"I haven't gotten any friends! Just the one!" said Sherlock after he had said something insensitive to Joan, causing her to walk off in a huff.
Joanna paused, before she looked at Sherlock and sighed.
He was an insensitive bastard, but he was sweet in his own way at times. Most people were put off with his attitude and bad habits (or his "experiments"). Not to mention the fact he had perfected the art of keeping those who could be his friends at a distance like Lestrade.
If he was willing to break down and admit she was the only person he would consider his friend (enough to openly state the word itself), then maybe she could let her own defenses down enough to show she cared too.
"Well I haven't seen my actual face in little over fourteen years, let alone answered to the name I was born with," she said reluctantly.
Sherlock blinked.
"How could you not see your own face in over fourteen years?" he asked.
Before his eyes, her hair lengthened and turned a bright auburn red color that reached to her shoulders. She rarely let it reach her neck, and it was always blond. The shade differed but the color remained yellowish.
"I'm a metamorph. It comes from my father's side of the family. I just alter it a little bit and use this (she held up her left arm, which had a bracelet around it) to keep it locked that way. My face, eyes and hair were too recognizable, and I didn't want to be forced back to what I could have become if I stayed a Hogwarts student."
"...I can understand you changing your name in an effort to avoid idiots, but you really haven't seen your face in fourteen years?"
She gave him a dry Look. He took the hint.
While she had openly admitted to being an international assassin who no one could positively identify (they had been dancing around it for over a year and it had become something of a joke between them), she rarely let her personal shields down enough to share something as personal as this.
She didn't trust anyone, not since she fled that life to make her own destiny.
The fact she was letting Sherlock in, even a little, spoke volumes. Even more than the small fact that while the drug wasn't affecting her like Sherlock and their client, it was drudging up a lot of old memories she would have killed to keep buried.
They slept in their own beds in Baker Street, when they slept at all. But when Sherlock realized that the drug was affecting Joan when her defenses were at their lowest, he did something rather unexpected.
He suffered the "indignity" of being turned into a human-sized teddy bear by Joan.
Strangely, once he got settled into the bed enough that she was able to 'cuddle' with him (if Mycroft or Lestrade ever had a picture of it they would NEVER let him live it down) he found himself drifting off to actual sleep to the point where he woke up a minute before Joan after the sun had risen.
He had settled in around midnight, and woke up around seven.
Which was why he settled in with Joan for every night they were in the village.
Thanks to a carefully dosed amount of calming draught, the effects of the drug were being curtailed enough that Sherlock could think without his thought process being disturbed. Something he was rather relieved about, since it made accessing his mind palace much easier.
Later...
Sherlock briefly toyed with the idea of letting Joanna become dosed with the drug, but realized that it wouldn't prove a thing because when she was awake her collective experience and body chemistry would render it useless.
So he went for the next best thing. Detective Inspector Lestrade, who Joan had called in. He was as close to the perfect guinea pig as you could get.
He wasn't already dosed by the drug, hadn't developed the same instinctive reaction to danger Joan had, and he was as close to a "normal" person as Sherlock was likely to get without being sued later for it.
Besides, Joan already had the perfect arrangement in place for whenever Sherlock did something "stupid to the point of retaliation" in place for the Scotland Yard for those who were regularly forced to put up with his antics.
Which narrowed the list down to mostly just Lestrade anyway.
If Sherlock did something they couldn't easily forgive within a month of subtly ignoring him, then they were allowed one free hit so long as it wasn't permanently lethal or damaging. The worse the "infraction" the more painful they could make it, up to shooting him in the arse.
Mostly because Joan would eventually remove the bullet to shut Sherlock up. With potions, it would make recovery within a few days.
After the scare Sherlock gave Lestrade, the detective did the smart thing after seeing the subtle nod from Joan.
He broke Sherlock's nose.
"You are such an arse," said Lestrade crossly.
Joan snickered, and Lestrade caught the look on Sherlock's face as he briefly turned to her before he went to work remembering where he had heard the words H.O.U.N.D., Liberty and IN.
It was about bloody time the idiot caught a clue and realized he liked Joan as more than just an assistant/flatmate!
Lestrade mentally cackled with glee at the thought of winning the office betting pool on who would cave first.
He sidled up with Joan while Sherlock was in his 'mind palace' and grinned.
"So... been enjoying a single room have we?"
"One word and you'll experience the same embarrassment I put Donovan and Anderson through. I assure you it's not as hard as you think to track down baby pictures and post them throughout the entire Scotland Yard."
It took Lestrade a few seconds before the threat registered. He held up his hands in a classic sign of 'surrender'.
But he still had that grin on his face.
