Sherlockmas Summer Vacay fic: While the Cat's Away. 2, We're All Going on a Summer Holiday (2/2)

[marysutherland]

BBC Sherlock

Rating 15 (explicit het)

Summary: How long can things last this time round between Sarah and John?

Betaed by the wonderful 2ndskin

NOTE: This was written for Prompt 78 of the Sherlockmas Summer Vacay festival: "John/Sarah; When Sherlock's away, John tracks her down hoping for another chance."

Part 1

April 2010

Comments

[venusinthenight]

Oh, these two. *huggles them both* It never will be easy for them, as long as Sherlock's in the picture. :(

Another prompt o' mine wonderfully done. :)

[marysutherland]

You obviously have the most intriguing prompts ;-). I tend to look for femslash and het prompts (or rare pairings) for these fests because they often don't get filled by anyone else and they give me interesting new ideas. (I haven't written either of these pairs before).

[venusinthenight]

*giggles* I tend to ship rare(r) pairs in most fandoms, I love het and femslash, and this fandom in particular has a plethora of women that could do with exploring. *shakes fist at Moffat* I loved Sarah and wished we got to see more of her.

And yay for trying new pairs! \o/

[kalypso_v]

Like the way you brought it back to the handing over of the phone, though I hope that Kate's victory will be longer-term than Sarah's.

And good to see Mike coming to the rescue. Of course I've a hankering now for a third story in which someone hands him a phone...

[marysutherland]

I wanted to play with some of the parallels of Sherlock screwing up relationships even when he's not present, but it was only right near the end of writing Sarah/John that I saw I could do the phone trick again.

Sarah and John obviously can't last, but at least in my head canon for this version of Irene, once she's got Sherlock to come and help her, that counts as enough of a moral victory for her to be able to leave him alone afterwards. So she's content with Kate and their five million pounds, and can leave The Woman behind.

You can always rely on Mike to help out - and maybe we'll get him again in Series 3. I don't have any ideas for a Mike plus phone story myself, but if that's a handy plot bunny for you, please use it.

[musamihi]

You have such a seriously impressive knack for filling out the series' smaller roles - I love the story you've created for Sarah. The voice and history you've given her make her feel wonderfully complete, and it's always so refreshing to get a sympathetic female point of view in this series. Your Holmes canon references are awesome (and lol, Inspector Lestrange). And most of all, I think, the way you've taken John and Sarah's rather patchily portrayed relationship from the show and turned it into something that makes an awful lot of sense - even if it isn't sensible - and made it look effortless, at that, is fantastic. Lovely.

[marysutherland]

One of the things that is both wonderful and frustrating about the show is that there are so many great minor characters who come alive for a moment and we then don't see again. (We literally hear Anthea speak about 15 lines). So I love writing canonical or canon-influenced events from their viewpoint, trying to see how they might behave in the way that they do. And I particularly like writing female protagonists, whether het, femslash or general. I've done fics for most of the women in the two series (though not yet anything from Mrs Hudson's POV

[eanor]

Wow, that was perfect! ♥ I was a huge fan of Sarah in the series and you managed to make her more real and well-rounded and thus even more likable for me. :-) I loved the little details of John's and her relationship and your explanation for the sometimes contradictory scenes we got in the series was very satisfying. I also loved your details about their holiday in New Zealand. :-) All in all you made their relationship so believable and messed-up and yet somehow adorable. And I'm so in love with your take on Sarah.
(Also, bad Sherlock for messing about in relationships of other people (in both of your stories) and good for the people in the relationship that they were able to not think about him for at least a moment.)

You really have an incredible talent of making minor characters come alive!! (Not to mention your wonderful female characters, which sadly is a rarity in the Sherlock fandom.) Would you mind if I friended you so I could keep track of your work? :-)

[marysutherland]

Glad to meet another Sarah fan - I thought she was the best thing in Blind Banker. Brave, funny and a grown-up woman. I was disappointed we didn't get her in Series 2, but John's blog entry did at least give a bit more back story. And I wanted to show her torn between ordinary common sense and the yen for something ridiculous but thrilling (in the same way that John sometimes is

[cookiefleck]

Enjoyed this a lot. Thanks and good work!

[marysutherland]

Pleased you like this - I haven't done many fics from Sarah's POV, so it was interesting trying to work out how to fit in with canon on this.