Not dead! Sorry for the wait. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: 'Sherlock' belongs to all the important people that you know. Also, credit to Ariane DeVere for her series transcripts that had been extremely helpful.
# #
"John!" Sarah poked her head in Joan's office. "We're going out for a coffee after closing, want to come with us?"
"Yeah, sure!" the doctor answered, trying painstakingly to type out her notes on the last patient of the day. It had been a slow couple of days at home, and she took on an additional shift to keep herself busy. Especially since the stitches from their stint in the tramway den came out and she couldn't make more excuses for procrastinating.
"Great, in ten minutes?"
"Deal." Finishing up with the file, Joan dialed Sherlock's number while shrugging on the jacket. It rang three times before the man picked up. "Hey, I'm going to be late. Going out with colleagues. Do you need anything? I could swing by Tesco's after that."
"No. I'll text you if anything comes to mind." There was a loud crowd noise in the background.
"Where are you?" Joan fumbled with her keys and phone, but managed to lock the door without dropping anything.
"Airport. A client's family paying me the trip to Belarus where he supposedly didn't kill his girlfriend." The baritone practically dripped with sarcasm.
Joan smirked. "It sounds promising. Have fun."
"See you later, John."
Sarah and Karen, the receptionist, were already waiting for her in the hall. "Ready when you are" Joan smiled at them, pocketing the phone. They took her to a nearby tea-shop, that had some fancy bubble-teas brews (which Joan eyed suspiciously) and rare coffee blends (which gave a strong aroma that could wake up the dead). While her colleagues went for what was presumptuously called tea around here, Joan chose a simple ristretto. Better safe than sorry, she thought eyeing the colorful blend in her colleagues' cups.
"So, how come you're free today, John?" Karen asked when they were finally seated in a lovely booth by the window. "You're always rushing out like there is a fire somewhere."
She was sorely tempted to answer that yeah, sometimes there is a fire AND fireworks in my kitchen, but stayed with a neutral: "My flatmate is out. I help him a bit with his work, and trust me, the clinic is a respite after this."
Sarah snorted behind her mug. "You said that mundane is good at your interview."
"Yeah, it's good to breathe once in a while."
"What are you doing then with that flatmate?"
"Oh, it's… detective work, basically. He's a sort of private detective. Very selective one, at that, taking only interesting cases. Don't ask what is interesting by his standards, I'm still figuring it out. But he's brilliant."
They didn't go further into the subject, and the discussion stirred towards gossip and cooking tips. Joan wasn't very used to this type of conversations, but she left the tea-shop feeling content. Normal is nice. I could do with normal, she thought while trying not to fall asleep on the Tube (again). Her imagination supplied an overview of days going by, all similar one to another, home-work-home routine settling in, everything so stable and predictable. She mentally shuddered. That'd be atrocious. Yeah, let's stick to madness.
It felt odd to find the flat silent. And free of any smells or suspicious stains. Well, at least nothing apparent. Joan plopped into her chair, feeling vaguely lonely and bored. She briefly entertained the idea of getting the next plane to Minsk, but remembered the current state of her personal finances and the lack of visa in her passport. Why does Sherlock have a visa to Belarus anyway? Wait, never mind. Mycroft, of course.
The evening went by quietly, with the ex-soldier typing out a new blog entry at a very slow pace. Her dominant left hand was usually feeling numb after a working day. She knew she'd never get back the full sensitivity, and certainly not the full motion range, but tried to push the limits as much as possible, so it was not very noticeable in the day-to-day life. Unfortunately, she had never been one for computers, and her fingers felt exceptionally sluggish over the keyboard.
Around eight o'clock, her stomach emitted a low grumble, indicating that coffee isn't the only fuel it needed to keep her functional. The fridge presented a desolate picture of empty shelves and containers full of inedible things. Cupboards weren't much better. Defeated, Joan meandered down the stairs, hoping that Mrs Hudson would be home and in the mood to have a hungry companion for the evening.
# #
Next day had only a morning shift at the clinic, that went by without a hitch. However, Joan was slightly surprised to get a call from Harry when her last patient walked out. "Hello, stranger! Are you finally answering my calls?"
Joan sighed internally. Five seconds and she's already blaming me for something. "I never ignored your calls, sis."
"You never called me back either."
"I've been busy, you know. Moving, getting a job, things."
