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“They giggled.”
“Come again?” Lestrade spared a quick glance to Donovan, who was leaning on the side of the ambulance, looking positively annoyed.
“They giggled… Sherlock and his… the… What’s his name, again?” At Lestrade’s confused look, she elaborated. “You know, the colleague.”
“Oh, him. Er… Doctor… Watson. Yes, John Watson.”
“Yeah. Well, they giggled. While leaving the crime scene. Like bloody teenagers.”
Lestrade could almost hear the rolling eyes of his sergeant. He did hear the long-suffering sigh and the stretching silence and the light nervous tapping against her arm. She was waiting for answer, then.
“He does that, Sally.”
He was silently hoping she would leave it at that, so he could finish signing the ever-growing pile of forms and declarations and go home. However, Donovan was being her always-tenacious self and pushed the matter.
“But usually, he doesn’t drag other people in this twisted mind of his. Who is that man?”
“I don’t know.”
Donovan was staring at him, hard, unsure, in a way that said “You always know. You should always know. You’re the boss”. Ah, reassurance. That’s what she wanted. He locked eyes with her and tried to put as much as conviction as he could in his words.
“He seems to have passed the “Brother Test”, though. I wouldn’t worry too much.”
She nodded. Believing.
---------
Or was she? Lestrade was left wondering, for a moment, if her worries were actually quietened by his desperate attempt at providing some answers. Answers to questions he himself had. Answers he clearly didn’t have.
He had no idea who John Watson was. No idea apart from the obvious, generic results he had got from his quick research: army doctor, wounded, single, back from Afghanistan. No idea of who was inside that man, of who would accept moving in with Sherlock, helping him on cases and shoot lunatic taxi drivers to save someone he didn’t even know properly.
But then again, Sherlock tended to have that effect on people. And if not people, on Lestrade, at least. He was triggering protectiveness, fascination, exasperation, excitement and far too much tenderness and attachment that was good for each of them.
So Lestrade didn’t know who John Watson was. What he did know, however, is that Sherlock had lived, tonight, because of him. And Sherlock had smiled, in a smile that had been so rarely there before. And also Sherlock had questioned himself about the feelings of others.
And that was good.
Lestrade lifted his head from the paperwork he had been staring blindly at for the last minutes and noticed Donovan still waiting next to him.
“It will be okay, Sally”
“Yes, Boss”.