"For god's sake, Donovan. Go home!"

But Sally didn't hear him - she was a smidge preoccupied. Sneezing your brain out through your nose was no easy feat, and she was thirteen- fourteen- fifteen sneezes into a potential office record. Dimmock had been marking them off on a scrap of paper.

"She can't yet!" He answered. "She's only four away!"

The detective constable across the desk from Donovan put his face in his hands.

"I am not-" Sally stopped speaking to quickly grab a tissue. The office collectively watched with baited breath, and sighed with disappointment as she held back another episode. "I can't go home. There's t-… too much to do right now. Lestrade'd kill me."

"Not if you kill him first," an intern retorted from behind a sticky note with a giant tick mark. Originally he'd tried tagging Donovan with large crosses to warn others of the plague she was carrying, but Donovan wasn't the one you wanted to mess around with on a good day - never mind when she'd clearly come down with the Black Death. Across the room, she looked murderous.

Her deskmate pleaded with her. "Go home. We'd all rather you go home and get some rest."

Sally's shoulders lumped. She knew they were right - but it was the worst time of year to be getting ill. There was too much to do, and not enough staff to do it - she felt like calling it quits so early in the day, even if she couldn't stop sneezing for five minutes, would be letting her entire team down.

After a moment, she sighed. "Fine. Yeah, you're right." She dropped her tissue into the bin beside her desk and stood up. "Just don't touch these files, alright?"

The DC looked up, trying to stifle his disgust. "Not likely," he reassured her. "Just get to bed, quick as you can."

Sally grumbled, but picked up her keys and wobbled out of the office.

"Anybody got any lighter fluid?" The intern asked, glancing at the wastebasket.

Dimmock caught up with her just as she stepped out of the building. Or rather - she noticed him hurrying after her, and stopped to watch as he made an idiot of himself. He was struggling to get his left arm into his coat while he walked, and somehow got the sleeve caught in the door. Even the constables stationed at the entrance were too busy laughing to help him out.

When he did finally get free, with his coat on properly and looking a little worse for the wear, he staggered over to her. "I was going to offer you a ride home... but I think instead I'm going to run down to the Thames and jump in."

Sally smiled. "Good time of year to do it. You'll freeze before you drown."

Iain scratched the back of his head with his keys. "Is that a good thing?"

"Yeah, freezing to death's supposed to make you all warm and sleepy," she answered, and pulled her scarf up over her nose to combat the wind trying to push them both down the street.

He apologised as he pulled her towards his car. "Did Anderson tell you that?" He asked casually, opening the passenger door for her.

Sally glared over the top of her scarf. "Does Greg know you drive a Fiat Panda?" She replied sourly.

"No, and if you don't want me to dump us both into the river, you won't tell him."

Sally clicked her tongue as she slid into the passenger's seat. If it had been just a little warmer, and sidewalks not so slick, she'd have turned around and walked to the nearest tube station. But as she couldn't go half a minute without sneezing, and she swore she'd seen a snowflake - she was willing to accept the conditions of his surrender.

Frankly, if she didn't get better soon, she might just voluntarily go swimming with him. It'd been almost three weeks, and her cold, flu, plague thing was relentless.

"Do you want me to pick up soup or anything before I drop you off?" Dimmock asked as they slid out onto the main road. Sally had curled up against the passenger side door to keep from breathing in his general direction.

She shook her head - and immediately regretted it. "No," she answered nasally. "I think I've g-… got some at the flat."

Iain smiled sympathetically. He'd gotten sick around the same time she had - and gotten better in a matter of days, because he knew the meaning of things like bed rest, and lots of fluids. Donovan, like her boss, didn't like being out of the office during the when the cases were starting to back up on their desks.

"Strange thing," she mumbled, "people killing each other around Christmas."

"I think everyone's just tense," Iain answered. "Worried about dinners, and what to get the family, and people not getting along." He slowed down as fluffy chunks of snow started collecting on the windscreen. "That twat Jones is worried you'll murder him, I think. He know they'd never find him." Sally laughed behind her scarf.

It took ages to get to her place - partly because of the snow, and partly because London just isn't a very nice place to drive. Sally was half-asleep with her head resting against the frigid window; she seemed so at ease - finally - that Iain felt a slight sense of guilt at having to rouse her. He let the car idle in the street - no one was coming or going, not with the impending blizzard - for a full minute while he debated.

But it wasn't a difficult decision. Glancing over his shoulder, he manoeuvred his little car into an equally little space - "Whine all you like, Greg. My car is better." - and threw it into park.

They were laughing on Sally's couch when her phone rang. She'd refused to go to bed until her cold medicine kicked, and so far it was only making her giggle deliriously.

"If you're not asleep," the voice on the other end growled, "come open the bloody door. Bell's broken again and I am freezing my arse off." Sally had to hand the phone off to Iain as he hurried down the stairs; she was too busy laughing to answer him.

"About fu- Christ, this sickness really takes it out of you, doesn't it?" Greg asked, as Iain pulled open the door. "You're all pale and short."

"Pale and short?" Iain repeated, stepping to the side so Greg could get in out of the cold.

"Fuck off," the DI answered bluntly. "I was losing brain cells standin' out there." He shook heaps of snow from his glistening hair and his shoulders to make a point before charging up the stairs.

Dimmock rolled his eyes. But as he shut the door, he noticed just how hard the snow was coming down. He couldn't see the end of the street, the tire tread from Greg's BMW had nearly disappeared, and it wouldn't be long before his own car vanished into a snow drift. If it didn't stop soon, or at least relent, they'd all be stuck there.

