Donovan's Interlude:
"Working late, Donovan?"
Looking up from the stack of files, Donovan watches as Jeremy Miller stops at her desk. He's clearly on his way out with his jacket on and bag in hand and Donovan can't help the pang of envy that he gets to go home while she's stuck sorting through someone else's work.
"I was lucky enough to be saddled with all of Pete's work while he's on holiday." She says bitterly, patting the stack of files as she does so. Wincing in sympathy, Miller eyes the stack warily.
"Nice taking one for the team." He commends with a condescending thumbs up that has her rolling her eyes.
"It wasn't so valiant, believe me. Henderson was supposed to be doing it, but he conveniently called in for the week." Hoisting his bag up and over his shoulder, Miller shakes his head again in sympathy.
"In any case, I hope it doesn't take you too long. Friday nights are meant to be spent in front of the telly drinking crap lager, not stuck at a desk." Donovan agrees wholeheartedly, but she hardly has a choice in the matter. Some of these files are months old and really do need to be sorted through. If she doesn't do it, then no one will.
"Yeah yeah, now get out of here before you make me regret this more than I already do." She responds bitterly which causes Miller to laugh heartily. Thankfully, he takes the hint, and with a raised hand and a farewell, he makes his way to the elevator and leaves Donovan blissfully alone.
There's something to be said about working late at least; she can actually get work done. There aren't the usual sounds of a working day to distract her as there's no one here to be making noise. Most of the lights are off and the dim lighting of her own desk light creates a soothing atmosphere that's only compounded by the hushed silence of an empty office space. It's only her and the sounds of her keyboard as she types or the sound of paper shuffling as she looks through the files.
For a late night at the office, it's not so bad overall if she doesn't think about the fun she could be having doing literally anything else.
As time passes and she slowly works her way through the files, she can see the end is near as she finally reaches for the last one. A part of her wants to put it off for tomorrow considering she should have been home hours ago now, but she also knows that she'll feel better knowing she doesn't have to come in Monday worrying about this, and it's with that thought in mind that she pulls the file over and starts looking through it.
Skimming, she recognises it fairly quickly as the Moriarty case from a few months back - specifically the pool explosion. It's a case that she feels was never given a proper end as Moriarty never faced any real justice. All of those people he terrorised never got to have their voices heard and he never had to face any consequences for his actions.
In the end though, what really mattered was that he wasn't terrorising anyone anymore, and for that she was grateful.
Many of the top pages were statements given by witnesses the night of the pool explosion. Most spoke to how they heard the explosion and came out of their flats or businesses to see what the commotion had been about while others talked about having heard gunshots right before the actual explosion took place. This lined up with what they had come to find out later - that one of the snipers was actually working for one of Moriarty's many enemies and had blown the bomb up in a bid to eliminate the criminal.
As she flips through the pages though, she reaches one that has a post-it note attached, and as she reads it over, she realises it was one she's never seen before.
From what she could determine, it looked to be a tip that someone called in. The number of the tipster was at the top of the note while below it was what the caller had called in to say. Reading it over, she couldn't help but furrow her eyebrows in confusion.
'Caller states that they witnessed two men leaving out the back of the pool after the explosion took place.'
It was short and simple, and Donovan had half a mind to find whoever wrote this and lecture them about proper note-taking. There wasn't any information to go on; no description, no information on who the caller was, nothing to let her know whether this had been looked into further or not.
And as she thinks back, she can't remember this tip ever being mentioned. Surely if it had she would have heard about it, right? The Freak would have jumped at the chance to get a look at two possible suspects in the bombing.
Setting the file aside, Donovan debates whether she wants to make this long night last longer by looking into this.
The case is already closed. They know the who, the how, and the why. There's no reason to look into this, but she knows herself, and she knows that now that she's seen this, she won't be able to rest with her curiosity gnawing away at her.
With a sigh, she gets up from her desk.
Maybe she'll just take a peek at the footage they had from that night.
Except, pausing mid-step, she remembers that the only two nearby cameras that would have had a shot of the pool during this time had been damaged in the explosion and so they didn't have any footage to review.
With a frustrated mutter, she sits back down and wonders what she should do about this.
It's probably nothing. Maybe this caller just saw two people who were investigating the explosion. Maybe they were trying to look for survivors and then thought better of rummaging through the unsteady rubble and decided to wait for the police to do their jobs.
Or maybe there was more to this explosion, and this was the tip that was going to reveal that to her. Maybe these two men were involved somehow and were fleeing the crime.
