The Andernav
"Blasted thing…what do you want from me?" Jo Watson held a small satellite navigation system in both of her hands, gripping it to the extent that her knuckles were turning white.
"Take the next left turn," the sat nav ordered in an overly pleasant female voice.
"I'm not even bloody moving yet!" She shouted back, ignoring the stare of the man across the street that had stopped walking his dog in order to see what was going on. Jo smacked the machine on the side and it powered off. Thinking she'd broken it, she desperately began trying to fix it.
"Jo, I hope you don't expect me to carry all of our luggage to the car." A deep female voice sounded from the door directly adjacent to the car that Jo was currently sitting in. Her blood ran cold.
"Sorry, Sherlock. I'm on my way. Just trying to sort out this thing," she waved the sat nav above her head to show her flatmate what she was referring to. Sherlock rolled her eyes in response before walking down the steps in front of their door and came towards the car.
"Let me deal with that while you bring the stuff here." She said, holding out a hand. Jo carefully placed the machine in Sherlock's care and began to load the car with their supplies for the week.
Sherlock and Jo were on their way to a county called Suffolk, located not too far from London at all. They had booked a room at an inn for a week on Lestrade's suggestion as he had explained that solving this case might take a while. Sherlock had argued: "Yes, but you're stupid and I'm not, so it will take me much less time than you average people to figure this one out." Jo had scowled at Sherlock and been about to reply with something so obscene it would have made her mother blush, when she caught side of Lestrade's face. Pleading. Lestrade was pleading her to keep Sherlock away for a week. Jo could understand. Sometimes you really need a break from Sherlock. She can be a bit…well…unbearable. She nodded slightly before turning to Sherlock and saying: "But Sherl…I'd really like to get out of London for a bit…and I don't really want to stay in the countryside alone. Let's just go for the week anyway. We'll make a holiday out of it!" Sherlock's eye twitched at the mention of the word 'holiday'. Jo knew what she was thinking. Holiday's were boring. She searched desperately in her mind for something, anything, that might convince Sherlock to do this. Suddenly, this popped out: "There will be tons of sheep!"
That had cinched the deal. Lord knew why, but it had. Jo shot Lestrade a look that clearly said 'You owe me big time', and their little trip was made certain.
Sherlock had insisted that she didn't need a sat nav for such a short trip, but Jo wasn't convinced that she could manage to cram the road maps of the entirety of England in her brain and decided to purchase one anyway. Going for the cheapest option was now beginning to seem like an incredibly bad idea.
"Введите пункт назначения" Sherlock blinked twice, attempting to decipher the language the sat nav had just spoken to her. She blinked once more. Russian.
"Okay, Sherlock! I've loaded the car, did you manage to fix the sat nav?" Jo asked, climbing into the passenger side of the car and closing the door behind her.
"Of course," Sherlock replied. Instead of frowning at her attitude as Sherlock had expected her to do, Jo simply smiled and said:
"Great! Then let's go!"
"Введите пункт назначения"
"…Sherlock I thought you said you fixed it." Jo said, her smile falling as she watched Sherlock attach the machine to the inside of the windscreen.
"I did." Sherlock replied, "I can speak Russian. It's okay."
"Oh," said Jo "I didn't know that…Well, I'll just get the post code and we'll be on our way!" She patted her right pocket with a smile on her face that fell almost immediately.
Ten minutes later, a rather sheepish Jo came back to the car with a newly printed copy of the inn details. Sherlock rolled her eyes.
"На кольцевой развязке принять первый выход"
"What did it say this time Sherlock?"
"It said to take the third exit."
"You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure."
"I don't know, maybe we should pull over and try and change it back to English." Jo said, biting her lip and frowning.
"Why? Don't you trust me?" Sherlock said accusingly. Jo flinched inwardly.
"No, I trust you, of course I do. I just…well…I like to be as in control as I possibly can." Jo looked down at her lap and pulled out a loose thread on her jumper.
"Then you should drive." Sherlock said matter-of-factly.
"You know I can't." Jo retorted grumpily.
"I still don't see why not…"
"Because I don't have a licence anymore, you idiot!"
"That should never stop you from driving."
"Sherlock, I am not going to break the law! The army kind of beats that sort of thinking out of you. Can we just pull over and change it to English? Please?"
