Once again, skating in just before the deadline...

To those who asked nicely for another chapter, here you are and thank you for the patience.

To those who asked less than nicely, here you are and maybe work on some stuff, k?


One.

After the dreary, endless slog of winter, Spring.

The snow that had plagued the streets and sidewalks and rooftops for months on end melted almost overnight, leaving filthy puddles and mud in its wake for a few days until the ground began to dry out again. Freed from the perpetual demands of increased laundry and cooking and cleaning rock salt and slush off of everything, Joan began running longer distances again, taking advantage of the slowly rising temperatures and lengthening daylight. Sherlock remained sober of substance and manic in temperament, working on case after case in between experiments and an alarming amount of meteorological charting ("You cannot rely on temperature alone when removing the hives from hibernation," he explained to Joan the first time she found him balancing on the roof with a weathervane, as if he hadn't given her the same lecture the year before). Moriarty watched them both with bemusement, continuing her pursuits exactly as before.

The promised revenge painting, which Joan sort of liked and Sherlock attempted to mask his hatred for in an—unsuccessful—effort to deprive Moriarty of any satisfaction whatsoever, made its grand debut over the evidence board (and then proceeded to bounce back and forth between the wall and a dusty corner of the basement, depending on who had moved it most recently). Windows were left open more frequently in the mornings, and fresh flowers began appearing all over the house—sunflowers in the kitchen, dahlias in the library, freesia and orchids in Joan's room. The scents were intoxicating, and Joan spent hours breathing them in, absently reaching out and stroking the petals as she read or worked.

After an ugly, harsh winter, Joan was happier than she could remember being in a long, long time.


Four.

Everything had slowed down. Cold, it was cold, everything was

Light. Beams—car headlights swept across the ground, hurting her eyes. Her head hurt, her head—

Hands on the ground; snow, gravel. She was crawling, trying to crawl, but she couldn't remember wh—

She coughed wetly, starbursts of red hot pain in her head blurring her vision, listing to the side until she was back on the ground. Something in her throat, what was—she'd thrown up, before, she remembered, after she hit her head. Her head hurt, it hurt, but she had to keep moving, had to get away before they killed her for real, they were trying to kill her, they—

She was so cold


Two.

For the better part of two weeks, Sherlock and Joan had been consulting, with little success, on a case that was both new and old—new in that it was the first time that the precinct had brought them in on it, but old in that Sam Maroney and his network of mid-level criminals had been around for years. Their interests ranged from drugs to prostitution to armed robbery, and though their estimated profits were fairly modest when compared to New York's more notorious syndicates, they had the enviable skill of eluding law enforcement that the other organizations lacked.

"Our last two CIs both disappeared under suspicious circumstances," Detective Bell had informed Joan and Sherlock while bringing them up to speed on the relevant details, his dry tone expressing exactly how he felt about the official report. "It's not unusual for informants to leave town without a forwarding address, but these guys were fairly reliable, as snitches go. And Wilson's last report indicated that Maroney's planning to expand his holdings, which squares with the latest reports from Vice.

"Not to mention the increasing body count at the crime scenes we're attributing to him and his men," he'd added.

The investigation, despite its size and lengthy history, seemed to be going absolutely nowhere. Everywhere Joan and Sherlock turned, they were met with dead ends, deported or dead contacts, or further information that would shortly prove to be useless, functionally sending them back to where they'd started. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so frustrated by a case, an opinion shared by the large majority of the station that had ties to it in one way or another, even if only a handful of detectives from several precincts were actively working the investigation.

Privately, Joan was also concerned about what the outcome of the case would be—there were no discernable patterns, no actionable evidence, no intelligence from the missing informants that Joan, Sherlock, and the department hadn't already gone over with a fine-toothed comb. It was looking increasingly like the NYPD would be cleaning up after whatever Sam Maroney and his organization had planned, rather than preventing it.

Needless to say, Sherlock found the whole pattern intensely aggravating. His hours grew longer and stranger as the days continued to produce no new intelligence, and while Joan wasn't happy about it, she also wasn't surprised to come home from the bodega one afternoon to find Sherlock grilling Moriarty for information, with limited results.

