The call came in the middle of the night. For a second after waking Joan peered around in the dark room, trying to place what it was that woke her so suddenly. Moonlight shone on the floor by her bed and the yellow glow through the crack under her door indicated Sherlock was still up working on a case. Nothing unusual. Then she heard it again—a low, indecipherable conversation coming from the floor below. Joan lay back down again, equal parts relieved and annoyed. A phone call at—she glanced at the alarm clock—four a.m., though inconsiderate, was not out of the ordinary. Well, since she was awake she might as well use the bathroom. Maybe that was what woke her, Joan thought as she swung her legs off the bed. What happened to being able to sleep through the night?

The hallway was blinding with its incandescent lighting, and Joan shielded her eyes as she shuffled to the bathroom, wondering for not the first time what she was doing living with a person who would by choice conduct investigations at four in the morning.

She heard footsteps on the stairs, and was about to close the bathroom door with an amount of force that was pointed but not too heated when her name gave her pause.

"Watson."

Joan turned and peered at him with some difficulty. It was too bright to see his expression, but he was standing one step below the top of the stairs facing her.

"Sorry to interrupt your nightly ritual, Watson, but I wanted to let you know that I have some urgent business to take care of which requires my absence for seventy-two hours. A tip came in about a case that I have been eagerly pursuing."

"Oh," Joan replied. "When are you leaving?"

"This minute," Sherlock replied. An odd second ticked by where neither of them moved. "There's been a body, and I want to examine the evidence as soon as possible, before it is contaminated," he explained. She could see him a little better now. Only Sherlock, she mused, would look so animated after getting a call in the middle of the night about a dead body.

"Okay," she said, slowly retreating into the bathroom, "I'll just look over old case files while you're gone. Which case is it?"

"One I keep in File Q, I haven't shown it to you before," said he, already moving with alarming speed down the stairs.

"You mean the laundry bag with all the papers inside?" she called after him.

"Don't forget to feed Clyde," he called back before she shut the bathroom door.


When she found her way to the kitchen the next morning however, there he was, sipping from a mug of coffee and pouring over the contents of what must be an entire filing cabinet spread generously over the kitchen table.

"You missed a spot," Joan said grumpily, clearing out a space on the table for her smoothie ingredients. He didn't seem to hear her, but bid her good morning when he started from the sound of the blender going off.

"Good morning," she replied. "I'm surprised to see you back so soon-I thought you said the trip was going to take three days."

Sherlock took a brooding sip of his coffee.

"False positive. I was barely out of Brooklyn when the call came and I turned back again. Pity too. There was a good spot on the airwaves with a Dr. Dora and a woman mourning the loss of her pet cockatoo."

"I didn't realize you liked radio psychologists," said Joan, looking at him oddly, "you seemed so against the whole profiling thing with your ex."

He gave her a look.

"I find psychologists in all their forms, whether on the radio or behind the façade of a profiler, utterly abhorrent. The idea that a human being is ruled by subconscious impulses propagating through hundreds of thousands of years to determine his current behavior is not only pathological pseudo-science, but in its disregard for the complexities of modern society it is also extremely vapid, an insult to the human intelligence it purports to study. No, I was merely interested in the Machiavellian ways that Dr. Dora was able to cloud her audience's judgment. "

She frowned at him.

"That's not what most psychologists think."

"Oh right," said Sherlock, returning to his papers again, "I'm sure your shrink is more of a Jungian type."

It would be pointless, Joan reminded herself, to ask how he knew she was seeing someone. Instead she drank her smoothie and looked over the papers spread on the table.

"I take it you didn't sleep last night?"

"No, it was daylight by the time I got back and besides, I was more than awake after Dr. Dora's lesson on love and loss. Figured I might as well get back to it."

"Well," she said, washing her cup in the sink, "I got plenty of sleep so if you want some help on that case I'll be glad to."

"Actually I put it away for now, but we can work on the latest from Captain Gregson after your shower." He looked up, "It was reminding me too much of our favorite radio shrink."


Evening.

Joan sat curled up in the armchair sifting through the paper clipped contents of a folder as Sherlock examined something on the opposite couch. It was an interesting case. All boys prep school, English teacher dead of a heart attack, ruled accidental. Sherlock, of course, thought otherwise. Joan was studying the files of the school staff, searching for connections. As Sherlock crossed the room to the record player, she noted something unusual in the file of a Mr. Alfred Regenstein and colored over the line with her highlighter.

What sounded like Baroque music filled the room. Joan looked up, decided not to say anything, and turned her attention back to her folder.

"Going to your parents' again this Thanksgiving?"

Joan paused with her highlighting and looked up again. Sherlock was tinkering with his collection of cell phones.

"Wisconsin, actually," she said. "We're all meeting at Oren's this year."

"Oh right," he replied, glancing up briefly, "Time to show off the house with the new Mrs."

"Why do you ask," said Joan, going back to the files. "You're staying here for the holiday again right?"

"Actually," Sherlock said, putting down his phones to fix her with an earnest gaze, "I was wondering whether you would do me the favor of dropping me off in Chicago on your way to Wisconsin."

She looked up at him in surprise and smiled.

"Does this mean you're finally going to accept my mother's invitation and spend the holiday with us?"

"No," said Sherlock, picking up a cell phone and prodding it with a wire again, "I have a client there whose case requires my presence to tie up."

Joan raised her eyebrows.

"So you want me to drive you to Chicago."

"If it's not too much trouble."

"Actually," said Joan, frowning, "it's a lot of trouble. It'll take us a full day just to get to Chicago."

"You do it every year."

"I fly. To Michigan."

"Yes, so this is ideal," said Sherlock, "Chicago is on the way to Wisconsin, whereas any other year it would be out of the way." He nodded helpfully.

"I'm not driving you to Chicago. Do you know how much the gas would cost?"

"I will subsidize the cost of transportation."

Joan perked up a bit.

"From Chicago to Gurney too?"

"Where's that?" he asked, still prodding.

"Near Lake Superior."

Sherlock looked at her.

"I'm not a bottomless pit."

"You want me to drive you from New York to Chicago," she reminded him emphatically.

"It's the holidays. Prices for airline tickets will be at least the cost of gas."

"Yes," Joan agreed, "But driving means I'll be spending two days with you in a car. And you don't even have a license so I won't even have a break. You know, people are paid to do that—they're called taxi drivers."

"Fine, I'll cover the expense to your brother's home as well."

She watched Sherlock tinker for a while, thinking it over.

"How would you get back," she asked slowly.

"You can pick me up on your way back from your family's festivities."

For a few moments there was only the melodic muffle of horns playing against the comfortingly measured tinkering of a harpsichord.

"I wouldn't trouble you," Sherlock said quietly, "But I would very much rather not have to fly. You remember our conversation regarding pilots."

Joan sighed, already regretting her decision.

"Fine. But no back seat driving." She eyed him. "How did you get here from London?"

Sherlock stood up.

"Excellent. Well, this calls for a celebratory cup of tea. I'll make us some."