Marco, Imelda, and Sabino Tosto- aptly nicknamed the Tosto trio- had been narrowly evading the Yard for years. Their debut appearance occurred on Sally's second year on the force- she wasn't directly involved at that point, but everyone talked about it. In a fantastic first appearance, they blew out an entire wall of a Barclay's Bank using approximately three pounds of plastic explosives and made off with upwards of £26,000. Two people died as a direct effect of the explosion, four died in hospital, and dozens more were injured. The Tosto trio slipped into the shadows, and despite the Yard's best efforts, they escaped.
Exactly eight months later, they popped up in Elmbridge and pulled the exact same stunt, except this time, there were eighteen casualties, they took £30,000, and Lestrade put Sherlock Holmes on the case. This was actually the first time Sally ever had direct contact with Sherlock, and his callous questioning of the family of the deceased sparked her dislike of the man.
Despite his behavior, he managed to track down Marco and Sabino in a van just before they crossed into Hampshire in a highly publicized investigation. The stacks and stacks of bills in the back of the vehicle were enough to put the two brothers away, but the missing Imelda drove Sherlock crazy for weeks afterwards. The trail went cold, but he kept obsessing, repeatedly going to visit the two incarcerated brothers and yelling at them over and over until he was banned from seeing them again.
Time passed, and Lestrade piled case after case on Sherlock until finally he seemed to forget about the Tostos.
Then along came John Watson, and Sally had two weirdos to deal with.
And on the third anniversary of the incarceration of two-thirds of the Tosto trio, while John Watson was doing locum work, Sherlock Holmes answered the doorbell and disappeared without a trace.
John called Lestrade when he arrived to an empty flat and asked if he had given Sherlock a case.
The DI told him no.
John shrugged it off and sent Sherlock a text.
The detective's phone buzzed from underneath an Erlenmeyer flask on the kitchen table, and a tiny seed of worry planted itself in John's head.
Two days passed without a call or a text from Sherlock, and John phoned Mycroft. No dice.
He showed up to the Yard, little worry lines on his face, and asked Sally where Lestrade was.
Sally didn't really have a whole lot against John, but she often wondered how someone that seemed so reasonable could spend so much time with such a psycho.
Sally's curiosity got the best of her, and as John and Lestrade spoke in the DI's office, she leaned against the wall nonchalantly and eavesdropped.
"I haven't seen or heard from him in five days," John said, sounding haggard. "He just vanished while I was at the hospital, and he left his phone and his coat and scarf and everything. You're sure you didn't call him?"
"Yes, of course I'm sure," Lestrade replied. "What about Mrs. Hudson? Did she see anything?"
"She said that the doorbell rang and he went down to answer it, and she didn't see him go back up, but it's not like she was actively paying attention. She thought it was just a client. So no, she didn't see anything." John made a little noise, a quiet whine disguised as a sigh. "Lestrade, I'm worried. He's never been gone this long before without giving me some sort of notice."
There were a few beats of heavy silence, and Lestrade spoke up again. "What about that brother of his?"
"I checked already, but maybe I can get Mycroft to search the CCTV cams and look for anything."
"John, I'm sure he's alright. We'll find him. Maybe he just got distracted," Lestrade tried, reassuringly.
"No, no, he wouldn't just forget. He promised he'd call if he ever left, he promised." There was the sound of rustling clothes, and Lestrade sighed.
"I'll keep an eye out for him, okay? When was the last time you slept, anyway?"
John sighed again. "Three days."
"Good God, man, you're no help to anyone like this. Go get some rest. Sherlock's a grown man, he can wait a few hours for you."
John scoffed. "Grown man might be a bit of an overstatement."
"Go sleep, John," Lestrade sighed, and Sally scrambled away from the door as footsteps began inside. John came shuffling out. He didn't seem to notice her, and simply made his way out the door, Lestrade watching him go with an anxious air about him.
Two days later, a man with an umbrella walked into Lestrade's office without knocking. Sally called out at him in reproach, and he turned and gave her a look that made her shiver. The best way she could describe it was cold. It was a cold look- a look that made her feel exposed and incredibly vulnerable. He hadn't even said a single word, and already she wanted to turn around and leave the room.
She let him go in, and it dawned on her that this had to have something to do with Sherlock, because there was only one other man that could strip a person naked with a single look.
Sally was right.
Not long after, Lestrade came bursting out of the room, snapping orders left and right. He scraped together a team of six officers, Sally included, and within three minutes they were tearing out of the lot in a train of squad cars.
Sally was in the passenger's seat next to Lestrade, who was barking orders into his radio and pushing his eyebrows so close together that it looked like they might merge into each other.
