There is a serious problem with casting Sally Donovan as a villain.

There's also a serious problem of her just NOT appearing in fic. Like, Anderson makes it into fic, but Slaly doesn't seem to.

I kind of like Sally, too. Like, not bunches. But I can see where she's coming from.

So here's this. Because I want to ship her with someone because I have shipper. SO I'm shipping her with Mycroft because of reasons. Reasons like then Mycroft/Sally (Salcroft?) can be like the Bowie/Iman real-life-ship. Yes. Problems are what I don't have.

Just read it damn it.

Enjoy!

He found her standing at his brother's headstone. Her long curly hair bunched up and trying to escape from the hood she'd pulled up to shield herself from the rain. Her back was ramrod straight, as were her legs which struggled to support her on the sodden earth beneath her high heels. Mycroft stepped up next to her silently, adjusting his umbrella to shield Sally Donovan from the rain as well as himself. He came here often to think, though today he'd come here purely on accident—his mission had been one to find this woman, wherever she was at the time. The press had just broken with the story of Kitty Reilly's arrest on charges of harassment, stalking—with the court's case resting on the fact that her news article had led to a man killing himself.

Mycroft had arranged that the story of his brother's ultimate innocence would break midway through the horrid woman's trial, exposing that not only did her story lead to a man's death but that her story was wholly untrue. He'd known that Sally Donovan was a good policewoman, and that she would soonest start to allow guilt to eat at her sense of duty and justice. The police, the good ones at least, had a lot of fodder in the pantry of duty and justice. Guilt, especially warrantless, grew like mold in cases like Sally Donovan's. He didn't want to see her collapse under the weight of it.

"I said such horrible things to him. There's nothing to be said or changed about that, either. I said them all the time, one apology wouldn't have been enough to erase the things I said—and then—and then the next day he—"

"My brother chose to end his life because of a slanderous news article—he was brilliant but just a tad unstable Sergeant Donovan, you know that. I truly doubt that your words ever rocked his world to such an extent that he was broken by them."

"But what if I hadn't said those things—what if he hadn't had to deal with…"

"We won't ever know, I'm afraid."

He took her to coffee the next week, where she was nonverbal and suspicious. He'd bought her generic coffee even though he'd had a report drawn up on her years ago—Sally didn't like coffee, she liked infused bubble tea. Which was good, because Mycroft enjoyed bubble tea himself on occasion. He'd been just a bit lonely since his wife had left him—taken the kids, and he'd let her. Oh, how that had upset Mummy—especially when he'd signed the divorce papers without a fuss. Mycroft would be lying if he wasn't thinking of pursuing something with Sally.

The week after he asked where she'd like to go—John Watson had sent him a weary text telling him not to kidnap people but it had been ignored—and she'd just said "home, Mr. Holmes." He'd taken her to a Vietnamese restaurant for a quick lunch instead. Sally had gotten iced tea—an unnerving orange tea with a bunch of sugar and cream in it—and he'd had lunch.

"You don't have to make me feel better, and you don't have to watch me round the clock. I'm not going to do myself a harm," she'd said, staring him down with her policewoman eyes as he finished ordering. The restaurant was lightly peopled by his operatives—orders for the day involved plainclothes and current-events-weather conversations and varied lunches, no matching drinks—and somehow Sally had seen that. Mycroft smiled slightly—

"Not often that people notice those around them."

Sally took the opportunity and leaned forward to quietly lecture him.

"Do you know why Sherlock worked with Greg? With all of Greg's team?"

Mycroft didn't say anything, letting her finish.

"Because we were good. We are good. The best. Sherlock would only work with the best, for all that sometimes he would sleep in alleys under cardboard. He was furious when Keith joined the team, he'd been grooming some woman from 'his' hospital to join the force as Greg's forensics specialist. Because Keith is pretty good, but he isn't the best. Mr. Holmes, I'm the best at what I do—I interview witnesses, and handle press when Greg's being a dolt. I know how to look at people and I can feel when I'm talking to 'the face' while 'the body' looks on."