"Not much more to say, really," Moriarty was explaining idly, barely glancing up from her book as Sherlock hovered over her shoulder. "I haven't dealt with him personally in years; he was smart enough to only require a single warning when his dealings started to get in the way of my own. One of my lieutenants casts a peripheral eye on his work for me from time to time, but nothing more has been necessary."

Joan could feel the frustration bleeding off of Sherlock in waves. "The world's greatest villainess, and all she can tell me about one of her preeminent rivals is that 'He's boring'," he groused, lacing his hands behind his neck and ignoring Joan's frown of disapproval.

Moriarty glared at him. "Of course not," she replied sharply, shutting her book with a snap. "Setting aside the fact that Maroney is no rival of mine, I could tell you much more, if I so chose. And you would connect the dots brilliantly, as you always do, and then you could go to your colleagues at the police, and—oh dear, we seem to have hit a snag, haven't we?" she interrupted herself, eyes wide as her voice dripped with feigned, bitterly sardonic concern. "Now that would be unfortunate, trying to explain to your Captain how you compromised their citywide investigation by soliciting help and sharing classified knowledge with the 'World's Greatest Villainess'."

She stood up, tucking her book under her arm. "I suppose it'd be unfair to everyone else, salting your viable leads with my association and making you an unfit candidate to follow them," she mused aloud with a nod to Joan, the first acknowledgment Joan had received from either her or Sherlock since entering the brownstone. "You're on your own, darling."

Sherlock threw himself down on the couch as Moriarty finished her scathing tirade and swept from the room, crossing his arms over his chest.

Joan raised an eyebrow. "Not what you were hoping for," she stated rather than asked, folding herself into Moriarty's armchair with far more dignity. The fabric was still warm.

Sherlock sighed. "No more than I should have," he admitted, glaring up at the ceiling as if it had betrayed him. "Not only was she correct that I couldn't use her knowledge even had she been willing to provide it, but I knew as much before I asked."

Joan, who thoroughly recalled the many things that Captain Gregson had had to say on the subject when he let Joan and Sherlock resume their consultations, nodded back. "So why did you bother?" she wondered, drawing her feet up on the chair.

Sherlock shrugged, his shirt scraping audibly across the couch. "Desperation, I suppose," he admitted with a frown. "The misguided belief that perhaps she might twist her world to our benefit, should we require it badly enough. A continued folly of mine, the hope that Moriarty can be anything other than what she is."

His mouth flattened into a thin line, an expression Joan had become familiar with during the time of Irene.

She bit her own lip.

"I don't think it's foolish to want her to be better," she said slowly, choosing her words carefully. "Everyone changes, to a certain extent. None of us are the same people we were three years ago, and we'll never be who we are right now ever again. It's not wrong to hope that those changes are good, Sherlock."

What she didn't say: I think she already might be better.

Or: The Moriarty who kidnapped me off the street would never buy me flowers or heat my bedroom or try to manipulate me into learning how to use a gun so that she can worry less about me.

Or: The Moriarty who made you love her only to disappear wouldn't care what you thought about her.

Sherlock didn't reply, and they sat in contemplative silence for the rest of the afternoon.


Five.

Footsteps, out in front of her. The light was fading, but she could see someone, dark shoes dark pants walking toward her. Her vision swam and the legs wavered as her eyes struggled to focus, but they kept walking, walking

The ground was cold, ice burning into her face and gravel scraping her skin raw.

The footsteps stopped in front of her.

Joan closed her eyes.


Three.

The third week of the active investigation dawned, and with it came what wasn't a break in the case so much as a small fissure: a former operative of Maroney's, halfway through a six-year sentence for an unrelated crime, had agreed to share the locations of all the buildings and businesses that Maroney had operated out of during their brief alliance in exchange for a glowing parole recommendation at his upcoming hearing.

The information he was able to provide was nearly four years out of date, but it was enough to warrant surveillance on two dozen buildings around the city, stakeouts conducted by pairs of officers in 12-hour shifts. The scale of the operation meant that higher ranking officers were being drafted into service along with the beat cops, and Joan found herself bringing coffee and sandwiches to Detective Bell and his shift partners at strange hours on more than one occasion, penance for being barred from actively participating herself by departmental regulations concerning consultants.

