"Give it back!" Joan was not going to play this came with him. "Now!"
Sherlock looked up coolly from the contraption he was dismantling on the kitchen table, "Hello, Watson." He turned his attention back to the mechanism, something akin to a small brass bear trap. "I see you let yourself in," his voice calm, "...again."
"Don't you even try to turn the tables on me Sherlock Holmes! You break into my apartment on a daily basis." Joan took off her coat and stepped menacingly closer to him as he worked the tiny Phillips screwdriver into the recesses of the machine. "Sherlock, I'm talking to you!"
He didn't look up, "Hold on Watson, I just need to disengage this spring ... or I may be known as ... Lefty Holmes ... in the very near future ..."
Joan knew when he was being serious; she put her anger on hold and waited. Whatever that thing was, it was ticking and its sharp metal teeth encircled Sherlock's wrist. Sherlock continued to delicately turn the screw, stopping to search for the jeweler's pliers. Joan handed them to him. He carefully twisted and pulled at something she couldn't see from her vantage point.
"There!" he said triumphantly. With a sharp clang, gears, springs, screws and metallic teeth fell into a benign heap on the table. Sherlock paused to more closely examine the dismantled spring lock before him, before turning his attention to her. "Now, what's all this fuss about."
She stared at the mess of hardware on the kitchen table, "What was that thing?" Curiosity momentarily trumped anger.
"You remember my colleague, the bomb builder ...?" A nod of Joan's head permitted him to continue. "He is going through some sort of retro, steampunk phase and these little mechanical gems of destruction are the result. Quite fun actually ..."
"Hmmm," Joan's interest was piqued. She mentally ran through the possible applications of the non-electronic apparatus for investigational purposes.
"Fascinating isn't it?" Sherlock said admiring the stack of metal on the table. His voice reminded Joan of the reason she was here. "Give it back, Sherlock," the sternness returned to her voice.
"I would gladly give it back if I had any idea what 'it' is," his face was the picture of innocence.
"It," she locked her eyes on to his, "is the red scarf, the one you gave me, the one that was on the night table, in my bedroom, when you took it. Did you really think I wouldn't notice?"
"You are losing your mind Watson. Why in heaven's name would I go to your apartment to surreptitiously retrieve my scarf?" Sherlock's squint and grimace punctuated his statement that she was clearly wrong.
Joan stared quietly at him for a few seconds. "It is not your scarf. You gave it to me and it means a great deal to me."
Feeling rather touched by her admission that the object had sentimental value to her, he started organizing the bits of metal before him to hide his surprise. Sherlock felt compelled to continue his denial, "Really Watson, I think all that alone time must be addling your brain. My old scarf goes missing and you assume I took it."
"Let's not play games here," her voice had lost its anger. From her hands emerged a silver toned jump drive, which she put on the table beside the gleaming hardware.
He stared at the shiny rectangle and nodded his head in recognition. "You have set hidden cameras in your apartment," his voice clear and precise.
"I learned from the master," she kept staring at him.
"Hmm, how long have these cameras been ..."
"Long enough, Sherlock."
She noticed the beginnings of a blush rise up his neck. He stood up and went to his room returning with the red plaid scarf.
He paused in front of her staring at the material in his hands. "This scarf, believe it or not, also means a great deal to me." His voice took on a quiet intimate quality. "When I placed this on you, during last year's blizzard, it was not just to keep you warm." They stood face to face, the scarf between them.
Slowly, he continued, "I rarely, if ever, give of my self, my true self, to anyone ... but you ...This scarf ..." He sighed and handled the soft plaid in his hands and took another breath to compose himself. When he continued his voice was barely a whisper. "This scarf belonged to my mum. It's one of the few things of hers I have... "
Joan carefully placed her fingers on his scarf-covered hand.
"To me this scarf is a bond ... a connection to someone I hold above all others..." He swallowed the hard lump that had lodged in his throat. "When I saw it laying on your nightstand I was feeling rather betrayed, I suppose..." He tried to smile and laugh off the sentimentality he was expressing.
Joan tightened her hold on his hand beneath the scarf, "I didn't know about ... But this scarf holds just as much significance for me... It's you. It's a little bit of you that I have with me, of your friendship. I treasure the memory of you giving it to me. It made me feel that we belonged ... That you... " Her voice caught and she stopped, looking down at their hands entwined with the scarf, foreheads almost touching.
"Rather pathetic, aren't we?" Sherlock tried to break the mood. "Arguing over an old scarf as if it were made of gold." Sherlock disentangled his hands from hers, taking the scarf and placing it around her neck, arranging it properly and patting it in place.
She looked up and smiled at him, placing her hand on his arm. "Thank you."
Sherlock nodded his head and stepped back, trying to find a way to seal up the gaping hole into his emotions that he had just splayed open for Watson. He turned his attention back to the flash drive on the table, picked it up and waved it before his partner's face, "You do know that this is a huge breach of the implied trust we should have in each other, hmm?"
"What! You can't be serious? You broke into my apartment ..." Watson, quite aware of what he was doing, played along. They hadn't had a good argument in a while.
"Oh come Watson, you come into my home on a daily basis without asking..."
"I have a key, a key you gave me... "
"Yes, but you could call or ring the doorbell. You chose to move out, to leave our home. You are now classified as a guest when ..."
She felt herself getting genuinely angry, "If that's what you want Sherlock, from now on I will only come over when invited. Here you can have the key ..."
Sherlock saw that this had the potential to quickly get out of hand. "Stop it, Watson. What good is a key when we can pick each other's locks with our eyes closed." He smiled broadly at her. Joan unsuccessfully tried to suppress her smile.
"Come on. Let's stop acting like children and go get something to eat," Joan took the flash drive from his hand.
Sherlock's brows knitted as a thought occurred to him. "There's nothing on that drive, is there?"
She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head at him.
"Watson! I can't believe you ... You don't have surveillance cameras set up at all, do you?"
She looked at him over her shoulder and smiled as she walked towards the stairs, "Let's go, I'm hungry. How about we go the deli on the corner."
Pride swelled in Sherlock as he watched her walk ahead of him. He would never admit it but she truly was his equal and occasionally his better.