Jo was ridiculously nervous. She was sitting in a fashionable restaurant on her lunch break and doing her best not to fiddle with her phone as she waited. She had only been there for a few minutes when she saw Jackson walk through the door. They embraced and then sat down to order. It was slightly awkward at first, but by the time they got their food they had relaxed and were bantering back and forth easily.
"I heard about what happened with McGovern," he said once there was a lull in the conversation. Jo sighed; it had been a month since the attack and she really just wanted to forget that it had happened and move on. Jack didn't wait for her to say anything before continuing. "I mean, obviously you seem pretty okay, but are you really okay or are you faking?"
She shrugged. "I'm alright. I mean, I've been better, but I've been a lot worse. I've gotten over freaking out every time someone comes up behind me, so there's that."
"That's good," he answered, smiling at her.
She sighed. "And what about you? How are you adjusting to being home?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. Some days it's great, and others I'm doing my best not to completely lose it. And sometimes I miss it, and I feel guilty for it, but sometimes I wish I was still there."
"I know what you mean," she replied. "It's not that I miss the bombs or the blood, put I miss having a purpose and knowing what I had to do and then doing it well. And I miss Pack; God I miss having a pack."
He nodded. "Definitely. Izzy helps though, and I've never needed a really big Pack, and she's more than worth giving it up. What about Sherlock? He seems to have claimed you as one of his own."
"It's complicated," she answered with a shrug. "Sometimes it seems like he has, and then he goes and does something stupid and ridiculous and I feel like I'm just as in the dark as everyone else. I'd like him to be Pack - God knows he's the closest thing I've got right now - but I don't know if I'm his. And that's one of those things that has to go both ways."
Jackson smiled at her reassuringly. "Trust me, you're his Pack. It may be hard to see when you're in the middle of it, but from an outside perspective, it's obvious. The only question is whether your his Alpha or he's yours."
Jo rolled her eyes. "Neither. We're equals. If it's his area of expertise then I take orders from him, and vice versa."
"Well that's no fun," he pouted. "What a sickeningly logical way to live your life."
She laughed. "Oh come on, you're really going to tell me that you don't defer to Isabella at least some of the time."
"Hey," he said, pointing at her in mock seriousness. "I have never claimed that Isabella was anything other than in complete control." She laughed and he quickly joined in.
"So, when's the wedding?" Jo asked once they had quieted.
Jackson practically beamed as he answered her. "Next month. Planning a wedding is surprisingly easy when it's not actually legal and you don't have many friends."
"It's good that you're so excited," she replied with a smile. "How's Isabella dealing with it all?"
He shrugged. "She's excited, mostly, but she's really stressed. Apparently something has gone wrong with her dress and she's freaking out just a little. It's actually the reason why we came into the city today. I almost feel bad for the dress maker: Isabella can be pretty terrifying when she wants to be." Jo chuckled.
"If the dress is the only thing that goes wrong then you should count yourself lucky."
He ducked his head. "Actually, we've been having trouble finding someone to actually perform the binding. Not many people are willing to bind a lycan and a human."
"I'm sorry," she answered with a sigh. "I wish things were different."
Jack looked up, forcing himself to make eye contact. "Typically, Bindings are performed by the Pack Alpha, and although I don't have a traditional pack, I do have one - our pack, your pack. We've always had an Alpha, Jo…"
She shook her head, her eyes widening. "Jack…"
He continued, ignoring her attempt at interruption. "Jo you can't deny that we're Pack; you me, Liam, Bill, Jim - we're Pack and you know it."
"Of course we are," she answered quickly.
He nodded. "And you're our Alpha; you always have been."
"Jack, I'm not…" she said, shaking her head.
He interrupted her. "Yes you are Jo. Who else would it be?"
"I don't know," she said quietly, hanging her head.
He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. "Jo, there's not anyone else. You've always been the one that held us together and kept us in line. And when you left Liam took over because he's your mate and that's how it works. Got it?" There was a slight pause before she nodded. He smiled brightly at her. "So, what do you say? Will you do it?"
