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******“If there is to be reconciliation, first there must be truth.”- Timothy B. Tyson******Sherlock Holmes is alive.He's alive and he's right here in front of her.They are in the kitchen of 221a. Sally has no idea how they got there but there's a chair and she's sitting down and trying to take deep breaths.Mrs Hudson is weeping and clinging to Holmes as though he might disappear if she lets go.He is sitting on one of the chairs and holding her tight and talking non-stop in a gentle tone Sally has never heard from him before."It's all right, it's all right, I'm home. You're safe now, it's all fine, you're safe. I'm back and I'm not going anywhere ..."Mrs Hudson hiccups and cries into his shoulder. "You stupid, stupid boy.""I'm sorry," he says and Sally thinks she may faint after all.He says it again and again. "I'm sorry, Mrs Hudson. I'm so sorry. But you're safe now. Everything is going to be okay.""M-me?" Mrs Hudson hiccups again and Sally can see one of her hands tighten around Sherlock's shoulder."Yes, what are you on about?," Sally demands, surprised at how strong her voice is. Angry.Holmes looks at her as if he only noticed her just now. "I might ask you the same thing," he says, his eyes roving up and down her body in that way he has that is not a leer but somehow more intrusive than anything the common arse on the street does with women. As if he's reading her secrets right off the wrinkles in her clothes."Ah. Mrs Hudson adopted you into her circle of surrogate children. You're at ease here, so you're familiar with your surroundings. You have been coming over once, no, twice a week."Clearly whatever happened did nothing to ruin his powers of deduction.She stares at him, feeling the anger rising up inside of her like a tsunami. "No dirt under your fingernails, so you must have had time to clean up since you crawled out of your grave," she snipes back at him. "Did you have a nice holiday while everything here fell to pieces?"He flinches at the accusatory tone but doesn't respond, instead turning his attention back to Mrs Hudson who has finally started to loosen her hold on him a bit.She only does it so she can slap him, her soft hand connecting with his left cheek with a resounding smack.He winces, but does nothing to defend himself. Calmly, he says: "I deserved that.""You bloody well did," Mrs Hudson snaps at him, apparently having found her anger as well. "Leaving us all like you did! A note would have been enough, just something to let us know you were all right. John has been a right mess and I won't claim I was much better. What were you thinking?"Even though Mrs Hudson is sitting on his knees and he is more than a head taller than her, Sally still gets the impression of a boy being chided by his mother for staying out past his curfew.He sighs. "It's a long story.""And we have all the time in the world," Mrs Hudson tells him sternly. "Out with it. And don't even think about lying or holding anything back. I can tell when you're fibbing."To Sally's surprise, that is all it takes to make him talk.He keeps the fingers of his right hand wrapped around Mrs Hudson's left one, gently cradling it, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall as he talks.He tells them about Moriarty and the snipers and the plan he and his brother came up with and all his reasons for leaving them behind the way he did.It's a crazy story, but Sally has no trouble believing any of it. After all, she never thought they would get to see Sherlock Holmes alive ever again. Compared to the miracle sitting opposite her right now, everything else is hardly a stretch of the imagination. 'If he claims he flew here on a dragon, I will probably believe that, too,' she thinks.He doesn't, luckily, so at least part of her sanity is still intact.Finally, his words run out and he blinks, his distant gaze refocusing on Mrs Hudson's kitchen. Holmes looks startled for a moment, and it occurs to Sally that he never meant to tell them as much as he has.It's then that she notices the dried blood on his face."Are you okay?"He frowns. "Why wouldn't I be?""Well, it looks like you got punched in the face, for one thing," she tells him.Mrs Hudson immediately makes a fuss, producing a handkerchief and starting to wipe the few dried drops away.Sherlock shrugs. "Headbutted, in fact."There is a short pause. In a carefully neutral tone, he continues. "You weren't the only ones who responded to my reappearance with physical violence."It takes her a moment to recall that she tried to hit him with a pan.There is only one person she can think of who Sherlock would seek out before coming to Mrs Hudson.Oh."So John knows?""I went to see him this evening," Sherlock says, voice toneless. "Interrupted his proposal, I think. He wasn't pleased."From the look on his face, Sally guesses there is more to that story, but she absolutely refuses to ask. There are things she doesn't want to know."Don't tell me this is a surprise," Sally says, shaking her head in disbelief. "I saw him once, about a year ago. He looked half-dead himself."She knows she isn't imagining the way he flinches at her words. For a moment, he looks almost ashamed.Sally wonders how he feels about John getting engaged, but that's another thing she's never going to ask."Does anyone else know?," she asks instead."Lestrade does," he says, and there's a small smile on his face now. "He seemed quite happy. Almost suffocated me."That would explain the phone calls she ignored."The last two years have been tough on him," Sally tells him, shrugging.Something occurs to her, then. "I feel I should apologise for suspecting you," she says slowly, awkwardly. "You have been relieved of all suspicion, but I was justified for thinking you had something to do with all these crimes. I'm still sorry it went as far as it did, though."Holmes waves a dismissive hand. "No, I knew you would suspect me. It was part of Moriarty's plan, sowing doubt in the minds of the police. Had you not acted on your suspicions, he would have found another, more cruel way of destroying my reputation. It all worked out surprisingly well in the end."His tone makes it clear that he considers the matter closed and Sally doesn't protest. What else is there to say, after all? She got her closure when they exonerated him."That's enough for tonight," Mrs Hudson says, reminding them of her presence. "Sherlock, you need to lie down, you look dreadfully tired. When did you last get a proper night's sleep?""I don't know. What month is it?"She rolls her eyes at him. "Wrong answer, young man. And when did you last have a proper meal?""The same question applies, Mrs Hudson. I was held by the Serbians for a while and then came straight here. They don't hold with feeding their prisoners full rations. Too much risk of someone puking all over their shoes during the forcible attempts at extracting information.""Well, you stay right where you are and I'll make you something to eat," Mrs Hudson says, patting his hand. Sally wonders if she's deliberately ignoring what Sherlock just revealed. "And after that, you will go to bed. No arguments."For a moment, Sally thinks he looks tempted to say "Yes, mother" but in the end he merely rolls his eyes and gives in with a grumbled "Fine".But there is something in the way his expression softens as soon as Mrs Hudson has turned her back that throws Sally a little.This is not the man she knew, the infuriating know-it-all sociopath who wouldn't shut up and didn't know how to act like a decent human being.Instead, he looks like a homeless teenager who suddenly finds himself enveloped in a warm, welcoming home where he doesn't need to justify his own existence. He looks like this is something he desperately needed and had to do without for far too long.In a word, he looks vulnerable.And it occurs to her that his time away and John's less-than-favourable reaction to his reappearance may just have been too much for him to handle.She decides to drop by more often. Only to see how Mrs Hudson is adjusting, of course.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Things don't return to normal. Not precisely.Then again, Sally can't even remember what 'normal' is supposed to look like. There was either the absurd normality of Holmes being present or the even more absurd normality of Holmes being dead.
In between the two, there used to be a reasonably calm period of almost-normality wistfully remembered as
John being there
.
Now they are back to Holmes, all by his lonesome self. No John.Sally doesn't know what she expected, the first time he shows up at a crime scene after his return. Just two days later, in fact. He gives her a slight nod, listens to Lestrade talk about what they know so far, and gets to work.No snide remarks. No complaints about the crime technicians' work.It's disturbing to watch, somehow. Sally wonders if this will become the new normal, now.She hopes John will forgive him soon.*****Holmes looks a right mess these days.His expression is closed off, head lowered, shoulders drawn up in a way not justified by the cold fall weather.These days, he flinches at loud noises and keeps his back to the walls, as if afraid someone might sneak up on him. Sally doesn't want to know what happened to him that caused this.
Sometimes, he mutters to himself, which isn't unusual. He tells himself to shut up. That
is
unusual.
Sally wonders if he's hearing voices.
No, she corrects herself.
A
voice.
She shares a worried glance with Lestrade. He gives a helpless shrug.When Holmes completely fails to insult anyone for the third time in a row, Sally decides to talk to Mrs Hudson.*****"He's been quiet," she says, hands clasped around a cup of tea, sitting comfortably in Mrs Hudson's kitchen. A familiar environment, warm and welcoming. Rain hammers against the window, making the room even cosier.Mrs Hudson sits across from her, the usual plate of biscuits on the table between them. Neither of them reaches for one."It takes some time, adjusting to being here again," the older woman softly says. She doesn't sound convinced.Sally shakes her head. "Not like this. It's like he's ... muted, somehow. He shows up, looks around, rattles off his deductions, and leaves. Doesn't insult anyone, doesn't get in anyone's face, doesn't badger Lestrade for more information or complain about the way we work. Nothing. He hasn't run off to hunt down a perp on his own since he came back."The corners of Mrs Hudson's mouth turn down and she sighs. "I haven't heard a single explosion since he came back. Of course, he's been out a lot. He says he has to reacquaint himself with the city again, but I think he just needs an excuse to not be up there all by himself.""Has John been here at all?," Sally asks quietly."I haven't seen him, no. I do hope they sort it all out soon. Can you imagine John marrying some woman?!"They share a long look, both imagining the likely fallout, and wince."It's not going to end well," Sally sighs. "Have you talked to Molly recently? She might know more.""Why don't you give her a call and ask her to come over?," Mrs Hudson suggests. "Sherlock probably won't be home for a while and even if he was, he couldn't care less about us women gossiping in my kitchen."Sally grins and pulls out her phone. "All right."She sends a quick text to Molly, not at all surprised when the pathologist immediately agrees. It occurs to her that all three of them need more of a social life. She thinks of Holmes. Well, all four of them.*****Molly arrives half an hour after Sally texted her. They sit in Mrs Hudson kitchen in what is essentially a war council. Neither of them knows what to do but perhaps together they can figure it out.But first there is something Sally needs to clear up."You knew," she says once Molly has sat down. "You knew all along that he was alive."Molly returns her accusing stare with a steady gaze. "Yes.""And you didn't say a word.""I promised not to," Molly tells her. "He explained what would happen if word got out. That John and Mrs Hudson and DI Lestrade would die.""So you just let me feel guilty over nothing for two years?," Sally asks, feeling a spark of anger rise in her."It was a small price to pay for keeping everyone alive."Sally shakes her head. Her anger has disappeared as quickly as it came. "I can't believe I didn't realise." She pauses, remembers. "Wait... you said your cat liked to jump on him when he was at your place."Molly smiles a wry smile. "I slipped up. He needed a hiding place afterwards, somewhere to lie low until his brother could get him ready for his mission and out of the country."Her expression darkens and when she turns to Mrs Hudson and speaks again, she sounds sad. "You didn't see him. You can't imagine what it did to him, letting you all think he was dead."Mrs Hudson has tears in her eyes. "Oh, my poor boy. It must have been hell for him.""He went to see you when you came to visit his grave. You and John, I mean," Molly tells her. "He wouldn't say what happened but he was a wreck afterwards. If he could have done things differently, he would have. He never expected it to take so long for him to be able to come back."They sit in silence for a while, digesting that. Sally is still struggling with the concept of Sherlock Holmes caring about other people but all the evidence points in that direction."So he left to save you all and came back to find John engaged," Sally muses. "That can't be good.""He interrupted the proposal," Mrs Hudson reminds her.There are too many implications to all of this, too many things better left unsaid but loudly thought by all of them."He has been acting strange since he came back," Sally says for lack of anything else to say. "Stranger than he used to, I mean. Doesn't insult people, doesn't run off on his own, doesn't even annoy people.""He is very quiet," Mrs Hudson agrees. "I have to pester him to get him to talk to me at all and he barely touches his food."They both turn to Molly, who shakes her head. "I only saw him once, when he came to let me know he was back. He ... I don't think he's doing so well."The three of them share a worried look."John hasn't been here, has he?," Molly asks quietly.Mrs Hudson shakes her head. "No. Perhaps he just needs a bit of time.""Well, he better hurry up before Holmes dies on him all over again," Sally says, sighing.There is nothing else to say, so after a short pause, Mrs Hudson changes the topic."Do you girls have any plans for Bonfire Night, then?"Molly blushingly admits she'll spend it with her fiancé, causing an instant interrogation session and happily showing off her ring. She shows them pictures of Tom on her phone and although they share a knowing look, neither Sally nor Mrs Hudson comments on the obvious similarities between Molly's fiancé and Sherlock, though Sally does tease her a little for keeping him under wraps for so long."Do you have anything planned for Bonfire Night?" Sally asks Mrs Hudson, earning a shake of her head."I'm too old to stand out in the cold for hours on end just to watch them burn an effigy," Mrs Hudson says. "What are you doing, my dear?""I'm on duty," Sally sighs. "The police always pulls extra shifts on Bonfire Night and with the personnel cutbacks we've suffered in recent years Scotland Yard isn't exempt from helping out. There are always more people needed than we have available. But I get the next day off as compensation, so it's not all bad.""Well, I just hope no one starts any riots," Mrs Hudson says, patting her hand. "Do come over for lunch the day after, though."
Sally smiles. "That sounds great, actually, thank you."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Bonfire Night is cold and miserable for anyone forced to be outside and far from the fire. Unfortunately, that includes Sally.She's on patrol, something that doesn't usually fall into her job description but as she told Mrs Hudson, beggars can't be choosers and it's all hands on deck for larger events in the city."This is a right misery," Hennings, her partner for the night, grumbles as they amble through the crowds. "I loved Bonfire Night as a kid. Don't know what I was thinking.""You didn't have to think about what it means for the police," Sally sighs. "Same as me.""Damn straight," Hennings agrees. "At least we've got one of the calmer nicks this year. Last time, they had me at Battersea Park."Sally grimaces. That is a nasty place to be for everyone in uniform.Her radio crackles and they move into a narrow side alley, away from the people and the noise, so they can hear the dispatch.The static is terrible and they have to lean in to hear anything at all."Did you catch that?," Sally asks.Hennings furrows her brow. "I might have misheard but it seems they found someone unconscious under a bonfire.""Bloody hell."The radio crackles again with more information."Not anywhere near us," Hennings says, half relieved, half disappointed. "They're not calling us in."Sally shakes her head. "No. They'll call in the teams who are closer and ask us to expand our range, though. Just wait for it."She is proven right half a minute later."Told you." She confirms the order and they walk back out into the crowd."How do you even end up unconscious under a bonfire?" Hennings asks, shaking her head. "How high do you have to be to think a pile of firewood would be a great place to crawl under for a nap?"Sally shrugs. "Have you seen those piles? I don't think you can crawl under them that easily. Sounds like he or she was put there on purpose.""That's nasty.""Good way to hide a murder, though. Destroying the body and the evidence in one go, with a ton of people around to mess up the scene." Just thinking about it makes her grateful they found the poor sod in time."Yeah. Let's see if we can find some of the others, see if they know more."They do find some of their colleagues about an hour later. By then there is more information available: a little girl heard something but her father thought she was imagining the effigy making sounds until they lit the fire. Two people on a motorbike arrived out of nowhere, a man and a woman."The guy jumped head-first into the fire, tore it apart screaming his lungs out," one of the Bobbies says. "Heard it from my mate who was on patrol near the scene. He pulled an unconscious guy out, said he'd been abducted by someone. Who the fuck does that?""Got any names?" Hennings asks, curious. "Please tell me there wasn't any media present.""There wasn't, but it'll be all over the news soon. I bet a lot of people captured it on their phones."His partner looks at his phone and curses. "Bloody hell. It was that detective guy. You know, Sherlock Holmes!"Sally gapes. "What, in the fire?""No, the bloke on the bike who jumped into the fire.""Three guesses who was in it, then, and the first two don't count," Hennings says. "I wonder who the woman was, though.""Probably the fiancée," Sally says."Whose?""John's," Sally replies. "If it even was John.""Do you know anyone else Sherlock Holmes would jump into a fire for?"Sally doesn't. She wonders what Mrs Hudson will say when she finds out.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Mrs Hudson is beside herself when Sally tells her about the incident the next day. Sherlock, of course, didn't tell her anything, so all she knew about it was Mary - the fiancée - storming into the house, shouting for Sherlock, and the two of them rushing out."He dropped his food in the hall. Chips and vinegar all over the floor. I was going to scold him for it but he'll drop everything all over again for John the next time something happens."They share a knowing look. Sally sighs. "It's not going to end well, is it?"Mrs Hudson shakes her head sadly. "There is nothing we can do, dear. I'd tell you to go up and talk to him but he's got visitors.""Clients?" Sally asks, perking up. As far as they both know, this is the first time Holmes has taken on a case for a private client since his return.Mrs Hudson laughs. "No, dear. It's his parents."Sally almost spits her tea across the table. She starts coughing. "His what?""His parents. Surely you didn't think he fell out of the sky fully grown?""I would have suspected him coming from the other direction, actually," Sally says, but it lacks the bite the statement would have had two years ago. "Are you sure about the parents, though? I didn't see any posh cars outside.""They took the tube, apparently.""I'd have expected a limousine," Sally says, smiling. "Or at least a fat, shiny Mercedes.""Oh, hush you," Mrs Hudson scolds. "They're lovely people. You should meet them. In fact, you just might." And she gets up and makes for the door to her flat, which is open as always.Before she reaches it, there's the sound of the front door opening and closing and steps going up the stairs.They stare at each other. "You don't think-" Sally starts."That sounded like John," Mrs Hudson gasps, delighted. "I know the sound of his steps."
