cop_an_attitude | 02 | [Written/Voice/Action]

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02 | [Written/Voice/Action]

[Early enough in the morning that it's clear someone couldn't get back to sleep, a series of doodles appear on the page: they're Sally's best estimate of the floor plan of her apartment, with little rudimentary sketches of furniture in various placements. Over the span of a half hour, several are drawn with different configurations and crossed out before one ends up circled. A check mark is drawn next to it for good measure.

She was too lazy to get out of bed and find real scrap paper, but she figured no one would care.

Much later in the morning, at a reasonable hour, Sally makes a voice recording.]

Right. I've got a question, much as I hate to ask it: since I've been a bit of a dosser when it comes to actually talking to people since I've come here, what with the rampant madness of...everything, and being busy with a few things, I've run short of friends who're willing to do me favors. That being said, I've several articles of heavy furniture that need to be moved up seven flights of stairs.

My usual find-help-moving-house tactic of offering free beer and crisps is moot here, but if there's anyone who can help me out, I'd be happy to negotiate some sort of payment. A favor in return, or something. As I said, I wouldn't ask, but...well. Some of you lot have magic and super strength, and I'm just a regular copper with one very slightly weak ankle. [A self-deprecating laugh that's a little more rueful than she intended. Sally really hates asking for help, but she also really wants her flat not to look like a room in a mental institution, so something had to give.] Thanks, everyone.

[In the afternoon, Sally can be found poking around the item shop, looking for home decorating items and some things she's hoping will show up from her world, and in the evening she'll be at the library doing some cursory research of other worlds and waiting for something interesting to jump out at her.]

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[If Sally were a better person, she would let it go.

Welp.]

All right, all right, let me guess, then. One's John...

[She's positive about that one.]

One's Lestrade...

[Slightly less sure there, but moreso now than she used to be.]

The third; who's the third? Nobody else from Scotland Yard, I know that. I've no idea who else you spend your time with, honestly. Is it your new girlfriend?

[Now she's being juvenile, but man, she just couldn't help it.]

[...New girlfriend? But he remembers her remarks to John.

It seems, male or female, he cannot get along with someone without dating them.]

I don't know Temperance well enough to know her character. [Especially not so out of context. He could make a lot of good hypotheses, but he couldn't be sure here. Nor do his observations always tell him much about what someone will do when desperate.

Kitty? Kitty had been easy. Desperate and aggressive when he'd met her. Easy.

Temperance... He wasn't sure yet.]

"Decent," I would guess. Like most people. Not good, though. At least that's not a call I would make yet.

[It's interesting to know that he does, in fact, make the distinction between "decent" and "good", but Sally brushes past most of that.]

Fine; someone you knew back home, then. I'm positive it's not your brother... Oh! Oh, um, your landlady, is it your landlady?

Mycroft and I are the same sort of man.

[Not exactly alike, but on a similar moral level, by Sherlock's gauges.

The lack of answer as to Mrs Hudson likely means, as with John and Lestrade, that Sally's got the last of them.]

I met him. The resemblance is uncanny. He's more...subtle, though.

[When Sherlock lets her guess go unanswered, she gives herself a little golf clap of congratulation.]

I knew I'd get it. I don't know why I didn't guess her sooner; you shout at her constantly and destroy her flat, but the fact that she still lets you live there has to count for something.

[They like different things, he and Mycroft. Mycroft is about secrets and power. He likes knowledge and danger.

But their methods are similar. Their morals are similar.]

And cheaply. She could let the flat for more.

[It's charity... but he doesn't mind charity. It's repayment, in a way. He helped her with something, she helps him. Like Angelo's generosity at his restaurant.]

Yeah, it is prime real estate. And she seems like such a nice woman; I wonder why she puts up with you.

[But why does anyone put up with him, really? She shrugs.]

No accounting for taste. ...Hang on, is Mrs. Hudson an adrenaline junkie too? That hardly seems healthy for someone her age.