"Do you really want me to perform your Binding Ceremony?" She asked, sounding skeptical.
He nodded, still smiling. "Of course I do. Isabella and I talked about it, and we both agreed that there's no one else we would rather have do it." Jo broke into a grin.
"It would be an honor," she said happily. "Thank you."
Jackson shook his head. "You don't have to thank me. You're my Alpha; this is your right." Jo squeezed his hand before they moved onto lighter subjects, like the locked room triple homicide she and Sherlock had just finished.
When Jo go home from work Sherlock looked up from the foot he was dissecting in order to perform his customary analysis of how she had spent her day. When she had first moved in, she had found this scrutiny disconcerting, but after a while she began to see it as a compliment; after all, there weren't many things that Sherlock was willing to take active notice of every day, especially not to the extent of taking time out of Work - even if it was only a minute or two. Normally, he would just nod to show that he had finished his analysis or would remark on something that he found particularly obnoxious or boring; occasionally he would ask a question if she had done something he found interesting. On this particular evening he just looked confused (which was a hard expression to recognize in the detective, because he usually hid it quite well behind a mask of arrogance). Jo took a moment to revel in the fact that she had finally done something Sherlock couldn't entirely deduce for himself (she was ignoring the fact that apparently her having lunch with a friend was so anomalous as to cause serious issue).
"Who did you have lunch with?" Sherlock finally asked, looking more than a little put out that he was unable to come up with the answer on his own. "I know it wasn't a lover because you aren't currently dating someone and you're always at least a little stressed after a first date. And it wasn't a colleague because then you would have eaten at the sandwich shop like you normally do. So who was it?"
She smiled happily at him and finally entered the kitchen. "I had lunch with Jackson. The wedding is next month, so he and Isabella had to come into the city to work out some last minute details. Isabella had to do something with her dress, so I had lunch with Jackson."
"I should have known," he replied, sounding almost bitter. "Only a good friend would have you looking so relaxed and cheerful after such a painfully dull day at work."
She started unloading her shopping bags, ignoring the fact that he had yet to go back to his foot. "Jackson invited you to the wedding; he wanted to be very clear that he was inviting you separately from me."
"Really?" He asked, sounding pleasantly surprised. "That's unexpected."
Jo shrugged. "I told you he liked you. The invitation's in my bag if you want it." Sherlock immediately picked her briefcase up off the counter and started going through it; he kept talking as he searched.
"You're happier than just a pleasant meal and a wedding invitation warrants; what else happened?"
She smiled to herself, both impressed and flattered by his deductions about her emotional state. "Jack and Isabella want me to officiate the ceremony."
Sherlock's head snapped up and he stared searchingly at her back. "But that's usually done by the Pack Alpha."
"Yes, it is," she answered simply. "Did you do anything to that beef I left in the fridge? I wanted to make a stir-fry with it." It was a painfully obvious attempt at changing the subject, but, as he often found himself doing when it came to Jo, Sherlock let the matter go, filing the information away for future reference.
"The beef is fine," he stated, sitting back down at the table with his invitation. "Did you know that you tend to cook more the closer it gets to the full moon. The Lycan Cycle starts a week from today, so we probably won't eat out again unless a particularly busy case comes up."
She hummed as she began to get out the ingredients she needed. "I hadn't noticed that my culinary habits coincided with the phases of the moon. Do you have any theories as to why that is?"
"It's probable that it's a subconscious response to the fact that you worry about me more during the full moon," he answered as he prepared the foot for storage (he knew from experience that Jo did not respond well to dissections while she was preparing food). "Although I don't know why you would worry about me more at the full mood when I'm technically at my strongest."
Jo rolled her eyes even though her friend couldn't see. "I worry because there are morons out there who don't have even a basic understanding of lycanthropy, and silver bullets aren't exactly hard to get." He hummed but didn't say anything; he did, however, smile to himself, pleased by the fact that she was willing to voice how much she cared.