The squad cars pulled into an alley silently, and Lestrade directed two officers to cover each exit of the massive warehouse. In its better days, it might've been painted a dull orange; now it was just the color of decay and rust, many of the windows punched out, and the remaining panes were opaque with yellow grime or painted over altogether.
Lestrade handed her a handgun, and a sense of foreboding settled in the pit of her stomach.
She was only half surprised when John Watson appeared, Browning in hand, wearing a beige jumper, and followed as Lestrade crept through the back entrance. Sally held rear, and an ominous sort of feeling crept up the nape of her neck and gave her goosebumps. Something bad was going to happen, right now. Something awful.
A metallic sort of jangling noise sounded to her far left, and all three of them spun to face it.
Now, the inside of the warehouse was shadowy, the daylight barely penetrating the few missing windows. But nevertheless, there was just enough light to illuminate a doorway to what might have one day been a control room. Lestrade glanced at her and John, and they all moved forward on silent feet toward the doorway.
Footsteps, sounding like heavy boots, came their way. The shadow moved, and suddenly, none other than Imelda Tosto appeared, knife in hand, an almost comical look of shock on her grimy face as she found herself facing three guns, a determined Detective Inspector, a thoroughly surprised Sergeant, and a stone-faced John Watson.
"Well, what a surprise," Lestrade said steadily. "Put your hands up, Tosto, and place your weapon on the ground."
With a sneer, the Italian complied, lowering the bloody knife to the floor and raising her hands in surrender. Lestrade moved behind her, pulled her arms down and clicked on the handcuffs. "What could you be doing here, then?"
John still had his gun fixed on the woman, and Sally noticed, with a growing sense of dread, several dark spots through the doorway that looked a lot like dried blood. She skirted around Imelda Tosto and made her way down a short hallway and around a corner into the old control room.
The huge off-white panels were mostly gutted of their electronics, the remains rusted and warping. Scraps of food wrappers, water bottles, and a ratty old sleeping bag littered the floor. The room was illuminated only by the light from the doorway, although a lantern sat atop one of the gutted control panels. She stepped forward, gun still at the ready, and turned on the lantern.
At first, she wasn't sure what she was looking at. It was a jumbled, dirty sort of heap slumped halfway against the far wall, unmoving. She stared at it for a good five seconds before she realized what it was, chained to a railway spike on the wall.
It was a person. It was a person.
She took in the dark hair and the curls and the high cheekbones hidden under a lot of dried blood and dirt. It was fucking Sherlock Holmes.
She screamed, half in fear and shock and half as a call for assistance, and sort of just stood there and stared at him, her hands shaking. One of his legs was at a very not-good angle, and there was a long slice along his rib cage that was still oozing blood. God, what was she supposed to do? What the hell was she supposed to do?
John Watson came rushing in, saw her standing motionless, staring at the god-awful sight in front of her, and he broke, his face falling to pieces.
Ignoring all sorts of gun safety rules, he dropped his gun where he stood and crashed to his knees next to Sherlock, eyes massive and shining and terrified.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, Sally chanted in her head, and Lestrade came bursting in.
"What happened? The others are taking her in-" And Lestrade saw it too, saw John frantically hunched over and checking for a pulse and wavering his hands like he was almost afraid to touch the man, and all the blood drained from his face. "Christ. I'll call for a medic," Lestrade said through his teeth, and rushed back out the door.
Sally finally let her gun fall to her waist, and she took a tentative step towards John.
Sherlock shifted his head just barely, and John jerked forward and ever-so-carefully lifted his head into his lap, slipping his fingers into the hair on the back of Sherlock's head, matted and crunchy with dried blood. Sherlock had two black eyes- the one on the right seemed worse than the left- but nevertheless, he blinked up at John as the army doctor started whispering to him.
"Jesus, Sherlock, Jesus, I'm here, I've got you, okay? I'm here, it's John, it's me," John said quietly, over and over.
Sally didn't like Sherlock Holmes. This was a given fact, one that she thought she would never have to revoke. Many times, even though she wasn't all that proud of it, after a good verbal thrashing by the detective, she would imagine putting the pompous old prat in his place, knocking him down a peg. Giving him a good sock in the eye.
But standing here, watching this, she felt so horrifically terrible, because she was wrong, this was wrong. This was so wrong, in so many ways.
John was crying now, and Sherlock rolled over a bit and grabbed at John's waist and buried his head in the beige jumper, shoulders shivering, and John kept running his fingers through Sherlock's hair, making little shushing noises and pressing kiss after kiss into the man's hair.
Sally realized just then that Sherlock had not a stitch of clothing on him, and it was cold; her breath was puffing out in front of her.
