Entry tags:

!log/thread, joan watson, sherlock holmes (elementary)

who sherlock & joan
what reunion!
where outside her quarantine room
when after she's arrived
warnings TW: REFERENCES TO DRUG ADDICTION/RECOVERY/RELAPSE

From the moment Sherlock received notice that Watson had arrived, his Watson, he had been in a tizzy. The glorious shock to his system extended to the device he had been tinkering with, setting off a spark that singed his fingers and trickled down into a much larger explosion of flour all over his person. The subsequent bang, part of the device he’d fashioned as a means to reset his palate, would irk his neighbors, and he couldn’t be bothered to care.

Not that he ever really did.

Hastily cleaning himself off, he set off a notice to Watson that he would be along shortly. A very disgruntled driver came to pick him up and drop him off at the facility, and Sherlock appreciated the man for his silence and entire lack of inquiries.

Still slightly spattered by flour despite his efforts to dust it off (changing clothes would have been far too tedious), he made quite the spectacle bursting into the facility and issuing demands. Eventually, Sherlock was taken to her quarantine room. There, he saw her and was momentarily stunned to silence.

It had been months since Sherlock had seen her. He didn’t cope well without Watson. If not for his attempts to learn how to do so in the first place, the presence of Emma and now Jesse, he would have given in to insanity. Or addiction.

His face was restrained, hands clenched tightly behind his back (coffee and all), and his efforts to contain himself left Sherlock at a loss for words -- for once.

“Watson,” finally he uttered. “Good. You’ve arrived. Safely, I hope.”

---

The explanation for things was all somewhat lacking. Joan didn’t feel like she’d been able to suitably get her head around things. Granted, she knew that it would likely take longer than anyone had time for when it came to explanations.

Quarantine, as she’d been told, would last two days, would involve a rather comfortable room and access to the network of residents and streaming sites. Which meant she would at least have some time to unwind and take things in. The fact that the other residents seemed to understand completely, and some know of her, at least allowed Joan the opportunity to accept a few degrees of normalcy from things. If Sherlock almost jumping to meet her could be called normal.

She had no intention of bringing their heated discussion up in public, according to even their colleagues, things were fine, if tense thanks to the investigation. But Joan wasn’t really focusing on Sherlock’s odd behaviour, or his so called forgetting of Shinwell’s funeral. Her main concern was the state of the Brownstone lounge right before she’d been pulled into whatever portal spat her out here in this place. “Safe as can be, sucked through a portal into some other place.” She wasn’t sure if Sherlock would be utterly accepting of alternate worlds and dimensions, or if this was largely challenging his perception of things. Doubles of people was probably hard for anyone to follow.

“But apparently it’s been a while, and not just the few hours since I left to run some errands?”

---

Unwittingly far behind Watson’s timeline, Sherlock didn’t altogether care where they were in the vast currents of time. What mattered to him was that they were back in orbit, so to speak. Not a day went by that he didn’t check his phone (once every two hours) in search of a beep or some sign that she had arrived. Being so fresh off his previous relapse when he had been returned to Tumbleweed had been a struggle, one assuaged only by the presence of familiarity in Emma whom he’d forged a friendship with.

A friendship he hoped to extent to Watson.

Getting a look at her for the first time in months settled some of the lingering tumult in his head. He produced the coffee (in a thermos aptly and simply labeled “WATSON”) and set it into the exchanger for her benefit. The thermos had been procured and saved for her arrival. Although he had not been optimistic, he had not given up hope.

“Would you like an exact number to quantify the time lapse?” He asked, smile stiff but appreciative. “As an approximation, which I imagine will suffice, it has been exactly one hundred and six days since last I saw you; however, my memory is subject to Einstein’s theory of relativity as well as the quantum physics bounding our present circumstances.”

Stepping closer to the glass, Sherlock glanced her up and down as another appraisal to ensure no harm genuinely had been brought upon her. “In short, the better answer would be that it has been too long, Watson. I am… Relieved that you are here.”

---

The thermos was gladly accepted, Joan was aware that she could request food from the people keeping an eye on them for whatever it was she was quarantined for, but Sherlock offered and Joan didn’t turn it down. He knew how she took her coffee anyway. She was surprised it had been over three months that he’d been here. Or that they’d been in the same vicinity, or however this dimensional thing worked.

