Elementary
Chapter 6
By phaedraphelan
Word Count: 451O
Summary: Sherlock and Joan continue to explore all the aspects of their relationship and manage the complicated aspects of their work together.
Disclaimer: All rights to these characters belong to CBS and NBC and no infringement is intended.
Sherlock and Joan made their way home by nearly midnight. They had thoroughly enjoyed their time with Remington and Laura Steele and each had much to say.
"Well, they are quite the couple, aren't they?" Sherlock said, as they walked along hand-in-hand to the brownstone. "Can you see us in a few years with children and still loving each other so hard?"
"I would like to be like them," Joan said. "I love you so hard now. I can just imagine how it would feel to carry your baby inside me."
"I would be honored for you to carry for me, to see with your belly full like that and to know that I was responsible would be thrilling beyond words. We just have to get Jamie Moriarty out of our life. I thought it was all over when they caught her and put her away, but it doesn't appear to be the end, does it? She keeps writing me these letters."
"And now she is writing me. She said that she would like to be with me. She hit on me, Sherlock! I didn't pick her up on it, but she just acted like I hadn't said anything. Do you know of her being bisexual?"
Sherlock turned to face Joan in the street.
" Watson, I did not know. But I cannot say that anything surprises me from her. She has no scruples, no moral limits that I know of. I realize now the full depths of her deception in my case."
"Well, she doesn't know how I feel on that score, but I think that you do. There is a particularly fabulous and beautifully intact part of you that is beyond duplication, that I would not forsake for any reason, not to mention cuddling in your arms and kissing your lips . . . whenever that happens."
"I'm glad that my being intact pleases you so. You obviously have a decided preference."
"Well, the idea that my man's genitalia look like they belong to a museum piece is quite appealing . . . I find you supremely handsome in that area, my dear Sherlock."
Sherlock took Joan into his arms and held her again right in the street so tightly that he took her breath away, rocking her from side to side.
"My God! Joan, I love you so."
"Laura Steele told me that if Moriarty tries to touch me, I should deck her, and you'd better believe that I will follow that advice."
"Let's get home where we can properly address our feelings tonight," Sherlock said, taking her by the hand as they headed to the subway to Brooklyn.
When they got inside their house, Sherlock pressed Joan against the door as soon as it was closed and kissed her over and over.
"Oh, God, I want you! I want you, Joan!" he groaned, pulling her coat off and tossing it onto the floor.
" Sherlock! Sherlock! I will take care of you."
Then they simply went to the bedroom that they now shared and without a word undressed each other.
" Come to bed and let me make love to you, my dear Watson," he said drawing into his arms and then kissing her again and again, opening up her whole mouth to his so that he could taste and savor her lips, her tongue.
He was touching Joan the way he loved to do, telling her how lovely every part of her body was to him, groaning within himself as his hand searched for comfort from her flesh and found it, caressing her in that inimitable manner that was so uniquely him, reducing Joan to trembling in his arms.
"Oh, Sherlock! Sherlock! Yes, baby!" Joan moaned as she received all Sherlock's caresses.
"My darling Joan, you are so beautiful in every way. Just walking with you and knowing that you are completely mine . . ." Sherlock's voice caught in his throat and he simply buried his face between her breasts. "What are we going to do about Moriarty? I fear that our relationship will trigger some terrible reaction in that woman, and I must protect you."
"Do you love me, Sherlock?"
"Lord, yes! You know how I feel. I don't want to leave you for a moment!"
"Then just love me, Sherlock. I trust that you will take care of me."
Sherlock took Joan at that moment and she just cried out his name as they came together and began to rock in the timeless movements of coitus.
This was their reality. It was what they lived for now, this passionate connection that they enjoyed and sought again and again.
"Please, Sherlock! Sherlock! Yes, baby!"
"It's all right, Joanie . . . all right . . . so beautiful, Joanie!"
Joan trembled uncontrollably as wave after wave of passion caught and held her fast in its grip and then released her in her moment of complete surrender.
"Sherlock!" Joan sighed.
"Oh, God, Joan! Joan!" Sherlock was shaking, seized with spasms as his climax rolled over him.
As they lay still joined, basking in the afterglow, reveling in the sensations that were still surging through them, experiencing the depth of the connection between them, Joan breathed in the fragrance of Sherlock's semen, as the essence of him seemed to permeate her very being.
"Your semen smells like fresh cut grass, Sherlock. My body loves it so."
"Some women find their consort's semen to be most stimulating. I am delighted to give you what your body craves, luv. I must say that you are the only woman that I have shared my essence with, Joan."