Sherlock, who had been more subdued than usual since his unsatisfactory encounter with Moriarty, began to perk back up. "Finally, something potentially not time-wasting," he disagreed, when Joan remarked on how she felt sorry for all the policemen and women whose lives were temporarily on hold due to the stakeout. "Of course, if this is the key to the investigation, all but two of them technically are wasting their time by shadowing the wrong location or observing during the wrong time of day, but perhaps they could use the time to their advantage all the same."

Joan's next round of bagels and coffee cups were accompanied by language learning cds in Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian, all courtesy of Sherlock.

She had just made the final delivery of the night and was on her way back to the subway station when the event that would eventually crack the whole case open began.


Six.

The sounds were muted, but were still making Joan's head pound. Sirens and machines and shouting—at her? someone else?—and there were hands all over her, under her

"—an?" Joan cracked her eyes open the smallest amount, and immediately closed them—the piercing light was threatening to split her pounding head open.

"Joan, can…hear me?"

Her name, someone was saying her name, but she couldn't follow the sounds any further, none of them made sense, none of—

"…get an MRI…"

"…contact? She—"

"unstable vitals, and…blood loss is—"

She was so tired.


Seven.

When people woke up in the hospital on television or in the movies, it was always dramatic—loved ones keeping vigil beside the bed, sometimes tearfully; patients jerking awake and panicking, ripping out IVs and setting the machines monitoring their vitals into a frenzy.

Reality was a little less theatrical: Joan woke up, and knew that she was in a hospital bed.

It was the beeping that clued her in, even before she opened her eyes—the unmistakable sound of a heart rate monitor somewhere in the vicinity. Other cues followed rapidly: the strong antiseptic smell that clung to everything, the standard issue (yet surprisingly heavy) blanket tucked around her up to the waist, the cumbersome bandaging that she could feel on her face and hands. Voices coming from her left, loud but muffled by curtains and thin walls and interwoven with the squeaking of wheels and orthopedic shoes on a sleek linoleum floor. The distinct hiss of a ventilator somewhere nearby.

Joan was sore and exhausted but in an absent sort of way, and she wasn't surprised to see an IV in her arm when she opened her eyes. Her head ached distantly, and as she raised her hand to trace the bandaging along the edge of her scalp, she remembered—she had been running, trying to evade the car that had begun following her minutes after she left Marcus at his stakeout. She'd darted across roads and through an alley, attempting to escape, but her pursuers had had at least two vehicles and were frighteningly well coordinated. The second car had tried to run her down, only missing by inches when Joan threw herself out of the way.

She'd hit her head on something, a dumpster or a brick wall, and everything after that was muddled. Joan didn't mind (the drugs in her IV were likely helping with that); either she'd remember or she wouldn't, and until then she was warm and presumably safe.

She was also awake, and not quite pain-free enough to fall back asleep or sit up far enough to grab her chart.

Joan looked around the room she was in—what little of it she could see, anyway. That was another difference between the movies and reality: instead of the spacious, well-lit private room afforded to the protagonist, Joan's assorted injuries had landed her in the ICU, with its narrow beds, plethora of machinery, and curtains instead of walls on three sides. The wall at her back lacked a clock or a window, and Joan frowned, her mind still tired and fuzzy. Her watch was gone, too, along with the rest of the clothes she'd been wearing, leaving her no reliable way to even guess how long she'd been out—minutes? Hours? Surely not days.

Reaching out with a scratched and slightly shaking hand, Joan pressed the call button to her left and let her arm drop back down on the bed.

The wait wasn't long—within minutes, a young male nurse in pale blue scrubs pulled back the curtain in front of her and peeked inside, smiling at Joan when he saw that she was awake. "Dr. Watson, how are you feeling?" he asked cheerfully but quietly, checking the machines around Joan and taking down her vitals.

Joan tried to smile back, but gave up when she felt the movement straining one of her bandages. "I've been better," she admitted dryly, her voice coming out hoarse and ragged. The nurse winced almost imperceptibly and handed her a cup of ice chips. Joan took them gratefully, nodding her thanks. After swallowing a mouthful of melting chips—the scrape down her throat was brutal, but the chill of the icy water made up for it—she tried again. "How long have I been here?" she wanted to know.