[He might have smiled, actually.]

No. I don't think she is.

I don't know...you usually don't make a conjecture halfway like that. Maybe you're missing the signs.

[She takes a moment to imagine that sweet little old lady involved in some sort of Die Hard plot and makes a very undignified noise choking on a giggle.]

She might have been.

[A pause.]

I think she likes the excitement without having to get involved. But she performs remarkably under pressure. Fearless.

[She groans and glances at the ceiling in supplication.]

I hate that you know that. Poor woman.

[Yet, all things considered...]

Good for her, though.

He answered for it. [She'll know what he's talking about when he provides one more piece of information.

She might have already guessed, actually.] The American.

[It takes her a second or two to remember, but--]

The one you threw out your window!? I thought you'd just gone psychotic again! He hurt that poor old woman?

[Sally would have thrown him out the window herself. Not normally, but Mrs. Hudson totally has that effect on people. It's pretty much documented fact. :| ]

He was looking for something in my flat.

Dragged her upstairs, hit her when she couldn't tell him where it was, and decided to hold a gun to her head to force me to comply.

[There is no remorse whatsoever in his voice. If anything, he sounds pleased with himself.]

Trespassing, attempted burglary, assault.

Didn't give him half what he deserved.

[Shockingly enough, she finds herself agreeing with him for - well, not the first time, but it's a very rare occurrence.]

I'd love to find a reason to chew you out for reckless violence again, but I absolutely can't hold with a grown, armed man using physical violence against a defenseless woman for any reason, so just this once I'll admit that you really didn't.

Well, part of it's what happened to your landlady and the other part is that it's always the bloody Americans who pull these stunts, isn't it?

And not just a grown, armed man. But one trained by the C.I.A., too.

[A common burglar... Well, he'd have been outraged, still, but someone with that much power and government immunity to hide behind...

Really, Sherlock has to admit, it's a bit remarkable his handling of the situation didn't cause more of a fuss. Mycroft helped sweep it under a rug, no doubt, and the harm done to the landlady would have made wonderful headlines in the British media if the Americans had wanted charges filed for the attack on their man.]

Bet he felt like a proper big, scary man on his way to the hospital.

[She picks up what might be either a compass, a corkscrew, or both and fiddles with it a bit, idly attempting to determine its purpose.]

Do you know, "defenestration" is actually my favorite word? [It's directed primarily at the corkscrewy compass. There's a bit that unfolds and looks like it might be designed for lock-picking.] I think it says something about human history that we've a specific word for chucking someone out a window.

[...What is that you've got there, Sally?

Something that interests Sherlock, at least, by the way his eyes are now on it.]

Mycroft didn't warn him what he was getting into, I imagine.

Then again-- I did set the precedent. Complying once with an "order" because he had a gun at someone's head.

[Because he, personally, doesn't care about "classified" information. He'll talk about getting those pictures if he damn well wants to.

...Not that he'll tell Sally much. But he's never shy about talking about people he dislikes, and that American is high on the list.]

Well, it's good to know that-- [She jumps, startled, when twisting one of the metal object's appendages causes a pair of pincers to snap shut.] ...Good to know that you can at least be counted on not to get someone shot on your behalf, when you have control over it.

[She snaps the pincers in Sherlock's general direction.] It's really disconcerting how many times I've dug down to the bottom of a case and found it somehow connected to your brother.

And yet I'd feed two children candy laced with mercury.

[He says it as calmly as he can manage, more of a suggestion than anything else.

Or that's the purpose, at least. He's better with demands and questioning than he is with suggesting an idea. Subtle work, more suited to Mycroft and Moriarty. But the point is made, he feels, either way.]

[Sally has just discovered that the corkscrew is actually a drill of sorts and briefly considers jamming it into Sherlock's arm out of sheer exasperation. She puts it back on the shelf instead.]

And yet.

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