"My baby. . . You have been so careful all these years?"
"I have scrupulously refrained from spilling my seed into any other woman. Ir-Moriarty did not want me to share in that way. And I have never been with anyone that I had the urge to father a child with till I became involved this way with you. My seed belongs to you, luv, only to you."
Joan sighed in Sherlock's arms.
"When I detect my scent on you, Joan, the sensation just overwhelms me so. To know that you have received me completely without reservation . . . such a peculiarly intimate sensation when it happens . . . so beautiful, something that I would never give to a woman that I did not know as I know you."
Joan snuggled even closer and clung to Sherlock as their passions took hold of them again and Sherlock lost control and took Joan again without further ado as Joan wailed his name.
"Joan! Joan! Oh, my darling!" Sherlock cried out as he lost all restraint, bringing her to ecstasy again and again.
"My Sherlock! I love you so, so much! You take my breath away! Sherlock!"
Joan gripped Sherlock's shoulders, scratching long red welts across his flesh, and then her eyes rolled back in her head and Joan went limp in his arms as Sherlock took her over the top for a final time, lost in the spasms that gripped her.
"Oh, luv. . . luv. . . It 's all right . . . all right," Sherlock soothed her as she shook and trembled in surrender.
But then as Sherlock felt her total capitulation, he was seized in that moment as blue white lights burst in his brain, crying out in agony as his pelvis jerked in powerful spasms till finally they both lay exhausted.
"Thank you, luv . . . my darling Joan, please love me always the way you love me tonight," Sherlock whispered in Joan's ear as he held her on his chest.
"Umm. . . just . . . hold me . . .love."
Sherlock wakened in the middle of the night. His mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the Moriarty situation. He wanted to do whatever he could to protect Joan and his analytic mind was racing. He slipped out of bed, pulled his sweat shirt and pants onto his naked body and went upstairs to the roof where those letters were hidden in the beehive and retrieved them. He sat for a long time looking out at the quiet city and reflecting on his life with Joan. Finally he went back down the stairs from the roof and made a pot of tea and made a fire and then sat on the sofa and drank his tea as he thought about the changes that had come about in his life since Joan came into it.
He thought about the woman he had left upstairs and his eyes filled.
My Joan, my woman, you have made such a change in me. I just think about you and my heart pounds. I feel like I'm married to you already, luv. Holding you when you come in my arms, trembling and shaking the way you do, I'm holding the most beautiful gift a man could imagine. I just need to know how to protect you. I want to walk with you when your belly is huge for me. I want to see our bairn sucking at your breasts. I want to see that contentment in your eyes and know that I am the man responsible.
Sherlock groaned within himself as his thoughts took him back up to the bed he now shared with Joan as his flesh betrayed his urges.
Sherlock was at the point of going back to bed when Joan wakened and came downstairs, her hair tousled, her face fresh from sleep and she was at that moment the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
"I missed you in bed, baby."
Joan came and sat next to him on the sofa and snuggled close to him.
"I was coming back up. . . I. . . I felt the need of you . . . as I thought about you."
Sherlock took her hand and drew it to where he wanted it and smiled tenderly at Joan as she blushed in his arms.
"Sherlock . . ." Joan knew that it belonged to her and her alone as Sherlock groaned his pleasure at her touch.
"We are so . . . so perfect when we come together, when we are one. It's perfect, luv."
Joan climbed across his lap and they came together there in a stunning mating that took them all the way to the crest and tossed them over it.
As they lay together afterward, Joan noticed the stack of letters on the coffee table.
"Moriarty's letters," she stated.
"Yes, and you have some now as well. Please put them there and we will handle them all as well as any other that she may send. We have to present a united defense, luv. I do know that we must not let her 'divide and conquer,' in our case. Would you agree, Joan?"
Joan nodded in agreement.
"Then you can bring the ones she sent to you and we will deal with them for what they are. I would say that we should destroy them. . . If you agree. We can't let her get inside our heads. We have to get through and past this so that we can continue with our lives, Joan. I want to marry you and have children with you. Did you see how happy the Steeles were tonight, talking about their children? I want that for us. I never saw it before till I met you and . . . fell so completely in love with you, Joan Watson."
"I am just afraid that something is going to change, or that all of this is somehow just a dream. It was just a few weeks ago that you were still bringing those women in here. It hurt me so. And I couldn't do anything about it."
Sherlock caught Joan up and kissed her hard and then held her, staring into her eyes, trying to convey how deeply he felt at that moment.
