Title: Recessional
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: fem!John/fem!Sherlock (aka Joanlotte)
Summary: The stranger in a shell of a lover, she dreams through the noise – Joan and Sherly meet in an airport. Joan connects, Sherly sleeps.
Soundtrack: "Recessional" by Vienna Teng
Info: I know I said I'm on fic hiatus, but I've had this song on repeat and this idea has haunted me (and literally kept me up) for a few nights. See you in a few months.

Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover?

Joan Watson hated travelling at the best of times. Even a trip across London drained her these days, and inept at technology as she may have been, she was slowly growing to depend on online ordering for buying everything, from food to clothes. It wasn't so much the travelling as the act of being away from home that drained her. Even if it was only a few hours spent away from home buying new clothes, she spent the next few days recovering in the safety of her flat, unable to face leaving the house even for the corner shop.

Had it been any other friend, she would have politely declined, but she felt she owed Christie the visit for her wedding, even if it was halfway across the world. Christie, a friend from university, had been one of the few who had kept in touch after their graduation and one of the even fewer who had kept in touch after her deployment and return. Christie knew better than anyone how Joan had felt - she had had a brother in the Marines and had been first in the fallout after his return. Maybe it was guilt or a genuine compassion, but she made a point to call her every week and keep up with her, and as one of her few links to the outside world, Joan had felt herself unable to decline the invitation. Though why she had to be married in California of all places had stumped Joan.

Storms in Colorado and a delayed flight, and Joan was looking at a five to seven hour layover and the need for a hotel. It had simply been too much effort though, and one apologetic email later Joan was sitting in the terminal, watching the snow fall outside the window and the occasional plane land and take off. Hours had passed and she had drifted in and out of sleep until a voice woke her, sharp in the muted sleepiness of the airport.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" it had said, and the owner had sat down before she could reply. She lifted her head to look at the speaker - female, tall, slender, short curly hair, red lips, sharp eyes and sharper cheekbones, well dressed and alert despite the obvious jet-lag.

"Sorry," she said, "my flight's been delayed. Don't see the point of getting a hotel when I could be leaving any time in the next seven hours, but I'd rather sleep near another woman if I get any at all. Never could sleep well when sitting."

She spoke with an air of confidence, as if she was used to simply bulldozing her way through a conversation until the receiver was too befuddled to say no - or maybe that was just Joan. Either way she nodded, and turned her eyes back to the window, prepared to drop off again.

"It's so beautiful here, isn't it?" the woman said. "This moment now. When the airport's empty like this. I've always found it beautiful." She smiled, and Joan found her eyes caught in the curves of her lips. She moved closer, leant forward, her smile askew, looking straight at her. "Airports are the best places to find lonely people," she said, "or at least so I've found. Are you cold?"

Joan nodded, and the other woman moved to sit next to her and took off her coat, placed it across Joan's shoulders. "I don't feel the cold that much," she says, "in fact I rarely feel anything these days. Do you mind?"

Joan shook her head, and she felt the other woman close against her side, all her nerve ends rebounding from numb to burning, each point of contact a new flame, a different feeling, an offshoot future. She felt close to the other woman, not even knowing her name, and yet there was something about her that attracted and intrigued Joan, something that would draw her close into orbit around her, waking each day to marvel that she existed. She knew almost nothing about her and yet she felt her closer than anyone before.

She knew it was strange, knew it was wrong, knew there was a reason not to want it to be real and yet she did. She wanted it more than anything.

"Where are you from?" she said finally.

"London," the woman said, "you?"

"London as well," she replied, "flying to California for a friend's wedding. You?"

"Florida," she said, "brother's orders. Apparently it's an emergency, but the weather doesn't care for emergencies even on a national level."

"National?" Joan begun, but the other woman was asleep, eyes closed, breath slowed, lips open slightly, side pressed against her.

Hours passed and Joan drifted in and out of sleep, the woman's head on her shoulder, hair light on bare skin, mouth open, lips against her neck. Tired announcements chased each other across the tannoy, flights delayed and undelayed, missing passengers and uncollected baggage, incoming and outgoing flights - and yet the woman slept through them all. Face pressed against the corduroy grooves of her jacket, Joan could feel her smile against her skin, and maybe it was nothing, maybe it was everything, maybe it was the ghost of a dream but she didn't dare move, too willing to pretend it meant anything.

Closer than ever before.