They fall silent, both of them listening for noises from upstairs. They don't have to wait for long before they hear the door open and voices. Sherlock's and an older woman's are too low to understand but a man's gentle voice drifts down. "... she
worries
."
The door closes and there are footsteps on the stairs."That boy," the woman sighs. "Did you see his face when John walked in?""I'm not that short-sighted yet to miss it, my dear, even without my glasses."Mrs Hudson steps out into the hallway. "Oh, are you leaving already?""Ah, Martha, I'm afraid so. Sherlock's got a more important visitor."Sally, having risen and now standing uncertainly in the kitchen, notices there is not a hint of bitterness in Mrs Holmes' voice. If anything, she sounds pleased."Won't you come in for a cuppa?" Mrs Hudson asks. "I've got a lovely young lady from the Yard visiting but I'm sure she won't mind. She works with Sherlock a lot.""Well, I never say no to your tea," Mr Holmes says warmly. "And I'm afraid we're not going to leave without my wife interrogating your guest now.""Oh, hush," Mrs Holmes scolds him. "You can't pretend not to be curious about what our boy gets up to. John's blog is ever so helpful but Mike makes him censor too much of it."
'Mike?'
Sally thinks, confused, but then Mrs Hudson enters with the couple and she forgets all about it.
They are, as far as she can tell, a perfectly ordinary elderly couple. Upon closer inspection, though, she can't help but find traces of Sherlock in them. His mother's eyes, cheekbones and mouth, his father's statue."Sally, these are Sherlock's parents, Mr and Mrs Holmes. This is Sally, she's a Sergeant at Scotland Yard.""Oh, please call me Odetta," Mrs Holmes says, grasping Sally's hand. "It's so lovely to meet a colleague of our boy's, isn't it, Paul?"
'Paul and Odetta'
Sally thinks, somehow not surprised at all by the ordinary and the odd name. There is something about Mr Holmes that reminds her of someone but she can't quite put her finger on it.
There is no mistaking the way they look at each other, though. Sally has rarely seen two people more in love. It makes her feel as if she is intruding on a private moment.They all take seats around Mrs Hudson's kitchen table and she bustles about, switching on the kettle and offering shortbread.Within the next fifteen minutes, Sally learns that Mr and Mrs Holmes are in town to see their sons and attend a musical with Sherlock's brother, whose name is Mycroft.She remembers the tall, serious man at the funeral who seemed to carry the weight of the world and thinks she should have known his name wouldn't be anything as simple as 'Sam' or perhaps 'Peter'.She also learns that Mrs Holmes was a renowned mathematician ("She still is," Mr Holmes whispers to her, winking, "but she doesn't like anyone making a fuss about it.") and that they are immensely proud of their sons. Sherlock's older brother apparently works for the government but they don't go into any detail and Sally rather suspects she is better off not knowing.Most importantly though, she learns that Mr Holmes is completely and utterly ordinary. He tells her that he worked as a janitor at the university where Mrs Holmes was a professor of Maths. He isn't a genius and he also doesn't appear to be a complete nutcase."I'm the idiot in the family," he tells her, his eyes twinkling with laughter."And we'd be lost without you," his wife says, reaching for his hand. They share another one of those looks that make Sally want to apologise for being in the same room.While Mrs Hudson and Mr Holmes have a chat and he offers to fix her dripping sink in the bathroom, Mrs Holmes turns her attention to Sally. If she hadn't already noticed the similarities, those bright, keen eyes would have given away her relation to Sherlock in an instant. It's a bit unnerving to see those half-familiar features arranged into an honestly pleasant expression."So you work with my boy, then?" she asks.Sally laughs. "In a way. A lot of the time it feels more like competing with him. He mostly works with my boss, DI Lestrade. He shows up, deduces every last little detail about the victim and the crime scene and then dashes off after the killer on his own. Used to drive me crazy."She doesn't even try to pretend she liked it.Mrs Holmes nods. "He can be a handful when he's in his element. I certainly never knew when to shut up and step back while other people were talking about maths who didn't know half as much about it as I did. Not that I'm saying you're bad at your job," she hastens to add and Sally instantly knows where Sherlock has got it from. That brash honesty that can all too easily become an insult. This, then, is what it looks like tempered by decades of experience in trying to sound less offensive. She wonders how much of it is due to Mrs Holmes being a woman and having to censor herself much more than society would expect of a man."I know what you mean," Sally assures her. "I can't look at someone and deduce their life story from their clothes and their haircut. He can and it helps. It's just a bit ... much ... to have an outsider come in and do your job better than you do." She shrugs. "I got used to it by now and he's ... I suppose he's grown up a bit, if that's the right term. He seems ... quieter, somehow, since he came back. Doesn't insult people, for one thing."Mrs Holmes nods sadly. "My son has changed a great deal in the last couple of years," she says. Her tone makes it clear she doesn't necessarily consider all of it a good thing."He's less cold but also much more vulnerable. You'll look out for him, won't you? I know you will."It's not really a question, simply a statement of fact.Even as Mrs Holmes says it, Sally realises that Holmes needs someone to look out for him. Up until now, it has always been John and she knows he won't accept anyone else in the role. But perhaps ... just perhaps ... she can nudge things along to get John back where he belongs."I'll try," she finds herself saying. "But you and I both know it isn't me he wants looking out for him."Mrs Holmes smiles and nods, seemingly mostly to herself. "You're a fine officer, Sergeant Donovan."Sally, to her own surprise, finds herself blushing.*****Soon after, Sherlock's parents leave. Sally watches them walk to the cab together and it suddenly strikes her why Mr Holmes seemed so familiar. He looks like John. It's the way he walks and the way he dresses - they could be sharing a closet - and, above all, it's the way he looks at his genius Holmes.Sally stares and thinks about childhood influences and role models and about how, in the end, people either end up looking for a partner just like their parents or the precise opposite. It's not hard to guess which way Sherlock Holmes has gone. For the first time, the idea makes her sad for him.John is still upstairs and there isn't any shouting happening.Sally shares a look with Mrs Hudson, both of them hopeful."They can't stay away from each other," Mrs Hudson says. "Stubborn as John is, he knows where he belongs.""Does he?" Sally asks doubtfully. "I think he is a bit, well ... in denial, I suppose. I don't think he realises. Not with that fiancée of his."Mrs Hudson makes a face. "Ah, yes. Mary. Well I only saw her for a moment but she seemed nice." She hesitates. "She is nothing like our Sherlock."There are a lot of things Sally could say to that but she stays silent, struck by the casual 'our'. Is that what her life is now? Accidental ally of one Sherlock Holmes, mad nuisance extraordinaire? It seems so.In the flat above them, it sounds like someone is pacing. They hear Sherlock's muffled voice, exclaiming something about the Underground.Mrs Hudson rolls her eyes and smiles. "Never thought I'd hear him go off on one of his mad theories again," she says. "Sometimes you really don't learn to appreciate what you've got until it's gone."And Sally wonders what John has learned to appreciate. What does he think of this miracle the world gave him?*****The terrible thing about taking an interest is that you can't just sit by and watch. Sooner or later, you end up with the urge to step in and help.That night, lounging on her sofa with Dante curled up in her lap, Sally thinks that maybe there is something they can do, her and Mrs Hudson and Molly.Even absolved of all guilt over Sherlock's 'death', she feels she has a debt to pay."What do you think?" she asks her purring familiar. "Should I go meddle in something that really isn't any of my business in the hopes that someone I don't even particularly like will end up happy? On the downside, we're talking about Sherlock Holmes here. On the upside, it would make Mrs Hudson happy, too."'Mrrrp' Dante contributes.Sally scratches his chin and smiles. "Yes, that's what I thought, too."She reaches for her phone and sends a text to Molly:
'Call me crazy but I'm going to try and help Holmes get John back.'
Molly's reply arrives seconds later:
'Hi Crazy, I'm Molly.'
Sally snorts a laugh.A moment later, her phone buzzes again.
'I'm in. If I can't have him for myself, I might as well make sure he gets the one person he wants.'
Sally ponders this for a bit and wonders if she knows anyone, besides Mrs Hudson of course, as genuinely generous as Molly. She decides she doesn't and counts herself lucky to call her a friend. And for what it's worth, she thinks it says a lot about Holmes that he managed to get in the good graces of two women like that.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It's early evening and Sally is running down the stairs to Westminster Station, hot on the heels of Lestrade and followed by a lot of constables. She glances up, catches sight of the Elizabeth Tower - Big Ben to most, though it's only the name of the bell inside - and feels her stomach turn at the idea of it destroyed.A moment later, she's down and the tower out of sight, but an after-image remains engraved in her mind. She hopes the real thing will still be there at the end of the night.They hasten through the station - closed off by now, of course, though the commuters complained - and into maintenance tunnels. A service crew lead is showing them the way, walking swiftly with the assured gait of someone who knows these tunnels like the inside of his pockets."No one's been there in ages," he tells them. "It was built but never opened. I wonder that anyone ever realised it exists at all, you have to do some serious digging to find out about it."Sally bites her tongue and nods. As it happens, she can think of someone who she would have bet good money on knowing about it - or at least knowing how to find out about it.She isn't at all surprised when they reach the ghostly underground station to find Sherlock Holmes and John Watson standing on the platform. Down the tunnel behind them, there is a lot of activity."The bomb squad is checking the device right now," an officer already on the scene explains to her and Lestrade. "But they radioed and said it had been disabled already."Sally glances at Lestrade. They both look at Holmes.He shrugs. "There's always an off-switch."He looks calm, almost blasé, but it doesn't escape her notice that his gaze keeps flickering to John, as if to check he's still there. As if to reassure himself he didn't imagine his presence.John, for his part, looks tired and like someone who has been put through an emotional wringer, but Sally supposes that is only fair, considering recent events.He stares at Sherlock as though he's seeing a mirage but there's such a profound relief on his face that Sally feels almost embarrassed to witness it."How did you find out about this?" Lestrade asks.Holmes launches into an explanation, something about a literal Underground network and a threat to the Houses of Parliament, CCTV footage of a man disappearing off a train in between two stations and, of course, Remember Remember.Somewhere in his tale, Sally realises there are things he is very carefully not saying, like how he and John came to be down here and disable a bomb before the police arrived.She takes a couple of steps towards the edge of the platform and peers into the tunnel to where the train car is lit by several heavy-duty floodlights. Two members of the bomb squad in their heavily padded suits can be seen inside the car through the windows.Sally watches them do a death-defying job in their heavy protective suits and tries to imagine being in there on her own, with a bomb that is very much not disabled.She glances back at John and Sherlock, takes in the emotionally exhausted, hunted expression on John's face again, re-evaluates the glances Sherlock keeps shooting him, and can't help but wonder ...Was there a moment where they thought they were too late? Was there a moment where they thought they were going to die down here? What do you say in a situation like that? What would she say? And what on earth did these two say, after everything that happened?There is almost a metre of space between them and Sally frowns a little. Nothing too revealing, then, unless they are overcompensating.But they don't look too dishevelled and though she herself would not wish to get anywhere within three feet of Sherlock Holmes, she thinks it is close to impossible for anyone to want to snog him without also wanting to mess up his hair."I should get going," John says, tearing her from her thoughts. "Mary will be wondering and there's no signal down here."Next to him, Sherlock keeps his expression carefully neutral but Sally thinks she sees his shoulders slump a little."Let's go," he says, turning to Lestrade. "We're done here?""Erm, yeah sure," Lestrade says. "Good to see you, John. Good work on the... you know, this, Sherlock."Sherlock shakes his head. "This was what my brother brought me back for," he says.John's head whips around. "What?"Sally casually steps back towards them.Sherlock makes a face. "Mycroft came to get me out of ... well, he came to bring me back to London. Said there was an imminent terrorist attack." He bites his lip, glances away. It's the first time Sally has ever seen him look unsure. "If it weren't for this, I'd still be ..."He trails off, hunches his shoulders.Sally feels a shiver run down her spine and remembers him saying something about the Serbians. She thinks about him flinching at loud noises and keeping his back to the walls and thinks she doesn't ever want to know.John has turned a disturbing shade of pale. "Are you ... do you mean... you're going back?"Sherlock blinks at him. "Wha-? No. God, no!" He looks horrified at the idea. "I'm not leaving again. Not ever."There's something fierce in his voice and eyes and beneath that Sally thinks she sees a glimpse of terror. It's gone in an instant and then so are he and John.Hours later, when she finally drags herself home in the early morning, Sally is still shaken by it.Up until now, she has always thought Sherlock Holmes is fearless.*****The media has a field day with the foiled terrorist plot. Sally knew it would happen but she is still surprised when the reporters start arriving outside the door to 221b. She is glad she arrived an hour earlier than they did, settling down for a cuppa with Mrs Hudson.John is upstairs, along with his fiancée, or so Mrs Hudson has told her, and Lestrade arrived ten minutes ago."We should go up," Mrs Hudson says.Sally blinks. "I don't think they'd want me there.""Nonsense," Mrs Hudson tells her and guides her out of her chair. Sally doesn't put up a fight. "You have as much a right to be here as anyone. And Molly will arrive soon, too."That is something, at least. Sally smiles. "She said she'd bring her fiancé, too."They share a look and decide not to say any of what goes through their minds. Neither of them thinks Molly is ready but they will withhold judgement until they meet Tom in person. He seems sweet enough from what Molly has said about him, but Sally thinks it's all happening a bit fast.So she follows Mrs Hudson up the stairs, a small, unwelcome knot of nerves in her stomach. It dissolves into nothing as no one bats an eye at her being there. Lestrade merely raises his glass, Sherlock nods at her and John beams and introduces her to Mary. If he thinks Sally owes him an apology for Sherlock's arrest and subsequent 'death', he doesn't let on. She decides to catch him in a quiet moment at a later time anyway.Mary is ... well, not what Sally expected. She's on the small, petite side, with short blond hair and sparkling eyes and she teases Sherlock as if they are friends and Sherlock lets her because he'd clearly bend over backwards to accommodate John. Probably literally, Sally thinks, and feels another flash of sympathy for the annoying bastard.There is champagne and then Molly and her fiancée show up and Sally almost chokes on her drink. Mrs Hudson has to pat her back and tell her to keep it together and Sally wishes she could get a video of John's face so she could watch it on repeat. Lestrade looks a bit like someone kicked his puppy but she really doesn't have time to wonder what that is about because she's too busy trying to breathe and watch Holmes size up Molly's partner at the same time.Sherlock frowns uncertainly and then glances at John, who somehow manages to deflect any potential for tension. And the way Sherlock looks at him as soon as John turns away makes Sally wish she had more champagne. Oh dear.Instead, she watches Lestrade engage Molly in conversation and teams up with Mrs Hudson to interrogate Tom. She won't let this strange Holmes clone walk in and whisk Molly away without being sure he is a good man, a kind man. Someone who will lay the world at Molly's feet rather than pulling it out from under her without even noticing. Someone who isn't caught up in mooning after his best friend.Sally watches Sherlock looking at John and John looking at Mary and thinks she may regret deciding to get involved in this. But John makes Sherlock happy and Sherlock being happy makes Mrs Hudson happy. And Mrs Hudson has done more for Sally than she can ever put into words. So she will give her this in return, if she can.