There was a short silence.
"Держитесь левой стороны"
"Fine," Sherlock sighed, turning the wheel to the left slightly in order to leave the main road and find a more convenient place to stop.
After about ten minutes, they managed to find a fairly deserted petrol station just off the main road. Sherlock turned off the engine and decided to go out and stretch her legs for a little bit while Jo attempted to fix the sat nav once more.
Neither of the pair had their own car, what with Jo not having a licence and then both living in London, so they had had to hire one. Originally, something in the same vein as a jeep was what they had hoped for. A nice big four-by-four that Sherlock's tall frame would be able to fit into nicely. Unfortunately, the car they had reserved at the car hire place had been involved in an accident and had been completely written off. Instead, they were offered the only other car they had left to offer, free of charge of course. Sadly, that car was a Renault Twingo, a car that Sherlock was still surprised managed to carry themselves as well as all of their luggage.
Pacing, Sherlock patted her left breast pocket and was reassured by the feeling of a box under her hand, next to her heart. She pulled out the box of cigarettes and pulled one out, rolling it in her fingers. Very lightly, she brushed it under her nose and took in the smell of tobacco and death and joy.
"Ahem," the sudden clearing of a throat nearly made Sherlock jump, but she turned around, as composed as ever, to face Jo.
"Are you done?" She asked, placing the cigarette back in the box and tucking that back into her breast pocket.
"Yep," Jo replied and hesitated slightly before saying "You can smoke, you know. Just the one. I won't tell anyone."
Sherlock's heart warmed slightly, but she brushed the feeling aside.
"I'm fine." She said and walked back to the car.
"'Fine' is not a word I would use to describe you…" Jo muttered very quietly under her breath, following the other woman back to the car.
As soon as they turned on the engine and the sat nav, the machine spoke in wonderful English:
"Perform a U-turn as soon as possible,"
Jo frowned and tapped the screen a few times, squinting her eyes as she tried to work the thing out. A look of panic flashed across Sherlock's face briefly, but she managed to hide it before…
"SHERLOCK!"
"What?"
"YOU CAN'T SPEAK RUSSIAN, CAN YOU?"
"…I may have embellished the truth a little."
"Embellished the…WE'RE TWENTY MILES IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!"
"Hold on. That can't be right. I know that we're at least headed in the right direction. I memorised the atlas. It's in the back. Just look. I memorised that thing. We should be going the right way."
Jo was shocked at how alarmed Sherlock sounded, and then remembered that her partner never did like to be wrong. She climbed in the back, her hips getting stuck between the two front seats on the way, but managed to reach across and pull out the atlas.
"Sherlock…" she said, anger boiling in her voice. She received no immediate answer because, unbeknownst to her, Sherlock was busy admiring the view Jo had supplied her with. "Sherlock!"
"What? What's wrong?"
"THIS IS THE BLOODY ATLAS FROM 2005!"
"Impossible."
"POSSIBLE."
"Give it to me." Sherlock demanded. Jo climbed back through and handed the old atlas to the driver. On seeing the publication date, Sherlock turned to Jo and said:
"Well the navigation system never told us to turn around."
"You can't possibly be blaming the fact that we're twenty miles off target on the Russian sat nav."
"I'm not 'blaming' it. I'm just observing that it never told us to turn around."
"How do you know? You don't even speak Russian."
"You can tell from the tone of voice."
"…Sherlock. We're listening to the sat nav from now on, got it?"
Jo did not receive an answer, but was getting too tired to argue anymore. The trip was going to be a lot longer now, and she didn't particularly want a bad atmosphere. She managed to conjure up a smile.
"Let's try that again, shall we?" She said, looking encouragingly at Sherlock. Without looking at Jo, Sherlock nodded and put the car in first gear, pulling away from the petrol station and back onto the main road.
Jo couldn't help but feel that this setback was going to be the least of their troubles on this trip.
Hey guys! It's been a long time, I know. I'm very used to writing my Naruto fics, so this was something really new and exciting for me to do. I'm really sorry if any of you were hoping this would be another chapter of Murse. I'm afraid I haven't felt very inspired to write that one recently. But hey! I've decided to put out some Femlock fic! If you're not a fan of Sherlock, but you know someone who might enjoy this, please tell them about it! Thanks for all your support guys!