The nurse held up a penlight, and Joan held still while he checked her pupils. "The EMTs brought you in about three hours ago, Doctor," he told her, smiling shyly as he clicked off the penlight.

Joan blinked several times, trying unsuccessfully to clear the spots from her vision. "Just Joan, please," she replied absently, already thinking about the implications. Three hours—it had almost certainly been Maroney's men who had followed her, which meant that they knew more about the police investigation than anyone had known. She had to warn them, in case she wasn't the only target, and she had to get ahold of Sherlock, who would definitely be out of his mind with worry after three hours (plus however long it had been before the medics had gotten to her in the first place), and Moriarty would—

Moriarty would. "Is there a phone I can use?" she asked, trying to sound polite yet authoritative but instead only managing to sound tired. "It's an emergency."

The nurse blinked in surprise. "We don't have room phones on the unit, but I can see about getting your stuff, I think there was a phone in there," he offered apologetically, clutching her chart to his chest. "But Dr. Ward is going to want to see you right away now that you're awake, and there's a police captain waiting to talk to you after that. He says it's urgent."

Joan immediately relaxed—the police captain could only be Captain Gregson. "That's who I wanted to call," she assured the nurse. "I'd appreciate getting my things back anyway, though, thank you."

The nurse smiled back, clearly confused by the situation but seemingly glad that Joan was satisfied. "I'll get the doctor now, and go track them down," he promised.

Joan nodded, letting her eyes flutter closed for a few seconds. She was still exhausted, the throbbing in her head turning more insistent, and it was becoming more and more apparent that her knee had taken some damage when she'd fallen. She hoped that the conversations with Doctor Ward and Captain Gregson didn't take long—as much as she wanted to speak with both of them and find out what was going on, what she really wanted more than anything was to hit the morphine button and go back to sleep.

Crap, morphine. She'd have to remember to ask the doctor for something non-addictive.

The nurse was trying and failing to tug the curtain closed. "It's funny," he offered off-handedly, setting the chart on the end of Joan's bed and reaching up with both hands to free a caught curtain ring. "I was expecting you to sound British."

Joan frowned, confused. Her name, her former title, those were both listed in her records, but her nationality would—"Oh," she said out loud, feeling stupid and sluggish. "They're here, aren't they."

It wasn't a question, and the polite grimace on the nurse's face told her everything she needed to know. "Your family, yeah," he answered, and Joan closed her eyes again, this time in despair. "Visiting hours for the ICU start at 7:00, so you can see them then, if you want."

Joan let out a huff of laughter. "If they don't get kicked out first, you mean," she said wryly, more to herself than to him.

He smiled back anyway. "The staff's taking bets," he agreed. "Smart money says they don't last past dawn."


Eight.

Despite the relatively minor trauma to Joan's head and only moderate damage to her knee, it took nearly three days for the doctors to release her from the hospital. Joan chafed under the restrictions, even as she understood the reasoning—any injury that rendered a patient unconscious was taken extremely seriously, and she'd had enough trouble concentrating for long enough to talk to the police about the incident, or even staying awake for any extended period of time, on the first day that she realized how much worse it could have been. Even when she was discharged—in a wheelchair, of course, and into the care of "John and Jamie Watson"—it was with strict instructions to take it easy for at least two weeks, and not to return to work until after the weekend. The orders were somewhat contradicted by the sheaf of paperwork detailing Joan's at-home physical therapy for her knee, along with a list of practices in the area for her to investigate and choose from.

Predictably, Sherlock and Moriarty were something of a nightmare to be around, the first few days of Joan's convalescence: smothering, intrusive, overprotective, and prone to clashing loudly about Joan and what was best for her recovery on an all-too-regular basis, ignoring the fact that Joan was a.) "right here in front of you and can hear everything you're saying, dammit," and b.) a medical doctor with an actual license to practice, unlike both of them.

It was almost enough to make Joan wish that she were back in the hospital, where they were barred from seeing her for twelve whole hours in a row, every single night.