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Unfortunately for Sally, her newfound mission is made a lot easier just three days later.She wakes up in the middle of the night to Dante hopping onto her stomach, meowing, and to an incessant dripping noise.Four hours and some panicked phone calls with her siblings later, the sun is just rising and Sally's apartment is being emptied of all her belongings.A pipe has burst in the flat above hers and the water has weakened the ceiling and caused some flooding in her neighbour's place. She was lucky to notice the issue so quickly but she and her neighbours will have to find another place to stay for some time until the building has been refurbished.Her siblings all offer her a place, of course, but they live on the other side of London and Sally really doesn't want to have to commute to and from work for two hours each way, so she declines.Instead, she finds herself calling a now familiar number. Even six months ago, she never would have considered it, but by now she knows she'd be scolded for not asking.Luckily, Mrs Hudson is already up. And she never did find someone for 221c. Feeling not the least bit guilty, Sally turns to her siblings and gives them the address. Time to get her stuff off the street before someone decides to steal it.*****By noon that day, Sally has moved into 221c Baker Street and the ridiculousness of the entire situation has become clear to her. A little over two years ago, she would have rather eaten live moths than set foot into this place. Now she's friends with the landlady and just moved in.She calls Greg to take the day off - evacuating your flat in the middle of the night surely counts as an emergency - and has to listen to him laugh his arse off about where she intends to stay for a solid five minutes before she hangs up on him.And now here she sits, surrounded by boxes full of her stuff in a dingy subterranean flat. Mrs Hudson has managed to get rid of the mold but never got around to actually putting the flat up for rent. Sally is proud of herself for insisting on paying rent. She won't have to for her old flat, not with it being unfit to live in. Mrs Hudson refuses to let her pay the full rent the flat should be worth, which is just as well because Sally knows she wouldn't be able to afford it."It's so nice to have you here," Mrs Hudson says, hovering in the doorway. "I'm glad I never got around to furnishing it, besides the kitchen - your brothers certainly made quick work of getting all your furniture here and setting it up."Sally smiles. "Every now and then, I remember why I keep them around," she jokes. "I'll have to bake them a cake to say thank you.""What a lovely idea. Let me help you! If they are anything like my boys, they'll demolish a cake in no time at all!" Mrs Hudson claps her hands together in delight and Sally feels her smile widen, knowing exactly who 'my boys' are and utterly failing to imagine Sherlock Holmes demolishing a cake. And yet she doesn't doubt it for a second.Speaking of the devil, Holmes walks in a minute later, his coat and wind-tousled hair evidence of time spent outside.He looks around the suddenly full 221c, his gaze lingering on Dante, who has taken up a post on the back of the sofa."Has your landlord given a time frame for when your flat will be inhabitable again?" he finally asks.Sally shakes her head and doesn't bother to ask how he knows. "It will be a couple of weeks at least, maybe several months.""You can stay here for as long as you like," Mrs Hudson says, and pointedly adds: "Can't she, Sherlock?"He shrugs. "It's your house, Mrs Hudson. Just don't expect me to change my habits.""I might as well expect it to snow on the sun," Mrs Hudson says, stepping forward and kissing his cheek. "Now get out of that coat and take off your shoes, you're dragging mud all over the floor."He wraps his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her to his side for a moment before letting go and stepping back. "I'll be upstairs." And to Sally he adds: "You better make sure your cat stays down here, there are too many volatile chemicals in my flat for him to come up and explore."It's almost ... thoughtful, but before she can do more than nod, he has disappeared.Mrs Hudson sighs. "That boy. Well then, I'll let you get settled in and if you need anything, I'll be just upstairs. Please don't hesitate to ask. Or come visit me for a cuppa when you need a break."Sally nods and murmurs her thanks and before she knows it, she is alone in 221c.She looks around the sitting room with her piles of boxes and the furniture standing around any which way. Yes, this could be quite nice, the longer she thinks about it.She gets out her iPod, hooks it up to a pair of speakers and gets to work.*****It takes her a couple of hours of pushing around furniture and boxes before she is happy with the layout and another couple of hours to make a dent in the unpacking. Her oldest brother drops by twice more with his car full of boxes from her flat, her siblings having packed up every single item that wasn't part of the flat originally. She thinks she will have to bake them several cakes and maybe take them out for dinner.When she falls into her bed late that evening, she is tired to her bones but also strangely satisfied with her life. Sure, losing her flat like this is a blow, but it was just a flat and this ... this feels like home. Or it could do, if she finds a way not to let Sherlock Holmes get on her nerves until she's ready to commit bloody murder. His reaction may have been tame today, but she doesn't let that fool her for a minute.
There is no way he will see her as anything but an intruder in his territory. The only question is what he is going to do about it.
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When Sally is making dinner the next day after work, the door to her flat opens and in sweeps one consulting detective, sans coat this time."Knock next time," she says, not wasting breath on rhetorical questions. He likes to ignore those.Holmes makes a noise that might mean anything and leans against the kitchen cupboards next to her, crossing his arms as he peers down at her. Sally keeps her focus firmly on the pots and pans she's stirring. Let him deduce whatever he likes, for all the good it will do him.Several minutes pass in silence.Then: "You're going to be abducted within the next two days. There's no need to panic."Sally drops her spoon. "Excuse me?"He makes a face. "Just ... don't let him intimidate you. And whatever you do, do not try to use violence against him. It won't end well for you. He just wants to talk."Sally gapes at him. "Who does?""You'll see."She turns down the hob and crosses her arms. That question was rhetorical. She already has a pretty good idea of who would want to 'talk' to her and consider abduction a perfect way of doing so. It must run in the family."Why are you warning me, then? Wouldn't it be more entertaining to just let it happen?"A quick shake of his head and then he turns and she realises she has turned to face him and suddenly she's staring straight into his piercing gaze and there is something raw and honest in his eyes."You looked after Mrs Hudson while I was ... away," he says. "She told me. I won't ever forget that."He looks away and strides past her to the door. "Enjoy dinner."The door to her flat closes softly behind him.Sally turns her attention back to making dinner as she tries to process the conversation.There's a soft 'meow' and Dante appears from wherever he was dozing to wind around her legs."Looks like Sherlock Holmes thinks he owes me a favour. What do you think of that, huh?" she asks him.Dante purrs and arches against her legs.She smiles. "Yeah."*****When she leaves work after her late shift the next night, there is a black car idling at the curb. Tinted windows, a sleek frame, bulletproof wheels with a 'Kevlar' stamp.As she steps closer, the driver gets out and holds the back door open for her. "Sergeant Donovan."It's not a question or an order, simply a statement of fact.Sally sighs. It's been a long day of chasing paper trails to nail down the Waters Gang and she really isn't in the mood for anything but her bed. "Will this take long?"The driver shrugs. She can see the obvious outline of a gun under his suit and wonders how many weapons she can't see. "Only as long as it needs to."She rolls her eyes. "Fine. But you better drive me home after."She gets into the car and settles into the soft leather seat with a sigh. It's warm and dry and there is a phone charger very obviously lying on the seat, plugged into a small socket in the floor. Sally eyes it for a moment, considers her 38% battery, and decides against it. Who knows what else this thing does apart from charging her phone. She doesn't particularly want anyone reading her conversations with her family and friends.The car is quiet - there's no music playing and the driver isn't the chatty sort, but mostly it's due to the engine propelling them through the city almost noiselessly. She doesn't bother watching the city go past - they clearly don't care if she knows where she is being taken, so she could just ask if she wanted to.Instead, she leans back and closes her eyes for a nap.*****Sally is shaken awake by the driver a little while later. Could be an hour, could be less. You never know how long it will take you to get from A to B in London thanks to the traffic.When she gets out, she can smell the Thames and there's an old warehouse in front of her.She snorts. "Really?""This way, Ma'am," the driver says, leading her inside.Her heels echo on the bare concrete floor and she can make out some sort of machinery in the shadows. A man stands in the only illuminated spot, wearing an expensive suit and propping himself up with an umbrella. He looks like a Mafioso or maybe an arms dealer. Knowing that he is neither doesn't really improve the situation.There's a chair in front of him, turned to face him."Ah, Sergeant Donovan," he says as if he wasn't expecting her. "Apologies for the lateness of the hour. You must be tired after your shift. Do sit down."Sally crosses her arms and remains standing. There is a tiny chance he doesn't know how inferior it makes a person - a woman especially - feel to sit when someone else - particularly a man - is standing above them. There is a very big chance he does know and frequently uses it to his advantage."Why am I here?" she asks. "I don't think I'm the sort of person you usually concern yourself with, Mr Holmes."If he is surprised that she knows his name, he doesn't let on. She stares hard at him, trying to find any sort of resemblance to his brother. There is the height, yes, and the excessively straight posture. A certain arrogance to the way he talks and acts, like he thinks the world will just fall into place and bend to his will. She has a feeling that, for him, it does. Most notably, he has the same piercing gaze. It makes her feel as if she's being x-rayed and lord only knows what he sees. But where Sherlock deduces people to solve a crime, she can't be sure what his brother does with the information he gets.He returns her gaze steadily and finally says: "You have moved into 221c Baker Street.""Yes," she says. "Congratulations. I'm sure it was extremely difficult to find out, what with all the boxes and furniture my siblings and I brought along."His mouth twists a little and Sally awards herself a point. Sherlock told her not to let his brother intimidate her but he needn't have worried. She is too tired to be intimidated and just tired enough to be thoroughly annoyed."What are your intentions, regarding my brother?" he asks.Sally snorts a disbelieving laugh. "My what now?"He simply looks at her and waits.'Oh my god, he's serious' she thinks, trying not to laugh harder."Short of not strangling him, I don't have any," she says. "Not to step on your toes but I don't think we're very well-suited."Well that's a massive understatement if ever she made one.Mycroft rolls his eyes, clearly agreeing. "Two years ago, you couldn't condemn him as a child abductor and serial killer quickly enough. Now, you've moved into a flat in the same house as him, a flat that has sat unoccupied for a very long time indeed."It suddenly occurs to her that the reason Mrs Hudson was never able to find renters had nothing to do with mold.She bares her teeth. "That's a lot of rent Mrs Hudson did not receive thanks to you."He lifts an eyebrow at her. "I assure you that Mrs Hudson has been well compensated for her troubles.""Who did you think was going to move in there?" she asks. "An assassin?""Why not? In the days leading up to Sherlock's unfortunate 'death'-" Sally can hear the quotation marks clang into place "-no less than four extremely skilled assassins moved within spitting distance of 221b Baker Street."She hadn't known that. "Where are they now?""One was shot and killed by the others. The rest were taken care of."Sally has a pretty good idea of how that happened and while she isn't going to shed a tear for them, something inside her rankles at the idea of this man subverting the justice system."That still does not explain why I am here," she says. "Sherlock is back where he belongs and doing well.""Is he?" Mycroft asks."Do you actually care?" she retorts.He looks mildly pained. Indigestion, perhaps. "I worry about him. Constantly.""Then perhaps you should talk to him," she suggests, quickly reaching the end of her patience.To her surprise, he looks away. "We have what you might call a complicated relationship.""You don't say," Sally snaps. "Abducting the people he works with, obsessively following him around and asking questions about him without bothering to talk to him in person? I can't imagine why he doesn't particularly enjoy your company.""If you had even a fraction of the resources available to me and if it was one of your brothers, can you honestly tell me you would not do the same thing?"That brings her up short.She tries to imagine what it must be like, having a younger brother who is a known former drug addict, who spends his time running after murderers and other assorted criminals, who has previously attracted the attention of a twisted mind like Moriarty's, who had to fake his own death and do god-knows-what all over the world.What would she do?"I certainly wouldn't try to play Big Brother with them," she says. "This may be news to you, but a relationship built on mutual trust and love would actually make him tell you things himself. If you're willing to do the same, which I doubt.""Circumstances are not always in our favour," Mycroft Holmes says, twirling his umbrella. It's not really an answer. It isn't anything."Perhaps it's time to change them, then," Sally suggests. "You seem to be in a good position for that."He ignores her and switches topics. "How is John?"She shrugs. "How should I know? I'm not exactly on his list of confidants. Or your brother's, for that matter.""He hasn't been at Baker Street often," Mycroft says. A statement of fact, not a question.Sally realises what he is really asking: 'How are things between my brother and John?'She sighs. "I think John has forgiven him for ... well, the past two years. Or at least he's trying to or they're both pretending he has. Who knows. But he also just dragged Mary through the house for an engagement party. I guess you can make of that what you will."Mycroft's mouth twists in an oddly familiar expression - Sherlock does the same thing when he isn't pleased with the quality of a crime scene photograph."At least he shaved," he says, apparently to no one in particular. "Perhaps that may be considered progress."Sally doesn't know what the status of John's (apparently hideous) facial hair has to do with anything, so she stays silent and waits. One thing she has learned from years of working with Sherlock: if a Holmes has a point, he will get there sooner rather than later.Several long moments tick by in silence. She refuses to so much as shift her weight. Instead, she looks around the place and wonders what it was - or is - used for. Apart from clandestine, surprisingly polite abductions, of course."I can't find any information on her," Mycroft finally says, apparently having come to some sort of conclusion.Startled, Sally whips her head back around and looks at him. "On whom?""Miss Mary Morstan," he says, as if that was obvious.Sally frowns. "What precisely does 'no information' mean?""I have a name, a birth certificate, an employment history going back five years, her phone number, a bank account, the usual credit card statements and insurance policies, no relatives but various friends and acquaintances, none of whom she's known for longer than the aforesaid five years. In a word: nothing."Sally thinks that is quite a lot of nothing but it's all the wrong kind of nothing."I notice you didn't say that any of the things except for the phone number are hers," she says. "A bank account. A birth certificate. A name. Who do you think she is?""At this point, there are a number of possibilities.""Witness protection?" Sally suggests.He shakes his head. "I've had my people check them all."She doesn't want to know how many laws he broke doing that."You think she's dangerous," she concludes. "Is this why I'm here? So you can have someone inside Baker Street to watch out for your brother? Because I do have a life and a job and neither of these revolve around him.""I don't know what she is going to do or if she is going to do anything," Mycroft says patiently. "My brother has clearly forced himself not to deduce her for fear of learning things he has no wish to know. His current situation being what it is, he is unlikely to raise the issue with John even if he were to find out. No doubt he believes that John will end up making a choice Sherlock can't live with."Sally remembers the drawn, pale face, the hunched shoulders and subdued manner of Sherlock Holmes just a week or two ago, without John."What do you want me to do?" The question surprises even her.There is a glint of approval in Mycroft's eyes as he replies. "Nothing. Yet. You are already in an ideal position. We have time yet. Keep your eyes and ears open. That is all."Sally crosses her arms. "And I'm doing this why?"He gives her another one of those long, knowing looks. "How often do you think Mrs Hudson can bear to lose someone who is a surrogate son to her? Do you think you could stand by and watch it happen again?"He reads the answer on her face. "I thought not. Good night, Sergeant Donovan."She turns without a word and walks back to the car.
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The next day, Sally is theoretically doing paper work and actually pondering her conversation with Sherlock's older brother. The longer she thinks about it, the more bizarre it seems.Why would he tell her about any of it? Why would he confide in her, trust her with this kind of information? What the hell does he expect her to do about it?She wonders if she should tell someone. He didn't forbid her from doing it and the thought of him trying to give her orders rankles. Perhaps he knew she would not take kindly to that. The only people she will take orders from are her superiors at work.Sally glances at Lestrade's office. Should she tell him? He knows Holmes, probably knows both of them, actually. But the last time he got involved in Sherlock's mess, he almost lost his job.No, Sally decides. Lestrade is a great Detective Inspector, a good copper, but he's not cunning and he's a terrible liar. Sherlock would deduce something was off the moment he saw him and Lestrade would tell him if he asked about it.Which means that Sally herself will need to be careful. Keeping a secret from Sherlock Holmes is difficult enough when you see him at work every now and then. It will be almost impossible living in the same house as him. But she needs people to talk this through with. People who can keep a secret and whom she can talk to without Holmes thinking twice about it.It seems obvious enough.Sally reaches for her phone and sends a quick text.
Bit of a situation here. Can we meet up at your place after my shift?