Making a mental note to herself to find out who wrote this post-it, Donovan sets the file aside and drags the other files close so that she can go put them back where they belonged.
She would look more into this on Monday. For now, she was going to go home and try to enjoy her weekend.
0-0-0-0-0
"Alright Daniels. What's this about?" Slapping the post-it on the man's desk, Donovan leans down to look Daniels in the eyes as she points at the note.
"Nice to see you too, Donovan." The man says dryly, even as he looks at the note.
"How many times do we have to tell you to take better notes? You didn't even write down the correct number of the caller!" Donovan chastises.
That's something she had the misfortune of finding out when she tried to call the tipster earlier only for an old man to answer with no idea what she was talking about.
"Well, how do you know I wrote that?" He asks, to which she rolls her eyes.
"Please, I'd recognise your handwriting anywhere. And besides, you initialled it here." She says, pointing to the initials in the corner that she hadn't noticed the first time she'd read it.
To be fair to herself though, it had been late, and she was exhausted from having worked for so long.
"What's it about anyway? I don't remember writing this." He says next, already seeming ready to dismiss it entirely as he turns to look at his computer again.
"The Moriarty case when the pool exploded. Apparently, someone called in to say that they saw two men leaving the area after the explosion." Donovan says slowly, which the man would have known if he had only read the note in front of him.
Sometimes, she thinks that the Freak might be on to something about the ineptitude of some of the members of the force. Daniels is certainly high up on her list of idiots she'd like to wring the neck of.
"Oh, right, that. Wasn't that solved? Why are you bothering looking into that business again?" Looking for patience, Donovan takes a deep breath and crosses her arms over her chest.
"I was sorting the files last week and noticed this note. I never heard about it at the time." She explains.
"Ah, yeah. Yeah, now I remember. I got that tip right before that consultant guy figured it all out. I never mentioned it since there was no point in it after that. Although now that I think about it, I did have the nearest undamaged camera's footage pulled to see if it might have caught anything. It was down the road from the pool, so it's unlikely that it would have but I thought it was worth a shot. Never ended up looking at it though." Daniels says with an apathetic shrug that grates on Donovan's nerves all the more.
"Did you ever have it put in evidence?" The man takes a moment to think and then with a sigh he raises his hands in defeat.
"Look, I don't know. Maybe? I really don't think there's anything to look into here. We got the guy - even if he was dead at the end of it. That's what matters, isn't it?" He asks, finally looking away from his computer to raise an eyebrow at Donovan, and while there is plenty, she wants to say in reply to that, she forces a smile instead and plucks the note up off the desk.
"Right. Have a nice day, Daniels. And work on better note-taking!" She says as she begins to walk away.
"That was months ago! I'm loads better at it now!" He defends, but she doesn't care to listen anymore as her smile drops and she rolls her eyes.
At least the idiot had one good idea in pulling the nearest footage he could. Really, she could almost understand why this had fallen to the wayside because there really was no reason to look further into this. This was simply her own curiosity at play - her own need to tie up loose ends and make sure nothing was out of place.
And as she signs into the evidence locker and looks around for what she needs, she wonders if this really is just a waste of her time. She has stuff to be doing right now that demands her attention, and instead, she's down here rifling through evidence on a case that needs no more work done on it.
Still, she's gotten this far already, she may as well see it through.
When she finally finds what she's looking for she locates the nearest screen that can play the footage and sets it up, and when it blinks to life on the television she leans in to determine where it's at.
Like Daniels said, it seems to be from a building further down the street from the pool. It's close enough that the footage goes bright from the light of the explosion and there is even some debris that flies passed the camera, but the pool itself isn't visible. She thinks it must be a building located somewhere behind the pool and would therefore be closest to the back entrance, but she wouldn't know for sure unless she went to look for herself.
As she watches the debris settle and the light dim again, she wonders how long she should watch before calling it a bust. It really does seem that this was a long shot and that whoever that caller had seen will have gone unnoticed. It's not as if there will be any more footage to look through considering no other building nearby would have held on to any footage from that night after all these months.
Just as she's about to turn it off though, she spots movement. Looking closer, she sees two people coming out of an alley and starting to head away from the pool explosion. A look at the time stamped on the footage tells her it's almost twenty minutes after the explosion itself and it's not unlikely that these two could have come from there.
Looking closer, she sees that one of them is hugging their arm close to their side - injured maybe? From the explosion, or from something else? - and the other one is walking with a slight hunch as if there has been damage to their chest.
Otherwise, they're too far away and in shadow so she can't make out anything identifying. It's only as a car suddenly pulls up and the two step into the light that she recognises them for who they are.