Still, her mobility was temporarily limited enough that the extra assistance was a necessary evil, and the unexpected blessing of her head injury being the most major medical concern was that all Joan had to do in order to guarantee an hour or more of silence was to hint at the slight possibility of her having a headache. She also won the battle over the right to dispense her own medication almost immediately—Sherlock had been disqualified right off the bat, and Moriarty was paranoid enough to understand Joan's bid for control over her own drugs, even if she didn't seem to like it—and despite fearing that one of the three of them would snap and kill the other two before Joan could walk again unaided, she really was grateful for their unflagging assistance, especially in the mellower moments where the house was quiet and Joan's pain medication had beaten back the throbbing ache in her leg and the three of them could coexist calmly and peacefully.

It didn't last long.

"I damaged my knee, of course it's going to hurt," Joan explained exasperatedly to a stone-faced Moriarty, whose arms were folded defensively—or defiantly—across her chest. "That's the point of having a physical therapist, to get me through the exercises I need to do for everything to heal properly. Or do you want me walking with this for the rest of my life?"

Sherlock, who had been hovering anxiously at the window watching Joan's PT leave, raised a finger to interject. "I have every faith in your swift recovery, Watson," he assured Joan, "but the master craftsman who designed your cane did guarantee a lifetime warranty. It's also, as I said before, impervious to mud, low-grade acids, and weather damage, and can be modified to hold a sword or single stick accessible via the handle, should you so choose."

He laced his hands behind his back, watching Joan expectantly.

Joan glared at him. "That is not the point," she reminded him sharply, "and don't think for a minute that I'm only yelling at Jamie over this; you were right there in the room along with her."

Sherlock took what look like an involuntary step back at the dark expression on Joan's face. "That is not the point," he agreed swiftly, ignoring the rest and earning a similar glare from Moriarty. "The point is…"

He trailed off, waving for Joan to continue.

Joan's patience for being humored or patronized was always low in the two hours after the pain crept back in, but before she was allowed another two pills to dull the edge. "The point is, you cannot threaten to viciously murder my doctors just because my leg hurts," Joan finished for him, redirecting her ire at Moriarty where it partially (mostly) belonged. "First of all, and I can't even believe that I have to say this again, killing people for doing their jobs is rarely the answer."

"Rarely isn't never," Moriarty pointed out, posture beginning to relax.

"I am surrounded by idiots," Joan lamented to herself.

She took a deep breath. "Okay," she sighed, "how about this—this is going to be a painful process no matter who I see, all right? I am going to sound like I am in pain during my appointments because I am in pain, not because my doctor is incompetent or injuring me or whatever you accused him of before you threatened to rip out his throat. If you kill him or scare him away—one of the few physical therapists, I might add, who is both recommended by every orthopedist I've spoken to and is willing to make house calls—how many reputable doctors do you think would be willing to take me on as a patient? You will be making all of our lives very difficult if I have to go to New Jersey twice a week for sessions."

Sherlock made a face. "New Jersey is a cesspool," he pointed out. "Surely something could be found in White Plains that would suit your needs?"

Once again, his interjection was met with matching exasperated glares.

Moriarty, visibly bored by the direction the conversation had taken, sighed loudly. "I shall endeavor not to grievously injure your medical staff, provided that they follow their basic tenant to Do No Harm to the upmost," she agreed. "Satisfied?"

Joan leaned more heavily on her cane, suddenly exhausted. "If it's the best I'm going to get, then fine," she replied, sighing in return. "I'd better call and apologize to Charlie, before he calls a lawyer."

Sherlock wisely took the opportunity to slip out the door, but Moriarty remained in the room, watching as Joan limped over to the couch and sat down with a slight groan. "Can I fetch you a painkiller and a cup of tea?" she offered, picking up Joan's phone from the desk and handing it to her. "Not prescription, it's not time yet, but perhaps something weaker."

Joan closed her eyes, tipping her head back. "No, thanks," she answered, wishing she had thought to grab her heating pad before she had sat down. "I'm fine."

It was a lie, and they both knew it.

Eyes still shut, Joan listened to Moriarty's quiet footsteps as they trailed away, then stopped.

"You called me Jamie," Moriarty said suddenly. "When you were yelling at us."

Joan opened her eyes. Moriarty was standing in the doorway, looking at her.