*****"Stop worrying," Molly says, setting down a cup of tea in front of Sally and taking a seat next to her on the sofa."I'm not-"Molly raises both eyebrows at her and Sally falls silent. "Fine. Maybe I am worrying. I've got a good reason, though."Molly sips from her massive mug. The kittens on it seem to eye Sally curiously. It makes her wonder if Holmes got to her more than she previously thought. "Your text sounded ominous. What's up?""Mycroft Holmes abducted me last night," Sally says without preamble.Molly nods. "I thought he might do that.""Did he ever ...?"The pathologist shakes her head. "No. I suppose he didn't think I was important enough until suddenly I was very important and then it was too late. So we sort of skipped that part.""Lucky you," Sally mutters. "He wants me to keep an eye on Sherlock.""He never wants anything else," Molly snorts. "Men."Sally hums in agreement. "Yeah, but this time he's got a valid reason." She takes a breath. "How much do you know about John's fiancée Mary?""Only what I learned when we met her at the engagement party," Molly says. "Why?"Sally tells her. It takes two pots of tea and an increasing amount of loo breaks but she feels better for it.By the end of their discussion, Molly looks determined. "Our boys are in real trouble this time. I suppose we should get them out of it."Sally nods. "What do we do first?"Molly grins and pours more tea. "First," she says, "we tell Mrs Hudson."*****The very next day, Sally comes home just in time to see Sherlock and John getting into a cab with that particular look on their faces that screams 'case'. She smiles and walks right into 221a, lifting her phone to her ear as she does."Molly, we've got a couple of hours at least. Come on over."She waves at Mrs Hudson, dumps her bag next to the kitchen table and starts making tea before the landlady can start doing it herself.It takes half an hour for Molly to arrive and Sally almost drags the jacket off her shoulders and pushes her into a chair once she does."What's the matter with you today?" Mrs Hudson asks, trying and failing to act like she isn't pleased when Sally hands her a cup of tea with just the right amount of milk in it.Sally smiles. "I'm calling in a war council. Since you, Molly and I are the only sensible people around this place, we're going to put our heads together and fix this mess.""Mess? What mess? I've just finished cleaning!" Mrs Hudson shakes her head. "I'm not touching a hoover for the next week at least."Sally nods. "Good. We're going to sort out the mess that these two," she nods towards the ceiling, "have put themselves in.""Oh, love, I'm not sure we should get involved in that." Mrs Hudson shakes her head.Sally sighs. "It has been made clear to me that they are in very real danger here. Now, I don't know about you two, but I'm not going to attend another funeral for Sherlock Holmes."Mrs Hudson gasps and Molly straightens, drawing back her shoulders.It's the old landlady who resolutely puts down her cup and breaks the silence: "So what do we do?"Sally smiles at them both, wondering if it looks half as wicked as she feels. "We're going to get dirt on Mary Morstan. And then we're getting rid of her."******Sally has never before actively conspired against someone. Chasing down Sherlock Holmes over two years ago was simply a case of following the clues that had been left for them. In hindsight, she can see that it had all been a bit too neat. Real cases are never that neat. There are always unanswered questions, leads that go nowhere and loose ends left dangling. Normal cases don't come all but gift-wrapped with a bow on top.Well, she knows better now. And she is going to solve this case the way she solves all her cases - through hard, diligent work.The hardest part would be doing it in secret. If Holmes found out, things were going to go downhill. Luckily, they already had two nights a week where they met up to chat. But she would also have to stay under Lestrade's radar, which might be even harder to accomplish.Against all the expectations set by crime shows on the telly, clandestinely researching someone without good reason is not actually easy. Or, strictly speaking, legal.Luckily, she won't have to risk her career and personal integrity for any such thing. Not with someone like Mycroft Holmes apparently only too happy to lend a hand.She arrives at work the next morning to find an e-mail in her inbox, apparently sent by Sherlock Holmes and thanking her for providing insight on a recent case for a private client - a warehouse owner."I took the liberty of leaving some treats in your desk drawer" the e-mail finishes, followed by his usual signature.No one else would ever look at this e-mail and think it out of the ordinary, except perhaps that Holmes rarely actively thanks people. Sally would bet her life's savings that he neither sent this e-mail nor knows about its existence. She deletes it and pulls open her desk drawer.Wrapped in a neat bow is a box of chocolates. She frowns, and pulls it out. Her frown turns into a smile.She spends her day munching delicious and clearly rather expensive chocolates, making a show of putting the half-full box into her purse as she leaves at the end of the day.Only when she is at home, with the door locked and curtains drawn, does she open the box and lift out the little fake bottom in between the layers of chocolates. A sleek black phone is nestled in amongst the chocolates.When she turns it on, it becomes immediately obvious that it has been heavily doctored.There are some apps on it, yes, but not nearly as much rubbish as she'd usually expect to find on a new smartphone.Most importantly, it comes fully charged and with an active SIM card. That, and an unread text message. It looks like spam."Need help researching your thesis but don't want to do all the work? Text RESEARCH to this number today! Fast turnaround, 100% customer satisfaction guaranteed"Sally smiles again. She types "RESEARCH" and hits 'send'.Half a minute later, a reply arrives. It's just a name but she doesn't need more than that.Sally turns off the phone and, after a bit of thought, tapes it to the underside of the roof of Dante's climbing tree cave.
She heats up some leftovers, has a quick shower and goes to bed. Tomorrow, she has work to do.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
"You want to do what now?" Lestrade asks incredulously.Sally shrugs. "You heard me. I think it would be a good idea. We have so many cold cases from the past two years, solving some of them will please the Commissioner no end.""The Waters Gang-" Lestrade begins."-hasn't been active in months," Sally replies. "And you know how unlikely they are to strike again any time soon. We can't just sit around and twiddle our thumbs while we wait for them to get a move on.""Sally...""I won't need too many resources," Sally adds. "Give me one or two PCs to help with the research and the paperwork and I can at least make a start, do some follow-ups.""Fine," he sighs. "But I want regular progress updates. Might as well have something to show the Commissioner if he asks.""You got it, boss," she says and barely refrains from hugging him. "I promise you won't regret it.""You say that now but wait until Sherlock finds out you're solving cold cases without him."Sally snorts. "You know these aren't his sort of thing. Too boring."Lestrade grins at her. "Right. Fine, if you're so eager to do this, go ahead. Never let it be said that I discouraged my Sergeant from taking the initiative."Sally nods once and leaves, trying not to run in her hurry to get out of his office before he has a chance to change his mind.*****She spends the entire day gathering and re-reading the files they have on the murder of Kathleen Jones - her first cold case.There is not a lot of information available. Or rather, there is, but none of it is useful.Kathleen Jones was found dead in her flat eighteen months ago, shot in the head at point blank range. There were no signs of a break-in, no discernible motive and, most frustratingly, no suspects.The two outstanding things about the case that made it stick in Sally's mind are the complete lack of evidence and the fact that it was the first case they failed to so much as get a single useful lead on after Holmes 'died'.To have Mycroft Holmes point her to this specific case, there must be a connection there. If there isn't, he at least suspects there is and Sally doesn't need anyone to tell her that if Mycroft Holmes suspects something, it is likely to be true.She pours over the files all day, tracing the steps of their investigation, wondering if there is anything they missed.'Professional hit' had been the most likely conclusion at the time, even as the motive continued to elude them. So ... motive should be her first step.Sally nods to herself, opens her notepad to a fresh page and starts searching their database for the statements made by family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. Somewhere, they missed something. They must have.She can't help but wonder what Holmes would have seen at the crime scene, what he would have discovered and deduced. Would he have solved the case if he had still been there? And will she ever stop wondering that?
'He's back,'
Sally reminds herself.
'That's more than we could have hoped for.'
The files give her nothing she doesn't already know. A devastated boyfriend with a rock-solid alibi, grieving family and friends, shocked colleagues, scared neighbours. A picture of a woman who worked as a nurse in the maternity ward and who volunteered at the Battersea Dog and Cat Shelter in her limited spare time. She wasn't even in debt, for god's sake.It is a frustrating day but Sally has a purpose and when she has a purpose, she does not give up. It's how she made it to Sergeant at 30, how she works with Lestrade - and, yes, Holmes - in what is the most successful team Scotland Yard has seen in over a decade. A lack of information is not going to stop her.*****After two days of retracing their steps without any results, Sally decides to change tactics.She is as familiar with the details of the case now as she will ever be. Re-reading the files will give her nothing.What she needs is a new angle and luckily, there is one.If you don't know anything helpful about the victim, look at what you know about the killer.There is no physical evidence, of course. No security footage - which is frankly astonishing - and no DNA was recovered at the crime scene that didn't belong to the victim or someone within her social circle.But of course, that too is informative. She's dealing with a professional, someone who didn't just decide to go out and kill this particular woman on a whim.So even without the Why, Sally already knows the How. And it's an impressive How, no less. To leave absolutely no trace behind, no scrap of evidence at all ... definitely a professional. Which means this was not their first kill. Which means there will be others out there, equally unsolved.Sally sighs and loses herself in Scotland Yard's database.*****Hours pass and when Sally walks toward the Yard's kitchenette on stiff legs, her eyes bleary from staring at the screen all day, she is surprised to see that it's dark outside.The coffee machine is blessedly uncontested at this time in the evening and she helps herself to what will be her sixth or seventh cup of the day. Somewhere between unsolved murder number 4 and 5, she has lost count."Donovan!"She jumps but doesn't turn. "Go away.""What on earth are you still doing here?" Lestrade asks, leaning against the counter next to her. "Didn't I tell you to leave an hour ago?"Did he? She must not have noticed him talking to her."I'm busy," she shrugs, watching as the coffee level in her mug rises with infinite slowness."Making progress on that case?""In a way," she says and tries to hide her yawn. "I'm trying a different angle."Lestrade clicks his tongue in disapproval. "At 9pm?""All day long, actually," she corrects him. "Proper police work takes time, as you well know. We can't all read at the speed of light like some people.""Ha. Damn right. What's it like, living with his majesty?"She is frankly amazed that it has taken him so long to ask. One thing she learned very quickly during her work is that members of the Force like to be in each other's business. They're nosy busybodies by profession and it can get difficult to draw the line."I don't live with him," she says primly. "And thank god for that. It's just the same house. We've got Mrs Hudson's flat between us. She makes for a splendid buffer.""That woman is a saint," Lestrade says, nodding. "How'd Sherlock react to you moving in?"The coffee machine beeps and Sally impatiently waits for the last precious drops to fall into her mug before picking it up and inhaling. "Surprisingly well, actually.""Really?""Mmmh, even warned me I was going to get abducted," she adds. "You know, you could have done that yourself.""What, abducted you?" Lestrade asks, the corners of his mouth twitching.Sally rolls her eyes at him and he relents. "Honestly didn't think of it. I thought he had learned not to do that since John started using him as his personal chauffeur."Sally blinks. "He what?""Oh, didn't John tell you? Apparently, after he got abducted that first time, he sort of got used to it and just made Mycroft's drivers chauffeur him around to get the shopping. Mostly when it rained. Sherlock thought it was hilarious."Sally can absolutely see that. She wonders what the two of them would be like in the same room together, Sherlock and his brother. Judging by all that Mycroft very carefully didn't say in their meeting, she thinks she might have to bring popcorn for the occasion."Anyway ... what about that angle you're looking at?" Lestrade asks.His question is enough to bring her thoughts back to her investigation and she takes a sip of coffee before replying."Well, there are no traces, no evidence, nothing. So the killer was experienced and knew what he or she was doing, right? So I figured there must be other murders like that. Unsolved ones, I mean, without a scrap of evidence. Doesn't even have to be the same kind of kill, if it's a professional hit. So I started looking through all our unsolved cases from the past two years to find the ones that fit the same criteria: clean kill, no signs of a struggle, no evidence or leads.""Good thinking," Lestrade says. "Anything so far?""I've got a couple of promising ones." Sally stares down into her mug. "It's going to take a while to sort through all of them. We really let things slide while he was gone, Greg."She doesn't call him by his first name often and Lestrade's face turns grave."You're right. It's a good thing you're taking another look, Sally. And if you need anything at all, you know my door is always open."His eyes are serious, too, and she knows he'll back her no questions asked."Thanks boss."Another term she doesn't use for him often. It brings a smile to his face, like she knew it would."Come on," he says. "Finish your coffee and I'll walk you to your car. It's too bloody late to keep working."Sally sighs, knowing there is no use arguing. "Fine. At least let me tidy up my desk, though. I don't want everyone knowing what I'm doing. You know how people in this place gossip."Lestrade nods. "Sure do. And the last thing we want is some deranged hit man finding out about your investigation."
'Or hit woman'
Sally thinks and shivers.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The days pass in an endless row of research. Sally spends so much time in the archives, the personnel there know her by name now. She takes the time to stop and chat with them every now and then, or to bring some leftover slices of cake from birthday celebrations within the team. In return, they don't only prioritise her requests without her ever asking them to, they also make suggestions of their own.She never realised that their archivists know about the actual contents of the files, beyond the case number and references, but they do. Sometimes, they know which files she wants to look at before she does and she finds them waiting for her in a neat pile on one of the desks.And while the archivists learn things about her, Sally gets to know them, too. She knows that Liza has two cats named Fish and Chips, that Malcolm dotes on his little twin sons and that gruff old Gideon has a sweet tooth and a soft spot for loners.Unfortunately, she doesn't learn anything that brings her even a single step closer to finding out who killed Kathleen Jones. Or Peter Croft. Or Ed Mahoney. Or Belinda Carter.They are the first additions she makes to her list of potentially connected cases. She's still filtering cold cases, reading piles of files, both digital and hard copy. Her back aches from being bent over piles of paper and her hand cramps from all the notes she has been making.But she doesn't stop. There is a wild zeal inside her now, a hunger for answers.She wonders sometimes if this is the feeling that has Holmes rushing off and chasing after killers without backup. If she got a hot lead now, she honestly doesn't know what she would do.After he has caught her drinking coffee at 9pm, Lestrade makes a point of shooing her home every night. The bastard also calls Mrs Hudson to make sure Sally has actually gone home rather than pretending to leave until he has gone and sneaking back into the office. Sally would be pissed if she wasn't so touched by his concern. She doesn't tell him that, of course, making a show of rolling her eyes and glaring at him instead. He grins knowingly anyway.Sometimes, when she's had an early shift, Lestrade sends her home no later than 5pm, dangling the idea of an evening spent with Mrs Hudson in front of her like a carrot. More often than not, Sally gives in. She knows he's right and she knows it won't help her or the case if she works herself to exhaustion.When she gets home early that Thursday, she runs into Mrs Hudson in the hallway."Oh, Sally dear! Has DI Lestrade sent you home early again?"Sally yawns and nods, dumping her bag next to the door to her flat. "He has. What are you up to?""Oh, I was just about to head upstairs for a bit. I see so little of our boy these days."Sally nods and is just about to turn when Mrs Hudson adds: "Why don't you come on up with me?"Sally blinks at her. "Mrs Hudson, I don't think-""Nonsense," Mrs Hudson says. "The two of you can behave yourselves. You're living in the same house, for goodness' sake."She has no choice but to let the older woman drag her up the stairs and into a flat she didn't think she'd enter again. In hindsight, that conviction seems a bit ridiculous."Hoohoo, Sherlock. I've brought Sally along with me. Have you had dinner yet?"Holmes sits at the kitchen table, peering into a microscope. He lifts his head and blinks at them. "Hm? What time is it?""Almost six, dear," Mrs Hudson tells him fondly. "Sally, why don't you help Sherlock clear some space on that table and I'll go get the casserole from my oven."She bustles away again and Sally is left alone with Sherlock Holmes.It occurs to her that this is the first time they're both alone in 221b since she had him arrested. If he realises the same thing, he doesn't let on."Evening, Sally," he says calmly."Evening," she replies and nods at the microscope. "New case?""Experiment. I'm measuring the effects of cyanide on the time until molding of different types of fruit."Sally isn't entirely sure what that is supposed to achieve but simply nods and lets him be. Sometimes she thinks he comes up with these bizarre experiments just to keep himself occupied.Holmes gets up and, with a grunt, lifts the entire bloody microscope and moves it over onto the small table next to the door."Is there a system here?" Sally asks, gesturing at the papers on the table."Hmm? Oh, no. Just put them in a pile," he tells her distractedly.Sally shrugs and gathers all the papers in one pile, then dumps them next to the microscope. "There you go."Sherlock turns to examine the table. "We might want to wipe that down if Mrs Hudson expects us to eat off of it," he notes.Sally snorts. "You think? Where are the plates?"He points to a cupboard and she pulls it open to find the promised plates next to a pile of - hopefully empty - Petri dishes and a wicker basket full of instruments she doesn't want to imagine anyone using.By the time she has extracted three plates and given them a rinse in the sink, the table is spotless and Holmes has even unearthed cutlery that actually looks like it won't give them food poisoning. Perhaps she is being a bit harsh on him. Not all substances in this flat can cause a gastrointestinal crisis. Right?Mrs Hudson comes back up the stairs before Sally can bring herself to ask, which is probably for the best."Ohh, lovely!" the landlady exclaims and doesn't bat an eye when Holmes uses what appears to be an overturned chessboard as a coaster for the hot casserole.Sally takes in the way Mrs Hudson beams at Sherlock and decides that letting her have this dinner will be worth the risk of an upset stomach.They sit and Mrs Hudson dumps a generous load of what turns out to be lasagne on Sherlock's plate. He eyes it suspiciously."It's not poisoned, love," Mrs Hudson tells him. "But I know for a fact that you haven't eaten anything since that slice of toast you had yesterday around noon. Eat up."Sally, her fork halfway to her mouth, frowns. Is this normal for him? She doesn't remember - his eating habits never used to be any concern of hers. Still aren't, actually. She makes a mental note to ask Mrs Hudson about it later."This is delicious," she announces once she's swallowed that first bite. Her body instantly remembers how long it has been since lunch and she starts tucking in with gusto. The mere idea of not eating anything for a day and a half is barely comprehensible to her. Sally loves food.Sherlock hums but doesn't say anything. It appears that even he can't escape the lure of Mrs Hudson's cooking.Mrs Hudson smiles at them both and then turns to Sally. "So, dear, how has work been?"Sally shrugs. "The usual. Lots of paperwork and a lot of following leads that go nowhere.""You work too much," Mrs Hudson chides her gently. "Don't think I haven't noticed that you've been working longer hours recently.""I'm looking into some older cases," Sally explains, shooting a sideways glance at Holmes. "So there are a lot of reference files and badly written reports to sort through."That seems to satisfy Mrs Hudson and it takes little prompting from Sally for her to talk about the goings-on in the neighbourhood. Mrs Hudson is astonishingly informed about all manner of things, most likely thanks to all the time she spends having tea with Mrs Turner next door.Sherlock eats and listens and barely contributes anything to the conversation but his presence doesn't cause any awkwardness and Sally finds she feels quite comfortable.He does clear the table once they are done eating, though, and Sally spends an amusing three minutes watching him fail to stop Mrs Hudson from shoving the leftover lasagne into his fridge. "And you better eat this, young man, or I'll know the reason why!""Yes Mrs Hudson," Sherlock sighs. "Are you quite done mothering me for the evening?""Well, I was thinking you could play us a little something," Mrs Hudson says whimsically. "It's been a while since I last heard you play something that didn't sound like a cat that should be put out of its misery."Sherlock scowls but there is something soft around his eyes that makes Sally think he isn't being serious."Fine.""Come sit," Mrs Hudson says to Sally and before she knows it, she finds herself sitting next to Mrs Hudson on the surprisingly comfortable old sofa and Holmes is bent over something on a chair by the window.When he turns, he's holding a violin in his hands and Sally knows, she just knows, that this is the singularly most expensive thing in the entire building. Perhaps it's the way he holds it so carefully, his large hands surprisingly gentle. Perhaps it's the way the wood gleams almost red in the light.She watches as he adjusts the strings and tightens the bow."Something nice," Mrs Hudson reminds him.He rolls his eyes. "Will it make you leave me alone faster?""You may complain all you like, but I know you wouldn't miss playing for me for the world," Mrs Hudson says seriously. "Do be serious, Sherlock."He smiles. "Anything for you, Mrs Hudson."And he closes his eyes and begins to play.Sally doesn't know how long she and Mrs Hudson sit on that sofa. All she knows is that Holmes starts to play and the music wraps around her and she loses track of time for a bit.It doesn't matter. He plays beautifully and she feels stress seeping from her body, shivers running up and down her back as she finally relaxes into the sofa cushions and lets herself be swept away.*****Things get ever stranger from there. Slowly but surely, Sally finds herself sitting down to dinner with Mrs Hudson and Sherlock Holmes at least once a week, at the landlady's insistence.Holmes doesn't talk much on these occasions and she rarely addresses him. They simply don't have much to say to each other.It doesn't matter because Sally quickly learns that Holmes, for all his prickly behaviour, cares about Mrs Hudson. A lot.He lets her bully him into eating, lets her chat about anything she wants, lets himself be mothered in a dozen ways. One day, Sally arrives home to find Holmes wearing Mrs Hudson's spare apron, elbow-deep in flour, helping her bake Christmas cookies.It's one of the most bizarre things she has ever seen.Mrs Hudson hands her a tin full of cookies, with a smile and a wink and "This is all I managed to rescue before he ate them all".Sally doesn't need to ask who "he" is. She simply accepts the tin and digs into it with Molly when she comes over for tea the next day.The cookies taste great and she doesn't worry about food poisoning even once.*****Christmas approaches quickly. Sally never had much time to really enjoy the season - murders and physical abuse reach an all-time-high around Christmas, when all the family drama is aired out under twinkling lights. And there never was much point to decorating her apartment when she was the only one who would see it.This year, though, she isn't alone. She has Dante and Molly and Mrs Hudson. She has ... friends.It's been a while since she felt she had those. Well, friends who actually mattered, rather than people she happened to socialise with who would never understand her, or her job, or her life. There aren't many people who understand her choice to get up at three in the morning to stand over a dead body in the pouring rain. Most people find it a bit morbid or get stiff and uncomfortable around her, as if afraid she'll arrest them for whatever crime they think they committed and don't want her knowing about. It makes conversation hard.She never has that problem with Mrs Hudson or Molly - or even Holmes, for that matter.And so Sally finds herself visiting her parents and letting her mum shove several boxes of Christmas decorations into her arms."And you are really going to put them up this year?""Yes, mum." Sally hesitates, then adds: "Why don't you come over the next time I've got time off so you can see for yourself?"Her mother beams and Sally realises with a bit of a pang how long it's been since they spent time together, just the two of them. "I'll give you a call as soon as I know my schedule," she promises. "I'd love for you to come."Her mother hugs her and Sally lets herself sink into her embrace, feeling 5 years old and unbearably loved.When she gets home several hours later, she spends the rest of the evening decorating her flat. There are fairy lights - the ones with the soft yellow light she prefers over the colourful or stark white lights that seem all the range these days.