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.
Pausing the footage, Donovan's eyes widen in surprise, and she leans in to make sure what she's seeing is accurate.
But no, it is them. Despite the grainy footage, despite the darkness obscuring their features, she would recognise those two anywhere.
It doesn't make sense though. When Lestrade went to get them they had been at Baker Street; and while it's not so farfetched that they may have just gone back to their flat and pretended they had never been at the pool, Donovan had seen them at the scene. They weren't injured in the slightest from what she can recall and there was no way the Doctor could have hidden what looked to be a broken arm, or the Freak his broken ribs. There would have been obvious signs.
Still, she's looking at them with her very own eyes, and that means that not only had they been there, but they had lied about not being there. They pretended they had no clue about the explosion or who was involved.
She can't wrap her head around it.
It's not that she doesn't believe they would pull a fast one on the police - in fact, she wholeheartedly believes that they would. This is one hundred and ten per cent something that she could see the Freak doing. It's just that there's no way they could have.
If they had been at the pool like their injuries suggest, they would have been blown to pieces. Nothing would have protected them from the blast, and so it was unlikely they would have crawled out with merely a broken arm and some damaged ribs.
It's impossible. Just as it's impossible as it is that in that very same night, she saw that they were entirely unharmed. There hadn't been a scratch on them, which wouldn't have been the case if they really had been there.
She can't make heads-or-tails of it as her visuals fight with her logic. She knows what she's seeing now, just as she knows what she saw then, and the disconnect between the two is enough to make her feel like she's going insane.
And really, what is she meant to do about this? This hardly means anything, even if it does mean that the two were in the area at the time. It's suspicious, and she'd bet her career it means the two were somehow more involved in the Moriarty bombing than they originally let on, but there isn't anything left to investigate further. There aren't any more cameras to look at, there wasn't any evidence of them having been there when they investigated, and worse, if there had been, it's likely they would have covered it up.
A sour taste settles on her tongue and all of those warnings she's been giving since they started working with the Freak suddenly feel justified.
This here is proof that the Freak was up to no good. She's not quite sure how he managed it, but she knows without a shadow of a doubt this is them. That they were there that night and they lied to the police about it. Possibly, they were the reason behind the bombing entirely and they framed some poor schmuck so that they could get away with their crimes.
Whatever the case was, she wasn't going to let this rest.
She was onto them now, and she was going to be ready for when they made a mistake.
0-0-0-0-0
Knowing what she knows now, Donovan keeps her attention entirely on the Freak and his husband whenever the two join them at a crime scene. She's not going to allow Holmes to misdirect them like he had last time - and when she finally caught him, she was going to yell the biggest 'I told you so' at the DI that she could manage.
After seeing them in the camera footage, her mind had gone wild with theories on what they could possibly have been doing at the pool. One part of her thought that maybe they had been working for Moriarty and this was their way of eliminating him so they were free from his control. Another part told her they were competing criminal heads who were getting rid of their competition. It was like something out of the soaps, and she wondered whether she was at all on the right track or if her mind was creating outlandish, dramatic scenarios for the hell of it.
There's also a part of her that says she's finally lost it. It wasn't possible that they could have been at the pool or else they would be dead. No one would have survived that explosion, especially once the building started collapsing. Even if they did manage to survive the initial explosion, they would have been subsequently crushed by the falling chunks of concrete.
But how else was she to explain what she saw? It was hardly as if there were doppelgängers of the two of them roaming London at this very moment.
It's the only reason she doesn't come forward with the footage - because it's insane. It would easily be explained away as dark lighting and obscured camera angle rather than what it was - and she was positive it was the two of them; nothing was going to change her mind about that.
"How is it that Scotland Yard's finest can't seem to solve even one measly crime on their own?!" Suddenly drawn back to the current moment, Donovan can't help the sneer that twists her lips at the Freak's scolding.
As if he had any authority to be talking down to them like he was. If she could, she would be the first to tell him that they've done plenty without him, and despite what he thinks they don't actually need him.
But that would mean voicing her thoughts of how she believes the DI is reliant on them - like a crutch - and as much as she dislikes the Freak, she won't talk bad about her boss like that.
Even if she does think Lestrade calls in the Freak at the drop of a hat.
"Hey now, we solved the Hatter case all on our own just last week," Lestrade says teasingly as he shares a grin with John who is standing nearby, watching in amusement.
