Ah, and here we are with the long-awaited update aT LAST |D

I hope y'all haven't forgotten about me! xD

December 24

Joan opened the door to the police station and pushed it open for Sherlock. The pair entered the station and looked around.

"You don't think he's still lurking around here somewhere?" Joan asked as they walked through. Sherlock was holding the phone they had found and poking various keys on it.

"Most likely not… he was probably gone from here by the time we arrived last night," he assured her, swiping a final button on the phone and showing her the screen with just a touch of smugness. It showed a blinking blue dot, the kind you might see on the iPhone Maps app. "There we go."

"That's Theo?" clarified Joan, prodding the pulse of blue with the tip of her finger, and Sherlock nodded.

"So if we can track him down, that's the bigger part of the case done," he said, looking around the police station.

"And then…?" Joan asked.

"Making sure he doesn't simply blab to the media. We haven't any idea about his memory, or whether he's made copies or not." Sherlock handed "Theo"'s phone to Joan and rubbed his hands together. "All the same, getting the man himself should be a big step."

"Right, okay." Joan peered down at the screen, where the tracker symbol was blinking, apparently not moving from the spot it was at. "So… shall we?"

Sherlock stepped quickly along the street, the phone held out in front of him with the blue dot still pulsing in the same spot. Joan hurried to keep up, her black hair swinging back and forth from its ponytail. Sherlock flicked a quick glance in her direction, the movement of her hair drawing his eyes first- neat, she hadn't been in a hurry that morning, after all, and he had seen her redoing it after their discussion in the police station- and his mind slipped back to the first time he had commented about it- her habit of putting her hair up when she wished to make herself attractive. After that, he noticed, she had made a particular point of not doing it, which was amusing to him- did she think that he wouldn't have noticed this as well?

Joan was a very proud person in some aspects, he had found; intensely private about parts of her life and very independent. If she had put her hair up today, it meant one of two things; she had intended Sherlock to notice on this particular day, which didn't make much sense, or she believed that he had forgotten about it. Of course, there was the possibility that she had forgotten entirely as well- she had only put her hair up, after all. Maybe she didn't want it to get in her eyes. He let his mind go back to the first option, that being the most interesting.

Why would Joan want him to notice that she had her hair up? She had obviously- well, obviously to him- gone to some effort to make herself look presentable for today- Christmas Eve? Something else planned? Ah, humans and their need to affix meaning to certain dates- needlessly sentimental. However, as I'm planning something of the kind for tonight, I won't think too harshly of them. But if she had had something planned, she would have gone back to change before she left that night. Hopefully she didn't have something planned, that would mess things up a little. Anyways, the signs didn't point to that, and Joan usually would tell him - wouldn't she?

If she didn't have any event she was going to tonight, perhaps she was trying to look good for someone. Who? As far as he could tell, the only person she was going to have significant contact with today was himself, which was obviously a step in the right direction- but he couldn't be sure, of course. The unsureness was most definitely the worst part, in his opinion- he had thought he had logic down to an art, had thought he would never have to deal with not knowing someone's intentions- that was, after all, part of the reason he solved crimes for a living- but Joan changed all that. He remembered it being this way with Irene, too.

Once you got close to somebody, apparently, all these little things started popping up that didn't make sense. I'm better with you, Watson… Difficult to say why, exactly. Difficult to say? More like still downright impossible. Love blurred peoples' senses; affection twisted their intent; companionship only slowed down the truly intelligent. Or so he had thought. It was true that she was distracting, sometimes- not just for her physical beauty, he could find that anywhere he chose to- but her sense of magnetism. Another thing he couldn't explain if he tried. But overall, the pros of having Watson around outweighed the cons. Maybe he was making things too complicated than they had to be- if she could hear his thoughts - thank God she can't - she would say that he was trying to make a question out of an answer. Maybe it was possible to leave some things unsaid, leave some things unknown.

In crime, everything was simple, clear-cut, even if it seemed like exactly the opposite at first. The complexity of the case was like a puzzle- and a puzzle had pieces, a puzzle was predictable. Once you put all the pieces together, the puzzle was done. Maybe I'll figure that out, too… in time. But Joan was different. Her intentions were complicated, even unpredictable at times, the more so the closer they became. She was changing, becoming a different person. People would go and change, once he thought he had them all figured out. He found it most frustrating, but also… somewhat alluring. A constant mystery. He was rarely bored these days, that was for sure.

"What are you thinking about?" Joan's voice caught into his thoughts, and he felt a tug on his arm. Snapping his eyes away from an unfixed point in space, he saw her eyeing him oddly and gesturing towards the red street light. He winced slightly, internally, knowing he mustn't let on to be acting any more strangely than usual. He had drifted off into his head, thinking about her again.

"Oh… nothing. Just a small personal matter, it'll be cleared up in no time," he assured her, looking back down at the phone as the light turned to green. She shot him a questioning look, but didn't pry into it, although he caught her giving him the slightest suspicious look before they fell into step with the other New Yorkers, crossing the street. Maybe she was worried that he was thinking about drugs again. That was ridiculous, of course, but he could understand why the thought would cross her mind first and felt a little twinge of annoyance. She was no longer his sober companion, was she? Hadn't been for quite a while, actually. So why-

He cut off the train of thought and looked back down at the phone. Just about now, he should start to- ah, there we are.

"He's moving," said Joan over Sherlock's shoulder.

"I gathered as much," said Sherlock.