He scrambled back up the stairs just in time to hear Greg ask about the "ratty Fiat" parked outside, followed by more of Sally's stifled laughs. Instead of facing his potential executioner, Iain ducked into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

"So, what are you doing here?" Greg called out, shedding layers of snow-soaked, frozen clothes.

"He drove me home," Sally answered, side-eyeing a shopping bag at Greg's feet.

"How gallant."

"Had to give the princess something to do," she added, smirking. Iain felt his ears go red.

"I guess neither of you wants tea then?" He replied loudly.

Greg and Sally exchanged smiles. But Greg had something special in that bag, or he wouldn't have brought it up with him. "So," Sally prompted, staring at it.

Her best friend's smile widened as he pulled up a chair and sat down. "So?" He repeated.

"So, what's in the bag, Greg." She wasn't one for beating around the bush. It was one of many things that made her such a gifted detective.

Greg reached in and pulled out soup. "For the sickly sergeant," he responded with mock solemnity. Sally nearly tossed her blanket off and got up to slap him.

"I am not sickly! It's just a cold!"

"That twat Jones says it's Spanish Flu." Sally snarled. "Well, better that than smallpox," Greg rationalised. He reached into his bag again, and Sally instinctively leaned forward. "If I give you this," he met her eyes to show his sincerity, "you can't have any more caffeine until you're well again. Understand?"

"Whatever it is, I don't want it," Sally answered, and promptly rolled over. Iain snorted as he filled their mugs with hot water.

Greg leaned back, pulling out a plastic box. "Suit yourself. I'll just eat it all on my own, then. Maybe give Dimmock a bit if he's very lucky."

Iain stepped into the main room, carrying two mugs. "Trade you," he offered. "Tea for cake."

Sally sat up so quickly that she made herself dizzy. "Cake?" Iain and Greg both chuckled.

Greg took a mug carefully- "Jesus, that's hot." - and set it on the floor beside his chair. "Not quite cake," he corrected. "Well, a kind of cake." He popped open the box and Sally inched forward. He could swear she could smell the espresso from where she was sitting.

"It's tiramisu," he answered. "Although, I'll have you know I asked for tiramisoup... but they said I could only get them separately."

He grinned; Sally and Iain groaned.

"Just give it here," Sally demanded, reaching out, but Greg tsked and held it out of reach.

"Ah, ah, ah. Your word, first. Then coffee-soaked cake."

"I'm never giving up caffeine."

"Then no cake," the DI answered, producing a fork.

"Greg!" Sally whined.

"Is there a rehabilitation facility for caffeine addicts?" Iain asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"There ought to be."

Sally's pout was as stormy as the weather outside. "It's not an addiction until there's more caffeine than blood in your veins."

"And you honestly think you could pass that test?" Greg replied dubiously.

"Just give me the damned cake, Greg," Sally demanded, hands outstretched.

Iain calmly sipped his tea as their quarrel dissolved into childish, but completely normal bickering and swearing. Bizarrely, he thought he heard someone hammering at the door - though what they were doing outside in a snowstorm, he couldn't guess. Naturally Sally and Greg didn't notice, so he stood up, taking his tea with him, and hopped down the stairs yet again.

Anderson was as surprised to see Dimmock at the door as Dimmock was to see him. Dan, however, was above making the same awful jokes as Lestrade. He pushed past Iain and asked, "What are you doing here?" even though his teeth chattered and his lips were blue from the cold.

"Drove Sally home," Iain answered a bit incredulously. "God, did you walk here?"

Dan started to shake his head, but hesitated. "T-t-took the tube most of the way-," he glared at Iain, who was still holding the front door open. "But that's a bloody blizzard outside," he finished pointedly. Iain hastily closed it.

"Sorry," the young inspector replied sheepishly.

A shout drew their eyes to the top of the stairs.

"Was that Lestrade?" Dan asked - though he was completely unsurprised. Iain nodded, and beckoned him up into the increasingly occupied flat.

The scene above was very different from what it had been when Iain left. Sally, now free from the tangle of blankets that she'd cocooned herself in, was standing victoriously over Greg- "I think I've got cinnamon in my eyes," -and chowing down on the slice of tiramisu he'd brought her. Whether or not she'd surrendered to his demand that she abandon caffeine was uncertain, but by the look of things - she hadn't.

Her face lit up when she saw Dan. "No one told me that we were having a party in my flat."

"No one told me that cinnamon's worse than mustard gas," Greg muttered.

"I brought soup," Dan interjected, holding up a bag. The other three laughed, and he sighed. "And I'm probably not the first."

Sally tilted her head towards the kitchen. "Just put it in there," she answered, beaming. "Plenty for everyone now."

Iain looked up to the skylights as he reclaimed his seat on the floor. "Looks like we may be here for a while."

And they would be - but none of them cared. Within minutes, Greg fished out a radio and found "acceptable music" for them to listen to. Dan helped himself to tea, and Sally finished off her cake - with no one saying a word about how she really should have gone straight to bed when she got home. Iain generously set to heating up copious amounts of tinned soup - more than enough for all of them - and ladled it out as the others constructed a nest of blankets in the middle of Sally's sitting room floor.

It would have been ideal if it hadn't been for Sally's plague, but even that didn't really put a damper on anything. She sneezed constantly, and the guys teased her - and in the weeks to follow, with the streets of London still covered in dirty snow drifts from that evening, she would pay them back with a dozen slick, frigid snow balls to the face and neck.

She had brothers. She knew where the weak spots were.

But in that moment, she had her boys - her stupid, terrible-joke-telling, clumsy-and-tea-spilling, happy-to-be-with-her boys. And plague or no plague, snow or no snow - she was perfectly content.