"Yeah, I read your blog, John. Can you spare a lunch for your lovely sister in that busy schedule of yours?"
I don't want to. I really should. What a drag… "Yes, sure. Today?"
"Peeeeerfect! See you at that Italian place near Bond Street station in an hour."
"But I'm at w…" Silence. "Harry? You hang up, didn't you?" Here goes my plan of doing nothing.
Her recollections of London restaurants were sketchy at best, and she was late by ten minutes when Harry spotted her on the sidewalk and pounced on her with the force of a vicious cannonball. "Ooof." Joan's shoulder creaked in protest. "Nice to see you too, sis" she groaned, while disentangling limb by limb from the skinny blond woman. The older Watson looked good, considering her well-known bad habits with alcohol. Her clothes were fresh and ironed, her grey eyes were not tinged with red, and her hair was done in a cute bun. Perhaps it was temporary, but Harriet was doing well.
"You should call more often." Harry retorted, looking completely unapologetic. "Maybe I wouldn't be so inclined to hug the life out of you."
Rolling her eyes at the big-sisterly act, Joan led the way into the restaurant. It was a nice place, but the doctor immediately decided that Angelo's was better. I'm biased and I don't care. The plate of pasta was quite decent, and Harry just kept chatting about her job, her nasty coworkers, her landlord, more about gossipy coworkers, and a little about the new Chanel spring collection. Not a word about Clara or the state she had been in when Joan had finally gotten out of the hospital. There was just a sheepish smile when their order ended up having nothing stronger than a coke on it. Joan settled for nodding and making appropriate noises at the right places; secretly hoping that the conversation would not stray into dangerous waters.
"… and then her heel just broke. It was awful, we barely managed to find some glue."
"Sounds like hell" Joan answered sincerely. Heels are a torture contraption from hell anyway.
"And so, tell me about your roomie."
The unexpected inquiry made Joan choke on a bite of bread and cough violently. "Wha?" she croaked through pained tears. "Why?"
"Because he's living with my baby sister and he seems like bad news! I have to give him the Talk."
"No, you don't."
"Convince me."
"I'm not a child, Harry. Sherlock isn't getting me into anything I don't want to do."
Harry's expression darkened and she absently ran a finger over her glass's ridge. "I thought you were done with risking your life."
Joan sighed. "Harry…"
"No, listen to me, Joan." Ow, the name calling. "You spent years galivanting around the world, and finally getting bloody shot for your troubles." Harry's glare was burning holes into Joan's shoulder. The ex-soldier felt her temper rising in response. I didn't exactly go looking for that sniper. "Haven't you done enough? Why do you need to do this public service thing with a sketchy guy?"
"I wasn't 'galivanting' as you call it, Harriet. I was serving the country, and I would have continued without any regret if I could." Joan's voice was kept under tight control, but anger spiked through the words. "What I am doing now is not up for discussion."
Her sister was looking at her wide-eyed, mouth agape. "Do you have to be so damn noble all the time?" she hissed back at her, a frown settling in. "Why am I the bad one for worrying about you?"
Because you worry me more than Sherlock does, Joan thought, but instead said: "What I'm saying, is that I don't need my choices questioned at every turn. I'm still trying to get past my discharge, you know."
"And you do that by running around the town after serial killers, apparently!" They started being rather loud at that point, and other patrons were glancing at them with curiosity and disapproval in their eyes. Somewhat understanding Harry's point and really not wanting to make a scene, Joan visibly deflated.
"Look, I am fine. I'm working as a GP in a clinic. I keep myself busy. Nothing dangerous, more time spent thinking and talking than having showdowns with criminals. It is not like a movie or anything." Well, there is also a lot of running and fighting involved, but I'll just keep this under wraps for now.
Harry stared at her heatedly for a moment, before taking a sip of her coke. "You are a nightmare, John. I'll have white hair and it will be your fault."
Feeling like the storm had passed, Joan offered a small smile. "I'll pay for your hair products then."
"Nah, I can have some good samples free at work." Harry eyed judgmentally her sister's worn brown cardigan. "You should come shopping with me someday. It's a shame to you hide yourself under… this." She poked her perfectly manicured finger at the checkered shirt under the cardigan.
Joan raised her hands in a defensive gesture. "I feel better in this. Besides, it's freezing in London."
"You could model, you know." The glint in Harry's eyes could have been predatory if it weren't so mocking. "High fashion digs ex-military models right now. Makes good money too."