"I am so sorry, Joan, but I was fighting the feelings I had for you. But the more I fought, the more I wanted you. I can't even remember the names of half of those women. The feelings you engendered in me terrified me."
"You referred to coitus as just exercise, Sherlock."
"That is how I viewed it. Till I met you I had no concept of the emotional commitment when you have intercourse with one you truly love. I knew for a long time that I loved you. Did I not tell you that I viewed you as exceptional? Did I not tell you that I am better with you? I just didn't connect it with the strong sexual attraction I was having toward you. I couldn't believe that I could fail to deduce such a thing."
"Your basic premise was flawed. As the song says 'you thought love was too plebeian.' You somehow felt it beneath you to simply give in and love another human so completely that you cannot think about anything or anyone else. But that is how we are made. And if we find that one person, that one that is our mate, it is such an irresistible thing, Sherlock, there is nothing to do but be thankful that we have found that one."
"Dear Lord, yes! Yes!" Sherlock cried. "All that I am cries out for you, Joanie!"
He caught her up onto his lap and kissed her passionately, holding her so tightly that he took Joan's breath away as he frantically rubbed her flank.
"Please take me back upstairs, Sherlock," Joan begged him. "I do love you so very much."
Dawn was just beginning to break as Sherlock carried Joan back up the stairs to their bed and laid her down.
"Close the shutters, Sherlock, I don't want this night to be over yet. I want to stay in bed with you till noon at least. Is there anything we absolutely must do?"
"Only this, luv," Sherlock said as he crouched over her.
At ten o'clock Sherlock's cell phone rang and he and Joan reluctantly wakened.
"Umm, Sherlock, please don't tell me that we have to get up now," Joan pleaded.
"Sherlock, there's been a new development in the case of Marc Albu, the man who found murdered in Central Park." Greyson wanted them.
"Joan, luv. We have to go back and talk to Mr. Albu's lover again. She thinks his murder was not a random act of violence."
"Sherlock, please give me just a few minutes."
"Take a few more minutes. I'm going to shower and make coffee."
Sherlock gave Joan a quick buss on her lips and went to take his shower.
Joan gradually pulled herself from bed, prepared herself and went downstairs to Sherlock who winked at her as he handed her a steaming cup of coffee.
"You really wanted me to wear these black leather pants?"
"I need something substantial between your lovely arse and my hands, Joan. I find you so tempting these days."
Sherlock caught her by the waist and held her, fixing her with his blue-eyed stare before kissing her soundly on her mouth.
"I hope we can get home before too late today, Sherlock."
"Come, luv. We don't want to have Gregson waiting. But I promise to make it up to you," Sherlock smiled down tenderly at Joan as he held her coat for her as they prepared to leave for the precinct.
On their way they got a call from Tommy Gregson suggesting that they head uptown to interview Marjorie McIntyre again. They found her in her 5th Avenue apartment near hysteria.
"Mr. Holmes. I should have been totally candid with you when we spoke earlier on this matter. I should have given you this."
She handed Sherlock an envelope.
"I know what you and Marc are doing. I know he's the father of your son. $20,000 will protect your son from the ridicule of his prep school pals."
The note was not signed. It contained directions for a post office box drop As well as a photo of Marjorie McIntyre and Marc Albu in a serious embrace in the kitchen of her apartment.
"Did you pay this blackmailer?" Sherlock asked.
Marc did not want me to send the money, but I had to protect my son."
"Did Marc have an idea as to who would do something like that?" Joan queried.
"He said that he did, that I didn't need to worry. When he was killed, I was devastated of course, but I thought that the threat of blackmail was removed. When I received a second note after Marc's death, I realized that the threat was still present."
"Why would you think that Mr. Albu's death would change things? Your son was still fair game for major embarrassment. And you are the one with the money."
Sherlock sniffed the blackmail note and then handed the note to Joan and asked her to examine it carefully as well. Joan also carefully smelled the note.
"Your cook is in today?," Joan asked.
"She has Monday off."
"And she is from Tuscany." Sherlock stated it as a fact. "May my partner inspect your kitchen? You know what to look for, Watson."
Joan went into the huge polished kitchen and found the cabinet where the cooking oils were stored and found a bottle of extremely hard to obtain olive oil from a small family-owned farm in Tuscany, wrapped it carefully in a linen dish towel and brought it back to Sherlock.
"It's the same oil, Sherlock, the same as that stain on the note."
"Why that is the oil Anne-Marie insists on using! She has it imported for her use here. It is the only one that she will use."
"I would assume such, Mrs. McIntyre. I must say that your cook appears to be involved with the blackmail. She is married?"