Dawn flooded the sky and Joan felt herself slowly wake up as the woman's weight lifted from her shoulders, blinking sleep from her eyes and an apology on her lips. Joan waved it away, and allowed herself to be pulled up to get a coffee, which the woman paid for, the biggest apology she would allow.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I never even got your name."

"Joan Watson," Joan replied, voice harsh from sleep. "You?"

"Sharlotte Holmes, with an SH, Sherly for short. World's only consulting detective," with a hint of derision, as if the title itself were below her. "And yourself?"

"No work at the moment," Joan said, "the government pays me a small amount to sit at home doing nothing. Ex-military," she added, "a doctor, not a soldier, really, but I had bad days." Why had she told her that? She had never told anyone that, not even Christie, the closest she had to a friend. "Consulting detective?" she asked, to chase away the shadow of her words, the shadow of a memory she didn't want.

"Yes." Sherly smiled, "Only one in the world - I invented it. Whenever the police are out of their depth — which is always — they consult me."

"So why Florida?"

"My brother, Mycroft, works in the government - says he has a minor position but he practically runs the thing - anyway, he sent me out. Tells me it's a national emergency and doesn't even offer to pay for the flight! Can't tell you anymore I'm afraid, Secrets Act and all that. California you said? Wedding?"

"Yes. Invited by a friend - one of the few friends I have left really; wouldn't have gone otherwise."

"Not a fan of travelling?"

"Not really. I prefer the comforts of home, though those comforts seem less and less likely every day."

"Government cuts?"

"Yes. I expect I shall have to move out soon. It's a pity, I like my flat. Small, but it works for me."

Sherly nodded, blinked softly, and Joan found her eyes caught in her long lashes, mind caught in the way they had felt against her skin. It was strange, she knew, to be so drawn in so quickly, and yet something about Sherly caught her interest. Not just her smile, her cheekbones, the cut of her jacket, but the way she spoke, the way her words tripped from her tongue when she was absorbed in her topic, so clearly devoted to her work. She described her last case, the way she had trapped her target, tone flavoured with relish as she described how the police had arrived to find the criminal tied to her chair and Sherly watching TV. "A show, of course," she said, "I rarely even watch the news. I'm sure he knows by now, but I had to pretend anyway. The job's as much acting as thinking."

"He?"

"Lestrade - the DI I mainly work with. A bit of an idiot, but his heart's in the right place. I rather worry how he'll do without me to solve his cases."

And she was off again, leaving Joan to smile and nod as the minutes passed and she remained frozen in place, attention flickering from her words to her lips, her eyes, the tone of her voice and the way her weight had felt pressed to her side.

She knew her name, where she lived, the details of her job and anecdotes about her co-workers, the way she took her coffee and the fact that she never ate breakfast, that she had few acquaintances and fewer friends, that she regularly helped her brother though she had a deep-seated dislike of him, that she found most people boring and they found her abrasive in return, that she disliked travelling abroad and had never learnt how to drive, that she didn't trust other people with her health and had lived alone for all her life, even when she was still in the family home. She knew the intimate details of Sherly's life and yet felt she knew almost nothing about her, felt closer to her than she had to anyone before and yet felt a growing distance between them as the minutes passed, felt herself drawn away from her love of her own peaceful, uninterrupted life to an almost desperate longing for the adventure and danger of Sherly's, a danger she had thought she would spend the rest of her life trying to avoid.

And there it was, the seed of a dream, the possibility of a future, and yet there it was, broken, shattered, when the tannoy announced Sherly's flight and not a minute later Joan's own.

"Well anyway," Sherly said, "it was nice to meet you. Thank you for keeping me company overnight. I'll see you around, yes?"

A nod, a smile, a wave of hands, separate departure lounges and different terminals, the airport loud and busy now, the crystal silence shattered by the wave of people, incoming, outgoing, flying from an empty home to a house full of loved ones, from hated family members to a silent apartment, people as lonely and silent as her, haunted by their memories.

She would miss her, she knew, even if she had only known her for a few hours, her stranger in the shell of a lover, for maybe people had thought that, looking at the way Sherly had slept on her shoulder, face turned into her neck. Maybe people had seen and wondered and thought and assumed, had watched them get their coffee when the day had dawned and had seen them talking, Sherly's animated face, had noticed the way Joan's eyes had wandered, wondered, and maybe they had thought them closer than they were, in that offshoot future that would haunt Joan's dreams.

She wasn't haunted by the war, she knew, she missed it in her heart of hearts.

And Sherly would join it there.

And I know I don't want this, oh, I swear I don't want this.
There's a reason not to want this but I forgot.