Joanna wasn't mad about the bombs on her chest. Oh no, she was positively livid with fury.
Death threats she could handle. She practically lived with them for years before she changed her name.
However being forced to play the damsel in distress to lure her flatmate to his possible doom? That pissed her off.
If she had her other phone on her (she had left it in the house to avoid tipping off the insane moron who put bombs on her) she would have sent a world-wide alert that someone who fit Moriarty's description had officially entered her shit list of people that would soon be dead.
The more he angered her, the more severe her retribution would become until there was nothing left.
Right now he was on the lower tier of that list. Just enough that she wouldn't hesitate to end him if she had the chance. The more he angered her, the higher the priority of his death would become.
Most of her "list" were currently six feet under, with one or two extreme glaring exceptions.
Joanna was fuming, but her irritation was slowly drained when she heard honest concern about her health from Sherlock. The look of actual interest in her personal welfare, despite his apathy to everything else spoke volumes of his level of interest in her as a person.
When she had the chance, she grabbed Moriarty with one arm and her other hand was in her expanded pocket grabbing a decent handful of Peruvian darkness powder.
"Any last words, Dr. Watson?" said Moriarty in a far too calm and cheerful manner.
"Yes. So long and thanks for all the fish," she deadpanned, before she unleashed the powder.
Thanks to her rather quick reflexes, she was able to hit the bastard with a switching charm (thus putting the bombs on him instead) at the same time she tackled Sherlock and side-along apparated them straight to her clinic in the span of six seconds.
It would take Sherlock a grand total of fifteen minutes before he finally asked the question that bugged him more than the overt use of magic. (Odds are he had guessed Joanna was a witch by this point, but she rarely used magic at home.)
"Why did you say 'So long and thanks for all the fish'?"
"I was quoting a movie. Seemed appropriate and odd enough that it would drive him possibly sane trying to figure out the hidden message," she explained.
"Drive him sane?"
"He's a psychotic bastard who thought I'd let him get away with groping me with the pretense of putting bombs on me. I hate being the damsel in distress," scowled Joanna. "He's insane enough that the only way to go is sanity."
"You are alright aren't you?" asked Sherlock with actual concern.
"Just furious and hoping he sends more people after us so I have an excuse to shoot someone," Joanna assured him.
Hearing her declaration of murderous intent (something she normally only spoke of after an encounter with Donovan or Anderson on a bad day...or that time of the month) Sherlock relaxed knowing his doctor was alright. She only got that way when she was more angry than injured.
The one and only time she came down with something, it had taken the combined efforts of Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade to get her to rest in bed until her flu had passed. Sherlock was the only person to know that her defenses were increased, rather than let down during the entire week she had been sick.
He was also the only person who knew that Joanna was a chronic insomniac. Two nights out of the week she would have nightmares that kept her from a sound sleep, to which she would spend the entire night playing either games or reading with her headphones on.
The only reason he knew that was because after he realized her bad habit, he managed to drag her into the living room where his own inability to sleep had him playing the violin until five in the morning.
The odd companionship the two had during that time had only made their friendship stronger, as strange as it was. Joanna actually had a preference for classical music, and sometimes played music that complemented whatever Sherlock was playing at the moment.
Sherlock also didn't really pay much attention to her late-night hacking sessions.
More than one time she left a lewd and horrifying picture on the desktop of Anderson or Donovan for them to find in the morning...or left random things for Lestrade to find on his computer.
They still had yet to figure out who the culprit was.
There was a positive upswing of cases after the incident with Moriarty.
One of which was an odd broadcast for exactly twenty seconds on every screen with Moriarty's face along with a single black iris inside a black circle in the UK.
Mycroft had been most put out with that (as much as he got) and had actually dragged himself to Baker street to question his brother on whether he had hired a hacker to place the recognizable sign of someone who had attracted the ire of the Black Iris to the point she made it known someone would end up dead in short order.
As the last high-profile person to be kidnapped, Joanna was questioned thoroughly. Outside of mentioning a vague reference to there being a "Iris" in her club that she went to at least three times a month, Mycroft left without any definitive clue as to why the infamous Iris had targeted the madman.
Sherlock, on the other hand, looked at his flatmate with knowing eyes and increased interest.
Joanna had looked particularly vindictive the night before that picture went out.
Even he had heard of the Black Iris, but he had never been openly interested in the woman. Outside of a few token (if very, very high profile appearances) she wasn't really of note. About the only reason Sherlock even bothered to remember her profile was the fact that no one had ever gotten a definitive idea of what she looked like, how old she was or what her victims did to get on her bad side to the point she completely annihilated them so thoroughly that nothing could rise from the ashes of what she left behind.
When she wanted to destroy someone, she left nothing behind unless it was a child well under the age of eleven.
Considering most of the people she went after employed boarding schools to keep their children safe from their criminal activities, it was never an actual issue. Outside of the one time she left behind a survivor too young to ID her.
After Mycroft's visit he immediately went over what little he knew of his flatmate in an effort to figure out what sort of possible connection Joanna had with the infamous Black Iris.
The fact he was coming up short did not make Sherlock happy, as he could tell Joanna had been half-lying to Mycroft about an Iris in her club.