"Hardly something to boast about considering the man handed himself over. Not much investigating involved there." The Freak says with a roll of his eyes as he steps around the very dead body in the middle of the alley to look up the side of one of the nearby brick walls.
"And here I was thinking it would look good on my CV if I ever wanted to look into getting a new job." This elicits laughter from John even as Donovan frowns.
As much as she would like to focus on the crime they're investigating, she's more preoccupied with an investigation of her own - this one involving the living rather than the dead.
'A nice change of pace,' she thinks, 'If only it weren't so tricky to get to the bottom of.'
Still, as she watches the Freak flaunt his so-called observations and deductions and flit about the grimy alley, she can't find anything that could incriminate him in any sort of wrongdoing.
But then, what was she expecting exactly? That a convenient piece of evidence would fall from his pocket linking him to the pool that night? Any evidence that she was likely to find regarding that night was most likely gone or destroyed.
So what was she watching for, exactly? What was the point in expending all this energy watching the Freak when she could be using it to do her actual job?
"Depends on what you're looking to get into. I don't think Tesco will think it all that impressive." John quips good-naturedly, earning a grin from the DI and a huff from the Freak.
And then there was John Watson. The one she was still entirely unsure what to think of.
Her opinion of the man swung like a pendulum; one day believing him to be a poor sap sucked in by the Freak's manipulations, and other days believing him to be just as insane as the Freak himself - which was a rather hard feat to achieve.
On one hand, the man was easy-going and pleasant to be around - entirely unlike his counterpart. He made jokes and friendly conversation and was as mild-mannered as could be.
And on the other, he was sharing a laugh with the Freak over a bloodied body and running after murderers with nothing but his bare hands to stop himself from being killed.
Not to mention, she hadn't forgotten about his strange illusions pertaining to his mortality. No matter how much she or the DI berated him and the Freak about jumping head-first into danger, it seemed to slip right off him like rain on an umbrella. He never seemed to understand the fact that he, like every other person on Earth, was prone to dying at the hands of a murderer wielding a knife, or a gun, or - in one bizarre instance - a sharpened fan blade.
No matter the danger or threat to his life, it always ended with him and the Freak cosying up with smiles and giggles as if they were schoolgirls on the playground.
"Ah," Sherlock's soft exclamation drew everyone's attention, but before anyone has the chance to speak, he was off like a shot.
"Oy, Sherlock!" Lestrade yells with wide confused eyes as he fumbles to quickly pocket his notepad.
Speaking of; there went Watson, running hot on the Freak's heels despite having been the furthest away.
When danger calls, the two of them seem to find it in themselves to be able to run marathons.
"Dammit, those two!" The DI curses under his breath as he and Donovan take off as well, doing their best to keep up.
They had the misfortune of being delayed by their brief shock however, which is how they found themselves losing sight of the two rather quickly despite the alley being mostly a straight shot. As they come to a halt, Donovan splashes in a puddle left from the downpour that had occurred only an hour ago and looks to the left where the alley leads back toward the main street. Ahead, there's a turn to the right that leads further into the alley and neither of them is sure which way the two had run.
"You go that way and radio if you find them," Lestrade orders, gesturing to the path ahead as he starts running toward the main street. With a nod, she follows his instructions and continues the search for the two insane madmen, wondering what they were even running after.
Had the murderer been nearby? It was the only thing she could think of that would constitute something of this sort. Even with the Freak's love of keeping them in the dark, he wouldn't have run off unless it was urgent; he would have simply walked off instead.
She couldn't understand how he would have known though. Police had been all over the nearby routes when closing off the scene. If anyone had been lurking nearby, surely they would have noticed.
But then, even she knows how unobservant some of her colleagues could be.
And it was with a wince that she acknowledged that - in this instance - she belonged with them for once. She had been so focused on the Freak and Watson, the murderer could have stood right in front of her with waving arms yelling 'I'm your guy!' and she wouldn't have noticed.
Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it didn't negate the fact that she had been a little preoccupied by something other than the case they were supposed to be working.
"Returning to the scene of the crime; never a good idea." It was the Freak's deep baritone that greeted her as she came up to an opening on the right. Likely, the Freak, Watson and their murderer were down there somewhere and as she made the turn she kept an ear out for them.
"She had something I needed." She assumes it's the murderer that says this, muffled and low with distance, and she recalls the Freak mentioning earlier that their victim - a young woman who had only been in her early twenties - had grabbed onto what was likely their killer's necklace. It was still grasped in her tightly closed fist, the chain broken where she had likely yanked it off from around the murderer's neck.