She swallowed. "Is it your name?" she wanted to know.

Moriarty's smile was faint, but ethereal. "No," she admitted, not surprising Joan at all. "But I like the way you and Sherlock say it."

She left the room before Joan could think of anything to say to that.


Nine.

After an apologetic phone conversation, two favors called in, and a fruit basket, Joan's physical therapist tenuously agreed to resume their sessions, provided that Sherlock and Moriarty stay out of the room (and preferably out of the borough) while he was over. Unhappily, they agreed to the terms, and Joan's knee slowly mended.

Of course, they continued to be smothering, overprotective of Joan around strangers, and loath to let her do anything more strenuous than nap or read a book, but Joan dealt with their insanity with a renewed sense of patience.

At least they meant well.


Eleven.

The call came in the morning, eighteen days after Joan woke up in the hospital.

"We got the guy," Detective Bell told her, after apologizing for calling so early and waking her up. "Came into the station an hour ago, looking like someone beat him half to death, and said he wanted to confess."

Joan tucked the phone into her shoulder and pushed herself up into a sitting position. "Sam Maroney wants to confess?" she asked, voice thick with sleep. "Why would he want to do that?"

Joan heard a door open and close on the other end of the line. "Not him," Bell clarified, "one of his lieutenants, a guy named Parsons. Wants to confess to his role in the organization, and is willing to testify against Maroney in exchange for leniency. But Joan, he brought everything with him—paperwork, recordings, all the physical evidence we need to lock Maroney and all the top guys away for centuries. We're still going through it all, but so far it's checking out."

Joan raked a hand through her hair. "That's great," she replied, far more awake than she'd been a minute before. "I mean, Sherlock will have a fit when I tell him that the case just got snatched out from underneath him, but that's terrific, Marcus. Congratulations."

There was a pause. "Joan," Detective Bell began hesitantly, "there's something else, something you should know."

Joan's throat tightened.

"We haven't checked his statement against the security footage yet," Bell continued, "but one of the things Parsons confessed to was riding shotgun in one of the cars that ran you off the road a few weeks ago. Says he didn't touch you, and that he didn't receive the orders himself, but that they were trying to damage the surveillance pattern without killing a cop."

Joan gripped the phone a little tighter, mind suddenly blank. "I…don't know what to say about that," she admitted slowly, leaning back against the wall behind her bed.

"I don't blame you," Bell replied. "The drivers and everyone involved are being brought in right now. Once they're formally charged with everything we're planning on hitting them with, it'll be up to you what you want to do—if you want to testify, or stay out of it—but either way, none of them are seeing daylight through anything but bars for a few decades."

He paused again. "I just—I thought you should hear it from me or the Captain, and not from one of the guys sifting evidence," he added. "I know it's a lot to process."

Joan closed her eyes. "That's—you're right," she said, cutting off her original thought of That's an understatement; it wasn't Marcus's fault that she felt like the floor had just tilted violently underneath her. "It's—I'm glad I heard it from you."

Detective Bell hummed in agreement. "Like I said," he reiterated, "you don't have to decide anything now, or even anytime soon. We're going to be processing this case for a long time. And I know Captain Gregson offered already, but we've got a whole staff of counselors who would be more than happy to help, if you want to talk to anyone about what happened. Most of them have offices outside the precinct, so privacy wouldn't be an issue, either."

Captain Gregson had offered, and Joan had politely declined.

Now, though. "I'll think about it," she said honestly, pulling her blanket back up and into her lap.

"I'll email you the list," Bell promised. "I've got to get back to work, but we'll be in touch. You want me to call your partner, or…?"

Joan shook her head. "No, I'll tell him," she sighed. "Thanks for calling, Marcus."

"Take care, Joan."

Joan hung up the phone and closed her eyes.


Ten.

The message had come through shortly before midnight, lighting up Jamie's other (other) phone under three layers of coding before promptly deleting itself. It had been the work of a moment to dress and arm herself in what she colloquially referred to in her head as her work clothing: dark, deceptively casual clothes that wouldn't shed a fiber or hold a bloodstain; syringes, blades, a steel wire tucked away invisibly, yet within easy reach. Her hair was pulled back low and neat, her boots a soft black leather that didn't make a sound as she crept up the stairs from her room to the front door.