Dante is delighted by them and putting up the lights takes twice as long because she has to pull him away from the garlands all the time. In the end, she finds a box of plastic baubles and gives him one of those to play with. Watching her cat chase the glittering golden bulb around the room is a delight. Perhaps this year Christmas will be something she can actively enjoy.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It's early December and the weather has turned cold and miserable. Sally spends her days at work or curled up in her flat with Dante, reading books. And of course there are her weekly meetings with Molly and Mrs Hudson.Mostly, they just chat about their lives - Mrs Hudson's hip, Molly's plans to spend Christmas with her fiancé, Tom. Sally can't help but notice that Molly doesn't seem quite as over the moon about him as might be expected."Is this going to be the first time you meet his family?" Sally asks as she and Molly are out together, shopping for Christmas presents.Molly shakes her head. "I met them on Bonfire Night. They're very nice."She launches into a story about her fiancés mother's chinaware collection and how one of Tom's nephews upset a table and almost sent the entire collection crashing to the floor.It sounds normal, the kind of family you could find anywhere. Sally wonders if she will ever have a normal like that. She wonders if she even wants it.Before she can ruminate on that any longer, Molly distracts her by holding up a truly garish Christmas jumper. "What do you think?"Sally pretends to ponder the question for a moment. "Only if you wear these along with it," she says and points to massive earmuffs with attached cat ears.Molly grins. "I just might."Sally puts the earmuffs on her and turns her towards a mirror and they both dissolve into laughter."Or maybe not," Molly gasps. "Bright red isn't my colour."They pass the men's department and Molly lingers at a table full of gloves."I thought you got Tom that cashmere jumper?" Sally asks, nudging her elbow. "Don't spoil the man."Molly laughes a little and blushes. "No, uh, I was ... actually I was wondering if I should get Sherlock something."Sally blinks. "He doesn't seem the type.""For black leather gloves?" Molly asks, confused."For Christmas," Sally says."He celebrates it, though. Or at least he did once," Molly says and tells her about that one disasterous Christmas when Sherlock apparently managed to insult John's girlfriend of the week and Molly herself before completely shutting down when they found a dead dominatrix.Sally remembers that part from John's blog, at least. That, and from the fact that some of her colleagues who were on duty found the dominatrix' blog and spent several days in collective mourning for The Woman. They hadn't even known her and Sally had bristled at the abject sexism on display. But that is the way things are. God, it still makes her angry.She shakes her head. "I hadn't even thought of getting him a gift. I don't think he wants anything.""Nothing we can give him, at least," Molly agrees.Sally grins. "We could put up some mistletoe, distract Mary for a while and lure John into the flat alone."Molly gasps. "Sally!"She's turning bright red and Sally laughs at her sputtering. "What? You can't tell me it isn't true."Molly rolls her eyes. "No," she says. "But Sherlock would never ... he'd sneer at the mistletoe, pretend he doesn't know the tradition and act extra viciously to convince himself he isn't hurt when John ultimately and unknowingly rejects him with a lame joke about it."
"You know, I think he doesn't give you half as much credit as you deserve," Sally says, eyeing her appreciatively. "That's probably
exactly
what would happen."
They look at each other and sigh."Well, they haven't even sent out the wedding invitations yet," Sally says. "So we've still got time and no deadline in sight."*****Two days later, Sally leaves work to find a black car waiting at the curb. She rolls her eyes and gets in. To her surprise, Mycroft Holmes is sitting in the back. On the front seat next to the driver, a woman who appears to be his PA is busy typing away on her phone, apparently completely oblivious to her surroundings. Sally wonders how lethal she is."Sergeant Donovan," Mr Holmes says, nodding at her as the car sets into motion."Mr Holmes," she greets him and then waits him out. If he thinks he can intimidate her into speaking first, he has another think coming."How is your investigation going?" he asks.Sally snorts. "As if you don't know. You haven't exactly given me much to work with, have you? I'm investigating a woman who doesn't exist without actively investigating her at all by looking into a series of apparently random murders.""So you are making progress," Mr Holmes says."Did you listen to a word I just said?""Did you?" he replies calmly. "I gave you one name. You've turned that one name into an entire list in just a couple of weeks.""That's not progress," Sally says. "It's just a hell of a lot of more work.""More deaths mean more clues, or so my brother claims," Mr Holmes tells her. He is infuriatingly calm.Sally decides to annoy him a bit. "Oh, have you spoken to him? It's almost Christmas. I suppose miracles do happen. Are you going to have a lovely holiday together?"He looks like he's got a tooth ache. Sally smiles blandly. "Perhaps it would do you both good."His eyes narrow and she can almost feel the weight of his gaze on her increase."How is my brother?""I'm sure you know better than I do," she says. "Our schedules mean our paths don't often cross in the house."
"Your
schedules
?"
She shrugs. "I work late, thanks to you, and he doesn't have a schedule, as far as I can tell. Mrs Hudson makes us socialise but he'd get suspicious if I asked how he was doing."She glances out of the tinted window. "Can you tell your driver to drop me off at ASDA? I need to buy some groceries.""Anthea," Mr Holmes says, which seems a bit nonsensical as far as replies go.The woman in the front seat bends forward and lifts a bag for Sally to see. The supermarket's logo is clearly visible."You buy the same things every week on this day," Holmes says. "It was the least I could do, seeing as I am already taking up so much of your evening."They have been in this car for less than ten minutes. Sally wonders if time works differently for him, if that is a long time in his world. She also wonders how he knows about her shopping habits."Was there anything in particular that you wanted?" she asks."I was merely curious about your progress," he says."I assumed you had people to hack my computer if you wished to find out what I'm doing."He gives her a level look. "Sometimes I prefer a more personal approach."He doesn't deny the hacking, she notes.The car pulls to a stop and the woman in front - Anthea - gets out and opens the back door for Sally, handing her the bag of groceries."Good evening, Sergeant," Mr Holmes says.And just like that Sally is standing around the corner from Baker Street, watching the car disappear into the night.*****A week before Christmas, Sally spends her evening sitting in Mrs Hudson's kitchen, wrapping Christmas presents. She has wrapped Mrs Hudson's down in her own flat and after Dante attacked the wrapping materials for the fifth time she decided to wrap all the others in a cat-free space. She did send Molly a video of him playing with a crumbled up piece of paper, though.Now she's sitting in the familiar kitchen, Christmas music softly playing from the radio in the corner and the scent of Christmas cookies intensifying as they finish baking in the oven."This is my second batch," Mrs Hudson told her earlier. "A certain someone ate the first yesterday afternoon."Sally snorts at the memory of Mrs Hudson's face wavering between exasperation and fondness, and tears off another strip of tape for her sister's gift. Finding presents for her siblings is always a challenge but she thinks she has done quite well this year. Perhaps she should always go gift-shopping with Molly."Got any plans for the holidays then?" the landlady asks her."We've got a huge family get-together on Christmas Eve," Sally replies. "I know most of the UK does the whole presents and food thing on Christmas Day but in my family, we've always done it on Christmas Eve so we can have two full days to recover from the feast. What about you?""I'm leaving on the 20th to see my sister," Mrs Hudson says, smiling. "It's her birthday on the 21st, so I usually take a train up to the Midlands to see her and then stay until Boxing Day but I'll be back on Christmas Eve this year - my nephew and his family are taking her on a nice tour to Austria over the holidays. So I told Sherlock he'd celebrate Christmas with me.""And he agreed?""He said he'd spend Christmas with someone named Anderson if it got him out of having to deal with his brother," Mrs Hudson says, shaking her head. "Those two...""Mh-hm," Sally hums, non-commital. She's not going to even think about the Anderson comment but she understands about Mycroft Holmes well enough. Despite her words to him during their last meeting, she herself would also rather not have to deal with him over Christmas.
Luckily, she doesn't have to.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sally spends Christmas Eve with her family, exchanging gifts as an afterthought to a dinner that leaves her so stuffed she thinks she won't ever want to eat again, and a lot of shared laughter.Christmas is the only time of the year where the TV in her childhood home stays off. Even when she and her siblings were little it never mattered what was on the telly on Christmas Eve. Her mother would not have it. For as long as Sally can remember, it has been this way.They play games instead. Ludo and UNO and Yahtzee and more rounds of Fluxx than any sane person should be able to stand. Her brothers cheat at cards but Sally usually plays with policemen and no one is a better cheat at cards than a Bobby with 25 years on the Force under his belt. Sally has learned from the best.She makes sure to let her younger sister win every now and then to stop her mum from thinking she's cheating, but by the end of the night her brothers still tackle her to the fluffy carpet and try to tickle her secret to winning out of her.Sally doesn't cave, of course. You don't spend your career hunting down criminals and fighting for your position amongst a bunch of self-important, predominantly white, men without developing a backbone made of steel.In the end, her mum breaks up the tickle fight with her infamous Christmas cookies. Even though they all thought they had eaten to bursting, the idea of saying no to their mum's Christmas cookies is pure blasphemy.Sally spends the night in her old bedroom, sharing the bed with her sister. Her brothers are camped out on the sofa in the sitting room. All of them were too tired and full to even consider going back to their own homes. Only Marcus, her eldest brother, has shepherded his family back home. They live two doors down, though, so it's not like they had far to go.Sally smiles to herself - it's been a good Christmas, she thinks, as she drifts off. And it isn't over yet.*****The next day finds Sally back at Baker Street around noon, just in time to help Mrs Hudson with her roast. The landlady has gone all out with the Christmas dinner."It's the only time of the year Sherlock will eat until he can't move," she explains happily, as if that is all the motivation she needs to make an entire turkey and so many pigs in blankets Sally is sure they'll still be eating them come New Year's Day.She thinks about how thin Holmes has gotten recently and merely nods. "Let's feed him up, then."She really doesn't know how it happened - how keeping Holmes alive became part of her life. But it is and there's no point arguing. She'll never be friends with him, she thinks, but she doesn't hate him, either. And she supposes anything that isn't open hostility is already a step forward."Did John say if he was coming?" she asks, hoping she sounds at least a little bit casual.Mrs Hudson sighs. "He said he didn't know yet. Probably wants to spend Christmas with his fiancée. I haven't told Sherlock yet but-""-but he likely already knows," Sally concludes.They share a look. Holmes hasn't been dealing well with this. Oh, he acts normal and he pretends to be all casual, but Sally hasn't missed that he seems less harsh these days, as if he's trying not to chase his company away on the rare occasion that he has any. She hasn't missed the sounds of the violin at all hours of the day and the distinctly mournful quality of the music, full of regret and something else she doesn't think it's her place to name.Molly won't be here, either. She's off to Oxford to spend the holidays with her own fiancé and his parents. Sally thinks Molly might be the most well-adjusted of them all. Going home to meet her future husband's family ... yes, that sounds normal.Sally knows her own parents are still waiting for her to bring someone home. Her mom's questions have gotten rather pointed in recent months. "Don't you ever want to have a boyfriend?" she asked only yesterday. "Or a girlfriend?"An open-ended question, the dangling hook hardly hidden at all. But Sally didn't fall for it. She had simply shaken her head.How can you get to your mid-thirties without having any relationship longer than a couple of months without catching on to the fact that relationships aren't your thing? She likes sex well enough but doesn't need a guy - or girl - to stick around. She's never met anyone she wanted to stay. 'Aromantic' it's called, or so her online research into her own psyche has shown, and Sally is immensely relieved to know she isn't alone in feeling like this. Or not feeling like this, as the situation may be.
She loves her friends and family, loves them fiercely. Just not
like that
. And she's fine with that.
