A/N: Phew, sorry this next chapter took so long, guys. I honestly thought I'd be posting it the next day but the muse (and real life) had other ideas. My bad. Thank you for all of your lovely reviews too, they're very much appreciated. I'm happy to know this is kind of in the ballpark as I've only watched a couple of episodes of the show. I really must stop doing that when it comes to writing fanfiction. It's becoming a bad habit.

Anyways, I've ended up needing to do another chapter to finish this story off, so there will be one more chapter after this. Hope you have fun with this, I did.

Toodles. :D

CHAPTER TWO

Sherlock had reached a perfect state of Zen. He had no sensation of time or anything other than then the calming rhythm of his next breath. Propped up against Joan's door, he'd allowed his mind to reach an equilibrium whereby his thoughts could flow freely. Sherlock was no longer on the same plane of existence that the rest of humanity resided in. He was a leaf on the wind. It was a flawless moment of transcendence. Suddenly all of that exploded as the door behind him opened, and the ultra-relaxed Sherlock was unable to stop himself from falling heavily back onto the hard wooden floors. His head made a sickening thud noise as it collided with the wood, and he was left lying there, cross-legged, eyes still closed as he heard Joan give a gasp of surprise above him. "Ow," he said flatly, not bothering to open his eyes.

"Sherlock! What are you doing?" asked Joan in agitation. "How long have you been sitting there?"

"What time is it now?"

"Two o'clock in the morning."

"When did you retire to your room?"

Joan sighed heavily. "You've been sleeping at my door this whole time?"

Sherlock opened his eyes and looked up at Joan as she stood over him, dressed in her pajamas. "Not sleeping, no. I've been thinking."

"Right," said Joan in resignation. "Come up with anything interesting?"

"Yes, I have as a matter of fact." Sherlock propped himself up on his elbows. "But before we discuss that, just a quick question. Am I bleeding profusely from that head wound I just sustained?"

Joan's gaze flicked to the back of his head. "You're fine," she said dismissively.

Sherlock grimaced and tentatively rubbed the back of his head where he could already feel a lump forming. "You sure you don't want to spend more than one eighth of a second coming to that conclusion, Watson? You didn't even touch me."

"Trust me, Sherlock, the way I'm feeling about you right now, you don't want me to touch you," said Joan tersely. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need a glass of water."

Sherlock grabbed her ankle as she went to step over him.

"Sherlock, let go of my foot."

He didn't comply. "As I said, I wasn't sleeping, I was thinking."

Joan frowned down at him as she balanced awkwardly on one leg. "And?"

"And I've reviewed all of our interactions, all of my actions in the last seventy-two hours. I wanted to cast a suitably wide enough net over our the time frame of your displeasure with me so as not to miss anything." He looked up at her very seriously. "And I have come to a conclusion."

"Which would be?"

"I've done nothing wrong."

Joan made a loud noise of annoyance. "You are unbelievable," she snapped. "You can't think of one thing you might have done to overstep the boundaries between us?"

"I can think of dozens, but as they are all on a similar par with one another, and you only seem to be taking exception to one, that pretty much rules them all out by default." Sherlock's hand tightened on her ankle. "If you wish for there to be some kind of resolution between us, Watson, you are just going to have to tell me what I've done."

"Let go of my foot," she ground out.

"Not until you tell me how it is that I've wronged you so badly."

Still perched on one leg, Joan glared down at him. "Two days ago, you were at the day unit of St. Mary's Medical Clinic."

"Yes."

"Talking to Doctor Simons." Joan managed to make that sound like a sin against nature. Her cheeks were flushed and eyes sparking with genuine anger and something else he couldn't quite work out. Joan yanked her foot out of the hold he had on it.

Sherlock blinked, still no closer to an understanding of the issue. "Yes. His associate, Doctor Gail Warner, wasn't on shift, which was who I really came to see, but Doctor Simons was able to provide me with the information about Tea Letterman's procedure she'd had performed there last Fall."

Joan's eyes went wide. "Wh-what?"

"Tea Letterman, the issue with the missing jewelry, and how I'd said all along it was an inside job, and the link between her and the man who killed her father was a man she met whilst having a procedure performed at the clinic." Sherlock paused. "It was only two days ago, Watson. Do I really need to go into the minutia of the case we were working on together?"

