A/N: Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, everyone! :) Here we go again.
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.
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A month of living with Sherlock Holmes had proved to be full of ups and downs. First thing she learned about this flatshare – violin wasn't the worse about Sherlock. He kept irregular hours, ate nothing until he devoured all their provisions, stayed awake for days before literally hibernating for twenty hours (she was just about to drive him to a hospital when he wouldn't wake up), and was frequently bored (and boy, did he made it known to everyone in London). The whining "boooored" quickly became the plague of her days. Because bored Sherlock would try to occupy himself by doing experiments, demonstrating an impressive commitment to destroy all sorts of things.
Sometimes, she was under impression of being back in med-school, where anatomy courses bordered on gross and everyone was so used to random body parts in the lab, that it didn't faze anyone anymore. She did try to keep a fine line between science and food, though, which resulted in several rows. At least, her RAMC cup was deemed off-limits now.
He didn't bring her to a case after that first night, most likely because he didn't have a worthy case since then, but she did bring him to search for her runaway brother. That should count for something.
She stopped going to her therapist, but kept on updating her blog sporadically. And kept going to her physical therapy. All in all, life had been looking up… that is, until she went shopping.
God, I didn't miss this part of civilian life, Joan grumbled to herself while trying to very gently put a pack of canned beans in the bagging area. "Please try again." After another lettuce refused to be scanned, a helpful old lady behind her in the queue decided to take charge. The process sped up significantly.
"You are a life-savior" she said, sagging with relief when all articles were scanned.
"It is not often that I can help young people with all those gadgets" the woman smiled in return.
The credit card took a worrying amount of time to connect, but it miraculously worked in the end. Sighing in relief, Joan collected her bags and glanced at the god-sent lady's shopping cart. It was quite full. "Do you need any help carrying that?"
"Oh no, dear, I'll manage."
"It's the least I can do" she insisted.
They ended up going in the same direction anyway, so Joan carried most of her bags, despite half-hearted protests from the lady, who introduced herself as Elizabeth Turner. They chatted agreeably along the way, mainly with Mrs Turner sharing her stories about her late husband, a ship captain in Royal Marine, and how she had been honest-to-god president of a labor union in her younger days. Joan made impressed and appreciative noises at all the right places of the story, and readily agreed that stuck-up bureaucrats were always such bores, no matter the times.
The ex-soldier was, however, surprised when her new acquaintance stopped at 219 Baker Street. Apparently, she had managed to meet the Mrs Turner next door, who had married gay tenants - the hot topic of the local gossipers, apparently. Mrs Hudson wouldn't stop chattering about it.
Hoisting the groceries to the door-step, Joan explained that she was the new face at 221b. "Oh, my goodness, that's quite a coincidence!" Mrs Turner gushed. "You should come for tea, dear. My son Henry would be coming by this Sunday, you would get along famously!"
Joan laughed nervously at that, and hurried to her own door. Matchmaking landladies were more dangerous than the Taliban, in her opinion. At least, you could always shoot the latter.
She crawled up the stairs, feeling her shoulder twitch in protest to all these bags she decided to carry around the town. Hang on, body part, almost there, she grumbled internally. "You took your time" said Sherlock from behind a book the moment she reached the flat.
"Yeah, made a friend at the store" she huffed, dragging the bags to the kitchen and finally dropping them on the counter. There was a pregnant pause between them, and while she busied herself with putting away vegetables, Holmes seemed to come to a conclusion: "Ah, Mrs Turner. How kind of you."
"Well, I did land a diner with her son as a reward" she replied, trying to place a tin of sugar on one of the top shelves. It was proving to be a little difficult due to her height, and Joan jumped a little to push it there. Luckily, the manoeuvre wasn't visible from Sherlock's chair and she believed herself stealthy enough to have done it silently. Probably.
"Is that a new technic? Helping little old ladies in hopes to land a date with their sons?" He sounded curious.
"Do I look like an inheritance-hunter?" she asked indignantly, meandering back to the room.
That earned her a calculating look-over. Apparently, the idea had not been discarded right out, which should have offended the good doctor but strangely didn't. "No."
"Then rest assured that I didn't approach our neighbor with nefarious purposes in mind." Sherlock snorted in amusement, and went back to his book.
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Later that day, while Joan dozed off on the couch, Sherlock managed to break into her computer. He would have gotten away with it too, but she woke up while he was browsing his emails. "Is that my computer?"
"Of course," came the absent-minded reply.
"What?!" There were things on her computer she didn't want anyone to see. Like, no one at all. Even if they were encrypted and squirrelled away in hidden folders.
"Mine was in my bedroom" Sherlock clarified. This is no excuse. Joan got up angrily, towering for once over the dark-haired man. He ignored her in favor of starting to type an email.
Seeing red, Joan slammed the lid shut, barely missing Holmes' fingers, and snatched the device away. "Next time, do get up" she commented dryly, marching to the chair. The wannabe hacker remained impassive, just propping his elbows on the table and looking lost in thought. Joan glared at him for a moment, before turning attention to the towering stack of unopened mail. Most of which were bills. Damn.
Her bank account was in no shape to pay up for all this. The lazy part of her consciousness suggested to dive into emergency funds, but… no, not going this way. Current bills are definitely not an emergency. "Need to get a job."
"Oh, dull" commented off-handedly the flatmate.
"Half of it is yours, you realize?" Apparently not, as the man stayed silent. "Sherlock, are you listening?"
"I need to go to the bank." Well, that was quick, she thought, trailing after the man if only to escape the sight of red mentions calling for urgent payment.
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A/N 2: For those who are interested, I also posted a one-shot that has nothing to do with this story. Just an idea that kept running in my head.