There is no courage, no spirit, no decision to survive. The water shocks her whole body and Joan sinks, flat on her back from the fall, through the foaming chop and into cold blackness.
She thinks, inevitable, and the thought startles her into rebellion. When did she become a fatalist? Swim!
Her boots are heavy. They fill instantly, and begun to drag her down.
The water here must only be twenty, thirty feet deep. She senses the launch powering away. Plenty deep enough to drown in.
She struggles and kicks but those boots are laced up right and her thrashing arms cannot lift her past their weight.
Drowning is her least favourite way to die. She always assumed she would be shot, probably whilst standing at Sherlock's side.
The things you think when you're dying.
A clamp fixes itself around her ribs. She has been sinking, no noise, no fight, because her next reflex will be an intake of water straight into her lungs and what would be the point? But now she is caught and she begins to thrash. She feels a grip under her chin, and propulsion upwards.
Blackness clears away like smoke before a breeze, fog before headlamps, and a curtain of water breaks over her face and then icy air.
She coughs and retches and kicks and her boots make contact and then she flings them off and can contribute to saving herself. Sherlock has her clenched in one arm while with the other he kicks, barefoot, for the shore.
"Watson. You have to move."
Sherlock's hand is hard and cold, shaking her shoulder. The gravel beach is blissful against her cheek, sharp and painful and real. The storm air prickles around her and tucks in her leaden clothes.
"Watson!"
"Carry me."
"You need to get the blood circulating. You're too cold. And this beach is too exposed in several ways."
His speech is odd - words are jolted from him, and it takes Joan a moment to understand that he is communicating between shivers.
He doesn't get cold. Sherlock is never cold. Not even -
-Not even when he has been in the sea in October. Like you.
Stones are wounding her and her clothes are drenched and cold. Joan lifts her head, bits of gravel dropping away as she does. "The motorboat," she says.
"Long gone," says Sherlock. "Now let's go."
He drags her to her feet. "The bivouac has all the stuff. It should be mostly dry."
The wind is fierce now, battering them as they stumble towards the jetty. They pick their way across lethal twigs to the forest campsite in bare feet. Joan's toes are just lumps of pain attached to the nubs of her feet. Her chest is cold. She imagines her ribs, icing over.
"Hush," says Sherlock. He rips away the canvas sheet which is flapping around their sodden bags. "Let's get this into the house. Then we need to get out of these clothes."
They stumble through the kitchen garden and into the communal lounge. By staying far back against the inside wall they can avoid the worst of the rain now flinging itself inside as if it too seeks shelter.
"Off," commands Sherlock without a trace of innuendo.
They strip awkwardly. Every bit of fabric clings and drags and makes the process a farce, a deadly farce because swimming in open water in October is very foolish and staying wet in a storm even more so.
Joan's bag is not waterproof. Most of its contents are sodden. She pulls on dry tights - magenta opaque ones - and the cami she usually sleeps in. There isn't much else.
At last she finds one dry item. The sparkly top.
Sherlock is fully clothed in dry everything from his survival rucksack. "You're out of luck, Watson," he says. "The nightlife's not up to much."
He pulls a lumberjack shirt from his bag and tosses it to her. "The woodsy look. Very you."
"Ha ha."
He is calm and in control. With graceful efficiency he puts together the tiny stove and tells Joan to find the kettle in his bag. He meanwhile zips himself into an ugly green anorak.
"Where are you going?" she asks. "We could just stick our cups out another inch and fill them with water." The rain is now an invading force, its millions of attackers hurling themselves through every available crack. A steady drip from the ceiling has become a rapid drumroll. The carpet is puddling.
"I want to pull the kayak further up the beach. Should have done it earlier but I was - busy." He gestures at her as if saving her life is just another thing on his giant to-do list.
Joan sees the beach again, the noisy gravel and the clump of low trees where Sherlock stashed the canoe yesterday. With her cheek to the stones she spent long minutes staring into the shadows under those crouching trees. "Oh," she says as Sherlock tucks the zipper under his chin. "The kayak. I meant to say earlier."
Sherlock stills, one hand at his throat. "What is it Watson?"
Joan winces. "I was looking right at those trees just now. And the kayak's gone."
Sherlock stares at her. His mask of offhand serenity falters and Joan sees again the taut, nervous face of the man she loves.
And the doors crash from their hinges and the storm rages in.