"She is married to my chauffeur. He is off today as well. But they have always been so loyal. Jean-Luc and Anne-Marie have been with me for more than ten years."
"And they knew about you and Marc Albu? As well as your net worth." Joan stated as a fact.
"We will need to have them picked up, Mrs. McIntyre. We should get the story from them under interrogation," Sherlock said. "The investigation should move forward from here. We will need you to come down to the precinct when we do the interrogation. We need the address of these people."
"We may not be able to protect your privacy, Mrs. McIntyre," Joan said. "You may have to have answer some important questions from your son. There is nothing like the truth to put blackmailers out of business."
Sherlock and Joan left a very shattered Marjorie McIntyre as they left to make their report to Tommy Gregson. As they headed to the train they discussed the case.
"I must commend you for your analysis of the oil stain on that note. You are excelling in your abilities, luv. I must commend you."
"It was so obvious when I smelled that note. I would never have known my sense of smell could be so highly developed."
"I am constantly impressed with you, luv."
Sherlock drew Joan even closer as they walked arm in arm down Lexington Avenue.
When they got to the precinct, Marcus Bell already had the cook and chauffeur in custody and Gregson was waiting for Sherlock and Joan to be present for the interrogation.
Jean-Luc Francoise and his wife Anne-Marie were in their mid-forties, their demeanor already suggesting their guilt. When Sherlock set the bottle of rare olive oil on the table, it was obvious that they sensed that " the jig was up."
"You two simply need to fill in a couple of blanks. We have deduced that you were blackmailing your employer. You, as trusted members of the house staff knew what was going on between Marjorie McIntyre and Marc Albu and decided to profit from that information." Sherlock said.
"Somehow Marc Albu figured out that you were the ones behind the scheme and confronted you, M. Francoise, when you followed him after he had been at the apartment for one of his trysts with Mrs. McIntyre," Joan added. "The oil stain on the note was this same special olive from Tuscany that we found in the kitchen of the apartment on 5th Avenue. Chemical analysis will confirm this."
"Suppose you two just fill in the blanks here. It will make it easier on you two," Gregson admonished them.
"He made me write the note," Anne-Marie said, beginning to crumble in the situation.
"Shut up, you stupid fool!" Jean-Luc said, and at the same time jumped from his chair, grabbing Joan Watson, putting her in front of him. He had a vise grip on Joan's upper arms.
Sherlock saw red when Francoise seized Joan.
"Unhand her right now or you will regret it."
Bell slipped behind Francoise and put his gun between the man's ribs."
"Let her go," he said firmly and quietly.
Francoise released her and she ran into Sherlock's arms and he held her, smoothing her hair, whispering soft words to console her.
Detective Bell quickly called for aid and the Francoises were taken into custody on the spot and hustled out.
When Bell and Gregson looked at Sherlock and Joan, her face was buried in Sherlock's chest and he was still holding her in his embrace. They were completely oblivious to the presence of anyone else in the room.
"You two do remember where you are?" Gregson reminded them. These blinds blinds do close and I am closing them. I'll talk with you two later."
Gregson and Bell left the room and gave Sherlock and Joan their privacy.
Joan was still shaking in Sherlock's arms.
"It's all right, luv. I have you in my arms."
"He was so strong, Sherlock. Everything changed so quickly. That was frightening."
"But we were all here. And you are safe now." Sherlock kissed Joan all over her face as he held her tight.
"Ouch, my arms . . . "
Sherlock pulled off Joan's soft cardigan so that he could check her upper arms where Jean-Luc had grabbed her. Her arms were already showing bruise marks.
"My God! Joan! He injured you. I'm so sorry. I was trying to get in front of you to protect you."
"Just take me home, Sherlock, where you can kiss it some more and make it all better."
Sherlock carefully put her cardigan back on her and then he caught her palm and pressed it to his lips before they left to go home.
Sherlock and Joan took a taxi home and Sherlock kept Joan's hand in his as they rode along still rattled by what had happened at the precinct. When they were halfway home, Sherlock's cell phone rang. He spoke briefly and ended the call.
"Who?" Joan asked.
Sherlock smiled at Joan.
"Well, that was Marjorie McIntyre. She wanted to thank us for solving the case. She invited me to visit her so that she could thank me 'properly.' She assured me that her eighteen room apartment will give us as much privacy as we might desire."
"She hit on you! And she knows that we are together . . ."
"And it didn't make any difference to her. You heard what I said. I told her that it would not be possible under any circumstances."
Joan smiled up at Sherlock.
"I am happily monogamous, luv. You are all the woman I need."
End of Chapter