"I-I-ah… I didn't realize it was that clinic she'd had her procedure performed at," she said unevenly, looking a little thrown. "Doctor Warner is new. I didn't know she was working out of that clinic."

"Well, she was and is."

"Oh." Joan didn't say anything for a long moment, expression pensive. "Okay then, I'm sorry. Never mind."

Sherlock's eyes went wide as she went to step over him. He grabbed at her leg again to stall her. However, shock at her sudden turnaround had him putting a little more force behind the action then he intended. Joan fell forward, tripping over his legs and falling to the ground.

Joan gave a little squeak as she kept on sliding forwards, heading towards the stairs and then tumbling down them. She ended up halfway down the stairs before managing to grab at the railing to stop herself.

"Watson!" exclaimed Sherlock, rooted to the spot in horror at the thought he might have just broken her neck.

Joan scrambled to her feet in a rare moment of inelegance. She stood in the middle of the staircase, looking a little fluster. "Sorry."

"You're apologizing to me for throwing you down the stairs?" asked a completely bemused Sherlock. Joan had been the angriest over she'd ever been with him all day, for reasons he was still completely unaware of, and yet, when he'd actually done something to her, albeit accidently, she was apologizing to him.

"It was an accident," said Joan hastily. "We all make mistakes." With that she turned around and headed back down the stairs.

Sherlock was left sitting there, stunned for a few seconds, but then he was jumping up and racing down the stairs so he could get to the kitchen as Joan poured herself a drink of water. "Wait a minute," he said in disbelief. "Was I right? Were you in the wrong with our fight?"

"It was a misunderstanding," said Joan dismissively. "Never mind." She took a sip of her water and then wandered over to table, to look at the files Gregson had left there. "What's this? Do we have a new case?"

"Oh no," said Sherlock determinedly, "you do not get to change the subject, Watson. I demand an explanation of your erratic behavior immediately."

"I don't demand explanations of your erratic behaviors," she pointed out calmly.

"Yes, you do, all the time," said Sherlock hotly.

"And you only answer me about fifty percent of the time, and of those answers, only about three percent make any sense."

Sherlock pointed a finger at her. "But you do admit to me answering questions about my behaviors," he said triumphantly. "So, I am owed a similar courtesy for your recent treatment of me."

"You just pushed me down a flight of stairs," shot back Joan. "I think we can call it even, don't you?"

Sherlock frowned. "That was an accident."

"And my annoyance with you was from a misunderstanding. So, let's leave it at accidents and misunderstandings, hmm?" She went back to sipping her water and avoiding looking at him as she leafed through the case notes on the table. "So, is this a new case?"

Sherlock stepped closer and impatiently slammed the folder she was flipping through closed. "We're not talking about the case now. We're talking why you saw fit to ostracize me from your good graces for the last twenty-four hours, and then recant said displeasure, without a word of explanation."

"I explained, it was a misunderstanding."

Sherlock stared at her intently. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"It's not important, Sherlock, and it's two in the morning. I'd like to get some sleep." Joan moved past him, heading back towards the stairs.

He was immediately hot on her heels. "If you won't tell me, I'll simply deduce it for myself."

"Mm, okay," said Joan, still walking and sounding very disinterested.

Sherlock's mind was racing. "You were upset with me speaking with Doctor Simons. You have shown yourself in the past to be unhappy with me interacting with your romantic partners." He grinned, pleased with himself as the issue came into sharp relief for him. "You were angry with me because you saw myself and the good doctor conversing and assumed I was interfering in your love life. Which, really, is a totally unreasonable and unfounded assumption to make, Watson."

Joan turned around and looked up at him, unimpressed at that assertion. "The stockbroker."

"Oh, what, him?" Sherlock waved a dismissive hand at her. "That was days ago, are we still counting him?"

Joan shook her head at him, and then turned back around.

"No, wait, the man was sporting a wedding ring. You'd never involve yourself with a married man, so that can't be it." Sherlock reevaluated all that he knew. "You two are of a similar age. Did you attend medical school together?"

Joan was walking up the stairs now. "Goodnight, Sherlock."

"He's an oncology specialist who has been at that practice for a good while, as the lettering on his door was more aged then that of Doctor Warner's—" Sherlock stopped abruptly. "He's an oncology specialist," he repeated slowly.