She considers this as she helps Mrs Hudson peel potatoes and prepare the pigs in blankets while the turkey roasts in the oven.No, she likely won't ever be in a relationship or get married. She'll have flings and one-night stands if she feels like it and live a happy, fulfilled life without having anyone else to consider in her every decision. It sounds perfect to her, though she can understand why some people would find it lonely. They don't seem to grasp that you don't need a relationship to be whole, to not be alone. But how can she expect people to understand when they're all getting love and relationships shoved in their faces every day, non-stop?"Sally, dear, are you all right?""Hm? Fine, sorry, got distracted." She smiles at Mrs Hudson. "So, does Sherlock know you're preparing a feast?""He does," a deep baritone rumbles from the doorway behind them and they both jump."Don't sneak up on an old woman like that!" Mrs Hudson scolds, smiling. "I'll end up with a heart attack sooner rather than later.""You aren't that old," he replies and Sally wonders if he's paying a compliment or simply in denial. "And your heart is going strong as ever. Don't think I don't know you've had John listen to it.""Of course you do," Mrs Hudson says fondly. "Here, have a mince pie."She gestures at the batch they pulled out of the oven half an hour ago and Sherlock does, giving an appreciative hum. "Perfect as always."He kisses Mrs Hudson's cheek and turns to the door. "I'm off to St. Bart's.""Dinner is at 6," she calls after him. "Don't be late or we will have words!"He waves a dismissive hand and is gone.Mrs Hudson sighs. "That boy. He can barely stand being in the flat on his own.""Well, we both know how John stood it," Sally dares to point out."Not at all," Mrs Hudson says, pursing her lips. "He managed a week and then he moved out. Couldn't stand the silence and the emptiness. And all those memories. You should have seen them here together. I've never seen either of them this happy. Well, I didn't know John before but Sherlock seemed to really come to life back then. And after ... well, they're both miserable, though John of course would never admit it. Sherlock isn't so good at hiding."This is news to Sally. "He seems to be doing a great job of it.""Ha, in front of John he does," Mrs Hudson snorts. "But he hasn't managed to fool me for a minute."Sally wonders why every conversation they have inevitably returns to these two men. Perhaps she should just resign herself to her fate. She has been sucked into this life, quite against her will, and now here they all are, forced to deal with it. And tonight they're going to celebrate Christmas together. Her life really can't get any weirder.*****Sherlock does return from St. Bart's well before dinner. At 5:30, they hear the front door bang open and shut and his quick steps on the stairs. Pipes start creaking after a couple of minutes and a while later comes a sound as if heavy furniture is being dragged around.When they make it up the stairs, 221b has been transformed.Sherlock has shoved the kitchen table into the middle of the sitting room and even switched on the fairy lights Sally knows Mrs Hudson put up while he wasn't at home.The table looks like it has been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected and before her astonished eyes, Holmes produces a tablecloth from somewhere.Mrs Hudson, of course, is tremendously pleased.Holmes doesn't even require prompting to dash down the stairs and collect the turkey, absolutely refusing to let Mrs Hudson carry it upstairs herself. "You went to all this trouble, Mrs Hudson. Sit down and let Sally and me deal with the rest."Sally opens her mouth to tell him that she has already been helping all day, thank you very much, but something about his expression makes the words die in her throat. Perhaps it's the obvious tenderness in his eyes when he looks at his landlady.At least they have this one thing in common - they would both do anything for Mrs Hudson.Sally thinks its fascinating how he can pretend to be so cold and aloof and yet she knows he once threw a man out of a window for scratching Mrs Hudson's cheek. She has seen the dents on the bins.So she follows him down the stairs without a word and shoves a tray with two large bowls of pigs in blankets and a large plate of Christmas cookies into his arms, thinking all the while that she never thought she'd see him look so domestic.A Christmas miracle, if ever there was one.*****Mrs Hudson has just started cutting the turkey when the front door opens and there are steps on the stairs.And then John walks into the room and Sally watches Sherlock's entire face light up for a second and then instantly shut down as soon as Mary steps through the door after him. It takes her a moment to realise she is gripping her fork and knife rather too tightly."John!" Mrs Hudson exclaims, beaming. "You made it after all! How lovely! Hello, Mary."Sally smiles to herself. Mary being here isn't lovely, that's for sure."Hello," she says, forcing herself to smile at John's fiancée. "We met in early November. I'm Sally D-""Donovan," Mary finishes her introduction. "You're with Scotland Yard, right?""That's right," Sally confirms, slightly baffled. The woman's memory for names and faces must be quite something. "I didn't think you'd remember, we didn't really get to talk when we last met."Mary shrugs. "I'm good with names and faces."Sally smiles at her. "Well, it's nice to see you again. I've heard so much about you."Mary, she thinks, is like a piece of marble destined to be a statue. You have to chip away all the things you can see to reveal the actual figure underneath. Sally wonders how much more chipping she will have to do before the person in front of her starts to take shape."Here, grab yourselves chairs and tuck in," Mrs Hudson says before the silence can stretch on too long. "We were just about to start and there's plenty for everyone."And as John places his chair next to Sherlock's, she adds: "I'm so glad you could make it, John. Christmas should be spent with family.""Is that why Mycroft isn't here?" he asks, grinning at Sherlock. "Did you threaten him if he dared to show his face here?"Sherlock rolls his eyes, finally relaxing. "I reminded him of how I spent my previous Christmas and told him to leave me the hell alone this year. Apparently he got the message."John opens his mouth, no doubt to ask where the hell Sherlock did spend Christmas last year, but Mrs Hudson tuts and says "Well, I do wish you would get on with him, Sherlock. I'm sure your mother must be very upset about the two of you.""Only when we're both in the same room with her," Sherlock says. "Which is something we try to avoid."Mrs Hudson insists on saying grace before dinner, though she does add her thanks for Sherlock's safe return and 'if murder has to happen, at least make it interesting for my boys'. Sally tries not to giggle into her plate.For a while, they are busy eating and all conversation is limited to praising Mrs Hudson (and Sally herself) for the feast laid out before them.Only once their initial appetite is satisfied do they actually start to talk in earnest.John tells Sherlock about an interesting patient he had who had somehow managed to contract a form of plague and Mary and Mrs Hudson exchange recipes for Christmas cookies. Sally, for her part, is content to sit back and listen, trying to get a feel for the dynamics in the room.To her endless surprise, Sherlock treats Mary like a, well, like a friend. There is no other word for it. They tease each other, they make jokes at John's expense. Mary laughs at Sherlock about something involving a fake moustache and doesn't seem to notice the tight expression flittering across John's face.Sherlock does, though, and swiftly changes the topic to a fake Jack the Ripper case. Sally can't help but gasp when she learns that Anderson was the one who set it all up, trying to lure Sherlock out of hiding, still convinced he wasn't dead. It occurs to her that she hasn't spoken to Philip in a long time. He's back with his wife and since he quit his job they haven't really seen or heard from him. She wonders what he makes of Sherlock's return from the dead - if it helped him in some way. But she also knows she will never pick up the phone to ask.*****Hours pass in the blink of an eye and before Sally knows it, she has volunteered to help Mrs Hudson with the dishes while Sherlock sees John and Mary to the door.Well, John. Mary has already gone ahead, going down the stairs without bothering to wait for her fiancé. Sally wonders if it's just her impression that she can't seem to get away fast enough.John, on the other hand, lingers by the door, talking to Sherlock in hushed tones.Over the clink of the plates and the sloshing of the water, Sally can't hear what is being said but Holmes fidgets, looking like a teenager bidding his crush goodnight, unsure whether to lean in or not. She has never seen him look so unsure of himself.John puts a hand on his arm and Sherlock jerks visibly before relaxing and saying something that makes John laugh."See you tomorrow, then," John says. "And text me if any interesting cases come in. Christmas always has the most interesting murders. Remember that thing with the Christmas cracker?"Sherlock actually chuckles at that. "I'm unlikely to ever forget it, John. Of course I'll text."He hesitates, opens his mouth and Sally strains her ears but-"John!" Mary calls from downstairs.John sighs. "Coming!" he shouts over his shoulder and turns back to Sherlock. "Good night.""Good night, John," Sherlock says. "Merry Christmas.""Merry Christmas," John replies, smiling. Louder, he adds: "Good night Mrs H! Good night, Sally.""Good night!" they call back."Get home safe in this weather!" Mrs Hudson calls after them."Of course."Traffic will be almost at a standstill. It's never as quiet in the city as it is on Christmas Day. No tube services, no buses. The non-Christian cab drivers make a lot of money on this day. There is always someone trying to get from A to B in London, even at Christmas.Sherlock lingers by the door and watches John descend the stairs. He only returns to the kitchen when the front door closes downstairs and wordlessly picks up a towel to help with the dishes."I'm glad John came by," Mrs Hudson says. "It's not Christmas without the two of you here."Sherlock opens his mouth and looks ready to argue that Christmas will happen either way but then he seems to decide otherwise and shrugs. "Quite right."Neither of them mentions Mary and Sally won't be the one to bring her up, so they finish washing the dishes in silence."Care for a night cap?" Sherlock asks. "I nicked an excellent bottle of scotch from my brother when I last had the displeasure of visiting him in his lair."Now that she has met Mycroft Holmes, Sally can't quite hold back her quiet snort. He probably does live in a lair. It likely has lava somewhere."Oh, I shouldn't," Mrs Hudson says, her tone of voice betraying that she wants to anyway."Well I'm having a glass if you're offering," Sally tells Sherlock. "I'm not ending Christmas Day by washing dishes."This is all it takes to make Mrs Hudson cave. "Oh, very well then."Sally smiles triumphantly at Holmes. He returns the smile, much to her surprise, and swiftly breaks the seal of the bottle.Before long, Sally finds herself sitting next to Mrs Hudson on the sofa of 221b with a glass full of golden-brown scotch in her hand. It really is good stuff. Very good, in fact. She wonders how much a bottle of it goes for and decides she doesn't actually want to know. The sum would only make her regret asking.Sherlock only takes a sip from his glass before reaching for his violin, the half-full tumbler abandoned on the desk.He plays them Christmas Carols. Some are familiar, some she has never heard before, but she can tell that's what they are. There's a special something to Christmas songs, something inherently recognisable.It's beautiful but Sally can't help but feel a sense of melancholy creep up on her. It comes on slowly, a distant sadness she can't quite place. It makes her long for a long-gone past, a happier time.It takes her several long minutes to realise that it's part of the music. That Holmes, Sherlock, is adding it to the music. And suddenly every single carol sounds infinitely sad.*****It's almost midnight when Sally shuffles down the stairs and into her own flat. Dante meows at her in greeting but doesn't bother getting up from his basket. Even her cat is too tired to bother getting up. Sally can certainly relate to that. She's so tired, she wouldn't want to get up from her own bed if she was already lying in it, either.She barely manages to get changed and decides to reschedule brushing her teeth for tomorrow noon when she wakes up.Sally has had a meal at her family's only last night but now she's also been fed by Mrs Hudson and two of these massive meals within 24 hours are too much. She'll be lucky if she manages to get up at all tomorrow.And perhaps now that she's got a couple of days off, she can come up with a plan to investigate Mary Morstan or whatever the hell her name is. Perhaps she'll even find a way to get John back into 221b permanently so Holmes will stop playing depressing music.Maybe she could just ...Sally falls asleep before she manages to finish her thought.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The new year rolls around sooner than expected, as it always does. Sally is firmly convinced that the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve is the shortest week in the entire year.She spends Boxing Day relaxing. Well, half of it. The first half is spent sleeping while her body tries to digest the ridiculous amounts of food she has eaten in the previous two days. The rest is spent lazing about on the sofa with Dante, watching Netflix and eating leftovers because no matter how certain you are that you will never eat again, the moment you catch sight of a bowl of pigs in blankets it all goes out the window.Sally eats those and some mince pies and cookies and crisps and doesn't feel guilty about a single bite.She spends the day after that dragging herself out of the flat and making herself do adult things like buying groceries. She's immensely proud of herself and rather delighted with the new frying pan she's bought. That probably means she's officially an adult. You'd have to be to find pans exciting.The day after that, Sally rereads John's blog. She doesn't even know why she does it - perhaps to remind herself of what she's trying to get back for them. They're never going to thank her for it. If she manages to do this right, they will hopefully never know.She's halfway through a cup of tea when she reaches John's account of what happened at the pool.And there it is, black on white.Hidden assassins pointing guns.Sally forgets about her tea.What are the odds that she is hunting down a killer who prefers shooting people from a distance and there is evidence of just such a person right there on John's blog?Slim to none, she knows. It can't be a coincidence. Sherlock would give her one of his looks if he knew she was even thinking it.So. She'll focus on that, then. The pool.The date of the blog post is a good place to start and she knows she could probably get Mycroft Holmes to confirm the precise date and time of John and Sherlock being there, but she needs to make it look like she researched all of this on her own. So she will do it.It can't have been more than a week between the blog posts and the events John describes in them. He used to be quite fast about writing up the cases he and Sherlock worked on.Sally finds herself making cryptic notes, half afraid someone (i.e. Sherlock) will find and read them and half afraid she will forget what everything on this notepad means.Half her writing is illegible from her excitement but she's fine with that. So long as she knows she has written it down, it will all work out in the end. She just needs to put it to paper in some form so she'll know this idea wasn't part of a bizarre dream of hers.*****By the time Sally returns to work, she has already worked out a plan of next steps in her investigation.
It promptly gets derailed when she finds a cardboard box on her desk containing hard drives full of pictures and carefully indexed newspaper articles about the murders she is investigating - one hard drive per paper. She put in a request for their unused material ages ago but hasn't heard back from any of them. A small card is tucked in between the files, very elegant handwriting wishing her a
Merry Christmas
. There is no signature but she doesn't need one to know who is behind this.
She spends all day looking through the box, going through each file in turn and carefully examining every photograph on the hard drives. She makes copies of everything and starts sorting stuff by victim. It's late afternoon when she reaches Peter Croft, the last of the victims. The Telegraph has a whole slew of pictures of the street he lived on, showing the house and the police activity in front of it from every possible angle.And there, on the other side of the street, is a woman returning home from a grocery run, unlocking the front door of the house just opposite Peter Croft's flat.Sally stares at the picture, then flips through the others of the street. They've been taken no more than half a minute apart from each other and clearly show the woman's progress down the street, watching the police activity with curiosity.Sally thinks that these high-resolution photographs of Mary Morstan may in fact be the best Christmas present she has ever gotten.Now that she has a way of linking Mary to at least one of the victims, it's time to return to her actual plan. A woman walking down a street is hardly evidence of a crime. Sally needs more if she wants this to stick.She searches for the precise location of the public pool and all surrounding businesses and institutions.This is where the tedious work begins, the taxing task of calling each and every one of these places and asking if, by any chance, they might still have some of their security footage stored somewhere.For some of them, she can't even find a phone number, so she ends up sending e-mails instead.Not all of them reply. Those who do either admit to having fake cameras or inform her that they don't actually keep any of the data for longer than a week at most. Sally only sighs at those. It was rather a long shot to hope that there would still be footage left almost three years after the fact.So she tries to explore other avenues. She calls cab companies and requests information on any cabs that dropped off or picked up passengers in the immediate area, than expands that range to a wider area around the pool.Two months pass, then three. She pulls together every bit of information she can about the other murders, does the same sort of search, asks for descriptions of people, for information on anyone who might have seen someone, requests surveillance footage for the more recent cases.The more time she spends on the case, the less likely it appears that she will ever find even a shred of evidence. Whoever 'Mary Morstan' really is, she knows how to hide her tracks.
And how can Sally possibly link her to any of the other murders without starting her search with Mary? She needs to put the evidence together in a way that makes it clear all the evidence points
towards
Mary, not in a way that suggests she tried to make the evidence fit her theory of who did it.
Sally keeps searching anyway. There has to be something, anything.In late March, the situation gets a new sense of urgency: John and Mary send out wedding invitations.Sally arrives at home to find Mrs Hudson laughing like a madwoman, laughing so hard she's almost crying. When Sally manages to get her to explain why, she is hard-pressed to start laughing herself.John has asked Sherlock to be his best man.She wishes she had been there, wishes she had been witness to that particular conversation. Who in their right mind would ever consider Holmes their first choice to organise the most romantic day of their life and then give a speech? Not to mention the complete obliviousness John displayed with his choice.And yet ... Holmes seems to go completely off the rails. He starts to refuse cases, focusing instead on table cloths and venues and flower arrangements. The upstairs flat is transformed into a wedding planner's office within two and a half days.The wedding date is set for May, which leaves him with two months to organise the wedding and Sally with two months to somehow link the blushing bride to a series of cold blooded murders.Some days she isn't sure which one of them has the harder task.During their semi-regular dinners with Mrs Hudson, she suggests various themes for the wedding to Holmes and manages to make him talk about his and John's old cases. He gives her the precise date of the incident at the pool and she tightens her search, follows up on all the e-mails she never got a reply to.All she gets are more apologetic replies and no new leads.And finally, in late April, there is an e-mail from the son of the owner of a grocery shop just down the street from the pool. He says he's been dragging his father's shop into the 21st century bit by bit and his father has always been a fan of true crime. So much so, in fact, that he has entire hard drives and tapes upon tapes of perfectly labelled and dated surveillance footage."He kept it in case our shop ever got robbed and they needed to check for all recurring customers or something," the son says when Sally calls him. "But he doesn't actually understand e-mails and so he didn't log into his account while I was away at uni. So sorry we got back to you so late."Sally tells him it's quite all right. And when she goes by the shop that same afternoon and he hands her the collected DVDs from a cold winter's night 3 years ago, she can barely stop herself from hugging the unsuspecting man right then and there.Instead, she thanks him with her most serious Police Sergeant voice, pockets the DVDs and forces herself to obey all traffic laws on her way back to the Yard.Lestrade doesn't ask any questions when she requests one of their media rooms and a techie to help her set up the system."If you are so eager to watch several days worth of security footage, be my guest," he tells her. "I'll bring you a coffee every now and then."He does.There are ten days worth of footage - well, five days, captured from two different angles.Sally got the date of the pool incident with Moriarty and the two days before and after, just to be sure she doesn't miss a single moment.On day 1, she's excited about Day 1, Angle 1.On day 2, she's weary about Day 1, Angle 2.By day 3, she wants to gouge her eyes out with a spoon.On day 4 of watching the videos, she considers bribing an intern to watch them in her place.