The horror. "Hell, no! Don't even think about it."
"Peace, sister. Your time will come."
They left shortly after, and parted on relatively good terms. Harry in a good mood was a fun person to be around. That's why Joan felt so disappointed and pained when faced with her sister's drinking problem. It was always such a waste.
All the talk about her previous careers left a bad aftertaste. Walking home seemed like a good idea to clear her head, but unfortunately it just made it worse. She kept dwelling on whatever memories remained of the day the bullet found her. "Doctors aren't supposed to go on frontlines" the sergeant said at the training camp. "If you die, who'd bring us home?" Bill joked one day, pulling her back to the cover. Did she listen? Not very often. It was raining bullets, fire crackling on the wrecked wood, and people were falling, stricken, on both sides. Find them. Help them. Get them out. It was her mantra on the field. She couldn't remember the face of the kid she was trying to treat when an arrow of pain ripped through her. The world kept swirling chaotically around her, while she fell face first in the dirt, bleeding out. There was this horrible noise, this blend of shouts, pleas and gunfire, that kept ringing in her ears until the hospital finally spat her into the London's bleak sunlight months later.
A bit depressed, Joan dragged her feet up the couple of steps to the front door, and slowly tugged off her jacket once inside.
BANG! BANG!
The gunshots made her blood run cold. BANG!
Adrenaline rushed through the veins, and Joan leapt up the stairs, not even thinking about the potential danger. BANG! The source of the racket revealed itself to be her own flatmate, sprawled on a chair, a gun dangling from his hand. When did he get back? she thought absently while shouting in anger: "What the hell are you doing?!"
"Bored" came the (un)expected reply.
"What?"
"Bored!" the madman shouted, jumping up, gun in hand.
"Wait, n…" Before she could finish her warning, the gun fired again and again, punctuated by angry proclamations of boredom. Joan clasped her hands tightly over her ears, nails digging into the scalp, eyes shut. The noise struck her more than it should have, but her early reminiscences were still fresh and nagging. The thrice damned buzz of voices and dry cracks, that haunted her during recovery, made a guest reappearance, and she was fighting it back with grim determination.
A light touch brushed against her right hand, and she released a breath she didn't remember holding. Sherlock was standing way too close, head cocked to the side in a cat-like curiosity. "Was it necessary to take it on the wall?" she asked in a dull voice, pointedly avoiding the sharp gaze.
"The wall had it coming" the man smiled, maybe a little sheepish. Getting back her bearings, Joan yanked the weapon from his hand and slid the clip out.
"You are paying for the ammo" she informed him matter-of-factly, heading to the safe box where the gun was supposed to be safely stored. An impatient huff was her only response, and Sherlock shuffled lazily to the sofa, admiring his handiwork. Why do I even bother…? "What about that Russian case?"
The detective let himself fall flat on the sofa, the furniture creaking indignantly under his weight. "Belarus." Expressive sigh. "Open and shut domestic murder. Not worth my time."
"Oh, poor you" Joan commiserated sarcastically. She wasn't particularly hungry, but the tea sounded like a plan. "Do we have milk?" she asked, making a beeline to the fridge.
A pair of dead eyes stared at her from the shelf. F… Am I hallucinating now? Joan stared at the fridge door, that she violently slammed a second earlier. Gingerly pulling it open again, she was confronted by the same pair of eyes. "It's a head." The words rolled easily off her tongue. It sounded real enough. "A severed head."
"No milk for me, thanks" Sherlock's voice rumbled from the living room.
A little dazed, Joan got out of the kitchen, half-expecting to be taken to a mental institution in a few minutes. "There's an actual human head in the fridge."
"Yes." Yes?! It is a real head. He put a bloody head in our fridge.
Her mouth decided to voice the last thought: "A bloody head!"
"Well, where else was I supposed to put it?" grumbled the resident biological hazard on the sofa. "You don't mind, do you?" The fake concern was simply appalling. "I go it from Bart's morgue." Yeah, who else would let you take a damn head home? Molly really should stop indulging him. Joan shook her own head in silent despair. "I'm measuring the coagulation of saliva after death" Sherlock continued to drone.
"I'm sure the scientific world is impatiently waiting for the results" she muttered under her breath, sagging into her chair, the thought of tea forgotten. The mad genius ignored her comments, and waved at an open laptop instead.