She stepped forward a bit, slowly, feeling like she was invading something incredibly private, and slipped off her coat, draping it over him. John gave her a fleeting glance and she haltingly sat down next to him and gingerly started rubbing little circles on Sherlock's back. She could feel every bump in his spine through her coat, and Sally felt a sudden wave of anger at the sneering, smirking Imelda Tosto, a burning sort of hatred. What a monster she must be, to do something like this. What a black-hearted woman.
Lestrade returned, pulling at the hem of his coat, and stopped short in front of Sherlock. "Ambulance is on its way," He breathed. "Jesus, Sherlock. What did that bastard do to you?"
But it was like John and Sherlock were in their own little world.
Suddenly, Sherlock spoke, a raspy sort of sound, painful and dry. "John," He rasped, muffled by the jumper. He shifted himself up a little, shoulders still shaking, and spoke again, clearer this time. "John, I never..."
John was swiping his thumbs over the detective's face, trying and failing to wipe away the layer of blood and dirt and cold sweat. "Shh, Sherlock, I'm here, you don't need to talk..." His voice was shaking, but Sherlock spoke anyway, even as it was obvious that it hurt to speak.
"I'm going to miss it, I'm going to miss my chance, I almost, I have to-" He rambled on, sounding frantic and rushed, and John kept petting his hair and shushing him but he didn't stop, the words tripping over each other in his panicked haze.
"No, I never, never told you, I have to tell you, John Watson, you're brilliant, and I love you."
Everyone in the room went very, very still, the only movement Sherlock's shaking fingers. John had an expression on his face like a bomb had just gone off. Lestrade had a wide-eyed look about him, and Sally's world was crumbling bit by bit.
She had told herself that she hated Sherlock Holmes, because he was an emotionless, heartless, insensitive, brash, arrogant, pompous psychopath, but now she didn't know what to think.
The silence and the stillness broke very abruptly, and John sobbed and buried his face in Sherlock's hair and cried, "You're amazing, you're amazing, I love you, I love you, " Over and over, rocking and clutching at the detective like his life depended on it.
Sally felt privileged and rude and intrusive and a little undeserving of this display, and she moved her hand back and pressed it against her thigh.
The paramedics swooped in quite suddenly and John held onto Sherlock as they used a hefty pair of bolt cutters on the chain and moved him into the ambulance, and Lestrade and Sally followed them outside and watched the ambulance drive away, sirens blazing, leaving little after-images in Sally's vision.
While Sally was in a daze, trying to really digest what she'd just witnessed, she watched Lestrade stroll up to Imelda Tosto and whisper something in her ear that made the woman go very, very pale.
Sally saw neither of the two men for three weeks.
Until one bleary morning when Sherlock came limping into the building looking very indignant, leaning on silver crutches, John beaming at his side. The army doctor looked so much different than the last time she had seen him. His face had color again- both of their faces, in fact- and he held himself high. Sherlock's ears were red and his face was tight, and when he made eye contact with her, they both went stiff. Sally, after a moment or two, gave him a brief nod, which he returned, then snapped his gaze forward again and limped on.
Lestrade appeared, laughed, and crushed him in a hug, and Sally was one of the blessed people close enough to hear Sherlock's pathetic little squeak as all the air left his lungs. His face went even more red, and he made a show of brushing himself off when Lestrade retreated.
Their visit did not last exceedingly long, because John had begun to tug him towards the door. "I'm your doctor, Sherlock, it's time to go," He said, and Sherlock's mouth twitched up just a bit before he started walking towards the exit.
"Bye," Sally blurted out as the pair passed her, and Sherlock blinked a few times, and John elbowed him gently.
"Uh- yes, goodbye Donovan," He said curtly, and John smiled up at him.
"Go on, Sherlock, I'll be right there," John said, and Sherlock pursed his lips at the doctor and gave Sally a suspicious glance, but went ahead anyway.
John gave her an odd sort of smile, wistful and grateful. "Look, Donovan, I know you don't like Sherlock and I all that much, but I really just wanted to thank you for everything that you did. It means a lot, really." He held out his hand, and Sally shook it and nodded.
"Of course," She said, even though there was a lot more she wanted to say but she didn't know how to.
Sherlock boomed John's name from across the building, sounding moody and impatient, and John nodded goodbye to Sally and trotted off after him.
Sally slowly sat down at her desk. The room was quieting down, people were getting back to work; she herself had a hefty stack of paperwork in front of her that she really didn't want to do.
She looked up and met Lestrade's gaze. He quirked his head a little, eyes narrowed, gaze questioning. You didn't tell anyone, did you?
She shook her head, lips tight. Of course not.
Lestrade sat down with a final nod.
Sally looked down at her paperwork and her computer and her 'World's Best Aunt' mug full of pencils and knew that a big piece of her life had just flopped on its side and died, and she wasn't quite sure what she was going to do about it.