Thank you to Moffat and Gatiss for creating these wonderful puppets for me to play with. Artsychick...you are phenomenal. Thank you for being the my Beta!
Typically, mornings were brutal.
There were days she woke up knowing. Then there were others where she stumbled around, dreams clinging like cobwebs only to have the truth come rushing up to meet her.
Like the crushing agony of two absentminded cups of morning tea a week after Barts. Shaking with emotion she had to sit down before she did something stupid and childish like shatter the pair of mugs on the kitchen floor.
It was like walking down a flight of steps thinking there's an extra stair. When your foot hits dead air there's that moment of irrational terror, the instinctive knowledge of mortal danger—then nothing.
Nothing compared to that emptiness.
Except maybe the abrupt humiliation and horror when her leg gave out at the funeral. Anthea had appeared at her elbow with a walking stick—not a cane. That name was too pedestrian for such a posh accessory.
She almost refused it. She almost wrapped her fingers around the mahogany and slammed the ivory handle into Mycroft's all-too-knowing, watchful, traitorous face.
She didn't. She needed the expensive monstrosity. So she took it.
But nothing was more satisfying than breaking it to splinters across Sherlock's back when he decided anonymity was tedious and Jo made better tea (his astonishment at her assault was both delicious and infuriating.)
Then she was home. The singing in her veins and the adrenaline high at his whispered, dangerous words: "Sebastian Moran". This is what she was trained for, lived for—
Except that wasn't quite true.
What did Joanna live for?
Maybe it was the quiet moments. Like when they finally stumbled back to Baker Street, shaking, giggling, fighting exhaustion with every breath. When Sherlock, always within arm's reach, followed her to her room and, perched in a wingback, telling her absurd stories of his travels and schemes (so awful and ridiculous they must be true) well into the night.
Maybe it was when she felt his lips on her brow after he believed her (incorrectly) to be asleep.
"Forgive me…" whispered and wrecked, as she drifted off.
Or perhaps it was the simple, warm, "Good morning Joanna," when she woke the next day, two cups of tea at his elbow.
"Morning, you lying bastard."
It was a good morning indeed.
So...that worked better than I thought. Do you agree? Let me know...that review box looks so inviting!