Joan hadn't stopped in her ascent of the stairs, but Sherlock noticed a slight falter in her step as she went when he'd mentioned the word oncology again. Dread settled in his stomach like a lump of concrete, and then he was following Joan up the stairs and into her room. "Watson," worry making his tone sterner then he'd intended.

Joan stopped in front of her bed. Her head dropped briefly, and then she was setting down her glass of water and slowly turning around to face him. "Yes," she said in resignation.

"Yes?" repeated Sherlock tightly. He didn't want to hear this confirmation of what they both knew he was thinking.

"Last week I found a lump in my breast," said Joan calmly. "I booked in with Richard to have it checked out, and after the core biopsy was inconclusive, I've opted for a lumpectomy to remove it. When I saw you and Richard talking, I thought you'd somehow found out about it and were giving him the third degree instead of coming and talking to me about it. I was still… processing what was happening, and I wasn't ready to talk about it, and when I thought you were just jumping into the middle of all that, I just kind of—"

"Took leave of your senses?" suggested Sherlock unevenly. He didn't want to admit that it stung him to hear Joan hadn't wanted to involve him in such a potentially crucial moment of her life. She was intrinsically bound to all of his these days.

"I was scared," said Joan quietly. "And it was easier to be mad at you then examine that too closely and deal with it. I was wrong, and I'm sorry. Can we just leave it at that, please?"

Her apology did little to assuage the churning of his stomach and the blood was roaring in his ears. Sherlock didn't want this to be happening. "You have a lump in your breast?" He needed confirmation, clinging to some ridiculous hope that he'd misheard her.

Joan gave a short inclination of her head. "I didn't want to tell you until I knew what I was dealing with."

Sherlock knew she'd been protecting him, worried about news of any potential ill-health on her behalf might do to him. It was the go to instinct around a recovering addict, not being the thing which might push them to use again. "You should have told me," he said tightly.

Joan held his gaze steadily. "You've always led me to believe you have absolutely no interest in my breasts."

"Well, I didn't," said Sherlock sharply, "but now that they're trying to kill you, my interest in them is decidedly piqued."

"My breasts aren't trying to kill me." She pressed her lips together. "Probably."

Sherlock caught her moment of hesitation. "Can you give me a probability for that probably?"

"A significant amount of breast lumps are benign."

"A fact which the initial biopsy couldn't confirm."

Joan moved her shoulders a little. "It can be difficult sometimes, with biopsies. Given my family history, Richard and I decided we didn't want to take any chances. I'm also having some axillary lymph nodes removed for pathology, along with the lump."

"Family history?"

"My mother's sister died of breast cancer," said Joan quietly. "It was discovered too late and when it was, it had already metastasized into her bones and liver." Her lips tightened. "It was a brutal way to die, just devastated the whole family. I don't think my mother ever really got over it."

Sherlock could see the worry on Joan's face, and wished he was more gifted in knowing the right thing to say to impart comfort. The fact that she'd been keeping this information from him meant she had genuine concerns about what the pathology was going to reveal, and that was hard to know. Joan was scared, and Sherlock had few resources in his arsenal to know how to deal with that. In a moment of panic, he went against his instincts. Sherlock leant forward and drew her into an awkward hug, keeping his body stiffly away from hers and patting her back.

"What are you doing?" asked Joan, her voice muffled in his shoulder.

"I'm comforting you," said Sherlock, still patting her back awkwardly.

"Your comforting me is making me uncomfortable."

"Oh," said Sherlock, and immediately stepped back, hands dropping by his side. "To be honest, I didn't have high hopes going into that hug. I've never seen the value of touching another human being unless you're relieving basic bodily urges with sex, or trying to stop someone from killing you."

"Those are two pretty vast extremes there," said Joan in exasperation. "You should really look on building up some middle ground."

"I don't function well in the middle ground." Sherlock lifted one shoulder. "The middle ground always smells like feet to me."

Joan opened her mouth and closed it again. "Okay," she said slowly and then half-smiled. "I appreciate the sentiment even if your execution needs a little work."

"Which one is it?" asked Sherlock abruptly, looking between her breasts. "Which one has the lump?" It was his nature to know the details of any given situation, so he could pick through all the information, form it into something he could make sense of.

Joan wrinkled her nose. "Is that important?" She shrugged. "The left one."