"Sentiment. How pedestrian." The Freak mutters to himself as Donovan radios as quietly as she can that she is near their location.
"Maybe save the insults for when we're not in danger of being shot." She hears Watson hiss, his voice louder as she draws closer. From the radio, she hears confirmation from the DI that he's on his way.
"As if I care about that. Now, Scotland Yard's finest will be here shortly to apprehend you. Waving a gun around is hardly going to change your fate." The Freak tells the murderer. She thinks that the stand-off must be happening at the next turn up ahead and Donovan wonders how the Freak can't even manage to be polite when it's his and his husband's lives on the line.
Surely it wouldn't kill him to not antagonise someone for once. A killer no less.
"No, but it makes me feel a lot better, doesn't it?!" The man yells. Donovan curses that things are only escalating and there isn't any sign of Lestrade. He hadn't run that far, had he? Or had the DI gotten lost in the alleys somewhere? Either way, it was looking a lot like she was going to be stepping into this mess alone.
Grabbing her own gun, she readies herself as she draws nearer to the opening, trying to decide the best way to announce herself without spooking the gunman. Should she maybe hit the ground harder as she runs so they hear her coming? Or should she slow down and slide out quietly? Aim her gun at the murderer and order him to drop the gun before he has the chance to even realise she's there at all?
Maybe the Freak's antagonising could work in her favour. If he kept the man's attention on him, he wouldn't be watching for her arrival, and with all their yelling he wouldn't hear her shoes on the ground. It was the best she could come up with, and so she slowed her running down and readied herself to step carefully around the corner-
Only to be stopped by a shout of surprise and the bang of a gun going off.
Adrenaline suddenly pumping through her veins, she darts out to see that Watson had tackled the gunman, knocking the man's head hard enough off the ground that, with a groan, he falls unconscious.
"Well done, John. Could have done something sooner, of course. And with less mess." The Freak says at the same time that Donovan's eyes widen at the sight of the Freak opening his ridiculous coat and showing off the blood blooming over his expensive shirt.
"Sorry, but I was hoping to avoid either of us being shot, actually." The doctor responds with a glare at the Freak, and for a moment Donovan wonders if he knows that the Freak has been shot.
Except, his eyes glance at the wound and after a quick look he dismisses it entirely. It's not at all how she would have expected him to act - the Freak maybe, but not the doctor who seems to love the Freak more than himself.
"Good thing you knocked him out on the way down. Easier to explain away." The Freak says as he closes his coat and crouches down beside the gunman to survey him. Next to him, Watson pulls the coat back again to assess the wound, and the Freak turns his head to watch. The doctor tugs the shirt tails from the Freak's pants and raises the shirt up to show the wound, glistening with blood in the dim light.
"A through and through." The Freak notes with a distinct lack of concern.
She thinks she must be in shock. That must be why she hasn't run over to help. Why she hasn't yelled at the Freak for being idiotic enough to anger a man with a gun. Why she hasn't radioed that Lestrade should bring paramedics with him.
But she can't help it. Not when both of these idiots are going on as if one hasn't just been shot. Not when they're talking as if they're sitting and having tea as opposed to being in a dark smelly alley with a murderer at their feet. Not when-
Not when Watson smears away some of the blood and she can see that the hole is closing.
"One of these days, you won't be so lucky, and the bullet will get lodged." The doctor complains as he drops the shirt, and the Freak stands again.
As if he hadn't just been shot. As if the blood covering the shirt were someone else's and not his own.
"You act as if I get shot often." The Freak dismisses, even as Donovan finds herself slipping out of the alley so that she would be hidden once more.
"Since we've been reunited? It's become an increasing event." She hears Watson say as she tries wrapping her head around what she has just seen.
At the other end of the alley, she hears pounding footsteps and then the DI is turning the corner and coming into view. She's not ready to move on from this moment, but she forces herself to as she waves the man down and they both re-enter the space with the doctor and the Freak.
The Freak is wrapped up in his coat once more, standing tall and unflinching as if he hadn't just had a hole in his side moments ago. When Lestrade asks about the gunshot, the Freak says it was a wild shot and no one was harmed, and the DI accepts the explanation with ease.
Despite knowing it's a blatant lie, Donovan says nothing.
How would she explain herself anyway? She could point out the blood, but without a wound, she could hardly say he'd been shot. If the Freak could come up with this lie, who's to say he wouldn't come up with another just as easy?
She had no evidence that what she had just witnessed actually happened.
In fact, she wasn't even sure what she had just witnessed had actually happened.