"Fine. The bed was warmer than it should have been when I've woken up and Sherlock actually displays signs of sleeping and not the meditation thing he does in it's place for once, despite the fact he usually schedules his sleep."
Lestrade was trying very hard not to break into a jig. He had definitely won that office bet.
And everyone had bet that Joan would be the first to make a move! Sherlock might pretend to dislike human interaction, but Lestrade had realized early on that while Joanna was aware of her feelings to Sherlock, she had zero inclination to ruin a friendship with a potential romance.
In other words Sherlock would have to make the first move, or at the very least give off some indication he had feelings other than close friendship or family towards her.
Sharing a bed might not seem like much, but for someone as closed off as Sherlock and Joan, it said a lot.
"I've got it!"
Lestrade was staring at Sherlock and Joanna.
"I don't believe this."
"Just be glad I don't agree with memory wipes and that most of what he saw is covered by that fear drug," said Joanna annoyed.
"You two are part of those damn idiots who keep thinking that their sticks mean we haven't caught onto them already?!"
"Excuse me, but I left before I fell into those bad habits. Sherlock from what I could tell was deliberately home-schooled!" said Joanna.
"Magic makes cases too boring," admitted Sherlock, not denying her claim or the fact he had it. Because he had been home schooled with Mycroft due to the political situation and the fact most wizards would react badly to their personalities.
"I still can't believe you're a witch," said Lestrade.
"I prefer not to use my magic too often, but I can be a world class..."
"No, no I remember your feud with Donovan easily enough. This explains a lot more than it doesn't."
Like how Donovan's clothes seemed to become too small without warning after her insensitive remarks, or the time Anderson started saying the truth and nothing but the truth in front of his wife after he said something the entire department could tell pissed off Joan.
"Although..."
"If you want I can convince the potion masters of my club to see if they can't supply you and the others with an aerosol-version of the truth serum," she said without hesitation.
Lestrade grinned.
"My mouth is shut on you and Sherlock, so long as he admits to acting first," said Lestrade.
"What does that mean?" she asked baffled.
Then she saw how Sherlock wasn't meeting her eyes and put 2 and 2 together.
"...Well that explains a few things."
"The drug produced either nightmares or memories, and the chair was uncomfortable," he said.
"Nightmares don't bother me much, so it must have brought the more unpleasant memories to the surface," she said dismissively.
"Like I said, he has to admit to acting on it first, otherwise I'll never win the office betting pool on when you two finally get together."
"Of course there was a betting pool. What did Donovan and Anderson put their money on?"
"You finally giving in and snogging him senseless or jumping him so he got the hint," said Lestrade without hesitation. "Donovan bet on the shagging part though."
"Expect all her coffee to turn into decaff and her tea to be that herbal crap without any actual caffeine for a month," said Joanna cheerfully.
Joanna hated the herbal teas that didn't have the actual tea leaves in them. If it didn't have Camellia Sinensis, commonly called the tea plant in it, then it didn't qualify as "tea" in her opinion.
Even green tea with honey counted as a proper tea, though that had been the month she tricked Sherlock into eating healthy.
Most people would expect the two to act on their baser urges once they confirmed that they liked each other as romantic partners. Or at the very least go out on public dates.
Most people were not Sherlock, who abhorred normal behavior and knew damn well his brother had him watched with security cameras, or happened to be a surprisingly reserved Joanna who despite popular opinion of her personality rarely went into a physical relationship once she confirmed a mutual interest.
It would shock quite a few people (like Lestrade for instance) to learn that while she had a multitude of girlfriends over the years (lasting from anywhere from six months to two years once), the number of people she slept with was only just in the range of twenty.
She preferred to have a relationship based on an actual connection beyond just sleeping with someone, though she was not adverse to cuddling. It was ironic, but most of her girlfriends were generally women who were either testing out the waters of a lesbian relationship, or found her a "safe" rebound after a bad break-up.
Or in the case of Clara, had left Joanna with the sense of a "sisterly" bond rather than a romantic one. Hence why they were still on fairly good speaking terms and sent Christmas cards.
Considering who she had fallen for, it was probably a good thing Joanna preferred to take things slow, rather than jump into a physical relationship.
Some might ask why Sherlock never took her out on dates like normal couples, but if they asked Joanna on the matter would receive an odd reply.
She considered the cases they went on as dates. She enjoyed seeing Sherlock come alive trying to solve the odd puzzles of the criminal mind, and they usually ate out after leaving the scene anyway.
As for Sherlock... after admitting she hadn't seen her actual face since she was almost fifteen, Joanna slowly let the transformation on her face and other features drop one at a time. It allowed the public to get used to what she really looked like without asking where Joanna Watson was, and it meant she was slowly dropping her guard around Sherlock to show she was letting him in.
