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Indelible, Chapter 4
The ride back to the precinct proves more trying than the ride uptown. Bell's unmarked car is warm and dry, and yet, the tempest wreaking havoc outside is nothing compared to the stormy silence within the standard-issue vehicle.
Joan is well aware that Bell knows something's off. And if she's honest with herself, she cannot be surprised at his ability to read them so well. She has to admit that Bell has always managed to match their pace, to take the lead or follow Sherlock's, and all with no discernible effort. Could he possibly be privy to their inner turmoil? A man and a woman who share a home, an occupation, a friendship; given the circumstances, there are surely a limited number of reasons that would occur to him as a reason for their current schism.
She watches Sherlock out of the corner of her eye. They've always worked well together. Their ability to fall seamlessly into the job has been their greatest asset as partners. They share a respect for the focus the job demands and a balance in regards to all things it doesn't. She was always of the opinion that they'd weather anything together, although partners with benefits had never made it to that list.
"Preliminary case file should be in your inbox by now," Bell states, gaze steady on the rain-drenched, predawn streets. Joan's eyes narrow; she can't be sure if there's a bite of humor in his voice or if she's just overly sensitive and defensive now that their footing is unsure.
She lifts her phone as Sherlock swipes from one screen to another. When she opens the second victim's case file, it is because she knows he will be opening the first.
It would seem not everything is lost.
There's little information without an autopsy and lab work, but at least they have an identity and a foundation for theories. There's a second set of alerts and she finds another two files in her inbox.
"The second set," Marcus begins as he meets first Sherlock's eyes and then Joan's in the mirror, "is an open murder investigation from a few months ago, you might recall the young couple found dead in Brooklyn Battery Park."
She can all but feel the moment Sherlock's memory picks up and takes over. "Ah yes," he says, his voice just a touch too loud and strained, "they were supposedly out walking after a first date, found dead hours later."
"That's the one," Marcus confirms, and Joan does in fact remember it as well. Not their jurisdiction, but the park was close enough to the brownstone for her to take notice when the story hit the papers. They'd walked that park not long before, laden with bags full of blankets, and armed with an urn of hot coffee and a platoon of paper cups. They'd braved the cold, helped a few fellow New Yorkers keep warm, and she likes to believe that the experience helped Sherlock find some inner peace, at least for a few hours.
She leaves the further investigating to him as he swipes and taps away at the open files on his phone. He's as lost to her as he ever is when there's justice within his reach. She prefers to wait for the current autopsy reports before diving in; they'll bring everything they've learned together tonight and build a wall of evidence...or at least she hopes they'll be able to.
The sky goes from ink to indigo to crimson as the cruiser makes its way across town. They pull up to One Police Plaza as the sun is dragged across the livid horizon, its burning light reduced to a shimmering blush as the storm refuses to relinquish control. She feels a little bit like the sun: so full of light and warmth and devotion, and yet still just not enough to burn through the darkness and reveal all she has to offer. Just a constant in a sky too easily swayed by the spell of a rolling storm: quick to rumble with anger and burn with sudden flashes of brilliance.
Sherlock has always carried within him a storm of sorts—he's unpredictable and often turbulent—yet, even through all this, she knows he possesses a calm as well. It may not always come before the storm, it may just follow in the wake of its recession, but she's sure she will always find it.
She exits the car alongside Bell, only to find that Sherlock doesn't follow. She turns back to find him unmoving, pensive, lost in thought.
"Sherlock?" she prompts gently as Bell takes a step away to answer his ringing phone.
He looks up from his phone and turns warm and composed eyes on her, and for a moment she feels as if everything is as it should be, as if they've both tripped over the same moments in a collective memory. When he speaks, his voice is soft and gentler than she's used to. It throws her mind back a few hours to the soft darkness of her room, the warmth of his arms and the tender timbre he'd taken as he'd whispered encouragements and his affections in her hair.
The memories do now what the words had done then and cause her pulse to skip a few collective beats.
"They were all quite young," he says, gestures with his phone to indicate his reference to the deceased couples. "And from the looks of it, very keen on the prospect of new love. Has to make one stop and wonder after one's own heart." He meets her eyes in the shadows then, and there's a combined sense of sorrow and eagerness that she hasn't seen in some time.
Bell hangs up and leans into the cruiser, oblivious or indifferent to the intensity of their conversation. "So it looks like the medical examiner's office is ready for you. Benefits of an early morning start. I'll see you both upstairs when you're through."
His voice is all it takes to snap Sherlock back to their purpose and he exits the car too quickly, meets Joan's eyes over the roof only briefly. "Well, let's not keep the good man waiting then. Come along, Watson."
She falls in step and locks away all she wishes to say. His comments have opened a place inside that she'd only just managed to seal up.
As they head down, Bell takes the elevator up. She finds herself wishing regretfully for coffee or tea.
"You have impeccable timing as always, Mr. Holmes," the coroner states with absolutely no emotion as he leads the zipper down the body bag, revealing their female victim. "Ms. Watson," he adds by way of greeting as he bobs his head in her direction without actually lifting his eyes. They have an unspoken agreement, the three of them; personal space is to be in constant consideration and no one touches without permission.
There's a silence laced in empty words and excess energy as the M.E. removes the victim's clothes, examines the exterior of the body, and begins preparation for his internal exploration. Joan and Sherlock stand side by side, watching and, as always, seeing different things. As the makeup is wiped away, the true bluish tint of the woman's lips blossoms across her cheeks.
Just when she cannot take the weight of the emptiness any longer, Sherlock speaks.
"It's sad, really." The words were nearly whispered and he rocks back and forth on his heels gently. Not his usual, quick movements, but a gentle swaying that he gradually brings to a stop. His mention of emotion surprises her. He's not one to combine fact and feelings, so this change of pace for him softens her hardened defenses.
She looks him over before responding. Checks for signs of scorn or resentment and finds no sign of either. "It's always sad when someone ends up down here."
He nods in agreement, eyes fixed on the doctor's movements. She watches him intently, notices when his eyes glaze over as his mind leaves the body on the table behind, sees his jaw tightening as he grinds his teeth against a memory she's both afraid and hopeful might involve her. She wants so badly to know where his mind is, what his thoughts consist of. Wants so terribly to be where ever his mind has taken him.
"I just can't help but think of all the potential the relationship might have had."
If she had been surprised before, she's baffled now. She doesn't want to read something into his actions that isn't there, but his attitude is so fundamentally different from what she's come to expect from him that, for the barest fraction of a second, she wonders exactly which relationship he's talking about. Then he meets her eyes with the same passive look she's grown so accustomed to for just a few fleeting seconds before turning his attention back to the autopsy. From his posture, it's clear that, for now at least, he's done talking; it's time for the dead to speak.
end of chapter 4