Good Fences
Disclaimer: No profit—just fun. Set after "A Study in Charlotte," 4 x 13.
"You were wrong, you know."
Sherlock's voice. Without opening her eyes, Joan knows he's sitting in the chair beside the window in her bedroom. Reaching around, she pulls one of her pillows over her head.
"I can talk louder if necessary!"
With a sigh, Joan uncovers her head and glares in Sherlock's direction. He's upright and prim, the only hint of his agitation the rhythmic thrumming of the fingers of his right hand on the arm of the chair.
"Why are you in my room?"
Sherlock tips his head slightly to the side and squints. "That should be obvious. A conversation from the hallway would be far too loud, even with the new soundproofing installed between this flat and Trent Garby's. No use annoying our neighbor so soon after welcoming him back."
"First of all," Joan says, sitting up and arranging her pillow behind her back, "this doesn't have anything to do with Trent Garby, and secondly, this has everything to do with the fact that you still don't recognize my privacy."
"In point of fact, this does have everything to do with Trent Garby."
"You're going to tell me why even if I don't ask." The aroma of coffee catches Joan's attention and she sees a cup sitting on the box that serves as her bedside table. A small saucer with some sort of pastry sits tucked next to the mug. It's the kind of peace offering Sherlock routinely offers when he steps over a line—and which, if she's completely honest with herself, she finds, if not exactly charming, then endearing.
Even when the line he steps over is her sleep. Or her privacy.
She reaches over and picks up the mug. "So are you going to tell me or not?"
Sherlock's fingers stop their thrumming and he thrusts his chin forward, a signal that he's ready to render a verdict about something.
"The poem you quoted. Your interpretation is wrong."
"What are you—"
"The Robert Frost poem, 'Mending Wall.' You told Mr. Garby that we were offering to pay for soundproofing because good fences make good neighbors."
"How did you—"
"He might have mentioned it. I know you have a predilection for the poetry of Robert Frost, Watson, but I am surprised at your misunderstanding such a well-known poem."
"Since when are you an expert in poetry? You don't even read it." She takes a noisy sip of coffee, annoyed at Sherlock's tone. "Besides, you're wrong. The poem even says it twice: good fences make good neighbors. As in, why are you in my room right now?"
"Indeed. The poem is, on the surface, a simple one about a wall. Two men walk on either side of a stone wall, repairing it as they go. The casual reader assumes they are in accord, yet a closer reading reveals something else."
"A closer reading? You figured out some secret meaning of a famous poem all by yourself?"
"Ms. Hudson may have helped. And it's not secret. If you notice, the persona is not the one who says good fences make good neighbors. His neighbor says that. Says it twice. The persona challenges that assertion. Reread the poem, Watson. Frost says that fences keep us apart needlessly."
He stands up abruptly and Joan sees that he's holding a folded piece of paper. With two strides he's at her bed, the paper dropped on her lap. Then just as abruptly, he heads out the door, closing it behind him.
It's the poem, of course, as she knew it would be. Sherlock almost never asks her to take his word for something, offering, instead, the evidence that has led him to his conclusions. To his credit, he's content to let her sift through the pieces of the puzzle on her own—and whether she reaches the same conclusions or comes up with a different understanding, he values what she says. Not many people in her life have ever granted her as much autonomy and authority—and no one has ever given her opinions such heft and value. She hadn't fully appreciated that until she almost lost it for good.
Taking another sip of the coffee, she reads the poem. To her surprise, Sherlock is right. How had she missed that before—the way the persona teases the neighbor about not needing to separate apple trees from pine, the almost judgmental dismissal of the ignorant neighbor with "he moves in darkness, as it seems to me, not of woods only and the shade of trees"?
She refolds the poem and sets it on the bedside box. Her hand brushes the saucer with pastries and she picks up an éclair. Vanilla cream-filled from Almondine's in DUMBO, a tiny bakery so close to the Manhattan Bridge that the traffic overhead makes a steady rumble. She's never been there with Sherlock—has, in fact, only been there twice before, both times alone. That Sherlock knows that the éclairs are her favorite isn't as surprising as it is a confirmation of whatever this is they have. Partnership, friendship, love? She's given up trying to characterize it.
Perhaps the poem is a gauntlet of sorts, a reminder that a closed door is no door at all, that he recognizes no fences between them.
Two can play that game. Joan finishes the éclair and scoots back under the covers, plotting. It might take several days to finally catch him asleep in his bed—she'll have to set her clock to rouse her every couple of hours. She's only seen him asleep a few times, always in impromptu places—sprawled on the sofa; splayed sitting up on the floor against the overstuffed chair in the parlor, cold case files around him; head-down on the table in her Chelsea apartment. Even asleep Sherlock is tightly wound, his face never completely slack, his arms tucked close to his body. It will be…interesting…to see if he's more relaxed when he's in his own bed. The idea of sitting in the chair at the foot of his bed waiting for the right moment to startle him makes her smile.
"Oh, good, you're awake," she'll say, pointing to the steaming cup of tienchi flower tea at the side of the bed.
Note: Poetry nerd, yes. Guilty as charged.