There was an Iris in her club, but it wasn't the one Mycroft actually wanted to interrogate.
Displeased with his lack of information, Sherlock decided to do something he never would have prior to the incident.
He opted to join Joanna in her club visits. She had left an open invitation to join her after all.
Joanna's "club" was in fact a discreet gathering of first generation and half-blooded magicals who made a point to have regular meetings to share spells, potion recipes and just chat.
Outside of a brief introduction, the fact that Sherlock was at the club didn't really warrant any interest or surprise. It was common for members to bring in new people to the meetings.
Well, outside of Joanna's friends voicing their amusement she had finally dragged her flatmate to visit.
Sherlock actually found himself relaxing in the cheerful atmosphere. Some people were openly amused by his blunt deductions, rather than the offended looks he usually got. It was...nice.
"So I heard the Black Iris had made another death mark recently," said Mrs. Jones.
"Oh yes. He was quite rude from what I heard. He actually had the audacity to grope her while holding her at gunpoint and put actual bombs on her chest!" said Joanna with a straight face.
Sherlock's interest jumped at that. So the Black Iris was one of the victims of Moriarty's bomb scheme?
"Surely that couldn't have angered her that much to post his face and her calling card on every screen in Europe," said Clara Oswald, Joanna's ex-girlfriend.
"Normally not, but he also made her a damsel in distress. You know she loathes that."
"I bet. Then again she is a Black. Being made to feel weak is one thing that's guaranteed to rile them up," said Clara dryly.
Sherlock felt like kicking himself.
Black Iris was obviously her real name flipped backwards.
Iris Potter-Black had been missing for years, and if anyone could commit a near untraceable crime and hide their identity, it would be the missing girl-who-lived. Or woman-who-survived, as her current ridiculous hyphenated name went.
After the minor war, the woman had vanished off the face of the earth.
Sherlock was successfully preoccupied trying to discover the identity of the Black Iris.
So much so that he started mingling with the others, all of whom were openly amused at his attempts to discern how they all knew who the Black Iris was.
Once he was far enough that not even his hearing could detect it (the cameras were always disabled for the meeting) Clara turned to an amused Joanna.
"He has no idea, does he?"
"For someone so wonderfully observant and intelligent, he can be surprisingly dim about the obvious. He also hasn't figured out that I haven't been dating another woman for well over two months since I moved in with him," said Joanna with mirth.
Clara hid her smirk. It wouldn't do for Sherlock to figure out the truth just yet. Not when Joanna was clearly having a great deal of fun at his expense without telling him why.
"It looks like the infamous Joanna has finally found a man that won't 'bore her to tears'," she said with laughter in her voice.
Joanna was infamous among their circles for her disdain of men. Especially those that thought the word "lesbian" was an open invitation for a threesome with an adventurous pair of girls. She was particularly well known for ripping such fools apart within moments of their stupidity becoming known.
She wondered if Mycroft had picked up on this fact.
Either way she considered the entire night a smashing success...in that Sherlock had yet to annoy any of her friends to the point he was hexed black and blue.
"Explain why there is a new DVD player attached to our equally new TV," said Sherlock crossly. He hated TV...it dulled the brain. So the presence of the TV and disc player irked him something fierce.
"I have here a series even you would agree with," said Joanna. In her hand was a DVD series. The title was scrawled on the case in red.
It was called "Scorpion".
Out of the series she thought he might appreciate the main character's thought processes. It was either that or Big Bang Theory, and she thought the second was a bit too main stream to corrupt Sherlock with pop culture.
Sherlock was rather bored and cross with Joanna for infecting his room with the devices, and only sat down to watch out of protest.
After the first disc he was somewhat less cross, but still confused why Joanna had done this.
Then the motive became so obvious he kicked himself for missing it a week later.
She was determined to get him addicted to Doctor Who, her favorite series on the telly.
It was either that or force him to watch soaps with Mrs. Hudson during his periods of boredom. That would drive Sherlock absolutely batty, so he acquiesced to Joanna's idea of relaxing.
Of course that didn't count the amusing expression Mycroft had when he saw the TARDIS blanket Sherlock was wrapped up in while watching the series.
Clearly Dr. Watson knew exactly how to handle someone like Sherlock. Which certainly made Mummy happy, as it meant there was a high probability that the two would end up together as a couple.
Thanks to the blog, Sherlock had a steady stream of clients asking for help. Her writing skills weren't top notch (according to Sherlock anyway) but the interest was still strong because she could put the cases in a way that got people interested.
The fact several of the titles were borrowed from the old stories was just icing on the cake.
Sherlock had not been overly amused when Joanna bought the complete set and gave it to Lestrade as a joke.
She almost gave it to Anderson, but frankly she hated him too much to consider giving him anything save snide comments.
(Lestrade had figured out that it was Watson leaving the horrifying pictures on the computers belonging to Anderson and Donovan...and the random things that made his day weeks ago. Well, more like she hinted at it in the cover of the book on a post-it note.)
Though he was downright irritated when she kept the deerstalker hat and even gave him a pipe that fit the general description of the one in the books complete with a fresh tobacco pack.