A quick glance at the clock in the library reminded Jamie that Joan would be waking within the hour for another round of pain medication. She considered looking in on her before leaving, but ultimately decided against it—if Joan were asleep, Jamie would learn nothing new; if she were to wake, Jamie's best lead in nearly a week was likely to slip through her grasp.

Clearing her mind of extraneous thought, Jamie slipped noiselessly into the foyer.

And stopped.

Sherlock was sitting on the stairs, back unnaturally straight as he waited for her with his coat in his lap.

Jamie masked her surprise with a slow, delighted smile. "Going somewhere, Sherlock?" she murmured quietly, pitching her voice so that even an awake, eavesdropping Joan would have been unable to hear her.

Sherlock's back stiffened further. "I could ask the same of you, but I dislike redundancy," he replied, matching her volume. "I'd prefer to bypass the pleasantries, if you would."

Jamie casually folded her arms over her chest, the movement pressing the knives in her vest against her ribs. "All right," she agreed, mildly impressed with both his candor and at being found out almost against her will—there was a reason Sherlock was special.

She'd play it his way, for now. "You don't know precisely where I'm going, but you rather suspect why," she began, watching Sherlock's expression for the tells she had learned to read so well over the years. "You do know, however," she added, "that Joan would not approve."

Sherlock's hands tightened on the coat in his lap.

Jamie smiled.

"The question is, then," she concluded, "are you here to help me, or to stop me?"

Sherlock looked away from her, and Jamie could feel her internal clock ticking, counting down the narrow window of time that remained before her quarry eluded her again.

She ignored it, waiting patiently.

Finally, Sherlock turned back, resolve written on the lines of his face. "Could you have prevented this?" he wanted to know, his eyes glassy and unreadable.

The question was unexpected but the answer came easily; she had asked herself the same thing before they'd even been allowed to see Joan in the hospital. "Unlkely. This was a desperate act, so rashly done that the planning of it couldn't have been done far in advance. Watson was likely chosen out of convenience, not on a personal level."

She looked at Sherlock, whose expression hadn't changed.

Ah. Guilt.

"Neither could you have," she pointed out reasonably. "Not without dropping the investigation, which you had no reason to do, either then or now."

Sherlock's mouth tightened, the palms of his hands pressed firmly into his thighs. "Watson said the same," he admitted, surprising Jamie not in the slightest.

She inclined her head minutely, acknowledging his response. "Do you believe her?" she asked, already fairly certain of the answer.

Sherlock looked at her balefully.

They both knew that he meant 'No'.

After a moment of silence, Sherlock looked away again. "Watson would disapprove," he said, changing the subject only a little. His eyes flickered up the stairs to the room where Joan lay sleeping, still damaged and in pain from the attack almost three weeks before. "Watson still believes the best of people, despite her now-numerous experiences to the contrary."

He swallowed harshly, and Jamie could read his internal struggle as clearly as if it had been written across a page.

He looked back at her. "Watson is a better person than we are," he said truthfully. "I wish to honor that. I trust you to do what needs to be done, and nothing more."

And nothing more. Jamie thought about it, dozens of possibilities flitting through her mind and rearranging themselves, a cerebral dance that she had long perfected.

And nothing more.

Slowly she nodded, her plan solidifying in her head as if it had always been there, right from the start. "In that case," she replied, as quietly as she had begun, "let us get started."

They made their way to the back of the house and Jamie raised the window screen noiselessly—useful, but she'd have to fit it with a better lock—and prepared to slip out over the ledge. A hand on her arm stopped her, and only years of practice kept Jamie from starting in surprise; it was the first time in a long time that Sherlock had touched her so casually, without illness or injury as an excuse. "If anything happens to her," he began, eyes staring out the window in a deliberate ploy to avoid eye contact.

He swallowed again, unable to continue.

Jamie lay her free hand over his. "I rather suspect we'd burn down the world," she admitted frankly. "We should see that it never comes to that."

Blinking rapidly, Sherlock nodded.

Jamie nodded in return and, one after the other, they slipped out the window and into the night.