"Of course it is," said Sherlock dourly. "The Latin word for left is sinistra, which became our word sinister over time. The left has long been associated with evil."

"I don't have an evil boob, Sherlock," said Joan in exasperation. "Besides, you're left handed. That doesn't make you automatically evil."

"Whilst I don't think I'm the poster child for the milk of human kindness, I do agree, it's not an exact science." He searched her face. "Are you alright?" he asked quietly.

"Yes." Joan looked away briefly. "When I first found the lump, it was confronting, of course, took me back to what it was like watching my Aunty Joan suffer—"

"You're her namesake?"

Joan gave a sad little smile. "Yes."

The desire to make this better for her was once again rising in Sherlock. His hands opened and closed in a futile attempt to be useful in some way.

"But the whole point of screening systems is that you can act on things early, which is what I've done." Joan wrinkled her nose. "Although, I'm going to have to rebook my appointment at the clinic."

"You cancelled your appointment?" asked Sherlock in horror.

"I was mad at you," said Joan, looking slightly sheepish now. "I thought you were getting involved in an aspect of my personal life I wasn't ready for you to be involved in yet."

Sherlock's eyes went wide. "So, the logical next was to put your own health at risk by childishly denying yourself speedy treatment to punish me for an imagined crime?" He waved a hand around. "Watson, that is both insanity and idiocy personified." This piece of information more than anything frightened him. Joan was always the calm, practical one, who didn't let emotions cloud her better judgements. The fact that her reflexive anger had been such at his imagined transgression just told Sherlock how afraid she must really be.

"I was mad at you," she said defensively. "I overreacted. I'm allowed the occasional piece of irrational behavior."

"No," said Sherlock sharply, still reeling from the fact his sensible Watson would be so self-destructive, "you're not, seeing as I'm clearly the one who has cornered the market on such a thing in our association. You are the steady hand on the keel of this relationship, Watson. Nobody wants a former heroin addict who can't make meaningful human connections in charge of anything."

"So, no pressure then," said Joan wryly.

Sherlock inclined his head, silently acknowledging her point. He knew it was unfair of him to put that kind of expectation on her when she was already struggling. "That being truth being said, I will free up my schedule to accompany you once you have made a new appointment."

Joan didn't look entirely thrilled at the offer. "First of all, your current schedule involves trying to invent a new version of chess which involves the use of knives, and painting Clyde's toenails for reasons I'm too scared to think about."

"He likes the color red," said Sherlock off-handedly. "It makes him happy."

Joan gave him a bewildered look. "How can you tell if a turtle is happy?"

"The anal sphincters spasmodically quiver when—"

"Nope," said Joan without hesitation. "You're never going to finish that sentence in my presence."

"I'm only answering a question you asked," pointed out Sherlock, a little miffed. "And as you so rightly deduced, Gregson has just gifted us with another case, so I do indeed have something to put aside to accompany you. Which I will do, happily. I will be by your side, Watson, offering moral support."

"That should scare me more than it does, but I'm still reeling from quivering turtle anal sphincters." Joan looked up at him. "You hate hospitals."

"I make a great deal of concessions for you, Watson, not the least of which is wearing pants on a regular basis. I can make one more."

"You didn't used to wear pants on a regular basis?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I think better with a cool breeze wafting through my genitals."

"More information I could happily have lived my entire life without knowing."

"I sensed my nudity would be something you'd be unhappy about, so I adjusted my routine, for you. I can put aside my distaste of hospitals, again, for you." Sherlock suddenly felt proud of himself for his selflessness. "Thus proving pretty conclusively that I'm the bigger person in this relationship."

The look Joan gave him was decidedly unimpressed if somewhat indulgent. "The bigger person wouldn't have felt the need to point out they were the bigger person, and by doing so, you've pretty much conclusively confirmed that you're in fact, the smaller person in this relationship."

Sherlock gave a little grimace, conceding she was alright. "Most likely. However, I would like to point out that I'm the tallest person in our relationship."

"Not the same thing."

"But it's in the same ballpark."

"It absolutely isn't."

Sherlock screwed up his face. "Your worry over this impending medical intervention is making you unusually belligerent. A fact I will graciously overlook, another example of my ever evolving ability to relate to the human condition."

