Title: Who to Trust
Summary: There's an abundance of Sherlock Holmses and Dr. Watsons in the world, but Joan feels like she's found an ally in Sally Donovan. (Be warned—This is just me playing around the idea, not a fully developed fic!)
Rating: T for sexual references
Word Count: 1501
Other Chapters: No.
Disclaimer:The British Broadcasting Corporation owns Sherlock and all related trademarks. I do not in any way profit from the use of these trademarks. CBS owns Elementary and all related trademarks. I do not in any way profit from the use of these trademarks.
Pairings: References to Anderson/Donovan/Anderson
Contains: Shady government conspiracies.
Warnings: No major warnings.

"Still having that affair with Anderson, Donovan? Shall I go over and tell his wife?"

Joan glanced over at the man who'd been introduced to her as 'Detective Anderson,' not ten minutes ago. He was sitting at his desk, laughing and having lunch with a tall white woman with hair that hung straight like heavy curtains. That told Joan, and Joan's Sherlock, everything they needed to know.

Detective Donovan looked too, and for a second Joan thought she was going to dare OtherSherlock to do it—Joan might have, in her position—but some need more extreme than that for petty satisfaction won the detective over, in the end. She sighed and Joan watched the tension vanish from her shoulders. She looked at OtherSherlock with vague disgust and was already walking away when she muttered "Just go do your job, freak."

Joan's Sherlock spoke first. "You are the most indiscreet, pompous—"

"This from the man who got the closest thing to a competent police officer in all of New York shot! Oh? Did you think I didn't know about that? I—"

"Those events are between Marcus Bell and myself, and they do not change the fact that you are wrong about that woman. She is clearly—"

"Sherlock!" Joan said. Her Sherlock froze and sank back immediately. OtherSherlock glanced at her briefly. John looked at Joan for a moment, then looked at OtherSherlock and decided he'd best follow his friends lead and continue ignoring Joan all together. Everyone else in the room was looking at them, too, including Detective Donovan and Detective and Professor Anderson. (Was it history she taught? History or philosophy. Joan would talk it over with her Sherlock, later.)

Joan's Sherlock looked at her like a puppy who'd just been smacked with a slipper and didn't quite understand why.

"Speaking of things that everyone clearly needs to mind their own business about," Joan said quietly, "shut up."

A light came back on behind Sherlock's eyes. He looked from the Andersons to Detective Donovan. "I am sincerely sorry—" he started, but Detective Donovan had already left the room in a huff.

Joan followed her. That there were multiple Dr. Watsons didn't really surprise Joan. That there were multiple Sherlock Holmes' was a little bit harder to believe, but theoretically possible. If you'd told her yesterday, though, that there was another Sherlock Holmes and he was worse than her own was on his worst days, she'd never have believed you. Joan's loved her Sherlock, but he could be cruel and self-centered and infuriatingly arrogant. This one was all of those things as a rule, and the fact that the two of them seemed to know and dislike each other was making matters much worse. This was not what Joan had expected when she'd agreed to come to London. Detective Donovan was already outside by the time Joan caught her.

"Wait!" Joan called. To Joan's surprise, she did.

"I'm sorry," Joan said. "I am so sorry. My partner was completely out-of-line and—"

"And you stopped him," Detective Donovan said, turning to face Joan. "So what are you sorry for?"

"... The whole scene," Joan said. "I just... I'm not actually with those other two, you know."

"Right," Detective Donovan said, nodding. "Those two Sherlocks. They were grown in the same lab or something, right? That's what everyone on the force is saying, but even for him, it sounds ridiculous."

"Something like that," Joan said, because from what she could gather of the two Sherlocks' explanation, it was accurate. The words 'experimental program' and 'more than a dozen of us, and about that many Mycrofts too,' had sunk in, and the rest of the story was filed away in Joan's brain somewhere, where she could take it out and process it later.

"So what about you?" Detective Donovan asked. "Watson and Watson. That's a bit weird."

