Chapter 12

But it wasn't all easy. Sometimes they would still fight until the bitter end, where it nearly ended up in tears. Just as her mother came to the Yard to get her to their annual birthday meal, Sherlock refused to talk to her or even greet her at all.

"I don't see why I should talk to this woman who actually knew, or at least suspected, her daughter had been abused but who did nothing. That´s a waste of my time." He had said in front her mom and walked away.

Sally had been furious. Even if were true that she might have had a hunch back then, she didn't think her mum would have done that on purpose. And it was her decision to make anyway! She had made peace with the role of her mum in Sergej´s abuse years ago, damn it!

She had tried to tell Sherlock that he couldn't talk to her mum like that, which had led to even more snarks and a " You know what? I don't even want to talk to you ever again!"

And that had been that.

Now they had been ignoring each other for seven days and she was okay with that, really. She hadn't even noticed that he and John were in the building, which was probably due to the fact that she hadn't slept in two nights. The first had been due to a particularly gruelling case of an abducted child where she had worked all night, and the second was due to Sherlock. It had been the doubts implanted by him which made her discuss Sergej with her mum again, and which led to a big fight between them. Then of course the nightmares had returned, which led her to go to work at 5 in the morning just to make the thoughts go away.

And that was where she was now, trying to make sure she didn't pass out. Deciding that coffee number ten for the day would be a good idea, she got up and walked towards the breakroom. To get there she had to pass Lestrade`s office, which she went by without taking a look at it. Given her mood, she carefully avoided any unnecessary human contact. Nevertheless, she shouldn't have been surprised that as she started to leave the break room, the coffee was taken out of her hands and set up on the counter before she was drawn into two very long arms.

"You are an idiot Sally." Sherlock said before declaring to Lestrade and John who were following him into the room now. "Lestrade, Miss Donovan is taking the day off, as she needs to sleep for a decent night."

Sally´s "But.." only resulted in a "Shut up Sally."

And with that, she was taken to 221b where John made her tea and Sherlock made her sleep, which probably wasn't that hard anyway.

#

Another murder, another crime scene. Sherlock had just left, grumbling spectacularly, insulting a poor pedestrian, who had been walking by when he got out of the house. Sally knew that he thought he was missing some kind of minuscule clue and that pissed him off, so she didn't even hear the insults anymore. Anderson though, was all but staring at her while John just rolled his eyes, laughed and hurried after his friend.

Normal for them all, really.

But Anderson couldn't seem to let it go.

"You know, I don't understand it." he said, now looking at her.

"What?" She asked, even though she could probably guess it.

"Well you say, you are friends. But you still fight at every crime scene. He´s an ass you know. He hasn't changed!" Anderson was grumbling himself now, which made Sally laugh.

"Yeah he is. Doesn't change anything, though. That, and he doesn't have a choice. I have adopted him, I guess." With that she turned around to search for Lestrade and could hear Anderson just huff in response.

It didn't surprise her. Of course he wouldn't understand. He didn't even have a clue about what had happened to her, so how could he understand this?

Sally was still shivering when she walked out of the bathroom of the Youth centre. She still couldn't believe that this was still happening to her. She was 13 now, damn it. It had been over five years ago. She was better than this. But all it took was this damn smell and she´d panic again.

That damn after shave of his, which wasn't that uncommon at all.

Struggling to walk normally now, she concluded she really was a sissy. All her instincts screamed at her to get away from here, to go home. But she knew that she would be alone there.

And being alone always made it worse.

So she tried to pretend everything was all right when she walked into the main room of the centre again. It wasn't that hard as the other children and even the adults there didn't really look at her anyway. But that was okay, she didn't mind being an outsider most of the time, and now it was even a bigger relief. Nobody would ask questions.

She sat down at one of the community tables, and stared out of the window which faced the playground of the Youth Centre. Lost in her thoughts, she didn't even realize that Sarah had sat down next to her until she felt the arm around her shoulders.

"You know if you bottle it all up, he´s going to win. You have to let it go." The older girl said and smiled at her.

Sally was looking at her carefully now. "I don't get it you know? Why do you care? I´m not even the same age. And.."

Sarah held up her hand, which shut her up.

"Why do you have to be the same age to be liked by me? And of course I care what happens to my friends. Hell, we are more than that anyway. We both survived and that makes us sisters."

"Sisters?"

"Sisters, yes. I adopted you. You don't have a choice." She grinned at Sally and Sally carefully smiled back. "Sisters have to take care of each other, you know?"

And that's what he was now really, she had decided.

Her brother.

She´d be his Sarah and no offensive or bad behaviour from him would stop her. It hadn't stopped Sarah either.

#

There was even one time when Sherlock made Sally cheer at a crime scene.

Or rather it was Sherlock´s SMS:

John kissed me. SH

She had grinned at that, already typing to answer, when the second message had arrived.

And yes I kissed back SH

Which made her break out the yay´s and resulted in a lot of weird looks over the dead and mutilated body. Guess it wasn't that good to cheer "Yessss!" when Anderson and another forensic expert were detailing the injuries which had led to the death of the victim.

Oooops.

Lestrade understood though, once she had shown him her phone. Of course after the case that day, they went to 221b to congratulate the new boyfriends.