How could it? How could she have watched the Freak be shot, and then subsequently watched the wound heal within moments? How could she have seen the two of them talking as if it were a minor inconvenience rather than a serious threat to his life?
In an instant, she's thrown back to a day, many months ago, when Watson had looked her in the eye and said that she wouldn't have to worry about finding his dead body.
At the time, she'd thought him mad. A perfect fit for the Freak.
Now, she was starting to think she was the one going mad.
0-0-0-0-0
After the events in the alley, Donovan found herself lost in her thoughts more often than not.
And yet, she still couldn't make heads or tails of everything she'd seen.
First, there was the video footage that showed the Freak and the doctor walking away from an explosion with - all things considered - minor injuries. Then, there was later that same night, when she saw them both and they looked no worse for wear. Not to mention that she witnessed the Freak being shot, only to then watch him heal near-instantaneously afterwards.
None of it made sense.
Or well, it did, she supposed, if she lived in a comic book or something.
Is that what this meant then? That the Freak - and possibly Watson too - had some sort of superpowers? They were London's very own Batman and Robin?
No, that was a rich guy with one too many gadgets playing at vigilante and a sidekick he'd taken in.
Not actually a horrible comparison, she supposed, but not the point either.
This was actual superpowers. This was-... was-... well, she didn't exactly know.
And she also didn't know what she was supposed to do with this information. She could hardly tell the DI; not without looking like a loony. She couldn't tell the Freak and Watson either, because now she was all too aware that they very well may have had a part in the explosion at the pool after all, and if they could have orchestrated that mess and gotten away with it, she had no doubt they could have her disappeared without a trace.
Especially considering superpowers.
Was there some sort of number that she could call about this? Some super-secret government number that specialised in taking down people with superpowers to keep them from becoming threats to society? It was like something out of a bad action movie, but she would take anything right now.
Or maybe, the most likely answer, she was going insane. Honest to goodness insane. She'd had a mental break after one too many stressful nights and she had hallucinated the events of the alley. She heard the gun go off, but she hadn't actually seen the shot, only the aftermath. She had only imagined that she'd seen the Freak bleeding with a gaping hole in his side. He'd been right, and what actually happened was that the bullet had been a stray shot, flying off harmlessly into the air. Nothing to be concerned with.
Maybe she just needed a break. There were no superpowers here, only irritating Freaks and their reckless husbands.
She remembers again when John had mentioned they wouldn't find his body. She'd told him he should go some place warm. Try out snorkelling.
That didn't sound so bad.
0-0-0-0-0
"How was the holiday?" Looking up at the sound of Anderson's voice, Donovan finds a smile forming on her face as she leans back in her chair, happy to be distracted. She was still feeling lethargic and relaxed after her trip, not quite back into the swing of working yet, and so she was more than happy to put off the paperwork she needed to be doing in favour of talking.
Maybe she would even hear some of the gossip she'd missed while she was gone.
"Needed and much enjoyed. How were things here?" She asks to which Anderson shrugs.
"Not awful. Certainly not nearly as entertaining with you gone." Rolling her eyes at the blatant flirting, the smile doesn't leave her face and she finds herself leaning in.
"No? Well, it must be a good thing I'm back then." She says, all but batting her eyelashes at the man.
After such a nice holiday, she wouldn't mind a good shag to top it all off.
"A very good thing. The DI had the Freak on just a few days ago. If you're lucky the case will be wrapped up soon and you might not have to see him." Good mood lost at the mention of the Freak, Donovan finds her smile faltering.
While on Holiday, Donovan had been able to put the events of the alley entirely out of her mind. She'd kept busy relaxing in the sun, doing activities, and exploring a new town. Not once did she let her thoughts stray to the Freak and his husband.
But now, sat in New Scotland Yard, it all comes flooding back despite her best efforts. Despite the unease it brings and the headache that pounds behind her eyes.
No matter how hard she tries to forget or downplay what happened, she knows what she saw. And even still, she tries to tell herself she didn't see anything. Not a wound, not a smattering of blood, nothing.
"And anyway, the wife's out of town this week. I was thinking of getting some drinks and making a to do. Friday?" Trying to pull herself out of her thoughts, she forces her smile to return at full force as she nods firmly.
"Definitely." She agrees, trying to think about that instead of the Freak.
Only, life was far too cruel to her as, only moments later, the DI came out of his office and began rounding up volunteers for a 'drugs bust'. Of course, Anderson was quick to volunteer, and when the DI looked her way expectantly, she could hardly say no.
