221B fic: Sally's choice

BBC Sherlock

Rating: 12 (violence)

Spoilers: for The Reichenbach Fall

Summary: what else had Sally Donovan been supposed to do?

Sally got blamed, of course, when Sherlock was eventually cleared, but she hadn't wanted to imagine that he was a psychopath, endangering children to make himself look good. She'd spent years trying to suppress her gut instincts telling her that Sherlock was dangerous. Because Greg and Dr Watson trusted Sherlock, and they were good men. And the cases had been solved; she'd been prepared to turn a blind eye to all the irregularities, because of that. Tell herself that Sherlock was an anti-social weirdo, but that didn't stop him being a genius.

But what could you do when you had reasonable suspicion? Two minutes to identify one spot in the whole of greater London simply wasn't possible. And the girl having hysterics about Sherlock: Sally couldn't ignore that. You had to pay attention to kids, take their evidence seriously, even if they couldn't explain their fears.

It wasn't telling tales out of school or getting her own back, whatever people thought. What she'd done was the only sensible course of action: get the matter investigated, shed some light on it. If Sherlock had only co-operated when Lestrade went round, she wouldn't have had to go to the Chief Superintendent. If he'd just been prepared to talk, give a plausible explanation for what had happened, rather than simply expecting – demanding – blind belief.