#

Sally didn't even mind occasionally being kidnapped by Mycroft, which John was always groaning about. It might have been that his kidnappings didn't always end up in a nice restaurant resulting in a fine meal. That was what she guessed anyway, because John just laughed when she asked him about that.

Whatever.

Sherlock had mumbled a "At least better than Anderson." the next time he walked by her, and she thought that this was probably as much of a blessing as she was going to get.

They were taking it slow, however, as Mycroft allowing his feelings to be known was even harder for him than for Sherlock.

#

The friendship between them wasn't always that obvious, but that didn't mean they wouldn't protect each other. Just like now, when both she and the freak had been taken hostage by a gang. Their role had been to make sure that these bad guys were busy, and while being held hostage wasn't the original plan, it served its purpose well. So they complied and waited for Greg and Myrcoft to get the clearance to take down the bosses of these guys before they came rushing in. Even Sherlock seemed to be a bit amused by their kidnappers, as they clearly hadn't an idea what really was going on and that they were being played.

That changed the second one of the guys made unwanted advances at Sally.

It was almost like someone had pushed a big red button. Sherlock immediately went into insulting and deducing the gangster, clearly to get him away from her.

"I believe your father wouldn't be pleased if he knew that you would even look at a woman thinking those perverted thoughts. Now you are about to act on them. I guess he was right when he called you a useless bastard as a child, wasn´t he?" he teased and the guy fell for it and jumped him at once. Part of Sally was glad, but the bigger part of her didn't like Sherlock throwing himself into the line of the fire that way. After all, they were both bound to chairs and had no actual way of fighting back. Unless you counted insults that is.

Seeing that the man was hitting Sherlock again while the consulting detective kept insulting him with various deduced childhood and other traumas, Sally decided that she had to help. Especially since there was already blood on his lip, and she could see the beginning of a black eye. To cement the decision the man drew a knife.

"Hey you, big thug over there. Leave him alone, will you? But it's all the same with you, isn't it? You can only hit people when they are bound cause you don't have it in you. Probably can't get it up either!"

The thug stopped and growled at her which of course got Sherlock to react.

"I´m sorry Sergeant, but I am busy here. Maybe you can come back and insult the thug later?" Sherlock inquired, leaving Sally to shake her head.

"Pah and let you have all the glory? What do you think John will do to me when you look like you just took part in a box fight?"

"Irrelevant. I`m also sure that it's rather gentlemanly of me to make sure that the lady is protected…."

Sally huffed at this and spat. "I´m not a damsel in distress! And you know that Holmes! So don´t treat me like one!"

The thug was staring now, totally lost as they traded more insults between each other, completely ignoring the other man. They were so lost in their brawl, that they didn't even notice that the other kidnappers hadn't come back, like the said they would.

That could be said for the watcher thug as well though.

Then finally…

A shot.

Some shouting and a minute of chaos later, an out of breath John Watson was standing next to them, shaking his head. "One can't leave you two alone, can they? You guys are impossible! Instead of fighting the kidnappers, you fight each other! I can't believe it!"

With that he got them loose while Sally smirked, although she knew that he was right.

"How do you know that this wasn't some sort of grand plan from me and Sherlock to make sure they wouldn't contact their bosses because they were busy?"

John just huffed, while Sherlock laughed.

Well okay, busted.

But it could have been a great plan. Really.

#

Back at the yard they had taken a breath and eaten something before diving back into the most recent case again, as it needed to be solved before the suspect left the country in 12 hours.

At first the others had wanted her and Sherlock to go home, but they both insisted, knowing it was urgent. Neither wanted a supposed head of a human traffic ring to go free- probably because they both had experienced such a case now first hand. Sally felt better with company after such things anyway, and she thought that Sherlock might feel the same, even if he´d never admit it.

When Sally walked by the breakroom she heard Lestrade talking to John.

"Honestly I´m a bit scared."

That made her stop. They weren't talking about her and Sherlock, were they?

"You are scared Sally and Sherlock will fight again? God, they are worse than siblings, aren´t they?" John inquired and Sally bit her lip to refrain from saying anything. Hey, bickering was half the fun of it, wasn´t it?

Lestrade just laughed. "Well Sally always said she had wanted a brother who´d have protected her when she was younger…" He stopped himself, obviously realizing what he´d just said and shook his head. "Naw you understood me wrong. I wasn't scared of them. Not for me anyway. More for the criminals. I mean, when they worked on their own or against each other they were effective enough, but can you imagine what happens when they really perfect their working together and have us for back up? I sure as hell don't want to be a criminal in London right now."

John laughed and Sally couldn't hold back her giggle as she went back to Sherlock who was looking at some files Lestrade had given him.

Lestrade was right. The criminals better watch out.

Still grinning, she sat down at her desk and started to read through some files on her own as her eyes fell on something suspicious.

"SHERLOCK! What the hell have you done to my cup of coffee?"

She may not have imagined Lestrade walking in, turning and then immediately walking out again. Maybe. She didn't care.

"An experiment." The screamed at mad man in question answered innocently, and that was all Sally needed to jump up and glare.

Damn these world´s consulting detectives!

The END

So thats it. Thanks again to sevenpercent for beta reading and for bearing with me. Thanks everyone for reading, I hope you enjoyed it a little bit!