Title: reflection of the sun
Pairing/s: Mycroft/Joan, sort of Sherlock/Joan, kind of iffy on both.
Disclaimer: sherlock holmes would be pissed at the writers' treatment of joan watson
Summary: "I'm so lucky that I fell into your orbit."
Here is a man Sherlock Holmes has not broken.
Joan has no doubt Mycroft loves Sherlock more than anything else in the universe. She has no doubt that he is Sherlock's keeper, Sherlock's friend, his brother, his mother and father and everything in between. To Joan, Mycroft is a beacon of light—here is a man Sherlock Holmes has not broken.
She's seen men Sherlock Holmes has broken.
She's seen women who have broken Sherlock Holmes, who have torn his heart in two and burned it in flames that lick curiosity. Joan Watson finds she doesn't want to be either the man broken or the woman who breaks him. (Sometimes, she thinks she is both, and doesn't look in the mirror for days on end so she doesn't see the bruises on her face that hurt both her and him at the same time.)
He calls her the sun and she tries not to burn him the way she knows he's been burned before. But she knows she's the moon and he's the earth, grounded and groundless all at once. She calms his violent tides but also causes them, sometimes; it scares her more than anything in the world.
No, that's not quite right.
These are the things that used to scare Joan Watson: not being enough, and falling. Joan Watson is a damn good doctor but put a scalpel in her hands and they will shake. She can talk to Sherlock about drugs but she cannot keep him from doing them. She can fall, and she can drag him down with her. That was what used to scare her the most.
This thing—this living, twisting, growing thing between them—is what scares her now.
She's scared that one day, Sherlock's orbit will swallow her up, and she will drown in him.
Mycroft Holmes is a man Sherlock has not broken.
He's not quite whole—she doesn't think so—she thinks he's lost pieces of himself along the way. He lost his integrity when he was fourteen and Sherlock was seven and Sherlock had red marks striping up his back. He lost it because from that day on all of Sherlock's faults became his, every broken vase and temper tantrum and tear shed belonged to him. (Sherlock never realized how many cuts and bruises Mycroft stole from him.) (Sherlock still doesn't realize it now.)
He lost his heart the day Sherlock told him he never wanted to see him again. Sherlock was fifteen. Mycroft gave up his heart because he needed to keep Sherlock safe and he loved his brother too much to hear those words without breaking. Mycroft never loved again but Sherlock did, and it nearly tore them both apart, but Mycroft kept Sherlock safe.
Joan wonders sometimes how far she will go to save Sherlock Holmes.
There it is.
Her biggest fear: that she will go to the ends of the earth to save Sherlock Holmes. That she will do anything. She's seen men Sherlock Holmes has broken and it terrifies her—because he didn't mean to break them, he didn't mean to drag them down. He didn't mean for them to love him, to sacrifice themselves for him, to hurt themselves for him. Joan Watson has seen Detective Bell flinch when Sherlock brushes his arm and it scares her.
It scares her because she knows she would do far more.
Joan leans on Mycroft—the man who loves Sherlock Holmes—and sees Sherlock Holmes in him. She sees it in his quick tongue and his grey eyes. She sees it in his own self-destructive behaviour, she sees it when he kisses her neck and entwines his fingers in hers. She sees Sherlock in Mycroft because Mycroft loves her.
She sees herself in him because he doesn't love her.
Oh yes, she knows. She knows Mycroft isn't whole. She knows he loves her because Sherlock loves her, because her death would mean Sherlock's death. (She tries not to think about that, No, No, No, No.) That scares her, too—but Mycroft Holmes is the man Sherlock hasn't broken. And Joan Watson won't be the woman who breaks Sherlock Holmes.
She nearly does, when she tells him she's leaving.
Joan Watson won't break Sherlock Holmes and won't be broken by him—this is what she decides. An hour later, Mycroft breaks her.
He's already 'dead', he tells her. He won't see her again. He's given up everything. He's given up his entire life, because he loves his little brother more than anything in the universe, and he'll never see him ever again.
Mycroft Holmes is not broken by Sherlock Holmes—he is destroyed by him.
Joan is very, very scared.
She sometimes sees their relationship as 'other'. Sherlock Holmes is an 'other'. Joan Watson is an 'other'. When two people come together, they share the two halves of their soul. They merge and become two beings in one.
When Joan met Sherlock, half her soul was already gone. And Sherlock, too, was broken.
So instead of two people coming together, the halves of their souls formed one being, one entity, one living, twisting, growing thing. They leaned on each other and it was too much; if either of them fell, so would the other.
She didn't mean to depend on Sherlock. She knew he had to depend on her. She didn't mean for him to orbit her—but she didn't mean for her to orbit him, either. Joan realizes then that they are not in orbit of each other: they are stars, dancing, spinning, twirling around one another.
If one star falls, so will the other.
Joan Watson cannot be broken by Sherlock Holmes.
It's Moriarty who makes her understand.
Irony: the woman who broke Sherlock Holmes teaches Joan Watson how to save him.
They're standing on a bridge and Sherlock is running and Moriarty's arms are tight around hers and Joan is scared, so scared, so, so, so scared because she knows. She knows as she looks into Moriarty's eyes and feels tears leak out of her own.
This is what she would do for Sherlock Holmes.
And it's not fair! It isn't—it isn't fair that she would give up her life for him. She tried to leave and she couldn't; not while he was still in danger. Not while there was still poison pumping through his veins. Not while Moriarty had injected herself into his blood again even deeper than the heroin.
But Joan sees Sherlock running, and knows that if he comes any closer, he will have to kill Jamie Moriarty and Irene Adler all at once and it will kill him. And Joan knows, knows, knows that this is what she would do to save Sherlock Holmes.
Joan thinks of Mycroft, and wonders where he is right now.
She grips Moriarty by the arm and shoves them off the bridge.
As she falls, the understanding comes to her.
This is what she will do to save Sherlock Holmes: she will go over the edge for him.
This is what she will do to save Joan Watson: she will not come back.
Joan Watson will be the woman Sherlock Holmes has not broken.
fin