The last time that happened, Sherlock had vanished to London with little word and Joan had tried to stay mad at him long enough to not worry about his health. Between his vanishing and Mycroft’s disappearance, it had been a lot for her at the time. This was less like that, since she had just seen him not long before arriving through a portal into an unusual world. “The approximation is fine, although it’s longer than I was expecting.” But it seemed like a lot of things weren’t as Joan was expecting.

At least she knew he hadn’t been utterly isolated. And from what she knew, he was still attending meetings, even in an alternate dimension. “Then again, I’m in an alternate world, in a confinement room, waiting to be cleared of a potential space sickness.” It wasn’t like she could gauge how normal things were right now.

---

“Well, to be further specific would only serve to further corrupt your basic world view, which make no mistake Watson, is not as insulting as it may sound,” he summed up less than nicely. “Our perceptions shall be tested, more than mine own have been already. There is, however, a time and a place for tall tales. They are certainly not on the ‘short’ spectrum.”

He may not have been isolated, but he had done little to improve that much. It had only been recently that Sherlock had tried reaching out more. The cold cases filled a tiny void, nothing more. The meetings kept him sober, for now. Connecting (and in many ways reconnecting) to Emma proved a necessity, he was grateful. Forging a kinship with Jesse, that had been a salve for the absence of Alfredo.

Neither of them replaced Joan.

“That is an accurate summary,” he said with a hint of pride. She took it well, not that he was surprised. He only wouldn’t have faulted her if she had opted for sheer panic instead. “That leaves us with one question of the utmost import: what is the last thing you remember, my dear Watson?”

---

Too much specificity right now might be too complicated, covering all the things that might’ve happened, could’ve happened, what had been going on in this place, and beyond it seemed, Joan was sure that it was more of a story than could be shared through a glass window with some thermos coffee. Maybe it shouldn’t be shared like that either. She wouldn’t say that she was understanding things currently, but the manner that things had been explained to her, it hadn’t been lacking, they’d been engaging and informative, even when Joan didn’t understand it entirely, the information was welcome.

Leaning against the window, tilted still towards Sherlock, Joan considered how much she had to share about what she’d last experienced at home. Their argument about Shinwell, about Sherlock’s priorities, the destruction in the lounge. She wasn’t sure how it all fit into things, where it aligned with Sherlock.

“We were wrapping up the SBK case.” There was more than that, so much more. Shinwell’s death, Tyus’ threats, the concern she’d felt seeing the destruction in the Brownstone. Sherlock had never been destructive to anything but himself, as far as she knew he wasn’t violent when using. And she’d asked him outright, if he’d relapsed. She trusted that he wouldn’t lie to her. “Tyus lost immunity, the SBK will either be rounded up without their leaders or fracture.” She hoped it would be the former but that was up to narcotics now. “Did something happen at the Brownstone?”

It was a tentative question, she knew that something was wrong, but she couldn’t say what, because he hadn’t been ready to talk to her about it, and she’d been too focused on finishing what Shinwell started.

---

In a rare twist, Sherlock looked lost. None of these names or events rang any bells. He did not keep up with the television show on principal, nor did he visit any sort of forums to indulge himself on the ongoings of home. He did not altogether believe that the events that were or could be remotely familiar to him would necessarily be in absolute alignment.

In a way, her words helped justify that theory and slowly the look of utter confusion faded into a general semblance of indifference. The brownstone was in order, for the most part, so far as he could recall from his last time in their New York. His mentality, however, had not been ideal. When he’d returned to Tumbleweed, it had not been long since his relapse.

“Nothing you say has sparked a flicker of familiarity for me, Watson,” he responded simply. “Nothing happened at the brownstone. When I last saw you, I had been warned my father would be cursing the city with his presence. The words, while ominous, held little weight. I trust you are well ahead of me in time. This is a rare moment, Watson.”

He leaned as close to the glass as he could, a very pointed grin on his face. “You know more than I do.”