"I wasn't engineered in a lab," Joan said quickly.

Detective Donovan visibly relaxed. And they even shared a quick smile.

Joan shrugged, and tried to look more okay with it than she felt. "Both Sherlocks say it's a coincidence.

"You think that's the truth?"

"I think it's what they believe."

Detective Donovan nodded. "What do you believe?"

Joan hesitated, but at a gentle look from Detective Donovan, she found her courage and explained: "What bothers me the most about the whole thing, honestly, is that neither of us met our Sherlocks by chance. Like, we didn't bump into them on a bus or attend the same universe or anything. This pair, they were introduced by someone and as soon as they found each other, they'd miraculously found a place to live, and Sherlock... my Sherlock and I... We were introduced by his father."

"There were grown in a lab, but they still have fathers?"

"I guess they all grew up with families. I don't know if they're their biological parents or not."

"So then you could have gone through that too, and just not know it?"

Joan sighed. "I really don't know. And I'm going to ask my Sherlock and Myc—my Sherlock and his Mycroft—to take me to the research facility to see if I'm involved in all of this in anyway, but..." she shrugged. "I don't know what I'm going to do if I find out that I am. I don't know how much it actually changes, if it turns out that this was all my destiny or something. Do I leave? It's not Sherlock's fault, and he's my best friend. Do we leave, together? Where do you even go to get away from something this big? Could we hide from them?"

Detective Donovan blinked slowly.

"I'm sorry," Joan said. "I don't know why I'm pouring my soul out to you like this. I've only just met you, but it's... it's been a weird couple of days, and it's hard to know who to trust right now."

"No," Detective Donovan said. "I get it. It's just that it's a lot of coincidences. You're both doctors, too, right?"

"I used to be."

Detective Donovan raised an eyebrow.

"I'm a consultant with the NYPD now," Joan said. "With Sherlock."

Her eyes got wider and her eyebrow went even higher. "Can you do it too? That whole... ridiculous... deduction thing that he does? That they do, I guess."

"Better than your Sherlock can, apparently," Joan said with a smile. "I knew he was wrong as soon as I saw Professor Anderson. And I really am sorry—"

"Stop," Detective Donovan said, shaking her head. "He started on that years ago so most of the force has just accepted it. They don't even make rude comments to us about it anymore. And someone did try to tell Sylvia that Phil and I were having an affair. She just laughed in his face." Sylvia and Phil must have been the Andersons' first names. "Besides, your Sherlock... He was trying to defend me, in a way."

"He was doing a pretty bad job of it," Joan said.

"At least he was trying, and he had you to stop him." She smiled. "When this whole thing gets sorted out, can we keep you two and ship them off to New York?" They were here for a case. Joan had agreed to fly back to London for a very high profile case, because she and Sherlock had been promised a great deal of money and Sherlock seemed to be under the impress that he'd be in some sort of trouble with the government if he said no. What Joan had not expected, was to find a dozen other men named Sherlock Holmes running around, most of them with brothers named Mycroft and friends named Dr. Watson. They weren't clones. In fact, they were all fairly unique looking. Joan was the only Asian woman in the entire group, though there were a few other women and one Asian man. It was uncomfortable, and it was definitely a lot to take in.

Detective Donovan had a nice smile, though. She hadn't smiled in front of OtherSherlock, but now that they were outside, she was smiling. It cheered Joan up.

"I think we'd be missed in New York," Joan said, smiling a little herself.

"Shame," Detective Donovan said. "Still, if you need anything while you're in London, let me know. I think I might be a little bit more helpful than than those boys you're running around with." She gave Joan her business card.

"Thank you," Joan said.

"I've got to get to lunch," Detective Donovan said. "And you should go—" She gestured back to the door. "I'll see you around, though!"

Joan looked from Detective Sally Donovan's card to the woman herself while she walked away. It was so hard to know who to trust, right now.

Joan trusted her instincts, though. She put the card in her pocket.