On day 5 she finds a crystal clear image of Mary Morstan buying herself a bottle of water half an hour before Sherlock's arrival at the pool.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sally has never worked that much overtime in her entire life.She reads reports well into the night, re-watches the footage a million times, creates a precise timeline of the night's events.This is what it boils down to:At 8pm, Mary buys herself a bottle of water in a shop less than 5 minutes away from the pool. She is carrying a smallish duffel bag that looks like it has something long shoved into it.At 8:15pm, the camera outside the shop shows Mary - or whatever her name is - walking down the street towards the pool, her bag slung over her shoulder.At 8:25pm, Sherlock Holmes arrives at the scene, according to himself and the information Sally manages to get from Mycroft.According to the blog, all the action happens within less than half an hour.And then, at 9:30pm, the camera catches Mary walking past in the other direction. She's rummaging through her bag and there are two things that can just be made out in the grainy footage: a half-empty bottle of water and a long black something, one end of which looks suspiciously like it has a tiny scope attached to it.Sally thinks she couldn't make this up if she tried.From there, it is almost easy.She finds information on the card 'Mary' used to pay for the water. The name on it is Hannah Langley. Hannah Langley, who once rented an apartment in the building opposite one Peter Croft, but moved out about a week after he was shot in his own home.And so it continues.Sally collects data and writes it all up in a document on a computer that doesn't have an internet or even intranet connection, using several thumb drives to back up her work. She keeps them glued to the bottom of her desk drawer with BluTack, with spare copies hidden in Dante's climbing tree in her flat.She checks and double-checks, follows names and credit card information, and when she finally takes her findings to Lestrade, he gives her four police constables to help with the work.*****On May 15th, three days before the wedding, Sally walks up the stairs to 221b Baker Street, Lestrade and four officers in her wake."What's going on?" John asks as they enter.Sherlock looks up from the seating plan for the wedding, something Sally knows for a fact he has actually had sorted out for weeks now, and she wonders if she imagines the hope on his face.He glances at Mary.Mary does a great job of looking confused and unsure. "What's happening? Is someone hurt?""Quite a lot of someones, actually," Sally says calmly. She glances towards Lestrade, who gives her a nod. This one is hers.She takes a deep breath. "Mary Morstan, you are under arrest on suspicion of multiple counts of murder and identity theft. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."For a moment, the silence is absolutely deafening.John is the first one on his feet. "You're joking. This is a joke. Sherlock, did you set her up to do this?""I didn't do anything," Sherlock says, entirely honest."He really didn't," Sally confirms. She doesn't dare take her eyes off Mary, who gazes around the flat in what is clearly supposed to seem like panic and shock but looks too calculating. Marking the exit routes."I have officers surrounding the building in case you decide to stage a heroic escape," Sally tells her.Mary doesn't. Like any professional, she knows when it's time to give up.The click of the handcuffs is the most satisfying sound Sally has heard in months.*****There are interviews. Lots and lots of interviews. John and Sherlock both came along to the Yard, John furious in his disbelief and Sherlock mute. Sally can almost see the wheels turning in his head, sees the way he looks at Mary, reassesses, re-deduces. She sees the moment he finds whatever he was looking for, sees the flash of terror in his eyes, quickly hidden, as it clicks into place.At the Yard, Sally leads the interview. This is her case, her work. There isn't a single piece of information she can't back up.Sherlock and John get to stand behind the window because at this point the idea of excluding them is laughable. John would probably break down the door if she tried and she doesn't want Holmes to hack the Yard. Again.So they get to listen in as she lists the crimes she knows 'Mary' has committed.Identity theft. Multiple counts of murder and murder for hire. Identity fraud. Money laundering. Illegal possession of firearms. Illegal possession of illegal firearms, where both the owning and the weapon itself are prohibited by law.This includes silencers for guns. Silencers like the stash Sally found in the storage space 'Hannah Langley' rented five years ago.A stupid mistake. She shouldn't have used the same name twice. But she did and now here she sits, glaring daggers at Sally and not saying a word.Sally pulls out her coup de grace."This is security footage of you buying a bottle of water at a corner shop. Interesting bag you've got there. Just the right size for half-assembled rifle, wouldn't you say?"She pulls out the next pictures. "This is you leaving the shop and walking down the street. This is you an hour later, coming back. Same bag. Looks like you're trying to store something away in there. And what is that? I had our technicians try to clean the image a little, dial up the contrast, that sort of thing. It sure looks like you've got a rifle in this bag to me. What do you think, Miss Morstan?"Mary doesn't say anything.Sally smiles at her. "Do you remember that day? I'm sure your fiancé does. That was the day he was abducted and put in a Semtex vest. That was the day he and Sherlock Holmes found themselves in a public pool with a consulting criminal and at least three hidden sharpshooters."She lets that sink in for a moment, then adds: "I went to search your storage space myself. Or Hannah Langley's storage space, if you insist. They have surveillance footage from as recently as last week, showing you accessing that specific storage room. And do you know what I found in there?"Sally nods at the officer by the door and he opens it. Another officer comes in, carrying a duffel bag. He sets it down on the table between them. Sally puts on her gloves and opens it, reaches inside and pulls out the rifle. "Interesting laser pointer you've got mounted on there. What's it like, being engaged to a man you were prepared to kill three years ago?"Mary doesn't reply. There is nothing she could say anyway.*****They take a break after three hours. Sally has never needed a coffee this badly in her entire life. She clutches the cup with both hands, savouring that first sip when John and Sherlock find her.John is pale but all the fury has left him."How?" he asks.Sally sighs and sinks into a chair. "I reopened some cold cases because something-” (someone, she thinks) “-was bugging me about them. Turns out they were all connected. I started investigating them all over again and then I found one Hannah Langley, who used to live in the flat just across the street from one of the victims. I went through the newspaper reports, called the papers and asked for all the photographs they had in their archives from the scene. And there was a picture of the street and a woman who looked just like Mary coming home with groceries. The landlord identified her as Hannah Langley. She moved out a week after the murder. And I thought, what are the odds that an assassin would get close to you? So I searched your blog and I found other mentions of assassins there."She nods at Sherlock. "When you faked your own death. But also at the pool. And the pool was easy to research. So I started looking for security footage from that area. I got lucky with the corner shop. Just luck and good, honest police work. That was all it took."John shakes his head in disbelief. "All this time. She was right in front of us all this time." He turns to Sherlock. "How did you not know? I'm not surprised I missed this, but you...?"Sherlock looks pained. "I didn't deduce her. Not properly.""Why?" John's voice is strained but not as strained as Sherlock's when he replies."I didn't want to know. She was your priority. She made you happy. I didn't want to know anything else, anything that might invade your privacy. I did not feel I had the right to that.""Since when do you care about my privacy?" John asks, more baffled than angry.Sherlock shrugs and looks away. "You were furious enough with me. I concluded that if I found out anything negative about her and told you, you would not welcome the information. So I decided not to deduce her at all beyond the absolute basics I wasn't able to shut out when I first met her.""And there was nothing?" John asks."Nothing." Sherlock frowns and seems to be thinking back. "I deduced she had a tattoo and her job and that she bakes her own bread..."He trails off and does a rapid double-blink. "John."Perhaps it's his tone of voice but he instantly has John's full attention. "What?""Bread," Sherlock says. "The bread, John, remember? That last case before I had to fake my death, that case that got you-" he nods at Sally "-to think I had abducted these children. Moriarty sent us a burnt gingerbread man in the mail. And you picked up an envelope outside the door, remember?"John nods slowly, blank horror on his face."What about it?" Sally asks. "What was in there?""Breadcrumbs," John says, voice hollow. "It was full of breadcrumbs."He buries his face in his hands. They can't be sure about this, of course, but it fits.Sherlock is pacing up and down the hallway and Sally's coffee is going cold. She takes an absent-minded sip and makes a face at it. She abandons the cup and watches Holmes pace, his hands in his hair. She wonders how much self-flaggelation he is subjecting himself to right now.Finally, he turns to John and drops to his knees before him, grasping John's hands."I'm sorry, John."
'That much, then'
Sally thinks. She's never seen Holmes apologise in earnest. Not like this. Not for something he didn't do. Certainly not on his knees.
"What for?" John asks. "For respecting my personal boundaries for once? For not wanting to make me even more pissed off with you? If anything, I should be sorry. I can't believe I never noticed anything off about her. I lived with her for one and a half years! I wanted to marry her!"He shakes his head again and laughs. "God, I have to cancel the wedding."Sherlock blinks. "You ... you do?"
John gives him a blank look. "Yes of course. Of course I'm cancelling the bloody wedding. I'm not marrying an assassin, Sherlock! She lied to me -
to us
- about everything. Hell, even her name is fake."
Suddenly, he turns his hands, laces his fingers with Sherlock's. "She aimed a gun at you.""And you," Sherlock points out but John waves that away."She aimed a gun at you. She was going to kill you if Moriarty told her to."Sally never knew you could pinpoint the moment someone falls out of love with another person but she knows this is it. It's this moment, this realisation, that is the deal-breaker for John.Sally takes a second to enjoy the sight, then gets up with a sigh."I'm going back in," she says. "I've got some other murders to connect to her. I just wanted you to know."She hesitates, then puts a hand on John's shoulder. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry.""Don't be," John says. "Thank you for getting enough evidence to arrest her before I actually married her.""What do you want to do now?" Sherlock asks. "Do you want to stay?"John shakes his head. "I'm done here. I don't care what else there is. It's already too much. I just want to put this all behind me as quickly as possible."Sherlock hums. "Shame. I had a fantastic stag night planned."John chokes out a laugh. "You know what? Let's do it anyway. I certainly feel like having a drink or five tonight."He allows Sherlock to pull him to his feet and finally lets go of his hands.He turns back to Sally: "We'll be off then. Probably won't be in any state to answer questions tomorrow but come by the day after if you need us to give statements." He smiles wryly. "You know where we live."
'We'
Sally thinks.
'Does he even realise he said that?'
She glances at Sherlock who stares at John, wide-eyed and badly failing to hide his delight. He certainly noticed.
Sally nods and returns to the interview room.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It's late when Sally returns home, past 9pm already. It's a cool night, a typical early London summer, and she's surprised to find Sherlock and John in the hallway.Well, on the stairs. They're wedged onto the narrow steps next to each other, still in their coats, giggling and clearly utterly drunk. They seem to be having a conversation about reputations. From what Sally can make out, Holmes doesn't remember what his is for. It makes her grin.Sally tiptoes past them and makes it all the way to the door leading down to 221c before Mrs Hudson emerges from her own flat, a bag of trash in her hand."Hi Sally dear," she greets her and then catches sight of the boys. "Didn't you say you were going to be out late?""Ah, Hudders!" Sherlock struggles into an upright position, bleary eyes focusing on her. "What time's it?""Barely 9:30," she tells him. "You're a couple of terrible lightweights."This causes them to giggle some more.Mrs Hudson shakes her head at Sally. "Those boys. Come on in for a cuppa, you look absolutely shattered. Let them have some fun before John gets married."This is how Sally learns that Mrs Hudson doesn't know yet."I could really do with a cuppa," Sally says. "And so do you. I have a lot to tell you."Sleep can wait for a while.*****"You did what?!" Mrs Hudson exclaims, teacup rattling against the saucer."I arrested Mary," Sally repeats calmly.Mrs Hudson looks at her. "All right, young lady. I need the full story here. But first we need to call Molly."Sally does. Molly is half an hour away and - to no one's surprise - drops everything to rush to Baker Street.She arrives out of breath, strands of hair escaping from her braid, her cheeks flushed from running all the way from the tube. "Uh, why were Sherlock and John snoring on the stairs in the hallway?"Sally and Mrs Hudson roll their eyes at each other. "They're still there?""I woke them and sent them upstairs," Molly says. "Sherlock called me an angel."She blushes a little but mostly she just looks disturbed by this turn of events."How much do you think they drank?" Sally asks.Mrs Hudson shrugs. "If we're lucky, they had just enough.""Mrs Hudson!" Molly exclaims, scandalised.The older woman smiles benignly. "What? They could do with a bit of liquid courage."Sally shakes her head. "Oh my god. It's been less than twelve hours, Mrs H. Let them come to terms with it first.""Speaking of," Mrs Hudson says and turns her piercing gaze on Sally. "What on earth happened?"So Sally tells them everything. About Mycroft Holmes and her subsequent investigation, about how she found the necessary evidence (without going into details for the sake of the case) and how she arrested Mary this morning.She can't tell them everything, not while the case is still open, but she can tell them the important stuff. And she knows neither Molly nor Mrs Hudson would ever talk to the media about any of this."Oh, poor John!" Mrs Hudson exclaims. "That woman was no good for him anyway, but what a terrible shock it must have been.""I think he dealt with it quite well," Sally tells her. "Once he accepted that this wasn't all some big joke, at least.""Is that why they got drunk tonight?" Molly asks."From what I gathered, they didn't want to waste the stag night," Sally says. "I didn't even know Holmes was organising one.""Oh, you know that boy," Mrs Hudson says, as if Sally is privy to his innermost thoughts. "If John asks him to do something, he'll exceed all expectations.""He asked me to help him figure out how much alcohol they could safely consume for maximum fun and minimum consequences," Molly chimes in. "He made an app and everything."Sally blinks. "Holmes created an app?""Oh yes. Taught himself code and programmed an app to track their alcohol consumption." Molly glances towards the door. "Clearly it didn't work well.""Minimum consequences," Sally muses. "Was he trying to avoid the hangover or the inevitable loss of control when he got too drunk to continue pretending?""Both, I think," Molly sighs. "Not that it matters now.""Well, John could still get scared off.""We'll see what happens," Mrs Hudson says wisely. "But I think Sherlock will tread very carefully for a while. Perhaps the alcohol will help.""I'm starting to feel bad for talking about them like that," Sally says. "I mean, they're two grown men. They should be able to figure this out on their own, shouldn't they? I feel like I already did my bit by stopping the wedding, though I did resort to rather drastic measures to do it."Mrs Hudson giggles like a schoolgirl. "I'm sure that Sherlock for one won't be complaining."*****As it turns out, Mrs Hudson is more correct about this than even she could have imagined.When Sally returns from another round of interviews and hours of paperwork the next day, Sherlock Holmes is sitting in her kitchen with two steaming cups of tea on the table in front of him. She isn't sure whether to be angry about the break-in or impressed that he knows how to make tea."Where is John?" Sally asks, dumping her bag and foregoing any kind of greeting."Upstairs, having a nap," Sherlock pushes a cup towards her. "Sit down and tell me everything.""You haven't deduced it?"He shrugs and leans back, fingers drumming on the table. "Always hard to deduce things so far in the past if you don't have direct access to the person or all the facts."Sally smiles. "The great Sherlock Holmes isn't actually omniscient. Who would have thought?"He rolls his eyes. "You should have known that already."Sally takes off her coat and shoes and sits down. She looks around for Dante and realises he is curled up in Sherlock's lap, the traitor. Sherlock is idly scratching his chest with his left hand. Sally can hear Dante's gentle purr."You're just going to stay here until you get answers, aren't you?" Sally asks, already resigned to her fate.Sherlock raises an eyebrow at her. "Yes."Well then.Sally sighs. "It started when your brother invited me for a chat. You may remember warning me he would do that."Sherlock makes a face. "Of course Mycroft would meddle. How much did he know?""Not enough," she says. "He only knew the things he didn't know. Well, at least that's what he told me. He didn't know anything about her going back farther than five years. He knew her name likely wasn't hers and he was worried she might be trying to get close to you and John for some nefarious reason." Sally shrugs. "Guess he wasn't wrong about that."He grimaces again, clearly unhappy with admitting that his brother was right about anything, let alone something so relevant."So what? You decided to arrest Mary as some sort of penance for trying to arrest me?"Sally laughs. "God no. Well, perhaps a little. But mostly I did it because I was worried she would try to harm either one of you and I don't want Mrs Hudson to have to suffer that sort of loss again." She pins him with her gaze. "Do you even realise how much the two of you mean to her, you especially?"He looks away. "I don't intend to cause her any hurt.""And yet she ends up being the collateral." Sally takes a sip of her tea. "I was the one who had to come here and tell her you had killed yourself. And if you think that losing you didn't absolutely break her heart, you are an even greater moron than I thought."He flinches at that and she knows her words have hit home. She can only hope he will take them to heart and take better care of himself.Sherlock rallies admirably, though. "Interesting as this conversation is, you were going to tell me about your investigation of Mary."Sally sighs and gives in, just as she knew she would. So she tells him the entire, unabridged version. The clues and her theories, the evidence and the months it took to put it all together. She is intensely proud of herself for doing it almost entirely by herself."I wanted to have it all ready before the wedding," she explains. "So it was a bit of a race against the clock. But I knew it would be so much more difficult for John if he actually went ahead and married her. I wanted to save him the trouble of having to go through with a divorce."She doesn't say that she had also wanted to spare Sherlock from having to watch John get married to someone else.Perhaps he has guessed that much or perhaps it just occurred to him that he has been spared this experience, too. Either way, he looks at her and his expression is entirely earnest in a way she has never seen directed at her - not coming from him."Thank you, Sally."She smiles. "Believe me, it was my pleasure. I'm just sorry John got hurt in the process. How is he holding up?"Sherlock looks wary. "I don't know. We got rather drunk last night and he's been nursing a hangover all day."Sally snorts. "Yes, I saw you on the stairs yesterday evening. I don't think you even noticed I was there.""Yes, well, I barely know if I was there myself," Sherlock says. "I haven't been that drunk in well over a decade.""Yeah, best not to make a habit out of it," Sally tells him, smirking. "Wouldn't want you to permanently forget your international reputation."He blinks. "What?""Never mind."He shrugs and carefully lifts the still purring Dante from his lap, putting the cat down on the floor before standing. His tea cup is only half empty but Sally has learned by now that Sherlock rarely finishes a cup of tea unless John is the one who made it.It takes her a moment to notice the sound of water gurgling through the pipes. Mrs Hudson wouldn't shower at this time of day, so it must be John."Good night, Sally," Sherlock says and makes for the door."Good night," she says softly. "Oh and Sherlock?"He pauses and turns to look at her.She smiles. "Give him some time. Good luck."He leaves without a comment. Sally thinks that is answer enough.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