---

It was worrying more than anything else, there was no desire to lord over knowing more, being further through whatever was unfolding, that Sherlock didn’t recognise the culmination of their battle to bring down SBK with Shinwell, it meant that to Sherlock, they hadn’t argued about his distractions, the lounge hadn’t been ransacked, she didn’t need to quiz him on what was going on.

“Morland? That’s what you---” That had been a while ago, and Joan understood there had been complications with the Senior Holmes and his extended stay in New York. But that also meant that Sherlock was out of the loop with numerous other things. “Well, curse is a little extreme, but it wasn’t sunshine and rainbows either.” Morland didn’t do unsurmountable damage, and maybe Sherlock had more closure when it came to his father’s involvement in his life by that point. It did get her a better understanding of where Sherlock’s opinions stemmed from regarding his father.

“I’ve experienced more of our work together, I wouldn’t say I know more. I can fill you in, or not. Whatever you prefer.” With some minor detail editing, she could avoid certain things, nothing major but the few things he didn’t need to know wouldn’t hurt much. “Like if you wanted to know anything.” Like Kitty, or Alfredo. Bell or Captain Gregson. It was a support system that Sherlock had been removed from, which was more worrying than potential knowledge matters.

---

Nothing but an ominous feeling rested in his gut at the very mention of his father. The fact that she made semi-light of Morland’s presence at all served only to thicken the unease. She seemed to have gained a fundamentally better understanding of his father, that much he could glean from her words. He didn’t like the prospect, but accepted it just as well. He could not sulk over events he had yet to experience.

He understood what she was getting at, but Sherlock was uncertain whether he wanted to know more of what happened in the time spreading itself out between them. Squinting at her, hands jammed uncomfortably into his coat pockets as though that would shield him from bad news itself, he stared long and hard at Watson before ultimately shaking his head.

“I’ve little interest in that which eludes me to an end I can never reach, Watson,” he started, though seemed to acknowledge that made it sound like he didn’t care at all. “That is to say, no. I don’t want to know what happens to me. I trust if there’s anything important that you deem necessary to share, you will do so now. Otherwise, I am confident the others are doing well. You would not hold the demise of one in our circle from me.”

However, something did draw him abruptly closer to the glass, so close that he rested his forehead against it and dropped his eyes to the floor. “I do care about you, though, Watson. Are you? Have you -- are you well?”

---

“I wouldn’t,” for all the good it would do, which it wouldn’t. He already knew about Andrew, they’d already been through that, Shinwell wasn’t anything to Sherlock, and Joan wasn’t callous enough to think that Sherlock didn’t mourn his death a little, but she knew that telling him about the unknown man’s death wouldn’t do any good at all. But as matters stood, Shinwell shouldn’t be something between them, with a strange world laid out before her, people with similarities and yet so different littered about this world, and Sherlock a good year behind her, it seemed pointless to drive that wedge in.

“I am,” for all that her passing time with Sherlock was both rebuilding her and chipping parts away, none of it felt inherently bad. She was a stronger person than she had been, she was more grounded, she felt like she was doing the right thing, the thing she was meant to be doing, and with who she was supposed to do it with. No one else could’ve influenced such a drastic change in her life. “There’s been ups and downs, but I’m doing well. Better still, since your father left New York.”

He might not have asked to know, and she doubted he would really question her until or unless someone else showed up, but she didn’t want it sitting in his mind either. “And you? You’ve been doing okay, here I mean? It seems… out of this world.” For lack of a better term.

---

The concept of traveling between universes, dimensions, and time itself remained staggeringly baffling to him. So, Sherlock took what he believed to be the wisest course: he didn't think about it anymore. This was his new reality, it was subject to change, and there was nothing more to be done on the matter. Although that left an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach, he was able to ignore it and carry on with his work. This world had unsolved murders and all other walks of mysteries waiting to be cracked for him. He could cope.

To be asked the question directly, however, gave him pause. Sherlock stared almost blankly at her, let the silence linger, then abruptly turned to leave altogether. Minutes later, he had returned with a chair to place before the glass and sat down.

"Yes and no, Watson," he began, making himself comfortable (in that he looked rigid as ever) on the plastic chair. "Let me explain."