If she wanted to put all this insanity behind her, she had to let things go back to normal. And that meant finding evidence that the Freak was the madman she knew him to be - superpowers not included. It meant looking for evidence in his flat that could help put him away for a long, long time.
Mental break or no, she couldn't allow herself to let him run free if he was truly a criminal like she thought him to be.
It's with that in mind that she enters the sitting room of 221B and looks around with a critical eye. As is typical for the flat, it's a mess, with papers and various paraphernalia scattered throughout. There's a stack of files on the desk piled nearly as high as her head and for a moment she wonders how they haven't toppled over. Beside them are multiple notebooks, each open with different coloured pens strewn about and illegible scribbles on the pages.
Considering what they're here for is a file, she decides that the most obvious place to look would be there, and so while the rest of the volunteers begin to spread out, she takes herself over to the desk and resigns herself to sifting through what's likely to be nonsense.
As she carefully makes her way through the stack of files, she hears the shocked gasps and disgusted gags of the more inexperienced volunteers discovering the horrors that is the Freak's flat. She's silently grateful to have gotten to the desk before she had to venture into the kitchen. However, as she skims through the files, she quickly finds that the file they're looking for isn't here and she'll need to find somewhere else to look soon.
Glancing around the room, she spots the DI tilting his head back and forth as he looks at the wall behind the sofa that's covered in pictures and notes pinned to the wall. All that was missing was the cliché red string connecting each picture, but it seemed the Freak was too good for the classics.
Looking the other way, she spots the bookshelves and decides she'll look there next.
Surely there wouldn't be anything too disturbing there.
Pulling out books, she looks for the file while keeping her eye out for any hidden drugs or other evidence of a crime. While she hadn't seen it herself, she knew the Freak had a past with drugs as she'd overheard the DI talking with him about it back when they were still strangers to each other. Apparently, he and the Freak had had a run-in before the Freak had decided to get into the consulting business and the DI had been worried.
She wouldn't be surprised if it were drugs that made the man so manic. While they'd never found evidence of it before, she wouldn't put it past the Freak to have hidden drugs in this place.
Still, as she searches, she finds no drugs, no files, and no evidence of anything else suspicious. It's infuriating, considering she knows the man is up to no good. There's got to be something that she can use as definitive proof, something that she can show the DI to get him to understand that they should be arresting the Freak, not giving him access to crime scenes.
That makes her think of the Moriarty case all over again and she swallows uncomfortably over the fact that, just as she knows he's up to no good, she's sure he pulled one over on them in that case. She doesn't know how, she doesn't know what, she doesn't know why, but after what she's seen, she knows that it hadn't been so cut and dry as the big bad Moriarty being taken out by a rival crime syndicate.
She's just about to give up on the bookshelves altogether and find Anderson when she picks up a book that she notices in an instant she should be careful with. Everything about it screams old and delicate, and so with much more care than she's ever shown anything in the Freak's flat, she turns it slowly and gently in her hands to look at the cover.
It looks old, even as it looks well taken care of with its leather bindings. There's nothing telling on its cover - no title or embossing; nothing that lets her know what it is - and the back is just as blank. When she opens it, she finds that it looks to be handwritten, but the problem is that whatever the writing is, she doesn't understand it at all. It doesn't look like any language she recognises, and the handwriting itself is as fancy and loopy as it is sharp and neat. As she skims it, it looks like nothing but gibberish, but she thinks she recognises a couple of letters, like A and N and Y. Still, it's not enough to be able to read any of it despite her curiosity.
Flipping through the pages, she sees that most of the pages are filled with the same unfamiliar writing, and when she reaches the end, she wonders what the Freak is doing with something like this.
It looks like it belongs in a museum, not this biohazard of a flat.
Frowning, Donovan takes a moment to look over her shoulder at the room behind her. Everyone is still preoccupied with the rest of the Freak's flat, and no one is looking in her direction. Taking the opportunity, she pulls out her mobile and begins taking pictures.
For all she knows, this did belong to a museum, and like his habit to take important evidence for himself, the Freak might have nabbed something priceless. Something that could put him behind bars.
It's the best shot she has, and so after a few photos, she shuts the book and carefully puts it back on the shelf along with the other mundane books. When lined up with them, it doesn't look so out of place, and maybe that was a ploy in of itself.
Hiding the evidence in plain sight. Some place a person would look right at it but dismiss as normal.
It was exactly something the arrogant Freak would do.
0-0-0-0-0
She's thankful to have found this book because it gives her something to focus on other than the wound that she definitely didn't see disappear before her very eyes. It helps her to put aside the possible superpowers and focus on something more human: Crime.
