can see why he didn't. I was going to have a word with him about professional standards and maybe arrange a refresher course on crime scene etiquette, but I thought I'd better talk to you first given … everything."

"I think that disciplining the constables needs a Sergeant's touch don't you Donovan?" Noor felt a slight twitch of her lips and a lifting of some of the tension.

"Yes Ma'am."

The lift doors opened and they made their way towards the Sandwich Shop. "I'll get these. So what else did you get from the interviews? I'm thinking particularly about what we discussed earlier."

Sally took a few minutes to consider, using the DI's ordering of food and coffee to buy her much needed thinking time. She then ordered her own coffee and a sandwich whilst the DI paid for both orders. They sat at a table by the window while they waited for their takeaway orders to be brought to them.

"I think I was wrong." Sally never thought she'd say it, but she had to be honest with herself. She'd held on to her own image of Sherlock Holmes for so long that she hadn't seen how much he'd changed and just how skewed that image had become. She'd clung to it like some grotesque talisman, her constant in a changing world; she wasn't even sure if he ever had been like that, not really. After they'd left the interview room she'd wracked her brains trying to remember the last time he'd retorted to one of her barbs, and realised it was before his fall, before all the pain and before John Watson had been broken.

They'd spent the afternoon chasing up the evidence, before bringing in a Mexican on a student visa and his American bodyguard for questioning on the strength of the CCTV footage. They were being held in custody overnight while alibis, trace evidence and DNA samples were tested. They had enough to get a warrant to search the car, but since they already knew the victim had been in the vehicle, but not killed there it was doubtful it would give them anything. The forensics team were going over the interior overnight. Maybe they'd find blood from after they'd left the barber shop, but the car had been thoroughly cleaned recently so they'd have to get lucky.

Sally had only sat back down at her desk about thirty minutes before DI Panesar had asked her to get coffee. She'd been reviewing the witness testimonies, but in the back of her mind she'd spent the afternoon stewing on what she'd seen in that interview room.

"I think you were right Ma'am. If he hadn't been there we'd have lost the evidence of balloons in her stomach and even though we probably would have got on to her nationality, we were working on the premise of her being a random victim who lived in the UK, rather than a targeted victim who had just arrived. I doubt we'd have found out her name yet, let alone have brought in her attackers for questioning. I still think his attitude to the victims and their families stinks, but you're right about his ability to piece together the evidence."

"What you need to remember Donovan is that none of us can afford to get emotionally invested in the victims of crime. That way lies madness. Surgeons can't afford to see their patients as anything more than a body, scientists see their subjects as nothing more than data points and we need to see victims as just that, a subject of crime. When I first made Sergeant in Manchester I spent a year assigned to tracking down a paedophile ring. It was the hardest year of my life and I spent the first month alternating between sobbing and vomiting. I barely slept and could hardly eat. By the end of the month I was a wreck. My DI, a hardnosed old bastard pushing retirement called Baxter, sat me down and told me a few home truths. He pointed out that distancing ourselves from the victims did not mean stripping them of their humanity, or not caring about them, it simply meant removing the emotional connection from them so we could do our jobs effectively. The victim deserves our best. Crying with them doesn't help, but doing our job and solving the case does. You can't solve a case and keep cool enough to not jeopardise the conviction if you're emotionally compromised, and by the end of that first month I was well and truly compromised. He gave me a long weekend off to get my head back on and then I was straight back in at the deep end. He was right. There is a damn good reason why it's called professional detachment."

Sally listened, sipped the coffee that had now arrived, and nodded her head in agreement. She could understand where her DI was coming from, having been in not dissimilar positions herself, both as a police officer and in her own childhood.

"Grab you sandwich and we'll head back. As for Holmes, I think he has professional detachment in spades, but I think he is personally very attached." Donovan let out a small gasp of surprise. "What? You didn't notice that little quirk of a smile when I congratulated Dr Watson for spotting the discrepancies on the victim, or whenever we mentioned the victim's name. I think it's very important to both of them that she isn't a Jane Doe. In fact, I think a lot of things are important to our Mr Holmes, especially protection of his friends. Didn't he sacrifice his professional reputation, good name and life to protect his friends, including the DCI, from a criminal mastermind? I don't think that was the act of a psychopath or even a sociopath. There's not many men who would make that kind of sacrifice for their own family, let alone friends. No, I think our Mr Holmes feels a lot more than he cares to admit, and anyone who has him as a friend is very lucky indeed."

As they walked to the lift DI Panesar's phone rang. She answered quickly, listening to the caller and making appropriate replies before a smile lit up her face. "Yes, get it down to forensics immediately. Tell them to check for blood type and DNA. Top priority. I need those results ASAP, we've got less than fourteen hours left before we have to release. Oh, and good spot Sergeant. Well done."

Entering the lift, the DI still smiled broadly as she put her phone away. "That was the Custody Sergeant. He was logging our prisoners' belongings. You know that fancy gold watch the bodyguard was wearing, the one with a chunky gold bracelet. Well, when the Sarge was logging it he spotted what looks like traces of blood in the links and under the winder. He's getting forensics on to it now. If it's our victim's we've got them, hook, line and sinker."

I very much doubt DI Panesar could have forced Donovan out like she threatened, and I have no idea what the standard procedure is for taking witness interviews. I'm working on the principle that the videoing and recording of Sherlock's deductions and statements is a special procedure put in place for him. And at the end of the day, this is an AU.

Congratulations to me - this is now my longest ever story.