"Stop applying a narrative to your actions to make yourself look better." Her look was pointed. "You're not exactly Mother Theresa yet."

"And nor would that be something I'd ever aspire to," he countered. "Not least of which because the woman is dead."

Joan screwed up her face. "Sherlock," she complained.

"Oh, right, we shouldn't talk about death," he said hurriedly. "Given your current condition."

"I don't have a current condition," said Joan sharply. "Other than vaguely annoyed." She wrinkled her nose. "And cold feet."

"You should get into bed," said Sherlock quickly. "Get warmed up."

Joan gave a little smile. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Sometimes I can offer practicalities in our relationship."

Joan's smile widened.

"I did say sometimes," said Sherlock stiffly.

Joan took a step towards him, and Sherlock took a step back, thinking she was making her way to her bed.

"Stand still," she instructed him.

"What are you doing?" asked Sherlock anxiously as Joan took another step towards him.

Joan went up on her tip toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him into a hug. "This."

"Oh, right," said Sherlock as he awkwardly stood there, letting her hug him. "Didn't we learn our lesson with the last attempt?"

"Call me an optimist," murmured Joan, not loosening her hold on him.

Sherlock put a tentative hand to her back, patting it. The seconds ticked away, Joan pressing her body against his stiffly held one.

"Just how long exactly are these things meant to last?"

"Until you do it right," said Joan, maintaining the hug.

Sherlock made a pained expression. "I think you're setting unrealistic goals for our relationship again."

"Just shut up and hug me."

This prolonged human contact was making Sherlock start to sweat. He wasn't sure what to do. "There, there," he croaked in time to his back patting, "there, there."

"A hug doesn't need audio aids," she murmured against his shoulder.

Sherlock scowled fiercely above her head. "Oh well, this is just impossible then."

"Stop overthinking it and just hug me," said Joan quietly. "The world isn't going to explode because you let someone into your personal space for two minutes."

"Possibly, but why take the risk?" he argued.

"Because for once, this isn't about you, it's about me."

"And you find our rubbing our bodies against one another to be in some way beneficial?"

"If you stop narrating it I might."

Sherlock knew he was being churlish and vaguely babbling, but the truth was he was finding this hug very difficult. He didn't endorse the hugging of people, because as a rule people either bored or annoyed him. A lot of the times it was both. There was no desire on Sherlock's behalf to put himself in close proximity with such things. Joan, however, was different. She wasn't boring, and even though she vexed him no end sometimes, there was a security to the ire which would sometimes crop up between them. Sherlock felt safe to be himself around Joan, and she wouldn't walk away. Even when she'd been so mad with him just now, she still hadn't left. The last time they'd parted ways he knew it had been him overreacting to her changing their living arrangements with Joan moving out of the brownstone. It had rocked him to realize how much her everyday presence had come to mean to him. It wasn't enough that he'd still see her every day. Sherlock needed to know that he was her home, that no matter what, she'd always return to him at the end of the day. Her moving out stole that security from him, and he'd been angry. Moving back to London had been a way to punish them both – Joan for having the audacity to make him feel that way, and for himself, because he wasn't able to control those feelings when it came to her. Sherlock didn't care about her having boyfriends, they were usually inconsequential to what the two of them shared, with a few notable exceptions. What mattered was that they ultimately belonged to one another in a way that defied conventional explanations, and that it was necessary for them to always find a way back to one another, no matter how long it took.

But holding Joan in his arms right now, Sherlock was being forced to consider the frailty of the woman he was holding, and that one day he might truly lose her. And being in such close proximity to the one person in his world that he'd let truly in, only served to remind him she might be taken from him, and there was nothing he could do about it. It was agony, but Joan seemed to need the physical comfort, and he couldn't deny her that. The fear of losing her was gripping him more tightly every second they remained in their embrace, ensuring that it wasn't becoming less awkward. To be reminded so viscerally of all he could lose when it came to her… Sherlock had little skills in the way to deal with such a thing.

"Breathe, Sherlock," she advised him huskily, ironically offering him comfort. "Just breathe."

Sherlock was glad Joan wasn't able to see the flash of pain which passed over his face. "I'm trying," he mumbled, but the sudden uncertainty of their future together was making that an almost impossible request. Something constricted painfully in Sherlock's chest, as he thought about what tomorrow might hold for them both.