The first thing she did was drop the blond hair color, allowing her natural red to show through. Most assumed she had it dyed.
If one were to ask Mycroft who would marry first, him or Sherlock, he would have said without hesitation it would have been him. Sherlock certainly never seemed interested in the fairer sex, or even in his own gender. Mummy had despaired of getting grandchildren from him and had been subtly pressuring Mycroft to marry for years now.
Then came the mysterious Joanna Harriet Watson, and suddenly the question was thrown up in the air. Anyone with eyes that knew Sherlock on a proper level (or spent enough time around him) would have seen his brother slowly but surely falling for her.
While her past and skills were debatable and highly questionable, her loyalty to his brother was not.
Joanna had a skill set that made Mycroft wary, and for good reason. People in his position preferred known quantities.
Every time he thought he had a read on Joanna she did something or let something slip that threw his vision of her into question.
Mycroft, unlike his brother, did not like it when his perspective of a person was so skewed.
She was a soldier, but her background had been falsified by MI6 and that made her a spy.
She was a witch, but she came from a line that contained the rare shapeshifting gift which limited which family she came from.
She was a doctor, but she was one of the most mysterious assassins in the business.
She had a public record, but everything from the age of fifteen was missing and nothing he could do was able to shed light on her original name.
She was patient and kind, but when angered or annoyed she had the most vindictive mind he had ever seen.
"Daddy!"
Mycroft twitched.
The "gift" given to him by Joanna on his birthday (Mummy had valiantly tried not to laugh, but his father hadn't bothered to hide his amusement) was one of the most annoying prank gifts he had ever encountered.
It was a duck-billed platypus that followed him around and had the personality of a five-year old on a sugar high wanting affection.
Anthea had taken one look at it, and despite her best efforts had barely made it to the hallway before laughing. The door had been open, so he heard it from his desk.
The most irritating part...outside of the open amusement his colleagues had given up trying to hide...was the fact that the blast thing followed him everywhere. And he did mean everywhere. It would even jump into his bed (how, he had no idea because he had moved everything to keep it from getting a launch pad) and the thing was indestructible!
And he had tried, oh how he had tried to destroy the blasted doll. He even attempted fiend fire or feeding it to the dragons! Nothing worked! It would show up like some sort of bad rash the next morning, crying "Daddy!"
He was this close to breaking down and asking Joan how to get rid of the evil thing.
Sherlock couldn't hide his smug amusement when Mycroft came to the flat with the...gift... Joan had hand-sown for him.
Quibbs the Platypus (named after the Quibbler, which Joanna had a permanent subscription to) followed Mycroft dutifully like a child. Hearing it say "Daddy" in that sickeningly adorable voice nearly caused him to cackle at his brother's situation.
For someone like Mycroft, who practically embodied prim and proper, it was the worst possible "gift" one could give him. His reputation took a harmless hit whenever he was seen with the thing.
Sherlock, once he had gotten over his evil laughter when he realized what Joan had made for his brother, had loved it.
Some might think he hated Mycroft to send it to his brother, but in reality it was more like an extreme version of "sibling rivalry".
At least according to Joan anyway.
Sherlock didn't do half-measures when it came to getting under his older brother's skin, and the pained expression Mycroft had whenever it showed up after an attempt to destroy it had been hilarious.
Joanna had been nice enough to compile a photo album of them.
Mycroft cast a long, annoyed look at Quibbs, before almost begging Joanna.
"Please?"
"What do you think Sherlock? Has he suffered enough?"
Sherlock hid his smirk from his girlfriend (yes, Lestrade did win the pool to the shock of the others since he was the ONLY one who bet Sherlock would move first) before going back to his experiments.
"I suppose I could give you the method to deactivate Quibbs. You just need to hug him for fifteen seconds."
"That's it?" said Mycroft in disbelief.
"That's it. Of course if you do something to really, really piss me off I'll reactivate it from a far and you'll really have owe me big to deactivate it a second time."
Mycroft noticed Sherlock grabbing a camera, and decided the embarrassment of hugging...Quibbs...was a small price to pay in order to turn the damn thing off.
Mycroft hugged the doll long enough for Sherlock to get plenty of blackmail material (Joanna took a few with her phone)...and to his relief the thing slumped and went silent.
"Oh and by the way...the doll has an automatic port key that will return it to your office if you try to get rid of it. It'll return no matter how hard you try to dispose of it, so get used to having it in your office," said Joanna with glee.
Mycroft looked annoyed, but at least the doll wasn't stalking him anymore. He could find a way to cover it's presence up.