They keep Mary in jail while they prepare for the trial. Sally is absolutely sure that Mycroft Holmes is pulling certain strings in the background because the entire process happens much faster than it usually does.Mary is kept locked up because she presents an obvious flight risk and a danger to others. The court hearing happens within two weeks of her arrest and the trial is set to start only a month after that, mostly so the defence has time to review the evidence and try to spin a story that will let Mary walk free or at least let her get away with less time in prison.In the same time, Sally follows up on all her leads and ties together loose ends. She'll not let Mary slip through her fingers. She sure as hell won't let her walk free. Not after spending almost half a year investigating her every move.She doesn't have reason to be worried, though. She trusts their justice system. She certainly trusts Mycroft Holmes to ensure the justice system works the way it is supposed to when it comes to a woman who could have and did cause his little brother so much pain.John and Sherlock are both there for the trial, sitting side by side, both stone-faced. Sally isn't surprised by this. Neither of them is going to give a statement, though.When she first saw him, Mary tried to talk to John and his only words had been "I have nothing to say to you". That had been that.Mary hasn't tried again. She simply sits there, poker-faced as the prosecution lays out every single piece of evidence against her. It's overwhelming, really. The list of names of her known victims is scarily long. The list of her aliases that they have found is almost as long.It all goes so much more smoothly than Sally could have hoped for.There isn't a person who isn't appalled by what they hear about Mary and her actions. The judge is shocked, the audience is shocked, even the defence seems at a loss for words. How do you defend a killer for hire? How do you defend someone who doesn't seem to feel a shred of remorse?In the end, they simply don't, beyond the bare necessities required of them.And before they know it, the sentence is read and Mary is gone. There are extradition agreements and it quickly becomes clear that she won't be kept in the UK for long.Sally watches her being led out of the room and can't help the surge of satisfaction at knowing that none of them will ever have to see her again."Congratulations, Sally," Greg tells her, clapping a hand on her shoulder. "That was fantastic work."Sally smiles tiredly. She's been awake since four in the morning, wondering if her own extensive statement would be enough, hoping all the work she put in was enough. It was."Thank you for letting me do this," she says, watching Sherlock and John who are standing down the hallway, heads bent together as they talk in quiet voices. There's a tentative smile on John's face. He looks like someone who just woke up from a nightmare to find that reality is actually quite nice.Lestrade notices where her attention has gone. "Turned out well for them, too," he notes."John moved back in the day I arrested Mary," Sally says. "I don't think he's been able to go anywhere on his own since then."Sherlock has always been there, following him around or standing by his side, a lanky shadow with a barely concealed smile on his lips and hope in his eyes.She hasn't heard them argue once and neither has Mrs Hudson. It makes her wonder just how careful Holmes is being."Hmm," Lestrade comments as they watch John and Sherlock leave. "Keep an eye on these two, will you? I don't want Sherlock messing it up at the last moment."Sally snorts. "What, and you think I'm the right person to stop him if he does?"He grins at her, that boyish grin that makes him look ten years younger. "Why not? You already stopped John from making the biggest mistake of his life."Sally rolls her eyes. "If you say so. Come on, we need to get back to the Yard. I have piles and piles of paperwork to catch up on and we still haven't found enough evidence to arrest Lawrence for the Notting Hill burglaries."Lestrade shakes his head at her blasé attitude but accompanies her all the same.*****That evening, Sally finds herself upstairs in 221b once more, along with Mrs Hudson and the dynamic duo. Apparently, John has decided a celebratory dinner is in order and Holmes has pulled out all the stops in response.Sally didn't even know he knew how a stove works but he's put together a truly delicious self-made pasta sauce and shrugs all compliments away, citing his Chemistry degree."Never thought I'd see you act all humble," John notes between two bites of pasta.Sherlock looks around the flat as if searching for a suitable reply and settles on "Well, I have been humbled a lot recently."
'Oh dear'
Sally thinks but John just rolls his eyes and keeps eating and she realises the comment went straight over his head. How can one man be so painfully oblivious?
Eventually, John clears his throat but thankfully doesn't stand. He merely looks at them all and his gaze lingers on Sherlock longest of all."Well, I just wanted to say, uh ... it's good to be home. And I'm glad to be here with you all."
Sally thinks she doesn't give Holmes nearly enough credit for his self-control because he somehow manages
not
to lean over the table and kiss John right there.
"Oh, it's so good to have you back, John!" Mrs Hudson, who has no self-control whatsoever, exclaims and kisses John's cheek.Sally catches Sherlock's eye and winks at him. He frowns back at her and she rolls her eyes.*****The next day, Sally has only been at home for half an hour when there's a knock on her door. She's got a wriggling Dante in her arms, petting his belly."Come in!" she calls, fully expecting it to be Holmes. Mrs Hudson would have announced herself.But of course Sherlock would never knock and so she finds herself alone with John Watson instead."Oh, John!" she says, surprised. "Uh, how are you?""Fine," he says. "Thanks. How about you?""Doing good." She grunts as she lowers Dante to the floor so he can get to his bowl. "There you go, you big baby.""I didn't know you had a cat." John watches Dante with a smile and she can't help but smile back."Got him from Molly," she says. "Her cat had kittens a couple of months after ... well, after we thought Sherlock killed himself."She watches a shadow cross his face and hates herself for reminding him, so she decides to quickly change the topic."Are you just here for a chat or did you want something in particular?""What? Oh!" John tears his eyes away from Dante. "Sorry. Yeah, I was wondering ... do you think Sherlock is acting a bit weird?""Yes," she says instantly. "All the time."He laughs. "Fair enough. But I meant ... weird compared to how he normally behaves?"
'Oh dear, you are finally starting to catch on, aren't you?'
Sally thinks and tries to hide the glee on her face.
"I don't know him well enough to be able to tell how he normally behaves," she evades. "I usually only get the hyped-on-murder version."He nods. "Yeah, that's pretty much normal," he says. "I just ... I feel he's been... different recently."Sally knows she has to tread carefully here. She can't say too much, even though the answer is plain as day to everyone but John."Well, he came back from two years of doing god knows what to interrupt your engagement," she points out. "Then you got stuck into a fire and the two of you were almost blown up and then he spent months organising your wedding which I prevented by arresting your fiancée. I think he's allowed to be a bit different, don't you think?""Yeah, maybe you're right," he murmurs. "I don't know. I feel he's been staring at me a lot recently.""He's Sherlock," she reminds him. "Staring is what he does. And I doubt you've told him anything at all about how you feel about the whole Mary thing, so I'm not surprised he's trying to deduce it."She takes a breath and ploughs on. "Have you even told him what you plan to do next? You moved back in here right after I made the arrest but does he know if you intend to stay? He's never going to ask, John, just in case you remember you wanted to leave."John stares at her, looking rather surprised. "I ... no. No, I haven't. Why would he think I want to leave?"
Sally resists the urge to facepalm but it's a close call. "After everything that happened, why
wouldn't
he?"
John, looking stricken, nods, turns on his heel and leaves. She supposes that's the best she is going to get. If they are lucky, he'll at least confirm it and stop Sherlock from wondering. Mrs Hudson will be pleased.*****Holmes seems more relaxed after that, and a lot happier. Sally can only hope that John has confirmed his intention to stay indefinitely. She comes home from work one evening to find a van idling outside while a couple of very serious looking muscular men carry boxes into the flat. They are wearing wires that curl from behind their ears into their collars and Sally surmises that Mycroft Holmes must have decided to expedite John's move by having his own people bring the rest of John's stuff to 221b.When she walks in, she can hear Sherlock gleefully giving instructions and shouting at people. She smiles to herself as she unlocks her door and disappears into the bustle-free calmness of her flat. At least he's enjoying himself.She spends an hour on the phone with her mother and another two with her younger sister, enjoying the knowledge that for once there is nothing for her to worry about. The most important case she's ever worked on is done with, she finally got caught up on all her paperwork, John Watson is back where he belongs and no one can possibly expect more of her.She cooks a celebratory dinner for one while she listens to her sister gush about her honeymoon for the fifth time, smiling the entire time.Once they finally finish their conversation, Sally grabs Dante for a long cuddling session and gets comfortable on the sofa, switching on Netflix and watching an altogether wholesome show about five gay guys giving some lucky sod a full makeover. Almost every episode makes her tear up a little from sheer happiness and she hugs Dante to her chest.Yes, today has been a good day.*****Several more weeks pass and absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happens.Sherlock and John are back to solving crimes, sometimes with the Yard and sometimes without them. At one point, Holmes investigates a missing otter at the London Zoo and instantly becomes a Scotland Yard-internal meme when he ends up snarling at the police at the same time as the otter beside him just as one of their photographers snaps a picture.When Sally shows him the result, John laughs until he cries.Sherlock pretends to be angry but his eyes light up at the sound of John's laughter and he utterly fails to keep up the act. When John turns to look at him, wiping tears from his eyes, Sherlock manages to arrange his features into something that might be called exasperated impatience."Don't look like that," John tells him. "That is the funniest thing I have seen since they flew me to Buckingham Palace and you were already there in a sheet and no pants."Sherlock makes a face. "Yes, perhaps I should do that again."John frowns. "Go to Buckingham Palace?""Yes, John," Sherlock says and if he's being sarcastic, he's very subtle about it.
This is how Sally discovers that John still doesn't have a clue.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
She waits until she knows John has a late shift at the clinic before she goes up to 221b to confront Holmes about him. With every step she takes up the stairs, she asks herself what the hell she thinks she is doing. But she doesn't have the time or the inclination to second-guess herself because she is so fed up with the two of them and it needs to be said.Holmes is at home - she knows this because by now she is familiar enough with the atmosphere of 221b to be able to feel a massive sulk the moment she steps through the front door. He has perfected it into an art form and if she weren't so annoyed with him, she'd be impressed by this feat.He's on the sofa in his dressing gown, pyjama bottoms and a ratty old t-shirt - the outfit seems designed to make him look like a student at some posh public school and he definitely looks like he's 17 years old at most."Impressive," Sally says, leaning against one of the desks in the sitting room and crossing her arms in front of her chest. "John has been gone for what, two hours? And I bet you haven't moved since he went to work."Sherlock ignores her but she's used to that by now, too."So what's the plan? You're going to stay here like this until he gets home and then he throws a pillow at your head and you tell yourself that's the maximum amount of attention you need?"He turns around and glares at her. "Is there a point to this? Or did you just feel the need to hear yourself talk?""Didn't think I'd have to spell it out for you," she says, not letting his snappish reaction ruffle her. The times when Sherlock Holmes could insult her with something as weak as this line are long gone."But to answer your question - yes, there is a point. It's that I am extremely tired of watching you be like this." She waves a hand to encompass everything about his current state. "And I'm not alone in that.""How tragic. I'll be sure to pencil in some time to feel sorry for you all next Wednesday," he growls back at her.Sally rolls her eyes. "That would require some sort of forward planning, which you never do."Out in the street, someone starts up a jack hammer and they both grimace."Well, what do you think I should do, then?" Sherlock demands. She knows he means to sound angry and annoyed with her but she can hear the hint of pleading beneath that. He honestly doesn't know, Lord help him.
Sally stares at him with her best
'You're an idiot'
look. She learned it from him, so he'd better appreciate it.
"I know this is going to sound absolutely revolutionary," she says, raising her voice to be heard over the construction work outside. "But perhaps you should wait until John comes home, open your mouth, and just bloody
tell him
you're in love with him!"
For a long moment, there is silence. Even the jack hammer has fallen silent.And Holmes, wide-eyed and suddenly very pale indeed, says: "Thank you, Sally, I think we can skip that part."It's the look on his face and the utter tonelessness of his voice that clue her in. She turns her head.And there, standing in the door with a deer-in-headlights look on his face, is John Watson.*****Sally thinks this might be the worst faux pas she has ever committed.It was never her intention to accidentally out Holmes like that - certainly not to John, of all people! Granted, there isn't anyone else left in all of London who could possibly still be in the dark about Sherlock Holmes.Her eyes dart back and forth between Sherlock, frozen on the sofa, and John, frozen in the doorway.She decides that something needs to be done or they're all going to be standing here like this until the end of time.
"Uh ... I think I need to be somewhere else right now," she mutters, mouthing
'Sorry'
towards Sherlock, who gives her a look like he can't believe she'd throw him to the wolves and run the other way.
But Sally has absolutely no intention of getting in the middle of the conversation these two idiots are finally going to have. Yes, she may have accidentally kicked it off, but it is still an extremely private conversation to have and she is quite possibly the last person either of them would want to have there for it, except perhaps for Mycroft Holmes and 'Mary'.She brushes past John with a muttered "Careful, now," and hopes he understands that she doesn't just mean the danger of her stepping on his toes if he doesn't move aside to let her pass.He steps into the flat and Sally pulls the door shut behind her, then takes the stairs at a deliberately normal pace so as not to appear like she is fleeing. She totally is, though, and she walks right into Mrs Hudson's flat, closes the door behind herself and sags against it, burying her face in her hands."Sally, dear? Is everything all right?"Of course Mrs Hudson is at home and immediately in front of her, a worried expression on her wrinkled face."Mrs Hudson," Sally manages once the initial urge to start laughing hysterically has passed, "I think I just did something that was either really stupid or really really lucky."*****They sit in Mrs Hudson's kitchen and chat for hours, neither daring to leave their sanctuary for fear of what they might be able to hear from the hallway because it has occurred to Sally that she might have closed the sitting room door but the one to the kitchen was still open as usual. Whatever the two men are finally saying is definitely between them.And although both Sally and Mrs Hudson would never admit to listening very intently whenever there is a lull in their conversation, there is not a peep to be heard from upstairs for the rest of the evening.*****They don't see either hide or hair from the inhabitants of 221b for two days. Mrs Hudson tells Sally she has heard people moving about so she's reasonably sure they are both still up there but she hasn't seen or spoken to either of them.On the third day, Sally gets a massive bouquet of beautiful flowers delivered to her desk. There is no card, much to the disappointment of all her nosy colleagues, and she merely smiles to herself and refuses to tell anyone anything while she arranges the flowers in a vase.When she gets home from work that day, she catches Sherlock and John snogging in the hallway.They don't notice her, not even when she takes a picture on her phone for Mrs Hudson. It was about time that woman had a more recent photograph of her two boys to put in a frame.Sally tiptoes past them and into her flat, where Dante winds himself around her legs, meowing in greeting."Hello, darling," she greets him, picking him up and kissing his head. "Shhh, you'll startle the lovebirds."She closes the door behind herself and smiles down at her cat. "Romance, eh? We don't need that sort of thing, do we? I always wanted to be a crazy cat lady."Dante purrs at her and Sally laughs.She never does move back into her old flat after the renovation work is completed.And life goes on.
THE END.