"I see you've written up the taxi driver case."
A change of subject. Great. "Yeah."
"A Study in Pink. Nice."
There was something slightly malicious in his voice now. Not quite seeing what her flatmate was getting at, Joan answered genuinely: "Well, you know, pink lady, pink case, pink phone… there was a lot of pink. Did you like it?"
The detective was now too busy pretending to read a magazine to look her in the eyes. "Erm…No."
Oh? "Why not? I thought you'd be flattered."
"Flattered?" Now the man looked offended, glaring daggers at her. "Sherlock sees through everything and everyone in seconds. What's incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things." Oh, that part.
"Hey, I didn't mean that in a…"
"Oh, you meant 'spectacularly ignorant' in a nice way. Look, it doesn't matter to me who's Prime Minister…" Joan stared at him in silence while he kept ranting, hands flailing around to emphasize his point. "… or who's sleeping with who…"
"Whether the Earth goes round the Sun" she decided to quip in.
A flash of resigned irritation passed on Sherlock's face. "Not that again. It is not important."
"It's primary school staff! How can you not know that?!" He did go to school, didn't he?
Holmes groaned, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. "Well, if I ever did, I've deleted it."
Huh? "Deleted it?"
A razor-sharp glare focused on her. "Listen. This is my hard drive, and it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful ... really useful." Looks like it is not the first time he had to explain this. "Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish, and that makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters. Do you see?"
She couldn't help herself. "But it's the solar system!"
"Oh, hell! What does it matter? So we go round the Sun! If we went round the Moon, or round and round the garden like a teddy bear, it wouldn't make any difference. All that matters to me is the work. Without that, my brain rots." He punctuated his angry tirade with more angry gestures and proceeded to glare at her with a petulant pout. Strangely irritating and adorable at the same time, Joan's brain supplied unhelpfully, while she was silently gaping in the wake of the outburst. "Put that in your blog. Or better still, stop inflicting your opinions on the world."
The doctor glared at the sulking back for a good twenty seconds, before deciding that bad temper wasn't a monopoly in this flat and she had the right to sulk too. She pushed herself up, and marched to the coat hanger. "Where are you going?" came a surprised question from the sofa.
"Shopping. I need bullets to effectively threaten you into behaving" she replied ominously, eliciting an indignant snort from the man-child. Judging by the lack of further comments, he might have considered the threat in the realm of possible.
She passed Mrs Hudson on the stairs, exchanging brief pleasantries before heading out. Her feet took her towards the park, wondering where a moderately-sketchy ammunition dealer could be found in London at short notice. Going to her old army contacts was out of question with the older Holmes watching her every move (or at least she assumed he was).
The aimless wandering was cut short by a low rumble that shook the neighborhood. People stopped and looked around in confusion. Joan paled. A building crumbling after an explosion. It seemed to come from the general direction of Baker Street. Her heart missing a beat, Joan took off running, panic slowly rising in her gut. Luckily, she didn't get too far from the flat, and was on site in three minutes flat. The street was covered in rubble, the building facing 221 gutted by the blast. The windows. Oh God, the windows must have been blown in. If Sherlock and Mrs Hudson were still in the living room… Oh God. Oh God, please…
She practically teleported to the doorstep, missing the keyhole two times before tearing the door open. Taking two steps at the time, she flew up to the flat where faint voices could be heard and slid on the landing, barely catching herself on the doorframe.
Sherlock was standing in the middle of broken glass, bare-footed, but looking relatively fine. Martha was holding a broom, also unharmed. Both looked up, startled at Joan's entrance. She stared back, panting from the effort and sagging in obvious relief. "We're alright" Sherlock said softly. She nodded weakly, gaze falling upon the numerous shards strewn across the floor.
"Don't move, I'll fetch you some shoes."
A couple of minutes later, Joan made sure that Mrs Hudson was fine and made Sherlock change into clothes that weren't dotted with microscopic shards. Her med kit in hand, she got outside again, just as the sirens were starting to blare in the distance.
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A/N: Thanks to everyone who followed/reviewed since the last chapter! I didn't drop the fic, as you can see. And I even managed to write Harry... believe me, she didn't want to come and play.
For those who still wonder about Joan's middle name, Sherlock will find out soon enough ;)
Also, I'm posting a sort of abandoned plotline in a separate story, check it out if you're interested :)