It takes her a while, but after some researching, she finds someone who claims to be an expert at dating old books and translating them.
After tracking down their email, Donovan writes to them, explaining that she found an old book in with her relative's things and was wondering if she could help her identify it. It took a week, but finally, they replied, willing to help and asking when they could meet up.
Biting her lip, Donovan responded, telling them that she was out of the country and would be for a while - family obligations and all - but she had photos that she could send. After attaching them, she waited impatiently before realising she could hardly expect a reply so soon.
They would need time translating it if she even could at all.
It was with that thought that Donovan tried moving on with her life as normal. She went to work, did boring paperwork, followed the DI on cases, and tried to keep herself from being too antagonistic to the Freak. Now that she might have something on him, she didn't need him looking too closely her way else he figures it out and run. She has no doubt that he could be out of the country and drop off the map before they even thought to make the drive to Baker Street.
After another three weeks of endless waiting, she finally got the email she had been waiting for.
'Good afternoon,
I've finished translating the photos that you sent, and I must say, it was a joy to do so! From what I can tell through the photographs alone, the book you have appears to be a personal journal dated somewhere between the 1400's and the 1500's. Of course, if you were ever able to bring me the journal in person I could give you a more accurate estimation.
As for what was written, I've provided a text document with a direct translation of the pages provided. The language used appears to be Middle English which would line up with my estimation of this journal being from the 14 - 1500's.
From what I've seen, it seems as if this is a journal written from the perspective of an adult man. This could be determined from some of the language used as well as the style of the journal and the handwriting itself. Throughout most of it, he seems to be journaling about his time spent with another man - someone with the surname Holmes - and if I had any guess, I believe that the two were in some sort of romantic relationship.
Perhaps your family would know more about that?
Regardless, this journal is truly a relic and if you might, would you possibly think of having it properly preserved? I have some contacts that would be very interested in this piece and some that would even be willing to pay.'
They continue on to discuss different donation or payment options, but that's not what Donovan is interested in, especially considering it's not her journal to give away.
On one hand, she's rather disappointed that this turned out to be nothing after all. Just one of the Freak's ancestors having a relationship with another man - how cyclical. In the 15th century no less.
Opening the text document, Donovan skims through some of the translated pages, finding herself interested despite herself. The journal truly is just that - someone writing down their mundane thoughts as they went about their life. She was interested in what a Holmes ancestor might be like, but from the perspective of the author, they seemed nothing like the Freak. Warm, caring, considerate - no, the Freak definitely didn't inherit any of those genes.
She's about to close the document altogether when her eyes catch a word, or rather a name, and she stops.
'Sherlock, out of his mind with madness surely, got us thrown out of another town. He can't keep his hands to himself, and we're now in possession of yet another book that we don't have the room to carry along. One of these days, I might just strangle the man for all I love him.'
It must be a family name, then. Sherlock Holmes from the 1400's, and Sherlock Holmes of the 2000's. Maybe it was a more common name back then.
Still, there's something about it that she doesn't like. Something that doesn't quite settle right in her stomach.
Vampire flits through her head and she's quick to shut it down even as she can't help herself from lingering on it.
It would fit, wouldn't it? Unharmed by a bullet, alive in the 1400's, looks as young and spry as ever hundreds of years later?
No.
She took that holiday for a reason. She was reading into this too much, and after one too many movies she was blurring the lines of reality and make-believe.
Maybe she should get a therapist. Maybe this wasn't where she needed to be after all, and she needed to find someone who could help her ground herself back firmly in reality. This obsession with the Freak might actually have become unhealthy and now her brain was playing tricks on her and making her think insane thoughts.
Closing the document and the email, she sits back in her chair and closes her eyes.
Maybe the Freak was playing some sort of trick on her. Maybe this had been all a ploy to drive her insane and distract her away from discovering he was actually a serial killer. Make her think she's gone insane so she'll lose credibility with her colleagues so that when she finally does get incriminating evidence no one will believe her.
Whatever the case is, she's exhausted.
Her head hurts and she wishes, not for the first time, that Lestrade had listened to her when she said at the start that working with the Freak would only bring trouble.
Another installment to my Immortal AU series!
Donovan is catching on, but as a result she's beginning to question her own sanity. Understandable, of course. I only hope I was able to portray a slowly-going-insane Donovan well.
I hope you all enjoy this installment and I'll see you - eventually - with the next one! This one was only a one-shot, but it is connected to what will be happening I the next installment so look forward to that!
Until then, I hope you enjoyed!