PROLOGUE:
Joan Alexandra Munday- or Alex, as she liked to have people call her, because she'd always thought Joan was such an old fashioned name, had always considered herself to be a sophisticated class act. She'd always had an advantage in life, she supposed, with her rich father and step-mother, both professors of philosophy and economics at Harvard, but Alex had forged her on way in the world, academically eclipsing both her parents by thirteen.
She'd then spent her teenage years abroad, learning a variety of skills, such as levitation with a Tibetan guru; safecracking and bomb defusing with a Parisian double agent; dancing for a time with the Stuttgart Ballet- the usual classical education, of course.
From seventeen years od age, Alex had been a government aerospace engineer and an on-call consultant for NASA, as well as an expert gymnast, horsewoman and fencer.
Being so accomplished, so on top of everything, it was, however, easy to bore her, and hard to keep her amused.
Being one of Charles Townsend's "Angels" had kept her interest, and her time being an Angel had been the best of her life. Dylan Sanders and Natalie Cook- now Komisky, were her best friends. With your life literally hanging in each other's hands at times, it was impossible not to forge a bond that was nearly unbreakable.
When her father was accidentally killed during a routine heart biopsy, Alex decided to retire, along with Natalie, and assume a future outside of spying. It was her father's death that prompted her to go to medical school, and a desire normalcy that had her change her name to her biological mother's new surname- Watson.
Natalie 'retired', Alex had decided she needed a future outside of spying. That's when she decided to go to medical school. To build a fresh start, she moved to New York, where her biological mother's family lived, including Mary's new husband 'Daniel Watson'.
That's how 'Joan Watson', valedictorian graduate of Harvard Medical School, came to be. And the death of one of her patients was what had her come undone.
Alex was horrified by the idea she'd become what she'd hated- a surgeon who'd torn a family apart. She'd decided, basically the moment she heard the patient flat line, that she couldn't be a surgeon anymore. So she'd let her medical license run out, and started looking for a new career.
Choosing to be a sober companion was, she could admit, a way of serving penance. It was something she felt passionately about, but not the sort of job she'd really enjoyed. That's what made her accept Sherlock's offer to become a 'consulting detective' with him. After all, 'consulting detective' wasn't that far away from 'private investigator' and it had been as a private investigator that Alex had been happiest.