Sherlock's woman—Molly Hooper, but that name wasn't important to Sally—was currently on an extended exchange with a hospital in Liverpool as a cover for her looking after Sherlock. Mycroft got weekly reports on them, and he hoped that Mummy would have more grandchildren within a few years so that she would perhaps begin to forgive him. Things were right on schedule, too, which is why he was taking his time with Sally.

"Not many people take the time to look at those around them." Sally smirked, her face bitter, and didn't say another word for the rest of their lunch.

The third week he asked her why she didn't try to get away as they walked through a park. He'd abstained from having the entourage follow along this time, because he'd found out what he needed from their last meeting. Sally's curly hair bounced merrily around her face with every step, and there was just a touch of color on her lips—a recently applied stain rather than faded lipstick. Mycroft laughed along with her as she made the occasional joke, though for the most part they were both silent.

The steady click of her sensible heels had his normal tension bleeding out of him. Normally he had to have several glasses of whiskey before he was this relaxed. Mycroft wasn't a man who liked women in heels—he thought them rather impractical in every sense, and disliked the idea that women's shoes ought not be as automatically comfortable as men's. He didn't care for the aesthetic appeal being heard over the plea for comfort.

"I'm going to Scotland next week, Mr. Holmes," she said later as he handed her out of the car—they'd spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the park, got back into one of his cars and went back to her flat. Mycroft smiled, letting it just touch his eyes, not letting go of Sally's hand.

"I know."

"If you bother me there I'll probably punch you in the solar plexus. I might even kick you."

"That's because you'll be under stress from visiting your brother and his wife."

She stared him down, gripping his hand a little tighter. She wanted a promise, that he wouldn't bother her—she would let him continue to see her if he didn't ruin this one thing. Just the ticket.

"But you won't have the added stress of my presence there, of this you can be assured." Sally herself smiled then, loosening her grip on his hand and taking a step away from him.

"Then I'll see you when I get back."

Mycroft's assistants whispered that he was lonely and irritable the following week, but kept it to themselves why exactly that was. They all knew that he rarely took breaks from his work, that he was fanatically dedicated to it, but that whenever he went off to see 'that policewoman' he came back happier. Instead of asking him, those who worked with and for him bent their heads to their memos and lists—the division in charge of Sherlock's rehabilitation of public character was poised to begin releasing the 'evidence' of Kitty Reilly's article of falsehoods. The woman wasn't too well off, so she didn't have the money for an extended court case—it would begin to wind down in a month or two.

He resisted spying on Sally while she was in Scotland. She knew, fairly well, what he did for a living and she hadn't told him not to spy—but it felt like a breach of trust. Besides, no agent was perfect at hiding. Most relied on the fact that people never looked at anything around them—really, Sherlock was extraordinary but people could be taught to look at the world like he did—and Sally looked around herself. She didn't get on well with her sister-in-law, and would be trying not to cause any fights with the woman. She would be distracting herself by people watching.

When she got back, he let her have three days to herself and picked her up on Thursday afternoon for coffee and biscuits. The little shop was just a few blocks from his work, so he could have walked but he didn't want to give the impression that he would always send others to 'retrieve her.' Mycroft wanted to give Sally Donovan the impression that he was interested in her.

"Next time I want to go for bubble tea, Mr. Holmes."

He wanted Sally Donovan to start being interested in him, and on her own terms too. He hadn't used any intimidation tactics—as he had on Mike Stamford, Greg Lestrade, Molly Hooper, and John Watson—because he hadn't wanted to test her. Sally had, more than a month ago, turned to see the black car pull up to the curb and tapped on the driver's door window until the driver had let it down.

Did Mycroft Holmes send you?

The nodded response had had her opening the door to the car herself, settling in and buckling the safety belt. Mycroft, who had been about to get out of the car when she'd gotten into it herself, had only been utterly bemused. Sally didn't let anyone push her around, and if they tried they paid for it dearly. Her words were quite sharp at times.

"Then bubble tea it shall be, Sergeant Donovan."

She could defend herself, and Mycroft liked that in a woman.

"Sally."

Even if this didn't work out—Mycroft had learned from his first marriage not to presume to know a lifetime's worth of decisions no matter how sure he felt—he would like being closer to was also the fact that he was convinced that their children would be cuter than Sherlock and Molly's.

"Mycroft."

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